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2013/12/15 | 603 | 2,603 | <issue_start>username_0: I am thinking of pursuing a degree in Biostatistics (instead of just Statistics).
I am wondering if such decision will limit my career prospect to the field of Biostatistics. Is it feasible to think that somebody with a Biostatistics degree can work as, say, a quantitative social researcher or a data miner? The reason why I am considering Biostatistics program is because I get to take an epidemiology course, which to me sounds interesting. However at the same time I don't want to limit my career prospect strictly to the field of biostatistics....
thank you :)<issue_comment>username_1: I'm assuming you have a math background? If so, I would say go with regular stats and see if you can gear your course of study more towards the medical side of things (by taking a course in epidemiology or other medically related courses, and doing a research project in the biomedical field). I think you will leave more doors open this way. I think that Biostats is generally geared more towards biomedical research. You collaborate with doctors and scientists. Taking statistics would allow you to go this route if you desire, but also leave doors open to the quantitative social research/data mining that you mentioned in your post. Then again, take what I say with a grain of salt. Do more research on each subject to find out what is best for you.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: There is no single right answer. There is value in specialisation, and value in generalisation.
To do statistics well, domain knowledge is crucial. So, if your work is to be in, say, health epidemiology, then the more knowledge you have of how health interventions are measured, and the causal patterns, the better a statistician you can be.
On the other hand, tools developed by health epidemiologists are now being used in other fields (for example, this [energy epidemiology programme](http://energy-epidemiology.info/) that I'm involved with), so the analytic skills are portable - but you will need to pick up knowledge in any domain you move into.
Maybe you need to base your decision on whether you want the first job or two after you finish the Masters to be in biostatistics. If you study biostatistics, then you'll have some domain knowledge, your analytic skills will be best directed to the right tools, and if it's designed well, the Masters will give you some opportunity to network with potential future employers: it will have guest lecturers from such institutions, and it will have a research component that you can do in partnership with one.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/16 | 380 | 1,372 | <issue_start>username_0: As I was reading today an article from Nature I was wondering: Does anybody know what's the difference between article and letter in the Nature Journal?
The blog of Nature points out the following:
>
> **Articles** are original reports whose conclusions represent a substantial advance in understanding of an important problem and have immediate, far-reaching implications.
>
>
> **Letters** are short reports of original research focused on an outstanding finding whose importance means that it will be of interest to scientists in other fields.
>
>
>
Source:
<http://blogs.nature.com/nautilus/2009/12/difference_between_nature_arti.html><issue_comment>username_1: They have a difference in the allowed length, and the importance of the results. Articles are longer and supposed to have "far-reaching implications". In other words, no chance to get an article unless you revealed that the moon is actually made of cheese or the like.
Letters are shorter, yet still very prestigious.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In case anyone like me is trying to find information about this now, Nature has retired the shorter letter format (though they may still have it for their subsidiary journals e.g. Nature Astronomy).
For more information see doi: [10.1038/d41586-019-03167-2](https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03167-2).
Upvotes: 4 |
2013/12/16 | 1,779 | 7,834 | <issue_start>username_0: Why do American universities want official GRE/TOEFL scores before admission? It seems to be a waste of time and money for prospective applicants. They can easily use the scores claimed by students in first stages and ask them official scores after admission.
On the other hand ETS can send official scores directly to universities electrically via Internet without additional cost.<issue_comment>username_1: You suggest that your grade-reporting method is better.
>
> They can easily use the scores claimed by students in first stages and
> ask them official scores after admission.
>
>
>
It is true that you will save your money by self-report the score. And some univeristy, say Iowa state U, adopt such policy. However, it will cause trouble for the university because some students may report wrong score due to various reasons. If the university find out an admitted students have reported wrong score, they face a dilemma: continue to admit him? or admit others?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The cost of processing applications is very high. The policy of asking applicants to pay something for applying may sound inequitable, but it ensures that nobody will apply "just for fun".
In a private university where I worked years ago, the simple fact of asking for the payment of the stamps (roughly 5 euros) used to send the results of the process lowered the number of applications by more than 20%, without lowering the quality of the top applications. This is a huge saving on the cost of the process.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: The problem is that many students will resort to cheating, if necessary, to secure admission to graduate school. Just about any method or loophole that can be exploited will be. For instance, when I was an undergraduate in the 90's, one of the graduate departments stopped admitting students from China for several years because they had multiple instances where applicants had stand-ins for interviews to determine their English skills. Similarly, at my current school, we have recently had a rash of applications come in with faked English competency certificates.
Therefore, American graduate schools (and programs in other countries which ask for test scores) are increasingly (although not exclusively) relying on officially submitted documents. Scores reported directly from the College Board would presumably be less likely to be subject to manipulation.
As far as why not just ask for a paper copy: American departments usually only have one admissions cycle per year. Therefore, admitting someone who is ineligible because of fraudulent documents usually means denying someone else who is qualified the ability to be admitted. Therefore, schools want to know that the students are officially eligible *before* they are admitted, and will not hold up the process until later. Schools that do rolling admissions likely do not have this problem, and could perhaps use the method you have suggested.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Almost all universities have admission process for Fall/spring every year. Considering the fact that thousands of NON-US students apply to Universities; It is practically impossible for individual university to ask for student's GRE/TOEFL score directly to ETS or take from it. Let us consider cases to understand it in totality.
**Case (A) Student sends his/her score [No involvement of ETS]**
Student can send Whatever Score He/She wishes. Suppose that Score got accepted and is Fake. If the same University receives 100 such applications then it would be tedious task not only for the universities but also for the ETS management. 100 applications is small number for that particular University but What about ETS??? ETS is the only authority that issues official score. There are 100 more such university in US. If ETS starts replying to 100\*100 such fake request; we can easily imagine the man power that could be needed. **The most important point here to remember is TIME. Every university has a time limit for considering applications. If ETS Starts evaluating all such Queries;it will be a chaos.**
**Case (B) Student sends his/her score [ involvement of ETS]**
As ETS is already involved right from the first step then there is no chance of fake score getting reported to university and the whole Process is transparent and efficient.
>
> **Finally Why will ETS not send the Score Electronically to respective University ?**
>
>
>
**Suppose you request to send the Score Electronically to University of your choice. If ETS allows this for free then there are 100% chance that you or anyone will send it all universities as the cost is NULL. In order to avoid Denial of Service to the students that really deserve admission this becomes necessary to keep such a system that currently Exists**
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: As all of us know this is only a game to gather money from poor applicant. The application fee of American universities are high enough to prevent non-serious applicant from sending application.
ETS can provide for each student a secret key. The student enters such key in application system. The university can use the key to retrieve the authentic scores of each applicant, if it is necessary. This is just one possible solution among a lot of other practical hassle-free approachs.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: You would think that it will save you a lot of money if the school ask for official school only if they have intention to admit you, and it shouldn't be difficult to do for the grad schools.
Well, indeed this can be done, and is being done by a lot of programs. However there are complications and many programs don't do it that way.
First of all, **you get four scores to be sent out for free when you take the test**. Even if you apply to as many as 10 schools, that may be enough to cover all the schools that do ask for official GRE/TOEFL scores upfront. This is intended to be a primary channel through which you are reporting your scores. It will be a significant cost if you apply for 30 schools, but I don't really see the point of doing that. Of course, that would require you to do your homework early and figure out which school to send your scores to.
Second, that adds one more phase of admission process. You have to understand that by easing your financial burden (which isn't even the main cost of application anyways. just think about how much application fees and tests would cost you.), schools have to put in more work, with no apparent gain on their part.
If your financial constraints are preventing you sending the scores, you can always write a letter to the program you are applying for. **As an international graduate student, I can tell you that many institutions did give me waiver for official scores before admission, and some even waived application fees entirely.**
At last, in some universities, there are two separate entities that are processing these applications: the graduate school and the department. Sometimes the graduate school have minimum requirement policies for GRE or TOEFL scores and until you can prove your eligibility, your application cannot even be transferred to the department, where the decision is actually made. If that is the case, it would be impossible to waive unofficial score until admission.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: It would not, in the long term, save any money. ETS funds its operations by charging for various aspects of testing, and they have found out how much money they can charge, on average, per student for various types of tests.
If the average number of test reports requested per student dropped, they would increase one or both of the base cost of the test or the cost per additional report to compensate.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/16 | 1,744 | 6,825 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a graduate student in theoretical particle physics, where the standard is that all author lists are alphabetized. However, even in other disciplines of physics, it's quite common for author lists to be ordered by the amount of the contribution. At some point I will probably be judged by people who are not entirely familiar with the standards of particle theory, and even if they are they probably have subconscious biases towards earlier authors.
I also happen to have a last name that's around the middle of the alphabet. I can feasibly find an advisor whose name is after mine, but the most natural choices (including my current advisor) all happen to be before mine alphabetically. My current choice makes me a bit worried because most of his other students also have names before mine alphabetically. I'll probably have a number of publications with other people in the group, and it's not unlikely that I'll be the last author on most or all of these.
Is this something that I should be seriously worried about? (My heart tells me no, but my brain isn't sure.) Will I have much more trouble in the future than comparable candidates who are listed earlier? Or is it a fairly small effect which is much less significant than choosing a good advisor in the long term?<issue_comment>username_1: I have no idea about its credibility, and I'm certainly not trying to discourage Zhang's or Zyskowski's out there. But you might find this article interesting:
[<NAME>, <NAME>. What's in a Surname? The Effects of Surname Initials on Academic Success. *Journal of Economic Perspectives*, **20** (2006), 175-187.](http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/089533006776526085)
>
> We present evidence that a variety of proxies for success in the U.S. economics labor market (tenure at highly ranked schools, fellowship in the Econometric Society, and to a lesser extent, Nobel Prize and Clark Medal winnings) are correlated with surname initials, favoring economists with surname initials earlier in the alphabet. These patterns persist even when controlling for country of origin, ethnicity, and religion. We suspect that these effects are related to the existing norm in economics prescribing alphabetical ordering of authors’ credits. Indeed, there is no significant correlation between surname initials and tenure at departments of psychology, where authors are credited roughly according to their intellectual contribution. The economics market participants seem to react to this phenomenon. Analyzing publications in the top economics journals since 1980, we note two consistent patterns: authors participating in projects with more than three authors have significantly earlier surname initials, and authors writing papers in which the order of credits is non-alphabetical have significantly higher surname initials.
>
>
>
It's absurd and ludicrous to take this kind of bias into account when choosing your advisor, though...
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, there is a subtle unconscious bias. Even in a field where author names are *always* alphabetical, papers will be cited in talks as *Author1 et al*, so if you happen to be Author1 your name will be slightly more disseminated.
Is it true? *Yes*. Is it fair? *No*, not entirely. Is it a big deal? *No*. Should you change your advisor as a workaround? **No**.
The best way to overcome this bias is going to conferences and getting your face and name known to other people in the field. So it won't matter if your name is Aardvark or Zwingli, because people will know you anyway and know that you did some respectable work.
Another thing you can do to reduce the impact of this bias on your CV is adding a statement on the lines of the following sentence that I put in mine:
>
> "As is [common practice](http://www.ams.org/profession/leaders/culture/CultureStatement04.pdf) in mathematics, the author order is usually alphabetical and does not reflect a difference in contribution. "
>
>
>
(by the way, I can relate: I have been alphabetically last author on 86% of my joint papers).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Based on my own experience, even if your last name comes before your advisor's, your own research community will regard any joint work with your advisor to be primarily your advisor's work, despite your advisor's protests to the contrary, until you start publishing independently. The [Matthew Effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect) is a *much* more significant than your position in the alphabet.
(My name comes before my advisor's, and I've advised students with names before mine and others after mine. I work in a field that orders authors alphabetically.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I work in a field [chemistry] where historically (before academic search engines), the advisor's name was always first, since that was probably the person you had the best chance of identifying when you went to your local library and sat down with the print version of chemical abstracts.
The modern practice is to list authors by intellectual contribution (which usually puts the adviser last, but not always). To add to the confusion, some advisers still operate by the older method.
Many journals now want a statement of author contributions to appear in the text. This type of statement removes any ambiguity over who did what, and resolves both the author ordering problem and the sadly still recurring vanity author problem.
>
> For example: B.N.N. designed the synthesis and prepared key intermediate 1. J.V.V. prepared derivatives A and B. B.N.N. and J.J.V. characterized the compounds. H.G.T. and A.B.C. coded and compiled the computational models. B.N.N. and H.G.T. designed the study and wrote the manuscript.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Yes it will. The problem is not the alphabet, it's the advisor and others, the readers. I am not at my library so I can't link to the psychologic rules behind it.
*but*
as you asked 'Is this something that I should be seriously worried about?' the point is, you can't avoid the problem - live with your (his/her) name (hair color, size and, and, and), and think about doing the best ...
You can't avoid psychological problems, so better not to take care, if you can't change it.
I answer with a tautology: Take an advisor who is good.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: Think about:
**<NAME>,
<NAME>,
<NAME>,
<NAME>,
<NAME>.** etc.
**Their last names initials are W or Z.**
(They are in HEP theoretical physics, particle physics, like you.)
They hardly get anything for the authorship sorting. But they are doing fantastic well outstanding. They are hired by TOP institutes. Keep their names in your mind. Keep it up.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/16 | 695 | 2,949 | <issue_start>username_0: **Situation**
Students have three weeks to write a little application (UI, some logic, event handling, persist data to a file). They are given one page with some requirements (input). They are supposed to hand in a compilable and running application (output). No software documentation required.
**Question**
How would you grade a software project? What criteria would you use? Can you give examples?
**Idea**
There are a few areas that seem important to me.
1. Are all the given requirements implemented?
2. Is error handling implemented or does the application crash when the user inputs invalid data?
3. Does the user interface look good, is it usable?
4. Is the code well structured?
* Each class in a separate file
* Small methods which do one single task
* Public methods are documented
5. Can I save the data, quit the application, restart it again, and all the data is reloaded?
Those criteria are very vague, I know. For each of the above criteria, I don't know when to give an A and when to give an F. Any suggestions to improve the criteria and any suggestions on how to grade it?<issue_comment>username_1: Grading depends on the level of the students. The younger the student the more beneficial it is to be explicit in your grading policy. In an introductory class the grade is paramount for many people who may be taking that class to fulfill a requirement. In upper level undergraduate or graduate classes, grades seem like more of a curious administrative requirement.
For introductory classes one approach is to enumerate your requirements and give equal weight to all of them. The OP gives five domains. Give each 20 points. I assume that somewhere you specify what the "given requirements" are and what you mean by "error handling". (Are students expected to write custom error classes?)
If a domain has further divisions, such as #4, then divide that domain's points equally among the subdivisions. In this case 7,7,6.
This makes an explicit enough grading criteria that heads off undergraduate complaints about a biased system while giving the more motivated students something to do beyond writing code that checks off boxes.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: My policy, my 2 cents:
* Part of the grading corresponds to the expectation of the "customer". if this project is considered as an actual development project in industry, does it deserves that the customer is paying its full price. For instance, I will give 10 points (over 20) for that criteria. If the software fulfil all the requirements then the student is awarded the 10 points, otherwise he/she starts losing some of the points.
* Part of the grading is for the quality of the code (structure, naming of variable, algorithmic aspects, etc.). I give 5 points at max here.
* The rest is for the tasks around the code: modeling, UML stuff, reports, etc. The last 5 points can be found here.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/16 | 1,758 | 7,559 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm currently in the first year of a six year bachelor's degree aiming for astrophysics. The course is a home/distance learning setup run by the Open University. While I am enjoying it thoroughly, I am aware of the academic politics that can dog professional science. So my question is thus: Upon soldiering on with the degree, then masters, and then PhD, will I be taken seriously within a professional setting given my inability to reference a leading university for my education? Will the format for my studying be "pitied"?
*Edit:* I suppose a bit more info may help. I'm 27,wife, 2 children, and I currently work as a full time chef, and self employed part time IT technician. I flunked my GCSEs, with no further education. The past 3 years have been a revelation for me, and I have discovered a before unexperienced love for academia; specifically, physics and astronomy. Last year I completed a 1 year OU maths brush up course, which at the time I really struggled with. This year I had a bout of madness and took the plunge for a BSc degree in astronomy. I am now loving the math within the physics so far (yet to hit calculus though!)
PhD, and even masters, is a long way off. Also, since this original post I've improved my understanding of what a PhD actually entails. So I realise that if I get there, it may well not have anything to do with the OU!
---
It occurs to me that a lot of my initial queries could have been avoided with a better understanding of the educational and qualification system itself. I now have a greater appreciation as to what a PhD actually *is*, realising that its a long way off and not necessarily needed for a fulfilling career in research.
I think trying to repair my broken education and fight my way into a worthwhile (and productive!) career is enough of challenge at the moment. There will be plenty of time later for worries concerning doctorates.
It is good to hear that there is at least an open mind towards distance educated professionals.
As has been said, if you've got it, you've got it - you just have to be ready to prove it.<issue_comment>username_1: It is true that open universities / distance learning institutions are not taken equally seriously, even if sometimes the work is harder due to the vast number of exercises. Still, in research it is mainly what you publish (and where) and what you are really capable of doing. In this sense, the sky is always the only limit a) if you have the ability and b) work extremely hard regardless of initial studies.
You are also too young to worry about PHDs, MSCs, since you do not know if spending your time studying is more fun to you than working and getting some real money from some real job (after graduating). So, do the best you can for now, keep your grades up and your eyes open and towards the end of your study you will know what you want to do. If you are really good, you will find your way.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: My own experience of having an open university degree (computer science) is that "it depends on who you talk to". Some people value the degree highly, others put it at the bottom of the pile. I've found that the longer I've held it (ten years now!) the more value it seems to have accrued. This could be to the fact it becomes less and less relevant where your studied the more experience you build or the fact that it's become a more accepted route of study since I gained it.
Disclaimer: I work in academia, but am not an academic. I currently work for a big academic institution and they perfectly happy with my degree.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: **Distance-learning students report retaining and applying less than face-to-face students**
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Students overwhelmingly report retaining and applying less from online courses versus face-to-face courses.
```
http://192.168.3.11/~businfm5/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-ABC-Waner.pdf
```
[However, this may be due to a difference in factors other than distance learning.](http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ588152)
Irrespective of why, there is an overall perception of lower value created.
**Distance learning creates value, and may still be the best option for many students**
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some students live far from institutions that offer degrees in their desired fields. Sometimes the closest institution of higher learning may be 100's of miles away. Even if there is an institution nearby, it may not be well suited to the students' abilities. Distance learning provides students with options they would not otherwise have.
**Is distance learning taken seriously?**
-----------------------------------------
Distance learning is not as respected as face-to-face learning. However, it may provide credentials that otherwise would not be available to successful people who carry gravitas that they have earned through means other than that education.
If you want your education to be taken as seriously as possible, you should prefer getting your degree at a brick-and-mortar institution and attending classes in person.
If the institutional gravitas is of less importance than going through the course of study and earning the degree itself, perhaps if you require the knowledge gained or the credential on your resume to advance in your job, then the distance learning aspect is of lesser importance.
**But *should* distance learning be taken seriously?**
------------------------------------------------------
Some distance learners may prefer distance learning because of an inability to stick to the deadlines required in face-to-face classes, and perhaps they perceive the classes as easier to succeed in than a local school.
Others might not have local options available, or their lifestyle (perhaps as caretakers or providers) requires the flexibility that distance learning offers.
It is best not to paint all distance-learners with a broad brush. There is a great deal of heterogeneity in the distance-learning population, and although they have chosen to earn a degree that is known to carry less weight than a face-to-face, each should be evaluated on an individual basis, taking into consideration the reasons and circumstances under which the degree was earned.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: IMO, distance learning does not have a huge effect on a PhD. People in your field will know enough to judge you by your work, and many PhD students spend semesters away from their home institutions, or away from their advisors, and they turn out just fine.
The worrying part is your bachelor's degree -- in the US, PhD admission is competitive (at least on the top level; I am not sure what the competition is like in the lower-level universities), and the fact that you won't know any of your letter writers personally is already going to hurt you A LOT, as there is no way your letters are going to be as strong as the ones for the students who attended universities.
I do not think that you are an American, so it is possible that distance learning is considered pretty prestigious in your country, and you have some contact with the professors. But if I were you, I would trade the possible prestige that is associated with your distance-learning university, for a lesser university close to home that I can attend in person. You would get better grades, and better letters that way.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/16 | 1,802 | 7,781 | <issue_start>username_0: As a computer engineering student, I think this is the right place to ask for help about my career. Well I am in my sophomore year at one of the leading university in Turkey. I want to specialize in information security. However, I want to clarify something. "I have been - and always shall be" an average student. My student life has never been so bright but I have enough passion and resources to be an ethical hacker. Sometimes I think what they teach us in the university is waste of time. People can learn coding, operating systems, network, database etc. from the internet. So here is my question: Should I quit my university and stay behind the doors,do what I love, for a long time or waste two more years with the pressure of everything you do or don't will be graded?<issue_comment>username_1: It's always a very personal decision as to whether you're going to stay on with university education. I fear this question may be closed as opinion based, but I'll take a stab at giving some suggestions.
I think there's a number of factors you're going to have to keep in mind when you make these kinds of decisions:
1. It has to be acknowledged that large swathes of the computer science/engineering skillset can be self-taught or learned through MOOCs, and project contributions. However, one needs to keep in mind their own personality when considering self-learning. Historically I was a terrible autodidact, simply because my personality worked depth-first, which is a terrible way to get started in a new topic. University helped me a lot by forcing me to prune my search trees so I could actually learn the topics at hand!
2. Universities aren't always just what they teach. Faculty can be important resources for guiding one down productive paths and avoiding getting stuck on solved problems. Mentorship and the possibility for great guidance should be carefully evaluated when considering leaving. If you aren't seeing mentorship and guidance, consider how much of this is the environment, and how much is *you*. An alternative to dropping out entirely might be to transition into an institution that is better suited to your interests.
3. Credentials may not mean anything. However, sometimes they can open doors for you that might be closed, or subject to hurdles without the credentials. It's going to be highly specific depending on what kind of work you want to do in what field, but needs to be considered.
4. Ultimately, **you need to know where your desires lie**, and plan the best way to get them. It could be well that going indie is going to get you to your desired career faster --- or it could nuke the possibility of achieving them.
**ETA**: Oh and about pressure: If you think the pressure *in* university is a lot, you're going to be surprised about what it takes to succeed **outside** university.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You are wrong. You are so wrong you do not even understand it. Why? Some examples:
You need to write a fast app. You need to know the data structures for the right job (trees, lists, hash maps). You want to write a database app. You should know which fields to index and which not. You want to do some geospatial app. You need to know the correct indexing (R-tree). It is very hard to know these things on your own.
* What you can find in the internet: how to do a hash map in C++
* What you cannot find in the internet: why you need a hash map in the first place and so-on.
So, finish your studies and you will understand later why those studies were useful.
If you are so good you think you are at coding (which you probably are not unless you get paid for it and others agree), you still do not want to have a technical manager who knows less than you but has the degree (you do not have). So, you will need the degree anyway.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You need to understand that a University degree (assuming it is a degree course you are enrolled in) does not attempt to teach you all the skills you need in order to be successful in your chosen career. What it does do is give a good grounding in your chosen area, but more importantly, provide evidence of your ability to apply yourself and achieve a widely recognized level of accreditation. If you are after courses that provide more specific vocational skills, and there are plenty of these in the computer science industry, it may be that you should search for a better suited program. These types of courses are usually shorter and more intensive than a degree course.
Whether your university degree will be useful to you will depend very much on what you intend to do with your career.
If you plan to design and develop your own software systems or products, and then fight to have your products recognized on the global market, and build your reputation from scratch, then a degree may not be much use to you. There are [some](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates) [examples](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak) of [success](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs) stories of people who dropped out of, or never went to, university, so nobody can tell you it can't be done. But I think you will need to be extremely good, and lucky, to be able to do that. You may also need to have a back-up plan in the meantime in order to put food on the table.
***However***, if you ever plan to work for somebody, or a company that does not know of your reputation and amazing ability, then you will need to somehow demonstrate that. A degree is the first step towards demonstrating to those who are likely to employ you that you have been able to apply yourself in a recognized mainstream course of learning and been able to reach recognized benchmark standards. Once in your job, you will then be expected to learn the specifics of that position, and what better way to show that you are able to learn and apply knowledge than to have a piece of paper from a university to show that you can. It will be a nationally (and in many cases, and importantly not all cases, internationally) recognized accreditation. Once you have embarked on your career, it will be the references from previous employers that will vouch for your ability, and the degree will matter less.
What I would be asking myself as a prospective employer is whether someone who claims to have passion and ability to access resources, but lacks the application and commitment to successfully complete their degree is the right person to employ in my team.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: You sound like you're an independent worker, who dislikes and just is not suited for the structured learning style of University courses. Fair enough, there are many others like you. It doesn't mean you won't benefit from a University degree, it just makes it a little tougher to get there.
I'm like that too, yet now that I am doing research and am free of undergraduate classes I'm enjoying myself a lot more. But you still need that knowledge and those skills gained from those courses, even if you don't like it.
Being able to teach yourself is a fantastic ability, but a University degree will give you solid ground to stand on with regards to your employability. You will look a lot more desirable to an employer if you have a degree, *and* considerable personal achievements to back it up.
The only people who I would even consider advising to not go to University are those who:
* aren't bright enough,
* are passionate about something that doesn't benefit from a degree,
* or who genuinely cannot afford it.
You're neither. Not only will a degree give you a significant boost early in your career, but you'll probably gain more skills and knowledge than you think you will.
*Stick with it*.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/17 | 501 | 2,159 | <issue_start>username_0: I have done a three months independent research at a national lab in US with guidance from a scientist who was working there, but he is very busy and not much time is left to ask him to write a recommendation letter (RL) since the application deadline is coming.
I want to include this experience in my SOP, and wonder, in general, how is the reaction of graduate admission committees to research experience which is not backed up by a RL?<issue_comment>username_1: You need a letter from the senior person under whom you did the work! If you don't have one, this is like getting a *bad* letter. People know that they have this responsibility to junior people, so, although, yes, it involves some work on their part, it would be irresponsible to shirk it. You need that letter, I think, or people will wonder...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: One of the duties of a researcher who takes on a mentor role is to write letters of recommendation for his students. Your advisor will understand this responsibility. You may want to read the answers to [this question regarding writing your own recommendation letter](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1452/points-to-remember-when-having-to-write-recommendation-letter-yourself?rq=1), as this may be relevant to your situation, but you should *always* be willing to ask for a letter.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I believe the research experience with a national lab would be very helpful to your graduate school application. You should do your best to ask that senior scientist to write the recommendation letter for you. And he should understand it's part of his job to write recommendation letters.
In the worst case he will never have time to write the letter, my suggestion is to ask the human resource department of the lab to write a letter to **certify that you had worked at that lab**. This is, of course, not the recommendation letter. But, at least the certification letter proves that you did work there. How the admission commitee will react is another story. You have no control over it. You just need to do your best!
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/17 | 512 | 1,903 | <issue_start>username_0: During the compilation of thesis (MSc or PhD) in a case we wanted to include some program codes as chapters:
We prefer to put `heading` to all program codes everywhere they appear as complete source to clarify the license. Is it nice to do so? Any other solutions?
Something like this:
>
> **3.1.1 Loop**
>
> ...text...
>
> `-------`
>
> *`Copyright 2013 Coder, ... !this part`*
>
> `-------`
>
> `function loop(...) result (...)`
>
> `some code`
>
> `-------`
>
> ...text...
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: You should add source codes scarcely and when it is interesting to add the code. **Loop** does not sound one of the interesting headings. In those cases you should include source code as figures and discuss them in your text.
in other cases, you can give complete source codes in appendix or in a CD/DVD as an attachment.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: From my own experience and this would depend on your university's guidelines, a summary of the main algorithms of the code ought to be included - specifically with what each algorithm does, what's its significance, how it functions and how it links with the other parts.
In my recently completed and peer reviewed PhD thesis, I also included example 'snippets' or bits of code and included a flowchart of how the program as a whole works, linking all the described algorithms.
I was advised to write chapter subtitles with the context of each algorithm.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: If you want the code itself out there, put it up on GitHub or BitBucket.
As to the thesis itself, it depends on the pedagogical value --- some algorithms are worth including as code themselves: where the specifics of the language and environment matter. Others are best included as [pseudo-code](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3aLatex-algorithm2e-if-else.png).
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/17 | 1,449 | 6,219 | <issue_start>username_0: I was working towards converting to a PhD but was unsure of what research I would do. Suddenly an idea striked my mind and I discussed it with my advisor. He doesn't have much experience in that exact field but has been in the area for around 6 months.
He said that he thinks that idea is feasible but doesn't know what would be the approach, and not sure whether the results would be positive in terms of PhD because there several parallel domains. Moreover, literature doesn't have much details on that exact topic. And my literature survey (pretty limited though) has only enhanced my confusion. Probably because my idea deals with application of a recent class of techniques to optimize a problem.
Is it worth to convert to a PhD with such an idea ?<issue_comment>username_1: Not sure there's a correct answer here, but I would recommend against it. The goal of your PhD research is twofold:
1. Introduce you to the world of Academia
2. Earn you a PhD
By choosing your topic to be something completely exploratory, you put (2) at risk; the research may not pan out, or may be much more difficult than you think, or may be infeasible for technical reasons, or whatever, and your PhD would be at risk.
However, to reiterate, this is a function of the specific topic at hand, your risk appetite, your advisor's skillset and risk appetite, and your willingness to restart your research partway through your program. Take all that into account when making your decision.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I like **username_1**'s answer, and I would add this: I know many people who changed the topic after one year of their thesis, and if they put enough effort into it, they still finished in time (being <4 years here).
What I mean, if you start working on one problem and you finish solving another one, you still can graduate and get your PhD. However, depending on your subject, this might be more difficult: for us "theoreticians" who work in an office it's simple, for people who do complicated experiments it's of course much more difficult or even impossible.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: This is exactly how most of the really great PhD students I've seen have all started. Working on a problem with unknowns is a process called "research."
Clearly, you are going to have to find some collaborators with more experience in the field than your advisor, but that's part of the process as well. Hopefully, your advisor can assist with networking / introductions / etc. The support of your advisor will be critical (as it is for all PhD students).
The trick is to make sure you have a backup plan and a way to convert to it if necessary. Don't spend three years mucking around if you're not making progress. But, spending 6 months investigating if there is something there -- that's well worth it.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: ```
Converting to PhD should not be dependent on an idea, I think.
```
If you want to do PhD then go for it. If one idea does not work other will. That's what research is all about.
Apart from taking up that idea further:
1. Your supervisor does not have enough experience in that field that
means you are entering at your own risk.
2. Do a good 2-3 months detailed literature survey to understand it better and then take a call.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: While research is inherently risky, there are two red flags:
>
> He said that he thinks that idea is feasible **but doesn't know what would be the approach**, and not sure whether the results would be positive in terms of PhD because **there several parallel domains**.
>
>
>
What this tells me is that your advisor does not have the specialization to attack this particular idea that you are proposing; moreover, there are other areas of research that may be examining the problem that you are discussing.
There are a number of potential issues that come across from this:
1. You don't have an advisor who's familiar with the area, so you have to spend more time (either doing your own related work, or finding other faculty/collaborators) to discover the appropriate methods. Instead of having your advisor go, "Use this equipment and this research method", now you have to possibly discover what the method is and then acquire equipment for it. You will make mistakes numerous times because no one is there to help you avoid common mistakes. This makes your results take longer and uses more money.
2. If there are parallel domains, then there is a risk that the results that you and your advisor find from the work (that most likely took a long time because people are unfamiliar with the method) are possibly not as significant or as important as they first seem because this other area's already identified them first. Others familiar with the area might ask, "Why didn't you look at XYZ and ABC first?" and reject the paper. As a result, it will take additionally more time to familiarize yourself with these parallel domains in order to identify that what you're doing is important, relevant, and novel.
I think personally that (1) is a much greater risk than (2). Most people never come into an area with knowledge of what's there, so surveying related work, talking to people, and learning about the research area is usually work that has to be done anyway, but (1) can be very deadly. (1) and (2) in combination can be very dangerous, since it might indicate that your advisor simply doesn't have a lot of interest in Method (1) and in Result (2) - which means that your project might end up with less priority, less input, and less money. And all of that results in less papers and less impact.
Less papers, less impact means less opportunity to do important, meaningful work (and fewer job opportunities).
Thus, it does depend partly on what your personal goals are. If you do want to pursue this path for the sake of expanding your knowledge and the knowledge of the world at large, then one possibility would be to switch advisors or to find out who's doing this work in parallel domains and collaborate closely with one of these other researchers so you can get technical knowledge from those people.
Upvotes: 3 |
2013/12/18 | 578 | 2,504 | <issue_start>username_0: Most papers do not specify a separate license for the source code, so presumably it would be licensed under the same terms as the rest of the paper. Typically, this means that the copyright lies with the publisher. Then,
* As a reader, do I need permission from the publisher to use source code contained in journal articles?
* Would using the source code be considered fair use in the US? What about countries that do not have comparable laws?
* As an author, what should I do if I want the code I publish to be freely usable by others?<issue_comment>username_1: I think the codes available in papers are provided as materials for several purposes, including
1. Help reviewers and journal's board to efficiently evaluate the work and identify its technical merit.
2. Enable readers to better grasp the algorithm/method proposed
3. Enable researchers to utilize the code in their future research to avoid duplication
4. Help (novice) researchers to play with the code for educational benefits
5. Provide opportunity to peers to further improve the proposal
However, you may contact the author(s) if the want to use the code for
1. Commercializing the algorithm/method
2. Use the code for activities that generates money
3. Register patent using available contents
In my institute, I see lots supervisor ask their master students to read recent papers and identify a small research problem to alleviate during their project work. Students either use the given code or contact the authors for code, which authors usually provide the code.
So, I think you don't need to explicitly state the code copyright in the paper. But, if you are really interested to do that, you can have a footnote in the first page allowing readers to utilize the code in full, if the EiC does not mind.
Hope it helps
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Most of codes are free if you use it for research purpose, you just
> need to include right citations
>
>
> If a code is commercial or GPL license then you need permission, for
> that you can contact the author directly and discuss the same
>
>
> If you want your code to be freely available just make it open source
> licensed that's it.
>
>
>
Each country has different rules for patents and stuff, so be careful where the code is available etc. So discussion with author is the best thing to do. The license is usually specified on the website where you get the code from and also in the .cpp or .h files header.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/18 | 304 | 1,261 | <issue_start>username_0: Is it beneficial/harmful to get a letter from a research supervisor who was not satisfied with my work? (I wasn't interested in that topic, but I kept working in the lab for the money).
Or forget about that and instead focus on people who were satisfied with my research experience only?<issue_comment>username_1: Talk with your advisor about this. Depending on your relationship with your advisor, you may still be able to get a decent letter. Use the following formula:
>
> Decent letter > No letter > Bad letter
>
>
>
If your advisor cannot write you a decent letter you will have to find someone else who is. Do note that not having a letter from your advisor will be a huge red flag; you will have to come to any interview with a ready explanation as to why your advisor did not feel comfortable recommending you.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Get a reference letter from your supervisor. Inspite of the fact that the letter may not be that great, it plays an important role.
But apart from that OK letter, you can also get a very good letter from the people who were satisfied with you.
So in the end you will have two letters with you to show and will give a fair opinion about you.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/18 | 469 | 2,004 | <issue_start>username_0: Why do some graduate schools require an employment history for their application forms? Additionally, is it likely that they verify said history via one's social security number?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Why do some graduate schools want to have employment history on
> graduate school application forms?
>
>
>
I can think of a few things:
1. If you're not coming directly from undergrad, they want to know what work you've been doing. In some cases, it may be entirely irrelevant, but nonetheless, they ask. While references are typically obtained from academic institutions, if you've been in industry for a while, one of your recommendations may come from your employer...
2. If you are coming directly from undergrad, you may still have been employed during school or have completed some number of internships. Again, while they may not be relevant, there's no reason not to ask, especially if they can positively affect your application.
3. Either way, employment, depending on what you did, could demonstrate responsibility, leadership, potentially research ability, etc.
>
> Is it likely that they verify it with SSN?
>
>
>
This almost seems like you're trying to determine if they can catch you in a lie--they do not need a SSN to do that. Don't fabricate anything.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It is unlikely that something will be verified but still its best for you not to write anything which is not true.
And your employment history tells a lot about you, here is a list of some points apart from those mentioned before:
1. It shows that you have the capability to handle industry environment
2. If its a really good company then it shows your excellence because you got through a very difficult interview process
3. It shows your communication skills and people management skills
4. It shows your ability in analytic tools also.
So it will be good if you mention all your employment history, be it in a education institute.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/18 | 1,432 | 6,544 | <issue_start>username_0: Before submitting a manuscript to a journal, it is fairly common at least in my field (psychology) to circulate the manuscript in a limited way to a small number of people who are experts in the area and/or who would be willing and able to provide useful comments, for the purpose of soliciting their feedback and suggestions for improving the manuscript before submitting it for formal peer review.
However it seems that this could lead to a tricky situation if the editor of the journal ends up asking some of those same people who provided feedback to serve as reviewers for the paper, since they will have already read the paper and in a sense "reviewed" it one time already.
So I have two questions about this:
1. From the perspective of a person who has been asked by the authors to provide comments, and then later asked by a journal editor to review that same paper for publication: what is your policy, or your perception of the common policy, for what do to here? Do you decline to review the paper because you've already seen it? Do you agree to review the paper, but perhaps provide many of the same comments verbatim as before (at least for the parts of the paper that were not changed), and perhaps let the editor know that you've read it before? Or do you see your prior reading of the paper as totally irrelevant and just approach the review fresh and as normal?
2. From the strategic perspective of the authors of the paper, is it better to ask for comments from people who you know are likely to be asked later to review the paper? Or is it better to avoid sending the paper to these people, and instead send it to people who are not as likely to be asked to review the paper but could still provide useful feedback?<issue_comment>username_1: There are two aspects to this question: what should happen and what actually happens. Soliciting comments on a manuscript is of course perfectly fine and a useful endeavour. As you state problems may arise if persons commenting on the manuscript is asked to review it. Such a person should simply decline to review the paper when requested. It is thus possible that such a person reviews the paper anyway but then the problem is between the reviewer and the editor, that is beyond your reach. What you can do to simplify for an editor is to list persons who have commented on the manuscript. It will then be up to the editor to decide what becomes a breach of objectivity.
If your topic is narrow enough that the number of possible reviewers are limited, you need to consider if you "use up" potential reviewers in the process. Again, I think being open about who has commented on the paper in your correspondence should allow the editor to find good reviewers. Just because you avoid soliciting someone's opinion does not mean the editor will ask that person for a review so assessing such effects is difficult and generalized answers of little use. Knowing the field and potential problems is the only way to assess pros and cons.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Why would this necessarily be a concern? If they reviewed your work positively in the past, it's only logical for them to keep that evaluation.
What you should be more worried about is the fact that those individuals who you would probably go to to get a presubmission evaluation might have a bias towards you based on their (presumably somewhat close) relationship to you, which could make it harder to give objective advice.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In my humble opinion, if there are no conflicts of interest (same university or funding), the referee should inform the editor that is already in contact with the author and let him choose.
In any case, consider that many journals require authors to indicate qualified referees and the scientific community is a forum for discussion.
In conclusion, be transparent, fair and honest, but do not make choices instead of the publisher.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I see no problem with refereeing a paper after I've commented on it to the author. I would tell the author what (if anything) I think would improve the paper, and I would tell the editor whether I think it's appropriate for the particular journal and if so then what (if anything) would improve the paper. There have been cases where an editor asked me to referee a paper and wrote, in his cover message, that he knew (because of acknowledgements) that I'd already read the paper, so it should be easy for me to referee.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I think this is a trivial situation and should involve no conflicts given everyone is being honest, e.g. acknowledging contributions.
My answers:
1. Normally as a reviewer I will decline to review while stating I have already evaluated the manuscript before. While directing the editor to read the acknowledgments section, which should s/he ought to have done prior to choosing reviewers. Depending on the case I may accept but I will disclose of my name and of the fact that I had discussed the paper before with the authors, as ought to had been disclosed of in the acknowledgments section.
2. As an author I will invite some colleague to give opinions, acknowledge his/her contribution, and will not suggest this person as a reviewer. I assume the editor will actually read the manuscript and heed the acknowledgments section prior to choosing reviewers, and trust whoever takes it up to do their job correctly.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: The job of a reviewer is mainly to advise the editor on what to do with a manuscript. From the point of view of an editor, picking someone who has already read the manuscript will shorten turnaround (which is a big thing in some fields) because they need less additional time to read the paper and are likely competent to do so. Since editors rely on this advice, editors should be able to trust referees. They may consider it more likely that people in the acknowledgment section are close to the authors and potentially biased, but this is less of an issue if we talk about renowned people in the field who value their reputation highly and that are not obviously personally connected to the author.
A potentially serious problem is that anonymity is harder to keep, since raising the same points that have been raised before might, if these points are very specific or unique, make it clear who the referee is. This is the only reason why I might decline refereeing a paper I've commented on before.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/18 | 861 | 3,812 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm reporting on an engineering project that is in its early phases. Therefore, there are no results, but there is already a quite detailed plan on how the problems in the project can be conquered. Now I was asked to present the project at a conference. I want to present the current state, but I'm not sure how to structure a conclusion as there is no result, and I can't evaulate, if the planned methods will be successful. Still I believe presenting the intended methods will bring value to the community.
How do you conclude a project presentation that doesn't have any results but already has a quite concrete and detailed plan? What content could I provide? Or can one just not provide a conclusion in a paper? That seems a bit unbalanced...<issue_comment>username_1: What goes into the **conclusions** section in a paper is a bit field-specific. I am doing research in computer science (services / software engineering), and oftentimes, the conclusions are basically the place where you summarize the main points of your paper. It is not *required* in my field that the conclusions contain hard data / findings. If the paper is of more positional nature (a roadmap paper, a "Towards ..." paper, etc.), the conclusions will be more of an outlook on the challenges ahead.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the **conclusion of a paper** and the **conclusion of a project** are two different things.
In my view, the conclusion of a paper is the summary of the paper while the conclusion of a project is the end results of the project. Your paper has the current state and the future plan of the project. These can be the conclusion of the paper. They are not necessarily the conclusion of the project.
If you don't feel comfortable with having "Conclusion" section in your paper without stating the true conclusion of the project, my suggestion is to write a ""Summary" or "Future Outlook" section at the end of the paper. This is a personal taste, in my opinion.
There are many papers without "Conclusion" section either by authors' choice or the final conclusive results for the problem/conjecture were not obtained yet at the time the paper was written.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The paper is about an analysis that has been performed to address some challenges and fulfill some objectives. The result of the analysis is a plan.
The plan should fulfill the objectives, it should be fault tolerant, it should consider the possible risks that may materialize during the project or it should do whatever it should do and it should be like whatever it should be (I don't know the specific details about the objectives and the analysis).
In any case, the conclusion should be that the plan fulfills the objectives that were set for the design of such a plan. If it doesn't then you should try to do the plan again, because that would mean it's wrong. I guess it's right, that's the main conclusion and that's the reason to publish a paper.
If after the project you find out it was wrong, then that could be a good reason to write another paper. With lessons learned, mistakes, etc. so that nobody else makes the same mistakes (we should make some progress in the state of the art of mistakes as well ;-) )
PD: Future lines are not exactly conclusions, a conclusion is something that ends. Every end implies a new beginning, and thus future lines (imminent beginnings) are included in this section, but let me note they are two different things (and opposite to a great extent).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: You could include information about metrics for success, what a solution might look like, future directions, etc. And then the conclusions for the paper would summarize what you presented, rather than what you're going to do.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/18 | 477 | 2,098 | <issue_start>username_0: This might seems like a silly question, but I don't understand why grad schools ask for GRE score on the application form. In almost all instances, they also require official score to be sent to them before they even start reading application anyway. So is there a reason why they ask for self-reporting of those score?
Also, is there any harm in not putting the score into the application? As in let's say the GRE being taken too late, and the score is not known at the time of application.
(talking about both revised general and subject score)
Thank you.<issue_comment>username_1: In most cases, the GRE scores go the the university admissions department, not to the department in which you are enrolling for graduate study. The graduate adviser will read your application and determine whether or not to accept you (your GRE score is one of the metrics that he/she will use). If you are accepted by the department, then the University orders all the official paperwork for verification. If you have the scores, i would put them on the application.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It's to make the application form easier to review. That way, all the fields on the application form can be printed in one handy package, which could then be sent to a program chair for easy review.
No one in the admissions office wants to have to gather and collate transcripts, GRE reports, and other application information into one printout (or file) just to be able to send the package somewhere for review. Moreover, when reviewing, no one wants to shuffle through a bunch of papers just to find the information they are looking for. This way, GRE scores are always right there on the left-hand side, in Box 10.
In a word, it's for the sake of convenience. It's much easier on everyone at the university if you simply type your GRE scores into an application form where you are already typing so much other pertinent information.
As for why you have to submit the official results, too, that's simply to verify the scores you self-reported.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/18 | 692 | 3,094 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a student of comparative politics currently considering what specific topic I want for my Master's Thesis. On the basis of the choice, the university will allocate an appropriate professor - given that they understand the choice of course. However, the boundaries for topics are mainly limited by the field and the length; 80-100 pages. As such, I am unsure how wide or narrow I should aim to be with the thesis.
I have a general idea for the topic, and a fairly good understanding of the field, but the length is an abstract I find hard to deal with. Basically, how much should I limit myself in the scope and use of selected theory and empirical content?
Of course, this varies between universities and fields, but some general guidelines on determining how to go about determining what can reasonably be achieved with a year of writing for a Master's Thesis would be appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm not sure if this applies to all subject domains, but in computer science, most of the **Master's Theses** that I have seen were quite broad. They gave an overview of the subject and a more detailed analysis of whatever subtopic the author chose to cover.
Most of them had little empirical content. From what I can tell, the goal is to analyze a few works related to one's topic and formulate several salient questions that could be addressed in the future.
To reiterate, a master's thesis differs from a PhD dissertation in that the goal is not to provide novel content, but to show that one has a good understanding of the material, is comfortable with analyzing current or previous research, and that one has the ability to come up with new, exciting ideas to build upon said research.
To determine what is reasonable, you should consult with an advisor, I do not think that you can answer this question without already having some sort of topic in mind. On that note, if possible, I think that providing insights is far more important than reviewing topics that most people in the field are already familiar with. So, if you have enough content, you could easily cut some of the overview and concentrate more on your ideas, which if good, would look more impressive.
With respect to "selected theory" vs "empirical content," I think that's entirely up to you. Whatever serves your thesis better is what I would incorporate into it. This probably seems like a very hand-wavy answer, but it really does depend on exactly what questions/issues that you're attempting to address. I may be wrong, but I doubt that there's any sort of formula that dictates how much of either you should use.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: For comparative politics, the thesis' content should have a healthy empirical content. (As opposed to, say, political theory.) The thesis is basically the answer to a question. At your level (master's), it helps if it addresses a pointed research question in the field.
If you feel this is strainedly narrowing your general knowledge, then congratulations: that's the goal in my book.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/19 | 1,604 | 6,819 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm not a native speaker. However, I'm doing my PhD in an English country and I read Academic papers which are in English. How can I improve my English from those papers? Any ideas? Although sometimes those papers are not written by native English speakers and may still have problems.<issue_comment>username_1: The old adage is: "the language of science is bad English" (and at least in computer science it is 100% true). That being said, I have known PhD students who have failed mainly because of their lacking English language skills – they had ideas, but they could not communicate them to anybody, and they could not write them down in a paper for the life of them. You need decent English to write any paper, and you need pretty good English to write papers at top venues.
You ask how to improve your language skills **from reading papers**. I would say, you can't do that effectively at all. Clearly, reading anything written in English will help you to some extent, but if you feel like you need to improve your English, taking **one or more (good) courses in technical English** will help you more than reading through a few dozen papers.
However, there is one language-related skill that reading papers for is really useful – if you are setting out to write the first or one of your first papers of your own, nothing beats analyzing existing papers (at the same conference, in the same journal) to find out how papers in these venues are usually structured. This gets you started much faster than drafting something only for your advisor to tear it apart.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: While I understand that there's a big difference between scientific and day-to-day language, I actually think you need both to succeed in academia.
While you do need to excel in research (e.g. publish papers, communicate ideas), only the "top level" will be done in pure scientific and formal language: writing papers and scientific presentations. A lot comes from communicating your ideas, either in formal and informal settings. The "level" of English varies from setting to setting: at some point, you would not want to host a prominent researcher in your country, and take him to lunch only to realize you do not know how to translate the menu.
That said, I think you need to improve your English overall, and the best way to do it is to expose yourself to the language as much as you find comfortable:
* if you usually **read** (non-scientific literature), **switch** from your native language **to English**
* when watching **movies/TV shows**, don't go for the dubbed versions: go for the **original language**, first with the subtitles in your language, then in English, and then no subtitles at all
* try and find yourself in **social situations where English is the main spoken language**. **Listen** to people and **talk** to them. I saw a big change in a lot of people in just a few months from this.
* take a **course**, possibly in technical English
* specific terminology and style of writing will come in time, with immersion in your field, but it is okay to **use a dictionary** for rare terms
* *in addition to just using a dictionary* (translations are not always stellar), [**use Thesaurus**](http://thesaurus.com/) to find synonyms and antonyms. It is also useful when you know the correct word, but you feel your writing is too repetitive
* have some kind of **spell checker** activated when you type (not only your papers, but also your posts, chats and e-mails), use it whenever it tells you that you misspelled the word, and **try to remember your mistakes**
* start using an **English-English dictionary**, as often as you can when you come across an unknown word. For me, just typing *"define:whatever"* in Google works just fine.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: In addition to other good observations... : the idiosyncrasies of English are not easily codified in "rules", so considerable familiarity with *many* good examples of standard use, to allow faithful *mimicry*, (in addition to more formal study and hearing-experience) is surely helpful.
That is, rather than "composing" in a vacuum (worst of all translating into English...), it is very convenient to be able to *recall* already-vetted phrases and wording-choices and simply re-use them.
This is especially true with regard to "articles" "a", "an", "the", or their absence, and related seemingly-innocent modifiers. Also, verb tenses.
Thus: imitation from good models.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Reading good papers from your field would improve to some extend your technical language specifically the style and structure in your field. I recommend you to read a few good books about writing science and manuscripts.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: 1. Participate in discussions strictly related to academic papers.
2. Don't read only - be active in your discussions and write as much as you can (you can make errors but you will self-eliminate them with more practice).
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: The exercise is to learn English by writing. Take a few paragraphs from Academic paper. Print the text and then write it by hand. Check if you have any errors? No errors? Then take another piece of paper and hide the side of printed text so that you can't see two letters at the end of each line. Write the whole text again. Check for errors? No errors? Move the sheet further and repeat. Have an error? Start from the beginning. Write the text looking at a printed one. Then add a sheet of paper on a side and write again and re-check for errors. No errors - move paper further. If you experience a mistake you need to start from very beginning! Eventually you should be able to write the text by looking at one letter of each line only and then the whole text by memory without any mistakes. Congrats! Do the same for second time next day. Once you complete second text, re-write first one too. Check for mistakes in both. Got a mistake? Start from text 1! Now you do that for 10 text and you will be shocked!
Another thing you need to do is to practice writing sentences. Take any phrase that has a new structure to you (e.g. from the academic paper) and write it down. Then write again. Repeat this 10 times. Then change one word using a [thesaurus](https://www.powerthesaurus.org). And write 10 times again. Change the same word again and write re-phrased sentence 10 times. Repeat this task for each word. This practice will allow to learn the limited range of rules that are used in English sentences.
Surely you may check English grammar from time to time if you really want to know why something is like that, however don't spend too much time doing it. You will become bored and overloaded with information very soon.
Happy learning!
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/19 | 400 | 1,593 | <issue_start>username_0: In statement of purpose for applying to a PhD program, is it good to mention about learning from some professor's lecture notes and books (not papers, because don't get to read them yet), and finding them helpful?
Will it make the statement more personal and therefore good?
Or is it better not to say so, and rather to keep the essay short?<issue_comment>username_1: On the whole, indication of awareness, of taking initiative, is a very strong positive.
On the other hand, if one attempts to do this artificially, to "create an impression", there is risk of "looking silly", to say the least. For example, do not try to mass-produce in an afternoon "awareness of Prof. X's notes and papers" for Prof. Xs at a dozen+ different schools to which you're applying. Such things tend to result in extreme superficiality, and inevitably some silly errors, such as referring to Prof. Y at University Z while purportedly addressing the admissions committee at Univ. W about Prof. X. Good for a laugh at your expense, sure, but, ... :)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You do not want to convey the message, *"I am applying to your school because I think Professor X is great."* Everybody knows Professor X is great. That's why they hired her.
The question is, why should they want **you?**
A message you do want to convey is, *"I am applying to your school because my research goals are well-aligned with existing interests in the department."* If you can incorporate Professor X's notes and books into that story, great. Otherwise, leave them out of it.
Upvotes: 4 |
2013/12/19 | 879 | 3,984 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently hired as a research track scientist not funded directly by the university. As part of my contract agreement, I am required to secure my own funding in order to remain hired. However, government funding has dried up *drastically* over the last few years, and my best and just about only shot is to seek private sponsorships. A brief conversation with the department chair has confirmed that the department doesn't really care too much about the source of funding as much as whether I can get sufficient funding or not.
Given all of this, does anyone have any suggestions for a list of private individuals or organizations willing to fund basic research in theoretical physics without any *immediate* practical applications? How should I go about contacting such private sponsors, and what is the proper protocol for asking them for money? It appears most funders in the private sector care mostly about getting short term commercial monetary returns from what they prefer to call an "investment" instead of funding. How can I encourage them to think about longer term benefits which might take as many as a few generations to reap?
In my experience, sarcastic remarks along the lines of <NAME>'s "What's the use of a newborn baby?" or <NAME>'s "One day you may tax it." go on very badly to people in the private sector.<issue_comment>username_1: Funding from industry is generally going to be tied to the ability for them to leverage it into profit. Funding from non-profits are not always interested in making money, but they ant to be able to leverage it into profit, donations, or press. Generally you need to talk to potential finders about their interests and tailor your research to meet their needs and wants.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Step in their shoes and figure out what *they* would be gaining from giving money to you. The question is not only about the benefits as such, but *who* will benefit. 'One day you may tax it' may be actually reasonable to a large government, but it is absolute nonsense to a private company, who will NOT be able to tax it when other companies use it. "What's the use of a newborn baby" also implies that the adult will be useful - but it will NOT be useful to the company unless they can own & control that long-future result.
In general, if you want to get industry funding for research where the results cannot be commercialized in the short term, then anyway your results have to be valuable from *them in particular*, rather than the whole industry including their competitors. So if it's too early to produce a commercial product/process, at the very least the end result should be some protected IP - usually patents - that would be a property of the funding organization.
If it's an investment, then take a look at how large the return benefit would be, when would that be, and how likely it is that it will/won't work out. If it's a 'sponsorship', well, sponsorships generally are a PR/marketing issue - in order for that to work out, the company needs your research and/or your name to be visible and known (not to academia but to their customers), so that they'd get some marketing benefit by their customers seeing (a lot of) their association with you and/or your research topic. It sometimes happens (for example, with high-end audio products; or IBM's Watson project is a case of such PR), but it's clearly not an option for most researchers.
An alternative might be private philantrophists - but that is based on individual relations, connections to very rich individuals, and your PR ability to convinve them that your research is so valuable to the world. Looking at how some other researchers have achieved such funding, it generally requires writing a popular book or a few of them, and years of public promotion of your research direction and ideas; that seed tends to grow into an ability to fundraise for continuing such research.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/19 | 807 | 3,325 | <issue_start>username_0: >
> Longer monographs should have an odd number of chapters [the
> Internet,1700-xxxx].
>
>
>
Does this rule also apply for papers? I've got a paper with four chapters and I'm wondering if I should make it five. I could split up the outlook & conclusion part, but that would result in two really short sections.
What does the style police suggest?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think that any style guide or policy (besides maybe some journal about aesthetics in writing) will force you to an odd or even number of sections or chapters. A scientific text should get the number of chapters it needs and not a number that fits aesthetic principles–basically you write it to tell the scientific community about your findings and not to please them.
If you manage to write a scientific paper in [Haiku](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku) form, this will be nice but it may also make some referee think you don't take your research serious enough. More or less the same holds for odd or even chapters. If you force the text to fit a certain number of chapters by dividing a chapter into two pieces, the reviewers might also consider *that* bad style.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: There's something of a story that "having an odd number of chapters in your thesis" will make it more likely to get past the committee, or something like that. For example, in [this personal website about theses](http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/c.clack/phd.html), the author states that "Chapter headings - use 7 or 9! An odd number of (total) chapters gives a balanced appearance to the work (CC has a reference to back this up)."
I confess that I heard this as well when I was writing. I didn't end up structuring my thesis as a result of that advice but I heard it too. In the end, there's a 50% chance that your paper will have an odd number of chapters after you structure it. :)
Since I cannot find any other substantive evidence (other than the UCL link above) about the number of chapters in a thesis I must conclude that, at best, the effect of the number of chapters on the quality of a thesis is unknown; ostensibly, the odd or evenness of chapters having no effect would probably apply to scientific papers and scientific journal articles as well.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: You write as many chapters as you need in order to get your message across. this applies to all types of writing, papers, reports or theses. I am sure some people might avoid 13 chapters or whatever number they feel unsettled about, but that will not have anything to do with scientific writing. Likewise there is nothing that says any form of scientific writing needs a certain number of chapters. That said, the Introduction-Methods-Results-and-Discussion (IMRaD) format, which forms the basis for most scientific papers, leads to four main chapters and in addition an abstract and a Conclusions chapter. Again, this is because it is a standard logical form not a "magic" number.
There are, however, many other typographical rules that influence the formatting of pages and chapters. For example, a chapter should start on an odd page number to follow traditional rules. There are thus many aspects of typesetting that influences the format of printed text but not the number of chapters.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/19 | 511 | 2,211 | <issue_start>username_0: In the beginning of a research program students (like me) may be lazy or find things hard and do things that make their supervisors get angry such as not completing specific job in the right time. They may be strongly criticized by their supervisors and their supervisors may get an idea that these students are not good enough. How can students change this idea that is in the head of their supervisors? What should they do?<issue_comment>username_1: The same way you would change anyone's perception of you for any other reason: Prove them wrong.
If you started out lazy, then kick yourself into high gear: Get tasks done ahead of time; predict future work, and get it done before it's asked for. Turn out quality work at a high pace. This sounds hard **because it is**. Unfortunately, you may have burned good-will at this point, and you need to rebuild it.
If you found things hard, or found that the supervisors expectations of velocity were unreasonable, discuss it with your supervisor. Discuss what background she may not know you have missed, discuss how you spent your time, and why things didn't get done fast enough.
Key here is the relationship. Your relationship sounds like it's on rocky ground, and if you're in it for another 3-5 *years*, then don't underestimate how much effort you're going to need to making sure that relationship doesn't break down.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: ... and, if your supervisor is an experienced, mature person, while they may have been irritated by sub-par "performance", such things should not completely surprise them. People in grad school are in a transition time in life, not only regarding the stresses of grad school, etc., and have not yet "arrived" themselves at the mature professional state they will (hopefully) reach. In particular, helping people *get* to that state is part of a supervisor's job with grad students (and probably any senior person in any professional situation).
So, while it's not good to have under-performed to the extent of setting-off your supervisor, and not a "good start", there should be much room for "forgiveness", if you can take a lesson from such a scenario, etc.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/19 | 716 | 3,068 | <issue_start>username_0: Recently, alongside my day job (high school teacher), I have been taking up casual short-term research assistant jobs - these are not only paid, but also include me being a co-author of the paper(s) that result.
On my CV, I would like to have all this information, what would be an effective means to include all achievements of these projects?
I am hoping for specific examples if people have done this before.<issue_comment>username_1: For HR specialists reading your CV there will be important not just employment history, but also another perspectives of your CV.
1. a project history you have done or participated, then they need to know short one simple sentence of project description and your role on the project.
2. publications you have made or co-author.
If this is significant enough, put this to the Overview, what should be on the front page of your CV. Overview generally should contain teasers for the rest of CV. How many projects, how many publications, etc.
Take an example of different perspectives for example from Linked-in portal, which are: Overview, Employment history, Project history, Personal initiatives, language skills, Certifications, Courses, Skills, Education, Recommendations, Publications, Organization membership, Prizes, Academical Results, Patents, etc. Order is up to your priorities.
Example: So, I can imagine you could have Overview, Education, Project history, Academical results and Publications in top order.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: 1. Detail the employer and your role, make clear that your work was part-time or casual.
2. Indicate that you contributed to a number of reports, perhaps even citing the number of reports that you contributed to.
3. Make a specific reference to any reports that are appropriate to the job you're applying for.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In order to answer your question, you need to first understand *who your CV is written for*. If your CV is for you, and you are simply trying to document what you did, then you can simply list each research involvement as something like:
* **January 2014--July 2014** Research volunteer, Dr. Bigwig's lab. Collected samples from subjects and ran computer simulations. Contributed to 5 publications.
Ideally, you will also be able to list the publications to which you contribute.
If you are building the CV because you want to actually use it for something (getting a raise, getting another job, going back to school, etc.), then you should seek to formalize your relationship with the lab:
* Do you have a title? If not, ask for one. Since you say you are being paid, you probably have one already. You should know the title and list it.
* List the dates of the appointment. Typically they are for a year or a few years, even if you are only being paid for a small fraction of that.
* Since you are currently a high school teacher, you may wish to list your research appointments in a different section of your CV than your teaching appointments.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/20 | 2,909 | 12,760 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a international student in a Ivy League school under a J1 visa (I can work only in school). I am now working as a researcher after I got my degree. I signed a contract that I will work for 2 years with funding. The contract said that I will work mainly for one particular project but I also have work with any other works that the school wants too.
My adviser has two funded project in his hand. One is a cellphone project and another one is a Darpa project. In the beginning, I worked on the cellphone project. This project is planned to be commercialized and funded by private investors. There were two people mainly working on this cellphone project, me and my friend. We have separate funding from different sources to work on this project. After I had finished the project (6 months), I was moved to work in the Darpa project, with another team. My friend who I worked with on the cellphone project is still working on the final part and marketing it (also continuing to find money from investors).
One day, my cellphone-project friend's funding was all gone (he started this work one year before me). His fund is about two years and he cannot find the investors to put more money in his cellphone. Then this is my problem because I am not a main person in both the cellphone and the Darpa project. My adviser want to move my money to support my friend and want me to quit (because no need for my programming skill anymore, programming part is done). He started by telling me that I watched YouTube in the lab. (He did see me once that I listened to the music while I was programming). He told me that no one in the lab watches YouTube, everybody just reads papers for relaxing. (All of my friends watch YouTube and Facebook, trust me). Then he continued with I am not eager to improve me code and make it faster. He told me that all PhD researchers are eager to make it very fast. (I programmed something is called SIFT and the speed is the best I can do, due to the nature of the algorithm.) Anyway, 3 months ago he told me the speed is good enough for this work, that's why I didn't improve it. He told me that I have a problem in communication (I asked him could you give me some examples about the communication problem, then he changed the topic).
Since I am holding a J1 visa, if he kicks me out, I have to go back with nothing. I feel this is very unfair. When he asked me to work, it was very nice. However when I completed the work, he want to kick me out and get the money back. I have no idea what to do. What should I do after this? I feel really bad about my adviser.
PS: my professor is the member of the start-up-company of the cellphone project. but I am not, I am just a researcher<issue_comment>username_1: The situation sounds both contentious and untenable, which are signs that you need to start escalating your concerns.
If you've tried speaking to your supervisor and it didn't go well, or if you aren't comfortable speaking to them, then go to the department head, ombudsperson, or chair; There's always someone (usually multiple someones) to handle conflict between student and supervisor. You're going to need to show the history of the situation, and how it's gone wrong.
Sit down before that meeting, and make your case for yourself: Show the requirements of the program, how you're fulfilling them, the changes your supervisor wants, and why they must not be done.
---
Edited: Actually, I realize now, I'm not entirely clear. Is this your academic supervisor, or your workplace supervisor, or are these two one-and-the-same?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: OK, well, you have a problem. By the terms of your appointment, you are entitled to stay for the 24-month period. The faculty you're working with made a commitment to support you for 24 months, and generally speaking, it is his duty to do so. However, that's not the whole story. You also have an implicit obligation to do good research that advances his interests as well. And, depending on your goals, you probably also need his intellectual support and mentorship to achieve many of the benefits of a visiting scholar position. So, you need to work out a mutually satisfactory resolution with him. This is more a situation for interpersonal negotiation and compromise than a situation where standing on your rights and thumping the table is going to help you.
You might need to make some compromises, compared to how you thought this position was going to work out. To help with that, to begin, you should start asking yourself some hard questions and figure out what your goals are. What are your career goals after you finish this position? What would you like to achieve? Are you looking to get a good reference letter from the faculty you are currently working with? Are you looking to strengthen your c.v. with a stronger publication record? Do you think you can do good research on your own, with no mentorship, collaboration, or support from your faculty member? What kind of job are you looking for after you finish? Are you looking for a research position, or for an industry position? Can you make productive use of the next 16 months (in a way that will help your longer-term career prospects)? How strongly do you feel that you want to stay in the current position for the full 24 months if you have no support and no interest from your existing faculty member? The answers will determine how you act at this point.
Keep in mind that there might be no perfect solution to your situation, so your job at this point is to try to guide things to the least-bad outcome that is at all feasible. To do that, you absolutely must know what your priorities are and what your "nice-to-have's" are.
I can see a couple of possible options for you:
* You could sit down and have a frank talk with the faculty you are working for. You could say, look, you offered me a 24-month position, you made a commitment, now it is your obligation to fulfill it. You can be polite but firm. However, this might not win you any friends, so if you were hoping for a good reference letter from this faculty member or collaboration and mentorship for continuing research, you might be out of luck, and you could be stuck in a toxic environment for the next 16 months. If you take this tack, you are basically offering the faculty member nothing positive in return, so the best plausible outcome is that the faculty member honors his commitment and ignores you for the rest of your appointment. The worst outcome is that the faculty tries to find some way to screw you.
* Alternatively, you could try to understand better your faculty member's situation and then try to find a way to make yourself valuable to him. Personally, I think this is probably a much more promising direction. You can always fall back to the "you have an obligation" option above if this fails.
From your position his actions might appear arbitrary and capricious, but there is probably a logic behind them from his perspective. You could try to understand what is motivating your faculty mentor and then use that to see what you can offer him. For instance, maybe he is under tight pressure to see results, and you are not contributing in the way he had hoped. Keep in mind that you are biased; you might feel like you did an awesome job and met all of his expectations, but he might not feel that way. Or, his goals might have changed. So, you could try to understand his perspective, and then figure out how to make yourself valuable to him. Basically, look for a way to make this a win-win situation.
You say the faculty seems more interested in working with your friend right now. Well, that's a valuable clue. Maybe your friend is making contributions in some way that you aren't. Have you considered trying to find a way that you can contribute, that your faculty member would value and that would make him eager to keep working with you and make supporting you a priority for him? Have you tried asking some questions to probe about that? His needs can change over time. There's an unwritten assumption, when you join someone's group, that you will act as a team: that you will both act in each others' best interests. In particular, this is not a zero-sum situation (or it should not be); if you're doing things right, when you do great work, it should benefit both you and your faculty. You need to be flexible. If your faculty member's needs change, you might need to change your focus and your energy to support his direction. If your faculty member's needs have changed and you are not adapting to make yourself a valuable member of the team as his goals change, then that could explain his reaction.
You say your faculty has a DARPA contract, and that contract continues, but you are not a main person on that project. Well, have you considered trying to make yourself a main person? Have you considered making yourself indispensable to that project or finding a way so that you can make major contributions to the success of that project? This is not something that is appointed or handed out; what makes you a main person is not a title that someone else hands to you, but rather your own independent action. In the research world, people typically aren't going to tell you what to do. Instead, they're expecting you to identify a way you can be valuable to the project, and then go do it. You're a smart person; I'm sure you can find a way to make a contribution to that project that they will find helpful, and that will be beneficial to your career. Go do that a couple of times, and before you know it, you *will* be a main person on that project, not because anyone else decided you are, but because you decided to become one and you put in the energy and hard work to be.
From your question, we only get your perspective, not that of your faculty member's perspective. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't fully appreciated your faculty member's perspective yet.
Overall, my advice is:
* Enter this with a willingness to compromise and change. Adapt. Be prepared to find a compromise with your faculty member. Don't start from the position that you're entitled to a great working situation; you may be, but realistically, at this point, that kind of attitude won't help you attain one. Open your mind to compromise solutions you might not have previously considered, even if you have to accept something that's less than ideal from your perspective.
* Find someone else you trust (a secondary mentor, another faculty member, something like that) and talk to them about the situation. Ask them for advice. Respect what they are telling you: be a good listener (if you find yourself arguing with them, time to back off and listen and try to understand what they are telling you). See if this can get you any additional information about what might be motivating your faculty or ways you might be able to resolve the situation. You're in an Ivy League school; odds are that someone else in your department cares about visiting scholars.
* Go talk to your advisor. Ask questions. Listen. Empathize. Try to find a win-win outcome that both of you can feel like offers something positive. You can be frank and honest that your relationship seems to have gotten off on a bad foot and you'd like to work out a way to improve the relationship and find a way to be useful to him that also benefits your career. Ask him for help crafting a performance improvement plan that from his perspective would help you do a better job of meeting his expectations.
Do not start from a position that you are entitled to his enthusiasm. Do not accuse or argue. This is not a confrontation or a debate; this is a negotiation. You start by trying to gather information and understand your faculty member's perspective better. When you understand his logic and motivations, then you can try to brainstorm together ways that you can change your behavior in a way that benefits both of you (especially him). What you can offer is your willingness to devote your time and energy to work on problems that are relevant to his needs, and your flexibility and willingness to change. Maybe after having this kind of conversation, you will find some new project or new focus that both of you will be excited and enthusiastic about. Or, failing that, maybe you can find some compromise solution that is tolerable for both of you: maybe neither of you walk away exactly excited about the collaboration, but you can both live with it.
Your job at this point is to make the best of the situation. Realize that the resolution might not be perfect. Sometimes, that's life. You just have to roll with the punches and work with what you've got.
Upvotes: 4 |
2013/12/21 | 964 | 3,991 | <issue_start>username_0: I am about to start planning my bachelor's thesis in computational linguistics, and I'm looking into how I can make the process as smooth as possible. So far, I've found that using some sort of version control system for keeping track of one's changes seems like a good idea. I've also started collecting papers using Zotero for easily exporting to BibLaTeX and keeping notes.
But those are only tools. What I'm most uncertain about is the actual writing process, especially since my native language isn't English. Is there a collection of common mistakes I could benefit from reading, or other every day tips and tricks? Anything, really!<issue_comment>username_1: This is a pretty broad question, but if you are looking for a general guide on how to write there have been a number of books suggested to me.
[Writing for Computer Science (Zobel)](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1852338024) This is a decent book on explaining the principles on why and how you should write computer science articles. It's very computer science specific, with a bit more emphasis toward databases and operating systems, but I think it's applicable to most technical fields (of which computational linguistics should fall into).
I like this one because it's a general guide to writing that outlines the process and the structure.
[Elements of Style (Strunk and White)](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/020530902X) A commonly-recommended book that a lot of people swear by but I found it a bit too low-level for my liking and actually had a hard time finishing it. A professor described it as "too prescriptive".
[Bugs in Writing (Dupre)](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/020137921X) This is an okay book as a reference manual for improving your prose, but isn't a good guide for figuring out the writing process. There's good advice in this book (and it's actually rather fun to flip through just to learn about various style points) but can be difficult to use as an actual guide.
[Style: Toward Clarity and Grace (Williams)](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0226899152) I've gotten through a few parts of this book and it gives very specific advice on how to proceed on improving your writing, especially explaining specifically how to introduce ideas in paragraphs, how to flow them together to create longer manuscripts, and how to restructure and correct text so the main ideas come through. As I surmised, it is in fact very analytical and detailed and does describe the rationales behind its recommendations. I think this book is a great resource for those who have some words written, who know they have to make their writing "flow better" or "more clear" but aren't really sure how to do it. It appears to be an especially valuable book for the "second pass" through anything, where you have written down your initial ideas in part-writing, part bullets, and are trying to convert it into a real readable piece of work. (Previously, I wrote: This book was JUST recommended to me and I haven't read it, but it is apparently very analytical and detailed, and outlines the rationales behind why one should write in the way it discusses. In fact, I think there a jab at the Elements of Style in this book where the author laments that "Be clear" is GREAT advice. We all KNOW that. The real problem is, "How is it that I can actually implement 'be clear' in my writing?" However, I haven't gotten far enough to comment on it yet.)
So there's a little about what to read. As for what you should know? Well, that's a more difficult question :)
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Best thing you can do is have a well defined topic. Since you don't mention that in your question, I don't know if you have a research topic/question yet. In my experience, that's by far the most crucial thing in having a thesis go smoothly. The student who know what they want to work on usually have everything fall into place.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/21 | 633 | 2,868 | <issue_start>username_0: Is it possible to do this? If I find a research group/researcher working on something I like and I just want to do my thesis there. Is it necessary that
1. I have to go there as an exchange student OR
2. I will have to enroll in their masters program?
I suppose the only way to do what I am asking about it via an exchange program,but is there any other way?<issue_comment>username_1: This depends strongly upon what university you're attending now, and where you want to do your research. For instance, in Germany, students are allowed to do a master's thesis anywhere in the world, but they are responsible for organizing this themselves. Other schools and departments in other countries may have more restrictive policies.
An exchange program may or may not be necessary, but this is entirely dependent on the specific policies of both the school you're attending *and* the school or institute you'd like to do your thesis work at. The best guidance I can give you is to first ask the graduate students' office or "graduate officer" of your current department to ask what the relevant regulations are for your home institute. Then talk to the other institute. Of course, start such a process well in advance of when you want to do the thesis work; a semester at the minimum, a year is more strongly recommended, as it may take several months to organize the required paperwork and visas (if you're planning on traveling abroad to do the thesis).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Exchange student
----------------
I am writing my masters thesis as an exchange student at another university but it is not necessary to enrol as a student at the other university (like username_1 mentioned). If you need a scholarship then you might want to look for a possibility as an exchange student but it has also additional advantages to go as an exchange student. You get informed by the student administration of the university about several topics.
Compatibility
-------------
The most important thing is to ask first at your study administration/students office and afterward to find a supervisor for discussing with him the next steps. The thesis has to be compatible with your home universities restrictions.
Where to search
---------------
You can then search for a compatible thesis and research topic.
It depends on the university how they publish the open postions, research projects and theses topics.
Most research groups have their own homepage where they publish open positions or topics for a research project/thesis. You can also write them a polite email to ask for an project you are interested in.
Alternative places
------------------
There are also some independent institutes or even companies that provide writing a Masters or even PhD thesis (dependent on your field of research) on behalf of them.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/21 | 285 | 1,241 | <issue_start>username_0: Is there a website where a list is maintained and constantly updated for undergrads/graduate students looking for internships/competitions/conferences in whatsoever field?
Such a website will be an invaluable resource!<issue_comment>username_1: Though it may be outdated now, my father and now myself are both part of AIESEC
<https://www.aiesec.org/>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: At the global field independent level the answer is no. At the national field specific level the answer is often no, but some countries have reasonable systems. In the UK jobs.ac.uk handles many academic jobs, but internships, competitors, and conferences are not particularly related.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I don't think there is one particular site that lists different internships, but you can defintiely look into joining listserves and organizations for you industry. For example, I work in international education and I joined NAFSA as well as their email listserv to learn more about industry trends, internships, and job openings. On an international level, you can check out websites like Go Overseas.com for a list of all international internship providers with reviews and website links.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/12/21 | 860 | 3,619 | <issue_start>username_0: I am wondering if there is a stigma attached to holding too many soft-money positions when looking for a tenure-track position in the area of computer science.
In computer science, postdoc positions were uncommon, but after the Dot-com bust and a general trend toward not hiring tenure-track faculty in the early 2000s, there are now many more postdoc positions in that discipline.
Do people who hold too many postdocs (or too long of a postdoc) get disadvantaged? Do they acquire a stigma of "This person can't hold a tenure-track job" or "This person bounces around too much" or "This person can't do independent research and relies too much on soft money"?
I know of a handful of faculty members who have been hired after multiple postdocs and visiting faculty positions so it seems that it isn't a permanent roadblock, but it could be a path I might not want to go down just in case it is.<issue_comment>username_1: There are multiple simultaneous trends which are working against one another:
* The number of PhD recipients is growing at a much faster rate than the number of available tenure-track positions.
* More and more locations have been instituting term limits on the length of postdoctoral positions.
* Hiring committees are not as receptive to applicants who have done too many postdoctoral positions.
This leads to a lot of challenges for many academic aspirants. Personally, my impression is that the dangers are as follows:
* Remaining in any single postdoctoral position for more than about three years.
* Accepting more than two postdoctoral assignments.
Once either of those thresholds have been crossed, I think it starts to hurt an applicant later in their career. The exception to this might be "research professorships" and "staff scientist" positions that are seen to be more permanent than a postdoctoral position. Even in these positions, however, there is always the challenge that it can be difficult to transition to a different position afterwards.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In computer science, it's not yet common for people to be doing multipe postdocs before acquiring a faculty position. It's more common to see someone doing a single postdoc (or a virtual postdoc by working in an industrial lab). So it's hard to say whether there is a stigma or not. If anything, I suspect that having a postdoc might improve one's chances at getting an interview at department, assuming that the candidate has used the postdoc to
* beef up their resume
* establish connections (and letters of reference) with well known researchers
As a general matter though, if someone appears to have gone through a series of postdocs, I might at least wonder why. But I'm sympathetic to the vagaries of the job market and might not think more of it if the candidate looks promising in other respects.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: My feeling is that multiple postdoc positions are harder on yourself than the others. Most people fully understand that a lot of the tenure-track selection that goes on can be somewhat random, and that the job market fluctuates. So I think that simply by being unlucky, you can get stuck with many postdoc positions.
However, my experience is that most people who go through multiple postdocs eventually get tired of the itinerant lifestyle of an academic. CS postdocs have enormous earning potential, and at some point, they get sick of it, and accept an industry-level job (higher pay, living in a great city, the settled-down grownup lifestyle, etc.) I mean, can you imagine being a postdoc for ten years?
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/12/21 | 807 | 2,900 | <issue_start>username_0: While browsing the web-sites of various German universities I have come across the term "[restricted admission](http://www.informatik.uni-kl.de/en/studium/studiengaenge/bm-inf/how_to_apply.ma/)". What does it mean?
Do German universities discriminate students on the basis of their age?
Is there anything called "unrestricted admission"? If so, what does that mean?<issue_comment>username_1: In Germany, access to universities is regulated by the **Numerus Clausus** system, which basically says that the number of students admitted to any given programme at a university can be either **unrestricted** or **restricted to a fixed number of students**.
For an unrestricted programme, students just need to fulfill the basic formal criteria (they need a german **Abitur**, or an equivalent). For most restricted programmes on bachelor level, prospective students need to apply and are then ranked based solely on their Abitur grades (plus a few exceptions for corner cases, foreign students with no german Abitur, etc.). For restricted master level programmes, many universities (including, apparently, TU Kaiserslautern, as linked by the original poster above) have adopted a more US-style admission system, which is based not only on previous grades but also on letters of recommendation, statements of interest, interviews, etc. TU Kaiserslautern also has its selection procedure [online](http://www.informatik.uni-kl.de/en/studium/studiengaenge/bm-inf/how_to_apply.ma/auswahl/). This will vary per university, though.
Edit: to answer your subquestion (which I happened to have missed the first time around):
>
> Do German universities discriminate students on the basis of their age?
>
>
>
No, not in general, and certainly not officially.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: On your subquestion:
>
> Do German universities discriminate students on the basis of their age?
>
>
>
I don't know any public state universitiy that does it, but in some cases privately founded institutions of higher education admit only persons up to a maximum age.
---
One example I found is the Hasso-Plattner-Institut (HPI), a institute that offers bachelor-, master-, and doctoral degrees in cooperation with the University of Potsdam.
At the [applicants information page](http://hpi.de/school-of-design-thinking/studierende/bewerbung.html) one can read:
>
> Offen für **alle Studierende unter 35 Jahren**, die entweder in einem **Bachelor‑, Master‑, Diplom- oder Promotionsstudium immatrikuliert** sind oder ihr Studium **vor weniger als einem Jahr** abgeschlossen haben. [Open to all students under age 35, who either are enrolled in a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral program or have completed their studies less than one year ago.]
>
>
>
---
*May the community add more examples in the comments. They can be added to the answer.*
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/21 | 958 | 4,256 | <issue_start>username_0: I am doing undergraduate in engineering but I want a transition to humanities for masters (history, anthropology).
How do I do this?
Should I take prerequisite courses at a community college or through online/distance education?<issue_comment>username_1: This really depends on the country. In the US, most undergraduate programs offer enough flexibility to take a lot of electives. You can also extend you studies by a semester to pick up additional prerequisite classes. In the UK, there is generally not enough flexibility to take electives and you cannot easily extend your studies. Further, you likely would not have the prerequisite A-level classes to get into a humanities program. It a probably best to go talk to someone in the relevant department at your university for advice.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: While I think the other way around (transitioning from the humanities to the sciences) might be harder, if you can demonstrate that you are serious and prepared to undertake graduate training in the humanities, it is definitely doable.
In my sociology department (PhD track, we didn't have a separate MA program and most entered straight after undergraduate school), many of my colleagues did not have any sociology training. While most of them came from related fields of economics, political science, and psychology, there were people with math and physics backgrounds and these were sometimes the people who were doing the most innovative and interdisciplinary work. The selection committee was fine with accepting them as long as their proposed research area fit with the department faculty's research and they showed promise as a sociologist.
While a degree in the field isn't necessary, make sure you address how you have been working to fill the gap you have on your CV. A personal statement will be a good place to address this. In addition, you can take additional courses, read as many works in your proposed field, and try to have a well developed study plan to give confidence to the committee that you are as competitive as the other candidates. It might be a good idea to also build contacts with professors in schools that you are applying for and go talk to them to see if they will be interested in working with you. If you plan to specialise in a society other than where you are based in (especially in case of anthropology), make sure you demonstrate regional expertise, language skills, knowledge of the society, or maybe work and/or living experience. Also, since those departments (in case of a PhD program) will likely ask for a writing sample, start working on one well in advance so the committee can see that you can indeed to the work in the proposed field.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I would suggest choosing either anthropology or history as they are fairly distinct areas of study when you get past the surface of things. If you haven't already picked a minor in either history or anthropology. This way you can see if it's a passing fancy or something you are serious in.
If it turns out you are then you will be part way there for the second degree. You may depending, on how far in you are, be able to dual degree in engineering and history/anthropology. If you can't dual degree but you took the minor you will then probably have enough to go on to appear like a good match for most schools you may apply to for graduate studies. You will also have the side of not having to go through as many lower undergrad classes to catch up with the mainstream majors.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Briefly speaking, your odds of getting admitted to a program of distinction (necessary for any academic job prospects) is low unless:
1. You have an excellent GRE score (absolutely required);
2. You have substantial coursework (30+ credits at minimum) in advanced humanities subjects with excellent grades;
3. You have an especially polished writing sample and excellent references from leading professors in your desired field;
4. Perhaps, you have published work.
Remember, in humanities, admittance to a truly outstanding program is required for even limited career prospects. Do not settle for a lower ranked program.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/12/21 | 2,173 | 8,972 | <issue_start>username_0: A couple semesters after beginning my PhD program (in the US), I was dismissed from the program because:
1. My GPA was slightly below the program's minimum (after being on academic probation for one semester already).
2. After months of work as an RA in a research group, at the end of the semester, my adviser informed me that he was not satisfied with my research and would not continue to fund me.
3. After that, the department was not willing to hire me as a TA, because TA funding was seen as an "interim" measure, and having a new adviser was necessary to continue in the program.
4. I couldn't find a new research adviser because everybody would freak out about my GPA.
However, I have done very well on exams, and I had a great GRE score. What are my options now? Applying again? What could I say about my messed up situation in applications? What if I applied to another school?<issue_comment>username_1: This answer is going to sting, but it's how I read the situation based on what you've written here. It sounds like there is something going on that you haven't addressed.
If a department wanted to keep someone who they felt was a promising student, who they thought could contribute with good work, I think they'd find a way to waive the GPA for another term, seeing that it's so close to the threshold. On the other hand, if they felt like a student was not worth keeping, they might be relieved that the student's GPA fell below the specified threshold, so they could use it as grounds for dismissal from the program.
As for the lab reports, there's a difference between being *late* and being *unreliable*. One is a fact, and the other is a perception. You emphasize the fact, but I suspect it's the perception that is behind their unwillingness to rehire.
As for the GRE score, those scores used to measure potential *from an admissions perspective*. Once you're in the program, GRE scores become pretty much meaningless; from that point on, you're judged by the work you do at the institution. (The fact that you even mention it makes me wonder if you have a habit of overestimating your own value in a way that annoys your professors and your peers.)
As for your options, I wouldn't recommend reapplying. That's an uphill battle; they seem to be sending pretty clear signals that they'd rather be done with you. That leaves transferring somewhere else. Given that your GPA is so close to 3.0, I'll bet you could find a school willing to accept you as a transfer student; however, they might have second thoughts based on some of the reasons for your departure. I would be very careful about who I listed as a reference from the school that is dismissing you now.
You might want to look in the mirror, and try to more accurately assess why you are being let go. As I mentioned, I think it has to do with intangible qualities such as personality, reliability, and teamwork – things that are hard to quantify, but easy to spot notice once you start working alongside someone, especially in an environment where the goal is to achieve a complex and long-term endeavor.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: I realized that a PhD program was not working out for me for various reasons. They were trying to get me to transfer to their Masters program. I decided a more generalist Masters in my home town would be preferable because continuing where I was would only continue the difficulties I faced. My old cohort is now facing the publish or perish monster while teaching undergrad students at State schools across the country.
Sometimes you need to take one step back to take two steps forward. In the end, you get that PhD, and it's publish or perish. Your ability to publish will be greatly hindered if you've been struggling along the way.
Take a step back and get a fresher perspective. Maybe earning a Masters in applied mathematics or another applied science that has requirements that would create a record of academic success instead of failure would give you a firmer foundation on which to earn your PhD, perhaps at a better school. While you're doing that, you can keep the bigger picture in mind, do more self-studies, and build a toolbox of skills that would help you succeed.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I agree with the points in username_1's answer. I'd like to specifically address your question: "What if I re-apply to another school and hide my records in this school?"
**This is a very bad idea.** As pointed out in username_1's comment, most departments will require as part of your application that you list all schools you have attended, and send your transcripts. It would be unethical to omit your current program, and judging from your comments on username_1's answer about copied homework, ethical behavior is very important to you (which I commend). And on a purely practical level, it's extremely risky; if you get caught, it may very well end your career in physics and academia.
It is true that in the US, federal privacy laws prohibit your current institution (let's call it University X) from releasing your education records without your permission. However, these rules do not apply to so-called "directory information", which include your name and dates of attendance. If University Y calls up University X and asks if you have ever attended there, X will tell them. They won't tell them how you did while you were there or why you left, but Y will know that you falsified your application. So if anyone at Y ever suspects that you attended X, they can verify it.
If you don't mention X in your application, Y may not think to do this. But if they eventually find out (and they probably will, see below), you'll be kicked out of the program and the years you spent at Y will have been wasted. If you received a fellowship or tuition waiver, you could potentially be required to pay it back. If you make it to graduation but they find out later, your degree could be revoked; this will probably get you fired from whatever job you hold by then. Basically, once this becomes known, your professional career will be over. It's a Sword of Damocles.
And it's going to be very hard to ensure that nobody at Y ever finds out you were at X. Interview questions: "So what were you doing for the two years after your bachelor's?" You'll have to never mention your time there or anyone you knew at X in any conversation with advisors, professors, or fellow students. And the academic world is small: there's a very good chance that your advisor or someone else at Y knows someone at X, and your name could easily come up in casual conversation. "Hey, I saw your new paper with your student user10165; I guess he's come a long way since his time with us at X."
Summary: **Don't do this.**
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: As everybody can tell, you are emotionally stressed.
My first advice to you, **calm down!**. This is not the end of the world. You still have options.
You can go to industry if you want although I think you prefer not. You still have the passion for Academia since you are asking this question on this site. So, I am not going to suggest that.
If you want to stay in Academia, others have given you excellent answers. I am not going to repeat them. I want to point out things others may have missed.
First, you have to admit that you messed it up. How to re-enter Academia is your question. I think you'll have to look for the schools in the next lower tier. Transferring to a school of the same tier may not be possible at this time. For example, if you are in the top 20, apply to the top 50. I think you have the chance. If you still don't get to top 50, go to top 100. There is a will, there is a way!
Go to your advisor and tell him you would like to transfer to another school. Tell him that you made a mistake and want to restart your academic career somewhere else. He will be glad to help you to transfer because he has some responsibility to fulfill. At least, you were his student.
Again, calm down. Being emotional will not help you. Find another school is your first priority. Good luck!
**Edit**
Let me address your specific issues here,
>
> And what to tell about my messed up situation in applications? Is it recommended to apply to other schools without mentioning that I had attended this one?
>
>
>
Your question boils down to, **Can I erase my past?**
My answer is no. You can't. The key is the recommendation letters. Whom do you go to for those letters? The people who knew you during your undergraduate days? They know you were in your current school. Are they going to wonder what happened to you in the past couple of years? In these days, information travels fast. A couple of e-mails between your undergrad prof. and the profs. in your current school will reveal everything. Get help from your current school to transfer to another school is the practical solution.
**End of edit**
Upvotes: 5 |
2013/12/21 | 496 | 2,215 | <issue_start>username_0: PhD students usually go through a specific topic in depth for several years: understand it and contribute to its literature. Some topics are multidiscipline by nature. Thus, while studying, students may find nice contribution opportunities in not-directly related areas to their research problem.
is it better to be goal-driven (i.e focus on the thesis problem alone) or opportunity-driven (i.e spend your PhD in different problems you encounter in this topic)?<issue_comment>username_1: Although naturally the details of the landscape differ from subject to subject, here is my picture from mathematics:
In addition to the obvious point that one should "both" stay focused on a long-term project *and* be alert to incidental opportunities, I would claim that the *best* kind of thesis projects (and projects in general) are those that help *create* incidental opportunities along the way to a worthwhile large-scale goal.
(This in addition to "educational" benefits of well-conceived projects.)
The obvious hazard is to get distracted from a reliable, long-term project by too-speculative "cooler" possibilities one encounters along the way. The hazards here are like "... but don't quit your day job" as advice to aspiring rock stars, etc.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Graduate students should be somewhat opportunistic. How far afield from their "home base" they should travel, however, is a different question that depends upon the expectations of their field, and what is allowed by the terms of their appointment.
For instance, a student who is entirely supported by a professor's research grant to study a particular topic will have a much harder time justifying spending lots of time on external problems that may be interesting but might not be covered by the grant in question. If such an arrangement is desired, then some sort of negotiation with the faculty member is probably needed to make sure everything is handled in above-board manner.
On the other hand, someone who is entirely supported by external fellowships that do not have funding "strings" attached is much more likely to be free to pursue whatever opportunities may present themselves.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/22 | 626 | 2,881 | <issue_start>username_0: In computer science, and probably other disciplines as well, it is common to end every paper with a "future research" section. I always wondered what is the utility of this section. In particular:
A. How common is it, that a question from a "future research" section is actually researched by the *same* research group?
B. How common is it, that a question from a "future research" section inspires future research by *other* research groups?
Both these questions can be studied quantitatively, even semi-automatically, by comparing the contents of "future research" sections to the titles and abstracts of papers published in a later date. Has such a research been done?<issue_comment>username_1: I cannot provide a quantitative answer, but from my personal experience I can say that these are often questions that the the same group will study.
Consider that due to the publication process, at the time the paper is published the research is often much more advanced than the results published in the paper. For this reason, the researchers may wish to add "future research questions" regarding what they are currently working on (and may even have some preliminary results on). In this way they "set up" the conceptual continuity and importance of their current work.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: The existing answers are good. Let me just add one more phenomenom I've seen in my area: it is not uncommon for the "future research" section to contain ideas that the authors don't plan to follow up on, but they think might be interesting. Maybe they hope to inspire other researchers. Maybe they're just curious, but don't have time to continue to pursue those questions.
Occasionally, the future work section is used by authors to respond to criticism that "you should have done experiment X" from reviewers. Adding a sentence to the future work section is an easy way to respond to the reviewer and be able to claim you've acted on their comment in some way: it lets the authors respond to the reviewer comment with something like: "our future work section makes clear that we didn't do experiment X and we consider it out of scope for this paper, but we agree it would be interesting, and we've added it to the future work section". You can form your own opinion about whether you think this is a good phenomenom or not; I'm just reporting on what I've seen. Sometimes I've even seen authors include this kind of statement in the future work section of a submitted paper, as a preemptive innoculation against comments the authors anticipate getting from reviewers. I don't know whether it is really effective, but you can keep this in mind when you read future work sections. Occasionally this additional perspective may help you understand better why sometimes stuff gets written in the future work section.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/22 | 845 | 3,768 | <issue_start>username_0: There are two main opinions about originality and contribution of ISI (journals which are indexed and listed in [JCR report](http://thomsonreuters.com/journal-citation-reports/) by <NAME>)\* survey/review journal articles compared to original articles in ISI journals. Some scientists consider survey papers lacking originality while others think the opposite especially for survey articles presenting the state-of-the-art and research challenges. So, I am wondering, in general, which type of article has the most impact on an applicant's success when applying for a postdoc or tenure track position; survey or original article?
\*It was asked earlier, so it is wise to put its meaning for clarity.
-Certainly having both of them is the best, but among these two which one has more impact.<issue_comment>username_1: There's no simple answer to this question, because there are a lot of variables left undefined. I think this is what we can call an example of a "false dichotomy." For instance, consider the following examples from physics:
* A first-author "original" publication in a journal such as *Physica A* might not be as useful as a first-author review paper in *Reviews of Modern Physics*.
* Being third author on a review paper in *Reviews of Modern Physics* might not be as useful as first author on a paper in *Physical Review Letters*.
* The stage in one's career also makes a difference in some fields: a postdoc might not be asked to do a review in some fields, but might in others. (Tenure-track professors are a separate category in this respect.)
So I think there are a lot of issues to be considered in this process. However, if one is a postdoc, this is also a conversation to have with one's research supervisor. In general, such articles would be written with their involvement and participation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Generally, for the most selective positions, original research is more important. If you apply for a top-tier tenure-track faculty position, the conversation will focus on questions like: What has their contribution been to the field? How impactful has it been? What are their prospects for future contributions?
Survey articles can sometimes have an impact on a field (e.g., if they reframe a problem in a new way or present new connections), but most commonly, they don't offer a major new contribution. As such, it is unlikely that they will be considered a major contribution. For a typical job candidate, when people ask about their contribution, the first answer will typically be original research they were involved in. I'm not saying this is a hard-and-fast rule, and I'm not saying survey articles are pointless (not by a long shot!), but I think it is rare for a candidate to be hired on the basis of a survey article; usually, candidates are hired because of their novel research contributions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: It would be quite unusual to write a survey article in a field where you have not already made significant original contributions yourself. Indeed, I would suggest that **if you have not worked in an area already for several years, you probably do not have the perspective and depth of knowledge to write an influential review paper**. It's not impossible, of course, especially if you have more experienced co-authors.
In order to get a post-doc or assistant professor position, you will need to have made significant original research contributions to your field. Writing an influential review article is often most beneficial later on (e.g., when you're evaluated for tenure) because such papers tend to be highly cited and administrators who don't know your field will give a lot of weight to citation counts.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/22 | 1,037 | 4,428 | <issue_start>username_0: I have asked my advisers this question recently (since in a year or so, I expect to go on the job market) and received a variety of answers, specific to the USA. Very generally, as I understand, with reference to the US, there seem to be jobs which are either primarily research based (R1 universities) or primary teaching based (liberal arts colleges).
I understand that in either case, you are expected to do some amount of teaching and some amount of research but the focus varies depending on the university. In my university, research is *generally* seen to have more importance than teaching.
I was wondering, specifically with reference to the whole world, whether there are academic jobs where teaching and research are ***both*** given equal importance.
I am very interested in discipline and country variations in this.
Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: As a TT at a small liberal arts college let me just say that to gain tenure I have to do both. In my field this amounts to having five or six new articles or a book before tenure. There is a very large spectrum of liberal arts colleges and the top end (figure top 100) all claim that research active professors are better able to teach up to date content in their field and to better demonstrate to their students why the field is exciting and worth studying. (By `all' I mean I do not know of a counter example.)
At the very top end of the liberal arts spectrum you have schools that give their professors R1 teaching loads and more funding. The only thing they would lack are the graduate students. Sure at the lower end of the spectrum are places that only expect teaching. Then there are the community colleges which openly admit they are teaching only institutions but they acknowledge that their mission is distinct.
Another section of schools I'd suggest you could take a look at are the second tier state schools, places like CSU Pamona, or University of Central Florida. These are not flagships and focus more on teaching than R1s but you still have to be research active to get tenure.
Next time you go to a conference, chat up those folks who seem to be pre-tenure and ask them what their institutions demand. The US is a country with other 4000 colleges and universities. They do not form a linear order from liberal arts colleges to R1 universities. So as always, the situation is more complex than you might think at first.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The basic problem is that you have "research institutions" and "teaching institutions." As a result of this, most schools have a pre-selected bias toward placing either research or teaching as the primary metric in determining tenure.
As username_1 indicates above, at most schools you do have to do both teaching and research. The difference is that in the "minor" area the standards are considerably lower. At a school such as MIT or Harvard, for instance, significant teaching credentials before tenure is awarded is not necessarily looked on favorably by all departments, as that is considered a potential sign that too much time is being spent on teaching relative to academic activities. Similarly, I doubt that faculty members at liberal arts colleges are expected to bring in large amounts of research grants or publish multiple papers per year in high-quality peer-reviewed journals.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm not sure what would constitute valuing teaching and research equally. As best I can tell, every department at every school has it's minimum standards in each category. If you are seeking institutions with high standards for both, I would second username_1 and <NAME>'s referral to top liberal arts colleges. There are many outstanding faculty at liberal arts colleges, and I am aware of a few faculty advising doctorates at nearby research universities. As an extreme example, Bryn Mawr's math department has a PhD program despite being at a liberal arts college. Additionally, there are research oriented institutions that pay more than lip service to teaching. In particular, Dartmouth and Wesleyan come to mind as having this reputation. This can also vary a great deal from department to department, even within the same institution. You may discover that certain departments in your area value teaching or research to an unexpected degree, relative to institution-wide standards.
Upvotes: 3 |
2013/12/22 | 1,129 | 4,906 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a Computer Science PhD student in a US university. Recently, I worked on a problem and wrote a paper. When I asked my advisor to submit the paper to a good journal (such as IEEE Trans. on Computers), he became upset with me and forced me to submit the paper in a very poor quality open access journal. I need good publications to get a faculty position after PhD. Now I'm thinking to work on some other areas on computer science simultaneously with my PhD dissertation so that I can publish my work in a good journal without including my advisor's name. Can I publish my own work (not my dissertation work) as a PhD student without including my advisor's name?<issue_comment>username_1: I doubt that any PhD-level scientist in the United States is "too stupid to understand your research," as you claim. Furthermore, you don't have anything other than your own beliefs that the work that you're doing is of sufficient quality for a high-impact journal like *IEEE Transactions*. Why do you believe the results are significant enough for that?
Furthermore, have you actually made an attempt to include your research advisor as part of your active research planning process, or have you decided he can't help you? Again, as you said, he's a senior member of the department, which means he probably has many more years of experience as a researcher than you do.
Moreover, trying to do multiple projects at once will lengthen your stay relative to focusing on one stream of research. Therefore, I would strongly recommend that you first try to mend the relationship with your current advisor before trying to jump into a course of action that will in the long run likely cause you more harm than good.
Now, all that said, if you can't switch advisors, then you have to deal with the one you have. That means, for now, trying to deal with the situation as it currently stands. For instance, you could ask why the paper you wrote couldn't be submitted to the better journals you wanted, and what you would need to do so that the next paper can be submitted. **Get this in writing.** Then, this will give you additional ammunition, particularly if what he demand is unreasonable. And with respect to the situation of asking other researchers what they think of the quality of the paper: next time around, when the paper is ready to go out, ask your advisor if you can send it out to some of his colleagues in the field as well as your sources, and solicit their opinion about where it should be published.
Another concern here: where is your thesis committee in all of this? If your work is of sufficient quality to merit publication in better journals than the one you're submitting to, then they may be able to get your advisor to cooperate with such a strategy.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I think there are actually two questions here. Firstly, the question you explicitly asked:
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> Can I publish my own work(not my dissertation work) as a PhD student without including my advisor's name ?
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Yes, of course you can. Assuming it will be of high quality, it will be accepted. That being said, it is somewhat unlikely that you will be able to generate first-class research completely on your own, without a professor or at least a more senior student or postdoc to help you get started. A problem might be that if you decide to submit to a conference, your advisor may refuse to pay for your conference trip. However, from your previous posts I understand that you work in a field where publications happen mainly through journals, so presumably that is not a big issue.
However, I think you also have a second question that you did not explicitly ask:
*Will publishing alone, behind the back of my advisor, help me get a faculty position?* (this is assuming that you are indeed able to get some good publications accepted without help)
Not at all. You will need a glowing reference letter from your advisor to have a shot at any reasonable tenure track. Communicating explicitly or implicitly that you decided that your advisor was an "idiot" and hence took matters into your own hands will **not** in any way reflect positively on you in a hiring process. Hiring committees, by and large, tend to be risk-averse, and your story has a big flashing warning light all over it. **What you will need to do to get out of this is transfer, to a different professor or to a different programme**.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes, it is absolutes fine. You can publish your research independently. I my self have such an experience. When it comes to individual opinion or perspective articles, sometimes this may contradict your advisor's viewpoint (in my case, it did and he turned down my paper from submission). But I took a chance in submitting and to all our surprise the paper has been cited well. After all, only change is permanent.
Upvotes: 3 |
2013/12/23 | 753 | 3,150 | <issue_start>username_0: For PhD applications, I have mentioned that I am interested in some research areas. Besides, I am thinking about mentioning some professors' names, so that it shows I have read their websites and I am not just sending out generic statements applicable to many schools.
But is it good to mention some professors' names in the statement of purpose, if I don't know them personally? In what cases is it good, and in what cases it isn't?
For example, is it good to only mention
* those whose research directions are aligned with my research interests, or/and
* those whose books or notes I have heard of, or better, might have read some parts of, or/and
* those who are already established and famous (such as having certain titles), or/and
* those that are directing the PhD graduate programs, or/and
* those that are heads of the departments?
What will other professors who are not mentioned think? How will you do, if it were you?<issue_comment>username_1: I'm bewildered that anyone might think this was a good idea. It's gauche.
Mentioning a professor's name doesn't show you've read their website. And showing you've read a professor's website doesn't really say much anyway.
Namedropping? Leave it out.
And as for mentioning books you have heard of: surely now you are joking. Just in case you are not: that's beyond gauche, it's crass.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Your statement of purpose should be specific to *yourself and your research interests*, first. Mention names only when the owner's work is both relevant and pertinent to your research interests. As JeffE stated,
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> If you try to craft the bulk of your statements to different professors in different departments, the result will be much shallower, and therefore much less persuasive, than if you describe your own well-developed research interests.
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Your statement of purpose should paint a persuasive and intriguing picture of who you are, and should not be a hodgepodge of famous names and those whom you want to impress. You are trying to sell yourself and your ideas. Mention those whose work you have both read and found relevant to your research (and perhaps cited in your own work), but avoid name-dropping solely for the sake of impressing those who may read your SOP. That said, you *should* tailor your statement of purpose to the specific department you are applying to. This may include mention of the work of individuals in the department, or those whose work has informed their research. How much of this you should do is a judgement call on your part, and you should lean away from appearing to name-drop for the sake of making an impression.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You can certainly mention professor's names that you don't know personally, but have relevant research. Many professors in top schools especially rely more on the application pool that comes from the admissions committee. If you pass that step then your application will be handed to the specific professor you have mentioned. Of course knowing them brings a benefit, but it is not the only way to get their attention.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/12/23 | 465 | 2,011 | <issue_start>username_0: I have received offers from a few graduate schools to interview in the coming months, but there are only so many February weekends available and two schools already have the same interview weekend. I accepted the first one when the invitation arrived, and now the second has arrived. Both are top choices in my book, so it's hard to drop one.
What can be done about conflicting interview dates for science grad school?<issue_comment>username_1: This happened to me when I was interviewing for graduate schools—two different schools offered only one weekend per year, and picked the same weekend. However, a number of students had the same problem, and contacted them. As a result, the departments in question agreed to "share" the weekend, with part of the time spent at one school, and then part at the other.
If the schools are not geographically close, and you have no way to split the weekend in such a manner, then you should contact the schools in question, to let them know that you have a scheduling conflict. In some cases—particularly if the department is large—they may be able to schedule you to visit on another date. To some extent, such a visit might be even more useful than the scheduled group visit, because you get to see what the department is actually like when they're *not* trying to impress everyone!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I absolutely agree with Aeismail.
Contact one or both of the schools, TELL THEM you have a conflict for the proposed date, and ask if you can reschedule.
They know you're talking to other schools. They know you have a life and/or a job. You aren't the only one who is going to have to make this request. This isn't the only day when they're going to be scheduling interviews.
Note that the same answer will apply when interviewing for Real World jobs. Or indeed for most things. Simply being honest with people and asking if they can work with you to solve a problem is almost always the best approach.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/24 | 1,240 | 5,058 | <issue_start>username_0: I taught a Business Communications course that brashly asserted that good presentations follow the 7x7 rule (max 7 lines of text per slide, max 7 words per line). I also "learned" this in my undergraduate communications courses at a fairly decent state university (and in some MBA prerequisite work).
I see docs online at [Columbia](http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/courses/6200/extras/PPT_Design_Delivery_students.pdf) ([and](http://www.yale.edu/engineering/eng-info/msg00750.html), [other](http://www.sc.edu/cte/guide/powerpoint/), [sources - this one linked to by MIT...](http://www.kumc.edu/SAH/OTEd/jradel/Effective_visuals/132.html))that hold forth in the same manner.
I did find [this bit of research that may give some credence to the above doctrine](http://www.uab.edu/Communicationstudies/humancommunication/11.2.5.pdf), although it failed to reject the null hypothesis, that there is no difference in number of lines per slide, in favor of the idea that retention was better for 5 lines per slide versus 10. (But it's still *something*, some kind of evidence, right?)
**So if the evidence is spare and specious, why are we reciting it like it's the gospel truth?**
In industry (and to a lesser extent in graduate level education) we sometimes see vast amounts of information contained in single slides, and it is unclear what is the specific downside of this, particularly when well-warranted (i.e. the visible whole paints an important picture that would otherwise not be seen viewed at finer granularity, slide by slide).
A lot of information is packed into those slides, but I print them off one or two to a page. Decks don't get much bigger than a dozen or so pages, and the information I'm particularly interested in may be packed into one or two slides. And the audience is fairly sophisticated, whereas the accepted introductory wisdom might be targeted to more average audiences.
**So the question is, are these heuristics worth sticking to? Or are they artificial constructs designed to give criteria for ranking the ability of neophytes to follow instructions?**
Or are they a little of both?<issue_comment>username_1: All axiomatic principles with respect to presentations should be taken with a heavy dose of salt, not just a pinch.
The important issue at hand is that you need to communicate your information to an audience effectively. Putting too much text on a slide makes audiences read the slide, and possibly tune out your elucidations and elaborations of the material on the slide. Similarly, putting too many graphs on the same slide causes the same problem—there's too much to focus on, so you get "lost" in the course of the talk, which again is entirely unhelpful.
Principles such as the "7 x 7" guideline are an attempt to balance between having too much and too little information on a slide. They're useful as rough guidelines, but need not be treated as strict rules to follow.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: **Note:** I have never heard of the 7X7 rule.
Increasingly, I find that in my area (HCI/usable privacy), there are few actual words on each slides. Rather, points are made with images, visualizations, animations, videos and sound clips.
I have never heard any of my advisers, fellow colleagues and other academic acquaintances in the greater areas of computing and information science ever mention this rule. Rather, the objective has always been to get your point across in the minimum number of slides as possible.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Style guidelines have some merits in balancing between too much (typically) and too little content per slide. If you find yourself consistently having way more content per slide, you can probably improve. These kinds of things are also very domain-specific, so your mileage may vary.
**That said...**
We routinely use slides that violate this "rule". Clearly a wall of text won't help your audience in any way, but restricting yourself to such formats for no particular reason won't magically make presentations better either.
I prefer slides with some more content over going back and forth between slides (while it may make sense for the presenter, it is terribly confusing to watch). Sometimes you simply need to include a fair amount of information on a single slide to be able to associate different bits and pieces.
Additionally, I despise what I like to call *Blitz*-slides, which contain so little content that they only last 5-10 seconds before moving on. I'm starting to see this often, particularly by non-scientists (though I may be biased). *Less isn't always more*. For me, a good slide contains enough material to let the audience ponder about the matter, whatever it may be, to kindle their interest in what the presenter has to say.
The best validation is to present slides for someone who hasn't helped in making them as a test prior to the actual presentation (*far* better than style concerns such as X words with maximally Y characters on Z lines).
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/24 | 989 | 4,330 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a third-year computer engineering PhD student. My dissertation topic is re-configurable caches (computer architecture) and my supervisor is a very nice person. I have four publications with him in well-known conferences in my area. But currently I'm in a weird situation. In my 2nd year I fell in love with computational neuroscience and started working on it with another professor in my university simultaneously with my PhD research. Obviously my PhD supervisor encouraged me. Recently I got two high-impact journal publications as a first author on cognitive neuroscience. I am very happy with my dissertation topic but also want to include my neuroscience papers in my résumé. I would like to try for faculty positions after the PhD. Do you think my résumé can create confusion among potential recruiters or will it show multidisciplinary research interests?<issue_comment>username_1: I am in a similar situation (atmospheric physics and education), I was advised to include them all in my resume. A caveat that I was give is that the majority of papers be in the area that you wish to pursue as a career, but by writing in 2 areas, this can open up more opportunities for you.
The reason I was given was that all the papers demonstrate, as you have said in your question, strong interdisciplinary research skills. Additionally, all papers show that you are capable of writing research that contributes something new - with this, it does not necessarily matter that they are from different disciplines.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I strongly agree with the latter. I am in a similar situation right now (change of plans regarding my Ph.D topic, even field if you like),I was strongly encouraged by my supervisors to publish a journal paper in my previous field (which I did eventually). I can understand your fear of having an impression of jack of all trades-master of none, but if you've managed to publish good papers in both fields, it actually shows you've mastered (or in the process of mastering) both, which in turn means you can conduct your research in an independent manner and contribute to existing knowledge. I reckon academics as well as industrial parties would acknowledge this fact if you include that in your CV.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The only real danger you will have with prospective employers (presuming that you look for a postdoc before your faculty search) is that a potential advisor might be concerned that if you aren't engrossed in their research, you will seek out opportunities in other areas. If it's their money that's supporting your time, then you'd be expected to devote your effort to the line of research you've been hired to do, not what you'd like to do.
This is something that you'd have to explain in your cover letter in any case. But you'll need to explain—as you have—that your lateral move was encouraged and done with the support of your current advisor. Otherwise, it could be a concern.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I would disagree with one premise that underlies your question and state flatly and unequivocally that it doesn't matter one bit what *most employers* may think. Whether you choose to go deep in one research area or publish widely is something you can resolve by looking at what you want to do in life and weighing your current opportunities to make the most of them.
* Why would you care about any employer that is so confused about your studies that they don't take the time to understand deeply your unique talents as someone who delayed entering the workforce to complete a PhD?
Now, you might have some soul searching to do to figure out why you are choosing to frame this current research time allocation dilemma in terms of nebulous "future employer" impressions, but try to look closer to now as opposed to what you think might look superficially good to others but ultimately not reinforce who you wish to become. If you have identified a small set of high likelihood employers and they generally prefer breadth or depth, then now you have an interesting question if you want to maximize your chances with this narrow set of employers.
In the end, only you can decide if ruling out some employers due to their views is a feature or a bug in your plans for your degree.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/12/24 | 2,570 | 10,838 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm part of a trade group that's looking to hire a professor to write a whitepaper on our industry. We plan to release and promote the study to help people understand our business. What's the best way to do that? Find a professor in our niche and reach out to them directly? Or do you go through the department chair or some other means? Are professors generally receptive to this sort of for-profit work? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: There are several issues at work here.
The biggest issue here is credibility. The fact that you want to hire someone to write a study of the industry creates a conflict of interest: since you are paying the bills for such a paper, then presumably there won't be anything significant which could be construed as either negative or critical of your industry.
Compounding the matter is that you then want to publicize the study you have paid for, which makes the credibility issue that much more serious for the faculty member in question.
Any professor whose opinion on this might actually mean something would likely not want to touch such a project with a ten-foot pole, because this doesn't pass the "smell test."
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, some professors are available for consultancy work. Find one or two in your specialty, and approach them: some universities have directories of experts listed by subject, to help you identify suitable researchers. You'll find they're typically lower-priced than the equivalent grade of management consultant, as well as doing better work.
However.
Though you're paying the piper, you won't be calling the tune (with the exception of a handful of rogues).
Which means that they'll publish what they find. It is highly likely that there will be some of it you don't like, which will mean you won't want to publicise the final report. They will write one or more papers based on what they've found, and if the university's legal team has done its job properly, you'll have no say in the content of those papers, nor how the university promotes them, so it will be out of your control.
If you want to learn something about your industry from an academic angle, you will get your money's worth, subject to real data being available. Academics are sometimes able to get access to information that others could not, precisely because of the pressures on them to remain independent and treat data impartially. However, the fact that you're funding them may impair their access.
Do bear in mind that an academic will typically put a lot of work into describing the uncertainties: so on first skim, the impression you'll get from the report is that it mostly says "we don't know this, and we can't know that; there are indications of those. More research is required". The report may take some digesting, as a lot of academics are very experienced at writing, but surprisingly few write lucidly and accessibly.
If you're looking for promotional material, this really is the wrong tack.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Instead of hiring a person for a single white-paper, you could submit a call for project proposals, if your funding permits. Here is an example of [Facebook doing this](https://research.fb.com/programs/research-awards/).
If you want to make a general project proposal call or one that is topic-specific, then the key way to "get it out there" would be via mailing-lists. You can also directly contact research facilitators, whose job it is to help staff write, submit, and manage research proposals. There are research facilitators at many universities, institutes, and departments.
The advantage is that projects may be proposed on topics you didn't think were important to your industry and you'd get more research.
Others have highlighted the conflict-of-interest angle in asking for a whitepaper. That conflict-of-interest can also exist with corporate or industry-funded projects. But in both cases that isn't necessarily the case. The project I am currently on is funded by a company, but we have academic independence.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Bear with me for a minute, there is a logic to the exposition I am about to make.
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> I'm part of a trade group that's looking to hire a professor to write a whitepaper on our industry.
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In my experience of this, it would imply heavy competition within your industry, but with no value in branding. For example, there is a great value to promoting the beef industry, but no value in promoting the beef of the Bar-X Ranch, except maybe locally as a source of fresh, locally grown beef.
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> We plan to release and promote the study to help people understand our business.
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My experience of this is that the industry, maybe for the first time, is having public relations problems and people are so disconnected from the industry that the perceptions of the industry may not align with the facts. Hence, hiring a professor may allow some credibility to the idea that people are misunderstanding the reality that is being lived.
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> What's the best way to do that?
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Having a professor explain it through a whitepaper that is picked up by the press implies the professor would be asked to be interviewed on television. There are two problems with this tactic. The first is that the tobacco industry tried this and America has been a bit jaded ever since. If the professor had spontaneously produced research, not funded by the industry, and if it were newsworthy, you would have free PR. Professors are valued as experts because they do not get paid to produce research or disclose the conflicts of interest in their writing so that the reader can discount it.
It is possible, however, that someone is already producing your PR work right now and you just do not know about it.
If your industry is large enough, there is almost certainly at least one university that teaches it as a class. I teach industry specific courses from time to time. Others do too. In fact, just about everyone does.
You need to search for someone who already teaches what you need explained. They fit the criteria of "doing it for free." They may not be saying what you want said, but they are talking about you. You can search for courses at universities by restricting your searches to .edu and making sure you include the word "syllabus." Then you can see what is being taught and what books and articles they are using.
From that list, and it is probably a small list, you can look to see what they are talking about. Then, instead of funding a whitepaper, fund an online class and get it put on YouTube. You could then ask the instructor you chose to be sure to cover some topics because you feel that all sides are not being explained. If they are a legitimate academic, they will bring out all sides.
A sequence of videos is also nice because they will come up in searches by those who are actually interested. Videos are nice because you can ignore the parts of the topic you don't want to know about, whereas you have to read the entire white paper.
Once you have narrowed down the list of professors who cover your field explicitly, you could then reach out to them. For some professors, they are so underwater that you could offer any amount of money and they couldn't take it. For others, the opportunity to fund something they are going to do without you will give them a boost in income, maybe give the institution some extra exposure, and create the opportunity for future work.
If you are in a very narrow field, such a the makers of cheddar cheese, the people teaching it who are any good would be teaching it as part of a larger class on either dairy production or agricultural products, or they are not so good and will just teach you how to make cheese as in an extension class. This isn't to say they are bad at their job, but they do not need to understand the industry to teach a hobbyist how to make cheddar.
If you are in a narrow field, then look at who is publishing research on your field in the academic papers. Any academic librarian could help you figure out what papers are out there and who is producing them. It will take a lot of papers to start figuring out who the luminary or luminaries in the field are, but I can almost guarantee you that they exist.
A whitepaper is probably the wrong way to go. Also, if your industry has opponents then the opponent can now see a lecture on the topic and have someone to contact to see why they are teaching such wrongheaded ideas, even if those wrongheaded ideas are factually true.
People can see through whitepapers done as cheerleading for an industry, but if it is a legitimate lecture on the topic, then it should work. The bigger issue on your side is making sure everyone has "clean hands," or it will not work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: There are caveats.
1. Check the level of [industrial readiness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level). Academia is often working on level which does not pay off yet or at all, and it's legitimate for them, while you are working on a level which has to pay off. You have to find the Golden middle.
2. Depending on his/her contract, a professor might not be allowed to do some extra job legally above his/her 40 hours per week or so. You should find one that offers consultancy as a business outside of his/her regular hours.
3. When professors are not working for their institutions but for you, they are not acting as professors in their duty. Therefore, in the strict sense of the word, they should not sign the paper as "<NAME>" or put the institution's name there; the best they can do is to sign off as "Dr. Smith", "Mr./Ms. Smith", "Jack/<NAME>" in the paper's title page without the institution's name. The paper might not get the weight you wanted.
If you are o.k. with that, find the person and hire him/her. As others said, some professors even offer consultancy services in their free time.
If not, you should establish an academic-industrial cooperation which would allow the professor to do his/her proper academic job that would also correspond with your interests. The *terms* of such a collaboration are highly country-dependent; you should really check the country's specifics.
Now how to find such a chap? As a start, go through the websites of several nearby institutions and write a few e-mails asking directly what you want. Then take it from there.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: Ask the professor to collect together the most respected opinions on the question and summarize their results for you. Don't tell them anything that would make it seem that you want one particular answer.
Problem solved. (Unless someone just can't take a solution as an answer.)
Upvotes: -1 |
2013/12/24 | 1,983 | 8,632 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a math PhD student and on the postdoc job market for the first time. I would like to know how job offer (hopefully) comes and what I should keep in mind in accepting the offers. I am interested in the US job market.
The first question is: When do most job offers go around? I am aware of the [earliest deadline](http://www.ams.org/profession/employment-services/deadline-coordination/deadline-coordination) (most math department agreed with this).
So I think the early offers go around in January and only the best people get an offer in January. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me about your experience.
Is it appropriate to ask about my application after a certain time? I think once one accepts an offer, one cannot decline the offer. So I may want to send inquiry to the school I want to work for before accepting the offer from some other schools.
I also heard of short lists (for assistant professorship). Could anyone explain how short lists work (I have only vague idea of what they are)? And are there short lists for postdoc positions?<issue_comment>username_1: I can at least comment on the "short list" phenomenon—the other areas are outside of my purview.
A "short list" is the list of finalists for a position. These are the candidates who are invited to the campus for a formal interview. However, it can also refer to the final ranked list of candidates to determine in what order they will be invited to accept the position being offered.
In general, short lists are restricted to faculty positions and "competitive" postdoctoral fellowships (such as the named fellowships at the US Department of Energy national laboratories, and at most mathematics departments as well) that are done at a departmental level. For a traditional postdoctoral vacancy, no such list is likely to exist, because hiring is done by the professor whose grant is supporting the position.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Here are my two cents (I am faculty in a math department, and I've served on postdoc recruiting committees):
Most math postdocs are department-wide competitive positions (e.g. "RAP"). More rarely they are attached to specific profs on specific grants. This answer addresses the former case:
Offers do go out as early as late January but the process extends well into February and even March. I've heard of people getting offers even later, once the landscape has "settled" more.
A short list is an internal list of top candidates, so that if one rejects a postdoc offer, it's easier to decide whom to give an offer to next (by only considering people from the short list). Offers are not always given in order starting from the "best" candidate -- as you can imagine there is some game theory involved on both sides.
It's definitely appropriate to contact places upon getting an offer. You can write: "Dear [X], I got an offer from [Y] but would prefer to go to [X] instead. I have a deadline of ...". Lots of things often get decided under such circumstances. And you can send such an email to multiple places. I wouldn't do it to toy around, but only write to places you genuinely prefer over [Y].
Until you accept an offer, you can feel free to try to drag out the deadline, contact other places you prefer more, etc. Universities try to get the best postdocs they can, and students try to get the best positions they can. Everyone understands this is how it works. But once you accept an offer, you can't really change your mind.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Here's a little more detail about timing of math postdocs offers, since that seems to be a particular focus of this question. What I'll describe applies only to research-oriented postdoctoral positions offered by mathematics departments in the U.S. Tenure-track jobs and anything teaching-focused are on a somewhat different schedule, and positions outside the U.S. may be totally different.
Everything is synchronized by the [AMS common deadline](http://www.ams.org/profession/employment-services/deadline-coordination/deadline-coordination), because most or all of the top candidates (depending on how strict your definition of "top" is) will have accepted offers by then. In particular, just about every position will have been offered to someone by then, but many of those offers will be turned down. Most departments will not set an earlier deadline than the AMS deadline, but they nevertheless encourage earlier decisions if possible. When a position is turned down, a competent department will try to make another offer as quickly as they can. Who gets the next offer depends not just on relative rankings of candidates, but also on factors such as research specialty and game-theoretic issues such as perceived likelihood of accepting the offer. Administrative dysfunction may limit how quickly offers can be made, but it's not uncommon for a department to go through several rounds of offers in January.
In practice, it seems to work out more or less as follows:
A few people get offers in December, but this is rather unusual. You shouldn't worry at all if you have no offers as of January 1.
The people perceived as top candidates generally start to get offers in early January. If you make it a couple of weeks into January with no offers, then you probably aren't going to end up getting tons of offers, but you shouldn't feel discouraged. All you need is one offer you're happy with.
As January progresses, more and more offers are made. Quite a few candidates, but certainly not all, will get an offer in the second half of January.
If you do get an offer, you should immediately do two things. First, you should withdraw any applications to (or turn down offers from) places you are no longer interested in, so they don't waste time and so you don't tie up offers someone else is waiting for. It's reasonable to hold onto several offers at once if you genuinely can't decide between them, but you do this only when truly necessary. Second, you should write to any departments you would prefer to your current offers to let them know about your upcoming deadline. The competition may increase their interest in you, and in any case they need to know they'll miss their chance at you if they don't move fast enough.
If you haven't yet received an offer, the second half of January is a good time to make inquiries. You can do this yourself, but it's sometimes better if your advisor looks into it. (All you can do is express interest, but your advisor can put in a good word for you and try to find out how things are going through back channels.)
As the AMS deadline approaches, there's a flurry of activity. Many offers are turned down or accepted around then, and departments are eager to get their favorite candidates before they accept another job, so there's a lot of turn-over for offers.
If you make it past the first week in February without an offer, it's a bad sign. It's certainly not a disaster, and plenty of strong mathematicians have gotten offers later than that. However, this is the point at which you need to start taking action, with your advisor's help. You need to figure out which positions are still open, and make sure they are aware that you are still interested. It's really useful if your advisor can work his/her contacts to help figure out what might still be a possibility and to make sure you don't fall through the cracks.
The more times passes, the more you need to actively search for a job, rather than just waiting to see what happens. If you hit March, then you're in trouble. You can still find a job then, but you need to be open to possibilities you weren't originally hoping for. For example, there are often late job postings for unpredictable openings, such as a temporary replacement for someone on sabbatical or leave. In March, you should be applying for every new opening you would be willing to take (and you should have a backup plan for what happens if you don't get a job at all, to help you decide where to draw the line). This is also a good time to review options with your advisor. Could you delay graduation for a year, or spend the next year as a lecturer?
I don't mean for this to sound discouraging. It's certainly possible to get a job quite late in the season, and you might even get lucky and find a really good job. However, I think it's worth having an overview of what the plausible outcomes are at each stage.
TL;DR: If you are hoping for a research-oriented postdoc in math, don't worry until late January, worry somewhat in February, and worry a lot in March (but don't panic).
Upvotes: 5 |
2013/12/25 | 1,457 | 6,334 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a first year undergraduate student pursuing a B.S. in Chemistry (I'm very much interested in Biology too), and I am new to this world of Academia. It would be very helpful if someone could answer my questions.
What exactly does one do in a PhD? I know that in the first year, you take a lot of advanced courses on your specific field of study, and then you decide on a topic and start researching. But when do you stop? I see that there is no definite time limit for completing a PhD. It can be anywhere from two years to... is there an upper limit? Do you complete a PhD when you have discovered something new and published a paper on it?
I realise a lot of what I'm saying might be my own ideas of what happens. Please feel free to correct me.<issue_comment>username_1: To answer some of your questions, a lot of this will vary from university to university, and vary by location.
One major aspect is to determine your research focus as early as possible and plan long and medium term objectives, and how these objectives are to be met at the beginning, in consultation with your advisors (that is the advice I was given).
**Duration**
There is usually an upper limit of how long a student can take to complete the dissertation, and it is generally expected that the research, experiments, dissertation write up is performed within the time frame dictated by the university. Note, the length of time taken to complete the PhD is not necessarily a measure of how credible it is. (I completed my PhD in Physics in 2.5 years).
Papers are often published in consultation between you and your advisor(s). But, during my PhD I was advised that it is a good idea to get some publications completed while you are studying (I completed 4 while completing the research).
**Courses**
This varies between universities and places, for example, I was not required to take any courses whatsoever - just pure research. That is something you will need to check with any university you apply to.
I did my PhD while working full time in an unrelated field, so I arranged regular (fortnightly) Skype meetings with my advisors, where short term goals were set and the medium and long term goals checked up on.
As you are doing sciences by the looks of it, it will involve a considerable amount of experimentation (potentially) - some of it can be tedious, make sure you plan and get into that as soon as possible, while ensuring you get the most accurate possible data in a safe and efficient manner.
**Completion**
You complete your research when you have met your objectives and have, through research and experimentation, 'answered' your research focus.
What happens then varies between universities, some you will be expected to defend your thesis, and some, as in my case, your thesis is peer-reviewed. Once all that is done and your advisors and the university are satisfied, you will be told that you have passed (in my case, I received a letter stating as such).
But, the research never really ends, once you have that passion for that topic - you may find that the research continues, but now to be published as papers (this also has been my experience). Find a topic that ignites the fire in you and you'll find that the PhD is just the start of the journey.
Finally and critically, make sure what you are doing is something that you find fascinating, something that you won't mind putting in many hours of research and work into. Choose something that is either your passion or something related to it. Get ready to challenge yourself on a regular basis.
I hope this helps.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: First, it may be important to remember the purpose of graduate school and a research education. When you receive a PhD, it signifies that you have reached the pinnacle of the education system (some compare this to a pyramid where the Phd education is at the top; there is no higher way of organized education). You have reached a level where you should be able to learn on your own without supervision or advise. More specifically, you should also have reached a level of critical and creative thinking where you can successfully function as a researcher, coming up with new ideas, applying and receiving research grants, be considered an expert in your field, able to teach and advise PhD students. These are all overarching goals with a PhD education. As you can see it is partly a deep understanding of your field but also deep understanding of general academic skills.
Phd programs are different in terms of length and content. Some will have up to two years of courses (such as math programs in my country) and some may not have any course requirements (sometimes defined by an individual study plan defined by the student and his/her advisor). The course work is there to provide necessary background for the project done within a PhD. In most cases, I would argue that the exact courses taken during a PhD are of little formal value, the PhD thesis is what counts in the end. In general, the course work should provide you with whatever basic skills you need. My own experience in graduate school was, however, that I found that I did not need all the courses I planned for when I started. I simply felt that courses became inefficient ways of learning, that I could do it on my own faster. This, for me was a revelation, but, I believe, a natural development. So the amount of course work is individual and depends on the field/topic you are studying.
The length of a PhD project will vary from, for example, 3 year as is the case in the UK to maybe 6-7 years in other academic cultures. Around four years seems to be a fairly normal period. What is achieved within this period is defined by the results but not in terms of excellence of the results. There is of course nothing wrong if you come up with ground-breaking results, but that is not something that can be ordered. Instead the importance lies in the skills you display in terms of the scientific investigations (techniques, analysis) through the conclusions you draw from your work and to how well you write up your findings in a thesis (be it a monograph or a collection of papers). Your advisor should be there to coach you to take the necessary steps towards reaching these goals.
Upvotes: 3 |
2013/12/25 | 1,860 | 8,162 | <issue_start>username_0: I am at the beginning of my PhD studies. Although that is a bit too early to plan one's carrier after thesis defence, one should still have some long-term goals in mind. Hence the question - what can one do during one's PhD (mainly as far as long-term activities are concerned) to maximise the chances of getting accepted for such a position?
Few things that come to mind:
* High quality research published in high reputation journals (obviously).
* Creating a contact network at conferences, research visits and through scientific collaborations. One might get to know one's potential postdoc supervisor or recommendation letters from established researchers.
* Online visibility through blogging, social networking etc.
* Good teaching experience. PhD students often have to teach but some might try to get on with the necessary minimum. Having a good record (e.g., from student evaluations) can be advantageous.
* Experience with grant administration - helping one's supervisor with grant proposals, reports for grant committees etc.
* Maybe some experience with paper reviews (towards the end of the PhD). Or is it still early for that?
Are there any other things I missed? I am looking specifically for the situation in theoretical physics and PhD without coursework but experiences of others might be relevant and interesting as well.<issue_comment>username_1: I am also in your current situation and look for the same. Here is something I have learnt so far which are important to get postdoc job in good quality institutes. Here is the list without order:
* Publish in under-spot conferences and seminars
* Reference letter from pioneers of the domain (if you can liaise)
* International collaboration, research, and publication
* Face-to-face visit. If possible try to make an appointment with potential postdoc supervisors and visit them in person. It helps both of you to better evaluate and decide.
* Search among friends of your friends for an open position. I use Microsoft Academic portal "<http://academic.research.microsoft.com/>" to search co-authors of my supervisor or academician friends of mine to see if there is any potential postdoc supervisor in their network. So you can give a try and if found, ask your supervisor or your academician friends to play a role and introduce you to potential boss. I think it should work well.
* Upload your papers everywhere you can (take care of copyright issues) and try to increase their visibility and citation; the higher citation, the better chance.
* Make your professional account in Google Scholar and keep that up to date.
* Enroll in academic organizations like IEEE and get membership. It gives lots of benefits and is like a mark of attachment and care to the society.
* Collaboration invitation. Try to prepare a paper and get in touch with potential postdoc supervisors to invite them collaborate. This can be a venue to exchange couple of emails and get to know each other more. You can later use this opportunity to request for position.
* Try to get chance to visit potential labs as visiting scholar. some institutes welcome visiting PhD students under different schemas like student exchange or international collaboration.- Volunteer job in varied community; not necessarily academic environment. Try to show your passion to work independently in every workplace regardless of the details.
* Online Connectivity. Active participation in online networks like Linkedin, Researchgate, stackexchange(here), and so on.
* Patent is also important since institutes are increasing concern about patents and desire their postdocs to produce patent beside publication. It also enhance your industrial career too.
* Keep sending application for advertised positions and don't get disappointed.
* Keep sending email and follow up to potential postdoc supervisors with potential postdoc projects (it depends on your field) even if they have no current position. Your messages may impress them and motivate them to hire you to work on a project you define. If yes they can apply for funds (I know one of my friends in CS got offer in this way).
I hope these points help you better hunt a good postdoc in good research group.
**EDIT:** Patent is modified to address some concerns on wording.
**EDIT2:** Some change in the order to better highlight their importance.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: My feeling, in the limited context of mathematics in France, is that the research record is by far the most important thing. Of course, one should do its teaching duty carefully (**edit** because it is one's duty, but also because being known as a very sloppy teacher *can* close some doors), but all other aspects are tertiary.
**[Paragraph edited upon further reflexion]** I would only mitigate this in favor of the *visibility* issue: good research needs to be shown in order to give you benefit, so you should have an up-to-date web page, post your preprints on the arXiv, give talks whenever given the opportunity, and in some circumstances propose one. Also some networking may be needed, in particular if you advisor does not network for you. This means for example seizing the opportunities to collaborate with more advanced researchers, send by e-mail your best work to a few people who you think might be interested, etc. Don't overdo it though.
I would definitely advise against spending time on administrative things as grant funding and the like. Participate in a collective grant if offered, but that's not a PhD job to do the paperwork.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In addition to the points already made, something that hasn't been explicitly mentioned yet is to *let your colleagues know that you are looking for a job*. Everyone in your immediate lab group and advisory committee should know your name, what your specific research interests are, and that you're looking for a job. Most immediate department members should be aware of your general research area and that you're looking for a job. When you network, you should specifically mention that you are looking for a job and to "keep an eye out for any positions". Your personal web space should state that you are looking for an academic job and to contact you.
This might be rather obvious in the context of the question but I thought it was worth repeating since this is a very concrete and specific thing you can do to improve your visibility. Many people say "network" or "visit departments" or "publish papers" and these are essential to getting a job in the long term, but if you don't mention to all of these people that you're looking then they're not going to keep you in mind when they do see a position.
Summary: if you network, tell people "I am looking for a job" and then ask them to "send along opportunities that may be interesting".
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: My own thoughts after finishing a math ph.d. this year and being on the market.
0 -- stay in the program!
1 -- publish. Do not only publish with your advisor. Work with other people in the department who may have overlapping interests. Try to stay as broad as possible.
2 -- outreach. There will be a wide-variety of opportunities to help out in local high school events. Take charge and be a leader, i.e. leading a session for 7th graders on the joys of Pascal's Triangle and how cool it is (for example).
3 -- conferences. Go to conferences. Talk at them. Do poster sessions. You'll meet many potential collaborators this way.
4 -- network. See above.
5 -- professional organizations. join these!
6 -- apply fro the nsfgrfp, or any other graduate fellowships.
7 -- help in undergraduate research (hard to do but possible for very approachable types of problems)
8 -- be congenial and get to know people in your field and outside of it. try to think of potential ways that there are overlaps between disciplines.
9 -- read lots of papers for your background.
10 -- in your case, as a theoretical physicist, learn the maths that are associated to your area, i.e. algebraic geometry and probably gauge theory.
11 -- and finally . . . don't panic!
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/26 | 759 | 3,215 | <issue_start>username_0: I would like to be able to sell my text book to my students in e-book format. I know there is the kindle store that takes 65% of the sales price, which is in my eyes too much. Are there any e-book stores for teachers and professors that provide their service for a fair price?<issue_comment>username_1: The rate charged by the vendor depends on the price: the 65% rate usually applies to books costing more than $15 or so. Below the threshold amazon charges 30%. Apple's iBooks charge 30% for all prices, and so provides a cheaper option with a similar service, as long as everyone uses the apple's proprietary hardware.
Personally I would reconsider your pricing to a more reasonable level. As self publisher you get a much larger slice of the profits, and in my opinion academic textbooks are priced excessively. If you cannot give the book away as others have suggested, then the other factor is that a low price would encourage more students to buy outright rather than share, and you also remove the second hand market, thus having many more actual sales. With this model students pay less to learn and you probably earn more money, and in a sense everybody wins.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Fairness is a difficult question to answer. You need to ask fair to who: the publisher, the author, or the students. Publishers provide a number of services (e.g., editing, typesetting, printing, and marketing). It is fair for them to get paid for their efforts. Obviously it is fair for authors to get paid for writing. It is also fair to expect students to pay for high quality learning materials.
The question then becomes what is a fair price to charge students and how much of that should go to the publisher. The fees charged by many publishers depend on the number of copies sold since they have some fixed costs that they need to recoup and some costs that scale with the number of copies sold. If you think the service being offered by the publisher is unfair, you can always self-publish and do the editing and marketing yourself.
As for the selling price, this really depends on the quality of the book relative to other similar books. That said, in my opinion selling your book to students in your class is unethical since the students are already paying for the teaching material indirectly through tuition and fees. I don't think of it as being different from selling lecture slides, notes, and exam keys and in the limit if you just want to make money from your students you could just sell grades.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I recommend **Amazon** for you. I **wrote 4 books** which are on Amazon and also have e-book versions of them. On Amazon, you can choose the price/royalties for each book as well.
You can use **Calibre** to make your PDF, ePub files. Then you can just upload all in a very quick way.
Hope it helps
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: How about avoiding technology and web-stores - you probably have a very local bookstore selling textbooks, maybe even an in-house store of your university. Go to them and ask them to sell your book; they know how to do that, students are used to them, and they don't charge 65%.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/26 | 1,493 | 6,056 | <issue_start>username_0: I am planning to apply for postdoc positions in computer science (CS) departments, preferably in the US or Europe. I have searched several computer science departments/research groups at different universities to see the current projects and Postdoc researchers. I saw that most current postdocs are men. So, the following questions came into my mind:
1. Is it because either women did not apply for the position, or were the women's applications unsatisfactory to get the position?
2. Is it true that women do not have much interest and hence success in CS than men? or lets say are men *in general* better in CS than women?
3. Although it is unethical, is it true to assume that the CS members have tendency to hire men more than women in reality?
4. If answer to Q3 is "yes," what would be the most effective motivations to encourage
the hiring of women postdocs in CS?
5. For women who have recently finished their PhD's, is it better to apply for academic research fellows or industry research positions?<issue_comment>username_1: I can only answer for Europe, but I assume JeffE is going to provide high-quality info for the US anyway.
>
> I saw the most of current postdocs are men.
>
>
>
With some exceptions, this is unfortunately very true across Europe. And not only post-docs. It gets worse the higher "up" you go in hierarchy.
>
> 1- Is it because either the women did not apply for postdoc or women's applications couldn't make the CS community or individual faculty members satisfied?
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>
>
In Vienna, where I did my PhD, we simply received basically no female applications. It was not a question of my professor not being satisfied with the female candidates - in the majority of cases, there simply were none.
>
> 2- Is it true that women do not have much interest and hence success in CS than men? or lets say are men -in general- better in CS than women?
>
>
>
I am sure that women are able to do CS just fine. We just "lose" them some time during school. How this happens is a question of reasonably heated debate (gender studies etc.), and I do not feel qualified to answer it competently.
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> 3- Although it is not ethically feasible, is it true to assume that the CS members have tendency to hire men more than women in reality?
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>
>
This will surely be true for some individuals, but by and large the official university policy in most places is that "equally qualified" female candidates should be hired over male ones, and this actually seems to be the case. In general, as most universities are pretty desperate to increase their quota of females in higher positions, being a top female researcher will actually make it easier for you to get a strong postdoc or junior faculty position in Europe. **Edit:** I should make clear that the last sentence is based on personal opinion and anecdotal evidence more than anything else.
>
> 5- For the women who newly finished PhD, is better to apply for academic research fellows or industry research positions?
>
>
>
Follow your heart. I don't feel gender should play into this decision. Anyway, in Europe there are preciously little *industry research positions*, so for the most part it's either academic research or industrial practice over here.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Is it due to lack of applications or lack of qualifications?
>
>
>
I am sure it is mostly due to the lack of applications due to the extremely small number of women studying computer science. Listen to [episode 54 of the stack overflow podcast](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/11/podcast-54-the-one-with-all-the-anachronisms/) where they discuss how few applications they receive from women. If you consider women are a very small minority of people who have CS bachelors degrees (qualified for SO position) then we can assume that only a tiny percentage of those will continue studying for a PhD.
>
> Is it true that women aren't as interested in CS? Or are they not as good at it?
>
>
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It is obvious it is the former, women are not as drawn to the profession. Although they are as good as men at CS, if not better. There are societal pressures and influences that may subconsciously guide women to work in a profession that is considered more feminine (humanities, nursing and teaching for example). In this way women are more attracted to other areas because of social influence and simultaneously pushed away from CS. I feel that most of the time these are not conscious decisions. However it may be a conscious decision but women don't like explicitly stating social pressure as the reason for their career choice.
There is also the case where women would like to work in the profession but are repelled by the idea of working alongside mostly men as they feel they won't fit in with the group. They may also feel that they would be discriminated against in the hiring process and career progression. There are many reasons why women are not as interested in CS but not being as good as men is not one of those reasons.
>
> Do some members of the CS community favour men over women?
>
>
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Some, but only a small minority of people favour men over women. In fact many organisations encourage the hiring of women.
>
> Should a woman apply for an academic institution or for an industry position?
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This is up to the specific person and you cannot simply generalise by gender in this situation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Something to consider is the atmosphere at a particular institution. Where I attend, about 20% of our CS staff are female. That is, unfortunately, quite high for a CS department. But the problem is not unique to Computer Science. This disproportion exists across many of the sciences. Try to find an institute where the number of women---both faculty and students---is high. That department will be one that is already proactively hiring females. If the tables were turned, I would be more comfortable in that setting, anyway, but that may be my personality.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/12/26 | 571 | 2,475 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm wondering whether dismissal / withdrawal from a PhD program should be listed as disciplinary action on subsequent applications. A Master's program application usually asks questions like:
>
> Have you ever been found responsible for a disciplinary violation at any post-secondary institution you have attended, whether related to academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct, that resulted in a disciplinary action?
>
>
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I was academically dismissed from a PhD program after four semesters for not being able to maintain the minimum GPA. I plan to fully include this information in my application (e.g. through transcripts from the institution from which I was dismissed), and address why I was dismissed (and what steps I have taken to address academic concerns) in my Statement of Purpose.
**Q**: However, I am not sure if my dismissal counts as one that is due to "disciplinary violation" related to "academic misconduct or behavioral misconduct". I was simply dismissed due to not being able to maintain the required grades. Should I answer the above question in the negative?<issue_comment>username_1: I believe that failing to meet the grade standards do not constitute an academic misconduct or a behavioral misconduct. In my opinion, those refer to cheating, sabotaging others' research projects etc. So I would answer that in the negative. Actually, I would want to be more sure than a random StackExchange answer in answering that question, so I would contact the department to ask, or ask one of my professors from undergrad/grad school.
By the way, as a word of advice, many schools have a separate section ("other circumstances" etc) for explaining that awful thing on your application. If I were you, I would save my SOP for actually talking about the research that I am interested in, and not make that a place where I make excuses. You have to give them a reason to be excited about you. By explaining your circumstances in the SOP, you lose your best shot, and they would at most feel mediocre about you.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: "Academic misconduct" is not the same as "Lack of academic performance." "Academic misconduct" is things like claiming undue credit, fabrication of research or sources, outright plagiarism, etc. Simply not making the grades might reflect on your academic aptitude, but (unlike academic misconduct) does not necessarily reflect upon your character.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/26 | 1,053 | 4,548 | <issue_start>username_0: I would like to pursue a PhD in CS (in Europe). I have ended my master's degree like two years ago (also in Europe) and I have 4 publications in the area. Actually I am working in the industry so I have left the academic world. The question that I have is how to address a potential supervisor (which in most cases I have not known in person):
* Should I sent him/her my CV straightforward and ask for possible open research topics in which he/she needs PhD students?
* Should I ask him/her some assignment or task to prove that I have the enough background to fit into his research group?
I am actually very worried about how to manage this situation, it is not so easy in this time to get PhD positions in some countries.
Any advice?<issue_comment>username_1: While answer to your question needs more detail, but in general the answer looks like this:
Starting PhD is different at different universities. At many universities, faculty members receive applications from the PhD applicants and evaluate individually. However, at other universities mostly in the US, the application is evaluated by a committee.
In the first case, certainly, the best way to start is to initiate a communication with potential PhD supervisors by sending an email -as you said- along with your CV, academic history, SoP, and research proposal (proposal is not needed in US, but should not be a problem if you send). However, I think it may not really work if you ask them for assignment (maybe it works in some universities that I don't know).
One thing I noticed when I was searching for my PhD is that many supervisors write some notes on their pages and provide instructions for potential students to follow. If you simply don't follow them you won't be able to get position from them. Try to read their pages as carefully as you can.
I admit that there is tension in getting a PhD position. But it is all right and should be okay. Some guidelines may help you figure it our.
In general, to successfully secure a PhD position, you need certain qualifications and certificates listed as following:
* Bachelor degree in relevant course with high GPA/CGPA (this is must)
* Master degree in relevant course with high GPA/CPGA (This is not really a MUST-have requirement, since many universities offer PhD without having Master).
* English Proficiency certificate (for English speaking countries) if you English is not your native language.
* 2/3 reference letters in your favor (no wonder).
* GRE for US-based universities.
* Money to pay tuition fee (supervisors consider this as well. If you need financial assistance you should be really good compare to others).
That's all REQUIREMENTS. But, they are not sufficient to convince a potential academician to offer you a position, especially paid positions which are very competitive. If you want to enhance your chance, I think in CS you need the following qualifications:
* Good quality publication(s) in good publishing venues (top ranked conference and journals)
* Research experience (It may be true that Master by research graduates have better chance here).
* Working experience in relevant areas
* Teaching experience
* Professional certificates from well-known organizations like Microsoft, and Oracle.
* Volunteer jobs in the society (I heard a lot about it)
* Academic or professional Awards like best student, best thesis, and best paper award.
* GRE and SAT certificates
* Intellectual properties (patents)
But, I think the most important thing is the first impression that you make using your first email, CV, SoP, statement of research and so on. If they look professional and neat, it attracts potential supervisor's attention and will evaluate your application optimistically.
Don't give up. You have to find the RIGHT supervisor, at the RIGHT university, at the RIGHT time, using the RIGHT channel. Keep trying and you will succeed.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Look for a supervisor!
If you already have published papers, you may have an idea of the specific problems you want to work on. So you may know which are the big names out there in the field, and who authored publications that you liked.
Jot down a list of names, read about their work, then ask them for a meeting to present yours and to ask for opportunities. They will be able to indicate the way forward better than anyone else.
Also, you will know if you have found someone you want to work with for the next 3/4 years, or if you would rather continue what you are doing.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/26 | 1,462 | 6,203 | <issue_start>username_0: I have read several articles about literature reviews. At the same time I found some guides about literature *surveys*. I am confused... how is a literature survey different from a literature review? What is the standard procedure to conduct a literature survey without making it a literature review?<issue_comment>username_1: Reviewing the literature relevant to a given field is a standard part of doing research, as this serves to put your work into the context of the larger discipline in which you are working.
If there is an actual difference between the "literature survey" and the "literature review," it's that the latter can serve as a paper in and of itself, and is much more extensive than a literature survey, which is typically a major part of the introduction of a research paper.
The literature review as a standalone article could be compared to a "curated" overview of the literature in the field—who has done what, how do papers relate to one another, and what are the most important present and (possibly) future directions of work in such a field. Such papers can also be considerably longer than a traditional research paper, and some reviews might cite as many as a thousand references!
In comparison, the literature survey of a standard research article is usually much shorter (1-2 journal pages), and will not cite nearly as many papers (anywhere from 10 to 100, depending on the topic and the amount of relevant literature available).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Well, I have written couple of survery/review articles published in prestigious journals [here](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?newsearch=true&queryText=Heterogeneity%20in%20mobile%20cloud%20computing:%20Taxonomy%20and%20open%20challenges&x=12&y=12), [here](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6563280&searchWithin=p_Authors:.QT.Abolfazli,%20S..QT.), and [here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDcQFjAA&url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1084804513001975&ei=ace9UtvtMYONrQe9joCYDQ&usg=AFQjCNF74joocee4060mK_VbwJLBRztjMQ&sig2=7LLVFBEmWVD8ZyNQZRPl8A) and hence I think I can give you some hint on this question.
*First View:* One of the most important things to consider is that, these terms have been used differently in varied academic disciplines and even in some cases they are used interchangeably with negligible differences. Even in CS (my field), the way image processing scholars look at these terms may be different from networking researchers (I once experienced the comments I received from experts in image processing and realize how different they look at the works). So it might not be wrong if consider *insignificant differences* between these two terms.
What I describe here may be more applicable to CS.
There are two different views at these terms that I describe here
Technically a feasible description around these two terms is that in survey works you should review the published papers and analyze, summarize, organize, and present findings in a novel way that can generate an original view to a certain aspect of the domain. For example, if researchers review the available research findings and conclude that electrical cars are emission-free vehicles, another researcher can review the same results and present an argument that building batteries themselves produce huge emission. The second contribution opens door for new research around emission-free production of car batteries.
If we consider that survey paper is the result of literature survey, we can use the following definitions from CS journals.
* According to the definition of survey paper provided by IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials journal (one of the best CS journals), "**The term survey, as applied here, is defined to mean a survey of the literature. A survey article should provide a comprehensive review of developments in a selected area**".
* In ACM Computing Survey (another prestigious CS journal), survey paper is described as “A paper that summarizes and organizes recent research results in a novel way that integrates and adds understanding to work in the field. A survey article emphasizes the classification of the existing literature, developing a perspective on the area, and evaluating trends.”
* In Elsevier journal of Computer Science Review, you will see here[4](http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-science-review/http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-science-review/) that “Critical review of the relevant literature“ is required a component of every typical survey paper.
To summarize, these two terms can be distinguished using following notes (or maybe definitions)
**Literature Survey:** Is the process of analyzing, summarizing, organizing, and presenting novel conclusions from the results of technical review of large number of recently published scholarly articles. The results of the literature survey can contribute to the body of knowledge when peer-reviewed and published as survey articles
**Literature Review:** Is the process of technically and critically reviewing published papers to extract technical and scientific metadata from the presented contents. The metadata are usually used during literature survey to technically compare different but relevant works and draw conclusions on weaknesses and strengths of the works.
*Second View:* The second view over literature survey and review is that in survey, researchers usually utilize the author-provided contents available in the published works to qualitatively analyze and compare them with other related works. While in the former, you should not perform qualitative analysis. Rather it should be quantitative meaning that every research work under study should be implemented and benchmarked under certain criteria. The results of this benchmarking study can be used to compare them together and criticize or appreciate the works.
So basically you can look at current literature and find which approach is dominating in your field. Hope it helps. I try to revise it if I came a cross other points or useful comments here.
Upvotes: 5 |
2013/12/26 | 1,592 | 6,454 | <issue_start>username_0: I think the title is quite clear.
If the author of an article is unknwon, should one refer to the title of the article, or to the magazine itself? The same goes for electronic sources.
Let's say this is my source.
>
> “An Interview with <NAME>.” *Channel View Publications Blog*.
> Channel View Publications. n.d. Web. 5 dec. 2013.
>
>
>
Would I refer (inline) like so:
>
> Bassnet states that ... ("An Interview with <NAME>").
>
>
>
or like so
>
> Bassnett states that ... (*Channel View Publications Blog*).
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: Reviewing the literature relevant to a given field is a standard part of doing research, as this serves to put your work into the context of the larger discipline in which you are working.
If there is an actual difference between the "literature survey" and the "literature review," it's that the latter can serve as a paper in and of itself, and is much more extensive than a literature survey, which is typically a major part of the introduction of a research paper.
The literature review as a standalone article could be compared to a "curated" overview of the literature in the field—who has done what, how do papers relate to one another, and what are the most important present and (possibly) future directions of work in such a field. Such papers can also be considerably longer than a traditional research paper, and some reviews might cite as many as a thousand references!
In comparison, the literature survey of a standard research article is usually much shorter (1-2 journal pages), and will not cite nearly as many papers (anywhere from 10 to 100, depending on the topic and the amount of relevant literature available).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Well, I have written couple of survery/review articles published in prestigious journals [here](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?newsearch=true&queryText=Heterogeneity%20in%20mobile%20cloud%20computing:%20Taxonomy%20and%20open%20challenges&x=12&y=12), [here](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6563280&searchWithin=p_Authors:.QT.Abolfazli,%20S..QT.), and [here](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDcQFjAA&url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1084804513001975&ei=ace9UtvtMYONrQe9joCYDQ&usg=AFQjCNF74joocee4060mK_VbwJLBRztjMQ&sig2=7LLVFBEmWVD8ZyNQZRPl8A) and hence I think I can give you some hint on this question.
*First View:* One of the most important things to consider is that, these terms have been used differently in varied academic disciplines and even in some cases they are used interchangeably with negligible differences. Even in CS (my field), the way image processing scholars look at these terms may be different from networking researchers (I once experienced the comments I received from experts in image processing and realize how different they look at the works). So it might not be wrong if consider *insignificant differences* between these two terms.
What I describe here may be more applicable to CS.
There are two different views at these terms that I describe here
Technically a feasible description around these two terms is that in survey works you should review the published papers and analyze, summarize, organize, and present findings in a novel way that can generate an original view to a certain aspect of the domain. For example, if researchers review the available research findings and conclude that electrical cars are emission-free vehicles, another researcher can review the same results and present an argument that building batteries themselves produce huge emission. The second contribution opens door for new research around emission-free production of car batteries.
If we consider that survey paper is the result of literature survey, we can use the following definitions from CS journals.
* According to the definition of survey paper provided by IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials journal (one of the best CS journals), "**The term survey, as applied here, is defined to mean a survey of the literature. A survey article should provide a comprehensive review of developments in a selected area**".
* In ACM Computing Survey (another prestigious CS journal), survey paper is described as “A paper that summarizes and organizes recent research results in a novel way that integrates and adds understanding to work in the field. A survey article emphasizes the classification of the existing literature, developing a perspective on the area, and evaluating trends.”
* In Elsevier journal of Computer Science Review, you will see here[4](http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-science-review/http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computer-science-review/) that “Critical review of the relevant literature“ is required a component of every typical survey paper.
To summarize, these two terms can be distinguished using following notes (or maybe definitions)
**Literature Survey:** Is the process of analyzing, summarizing, organizing, and presenting novel conclusions from the results of technical review of large number of recently published scholarly articles. The results of the literature survey can contribute to the body of knowledge when peer-reviewed and published as survey articles
**Literature Review:** Is the process of technically and critically reviewing published papers to extract technical and scientific metadata from the presented contents. The metadata are usually used during literature survey to technically compare different but relevant works and draw conclusions on weaknesses and strengths of the works.
*Second View:* The second view over literature survey and review is that in survey, researchers usually utilize the author-provided contents available in the published works to qualitatively analyze and compare them with other related works. While in the former, you should not perform qualitative analysis. Rather it should be quantitative meaning that every research work under study should be implemented and benchmarked under certain criteria. The results of this benchmarking study can be used to compare them together and criticize or appreciate the works.
So basically you can look at current literature and find which approach is dominating in your field. Hope it helps. I try to revise it if I came a cross other points or useful comments here.
Upvotes: 5 |
2013/12/27 | 153 | 661 | <issue_start>username_0: My professor sometimes asks me to referee papers for him.
Should I list the corresponding journals in the professionals activity section of my CV?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes. It is the very prototype of service to the professional community that you want to show that you are willing to perform.
The question that Scrooge linked to has good advice for how to do so.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, if your professor explicitly lists you as a reviewer or sub-reviewer with the program committee of the conference/journal; no if your review is then edited by your professor before submission.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/27 | 626 | 2,868 | <issue_start>username_0: Question
========
Should issues about past academic performance be addressed in the Statement of Purpose or a separate letter to the admissions committee.
Background
==========
I had originally posted about my situation here: [Should a dismissal from PhD in graduate application be listed as academic misconduct?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15067/listing-academic-dismissal-from-phd-in-graduate-application)
One of the answers to that question suggested that instead of using my statement of purpose to address academic concerns, I write a separate letter addressing the issue. However, others have suggested that colleges are unlikely to read such materials with the application. I have written a short (500 word) explaining the circumstances under which I received my bad grades and what I have done so this doesn't happen in the future. I have also written a short (500 word) statement of purpose that does not address my academic performance at all. Should I rework my SOP to incorporate the academic issue, and skip the additional letter?<issue_comment>username_1: You should definitely explain it--it *is* going to catch some attention, after all. Admissions committees recognize that people grow, develop, and change over time; they just need to know that you have. It doesn't need to be much, but it definitely deserves a paragraph just to acknowledge the issue and briefly outline why it's not necessarily reflective of your current self.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Some web-based application forms have dedicated fields for comments on grades or academic hardships. I would first of all take advantage of these if possible, and second, read the fine print if not: some application guidelines will forbid submission of additional materials. This doesn't have to stop you, but I would contact the admissions staff either way if there isn't a dedicated field. It should be as simple as asking, "May I enclose a brief additional letter explaining an issue in my academic history?"
In my opinion, that's what you should do however you can, unless admissions expressly forbids it, or if the issue at hand somehow affected your academic purpose. The statement of purpose is a fairly important and somewhat haphazardly scrutinized document, so anything tangential that interrupts your flow or the optimism and enthusiasm you express for your present and future work is likely to detract from the cohesiveness your message, the consistency and positivity of your tone, and the room you have to go into detail and cover other important information. You never really know what your readers are going to pay attention to in your writing, so it's best not to take any chances and leave it as flawless as can be, while conveying important but unexpected information through other channels if possible.
Upvotes: 3 |
2013/12/27 | 417 | 1,777 | <issue_start>username_0: Is it possible to pursue PhD with only BE degree and 16+ years of Software Industry experience? I know that most of the institutes expect a Masters degree to pursue PhD. Do they consider Industry experience to relax this criteria?
And, then the big question - Is it worth it to pursue a research/academic career after 16 years in Software Industry? Has anyone done this? what are your experiences like?<issue_comment>username_1: Your assumption depends on your location. If you are interested in obtaining a PhD in Computer Science at a school in the US, then in fact many programs do *not* expect you to have a Master's degree prior to beginning your doctoral studies. However, if you've been in industry for 16 years, it may be difficult to secure the letters of recommendation required for entry. Certainly letters from employers are accepted, especially in your case, but if they do not show a strong desire and aptitude for research, they will not be worth as much. However, don't let that dissuade you. Apply anyway, if that's what you want to do.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: From my experience, even in the US, the situation apply to specific subjects of study. I would suggest you do a masters degree because it will help you and open up your ability to do a wider range of research. If the PhD subject your want to study has a coursework before research then the best way go about it is to do a masters degree because in most PhD coursework exams, you're required to know most of the things done at undergraduate and masters level. The best thing about doing a masters before doing a PhD is that studying masters degree takes only one year in most universities around the world. You can manage one year.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/27 | 898 | 3,901 | <issue_start>username_0: I find it strange that most US departments have so little transparency in tenure-track jobs searches. In the UK the system is a little cleaner. Jobs are generally announced in one place (jobs.ac.uk) and the interview date is often set in advance. In the US there is no central list of jobs and it is difficult to determine where in the process the search is. Why don't search committees set a date for the short list to be decided at the outset and make it publicly available? Even for searches that move sequentially through the short list inviting candidates one at a time for interviews, could still send out a notification. It seems it would reduce the stress of the search for many applicants and not be too much work for the search committee.<issue_comment>username_1: In math, jobs in the US are announced on mathjobs.org, and you apply centrally through this website as well. Although you don't always get notified on the status of your application, we have a place called "mathjobs wiki", where people post "rumors" (in reality, since the TT interviews are announced on the department websites, it's not really a rumor) on the status of the job search. I am told that several other disciplines have something like this.
I would have thought European searches have less transparency; it seems to me that many European (mathematics) departments hire based on who you know, and their jobs are much less advertised.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I will tackle the ``Jobs are generally announced in one place (jobs.ac.uk)'' part. As user14449 mentioned in his(her?)(its?) answer some disciplines have society run central job boards. The AMS and MLA are the particularly effective ones from my experience but even they do not attract all the jobs in their fields. Then each state university will post all of its jobs to their own Human Resources job board. But there will never be a centralized site like jobs.ac.uk because the US system is not a single system. many of the colleges and universities are privately run, the rest are run by the state governments, and four run by the military. There is no central authority that can determine how hiring is done beyond anti-discrimination and equal opportunity laws. So any such website would have to start off as a third party endeavor. And since the job ads in the Chronicle of Higher Education already service this purpose but do not cover the entire market it is hard to say that there would be promise for any new one.
Just a side note on the scale of the US job market from Wiki there are ``4,495 Title IV-eligible'' colleges and universities. Title IV-eligible means students at those institutions are eligible for federally backed student loans.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: There are several factors at work here:
* Remember that there are several thousand colleges and universities in the United States. A central database of such jobs would be significantly harder to publicize and organize.
* Most universities in the US are private. They are under no such compulsion to post their jobs on any particular web site, unless constrained to do so by the funding sources that are supporting a particular position, or legal requirements to do so. (To my knowledge, there is no such requirement.)
* The more deadlines and constraints you build into the cycle, the more pressure you put everyone under—applicants, recommendation writers, support staff, and departmental faculty involved in the search.
So I think there are multiple reasons not to publicize the results of a search, and I think most hiring committees would be reluctant to do so. There could be a better job done of *announcing* searches, certainly, and that would make things easier (but again, the places that currently advertise would likely complain about losing their business to a central source!).
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/27 | 685 | 2,960 | <issue_start>username_0: As the question implies, I have two main research interests in the natural language processing and computational genomics domains. While I have a preference for the former, I am also very interested in the latter. I ask because I am not sure if it would look like I am too unfocused for a PhD. Many professors seem to have multiple areas of interests, some of which are not too related, but nonetheless I want to make sure that mentioning multiple interests will not hurt me.<issue_comment>username_1: If you can convey your enthusiasm for the **overlap** of these two somewhat distinct areas, you will be ahead of the game. A PhD candidate is expected to extend the limit of human knowledge, and one of the better ways to do so is to research within the overlap of two (or more) disciplines. I would tend to see having more than one area of interest as being an advantage rather than a disadvantage. Of course, as your question implies, a multiplicity of interests can backfire by causing a candidate to appear unfocused. Focus on the overlap, and make your application shine!
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The answer depends on you, the professor and when and how you communicate, .
**Mention Both**
* Better mention both than fear. Until you handle the fear to stand for both interests it will not go away. When you are clear about what you fear you may know the answer already.
* Showing that you have a broad interest means that you are open to change.
* You may get angry at yourself for not having mentioned the other interest. Especially because professors know other professors to redirect to.
* If you *write* you can make sure that it is clearly understood that you have two interest. Such as by choosing a headline for each. The professor may then choose what to focus on.
* If you *talk* to the professor you get responses what (s)he likes most. Then you can focus on that.
**Mention One**
* When there is not enough time for both topics it could be bad to mention both.
* Mentioning both can mean that the professor does not choose you because (s)he only takes in people with one interest who can be put under more presure because they can not choose to go somewhere else.
* Sometimes professors are really proud of themselves because nobody ever tells them they are wrong. You may have to adjust what you say so they do not fear your intelligence in a field they do not know.
I come from a computer science background. There may be different cultural influences in other professions.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Your PhD should be somewhat focused, but before that, you're not in general supposed to have real scientific results. I would surely mention both, unless you feel that one of them is significantly unsignificant.
If you managed to have multiple results as a master student, that makes you a very good candidate for a PhD, because not many people have that!
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/27 | 775 | 3,312 | <issue_start>username_0: My question is simple: If you have a paper that got rejected two or three times (border-line\* rejects every time) from top-tier conferences, would you polish it and resubmit it again to similar or another high rank conference or would you try some lower rank venues ?
\* Border-line reject: every time got 2 good reviews and 1 bad review.
P.S. Every time the paper got vague suggestions like: compare with this or that. And the first and second time we DID in fact address all concerns, but another concern showed up next time.
P.P.S. I am concerned with CS conferences.
Thank you.<issue_comment>username_1: I would not continue submitting the same paper to top-tier conferences after three rejections. The Universe Has Spoken. Move On.
Many of my colleagues do submit such papers to lower-tier conferences, but I usually just send my papers directly to journals after two conference rejections.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: There is only so long any paper, whether it be for a conference or for a journal, should be held up in the review process. While it is stuck in review, other people may be able to publish similar (or stronger) results, at which your work loses the "novelty" factor, which will make it less competitive in the future.
At a certain point, you have to cut your losses and move on. Where that point of diminishing returns for presenting in a top-tier conference is depends upon your risk tolerance. But I'd much rather get my paper presented or published somewhere within a year in a second-tier conference than wait for two years to present at a top conference.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: It is a very common practice to start from submitting the paper to the high end journals but then submit to lower level journals if rejected for not being "flashy" enough. If the paper is further rejected, it may be converted into poster and presented in some conference. If it does not make into top tier conference, then still might be good enough for a small local conference.
A good professor can tell at glance where in this scale the work stands and is it possible to improve it and get higher. However professors mostly gain this experience from the known accepted and rejected submissions.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: Do you make any fundamental improvements after being rejected? If no, resubmitting it too many times can only reduce your chance of being accepted.
This happens to me as a reviewer. I reviewed a paper in 18 and rejected it. Then I was invited to review the same paper in 19 at a different conference. The authors changed the title but not the content. I compared it against the old manuscript in my mailbox. When I noticed the authors did not make anything new out of it, I simply gave it another rejection.
The group of people working on your topic can be surprisingly small and you are very likely to encounter the same reviewer when you submit to top-tier conferences again and again. I believe they will do the same thing as I did.
But if you follow the reviewers' suggestions to improve it and/or add new content to the paper after being rejected it will be a different story. I would think of it as a new paper, and will definitely resubmit it to top-tiers if I think the paper deserves it.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/28 | 668 | 2,937 | <issue_start>username_0: Online PhD application systems usually ask for relation between the recommender and the applicant.
The applicant was in a PhD program and the recommender was a professor in the department. The applicant approached him for some research opportunities at first, and later did some research in one of the recommender's projects, directly mentored by an assistant research professor. There was no formal title of "research adviser" for the recommender to the applicant, or for the research assistant professor to the applicant, as the student was still in the process of finalizing research direction and adviser. The student then didn't finish the PhD, and later applied to PhD programs in other universities.
Can the relation between the recommender and the applicant be "research adviser" in PhD application? What is best to describe that relation?
By the way, the recommender was also an instructor to the applicant in some courses. But a relation besides "instructor" was preferred, if possible.<issue_comment>username_1: You may consider two roles for the students in previous institute; one as a PhD student looking for topic and the other is a short-term research collaborator. As the recommender was not engaged in your PhD job, he cannot be PhD advisor.
However, since the recommender was primary investigator (or head) of the project student worked in, the relationship is **research collaborator** or more focused, **primary investigator in a collaborative research**. Your output of the collaborative research with him as technical report, conference paper, or journal article would prove the relationship.
But I think student needs to convince the new graduate school that why did he fail/dismiss previous PhD.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This seems fairly clear to me that this person is a "colleague" to you. The terms "supervisor/advisor" are reserved for the person who supervises your PhD thesis, for which you do not qualify for. Everyone else can be labeled as a colleague.
I strongly recommend that you do NOT label him as a research supervisor, as the letters from your supervisor tend to get read more closely than your other letters; you are confusing the hiring committee (and lowering your chances of getting hired) by labeling him as your supervisor.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: There's a certain level of hairsplitting here.
* **PhD advisor** or **thesis advisor** should definitely be reserved for the person advising a student completing her thesis research.
* A **research supervisor** can be much broader in scope. For instance, someone performing a bachelor's or master's thesis needs a supervisor, as well as students doing summer research projects within your research group.
However, the important thing is to make clear **in the letter** the exact relationship between the referee and the applicant. Then no confusion is likely to ensue.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/28 | 6,231 | 26,322 | <issue_start>username_0: This question was suggested to me by [How can I sell my text book to my students in e-book format?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15064/how-can-i-sell-my-text-book-to-my-students-in-e-book-format) which asked about the practicalities but attracted many comments about the ethics. So this question is to ask about the ethics directly.
Suppose I have written and published a textbook, and I want to use it as the text for a course I am teaching. I receive royalties from each copy of my book that is sold, so if my students are required to buy my textbook for the course, I will make some money. **Is it ethical to do so?**
Well-reasoned opinions would be useful answers, but even more useful would be pointers to institutional policies, professional codes of ethics, etc, that address this issue.
Of course, there are many ways to avoid profiting from the sale of my book to my students. If my contract with my publisher allows it, I could distribute PDFs to my students, or have the university bookstore print out copies and sell them at cost. Another approach I've heard of is to compute how much I earn in royalties on each copy and refund that amount from my pocket to each student who buys a copy. Or, use my royalty earnings to buy pizza for the class. Certainly, these are nice gestures, but I would like opinions on whether they are ethically required.
* This question is hypothetical. I haven't published any textbooks myself and have no immediate plans to do so. In any case, my personal preference would be to make the book available to students for free, if at all possible. So I've phrased this question in the first person for rhetorical convenience only.
* I had intended the question to be only about the potential financial conflict of interest that could arise if I make money by assigning my own book. Some of the answers feel that it is improper for me to assign my own textbook at all, whether I make money or not, but I don't think this point of view is prevalent within the academic community. If it happens that my book (as a pithy but now-deleted comment put it) "blows", I think most would agree that my decision to assign it is pedagogically unfortunate, but not unethical.
* I don't literally mean that students would be *required to buy* the book, only that they'd be expected to have it. I might assign readings or homework problems from the book so that the student needs access to the book in order to do them, but they could certainly achieve this by getting a used copy or borrowing from a friend. But probably most students would buy new copies anyway since that is the most convenient way.<issue_comment>username_1: This comes down to potentially conflicting principles. Academic freedom requires that professors should be able to choose the most appropriate references for their courses, and of course the professor's own book will often be a perfect fit for the course that inspired it. On the other hand, it's important to avoid even the appearance of assigning one's own book in order to make a profit: that would be offensive at any university, and often illegal at public universities (violating conflict of interest laws for government employees). The [American Association of University Professors statement](http://www.aaup.org/report/professors-assigning-their-own-texts-students) on this subject elaborates on both of these issues, but doesn't find a good way of resolving the tension.
University policies are often more specific. In many cases assigning one's own book either requires administrative permission or giving any royalties earned to the university. See, for example, [this report](http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~natalieb/textbooks2.htm) for a survey of the policies at eighteen public universities in the U.S. My impression is that private universities are more likely to be flexible about this issue, but that's not based on a lot of data.
In practice, I doubt anyone cares very much unless the textbook is particularly expensive or the class is large, but in those cases I would strongly recommend donating the royalties to the department even if it is not required. After all, you're then no worse off than you would have been if you had assigned someone else's book. If you're not willing to do this, then it suggests that the royalties are attractive after all and may have played some role in the choice of text.
One special case is when you have self-published the book (or own the publishing company). That looks terrible, because there you have full control over pricing and may be earning far more than typical royalties. This is one of the few cases where I believe a strict rule is appropriate: if you are legally authorized to offer free or at-cost copies of your book to your students, then you should do so. Anything less is clearly taking advantage of your students.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: In many top-tier universities, many professors use their own textbooks. This is not only because they are familiar with what they have written, but also because they are the most-respected researchers in their field. In my experience, no one has objected to this, and in fact, most students are excited to take a course from the author of the most famous book in the field.
Since others have already commented on the university policy, I want to offer my own personal view.
Personally, I see why you can't use your own textbook. For undergraduate curriculum (and even the beginning-years of graduate school), most things that are covered are standard, and any textbook should be able to cover these topics. As an added bonus, YOU wrote the book, and it will very closely follow what you will cover in class.
Of course, it is often helpful to have read that book that serves as **the** reference in the field, so unless you have a good reason for wanting to substitute your own textbook, I think that sticking to the standard textbook is a good idea. And hopefully, no ulterior motives (especially in the financial sense) are involved in the decision-making process.
In my experience, many professors who choose to use their own textbooks are able to distribute either the preprints of their textbooks, or they photocopy certain sections of their books and distribute them to the students for free. Especially if the textbook is required in doing the homework etc, they have always made the portions that are absolutely necessary for the work freely available.
I had not thought very hard about this back then, but this is possibly their way of coping with this question of ethics.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: This is an interesting question but it involves much more than just ethics and financial considerations. It is also a matter of tradition *versus* more modern thinking about free material.
I am currently writing a custom "book" (not to be published anytime soon) for a new course since no existing book will fit. It will be free of charge, as developmental material, until it becomes published (which will happen if I think it is any good in the end). My old advisor used his lecture notes developed over years to produce a commercial book that can be used by many but is tailored to his (in this case) course. To write materials for your own course or on your research field is quite natural. For obvious reasons such books will suit their purpose best.
I think many would dream of having tailored reading materials in their courses; few have the opportunity to spend the time writing it. In many, if not most, university systems no-one will pay you for writing it so it will be done on your free time. Such books benefit the students by covering more or less exactly what the course is about. As teachers, we have probably been involved in (endless) discussions about the pros and cons of books: "this covers this material, that book covers that, but not none is perfect. So which one to chose.". The small amount of royalty from own students is not enough to make anyone rich. From this perspective, and assuming the book (and the course) is any good, I think making the issue a matter of ethics is petty.
The choice is obviously to provide a book material as, for example, free pdf material or try to have it printed (which is expensive) as a regular book or as print on demand. If one want others to use the material, publishing a book puts the material "on the map". A book also carries with it prestige, not only for the author but for the department and the university. It may also signal to the student that the teacher is a "name" in the field. So there are many reasons for choosing a book but not many will first look at it as a source for revenue.
So in the end, I cannot see anything wrong with using a book and receiving royalty as long as the book is good, the course is good, so that the students get the best opportunity to learn the material the course should provide.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: As a student, I feel that it's ethical if you can, honestly and impartially, say that it is the best book to teach the material, and the price you are charging is reasonable.
If you are charging a finished-book price for a draft riddled with typos and errors, then it is definitely not ethical.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: One arrangement with the publisher of my two "text"-books was that the price be reduced by the amount of the otherwise-royalty for any books sold through the university bookstore, so that, in effect, I was not collecting royalties from students at this university (whether or not I was the instructor).
Another aspect is making printouts from PDFs available at-cost to students at this university, which is what my contract with the publisher specifically allowed in one case.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: As an example of what's done in other countries, in many German universities, professors publish their lecture notes in printed form for the students to purchase. While the students pay for these notes, the profits do not go to the professor, but to the research group of the instructor. This money can then be used for various purposes, including paying for undergraduate tutors who assist students in learning the material.
I believe this is a reasonable compromise: nobody personally profits, yet the purchasing of the notes does actually leads to community benefits (in the sense that the money is used to help support students at the university).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: Yes,
It is not only completely ethical but should be mandatory. Your ultimate goal is to pass on your knowledge to your students, and what better way to do that than by using the textbook you wrote just for that specific purpose.
There must have been a reason why you wrote it in the first place - something was missing, or was glossed over, or poorly explained so you decided that you can contribute something to create a better product for students to use.
The student benefits twice as much since if there are questions or something isn't clear, bamm, here is the author in front of them to clarify some point. You also get valuable feedback so that your next edition will be of even greater use to the student.
Clearup:
It would only be unethical if the professor asks the students to buy directly from them , or force the student to purchase from a specific website using an affiliate code. As long as the student is given freedom of choice as to where the textbook is purchased new or used, it would be ethical to force students to buy a textbook written by the professor teaching the class.
It would only be unethical for a professor who strongly believes in some derivative of the teachings of Socialism. If the walls in the professor's office are adored with autographed photos of every former member of the politburo or they spend half the class defending the economic theories of Karl Marx (even though the subject they teach is Chemistry), then it would be unethical for them to charge their students for a textbook while preaching the spirit of camaraderie and international brotherhood of the proletariat.
Otherwise its perfectly ethical for a professor to profit from a textbook they created for the benefit of both the professor and the student.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_8: I've run across this problem from the student side several times (and I was a college student in the prehistoric 1970s). Profit motive aside, I generally observed that professors who used someone else's book were more likely to comment on weaknesses in the text and alternative proofs or derivations. It's one of those internal bias things, in that no matter how good a teacher and writer you are, you're going to be unlikely to recognize defects in your own work or style.
So my recommendation would be to make your book available but make sure to have at least one other text incorporated into the class.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_9: In the dark ages when I was in school, several professors used lecture notes that they sold to students for the cost of duplication. I'm guessing it would be difficult to get the publisher to supply them to the bookstore at a price without royalties, so I think your idea of pizza for the class is a good way to remove the appearance of a conflict of interest. You could also offer an "error bounty" to students.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: The answers so far have one or both of the following problems: (1) they ignore the existence of the internet, and (2) they seem to assume that profiting from the book goes hand in hand with assigning the book.
Today, there is a very simple and obvious solution for any professor in this situation with a shred of ethical fiber. The professor writes the book on a computer. Therefore the book is on a computer in machine-readable form and can be distributed electronically to the professor's own students, for free. There is no excuse for not doing so.
Typically the professor starts by writing lecture notes and distributing to the students. As time goes on, the lecture notes start looking like a book. At this point the professor has various options, some of which are: (a) simply continue to use the book internally; (b) make the book publicly available in digital form only, for free; (c) look for a publisher.
In case c, the publisher is going to sink a certain amount of money into the book. For example, they may need to pay a professional illustrator, and they will certainly do some editorial work. The publisher will also ask for an exclusive contract. In the negotiations leading up to signing a contract, it's the professor's responsibility to negotiate something that allows the book to be distributed to the professor's own students free of charge. Often publishers will allow this, but they will only allow it on the version of the ms that was purely the professor's work. In fact, the publisher may have paid photo services to use stock photos, which are licensed under conditions that require the service to be paid a certain royalty per copy. The end result of this scenario is then typically that the professor continues to distribute a bare-bones version for free (possibly just to the professor's own students, possibly to the world at large).
Here are a couple of real-world examples:
* Carroll, Lecture Notes on General Relativity. His bare-bones version is publicly available here: <http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March01/Carroll3/Carroll_contents.html>
* Steane, Relativity Made Relatively Easy. His bare-bones version is available on a public university server, but is not linked to from his faculty web page. Presumably he tells his students the URL.
The publisher is motivated only by profit. Some publishers may refuse to negotiate this kind of deal; the ethical author then has to look for another publisher. The publisher wants to make sure the book earns out their investment in it, and one way they have of doing that is to make sure there will be some significant number of sales at the author's institution. The author has to say, "OK, but for ethical reasons we still need to give my students the free digital option." Finally, the publisher will want to price the book at the price that exactly optimizes their profits. This price will typically be extremely exploitative, e.g., $150 for a book used for one semester, or $200 for a book used in a multi-semester sequence. The author may or may not have any say in pricing. (JeffE's comment indicates that it can be negotiated in some cases.) The publisher's nefarious calculation of the optimally profitable price is predicated on the assumption that they can force the students to pay that price. Any competing option (used books, a free bare-bones version, ...) reduces the probability that a given student will pay the suggested retail price. Again, the author has to push back, and say, "Yes, I know it may cut into profits a little, but for ethical reasons I need to make the bare-bones available for free, at least to my own students."
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: **Unethical**
I think it is unethical to profit by having students buy your textbook because you're their lecturer and they expect you to inform them and provide them with some useful resources for learning. The students also usually get a bad feeling when you keep recommending your book unless it was vote one of the best to use in tackling the given subject. I don't know/understand how you may be able to provide other books to your students at no cost while you provide your book at a cost. It looks fishy. If you feel that you can't give each student a copy of the book then you can recommend the university to buy the books so as to restock the library or you can offer your own copy or a single donated copy strictly for class use. This depends on the number of students you're dealing with and how often they have to use the book.
**Ethical**
In a case where you had published the book before meeting the students, you're allowed to sell the book to them at the market price or you may subsidize it for your students.
**Logic**
Its always difficult to teach using your book especially when you reach a point where there are few discrepancy from other books. In the process of defending your ideas from the book, you may end up being seen as superior, dictator, rigid etc.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_11: It is only unethical to force your students to buy your text if you believe your text to be suboptimal, subpar, and inferior quality to other textbooks that are available. In short, if you look at your text and say "well, we really should use *that* one", then yes it is unethical to force your students to buy what you believe to be an inferior learning tool, just because you wrote it.
If however, you think your text is the bee's knees, it is the shiznet, and you are the best author and authority to ever cover the subject, ***then it would be unethical not to use your text.*** You can't go around giving free copies, that is cheating the publisher. And why in hell else did you write it, if not to be used by precisely your students for *your* class?
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_12: Short answer: I think it is neither ethical nor good (in terms of education, independent of ethics) to force students to use your textbook.
(Assuming that we are talking about a "normal" lecture, as opposed to a workshop about your book.)
---
Long answer: I see 3 different (but connected) difficulties here. None of them needs to be a problem, but together, they can trap the students.
* **requiring a particular textbook**: to me this is less of an ethical problem if it doesn't boil down to forcing the students to buy that particular book.
Nevertheless, I think it preferable from an education point of view to teach students that they left the kind of school where exactly one solution exists, and now they are in a world with lots of sensible alternatives. Giving recommendations\* (plural!), IMHO it is a most important point to make that the library holds even more useful books [also on that topic].
* more or less **forcing students to buy a textbook**
+ (Recall that the [origin of "lecture" is that a (text)book was *read* to the students](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecture#History). So historically, the lecture was a solution to the problem that books were too expensive for students to buy.)I don't see why buying the textbook is necessary. Even if book and lecture are (naturally) close.
>
> I might assign readings or homework problems from the book, so that the student needs access to the book in order to do them
>
>
>
Why would that be:
+ Is is that difficult to prepare a slide of the homework problem which is displayed at the end of the lecture or a pdf that can be downloaded?
+ Reading: I have to say that at university I've never experienced assigned reading from a textbook. So my question to you is: is it really necessary to assign reading chapter 7.4 as opposed to assign preparing the principles of pH electrodes? Also, I've seen reading materials for download.
+ Making small parts of the book available to the students is probably possible even if the contract with the publisher doesn't let you distribute pdfs to the students. At least, e.g. in Germany, it is even possible to hand small parts from any book (not only yours!) to the class for teaching purposes.
+ For the self-study aspect of the textbook, there is the textbook collection of the library. The university libraries I know have sensible numbers of the important textbooks to be borrowed by the students plus a number of copies that stay in the library so they are always accessible. Are the books there really not sufficient? If so, why not? Why are the important books not there? How can books be bought?
(How to get *your* book into the collection is part of the next point:)
* **Possible conflict of interest because it is *your own* textbook**.
This is the interesting part. But, if you take care of the first two problems, there is already *much* less space for an actual conflict of interest (≈ a real problem for the students) here.
Or, taking another point of view, I perceive taking unfair advantage of the position\*\*\* as a *symptom* of (un)ethical behaviour which is closely bound to the whole character. In that I perceive it less of a single problem that is solved or not by a particular line of action on this point but rather a problem that appears with some people and not with others.
In yet other words, people who take advantage of their position tend to do that in more ways than just this (e.g. in the combination of my three points - at which point @JeffE probably recommends to run). The formal action of not requiring their own textbook doesn't help much. Students will conclude from the general reputation/perception of taking unfair advantage that the book is required - whether it is stated openly or not.
I guess it is one of the topics where those who do worry whether what they do is ethical are the ones who don't need to *worry* (because they do act ethically) - it would be far more important that those who don't would start to worry...
Whether to donate copies of your own textbook to the library,
make a donation that reimburses the library for your royalties, or
convince the library to buy it like any other book, and/or
whether and how you want to reimburse students
is IMHO unanswerable as a general question.
I think valid points can be made for and against\*\* each of the options here.
Good and sensible decisions will depend a lot on the particular circumstances and even more on the personality of the professor.
---
Side note:
>
> Or, use my royalty earnings to buy pizza for the class.
>
>
>
I object to this option on the following ethical grounds: If my problem is that I'm too poor to buy textbooks, I don't want to spend money on pizza but would rather like to save that money towards the next textbook.
---
\* A professor *not* recommending his own textbook sounds about as convincing to me as a vegetarian running a sausage factory.
\*\* Here's the advocatus diaboli against each of the points:
* Donating books to the library? Someone is buying fame!
* Reimbursing the royalties - same as above, but more greedy (or the one above was more desperate for fame...)
* Convinced some committee to buy the books? Surely there is a textbook-buying circle emerging: You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
* reimbursing students who buy the book: that's an obvious attempt to whitewash the reputation
* and so on
\*\*\* As long as you do not take advantage of your situation, the conflict of interest is at most *your* problem (i.e. you are worried). If you take unfair advantage, the students have a problem.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_13: I want to add a few options that make selling your book and making your students use it entirely fair.
1. Make sure your books will sell for a good price ($30, not $150).
2. Give a decent amount of author copies to your local library.
3. Make sure that the ebook version is available for free via your local library (this may be easy if your library has a subscription of your publisher).
Pick at least two.
Stronger options that may or may not be possible for you with your chosen publisher (arguably, you should find a suitable one):
1. Retain the right to electronic publication, and offer a free version for download.
2. Sell students prints of your book (maybe chapter by chapter) at cost.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_14: Since this is a hypothetical, I'll note that I had a professor who included in his contract for the book an agreement for 15 copies of the book every other year (he taught a small upper-level undergraduate class) that were given to his enrolled students to avoid this problem.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_15: I don't think this is unethical, but there certainly is a conflict of interest. As with any other conflict of interest, it should be disclosed and managed. My recommendation for such a situation would be to take it to your chair, let them know you would like to come up with a management plan for a conflict of interest, and the the chair drive from that point on.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/28 | 789 | 3,288 | <issue_start>username_0: About a month ago, when the deadlines for applying for postdoc positions at math at the US were approaching, I applied for several research universities via mathjobs.
In the time that passed since, I made a new discovery, and am now in the last stages of writing a paper about it.
Obviously, once the paper will be uploaded to the arXiv, my application will be improved.
However, for that to happen, I must update my c.v and my publication list, to include the new paper.
To do this in mathjobs, I will need to "reapply". Given that deadlines passed, will this be a good idea? Can reapplying now with my new c.v and my new publication list harm my application because of deadline issues?<issue_comment>username_1: As I understand it, "reapply" is merely a technical term in mathjobs and this should cause no problems. See, for example, the statement "Update (re-apply) applications as many times as you like, or whenever you have new info to add" in [MathJobs Workflow & Features](http://www.mathjobs.org/help/mathjobs/misc/flow.html). I don't know why mathjobs uses the term "reapply," which certainly has the potential to cause confusion. I can't guarantee that nobody will hold it against you, but I'd be very surprised if anyone did (and I think it would be a big mistake on their part).
Updating your application may not be enough if it has already been read. I'd recommend also e-mailing key people you would like to work with to let them know about your new paper once it is on the arXiv. Of course you shouldn't spam large numbers of people, but sending out an announcement is perfectly appropriate if you restrict it to people who would genuinely like to hear about the paper for mathematical reasons, and not just as an advertisement for hiring you.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I have had several of my pre-prints be submitted in the flurry of activity between job application and the last few months. I haven't decided if it's still reasonable to re-submit or not . . .
I do know, or at least, this has been my own experience, that there is something funky going on in the mathjobs database on 'submission' dates and 'updated' dates.
I've had one application that I know that I had sent in by the deadline (I have an email from mathjobs indicating that all my material had been submitted) on such and such a date, but then when I highlight the little info image next to the job on the status page, it is several days afterwards.
I know that I did not un-apply for the position (as it was one of my top 5 post doc choices ), but I did do an update of the application, at some point (change some of the preprints to submitted).
I've only heard from two places so far (post-doc wise) on interviews. I'm really not going to start sweating until a bit after the coordinated deadline, but it's not fun when it's all up in the air and you have no idea.
Actually, quick q and I'll probably run this by my advisor, but would it be appropriate to indicate the mathjobs fubar in the database to the school of interest? I just don't want that to be the deciding factor for a position to be submission of materials on time or not, especially considering the mathjobs system is just plain wrong (and I can prove it)!
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/12/28 | 1,027 | 4,197 | <issue_start>username_0: So we are all fans of some professor at some stage of academia.
If I see one in an upcoming conference/workshop, **should I ask them to sign a paper that they wrote as it's also one of my favorite papers?** (I'm sure I'm not the only one who brings a paper that someone else wrote when I know they will come for the conference/workshop).
**How would you respond if you were the Prof asked to sign the paper?**
**Has anyone done the same before?**<issue_comment>username_1: Just ask! In the past, before electronic publishing, one had to ask for physical reprints from authors. They usually signed them with a nice greeting, sometimes a signature, and occasionally nothing. I have sent reprints to other upon request and always with a signed greeting because I appreciate the request. I have a hard time seeing anyone being offended by it although an eyebrow may be raised by the request since it is now quite unusual. But it is a good way to strike up a conversation and contact the person. Personally I would try to approach the person away from an "audience" in order to not interrupt and have a real chance to state why you admire the work (person). I am sure some might say no but I would not be offended if someone asked me, not that I see it happening to me any-time soon.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I would do that. It's no harm and most professors would be happy to sign it for you. But if you could go with his most representative book as well, that would be perfect. After all, signing a published book is quite normal and formal activity than signing on a self-printed paper.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I knew a friend who approached Dr. X, the author of a notoriously challenging math book with a huge number of difficult exercises. He asked Dr. X to sign his copy of the book.
Dr. X took and inspected the copy. The spine was undamaged, the pages were pristine, the book was in like new condition. Dr. X smiled and returned the book. "Read it first, then come ask me again!"
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Should you go and ask, you probably don't run a big risk of anything really unpleasant happening, as other answers point out (except in the context of @username_3' answer!).
However, I would feel uncomfortable asking such a thing and here is why. By asking for an autograph, you are in effect behaving as a fanboy/fangirl *rather than a peer (a colleague and possible coworker)*. I don't see that this is the way you want to bring your existence to light to an admired professor.
So, sure, if your goal is to get a professor to sign her name on a paper, go ahead and ask. But if you considered this mostly as an opportunity to establish contact with the said professor, I'm sure there are other ways which do not involve humbling yourself before someone you would likely rather impress.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: While I think @username_4 mostly hit the nail on the head, I just wanted to add: I think I would find it a little discomfiting to be on the receiving end of such a request. Maybe the prof in question has gotten used to being a celebrity, but if you don't know him or her, then it will be hard to judge how such a request will seem to them. When you set up an interaction in this way, not only are you not engaging with them as a professional, you're making it harder for them to engage with you as a professional. I think it would be much better to tell them that you've learned a lot from their work, and ask an intelligent followup question, or say something about how your work has followed up on theirs.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: I have signed a lot of copies of my books to the point some of colleagues used to joke about "having rare unsigned copies." If someone has bothered to buy a copy, why not sign it? This is particularly so now that illegal downloads are widely available.
I have never been asked to sign a copy of my one of my papers and I would think it a bit odd.
I was asked just for an autograph and I just said "no, I don't do autographs." I thought it strange.
(for context, I am well-known in financial mathematics but not outside of it.)
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/12/29 | 2,025 | 8,106 | <issue_start>username_0: I will be a postdoc in the coming academic year. While I have not decided on where I will be in September, it seems likely that I will be a research postdoc at a decent research university.
An aspect of a life as a postdoc that I had never considered before is the following: what is your social life outside of academia like as a postdoc?
As a PhD student, I had a very tight group of friends; we were friends from day 1 in graduate school, and that friendship continued throughout. Our friendship strengthened by going through many difficult classes together, staying up all night finishing homework, and studying for quals together, not to mention talking about how much it blows to be a PhD student, and worrying about the job market.
I feel that I will not have this privilege as a postdoc. We are all there to do our jobs (i.e. research), and I do not see building the same kind of camaraderie amongst the newly-hired postdocs, for these reasons:
* there are no excuses to spend a ton of time with one another (no homework, no quals to study for, etc.)
* we will likely have different research areas, and possibly have nothing in common to talk about in terms of academics.
* there are way fewer postdocs than there are graduate students. I would be lucky to have maybe three or four other postdocs hired with me by my department. Maybe we would get along, maybe we would not. I do not have the luxury of choosing the people that I like anymore.
* at least some postdocs must have family. I have found that married people are less likely to yearn for a close friendship. This narrows down the possibilities for friends even more (not that I would discriminate against married people, but they often dissociate themselves from, say, a late-night out of fun).
I would love to hear from the people who hold (or held) research postdoc positions from PhD granting institutions. I feel that teaching postdocs would give different answers, as you would meet more often to discuss teaching.<issue_comment>username_1: My limited experience of postdoc life is that there can be plenty of camaraderie; it just depends. I certainly hung out with the other postdocs, got invited to their homes, met their families, at least to a limited extent. So, yes, there is some bonding
In some ways it is not that different from grad student life. While a postdoc is more like a regular job, and I think everyone likes the fact that you are not as dirt poor as a grad student, you also spend time commiserating with each other about the crappiness of the job and worrying about the job market. Depending on who you are working for, you may also spend time complaining about the boss (or bosses). Since postdocs on average last a shorter time, one is liable to see people come and go even more frequently than in grad school, which does make it more difficult to have longer term friendships.
Having said all this, it is probably a good idea to find other people besides those you work with to hang out with. This is true of any job, of course. One suggestion - go dancing!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: The *special* thing for you coming out of (what seems) a pretty demanding grad school time is that being a postdoc is not so special at all. In most ways, being a postdoc is not unlike any other time-demanding job. You come to work in the morning, spend most of your day there, and, in the evening (whenever that is, time-wise), you will more often than not go back to your home and stay there to relax a bit. You bond with your co-workers, but usually more in an "acquaintance" than in a "friends-for-life" way.
Anyway, it seems to me that you are thinking that you can only hang out with people on your academic "level". This has never been my personal experience at all. In all my work places, grad students often hang out privately with the postdocs that they work with, and many of the younger faculty staff often join in for ad-hoc parties as well. I guess it is all a question of how you want to appear towards your junior work mates. There are people that see fit to construct an image of aloofness towards their students, and others like to mingle. Nothing wrong with either, of course, as long as your work relationship stays reasonably professional.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Great answers here. Looks like all the answers are US-based (from what little I know about US academia)... so let me add how it looks like from a perspective of a *European research lab*.
Note that I say *research lab* because the association to the Uni is really very loose, mostly meaning rarely who is attending classes at the uni. It is a fairly big lab, and very transitional (not many people stay long). It comprises people that are:
* PhD students (some of whom have a class or two to TA) staying for 3-4 years
* Master interns (staying for 4-6 months) and PhD exchanges (staying up to at most a year)
* postdocs (staying for a year, to at most two)
* engineers (staying for anywhere between 6 months and 2 years)
* permanent positions (researchers + professors)
None of us have classes together, there is many areas of computer science in the lab so most of us don't even share deadlines. As I mentioned, it's a transition place where a lot of people come and go very fast. Still *the social life is quite fine*. We **meet on smoke breaks, coffee breaks, through officemates, through friends, ex uni buddies, cause somebody hears the accent of his nationality...** I have a pretty active social life, at any point the group of friends I go out with is between 5 and 10 people. Some postdocs, some PhD students (both in their last years and just starting), an odd Master student on an internship, some engineers. Some people have teams that are much more involved, so they have team-nights-out, and I've heard of young supervisors inviting their students to social dinners.
One of the hardest parts for me is the fast pace of change: the group of people I went out a year ago has hardly anybody in common with right now. It doesn't mean that there weren't some nice friendships, but it's so easy to lose contact. Still, I also feel that I made some friends-for-life as well. A lot of different ways also exist for meeting people outside of work, such as dancing, language classes, evenings organized in town for foreign "students"...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I think you're making some unfounded assumptions in your question.
>
> what is your social life outside of academia like as a postdoc?
>
>
>
When you ask this question, you then immediately turned *back* to academia. Your social life as a postdoc is, in many ways, whatever you want it to be. For example, a great deal of *my* social life outside of academia was a local group devoted to my hobby.
To address a few other points you make:
* There may be fewer postdocs, but there is no reason your social life is restricted to this "tier". As I mentioned above, most of my social life was with non-academics, or at least non-academics in my particular lab/institute. I made friends with some of the faculty. With a few of the graduate students. With the research staff. There is no clubhouse with "Postdocs Only!" written in Sharpie that you need to rely on.
* "There are no excuses to spend a ton of time with one another" - You're assuming this is true, but it's not necessarily true. I will say that, in my own personal experience, the most intensive time I spent in contact with other researchers was indeed during my postdoc, and there were some friendships formed "in the trenches".
* "possibly have nothing in common to talk about in terms of academics." There is the commonality of *being* an academic. Insane PIs. Funding lines being universally horrible. Anxiety about finding a job afterward. Reviewer #2's asinine comments...
* "I do not have the luxury of choosing the people that I like anymore." Yes, you do. It's called making friends. They just don't have to be postdocs.
Literally the most social I have ever been in my life was as a postdoc.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/29 | 1,856 | 7,418 | <issue_start>username_0: I've just started reading papers about speech recognition and algorithms on medium sized graphs (~800,000 nodes and 4,400,000 edges with some connected text data). I think a problem of these papers is quite often, that it is difficult to check the experimental results. It is difficult to check them because of two reasons:
1. The source code that was used to generate the results is not (publicly) available
2. The data is either not at all available or it is not clear which version of the data was used
When I start writing papers, I would like to make it easier to check the results.
The first problem is easy to solve: I can simply provide the source code (e.g. on GitHub or my personal web space).
The second problem seems to be much harder to solve. The data is often quite big (speech recognition: several GB; graphs: about 2GB). This is too much to upload it on my personal webspace / GitHub.
How can I show which data I'm using in my paper? (Currently I give a link to the data source and note the data when I've downloaded it. Additionally, I note the date/version of the source if possible.)
Are there projects that try to solve this issue? (e.g. by providing space for important / interesting projects like [dblp](http://dblp.uni-trier.de/), a version history and good download speeds)<issue_comment>username_1: My limited experience of postdoc life is that there can be plenty of camaraderie; it just depends. I certainly hung out with the other postdocs, got invited to their homes, met their families, at least to a limited extent. So, yes, there is some bonding
In some ways it is not that different from grad student life. While a postdoc is more like a regular job, and I think everyone likes the fact that you are not as dirt poor as a grad student, you also spend time commiserating with each other about the crappiness of the job and worrying about the job market. Depending on who you are working for, you may also spend time complaining about the boss (or bosses). Since postdocs on average last a shorter time, one is liable to see people come and go even more frequently than in grad school, which does make it more difficult to have longer term friendships.
Having said all this, it is probably a good idea to find other people besides those you work with to hang out with. This is true of any job, of course. One suggestion - go dancing!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: The *special* thing for you coming out of (what seems) a pretty demanding grad school time is that being a postdoc is not so special at all. In most ways, being a postdoc is not unlike any other time-demanding job. You come to work in the morning, spend most of your day there, and, in the evening (whenever that is, time-wise), you will more often than not go back to your home and stay there to relax a bit. You bond with your co-workers, but usually more in an "acquaintance" than in a "friends-for-life" way.
Anyway, it seems to me that you are thinking that you can only hang out with people on your academic "level". This has never been my personal experience at all. In all my work places, grad students often hang out privately with the postdocs that they work with, and many of the younger faculty staff often join in for ad-hoc parties as well. I guess it is all a question of how you want to appear towards your junior work mates. There are people that see fit to construct an image of aloofness towards their students, and others like to mingle. Nothing wrong with either, of course, as long as your work relationship stays reasonably professional.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Great answers here. Looks like all the answers are US-based (from what little I know about US academia)... so let me add how it looks like from a perspective of a *European research lab*.
Note that I say *research lab* because the association to the Uni is really very loose, mostly meaning rarely who is attending classes at the uni. It is a fairly big lab, and very transitional (not many people stay long). It comprises people that are:
* PhD students (some of whom have a class or two to TA) staying for 3-4 years
* Master interns (staying for 4-6 months) and PhD exchanges (staying up to at most a year)
* postdocs (staying for a year, to at most two)
* engineers (staying for anywhere between 6 months and 2 years)
* permanent positions (researchers + professors)
None of us have classes together, there is many areas of computer science in the lab so most of us don't even share deadlines. As I mentioned, it's a transition place where a lot of people come and go very fast. Still *the social life is quite fine*. We **meet on smoke breaks, coffee breaks, through officemates, through friends, ex uni buddies, cause somebody hears the accent of his nationality...** I have a pretty active social life, at any point the group of friends I go out with is between 5 and 10 people. Some postdocs, some PhD students (both in their last years and just starting), an odd Master student on an internship, some engineers. Some people have teams that are much more involved, so they have team-nights-out, and I've heard of young supervisors inviting their students to social dinners.
One of the hardest parts for me is the fast pace of change: the group of people I went out a year ago has hardly anybody in common with right now. It doesn't mean that there weren't some nice friendships, but it's so easy to lose contact. Still, I also feel that I made some friends-for-life as well. A lot of different ways also exist for meeting people outside of work, such as dancing, language classes, evenings organized in town for foreign "students"...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I think you're making some unfounded assumptions in your question.
>
> what is your social life outside of academia like as a postdoc?
>
>
>
When you ask this question, you then immediately turned *back* to academia. Your social life as a postdoc is, in many ways, whatever you want it to be. For example, a great deal of *my* social life outside of academia was a local group devoted to my hobby.
To address a few other points you make:
* There may be fewer postdocs, but there is no reason your social life is restricted to this "tier". As I mentioned above, most of my social life was with non-academics, or at least non-academics in my particular lab/institute. I made friends with some of the faculty. With a few of the graduate students. With the research staff. There is no clubhouse with "Postdocs Only!" written in Sharpie that you need to rely on.
* "There are no excuses to spend a ton of time with one another" - You're assuming this is true, but it's not necessarily true. I will say that, in my own personal experience, the most intensive time I spent in contact with other researchers was indeed during my postdoc, and there were some friendships formed "in the trenches".
* "possibly have nothing in common to talk about in terms of academics." There is the commonality of *being* an academic. Insane PIs. Funding lines being universally horrible. Anxiety about finding a job afterward. Reviewer #2's asinine comments...
* "I do not have the luxury of choosing the people that I like anymore." Yes, you do. It's called making friends. They just don't have to be postdocs.
Literally the most social I have ever been in my life was as a postdoc.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/29 | 1,547 | 6,232 | <issue_start>username_0: Dr. A came to Dr. B asking for research ideas. Dr. B gave him a thesis, explained its value, why it's plausible, and how to test it. Dr. A liked this, got Student C to do the work, and managed the work.
Now, it's time to publish their results. How should they determine the lead authorship?<issue_comment>username_1: There is no easy answer. Providing an idea is certainly a good part of research but performing experiments, interpreting results and writing up the paper (discussion) are equally important (by equal I do not mean they are worth exactly the same, just important). There are several ways in which one can discuss the username_2 based on evaluating the value of each component of the research process and then evaluate each persons contribution on each of these components. There have been a few posts (not necessarily in their entirety relevant to your question) here that discusses *contributorship* which I will not reiterate here. Please check the following (particularly links in the answers):
[Paper contributions and first authorship](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/13946/4394)
[How should a student defend his 1st authorship in front of his advisor politely and effectively?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/12264/4394)
[Authorship for paper based on my thesis](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/14428/4394)
The point here is that none of the different aspects are alone enough for first authorship so one must weigh all components involved in the research process. It is of course harder to accomplish this "after the fact" but if all involved agree to try I am sure you can come up with a good author username_2.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Dr. A was a wise man, a negotiated such things when asking for the research ideas? :-)
Well, if B is more senior than A, then in most fields the username_2 would be C, A, B. First authorship goes to the student, who did the most work. Last authorship goes to the most senior researcher. Then, the only position left for A is the second authorship. (Assuming for example that C is a grad student, A is a post-doc or something, and B is a professor).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: The description is quite vague.
If I read the paper and I have questions about it, who should I ask?
That should be the first author and in most cases this will fit with the description of C.
The ideas of B are indeed important, but in most cases this is overlooked and underestimated. If B didn't publish his ideas or did anything about them, then A could claim he had the same ideas, and B only stated the evident (I have seen this many times). More often than not, the role of B is to appear in the acknowledgements of the paper, or not to appear at all, because the conversation between A and B may be considered either:
* as a personal favor
* an informal or non-profesional conversation
* some mentoring or help that is to be thanked but not part of the paper
* a combination of several of the above or other gray areas of not-real involvement in the paper and the "real work".
Basically B gave his advice as a gift to A, and now A has to decide whether this gift is to be returned or not. If it is returned then probably B will be the second author, if it is not returned, then B will not be an author. This basically depends on how A sees B, he may be an ally, an asset, a friend, a superior, a rival, an enemy, an annoyance...
I have discarded the option of B being the third author because I'm assuming A is more senior than B, if B is more senior than A then B should be the third and not the second author, this would also mean that B has more chances to appear as a coauthor. The reason is that the username_2 from first to last author means the involvement in the work and the paper, but also on low-level work, while the last author is in the highest-level work, most abstract, theoretical, general, long-term-visioned, etc. Therefore the most senior is set to the last (even if someone else was less involved but involved enough to appear) to avoid suspicion on a less senior researcher (aka lesser being) giving high-level advice to a more senior researcher.
Most of the time the focus, the stress and the effort is not on how things are, but how do they look like. At least this is what I have seen up until now.
BTW: When I put examples I like to speak about Alex, Bernie, Cory, etc. I think this is easier to follow and I do also think that @username_2 made a mistake between A and B. By your description, A seems to be more senior than B, the kind of senior researcher that manages human resources, that can pay C and that can tell C what to do. If that is the case, I doubt as well about the involvement of A in the paper and the work, while B and A can
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: The lead author should be the person who carries out the bulk of the research work—including the planning, execution, and writing.
If the student C is the one responsible for carrying out the experiments *and* writing the paper, then C should be considered the primary agent of the paper.
Who should be the "final" author is a different matter. I would suspect that this really should be professor B, who had the original idea. The role of doctor A is only as research manager, so his role is nominally weaker than that of either B or C in this process. So, ultimately, barring other negotiations and arrangements to the contrary, it should be:
>
> Student C, Doctor A, Professor B.
>
>
>
If there is some other distribution of roles beyond what is laid out above, it would need to be negotiated between everybody involved.
*Note*: In fields where lexicographic username_2 is not used, the final author position also carries weight. It usually is the head of the research group or team that originated the project.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: In addition, there is the possibility of having a paragraph "Contributions". Some journals actually ask for such a statement.
If the discussion about the username_2 of authors becomes difficult, this can calm down the discussion, also because writing down who did what often points out the username_2 the authors should have.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/12/30 | 1,784 | 7,926 | <issue_start>username_0: It seems as though everyone in academia is trying to publish *stuff*, regardless of whether they actually have something meaningful to say. The journals generate more *noise* every year.
I understand that papers count for promotion and review, they mostly get counted but... There is room to question the actual motivation to publish.
**What is your primary reason for publishing?** How much of it is related to making a meaningful contribution to science/knowledge/understanding, and how much is for other reasons/purposes (tenure, CV, fame, pressure, etc.)?<issue_comment>username_1: In the words of Lichtfouse (2013) *a research article is above all a communication tool and its purpose is to transfer scientific information from one individual to other individuals*.
Publishing a paper is for me the way to show that I am doing research and sharing it with others. But, it is clear that I also am pressured into publishing because promotions and the ability to attract funding relies on publications as a primary evaluation tool. So although I do not publish with the expressed intent of attracting more funding or my own promotions, I am well aware of the spiralling development that is ongoing. I do want to mention that publishing something primarily gives me personally a sense of achievement, that my research is good enough to pass the scrutiny of peers etc. As with, I surmise, mostly everyone else, I thrive from doing a good job and getting a sense of accomplishment. Publishing does that for me.
Whether or not people read my research can be answered by yes and no. Everyone does not read my papers but some who do not should and some who reference my work, really ought to read it, again. On the whole, I think papers get the attention they deserve, some get more and some get less attention than I think is fair. But, since my work gets referenced reasonably often, I think over and under referenced papers average out.
The "pressure to publish" is definitely there and I believe that universities and funding agencies should try to improve the way they evaluate research so as to avoid "salami slicing" and other types of publishing effects. But, how such a system should look is difficult to say although many indices such as the *h-index* can be used. Since there are no perfect systems, it is perhaps more important to look at the ethical aspects of publishing and make awareness of and discssion on publishing issues better.
<NAME>., 2013. Scientific writing for impact factor journals. Nova Publishers, New York.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The **first question** is a relatively simple problem.
Researchers have the **utility** of:
* some research being published in some rated venue: which will award them points according to some criteria.
* some research being cited, which will award also points according to some other criteria.
* some research being purchased: which will award some sweet additional income.
* some research being read: which doesn't award any points per se, but helps to create some buzz around it, get cites, funding, etc. This requires the research to be published before.
* "making a meaningful contribution to science/knowledge/understanding".
Look at the last bullet point, the rewards come from the inside of the researchers in that case, no raise, no money, no external reward. This means that if people focus on that too much they may not make any progress in their careers and they may actually fail in the search for funding or even a job. Therefore, successful people will have a strong interest/utility on the other points, the last one may or may not be important for them, but definitively secondary. They may say it's the primary goal, but they won't act like that, or they will fail. I'm an introvert and this sucks, but that is how the system is, it's mathematical.
The points and external rewards are very important. They may be important to finish a MSc or a PhD, to get a post-doc position, a job in industry, a tenured position, a raise, a project, funding, etc. But we are not done yet. They do also have **resources** to get some attention:
* social networks (twitter, linkedIn, etc.)
* blogs
* conferences
* journals
* books
* etc.
Do you remember the last point?, blogs seem to be perfectly suitable to making this kind of contribution, but they are not peer reviewed and they don't award any points, therefore, they are used like twitter. Get buzz, get attention, then link the paper so that people can read it. You can even summarize the paper in the blog so that people can cite it without actually reading it, which is wrong on so many levels that actually some of them cancel each other and happens to be right in some levels, at least IMHO.
Finally have some pieces of **research** that they can split like salami or maybe put together as a compilation to create a book, or they can even try to split, publish in conferences, then put together as a journal, then join with even more stuff and write a book.
So basically in the end researchers try to publish the research using the resources available trying to maximize the utility of their research, effort, time, publications, etc. Those who do it right (not focusing on the last point of the utility) get to do more and more research, and so the academia system works, and so it is driven.
Basically this is a problem of cybernetics. This is an emergent information system that is mostly driven in that way, with those dynamics and that convergence. Maybe we would have a better system if it was explicitly engineered and not emergent, but as usual, the ones that have the most power to change it are the ones that are most favored by the current system. There is always some strength in the stability of the status quo.
About the **second question**, the answer for me is "no". I guess that's why I'm here writing with a pseudonym.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Yes, promotion-and-tenure motivations are strong, but it would be misguided to think that such cachet is the sole impetus for publishing. Even if relatively few people read the final result, there's a lot to be said for the publication process: comments from referrees, questions from conference attendees – these provide valuable feedback that can lead to new insights or help you gauge how much your overall research efforts are of interest and use to others in the field.
It's one thing to have a hunch that your research is signficant; it's another to have that verified by selection committees and the peers in your field.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: A list of *recent* publications is the most serious document to prove the competence in science. And, very often, no competence - no job.
A professor that has no publications for several years may at the end lose the position. This is a reasonable requirement, as it forces to stay up to date with the knowledge. Otherwise the quality of teaching would drop because alternative ways of discarding low competence professor (like group of students requiring to replace him) are way more difficult and problematic.
Also, publication is a normal, usual way to recognize the PhD work. It may be possible to get PhD without publications but this is usually understood as a sign of unsuccessful work that puts shadow on both student and supervisor. Nobody wants.
Finally, some systems like European may require a scientist to change the institution periodically, providing mostly temporary positions as long as you are not a professor yet. If you have finished a two year post doctoral position without a paper published, that is the end of you scientific carrier - you will not get the next one.
Unfortunately this also means that scientists try to publish something often even when they could generally work for several more years to make a better publication instead.
Upvotes: -1 |
2013/12/30 | 285 | 1,169 | <issue_start>username_0: What would you call the temporary advisor assigned to a PhD student upon enrolment, who is in charge of the student until the student finds his/her research advisor? "temporary advisor", or "course advisor", or ...? Thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: In the program where I currently work, we call such advisors "academic advisors," which makes the distinction with the "research advisor" or "thesis advisor" fairly obvious.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I'd imagine the particular terminology varies from one department to another. I've heard that called a "provisional" advisor. In my department you start with a "provisional committee" of two people. The provisional advisor is assigned based on the student's research interests, so often they wind up being the "real" advisor too, later on.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The term when I was a first-year PhD student was a "temporary advisor". There isn't a huge difference on how you call this person; people on the admission committee have been through graduate school too, and they'll get it. Don't worry on the details too much, and spend more time on the SOP.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/30 | 2,162 | 9,190 | <issue_start>username_0: This question is for those of you who have been on the hiring committee.
I am wondering if the following scenario could happen.
Applicant X applies to University Y; University Y looks at applicant X's profile, and says "applicant X has very strong records. There is no way University Y is the best applicant X can do; hence we will not offer Applicant X a position (postdoctoral, or TT)"
This seems worrying, because:
* perhaps applicant X is just so mediocre, that he falls through the crack; University Y turns him down, but universities slightly better than University Y might think that applicant X is not up to their standards.
* what if applicant X actually really wanted to go to University Y for personal reasons? Of course, maybe applicant X was hoping for something slightly better than University Y, so maybe he did not contact the department (in case he decides not to go to University Y).
* even from the university's perspective, this is fairly complicated: University Y could take a chance and hope that applicant X will accept their offer, but perhaps it is more advantageous to extend the offer to the applicant next on the list instead of applicant X. There is no way of knowing which is the better choice, though.
In particular, if such scenario happens, and if I want to prevent the first point, what do I need to do? I am wary of contacting the departments, because should the department be excited about me, and should someone push for my being hired in the hiring committee meeting, then I would feel obligated (to some degree) to accept that offer (even if a better offer comes along), since that someone has advocated on my behalf, on my request.<issue_comment>username_1: I think the scenario, as you described it, is unlikely to occur.
If a hiring committee felt a candidate could get a job at a more prestigious institution, then I think the candidate would simply be asked up front: "It seems like you could get hired at a more prestigious institution – why are you applying here?" Then, the candidate would have a chance to provide an explanation.
If the explanation seemed satisfactory (such as, "I've always wanted to live in this city," or, "My brother and my nephews live in a nearby town, and I was tired of getting on an airplane every time I wanted to visit," for example) then the committee would probably be glad for a chance to hire someone with strong qualifications.
The one time where this may count against the candidate, though, is if the committee suspects this job is being used as a mere "stepping stone," and the committee is hoping to hire someone who will stay for more than a few years. So, if the answer to the question is, "I eventually want to apply to an Ivy League school, but I felt like a few years here might bolster my chances," then I could imagine a committee choosing another qualified candidate with plans to remain on faculty for a longer time.
So, I'd be careful of what you said, and how you worded it, but I'd also advise you to be honest and up front about your motives and intentions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: This happens all the time and everywhere. Strategic decisions about who to interview or make offers to are based not just on perceived quality or market value, but also broader considerations of fit. It's an unavoidable part of the job market, and I'm not convinced it's even a bad thing overall, since it makes the job market work much more smoothly and efficiently.
This is a tough issue to resolve as an applicant. There are several reasons why it can be ineffective just to tell the department that you really want to go there:
1. They may not believe you. They may suspect you of deliberately exaggerating your likelihood of accepting just in order to get an offer, perhaps so you can use it to help negotiate a better offer elsewhere. (The academic job market is exactly the sort of high stress, high stakes environment that brings out some people's worst sides.) Even if they're convinced you're completely honest, they may feel you'll change your mind once you learn more about your other options, or that if you come you'll end up feeling like you made a mistake and they'll have a bitter, resentful colleague who wants to leave. An applicant who suffers from imposter syndrome may say "Wow, I'd be thrilled to get an offer from University X, which is the best job I can imagine getting" but might not remain as thrilled after getting offers from A, B, and C as well.
2. Many reasons you could give may be viewed as kind of insulting. If you explain that you really like the city or want to live near relatives, then it can come across like you are saying "Sure, your department would otherwise be beneath me, but I'm willing to put up with you for non-academic reasons." The department might be willing to hire you even if they think you feel superior, but they won't be happy about it. In order for this to work, you have to be very careful about tone. Two-body problems are widely accepted as an understandable reason, and of course academic reasons can be highly effective, but anything else has the potential for giving a bad impression if you aren't careful.
So announcing your preferences may not always work. Still, it's really your only option, so it's not worth worrying too much about how it might fail. To put things more positively:
1. Try to emphasize aspects of the department that excite you, and not just side benefits such as location.
2. It's often more effective if you or a mentor convey this information through personal contacts, rather than just talking with the search committee chair. In particular, hearing from someone senior can add credibility: there have been a number of times I've reassured a department that a student genuinely wanted to work there (and wasn't just confused or suffering from imposter syndrome).
3. If you already have an ostensibly more impressive offer and can say "I would very likely turn down my offer from University A in favor of a compelling offer from you," it carries a lot of weight. At the very least, it eliminates the fear that you don't understand your options. (But say this only if you are quite sure! If there's even a small chance you would choose A after all, then you should make it clear that you have not made a final decision and might change your mind. It's unethical to try to manipulate anyone.)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: >
> In particular, if such scenario happens, and if I want to prevent the first point, what do I need to do?
>
>
>
Don't be mediocre.
>
> I am wary of contacting the departments, because should the department be excited about me, and should someone push for my being hired in the hiring committee meeting, then I would feel obligated (to some degree) to accept that offer (even if a better offer comes along), since that someone has advocated on my behalf, on my request.
>
>
>
Good! You *should* feel obligated.
The most important thing to maintain in this situation is honesty. It's perfectly fine to keep your precise preferences confidential, but **DO. NOT. LIE.** Do not approach faculty to say that you are interested in their department unless you are *genuinely* interested in their department. Do not ask them to believe you would accept their offer over an offer from MIT or Harvard unless you would *actually* accept their offer over an offer from MIT or Harvard. Do not tell thirty different departments that you would consider their offer first. Expect that the faculty you contact will also contact your advisor and/or other references and ask for a frank assessment of your priorities. Expect faculty to be distrustful, because they have been burned many times in the past.
Job applications are supposedly confidential, but stories of dishonest behavior do get around, and they follow their perpetrators for *years*.
On the other hand, being interested in a job is not the same as committing to accepting an offer. If you are genuinely interested, then it is definitely a good idea to communicate your interest to your colleagues in the target department. (Note: not "contact the *department*", but "contact your *colleagues*".) Corner your colleagues at conferences and ask intelligent questions about their department, just as you would in an interview. If you can do so on your own (or your advisor's) dime, offer to visit and give a talk at a research seminar. Don't just *say* you're interested; *act* interested.
But do not lie.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Hiring committees often try and make an offer to a candidates they think will not only accept the job, but stay long term. You also need to remember that for tenure track academic positions, the undergraduate ranking of a university really has little to do with the desirability of the position. It has some affect on the quality of students, but desirability is really about the start up package, teaching load, and benefits (both financial and personal). Ideally your teaching and research statements and cover letter would explain what it is about the department that makes you interested in them.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/30 | 364 | 1,560 | <issue_start>username_0: Lets assume your GPA is very high, say 3.95 or higher, at both your undergrad and graduate school institutions. I have always included it while applying to summer research programs and internships while still in my PhD program. But this is probably inappropriate on the postdoc market right?
Perhaps this question is somewhat subjective, but, after checking out some other questions on this exchange, I didn't think it was overly subjective.<issue_comment>username_1: No (to the question in the title), and yes (to the question in the post). For postdocs no one cares about your grades. They're only interested in the quality of your research.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: username_1's answer only considers *academic* postdoctoral positions. In such cases, he is correct: undergraduate and graduate GPA's do not matter.
If you are applying for **non-academic** postdocs, however, the situation is very different. At large research centers—particularly those managed by corporations, such as essentially the entire US Department of Energy laboratory system—hiring is done by corporate employees, and must be approved by several layers of management. Several of the national laboratories even have strict GPA cutoffs for their employees, regardless of the length of time they've been working post-graduation!
Consequently, if you're applying for positions only in academia, then there's no need to include GPA. However, for anything outside of an academic setting, it can actually help to do so.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/30 | 1,979 | 8,410 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a theoretical computer science PhD student. My childhood friend (my present roommate) is in the 3rd year of his pure mathematics PhD program. Very recently we both worked on a problem on combinatorial geometry and got some interesting results to publish. However both of our dissertation topics are way different from this work, so we don't want to involve our advisors in this matter. This was kind of our joint fun project.
We don't know whether it's academically unethical to publish paper(s) as PhD students without including our advisor(s).
(Note: We have nothing to lose even if they reject our paper right away, but we don't want the editor of the journal to mail the chair about this matter. Maybe I'm thinking too much because I've never done this kind of thing before.)<issue_comment>username_1: There is nothing unethical about publishing something like what you suggest. Personally I would be happy and encourage a student of mine if that happened. So from a formal side you need not to worry. I can add that authorship, or contributorship, does not include adding names to a paper if they have not contributed anything (or enough; see posts on authorship on this, Academia.sx, site). I would, however, be open about it with your advisor. I assume you have a good working relationship with him/her? The only thing that could complicate things would be if you are in a bad working relationship with your advisor or if your system is very hierarchical and not open to initiatives. Clearly only you can assess this. But, I do not want you to over-emphasize these "risks". If you get stuff published on your own and in a field that is not directly within your topic, it will only be viewed as a positive in your resume when applying for, for example, post-doctoral positions.
As for risking rejection, I suggest you have someone whose views you trust to read and comment on the paper. Having someone independent look at the work is always good to work out details that can otherwise distract reviewers. This is always a good idea so it is not unique to your case.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The answer is "yes", but many advisors may respond differently to this. I think it depends much more on the advisor than on any established "academic norm":
* Advisor might not be happy that you are using up your time for "trivial pursuits" on the advisor's grant money when you should be doing "real work toward your thesis". (For the record, I would consider this as a bad reason to be unhappy with your students). Often, if you can ensure that the side project doesn't take up that much time, you can mitigate this risk a little.
* Advisor might be happy that you are independently pursuing projects.
* Advisor might not want a part of this paper simply because of lack of time/energy but otherwise be happy that you're doing it. This is pretty common, for example, in the case of class projects in which you end up with something that's actually pretty significant and the class professor would like you to help publish it.
* Advisor might not want you to "spread yourself out too thin" later in your PhD career. I've been advised to be careful about coming up and getting involved with too many "one-shot" ideas that will never get developed and don't help your overall image. So, for example, if you're in the area of "program analysis and testing" (for example), publishing a one-off paper in a venue (maybe "distributed computing") that you don't keep up with and won't be remembered in will result in a forgettable, low-impact paper. I think this is more of a risk when students are thinking "of things to work on" and aren't really focused or don't have a good idea of a research thread to develop. This is also more of a risk if your academic profile isn't very focused. For example, if you have a bunch of disconnected topics you're more in danger than if you have only one or two side projects in a whole field of papers on your main interest.
+ As a note beneath this one, I think most advisors are mostly concerned that their students are "too distracted". It's easy to do that as a Ph.D ("I can explore anything I want!") - so advisors by nature of their jobs need to make sure that the thesis ends up having focus. Having ideas is a good thing, but putting those ideas into papers is a lot of work. Just to help put a bit of perspective here.
I am generally in favor though of at least letting your advisor know of "side projects" that you're involved in, even class projects, because often they will want to find ways of integrating that into some research work that you can be doing. A good advisor might see a connection between your combinatorial geometry "side project" and your main thesis research, for instance. It's also a good idea, in general, to have a tiny amount of breadth across one or more areas as well. It not only generates good ideas, but helps you keep perspective.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Rather than repeat what others have mentioned in their answers, I'd rather touch upon another related issue:
*In some cases not involving your supervisor also means not involving the institute that you are part of.*
Apart from the issue of attribution, depending on the specifics this may have legal ramifications, especially if you are receiving funds from a grant. Theoretically, if you have used any resources supplied by your institute, including existing ideas, computing power or your own paid work hours, you may not have sole ownership of the resulting IP. Things may get even more complicated if your co-author is colaborating with a different entity.
You may not need to do anything, you may need to get a waiver of IP rights from your institute or you may have to add something along the lines of a *"This work was supported by..."* snippet. If I were you, I would discuss this with my supervisor, even if only to clarify any such issues...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Is your advisor supporting you, e.g. as an RA? If so, he might be perturbed that you are spending time and energy on something "way different" from what you are paid to do. Along the same lines, he may also be intent on your completion of your degree program in a timely manner so that he can free up resources, say for another student to enter the group after you graduate.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: The answer is **Yes**, because I did this, and was actively encouraged to do so.
Your supervisor does not own you. If you did some outside work, and you think it's publishable, and your supervisor wasn't involved, the work wasn't building off their lab's work or using their equipment, there's no reason they need to be involved.
Now, you might *want* to involve them, to get their input, keep them aware of other things you are doing so they can say nice things about the terribly clever projects their students are up to, etc.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: I published a few papers in my area and outside this area, while doing my PhD - without my supervisor's name on them.
In the articles in my research area, one was done with some hints from my supervisor and I gave it to him for review (once it was written), with his name as a co-author. He stroke out his name from it and told me
>
> Do not let your work be diluted by adding people because "this is expected". I have my share of papers and do not need one more. You will need this one, and it is your work - not mine.
>
>
>
As you can imagine, after that the "thank you" section sounded like I was announcing our engagement.
In other cases (whether in my field or not), when I was the one thinking it out (or working with otherwise unrelated friends), I/we published under our names without asking anyone.
As a side note - one of the reasons I left the academic world (which is per se wonderful and I have fantastic memories) is the feudal relationship I witnessed, together with the idea that people are slave to "recommendation letters". This is certainly a specific case but do not let yourself, at that stage, become obsessed with political correctness.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Yes, you can, by all means.
The thing you both need to discuss with respectively supervisors is the time you spent on this, and convince them that this will not adversely affect your "proper" work with them.
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/12/30 | 382 | 1,769 | <issue_start>username_0: I received three letters of recommendation for applications to this spring semester, but I chose to decline admission for personal/financial reasons. I am now applying for fall admission, and I would like to ask the same professors for letters of recommendation again.
Is it appropriate to request additional letters of recommendations from professors to new universities for the second time? With no other prospects, I need their recommendations in order to be accepted. Should that desperation be included or excluded in the request?<issue_comment>username_1: Writing a letter of recommendation is very time consuming. Submitting or sending a small number of recommendation letters is not very time consuming. If your letter writers still have your letter on file and if minimal changes would need to be made to the letters, then asking them to submit letters on your behalf a second time is a very reasonable request. You should explain to them why you are asking them for another letter, but you do not need to convey desperation. Most recommendation writers are happy to help people in your situation.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes.
----
Writing recommendation letters is part of our job as professors. It is perfectly ethical to request that we do our job.
Conveying desperation in your request is neither necessary nor productive. You have nothing to be ashamed of or to apologize for.
On the other hand, anyone can (and should!) turn down your request in good conscience if they feel that they cannot write you a strong recommendation letter. If someone says that they can't write you a strong letter, *believe them* and ask someone else. You *really* don't want a weak letter in your file.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer] |
2013/12/31 | 1,483 | 6,396 | <issue_start>username_0: I am still in the process of choosing which major in the SEAS of my school I should pursue.
I want to go into an applied math PhD program after undegrad, so must I choose applied mathematics as my major? Or can I pursue electrical engineering or mechanical engineering? A double major isn't an option.
Any thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: Whatever.
Your major won't matter as much as your demonstrated potential for research in applied mathematics, which you can develop in almost(?) any engineering discipline.
---
Note that I did not say that you *will automatically* develop that potential in any engineering major; I said you *can*. **Research potential is only incidentally related to your required classes.** But it's considerably easier in engineering than in, say, English literature.
(Off the top of my head, I can think of applied mathematicians with degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, pure mathematics, statistics, ....)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't mean to be rude but username_1's answer (which I cannot comment on-site as I don't have the necessary reputation)
>
> Whatever.
> Your major won't matter as much as your demonstrated potential for research in applied mathematics, which you can develop in almost(?) any engineering discipline.
>
>
>
is so off-base, it's like saying that majoring in English gives you license to do a PhD in any field that involves writing in the English language.
Engineering is certainly not a substitute for applied mathematics, and the transition can be very harsh.
1. First of all, you need to localize yourself. Applied mathematics in the US is different from applied mathematics in the UK, which is different from applied mathematics in France. Similarly, applied mathematics at Harvard (which would *not* be with mathematics, but SEAS) would be different from applied mathematics at Courant at NYU or in the Mathematics department at Princeton (who don't have an applied mathematics department, but rather a *Program*)
2. In any case, you will be expected to know all the core mathematics curriculum that pure mathematicians take in their first two years. From here, it will depend on what subfield of applied mathematics you're interested in. For example, if you are applying to a subfield that involves the classical mathematical physics (like solid or fluid mechanics), then you would need classes on those.
3. Engineering classes are vastly different from mathematics classes in almost all the mathematical topics. There might be some overlap in terms of, for example, fluid mechanics, but even then there is a big distinction between engineering fluid mechanics and mathematical fluid mechanics. For instance, mathematical fluid mechanics would involve more rigorous reductions and derivations of the Navier-Stokes equations (exploring techniques in asymptotic analysis, for instance).
4. There is *some* possibility of jumping from an engineering degree to an applied mathematics PhD, but again, this would depend on the country and the university and the department. If you want to examine the difference, look at the applied mathematics department at Cambridge University and compare to the applied mathematics group at the Courant Institute in NYU. Also, examine the PhDs of current faculty.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Almost none of the applied math PhDs in the USA have BS degrees in applied math, because undergraduate degree programs in applied math are very rare (more commonly, one may have a "mathematics" degree but with an emphasis on applied math courses). A large proportion of applied math professors in the USA do not have a Ph.D. in applied math, because most of the applied math doctoral programs only came into existence in the last generation. For instance, my advisor's doctorate is in computer science, but his thesis was in numerical analysis. So **the name of the degree program is not key**.
I know people who have earned an applied math Ph.D. in the USA with undergraduate majors in **engineering, physics, chemistry, computer science, and pure math**. The non-math majors were from programs at very good schools with a heavy mathematical emphasis. As a professor at a university that is modelled after US universities, I have supervised successful students and postdocs whose backgrounds are in all those areas, as well as others in mechatronics and operations research. The transition for some was "quite harsh", but they persevered.
I think **the quality and rigor of the program is an essential factor**. A physics BS from a top school usually knows more mathematics (and can reason better in mathematical terms) than a math BS from a lower-tier school. Some computer science programs are, in fact, applied math programs; others involve very little math. And some engineering programs at lesser schools are virtually devoid of mathematics.
So **the bottom line is that you need to know much more about a program than its name in order to determine if it will prepare you well**.
I should add that I myself double majored in Physics/Astronomy and Math as an undergrad, then got Applied Math MS and PhD degrees.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Difficult question, as so much depends on the individual. However, here are 2 questions you might want to ask yourself.
Q1: Are you exceptionally good at math?
If yes, you could *consider* doing a Master's in an engineering discipline. But if you are not first rate at math, I would suggest doing the Master's in math. Prelims are no joke, and if I knew I wanted to specialize in applied math, then I would take care to learn the basics of real analysis, topology, abstract algebra, and numerical analysis *very* well. You can always pick up the applications later (or as my advisor who was a mathematician working in biology told me, "It's easier to go down") I worked as a mathematician for EEs for many years and by far, the rate limiting step is always math.
Q2: Do you want to work in industry or academics?
If the latter, then you definitely don't want to do your MS in engineering. If the former, it could be a plus. One the of the biggest obstacles math PhDs face is that they find they often need a secondary field or skill.
The safe bet (for many may reasons) would be to do your Master's in math.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/31 | 1,413 | 6,356 | <issue_start>username_0: The current system of producing knowledge in academia, think-tanks, research laboratories funded by large organizations, and similar has the benefits that there is usually some oversight, the people involved have been trained on how to conduct and contribute to research, and how to communicate their results to the literate portion of the society they are supposed to aid. (The above is subject to debate, but I prefer to assume it for the purpose of the question below.)
How can a person with no contacts to any of these contribute, or learn how to contribute, to the production of research, in spite of lack of oversight, funding, and training? As examples, a person who finds an alternate and faster method of DNA replication, or finds influences of <NAME> among current bloggers that suggest a certain societal trend, or has a new way of analyzing large portions of astronomical data, or finds a way of speeding up numerical simulations of models of biological systems involving capillary blood flow. How does such a person present such an idea or method?
One can write to authors on the appropriate area; how likely is this to succeed? One could look at an appropriate journal, attempt to copy the style, formatting, and phraseology of the articles and then submit their write-up to that journal, but without affiliation; with what result? One might attempt to use the Internet to strike up conversations with like-minded individuals and find a willing ear and eye; are there enough willing ears and eyes? One could start a blog or just put up a web page announcing the work; I have done that, but I have too many connections to be considered a complete outsider to academia, and I want to pose the question for those who are so outside. Further, how could someone searching an index find that page among many that are computer generated using similar phrases?
There are several spins one can put on this. Let us further assume that the primary goal is to present the idea/form of knowledge, and receive little or no more than the recognition of making the contribution and the satisfaction of seeing it used. In particular, potential degrees, awards, or jobs are not part of the scenario or motivation. In this day and age, would blogging be enough? Also, for fun and to make answers less trivial, assume the outsider is not and is not likely to enroll in a university.
Added: To address a comment, enrolling in a university would likely provide many of the desired contacts, but with some cost. The outsider may have had a university education, but this question makes the assumption that contacts there are stale or otherwise not accessible or appropriate, making this person more of an outsider.<issue_comment>username_1: Most of our audience here are academics and the OP is *Not Quite An Outsider*, I think I don't need to explain how important **peer review** is to research results. If the outsider needs the explanation, please use the [peer-review](/questions/tagged/peer-review "show questions tagged 'peer-review'") to read related Q&A.
Obviously, the outsider has at least two options: submit the manuscript to journals and/or having blog posts of his own.
One of the effective ways to get your paper to be peer reviewed is to send the paper to journals. It is true that some journals tend to ignore papers written by authors without affiliation. I personally have this experience. I am retired and am not associated with any institute. I do have experience that my manuscript was rejected without any explanation. However, the quality of the paper makes the difference. If it is indeed a very good paper, some journals would take it and send to referees. I personally have that experience, too.
The second option for an outsider is to have blog posts. I occasionally come cross blog posts when I search on the Internet (I am a retiree, I have plenty of time). My personal experience is that more than often good blogs are written by good scholars who are insiders. I bumped into many poor quality stuff written by outsiders quite often. They just don't make sense to me at all. I usually read the first couple of paragraphs to determine if I want to continue to read them. Unfortunately, most of them written by outsiders are of extremely poor quality.
Of course, the outsider has another option - arXiv. I think it does not make too much difference with regard to your question.
To me, the key issue is the contents. If you do have something very good, publish it. Somehow, somewhere, your article will be read by others. However, if you never receive college education, I seriously doubt your stuff is good. **You do need at least basic level knowledge to do research.**
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I want to add to Scaahu's answer, with which I of course agree. Basically anyone could in theory contribute to academic knowledge (I read that as research). But, it is easy to underestimate the amount of knowledge and experience that goes into successful research and publication thereof. The less you know about these required skills the more yo are likely to underestimate what is needed. Key is definitely to have a sound and up-tot-date view of research in the field or sub-field where the own interests lie. Add to that the skill to write up the science well, which includes not just writing well but understanding the format for writing well and knowing what is required and where to publish such work. i am not convinced blogs would work in all fields, I do not know of any such forums of any weight in my own field.
Since research educations are there to allow you to pick up the necessary skills for research, it should be clear that you need to have gained similar insights to be able to manage the entire research process well. I would guess that you may lack some of these skills; which, is of course unclear. Much can be learned by studying other's studies and at he same time pick up a god reference on the research process from idea to publication (write-up). Establishing a contact with a researcher in the field may provide additional help. We had such a person affiliated with our general research group while I was a graduate student and that person produced good contributions but probably would not have been able to without the support from the group.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/31 | 901 | 3,640 | <issue_start>username_0: Different journals have different standards regarding author names - some mention only the first name (i.e. "<NAME>"), some mention also an initial of the middle name ("<NAME>"), some mention only initials ("<NAME>"), etc.
So, when I copy BibTeX records of papers to my bibliography manager, the names are copied in different styles, and also appear in different styles in my bibliographic listing.
My question is: is this a problem? Should I go over all my bibliography, each time I write a paper, and make sure all names have the same format?<issue_comment>username_1: If you're using BibTeX, then this should automatically be taken care of through choice of the `bibliographystyle`.
If you are not using BibTeX or a similar package, then you should go over your references to make sure they're consistent with the papers you've cited. However, you're under no obligation to find the full names of authors if they've published the papers with their initials instead.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: **No**, you shouldn't change your bibtex database every time. Bibtex converts automatically from its native format "Surname, Firstname I. and Other, Author" to whatever the journal style is (for instance: F Surname, A Other), as long as you have full names in the database. Name formatting is something that people often get wrong at first when they have little experience with bibtex.
So you should aim for having full names in the database, at least for those papers that you need to cite with an unabbreviated first name. Everything would be easier if all journals used initials, but it's a tough world.
I suggest initials for theses, preprints and submissions, and only switch to full names after the article is accepted in a journal that demands them (and after being asked by a copy-editor that demands them). This is the solution that minimizes the workload on the author.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: The issue here is surely more that journals' bibtex export styles are highly inconsistent. Many output the names in a similar format to what they would print. So if you want full names and have only got initials, you're in for a few hours of tedious hunting and retyping. In other words you'd have to *really* want full names. If you have control over the format, pick a style with initials only, I suggest. The journals I have published in use initials (and don't even print the paper titles or give clickable links) in the references, so having a mixture of formats isn't an issue
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Let me cite <NAME> (from [this webpage](http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/help.html)):
>
> **Do you know any of these people?**
>
>
> [...] I try to make the indexes to my books as complete as possible, or at least to give the illusion of completeness. Therefore I have adopted a policy of listing full names of everyone who is cited. For example, the index to Volume 1 of The Art of Computer Programming says "<NAME>" and "<NAME>" instead of just "<NAME>." and "<NAME>."
>
>
>
I also think that a database with complete names is the way to go. The more complete the names are, the less ambiguous (consider all the different "<NAME>'s", "<NAME>'s" or "<NAME>'s"…).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: I would personally just leave the formats as is, because
1. Some people feel strongly about having their names displayed in a certain way.
2. It would be a huge hassle to find full names of all the authors that you cite.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/12/31 | 1,391 | 5,045 | <issue_start>username_0: I've wasted about an hour trying to figure out how I'm supposed to categorise an ACM article using the [new 2012 taxonomy here](http://www.acm.org/about/class/2012), and how I'm supposed to represent those categories in my article.
On the plus side, the 2012 taxonomy has some perfectly apt categories for my paper (unlike the previous 1998 version).
On the minus side, the instructions are abysmal with respect to how it should be used, it seems to be completely incompatible with the standard TeX macros provided with standard `sig-*` templates, and not only do the TeX macros provided by [this interactive system](http://dl.acm.org/ccs_flat.cfm) not work (`\begin{CCSXML}` and `\ccsdesc`), they don't even seem to even exist (at least Google turns up little if anything).
Is anyone actually using this new 2012 taxonomy and if so, is there any good guide on how to use it with a standard LaTeX `sig-*` template?
(Otherwise I think I'll just go back to the 1998 version ... as weird and archaic and seemingly useless as it is, at least it's a straightforward way to fill in those pointlessly mandatory category fields. Grrr.)<issue_comment>username_1: The only piece of official information I've been able to find regarding the status of the taxonomy is this notice at the bottom of [ACM Computing Classification System toc](http://www.acm.org/about/class) [Retrieved 2014-07-24]:
>
> Tools to help authors apply the 2012 CCS categories and concepts are being built. A new set of instructions will be issued in early 2013. Until then, authors please continue using the 1998 categories, following these instructions on how to classify your work: [How to Classify Works Using ACM's Computing Classification System](http://www.acm.org/about/class/how-to-use).
>
>
>
So it seems that the tools mentioned were long overdue already a little over a half a year ago when this question was asked. Not much of an answer, but as at the time writing Google turns up this question as one of the top results when searching for the 2012 CCS taxonomy, so I'm documenting what I was able to find out here.
The [ACM Digital Library](http://dl.acm.org/) has shows both the 1998 and 2012 terms on the Citation Pages of all indexed articles, but this seems to be the result of the old scheme being mapped to the new one. I haven't seen any of the additional categories in the new taxonomy showing up.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: So it seems some rather recent documentation and code has been posted to the ACM site.
<http://www.acm.org/publications/article-templates>
Has all the needed code in the `cls` file to generate the CCS macros (so actually use that more recent `sig-alternative.cls` file from [December 2014](http://www.acm.org/publications/article-templates/sig-alternate.cls/view)). And the document:
<http://www.acm.org/publications/article-templates/CCS-HOWTO-v6-12Jan2015.pdf>
Discusses how to include it in LaTeX and in Word. The SIGCHI template is being updated soon to reflect these changes as well.
For LaTeX, this document omits the code that is needed to generate visible output--it is `\printccsdesc`.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: If you're using `sig-alternate.cls`, this [sample TeX file](http://www.acm.org/publications/article-templates/sig-alternate-sample.tex) seems to have been silently updated in May 2015 to give an example of how to do this. Here's a precis:
1. Download [sig-alternate-05-2015.cls](http://www.acm.org/publications/article-templates/sig-alternate-05-2015.cls) into your local TeX tree (or temporarily into the same directory as your project)
2. Edit the first line of your LaTeX source to use it:
```
\documentclass{sig-alternate-05-2015}
```
3. Further down your LaTeX source, within the document enviroment (usually after your abstract), paste in the code that [the 2012 ACM Computing Classification System](http://dl.acm.org/ccs.cfm) gives you once you have chosen your categories, for example:
```
\begin{CCSXML}
...
\end{CCSXML}
\ccsdesc{Computer systems organization~Robotics}
\ccsdesc[100]{Networks~Network reliability}
```
4. Follow this with the line to print out your classification section:
```
\printccsdesc
```
5. And finally, add your own keywords:
```
\keywords{ACM proceedings; \LaTeX; text tagging}
```
I say this was added 'silently', because internally, the sample.tex file still says it was last updated April 2013, and it says `This file should be compiled with V2.5 of "sig-alternate.cls" May 2012`, whereas it actually compiles with "sig-alternate-05-2015.cls", which claims internally to have last been updated in Aug 2013, despite the date in its filename! No wonder everyone is confused.
Thanks to username_2's answer above, which has become broken, but pointed me in the right direction. (Could someone edit the broken link in username_2's answer to the `sig-alternative.cls` file from December 2014? --- I'm a newbie caught in the reputation catch-22 where I can't comment answers).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/01/01 | 1,276 | 5,514 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a young student checking pupils homeworks.
I've got a case - 2 pupils definetely cooperated when doing homework.
Do you have tips to determine who actually solved it and who copied? Got some ideas myself (like maybe one who copied had a better handwriting) but it is better to ask.<issue_comment>username_1: Here is my anecdotal experience for dealing with copiers and plagiarizers. At the end of the day, everyone should be penalized. It's just a matter of sorting out who did what, and making sure they're aware that further offending can carry severe consequences.
If discussing problems in groups is okay and encouraged (it should be!), don't forget to reinforce this. Just stress that the solutions themselves must be individual work.
* The weaker piece of homework (i.e. less complete explanations and working, or missing parts) is likely to be written by the student who had no contribution (or a lesser contribution) to the solution.
* It's usually rather obvious that some copying has gone on, especially if they all make the same mistakes and lay out their working the same. Consider rounding up all the students and talking to them together to find out the full story. They've already been caught red-handed, so it's in their best interests to be honest with you!
* It's important to find out exactly what happened, because there are cases where someone has copied work without the other's knowledge. In this case, it's not fair to punish both parties.
* If the student doing the copying has accidentally written their friend's name or student number on the sheet rather than their own, that tends to be a dead give-away that it's a downright facsimile of other work (that has actually happened).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Although I do not teach physics I do have a solution that generally works quite well.
The main answer is: **It does not matter who copied from whom - fail both.**
If one student allows another to copy, then both fail. I enforce this quite strictly and there are some students (who do not pay attention to the warnings I give at the start of the semester) who do it, but they never make the same mistake twice.
As username_1 said, it is possible that Student B copied from Student A without Student A knowing about it. I solve this problem but calling them both in front of me (private from everyone else) and tell them they have a choice:
Choice A: Both admit that the copying took place with consent of both, and both fail that homework/assignment/test/whatever is being assessed.
Choice B: Student A says that Student B stole Student A's work, and Student A gets off with a warning to be more careful (but no punishment) and Student B fails the module immediately without the opportunity to recover (Student B must re-take the module from the beginning).
I have dealt with many cases this way and only three cases where the students ended up in Choice B. In this case, the offending students admitted that they stole work.
You should never support the student who allows another student to copy from them. That behavior is simply unacceptable and that needs to be made quite clear to everyone.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I have also got in that situation with a couple of students that I was lecturing. I decided to fail both and sent an email, to both of them, saying that they were going to be penalized even with the disciplinary committee of the University to expelled them both. In a couple of hours the person that was guilty confesses his participation in this situation. I only decided to fail that person from the exam and leave the other only with a disciplinary warning.
Long story short: Here you have only two ways, either you fail both of them which is simpler; or just look for the guilty person (which I usually do and I always discover the sinner")
Good luck!
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I am surprised that no one mentioned this solution yet, but it shouldn't be too difficult to find out by interrogating them: question them both on how they solved the exercises. "So, tell me, which formula are you applying in this line? Why are the hypotheses satisfied? Show me the missing steps."
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: First of all, you should remember that you are a teacher, and that you are responsible for your students' intellectual growth.
If you decide to randomly accuse one of the two students of "copying", and if you are wrong, then think about the effects that this accusation could have. Aside from the hurt feelings, that student could lose confidence, since your accusation shows that you think that this student is worse than the student who copied. There is no predicting how your actions could change the students' lives. Honestly, from your posts, it seems like you are almost trying to make this a bigger deal than it actually is.
The standard way to deal with this situation is to have a meeting with both students, and to put both students through the same disciplinary action, unless one student confesses that he copied from the other student, in which case the punishment level could be adjusted.
But the thing that shocked me the most from this post is the fact that you apparently seem comfortable with randomly accusing your own students. You should remember that you have HUGE effects on their lives, and make sure that you do not abuse it. Showing mistrust is one thing that you should never, never do to your students.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/01/01 | 1,339 | 5,855 | <issue_start>username_0: I have some new ideas regarding a concept in computer science and have done considerable independent reasearch work.None of the faculty members in my university seem to be interested in helping an independent undergrad thesis in computer science.I have some time to complete it formally, though.
Could anyone please tell me the steps to get my paper published ? What should I ensure about my paper before sending it for publication ?
I am confused as to what to do , there are so many things- transations, journals , proceedings, conferences ..etc , How are these different and where it is the best to send a research paper ?<issue_comment>username_1: Here is my anecdotal experience for dealing with copiers and plagiarizers. At the end of the day, everyone should be penalized. It's just a matter of sorting out who did what, and making sure they're aware that further offending can carry severe consequences.
If discussing problems in groups is okay and encouraged (it should be!), don't forget to reinforce this. Just stress that the solutions themselves must be individual work.
* The weaker piece of homework (i.e. less complete explanations and working, or missing parts) is likely to be written by the student who had no contribution (or a lesser contribution) to the solution.
* It's usually rather obvious that some copying has gone on, especially if they all make the same mistakes and lay out their working the same. Consider rounding up all the students and talking to them together to find out the full story. They've already been caught red-handed, so it's in their best interests to be honest with you!
* It's important to find out exactly what happened, because there are cases where someone has copied work without the other's knowledge. In this case, it's not fair to punish both parties.
* If the student doing the copying has accidentally written their friend's name or student number on the sheet rather than their own, that tends to be a dead give-away that it's a downright facsimile of other work (that has actually happened).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Although I do not teach physics I do have a solution that generally works quite well.
The main answer is: **It does not matter who copied from whom - fail both.**
If one student allows another to copy, then both fail. I enforce this quite strictly and there are some students (who do not pay attention to the warnings I give at the start of the semester) who do it, but they never make the same mistake twice.
As username_1 said, it is possible that Student B copied from Student A without Student A knowing about it. I solve this problem but calling them both in front of me (private from everyone else) and tell them they have a choice:
Choice A: Both admit that the copying took place with consent of both, and both fail that homework/assignment/test/whatever is being assessed.
Choice B: Student A says that Student B stole Student A's work, and Student A gets off with a warning to be more careful (but no punishment) and Student B fails the module immediately without the opportunity to recover (Student B must re-take the module from the beginning).
I have dealt with many cases this way and only three cases where the students ended up in Choice B. In this case, the offending students admitted that they stole work.
You should never support the student who allows another student to copy from them. That behavior is simply unacceptable and that needs to be made quite clear to everyone.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I have also got in that situation with a couple of students that I was lecturing. I decided to fail both and sent an email, to both of them, saying that they were going to be penalized even with the disciplinary committee of the University to expelled them both. In a couple of hours the person that was guilty confesses his participation in this situation. I only decided to fail that person from the exam and leave the other only with a disciplinary warning.
Long story short: Here you have only two ways, either you fail both of them which is simpler; or just look for the guilty person (which I usually do and I always discover the sinner")
Good luck!
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I am surprised that no one mentioned this solution yet, but it shouldn't be too difficult to find out by interrogating them: question them both on how they solved the exercises. "So, tell me, which formula are you applying in this line? Why are the hypotheses satisfied? Show me the missing steps."
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: First of all, you should remember that you are a teacher, and that you are responsible for your students' intellectual growth.
If you decide to randomly accuse one of the two students of "copying", and if you are wrong, then think about the effects that this accusation could have. Aside from the hurt feelings, that student could lose confidence, since your accusation shows that you think that this student is worse than the student who copied. There is no predicting how your actions could change the students' lives. Honestly, from your posts, it seems like you are almost trying to make this a bigger deal than it actually is.
The standard way to deal with this situation is to have a meeting with both students, and to put both students through the same disciplinary action, unless one student confesses that he copied from the other student, in which case the punishment level could be adjusted.
But the thing that shocked me the most from this post is the fact that you apparently seem comfortable with randomly accusing your own students. You should remember that you have HUGE effects on their lives, and make sure that you do not abuse it. Showing mistrust is one thing that you should never, never do to your students.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/01/01 | 1,441 | 5,593 | <issue_start>username_0: How does one write a strong (good) introduction into a research paper? Some introductions make me really curious about the rest of the paper while others do not. Although it is relatively easy to say which introductions are good and which are not, I find it difficult to distill what makes the difference. There is a previous question about writing introductions ([How to write a Ph.D. thesis Introduction chapter?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12170/how-to-write-a-ph-d-thesis-introduction-chapter)) but it is about Ph.D theses.<issue_comment>username_1: Some points to take into consideration (not an exhaustive list):
1. Correct grammar: for obvious reasons.
2. Proper literature review: many readers find annoying when the authors claim to be the first people attacking the problem of interest, while the reader is well aware of other relevant references.
3. State clearly the aims and main results in the introduction. It is frustrating when you have to read the entire paper to understand its purpose.
4. Not too long, not too short. A long introduction will make the idea of skipping this section really tempting, while a short introduction might compromise clarity or points 2 and 3.
5. Cover points of interest for different audiences. For example, try to explain the impact of the paper or the topic in terms of both theoretical and practical issues.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: *This is very area specific. I'll start with the caveat that I write papers in computer science, so YMMV.*
The way I think about introductions (which is not to say they are GOOD introductions) is that they tell the story of the paper in brief. Every paper has a story to tell, starting with
* Here's a fascinating question
* Here's what people have tried to do (in brief: not a full related work section, but a high level assesment)
* here's the key challenge preventing further progress
* Voila: here's our complete/partial/intermediate/awesome solution
* (additionally) and here's how it works.
The intro is typically the "hook" to read the rest of the paper, so you have to provide a birds-eye view that draws the reader in without drowning them in details.
The thing that separates a good intro from a bad one is knowing where that right level of detail is, so you're not either totally vacuous or mired in details. Getting this right is an art and depends on your field, your results, the problem, and your understanding of the target audience.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I was recently forwarded (what I think) is a guide full of excellent advice, [*Writing Tips for Ph. D. Students* by <NAME>](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e6033a4ea02d801f37e15bb/t/5eda74919c44fa5f87452697/1591374993570/phd_paper_writing.pdf). In it, Cochrane has a brief section of advice on the introduction:
>
> The introduction should start with what you do in this paper, the major contribution. You must explain that contribution so that people can understand it. Don’t just state your
> conclusion: “My results show that the pecking-order theory is rejected.” Give the fact behind that result. “In a regression of x on y, controlling for z, the coefficient is q.”
>
>
> The first sentence is the hardest. Do not start with philosophy, “Financial economists have long wondered if markets are efficient.” Do not start with “The finance literature has
> long been interested in x.” Your paper must be interesting on its own, and not just because lots of other people wasted space on the subject. Do not start with a long motivation of
> how important the issue is to public policy. All of this is known to writers as “clearing your throat.” It’s a waste of space. Start with your central contribution.
>
>
> Three pages is a good upper limit for the introduction.
>
>
>
This just reiterates the point both username_1 and username_2 made that the introduction should clearly state what the paper is about, and also some more detailed advice about avoiding generic intro. statements. (Note the upper bound is good for social science articles that may be from 20~40 pages, it should be much lower for briefer articles in different fields or journals.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Start writing the body paragraphs then use the basic ideas of all of them and then create an introduction and concluding paragraphs!
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: * **Make a concrete analogy.** A concrete analogy will intertwine to the text and allow room for the readers to project their background into it.
* **Make the ideas constantly contradict each other.** "Contradiction" here doesn't mean as a logical contradiction, but more about "a surprising, but still logical step of development". It introduces why the topic is important, and is the source of excitation, enlightenment, and satisfaction. Being able to solve contradictions is the reason why the ideas survive and are worth the attention.
* **Notice where the flow** ***emerges and dissipates***. This will help overcome the jargon barrier without having to oversimplify them. Imagine the article is like a heatmap, and each jargon/theorem/proof is a heat source, then the writer's job is to locate them not too hot (too dense) or too cold (too uninformative). The introduction is also the same.
I have an article for this, you can check it out: [Making concrete analogies and big pictures](http://lyminhnhat.com/2018/07/16/1-making-concrete-analogies-and-big-pictures/?utm_source=Stack%20Exchange&utm_medium=answer&utm_campaign=The%20Sphere).
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/01/01 | 1,687 | 6,901 | <issue_start>username_0: As written in the title, I'm thinking of applying for masters in Europe (I myself am from Serbia), but I made a mess of my undergraduate career, so I'm looking for advice how to present this in my CV and SOP.
**Here's my background:**
Back after finishing high school, I applied for a relatively well respected local electrical engineering school (University of Belgrade School of Electrical Engineering). Out of 500 students, I was 250ish. So far so good. My intent at the time was to study computer engineering.
Then came the first academic year. I passed a number of exams (mostly those I could pass with no studying at all, so as a result my grades were pretty bad, with my grade average being 7.0 out of 10, with 6 being passing grade), but I didn't have enough credits pass to the second year.
No big deal, I thought, since statistics show that the four year program there usually lasts around seven years, with first year being the most difficult. I took some exams from the second year and tried to pass first year exams again. At the end of the year, I passed none of the first year exams, but I did pass some of the second year exams. Third time's the charm I thought, got some more second year exams and tried to pass the first year again. At the end of the year, situation was the same as last time: I passed none of the problematic first year exams, but I did pass some of the second year exams.
By that time, I was pretty depressed, had gained quite a bit of weight, was having big problems with procrastination and was fed up with school politics.
At that point I decided that it was time to switch schools. I moved to a younger, less-respected school (Union University School of Computing) and got admitted (barely) into second year there due to exams I passed at my previous school. I moved to a telecommunications study program there.
In the second year, at my new school, I had around one and a half year worth of exams, but I managed to pass them. The downside was that my grades weren't all that good. They weren't bad, but nothing exceptional either. Third year went well for me. I passed all of the exams, raised my average grade to 8.0 out of 10 and became one of the best students in my (relatively small) class. In one particularly hard exam I was the only student that year to get a 9 with nobody getting a 10.
Right now, the exam season for the winter semester of my fourth year is approaching and I'm thinking of what I'm going to do next. I've spoken to few professors and they all believe that I should definitely continue my education. I wouldn't have any problems continuing my education at my current school, but I don't think that it's best equipped for the field in which I want to study further. The focus of my current school is computer science, while the telecommunications program seems to have taken a back seat.
I have read the question about getting a Ph.D. with bad transcript and fortunately for me course structure was such that just a few professors taught a large number of exams (for example six to eight hours every day for the whole semester with same professor and TA), so there are people who know me well and have a good opinion of me.
I don't think that I could do much to improve my average grade. Perhaps the best I could do would be around 8.3 out of 10.
I don't think that I would have any problems with IELTS exam and I do think that I could prepare GRE well enough. I do understand that good grades there won't help me much, but on the other hand I at least hope that they won't have a negative effect.
I'm thinking of applying for universities that aren't very highly ranked, for example some from the bottom of the top 200 from the Shanghai list, but I'm not sure if that's low enough. Also I'm thinking of applying for two-year masters, but I'm coming from a four-year undergraduate school, if that matters.
**Finally my question:**
What I really don't know is how to present me dropping out of my first school in my CV or SOP. I've been basically studying 6 years now, much longer than expected, with not that good grades and I really can't think of any way to present that in favorable light. I think that I matured in the meantime and my grades did improve, but on the other hand I moved a weaker school.<issue_comment>username_1: Definitely get a letter from the professor who taught the course where you got 9/10 with no one else getting that grade or higher.
I am sorry to say it, but it sounds like you just chose not to study during your time in your first school, unless you forgot to mention some important piece of information. There is no way to sugarcoat the lack of effort, unless you did something else productive instead of studying for those exams.
It is true that excuses exist for *some* people with bad grades, but it is certainly not true that *everyone* with bad grades can make their applications look good for graduate school admissions -- if such sugarcoating methods existed, it wouldn't be fair for the students who studied hard throughout their undergraduate career.
The next best alternative is to ask yourself why you want to pursue a master's degree, when you haven't shown a lot of promise academically. If you have a good reason for wanting it, your next best bet might be to get in touch with a professor at an institution that you want to go to for your master's, and show him how good/dedicated/passionate you can be, and then have that person vouch for you in the admissions committee.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You appear to have two sets of choices: 1) Continue a graduate program in your current school, where you are well known and liked, and 2) Start a graduate program in an *equivalent* school.
I'm assuming that you will prefer the second choice. Find out which schools (e.g. on the list of 200) are equivalent of yours. Find out where the better students (the ones averaging 8.0) go to after they graduate. And last, find out which graduate schools your professors have the most clout with, especially the one who gave you the top grade.
Then apply to those schools. Use your current school as a back-up if the "equivalent" school plan doesn't work. Good luck.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm in the US, so take that into consideration.
If it were one of my classmates in a similar position, I would recommend searching for an internship or entry-level position with a top company in your field. With a year or two of work history, your application to an MSc would be evaluated in a totally different light, specifically there would be less focus on why you struggled initially and more on why you are returning (to continue to learn?)
In addition, this would let you gain some practical skills, perhaps save some money, and figure out whether you really enjoy working in comp sci.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/01/02 | 1,239 | 5,189 | <issue_start>username_0: Is it possible to get admission to a master's program in economics without finishing up your undergrad?
I have completed 105 credits so far for my BA Honours in economics and math degree, and still need 15 credits to graduate (120 required for graduation). However, a case of academic dishonesty could lead to my suspension from my current university. I know that I made a mistake at such a crucial time in my undergrad, but I can only learn from it.
The problem also I'm having is that some universities will not even consider my application as result of academic dishonesty. Apart from this my application is quite strong in terms of doing well in economics courses, strong letter of recommendations, and GRE score..
I have already published an economics paper in an undergraduate journal and feel as if there isn't anything to learn about economics from my university.
I can study economics independently and work to get "food on the table" and have some real-world experience under my belt before embarking on a journey as an intellectual.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think there's much room for optimism. Offers of graduate admission are generally preconditioned on actually completing the previous degree. Moreover, having your previous degree candidacy terminated on account of academic dishonesty will make you "radioactive"; very few graduate schools are going to want to bring in someone who got suspended for plagiarism or cheating. (Given that the entire research enterprise hinges on being able to trust reported results, why would a school want to take a chance on someone who has already clearly violated those principles?)
[More generally, however: I do know of an economics professor whose PhD is in fact his only degree; however, the circumstances behind that are so unusual that they're unlikely to be replicated any time soon. (Basically, he followed a professor from Germany to the US while he was still an undergraduate in the days when the *Diplom* system was in full force.)]
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As others have said, no. What credibility do you think you have for your other good grades when you admit you cheated? It's entirely possible that you cheated other times as well and were simply more clever about it.
Moreover, most low-tier universities don't suspend students for cheating if it's the first offence. You get a zero in the course and move on to take it again or take another comparable course. The fact that suspension is on the table likely means that you cheated before.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I don't think this is really worth an answer but I have low reps and I can't comment yet.
Theoretically -- if you get an offer now, some schools (I did my PhD at a top-tier institution in the US) will not bother to check that you have a bachelor's degree; mine certainly didn't. You might even get away with it, if no one bothers to check your bachelor's degree (admittedly not very important if you become a full-fledged academic).
Realistically -- what you are asking is quite impossible, especially because you have committed an act of academic dishonesty. If someone finds out (and chances are good that they will find out, since academics like to chat and gossip at conferences), you could have your admission offer revoked, or even your degree revoked.
Besides, your situation is somewhat unrelated to your question. Most institutions will ask for transcripts from ALL universities that you have attended, whether you received a degree from them or not.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Simply put, there is a small chance you could get into an MA program without a BA, and there is a small chance you could get into an MA program with the stigma of academic dishonesty on your record, but there is virtually no chance of getting into an MA program when you have no BA *because* of academic dishonesty.
I would recommend you do what you can to make amends and get the BA. If you can say that you were suspended due to academic dishonesty but turned over a new leaf, persevered and finished the degree, then you have somewhere to start from. But if schools get the impression that you were kicked out for cheating and never bothered to go back and fix that, it will be a huge red flag that will make it nearly impossible for you to be accepted in good faith. (You could still get accepted by lying or hiding your past, but you admirably mentioned in the comments that that's not what you want to do.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: My best advice would be to take a time off and go back to complete your undergrad. Even if this is going to cost you time and money, it will pay off at the end. You might want to also consider a transfer into another institution who is willing to accept you in, with the credits you've already earned in your current institution. I personally don't know any "accredited institution of higher education" who doesn't require a Bachelor degree,especially in these days of higher and tougher competition. Furthermore, most graduates institution will ask a Bachelor, GRE, etc.... as part of the routine application process.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/01/02 | 1,130 | 4,951 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm doing a PHD in physics (not in US), and I'm applying for a summer school in US ([an example](http://www.santafe.edu/gevent/detail/education/1472/)). I'm required to upload a statement of research interest.
I have searched for webpages on how to write statement of research interest for a while but found that most of them are for applying for graduate schools. So my question is, what is the difference between statement of research interest for graduate schools admission and that for summer school?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> So my question is, what is the difference between statement of research interest for graduate schools admission and that for summer school?
>
>
>
The way you phrase the question suggests that you see this statement of research interest as a form to fill in some details. But it's not like there's a "*P27.B: Statement Of Research Interest for Summer Schools*" form that's slightly different from the usual "*P27.A: Statement Of Research Interest for Graduate Schools*" form in Annex B. These things don't exist.
I think you're approaching the question all wrong.
A research statement is a letter you write to a person with a specific purpose. So a better question would be "what is the purpose of writing a research letter for a summer school?".
The answer is pretty much the same, but instead of trying to demonstrate why you and your background are a good fit for a grad school, now you're trying to demonstrate why you and your background are a good fit for a summer school and that *you* will benefit greatly from *that* school.
There's lots of tips on the Web on how to write a good research statement. Maybe some personal pointers ...
---
First and foremost you need to appreciate that it will be read by a human being, not a machine. So don't make it boring or clichéd, esp. if that human being will have to read hundreds of statements like yours. Keep it concise and interesting. Many students are too concerned with filling "the requirements" than communicating; the key part of such a letter is communication, not topic lists.
Second you need to figure out what that human being is looking for from you. Such statements are not just paperwork; they have a purpose. Why are they asking you for the document? Why will they spend valuable time to read it? What is important to them?
Third you need to frame your personal context into what they are looking for.
---
1. If you can, try to figure out specifically who is going to read it ... what kind of technical expertise they have, what are their research interests, etc. That person will probably be a postdoc or junior professor in the area.
2. In the research statement, they'll want to see how the student will benefit from the school ... why that student is worth the chair space. They will simply be looking for enthusiastic students with a convincing story as to why they will benefit from the summer school. *If* the school is very narrow and technical, there may also be a check to make sure that the student has sufficient background knowledge to follow the topics. If you sound too expert in a topic, that's not good either; they'll want you to learn!
3. In the text, discuss your research interests and goals. Relate your goals to the types of topics covered by the school. Add details; perhaps a specific lecture or lecturer or topic you are especially interested in and why. Be enthusiastic but *not fake*. Don't get stuck in technical details. Try to make the letter sound personal, almost conversational, like a person wrote it ... versus someone taking a template and filling in topics. Edit and remove irrelevant statements. Get feedback from peers or an advisor.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I have attended several summer schools as a graduate student. In my experience, the primary purpose of having a research statement for summer schools is to weed out the random applications. For example, a person not actually in academia (often called "cranks", because most of them don't have the necessary background nor the ability to carry out real research) applies to these things; it is a waste of resources to admit this person, and having them distracts the other qualified students in the summer school.
So you definitely don't need to put in as much effort into these research statements as the ones in graduate school, as the primary purpose of these statements is to show them that you are not a crank.
From here, you need to judge for yourself how much effort is needed. If you attend Harvard or Princeton, or if the organizers already know you, then one or two paragraphs describing your research and naming your advisor might be enough. However, if you attend a mediocre school outside of the US (where you expect no one to have heard of the school), you had better write about your research in some detail, so that no one dismisses your application.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/01/02 | 778 | 3,048 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently a scholarship student in my sophomore year in a double major programme in theoretical physics and pure mathematics. I wish to apply for an internship, for which they have asked me for my CV. I checked traditional CVs and I couldn't find anything that is relevant to my current situation. What should I put in my CV and what must I ignore?
The following is the skill set that I have in my arsenal. The internship is for a ***physics research topic*** so what must I include?
---
Skills (academic) :
* Physics (The courses that I have taken with my grades on them)
* Math (The courses that I have taken with my grades on them)
* Random courses in the branches of languages and arts
* Currently involved in a theoretical research project in physics, but haven't really achieved anything in it as yet as I was headed tangentially in the topic
* High school results (top 1% of the cohort)
Skills (miscellaneous):
* hyperpolyglot
* artist (professional impressionist and surrealist)
* writer and poet (free verse)
* active quizzer and debater
* football striker (out of context, but you never know ;) )
* swimmer
* sculptor
Interests:
* Philosophy
* Psychology
* Theology
* Occult Sciences
* Art and art history
* Reading (I would read anything with words on it)
* Literature
* Languages
---
And a couple of other things here and there. Also, is there any particular formatting that I should adhere to?
---
I mailed the professor I wished to work with and he replied as follows:
*Send me a CV and information on your coursework and results*
---
So what must I put in and what must I deduct? Thanks in advance :)<issue_comment>username_1: It looks like your list here is pretty comprehensive. I would focus less on the "interests" and more on the relevant skills and experience. interests are nice as a snapshot on your personality, but I wouldn't sweat it if the section is a bit barren or void of "in depth" content here.
From my understanding, a CV is nothing more than an expanded resume. If you have an existing resume, take a few moments to expand a bit on your roles and accomplishments beyond simple bullet points.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: First of all, what is the focus of the internship and is your resume focused on that?
If they asked you for transcripts with your application, they will know what courses you took; there is no need to reproduce them on your resume.
Nobody cares about your hobbies or non-relevant skills. If anything, to call yourself a sculptor, artist and polyglot makes you sound like an entitled pompous ahole who exaggerates. "Occult sciences" alone should get your resume thrown in the trash bin when you're applying for a *science* research job, not to be a Ghostbusters crew member.
Your resume should answer the question, "what makes me qualified for the job?" What *relevant* courses have you taken? What *relevant* knowledge do you have? What *relevant* skills do you have that could be applied to the job?
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/01/02 | 3,961 | 16,329 | <issue_start>username_0: Here is the thing. I am working in an lab under a new assistant professor of HCI and our lab itself is just two years old. We had an masters student graduating earlier and I am the second masters student from the lab to have finished my dissertation. We also have an PhD Candidate working in there. So at present we are just two GRAs in the lab.
To help us out with some programming, we hired two students on an hourly basis. My advisor is not into micromanagement; hiring students and asking for an update just a week before deadline and placing a heavy trust on those students and till now it has worked fine.
I was asked to manage this student who is severely incompetent to say the least. They had developed, with 4 other students, an undergrad project which was shown to demonstrate the necessary skills, although I highly doubt that they did any work on that project. When we asked them to program an app, they could not do it so they went to another lab and made the GRAs there develop the app for them. The code was so horrible that I had to rewrite the whole program just before the deadline. I brought this to my advisor's attention and the response was they will fire both of them and asked me to stay back for one semester to help out with transition.
I am pretty good at what I do and have a stellar reputation in my department. Despite multiple requests from my advisor, I said I don't want to spend one more semester in the lab since I can earn much more by getting an industry job.
What my advisor doesn't know is that when the new student was working, instead of developing the app on the tablet, he installed games on it and kept the tablet in his home for a month. This caused some hardships to the other new hire in the lab who could not complete the programs on time. Whenever I asked for the return of the tablet, the reply was that they came to lab but nobody was there. We were actually there in the lab during the whole time it was claimed to have attempted to return it. I was busy with interviews so I never bothered to tell my advisor about this.
At end of December, out of desperation she hired the student she said she would fire and sensing desperation they asked for GRA, saying they are interested in having a dissertation. My advisor agreed reluctantly. I came to know about this only last week when I called to find out what they were doing in the break. They sheepishly told me that my advisor was a fool and they were not really interested in a thesis but only in getting a free ride through college though being a GRA.
I am worried they will not do any work and pay other people to write programs and a dissertation for them. One bad apple can destroy the work environment in a lab. So I finally emailed my advisor and asked if they can promise me an full time job by April, I will stay back and help out in the research. I have also asked for an appointment to discuss an important matter of the new student.
I think my advisor has already given him the commitment, but how can I convince them to drop this student? I have worked in my lab for a year and a half. I deeply care about the lab, and I don't want that student in there. What will be best way to approach my advisor about this?
**UPDATE:**
I spoke with my advisor yesterday and said in no uncertain terms that they are not into micromanagement and this student will screw up her lab after I leave, they will never realize it and the will pay somebody else to write their thesis and the advisor's career will be on the hook. I promised that if the advisor find me the best student from class, I will teach them how to do basics of programming so that there will be smooth transition once I leave. According to that new student, she asked them to meet and said that she has no funding and it will be difficult for them to do a thesis without funding and suggested trying other departments, and asked to meet after a further week. Kind of indirectly telling them to leave.
What I am not able to understand is when I asked my adviser yesterday it was said to me that it was never offered for the student to do a thesis with but I am pretty sure it was agreed to work with that student when with them before the break. The new student was super confident about the fact that he will get funding for a thesis.
**So can anybody please enlighten me as to why my advisor would lie to me here? Why would the advisor lie to me that they didn't offer a thesis when I see they pretty well did, I mean I am just an student, right? Are they embarrassed by their mistake and that's why they're not admitting it?**<issue_comment>username_1: The way you can broach the subject is exactly as you've laid it out in your comment. The student mentioned that he will take on a GRA position in the group. However, you're concerned that he is not actually qualified to do the research in the group, and that will give you an opportunity to lay out the case. You should have evidence that is stronger than hearsay, however, if you want to make a convincing case.
You might also suggest some questions that the advisor can ask the student that will prove that he is not qualified to do the research. However, if your advisor is in fact "desperate" for help, it may not be enough to sway your advisor's mind. If your school offers "provisional" contracts to new graduate students, you may want to ask her if she can make a short-term commitment before guaranteeing longer-term funding.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: OK. I'm actually surprised at the range of answers here, so I'm going to write down my take on your issue. It's possible that I'm doing things completely wrong, but I also feel like what I am about to write down is the normal graduate student response to situations like this in academia.
I honestly feel that there is absolutely no merit to yourself to talk badly about your fellow labmate to your supervisor. From your supervisor's perspective, it is possible that your labmate is terrible, but it is also possible that you just hate this guy (it's clear from your writing that this is not the case, but as a supervisor she might not know for sure).
If I were you, I would probably take a more passive-aggressive approach by just refusing to help your labmate beyond what is expected normally, and just let his doom take its natural course. If he is that bad, he is bound to fail at some point. Why bother myself with it, and why get worked up about it? The only time where I would be more proactive is if my advisor asked me to collaborate with him. Then I would tell her that I would prefer not working with him, because of his previous actions.
Otherwise, telling on your labmate could be viewed as inappropriate in my opinion, as it could just be interpreted as jealousy on your part, and reflect negatively on yourself.
Let me emphasize that I am actually unsure of whether this is the right course of action, but since everyone feels so strongly about this issue, I figured that I would chip in. This is one of those cases where academia differs from real-life jobs, and there *are* quite a bit of non-academics on this forum, so I am not sure if they are the only ones who have posted so far.
Your academic career depends hugely on how your advisor views you, and if for some unfortunate reason she perceives you as a jealous person, that could reflect on her letters. It's different from the industry from what I've heard, where getting the job done matters more than how your direct supervisor might view you.
**I would welcome comments from people, but please specify your ties (are you a grad student? professor? not in academia?) to academia in your comments. It would be interesting to hear the different opinions, and know where they come from.**
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with user14449 above. While you may have the best intentions in outing this person's incompetence and negative attitude, it could very well backfire on you.
I say this because I have a *very* hard time believing that the lab supervisor was just *so super desperate* that she had no choice to hire the guy she had just promised to fire. All it takes to replace an undergrad in the lab is a job posting on the campus network and within a week you have a new person. Chances are that she did have the intention of firing him but subsequently found out that the kid's parents are academics too and/or big university honchos she didn't want to anger.
I think the only two viable options are to leave for a job in the "real" world or make him fall on his own sword. As user14449 said, sooner or later his incompetence will come to light. Since your supervisor already granted him funding, you can take your cue from her and give him even *more* responsibility. Include him in meetings, ask him to explain his work and ask him for suggestions of where the project should go next. (Obviously don't tell him ahead of time that you will be putting him on the spot in meetings).
If you don't want to engage in this kind of skulduggery, just find a job elsewhere and leave. I personally can never understand why people fight tooth and nail for academic jobs in these kinds of environments. What's so great about this situation that makes this thing worthwhile? Why is this worth fighting for rather than exiting graciously? Your supervisor can promise you a job and just as easily renege on that promise like she did with the firing of the student.
As a student who has worked both in academia and outside it, I much prefer the gloves-off approach of the real-world. No employer and/or team in the "real" world treated me as shabbily and exploitatively as grad students and professors. It's soured me on grad school, and if I ever do decide to apply it will be for a professional program where I don't have to deal with any of this baloney.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It's a good question touching multiple points. Most of us have had to work with incompetents in both academia and industry.
Here is my take:
>
> To help us out with some programming, "we" hired 2 students on an hourly
> basis.
>
>
>
Really, you didn't hire them. Your supervisor did. She doesn't know how to manage unmotivated people requiring close attention (and even if she did she will be too busy in the tenure ratrace for the next ~7 years), so she dumped (ahem:delegated) that responsibility on you. He messed up his first assignment and you very unwisely saved his bacon by rewriting his work before the deadline (a) don't ever do that again b) document to her before you do it, that he asked you to do it, and how much time it will take, and ask should you drop your regular work).
>
> My advisor is not into micromanagement. She hires the students and asks for an update just a week before deadline and places heavy trust on people working for her and till now it has worked fine.
>
>
>
This hands-off management style works fine with motivated competent people who show initiative. You just have to make sure that's who you're hiring.
>
> said she will fire both of them and asked me to stay back for one semester to help her out with transition.
>
>
>
So you got what you want. (Probably you would have gotten it sooner if you hadn't rescued him. Lesson learned). It's not your business how she handles it, it doesn't matter what her style is.
>
> What i am not able to understand is when asked my adviser yesterday she told me that she never offered asked the guy to do thesis with her but i am pretty sure she did agree to work with that guy when she spoke to him before break.Because the new guy super confident about this part(that he will get funding and thesis).
>
>
>
The guy is a known liar and incompetent; most likely he's playing mind games with you and the other students (and everyone else in his life). Don't play his stupid games. Don't let him sow distrust between you and your supervisor, let alone fool you into accusing her of imaginary things. Don't even talk to him. Totally ignore him and get on with your own career. Lesson learned: there will always be people like that (until it's your company or you get the power to fire people).
Lessons learned:
1. Always try to insist on veto power in interviewing and hiring coworkers you will work with (and managers too if possible). If not, you have little or no power.
2. Learn to estimate the hidden cost of managing bad or mediocre people, and the corresponding process requirements (e.g. biweekly group meetings, written status reports). The worse they are, the more this will eat into your productivity. Also, it will annoy you. Try to timebox parts of your schedule to limit this ("red time/green time", headphones, Pomodoro, whatever).
3. You learned something important about yourself from this, namely that it aggravates you intensely to work with dishonest incompetent untrustworthy unmotivated people. So don't ever get into a manager or supervisor position wrt such people again. Or if you must, clearly define expectations, progress tracking, deliverables, dependencies, reviews etc. Read about different management styles and identify which ones you like/ dislike/ thrive under.
4. Surface problems with coworkers early, in a professional way. In this case, when he messed up his first task. Don't cover for them. (Don't throw them under the bus, necessarily, but definitely don't cover for them).
5. Some people specialize in mind games, and if you react that damages your image. Avoid them and don't play their stupid games. Document what they get up to. But don't let yourself be distracted or lose your composure. People like that are smart enough to manipulate, lie and cultivate perceptions and relationships, that's how they survive so long (or get promoted).
6. If the situation had become intolerable and she hadn't agreed to fire him, then you would have had to quit, politely explaining what he'd done (but not the stuff you merely suspect he would do) and why it was damaging her department.
7. You keep getting hung up on a sense of unfairness ("What if he bribes people to write his programs, dissertation?") Put that out of your mind, you can't control it. Somewhere down the line, he will get what's coming to him - whether that's next week or in ten years - you can't control the timing - this is the Zen of Working with Incompetents. Do not let him distract your mental energies.
8. Put him out of your mind. Eliminate all interaction with him. Don't reply to his emails or questions. Or walk out of the lab if he walks in. Buy a bottle of sparkling white wine (or whatever) and keep in the fridge. Open it after he gets fired. Shouldn't be long now. Then celebrate and get back to your work 110%.
9. We have to assume your supervisor duly learned her lesson about cutting corners in hiring, not writing a job ad, checking references etc. You suspect she might have taken the guy as a political favor. But if you think she didn't, offer to write the job ad for her next time.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> What i am not able to understand is when asked my adviser yesterday she told me that she never offered asked the guy to do thesis with her but i am pretty sure she did agree to work with that guy when she spoke to him before break.Because the new guy super confident about this part(that he will get funding and thesis).
>
>
>
It may very well be that everyone was completely honest. People never recall a conversation correctly, but an interpretation depending on their expectations, assumed context, cultural background, degree of politeness and many other things. A question like "Can I do a Ph.D.?" can mean a lot of different things, including "Do you give me funding?" or "Do you think I am good enough?". Also "I will see what I can do for you" can be anything between a polite refusal and an almost certain acceptance.
Your labmate might be lying, and your professor might be lying, but you don't have to assume bad faith when quite common misunderstandings suffice to explain the situation. On the other even if everyone was acting in good faith you should remember that your professor might be prone to misunderstandings. You can try to reduce such situations by e.g. summarizing the content of a discussion at the end.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/01/03 | 1,886 | 7,058 | <issue_start>username_0: I previously asked this question in Mathematics.SE (which is now removed from that site):
>
> How to be a professor and a researcher in academia if I only have a baccalauréat in maths and don't have much money?
>
>
>
And one kind user from France said that I can't unless I have a PhD. (French baccalauréat is only graduation from high-school.)
But how to get a Doctorat in France? I search for informations about a PhD in general: like how much would it cost me?...etc
Also I heard of 'classe prépa', should I take them first?<issue_comment>username_1: If you want to get your Ph.d in france, you will first have to get a bachelor degree and a master degree. You need to get accepted for Ph.d though, though finishing your master degree in the high average of your class (honorary degrees) makes the acceptance more likely.
The acceptance of your Ph.d varies on other factors as well, if a lot of people are applying for a spot with a better background than you, they might get it.
---
On the question
>
> How to be a professor and a researcher in academia if I only have a
> baccalauréat in maths and don't have much money?
>
>
>
You don't neccesarily need a Ph.D to be a professor, if the AND researcher is important, than you will need one. If you just aim to lecture, they accept people with a master degree to lecture in the (professional) bachelor degrees. (Ofcourse, with a Ph.D you have more chance of getting the position)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As somebody who's actually doing a PhD in France, maybe I can provide some more information.
Firstly, as everybody says, you have to get an equivalent of a Bachelor degree (I think that's "licence" in France), and the a Master degree as well. I didn't do this part of my studies in France, but, some things that I overheard:
* of course, nobody is paying while you are doing that, and you most probably have to pay a yearly tuition (probably around 400eur)
* I think that there is some programs to get some scholarships that could help you, and you'll probably be eligible to help from [CAF](http://www.caf.fr/) for a while
* to supplement your income, I'm sure you can teach already in the last year of Master, and possibly (but I'm not sure), even as soon as you finish you Bachelors (aka "licence")
* other major expenses are living costs and eating costs: you can usually get a student dormitory (200-300 eur/month is plausible, but it depends on a city) and as a student, you get cheap student lunches (3-4eur/meal)
As I said, I didn't do this Bachelor-Master part of my education in France. But, for the PhD I can offer more information:
* a PhD in France is basically a normal *work contract* lasting for (exactly) 3 years, with a usual possibility of extending it for 3-6 months
* to obtain a PhD, you have to obtain a grant. Sometimes, you apply to professors for a subject that is already funded, and sometimes you apply to the professors and then you submit your grant application together (like me)
* you still have to pay a yearly tuition (~400eur), but you will be receiving a monthly salary where the amount depends on your grant. It's usually between 1300 and 1600eur
* in your first year, you are still possibly eligible for [CAF](http://www.caf.fr/)
* there's two type of PhD contracts: research, or teaching. The teaching contracts are harder to obtain, but it is usually easier in your second year than your first. If you need/want more income per month, a teaching contract gets you an additional 300eur/month on your salary
* other major expenses are again lodging and food: again, sometimes dormitory housing is available, but renting a flat can be acceptable as well (around 300eur/month if your flat-sharing up to 550-600 if you're renting alone). Usually, the lab/university provides some kind of lunch discount tickets as well.
---
As for some additional information about *how to get* in to a PhD programme:
* in France, it is obligatory to do at least one internship in a research lab or a company during your Masters, but two are possible
* if you are planning to stay in France, it is very customary for people to do their PhDs in the same lab where they did their internships, and some even just extend on their internship topics
* your Master supervisor and all the contacts you made during your internships will probably be most helpful, as you can ask them for advice, or even if they know of a position / professor that would suit your plans
* additionally, if you want to do your PhD outside of France (it always needs a Master degree), it's probably a bit harder to obtain (although your Master contacts can help you). It's a *paying job* with *a salary* in a lot of European countries (some examples includ: Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland...)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Penelope's answer is already very good, I just want to give some additional details.
First, a Ph.D. is required to get a position in academia. To be even clearer, there are several positions and you can learn more about what is a *maître de conférence* or a *professeur des universités* [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_rank_in_France). In France, a Ph.D. is not the highest academic diploma that one can get as you can prepare yourself to get the *Habilitation à diriger des recherches* (HDR), which will allow you to supervise Ph.D. students.
To be eligible for a Ph.D. program in France (or *doctorat*), having a Master's degree (or an equivalent diploma) is necessary. Now the French educational system is quite confusing if you are not familiar with it. Basically, after a french *baccalauréat*, you can either choose to go to:
* *Université*: where you will need three years to complete your *Licence*, then an additional two years to complete your Master.
* *Classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles* (CPGE) and *Grandes écoles*: since you posted about mathematics, you will choose to go to a scientific CPGE, where you will attend a maths/physics intensive two-year curriculum that prepares you to take the *concours d'entrée aux grandes écoles*. These *grandes écoles* are given the right, by the government, to deliver a *Diplôme d'ingénieur* (or Engineering diploma), which is equivalent to a Master's degree.
While they both deliver Master's degrees (i.e., you can apply to a Ph.D. after them), the *universités* are more likely to prepare you for academic research whereas the *CPGE* and *Grandes écoles* are more suited for working in the industry. However, I highly suggest you to inform yourself about these two possibilities before choosing a path.
Finally, I want to emphasize on a point mentioned by Penelope: during your Ph.D., you remain a student, which means you can have access to all the privileges offered to students regarding everyday life (housing, public transports, social security, ...) while being pretty decently paid. Unless you have a family to support and if you don't have any accidents, there should be no reason to have financial difficulties.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/01/03 | 1,515 | 6,474 | <issue_start>username_0: I studied Social Sciences (Development Economics concentration) at one of Europe's top ranked universities and achieved excellent grades, but had to interrupt my studies just before taking two final exams, entirely due to personal reasons - thus not completing my undergraduate degree.
While I was at uni, I obtained grants to run a new research project in my field with sponsorship by some well-known professors. The progress of my work was published in an international journal and also a few industry magazines. I was also heavily involved in other projects around the university.
I mention these little details just to make it clear that I was not at uni just for the sake of getting a qualification, but because had a genuine intention of contributing to my field, to research and maybe become a professor.
While I was addressing my personal issues, I started working, first freelancing but later at a mid-sized company and have worked my way up to middle management. My job is somewhat related to what I studied and also very analytical, although it's obviously business-focused.
I am wondering what options I have...
- if I wanted to return to a research based position;
- especially, if returning to university might turn out to be too hard/long (might have to re-do the entire undergraduate studies while working)
- and whether it might be easier (but also possible) to try applying straight into think-tanks and development focused positions.
One of my concerns is that despite my good CV in business, I don't have the same quantitative-analytical and research skills of someone who studied at postgraduate level. It's one of the subjects I enjoyed most and even enjoy at work, but how can I prove myself to future employers?
I think my question boils down to: how much do my achievements matter, and what else do I need to do to make up for no degree?
**UPDATES / Answers to questions in comments:**
I dropped out of my own, for very personal reasons. In fact, I almost disappeared without notice and had to leave to another country. I am also a bit reluctant to discuss with my university about what those personal reasons were, but trust me they were very serious.
So I would have mixed feelings about returning to the same university.
I am sure I have disappointed many people there, and they would not understand why I left...
**UPDATE 2 / Answers to rocinante's update :)**
There must have been a misunderstanding. I didn't mention nor imply anywhere that I considered faking my credentials to advance my career. I started at entry level with my current employer and progressed from within, i.e. there were no academic requirements when I started, but I proved them that I had the skills required for my current level.
To be more specific, I am asking about whether there might be chances for alternative training to get into a more advanced research path. Adult learning, online courses, non-degree professional certificates.
For example, I have heard of several people getting into MBA programs after 5-7 years of work experience, but no degree.
Are there analogue routes into research?
I hope this clarifies.
**UPDATE 3 / Answers to <NAME> and rocinante**
Thanks both of you. It's true I should consider my old university; I am just very afraid that it might not work and considering what alternatives I may have should my attempts fail. I am also not belittling the value of degrees, BUT simply wondering how else I could prove myself, improve my knowledge, use a professional body route rather than academic etc. if the old university option won't succeed.
I know many doors will close, but I am determined and convinced that my potential, passion and skills far outweigh what's on paper.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm with @rocinante here: you're handicapping yourself if you can't get past whatever block is preventing you from discussing this personal issue with people from your past university. I don't know whether it's embarrassing or emotionally painful (and you don't need to tell us, we're just yahoos on the internet), but you have to be able to give some account of it:
1. First of all, you should make a good faith attempt to finish your degree at your old institution. I'm sure you did burn some bridges there when you left, but if you can't get past that to try, that doesn't sound especially driven to me. Credentialism may be a little silly, but you're locking yourself out of a lot of doors if you don't finish your degree.
2. Also, if you want to be successful getting a position in any area of research, recommendations from "one of Europe's top ranked universities" would be pretty helpful (for getting into a graduate program of any description, they are essential). I know less about think tanks, but in most graduate admission committees, even with a completed bachelor's, no letters from professors you had as an undergraduate and an unexplained gap in your transcript that's not explained extremely well in your personal statement would be an immediate disqualification. So, not only should you go back to your old university, you need to set up meetings with the professors you disappointed, apologize sincerely, explain your situation, and knock their socks off with where you are now.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You need to establish a working relationship with of *some* kind with *some* department. Once you have that you can start working on your "deficiencies" (i.e. the courses you either have no record of taking or have a record of not finishing successfully).
Once you have that relationship you can talk to the department hear. You're probably going to have to tell him or her *something* about this mysterious personal emergency.
But here is the thing, (at least in the US) the requirement to have a Bachelor's degree to start advanced work is a gate-keeping tool: the department uses it to avoid having to filter out at lot of self-deluded know-nothings. Once they *know* that you know something the odds of them letting you simply start graduate studies go way up.
So how do you get started? Apply as non-degree or apply as an undergrad with a lot of transfer credit (they are likely going to ask you to take at least a year's worth of course-work).
The important step is to get a foot in the door and establish a working relationship with them.
There is something to be said for choosing a a small-to-medium sized department for the campaign.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/01/03 | 514 | 1,652 | <issue_start>username_0: Let's say I am citing a person called <NAME>. How would she go in my MLA reference list?
Possibilities I can think of:
```
Martino, <NAME>.
Martino, <NAME>.
Di Martino, Emilia.
```
And how would I refer to her work inline?<issue_comment>username_1: I searched her name in Google Scholar and the first paper "CLIL implementation in Italian schools..." includes a footnote on how to cite it:
>
> <NAME>, E. & <NAME>, B. ...
>
>
>
So, in short "<NAME>" is the surname and cite/use it as such.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: One thing to keep in mind is that there is a substantial difference in several continental languages between uppercase and lowercase versions of a last name: it is wrong to write "<NAME>" if the person's last name is normally written "<NAME>." This is a historical artifact, where the use of the capital letter indicates nobility, while the lowercase letter denotes a more traditional relationship. Similar rules apply to "von" in German and "van" in Dutch, but not to "de" in French or Spanish.
Therefore, when capitalized, the particle should always be treated as part of the last name. If lowercase, you can treat it as a suffix that goes after the first name. The exception are names like "de Gaulle" where "de" is followed by a one-syllable name.
So, it's:
>
> Beethoven, <NAME>
>
>
> Clausewitz, <NAME>
>
>
> de Gaulle, Charles
>
>
> <NAME>, Emilia
>
>
> Martino, <NAME>
>
>
> Maupassant, <NAME>
>
>
> <NAME>, James
>
>
>
My source is the [MLA Handbook](http://www.mlahandbook.org).
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2014/01/03 | 677 | 3,126 | <issue_start>username_0: I recently reviewed a paper and recommended Major Revision. I provided a referee report with some detailed comments on what the revision should address. I can see from the system that the Editor gave a decision of Major Revision, the authors of the paper have been notified and they already submitted a revision four months ago. However, the Editor did not invite me as a referee in the second round. I have been refereeing for over seven years and this is the first time that I experienced such a situation. I have been obsessing that the Editor found my report incompetent or not useful. But, the overall recommendation was the same (Major Revision) and the same journal asked me to review other manuscripts in the same time frame. What do you think the reason could be?<issue_comment>username_1: My guess would be that when the editor saw the revised manuscript and the comments from the authors, he deemed the revision to be less major than he initially thought, and decided to not send the manuscript out for review a second time.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: There are always difficulties second-guessing from what others actions result from. The fact you did not get re-invited, is not strange in my experience (as reviewer and editor). First, I assume you do not know what the other (I assume the journal uses more than one reviewer) reviewer provided in a second review. It may have been minor revisions and the editor could make a decision to provide a major revisions verdict but go directly to accept if he/she thought the corrections were good enough. This is an editors prerogative.
It is always possible that an editor chooses a different reviewer for the reason you mention but given that you have done many reviews before, I sincerely doubt this is the case or reason. Another possibility is that the editor felt someone with different expertise was needed for some aspect of the manuscript, perhaps based on comments by the second reviewer. But, you will never know the details of the story and I would not think twice about the event. The fact that you keep getting requests shows your expertise is in demand.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The most common reasons not to invite a previous reviewer for a second review are, in my experience:
1. The reviewer wrote a poor review the first time (probably doesn't apply in your case).
2. The reviewer ticked the "I do not think it's necessary for me to check the revision" box.
3. The editor decided to make a decision immediately, without consulting reviewers. For example, the author's response to reviewers might be poor and the editor feels further reviewing is a waste of time.
In your case, I'll suggest a much more benign explanation: the editor noticed that you have already been invited to review another article recently or perhaps already have an ongoing review, and decided not to invite you again for fear of taking up too much of your time.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: The editor thought your comments were sufficiently addressed in the revision and made the decision to publish.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/01/03 | 1,192 | 5,187 | <issue_start>username_0: In [this answer](http://www.quora.com/Exams-and-Tests/What-is-a-good-exam?share=1#) to a quora question, the answerer mentions how the 'entropy' of a set of exam results can be used to measure how well the exam differentiates between students.
Should I be computing the entropy of my students' exam results? How do I do it? How should I interpret the entropy information?
Edit: How is entropy related to standard deviation?<issue_comment>username_1: The practicalities first. Take your list of exam scores and count for each possible value of the score how many of the exams got that score. In Excel the FREQUENCY function is useful for automating this step. To give some names call p\_i the number of exams which have score i. From there you just add up -(p\_i)log(p\_i) over all the scores that actually happened. The base of the logarithm is not particularly important abstractly but what it does is scale your final "entropy" values so be consistent and only compare different classes when you are using the same base.
So far this is just a computation to perform so what does it tell you? It tells you how much information the scores encode. A test that really differentiates between the levels of knowledge that students have will have values that are take more information to predict. That information might be that your students really know/do not know the material. Or it could be 15 of the questions are easy and 5 very hard so scores in the low-80's are going to be more common than they otherwise might be.
What entropy will tell you is a quantified notion for how much more information is in your exam results than just randomly assigning numbers between 0 and 100. Like any attempt to summarize an entire packet of exams and the attached students with a single number, be careful to not push your data too far. The person in your link that was "surprised how few professors compute and report entropy (or even know what it is)" is a person who is in electrical engineering and computer sciences. Both of those fields use the notion of entropy regularly so his surprise maybe not be that surprising.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Entropy measures how much information you learn on average about each student from the exam results. For example, imagine an exam on which everyone gets a perfect score. In that case, you would learn nothing, so the entropy is zero. If half the students get one score and half get another, then you learn one [bit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit) of information about each of them. If you want to assign meaningful grades on the usual U.S. scale, you'll need at least several bits of entropy, and the 3.5 or 4 bits mentioned in the quora answer sounds reasonable to me.
The idea behind the answer you link to is perfectly reasonable: if your exam results have low entropy, then that basically means they are clumped together on too few possible scores, and you don't have enough ability to distinguish between students. On the other hand, I don't see much point to actually computing a mathematical measure of entropy (e.g., [Shannon entropy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28information_theory%29)), except perhaps for fun if you enjoy that sort of thing. Instead, you can just look at the range of scores and judge how well they distinguish between students. Think about how you might assign grades, and you'll rapidly see whether you run into problems, without any need for mathematical computations.
Furthermore, doing it by entropy is a little subtle anyway. Strictly speaking, Shannon entropy pays no attention to the distance between scores, just to whether they are exactly equal. I.e., you can have high entropy if every student gets a slightly different score, even if the scores are all very near to each other and thus not useful for distinguishing students. The quora answer obliquely refers to that (in the discussion of bins), but still this means you can't just compute a single number without thinking.
So I'd view entropy more as a metaphor than a number most professors should compute.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: If 100% of your students mastered the material completely, then you don't want some of them to get very low scores and others very high scores. In this situation, if there is a big spread in scores, it means that your exam is bad, not good.
You really want a whole bunch of simultaneous criteria to be satisfied:
1. Your exam questions have what's known as "face validity." That means that an expert, reading them, agrees that they are written so that they correctly test knowledge of the topic.
2. You want scores on your questions to correlate with one another and/or with external measures of your students' knowledge.
3. You want the test to be reliable, in the sense that for a student with a given level of knowledge, the standard deviation of the test result is small. (E.g., you want a decent number of questions.)
4. If student A and student B have different levels of knowledge, then you want your test to distinguish between them.
If a test has low entropy, it *could* mean that you have a problem with #4.
Upvotes: 4 |
2014/01/04 | 2,690 | 10,698 | <issue_start>username_0: My research is in software engineering, but in a sub-field which is very close to social science. My papers normally contain sentences like "We conducted a study with 56 participants." and "Our previous study showed that [some assumptions are true]" and "We chose to use Cramer's V as the association measure, because [explanation why we thought it is better than other association measures]".
Now that I am close to my Ph.D. thesis, I am writing more texts alone, and the thesis is legally required to be my own work. So "we" is factually wrong. But using "I" feels immodest, and it is certainly unusual. But I don't know how to change my texts to avoid it.
I can't imagine how to apply the advice from that other answer to my case. "One conducted a study with 56 participants"? "The conducted study had 56 participants"? "A study was conducted, with 56 participants"? Unlike describing a mathematical proof, these sentences sound terrible. And how to explain my decision to use Cramer's V, when it is based on personal opinion?
Any advice how to deal with the matter outside of the world of mathematical proofs?
---
Another example why "I" might be needed. It is not only vanity; in the not-so-exact sciences there is sometimes lots of leeway involved. Say that I code some data. This is a very subjective process, and can be error prone. It is important for the readers to know that a coding was done by a single person, as this is considered less reliable than having somebody else repeat it and discuss any differences, and also because the coder has to take responsibility for any unusual decisions or errors.
---
There is a [more general question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2945/choice-of-personal-pronoun-in-single-author-papers) on the same topic. But the accepted and highly-upvoted answer is from the point of view of a mathematician, it says that the writing style is best constrained to declarative sentences such as "Since p, it follows that q.".<issue_comment>username_1: There are customs and habits that differ between disciplines, between research groups and between individuals. I would endeavour to claim that the trend is away from passive phrased (e.g. "was made" etc.) to active we and I but perhaps also from royal we's and expressions such as "this author" in favour for being to the point using "I". The key, however, lies in how the "I" is used. (in fact, "this author" may even be confused by the author of the latest referenced paper)
If you write a paper you can safely use I whenever you report on things you in particular have done. In methods sections, it concerns the choices of methods you (and nobody else) has made and in the results section it concerns the results you (and nobody else) has obtained and your choice which ones to highlight. In the discussion section you can use "I" whenever you make a point that you stand by, you can use we in parts where you perform a discussion with the reader; we meaning you and the reader. In short, the "I" signals your contributions and puts you (and nobody else) on the spot for criticism. So as I see it "I" is not a way to brag (which seems to scare many), it is exposing the fact that you alone stand for what is written.
I suggest you try to find good (recommended by peers) papers written in different styles and think about the styles with the aim of finding your own comfort zone. It is a matter of style, not right and wrong.
To cap off I want to highlight a couple of books that I personally, being a non-native English speaker, have found very useful:
>
> <NAME>., 2012. Science research writing for non-native speakers of English. Imperial College Press, London
>
>
>
and
>
> <NAME>. & <NAME>., 2011. Scientific English. A guide for scientists and other professionals. Greenwood, Santa Barbara CA
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm not sure about the conventions in social science, but the problem seems to be very close to what natural scientists face when writing a methods section, i.e., how an experiment was performed. If you look into the publications, you will see that these sections are almost exclusively written in the passive voice. The idea behind it is to take away the focus from the subject performing the experiment, putting more emphasis on tthe process instead. So you examples would become:
* A study with 56 participants was conducted.
* Cramer's V was chosen as the association measure, because...
"Our previous study" is still fine, when the previous study has several authors.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I am in cognitive psychology and frequently use, "In the present investigation." There are sometimes workarounds you can use to avoid passive voice such as, "56 adults participated in this study."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I asked my supervisor directly. She said that she is OK with using "I" in the dissertation, but that it is "uncommon" to use it in articles. As she is always a co-author on our papers, I guess none of her students had to deal with the problem in the context of an article anyway :) And because she did not mention internal reports even though I specifically asked about them, I think that she doesn't care what I use in them.
This is just the opinion of one professor, and the answers here show me that there doesn't seem to be a good convention. So, my take-home message from the whole problem would be: ask your professor, he will probably have a position on it and it is wise for you as a student to follow it.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: The use of the authorial 'we' is very common in academia even for single-author papers, as argued by many and properly referenced in the other question that you mention.
**Personally, I would keep 'we'** also for the thesis without bothering. I doubt anyone would misunderstand, but if you wish you can include a quick remark in the introduction: something like *Despite the use of the 'authorial we', common in academia, this thesis is the sole work of its author*. In many cases you are required to state that you are the only author anyway in some boilerplate forms in the front matter.
This looks much better to my eye than changing every sentence to a contorted passive form. Readability matters.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: I'm facing the same problem, though in German language/natural science (conventions may vary somewhat).
The main problem with the passive construction is that it doesn't say at all who did it. Consider:
>
> The algorithm was implemented.
>
>
>
How can the reader be sure it was you as opposed to your colleague giving you his code (particulary, if the corresponding paper is authored by multiple coauthors)? I'm told I cannot expect the reader to look up the source where the author is explicitly stated.
So for some (ver key points where I need to make really sure everyone gets the fact that I actually did work myself that is fairly common (e.g. in other groups in my field) to be done by colleagues, collaboration partners, students or technicians I use "I" even though is so uncommon that I get comments about the use of "I".
Assuming that commonly studies like the one with 56 participants have someone planning it, someone (else) doing the experiments/collecting the data, and someone (yet else) analyzing the data: make sure you properly acknowledge the contributions of your collaborators in the acknowledgements.
You can also use constructions like:
>
> A study with 56 participants was conducted [ref]. This thesis focuses on [whichever part *you* did]
>
>
>
Otherwise, "This thesis shows that..." or
>
> Throughout this thesis, Cramer's V is used as the association measure, because ...
>
>
>
get you a long way.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: I want to add two thoughts based on [APA style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APA_style). While the passive voice may help in some circumstances (as demonstrated in other answers), overuse of the passive is sometimes considered bad style. The Publication Manual of the APA (6th) even says on page 77:
>
> Prefer the active voice.
>
>
>
Furthermore, the APA manual contains something about attribution on page 69.
>
> Inappropriately or illogically attributing action in an effort to be objective
> can be misleading.
>
>
>
Thus, if you did something, it may even be misleading if this information is hidden using some stilted writing. And APA explicitly mentions the usage of *I* for single-author pieces on page 69:
>
> For clarity, restrict your use of *we* to refer only to yourself and your
> coauthors (use *I* if you are the sole author of the paper).
>
>
>
In summary, I think a good balance of passive and active is considered good style, and the usage of *I* (where appropriate) is slowly becoming acceptable.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: 1. If any co-authors, you need to use we since the readers don't know who the I is.
2. Use I, as needed for sole author pubs. I like I because it is a strong statement--there is a definite person to hold responsible. Don't use "we" if there are no co-authors (what you got a mouse in your pocket?) If you feel too hesitant about a bold I (or get static) than go to passive voice. But a "we" for a sole article is distracting.
3. Do not use I when it makes more sense to make the objects of the research, the subject of the sentences. For example NOT "I observed pitching as the stall angle was approached", but "the model started pitching near the listed stall angle, about 35 degrees". The reason is not for modesty but because (a) it is tighter writing and (b) the proper attention is on the model in the wind tunnel--your observation is not the point, here.
4. I recommend to avoid the passive voice, but some people will recommend it or expect it. Certainly if an editor requires it, just do it, don't argue. "The reactants were combined in a boiling flask..." Note, it does have the benefit of putting the attention on the science, not on you as an actor.
5. Some math writing uses we because the reader is included as an observer in a derivation, "after completing the square, we see...blabla".
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: **We** in PhD thesis typically mean: **I am as an author and you as the reader**. It is used in the sense that **we together explore the topic**. And it is just a kind of writing style to incorporate the reader.
Writing "We conducted a study with 56 participants" or "our previous study" can be considered as a bad writing style. Since it has not the same meaning and could be easily transferred in passive voice.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/01/04 | 1,088 | 4,624 | <issue_start>username_0: I submitted a paper to an IEEE conference (Computer Science). My paper was not accepted for publication but it has been accepted for poster presentation there.
The conference requires the authors to pay full delegate registration fees as is required for authors of published works. Is it a common practice ?
I was a novice student in the field when I submitted the paper, but have worked a lot in past few months in the area. And I am not looking for any specific inputs into that work anymore.
Is it worth doing a poster presentation in such case ?
**EDIT:** (some additional information)
* It is not a top tier conference
* I am self funded<issue_comment>username_1: Have you done these kinds of presentations before? If not, it may be good practice if you are a shy public speaker and could use the practice. Also, if you are interested in meeting the other people at the conference, it would be useful to go.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I have some experience publishing in CS, so I'll give you my point of view.
>
> The conference requires the authors to pay full delegate registration fees as is required for authors of published works. Is it a common practice ?
>
>
>
Yes. In general, every participant is expected to pay in full, no matter what kind of contribution he/she has submitted. You are paying the conference, not your publication. One could argue that this is the main point why many (weaker) conferences even have poster and short paper tracks - to get more people to pay full registrations and attend the conference without having to accept too many papers.
>
> I was a novice student in the field when I submitted the paper, but have worked a lot in past few months in the area. And I am not looking for any specific inputs into that work anymore.
>
>
>
I should comment that this is a somewhat questionable attitude. Even if you are not planning to continue a certain line of research, hearing what others think about your work will help you a lot in future research projects and papers. Also, I don't think that you can go from *novice* to *can't learn anything in the field anymore* in the timeframe of a conference paper review process, so I'll wager that some in the audience will still have reasonable input on your work.
>
> Is it worth doing a poster presentation in such case ?
>
>
>
I would say this depends on practicalities. Is your advisor OK with paying your conference trip without a full paper to show? Is it far, will the travel be expensive? Is it a top conference that you want to attend for the conference's (and associated networking's) sake? Have you done many presentations, or will it at least be good training?
That being said, from a scientific point of view, most poster presentations are not very valuable. They don't *count* a lot on your CV (except, maybe, if it really is an absolute top conference), and you will not get that much feedback, realistically.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_1: I have very mixed feelings about poster presentations. Here is my take on this.
Pros of poster presentations:
* You get to meet people. Sometimes (very rarely, IMO), the people that you meet through your poster session help you quite a bit through your career; invitations to seminars, eventually hiring you as their postdocs, etc.
* It's one more line on your CV. Always helpful.
* If you were going to go to that conference anyway, it's something productive.
Cons:
* In all honesty, what will happen most of the time is that you will be standing in front of your poster (quite awkward experience, I might add), and no one will be *really* interested; they might ask you a question or two, but then they will want to move on to the next poster.
* It's a lot of time and effort spent on making that poster. Also, poster printing is expensive.
* In many fields, poster presentations on CVs are not taken super seriously.
As far as I am concerned, poster presentations are *something to do* while you are away at a conference. I personally usually opt not to present poster, because the outcome to effort ratio is quite low. As a rule of thumb, I would recommend that you present the poster if you are a graduate student of early years (if you have spoken in very few conferences), and be more selective if you are more senior in academia. For example, you might choose to present your poster if the conference is very prestigious, or if you know that someone that you would really like to know is coming to that conference. Otherwise, it doesn't make a huge difference in my opinion.
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/01/05 | 787 | 3,354 | <issue_start>username_0: My colleagues argue that a meta-analysis / systematic review needs at least two data collectors (or authors according to them) as a "must". I have not found any reference in the PRISMA (or any other sources about meta-analyses/systematic reviews) that confirms this claim.
Do you know any such protocol or consensus?<issue_comment>username_1: Answer: Although PRISMA does not require such a protocol, Cochrane Handbook does. However, it too does not "necessitate" it, but encourages it (at least to my understanding).
Check out the Chapter 7 of the Part 2 of this online Handbook: <http://handbook.cochrane.org/>
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There is no such requirement. It is frequently helpful to have multiple authors to help sort through the vast amounts of literature being covered, but is by no means a necessity. For instance, [a colleague of mine](http://iopscience.iop.org/1749-4699/5/1/013001) recently published a fairly substantial review article on his own.
However, in medical research, a meta-review serves a rather different purpose than the usual review article in other fields: it is collecting the results of a bunch of different experimental studies, and trying to reach an overarching medical recommendation. That's a rather different research function than a review article in other fields. In medicine, you would want to have multiple people reviewing the data to make sure that it's not one person unilaterally deciding everything independently.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: From the perspective of an Epidemiologist, with some published meta-analysis experience:
*Must* is a very strong word. Some people have pointed to where, for example, the Cochrane Collaboration requires it, and PRISMA might not, but generally speaking I've never really encountered a situation where having a single author on a meta-analysis was a substantial barrier to publishing a review.
On the other hand, I would say that a meta-analysis or systematic review *should* have a second person on the study team. Rarely is the literature being reviewed so clear, so well-laid out and so utterly free of ambiguity that a single person can read, digest and abstract the literature without making any judgement calls. Without having any papers where they search and simply cannot find what they're looking for. Without hitting that one paper they simply cannot make heads or tails of. There should be someone there to double-check your work, or a sample of it at least, to make sure what you described as the system in your paper and what you actually did match up. To look over those papers you've set aside in the "Problem" pile to see if they can see things you don't.
I leave whether or not that person should be an author as an exercise to the reader.
I know some colleagues who essentially begin all reviews with a parallel, blinded double-abstraction of the papers once they've been found - or even begin all the way at the search being carried out twice. I don't know that I'd go that far, but it is *extremely* helpful to have someone to double-check your decision making against. Despite being careful, reading closely and reviewing my own decisions, I have yet to work on a meta-analysis where I haven't been glad to have a second reviewer (or to be said reviewer).
Upvotes: 3 |
2014/01/05 | 2,499 | 10,572 | <issue_start>username_0: Often when I attend conferences and meetings, there are some social activities sometimes specifically for graduate students to mix with each other and get to know other students and build possible future collaborations and contacts. Once in a while I end up with a group of let's say all Chinese foreign students. I am not Chinese and I don't know any Mandarin/Cantonese. But it is a little frustrating and in my opinion quite rude when everyone carries on their conversation in Mandarin sometimes bypassing me directly and I have no clue what's going on and I stand there looking like a complete idiot.
If the gathering is something like a cocktail party, I would move on pretty quickly. But if it happens to be a formal dinner then I am stuck at that table and the entire evening might go by with me hardly talking to anyone. My question is, what can I do or say which will make them realize this and to consider other people around who may not know Mandarin?
Just to clarify, this is in the USA and the students I am talking about are all foreign students attending American universities so it isn't a question of them not knowing English. Sometimes I know a friend or two and I would jokingly tell them only English which works for a couple of minutes and then everyone reverts to Mandarin again.
Any ideas?<issue_comment>username_1: I understand your frustration. I am in a similar, though different, situation. I do find it frustrating as well, when the situation turns as you described. However, as <NAME> pointed out, when a group of people share a common native language, it is very difficult for them to choose a common second language, though it is clearly an option for them.
As far as what to do, the key is for you to start driving the conversation. You should have some interesting stories or intriguing questions to bring up. When you are the center of the conversation, people will naturally want to involve you and, therefore, they will change their conversational language into English.
This is easily said but difficult in practice. To drive a conversation takes a lot of energy and a lot of preparation (unless you have the 'gift of gab'). However, this is the only way I see to accomplish what you want.
Of course you must be prepared for someone else to take the lead and then people start to move back to their native language but you should be able to add something to bring the attention back to you.
All this said, you must be careful not to come off as someone who craves attention. You can accomplish this by sharing attention in a meaningful way. However, it does take a constant effort to keep yourself involved enough that others want to keep you involved by choosing English.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> My question is, what can I do or say which will make them realize this
> and to consider other people around who may not know Mandarin?
>
>
>
There is no way to broach this without having them think negatively of you. Anybody who wasn't raised in a barn knows that this kind of exclusionary behavior is rude. It's no different than carrying on a conversation with inside jokes that not everyone knows or talking in depth about a topic that makes other people feel stupid (e.g. the Cantor's Completeness Hypothesis in math)
The most polite thing you can do is to interrupt their conversation with something like, "Excuse me, but what are you talking about? May I join in?"
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: This is a very relevant and interesting question. I agree with all answers so far that the problem can only be solved by being (pro)active, perhaps more than many young PhD students are comfortable with.
Anyway, what I can add to the discussion is a bit of insight from the "other" side. See, I am Austrian (mother tongue is german), and in my line of research Germany is pretty well-established. Hence, when there is a conference in Europe, german speakers (Germans, Austrians, Swiss) often form about a third or so of all participants. In these conferences, random chatter (not so much technical discussion, which people are used to doing in english anyway) often starts in english when a non-german speaker is present, but usually changes to german when the non-german speaker moves away or seems to be not interested in the conversation (e.g., he/she is turning away, or does not contribute at all to the conversation). Of course this means that it is hard for a non-german speaker to join in on a conversation **after it started**. Usually, if a non-german approaches the group, chatter will turn to english again, but this usually does not happen unless this person is already good friends with one of the people in the group (or would you approach a group of strangers talking in an unknown language?).
However, I don't think there is much to be done about this - it is just natural that a group of people converses in their joint language that they are all most comfortable with. People are not actively trying to be rude - but, sometimes, what comes naturally is not what is appreciated by the largest group of people in the conference.
Some concret suggestions:
* When at a formal dinner, and you don't know anybody, try to not be seated surrounded by larger groups of people who are clearly friends or come from the same university / country. This can make for awkward dinners, even independently of language issues, but it is easy to spot already when sitting down. For networking, it is much easier to get into conversation with other people in your situation (more or less alone currently).
* At receptions or conference breaks, as you say yourself, I would usually just move away from people who are excluding me by speaking a different language. If you are actually interested in what they are saying, but can't contribute for language issues, rocinante's suggestion is best - just tell them.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Actually, this problem does not only happen in a conference: I think there is *two slightly distinct situations* in which you can be surrounded by people speaking in a language that is foreign for you. The *first* is as you described: **conferences** and other **short-term events**. The *second* is (if studying abroad) coming to a **language-homogeneous (working/research) group**.
In both, unfortunately, the only way "out" is to be at least slightly **assertive**. It is not the most pleasant, but it's *natural* for the (larger) groups that speak the same (mother) language to revert to it naturally in their conversations unless they are reminded to speak in English.
For the conferences, I would say, it might even be easier of the two:
* in my experience, the first social event is some kind of a "mixer" where there is no fixed seating arrangements for the whole evening, so it's easier to identify the people open for conversations
* also, approaching small groups of 1-2-3 people on poster sessions and lunch breaks can be a way to meet people who want to communicate in English
* the "seating" dinner is usually a few days into the conference, so by then I just try and locate the people I talked to during the last few days
For the more "permanent" group, e.g. your team, it is a bit harder. They are an established group already most likely, and you want to get *in* as well as make them change their standard communication language. For that, you **have to get noticed**.
* there's always a problem of finding a balance between being present, noticed, and too aggressive
* establishing your presence in the group by attending team coffees, greeting people in their offices as you come to work, and similar small gestures should get you well started
* on the longer "group outings" (my team used to do that - going out together a few times a month), it's usually easier to start a conversation with just one person, and hopefully other people will join in.
* finally, it's okay to sometimes gently remind them that you'd like to participate in general conversation as well, as long as you don't come across as rude or judgmental. Nobody likes to be shamed in public.
---
But, the bottom line is, *staying politely quiet won't get you far*. You have to get noticed, you have to be interesting to others, and you need to make them want to speak to you.
I know that some people are not as socially comfortable as others, and *I know* that all that can be hard, demanding, sometimes exhausting, and you don't always feel like it. Unfortunately, I don't know or see any other solution.
So, the best "tactic" I came up with is: when you know you will be in those kind of situations, actively mentally *prepare*. It's easier if you know you have to do it, and it gets a bit easier every time. You take a deep breath, you dive in, and try your best to be a social butterfly. **When you know you are attending a conference or coming to a new working environment, be prepared to put more effort in getting noticed for the duration of the conference/next few weeks**.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Here's the politically incorrect truth:
The Chinese in particular are infamous for doing this. For other groups if you politely request that they speak in English, you should be good. But for the Chinese, there is NOTHING you can do about it.
They are simply not aware or not taught that it might somehow be rude to entirely exclude someone in the group from the conversation.
(Source: My anecdotal experience. I am ethnically Chinese and have hung out a lot with Chinese people while in the US, including when other non-Chinese people are present. The non-Chinese people frequently report being annoyed about this, but nothing ever changes.)
Addendum: One answer remarks here that 'anyone who wasn't raised in a barn' knows that this is rude behavior. But notions of courtesy and etiquette are not universal. In some cultures it'd be extremely rude for you to hand a person any object with your left hand, or point your feet at a person (even inadvertently). They would not accuse you of having been raised in a barn simply because you violated their notions of courtesy.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Such "groups" to me are hell and something I always avoid, but I have found with chance encounters a couple of lines of Chinese poetry (in Mandarin) are great ice-breakers, making much more sense than the usual faltering attempts at "conversation". We don't have the necessary depth of language, so why bother with "my name is" or "I drive a red car" etc.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/01/05 | 772 | 3,305 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a master computer science student. I decided to leave the academia after graduation, but I'm still into research and would like to do personal research independently for like 10 years. Suppose I publish a lot of papers in valuable journals, is it possible to get a PhD after that somehow?<issue_comment>username_1: Some universities offer the option of a 'PhD by published works'. See [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8502/difference-between-phd-by-published-work-vs-h-c-phd-vs-dr-hab/8512#8512) for more information. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I think you can do research in your own time, but I think getting your work published is hard where you are not affiliated with a university or research institute. You have the advantage that you will not use precious resources from the institute as you will be doing the research in your own time, but you probably do not have a large amount of priority over the normal PhD's and postdocs.
I think you should write a research plan, i.e. where do you want to go with your research. Writing such a proposal will show a supervisor you are serious and have some research skills (provided the proposal is any good). Once you have a number of publications, molding those into a PhD thesis is quite possible. In the Netherlands for example it is quite normal to bundle your papers, and write an introduction and summary as your PhD thesis.
I do think performing research next to a normal job can be challenging, as research tends to take a lot of time. So be prepared to let your PhD take 10+ years (possibly making it obsolete), or sacrifice a lot of spare/family time.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Technically there are ways to do this (at least in Europe, different countries are different). In practice however, doing PhD work is hard enough when doing it officially part-time with a set supervisor and approved plan. Without a supervisor, you need to be exceptionally exceptional to get a PhD thesis written (and sufficient academic papers published to satisfy expectations).
Think about it this way, the vast majority of PhD proposals in applications are not quite good enough (to execute), so the first thing a supervisor does is change the plan.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: PhD studies are *studies*, same as master degree. So you need to cooperate with university or other scientific institution that has been *licensed* to grant this degree. Same as you cannot get driving license without applying to the road police (regardless how well do you drive), PhD degree also cannot "emerge automatically" from the number of published articles or the like.
Some institutions may be willing to review existing publications and grant the degree on that basis but generally anyway it must be institution, supervisor and, most often, topic. Many will not allow this path so I would advice to check if you can find one, before you start.
However it is not uncommon for the scientific institution to allow PhD studies without providing the funding (funding may be provided, for instance, by the company where PhD student currently works, or maybe PhD student have enough resources to support himself).
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/01/05 | 562 | 2,009 | <issue_start>username_0: I've found that a few tools uses in scientific research, request that if you use them,
you add the paper they were discussed in to your bibliography.
For example:
* [Theano](http://deeplearning.net/software/theano/#citing-theano) requests you cite: "*“Theano: A CPU and GPU Math Expression Compiler”*
* [Scipy](http://www.scipy.org/scipylib/citing.html) requests that you cite it as a misc reference.
Is this common?
Is it reasonable to cite a paper (in Theano's) case, that I have never read, because I have used the tool?
Is it ethical?<issue_comment>username_1: I would be pragmatic here. Citations are a *currency* in science. If the authors of a tool help your research by providing the tool to the general public, it is only fair to reference their work in the way they requested it to happen - and, certainly, citing a given reference in a paper that uses their work is not an unreasonable request. I cannot image why it would be unethical to say something like
>
> We have used Theano [1] to evaluate XY (...)
>
>
>
in your paper, where
>
> [1] <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME> and <NAME>. “Theano: A CPU and GPU Math Expression Compiler”. Proceedings of the Python for Scientific Computing Conference (SciPy) 2010. June 30 - July 3, Austin, TX
>
>
>
As to whether this is common, I would say **yes**. Most authors of well-known tools in my area specify a preference for how their work should be acknowledged.
If you are bothered by not having read the paper you are citing, there is a simple fix for that - read the paper, and decide for yourself whether it is worth citing in that context (but, generally, the answer will be yes).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to agreeing with the answer of `@username_1`, I would also add that in some fields and journals, it is a specific requirement that tools and software are cited appropriately.
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/01/05 | 1,157 | 4,210 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a master student in computer science. I'm still working on my thesis and probably I will publish a paper, however I really have no idea where to look for workshops and conferences. I often hear my supervisor talking about some conferences and workshops and mentioning them, but I get no idea how he knew about them. Is there such a central website or search engine for this?
I'm new in research, never published a paper before.<issue_comment>username_1: There are lots of different websites and mailing lists for different subjects. Some researchers also maintain webpages of conferences in their area. I mostly learn about conferences through two mailing lists I subscribe to and two researchers' webpages, as well as emails forwarded by my mentor (I'm a postdoc).
Probably the best thing would be to ask your supervisor how he finds conferences. He'll probably know the best sources for your research area.
One fairly general website I know about is www.conference-service.com, but in my area it's far from complete.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I found some decent ones here: <http://www.allconferences.com/>
I also receive a number of invitations through a number of mailing lists that I subscribe to.
You can also find a number of them through technology publishers like O'Reilly for example: <http://strataconf.com/strata2014/public/content/home>
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: A very good site for CS conferences and journals call for papers and their respective deadlines is [A Wiki Calls for Papers](http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: If you are serious about publishing, try one of these [conferences](http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~zaiane/htmldocs/ConfRanking.html). These conferences are good, even at Rank 3. You also have the list divided by the area of interest.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Most of the conferences in Computer Science publish proceedings with Springer, IEEE or ACM (even though there are several dozens which self-publish or publish elsewhere).
All three publishers have lists of upcoming conferences:
**Springer**
* LNCS: <http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-12-73665-0>
* CCIS: <http://www.springer.com/series/7899>
* LNBIP: <http://www.springer.com/series/7911>
**IEEE**
* <http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/index.html>
**ACM**
* <http://www.acm.org/calendar-of-events>
Other great resources are mailing lists:
**Mailing lists**
* DBWorld <https://research.cs.wisc.edu/dbworld/>
* AISWorld <http://www.aisnet.org/AIS_Lists/publiclists.aspx>
* ACM SIG-IR list <http://www.sigir.org/sigirlist/>
* ECOOP info list <http://web.satd.uma.es/mailman/listinfo/ecoop-info>
Beware of conferences which do this just for money and not for disseminating knowledge:
* <http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/>
This being said - of course the best way is to ask colleagues working on a topic related to yours - like your supervisors, post-docs from your group etc.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: I may be biased (since I am working on that project) but I would start looking in the *dblp computer science bibliography*:
* <http://dblp.dagstuhl.de>
* <http://dblp.uni-trier.de>
* <http://dblp.org>
However, much more important than just searching for "any" conference and workshop in whatever repository is talking to your advisor, colleagues, etc and asking them for their opinion on which venues are most relevant for your specific topic.
Another way of finding relevant venues is just looking at the references in the literature you are working with. If there are some conferences or journals that come up over and over again, then they are probably interesting for you to consider.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Another very useful site is [Conference Partner (myhuiban)](http://www.myhuiban.com). The site lists conferences by deadline, and shows useful information such as rankings by 3 different sources, years, views and so on. In each conference page, it also shows the call for papers, acceptance rate (when available), related conferences etc. Note that for some reason, full access requires (free) registration.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/01/05 | 5,044 | 20,426 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm a master computer science student in a German university and I will be graduating soon. I'm in a situation between accepting a PhD position or leaving academia to start looking for job. This is a *very* hard decision to make so I need some advice.
I see *most* of the people who do a PhD leave academia afterwards and start looking for jobs (is it also the same in the US?). Very few people continue with a postdoc and remain in academia after getting the PhD.
*My question is then, what is the point of doing a PhD (especially if one gets a job in industry afterwards)? **What are the benefits of spending 3-5 years obtaining a PhD?** What kind of goals should a person enrolling in a PhD program have?*
From the point of view of *industry*, I realize that after a PhD they might start with a high position in the company. But, on the other hand, in those 5 years they could have started a small tech company and make it somehow medium or even a bit successful. Instead of doing a PhD, after 5 years of investing in their own company, they could be paid for working for themselves and not for others, having their own companies.
From the point of view of *obtaining knowledge,* if someone is curious about *knowing*, they could learn new things by themselves. After graduation, finding a job or starting a company, knowledge could be obtained by buying books and reading during one's free time, or following extra courses. I don't think you don't need a university for this.
Am I right in my analysis? Is it true most people go to the industry after the PhD (I'm especially curious about people in the US from top universities)?
If my analysis is at least partially right, and since there is other viable ways to become successful in industry *and* to obtain knowledge, what are the benefits of doing a PhD? Is it only a good idea for people with strong plans to continue in academia, or are there other goals one can achieve (better) by obtaining a PhD? I am afraid that doing a PhD might be a waste of time if I plan to continue in industry.<issue_comment>username_1: I believe the problem lies in that you view a job outside of academia as a failure, it is not. There are jobs that require a PhD in industry and elsewhere outside academia as well. What is a failure is foremost a question of the personal goals of the person in question. Industry and academia compete for the graduates to a large degree. It is obvious that how severe this competition is, depends on the subject but in technical areas it is definitely the case. In my own department it is very clear that people who finish a PhD end up in very good jobs. This, despite the fact that it is not a world were industry jobs are plenty, instead it is consulting businesses and government positions that are the norm.
There is not room for every PhD in academia. Not everyone is interested in an academic career nor suited. In general a person with a Phd has deep understanding and skills to solve problems, disseminate results and communicate these to others. There are thus many positions that require such insights to take on positions of responsibility in organizations, be it private or public.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> most of the people who do a PhD leave the academia afterwards and start looking for jobs (is it also the same in the US?)
>
>
>
Depends on how you see "most". In my experience, about 50% of the students in top-tier graduate schools leave academia; most students in lower-tier graduate schools leave academia. In Europe, this percentage increases quite a bit, since the Europeans generally enter a PhD program to become a professor (In the US, some people enter the program with the intention of getting a PhD, and nothing more.) You can judge for yourself where you fit, since I don't know which school you are thinking of attending.
>
> in those 5 years they could have started a small tech company and make it somehow medium or even a bit successful.
>
>
>
Sure. But in those 5 years, your tech company could have gone out of business, too! Perhaps you will say that you learn from your mistakes, so that was a valuable period of time. But you learn from doing a PhD too. I'm not necessarily talking about technical things, but the fact that you are able to learn things faster than the non-PhDs (since that's one of the basic skills that research requires.) If you do a CS PhD, depending on how you choose your research topic, it could be useful in real life too.
>
> I mean you could definitely graduate, find a job or start a company and buy books and read all night or weekends! You don't need a university for this.
>
>
>
True. But grad students are reading all day, then all night or weekends (in theory; in reality they don't actually do this, but they still would have more time than you). You would learn slower. Not to mention that not having a mentor would make things much harder for you (you could tell your PhD supervisor about the courses that you liked, and particular ideas that you liked; from there, she could tell you about some papers that you might like. As an independent research, that's not an option).
Last bit of advice: my father, who is also an academic, always told me not to go into academia unless I loved research. He told me that there are easier ways to obtain everything else in life; money, fame, etc. can all be obtained without being an academic, and more easily at that. And what he said was true for me. Being in academia extremely strenuous -- you'll deal with competitive peers in graduate school, maybe you won't get along with your supervisor, jealous colleagues, people who try to steal your work, thesis gone wrong, error in your paper, etc. I have encountered some of these, and each of these is enough to make you want to quit. The only reason I was able to hold on was because I found that I genuinely loved research. I knew that I couldn't have a job like this elsewhere, so I had to hold on. Any other reason will eventually drive you out of academia, though.
FYI, I attended a top US institution.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: You state that:
>
> Of course they might get a high position in the company, but in those 5 years they could have started a small tech company and make it somehow medium or even a bit successful. After 5 years with doing that, they are being paid by working for themselves not for others and having their own companies.
>
>
>
The big obstacle here is that people **need to have a strategy and an idea** in order to found a start-up. If you don't have the "next big idea," what are you going to do to convince outside investors and customers to do their business with you instead of someone else? The challenge is that many people finish their bachelor's or master's degrees and *still* don't really have a strong sense of what they want to do, in part because they don't know what their options are.
Moreover, in many fields, what kind of company can people found? What kind of company would a chemist or economist going to found after undergraduate training? In many fields, training at the PhD level is often needed in order to develop the ideas needed for bigger ideas to take root.
Now, this isn't universally true—perhaps you have found what your big idea will be through experiences at an internship or in a bachelor's or master's thesis. If that's what motivates you, great.
However, you also equate leaving academia as "failure." There are many people who do a PhD—including some of my own students—who **do not** want careers in academia; however, they want the extra training to broaden their horizons and prepare themselves for a career in research and development in industry. For them, it's not a failure if they don't choose academia as a career, it's them achieving their desired objective!
The only way the PhD is a waste of time is if recipients choose to pursue a career that does not take any advantage of what they did as a PhD student, and those are relatively few and far between (at least in fields that what we consider "professions" instead of "jobs"). The reason for this is that a PhD (at least in the sciences) recognizes the ability to learn how to solve problems in an original and independent manner. In the humanities, a PhD tends to represent the ability to synthesize and analyze information in a meaningful way. The specific thesis project is the vehicle for expressing this ability, rather than the exclusive "goal" of doing the PhD.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: There are a number of subjective terms in your question so answering the overarching question if pursuing a Ph.d is a waste of time creates a few questions within itself, however, a few points:
*I'm in a situation between accepting a PhD position or leave the academia and start looking for job.*
If the position in question pays the bills and allows you to gain work experience (assuming that you do not have any), then accepting a position for a year or two and then going out into the corporate realm may make sense.
*I mean they spent 5 years on it and then they left to look for a job in the industry.*
In the US, university professors with tenure or on the tenure track tend to see the better rates of pay and benefits -of course there are a number of caveats since some schools can be considered more elite than others and location is a factor. There are companies such as Google and IBM that pay Ph.d graduates very well to solve real world problems and to further their business objectives.
*in those 5 years they could have started a small tech company and make it somehow medium or even a bit successful.*
Running your own business usually requires a lot of time and effort -if you wish to be successful anyway. So folks may not wish to put in that type of commitment especially after surviving 5 years of Ph.d work, a relaxing 30 - 40 hour work week with paid time off and benefits could look appealing especially if there is a family with children involved or caring for an aging parent.
*My other idea is that if someone is curious about knowing and getting knowledge.*
This depends on if there is a genuine interest in research. If one wishes to see the fruits of their labor see the light of day in a commercial sense,then going to the private sector may allows one to see their research come to life and touch the masses. Another commenter made mention of potential issues with jealous colleagues, people that try to steal your work, etc -these elements also apply in the corporate world especially if there is some sort of compensation at stake (it is not always financial by the way) so each avenue (academia vs. corporate) has its on rewards and pitfalls.
So, I suppose it comes down to your original motivation for school. Was the plan to work in academia, private industry or a combination of the two? Either way you go, you will gain a life experience that you did not possess before so, its comes down to how you wish to make it work for yourself.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: *standard disclaimer: my experience is with computer science, and in general I have familiarity with STEM, but I know almost nothing about Ph.D training and skills acquired in other areas*
There are a number of misconceptions implicit in your question that other answers have picked up on, but that I thought I'd distill out here:
>
> Very few people continue with a postdoc and remain in academia after
> getting the PhD. My argument is that wasn't the PhD just a waste of
> time for them? I mean they spent 5 years on it and then they left to
> look for a job in the industry.
>
>
>
The assumption here is that the topic you do research on is the main consequence of doing a Ph.D. In a literal sense that is true: your dissertation is on a particular topic. But as @username_3 points out, the dissertation (and a Ph.D) is a vehicle for training you in a certain way of thinking: analytical, critical, and inventive. These skills are what get you hired at jobs 'outside academia', and it's fair to say that without the training you get during a Ph.D, you will find these skills difficult to acquire (I'll never say it's impossible).
In that respect, it's not a waste at all. You spend some number years learning how to approach ill-structured, ill-defined problems, break them down, and figure out ways to solve them by yourself with no direction. This is a very valuable job skill that employers love to have.
>
> Of course they might get a high position in the company, but in those
> 5 years they could have started a small tech company and make it
> somehow medium or even a bit successful. After 5 years with doing
> that, they are being paid by working for themselves not for others and
> having their own companies
>
>
>
As others have pointed out, starting a company requires a different set of skills. In the tech world, having tech skills definitely helps to run a company, but there are thousands, if not millions, of people with the requisite tech skills, and very few of them become successful entrepreneurs. So it's not enough just to have some technical knowledge, and so it's not the case that you can swap out X years of a Ph.D with X years of working and expect to achieve some degree of success. Again, not impossible but certainly not guaranteed.
>
> My other idea is that if someone is curious about knowing and getting
> knowledge. I mean you could definitely graduate, find a job or start a
> company and buy books and read all night or weekends! You don't need a
> university for this.
>
>
>
You don't need a Ph.D for this either. If you think that a Ph.D involves learning and reading, you're very mistaken. A Ph.D involves **doing**. You learn to reach the cutting edge so that you can do something new and creative yourself. Reading and reading will not get you a Ph.D - it might not even get you a single creative work !
p.s I've worked both in industry and (now) academia after doing a Ph.D from the US.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: When you start a PHD, you are not sure if actually doing the research required for getting that PHD, will be fun enough (you do not do it for the money anyway). After finishing it (for those who do) then you know if you really like to be in academia or not. Previous answers (mainly of user14449) already highlighted the problems associated with academia, which are only visible from INSIDE academia.
Also a PHD does not neccessarily has to be another step in your ladder of "success". There are many who are doing a PHD because a) they WANT to do it b) they know it in their hearts that they CAN do it. Even if they "waste" 5 years of their lives (as you put it) they want to do it, regardless if they get a job in academia, get a better job or become rich. It is like playing with a rock band. If you do it for becoming a rock star you will never become one. If you like music, you might actually have a chance.
On the other hand, only MSc students have the misconception that if they are going to create a new start-up company, they will become the new Steve Jobs and be rich beyond belief. The truth is that 99% of the start-ups actually fail (once external funding is spent) and only 1% survive. You say you are from Germany. How many CS start-ups are from Germany? Even there, most successful industries cooperate with reseach institutions like Fraunhofer or DLR which a) are connected to academia b) having a PHD certainly helps you to get a job there.
So the real question is: What do you really WANT to do? If you like to do research regardless of money, go for the PHD. If not, go to industry. If in doubt, stick with industry.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I would say, for people who enter a PhD program with *defined and established goals*, and with at least some *understanding of what they are getting into*, obtaining a PhD is **almost never a waste of their time**. Some great advice on what is good to know before dabbling in research, take a look [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/13355/4249).
The thing is, **a primary goal of a PhD** is not to *obtain knowledge*. I also know that from the industry point of view, it is sometimes viewed as equal to *X years of work experience*, but that's not completely correct either: a PhD is about **learning how to do research *independently***. While it is possible to get those skills alone, (usually by a lengthy trial-and-error process), the best way is under supervision and with advice of an experienced researcher: a thesis adviser/supervisor.
A PhD is kind of a stepping stone for academia: you don't have to continue if you don't want to. If you have an aptitude for research, it is an valid option to explore. Research, while closely related to academia, is not only performed in academia. **It is a time to taste research *and* academic life.** If it is something that you are interested in, even trying and deciding you don't really enjoy it is *not a waste*.
Finally, after obtaining a PhD, if you decide to leave academia, **you will be qualified for *different types of jobs in industry*** than somebody with just a Master degree. Somebody with a lot of *knowledge* might know which known approach to apply to solve a well defined problem. On the other hand, when developing a new application/product, it will be the job of an *researcher* to think of a best approach to a loosely defined goal.
Actually, as a personal side-note, when I just started my PhD my supervisors asked me if I wanted to continue in academia or go to industry afterwards. They said they could help me shape my CV and research activity so it's better suited for my choice: I told them I had no idea and had to see for myself for a while longer. A year after, I told them that unless something drastically changes, I want to stay in academia, but I'm sure they would equally accept me wanting to go to industry.
And lastly, to comment on your "starting a small company"... doing a PhD, investing in a career in a company, or trying to start your own company are, in my opinion, all "business ventures" of the same type, and equally valid or equally a waste: if you do something you don't have an aptitude for and what you don't have motivation for, it's a waste of time. **Doing a PhD is as valid for a career beginning as any other job. It's just that not everybody wants the same career.**
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: I'm not from the US, let alone from a US elite University. However, once I faced the same question. It's a decision you have to make yourself. Some notes:
* When choosing between an industry job or a PhD, there is no wrong decision.
* Other matters in life are way more important.
* I chose the industry and I'm happy with my life.
* I saw top-notch stock trading jobs passing by because I have no PhD. You just don't notice right now.
* I see peers failing their PhDs.
* It's about what you want to do the next years, not after that.
EDIT in response to your question:
From childhood on we've invested in our futures. By going for higher education, we thought in the long term. At some point we'll need to reap the rewards. Nobody ever wished he had worked more in his life when he was dying. Working should be a means (imho), not a goal. So to continue following a working strategy for life, you'll need to value the SHORT term more as you get older. Otherwise you risk never being happy with what you have and always working for something that will never come. Slowly switching from long term thinking to short term thinking may start by looking at a 5-year timespan. You don't want to be unhappy for the next 5 years in order to hopefully have a better life after that. If you can be happy with less money and more interesting work, THAT should be the reason to go for a PhD.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: Your question reminded me of the blog post linked below. See what you make of it!
Generally speaking, existential decisions that are based on binary alternatives can easily be wrong, since there are usually many more alternative pathways in reality. Thinking in terms of binary options is just not the best way of coping with life, I think, if you excuse my binary assertion... ;-)
<http://alexandreafonso.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/how-academia-resembles-a-drug-gang/>
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/01/05 | 877 | 3,569 | <issue_start>username_0: This has always kind of intrigued me. I have seen many students who are good in academics (the scale I am using for this is GPA, like around 3.8–4.0) and average in PhD research. I mean, they do research, but it's just the kind you would expect from an average PhD—publish dissertation, write to one or two top journals, and then graduate.
I have also seen a few students who barely maintain their GPAs (they usually hang around 3.3–3.5) but are so good and focused in research that they do groundbreaking stuff, and some even have filed and received patents on their dissertation.
My question is: how much of a PhD is about taking courses and excelling them, and how much of a PhD is about excelling in research, and how well are they interconnected? From what I have seen, there seems to be no precise correlation between GPA and quality of research. Is it because PhD research concentrates only on a precise problem? Or is it because of individual motivational factors?<issue_comment>username_1: A PhD typically consists of a smaller portion of courses (0-50%, probably averaging 24% of time) and the rest being research (including writing and publishing). In terms of excelling on courses, I would argue it has much less value than as an undergraduate. In my system, all PhD courses are pass/fail, the idea being you should learn only what you need so you can take part of a course if you need. In the end it will be the quality of your thesis and the particularly papers you publish that determines your degree of success, not the coursework. Doing well at courses involve being able to read up on material, organizing knowledge and remembering what you read. These are of course important skills to have. Research, however, includes many additional aspects that requires additional skills so whereas good grades, in terms of reflecting some of your skills, might help, it is not the full story of a PhD.
You mention motivation. Motivation is important. Another aspect is perseverance. Research can be tedious bordering of being dull in order to reach the goal. I have seen many who have had a rosy picture of research but who have not been able to cope with the work. Clearly motivation and fascination about your topic will help you endure the many hours you end up spending on the topic. I doubt many researchers do research without these aspects spurring them on.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> What i wanted to ask how much of PHD is about creativity and how much
> is about perserverance and how much is it about academics
>
>
>
The snarky answer is: **Yes**.
A slightly more unpacked version of this in no particular order would be:
**Academics** (aka things you learn in courses) is important because we don't create in a vacuum. We invent new things, but also combine old things in clever ways, or modify others' ideas creatively for new purposes. Think of it as one component of the fuel for your creativity: why ignore it ?
**Creativity** is of course the key to doing something new, which is the most basic requirement for completing a Ph.D.
**Perseverance** is incredibly important, because most ideas don't come into your head fully formed and perfect. It may be that your first 10, or 100, or 200 ideas aren't quite right, but by studying them closely, and seeing what works and what doesn't, you're able to produce a genuinely interesting new piece of work. Slogging through the bucket of non-working ideas takes perseverance, and can't be replaced by anything else.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2014/01/05 | 1,901 | 8,101 | <issue_start>username_0: I study undergraduate philosophy.
I wrote a paper (beyond the coursework) that presents a solution to one of the unsolved problems facing our conceptions of personal identity. I regard it as worth publishing, but I get that, as an undergrad, I may not have much of a sense of what qualifies a paper as "worth publishing." So I took a few precautions:
1. I read the recently published arguments, and the arguments that preceded them.
2. I critically thought about whether the argument could contribute to the field
3. I presented the argument to some people accomplished in fields that depend on logical thinking {a physicist, a lawyer,a mathematician}. The mathematician told me of a few useful concepts in math that I should incorporate into the argument, I studied them, incorporated them, and re-presented the paper to him, and he felt it was clear and logically sound.
4. I asked some academically successful people {two medical doctors and a Harvard mathematics graduate} for their opinion on it. They agreed with me; however, none of them had much experience publishing research.
5. I presented it to the prof.
The prof's responses seemed defensive. However, I get that I may have had a defensive bent that disposed me to regarding her criticism as her 'just responding defensively'. So I recalled the conversation to people who I believed would tell me that I had mischaracterized her responses, if they suspected that I had done so - and none of them did.
I also get that,
1. most professors -like anyone- want to make the most of their time, and that
2. most people usually see what they expect to see, and that
3. most professors probably would not expect an undergraduate paper to contain much worthwhile.
So, I suspect that most wouldn't want to read it, and that if a prof agreed to read it, an extra measure of prejudice would affect her assessment of it.
I say all of that to say that I have reason to believe I should try and publish the paper, but I didn't succeed when I tried the most obvious path to doing so (presenting it to the prof), and I don't suspect that I'd have much success asking other profs to read it.
So, how might I get a journal or a professor to give the paper a fair shake?<issue_comment>username_1: Here's what you should do:
1. Find an appropriate journal with a ***double blind*** review process.
2. Submit your paper.
3. See what happens.
Double blind means that you do not know the identity of the reviewers, and they do not know your identity. The ostensible purpose of this setup is to encourage reviewers to evaluate the paper based on its academic merit, rather than the pedigree of the author(s).
In reality, of course, there will *always* be politics in reviews, and many reviewers will nonetheless formulate theories about who you are and where you're from. Moreover, things like hot trends in the field can influence judgement—which is why it's important to identify a journal compatible in spirit with your chosen topic.
You will also be judged on the **style** of your writing, and the visual style of your submission. Reviewers will be much more comfortable accepting a submission that looks like a published article than one with strange typography, layout, etc. E.g., don't submit a paper written in MS Word when everybody else in your field uses LaTeX. Strange as it may seem, you will look like a *nut job!* Even different linguistic tone and structure can make your reviewers think you are a quack, even if your idea is legitimately awesome. In short: be a conformist when it comes to your first few submissions. Once you understand how the game is played, you can start to break the mold (hopefully for the better!).
Even accounting for everything above, there is an extremely good chance your submission will get rejected. Coming up with genuinely good ideas is hard; developing political/cultural/intellectual savvy in academia takes time and experience—especially as a lone undergrad. And rejection will *sting!* But the submission process will be a valuable experience nonetheless. After a few days, go back and read your reviews calmly, and think carefully about why the reviewers wrote what they did. Was the typography too bizarre? Are they protecting their political interests? Or is your idea simply not as good as you thought it was? The more papers you submit, the better you will get at answering these questions objectively and honestly. Eventually, you will master the game and can just focus on the work. I hope.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: One additional comment to bolster Druorg's answer: you should also take a look at *undergraduate journals*. The bar to publishing is substantially lower in such journals, and you won't have to worry about finding a faculty member to "sponsor" your work.
Another avenue would be to talk to the academic advisor for undergraduates in your department. They may have some suggestions for alternative means of getting your work published, and would at least have some ideas about who else you could talk to!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: It's wonderful to see undergraduates with a desire to publish! I want to encourage you and also give a few tips that I learned when I first began publishing.
Finding the right journal is crucial.
First, see what journals in your field publish articles similar to yours, in terms of:
* topic area
* type and format of article
* tone and voice
* authors (any non-PhD authored articles?)
* degree of originality (some leading journals often focus on major ground-breaking articles)
In other words, can you see your article fitting into the journal? Look at 4-6 issues.
You can also take the reverse approach -- find a few articles similar to yours and see where they published.
Second, look at the journal's home page. Do they have an annual student issue? (Some do, especially those published by associations.) A few journals reach out more to new authors and indicate this on their web sites. These would be good candidates.
Third, look closely at the author guidelines and make sure your article fits in terms of length, format, etc. You will also see guidelines on how to submit a manuscript.
I also have some more general advice. There is a considerable process of socialization and mentorship involved. The way to get this mentorship is to build relationships with some of your professors. Talk to them after class or during office hours. Get to know who is really interested in developing students in their scholarship. Ask them for advice. I know you already tried to do this, but it sounds like a lot of the people you asked were not in your field. It's very important to get this advice from your field.
There are also ways to approach professors that tend to more successful outcomes. Humility is important as is the ability to take constructive criticism. You clearly have put a lot of energy into this paper and it is an excellent first step on your pathway to being published. But it may be that you are not yet quite ready to contribute to the field. If not, you want to know where you need to grow and develop. This is really difficult to hear and we have all had to accept rejection in our journey with publication. Don't let rejection stop you, if that happens. Make sure you pick someone supportive and be open to the outcome, as long as the person can give you something constructive to work on. If the feedback sounds reasonable to you, go away and work on the issue identified. Keep learning.
And good luck!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I, for one, have a paper published in a reaonsable quality journal (not impact factor, still well indexed and well recognized by the community), I'm the only author and I was in 4th year of my university, at the beginning of my masters, when I submitted it.
Don't worry too much about the fact people don't know your name. Papers get reviewed by their text, not by their authors (well, some reviewers don't follow this rule, but from my experience, these are exceptions).
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/01/06 | 1,653 | 6,909 | <issue_start>username_0: Let's say that you're a 27 year old autodidact who has gained enough knowledge in a particular field of the formal sciences - like mathematics, for instance - to be able to take the highest course number from the selection of graduate courses for math.
Now this autodidact wants to enter university for the first time. However, from his perspective, he thinks that it would be a waste of time to restudy what he already knows.
I'm personally wondering if there is a way to demonstrate that he is capable of taking graduate courses so that he could apply for a graduate degree without having to study all the courses at the undergraduate level again.
Also, I'd like to add that this question is really hypothetical. It's just something I pondered on my way to school today.<issue_comment>username_1: If you're asking about graduate school in the US, probably the single most significant thing you can do is to take the [GRE subject test for math](https://www.ets.org/gre/subject/about/content/mathematics) (not the math section of the general test!), and score well on it. This test covers a broad spectrum of material that is taught in a typical undergraduate math curriculum, and so if you get a good score, it strongly supports your claim that you have the level of mathematics knowledge required to enter grad school. Without that key piece of evidence (i.e. a good GRE subject score), graduate admissions committees are likely to look at your statement that you have the knowledge to take graduate courses, contrast it with your lack of an undergraduate degree, and conclude that you're full of hot air, so to speak.
Now, of course there is more that has to be done to actually get yourself admitted. In my own field of theoretical physics, even a 990 (the top score) on the GRE isn't enough to get you into a good grad school by itself. I would imagine the same is true for the top schools in math, though perhaps at a less competitive school, it might be. But I think to be safe, you should assume that you'll have to present some other sort of evidence of accomplishment that could be viewed as equivalent to an undergraduate transcript. You'll also need recommendation letters and various sorts of essays and forms. But a lot of that can vary from school to school, and is more likely to be negotiable if you talk to someone in the department. The GRE subject score is the one thing you really need to get your foot in the door, so to speak.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Many graduate programs are geared toward publishing research, much of which doesn't really require the highest-level graduate education to conduct, so if one could achieve a publication record, a history of research experience, or could secure letters of recommendation, that would probably help for certain programs. Getting to know one's potential advisors in advance might also help circumvent some of the usual hurdles (i.e., they might be able to help).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Most universities' mathematics departments have placement exams for lower-division math courses, so, for example, you could "test out" of two years' calculus, most likely. Testing-out of upper-division courses is rarer, so there're not going to be formal procedures in place, but if you simply talk to departmental advisors, they can get the ball rolling to have your self-education appraised. It's just that there probably won't be formal procedures in place, due to the rarity of the event. Math faculty are more-than-happy to see someone who's had the interest and motivation to read on their own.
It's not clear that doing the GRE math subject test (nevermind the other parts) is a good avenue for everyone. I'm not such a fan of that exam as a predictor or appraisal, in any case. One aspect is that it is a very superficial exam, in the sense that it tests test-taking ability almost as much as substantitive knowledge, since it is multiple-choice. Second, it presents a very stylized picture of "undergrad/pre-grad" mathematics... unsurprising insofar as it has to be shoe-horned into a timed, multiple-choice exam.
I think it's also not clear whether you should "try to do research" in order to "make an impression". \_Being\_interested\_ and being *curious* is one thing, but the further element of presumption involved in too-easily believing that with modest preparation one has unraveled mysteries untouchable by experts... blah-blah-blah... will not make a good impression. That is, honest curiosity and drive are unqualifiedly good things, not presumptious, not silly, all too uncommon, ... and are the features the math faculty would look for.
One last small point: it is very helpful to have in mind the *authors* of the books or notes you've read, whether they're physical books or on-line notes, if only because the titles of most such things are toooo generic, while the best authors are well-known, and the specific virtues of their books/notes similarly so.
In summary: just talk to the math department undergrad-intake-advisors first, and they will steer you to the right people to talk to in order to have your situation appraised. Some of the people may be a little skeptical, but mostly they will be happy to encounter someone who has the interest who's taken the initiative to study and think about things on their own.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: At my university in the Netherlands, TU Delft, there is an obscure clause that says you can just show up one day with a defensible PhD thesis, get someone to act as your superviser, have a defense and be awarded a PhD. So it theoretically would be possible for a sufficiently dedicated person to bypass all formal university education and still come out with a PhD.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: (College Level Examination Program) CLEP is the best way, however this only cover the first two years and you'll go in as a sophomore or a transfer. What i did encounter is that you cannot get a graduate degree with out first having earned an undergrad degree.
Good Luck
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: I'd like to add a few things along the line of paulgarrett's answer, which I'm surprised no one mentioned (unless I just missed it):
1. This question seems to presuppose that the only value of an undergraduate degree is what you learn in your major courses. This is far from true.
2. It is possible to enter undergrad and start taking advanced/grad classes right away.
3. The curricula at top schools like Harvard or Caltech is a higher level than most people would get from studying on their own. Sometimes the text for the undergrad courses are the text for grad courses at other schools. Further, some undergrads at these top schools come in with quite a high level of background already, which makes them completely amazing when they apply for grad school.
Upvotes: 1 |
2014/01/06 | 1,143 | 4,783 | <issue_start>username_0: The title says it all. I want to read a book chapter from a prominent Oxbridge researcher, but I don't want to shell out the cash for the entire textbook in which it's published. Is it rude to contact the professor who wrote the chapter and request an electronic version? It's for my own research purposes.<issue_comment>username_1: Before writing to the author, you should try to find the chapter in other ways:
1. Is it available online? You should make sure it's not in any obvious place (e.g., the author's home page or university web site) or findable by a web search.
2. Do you have library access? Even if the library doesn't have the book, they can very likely get it through interlibrary loan.
3. Do you have friends, colleagues, or teachers who might have the book?
It's a little rude to bother the author to ask for a copy if you could reasonably get one another way. However, if the book is unaffordable for you and you have no other options, then there's nothing wrong with asking the author. I'd phrase it as a question, to avoid sounding too demanding. The key thing to keep in mind is that you're asking for something unusual, just in case the author has an electronic copy they'd be willing to share (but haven't put on their web site). It's also worth including a sentence about things like your lack of library access. You may not get a copy, but it's worth a try.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Rudeness is largely a matter of tone, IMHO. If you express appreciation for the work in question, explain your situation, and ask if the researcher can help you, I think the researcher should appreciate your interest and want to help. Whether or not that's feasible is a separate (and often legal) question, but as for rudeness, there's no intrinsic reason your email has to be bothersome. Be nice, express enthusiasm, offer constructive comments if you have any, maybe try to phrase your problem impersonally so that it's not just about you and what you want (it's also about the author's impact, and how accessible the work is for the interested audience, which should matter), and avoid common faux pas like connotating entitlement, expectation, or violating cultural norms for emotional expression. Pretty much the same issues as you'd consider when asking for anything from a relative stranger. In summary, be polite!
To editorialize a bit, I'll add that textbook prices are sometimes ridiculous, especially given the economic realities of students, and there are far too many barriers to information access already, so on some level, a researcher who isn't especially beholden to the publisher should sympathize and want to support you!
As per @AnonymousMathematician's answer, you might also want to explain (briefly!) what normal alternatives (such as the answer's suggestions) you've tried and why they've failed you, if you decide to go the route of explaining a problem with access that may concern others. Another common faux pas is asking a question that seems to have an obvious solution; one should at least mention that these won't work, and make very sure that they don't before claiming that there's a problem!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Since one answer already mentioned the high price of textbooks, I'll add: I'm assuming you have already looked to obtain a used copy of the book, but without success. If not, though, I'd start there. I've obtained plenty of $100+ textbooks for less than 15 bucks by looking for used copies online.
If that doesn't work though, when you make your plea, there are a few things you could do that might bolster your chances:
1) Don't act as though you are trying to just scrounge a copy of the chapter; write the letter as though you are trying to start a research relationship. After you explain how the author's chapter will help you, offer to keep this person posted on how your research is going. Presumably there's some overlap of interests; otherwise, you wouldn't be after the material.
2) Let the author know that you're not necessarily opposed to the idea of buying the book outright, if you really like the one chapter. In other words, instead of saying something like this (not that you'd use these exact words, but perceptive recipients of solicitations can often read between the lines):
>
> I'm only interested in Chapter 6; the rest of your book doesn't really interest me.
>
>
>
Try:
>
> I'm primarily interested in Chapter 6, but, if that small samples proves to help me greatly, I'll be looking for a chance to obtain the entire book.
>
>
>
(That need not be a lie, either. Sooner or later, some more-wealthy relative is going to ask you what you want for your birthday. This experience might help you answer that question.)
Upvotes: 2 |
2014/01/06 | 1,055 | 4,080 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently writing an e-mail to a member of Oxbridge staff. He is a "lecturer," full-time staff, who co-ordinates a well-known program, but does not hold a PhD, only an MA.
I can't call him "Dr. ," or even "Professor ," so is "Mr." sufficient? It seems too informal for someone in such a high-ranking position.<issue_comment>username_1: "Mr" should be fine (though note that British style drops the period from common honorifics). For example, [Trinity College Cambridge's list of fellows](http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=321) has two "Mr"s and four "Ms"s.
However, be very sure that the lecturer you're emailing doesn't have a doctorate. Most Oxbridge (and I believe UK) lecturers are equivalent to some sort of professor in the US system, and the title of professor is generally reserved for academics somewhere between "regular member of teaching/research staff" and "department head". Accordingly, most UK lecturers do have a PhD.
If you're not sure, it's probably better to go with "Dr" rather than "Mr", as if you do get it wrong one way or the other, that's the one that's less likely to offend.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: While the etiquette for salutations in formal letters is pretty well established, email etiquette is less clear. While this [question](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/95604/official-e-mail) on the English Language SE was not particularly well received, I particularly like this [answer](https://english.stackexchange.com/a/95689). The key part of that answer is that because of the prevalence of spam you need to establish who you are and why you are contacting the person as quickly as possible and not waste the valuable first line with a redundant salutation. If you drop the salutation (which some would say is the proper etiquette), you avoid the issue of how to address the individual.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: It is better to amuse your addressee than risk causing offence. A journal editor addressed me as "Professor" in all email correspondence, even though I (twice) told him that I was only "Mr". This amused me and caused no offence. But I can imagine that addressing a real Doctor or Professor as "Mr" would not be well taken.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Mr. is fine. Don't worry it's not that big a deal just because they go to a famous university. They are still just regular people. Just be super polite in the tone of the email.
Option 2 is to avoid using the term "Mr.", and just to write simply "Hi", or "Dear Sir"
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: You probably have multiple aims here:
1. to be polite
2. to avoid being considered ridiculous
3. to get your email read
First of all, do your research: how is the person you wish to approach described on their institution's website? In extreme cases you might wish to consult a **modern** book of etiquette. For example, if you were addressing yourself to "Professor, the Right Honourable, the Lord X" you need to know that 'Dear Lord X' is fine and that 'My Lord' is now ridiculous.
Secondly, do not go over the top in honorific titles. (I still giggle at once being addressed as 'Your Excellency' in an unsolicited email.)
Thirdly avoid generic titles without a name, such as 'Dear Professor' or, even worse, 'Dear Doctor'. 'Dear Sir' might once have been OK, but these days it feels as if the writer has not done their research.
All of the above will probably permit you to avoid offending the recipient. But remember that, in the UK at least, a doctorate is not necessarily a requirement for a senior academic position. I have known very renowned, actually world famous, academics who never proceeded beyond an undergraduate degree and also some whose published books established a reputation before they had the chance to finish a formal doctorate so they never bothered. Some of those might have been mildly offended at being addressed as 'Doctor.'
All of this points to finding out something about the person to whom you wish to write before actually doing so.
Upvotes: 0 |
2014/01/06 | 650 | 2,956 | <issue_start>username_0: I am a bachelor student majoring on computer engineering and working on robotics. Last year as a part of my research, I worked together with a student and one teacher as a supervisor, so we published our article for conference together. But later we finished our research and all of us left the team. Now I am working on other research problem by myself and got some results and want to publish it. But this time I am alone, I have no supervisor on that research problem or any student partner. So I'd like to ask can I submit a paper for conference/journal by myself?
P.S. My current research project has no relationship with old one.<issue_comment>username_1: You definitely submit a paper by yourself and if you write a high quality submission, it will be accepted.
When I was early in my research career I found it very helpful to have a collaborator such as a teacher/professor or a postdoc student with publishing experience to collaborate on papers. This often helps catching points or issues that you may overlook within your research as well as providing advice and guidance.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It is not uncommon for (PhD) students to publish independently of an advisor. So as username_1 wrote already, if you have a submission of a high quality, you can give it a try. Many students do publish with their supervisors, however, for a couple of good reasons. Besides the obvious ones, here are some not-so-obvious ones:
1. Funding for conference travel: You mentioned conferences as publication venue yourself. Assuming that your paper gets accepted: do you have the funding to visit it?
2. The scopes of conferences/journals: there is often a disagreement between a call for papers and the types of papers that conferences or journals actually want. Having experience in this area helps a lot.
3. The community behind a conference/journal: different communities focus on different things: some want the sales pitch, some are find with just the results. Some care about experiments, for others, the theory is enough. Some have a set of standard benchmarks, some don't. These are just some examples. Again, having experience with a conference or journal helps a lot.
4. Selection of conferences/journals: Nowadays, with spamferences and spam-journals -- probably not a big deal for you, as your have published already and at the moment it is relatively easy to tell from a call for papers if a journal or conference is of reasonable quality. For the record, this may become harder, however.
5. Typically, you will be asked to state your institution at submission time. Does your university have rules about submissions? Some might have some reviewing process in place in order to avoid that papers are submitted that are so bad that even submitting them could harm the reputation of the university. If you publish with your advisor, she/he will make the "internal review".
Upvotes: 2 |
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