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120664 | Is it self-plagiarism to repurpose a government report into a journal article?
I wrote a report to the state department of transportation for a research project they sponsored. Can I use the same texts/paragraphs from the report to write journal articles? In other words, does it consider plagiarism to do that? I am the author of both, the report and the research papers. Does the final report for a project consider a published work?
Thanks guys for your answers. The state department has no problem in using the results for publishing research papers. My only concern is the self-plagiarism. I spent a lot of time writing that report and, I honestly want to copy several sentences from the report to journal articles. I just can't find a better way to rewrite these sentences and this will speed up my writing.
Copying some sentences should be okay. Just make sure you change the formatting and style
Can I use the same texts/paragraphs from the report to write journal articles? In other words, does it consider plagiarism to do that? I am the author of both, the report and the research papers. Does the final report for a project consider a published work?
The short answer to your questions are it depends. The long answer is likely yes, you can probably publish both with some caveats.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with using a project report as the basis for a journal article. Speaking from experience, I have co-authored several completion reports that were used as the basis for manuscripts. For example, the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission Sea Lamprey Control Broad publishes completion reports on their webpage, but still encourages the investigators to publish the work in peer reviewed journal articles. However, there are some important considerations:
Make sure your funding agency is okay with you publishing their report. On a more positive note, some funding agencies will encourage you to publish.
Is your completion report public and is it citable? You may or may not need to cite your previous work. Mentioning the completion report in your cover letter would also help address this problem with the journal.
The completion report likely will not be formatted correctly or written in a style suitable for a journal. Likely your methods section will be okay and possibly the results section. Most likely, the introduction and discussion will need to be adapted to fit the journal's style and tone.
First of all you have to check with the state dept. if they allow publishing the findings/results as most of the time such projects are very confidential.
Secondly, it is better to rephrase your findings in a report. As a matter of fact, the writing norms and styles for report writing are quite different than what the academic audience expect. I am afraid if you submit your report (or excerpt from it) in form of a paper, the reviewers might reject it on basis of its write-up.
It's a department of transportation, not a department of foreign affairs. Transportation is not usually confidential.
I understand this thing. But as far as project related to government collaborations are concerned, it is always advisable to consult the appropriate authority to avoid any untoward situations. The layers of officiality are often too complex.
This cannot be plagiarism, since it is your own work. It could in principle be self-plagiarism, but since the report you wrote is not an academic paper, this does not really apply either. If the report is public, your journal article should cite it and point out the amount of coincidence.
That said, Sjaffry is right in pointing out that making a paper out of a report typically involves extensive rewrite anyway, since the writing styles tend to differ.
@RichardErickson How do you disagree with me? I don't see any inconsistency compared to your answer.
I re-read your answer and agree with you. (Also, I didn't downvote your answer).
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116712 | What does 0/3, 1/3, 1/4, 1/11, etc. mean in the context of assigned reviews in a journal management system?
I have submitted a paper in a mathematical journal 04 months ago. A part of the online system of this journal is showed in the following figure.
I see that, after 01 month, status of "Assigned reviews completed" is "0/3". Next, after 02 moths it is "1/3", after 3 months it is "1/10" and now is "1/11".
What are this means? What should I do in this case? A letter to editor for a inquiry or no?
Thank you for your comments.
My intuitive guess is that it's the number of reviewers who have completed their reviews / been invited to review. The journal invited 3 reviewers in the first month. Two months later, one reviewer finished the review, but the other two either didn't accept the invitation (more likely) or didn't submit a review. The journal's policy is to have at least two reviews per paper, so they invited more reviewers, to the current count of 11.
If this guess is correct, then there's nothing to do except wait. You can also write to the publisher asking what the number means - it can cause no harm.
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80856 | Can a rejected manuscript be submitted to another Elsevier journal?
Can one submit a rejected manuscript from one Elsevier journal to another relevant/similar Elsevier journal after apply the given feedback from the reviewers?
Is there any minimum wait time?
Is it recommended to do so?
Would the other Elsevier journal know the status about the previous submission to the first journal? Will this have any impact on the decision of the second Elsevier journal?
What were the problems with the paper raised by the referee?
The paper was submitted to a very high Impact Factor journals from Elsevier. They decided that the quality is not at their journal standard.
This could mean a couple of different things, including "the paper was good, but not good enough for us" and "the paper was bad". If the reviewer comments go into the former direction, resubmit straight away. If they go into the latter direction, you are still allowed to resubmit, but it's not the best idea to do so.
in IOP journals, if they feel that the paper is OK, but not good enough for that specific journal, they automatically redirect you to another of their journals, often using the same reviewers.
[EDIT: I just submitted a review, and there was a little box ticked, saying]
In the event that this manuscript is rejected by this journal and
transferred to another E******* journal I agree that this reviewer
report, my name and email address may be transferred alongside it.
[This corresponds to the second point below]
So, unless you are banned by a society and forbidden to publish in their journals for some reason (e.g. plagiarism), there are fences between two different journal submission systems. And no rule known to me.
However, two aspects require caution:
close journals, especially with the same publisher, may have the same editors, area editors, etc. It is interesting to check the editor list and check for an overlap
since reviewers are hard to find, I suspect that a publisher may have a database of all its parts reviewers (whatever the journal). So with a similar paper, the same keywords, you might as well end up with the same reviewer. Who might have mixed feelings about reviewing "the same paper" twice.
From what I understand from your question, your paper might have been mildly reviewed, possibility checked by an editor, who made the decision himself. So the second point might be as less concern.
In general, when a paper is rejected, you can resubmit it to another journal as soon as you feel you are ready. There is no minimum waiting time, and it doesn't matter whether both journals have the same publisher or not.
As far as I know, publishers don't generally share information about submissions between journals. (However, it could happen that the second journal would require you to tell them about any previous places the paper has been submitted.)
In theory some publishers might have special rules, but I've never heard of this.
There's one (sort of funny) exception, the P vs NP policy of JACM. There is a certain problem in Computer Science (Is P = NP? See https://www.win.tue.nl/~gwoegi/P-versus-NP.htm for some explanations) that is open for a long time, and claims that it was solved are frequent. If you submit a paper to JACM claiming that you solved it, and a reviewer finds a flaw, you have to wait 24 months before resubmitting!
(And it could also happen that the journal is going to ask exactly the same reviewer to review your document: if you only made light modifications to your document, without addressing the reviewers concerns, his/her answer might be exactly the same!)
It depends upon the reason for the rejection.
If your science is fundamentally flawed and the paper in written particularly poorly, then I imagine that resubmission is not advised (to any journal).
Alternatively, if the paper is high quality but is rejected for addressing the practical aspects of a topic (whereas the journal in question deals only with theoretical aspects) then it may be perfectly reasonable to resubmit to a more appropriate location without modification.
I cannot answer your further questions about data sharing, though I believe the other answers begin to address this.
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95152 | Do all preprint servers have the non-updating issue in google scholar
It has been identified on stackexchange that Google Scholar has a bug where ArXiv publications are not updated to match the final journal publication information in google scholar (for several months). And the answer claims that google has stated that fixing this bug is not a priority for them.
My question is: Does this bug exist for all preprint servers or just ArXiv? This a huge problem in my field (where the convention is to not cite ArXiv papers), so I'd rather post my pre-print elsewhere if this problem does not exist for other preprint servers.
BioArXiv and ResearchGate come to mind as possibilities.
I know that, over time, Google has made some changes to Google Scholar that were designed specifically to affect how it handles material from the arXiv. This might or might not be related.
I've been following the Google Scholar Preprint Bug for several years. Claus Wilke (who first characterized the bug in 2014) and I tried reporting it many times. Finally, we caught up with the creator of Google Scholar, Anurag Acharya, in the comment section of Scholarly Kitchen. I was a jerk, which didn't help, but Anurag's responses kept us feeling frustrated.
Anyways, Anurag did shed some light on the cause of the bug in this comment:
Most preprints/ahead-of-print versions are indexed in early-version model — as they should be. Articles that are indexed in early-version mode are recrawled and reindexed frequently. Changes to their location, their content, their format, their versions are expected to be frequent; this allows changes to be picked up soon.
Occasionally, a preprint that has been in that state for a while can get indexed in the archival mode. When that happens, updates to that article (location, content, format, versions etc) take longer. Articles that are indexed in an archival mode are reindexed less frequently – as they must, if the indexing system is to use the limited crawl capacity at the journal sites effectively.
Therefore, the bug occurs when a record (preprint in our case) is stagnant for too long. Then that record is placed in archival mode, which triggers the bug, by causing newly crawled versions of the record to be silently ignored. Therefore, according to Anurag's description, the bug is not limited to any single preprint server.
In line with the description, it appears longer publication delays increase the chance of the bug. Perhaps a workaround is to frequently update the preprint so the record never enters archival mode.
It's been reported in other preprint servers, most notably bioRxiv.
ResearchGate isn't a repository or preprint server. It's more analogous to uploading your photos to Facebook. No long term storage is assured, nor any of the usual maintenance procedures and standards that preprint servers use.
I can confirm that, as of 2019, the pre-print non-updating remains an issue with arXiv. In this case, the Google scholar record has not been updated although the final version of the article was published 4 months ago. We'll see how long it takes for Google Scholar to catch up and update its record.
Any follow-up? Is the paper showing up on Google Scholar now?
Yes the record is now pointing to the most recent version
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37590 | Acceptance criteria for short papers
I feel overwhelmed for the acceptance rate of some conferences. If I submit a "short paper" rather than a regular one, Will that make easier to get accepted? I don't have any JCR* at the moment (nor any paper accepted on high ranked conferences). My research is a software artifact that has been tested (not only unit-tested, but integrated in a bigger architecture and proved to be compatible with external applications) but not evaluated by a broad audience of users.
*i.e.: I don't have any scientific article published in a journal that is indexed by the Thomson's Journal Citation Report. For more info on JCR, please visit: http://thomsonreuters.com/journal-citation-reports/ . JCR index is used, among other things, to measure the quality of a journal.
Also: it will depend on the conference: some are more likely to accept short papers, in other conferences, short papers and regular papers compete at the same level. In the latter case, getting accepted will not become easier with a short paper.
Thanks @DCTLib . Is there any hint on the CfP that I can use to know whether they'll compete at the same level? All I see is that in both short and full papers CfP they say that "submissions will be peer-reviewed by an international panel of experts"
I feel overwhelmed for the acceptance rate of some conferences
I know the feeling. I have just a few days ago received a reject (with mostly positive comments) from a conference with an acceptance rate of less than 14%. Happens to the best of us. (or more accurately, it mathematically has to happen to most people most of the time, otherwise you can't end up with such low acceptance rates)
If I submit a "short paper" rather than a regular one, Will that make easier to get accepted?
Generally yes, but the "short paper" tracks at some conferences have in the mean time become viciously competitive as well. In one major conference in my field, the acceptance rate for work-in-progress papers is nowadays below 20% as well.
By and large, whether you should submit a short paper or a full paper (potentially at a weaker conference) depends on how mature your work is. A short paper at a strong conference has good chances if it is ongoing work with very high potential; mediocre finished work is likely to be rejected as a full or short paper at such venues. You have better chances if you submit a full paper to a weaker conference in this case.
My research is a software artifact that has been tested (not only unit-tested, but integrated in a bigger architecture and proved to be compatible with external applications) but not evaluated by a broad audience of users.
In most fields, whether your component is "compatible with external applications" or whether it has been "evaluated by a broad audience of users" are not the core questions for scientific merit. There are almost infinite "software systems" out there for which both of these properties are true, and which are scientifically still entirely irrelevant (pretty much all standard software, for instance). More relevant is whether the research question underlying your work is interesting, and whether your work in its current stage is able to sufficiently and convincingly answer this research question.
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78508 | Publishing a mathematical research article on research which is already done?
Recently, I was working on some mathematics (number theory) and try to do that just for a math fun. Prior to that, I did not refer to any literature or any research articles, as I was doing this for fun. But I went in very deep and spent almost 15 days on that as it was getting interesting.
After one stage, I was able to represent the numbers in a series representation but was not able to find the equation. After a few more days of work, I was able to extract the equation. Now, I can represent that series in one equation. This makes me very curious, as all this I did just by trial and error method and found on my own.
I know that, making equation of some series is not a big task. But, the way I came to that equation is making me think to publish an article on that.
I thought to search on whether this equation is available or not, and as it was expected the research on that has already been done.
In this scenario, can I publish a research article on the topic?
Have you also checked that the method is actually new, and not already known and used for solving other things?
If this is an integer sequence you can check out http://oeis.org/ to see if it's already known. If it's known it will have references you could check to see if your result in novel or not.
@RemcoGerlich No I have not checked all, I have started to check, If it is there then there is nothing new in my work.
@Winther Thanks for the link, New thing I came to know.
Probably all mathematicians who were once students have such "repeat" results in their drawer somewhere. (Or nowadays on their computer.) The value is that you learned something, But usually such things should not be published.
If your work is not worth a paper - as others have suggested - it is surely worth a blog entry. You might have not discovered a new solution of a problem, but now you know a lot about the problem and you can do a good work by telling others.
@Pere This is a very good idea, I was not knowing that. Very very thanks. Now, surely I will keep as a fallback.
I would mention that "I went in very deep and spent almost 15 days on that" denotes a certain lack of conscience of what mathematical research is like. If in two weeks of time you found by your own something interesting enough to have been the object of a publication before, then congratulations! But be aware that it is probably unpublishable in any decent journal (the suggestion of a blog post is good though).
An article is not about you. It is not a reward of effort. In an article you try to communicate to the readers, so it needs to contain something that your readers want to read. If something is already done, then why would I want to read it? Maybe, you have variation, or a special case, or a more general case, that makes your equation or your derivation thereof different and interesting. But if that is not the case, then the answer is simply no.
Yes that is true, but I think I can target the method of achieving that, If that is significantly distinguishable than current one then I think it adds something new.
Perhaps unfortunately, the whole academic publishing culture is not about writing for the education and enjoyment of readers, it is all about proving that you have done something novel and unique. If you wrote about things that had been done in the past but were not well known, your readers might well be very interested indeed, but you would have difficulty getting published.
A mathematics research article need to contain something new. If the result itself is not new, then the method used to obtain it must be new and sufficiently interesting in its own right to be worth an article. The main reasons that the method would be seen as interesting would be either that it is significantly simpler than the existing methods, or that it looks like it might be useful to prove things we don't already know. In the latter case, it would definitely be an advantage if you did use the method to prove something interesting and new, as well as to prove the existing known result.
Note that, if you do try to publish your new proof, it is imperative to cite the existing proof, now that you're aware of its existence.
Your answer seems very practical and useful. And from this, I think I get a new thought process for this paper. I think I have to target my paper with facts like, the Method used to achieve that result and how it differes from the existing method and what significance it makes, Also,What new finding or contribution it can make in the existing result, I mean further development on that result.
If you had followed an extremely distinct methodology to get to the same position or have a very distinct proof I would say "go for it".
The suggestion that it was found by trial-and-error, though, seems to indicate to me that the actual value of the work would not add to the existing greater body.
Yes, you are right, if the result is already there, then I have to target the method and method should be enough distinguishable from existing method.
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64667 | Can an international PhD Student in Australia make a living with an APA scholarship and 8 hours teaching work per week?
My "problem":
I am from Austria and currently in the process of applying for a PhD position in Brisbane, Australia. My supervisors said that I might be eligible for an
APA (Australian Postgraduate Awards) stipend which is supposed to cover my living expenses in AUS. Receiving this scholarship would also mean that I wouldn't be paying any tuition fees.
The total stipend amount is 26,288 AU$ / year. And as far as I know, I would be allowed to work up to 8 hours a week to earn some extra money (I.e. as a teaching assitant).
I don't know how much the hourly rates for this type of job are, but if I speculate and say it's about 20AUS$/h, this would result in a total weekly budget of approximately 660AU$ (including wage and scholarship).
My question:
Can I make a living with this amount of money in an expensive city like Brisbane? Could I maybe even safe up some money to fly back to Europe once a year to visit my family and friends?
Any experiences or useful links of (international) PhD Students in Australia are appreciated (I.e. on insurance costs, etc.).
Note: I know that the Australian Government says that the average living expenses per year are AU$18,610, but they don't explicitly state how they calculate this sum. When I checked the costs for housing, food, insurance, etc., the sum exceeded this official number by far.
Ask people at the school you plan to attend. It might be too little for a regular guy, but as a student you could have access e.g.to cheap housing (or other advantages, perhaps linked to TA or RA).
Yes. The stipend is similar in Sydney which, from my understanding, is even more expensive. I wanted to do a PhD there and I asked a few friends/colleagues. Money will be tight but it's doable.
@lafemmecosmique, the scholarship amount is set federally and does not vary from city-to-city.
Alright, if that is the case then you won't starve or be unable to make your rent - you just won't be rich either (So the usual situation for a PhD student ;) ). You get discounted travel as well (except in NSW, where you are not) as a student. One weird thing about Australia is that eating out can be cheaper than making your own food, but you need to experiment with this one.
You can see the casual teaching and research assistant rates for any australian university. Just note that many of the higher rates (e.g., for tutoring - say $100 or more per hour) sometimes include associated planning and/or marking. Also, consider tax; the apa scholarship is generally tax free. So if you are only earning $10,000 or so on top of that, you wont be paying much/any income tax. So in that sense it has benefits over the equivalent amount of money from other sources.
@lafemmecosmique, international students and local postgrads don't get transport concessions in victoria.
No cangaroos in Austria.
Australia, New Zealand, the UK, etc. have standardized rates for stipends - and in fact for minimum wages in general - that's also inflation-corrected and increased accordingly every year. Though the minimum wage stuff also is there in the USA, there is no inflation correction in any government jobs/public (and most of the times private) universities. The stipend you have mentioned is calculated from a standard Australian government agency that governs (indirectly) the APA awards. Hence I would not worry about its calculation as it would be correctly calculated to the precision of the inflation-correction till this year. I used to get around 18,500, 18,800 and 19,150AUD (approximate figures) back in 2007 to 2009 in Perth, and my wife and I had a happy life (we didn't have kids then though)! I could afford to rent a 1living room+1br+kitchen apartment (called unit in Australia) some 7kms from the city center. If you want to live quite close to the campus, then you will have to pay quite a bit - or share an apartment with others. I could buy and drive a used car. There is not too bad (much better than any city the USA except NYC, for example, but not so great compared to Europe) public transportation. The tickets and monthly passes were discounted for the students.
My wife and I went back to our home country just once in 3 years but that's not because we couldn't afford it but for other personal reasons.
One more thing - you don't pay tax on this stipend. So you get the full in your pocket.
You obviously can't afford too much partying, eating out, etc. with this money. But for a student with usual studentsy life-style, the stipend is calculated well. Or, the other way around, if someone is spending more money than this stipend, then he\she is living a bit more expensive life than the 'average' student - not passing any judgement here, just giving a practical financial comparison.
The health insurance was covered by my award for me and my wife as well. I don't know if and why they have changed the rules recently about covering the health insurance.
For the other paid work such as tutoring. It may very well be even more than 20AUD/hour. The academia is (mostly) unionized there and the union negotiates the wage-range for each job in academia including tutoring every year to make sure that the inflation-correction is correctly implemented in the wages.
I was also an international ph.d. student in Australia, and working in the USA these days. And I am ready to say on record that Australia has been the best thing that has happened to me - and I would love to go back for a permanent job there if there is any such opportunity! I really wish you get the time of your life both academically and personally.
I'm a current PhD student at the University of Melbourne. I can just support myself and one other person on my $30,000 of scholarships. I also live with just my partner (no housemates), our rent is just under $400/week + bills. So if you are OK with a more student-like experience you are likely to be fine, and use TA work to save for flights you need to take back to Europe.
Your estimate is quite low for TA work: the minimum wage for casual cafe or fast-food workers in Australia is over $22/hr. I get $44/hr for TAing, though this may just be Melbourne Uni. Also scholarships are tax-free, meaning you may not have to pay any income tax (as it would be nearly impossible to earn over the $18200 tax-free threshold given visa restrictions).
I get about $44/hour and the University of West Australia, for TAing. so I would say it is fairly standard
I am also from Austria and currently based at a university in Queensland. My personal experience is that the scholarship plus the extra income from casual teaching contracts (42-62 AU$/hr at my institution) is enough to make a living and even save some money. But this depends on your lifestyle of course. Unlike in Austria, you will get the student consession for public transportation in Queensland as a PhD student. On a side note, as an international student you will not be eligible to apply for the APA scholarship but only for a Postgraduate Research Scholarship (PRS) or International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS), which pay the same stipend as the APA but are typically more competitive. The latter one covers health insurance and visa costs as far as I know.
As others have pointed out, consider that you have to pay your health insurance upfront (depending on your scholarship), and be aware that the scholarship does not contribute to your superannuation or retirement fund. This is different from most paid PhD positions in Austria in my experience.
Some departments at my instition also award top-up scholarships of AU$10000 p.a. to their PhD students, and I would encourage you to discuss this with your prospective sueprvisor or department.
Good luck with your application.
I am based in another Australian city that has a similar cost of living to Brisbane. I had four students working with me over summer, and asked them what they were spending on living expenses so I would be in a better position to advise the next batch of students. They were spending betweek $150 and $200 per week each on accommodation (for rooms in houses shared with other students) and between $35 and $100 per week on food.
Regarding health insurance, if it is not included with the scholarship, you will need Overseas Student Health Cover, http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/Publishing.nsf/Content/Overseas+Student+Health+Cover+FAQ-1#insurersofferoshc, which costs only about $437/year and covers all the necessary basics. Private health insurance on top of this can be much more expensive, but is not really necessary unless you want faster treatment for non-emergency care.
The amount provided by Australian PhD scholarships is intended to cover basic costs of living. It's about at the poverty line: you can certainly live on it, and most of your PhD student peers will be doing the same, but you won't be well off. If you are a single, healthy person living frugally, you can save enough to cover occasional trips home. Your scholarship will also include an amount (in addition to the stipend) to cover at least one overseas conference during your candidature, and you might be able to make a side-trip to visit family after the conference.
"It's about at the poverty line". That's certainly one way of looking at it. But I used to see me as a "rich student" because I could afford everything that other students couldn't!
Yes, you can do it but do not expect it to be similar with PhD salaries in Europe. The APA should be roughly enough to cover your expenses on a week to week basis.
Better do all your calculations with the $500 number and not the $660 per week as the TA money would be only for half the year and it is less common for PhDs to have TA With that money and no other income you are realistically looking into sharing a house or apartment (2-3 people) and in Sydney that would be in the range of $250-$400 with bills included, depending on where you choose to leave, how old or new will the flat be and how long you are willing to commute every day. Rents will be slightly less (or closer to the lower range) from the above numbers. (My recommendation would be to choose somewhere closer to the uni so you can walk or cycle and avoid using public transport on a daily basis)
The rest should be enough to cover your daily expenses, shopping, cooking, transportation and the occasional eating outside ($150-$200). The money from your TA should cover a flight back, but count it as an extra and do not include it to your weekly estimates.
For insurance, you will have to get "Overseas Student Health Cover" or OSHC which should be roughly $2500 to cover 4 years of study. You can do the calculations for yourself here: https://www.oshcallianzassistance.com.au/#anCalculate and you will need to buy that as part of your student visa application before you even arrive in Australia.
it is very difficult to make it work, in most parts of AU. I'd be careful about attempting it without some savings, guaranteed uni work, or the possibility of family assistance--which is how most people make it work. The APA is less than minimum wage, and most of Australia has crazy high rents--even for shared housing. Your budgeting is correct--the numbers just don't add up. I don't know where the poster lives who says it is cheaper to eat out than buy groceries--in the Sydney and Melbourne areas, a salad out is 30 dollars. Grocery food is fine--expensive by European standards, but you can live on noodles and beans. it is the rents that are, and some of the health care that can be, expensive. Even with insurance, there are additional health costs for many doctor visits, tests, etc--not covered by insurance (either for Australian nationals or international visitors/students). Again, the APA award is less than AU minimum wage--which itself does not cover basic costs of living in much of Australia--so no, the award is not enough, unless someone lucks into bizarrely cheap housing, or has existing savings to supplement the award. Do not think you will automatically get work on campus at $44-62 dollar/hour rates. Jobs are few and far between on many campuses. If campus work is your supplementation plan, get a commitment from the Uni for that work before accepting.
I must disagree . as an undergraduate i lived on <2/3rds the amount the APA pays. i mean it depends what one is used to. being poor is a skill, i guess.
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77855 | Tips for work-life balance when doing postdoc with two very young children and a one hour commute
I have a postdoc position in my dream lab with PI, who leads the field and has very cool projects for me. The thing is, I have two small kids (youngest is 3 weeks old) and I live one hour away from my prospective place of work. I have a great nanny and a wonderful daycare, but I am still worried if I can pull off the lab work and all the writing and not abandon my children. Anybody in the same boat? Tips for survival?
What people with kids do in my lab is: drop them off at daycare early, work for 8 hours, go back to pick them up. One hour commute is not that unusual.
Thanks for posting this! As someone who did a postdoc with four kids myself, I can relate :) As stated, though, this question is very broad, in that "not abandon my children" means wildly different things to different people. Could you possibly make the question more specific so the answers can be more directed to your situation?
Also see Ways to manage something like a 'work-life balance'? and Having children while at graduate school. To avoid repeating the advice already given in those, perhaps you can clarify the specific aspects of your situation that lead you to seek further advice beyond what's given in those.
Can you use a daycare closer to work? That way commute-time is also play-with-parent time. This doesn't work if commute-time is also study-time for you.
Any way you can move closer to work? Even if it's more expensive, it would be an investment in your quality of life. Or: can you work from home once in a while?
You need to specify your country/working culture a bit more. Also the local culture which depends on the PI. Is the commute by car/bike or public transport -- I have a 40 train journey on my commute and often have work I can do (even if it's only working through emails).
I was in the same boat (as well as many others). The basic strategy is first to accept that people at the same stage without kids may be more productive and you will be competing against them later. So try to make your research time count, but in the end this is a compromise that you make when you have young kids at this stage. Good luck, and enjoy your children!
Regardless of your gender, I suggest you read Professor Mommy. It is a book written by a real academic. Of course, with a 3 week old, it will be hard to find time to read such a book.
@axsvl77 - But reading is so much easier at this stage than when baby is on the move and craving constant interaction. You can look deep into each other's eyes for a little while during feeding, but then you can put your nose back into your book -- baby won't mind.
I'm a postdoc and I work maybe 40-45 hours a week.
Things that make this work:
I don't check my work email at home. I did that in the past, now I don't. I never missed something (although once in a while a colleague will call with something really urgent).
I don't do everything around the lab. I clean up my own stuff in the lab, and I will do my "chores" but I'm not going to be involved with buying stuff, reorganizing stuff, salespeople, "better" kits / reagents, saving money, discussing the who-does-what etc.
I don't do all the experiments I can do. I can think of many things that are very interesting, but some are just more interesting than others and you can only do so many. Maybe at a certain point what you can think of still fits in the time you have (and you're going to work more to do it), but in the end there are only 24 hours in a day, so you have to start cutting at a certain point. Why not now?
Related: I don't write long papers. I gather the proof, make a point, find the holes, plug them and that's it. I don't do certain experiments "because everybody does them" or "because 4 methods to prove we made a known compound is better than 2". And your "interesting side-phenomenon" will probably be moved to the supplementary info.
And the most important one: I don't expect working more is getting me ahead. Good papers are. Smart questions are. A keen eye is. Collaborating with great researchers is. Of course you need to spend the time and effort and be productive, but there's no A for effort, nobody is going to think you're a better researcher because you did 20 experiments this week and even publishing a few more papers isn't going to make a difference.
I'm a slight bit skeptical about your very last sentence. Five years down the road, you'll be competing against someone who did indeed put in 60 instead of 45 hours in the lab and has 33% more papers - and did all the same good papers, smart questions, keen eyes and collaborating with great researchers, only doing more of them. If your priorities are your family, that is great, but there is no way around the fact that your career will be impacted. (Been there, done that.) Otherwise, +1 for recommending clear priorities.
60 hours won't get you 33% more papers. It's doubtful that they'll get you any more papers. Decades of research into productivity at work shows that worker longer hours depresses your productivity to the point that you don't achieve any more and can actually achieve less. Scientists apply evidence daily yet seem strangely unable, or unwilling, to accept the conclusions of this work.
Quality counts. 1 really good paper beats 3 "meh" ones. At the beginning of the career, perhaps some paper counting is done, but again, it is a matter of making a good case for oneself by publishing in the right places. I am a bit skeptical about the not contributing to chores of the lab, though (unless someone is paid to do specifically that). Because someone has to do them, so this work needs to be split. You do not want to "fellow travel" on your lab colleagues (having a family is not an excuse - they may want a life, too).
A person putting in 60 hours a week for 5 years will probably be LESS productive than someone who does 40 and kept his family happy. 60 hours is hard on everyone else too, not just you.
@StephanKolassa: I don't know what you want to achieve, but nothing will be really impacted by the # of papers. Of course good people will probably have more, but no hiring decision will be made based 10 vs 13 papers.
I am not sure I understand how this answer the question.
@StephanKolassa and the guy that worked 60 will compete with the other that put 72 and had 20% more good papers, smart questions, keen eyes and collaborated with 20% more great researchers. The 72 hours guy is lucky that the 90-hours one is dead.
I'm not dead I just don't have the time to answer all your e-mails Mindwin!
@JackAidley all that research is in manual production, not knowledge work. It's a small technicality but a large one when you look at knowledge work there is no actual research, other than some compelling and plausible articles.
@JackAidley: but then those 20 h OP spends less in the lab aren't exactly relaxing time if they are used up by commute and the necessities of caring for the kids (the plan does not sound like relaxed time to care for kids!). So they + lack of sleep because of a too tight schedule may plausibly lower productivity for the remaining 40 h as well.
It very much depends on lab culture. When I was a post-doc, I was explicitly told several times that about 70 hours a week is expected. The question generally came up related to working hours, being present or doing certain experiments in given time and not as general chit-chat.
@cbeleites but commuting and lack of sleep affect 60h-workers as well. Also, assuming work is not too strongly related to upbringing kids, 15h kid care impact work-life-balance differently than 15h work. But, as you said, good evidence for knowledge-working fields would be interesting.
@MauganRa: sure. And I certainly agree to expect the impact to be different - but I'd also recommend not to expect it being less, so in total I'd not bet on higher productivity because of these factors. (Productivity may be higher because lack of time leads to fast decisions etc. - just like productivity tends to get higher when deadlines approach closely ;-) ) and anyways, without reliable studies we're discussing rather in the blue here...
I'm not in exactly the same boat, but mine is related. I'm working on my dissertation while working in policy research full-time and adjuncting a class, while having a 3 year old at home. My commute is only about 30 minutes though, lucky for me.
The key for me is drawing a line, beginning with my daughter's play time. Sacrifices have to be made, and that includes some family time, but you never sacrifice ALL of it. I plan to play with her either for a bit in the morning before work or a bit in the evening before bed, plus have one full or nearly-full day on the weekend. Occasionally I get two days on the weekend, or both a morning and evening play time, and all the better if that happens. But I never cross over the line of one day on the weekend and either a morning or an evening on other days.
Once you've decided on a (realistic) hard line for your family time, the rest becomes the standard juggling of work. Your two hours of commuting each day is unfortunate, but I assume if you could have cut that down already you would have. Can you spend it on mass transit, where you could get some work done?
To echo what a lot of others are say, I think the key is really to be present in what you do. You can't have/do everything, so treasure as much as you can because it really is amazing.
Personally I consider the time I spend with my young daughter (1.5 yrs now) to be more important than the time I spend in the car and at work, and as such, I try to be completely present when I'm with her (no fiddling with emails, checking twitter, etc.).
I shifted my working day earlier, so I can leave before my daughter wakes up, and get home in time to spend the evening with her, performing some of the rituals (play, dinner as a family, bathing and reading to her before bed). This has also helped with the commute (down to 1 hour each way, traffic makes it much worse).
I still work longer hours than I should, and the commute is an annoyance, but I don't feel guilty for leaving on-time (and my daughter is the best excuse to leave). I love my work, and have had to make compromises to the amount of work I commit to, but with a consistent day, I am regularly more productive than my colleagues (if only for keen task management and time-boxing).
I recommend you spend the commute on you. You don't get a lot of time to yourself, so spend it doing something relaxing and something you enjoy. I find it's a good time to listen to audiobooks for pleasure, or music, rather than trying to cram in studying or research.
I imagine this might be a question where you will get different answers depending on the norms and legal context of where you live. In particular, my impression is that the United States has much less support for taking time off and flexible work arrangements after having a child, than Australia (where I'm from) and many European countries.
For example, the standard approach in Australia would go something like this. The primary carer (usually the mother) would take maternity leave after the birth of a child. The duration varies a lot from parent to parent, but 4 to 12 months is quite common. When returning to work, it would also be common to come back to work on slightly reduced hours (e.g., perhaps 3 or 4 days per week; although full time is also common). Australia (and presumably many other countries) support this approach with various paid parental leave schemes and anti-discrimination legislation that requires employers to not discriminate based on parental status, birth of a child, and so forth. Such legislation and associated organisational policy (particularly in the university and government sectors) generally supports flexible work practices where possible.
The benefit of such approaches is that it makes it easier for primary carers to have some consolidated time with their children in the first year (and also makes breast feeding easier). Going back part-time also helps to shape a compromise between having a work life, earning money, and having quality time with your children.
Of course, there are many other considerations for families: financial, career progression, and personal interest considerations. Furthermore, the support of the university or post doc adviser in allowing for an initial period of time off and then potentially reduced hours is also an issue. In particular, because of the fixed-term nature of post docs and the nature of post doc funding, there may or may not be implications for the capacity to take leave or transition to something less than full time. And even where in principle it is allowed, post docs may be concerned that their CV will suffer or their supervisor may not feel that their contribution is as valued which may have implications for subsequent post doc positions.
More generally, it seems that universities, academics and funding bodies should take on the obligation of facilitating parents (and particularly mothers) in managing academic careers with parenting responsibilities. This is particularly important given the timing of post docs in people's lives. Not that this necessarily helps you, but I think that there are issues in Australia with this and the resulting reduction in the number of women who pursue an academic career, even with the legal and regulatory context. My casual impression is that it is much worse in the United States.
In terms of practical tips, it's tricky to make suggestions without coming across as trying to be prescriptive about what a good parent should do. But perhaps, if you want more time with your children, enquire about taking time off after the birth of a child, and enquire about flexible work arrangements (e.g., 3 or 4 days per week). Would your post doc be extended based on time off and pro rata-ed for the days you work?
I'm not in the same boat, but I'll still venture as a one-time hour-and-more-long commuter: Seriously consider moving close to your university/research institute.
Since you're a post-doc, you're going to be moving anyway; and since your children are small - I'll assume all are under, say, 3 or 4 - attachment to friends, kindergarten or school is not an issue for them. You might have to settle on the quality of your accomodations or pay more than you expected, but you will be a lot less tired - IMO and YMMV. Also, while some people can "power commute" and do things on the way, my experience is that trying to do so is more tiring than anything else. Do invest some of that extra time in sleeping, though. One of the dangers is being overworked and exhausting yourself; perhaps counter-intuitively, do less than you think you can manage rather than the utmost - like others have said, this will help you "be present in what you do".
Another suggestion is to figure out what everybody else is doing. I mean, there are bound to be other post-docs or doctoral candidates with small kids. What arrangements do they have? I'm sure you can learn more from their specific experience than from the inspecific advice of people here on the site.
Finally, where is Mr. Dad in this picture? I believe it's a father's responsibility to be nearly-or-as-involved in the rearing of and the caringfor his children as the mother (*) - even if you've separated, and regardless of whether you're married. So unless you feel he's a terrible influence on your kids, try to get the father more involved and be with them more. Comments suggest that maybe he's away on business a lot; if that's the case - well, he should be away less. You should not be the one shouldering all the responsibility.
I guess it is probably fair to infer from the questioner's chosen username that they are the mom... And then, yes, "Where is Mr. Dad?!?" In some cultures (cough-cough) fathers do have some responsibility for child-care and such. Unless the question-asker is a single parent, this conflict ought not have to be resolved by her alone.
"Mr Dad" may well be doing plenty of childcare, or may be away on business all the time. He may be permanently employed in the city an hour from the postdoc position. Or of course he may be - for whatever reason - out of the picture. While we may like to get him to pull his weight, we can't assume he's not
@ChrisH: See edit ("involved" -> "more involved"). However, if he is "away on business all the time", then my suggestion is indeed that OP pressure him to change that and be more involved.
My primary concern with the last paragraph is that the poster mentioned everything from nanny to daycare, and they are politely implying that's all. Asking about "Mr Dad" in this way is thus rude and comes off accusatory - if they were present or available, they'd have been mentioned. To fix this you could be a bit more circumspect - suggesting the importance of investigating the availability of any family support (extended family, other parent/partner if available, etc).
@BrianDHall: It is sort of accusatory - towards him. Maybe I should make that clearer.
The final paragraph might well miss the point completely the main concern being: "not abandon my children." In any case I have a hard time to imagine circumstances where it is actually helpful as an answer.
I am worried if I can pull off the lab work and all the writing and not abandon my children.
My mother, J, saw very little of her mother, S. The few times they did see each other, J had to keep her distance so as not to mess up S's clothes and hair.
There were several servants in the household, and they made sure the children were bathed, clothed and fed.
Whenever J became close to one of the servants, S would fire that one. Which was incredibly damaging to little J, as you can imagine.
You're not going to be like S, right? If you allow your children to be close to you, and to their nanny, they'll be okay. (Yes, you will miss them and yes, they'll miss you.)
Tips for survival?
Don't skimp on sleep.
Arrange something in your office so you can take a short nap if needed. It could be a piece of cardboard, a camping mat and a pillow.
Consider co-sleeping (if it's comfortable for you, and if it doesn't affect your quality of sleep).
Both require lots of work, time, attention, and love. Doing both means that you can't do both 100% - In other words trade-offs will have to be made. But I think you know that already! Children grow so very fast and the first couple of years are incredibly important to their emotional development. How they "attach" in these years (more so for the newborn) will go a long way towards how they relate to others as adults. Attachment styles include: Secure, Avoidant, Ambivalent/Anxious, and Disorganized. Obviously Secure attachment is the hope for all of our children. Can the career wait... at least for a couple of years?
I am not that pessimistic. My observation both with myself and with others is that people with young children spent less time at work, and are less flexible when they are at work, but when they are there they are much more efficient than their childless counterparts. The only problem is communicating that to your colleagues. It depends very much leadership capability of the persons in charge of the lab. If they are supportive you will have no problem, if they are male chauvinist pigs than you are better of going somewhere with a more professional work environment.
I'm not an expert on developmental psychology by any stretch, but to my knowledge there is no compelling evidence that children of professional parents (working full time) develop more poorly or develop insecure attachment as compared to part-time workers or stay-at-home parents. If you are aware of any such research your answer would be greatly improved by citing it, as it otherwise alludes to modern research findings (such as attachment theories).
As a small example, here's an advice sheet from a University of Minnesota researcher (now retired) that would seem to suggest the research goes in the direction of "quality of relationship matters - daycare and working is fine": http://www.cehd.umn.edu/ceed/publications/tipsheets/ericksontipsheets/attachmentfactorfiction.pdf
Dr. Sroufe also has a great interview on the podcast Science vs. which basically makes the argument that attachment is important, but attachment parenting doesn't change attachment. Abuse and severe neglect do decrease attachment. https://gimletmedia.com/episode/2-attachment-parenting/
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65166 | Can my undergraduate research thesis be published in a scientific paper? If so, how should I go?
I'm starting my bachelor's degree thesis and i will do some research work. If I achieve good results can my work be published? If so , who should get the credits? I'm afraid that my prof or his research lab can publish/include my work in some their future papers without my name.
Your thesis will possibly be too big to publish it "as is" in a paper or as an article. You could of course write a publication based on your thesis, but should avoid self-citing it. (e.g. in Germany a bachelor's thesis is not published and in result not publicly available to everybody)
So if my professor publish a new paper and my work gets a "section" of the paper, should I be mentioned?
@Voxis Yes, if your professor writes a paper based on your work, you should be co-author. If you write the paper, your professor should be co-author.
In which country is this?
When you are the main contributor of a work you can claim authorship. Having submitted your thesis to an examination office puts you in a good position to provide proof on this. The easy way is to talk to your supervisor and mention your wish (and right) to be named as (main/co/whatever) author
@AndréKleinschmidt I agree, but then one should also take the lead on writing the text, making publication-quality visualisations, etc..
Most academics I've met would be pleased if an undergrad project resulted in a publication, and would be quite supportive. It would be extra work for you of course, but it would reflect very well on you if you're planning a career in academia or even some industries.
Thank you all for the answers. Being new user I cannot upvote your comments :(
If your work is good enough, it deserves to be published. It doesn't matter if it is the result of a hobby, undergraduate studies, or your main job as a researcher.
Summarizing it to make it fit into the space allotted in a journal or conference proceedings will be a daunting task, ask your advisor for guidance and help.
What if I do not have an advisor? Is there any online facility to gain help?
As vonbrand has said, it is the quality of work, rather than the degrees behind the person who wrote it, that should determine whether or not something can be published. There are very few journals who have standing bans on publishing undergraduate research, though be aware that preparing a paper for publication is a fairly daunting task.
My advice would be to talk to your advisor about whether or not your work is in the position to be published as a stand-alone paper, or if it's going to be incorporated into a larger paper.
In the first case, the next step is to talk to them about what still needs to be done, what journal to target, and the steps you need to take to get going on that path. In the second case, it's largely a matter of asking if you'll be included as an author on that paper, or end up in the acknowledgements section. Having a clear and direct conversation up from will help things in the long run.
For reference, my undergraduate thesis was published with me as the first author on it.
To add to the above answers, there are in fact, some journals which are dedicated exclusively to the publication of undergraduate research. It might be easier for your paper to get accepted in such journals. The Council of Undergraduate Research provides a list of popular undergraduate journals.
However, you can also submit your paper to any regular journal as very few journals have restrictions on publishing papers by undergraduates. Here is an article on publishing as an undergraduate that you might find interesting.
Yes, my first PhD student published a paper on his undergraduate work (I was also a co-author of the paper), so it is certainly possible (and indeed a good way of learning about research practices if you are interested in that as a career). As the other answers suggest, quality is the key.
Is it possible to show a undergraduate paper in my PhD which I published before joining PhD ?
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31666 | What is a "very good higher education degree" when applying for a German PhD?
I plan to do a PhD in Germany. I have read some material that said that:
"The most important formal qualification for being able to do a
doctorate in Germany is a very good higher education degree that is
recognised in Germany"
"What is" or maybe should I ask "How much is" very good higher degree?
Basically, you need to have a master's degree. If that master's degree comes from:
A German university
A university in any member country of the Bologna Process
A few other countries considered "equivalent" but not participating in the Bologna Process, such as the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan
then it is almost always automatically accepted. On the other hand, if your degree is from another source (such as India, China, Iran, Africa, etc.), or is from a German Fachhochschule, then the degree must be certified by the university as being at the same level as a German master's degree before you can be admitted. Also, after your admission, you may be required to take some additional courses to establish your candidacy (although this is usually on the order of two to three courses during your first two years).
The German grade scale at universities is:
very good (1)
good (2)
satisfactory (3)
sufficient (4)
fail (5)
Numerical grades are commonly considered to the first decimal digit. I'd interpret the requirement for a "very good" degree as an average of 1.5 or better. This seems quite strict to me though: my department has the informal rule that we are willing to admit PhD students with an average of 2.5 or better, i.e., a "good" degree. In order to compare from international grading systems, the so called "Bavarian formula" is often used, see e.g. http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/studium/pruefungen/anrechnungen/umrechnung-auslaendischer-noten/ .
Recognition of your university degree as equivalent to a German degree is another important factor. The anabin database would be a good place to start researching the situation for your specific case, if you understand a bit of German. (I really don't understand why this isn't provided in English.) @aeismail's also discusses this aspect.
This statement of "very good" grades is even stranger because they make it seem like a universal requirement in Germany, which is very much not the case! Grades matter, but not that much.
@aeismail I know of at least one department that actually has a strict rule on the grade of the Master's degree (well, at least it had it 10 years ago). If the grade is too bad, one cannot become a PhD student. In that case, the grade can be the show-stopper. But you are right in that the "very good" in the statement that the OP found does not refer to such a formal requirement, as that would indeed be very strict. Sorry for commenting on a very old post.
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29600 | Why is manuscript review in mathematics taking so long (over 8 months)?
I submitted my paper on mathematics to a journal 8 months ago but I have no received any reports or comments yet. I sent an email to the editor asking him about the manuscript, he just replied that it is still under review. What shall I do?
An eight month wait is not at all unusual in mathematics.
It is a bit weird that your question's title does not align with the question you ask in the body. Both questions are interesting, but you should choose which one you really want to ask and write your text and title accordingly.
I've had plenty of papers take more than a year; one of my papers has currently been at a journal for 2.5 years. It takes a long time to referee a paper, and people who do a good job at refereeing get tons of requests. My usual policy is to ask the editor if there has been any progress in refereeing the paper at 9 months, at 1 year, at 15 months, and then every 2 months thereafter.
My most recent paper has been sitting on the editors desk for three months and hasn't even been sent out for review. I sent an email enquiring about its status and was told they can't give me any information on how long it is going to take.
IMHO, since most journals require copyright transfer, it would be ethical from their part, at the very least, to guarantee authors some time frames for their actions, specifically, maximum review time.
The fastest I have ever seen a mathematics paper go from initial submission to acceptance is about 4 weeks. The referee's report was really thorough and detailed. The author's mind was blown.
Mathematics tends to have a long refereeing process. It's nice when it can be completed in a few months, but eight months is not especially worrisome. The editor should be sending the referee(s) periodic messages to make sure they aren't just forgetting, and you can send status inquiries to the editor every once in a while if you'd like (it shouldn't be necessary, but it can't hurt and could conceivably help). I tend to ask for a status update every six months or so.
One reason it takes so long is that refereeing a mathematics paper is difficult. The referee has to read and understand the proofs, which is one of the slowest and most painstaking forms of reading. Another issue is that there is no expectation that it should be done quickly: a referee who takes eight months isn't generally considered problematic by the journal or the community at large.
In practice, the lengthy refereeing times are not a problem. Mathematics papers are typically circulated publicly (for example, on www.arXiv.org) long before they are accepted for publication, so the publication process isn't holding up progress in the field. And the mathematics community is well aware of how long it takes to get papers officially published and takes this into account in career evaluation (hiring, tenure, etc.). For example, if you're applying for a job, nobody will expect your papers from the last year or two to be published yet. If they are at least on the arXiv and submitted for publication, then everything is as it should be.
And that's just the process to get accepted. After the lengthy process of getting a referee's report, making corrections, and getting those accepted and your article officially put in line for publication, with some (reputable) journals you can still wait years for it appear in the actual print journal. Thankfully, a lot of them have caught onto publishing articles online, so you usually get a DOI soon after it's fully accepted. But the actual print version could take a long time, indeed.
To reiterate the other good answer and comments... do nothing. It is unfortunate, yes, and frustrating, yes, and inconvenient, yes, that refereeing takes so long... but it is both understandable and inevitable.
Ironically, but understandably, the more original your work is, the more effort will be required of referees... who are paid nothing, and will acquire no status/raises/funding/whatever from their efforts to appraise or improve your writing.
As in other answer/comments, hiring committees and funding agencies are aware of the time-lags... although, yes, true, it's better to have gotten through this gauntlet than have to explain that one is enduring it.
The scientific reasons above aside, in my view it takes long also as it is a voluntary job with no credit or immediate gain so it gets deprioritised. In many cases the long wait is waiting for a referee to actually look at it. Based on some reports I have received some referees seem to wait one year to then look at it for a few hours. Also some referees go awol and then as an editor you have to find someone else.
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139569 | What percentage of UK academic faculty are in UCU?
Just wondering what the rough % of academic faculty (e.g. full time and part time teaching fellow/associates, lecturers, senior lecturers, readers, and professors) are in UCU? I've been invited to join, but the hefty fee is putting me off. And other than the negotiation regarding pay scale and pension, there doesn't seem to be other significant benefits (although one can argue that the negotiation on pay and pension is big enough).
What is "UCU"? While you are at it, please consider including the relevant information in the tag wiki if you believe the concept is important enough to warrant a tag.
@S.Kolassa-ReinstateMonica apologies. UCU is university and college union.
@PandaPants The fee really isn't that hefty. The max you could possibly pay per month is about the equivalent of a round of drinks. Plus you get a little bit of tax relief for your fees: https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/professional-fees-and-subscriptions The insurance value that Ian Sudbery discusses is well worth it.
I don't know what the numbers are for academic faculty specifically is, but the numbers for education in general is 47% (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/trade-union-statistics-2018), and that is in line with membership within my department (STEM, Russel Group). UCU has a membership of 120,000.
As well as collective bargaining on pay, conditions and pensions, perhaps the most important work of the Union is local. On a collective level the union will represent its members in situation where your employer might be going through a "restructuring" involving a reduction in headcount or a change in contractual terms and conditions for example. This has happened to me twice in my career, once when my employer laid of 30% of staff in my area, a second time when I was transferred from being employed by UKRI to being employed directly by the university.
But perhaps the most important thing is casework. Your membership would entitle you to representation in any HR dealing with your employer. In the case of the worst this can include provision of a lawyer or solicitor paid for by the union. This might be important if you are subject to discrimination at work, or accused of discrimination, or placed on performance review or have been otherwise mistreaded. In the five years I've been faculty, I've seen colleagues require union help with probation, and one (a professor) require union help when they were placed on performance review. I also knew someone who had to involve the union when their head of department took a dislike to them and did everything they could to get rid of them.
One way to think of union membership is like health insurance, but for employment/legal matters.
thanks for sharing your experience and the rough % of membership in your university.
tenure isn’t what it used to be in the UK...or ever was in the UK.
The UK doesn't have tenure as people in the US understand it - it was outlawed by Thatcher in the 80s.
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62006 | What database catalogues citations in the humanities?
Alright so I know what I'm thinking of exists, I just have absolutely no idea what it's called, and I'm driving myself crazy googling it. I'm looking for a resource that catalogs each instance a certain work is referenced in a certain time frame. For example, something that might show how many times, say, Moretti was referenced in academic journals and books in the past year. I've had professors mention this to me in passing, and I think I heard it was run by MLA, but I'm not sure. Something that could be used similarly to the h-index, but for the humanities.
What database catalogues citations and could be used to get a h-index in the humanities?
Do you mean Scopus?
Here are a couple of databases that may be of help.
The Arts & Humanities Citation Index by Thomson Reuters has access to over 1700 journals according to the following form their website.
Arts & Humanities Citation Index®, accessed via Web of Science™ Core
Collection, provides researchers, administrators, faculty, and
students with quick, powerful access to the bibliographic and citation
information for journal articles in the arts & humanities that they
need to find research data, analyze trends, journals, and researchers,
and share their findings.
Overcome information overload and focus on essential data from over
1,700 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals.
Also as mentioned in a comment there is scopus According to this blog scopus as of late 2012 has over 1 million articles from the arts and humanities.
As of November 2012, the total number of Arts & Humanities articles in
the database is a little over 1 million, just over 2% of the total
database. All document types that are within the Scopus coverage
policy are included in the article counts. From 2007 to 2011 the
number of articles has grown from 42 thousand to 76 thousand articles
per year, which comes down to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of
16.2%
Both of them have fairly advanced search forms that should be able to do something like what you are looking for.
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62031 | Is using academic writing services for a thesis considered plagiarism? Can they write in an original fashion?
There are many academic writing services (editing, proof reading and writing from scratch). These services range from writing basic essays to research papers and dissertations.
I will use editing and proofreading services because my mother tongue is different from the language of thesis.
I distrust these kinds of services, can they really do job appropriately and according to suitable form? Is this considered plagiarism and can they write in an original fashion?
Has anybody used these kind of services and what are your experiences?
I am currently using one, I will let you know in 2 mouths when they finish editing and writing thesis. ( Writing in language-context sense )
Did you check plagiarism with a program.
Two possibilities. The writing service wrote it, you include credit to them in the document. (not plagiarism). The writing service wrote it, but you turn it in without giving them credit. (plagiarism)
Third possibility: The writing service plagiarized it, and you give them credit. (still plagiarism)
There's a big difference between paying someone to proof read your thesis (generally acceptable, and sometimes encouraged) and paying someone to write original material from scratch (plagiarism).
The way your question is worded (and from one of the comments about getting someone to "edit and write the thesis") it sounds like you are asking whether if you pay someone to write part of your thesis, will they do it well enough that it wont be detected by plagiarism software (e.g., the idea that people who write paid essays just copy and paste huge chunks from Wikipedia and random journal articles). My apologies if this is not what you are asking. But to state the obvious point, paying someone to write your thesis and contribute intellectually is plagiarism and unethical whether they do it in a rigorous or a sloppy way. It is plagiarism, because you are not acknowledging the source of the intellectual effort.
Surely if you are paying someone merely to refine your expression, phrasing and give general guidance on structuring, then there is minimal risk of plagiarism.
Thank you. i want know about did anyone try this because i think its a new type of fraud and includes criminal situations. i think their papers is not original.
I am confuse @jeromy, usually translation ( most of times ) is considered original work, maybe acs could write in his own language and then give for translation, it can be acknowledged that thesis was translated.
It is not plagiarism. It is even worse - it is fraud. I don't know whether it falls under criminal prosecution, but I would thus not be surprised if there would be a way of actually criminally prosecuting the perpetrator. When fake doctors are caught out (pretending to have a degree/approbation they did not attain), this is - to my knowledge - already treated as fraud. Similar for a structural engineer that would not have a degree but build, say, bridges. Also in less life-threatening situations, it pretends to have acquired a knowledge/ability without doing so. Stay away from it.
I don't think it is a new type of fraud. Our possibilities to detect it have gotten better though.
Using a service that edits documents to correct grammar and spelling issues, and minor awkward phrasings, is acceptable and need not be acknowledged.
Using a translation service, to translate a document from your native language into English, is acceptable, though the translator needs to be prominantly acknowledged. If you can write in English, though, it may be better to do so, because many employers in academia may be wary of applicants who have not demonstrated high-level proficiency in English.
Using a "substantive editing" service, that re-writes a document to improve its logic, flow, general structure and rhetoric is problemmatic. Such an editor should probably be named as a co-author, but if not, needs to be very prominently acknowledged. The use of such a service may not be acceptable to those evaluating the thesis.
Using a writing service, where you provide your results and they write the document without working from a strong draft from you, is cheating, and not likely to be acceptable even if acknowledged.
Rules for authorship differ between disciplines, but for example ICMJE guidelines require that the author has to meet all of the following conditions: Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data AND drafting the article or revising it AND agreement to be accountable for accuracy or integrity of any part of the work. Editing does not meet the criteria, and therefore getting the authorship that way should be considered an academic misconduct
There are two issues. The first is, if the "academic writing service" did genuinely original work for pay and let you sign your name to it, would it be plagiarism or copyright violation? In a "corporate" setting, the answer would be "no," because it was "work for hire," to which the payor owns the rights. But in an academic setting, it would be plagiarism, because you are representing work done by others as your own work, and thereby overstating your capabilities.
The second issue is, can these services produce work that is sufficiently original not to violate copyright or constitute plagiarism. The answer is usually no. The reason is, unlike the situation with a corporation that will "pay what it takes," these services usually "shortcut" to keep their fees down. But this issue is "trumped" by the first one in the previous paragraph.
In my university proofreading would be somewhat. Editing would normally not be acceptable. The reason is that the thesis assesses many aspects of your abilities. That includes not only your ideas (intellectual skills), but also your ability to express your ideas clearly, and even your ability to express yourself in (in this case) English (transferrable skills).
Getting someone to read through your work and identify typo's, runaway sentences and other little snafus is normally fine (and impossible to identify as well). On the other hand if someone corrects the way you structure your sentences, paragraphs and sections that is not appropriate. If however you use university resources (your thesis adviser perhaps, and/or library services) you will not need to worry about it being acceptable. At that point it is the university that is responsible for ensuring your learning experience.
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73340 | At which level (D or E) should I apply for an advertised faculty position in Australia?
I am putting together an application for an academic position that has been advertised as either level D or E at an Australian university (equivalent to full professor or chair professor in the US). The selection criteria are slightly different, depending on the level at which I apply, and I need to specify which level I am applying for in my application. I would happily accept the role if offered at level D, but would also be a credible candidate at level E.
My publication record and h-index are comfortably on par with existing level E professors in the department, my grants and funding record is good, and I would also bring the industry experience and leadership skills that they are looking for. On the other hand, I am not a shoe-in for the role, even at level D: my research interests are only just within scope for the department and I have limited teaching experience. It's a ("Group of Eight") research-focused university, so teaching is likely to be secondary to research, but it is still a factor.
I am guessing that they would not consider me at level D if I apply at level E, or vice-versa. Australia has less of a culture of salary negotiation than the US. I have thought about addressing both sets of selection criteria and leaving it up to them, but worry that might simply be annoying.
What is your advice?
Call the department head and ask.
It is my understanding that when a position is advertised so broadly, i.e. D or E, they are likely looking for someone really big. That being said, I think they are likely looking for someone at the level E, but would consider a strong candidate at level D.
If it were me, I would evaluate my qualifications and fit with both D and E positions honestly, and then put all my effort into whichever feels like the best fit.
If the only motivation to try for E is salary, and you probably fit better for D, then you are likely risking both.
You should be very careful in deciding whether you would be happy at the lower level. Australian academic levels are quite distinct, and transitioning to a higher level is not a simple case of applying for a promotion: you essentially need to have your role re-graded, and the process can take 2 years.
There are typically very few full professors (grade E) in a School or Department, and it is a big deal when a new position is offered at a Go8 university. Expect a lot of competition from people with international reputations in the field. Often potential candidates are approached by representatives of the university, so if you are considering an advertised position be aware that you may well be an outsider to done prime contenders.
The level is mostly about your salary floor. It sounds like level D is sufficient money to satisfy you. I don't see why you would increase your risk by applying for level E.
It isn't entirely about salary floor. It's also about future salary prospects: if appointed at a salary near the top of the level D range, I would need to pass a major hurdle to get pay rise (a promotion case involving reference letters by eminent leaders in the field and review by the vice chancellor, amongst others). If appointed at the bottom of level E, subsequent pay rises would not require passing such a hurdle. To be honest, there's also the matter of prestige and position title.
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16303 | How does Microsoft Academic Search generate its rankings?
Yesterday, during some idle time in the office, a colleague of mine has discovered that I am currently ranked at position 20 worldwide by Microsoft Academic Search for my subfield regarding the last 5 year impact. While certainly flattering, this ranking is also quite clearly bogus, as many much more eminent academics are ranked far behind me in this list.
The Occam's razor explanation that there simply is another researcher of my name in my field can be discarded, as Microsoft Academic profile does indeed list my, and only my, publications (as well as a profile pic that they seem to have grabbed from an old university web page).
So my question is the following: how does Microsoft Academic Search actually generate rankings (of individual academics, but there are also rankings of journals)? It seems clear that not all citations and publications are considered equal (otherwise I would not end up so far to the front with a comparatively meager set of papers and citations), but how do they decide what is "worth" how much?
I am mostly looking for answers that refer to papers or web links coming from MS insiders on their ranking algorithms. Barring that, some well thought-through speculation from outsiders is also ok :)
Edit:
I just discovered that Microsoft Academic Search seems to employ the notion of a field rating for conferences and journals, and the rating for some of the venues that we prefer seems to be unreasonably high. However, that still does not fully explain my curious case (and it still leaves open the question of how these field ratings are generated in the first place).
+1 Interesting question. Perhaps Microsoft sent employees back from the future and therefore knows you are an upcoming star scientist who will change the world as we know it?
For the first name I tested, the university is completely wrong, many publications are missing, many are listed more than once, and many are erroneous and belong to somebody else in an entirely different field (say physics versus economy).
Would love to see someone chime in on this one.
Having poked around my own entry in Microsoft Academic Search, I'm somewhat afraid the answer is "disastrously poorly".
how does Microsoft Academic Search actually generate rankings?
Since Microsoft Academic Search, like Google Scholar, is a proprietary vertical search engine and its algorithms and ranking systems are not open source, you're unlikely to get a detailed "how" answer unless a disgruntled former Microsoft employee decides to chime in.
Microsoft Academic Search does make some details of its rankings and results system available, however. This page offers a basic explanation of the search engine's approach. For both Microsoft and Google, citations play a major part in search result rankings, which has subjected academic search engines to criticism in the past. As the Academic Search page above indicates,
the information associated with Microsoft Academic Search author profiles is derived from the tens of millions of scholarly publications that are currently indexed by Microsoft Academic Search. Most of these publications have reference lists that Microsoft processes. The indexed publications and reference lists help create a snapshot of individual authors' publication history, productivity, and impact. As more content is indexed within Microsoft Academic Search, the accuracy and completeness of the author profile data improves.
Because Academic Search rankings can be distorted by factors including citation counts, incomplete publication indexes, and the field rating system you mentioned, it will inevitably produce some inaccurate results.
Speculation alert: it seems to me that the lion's share of ranking is accomplished through automatic citation list analysis, which is not necessarily a good indicator of
Prominence in one's field,
Number of publications (instead, it seems to emphasize how often a publication is cited elsewhere).
Finally, Academic Search is still in Beta, and I suspect that their rapidly growing index may not always be in perfect step with their ranking algorithms - in my personal experience with the search engine, there do seem to be cases of highly-ranked scholars or papers suddenly plummeting, then re-appearing again, which I assume is a consequence of ranking algorithm tinkering.
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3559 | Do high-profile journals edit authors’ figures?
I have a paper published in a Angewandte Chemie, “one of the most renowned chemistry journals”, and realized that the figures have been edited from the version I had submitted. They did not tell us about it, but clearly modifications have been made for typographical consistence with their style guide: some symbols have been italicized, axes labels have been changed from, e.g., “Temperature (K)” into “Temperature / K”, etc.
I was surprised, because I know that most journals don’t typically edit figures, so I wonder: is Angewandte Chemie unique in this respect? Do other higher-profile journals, such as Nature or Science, edit figures or provide feedback to authors on graphics?
This is a duplicate question of the one Daniel's pointing out, and therefore I'm voting to close.
Okay, I have tried to make it more different: the other questions asks about journals in general, and how you could ask them to help with figures. My question would be about how common it is for a specific subset (high-profile journals, of which no example was given in the answers to David’s question) to edit graphics or advise authors on the matter.
It still seems like a duplicate to me.
@DanielE.Shub - It's a close call. The question isn't "does this happen?", but rather, "this happened, is this a one-off or a common thing I'm not familiar with?" It seems like a useful enough question to me to be worth a re-opening.
Didn't they show you a final proof copy? Journals often at least edit the size/position of figures in my experience. Some of them also reformat formulas and other aspects. I recently had a journal article where they had to completely rebuild my tables to fit their in-house style. I had to note a couple of issues, which they fixed. Usually they give you a final proof so that you can check that your original intent is still retained.
@Namey yes, they gave notice, and all they did was fine… but I was surprised that they had reformatted the figures themselves, not only the captions/text
Gotcha. I guess I wouldn't be that surprised if it happened. While there is a trend toward things to be more camera-ready, it seems sensical that some major venues still like a high level of consistency among their figures. I also get the feeling that journals who still put out a lot of paper copies take a lot more care with that sort of thing.
Yes, high-profile journals do typically edit figures for style and consistency. You will find this information on their web sites, e.g. nature physics.
This doesn't seem to answer the question; if anything, it suggests that Nature Physics doesn't edit figures, unless you specifically use Adobe Photoshop.
@eykanal They do edit figures. The statement can be found as the last sentence of the first paragraph (and elsewhere): "This allows us to restyle to our journal house style."
Good point, I missed that sentence.
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2620 | Pros and cons to having two advisors
Possible Duplicate:
What are the advantages and disadvantages of having multiple advisers?
What are the advantages to having a single advisor vs having two co-advisors?
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202623 | How to check the total number of papers published by a country at a certain conference?
I presented a paper at a top-tier conference, and I would like to know how many papers from our country have been presented at this conference? Also, I would like to know how many papers from our school have been presented at this conference? Where does my paper rank? How should I inquire? Thanks!!
Do you mean in the past as well as for the current conference?
I mean: For example, I would like to know how many papers our school has published at the ISCA conference up to this point, and what is the ranking of the paper I presented at this conference among the papers published by our school. And what is the ranking of our country in terms of the number of papers published at the conference? Thanks!!!
There is not typically such a "ranking" of conference papers. There could sometimes be an awards process to assign a "best paper" but this does not imply that all papers have been ranked (and especially not in a way they could be compared across years). Any rough ranking by, say, reviewer scores would not really be an appropriate way to rank papers against each other, since the reviewers will have different standards. This would be a near-impossible task, in any case. I would abandon the thought entirely.
Some conferences may collect and report participation statistics, but I question the meaning of papers being published by countries. A paper can have any number of authors from any number of places, and assigning a given paper to a specific country may not be possible. In any event, this will almost certainly have to be your own endeavor: you would need to programmatically collect details on each paper in the conference yourself and use some criteria to sort them. I would not expect that there is a place these numbers are easily available to you without extensive effort.
Thank you! But I just want to inquire about my position as the nth person from our school to present a paper at this top-tier conference. This information is for my job application resume.
@Gerrie To do that, it seems you'd need a list of all previous people presenting at this conference and their schools. I do not expect this to be available in some already-compiled form. Is it worth the trouble?
In simpler terms, I would like to know the position of my paper among the papers published by our school at this conference. This seems like a straightforward count. For example, if my paper is the fifth one, it means that our school has previously published four papers at this conference.
I understand what you're looking for (I would not have called this a rank, but it's now clear what you mean). Many things are conceptually straightforward but difficult to perform in practice without the necessary data.
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110424 | Is publishing in a special issue of a Q3 Journal as relevant as publishing in a Q1 Journal?
I want to publish a paper in mathematics in a special issue of my topic but in a Q3 Journal (i.e., ranked in 3rd quartile). The catch is that in this issue, the editors are some of the top leaders in the area, so I guess that the quality of the paper should be high in order to be accepted. Should I go for this? Or is it preferable to publish in a Q1 Journal (i.e., ranked in 1st quartile)? How would you, as a hiring committee when applying for a postdoctoral position, see this? I honestly think that the paper has the quality in order to be published in a first quartile Journal.
For those not familiar with the terminology, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. They refer to quartile in which the journal is ranked within discipline. For example, see this listing of mathematics journals on scimago with the prominent display of ranking quartile.
How do you know who the reviewers will be? Usually for special issues, there are special editors, but who knows who are the reviewers?
@theL you are right, are editors. I will edit the question
Your question is not obvious. Whether it is Q3 or overall ranked 3. If it is Q3 then go for Q1, as said that you have high quality manuscript.
What are rank 1 and rank 3 journals? Is this a national classification scheme?
@TommiBrander I meant Q1 and Q3 journals. The question has been edited.
What are Q1 and Q3 journals? Is this a national classification scheme?
Q1 (first) and Q3 (third) refer to ranking quartiles. It is common language at my university. I've seen the term Q1 be used more often now that some university ranking systems give special weighting to publications published in Q1 journals. In particular, scimago makes quartile quite prominent. I've added a bit of an explanation.
q1 one after all, but if you want more citations, I suggest q3. unfortunatelly,
had the same question after 4 years.
How would you, as a hiring committee when applying for a postdoctoral position, see this? Since I've been on "hiring committees for postdocs" quite a few times, I'll just share personal experience.
1) As to me, I wouldn't care at all where you published but would look directly at what you published. As one of my colleagues in Wisconsin put it "I just want to know what his (applicant's) signature theorem is". So as soon as your paper is on arXiv, I'll have an opinion about you. Not all people are like that, of course, but given that the postdoctoral positions are often given to people somebody in the department seriously considers working with, you may be pretty sure that if your result is good, then the interested in you person will spare no effort explaining to others why it is so and that "this guy solved a 40 year old problem on which Terence Tao had only a partial result" is stronger than "this guy published in Acta".
2) It may be beneficial to have a publication in a higher ranking journal on your record later in your career (some university promotion guidelines explicitly count Acta papers as 5 points and "University of Urjupinsk Seminar Proceedings" as 0 points).
3) The formal "publication score" is not everything. You also make professional acquaintances and get friends and enemies over time. Sometimes I choose the journal based on personal relationships (existing or the ones I would like to establish) rather than according to any ranking system and I don't think it is such a terrible idea.
Just my 2 cents :-)
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28164 | How to search for list of papers citing both papers A and B?
For given papers A and B, I would like to search for all papers that cite both A and B. I guess one can generalize to papers {A,B,C,...} and find all papers that cite all of them.
A quick Google Scholar and Web of Science search revealed nothing. Google Scholar has a "cite=..." thing in the URL, which I messed with a bit to no avail.
I think this would be a useful tool. I found a thread on Google Product Forums where someone suggested this, but I don't think Google has yet implemented such a tool.
Just get the citations of each document from the Scopus database, export the results into two files, and write a Python script that does a set intersection. You can generalize this to any files.
You can export the Scopus results to .csv files, and then use the csv python module to read the files. You can then have the set operation based on the title of the articles (even though I would also export the DOI and use it). If you know how to program in Python, writing this script shouldn't take you more than one afternoon.
+1, even though Scopus is horribly incomplete. If only Google Scholar had an API (or didn't cut you off for screen-scraping).
In Wikidata, we have at the moment around 36 million citations. It is not much compared to Google Scholar, but you can query them in flexible ways with the Wikidata Query Service, - a SPARQL endpoint.
In Scholia, a website that uses Wikidata Query Service, we have implemented a query that shows "all papers that cite both A and B". You can see an example for "Protein measurement with the Folin phenol reagent" and "Novel method for detection of beta-lactamases by using a chromogenic cephalosporin substrate" here: https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/works/Q20900776,Q24564458.
Scholia will also show results for more than two papers, see, e.g., https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/works/Q20900776,Q24564458,Q39309940.
Following the link "Edit on query.Wikidata.org" gets you to the SPARQL query at the Wikidata Query Service interface. The SPARQL query currently reads:
SELECT ?date ?work ?workLabel
WITH {
SELECT (MIN(?dates) AS ?date) ?work
WHERE {
?work wdt:P2860 wd:Q20900776 . ?work wdt:P2860 wd:Q24564458 .
OPTIONAL {
?work wdt:P577 ?datetimes .
BIND(xsd:date(?datetimes) AS ?dates)
}
}
GROUP BY ?work
ORDER BY DESC(?date)
LIMIT 1000
} AS %results
WHERE {
INCLUDE %results
SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en,da,es,fr,nl,no,ru,sv,zh". }
}
ORDER BY DESC(?date)
You can read more about the approach of using Wikidata and SPARQL for citation analysis work in this paper: "Scholia and scientometrics with Wikidata", https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04222
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174062 | Whether to do second postdoc at prestigious university or take a lecturer position at current university
I may be in the position soon of going to do a postdoc at a highly prestigious University. I am currently at a good university in the UK doing my first postdoc. I have applied for a Lecturer position at this university, but there maybe the option to do a second postdoc at more prestigious university. I am unsure how having a post doc at a prestigious university on my CV would improve my employability, applications for funding etc.
What are the pros and cons of doing a second post doc at a prestigious university versus taking a Lecturer position at a good university?
I don't think we can answer this question for you - it depends too much on your individual circumstances.
In UK is a lecturer a permanent position?
This question was closed (not by me). I edited to make the question more general. Perhaps it overcomes the limitations of it being to specific.
A bird in the hand... or maybe here a position in hand is better than two positions in the bush.
@Buffy A fully permanent academic position (subject to 1 year probation like most permanent and fixed-term positions I held in the UK which is usually just a formality).
I can remember this trade-off myself in the Australian research context. This is similar to various decisions: i.e., continue doing a post-doc or apply for lecturer positions, take a second post doc or a lecturer position.
For this answer, I assume the academic model common in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand where "Lecturer" generally represents an entry-level post-PhD teaching/research position that is commonly continuing (i.e., something a bit like a tenure track position in the U.S.).
Here are a few things to consider:
Job Security: Getting a continuing position is a major challenge for many researchers. If you are able to get such a position, you have a guaranteed income and a way of staying in academia to achieve your research goals in the longer term. If you take the post doc, there is a risk that you may struggle at the end of your post doc to obtain such a position. But equally, if you are a real research star, this might be a smaller risk.
Academic autonomy: In general, when you have a lecturing position, you are broadly free to do research in the area of your choosing (at least within your relevant discipline). In a Post Doc, this may be the case or you may have to align your research with the nature of the funding. Whether you experience this as constraining will depend on the alignment of your interests with the PostDoc.
Research allocation: If you are motivated by achieving great things in research, then you will be interested in the amount of time the position permits for research. Lecturer positions are highly variable in how much time they permit for research. There are so many different models for allocating service, teaching, and other responsibilities to academics. Furthermore, once you have been allocated various non-research tasks, academics vary in the effort that they apply to such tasks and their efficiency. And this changes over time. So, when you first start teaching in general and when you start teaching new units, the time you need to put in is much greater. In summary, some Lecturer positions may permit you to have a large amount of research time, whereas others will give you almost nothing. If research is important to you, then you should learn about the likely model at the institution that you are considering. In contrast, most Post Docs are entirely or almost entirely research focussed.
Mentoring and research support: You should consider the extent to which the research environment at the two institutions would support your research goals. What collaborations would the roles provide? Who would be mentoring you at the two places? One benefit to consider regarding Lecturer roles is that you may be more able to supervise research students.
Location and life: Consider where you would ultimately like to live and work. If the Lecturer position opens up in a place that you'd like to set up your life, then that can be well worth taking advantage of.
Money: Money varies in importance to people. Money includes both salary while doing the role and future income. It can be hard to predict but in general a Lecturer position will pay more in the short-term.
These are just some of the Trade-offs. I've seen many researchers set up successful academic careers using both strategies (i.e., the prestigious-post-doc strategy and the early-take-up-ff-Lecturer-position-at-mid-tier-university strategy).
Finally, there is a difference between having both offers in front of you and considering applying for one or both positions. If you are only at the stage of considering applying for positions, you essentially have neither a second Post Doc nor a Lecturer position. Depending on your confidence in getting these positions, it is often helpful to apply for more things to ensure that you will have at least one good option at the end of the process.
You are in the classic position where you are looking at the differences between a lower-level position at a more prestigious university, or a higher-level position at a less prestigious university. I was once in the position of considering a choice like this, and I asked a senior professor in my field for his advice on whether a move would be considered to be up or down --- "It's a move sideways" was his reply. I think that is how many people look at this kind of thing --- the higher prestige of the institution roughly balances the lower level of the appointment.
The pros and cons of these two options are too numerous to list, but a few basics stand out. You already have experience as a post-doc, so there may be diminishing marginal returns to taking another position of this kind, even at a prestigious university. Contrarily, with a tenure-track appointment as a lecturer you will have all the advantages of a higher-level position in terms of gaining experience that will develop your academic skills. Such a position would usually have a teaching component where you would probably be expected to run a full university course, so you would get some good teaching experience. As a general rule, it is a good idea to "stretch" yourself with new demands to develop new skills.
Ultimately, either of these could be successful if you make the most of it, and much depends on what you are able to achieve in terms of output in either position. You may rest content in the knowledge that there is probably no wrong choice here, since either position can give you a pathway to career success.
Yes, Oxford is a pretty prestigious place. It has a pretty good historical record. But what will make or break your career is what you are actually able to accomplish if you take such a position.
Harvard University in the US is also pretty well known to be a good university, in some circles, anyway. But there are plenty of people who go there who turn out to have (and share) idiotic ideas. Some of them cause great damage.
You can succeed or fail, but it is what you do, not where you do it, that matters.
"...not where you do it, that matters' -> it certainly helps to do it at Harvard. The good and bad get amplified many folds.
@VitaminE, only if you do it well. There is an old saying that there is nothing more dangerous than a 'C' student from Yale.
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98274 | How are some academics able to publish so many papers per year (e.g., 50+ papers per year)?
Background: I understand that academics have different styles of working, but in the same field, I would have thought that the outputs of senior academics should be comparable (and according to their extra responsibilities).
For example, the Editor-in-Chief of Nano Energy (impact factor 12.343) is the director of a research center. Until now in 2017, he has published 69 papers in high-impact journals (all with impact factors higher than 10). Many distinguished professors in the same field publish about 20 papers per year (in a wider range of journals) without executive or editorial responsibilities.
Note that my question is not about this specific person as there are many examples of academics who are publishing far more than is typical for the field.
Questions
How is an academic able to publish so many papers in a given year (e.g., 50+)?
Does this imply the academic is a genius? Or are there other factors at play?
Please don’t write answers in comments. It bypasses our quality measures by not having voting (both up and down) available on comments, as well as having other problems detailed on meta. Comments are for clarifying and improving the question; please don’t use them for other purposes.
If you look at big names in science, you'll see their name at the end of a ton of papers (in many disciplines like chemistry and biology, standards can be different elsewhere) and this is why: providing the money and the lab space gives "senior authorship". Usually they review the drafts coming out of their labs/collaborations, along with guiding students/postdocs at the idea stages (which is considered worthy of authorship by NIH/NSF and journal standards). People with big labs get to put their name on the end of every paper generated from not only their lab, but from their lab's collaborations and whatever their grants funded.
Of course, some people are just crazy productive, but it's more likely that someone with tons of papers is getting a lot of them through their large labs.
Is this practice ethically OK? Shouldn't a person who doesn't contribute to the research but merely provides the facilities, be mentioned in the acknowledgments section? For instance, why isn't the Director of my institute a co-author in my papers? Because, while he/she can, in some way, be linked to the process via my lab got put in place, he/she didn't contribute to the research that we did using those facilities. How is this case any different from the one that you mention in your answer (v1).
The NIH and other funding agencies, along with journals, have authorship rules. Usually for authorship someone has to contribute some idea to the paper, or at least attempt. A PI at least reads over every paper by each PhD student and postdoc, and presumably has some input in it, and that alone is enough for authorship. The PI, when directly funding the research, usually follows your progress and gives some guidance, and this is considered authorship worthy.
Distribution of Productivity is Non-normal
In many industries and fields, metrics of success often follow something like a power distribution. Examples include incomes of sports professionals, sales of writers and musicians, publication output and citation counts of academics (see some of the work by Aguinis and colleagues on star performers).
Causes
Success leads to more resources: In general, the world rewards the best and most capable in a field. This occurs though giving more exposure in high impact journals and so on. It also occurs where success leads to more resources (e.g., grant money; collaborators willing to put you on a paper; better collaborators; better PhD students; more time to do research; etc.).
Ability is non-linearly related to productivity: In addition, writing journal articles for high impact journals takes substantial expertise. There are many academics who never publish in high impact journals, presumably because their research skills, available data, or whatever are just not at that level. In contrast, other researchers are able to consistently produce output at that level. I'd also note that this is not a fixed characteristic. People do learn and improve. But ultimately, high level skills and persistence are required to consistently publish in top-tier journals.
Publication Metrics
In general, whenever you compare the publication of one academic to another, there are a number of things to consider:
Quality of publications: The impact factor is a crude approximation in first instance but average impact factor becomes more informative when average over an academics portfolio of publications.
Field-specific performance norms: Some fields publish more or less, and related to the next points, some fields have more co-authors per paper, which makes it easier to get many papers.
Number of co-authors per paper: Some authors publish with few co-authors; some publish with many. A fairer comparison will often be obtained by dividing each publication by number of co-authors, and summing this fractionated total.
Weighting by contribution to paper: In general, with more co-authors, any one person's contribution is less. In many fields, the first author makes the main contribution. Thus, one quick way of fractionating, is to get a count of number of first author papers only. Thus, if someone is the head of a big group, which get their name on many things, this often won't transfer to first author papers.
Types of prolific authors
In my experience in psychology, I have seen various strategies for prolific publishing (e.g., 30, 40, 50 or more papers per year):
The many mid-tier papers strategy: There are some academics in psychology who pursue a strategy of publishing a large number of papers in mid-tier journals. These journals often have an okay impact factor. They might be Q2 or low Q1 on Scimago. Often these articles are a bit more incremental. The journals do have standards, but they are often relatively quick to publish in. In some cases, such authors frequently publish in a small number of journals that seem to like their fast-style. Such authors also often join the editorial board. In general, I find these academics are often fairly capable, but perhaps lack the depth of insight to publish at top-tier journals.
Big group strategy: Another common strategy is to be part of a big research group. Often it is the head of such group that gets on a lot of papers. But it's also possible for methodologists to get on a large number of papers. And more generally, you can often find groups of academics at institutions who work together. Most papers have many authors (e.g., 10 to 20 authors). In even more extreme cases, you can see some mega-collaborations (well known in physics, but occurring in other spaces) that span multiple institutions.
Aguinis, H., & O'Boyle, E. (2014). Star performers in twenty‐first century organizations. Personnel Psychology, 67(2), 313-350.
http://www.hermanaguinis.com/PPsych2014.pdf
This community wiki answer was created from answers-in-comments.
The other answers explain mechanisms by which "normal" academics can have very high paper counts. But there are also some (very unusual) instances of people who are just insanely productive (and not just putting their names on papers where their proteges do all the work). For instance, Saharon Shelah; another example is Leonhard Euler, who wrote over 800 (singly authored!) papers. To put it in better perspective: "The historian of science Clifford Truesdell has estimated that in a listing of all of the mathematics, physics, mechanics, astronomy, and navigation work produced during the 18th Century, a full 25% would have been written by Leonhard Euler." Truly mindboggling.
According to my long experience in academic research, it is possible that you can accumulate a large number of papers at the end of the year by including your name on every paper, whether you have a genuine contribution or not, where the latter is the dominant tendency in academia. I’ve been in China for more than 10 years and I have seen tons of cases for fake Chinese professors who spend the whole year sending emails and begging other people (students, postdoc, ... etc) to include their names on papers even without having a quick look at the papers... This is, of course, a nonethical approach to science... In China this is quite common everywhere where most academic people don’t care about ethics.... the most important thing is the number of papers... Look at any conference (e.g., IEEE proceeding) and see how many papers coming from China... You will get amazed at the first glance but wait ... mostly useless and rubbish papers..... Moreover, Networking and Connection are important in that direction where many Chinese academic people manage to publish their papers in peer-reviewed journals through connections with editors and chief-in-editors where they are in most cases Chinese... I know many cases where reviewers directly keep in touch with authors, promising them to give positive feedback (no matter the solidity of work) on their submitted papers which is, in turn, will be beneficial for both... mutual benefit between comrades... This is the truth about academic life nowadays... On the other hand, exceptional cases are there everywhere (genuine researchers).
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90212 | Can offers to international students be rescinded if grades received following the application slightly lower their GPA?
I am an international student who has been accepted into mathematics department at UCLA.
In my application for the last semester I gave my grade point average as 9.5/10. I was taking two courses and was hoping that I would get a 10 and a 9, making the average 9.5.
But unfortunately the grades in both the courses slipped up to a 9 and a 8 , making the average 8.5/10.
I haven't informed them of this, and I was hoping that it wouldn't matter. I am going to get my visa next week, and I am really paranoid that my admission may get rescinded.
What do you guys think ?
It's not clear to me (not being familiar with the US system) what level your acceptance is at. Undergraduate or postgrad? If it's undergrad, I'm afraid that makes it off-topic on this site.
You should probably inform them. The longer you wait, the worse the consequences are going to be. IMO, the offer is unlikely to be rescinded, but if it is and they find out it later, it will reflect very badly on you. Also, are you prepared to spend 5 years being paranoid that someone somehow finds out your grade?
@OlgaK this is wrong advice. You only need to send in the grades you get after you apply if your offer letter (or other relevant document) explicitly says it is required.
I'm a little confused - shouldn't your GPA involve more than just your final semester of courses? If you got a 1 pt lower grade on just those two courses, that wouldn't have nearly as big of an influence on your overall GPA.
@OlgaK I think the idea that you would need to be paranoid about this after starting the program is ridiculous. Who would care? Once the OP is established in the program, no one will give the least thought to his/her undergraduate grades.
@BenWebster I didn't say OP would "need" to be paranoid. I doubt polling on stack exchange will relieve his current paranoia completely. Only the school can do that.
@OlgaK You said "The longer you wait, the worse the consequences are going to be." If that's not arguing for the need to be paranoid, what is? This is totally wrong; one the OP starts the program, no one will care in the least was his/her undergraduate grades were for better or worse.
@BenWebster you are right, I should have phrased it differently.
As someone with some experience on the other end of math graduate admissions, let me preface this by saying I really doubt that anyone cares; a program like UCLA looks at a lot more than grades (especially for foreign students). At this point it would be really disruptive for them to drop a student from the program (it's not like there are other students of the same caliber waiting around to be admitted), so they are not looking for reasons to do so. This is probably hard to imagine after many years of people telling your grades are the most important thing, but for math grad school, they are really actually not. They are a proxy for the ability to do good research in math, and the people running the program know they are a bad proxy and take them with a grain of salt.
So, the important thing to do here is calm down. Imagine this from the perspective of the department; all the people making these decisions have a lot of other things to worry about, you are one of many grad students they admitted this year, and these grades are a very small part of why. Your grades are not something they want to expend energy paying attention to. Even if your offer is conditional, I think this condition would only be used in really dramatic cases; I've never heard of this happening.
Look carefully at your offer letter. Either it will say the offer is contingent on your grades this semester, or it won't. (Incidentally, this info should have been in your post; answering questions well on this site is hard enough without people withholding obviously important information). If it doesn't, and they haven't asked about your grades, then drop the subject from your mind and never speak of it again. If it does, I would probably still not do anything unless they ask. If they really want that information they'll ask for it. If they ask, just write back saying "I got an 8/10 in X and 9/10 in Y. Looking forward to meeting you in August." Don't try to explain why your grades are not what you expected. Just act as if everything is normal, and I'm sure things will be fine.
The offer (which you have accepted) itself cannot be reasonably rescinded. However, the offer should clearly spell out whether it was conditional (to you obtaining certain minimum marks) or not. If it was conditional, then obviously failing to obtain the marks required (which may be lower than what you told them) implies that you have not secured a place.
If the offer contained a vague condition (such as obtaining good marks), then you should inform them about your actual marks as soon as possible and ask for clarification.
One problem with international students is that the marks cannot be easily compared to those of home students or students from other countries, simply because the teaching and grading systems vary.
Having said all that, 8.5/10 is still a very good mark (in most grading systems) and you should not worry too much at this moment, but don't delay clarifying your position.
I am not sure this really answers the question. My impression is that it's common for US grad school admissions to be conditional on maintaining good grades, without explicitly stating a required minimum; it would be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. So reading the offer won't resolve the OP's question. Personally I don't think OP's situation would be likely to lead to rescission, but I am not the one making the decision.
@NateEldredge Well, the offer should state the condition, even if vague. The answer is still correct: the offer as such cannot be rescinded, but may have a, possibly vague, condition.
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15947 | When is it appropriate for a PhD student to discuss personal problems affecting his productivity with his advisor?
I had a very difficult personal problem. My head was not in the right place, and outside of getting through my administrative duties, my brain just couldn't function the right way to run wet lab experiments and come up with good research ideas. As a result, I did not work as much as I should have, and when I did I was all over the place. I concealed my emotional pain pretty well, and put up a good face while in the office/lab, so no one suspected personal problems, but my work definitely suffered. My parent's illness looks to be getting better now and after some counseling I feel like my life is back on track.
However, I feel like it is possible that my advisor's opinion of me has greatly declined due to my lack of productivity in the past. Would telling your advisor about personal problems, after they are over, with the intent of the advisor understanding a lack of productivity be appropriate? Would doing so just sound like excuses and make things worse? I assume it would have probably been better if I had mentioned it back when I was going through the problems, but is it a good idea to mention it now, or just cut my losses, work hard and hope he forgets about those unproductive years.
So my question is. When is it appropriate to bring up personal problems with an advisor? In this case and in general?
I have faced the same problem... and it has its cummulative effects on me... plus my guide is on a stricter side and I am just not able to get rid of the effects...
If your advisor's going to have a declining opinion of your productivity, then it's probably better that they know your current personal situation is extremely stressful rather than letting them assume that you suddenly became lazy.
MHH, let us know how you handled the situation :D
Basically did as you suggested, the conversation appeared awkward on both ends but I think overall it was a net positive. He said "that you for letting me know" and agreed I should have told him sooner.
@EdgarSalazar Here's a follow up from 6 years later. I'm now in a tenure track position at a pretty darn good university. I would have never guessed I'd end up doing as well as I am today. I feel incredibly lucky, but it just goes to show, it is never too late, and we all go through bad spells. Thanks for all of the support.
@WetlabStudent this is incredible. Keep doing what you want and you will go pretty much as far as possible.
As soon as possible. Problems are made to be transcended, not pushed over time. You already said your adviser is a cool guy, right? Go ahead and talk with him, say the truth.
It's a long said term, even cliche sometimes, but the first step to change is recognizing that you have a problem. You already recognized you have it, so now it's time to fix it. Don't be afraid of what he'll think about you, what really matters is that it's true. If he can't understand your situation, then he doesn't really know how to be a adviser.
Also, you're a student, you're there to learn. Better learn now where you can be mistaken with no serious consequences, then out there, where your problem can really damage you financially and/or much more emotionally, since people don't know how to handle with other people's problems, or know and just don't care.
Well look at it from the point of view of an academic, most of understand that students have problems in their lives outside the lab which can affect their performance in the lab.
The student has a choice.
Fix their problem themselves, if they can do this then fine all is sorted.
Seek help from someone / somewhere such as student health services and then fix their problem there nice and quick, maybe even their supervisor might not notice.
Ask their supervisor for help (or tell them about the problem). Their supervisor may be able to help them, they might not be able to help directly but will point you in the right direction or they might be no help.
Fail to fix problem and then your work will take a nose dive, you may appear to the supervisor as a lazy toad if you disappear from the workplace and do not tell them that you are ill or have a problem.
Now consider the following,
My student has not appeared in the department for two weeks, none of the rest of the group have any idea of where they are. What do I start thinking (hint "lazy toad").
Student has not appeared in the lab for three days, on day three I get a email explaining that they are very ill. They are laid up in hospital and will not be back for over a week. What do I start thinking (hint "Oh dear, my student is ill")
Student comes to me and tells me my child is sick or my dad has just died. Unless I am a totally evil toad, I will give the student some time off and try to help as much as I can.
My advice is to try to establish and maintain a honest and open relationship with your PhD supervisor. They are not the evil toad enemy ! There are somethings you might not feel happy talking about with your supervisor, somethings might not be suitable topics of discussion with your supervisor.
Rather than telling your supervisor that you have embrassing problems like relationship problems (like your partner has just run off with your best friend). You can tell them "I have a serious problem in my life, I will need two weeks to deal with it". While it is not going to be music to the supervisors ears it is better than just vanishing off the face of the earth for two weeks.
Try to communicate with your Phd supervisor and explain the situation. It might be that they might have useful advice and be also able ot help you adjust to the situation and become productive again- some supervisors are really great in also taking care of PhDs issues and nurturing them to fruition, so try to speak to them as soon as possible. This will also help establish a more direct relationship when you might need more emotional support if the issues continue.
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35326 | How should one interpret a requirement that a proposal in pure math be "jargon-free?"
I'm applying for a fellowship wherein they ask for a long proposal about what I'm working on (a PhD thesis in pure math). Then they advise me that some of those evaluating me will be from non-math departments, so the proposal "should be jargon-free."
Right off the bat I guess [PSL2(Od):Γ] < ∞ is out of the question... I could explain what a manifold is to a mixed audience, but I think they'd need to do some homework before they followed what it might have to do with finite index subgroups of Bianchi groups (or whatever topic you might be studying). Without the "jargon" I feel like my whole language for it is gone. Afterall the reason we have so many definitions is because each one refers to a distinctly defined thing that we previously had no name for!
I can see that I could take a more historical, conceptual perspective, but I'd still be dancing around what I'm actually doing. It's especially hard to summarize something that is not even fully developed. I think that for people who don't study math, the only reference point is science applications, but those don't really exist here because then it would be applied math and not pure math.
I'm coming up short looking for anyone addressing this online. There are multidisciplinary tips about writing proposals, but I think the accessibility problem is at its biggest with pure math.
You might find this recent blog post interesting or semi-relevant: https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2014/12/can_one_explain_schemes_to_a_b.html
Insist your proposal will promote synergy? No, wait...
It's a shame that this question was migrated so that the OP may not see the comments. I would be interested to know what the fellowship actually is. This helps to figure out who is reading it, which seems at least very helpful and perhaps necessary in properly calibrating the level of technicality.
I'm a little annoyed that this couldn't stay on Mathoverflow. Before deciding to post it I had noticed for instance these:
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/39242/broader-impacts-and-synergistic-activities
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/39168/are-there-examples-of-successful-nsf-mathematics-proposals-available-anywhere
To answer @PeteL.Clark it's a dissertation fellowship, meant to provide support to PhD candidates so they can devote more time to their research/writing, as opposed to taking on an oppressive amount of teaching responsibilities. So the applicants are not established mathematicians, they are doctoral students in the final stages of their degree.
I didn't get the fellowship. I didn't get any feedback on what I wrote either, the only justification given being that there were a lot of applicants which made their decision difficult.
Jargon free is simply describing something with out the usage of 'lingo' or other styles that are not based in the discipline, but are found in a more relaxed non formal discussion. it is to avoid confusion and enhance clarity.
@SkipBerne Using terminology associated to more informal discussion is definitely not the problem here. If I wrote the document in rigorous mathematics, there would not be any point of even showing it to non-math faculty.
What I did in that position:
Explain some "motivation", even if it is far-fetched, from physics, economics, computer science ... for the general field of study.
Try to paint some geometric picture of some (very simplified) version of your field.
Make sure you stress that there are unsolved questions and that the solution would contribute to a general picture.
Give some "hard" mathematical details at the end, coming with some disclaimer, to convince any mathematicians on the committee.
Generally, I would try to give an overview of the general aim and direction of the field and stress that there are "important problems in it".
I think this speaks the most to my concerns. If you don't mind my asking, did you have success with the strategy you suggest?
I tried twice and won once.
I think that the key idea here is that they want to know why you are doing what you are doing more than what you are doing.
Let's say you're diligently working towards establishing an isomorphism between soliton elves and the christmas-tree singularity. That's all well and good, but:
There are lots of properties in the world. Why is isomorphism between soliton elves and the christmas-tree singularity an interesting property to try to establish?
Is there a higher-level strategy to your approach than "just do lots of math until the problem is solved"?
Why is the approach that you are taking a good one?
If you establish this property, what are the consequences, and what comes next?
A really good and clearly written proposal should be able to have its logic grasped by pretty much any scientist, whether or not they are capable of judging its originality, plausibility, and significance in detail.
What about the question of why I might be successful? Obviously they don't want to give the money to someone who isn't cut out for the project they proposed, but should I be including anything about how I've prepared myself to study the particular topic? Or is the transcript supposed to take care of that entirely?
@j0equ1nn In general, it is the combination of the CV (showing a track record of success) and the explanation of approach (showing why this is a good bet too) that is used for judging likelihood of success.
I'm adding a different answer based on the advice I got from my adviser, which is the method I ended up going with since after all he is my adviser. If I do end up getting the fellowship I will most likely change my selected answer to this one (though as you'll see the other strategies suggested are actually a part of this one). Here's what he told me:
Mainly, don't worry about the idea of it being accessible to people from other departments. When they say to write it that way and keep it "jargon-free" it really is kind of misleading compared to what they're actually looking for.
The important thing is that it look serious and professional, and writing in a more friendly tone can give the impression that the project is elementary. The evaluators (especially those not from the math department) will pay the most attention to the introductory portion of the proposal, so that is really the place to include the type of content suggested in the other answers. In particular, @J._Fabian_Meier's itemized list would end up with the first 3 items done quickly at the beginning, and the 4th item would take up the remaining majority.
After setting up the general motivation and context in the first couple of pages, go ahead and get into the mathematical details as though writing for a mathematician to read it. The other people on the evaluating committee will be looking for the math representative to confirm that what you are proposing is well considered and properly formulated. Moreover the more complicated and confusing the explanation looks to them the better. After all most people not in the math world gauge mathematical sophistication by their own inability to understand it, so just go ahead and scare them!
I will add though that I think the process of trying to explain my research to a mixed audience was really good for me in developing a broader perspective, even though my adviser had me start over again after that. I think that in the future, even if I don't end up using it (like what happened this time) I might take some time to write an outreach-style exposition of my project first, just to get that farther-reaching view of things.
"...after all most people not in the math world gauge mathematical sophistication by their own inability to understand it, so just go ahead and scare them..." And I get down voted?!?!?
I respect your dissent and that is not a philosophy I live by, but it is a real and very common tactic (though perhaps unspoken). Most of the time I strive to combat people's tendency to respect something just because it's confusing. But if doing the opposite is what it takes to get the fellowship, well you have to choose your battles in this life, and I won't get very far with anything else if I can't get funding.
My only suggestion would be to describe how the work you do could eventually be applied to improve the human condition. I simply don't accept that pure mathematics can't be of benefit to humankind.
By nature, it is unknown how pure mathematics will effect anything other than mathematics. My favorite example would be the fact that the imaginary number (so-named as an insult) was discovered in the 1700s and remained an intellectual curiosity until we found out that it models electricity and aerodynamics. I absolutely believe pure math benefits mankind, and that it's extremely important, but the moment you project to applications is the moment pure math becomes applied math.
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26339 | Is it acceptable to ask a professor who is not your supervisor to provide comments on your thesis draft?
I want my thesis to be the best it possibly can be. My supervisor is away for one month right before my thesis submission. Is it inappropriate or poor etiquette to ask another professor in the field who has shown interest in the topic to read the paper and offer any suggestions? This other professor teaches at a different institution, and will not be part of the panel or defence process.
At my university they had associate supervisors who could help you if the main supervisor was unavailable.
What about the other members of your committee?
Did you ask your current supervisor about this?
I would ask for help from another academic at your institution, but as soon as you circulate your work to anybody external you are at risk of breaking the university's rules on copyright/IP.
If you have an existing relationship with this professor, you could ask, but be prepared to hear "sorry, I don't have time".
If this professor is a stranger to you, this is probably an unreasonable request.
In addition to this, I would first consult my supervisor. I would say that having the thesis read by someone else without the supervisor's knowledge is a bad idea.
I would ask the other professor, but I would phrase it in a way that makes it clear that I'm not expecting them to proofread the entire thesis. Perhaps you could say something like "You expressed an interest in my research, so I wanted to give you a draft of my thesis. Perhaps it might be of interest to you or one of your students. And of course, If you have any comments or suggestions, I'd be glad to hear them." They probably will read it and give you some comments, but they won't feel under pressure to do so.
This strategy might avoid discomfort if the potential reviewer declines, but it also feels vaguely misleading, or at least unnecessarily indirect. Asking for what you want clearly and politely should always be acceptable, and I would suggest the reviewer will be more likely to outright decline as opposed to forgetting or doing a partial job, which is a good thing.
If you phrase it like that, the professor will think he's being offered the opportunity to read it and comment, rather than being requested to read it and comment. Something like "I'm sure you must be really busy but if you had time to read this and give me some feedback before I hand it in on date X, I'd be really grateful" makes it clear that you are asking for something, while still giving the professor the chance to say no.
If the other professor has expressed his interest in reading your thesis and is willing to do it, I don't see why not. It is better to have someone read your work out of interest rather than obligation. But it is also a good idea to let your supervisor know about it.
I depends what that "lack of knowledge" means:
is it an attempt to hide the fact? Then it is fishy
or just "I will not bother my supervisor with this".
I have been on all the sides of this situation.
As a student I did not tell my supervisor that I was showing my thesis to someone else because I knew he would not care to know and would have encouraged me to do so (to get comments, ideas, ...). He was an excellent supervisor: present and active when I needed him and siding away when I was moving full speed ahead, sometimes against his recommendations. When one of these "without his recommendation" ("against" is maybe too strong a word) turned out to be a good idea he wrote himself off the paper I was publishing (he was second author) because he said he was not convinced at the time and that I should get all the praise. I am glad I met him.
I was also asked several times to have a look at a thesis. To be frank I never thought of asking the student whether his supervisor was OK or not with that because I did not think about the possibility of being against (and the associated reason).
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84226 | Paper status changed to “Decision in Process” rapidly after initial submission
I submitted a paper to one of Elsevier’s journals. After a couple of days, its status changed to “with editor”. But now after about ten days from the submission date, it changed to “Decision in Process”. Is there any hope that it will not be rejected?
What makes you think that it would be rejected?
@Peaceful some links mentioned that there are some other status between these two steps. For example please see: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12497/how-much-time-does-each-stage-of-paper-in-elsevier-editorial-system-ees-take
Maybe because "Decision in progess" is described on Elsevier's support website as: "The final Handling Editor in a journal with split decision and author notification tasks has submitted a decision but the Administrative Editor has not yet notified the author". And it seems to be one of the last steps of the process.
You are lucky that the process is quick, only about ten days. You cannot imagine a desk reject after two months!
If there is a decision before it was sent to reviewers, it usually means a desk-rejection. This is not necessarily a bad outcome! It means you won't waste time on a review process that is not likely to be favorable and you can move straight ahead to another journal.
Other more rare outcomes are possible, though: they could issue a "reject and resubmit" if they think the paper would be a good candidate for review after some major changes were made. They could also be inviting you to a special issue etc.
But most likely outcome is desk rejection.
A "resubmit to journal X" is also possible, if editor thinks it fits better. But the most likely outcome is desk rejection.
@ZeroTheHero Anything is possible! I'm sure it depends on the journal. The journals I know have never accepted a regular submission without going through the R&R process.
Any publication where that can happen is a publication not worth publishing in, IMHO. [referring to the editor acting as referee. It's possible all reviewers act really really quickly and agree to accept, but that's extremely unlikely.]
Just "An editor has begun a decision but chosen to save and resume later."
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23658 | If you make changes to paper after initial conference submission, should you present updated version at conference?
I am a PhD student in computer science and have submitted a paper to a conference which details my proposed architecture. However in the month or so since this paper has been submitted my architecture has undergone changes (relatively major), how is this normally dealt with?
If the paper is accepted do I present the work as it was at the time of submission or do I openly state that changes have been made and present the updated version of the architecture?
Can you clarify (because I think I misunderstood initially), are you asking about (1) what to submit in the final camera ready version for the conference proceedings or (2) what to present in your talk at the conference? (1) has been addressed already on this site
I've just noticed this comment, for any future use I was asking for situation (2). The camera ready version was already sent and I was preparing my presentation at the time of asking this question.
I believe you should do what is better to the audience.
In some disciplines/communities it is strongly assumed that conference participants read the abstracts/papers before the presentation, and expect the discussion to follow precisely the material that is published. In this case, of course, you could only comment briefly on the recent changes you've made.
In other fields (such as mine), the abstracts are used only as a means to (roughly) describe the topic of the presentation. It is quite normal to extend the actual talk beyond the scope of the abstract, or reduce the role of some pieces of research advertised in the abstract. In this case, I'd advise you to make a talk that is simply interesting for you and the audience. It can probably include both the original design and your contribution to its recent development. Make sure people in the room understand why the changes were needed, how you have worked them out, and what is the benefits of your new architecture.
In computer science, you have 2 options:
In case your paper is accepted, you can update the paper for the final camera-ready version. If the changes are not too big, this can be a viable possibility and is actually no too uncommon.
If the changes are too major, you can prepare an extended version of the conference paper for submission to a journal.
I agree with @dmitry-savostyanov in that you should do what's best for your audience.
They've come to hear something interesting and if your work changed, then that seems to indicate that information on why and how it changed would be very relevant to their interests.
In CS, conference papers have a different status from conference papers or abstracts in other fields: they're long, they are actually considered publications, they're usually not published before the event, and most people in the audience will not have read them.
So your audience probably won't be surprised to hear something that's not in the paper.
On the other hand, if you really pique their interest, they may read your paper and feel disoriented or disappointed.
I would say report on the best results you have while being clear about what they'll find in the paper.
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83896 | Whether to complete revise and resubmit that requires major changes or submit to lower impact factor journal?
I have just received an email from the editor of a major journal in my field (engineering). He's rejected the paper, but advised me to do some modifications. These are his words:
"..thanks for submitting your paper to "...". While the paper is well written and structured I see several limitations in the assessment of the method. I am rejecting it for now, but it could be reconsidered if the following issues can be addressed:
MAJOR
1.
2.
.
.
MINOR
1.
2.
.
.
..."
Minor items can be done easily. Major items, I believe, are not necessary. Most of relevant articles do not include them.
My question is: should I do these modifications and resubmit the paper to the same journal, or consider submitting the article to another less IF journal to save my time? What are the chances to get published if I did these modifications.
General Issues
Presumably this depends on your perceptions of:
The time and resources required to make the major changes
The probability of acceptance should you make the major changes
The degree to which the paper will be improved by the changes and the value you place on that improvement
The probability of acceptance in another journal were you to not make the changes (or just the minor changes), and how much work any future journal might request from you as part of making changes, and any cost assigned to the delay in publication that this may involve
How much lower impact the alternate journals are (and how much you care about impact factors and rankings)?
General advice
If I get a revise and resubmit from a high ranking journal, I would almost always try to make the changes requested. There is a little bit of luck involved with publishing in good journals. If you go on to submit elsewhere, these other journals may reject, or they may have equally onerous edits. However, once you get a revise and resubmit, if you do a good job of implementing the requested changes, then the editor will typically accept the manuscript. Furthermore, at least in my world, publishing in prestigious high-impact journals has many broader benefits (e.g., increased exposure for your idea, and improved cv which helps for grants, promotions, job security, etc.).
That said, I can think of a few exceptions where I might not make the changes.
The editor says something about liking the broad topic, but is basically requesting a whole new study (e.g., collecting a whole new dataset with a bigger sample, better measures, different design, etc.). In particular, this is often combined by comments suggesting that the editor would be happy to consider such a study: i.e., not really offering a commitment to publish even if such a study was implemented well.
Sometimes, I'm working on a paper that is not my core focus: e.g., perhaps converting a student thesis for publication, or helping out a colleague. The paper might be fine as is. I understand that it could be even better were we to collect whole new datasets or invest substantial time in some other respect. But in such a case, this time and these resources may feel like a distraction from my core program of research.
Ultimately, it's up to you to weigh the issues up. But I would assign a high-value to publishing in high impact journals and taking advantage of the opportunity that you have been given to make revisions.
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60972 | How to reduce negative consequence for the person I plagiarized my assignment from?
Due to some personal reasons, I didn't get to complete my semester end project. So I copied my friend's project and submitted it without major changes (I know I was a fool to do that). Now we are caught and my TA told us that both of our scores will be zero. I have begged the TA to give my friend his score, at least. I don't know what is going to happen. I am obviously going to fail this class, but I don't want my friend to fail it because of me. What should I do?
Did your friend hand you his project under the assumption that you would change large parts of the content? I think this changes the situation and should be brought up in the discussion with your professor as well.
Need way more details , like whether your friend knew you were going to copy his work.
It says the one who plagiarized and the one who helped in such action will get zero in the project and 5% of the scores will be reduced fro the final class score. The language problem wasn't for the rules, but for the whole class itself. I don't know if I should even continue studying here or not.
I don't know if I should even continue studying here or not. — No, you probably shouldn't. By your own admission, you are having serious difficulty understanding a required class—not just in accomplishing the work, but in understanding what is being asked. ("I have no idea about this where this class is going.") This difficulty will not magically go away; you have to address it, either by moving to another institution that teaches in your native language, or by first spending significant time improving your grasp of the local language.
Deleted flagged comments that were just moral judgements. Comments aren't for judging.
@Martijn: that would still be cheating. Picking a text and re-wording it, or picking a program and changing the names of variables or functions is still plagiarizing.
Whether your friend deserves a grade or not depends whether he was a willing accomplice or an innocent victim. If he was a willing accomplice, then probably both of you failing the class is the best thing you can hope for (at least for most US universities, where there are consequences besides failing if the professor or TA chooses to report it). If he was a victim (he did not share his project with you with the intent that you could just copy it), then he certainly merits a grade.
In any case, the proper thing to do is for you to arrange to meet the professor in person, explain the situation, and apologize. If your friend was a knowing accomplice, both you and your friend should go together. Then it is up to the professor.
See also: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/44203/19607
This is a class totally out of y head. Actually I am a foreigner student studying in China. So because of language problems, I have no idea about this where this class is going, but it's a class I must take. So for this project, I asked help from my friend so that I can take his material as a guide. But it was too difficult for me to work with and due to time limit, I just thought of copying it.
Both of us have talked to the TAs. One of them is considering to give him some marks but the other one has not given any decision yet. I am really worried. And I am going to fail this class for sure. I will take this class again next semester but will this have a huge impact on my overall life and career?
@srugglingmate Unless the professor is really hands off, the professor should make the final decision. (I would never let my TAs make these kinds of decisions.) Most professors, I think, are pretty understanding for a single cheating offense, particularly if the cheater confesses and seems genuinely sorry. Stress has made most people, including professors, do one thing or another in their life they later regret. So, I can't guarantee it, but I think your situation is one in which most professors would give you a 0, but take no further disciplinary actions.
@srugglingmate You need to check your school policies to be sure, but even if your professor reports it to the university, for a single offense, you will probably just have to have some unpleasant conversations and get a warning (in addition to failing the class). It's students who have a history of cheating that need to be dealt with more seriously.
Accept full responsibility. Ensure the professor is aware that no other parties aided or were aware of your actions.
@srugglingmate - What Kimball said. How this impacts upon anyone's marks is up to the professor, not the TA's (in any academic context I've ever experienced, at least). You and your friend should take the matter to the professor, and they should hand down a decision that both/all of the TA's will follow.
The only thing you could really do is go talk to the professor and confess.
As far as your friend's grade goes, that is up to the professor. If you stole your friend's work then he certainly shouldn't be affected. If he was just helping you (which it doesn't sound like) then the professor might also take that into account.
You should expect to get a zero but I have seen a situation where the professor gave the student another chance (e.g., extended the deadline and allowed the student to redo the assignment) and didn't penalize the person who originally did the work.
Of course, you shouldn't expect any of these favorable outcomes since you admitted you are in the wrong but it is still good to always talk things through.
You don't give us enough info about your friend's role in it.
If he knew/helped/whatever and didn't stop it then he will get (and deserves) the zero right along with you.
If not then he may still get the zero, though he doesn't fully deserve it, and that would basically put you on the "worst friends ever" list for doing that behind his back.
If the friend didn't know you were doing it then you need to be not only confessing that you cheated, but also confessing that you stole it from him without his knowledge or consent and making sure they know he was totally innocent all around. Then and only then is there a shot of him not getting a zero.
Your friend isn't failing because of you; they are failing because they committed a serious breach of academic ethics in giving you their assignment to copy or even to use as a guide. By acting as your accomplice they are as much a party to your cheating as you are and, as such, they do not deserve any marks.
You and your friend can do little but beg for leniency this time. In future, do not put your friends in the position of choosing between acting ethically and helping you out by cheating.
I think this is going to affect our friendship greatly, I don't even have guts to face him now. Moreover I am going to fail this course. I am so much depressed about it. But I will make sure that i will never in my life commit such misconduct.
but I don't want my friend to fail it because of me
Glad to see you repent your action. If you are looking for a safe play, I can assure you there is none if your TA is sincere in their words. The ideal thing to do is to
Submit the case before a competent authority (your professor in this case) and be truthful to the investigation.
If the premise is correct in the question, your friend will be granted with the grade he deserves. Bear in mind that there will be consequences for you, severity of which depends on the particular country or the university and your professor.
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85584 | How to obtain a copy of my own article from an APS (American Physical Society) journal?
I recently published an article in one of the journals of the American Physical Society (APS). Our university library does not have a subscription to this particular journal, so I don't have access to the published version of the article.
On the other hand, APS allows to share the published version of the paper with colleagues and even to put it on the university website (see FAQ at APS, also this question).
In the past, other journals have provided me with an (electronic) copy of my article after publication, which I'm not allowed to share. However, it seems that APS won't give me automatic access to my paper. At least I haven't found any option on the authors page and no email was sent to me.
Is there a way to obtain a (electronic) copy of my article from APS?
I know that I could buy the article, either through the library service or our own group budget. But it feels kind of strange to buy one's own paper back from the publisher.
I could also ask someone from another university who does have access to it to send me a copy.
But is there an official way to obtain the paper?
Have you tried contacting APS?
@ dimpol I haven't contacted APS yet, since I was first curious what my options are.
Don’t they send you the article anyway or allow you to download it via their submission system?
@Wrzlprmft Well, no. Otherwise I wouldn't be asking this question. Have made an edit, to make that clearer.
Not that I know of, though I'm sure that the editor would send it to you if you asked. In this case, I'd feel pretty dang justified in using #icanhazpdf or scihub.
@AJK in the present, scihub does not work anymore for APS journals, and the journal does not offer published version of the paper to the author. Perhaps the best option would be to ask a friend with a subscription.
You could ask the journal editor directly to send a copy of your publication. I will help to clearly summarise your situation. This will be something they encounter on a regular basis and if the editor replies with a strict "no", you can still ask a colleague for the download. It is your work, so the editor will likely be understanding. Hope this helps!
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34737 | What are the potential ramifications of a student intentionally deanonymizing his/her class evaluation?
Presumably, evaluations are anonymized to protect the students from possible retaliation by the instructor or institution.
Is there anything in the reverse direction (keeping that information hidden is beneficial to the instructor)?
What are potential consequences if a student chooses to place identifying information (e.g. knowledge of a particular conversation) onto an evaluation?
The exact situation is that one of my friends was considering discussing a very long conversation she'd had with the professor on the class evaluation, and how it exemplified issues she'd had with the class. She's taking a class with that professor next semester, which is a big issue for the student. That issue aside, I'm wondering if there would be good reaons to avoid this even if she would never take another class with this instructor.
..."if a student chooses to place identifying information onto an evaluation?". That is plain stupid. There is a good reason these evaluations are anonymous and there should stay that way.
I would say, instead, that evaluations are anonymous to allow students to respond honestly. This prevents not just "retaliation" at specific students but "rewards" as well (i.e., professors cannot give bonus points for good evaluations).
She's taking a class with that professor next semester (a big potential issue) — Unless I'm missing something, this still seems like an "issue" for the student, not the instructor.
@MadJack Yes, I advised her against doing that for that reason. I was wondering if there were any other reasons to avoid it, either for the student or for the instructor. Thanks for pointing that out, will update question to clarify.
The only ramnifications I can think of is that whoever handles, edits or publishes that class evaluation may recognise the deanonymisation, consider it accidental and thus decides not to pass it for that reason.
As you can always pass deanonymised criticism to an instructor, be it by mail or by putting it on public display, there seems little point to me to protect the instructor from it on this particular medium.
Something else you might consider though is that even if the professor does not want to retaliate that criticism, they will have more difficulties to fairly evaluate the critic, which may have effects in either direction. While this is some annoyance you could spare the professor, it would also happen with non-anonymous critique made in other ways.
Also note that in some systems, written comments are rewritten/summarized as part of the data collection process so what reaches the professor may be anonymous no matter what you do.
I think OP is referring to the conversation references as being something the professor would recognize, and thus conclude that the author was the only other participant in that conversation. This might not be evident to any third-party reader.
On the flipside, I was going to write a very nice teaching evaluation about my advisor. Part of the reason I respect him so much as a teacher is because I've had conversations with him that reveal that he cares deeply about his teaching and puts a huge amount of effort into his class.
But I didn't write any of those details in my evaluation, because I didn't want him thinking I was sucking up to him, and I thought it would mean more to him if it came from a student who was not his. So I just gave him good numeric scores and a few comments that could have come from any student.
When you are ready to graduate, send a note to the dean. that cannot be interpreted as suck-uppage (because graduating) and may help the professor.
In general, class evaluations correlate pretty strongly with the grade the student received in the class, so evaluations aren't given much weight by the department, and most faculty are not likely to change the course based on them.
Given your specific situation, where the student will be taking another class, it would probably be best not to out yourself on a negative evaluation. He is not likely to change is teaching style (the good outcome), but if the professor is vindictive, it may make the next class more difficult for your friend. I don't see anything positive coming from outing herself, but I could see a potential for abuse from the prof.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that evals correlate strongly with the grade, but I am still skeptical. Do you have a source for that?
You can google it, but Duke did a fairly interesting study on the correlation (https://stat.duke.edu/~dalene/chance/chanceweb/153.johnson.pdf). As usual, its not cut-and-dry, and spends quite a bit of time pouring over the data.
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154016 | How to deal with this rejection email from the journal Mathematics of Computation?
I am an undergraduate student, and i had submitted a paper manuscript to Mathematics of Computation, I choose this journal because of my supervisor, who advised me to submit my paper to this journal, but 2 weaks after the submission I received the following email.
Dear Professor XXX,
This message concerns the manuscript
XXXX by XXX
submitted to Mathematics of Computation.
We regret that we cannot consider it, in part because at present we have a large backlog of excellent articles awaiting publication. We are thus forced to return articles that might otherwise be considered. Thank you for considering Mathematics of Computation.
Sincerely,
XXXX Managing Editor, Mathematics of Computation
--- Sent via EditFlow by XXXX [email protected] }}
So, how to deal with this situation ?
Are there any positives/negatives that can be taken ?
Should I submit the paper to another journal? Or just submit it to the same journal at a later time?
Note that I informed the editors and the referees that I am an undergraduate student.
That letter contains almost no information other than the rejection.
Note that I informed the editors and the referees that I am an undergraduate student. Why? If you were expecting to be treated differently than anyone else submitting papers to the journal, that’s not how it works.
@DanRomik actually, this is what I expected
@AnonymousPhysicist this is the only message I received
In your next submission, I wouldn't mention your status as an undergraduate student. There's no need for it or benefit to it, and there's at least a chance that they might take the submission less seriously.
@DanRomik Would mentioning the undergrad status be acceptable in the frame of being referred to with the proper title ("Mr."/"Mrs." instead of "Professor")?
@AlexandreAubrey I didn’t say it’s not acceptable to mention. It’s just not a good idea, and to do it with the expectation that it would help in some way suggests a misguided understanding of how journals operate.
"My supervisor advised me to submit my paper to this journal" - what did they say about the rejection email?
It's very hard to give you advice without knowing whether your paper was brilliant or hopeless or somewhere in between. Or perhaps it was brilliant technically but written in very poor English. You should really be seeking advice from someone who has access to the paper and can give you their own assessment of whether it meets the required standard.
It is just a nice way to say no. Submit elsewhere.
This is called a desk reject; you will find more in this question What does the typical workflow of a journal look like? .
Note that Math Comp is one of the top journals in its field, so unless the paper was extremely good this was the expected outcome.
Considering the pandemic, reviewer shortages could be an additional factor.
@AnonymousPhysicist Why is the pandemic causing reviewer shortages?
@FedericoPoloni thank you sir, actually I have another question, what do you think about submitting my paper to arxiv, and then trying to submit it to a peer-reviewed journal ?
@عبدالرحمنرمزيمحمود It seems a good idea to me. That is a common approach in mathematics and physics. You can read more about Arxiv by searching in this site.
To complement what @FedericoPoloni said, uploading your paper to arXiv may also be a bad idea. It really depends on the contents of your preprint. If the paper might be incorrect or of very low quality or contains results that have been known for a long time, do not upload it.
This answer could be made more explicit about interpreting the one seemingly substantive part of the letter: "at present we have a large backlog of excellent articles awaiting publication". You seem to be saying that its surface meaning (that this backlog is a meaningful factor in the rejection, and is a contingent and temporary circumstance) should be disregarded, that it is empty verbiage to soften the true message "the paper is not suitable for this journal". But it can happen that a journal...
...develops an actual backlog due to receiving and accepting an unusual burst of good papers that will take a long time to publish due to finite capacity, and therefore becomes more selective than usual while it works through the backlog. An author whose rejection is truly for this reason shouldn't assume that their paper falls short of the typical standards of that type of journal. The answer would be better if it addressed this head-on -- e.g., if you know that these desk rejects routinely mention a "backlog" year-in, year-out, and it truly means nothing.
@عبدالرحمنرمزيمحمود I'm sorry if this comes off as bristly, but if you don't know which to which journal you should submit your work, you may want to reconsider whether you should be submitting the work to a journal at this time and whether there is more literature review needed on your part. Further, since you are undergraduate, I highly recommend seeking out an advisor who is familiar with your work that can help to answer the questions you are asking here.
@nanoman you’re overthinking the issue. There’s nothing to address, the rejection looks like boilerplate and gives no useful information to OP, either negative or positive, about the quality of their submission. As Federico said, it is just a nice way of saying no.
@DanRomik Sure, I'm overthinking it, but so is OP -- I'm pretty sure OP's idea "submit it to the same journal at a later time" was derived from the idea that there may be a genuine, temporary backlog per the plain words of the letter. So explaining this explicitly ("I know it sounds like it means they would consider your paper at another more 'normal' time, but it actually doesn't mean that") would help OP and others in a similar position.
@Chester OP writes that they took the advice of their supervisor for the journal. That is the correct thing to do, in my view.
@Chester: I’d strongly disagree — one can do plenty of relevant literature review, and still be very unsure where to submit. Different people find and retain information in different ways; and at least for me, when I’m focusing on the content of papers while lit-searching, their journal metadata goes in one ear and out the other. Additionally, a lot of relevant factors about a journal are very difficult to infer just from its contents — for an outsider or a newcomer to a field, without insider connections, it can be very difficult indeed.
@nanoman: Given that Federico doesn't seem interested in extending their answer (which is, of course, their choice and perfectly OK), perhaps you should post your own. It seems a shame for your explanation to stay hidden here in the comments.
It's totally normal to get a first paper rejected, especially if you are dealing with a top notch journal (receiving lots of submissions) in a time of reviewer shortages. Don't take it personally or feel bad about it.
I would encourage you to submit your article to another journal. You can research potential journals by looking at what journals your citations were published in as well as looking at lists of journal rankings (e.g. SJR, list of these ranking websites). Note: don't get too hung up on exact rankings - think of these lists more as a tool where you can search journals by keyword and try to get an understanding of who has a history of being being a reputable journal versus who is a potential scam. Come up with a list of a few suggestions, and then go talk your ideas over with your supervisor. They may have other suggestions too, but it's good to start learning about how to pick a journal.
@Roland I was referring to the phrasing in the Journal's response in the OP's original question. Yes, excellent point that there are never enough reviewers available.
Don't think counter-logically! The fact that there are never enough reviewers available does not counter, but only strengthens the conclusion that, this is a time of reviewer shortage.
Even if the backlog answer was true, it could take many months to clear it out. I would submit to another journal.
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154375 | Is it common for a mathematics Master's student to have no publications?
As the title suggests, I am a Master's student with no publications. I will apply for a PhD in the USA next year so I am a bit worried that most applicants with a Master's degree have a publication. Is this (no publications in Master's) common within mathematics?
Is your masters outside the US, or within?
@Buffy outside US
What area of math? Also, most people applying to math PhDs in the US that did their bachelors in the US will not have a masters degree.
Your country? In mine, the majority of students do a master studies direct after the bachelor studies. Almost none has a paper.
@BryanKrause My area is pure math and mathematical physics
@user111388 I am in Germany. But I receive Bachelor in Asia
@Ken.Wong: Definitely not normal for German master students to have publications (before/after the end of master study)
I have a masters degree and zero publications. I do not feel inadequate.
I don't think it's been mentioned yet, but it's probably less likely for master's students in math to have published papers than in other fields (such as biology). Doing an original research project is more accessible/realistic for master's students, or even advanced undergraduates, in more empirically based fields.
Are you asking about people who already have a Master's degree or people who are currently studying to earn a Master's degree? Your question seems to conflate the two back and forth.
Getting a paper published from first submission to camera-ready final accepted version in print, can take longer than a Masters degree.
@TylerH I don't know the rules of publication, so my question refers to both
I cannot speak for the whole world, but for a master student in Europe, it would be exceptional to have a published paper already. A preprint is perhaps not completely unheard of but still extremely uncommon.
Some people publish their thesis as a paper, most the time short before or after finishing the thesis itself. But this is still an exception and nothing that's expected from a student.
@allo: ... if there is something to publish from the master thesis. Usually this is a formality with pretty much useless content.
What does "exceptional"/"extremely uncommon" mean? I would say that this applies to at least 10% of students (but certainly a clear minority).
I would also add that publishing a paper these days takes a lot of time. I am in a different field, but am still in the process of publishing papers from my PhD, which I finished over a year ago. Where Masters students already have a publication, it is most often a (relatively) small contribution to a larger project that was already in its late stages.
Don't worry about it. Having a publication on entry to a (US) Ph.D. is unusual (though not unheard of), regardless of whether you're coming in with a master's or a bachelor's degree. In fact, in most subfields of mathematics, most of those completing a Ph.D. will not yet have a paper submitted, much less accepted or published (though many will have turned all or part of their thesis into a preprint by then.)
That being said, for admission to a competitive Ph.D. program, it is very helpful to show some evidence of excellence in mathematics beyond coursework. A publication/preprint is one way to do that; good competition results in math contests another; great reference from a professor a third, etc. etc. So figure out what is your excellence calling card.
Good luck!
In the US, there are diffent kinds of masters degrees. Some are mostly course based and some have a research component. Of those, not all will require formal publication outside the university. This guides the decisions of those on admissions committees for doctoral programs.
Having a publication in a good journal is a strong plus, but lacking one isn't necessarily a strong minus. At the top schools it would be likely to count for more than otherwise, but still, not likely to be essential.
I suspect that for students applying it is not especially common to already have publications. This is partly because of the short and time-limited nature of most US masters programs. Research tends to be open ended, hence the long time it can take to get a doctorate.
No, a Master's degree is a "post baccalaureate," not a "pre PhD.
Many master's programs have a "capstone" requirement consisting of a paper or a project, but it is uncommon for it to be of publishable quality.
Basically, you are usually not qualified to do "research" until toward the end of the of PhD program, and your thesis may well be your first publication.
It is very unusual to have a paper -- further, it would be extremely unusual to have a solo-author paper, and whether you have a paper with one of the project supervisors you had in your undergraduate or Masters depends more on them that it does on you.
Having a paper is a (small) positive, but not at all a requirement. Appearing interested and knowledgable at your interview is much more important.
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117054 | Is it okay to mention we're citing an article only because a reviewer told us to?
In a recent review, one reviewer said we must rework the paper in light of two other papers. One paper was a highly valuable suggestion, and we've enthusiastically taken it on board. However, the second paper seems to be an ultra-specific paper (one example among thousands) and not applicable to our work.
I'm thinking of writing something like:
There are many methods for XYZ (and an anonymous reviewer of this paper seemed fond of QRST [26]), and a survey was given in [15]. In this paper, we take the approach ABC for our specific problem.
(Here, I leave off "...since QRST does not actually apply to our problem".)
In this example, we (fairly politely) highlight that we're citing [26] at the reviewer's request. But I'm a bit worried it would be perceived as a passive-aggressive slight.
Question: Is it okay to mention we're citing an article only because a reviewer told us to?
I'm also considering two alternatives:
Alternative 1:
There are many methods for XYZ, such as QRST [26], LMNOP [4], and QRSTUV [5]; a survey is given in [15]. In this paper, we take the approach ABC.
But this seems like I'm adding even more virtually irrelevant citations.
Alternative 2:
Acknowledgment
A helpful anonymous reviewer suggested citing [26].
But while accurate, it might be considered provocative (and rude) and get the paper rejected.
This question is related to: How to deal with an unreasonable reviewer asking to cite irrelevant articles? But in our case, the reviewer is not being unreasonable, maybe just fond of this particular paper. And it's just one additional citation that's being requested.
Update: Thanks for everyone's help! To let you know what's going on (and maybe this will help someone who winds up in the same situation):
(TL;DR: The reviewer's suggested paper is related to an "in-between" paper which is related to our work; we feel it's not off-topic to cite it while discussing this in-between paper. It wasn't as off-topic as originally thought.)
We generally agreed with the advice in the answers (don't cite it). We also found the editor's email specifically said not to cite irrelevant papers suggested by reviewers. But we dug deeper to ensure we're not perceived as being dismissive. What happened next:
Upon more careful inspection, the reviewer described it as an "example". Eventually, we concluded that the reviewer was not giving us a list of papers to cite, but to generally say "look at papers like these".
This turned out to be a gold mine: it gave many papers which we could use to put our work into a broader context; none of our paper's predecessors do this. In fact, we found a paper which almost identically states the motivation for our paper, but in a broader context (which empowers our justification for working on this topic).
We looked into the suggested paper's references and papers citing that paper. We found another paper is a kind of "in-between" paper (related to both our paper, and the paper that was mentioned by the reviewer). We now discuss this in-between paper in detail, and explain how our method deviates from it. In the context of discussing this in-between paper, we feel it's not irrelevant to quickly cite the paper that was mentioned by the reviewer, without giving it undue weight.
(PS. In this particular instance, I feel this is not the reviewer's paper: other papers by the same authors (e.g. the in-between paper) are more natural to cite.)
How about citing the review paper, but not the specialized paper? Seems more useful for a reader, and one would hope that a reasonable reviewer would accept it, especially if the review describes the method used by the specialized paper.
How do you think readers of your paper will think about such remarks?
When a seemingly random paper is proposed by a reviewer, there's a high chance that the reviewer is one its authors.
"seemed fond" --> "pointed out". Maybe the anonymous reviewer has a point and you're still learning, so no need to be snarky. IMHO. :-)
Relevant idea: http://janlo.de/wp/2010/04/04/scientific-citation-markup/
"Compare and Contrast" the ideas in your paper with the cited paper, and 'make it fit' -- generally it is bad form to say anything about the reviewers, EXCEPT to thank them, especially for specific ideas. If there was a significant contrasting (they do this, we do that), one could thank them for pointing this out....
Leaving the paper out altogether might not be a perfect solution, but I'm confused why you think that this approach could possibly be better.
I think you should avoid writing "...an anonymous reviewer of this paper seemed fond of..." unless you want to put that person off.
you are afraid it may come off as passive aggressive because it is passive aggressive.
As it turns out, not every comment or suggestion forwarded by a reviewer needs to be necessarily accommodated in your manuscript. Hence, as you seem to have a convincing argument against citing the suggested paper in your manuscript, in your rebuttal letter state that you have considered the suggested comment but you didn't find that paper to merit citation. (However, compose your argument politely, thanking the reviewer for the suggestion.)
Agree completely, reviewer comments are suggestions for improvement, not ironclad mandates. If the reviewer suggested that you to change your methodology to something you didn't agree with, or run a statistical test that you didn't think applied, including it anyway with the footnote "because the reviewer told me to" would be a poor argument indeed.
And this may be particularly effective since you ended up (enthusiastically!) using the first paper the reviewer suggested
No, it's completely inappropriate to cite something while making snarky remarks about how you don't think you should. There is no upside whatsoever: it makes you look petty and obnoxious, and it looks like you're disparaging the authors of the paper being cited, even though you're actually disparaging the referee, which is hardly better. Either cite the paper respectfully or don't cite it at all.
If the suggested paper is not relevant, then you shouldn't cite it at all and your response to the referee should justify that decision. If the referee insists and the editor concurs, then just cite the paper in as neutral a way as possible.
Given that there seem to be multiple possible approaches to solve your problem, perhaps the best solution would be to write a short paragraph addressing them. Something along the lines of your "alternative 1" but with explanation of why you chose the method you did, instead of one of the others. Wouldn't that improve the paper?
To complement the other answers, most of which seem to take as granted the assumption that the reviewer's request is indeed pointless and made by mistake (or possibly to pad their own citation count, as some answers allude to), let me take the charitable view towards the reviewer and assume that they actually think, correctly or not, that the method QRST described in the paper they suggested you cite is appropriate for your problem, and possibly even better suited for it than the method ABC that you're currently using.
If so, it's plausible that this particular reviewer may not be the only reader who will think so.
Perhaps method QRST is considered by many to be "the state of the art" for solving similar problems, while method ABC is older and often considered to be less efficient and/or less accurate. Thus, other readers might plausibly also look at your paper and think "why did they use ABC, when QRST would surely have worked better?" In the worst case, they might assume that you're only using ABC because your knowledge of the field is years or decades out of date and you're not aware of any newer and better methods, making the overall quality of your research suspect, or even that any unexpected results you've obtained are probably just errors caused by the inaccuracy of the ABC method.
If that's indeed the case (or if you have even the slightest reason to suspect that it might be the case for some readers), you ought to demonstrate that you're indeed aware of the current state of the art in your field, and explain why method ABC is, in fact, better suited for your problem than QRST or other more recent methods. In some cases, this might indeed mean citing the suggested QRST reference just to show that you're aware of it and have considered that method before choosing not to use it.
Depending on how you choose to phrase this, the result might end up looking somewhat similar to your first alternative suggestion, e.g.:
There are many methods for XYZ, of which a recent survey is given in [15]. Unfortunately, some of the more advanced methods, such as QRST [26], LMNOP [4], and QRSTUV [5], are not well suited to this particular problem, because <insert explanation why>. In this paper, we instead take the classic approach ABC [2], which does not suffer from the limitations described above, and can still provide accurate results in a reasonable time, provided that [...].
More generally, the point I'm trying to argue here is that review comments may be mistaken, but they're rarely if ever completely without cause. If a reviewer thinks there is an issue with some part of your paper, then it's likely that other readers will also think so. That means that you should do something to address the perceived issue, even if it's only to clarify your writing so that others are less likely to misunderstand it the same way as the reviewer did.
(Of course, there are occasional exceptions to this rule. Sometimes reviewers are poorly chosen, and sometimes you may just have to accept that a particular reviewer does not actually belong to the target audience of your paper, or that their suggestions might have an inappropriate ulterior motive. But in general, it's still best to start from an assumption of competence and good faith, until and unless there is clear and unescapable evidence to the contrary.)
+1 This. Very true that if a reviewer thinks that a paper should be cited, other readers will think so as well and might wonder why it's being ignored in the paper. Cite within context.
I agree with this anwer, though the OP stating QRST “seems to be an ultra-specific paper (one example among thousands)” makes it unlikely that it would be “considered by many to be ‘the state of the art’ ”.
There is no reason or regulation that you have to include the citation at all in a case like this. The reviewer's comments are just that: comments. The editor may take them as requirements or not, but the paper is still yours and you should use your judgement about what to include.
But to avoid problems that may arise with the editor, include your reasons in a note to him/her. We didn't include x because y. The editor may send it back, but I doubt it. The editor may also send it out for additional review but likely to a different set of reviewers. Even if it is reviewed again by the same person, as long as they don't have a particular motive for the suggestion, they should evaluate your paper as a whole. But your paper contains nothing provocative if you just omit the citation.
Let the editor work for you and explain why you haven't taken a particular suggestion among many that you did find helpful.
There is a tension between two motivations, which seem implicit in your question and approach:
You want to accommodate the request, although it is perhaps
unreasonable, to make sure your paper gets published.
You want to include only what's relevant and reasonable, so as not to compromise the paper's quality for the sake of "review politics".
You propose to resolve the tension by including the requested citation but distancing yourself from it at the same time. However, this comes across as either rude and petty or as perfunctory. Chances are, this won't get the job done: The reviewer may be less inclined to recommend acceptance of your paper if your tone is rude or his request is served perfunctorily; and you don't really stand your ground either.
My suggestion would be to treat the superfluous reference as a mere suggestion and to not include it. I would point out the reasons in the accompanying letter to the editor, in which you also detail the other changes you made to the draft. This helps both of your goals while being upfront: It maintains your integrity and the quality of the paper, but it also improves your chance of acceptance, since in the last instance, the editor makes the decision, and your argument for not including the reference sounds persuasive.
ALWAYS put the reader first. What would you like to read as a reader? Comment "method QRST [16] is irrelevant here but reviewer wanted it included" or nothing at all? Out of your suggestions, only 2nd one is viable even though you don't like it.
If such statement doesn't already rub the editor the wrong way and he demands removal of the statement or simply rejects your paper, reviewer is likely to be offended too - he will try hard to find reasons to reject the paper or at least demand this statement removal. (Well, unless he is only after that citation, but I doubt it - as you said, he recommended a valuable paper too, so he seems to know the field).
Finally, considering there are multiple approaches to solve the problem - enough of them to warrant a review article - there is absolutely no harm in adding yet another reference to yet another method solving the problem. After all, you surely have a section of introduction dedicated to other approaches and showing why you are better. It will be just another citation in the section mainly used to pad the reference list.
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118339 | How can I write a book about paper writing which contains real examples without violating copyright?
I'm teaching a course on computer-science paper writing, and I aim to turn my notes into a book for publication. It's designed specifically for Chinese postgraduate students who are writing their first paper.
In my course (and thus in the book), I use examples from real publications by Chinese authors. Moreover, I use LaTeX's \includegraphics{...} so my quote is visually identical to what's in the paper. I then critique the writing: explaining what I feel is poor, and how I would improve it.
My feeling is that doing this for a paragraph or two with attribution is unproblematic, but:
I'm using a large number of snippets, totaling maybe hundreds from different papers.
I'm aiming to include a section along the lines of "how to proofread and optimize writing", where I take a single (short) paper, and painstakingly revise a large portion of it. I'm tempted to go through the entire paper, because it contains many examples of writing issues I see repeatedly, and because it's not possible to write one part of a paper in isolation from the other parts.
So...
Question: How can I write a book about paper writing which contains real examples without violating copyright?
I'm not sure what I need to know about this---it'd be my first book.
Update: Thanks for the responses! Virtually all the papers come from the ACM, and each paper lists the copyright; maybe 90% have an ACM copyright. The ACM's policies page says:
Course Material - Permission granted without fee if the course material is produced without charge to the student. (See Commercially produced Course Packs below)
So I'm confident I haven't done anything wrong so far; there's no concerns about me handing out ACM-copyrighted papers. And our university has institutional access, so the students have access anyway.
Also, at this point, I'm only just starting to put a book together, and I need to do this for the course whether or not a book eventualizes. I can simply keep copyright in mind as the book develops. Asking permission from the ACM seems to be a matter of sending an email; I don't know what they will say. (The authors might not be happy about me criticizing their writing.)
Is it feasible to rewrite the example passages in such a way that they still demonstrate the issues you want to discuss, but are no longer in the authors' original words? e.g. "We studied yellow-backed finches" -> "We studied blue-backed gulls". Copyright aside, this might be more tactful than using the original text as an example of poor writing.
I am aware that I might make a bunch of Chinese computer scientists grumpy, but I fear the message won't have the same impact if I paraphrase. Basically I want to say "Don't do [foo]. Here are some actual examples of [foo] by Chinese authors. The consequences are [blah]." I want to demonstrate that the problem occurs repeatedly by Chinese authors. I also have "identify the problem" and "fix this snipppet" style exercises.
The best solution would be to get permission from each copyright holder for each paper/snippet you use. This is often seen in books ie a list of figures and a statement of permission from each author X and Y and Z.
Using the material may be ok at the moment because it is for an educational purpose, but to put that into a book is probably going to be more a business/profit purpose which is different for copyright...
But I get the impression that you don’t want to do this as you mention “I have hundreds....”
You will need to check this properly with a copyright lawyer / legal team...
Usually the copyright is not of the authors, and the permission should be asked to the copyright's owner, typically the publisher.
I doubt that there is any exception anywhere that would let you reprint an entire paper without permission for any reason. So, for that case, at least, get permission first.
@MassimoOrtolano edited to copyright holder, but the basic advice is the same...
Unfortunately, the best time to address such concerns would have been before collecting hundreds of examples, but there's no point in crying over spilled milk. Solar Mike is correct in that it's best to get express permission from each copyright holder. Yes, you are probably allowed quoting a certain amount, but as far as I know there's no international standard as to how much. If you publish a book and want it distributed worldwide, it's probably significantly more straightforward to get permission than to ensure compliance with different countries' copyright laws. I would certainly consult with a copyright lawyer or publisher before attempting the latter.
A second option would be to stick to materials available under public licenses, such as (some of the) Creative Commons licenses. These explicitly allow you to adapt the source material. Specifically, the CC-BY license that is commonly used in open access publishing should work for your purposes, as there is no clause stopping commercial use.
I think this option is particularly useful for your plan of revising a large portion of a single paper. While I don't have any examples specific to academic writing, this approach has been used to great effect in R. Martin's book Clean Code, where long examples of real-life open-source code are iteratively improved and refined.
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4798 | Are there some fields where having skills in a language other than English is necessary to perform research at an international level?
When I went to college, an old-schooled teacher of mine insisted that, because I was interested in chemistry, I needed to work on my German as it was the lingua franca of that trade. It turns out, there is absolutely no need to speak German anymore to be a successful researcher in chemistry.
I somewhat thought that, since at least two decades, English was the only language required to be a researcher in any field (excepting, maybe, literature). However, seeing this question made it apparent that some graduate programs still have requirements for other languages. How useful are they?
In a word: are there some fields where reading/writing/speaking a language other than English is necessary to perform research at an international level?
(Let's exclude fields related to literature and linguistics. Let's also forget about teaching, and focus the question on research.)
I was under the impression that most PhD language requirements focused entirely on reading skills.
Are there some fields where speaking a language other than English is necessary to perform research at an international level?
It depends on what you mean by "speaking" and "necessary". In mathematics, there is no need to speak any language but English and the language of the country you are working in, but there's a real benefit to being able to read other languages. It's not strictly necessary, and its importance varies between fields. In my case, I don't use other languages on a daily or even weekly basis, but probably read French on a monthly basis and German a little less frequently.
In my view, the reason for language exams isn't that these languages are required to be a researcher, but rather that they are helpful. The best argument I've heard for requiring language exams is as follows. Learning how to read mathematics in French or German is not very difficult, but it's still a burden if you just want to read one paper. Usually you can get around it by finding another exposition, finding someone to explain the paper to you, or just deciding the paper is not relevant enough to bother with. However, even though this is a rational solution to a one-time dilemma, it's a bad idea if you are going to be faced with these dilemmas repeatedly. At that point, you'll gain a lot in flexibility and convenience if you can read the papers you want to read. The purpose of language exams is to keep people from repeatedly making short-sighted choices.
I'd guess that language skills are more important in mathematics than in most scientific fields, because the mathematics literature has an enormously longer half-life. In my work, I frequently use and refer to papers that are 50 years old, and sometimes quite a bit more. These results have not always made it into textbooks, and even when they have the original papers sometimes contain valuable insights.
I understand that many good and important mathematical papers are still being published in French, including those by Canadian authors.
I'm going to cherry pick a bit.
In the area of robotics, the Japanese have one of the best journals and conferences (their journals were about 10%-20% acceptance rate about 3 years ago).
Yet, many of those journals are written in Japanese. Here in Japan, students in robotics do not need to present their work at international conferences or journals, since they consider theirs good enough.
Many of the best robotics work in things like ICRA and IROS (from the Japanese) was presented in some form about 1-2 years ago.
That said, I do not think knowing Japanese is necessary for a successful tenure in robotics, but it certainly can help to have some competitive advantage.
In my field (mathematical physics), it is certainly true that most research is published in English, although there certainly is a non-trivial amount published in French, for example. Although being able to read French might not be required in many institutions, it still is very useful. I expect that for the other sciences the picture is similar (for the humanities on the other hand, I expect it may be very different).
Another issue however that becomes more important when looking for tenure(d) (track) positions are the teaching requirements. In many countries almost all teaching is done in the native language, at least at the undergraduate level. So it is important that you will be able to teach in this language, or at least be willing to learn the language in the near future.
Some universities allow new-hired foreign professors to teach only English (graduate) classes for 1-2 years to let them learn the local language properly. That said, it takes quite some effort to go from 0 to "can give a lecture" in a new language in 1-2 years.
Let's exclude fields related to literature and linguistics.
I would say that in most Academic Departments you can find a research topics that can be done exclusively in English, but that in many departments you could also find topics that cannot be done exclusively with English. Even with Computer Science (e.g., speech recognition in a non-English language) and Biology (genetic mutation common in a foreign country where you need to collect samples) there are projects where a foreign languages is required. I would venture to say there are more departments where a foreign language could be critical than ones where it couldn't. I am hard pressed to think of a Chemistry or Pyshics research question that would require a foreign language.
Choosing the College of Arts and Sciences at UPenn as a random sample of research fields the following broad categories become apparent. There are language studies (e.g., French, Spanish, German), which to me do not fall into the literature category, where there is an obvious need for a foreign language. There are cultural studies (e.g., Asian Studies and Latin American Studies, but also things like Anthropology, Archeology, Art History) where you are likely required to live in a non-English speaking country for at least a while. I would expect language studies and cultural studies to have language requirements. Then there are research areas in which you may be studying a non-English speaking culture (e.g., Criminology, Economics, Environmental Studies), for which languages are essential for some individuals, but unlikely to be required for all. There are also art topics (e.g., Fine Arts, Cinema studies, Music) where your research topics may not be in English and foreign language skills may be required. There are "old" topics (e.g., History, Classics, and Folklore) where sources are unlikely to be in English so programs often have language exams.
If it can be "critical" to speak the language of a country from which you need DNA samples, then presumably it can be "critical" to speak the language of a country in which you're operating a telescope (e.g. Spanish for Chile) or to stretch a point where you're launching a micro-gravity chemistry experiment (I presume Russian rather than Kazakh for launch via Baikonur). I suppose a telescope is a large enough project to hire people to deal with the local authorities, whereas grabbing the local DNA might be for a very small project that's simply a no-go if the researcher can't do it?
@SteveJessop I think your examples are little bit of a stretch, but reasonable enough, and I would never have thought of them with my narrow view of chemistry and physics.
It depends on the field.
My ongoing PhD work is in applied mathematics, where English is pretty much all you need. Sure, knowing some Russian, French and German can be useful, if you want to read various older seminal papers in their original form, but the actual results from those papers have usually been widely reproduced (often in a more modern and readable form) in textbooks written in English. For more modern research in my field, English is pretty much the universal choice of language, perhaps the only halfway significant contender being Chinese.
(In pure mathematics, the situation is somewhat different, partly due to the "longer half-life" of pure math papers noted by Anonymous Mathematician in their answer. Indeed, typically the non-English papers one occasionally encounters in applied math tend to be on the theoretical side.)
I'm also an amateur cryptographer, and within that field the dominance of English in academic writing is even more complete. This is partly due to historical reasons: the modern academic study of cryptography, as opposed to clandestine military research and occasional hobbyist dabbling, is a relatively new field, and emerged from applied mathematics and computer science at a time when especially the latter field was strongly dominated by the U.S. and other English-speaking countries. Basically, within crypto, the only thing you may need languages other than English for is historical (meta)research.
On the other hand, in the last few years I've also dabbled in the humanities, specifically in assyriology. Within that field, at least rudimentary knowledge of French and German is all but essential (some of the central reference works and dictionaries are written in those languages), and Latin isn't completely useless either. And of course, you also need to learn the ancient languages that you're studying (for me, that's Akkadian, some Sumerian and a bit of Hittite so far), and familiarity with their neighbors and (ancient or modern) relatives can be pretty useful, too.
So, yes, that's at least one field where knowing only English would be a significant impediment. I'm not saying it would completely prevent you from studying the field, but it does deprive you of access to some fairly useful sources and references. And besides, the general attitude in assyriology seems to be that a researcher should be polyglot as a matter of course. For example, the Reallexikon der Assyriologie (an important encyclopedia of the field) happily mixes together entries written in German, English and French, depending on each contributor's preferred language, and expects the reader to be able to make sense of any of them.
Ps. I noticed after writing this answer that you wanted to "exclude fields related to literature and linguistics." Still, even if you discount the fact that you (obviously) need to learn e.g. ancient Sumerian in order to study it, the point remains that you also really do want to know some French and German too (which, just to be clear, are no more related to Sumerian than English is) just to be able to understand modern academic papers and reference works written in those languages.
Let's approach this question from another direction: When is it ever a disadvantage to know more languages?
Every translation is already an interpretation and beyond mathematics I don't see any field where interpretation would not matter. In other words: You are always closer to the original meaning when reading a paper in its original language than when reading a translation of it.
I'm in philosophy and theology right now and it is for either a must to know English, German, French, Italian, Latin and Ancient Greek. The works of Plato, Nietzsche, Luther, Macchiavelli, Sueton, etc. are simply not the same anymore once you translate them.
As an academic you should never wonder why you should put any effort into learning something new - learning new things is your daily job! That's what you chose to do. Therefore the need to learn a new language should be seen as a chance. Expand your horizon!
It's like financial investments: You have to invest to earn.
Sciolism is a particularly big problem in our area. E.g. somebody writes an article about what he thinks of certain Nietzschean thoughts based upon a translation. Then you have already two steps of interpretation: The translators and the article author's. Beside mathematics there is nothing really free from interpretations coloured by one's personal background. Cutting out as many of these interpretation steps as possible is of high importance and enhances outputs to an extent where it makes the initial efforts worth it.
It's likely financial.investmens. yes, indeed, and in both cases it is possible that there are better things to invest in.
History
Without any access to first-hand translations one is sentenced to rely only on other translators' interpretations.
Even for english history one needs to look for foreign resources either to fact-check the record or understand the topic from others' perspective.
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114848 | Do non-native English speakers appreciate it when I carefully correct their English in peer reviews?
As a native English speaker, when I review papers I sometimes carefully go through the English and list my proposed changes, which adds a fair amount of time to the review process.
The most extreme case of this was for a good paper I reviewed for a top computer-science journal, but with fairly poor English. I went through everything in detail, marking proposed changes on a hard copy, then sent back a scan with my review. This kind of review typically adds hours, possibly even days.
It makes me wonder if it's at all appreciated. Perhaps the authors groan when they see such reviews, thinking there's a lot of tedious legwork to do. Or, as I hope, they actually learn something meaningful from this effort. I don't really know.
Question: Do non-native English speakers appreciate it when I carefully correct their English in peer reviews?
Why do I do this is basically the question. If the authors on the other end find it useful or helpful, then I feel it's worthwhile.
As a non-native English speaker, I generally appreciate corrections, but too many times I've seen native speakers suggesting wrong or useless corrections (e. g. American English speakers not recognising the British spelling of a word). So, do it if you really wish, but do it humbly.
This varies greatly. I know some non-native speakers who are eager to improve their English and grateful for any corrections you give them. I know others who couldn't care less.
Thread carefully. If it was done because you think the authors are non-native speakers just because of their name, then it will be offensive.
I think it is a good idea. Yes, even in mathematics. And even papers by native English speakers.
Sometimes, if the English has many errors, I just note that in my review, and suggest the author have the paper corrected by an English speaker before re-submitting.
Journals should have their own people to correct English after papers are accepted. But who knows what happens with modern free-access no-fee journals who cannot afford such luxuries?
+1. Yes it is an editor's job, not a reviewers, but if you want to take it on, and are correct in your changes, it can only improve the outcome. It should be greatly appreciated.
"I just note that in my review, and suggest the author have the paper corrected by an English speaker before re-submitting." Just don't be the obnoxious reviewer who assumes based on a name that someone is not an English speaker.
As someone who was exposed to the British "Programme" English early in his life. Then moved to American "Program" English, I much appreciate feedback on my English as I have no time for Tutoring and I do not like "special editing services" (mainly because the manuscript will be edited by someone not expert in the field).
In fact, I usually memorize reviewers' suggestions and criticism over my English because they are coming from "peers" that are likely to judge my future manuscripts.
Whatever you do, and for the benefit of anyone looking who might have done so: please stop writing that we should have our manuscript checked by a native speaker.
I am referring to those who do write that, not you in particular.
Do not "gatekeep" the knowledge of the English language behind a nationality. It's a matter of proficiency, it's not about the country in which one was born. We are perfectly capable of reaching C1/C2 level in English (advanced fluency) even though we might not have been born in an anglosaxon country.
Something like "please have someone fluent in English proof read the manuscript" would be better.
Suggesting that your manuscript is checked by a native speaker is a good suggestion to improve the quality of the paper.
Maybe my point didn't come across. Being native doesn't guarantee that the person has expert knowledge of the grammar of their own lamguage. That's why it would be better to ask someone more fluent, regardless of their nationality.
I know many “fluent” in English, but you would not want them editing your manuscript...
@SolarMike Watch out when making that suggestion; some reviewers jump to conclusions when in reality the authors actually are native speakers.
@AnonymousPhysicist a broad scouser editing your doc... good luck... Spent many hours helping my friends with their docs for exactly that reason...
@SolarMike I know many native speakers in English that you wouldn't want to edit your manuscript.
Flagging this for deletion as it seems to answer a completely different question.
@Wrzlprmft thanks for your input. OP asked how we feel when someone corrects. Writing that is a form of "correction" that some reviewers do. I wrote how I feel when I see that.
@TheWanderer: You are not explicitly talking about what you (or anybody else) feels at all. You are just giving recommendation that is about a different situation on top.
That might depend on the field. In mathematics I wouldn't say that this is a good idea, as it will annoy the authors more than anything. If there is only one error or two, you can of course mention them, but if there are lots and lots of errors, I would just mention that in a general statement, not list them all.
I think that everyone makes mistakes when writing a long text (I'm sure there are some even in my relatively short answer here), so if there are way too many, that is most likely due to a wrong use (or no use at all) of a spell checker. Thus, an author that cares about that can go over his file again after reading your comment and will know how to properly spell check for upcoming papers.
If, on the other hand, you list all the errors, he will most likely just correct them without learning anything for the future.
Of course that is assuming that authors do care about spelling.
"In mathematics I wouldn't say that this is a good idea, as it will annoy the authors more than anything." I don't definitively disagree, but could you explain why you think so?
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43212 | I'm affiliated with two universities: do I need ethics approval from both?
Currently I'm affiliated with two universities: Nankai University in China (postdoc) and Monash University in Melbourne (adjunct). I'm attempting to apply for ethics approval for a research project involving personal data that people post online. I'm completely new to this.
Q: Do I need ethics approval from both universities?
It would be substantially easier for me to get approval from Monash, simply because the forms are in English and the people I'd need to discuss it with speak English.
What actually happened: I applied for ethics approval from Monash. They were fairly patient with me, being new to the process, and it took a bit of back and forth. Nankai University matched the conditions and dates by Monash, so I didn't have to bother with filling in paperwork in Chinese. (And the paper was subsequently published here.)
Where do those online posters come from? And can those data potentially reveal the poster's identity? Aka, will you get names, IP, address, etc.? And finally, which one are you primarily affiliated to?
Are you going to list both affliations on the publications? Are you afraid of getting sued?
The data are user comments to news articles. Sometimes it uses their real name, and links to their Facebook page (which can give you a lot of personal information, even without being friends); no IP addresses. It may be that some of these comments are by minors. I'm primarily with Nankai University. I'm not afraid of being sued (there's nothing sue-worthy), I'm afraid of my paper not being reviewed by a journal if I don't get approval.
Almost certainly you have to at least ask each one whether you need their approval. If it turns out their policies say that you do, and you went ahead without it, telling them "someone on the Internet said I didn't need your approval" will not save your job.
The problem is that it's not straightforward for me to ask; my Chinese is not that good yet. I don't know where to go to ask, and even if I did, I wouldn't know how to ask. My English-speaking colleagues don't really know either (as they're in computer science and their research doesn't need approval).
@RebeccaJ.Stones We do not and cannot know the answer to your question because it depends completely on your universities' policies. You must figure out how to ask them.
The purpose of IRB approval is for four things. The first is to make sure research is being done ethically and responsibly. Except when used in a circular definition, research does not need IRB approval to be conducted in an ethical manner. It definitely does not need multiple IRBs to approve it. The second is funders may not fund research that is not approved. They would only want approval from the institution where the funding is being given to. To publish research, it general needs IRB approval, but again, they do not care where it comes from. From both the publisher and funder point of view, IRB approval is their proof that the research was conducted in an ethical manner.
The final reason is so you are not liable. IRB approval, at least at the universities I am familiar with, means that the university takes on the liability as long as the protocol is approved. As place that may get sued,more any place that you will want help from if you get sued, will likely need to approve the research. Many IRBs have a light touch review for studies that have been reviewed by another university's IRB.
This is good: it answers the general question. In my case then, I think it would be reasonable to get IRB approval from Monash alone. There's no real chance of suing, and the research is effectively unfunded.
@RebeccaJ.Stones Whether or not you get sued has nothing at all to do with whether or not you are funded. Also, why only the concern with getting sued? You could lose your job if you don't get proper clearance.
You are NEVER not liable if a subject gets hurt. The ethics review process and informed consent has little to do with liability. A good informed consent design can make it very difficult to claim that a subject was not made aware of their risks, or at least anticipated risks. If a subject gets hurt from an unanticipated risks, though, or from a violation of the protocol, all bets are off. I suggest removing the bit about liability.
Generally, the answer will depend on the laws and practices of both your employing countries and employing institutions. It is not simply a matter of funding, as I have had to do IRBs for multiple universities for unfunded pilot projects. (US) It would not be wise to neglect checking with your Chinese university's ethics board. I suggest editing this answer to remove the reference to not needing multiple IRBs. Also, the liability portion is potentially misleading. Some new device research for some universities can require assumption of liability by the researcher, even if passed by IRB.
Yes.
Or at the very least, check with both Universities' ethics boards.
I know of one instance of a post graduate student who in a similar situation got clearance from one university, but not the other, and was forced to discard their results.
+1 - The only people who can answer this definitively is those ethics boards.
In the US, you generally need the approval of an Institutional Review Board (IRB) if your work was funded by the federal government, and you would have to demonstrate that approval to publish in any venue that required it. There are probably many other institutions and laws in the US that require IRB approval for this kind of research, but most of the issue is driven by the federal government's attachment of the process to its research funding. If this were happening here, either one should be sufficient. That being said, if the work is mostly related to your postdoc, I would be most concerned about the requirements of the funding agency or university that funds it. An adjunct position in the US would imply mostly a teaching role to me which would be less concerned about your research work. Your situation may be different.
You first need to know the laws of the country where you "are". In the US, as long as you're not engaged in directly-regulated research (such as medicine), IRB approval is imposed on you via a contractual / employment relationship with an institution. Therefore, in the US, you are required to do what your employer requires of you. An institution may require that all research conducted using institution resources undergo IRB scrutiny. In the US, the institution would have no power to limit your independent research activities, but such assumptions of individual liberty may not hold elsewhere. Other countries may have other laws; if you're actually in China, you have to do what Chinese law requires of you, even if you're only occasionally in China. It does not matter, from the legal-enforcement perspective, whether it is difficult for you to pursue this question in Chinese, following prevailing cultural norms. You should therefore find someone who can give you honest and expert advice about IRB law (civil or criminal) in China. And just as it is in the US, you need to inquire of your employer what they require you to do (where the consequences of violating their rules could be getting sacked).
If you are only concerned with publication issues, you should inquire directly of relevant journals what their specific requirements are. Some journals do not raise the question at all (I only know by rumor that it's required in psychology). If a journal requires you to warranty something about IRB approval, you need to know in advance exactly what is required. While I assume that approval from Monash would suffice, you really should verify that that is the prevailing policy for journals in your field. In the worst case, if some journal requires IRB approval from each institution where you are employed while conducting the research, they just don't submit your work to that journal.
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120592 | Whats the average salary (inclusively) in china? How expensive it is for a single postdoctoral life?
I'm going to join one of the top university in China. I have been offered 130000 to 180000 RMB per year (including the basic performance and housing subsidy) on invitation letter although it's less than what was committed with me in the mail. How expensive is Bejeing? This is my third postdoc. I am afraid if it will be lower than the average postdoc. How is the working condition in Tsinghua and Peking University in Engineering Science?
This Q & A may help: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/108041/72855
Please, consider focusing on a single question at a time.
Not a duplicate -- he's asking other questions as well, in a different scenario. Furthermore, the other question is largely outdated.
I was a postdoc in China for the latest two years. Mainly at the south of China but have also spent several month in Beijing with CAS. I was hired with a salary promise of annual 180000 rmb which wasn't paid correctly. So actually my first piece of advice is, take salary promises with two grains of salt, and perhaps consider just going elsewhere.
Now, answering your questions directly. I have been told that a Chinese postdoc gets around 9-10k rmb per month in Beijing, and I was offered another postdoc for annual 240k rmb (some special offer for foreigners I refused). This is probably the range you will find. Housing costs in Beijing are extremely expensive (at least 2.5k per month, above 4k if you want to be comfortable) however ordinary life costs are not bad. If you're not provided a place to live, don't accept anything below annual 150k rmb. Make sure you're provided decent healthcare coverage, because that'd also very expensive and unfriendly to foreigners.
Finally, you say this is your 3rd postdoc. Meaning you're probably hoping to get a permanent job soon, and possibly heard promises of a fixed position "in case things go well". Don't fall for that, this is usually bait. From asking several colleagues, they were all promised "something else" when in reality it's all about them distributing around authorships and impact factors until they get fed up.
A tip: Chinese academia generally likes US citizenships and top-prestigious journal authorships. If you don't have any of such to show, don't expect the best treatment.
My main advice remains, consider going elsewhere. Hong Kong is already better if you're into Asia, perhaps Taiwan.
Best of luck.
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81369 | After successfully publishing papers during my Post-Doc, why am I now having trouble publishing as a tenure track academic?
I have had my PhD in mathematics for four and a half years now, completed two postdocs and found a tenure track job at a mostly teaching university. While I provide substantial background information below, my real, general question is:
How can I identify the causes of a decline in acceptance rate of my papers?
Background
I had a fairly good research program in geometry and topology, with 5 papers in relatively good journals and an undergraduate research paper published over the course of two postdocs.
I then took a tenure track job with 33 teaching credits a year. While I have little time for new research, I had several papers ready for submission.
These new papers are better than previous papers of mine published in the same journals; not only do I (subjectively) consider them better, but they have received citations in preprint form, and I was invited to a give a talk based on a stranger reading one of them, neither of which happened with my earlier papers.
Possible reasons
I can think of a few possible reasons why these papers are not being published:
They are just not up to shape, because I don't have the time to focus on polishing them.
The referees hate me. This may seem silly, but I am in a very specialized field, with only 3-4 people who have published more than one paper on the subject. One of these people have retired, and another openly said that he had been my referee before on more than one occasion, had rejected my largest paper, and said that he didn't like the direction I was going with the research.
Also, I had a toxic relationship with my postdoc advisor, to the point where it came down to personal insults. They said that they were furious at my past letter of reference writer for recommending me, knowing I was a 'bad egg'. Though we have since made up, I have heard reports from others about this advisor talking about me in a negative way. Also, none of the jobs I applied to with their letter of recommendation wrote me back, while 30-50% of the applications without his letter were replied to favorably, including my current job.
Chance. The reviewers of the first papers happened to be interested in those topics, and the reviewers of the current papers have not been interested.
Conclusion
How do I tell what is really the issue? A few notes:
It's very hard to do research with 33 credits of teaching, but all the work was done before I accepted this job.
The main paper (that was rejected by that referee) went through 5 revisions with the aid of an advisor before submission. I have revised and submitted to 3 or 4 other journals, one after another, incorporating each journals feedback into the new version and trying a weaker journal each time.
My goal is to just get these papers published; at my current institution, the publication of these two papers alone would be enough to satisfy all of the research requirement for tenure.
Whether they are up to shape, only you can answer. You seem to think, yes. 2. You have had trouble with your fellow scientists in a small field where everyone knows everyone. 3. Random bad luck. - It seems you have answered your question yourself. That being said, I do not think that the job of a referee is to tell you that they do not like the direction. That's for history to decide, not them. They can make a statement about quality, soundness and originality; how many antagonistic relations do you have? If it's not more than 2-3, you might ask the editor to exclude them.
Another possible reason: the institution you are teaching at now is not as "prestigious" as where you did your postdoc / PhD.
And another: maybe you are submitting the papers to more prestigious journals?
What did the referee reports say? Did they give you any reason to suspect that the papers were being rejected for reasons unrelated to their merit?
Another possible reason, but what's the overall interest in the area like? Has it waned any since your earlier papers?
@CaptainEmacs -- I think "relevance" is a fair criterion for reviewers to judge, but you don't list it in your comment. It's of course speculation that the reviewer meant "relevance" when he said "don't like the direction", but if so, then I think that's a legitimate part of review.
@WolfgangBangerth I know that it is considered a fair criticism to make. I am not a particular friend of that, because it is much more subjective than the others and have seen it more often than not used to exclude papers which did not fit the reviewer's agenda, interest (or worse). I can accept when arguments are made how much ground a paper breaks, but "relevance" is a very woolly term. Of course, sincere lack of relevance may have been the motive here, but...
@CaptainEmacs -- I suspect that it is one of the divides between pure and applied math. I do believe that in applied math, it is fair to point out that a proposed method is completely pointless even if it is possible to prove something about it. I will agree that there is an element of subjectivity to it, but at the same time I see so many papers published that propose methods for problems for which there are (i) there are already methods, and (ii) these existing methods are far better than what is being proposed. In such cases, it's fair to ask "so what?".
@MadJack really? That would be incredibly unethical if reviewers gave so much weight to a name.
@user4050 Yes, of course, it is unethical. Shall we restrict the possibilities to only those which are ethical?
@MadJack: I think this is an excellent point which deserves an answer. And it isn't necessarily intentional discrimination based on affiliation, but subconscious bias could play a significant role. A related point is that OP may be less "visible" in their new job, having less time/funding to attend conferences and network with other researchers, including potential reviewers. There could certainly be subconscious biases related to whether the author is someone the reviewer knows and recognizes as an active researcher.
@NateEldredge I agree, and your comment addresses the point quite well. (If you turned your comment into an answer, I'd upvote it.)
@NateEldredge I think you managed to formulate the "correct" version of what Mad Jack said. Namely, I found his original comment quite implausible, since I have a very hard time imagining anyone holding an authors institution against them (or for that matter letting it be in their favor, especially if they are only a postdoc there). On the other hand, when it comes to deciding whether a research direction has promise, I can easily see people being more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to someone with a proven track record of finding good directions.
@MadJack than OP could submit to journals that offer double blinded review process, if any is available in the field of course.
@user4050 I have never heard of a reputable math journal offering that. It would simply not work, as the overwhelming chance is that any chosen reviewer will already know who the author of the paper is (having seen it on arXiv).
I feel for you. I have been in the (pure math) game for a lot longer than you, and sometimes my work is still treated shabbily by editors and referees in a way that is hard to figure out. I feel that the publication process has gotten more opaque in the dozen or so years I've been involved with it: at the beginning of my career, whenever a paper got rejected, I would come away with a clear reason for why. I have had some truly head-scratching rejections in recent years...along with acceptances in prestigious journals, which is good for me but even more confusing in this regard.
I think that the best advice I can give to you is to find a trusted senior mentor -- someone who understands the content of your work and the sociology of your field -- and really go over your situation with them in minute detail. I would certainly go over all of the referee reports in detail. If any one rejection feels especially unexplained to you, please realize that you certainly can ask the editor for more information, if you do so extremely politely and while making clear in advance that you are not arguing but rather asking for more information. (I have experienced the wildest of extremes in response to such inquiries: I have gotten no response at all, and I have also gotten "I'm so sorry, your paper was rejected by mistake! Would you like to resubmit it?" Seriously.)
Without this specific information, we can just guess on top of your guesses. But that's interesting to me, so I'll play along. First, here is one piece of information that probably should have come before the end of your question:
My goal is to just get these papers published; at my current institution, the publication of these two papers alone would be enough to satisfy all of the research requirement for tenure.
This is pretty key. Before I read it, I was going to respond to your worries that you are publishing work in a very narrow field that is (perhaps!) being viewed by the same small set of people as unpublishable by suggesting that you make an effort to branch out a bit in your work. This is what everyone eventually does anyway. But if your goal really is to only publish the work you've already written up, that's quite different. In particular you talk about how you have a very high teaching load (33 credits per year = more than five courses per semester?!? I hope I got that calculation wrong) and thus don't have time to do research. Well, you may have zero time for research during the academic year, but if you need two publications for tenure you can spend entire summers working on publishing these papers...and you probably should, if you think your tenure depends on it. I note though that you said you needed only these two publications; you didn't say that you wanted to stop writing and publishing papers after that.
Okay, now to examine your reasons:
They are just not up to shape, because I don't have the time to focus on polishing them.
As I said, I think you should make the time, but that doesn't invalidate the suggestion that a lack of polish is why the papers haven't been accepted as yet. This is where you should get help from mentors and colleagues and look at the referee reports. Based on the information given, this explanation sounds a bit unlikely to me: you've already published five papers in a very similar field, so you know what you're doing here. Math research papers really should not be rejected for lack of polish; they should be rejected when the writing is so bad that the referees can't make sense of them, or when the writing is bad and the results are also not up to snuff.
The referees hate me. This may seem silly, but...
Actually you sold that explanation pretty well to me: if you had a terrible falling out with a key person in a tiny field and one other known past referee has told you that you're going in a wrong direction (to weigh in on comments about that: yeah, I think that's a nasty thing to say to someone), then it may well be that your work is getting evaluated by the same small number of people again and again and they just don't like it. If that is the case, I would again recommend branching out a bit...perhaps even without starting a new project. Most mathematical work can be cast in various ways and in order to appeal to various people. I find it hard to believe that there are really on the order of 4 people in the world who are interested, but even if that's true your job is then to interest other people. You could try for instance rewriting one of your papers to be a lot more explanatory and appeal to a much more general mathematical audience, and then send it to a not-too-exalted generalist journal. If you do this, there's a very good chance that an editor who is "out of the loop" is not going to send the paper to the same small, sour group of people.
Chance. The reviewers of the first papers happened to be interested in those topics, and the reviewers of the current papers have not been interested.
Yes, it certainly could just be chance, and in my experience chance plays a distressingly large role in contemporary mathematical publishing. However, even if it is just chance, you can still probably improve the situation by changing it in some way.
Good luck.
Do your tenure requirements list specific journals you have to publish in?
It would seem reasonable to submit to the "least prestigeous" journals that still satisfy the requirements.
Also, some journals allow you to exclude potential referees. Maybe it helps to take the two suspects out of the picture?
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78546 | Do you have to accept a postdoctoral position if the university has paid for accommodation and international flights for you to come and present?
I have been invited to give a seminar related to applying for a postdoctoral position. The professor has been very kind and seems like a very nice person. He also helped me look for a postdoctoral position for my girlfriend. Now I have received the tickets to travel to the university with first class accommodation and luxury amenities. The trip involves international travel and also that I have been talking with other professors to see my best options.
Does this force me to accept the position or is it common that researchers give these nice invitations?
Do I need to mention to the professor that I am exploring other options?
Be gracious, enjoy the stay, give a relaxed (but not complacent) seminar. They treat you well, because they want you in a good mood. But this does not buy you. Whatever they offer, give yourself time to think, even if this is the best offer ever, and even if it is just (just as example, it's not realistic) one day of thinking. If they don't give you the time, they have something to hide. Go ahead, do your best and enjoy. But don't let your decision be coloured just by that. Make yourself a list of must haves/nice to haves that you would expect from an offer.
If you are getting excellent treatment, that likely means they are fairly keen to hire you. They are working to recruit you. Accepting nice accommodations and amenities from them during the hiring process places no obligation on you--none at all. That being said, this sounds like it might be a really good place for you. Use your judgement about what will be optimal for yourself.
In addition to this, you might be impressed by the quality of the accommodation / travel, but this might be quite standard for the university. At my current institution, every visitor is put in the same hotel, taken to dinner in the same place and travels as every other prof that visits (1st class train, economy flights within Europe). If you're not used to this, it might feel quite luxurious while it's actually standard.
It is quite common for universities to invite candidates for a visit and to offer a high-standard accommodation and make your stay as pleasant as it can be. Afterall, if they find you to be a good fit for them, they would also like you to feel the same. This does not indicate that you will be offered the job. If you are offered the job, you are under no obligations to accept the offer because of the nice treatment you get.
I am not completely certain I am interpreting your question correctly, because your English isn't completely standard. I think you're saying that you have been invited to give a job talk, with your travel expenses paid, and that the job you are interviewing for is a post-doc position. I will answer based on that understanding.
Only go if you are seriously interested in the job.
(Side note: keep in mind that you may have to pay income tax next April on the travel costs paid by the university that invited you.)
The tax comment refers to which country? Also, what is the rationale to have to pay tax for travel costs of an invitation? It is money that the speaker would otherwise have spent to give a talk somewhere, which is part of their job.
I do not agree, though, with the "Only go if absolutely interested" part. If it makes sense to give the seminar to that audience, the candidate could/should go.
This response doesn't answer the question. The question isn't about whether they should go, it's about how normal this kind of situation is, and about whether they have any obligations following the interview. And your tax comment is incorrect, at least in the US - job search expenses are, in general, tax-deductible.
@rturnbull - Tax deductibility is great -- and thanks for pointing that out. Note that it doesn't always get you back the full additional tax liability. My point is that it is good to know ahead of time that those dollars, that the candidate never saw, may turn up looking like income, on the W-2s next January. Also, even if it does get you back the full additional tax liability, it only does so if you know that you can do that.
@CaptainEmacs - "Absolutely interested" and "seriously interested" sound a bit different to me. "Absolutely" to me means that I would take this job over all other offers, without giving it a moment's thought. What I'm trying to say is that if I know ahead of time that I would not take a job in Ames, Iowa, no matter how good the offer, that means I am not seriously interested in a job in Ames, Iowa, and it would be unethical to go on an all-expenses-paid luxury recruitment junket for two in Ames, Iowa. In my opinion. Ethics questions are, after all, quite subjective.
@aparente001 It may be a learning experience, and, also, don't underestimate the possibility (also for them) to create contacts, even if you do not end up accepting the job.
@CaptainEmacs - If the OP is actually considering taking the job, then it is fine to accept the all-expenses paid trip with luxury amenities. If not, he should not waste their time and money. The question is not "Can I get away with this" -- it is "Is it ethical".
@aparente001 It's not about "get away with this", of course; this goes without saying. But people do change opinion and a generous invitation has a chance of doing just that, even if they didn't originally plan to go. Frankly, I've seen worse - you invite and host people, they signal all along that they want to come, they agree to come, they go through all the paperwork, you've already sent other applicants away (to be nice to them), only for your favourite applicant to whom you rolled out the red carpet to then decline on some very minor point in the very last moment. That's unpleasant.
@CaptainEmacs - Bummer.
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163967 | How can I confirm that the format of the paper is correct?
I am a new PhD student. I have been in school for more than a year. But I basically never met my mentor. I can only find a way to post the paper. Now, I am preparing to submit a paper to a conference. But I haven't submitted a paper before. I want to know if I use the Latex template given by the conference party to write a paper, how can I confirm that the format is correct. For example, the requirements of the paper are:
This is the requirement of this conference. Its Latex template can be found here. https://www.microarch.org/micro54/
Initially, I thought that this template should have all the relevant parameters set, but it is not.
For example, Space between columns 0.25in. When I compared the pdf file generated by the template with the papers of previous years, I found that this parameter in the template was not set.
I didn’t find the font and margin settings in this template. What should I do?
Reviewing will be double blind (no author list); therefore, please do
not include any author names on any submitted documents except in the
space provided on the submission form.
Declare all the authors of the paper upfront
The above two paragraphs are all requirements given in the template. Does this require the author to be written in front of the paper or is it forbidden to write?
Thanks
"But I basically never met my mentor." - I hope this is corona related and you have regular contact via email, videocall, etc?
No, he is mainly in charge of administrative duties and basically no longer instructs students. So I don’t even have anyone to discuss and inquire.
that's a red flag and probably worth another question, or have a look at related questions. You need supervision and guidance, especially as a beginning master or PhD student.
Yes, I am trying to contact other tutors for guidance! thank you.
The double blind refereeing instructions mean that the text of the paper should have nothing in the LaTeX \author{} macro. All the authors should be listed only on the web form you fill out when you submit the paper.
For help setting the proper margins and other formatting constants, ask at tex.stackexchange.com.
Although you have never "met" your mentor, they should probably know about this submission and should be able to help you with it.
As long as your paper more or less follows the guidelines, you should be fine. They most likely won't reject a paper because the distance between some columns is 10% larger or smaller than instructed. Word counts should be followed strictly though. If something isn't specified, just make sure it's readable and consistent.
Regarding naming authors: You should not mention the author, institutes or any other connection that gives a clue to who the author(s) are in the main document. However, you should add all names and affiliations in the submission system (you will most likely see it when you start the submission).
A good way to get started is to open the submission system and have a look. Usually you can cancel or save your progress, but this gives you an idea of what to expect.
thank you! But that system is not yet open for submission. So I can't see these yet.
I see. Then relax, and just make sure that you don't mention names and affiliations in the main part of your text, as this will be more difficult to change later. For now (in your working document) list all information that you will need, such as names and affiliations (and give your co-authors a chance to correct them, if needed)
Thank you. But What is the working document?
The document where you prepare your paper (i.e. write your paper) until it reaches it's final form. Usually a messy word document or something like that.
Ok, I konw. I will try. Thank you!
The page you linked implies heavily that conference organisers think the template is set properly. They also provide a sample. Compile the sample, and if it gives better results than the template, use the sample as your template.
In any case, don't add additional settings to the template without a consultation with the organisers. It is a lot of work to track and undo such changes if they were uncalled for. If the template was indeed faulty, it's also their responsibility, not yours. Besides, the reason you have different resulting document may arise from different internal settings of your TeX distribution, or a program you use.
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164394 | Can I improve the idea of the paper on arxiv and publish it again?
I have an idea, and I did experiments and then wrote a paper. But the conference I want to submit does not start until a month later. I want to upload it to arxiv first. But I found a description of the shortcomings of arxiv on Google. Others may scoop papers by improving the papers uploaded to arxiv.
If others see my results. Then immediately embark on the same experiment. Then change the description method (note that the ideas in some papers are very new, but once thought of it, it is easy to reproduce). Or they use the same idea to do some other evaluations (such as changing the background). If this is the case, won't my efforts be wasted?
Authors are not barred from uploading their papers to arxiv and
similar sites. But please note that such ef- forts may compromise the
double-blind review process, so please exercise care when discussing
your submission in public forums. On a related note, unrefereed
on-line pre-prints are not assumed to constitute “prior work” – in
other words, reviewers cannot penalize an HPCA submission because it
does not cite a pre-print with lim- ited visibility.
This is a passage from the conference where I want to contribute. It can be seen that he is not opposed to uploading the paper to arxiv.
But what does the last paragraph of it mean?
On a related note, unrefereed on-line pre-prints are not assumed to
constitute “prior work” – in other words, reviewers cannot penalize an
HPCA submission because it does not cite a pre-print with limited
visibility.
Does this sentence mean that it doesn't matter if you plagiarize a paper on arxiv. Because they don’t think arxiv is “prior work”.
arXiv is a public repository/a preprint server for research papers (that are either under review or currently being worked on. There are other such servers hosted by publishing houses as well like Elsevier's SSRN or MDPI's preprints.
In accordance with your question to the following paragraph:
On a related note, unrefereed on-line pre-prints are not assumed to constitute “prior work” – in other words, reviewers cannot penalize an HPCA submission because it does not cite a pre-print with limited visibility.
What they are trying to convey is that, if a paper (an online pre-print i.e., present on any of the public repos/databases) is somewhat relevant to the topic you're targeting in your paper and you don't cite the paper in the related work/prior work section you won't be penalized for it or asked to do so. The reason they don't consider arXiv prior work is clear that the PC is strictly adhering to papers that are rigorously peer-reviewed and published by a journal.
Also, it clearly does not indicate that you can plagiarize anyone's work.
Perhaps a bit more stress on your last sentence. Nothing gives anyone permission to plagiarize. Ever. For any reason. If you treat the ideas of others as your own, then you are plagiarizing. Full. Stop.
@Buffy Absolutely and Undoubtedly! :)
Thank you! But if they use the same idea to do some other evaluations (such as changing the background). Or make a simple improvement, will they be considered plagiarism?
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166375 | What is institutional open access fees?
There is such a paragraph in the conference introduction that I want to submit. What does institutional open access fees refer to here? Thank you!
ACM uses the corresponding author during the publication process for
accepted submissions. For example, institutional open access fees will
be charged to the corresponding author’s institution.
Probably the same as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_processing_charge
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22098 | How much does topic and supervisor matter for honours in computer science when the aim is ultimately to do a PhD?
I am about to go in to my honours year in computer science.
If I intend to apply for a PhD at another university when I finish, how much does it matter who my honours supervisor is? Will this make any difference when being assessed for entry at another university?
And as a general rule am I better choosing a pure (mathematical) or applied (programming/engineering) topic?
All things being equal, a well-known and respected individual in your field who can write an excellent letter of recommendation for you is better than a person who is not nearly so well known who can write a similar letter.
However, you should not choose a famous name just to have that person write you a letter of recommendation if you are not actively interested in that person's research. The obvious reason for this is that hunting for a letter of a recommendation is likely not to work as well as doing a project you're truly interested in, because the motivation to work on it won't be nearly as strong.
As for topic, if possible, I would recommend picking a topic in the general area you wish to pursue as a PhD student. Note that it doesn't need to be the same topic—but if you want to do, for instance, theoretical CS, it's probably better to do a theoretical CS project than something more applied.
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20128 | How to answer the question "tell me about yourself" in a Masters degree interview?
A good friend of mine had an interview for a psychology Masters degree. The interviewer asked my friend: "Tell me about yourself".
How should one approach such a question?
What do the admission committee expect to hear?
Vote to close as "primarily opinion-based". You could have all kinds of answers to your questions.
@scaaahu Actually, there are some expectations from the candidates. I've found that candidate should not tell about the past events: the committee already know them. So, the story is more complicated and for sure not "opinion based" as you suppose.
Where have you found that? Also, note that if they hear what they want to hear, they may cross you out for not being sincere (specially if they are trained psychologists).
@Davidmh in "The Rules of Work" bestseller... I suppose it is related
If they want you to tell you about your, say, future, they will ask you directly. If you follow advice from a bestseller, they are probably familiar with it, and will recognise if you are not honest.
@JeromyAnglim Why edit the question no one wants to answer?
@Ilan I think the question is ultimately worth answering. I thought the edit might make it slightly more appealing to people. I tried to make the title a little more self-contained and generally easier to consume and read.
@JeromyAnglim Thanks for that. Actually, millions of people asked this question and don't really know what to answer. I don't understand why in this community it is not not welcomed....
I dont think we should downvote the question, it is very common and valid.
@scaaahu I've found this video. This Q still actual for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-yxxPMtro
In this occasion, the interviewers want to know your background and your motivation of further study in this particular subject. They want to give the opportunity to the right person.
For example, I was once involved in the admission interview (although I didn't have the final say in the decision making). Based on my observation, those who had strong motivation but average GPA won over those with weak motivation and high GPA.
How should one approach such a question?
By telling them about yourself.
What do the admission committee expect to hear?
Something about yourself.
Relax. It's not a trick question. (Or if it is a trick question, you don't want to go there.)
Actually, you gave a superficial answer. Searching the web and collecting pieces of information I should say that this question has a solid background and the candidate should prepare to answer it.
No, my answer is neither superficial nor easy. If they want something more specific, they can bloody well ask you something more specific. Playing mind games with candidates is unacceptable, even (especially?) in a psychology department.
You might be amazed at the mind games that go on even (and maybe sometimes especially) in psychology departments...and yes, your answer is superficial.
Don't walk, etc.
@NickStauner if this answer is superficial, then I think the question should belong to cognitive science SE, not here.
@scaaahu: there is nothing about this question that is unique to psychology departmental interviews. Surely it's not unfamiliar to people in other fields. Regardless, this answer is nearly as useless as, "I am a cat person," would be in an interview when asked this question. At best one could hope for the same amused reaction this answer received through glib dismissal. (Nothing personal implied JeffE; strictly referring to the answer). I've offered my own answer to argue that there is a trick to answering this question. It's a wild card; be prepared to take the lead and make the most of it.
@JeffE There are many things that you could say about yourself, so even if it is not a trick question, it is not so simple. Should one say about their hobbies, or places they travel, or should it be about their interests in research. Is your answer specific to academics, where it should not be perceived as the same answer while interviewing at a company?
I would recommend approaching it as your opportunity to guide the interview in the direction you want it to go. As a professional psychologist, you would often have to introduce yourself and your work to others. What any given committee expects to hear is anyone's guess, but maybe the average committee would at least be happy to see you present a clear, succinct, professional summary of your interests and experiences.
Contrary to some implications that are starting to appear between the lines of responses here, psychologists are not necessarily more conscious of or trained in interviewing than others. Some of us specialize in interviewing, self-report, projective assessment methodology, psychoanalysis, and other forms of open-ended, qualitative research, but many (maybe most) of us do not. In defense of the extremely general, almost meaningless prompt, "Tell me about yourself," it is useful as a way of forcing the interviewee to initiate conversation on the topics of personal relevance, and may elicit those topics that an interviewee identifies with most strongly in a more direct way than other questions. Even if one were to ask questions based on prominent items from an applicant's CV, one could not be certain that those items weren't placed there after strategic deliberation or in capitulation to hiring committees' expectations. Asking a question like this that might easily be answered by glancing at an applicant's CV may catch an interviewee off-guard, forcing some on-the-spot self-reassessment in the underprepared, or giving hints of a person's true identity and interests without all the dressing and polish people usually apply to their CV entries.
Still, psychologists aren't necessarily more aware of these uses of the question than hirers of different backgrounds, and expecting these tactics to be deliberate may give too much credit to some interviewers who engage in them unwittingly. In some cases, it may just be a way of forcing the interviewee to guide the interview for lack of personal will to do so, or for lack of having had the time or desire to review an applicant's credentials directly beforehand. Either way, consider it a challenge, and come prepared to rise to the occasion on any open-ended question. Can you introduce yourself in a way that's impressive, professional, interesting, and not overwrought or revealing of personal weaknesses? Can you handle ill-formulated questions and vague statements of interest in a constructive manner when put on the spot and given an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise? The answer to these questions had better be "yes", because you'd certainly have to perform these functions as a psychologist.
I am answering your comment here. The last sentence "because you'd certainly have to perform these functions as a psychologist." seems to imply that this answer is more applicable to psychologists rather than academics in general.
@scaaahu: touché, but that implication is not intended very strongly. I'm speaking with more certainty about psychology because I happen to be a psychologist, but again, I would be very surprised if people in other fields didn't also have to perform those functions. Again, they are no more unique to psychology than the question in question and its ilk.
This is your chance to take the ball and run with it. I like to give some background that shows my history as it relates to why I am the right candidate. Glib or short answers will make you less likable, and going off topic or ranting opens you up to other judgement that may not be favorable. I would start from the timeline of whatever moment started the trajectory which ultimately ends up with you being in this interview, giving more weight/time to the things that you are most proud of. For example, I have always been interested in X, ever since my father brought me to see that Y in '92. for the last year, I have been exploring the inner workings of Z, and have contributed my time to some projects that seek to improve upon ... I am hoping to continue my efforts here, and am particularly interested in working on P.
*How should one approach such a question?
What do the admission committee expect to hear?*
If I were you I would approach this question like you were writing a cover letter for a regular job. Everything you talk about should always relate to why you want/qualified to be apart of this program. And you should talk about what your goals are after you have require this degree. Also,do your research on the culture of the program as well. If possible talk to a student who attended the university.
I am not an expert but this is my two cents in this matter.
Good Luck
I remember seeing this question on interview preparation articles or most asked question lists, and I must say this question makes no sense. The question seems so simple yet very hard to answer. I don't recommend replying with "Could you be more specific?" because it may seem like you are incapable of answering a simple! question. This is more likely to be the first question if you ever face it, sort of to break the ice, and you can simply introduce yourself and mention your professional interests and your purpose, very briefly. After this question, they will move to the specific questions that actually make sense.
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127616 | How to get second chance at pursuing honours/PhD if your undergraduate grades are poor in Australia?
I recently completed a 3 year bachelor degree in Computer Science at an Australian university. I graduated with a GPA which is roughly the equivalent of a “C” in the US. I only blame the grades on my poor work ethic and wasting time studying content unrelated to my course. The pathway to a PhD in Australia is to do a 3 year Bachelors degree and then complete an honours year which involves a significant research component.
I emailed the honours coordinator and unsurprisingly, they replied that with my transcript I stand no chance. The only post I found online by someone with similar transcript got the advice that they shouldn’t even be thinking about doing honours and that it is sad enough that people with such low grades get degrees. I have tried to give up my desire to do research (in Machine Learning) because it is naive to think about doing an honours program, let alone harbour any delusions of doing a PhD.
I know at some point I’ll just have to accept the truth. But before I give up I want to fail one more time - only this time I want to give it my 100%. Is there any way to get a “second chance”? No matter what I do I feel that my transcript will forever haunt me. Even if I somehow found an honours program which would accept me (unlikely) and I managed to get straight A’s, my past grades mean that my average GPA would still be very low. My fate is sealed, and a criminal record would be less of a burden. I want to work hard but with a best case scenario so grim I don’t know what to do.
Should I do a second bachelors degree?
Try to gain research experience (with problematic marks)?
Or just get a library membership and call it a day?
Can you enrol for a Master's degree?
Yes, but the admission requirements are similar to the honours year.
There are many universities around. Don't let what is officially stated stop you. Just apply.
You seem to have an interest for Machine Learning. Have you started studying it, maybe experimenting with it on your own? This could be your way in, if you can prove your motivation (and preferably some experience) for this specific goal. Depending on the specific system of admission, dedication and focus on a specific field might matter more than general grades. As an alternative, you could consider starting working in industry, acquire skills and experience and come back for a PhD a few years later: at this stage your professional profile will matter more than your grades.
In general only your Honours GPA "counts" for PhD admissions, though they'll still see the rest of the transcript and it will raise some significant red flags. It's the Honours admission (and performance there) that's more of an issue.
Regarding your hypothetical argument about getting accepted to honours and good grades there not mattering: if you did get accepted and get great grades in the so-called honours program, It would almost certainly help you far more than by just averaging up your GPA. Universities will notice the upward trend and some will be willing to believe you have turned things around.
More generally, no matter what you do next, poor grades say two things, both of which you need to overcome:
You have poor study habits, hence you'd probably fail out of grad school by doing more of the same, because a "C" average isn't acceptable in grad school.
You didn't learn as much of the material as you should have, and are now behind everyone else who got better grades. And now you will be in over your head in graduate courses which build on those undergraduate courses.
You can address #1 by showing a pattern of improvement in taking new classes and doing well. For #2 you will need to basically learn the material in a second try. If you had non-existant study habits in school with all the support and pressure on you, I don't have too much hope for self-study. I'd suggest finding a way to retake some key classes.
I'd also note that machine learning may be very different than what you expect coming from a computer science background. It is a heavily mathematical subject, where the programming is the easy part. So you may be gaining some edge by focusing on a topic that is more interesting, but you're also doubling-down on what is likely the hardest component of your studies.
This advice is not helpful since the asker is ineligible for honours. Also, many honours courses have little coursework. It is a research degree.
@AnonymousPhysicist That part of my answer was responding to the asker's hypothetical argument which presupposed both of those conditions: getting accepted and taking courses in honours. The rest of my answer was not specific to this scenario anymore. I will edit so others aren't similarly confused.
For computer science honours in Australia I believe it is often half or more coursework, however there is often few courses specifically aimed for PhD students (similar for maths and physics). Other science honours courses can often be entirely research (plus attending seminars). Though you'd still need to understand the material
This begs the question: what were you "wasting time studying content unrelated to my course" on?
If it was your boy/girl friend, well that wont help much.
However was it something you could call academic or even something like playing xbox?
Well then I would look at doing a 'Graduate Diploma' in a different but related field.
(In NZ) a Graduate Diploma consists of (the equivalent points of) one year of final year Undergrad papers (300-400 level)
Personal Story: I graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science (Medical Imaging), but found the real world work (taking X-rays) unsatisfying. So after a year taking X-rays (where I did get some interesting work stories*) I went back and undertook a G.Dip Sci (Computer Science) at a different University. I have never looked back*.
So if you under took a G.Dip in say Game Development. You could use that opportunity to get better grades and still be able to move back towards Higher level, Machine Learning (As AI is a part of game design) qualification.
For this to work you will need to:
Find a side step G.Dip you are going to find interesting
Apply your self and get good grades
Figure out what your end game is going to be
At the end of the day getting a Degree (etc) is about getting a job (for the most part). Even if that job is teaching at a university.
So once you have Honors or a PhD what are you going to do?
Remember Grades are only important to move from Student life to your first 'proper' job. Then how you apply yourself to work and self improvement (which is not graded) is what is important.
* When you are at a bar and some one asks how was your week, Saying you solved a tricky race condition bug, is way less impressive than 'Oh I had to tape down a dead guy in the morgue at work to day'. Still beats doing the shift work.
Why would playing xbox be impressive?
@user111388 I didn't say it was impressive. What I mean is find a positive spin on whatever it was you were doing and run with that. So even if it was something, generally considered as a waste of time, like XBox then look into channeling that experience into getting good at game development.
I think with that logic, "wasting time on boyfriend/girlfriend" can also be frame positively;)
This answer is based on Australian observations.
Most Phd students at a university are selected from honours students within the same department, and sometimes the honours students are accepted with the hope they will prove to be a good Phd candidate.
I have seen one average undergraduate student accepted for honours - but they had a high grade in the one subject that was especially relevant and that they were really interested in.
You should get a job in machine learning. You are fortunate that there are many job opportunities in that area right now. Get a few years relevant work experience, and then your ability to succeed in a PhD will seem more credible.
Edit: This won't work in Australia. Australian universities have hard grade/mark cutoffs for graduate study and don't consider your work experience. It will work in other countries that have more sensible policies.
A friend of mine dropped out of college after failing general chemistry twice in a row. He was going through a lot at the time that contributed to his lack of motivation and clear thinking. After his life situation improved, he started fresh with a different major at a different university and did well. If you have the financial means AND you are confident that you would succeed given another chance, then a second Bachelor's degree is a viable option. Be honest with yourself in evaluating the probability of success with this option if your situation has not changed.
You should absolutely try to gain research experience and self-teach machine learning. I successfully applied for financial aid to take a machine learning course on Coursera. The course was useful and enjoyable, and I now display the certificate on my Curriculum Vitae as evidence of my basic knowledge of machine learning. Furthering your education like this has multiple benefits: 1) demonstrates your interest and ability to academic programs and employers, 2) lets you advance your knowledge in a field of interest, and 3) lets you find out if you're actually as interested in the material as you think you are.
In addition, heed @Prof. Santa Claus' advice. There are a lot of programs out there. Apply around and see what sort of feedback you receive. You may be surprised by the extent to which some programs will look past sub-par academics if you can demonstrate your aptitude and interest in other ways (see self-teaching above). Lastly, the options you're considering are not mutually exclusive. The best strategy will likely combine applying around, furthering your knowledge on your own, and considering options outside of academia to get relevant work/research experience. Hope this helps.
"He does not include his earlier attempt at a degree on any application materials" - in the US this would not be an option without committing fraud (and grounds for expulsion from the program if discovered later), as pretty much every program requires transcripts from all previously attended institutions. Is this not the case in Australia?
He is from the US, but went into the private sector - not academia. So probably not fraud in the case of my friend, but your point is well-taken with regards to the OP. I had not considered that it could be construed as fraud. I do not know the legality in Australia, so I'll remove the passage in case. Thanks.
Research is not about getting good grades, and grades are not necessarily strongly correlated with research skills. Don't be put off by your abysmal grades - really nobody cares about them later!
I'm not familiar of how this works in Australia. In Europe I would try to:
a) volunteer for a small research project with a friendly group leader. Knock doors and asks nicely. If you offer free (and hard) work, there is always stuff to do. Don't try to hide your grades. Whatever content unrelated to course work you studied, maybe it's useful for getting a project, too.
b) Try to identify the topic that is most crucial for what you want to do/are doing right now (i.e. the research project). It might be programming or some aspect of theory - pick something manageable. Study it such way that you know how to apply it (particularly in research), before picking the next topic. That's a long-term strategy for acquiring new and relevant skills.
Of course, for above strategies you need a bit of time, as you won't earn money directly.
Don't be put off. You're having a bit a bumpy start now, but in the long run enthusiasm, genuine interest, focus, and creativity matter more.
So no, don't get a second bachelors degree. Yes, try to gain research experience (with problematic marks)!
In Australia, unfortunately, grade cutoffs are hard cutoffs and there is no getting around them. "Nobody cares" will not get you into honors or PhD if you have low grades.
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73336 | What are the pros and cons of doing a PhD in a small research group compared to a large research group?
I have chosen to work under a associate professor as my PhD advisor. He has a small research group -a group of 3 graduate students and some Undergraduates. I see colleagues of my advisor have groups of 10-12 students with 3 postdocs.
Am I missing something- research wise ??
The individuals involved are more important than the size of the group. Different faculty have different management styles.
This will of course vary between advisors and research groups, but I can discuss the differences I’ve seen in general between large and small labs. There are some differences which will be an advantage or disadvantage based on your personal preferences/working style, and others that can have a direct impact on research.
As a PhD student I was a part of a large academic lab, where we had approximately 20 people including Masters, PhDs, and post-docs plus an additional array of more temporary undergrads. As a large group, we had a variety of projects ongoing, with some involving small teams working on the same or similar topic. Being in a small team suited me, personally, quite well. The multiple ongoing research directions allowed me to also expand my knowledge base through informal discussions and during lab meetings, in addition to providing easy opportunities for collaborative research in smaller side projects through my degree. Older/more advanced students and post-docs were also a font of knowledge and advice for my own research problems. As a large group, we had a good amount of resources, monetary and otherwise, which was a definite bonus.
However, as a manager of a large lab, my advisor had little time for much personal attention or anything besides general direction. As such, it was much more difficult finding my research ‘footing’. After the first few difficult years, though, I flourished with the relative research freedom. From discussions with friends in much smaller labs, the involvement of their advisors was much higher and ranged from, in the beginning, weekly specialized task lists, to working side-by-side in the lab.
Once again, this will be heavily dependent on the people involved, but it is difficult to expect the same amount of interaction from an advisor who must split their attention n times more ways. I know a few who had co-advisors (where one was more established, one newer) to balance the issues I discussed (particularly the lack of funding/resources with the latter), but each option has their own advantages and disadvantages. Being co-advised is definitely no exception; getting them to agree to go in the same research direction can be simultaneously frustrating and terrifying.
With a small lab you may indeed be missing something research-wise, but your training in the ability to do research and your knowledge in your particular subject may benefit.
I have chosen to work under a assosciate professor as my PhD advisor.
He has a small research group -a group of 3 graduate students and some
Undergraduates. I see colleagues of my advisor have groups of 10-12
students with 3 postdocs. Am I missing something- research wise ??
I've worked in a number of different sized research groups, from the very small (PI, me, and another student working on a different project) to a very large group (dozen or so faculty members, legions of graduate students, handful of postdocs).
The answer is no, you're not necessarily "missing something". What you're getting is a different sort of something. A large group can do some things a smaller group can't - things that require just a massive input of raw man-hours. They likely have more publications coming out in aggregate, etc. These are all really cool things.
On the other hand, small groups have less inertia. It's probably easier for a small group to "pivot" to pursue something new and interesting. And it's easier for something to be "yours" - for large groups, with each graduate student making up a component part, it's somewhat harder to boost the visibility of each individual.
There are plusses and minuses to each, but they're very much just different styles of working. Good science can, and has, been done under each model.
It is probably because your supervisor is an associate professor and he has just started expanding his research group. As per my knowledge when professors are in this stage, they engage in more research activities to develop their career. And also they get enough time to spend for their students. I think there is no reason to worry. Probably it is for the best.
Really? I find it hard to imagine any assistant professor thinking "I'll want until after tenure to start expanding my group" instead of expanding their group now to improve their chances for tenure.
@JeffE may be not true for all the cases. My supervisor was engaged in research when he was an asso.Professor than now. I meant he spent alot of time with students and was more dedicated towards research/publications and getting grants. Now he kinda achieved what he wants (I assume, as he is a full professor, supervises so many PhD, masters, undergrad students). Eventhough still the research is his main thing, he has less time to spend with his students (with other administrative work). That was what I meant. Anyway you are a professor, so you know better than me :)
@JeffE It may be a function of time-until-funded-R01, rather than tenure.
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65258 | How to get funding as a third year PhD student for conferences and thesis write-up?
I am a third year PhD student in sustainability assessment on energy sector.
I am looking to obtain private funding from either a company (preferably) or an organisation to finish my PhD, and hopefully be employed by the sponsor after my completion. My supervisor has not been as helpful in providing advice.
I am also looking for funding to support conference attendance.
Does anyone have any experience on how to get funding at this stage?
Where shall I look for, and how shall I approach my potential sponsors?
Everyone wants funding. This is not something you can just decide you want and achieve it within a few weeks. It is extremely competitive.
Generally, at least in the US and portions of Europe, professors obtain the funding and they pay the student. If your advisor or department doesn't want to fund you, you should strongly consider finding another one.
I have never heard of a student obtaining industry funding without substantial evidence of their success (and usually near the end of their PhD) and even then, it is in the form of a fellowship (e.g., IBM Fellowship). You could certainly apply to these but from what I have seen, you usually need to have done internships there and have a strong internal recommendation.
On the other hand, I have known a few students that drop to part-time near the end of their PhD and they start a full-time job somewhere. Then their company reimburses them for their tuition until they finish.
If you look at it from the perspective of a company, why would they want to fund a random student full-time? They are usually looking for late-stage students who are already successful and that they can trust, or they are looking for collaborations with faculty members.
Note: I was funded by a large tech company after a successful internship, however, the money went to my advisor rather than me directly because they said it was "too risky" to interact with a student directly, and preferred to work with a professor (and thus all the benefits and accountability of a universities's research support and legal team).
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12264 | How should a student defend his 1st authorship in front of his advisor politely and effectively?
Inspired this good question, I think posting this question will surely benefit the next generations of students, albeit this does not happen to myself.
The research students will publish several papers along the research road under someone's supervision. When it comes to the issue of the author order, the student and the advisor may not always reach an agreement. i.e. Sometimes the student thinks he or she deserves the 1st author, but the advisor doesn't.
In such cases, the students are usually very worried and upset. Having been working on that topic for such a long time, the student feels very disappointed to be listed as the non-first author. Being the weak party, the student may not even dare to argue with his advisor. After all, the advisor is kind of "in control of" his remaining PhD life.
Simply put:
How should a student defend his or her 1st authorship in front of the advisor politely and effectively?
Authorship questions inevitably end up having two threads: what should be and what happens. The "what should be" is that the amount of intellectual work (as described in the Vancouver Protocol)
1. Conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data
AND
2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
that each author has put into the work. As with most agreements, it is best to discuss this in advance and agree on how to evaluate the work done. Usually the first author is in charge of writing and the other author(s) provide feedback and contribute to the writing. If everyone follows these rules then the argument is fairly "straightforward".
In reality, we have to also deal with different types of personalities and other situations that affect judgement. It is not uncommon for persons to want first authorship if they are up for promotion or if they see that something they did not fully think was great actually is. The list could be made long. Straightening these cases out is sometimes (if not often) really tough.
Being pragmatic, I often think about if the situation will hurt me and evaluate if the fight is worth it. In the case of a PhD student, having ones advisor as first author is not necessarily a bad thing since, hopefully, the advisor is well-known and respected. Hence some of that rubs off on the co-author. As a PhD student I think a valid argument is that you need first authorship on some of the work in your thesis. This is a particularly good argument if the "switch" occurs repeatedly.
Arguing against irratianal excuses for first authorships will be hard or near impossible to win so I am a little pessimistic when it comes to such cases. You need to evaluate the situation yourself, gather objective arguments for your claim and possibly asking other faculty for advice and support.
In addition to Peter's answer, one should also keep in mind the accepted practices in one's field of study. For instance, in some fields, such as economics and parts of mathematics, alphabetical order is the default; in other areas, such as organic chemistry, the principal investigator of the lab—not the primary author of the paper—has traditionally been given the first spot in the list.
If you are in a field where the order is somewhat preordained, it's going to be very difficult to change that tradition, for many reasons. In such cases, you should optimize your placement within the "available" options.
Also noteworthy is that in fields where authorship is preordained like this (especially alphabetical), people are aware of this and therefore place much less emphasis on your position within the author list.
What does first authorship really mean?
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66245 | How can I find out how often my publications have been cited?
Is there a special database somewhere where you can see how often other scholars have cited you or your publications in their scholarly works?
My professor is always saying, "No one has cited me on this..."
Is that just his general assessment or does he know this from a verified source?
What field are you in? In addition to the excellent general-level databases referenced in the answers below, there are some discipline-specific databases (ADS for astronomy and astrophysics, for instance, and some other examples are in some of the answers below).
Google scholar works pretty well, though with all of these things there are edges cases that cause problems (non unique names, random poster presentations showing up counting as citations, etc.)
I find that ResearchGate tends to be pretty good. People can comment, annotate, and more generally fix up the metadata issues on this site in a social media style, and so it tends to be pretty accurate. However, since it's still quite new most papers are missing from its databases (though it still tends to count citations correctly?).
Nice answer. I would add scopus to your answer too.
For this particular question: The errors/problems in Google Scholar mostly give too many citations, so for a little-cited paper you can count by hand how many "real" citations it has, no matter what you consider "real".
In mathematics there is the extremely reliable database MathSciNet. The drawbacks are that it's not freely available and it takes some years for papers and citations to appear there correctly. However, it really is accurate (they have staff to handle difficult cases with similar author names, authors changing names and stuff).
If you're in high-energy physics, look at your author profile or paper on inspire.
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103725 | Should I accept invitation to be an external examiner for a PhD?
I have been invited to be an external examiner for a Ph.D. in electronic engineering at a UK University.
I work in the Electronics industry in a research role, regularly competing for external research funding with academics and sometimes collaborating with them too (including 2 or 3 of the academics in the department from which I have received the invitation).
I have not studied for a Ph.D., but feel I keep up to date with research on the topics in question. I review papers for IEEE journals and have some professional recognition.
The Ph.D. has been sponsored by my employer and I believe that a colleague has been the industrial supervisor. I have not met the candidate. I don't feel that any of this creates a conflict of interest.
Am I qualified to take this role? How much work will it involve?
Since you do not have a PhD degree, you should check to see if the university's regulations will allow you to serve. The University of Nottingham's regulations state:
However, it will be appropriate in some cases for Schools to nominate individuals from other suitable environments provided that those individuals are experts in the field of the student's topic of research and hold a professional status which is equivalent to a University Professor, Reader, Lecturer or teacher.
You should check if your experience allows you to serve as a reader. You wouldn't want to get involved and then find out it doesn't count for procedural reasons.
Otherwise, if you'd like to do it, there's no reason why you shouldn't!
I'd assume that usually someone at the university in question will have checked their regulations, and in case of doubt discuss things with the potential examiner, on their own initiative. Also, there should not be any real work required before a formal invitation to examine.
@silvado: I was once asked to chair a thesis defense before I was allowed to do so in my own department. They may be assuming “Mikado has published papers and therefore has a PhD.” Better to ask before accepting.
Agreed, in case one does not have a PhD degree it would be safe to inform about that directly, because that may easily be assumed without being checked.
Are you qualified? Yes. Even if you lack knowledge, you can read the dissertation thoughtfully and give useful input.
How much work? Rough estimate: Twice the work it takes to review a IEEE paper.
Also: I think you'll find the experience rewarding.
I'd add to this that it's just fine to ask what the roles of the external examiner are. You may also need to attend an in-person defense, for example (I have no idea if this is typical for EE in the UK or not), as well as reviewing the written thesis.
I have been invited to be an external examiner for a Ph.D. [...] The Ph.D. has been sponsored by my employer and I believe that a colleague has been the industrial supervisor.
This could be perceived as a conflict of interest, since your employer and colleague would presumably benefit from the candidate's success. It is irrelevant whether there's a real conflict. If anyone perceives a conflict, then the candidate, your employer, your colleague, and you could all be harmed. Do not accept the invitation.
Beyond the conflict, there's an issue of whether you are qualified, which is addressed by another answer.
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66471 | What is the difference between minor, moderate, and major revisions?
What is the difference between "a moderate revision" and "a major revision"? How much chances in percent increase if you research paper gets moderate revision rather than a major revision?
I have never seen the term "moderate revision", only "minor revision".
The exact semantics of major or minor revisions will depend on the journal - at some journals, a minor revision will not be externally reviewed any more, while a major revision will. At others, the difference is less clear-cut and may simply reflect the editor's feeling of how many additional rounds of review may be necessary.
Similarly, the differences in the probabilities for acceptance between different types of revisions will vary between journals. At some journals, even a major revision is almost certain to be finally accepted, even if it may still take multiple rounds of review, barring rare cases.
Thankyou Stephan. I recently had a moderate revision on one of my manuscript. It is new for me as well.
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90382 | What suffix should you use when you are a PhD Scholar filling out membership form for IEEE Xplore?
I was filling IEEE Xplore membership form. In the form, there was a field "Suffix", the values for this field are I, II, III, IV, Jr., M.D., P. Eng, PE, PhD, Sr., V.
Which one does best describe me? Currently I am a Research/PhD scholar in a department of information technology.
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about academia.
When you say "PhD Scholar", you mean you are currently completing your PhD? i.e., you don't have a PhD?
Names are complicated, and some people are very touchy about getting theirs exactly as they want it. In English-based naming, this can often include prefixes (e.g., "Sir" in "Sir Walter Scott") and suffixes (e.g., "Jr." as in "Martin Luther King, Jr.").
This form is making things more complicated and confusing by combining two orthogonal categories of suffix:
Generational suffixes: I, II, III, IV, Jr., Sr., V.
Academic suffixes: M.D., P. Eng, PE, PhD
And what should you do? Just leave this field blank.
If your name had a generational suffix, you wouldn't be asking this question.
From your comment, you don't have an academic suffix yet.
Even if you did have an academic suffix, you might not want to add it anyway. In many parts of American scientific or professional society, for example, people do not bother to use their academic titles (it's always a little weird to me to be addressed as "Dr. Beal", and I would never ask somebody to call me "Jacob Beal, Ph.D."). In many parts of Europe, on the other hand, such titles are used much more commonly and comfortably.
P.Eng and PE are technically professional suffixes.
Do you have one of these titles?
More specifically, as a 'PhD scholar', are you still working towards your PhD or have you already defended?
Is your name 'snowbell', 'snowbell the third', or 'snowbell junior'?
If the former, leave the field empty.
I am working towards my PhD...It has been only 6 months that I have joined the PhD program
If the other conditions mentioned don't apply, leave the field empty.
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13916 | Is it acceptable to require a student to use the supervisor's preferred software/tools?
I'm about to supervise my first bachelor student and I'm not quite sure what is acceptable and what is not.
The thesis will contain math formulas, illustrations, images, graphs and tables - like any other paper / thesis in physics. The question is, shall I force my student to use (and learn how to use) certain SW tools (LaTeX, Matlab,...) instead of commonly used office packages (Word, Excel, PowerPoint,...)?
Is it acceptable to provide source files of my thesis and/or Matlab functions/scripts to the student? Note that the field of research is not connected to typography nor data analysis.
Edit considering JeffE's answer:
Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to require students to use the software tools that are standard in your field when they begin working in your field, even as undergraduates.
There aren't defined standard, or mandatory, tools to use. Just only vague rules how the thesis shoud look like.
Tools for specialized work, say microhardness measurements and analysis, are set and there can't be any doubts and discussions.
You can introduce the said tools to your students. Like this, and only if they are interested, they will go deeper in learning how to use them. But forcing your students to use a specific tool is, IMHO, the best way to get the opposite results.
Say that "If you won't do it you can say good-bye to your thesis" is far too extreme. Right now, I've sent him several theses to show how accepted theses look like.
I forgot to say that I HATE how office work with images (including, positioning,...) and math (mouse abuse) and sometimes I turn mad about that easily.
@Crowley Correct me if I am wrong, but most of times, you can (almost) achieve with Word what LaTeX can produce, it will just take you a hell lot more time and patience to do so. Don't get me wrong however, I can't stand the Office suite either.
You're right, but LaTeX seems to me more fool-proof. But don't fall into LaTeX vs. Office flamewar, same problem would be when chosing between M$ Paint and Gimp for bitmaps.
If you want to teach someone software tools, don't forget version control.
I would like to answer this question for the best interest of the student's, not yours.
You are supervising bachelor students. They may go to academia or industry after graduation.
If the student will pursue academic career after he graduates, then you should tell him to use the tools that are widely used in academia because it's for his best interest. I think force is a too strong word. To convince him is what you would do.
However, if he will go to industry, why waste his time to learn something he probably will never use for the rest of his life?
If the student doesn't know what he wants to do after he graduates, it's time for him to think about it now. Isn't it?
Here is my personal experience while I was in industry. I had to produce some document which contained math equations. I wanted to use LaTex. MS word was the tool I was told to use because of maintainability issue (no one else in my department knew how to use Latex). I had to follow the order. Matlab is another story. It's also used in industry.
with regard to LaTeX, I highly recommend LaTeXiT. it enables you to create mathematical formulas in latex without having to learn any other typesetting. and, you can copy and paste the formulas into word, powerpoint, etc.
@Tom I am already retired. It's not my problem anymore. Your suggestion probably won't work if the math formulas need to be updated after the document was produced. To the LaTex users like you and me, creating math stuff using LaTex is easy. It's hard to the non-users. I tried to train somebody to do it. It took him one week to fix two lines which had some errors. The management had to call for quit and we went back to MS Word. I am not sure it was because of LaTex or just that person, or the math was hard for him. As far as I know, industry still don't like use LaTex.
I think your answer is great. My advice was directed not to you specifically, but to anyone who needs to create mathematical formulas. I was not suggesting that it's easy, but it is much easier than learning to write a whole document in LaTeX. The formulas are copied as text, not pictures, so they are still editable after being pasted into MS Word. Still, as you suggest, I wouldn't recommend it for everyone.
Clearly define what are your goals and constraints, and work from there. What are the things that they need to learn in order to progress further in the field (and someday find a job)? What are constraints imposed by the research project you will be working on?
Goals — if learning a specific piece of software is required to become a professional in your field, then it is a de facto standard and they need to learn it. In this, a specific piece of software is just like a particular experimental or mathematical technique.
Constraints — there are cases where you need to restrict the choice of software to interoperate with others. For example, the student might not be able to choose his favorite programming language for a specific project because he has to use a specific advanced library, which only exists in e.g. Python. Or the project actually is to implement a specific functionality in an existing C++ framework. Or one of the goals of the thesis might be to produce technical documentation to be published in a given format.
Other than that, leave them free to choose whatever works for them. Be clear and upfront about what you advise them to use, and what you are willing to teach them (and what you cannot teach them). For example:
The choice is yours, as long as your are able to efficiently produce and edit a professional-looking 200-page document with many figures, tables, references and subdivisions, and it adheres to the university guidelines. I myself use LaTeX for writing articles and theses, as many colleagues, and I advise you to do the same. I have little experience with word processors. I can help you if you run into problems with the first one, but will not be able to help if you choose a word processor.
I once had a student who mastered MS Word to a level that I had never seen, and did a superb job in an efficient matter. It wouldn't have been bright of me to require him to use LaTeX when he knew another tool.
It wouldn't have been bright of me to require him to use LaTeX when he knew another tool. — That's just, like, your opinion, man.
@JeffE yeah, like most of the things I say, it is my opinion… I'm not quoting it as an International Standard on Word Processor Use in Academia :) To be clearer: I understand that there are some fields where LaTeX would be covered by my point #1 (i.e., it's a de facto standard), and not knowing how to use it would put you at a disadvantage. It happens not to be the case in my field (physical chemistry).
I think it is useful to expose new students, even undergraduates, to the tools of the field. It's beneficial for them to know what some of this "looks like", it's easier for you to help them if they don't have to bring you up to speed on what they're using, etc.
You say there might not be "standard" tools, but are there some tools that are commonly used? Your two examples, LaTeX and Matlab, are both fairly ubiquitous in "applied math-y" fields, so why they might not have to use them in the future, there's a good chance they'll encounter it, or something like it.
The one caveat is that I would have a discussion with the student about their goals and objectives, and make sure the tools you're making them use are tools they will use in the future. As a somewhat personal example, despite the inclinations of some of my collaborators it would have been useless to make me learn how to lay out papers in LaTeX, as the standard for my field is not that, and all that would have accomplished was adding an extra step in before I converted everything to Word files.
Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to require students to use the software tools that are standard in your field when they begin working in your field, even as undergraduates.
Unless there are no standard tools defined nor recomended. They are just accessible (student licences, public PC labs, etc.) but not emhasized at all.
Nonsense. LaTeX is the standard tool for writing research papers in mathematics, in many branches of computer science, and in most branches of physics. Similarly, Matlab is the standard tool for certain types of visualization. The question is not whether the tools are standard to students, but rather if they are standard for researchers.
I disagree. My colleague was submitting an article and was told to send it as MS Word document with strictly specified rules (font type, font sizes,...).
@Crowley (shrug) Every field has its weirdos.
A certain amount of "tool agnosticism" is a healthy attitude to have, since many people will want to use tools with which they are already familiar. I would be loathe to interrupt someone's already-functional workflow without a strong reason.
However, among those reasons are interoperability and reproducibility. If a student is doing research in your group, then their tools should be compatible with the ones you're already using. More importantly, you should still be able to use the work that they've produced even after they've left the group. So something that would require you to purchase an external license, or may not be well-supported within your group, is probably a bad idea. An "alternate" tool that is public domain, open-source, or otherwise "standard" in your field is probably not such a big deal. (What this means in your field is, of course, for you to decide!)
Without going into many details. I think of this as a chance for the student to learn not only Math, but things related to research and Academia. You as a supervisor should be able to prioritize. So start by asking him to work with fully professional tools such as Matlab and LaTeX for example, but if you find out that this holds him back from the main purpose of his thesis, then you should be lenient.
Should I force my student to use certain tools such as LaTeX and
Matlab?
I think it would be hard to force a student to do so anyway, so do not force them simply suggest it to them. The examples you gave of LaTeX and MATLAB are not particularly difficult to learn. As a Computer Science undergrad I learnt them in my 4th year and it only took a very short time to be productive with them. In fact I was eager to learn and use them, you may find this to be true with your student, so do not assume that your student will resist the idea.
You should also explain why you use such tools and hopefully they will realise and come to appreciate them. Explain that not using the same tools will create more work for the both the student and yourself. My final recommendation is to set them some small trivial tasks at first to build familiarity, which is what my supervisor did. It worked on me.
I just recently graduated with my Bachelor's degree and for couple of my classes, I was required to use Latex and Matlab. I am glad the professor told me to use those because it helped me a lot in other classes too and helped me to gain a valuable skill.
Fred Brooks says in The Mythical Man-Month
"A good craftsman is known by his tools"
So if the student has the time, and skill you should force him to use the tools of the trade. You are his trainner, his teacher he doesn't know what he doesn't know, so if the tool is important then he should learn it.
Obviously use judgment the goal is for him to write the thesis not to master tools, so if the deadline is approaching then focus on the product not the tools.
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53789 | Do authors usually receive a copy of the whole journal issue when they publish a paper?
I've recently published my first paper.
Do journals usually send authors a copy of the issue in which their paper was published? Does Science magazine do that?
As for what's usual nowadays, in math at least: at most a free eprint, though occasionally an actual offprint--very rarely a copy of the whole issue. Though Science is far from a typical research journal.
There are thousands of different journals, with many different policies. This question is too broad to answer. In the case of your particular paper, the journal should have made you aware of its policies before agreeing to accept the paper.
@DavidRicherby "Should have" --- maybe. "Did" --- often not.
Science do not offer a copy of the issue.
I am in your exact same situation: first paper, and in Science. Did you finally receive a copy of the issue? I want to frame it!
Did you just say you published you first journal paper? and it was in Science? Congratulations!
Some journals do, and some journals don't. In my experience, it seems pretty random which do and don't. Off the top of my head, I am not certain whether Science does.
I got a dozen or so separate copies (in the format of the journal) of my papers when I published in some IEEE transaction a while back. Just the paper, not the whole issue. From other journals I got a copy of the issue, sometimes just a letter of confirmation that it was published, or not even that.
No, Science does not give paper copies to authors, I was in your same situation. You can buy a separate issue if you request it, and it’s cheaper when yours is the current issue.
There are far too many journals to make a single, authoritative statement on the issue, beyond "Not always".
In my experience, and in my field (biomedical) it's quite rate. Of the papers I've published, only the single paper I've gotten in Lancet Infectious Diseases provided full copies of the print journal. All other papers I have where I have a physical copy I either ordered, or happened to subscribe to the print journal already.
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181172 | Applying for a job with former PhD supervisor - what to do about references?
It looks like I'm about to apply for a postdoc position to go back to my former PhD supervisor, with only one PI in between.
Normally as a Postdoc going for a 2nd (or 3rd depending on how you count it) position, the PhD supervisor would be a good person to ask for a reference (one of 3 in this case). My supervisor was also the last person I worked for before my current PI - again, last but 1 boss would be a sensible reference.
But what if the position being applied for is working for the former PhD supervisor? It seems obvious to me that you can't ask someone to for a reference when they're the one hiring. In this case everyone I'd ask for a reference from my PhD days is on the hiring committee. Is the only course of action to not have any references from the PhD period?
In this case I'm on good terms with everyone, but have a fairly limited network (partly because of the geographic limitations that are why I'm applying to go back there); I'm moving on because of funding running out so my PI knows I'm applying for stuff (and I've actually asked them pretty much this question).
You just finished a postdoc with someone, and now you're applying for another postdoc with the PI who supervised your PhD? Just clarifying.
@AzorAhai-him- not quite finished, but that's right. I'll re-read my Q because having just written essentially the same in an email I might have missed a key point
In the end, on advice from my current boss and with limited time, I put the former supervisor down as one of 3 referees. I haven't had any complaints, and I would expect to have done by now.
I would just drop your former supervisor an informal email - he will know what to do.
And honestly, given that he knows you most likely very well the whole interview process might only be a formal procedure while the actual decision if it hires you again or not takes place in the moment he knows that you apply.
One other thought that you should keep in mind is that doing a post-doc in your former PhD supervisor's lab might not be the best choice for your career as the aim of a postdoc is to show independence from the former supervisor.
Your extra thought is noted, and had occurred to me. I'm geographically restricted so really have to try for everything academic within commuting range (which luckily covers a few cities), otherwise it's back to industry for me
That informal contact would be a good approach, but in this case I found the job listing only a few hours before the deadline. I'd only just started looking broadly
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89412 | How to prevent a coauthor from stealing the article?
Please go through the following incidents to understand the problem.
Mr. A is a Ph.D. student of some institute who was working with Prof. B of another institute on a very interesting mathematical problem since last three years. Recently, they came across a significant solution to it. They wrote a research article to publish in a very good mathematics journal that accepts the online submission.
Prof. B wanted to submit it to the journal by himself. Mr. A agreed.
A few days ago, Mr. A wanted to know about the submission of their article via telephone. Prof. B informed that the article is submitted. But, Mr. A received any confirmation e-mail neither from the journal nor Prof. B forwarded the submission mail to him. Prof. B did not upload it in arXiv, which is a free preprint repository.
Mathematics journals used to take a long duration to review and publish an article. Prof. B told that submitting this article to arXiv will immediately attract community attention. Many researchers will start working in the new direction. As a result, Mr. A and Prof. B may lose their opportunity to work on that problems. Also, the article may be stolen.
Mr. A did not ask Prof. B to forward the submission confirmation mail to him. Prof. might think that Mr. A is suspecting him. It may affect the relationship. Also, Prof. is a very powerful person in the administration, who may prevent an opportunity for Mr. A to gain a job. Again from some of his friends, Mr. A came to know that Prof. had distributed related research problems to his collaborators.
As a consequence, Mr. A is thinking that Prof. has submitted this work in his own name and he has lost his credit as the first author of this article.
Now the question is: How Mr. A may save his credit and his work without hampering his relationship with Prof B?
So the paper is already on arxiv under both their names? And it is in submission to a journal? What exactly is the problem then?
I read it as: Prof. B did not post the article on arXiv, even though Mr. A apparently expected him to do so. Whether they had actually discussed, in advance, whether to post on arXiv is unclear. Anyway, it seems to me absurd to take these incidents and jump to the conclusion that A submitted the paper without B's name.
I don't really see anything here that suggests that Prof B is trying to steal the work. Nor do I understand what he would gain from being a sole author vs. a co-author. Can you elaborate why Mr. A is suspicious?
Another point - if this is in math, then authors are nearly always listed in alphabetical order, and "first author" has no meaning.
Mr. A came to know that Prof. had distributed related research problems to his collaborators. This is not suspicious either - it's the whole point of having collaborators. Just because you collaborate with someone on one thing, that doesn't give you the exclusive right to collaborate on every other possible project that arises from it.
@NateEldredge Given that OP writes "did not UPDATE it in arXiv" I assumed that it must already be on axiv. But maybe they meant upload. However the connection with the paper being stolen from arxiv seems bizarre.
Also "Mr. A did not ask Prof. B to forward the submission confirmation mail to him.", why not? While it may have been nice of them to so on their own, maybe they just forgot. So why not just ask for the mail?
Proper word should be "UPLOAD".
For me it sounds mr A is a paranoid collaborator, who has difficulties clearly communicating with his/her partners.
An article might be "stolen" if it is published on arXiv? I don't get that.
OP: what makes you believe that your name was omitted from the manuscript? Did you ask for a copy of the submitted manuscript (useful, because sometimes there are minor changes) to be sent to you?
In this age, it seems highly unlikely that there is absolutely no permanent record of their communication and collaboration: how did they collaborate in writing the paper? Did they exchange drafts via e-mail, for instance?
So, if this happens, you simply show the evidence to the editors and to the direct superiors of prof. B. End of story.
And, additionally, which author names were included in the draft? Unless it is a double-blind submission, of course.
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69413 | Comparison between benefits of publishing a paper at a conference and a journal
My friends submit their papers at different conferences. They visit to another university or institute in India or abroad to present their work at a gathering of researchers which is formally called conference. To celebrate it they share snapshots in Facebook, discuss their experience of a foreign trip, grand dinners, gossiping with new friends, so on and so forth.
To continue a good piece of research work, one face a lot of hardness and difficulties. Hence, one may expect maximum benefit from it. My question is how beneficial submitting a paper at highly reputed journal rather than a highly reputed conference academically? Which one is better?
Please compare between the benefit of a journal and a conference publication from different perspective. Note that, I am at the very beginning of my research career in Mathematics.
The answer of your question depends on your field. In some fields, publishing at conferences is norm, What's your field?
There's a strong correlation between a venue's reputation and its citation frequency. You can find citation frequency rankings for many research areas at Google Scholar.
@scaaahu It is Mathematics, I have edited the question accordingly.
Could you be a bit more specific than just mathematics. In theoretical math, people do not publish in conferences at all, while it is my understanding that applied math works a bit more like CS in that regard.
@Tobias: I think applied math is more or less like math. You can definitely publish in some conferences (you can in math, as well), but journal publications are what really counts.
@PeterShor could you give an example of such a conference? I have never heard of such in pure math (not counting the typical type of conference proceedings in math which is something rather different).
@Tobias: Take a look at these books.
@PeterShor Yes, those are the type of conference proceedings I mentioned. They are very different from what people mean when they speak of publishing in a conference since the papers are generally written after the conference and only loosely based on talks at the conference. Also, the majority of material in such papers is usually expository rather than new results.
This depends on your field. In computer science, publishing at the best conferences is worth more on your CV than publishing in journals. In most other fields, journal publications (even in mediocre journals as long as they are properly peer-reviewed) are worth much more on your CV than conference papers at even the best peer-reviewed conferences.
Assuming that you are not in computer science or a field that shares its unusual norms, a good journal paper will be:
A more meaningful line on your CV;
More likely to be widely cited (or cited at all);
More likely to be thoroughly peer-reviewed, which may help to improve the paper (peer-review at many conferences is cursory or non-existent);
More likely to be indexed by Web of Science and Scopus so that it can be easily found and so that your citations can be counted;
More likely to be assigned a permanent DOI and permanent "home" on the web and in library collections.
Publishing via conferences does have advantages, though:
The publication process is usually faster, which can be particularly
important in fast-moving fields;
Conference papers are (in many if not most fields) much easier to get accepted for publication than papers in good journals;
Conference papers can be a good way to get early feedback on - or publicity for - work in progress;
Some conferences are closely associated with scholarly societies and their journals, and conference papers are sometimes considered
drafts of potential journal papers (authors of the best conference
papers may be invited to submit extended versions to a journal, for
instance);
Some treat conference papers (or at least, conference seminars) as a way to get publicity for already-published journal papers;
Attending conferences is a great way to build connections within your field, learn about the latest work of other groups, and meet
people who may be interested in your results or in working with you
in future. They can also be great fun.
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99037 | Returning to research/academia
I'm a 28 year old Ph.D. student in CS (databases), in my first year of study - I have completed a research-based Master's program and published a couple of papers as well.
I love research, and my current school + supervisor. However, I'm under severe financial pressures, and the stipend isn't cutting it (I'm unable to take up part-time work, since I'm on a visa). I have standing offers from great companies. The logical step is for me to take up a job at one of these places, since my plan was to work in industry after a Ph.D. anyway.
However, I wish to return to academia (as a professor) at some point, perhaps in my 40s. My choices are:
Continue in my current program (very stressful personally)
Re-apply (after I'm financially settled) to a Ph.D. program, in my mid-late thirties.
Try and publish from industry (collaborate with my current advisor) and apply for a position in academia later on (as a researcher/tenure-track professor).
Questions for you guys:
General advice on any other options I don't know about?
Is (2) worthwhile, will I get into a good program (mainly concerned by the age factor)
Is (3) even possible? If so, how rare is it that academic positions are offered to non-Ph.D.'s? My field is closely tied to industry, so there will be chances for me to work and publish research, but I'm not sure how pedantic academia is as far as requiring the terminal Ph.D. degree.
How many person-years of research have you completed? (That is, number of years into PhD less number of years of classes if any.)
please see updated info
(2) is definitely possible, commonly done, and age is not a problem at all. At the last conference I visited, one of the papers was presented by a PhD student in his early seventies who had gone back to get the degree because his retirement was boring.
@nengel : That's encouraging. Was this in CS? Which area of research is he working on?
Computer Engineering, the student in question had a long career as a hardware engineer and is now working on some accelerators for near data computing.
In deciding between Options 1 and 2, be sure to think about what your personal situation might be like ten years from now. In particular, do you want to get married? Do you want to have children? If you have a supportive spouse who makes a large income and no children at that time, quitting your job and restarting your Ph.D. will probably be relatively easy. If you're the sole breadwinner for a household of five, and your spouse's income prospects are limited, it may be nearly impossible for you to do this; you're probably better off toughing it out now.
Concerning Option 3: as a general rule, one has to be truly exceptional to get hired as a full-time professor without a Ph.D. in the USA. This is because of two factors:
Universities are judged on what fraction of their faculty have "terminal degrees". This is one of the metrics used in the U.S. News & World Report rankings, for example.
In almost every field, the number of Ph.D.s granted each year is far greater than the number of full-time academic jobs that become available. This means that every academic job vacancy in the US could be filled several times over and still leave many Ph.D.s without employment in academia.
All of this means that if you apply for such a job without a Ph.D., and all other things being equal, it is unlikely that a hiring committee will seriously consider your application over the dozens/hundreds of candidates with a doctorate. The situation may not be as bad in CS as it is in other fields, since CS Ph.D.s can (presumably) more easily find employment outside of academia; but it's still a factor that's working against you. Neither of these factors is likely to lessen over the next decade or so; if anything, universities have been steadily moving away from employing full-time professors and towards employing adjunct professors, so the latter point is likely to get worse.
This is not to say that you can't teach at the college/university level without a Ph.D. However, your options will probably be limited to two types of jobs. One is two-year colleges, where it is expected that teaching will take up all of your time and so the research experience & credentials conferred by a Ph.D. are of minimal importance. However, you mention that you want to be a "researcher" at a university, so this is probably not the sort of job you want.
The other is adjunct professorships: piecemeal employment which is not full-time. If teaching one course per semester at the local college/university as a "side hustle" while holding down a full-time job in industry appeals to you, then this might be a viable option; the above-mentioned growth of adjunct faculty positions could even work in your favor here. Some people try to cobble together multiple adjunct positions into full-time employment, but honestly, this is a recipe for stress and heartbreak and I cannot recommend it as a career plan.
Bullet #2 seems to make bullet #1 irrelevant. If there are more PhDs than positions it should be trivial to fill all positions with PhDs, so it ends up just being a measure of how many total faculty members individual institutions have.
it should be trivial to fill all positions with PhDs — Only if PhDs apply.
Many faculty at community colleges don't have doctorates.
(2) is totally possible, in particular when you are in CS. System skills and industrial experience are highly valuable. Many research labs want to develop industrial-strength tools. I know plenty of examples.
(3) is also very common. Search for positions such as "Research Engineer" in industrial research labs. You can still publish papers, even as lead author. Check some websites of research groups at NASA Ames, you will find many people without a PhD.
Another option is to do PhD part-time and work in industry at the same time. In Switzerland (and perhaps Germany), it is called external Phd students. You do PhD part-time, the company pays for your tuition fee, but often requires you to work for them for a number of year after PhD. Note that there is no difference between part-time PhD and full-time PhD in the degree.
NASA Ames has this policy. Many universities have campus inside Ames, e.g. CMU, UCSC,... and many of their employees are doing part-time PhD in these campus. In particular, I know a Moroccan guy who is working at Ames, and doing PhD remotely in France. The reason is that his supervisor is a collaborator in a project at Ames.
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54792 | Obtaining feedback from supervisors
I'm a PhD student in the process of writing a manuscript. I have more than one supervisor and other collaborators for the project I'm writing up presently. I've also received very useful feedback from all supervisors. However, there's one problem. I often find that the feedback from one supervisor sometimes contradicts feedback from another. I try not to take sides but I'm not entirely sure how other researchers have dealt with this in the past.
So in summary, what do you do when you get conflicting feedback from your supervisors?
Note: my supervisors are my advisors and the manuscript is a part of my PhD-not the entire thesis.
After answering your question, I glanced at your SE profile and I saw a discrepancy between your titles there and in question (unless in UK "postgraduate student" has a different meaning from one in US). Obviously, if you're a postgraduate student in US terminology (that is, a Ph.D. graduate), then my answer is not applicable.
In Re: your Note. There still should be a person, who is managing (formally or informally) the group of your advisors. If my assumption is correct, then IMHO that person should resolve such situations.
@AleksandrBlekh, I think postgraduate education in the uk is the equivalent of graduate education in the US.
Thank you for the clarification - I wasn't aware of that terminology difference. By the way, good luck with your dissertation (thesis)!
Do you have one main supervisor? If so, you probably want to follow there advice over your other supervisors. However, be sure their opinions are really contradictory. Sometimes you can address seemingly contradictory suggestions simultaneously.
In any case, you should understand why they made the suggestions they did, which may involve asking them. At this point you can mention that Supervisor B made a different suggestion X and ask "What do you think about that?" It may be that one of them agrees with the other, either because there was no real contradiction of opinion, or one changes their mind. (I often waffle back and forth about how to write a paper.) In any case, based on their reactions to other supervisors' suggestions, you should (hopefully) be able to discern which ones are safest to ignore, and which are most important.
Thanks for your answer. I have a primary supervisor but my research is very interdisciplinary requiring inputs from all supervisors. I'll certainly try your suggestion.
If by "supervisors" you mean your dissertation committee, then, as far as I know, the standard approach is to allow the committee chair (advisor) to resolve various conflicts of that kind between her/him and committee members.
At many universities (well, at least, at some, mine included), a Ph.D. student is actually prohibited from direct communication with committee members — in particular, on dissertation (manuscript) revisions' feedback — so, this burden is a part of the advisor's responsibilities. Perhaps, such arrangement is not common across universities within a country and across different countries.
"Supervisor" in the UK is what Americans call "Advisor": the professor under who you do your research. It is also common to have two co-supervisors with who you have close interaction with.
@Davidmh: Got it - thank you for clarification.
Your research is, ultimately, your responsibility. You don't have to follow anyone's advise; it just so happens to usually be a good idea.
When you get feedback, you have to ask yourself if you understand why you are being told so, if you think your supervisor understands the issue (not nearly a given!), and if you understand what he is up to. Then, make a call and decide if your way was the best, you should follow your supervisor's comments, or come up with a third path. Don't hesitate to come back to him, presenting your arguments and listening to his, until you are sure you understand.
The same applies to conflicting information. Consider who knows more of the specific situation, and if the issue is relevant, you should talk or send a common email to both of them to clarify any possible doubt.
If the issue is mostly a cosmetic detail, like they like different definitions of the Fourier Transform, I am sorry, you are in a situation that can only be solved in duel.
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56187 | Portal for sharing a research manuscript with supervisors/advisors
I was wondering if there was a website or portal for confidentially sharing research manuscript with supervisors/collaborators whilst its being drafted. I tend to just e-mail the manuscript to my supervisors after an update which practically means multiple e-mails. I'm aware that drop box is nice for sharing files, etc and I'm also aware of mendeley. Is anybody else aware of a better way of doing this? It'll be nice to have a portal where I could just update my manuscript and supervisors/advisors could just log in and see the updated version and maybe add their comments, etc.
GIT, or setting up a collaboration platform like Redmine.
@Alexandros, thanks, never heard of this, I'll definitely check it out.
I tend to have a shared dropbox folder with students who work on a project, like you suggest.
What do you mean by "better". What are the shortcomings of e-mail that you want to fix?
@BorisBukh, I think e-mail is ok if you have one or two supervisors/feedback to review. It can become very unmanageable when you have to review feedback from about 5 academics (or even more) for example. However, if you have any suggestions as to how this can be efficiently managed using e-mail, I would be very happy to hear from you.
@John You're very lucky to have "5 academics (or even more)" to look over your drafts!
@Earthliŋ, Thanks. My project spans several disciplines hence the number of supervisors.
A more serious difficulty than where to put things, might be the too-many-cooks problem. Unless your volunteer readers are all communicating well among themselves, functioning as a real group, you might be better off asking for feedback sequentially. Go through several iterations with one person, then let that person take a break, and go through some iterations with another person, and so on.
If your use case is really only about sharing a document, then it does not get much easier than Dropbox. If you are actually collaborating (more than one person is writing stuff at the same time), I would not recommend Dropbox, as it is much to easy to overwrite changes of other people. For such collaborations, I would recommend a collaborative writing platform (Overleaf if you use Latex, Windows Live if you use Microsoft Word), or a private version control repository such as Github if you feel confident using Git.
Thanks for your answer. I do have many collaborators so perhaps a collaborative writing platform would be better idea.
Just to complement the other answers, sync is not backup...
Dropbox only keeps old files for a limited amount of time (Thanks @Christian Clason)... owncloud on the other hand does keep older versions, using some rules. It usually works. Downside is to have to manage your own server, upside is complete control over the content and who access it...
Google drive doesn't have a client for linux yet btw...
Personally, I use a combination of these. My 'current' stuff, that I'm working on privately, I keep on my owncloud (using an old laptop). Collaborative stuff on an svn at the university. Old stuff (cold storage) at google drive...
Dropbox does keep older versions (even if you delete the file), but not indefinitely (for 30 days if you don't pay for extended storage). You can access them from the website, or reasonably new versions of the client (how depends on the operating system).
owncloud's backup is way more comprehensive then:
https://doc.owncloud.org/server/7.0/user_manual/files/versioncontrol.html
I used to use owncloud which works basically like DropBox but you (or your administrator) have to set up the server by yourself. A pro is, that the server is under your control which may be desirable or not. A similar service is PowerFolder and I only mention this since my university offers a free cloudstorage with PowerFolder for staff and students. You may check if your university has something similar.
Anyway, you need to find something that fits the workflow of the team (i.e. you and your advisor). I suggest a version control system like git or mercurial (like other also do) but not everybody like to work like this…
Two thoughts:
github. It is also visible to the world, but is the hub for reproducible research.
Evernote. It is commercial, but private, and integrates with lots of useful technolgoies.
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66852 | No response from journal editors
I'm not so sure what to do in this situation. I'm a final year PhD student who submitted a manuscript for publication in a clinical journal (paediatrics) about 5 months ago. I've been tracking the online status of the manuscript and as of February 2016 it indicated "all reviews complete". Its been over 1 month now and I've tried calling, sending e-mails, no reply whatsoever. The phone keeps ringing and I've also left messages (Its based in the US-I'm in the UK). There's only one e-mail address provided on their website and I've struggled to get contact details of any of the other academics on the editorial board.
I'm just getting a little concerned by the lack of feedback or update regarding the manuscript-has anyone experienced this before? What would you do apart from keep waiting?
Edit: Just to let you all know that I heard from them a day after this post!
Writework on another paper?
@MikeyMike, Thanks-I'm actually writing my thesis at the moment.
@MikeyMike While I suspect you intended to put a / in your comment somewhere, "writework" is my new favorite academic verb.
Over a month seems normal to me. The editor will need time to consolidate the reviewers' comments and decide on whether to accept, reject, or return the paper to you for revision. It might take longer if the recommendations from the reviewers are conflicting. Bear in mind that the editor has other responsibilities and might handle a number of papers at the same time.
Usually in the online submission system there will be an option to send a message to the editor handling the paper. You can try it if there is one. I would not suggest contacting other editors in the editorial board as they may not be involved with the review of your paper.
Thanks for your comment-in that case, I shall continue waiting to hear from them-hopefully before I finish the PhD.
Even if it is not published by the time you are applying for your next position, just list it as "submitted" or something. This is quite common.
Do you know when their next issue is due to be released? (Is it a monthly or quarterly publication?)
If the new issue is due out soon they may be very busy, and not replying to your emails because your questions will soon be answered when the journal is published.
Secondly, have you mentioned this to your PhD supervisor? They may be familiar with the journal or general practices in your field and be able to advise you how long the process normally takes. Also, they may have more contacts and be able to get in touch with someone to find out if there is an issue.
If the problem persists or you think there is an issue with the journal, I have known people in my field (astrophysics) to withdraw papers and resubmit to a different journal, but I'm not sure how much that happens in other disciplines.
Thanks for your comments. It appears they've just released an issue this month so perhaps they've been quite busy. I've discussed this with my supervisors and they advised contacting the journal editors.
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46452 | When writing a synopsis "review", may I contact the authors with questions?
Please read the following background paragraph carefully to understand the meaning of "review" in this question - it may not be what you think. In particular, this is not a duplicate of Is it acceptable as referee to contact an author on a paper you review?, and the peer-review and review-articles tags are not really applicable here.
In mathematics, we have two well-known "review databases": MathSciNet / Mathematical Reviews and Zentralblatt MATH (aka zbMATH). These services aim to create a comprehensive database of papers that have already been published in peer-reviewed journals. For each recently published paper, they invite an independent expert in the subject (not one of the authors) to write what is (perhaps confusingly) called a "review", which is really just a synopsis of the paper's content - a sort of third-party extended abstract, perhaps 1-4 paragraphs long. The review is generally not expected to make a judgment of the paper's quality or novelty, though it may cite other papers for context. When the review is finished, it is posted in the database along with bibliographic information for the paper, including the reviewer's name (so these reviews are not anonymous). The databases are available by subscription, and are the field's primary tool for literature searches.
I have been invited to review a paper for zbMATH. In reading the paper, I got confused by some notation that seems to be unclear; it could be an error or omission in the original paper, or maybe just something I have overlooked. I would like to contact the authors to ask for clarification. Is it appropriate for me to contact them directly? If so, should I identify myself as a zbMATH reviewer, or just a reader with a question?
I can't think of any concrete reason not to do so. My review will eventually be printed with my name, so I don't have anonymity to protect, and it won't say anything controversial. But I do have some vague sense that my review is supposed to be "independent", so I am hesitating.
I suppose I can ask the zbMATH editors / administrators, but I would also be interested in opinions from the community.
(Note that the database editors are not generally in contact with the authors of the paper - they just grab the published papers and send them out to reviewers. So it isn't as though I would use the editors as an intermediary.)
For reference, the invitation from zbMATH reads as follows:
[W]e would like you to contribute a review of the attached item for
zbMATH. We hope that you will find the publication to be of interest to
you. We would appreciate if your review would give an independent
description. If you cite parts of the original text please label
extensive verbatim quotations as such.
More information about what is expected in a review can be found at https://zbmath.org/reviewer-service/, but the issue at hand is not addressed.
I am fairly sure that the "independent" in "independent description" means textually independent, i.e., not copying from the source and reasonably selfcontained. (I would contact the author without hesitation. Then again I am not a ZB/MathSciNet reviewer.)
I contacted the zbMATH editors with this question, and received the following reply from staff member David Biesenack:
It is totally okay, if
you contact the author for clarification.
I have written almost 100 Zentralblatt reviews and contacted authors numerous times for clarifications. In one case, the author forgot to include part of a proof, which I put into the review for him. Usually it's just some notation I don't understand. I think there is no problem contacting the author and in fact the author may appreciate it.
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48634 | How much should I adapt a paper to fit another conference than where I originally submitted?
Me and my research buddies have written this paper, summarizing and drawing conclusions from a proof-of-concept we've coded and tested. This paper regards several fields or subjects in (applied) Computer Science, and fits relatively well the call-for-papers of a few highly-rated conferences. On the other hand, former papers on the same subject have been published mostly in a single conference, and only a few in one or two others.
We're a bit overdue on submission; and the most-relevant conferences' next submission deadline is in about half a year or never (one may have been discontinued, it was more of a workshop). So, we want to submit to a well-regarded conference, with a matching CFP.
Now, while the CFP covers our work, the conference's 'angle' is somewhat different. This while other papers on our subject build a sort of internal discourse amongst themselves, i.e. essentially pick up the discussion where other papers left off. More or less. This is obviously made more acceptable, or maybe made possible, by the fact that most of them are published in the same conference.
So my questions are:
Is it a good idea or not to try for the upcoming conference, even though we'll be the first paper on our subject to be published there? i.e. do we stand a reasonable chance?
How much should we try to adapt the paper, to sound less of a continuation of the 'internal discourse' of our subject and more likes something appealing to the 'crowd' of the upcoming conference?
PS - The results are sound. They're not the end-all of exploring the subject, but there's plenty of meat in there. So it's not a borderline-accept paper (if I can say so myself).
It's very hard to judge how well a paper will be received by a particular set of reviewers (which is the real question for paper acceptance). It is certain, however, that the more that you adapt the paper to speak to the community that you are sending it to, the more likely it is to be well received.
I think that in making your decision, you would be well advised to think less about time and more about audience. Six months isn't very long to wait for a publication, so unless you've got a reason to really hurry, I wouldn't take that as a primary factor. Instead, consider whether the work you are doing is an incremental step that would be best reserved for discussion in the focused community or whether you think it's broad and interesting enough that the larger community should hear it.
If the former, then finish the paper now and set a reminder in your calendar for a few weeks before the deadline of the focused conference. If the latter, then go for the earlier conference and put in as much work as necessary to speak to the broader audience. Don't just send a narrow paper to a broad conference, though: even if you get accepted, you will have less impact than if you adapt the work for the audience to which you are intending to present it.
The thing is, this paper should have been published more than 6 months ago, and a poster about it has appeared this year. So waiting a full year for a conference article is a stretch.
@einpoklum I don't think it's as long a stretch as you think. I think that you should be thinking more about the period of the next five years in which people will be citing your paper (or not, if you publish in the badly fitted venue). If you're worried about being scooped, put out a preprint on arXiv or as an institutional tech report.
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19867 | Will the admission committee actually read a student's paper mentioned in resume?
(This question is set up under the EECS context, but any generic answer is much welcomed)
It is said that publications during one's undergraduate time will be an advantage in his/her PhD application. Usually, an undergraduate only starts publishing papers in his/her junior (3rd) year, and the application deadline usually comes at the end of his/her junior year. Hence, it is very likely that although the paper has been accepted by or even already presented in a certain conference, yet it has not been included into IEEE Xplore.
If the student has not uploaded the paper to some preprint database, such as arXiv or ResearchGate, then the admission committee will have no access to the paper. Of course, they may still be able to find some information about the paper, e.g., a tittle and an abstract appearing in the conference schedule, but after all they cannot go deeper into the paper content.
Questions
Does the admission committee even bother to go through the paper to assess the work quality? (Sometimes, you can have a rough quality assessment by looking at which journal/conference the paper is accepted by)
If the answer is positive, is it a good idea for the applicant to upload the papers to arXiv and provide the committee with the links so that the committee can read the papers as they wish?
Short answers: Yes, they do, and yes, it is.
While it's a single N experience from my graduate school application process:
Does the admission committee even bother to go through the paper to
assess the work quality? (Sometimes, you can have a rough quality
assessment by looking at which journal/conference the paper is
accepted by)
Yes. Several interviews I had mentioned content within the paper, at at least one of them had a good 10 or 15 minute discussion about the research that didn't start with the phrase "So, tell me what your paper was about..."
If the answer is positive, is it a good idea for the applicant to
upload the papers to arXiv and provide the committee with the links so
that the committee can read the papers as they wish?
Yes. If your field is arXiv friendly, put it there. If your field isn't particularly arXiv friendly (like mine) and your paper is in press, consider providing the PDF as a supplement to your admissions packet.
For admissions in the US, this is almost certainly true. I'm not so sure about European admissions, where individual groups make the hiring decisions. They may not have time to read every publication.
Committee members will absolutely want to see it. The best way to ensure that they can easily do so is to submit a copy of the paper with the application (either on hard copy if the application is hard copy, or more commonly electronically). My own experience has been that most schools require submission of a writing sample as part of the application (although I'm not in engineering). Even if you've already published something, it's not enough to just give the reference; they want you to provide the actual paper.
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34213 | Correct Academic Title, Necessity of Adding All Emails, Necessity of Adding Authors Photo in IEEE Transaction Journal?
I should provide a concise biography of myself for IEEE transactions journal. We received the paper proof and this biography goes at the end of our accepted paper. At one point in my biography I should add my current position. So, I’ve written the following sentence. “He is currently a lecturer in ABC University”
ABC University is a small university that I am teaching some academic courses there. I am working there with my Master degree and teach the student who are purchasing Bachelor degree in Electrical engineering. I am not an associated, assistant or full professor. I am a part time instructor that is qualified to teach these students. Also, I don't have any constant commitment to the university as well. I fill out a contract form for each semester and get paid based on the hours that I teach at the university. So I would like to ask:
what is my exact ranking title? A lecturer, instructor, adjunct
lecturer, adjunct instructor or what?
How much is it important to be precise for academic title in this
biography?
My professor which is the corresponding author of this paper didn't add my email at the foot note of paper and only added his own email there. He was concern about exceeding 8 page limit of IEEE transactions papers in first submission of the manuscript. In the other stages where we received the revision of the paper he said we will add it after the acceptance stage.... so, right now we received the IEEE proof PDF of the paper and we are only asked to prepare a Biography.So I would like to ask:
Is it important to include all authors email in the paper? (I am the
first name on the paper and he is the second, but he is the
corresponding author)
considering the fact that, we only received the PDF of the paper, How
can we correct the foot note at this stage?
The IEEE editorial board didn't ask us about providing a photo beside our biography. Why is that? All publications of this kid of transactions have a photo beside authors biography. Also, in the 'authors guide' it is mentioned that a photo and biography is needed. on the other hand, my professor told me we only send them our short biography, because after their pedantic revision our paper became 13 pages and we should pay about 550$ fine. So, I would like to ask:
Is it important to add our photo beside biography?
Considering the fact that we didn't exceed 8 page limit of IEEE in the first
submission of our manuscript, and the other 5 pages has been added to
the paper based on the reviewers revision and editing of the editorial
board, Do we still need to pay that fine? Also, My professor and I are
Senior member and Student of IEEE organization, does that help us to
get rid of paying the fine?
Your help is much appreciated in advance.
what is my exact ranking title? A lecturer, instructor, adjunct
lecturer, adjunct instructor or what?
How much is it important to be precise for academic title in this
biography?
If you are uncertain about your official title, talk to folks in your departmental office and/or the human resources (HR) people (or folks in the equivalent HR office at your institution). So long as you are making a good effort to state truthfully what your current title is, I wouldn't expect there to be any problems.
Is it important to include all authors email in the paper? (I am the
first name on the paper and he is the second, but he is the
corresponding author)
considering the fact that, we only received the PDF of the paper, How
can we correct the foot note at this stage?
I have seen folks list email addresses for all authors, just the email address of the corresponding author, or somewhere in between. It's up to you: you have every right to have your email address shown on the first-page footnote if you want it there. To make any additions to the footnote (or your biography, or anything else as I mentioned in this answer), contact the senior editor assigned to your manuscript. If you don't know who the senior editor is, the corresponding author of your paper does: contact your corresponding author and ask them to supply you with this information.
Is it important to add our photo beside biography? Considering the
fact that we didn't exceed 8 page limit of IEEE in the first
submission of our manuscript, and the other 5 pages has been added to
the paper based on the reviewers revision and editing of the editorial
board, Do we still need to pay that fine? Also, My professor and I are
Senior member and Student of IEEE organization, does that help us to
get rid of paying the fine?
Again, it's up to you: some authors have bios with pictures, some do not (some people choose not to even include a bio!). To me, the IEEE Transactions have very clear policies on the charges authors pay for going over a certain page limit: everyone pays these regardless of whether they are members of the IEEE or not.
Finally, don't let your corresponding author "bully" you into omitting your bio/photo just to save on publishing costs. As a corresponding author, even though I don't care if my bio has to be shortened to fit some page-count restriction, I always make sure to save room for co-author bios/photos and find other ways to trim the paper down without sacrificing the overall quality of the paper. The way I see it, if a co-author wants to include a bio/photo to, for example, advertise themselves to the journal's target audience, then they should be given the opportunity to do so.
For the last paragraph: perhaps the issue is that including longer bios with photos would add another page to the paper, resulting in a higher charge?
@NateEldredge Thanks, I have clarified a bit in the last paragraph.
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48058 | Whether to italicise the name of government program in APA style?
I am writing a paper in APA about a government funded program. Do I italicize the name of the program?
APA requires the use of italics for:
Titles of books, journals and periodicals, films, and videos
Introduction of new key technical term or label
Anchors of scale
Words, phrases, or letters presented as linguistic examples
General/scientific names, species, and varieties
Letters in statistical symbols or algebraic variables
When a reader might not see the intended emphasis or misinterpret the use of a word in a sentence.
The name of a government funded program does not belong into any of these categories. So the answer to your question is no.
For sake of completenes, here is when APA forbids the use of italics:
Emphasis
Foreign phrases common in English
Greek letters
Nonstatistical subscripts to statistical symbols
Chemical terms
By the way, I found this information simply by googling for "APA italics".
APA allows authors some flexibility in using italics for emphasis. I certainly support that and have used it, based on my judgement and context at hand. +1
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48487 | How to export the reference list for a given paper using Google Scholar?
Google Scholar allows you to do forward search via cited by - that is, you can get a list of references that cite a given reference. Is there any way to do backward search, i.e. get a list of references cited BY a given reference?
I realize that you can always click the reference, go to the journal page, and likely get the reference list there, but I am wondering if there is any way to do it within the context of Google Scholar.
Weirdly, I don't think that Google Scholar provides that feature, even though they clearly parse and store this information internally. This does indeed sound like a nice feature to have access to.
They have this information, but it may not be fast or easy to retrieve it, depending on the specific format that they use.
Unfortunately, Google Scholar only provides the list of publications that cite a given reference.
However, if you have access to Web of Science, to look up a list of references cited in a given publication, you can use the "Cited References" tool.
Note that some journals are not indexed by Web of Science. In that case, you will need to look up the bibliography in the full text of the publication.
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49013 | How does a petty marijuana possession charge affect graduate admissions in math?
I was charged with possession of marijuana earlier this year. In my state, it's not a crime, just a violation with a fine. Technically, it's not even a conviction because there's a diversion program that results in the charge being dropped after a year. The problem is that it won't be dismissed and expunged until after I apply for graduate school. So right now the charge is listed as pending.
Do applications for a PhD in math ask about petty charges like this? I know some ask about felonies and convictions, but that doesn't apply here. I know if I were applying for law school or medical school, my situation would be very different.
How badly will this affect my application should this show up in a preliminary background check? Do math graduate programs even do background checks?
Question 3: what if you are applying in a state (or country) where marijuana use and possession is either legal or openly tolerated?
It's worth noting that some US universities, but not all, do background checks on faculty hire candidates. I agree that this probably won't come up at the graduate level, but keep in mind that if you stay in academia, you may have a similar question in a few years.
I changed the questing to focus on math exclusivley. Minor offenses for STEM fields likely developmental psychology with at risk youths will be different.
Yes, we're assuming you're in a field where being a Mandatory Reporter is not the norm.
Related: Advice wanted concerning students who have had run ins with the law.
There might be a concern with a background check if you wind up involved in research that requires a security clearance, but I'm guessing that doesn't come up very often in a mathematics graduate program.
I was once told by a top geometer to start using pot to enhance my geometric intuition, so that I can make it geometry grad school. This makes me feel like it will not be an issue. (Disclosure: I don't smoke and still made it through geometry grad school.)
Petty or petit?
Do applications for a PhD in math ask about petty charges like this? I know some ask about felonies and convictions, but that doesn't apply here. I know if I were applying for law school or medical school, my situation would be very different.
No. The part of the application that faculty look at has nothing remotely like this. If you apply to a public university there may be a portion of the application which is run through the university itself, so there is some chance that you might be asked about felonies. But as you say, you have not even been charged with a crime. You would have to be asked something extremely specific in order to have divulge this: e.g. "Do you have any pending fines for possession of drugs?" I've never heard of such a question asked in any context.
How badly will this affect my application should this show up in a preliminary background check? Do math graduate programs even do background checks?
No, math (and other "arts and sciences") graduate programs do not do background checks, so far as I know [I was involved with graduate admissions at my program for several years]. Assuming that this information were disclosed to the faculty: well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but to me this sounds roughly comparable to a moving violation in terms of its legal and moral seriousness. In fact, some kinds of moving violations present a potential or actual danger to others; possessing marijuana really doesn't. I would put it squarely into the "Don't worry about it" category.
We don't ask about misdemeanors and generally there's no reason to volunteer such information.
Some faculty on admissions committees do google prospective candidates and if that is the case, you may want to engage in some SEO to make sure your positive attributes are at the top and your drunken and doped debauchery information and mugs shots are located further down in the rankings.
Furthermore, if you engaged in petty larceny or animal abuse, some people on the admissions committee might care just from a moral perspective, but many faculty have themselves had experiences where they "inhaled" (quoting Bill Clinton) so they are the least likely to throw stones in that regard.
Disclaimer: I'm in the humanistic social sciences
I assume you mean "don't volunteer". If the university specifically asks (about charges), then there is a reason to tell.
Generally, universities and search committees don't ask, so there's no reason to tell. I'm using the parallel construction of the DOD's former DADT policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_ask,_don%27t_tell
The analogy to DADT is quite strong. If you tell us about a misdemeanor drug charge (when we haven't asked you), then we have to act on this information.
@RoboKaren We do? What exactly would we do to act on this information?
I'd feel compelled to at least let the graduate school know. They'd likely tell us to ignore petty misdemeanors such as this, but I don't want the department to be accused later of hiding material information on a candidate. Moral: don't put us in that position.
@RoboKaren Thanks. I guess it wouldn't have occurred to me to do so, even as grad program director, given that at my institution the applications come through the graduate school in the first place. If they want to screen for misdemeanor drug offenses, they can read the files themselves. Now if I we were interested in a candidate convicted of something serious that might be a threat to others on campus, I'd certainly seek advice from the grad school and/or risk management.
"make sure your positive attributes are at the top and your drunken and doped debauchery information and mugs shots are located further down in the rankings" looool +1
While you needn't worry, you should reveal facts that you are required to reveal. Graduate school application forms are not easy to obtain (most institutions require online application via an application-handling company), but I could determine something about a few institutions.
If you were applying to the universities of Arkansas, South Carolina State, Hawaii, Alaska, or Tennessee State, there is no applicable question on their graduate application form. Missouri State asks about charges pending, Virginia Tech asks if you are "you currently on court-ordered supervised or unsupervised probation or under the terms of a finding under advisement". North Georgia asks about criminal charges currently pending, and Florida asks about being charged with a violation which if pending could result in probation, community service, a jail sentence, or revocation or suspension of driver's license (explicitly noting that if your record has been expunged, you do not have to answer 'yes'). Indiana is very confusing: it asks "Have you been convicted of a felony or have you engaged in behavior that resulted in injury to person(s) or personal property", but this is immediately followed by their "Felony Statement" that "We require applicants who have been charged with or convicted of a misdemeanor or a felony, or who have engaged in behavior that resulted in mental or physical injury to person(s) or personal property, to disclose this information".
You should start from the premise that nobody actually cares if you get busted for pot, and if they ask any such questions, just say yes and explain (tell only if actually asked). Otherwise, you should discuss the legal arcana with your attorney, to see if you were charged with a felony (probably not), a misdemeanor (maybe not), or some other kind of violation / offense. I think in California, it is a "civil infraction" with no possible jail time. That might be a "violation" or a "charge", so talk to the attorney (or, simply say "yes"). It's vastly easier to just say "yes" and explain. The worst thing you could do is tell an untruth.
Wow, so the moving violation is not just an analogy but actually something that one university asks about? I am very surprised by that.
Also, "mental or physical injury to person(s) or personal property" is one of the loopiest phrases I've heard in a long time. Apparently the legal definition of injury can extend to property but...mental injury to property??
Didn't you ever watch Uri Geller? That was some severe mental injury to spoons.
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118553 | What university affiliation should a retired member of staff use?
University retired researchers often get privileges to use Libraries etc. When a retired member uses the university library for research are they obliged to mention the university affiliation in subsequent publications?
Is this person an "emeritus"?
Related question: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1294/43873
One can be affiliated as an independent researcher and acknowledge the usage of university library.
TL;DR. A retired member of staff should use any affiliation assigned by their previous employer. If no affiliation has been assigned, then they should ask their previous employer.
University retired researchers often get privileges to use Libraries etc.
Such privileges are presumably associated with a title: Universities generally control access to resources (such as libraries), hence, some form of access token is required and that token must be associated with an owner. The owner is typically affiliated with the university in some way, which merits a title. Some titles aren't sufficiently formal (e.g., graduand) to merit affiliation, others are.
When a retired member uses the university library for research are
they obliged to mention the university affiliation in subsequent
publications?
If the university has assigned the retired member a (sufficiently formal) title, then that title should be used. Otherwise, it is unclear whether the university considers the retired member to be affiliated with the university, hence, claiming affiliation would be misleading. I'd recommend asking the university in this case.
At my alma mater being a graduate is sufficient to have access to the library, but doesn't constitute an affiliation in the sense of the question, and I'm not sure that "B.A." is a title in the sense in which you're using the word.
@PeterTaylor Ultimately, if the library has an access control system, then its users most likely have titles. That's just how the technology is implemented. That title mightn't be public, indeed, it might only be known to some members of the IT team, but it most likely exists. In your case, it might simply be graduand, which clearly isn't the type of affiliation I was referring too. (Also, an alma mater is rather different from a previous employer, which what is under discussion.)
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12973 | Should graduate applicants follow instructions by department NOT to contact potential advisors?
I am applying for doctoral programs in biostatistics and have read multiple places to attempt to set up contact with a potential advisor before applying.
What if the department website specifically says to not contact potential advisors? There is a research lab I am very interested in joining (my top pick), but I still should not contact this professor, right?
Here's the exact wording of the website:
"Should I contact faculty about RA opportunities?
No. All applications are reviewed by our admission committee and students do not need to (nor can they) try to find their own mentors prior to admissions. Having an interested faculty member in no way influences the admission process, which is based on an evaluation of your application only."
It says "about RA opportunities". You can contact them about other things though. For example you can ask them what they are currently working on without breaking this rule. Although I might err on the side of caution and avoid doing this as it might be misconstrued.
I feel like I'm channeling JeffE: "Should graduate applicants follow instructions by department--?" Yes.
The first communication I received from a potential graduate student got deleted unread. The second one got forwarded to the admissions office.
There are multiple practical reasons for not asking you not to contact advisors prior to admission:
Advisors may not know how many RA positions they will have available until later in the year, and departments do not want that to discourage people from applying.
They may have an established procedure for allocating students to research groups; "jumping the gun" would therefore be discouraged.
They don't want undue influence from various faculty members lobbying the admissions committee in support of "their" candidates.
Note that this is also because at many schools—particularly in Europe—individual faculty members are responsible for advertising their open positions. This is not the normal procedure in the US, thereby leading many schools to explicitly state that students should not directly petition individual faculty members.
If thats what the department says, then don't do it.
I was very interested in a couple of research groups in my university but I never contacted them before admission. After I was admitted, I had an opportunity to speak to all these faculty and then made the best choice for myself.
Admissions are tough, and if you break the rules you make the committee's life easier (one less applicant to judge). So: don't break the rules, especially when you not in a position of power.
Who said graduate school applicants are not in a position of power. I thought grad schools wanted to recruit bright, hardworking students.
@emory: Of course they do; but there are typically lots of those applying. And what they don't want to recruit is students who will be a pain in the neck. If someone tries to weasel their way in when they've been specifically told not to, that's a pretty good indication they'd be a pain to deal with as a student.
If dealing with an applicant's legitimate queries is painful then it is best for all concerned to not proceed. If an applicant wastes people's time with unimportant communications, then it is best for all concerned to not proceed. If an applicant's legitimate queries are not painful to deal with and help the applicant and admissions committee make better decisions, then it is a positive. I don't see any downsides to it.
This position may be a little stern, but once you are on the other side of the admissions table, you get bombarded with "Dear Professor, I am highly interested in working with you, do you have any positions available?" emails every week. A lot of these emails suffer from poor grammar, and most in fact miss the point of what I do, researchwise. As F'x said, if you decide to take the liberty of sending such an email, it (a) may be lost among dozens such emails, (b) may get you blacklisted by the department. (This is a very good school, and they will have no shortage of highly qualified applicants, and you hardly will be in a position of power in negotiating with them.)
Ideally, you would've established a contact with a faculty much earlier with something like "I believe there is a typo in the Appendix of your recent Biometrika paper" or "What R package did you use? I can't get lmer to work on a similar problem" or "I thought that M=5 imputations is always enough" or some other question relevant to both your studies/interest and their expertise. I've established a couple of the most long-lasting and satisfying professional relations by asking these curiosity-driven questions, even though I never worked with these specific researchers, in the end. Don't try to make this up, though, and make sure to produce something that will really pique enough of the professor's interest to reply.
As a faculty, I have been receiving meaningful emails, too, saying "You've published on this and that; I am working on the intersection of this-that right now as an analyst in Iranian government, but I realized that I don't know enough, and want to learn more..." -- to which I would have to say that the contacts between Iran and US are kept low profile. The fraction of such emails is low double digits, most are obvious academic spam.
Finally, the department may have similar language in the faculty bylaws discouraging faculty member from discussing financial matters and/or open positions with potential applicants. Basically, this would be done to avoid a mutually unpleasant situation in which a professor may promise an applicant the RA support, but either the applicant would not make it based, say, on their GRE scores, or the professor would not get that grant that they were expecting. The department cannot commit acceptance based on such side negotiations, so they want to minimize the risk of that happening. Likewise, a professor may not be able to promise to take you as an advisee if they expect to have five more students, currently in their second year, joining their lab to support the work on a new multi-million R01 grant. You will be taking the fundamental required courses for a year or two, and talking right now about what is going to happen three years down the road is basically waving a big question mark in the air.
So my bottom line is, if you want to talk about research, there is little to stop you; if you are told not to discuss the admissions process and the existing positions with anybody outside the admissions committee, don't.
Thank you, this helps a lot. I've heard from multiple sources that by not contacting potential labs, you're highly unlikely to be accepted. Your answer puts the situation in perspective.
@jlajla, to echo/amplify on what StasK said: those sources are very likely to be wrong. I hear from many students that they get that advice (to contact multiple labs in advance), but in my experience it is bad advice.
As other have said you should follow their instructions. I just wanted to point out that you will have opportunities after admission but before deciding where to go to get answers to your questions. In my experience in math, this post-admission pre-decision time is the appropriate window to talk to potential advisors.
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159765 | How to search google scholar for singular and plural words?
I want to look up also the plural of my words on Google Scholar.
Here is a part of my search: "entrepreneur OR entrepreneurs".
Is there a more efficient way, for example using regex-like "entrepreneurs?"?
What about woman/women?
If the alternative terms are part of a phrase, then you could use parentheses () and a vertical bar |, like "the (woman|women)".
The same applies to, for instance: "the (entrepreneur|entrepreneurs) told". I tested it and it works.
(EDIT: I originally wrote that the wildcard entrepreneur* should work, but my test was not so convincing. Thanks to lighthouse keeper's comment.)
sad that the wildcard doesn't work
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103470 | What does the path to professorship in maths and computer science look like?
I have a BS in math and a BS in computer science. I attempted to get into a math PhD program right out of undergrad, but I was not prepared for the GRE subject test, so my applications did not go well. I had to find a job while I thought up a new plan, and I have now been accepted to computer science PhD programs.
My ultimate goal is to be a professor and spend my life researching math topics in computer science, or just math. I have a couple questions about getting to that point. Should I get a PhD in math after getting one in computer science? I read that math PhDs find faculty positions much more easily than any other kind of PhD. Should I pursue a postdoc position at some point? I don't want to be a "permadoc," as I've heard them called. I also read that computer science PhDs often go to the private sector, but I don't think I'm interested in that. What advice do you have to help me get where I want to be?
I wonder where you've read that "math PhD's find faculty positions much more easily than any other kind of PhD." I'm not aware of any evidence that supports this statement.
I read a few articles on the topic. This one had the most evidence I could find: http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2013/07/want-be-professor-choose-math
I read the article you cited in your comment and it uses statistical data out of context. The availability (by percentage) of postdocs, of non-faculty career options, etc. is vastly different for the fields that were considered.
The article misses quite a few important differences between faculty roles in mathematics and other science and engineering disciplines. For example, many new PhD's in mathematics spend several years in temporary positions (e.g. "Visiting Assistant Professor") that are not called postdocs but are very similar in effect.
Another important point is that in the US, the majority of faculty positions are teaching oriented positions with little time for research. The typical faculty member is teaching 3-4 sections a semester of precalculus to calculus at a community college or regional comprehensive university rather than teaching a 1+2 load and doing lots of research at a flagship state university.
So given that information and my interest in focusing on research, what career goals would you recommend? I know I like teaching (I have some experience) and I want to do high quality research, but I'm not sure what position I need to aim for.
My ultimate goal is to be a professor and spend my life researching math topics in computer science, or just math.
Not really. That is, it seems you are not seriously committed to any kind of research, you just like the idea of you being a professor. That is not good enough of a motivation. Don't presume to become a professional life-long researcher before you've done some significant research first. And you won't get such research done before you find a particular research subject (or a few subjects) which fascinates you, which is important to you enough emotionally that you want to spend a large chunk of your life exploring it.
When you tell us that you "want to research X. Or maybe Y"." - what I hear is: "I'm not particularly attached to any research problems."
So - your question is premature right now.
There are several points to consider:
There are far more PhDs who want to be professors than actual open positions, so most people won't make it. Just take it as a fact of life, and don't be frustrated when being rejected somwhere. It also means that there is no universal career guideline that is guaranteed to work.
While a PhD is a compulsory badge for you, earning another PhD in most cases won't add add much to your CV, so if you have enough flexibility in choosing a research topic in your current program, stick to it.
During your PhD studies do you best to build up your own research profile. Find a problem you like, achieve progress, publish in the best journal/conference that is ready to accept your work.
It is almost equally important to build up your network. When you have a chance to meet colleagues from your domain, do it, and keep connections. If you can collaborate with someone outside your university, take this chance.
People will judge your CV on the basis of its objective merits (whether your research results are good enough according to some reasonable criteria) and your "fitness" for the particular institution/group. Thus I don't think you should focus or general presumptions that there are higher chances to be hired in a field A rather than field B: it all depends on your personal achievements and your target institution profile.
Personal connections do matter, employing someone you know is a safer bet, of course. In general, be ready to more across countries, and accept postdoc positions — no matter how you look at them, it's better to be a postdoc than to have no job or go to industry (if you wish to stay in academia).
As you spend more time inside this system (as a PhD student / paper writer / conference attendee), you'll gain more understanding of your personal goals, I believe. It's quite natural that your current picture of the future is vague, but it will clear up as you go.
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73234 | Which institution's logo to add to research poster when research was done at institution different to main affiliation as student?
I am a student at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, but did research over the summer at Duke with a mentor from Duke, as part of a program run by NCSSM. I am currently creating a poster to present my work, and I do not know which institution's logo it would be appropriate to include. When I am adding a logo to my poster, what am I acknowledging that the owner of the logo has provided? It seems to me that both institutions have provided me with support, so I do not know which one I should acknowledge. I suppose that I could add both, but I would rather save that space for content. What is the protocol for situations such as this one where two institutions have provided support to a project?
Unless the institutions have formal requirement to include their logos (which, I believe, is rather rare) you can also acknowledge support with plain text, if space is a concern.
As a side important note - Logos are important. But equally important make sure to keep the co-authors/collaborators nformed and send all of them draft versions for comment. (They would have opinions about logos and such). It sounds from OP description that even if the poster is 'single author' there the faculty mentor at Duke shouldn't be forgotten and would be the person even if it is only for practicing professional courtesy.
If both institutions have supported your project, you should acknowledge both in your poster.
To save space, you have a variety of options:
Make the logos smaller by scaling them.
If available, use a small, square version of the logo rather than a larger rectangular version.
Put the logos in a part of the poster that is underutilized. (For example, left-align the title and authors, and put the logos over to the right side next to the author list.)
With the catch that if I don't have enough space to add a logo, probably I already have things to many in my poster.
“Make the logos smaller by scaling them.” — Most institutes (’s corporate design/outreach departments) hate that, and quite a few (all?) have explicit rules about the minimal size of their logos. But to be honest everybody happily ignores these rules anyway.
There is no formal protocol. The general protocol is to ask your supervisor or colleagues. This is usually a question that depends on the particular group or institution, and where usually the "group's habits" is the precedence that you want to follow.
The general protocol that probably suit you well is the one ff524 answered, namely, acknowledge both.
Just one question: Who paid?
If they
paid you to do the work
paid for you to present the work
bought the equipment or the consumables
paid the mentor who guided you through the work
they you should be recognizing them.
And there is nothing wrong with having multiple logos, but no pressing need to have any at all. (In my business—particle physics—it is common to have everyone from the group display a logo on their slides/posters as part of establishing a brand, but those were always small because everyone was concerned about space.)
If someone asks you can tell them how it happened that you got support from multiple sources.
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21338 | H-1B Visa Sponsorship by Universities
The statements of
"Applicants who are invited to campus for interviews must be able to show proof that they will be eligible and qualified to work in the United States by the time of hire."
is almost associated with every open academic positions in US and I am wondering what does this statement clearly mean?
As far as I know, academic positions in US are opened to the scientifically eligible candidates worldwide, but receiving US work permit requires a sponsor (employer) inside US who should initiate visa application.
My 1st question: Does this sentence show unwillingness of the employer (university in this case) to support applicants' visa application? Does this position only open to those residing in US? or work permit holders?
From the immigration website, I learnt that there are some costs for the employer who is offering job to an outsider. But, universities are exempted from paying the biggest chunk ($1500).
My 2nd question: Considering low visa petition cost, what else is the problem that US-based universities are hesitant to hire such candidates.
My 3rd question: Is faculty selection in US-based universities based on candidate's merit or there are other parameters when selecting them.
Edit: I think the email received from UW can be of help to get better idea of the situation.
Dear XYZ,
When completing your application for employment at the University of Washington you were asked to complete the US Work Authorization Assessment. The second question asked was:
To legally work in the United States, will you require University of Washington sponsorship for an H1-B, other UW sponsored visa, or UW sponsored green card now or in the future?
You responded yes, that you would need sponsorship, either now or in the future. As a result you are not eligible for employment in staff positions at the University.
I emailed to HR of UW for clarification with this note:
Does UW consider only those foreigners for staff position who are currently having work permit in US? Those who are willing to obtain work permit based on the UW job offer are ineligible to work in UW?
UW Reply (Though I think the reply is by a robot):
Unfortunately, the UW does not provide sponsorship for Green Cards( or HB-1 visas, or any other type of work authorization requiring sponsorship.) for staff positions.
EDIT 2: Though my question is about academic staff position, about university of washington, I applied for research scientist. Here is the link to the job opening.
Your third question is independent of the first two and should be asked separately. But of course there are many considerations apart from "merit", which is a subjective criterion to begin with.
Very good question, though I'd remove the "thanks in advance". Two comments: First, does that statement just mean "don't be a criminal who overstayed their visa etc.", that is to say, are they simply asking people who obviously won't get the H-1B to not apply? Or is there more to it? Also, are there any laws concerning discrimination against non-residents? Apparently foreigners are not a protected group.
My department has just recently helped a new hire to get a H1B, and has offered to do the same for a couple of candidates we interviewed this year.
@Superbest: No thanks then :). It mentioned "eligible and qualified to WORK, not to get visa". These two are different. Many people worldwide are not criminal and may be qualified to get US work visa, but they are not qualified to work in US. Qualification and eligibility to work, might refer to whether you have visa or not. I had the an experience with University of Washington, they refused my application because I mentioned "I need UW sponsorship." They wrote to me that you are not eligible to work with us because of your status. Lets see other answers to get better idea.
A related question Is it easier to obtain H1B / green card as academics in the US?
@Espanta Well, what's the difference? If we are talking about non-residents, you cannot work without an H1B, and you cannot get an H1B unless you are "almost hired", so to speak. As I said, "criminal" is deliberate hyperbole - are they telling people who will have trouble getting an H1B to not apply, or are they saying that if you need an H1B at all (ie. not a resident) you should not apply? Also, odd about UW - I heard for universities, the sponsorship is much easier.
@Superbest, kindly look at the text I added to the question, It might clarify.
It's odd that they emphasize staff positions. In US universities "staff" is the opposite of "faculty" and usually refers only to non-academic jobs. You're sure it was an assistant professorship you applied for?
@NateEldredge Well, I guess in a colloquial sense the professors are also "staff" in the sense that they work there. But indeed it is very confusing. Are they trying to say that foreigners are allowed, but only as professors and not as secretaries, IT, etc.? (What about post-docs then?) Or are they saying they will not hire any foreigners at all? Is the position "soft money" (doubt it for ass. prof. but still...)?
@Espanta Thanks, that clears up everything. In fact, I think you answered your own question #1 - they don't want you to apply (and as I said, they are legally allowed to do this). Now the question is why they would possibly make this decision (and perhaps how widespread this is).
Aha, the UW letter was in response to an application for a position as Research Scientist, which normally would not be a faculty position. It's plausible that their policy is to sponsor visas for faculty (professors, maybe some postdocs) but not for other staff, on the theory that faculty candidates may have unique skills that can't be duplicated by a domestic candidate, but for other staff that is less often the case. I think your question is kind of mixing up several issues and might benefit from a cleanup.
But I think, the Research Scientist also need to have bunch of skills that might not be available locally. I don't see much difference b/w this job and faculty. Anyhow, it can be true. So, you mean if I were a faculty applicant, they would not reject my application due to sponseoship, right?
It is (unfortunately) common for universities not to be as willing to support H-1B visas for research scientists/postdocs as they are for permanent faculty. I imagine one reason is cost: they want some return on the effort and cost of processing an application, and research scientists are temporary by definition.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned J-1 visas. My understanding of the situation was that universities were only likely to do H-1B or similar visas for permanent staff, but that a J-1 for a postdoc was standard and not much trouble. All the math departments I've been in have happily hired people from abroad as postdocs, but always on J visas, not H (as far as I know).
Thats cool. Let me check and read something about it first.
My suspicion is that this phrase is primarily to cover the university legally in case the person hired in fact does not have the eligibility to work in the US. In such a case, without this clause, the person could make the argument that the university is in breach of contract for not hiring them and doing whatever is necessary in order to make them eligible. But IANAL !
In general I'd imagine only very small universities or places with limited resources would have trouble sponsoring a candidate for an H1-B. Certainly not a university like UW. Most universities are quite willing and able to sponsor new applicants for H1Bs and green cards.
The correct interpretation here is I think as is mentioned in the comments: the candidate should be eligible to work in that they can get an H1B visa.
Also, notice that it says "by the time of hire". I believe that mean by the time the start date of the position, not the date the offer letter is signed. (Like Suresh: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.)
@Suresh and JeffE, thanks. please read the text I added to the question in Edit part. It might be of help.
What position were you applying for ? your edit refers to a "staff position". My answer refers to tenure-track faculty positions which are not usually considered 'staff' positions.
Preamble: What they are trying to do here is protect themselves from a lawsuit later on. In the application for an H1B, the employer must prove that there was no American citizen who was qualified for the position that is being sponsored (c.f. http://www.immihelp.com/gc/employment/labor/).
Perhaps. Most employers will sponsor the H1B at the very least -- and the larger universities and colleges will even pay for the legal and application fees if they want you. But they have to advertise the positions for Americans (and legal residents first) and if the search results in only one person (YOU!) who is able to fill the position, then (gee shucks) they will sponsor you for the H1B.
The law. See preamble. The cost including the lawyer can go up to around $10,000. If it's just a short-term position why spend the money and do the paperwork (an H1B filing can easily be hundreds of pages of filings)? Also H1Bs are tricky. If you apply late when the pool runs out, you may not get one regardless of how qualified the candidate is. H1B applications have been known to get held up for all sorts of reasons by the State Department or the DoL. So it's often safer to go with a legal candidate.
Depends on the location. While it would be nice to think that merit is the only factor, we all know (or at least suspect) that there are other factors including the all amorphous "collegiality". If there are two candidates of equal worth but one candidate will require literally 3 inches of paperwork filed to the Department of Labor and there's uncertainty as to whether he/she can start work in August if the process gets delayed, then what would be the rational choice?
Edit: H1Bs are not subject to caps (http://internationaloffice.berkeley.edu/h-1b_faqs#10). I'm not sure if this is a new thing as I can vaguely remember caps in the distant past... but at least there aren't any now.
Thanks @RoboKaren, I don't think the UW response is any kind of lawsuit protection, rather it would be something like lawsuit dismissal because the HR even did not let academician look at the application and simply rejected based on sponsorship.
about number 3, I think it is fare and rational to select the US resident if there are two EQUAL applicant, one local and one offshore. But, the question is that how could they find out such equality? After all, should I keep applying for job in US while I have no permit or forget US?
Caps are for industrial positions. Universities are cap-exempt. So your recollection is correct.
@Espanta - The lawsuit I'm envisioning would be either the Department of Labor suing the institution for violations of its H1B rules (by not properly ascertaining the lack of a suitable US Citizen to take the spot), or by a US Citizen who felt that they were unfairly passed over for the non-citizen who was given the H1B and a job.
Note that state schools are considerably more concerned about following federal hiring laws, so it's not surprising that this case involves UW.
@Espanta - I think jobs at state schools are going to be hard since they have so little flexibility. If you want to be a staff member (such as a research scientist) I would try private institutions or private companies. There, if they want to hire you, they'll put in the extra work. State schools are just too bureaucratic to do this.
@RoboKaren Thanks a lot for nice advice. I will take it
Based on what you've written so far, here is my interpretation of the situation:
at some point, the university sets a blanket ban on sponsoring visas for "staff positions" (this is standard terminology for "not faculty positions"). This is not so unreasonable; you can understand why it would seem like a waste of money to sponsor a secretary or a janitor for a visa.
at some later point, the position you're applying for is created. There are a lot of complicated negotiations that go into creating such a position. This particular one involves 3 universities and 2 private foundations, so I'm sure it was very tricky to set them up. For some reason, the position is classified as "staff." The line between "staff" and "faculty" is not 100% clean-cut (for example, librarians can be on one side or another, depending on the institution). I can only guess at what advantage this had (it seems likely there was one, though you should never completely count out the possibility of a straight-up mistake).
And, voilà! I would bet a reasonable sum of money that the people "on the ground" running this program are unhappy with the situation, and would like nothing more than to make decisions without considering immigration status, but these things can be pretty complicated. Universities are big institutions, and it can often be very hard to change these sorts of things. The money they would spend on lawyers for visas has to come from somewhere, and it's possible it's just not there.
Thanks Ben. I thought things in US are more routine and clear compared to asian countries where people like me leave and keep complaining about complexities and bureaucracies. Anyway, cross the finger for good.
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12688 | How should a Phd student deal with rude professors or faculty?
I am a phd student in IIT Bombay. I have found sometimes that professors or faculty behaving rudely especially with phd students. The situation being the student demanding better guidance on his research or while reporting complaints on unavailability of research facilites(infrastructure). Partly it seems the reason for the professors behaving so is because of their own frustration with their job which they pass it on to the students when they raise questions for which they don't have answers. And partly some professors think behaving rudely is the right way to scare students away so that they don't come back and trouble them. Also often the faculty feel they are being embarassed by being compared to their peers elsewhere and are being looked down upon, so have a bellicose attitude and start fighting at the slightest provocation. This is extremely frustrating for graduate students and they ask themselves why they made this grave mistake of joining for graduate studies here. But since few years already pass off by the time they realize this, they just try to finish a half hearted unhappy phd and try to run away from this place quickly with a wounded heart. Many of my seniors have experienced this who are now doing postdocs in US. How does one not let one's heart wounded in such a situation and how does one deal with such unpleasant rudeness on part of faculty?
Go somewhere else, and tell the department chair why.
@JeffE: That's easier said than done; going anywhere else in India would likely be considered a major step down for most of the students, and could jeopardize their later careers.
Really? There are really no alternatives but to accept (and most likely perpetuate) a culture of endemic abuse? Does every physicist (or whatever) in India come from IIT Bombay? Any student strong enough to be at the best department in India is strong enough to get admission and funding in a good department elsewhere.
@JeffE: I agree with you dear sir that a capable student will likely find another place to do research. But would that mean an erring student can always be corrected by a professor, but erring professors can never be corrected?
This might be an appropriate question for the Etiquette proposal if it makes it into beta. I suggest anyone interested in that proposal follows it, recommends to friends and helps contribute when it gets to beta stage.
If you don't need anything from the person, you could just stop talking to him/her.
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29310 | What are the benefits and drawbacks of fitting one's problem within an advisor's research?
I am passionate about working on a particular problem and domain, and have an opportunity to complete a PhD that does not require department/university subsidy. However, the problem I am interested in is outside of the domain of the research faculty. I have been encouraged to find a small part of my problem space that fits with the research of available advisors. However, I feel like conducting my research at another institution, where the research faculty are actively working in the same domain as myself, may be a better choice.
What are the benefits and drawbacks may be to work with advisors directly related to one's own area of research, rather than trying to just fit one's research into the scope of available advisors' research interests?
There is some discussion of this regarding the master's thesis, but I feel that the doctoral level is a little different, in that the advisor/advisee relationship is perhaps more important.
Is there some reason you cannot work with faculty external to your department. I've heard of cases where people have two faculty advisers, one in their institution, one outside. Also what does "does not require department/university subsidy" mean? I assume that is a good thing, but I'm unclear what it means. Can you elaborate?
Because I'm employed by the university, my tuition is covered as an employee benefit rather than by an advisor's research funding.
With regard to choosing to do your PhD research with a group working in your field of interest:-
Benefits:
In-depth subject specific knowledge, meaning that:
You will get started faster.
Your early mistakes and false leads identified and corrected earlier.
You will get a faster entree into the best collaborative networks.
You will get noticed by the community faster.
You will be associated with experts in the field.
Disadvantages:
Depending on the supervisor, you might get rail-roaded into doing the science his/her "way", leaving less opportunity for you to strike out on your own path.
You are dealing with a new advisor, and that relationship takes time to cultivate.
For your situation, it seems that you will have to get a source of funding.
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87305 | Papers about raising awareness within a domain about open source technologies
Part of my (computer science) research work involves a relatively new open source technology that I feel has been overlooked by the research community. It would seem valuable to raise the awareness of this technology to the research community in a few different subdomains of the field. Would a paper that describes the open source technology, explains how it works, and demonstrates its utility with some original, albeit simple, work be ethical? While I have contributed to the open source technology, I am by no means a primary creator, and would intend to include some of the main contributors and original creator as secondary authors.
The question Should I write a paper on open-source software I've built? is related, but this question is asking about open source software that I only contributed to, as one of hundreds of contributors.
Write a blog post. Those get read more widely anyway. :-)
Just to get the ball rolling.
I do not see any major problem if you:
Significant contributed to the software;
Enables new research challenges to be addressed or address research challenges significantly better (e.g., faster, easier, simpler).
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163678 | How to prevent papers from being published in advance by others?
I have a new idea, and the experimental results are also good. But my mentor does not allow me to publish it yet. But I am worried that the idea will be robbed by others. So is there any way to not publish it now, but I will take advantage of this idea first？
I am a computer major, and I mainly publish conference papers. If I upload the paper to arxiv, will others not be able to use the same idea as me?
If I upload it to arxiv, many people will have seen this paper. When I submit this paper again after a year, will it be because it is a previous one, and everyone has seen it, so it won’t be accepted.
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/107642/what-provisions-exist-to-handle-scooping-when-there-are-multiple-reviews-of-rese
https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/93466/do-people-actually-scoop-others
If your adviser won’t allow you to publish the results, are you sure they’d be okay with you uploading them to arxiv?
If I upload the paper to arxiv, will others not be able to use the same idea as me?
They absolutely can, but because you have uploaded your paper, you have established precedence: you can claim you had the idea and did the work first. Others can still use your idea (and you should feel flattered they do!) but they would have to cite you.
There are many papers on the arXiv that have accumulated lots of citations but have never been published in journals, e.g. this one. If the authors of that paper ever submit it to a journal, there's a high chance it will be published quickly, simply because it is so impactful.
You can't prevent or control parallel research. If an area is "hot" at the moment or there is an outstanding problem that is blocking progress in an important area, then you can assume that there will be many people working on it in parallel. The crux of a solution may first be seen by someone, unknown to others. But if that first person doesn't get their work published (and I mean by a reviewed journal or conference) then anyone can be "first to print".
You can't "own" ideas.
You can claim priority, but it is in the publication that it gets recognized. It is even possible that parallel researchers "share" priority when publishing the same thing at about the same time. This gets questioned, of course, but it does happen. I know of one important case and knew the people involved.
To be honest, I've had a lot of ideas that I never followed up on. Later, I've seen one or two of them appear in print. Good for the authors. Maybe I should have done something. The honor is theirs. But one of the ways in which I discovered I was "smart enough" was that some of the ideas presented at conferences and workshops didn't surprise me.
Some people like to try to use arXiv (and related) to "protect" their ideas. But I don't think they really do that very well. Until a solution to some problem is, not only made public by its authors, but also vetted by the community it is subject to debate and correction. If you really want priority, finish the work and submit it to a journal or conference. ArXiv is intended for preprints of articles entering the review process, not for publishing unfinished ideas. Some things there seem to be very good, but it isn't a panacea.
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191973 | Does the teaser image need to be a picture in the paper?
I am submitting a paper to a journal. The journal requires submission of a teaser image.
Please also identify a teaser image from your manuscript that may be
used in the abstract book as part of the OnlinePlus program and upload
this image file with your revision & summary of changes. Name the file
"Teaser" and select "Image" as the file designation on the File Upload
screen.
The pictures in my paper are mostly plots of experimental data. Therefore, does the teaser image I upload need to be selected from the paper? Can I draw a picture that is not in the new paper to describe my paper? The length limit of the paper prevents me from adding new pictures.
Really thanks!!!
You need to ask the editor. We can't make a ruling on what is allowed or not. But "from your manuscript" seems clear enough.
Also, look in the journal to see what previous authors have done.
The phrase "from your manuscript" seems pretty clear to me.
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190767 | Is there any difference between an extended version of a conference paper submitted to a journal and a brand new paper?
If I extend my paper accepted by the conference and submit it to a new journal.
This journal also agrees to accept extended versions of conference papers.
https://www.computer.org/digital-library/journals/tc/call-for-papers-general-submissions
Extended versions of published conference papers are welcome, but they
must have at least 40% new impacting technical/scientific material in
the submitted journal version, and there should be less than 30%
verbatim similarity as reported by a tool (such as CrossRef).
Additionally, the conference papers and the detailed summary of
differences must be included as part of the journal submission to TC.
Is there any difference between this paper and the brand new non-extended paper?
Is this extended paper a regular paper?
Can it be considered a new paper? Can I use it as a graduation?3
What is the format difference between an extended paper and a new non-extended version? For example, will the journal specifically mark extended papers? Or give a different issue number?
When I introduce this paper, do I need to emphasize that it is an extended version?
Thanks!!!
Whether something can be used for graduation is something that can only be answered by your institution
A journal paper extending a conference paper is a regular journal paper. I hve never seen a journal imposing any superficial distinctions on them like different format, numbering or special markings. There might a line in the frontmatter to designate the conference paper it is based on, but most of the time, referencing the conference paper is just handled by the authors as part of the introduction. How exactly to cite the conference paper has been asked and answered before:
How to cite a conference paper in an "extended" journal version?
An extended journal version supersedes the conference paper in many ways. For example, in most cases one would just cite the journal paper, not the conference paper anymore. I've often seen people listing the two versions as one publication on the CV (if using a single publication list), but I see nothing wrong with having a separate list for journal and conference papers. When compiling a "selected papers" or "10 top publications" or similar lists, including both a journal paper and the conference paper it extends would be very odd.
I would be very surprised if a university with a formal "3 papers for graduation"-rule would accept a conference paper and the extending journal paper as two of them. But the decision is ultimately made by whoever is in charge of enforcing that rule.
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164299 | Can I submit the paper to arxiv and the conference at the same time?
I think the conference where the paper is submitted will have 10 days to start submitting the abstract. There are 23 days before the papers start to be handed in. But my thesis will be completed within a week. The review of the paper takes nearly two months. May I be worried that other people will publish papers with the same idea during the review period.
Can I upload the paper to arxiv now? Then submit it to the conference normally after 20 days?
There is a sentence in the conference request:
The only exceptions to the above rules are for the authors’ own papers
in (1) workshops without archived proceedings such as in the ACM/IEEE
digital library (or where the authors chose not to have their paper
appear in the archived proceed- ings), or (2) venues such as IEEE CAL
or arXiv where there is an explicit policy that such publication does
not preclude longer conference submissions. In all such cases, the
submit- ted manuscript may ignore the above work to preserve author
anonymity. This information must, however, be provided on the
submission form – the program chairs will make this information
available to reviewers if it becomes necessary to ensure a fair
review. As always, if you are in doubt, it is best to contact the
program chairs.
Worrying about other people publishing your paper isn't something you should do. One, it's not in your control, that'll happen if it has to happen. Two, even if it does, there are always other parameters which can differentiate the paper.
This conference says you can post it to Arxiv, so go ahead! But I don't really think it'll stop someone else from publishing their material else where. Especially when the pre-print upload date is so close to the conference many might not even realize that their is a paper with the same domain!
thank you! But uploading the paper to arxiv can make me feel more at ease, otherwise I will always be frightened. What I want to confirm is: Are there any disadvantages to doing this?
There aren't any "disadvantages" as such. You may even get cited if someone comes across and feels the need to do so. But I don't think it's a practice that is followed commonly. One thing to note is, if its a "blind" submission and your pre-print has names, that might cause some issues!
Thank you a lot! But "if its a "blind" submission and your pre-print has names, that might cause some issues!" I don't quite understand what this sentence means. Can you tell me more specifically?
Generally top conferences want you to submit the paper without any "names" or "affiliations" on the top. Like an Anonymous submission. If your pre-print has your name then that goes against the conference rule. Glad I could help and all the best :)
thank you. But I want to make sure: if the conference I submit is as described in the question (don't mind arxiv), then there is no adverse effect. However, some conferences do not have the above statement, and submitting to arxiv will destroy its anonymous review, so it will have a bad impact. Do you mean this?
It should not have any adverse affect if the conference mentions that you are allowed to put it up on a pre-print server. Yes I mean that exactly!
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11151 | Changing affiliation on publication
I am moving from one job to another (postdoc to tenure track) this summer and I have papers in several stages of being written, these go from handwritten notes with all the necessary arguments to under revision at a journal. All the papers will have my new contact information put on them but where is the line for changing affiliation? It seems obvious to me that the one that is still in the handwritten notes stage will get the new affiliation and that the ones under revision won't. So somewhere in between is a line.
Where is it?
There are some similar questions so far (see here and here but they do not seem to be quite the same situation since I am not changing fields and the appointments are not concurrent.
Now at: [insert institute here].
@gerrit yes, that's how to indicate a new mailing address but the question I am interested in is how much of the work has to be done at the first institution for it to to be listed as an affiliation?
When in doubt, just list both affiliations.
I would argue that it's a question of resources—if you have used resources (equipment, personnel, computers, financial) of both institutions in executing the paper before its initial submission, then you should list both institutes as supporting the work.
On the other hand, if the core of the work—both research and writing—were done at the old institution, then the new institution should only be listed as a "present affiliation," rather than as a "co-sponsor" of the work.
Suppose some significant piece of code was written at institution A, but the paper was entirely written later. Should institution A be listed as an affiliation? What if the code is in a library that will be reused indefinitely? How long (or how many publications) is enough to stop listing A as an affiliation?
The affiliations list where the work was done. If you wrote the code at A and the paper at B, then both should be listed. You stop listing A when you're no longer directly talking about work done at institution A. (I'd argue just using a library written at A is not the same as writing a paper about the library; citing work at A doesn't mean you should list A as an affiliation.)
It is not necessarily clear cut. As a principle I would say that the affiliation should be where you have done most of your work. It is, however, also possible to use two affiliations and set your new location as "present address:" (or affilaition). After all, the affiliation serves two purposes. For a university (department) it means something becomes associated to them. For you, though, it means people can find you if they have, for example, questions. So, using the double affiliation, if it is possible, might be a good idea in the grey zone. Otherwise, I would stick with "where you did most of the work", however you wish to define it.
Your name and affiliation are listed on publications to identify you and to facilitate contact. Thus, I believe your new institution should be listed, rather than your old. Your old institution can be credited in the acknowledgements. Given that any affiliation listed might become outdated, you can also list your personal email address and your personal website URL. (A personal domain name and web hosting are very cheap.)
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11540 | Citing a paper under review in 2 different conferences
I am currently writing 2 conference papers. One is highly quantitative in nature and the other is absolutely qualitative in nature. I am submitting both papers to conferences having deadlines in the next couple of months.
The papers present results on 3 different research questions on the same topic and are highly related with each other. You could argue that paper A + paper B together present a holistic view of the answer to these research questions. Individually, paper A and paper B show a different side to the problem since you generally get alternate points of view from quantitative and qualitative works.
Since the papers and their results are highly interrelated, there exists a compelling reason for me to ensure that they cite each other. I have seen this question and this question which are also highly related to my question. However, my question is different enough, in my opinion to warrant a separate question.
How should I cite these papers? (one paper is going to be in APA style and the other will be in ACM style)
Does it make good sense to contact the Associate Chairs of these conferences for further clarification?
The most important question for me is, is this ethical? Does it not break the double blind review system? I am ready to not cite these papers if that is the case.
I am having conversations with my adviser about this but just want some broader perspective from different disciplines if I am somehow missing something.
The answer to this question seems to be field dependent. In what fields is it unadvisable to cite unpublished work? In math the peer review process takes forever, but it is extremely common to cite preprints, and I've never heard advice that one shouldn't do this.
Can you put both papers on the arXiv?
@JeffE I am pretty sure that I could put the quantitative paper on arXiv. I am not so sure about the qualitative paper - I was of the opinion that arXiv prefers quantitative papers. However, both are broadly, in the field of Human Computer Interaction and there exists a sub-repository for it (HC) on the server. Actually, I might just ask Dr. Ginsparg when I see him sometime soon about this. :) Thanks for the tip.
Not sure about your area and especially about conferences, but for journal papers, you can often submit supplementary material which could be used in the reviewing process. Could you submit a draft of paper A as supplementary material for paper B and vice versa? Or maybe just excerpts/graphs etc.?
Normally, unpublished materials are just that, unpublished, and should be treated as such. It is, however, always possible to reference your other work as "in prep." until it becomes published. You need to look carefully at any instruction for authors on how such references should be made and if they are acceptable.
If you add such a reference to a paper it is always possible to remove the reference if one of the works becomes rejected or if it is unlear if it will be published. What should be avoided is to have references to work as "in prep." remaining if the work is unlikely to ever getting published. After all, the purpose of referencing is to provide published sources that others can access.
Including an "in prep." reference will also provide problems for reviewers and adding or removing such a reference during the review process means that something that can not be checked is added or removed in the manuscript. So my suggestion is to avoid having to rely on such a reference for any key points in the manuscript.
You are, in other words, in a grey zone when it comes to referencing. The best solution would be one where you do not rely on unpublished references but if you think you must then use your discretion and make sure your inclusion is made in a way that it is not key to your conclusions or that it might not affect the reviews in a signficant way. You, furthermore, should be as confident as you can that they both will be accepted in the end.
Thanks. This is exactly the kind of answer I was looking for. In certain fields, it is quite common to see ~25% references "in prep". However, I have no idea what the standards are in HCI - just because the field itself is all over the place. :)
Just both papers on a preprint server when you submit them. Then referees will have access to them.
Normally, you can update citations until the proofreading stage. I've done that at more than one occasion. When submitting the article, I cite Myself et al. (submitted 20xx). Then the manuscript goes through peer review, revisions, subsequently typesetting, etc. By the time the final proofs come out, I probably know whether Myself et al. is rejected or not, and can probably provide an updated citation. In the worst case, I can replace it by a short text that this will be considered in a future publication.
Rather than removing the citation, cite as an unpublished manuscript, article in preparation, preprint, etc.
I think this boils down to the question
Should I cite a paper that has not (yet) been accepted?
In my opinion, citing an unaccepted paper is risky, since for a reason or another it might be rejected, and submitted somewhere else later on. Then, your paper would be citing the wrong proceedings or journal. Once a paper is accepted (achieves the in press status), I think citing is OK.
And hey, you can just write in the conclusions that your future work will be concentrating on the same problem from another point of view. Interested readers will go google your name.
Of course you wouldn't cite the paper as appearing in the journal or conference it's been submitted to before it has been accepted. That would simply be false. Instead, you cite it as being an unpublished manuscript, "in preparation", or "submitted" (and just "submitted", not "submitted to [specific venue]"). Or you upload a preprint, or turn it into a tech report. But, when the paper is clearly relevant, it needs to be cited somehow.
It's extremely common to cite work that has not been accepted in a peer-reviewed venue. It is certainly not "risky". There are plenty of things that can and should be cited even though they will never be submitted to a conference or journal. You just need to provide an accurate citation, as @DavidRicherby says.
You could create Technical Reports for each paper and cite the Tech Reports in your conference submissions.
If you decide to do this (and especially if you put the TRs on your web page), you may want to be careful about self-plagiarism.
Editor A wrote to editor B, indicating that one of the reviewers of a paper submitted to Journal A contained material that had been submitted at about the same time to Journal B. Editor A requested a copy of the paper submitted to Journal B. Editor B responded, confirming that the paper in question had been submitted to Journal B (submission date two weeks earlier than the paper submitted to Journal A), but had been rejected eight weeks later after external peer review. Editor B sent a copy of the rejected paper to editor A. Editor A examined the two papers and confirmed that there was “some degree of overlap” between the two and also felt that there was a degree of “salami slicing.
What should the editors do now?
The answer can be found here.
In order to avoid such an unpleasant affair why not boil the question down to
[One] could argue that paper A + paper B together present a holistic view of the answer to these research questions.
and submit only one paper?
I don't want to accuse you of scientific misconduct but your statement is at least suspicious in this regard. Therefore, a single paper would provide the following two benefits:
No need to cite your second, unpublished paper.
Absolutely ethical scientific conduct (in contrast to a strategy of "salami slicing" or building on the "Least Publishable Unit").
You raise a good point. However, in the conferences that I submit to; the limit is 10 pages, ACM style. When you are exploring one question from 2 methodological angles, you need to provide enough detail about both methods otherwise reviewers will not accept it. This necessitates submission of 2 papers and is pretty common in my field.
In my case, contacting the Associate Chairs was enough. You can cite a paper in progress - whether it will be accepted is another matter - however, you can make pre-prints available on your website or on arxiv and these can be inspected by the reviewers. My field is interdisciplinary and at many times, messy and therefore, these clean distinctions do not always apply.
@Shion "the limit is 10 pages": this is of course a very good point of yours. On the one hand scientific ethics ban "salami slicing", on the other hand editors don't want researchers to submit long papers. As I wrote, I don't want to accuse you, I only wanted to provide a different view on your problem. As you asked your question in 2013, I did not expect it to be still relevant for you. But the different view might help others. Allow me a final remark: Given the page limitation a solution might be to combine the papers and submit the article to a journal without page limitations instead.
Which also depends on your field of research. I know that in some fields conference publications are regarded more important then journal publications.
Agreed very much. My collaborators, advisers and the general culture in my field is to do conferences as opposed to journals although I wish that weren't the case since journals usually have a 25 page limit. Therefore, the culture in our area is to aim for the top 2 conferences in our field every year which is why everyone tries to hit those deadlines all the time.
The question makes it clear that the author is not "salami slicing" but, rather, their work has multiple aspects that belong in different venues.
@DavidRicherby Sorry, but I do not agree. According to Šupak Smolčić "Salami publication can be roughly defined as a publication of two or more articles derived from a single study". Shion writes "The papers present results on 3 different research questions on the same topic". I guess both papers refer to all three of the research questions and thus they quite likely are based on the same study or studies.
@ToJo Not all fields even have the concept of "A study".
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17451 | Do any statistics program provide funding for masters students?
I plan to be applying to graduate school next year in Statistics or Biostatistics and due to some financial constrictions, I will not be able to attend unless the tuition is waived at the the minimum. I am hesitant to commit to a 5 year PhD program for a funded education since I may run into some financial issues a few years in and may not be able to complete it. I know that most schools use their Masters program as a cash cow and thus are usually not funded. I was wondering if anyone here knew of any statistics programs that go against this and actually do fund their Master students?
Funding problems can come up in PhD programs regardless as to whether you expect them. For example, students who take more than 4-6 years often are given lower priority for department TA-ships, and lose their funding. The message here is that it is hard to predict your financial situation, and leaving a PhD for under extreme financial circumstances is always a morally acceptable thing to do (leaves of absences are very possible in this situation). You should do a PhD if you are truly passionate about pushing the envelope in statistics. In other words you think about statistics for fun. If this fits you, you should accept a funded PhD offer regardless as to future financial situations that may or may not manifest. Now if you are not passionate enough about the subject to pursue a PhD that is another story. In this case persuing one just because it is "free" and dropping out with a masters is generally looked upon as a major faux pas.
However, if you don't have interest in a PhD, another option would be to try online masters programs which are often cheaper and allow you to finish the degree while doing part time or in some cases even full time work. With an online degree program you can live with family members or move to a city with a low cost of living. The University of Washington has a program in data science, I believe. It certainly isn't free, but its about an order of magnitude less than a traditional "cash cow" masters degree.
If the above are too expensive take some free MOOCs (corsera etc) in your field of interest. Focus on skills as opposed to a degree. Apply for some jobs and if you don't get anything, go back to the drawing board.
The other option, and probably the best one if you are lucky enough to be successful down this road is to get a job in a field the combines your skill set with the tools you want to learn. So if you have some background in data science, stats, math or engineering, consider looking for jobs as opposed to degree programs. Often these jobs will fund your masters degree later on, if you choose go back to school. It generally comes with a constraint where you agree to stay with the company for at least a year or two after attaining the degree, but for most people this is worth it.
Apply to PhD programs that can or will award a master's degree after you pass your qualifiers.
This way you have funding and you may find that the funding is enough to continue even if other financial constrictions happen. You don't know for sure that they will happen or that other circumstances may mitigate the problem.
It might also be possible to ask the department for a leave of absence (for a year or two).
In a worst case scenario, hopefully you can finish with a master's.
I don't think that advising someone to take up a PhD program solely for the purpose of funding a MS degree is constructive advice.
I'm not. OP doesn't say that he/she knows for sure that he'll have funding problems later. I saying (badly I guess) go ahead and deal with later financial problems...later.
A leave of absence during a PhD is very possible, some places will allow leaves in the 2-4 year range. Sometimes you can still work on your PhD while taking a leave of absence and defend immediately after returning.
You should look for schools that don't offer PhD's in statistics, only master's. Then they will hire their MS students as statistics TA's.
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110583 | Do universities typically cover publication fees associated with open access publications?
I am an undergraduate student in a private Indian university. Last semester I worked on a research project with another undergrad student and under the mentorship of a PhD scholar.
We have submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal which charges a mandatory open-access fee of $500 on acceptance of the paper. In such cases, does the university typically cover these costs or are they borne by the authors of the paper?
Which department of the university should I contact to ask for funding for the same?
Not an answer, but still important: This is something you should have found out before submitting the paper.
@TobiasKildetoft I will take care of it next time. We had glossed over the open source access charges until we found out when submitting the paper.
Talk to the library also, some UK universities (at least) have allocated money for paying for open access in the library
Talk to your professor who will know better than us. It's possible your professor has a grant that also has an open access component, in which case that's where the money will come from. It's also possible your university's library has set aside some funds for open access. Here's an example page from the University of Hull. If your university has something similar, you might be able to get funding from there.
If you find you don't have funding, you can pay the OA fee out of your own pocket (probably not a good idea even if you are wealthy), decline OA (if it's a hybrid journal which publishes both OA and non-OA papers), ask for a waiver (Elsevier might grant this since you are from India, which is a developing country), and finally withdraw and submit elsewhere. If you take the last option, do so quickly so as not to waste the journal's time.
You're right, it is an individual problem and can't be answered in general. Most of the contracts between universities and publishers are secret, a centralized database isn't there and it is impossible to anticipate the behavior of the individuals under such conditions.
Even if they don't waive it entirely, they may be able to work with you on a reduced rate that your department could more easily afford.
Just want to point out that the money that university libraries in the UK have to pay for OA comes from a RCUK block grant to pay for the publication of RCUK funded research and is UK specific and publications must be associated with an RCUK grant code.
I guess there maybe major national funders in other countries that run similar schemes, but i've not heard of them.
@IanSudbery there's also funding for e.g. researchers affiliated with the Max Planck society (https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/?id=50:open-access-publishing&catid=21:mostly-hidden-category), and Kansas State (https://www.lib.k-state.edu/publishing-fund) - one has to look to know.
@Allure Wellcome trust also provide funds to publish open access, but I don't think they provide block grants to all university libraries...
does the university typically cover these costs or are they borne by the authors of the paper?
This seems to be a false dichotomy — usually it is not an "either-or" (unless you submitted to an open access journal with a mandatory Open Access fee).
It might be possible that your university does not cover the Open Access fees of this journal. However, that doesn't mean you as authors have to or should pay. Many universities subscribe to journals in order to make sure their researchers and students have access to papers which are not Open Access.
In other words, even if you don't pay the Open Access fee, many if not most researchers will still have access to your work. (Looking at the journal page on Elsevier you can look at the list of Open Access papers in that journal — often it's a minority.)
In fact, you are probably allowed to "self-archive", i.e. upload a preprint to the arxiv, for example. That way your article is available to everyone freely (open access). Again, you are probably even allowed to update the content of the preprint to match the content of the published version.
Check with your journal for their policy on self-archiving — the database http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php is also a useful resource.
@ASimpleAlgorithm I had already slightly edited my answer just before you posted your comment. "We have submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal which charges USD 500 for Open Access Fees on acceptance of the paper." doesn't say anything about whether the fee is required or not, so I left a comment on the question.
No the university is not generally expected to cover publication fees just automatically. There are, commonly, a couple different mechanisms that are used to cover OA fees:
Lab resources. Many labs, including my own, budget for some OA publication fees in grants, startup packages, intentions for unallocated funding, etc. This would be my first stop in your case - ask your professor.
University resources. Sometimes the university has a pool of money set aside to pay OA fees where lab support is unavailable - usually for student projects and the like. This is often but not always done through the library, and is typically something you have to apply for (though the application might be fairly easy) and is not guaranteed
University-Publisher partnerships. There are some journals that allow universities to pay a chunk of money and then have their researchers get either free or much reduced publication in a journal or bundle of journals.
Waivers. If you genuinely don't have any other funding sources, you can ask the journal to waive the publication fees for an unfunded project. But generally, this needs to be genuinely unfunded, and not just "I forgot to budget for this".
Which one of these - or others - that are available to you will vary based on your particular institution.
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79787 | What does "author title" mean in a manuscript submission system?
What does the author title mean in a manuscript application form? Does it mean {professor- assistant professor- lecturer} and if he/she isn't a university's staff what would the title be? Presuming he/she is master degree student in a medical specialty?
I don't know what a manuscript application form is specifically, but I would assume that if you don't hold a professional title, your title is simply Mr/Mrs/Ms etc.
the author's title when writing a research, medical paper or an article
Then I think you've answered your own question. As I said, if you don't hold a particular title (Professor, Doctor, Lord, Reverend, Captain, or whatever it may be) then your title is Mr/Mrs/Ms etc. As far as I know, a Masters degree doesn't confer any pre-nominal titles.
If the author does not hold any of the usual academic tiles such as Dr/Prof./Asst. Prof. the status quo defaults to Mr/Ms/Mrs.
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83541 | Should an undergraduate applying for academic internships switch to a multi-page CV from a one-page resume?
I am an undergraduate student applying for internships that are frequently in academia.
Currently, I've been providing all my experience in a one-page resume format, and find myself having to continue to make the text font size smaller and smaller.
Would it be best for me to switch to a CV?
Don't make the fonts smaller... :)
Good answer from Michael. Ask yourself how you would make a one-minute pitch in an elevator, to convince someone you should be considered for your dream job. Make sure the things you selected for the elevator are clearly visible in your CV, and do a little pruning. There are people you can ask for help with this.
CV's are used more for people who have more experience in academia - as it includes publications, awards, grants, etc. As someone who is still an undergraduate student, I can't imagine that your resume should be more than 1 page - usually it is 1 page per 10 years of experience. I would suggest going through your resume and take out bullet points that could be considered "fluff". Stuff like "demonstrated leadership" and "increase efficiency within the department" do not show any actual accomplishments. However, it would not be a bad idea to have a CV on hand. As you probably know, resumes should be tailored specifically to each job, so I would highly recommend that you keep a master resume that details all your accomplishments at each job, and maybe have the "fluff" in there, but when you apply for a job, make a copy of that resume and tailor it specifically to the job.
I disagree that the "one page for ten years" rule is applicable to academic CVs. My impression is that an academic CV should contain a complete list of relevant experience and accomplishments, and be as many pages as necessary.
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116949 | How to Present Two Authors on the cover page of an APA Research Paper?
So I've done plenty of APA papers, but I have never done one with two authors, so I came here since it's the fastest source for information, in my opinion. I would like to know or see an example of how to present both authors on the cover page.
I think things vary based on whether affiliations are the same or different for the two authors. I.e., if they share an affiliation, then you'd put them on the same line, but if they have different affiliations, then you put them on different lines with their affiliation below each.
It's also worth noting that I've seen quite a bit of variation in exactly how the title page is presented (e.g., numbered footnote for affiliations versus text at bottom of page). Journals seem to be able to work it out as long as what you provide is unambiguous.
Here's an example of an APA cover page with two authors from my own work:
According to the APA 6th Edition, you list all the authors in order of contribution, or in alphabetical order if their contribution is equal. They should be on the same line unless it does not fit.
Example: Jane Smith and John Doe
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165972 | Why did I receive a negative response from a professor when emailing about course content and prerequisites of a course I am considering taking?
I wrote the following email to a professor (I've removed any personal or specific details):
Dear Prof. Last name,
Hope this email finds you well.
I am Name, an undergraduate in the mathematics department.
I write to enquire about Course code - Course name being offered in fall semester. What can I expect from the course content and what are the prerequisites? Would it be along the lines of Name of a Book?
One sentence describing previous courses I've taken
Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks for your time!
Best,
Name
Department
Institution
The subject line was:
About Course Name next Fall Semester
I thought this email is perfectly fine, and it's how I generally write to professors. To my shock and surprise, I got the following response:
I am sure very soon you will be writing many more official emails, so you must know how to address them appropriately. You may see course content on the department webpage.Initials
Could someone help me figure out (i) how to respond to this, and (ii) what went wrong so I can avoid it in future emails (to any professor in general)? Thus far, no professor has pointed out so explicitly that something is wrong with the language of my email - so I'm in a state of great confusion right now.
Additional details:
I haven't interacted with this professor before, so this was my first email to them.
It seems I was at fault for not checking the course content on the department webpage before writing this email. However, that page has not been updated in years and I just wanted to make sure the content is still the same. Lastly, I think this wouldn't have made them feel that I addressed them inappropriately - since that has more to do with email etiquette than the content of the email.
Follow-up question:
I'm thinking of apologizing and explicitly asking how I can improve my email's language: "Thank you for your reply, and sorry for the seemingly inappropriate language of my email. I would be grateful if you could kindly pinpoint what part of the email was inappropriately written, so I can be more careful in all future communication."
Would this be a good idea? I read somewhere on this very site that it's never impolite to ask how to be polite.
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A number of interpretations of the wide-open-for-interpretation phrase "how to address them appropriately" in the professor's response are in comments to Dan Romik's answer (press "Show XX more comments" to see seem all (e.g., "Show 15 more comments"))
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There is nothing inappropriate (that anyone can see here) in the way that you've written your email. The response from the professor suggests that they're some combination of (a) incredibly time-constrained, (b) sloppy and unclear in how they communicate, and (c) a jerk.
It's possible (as user2768 suggests) that the essential "offense" in their eyes was to ask about things available in the online site. If so, then their first sentence was a sloppy and mostly mindless piece of aggression that doesn't really mean what it says.
The curtness, snarkiness, and level of aggression communicates that they don't like interacting with students by email, do not want to spend time on it, and want such querents to go away and not bother them.
Given the above, writing them again and asking for more time to be spent on even smaller minutiae -- like revisiting what they meant in a hastily-written throwaway email, and to spend even more time parsing the grammar of the original student email that they've already expressed contempt for handling -- is only likely to make things worse.
I suggest that you accept this line of inquiry as not useful and likely to produce only further confusion and frustration on both sides. Do not email them again on this matter. If you must email them again in the future, on some different matter, make it as brief as you possibly can (shorter than your original email), and try to pose a question that can be given a very short, clear-cut answer.
I'll say that the only thing the professor really got right there was in accurately predicting your next instinct would be that, "very soon you will be writing many more official emails", and to be aggravated-in-advance by that prognostication. Resist the temptation to fully prove them right!
Also, consider asking around if this professor is good to interact with (maybe people you know or a ratings website). If their course is not required, then you may be getting a signal that they're just not a good professor.
Honestly, this deserves the +1 I gave it just for reminding me that the words "querent" and "prognostication" exist :) Separately, it's also a good answer.
B is the real problem. All professors have more stuff than time, and anyone can be a bit grumpy by the five millionth question on how to find basic course information, but they really need to figure out how to manage their own time (e.g. use pre-written replies for basic questions) and be able to separate some of their emotions from their dealings with students. Which is two more points in the "sloppy" column. Combine with unclear and I would just avoid if at all possible.
Definitely point 3
Point 3 could be extended to "don't bother them again at all if you can avoid it; certainly not with questions you could answer from publicly available sources". I think independent of any details of form, subject matter and character: This was the message the professor's answer carried.
I wouldn't see he professor as a jerk. What he did write was a polite way a forum community would answer UTFG or STFW.
As a former college student and college professor I agree with this answer.
That’s not how I read the “very soon” line at all. I can’t tell if you’re implying a level of intended irony or if you’ve just read it differently from me. To me, he’s saying “I understand you’re new at this, but this isn’t appropriate. You’ll figure it out in time.”
Do you think that the professor simply meant that the email was addressed improperly, or, in other words, in the professor's opinion the addressee should have been different, someone who is not them? I agree with most of what you've said but this explanation seems simpler, so we could give Occam's razor a chance? May be it was not the professor who was addressed inappropriately, the email was, what do you think?
@AndrewSavinykh India generally follows the British system, so it may be that OP's "professor" is actually a lecturer, or reader and was incorrectly addressed as "Prof". OP needs to clarify, we don't really know.
@user3067860 Every professional ever has more stuff than time, but that's no excuse to be this way.
I don't see why this was the accepted answer, you're jumping to way too many conclusions and I am not entirely sure how you've distilled a simple response down to this. I would refer to this answer as this guy clearly nails it on the head and should be the accepted answer. https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/166054/138309
Your language isn't the problem, your email is well-written, but you've seemingly wasted the professor's time. You could have looked up the information, as they have explained: You may see course content on the department webpage.
Comments suggest I'm ignoring the professor's words:
you must know how to address them appropriately
The word address can mean speak to, perhaps write, in this instance. I believe the professor is annoyed that you've written to them and you should have done your own research first. An appropriately written email would ask a specific question beyond what's online.
Given you've seemingly annoyed the professor, I suggest you don't respond.
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Your email is impeccably written. If I compare it to the emails I receive from my students, it would fall in the 99th percentile in terms of email etiquette, grammar, formatting, and including the information relevant to the question you are asking.
Your email also compares very favorably with the professor’s reply, which violates several standard rules of email etiquette. Seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black if you ask my opinion.
How would you suggest I reply though? I'm thinking of apologizing and explicitly asking how I can improve my email's language: "Thank you for your reply, and sorry for the seemingly inappropriate language of my email. I would be grateful if you could kindly pinpoint what part of the email was inappropriately written, so I can be more careful in all future communication."
Your suggested response seems, well, impeccably written. But given that this is a professor who seems to react badly even to well-written emails, perhaps it is better just to not reply. Honestly I don’t know, and don’t have a specific recommendation what to do, sorry.
My thoughts too, although for me it'd probably be in the 90th percentile (but this was 15+ years ago, when IM wording shortcuts and such were less common and before twitter), and I agree with @wimi (comment under the OP's question) that it's best not to reply at all, and most definitely do not ask the professor to "pinpoint what part of the email was inappropriately written". Someone who responds to the OP's first email as described is almost certainly going to give a much more angrily worded reply to such a follow-up email (if a reply by the professor is written at all).
@epsilon-emperor I really suggest you to not reply. This type of attitude from a professor was not uncommon when I was a student some thirty-odd years ago: many (not everyone, but many yes) professors considered students an annoyance and any inquiry/interaction would cause a harsh response. To give you an example, during the first year, I approached a professor in a corridor asking a question about signing-up for the final exam of his class; he literally answered: "What do you want from me? ask the student's office!" And turned away without even saying good bye.
No, it isn't impeccably written. The two sentence fragments do not fit in at all.
@PeterMortensen I don’t know what you’re referring to, can you clarify?
Since no-one here is the teacher in question, it is difficult to know exactly what they meant. The only way to be sure is to ask them, but given your initial contact with this person, that is probably a bad idea. If the person really meant that you were wrong when addressing the mail (and were correct), I can see only one possibility:
The person is not a professor, but a lecturer/teaching assistant/PhD student/...
To berate a student over this is a bit nit-picky in my opinion, but it might be caused by an underlying annoyance, such as:
You can read about the content, including answers to the questions you asked, on the course web-page, where the teachers' correct title might also be displayed.
Honestly, it can be quite annoying to receive emails with questions which could have easily be answered if the person asking the question had bothered to look. I am not saying that is is definitely the case, as I have not seen the course web-site, but it might be.
Why is it a bad idea to ask them? If I was disgruntled for some reason, I would always interpret it favorably if the person made an effort to avoid that in the future. (But I wouldn't have written the professor's email like that to begin with.)
@lighthousekeeper From the response, it's clear that the professor is not someone who likes to engage with students—they may actually think that students are just an annoyance—and thus better let it go.
Exactly as @MassimoOrtolano says. The person has already indicated that they are not interested in lengthy mail exchanges by answering like that. You following up with more questions will most likely not be fruitful. Just let it go.
I think it's that the student can research and find course information on their own. Imagine if hundreds of students are emailing professors to ask about several courses that professor teaches. A lot of professors wouldn't mind advising current students on courses they might take, but it is not their job to act as advisors to every undergrad student.
Suggestions have been made that the Professor's problem might be grammatical (some nit with your opening?) or formal (he prefers to be referred some other way, a different title or something?)
But what if he is giving technical advice? That is, perhaps he is referring to emails in particular, since he mentions them.
Note that emails in email software are often displayed in some form like:
Fred Bloggs <[email protected]>
Emails must also have a subject line, which should be relevant.
What was the subject line of the email, if any?
Was the display-name that you used, if any, correct for him? While the "display name" part is how it's saved in your address-book, is purely cosmetic and does not help the email reach he correct destination, if it exists, it is visible to the recipient, and should typically represent the same person as the email address itself. We would probably expect a professor to be put out by: Asshole Prof <[email protected]>
Was the email address you used his correct, direct email address? Not a group email or some department, but direct to him personally? We probably wouldn't expect that [email protected] would reach the correct professor unless someone in the admissions dept was kind enough to look up his email for you and forward the email.
Does the subject line of his reply contain "Fw:" or "Fwd:"? If so, this too suggests it had to be forwarded to him from wherever you incorrectly addressed it.
If he included your original mail and/or headers, do they show signs of being forwarded, perhaps even with commentary from the forwarder?
Check for further comment or instruction written inline in the included text if he did include a version of your original email.
Is your own email address appropriate? I've even received emails about job vacancies from some very salaciously-named hotmail email addresses. It's not always a good look.
For example, if the email you have looks like this:
From: Bill Bloggs <[email protected]>
To: Inquiring Student <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Fwd: [No Subject]
I am sure very soon you will be writing many more official emails, so you must know how to address them appropriately. You may see course content on the department webpage.
= B.B.
From: Trevor Smith <[email protected]>
To: Bill Bloggs <[email protected]>
Subject: Fwd: [No Subject]
I think this is probably meant for you, Bill? Either it's for you, about Math 102, you, or Jane Bloggs, teaching Math 103. They seem confused - maybe just point them to the web page? Thanks!
T. Smith, Admissions Secretary,
Example University.
To: That One Math Guy <[email protected]>
From: Mr BoobMan <[email protected]>
Subject: [No Subject]
Dear Prof. Bloggs, [Actually, it's Dr Bloggs]
Hope this email finds you well.
I am Epsilon, an undergraduate in the mathematics department.
I write to enquire about MATH 102 - More Math, [You probably mean Math 103 - Yet More Math? I see you've already taken my Math 102 course] being offered in fall semester. What can I expect from the course content and what are the prerequisites? Would it be along the lines of "Math 103 by Prof J Bloggs"?
I've previously taken Math 101 and Math 102.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks for your time!
Best,
Epsilon Q Emperor, Esq.
Math Dept
Example U.
... then there's a whole LOT going wrong!
The names cracked me up, +1 for that.
Thanks for edit suggestion, @DanHenderson - I learned a thing! :D
Another thing that is slightly unusual (and possibly may considered inappropriate by someone) is the signature. In my experience, usually you don't sign your e-mails "Name - Department - Institution" unless you work there. Being a student does not earn you that right.
That said, I agree with the others that the mail is not particularly inappropriate or noteworthy.
Got it, thanks! Also, is the "Hope this email finds you well" part inappropriate, given that I haven't interacted with this professor before? I think it's pretty common to write similar opening greetings, but at this point, I'm not sure.
@theonlygusti IMO It is 100% inappropriate. It is simply a waste of words. You don't mean it literally, and it is irrelevant to the question (which was also a waste of words, since the answer was easy to find without wasting the prof's time).
@alephzero It is not “100% inappropriate”. Such email openings are standard. You may think they’re an unnecessary convention, but that’s a far cry from “100% inappropriate”.
@user76284: Where are such openings standard? Unless the person sending the email is a personal friend, I would suspect (as a recipient in US academia & industry) that was written from someone from a very different culture. Indeed, to me it conveys a distinct flavor of a certain type of scam email.
@jamesqf I also work in US academia/industry, and it’s not uncommon at all. Not sure where you can find more specific information, but see e.g. here.
@jamesqf: there is nothing wrong about being "from a very different culture". If anything, it should be the professor that should be more accomodating to such things.
@Martin Argerami: Perhaps I should have added the phrase "and didn't bother to learn the norms of the culture of the person they were writing to", but I thought it was obvious. At least, that's how I interpreted the professor's "so you must know how to address them appropriately" comment.
Having studied in the US, the UK, and the EU, I think it is perfectly normal to sign as "Name - Department - Institution" for a PhD student. For a Master's student, perhaps not as much, and for an undergraduate student it would just look a bit weird and slightly pretentious. But this is just my personal opinion.
Can confirm that it is perfectly normal, and even considered good etiquette, to sign with department and institution, this was the case in my Bachelor's and Master's degree in Europe.
I have been noticing this (department) in student email signatures more and more as well (in the US). I think it is strongly correlated to the number of LinkedIn requests I receive, and might even be encouraged by career services professionals nowadays. It seems fine to me.
In my Uni time it was not even aproperiate to call yourself student as an undergrad (but cand,)
First, no reply is needed and will probably result in another push back.
But the only problem I see, other than possible insensitivity by the professor, is that, while one letter might be fine, if it is short, it takes time to read (with your personal details) and more time to answer. Imagine being on the other end and getting 30 of these (300?). What if yours was the 15th such mail? This why course websites exist. They are supposed to provide the information you ask for and depend on students reading and interpreting them in their own situation. Had you targeted some missing piece of information there, and asked about that, then the professor owes you some explanation.
The book(s) listed and syllabus, even if only in outline, should be enough to answer your questions. A personal reply shouldn't be needed.
But, it would probably be a mistake to reply to the professor's email. At least nothing more than "Sorry. I'll re-read the website".
If there is no course website at all, then a query, or maybe complaint, to the department might be in order. But that doesn't seem to be the case here, given the reply.
It would be wise to "step gingerly" around this prof for a while, however, in case they are just a jerk.
The one thing other good answers here have not touched on is this :
What can I expect from the course content
This is an awfully open-ended question. The professor can probably summarize the course in ten different ways for ten different audiences - which type of answer are you looking for, exactly?
This forces them to guess what you're interested in knowing, or otherwise to cover everything you might have meant, which is a tall order of a person as exceptionally busy as a university professor, perhaps only to find that you'll email back with even more questions because they didn't correctly guess what you failed to communicate in the first place.
So, while the window-dressing of your letter was superficially exceptionally polite, the content of your ask was really quite lazy and thoughtless. This professor likely found that the request, in and of itself, was offensive - not because of how it was stated, but because of its content.
Asking your professor to summarize rudimentary syllabus information is a bit like treating them like a phone book. It's an enormous waste of their time. You wouldn't call the CEO of a mobile phone company to ask about rate plans - same thing here.
+1 You as a student don't ask the professor to write you an essay, assigning essays is their job.
You didn't break any rule but you may find the professor not well. I suppose the professor's work consists of:
Teaching undergrads (preparing the course, preparing and avaluating test)
Supervising PhDs
Being active researcher (filling up grant proposals, filling up reports, filling up bugets, organizing lab work, writing articles, reviewing articles)
Being member of some in-university or in-other-university comittee
Being an opponent to theses (reading, questioning, assessing)
Their schedule is quite full of many things and reading long email has a huge PIA (pain in the ass) score.
Let's go to your email then.
Dear Prof. Last name,
This is perfect, unless they are not a professor.
Hope this email finds you well.
Too personal and does not address the issue. Waste of time
I am Name, an undergraduate in the mathematics department.
I would not recommend introducing yourself in the very beginning of the e-mail, it is distracting from the main topic.
I write to enquire about Course code - Course name being offered in fall semester. What can I expect from the course content and what are the prerequisites? Would it be along the lines of Name of a Book?
This should be the first sentence. There is all you want to ask for and it is polite and quite information dense.
One sentence describing previous courses I've taken
This is not relevant to the question. You are asking for list of the prerequisities, not evaluating them.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks for your time!
Too long and pushy. "Looking forward to hearing from you" is sufficient.
Best,
Too informal. "Yours sincerely; With kind regards", these are the proper phrases.
Name
Department
Institution
Just Name. You are not working in the department. Maybe you can add that you are a student of the programme at your faculty.
I think the key problem was that the professor needed to get to fourth paragraph of your e-mail to get what you are asking for. The other was that the answer is already available on the oficial webpages.
The answer was poignant and sarcastic. But the professor gave some time to answer you. If you asked such question on some forum, the answer would be quite rude and even lacking basic advice. The professor
Pointed you where to look for the answer.
Pointed you to look for more effective approaches to written communcation
Gave you a hint that you should polish your witing style (address the e-mail) and change your way how to get information (address the issue). not only from them.
I can see the hidden message to be "Look, kid, I am not your mom to answer all your questions 'Mommy, where is my [something]?'".
+1, although I am not sure why you might assume that the professor would be thinking negatively (refer to your final statement).
I didn't mean it negatively. More like sarcastic. Or "tough love"
General rule: be concise.
Show you did some efforts, next time mention in the email "I have seen that the course page has not been updated in years and I was wondering if it still actual" but only if you feel the course is outdated;
You will be following his/her course, why should he/she care about the previous courses you attended?
I have a general question: why did you write the professor, what is your goal?
I have the feeling you would like to build a connection with this professor. There is nothing wrong, but don't be impatient, wait until the course started.
About 2 - So they have some idea of what courses I've taken before and if I satisfy the prerequisites for taking their course.
I wrote to the professor, not with the aim of building a connection, I really just wanted to know about this particular course they are offering next semester. "Wait until the course has started" - that doesn't make sense, because I need to decide right now whether or not I want to take the particular course (it's an elective).
@epsilon-emperor it's your duty to know if you satisfied the prerequisites of the course. If you did not, then you cannot take the exam of the professor, but usually it is NOT a professor's choice: it is a decision taken when the course plan was started/defined, the current professor is simply "putting in practice" that course plan.
If you literally have questions to the OP, they should be in comments to the original question, not in an answer.
“I was wondering if it still actual” I think you meant to say “up-to-date”. Are you German by chance? Many German speakers are not aware that „aktuell“ and “actual” don’t mean the same thing.
yes, thanks to both
I think the email is fine, however if I need to critisise the mail, there are two formulations which would trigger me
Hope this email finds you well
This is not only a cliche phrase used in many Nigerian scam mails which people tend to get nearly weekly (at least in the past). It can also be seen as a greeting between peers. I mean, it’s probably different in different cultures/regions, and I would probably not use it with people who are sensitive. Having said that, it is a very nice thing to start an email with a pleasantry.
What can I expect from the course content
Here is a similar issue. „Expect“ is a perfectly fine word, but it does have the connotation of „prove to me it’s worth my time“.
So if the professor is stressed out, triggered by the greeting and they feel students should stick to reading the course syllabus (especially for lower years in some universities it’s unusual to have any contact with professors before a course) this might have triggered them to their response.
The „address appropriately“ may not refer to salutation or title, but refers to routing - the fact that it should be sent to student help or a tutor instead of the professor (again, just guessing this might be different for other universities).
Having said that, I would understand the „sure very soon“ meansm: He understands and does not feel offended, and I would not follow up on this matter.
You need to find out how distant/approachable the teachers in your organisation are, as this can vary widely. Rude answers like this one will set the tone.
The email is very well written. Do verify that the name is not misspelt; some take great offence to this. Additionally, please check if the website offers any details on communication, I.e. TAs to contact etc.
If there are any guidelines there, do follow them.
A lot of professors (especially at the type of institute I infer you are at) simply don't respond to these mails due to time constraints. This may or may not be justified, but it is the prevalent culture. The class strength could also be a consideration here.
Finally, I would strongly recommend that you don't respond with anything besides thanks. Close out this communication and don't worry about any adverse effects, most likely the person won't remember this after a few days. This is rather culture-specific advice, which wouldn't apply in other settings.
so you must know how to address them appropriately
Maybe they were upset that you didn't address them as "Doctor". Doesn't justify the impolite response, but some people are sticklers about that.
Yeah, there's a wealth of different titles in academia, and you should try your best to use the correct one when you're writing an email to someone.
Isn't "Professor" a higher status than "Dr", and thus to be preferred when someone has earned both a doctorate and been granted a professorship? Either way, yeah, this would be a complete overreaction.
@CodyGray some people insist on all titles (I.e Prf. Dr. Dr. x) and also depending on the professor it might be more or less prestigious than the Dr.
A Professor is not a demi-god (or full one). He is human, fallible, and as with humans you get all kinds of cases on the "Am I an Asshole Or Not?"
In your case, he hit the mark "Yes, you are - a flamboyant one". With flying colors.
To answer your question:
your email was perfect, much better than the "hello, pls snd info on crse for Fri 4. Thx J" you sometimes get. Keep that level of communication, it will be really useful in the future.
his answer was the one of someone so full of himself that he forgot why he is in Academia in the first place. Just mentally flip your middle finger and move along.
It really should not bother you.
EDIT: who would have thought that there is actually a site for that? Ah, Internet...
I would not reply to the answer of the professor, which I find dismissive; I agree with the other answers until this moment. It seems to me that the professor shows zero interest in making that subject interesting for students. Maybe they don't care about the number of the students enrolled on it. Maybe the course content isn't worth signing up for.
A better answer would be "I've checked the course webpage and it reflects the current requirements. It's similar to that book. You're welcome to join."
Regarding your email, I think you can make it shorter and you can specifically cite the course expectations/content on their webpage that you wonder about.
If you write in an email "thank you for your time", you are implying that they are doing you a favor by using their time resources to answer your question or helping you with something. Maybe they don't consider this as an opportunity that would benefit them in the long-run, but just as a waste of time.
Maybe in your email you have used an excess of polite clichés.
If you want you could ask one of your colleagues or one of us to ask the question to the professor in a new email to get a better answer. Or send the question to another responsible for the course.
Re "excess of polite clichés.": It might or might not be just the exact right way in the (cultural) context (the Swinging Sixties wasn't global (for instance, in China, they had the cultural revolution - quite different)).
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846 | As a teaching assistant, how important are student evaluations?
I have seen a number of résumés of doctoral students, but only a few of them listed their evaluation scores when presenting their teaching experience.
How important are these scores in evaluating the teaching capabilities of a student?
How does one ensure that the students are sincere in their evaluations?
In case a professor does a slipshod work of a course, not teaching in depth or cramming a lot of syllabus in a short time, there is only so much a TA could do to salvage the course for the students.
How does the TA make the best of a bad job in such a situation?
Apart from holding weekly office hours and lenient grading(!), what is the maximum a TA can do, after all?
By "grade points", do you mean scores from student evaluations?
Yes... is there a different, more popular name for that?
I think the most common term is "student evaluations". See Wikipedia or Inside Higher Ed or The Onion.
In my experience (associate chair for graduate studies for a few years, long ago, and therefore checking TAs' teaching evaluations), the TA evaluations tend to be better when the professor is doing a lousy job. I"ve seen student comments like "without the TA, I wouldn't have learned anything."
This is an excellent question, for faculty as well as students!
How important are these points in evaluating the teaching capabilities of a student?
Obviously this varies significantly in different departments and institutions, but in my experience, the scores themselves are not that important.
My department does pay attention to these numbers when allocating future TAships, but definitely not in isolation. Narrative reviews from the instructors carry significant weight. The people doing the assignments also know which courses are unpopular, and which instructors are irresponsible, and adjust the evaluation accordingly, at least in principle. In practice, there are only three evaluations: (1) truly outstanding TAs, who are considered for teaching awards; (2) truly abysmal TAs, who are not rehired, at least without retraining (and since we have a TAship requirement, this has teeth); and (3) everyone else.
When we evaluate tenure-track faculty candidates, teaching ability is usually a second-order concern, but it is a concern. Poor evaluations on an applicant's CV are a red flag—why didn't they just omit them? Good evaluations are mostly a signal to look further. Teaching awards carry more weight. Recommendation letters that directly praise the applicant's teaching ability — with concrete and credible details — are even better. Similar issues arise when evaluating faculty for tenure, with one big difference: omitting the teaching scores is not an option.
How does one ensure that the students are sincere in their evaluation?
You can't. Sorry.
However, I believe you can increase the fraction of sincere (and positive) responses by consistently treating your students with respect. Make your expectations clear from day one, and enforce them consistently. Invite feedback throughout the semester, and respond to it quickly and appropriately. Apologize quickly for mistakes, thank students publicly for useful suggestions, but do not buckle on high standards. Give timely, consistent, and useful feedback on coursework. Above all, do not waste your students' time; the correlation between hard work and low evaluations is much higher if the students don't see any benefit to doing the work.
<Insert standard confirmation bias warning here.>
How does the TA make the best of a bad job [if the instructor is irresponsible]?
First, do your own job as best as you can.
Second, raise your concerns with the instructor; be respectful but brutally honest. If the instructor is unresponsive, raise your concerns with your instructor's boss; be respectful but brutally honest. (Note: Disagreement is not the same as being unresponsive.) If your instructor's boss is also unresponsive, your department doesn't really care about poor teaching; they're likely to ignore your evaluations, even if they are low.
Apart from holding weekly office hours and lenient grading(!), what is the maximum a TA can do, after all?
There are many more things that TAs can do. At a minimum, hold office hours that the students actually find useful; don't just show up. Distribute practice problems, and offer feedback on the students' solutions. Hold weekly review/discussion/problem-solving sessions. As aeismail suggests, write review notes. If the instructor covered too much, distill down their main points; if the instructor didn't cover enough, expand on the key ideas they missed. Offer to give a few guest lectures, and then give fantastic guest lectures.
More self-servingly: Make sure the students see you working to overcome your instructor's shortcomings. If the students don't see you fighting on their behalf (even if you are), they'll write you off as yet another useless academic, like your instructor. But if you can make them believe you're on their side, they'll reward you. I think this is why students often reward "lenient grading"; if the students think the coursework is a waste of time, they'll see lenient graders as their allies.
Obviously this all takes time. As aeismail says, TAs usually have many other responsibilities, especially to their own classes, projects, research, families, and sanity. It is frighteningly easy for committed and caring TAs to find themselves being abused by less committed instructors (or even departments). Set limits.
Did you intend to say "the correlation between easy courses and high evaluations is much higher when the students don't think the course is actually valuable."? I would have thought the opposite (although you would know better than me) ...
Revised to clarify. "Everyone knows" that evaluations are inversely correlated with difficulty. I claim the correlation is stronger for courses that students don't find valuable: "The instructor didn't make me work hard to pass this stupid hurdle; he must be cool." I prefer to aim for "Wow, this course was a ton of work, but I really learned a lot of cool stuff."
Ask the department what the average historical TA evaluation score is for your class. Then on a CV you can write something like "mean student evaluation 3.8/5 [department average 3.1/5]" A 3.8 might sound rather poor to some, but the later piece of info indicates that it is an unpopular course and that a 3.8 is quite good.
For what it is worth, my best student evaluations came from courses where the instructor was poor. In those classes (1) my teaching looked great compared to the instructor (2) I got to act as a savior (3) I calmed down their anxiety. Students are reasonable. They know who's fault it is when a course isn't going well. They tend not to take it out on you unless you are exacerbating the problem. At least this is my experience.
I disagree that you can't assure students are sincere in their evaluation. If you as a teacher are honest about the role and effectiveness of course evaluations as feedback you will indeed get sincere answers.
From my experience, student evaluations are simply a measure of how well the students think you are doing in teaching them. Keeping in mind the phrase attributed to Henry Ford,
If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse".
note that the students can often give feedback on your current teaching methods, but they rarely suggest better teaching methods. From my experience, the evaluations are not viewed as important, but are meant more for the TA to improve their teaching skills. You can ensuring sincerity by being sincere in your teaching. If you're appropriately enthusiastic about teaching the material, the students will notice and appreciate it. Beyond that, some students will be cynical and apathetic to the process, and there's really not much you an do about it.
The best way to make use of the situation is to use it as a learning experience, as it's intended! Chances are, you'll be asked to teach in the future, may as well use this opportunity to try out different teaching methods to see what works for you.
Frankly, I don't place much weight on an isolated number; it doesn't tell me much in practice about a student's teaching abilities. That would have to be judged via direct interaction—watching them teach or otherwise interact with students. It's really impossible to expect students to be honest in their evaluation, unless they've provided comments; then you can at least see how much they've written; the more extensive the comment, the more likely it is to be sincere.
As for what to do when a professor does a bad job, I don't think that it really makes that much of a difference in the nature of the TA's responsibilities; the main change is in the intensity of the work required. The TA, along with the professor, is responsible for helping students learn the material. If the professor isn't doing an adequate job, then that means the TA will probably need to work a bit harder and dedicate more time to achieve that goal. However, the TA should make sure she is taking care of her other requirements and needs at the same time. The TA position shouldn't consume someone's entire life (unless they are paid accordingly!).
One possibility for how to do things, though, might be to prepare review sheets and guides based on the lecture material (or what the lecture material should have been). This will be good review, both for the TA and for the students!
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9140 | Do teaching evaluations lead to lower standards in class?
In the somehow recent past, teaching evaluations have become obligatory in many universities/departments in Germany. I've also heard that sometimes these evaluations are used in formal ways to decide about salary raises or even hiring. For me it is pretty clear that a purely formal use of teaching evaluations is not a good idea, but my questions goes in a different direction. From time to time I read in newspapers and other kind of media that a side effect of these teaching evaluations is that
"the solicitous professor who aims at good teaching evaluations usually lowers the level in class and gives good grades in general."
Myself I never did it like that and I have the feeling that giving an "easy" course where everyone is able to score good grades but does not learn very much will not be appreciated by the students.
My questions is:
Do you know of any evidence for the claim that teaching evaluations encourage professors to lower standards and give better grades?
Note that I am not trying to deduce that the use of teaching evaluations in a formal way to decide about hiring or salary is a good thing; I am just not sure that "lowering standards and pampering students" is a major side effect of teaching evaluations.
Very nice question. Not an answer, just an observation: students tend not to be sheep and value when they are challenged, while at the same time prefer to be treated in a tough, but fair way. At least at places I was fortunate to study, or work at.
Could you link to the source of that quote in your question?
@walkmanyi Good point! A recent German source is this Spiegel article http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/studium/klaus-p-hansen-fuer-gelehrte-ist-uni-feindliches-gebiet-a-883389.html where one reads "Außerdem wird ein Nachweis der Lehrbefähigung verlangt, der durch das zweifelhafte Instrument der Studentenbefragung erfolgt. Der strategisch kluge Mittelbauer tendiert deshalb zu Infotainment und einer Senkung der Anforderungen." which translates (very roughly) as "Moreover, a certificate of teaching abilities is needed which shall be given by the dubious instrument of teaching evaluations. The ...
... keen and strategic non-tenure staff tends to infotainment and lowering standards." I think I have read similar claims in the "Forschung und Lehre"-Magazin of the DHV (www.forschung-und-lehre.de/) and will post them if I find anything.
+1 for asking for actual evidence. I only know personal examples of the described behaviour as well as counterexamples. However, it is difficult to link this to the teaching evaluations, because I've known university rankings trigger similar behaviour. However, also in my experience students have a very keen perception of who is in which category. So have colleagues.
@cbeleites Actually, I am also interested in concrete examples and first hand stories (of course without giving actual names or institutes where this has happened).
@BenCrowell Interesting to hear! However, where I am, all these web sites do not play any role. I have taught courses for about ten years now and I do not have any evaluations online anywhere.
I am in Germany. There are similar sites and some colleagues appear there (they seem to be more popular at some universities), but the sites are far from being any standard or "widely used".
It depends on what they are evaluating, and how.
I studied at a university in a mess of a country that was recovering from a period of war. The educational system was not just depressingly dated, it was also falling apart at the seams. Enthusiasts were trying to reform the system, and one of the bigger pushes in the right direction was achieved through course evaluations. This evaluation had questions such as these:
How often does the lecturer show up for class?
Does each lesson have a clear topic?
Is it clear which parts of the printed course materials are covered in which lecture?
Were all the exam questions linked to some printed course material?
Does the lecturer answer students' questions?
Is the lecturer available to students at any point outside the lectures?
Does the lecturer use e-mail to correspond with students?
Do you feel that the lecturer treated you unfairly at some point? How so?
Do you feel that the lecturer engages in any problematic behaviors during class? Please describe.
Did the lecturer ask you for any favors in return for a higher grade?
What are, in your opinion, the good aspects of this course?
What are the bad aspects?
...etc.
There were more questions - many were about lecturing style for example; these are just off the top of my head. Now, this evaluation made lecturers begin to come to class, made them finally pick textbooks, forced them to pick a topic for every lesson (rather than just rambling on), forced them to tell students which part of the book corresponds to which lecture so that students could read the materials in parallel. It also rapidly cut down on truly problematic behaviors such as smoking in class. Furthermore, it helped lecturers improve their performance through providing feedback on the strong and weak points of the course, at least as students saw them. Here, I think the evaluations very clearly helped improve standards in class, especially in truly problematic departments. The reason they helped was twofold: (1) there was a lot of room for improvement, and (2) the questions were well thought out, i.e. each question was linked to a particular goal in the educational reform.
I've also studied at a wonderful, well organized university where most of these questions would be completely ridiculous. There, the evaluations had questions such as:
How many hours per week did you study for this course?
How important would you say this course is for your overall academic development?
Would you say this course was easy, just right, or difficult in terms of content?
Do you think the lecturers evaluate students' knowledge fairly?
...etc.
I honestly have no clue what is gained by such an evaluation, and I hope nobody's salary depends on it. With the right (i.e. wrong) questions, I'm sure you could lower teaching standards by giving financial incentive to score well. The question, then, boils down to what the evaluation sheets look like. To the best of my knowledge, these are not standardized across universities, so the results may vary a lot.
I hope nobody's salary depends on it — Sigh. Not only individual salaries, but entire department budgets.
Thanks for the interesting story and sharing insight. Although I was more interested in concrete examples in which somebody really lower standards our turned to infotainment to gain better evaluations...
@Dirk - I hope somebody will share that sort of data as well. I just wanted to defend the concept of evaluations, because I think it's a good idea gone bad. My impression is that it goes bad when the main goal is to measure some vague concept of student satisfaction instead of course quality. There, the student is seen as a customer, and the teaching process as an economic exchange. While this is partly true, it completely ignores other aspects of education (social, cultural, knowledge as a goal in itself, etc).
Grade inflation has been an issue in the US since mid 1970s, so welcome to the club. See endgradeinflation.org. None of the attempts to curb it have been successful so far; the practice of student evaluations is deep-rooted in US colleges, and cannot be easily modified.
The uphill battle against grade inflation has been spearheaded by University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, one of top 5 large public US universities. They put a rather extensive research effort into figuring out the patterns of grade inflation. The cause, as you observed, is what economists call market failure, when the self-motivated actions of the players lead to outcomes that are worse for everybody. The employers of the graduates, and the grad programs they apply for, suffer the most, as they cannot distinguish good students from bad students. Organizations and student societies that rely solely on GPA (grade point average) discover great differences between disciplines: the humanities end of the spectrum have been hit the hardest by grade inflation, while engineering and sciences that have more specific assessment and evaluation criteria tend to produce lower grades. The opening page of this 2000 report provides a specific figure to answer your question: about 15% increase in student evaluations associated with 1 standard deviation increase in the course average grade. This standard deviation was 0.4 on the American scale that goes from 0 to 4; at the time of writing the report, the average GPA at UNC was 3.18.
In mid 2000s, UNC came up with an idea of an effective grade, called achievement index. In very simplistic terms, it essentially normalizes each class to have the same GPA. Each student is mapped onto a percentile implied by his grade in a given class, relative to the distribution of grades in this class; percentiles across all classes that a student took would be aggregated; and the ultimate student's achievement GPA would be reported based on the normative judgement of what the university wants to see as the average GPA and the range of grades. This idea is based on item-response theory, or can alternatively be explained using Bayesian methods (a maximum a posteriori estimate of student ability). As you can imagine, this literally caused a student unrest that UNC has not seen since the civil rights movement of the 1960s (o tempora o mores... how petty motives are these days), so the faculty chickened out and ruled against it.
Still, UNC has found a way to put the grades into the context by augmenting the transcript with the average GPA of other students who took this particular class, student's percentile in a given class, and the "schedule point average" = average GPA of all the students in the classes that a student took. The above link shows a clear picture of somebody who had a nominal GPA of 3.6, way up from the average GPA of classmates of 3.0, consistently performing above the median (7 grades above the median, 5 at the median, 0 below), vs. somebody who has only be able to achieve GPA of 2.5 in easier classes with average GPA of 3.2 (1 grade above the median, 3 at the median, 9 below).
The dramatic timeline (if you know how to read between the lines... I grew up in Soviet Union and have this unfortunate skill) of UNC attempts to deal with grade inflation is available here. Some other institutions are likely to use these or similar ideas, including another high-profile public school, Berkeley. (The administrator's claim that the university's computer system cannot handle the additional evaluation method is ridiculous; I could do these numbers on my laptop.)
I can offer only personal experience on this topic. However, I can say that I read the literature on course evaluations rather extensively in preparation for a past application for promotion. What I found was that there are passionate people on both sides of this debate. Some think course evaluations are the best thing since ice cream, while others believe they are responsible for grade inflation and overall lowering of standards. Based on my own experience, I tend to side with the latter group. I have been at the same institution for almost thirty years, and early in my career enjoyed very good course evaluations. After about ten to fifteen years, I notice that my evaluation scores began to erode. So, I started making things a bit easier for the students to get good grades, but nothing I felt uncomfortable with. My evaluation scores shot up noticably.
In recent years, the quality of our incoming students has slipped, and so have my evaluation scores once again. But this time, I do not feel I can make any more concessions to the students, at least if I want to retain the integrity of my course (and myself). At least at this point I have a good deal of job security, so I can hold my ground, even though students and administrators probably wish I wouldn't. Someone in a less secure position could face a serious moral or ethical dilemna in this situation. It is easy to see how grade inflation can happen.
In the U.S., we face the same problem with standardized testing. So much is at stake with these tests for high school students and teachers, that the whole process has devolved into teaching to the test as opposed to teaching for understanding. In my opinion, it will take a vocal effort by major public institution, and even private ones, to make any headway against teacher evaluations at the college level. That is not to say that professors and teachers are not to be held accountable for the conduct of their courses. Evaluation is necessary. The devil is in the details of finding the best way to do the evaluation. I don't think the current way is the right way.
According to some writers, peer evaluations are an even worse tool than student evaluations. StasK has written a great answer. Pay particular attention to the remark that administrators don't believe the univeersity computing system could handle the load. Administrators are quick to cite some technical limitation as to why they cannot do something. They seem to forget that they are talking to an audience that contains experts who know that their arguments don't hold water.
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12872 | Are grad school acceptance rates skewed?
Take grad schools for instance. Their acceptance rate is 8%, or seems to be so. Basically, suppose you have 100 randomly selected across the USA grad school applicants. 50 don't know what to do with their lives, so really the acceptance rate goes up to 16%. Then the other 25 will be out for unusual circumstances, so roughly, there is a 33% chance, or 1 in 3 chance of getting in. (yes, even my numbers are a bit skewed, but reasonably better)
So is grad school really that hard to get into (If you are on top of your game)?
applied = entire pop. you're missing the mark.
It could be very hard to get into graduate school, even if you are on top of your game, if you have difficulty working with others or a narcissistic personality. Hypothetically speaking, I mean.
Where are you getting these numbers? Are you asking about admission at one particular department (say, statistics at MIT), or admission to grad school in general? Is your sample population all undergraduates, all applicants to all graduate programs (in some field), or all applications to one particular graduate program?
@Jossie I don't understand your response. Perhaps you could give a little more detail to make it clearer what you really mean.
Acceptance rates are nearly meaningless as isolated numbers, for exactly the reason you describe. They are averaged over the entire applicant pool, and therefore they imply very little about any particular applicant's chances.
If you are trying to estimate your own chances of admission, then you need more information. If you attend a school that regularly sends students to a given university, then you can form a decent estimate based on feedback from faculty and comparisons with your peers. Otherwise it's harder to predict. At top grad schools, it really depends a lot on what your recommenders say, how seriously the admissions committee takes their letters, etc. You may have a faculty mentor who can help you arrive at a good estimate, but you'll get at most a crude approximation from grades, GRE scores, counting REU publications, etc.
So is grad school really that hard to get into (If you are on top of your game)?
For people who are genuinely on top of their game and have made sensible decisions about where to apply (based on their accomplishments), getting into grad school is not that hard. They might not be admitted to their dream schools, but they'll be admitted somewhere reasonable. On the other hand, thinking you're on top of your game doesn't imply that you are.
This makes it difficult to give universally applicable advice. Some applicants should stop stressing out and have faith that it will work out OK in the end, while others need to start worrying and rethinking their plans. We end up back in the same situation as with admission rate statistics: it all depends on your personal circumstances.
You are missing a fundamental aspect of probability theory. The acceptance rate tells me what the chances are that if I randomly select an application, from all the applications to my program, that it will belong to a student that gets accepted. What you are interested in is more like the probability that an applicant applying to a randomly selected school gets accepted. The two probabilities are NOT the same. Going back to your question
So is grad school really that hard to get into (If you are on top of
your game)?
If you are talking about getting into a top graduate program with funding, then the answer is still "yes". Top grad schools only accept students at the top of their games and they always have more applications than spots.
Your first paragraph is wrong; I am interested in your former assumption.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.202552 | 2013-09-21T13:58:21 | {
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41003 | how to find highly cited articles in journals with low impact factor?
Journals with high IF get more attention, so might get "better" articles.
However I am interested in finding papers published in minor journals that have a high number of citations, say >100.
I can't seem to do this search on web of science. How is this achieved?
http://scholar.google.com/
Scopus allows you to do this. Search for the journal name and then sort by number of citations.
but I would like to do a global search perhaps by doing a double sort IF and n of citations.
I think you can do this in Scopus (see the "compare journals" option). It uses a slightly different metric since impact factor is privately owned.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.202884 | 2015-03-04T15:00:17 | {
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15956 | Endowed Assistant Professor vs Assistant Professor
In US education system, the university academic positions start with Assistant Professor. But there are some occasions that positions for Endowed Assistant Professor are advertised. I could not find what exactly is "endowed Associated Prof". Is there any difference with assistant professor? Is it a type of position different from tenure track or the title endowed comes from the particular funding source? There is a similar discussion about endowed chair in US system here, but I think that is slightly different.
Please let me know, whas recruitment committee members are concerned about when hiring endowed assistant professor.
There really is very little difference between the answer Chris Gregg posted and the answer for this question. An "endowed" assistant professorship is a position which provides funds for the group of the faculty member appointed to the professorship. It can be either salary, or perhaps additional funds that can be used to support members of the group.
Usually, applicants are not hired directly into such positions; instead, they are hired to the department first, and then appointed into such positions after a few years. They often have names like "career development assistant professorship" which indicate that this is a transient award, not a permanent one. If the hiring advertisement actually specifies the position as an "endowed" assistant professorship, I don't think it really changes the hiring process, except that they're looking for the best candidate who satisfies the conditions of the endowment.
Usually, applicants are not hired directly into such positions, I guess this is an unusual case. I have seen it in a recent ad in a US-based computer department that plans to employ directly from outside the university for this position.
In mathematics, at least, some departments have multiple positions called "So-and-so Assistant Professor" (e.g. Szegö Assistant Professors at Stanford ), which are non-tenure track, 2–3 year visiting positions — basically, a postdoc who teaches (with teaching duties similar to, or somewhat lighter than, the senior faculty). I don't know whether this practice exists in other fields. For such positions, the hiring considerations are similar to other postdoc positions.
As far as I know, these named assistant professorships are usually not endowed. They're funded by the university just like other faculty positions.
Actually, there ARE actual endowed tenure-track assistant professorships. Several of these are found at prominent liberal-arts colleges. And as with an endowed professorship at full professor rank, these too are funded by the endowment.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.203009 | 2014-01-19T12:09:21 | {
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12987 | IEEE Conference Paper: Different Author Blocks, Different Information?
I am currently preparing my very first paper. Since the conference to which I am going to submit my paper to requires the authors to use the IEEE conference paper template.
The template says that if the authors have no more than 3 affiliations, we should adopt this format:
If the affiliations are more than 3, this format should be adopted.
The 2nd format is quite clear about the order of the authors, but as for the 1st, the 3rd and 4th authors are grouped together. So is there any distinction between the authors who are grouped together? Do these two formats convey the same contribution information about the authors?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.203239 | 2013-09-26T05:54:34 | {
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77323 | How to properly format and write a department/office/lab/subsection of a university?
How would one properly format a department/office/lab/subsection of a university? If say I work in Lab X of University Y, should I format it like this?
Lab X, University Y
or
University Y, Lab X? Or something else?
I have mostly seen Lab, Dept, University.
What is this for?
The formatting for nearly any type of addressing is stated ordered from subset to the enclosing superset.
In your case,
Lab, [Department], Institition, [State/Country]
The State/Country part is seldom included.
In the context of describing affiliations of different authors on a paper "Department name, Faculty Name (optional), Institution name" is common. For example, see this paper:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.06958.pdf
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.203360 | 2016-09-25T04:38:43 | {
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