id
stringlengths 1
7
| text
stringlengths 59
10.4M
| source
stringclasses 1
value | added
stringdate 2025-03-12 15:57:16
2025-03-21 13:25:00
| created
timestamp[s]date 2008-09-06 22:17:14
2024-12-31 23:58:17
| metadata
dict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
5628 | How should a researcher manage the fact that Impact factors change over time?
Impact factors of journals are one the most commonly use indicator of their quality. As a consequence when someone is looking for a journal in which publish his results, the highest the impact factor, the better. However, over the years journal's impact factors change depending on the quality of their article.
My question, that is more theoretical then practical, is twofold:
Should I care about the future impact factor of the journals I publish in (similarly as when buying stock market).
Would it be advisable to keep track of the impact factor at the time of publication in a list of paper (a bit like saying "I know to impact factor of the journal I published in five years ago is bad, but it was better then").
This question is somehow related to the fact that I hear once or twice about examining boards considering only the papers published in journals above a certain impact factor when assessing the quality of a candidate. In other words, papers published in low impact factor journal are not even worth noticing.
Maybe I did not get the question well, but once your paper is accepted and will be printed, you can not do anything. If your article is be good it will be cited regardless if the impact factor of the journal will be high or low. Or you are thinking about publishing in the only one journal in the future?
@MasterPJ The question is motivated by the fact that, when assessing the quality of your research (for a grant, a new position) the impact factor of the journals in which you publish is an easy way to do so.
@William: No, it isn't. The impact factor of a journal says nothing whatsoever about the quality of a single paper in that journal.
@JeffE I totally agree, but it is an indicator (good or bad) of the quality of the journal in itself. My question is somehow related to the fact that I hear once or twice about examining boards that considered only the papers published in journal above a certain impact factor when assessing the quality of a candidate.
Related to your last comment:
boards that considered only the papers published in journal above a certain impact factor when assessing the quality of a candidate
I think that such borders are not doing well. As you said, the IF (Impact Factor) varies in time (regardless if we consider it as a relevant measure).
According to me, there are 2 points of view by which the IF which should be considered in your question:
The point that you tried (and succeeded) to publish a paper in a journal with high IF. What would that fact say to me (if I would be in a committee)? That you were confident about your results and you trusted your work to be published in a good journal. (BUT(!) it does not meat that the journal or the paper is good, it just reflects you, the candidate). In this case relevant is the IF by the time your article was accepted.
The point that the IF of the journal you published rises in the next 2-3 years after the time your paper was accepted. Why? Lets take a look how the IF is calculated:
A = the number of times articles published in 2006 and 2007 were cited by indexed journals during 2008.
B = the total number of "citable items" published by that journal in 2006 and 2007.
2008 impact factor = A/B.
However, can we say that articles published in 2006 and 2007 will be cited in 2008? Just very small amount of them. Someone reads your article (month 1), then does the part of research related to your article (2-3 months?), approved by co-authors (another month) and goes through the acceptance procedure (12-14 months). It takes about a year and a half to print the citation of your article. So, if the editors decide that they will accept just good articles the resulting rising of IF will be visible in 2-3 years in the future. So if I would be a committee member I would like to know how was the IF 2-3 years after the article of the candidate was printed. That can tell me that by the time the article was printed, also a considerable amount of good articles were printed as well. But keep in mind that IF consider citation just within 2 years back, and that is just too short. I think it should be 3 years at least.
So, to answer your questions:
add 1.: YES, for the next 2-3 years as it is effectiveness time of IF.
add 2.: YES, because it reflect the actual state of the author by the time he decided to publish.
But please, all this can help as a indicator but is should be taking into account with caution. I should also say that IF is very tricky and it can be easily misinterpreted (self-citation, how many review articles the Journal publishes,...). If you want to take a look at other evaluating tools, you can visit:
Eigenfactor or
Journal Ranking
and:
What really matters is how much your article is cited(!)
Thanks for the elaborate answer. I totally agree that what really matters is how much your article is cited, but I am not sure this is often considered by evaluating committee...
No, even the number of citations isn't what really matters. Citation counts are (at best) only loosely correlated with impact; moreover, impact is only loosely correlated with quality. An evaluation committee that relies only on numerical citation data is not doing its job.
I would be wary of going with Impact Factors as a good metric.
There has been recently a couple of Journals that got into trouble for artificially blowing their IFs, they basically asked any submitter to cite at least 3 articles of the same Journal.
However, it is true that good Journals like Nature, IEEE Transactions, Elsevier, etc will give your paper a lot more credibility than unknown Journals.
In my experience, all of that was good for a pre-Internet era, where Universities had to pick and choose their subscriptions, but now, with all the plethora of information available that is probably less the norm than ever.
Ahem. First, Elsevier is a publisher, not a journal, and does publish a lot of unknown journal (not to use worse, impolite adjectives). Second, Universities need to pick and choose their subscriptions at least as much than before: that subscriptions have mostly become electronic did not change that fact.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.417132 | 2012-12-06T20:37:49 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5628",
"authors": [
"Benoît Kloeckner",
"BigChief",
"Cardboard Box",
"Durai Amuthan.H",
"Gab",
"JeffE",
"MasterPJ",
"Mohamed Amer",
"Nick",
"R. Max",
"Wiliam",
"Zhiyuan Wang",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14575",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14576",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14577",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14588",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14590",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14593",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14595",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4079",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/481",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/75562",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/75563",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"jonathankoul"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
15335 | How to measure entropy of exam results
In this answer to a quora question, the answerer mentions how the 'entropy' of a set of exam results can be used to measure how well the exam differentiates between students.
Should I be computing the entropy of my students' exam results? How do I do it? How should I interpret the entropy information?
Edit: How is entropy related to standard deviation?
A standard way to measure how well an exam differentiates between is to use
Item Response Theory, not entropy (and I am speaking as a great fan of entropy). See a tutorial for mirt R package for a practical introduction to this method.
Entropy measures how much information you learn on average about each student from the exam results. For example, imagine an exam on which everyone gets a perfect score. In that case, you would learn nothing, so the entropy is zero. If half the students get one score and half get another, then you learn one bit of information about each of them. If you want to assign meaningful grades on the usual U.S. scale, you'll need at least several bits of entropy, and the 3.5 or 4 bits mentioned in the quora answer sounds reasonable to me.
The idea behind the answer you link to is perfectly reasonable: if your exam results have low entropy, then that basically means they are clumped together on too few possible scores, and you don't have enough ability to distinguish between students. On the other hand, I don't see much point to actually computing a mathematical measure of entropy (e.g., Shannon entropy), except perhaps for fun if you enjoy that sort of thing. Instead, you can just look at the range of scores and judge how well they distinguish between students. Think about how you might assign grades, and you'll rapidly see whether you run into problems, without any need for mathematical computations.
Furthermore, doing it by entropy is a little subtle anyway. Strictly speaking, Shannon entropy pays no attention to the distance between scores, just to whether they are exactly equal. I.e., you can have high entropy if every student gets a slightly different score, even if the scores are all very near to each other and thus not useful for distinguishing students. The quora answer obliquely refers to that (in the discussion of bins), but still this means you can't just compute a single number without thinking.
So I'd view entropy more as a metaphor than a number most professors should compute.
The practicalities first. Take your list of exam scores and count for each possible value of the score how many of the exams got that score. In Excel the FREQUENCY function is useful for automating this step. To give some names call p_i the number of exams which have score i. From there you just add up -(p_i)log(p_i) over all the scores that actually happened. The base of the logarithm is not particularly important abstractly but what it does is scale your final "entropy" values so be consistent and only compare different classes when you are using the same base.
So far this is just a computation to perform so what does it tell you? It tells you how much information the scores encode. A test that really differentiates between the levels of knowledge that students have will have values that are take more information to predict. That information might be that your students really know/do not know the material. Or it could be 15 of the questions are easy and 5 very hard so scores in the low-80's are going to be more common than they otherwise might be.
What entropy will tell you is a quantified notion for how much more information is in your exam results than just randomly assigning numbers between 0 and 100. Like any attempt to summarize an entire packet of exams and the attached students with a single number, be careful to not push your data too far. The person in your link that was "surprised how few professors compute and report entropy (or even know what it is)" is a person who is in electrical engineering and computer sciences. Both of those fields use the notion of entropy regularly so his surprise maybe not be that surprising.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.417614 | 2014-01-03T21:27:23 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15335",
"authors": [
"Piotr Migdal",
"abobatta",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/84809"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
82513 | To what extent should I follow "style rules" in academic writing?
Some journals request that authors follow a specific style manual (e.g., APA or Chicago manuals of style).
One style rule is to avoid starting a sentence with an abbreviation (with some exceptions).
However, I found it unnecessary to spell out abbreviations like ANOVA (analysis of variance) or FMM (finite mixture models) every time I start sentences with them.
Should I strictly follow such rules in academic writing?
Edit: My field is biohealth sciences.
@mobileink - could you turn that into an answer? (Maybe without the last two sentences.)
@mobileink If we're going to be pedantic about it, ANOVA is in fact both an abbreviation and an acronym. I think you meant "ANOVA is not an initialism". See e.g. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/abbreviations-acronyms-and-initialisms .
I agree that it's pretty easy to avoid starting the sentence with an abbreviation. Then it has to be clarified that although ANOVA might fall in that group (as it is both abbrev. and acronym), does FMM fall in that group for the style restrictions? On the other hand, as it has been nicely put, you can easily modify the sentence... "Using ANOVA we could understand..." etc.
In which case would you start a sentence with "ANOVA", even if the style guide didn't advise against it?
@CapeCode Here are some examples for ANOVA and FMM, but you can also search for others.
Your writing should strive for maximal clarity in conveying your intended meaning to the reader -- that is the ultimate goal that overrides all other considerations. Style manuals are simply sets of rules that people came up with that aid writers to achieve that ultimate goal. To the extent that I would perceive a particular style rule on a particular occasion to be in conflict with the goal of conveying meaning effectively and concisely, I would see myself as free to ignore the rule.
The upshot is that as long as it doesn't happen too frequently, ignoring style rules is fine if you do it not out of laziness but out of a sincere desire to make the writing as clear as possible. If you do find yourself wanting to break the rules very frequently, you may want to consider the possibility that your intuition about what makes for clear writing is not yet sufficiently well-developed for you to make the best judgment calls on such things. In that case I would try to stick with the rules until you gain more experience.
As for the abbreviations rule you mentioned (which was not the official subject of the question so I'm addressing it in a comment), I think it makes a lot of sense so in general I would try following it whenever possible. It should be easy to do by making a small adjustment to your sentence structure. A related rule that I find equally useful is not to start a sentence with a mathematical symbol.
I don't know about your field, but in mine you get a rocket if you deviate too much/too often. So I'd suggest you follow it pretty strictly, except for (as you note) terms such as ANOVA that, by the readership you're writing for, are better-known in that form than in the spelt-out form.
What is your field? (And less important: what does "you get a rocket" mean? I searched for this and found only https://memegenerator.net/instance/56214003)
@PeteL.Clark the OED has "Rocket 7. Brit. slang (orig. Mil.). A severe reprimand. Freq. in to give (or get) a rocket." Definitely not a common usage, though.
Still, the question is not about using in general an acronym (which in most cases has to be spelled out once at the first encounter), but rather about starting - or indeed not starting - a sentence with an abbreviation.
@BioGeo actually the question is about whether style rules in general should be followed. The abbreviations at the beiginning of a sentence business was only used as a motivating example.
@DanRomik That's true, but it refers to "such" style rules, so either the question needs clarification what other rules are requested or we should concentrate to such rules. As I reread the answer though, I agree that it's not so much off the point of the question (but just a little).
The first thing to know is that while some journals request that authors follow a specific style guide, it's rather rare that they enforce that rule. So you should be fine even if you insist on starting sentences with "ANOVA". I guess the answer to the question in your title is: to the extent that you find acceptable.
Worst case scenario, the editor will asks you to make some changes to the style.
This being said, I would try to follow the guidelines as much as possible. The rules generally have sound bases in terms of legibility, and at any rate it will not make your writing worse.
For example, I agree that starting sentences with "ANOVA is..." is bad style and I would stumble on every instance (is it a Germanism maybe?). But that doesn't mean you have to spell it out each time, actually you shouldn't do that. Just rephrase adding a determinant or changing the object.
In general, before violating a rule (or even following it, ideally), understand why it's there. Many rules help good writing. But others don't, but good style guides tend to avoid those—say, "don't start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction, like and, yet or but" (like in this sentence).
http://www.writingconsultants.com/Guberman%27s%20Grammar%20Myths.pdf
I don't have my usage book with me and Google doesn't want to help me, but I'd think abbreviations, especially obscure, especially hard-to-pronounce ones (unlike ANOVA) make it harder to even start reading a sentence. Papers are hard enough to read otherwise. Imagine reading, dunno,
C18H21NO3 helps patients to overcome syndroms such as...
I made this example up on the spot so it's not great, but hopefully helps.
Indeed, the Chicago Manual of Style is fine with acronyms like ANOVA.
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Abbreviations/faq0032.html
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.417978 | 2017-01-01T19:53:31 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/82513",
"authors": [
"BioGeo",
"Cape Code",
"Dan Romik",
"Orion",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Pont",
"aparente001",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32436",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32532",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4018",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40589",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62976",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
28434 | Is there a unified platform that lists conference/journal deadlines?
Is there any unified platform that would list the deadlines (especially the submission deadlines) for conferences/journals? Ideally I would like to select a few conferences/journals I am interested in publishing to, and the website would give me the list of upcoming deadlines.
Right now I have to check out each individual conference/journal website, which is pretty tedious and error-prone (all the more so as it is pretty common for deadline to be extended).
I am mostly interested in the field of computer science > machine learning, and English-speaking venues.
http://www.confsearch.org/
Wikicfp has a nice timeline view
possible duplicate of How to search for upcoming conferences that will be held in a specific subject
@DavidKetcheson Thanks but I think that's two different questions: I'm just interested in deadlines and I am looking for a way to list deadlines for a chosen set of conferences (just like in Wikicfp), which can have different topics.
Okay, I agree and I retracted my close vote. But you will need to tell the site which conferences you are interested in. How can that be any faster than just checking the deadlines yourself?
I am looking for a way to list deadlines for a chosen set of conferences (just like in Wikicfp) - what's wrong with wikicfp then?
@DavidKetcheson I am interested in 10 conferences/journals. Each year I have to check their websites, it's a bit tedious, all the more so as you never know when the deadlines are published and when they change, which mean I need to check all websites at least a few times, and make my own calendar.
@ff524 Nothing, your comment was actually a great answer. I knew wikicfp but I missed the timeline view feature.
"confsearch.org" – Now dead, unfortunately.
WikiCFP offers this. To use this feature, you are required to register and sign in to your account.
Once you are logged in, find the Calls for Papers (CFPs) you are interested in and choose "Add to my list". (You can add multiple CFPs at a time if they appear in the same search results or "recent CFPs" list).
Then, from the sidebar, choose "My list" or "Timeline" to see all the deadlines for the conferences you have selected in your preferred format. Timeline view is pretty nice; it shows you the registration, submission, notification, and camera-ready deadlines, as well as the dates of the actual conference. Here is a screenshot:
However, WifiCFP relies on user-submitted content (for both original CFP submissions, and updates e.g., for deadline extensions). So the usefulness of this for you will depend on how active people in your field are on WikiCFP.
I've found WikiCFP to be worse than useless in the past. It often lists incorrect dates, which is worse than listing nothing. So be wary.
@Thomas It does not list incorrect dates. WikiCfp is none other than its users. The date change might occur because the user didn't edit the deadline (dates) of the conference. So, blaming the website as a whole is not a good idea, I guess.
Sure. I think they are trying to do a good thing. I just think people should be warned that the data is not always reliable, so yo should confirm with an official source.
http://allconferencecfpalerts.com/ is a unified platform that lists conference / journal deadlines.
It also provides Open Access Research Sharing System - Share URL
Share-url link in the allconferencecfpalerts.com site is mainly built for researchers to share their academic information category wise. It is an open access platform to help researchers get more visibility and citations. This page is user-friendly so that authors can share information easily.
Authors who wish to post their Research information should register by creating Login id password. Login or registration is not required to view, search and download articles from the portal. All Share URL posts are categorized based on research area. User can search by title of the paper or author's name.
i am building a similar or improved version of wikicfp, you can visit at callforpaper.org
Thanks for sharing
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.418576 | 2014-09-12T19:02:19 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28434",
"authors": [
"Coder",
"Daniel",
"David Ketcheson",
"Franck Dernoncourt",
"Jukka Suomela",
"Thomas Steinke",
"ff524",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22062",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/351",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/44249",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/452",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53762",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77898",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81",
"thc"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
12423 | Should student or supervisor be corresponding author for publications based on student research?
Papers published from an academic project (MSc or PhD) usually have two authors; the first author is the student who mainly conducted the research, and the second author is the professor who supervised the projects.
The corresponding author is the one who take the responsibility of a paper, and thus, some believe that students are not yet prepared to take this responsibility.
Ideally, who should be corresponding author for papers published by MSc or PhD projects?
I understand that it mainly depends on personal agreements and preferences, but I want to know which case is more reasonable from academic logic?
If students are not yet prepared, how can they ever prepare unless they're going to be corresponding author?
“Papers published from an academic project usually have two authors” — sometimes, but not usually
@F'x I wanted to define a simplified example.
One more example of a statement with missing quantifier that can create an argument. I can hardly argue with "Some students are not yet prepared" but strongly disagree with "All students are not yet prepared". So which one do you mean?
What's a "corresponding author"?
The one to whom the editors send all requests, galley proofs, etc. and the one in charge of sending everything back on time.
@fedja: So then why are some answers talking about people still being around 5-10 years later?
In math. it would make no sense and the meaning is exactly as I said, but in some other fields, the paper is under discussion and scrutiny way beyond the moment of publication. People in those fields will tell you more.
@jeffE not just the editors. corresponding author is responsible to answer questions of both editors and readers as Jeremy Miles says in below answer. that's the reason his contact address stays on the front page forever!
corresponding author is responsible to answer questions of both editors and readers — Weird. In my field, that's the responsibility of all authors.
@JeffE how an editor can communicate with all authors? the reports can be virtually sent to all authors, but one should be responsible to response.
My PhD adviser is the corresponding author and here is why: Even if I move on to a "new life" beyond (since I am an international student) after submission of manuscripts and publication, my adviser will still be at the university feels that it would save on "inertia" and back and forth emailing with me. We have a good rapport and consult with each other so I think this works for us.
Since the ordering of authors differs between fields the meaning and usefulness of a corresponding author also varies. In fields I am familiar with, the corresponding author is usually the same as the "first author" (quotes because it may not be literally the first). Many journals therefore do not explicitly identify a first author unless different from the "first". There are then several cases where the corresponding author may need to be identified. One example is when a person lacking a permanent academic address is first author. Then the supervisor may take on the responsibility for the paper and be corresponding author. This can be important since it can be near impossible to track down someone who has left academia and so the supervisor stands for continuity in terms of contact. There are many variants on this and in some cases, a person heading a project or who by legal obligations carries responsibility for a project may be identified as corresponding author. This could be the case with some governmental organisations where communications are funnelled through hierarchies for bureaucratic reasons. I am sure there are lots of examples good and bad but the main purpose of identifying corresponding author, unless first, is so that anyone requiring more information can go directly to the main source for such.
So based on this background and the field you are in you may find a good way to determine corresponding author. In most cases, I would say it is the person who has done the most work, or the one who "owns" the project. It is not clear in some cases whether it is the student or the advisor who should be corresponding author. One also has to weigh in the intellectual work behind the project as a whole and from that perspective the person who has done the work, perhaps a detail in a much bigger perspective, may not be the appropriate person for details although that person has done most of the work for the paper in question. So in some cases the question is definitely harder to answer. Not being corresponding author, does not necessarily detract much from being first author since such details are not visible in literature searches and CVs.
"The corresponding author is the one who take the responsibility of a paper". I've never heard this before. For example: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2010_04_16/caredit.a1000039 says "The corresponding author is the point of contact for editors, readers, and outside researchers who have questions about the contents of the paper. Often, the corresponding author is also the last author, but she or he may be listed first or even in the middle of the author list."
All authors take responsibility for the paper (or should). The point of the corresponding author is who to contact if you want to correspond about the paper. If this were someone who was likely to move institution (because they are finishing, or have finished their study), they are going to be hard to contact, so make it someone who's likely to hang around for a while. I've never seen anyone take any notice of who the corresponding author is.
They can give their permanent contact addresses not their current affiliation that they will change soon. That's why some people put their Gmail or yahoo mail addresses in their papers!
I was always the corresponding author; my advisor(s) thought it was good for me, and they had other things to do than to fiddle around with LaTeX...
So, to answer your question, I think it is good for phd students to be the corresponding author; besides, if there is any trouble, you have always your advisor/coauthor to ask.
I think this conflates the author who is doing the actual submission process (almost always the trainee) with the person with email address listed on the paper (in my experience, often the supervisor even if the trainee went through the forms).
It varies widely, not only on your field's customs, but also on individual research groups. In the research groups I have worked in, and worked with, in chemical engineering, the corresponding author is usually the most “perennial” researcher, i.e. usually the PI/professor. The idea is to ensure that the corresponding author is a faculty member, meaning he is the person most likely to still be around in 5 to 10 years' time to answer questions about the work. (In that time, PhD students and post-docs may change field completely, exit academia, etc.)
Also, the PI is usually the one who gets to keep the archives (raw data, lab notebooks, etc.) in the long term, so it makes sense that way.
I think it mostly depends upon the mutual understanding between the supervisor(PI) and the student. I had a similar case with my PhD colleague. She wanted to be a corresponding author but the adviser of the study group (a large scale multidisciplinary study) denied which could be due to the factors mentioned above such as: the PI will be staying there at least for few years however the student might leave the institute or even academia.
In my opinion, it is very helpful for a PhD student be the corresponding author because being a corresponding author will improve some skills: experience in answering critiques from the reviewers, writing, giving reasonable explanations and so on. More importantly, it is the student who did most of the work for the publication and will be able to give answers to most of the queries from the reviewers.
I'm (as the postgrad and lead author) the corresponding author on a paper, rather than my supervisor, which is common here. I've had a few queries on the experiment and equipment, which realistically, as I did the work, and I'm not so busy as my supervisor I'm better placed to deal with.
When I was working as senior resident,the department head was the first author and also the corresponding author in all the scientific papers written by me. I thought that a senior person is better placed to answer any outside researcher's question easily and be available for years instead of a student who is likely to leave the institution once study period is completed. But once the internet facility has come, the point of being permanent or regular has become irrelevant and anybody can be contacted anywhere over E-mail.I feel that only those with maximum involvement in the scientific work should be the corresponding author as he only knows well about the work and can give reply on his own to any outside researcher's question regarding the contents of the paper.
Most of the time students never know how, what and where to write,they purely depends upon their supervisor,who is directly involved in this exercise.Paying regards is another factor that is also linked and making a segregation in teacher and taught is a good practice.Supervising any task is not easy,it requires complete involvement in form of legal, responsibilities & other issues as well.Therefore CA deserve proper place with dignity in research papers as it also carries a message.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.418934 | 2013-09-03T21:21:57 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12423",
"authors": [
"AJK",
"B Patrick Chapman",
"Can Boyacıoğlu",
"DanSan",
"Didami",
"F'x",
"George WS",
"Googlebot",
"Haseen Khan",
"Ian Li",
"Irfan Mahmood",
"Ivan Lerner",
"JeffE",
"NOVICE 1",
"Pushkar Terwadkar",
"Robert Entenman",
"dearN",
"fedja",
"gerrit",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/199077",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31379",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31380",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31381",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31384",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31387",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31392",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31452",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32674",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32676",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/406",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43104",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/47683",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8149",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9892",
"langlauf.io",
"sajjadG"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
20005 | What rate of faculty turnover is healthy?
What is considered a reasonable rate for faculty turnover in a "healthy" department? How much turnover is too much/little? Presumably the rates might depend on seniority. Does departmental turnover tell you anything about your colleagues?
Isn't this question by definition 'opinion-based' ?
@suresh hopefully not. I would hope there is an evidence base for understanding workplace dynamics.
Reasons for faculty turnover are more important than numbers. For example, in the late 90s, CS professors were leaving their positions to start companies. I also know of professors who left otherwise ideal positions to solve a two-body problem (move near their spouse).
One important component of faculty turnover is tenure denials. If you are a serious candidate, you should ask why your opening exists and the outcome of recent tenure cases.
Another component is faculty taking advantage of early retirement offers. If a school is offering sweet deals for retirement, it may not be at its most financially secure. (On the other hand, if they're doing a tenure-track search, that's a positive sign.)
If you can contact faculty who have left through your social network (e.g., if one of your committee members knew them socially), you might be able to get the dirt on the department.
It also doesn't hurt to look at the student newspaper, now usually available online. At one school at which I interviewed, my host stopped me from picking up a copy. I did so later and read about major problems between the faculty and administration that involved a lawsuit, the AAUP, etc.
When I was actively in the job market, I noticed a small number of schools that seemed to have multiple openings every year. It made me wonder what was going on at these places, but I had no way of knowing. At my current school, we have several retirements coming over the next two to three years. Multiple hires for several years in a row. Now, I know the reason behind the situation, but will prospective hires? Is this a healthy situation? There are various scenarios that could be playing out. Espertus has given you several good ones. My example is another. Try your best to find out what the cause is, but it is likely to be difficult to get a definitive answer. The best advice is to keep your eyes and ears open (which you seem to be doing) and try to read between the lines in conversations. Use what sources you can to get information that will help you.
Not a complete answer, but a possibly instructive example (at least ground for discussion). The math department at Ecole Normale Supérieure has a somewhat radical approach to this question. Two rules for the teachers and researchers there:
No one stays longer than ten years
No one teaches the same class more than three years in a row.
The idea of course is to keep the department members "fresh", on the cutting edge of research and to vary the topics that are represented. Such a strict rule is clearly not practical in any but this very specific environment, but I think the idea that there should be a minimal turnover is a sensible one.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.419664 | 2014-04-29T21:38:02 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20005",
"authors": [
"Azami",
"GISbert",
"Jonathan Evans",
"Kaël",
"Rüdiger Klaehn",
"StrongBad",
"Suresh",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/54649",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/54650",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/54651",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/54670",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/54791",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
66031 | How to alleviate tension when interacting with researchers at a conference from enemy countries?
In academic conferences, I often meet students and professors from enemy countries, whom I could never have met in normal situations. We both know that we are here for research, and we do talk about research, but there is still tension in the air. Maybe even mutual fear. What can I do to alleviate the tension, so that we can focus on the research?
Mutual fear??? I cannot imagine being afraid of any academic based on the country they are from.
One thing to keep in mind: it's possible that they are not afraid of you, but rather of the legal or political consequences they might face back at home from having been in contact with an enemy citizen. There probably isn't much you can do to alleviate that.
@NateEldredge this is very interesting. Are there countries which officially forbid their citizens from interacting with citizens of enemy countries in such situations?
@ErelSegal-Halevi: I don't know if there are countries where interacting with an enemy citizen is per se illegal. But you can certainly imagine that it might be seen as evidence of espionage or some other improper interaction.
Frankly I think the term "enemy countries" has no place in academia...
Frankly I think the term "enemy countries" should have no place in human life. I also think that academia is not greater than other parts of life, and as the term anyway seems to keep its place in life, there's no use in trying to deny its existence academia.
@JiK Sadly I couldn't agree more
People in the US with security clearances have to have international travel approved beforehand, and report contact with foreign nationals when required.
How does your own country expect you to treat citizens of the enemy country, when meeting them on neutral ground?
@EvilSnack I am not aware of any specific regulations in my country regarding this issue
There has long been a link between scientific collaboration and diplomacy between countries. During some of the deepest parts of the cold war, for example, the United States and the Soviet Union worked together to stamp out polio, and the echoes of "vaccine diplomacy" continue today, uniting people against their common non-human enemies. Even when there is not an explicit cooperative goal of that sort, contacts in a neutral situation can be valuable for helping to promote peace and understanding between different cultures and countries.
I would thus suggest beginning to approach the question not from a perspective of "Who is my enemy?" but from a question of "What are the areas that we can cooperate, even if we are enemies?" and perhaps to read up on ideas in "science diplomacy."
shouldn't "even if we are enemies" rather read "even if the countries we currently happen to reside in are enemies"?
@TobiasKienzler In principle, I agree with you; I chose the language I did, however, because the OP's question uses language that implies the feeling appears to be extending to the personal level.
Unfortunately it sounds like that. At least posting the question suggests OP also doesn't fully agree with that "concept"
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.419962 | 2016-03-31T01:46:36 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/66031",
"authors": [
"Claudio Biscaro",
"Erel Segal-Halevi",
"EvilSnack",
"Jade Anthony Macaraig",
"JiK",
"John Kotarski",
"Jsdfasdf",
"Nate Eldredge",
"Science4451",
"StrongBad",
"Tobias Kienzler",
"banana",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/105411",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13404",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/185492",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/185493",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/185494",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/185500",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/185501",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/185502",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/185510",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/442",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5711",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/787",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"imran hossain",
"jakebeal",
"mkennedy"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
6129 | How to get started with submitting first peer reviewed paper based on PhD?
I am not based in academia so unsure what the protocols (and the underlying and unwritten conventions are) in regard to getting my first paper published in a peer reviewed journal.
The paper will come out of my PhD dissertation.
How do I start the ball rolling?
You may want to indicate what area your research is in. I have written some comments as a general answer, but perhaps someone in your field could give some very useful, specific information.
You might want to clarify your question. Do you mean "how do I select a peer-reviewed journal for my first paper?" Have you submitted a paper to a non-peer reviewed journal? Have any been published?
@LukeMathieson. Thanks. I am in the Social Sciences, so my contribution can be in the form of methodological advancement, new insights in a particular area and literature review.
@JoelReyesNoche Oops. I am a newbie. I have no formal publication record in the academic sense (peer or non-peer review). I have generated substantial research outputs as part of my employment though.
How do I start the ball rolling? this is the advisor job
I want to echo seteropere's comment, your advisor should be playing their part in this. They should know the venues, styles and little discipline specific tricks.
Congratulations, btw :)
The procedural parts are pretty simple:
Select the journal you're interested in submitting to.
Read their "Instructions for Authors".
Follow those instructions.
It may sound trite putting it that way, but journals are typically pretty good at being clear about what they want, both in terms of content areas and format & typography.
What you also need to do is identify what you want to take from your PhD, and determine what the "narrative" structure of that material is - a paper that's just a bunch of random things with no through-line is not a great paper.
You may also want to take the time to look at the editorial board of the journal you're interested in, find who is knowledgeable in the topic of your paper and be sure to indicate (in the manner proscribed in the instructions for authors) that you'd like them to be the editor in charge of your paper. A good choice here can help ensure that it's reviewed by the right people for the job.
Luke Mathieson covered all the necessary points. I am just adding a few supplementary ones. As a PhD student, I can assure you that opinion of your guide regarding the choice of the journal also matters (I mean, he/she wants to send somewhere and you somewhere else can create conflict and better avoided). If you have followed up works of some earlier works, then you can try in the journals where the those earlier papers were published.
One more point. Sometimes it is important to get a quick publication. For which you need to sacrifice a little and go for a journal with fast publication. You did not write your field. In Mathematics and some Theoretical Computer Science journals take an year or more for publication. TCS conference proceeding are faster and many of them are referred (and something like FOCS publication can change your life). Physics journals (theory) are generally fast. To be in safer side, keep a copy in arxiv.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.420259 | 2013-01-10T23:30:45 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6129",
"authors": [
"Flier",
"JRN",
"Javeer Baker",
"Keith",
"Luke Mathieson",
"Suresh",
"Swedgin",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/125653",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1370",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15933",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15934",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15951",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4475",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64",
"jmq",
"seteropere"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
8959 | Should I accept review requests from dubious journals?
I'm a graduate student with, so far, one published article in a peer-reviewed journal. Since the article came out, I've been receiving increasing amounts of "academic e-mail spam" from people wanting me to attend their conferences, publish in their (usually pay-to-publish) journals or order research supplies from them. (The latter kind tend to be the easiest to filter out — even though my field is biomathematics, it doesn't mean I have any use for frozen mouse embryos whatsoever.)
Some time ago, an e-mail turned up asking me to review a manuscript, conveniently attached to the message, for a pay-to-publish open access journal in a somewhat related field. Googling for the name of the publisher, I found them described as e.g. "a borderline vanity press".
At the time, I wasn't really sure how to react. On one hand, I could think of several reasons to just go ahead and review the manuscript:
The main complaint about the publisher seems to be that their peer review is insufficient — a claim supported by the fact that they seem to be picking random grad students as reviewers. Still, given that they're at least making some effort at peer review, surely I should encourage them in that? After all, if nobody agreed to review manuscripts for them, how could they ever improve their review process?
Declining to review the manuscript might deprive the authors — who, if the journal is indeed a "scam", are presumably the victims here — of useful feedback. Surely they at least deserve that much return for their time, efforts and money?
Also, if the manuscript did get published in a scientific journal, no matter how dubious or marginal, it would enter the body of scientific knowledge, and might be used as a reference by others. Given that, surely it is my duty as a scientist to try, given the opportunity, to do what I can to ensure that it is at least correct?
Still, despite these arguments, I initially found the idea of willingly responding to spam to be deeply unsettling at a fundamental, almost visceral level. Also, I felt concerned that, by doing volunteer work for a possibly unethical publisher, I'd be supporting their business model and perhaps lending them an undeserved appearance of legitimacy.
In particular, given that the subject of the manuscript wasn't that close to my own field, I worried that it might have errors that I would not be capable of spotting, and that, even if I made this clear in my review, the publisher might still use the review to support the publication of a possibly flawed article.
(Edit: Just to be clear, I wasn't worried that they'd reveal the names of reviewers, just that, even if I was the only one who sent back a review, they might still use it to claim that "yes, the paper was peer reviewed.")
In the end, the decision was actually rather easy: after a cursory glance at the manuscript, it became clear that there was no way I could support its publication as written, especially given that large fragments of it were clearly plagiarized, and I wrote back to the journal stating as much.
However, if I ever receive a similar request again (and I assume I probably will, sooner or later), what do you think I should do with it?
Why not name and shame the publisher?
@Nate: Based on my Google search, I'd say they've been named and shamed well enough already. I'd rather not mention them by name here, since it's not really that relevant. I'll note that they're listed on Beall's list, though.
Ps. I do realize that a possible answer might be "it depends on the publisher." If so, I'd be very happy to see examples of a range of responses, depending on the degree of "scamminess" of the publisher.
"Also, I felt concerned that, by doing volunteer work for a possibly unethical publisher, I'd be supporting their business model and perhaps lending them an undeserved appearance of legitimacy." I can think of one very large and established publisher which engages in practices that, at the very least, are "possibly unethical".
You have no obligation to accept reviews from any journals.
In the long term, you should of course accept review tasks, since the review system is built on everyone doing their part in return for the reviews you get on your own papers. But if you think the journal is not serious, there is no need to waste your time on a review.
The problem will lie in identifying what is real and what is not. Apart from researching the journal yourself, as you have done, you should also ask more senior scientists of their opinion.
Edit: Following up on the request for additional input on whether reviewing for dubious journals could be harmful in some way:
I think the greatest risk is that you may provide legitimacy to a journal that is not legitimate. It may be harmful to you if the journal in some way represents, let's say, creationism, in that you may become associated with something you really do not support.
I do not see any clear problem for the authors whose paper you review. Their greatest problem, assuming they are common scientists, should be that they submitted it there in the first place.
Personally, I delete all e-mails with requests from journals I do not know of. I know the journals in my field, and the new serious journals that have sprung up have a firm basis in the community, so they are also "known". I do check on some of these unknown journals occasionally, out of curiosity, and I particularly check the sort of papers they publish and the editors of the journal. That usually tells me if the journal is of interest.
Some of these journals may be legitimate, but they end up being extremely narrow regionally in terms of the origin of their authors and editors, and thus probably also their readership. A new journal is a difficult thing to get accepted unless you start with a wide base in the community, so some of these journals may be very legitimate but still have to prove themselves somehow. The problem is how to distinguish good from bad, and that is truly not easy in many cases.
+1, good answer. However, what I'd also really been hoping to get opinions on is whether, assuming that I do indeed have the time and willingness to review the manuscript, there's any chance that I might actually be doing more harm than good (to myself, to the authors, and/or to scientific publishing in general) by agreeing to review a manuscript sent to me by a sufficiently scammy journal. And yes, I do realize that this is kind of a fuzzy question.
@IlmariKaronen I have added some view points in response to your comment. Thanks for reiterating the questions
"common scientists"? Not sure what this means.
I might actually be doing more harm than good (to myself, to the
authors, and/or to scientific publishing in general) by agreeing to
review a manuscript sent to me by a sufficiently scammy journal.
Yes, exactly. Don't encourage predatory publishing. Don't encourage the authors, who almost certainly have no interest in your feedback and just want an additional publication, hoping it will help them get that cosy government job/tenure in a university that doesn't care about quality. All of this is a simulacrum of science.
if nobody agreed to review manuscripts for them, how could they ever
improve their review process
True, but you shouldn't worry about it. Because we don't need more journals, especially not pay-for-publish, low-quality journals.
You probably know very well which are the good journals in your field, and if you publish (or even submit) to these, chances are they will ask you to review eventually. And this is what the scientific community expects you to do, not to give credit to a publisher that has no interest in science whatsoever and just wants to collect as many 'article processing charges' as it can, quickly.
“We don’t need more journals” The fact that it can take papers years to get published due in part to publishing backlogs seems to suggest otherwise to me.
@nick012000 the issue is too many papers, not not enough journals.
No!
Simply say "No, I'm too busy at the present time."
No one will be hurt or offended, and it is not like you'll be lying.
well it is lying if you're not too busy at the present time...
I attempted to review for some of these "predatory" journals, thinking: if the papers are genuinely peer reviewed, how bad could it be? I now consider it a poor decision on my part.
My impression from the outset was that the editor intended for the paper to be published as soon as possible (from when I first saw it to when it was published online took about 3-4 weeks). I felt like it was going to be published, one way or another. (Although, I felt the authors took my feedback seriously.)
There was a lot of badgering; I was hounded by emails about deadlines and reviews. For one paper, the initial review had a deadline of 10 days, and a revision had a deadline of 3 days (I'm not joking). Prior to even agreeing to review the revision, I started getting hounded about the 3-day deadline passing. They just expected me to drop everything to immediately review this paper.
Prior to finishing reviewing one paper, the same journal sent me a request for another paper, with another 10-day deadline. (At this point, I snapped, and sent a fairly rude email back---they still haven't stopped emailing me.)
All in all, it wasn't a good experience, one I would avoid in future.
If the only red flag you got was a 10-day review deadline, I wouldn't be so convinced it was a predatory journal. I know of a couple of fledgling journals (Open Access types published by MDPI) that have similar deadlines (with a disclaimer to ask for more time if needed), claiming they are trying to fast track the typically slow process. They're definitely not top of the field but I did publish some of my PhD work there. And honestly - I found that 10 days is plenty since I usually push the review till the last 3 days anyway and just do it when it's due.
And as an additional note - once as an author I got a request to respond to reviewer's comments in 10 days, but since they turned out to be quite substantial I asked for a months time and they were glad to grant it. Similarly on the subject of "dropping everything off at a moments notice" - when I got a review request for a seemingly interesting paper (or maybe it was a follow-up or 2nd round review) in the middle of my deadlines, I asked for an extra week until my deadlines passed and there was no problem with it. Not a fan of 10-day deadlines either, but I don't consider it a decisive factor
#2 is an unfortunate consequence of authors liking fast peer review and journals attempting to provide it, unfortunately. If it happens again I would suggest declining to review, and cite the 10-day deadline as a reason. The editor could conceivably extend the deadline in that case, or make a case to modify it at the next editorial board meeting.
The reasonabless of 10-day limit on peer review is presumably field-dependent.
This thorny question has no easy answer, and a lot is going to come down to your personal values. I'll emphasize just one thing: there is no universally acknowledged definition of "predatory publisher" (see also this answer). The least controversial characteristic (but even then it's not absolute, see the first link) is that the journal does not conduct peer review, but by approaching you they're clearly conducting peer review, i.e. if this is your definition then the journal is not predatory.
Therefore my first reaction to your question is: what makes you say the journal is dubious? You mention several points; let's examine them one by one:
It is pay-to-publish. More technically this model is called "open access".[*] If you dislike this publishing model you wouldn't be alone (Jeffrey Beall does too), but it would be extremely awkward for you, because an increasingly large number of funders are mandating the papers they fund be published open access.
It is described by someone, presumably Jeffrey Beall, as a "borderline vanity press". See the second link above for analysis of this. There are reasonable people who disagree with Beall. Trusting his judgment saves you from having to do the analysis yourself of course, which is very convenient (same reason why university rankings are so popular), but not necessarily correct.
They spam you. The line between spam and not spam is not obvious (see second link above). They've already reached you when you work in a related field, which is a sign they're doing selection instead of simply mass mailing everyone. Also, I suspect if you call reviewer invitations "spam" you are on the extreme side. Not necessarily wrong (because what's spam and what's not spam is not obvious), but relatively extreme.
You end up doing voluntary work. Isn't that the case for almost all journals & publishers?
You may not spot errors in a flawed paper, which allows the publisher to claim the paper was peer-reviewed. This wouldn't be unique to this publisher or journal. There are countless published papers that were wrong and the reviewer didn't spot the errors. Example. Obviously the publishers of the two journals in question (Annals of Physics and Classical and Quantum Gravity, published by Elsevier and IOP Publishing respectively) are going to say the paper was peer-reviewed, which is also strictly speaking true.
In other words, it is not clear that the review request you received is from a dubious journal. You may think it is, but not every reasonable person will agree with you. If the journal is not dubious, the question you ask becomes really hard to answer.
Given all this, should you review anyway? It's up to you. You're under no obligation to review no matter who is inviting. You could plausibly say you don't have time for this (especially since papers submitted to not-well-known journals are unlikely to be very exciting). You could say you'll review anyway because of the reasons you gave in the three bullet points. It's something only you can decide about.
[*] Even more technically, open access refers only to the article being free to read somehow. It comes in many different flavors, some of which might not require an author to pay to publish.
@TommiBrander there are several different OA models, and the one you refer to is called diamond/platinum. I'm not sure if it's something I want to get into in this answer ... will try editing it.
Given how much of the work that goes into making journals is voluntary, surely there's room for a foundation to set up journals which are free at both ends? Maybe charge for the paper copy.
@TRiG diamond/platinum journals exist, but (as you can see from the link in the answer) they usually require external funding to work. Paper copies are already always charged for, and the number of print subscriptions is declining and will likely continue to decline.
You should decline. In addition to the detriment of encouraging predatory publishing, you make yourself look bad or at least, like you think value of your time/input is low.
If you want to review, reach out to some editors of good journals (at the subspecialty level) and ask for reviews. Include what topics you are most capable of reviewing.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.420697 | 2013-03-28T20:57:29 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8959",
"authors": [
"Allure",
"Anonymous",
"Arpit Tripathi",
"Cape Code",
"EntangledQuibit",
"Faheem Mitha",
"Ilmari Karonen",
"Juho Vepsäläinen",
"LJ001",
"Mohammed Mustafa Mohammed",
"Nate Eldredge",
"Peter Jansson",
"Spencer Alvey",
"TRiG",
"Tommi",
"eis",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13017",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14579",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21820",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21821",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21822",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21824",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21825",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21868",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21887",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/285",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4249",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/496",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6110",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/70290",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/70298",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/72032",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81424",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/84834",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/898",
"michel-slm",
"nick012000",
"penelope",
"thumbtackthief",
"user21825",
"user2540820"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
23719 | Why do open access consortia affiliate themselves with questionable publishers
The open access publishing world has a number of predatory publishers. Many know about Beall's list which identifies publishers and journals that engage in questionable practices. The existence of these questionable publishers and journals makes choosing a quality open access journal difficult. Consortia like the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association and the Directory of Open Access Journals seem to promise a level of scrutiny. For example, members of OASPA include the Royal Society and PLoS and while I cannot find a link confirming it, it seems like the AIP is also a member. To me these are above the board legitimate and well respected publishers. There are also members, like Frontiers, that I am not sure how I feel about. I like that Frontiers is trying to push an innovative model of publishing, but I am not sure that I want them to have a large say in defining "good" open access publishing practices. Finally, there are members like MDPI which Beall classifies as predatory and Hindawi which while it never made Beall's list, did make his "watch list".
I think I have two questions. First, why do these consortia affiliate themselves with questionable publishers? Second, how can the academic community pressure open access consortia to consider their members carefully?
There is something that I don't understand, you say: "Consortia like […] seem to promise a level of scrutiny." However, is this scrutiny about predatory practices, openness or exactly what? Because this might be the single source of misunderstanding.
Maybe you could leave a reply here: http://oaspa.org/conclusions-from-oaspa-membership-committee-investigation-into-mdpi/
As for AIP, why do you say "I cannot find a link confirming it" while you have actually provided a link?
@adipro because predatory OA publishers are known for adding big names to their lists of editors. I was looking for an acknowledgement from the AIP.
Observe that the OASPA "membership page" uses an evasive wording, that the following are "recognized as" OASPA members, rather than "are". A cursory search of Cambridge U. Press gives no hint of a connection to OASPA, for example.
@StrongBad What other "open access consortia" are there? It would seem to me that this question would be more specific and easier to answer if it was re-written to "Why does the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association affiliate themselves with what some consider to be 'questionable publishers' "
@rmounce I think an answer that just focuses on OASPA or DOAJ or one that I do not know about would be fine.
It looks like some of your links are dead and redirect to a Japanese site (which makes sense knowing that Beall's list is dead too).
Why do these consortia affiliate themselves with questionable
publishers?
Hindawi is a founding member of the OASPA and MDPI, whichever opinion we might have about the quality of its journals, is a major player in the OA business. The OASPA apparently conducted an internal investigation about MDPI and seem to be happy about the results. The question might be more: is the OASPA questionable?
how can the academic community pressure open access consortia to
consider their members carefully?
I would recommend not to consider open access consortia as relevant. Then, not submitting papers, not serving on the editorial board, and refusing reviewing tasks for sketchy journals.
On a more general level, one thing we could do is reduce the demand for low-quality, pay-for-publish 'OA' journals by challenging the hiring policies based on publication volume in our local institutions.
The academic publishing world has a number of problems with inadequate or completely absent peer review. These problems are present at both open access and subscription journals. The recent statement from the STM Association also reflects this position that the problems are not just confined to open access journals.
The members of OASPA include a heck of a lot of publishers, from very small, to very large, including SpringerNature and Wiley. Elsevier would probably like to be a member but it doesn't meet the stringent membership criteria for OASPA yet.
Amongst publishers, OASPA membership is seen as a mark of quality. The Think.Check.Submit cross-industry initiative encourages researchers to check that if the journal is open access, if the journal is in DOAJ and if the publisher is an OASPA member -- marks of trust/quality. Both DOAJ and OASPA are selective organisations - they don't allow or list just any and every OA journal or publisher.
As @Aubrey's answer notes, DOAJ have done good work to weed-out questionable journals from DOAJ.
The same is also true of OASPA. After the famous Bohannon sting published in Science OASPA responded by investigating all three of the then (2013) OASPA publisher members that accepted Bohannon's sting article. Those three publishers were Hikari, Dove Medical Press, and SAGE. Incidentally, two Hindawi journals (Chemotherapy Research and Practice and ISRN Oncology) , one MDPI journal (Cancers) and one Frontiers journal (Frontiers in Pharmacology: Pharmacology of Anti-Cancer Drugs) tested in Bohannon's sting ALL rejected the sting article, 'passing' the test.
After these OASPA investigations, OASPA decided to terminate the OASPA memberships of Hikari and Dove Medical Press. Neither publisher have since returned to OASPA membership.
I do not think that DOAJ or OASPA affiliate themselves with questionable publishers, and whenever this has been pointed out to them, they have both taken appropriate, detailed investigations to weed-out questionable journals and publishers.
I guess it all depends on whom one considers a 'questionable publisher or journal'. I certainly do not consider MDPI, Hindawi or Frontiers to be 'predatory publishers' but must admit I would not and have not chosen to publish with Frontiers or Elsevier because of distasteful business practices.
Organisations like DOAJ and OASPA cannot simply bar new members from trying to join - it is not in their spirit (openness!). But they certainly do heavily vet new membership or listing applications. I don't know what else to say. I found the question to be a little leading tbh...
If I understand your question correctly, you're asking about why OASPA and DOAJ associate themselves with MDPI, Frontiers and Hindawi. Only OASPA and DOAJ will know for sure, but I'll venture this reason: MDPI, Frontiers and Hindawi aren't necessarily questionable.
First, something to remember about Beall's list: this started as the work of one person. That means it's easily biased. OA spans from the clearly disreputable on the one end to a very gray area on the other. Beall undoubtedly had good intentions, but if the Who's Afraid of Peer Review? sting meant anything, Beall was only 82% accurate. In the sciences, a theory that predicts the right result 82% of the time is good but not great; in particle physics we even need a 5 sigma result (p-value 1 in 3.5 million) to claim a detection. I'm not saying Beall was wrong about MDPI, Frontiers and Hindawi, but I will say that "because Beall said so" is not a sufficiently good reason to conclude ____ is predatory.
Now about each publisher:
MDPI: See Wikipedia for more information. You can see Beall's criticism of MDPI stems from several aspects, such as how MDPI's articles are lightly-reviewed, how MDPI uses email spam, and how MDPI listed Nobel laureate Mario Capecchi on an editorial board without his knowledge. However:
Many OA journals do indeed review lightly. For example I once attended a talk by a Springer spokesperson who talked about a journal which reviews for correctness, not novelty (can't find the journal now, but PLOS ONE has the same policy). Viewed one way this is laudatory - it makes peer review less random by eliminating one completely subjective facet! Viewed another way, this is terrible - it makes it seem as though the journal will publish old results known for hundreds of years as long as the author is willing to pay. Which is closer to the truth? You'll have to come to your own conclusions.
Email spam. Although everyone finds them annoying, what constitutes email spam isn't universally agreed on. If you receive an email from someone you don't know with "Dear Professor Strongbad, I saw your question on Academia.SE and find it interesting, would you like to write an editorial on predatory publishers for my journal" - would you call that spam? Some people would, others would not. Also, what exactly isn't email spam anyway? If you never emailed people you didn't know personally, you would never be able to expand a journal large enough to be self-sufficient.
Finally the Mario Capecchi case was later shown to be the result of inaccurate communication by Capecchi's assistant.
Frontiers: again, see the Wikipedia article. You'll note that, similar to MDPI, there were established academics who defended Frontiers. Although the volume of allegations against Frontiers in the article is both larger and harder to justify if true, it's also the case that a Frontiers journal rejected John Bohannon's sting paper. OASPA and COPE both investigated Frontiers, and both decided that Frontiers meets their membership criteria.
Hindawi: once again see the Wikipedia article. I don't want to rehash everything I wrote about MDPI and Frontiers since a lot of it also applies to Hindawi, but I'll add a few specific things:
Hindawi was one of the pioneers of OA. In 2007, they converted all their journals to OA - this was both 1) before OA really took off and 2) pioneering, since even today most big publishers don't use a complete OA model.
Hindawi is big. With over 400 journals and tens of thousands of published articles a year, Hindawi is a big fish in the OA pond.
A Hindawi journal also rejected John Bohannon's sting paper.
Some of Beall's criticism of Hindawi apparently focused on how high its profit margins are (apparently higher than Elsevier's). This not only has no relation to the quality of Hindawi's editorial process, it's also the case that Hindawi's article processing charges are lower than average, and they're based in Egypt, which as a developing country has much lower labour costs than the Netherlands-based Elsevier. One could say that Egyptians are bad at publishing relative to the Dutch, but that's borderline racism.
tl; dr: it's not a given that any unbiased observer will conclude that these three publishers are disreputable. Accordingly, it shouldn't be surprising that some OA consortia are willing to count them as one of their members.
+1. Beall's list is a useful tool, not an oracle. Even so, Beall considered MDPI a borderline case ("note: MDPI is very much a hit-and-miss. Some of their journals have a very poor peer-review; some are fine. In the future, I will list MDPI journals separately"). The last version of his list doesn't have MDPI or Hindawi at all. (I personally have seen both publish legit papers.) Frontiers, though, is a different story -- in my opinion it deserves to get kicked out already for their harassment of Beall.
The CoC for OASPA says Members are committed to ensuring the highest standards of conduct among all OA publishers and I am not sure anyone would describe the above publishers as having the highest standards regarding OA publishing.
@StrongBad those standards about the highest standards are just made to sound good imo. Lots of journals claim to only publish the "highest quality" papers (example from Taylor and Francis: http://explore.tandfonline.com/cfp/pgas/rsrs-cfp), but that doesn't mean we're inundated with journals on the level of Science and Nature.
@Allure it is not the quality of the papers but rather the quality of the review and editorial process as well as archiving and recruiting process.
@StrongBad what makes you say those are subpar?
DOAJ, in the last 2 years, has been seriously trying to cope with the problem of fake and predatory publishers and journals. In 2013, the announced they were tightening the criteria for admission of journals.
Here's the list of journals added and removed in 2014.
They even looked for a network for volunteer Associate Editors to evaluate journals.
In March 2014, they again started receiving new applications, and gave old journals (already indexed) one year to fill in again the new form. In one way or another, there was a big delay, and it seems that just now they are actually ready for reapplications.
A Nature article tells you the story.
For what is worth, I've worked with University of Bologna from 2010 till June 2014, and I managed the OJS platform (basically, a publishing software for open access journals). In that period, I spoke many times to the DOAJ team regarding Unibo's journals, and my personal impression is that they had too much success to cope effectively with all the applications.
They need(ed) more resources, more time, more money.
At the beginning the project was supported by the Lund University, but they probably had to find other ways to finance it. DOAJ asks for membership fees, and is now managed by a new committee, IS4OA.
It's probably fair to wait for the new round of re-applications to evaluate the website again and see if the old issues are solved or not.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.422122 | 2014-06-20T13:51:46 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23719",
"authors": [
"Ahmad",
"Allure",
"Dean",
"Dima Lituiev",
"Laurel",
"StrongBad",
"Tim H",
"Trylks",
"adipro",
"darij grinberg",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10936",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/56207",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63409",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63411",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/651",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71405",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/72029",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7571",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7725",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/84834",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96080",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"paul garrett",
"rmounce",
"user72029"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
21320 | Aftermath of rightfully submitting a solo paper without my advisor's name
After reading this question and this I haven't find my answer.
My advisor hasn't contributed to my work and I know that my work isn't significant and it won't publish in top journals. But I want to publish it without my advisor's name in a conference.
So my question is not about automatically coauthor my advisor or having high hopes on my individual work.
The Problem arise from here. We have to enroll in some seminar classes before starting to work on our thesis.
In one of those classes our teacher said:
"No matter what you do, you have to enlist your advisor's name in your papers because unless it would considered as a work with no supervisor and it can not be trusted."
"In interview we have for PhD students, if the person who is applying hasn't written the name of his suprevisor we doubt him. Either he is a genius or he is hiding something or he is too active in his field."
"In some companies and research labs everyone add the name of their fundraiser to show him their gratitude, so should we.".
So based on what I heard I'm going to face serious problems if I publish my work individually as a student. The question is:
Apart from being unethical including a name of person who didn't contribute to work as a coauthor, does it have any academic weight? I mean, does it value my work if I say I did it alone or it does not have any different until coauthor isn't a student.
Is it true that I am going to be accused as a not genuine person if I don't add my advisor's name? Because our teacher told us that he and his colleagues don't consider these kind of submitted papers trustworthy and genuine, so don't look at them carefully and mostly reject them on sight.
Edit:
Conclusion: Thank you all. I think my vision is more clear now. The right way is not the opposite of the wrong way. It means despite "spoon-fed" "a very distorted view", the right thing to do is not doing the opposite.
I decided to do my best to play as a team, because of its mentioned benefits, especially for my first paper. But if working as a team doesn't go well, there is no harm in solo publishing or getting some new advisers.
If your adviser really hasn't contributed to your work, then you really do need to get some new advisers as soon as possible.
What would it mean to be "too active" in one's field? That sounds like a nice problem to have.
@Trevor Wilson It means the student is working with multiple advisors and teachers or working simultaneously on diffrent projects, whether academic or industrial.
Actually, I heard the exact opposite to be said a lot (quite often on this website): during their PhD studies, it is often expected of the student to publish at least one paper without his adviser. This is supposed to demonstrate that the work done was not actually adviser's work, and that the PhD candidate is indeed capable of doing research and publishing on his own.
What discipline are you in, and what country? It makes a difference.
@EnergyNumbers I strongly disagree. I wrote two papers as a graduate student that were fairly far afield from my advisor's interests, and while he read them and provided some comments, neither one of us thought he came anywhere near authorship - the papers basically arrived fully formed and written. Side projects are a thing that happens.
@EnergyNumbers is almost correct. If your adviser really hasn't contributed to your work, and they still insist on being a coauthor on your papers, then you really do need to get some new advisers as soon as poosible.
this is an old and classic problem in modern academia. sometimes you have to dance with the person who brought you and sometimes you have to stand on principle.
I don't think your problem is with your advisor. Your real problem is with teachers in classes who say things like:
No matter what you do, you have to enlist your advisor's name in your
papers because unless it would considered as a work with no supervisor
and it can not be trusted."
"In interview we have for PhD students, if the person who is applying
hasn't written the name of his suprevisor we doubt him. Either he is a
genius or he is hiding something or he is too active in his field."
"In some companies and research labs everyone add the name of their
fundraiser to show him their gratitude, so should we.".
In light of all the recent debate about whether we are too idealized and rosy in our views of academia, let me at least say this:
Whether or not this is common practice in the areas you work in, the problem here is the rationale being used to justify author inclusion. In no way is the decision being made based on some notion of contribution by the advisor (either financial or moral, or in any form). It's being based purely on a notion of patronage or bias.
The person making these claims has either a very distorted view of how authorship works, or is misleading new students in a terrible way.
Just to make things clear. Does it value my work if I say I did it alone or it does not have any different until coauthor isn't a student. If not, I'd rather not pickup a fight and just go with the fund raiser for publishing my paper.
All I'm saying is that you really have to look at the authoring conventions in your area. If it is the case that PIs funding your research are typically added on, you should have a good reason for not doing so.
I agree with what you've written. But I'm not sure it actually answers the question(s) asked (in the last 4 sentences of the OP), does it?
I had a supervisor who insisted on being listed as the primary author on every paper written by his students. I presented a paper at a conference, and afterwards a senior researcher from another establishment queried my contribution, and I accurately stated that I had done everything involved in this project. He informed me my advisor being listed not just as an author, but as primary author, was considered to be fraud. In conclusion, I disagree that the problem is not with the advisor. Sometimes the advisor is the problem.
Apart from being unethical including a name of person who didn't
contribute to work as a coauthor, does it have any academic weight?
You use very strong words, but things are not black and white. You are a student and most likely you do not know how to write a good paper. Why not involve your supervisor in the writing process? You can write the original manuscript and he will make the final version, since he is more experienced than you. In that setting you are still first author, he does contribute and he is co-author, your paper has more chances to be published and everyone is happy.
Is it true that I am going to be accused as a not genuine person if I
don't add my advisor's name?
You are exaggerating again. If your paper will be rejected it will most likely be because it is not good enough and not because of your name. There is always the possibility that someone with no previous experience is easier to get his paper rejected (I believe many reviewers do a Google search on the person they are reviewing) but that mostly applies to big conferences. For smaller conferences or workshops criteria are not that strict.
But you have not thought the most critical factor. What if your paper gets accepted? Who will then pay for your conference registration and trip? Usually it is the advisor that provides such funding. If you submit it solo, you must do the entire process with the university bureaucracy alone and without support from some faculty member it will be much harder for the university to actually cover your expenses.
So, although I disagree with some of the comments your seminar tried to spoon-feed you, in the long run it will be better to play as a team member. So, involve your supervisor, make him actually contribute on the notion that you will still be first author. This cooperation might even vastly improve your paper and then it might get accepted even in a top conference or journal. In this setting, you will have more to win than to lose.
Thanks for advice. I think I've found my way now :) It's not about authorship, it's about using the maximum potentials that are available in every situation.
"You are a student and most likely you do not know how to write a good paper." Er, what?
The OP admits this is his first paper. He also admits "my work isn't significant". So, isolating the "You are a student and most likely you do not know how to write a good paper.." without actually reading the OP's question is misleading.
The advice is to find a way to make his adviser a co-author because 1) The adviser can help write a better paper, 2) your paper is more likely to be reviewed positively with a well-known name, and 3) you are more likely to get funding if you add your adviser. And people wonder why academia has such a bad reputation! Reason 1) is the closest to an ethical argument (depending on the field), reasons 2 and 3 are absolutely corrupt.
In scientific publications, at least, "author contribution" statements are becoming more and more common. These statements list the exact contributions that each author on the paper made. A number of excellent examples are provided on this Nature blog post: http://blogs.nature.com/nautilus/2007/11/post_12.html
If you included your supervisor as an author on the paper, providing such a statement would allow you to clarify the nature of your roles.
It might be worth pointing out the existence of the Vancouver Protocol (first described by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, this is becoming more widely accepted). This protocol states
Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to
1) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data; and
to 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important
intellectual content; and on 3) final approval of the version to be
published. Conditions 1, 2, and 3 must all be met. Participation
solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does
not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is
not sufficient for authorship. Any part of an article critical to its
main conclusions must be the responsibility of at least one author.
This is quite restrictive, and clearly discourages some of the attributions that your teachers appear to encourage.
That said, it is important for a scientist at the start of his/her career to be very aware of the value of collaboration - working closely with your advisor (to the point where their contribution warrants co-authorship) is quite likely to improve the quality of your paper. If you believe it would not, then maybe you need to question your choice of advisor.
It is no doubt true that a person with a good publications record carries more weight in their chosen field, and that their papers will be read more carefully and cited more frequently. Because of this it is often considered a good idea to start out in this mode.
Personal note: in the 80s when I did my PhD, email wasn't yet a thing. My advisor was abroad for almost an entire year, and I did in fact independently write and publish a paper. The work in this paper was very good (I can say so in retrospect after more than 20 years), but I was a complete unknown - and it had incredibly narrow applicability. To this date, it has received just one citation. I still believe I was correct (given the circumstance) not to include my advisor's name on the paper, but it did nothing for my career (or the field). It would have been better if I had waited until he returned, discussed and improved the paper, and published jointly.
There is a lot that an experienced person can do merit co-authorship - but you have to create the opportunity for them to do so.
First of all, pretty much all the justifications your teacher gave to you are lies. This person is trying to encourage you to put your supervisors' names on your papers, but avoiding telling you that you have to do so because it is the rule.
Secondly, there are roughly three ways a paper can be written as a grad student.
The student does some work and publishes it, but the supervisor is responsible for lots of guidance, planning, editing, making sure the work gets done, suggesting the original question, helping to place the paper, etc. This is how almost everyone's first paper gets written. The supervisor will almost always be an author, and everyone accepts that this is fair. (However, I have known some generous supervisors who decline an author credit in such cases, since they regard what they did as part of supervising, and not a specific contribution to authoring the paper).
The student and supervisor collaborate, similarly to how to colleagues would collaborate (but perhaps with the student doing more of the 'grunt work' and the supervisor making more of the decisions). Both are authors.
The student does work independently, perhaps asking for some limited advice or proofreading. The supervisor should not be an author, but often is in practice.
Most people except the very gifted start off with the first type, and everyone except those who don't progress very far should have some of the latter two types by the end of a PhD.
So if someone has only publications with their supervisor, it could be taken as meaning that they didn't do much independent work, but it could also be that they had to 'give credit' to their supervisor, or that they work in an area where most papers are collaborative.
If someone has only publications without their supervisor, it might be seen as positive, but it could also be assumed that their supervisor was generous in not taking credit, therefore neutral. If you are known to be a genius, the fact that your early publications were on your own will be mentioned, but it won't prove that you are a genius if this isn't already accepted.
The implied lack of credibility 'that your supervisor didn't approve of your work' would be a very strange reaction. It's only something you should worry about if there's some other reason you might come across as a maverick - for example all your papers are serious work about some topic beloved of conspiracy theorists, or you went straight into grad school from high school, etc. In these cases, you might want to make sure that some form of reflected legitimacy is evident.
If some has a combination of supervisor-included and -not-included work, it would be seem as normal.
In other words, no case is really a strong indicator of your strength.
Your last problem is what you should do. Your teachers are behaving unethically, but your best option is probably to go along with it. Just make sure that you can justify your authorship of the papers you consider yours, if asked in an interview. If so, anyone who takes the time to do so will probably figure out what your supervisor's contribution was, and won't assume that you were playing the same game.
If your advisor has substantially contributed to the work described in the paper, of course they should be listed as a co-author. If they did less in the way of contribution, but did at least read the paper and suggest improvements, they could be a secondary author. If they just taught you (in general) and didn't work with you on the research/paper, I would think a dedication or "thank you" note in the paper would sufficiently recognize them for what they've done for you. Unless your school insists on listing advisors as co-authors (it's the custom there), leave them off if they did nothing.
@PhilPerry - the custom of the school ought not to come into the discussion. The journal in which you publish usually has guidelines for authorship - those are the only ones you should follow. If the school insists on "guest authorship" (recognition without contribution) then you have to find journals that accept that standard.
@Floris, well, which is it then? You say to ignore what the school demands, and then to find a journal that meets those demands. If your school or advisor insists on guest authorship, you'll have to decide if you want to continue your association with them (accede to their unreasonable demand), or if the paper is important enough to you to be worth fighting them by switching advisors or even schools.
@PhilPerry - in my comment I distinguished between "custom" of the school vs "insisting": I consider the former a suggestion, and the latter a condition of belonging to the school. It is hard to see how a school can actually force you to include the name of a non-contributing author; I don't think they have the legal authority (especially in the US). Still - I advocate finding ways to get the advisor to merit being listed as co-author, for all the reasons I outline in my answer (which I wrote a little after my comment, after giving the matter some further thought).
@Floris They didn't literally force me to include the name of a non-contributing author, but they did told us that the paper won't accomplish anything. The thing that made me doubt was one of my friends in another university. He told me he is going to solo publish his work and I was worried that he might destroy his efforts. Now I think both he and I have more options to consider.
@user263485 - if anything I said has made you consider your options more carefully, I consider that a success. Remember - almost any endeavor can be made better by working together with someone who has better or complementary skills. See my "personal note" in the answer I wrote.
@jwg It's not about me claiming to be a genius. Where did I imply this? It's about ridiculed and dismissed of not being honest when you apply for your PhD degree.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.423214 | 2014-05-22T16:52:48 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21320",
"authors": [
"410 gone",
"Alexandros",
"Faheem Mitha",
"Floris",
"Fomite",
"Jake Parker",
"JeffE",
"Kim Moritz",
"Lepidopterist",
"Marco H.",
"MuchStackVeryExchangeWow",
"ParekhAbhishekN",
"Phil Perry",
"RoboKaren",
"Samiur Khan",
"Suresh",
"ThisWillDoIt",
"Trevor Wilson",
"Vivek",
"Zakir",
"bain",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13080",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13131",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13651",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15062",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15711",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28053",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/285",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4249",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58369",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58370",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58371",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58372",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58374",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58378",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58390",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58406",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58533",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58542",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8937",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"penelope",
"robert bristow-johnson",
"user263485",
"user6572695"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
13216 | Discreet way to establish priority
After finishing a paper, I'd like to show it to a few people for review. I'd like to establish publication priority somehow. The site arXiv won't do because my paper hasn't been reviewed to that level of quality. On the other hand, viXra won't do because I don't want to look like a crackpot.
Here are some desirable functions. The site:
Lets me upload a file
Lets me share the URL so that anyone can see it who has the URL
Shows the time I uploaded the file in a trustworthy way
Prevents others from modifying it-- it's view only
Bonus:
5. Shows versions of the file, together with their upload times
How many of these can be satisfied? Would a file sharing site suffice? Thanks for your advice.
The site arXiv won't do because my paper hasn't been reviewed to that level of quality. — What? ArXiv doesn't review anything, except to make sure submissions are well-formed (abstract, bibliography, etc.) and not blatantly out of scope. (I'm a moderator.)
ShyPerson All of your four requirements and bonus are satisfied by arXiv. You can send the url of arXiv paper to anyone to review your paper. What are you looking for?
If my paper is wrong and I put it on arXiv, I'll look like a crackpot. I want something a lot more obscure than arXiv while my paper is in its formative stages. I thought arXiv was really intended as a pre-publication site-- wouldn't it be misleading for me to put a paper far below pre-publication quality there when people are assuming otherwise?
Private repository on Bitbucket? You can keep the TeX sources there too, which is useful for collaboration.
So, you're looking for a site between arXiv and viXra? I have seen many poor quality papers on arXiv. I also saw some good(not a whole lot) papers on viXra. Endorsement requirement is a reason people shy away from arXiv. You should be able to put your paper on arXiv and then revise it after review.
I'm confused by 4. prevents others from modifying it - it's view only. There is no such thing as "view-only" for a text - you can always re-type it.
@JeffE Arxiv does require an established researcher as endorser
You cannot establish priority without circulating your paper widely. Or, more precisely, you can prove that you had the idea first, but that won't help you much. Academic credit is awarded for contributing to the research community. If you have an idea and don't publicize it (so few people find out or learn from it), and someone else rediscovers the idea and tells everyone, then they will get most or all of the credit, because the community will have learned far more from them than from you. Even if you can prove you made the discovery first, you may end up as a footnote or side comment in the background sections of future papers.
This is not always fair, but it's a pretty good system. In particular, it avoids the nightmare scenario of researchers trying to establish priority while deliberately telling as few people as possible (to preserve their head start for follow-up work).
The fact that the arXiv has time stamps and keeps old versions available is potentially useful for resolving disputes, but the important aspect is that papers on the arXiv get noticed. That's why the arXiv is a good way to establish priority: the community doesn't consider "Oh, I had no idea that paper was on the arXiv" to be a good excuse. By contrast, if you post the paper somewhere much more obscure, then not noticing it would not be surprising or frowned upon.
How to handle this depends on the threat you are worried about. If you are concerned that someone you ask to look over the paper might steal your ideas, then you could cc a trusted mentor who could vouch for you if there were a dispute. On the other hand, I wouldn't worry about this too much: outright theft of ideas is rare, and why would you even want advice from someone you think might plausibly be a thief? If you are concerned about staking out credit in case someone else is independently working on similar ideas, then there's nothing you can do except get your paper in good shape and then distribute it.
If my paper is wrong and I put it on arXiv, I'll look like a crackpot. I want something a lot more obscure than arXiv while my paper is in its formative stages.
Of course it's hard to say without more information, but these comments suggest to me that worrying about credit may be premature. I'd recommend revising/polishing the paper until it is no longer potentially embarrassing or in a state of flux, and then posting it to the arXiv.
This "nightmare scenario" isn't just abstract, it's how things actually worked in the distant past, and it was bad. See the cubic formula insanity, the Newton/Liebnitz dispute, or Galileo's observation of the rings of Saturn.
I've heard that it's bad etiquette to share a pre-print widely. Is that true? If a paper is on viXra or arXiv or any such pre-print repository, it's proof of precedence. Even if people give credit to the wrong person due to publicity, history will sort out that error because the pre-print repository has given a timestamp to the original author.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.424533 | 2013-10-06T01:56:32 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13216",
"authors": [
"Christian Ramsey",
"Federico Poloni",
"High GPA",
"JPM",
"JeffE",
"Julian",
"Noah Snyder",
"Nobody",
"ShyPerson",
"ThePerson",
"fjarri",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/108924",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33754",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33755",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33756",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33758",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69151",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7610",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8878",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"iqbal"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
81063 | What to do when you have two manuscripts under review where one cites the other, but the citing paper gets accepted before the cited paper?
I submitted an article around 11 months ago to a SCI journal and another article around 5 months ago in another SCI journal. The second article cited the first article which was under review for 6 months at the time of submission of second article. Recently, we got acceptance letter for 2nd article while 1st article is still under review.
What action should we take? remove the citation in 2nd article and cite the 2nd article in 1st article or we stay with the current situation. but what if our 1st article got rejection?
I don't think the "self-plagiarism" tag is appropriate. It is not self-plagiarism to cite another paper you have written
Can you post a public preprint of the first article? If so, then you can simply cite the preprint.
It would be helpful to know what field you’re in, since citation culture is very field-dependent. In my field (mathematical logic), it’s accepted and reasonably common for preprints to be cited before even being submitted. But I have friends in experimental sciences who are shocked by this — in their fields, it’s unacceptable for published work to cite anything not yet peer-reviewed.
@NateEldredge I just confirmation from editor office that I can submit preprint of article in arxiv. I think you suggested a good solution. Thanks
If the second article depends in some substantive way in the material from the first, the second should cite the first, according to the journal's policy for material under review. (Different journals tend to handle such matters in different ways.) If there is no real dependence, I would suggest omitting the citation, and having the first paper, when it gets published, cite the second.
Having each paper cite the others might be deemed less than optimal, but that does happen. If you don't have a problem with the circular citation arrangement, I would include a citation to the second, published article in the first, even if the second already cites the first.
The traditional method to avoid these messes was to refer to any work as forthcoming until such a time as the work having definitely and definitively entered the literature. So yes, it did happen that certain papers were eternally immortalised as "forthcoming" - and as a reader you could be in for a bit of detective work (this was back when you had to physically schlepp to an actual brick and mortar library). A fun and not infrequent intermediate case arose when a promise was made or a claim was staked for the forthcoming paper, which, once it did come forth, was never made good on! Preprints were always a patchwork solution (as physical copies could be hard to track down), but luckily now we have archiv, BioArchiv and the like. Authors' personal webpages may help, but beware, as different authors may link to different versions of the work.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.424993 | 2016-12-05T01:15:44 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/81063",
"authors": [
"Darren Ong",
"Mohaqiq",
"Nate Eldredge",
"PLL",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11047",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1277",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9709"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
178407 | Why do universities place so much importance on citation counts and impact factors when evaluating researchers?
Impact factors and citation counts are widely used metrics to judge the reputation of researchers. However, these metrics can be misleading, and in some cases can be manipulated.
Why do universities place so much importance on citation counts and accumulative impact factors?
Why do you think a "majority of universities" really care much about this? Citation needed.
I don't have experience of job applications in north America, but in Australia, UK, and several other EU countries gives a lot of importance to publication count, impact factor and citation. I know the person in UK who become reader within 4 years because of his large number of publications. He published 270+ articles in 3 years. I don't think someone can justify contribution in such a large number of articles, but there are 100s of such examples, and universities decorating them.
You mention exceptional cases. I doubt that promotion was due only to "bean counting", though it may have alerted people to take a look. And "majority" seems far too strong.
In A number of European countries, you can't get a PhD unless you've published x so many papers with impact factor higher than y. I know that in Spain, application forms for postdocs and faculty jobs specifically ask for impact factors. In the UK the research excellence framework ranks the quality if papers and decides university funding. Its claims not use IF (but will use citation counts), however university planning for REF generally does use IF. My academic probation criteria said i needed 1 paper IF>10 or 2 papers > 5.
I hate to say it... but it's because the people who set these KPIs tend to be dumb business types rather than academics who have no idea how to effectively run a research institution
@IanSudbery They must have different standards for different departments, because I don't think my field has any journal with IF > 5.
@Persistence sounds like some kind of "blindly trust the data" problem, kinda reminds me of this video. Measurement of success != actual success because "it's not a problem with human beings that they don't think like mathematical machines". It just ends up separating the productive things you do, from what you do to have funding to keep being productive. Though, a complete elimination of metrics would mean scaling back a lot, and spending more time reading an individual's papers and judging them on their own merits.
I hate to say it, but they don't. The thing that is really important is grant income.
While these metrics may be biased (and easily gamed) the alternative is usually evaluation by a small panel of experts. The problem with that its that it can have a high variance. Reviewers of top conferences do not give highly consistent reviews (http://inverseprobability.com/talks/notes/the-neurips-experiment.html ) so the approach taken by e.g. REF may not be any more reliable (as well as being extremely expensive). Citation count is probably better than impact factor, but is very variable from one field to another.
When my department proposes to promote a faculty member, the college requires that we provide information about how we use citation metrics to evaluate research. The answer that I've used when preparing many promotion files begins with "The short answer is that we don't." There follows a paragraph about the unreliability of such metrics and the availability of far better ones.
Google does the same thing regarding evaluating web pages for how good they are (and ranked accordingly in a search result). Works pretty good for them.
Answering "why" is no problem: as @Allure says, because it's easy (and it's hard to find better metrics). But you're right to point out that it's a flawed metric, and like any metric it suffers from Goodhart's Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Solving that isn't easy.
@ThorbjørnRavnAndersen it's also gamed heavily, look at all the "SEO optimization" pages and keyword / link stuffer scam sites
@jrh Yes, it is an art to identify malice.
@kimball yeah, sure, the actual numeric target will vary from department to department. See also the recent situation at Liverpool life sciences where faculty across the school were ranked on citation count, and the bottom 50 selected for sacking. It was only a months long campaign of industrial action, including no marking for nearly a year that saved the jobs in the end.
Because it's easy
Let's say you got 100 researchers to evaluate. How would you go about doing it? You could read their papers in sufficient detail to understand them (would take months or years, especially if they're not in your field). You could rely on peer evaluations and recommendation letters (already done extensively). You could look at prizes and awards won (also already done extensively). Or you could look at citation counts and impact factors. The last is easy to do, and while it's not perfect, it is objective and there is a correlation with research quality (citation counts is the standard method to measure excellence in bibliometrics).
Besides, many non-specialists care about citation counts and impact factors, e.g. all the major university rankings use it, and students look at rankings. Doing badly on those rankings can make one less attractive to students, with all its negative consequences.
See also this:
But. Faculty candidates are necessarily judged by people who are not experts in their field. Without the expertise to judge whether your work is really good, those people must look at secondary data that correlate strongly with successful researchers. One of those secondary characteristics is "pedigree". Did you get your degree at MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, CMU, another top-10 department, or somewhere else? (What's an "Ivy League"?) How good/famous is your advisor? If they're really paying attention: Where did your advisor's other PhD students get jobs, and how well are they doing now?
Fortunately, most good departments do make a serious effort to understand the quality and impact of applicants' results, instead of relying only on secondary data. Also, secondary data matters considerably less once you actually have an interview.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
Because many funding agencies give a lot of weight to citations and impact factor,
Because many ranking agencies (of all sorts) will give higher rankings to institutions with research-active and well-funded faculty, as measured by such metrics,
Because stating in a recruitment brochure that your faculty publish on average so-many papers a year will make you look better than so-few papers a year.
Yeah it’s all marketing, but in these days where governments are funding a decreasing proportion of the cost of education, where universities compete for students, and where the ratio of administration to faculty keeps increasing, the administration needs new revenues. See this article in Forbes magazine for additional context and financial pressures on institutions.
I agree with you its all because of faulty methodologies adopted by funding agencies, but academia didn't resist rather becoming part of it.
@MBK it is a self-evident truth that most universities are perfectly happy to just “follow the money”… principle of least resistance.
Question: "Why do we give so much importance to citations and impact factor?"; Answer: "Because some people give so much importance to citations and impact factor". OK, but this just displaces the question a bit, it doesn't really answer it.
@Stef no and yes. If the people who give such importance hold the $$ then yes it does place the ball in their court, but they would argue it’s their preferred way of allocating resources. Would you rather send your kids to a top-ranked school or a lower-ranked one (cost notwithstanding )?
Question is impossible to answer since the premise is false, or at least has no proof. Specifically,
why majority of universities give too much importance to citation
count and accumulative impact factor
No university I am aware of cares at all about impact factors, which are in most cases fake (the ones reported by journals).
Citation count is slightly more important, and is used at times as a proxy of "impact" of a scientist, but even this is not universally recognized, and most universities do not explicitly check this measure.
In fact, promotion and hiring is based more on:
reference letters and peer evaluation
places of publications: prestigious or not.
acquaintance of existing faculty members with the candidate
number of publications in selective places (not number of citations)
In the US, at least, promotion is largely a result of peer evaluation and peers have a more sophisticated view of the accomplishments of a candidate. True, the advice of a promotions committee isn't the final word, but is nearly always respected - or chaos results.
"impact factors, which are in most cases fake (the ones reported by journals). Citation count is slightly more important, and is a proxy of "impact" of a scientis" Your these sentences are contradictory. Citations determines the impact factor. So, if impact factor is unreliable, then how citations can be a reliable metric? As I mentioned in my previous comment publishing 100s of articles in a year cant be justified so as the citations of such researchers.
In the systems I’m more familiar with, not all journal publications can be included in the CVs. This is certainly true when it comes to PTR, or when it comes to grant applications; lower-tiered journals are thus filtered out of where applicants would publish. In addition, lower publication counts can be compensated by higher citations counts, i.e. two papers in Nature with high citations may well be considered equivalent to or better than 5 papers with low citations in a middle-tier journal.
Because of the rise of predatory journals, pure publication count is not as important as it used to be, in the sense that predatory publications are very often discounted; in this sense the “prestige” of the journal does matter. The false permise is that a single score can capture the “value-added” of a faculty member.
@MBK, I didn't say citation counting is "reliable", I said it's more important in the process of being promoted, because it's something that people and committees and peers look at. No one I know of looks at "Impact factors", and moreover IFs stated by publishers are unreliable (or "fake").
@Buffy, thanks, I've added "peer evaluation" now.
@ZeroTheHero Predatory journals are irrelevant. All citation counts, impact factors and h-indexes are taken directly from WOS and most predatory journals never make it there. If they do, they remain somewhere at the bottom of the ranking with low IF. They generate few citation from other WOS journals. Only WOS to WOS citations count.
@VladimirF WOS is not the sole supplier of metrics (there are enough questions here in GoogleScholar for you to know that). My point is that the total number of papers is now no longer accepted as a metric.
@ZeroTheHer No one cares about Google Scholar, it includes too much crap. Those who have the power to disttibute money care about WOS and sometimes, but only sometimes, about Scopus (but even then only as a secondary piece of information). Whenwe care about the number of papers we, of course, only count those in journals that have a WOS impact factor. Other papers do not count, noone cares about them. For some purposes, like money in our uni, only papers in journals in IF ranking above the median count.
@VladimirF your experience is apparently very different from mine in this matter.
I agree with Vladimir about not counting journals/conference that are predatory or below a certain IF threshold. Of course, no body counts these for most purposes. But it seems that ZeroTheHero says precisely this, so I don't see where's the disagreement between you two.
I have no idea about "majority" either, but we are occasionally discussing what a "fair metric" would be for counting publications. Everyone agrees that the evaluation of the true scientific merit is impractical (or even impossible) for a variety of reasons from impossibility to carefully read and evaluate all papers in a variety of completely different areas to the mere fact that to estimate a true impact of something, one has to wait for 10+ years at the very least.
Our current system (as far as I remember it) is to have tier 1 and tier 2 journals with 2 points for a publication in a former and 1 in the latter (there are also some fancy rules about sole publications vs. co-authored ones I was too lazy to read properly, so I'd rather skip them here). It is far from ideal and is constantly critiqued from all sides, but it is a not too bad compromise after all. I've heard of much worse arrangements where the formalization was brought to something completely absurd (from my perspective, at least). The tiers are determined by "general agreement" (and there is some fight here) with the impact factor playing some role, but not the decisive one. In general, it is believed that the individual citation metrics (like h-index) reflect the true impact of a researcher much better than the sum of journal impact factors times the number of papers in that journal.
The main reason for the very existence of this point system seems to be that neither we would like to explain to the administration what is worth what on the routine basis, not the administration would like to hear such explanations more often than absolutely necessary, so everything should be reduced to a single number. When really important cases arise (like promotion to tenure, etc.) the number merely needs to be above a certain (fairly low) threshold and the decision is made based mostly on the recommendation letters and such, but for trivial issues like annual merit salary raise that number suffices and everybody can see how the awards are made. Transparency here is at least as important as fairness and since the latter can be hardly achieved even in theory, resorting to the famous KISS principle is a reasonable idea. As long as the point system (whatever it is) doesn't acquire life and power of its own that overrides common sense, it is harmless and even useful.
Of course, the situation varies from place to place, but what should be remembered is that many rules like that are not creations of the universities, but rather of the faculty in the particular departments, and the ugliest monsters are born when people do not want to agree on anything or even to listen to each other. Various "rankings" by independent agencies also play some role, of course, and the citation factors play noticeable role there, sometimes in a rather weird (again, IMHO) way.
As I said, the current system is far from ideal, but if you ever come up with a bright idea of a really good way (fair, transparent, and practical), let me know and I'll be happy to advocate for it locally :-)
Nice points raised, but this is not an answer to the question.
@Dilworth Agreed, but, as it has been already said in the comments, the very premise of the question is "questionable", so I just described what is going on at one particular place I can speak about with some certainty. The point is that we do put some importance on those metrics (and I tried to explain why) though not so much. If somebody works at the place where "so much" is a rule, they might be able to provide more relevant information, of course.
A major issue in my view is the concept of "objectivity" and the issues with it. Objectivity can mean many things, but often it is taken to be the result of a transparent and reproducible measurement procedure, and associated with the removal of the influence of personal interests and opinions.
The essential dilemma with this is that the ability and potential of a researcher and the value of their work are so complex (and surely not one-dimensional, as any ranking needs to be) that chances are that no "objective" measurement procedure can do them justice. In some places there is a tendency to prioritise straight numerical measurements despite being obviously deficient (I'm not necessarily saying the citation counts and impact factors are the best of those). In some other places decisions are made in intransparent manners by commission members, taking into account reference letters and other information from peers. This can work well, but also is connected to favouritism and old networks protecting their field.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.425484 | 2021-11-25T15:54:59 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/178407",
"authors": [
"Andreas Blass",
"Buffy",
"Dikran Marsupial",
"Dilworth",
"Ian Sudbery",
"Kimball",
"Michael Kay",
"Mohaqiq",
"ScottishTapWater",
"Stef",
"Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen",
"Vladimir F Героям слава",
"ZeroTheHero",
"cag51",
"fedja",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/126851",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13013",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14273",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14506",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19607",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2827",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/39478",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41807",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/72211",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/75368",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79875",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82972",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8760",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/90441",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9709",
"jrh"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
4745 | Is it reasonable to collaborate with a professor when you are employed by a different professor?
How wise is it to collaborate with another professor while working as a staff under one professor? Is there a ethical conflict in doing so even if the other professor is from a slightly different area?
Also, how should one develop his/her own expertise while working as a postdoc under one professor? Is it wise to also work with other professor with slightly different research interest?
It depends totally on your status, and what exactly this collaboration entails. You say “working as a staff under one professor”. If you're on a short-term contract (say, post-doc), then it's probably not okay to do independent research on something completely different. You were hired on a project and it's unlikely that you have any significant time left for something else. On the other hand, if this new collaboration is related to your project and you involve your professor in it, it is okay (and he will welcome this initiative from which everyone involved benefits).
To the above, there are a few exceptions:
People who just arrived usually have some unfinished business with their previous institution, and they are given a bit more leeway in finishing it: revisions to make to papers on track for publication, conference attendance, etc.
People who are leaving due to their contract ending have to get involved with other projects to get a new job. They have to go fishing around, and this sometime requires a bit of extra work.
Finally, if your activity on the side is quite unrelated to your main job, and you manage to do it on your own time without prejudice to your employer, you may do so. Some people write books, some get involved in open source software unrelated to their employment, etc.
If you're working as an longer-term staff researcher in someone's group, then it is expected that they respect your academic freedom. To a reasonable extent, you are free to engage in new collaborations with other people, and not necessarily involve your group leader.
"it's probably not okay to do independent research" - our definitions of what post-docs do are widely different. In my institution, if you are a postdoc and you don't do independent research, you are not doing your job.
In contrast to F'x's opinion, I think collaboration with people outside your group is not just wise, but actually necessary, at least if you are working toward an academic career. You must develop both a wide professional network and broad independent research experience. As long as everything is out in the open, with everyone's knowledge and agreement, there is absolutely no ethical conflict.
This does not mean that you should shirk your paid job; any outside projects must be on your own time and must not interfere with your official duties. Similarly, you can't use your supervisor's resources without their explicit advance permission. And your supervisor may be happier if there's some chance of involving them in your outside projects. But ultimately, how you use your own time is your own business. (Any supervisor who tells you otherwise, or insists that you don't have "your own time", is simply abusing you. Run.)
I agree partly. I would say, however, that if there is substantial overlap between your “day” work and your “own time” work, it may be unethical (unless you get approval for your outside work). To give one example I’m familiar with, a staff researcher in a French institution is not allowed to do consulting on matters related to his own work, without explicit authorization from his employer. There are exceptions (“intellectual work”: books, software, some stuff like that).
Ah, I see the difference. In my field, research is "intellectual work".
Nice one. To expand: “intellectual work” is the translation of a French legal term, “œuvres de l'esprit”, which in fact does not cover one can consider intellectual work (without the quotes). My point is: there are limitations to what you can do in your free time, depending on your contract and your jurisdiction. Better safe than sorry. That's all. Some exaggerated example: if your day job is being a researcher at the WeCureCancer chemicals company, and you discover a new anti-cancer molecule one evening in your basement, you can hardly expect to be allowed to patent it for yourself.
And this exactly is why I work in academia, and not for the WeCureCancer chemicals company.
Well, the law is the law, and whether your employer is a University or WeCureCancer, it applies the same (at least here in France). Also, I suspect that with current budgets, any university will want in on the patent :)
And this is exactly why I don't work in a field where people fight over patents. Even in France, the mere suggestion that a PhD student or postdoc in mathematics or theoretical computer science might be legally forbidden from working with someone other than their advisor would be considered offensive. (At least, so I infer from the French PhD students and postdocs I've worked with.) It may very well be the law, but sometimes the law is an ass.
If you are perfectly honest with all parties involved, then it shouldn't be a problem. Everyone involved knows where they stand.
One small point. In the UK, post-doc positions are funded by grant income. It would be strange if a post-doc had enough "free time" for other duties.
Let me give an answer from my own viewpoint - that of someone who hires and 'supervises' postdocs on a regular basis (in my field, mathematics).
I consider that a postdoc coming to my group comes for two reasons: (a) to bring new knowledge to our group, and (b) to learn things from our group. Both are good for the postdoc and good for the group - everybody profits from this arrangement. Learning things from our group is best done in close collaboration with the supervisor (me), while contributing to the group often benefits from a much wider scope.
So I tell my postdocs that I expect them to work half of their time on the project they are formally appointed for, and the other half on something of their own choosing - and I suggest that for this part they might also look for other connections within our group or department.
What this means for the OP is (as has already been said): discuss it with your supervisor, and ask yourself the question whether the 'outside' collaboration might also have benefits for your supervisor.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.426872 | 2012-10-14T17:49:07 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/4745",
"authors": [
"Adriaan",
"Arnaud",
"Cees Timmerman",
"F'x",
"Frank Kusters",
"HowToStart",
"JeffE",
"Nian.Sanshi",
"SM T",
"SlashmanX",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12024",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12025",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12026",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12027",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12030",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12067",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32481",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/51195",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71152",
"user1380792",
"xLeitix"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
2951 | What to check when examining paper proofs?
When you receive a paper proof and review it prior to publication, what exactly should you be looking for?
The things that come to mind are any changes in the annotation of author list and the corresponding author. What else is there?
This is basically the last chance to fix anything (non-substantial) in the paper, so in addition to the things you mentioned, I usually check for spelling or grammatical errors, misprints in formulas, etc. Sometimes one might want to add a sentence to clarify something.
Finally, if the journal did any copy-editing, you should check its job. Some journals provide a list of changes they made for that purpose. You should also check if the pictures and formulas are still in the right places.
Added: sometimes it's necessary to update the literature list, for example if preprints cited there have been published in the meantime.
Often it is no longer possible to fix your own errors, only errors introduced in copy-editing.
Ok, I have never had that experience. But I am talking about small corrections like spelling mistakes, not anything that changes the content of the paper.
@JukkaSuomela a few times I have been told that I can fix minor typos, even if they are my own fault, and that more extensive changes can be done for a fee.
For example: I had several instances of {l-1\choose 2} in my paper, and the copy editor removed all instances of "\choose" so my paper suddenly had many instances of "l-12". This copy-writing change was a significant issue to the correctness of the paper (we fixed it).
I (as a journal typesetter "=" copy editor) would stress: (1) Update literature -- usually some preprints there have already changed their status. (2) Verify formulas -- both inline and display ones; that's where I most likely make a mistake (and it happens, I'm just a human as you are, after all). When submitting in Word, check every smallest bit of your paper, because bad things happen in word2latex conversion, and it's not my fault if you submit in Word to a LaTeX-only journal.
One other thing to be concerned about is overzealous copy editors, particularly when it comes to highly mathematical papers. In one of the first manuscripts I ever submitted, the copy editor in question decided that what I wrote as (1/2)x really ought to be 1/(2x). This would have completely altered the intent and the results of the derivation and everything that followed!
So, the lesson of this is that you need to check everything that was changed by the copy editors. If they give you a "mark-up," review that first, and then make sure everything has been transferred correctly to the paper. If not, you'll need to go side-by-side with the submitted manuscript and the final proof, and make sure eveyrhing is as you intended it to be.
Yikes. That is worse than the urban legend about the copy editor who fixed all the places where "if" was spelled with an extra "f"...
Yep. And I can't imagine how many other papers that copy editor might have tried to butcher. . . .
It is not even sufficient to so that: the same kind of error have been introduced after the proofs in my very first paper...
@BenoîtKloeckner: If the corrections to your proof are not made correctly, or additional errors are introduced afterward, then you have the right to ask the journal to correct the flaws, and republish the article. (I've done this as well when the title of an article was screwed up, and published unfixed, even though they were informed of the problem.)
I always proofread the full paper, but not necessarily by comparing it word by word with the original. However, I give particular attention to:
Title, authors, affiliations
Abstract, introduction and conclusion
Figures and figure captions. In particular:
quality of the graphics produced
do color and symbols mentioned in the caption match the figure?
if the journal has black & white figures in print, is the figure understandable in black and white?
if the journal has color figures only in the online version: does the caption make sense for both version (color and B&W)?
Equations: most problems I saw introduced during typesetting were in equations. For many publishers, the text is transformed semi-automatically from your original file, but equations are re-keyed by an operator. People make mistakes.
Numbers: all tables, all inline numbers. Units (a “kJ/mol” might become a “kJ mol”).
References (citations are a key part of doing research):
if references are hyperlinked (using DOI number), click on each to check that they match the right online paper
if a paper is “in press” or “accepted for publication” or something else, update its status if it has been published
Acknowledgment: somehow, I often find that I might have missed someone in the acknowledgment when writing the initial paper, and for most publishers it is not too late to add them :)
I once had a journal publish my paper with the inclusion of the sentence "I thank the anonymous referee for his/her comments" in my acknowledgments without my knowledge. I thought that was a bit rude. (If I had been asked to include that statement, I would have gladly included it.)
Between your manuscript being accepted and the proofs being created two things are likely to happen: a copy editor may make changes and portions of the manuscript (e.g., tables) may be retyped (as the manuscript is converted from the format you submitted into the journal format). I know a number of PIs who get two people to look at the proofs. One person reads the proof out loud while the other person compares what was in the submitted version. I know one group that goes sentence-by-sentence backwards. The idea is you never know what will get screwed up in the conversion process. While I like the concept, I spend a lot less time going through the proofs.
One more thing to watch for if the format has changed, say if you submitted the paper in some garden-variety LaTeX style and the journal converted it to its own style: The new line breaks can create hyphenation errors. In general, TeX is amazingly good at getting hyphenation right, but it's not infallible. One of my papers had the misfortune that "colimit" landed on a line break and was hyphenated "col-imit".
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.427439 | 2012-08-23T10:18:56 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2951",
"authors": [
"Ananth Pattabiraman",
"Benoît Kloeckner",
"CodeKingPlusPlus",
"David LeBauer",
"Derrick Stolee",
"Felix",
"Gready",
"Henry F",
"JRN",
"James Endicott",
"Jukka Suomela",
"Nate Eldredge",
"Pawan Sran",
"Pieter Naaijkens",
"RJFalconer",
"aeismail",
"hehe Peng",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/103250",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12060",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1210",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1471",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/258",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33351",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33356",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33371",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/351",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/39072",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/39098",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7445",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7446",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7447",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7448",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7450",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7454",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7508",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"max",
"pjhades",
"publius",
"qugu",
"shashwat",
"yo'"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
984 | What's the etiquette for a short visit to a US university department by a faculty member from another university?
In May, I'll be visiting a department at Columbia University in the US for a few days. What's the etiquette on visiting (answers relevant to US in general are welcome, to prevent this question getting too localised)?
I'd like to spend some time with quite a few of the researchers, and compare notes on ongoing work. I'll read their recent publications in advance. Should I be inviting staff out for a coffee and a chat; or dinner; or a talk in the lab?
Context: I'm a faculty researcher, and would be looking to spend a bit of time with postdoc researchers, and those professors whose jobs are primarily research, rather than admin or teaching.
Not from the US, but in our group we often go for lunch with guests (I think usually from our groups budget), they are asked (but not forced) to give a short talk about their work for everyone who is interested, they are introduced to the PhD students and postdocs, if one side is interested, they can always ask for a chat. Sometimes we have BBQ together or go hiking (that depends on how long they stay and how close friends they already are with people from the group). And they of course might set up appointments to talk to people not from the group, while they are here. They are guests.
I think you are the person who would be invited out to lunch, dinner etc. as you are the guest :) ! However, there is nothing wrong with inviting your opposite number to talk in an informal setting. The only consideration is that you know the lay of the land!
Depending on how many days you would be spending at the US university, you might want to make a strategy on conversations and prospective collaborations.
I am assuming you would have results to show and tell and with a punchline at that. That generally helps.
Your host has a responsibility to make your schedule in such a way that it will be full and engaging.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to fill the schedule - it requires that people respond to the hosts invitations to meet with you. Your input can be helpful both in filling out the schedule and making sure that your visit is productive.
You can request to meet with specific people and ask for feedback from your host on who you might want to speak to.
I think it would be a good idea to request to meet with graduate students in addition to postdocs and senior scientists.
sometimes the opposite happens: and your schedule becomes unreasonably busy, where you are running from one short meeting to another with no chance to sit down for a few hours and talk/explore.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.428130 | 2012-04-02T17:48:00 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/984",
"authors": [
"Artem Kaznatcheev",
"RunFastest_LYF",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14198",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/91380",
"skymningen"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
12177 | What do statements of interest, teaching, and research mean when applying for an academic job?
I'm looking at a job application that asks for the following:
C.V. (required)
Statement of Interests (required)
Cover letter (optional)
Statement of Research (optional)
Statement of Teaching (optional)
I find this confusing because I don't understand what a "Statement of Interests" is supposed to be, relative to the others. Does anyone know what's expected in a document of this kind? I'm a bit shy to ask the institution in question just yet, for fear that it's something well-known.
It might essentially be what you would put in a cover letter with a focus on why you are interested in the department and who you would be interested in collaborating with on a university level. But this is just a guess.
Are you sure the second item on the list says "Statement of InterestS" in the plural? If it were "statement of interest" in the singular, I might take that to essentially mean a cover letter--a statement of your interest in applying for the position.
That is a rather confusing request, actually. However, what I think the job offer is looking for in a "statement of interests" is a description of the research areas you are interested in, while the "statement of research" would be a listing of projects you'd plan to start if you were hired.
However, in many job postings, those two items would potentially be conflated into a single statement. So I'd recommend that you contact the department. I'd recommend doing this by phone, if possible—that way, you don't have to give as much identifying information.
Generally I agree, but would add that "statement of interests" could be broader than just research interests.
It's also worth considering if they meant that Statement of Interest is what you would like to pursue, given that you have the money and staff; and Statement of Research is after what you have done so far and what you are currently working with, in more detail than what fits in the CV.
The fact that multiple interpretations are possible—and viable—reinforces my main point: contact the department.
Since I assume it is an academic job you apply for the letters will cover aspects of that type of work. The job profile could possibly also reveal how to interpret the requested information. My general advice concerning the confusion is to contact the employer to get additional information (they may also keep such information on a web-page). It seems the instructions are sub-par in this case, which is annoying.
View the CV as the back-bone and the statements as an opportunity to provide some meat.
aeismail has already covered two of the letters/statements well. How the research statement should be interpreted is less clear, but posdef's comment is good because it may concern what you have already done. If it is then it is common to go through previosu research and highlight what you consider are your major contributions out of your production and how you consider your work original and contributing to development in the field(s) of concern. I would strongly advice asking about the focus for this letter.
The statement of teaching is usually detailing your views on teaching. The purpose is to get a sense of your ideas and understanding of pedagogical aspects of the work. This may nclude techniques/methods you have already used or ideas on such that you wish to develop. It could also include ideas on courses you would like to develop (if you have a sense of your possible coming mandate at the place at which yo apply. If your position is not concerning teaching, such a statement may not be necessary (I assume you received a form letter?). But, if you are pplying for a position which includes teaching then such a statement may be quite important and provide the job committee with a firm picture of your teaching philosophy.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.428378 | 2013-08-26T06:18:47 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12177",
"authors": [
"Brian Z",
"Claus Machholdt",
"Dr Casper Black",
"Joachim Breitner",
"Rafa Soler",
"Rudy Muller",
"StrongBad",
"aeismail",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30675",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30676",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30677",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30682",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30684",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30686",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9298",
"posdef",
"ramdas1989",
"silvado"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
1322 | Why do universities have to spend money on journals?
Obviously this is a question in the light of the recent Elsevier boycott. Currently we do have an arXiv, maintained by academia and where researchers regularly upload parts of their work. In such a case,
Why do universities spend lots of money to publish in third-party journals?
The question especially applies to journals that operate with a rigorous profit motive. The subscription is very high, so wouldn't publishing in such journals affect the paper's citation count and deter the spread of knowledge about the work within academic circles?
Why should not universities collaborate to create free, open access, peer-reviewed journals?
Moreover, given the need to conserve paper, why should journals spend on printing research papers? Wouldn't an online version suffice, as most people use only local computer printouts anyway? In other words, why can't we have a Wikipedia-like system of sharing research knowledge, having properly established standards for such journals?
In my opinion, this question is on the borderline of "not constructive", as the question is valid but the topic is inflammatory. Please ensure that all answers address the directly asked questions and do not veer off into soapbox speeches on "open journals" and whatnot.
@eykanal: I will be happy to edit or have the question edited appropriately. I do not understand for whom the topic could be inflammatory.
The topic of "open access journals" is a hot one, and can evoke emotional responses which often end up lambasting publishing companies. The question as worded is fine, I posted this more as a pre-emptive warning to those answering to stay on topic.
The question doesn't make sense to me as worded. Universities have to spend money on journals they run themselves, just as they spend money on journals run by other publishers.
@F'x: Splurge: to indulge oneself in some luxury or pleasure, especially a costly one: They splurged on a trip to Europe.
2.to show off. (from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/splurge)
My edit has nothing to do with connotation and everything to do with meaning. To splurge is to spend money on things that are not needed. If you can show me a respected university that does not spend money on journals (thus demonstrating that they are a luxury), I will concede the point.
@DavidKetcheson: My Chambers says "spend a lot of money on" and it is a standard dictionary. I do not think "spend" captures the essence of the question too.
If you ask why universities have to splurge, then you are NOT asking why they have to spend. It's a different question. All the answers given answer the question of why they have to spend. The answer to "why they have to splurge" is simple: they don't.
@Bravo: link for My Chambers?
Please note that the usage "splurge lots of money" is pure nonsense. Inserting the supposed definition from @Bravo, it gives "spend a lot of money on lots of money". I am a signee of the Elsevier boycott and I have no beef with any "opinions" expressed here. I'm just trying to save the English language from a rather unfortunate assault.
@DavidKetcheson: Substituting dictionary definitions directly into sentences does not work always in English. Anyway let us please discontinue undue discussions on this question - I have accepted a worthy answer long time back and that's that.
@CharlesMorisset What do you think extravagant means? Bravo: do you really believe that "splurge money" makes sense? I give up.
This is a really big question, which unfortunately has no simple answer. Some short comments:
Universities have very little choice about subscribing to journals, as long they publish good papers, since faculty need access to those papers to do their research. The solution has to start on the publishing side.
Collaborating to create free, open access, peer-reviewed journals is a fine idea, but either you need to convince universities to support this financially, or you need to recruit enormous numbers of dedicated volunteers. (Whenever this topic comes up, someone is sure to point out that volunteers run some free, high-quality online journals. Of course they do, but the question is how to recruit hundreds of times as many volunteers.)
Printing is a non-issue. Everything is already available online, with printed copies only for those who want them.
In a mathematics context, see http://gowers.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/elsevierstatementfinal.pdf and http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.1351 for more details.
See also http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2012/03/06/an-efficient-journal/ for a careful breakdown of the actual (minimal) costs for one high-profile computer science journal.
I downvoted because I think other answers are more correct and because phrase The solution has to start on the publishing side. is wrong.
My take on parts of your question:
Currently we do have an arXiv, maintained by academia and where researchers regularly upload parts of their work.
I may be on something of a crusade against arXiv users who believe arXiv is more than it is, more more widely adopted than it is. "We" don't have arXiv - certain disciplines have it. Other disciplines, equally valid as those which support arXiv, both don't use it and have understandable issues with the reliance on a pre-print site as a way to disseminate findings.
Why do universities splurge lots of money to publish in third-party journals?
The question especially applies to journals that operate with a rigorous profit motive.
First, they're not paying money to publish in the journals. They're paying money to be able to read said journals. I've published in for-profit journals, even ones my university didn't subscribe to, for free.
The subscription is very high, so wouldn't publishing in such journals affect the paper's citation count and deter the spread of knowledge about the work within academic circles?
Not necessarily. Papers are often available from the author, inter-library loans, etc. Beyond that, how a paper gets cited is a far more complex question than just "Do you have to pay for a subscription", and I don't think Open Access journals have compellingly showed that the citation counts are higher for open journals. The readership and downloads? Probably, but in terms of citation the Open Access journals are still struggling with a perceived gap between their prestige and the prestige of the "leading" for-profit journals. Perhaps that will change in time, but there are ways to get journal articles that your institution doesn't subscribe to, and those ways are often fairly trivial.
Why should not universities collaborate to create free, open access, peer-reviewed journals?
Some do - but for many the cost of laying out and producing a twice monthly journal would be distracting from the core mission of the university (or more likely, particular departments), and they'd run into staffing and budget concerns. Most don't have the money to fund what they actually need to do, let alone add a publishing arm that may or may not ever make money.
And those groups that are interested, like professional societies and the occasional university? They often turn to for-profit publishers to outsource it. For example Epidemiology, a publication of The International Society for Environmental Epidemiology is published by Lippincott. The American Journal of Epidemiology, which is put out by Johns Hopkins and sponsored by the Society for Epidemiologic Research? Published by Oxford.
Moreover, given the need to conserve paper, why should journals spend on printing research papers? Wouldn't an online version suffice, as most people use only local computer printouts anyway?
Because some readers want the paper versions. Seriously, nearly every journal I know has an "online only" subscription for less money. But if you want a paper version, why shouldn't you be able to get it?
"understandable issues" — Like what?
@JeffE An inherent distrust of anything supporters say there is no issue with ;). Less flippantly, the pre-print arXiv system was designed around a core of fields, and makes sense for those fields. But consider a clinical trial - there's valid reason to question whether a non-reviewed, potentially revised result should be made public. Preprints are something of an unresolved issue for meta-analysis as well - preprints are a tempting, but potentially biasing, source of documents. Mainly the issue is that arXiv is an interesting supplement, not a replacement, to journals.
@JeffE Keep in mind the notion of a "preprint culture" where papers are widely circulated before publication - or at conferences before they appear in proceedings - is not necessarily a general mode for academia.
True, but I think it's medicine that's really a special case here, because of the public health consequences of publicizing results. (I'm skeptical that the meta-analysis issue is crucial, since publication bias is itself a major problem.) I agree that preprint culture is by no means universal, but this is largely for contingent, historical reasons, and sites like SSRN are expanding rapidly in areas that once had very little of this sort of activity. I don't think it will ever be fully universal, because of exceptions like medicine, but I think it will get much closer than it has so far.
@AnonymousMathematician Medicine may be a special case, but its a big special case (and its my special case, which means I care). The meta-analysis issue is probably a topic for another day, but the issue is that generally, if you don't think you can draw all unpublished papers, its probably wise not to draw any of them. That's why authors shouldn't use their own unpublished data. arXiv represents a tantalizing source of "grey literature", but especially for non-arXiv dominated fields, a biased one. The summary is that arXiv is neat, and useful, but not a magical fix.
This looks lke an orthogonal issue to me. I agree that posting pre-refereed papers is not always wise, but preprints can be refereed before posting. (Preprint just means "before printing".)
Unfortunately, biomedical research drives everything. If we were to have a totally free system for all other subjects, schools would still have to subscribe to Elsevier's Big Deal to get biomedical journals and Elsevier would still charge exactly the same as they would with all the other journals included. That's how they run their business: you can drop of keep whatever subscriptions you want as long as you pay 6% more than you did last year.
Your second point is false. Page charges exist for some non-open access journals! Some university students/faculty pay this with University money. So some universities pay to publish in these journals. Even if the money comes out of a grant, that money sometimes could have been spent on more research. In such cases the university pays an opportunity cost.
@WetLabStudent Page charges have nothing to do with subscription fees. They may also have to pay to publish in them, but subscribing to them does not "unlock" the ability to publish.
@Fomite I never said anything about subscription fees. You said " they're not paying money to publish in the journals" which is false. Yes these fees are unrelated, but they do exist, despite having nothing to do with journal subscriptions and access. You should edit your answer to indicate that what you mean is that universities paying or not paying to publish in a journal is unrelated to access to reading articles in that journal, rather than saying universities don't pay to publish (which is false).
@WetLabStudent Subscription fees are what universities pay for. I have yet to be at an institution where page fees weren't something born by individual labs.
"if you want a paper version, why shouldn't you be able to get it" => sure: on-demand printing. Why on Earth would the company printing the journal also own the articles, the journal's name, and all intellectual property attached to it?
Nothing actually comes for free. Expensive journals tend to have established their merit with a long history, and managing / maintaining that quality across decades and editors has traditionally been the job of publishers. Why?
Although publishing can be a pain, but it is absolutely key to academic progress. We need to be able to rank contributions if for no other reason than to determine what to spend our precious time reading. Like all systems with power, publication is potentially subject to corruption. Publishers are traditionally seen as more objective than authors or universities, since their reputation and income is entirely determined by how good a job they do of publishing selectively.
You could imagine a situation where a bunch of universities got together, dedicated their resources (paid their staff's time) to make an objective publishing system that was not controlled by any one academic institution. But that is actually what most academic publishers are. In fact, many academic publishers are associated with individual universities.
The problem remains, who pays? Currently, in general readers / consumers pay, and they probably are really in the best place to know whether research is worth purchasing. But under open access, the authors pay. This can actually be immensely more expensive for universities than paying subscriptions, since they produce a lot of research. For example, my university spends less than the cost of two PLoS open-access articles per year per academic on subscriptions, but most academics are expected to publish a lot more than two articles a year. The other problem with authors paying is that there is then a moral hazard. Journals are effectively bribed to take papers, which may result in compromising the selective process that underlies academic progress. This would be a terrible cost.
Many academics self-publish by putting their papers on line or just writing blogs. This can be effective, but note that it returns to the problem of knowing what is worth reading. Generally, successful academic blogs are run by people who also prove themselves as academics by publishing in highly-rated journals, so this is not really an independent solution.
The short answer then is: because paying to read publications is the best system we currently know.
+1, but note that the description of "most academic publishers" here does not describe the biggest ones: Elsevier, Springer, Wiley.
And of course "most academic publishers" is not the same thing as "the publishers of most academic journals."
Another (admittedly cynical) viewpoint is that the reason there are so many journals out there, and so many high-priced third-party journals, is that academics want to publish, and the system in which they work more or less demands publications in exchange for career advancement. The need of so many researchers from so many countries, as well as the fractionation of existing research fields into many sub-specialties, allows for this kind of behavior.
Although I would argue that "splurge" is the wrong word—researchers want access to as many journals as possible, and as a result, libraries are forced to spend substantial parts of their acquisition budgets on journals, which, with policies like Elsevier's, mean many of them will go largely unused in exchange for a handful of high-quality journals that aren't quite worth collectively what Elsevier charges for them.
The solution will be for the university libraries to join forces together and bargain collectively with the publishers. Working individually, they have no leverage. A hundred or a thousand libraries working together will have an impact.
One of the big factors driving the traditional publishing model is the tenure and promotion process. To win tenure and promotion, faculty members must publish in peer-reviewed journals... and journal reputation counts. Thus, many top researchers will strive to publish in journals with high reputation and university libraries will want to maintain collections that feature journals of high reputation (especially if those journals feature the work of its faculty).
Journal publishers point to the value added during the traditional publishing process, including peer review, editing and layout. This argument, however, is controversial, as many editorial and peer review panels are voluntary, unpaid positions.
Finally, electronic journals are not necessarily cheaper than print journals. Often, electronic journals are sold in expensive bundles and libraries are not allowed to select individual titles (this is how, say, EBSCO operates). Thus, libraries have to pay to subscribe to the whole database, which will include journals that are of little interest to the university.
Regarding to tenure and promotion process, I don't see the issue, citation count, H-Index and other metrics can be used.
I strongly disagree with user454322's comment. Those measures are extremely unreliable when applied to individual papers and individual researchers.
Why do universities splurge lots of money to publish in third-party
journals?
Because researchers ask for these journals, and the money is given by the university, and most researchers just recently discovered the cost of all this stuff. Now that we are all aware of the cost, and now that universities are running out of money, we, at last, want to change the way publishing is done.
Why should not universities collaborate to create free, open access,
peer-reviewed journals?
Because to run a journal, you need people whose jobs are to run a journal. This is not the work of researchers or actual faculty staff. At the moment, hiring new profiles in universities is unlikely. Moreover, maybe this should be done at a higher level (funding agency or state level?).
Could you elaborate on the second point? After all even in top journals it is the professors who do the hard work of selecting papers. If no printing is involved, why can't the panel professors decide about the selected papers and simply upload them?
@Bravo: Some journals do work exactly like that—I'm on the editorial board of one—but with a few exceptions, they're slow to catch on. Perception of journal quality is no more rational and no easier to change than attitudes about car companies or brands of beer.
You need a website, a server to run the website, a back-office to handle the submissions, at least someone to work the templates and to solve the occasional problems that the authors will encounter with these templates, etc. This is not a big deal, but someone have to do it, and the burden on editors and reviewers is heavy enough.
@Bravo "If no printing is involved" is a big if, and there's matters of copyediting, layout, etc. I've found the help of editorial and graphics departments at major journals invaluable at times, and "just upload them" means at this stage being shackled to LaTeX-type document formatting. I'd rather avoid that. Scientists, brilliant or not, are not designers.
"Scientists, brilliant or not, are not designers." Except in mathematics, physics, and computer science?
It should be noted that ArXiv does not require TeX, you can use anything that can save the document as a PDF. Why should all the papers be slaved to the same format? Similar to presenting a poster at conference, you can focus on the design if you want (or not).
This is a very big, multi-faceted question. A hidden undertone is whether academic publishers make too much money, which is not something I want to discuss in this answer. Some thoughts on the rest of the question:
Do we need journals? If arXiv is so good, do we need journals at all? Can we do away with journals and just have everyone upload their papers onto arXiv? If you believe we don't need journals entirely then we can also do away with most of the publication costs.
arXiv does have operational costs, so presumably there'd still be a small (say ~$10) charge per uploaded paper, which is a far cry from typical OA costs. On the other hand this would be the end of peer review (at least organized peer review), it would make science communication more difficult, and authors from developing countries could really struggle. Whether or not this is worth it regardless is up to your perspective. This is the most drastic option; for everything below I assume "yes we do need journals".
Assuming we need journals, costs are to be expected. Who pays for these then? Realistically there're only a few options:
Authors. This is open access. OA has the fundamental problem of conflict of interest. Since only accepted papers generate revenue for the publisher, the publisher (and by extension the editorial board) is incentivized to accept papers. The COI can potentially be sidestepped by charging a (substantial) submission fee. Is the academic community willing to accept this, knowing there is a nontrivial chance of rejection? I don't know the answer to this; your guess is as good as mine.
Readers, i.e. pay-per-view, if you want to view the paper then you pay for it. This is likely doable but an administrative hassle. It's much easier to log in to your university's library and then access every paper, rather than work through payment every time you want to read something. (Also usage statistics for most papers are very low indeed.)
Universities. This is the current arrangement for subscription journals. A potential cost is that the university also pays for papers that its academics don't read (however you can be sure your library tracks usage statistics, which it uses to decide which journals to subscribe to).
Advertisers. Does not work in practice since demand for advertising in academic journals is too low to sustain the journal.
The general public. This is how things work for non-academic books: the author writes, gets paid a royalty, and the general public pays for the books. The problem with this is that academic papers are pretty bloody impossible to sell to the general public. They're so dense that undergraduates can't understand them, let alone the general public.
Funding agencies. "Someone" pays the publisher, which then operates the journal with free submission and free access. This is the diamond open access model. The problem is who that "someone" should be. If it's a university, then we're effectively back at option #3, worded differently. If it's an academic society, then the question shifts to where they are getting the money from, and likely means they have less money to do other activities like outreach. If it's the government, then unless they put more money into academia, they'll have to move money away from somewhere else, most likely research funding. Is the community willing to take a collective funding cut so there's money to use for this? Again, your guess is as good as mine.
Ultimately, if you can think of a stronger business model, you can put it into practice and it'll probably supplant the former one. The fact that the status quo has largely remained is, I would say, an indication the current business model is the most reliable, however flawed it might be.
Universities do not have to splurge on journals. If you think your university is splurging, then you must consider journals to be a luxury. However, a university with no journal subscriptions would not be able to attract faculty or students.
In this answer I tried to describe the main strategies of the Open Access movement.
I would though address few points in your question:
Why do universities spend lots of money to publish in third-party journals?
Fomite says, "First, they're not paying money to publish in the journals. They're paying money to be able to read said journals.".
This is an important distiction.
Why universities don't always publish journals (not necessarily OA, for that matter) is more of an organizational issues. Not all departments have time and resources to do teaching, research and also publish peer reviewed journals.
Many do, now, also thanks to free software like Open Journals System(as a mere example, these are the open access journals I used to manage for University of Bologna).
Peer-review is a crucial point here.
The self-archiving strategy of publishing pre-prints in repositories like archive is very important for OA, but doesn't address the need of a validation of publication. The only decent system that academia has found to evaluate publications is the review of its peers (there are also scientometric indicators like Impact Factor, but they do not substitute peer review).
Why should not universities collaborate to create free, open access, peer-reviewed journals?
Why shouldn't they? No reasons, if you ask me.
But read this great joke from Scott Aaronson.
Collaboration is the most crucial issue here.
Academia is a highly competitive social structure. You compete for your PhD, for grant research, for tenure, for gear lab, for everything.
I'm no expert in "history of academia", but I do know that different disciplines (aka, different communities) have different attitude to collaboration.
And I'm merely thinking about scholars collaboration between themselves in writing articles or doing research.
When you need a particle collider in order to do research, you are in the need of different scholars, different universities, different nations to collaborate at very different levels. This is the main reason, for example, why the field of High Energy Physics is one of the most advanced in Open Access (i.e. "SCOAP3 is a partnership of thousands of libraries and key funding agencies and research centers. Working with publishers, they converted key journals in the field of High-Energy Physics to Open Access at no cost for authors").
Collaboration is difficult, and it is not what academia is doing best.
Academia is a very complex social and economic structure. You cannot fund a system in competition and then ask the same system to set up an mass-scale collaboration to take over the publishers that took advantage of the scattered monadism of academia in the first place.
Publishing journals costs money. If a university publishes journals itself, it bears the direct costs. If a university subscribes to journals, it pays for those costs indirectly. Either way, universities must spend money on journals.
A discussion of why universities pay fees for some journals that are much higher than what is required to run the journal would be useful but not in the scope of the question as written.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.429152 | 2012-04-30T13:40:59 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1322",
"authors": [
"Anonymous Mathematician",
"Aubrey",
"Bravo",
"BuddhistBeast",
"David Ketcheson",
"DorianT",
"Fomite",
"Gene Rhough",
"Hannes Ovrén",
"JeffE",
"Noah Snyder",
"Rich Signell",
"Ryan",
"Soykan",
"Sylvain Peyronnet",
"WetlabStudent",
"a3nm",
"eykanal",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10155",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12234",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12241",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12251",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12280",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12281",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12282",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12289",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12379",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1353",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17423",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26682",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8101",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/97121",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/97122",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/97214",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/97223",
"naturalproducts",
"oksure",
"user12241",
"user454322",
"user67019",
"wcc",
"路俊飞"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
1243 | Apply to PhD after expulsion from another
I was in a math PhD program for one year during the 2009-2010 year in US (with funding by school). I was expelled due to low grades (nothing related to violence/cheating). During the Fall of 2010, I took some classes at a local university and applied to Master's programs during that time. I went to a Master's program in math in Canada from 2011-2013 (currently there).
My plan is to apply to top PhD programs in the US in math this Fall and enter at the Fall of 2013. I have a 4.0 Masters GPA, >95% GRE math scores, publications, and excellent relations with Master's advisors. I have developed great focus and motivation and have rid myself of procrastination which plagued me the past. I am also sure I want to continue doing mathematical research.
I am sure that when applying to PhDs, mentioning the expulsion from years ago will only hurt me so I intend to not mention it (I have not told anyone about this either). My question is if PhD programs will discover this hidden information when I apply? What if when I apply for fellowships?
Was it technically called "expulsion" or were you "asked to leave" or "not allowed to continue"? Expulsion sounds rather extreme, whereas the others don't have the same strong connotation.
I would strongly recommend mentioning it briefly somewhere in your application, with a very short explanation of why it is irrelevant (for example: you were less mature and motivated, so you procrastinated and your grades suffered, but your performance over the last few years proves that these issues are no longer a problem). Don't emphasize it too much, but your best strategy is not to hide anything.
You are right that it might hurt your chances, but I do not think it will hurt them much. If it came up in a committee I was on, I would argue against worrying about it, if the rest of your application was compelling. If you do not mention it, then you'll have an unexplained gap of a year in your CV, and that will also raise suspicions, since such a gap is usually a sign of something that did not work well. If you don't want to mention it or have a gap, then the alternative is lying.
You should definitely not lie, by giving an incomplete list of previous schools attended if asked for a complete list, or by giving a different explanation of what you were doing during that year. You might get away with the lie, since it can be difficult to detect missing information or disprove vague excuses, but if the lie is detected then it will ruin your chances of admission. (And committee members might even mention it to friends at other schools, if they are irritated enough about the lie.) Even if you get admitted, the lie may also come up again to haunt you in the future. For example, a faculty member from your old school may someday visit to give a talk, recognize you, and mention the connection to your advisor. Or you and your advisor may someday end up attending a conference at that university. You probably won't get kicked out of grad school if the lie is discovered later, but it's technically possible (at least at some universities), and in any case you do not want to be known among the faculty as someone who lied about his/her past.
You've already done the hard part of moving beyond this issue and demonstrating that it is no longer a problem, and that will minimize the risks of honesty. By contrast, the risks of dishonesty may follow you for years.
Once again, this answer pretty much says it all. The best strategy is honesty—although downplaying it would also be a good option (don't dwell on it, just state that it happened, won't happen again, and move on).
If I was a Federal Title IV Financial Assistance recipients during the 1st phd, will them knowing affect the possibility of me being funded since there is also a federal component and not just the school?
@user717: Sorry, I don't know. My guess is that it wouldn't hurt you, but I really don't understand the technicalities of these programs. (Under some circumstances, withdrawing from school requires you to pay back some of the financial aid or loans you were given. I don't have a reason to think it eliminates future eligibility, but I have never looked into this.) I'd be very careful with this: you really don't want to get in trouble for fraud with federal student aid, which is much more serious legally than what you tell the university.
I think if you owed anything in the past, they would have told you, so you should be safe there. The fraud issue would be if you apply for financial assistance without mentioning this and end up getting funding you aren't eligible for, and then the government discovers it later. (I don't think this is a real concern - as far as I know, there is no eligibility issue in the first place - but there is no sense in taking chances.)
Got cut off before finishing above.
I was not told to pay anything back. I hope I don't get into trouble for fraud; I never had any intention of going down that route.
But if I were to mention the expulsion in the statement of purpose, how should I phrase it to best downplay the past(i.e. what kind of reasons are considered least severe). I heard online somewhere else that one should never mention negative events or just the bare minimum if required(e.g. send bad gre score but no explanation of why) even if they were beyond my control.
Thank you for your advice.
As for how to downplay it, I'd recommend listing the school you attended for one year in your CV (but you don't need to go into detail there about what happened or why you left), and putting two sentences in your statement: one that explains that you left because of procrastination/poor grades [or whatever], and one that points out that your track record since then proves that these issues are no longer a concern. I'd avoid putting this at the beginning of the statement, which would emphasize it, or the very end, since the end may stick in the reader's head. Somewhere in the middle is good.
If the faculty do not know about it at my current master's program, is it best to not tell them now?
You also don't have to say explicitly that you were expelled. For example, you can say something like "You'll see from my CV that I studied for a year at X, before leaving when it became clear that I was not yet ready for graduate school. I took a few courses at Y to strengthen my background, and then I entered the master's program at Z, where I have received excellent grades and published several papers."
I'd suggest giving anyone writing a letter of recommendation a copy of your application materials. People at your current school may learn about it from that, but I don't think it will be a big deal. (If you just left it off your previous application, without lying about it, then don't worry. If you told them something that was explicitly untrue, then you'll have to figure out how to handle that - for example, then it might be easiest just not to give them that information. But one advantage of mentioning it briefly on your next application would be never having to worry about this again.)
I completely agree that you don't have to go into details. Just mention very briefly that you did a phd for one year but you were not ready for it so you decided to strengthen your background and lay a good foundation for a good phd program and you're ready and highly motivated now. Only go into details when someone asks for them. And try not to focust on that fact. Sometimes when we know something, we think, that others are also focused on that fact, but frankly nobody cares that much. So, leave that behind but simultaneously be honest.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.431163 | 2012-04-23T01:54:46 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1243",
"authors": [
"Anonymous Mathematician",
"Dave Clarke",
"Rachit Jain",
"aeismail",
"aleksis.paul",
"bordart",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15166",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/56755",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/56756",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/717",
"user717"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
29620 | What do I do if a professor at a foreign university doesn't respond to my emails?
I want to know about appropriate actions to take when not receiving an e-mail reply from professors after 2 to 3 weeks of sending an e-mail.
When writing my e-mails, I try to highlight questions and important points leaving other details in normal style to make the reader quickly understand what am I asking for. Additionally, I start the e-mail with Dear Professor , I conclude with a respectful salutation form and I proof read the text of the e-mails multiple times. I am sending e-mails to professors asking them for a graduation project proposal.
E-mails are sent to professors responsible for European or North American funded research projects.
Professors to whom I sent e-mails are from various institutions and countries (USA, Canada, Switzerland).
The same problem is faced in previous occasions when I needed to send e-mails for various purposes but I don't receive replies except for one or two times.
I tried twice sending reminders after a reasonable time (one to two weeks) of sending the first e-mail but no response is received!
N.B: if it's helpful to mention, my field is not covered by any research lab and not taught in any university in my country.
And this is what makes the problem more complicated!
I'm afraid I find your question unclear. Are you trying to find collaborators, a post-doc position, or to become a PhD or Master's student?
Thank you for your comment.
I am trying to reach researchers in bioinformatics (affiliated to foreign universities and research centers) in order to get an engineering graduation project proposal as I have previous research experience in the field.
So it's about getting involved in a research project as an undergraduate engineering student.
Is it clearer now ?
As this is about an undergraduate research project, and because the answer would be different for postgraduate research projects, then this question is off-topic.
@EnergyNumbers I don't think so since I had previous research experience as a graduate student and research assistant !
I chose to do engineering studies for some reasons.
It results in an official status as an undergraduate student but in fact it's about doing research to enrich scientific literature and get a published paper (as I have done that before).
The issue here is about procedures to reach foreign professors for serious participation in research projects.
I have a hard time understanding this question. You are sending profs. in different countries requests for graduation projects? What answer are you hoping for?
@xLeitix I am expecting proposals from these professors to work with them on ongoing research projects related to my studies and research interests.
@ML_TN It is very ambitious to hope that profs. that you do not even know personally will offer you to work with them based on a cold email. The fact that they do not answer should presumably be interpreted as "not interested".
@xLeitix is there a more acceptable way to do that, knowing that I share some common research interests with some of these professors and it has been mentioned in the CV I attach to each e-mail ?
@ML_TN It is not the mail or the form that is a problem - it is simply that professors can't take up every student that "shares some interests with them", even if the student is not even enrolled in their university. Professors only have a finite amount of time.
@EnergyNumbers: Questions about getting involved in university-level research are almost always on-topic, even if they're asked by people who are undergraduates (or even HS students).
I wonder how different this is to other sales pitches? Yes it's a professor but you can treat him/her just like any potential client/business partner/employer. If there's no reply in a few days just assume that he's not interested at your particular pitch. On the other hand he could be too busy for you at the time. In the latter case, you can try pinging him again when you have something new.
You formulate a question about email contact with professors. But from the comments, it seems you actually want to know how to get involved in a research field that is not present in your country. Maybe you'll get more helpful answers by explicitly asking that question.
If it is Don Knuth, you should at least wait a year before assuming he didn't read it.
@silvado The goal was to know how to proceed when I get no responses then comments led to the greater goal which is getting involved in Bioinformatics.
Don't you think that asking the question as you suggested will lead to the same responses (being recommended, going through the university and official channels, applying to a M.Sc or Ph.D program, having a highly cited Paper in the field ..) ?
@ML_TN : Your problem is that you don't know a way to get what you want. Learning to ask clear questions in writing on a website like this helps you. Describe your situation and what you want and if you are lucky someone has a helpful suggestion.
There are many people that do the same thing. Some professors get similar emails almost daily. After reading some emails, CVs and proposals like that (even I, as a PhD student, get some) it quickly becomes clear that most are 1) unrelated to the adressee's research, 2) sent by unqualified applicants and 3) sent to anybody with a university address. Experience that a couple of times and you delete the next one without opening it.
Not enough for a full answer, but as a professor, I can tell you that these letters are essentially spam to me. You're trying to cold-sell me something, just like the spam emails, and there are a lot of you. I have no idea what a graduation project proposal is. I can guess, but it sounds like something that involves a lot of work for me. If you want to know about something, I'll be more than happy to answer. One thing I can tell you doesn't get answers is someone in a different field clearly just fishing for assistanceship money.
Much of what you write is unclear. a) "I email professors asking them for a graduation project proposal." Does that you mean you suggest a project to them, or you ask them to suggest a project to you? To be funded by who, supervised by who, conducted in which country? b) First you say "graduate project", then you say "getting involved in a research project as an undergraduate engineering student". Which is it? c) You say "my field is not covered by any research lab and not taught in any university in my country" Then it isn't your field; it's your proposed field, or desired field...
...but since you're not even their graduate student, nor are you applying to be their grad student, why on earth would they respond? What form of response exactly are you even expecting? This sounds like a waste of both of your time. Much better to try to write a (draft) paper in that area, then try to submit it to publications which at least give decent review feedback.
Or, apply to their Bioinformatics courses as a grad student, already. Or else get a job in a Bioinformatics company and work your way up.
I get emails like this all the time and never reply. I can't imagine that anyone would give you a positive response, and I don't think there is anything you can do that will result in you getting what you want.
I think that my policies for responding to email are pretty typical.
Aside from "professional business stuff" (e.g. invitations to speak, referee requests, inquiries from the media, etc), I generally only respond to emails from strangers in the following situations.
Technical questions about my papers (or related things, e.g. my answers on math overflow). These always get a response, though sometimes I can take a little while if I'm particularly busy (e.g. when traveling).
Mathematical questions. I'll always answer these if they are close to my research interests and are at a high level, and otherwise it depends on my mood. The speed is similar to questions of type 1.
Questions from students at Rice. These always get some kind of response, usually very quickly (sometimes that response is a request that they come to my office and chat). I'll also usually respond to questions from students who have some kind of indirect connection with me (e.g. I'll respond to questions from students of my collaborators).
Inquiries about our graduate program. For specific question, I'll usually quickly respond. For things that seem more like requests to work with me, if they sound serious then they get a very short reply with a link to the webpage saying how to apply to our PhD program (and a sentence about how I don't take students until they have been accepted and passed their quals). Sometimes they sound ridiculous (e.g. someone who has an engineering background and is clearly emailing everyone they can find on the internet), and they get no response.
Other than that, I just don't have the time. I have enormous amounts of stuff that I have to do that is directly related to teaching (at Rice; I'm not paid to teach anyone else) and research. I'm sorry that you can't get help from your own university, but sadly there just isn't anything that I can do about that.
+1 for first paragraph of your answer and [...] otherwise it depends on my mood.
@Andy Putman
Thank you Professor Putman for your answer.
What do you suggest as a solution to overcome Professors' rejection of such e-mails ?
I want to approach professors working on Bioinformatics who are concentrated in anglo-saxon universities.
This continuous rejection, even though being enthusiastically willing to participate in the research efforts is frustrating.
Additionally, being a student from the North African region will reduce my chances to get an answer to zero !
How are we supposed to work with renowned scientists while the unique available way to communicate is cut-off?
@ML_TN : I don't think there is anything you can do (the only thing I can think of is applying to graduate schools abroad in the usual manner). You are asking people to do a large amount of unpaid work to help you. It just isn't going to happen. And it isn't being from North Africa -- you would get a similar response to unsolicited requests like this no matter where you lived.
@AndyPutman usually when someone will be supervised in a funded research project Ph.D students or other group members will do the supervision and the Professor (responsible for the project) won't generally get involved in this task and he will get later all the praise when his name will appear on the paper containing the research results.
I am just trying to reach the director to get me in the group and give me a general description of my task and I am not asking for more than that.
What about "enthusiastic students could contact me on this e-mail" that we could find on professors pages?
@ML_TN You are truly missing the point. What you are asking for is never going to happen. You are not a student attending the school where these people teach. You are not a student of a colleague. You are a complete stranger with no apparent credentials. It will never happen. As I see it you have three choices to get noticed: 1) Go invent something/write a paper in bioinformatics that gets everyone's attention, 2) change schools where there is a good program (and that only slightly increases your chances as there is a lot of competition), or 3) pay someone a lot up front to help you.
@ML_TN : As par says, this simply isn't how academia works. Period.
(and if they have something asking students to contact them for positions, almost certainly they mean students at their own universities; if you want to work with someone, apply to go to graduate school at their university)
I work(ed) and live with a number of academics (aka my family and friends) and agree with the above with one caveat; it is possible (but not easy at all) to get responses to requests from professors whom you do not already work with by "networking" with them at conferences and impressing them in that situation. This method is hard work, costs a great deal in conference fees, and has a very low success rate. @AndyPutman has given you by far the best advice (+1)
What do you suggest as a solution to overcome Professors' rejection of such e-mails? — I suggest a stiff drink, a walk on the beach, and an adjustment of your expectations.
@ML_TN One way that might work: create an actual, original, decent piece of research, write it up, put it on arXiv and pitch it to the people you write to (mail only such that are very close to your topic!). If they open your mail and if they skim the article and if they like it, you have given an indication that working with you may be fruitful. Under these circumstances, you may get a reply. (I've seen it happen. Once.) Be interesting, not desperate.
It sounds like you are e-mailing strangers and asking them to tell you what to do. This seems almost certain to fail.
Also, I don't know what a "graduation project proposal" is -- keep in mind that these professors don't know and don't care what the requirements of your university are. They might be willing to help you with their scientific expertise, but you should not ask them for help with anything that doesn't directly relate to what their expertise is in, or where it's not clear what exactly you are asking for.
Here is an e-mail that might get a reply.
Dear Prof. X,
I am a student at University Y where I am interested in bioinformatics. I have to complete a senior research project [... brief details]
One topic I was considering was XYZ. In particular, I was thinking I might try to investigate the effect of ABC on DEF under conditions GHI. [Note: do your own homework here, this should be something intelligent and then they might be willing to provide helpful input] I hope I can ask you two questions: In the first place, do you believe that such an approach is feasible?
If so, since University Y doesn't have much in the way of resources, do you know where I might seek guidance as I work on this?
Thank you very much.
Thank you for the proposed draft.
The template of sent emails are generally as follows:
Saying a word about my current studies
Asking for an opportunity to participate in a specific project (that I give the exact name) in which the professor is involved in
Asking for a proposal in the field (as a graduation project proposal) that he is specialized in
Talking in a small paragraph that I have done previous work in the field without available resources (lack of funding and supervision)
a sentence about the attached C.V
It's almost the same template that you are suggesting
@ML_TN No no no. Not only it's not the same template Anonymous is suggesting; it's very far from it. It's not even remotely close. Detach yourself from your current ideas about what to do, and then reread the comments and answers here.
Too long for comments: both the earlier answers are very apt.
The original poster's comment to the later answer reveals a misapprehension about how things work, and the relative work-load to accomplish certain things.
First, cold-calling is a bad start on anything... unless it is extremely polite, is clearly completely specific to the individual addressed E.g., I respond badly, or, simply, not at all to emails with no "greeting" whatsoever, or do not address me (politely) by name, and/or that give no indication of anything specific to me or my actual work, etc. My reasoning is that I should spend no more effort on a response than is visible in the initial email... especially if I'm being asked to do someone a favor.
Second, asking to participate in a project whose existence is unknown makes the inquiry sound very spam-y, so will invariably get a bad reaction. Already it'd be an uphill battle to get a spot on a project whose existence was known and relevant... since most likely there are more people wanting such spots than there are spots available. Again, you should "do your homework" about existing projects, and their specifics.
Third, asking for a "proposal" is asking for quite a lot, in fact. That is, a coherent, viable, state-of-the-art proposal is something that takes quite a while to craft, and has considerable value of various sorts. In many subjects, the writing-up of such is a major activity. Such things would not be donated to anyone, much less cold-callers, much less cold-callers who send "reminders".
... and this isn't "ungenerousness", it's that many academic research situations are very competitive, especially for funding, and people work full-bore to get that funding, ... leaving not a lot of energy left over to donate to unknown people.
Even if you're cold-calling, giving no or scant information about yourself (except that you're looking for participation in a project in subject X) gives the responder little ground to respond reasonably... and I, for one, am disinclined to go through several emails to extract information that should have been available up-front, etc.
In summary, there simply isn't any powerful way for you to induce responses of the sort that'd directly help you in the way you wish, understandable though your wishes are, and as unfortunate as your local situation may be. Some different path will most likely have to be taken.
Is starting an e-mail with Dear Professor considered as a "cold-calling" ?
Second, the projects I've asked to join are existing and they are regrouping many participants of the same or different universities !
Well, I start the e-mail with presenting my self and I speak later about my work in few words and I attach a CV to the e-mail: isn't that enough as pieces of information ?
It's better than spam to write "Dear Professor ", but still "cold-calling", in that you have no prior acquaintance, and you are asking for something. Attaching a CV is appropriate. Good that you check projects exist and are relevant. Still, people do get many such requests, and many take the view that an inquiry cannot/does not create the burden of response. I myself try to give a brief "thanks for your interest, but sorry, ...", but, mercifully, I don't have to spend too much time doing this each day. Others may feel more pressured, or feel that a brief turn-down won't help anything.
So what to do if sending reminders is not recommended ?
The topic (Bioinformatics) I want to work on is attracting attention of researchers in my country but they are no institutions to recommend or encourage people willing to get in touch and work with prominent researchers abroad.
For the researchers abroad to take inquiries seriously, it would invariably work better (even if not easily accomplishing all desired goals) to have institutions (such as your university) do the inquiring in some quasi-official way. This might not necessarily help you yourself, individually or immediately, but would surely help you and your peer group collectively, and in the long run.
I agree with other respondents that you cannot expect unknown professors to respond to your emails.
Could you join an online community (email list) for your area of research interest? After lurking long enough to understand its culture, could you send a post explaining your situation (being interested in the topic and having nobody to discuss it with in your country) and ask if someone would be willing to comment on your proposal? Alternately, you could send your proposal to the list (although be prepared for it to be torn to shreds). The administrator of the list may be able to advise you on what is appropriate.
Good luck!
As the other answers already tell you, asking for a project proposal is asking for a very big favor, such that cold calling isn't likely to work.
The following piece of information is missing from the discussion as of now, however: many established researchers receive many cold-call requests for doing an internship with them. It is common practice in some countries to have them included in the students' curricula, and thus, it is not uncommon for students to aim high and try to get one at good schools abroad. Quite often, these mails are not very well targeted and researchers getting many of them are quite quick at pressing the "delete" key here.
Your request for a thesis topic/proposal may very easily be seen to fall into this category, even if it does not! Because such a request is so uncommon, people may expect that you would be asking for a (possibly paid) internship or (paid) PhD position in the second mail, and thus may not want to risk to be embarrased that they invested time on the matter if it turns out later that their suspicion was correct. So hitting the delete button quickly is a safe course of action for them.
I second the commenter's suggestion to ask your institution to build the necessary bridges for you. Does your institution already have a scheme for spending a semester abroad? Perhaps you can consider actually doing that?
One additional factor which I think may be useful at least as secondary background information: This sounds a lot like you are trying to bypass the regular admission process. You should start by finding out what it takes to become a student at their Department and follow the same enrollment process as everybody else. If your background and skills are a good fit, you could find yourself in a project even as a junior student (but this is arguably a very optimistic outlook).
I try to be responsive as much as possible, even if I cannot help. However, if I see that the person clearly has no idea what I am working on, tags on some keywords that seem to fit my profile or similar, and I am under time pressure, I won't respond. They haven't spent the effort finding out who they are addressing, and cannot expect effort of politeness in return.
Sometimes, I get what is effectively advice request from students from another university. If they work on something I am interested in, have done good work and bring something to the table, I consider this a collaboration across institutions, and I am happy to engage in it to some extent. However, if it is clearly a supervision request with no benefit to research that I am able to productively carry out, I am not prepared to invest my department's resources (i.e. my time) for this. Supervising my local students, for which I am paid, takes precedence.
I do give, however, brief advice where I can help with a little effort. This should not be extended into a back-and-forth discussion, to not abuse the time of the responder.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.431846 | 2014-10-08T17:35:36 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29620",
"authors": [
"410 gone",
"Adi",
"Alessander Botti Benevides",
"Andy Putman",
"AnonyPostdoc",
"Aravind Ajay",
"Christian",
"Dan",
"Fadecomic",
"InfiniteLooper",
"JeffE",
"Joshua zhang",
"Ksenija Lalovic",
"MD-Tech",
"MD.RANA AHAMED",
"ML_TN",
"Michael",
"Microscone",
"Mitra Fereidouni",
"PlasmaHH",
"Q. Wang",
"Raphael",
"Semme",
"User8738",
"adib",
"aeismail",
"crosvalidateme",
"deshan",
"dmitriy",
"enthu",
"gwding",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10073",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12050",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13942",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1419",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/170464",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17325",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17379",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18111",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18379",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22690",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22719",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4513",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5711",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81528",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81529",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81530",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81534",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81535",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81546",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81547",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81550",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81551",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81553",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81554",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81562",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81565",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81566",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81579",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81636",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81639",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81673",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81829",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"mkennedy",
"par",
"paul garrett",
"silvado",
"smci",
"tux3",
"user81535",
"user81639",
"xLeitix"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
2067 | Is there any reason to get paper reprints of your articles?
Is there any reason to get paper reprints of your articles? Some journals charge for reprints others give them for free. Should I save the trees and not ask for the free ones? Are reprints so important that I should be paying for them?
I guess I should add I have only seen reprints offered in bundles of 100 (maybe 50) and getting 10 does not seem to be possible.
The only time I've ever been asked for journal reprints was by the American Institute of Mathematics. (Yes, that is how they build their reprint library.) I got a stack of 100 (for free) for the first paper I ever published; of those 3000+ pages I managed to give away fewer than 10 so far.
I did it initially so that I would have a nice paper copy of my paper. In principle I could hand these out to my colleagues and other people who were interested in my work.
This is rather out-dated these days. You can just send interested parties a pdf and they can read it on their iPad. Save the trees.
I don't see any reason at all to actually pay for reprints. You have a copy already, right?
Yeah, I rather like paper reprints, but they just aren't very useful. (I've never managed to give away the full set of reprints of any of my older papers, back when they all came with reprints.) It would be nice if one could order, say, five reprints, but that wouldn't be cost effective, and it's certainly more sensible to order no reprints than a lot.
+1 There really is no need for reprints when you can just print your own on a high quality laser printer.
I still like getting a few reprints if possible, because I post many of my papers on the wall outside my office and I think the reprints look nicer than simply printing the pdf (since they're on the paper size that they are typeset for, rather than generic 8.5x11). But as Dave and others have noted, reprints are really a relic from a pre-internet age.
@DanC have you ever been able to get a "few" reprints. It seems like it is always 50 or 100.
@DanielE.Shub I think I typically get 30. The best outcome was when I had a paper with multiple authors. Together we got around 30, of which my share was about 5 or 6.
"save the tree" -- I guess you can view libraries as (useful) CO2 storage facilities, which are sorely needed. ;)
Some journals in chemistry are starting to offer a limited number of downloads of a high-resolution (print quality) file of your paper instead of reprints. Then you can print just the right number that you want to hang on your office door, your mother's refrigerator, etc.
@Raphael, not to by picky, but I would guess that the production of a sheet of paper produces more CO2 than it stores... :)
In the 20 years since I published my first paper, I have been asked for actual paper reprints exactly three times: Twice by researchers, who each asked for one paper by sending a postcard, and once by my tenure committee, who required paper copies of everything I'd ever published. In the latter case, it was much easier to just download and print new copies than to hunt for the official reprints, which are still hding somewhere in the back of some disused filing cabinet. (My university finally stopped requiring tenure applicants to kill forests about two years after I got tenure.)
So I'm gonna go with NO, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to get paper reprints.
In Italy, when you apply for a position, you often have to send together with the paperwork one to three dead-tree copies of your $N$ best papers (or sometimes even of everything you have published).
This can easily amount to several hundred pages; multiply it by the number of positions you will apply for. It may be costly and troublesome to print them from a university printer. And, you know, printers are always low on toner the day before the deadline.
So in this case reprints are handy to have. I assume Italy is not the only country where this happens.
The answer to this question depends on which timeframe you are concerned with, and how optimistic you are about modern technology.
Finding copies of old, paywalled papers can be a problem. Nowadays, most papers are freely available on the web or at least in preprint form from the author's sites. DOI provides a robust way to link to them, even if the actual storage place should change. As the other answers state, you have probably no use for prints now (or in the near future).
However, what happens in the remote future? Once you stop caring -- maybe you switch career or (eventually) die -- the situation is similar with old papers today: readers are at the mercy of publishers. Is your paper still paywalled? Is the publisher still there? Has some search engine cached a version? Can PDF still be read on modern devices? In the worst case, your paper is practically inaccessible.
Does an archived paper copy help? Depends. There is no way any one place keeps hard copies of everything published. You can give your students and close colleagues hard copies for their own use, and maybe they keep so that maybe even in 50 years, an interested student who can not access your paper (easily) can get a copy from their professor that has undiluted value.
For example, Flajolet died. I am certain my boss (who works in closely related field) knew whom to ask for his academic remains. My boss has himself inherited all the paper accumulated and written by his late advisor (one of which I actually retrieved from the archive to check out for an answer on cs.SE; because it was impossible to find on the webs). This is stuff that does not exist on the web, but in real-world networks. For such, paper is important. Maybe that model is doomed given our technological advances, but I have the feeling that it will have its place for some time at least.
As far as I know, the issue of how we can keep our rapidly accumulating mass of data and knowledge at all and also accessible and organised over time is unsolved. It may be useful to keep that in mind.
For archiving reasons, it seems certainly more important that libraries continue to buy print journal versions, than individual researchers ordering reprints?
@silvado: True. Fact is they can't afford most of them, that approach doesn't scale and it creates few points of failure.
Many of these answers look rather unimaginative a few years down the track, and are obviously provided mainly by mathmos and scientists. With the proliferation of digItal and documents circulated by email, your pdf is less likely than ever before to be read. In my experience - having ordered and posted (yes posted) paper offprints - I had a greater response from recipients than if I'd sent a pdf, which people now routinely ignore. Offprints are handsome and suggest thoughtfulness. Save the electronic copy for your promotion application.
Why are you sending your papers to people who did not ask for them?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.433639 | 2012-06-19T13:48:35 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2067",
"authors": [
"Anonymous Mathematician",
"Ben Norris",
"Dan C",
"Fosfor",
"Raphael",
"StrongBad",
"Tobias Kildetoft",
"Willie Wong",
"erensezener",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1069",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1081",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12592",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1419",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7231",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7232",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7233",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/924",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94",
"mye",
"scientifics",
"silvado"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
63793 | How to automatically retrieve journal ranking and quartile from article list
For a grant application I need to generate a list of my supervisor's publications (hundreds of articles) sorted by date, and for each publication they want impact factor, ranking, and quartile ranking of the journal in the year of publication. If I have to look up this manually it will take me a week. I only have the list of the publications in a CV, not even in a citation manager.
Can anybody help? How can this be done semi-automatically?
Sorted by date, is trivial if you have a bibtex file. 100 publications are not usually published in 100 journals, but in a lot less, since many people publish in some "favorite" journals.
Is this your scholarship? If yes, what does it have anything to do with your supervisor's publication list? Are you sure they want his list, not yours?
Are you sure they don't want only the 10 most relevant? Or that there isn't a page limit?
@Alexandros I don't have a bibtex file and they ask info for each year! so it changes every year.
@scaaahu it's a scholarship part of a joint doctorate, they ask specifically "Qualifications and scientific output of the supervisor" divided by category.
Have you asked your supervisor? Most authors have their publication (even partly) in bibtex format.
@Alexandros does bibtex solve the lookup of IF and ranking? I already have their publications sorted by date.
@Alexandros I'm not convinced, for academia as a whole, that "Most authors have their publication in bibtex format". I've used it all of...once...in my entire career.
The typical place to obtain journal IF and ranking data in a searchable and sorted format is your institution's library. They usually subscribe to commercial ranking services that provide spreadsheets (typically Excel).
If you are a member of the institution (researcher, student) this should be made available to you. Depending on the type of subscription, the library might be reluctant to just share the file via email (in my experience, they are usually allowed to do so). In this case, ask if you can use one of the library's computers to extract the information you need.
Once you have the list of journals sorted, it'll be a bit of legwork to match articles to their respective journals, but a hundred should be doable in a few hours
@user405 well a question about how to code a script or use Exel macros to automatically match journal metrics to the bibliography should be on topic on other websites on the SE network.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.434227 | 2016-02-22T11:35:48 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/63793",
"authors": [
"Alexandros",
"Cape Code",
"Federico Prat",
"Fomite",
"Fábio Dias",
"GOLD WIN678",
"HASS",
"Harg a spammer",
"Heens",
"Herman Toothrot",
"Kanish",
"Nobody",
"Paul Brodersen",
"TuringTux",
"Yipeng Cheng",
"glenviewjeff",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10042",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178812",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178813",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178814",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178826",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178827",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178855",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178985",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178986",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178990",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/188578",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4050",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41208",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
43711 | When is it appropriate to contact the editor before submission to avoid rejection without review?
Manuscripts submitted to a journal are often directly rejected by the editor without going out for review. I find this acceptable with the caveat that it's a huge waste of time having to reformat and readjust word length. Journals with high rejection rates should have an abstract only submission as a first step.
Anyhow, given this current situation: should I contact the editor of one or more journals that I think would be a good target for my manuscript before formally submitting my manuscript?
Some journals offer this option but others don't. So I am not sure if it is acceptable to or if just by sending an abstract I will somehow limit my chances of getting to the review stage.
This would depend on the culture of the subject of the papers, but in mathematics I expect that this would just annoy the editors.
What area are you in?
Why do you think that a rejection without review is a bad thing and should be avoided? How is it different from "contacting the editor before submission"?
@Dmitry: if it is a lot of work to format the manuscript to the standards of the publisher, an immediate rejection wastes that work. It would seem reasonable to want the ability to inquire if the paper has enough interest to make this work worthwhile. (This is perhaps an argument in favor of journals that don't require formatting to their standards until after acceptance.)
@Andy: Of course, math journals also rarely have strict word limits, and are often flexible about the formatting of the initial submission, so a formal submission is only a little more work than an informal inquiry.
I wonder if you could put together some reusable macros to make it easier to move back and forth between the various formats.... Also, a more experienced colleague may be able to help you judge the best fit journal for you to submit to.
@aparente001 the only thing I can automate is creating the bibliography. But when you have to trim a paper from 7000 words to 4000 words just to see it rejected after a few days, that can't be automated.
I've voted to put this question on hold until the author specifies field, because it is critical for getting a good answer to this question.
I've contacted journals before submission, but usually only to check how long they take to do a review, and to confirm/check that they do quick rejections. Quick rejections are good - it's horrible when they keep you waiting six months only to send you a review telling you your manuscript sucks or is unreadable. I always wonder that, if it is so bad, why didn't they reject it quicker? I don't think they can tell you whether it will be sent to review without actually seeing the manuscript. You could also ask them how much they care about formatting. Perhaps they don't, then you don't have to bother with any special formatting, you can just use a generic template, like the LaTeX article class.
If they tell you that "your article sucks" and they're true, then it's probably your mistake. But what's really annoying is if they reject it after several months for "not fitting" -- which is something a bit harder to decide.
@yo' Well, if they don't like it that is fine. But in that case, it should not take them months to arrive at a decision.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.434498 | 2015-04-16T18:48:09 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43711",
"authors": [
"Alema416",
"Andy Putman",
"Dmitry Savostyanov",
"Faheem Mitha",
"Herman Toothrot",
"Hong Cheng",
"Jay",
"Moses",
"Nate Eldredge",
"aparente001",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118590",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118592",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118694",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118697",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118698",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1471",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17418",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/285",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32436",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4050",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4513",
"jakebeal",
"red11",
"yo'"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
43650 | Is it acceptable for professors to listen to music using headphones in the workplace when expecting student contact?
In my institution, I see a lot of research students and staff members listen to music using headphones in the workplace. It is a matter of personal preference, and I cannot see a problem in that while it doesn't interfere with communications at work.
Is that behaviour acceptable for a professor during a time in which s/he expects students to approach her/him?
Yes it is acceptable.
Sounds reasonable. Unless you are talking about playing Sir Mix-a-Lot over speakers.
Once while I was student I had to meet a faculty member; I went to their office but their door was almost (but not quite) closed. So I knocked, and I was told to come in - they mentioned that they had been playing Diablo 2. I found that perfectly acceptable.
That depends. Are they listening to some kind of modern trash or something classical, like Zeppelin..? :-)
True story: One of my professors asked a student to postpone their scheduled meeting later in the afternoon 'cause the professor was reading a novel at that time.
I have to admit, I'm confused by this question. I'm still a human being. If no one's here, why can't I listen to my jam? I might get up and dance a little, too.
@Fadecomic, this confusion lead to asking such a question!
Yes, of course. As long as they turn it down so that they can talk over it when the student comes by, why would it be unacceptable to have music on while they are waiting? If they are listening on headphones while waiting, it would be preferable if they could see the student approaching, but there's nothing unprofessional about it even if they don't. The student can knock on the door, wall, floor, desk, etc. in order to get their attention.
You assume that they use crappy headphones that let through ambient noise, or speficially by open ones (that annoy coworkers, if any) for the purpose. I think if you listen to music you should have a note on the door prompting an appropriate visual cue. Furthermore, I think cutting yourself off completely (i.e. no eye contact possible without entering the room) during visiting hours is unprofessional, but that's just my opinion. Not turning off music and/or putting down headphone when in a conversation, on the other hand, is clearly not only unprofessional, but also rude.
@Raphael, I think your standards of professionalism are too high and I think your are reading waaaaay too much into what I have assumed. If the professor has their back to the door and headphones on when waiting for students to come by office hours, I would find it mildly annoying if I had to knock, then knock louder, and then walk over and tap them on the shoulder. I agree that it's rude not to turn down music or take off headphones when actually talking to a student. But having a little light classical or whatever on in the background while talking is definitely not unprofessional.
There seem to be two issues in the question and the answers, one is if it is ok with headphones on and the other to play music in the office during hours when student contact is expected.
Headphones. Wearing headphones is not exactly inviting to conversation but signalling "I want to be undisturbed" so clearly not the best way to have students approach you during office hours without invoking some extra discomfort to at least some.
Music. Music is a personal taste. What is soothing to one person may be almost intolerable to another. During a meeting one expects full attention from, in this case, both parties. Thus having music on does not signal that focus is on the potential visitor but that it is divided and hence that the visitor is of less importance and maybe intruding. Turning it down when a visitor arrives, anything less would be rude but why insist on music when expecting visits? At other times, no problem.
A professor-student meeting is not less professional than, say meeting your bank representative or meeting with public officials. How would you feel if you were met under similar circumstances in business of public servants? that is the sort of question one would need to ask and sometimes even what other would think.
So, acceptable? Well, it depends on what signals one wants to send. It will be up to each person to figure out the optimal meeting atmosphere. As for the case portrayed in the question, I vote for far less than optimal.
Having headphones on is in general not a signal that I don't want to be disturbed. Having my door closed is, at least in France. At my Czech university, I'd probably simply lock the door to signal that.
The point is not how you see it but how you are perceived by others. Having good intentions is one thing but how others see it another.
This is my experience with one university in Prague and one in Paris. In both places, many people listen to music, either loud (if they're alone in the office) or in headphones. If someone walks in, you simply mute the music or put off the headphones,
Headphones used to have that connotation, but I feel like that's gone away with the advent of pretty much everything under the sun being able to play music. I would wager that the millenial generation certainly does not find wearing headphones to be "do not disturb" more than a "I'm enjoying music."
Put a sign on the door. 2) Closed headphones don't disturb anybody, but also cut you off quite well.
To expand on Peter Jannsen's answer, it dpends a lot on the setting. If you are simply having office hours where students MAY come and ask you questions if they need, but do not have any specific scheduled meetings, then music seems completely appropriate, especially if you pause it when a student comes in. If you have a scheduled appointment, unless it is soft classical (you know, what they call "elevator music") it is most likely not appropriate. If you are working in a research setting with just the possibility that others may show up and want to interact, I would go back to the non-offensive music and pausing when someone desires to interact to show you are giving them your attention. Headphones are not a good idea unless you are working on a solo research project and don't really anticipate others or welcome interruptions, unless you are using a single-ear Bluetooth headset where they cannot even tell if you are listening to music or not, with volume set low enough that if someone comes in and speaks you can hear them clearly.
I have a different opinion: no. First, the academia is an institution, so everybody work for academia represent the academia in each ambit.
Second, on the web (blog, social network and so on) we protect our privacy and we try to show an upright behavior, even more so we must do it in the academic world.
For these reasons I think that is not a good picture for a professors to listen to music using headphones or not.
I am not contrary because I hate music, I am contrary because I think that a student that see a professor listen music (the headphones are only an aggravating) during his work might think that his work is not important as he say. Of course this is not true, but... if the student go away without that the professor can see him?
I didn't downvote, but I don't see how listening music on a lonely job is a sign of unimportance of the job.
Maybe I have explained wrong: I think that when someone represent an institution he have to have behavior upright. Of course, during analysis of data laboratory, or other work of this kind, you can listen music. But if you are expecting students no. But this is only a my opinion.
When I expect a student, I only have to make sure I don't overhear him knocking. This is done by leaving the door open so that he doesn't have to knock. As soon as he arrives, I remove the music. I don't see anything unprofessional in that.
Yes, maybe you have reason. My attitude, maybe it's too rigid. And we close the doors only when we are absent. Like you.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.434807 | 2015-04-15T17:36:50 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43650",
"authors": [
"Ahmad",
"Aru Ray",
"Bill Barth",
"Bitwise",
"BloodyGoldfish",
"Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні",
"Compass",
"Fadecomic",
"Giacomo Alessandroni",
"KharoBangdo",
"Kompanycoder",
"Orion",
"Peter Jansson",
"Qqq Zzz",
"Raphael",
"Ricardo",
"Sandra Mitchell",
"Stressedphdstudent ",
"User1000547",
"arpit Jain",
"dst",
"frustratedwithmysupervisor",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11393",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118409",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118410",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118411",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118413",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118416",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118451",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118460",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118495",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118512",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118514",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118519",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12064",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1419",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1471",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17379",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22013",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28699",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4018",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6862",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/948",
"yo'"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
2513 | Is Lambert Academic Publishing a reputable company?
I was contacted by the Acquisition editor of Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP) to publish my bachelor's thesis as a printed book. Is LAP any good? I have no idea about it; I have just heard that it's a freelance publishing house.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDM_Publishing (and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Author_mill )
i got one day before yesterday :O
No.
Publishing a thesis this way has no academic value whatsoever. (I.e., it will lead to no prestige, respectability, credit, etc. For academic purposes, it will not count as a published book, except for interfering with other forms of publication.) LAP's business model seems to be collecting as many theses and other unpublished academic documents as they can and then selling printed copies. I don't see much value to this, but it could be harmless if you do not plan to publish the thesis in any other form. If you like the idea of seeing your thesis for sale on amazon.com, then you should investigate other options as well and choose whatever seems like the best deal. However, it's unlikely that you'll make any money from this, and certainly no more than a small amount, so you'll be contributing more to the academic community if you make the thesis available for free online.
See also I Sold My Undergraduate Thesis to a Print Content Farm for a detailed account of LAP's business practices.
+1 if you want your stuff to be seen/read, put it online for free, any other means will hinder accessibility.
thanks ... i will reconsider my decision and putting it online for free seems better
Note that putting it online also counts as publishing to some people and can interfere with preparing other scholarly publications based on the work.
To give more info i have already published 3 research papers in open access journals from my thesis
Agreeing: if your goal is accessibility, such a publication is not good. If your goal is "credit/status", it is completely worthless. True, putting things on-line (on your own web page of some sort, or arXiv) is sometimes (aggressively, for ulterior purposes) construed as "bad publication". But good journals, while occasionally quibbling in some essentially meaningless ways, will not object to, for example, a "preliminary version" being on-line. (They may object to the fruits of their copyeditors being put on-line for free...)
No, it is not.
See this review from Jeffrey Beall:
http://scholarlyoa.com/2012/11/05/lambert-academic-publishing-a-must-to-avoid/#more-921
(I highly recommend checking his list of 'predatory academic publishers' and reporting any new one you see to him).
Or this blog entry:
http://chrisnf.blogspot.com/2010/06/lambert-academic-publishing-continues.html
It's what people started to call a 'predatory publisher'
It will bring you nothing but an expensive hard copy of what you apparently already published. Your local printing joint will probably do a better job, for less $.
Although it may seem harmless at first, there is one thing that is very important to bear in mind when you intend to publish your work: You do NOT want your name nor work associated with any dubious publishers, editors, conferences, journals, etc, as it may be harmful, e.g. you may end up having your high-quality work published amongst several low-quality ones.
Therefore, in my opinion, you should not risk Lambert, as they do not have any peer reviewing nor seem to enforce any quality standards.
Good god, no, avoid anything from Lambert like the plague.I bought a Lap Lambert publication online from Amazon without checking on the publisher first. It was on a topic that was relevant to my thesis and I felt I should check this book out. It's called "Aspects of Neuroses in Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy" by a Mona Radwan from Cairo university. I paid a lot of money, a total of $154 for quick postage, because I was anxious to read it, thinking it might cover material in my own work, necessitating changes to my own thesis. I also thought that if it was an astute and well researched piece of work it might be very useful and take my own arguments in new and fruitful directions. But when I read the book I was appalled. You can see my one star review of it on Amazon if you care to read it, at http://www.amazon.com/Aspects-neuroses-barkers-regeneration-trilogy/dp/3848406403/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454636030&sr=1-1&keywords=mona+radwan
I could not believe a publisher would allow its name to be associated with such a shoddy product. Even the blurbs on the back cover are very badly worded and punctuated. The contents of the book are poorly formatted. There are terrible problems with the thesis itself, in punctuation, structure, citation, referencing, style and level of research, indicating either that Radwan submitted it before her thesis was examined or before receiving comments from supervisors, because so much is wrong with this as a doctoral thesis. I am making this comment to warn everyone away from anything that comes out of this dreadful shambles of a publishing house. Avoid it like the plague. I have been burned. Save yourself.
I don't see your one star review when I follow the Amazon link, just a five star non review.
Publish them online for maximum impact or try a genuine academic publisher for prestige. Lambert will basically offer to print out individual copies of your thesis for a very high price (thus making a lot of money). Plus they use fake accounts in social media among other shady practices:
http://journalology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lambert-academic-publishing-or-how-not.html
Some may see it as a benefit. :)
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.435565 | 2012-07-19T14:56:36 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2513",
"authors": [
"Ben Norris",
"Developer ",
"J W",
"J Wang",
"JeffE",
"Niels",
"Phys_asr",
"RougeSegwayUser",
"SeeSharp",
"StNick",
"WTrott",
"Zenon",
"babulus",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12339",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/174905",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20501",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/257",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40681",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40695",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40696",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40755",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40787",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50100",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50130",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50135",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6247",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6248",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/682",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/72439",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/924",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"jules van horen",
"mctylr",
"paul garrett",
"pgmank",
"user114021",
"user72439",
"vini"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
79977 | MSc vs. BSc admission GPA for an application to a PhD program
I am currently attending a BSc in CS from a research university. I should end up with a MSc in Software Verification.
I wish to apply to a research university in EU, UK, or Switzerland, for a PhD, later on, (really interested in Oxford, since they have a research group that could turn on as a natural progression to my master's course, in alternative, I am interested in EPFL or in ETH's Computer Systems group) since I am interested in doing research and applied research in the future (I am already reading some papers from these Universities to have my ideas straight).
The research areas I'm interested in are: Computer Systems (OS, Distributed Systems), Software Verification, Compilers.
However, probably my master's grades will be actually much better than my BSc grades. That said, my BSc grades won't be low, but they won't be top 0,1% either. My question is: From your experience, is the MSc GPA valued more or less than the BSc GPA for a PhD admission?
Typically, grades in undergraduate work are weighted more heavily than grades in graduate work. This is because your graduate work in general is focused on the research you do and the papers you publish as opposed to merely classwork. However, this is not to say that the answer to your question is clearly black or white. Indeed, any reasonable school will look at all aspects of the applicants (grades in both undergrad and beyond, summer projects, research experience, letters of recommendation, etc) when deciding if they are a good fit for their program. There are no doubt countless examples of students whose grades differed from the other applicants, but were accepted anyway.
That being said, it's usually seen as a positive if your grades trend upwards near the end of undergraduate work and the beginning of graduate work. The idea is that if an applicant shows recent signs of improving, they (hopefully) are more likely to continue improving after joining the new program.
Finally, it's worth noting that different schools (and even different departments within a single school) handle their admissions process differently. As always with these types of specific questions, it's a good idea to ask the school's department directly about the matter. In particular, I'm sure that there's a contact in the CS department in Oxford you could email who could be able to answer this question directly.
+1 for the last sentence. Ask someone at Oxford, they'll be happy to help.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.436271 | 2016-11-16T08:36:02 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/79977",
"authors": [
"astronat supports the strike",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49043"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
60839 | Is there any guide or organisation solution for increasing utilization of laboratory and lab equipment?
We obtained a report for the last academic year. A shocking revelation was that the capacity utilization* of lab equipment, laboratories, instruments and machines is only 37%. Everyone seems to be happy with this result, most of the comments are that science can't be lucrative and researchers cannot be forced to work with already existing equipment. If they want to expand research and buy a new machine (even if we have 3 already) that should be allowed. "Your grant your rules".
Is there any organization method to overcome this "abeyance" of overall facilities at faculty?
*Utilization was calculated by time and resources being used, versus number of publications and number of employees (students, professors, researchers).
I don't understand this question at all. Your complaint is that some equipment is not utilized as much as you think it should be, and nobody but you thinks this is a problem? Why do you think it's a problem?
no, @ff524 I asked if there is any organisational design to improve utilisation of faculty research resources. This recourses are equipment, lab materials and instruments, machines and area in whole. I think it is a problem, if you have something that you don't use frequently, costs of repair and maintenance are higher than sending sample outside of institution, (example, sequencer, running cost more than sending sample to specialized company )
If you have data showing that the costs of keeping the equipment in-house (at its current level of utilization) are higher than sending samples out, I assume you must have showed that data to those who find the status quo acceptable. What was their response? You should [edit] all this information (including the last sentence of your comment) into your question, as it's likely to be highly relevant to any answer you might get.
I think it would be outside of scope of my question? I was referring to known management and organisational methods for scientific or/and educational institutions. I think 37 is not satisfactory, do you think that I am creating a problem by raising this question?
Your question is fine. I'm also interested in strategies to increase lab efficiency.
I agree with @ff524 that this question would be much easier and better to answer if you gave more evidence about why you think 37% "utilization" is too low. 37% is just a number - it can be great, terrible, or just usual utilization. Equipment usage depends on many things including (a) whether the machines you have are sufficient for the planned research, (b) how allocation policies etc. currently work, (c) whether the equipment is general-purpose or extremely specific, (d) to what extend your institution is even allowed to use hardware bought with a specific grant in other contexts, etc.
I think my reasons are not factual, @xLeitix rather feeling that faculty is poorly managed and capacities are not used enough. I acknowledge that everyone have their own right to plan and design research as they want, although I think it is strange to design in a way that dont correspond with available methods, (b) allocation policies are pretty simple, except if some machines are in personal ownership of professors, they will usually ask for co-authorship (c) both (d) good question, I dont know,
A work week is somewhere around 40 hours, a full week (24/7) is $7 \cdot 24 = 168$ hours. This would make 23%. I'd say 37% is stellar...
I thought I understood what the 37% represented, until I read the part about "versus number of publications and number of employees (students, professors, researchers)." Perhaps you could better clarify how "number of publications and number of employees" was used in this calculation?
so percent of utilisation decreases if you have low number of publication and high number of employees. @DanielR.Collins if surface area ( prescribed by accreditation institution is 8 square m per student and employee) and utilization of this area is not utilised in timely and proper organisation timeframe, percent increase, this is also utilised for other categories-utilisation of machines, materials, equipment, dishes. and average of each individual value is made..and you get finale score.cumulative average of each individual features important for productivity of institution
It's extremely hard to understand what you're saying. There seems to be some calculation where if the equipment is used constantly around-the-clock, but no papers are being published, then this would count as 0% "utilization"?
@SSimon Could you please add a link to A shocking revelation... 37%?
Are you using the term "capacity utilization" in the sense that's defined on Wikipedia?
@DanielR.Collins yes!" if there wasn't any educational activities, and if no paper is published than in that scenario it would be 0%, why is that strange?
yes @chipbuster
It's strange because it can be "used" 100% but "utilized" 0% at the same time; but those words mean the same thing in everyday English usage. Perhaps it would be helpful if you put an exact formula for this calculation, or link to same, in your question.
you never heard about capacity utilization @DanielR.Collins ? It can be positive ( yield with success ) and negative, where no results are obtained
Unfortunately, the 37% capacity utilization number is essentially meaningless on its own, because it does not directly relate to the actual metric that one might wish to optimize.
When attempting to improve efficiency, it's important to have a precise understanding of what the ultimate metric is that it being maximized. In a university research setting, the metric being maximized is not utilization of equipment, but rather something regarding research being accomplished and effective use of grant money. To maximize such metrics, it's actually important that some equipment be idle some fraction of the time.
The problem is, research projects typically have highly uneven and unpredictable resource utilization profiles. For example, my collaborators will often have 1-2 day bursts of flow cytometer use, in which they use a $200K machine for an hour or so every few hours, followed by a weeks-long gap while they prepare the next experiment. It's very difficult to interleave usage during such bursts without distorting somebody's experimental plans, and an experiment may need to be started several days before the flow cytometer is first run. Counterintuitively, this means that overall experimental efficiency demands that flow cytometers stand idle most of the time.
An even more extreme example is common tools like pipettes or screwdrivers: if anyone ever needs to spend more than a few seconds looking for such a tool, then operations are clearly inefficient. As a professor of mine once told me: "If you can't just reach out and pick up the screwdriver you need, you don't have enough screwdrivers." This means that such common tools must have exceedingly low capacity utilization in order to used efficiently as part of the larger workflow.
That same professor, on the other hand, now runs an operation in which an automated high-throughput mass spectrometer is carefully scheduled to run 24 hours a day, since it is the key high-value bottleneck of an entire pipeline. In that case, efficiency means 100% utilization (but also that when they have grown enough, they will probably add another mass spectrometer).
Bottom line: if you want to improve efficiency, knowing the utilization of equipment is a useful starting point, but it can only be properly interpreted in terms of the larger workflow in which that equipment is used.
but what if your lab start to aloud others departments and faculties(unies) to use your flow cytometer? That would increase utilisation ?
research plus educational setting
@SSimon What you describe is essentially flow cytometry as part of core facilities. My collaborators have bought their own flow cytometers because sharing the equipment meant their research was significantly inhibited by the wait times and competition for equipment. Yes, there is still sharing (i.e., they will let other labs they trust use it when nobody in their lab wants it), but 100% utilization is highly suboptimal with this particular type of equipment, as it is for most.
Excellent answer. I'd like to add that in the labs where I work, we also rather typically have spatial constraints as well. We operate three instruments in one small lab, of which two need to have the room dark for the actual measurement. Also, if you have many people operating systems in a way where the experiments mean that actual beamlines are configured differently, essentially everyone needs to go through a full configuration, alignment and calibration procedure for their experiments. Thus, it is more efficient to reserve blocks of time in case the experiments don't go as smooth as hoped.
I think it is important to realize that the costs of not being able to work well is often much more expensive than the instruments. Plus, many instruments wear out rather by abuse and working hours than by standing around unused.
yes @cbeleites can you back up with some sources your claims?
@SSimon: Example 1: One of our students just redid 4 days of experiments because he hadn't realized that one of the shared pipettes he used was not working correctly. A PhD student here in Germany has marginal costs of around 100 - 150 EUR per working day. 4 days equal 2 - 3 new pipettes. Agreed, the student should have checked the pipette before using it. But for shared pipettes, the respective student would need to check it pretty much before every experiment, for your "own" pipettes you know when you need to service them (regularly or because something bad happened). Commercial pipette ...
... check comes at around 50 EUR. The student can do it, but needs to go another lab for the balance. I don't know exactly, but I'd guess that you don't do it properly below 2 - 3 h for the set of pipettes (all preparations included). Say, over the year 40 h, i.e. one work week can be saved by having "own" set of pipettes for a student who works quantitatively. That is roughly a set of 3 pipettes per year. And this does not include figure in the annoyance it causes if you always need to spend major amounts of time before you can start the "real" experiment.
Take my advice - invest in human hamster wheels to generate lab electricity, rather than buying it off the grid. So long as you make sure the wheels aren't too efficient, it should be possible to get most if not all of your researchers utilizing the equipment, 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. You may see a slight dip in the utilization of other lab equipment, but the high usage in both number and duration of use of hamster wheels should pull up the whole departmental average.
I am, of course, being facetious. A lab is not a factory that turns some arbitrary raw material into widgets en masse. Time and motion principles of labour management simply do not apply. If anything you want scientists using equipment less for the same amount of science published. In all seriousness, the only real machine whos utilization is worth tracking would be the coffee machine.
Lab efficiency however is a different ball game. Labs can be more or less efficient, however thats a different question for a different post :)
why you think lab is not a factory? It is factory of research articles. How many papers are published and in what journal are published tells directly about lab performance and without good utilisation you cannot have optimal number of publications
Unfortunately we have a difference of opinion about this, so i'm not going to be much help going forward. Perhaps one thing we could agree on is that old, unused hardware isn't doing anyone any favours.
One idea would be to donate it to Seeding Labs: http://seedinglabs.org/
Dumping your underutilized stock will improve ratings, plus you can pop some blurb into the website about how U. of Z is doing its bit. Most importantly, I think you are one of the few people who would be indifferent enough to the scientist's pro-hoarding protests that you might actually be able to get the job done :)
I understand you @J.J unfortunately, I think your vision of research and institutions in modern world, are not in touch with reality and current historical modern of developing research. " Researchers are not talented, rather gifted for organisation and planning"
Well if you're looking into increasing your resource utilization you might want to check out Clustermarket - they offer sharing your equipment externally and gaining an additional income which is always an added bonus. They also have a white paper about resource utilisation that could be useful.
The U.S. Department of Energy has a system of user facilities. Access to these facilities requires an application and scheduling. Access is typically free. At least some of these facilities reach 100% utilization. Each tool in each facility may have its own rules. These are often listed on websites. Facilities are incentivized to reach their utilization targets with funding.
Example: http://www.anl.gov/cnm/user-information/user-access-program
To complement earlier responses, two types of cost come into play:
context-switching (when you have to go to a different department to use the tool) or re-calibrate whatever tool you use every time you take it from the joint pool;
unpredictability due to use fluctuation. It is known from queuing theory that with queue use approaching full (theoretical) capacity the fluctuations grow significantly. Sometimes not being able to estimate whether a tool will be free to use can hamper your productivity more than the cost of the tool. There is a reason why a rigid scheduling regime is implemented only for really expensive devices.
So, 37% may represent a perfectly good balance for these costs and as measure of utilisation it is not sufficiently informative in isolation.
yes, @Captain waist majority of stuff at my inst share your point of view.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.436518 | 2015-12-30T06:36:42 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/60839",
"authors": [
"Aleksandar Bojchevski",
"Cape Code",
"Daniel R. Collins",
"Dante Ageas",
"Dr Bruno Venditto",
"Erhan Konuk",
"Luis Tattao",
"Mateo",
"Mike Clarke",
"Rajashekhar Bs",
"SSimon",
"Sammy Black",
"Sathyam",
"Tanay Gupta",
"Wetlab Walter",
"cbeleites",
"chipbuster",
"ff524",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168625",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168626",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168627",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168629",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168630",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168631",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168644",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168645",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/170530",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/170544",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/170563",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/171208",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/171907",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24064",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28355",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38135",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41198",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43544",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8158",
"jakebeal",
"kevin david Mark",
"vonbrand",
"xLeitix",
"xxx",
"董艶麗"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
54856 | Article citation tracking
I am trying to find the origin of an idea based on journal articles.
To elaborate more:
Let's say object A affects object B in a certain manner and this was originally discovered by Researcher A a long time ago, say in the 1960s.
Subsequently, until now, there are many variations of studies around the idea that object A affects object B. Many journal articles revolving around this central idea have been published.
My dilemma is:
I do not know who (i.e. Researcher A) or which was the original paper published regarding this idea. Is there any facility/journal resources that allow me to track the origin of this particular idea? Does Scopus have such a citation tracking ability?
There are no such online databases that could track down origins of ideas. To understand why a citation is used you have to read the paper. To get to the bottom of an idea you might have to follow several pathes of citations.
You might not be able to track the origin of an idea (unless it is patented). In order to do so you would have to traverse along towards the root of the citation graph. Which might not be practical since not all such references along this path may be freely available. You may go trough the trouble if the core of your research depends on this method's origin. But if you wish to design a system that is to be better than the ones in literature, then you ought to look for the recently published best practices and state of the art. In such a case the notion of who invented the method would be irrelevant.
Note that if you are still concerned about the originator of the concept there are a few tips you can follow. If this concept is revolutionary in its time then you might see many articles citing the same historic paper. If such a concept is of common understanding then you might not see such a paper in common cited with the ones you studied. In such a case searching for the originator would be futile. This applies provided that you did enough survey to attain an extensive number of papers under this concept.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.437502 | 2015-09-23T09:44:11 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/54856",
"authors": [
"Akira Rorschach",
"Andrew Derbak",
"Spammer",
"Tomi Gao",
"Trent K Cole",
"akhdan_fadh",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149886",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149887",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149888",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149891",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149892",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149893",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149895",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149913",
"夕若逸"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
66530 | It is plagiarism if my work is very similiar to something previously published?
I am a PhD student in economics and making a mathematical model of some stuff in a subject of my interest.
While I was searching papers on Google Scholar, I found a PhD thesis written 5-6 years ago in my university, in which one of the chapters is somewhat very close to my stuff.
Just for an important detail, my idea is totally different and I think it is an interesting idea but the model is just slightly different from author's thesis and the solution method is very close.
In particular, the model framework that author used is a very commonly used framework in the literature but accidentally my solution method is very close to the author's method.
For sure without doubt, I will give the exact reference with the chapter and state where my idea is different from author's idea.
My question is: is this a plagiarism? How can I avoid any plagiarism problems? Should I contact the author in order to invite him to be my co-author in this case?
As a rule of thumb, if you didn't plagiarize, it's not plagiarism.
Your situation is not in any way plagiarism, but rather a common and ordinary case of independent reinvention.
There is no need to have the other person as a co-author or anything like that: just cite their model as related prior work, explain how yours is similar and different, and learn from it so that you can do the best you can with your own work.
Thanks for your answer but if someone tells me that my work is to closely to X's PhD thesis ? Even I have not done this intentionnaly, people or even my advisor could think in this way...
@optimalcontrol From what you wrote, it sounds like this particular method is only one small part of your thesis work. If this is the case, then don't worry about it: you can simply acknowledge that yes, this particular part did turn out to be very similar to that bit of previous work. As long as you've made a significant contribution overall, it's just fine if some parts turn out to be less interesting than anticipated.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.437808 | 2016-04-08T16:32:16 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/66530",
"authors": [
"Beckett Authentication",
"Beckett Grading",
"Beckett Marketplace",
"Cape Code",
"Marvin Wright",
"Sofia Grace",
"biomatt",
"darkside",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/187070",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/187071",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/187072",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/187079",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/187080",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/187081",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/187083",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/187084",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/24694",
"jakebeal",
"optimal control",
"rvenner"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
14565 | What to do when manuscript is in latex but journal requires submission in MS Word
I wrote an article containing quite a lot of maths using latex. I want to submit this paper to a given journal. However, submission guideline explicitly states that
all submissions must be done in word format. I am a bit confused about such a specification and really feel unconfortable to reedit everything in word. Some companies seem to offer convertor or online conversion. Maybe some of you have already experienced some of them and can give me some feedback and advices.
submission guideline explicitly states that all submissions must be done in word format. — Submit elsewhere.
In physics as in mathematics all the "real" journals accept LaTeX submissions--indeed most of them prefer LaTeX--and this would be a bad sign concerning the quality of the journal.
See here for a list of converters: How can I convert math-less latex documents into Microsoft Word?
What is this "math-less latex" of which you speak?
And then I was complaining a journal wouldn't let me use the glossaries package...
@DavidZ At least the America Journal of Physics does. I didn't find a global policy statement for all AIP journals. Hmmm...but now I notice that this is a AAPT journal. Here is one: RevTeX (good) or Word (why?).
I've used pandoc for this problem previously and it worked pretty well. Problems I have encountered are;
Multi-line equations (e.g. align or matrix environments) are not converted correctly to word. (I don't think there is an equivalent of align in word).
Converted all citations to the ones within parentheses (much more minor a fix).
Last publication I did this because I got so frustrated with the journal (it would accept and compile my Latex file, but gave no instructions about what packages I could use nor any instructions on how to get the bibliography to compile - and emailing for three weeks with the staff did not help). But it only took me a few hours to convert the paper (that publication had minimal math though).
If as Peter mentions the article wants the math in images, pandoc can do that (and does it better I think) than converting the formula to the MathML that Word uses. Also good to keep in mind if the journal allows just the PDF to be submitted.
I can sympathize with your situation but unfortunately there is not much you can do if the journal explicitly asks for Word files except to provide them. As was stated in a comment you can (and should) contact the journal to ask about the use of LaTeX. Most large publishers handle LaTeX but the individual journals (editors) may not be aware of this and may not use LaTeX themselves so as to see the benefits. I doubt anyone would change their local policy based on one manuscript but if they are not aware that people wish to submit LaTeX files, nothing will ever change.
If you ask editors about LaTeX, remember to also ask them about formats for supplying equations. In some cases, journals accept the built in so-called equation editor in Word and in some cases they may request equations as graphics. They should however, have some standard way of handling such, since I assume your manuscript cannot be the only one they ever published that includes equations.
For quite some time, Word has allowed equations to be entered in LaTex. It shouldn't be a big deal to handle all your equations in one session, and get your paper out the door. A good text editor like notepad++ would be a big help.
You might also look to see if there is any tool in the OpenOffice or LibreOffice suites that might help.
This question is from Dec 6, 2013. Perhaps you could list when Word added in it's LaTeX equation editor.
Word's equations feature that is similar to Latex appeared in 2006, in the version called Word 2007. The syntax is similar to Latex but it is not identical. Equation Editor was different - it was the old plugin for Word that was superseded by this native feature in 2006. See https://superuser.com/a/1201596.
It was quite a lot worse than LaTeX the last time I used it.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/linear-format-equations-using-unicodemath-and-latex-in-word-2e00618d-b1fd-49d8-8cb4-8d17f25754f8#:~:text=To%20insert%20an%20equation%20using,of%20math%20regions%20check%20box.
Try Adobe's pdf-to-word converter. Apart from some issues with equations, works extremely well.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.438034 | 2013-12-06T16:08:30 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14565",
"authors": [
"Andy W",
"Anonymous Physicist",
"Ekin Deniz Aksu",
"Gusdor",
"JeffE",
"Martin Schröder",
"NPJobs",
"Oliver882",
"Richard Erickson",
"Scott Seidman",
"Test User",
"dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten",
"gerrit",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/155910",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20457",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33210",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/37738",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/37739",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/37746",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/37758",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3940",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/440",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/54529",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
13020 | What author affiliation to put when you work for one university and study at another?
I am an author on a poster, but I am unsure of what to put for my affiliation. I am a graduate student, but the poster and corresponding project is in no way connected with my university. I work for another university and the project relates to materials from that university, however they are not sponsoring the project. Any suggestions?
Both. In alphabetical order.
Traditionally, affiliation address must be where the research has been conducted therein (this is the statement given by some scholarly journals in Guide for Authors).
Professors normally use their official affiliation for any publication/presentation even if their university has not supported that research. Probably, because their secured salaries let them to work on an external project. This is different for graduate students, but still can be applied.
In any case, nothing stops you for using both affiliations in your poster. Normally, a graduate student is gaining credit from his/her affiliation. Then, two affiliations can be indicative of your research potential, as you have not stuck to your academic project.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.438416 | 2013-09-27T06:35:09 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13020",
"authors": [
"Dissa",
"J. Steen",
"JeffE",
"LanguagesNamedAfterCofee",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33161",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33162",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33163",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33167",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33178",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"qwertz",
"shc"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
12717 | How to review similar academic papers for a literature review?
In writing a literature review, assume you have the paper X and the paper Y. The two are similar in the study and the results. How can I write a review in this case?
Were they published simultaneously by two independent groups? Or earlier paper was cited in the second one?
One of them is back to 2004 and the other 2007. None of them cited the other.
It looks that it is an example of two independent studies that obtained similar results so you might comment that this reinforces the claim that the reported results are correct. However, most probably the studies weren't exact replications so it might be good to mention the differences between the studies.
It is also a good idea to investigate the journals they were published in - maybe the earlier paper was published in some obscure journal and the second one appeared in a high impact factor one? Have you looked at 'cited by' numbers (in Google Scholar)? Which paper got more citations? Maybe there are some publications that mention both papers? This might give you a clue how the community finds both papers and which one made more impact. It is also plausible that one paper got bigger publicity simply because of more known authors/research group.
I would just say "We have the following result in the following setting", tell the scientific part of the story, and finish with "see [] and [] for details". No matter what you do, my advice is not to try to claim that someone "did it" and the other one "repeated it" or "did it later" or that the results were "obtained independently". With a three year difference in publication time (some papers take longer to prepare and to review and it certainly takes more for an average paper to get "widely known"), you never know what exactly happened and it is neither your duty, nor your right to make any "educated guesses" on that account unless you have some tangible evidence at your disposal.
This is basically the same as Peter said (only in stronger language). You may launch a small "private investigation" along the lines Rabbit indicated to satisfy your own curiosity, of course, but it is definitely way beyond your reviewer duties and nobody really expects that.
Without knowing all the details it is not possible to provide equal amounts of detail in an answer. Since we (you) do not know the background of these papers it is also problematic to try to say anything to separate them. It is, for example, possible that they were mde independently bt one wtook much longer through review. we simply do not know. We cannot therefore cast judgement. I think it is ffair to simply list them both in a citation without saying anything about who was first, the publication date will definitely put one before the other.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.438548 | 2013-09-15T20:54:40 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12717",
"authors": [
"Dunes Buggy",
"King-Wizard",
"Rabbit",
"Rohit Chatterjee",
"Yuan Shuaichen",
"asdf",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32212",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32213",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32214",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32215",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32221",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32229",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32238",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7219",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8544",
"sali",
"user32214",
"wanderer"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
36725 | Can an emotional letter of motivation be harmful in a PhD application?
Today some of my friends were discussing a motivation letter. One friend's application was rejected. One reason his friends find out is that the letter of motivation is very emotional. So I was thinking: is there no place of emotion in academia? People used to study a lot as a strong feeling works in them, inspiring them to do more and more work. This is the emotion. Can it play harmfully in a letter of motivation?
Edit: I have collected his small letter. It is included. We thought it is very emotional.
College XY has best undergraduate mathematics department of the university of XY.
IITX is built upon the basement of the first engineering college of Asia. I completed my B.Sc. from XY and M.Sc. from IITX. Both the times I got first class after each evaluation. I had a dream to continue my PhD studies in a good western university. I tried. My degrees are equivalent to degrees from European universities. I came to the understanding that my knowledge is not much sufficient for their requirements. Currently I am working in a project focussing on a very particular problem. I am out of touch from many interesting topics of mathematics.
Many advanced parts of mathematics are till unknown to me which shall be very useful in my work. So I am thing for a better opportunity to revise my
mathematical concepts in a better way and to collect new knowledge. I wish to build myself in a way that I can continue my PhD work in a good university and I can be a successful researcher. If I get the opportunity to continue the diploma hope I reach my dreams.
No academic department has told it. It is his friend's thought about his application.
So what did his friends "find out"?
As a general approximate rule, youngish students' speculations based on essentially no information should not be reasons for concern. The motivation to guess is clear, but that doesn't mean that guesses will be accurate.
Hope current edit shall make it clearer.
The extract you are showing is a translation right? If this is the text that was submitted I don't think 'emotions' are the primary concern.
The letter is not emotional. However, it won't convince anyone to give your friend an interview, let alone a position: it tells us nothing useful about what your friend wants to study, and why the particular program is a good fit for him!
I am wondering if we should change the title of this question. Currently, this question would not really help anybody who is actually wondering whether (s)he should keep emotion out of a motivation letter. The title should be more "Can a very generic motivation letter be harmful?" (to which the obvious answer is "yes", of course).
@xLeitix but that would invalidate several existing answers. (Also, this question would help anybody who is actually wondering whether (s)he should keep emotion out of a motivation letter, because it has answers that do address the titular question.)
Personal experience: While I was looking for a PhD I sent a lot of applications. In addition to my skills, knowledge and marks, I was quite emotional while doing interviews and sending applications. I actually found out that 2/3 of the people that decided to accept me as a student did it because I was emotional about it (of course, I had some skills also). I even got some positive responses from topics where my knowledge was close to none, just because they though I was motivated enough. So be emotional. But don't forget your skills!
Somewhat related: Why shouldn't I quote famous scientists in my SOP?
In brief, even after imagining that text's language cleaned up, the problem is not about "emotion" but about lack of verifiable substance. As in @aesmail's good answer, insubstantiated claims, or, worse, claims which appear to be counter to any documentable reality, are at best unpersuasive. For example, unsupported claims about the quality of one's university or department are at best pointless, and suggest that one does not know how things work. Proposing to "collect new knowledge" gives a very strange impression, as though the writer believed that learning new things was somehow unusual... while being remarkably inspecific.
That is, if I were to receive such a letter, I'd consider it basically content-free, for all practical purposes. "Emotion" is not the issue. The problem is that such letters should not be content-free, but should include tangibles, past accomplishments and connections with the future, etc. A content-free letter competes very badly with content-ful letters.
This reminds me of the understandable efforts made by applicants-to-grad-schools to find some formulaic approach to "good personal statements"... The essential impossibility of a formulaic approach is what makes reading of personal statements important to me as admissions committee member. Such statements are harder to usefully fake (given their dependence for sense on the writer's circumstances) than many other things.
There is a wonderful quotation by Bertrand Russell that perfectly sums up the nature of emotions in academia:
Nothing great is achieved without passion, but underneath the passion there should always be that large impersonal survey which sets limits to actions that our passions inspire. [1]
You should definitely show a sense of inquisitiveness, drive, enthusiasm, and eagerness; the "catch" is that we want to see that in your work. Dazzle us with your papers and presentations. Wow students in your lecture. But what we don't want is for you to tell us that you're enthusiastic and passionate. Leave that for others, such as the people writing your letters of recommendation, to tell us that.
[1]: The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, George Allen and Unwin Ltd., p. 536 (1961).
I think this is a really good answer. In many (if not all) parts of academia, your passion for your work will be taken into account (even quite significantly, in some cases). What will not be taken much into account -- and, if taken into account at all, more likely negatively -- is your own verbal description of your passion for your work.
Yeah. A lot of things make a lot of sense as long as you're not saying them about yourself.
As others have said, the main problem of that letter is not its emotionality, but the lack of content and the presence of unnecessary details. Let me analyse a few example sentences:
College XY has best undergraduate mathematics department of the university of XY.
According to whom or according to which criteria?
IITX is built upon the basement of the first engineering college of Asia.
This is unnecessary: it does not actually strengthen the previous claim, nor it gives useful information to understand the background of the applicant. It's just a historical curiosity. Probably briefly listing the main research topics of the department would have been more useful.
I completed my B.Sc. from XY and M.Sc. from IITX. Both the times I got first class after each evaluation.
What was he evaluated on? Typically students have to write a dissertation at the end of their degrees, it would have been better to add information about these: objectives achieved, feelings about continuing on the same topics or moving to other topics.
Currently I am working in a project focussing on a very particular problem.
Which problem? Is it a toy problem or a research problem that can be suitable for a publication?
Many advanced parts of mathematics are till unknown to me which shall be very useful in my work.
Indeed, many advanced parts of mathematics are also unknown to mathematicians. So which are these parts that are needed for his work?
Therefore, on the basis of the above, I would have rejected his application too. You can write an emotional letter, but the emotions should be just an addition to the information needed by the application board to correctly assess the level of the applicant.
There is most certainly a place for emotion in academia.
That place is amongst your most trusted friends and closest colleagues.
Science works by identifying truths that hold regardless of whether we care about them or not, regardless of whether we desperately want them to be true or fear that they might be.
Science is funded by agencies who don't care how much your work means to you, but rather how its outcomes might support the agency's mission.
Professors are hired by other faculty who don't care whether working there will fulfill your dreams, but rather how your skills and abilities will fit the needs and goals of their department.
So by all means, have emotions, share your emotions with people who genuinely care about you as a person, and allow your emotions to direct your passion in research and teaching. But know that you will be judged not by your passion, but by the fruits of your labor, and make sure that those are at the forefront of how your present yourself to strangers.
" But know that you will be judged not by your passion..." That seems too strong to me. Many academic recommendation letters mention how passionate / committed / intense a candidate is. For me, when someone is unusually keen I make sure to mention it as a positive trait. Note also that academia \neq science.
@PeteL.Clark academia \neq science? I thought that academia is the place for science happens
Emotion in academia is a double-edged sword. On one hand, emotion (e.g. curiosity, drive) is usually what drives us to conduct research in the first place. But as research should always be targeted at getting closer to a objective truth, emotions must not interfere with your struggle for the truth. Yet there are many emotions (e.g. fear, faith, trust) that can cloud your judgement and lead your research down a wrong path.
In short, emotions can be a good reason to conduct research, but must not affect its results. If your friend's motivational letter was suggesting that he might be affected by emotions in the latter way, this may justly be held against him.
This is tangential to the question, but still have good information
The problem is not about emotions. Other answers have pointed out a lack of substance, but I'll make a different point. It's that your friend draws a very bad image of him/her-self. Your question title should really be "Can a letter of motivation that highlights weak points be harmful in a PhD application?"
Just isolate these four parts of the motivation letter:
I tried.
And then?
my knowledge is not much sufficient for their requirements
So no surprise you're not admitted.
I am out of touch from many interesting topics of mathematics.
Not good if you're to pursue cutting edge research for a PhD.
advanced parts of mathematics are till unknown to me
ditto
This is an application. It needs to draw a good image of the applicant, not show the weak points.
The original poster is asking totally the wrong question. The problem isn't his friend's level of "emotion"; it is his friend's utter lack of social intelligence at how he will be perceived in writing such a thing. The answer is not for his friend to become a smoother wordsmith; the answer is for his friend to get out into the world more, and actually develop a functional level of social intelligence.
The intended reader of this letter is a HUMAN, probably a group of them. Each of them can be expected to be a very, very smart human, who will analyze the letter on many different levels, but nevertheless, a human, with emotions, from which the writer would like a particular (favorable) response. My immediate emotional response, as a human, after reading this, is disbelief, annoyance, and disgust. Disbelief at how clueless the writer is, annoyance at how little useful information he provides me, disgust at how little he must have thought about me and what I might want to see in such a letter, and then a bit more annoyance at what a waste of time it was to even read it. This letter is so poor on such a fundamental level, it's hard to wrap my head around the idea it was written by someone seeking entry into a PhD program.
The primary emotions being expressed in the letter are anger at the injustice and victimhood of being denied, and bewilderment at not understanding the reasons why, and then more anger at finding out his prior education, is, apparently "worthless" in the eyes of these institutions.
So, the reader of the letter should admit into their PhD program, an angry victim of rejection, a victim who seems to believe the fault was with the evaluators, not himself, yet does not show any understanding of WHY others rejected him? A candidate with this lack of awareness does not inspire confidence, doesn't seem like a good bet.
And instead of telling us even what area the "very particular (mathematics) problem" is in, we are left to guess? Why doesn't he just say it's a "problem in the area of (some mathnobabble area, I'll say "online reputation management") involving (slightly more particular considerations, I'll say "mathematical models for detecting falsified reviews"). What is he hiding from us by being vague? Maybe he's hiding... that he actually knows NOTHING! Yet, perhaps he knows a great deal. The reader cannot tell anything useful about what he does and does not know in the relevant area.
A socially intelligent writer would have gone to great lengths to find out why his qualifications were perceived to be unsuitable by other institutions, and then calmly but briefly explain it. How could he appear to not know WHY those other institutions rejected him? Was he so lacking in motivation, he did not bother to find out the specific, detailed reasons for his rejection? I submit that much academic work is about figuring out what the problem is that needs to be solved, and then applying thinking and action to solve it. How is it possible to have confidence in a candidate who accepts rejection without clearly figuring out the reasons, what the PROBLEM was? How can this man be trusted to take effective action to identify problems, and then solve them, as part of a a PhD program? To address this issue, he must be able to briefly and calmly explain what the problem was, and preferably why it will not be an issue at the desired institution. For analogous examples from Finance and Economics, "European institutions require an EU-accredited course in Financial Derivative Models, which was neither required nor available at my prior institutions." Or, "European institutions prefer graduates of the Austrian school, while my coursework was centered around the Chicago school". Explaining why the problems other institutions cited won't be an issue at his desired institution is an exercise I will leave to him.
And overall, there is little to no mention of anything substantive he has done, nothing that can be verified; the primary mentions are of the injustice he feels has been done to him by having his degrees ignored and disrespected by other schools he has applied to, schools who are obviously arbitrary, mean-spirited, and just out to get poor little him.
I hope I reach my dreams? What ARE his dreams, maybe a little statement of them would help? His dreams are so vague he can't even briefly state them? And he HOPES he reaches, not he "is determined to do the work to reach", his dreams? But don't just try to be more smooth; invest time, attention, and emotion to figure out what his dreams actually are, so that he can clearly and compellingly express them in a sentence or two. "My dream is to..." (I'll say, "help the online world become a more honest place") "...and being admitted into this program would bring me closer by..." ("being around brilliant mentors who can help me devise and improve mathematical models for detecting patterns of deception and fraud").
Such a letter should be written to show an awareness of, and caring for, the point of view of others. As it stands, it loudly conveys a lack of awareness in those areas. The readers would be likely to conclude the writer is unaware, a bad thing in itself, or, even worse, uncaring.
The writer of the letter would be better advised to take up some hobby or activity, take a year off from school if necessary, to work on and improve his social intelligence. Maybe go to a university and work as a mathematics tutor for students in the areas he has learned, while taking classes or doing other work that involves interacting with people a lot. It should be an area that requires a level of social intelligence skills to be successful, provides opportunity after opportunity to develop them, and provides immediate and direct personal feedback on how well he is doing. A quick list of ideas could include doing commission sales work, working as a bartender, and volunteering to canvass and advocate for political candidates and their campaigns.
Welcome to A.SE! We try to provide constructive answers here -- your response is unnecessarily negative with ad hominem attacks, which is why it likely will not attract many upvotes. I'd suggest editing it to make it more constructive -- imagine that you are writing to the student applicant himself/herself.
RoboKaren tells me "your response is unnecessarily negative with ad hominem attacks". I have been direct and descriptive in describing how I, as an evaluator, would process such a letter. At the same time, I have tried to provide constructive suggestions and specific actions to improve the situation. While I could certainly be more concise, I stand by what I wrote as an authentic expression that, I believe, is more likely to be helpful than a kinder, gentler wording. Relevant cliche: Tough love. Is RoboKaren right, and I am too harsh? Or is my direct wording a better medicine here?
Yes, in my opinion, you're too harsh. At least, I don't understand why the letter is disgust.
I accept your opinion that I may be too harsh in some areas. I simply can't immediately tell which ones. :) In some cases, pain, emotional pain, is needed to trigger humans to action and change. I hope what I write inspires the right kind of pain in the original writer to motivate him to take constructive action to address what I see as the real, underlying problem. He needs to become better at reading, understanding, and anticipating the perceptions of humans, in order to put himself in a position where whatever mathematical skills he has will become relevant.
The problem isn't his friend's level of "emotion"; it is his friend's utter lack of social intelligence at how he will be perceived in writing such a thing - looks like you should take your own advice.
To the above points, this post has been flagged as "offensive" by users. Can you edit to make the tone less attacking and more descriptive of the solution? I appreciate that you're trying to provide "tough love", but that's not the approach we condone on this forum.
This answer is only "harsh" in that it doesn't sugar-coat the conclusions or explanations of reactions letter-readers would have. In fact, it is very informative about specifics.
I reduced harshness of a couple paragraphs that were not describing likely reader reactions. My objective is to be direct, not unnecessarily harsh. It's interesting that Davor attacks me without pointing out specifics of what he believes should be changed. Davor, can you do better than that?
Your objective is not unnecessarily harsh. I specificly pointed out the word disgust. You are still using it. What's the point for Davor to do better than that? I would agree with Davor.
scaahu, Are you asking why I used the WORD disgust? Your question is worded strangely... The word "disgust" describes my own emotional reaction upon reading the letter, from the viewpoint of someone being asked to consider an applicant. Should I be less honest about my own reaction? It appears the applicant has given little meaningful thought to the intended audience and what would be helpful to their decision process. And yes, if Davor is going to attack me, he should have the consideration and clarity to be specific; not simply level an unsupported ad hominem attack. Give me specifics.
OK, I see I had overused the word disgust in describing my reaction. Edited accordingly.
Edited a bit more. My intention is a constructive response, if somewhat direct. I understand that people may perceive certain extra-direct ways of expressing things as inflammatory rather than constructive. I think I can still get my points across the same with a little less that some would perceive as overly harsh.
Minus the remaining "disgust" which I just don't understand, I think it's a well-written and useful answer - although harsher than I'd be likely to write. I'm leaving the comment only for what comes now; if you want to reply to a specific user and have the user notified of it, you need to put '@' in front of the username, or at least in front of enough letters to identify the user uniquely, as in @Developer6 (you tried twice and might have wondered why the others didn't reply).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.438855 | 2015-01-13T17:23:55 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36725",
"authors": [
"Ander Biguri",
"Antwane",
"Black",
"Cape Code",
"ChilliDoughnuts",
"Cybernaut",
"Davor",
"Developer63",
"JYelton",
"Khalif Ahmed Rufai",
"MMHossain",
"Maksym Ganenko",
"Matte",
"Mohammad IBraheem Abdullah",
"Nobody",
"Ondraj Tzereznya",
"Ooker",
"Pete L. Clark",
"R.T",
"Ramon",
"RoboKaren",
"Sam Thanapornsangsuth",
"Supriyo",
"Tyler Lazenby",
"aeismail",
"deostroll",
"evildemonic",
"eykanal",
"ff524",
"fohletex",
"gnometorule",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100063",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100064",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100067",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100075",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100156",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100443",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/100444",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/101775",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/101776",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1201",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14341",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15443",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16023",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26795",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4384",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8569",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99780",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99781",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99782",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99784",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99785",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99786",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99791",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99793",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99794",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99795",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99796",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99797",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99800",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99802",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99807",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99809",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99810",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/99830",
"paul garrett",
"rapidguy",
"t..",
"undergrad_dilemma",
"user100075",
"user3513237",
"user541686",
"user8290579",
"user99793",
"user99810",
"xLeitix",
"zoidberg"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
25894 | What is facultyawards.org?
I recently received an unsolicited email from https://facultyawards.org. I tried Google to get a better sense of just what this group intends, but I couldn't find much insight. My question is simply this:
What is the origin of this group and do their awards carry any merit towards a typical promotion for faculty tenure, etc?
I did not know this site either, but I'll be damned if what boils down to a popularity contest ("cast your votes for your peers") holds any relevance for tenure review or promotion.
Buried deep in the web site is a description of a "high-quality leather-bound volume" for each discipline that they plan to produce and offer for sale. It's a typical "Who's Who" scam.
If it appears too good to be true... it usually isn't true.
What is the origin of this group
Nobody knows.
and do their awards carry any merit towards a typical promotion for faculty tenure or promotion?
No.
At least, I certainly hope not. Nobody in their right mind would trust an award of completely unknown provenance.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if everyone who signs up is selected for an award and then immediately offered a high-quality leather-bound archival book listing your achievements and those of other winners, all for the absurdly low price of $500, but only if you reply in the next fifteen seconds with your credit card information. See also "Who's Who".
Yup, definite scam site. Avoid like the plague.
Thank you for answering my question. I only hope this shows up on Google as prominently as the tripe the originators of the spam have plastered there.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.440448 | 2014-07-14T18:28:06 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/25894",
"authors": [
"Alper",
"G. Saporna",
"George Datseris",
"James S. Cook",
"JeffE",
"Juice",
"Mike Ferguson",
"Nils",
"RitaAdeleSteyn",
"RoboKaren",
"hermit",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10225",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69024",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69025",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69026",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69054",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69075",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69076",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69078",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69102",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8511",
"keshlam",
"xLeitix"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
92890 | How to identify the publications that cite two specific papers?
Finding the citations of any particular paper is straightforward.
But how do you identify the set of publications that cite two specific papers?
The reason I am asking this is because I am trying to write a review article to resolve an issue in the literature. There are 2 papers that adopt opposite views regarding that issue. To check if any similar study to mine has been attempted before, I am trying to look for any papers that cited those 2 papers together. Any way to do this?
Each paper has hundreds of citations, so looking for common citation is not practical!
@DSVA That would have been easy if each paper had a few citations. Unfortunately, each paper has hundreds of citations. So you want me to cross reference hundreds of citations? I am also curious, is that your down vote?
LIBRARIAN ... Are you at an institution that has an academic library? They will have "reference librarians" on the staff ... consult them. The fact that we have computers nowadays does not mean you have to do everything on your own.
My procedure was simple but worked for me. It is similar but different to that suggested by tripartio.
Look up article A in Google Scholar.
Click the link for articles that cite that article A.
Check "Search within citing articles"
Type the details of article B in the search bar (e.g. authors or title)
Explore the results
This is not as systematic as would be ideal, but should help to give a first-cut idea.
One can use the API of OpenCitations. Here is an example code in R based on two DOIs as visible in the form of https://w3id.org/oc/index/coci/api/v1/citations/[DOI]:
library(jsonlite)
work1 <- jsonlite::fromJSON("https://opencitations.net/index/coci/api/v1/citations/10.1017/s0020818313000337")
work2 <- jsonlite::fromJSON("https://opencitations.net/index/coci/api/v1/citations/10.1177/1354066106067346")
citingworks <- intersect(work1$citing, work2$citing)
Then, citingworks lists 32 DOIs that have cited both work1 and work2:
> citingworks
[1] "10.1017/9781108644082" "10.1017/9781108644082.001"
[3] "10.1017/9781108644082.002" "10.1017/9781108644082.003"
[5] "10.1017/9781108644082.004" "10.1017/9781108644082.005"
[7] "10.1017/9781108644082.006" "10.1017/9781108644082.007"
[9] "10.1017/9781108644082.008" "10.1017/9781108644082.009"
[11] "10.1017/9781108644082.010" "10.1177/1354066119889401"
[13] "10.1093/jogss/ogy021" "10.31338/uw.9788323542988"
[15] "10.1080/13533312.2020.1753513" "10.1080/13569775.2020.1795372"
[17] "10.1007/978-3-030-51521-8_1" "10.1007/978-3-030-51521-8_2"
[19] "10.1080/13600826.2020.1828298" "10.1057/s41268-018-0147-z"
[21] "10.1146/annurev-polisci-040711-135425" "10.1111/pops.12616"
[23] "10.1093/isq/sqz055" "10.1093/isr/viy006"
[25] "10.1093/isr/viz002" "10.1017/s0260210516000176"
[27] "10.1017/s026021051600019x" "10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1572479"
[29] "10.1177/1354066117745365" "10.1163/24056006-12340008"
[31] "10.1177/0010836716653161" "10.1080/09662839.2018.1497985"
But note that OpenCitation's data sample is CrossRef, which is not the same as Google Scholar.
I haven't done this myself, so I can't give specific details, but here's a general algorithm:
Look up Article A in Google Scholar. Click the link for articles that cite that article. Extract all the results as a list of articles. (This is where I can't give details, since I haven't done it myself.)
Do the same thing for Article B.
Compare the two lists to identify common articles.
Indeed, this could work. Library software can check for duplicate references (super easy in Endnote) and could thus simplify step 3.
For biomedical publications you can use Europe PMC citation network (I work for this database). Here is an example of a search to find a publication that cites two particular papers: https://europepmc.org/search?query=CITES%3A24240771_med%20AND%20CITES%3A24036476_med. You can also do that programmatically (https://europepmc.org/RestfulWebService#cites)
I've made a website that searches publications that cite all specified ones: onthecitesof.info.
Edit: Quotes from its 'about' page:
It uses the OpenCitation API to get the list of publications citing the submitted ones, and the Crossref API to get info from DOIs.
This website is designed to search for subsequent publications that have a high chance of mixing the subjects of the submitted ones and increase the chance that they are specifically related to them.
Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.
I came across Inciteful recently.
Its literature connector enables searching link between two papers.
[Extract]
How are the links made between papers?
A link is established through citations. Two papers are linked if either one cites the other. So starting from the seed paper we recursively search through all the papers that are cited by the seed paper or that which cite the seed paper.
How many hops will it search?
The largest number of hops right now is six ...
This can be done with reasonably high accuracy using Scopus and it is much easier than the other methods suggested here. Just do an advanced search for
"title of paper 1" AND "title of paper 2"
The idea is that publications that cite the two papers will have their titles listed in their references sections.
This might not give completely accurate results, because:
It will fail if a journal does not give the title of the
publication in the references list (I think Nature just gives
journal, volume, and page numbers).
It will fail if one of the titles is not distinct enough and appears by coincidence in the main text of a publication that does not cite it.
You might be able to get round these problems by including the author names or page numbers and doing a more complicated search. See https://www.scopus.com/search/form.uri?display=advanced.
Of course you need access to Scopus and your institution might not have this. But something similar might work with Google Scholar.
Using OpenCitation's API in Python would look like this:
import requests
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
link1 = "https://opencitations.net/index/coci/api/v1/citations/10.1017/s0020818313000337"
work1 = requests.get(link1).json()
df1 = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(work1)
link2 = "https://opencitations.net/index/coci/api/v1/citations/10.1177/1354066106067346"
work2 = requests.get(link2).json()
df2 = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(work2)
print(np.intersect1d(df1['citing'].unique(), df2['citing'].unique()))
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.440659 | 2017-07-08T23:05:20 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/92890",
"authors": [
"Bryan Krause",
"Emilie",
"GEdgar",
"Moa",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25030",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4484",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63475",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9547"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
42440 | Is it okay to incorporate a block of citations from a review paper into my own paper?
I'm currently writing a paper on a certain topic for which a review article was recently published. Of course, I want to contrast my new approach to existing techniques. For that purpose, I have identified the relevant prior work with the help of the above-mentioned review article.
However, in my current version, I simply reuse the whole block of citations from the review article with no change at all. I have consulted each reference individually and they do seem appropriate for citation.
Is taking a pre-existing block of citations and using it in my own manuscript considered plagiarism?
Relevant: M.V. Simkin, V.P. Roychowdhury "Read before you cite!" arXiv:cond-mat/0212043
I'd say not if you also cite the review paper. It sounds like it's worth explicitly acknowledging its value in text, as well. Gracious over-acknowledgement isn't really a wound.
You must cite your source every time you use someone else's intellectual contributions.
A review article contributes curation of sources (among other things) as its intellectual content. If you use that intellectual content, you must cite the review paper (in addition to the individual sources). Otherwise you are misleading the reader into believing that you've done all that work (reading very broadly in the literature, identifying the most relevant and useful sources) yourself.
Yeah. Needed to say, it also common to write something like: For a wider context, we refer the reader to [ReviewPaper] and the references therein. Of course, you still also cite the most important ones yourself.
+1 for "Otherwise you are misleading the reader into believing that you've done all that work"
@ChrisWhite it's somewhere between what's described in this post and what's described in this other one. Like most things having to do with plagiarism and theft of ideas, the exact bounds of the line can be pretty fuzzy.
I do not see why that would be plagiarism at all. Taking references from other papers, reading them, and citing them in your own paper is a regular process. If you copy & paste the sentences that refer to those citations along with the references, then it would be considered plagiarism, but no, not in your case.
Indeed as long as you read them. This is called the snowball method of literature research
"Taking a whole block of citations" from somebody else's paper is using their work (the compilation of a comprehensive bibliography for a review paper), which requires acknowledgment in the form of a citation. It is just as intellectually dishonest to use the excuse "Oh, I could have compiled that list myself" to justify copying a bibliography as it would be to use the excuse "Oh, I could have written that paragraph myself" to justify copying text.
@David Richerby: I can't see that this is any more intellectually dishonest - assuming you actually read the papers! - than using Google Scholar to find relevant papers, then automatically capturing the citation information in BibTeX format.
Then just do the google scholar search. The fact that you found the review succumbs useful is because it involved scholarly work.
Mmm, in retro spec, I do have to agree with David a bit. Acknowledging the review, also as a starting point for the lit review, would be good practice.
Perhaps your choice of the word "steal" to describe the inclusions of block citations reveals your feelings on the matter.
If you are copying text verbatim, and I assume it is by saying "block of citations," then you should provide a citation to the source. That is my take.
However, by altering your conundrum slightly, does it lead you to a difficult question or an unknown?
As in, had you found these papers 12 months ago and the question of copying the citation block wasn't applicable, would you have cited the paper in which you discovered these additional sources?
I've noticed many papers deal with this problem by doing:
time-travel has long been known to be possible [17, 18, 4].
Where 17 is an older research paper, 18 is a recent paper with more comprehensive results, and 4 is the review which may or may not have pointed the authors to 17 and 18 in the first place.
I suppose this way, you both cite the original source (which you have to do) and credit the review (so as to not be plagiarizing their collection of sources). Perhaps you could argue that this does not explicitly indicate that the first two are taken from the review, but it does deal with the matter using the fewest characters.
I'm sure this is field-dependent, but to me that sticks out as an example of sloppy editing. (Not much of an issue in a preprint, but in a published paper that has presumably gone through proofreading, that'd be a different story.) Based on my experience I'd expect simultaneous citations to be ordered by number. And this is the first I've heard of any convention that assigns meaning to the order in which multiple papers are cited. So I guess what I'm saying is, know your audience and their expectations before you decide to do this.
@DavidZ I didn't mean to say that there's a formal convention. I just noticed that this is how others seem to deal with it. Re: Order - I think citations are usually numbered by order of first appearance. In this case, [4] could have been cited elsewhere, in the beginning of the paper.
Sure, I understood that you didn't mean there's a formal convention, but someone else reading this answer might think so, or at least might apply your advice to a context in which it doesn't hold. I thought it would be useful to clarify that for other readers.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.441117 | 2015-03-26T15:42:23 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/42440",
"authors": [
"Alex",
"BioPhysicist",
"Dan",
"David Halbstein",
"David Richerby",
"David Z",
"F Ahdab",
"Guillem",
"M1234567",
"Maarten van Wesel",
"Niel Malan",
"Nigel Savage",
"Piotr Migdal",
"Pixelchai",
"RoboKaren",
"Spammer",
"Superbest",
"anonymous 090",
"eugenhu",
"ff524",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114789",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114790",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114791",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114792",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114793",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114794",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114826",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114834",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114835",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114836",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114837",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114849",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1471",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14754",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21865",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/236",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/244",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32146",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"jamesqf",
"sevensevens",
"yo'"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
17315 | How to responsibly apply for more than one PhD position?
My Master thesis is under review, may be it will finish in a week. I had a discussion with my thesis supervisor about a potential PhD position. He applied for a 1 year grant, with my name as student beneficiary. Together we decided to apply for some more grants once I graduate.
In the mean time, I got an interview for PhD in another much better university. If I clear the interview, this employer would contact my supervisor for reference and my supervisor might think that I am playing a double game. Did I do something unethical? How to handle this situation?
I will inform my supervisor about the interview sooner anyway. I am extremely worried about this scenario that I could not focus on preparing for the interview at all.
Did I do something unethical? Absolutely not. How to handle this situation? Tell your advisor now.
When you tell your advisor, you could say something along the lines of, "If this falls through, I'm hoping we can still arrange something here. I've enjoyed working with you." That might make the situation less awkward for you, particularly if your words are heartfelt.
By the way, note that as a PhD student, you're not typically an employee, so this other university would not be your employer.
No reasonable person can fault you for exploring different options since
there isn't a guarantee of a job
you haven't committed to this job.
Definitely tell your advisor so that you'll be in the right frame of mind for your other interview and can excel there as well !
And one year's funding isn't nearly enough to do a PhD.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.441573 | 2014-02-22T19:52:41 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17315",
"authors": [
"David Richerby",
"Fred",
"J.R.",
"JeffE",
"Lắc Lắc Qoay QoAy",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46681",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46682",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46763",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/780",
"rickyjoepr",
"user46685"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
78464 | How to cite a previous single-author paper by oneself?
Suppose my name is John Smith, and I am writing a new (single-author) paper which wants to cite a previous (single-author) work by myself.
What is the best style for this?
(1) As we showed in [1], the following condition applies ....
(2) As I showed in [1], the following condition applies ....
(3) As Smith showed in [1], the following condition applies ....
(4) As [1] shows, the following condition applies ....
I would prefer to avoid (4) because it is easier for the reader to follow a discussion where names (rather than numbers) are associated with certain concepts. This leads me to prefer (3), because a specific name is attached.
The problem with (1) is that it can be difficult for the reader to distinguish two meanings of "we" in the context of a (math) paper: first, there is the impersonal use of we as in "we define a group as a set with an operation + etc.", and second there is the use of we as in the actual human writing the paper.
The problem with (2) is that it draws attention to myself as opposed to my ideas, which is the opposite of what I'd like in a scholarly paper
Does it matter if this is in the middle of a paragraph citing a wide variety of authors, only some of whom happen to be equal to myself? For example,
"As Jones showed in [2], ...., As Doe showed in [3], ...., As Smith (or we) or (I) showed in [1], .... "
You can also consider: "As the author showed..."
I've always used the "as we previously showed" construct; it seems more straightforward and clear. (If I had relevant solo papers I'd say "I" rather than "we'.) I don't know if there are specific guidelines, but clarity should be a general goal.
Other alternative: As shown in [1]. Passive forms sometimes get a bad rep, but they are not forbidden by the grammar police yet.
In my field of psychology, it is normal to treat any previous citation as if it was another person. In a sense it is the article that presents the point. This convention is also related to the use of double blind review in many journals.
So you'd just write:
Smith (2015) showed that ...
or
Smith (2015) conducted a study and found that ...
This is uncommon (or unheard of) in Theoretical Computer Science, from my experience.
@einpoklum How does theoretical computer science handle blind review?
By not pretending it's possible when you follow up your own work? Anyway, the limited number of reviews I've written have been single-blind, i.e. the submitter is known, the reviewers aren't (which is a situation I disapprove of actually).
The TCS reviews I've done have been single blind as well.
Your institution or publisher probably wants you to use a specific style guide. Most of what I've seen other places is consistent with the style guide here: Same citation format as for anyone else, typically inline, surname date and maybe page number; full citation also same format as anyone else.
I don't think that this is what the OP is asking for. It looks like his citation style is by numbers in square brackets.
To me (3) sounds strange (i.e. to refer to yourself in the third person). Also (1) and (2) are rarely used and may sound odd to some people (to me only to a mild degree). I would certainly prefer (4).
I must admit that I do not see how names of persons would make it easier to me to follow the discussion. Names of concepts would certainly do (and often concepts are named after people you don't want to call your own method "Smith's method) but author names are quite irrelevant to me.
"Here" we don't exactly refer to ourselves in third person. We just quote (with quote marks) or paraphrase (without) and put the citation afterward in parens, hence, "Same citation format as for anyone else" (Groleau 2016). But again, the organization surely has a style guide.
"I do not see how names of persons would make it easier to me to follow the discussion" Seeing author names is often useful to me. Many times the author's name and surrounding context will be enough for me to recognize right off what the reference is without having to look at the bibliography, and other times knowing the author adds context to me (e.g. if "Mauldin", the paper probably doesn't involve high-powered set-theoretic notions and is likely something I could understand; if "Shelah", the result is probably something whose precise statement I wouldn't even understand).
I have sometimes seen (multiple) authors referring to themselves as "The current authors" and would like to suggest another option:
(5) As the current author showed in [1], the following condition applies ....
It is similar to option (2) but draws a little less attention to yourself, in my opinion.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.442015 | 2016-10-18T15:18:01 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/78464",
"authors": [
"Dave L Renfro",
"Dirk",
"Federico Poloni",
"Jeromy Anglim",
"Massimo Ortolano",
"Stella Biderman",
"WGroleau",
"einpoklum",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12660",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26671",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49593",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49888",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/529",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7319",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"iayork"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
78719 | Ethics behind using external excel freelancer to help with my thesis?
I have been working very hard on my thesis and I have reached a point with my data where I am required to code.
I am no where near experienced in coding, and there is also not enought time left to learn it.
Simply, the coding is required to re-format the information and figures I already have.
I have used an external source (freelancer) to re-format my data and provide instructions as to how he has done it. I asked for instructions so I could carry out the task myself, and the reformatted data so I could check this against my work. Now, I am not sure if this is ethical and could compromise my degree?
I have not used the re-formatted data or instructions yet - as I am now unsure. I want to ask my supervisor about the ethics of using external assistance but I am unsure if this is a good idea?
In order to re-order my information and make it easier to process my initial formula instead of the manual way which I have been doing (there are close to 980,000 rows), the excel freelancer constructed a macro to essentially do the same work (which I still have not completed manually). I 100% want to give credit, and of course do not want to do anything unethical which is why I am asking here for advice.
What I mean by reformat is creating a macro/code that performs a process. I have been doing this manually and have not scratched the surface considering the large volume of data. The creation of the macro gives the same answers I have been getting manually. So essentially it is not creating anything new, except for the macro. I hope this clarifies things. Again, I do not want to pass any work as my own so I would appreciate any more advice!
What concerns me is that I paid this freelancer to create the macro, a very small fee. Nonetheless, it does not sit right with me. So, What exactly should I explain to my supervisor? Should I mention I have already found someone? Or will this raise suspicion?
What do you mean by "re-format"? Has the coder essentially just made aesthetic changes to your figures (and restructured the data to allow this)? I largely suspect that there's no problem here, but I'd be hesitant to tell you that it's fine when the details are a little vague. It would be perfectly fine to ask your supervisor for clarification though. As you've said, you've not used the figures yet, so if there is a problem then you know now not to use them.
What's not ethical is passing (explicitly or implicitly) other people's work as yours. That being said, as long as only cosmetic changes (e.g. changing the style or labels of your figures, renaming table headers, switching the order of columns in a table, etc) have been made, you should be okay. But if this reformatting included some sort of analysis, or non-trivial modification, of your data, then you need to give credit where credit is due.
Raise suspicion of what?
If you have to do some arithmetic for your thesis, is it any different if you do it by hand or if you use a calculator? What if you buy the calculator especially? I'm not sure I understand your concern that paying a fee for this help changes things.
You can respond to mine (or anybody's) comments by clicking the Add Comment link below your question. If you specifically want to reply to me then including @Ian_Fin in the reply will ensure I'm notified of your response.
Maybe I'm under the impression that I cannot seek external advice, let alone pay for it - hence why I am worried I've done something wrong or worst yet, cheated. This is my ultimate worry/concern as I have worked incredibly hard for my masters until now. Is my assumption about paying for assistance wrong then? @Ian_Fin Also, do you have any advice how I should approach my supervisor about this? Many thanks,
@JaneDoe It's perfectly acceptable to seek external advice. Seeking advice from people whose expertise is different to your own is an extremely common part of academic work. Where it becomes problematic is when you don't acknowledge that the advice came from someone else, and you (even inadvertently) pass it off as your own. I don't see that the fee changes this at all. As for how to approach your supervisor, see the final paragraph of my answer.
Hi @Ian_Fin ok thank you very much. my last question is, should I mention in my email to my supervisor that I have already reached out, paid and obtained instructions how to create the macro and know would like to confirm whether it is acceptable to use this or not? My main concern is if he says no it is not acceptable to use it, then does this leave me in a bad situation where if I actually end up working out the macro myself, how is my supervisor to know if I honestly did it myself or used the macro provided by the freelancer?
I think it would be okay to write an email asking whether doing what you've described is acceptable. You don't need to say that you've done it, but don't make it sound like you haven't done it either, and if your supervisor asks whether or not you've done it then be prepared to be honest. In the event that it is against the rules, and you manage to produce the macro yourself, your supervisor may have difficulty proving that you didn't (or did) write the macro yourself.
Hi @Ian_Fin, thank you. I have put together an email saying exactly what I have on this thread and ended with '
So my question is, I would like to know what the ethics are in seeking assistance with the coding of the excel sheet (which is what I have done, but not yet used)? I have not used the information as part of my thesis and if it is something that should not be used then I am happy to continue carrying this out manually, as I am conscious of carrying everything out ethically as I have continued to do within all of my academic studies. '. I think it might be better to be honest.
@Ian_Fin when I think about it, There is no way I will be able to create the macro on my own. So I feel there is actually no reason to worry about my supervisor proving my macro later on, as I would not be able to create it myself. Do you think this is a good approach? I really appreciate your help with all of this.
In that case, you might as well tell them what you've done and ask them if it's okay.
Possible duplicate of Is it ethically questionable for me (an undergraduate) to hire "research assistants"?
@CapeCode Hi, I dont think this is anywhere near the question you have tagged.
Thank you ever so much @Ian_Fin . I have emailed my supervisor and will see what he says. Thank you!
One thing to note is that if this analysis done by an outside person actually affects your data, beyond cosmetics, you are still the one responsible for the accuracy and any validation necessary to verify the program is working as expected. If this type of analysis is commonly used in your field, you at least need to understand it well enough to know it's working properly, even if you are slow/inefficient at doing it yourself. Finally, if your data contains any protected content - from human subjects, for example - then you are likely against IRB protocols and very much in trouble.
From what you've said in your question, it doesn't sound like there's a problem here. You said the information and the figures are your own, you've just had some assistance with making the data easier to work with.
It doesn't sound like what's been done is much different than if someone had pointed out that Excel already has a function that does what you were doing in a more streamlined fashion. Of course, this would be perfectly fine.
It's quite common for a student to have had the help of someone else in the course of working towards their thesis. This is particularly the case in technical matters like coding. You just have to make sure that you acknowledge their assistance appropriately (typically, by saying in your Acknowledgements that they provided assistance with your data). It's perfectly acceptable to get help from other people in your work. Seeking advice from people whose expertise is different to your own is an extremely common part of academic work. Where it becomes problematic is when you don't acknowledge that the advice came from someone else, and you (even inadvertently) pass it off as your own. I don't see that the fee changes this at all.
If you want to know for certain that this is acceptable then you should obviously ask your supervisor. Just explain the situation in full and ask "Is it okay to include this work in my thesis?" The thesis has not been submitted yet. So in the case that what you have done is inappropriate then no damage has been done. You would just ensure that the figures that appear in the thesis were not those that the freelancer produced.
When in doubt, give credit.
As Ian_Fin states, this doesn't sound like an ethical problem. But it never hurts to be explicit in stating, either as a citation, or as an acknowledgement, that you had assistance.
There are two cases here. Either there is no problem, and giving an explicit acknowledgement changes nothing to do with your thesis, or there was a problem, and you've made the ethically correct decision by being honest about it.
Unless you're getting a degree in Excel formatting, and showing that ability was the point of the thesis, I don't see this as a likely problem.
If you can manipulate a smaller dataset, say 20 rows, to reach the same stage of data manipulation, which you reach after the excel help, there is no new subject matter content added by the excel helper.
It might hurt if you mention it, verbally or in writing, because one can never be sure how much the reader would understand about the extent of help received.
But be sure to not use the excel file directly provided by the excel expert. Use the given instructions and generate it yourself, so that you can ensure repeatibility of the analysis as well as instruct others, if need be. If you cannot do it without help from that person, there would be no option than to acknowledge the assistance.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.442518 | 2016-10-24T08:16:13 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/78719",
"authors": [
"101010111100",
"Bryan Krause",
"Cape Code",
"Ian_Fin",
"Jane Doe",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41814",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58418",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63475",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63738"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
62589 | Is offering to use personal funds for research a good idea?
I'm at an engineering department at a public US university, and I'm somewhat new to writing proposals. The call I'm submitting to wants know if the project budget is higher than the amount of the grant, what other sources of funding the PI will use, presumably to ensure the success of the project.
First, I'm not rich. But this leads to me to think, is it okay to use personal funds to do research? For example, if a piece of equipment costs $4000 and I only have $3950 left, can I supplement it with personal funds?
What might end up happening is that I might convince a colleague to lend me his instrument. But I don't want to say this in the proposal. Also, I'm not sure saying the project will be "supplemented by personal funds" is a good idea.
I'm confused. Why don't you just apply for $4000 instead of $3950?
@DavidRicherby, He is saying if something costs N dollars and he only has N-1 dollars left, can reach into his pocket and use $1 to pay the difference. It is independent of how much he initially received in the grant.
@user1717828 One can imagine the answer being very different if the question is about N-1 dollars, rather than N-50 or N-5000.
@DavidRicherby At which point one might ask at what point N-n' does the answer change, but now we have a problem for mathematics stack exchange I think...
@Michael We might ask that but it would be futile and unnecessary.
I think you shouldn't offer private fund to supplement a research budget, and I also think people won't let you for the two following reasons (among others):
1. It's not your private responsibility to fund your research. For the sake of your own self respect, you shouldn't pay to work. It will give a bad signal, even subjectively, about the quality of your work. It's important for an academic career to be able to show that you can secure complete funding for your research.
2. Personal funding is not reliable:
People reviewing your application will see that the project is underfunded and will doubt that you will effectively be able to compensate with your own money. There will be no ways for the institution to enforce a funding commitment like "the project will be supplemented by personal funds". Funding is generally secured via contracts or other forms of legal documents.
Besides, any institution that relies on researchers breaking their piggy banks to pay for equipment is doing a sloppy job and it's going to hurt its reputation.
Absolutely I agree with the answer when we're talking about substantial sums of money, or contributions to larger purchases. But small and relatively incidental purchases shouldn't be a problem if you get some personal benefit as well. e.g. if you want a nicer notebook than what's in the department's stationery cupboard, I think it's fine to buy a Leuchtturm on your own dime.
+1 Never mention that you are going to use your own funds, even if you decide doing it.
If I have a $40 pen that I just love, it seems like using that (or perhaps even getting a second one) while working would bring much greater satisfaction while working than if I were to use the institution-provided good, but just not quite right for me, pen to make the same markings on the same papers. If I needed a $4000 piece of equipment to get started... well, that's a different matter. Now, you could argue that using my own pen isn't "offering private funds to supplement a research budget", but it's obvious that just like in all walks of life, there are shades of grey here too.
The call I'm submitting to wants know if the project budget is higher than the amount of the grant, what other sources of funding the PI will use, presumably to ensure the success of the project.
Almost certainly the answer to that is not "my private money". I can see three "correct" answers from the point of view of the funding agency:
The PI will make sure that this does not happen. Optimally, you will attach a detailed cost planning that is well within the grant amount to substantiate this point.
The host institution is co-funding the project. This is often quite popular with funding agencies, as it shows commitment from side of the host institution.
Another funding agency is (potentially) paying for it (see info on other submitted or accepted grants). This one is a bit iffy, as relying on another submitted grant is high-risk. Also, depending on the concrete setup, you may involuntarily raise the suspicion that if your current project is not accepted, the "other" agency may fund it in full - and as you can imagine this is an impression you want to avoid at all costs.
For example, if a piece of equipment costs $4000 and I only have $3950 left, can I supplement it with personal funds?
You can definitely do that, and in practice this can sometimes happen (maybe subtly - for instance by going on self-paid conference travels, using your own laptop, etc.). However, the project proposal is certainly not the right place to mention this.
#2 in your list is usually called "voluntary committed cost-sharing" and is basically forbidden by the NSF in the US except where it is explicitly required. Cost-sharing gives large institutions with deep pockets an advantage over smaller ones with smaller budgets since their projects can propose to do more. Out of fairness to everyone, NSF has basically banned it. It used to be popular until the smaller schools complained enough about the well-endowed universities buying their grant opportunities out from under them.
@BillBarth I was not aware of NSF's stance on this, but it's definitely not uncommon here in Switzerland. Not so much for the NSF-equivalent, but for various smaller foundations. The grants they provide are usually not that big, so by themselves they are not sufficient to fund ambitious projects. Hence, commonly one proposes a big project, says the host uni finances 50% of it, and only asks for the other half from the foundation.
When NSF or another federal agency wants to do something bigger than it can, they can demand cost-sharing so that the overall size of the pot gets bigger. It's pretty uncommon to do these days here, but I have seen it.
Not sure about the US, but over here in Europe (Britain to be specific) we usually ask the university to top-up the grant as to fill the gaps. If a researcher succeeds to get 90%, the institution that gets credit for the research should give something in return in the form of 10%.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.443279 | 2016-02-01T08:54:59 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/62589",
"authors": [
"Bill Barth",
"Captain Emacs",
"David Richerby",
"Diéfani Favareto Piovezan",
"Fragment",
"Javaria Sial",
"Michael",
"Moriarty",
"PallavSharma",
"RAVINDRA KUMAR YADAV",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/174236",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/174237",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/174266",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/174267",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/174303",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21616",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34352",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45857",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5856",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8562",
"user",
"user1717828",
"xLeitix"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
7374 | What is the limit on reimbursement of indirect expenses due to attending conferences (e.g., baby sitting, winter coat, etc.)?
Going to conferences induces some costs on a researcher's personal budget. In all places I know, expenses directly related to travel and accommodation are usually covered (travel, hotels, food), but there are also some indirect expenses that aren't typically covered.
I'll only give one example, that is directly applicable to me: when I'm away I have to get a baby sitter for the kids (for the days where my wife can't pick them up, say). However, I'm sure there must be other examples.
Are there institutions that cover these “hidden” (or indirect) expenses? What rules do they follow? It must be difficult to know where to put the limit… (“hey, I'm going on a conference in Sweden in December, which means I have to buy myself a new coat! can I get it reimbursed?”)
As far as I know, there is no such thing as "general" rules which things can (or cannot) be refunded. In my institute, there are unwritten differences even among different groups. And not to be overly pushy... I think this question fits more a polling question, see http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/336/a-place-for-open-ended-discussions-about-academia :).
Let me add another conspicuous example: tips in the US. You can't avoid tipping, and often they don't show up on receipts.
I'd be very surprised by any answer other than "They follow whatever rules their accountants have decided to impose on themselves."
The usual solution is very simple: you will get a daily allowance ("per diem"), which is a lump sum of money that covers all small costs related to travelling.
A concrete example: a researcher at a Finnish university, travelling to a conference in Germany. You will get a daily allowance of 61 euros per day, tax free. This should cover food and all other small expenses related to travelling.
Direct costs related to travelling (conference fees, hotel, transportation, etc.) are covered based on the receipts. However, lunch & dinner is not covered, as they are included in the daily allowance. Corner cases have special rules (e.g., what if lunch & dinner is included in the conference fee).
I have more experience in industry than in academia. Per Diem is the usual answer in industry.
At my university, I have two options: (1) Don't submit receipts, and receive the standard per diem. (2) Do submit receipts, and receive the minimum of the receipts and the standard per diem.
Several of my past universities have had the complement of @JeffE 's situation: submit receipts and receive the maximum of receipts and standard per diem.
@JeffE (3) come back from Japan and submit receipts in kanji up to a total of whatever you're allowed to get without regard for what purchases they represent (booze, cool Japanese elctronics you can't get in the states, ...) because the fool university bureacracy insists on reciepts even though the grant adgency specifies per diem.
@dmmckee No, I can't do that; my university insists on receipts in English. And no, I can't get reimbursed for the cost of translation services. (Fortunately, my per diem for international travel is larger than the state-mandated limit for domestic travel.)
I would strongly recommend against this procedure suggested by @dmckee . Even if no-one in the expenses department can read Japanese, they will find someone if they suspect you of the financial fraud you describe, and the gain from what you saved will probably a lot less than what you lose by the ensuing disciplinary (if not legal) action.
A "per diem" is - AFAIK - not supposed to cover anything and everything, just some kinds of expenses. Babysitting your children is not one of those.
@Jeffe What incentive do you have then to submit receipts (besides possibly an ethical one)? In addition to being tedious, your universities solution implies that you always get more money from per diem.
@Miguel Precisely. And that's why I don't submit receipts.
@einpoklum Wouldn't a per diem be exactly for those costs that you aren't going to be reimbursed for when you show a receipt?
@sgf: The thing is that a per diem can be used for whatever you like, since nobody checks the actual expenses. So the question of what's it for is not entirely clear. However, it's often calculated using prices of food, drink and lodging; and you can report some additional expenses over the per diem.
@Miguel Maybe the university decided the tradeoff of having to pay someone for double checking the receipts and the person handing in for collecting and submitting them are worth just making it easier to get the full per diem. On topic: In Germany you get the receipts (not food, but travel and fees) plus the per diem (which is more than just covering food would be).
Usually, if an "indirect cost" will be reimbursed by the university, it must be a cost that would normally be allowed if it weren't occurred on travel.
So, for instance, something that would be considered an "equipment" purchase—such as a battery for a laptop to replace one that dies—might be allowed, but babysitting costs might not.
However, most institutions do have a "travel manual" or regulations that cover what costs are permitted for travelers to have reimbursed. If you have any questions about the policy, you should consult your institution's travel office for guidance. (These regulations often change, usually in response to someone else going overboard and exploiting loopholes in the regulation, which are then tightened for everybody.)
My instinct, however, tells me that such policies are probably quite rare for any institution that accepts government financing for its operations. Usually, those funds have significant restrictions on what sorts of expenses can be associated with travel, and thus it's easier to adjust the institution's policies in accordance with that. For institutions that are privately financed, it's a lot easier to institute policies that are more liberal. But you'd probably have to go to an extremely "progressive" institution (maybe a Google?) to find one that will reimburse you for these sorts of costs.
Oh, I am perfectly aware of my institution's policies: only very specific (and listed) costs are reimbursed, for the rest I get zilch. I am specifically asking if there are academic institutions out there that have employee-friendly policies regarding expenses created by the travel. (Maybe hidden costs is not the right term for it, though… I'm thinking about stuff that would not happen unless one traveled.)
Upon checking “hidden cost”, it appears it have a more specific meaning than I thought… so, I'm editing my post to remove this term. Sorry about that! I meant to inquire about indirect expenses linked to travels.
Given your answer here, would you mind having a look at this question of mine?
Disclaimer one. I'm from a big Japanese University with lots and lost of Money.
Here, like Juka suggests, travelers get paid a daily expense, for example, I went to Australia last year, and I got paid the exact sum for the airplane and a daily allowance that is supposed to cover meals and lodging. The thing is, unless you eat like a king and sleep in a 5 star hotel, you'll usually end up with extra money. (around 200 USD-300 USD more).
I ask my adviser and he told me that this was normal, and postdocs and profs get even more money, because they consider they have families.
I think is a good practice, but then again, if your University does not have a huge endowment, it may get tricky.
Just curious — why do they suppose having a family means needing more travel money? Do they suppose the family joins in the travel, or do they suppose the family needs to make additional costs because one family member is not there (e.g. extra childcare costs)?
Here in Japan they like to be very inclusive, and the logic goes, if you are a single parent, you may need to pay child care, but then it would be unfair to those who are not single parents, so they pay them both.
Is like the child allowance the government gives, everyone receives 200 USD per child a month, regardless whether you need it or not.
Are there institutions that cover these “hidden” (or indirect) expenses?
Yes, but not necessarily all such expenses, and specifically I don't know about babysitting costs.
To give some concrete examples, I have had the following expenses covered:
Personal insurance having to do with my travel
Laundry during travel (although that was from a commercial research outfit so might not apply)
Membership in a professional society which enables reduced registration fee for a conference
A tube for carrying posters (as opposed to an actual poster which is a direct expense)
What rules do they follow?
Individual institutions have their own rules, and if these are not in writing - people in charge of budgets have some set of rules in their heads which you would need to query...
It must be difficult to know where to put the limit… (“hey, I'm going on a conference in Sweden in December, which means I have to buy myself a new coat! can I get it reimbursed?”)
Actually, I just asked a related question. I would actually think that if you live, say, around the equator and need to be at a conference in Sweden you should indeed be reimbursed for the cost of coat - either partially or fully. After all, you're unlikely to need that kind of coat in your daily life and perhaps not even when you travel.
Sometimes conferences actually organize child care services or provide support of child care that you pay yourself. See examples: https://www.hr.cornell.edu/life/support/conference_care.pdf and http://www.aps.org/programs/women/workshops/childcare.cfm The last one says:
Examples of Allowed Expenses
Daycare expenses at the March Meeting
Extra daycare expenses incurred at home because the primary caregiver was attending the March Meeting (e.g., cost of a sitter)
Expenses incurred in bringing a babysitter (or grandparent) to the March Meeting
Other than that I don't think many employers explicitly reimburse those costs. People tend to consider that they are part of the "package" that you accept when you start a career in research (I am not saying it is a good thing).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.443859 | 2013-01-21T20:59:54 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7374",
"authors": [
"Anonymous",
"Colin W",
"CuriousCat",
"F'x",
"Federico Poloni",
"JeffE",
"Leon palafox",
"Miguel",
"Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson",
"Nobody",
"O. R. Mapper",
"Piotr Migdal",
"Ribz",
"ScieGrad",
"andree",
"casaout",
"dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten",
"einpoklum",
"gerrit",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14198",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14695",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17535",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17536",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17538",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17539",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17540",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17544",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17547",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17548",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17562",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17567",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2700",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2806",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/440",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/519",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/67258",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7319",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"sgf",
"skymningen",
"user17567",
"user3252457",
"zia ur rehman"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
2498 | Is transferring to another university an option for an unhappy PhD student?
I've heard of people transferring between graduate schools because of their advisor moving to another school and taking their students with them.
Do students ever transfer for other reasons? If a student isn't happy at the school they choose, could transferring be an option? Presumably they would frame it as something positive such as "turns out I really want to work with Professor X" rather than "I hate my school", but does this ever happen? Is there a certain timeframe in which this is possible? (Assume it's a 5 year PhD program.)
If the answer varies by subject please mention the subject in your answer.
(Context: many friends have told me that if it turns out I'm not happy with my choice, I can always transfer. My impression is that this is actually difficult since many schools don't accept transfer students and in any case not being able to stick with a program looks bad -- but I don't have evidence either way so wanted to ask people who are in academia. Of course the ideal would be to pick a school one is happy with in the first place!)
I know "transfers" of two kinds: 1) starting a new PhD program 2) formally being enrolled and one place but de facto collaborating a lot with another place. Sadly, one of the biggest pains in doing PhD is that when things aren't working you cannot just change places.
Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23170/my-department-is-not-concerned-with-publishing-is-this-a-valid-reason-to-move-t
Mathematics
Let me specify that by transferring, I mean moving to another university in the middle of a graduate program. Switching universities between undergrad and grad or between a master's degree and a Ph.D. is very different. Basically, those are the only mainstream opportunities to move, and anything else will require an exception.
Transferring is certainly not unheard of, but there are some serious caveats:
It's difficult to transfer to a substantially more prestigious department. It can happen, but the admissions committee will be very skeptical, and it's just not going to work out unless the application is outstanding. In particular, many committee members specifically do not want to reward rolling the dice again and seeing what happens, so for transfers the question is not "Does this application look better than our weaker students?" but rather "Is this application so obviously wonderful that we would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we accepted someone else instead?"
Expressing any unhappiness will make it much harder to transfer. You may think you'll be happy at the new school, but they will worry about ending up with an unhappy, unproductive grad student on their hands. And they are right to worry about that: the best predictor of future happiness is past happiness, and many unhappy people have unrealistic beliefs about what would make them happy.
It's hard to transfer once you start seriously working on a thesis. If your work isn't going well, then that's a reason not to accept you. If your work is going well, then that's a reason you should continue working with your current advisor. Unless your advisor has died or left, it will be tough to convince anyone you are a good candidate for transferring.
No matter why you say you want to transfer, there will be some suspicion that your goal is to end up in a stronger department or a more desirable location. If you have another reason, you'll have to make a powerful argument for it.
I've heard of people transferring between graduate schools because of their advisor moving to another school and taking their students with them.
Sometimes they transfer officially, and sometimes they still get degrees from the previous school but complete their theses while in residence at the new school. The latter is generally easy to arrange when an advisor moves.
"No matter why you say you want to transfer, there will be some suspicion that your goal is to end up in a stronger department" -- assuming the candidate is suitable for the "stronger department", why would the admission committee see this motivation as something negative?
@Pandora: It's not so much that it's negative, but that the committee may not believe other reasons. Applicants sometimes outline personal or intellectual reasons why they feel a certain department would be a much better fit for them, only to have the committee basically ignore the stated reasons on the grounds that they are just an excuse.
@AnonymousMathematician what if they accepted you and offered you an assistantship, but then you wound up choosing somewhere else? Would the place you turned down be more inclined to accept you as a transfer?
I have transferred during my PhD to a far better institution and it was one of the best decisions I've ever taken. On points 1 and 2 above:
I agree that the admission committee will likely to be skeptical. Get in touch with a potential supervisor first or detail why you are transferring in a cover letter.
If you share the reasons you're unhappy we can help you formulate them. Remember that the potential supervisors likely know your current one and no supervisor wants to be known for stealing other people's PhD students. Balancing transparency and political correctness is key here.
Computer Science
Yes, PhD students transfer for many reasons besides moving advisors. Sometimes the reasons are purely professional; for instance, I've seen several students successfully transfer because they discovered a passion for a subfield that didn't match the interests/experience of the local faculty. Sometimes they're more personal things like two-body problems (especially when they become three-body problems). Sometimes advisors die or leave academia. Sometimes it's because of an irreconcilable disagreement between student and advisor/committee. Sometimes the student just thinks they can do better than their current department (and has the publications to prove it).
Probably the most painless time to transfer is immediately after completing a master's degree. (I did this.) That's a natural time to switch research directions, and many PhD programs allow their students to pick up a Master's degree along the way, even if they don't have a separate Master's program. (Mine didn't.)
Still, applications from MS students in PhD departments will face skepticism, especially if the applicant already has a good track record with their former advisor.* (Why do they want to leave their current advisor? Shouldn't we offer this slot to someone who doesn't have one?) So it's important for the applicant's research statement to explain why the new department would a better match, without disparaging the old department. It's also important to have a strong and supportive recommendation letter from the former advisor, to address possible concerns about technical weaknesses or personality conflicts.
(*And if a PhD applicant doesn't have a good track record with their MS advisor, they're not likely to be admitted anyway.)
Computer Science
It's not uncommon for a student to transfer, usually earlier in the program. The reasons can be as you mentioned, and often there are non-academic reasons as well.
You do have to apply again from scratch, although its possible that admissions committees will look more generously on the application. You might be able to apply out of cycle for spring admission as well - there are fewer applicants and each application gets more careful scrutiny.
But in any case it is important to have a reason relating to the desired destination. If you want to work with professor X it will help immensely if professor X can speak on your behalf by writing a letter. In other words, don't think of transferring out, but think about transferring in to maybe one or two targeted placed.
Field: Mathematics.
Transferring is possible although you might have to 'start over' at your new university. For example, perhaps you have completed the first year sequence of courses in University A and passed some prelims before transferring to University B. At University B you might either be required to go through their first year sequence, or take (and pass) the relevant prelims to have the courses waived. This can be difficult since first year courses and topic and prelims tend to vary across departments. In addition, depending on how much prior experience you have before coming to University B, they might require you to finish your degree in less than usual time (say, 3-4 years instead of 5). In particular, folks with Masters degrees applying to PhD programs are often required to get a second Masters in their second university.
Source: A friend of mine transferred from Rice Mathematics to UW Madison Mathematics; additionally this was a topic of conversation at a Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics where a breakout session leader had transferred universities mid-PhD.
In particular, folks with Masters degrees applying to PhD programs are often required to get a second Masters in their second university. — Interesting. My university explicitly forbids duplicate degrees. If you have an MS in mathematics, you cannot get another MS in mathematics (although you can get an MS in, say, computer science).
I haven't heard of being required to get a second Master's degree (many programs don't even require one in the first place), but prelims/required courses can definitely be an issue.
The specific instances I have seen of students being required to get a second Masters degree are not in mathematics. In particular, the students in question had masters degrees from India and were required to get second masters degrees as part of their (5 year) PhD programs in Psychology and Engineering - possibly in part because the masters degree is somewhat synonymous to candidacy and/or skepticism about degrees from other countries.
I am currently trying to transfer too. My story isn`t the nicest neither. I met one guest speaker at my current university and just loved her work. My lab is stacked in old technologies and I feel we aren't innovative at all.
I talked with this guest speaker and her answer was very positive regarding getting me as her student. However she asked me to tell my supervisor before applying: bad idea.
Maybe because I am in Asia and here the culture is that your professor is a God, he was really unpleasant and rude with me. He even said he would write bad recommendation letters for me if I change universities. For me that was harassment. His main reason was the money invested and how bad this looks for him and for the university.
My advise is: be sure you can move and then talk with your adviser. The only positive thing was that after talking with him, I was certain that I was at the wrong place. I am positive I can change. So if you aren't happy or the program isn't aligned with your future goals and perspectives, change! Don't waste your time.
I see the anecdote and its connection, but I'm not entirely sure that I see this as an answer to the question.
I transferred during the first year of my PhD program successfully. My project at my original department was fully funded and my adviser was also great. However, I did not like the department and my PhD major was not in line with my interest. Thus, I applied for another major which I liked more.
One problem that may arise is recommendation letter. I asked my MS adviser (in another school) to write letter. I also asked my PhD adviser for recommendation letter. This part is a bit tricky, but I suggest to be honest and tell the truth and provide detail explanation for your decision.
I talked with 4 faculty members about my application in a conference. Three of them did not have any problem whatsoever with the fact that I am a PhD student from another school, and they recommended me to apply whereas one of them told me that the department does not accept transfer student. I finally got admitted into one school. I applied from a mid-rank school to top rank schools.
My personal view is that there is nothing wrong with transferring from one school to another, but you should have a good reason for doing that. In any case, some faculty members understand that a student could have many reasonable reasons for moving away from a school and joining another one while others are not very open-minded and think that it is wrong.
Selection of graduate students is hard.
It's fine to switch programs, but it's a lot like switching jobs after a short period. If you start a job somewhere, then immediately leave it, you need a decent reason in your narrative. The program you're applying to needs to believe that you're interested in sticking around when crunch time comes, or you're not worth the investment.
It helps if you have a legitimate-sounding reason in your personal statement that makes it sound like the reason you left the previous institution is unlikely to recur. It definitely helps if you have an LOR from your former advisor.
What about, say, transferring from a Math Education PhD program into a regular Math PhD program, because you realize that doing research in pure mathematics is where your heart really lies, and not in doing research on how best to teach it to other people?
I realize this is an ancient question, but I think it's a lot more defensible if you are changing programs entirely like you mention. It's not uncommon for someone in the grad-school path to shift gears because they discover something they are more passionate about, and passion is exactly what your selectors want to see evidenced. If you can convince them "I like this even more" rather than "I'm bored", then that is a positive.
Science (chemistry).
It is very hard, up to impossible, to change PhD program in science after you started one, as well as starting over after a failed attempt.
The only option is before you enroll in any.
Even if this is not directly stated in requirements, selection comity will be very suspicious and very unlikely to admit such a student.
For the most part already enrolled applicants or applicants that were enrolled and quit are not considered eligible be programs and in almost all cases you are not eligible to apply for a scholarship.
I now as I am trying to change the PhD program.
Molecular Biology
The only time I can think of when PhD students changed universities was on the unexpected death of their advisor. In that case, former students of the advisor who had since started their own labs took on the students, in some cases temporarily until they could find a better fit, in other cases until graduation. For the "better fit" cases, I believe both student and new supervisor approached the better-fit lab and explained the situation.
In the case I'm thinking of, the deceased advisor was very well known, came from a highly prestigious university, and had many former students in strong positions. I don't know how well it would have worked if all those points were not the case.
Aside from that instance, it's very rare for PhD candidates to move locations without your advisor moving as well.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.444789 | 2012-07-17T18:09:15 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2498",
"authors": [
"Anon",
"Anonymous Mathematician",
"Aru Ray",
"GB - AE7OO",
"H. D.",
"Hashirama Senju",
"JeffE",
"Kristen Brown",
"Mohamed Khamis",
"Nercy",
"Noah Sullivan",
"NotThatGrumpyAnymore",
"Pandora",
"Piotr Migdal",
"Sean Allred",
"Sydwell",
"Thiago Atauri Turini",
"Trixie Wolf",
"Volex",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/112429",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/112430",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/112438",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/112441",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15928",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19769",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/200986",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/201022",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31729",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32679",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6209",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6210",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6211",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6213",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6214",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6216",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/703",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/80975",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/80976",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/80977",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/948",
"marialopex",
"rene smith",
"virmaior",
"zwol",
"zzz"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
68387 | Appropriate to mention using a lab's dataset when seeking grad student position in that lab?
I'm in the scenario where I'm approaching my final year of undergrad and am looking for a potential advisor for grad school; I've done my research on their research, including reading through several of their papers and have a pretty good handle on what they're doing.
Now, obviously I'm interested in this research, and I find that some of these papers have some great datasets that I could use in (potentially) interesting ways (that the paper did not do). So I take this data and start playing with it, and let's say that I serendipitously arrive at an interesting find. In the eventual e-mail that I send to the researcher asking about the possibility of him/her taking me on as a graduate student, where I talk about their research and what interest I take in it, would it be appropriate to mention that I have worked with a dataset they had published in a previous paper?
I'm not sure how this might be taken, and I'm afraid of appearing disrespectful or full of hubris; just generally where it hurts instead of helps my case.
Potentially (?) Relevant:
In this scenario I'm just playing around on my own and my results aren't published or in the process of being so.
By 'playing' I mean in a bioinformatics sense, just manipulating the dataset.
Would the answer to this question be impacted if I didn't find anything interesting?
There's always a chance that they've played with the data in the way you've done/plan on doing, found whatever it is that you find, and decided it wasn't interesting enough to pursue. That does not mean you shouldn't try anyway if you find it interesting - after all, what is learning if not "throwing science at the wall and seeing what sticks"? ;)
It sounds to me like you have a couple of ideas regarding how you can use the data and what you might find: why not speak with this individual about your thoughts one-on-one? That way the advising process can begin informally prior to grad school! Additionally, the advisor may be able to help you refine your ideas (one of the pivotal roles of an advisor in the first place), or help you avoid pitfalls (e.g., "We've already tried X, and that didn't work, but maybe we could try Y!"). This should also be a good opportunity to see whether this potential advisor's style is a good match!
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.445905 | 2016-05-09T01:46:20 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/68387",
"authors": [
"DMML",
"Masoud Alimadadi",
"Mujtaba Hussain",
"Ravin Puri",
"Roofing West Palm Beach",
"abigail sylvia",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/192923",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/192924",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/192925",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/192942",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/192943",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36315",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/52658",
"tonysdg"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
43375 | Why do companies fund academic research?
I noticed that a lot of big companies are actively funding research at universities. I was wondering why they do this, as opposed to say funding in-house research as the knowledge ends up in the public domain.
Do they get actual patents out of it?
Do they just want to keep in the loop of the research (and if so why not just read the papers)?
Maybe they want to influence the direction of research?
There is a variety of reasons, as someone who has worked on such projects, here are a few that come to mind:
Access to research facilities. It's often far more rational to fund a study in a university than to invest in building your own wet lab/cleanroom/animal testing lab, etc. In some fields and countries, there are also regulations that limits certain area of research to university institutions (example: research on human tissues).
Highly educated, relatively cheap human resources In the subsets of projects where academic researchers actually do the work from the project description, it is generally cheaper and bears fewer risks than hiring people directly.
Great way of recruiting scientists by establishing a close collaboration, the company has the opportunity to meet and see potential hires in action.
In some fields, it can be a form of advertisement. In particular for companies that have scientists or research labs as customers. Example: lab equipment manufacturer, metrology tools, lasers, etc.
Do they get actual patents out of it?
Yes. It's frequent for industry-funded projects to result in patents. The patents are usually owned jointly by the company and the academic institution. Sometimes the technology is already patented and the study is only about testing an application. Publishing a technology in the scientific literature can also be a way to prevent other companies from claiming ownership, since you can't patent something that is already published.
Note that industry implication in academic research might diminish, as it becomes evident that they aren't always getting good research for their money. See: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/09/reliability_of_new_drug_target.html
Another note on patents: often company funding gives the company the option to take out an exclusive license to any university IP developed with their money.
A few other reasons, which are less glamorous:
Often provides tax incentives for companies
Very cheap way of training potential future employees who are experts in their research
Inexpensive way to explore new ideas. If a company has financial issues, far better from a PR perspective to stop funding research at a university than it is to lay off some of their employees
Speaking of PR, it provides them benefits and can get their name EVERYWHERE within a University
Some US companies are obligated to spend a certain amount of money on domestic research (our institution had several grants of this nature)
Easy and cheap way to stay informed of latest technology/research trends. A research project for a year is a much cheaper way to generate a literature review than paying a fulltime employee, for example
as opposed to say funding in-house research as the knowledge ends up in the public domain.
This is not always true.
Can you clarify "Some US companies are obligated to spend a certain amount of money on domestic research" ?
How is any of this 'less glamorous'?
@usεr11852 it might be cheaper but the productivity is also lower, because PhD students and their advisers have other priorities and are usually free not to do what the company paid for. The vast majority of industrial research is still done in-house for good reasons.
My significant other has been involved in the startup world for some time. Big companies do this for the same reason that they will take high risks on acquisitions... It's cheaper labor for R&D. The thing that always perplexed me is that Pfizer report from a few years ago that essentially said they couldn't come near replicating many of the findings in academic journals. So, at least in biotech I'm perplexed by this behavior, but it seems to happen less in that field based off of my personal experience with lots of professionals at small and large companies.
There is an organizational problem with doing long-term research internally in a high tech company: it is almost always more cost-effective to divert the researchers into solving some short-term problem related to a current project.
Outsourcing the research via a long-term commitment to funding an independent organization that has its own priorities (e.g. a university department awarding PhDs to its student "employees") is a good way to resist that short term pressure.
My employer (a multinational engineering company) doesn't have any delusions that every university research project will produced something "useful." It's more like investing in Broadway shows were one big hit pays for all the flops, but you can't predict in advance which show will be the hit.
The conflict between open publication of results in academic papers and PhD theses, and the commercially sensitive application of those results to benefit the sponsoring company, needs to be managed, but that isn't an insuperable problem. For example new analysis techniques or computer algorithms can usually be demonstrated using well-known problems addressed in earlier academic papers, or using sanitized data, while the "real" application remains confidential to the sponsoring company. If a competitor decides to learn how to use the research starting from what is openly published, it's their choice to fund the costs of that task, both in money and elapsed time.
Answering this as someone who works in public health, and whose work has been funded by industry in the past:
"as the knowledge ends up in the public domain" is not necessarily true, as some others have noted. It is fairly common for corporate funders to require their approval of a study before publication - something I usually pretty vigorously oppose. But it is not safe to assume that it automatically ends up being publicly accessible.
They can get patents for the work or otherwise receive IP rights to the results of the study, but again, this isn't universal.
It is a good way to recruit scientists, or recruit scientists short term. Research funding means you can get a "burst" of productivity to answer a particular question without having to hire and maintain an employee. It's also a good way to add expertise that the company lacks without having to build a whole group around it.
Funding steers the direction of research. If a company thinks there's a topic that needs more exploration, making funding available is a good way to foster that research.
It adds credibility. While industry-based research isn't inherently biased, there's often an assumption that it is. Funding independent university-based groups means having studies done in different settings, and with researchers with their own free-standing reputations. It's much easier for them to point to "Dr. So-and-so's Study..." if they don't work for the company.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.446162 | 2015-04-11T10:36:35 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43375",
"authors": [
"Arsenic Vec",
"Cape Code",
"Cowboys Football",
"O.S.",
"Shara",
"Srinivasan M P",
"bfoste01",
"concernpine",
"earthling",
"evelynjean",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117570",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117571",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117572",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117577",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117580",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117583",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117605",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117609",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117615",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/124854",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/124906",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19610",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"ioana hojda",
"jakebeal",
"ranjana Soni",
"teufel",
"user"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
77681 | Do my articles published in local newspapers count as publications?
I'm applying to Columbia's journalism school and it asked me if I have any publications. Since I worked as a reporter before for the local newspaper, and I did write a few headline stories, I thought this might help my journalism application. But since they're nor academic, I'm not sure if I should put down my news articles as "publications."
Rule of thumb: is it relevant for your application? put it in. Is it irrelevant? leave it out.
It's not uncommon to have subheadings for different kinds of publications. "Peer-reviewed journal articles", "Proceedings", "Monographs" and so on. For a journalism program, "Newspaper articles" seems like a completely appropriate subheading.
Or "popular press" -- this kind of publication is highly prized in some circles, it shows the author's abilities to make complex ideas clear and relevant for a broader audience of non-specialists.
This seems particularly relevant given that the OP is applying to journalism school.
If that's a school which teaches journalism, then definitely, but like @rturnbull suggests, list them separately from anything else, since they're not academic publications about journalism.
If it's a graduate program for the study of journalism, then possibly, but only to a minor extent - and still it's the same practical advice: List them separately from anything else.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.446733 | 2016-10-02T08:16:49 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/77681",
"authors": [
"Bhavana",
"Ch10e",
"E.P.",
"Javier Hernández",
"Joey Eremondi",
"John Rodgers",
"Maria Escobar",
"Md Forkan172",
"Teusz",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19581",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/218470",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/218471",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/218472",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/218473",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/218485",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/218640",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6069",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/820"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
162996 | Adding pictures to mathematical academic papers
I was wondering if there is this "universal" program that generates a picture of a graph (you make), then exports it to SVG form. The SVG is because I want to export my whole project to PDF, so I need everything to be scalable vectors.
I was really curious how do people add different style of graphs, from regular "circles connected with lines/arrows" to graphs of automata like so (Apologies, I cannot make this picture view from the front as I don't have enough reputation):
Picture of Automata for example
My question is basically if there are some good (free) softwares to create graphs (any time of graph), so that it would look nice in a PDF, and not pixel-y.
Or do they make these on photoshop alone?
I was really trying hard to find some, the closest thing I found is XMIND which costs money for SVG, and on top of that, I did not see how to make this automata style.
(The automata is just an example of a "bizarre" graph/image, but I really mean all styles)
Thank you very much!
In my experience, these kinds of pictures are usually created using the LaTeX package TiKZ. An example collection of what can be done with TiKZ and how is available here: https://texample.net/tikz/examples/
See also the associated package, pgfplots. One can also embed gnuplot code in that way, which can be more flexible in some cases. In general if you don't have a 'closed form' expression for your graph, you will need to use data files.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.446981 | 2021-02-23T22:34:37 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/162996",
"authors": [
"algae",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119124"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
163014 | General Guidline in making a index for a textbook
I am currently writing a textbook in some mathematical area and now I am at the point of creating an index of words.
Are there some general rules in academia on this, like there are for citing references?
For example, if I have some mathematical theorem, like "Theorem of BlaBla", should I then include it to "T" or to "B"? And also if there is some general definition, like a "norm" of a space and then there are some specific examples, like "p-norms", should I then order the latter separately in $p$ or together wth the general concept at "n"?
Thanks!
https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/indices
I know how to make an index with latex thats not the problem. I am asking if there are some general rules for making them.
I don't think there are general rules. My experience is many of them are a mess. Personally I'd have an entry under both "T" and "B" for the "Theorem of BlaBla" because some readers may look in one place and others in the other one. I think asking yourself what is most reader-friendly is a good guideline.
Okay, thanks a lot @Lewian !
@Udalricu S Your question is specifically about mathematics and I don't have an answer. Wiley publishes many technical books. They have a detailed and excellent guide to indexing that might be useful. https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/book-authors/prepare-your-manuscript/indexing.html
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.447127 | 2021-02-24T08:51:54 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/163014",
"authors": [
"Anonymous Physicist",
"B.Hueber",
"Christian Hennig",
"Diana Petitti",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/110247",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/130192",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/135522"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
184974 | Asking another Professor for available PhD-position within the same research group
I am currently looking for a PhD-position and I am in touch with a professor already for some weeks. We had two zoom meetings and discussed about possible topics. The official call for the application starts soon. The professor now also said that he helps me writing the research proposal.
Now, within the same research group, there is also another professor, which is doing research in quite some different direction. I also wrote him an email some time ago (before I become in touch with the prof mentioned above) and he said that he has a free position. Now, I would like to ask him for a meeting in order to discuss about possible topics.
Obviously, I can only apply once for the same university, but still I would like to know about all possibilities. Now, my question is the following: Is it "impolite" or "ungratful" to ask the second professor for available topics? I do not want to give the first professor the feeling that I do not like his topic and I am looking for something better, because in fact, I really like his research program. As I say, I just would like to see all possibilites before applying.
I think it depends on how you approach the situation. For example, if you talk to the second professor about your "shared research interests" and mention openly that you have also been in touch with the first professor, it is probably all right. Professors from the same research group/department can talk about their applicants- and so better that they hear it from you. Another possibility is that if you like the topics from both professors, you could explore being co-advised (if there is any way to find common ground between the topics, or that one of the professors later serves as a committee member). I think it is very important to pursue what you find the most interesting, but also to communicate openly about your options, and usually professors know (and understand) that at that stage you are exploring your options.
agree with above. Would add that of course they (the professors) would (/should) assume you are scoping out options, as no future is secure in academia.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.447287 | 2022-05-05T19:39:46 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/184974",
"authors": [
"Chloe",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151567"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
171658 | Citing article with number AND issue
I stumbled over some journal which uses, next to volumes, numbers AND issues. I am wondering how one cites articles in this journal. For example, if some article is contained in a journal having only a volume and a number (OR issue), then usually one writes
Author: Title. Volume(Number):FirstPage-LastPage
But what should I do if the article has a number AND an issue? Are there any rules for this case?
So the Journal of Old Dits and Dahs, often abbreviated ODD, has decided to use volumes, numbers, and issues. Perhaps this eccentricity is related to the focus of the journal, the history of Morse code. And (somehow) there is an article there which you want to reference.
First step: look through articles in ODD to see how references to other papers in ODD are formatted. This is how that particular journal prefers things. If you are submitting your article to ODD, copy this format. If submitting elsewhere, also use this format unless ruled out by step 2.
Second step: look through any style guides available for your (non-ODD) target journal. Perhaps they have some guidance. Lacking that, check articles in your target journal that may have referenced an article in ODD. For example, you could look at the citations for the ODD article you are looking at. Copy that format.
Third step: (probably not needed if you can find any info above) - use a more conventional citation style, making sure there is enough information to uniquely identify the ODD paper in question. Submit as usual and see if the editorial staff complain at some point. It is highly likely, particularly with electronic databases, that given the authors, journal, and some variety of volume/number/issue/page that the article in question can be found even if not cited as the ODD journal would prefer.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.447459 | 2021-07-27T11:37:18 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/171658",
"authors": [],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
18625 | Do Springer, IEEE, Elsevier charge a fee for non-open-access journals?
My PhD advisor and lab colleagues think that Springer, IEEE and Elsevier journals non-open-access charge authors for publishing a paper. (They usually only publish in local journals.) All the info I've found points to the contrary (except for "gold" open access journals, which do charge authors), but all I've found are people commenting on particular journals saying that they do not charge.
Nonetheless, I've found very few journals that explicitly say "submission and publication is free of charge". For example, JAIR mentions that there aren't any submission fees, but does not mention publication fees. Frontiers of Computer Science does not mention charges at all in their instructions for authors.
I'm sorry if it's a stupid question, but I can't for the life of me find any definitive yes/no information online. (I don't have a concrete journal in mind since this all started because we are looking for one, but it'd have to be a machine learning/artificial intelligence journal.)
Do Springer, IEEE and Elsevier journals generally charge an author fee for their non-open-access journals? It may include submission fees or post-acceptance fees as well as page or figure charges.
Sorry, but I don't think it's in the spirit of the website to ask people to do Google work for you, in order to resolve a trivial dispute.
I did search; but given that: my research advisor and 4 other researchers in a research group I've recently joined (my first) were convinced there were charges; and that none of the journals I checked explicitely said there were no fees whatsoever to publish, it wasn't trivial to me.
Surprising that publication charges would keep a lab group from submitting to a journal. The publication cost is trivial compared to other lab expenses (e.g. postdocs), while publications in more prestigious journals help secure future grants -- and boost the careers of the authors. Even if no current grant pays for it and the university offers no funds, as long as the journal is more prestigious than free alternatives, it'd even be sensible to pay for it out of pocket. (May not apply to people in developing countries, but they tend to get fees waived anyway.)
Check te web sites of the journals looking for "instructions for authors", if that doesn't clear up the doubts, email the contact.
@user289891 In Argentina, phd candidates and postdocs are supported by scholarships from universities and other government agencies, so basically a research group or the institute it belongs to doesn't pay their salary. The same goes for full time researchers/tenured professors. This means that you can have a research group with few or no grants in some fields (ie, cs). Even if you have a grant, you need to take into account how exchange rates affect the cost of publishing.
Paying a journal $500 when that's basically half your monthly salary isn't always an option.
@ff524: submission fees are only one type of article processing charges (APC), which also include, e.g., post-acceptance publication fees; did you restrict the scope of your question intentionally? If not, the question should be editted for clarity. For background, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_processing_charge#Submission_fee
@FelipeG.Nievinski I've edited it.
I agree with the other answers, but they are anecdotal, and you asked for some "definitive" answers to help you convince your colleagues and advisor. Here's what I found:
IEEE
None of the IEEE journals has a required charge for non-open access publications.
The publication FAQ says:
For a detailed listing of paper charges by publication, download the List of Voluntary and Overlength Paper Charges (PDF, 287 KB).
Here is the current version of that list. You will note that some journals have voluntary "sustaining" charges for "normal-length" manuscripts. In fact, IEEE policy specifically states that those charges are not obligatory:
IEEE Policy 6.9 permits some types of periodicals to levy page charges. If your publication is one of these, it is your company or institution, not you, which is being asked for support. Payment is not obligatory nor is it a prerequisite for publication.
In the statement above "page charges" refers only to charges for not-open, not-overlength, not-color-print articles. Many IEEE publications do have "overlength" page charges, which are mandatory - if your paper exceeds the "normal" length then you must either reduce the length of your paper or pay the overlength charges. The length of a "normal" paper depends on the journal and publication type (normal-length "letters" may be as short as 1 or 2 pages, for example.) Some also have charges for color figures appearing in print, although there is no charge for online-only color.
More definitive info is available for each journal in the IEEE Xplore site, at the "About Journal" page, section "Author Resources", link "Additional Information", which opens a PDF with detailed "Information for Authors" (see an example).
(The document also does not include the recently added IEEE open access options, which do have required charges, which are listed here.)
Springer
The Springer author FAQ asks
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO PUBLISH IN A SPRINGER JOURNAL?
The answer there is:
For the majority of Springer journals, publishing an article is free of charge.
If a journal requires page charges, you will find them on the journal's springer.com homepage or in its Instructions for Authors.
Charges might apply e.g. for color figures or over-length articles. The information on these extra costs will also be available from the journal's homepage or its Instructions for Authors.
Charges for open access articles: If you choose to publish an open access article ("Springer Open Choice" article or in a "SpringerOpen" journal), there will be an Article Processing Charge (APC) to be paid by the author. As a consequence, the article can be freely read, downloaded or distributed from SpringerOpen.com and SpringerLink.com by any internet user.
Furthermore, even for open-access journals, Springer advises:
SpringerOpen journals routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries; and individual waiver requests are considered on the grounds of hardship on a case-by-case basis.
Another Springer FAQ titled Why publish with Springer? claims:
Page charges do not exist.
which I think is as close to "definitive" as you can get.
Elsevier
Some Elsevier journals do have author charges, and by searching the Elsevier site I did find a (very) few non-open journals with required page charges. I did not find any in CS with author charges, though.
The official policy I found is:
I am submitting my paper to one of your journals. How do I find out if there are page charges associated with this journal?
Page charges are journal specific. Many journals do not have page charges for submitted papers.
To determine whether the journal to which you are submitting has page charges, you will need to find the homepage for the journal and check it's specific submission instructions.
So if you're looking for a definitive "No page charges," Elsevier is not the answer. In practice, however, there are literally only a handful of non-open Elsevier journals that charge author fees.
Looks contradictory to me: "If a journal requires page charges, you will find them" and "Charges might apply e.g. for color figures or over-length articles" vs "Page charges do not exist." (well, logically these are not mutually exclusive, but why mention the possibility if they do not exist?)
@DavidRoberts I was just collecting all the policy statements I could find to go alongside the "experience" answers, I really don't know more than this. In practice I couldn't find a single non-open Springer journal with author charges.
@DavidRoberts This is one of the reasons why I asked the question; if you go and look in particular journals, they instructions for authors never say something like "Publishing in this journal is free for authors" or "Publishing in this journal is free for authors for articles of less than 10 pages".
@facuq The Springer journals do not usually say anything about charges, but the Springer policy is that "If a journal requires page charges, you will find them on the journal's springer.com homepage or in its Instructions for Authors." - so if there are no charges listed in those places, then the journal is free.
@facuq and the IEEE journals with "voluntary" charges often list them on their websites, but in any event none have required charges.
@ff524 Thanks, I read that, but I still don't get why it says no page charge; why qualify the word charge if there's no other charge other than the page charge?
@facuq There are "overlength page charges," "color images in print version charges," and for open-access, "article processing charges." Hence the qualifier, "page charge" - which is the only charge that applies to not-open, not-overlength, not-color-print articles.
@facuq In general any reputable publisher make any fees apparent up-front - if they do not clearly describe any author charges (as most don't, because they are free) then you can assume there are no charges.
@ff524 Yes, thanks again, I understand that now. And given the prior that they don't charge, it makes sense. But if your prior is that they do charge, like mine was, it's not immediately clear that they don't; I kept thinking that maybe there were other charges besides those for page, color and openness. You have to asume they don't because they don't say they do and consider those three the only possible charges. You can't find instructions that say "Authors can publish articles for free as long as they are not-open, not-overlength, not-color-print".
@facuq Agreed, they really should be more specific :)
You're accepting as "definitive" Springer's statement that "Page charges do not exist" despite Springer's own acknowledgemnt that over-length charges might apply. Similarly, your summary that "None of the IEEE journals has a required charge" flies in the face of the sentence "Many IEEE publications do have overlength page charges". You're underestimating the prevalence of these charges. The declared page limit is set much lower than the average article length. Below in my own answer I present statistical evidence demonstrating this point.
I have never paid for the publication of any journal paper, including papers in Springer, Elsevier, IEEE, ACM, SIAM, and AMS journals.
Some of those journals do advertise "page charges", but in my experience these are strictly voluntary. I've never paid them, and my papers were published anyway.
Colored images in print sometimes have a fee as well.
The papers I have published in various IEEE journals have had voluntary page charges up to a certain page count, say 9 pages, after which you paid some per page fee which was mandatory. If I recall correctly, it was about $175 per page.
"Voluntary page charges"? Wow, I had never heard of such a thing. (I am in mathematics.) Does anyone pay them?
@Anonymous: I have heard of such a thing, typically at non-profit open-access journals. (I am also in mathematics.) They ask that authors pay page charges to subsidize the operation of the journal, but if and only if the authors have grant money to use for that purpose.
An anecdotal opinion based answer with zero evidence.
@FelipeG.Nievinski Really? Is this not direct evidence that the Springer (and other) journals that I have published in do not charge for publication?
@JeffE: your statement was vague: we have no idea how many papers you are talking about, in what field of research, etc.
@MarkMeckes Open Access "Article Processing Charges" are distinct from "page charges" at traditional journals.
To be certain, you'd have to check the specific journal's author instructions.
However, I've published in two Elsevier and one Springer journal (in mathematics) and never paid an author fee. The Springer journal had an open access option, which would have had a fee, but we didn't choose that option.
Around half the titles from the major commercial publishers (Springer, Elsevier, etc) have (potential, & effectively optional) colour charges (Kiley). [Wiley is listed as "no data available" here, but I can confirm from experience that some Wiley titles do have colour charges, and have a very tedious paper-based process for paying them].
Very few of the commercial journals have page charges - usually for historic reasons - but they are still reasonably common among journals published by US scholarly societies (Curb & Abramson). Other fees (eg submission fees, revision fees, supplementary material fees, "picture on the cover" fees...) are generally rare but not unknown.
As a result, they're a significant issue in some fields, where page-charge journals are still common, but in others, you can go your entire career without ever encountering them. Hence the wide variation in answers...
Edit: I finally wrote up and published my notes on this - "Considering Non-Open Access Publication Charges in the Total Cost of Publication'", Publications, 2015, 3(4), 248-262; doi:10.3390/publications3040248
My estimate is that overall these charges (page, colour, submission, etc) are equivalent to around 2% of subscription costs, which is relatively small but (given the cost of subscriptions) substantial in cash terms. The costs appear to be very variable among disciplines (and institutions), and aren't very well recorded by our existing ways of tracking spending on scholarly publishing. Which is concerning...
I find your "total cost of publication" (akin to "total cost of ownership") a useful concept to assess hidden charges, especially in non-OA publications.
@FelipeG.Nievinski It's not mine, but I agree :-). The main focus of current work is (understandably) on calculating TCO/TCP for OA material (taking into account APCs, double-dipping, offsets, and so on), but my feeling is that page/colour/submission/etc fees are overall a noticeable & yet badly-documented cost. They used to be fairly well understood, but as they've grown rarer people tend to forget about them...
Beside the above mentioned some journals (not necessarily of the above publishers) require a fee before reviewing your submission (sometimes only if you are not part of a society).
For instance the American Sociological Review charges a "$25.00 Non-refundable Manuscript Processing Fee."
I think the common name for them is "submission fees": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_processing_charge#Submission_fee
It's not uncommon for charges to come in disguise, e.g., this is from the IEEE:
A mandatory Excessive Paper Length charge of $200.00 per page (beginning with page 7 and beyond) is required for papers in excess of six (6) printed pages. The author will be notified of the estimated paper length upon receipt of the original manuscript. The author will be requested, conditional upon favorable technical review, to pay an optional sustaining page charge of $110 per printed page to cover the cost of publication of the first six pages and will receive 100 black/white (no color) reprints of the paper if this charge is honored. There will also be mandatory charges for color figures.
Now comes the catch: the average paper in this periodical is more than six pages long and has at least one color figure. So in effect the majority of authors did end up being charged.
Here is some evidence that IEEE charges authors in excess of a thousand dollars per article in some of its journals. I picked IEEE JSTARS because I have experience with it, both as an author and a reviewer. I looked at the four issues published so far in the current year. I scraped the page range of each numbered contribution; there were 151-7=144 articles, after removing 7 editorials, forewords, or tables of contents. The typical article length, 12.1 pages +/- 3.2 pages (mean and standard deviation, respectively), is more than twice the nominal normal length (6 pages). Multiplying $200 times the excess number of pages gives the sought-after figure. IEEE charged authors US$ 1,213 on average as mandatory over-length fees in this journal. That's effectively an article processing charge in disguise. (I've shared the spreadsheet online.)
I don't know where you got this. But I have published several papers in IEEE journals and was never charged and my papers were up to 14 pages in IEEE Transactions. This charge is probably for some very specific journals.
Re: where I got this, there's a link above in "this is from the IEEE". The over-length article charges start after various page numbers, between zero and 14, depending on the journal or magazine, see details. As for anecdotal counter evidence, I was once charged US$800 in payment for publication of a 10-page article in an IEEE Transactions journal, and another time US$600 for a 9-page article. Apparently some titles are more lucrative than others. And these were non-open-access titles -- double dipping?
http://www.editorialmanager.com/homepage/DOCS/Author_Tutorial.pdf
Starting on page 35 of this pdf, this Springer journal details how there is a fee for paper submission ($75 charge for members; $100 charge for non-members) and the paper will not be forwarded to the editorial office until the payment has cleared. Additionally, there are other charges when they go to production (e.g., $50 per page for the first 5 pages, $35 per page for pages 6-10, $20 per page for 11+ pages).
I find this very odd as I've never had a journal request payment to submit or publish a paper.
The linked document appears to be a tutorial for software used by journal publishers including Springer, not a "Springer journal". The tutorial includes, starting on page 35 a description an optional feature of this software, which as far as I know, Springer's editorial process does not use.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.447684 | 2014-03-27T22:35:21 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18625",
"authors": [
"Akmarzhan Kozhamurat",
"Alieu Fatty",
"Andrew is gone",
"Andy W",
"Anne-Marie Burke",
"Anonymous",
"Ashok Rai",
"Blaisorblade",
"Blossom Artificial Grass Liver",
"David Roberts",
"Dima Sabanin",
"Felipe G. Nievinski",
"Gurunath Sripad",
"Janus mnsted J Hyer",
"JeffE",
"John Smith",
"Mad Jack",
"Mark Meckes",
"P. Ferreira",
"Pepe Mandioca",
"Phil",
"RJ Williams",
"Raphael K",
"Rochelle Perez",
"SDiv",
"Sova",
"Spammer McSpamface",
"Still_Learning",
"Tami Kingan",
"Venkata Ratnam V",
"Wavvy",
"annsaid",
"ff524",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/101",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11192",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114124",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114383",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/114514",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/120523",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131774",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131776",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13556",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/135591",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/135599",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/135601",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/135645",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168200",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/168203",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169586",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/201285",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/201289",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/201311",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/201319",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/201350",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/201510",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21815",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27825",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28125",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38135",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46302",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50510",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50511",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50515",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50516",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50520",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5824",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8881",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8966",
"jwg",
"loukote",
"prijutme4ty",
"user2898391",
"vonbrand",
"أبو عبدالله ابن يعقوب"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
18723 | Harvard Multiple authors- Alphabetical or not?
I apologise if I have missed this in the Harvard guidelines but I was wondering whether the order of multiple authors matters. For example a book by A Smith and A Jones. How should it be written:
(Smith & Jones, 2014)
Smith, A. and Jones, A. 2010. Another Book. 5th ed. New York [etc.]: Book Pub.
or must it be written alphabetical of surname:
(Jones & Smith, 2014)
Jones, A. and Smith, A. 2010. Another Book. 5th ed. New York [etc.]: Book Pub.
I understand all the other rules regarding the list been alphabetical and date ordered where multiple authors exist but haven’t seen anything explicitly mentioning this.
Thank You
There is no way any referencing standard would allow the author list to be changed.
When you say you have looked at the "Harvard guidelines" what do you mean? I would suggest you look at the APA or MLA style handbooks (both variants of Harvard referencing), they should answer your question.
@StrongBad the OP has already stated they were not able to find it in the guidelines
@Magpie and I was asking for clarification on which guidelines the OP looked at.
Always use the order of authors as given in the book or article, regardless of the reference style (Harvard or otherwise).
The order of authors has some significance in many disciplines (for example, in my field the first author is the one who did the most work). So, no referencing system asks you to change the order of authors.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.449206 | 2014-03-30T23:29:35 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18723",
"authors": [
"Magpie",
"Max",
"Peter K.",
"Saikios",
"Setepenre",
"StrongBad",
"Tuya Erdenejargal",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1248",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3965",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50837",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50838",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50845",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50905",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
64576 | What is the reason of the disparity between single article price and yearly subscription in scientific journals?
I'd like to understand scientific journals' pricing model.
For example, in the case of Nature, one single article bought as a unit costs $32.00. But a personal subscription is only $199.00 for 1 Year (51 issues, Print and Online). That is 6x digital articles cost slightly less than all articles in one year and 51 paper magazines.
What is the reason of the disparity between the article price and the yearly subscription? Wouldn't they obtain a better return rate if they priced the articles at a reasonable amount? (maybe $4-$5)
If you buy a single news magazine at a newstand, it's also more expensive than when you have a subscription.
@ff524: Yes, but in the case of Nature that's $10 (1/3 of a single digital article). It makes the whole even more puzzling to me. It looks like digital single articles are priced for not being bought.
"I don't want to enter into a debate. Therefore I will state an absolute position and post my statement on the internet."
The concepts of supply and demand is not relevant here. Go to economics.stackexchange
On the principle a subscription is always better than individual sales from the journal's point of view because it's a fixed income on which they can count. It's also well known to increase sales that explain why you always get a discount when you subscribe to a service.
As for the seemingly large difference you mention, my guess is that individual subscriptions for scientific articles are rare, and thus not very interesting financially. People needing frequent access to the content of these journals typically access them via institutional subscriptions.
Not only it's a fixed income, but it's also in advance.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.449474 | 2016-03-04T22:06:38 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/64576",
"authors": [
"David Ketcheson",
"Massimo Ortolano",
"Quora Feans",
"Wetlab Walter",
"ff524",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28355",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8970"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
19079 | Should you publish a rejected conference paper on arXiv?
Imagine you have a paper that got rejected from a top tier conference. You think it is of high quality.
Do you submit the paper to arXiv, or keep pushing for a conference later on?
I do have seen a paper rejected from a conference on arXiv, but I am not sure why they do that.
Why not do both?
You mean you didn't post it to arXiv before you submitted it the first time?
Submitting a paper to the arXiv does not preclude publishing it later in a journal or in the proceedings of a conference. In fact, one should not think of a paper which appears on the arXiv as being published. (There's no peer review, for one thing.)
In my community (hep-th, mostly) one always submits to the arXiv first, gathers comments, and only then submits for publication. Of course, other communities might work differently.
In the fields I am familiar with (maths and physics, mostly), I would submit the paper to the arXiv in any case. You can then decide how to actually publish the paper.
Well I may consider publishing the paper later on, but for now my main reason is to protect the idea/novelty of the work.
Is this a good reason for using arXiv ?
BTW, I am in CS, theory field.
I'm not sure what you mean by protecting the idea. Do you mean that you want not to disseminate it? (which seems odd since you are submitting for publication elsewhere) or simply that you want to ensure you are given credit? If the latter, the arXiv has a time stamp. In fact, if your topic is "hot" and the chances of being scooped are high, I'd recommend submitting to arXiv as soon as possible.
If you're in CS theory, then it's increasingly becoming the practice to post things on the arxiv at submission time. In fact at least one recent venue strongly recommends it.
@NeoN: In my opinion (too...), posting something to the arxiv is currently the best way to secure the novelty of your work.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.449651 | 2014-04-08T15:46:59 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19079",
"authors": [
"JeffE",
"José Figueroa-O'Farrill",
"Juan Carlos",
"M Olsen",
"NeoN",
"Pedram Safari",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Peteris",
"Sibbs Gambling",
"Suresh",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10297",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10730",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1163",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/51918",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/51919",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/51923",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8079",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
61221 | Is it acceptable to contact the PI for a research position, in addition to applying through the careers site?
At my institution there's an on-site cancer research center. I applied to a lab through the center's careers page for the position Research Associate 1. Basically they took my resume, cover letter, personal info and there's a message in an automated system saying I'm currently being considered. I do meet the requirements for the position, but as for the hiring process they don't provide a way of contacting a hiring manager, HR, etc. (I've looked deep, there's nothing except a "we'll get back to you if we're interested").
I have the email for the PI of the lab, but I'm unsure if it's acceptable to contact him about the position. What would be acceptable to say?
Do you have anything special to add with respect to your application that they already have on file and are considering?
No, it's simply on the basis I think employers consider applicants who make a better effort than the job application itself in higher regard.
Unless this is an extremely high-profile position likely to get thousands of applicants, I don't think there is any harm in dropping the PI a brief email (3 sentences!) informing them you've applied for their position, telling them how much you respect their work, and letting them know they can contact you if they need any additional information. If their HR department is useless, the PI may ask you to send your cover letter & CV. But write the letter in such a way that the PI can easily ignore the letter (doesn't feel obliged to respond) if their HR department functions well.
You might try to find out from other people in-the-know whether the PI already has someone in mind, and is just going through the motions of posting this position on HR.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.449874 | 2016-01-07T01:57:10 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/61221",
"authors": [
"CKM",
"Catchops",
"Eyeconoclastic",
"Federico Poloni",
"Marina Orhanovic",
"Mon Mon",
"Spammer",
"XYZT",
"bonz Bonezi69 rose",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169944",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169945",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169946",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169947",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169948",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169949",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169991",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169992",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/170206",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/170525",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/39227",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"moonfashion",
"scijam",
"taigo88club"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
79426 | Should I update my arXiv submission after it's been reviewed and published OA in a Springer journal?
I recently had a paper accepted in a Springer journal, which allows "Open Choice", meaning that the article can be made Open Access. My institution covers the charges, so I agreed to do it and now it's in process of publication.
My question is: when I first submitted the manuscript, I also put a version on the arXiv and on my webpage. Now in the accepted version there are a couple of updates coming from referee revisions. I already put the new version in my webpage, since I know I can do that.
But what about the arXiv? When using non-Open Access, there is a 12 month embargo period. But it's not clear for me from
https://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/authors-rights/self-archiving-policy/2124
whether I can update the version with the accepted version in the arXiv. I don't care for the journal typesetting; I'm happy with just putting the revisions in my own LaTeX file.
Can I do it without issue?
I don't know about the de-jure part, but de-facto you can (and should) always update arxiv preprints with corrections.
The link you provided says "Prior versions of the article published on non-commercial pre-print servers like arXiv.org can remain on these servers and/or can be updated with the author’s accepted version." From this it seems that (a) the 12 month embargo period never applies to arXiv and (b) You can also update the arXiv version with the accepted version. It does not seem this changes with the open access option.
@darijgrinberg I do not agree with "always" in your statement. There are (and they are not rare to my knowledge) situations when after trying to follow the reviewer's "suggestions" the paper changes, and not in the better side. In this case I would definitely keep the original version.
@Artem: Ah, good point!
@Artem: Yeah, it's important that sometimes refereeing makes a paper marginally worse. When that happens, it can be good to leave the older arXiv version alone.
Under Springer Open Choice, you retain copyright and the journal releases the published article under a CC-BY license.
So:
By the terms of CC-BY, everyone can make a copy the published paper and redistribute it under the same license, including on Arxiv.
Even better: you, the copyright holder, can relicense the paper to anyone, with the terms you want. As long as you don't give them an "exclusive right to distribute", of course, because you cannot take back the rights you have already granted others.
Some Open Choice journals use CC-BY-NC, though which may make redistribution under the first method trickier, because Arxiv does not have an option for CC-BY-NC. The other method is always ok, though.
Note: I am not a lawyer.
I agree that the link you provided is somehow contradictory.
So, for the open access option, you can publish the final "official" pdf in any website and/or depository (as you have paid the publications costs and you retain the rights).
For the non-open access option, the information are more confusing. The copyright transfer statement says:
"Authors may self-archive the author’s accepted manuscript of their
articles on their own websites. Authors may also deposit this version
of the article in any repository, provided it is only made publicly
available 12 months after official publication or later. He/ she may
not use the publisher's version (the final article), which is posted
on SpringerLink and other Springer websites, for the purpose of
self-archiving or deposit. Furthermore, the author may only post
his/her version provided acknowledgement is given to the original
source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article
on Springer's website. The link must be provided by inserting the DOI
number of the article in the following sentence: “The final
publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/[insert
DOI]”."
From this it seems that:
The accepted version of the manuscript (but not the final pdf) can be published in your own website.
The accepted version of the manuscript can be deposited to any repository as long as it is available publicly at least 12 months after the publication.
You cannot use the official pdf generated by the publisher anywhere.
For 1 and 2, you have to add a link to the official pdf.
The second part reads:
Prior versions of the article published on non-commercial pre-print
servers like arXiv.org can remain on these servers and/or can be
updated with the author’s accepted version. The final published
version (in PDF or HTML/XML format) cannot be used for this purpose.
From my understanding, you can have the accepted (or earlier) version on arXiv. But still, it doesn't mention the clause about the 12 month time to be publicly available. Since the last part is not the one you sign when you transfer the copyright, it is probably not legally binding and you are still obliged to keep the 12 month period before you have it publicly available.
I.e. "Any repository" is the legal term and seems to include the non-commercial pre-print repositories.
Now, since you plan to have it open access, there is nothing to worry about. But if you still consider the non-open access option, I would refrain from having the accepted version of the manuscript and I would add a link to the official pdf as well. I would also contact the editor or the support of the journal to clarify if non-commercial pre-print repositories are OK and I wouldn't sign something that is unclear to me.
Contacting them might also lead to a clarification of the instructions or update the Copyright transfer statement you have to sign (which would help other researchers avoid a potential issue).
As a last comment, I suspect that if it would be possible to submit the accepted version to any non-commercial pre-print repository, it kind of negates the whole point of them selling access to your paper...
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.450112 | 2016-11-05T13:47:06 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/79426",
"authors": [
"Artem",
"Buzz",
"CWsl2",
"darij grinberg",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27515",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/51777",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65042",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7725"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
62193 | How does PhD candidate salary compares between differen European countries, and the USA?
I would like to know which is the salary average of a PhD candidate position in chemistry in different countries of Europe or in USA.
I know that in Germany and France the salaries are around 1300€ after tax and in Spain, Italy and Portugal around 900€ (correct me if I´m wrong).
In Italy the PhD scholarship depends on the university and can range from about 1000 €/month to about 1500 €/month.
@jakebeal: I suspect the OP means "net", as in "post-tax".
Related: European Ph.D. student salary range web site (closed)
I find this to be an OK question. Possibly a bit broad but there is nothing on our site now about this exact question, and I think well-documented answers would be useful to the community.
Yes, but the problem is that the data quickly becomes stale and there's too much variance. For example, in the USA it ranges from -$40,000 (you pay the school tuition) to $30,000 (tuition waiver + full stipend). We could post 2015 data here, but it'd be useless by 2020 (which is why StackExchange as a whole shies away from this kind of thing).
it depends on your contract.
In Germany you have a contract as TVL 13.
Fulltime netto: 2200-2400 Euro
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.450565 | 2016-01-24T15:50:01 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/62193",
"authors": [
"Alaa Boucheqif",
"Cape Code",
"LaFox_NC",
"Massimo Ortolano",
"O. R. Mapper",
"RoboKaren",
"Spammer",
"cabdishugri cabdifataax",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/172980",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/172981",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/172982",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/172993",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/173114",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"sunwinrent"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
80057 | Post-Bac Program Help Low GPA
I'm an undergraduate student studying computer science in my last year. I graduate in Spring 2017. I have a 2.97 GPA. I will likely have a 3.0-3.1 when I graduate. I want to end up at a top university for grad school and dream of being a researching professor.
I recently was able to speak in person with a new assistant professor from a top school at a conference recently about working with him through an RA or post-bac position. We got along well and he enjoyed my ideas as I did his. It seems like we fit well as people (which is important, I'd say). We're still corresponding via email.
The RA position is up in the air until he files the grant for it so until then my only viable option to work with this professor is through this post-bac program.
Here's my dilemma:
I'm concerned my GPA and lack of a strong 'rising trend' will outright prevent my acceptance to this post-bac program. And if the RA position isn't an option, there goes my chance at getting networked into this top school for now. I know this isn't the whole truth and that it's a more nuanced situation but I can't help feeling this way sometimes.
Here are my questions:
How helpful is it to get into top post-bac programs for low-GPA students if they:
a. Already have correspondence with a faculty
b. Have already spoken about possible projects with that professor that both parties agree are good
c. The professor mentioned he'd "make sure [my] application gets considered in full"
d. Contact the Director of the program mentioning the correspondence with the professor and the student's concerns about their GPA/application
How hard is it to get into top post-bac problems?
a. Are they competitive?
b. How many people apply knowing faculty ahead of time?
c. How many people apply usually?
Some Info That (may) Hurt My Application:
GPA = 2.97, will likely be 3.0-3.1 at graduation
No significant 'rising trend' in grades after sophomore/junior year - I've genuinely been a B student because I didn't care for classes until I cam across A.I. Two years later I now know in my heart this is my calling and I want to be a professor as well. In a way, I believe this passion cured my depression (see below)
Changed majors from biomed (2yrs) -> chemistry (2yrs) -> computer science (1yr)
Multiple failed courses in my transcripts in my first year (Failed college algebra three times because I had depression my first year; couldn't care about anything)
Some Info That (may) Help My Application:
Major GPA > 3.2, will likely be > 3.3 at graduation
Invested in research in the field (A.I.) I'm going into with this prof at the uni where the post-bac
The research I'm doing is possibly groundbreaking. PI mentioned in last meeting "This has the potential to be material for multiple PhD dissertations"
I'm the primary and only author aside from the PI on that project
My outreach is beyond excellent by all standards (founded multiple advanced STEM organizations, am an avid public speaker on STEM [more than 6 talks/lectures in the city], and recently started a lecture series for students at my uni on AI that was funded by MIT for the Fall 2016 semester) (and there's more outreach I'm not listing)
I'm hispanic and will be the second person in my family to get an advanced degree
My Current Plan
Contact the Director of the post-bac program, mention my concerns, see how I can make my last few months as useful as possible for acceptance
Mention to the Director my correspondence with the assistant professor
Keep corresponding with the professor about topics and reinforce the idea I'm worth his time
Please let me know if this is clear to understand. This is my first post and I'll edit it if it's unclear.
Thank you!
To make things more clear - as my question has been tagged as a duplicate of another - I'm asking for advice on how to navigate post bachelor "post-bac" programs.
For those who may not know, this is not an umbrella term that refers to all things a recently graduated undergrad can pursue. It's a specific academic program offered by some universities. I have not seen any questions address this topic and I defend that post-bac programs are different enough to justify my request for help.
Example of such a program here, and here.
It is unclear what a post-bac is. Can you define it?
@cagirici a post-bac program is a year long program for recently graduated undergraduate students that allows them to better prepare for graduate school by being offered mentorship, research experience, and grad school prep education during the year. It's short for post-bachelor
@CapeCode, the thread you linked, though helpful in general for those considering PhD, is not helpful for my questions. I'm specifically asking the community about 'post bachelor' programs and hoping to get insight into what makes a good post-bac applicant - it is not the same as a masters or PhD program.
@FelixSosa can you give a link to what you call "post bachelor" programs, if that is different from Masters and PhDs? Maybe in which country this is a thing?
I have retracted my close vote, since it appear not to be a duplicate.
@CapeCode No problem! Here are two geared towards medical school (others are geared for PhD programs): https://gs.columbia.edu/postbac/program-overview http://www.career.ucla.edu/Post-Bac-Program-Information
Ok, I have pasted these links in your question, and offered a tag edit. Generally your question is rather long, and some information is redundant. Consider maybe editing some of it out, and concentrate on one question per post. Good luck with your endeavors.
@CapeCode thanks for the tips! I'll look into editing it today.
Why don't you tell your contact at the top-university your ambitions to go into academia and your concerns about your low GPA? When mentioning your GPA, be sure to give a brief explanation that you've had difficulties (finding your passion, depression in first year) and that you have redeeming qualities that aren't reflected in your GPA (the lecture series, the project).
Such an extra year might be precisely what you need to prove to that top-university that you indeed have what it takes. I'd mention first to the professor that you are considering getting in touch with the director of the program. The professor might help with the contact giving you a positive introduction or give tips in dealing with the director.
Side notes:
1. I'd be careful about mentioning that you want to be a professor. That is like saying you want to be Olympian, it is very easy to want that. Instead, I'd emphasize that you want to work hard and get into academia to do research.
2. Small point about unfairness in the world: sometimes admission people for university programs/jobs have explicit or implicit minimum GPA requirements. When you get a lot of applications, it is easy to first drop all applicants that don't satisfy a specific GPA threshold. I'd work hard to turn that 2.97 GPA into a 3.01. That gets you over the hurdle of >3.00 GPA and might be the difference at times between whether your cover letter gets read or not.
Thank you for the response! I have spoken to my contact about my concerns and he gave me the green light to speak with the director and mention that he's eager to read my application. I'm going to continue guiding our conversation through research ideas and concepts so that we may continue to know each other a little more. I figure at some point if it is successful he'll be more willing to give a recommendation in person to the admissions board rather than a simple "please give him full consideration". I plan on mentioning the low GPA issue and am reading a lot on how to craft a good SOP/PS.
Also, yeah. This post-bac program is what I think I need to show the top universities I'm worth the investment. Which is why I'm taking it so seriously and trying to ask as much as I can online (here) and in person.
Be honest about that in your application to the post-bac program. That you know your GPA is lower than you want, you have redeeming qualifications and want to use this program to work hard and prove you can do better.
Important note: you already got the professors recommendation in the bag. "make sure [my] application gets considered in full" is the best you are ever going to get out of his mouth. If they accept you, they have to probably reject someone else. If it ever got out that the professor chose you outside the admission process or gave you an unfair advantage, that could be the basis for lawsuits. His comment is code for: "I want you and I am going to lobby for you, but I can't openly say that because the admission process needs to be followed".
Thank you for that point. It's certainly going to be worked into my SOP/PS when applying. I wasn't aware that could be detrimental for his career and/or the uni. That gives me a better sense of hope for this situation!
Consider the situation that you are white and the rejected candidate is black. Or that you are male and the rejected candidate is female. Or the situation that you are physically able-bodied and the rejected candidate is in a wheel-chair. Now suppose it comes out that the professor is actively lobbying for your candidacy, without considering the work of the other candidates. Now the other candidate files a discrimination lawsuit. How do you prove that there was no discrimination involved? By never explicitly admitting he had a favorite in the first place and following the neutral system.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.450726 | 2016-11-18T01:11:50 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/80057",
"authors": [
"Cape Code",
"Skittles",
"dimpol",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15949",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64074",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65038",
"padawan"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
16821 | Post-doc positions in Mechanical Engineering
What is the best way to approach professors when looking for a Post-Doc position ? Are there any particular search tools for this type of position ?
I found a similar question on this website: How to maximise one's chances of getting a good postdoc position?
My question is more directed towards the way one should contact potential advisors, specially if they are in foreign countries and a face-to-face meeting is not possible. Is it better to contact directly the Professor or rather contact fellow PhD/PostDocs of that laboratory ? Is an e-mail sufficient or should you try to contact that person through tools like LinkedIn or ResearchGate ?
What would be a good time to do so ? 3 months, 6 months, a year before finishing the PhD ?
Should one be specific on what you would like to work on or rather general so that more possibilities are available ?
I guess this is a really open discussion topic where there is not a "correct" answer, so feel free to share your personal views and experience.
Context: I'm not in mechanical engineering, but am a potential post doc advisor.
Remember: ootential advisors are (almost) always on the lookout for good people, even when they don't have money to hire them, because they always have grants submitted, so any time soon they may receive another grant.
It is fine to contact potential advisors directly, but beware that they will receive many such emails, including many that are easily considered as SPAM, due to their impersonal and indirect nature. This means that your emails need to be personal, and they need to quickly establish what you do and what value you could be to the potential advisor, for instance by finding a real connection with their research.
Having a concrete research proposal is also a valuable idea, but beware that a potential advisor may not be interested in supervising a topic that is outside their core research focus.
Contacting a potential advisor 3 months in advance would put you in the running for any positions that the advisor may have open.
Contacting a potential advisor 6 months in advance might be a way of putting your name in the advisor's mind, but it would probably be too early to actually get a position. That said, the advisor may have applied for some funding, and this may come available after those 6 months. Then having your name in the advisor's mind would be a good thing.
Contacting a potential advisor 12 months before you finish might be useful if there is a funding opportunity that you both could apply for.
Of course, contacting the potential advisor 3 months before you finish might lead to an opportunity 12 months down the track, and so on.
I find that the information regarding application times is hard to obtain, so thank you for the valuable advice !
@Nicolas: From my experience (in 3 European countries), hiring times for post-docs closely follows the dates when the results of grant applications are made known.
How can an applicant be aware of this dates? Professors generally do not advertise postdoc positions and the Grants they have applied for funding even less... For example, here in Canada, I believe Grants are often attributed in March (at least from the government), but there is no information on which grant the professor/potential advisor applied for.
You can look at the web pages for the various funding agencies. These generally have relevant dates. Of course you cannot know of whether any specific professor submitted an application, but you will at least know when possible opportunities may arise.
@DaveClarke: Not all countries have funding deadlines. Germany and Switzerland, for instance, allow applications at any time, although some larger programs are only announced at certain intervals. More importantly, though, in Mech E it is rare to "bring your own proposal," since positions are usually tied to projects.
Nicholas, I am a mechanical engineering PhD and have had success applying for post-doc positions. Here is my profile (which may be relevant):
Not the best publication record in peer reviewed journals
High throughput of papers at peer reviewed conferences (ASME-IMECE, ASME-HTC, APS DFD) and some allied niche meetings (Wolfram conferences, Suborbital researchers conferences)
Significant teaching experience (teaching labs, undergraduate courses and graduate level courses since the opportunity presented itself).
Now with my profile in mind, I applied to Post doc positions more than 12 months in advance of my graduation date. I applied for post doc positions in early to mid 2012 in anticipation that I would join or receive a positive job offer for early 2013 and mid/late 2013.
When approaching professors through their emails or through post doc adverts, this is what I focused on:
All my applications were via email to either the Professor/PI or through post doc websites such as academicKeys, MathJobs or CFD Jobs and similar others.
All my applications leveraged my ability to churn out conference worthy results and my teaching skills and how they related to time management.
In all cases, if I thought that my research was particularly relevant to the position I was applying to, I included a "snippet" of a figure or plot from my research in the cover letter and described it's applicability to the job.
In some cases I also included that I was available to have a conversation via a telecon/videocon/skype meeting and a good 10-15% of the PIs responded to it by having a chat with me.
The last two bullet points resulted in a 100% success rate for me.
Having a web/video interview definitely seems like a good idea, for both Professor and Student ! Thanks for the tips.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.451359 | 2014-02-11T16:39:10 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16821",
"authors": [
"Dave Clarke",
"Dnore Gen",
"Eric Towers",
"Josh Leland",
"MSD561",
"Naveed Jamali",
"Nicolas",
"Wojciech Kaczmarek",
"aeismail",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45336",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45337",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45338",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45340",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45341",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45473",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45474",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9665",
"zantor"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
40713 | Do professors get paid for supervising students?
Do professors get paid for supervising PhD students / honours student's projects?
If so, typically how much?
In the US, supervising graduate students is generally considered part of the normal workload of a faculty member and there's no extra pay for doing this.
The number of students supervised is typically a factor in tenure, promotion, and pay raise evaluations. Not supervising enough graduate students can hurt your evaluations and might possibly result in your not getting tenure or promotion or a pay raise.
In some departments, supervision of graduate students counts towards teaching load (so that faculty who are supervising lots of graduate students can reduce their teaching load, while faculty who aren't supervising graduate students have to teach more classes.)
Not in the UK. Supervision is usually a job requirement. It's also necessary to boost research output.
As to boosting research output, this depends on your field. In mathematics, conventional wisdom is that taking on grad students reduces your research output, and at least in the US, math departments often let faculty wait to take on grad students until they have tenure.
Sorry! I forgot that the term "Professor" is used more generally in the US. In the UK it is specifically a tenured position.
@rachaelbe Technically, there hasn't been a tenure system in the UK since (as I recall) the 1980s. But, yes, a full professor in the UK definitely corresponds to somebody who would have tenure in the US.
@rachaelbe I slightly disagree. When I was doing my masters (Funded) my supervisor told me that he takes a % of the funding for himself (10-15%) one of the reasons I did not want to continue my studies further with that particular institute
@rachaelbe: At least in some fields, the restriction to tenured positions is probably not necessary. After all, PhD candidates supervising Master and Bachelor students would be an analogous process to professors (tenured or non-tenured, I suppose) supervising PhD students, and in both cases, the supervision can lead to boosting research output.
Although professors are not technically paid for this work in the US, in many cases they are effectively paid for doing so, particularly for Ph.D. students. This is because in many cases, the professor requires grants in order to be able to hire Ph.D. students to work for them, and those same grants pay for a portion of the professor's time, some of which is expected to be used for supervising the student. The accounting is often rather obscure, however...
however..... what?
@CGCampbell Move the "however" to the start of the sentence.
In Germany, you may get a little personal bonus (on the order of 100 EUR), which does not flow into the research group budget, per bachelor's, master's or Ph.D. dissertation you supervised. The bonus is usually contingent on reviewing it on time after receiving the official version. This practice may vary from university to university.
Just to clarify, it sounds like you are talking about being a reviewer of a dissertation as opposed to being a supervisor?
Is this related to the "W" pay scale for professors? It seems to be the only scheme that allows professors to get additional payment (as in the old "C" pay scale, salaries are fixed, and the "E" pay scale, which also some senior researchers get, also doesn't seem to allow additional payment).
I think it really depends on your university. In my own experience: in my former university (Baden-Württemberg) I got a bonus of 500€/thesis, that did flow into my research budget. In my current university (Nordrhein-Westfalen) there is no such thing.
@JeromyAnglim: to my knowledge, the bonus goes to the supervisor, who is always also a reviewer, and to get the bonus, the supervisor/reviewer needs to hand in his review within six weeks after the student handed in the thesis. No monetary bonus for the second reviewer. But as Delio writes, this very much depends on your university.
@DCTLib: It does not seem to be common in any case, but I'd agree that this is more likely to happen under W-Besoldung. Although I don't know whether this kind of additional bonus is explicitly ruled out under C-Besoldung.
Another answer from Germany: Supervising students (BSc, MSc or PhD) is part of the job. No extra salary in general but, as part of the usual negotiations, one may get a temporary raise for "outstanding efforts in supervision".
At my university supervision of students can cover some of your teaching load (e.g. supervising one BSc thesis in math is equivalent to 0.3 hours teaching per week, an MSc thesis is 0.6 hours per week, each thesis counts for the semester in which it is submitted, its capped at 1.8 hours if I remember correctly). However, supervising PhD students does not give anything since PhD students in Germany do not count as students and even teaching at a PhD level does not count for the teaching load.
I think you meant to write: PhD students do not count as students in Germany. (I can't edit it in, because edits must be at least 6 characters.)
[As an external advisor,] I got paid for supervising a few masters & bachelors thesis. If I would be a professor or other direct employee of the university, then that would be included in the normal teaching duties for their usual salary, but external supervisors from other universities, research institutes or the industry, as well as external reviewers get separate compensation. The amounts aren't large though, if you put reasonable effort in it then it comes up to a rather tiny hourly rate.
At my university (in the United States), professors actually pay to supervise students, in the sense that money for their students' salaries comes out of their grants.
I think this is not the right way of seeing this. Isn't the grant money precisely reserved for this very purpose?
Actually, I thought about downvoting but did not do so.
@ChrisWhite Hmm, in Germany a PhD student costs more than an assistant professor (due to a different social security system), But probably I don't get the point. You acquire grants to pay people to do research.
I don't understand the downvotes. There is a real choice between using grant funding to pay for graduate students or for another purpose (like a postdoc). At least in my context (theoretical physics in the US), the size of an individual grant is essentially fixed--and never much larger than the cost of a postdoc--so this is a real issue.
But the questions clearly asks about the professor's salary. Your answer did not even touch that point.
In the countries I know, professors are indeed paid to do that. They do not get any extra money per hour spent supervising students or anything like that but it's part of their regular duties, i.e. what they get a salary for in the first place.
Which are the countries you know?
It depends on the work contract between the prof and the University, and in most cases is it highly private data. In the academical sphere I know, they have a base wage, and they get a minimal bonus for the similar things as per-student "services". The most part of their wage comes from the first, despite most of their work is highly student-specific.
I think, it differs highly on other parts of the world (probably even there is big difference between different Universities of the same city).
A grad student costs X dollars. This pays tuition, stipend benefits. The grad student eventually stops taking classes, the new cost of the student is X-T. (T is cost of tuition). Now if the professor still has X coming in (through grants and other funding sources) and the student only costs X-T, there is T left over that neither school nor student needs.
Source- Prof*** at Univeristy of ***
Well, except that all of that is already factored in to the X and T values. There is no free lunch. It costs Y dollars to run a university and that has to come from somewhere. Y is the figure that matters.
In my experience, students on research assistantships are typically required to register for credit hours of dissertation and the grant is charged accordingly, even after the student has stopped taking classes.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.451930 | 2015-02-27T15:27:55 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/40713",
"authors": [
"ARZU TUNCER",
"BCR_SD",
"Brian Borchers",
"Buffy",
"CGCampbell",
"Chris Ciafrino",
"DCTLib",
"David Richerby",
"Delio Mugnolo",
"Dirk",
"Federico Poloni",
"Hourmazd Marduk",
"Jeromy Anglim",
"Kyle Murray",
"Matt Reece",
"MissionAhead",
"Narendra Yadav",
"Nate Eldredge",
"Nigel Cairns",
"O. R. Mapper",
"Phorce",
"Power BI Developer",
"Selena",
"Stephan Kolassa",
"Sumyrda - remember Monica",
"Swathi Prema Lal",
"Venkat",
"Vladimir F Героям слава",
"Writer",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109691",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109692",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109693",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109695",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109696",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109697",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109698",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109702",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109709",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109714",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109717",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109722",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109728",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109733",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109747",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109784",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109892",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/109901",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11304",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12539",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13138",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14273",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14290",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25340",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4140",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4453",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/529",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6108",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7390",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/75368",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"mausamsion",
"mnglfiddle",
"rachaelbe",
"user109717",
"user5029763",
"www.neiltomlinson.com"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
98625 | What is the best way to address misinformation given in a lecture?
After having reviewed a similar question while looking for an answer to my own, I felt it did not get fully at the heart of my issue that I've come across. However I still feel that it has great relevance to my own query.
The original post now a bit over 3 years old "How should students react to inaccuracies in professors' teaching without causing resentment"
My question:
What is the best manner to approach a professor about false information given during a lecture? However, this was not merely a miss recalled information or a slip of the tongue. Rather it was a focal topic for a little over an hour out of the two and a half hour lecture time. Based on a premise that has been proven to be objectively false. However It's not as if their claim has only recently been proven false, or that it was only proven false by some singular and obscure study, or that this is information you'd have to really look hard for in order to find. Instead it has been known to be false for the past 6 to 10+ years. On top of that: there has been a virtual hail storm of peer reviewed publications and criticism contributing their own findings that further disprove what my professor claims to be fact. I'm not going to suggest willful misleading for the sake of some tinfoil hat agenda, but the level of negligence on the topic from the professor here was astounding.
To make matters worse the topic is quite sensitive and the professor has made note on how uncomfortable they are when lecturing on the topic because of how sensitive it is. I fear this may lead to some clam shelling if I approach about it. I also am concerned about what kind of world view shaping is occurring because of this false information being touted as fact if left unchallenged.
I have the opportunity to present oral presentations on works of my choosing - which just so happen to cover the breadth of material that unequivocally refutes the false information given during the lecture. My gut says this is the wrong way to do this. However I am confident that the professor would be less than open to addressing the class with something like:"hey folks the thing I talked about at length yesterday was a based on a premise that has been proven to be false for quite some time now. So forget everything I said about that because it was all based on mis/inaccurate information"
I can empathize immensely with the 3 year old poster and their peers suggestion of "picking my battles" might be the best way to go here.... However I can't help but I feel like I need to say something about this. To let fellow attendees know that the information presented to them was actually false.
What academic field is this?
@PeteL.Clark Psychology, which might suggest an inherent level of debate or room for new findings to alter any claim that would purport itself as being "Fact". Although in the instance being referred to it is a case of professor claims that: data = X thus supporting their further assertions. When in reality: data = Y and the only way they could have gotten X was if they had never actually done any research on it, which is disturbing given the amount of time and effort they dedicated to lecturing on it. I tried finding evidence that supported their claim and I was met with evidence refuting it.
In the first line of your question proper: manor -> manner. (The silly software forbids me from fixing this myself, but my silly brain forbids me from ignoring it.)
I've taken the liberty to edit in a link to the question you referenced because people shouldn't have to copy, paste, and search for titles in hypertext documents.
...the topic is quite sensitive and the professor has made note on how uncomfortable they are when lecturing on the topic
I am confident that the professor would be less than open to addressing the class...
My gut says this is the wrong way to do this...
Okay, so you've sold me on "let's try something else", rather than publicly calling this person out.
If they are not likely to change their mind, then I assume you want to do something about it in the spirit of being "true to your subject", not wanting false information disseminated by an academic. However, your comment suggests that they may not have actually done "any research on it", which is problematic.
Given all of this, I recommend going to the professor privately and explaining the research you've done. Let him/her come to the realization based on your evidence, if indeed he/she hasn't read the same information you've read. If they seem unwilling, I would suggest bringing this up to the class.
Coming from a (perhaps?) less argument-prone subject, where nearly every claim is testable or provable, I can only sympathize with what must be a difficult choice for you to make. That said, now a question: If you have ever taught students of your own, how would you deal with a student who, say, rejects a commonly-held claim because they find fault with something in the research (e.g. methods, sample size, confounding variables not accounted for, etc.). How would you handle a conversation with such a person? This might be a way to determine how you might deal with this professor.
Now, obviously it could depend on the forum (an in-class comment, a question in private, etc.), but you might want to correct this person's confidence in the research, and you might want to protect other students from adopting such skepticism. With your professor, however, this will be a harder nut to crack, it seems. Without trying to put them in their place yourself, I suggest letting the facts speak for themselves. Let her/him know what you've found. If this professor seems unwilling to yield to the evidence, then you may just have to accept the fact that people assert all kinds of things all the time, whether true or false. If there are negative repercussions in store for you, you'll have to decide if playing this part is worth it for you.
Great advice...and a good life lesson in general. If you don't have to call someone out and embarrass them publicly, there's no reason to do so. You don't know the background situation: your prof might have had this course dropped on their laps at the last moment, might not be familiar with the topic and material, and did the best they could with little prep time. Go to office hours, be polite about it, and ask them about it. Trust me, I'd want to know if what I was teaching was wrong so I could correct it, but in my office not in class.
@GrotesqueSI Unfortunately circumstance doesn't seem to play a roll here as this is a gen ed course that they have been teaching routinely for more than 6 years.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.452633 | 2017-11-08T23:18:20 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/98625",
"authors": [
"GrotesqueSI",
"Jigoogly",
"O. R. Mapper",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Spiny",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82614",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82618",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82640",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
100809 | When I send a recommendation request, does each REU request a different "style" of rec letter?
I want to apply to quite a few REUs and I'm asking a professor to write me recommendations. I was wondering whether for most REUs, he could write one recommendation and then use it for everything, or whether he would have to rewrite or edit the letter for each program. This is so that I don't feel bad "spamming" him with requests from various programs.
Also is it a faux pas to put down the professor's email into the request box in the app without sending them an email? (Even though I discussed this briefly some time ago with professor)
I have taken the liberty to edit in an explanatory link. At least to me, it wasn't clear what is meant by "REU"; my first guess was "Royal English University" or something like that, before finding out a more likely meaning of the acronym on WP.
Before you put their name down, email the professor again just to make sure they're still ok to write the letter.
Once they've agreed, don't worry about the different formats that may be required for different places. Professors are generally fully aware of what the letter writing process demands and would not (or at least, should not) commit to it unless they know they have time for it.
In your initial email, it may be a good idea to list the places you're applying to and their respective deadlines, so the professor has a rough idea of the time commitment.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.453158 | 2017-12-19T04:04:09 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/100809",
"authors": [
"O. R. Mapper",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
13349 | What to say to one PhD offer when still waiting to hear the result of a different and preferred PhD application?
I have had two PhD interviews. One of the position (position A) I like more than the other (position B).
Now, I have gotton a reply from position B saying that they will offer me the PhD. However, before replying yes/no, I would like to know what the response is from position A.
Will it be good practice to let position B know that I will answer them once I know what the status is of my other application? Or is this sharing too much information?
This isn't quite answering the question, but - IMHO it would usually be perfectly reasonable to contact A, explain the situation, and ask when they will be able to let you know. It might hurry them up a bit ;-)
"I'm still waiting to hear from another department."
My wife was in that position. She preferred A but took B and there we met. Moral of the story: life can take unexpected turns.
The usual thing to do in this situation is to ask B when they need your response. If that isn't enough time to hear back from A, then it's fine to ask B if you can have more time to decide (you don't need to say why). Of course, they might say that they cannot give you more time, in which case you'll have to make a decision on B without knowing about A.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to consider all your options, and the people from B will undoubtedly read between the lines and understand that this is the situation, but you don't need to rub their nose in the fact that you'd rather be somewhere else.
To echo Pavel's answer, whatever decision you do give to B, you should stick with. If B gives you a short deadline, and you decide to accept their offer before hearing from A, you're committed, and you need to immediately contact A and withdraw your application. It's not appropriate to accept B while planning to back out if A later says yes. Doing that would burn your bridges with people at B (and anyone who they talk to), and it could even be cause for A to rescind your acceptance, leaving you with nothing.
Our research group has an experience of dealing with students who accepted the offer and then declined it because of the better offer received. This is often considered as an impolite behaviour and I will explain why.
Supervisors and heads of a research group usually have ideas of projects to propose to new students before they arrive. When you accept the offer, supervisors are making plans already how to integrate you in the work of the group. When it suddenly appears that you are not coming to the group, because you received another offer or whatever reason, this requires substantial resources for a group to recover and to change their plans accordingly.
The group needs to start recruiting process again, what is time-consuming.
If too much time passes, it often happens that the position can be lost, what literally means that the group wastes money and reputation.
To sum up, don't underestimate people. Everyone understands that you can look for positions in many places simultaneously. Be honest, and accept the offer conditionally. If possible, provide the final decision date when you should know application results from all other places. The research group will plan their projects accordingly. Also this will help you to save the reputation.
P.S. Industry is more tolerant to people who change their mind. Usually they have a team of recruiters and their daily business is to solve this kind of problems. Research groups usually don't have so much resources.
This is a very good answer, except for the "P.S." at the end. Perhaps I'm misreading, but it seems to be suggesting that industry is more tolerant of say, accepting an offer at Company A while job interviewing, then suddenly accepting an offer at Company B and ignoring your signed contract with Company A. I would definitely not call industry "tolerant" of this behavior by any means.
Quite right, it is very poor form to change your mind after committing. But there's nothing wrong with asking for more time before you commit.
@MikeS I think this question is about verbal commitments before a formal contract is signed. (Once this happens, the situation is of course quite different, even in academia.)
I have been in a similar situation in the past. I told the people concerned very honestly about my choices and that I was waiting to hear back from other programs. They were, in general, very understanding about them.
I did make sure to note down the formal dates by which I would have to notify each such department and stuck to them.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.453317 | 2013-10-11T17:26:23 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13349",
"authors": [
"Alex",
"Christian Clason",
"Dermot Lally",
"Ealhiary",
"Flyto",
"Jake",
"JeffE",
"MikeS",
"Nate Eldredge",
"Rahul Sonanis",
"Sneha Jha",
"gerrit",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13852",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34172",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34174",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34177",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34180",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34192",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34282",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7169",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8394"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
97719 | How to download a database of bibliographic information for all published scientific papers?
I would like to download a database containing all scientific papers published. This is obviously too broad and ambitious. To be realistic, say I want all the papers searchable on google scholar (although other databases are fine, say SemanticScholar, etc.), or an approximation of that. What databases out there allow you to download this data?
I don't want to download the papers themselves (that wouldn't fit on my storage), just a record containing title, authors, journal (if it is not a book), year, and perhaps abstract.
Is this possible? How can I download a database like this, that I can browse and search offline?
No, it’s not possible.
Get a database admin job at Thomson Reuters?
@DanBron That's pessimistic. A way to do it is to wget google scholar searches with a single letter, a, b, c, ... A simple script could do it. I am just wondering if there is an easier way to do it.
At best that would get you all papers indexed by Google Scholar. But Google Scholar is not an index of all scientific papers; at best, it's an index of scientific papers whose metadata is available online. (Similarly, not all scientific papers are indexed by Thomson Reuters, or even by the union of Google Scholar and Thomson Reuters.)
@JeffE I should have been more specific in my question. But an index containing all of Google Scholar or an approximation of it, is more than sufficient for me.
Probably the closest you can get is the Open Academic Graph, a graph-based database of about 321 million papers (I don't think the actual papers are stored, but all the information you want is there). You can download all the 143 GB of data from the above link, but do note that because it's a merge of two existing graph-based paper databases (Microsoft Academic Search and AMiner) there are going to be a lot of duplicates.
Thanks (+1). Do you know if the data from Microsoft Academic Search can be downloaded by itself?
@becko Yes, the downloads in the link separate the data of both databases. You'd want just the MAS ones in that case.
You can download a number of databases, but none, as far as I know, are comprehensive across all fields.
CiteSeerX data is available by request.
PubMed data
arXiv, which contains some publication information
You might also want to check the list of repositories compliant with the OAI-PMH metadata harvesting protocol.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.453737 | 2017-10-22T19:51:44 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/97719",
"authors": [
"Crazymoomin",
"Dan Bron",
"JeffE",
"Nate Eldredge",
"a06e",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6315",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63267",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64647",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
10881 | How to manage the structure of a masters thesis and what mistakes to look out for?
I'm writing my master thesis at the moment in the area of cyber/computer security.
However, I'm having real trouble in keeping a good structure in the thesis.
What I mean with structure is that my supervisor has commented on several occasions that the order of subjects should be changed and that some parts should be switched or explained in less/more detail.
Although my supervisor has been incredibly helpful and has provided good pointers, I was wondering if the community here could give some ideas on:
How to keep the structure of a thesis in line and what mistakes to look out for?
I think that this question is not specifically asking about something special. You can find your thesis report format in almost ever university website. Moreover, it is obvious by looking at the answers given till now; that most of them are answering about the sections particularly. Nothing more. So, I suggest you to be more specific in your question.
Other answers have suggested outlines, but even with such an outline it's not always clear what is the best order to discuss everything (whether it's the choice of section or ordering within a section).
One approach I have seen used is to print out the whole document, cut out each paragraph, and pin them on a pinboard. Then it's easy to adjust the order of the whole document until the whole thing is coherent. You'll probably want to have a pencil on hand while doing this, because you'll need to adjust the text a bit to fit the order.
Holy wow. That is hard core.
My favourite is "DONE (almost)"!
Folk might have their own opinions on their favourite wording of the following sections, but here is a basic outline of the structure of a significant technical work, such as a thesis.
Abstract
Introduction / Literature review
Aims and Objectives
Methodology
Results and Data analysis
Discussion
Further work
Conclusion
Appendicies
References
I'm not going to express what the content of each section should be, because that will extend this answer too far.
My guidance for you is as follows: try to tell the story of your research. Lead the reader through your thought process. You could try posing your research as the solution to a problem, for example. Let's see how this works in practice.
You do some background reading - your literature review. You discover that there is an existing problem that no-one has answered, or their answer is lacking in some way. You express this in your introduction or literature review. You refine what you intend to do as a set of aims and objectives. You set out how you are going to achieve your aims and objectives in your methodology. You execute your method and report the results. You discuss your results and consider how you could improve your work. Then you draw your conclusions.
I would separate out the introduction and literature review and remove the aims and objectives. If the latter is necessary, they can go in an introductory or preface section. My point of view is very US centric though and restricted to information science/HCI.
As you've discovered, everyone has a slightly different suggestion. I found this really confusing when I did my MSc thesis. As I wrote more of my thesis, my supervisors kept tweaking the structure. The changes they made were definitely for the better, and I was satisfied with the end result. But I felt like I should have (somehow) known the right structure to use.
So...when I started working on my PhD, I did a bit of research into thesis structure. I really wanted to understand "the rules" -- not so I would follow them slavishly -- but so that when I did deviate from them, I would do so knowingly and for good reasons. I started by reading the guidelines from lots of major universities. I found some suggested outlines, but they were all just different enough (in the terminology they used and the order they recommended) to be really confusing.
Finally I found this article, which discusses different ways of structuring a thesis: Thesis and dissertation writing: an examination of published advice and actual practice Brian Paltridge. English for Specific Purposes 21(2):125 - 143 (2002).
From that article, and from other sources, I finally realised that there isn't "one thesis structure to rule them all". (It's not like the 5-paragraph essay that we learned to write in school!) Not only does it depend on your discipline, but it depends on your particular research project. Until all the bits are written, it won't be obvious what order they should go in. Even if you were an expert thesis-writer, you would probably need someone else's help to organise it so that it tells a coherent story. You're just too close to the project. (That's one reason why book authors have editors.)
So my advice is: Focus on writing, not on structure for now. You have a pretty good idea what you need to write, even if you're not sure where the bits you write will actually go. When your supervisor suggests a different order, realise that it's not because you "made a mistake". Expect that the structure of the thesis will evolve over time, as you write more of it.
Have a look at good masters theses and good PhD theses in your area to get an indication of the structure. Borrow a book from the library on structuring a thesis. In any case, the structure will look something like the following (with variation possible):
title page
abstract
acknowledgements
contents page(s)
introduction
literature review
materials/sources and methods (or this can be part
of every chapter if these are different per chapter)
themed topic chapters
results
discussion or findings
conclusions
references
appendices.
Source
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.455930 | 2013-07-01T10:59:43 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10881",
"authors": [
"Askar Kalykov",
"Chicago Bears Football games",
"Haytham Alhaji",
"Matthew G.",
"Nabin",
"OJFord",
"Ryan",
"Shion",
"bjp",
"enthu",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1165",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/116518",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11896",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1429",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26994",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26995",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26997",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26998",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48833",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48847",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65890",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65895",
"sam",
"tmark",
"user229534"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
21488 | Can you do paid external work under a PhD contract in France?
If someone has a PhD contract in France and wants to work during summer for instance, is it fine if that person receives any external support during that time, outside the PhD contract support?
It depends on the work you plan to do (see here, paragraph IX).
You are NOT allowed to do extra activities of the kind that could be part of your PhD contract (teaching, diffusing scientific information, expertise...). If you want to do this kind of work, it needs to be under your PhD contract.
For the other cases, you need to obtain an authorization from your employer. If your employer is the university, they will ask your advisor's opinion and evaluate whether the extra work risks compromizing your PhD before making a decision. I don't know if such authorizations are commonplace.
You most likely signed a contract for your research grant and/or a teaching assistant position. The conditions for a job during vacations should be listed in the part of the contract about vacations. Since there are many possible grants with their own conditions, it is difficult to be more precise. For example, as state workers, elementary schools teachers can have another work during their vacations, but with a lot of restrictions; I guess that state-funded grant have similar restrictions.
In any case, the first thing to do is to ask your PhD advisor, your doctoral school or the person in charge of contracts in your university administration.
I am not familiar with the French law, but if you are an employee and don't have an exclusivity contract, it should be fine. If you are funded by grants, they may require the student to not have other sources of income, in which case it will be stated on the conditions. I don't see any reasonable reason for this to be limited, but law works in mysterious ways.
If the person in this situation is already employed, the safest option is to contact the legal services of the university. If they are not easily available, a careful reading of the contract should do the trick.
If the person is thinking about applying for this, the eligibility conditions should state if the successful candidate cannot be working at the time of hiring.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.456478 | 2014-05-27T10:30:33 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21488",
"authors": [
"Conor Cosnett",
"Himanshu Pandya",
"Juan Enciso",
"Mikhail Elizarev",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58947",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58948",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58949",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58960",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58966",
"std11"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
43164 | Why do reviews of articles often start with a summary of the article?
In my field, peer reviewers often start their review with:
This article reports on a study that did X, using Y, in the area of Z. It found ...
This seems like a waste of time and effort to me (and I never do it). Why is it done? To prove the reviewer has read the paper?
Probably to prove that they read the paper... Sometimes spelling errors are apparently reported for the same purpose.
It is important/fair play to give the authors a chance to rebute your understanding of their work.
In addition to what user6726 said (the main reason: summarize for the editor), it also gives the authors a chance to verify that their paper reads the way they intended it to. Maybe the reviewer misunderstood the main message / main point and his summary will reflect this.
I also do this for specific points I want to raise. Many times and for many reasons (the simplest being the author's English is not great) criticisms might just be the product of misunderstanding.
In IOP journals, the reviewers are asked to fill a "abstract" box and the "comments" box, but gets compiled to a single document when sent to the authros, if I am not wrong
Reviews are communications to the editor, and an effective review tells the editor what the article is about (in that reviewer's opinion), using significantly fewer words than authors typically use. If an editor has to process a couple hundred submissions per year, it's not possible for him/her to carefully read every paper, so the editor will especially care if the reviewers agree on what the paper purports to show and whether the paper actually shows it.
I wholeheartedly agree. In addition, writing a summary can be useful to the authors as well, particularly if the paper is rejected. Reading the summary, I can see whether the reviewer understood the basic point of the paper but found it uninteresting, or whether I failed to convey why the paper is interesting, important, and novel. Even if the paper is accepted it can be useful; once or twice I've received a reviewer summary so good that I've gone back to modify my abstract and/or introduction to explain my work more the way that the reviewer did.
Redundancy also helps to detect and correct mistakes: I twice experienced that manuscripts were messed up: once as author receiving a review (without summary) of a paper that couldn't have been ours; once as reviewer (there were difficulties with the online system and my report somehow got attached to a wrong submission) - this the authors spotted by title and summary at the beginning of my report, which also enabled the editor to sort out things: send me the manuscript I hadn't received and forward my report as additional review to the authors of the manuscript I had actually received.
In my area, the review form of journals has two text boxes: (i) confidential comments to the editor, and (ii) comments for the authors. I only provide a summary to the editor, but not to the authors. Having said that, if a summary in textbox (ii) exists, I suspect it is there for padding purpose.
I always start my reviews with a summary, as a way of establishing that I have understood the key ideas of the paper. I feel that this then places me on firmer ground in any subsequent praise or criticism.
I agree. And the times where I had trouble writing this two or three line summary, I knew the paper had a problem.
I'll (cautiously) agree that this summary may be superfluous. In the best of all possible worlds, this exact information should be in the manuscript's abstract, which is at the editor's fingertips when he reads the review and makes a decision on the manuscript.
Sometimes, rarely, I find myself in this best of all possible worlds and find that I can't express the paper's contents in a better way than the authors did in their abstract. In such a case, I'll happily write
For the contents of the manuscript, see its abstract.
as the first paragraph of my review. (I then proceed to show that I actually did read the entire paper, by writing a clear and detailed review, and that this first paragraph is not laziness on my part. Writing a summary of the paper has a signaling function: it signals to the editor that you (a) actually read the paper, and (b) are not too lazy to summarize it.)
Usually, I find that (I think that) I can summarize the paper better than the abstract did - for instance, if the authors wrote a "teaser abstract", where they write what question they investigate but do not give their results, so people have to dig into the actual paper to find out what the results were. In such a case, I'll write such a summary, and usually recommend that the abstract be improved.
(EDIT) Here is what Jeff Leek, one of the bigger names in statistics writes on the topic in this highly recommended text on how he wants members of his group to review papers:
I think the summary is critical because if you can't distill the ideas
down then you haven't really understood the paper. The summary should
absolutely not be a restatement of the abstract of the paper, you
should find the parts you think are most relevant and include them in
the summary.
As others have said, there's reasons for this that aren't just superfluous:
It indicates that you did indeed read the paper
It signals what someone who gave the paper more than a cursory reading thinks the paper is about.
That second point is a pretty serious one - if a reviewer "missed your message", that's a pretty serious problem, and while it may be tempting to just say "Oh, they didn't read it closely enough" it's worth considering that maybe they did, and the point isn't as clear as you thought it was.
That sentence or two is also essentially an executive summary of the review for both the editor and the author(s), and can set the tone for the rest of the review. Consider, for example:
The paper estimates the effect of X on Y under conditions Z, and is largely in line with similar estimates in the literature.
vs.
The paper is an insightful examination of the effect of X on Y under the relatively understudied condition Z, and is a valuable contribution to our understanding of X.
If you were a journal editor with limited space looking for an engaging paper, which would you pick?
When the editor receives a lot of reviews at the same time (special issue, special session), this provides a quick sanity check that the different reviews are effectively about the same paper.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.456735 | 2015-04-08T04:20:56 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43164",
"authors": [
"Alexandru O.",
"Allegru Media",
"Ander Biguri",
"Corvus",
"Ger",
"Miguel",
"Prof. Santa Claus",
"RE60K",
"Shoaib",
"Spammer",
"Spammer McSpamface",
"Szabolcs",
"Trenchie",
"Wolfgang Bangerth",
"cbeleites",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/116992",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/116993",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/116995",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117000",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117104",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/117106",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11907",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1380",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14695",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15334",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/16023",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/176410",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/177655",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/177678",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27900",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31149",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/47727",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"sudheesh kumar",
"user189035",
"willeM_ Van Onsem",
"xip"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
44011 | Should I submit a mixed theory-experimental paper to a computer science conference where most papers do not appear to include experimental results?
I am considering submitting a (Computer Science) research paper to a conference. The paper contains both theoretical and experimental results. The call for papers of the conference that I am considering sending the paper to, says that it welcomes papers related to "theory, design, implementation, modeling, analysis, or application". But when I look through the papers submitted in the previous years (in order to better understand the sort of papers that get accepted), I do not find a single paper with experimental results. The results are all theoretical.
Does this mean that papers with experiments are not a good fit for this conference?
Different communities mean different things by "application." In a very mathematical community, "application" may mean "figuring out what relevance this idea might have to something in the real world. In a very industrial community, "application" may mean "has been deployed at industrial scale." The relative scale of theory and application is also nicely illustrated in this XKCD comic.
I think that you are doing the right thing by looking at past proceedings and asking, "Are these people interested in talking about work like mine?" This is important not just for getting your paper accepted, but also for the value that you will get out of the meeting, both in terms of the feedback you get and also in terms of what you can learn and the connections that you can build.
For a more efficient route to finding a good community, you can also talk to your advisor or other mentors you may have, who will likely know the communities better and readily be able to provide good suggestions about where to send your paper.
Or if the community is mathematical enough, "application" means "this can be used to study some other theoretical thing we are also interested in".
@TobiasKildetoft ... implying a possibly fractal expansion of "purity" even within a single community. :-)
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.457647 | 2015-04-22T01:29:01 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44011",
"authors": [
"Bindu N",
"Jessica",
"Nick",
"Tobias Kildetoft",
"aknott",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119512",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119513",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119514",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119875",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/119877",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12592",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"jakebeal",
"studog"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
82279 | Why call it a "major" revision if the suggested changes are seemingly minor?
I recently got a major revision from an applied math journal. However the only change the reviewer has asked is to put a remark on some theorem in the paper (why the specified theorem will not work under some general case). According to the reviewers the rest of the paper is fine.
I am slightly confused why is it a "major revision". Any suggestion will be helpful.
In the case of a special issue of the journal with a guest editor, it could be that the normal editor overrode the decision by the guest editor in order to ensure that every new iteration goes out for review before a paper is finally accepted.
I rolled back your last edit. If you have another question ask it in a separate thread.
It varies by journal I'm sure but sometimes the line between "minor" and "major" revision is set by whether the reviewers wish to see the changes authors make in response to their comments before recommending acceptance.
A "minor" revision would go straight back to the editor and then to production while a "major" one goes back to the reviewers first. This might not be related to the amount of work required.
In your case it's possible that the reviewer wants to be sure you include an appropriate section about the limitations of the algorithm otherwise they wouldn't recommend acceptance.
The reviewer can want whatever they can dream of but they don't get to decide. I'd be surprised if an editor felt that such a minor change really did need to go back to the reviewers.
@DavidRicherby: The reviewer has explicitly said that "I want to understand why the theorem will not work under the general case". Therefore it may go.
I think the reviewer wants to see that the changes are made.
@DavidRicherby in my experience the automatic editorial system gets to decide a lot of things.
@DavidRicherby Many journal explicitly ask the review if they want to see the corrected manuscript. In given case this option maybe be offered only for major revisions, but not to minor ones.
@Greg Sure. And, at least once, I've asked to see the revised version and the editor has decided that I don't need to. Like I said, the reviewer can say they want anything they can think up; it doesn't mean they'll get it.
Just make the required changes and send the paper back to the editor. Don't worry about what it's called – it makes no difference to your situation whether it's called a major revision, a minor revision or a super-special changey thing.
As to why it was described as a major revision, only the editor really knows that. Maybe it was even just a mistake.
Absolutely. There's even a chance that the editor just hit the wrong button when they chose the revision class.
@jakebeal I was considering writing almost exactly that when I wrote my answer, so I went ahead and added it. Thanks!
Thnaks for the suggestion
(Background disclaimer: I’ve seen this from the perspective of an author and reviewer, not an editor.)
Major/minor can refer to the importance of an edit, not just to its size.
For instance, if a key statement in the paper is inaccurate (e.g. if a theorem is incorrect as stated), then even if the changes needed to fix it are small, the reviewer may describe this as “major revisions”, and the editor may agree. So the referee is saying “you seriously need to fix this!” not just “consider adding something about this?” For some journals/conferences, it also has the practical effect that the referees get to see the revised version before it’s accepted, and check that the required changes have been made — so, again, a referee may call a revision “major” because they feel it’s essential for correctness, and want to ensure it has been made before endorsing the paper for publication.
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Bible suffered from mistakes that were typographically trivial yet completely changed the meaning of the text.
Just like Wikipedia rules.
For some journals I've seen, a minor revision means we're going to accept the paper eventually, a major revision means we're still undecided.
Umm, why not just ask them (the editor and/or the reviewer)?
Maybe some paragraph got clipped out of the email? Maybe the reviewer is over-estimating the importance of that comment, or you are under-estimating it? You can just ask - no harm, no foul. It's not like you're asking for some special favor.
PS - Better to ask when while submitting the corrected version, so it won't appear you want to evade their suggestion.
Two additions to answers given sooner.
First: in most reviewing systems, reviewers may provide a decision (eg: accept, minor, major, reject), comments for the authors AND (blind) comments to the editor. It might happen that the latter influence the editor more, especially if they exist. Very often often, reviewers go open (only comments for the authors). But, in some cases, the comments to the editor can be different, or asking for a more drastic decision.
Second: each reviewer provides a decision. There is no standardized way of producing a unique decision (editor) from several rankings. For some, three minors make a major, two majors a reject, for instance. Up to the editor or the journal rules.
Third: in mathematics (or fields using maths heavily), more than in other sciences, a tiny detail can be quite important.
Anyway, what matters most is your precise answer. The rest is not in your hands.
Did I say "Two additions" in the preamble? Let me remind you that: there are three types of mathematicians, those who can count and those who can't.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.457906 | 2016-12-27T19:11:01 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/82279",
"authors": [
"Agent_L",
"Anonymous",
"Cape Code",
"DCTLib",
"David Richerby",
"Ehsa",
"Greg",
"emory",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14755",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17255",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36444",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3849",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66942",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7390",
"jakebeal"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
69515 | Moved to a new city – how to start academically networking?
I have recently moved away from the town and university where I completed my masters degree to another city for personal reasons. Now I work here in academic information services and part of my work is research.
However, I would like to put a stronger focus on research and concept-level work rather than doing tasks in technical services. To achieve this, I feel I need to do more academic networking outside of work which is quite difficult as my employing institution does not like being mentioned as affiliation in professional networking.
The problem is: How to (re-)start academic networking when I don't really have an institutional or project affiliation?
I know this can be seen as a workplace-related question, but I am specifically interested in academic networking - participate in research discussion groups, maybe get to teach a small Bachelor course related to my work, possibly find a partner for collaboration on a paper... The city I now live in has some universities, but there does not seem to be any connection to the university or institute I graduated in.
I really feel stuck in this situation. Any suggestion on this would be welcome!
Please forgive my ignorance: I don't really know what "academic information services" means. Could you clarify or provide a link or two? (It feels maybe a smidge paradoxical that you are not at liberty to give information to academics about your work in academic information services, but that's probably an artifact of my lack of understanding.)
Academic information services cater for the needs of researchers: Access to specialist literature, datasets, open and reproducible research material as well as infrastructures for publication, digital preservation, metadata. It is linked to libraries.
Thanks for that. A key point seems to be: "...as my employing institution does not like being mentioned as affiliation in professional networking." Could you say why not? I don't see why they wouldn't view your attempts at professional networking positively, rather than negatively. If they really feel that way, it seems like a big negative to your job (maybe look for another?).
I think they are worried that my views and actions could be attributed to the institution as a whole, and since I am no higher-level manager, that's not desired.
Find people and groups relevant to your research interests. Contact the former informally, mentioning your interest and politely asking for potential opportunities for collaboration. Find out about events and meeting schedules of the former and start attending some of the events and networking there (check meetup.com and professional societies' websites for relevant info). In both cases, nobody will require you to use your formal affiliation (though IMHO you should mention your place of work informally). @Significance's advice below is very good as well (+1).
My own (biased) opinion: active academic networking is overrated (in the theoretical sciences at least). Good scientists are judged based on results/papers. This is how you build your reputation which then leads to networking.
my employing institution does not like being mentioned as affiliation in professional networking — That's really really sketchy. You are affiliated with your employing institution. Hiding that fact would be dishonest, no matter what the institution thinks.
@Dilworth active academic networking is overrated — I strongly disagree. Even in theoretical fields (like mine), networking is important. It's not enough to have good results; you also need other people to sell them for you. Networking is also a good (if not the best) source of problems to work on and collaborators to work with.
@JeffE, networking might be important, indeed. But active networking, i.e., the initiative to network and talk to a lot of people, irrespective of your own body of work and achievements, leads to scholars whose main feature is networking, and whose main corpus of work is scattered results with many authors (in the best case), and no research identity of their own. So, as I said, you should first be a good researcher, and only afterwords your network will start naturally to form by itself (and not by artificially talking to many people without common grounds).
@Dilworth I agree that you need your own research identity, but your network will not naturally form by itself. Networking requires effort. You must reach outside your comfort zone, to discover whether people have common ground for collaboration. Remember that researchers are apes first and researchers second. See also my answer to a related question.
@JeffE, well, I agree that there are some (or even many) researchers that put a lot of emphasis on reaching out to discover whether people have common ground for collaboration. I claim that this model, when done excessively and in an unnatural way, namely, without apriori having common ground is not the optimal model for many researchers, and may result in unoriginal research, over conformity, and lack of research identity. Everything of course should be done in the right balance and I'm not advocating complete isolation, but mild isolation is not always bad.
Contact the schools doing relevant work and ask to be added to their seminar notification lists. Attend the seminars and participate in discussion afterwards. You needn't mention your affiliation.
Contact the people doing relevant work and offer to present a seminar yourself (if your employer will allow it). Most university schools run seminar series and are always on the lookout for new speakers, especially external speakers. List the affiliation you had when you did the research about which you will be speaking. When they accept your seminar offer, ask if they would also mind scheduling you some time on the same day to speak one-on-one with people working in your field.
If you are in an applied field, look into whether there is an active professional society group in your field in the new city. Join it and attend their events. If there there is no active group, consider starting one: if you are willing to do the leg-work involved in organising a few good seminars, professional networking dinners, entertaining debates or other activities, people will join.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.458431 | 2016-05-30T21:38:09 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/69515",
"authors": [
"24483",
"Aleksandr Blekh",
"Amisha Rani",
"Dilworth",
"Harry Baxter",
"JeffE",
"Mei Mizad",
"Nero Kicks",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Zubin Jb",
"dmbbizguy",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12391",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/196626",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/196627",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/196628",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/196637",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/196690",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/196691",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/54912",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8760",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
55944 | How can I ask a lecturer not to disclose (my) grades publicly?
In my university, some, but not all, professors upload online the grades of every student and their names next to them a few days before making them final at the end of the semester. This is done to give a chance to the students to point out any mistakes the professor may have made.
No one other than the students can see the final grades. When the professor uploads the non-final grades, they are visible by everyone.
Since few people get good grades, others are jealous of them. Long story short, I really have an issue with this.
Is it unreasonable to ask my professors to email my grades instead of uploading them online, like they do with everyone else? What other alternatives do I have?
I live in a European country.
This depends on the country you're in, I've that in the US there are some signs that you can sign to prevent others from publicly revealing your grades.
@Olorun: In fact, in the US it is illegal for the school to publicly reveal your grades unless you have signed something allowing them to do so.
@Olorun: Still not allowed, under US law. Grades and similar data can't be shared with anyone except the student and authorized university employees. Not even the student's parents are allowed access.
@NateEldredge I don't think it's quite that simple with respect to parents even though that's prima facie correct. There's some muddling complexity with students who are still dependents. (See for instance https://www.rochester.edu/parents/policy.html ).
@virmaior: Interesting, I didn't know that. I think the universities where I've worked have had policies that they didn't release grades to parents of dependent students (although they may have been allowed to). At least, if they did, such requests had to be handled centrally and not by individual faculty.
True, I think that's always managed by the registrar. I remember filling out the thing granting my parents permission as a minor and dependent in 1999 at my undergraduate institution.
A friend of mine was studying at a university in Europe told me that at his university they publish the results of everyone except those of the members of the Royal Family who were also studying there.
When I was teaching at a German university, these lists were always opt-out.
In the UK, not even the Royal Family are exempt. Results at Cambridge for every examination used to be posted on display to the general public (including "Wales, H.R.H" when he was an undergraduate) for about a week after the final exams. The results for all students of my old college are printed in full in the college alumni magazine every year.
"A European country." Which one? The UK? Belarus?
In Cambridge they still are, unless you explicitly opt out. The existence of this opt-out is not all that well publicised, and it is relatively rarely used. I always go and check how my students have done - depending on what year they are in (i.e. if they have already headed off on vacation) I often know before they do. I would note, however, that only the classifications (1, 2.i, 2.ii, 3) are published, not the raw (%) results.
My experience from European universities is that even there, the grades should not be posted by name, but instead by a student ID number. However, in most cases, the university requires the public posting of the grades in such a manner (for exactly the reasons you suggest—to allow for petitioning of changes in grade).
Moreover, because of the large number of students who may be taking a course, it can be highly impractical for the teaching staff to respond to individual requests for reporting grades by email. (Imagine having to send out 1800 emails for a single course!)
Consequently, while you might ask for anonymizing of the grade reports by student ID instead of name, I think it would be unfair to ask the professors to report individual grades by email, unless you have an exceptional and demonstrated need for such an email (for instance, you are unable to get your grade because of extended absence without Internet access).
it can be highly impractical for the teaching staff to respond to individual requests for reporting grades by email - In the US, where posting student grades by ID is illegal, we use an LMS like moodle or blackboard, not email, to make students aware of interim grades. Do they not use LMSes in Europe? Why not?
The primary reasons for not using a LMS like moodle or blackboard is probably the cost of setting up the system. In Germany (where my direct experience comes), the issue is more that the system requires the grades to be "published," and because the LMS system is not integrated with the grade submission system, would lead to significant duplication of effort, if it were at all possible.
@aeismail: Hmm, my (German) faculty uses a software, which double as grade-submission system and to inform the students of their grades.
@ff524 Yes, we use it (for instance my university has one developed internally), but maybe not all universities have one. Moreover, some professors, especially the older ones, didn't learn how to use such systems. Finally, I've seen professors not very concerned about student's privacy.
In our university (Italy), profs are allowed to post grades with names, but they cannot stay up online more than "a reasonable amount of time" (in practice, we take them down after the exam season is over).
I recall that when I was an undergrad, the prof for one of our courses hanged on the billboard a sheet with the columns (student ID number, exam result), while the the prof from another course hanged next to it one with columns (student name, student ID number, exam2 result).
One of the purposes of student ID numbers in Germany was exactly this, to be able to anonymously (i.e. without the names out in the open) post grades. Meanwhile, the tendency seems to be the assumption that the student ID numbers are too permanent to be sufficiently secure, which is why we are usually forbidden to post any grades with student ID numbers online now (although temporary public announcements printed on paper and put up at a bulletin board are ok). The interpretation of the respective privacy laws may differ between university and department.
@ff524: In my experience, using such LMSes never works flawlessly enough that a fallback method that works for everyone would be completely obsolete. For a start, neither teaching staff nor students are experts at using all the different LMSes in use (and universities rarely impose a single one because different teaching staff have different preferences and would not want to be that restricted in their choice, or have already set up certain things in running systems and would not want to switch). Then, each class has at least some cases for whom access doesn't work sufficiently well, ...
... be it because they entered the class at a later time and somehow never got an account, or because of the seemingly omnipresent students from other universities via all kinds of cooperation programs, at least one of which per class was invariably not considered while the LMS and its access restrictions were set up. Then, outside of CS, or at least in non-engineering subjects, I have repeatedly seen a slight general aversion to spend a lot of time in learning how to use such complex systems. This is quite understandable IMO; I consider properly configuring an LMS quite a bit more ...
... demanding than using SVN or Git, so I wouldn't expect anyone whose preferred method of collaborative version control is sending around differently named Word documents via e-mail (that's completely ok if SVN is deemed too difficult) to take the time to learn how to configure an LMS for anything more specific than uploading files accessible to the whole course and adding a text saying "All other info will be announced in class." In short, no LMS compares to the ease of use and reliability of a printed list at a bulletin board. For more details, a separate question might be appropriate.
@O.R.Mapper Student IDs are too easy to infer from multiple result lists and can be hard to keep secret for other reasons. Thus, their usage for public application or announcement lists should be forbidden. What's really needed are unique keys per exam. (My university has been dragging their feet and only reacting in small ways. We've been using exam IDs for years now, and it's very liberating in several ways.)
@ff524 many universities in Europe use secured web portals to communicate grades. But just because there's a system doesn't mean lecturers will use it.
In the UK you expect to get your grades on a web portal (which is often integrated with, but not part of, an LMS) ... but for them also to be published on a board on results day. It's the same in schools. It's just how it is. If you're jealous of other people getting higher scores then you should have worked harder.
"Imagine having to send out 1800 emails for a single course!" but mail merge?!? The grades are presumably digital already and someone in a university aught to know how to do a mail merge, so that all the students can be emailed with their own grades at once. This is possible even if all you have is an email client.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
@ff524, I can't say, but compare http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/52314/why-do-faculty-use-the-software-blackboard.
This sounds like the way it's done in Germany. It's useful to know but by no means as general as “European countries” seems to imply. AFAIK, in France, the UK or the Netherlands posting a table with full names and grades available to all students is frequent.
@Jekowl: as a software developer, I'd see that a task that's really easy to do, but more or less impossible to do to the complete satisfaction of everybody who wants to stick their oar in. Result: it's not universally done ;-) Even if someone in the university knows how to do a mail merge (or otherwise communicate confidentially and individually with all students, as for example we know they do for some matters such as applications, or collecting whatever money is due), you still have to herd the output from several hundred cats (sorry, professors) to several thousand destinations.
Yes, it's unreasonable. Any request for special treatment for you personally is unreasonable unless it is grounded in genuine need: e.g. a disability or an acute change in personal circumstances.
If you feel strongly that this practice is wrong you should instead seek to change the practice for all students through the usual university channels for seeking change and raising grievances.
Other posters have suggested that posting results is illegal under data protection legislation, they are wrong; Data Protection legislation does not forbid the posting of exam results in Europe in general although specific countries in Europe may have stricter limits.
This guideline document from FU Berlin explains that publishing exam grades by permanent student ID numbers does not fulfil German legal privacy requirements. Likewise, this document from the central data protection agency for universities in the German state of Baden-Württemberg says exam results can legally only be published online with prior written consent by the student. ("publish" in the sense of making publicly accessible)
According to this FAQ by the state agency for privacy in Schleswig-Holstein, the same (prior written consent) is also required for reading out a grade aloud in front of a schoolclass in Germany. Lastly, this explanation by the data security officer of the Swiss Canton of Basel-Stadt suggests publishing a non-anonymized list of exam results online is just as illegal in Switzerland.
@O.R.Mapper Still doesn't mean it's forbidden in Europe or the EU generally. As a matter of fact, it's common and accepted in France or the UK so even if you want to argue it ought to change in principle, it's not by any means obvious it's illegal or immediately useful to the OP to know this.
@O.R.Mapper: I should have specified there is no EU wide legal infringement. There may be in specific countries but since the OP doesn't specify...
@Relaxed: My commens were meant to clarify the earlier version of this answer that insinuated it is generally not forbidden in Europe, as well as the current version that, while adding a restriction later on, still claims the desire uttered by the OP is "unreasonable", assumes it is "special treatment for [one person] personally", and that the notion of posting exam results being in conflict with data protection legislation a generally "wrong" claim. The answer is probably meant to express the correct ideas, but at least in the current state, I think the my references are still helpful.
"Yes, it's unreasonable. Any request for special treatment for you personally is unreasonable" I wouldn't call a request for privacy unreasonable. I find your answer very peculiar... How can privacy not be 'for you personally'??
I think your request is very reasonable and what your professors do is unethical and likely illegal¹ (not that I would recommend outright suing before trying to talk to people).
A solution you could advertise to your professors and that neither requires any software nor a big additional effort is the following:
In addition to their names, students give some arbitrary name or similar on their exam sheets that they can remember, e.g., Paul Erdős, Ichabod Numberwrangler, Robert'); DROP TABLE STUDENTS;-- or AxPeYvs2`{P97_E$T+!?tj0YY.
When the grades are published, this name is used instead of their real name. In the unlikely event that two students chose an identical name, use an initial or similar to distinguish them in an unrevealing way (or use e-mail).
¹ I am not familiar with every legislation and it may depend on the exact circumstances, but for example this document from the central data-protection agency of the universities of a German states that even publishing results in connection with the student ID needs a written consenst from the student.
The illegal aspect of this depends of the country: when I was student in France about 10 years ago, it was common that the grades are posted in a corridor, and everybody can see them. I don't know if the practice changed
@Taladris yes, up to a few years ago also in Italy grades were published on billboards along the corridors with names and surnames, but now are given through electronic systems.
@Taladris: That does not necessarily contradict it being illegal. There are a lot of common practices that only survive because nobody is suing. For example the physics department in my university organises physics lab courses for medical students and they have to be organised in an entire different manner, because you can rely on some of those students suing whenever there is a slight chance of success.
"not that I would recommend suing" -- why not? Have the student union pick up the suit. It's all but certain to succeed; this practice is in violation with EU law (iirc, cf Directive 95/46/EC). Some professors won't change their habits unless the sky falls down on them; well, we can arrange that. (Usually, the serious suggestion of a pending lawsuit will cause the head of the university to fold, and stern words to the offending parties follow.)
By the way, student IDs may not be publishable as well; by cross-referencing multiple result lists it can be possible to identify individuals by adding some unrelated knowledge (e.g. the year they started and which courses they took).
@Raphael: Because, if I understand the situation correctly, suing would be a disproportional step of escalation. You can try talking to the professors or the department first or have the student union do it. If that fails, you can still sue. (Also note that I only do not recommend suing and do not recommend not suing.)
@Wrzlprmft Fair enough. In my experience, people who still publish private information without second thought need the hammer, but that does not mean it always is like that. Also, the dean of chancellor giving a call may be hammer enough. If there already is enough sensitivity about privacy issues at that university in general.
I find the notion that anybody would care about this enough to sue completely ridiculous. Though potentially not surprisingly so in ahem particular countries. Not everything has to be fixed by a bloody lawsuit for goodness's sake.
Data protection laws DO NOT forbid the posting of exam results. A two second google should satisfy you of this, e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2011/05/exam_results_not_restricted_by.html or https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1135/publication-of-exam-results-by-schools-dpa-guidance.pdf
@JackAidley: That’s why I said likely – I cannot know every legislation in Europe regarding this; it is certainly illegal in Germany (see O.R. Mapper’s comments on your answer). Moreover, one of the documents you linked recommends strong precautions (e.g., “Schools should make sure that people are aware as early as possible [what will be published]”), though I cannot tell right now to what extent this is required by law.
@LightnessRacesinOrbit: As I noted earlier, some medical students in my country will use every chance for suing if it means that they may be able to continue studying despite failing their physics course three times. This is sad and has ridiculous consequences affecting all students, but it’s sadly very real.
@Wrzlprmft: Good lord.
@LightnessRacesinOrbit Actually, law suits don't have to be that bad. A quick verdict by a judge can be a very effective way to force a big institution to change it ways. I agree with Wrzlp... that it's kinda out of proportion to directly go that route, but if the University is not open to changing their ways on this it can be a very effective last resort.
It is fine to ask your professor if there is some way to keep the grades confidential when they are posted. As others say, perhaps they could be posted as an ID, or maybe the professor has access to a way to easily send it as an email.
However, keep in mind that there is a strong possibility that you will receive a negative answer.
You seem concerned about peer harassment, but most people at the college level can, and will, act like grown adults. If you do happen to encounter harassment, just staying professional should remind them of this. If not, there are avenues you can take to report harassment, but they sometimes vary - so you'd have to check your own school's policies and procedures.
Congratulations on your achievement
If what the professor is doing is legal in your country, and he is unwilling to accommodate your request, you should petition the institutional hierarchy, dean, president, or such for a change in policy. If you have a student governance committee/senate/parliament, you could approach them to approach the university to change the policy to use student ID's. In the U.S., published student IDs should cannot be the students federal ID number, aka social security number, nor a portion of that number. This requires a structural change to the computerized student records system and may take years to effect. In the interim, a system of nick names could be devised so that only YOU and your prof knows the whose nickname is whose. Also, most electronic databases have a record number assigned to each record, i.e. each student has a different record number, somewhat akin to a line number in a paper and pencil grade book. The prof could display that record number instead of a name. Maybe not the best solution, but probably the easiest to effect in the short term. He only needs to communicate students' record numbers to each student privately. Be mindful that, whatever the alias system is used, the ordering of the names on the posted list should not be in the real name alphabetical order. If your name is Aaron Aardvaark, or Zybignu Zzypata, most can detect who is first or last on the list. Beyond the university, you can petition your local senator or MP, as the case may be for a national or state law. That, again could take years.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.459114 | 2015-10-12T04:09:19 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55944",
"authors": [
"Alien Pebble",
"Cape Code",
"Carsten S",
"Count Iblis",
"David Richerby",
"Dylan",
"Federico Poloni",
"G math",
"Go'ar Karshak",
"Jack Aidley",
"Jekowl",
"Juraj Ahel",
"Lightness Races in Orbit",
"Massimo Ortolano",
"N M",
"Nate Eldredge",
"O. R. Mapper",
"Olorun",
"Raphael",
"Relaxed",
"Steve Jessop",
"Stijn de Witt",
"Taladris",
"Wrzlprmft",
"Z. A. K.",
"Zo-Bro-23",
"aaossa",
"aeismail",
"alephzero",
"aspiring graduate student",
"eigengrau",
"ff524",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10685",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11440",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11556",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11596",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12378",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1419",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153245",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153246",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153247",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153248",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153249",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153250",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153267",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153268",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153269",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153301",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153311",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153317",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153318",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153319",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153322",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153359",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153367",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15339",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15528",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17479",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19769",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20058",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26492",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32864",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/32961",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/42493",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5614",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7734",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"lecturer",
"mormey",
"ssmart",
"tim87",
"user153248",
"user153249",
"virmaior",
"volkanncicek"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
56265 | How should to-be-published articles be referenced?
Can I use an unpublished but about to be published soon paper as a reference for a conference paper?
Suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you!
about to be published here means already accepted in the conference but not yet published because it gets published few months after the conference..
For the conference paper, are we talking about the submission version, or about the camera-ready version? Answers will be different depending on which one you mean.
we are talking about camera ready version
The usual way of handling this situation is to use [in press] in the reference instead of the publication date to indicate that the publication is accepted but not yet available. Usually you should also provide soft copies of the to-be-published articles so that the reviewers can have access to them during the review process.
Note that some journals (there is no conference publishing in my field) will postpone the publication of your article until all in press articles are online/published to make sure the references don't need further editing and are correct and useful on the long haul.
Note: Do not use in press if you only speculate that the cited paper will be accepted, only after a firm notification of acceptance.
I doubt any conference will (or can) postpone publication of their proceedings in the described way. Note that the final version of the proceedings is often handed out digitally, or even printed, to participants at the first day of the conference.
Some conferences do...i have to submit the camera ready paper after the conference
Also the online version is not available after some months...i guess a reviewer wants the online version..
@O.R.Mapper I guess journals have a more archival vocation than conference proceedings that aim at disseminating new material quickly.
@jpara good point, I edited my answer accordingly.
@jpara: Fair enough, conferences are certainly organized in different ways across fields. As for "some months", the online version is rarely available before a few months have passed after the conference even on all the conferences I have been to (that would distribute all camera-ready versions on CDs/DVDs during the conference). I suppose the proceedings are caught in some administrative limbo for a while before they get publicly accessible.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.460672 | 2015-10-16T09:57:11 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/56265",
"authors": [
"August R. Humphreys",
"Benjamin Gombos",
"Cape Code",
"Damian Kocher",
"Josué Castillo Guevara",
"Joyce Silva",
"Mr X",
"O. R. Mapper",
"Orbviox",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/154171",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/154172",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/154173",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/154176",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/154225",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/154369",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/154371",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41898",
"jpara"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
26094 | What are my obligations towards my adviser after the defense, revisions, and all forms signing is done?
Just few days ago, I completed all requirements for the degree, all is set and done. I am organizing a workshop with my adviser to be held in few months. Right now, we are reviewing the submissions. My adviser insists that I am not qualified to review the papers because he designated me as a student organizer and my degree completion does not change that. But he expects me to write the reviews that were assigned to him! On top of that, he cannot cover my travel expenses for the workshop, because of the University policy not to pay expenses for the former students. So, I'm on my own to find the travel funding - I will need to ask my employer for funding.
What bothers me is that when convenient, I'm treated as a student (to write the reviews), but when not convenient, I am treated as a former student (funding the travel expenses). What should I do? I talked to him twice now, and I still getting emails asking when the reviews will done.
Is this a common practice? Am I out of the line to question it? And what does this say for our future relationship working independently in the same field.
I should say that I have a job and funding lined up (funding starts after the workshop). So, I don't need a letter of recommendation from my adviser, but staying on good terms would be beneficial. On the other hand, my adviser was hoping that I could fund some of his students over the next year with the funding I received.
Thank you!
What country is this in?
@BillBarth This is in United States.
"Is this a common practice?" More common than it should be, perhaps, but it is certainly not a standard practice. "Am I out of the line to question it?" Absolutely not. "And what does this say for our future relationship working independently in the same field." Good question. I suggest calling him and having a conversation about this. Don't pick up the phone until you're sure you can stay calm and cordial no matter what. When you talk, work up to being as frank as you can, to the limits of his receptivity. Try to make sure that he knows that your funding gives you some leverage here.
@PeteL.Clark, I can understand a University not generally being able to pay for a non-employee's attendance at a remote event, but in my experience, there is always a way to make it work if some employee wants it done.
@Bill: Hmm, maybe I misunderstood. I was interpreting the policy as "We can give funding to outside people so long as they are not former students." Upon reflection, that is so ridiculous that your interpretation seems likely to be correct.
@PeteL.Clark Thank you for the sanity check. I will engage into the negotiations. The mentioned University policy is according to my adviser. I did not verify it. But I too find it curious, because you have some autonomy over your funding.
@Orion: You should look independently into what the funding policy is. As a general rule, it is best to inquire into funding before you sign on to something requiring travel (although it is all too easy not to). In my field we do not have "student organizers" so I don't know anything about the finer points of that. But it is hard for me to read your situation in any other way than that you are being unfairly penalized for having graduated. This is a really bad departmental practice, and it may well be worth discussing it with other faculty: the chair, the director of graduate studies...
My adviser insists that I am not qualified to review the papers... But he expects me to write the reviews that were assigned to him. — Repeat after me: "I'm sorry, but as you just said yourself, I'm not qualified to write your reviews."
It looks like your former adviser is being a bit of a xxxx... Has this been the case in the past? Are you concerned about him getting back at you if you refuse to do his job? Can he have a negative impact on your life/career?
@A.G. I am his first student to graduate. Not staying on his good side might have negative impact should I consider going for an academic position in the future. Something he very strongly encourages me to do and I haven't decided yet. My job is in a research lab and there he won't have negative influence. Then there are soft consequences, opportunities missed. He is obviously better connected in the field than I am, and animosity is not going to serve anyone.
@JeffE: I don't recommend that level of snark if OP wants to maintain a decent relationship with his former advisor.
@BillBarth no snark needed, but the point is well made - he should clearly ask the advisor to make up his mind; either he is qualified to write the reviews and sign them himself; or he isn't and shouldn't write them. The advisor can't have his cake and eat it too.
@BillBarth I don't think there's any chance of maintaining a decent relationship with this advisor. OP might be able to get recommendation letters from him, by agreeing to his abuse, but that's hardly "decent".
@Peteris, I agree, but there's a way to do it without dynamiting the bridge behind him. He's the advisor's first PhD student, clearly the advisor has some things to learn about working with former students and now colleagues. This can be a growing and learning experience for both of them, or everyone can end up bitter. I think OP has a choice as to how it goes.
I agree with @Peteris, it can be done carefully. My plan is to center the discussion on upgrading my role as an organizer, and defer any discussion about the reviews until we have the agreement on my official role. The discussion is motivated by the realization that it is very hard to ask my employer to fund the travel where I am representing the University. Then, I need to build up why it is in my advisor's interest to upgrade me: good for his reputation to have a student who already graduated, and frees him of the responsibility and liability - financial etc.
We can go from there. Once the role is set, then we can talk about responsibilities, including the reviews. I do not plan on agreeing to do the reviews without written conformation that my travel would be covered. If my role is upgraded, I'll gladly do reviews assigned to me, and will take care of my funding.
Other cultures may have different approaches to the ethics of this, but I think it's pretty out of line for the US.
I would recommend standing by your commitment to help organize the workshop, but I would not do your former advisor's reviewing for him. You've graduated, you're a fully-fledged member of the doctoral community.
Pete's comment is pretty spot on. Be as nice and cordial as possible, but be firm in your refusal to do his work for him.
Removed incorrect "not". Just mentioning it, because it changes the whole sense of the sentence. +1 for "I would not do your former advisors reviewing for him."
You've graduated, you're a fully-fledged member of the doctoral community. — For the record, you were a fully-fledged member of the research community even before you graduated. Otherwise, you wouldn't have landed a job.
I would only upvote this answer if there's also advice on HOW to refuse to do the work. That's the hard part. Of course OP knows that he shouldn't do the work that is not his.
Just to give an update. We had a conversation that stayed pretty civil, and at least the expectations are clear now. I will be upgraded to a regular organizer, and will be responsible for my own funding. He would not allow me to be a reviewer in order to maintain high-quality of the workshop and not bring any questions over the peer-review process credibility. I did not agree to do the reviews for him. I got a guilt trip for putting him in a very bad position. He would not have agreed to do the workshop had he known I wouldn't be reviewing the papers for him.
All said and done, I feel good about it. Not thrilled, but in peace with it. @Anh I structured the discussion over the roles and common interest: transitioning to the new phase of collaboration that is less day-to-day, but with more impact to his benefit. That I am willing to accept more responsibility for more independence, and that I am committed to organizing the workshop, and not putting him in a difficult position. Circling back to these points, whenever the conversation became tense, helped keep the tone cordial. At the end, we agreed to disagree.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.460931 | 2014-07-18T21:11:37 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26094",
"authors": [
"A.G.",
"Anurag Gupta",
"Bill Barth",
"Blunt Lord",
"Faheem Mitha",
"Heisenberg",
"JeffE",
"Mary-Ann Horley",
"Orion",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Peteris",
"Sulthan",
"T.Marjot",
"TTjawa",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10318",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10730",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11636",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19732",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/285",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69632",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69633",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69634",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69635",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69636",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69638",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69658",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"skan",
"user69643"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
17815 | What to do if assignment is against student's religion?
What is the proper course of action if while teaching an undergraduate or even secondary school course an assignment violates the religious beliefs of a student?
For a more concrete example of where this might happen, let us consider an art class with a Muslim student (Disclamer: I am not an adherent to, or scholar of, Islam; please forgive me for any misunderstandings this post might contain):
Within Islam it is considered haram (forbidden by God) [1] to produce images of non-plant living creatures (including humans), this is called tasweer.[2]
Now if I were to assign a portrait of a person to the class as an assignment, what would be the most ethical option, should a student raise a concern to me about this? Would it be appropriate to assign an alternate assignment?
[1]: Similar to a christian sin, but with a stronger connotation from what I can tell; literally: taboo.
[2]: I believe this is from a hadith, but one that is deemed to be the most accurate/reliable.
Another concrete example is "you have to use this pirated software for your assignment, download it from the course website". Although this also violates laws, only religious students objected.
In this particular case, I would respect the student's wishes, and follow the suggestions below, BUT refer them to the outstanding research by Professor Michael Barry on the tradition of courtly art, ie Indian and Persian miniatures which were anthropomorphic and authorised and valued by the highest Islamic religious authorities. I'd also consider involving everyone in a course in sacred geometry drawing on the art and symbolism of Islamic culture.
@LeonConrad I wouldn't recommend that - it comes across as suggesting to the student that he is misinterpreting the religious requirements, or suggesting he follow other interpretations of those requirements than his own. The student does not want to feel like he has to convince you of his interpretation, nor do you want to be convinced; the student just wants to know how he can meet class requirements given certain restrictions.
@ff524 I don't see our views being mutually exclusive - no convincing either way is implied, just a mutual widening of horizons and awareness. The wider our horizons in my view, the more tolerance and understanding there is in the world. Sensitivity in handling the situation and mutual respect are implied - I would have thought that was obvious. Obviously this would most easily be applied in a liberal and tolerant society. The liberal educator has choices, always.
@LeonConrad In the context of education in general, it is certainly nice to widen horizons and awareness :) My concern only applies to the student saying, "I can't do this assignment because of the requirements of my religious observance" and the instructor replying in that context "This is another interpretation of those requirements"
Don't think that only Muslims will object to such an assignment. All Mosaic religions have such a prohibition, although exactly how broadly it is applied certainly varies. Someone who uses a broad interpretation probably shouldn't be in such a class, however.
@BenVoigt Fair point, but the Islamic tradition has the benefit of having an an emphasis on the interpretation of scholars, especially through the rulings called fatawas. Both the size of the religion and the emphasis on these (cite-able) fatawas (also called fatwas) caused me to cite Islam as an example (as the scholarly writings allow me to learn about such practices from a reliable source, avoiding misinterpretation).
Is this an actual problem? It sounds like you are making up an example for the sake of this question, but I don't believe a lot of Muslims would consider this a rule to be followed in modern day. There is no need for discussing hypothetical questions. If you had an actual situation you should use that as example.
@eBusiness: The question isn't about many, the question is about some.
This is ridiculous! If your religious belief doesn't permit you to do some things, then avoid these. What's the point of enrolling then complaining about assignments?
@eBusiness Yes this is a hypothetical situation, however, it is not an unreasonable one. I cited the modern interpretation of the Islamic law by Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, Grand Mufti (highest religious official) of Saudi Arabia until his death in 1999. While I agree that this might not be a common occurrence in American institutions of learning, that does not make this situation an unreasonable one. I cite this meta question.
@user The student may not have been informed of the assignment before enrolling in the class (or before the add/drop deadline for enrollment)
In the given case, if there is only one portrait as part of the course, then why not a portrait of a pet?
@ian It is considered haraam to depict animate beings, not only humans, therefore the pet would also be prohibited.
@marczellm That's different. Piracy is illegal, if your instructor is compelling you to use pirated software you can easily report them to the university administrator or the police.
There is not a single verse in the Quran against drawing a picture of a live human being. The source you have cited merely talks about a subjective interpretation of particular events at the dawn of Islam. The cited text or its' author is not considered genuine by the majority of muslims. The whole point of my comment is to differentiate between religious laws and personal interpretation of religious laws (which are not included in the Quran)
@AbbasJavanJafari To my knowledge, there is not a single verse in the Quran with this prohibition, which is why I cite a source as close to the original source of the prohibition (an early Hadith) as I can. Nevertheless, whether or not it is considered genuine by the majority of modern Muslims, it has historically been of import (as seen in much of the art of the Islamic empires), and it is conceivable that a Muslim holds this belief. It is also not my place to say whether they are "true" Muslims for believing this or not. In a similar sense, it would be wrong for me to say that (cont..)
I could provide an exception if you quote a bible verse, but not one if you quote from the book of Mormon (which the majority of Christians do not believe), as this is blatantly discriminatory.
(That is not to disagree with the fact that Wahabism, which the Saudi Arabian official I cite is a proponent of, is not a terribly common form of Islam in the US)
@ff524 very well spoken on the issue of how students interpret their religion. This happens often to Seventh-Day Adventists, who consider Saturday to be the "correct" day of rest and worship even while nearly all other Christians disagree. Arguing is fruitless - nowadays both sides have more or less "agreed to disagree" and are trying to move on with their lives - staying true to their own beliefs while respecting others.
If you can make an accommodation that allows the student to participate
without violating his religious observance, and
without compromising the educational goals of the class, and
without requiring an extreme amount of effort on your part,
then it is reasonable to make the accommodation.
I regularly miss classes and exams due to religious observance. My school has a very clear policy on the matter:
If students have to miss a class session, exam, or are otherwise unable to participate in a course requirement due to religious observance, they must notify the professor and a certain dean in a timely manner (the definition of "a timely manner" is further specified in the policy)
If said student follows the above requirement, they cannot be penalized for their religious observance and the professor must offer a fair alternative (e.g., makeup exam or assignment)
If your university has no policy on the matter, feel free to adopt mine, and specify it in your syllabus at the beginning of the semester.
However, I would not take a class where I know the main requirement of a class would violate my religious observance. Indeed, I know people who have refrained from pursuing a career because a non-negotiable required class for that field would require something that violates their religious observance. *
So, if the course is Figure Drawing and someone registers knowing that he cannot draw the human figure... I don't think you are required to let him pass the class by doing still lives instead. If the course is Introduction to Art for Non-Majors, it may be possible to offer an alternative to the portrait assignment.
This applies more generally as well. If a student in good faith (i.e., not to get out of doing work) considers an assignment
illegal,
unethical,
compromising to his health/safety,
etc.
it seems reasonable to offer an alternative assignment if it does not compromise the educational goals of the course.
* See: Can a Kohen become a doctor?
+1 for the combination of "be understanding and tolerant" with "don't let it get ridiculous".
It's also not the job of places of learning to label superstition. An answer similar to ff524 will go much further to promote learning than injecting your own opinions on religion or any other subject in the classroom. Stick to teaching the material and follow the charter.
This seems to me to be a pretty good answer, the only thing that I would add is that after becoming aware of a potential religious or cultural issue it would be a good idea to add a suitable caveat to the module description/specification, e.g. "the assessment on this module involves figure drawing". Hopefully that means that in future this sort of issue can be negotiated before the student registers for the module, and emphasises that the student has a responsibility to select appropriate modules (where there is a choice). Hindsight is always 20/20, but that is no reason not to use it! ;o)
I would second @DikranMarsupial's comment. As an example, when I was in high school the senior-year biology course included a laboratory class where you had to dissect a fetal pig. This was considered an essential part of the course, and it was made very clear to all students completing the introductory biology class that if they continued on to the advanced class they would have to carry out the dissection. If the student had any ethical or religious objections against dissecting a dead animal (or a pig in particular), they we warned not to take the class.
You regularly miss classes for religious observance?
@DikranMarsupial or, "This course requires discussion of sexual topics", "Papers in this course must be written from the perspective that evolution is true, even if you personally disbelieve", or "Due to safety regulations, students may not wear skirts in the lab".
@RobertColumbia "Papers in this course must be written from the perspective that evolution is true, even if you personally disbelieve" would be inappropriate as the student is free to submit papers expressing essentially any point of view they like (this is academia), but that doesn't mean they will get good marks for what they submit.
It's not the job of places of learning to give way to superstition. Indeed, quite the reverse: the whole Enlightenment Project was about bringing light into darkness, and all the Academia I'm familiar with puts itself broadly in the Enlightenment tradition.
So yes, this answer will read as uncompromising. Because, from experience, I've found that rigorous education is incompatible with compromising that rigour in favour of molly-coddling someone's religious beliefs.
There is no sane middle ground. If you're going to start compromising the quality of your teaching to avoid offending someone's belief, you'll quickly find yourself running out of space. Someone's going to get offended that you're teaching males and females at the same time, sat next to each other. Someone's going to get offended that anyone's drawing the human figure, let alone that they have to. Someone's going to get offended that you don't mention their pet crank theory alongside science as if they were somehow of equal merit.
If a particular course's actions are in contradiction to a student's religion, then there are two routes here. If the student is legally a child, then the student completes the actions - they are under the school's guardianship when in school. If the student is legally an adult, then they have the problem, and it's not fair on any of the other students that they should make their problem, the institution's problem. They can either fail that part of the course, or they can do the work.
If a student's beliefs contradict knowledge, science or art, that's not the problem of the place of learning. That's the problem of the student.
If this is about children, then the responsible adults are guilty of abuse, for bringing that state of affairs about, and the school should do as much as it reasonably can to make amends for that failure. Note that I am not saying that a religious upbringing is necessarily abuse. I am saying that teaching children nonsense such as creationism is abuse, because it can cripple that child's future opportunities.
If this is about adults, then they've taken responsibility for failing that part of their education, and should be marked down accordingly.
This has been something of a hot topic in Britain recently, where the teaching of creationism and other ignorances is on the rise, where state-funded schools have been breaking equality laws by selecting staff on the basis of gender, sexuality and religion, and where pressure has been put on educational establishments to subvert the teaching of several branches of knowledge, including the censoring of some exam questions on evolution, and the censoring of two university atheist society's display of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and of "Jesus and Mo" t-shirts, because these were inconsistent with some extremist religous interpretations.
Academia is the bulwark against ignorance and superstition.
I'm not saying that religion = ignorance and superstition. Creationism = ignorance and superstition. Refusing to draw the human figure = ignorance and superstition. Avoiding listening to or playing music = ignorance and superstition. Preventing females from being educated = ignorance and superstition.
This answer is not phrased in the most conciliatory way, but I do think there is truth to this. In the context of this question, I feel that everyone should adhere to the standard set by a specific course or face the consequences. If a student cannot/will not do part of the course for whatever reason, that is his or her responsibility. In my experience, subjects are too often catered to individual students which can result in the subject as a whole to evolve towards the lowest common denominator. This is particularly counterproductive because it indirectly harms the good students.
"all the Academia I'm familiar with puts itself broadly in the Enlightenment tradition". I, on the other hand, am studying at a Catholic university. I disagree with equating religion to ignorance, superstition, darkness and failure. I find the wording of this answer somewhat offensive.
There is a big difference between students disagreeing with the actual substance of what they're taught (as in your example of Creationism) and students refusing to engage in certain activities (as in the example of art in the question). I think you're answering a question which wasn't asked.
This is not what the question was primarily concerned with; the example (and the general case) is about when a student cannot complete something because the action is against their religion, whereas this answers the question of what to do when the knowledge contradicts their religion. In the case of the former, it is not that the student refuses to accept the knowledge, but that they are only allowed to apply it to things that are not haram (sin, et cetera).
I have downvoted this. Multicultural societies (such as the one in which I live) need to be tolerant of religious and cultural differences, e.g. academic institutions should make reasonable adjustments where necessary. The suggestion that bringing up children in a religious faith is abuse is gratuitously offensive. With rights come responsibilities, the responsibility that goes with free speech is to refrain from causing needless offence in discussing things with which you disagree. This sort of polemic only appeals to those that already agree with you and will change nobody's mind.
@DikranMarsupial I think you've misunderstood what I've written. I do not say that bringing up children in a religious faith is abuse. Teaching them anti-science nonsense such as creationism, however, is abuse. It can cripple their future opportunities.
+1 I think you need to clarify what you have written to make that distinction. Personally I think it is at best hyperbole to describe the teaching of creationism as abuse. Parents inevitably end up passing memes on to their children that are incorrect to varying degrees (if only because our understanding of the world is not static and our parents are necessarily older than we are ;o) if this is well intentioned I can't see how it can be reasonably described as abuse. If you want to argue against creationism (and I do as well), then you are not going to change any minds with polemic.
BTW, I don't think you can contradict art!
@DikranMarsupial I've tried to edit that in to my answer. I'm not interested in changing minds: by the very nature of fundamentalists, there's no reasoning with them: if they were open to reason, they wouldn't be fundamentalists. And I'm not interested in courting any middle ground. I'm just providing an answer to the question.
-1 for adopting an unnecessarily intolerant tone, for effectively equating religion to "ignorance and superstition" at the end, for implying that the religious belief of the student "is the problem of the student", and for ultimately not answering the question.
@badroit I must have phrased it very badly, given that's what you've inferred from my ending. I've reworded to be more explicit about what I intended.
@marczellm 1642. 1992.
I respect your opinion; however, contrary to your experience that rigorous education is incompatible with compromising.. etc., my own experiences include many "compromises" that allowed me to participate fully without affecting educational standards at all.
@EnergyNumbers What do you mean by your comment of "1642. 1992."? I'd like to read more but I find it's not enough to go on, unless you mean the Church's apology to Galileo.
It really is amazing to me how many people seek to invoke the Enlightenment to support their intolerance, apparently completely ignorant of the fact that tolerance, particularly religious tolerance was a core principle of the Enlightenment.
Nope, you made it worse. by the very nature of fundamentalists, there's no reasoning with them — Pot, kettle, black, etc.
Its okay as long as students don't want to take a course on evolution and such. Its okay if they wish to be fully covered. But, its a problem if they expect the world to follow unjustifiable rules and live by them. How is music "bad" or "haram" is beyond me. Violent music could still be considered "haram" or even avoidable. But how do you justify neutral music by Beethoven as "haram" ?
@EnergyNumbers, thanks for considering my comment but the -1 still remains. For me, your ending paragraph is like people who start sentences with "I'm not racist but ...". In my opinion, the core fallacy of your answer is that, throughout, you reduce religious belief to trivial superstitions and then answer the question from that cut-and-dry perspective. But religion is much more complex: it is about individual ethics, identity and culture. Painting with broad brush-strokes, not considering the individual, and arbitrarily rejecting all middle-ground is, for me, synonymous with intolerance.
... also I wonder how the answers would change if the question were rather about students having ethical concerns regarding course-work: research on stem-cells, analysis of sensitive/private data, exploitative business practices, euthanising patients, experiments on animals, eating meat, observing abortions, performing sex acts, analysing snuff videos. One could imagine that any such act, even bordering on the hypothetical/extreme, can have an educational aspect. Each individual has a different line (potentially informed by religion). Nobody is right/wrong. There is only a middle ground.
I appreciate your edits, your answer is much clearer and much less offensive now.
I think this answer is correct, but unfortunately, it's not politically correct.
Your exasperated tone here is interesting because it reveals underlying suppositions about epistemology and ontology which themselves are at least in part under attack in your answer. That is, you have a strong revulsion toward what you call superstition, but don't seem cognizant of the fact that this is a clear "how things ought to be" derived from the worldview you've selected as the best one. So, you're making a worldview superiority claim on the strength of that worldview, but by what means do you select your worldview over others that allow for the existence of the supernatural?
If you were a character in a universe inside a computer, ala The Sims, certainly some Sims would argue that there is no programmer, and no computer (a.k.a. super-nature), there is only the software (a.k.a. "reality"). Your experience of the software's rules could expose the programming underlying it (rules of logic, reason, existence, and so on), but how could you discern whether those rules were inherent and fundamental properties or if they were founded on something deeper? Certainly not by merely using the software's apparent rules.
The embedded and incorrect assumption here: "If you're going to start compromising the quality of your teaching to avoid offending someone's belief..." That isn't always the case. There are often accommodations which can be made which do not compromise the quality of the teaching, and the thought put into considering an accommodation might sometimes increase the quality of the teaching, sometimes even for all the students in the class. "There is no sane middle ground" is just plain wrong, unless you put waaaay too much stock in that false assumption.
You really cannot expect that the assignment should be counted as done just because of your religion. However, if you are a student,
Try to ask the professor to adapt the assignment. If picturing humans
is not allowed, maybe picturing geometric figures is ok.
Ask representative of your religion if the activity is really disallowed in your context. Most of religious restrictions are about actions, not about studying (may be exceptions of course).
If you know you should drop studies but are too weak to do this, the representative of your religion may just forgive you.
If you are the person teaching, you may think about adapting course (is the disallowed activity essential?) and still check with representative of religion if the students do not interpret restrictions unnecessarily broadly. Additionally, you may discuss with your administration the possibility to suggest the alternative but equally serious and difficult course for such students. Some universities like Zurich ETH allow to choose between many alternative courses, with only small percent being mandatory.
Still, if there are many assignments contradicting the religion, this probably shows that it may be lots more problems at work later. If you are not allowed to kill, that is the point of attempting the carrier of the jet fighter pilot? Even if you can actually study, saying nobody is killed in flight simulator or during bombing tests, this may not make much sense.
While this is a nice answer, it answers a somewhat different question than the one asked, since the question here is from the point of view of the person teaching.
The person teaching can take first two actions as well (change the assignment or clarify with the representative of the confession). He may also ask the student how one is going to work later if cannot even study.
check with representative of religion - Do not do this. Unless you're teaching religion, it's not up to you to tell the student that his interpretation of religious requirements are incorrect.
You mean, it is up to the student to decide if certain assignment contradicts some very specific religion he may have? Like "my religion disallows me to learn this type if differential equation, that also seems too difficult for me"? Impressive.
Most religions exist in many variations and interpretations, and if you find a representative of the religion who says "This is permitted" the student can still say (legitimately) "That is not the interpretation I follow." (Evaluating whether the student is making his claim in good faith or trying to avoid doing work is another issue entirely, which I don't think the OP is asking about.)
I disagree with adapting the course. There's a difference in adapting a course to be accessible for students with disabilities/illnesses/religious observance regarding the style of assessment task (exam/essays etc) and missing class, and changing the course content. Don't change the course content because someone finds it confronting, the purpose of Academia is to challenge and confront.
I think this depends on what level you are teaching at. Below college-level I think you may need to find an alternative (but just as difficult or more difficult) assignment.
It is a slippery-slope when people institute their private beliefs on a teacher's assignment. It is not like the assignment was for them to go to a Sunday mass. If the assignment was hitting a lot of religious notes, you as the teacher should have a plan. Have the students/parents sign-off on the topics/assignments or offer them another assignment to do.
If we are talking college level courses the assignments and tests should be on your syllabus. If they don't want to do them then they can drop out of your class or they can get an F on the assignment.
As a teacher you are trying to teach them a skillset. If that includes something that is against their beliefs they shouldn't get to pass the class because they don't have the knowledge/skill. There is just too much grey area here and obviously the students could tell you whatever they want and it allows for animosity from students that have to do the assignments.
As an educator, the most appropriate response is to immediately escalate the matter in a neutral way - present only the facts. The educational institution has staff and lawyers to interpret scenarios like this and provide recommendations to the teacher. I would not recommend making any immediate compromises or snap-judgements with the student. Educating students is stressful enough. Let those who specialize in this type of issue resolve it, and you can focus on the education of your students.
In my six years in secular institutes of higher education, no professor has ever escalated to the dean responsible for such matters. We've always been able to settle the issue ourselves in a friendly and amicable way.
The question was not what is currently done by some educators, but what the proper course of action is. Most organizations have strict policies now around these topics due to the rising frequency of lawsuits over the slightest misunderstanding. Know your organization's policies and follow them. If your organization does not have any on these issues, good luck. Some teachers are not charismatic enough to resolve the issue, and some students aren't looking for a compromise. It's probably best to follow policy to protect yourself in the event of a litigious student (or parents).
I agree that escalating at the slightest hint of a possible conflict between student and teacher is wise. However, it isn't necessary as a first resort (unless of course school policy requires it.)
Note that the dean or whoever this is escalated to may have more of an incentive to cater to the student than to the teacher's workload.
I'm going to have to disagree with the majority on this post that you should adapt your assessment for the student if this is a college level or university level course.
Absolutely students who miss exams/class/need extensions due to religious observance should be accommodated. But at a college or university level, if a student disagrees or does not feel they can complete a particular assessment due to religious observance they shouldn't take the class. Assessments and topics are laid out in the beginning of the course, plenty of time for that student to switch classes. There's a difference regarding the style of assessment which can be altered (i.e. an exam to an essay) and the content being assessed, which is generally what would be the controversial subject.
I teach a number of controversial subjects because I'm situated in gender studies/sociology. A number of the courses I teach have controversial material and assessment tasks that are not well-suited for everyone. Many students find the material confronting, and yes, I have absolutely encountered students who find it too uncomfortable. My response? I am sympathetic to their issues, but their only option is to drop the class. A subject such as gender studies is a controversial subject, and when we delve into critical examinations of things like women and pornography, or men's aggression and violence, I cannot 'water it down' so it's accessible for those who find said material confronting. Otherwise, there's no point in teaching it.
Any student who does have a particular religious observance needs to take the time to review the course syllabus and get in contact with the unit coordinator before the start of the course. If the syllabus is not available prior to enrolling, they should still get in contact to discuss their concerns and determine whether or not the course is a valid option for them.
At some point, students have to take responsibility for their own choices regarding what classes they will take. They cannot expect to be accommodated to the point of completing a completely different assessment task to everyone else because the material is too confronting or is in direct violation to their religious observance. While the style of assessment can change (i.e. a student with a disability might prefer a take-home exam over a traditional sit-in exam) the content needs to remain the same.
Your example of an art class is a tricky one though. It would depend as to whether figure drawing is the main purpose of the course (in which perhaps the drawing of a naked figure makes up a huge portion of the assessment task/overall grade?) or if it's a relatively small component (like 5-10%?). If relatively small, they can skip it and forfeit the grade if they are able to complete everything else.
I think the solution depends on wether the method used to reach the education objective is problematic or if it's the actual education objective itself.
I have observed this kind of situation as fellow student. We have here a religious branch that forbids watching television. On a course about topic A, we had an exercise where we were supposed to watch several episodes from a TV series and observe topic A related things from characters. In this kind of case where the topic A itself has nothing to do with the problematic method, I think it's reasonable to accommodate student, if possible. In this case student was allowed to do the exercise from book instead of TV-series, and observe topic A related things from those characters.
Had the course topic been related to media or cinematography, and the method (watching TV-series) itself would have been important to reach the education objective (such as observing how lights or cuts or positioning was done in the TV-series), then I don't think accommodation has to be made. It is up to the student to realize that the course topic itself causes problems and either decide not to take it, or just do the exercises anyway.
I really do not believe religious beliefs should be THAT much considered. Islam also suggests that you should not be in the same classroom with opposite sex (also haram). Then why is that student studying in university?
Another question is, what if I believe in HurdyGurdyism and the letter F is very much sin in my religion? Then should you not give me an F?
Every belief is of course deserve respect, but I don't believe the purpose of conducting science is much more holier. All and all, the place is where you conduct science, not a sanctuary.
Educational institutions are not there to reaffirm religious beliefs. Anyone with a drivers license has already violated this belief. My heartless opinion on the matter is you do the assignment (or come up with the closest possible alternative) or you fail. How is not doing it for religious reasons different than just not doing it? Its also an insult to all those that did do it, particularly the ones that struggled through it.
This is not a comment on the substance of your response, but simply a comment on your drivers license example: there are exceptions for civic matters such as mugshots and drivers licenses.
The most important thing first: it is not your job to know every religion, belief or variation of it, it is up to the student or his/her parents to tell you beforehand what they cannot accept in class. Even between two of the same religion, no one can tell how direct one rule is taken by the one or the other. That said, your responsibility however is to give your students and their parents enough time in advance to notify you of potential issues.
If you work with a class where this can be an issue, a good idea would be to write down the topics for the upcoming course and hand it over to your students, and then explain why you are doing this. Depending on the age of your students, they might misunderstand this as cheating away from class. In addition you should give your students the chance for a fair alternative. If such alternative is not obvious, you should talk to the student or the parents in question to find one. If drawing an animated object is considered a sin, you could hand out a picture of someone to draw. Whether or not this complies to the religion, I however cannot tell.
Religion is nothing you can come by with logic, people believe the strangest things. For some of them compromises can be found, for others probably not. It is a good thing to try to find a compromise but in strange cases also valid to refuse them. If one's religion for example expects that boys and girls are taught in separate rooms, the only thing you can offer to the parents is for their child to change school.
Also you need to keep in mind how the other students will treat a kid, which is the reason why they can't do something they want, cannot watch a certain movie or must skip topics they would have been interested in. Some things they can accept if it is explained properly, others probably not. And in the later case it might be for the better of the kid in question to not give into the believes, as the "torture" following that would be much worse.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.461860 | 2014-03-06T05:54:09 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17815",
"authors": [
"410 gone",
"Abbas Javan Jafari",
"AmeliaBR",
"Azraa",
"Ben Voigt",
"Dikran Marsupial",
"Dsel",
"ErikE",
"F0406K",
"Geordie Williamson",
"Gro-Tsen",
"Ian",
"JNS",
"JeffE",
"Juan Sebastian Lozano",
"Leon Conrad",
"Marc Claesen",
"Matt Angland",
"Mia",
"Mikhail Borovoi",
"Phil",
"RBarryYoung",
"Robert Columbia",
"Sander Lathouwers",
"Stacks of overflow",
"Steam",
"Superbest",
"TRiG",
"Thomas Steinke",
"Tobias Kildetoft",
"TylerH",
"Vrishabh Lakhani",
"WBT",
"Wangana",
"Whynote",
"aaaaaaaaaaaa",
"algorithmic_fungus",
"almerillat",
"awsoci",
"badroit",
"cgo",
"dominic",
"ff524",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10283",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/106610",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/106629",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10920",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11340",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11627",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12592",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12724",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12725",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12749",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12754",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12765",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12768",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12771",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15736",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/162273",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17459",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/244",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2827",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28324",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36320",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/415",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43279",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/44249",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48099",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48100",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48101",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48102",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48116",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48122",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48127",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48137",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48142",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48149",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48169",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48170",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48286",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48326",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48328",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48334",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/58912",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7173",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77994",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8705",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/898",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9902",
"juggernaut108",
"marczellm",
"mschrimpf",
"user",
"user171212",
"user2988387",
"user514366",
"xLeitix",
"陈师孟"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
20552 | Is it rude to ask via email to a professor if there are any internship opportunities?
I've worked for an university for one year after my master's degree. Now I'm searching another job. For the moment I've tried to ask to several professors via email if there is any internship opportunities but only a couple of them answered me. I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or this is not the praxis or the formal manner for this type of requests. This is a general template I use:
Dear Professor Surname,
I'm a young chemist for the conservation of Cultural Heritage. In my career I've studied mainly non-invasive techniques for art diagnostics and authentication, such as reflectography and Raman spectroscopy. I've also learned, on my own, to use GIS software for organizing data for Cultural Heritage management. I've seen that one of name of a Project I'm interested tasks is the maintenance of cultural heritage. Therefore, I would like to ask you if there are any internship opportunities in which my expertise could be useful to your current research? Thank you for your time.
Best regards,
How can I propose myself for an internship? Which is the most accepted praxis?
Do you mean academic internship or something else? I am not sure whether or not non-academic internship would be on-topic for this site
Unless you find the chance to talk to him or her at an event such as a department morning tea, seminar (etc), and no positions are advertised, then IMO email really is the only way to ask. There are a few minor grammatical errors in your example email, so if you're writing to the professor in English you should try to make sure that it is perfect.
@posdef I'm talking about an academic internship!
@Moriarty Thanks a lot, can you tell me which are the grammatical errors in my mail? Or edit the question? Thanks a lot for your help!
@GM see the edit I have made (for grammar only, not content). Note that while "learnt" is common in British English, it is seen as very colloquial in American English. If you are writing formally, you should (debatably!) also avoid contractions such as "I'm".
In the US at least, most professors don't have the authority or know-how to hire anyone, except through standard channels for standard academic positions. (And often not even that.) And I've never personally heard of an "internship" at any university (although I wouldn't be surprised if they're more common in fields other than mine). So, unfortunately, the people you're contacting possibly have no ability to help you.
@Anonymous In laboratory science PIs often have the authority to hire certain kinds of lab help (undergrad assistants from among the students). These positions are not usually described as "internships", but they server the same purpose. Other professors may be able to put you in touch with local industry representatives which might (or might not) lead somewhere.
I don't think this practice is rude, but if these are not people with whom you have any connection, and who have not advertised a position, then I don't think you should be especially surprised that you aren't getting many responses. In all likelihood, the answer is "no" and they don't feel like anything will be achieved by telling you that.
A few things which might be hurting you:
The email above really reads like a mass form email. You aren't making any argument about how your expertise is relevant to their specific work, and you're putting the burden on them to think about how your skills might fit with what they're doing rather than thinking about it yourself.
Maybe this is different in other fields, but it's not clear to me what "internship" is supposed to mean here. A paid position? Unpaid? You may be being deliberately vague, but if you're not responding to an ad for a specific position, you have have some clarity about what you're looking for.
I think that the slightly awkward English doesn't really help. "Chemist for the conservation of Cultural Heritage" sounds very strange to me. I think "Chemist specializing in/interested in/working on the conservation of Cultural Heritage" is much better.
Thanks a lot, I keep "internship" vague because if I ask him directly for a paid position I think it could lower the chances to get a reply, however tell him directly that I can work for free will make him chose for this option directly.
It is illegal in many (western?) countries to have an unpaid position or internship, and will probably become so in the next few years in the US, so I wouldn't worry about being so vague.
To add to Ben's answer, professors usually get these emails by the dozens and for various reasons, most of them are auto-tuned to ignore them. The maximum notice such emails may get is a mention in a lunchtime comment to colleagues. Like Ben said, if you are not getting a reply, the answer is probably "no". If there are open positions, they would already be advertised on the prof's or the department's page. Some departments do not take interns as a policy and say so on their webpage.
Your best bet is to contact professors whom you personally know, or have your own professor recommend you to colleagues. Go to places where you can meet more professors, e.g. conferences. Look for professors who have published in your area and start a discussion on some paper of theirs you find interesting. Those emails do get noticed! Bring up your need for an internship in said discussion.
+1 for "professors usually get these emails by the dozens". This is indeed a big problem. It seems everybody who shows up in proximity to a faculty list gets an insane amount of such requests, to the extend that it is really difficult to not just auto-ignore them.
On the other hand, when I asked for PhD vacancies, some professors answered saying they were going to open one in [date], that will be announced [website].
To be considered above the clutter, you want to have some pre-existing relationship with the person you are asking for help.
Even I, not even a doctor yet, receive such emails occasionally, and it's obvious that they just did a copy-paste of my name / affiliation into a standard email...
Sending from a .edu email address might up your chances a little bit.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.465037 | 2014-05-09T08:31:32 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20552",
"authors": [
"Anonymous",
"Bill Barth",
"David Z",
"Davidmh",
"G M",
"J. A. Corbal",
"Lagerbaer",
"Moriarty",
"dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10333",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/103610",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11565",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11600",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/236",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/440",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5674",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8562",
"posdef",
"xLeitix"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
47601 | What to do when you are suspicious about numerical results in a submitted manuscript that you are reviewing?
I am currently reviewing a paper and feel suspicious about their numerical results. I feel their results have been slightly modified to exhibit their superiority compare to other comparative methods.
I cannot give an exact mathematical reason why I think their numerical results have been manipulated, but it is so odd that in all 15 scenarios they have been better. Actually, I am pretty sure that their method is better than his benchmarks but not always. Maybe they modified some scenarios.
As I don't have a mathematical reason why I think some of their numbers are altered, should I ask for their computer code and run them myself?
I didn't ask the editor yet. Should I ask him first? @EnergyNumbers
If you have sufficiently many numbers and Benford’s law is applicable, you could use it to test the data. (But remember that you can always tweak the data such that it complies with Benford’s law.)
Complementing the other answers, either in addition to, or apart from, asking for the codes and running them yourself, I don't think it is a bad idea to explicitly ask the authors, something like this:
The standard algorithms for executing (bla bla bla), e.g. as followed in the works of Refs. [1-3] (feed these in), are suggestive of a standard accuracy in typical algorithms. The current work appears to have bettered the same, which is a strong point in favor of publication. However, the authors should include a comment in the manuscript, mentioning what changes have they implemented to the typical algorithms so highly prevalent, which leads to this enhanced accuracy.
My jargon may have to be twisted a bit here, but I think I convey the point.
This being a query in the referee report, the authors shall be obligated to feed in the details, and if there is some manipulation involved, it may end up being exposed.
Hope that helps :)
this is a good one @the-dark-side
You say that you don't have a mathematical reason to be suspicious. But have some reason. You should formulate this as a reason in your report as well as you can.
Moreover, I think that it is totally reasonable to ask for code and data to reproduce the results. Probably the journal has some policy about reproducible research and you could refer to that.
I cannot formulate my feeling and speciousness. I have worked with these methods before, they don't always give the best results. In some case older method (his benchmarks) gives slightly better results. @Dirk
@Electricman I think you formulated them fairly well in your question, i.e. with reference to your surprise at the domination of one method over another.
So I should explain my reason fairly and then ask their computer code to reproduce the results? @fmark
"I have worked with these methods before, they don't always give the best results." This means that the editor picked the right person to review the paper. You know the field, and you have experience in practice. You should have confidence in your assessment that the results shown are too good to be true.
I think I will ask for the code to see if I can reproduce the same results. However, if their results were not too good I wouldn't be suspicious. However, regardless of this case, I think it s very difficult to catch manipulation in results generally. Why journals do not ask for the computer code as well as the manuscripts? Imagine there are methods A,B,C and the proposed method X. We know method X is brand new and A,B,C are older methods. So the author simply may put some bad numbers for A,B,C and then shows his X method is better. As X is brand new, no one get suspicious @WolfgangBangerth
If there are any "standard" or widely-used benchmark problems for this application, it would be reasonable to suggest they are used (and give a reference to the problem definitions, and other papers reporting the results, in your comments). Selective benchmarking is hardly new as a sales and marketing technique, though one might hope that an academic paper would present a balanced view.
Even if you can afford the time and effort to get the code and reproduce the results, you might end up with a "my test problems are harder than your test problems" debate, which may be irrelevant unless the paper claims its method is always better - and that would be a brave claim to make in any non-trivial situation. A method that is better "only" in some circumstances may well be worth publishing.
"Even if you can afford the time and effort to get the code and reproduce the results, you might end up with a "my test problems are harder than your test problems" > What if I ask his/her computer model of the given problem? So if I cannot regenerate their results by the given code, it means manipulation in results.... @alephzero
You state that you don't have a mathematical reason to believe their numbers are altered, but in most cases, that shouldn't stop you from considering an application of
Benford's Law to evaluate the digits of the results (bear in mind there are a few cases where it doesn't fit).
Edit: There is a quick free checker at http://benford.jplusplus.org/ just type in your numbers
I don't think they manipulate the results manually. It seems they have run the algorithm with a high resolution and picked the best results while other methods have been run with lower resolution. This study is depondend on the selected resolution. But it worth to check. As there are only 21 numbers, so Is Benford applicable here? How can I apply them? is there any software for that? @robbat2
i added a link to a site where you can check it easily.
By resolution, if you mean screen resolution, beware that device distribution was one of the things found to NOT follow Benford's law, because few devices have such large resolutions, and very small resolutions caused unreadable text/layout.
I mean the searching resolution in optimization algorithm. @robbat2
I think that it's mandatory for science to have open source code and opendata. It's not science otherwise. Using results of a computation without seein the code it's like trusting a theorem without asking for the proof. So absolutely ask the code.
I agree with you. Journals should modify their policies and ask for computer codes during submition of the manuscript. But it is not common at all. It has not yet happened to me at least. @asdf
I think that it's mandatory for science to have open source code and opendata. Not necessarily, but it should be.
Not necessarily before publication or during review, and it depends on how much code and data you're talking about; it would be unreasonable to insist on all source code including e.g. drawing a minor chart on p. 19. Generally reviewers should filter out the worst behavior, then after publication other researchers can try to get access to the data and replicate the results. If they can't (or find anomalies) they try to correspond with the authors. If that doesn't work, then they can publish the correspondence / report to oversight bodies. Irreproducibility is one thing, falsification another.
Downvote explanation: What I do is still science, but no, I won't be putting people's medical records up on GitHub.
Whole point of publication is to provide information for reproducing the research work. Therefore the report needs to be written to make the work clear enough to justify the improvements. (I wish it was to exactly share it with public)
You could refer to that and ask for more information to help your review process done faster, it can be a way to make the code or generate/collect data. Anything that is needed to reproducing it. obviously sharing it is much easier, but then it should be attached to the paper or hosted publicly for readers as well. reviewer and readers should be on a same ground.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.465610 | 2015-06-22T05:04:33 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/47601",
"authors": [
"10BestHomeDecor.com",
"Abir",
"CeePlusPlus",
"Fomite",
"Hugh Thomas",
"Luana",
"Mast",
"SAH",
"Wolfgang Bangerth",
"Wrzlprmft",
"ebrahimkhalifa",
"fmark",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12050",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131356",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131357",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131358",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131360",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131361",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131367",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131377",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131417",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131428",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131611",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131630",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/131801",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/178",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21558",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31149",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36220",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7734",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8294",
"kiwikski",
"phd statistician",
"robbat2",
"smci",
"user",
"user131377",
"user254864",
"user377742"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
7436 | Is creating fully functional software considered to be a quasi experiment?
I'm sorry if this is a bit subjective, but I really don't know where to find the truth.
In my hometown, lecturers usually will only approve research in computer science & information system where the result is new software. The goal is creating a software that can be used directly by business. Usually, research that can't be 'seen' and used directly will be rejected and considered useless.
As in my university, lecturers said that creating new software is a type of research called a quasi experiment. Students are expected to perform the following activities: gathering requirements, designing UML models, and implementing the source code. In the seminar (final exam), lecturers will ask a lot about business process and customer satisfaction. No maths. Most questions are subjective and hard to prove.
Is it true that creating a fully functional software or web site like this is a kind of quasi-experimental research?
Which level? Undergrad/Master/PhD?
It is Undergraduate major.
This attitude towards research sounds rather bone-headed to me. However, I'm not sure if this question is better suited to academia or cs.stackexchange.com
As undergraduate research, you mostly don't have the time, experience nor support to create a full fledge project from scratch. By that I mean creating original work in you field. Thus, given the scope of the project, implementing a software is a valuable exercice that can also be really useful for research. For exemple, in my domain (bioinformatics) there is a special issue of NAR (Nucleic Acids Research) solely devoted to webservers. The latest issue can be found here.
I think one of the big issues you are facing (in almost every field) is that the amount of knowledge you get when leaving the bachelors has been pretty constant for the past 50 years. At the opposite, the level of new research has grown exponentially in these time. Thus, the gap to create something new is constantly growing.
You're right, students get a lot of experience from developing software like this. Do you think a simple research on User Interface (HCI) backed-up by surveys and scientific methods will be more 'scientific' than developing a website by trial and error?
HCI is a really cool field which I don't know really well, but certainly full of potential. If you could do a few mock ups with survey and then try to analyse the different comments that could be highly valuable. If you have a lot of motivations, you could probably find a few papers to guide your research. As a terribly vague starting point, you can find a list of journals (probably not exhaustive) in that field here: http://www.idemployee.id.tue.nl/g.w.m.rauterberg/hci-journals.html#HCI
I've tried but lecturer will reject it because the research can't be used directly! They don't think HCI is a useful research because no direct benefit.
Well, if you can develop a framework that given a few options automatically creates some webpage with a predefined look, that could be awesome (and "useful"), but probably really complex. I must say I find it a bit sad pushing for 'direct' benefits, since you never know what is going to happen next...
Most lecturers here want their student to develop software only. They say it is a scientific quasi-experiment, and most students will write 'quasi-experiment' in their paper. Do you know what it is? I feel that developing software is more 'trial and error' rather than a scientific process. It's hard to prove if my software is 'right'.
Unit-Test! And wiki has an article on pseudo-science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-experiment . If you want to continue discussing we should probably go to the chat.
Depends what your definition of an experiment is:
1. a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact
This covers scientific programming, but not a lot of other areas of software development.
2. a course of action tentatively adopted without being sure of the eventual outcome
Well, for sure all software development is done without being sure of the eventual outcome! You have hopes, you try stuff, you analyze its consequences, you find a way of improving the software or mitigating the issues, and you learn something.
what about quasi-experiment? is it part of point 2? is it scientific?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.466389 | 2013-01-24T16:56:32 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7436",
"authors": [
"Alexander Naydenov",
"Karl",
"Muggins",
"Ragesh Puthiyedath Raju",
"Suresh",
"Vijayakumar Baskar",
"Vishal Shukla",
"Zenon",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17714",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17715",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17717",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17718",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/257",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5702",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73726",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73727",
"newbie"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
8116 | Is it possible to be a paid RA in a math or computer science lab in order to be immersed in the academic research context?
I'm currently a research assistant in a neuroscience lab at MIT and I'm considering pursuing a PhD in math or theoretical computer science. The RAs in my lab who want to eventually become neuroscientists are in a perfect place - a large, collaborative environment where they get paid to work closely with neuroscientists and learn hands on what the entire research process is like in that field before committing to a 5 year grad program.
I want an environment as close to this as possible in math or theoretical computer science to solidify my belief that I would be happy pursuing research in these areas. Is this kind of opportunity available in these fields? What is the closest I can get? I did an REU program in undergrad and loved it, but want more if it's out there.
Thank you so much for your advice, this is a great community.
What did the people in Stata Center say when you walked over and asked?
This was cross-posted simultaneously to cstheory.stackexchange. Please don't do that.
A word about your terminology: a "research assistant" at many schools is already a PhD student. If you mean getting the opportunity to be a "research affiliate" or "associate" or some other position that implies you are working for the professor before you enroll in a degree program, this becomes a challenge, largely because of the "culture" of mathematics and computer science. There are very few large-scale mathematics and computer science groups, in part because there isn't a need for an extensive support staff. Thus, the positions that you're describing typically aren't available.
Opportunities to work in specific labs are abundant, but you need to start up a conversation with the professors who run individual labs or research groups to see what is available at your school. Whether or not you can get funding for a position will vary per lab/RG. It is generally more difficult to get a funded position in a math or theoretical computer science research lab because without experience, there isn't much you can do to justify getting paid (whereas in an experimental lab you can at least help out with the menial work that is inherent to experimental labs).
My suggestion: make appointments to see professors or lab directors in the labs or groups you might like to work in. Plan on working for free for at least a year, in order to prove your worth. If that means taking a second job elsewhere, so be it. Be prepared to discuss why you think you will make a valuable team member to include a discussion of your long-term goals. This should be more than "I might want to work in theoretical computer science." Do some pre-reading of recent papers that have come out of the lab, and know something about the professor's background.
Unfortunately, jumping into a theoretical research group probably isn't the best way to test the waters for a particular field (esp. without a good background already), so you may get more worth out of continuing to take courses in those disciplines you find interesting, and doing a good deal of reading on your own.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.466760 | 2013-02-21T04:40:11 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8116",
"authors": [
"Ali Caglayan",
"Cypress",
"JeffE",
"Pillqu",
"cel",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19597",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19598",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19599",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19600",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19601",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19604",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19623",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"ntg",
"user1",
"user2277435"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
93589 | Are there other cities in the world like Boston where a large number of good postsecondary institutions are located?
The really unusual thing about the greater Boston area is that so many and such good postsecondary institutions are crowded into that area. Harvard, M.I.T., Tufts, Brandeis, and others.
Is Boston unique in all the world in that respect, or is there some comparable place elsewhere?
While the number of institutions may be interesting in itself, it may be instructive to look at number of principal investigators or post-grad students in an area instead.
I don't think an objective answer to this question is possible.
Chicago has both Northwestern and University of Chicago (which usually ranks pretty high; it also boasts a high number of Nobel prize winners on its faculty as well as famous alumni like Barack Obama).
So, "good postsecondary institutions" is a bit hard to define. University rankings are probably about the only thing less meaningful than impact factors, but they'll do to give us a basic idea here - do any cities have a large number of universities that are rated higher than the lowest one in your set?
The US News & World Report has a handy list searchable by city. Annoyingly it doesn't quite work for the US (it defines city strictly) but it's a good approximation. Brandeis is rated #280 (making it fifth in the Boston area, if you include Northeastern).
On the US News & World Report ranking, and plugging in a few likely candidates, there are
six London universities ranked higher than Brandeis.
five NYC universities ranked higher than Brandeis.
four Paris universities ranked higher than Brandeis.
So that's one higher, one equal, one close. In the specific case of London, Wikipedia has a handy table of universities by ranking. Depending on which metric you want to use, it has either five, six, or eleven (!) institutions ranked higher than Brandeis.
So with these admittedly flawed tools, it looks like London is likely to be an answer, but there are a couple more close contenders. There may be other concentrations in the US depending on how generously you define the city areas - I would guess the Bay Area around San Francisco is a likely candidate, for example.
While I don't disagree with you (I also don't think that the Boston area is quite as special as OP seems to think) there are probably a bunch of better-ranked universities than Brandeis in Boston - Boston University and Northeastern at least come to mind, and I am not an expert in US universities.
@xLeitix yeah, I had this problem through not really knowing the area :-). I actually thought BU was on the list, so hmm, I guess that makes it on par with London on the USNWR at six each over #280
London is a complicated one, because five of those six are actually part of the same university. (The exception is Imperial, which was also part of the University of London until relatively recently).
For Paris, one should likely add Université Paris-Sud and Ecole polytechnique. UVSQ might also count as Paris university and is just slightly below the cut-off.
I think one needs to take into account that Boston is a much smaller city than NYC or London, making its large concentration of top notch universities feel a bit more exceptional
@PeterTaylor: The University of London is a very loose federation, whose sub-units are independent for most practical purposes. This is why institutions like UCL and LSE are listed separately in ranking tables. (BTW, Oxford and Cambridge are less than 100 miles from London, so that adds two more world-class universities in the area.)
+1 for the line "[u]niversity rankings are probably about the only thing less meaningful than impact factors"
@NajibIdrissi, "inane rankings based on arbitrary criteria" - sarcasm is not necessary. It's not about academics (which I am not) caring about such things, but that humans in general find it very hard not to categorize stuff into ranks. It's simply human nature. And with all due respect, even though I am not american either, I do know the names of "MIT" and "Harvard", as well as I do know "Oxford" or "Cambridge". There needs to be no "inane ranking" to know universities with a long heritage which made it to world-known status. The OP basically asked for at least one example... given here.
@NajibIdrissi believe me, I have never in my life paid attention to rankings other than for the annual amusement at watching all the press releases when the new set comes out and everyone is Top In Something... however, I couldn't think of any other quantifiable way of answering the question other than "here are some cities with a decent number of universities which are important enough that I have heard of them". They're all about as meaningful (or not) as each other, but USNWR happened to have a website which filtered by city and not just country, so I used that to save time.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'll try to demonstrate this.
— Boston is the location for 35 colleges, universities, and community
colleges.1 — there are about 152,000 students at Boston's institutions
of higher learning.
www.bostonplans.org
Considering that Boston's population in 2016 was about 4,667,000, student population in this city is 3.3%.
On the other hand, population of Oklahoma City Metro area is 1,457,758. It's a home to 20 universities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_Oklahoma_City)
with a student body of about 75,000 or 5.1% of the population.
USA Today ranks Oklahoma City# 3 vs Boston#9 in Best Cities for students.
http://college.usatoday.com/2015/04/09/best-u-s-cities-for-millennial-college-students/
I hope you got my point.
Your population figure for Boston clearly includes far more than the cities of Boston and Cambridge, I suspect including Worcester. Are you including Norman and Edmond in Oklahoma City? If one goes by percentage of population alone then expect the student populations in Chapel Hill, NC, Ann Arbor, MI, and Iowa City, IA and the like are far higher. And that suggests that the absolute size of the population has to count for something too, although just how to do that is far from obvious.
I follow the logic of the original question. Brandeis is not in Boston itself but in Greater Boston Area. So I included metropolitan areas. Population figures for Boston and Cambridge alone would be under one million, but then it wouldn't include Brandeis and some other fine universities.
. . . and hence my question: whether you included Norma and Edmond?
There are just over 44,000 students at UIUC. The total population of Champaign County, Illinois is just over 200,000.
Yes, I included Norman and Edmond. And other suburbs of OC.
@JeffE: Oxford, UK has c. 44k students at 2 universities in a population of 160k, but the population of Oxfordshire is much higher, at 680k. I don't know how best to compare to Champaign, and I'm sure there are plenty of other cities in the world where a university dominates. But anyway I think it's fairly clear that even a university on its own in a desolate wilderness (like University of Warwick, for example. Badum tish.) with near-100% student population, does not have "so many and such good postsecondary institutions ... crowded into that area" :-)
Melbourne and Sydney Australia both have a large number of world class universities. I'm not sure what you're cut-off is for world class, but looking at this site and focusing on Melbourne as the example (24th July 2017):
Monash and University of Melbourne are both in top 100 globally. Deakin, Swinburne, and RMIT are both in top 500, and La Trobe is 535, Victoria Uni is 613. So that's possibly 5 or 7 strong universities in Melbourne depending on how you define things.
Sydney is similar, especially if you include satellite cities like Newcastle and Wollongong. And you could be even more inclusive and include Canberra.
A few reasons for this concentration of universities:
About a third of Australia's entire population lives in and around Melbourne and Sydney.
Higher education is one of Australia's major export industries. In particular, fees from many international students across Asia support the sector.
While we have the group of 8 in Australia (i.e., perhaps analogous to Ivy League) that have been around for longer and often rank in the top 100 or 200 in the world, the structure of universities in Australia is such that most strive to be complete universities contributing to international research. Thus, there are many universities in Australia that are in that next group (e.g., the 200 to 500 range).
As RAA answer this is great, but that just shows the question is broken right?
@virmaior : I'm guessing "RAA" = "reductio ad absurdum", but that's just a guess.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.467083 | 2017-07-23T19:54:24 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/93589",
"authors": [
"Andrew is gone",
"AnoE",
"Darren Ong",
"EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine",
"Jack Aidley",
"JeffE",
"Just Saying",
"Michael Hardy",
"Peter Taylor",
"Royal Canadian Bandit",
"Steve Jessop",
"TAR86",
"Thomas Steinke",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11047",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11440",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/19769",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22995",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/27825",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/35094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/42813",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/44249",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/52427",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5614",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/63610",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/70217",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7229",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77525",
"quid",
"virmaior",
"xLeitix"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
13208 | Why do researchers in areas requiring minimal resources apply for grants?
I heard that many researchers spend a lot of their time (maybe even a half) writing the grants. I understand the researchers that need to purchase some equipment or fund their PhD students, although does not the department fund PhD students anyway?
But what about pure mathematicians and researchers who need a pencil and paper, a personal computer. Do these apply for grants, what for?
does not the department fund PhD students anyway? — Every department is different, but to close approximation: NO.
@JeffE: The poster appears to be a mathematician; math departments do follow a rather different funding paradigm than most other STEM disciplines.
@aeismail: Fair point, but the answer may still be no. Some math departments (including the one where my wife got her PhD) admit more PhD students than they can support with TAships.
Also in many math departments the TAship only lasts during the 2 terms, the supervisor needs to cover the summer research period.
I am a theoretical computer scientists in a top-10 US computer science department. To first order approximation, the only reason I apply for grants is to fund PhD students.
My research does not require PhD students, but it's part of my job as a university professor to advise them, I enjoy working with them, and I am considerably more productive when I work with them.
Students in my department that are not funded by research grants or fellowships are funded instead by teaching assistantships. Being a TA requires a significant time investment, decreasing the time that these students can devote to research. Being a TA can be incredibly valuable experience, especially for prospective academics, but the first-order criterion for judging the success of PhDs in computer science is the quality of their research output.
My department competes with peer departments — and I compete with researchers in those departments — to attract strong PhD students. If we/I want to attract strong students, we have to make credible promises of future funding to do research, because that's what our peer departments do. Prospective PhD students understand the previous point.
I work in a public university in a state with rather significant budget problems. TAs are paid from state money, which is limited. Thus, my department can only support a limited number of TAs. So if I want the department to admit more than a small number of students into my research area, I have to demonstrate that we can fund a majority of those students through grants.
Students need funding to travel to conferences to present their research results, because they need to build a reputation in the research community. I could pay for my own travel out of pocket if I really had to, but most PhD students don't have that luxury.
There are a few second-order concerns as well.
The day-to-day functioning of my department requires a steady stream of incoming research grants. Grant overhead pays for a lot of basic infrastructure in my department, including the salaries of all the staff our business office, half of the salaries of most other administrative staff, support for non-instructional non-research computing resources like our graduate admissions database. Grant overhead is also the source of startup packages for new faculty (for which we are again competing with our peers).
The only equipment I need is "pencil and paper"—or more accurately, a laptop with a stable LaTeX distribution and a drawing program, and basic internet access. NSF no longer allows research funds to be used for general-purpose computing equipment, so I can't include that in my grant budgets anyway. But my university returns a small fraction of overhead directly to PIs, and I can use that to buy new laptops, to pay for additional travel (by me, my students, or visitors), or even to help fund RAships.
Tenure and promotion decisions, and to a smaller extent raises, do depend in part on professors' proven ability to attract funding, especially in a department (and college) like mine where most faculty are extremely successful.
Oh right, I almost forgot. I can pay myself an extra month or two of salary over the summer from my grants. The university pays me for only 9 months of each year (although that pay is spread over 12 months), so each month of summer salary is actually more than 10% of my annual pay.
All these insights are even more helpful when your school is actually one of my I-will-apply-for schools. :) Thanks!
So you can't use grant money for basic equipment, but you can give it to the university, who immediately gives it back, and then you can use it for basic equipment? Sweet.
@gerrit It's not as tricky as it sounds. The NSF (and NIH) don't like some equipment, especially computers, being purchased with direct funds - they view things like that as part of the infrastructure they're paying indirect funds for. Along with, you know, admin staff, keeping the lights on, etc. The university giving it back to you is just saying "Rather than us buying more file folders, why don't you spend some of your indirect on what you actually need".
Speaking as a pure mathematician, there are still plenty of reasons to apply for grants:
grants contain supplementary salary, the appeal of which should be obvious. It also includes travel funding, so one can travel to conferences one otherwise couldn't get funded. (Also, the funding for conferences comes from grants).
generally the funding for graduate students is tied to teaching and comes from a fixed pot. So having grant funding allows one's students to concentrate on research more.
there's an aspect of "keeping score." It's generally hard for say a university administrator to judge the quality of a research program, so a grant is an outside stamp of quality. If one might be interested in getting a different job, it's especially important.
pure mathematicians actually don't spend a huge amount of time applying for grants; they maybe average one every two years or so. NSF grants last 3 years, with a few extra applications for conference or big group grants thrown in.
Generally speaking, the competitiveness for research money is a way to "ensure" that there is scrutiny of projects so that well founded studies get funded and less so may not. Like all systems there are flaws but the general principle is to extract the best proposals as seen by peers).
The funding for researchers through their departments varies substantially between systems and even between universities within any system. Some departments may fund PhD students, some may rely on external funding. Researchers need to go to conferences and publish papers (which may involve costs) so even if you only need paper and a pencil for the research itself, there are other activities that must be covered and the examples I gave are probably not covered by department finances. For most experimental research, costs for equipment, labs or field visits can be substantial.
In my system, partly due to credit crunch and a general interest in cutting costs everywhere, more and more must be covered, even office costs for performing the research and office costs for PhD students.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.467743 | 2013-10-05T15:30:34 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13208",
"authors": [
"Amanda",
"Fomite",
"Hemanth S A",
"JeffE",
"Mirza Jhanzaib",
"NDEIGU",
"Nick S",
"Raghav RV",
"Sibbs Gambling",
"Zero201",
"aeismail",
"gerrit",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33730",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33731",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33732",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33733",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33734",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33739",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33743",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/33798",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7624",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8079",
"justsomecollegestudent",
"rockola"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
26647 | Best strategy to learn programing for graduate research data analysis in biology
I'm actually asking this question on behalf of a sibling who's pursuing a PhD in Biology. While I'm a Mechanical Engineering student and am "computer-savvy" and experienced in learning programming languages from technical textbooks and internet forums, she is very inexperienced in programming in any form.
What textbooks would you recommend for the self-teaching of MATLAB and/or Excel for the purpose of data analysis? If she wanted a technical book, I could find one in five minutes. I'm looking for a book that can explain MATLAB to an inexperienced user with no programming background.
Also, if you learned MATLAB or a similar program with great success, what tips would you give for self teaching? Thanks!
Internet resources have been more accessible (physically and conceptually) than textbooks in my experience
I agree with @rch. I learned Matlab via online sources. There were a number of beginners booklets online already back then (~4 years ago), I imagine there's more now - it just takes some searching and picking the one best suited to the person.
If you happen to have bookmarked those resources when you used them, could you please post an answer linking to them? Online resources would work just fine as long as they cover MATLAB from the ground up. These are for a person with no programming experience.
In my experience, student blogs are good ways to follow along and get a SPECIFIC TASK done. Using this she can gain some familiarity with MATLAB. But regarding teaching the basics, MATLAB has a user manual for that, which doesn't assume programming knowledge iirc. Academics also make tutorials for students/new researchers (http://www.math.mtu.edu/~msgocken/intro/intro.html)
Another vote for sticking to open-source. Matlab is pretty good at what it does, but I think the flexibility and handling that a language like Python introduces is valuable. I am not in the field of Biology, but it seems like there is a relatively strong Python community (http://www.biotnet.org/sites/biotnet.org/files/documents/25/biopython_intro.pdf) (http://www.programmingforbiologists.org/why-python). I used this site (http://www.pasteur.fr/formation/infobio/python/ch01.html) to help shape my own introductory lecture that I gave.
Is there any room for "don't"? Depending on your specific set of tasks, there are probably better (and cheaper) alternatives.
@pheidlauf, I'm sorry, I wish I could help you but I don't have the links anymore. And now that I'm living and breathing Matlab, I'm not sure that I could even judge what a good resource is for a beginner. But I would suggest looking for a resource that is close to something she knows well. Does she understand data analyses well? Then look for something that covers that. I started from something that covered digital signal processing, which I read about before.
I think Python would be much more suitable. Also, knowing some linux shell magic and maybe some Perl is very helpful for basic analysis and parsing.
@Bitwise did you really just recommend Perl to unexperienced programmers? I agree on Python, it can solve 99% of the problems she will likely encounter, if not 100%.
The best tool to learn depends on the actual job. For very basic data analysis, Excel has the lowest entry barrier, but the learning curve gets steep soon. Learning a full language will take some months, but will greatly expand the things she is capable of doing. Also, knowing programming in a field where everybody uses Excel can be a great advantage and unique feature for employment.
One important factor deciding which language is the environment she is in. Having people used to the tools and perks of a language can be very useful when learning from scratch. On the other hand, I'd only count "modern" options (some old professors are very fond of FORTRAN77 and IDL, but learning these is like learning to train dinosaurs).
She should consider not only her lab, but also ask at the Bioinformatics department, and take a look at other labs in the branch she is in. In my experience, for the most informatics side of the field, people use mostly Python, C++, and Java for some machine learning. I have encountered some MATLAB, but definitely not much.
One last note: I think in learning your first language you want the cleanest and less quirky possible. MATLAB in this respect is a mess of a language, with a crappy syntax and bad scalability. My personal choice would be Python, so here are some introductory materials:
Summer school on scientific programming and introduction to Python. All materials are posted.
The official tutorial. There is a lot of things that are not for useful for scientists, but it is very good introduction to the language.
Khan academy. They have everything. Very nice.
Coursera has a full assortment of courses. She will surely find something of interest there.
If it is just to analyze, do some stats, and plot data, there is no need to learn python or c++. It's true that Matlab is not strictly speaking a programming language, but it has the advantage to have a large set of ready-made functions that are tested, debugged, and reasonably idiot-proof. It's far easier to learn than writing good quality c++ code.
@Jigg I definitely don't think C++ is a good entry language. But having been there, I do think that Python with the Scipy stack is easier to use and to understand than MATLAB, providing the same functionality.
MATLAB is fairly complete regarding data processing, but many things are hacky (nargin) or not neatly designed (parenthesis to call functions AND access elements, lack of namespaces, all modules loaded in the workspace).
It sounds like I need to check Scipy more in depth. For now I MEX stuff when I need more flexibility.
Learning Matlab (I prefer) or R will ultimately make you a more efficient researcher: not only do both languages allow you to do advanced mathematical data processes, but also make publication quality graphics. Excel requires much more work to get data visualization publication ready, in my experience.
While your friend is a biologist, and field where my impression is that R is more heavily used that matlab, if she really wants to learn matlab, this book is great:http://www.springer.com/earth+sciences+and+geography/book/978-3-642-12761-8
While it is designed for Earth Sciences, the tools are universal. Not only does it teach you how to use matlab, but, it goes over statistics and numerical methods as well in a very easy fashion. This book was used in one of my masters classes, and most of the people in the class barely had calculus 2.
My real suggestion is to explore R, as I think in general the world outside the physical sciences is moving towards using that.
In Bioinformatics, I'd say the main trend is Python, MATLAB being in the corner. R is perhaps more common in the Biology part.
If you happen to have bookmarked those resources when you used them, could you please post an answer linking to them?
A good online resource for MATLAB is found at the Introduction to Computing Resources page, put together by Andrew Török of the University of Houston. I linked to the main page as there are other resources listed in the contents menu which your sibling may find useful.
Also, if you learned MATLAB or a similar program with great success, what tips would you give for self teaching?
As with the self-teaching of other subjects, there is no good substitute for getting your "hands dirty" and playing around with what the tool has to offer. Start by learning the basics (as discussed in the online resource linked above), and progressively increase the complexity until you reach the desired level of understanding.
Edit — I'm including a few more online MATLAB resources that I know of:
UCLA MATLAB reference
Michigan Tech MATLAB help (also mentioned by @rch above in the comments)
Utah MATLAB help
GMU MATLAB page
Indiana MATLAB help
The book I used as an undergrad: Scientific Computing with MATLAB and Octave written by Alfio Quarteroni.
It's not a beginner's tutorial, but it gives you the mathematical theory behind some of the most used functions. I found it useful because it really helps to know what the functions actually do. It contains sample code as well.
One thing that biologist often need to do with Matlab is image processing. If it is the case, the book Digital Image Processing Using Matlab can be handy (lots of practical examples).
The second is most likely available in the library of your/her institution, the first is a bit more confidential but should at least be available through inter-library loan. Note that a good person to ask about books and resources is your librarian.
As a side note, an open-source alternative to Matlab is Octave, which has a good online community around it and shares a good deal of its syntax with Matlab.
(with full agreement with the people who says that online resources, including even youtube are nowadays better than textbooks)
If I were her, I first would learn statistics (that is relevant to her field). Is she an ecologist? A biochemist? Doing in silico bioinfo? They are pretty different fields.
Learning MATLAB without having any clear idea about mathematics (linear algebra, statistical tests etc) she wants to use, is pretty damn difficult. This is the typical "I just want to do ANOVA! just tell me where i should click?" problem. On the other hand when she is already able to write down basic equations to paper, and understand what letter is what, and have at least a vague idea of the mechanics, the MATLAb/octave part become pretty straightforward.
Two remarks:
- I wouldn't waste my time reading 400 pages books discussing everything from PDEs to symbolic calculations. Any 2-10 pages long tutorial from the net gives the same info, with often better pedagogical part.
- While Excel has many annoying features, it is very good to organize and save certain type of experimental data. You can put anything in it, figures, short notes, explanations for yourself, keep everything in one place and for printing one can use something else, gnuplot etc. Of course, it is subjective.
+1 for learning statistics relevant to the field. I would add that she should find out what software application is most suitable for what she wants to do. For example, in many uuniversities SPSS is used in life sciencies. And it is not clear from the OP's post whose idea it was to learn Matlab or Excel.
True. These are very different programs. Most probably there are already existing experiment notes, teaching materials, statistics tutorials, licenses in her new laboratory, that are tied to one or the other software.
Why do you assume the person doesn't know about statistics?
Since the OP not specific about the level, I assumed that she has an average biologist background. Also my personal experience is that people who have solid statistics training, can figure themselves out pretty fast how "ANOVA(..)" function works in Excel.
As said previously in the answers to the question, the textbooks do not usually work great for programming.
I am an Engineering Physics student working with Applied Mathematics and have been using and promoting MATLAB since I started. However, this summer I was out of my license and therefore turned to Anaconda.
I am going to go off on a spin and recommend Anaconda Scientific Python Distribution. Anaconda is based on Python which is a great language to start of on, if not the best. Not only is it free and open-source but can be used in so much more then MATLAB. They also explain why they give this out for free on their website.
We want to ensure that Python, NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, IPython, Matplotlib, Numba, Blaze, Bokeh, and other great Python data analysis tools can be used everywhere.
We want to make it easier for Python evangelists and teachers to promote the use of Python.
We want to give back to the Python community that we love being a part of.
From my experience so far, it has been more intutive to implement more complex tasks as well as being even a bit FASTER!!
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.468359 | 2014-07-31T19:03:08 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26647",
"authors": [
"Abhijith Madhav",
"Ana",
"Ashton ",
"Bitwise",
"Cape Code",
"Davidmh",
"Erick Major Dos Santos",
"Greg",
"Hans",
"Jason Lewin",
"Marc Claesen",
"Mastinomanage",
"Munir Ahmad",
"Raphael",
"Splosion Lowbeam",
"Stefan Monov",
"cc7768",
"graven22",
"greenfingers",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10643",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12587",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1419",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14755",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/149269",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15184",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15789",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20098",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/322",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6862",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71414",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71415",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71416",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71426",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71428",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71451",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71452",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71453",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71461",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71485",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71513",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/71521",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7173",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/72003",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/72004",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/72005",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9882",
"javad",
"k3rn3lpan1c",
"mostlyinformed",
"pheidlauf",
"rch",
"shikhar",
"user200857",
"user71453"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
98200 | Submitted to a non Scopus-indexed journal, later found that University only accept Scopus journals. How can I submit to another journal?
I submitted a paper to Thomson Reuters ESCI Journal, and they are asking me to complete a registration and pay a fee of around $400 to publish the paper.
But later I found that my University gives preference to Scopus-Indexed journals. How can I cancel the previous submission (the paper has not been published), and how can I submit to another Scopus-Indexed journal?
Write to the editor and withdraw it? I don't see what the question is here.
In what way does the University give preference to Scopus journals? In evaluating researchers' productivity?
Voting to reopen. Thomson Reuters ESCI is not a sign of a predatory journal; calling it a duplicate is completely inappropriate.
If your paper is submitted but not accepted or published, it is still time to withdraw your submission. This is generally done by writing to the editor. I would recommend to do this as soon as possible to avoid wasting editors and reviewers time.
Now if the entire process is already over and you only have the APC to pay, it might be more difficult to withdraw but you can still try.
Once the paper is published you only option is retraction but I would not go that route just to please your institution's wishes.
@Roland, "not ethical" is rather too strong in my opinion. "Not polite", "not collegial", "not professional" might all be appropriate, but "ethics" involves a much higher standard that implies that OP is doing something that is considered morally wrong by most people in a community. I do not see that as the case. Yes, the journal would be justified to blacklist OP for wasting their time, but not because they lied or stole or cheated or something like that.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.469376 | 2017-10-31T10:14:38 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/98200",
"authors": [
"Allure",
"ChristopherE",
"MJeffryes",
"Tripartio",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20418",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31487",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/84834",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9936"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
27256 | Can I apply for a post-doc in theoretical physics without publications?
I am a theoretical physics PhD student from France. I have no papers after 5 years of my PhD. The problem I am working on has hit many road blocks and even my supervisor has no clue how to proceed. The results I have obtained are valid only for some aspects of my problem. So I could probably publish a paper, but if I do, it will not be a high impact factor journal.
My question is: can I apply for a post-doc without publishing any paper from my PhD?
I would like to apply in North America/Europe etc.
Of course you can apply. I suppose you are really asking what your chances are. It would be better to hear from a theoretical physicist, so I'll just make comments: in mathematics, it used to be extremely common for the PhD to get awarded prior to the first publication, and postdocs were awarded almost entirely on the strength of the recommendation letters (in confluence with an least reasonable research statement). For instance I got my PhD in 2003, got a postdoc in 2003, got my first publication in 2005, and got tenure at a top 50 US research university in 2011....
....But I think times are changing. In my experience, the distribution of graduating PhDs w/o publications is increasingly bimodal: either they have no interest in a research career (so are not applying for postdocs) or their program, their advisor and their thesis work is superior, and they are not going to divulge their superior works until they are suitably mature. My guess is that physics, however theoretical, is at least a bit more publication-centric than math. Anyway, if you truly are not satisfied with your results, maybe see if you can stay longer in your program.
Do you have preprints (for example, on the arXiv)? Like Pete L. Clark, I am also not a theoretical physicist, but I imagine your chances would be different between (1) having preprints but no formal publications, and (2) not having anything for people to read. I assume you have not written a thesis yet.
You could apply to a post-doc without a high-school degree -- an application only involves sending in the application package. No one is going to stop you from mailing it in.
That says nothing about whether or not you will get the post-doc, let alone if the secretary will just toss it in the recycling bin before it even gets seen by the faculty.
The real questions are:
What are the eligibility requirements of a post-doc?
How competitive is the post-doc?
For the first question, most post-docs require a PhD in hand or late-ABD status. Most do not require publications and if they do, they will state that clearly on the application page.
The second question is the real question. Post-docs are usually extremely competitive. In order to be a finalist, you have to be n+1 of whatever quality and quantity the faculty is looking for.
If your peer group has no publications (0) and you have 1 publication, you will stand out as the +1. Since it's not possible to have -1 publications, it's hard to stand out from a group with 0 publications to your name. If your peers have 10 publications, you need to have either more in number or more in quality, or something else that your competitors don't have.
For example, some post-docs in some fields value other things than research publications. I occasionally read for post-docs in the humanities and there the quality of your dissertation and proposal is more important as most post-docs in those fields apparently have zero or near zero publications at the ABD stage.
And finally, there are some post-docs that just aren't very competitive -- either because of geography or topic or paucity of funding or other reasons.
I would also be remiss if I didn't mention the social/human factor. Many people get post-docs on the strength of their recommendation letters, as Pete Clark mentions. Strong recommendations attesting to your brilliance and to the problems you faced with your current project would go far in convincing a postdoc committee to take a chance with you. You could also try to ask your supervisor to use some of her/his social capital to try to persuade a colleague at another university to take you on.
Your mileage may vary.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.469564 | 2014-08-16T20:03:52 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/27256",
"authors": [
"Abdul Waheed",
"AlketCecaj",
"Claudia Vasallo",
"Fadhil Ahmed",
"HUSSAM JABRI",
"James T",
"Patricia",
"Pete L. Clark",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13203",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73332",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73333",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73334",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73338",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73339",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73343",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73344",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"nsener"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
16779 | How can I avoid having a specific teacher?
I am mostly very happy with my teachers - they are almost all good or excellent at teaching, nice as people, and knowledgeable about their subjects. However, my chemistry teacher is a poor teacher, has behaved very unprofessionally in the past, and I suspect possibly does not know much about the subject.
The bottom line is that this teacher is, in my opinion, lacking in both subject matter knowledge as well as knowledge about how to behave with students. I want to study chemistry but I do not want to study with them. Changing schools is a tremendous challenge for me and because of my other teachers, I would strongly prefer to stay in my existing school.
Are there any options here to avoid this teacher in the future?
Edit: The issue was resolved, as the teacher failed to pass the exams they would have been teaching (teachers at my school have to do the exams every so often, presumably to check that they are competent), and I am very happy with the teachers I have instead.
I'm afraid questions about high school and undergraduate studies are not within the scope of this site.
@sweeneyrod, yours is a very good question. Perhaps if you made the question more general (by editing out your age, for example), this question would be deemed more acceptable for this site.
@JoelReyesNoche I have massively edited the question to get to the core of the issue, which I believe is an issue at all levels of study. I hope we can re-open it.
Can you narrow down you question? Do you want to study chemistry or do you want to avoid her? Your middle part of the question does not go with your concluding question.
Please, can you add the level of your studies? I think it would be helpful as mechanics at high schools and universities are quite different. But in general, if the chemistry subject is mandatory and they are not many others how complain about the teacher I am afraid you cannot do much. After all, not all the people we encounter during our lives meet our expectations.
It's not clear to me what the question is here. If several people teach the course, then take it from someone else. At a university, this is generally easy; at a high school, it may require a special request, but you can at least try (it's often smoother to say you would like to take it from X, rather than you would like to avoid Y). On the other hand, if this is the only chemistry teacher and you want to take chemistry, then you are stuck. There might be other options (independent study, summer school, a course at a local college), but that depends on your specific circumstances.
@Earthling The question was more what do about the teacher, rather than how to avoid having them at a higher level of studies (sorry, I may have gone off on a tangent at the end of the question). Would that still be on topic for this site?
This question appears to be off-topic because it is about high school teachers.
@sweeneyrod "What to do about a teacher" is off-topic for this site because it is an administrative issue and not an academic issue.
I'd argue that this is on-topic, because the question can apply equally well to grad school courses in its current form.
I think there are two parts to answering this question. First, you should make sure that the teacher is incompetent and not merely unlikable. Second, if the teacher is incompetent, there are a number of options available to avoid studying with them.
With respect to the first point, it is important to note that a teacher can be unlikable, and perhaps even appear ignorant (to students), while still being great at his or her job: making sure you learn things. For example, group work and peer instruction are known to be effective teaching strategies. At the same time, they are also quite unpopular with students, and some students even take the view that the instructor is not doing their job when these strategies are applied (even though the outcome may be very good). Professionalism and teaching style are very personal traits, and I've not seen any evidence that they have strong impact on student learning outcomes. It sounds like maybe your personal dislike of the instructor is clouding your judgement about whether they could be an effective teacher. A teacher has only one job: making sure you learn things. If they can do that job effectively, then it shouldn't matter whether you like them or not.
Talk to students who have finished the course, and find out what they've learned. Often its only after such a class is complete that students realize they've learned a lot. If you know you'll get a lot out of the course, then you should probably take it even if you don't like the teacher.
On the second point, if the teacher really is incompetent, and former students are in strong agreement on this point (and they really don't seem to have learned anything about the subject), then you do have some other options:
Many schools will let you take online courses from other universities for credit. For a chemistry course with a lab, this may not work out, but otherwise this might be your best bet. You can shop around, find an instructor that you like, and still get credit for the course.
If the instructor is genuinely incompetent, you could speak with the school administration, and make a formal request for a different instructor. Often your request will be ignored, but I have seen this result in a new instructor being assigned once. Again, it is important that you make sure this is an instance of incompetence and not unlikeability. This is a serious step, and could have implications for the instructor's job (especially if they lack tenure).
You might be able to wait it out, and take the class with someone else. At the university undergraduate level, this can be the easiest solution, provided that the course is not a major prerequisite in your program. At the high school and grad school level, there may not be an alternative instructor in that subject area, so this may be infeasible.
Attend the class, but plan to use external resources to study. Consider forming a study group at the start of the semester, and meeting several times a week to talk about class material. Use online courses like those offered by MIT's Open Courseware, or any of the MOOC companies, to supplement the lecture material, and shop around online to find the best textbook at your level for this topic. You can make sure that you've learned the material well, even if your instructor is unable to help you learn it.
Thanks for the response, I have been wondering whether or not the teacher is actually incompetent, but I am fairly sure they are. Originally, I was asking for any advice if for if I went with option 2 - for instance, to write down any notable unprofessional or incompetent behaviour. Do you have advice about that?
Well, it ultimately depends on what you hope to do with that information. If your goal is to learn the course material (which it should be), then collecting that information is probably not going to help you. In the best case, you'll get a new instructor switched in after half the term, and if all you have to show for it is comments on unprofessional behaviour, that's not a winning outcome. Since you know that the instructor is incompetent in advance, a better solution is option 4, where you actually learn the material.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.469946 | 2014-02-10T21:44:57 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16779",
"authors": [
"Anonymous Mathematician",
"JRN",
"John Doucette",
"MasterPJ",
"Nate Eldredge",
"Penguin_Knight",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Santiago Galarza",
"bsantisi",
"earthling",
"gurluk",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10677",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1125",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4079",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45220",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45221",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45226",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45248",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45249",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45251",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45329",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45354",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6450",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/97606",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/98821",
"jasoncatnip",
"jtillman_17",
"lambshaanxy",
"loshaneve",
"rlms",
"user45329",
"user45354",
"zenith"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
58259 | Post Doc recommendation letters sent but no response
I have three letters of recommendation sent to a potential post doc employer but when I asked if my recommendation is completed, I did not receive any response from him and it has been a week. Before that, the post doc lab head told me that once he received my letters, he will arrange an on site interview for me. He was also quick to response to my email and showed great enthusiasm before sending out the letters to him.
Does that suggest something wrong with the letters that raise concern? Does that mean I'm out of the game or should I follow up with him? I may be impatient but as indicated in my previous question, my relationship with my advisor was not good and he had submitted a letter drafted by myself.
Very worry. Thank you for advice.
Update: Nevermind, just got interviewed and offered at other top ones.
Professors have a habit of forgetting to respond to emails. It's not rude to send a follow-up email at this point asking again.
In my experience, if application materials were sent directly to researchers it is a pleasant surprise if any response is received at all.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.470542 | 2015-11-16T00:09:13 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/58259",
"authors": [
"Anonymous Physicist",
"Meerkat",
"Ric",
"Spammer",
"Zupee Ludo",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/160217",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/160218",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/160219",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/160221",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/160223",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/160226",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/163636",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/169442",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9700"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
19641 | What does "corresponding author" mean?
What is the Corresponding author about in the list of authors of a Journal or Conference paper? As fas as I read, it is the person who confirms results or whom actually is the intellectual mind of the idea behind the published work. Can it be more than 1 author in some cases then?
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.470686 | 2014-04-22T07:34:58 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19641",
"authors": [
"Allan Spreys",
"Dragonborn",
"Fazla Rabbi Mashrur",
"Joaquin Brandan",
"Old_Fossil",
"Yistorian",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53598",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53603",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53612",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53614",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53615",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53616",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53619",
"user53603"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
30054 | What can cause the date of submission status to change without a change of status "under review" for Elsevier editorial systems?
I have a paper submitted to a journal of Elsevier.
From "Manuscript Submitted" to "with editor" took one day; then it was "with editor" for five days, and then "under review". One and a half months later, the status of the paper was still "under review", but the date of status has changed.
What can cause the date in the submission system to change in the absence of a change in status?
Unfortunately it means nothing.
@StrongBad: Oh, maybe I did not make my intention clear enough.
possible duplicate of Question of under review -situation
@Kurt no I understood your question. The causes range all the way from something interesting happened with the progress of your manuscript to they rebooted the server.
@StrongBad: Ah I see; so spending time to guess is wasting time :)
@scaaahu: I do not see anywhere of this question making you vote to close :)
@scaaahu: Guess what? Just because something is insignificant to you does not necessarily mean that the thing is insignificant to others. Suggest you to think macroly.
I have nothing personally against you. The other question is a dup of this one, in my opinion. Both question have the situation "with editor" and then "under review" for a while. The only difference is that you name the publisher and the other one didn't which makes the other one more general than yours.
@scaaahu the questions seem different since in this question the status was recently updated (although not changed).
@StrongBad The OP of the other question commented that there was no time stamp of the status. To me, the spirit of the two are the same, like you said in the previous comment, it could be any reason.
I'd suggest you to write to the Elsevier support. Those status messages are quite opaque, and implementing a full "paper history" feature does not seem a daunting task. But if no one complains and submits bug reports, they will never have an incentive to change. If you know the editor or see him/her at a conference, you may consider pinging him/her about the issue, too.
One and a half months is not too long. If it stays like that for 6 months, then worry.
@Michael: Sorry, but my question is not about the length of time of being under review; it is about the changing of the date of status!
I know. And yet, from my experience (although not with Elsevier) it doesn't mean much. I doubt that your article was either accepted or rejected in five days (thus changing the status). It's probably a technical thing. If you're really nervous, just mail the editor or something, but take into consideration that an editor who gets mail like that feels like a parent with kids in the backseat asking "are we there yet?".
@Michael: Sorry, it must be the original statement of my question that confused you. I have edited it :)
I've had a similar experience with a Springer journal. As far as I can tell, whenever editor manages to find a reviewer, status changes to under review. This date change might have happened because he might have found the other reviewer(s) recently. Hope that helps. @Kurt
If you didn't sample the website too frequently, it's possible there was a status of 'with editor' for a day or two there. It can happen if the reviewers give back their reviews and the editor is still not satisfied (e.g. if there are two contradicting reviews, or if one declined). Since you sampled it, say, every few days, you just missed the status update and saw only the 'under review'.
I once had this 'with editor' and 'under review' back and forth for some time, not just once (it wasn't with Elsevier, though).
When a paper is assigned to a reviewer, the reviewer may decline or fail to review the paper. In this case the editor will assign the paper to a new reviewer. The status date will change at the day the new review was assigned, but the status will remain the same.
Thanks for your interest. But is the answer valid for my situation? I mean, would a reviewer decline to review a paper after one and a half month?
If it took that long, they probably just failed to submit a review. We cannot be sure what happened in your situation without more information.
sometimes reviewers agree to review, but then fail to actually do so, as AnonymousPhysicist says. It's also possible that it has been sent to multiple potential reviewers, each about a week apart, and each of the first few declined to review, so it was sent on to another reveiwer. Or that it was sent to thr first batch of reviewers and the editor was slow to invite a new batch when the first declined. Or possibly, the date changed when the 1st review was submitted and you are still waiting on a 2nd or 3rd review.
There could me multiple reasions for the status date to change:
Reviewer comments are added to the database
The reviewer changes
Editor checks the database
See this question: http://www.editage.com/insights/why-does-the-status-date-of-a-submission-change-periodically-though-the-status-remains-unchanged
For that you need to know how the journal system works. When status is "with editor" it doesn't always implies that the paper is not send for reviews. Because in journals the configuration of online submission system is such that if at least 2 or 3 reviewers have accepted the review request only then status will change to "under review". Also when status is "under review" and status date is changing then it means the reviewers have submitted his/her report in the system (which have led to change in status date). When at least 2 or 3 reviewers reports (this count is configured by the journal) are not come till then status won't change. If they come then status may change to "with editor" or "under editor evaluation" or "required reviews completed". Under these status also the status date may change which implies remaining reviewer(s) have also submitted their reports.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.470822 | 2014-10-16T08:30:57 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/30054",
"authors": [
"Anonymous Physicist",
"Axel",
"Carlos Manuel Giron Guzman",
"Dr. B. C. Rathore",
"Federico Poloni",
"Gimelist",
"Irene Ortega",
"Nobody",
"Nothing",
"Serge Vinogradov",
"Significance",
"SimpleMan",
"StrongBad",
"Yes",
"Your tech expert",
"best696163",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13240",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/180414",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/180416",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/180431",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18107",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/216795",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21915",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22213",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/48584",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82931",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82932",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82933",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82934",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82935",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82950",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/83175",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9019",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958",
"oldmansaur",
"robsanna",
"user82931",
"yoki"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
24550 | Is it appropriate for a prospective PhD student to contact phd students at a target school?
I am a prospective phd student. I wish to know if it is fine to contact the phd students of my target schools?
If answering this question requires more information, please feel free to state that.
It is absolutely fine to contact current PhD students of programs and departments that you are interested in. On an average, I get about 1 email of this sort everyday and I make my best effort to reply intelligently.
Keep in mind though that many PhD students will simply not reply to your email. Sometimes folks are inundated by too many emails and commitments to respond to any additional emails and sometimes people just have bad emailing tendencies in general.
Partially agreed. However, some people are just really bad with emails and communication be it for research or other extra curricular activities.
Could you please explain "reply intelligently" more?
Some prospective students have important questions of which the answers may not be easy to get. I try to respond in a comprehensive but concise and useful manner to said questions.
I definitely appreciate the quantitative "1 email of this sort everyday" ; I always want to know what the other party is dealing with when I contact them, and it's hard/impossible to predict this data accurately; much more reliable to get it empirically like this
We had great success when we extensively supported a PhD student who asked for a contact:
While doing my PhD we had a last year undergraduate student, who contacted my supervisor and asked if he can meet some of the PhD students. We decided to organize some shadowing for him, so he spent several days with me in the university.
I told him all I could think of in relation to my PhD experience, answered all his questions, and he did some real work - helped finding research publications in a specific area. At the end we asked him to write a short report about his shadowing experience - was it useful, pros and cons from his point of view, etc.
The experiment was so successful that the department decided to extend it and provide similar opportunities for other prospective PhD students.
So, by all means, do it - contact the supervisor or the PhD student. The worst thing that could happen is that they will say 'no'
Thanks very much for your rejoinder. I am a master-degree-candidate student in Asia, and I wish to apply to schools abroad.
I like what you're saying - but I almost stopped reading too early... could you add a "tl;dr" intro? Like "By all means.Do it - we had great success with..."
@VolkerSiegel A plea for brevity on a stackexchange site? Moreover one with a focus on academia? I think you grossly misunderstand this audience; perhaps you should explore twitter. #tldr
@VolkerSiegel, I am not quite sure what exactly you asked me to do. Please, feel free to edit my answer if it violates the site rules
Oh, the point is that the answer is good and verry convincing - but it somewhat hides the good part. The text is great, but to me it was ambiguous regarding whether it was a success or failure until end of the second paragraph. I was half expecting "Turned out we wasted lots of time..." or so. So starting with a statement of the positive outcome would change a lot. I'll try.
I have received tens of such e-mails so far in the first two years of the PhD program. 70% from India, 20% from other parts of Asia, 10% other.
Since I hate when people ignore my emails, or even reply unnecessarily late, I was trying at first to give some customized advice. After the first dozen of e-mails, I realized that I was being asked almost the same type of questions over and over, so I now simply reply with a template e-mails pointing to the main resources.
To answer your question, I would say it is totally fine but:
The more specific questions, the more likely you are to receive an interesting answer.
It is hard to be 100% frank with people we don't know. As a result, the answers you get are likely to be biased (typically "how good is the advisor?" kind of questions). As Pierre Beaumarchais said, where there is no freedom of blaming, there can be no genuine praise. The only solution is to know people personally or be referred by some common friend. Talking face-to-face can help reducing the bias.
I gather that in certain parts of the world (especially Asia), it is becoming a common practice to send out lots of emails like this. It might be a good idea to try to figure out whether someone really has contacted you specifically before you spend any significant time composing a personalized reply. As a faculty member, I often get "I'm very interested in your research and I'd like to work with you" emails. They enclose a CV, which I read and see that their work is more than halfway to the next academic department. This is a bit sad...
I really like your answer. I generally only respond to emails which have been crafted and ask intelligent questions well. Anything else is relegated to trash.
I am a PhD student in a really small department, and the only student in my particular research group. When we have students interviewing for a PhD in my group, I always spend some time with them answering questions about what it is like in the department and group, and what it is like working with my supervisor (very important!). I always give them my email address so they can ask me any other questions they may not have thought of at the time.
If anyone was to email me directly before applying, I would take time to answer their questions, but only if they genuinely seem interested in the specific PhD topic on offer. If it seemed like a really generic email that had been sent out to loads of people (obvious give away is if it isn't actually addressed to me!), then I wouldn't take time out of my busy schedule to respond.
In my research group, PhDs are offered based on a specific topic that we have got funding for. I know other big departments in the UK interview for PhD students generically and then they get to choose their topic from scratch, pick one from a list, or they are matched with a specific topic after their interview depending on their skills. I don't know how it works in other countries or other fields (I am in the climate/meteorology field).
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.471729 | 2014-07-09T09:59:37 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24550",
"authors": [
"Alex",
"AlgRev",
"Anonymous",
"B. Clay Shannon-B. Crow Raven",
"Mark Meuer",
"Mildred Vanessa López Cabrera",
"Nathan majicvr.com",
"PC.",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Sandipan Dey",
"Shion",
"Simon Lucas",
"Volker Siegel",
"Yes",
"chiefOfsinners78",
"enthu",
"greenfingers",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13560",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1429",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15184",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18107",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18379",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65963",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65964",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65965",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65968",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65969",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66005",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/68123",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/68137",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/68146",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/68151",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/68197",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/82683",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/92314",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"jkd",
"par",
"rbaleksandar"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
23300 | Internal PhD thesis reviewer pulled out a month before the thesis due date: Is this allowed? What to do next?
I have been a PhD student in an institute for the last 4 years and now my deadline to submit my thesis is in another 40 days. When I joined the institute, official papers were signed stating that Professor X will be my first reviewer and will grade my thesis. By regulation, the first reviewer has to belong to the same faculty, but he was not from our group, and we did not have much contact with each other.
Now that I am ready to submit my thesis, he decides to back out on reasons stating that I was not in touch with him (but I was never told by my supervisor or by him that I need to regularly contact him).
Does this happen and is this allowed since official University papers were signed 4 years ago saying he will be my first reviewer?
People can back out for whatever reason and it's not a matter of can or cannot. Once you learned that this person is going to be the reviewer, there should be a round of communication to settle the expectation, availability, and other specifications. Focus the energy on finding another reviewer, you don't want an unhappy reviewer who holds negative thought about you, even you could force the promised review to happen.
In the best of worlds, this is where your supervisor should come in and provide guidance and help. Hopefully your supervisor might have some ideas on how to either smooth it over with Prof X or how to connect you with Prof Y who can be your first reviewer.
Thank you all for your comments. Thankfully, my problems have been sorted out last evening and now I finally have an official supervisor who is ready to step in at the last minute.
One of my reviewers did it but was extremely rude about the whole process. He didn't want to do it, but by rule, at our university, we needed an out-of-department reviewer. I had actually taken a course from this professor, but the professor was still not very nice about it.
Such situations are not uncommon in academia. I would caution you against trying to get this person back as a reviewer, even though you have signed papers from 4 years ago. Simply respect that person's decision to back out, thank her or she for their time thus far, and invest your energies finding somebody that will serve as a reviewer so you can graduate. Perhaps this sounds like rather odd advice. Just put yourself in the shoes of a person who doesn't want to serve as a reviewer but is subsequently forced to do so. You are at risk of getting a very unfavorable review, and the 40 days could become much longer. You have plenty of time to get somebody on board, and you will certainly encounter situations in your future career that are far more egregious.
I do not know the specific regulations at OP's university, but in my view finding a substitute looks like a job for the advisor, not the student.
This happened to me, too: one of my committee members was suddenly unavailable for several months and unable/unwilling to work with me on scheduling my defense.
My process:
Took deep breaths and stopped panicking.
Reviewed the profiles of all eligible faculty members in the university
Picked a shortlist of 3 people in related fields that I wanted to meet
Asked my advisors for feedback (valuable - they knew who was a difficult committee member)
Emailed my top choice, Prof. S, to be on my committee.
Got a positive reception, met with Prof. S to discuss my work; they were friendly and mildly interested.
Scheduled the defense (tough, with five professors).
Sent my thesis out for reading, defended, and passed!
I believe this worked out well, and instead of a reluctant committee member, I got exposure to the leader of a significant program in my field. It still wasn't ideal, however, and I would've been in a bad position if Prof. S took issue with me, my other committee members, or my work.
You could also skip to step (3) and ask your advisors for advice - but I think it's worth taking control of an issue with so much potential influence on your career.
I'm glad your situation worked out well. That said, did you notice that this question was asked in 2014?
@EthanBolker Yes, but the problem isn't unique to the 2014 poster, and this question is general enough that it might attract future readers with the same problem.
@EthanBolker: StackOverflow actually has a "Necromancer" badge (for folks who answer questions 60+ days after they were asked and get five or more upvotes) to encourage new or higher-quality takes on previously-asked questions.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.472270 | 2014-06-12T14:44:27 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/23300",
"authors": [
"Blizzard",
"Clare",
"Con_081",
"Ethan Bolker",
"Federico Poloni",
"JosephDoggie",
"Penguin_Knight",
"Richard",
"SadGrad student",
"Shahab",
"Sraavan",
"Terri Hutchins",
"Victor Caudillo",
"brechmos",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17266",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17368",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34790",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43739",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62278",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62279",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62282",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62283",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62290",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62348",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6450",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7018",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/91839",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
44784 | How to explain things in the motivation section of a mathematical paper without proper definitions?
I want to start a chapter in my dissertation by motivating a mathematical operator by showing why it is interesting to look at it and what I can contribute to understand it better. However, I actually need to introduce some mathematical objects in order to correctly state everything.
I think it is a rather bad Idea to start first with a section of introducing the mathematical concepts (like measure theory) and then start the actual motivation. But if I do it opposite, then I am at a loss for words.
For example, in my motivation I would need to use a additive-finite measure space, a operator, the space of mu-integrable functions and a stochastic process.
How would you suggest to cope with such a situation?
As long as the terms are standard, you can probably safely use them without defining them in detail (especially in the introduction).
I know mathematicians don't like to hear that, but still: if you can't explain why it's interesting in natural language, you (probably) don't have a motivation (that appeals to non-experts) beyond curiosity . That's fair, but why pretend?
When I was a Ph.D. student working on my own dissertation, I went to the university writing center for help and had a revelatory experience. The person working with me sat down with the first page of my introduction and effectively dissected it to identify the problems without understanding any of my technical jargon. They did this by reading aloud as we discussed, substituting blank/nonsense words for every piece of jargon, e.g.:
Here we apply method X to determine whether adjective thingies can be made to wibble.
This type of substitution forces you to step back from the technical world that you have dedicated so much time and love to, and understand your narrative---or lack thereof.
In your motivation, you need to take a couple of steps back and ask: why does anybody care about additive-finite measure space ("frobs") and how it relates to the space of mu-integrable functions ("greebit-space") or a stochastic process ("wibbling").
You didn't pick these elements at random. There must be some reason why you picked them and how they relate to the bigger community. Are they intended to solve a puzzle that a lot of people care about? Or a small piece of such a puzzle? Do they unite two sets of concepts that people thought were different? Will they help understand string theory or give better tools for interpreting MRI imaging?
You want to be able to write something like this:
People have wondered about how to better understand frobs ever since Richard Feynman first used them to pick the locks in Los Alamos. Although X, Y, and Z attempts have been made, none of them got very far because they were all green-colored. In this dissertation, I examine an alternate path, reducing the problem of frobs to the simpler system of greebit-space by means of an innovative application of wibbling. These results bring us one step closer to solving the problem of frobs, and how they can be better used to quickly and cheaply pick locks.
Now, what I've written is pure gibberish, and your motivation will almost certainly be much longer. The point, however, is this: your goal in a motivation section is to motivate by explaining that there is a problem that people care about and that you have an approach that gives at least a piece of the solution. Explain it in a way that your jargon can just be placeholders in the reader's mind, and it will be fine to leave the complex definitions for later.
This is a concise and brilliant explanation of what an introductory chapter -- any introductory chapter -- should do.
When I encounter this problem, I write the introduction as if the readers knew the concepts that I mention, but I include a parenthetical comment or a footnote, after such a concept, along the lines of "This and other concepts used in the introduction will be defined in Section 2."
If you go deeply enough into measure theory and stochastic processes to actually write your dissertation about it, it is safe to assume that readers will be familiar with common concepts. So just assume that people understand what you write about. Do some handwaving if necessary ("we examine an interesting class of operators that are distinguished in that...").
Worry less about correctness than about telling a good story. After all, this is a motivational section. Don't include any definitions, or no more than one if it is utterly necessary. (And then, if you find that a definition is necessary in an introduction section, I'd argue that you probably need to revisit what you want to write in that section, until the definition is not necessary any more.)
Worry about correctness in the main body of your chapter.
In addition to other good points made in the other answers, I think too often people overlook the question of the actual, likely audience/readership for a piece of technical writing. For example, it is unlikely that anyone without at least a rudimentary knowledge of your general subject would look at your thesis at all, so you can safely use the standard, basic terminology to give an introduction and overview of a given chapter. That is, it is not useful to imagine that you are explaining "from scratch" to someone who's completely unacquainted with the topic under discussion, since the reality would be that they'd not instantly assimilate "definitions" in any case.
In other words, contrary to what we sometimes may imagine, there is a context in which we write, and that context is most often richer than we acknowledge. Thus, the work is not to re-establish the basic context, but to make larger points. That is, as in the other answers, I don't want to hear delicate (and possibly pointless) semantic distinctions about word-use, but, rather, about why you are doing what you're doing, etc.
Mathematicians have a tendency to train to hide away they tracks they used to take to get to their goal (apologies to Simon Singh). This means that motivation is the thing they have been trained not to give. As compensation, they give examples, ranging from trivial to realistic to absurd following the definitions.
This is the situation on the ground. The reason is that mathematical objects are often obtained by so many steps of abstraction of originally natural-world concepts that their real-world origin is often obscured or very difficult to intuit (think the - very compact - definition of topology).
Therefore, it is useful to the reader to "recreate" the bridge to reality (which is often possible) and explain which of reality's features are required and which ones are discarded. Measure theory is not so bad in that respect. Basically, you are talking about a kind of "volume". In "nice" spaces, such a vector spaces, you could consider n-forms as volumes (almost literally), but if the space gets nastier, without a concept of tangent spaces and the associated structure, you have to look at which permits you to extend this concept to suitably selected subsets of your space. My favourite to asking the question what you miss if you have no measure is to respond with the Banach-Tarski paradox.
Now the game can also be played on a higher level if you talk to mathematicians who know already a lot of things. You now need to explain how your concepts will fit into what they already know. So, a group theorist may be motivated to look at semigroups by explaining which axioms you drop (and why). Or which phenomenon motivated your definition of semigroup (for instance attempting to model non-invertible operations).
In short: the point is to explain and to motivate what concepts and phenomena in "the universe of the reader" corresponds to properties discarded or generalised (abstractions) or newly studied phenomena in your universe.
It's a delicate balance. You say:
...in order to correctly state everything.
But why are you correctly stating everything if its just a motiational discussion? So you see you have a balancing act whereby you need to give up a little bit of space on the side of correctly stating everything in order to gain some space on the side of being able to flexibly discuss the concepts, ideas, history etc.
This is actually really hard and usually takes much more experience than it did to solve the research problem in the first place. So I think its common for e.g. a graduating PhD student to have the technical knowledge to solve the problem but to find it difficult to articulate where the problem lies within a much bigger field of inquiry.
As you gain more experience you will know when and how to lie. And you will also know much better what counts as standard. When you've just spent years learning the basics of a research field you often feel like things need definitions that don't really. Other experienced mathematicians are probably more comfortable than you think with not fully understanding every detail/remembering every definition but kind of vaguely knowing what such and such an object X is and vaguely what it does and just more or less getting the idea until the later point at which you define everytihng.
To try to give one piece of practical advice: Look for ways to not tell too big a lie. Find places you can say that 'an object X is essentially an object Y together with a parameterization of its involutions' (or whatever) where object Y is something you a sure is more standard.
One example that comes to mind from my education is distributions. I heard both of the following vagueries:
Distributions are generalized functions.("OK right so I should think of them like functions")
Distributions are like the abstract dual to functions. You pair a distribution with a function to get a number.
This confused me when I was younger. But after some experience I guess you know the ways in which these are both true and you get that different contexts call for different lies.
The readers who don't know the stuff well will essentially have no choice but to just swallow the lies. Then you get worried about the readers who do know the stuff well. Because then when you tell a lie, they might get offended, like "gah this writer has oversimplified and left out the crucial essence of object X; how will anyone get the important content from watered down motivational discussion!?" So like I said, it's a balancing act.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.472689 | 2015-05-04T13:04:47 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44784",
"authors": [
"Aster",
"Nikolas",
"Raphael",
"Tobias Kildetoft",
"Zoe - Save the data dump",
"dogwithhumanhands",
"henning no longer feeds AI",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/122888",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/122889",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/122890",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/122909",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/122918",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/122930",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/123015",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12592",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1419",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31917",
"seeraeuber",
"webik150",
"xli"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
20942 | What to do when co-authors want to submit manuscript for publication and you think it still has problems?
I am a junior member on a research project. We have written a paper. I feel the work is not ready for publication and have issues. We have discussed the issues, and other members of the group including the lead author agree with me that there are issues. But the lead author who is more senior is too eager to get the results published to the extent that he is ready to mislead the reviewers/readers by exaggerating and misrepresenting the partial inconclusive results to get the paper accepted. I don't think I can convince him to allow more time for the project to reach a more satisfactory stage before publication. I am rather junior and have limited say on the project. I am new to the field of the project, and the senior author is established in the field and publishes several papers in top venues each year. Other members of the project are his students.
We don't have conclusive evidence for one of the central claims in the paper. It might turn out to be false under more experiments. The lead author, however, believes it is correct even though he agrees the evidence we have is not sufficient. He wants to publish the results and the idea as soon as possible, but accurately stating what we have and what we don't have will make the acceptance unlikely at this point. He is fine with getting the flawed results published and then continuing to work to fix the issues for the later publications.
I am not comfortable with my name appearing on the paper.
One option is to ask for the removal of my name as an author and to be mentioned in the acknowledgments. However, I have worked on the project for a considerable time and would like to get credit for my contributions, and I don't feel just being mentioned in the acknowledgments is good enough.
What would you do if you were in this situation?
How do you deal with major disagreements in writing a joint paper?
Would it be helpful if I post a different edited draft copy of the paper online where the claims are more accurate in my view?
"Issues" and "flawed" are not really synonyms. If there are issues matters can be published as long as the issues are discussed. Flawed is very serious so which is it?
Is there a deadline to meet?
The project will continue even after the publication of the paper. There is a deadline for submission but if we miss it or the paper gets rejected we can submit the paper to the next one.
As the lead author is eager to submit. It seems this year he has little to publish which justifies going with this partial solution. Specially if he is targeting a top venue (some people wants to be there every year regardless of their submission quality)
How do you deal with major disagreements in writing a joint paper? — Work them out like adults. The paper cannot be submitted without the agreement of all coauthors.
I wanted to add a fourth possibility to @artalexan's nice answer that might be more diplomatic:
Make the paper technically correct with the results you have (even if preliminary) and submit to the current venue.
The major problem with submitting the paper is that it is dishonest, not that it is preliminary.
If the paper can be made technically correct and honest -- even if the results are preliminary -- it would be fine to at least submit it and let the reviewers judge if it is mature enough.
If you are a co-author, you should have the power to edit the misleading text. If the main author is stopping your efforts to do that, then ask to be removed from the paper.
Of course if the results themselves are incorrect (rather than preliminary) there may be no saving the paper.
On a side note, the attitude of the senior researcher in question towards publishing may be productive in the short term (getting some initial papers published quickly by misleading reviewers), but it is utterly counter-productive in the long run. Having a reputation for sloppy results/writing will seriously harm the trust that reviews/readers have in your paper ... and reputation is so important in research! I don't know your situation, but if the researcher shows no inclination to change their attitude, try to put distance between yourself and them.
Honest preliminary results (if exciting enough - if not, noone wants to publish an immature paper anyways) can often be published as short commuication. There, the preliminary nature of the results does not do any harm.
+1 for honesty, but is being removed from the paper enough if honesty is lacking? I'd rather refuse to remove myself and obstruct the publication until it's rectified than permit more dishonesty, especially from my colleagues. Their reputation can affect mine too, after all.
@NickStauner, I agree and I think the answer depends on the situation: I think there are gradations of dishonesty, from being slightly over-enthusiastic about results (i.e., overselling) to selective presentation of correct results to deliberate outright fabrication. If there has been deliberate fabrication, there's certainly a strong case to be made for escalating the matter ... but how best to do that also depends on the situation.
I see a few possible options for this.
You are talking with other co-authors of the paper then you all together talk to this lead author that what he does is going to affect not only his, but also your future in a very bad way.
You are making a rough estimation how quick you (and other authors) can fill all those gaps in this project. If it is let's say 15 days, you meet and make your exact suggestion. This concreteness will make the main author think twice.
Although you have done a lot of research, you should remove your name from this suspicious study (if you strongly believe that this study has serious drawbacks), because sooner or later it will become worthless.
I've seen some misleading papers written by popular names during my MSc studies. Yet, their popularity did not vanish in an observable amount of time. In research, we have many issues like this; and I believe it is not necessarily a bad thing. Sound articles would be cited by many, and they would definitely be helpful for new researchers and young students alike.
However, I have the following questions for you. Please consider them objectively.
Did you witness cherry-picking? Or any alteration/manipulation to the research results?
How inconclusive do you find the results? Please forget
about the lead author, and give a number from 1 to 10 on your best
knowledge.
Can you convince the lead to add a future studies section or
a paragraph/sentence to your paper, to mention the issues you come up with
about the experiment?
Can't you ask the leads approval to do more experiment? So that you
will have a fighting chance to make things right. If you are proven right, you may give the accurate results in the earliest revision.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.473579 | 2014-05-14T14:33:46 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20942",
"authors": [
"DIWesser",
"Janma Tithi",
"JeffE",
"Maximko",
"Mejaber",
"Mingo",
"Nick Stauner",
"Peter Jansson",
"Raja Natarajan",
"Shmn",
"Timon van der Berg",
"XaNaX",
"adam.baker",
"aeismail",
"badroit",
"cbeleites",
"ericf",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10518",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15272",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/532",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57210",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57211",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57212",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57213",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57214",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57216",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57219",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57223",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57226",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57247",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57271",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57292",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57308",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7746",
"linguist",
"seteropere",
"user15272"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
55393 | Because of past conflicts, I don't believe my advisor will write me a good LOR for postdoc positions. What should I do?
How essential is having my advisor's letter for post doc application?
I had a pretty bad relationship with my advisor for more than 4 years since I joined his lab and sometimes the relationship feels like slow inflammation that can easily flare up. We had very different opinion on how I want to approach my thesis and we argue very often on the experimental approach and the angle of attack. After that, he turned passive aggressive and completely hands-off. I noticed that he started slow to response to my email and given me very small amount time for meeting in comparison to other people in the lab. However, I proved to him that my approach was right and wrote the full paper myself and got published.
Recently, I got contact by a post doc employer who interested in my own work and request letter of recommendation. I asked my advisor for letter and he told me that I should write my own from which he can modify. I feel this is quite strange as he had wrote for all the other people in the lab, including a departing post doc who is currently interviewing for job. He told me he had done the same for other people but obviously he lied to me.
I further asked if he can provide me a copy of a completed version of the recommendation but he refused.
My question is should I still trust him to write my letter and is it essential? This post doc position is a great opportunity for me and either way I do is a big gamble.
Update: I decided to let my advisor wrote a letter for me and I think I may have made a big mistake. Since he wrote my letter, I asked the post doc lab head if my letter is completed and I no longer be able to hear back from him. Before that, he was quick to response to my email and showed great enthusiasm. As an insurance, I use one opportunity I have less desire to as bait to test the water and I still have one more shot at another position I really want. Now, I'm thinking requesting open letter from advisor from now on for any future position or use letter service to check the letter.
Any suggestion? Thanks.
update: Great news! Got interviewed and offered at top ones! Thanks everyone!
Different parts of the world have quite different practices regarding letters of recommendation. In the US they are usually considered very important, in Europe not so much. Where are you located, and where is the institution to which you are applying?
According to me, it seems to be very common issues with a person to arrange LOR from your earlier supervisor with whom the student does not have a good relation for several issues. I faced the similar issue. But I somehow managed to have a LOR, which I think, it was not so much positive. However, always be in touch with you current Postdoc supervisor, and let him convinced by your work, not by your recommendation, your work should be able to recommend you at any sense.
@NateEldredge Recommendation letters in Europe are, unfortunately, considered much more important than in the US.
@TomDworzanski: Unfortunately, as the answers below suggest, not having a letter from your PhD advisor is also begging for disappointment. It's quite possible that your best bet is to hope that your advisor can set aside personal issues and write a letter that reflects your abilities.
Actually, drafting your own letter of recommendation is not that unusual. It gives you the ability to emphasize points of interest to you.
@Ooker A [tag:conflict-of-interest] refers to when someone has an outside influence (like a financial interest, or personal relationship) affecting their professional responsibilities (e.g. a student being supervised by a family member). The tag doesn't seem to apply here.
@ff524 thanks for reminding me that. Should we have a generic conflict tag?
@Ooker Conflict is pretty well covered by the [tag:interpersonal-issues] tag. I don't think that's strictly relevant to this post, either, though (others may disagree). The question isn't about the past conflict with the advisor; it's asking what to do about recommendation letters now.
@ff524 Although the two top answers actually give the solution which aren't about the conflict, I would say that if we look at the atmosphere of the question and two other answers, it is the most relevant tag.
@GennaroTedesco What? Coming from somebody who worked his entire career so far in central Europe, this is completely wrong. Personal connections (yours, or your advisor's): yes, very important. Formal LoRs: nobody cares, generally assumed to be overhyped template text (which most LoRs of European professors indeed end up being).
@xLeitix Well, we have to convey that we have had different experiences then. It also depend on your particular field of interest, namely the fewer the general available positions the more important a recommendation letter.
"I asked my advisor for letter and he told me that I should write my own from which he can modify. I feel this is quite strange" This is a common practice.
@JonCuster I find it interesting that "drafting" your own letter seems to be an acceptable and common practice, while "writing" your own letter is a big no-no (see also: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16529/is-it-acceptable-to-write-a-reference-letter-for-yourself).
I said draft, not write. Giving someone a draft means (1) you are serious, (2) you know enough about the opportunity to want to emphasize certain things, and (3) you have skin in the game as well. Few things are as hard as staring at a blank sheet of paper wondering what to say that would help.
Once it became clear that you were not going to follow your advisor's advice on important issues, it might have been better to switch advisors to one you could work with. Instead, you continued, in effect, without an advisor. The limited meeting time, slow e-mail response, and requiring you to draft the LOR all suggest to me an attitude of "Why waste my time giving advice that won't be taken anyway?".
You cannot be sure he is lying about having other people draft their own LOR unless you have talked with every person for whom he has ever sent one. He may feel he knows some students well enough to write an LOR from scratch, but needs a draft for others.
The best you can do at this point is to write what you consider to be a reasonable LOR and give it to your non-advisor.
One thing that hasn't been addressed yet:
I further asked if he can provide me a copy of a completed version of the recommendation but he refused.
You seem to view this as a danger sign, but I would not. Practices regarding letters of recommendation vary around the world (and you haven't said where you are), but at least for the US, the custom is that a letter is sent confidentially from the writer to the recipient, and the candidate (about whom the letter is written) never sees it. The idea is that this makes it more possible for the writer to speak freely.
I'd expect your advisor to refuse such a request even if your relationship was great and he was writing you the awesomest letter ever. It would be very unusual for him to agree to show you the letter, under any circumstances. I don't think it was an appropriate request for you to have made.
Of course, it is possible that he is planning to write an unfavorable letter, but there is really no way to know without reading his mind. To my mind, this particular fact (that he wouldn't show you the letter) isn't really evidence one way or the other.
That happened to me, but worse. My postdoc supervisor unilaterally rescinded my grant, I was never completely sure of why.
What I'm currently doing is to include my other advisors/professors and explicitly say that I had a disagreement with him, that he rescinded my grant, but I was cleared of any wrongdoing (the funding agency gave me a new fellowship a few months later) and that's why I didn't ask for a LOR.
My current supervisor was aware of the whole deal from the get-go and he was fine with it.
Be honest, be clear, do not hide anything.
Thanks, but what about graduate student applying for post doc? The post doc employer contacted me is from a quite prestigious lab.
This is a very good advice. Just be very honest about the situation. But please do not tell your future advisor things like "my advisor is a liar" because that will not be good for you.
+1, good advice. One more point: be factual. No emotional comments, just the facts. I have been on the receiving side of such a case and I appreciated the frank approach. There were other LORs (not that I cared much about them) but also recommendations from colleagues which helped to a certain extend to anticipate the character of the applicant. She ended up getting the job. Looking 15 years back it was a good decision.
@user10694 Doesn't really matter the specific position, the idea is exactly the same.
This is a very good advice. Especially when the OP published a paper as sole author (if i understand correctly), this will strongly support his case.
I think your attitude at this point has to be, "What I really need right now, and all I need right now, is a strong letter of recommendation. To heck with the past."
Your former adviser has actually made you a very good offer: write the letter yourself. Thus, do write a letter that focuses on what the project was about, what you believe you contributed, and what the results were -- including that the results were very meaningful and that your thesis led to a publication. Do mention which outlet the piece was published in. If you think it's relevant, you may also write something about how you think you developed as a researcher during the project. Focus on output and don't dwell on inputs, i.e., don't write something like "Mr. X worked long hours, including lots of weekends".
You have, of course, no control over how your ex-adviser may see fit to edit the letter once you hand it over to him. However, if you limit your letter to what's factually correct and essential to your potential future employer, I think there's an excellent chance that the ex-adviser may simply sign the letter and send it to whomever you say needs the letter. I see two reasons for being optimistic. First, don't underestimate the power of inertia: If the adviser wants to apply any edits (minor or major), he will have to do the extra work. Given that you described his eventual behavior (accurately or inaccurately) as passive aggressive, he may decide it's too much work on his part to edit the letter. Second, don't underestimate the desire of many established researchers to have successful advisees. If he were to write something unflattering about you, that may well be read as a sign of failure on his part. If he's at all rational, he'll want to avoid the risk of creating such an impression.
I think this is a good analysis. The advisor's reported actions are consistent with trying to minimize the time he spends on advising the OP. The minimum time handling of the LOR would be to ask the OP to draft it, and forward it unchanged if it is factual.
You are very unlikely to get a good post-doc position without a strong letter from your advisor. If you don't provide a letter from your advisor, that looks like a huge red flag, and most people hiring are not going to consider your application.
If your relationship with your dissertation advisor was poor, that puts you in a lousy position. However, having your advisor ask for a template letter to work from, while not ideal, is not necessarily terrible either. It doesn't indicate the greatest investment on his part in your future success, but it doesn't mean that he won't write a strong letter either. And I wouldn't assume that he hasn't done something similar with some of his other former students, either, even if you haven't heard about it.
I think I can't see through my advisor is because he lies. This impression is from my every day interaction with him for 4 years. He is always nice and friendly. He told you he can write stellar letter but he doesn't. This is very scary and turning me into paranoia.
By the way, I'm completely happy to write myself but the scary part is his final "modification", which cannot disclose to me.
Why would you want a letter of recommendation from a "lying" advisor? You are very quick to use the word "lie". As far as I can tell there is some blame on both sides, at least as far as human relationships are concerned.
As a general rule, this is untrue. At least, I'm the living counter-example. Stuff happens, as long as you are honest and stick to facts, isn't that much of a red flag. Most of the time, its nobody's fault...
Blaming others or yourself at this point is useless. I would do the following to go around the issue, by politely asking the following two groups of academics:
Your Examiners: During the viva, you will have a number of examiners, these are one of the best people to ask about recommendation letter, as they know you by your final product (i.e., your thesis) and therefore they will go right to the point. Right in here, you could get at least your two recommendation letters; that is required for most postdoc jobs.
Other Professors In Your Group: Unless you have been a total social disaster in terms of communicating to the other academics in your research group, while you have been a Ph.D. student; you could ask a number of professors you know in your group. Ask them for a one on one meeting, explain your situation and kindly ask them for the recommendation letter. If you have been a bright student, believe me they have nothing to complain about and will give you a letter.
You are understandably nervous that something in the content and tone of the final submitted version would give away the strained relationship between you, and work against you in the application process. It is impossible for me to say whether he would be able to write a nice letter without some subtleties of his feelings toward you and your work slipping through. But I can say that it is damaging for you, psychologically, to experience this degree of anxiety and apprehension, and that a letter with subtle negativity, or a lukewarm tone, would harm your application.
You could try this:
Prof. So-and So, I know we've had our differences. We're two strong
characters with a passion for science, and we have different
approaches. Given the fact that things haven't always been smooth
sailing between us, I wanted to ask if you are really comfortable
writing a letter of recommendation for me, or if you think it would
serve me better to try to find someone else.
You need to find some way of reading him, and getting a handle on what sort of letter he would send.
If in doubt, don't include him as a reference. Do send the committee a brief explanation. Keep Fábio's experience and happy ending clearly in your mind.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.474231 | 2015-10-03T02:18:19 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55393",
"authors": [
"AG_",
"AlHern8542",
"Andrej Bauer",
"Dr. Sherin Elbendary",
"Euphoria",
"Fábio Dias",
"Geisa R",
"J. R. C.",
"Jessie",
"Joel",
"Johann Wagner",
"Jon Custer",
"Kashish Dhal",
"Kevin Aguyar Brix",
"Lurking Academic",
"M.Hammad Ul Hassan Mughal",
"Matt Rybin",
"Mithun",
"Nate Eldredge",
"Ooker",
"Patricia Shanahan",
"Souhaielrmx",
"Spammer",
"WoJ",
"ff524",
"gented",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10094",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10220",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10694",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11365",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14341",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151541",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151542",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151543",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151544",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151545",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151546",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151570",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151571",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151590",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151642",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151645",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151740",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151741",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151742",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151775",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151776",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151777",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151842",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153630",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153636",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/153637",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15446",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15477",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15501",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/159968",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/159975",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/163637",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17776",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30852",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/36339",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41208",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41985",
"merlinND",
"noway",
"sean",
"user10694",
"user151740",
"user18255052",
"xLeitix"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
17300 | What to do if I can't trust my advisor no more?
After so many incidents happen that my advisor trying to bad mouthing to my committee, sobstege my publication, secretly removing me from my PhD projects I feel I cannot trust my advisor anymore. Now, I feel everything he said was insincere and full of lie. My advisor always says positive thing but all end up negative. He is not consistent of what he said and what he actually does which disgust me. I don't want to let him handle my manuscript or assign me project because I always fear that he will do something underhanded. If I really grant a PhD from my advisor, I would be ashamed of such lineage. All I want now is live in bubble space undisturbed focusing on my own topics. I want to be myself as a phd student and one day as a professor. What should I do? Please help!
Switch advisors. There is really not much else you can do*.
*If the person does something truly unethical and you have definitive proof you can try to bring it up with someone who has more authority.
You say that that isn't an option, and it sounds like you're planning to stick it with this advisor until you get your PhD. Things to think about:
Do you think it's realistic to get a PhD at all with this advisor?
Are all of his grad students just as miserable, or just you? What are the successful students in his group doing?
Who are your letters of recommendation (you need 3, typically) going to be from when you apply for postdocs/jobs after you graduate?
Nuclear options (purely for completeness, I don't recommend them):
Apply to a PhD program somewhere else (you don't have to finish this one, you can apply while you're still in this one, actually, and only quit the program if you get accepted somewhere else).
Quit academia. (Warning: it's hard to get back in once you're out.)
I am not sure how you define "successful" (fellowship, publication, support)? I know there are people who were quite supported by my advisor because they know what my advisor like, and it's their way to get ahead. That's fine and that should be the norm but I'm not the norm.
Successful means publications (well, that depends on the field), research that is progressing in a clear direction, completion of milestones towards the degree. The advisor having successful students ultimately is measured by how good the jobs the students he graduated got are.
It sounds like he has students that are content to have him as an advisor.
It also sounds, from your other question and the comments there that you think that your advisor is incompetent, which means that you don't take him seriously.
This creates at least half the problem, because if you don't take him seriously, he won't take you seriously, which, among other things, includes telling his colleagues about how terrible you are, and not trusting you to write a manuscript for submission.
If you're staying in this PhD program with this advisor, you will make your own life a lot easier if you at least imagine that your advisor might not be incompetent.
When he gives you an idea for an approach, make an honest effort.
If it doesn't work, try to figure out why. If you figure out why, don't look happy about it: look concerned about it. If you have an idea that you think will work, propose it as a solution to this problem you just found. And by "propose" I mean actually ask him for what he thinks about it, and be interested in what he has to say.
This is what "taking him seriously" means. If you start doing that, he might start taking you seriously for a change.
Also try to have insightful research-related conversations with some other faculty (preferably the rest of your committee), maybe even have one or more of them meet with you and your advisor when you discuss research ideas (make sure to plan meetings so that everyone is in the loop, don't try to surprise anyone). Build those professional relationships for some good recommendations.
I am too late to switch but I hate where I'm now. If I really get a PhD from my advisor, I will hide my credential and get another one. Now I'm seriously considering getting another phd after this one.
"Too late" how? How would switching (and maybe losing a couple of years because you have to re-start the dissertation phase of your PhD with a new advisor) be any better for you than spending more time with this advisor and then spending four or more years at another PhD program?
I already talk to higher up and guess what they all sided with my advisor and think I'm ungrateful for his money. I don't want a dime to let my advisor control my thoughts or how I want to do my research because I 'm suppose to be trained to be an independent thinker not a thought follower.
My advisor have some connection so it's pretty hard to switch, most advisor don't want to get caught in line of fire. You know what I mean.
Hi trueality: I am not sure how you define "successful" (fellowship, publication, support)? I know there are people who were quite supported by my advisor because they know what my advisor like, and it's their way to get ahead. That's fine and that should be the norm but I'm not the norm.
@user10694 - Don't be silly about "lineages," "hiding credentials," and going after another PhD. Your doctorate bears the name of your school, not the name of your advisor. If you finish successfully, consider it a learning experience, and resolve to be a better advisor should you get a job as a faculty member sometime down the road.
When I read your question I must take into account that I am hearing one side of a dispute, so it is likely to be biased and incomplete. I don't know who is in the wrong but I can see a few pointers. Firstly you make very few specific complaints about what your advisor has done. You say he is trying to sabotage your publication and remove you from projects. It is the job of your advisor to decide when your publication is ready. He has much more experience of this than you do. He can see better than you what direction you need to go in.
No advisor takes on a student to sabotage them. An advisor can only have a limited number of students and they want them to succeed. You claim that things he says are insincere which means that he is saying positive things that you will not accept. It sounds like most of the anger is on your side. You even indicate that other students are getting along with him.
If there is a personality or culture clash between you and your supervisor it may be possible to talk to your department head about a change, but it is more likely that you are on a slippery slope towards failure and it would be better that you listen to your advisor who seems to be trying to help you. Put your ego aside and consider the possibility that your advisor who has been working in the field for many more years than you may know it better than you. If you still genuinely think that your ideas are better and you want more independence then you need to discuss this calmly with your advisor. He may agree to let you take that route but that is only likely if you are exceptionaly talented. If he doesn't he should explain why and you need to listen and find a compromise.
One last thing, your English grammar is not very good. I dont know if you are an English speaking native, studying in an English speaking country or writing papers in English, but if any of these are the case then you need to improve your English. It will have a bearing on your ability to communicate with people including your advisor.
No advisor takes on a student to sabotage them. I think that's probably true; however, I've known of cases where advisors didn't seem to have a very strong interest in seeing a student succeed after things got underway. Reasons vary.
Philip: Hello again. You may want to click on the OP's user page and read some of the other questions: among other things your desire to see more specific complaints will certainly be fulfilled! There is a general pattern of this OP's questions on this site: each of his questions documents an extremely distressing relationship with his advisor. When you read any one or two questions you think "Wow, that's terrible. I need to suggest that the OP (i) talk long and seriously with his advisor and/or (ii) find a new advisor."
But the OP almost never directly responds to these suggestions: instead the horror stories continue. It gets frustrating after a while. At this point I am not sure what more we can do to help. Finally, I think it is overwhelmingly likely that the OP is not a native English speaker. (Based on past experience I will guess that he comes from Asia.) I had also assumed that he was doing a graduate program in Asia (or wherever he's from), but if he's not then you're quite right: a language barrier may be the ultimate culprit of many of his issues. Thanks for pointing that out.
@PeteL.Clark I live in Taiwan and a native Chinese speaker. The OP's English does not look like Chinese English. I am not sure whether he is from Asia. Asians typically dare not complain about their advisors that much on English based network such as us.
@scaaahu: OK. Maybe I should not have played "guess the OP's nationality". It is quite clear to me that he is not a native English speaker, and thus if his graduate program is in (e.g.) the US then language issues may apply.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.475431 | 2014-02-22T07:35:22 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17300",
"authors": [
"CoffeDeveloper",
"J.R.",
"Jaimin Patel",
"Mahesh",
"Nobody",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Qazi",
"T.eck",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10694",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11880",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46629",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46630",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46633",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46634",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46639",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46642",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/780",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"trutheality",
"user10694",
"user46630"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
16344 | Look for a second advisor while on the first, any advice?
Due to incompatibility with my current advisor, I am currently looking for other advisor on his back. Any advice? I am so scared that what if he discovers that I'm looking around. Now I have tried to set up new email account so I can deny everything if things get ugly. Any people have the same experience, can you share your trick with me please? It is pretty much a very dangerous covert mission.
Have you considered having a heart-to-heart talk with your adviser? If the relationship is not working for you, it's likely not working for your adviser either. Not all people are compatible with each other.
its all too late now as I have made the first "contact" through an email to another advisor today. I just want to know any trick I can be successful in this transition. Thx!
Are both of them in the same department? If not, do they know each other? What have you mentioned to the prospective advisor?
"It is pretty much a very dangerous covert mission.". No. it's something that happens all the time.
See, the problem you look for advisors in the same department is that they can know each other quite well so I wonder how difficult it can be to switch within the same department?
Now I have set up new email account so I can deny everything if things get ugly. That seems a bit over the top. You had a fallout with your advisor – you're not the first. There is potential for hard feelings to hinder your progress – it's time to accept that. I don't think you help yourself by being "covert". Will others be more likely to take you on if you're begging for secrecy and using clandestine email accounts? I don't think so. You want a trick? Try acting like a mature adult, accept that this may not be all your advisor's fault, and recognize you probably have some culpability.
Sure, I will invite my new advisor and current advisor to a dinner tomorrow.
@user10694 - Of course you don't go around campus with a bullhorn, and I understand the need to walk on eggshells. But sneaking around too much can backfire on you; it may hint that there is something more sinister than is really there. If I were a potential new advisor, I wouldn't be too keen on taking on a new student who was going through such drastic measures to keep everything hush, so he could lie about it later. I am so scared that what if he discovers that I'm looking around... He's going to find out eventually, right? When will you put on your big-boy pants and deal with it?
Now I have tried to set up new email account so I can deny everything if things get ugly. — Get out. Get help. No matter how bad things are with your current advisor, you will be far better off in the long run being open and honest. Of course anyone you court as your new advisor is going to talk to your old advisor before they agree to work with you. Your apparent paranoia is going to destroy any chances of a working relationship with anyone. I sincerely recommend taking a leave of absence and seeking professional counseling.
It is impossible to openly talk to my advisor, he will deny everything you said like it's all in your mind.
I don't see anything dangerous or necessarily covert about looking for another advisor, and I'm puzzled by things like using a new e-mail account you can deny was yours. (Are you planning to make contact under a fake name? Pretend someone was impersonating you if your current advisor finds out?)
You don't need to be nearly so worried. It's completely reasonable to switch advisors, and I know plenty of people who have done it without any trouble at all. You don't owe your current advisor anything, and there are no good grounds for anyone to object.
Of course you could cause offense if you are tactless. Don't tell your advisor "I'm switching because I'd prefer a competent advisor." But there are plenty of reasonable excuses. For example, you could say your interests are developing in ways that are a better fit for an advisor with a somewhat different specialization.
Fair or not, your advisor is probably not happy to be working with you either and may actually be relieved when you switch. In comments on other questions you have expressed a fear that your advisor will badmouth you to other potential advisors. That's possible, but you could also run into the opposite phenomenon: sometimes an advisor who is frustrated with a student will try to convince other faculty to take on the role of advisor, since then the student will be someone else's problem. (The less cynical version is that the student may get along better with an advisor with a different personality.)
I'd recommend keeping two things in mind:
You seem very interested in criticizing your advisor. Now is not a good time for that, whether it's addressed to your advisor or to a potential replacement.
You seem worried that you are doing something underhanded. If you act nervous and suspicious, people may suspect you are up to no good. Looking for a new advisor is not doing anything wrong, and you may get a better reaction if you treat it straightforwardly and calmly.
Thanks for your advice. Thinking about changing advisor has been on my mind for two years but I just don't have the guts to act on to it until now. I have asked around my friends, family and they just told me all kind of reason not do it. I realized that if I'm not doing it, I'm not learning anything from this lab (my advisor pretty much prevent me from working on any experiment) and I am just wasting my time here. I regret that I joined this lab and should really act on to it sooner.
Due to incompatibility with my current advisor, I am currently looking for other advisor on his back.
Did you mean "behind his back"? That's okay, people usually don't tell their advisor (or employer, in the business world) when they're looking for another one to switch to.
Any advice? I am so scared that what if he discovers that I'm looking around.
If he finds out and confronts you about it just tell him that you don't feel like you are able to contribute to the research that he does.
Now I have tried to set up new email account so I can deny everything if things get ugly. [...] It is pretty much a very dangerous covert mission.
Nope, that's just paranoid.
Any people have the same experience, can you share your trick with me please?
I switched, after a year with my first advisor. The work he was having me do didn't interest me at all, and to be honest, I wasn't doing it as well as I probably could (lack of motivation reduces work quality).
I simply asked about the department for who was looking for graduate students (like I did in the first year to find this advisor in the first place). I didn't tell my current advisor, but I also didn't take any paranoid measures like switching email accounts. I used my official university account for everything. After finding a new advisor, he contacted the old advisor, making sure everyone is good with the switching arrangement, I finished up my semester of work (up to the end of the contract of the funded project) with the old advisor, I had a meeting where I gave an overview of the work to the person who will take it over and answered some questions, and then I started working with the new advisor.
At the end, everyone was fine. I'm even collaborating with the old advisor a little on some research right now.
It is better to have a single supervisor than two. Because every time you show some work, there will be two advices and many revisions to your papers,thesis.
Unless you know the professors thoroughly, don't consider having two supervisors.
I think this is a much too simplistic answer to a complicated issue: getting twice as much advice and twice as much revisions sounds like a good thing rather than a bad thing, but there are drawbacks to have more than one advisor. My first PhD student had a second advisor, and although it made things more complicated for him at times, I think that overall it worked out very well for him. Anyway, I think the OP is contemplating switching advisors, not getting another one.
I agree with Pete regarding advantages, but only when 2 advisors are compatible with each other. Getting advise from both of them will be very helpful in research but this slows you down when their thinking angle diverges.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.476288 | 2014-01-30T03:46:24 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16344",
"authors": [
"DSAK",
"David Borges",
"J.R.",
"JeffE",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Stanley Moore",
"Suresh",
"TCSGrad",
"earthling",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10694",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/42839",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/42842",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/42850",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46753",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46755",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7720",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/780",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"jwyyy",
"linzselite",
"user10694",
"user42842"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
15682 | Frustration in getting admission into PhD Computer Science, with background MSc Geospatial Science & BTech Computer Science
Am presently really frustrated in getting a supervisor and admission into PhD Computer Science in any University in Europe or US. I recently graduated with MSc Geospatial Science with distinction (cgpa 4.8/5) and I have Bachelors in Computer Science. Ever since I finished my masters have been seeking a PhD admission in computer science in any average schools in europe or US, but all to no avail. I have 3 research papers in top international journal, I even had a research proposal of likely topic relating to Mobile Computing & Mobile GIS, and i seriously think the frustration is weighing me down, please is there something am not doing right or there is any other method of getting a supervisor apart from contacting them through email.
Maybe you could describe in a few words how you have tried to get into PhD positions so far. What did your email contain?
The email contains information about my educational details, specialization and request to supervise my PhD research, and also my CV and likely research proposal.
Welcome to AC.SE. You have told us about yourself, but you haven't told us about how you have been identifying potential supervisors and contacting them. Given the information you have provided, I don't see how we can answer the question.
Apply for a PhD in GeoSciences instead.
So you want to choose your own PhD subject…. But universities will only have funding in place for subjects they have chosen…..
At all decent universities. Ph.D. admission is competitive. Apply following the official procedures to a dozen universities. Make sure your application file really is complete and on time at each. You will not be admitted based on contacting faculty informally.
This is true for US/Canadian/UK universities. PhD positions in continental Europe work very differently.
no this is not true for all US universities. While contacting a professor won't get you in, having a professor interested in you can help increase your chances if that professor informs the admissions committee to look out for your application. At some places this will help more than others.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.476969 | 2014-01-12T11:18:19 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15682",
"authors": [
"DaveM ",
"Ian",
"Justin King-Lacroix",
"NDB",
"StrongBad",
"TheMathemagician",
"WetlabStudent",
"aeismail",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10745",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1084",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13539",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40977",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40978",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/40979",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41177",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/41556",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8101",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9902",
"konqui",
"underdark",
"user41177",
"yinchar"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
129886 | How to choose a generalist repository and what risks should I be aware of?
I am trying to choose between these different generalist repositories:
Zenodo
Open Science Framework
Figshare (or Dyrad??)
Harvard dataverse
General cloud services
...
Figshare has a nice comparison of them (
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.751546.v1), but I was looking for some guidelines to help me to choose the best one that I might have ignored. For instance, many European Projects require to use Zenodo so maybe is better to get acquainted with it, however, Open Science Framework seems to offer a better way to organize the projects but it seems there is no doi to the files uploaded. Is there any guideline or anything I should be aware of before choosing to put my dataset in a generalist repository?
Content I would like to share
I would like to use a generalist repository because I would like to share all my outputs. This might consist of code, dataset but also figures, drawings and some times I share also some piece of hardware design (e.g. step files for 3D printing the adapters, sensor net, some PCB design).
You might want to specify what kind of content you would be using the repository for.
Consider what license you want to publish your outputs under.
@Anyon yes, and regarding this are there any differences between these generalists repository?
@GM Last time I checked Zenodo offered a wider range of licenses than Figshare, but if the one you want is covered it might not matter much. I don't know how your other options compare in this regard.
I haven't used any of these resources myself but hopefully the following points can help you in your decision:
This kind of repository and the open science trend in general are pretty recent. This is why it's a bit difficult to evaluate and compare the different options, there's not enough hindsight yet. This is also why, in my opinion, the main risk is that the platform you choose would become obsolete or disappear in the future. So to be safe you might want to choose a platform which allows you to export your stuff easily.
Another important point you should consider is the policy of your institution: the outcomes produced as part of your academic job can be subject to IP restrictions. So it might be a good idea to check with your local IP or legal office what kind of license they allow/recommend and whether there is any IP disclosure process in place.
It's also worth mentioning that there are a few more generic options for sharing outputs: for instance Github, Google Drive, and of course the good old personal webpage (most universities let you create one under their website).
Actually, I am using Google Drive and I wanted to put it in the list it has some feature that are missing the others, I'll edit the question now
You can find repositories that assign DOIs to datasets in the Repository Finder Tool.
You can filters those that actually meet the criteria of the Enabling FAIR Data.
edit: Full disclosure, I work at DataCite as a developer, and participated in the development of the repository finder.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.477219 | 2019-04-30T06:46:21 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/129886",
"authors": [
"Anyon",
"G M",
"Tommi",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10333",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13017",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/17254"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
17094 | Which are the best journals for letters in mathematics (bordering with mathematical physics)?
Although in mathematics the letters, i.e., really short articles, just a few pages long, are perhaps less common than in the other fields (see e.g. the comments by Pete L. Clark under his answer to this question), sometimes such a letter really is the best way to communicate the result. It is also quite clear that for this very reason (that the letters are quite uncommon), such letters are not likely, save for some very exceptional situations, to be a good fit for the top pure math journals like the Annals, Inventiones, JAMS, etc.
Apparently in earlier times the best place for publishing letters in mathematics was the French journal Comptes Rendus. This journal still exists but I am not quite sure whether it is the place for letters in mathematics anymore.
Another option that comes to mind could perhaps be the math section of the PNAS but again I am not quite sure how this journal is actually standing with the pure math community, especially outside the US.
There should certainly be other worthy alternatives, so I look forward to the answers pointing them out as well as discussing the journals mentioned above.
QUESTION: What are the best (in terms of standing in the math community and being widely read by mathematicians) journals, or perhaps sections of mathematical or even multidisciplinary journals, for letters in mathematics nowadays?
P.S. I am specifically interested in the journals which would tolerate the papers which are on the border of mathematics and mathematical physics (just to clarify, this refers to the subject matter rather than, say, lacking in rigor). The Letters in Mathematical Physics and Nonlinearity appear to be a bit too niche, I would prefer more broad-scope alternatives.
P.P.S. This question is an outgrow of the discussion in comments to the Pete L. Clark's answer to
http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17050/acknowledging-the-discussion-with-someone-in-the-paper-but-excluding-this-person/17092
Why not just publish these on your blog+arXiv? Why is the journal necessary for short letters?
@Vahid: Quite the contrary: I hope that other experts in the field will make my doubts go away. It's also quite possible that there exists some community consensus on the math letter journals and I just happened to be unaware of it.
@Kallus: would you please care to expand why do you think this is the journal for letters in math?
Mathematical Research Letters is one option I have come across in my reading. A cursory look suggests it has a fair deal of mathematical physics.
@Kallus: thanks, will check them out again. However, listing any further alternatives (ideally with some comments on them) is still very welcome.
@Vahid: I have also asked some specific questions about PNAS and Comptes Rendus and I hope people will share their opinions on them.
In my experience, mathematicians tend to call such short articles "notes" rather than "letters". Also, my impression is that Comptes Rendus, while it did publish some very short self-contained papers, was mostly intended for announcements of results for which complete proofs would later be published elsewhere.
@Nate: Thanks, this trend explains a lot :) By the way, how about "communications"? Are they the same as letters or notes, or something in between the letters and the regular papers?
@Kallus: how would you compare MRL vs PNAS vs CR?
@just-learning: How would I compare them? I would browse some of their recent issues to get a feel for the kind of papers they publish.
@Kallus: Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. By "compare" I meant "compare in terms of their standing in math community" (or "compare in your eyes", if you like). But anyway I'll use your advice too, thanks.
@just-learning: I don't have a clear sense of what a "communication" would be. We don't use this word much. It may appear in some journal titles but I wouldn't have a clear sense of what such a journal expects without looking at its aims-and-scope and what they've published.
The sense in which I've seen "communication" in math journals is that some journals have, after the byline, a "communicated by X" line, which means that X was the handling editor.
@Nate and Pete: Thanks for the remarks on "communication".
There are a few cases of pairs of companion journals, whose main difference is the length of the papers. For example, Proceedings of the AMS/Transactions of the AMS, or Electronic Journal of Probability/Electronic Communications in Probability. As those two examples illustrate, there's no universal way of signaling in the journal name which is which.
As Pete L. Clark, I do not quite know what a letter is: short papers are usually quite similar to regular paper, only shorter and usually called notes.
Concerning the venue suitable for short articles, there are quite a few. First, you should now that most journal could accept short papers, but certainly you have more chance to get accepted in a journal specifically targeted toward short paper (except if you solve a known problem or reprove a notoriously difficult theorem, in which case no reviewer can use the length of the paper to argue it does not have much merit). Let me give my impressions on the journal that come to mind (to remind that this is from a biased perspective, I will often refer to the French mathematical community), limiting to journals that to not claim being restricted to a subfield -so called generalist journals.
CRAS (Comptes-Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Paris): this journal publishes both research announcements and complete short papers. The announcement part is less and less relevant, but I do not know whether it is less present now. Sadly, while CRAS published top-notch papers, it cannot afford to be very selective anymore. It also suffers from the research announcement role: French hiring committees often blankly dismiss CRAS papers, partially because they may be only announcements.
PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA): this journal is not very well-known from French mathematicians, but publishes some quite good papers. I think it has a particular taste, but I cannot find the word to describe it. Beware that even if it has a page limit, the format is very dense so articles are not necessarily that short overall.
PAMS (Proceedings of the American Mathematical society): this journal is explicitly for short papers, but the page limit recently moved from 10 to 15 (AMS format). As far as I can judge it is selective, and sometimes publishes excellent papers. It is reasonably well regarded, benefiting from the sisterhood of Transactions AMS.
Bul. LMS (Bulletin of the London Mathematical society): this journal is the LMS counterpart to PAMS, and is somewhat similar (although a little less known and considered, maybe). Since the LMS series has three journals (Bulletin, Journal and Proceedings in increasing order of paper size) instead of two for the AMS, I guess that the average Bulletin paper is somewhat shorter than the average PAMS paper, but the different format makes it difficult to judge.
AMM (American Mathematical Monthly): this journal is well-known and extremely selective. It publishes papers of general interest, of varying length. The notes are typically a few pages long. It is even possible to publish mathematical facts of a few lines, in a grayed box. Since it is considered somewhat recreational, publishing in the Monthly gives less weight to a CV than its harsh selectivity would do for any other journal.
Elemente Math. (Elemente der Mathematik): this is a Swiss cousin to AMM, much less known and much less selective.
MRL (Mathematical Research Letters): this does barely belong to the category of note-publishing journals: it does not usually published paper more than 30 pages, but the average paper there is not a note as far as I can judge.
Could you please at least hint a bit (perhaps in the comments) on the taste of PNAS? That's very intriguing as after looking at their math section I was not able to figure this taste out.
@just-learning: I do not know many PNAS papers, but I would expect PNAS to publish papers that could have been sent to Nature or Science, but would not because these journals are not very open to maths: papers with a link to other science, or some appeal to a wider audience. One example which makes me think that way (but I may be overweighting it) is http://www.pnas.org/content/109/19/7218.short
Thanks again. This rings very true to me as the appeal to a broader audience is certainly characteristic of PNAS (I think it can be found in their Aims and Scope), and they do not shy away from the multidisciplinary papers too.
@Benoit: I did a little copyediting in your answer. If that is unwelcome, please feel free to roll it back and let me know.
I think this is a good question because I don't really know what "letters" means in the world of mathematical publishing. While I have a paper published in Math Research Letters, I am having trouble pointing to a single way in which that paper is different from any of my other papers: it is slightly short (12 pages) but I have several other papers which are shorter, it contains complete proofs, the syle is not especially conversational or different from the norm...
With regard to Comptes Rendus: it still exists, and it is still a very high quality journal, so far as I know. I do not have a CR paper, and I wish I did, but setting aside the limitations of my own research achievements I am not sure exactly what papers to submit to this excellent and highly French journal. My understanding though is that it is roughly analogous to Proceedings of the AMS but of higher quality (or better taste?). For instance I have a PAMS paper and think that would be in the right ballpark of CR but that I would be lucky to get it published there.
It was suggested in the comments that the publications in CR are more like research announcements. I don't think that's true. They're short, punchy and written in a somewhat telegraphic style, but they certainly do include proofs. Quite recently I had the occasion to go to the actual library and pull off the shelf a CR paper. It was lovely, and short enough so that I transcribed (and translated, but big whoop: mathematical French is so easy that I can do it) it in its entirety on my notepad. (If you're interested, it is Guy Terjanian's first paper, referred to here...and as I learned slightly to my chagrin, one could regard the research contribution of this note of mine as being a fleshing out of a mild Alon-style generalization of Terjanian's argument. Actually there is another theorem he proves in that paper as well which is more interesting. To me this is a CR paper par excellence: a small but perfectly polished gem.)
I also think that Enseignement Mathematique is somewhere in this constellation of journals: more apparently elementary than CR, less laconic, but still high quality work which is somehow in "good taste". And note that the title of the journal would lead you to think that it publishes expository papers, but I don't think that's really the case.
After all this, let me come back to where I started:I am not sure what a "letter" is in this context, other than a short paper which is high quality and is written in a relatively laconic way. I have, unfortunately, zero expertise with physics, including the substantial portions of mathematics that overlap with physics. Maybe the concept of a letter is better understood by that portion of the mathematical community?
Added at the end: okay, let's see how MRL describes itself:
Dedicated to rapid publication of complete papers of original research in all areas of mathematics. Expository papers and research announcements of exceptional interest are also occasionally published. High standards are applied in evaluating submissions; the entire editorial board must approve the acceptance of any paper.
Thus there is some kind of vestigial connection with abbreviated papers, expository work and research announcements, but by and large it is no longer what that journal is about. I think this is rather typical.
Added: Since I was specifically asked to comment on PNAS, and I am a little gun-shy about leaving things in comments at the moment (see the meta site for more on this...), I will add the following non-answer answer: I have very little direct experience with PNAS. I tried to think of a single paper that was published in that journal and I came up with Milnor's "Eigenvalues of the Laplace operator on certain manifolds", a famous one page note. Based on that one paper (!!) I will guess that PNAS is like CR but for laconic treatments of even more important results. (I will also guess that most of their papers are more than one page long...)
Thanks a lot for a very informative answer. If possible, I'd be happy to learn how'd you compare CR vs pure math section of PNAS. Many thanks in advance.
Browsing a few of CR's recent papers, I stand by my comment: some papers are self-contained with short elegant proofs, some give proof sketches but omit details that would normally be expected in a full paper, and some just have a sentence or two giving the main idea of the proof. The latter are more in the way of announcements, and in those cases one usually expects a complete proof to be published later in another journal.
@Nate: Okay, thanks, that's good to know. I should say that I have probably read on the order of a dozen CR papers. It does happen to be the case that none of these have been research announcements though. I wonder if this is field-dependent. Since you already looked, I wonder if you could tell me whether you found any research announcements in the areas of algebra and number theory?
See for example http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crma.2013.07.016, whose last line is "The proofs of the results of this Note will be published in detail elsewhere." But it does seem like there may be fewer than in, say, analysis. (Actually, a brief skim seemed to show disproportionately few total papers in either area.)
@Nate: thanks again for your time. This type of information is rarely definitive but always interesting.
By the way: I just realized that the way I come across CR papers almost certainly biases me against seeing research announcements. I don't have a subscription or page through whole issues: I get directed there from other papers. It's much less likely that I would get directed to a research announcement. Actually, I'm not sure I understand the point of a research announcement in 2014 (or 2013). Maybe there's a question there as well...
@PeteL.Clark: Thanks for the comment on PNAS.
My experience of CR agrees with Nate's. In functional analysis CR has published quite a few research announcements in recent years. (I suspect this is a result of others following the practice of a couple field leaders.) I also agree with Pete, though, in saying I'm not sure I understand the point of a research announcement in the modern world.
FWIW, I had to look through more than a year's worth of CR papers to find a number theory paper that only sketched a proof (it was roughly the 20th such paper I looked at). Finally I found this one:http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/science/article/pii/S1631073X11003578.
@PeteL.Clark: Just in case, here is the direct link to the paper you mention in the last comment (your link appears to ask one one for some Galileo password): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631073X11003578
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.477545 | 2014-02-18T09:24:46 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17094",
"authors": [
"Artem Kaznatcheev",
"Benoît Kloeckner",
"C. Wang",
"Kallus",
"Mark Meckes",
"Meni Rosenfeld",
"Natalia Matiunina",
"Nate Eldredge",
"Pete L. Clark",
"Zeejet",
"aevumcessi",
"catuf",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/101",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1010",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10483",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46089",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46090",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46091",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46167",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46168",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46169",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46274",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/46298",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7976",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/938",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946",
"just-learning",
"luckyrumo",
"user46090"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
85963 | My code is published as original work by a different group. What should I do?
I've found some code that I've posted online that has a BSD license published in a supplementary material of a different group in a high impact journal. The authors have replaced the name on the license with one of the co-author's names and added a header on my code. They weren't too careful and didn't delete my name and email some lines below that header. I've contacted the corresponding author that promised me that he'll contact the publisher to correct it and nothing has happened in the past 3 months or so.
What would you do?
EDIT - Update.... It took 6 months from the moment I contacted the authors, and 3 months after I contacted the publisher to issue a Correction\Corrigendum that gave me credit for my code.*
Contact PubPeer, RetractionWatch
Since it is a clear case of intentional plagiarism, I don't think you should discuss anything with the authors - you should report it to the journal.
Whether your code was under BSD license or a closed-source license is irrelevant from the fact that it is plagiarism. Copyright violation has nothing to do with plagiarism.
This seems to be a clear case of plagiarism, and potentially a copyright violation.
The BSD license contains a line "Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer". If that was included in your Original code, then it seems that this was breached by the article authors.
But even in the case that this line was not included, then it seems to be still a case of plagiarism, as they are passing your work as theirs.
Contact the editor (or editorial office) of the journal. Provide them with a description of what happened (basically as you described in your question).
Also provide links to your originally online published source code. If you can, add proof of when you published it there (e.g. log files).
It would not hurt to also keep a copy of their present version of the source code they published, just in case it 'vanishes' from the internet and you want to show (e.g. to the editor/publisher) how they plagiarized you.
is it plagiarism really? this is not the entire paper, this is a piece of code that the research used as a tool to obtain results. for some reason they published that code in their supp. material and put their name on it...
I've anyway contacted the editor... let's see what happens
@bla: taking your code and putting their own name on is very clearly plagiarism.
They claim other people's work as their own (by putting their name on), not making clear what is their own contribution viz. the original authors (perhaps they edited the code, but if it is based on yours, they have to make clear what they did). It's plagiarism, no ifs no buts.
@bla In addition to the steps in this answer, I would strongly urge you to carefully document all your actions and all the circumstances in this case, and if possible to do so via third-party witnesses. (E.g. can the code be seen through the Wayback Machine?.) It may also be acceptable to inform the scientific directors of the authors' institutions about this case - a serious institution should take this as good cause to start an investigation.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.479024 | 2017-03-04T06:56:15 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/85963",
"authors": [
"Bakuriu",
"Captain Emacs",
"Danny Ruijters",
"E.P.",
"Greg",
"Wapatoo J",
"bla",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11362",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/13200",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14755",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28830",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45857",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/70267",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/820"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
16433 | Is it possible to apply for a second masters degree in a different field of study? (different department)
Specifically, is it possible to apply for a second masters degree in MS&E (management science and engineering) or statistics (MS in statistics) after a masters degree in computer science?
How will my application be treated compared to other applicants? (with a bachelors degree)
I recommend that people usually shouldn't go masters hopping unless they have tons of money to spare. Computer Science is close enough to the fields you mention that if you self study those fields you can get jobs designed for people with an MS in statistics and MS&E. But to answer your question masters programs are cash cows you will be let in if the admissions committee feels you can successfully finish their program.
It's always possible to apply, whether you will be accepted is a different matter. The best thing to do is to speak to the academic who is the programme director (or similar title), explain that you are interested in applying for the course and see what they say. They will know what the general rules are as well as being able to provide specific guidance. The fact that your current masters degree is in a related subject (different department, but probably the same faculty) means it should be considered relevant.
I applied for a MA in Classics & Ancient History after getting a BSc in Computer Science, and then went back to do an MPhil in Computer Science, so it is possible to move subjects.
I do not know about your school, but in my school, the title of your degree doesn't really matter much PROVIDING THAT YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT ACADEMIC BACKGROUND in the discipline that you are interested in. For instance, if I am a BSc in Statistics grad, and if I have taken significant number of Computing Science courses, then given that my GPA is high enough, I will be admitted to the Computing Science department for their MSc program.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.479355 | 2014-02-01T07:16:02 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16433",
"authors": [
"Brent Thoenen",
"DrZoo",
"Kuscheltierliebhaber",
"Lola",
"Michael",
"Sus20200",
"WetlabStudent",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43056",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43057",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43058",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43061",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43064",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45137",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/45148",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8101",
"user89797"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
21899 | How should you address academic colleagues in the United States? Is the "Prof" title necessary?
I've recently been hired as an assistant professor and will be starting this fall. As I'm beginning to be included on departmental e-mail and in certain decisions, I'm starting to interact (at least via e-mail) with my colleagues. How should I address them? As a graduate student and postdoc, I've always addressed faculty as Prof. X unless I was already very familiar with them or unless they've told me to do otherwise. Is it strange to continue to do this as a professor? I don't want to be disrespectful, but at the same time it feels a little stuffy to continually refer to everyone as Prof. X until they suggest I do otherwise.
I'm in America.
Wait... As a postdoc you still used titles and last names? Seriously?
Not with my a advisor or profs I've known a long time, but generally, yeah. It seemed a bit formal but I was always taught it was "respectful". Now, however, I'm beginning to think it may be too much.
At least in the US, it would be a little strange to refer to your colleagues by anything other than their first names, unless they indicate otherwise. OTOH, you could always refer to them as Prof. X, and if they correct you, you could deflect by saying that you're getting used to thinking of yourself as one :)
@StrongBad: No, this is a very different question. How you address your colleagues is a very different issue than addressing a random academic in an email.
@aeismail not if you always use their first name. Given the OP hasn't started yet, the future colleagues are somewhat like random academics.
@StrongBad: The difference here is that they're not going to remain random academics.
@ObviouslyAnon if you don't think the question is a duplicate, or that the other answers don't answer your question, please consider editing the question to highlight what you think is different. I am sure you can get support to reopen the question.
I don't consider this a duplicate for exactly the same reason @aeismail suggests. I'm not asking how to address a professor at another university, with whom I may have little or no other contact, in an e-mail (though that question is independently useful). Rather I'm asking how I should address members of my home department and institution, with whom I'll be working frequently. My intuition was that the prior on using their first names is strong (this seems correct) --- even stronger than for communicating with peers of a similar rank across institutions.
In the US, you generally address colleagues of a similar status by their first names—so your fellow faculty members would definitely be addressed informally. This would of course extend to collaborators and acquaintances in other departments.
I think the only exception to this would be in the case of formal communications—an official memorandum or letter from a faculty member to someone in the university administration, for instance. But otherwise, in any oral or informal written correspondence, I'd stick to first names.
(In other countries, follow the appropriate local traditions, as they may be very different from US standards.)
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:50.479557 | 2014-06-03T20:47:11 | {
"license": "Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
"site": "academia.stackexchange.com",
"url": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/21899",
"authors": [
"Alex Quinn",
"Emanuele Paolini",
"Giriraj Katoch",
"JeffE",
"ObviouslyAnon",
"StrongBad",
"Suresh",
"Thang Trinh Xuan",
"Victor Medina",
"aeismail",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12886",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/60084",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/60085",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/60086",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/60142",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/60147",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/60180",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65",
"https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"luke"
],
"all_licenses": [
"Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
],
"sort": "votes",
"include_comments": true
} |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.