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12651 | A+ in transcript and GPA
In the past (historically), A+ was a bonus in transcript and had an effect on the cumulative GPA too, but it is no common these days (at least I do not see around). If some universities/colleges use A+ in the transcript, but it is equally considered as an A in calculating the GPA.
Is A+ obsolete in the US universities/colleges? or because they use it for rare occasions, we do not normally see it?
In other words, are there still universities using A+, and equaling it to 4.3 in calculating the GPA?
In undergrad chemistry, my professor emailed me after the course ended to say that "You have earned an A+, but [the automated grading system] does not accept anything higher than A". This A still translates to a 4.0, as does anything over 92%. 4.0 no longer means a perfect score.
In the past...A+... had an effect on the cumulative GPA — [citation needed]
@JeffE I have no solid reference for this. I just read/heard it long time ago. This is the reason that I asked this question.
@JeffE: University of Michigan does this. For example, see https://www.rackham.umich.edu/current-students/policies/gpa
How an A+ is treated varies from school to school. In the traditional American grading system, an "A" contributes a 4.0 to one's GPA, an "A-" contributes a 3.7, a "B+" contributes a 3.3, a "B" contributes 3.0, etc. In many universities, 4.0 represents the maximum possible GPA, and so an A+, although it may appear on the transcript next to a course, also only contributes 4.0 to one's GPA. At other universities (such as e.g. Columbia), an A+ contributes 4.3 to one's GPA.
None of this matters very much of course.
Except at large corporations, many of which still have GPA cutoffs for new hires.
Minor point, at Columbia everything is taken to another decimal point. A+ is 4.33, A- is 3.66, etc.
I think A+ is used, but not very often. For GPA purposes, A and A+ are usually equal, but A+ is a rarer grade. Sometimes, A+ is used for 96 and higher. Personally, 97 and higher would merit an A+ if I was doing the grading, but that's just my opinion.
I am a student at Arizona State University, I have a cumulative GPA of 4.0. However, my term GPA is 4.17 because I had an A and am A+! So, at ASU, if you got all A+'s you would have a Term GPA of 4.33, but probably still have a cumulative gpa of 4.0.
At the University of Oregon, you can get an A+. Only some courses actually offer A+'s, however, if you do receive an A+, it counts as a 17.20 QP's and a 4.3 (instead of 4.0) towards your GPA.
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7293 | What to do if one has had an unsuccessful PhD (because of others' fault)?
I was talking to a friend of mine, and he just feel in a deep depression due to finishing his PhD.
He will be defending in the coming weeks, and there is a high likelihood he will pass.
In his words, he doesn't really feel he has learned anything PhD worthy, he only has one Journal paper and no conference papers (in his area conf papers are not worth much anyway). According to him, one of the postdocs kept his research at bay by denying him access to the machines he need to do experiments (something CMOS related, not really sure what). And in his own words, the same guy basically did the same experiments he was planning and wrote a couple of papers.
Of course he tried to tell his professor, but apparently he couldn't care less.
By now, he just feels that he lost 3 years of his life doing a PhD. And he mentioned that he might sue the Professor/University for this.
I take his word for all of this, and I have no real means to corroborate it to be truth. But it kept me thinking about one thing.
Is a student entitled to sue/demand a reimbursement/etc if he/she feels like the past years have been an utter waste of time?
Is there any mechanism in your universities to do this?
I've heard of similar cases of professors abusing of students in the same way in some US Universities (big/fancy ones by the way)
I would urge him to avoid talking about suing. It sounds frivolous to sue because he published only one paper, the postdocs hogged the machines and did some of the research he had hoped to do, and he doesn't feel he learned enough. I can understand why this is upsetting, but the courts are not equipped to settle such disputes, especially when the outcome is not terrible in absolute terms (he is getting a Ph.D. in a reasonable amount of time and has published a paper). It may be worth complaining about the advisor, using one of the mechanisms F'x suggests below, but probably not a lawsuit.
If I were your friend, I will just make sure I do the defense and graduate without any problem or bad relation with my advisor.. It is too late to change whats on the ground. Publishing one journal article is a good indication.. I believe many good PhD students are not satisfied with their degree outcome. They always look for better/stronger results.
Lack of publications in the PhD level is one of the main reasons for PostDoc positions.
@Paul I don't understand your comment. I thought that to get to a good postdoc you need to have goo record; and (at least nowadays) it's impossible to get a professorship without a few prior postdoc positions.
@PiotrMigdal: With fewer and fewer professorships available, one has to compete with those who have more research experience. Post-docs enable one to publish more and thus become more competitive.
I have a close relative whose PhD fell through for similar reasons, and initially a suit was considered, but on talking with a lawyer the idea was abandoned. Perhaps consulting with a lawyer for advice to be sure is the best thing; but probably unlikely to succeed.
A PhD is essentially an apprenticeship for a career in research, if you can show that you have developed the experimental/theoretical skills required for this in your discipline and are able to design experiments, conduct them, sensibly analyze the results, then you have earned your PhD. There is no requirement to come up with some conspicuously good idea as that is at least partly down to luck. Learning to deal with awkward colleagues shouldn't have to be a useful skill, but it is a useful skill nevertheless. Don't let it get to you, a career is a long term thing.
@DikranMarsupial: "There is no requirement to come up with some conspicuously good idea as that is at least partly down to luck." - well, that is debatable. A PhD can be considered as much a "regular" degree as a certificate of achieving a new discovery, unlike degrees such as Bachelor or Master. There does not need to be a "conspicuously good idea". Still, "advancing mankind's knowledge" (even by an ever so tiny amount) is usually a more or less explicit prerequisite for getting a PhD. And, yes, that does mean it's partly down to luck (which is one of the reasons you are advised on topics).
I had a similar experience. Your friend is screwed. I don't think there's any recourse with the university, and academia is competitive enough (though individual fields may vary) that you need to have a decent publication record to get even a postdoc.
@O.R.Mapper "well, that is debatable." this is going to vary from topic to topic, but if you know something is going to work beforehand, it isn't research. The reason I wrote "conspicuously good idea" is exactly to make the distinction you mention. The supervisor cannot guarantee to set a project where a conspicuously good idea is a likely outcome, but they should be able to set a project where making a contribution (an advance) is more or less a certainty (sadly wasn't in my case). A PhD is a demonstrates your ability to perform a programme of research, it is not the outcome but process.
@DikranMarsupial: "if you know something is going to work beforehand, it isn't research" - I agree. "they should be able to set a project where making a contribution (an advance) is more or less a certainty" - well, opportunities for advances can be a certainty, but that still does not automaticallyean the candidate uses any of yhem (although they can be guided towards that end). "A PhD (...) is not the outcome but process." - still, if the outcome is explicitly required, merely the process that could have produced an advance does not suffice.
@O.R.Mapper I think you are reading more into my initial post than is actually there. If there is an advance in knowledge available then following an appropriate process will find it with high probability, science does not progress by inspiration alone. The purpose of a PhD is to inculcate a set of suitable research skills and the student needs to demonstrate that they have acquired them. How this is demonstrated varies from one field to another, but it is essentially an apprenticeship in research.
Don't focus so much on success, focus more on learning. Most probably you have little influence on how success will be portrayed around you. ( It's basically big media companies who have that capability. ) But you do have much influence over your own learning.
There sure are cases, every now and then, of researchers (professors or other) abusing students in various ways. As everyone, I have heard stories, and I know at least a couple of people who have been put in dramatic situations during their PhD. However bad the behavior of the advisor is, it turns out that there are multiple venues one can try, during the PhD, when the alarm flag is raised. These depend on the institution and type of employment, but they include:
Going to see the PhD program director, explaining your situation (diplomatically) and asking for advice (read: help).
Finding a friendly researcher/professor in your department, and ask him for advice (and possibly help) with your issue. They know the people and local “politics”, and might have efficient advice.
Your employer's HR department
Going to your professor's hierarchy (department chair, dean, …). As a last recourse, file a formal complaint.
Get someone to speak for you: a union representative, a member of the local “PhD association”, etc. That can help if you are worried about the fallout of intervening directly.
Changing your plans to work on a more “independent” research. In your example, your friend was denied access to a given experiment. If the experiment had broken down beyond repair, he sure could reörient his research, so the same thing could be done in the case at hand (I'm not saying it's easy).
Walking out (or, as JeffE would surely say: don't walk, run!)
Regarding legal action: I don't think this avenue can lead anywhere, unless there is factual evidence of gross misconduct or unethical activity. The burden of proof relies on your friend, and I think it will actually be harder to complain after the fact if he did not raise his concerns formally during his PhD.
I am not a lawyer, but I suspect that a legal case would also be difficult without factual evidence of concrete harm to the student. I'd be surprised if "a complete waste of time" would be considered concrete harm.
While I completely agree that getting advice/help from other faculty is useful, formal complaints to department chairs or HR are more likely to help future students than the student lodging the complaint. No, that's not fair.
I agree with @JeffE, personally I dont see any legal dispute. OP finished PhD in normal time (3years) and published one paper ( according to most program normal requirement )
If it is likely that he will pass, your friend should go for the defense first, every other aspect put on hold. As for a court case, it is risky; they will have to prove that they were harmed intentionally or through negligence (I am not sure the latter counts in a supervision process - I am not a lawyer!).
They will also have to prove that the postdoc basically took the ideas from them. This is quite possible and definitively does happen, however, keep in mind the possibility that it might have been the other way round: sometimes students underestimate how much they have absorbed from the research group and their superviser and believe that they have had an original idea, whereas they only had the final "flash of understanding" about what their supervisors and group colleagues have been talking about for months.
An emotional situation may cloud their self-judgement with respect to their contribution and taking it to court is not recommended, unless they are absolutely sure their idea was taken and they can prove it. Even so, it might not be a good idea, because these are murky waters. I have known a case of a student being upset at their supervisor only to come back a period later - with more life experience - to complete a joint paper broken off in anger, because he understood how much the supervisor had contributed in the first place.
Finally, not every PhD is a success story in terms of concrete scientific achievements - this may depend on talent, luck, circumstances. However, if your friend passes, they have achieved a PhD in 3 years and, no matter what, that's a pretty good achievement. Some PhD's (esp. in Europe) drag on for 6-7 years, others never materialise. So, while it may not look like it at this point, after the PhD, things may look brighter to your friend.
For some students the most powerful type of learning is if they think they had the original idea. Not many things will make them devote themselves as much to research as if they get that feeling. But as you mention the drawbacks can at least short term include these kinds of perceptions.
Learning is not an instantaneous event. You prepare and practice your brain for growth and development but there is a lot of inertia involved and it takes time. He will probably gradually realize what the studies has made him able to do, say over a.. 5-10 year period, maybe. Studying is planting the tree. If fertile land and skilled gardener and good care it will slowly grow, become majestic and sprout flowers or whatnot.
Heck some courses I took even 10 years ago I don't realize until now what some of the clever comments during professors lectures were about until this or last summer.
I am not sure at what stage of PhD your friend is. Has he finished the number of years necessary to do the PhD? If yes, he can submit the thesis. One really need to find the fault in the system if he/she want to sue a PhD supervisor. Once he finds the faults of Professor with supporting concrete evidences he/she could be on safe side. If your friend has decided to sue a PhD supervisor at any stage of PhD, beware of rules and regulations of university. In PhD, when you submit a thesis, the first thing comes is the acceptance or the rejection of thesis from examination. If your thesis is accepted by the examination committee, you can go for examination. If it is not accepted, you can not go for examination. In case of the rejection of PhD thesis, they will inform you about the reasons of rejection. Go through them carefully. Find out the faults in their own research articles and their own books or dissertation. Write them in a contradiction report. Send it to them. You must wait for the appeal decision of the university. If you are not satisfied with their decision you can go to the court.
-1. Looking for errors in papers of the committee members is a ridiculous suggestion.
well it is not at all ridiculous. It is the way it should actually happen. Our PhD thesis is based on others work, sometimes it is based on the work by our own professor and his group. Definitely the work is cited with the references. When you write references in the thesis, the examiners do not object the results. If you write their work in your own language, without citing a reference, they may object it. If they do it, in the contradiction one can easily catch the things. However this can be the violation of infringement, So it is a risk but it works for sure.
Another -1: yes, it is ridiculous. The papers of the thesis committee need not have any logical connection to the subject of the thesis. Even if there was some mistake in one of these papers that was intellectually pertinent to the subject of the thesis, the advice makes no sense: that it built on faulty work of others does not make your thesis correct. From a practical standpoint: this is such dangerously wrong-headed advice. Please do not pretend that you have any experience with successfully suing university professors in court. That is really irresponsible and immature.
well now this is ridiculous. Then there should be no reason for the thesis rejection at all. On which basis the thesis are rejected? The published work can also be wrong. It is clear indication that the prof himself is not knowing the subject. Is this a blog created by professors or PhD candidates? if my doubt is true then I can understand you.
You've lost me entirely. No specific thesis rejection is being contemplated here: the OP did not say anything of the sort. "On which basis the thesis are rejected?" This question has been addressed on this site before. If after reading what's already here you still have questions, please feel free to ask a followup question.
well if you look at the post, it is clear that the person is thinking a lot before going for the examination. This is the reason I have written the details about how the procedure could go in case of real trouble. There is no reason for the universities to make him fail purposefully. If anyone does it, there is a procedure as I described. I do not have any option to dislike any comments. Others can dislike my comments but I can not do the same here. I wish I could have done it.
It really sounds like you have no experience with writing a dissertation at all. If you are already a week or two from your defense (date set on stone), your dissertation is probably already approved by the committee, unless you dance a polka on their desk, the final defense is mostly ceremonial in my experience in three countries (US, UK, Japan).
Your answer is outright a confusing one.
Leon palafox: I just saw your message after a long time. Well, most of the mentors take the PhD students for improving their own CVs and writing their own papers. Its a stealing of work dude. I am a successful PhD holder now. Its a trend now a days. They dont give right people the PhDs so that they can be enslaved to work forever for a same guy. If anyone has an ability to get new ideas very often, they are refrained form going for PhD defense. Changing the topics frequently is one way to achieve that. It sounds like you dont have real experience in PhD.
Strangely enough it depends on the legal system, as that describes the burden of proof. My advise is go see a lawyer... But...
I have had a harrowing experience with what l can best describe as a macho thesis advisor, a personae dramatica. Much of the assault was verbal, but that does not mean that there is no evidence. I have annacodotal emails, he even sent me threatening Emails and lied to my mum! shitty behaviour.
Instead of attacking the problem as if it's is you against the world, think about it differently.
Does the school have a contractual system in place with the student and thesis advisor? In my previous UK school, that is not the case, so in most common law jurisdictions and quiet a few civil law jurisdictions too, that is a no no...
Case law, yes ask your lawyer to look into case law, in fact it's so easy nowerdays, you can do it by yourself. You need to find some precedent, even in civil law, which generally has a rule, that says contracts that cause undue hardship are illegal, and when there is no contract, and you have suffered undue hardship because you were unable to complete your thesis, tends to be sufficient evidence.
Malpractice suites in medicine and the police turn around the expertise embedded in a expert, or someone with special skill and experience. The school has a greater duty of care under common law and under certain civil law jurisdictions, that is an avenue to pursue.
Increasingly in many jurisdictions, when it comes to experts as thesis advisors, the burden of evidence has come down, and you can use here say, and indirect evidence. So this line of mechanistic thinking is wrong. The law is not black letter, and if it is, then it would surely be unjust.
What are you aiming for? Be like a Vulcan and think about it logically. My thesis advisor, was sure of his superior position, and that he could bully me around, and lie to me in my face, that is a breach of conduct, and that is easy to prove. If it's sexual, then it's even easier. You should not think about suing to win, you should think about suing to damage someone's career and the reputation of the school instead. It's a bit like opting for a constant stalemate, like in chess, to prolong the game, and await your opportunity to strike. Then, mind the Star Trek cliche, a legal case can said, to be revenge, and that is best served cold.
You should look at the schools previous record with dealing with thesis advisor problems... Like in my previous school they swept everything under the carpet, even plagerism, and used the data protection act in the UK to avoid dealing with a problem, you have them! When a institution hides behind privacy issues, and does not deal with the real issues, they are not fair or just.
Read through the student booklet and if it says, that they will fairly and justly deal with complaints and they have not, even with small complaints then they are breaking their own contract with you. In our student book it says, l must go to make the complaint to a staff member, and and and... And they would resolve it fairly, but if they blame you, and don't listen, in your and other peoples case, there is a pattern of political game playing and failing to do the right thing. A lot of the contractual relationships can not be put down on paper, and is open to interpretation. You may not be able to sue your thesis advisor, but you can sue the school for they employ him, on grounds other than the thesis advisor.
Think about it this way, you can damage your opponent. A lot of the education you receive, is based on an unwritten contact for services. And even if there is a contrAct, you can poke holes into it. Maybe you can sue them for an unsafe work environment, and force the lab to be closed down. If l were a school, l would be very upset, but you, as an innocent whistle blower with a slightly alter our, but ethically just motive, well the law will see you in a good light. Also if the school fails to give you an adequate answer to a problem, or does not help you, but protects the to hear that is a good grounds to sue on.
Remember in law nothing is the way it seems... Smoke and mirrors.
you are thinking about it all wrong, remove the emotion, and think about maiming and hurting your opponent. My thesis advisor is very confident he is safe because of his position, well he has another thing coming. Not through anger and emotion, but through cold hard logic, find a flaw in the system and pursue that, and do it to damage the schools reputation. If they damage you, you damage them back using the law, and above all doing the right thing, because as institutions they must not think they can get away with abuse.
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42535 | Where does the US Department of Education report university graduation rates?
Where can I find the report that states the fact below, quoted in a CNN article?
Only 40% of middle-class college entrants who were high school seniors in 2004 had secured bachelor's degrees by 2012, according to the Department of Education.
I can't find a particular report that contains your exact quote, but the statistic could easily be derived from data that is present in the "Digest of Educational Statistics" published by the US Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/
In particular, see table 326.40 in the "current" edition which gives this percentage separately for students who started in 2 year and 4 year institutions and for students from families in various income ranges. To get the 40% statistic quoted, you'd have to combine the rates for students in two income ranges and the statistics for students starting at 2 year and 4 year colleges. These range from 17.6% (for students from families with income between $45,000 and $69,999 who started at 2 year colleges) to 66.7% (for students from families with income between $70,000 and $99,999 who started at 4 year colleges.)
The statistic shouldn't be surprising. Keep in mind that not everyone who enters "college" is seeking a bachelor's degree- many will want only an associates degree or certificate of some sort. If you limit your attention to students who enter four year colleges (and presumably want a bachelor's degree) and who come from higher income families ($100,000 per year and up) you get a much higher rate of 77.5%. Both family income and starting at a 4 year college are important factors.
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6144 | Student missing exam for “medical reasons”
I have a student who failed an exam I gave three months ago and was supposed to show up for a remediation exam this week. The date was announced long in advance, and the student neither showed (all the others did show up) nor warned me. Now, she is asking for a new exam date, saying she was absent due to “medical reasons”. She produced a certificate that she was seeing a doctor at the time, but nothing indicates that it was an urgent need (rather than, say, a scheduled appointment).
How would you handle such a case? I asked the administrative staff at my institution, and they told me to proceed as I saw fit. Should I ask a more specific justification? In what form?
Just because the medical appointment was not urgent doesn't mean it could have easily been at a different date. Medical doctors can also be very busy, and if saying no to a proposed appointment time means postponing the appointment by a month or more, it might be medically sound to schedule it during an exam anyway. However, she could of course have informed you in advance if that's the case.
Also, in your system, what are the consequences of failing her? Does it mean she has to quite her studies? Be delayed by a year? In The Netherlands students failing an exam can simply take the next regular exam. The consequences of failing are quite important for the decision on what to do.
Why don't you just ask the student if the appointment was urgent or just scheduled?
@gerrit To be clear: if she tells me upfront that the appointment was scheduled, and she didn't care to ask me how to work around the issue beforehand (but only showed up after the fact), I will fail her for sure. I would consider it a completely inappropriate behavior.
I'll also go ahead and say it - in my mind, a professor has no business asking "why" behind someone's medical care. It has a very high chance of going rather badly, but you in the seat of deciding what's "sick enough", etc.
@Fomite Agreed. Doctor-patient confidentiality is important. Some have medical histories that they would rather not discuss with anyone, and that goes doubly for having to discuss it as justification; that's not really fair to the examined.
@F'x: I'm usually pretty liberal about medical excuses, especially the first time. However, I have also told students that a doctor's note was not enough; I needed a letter from the doctor stating that the student was medically unable to take the exam at the specified date and time. I do not need to know the reasons; that's between doctor and patient. The doctor with the very busy schedule might decide that "busy schedule" means medically unable, and that's OK. What's important is for a medical professional to decide.
@BobBrown a note is not enough? If I were a doctor, I'd reply to you with something like this letter from a doctor in Canada. http://twentytwowords.com/canadian-doctors-perfect-response-to-employers-who-require-doctors-notes-for-sick-days/
Jeremy's link (above) fixed: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2ow0ee/canadian_drs_reply_to_companies_requiring_medical/
Is there an easy way to indicate that the appointement was urgent? Wben my doctor writes me a note, he never indicates this -- there is no "checkbox" for urgent and how should he know that some instructor cares about the urgentness?
It seems you have the answer with regard to procedure. The question now is what you should do in terms of "fairness" or ethics.
Educators and students should approach the work from the same perspective - for the student to learn. Academics should not be punitive, nor should they be a race to the bottom between the "good kids" who do everything right and hand their work in on time and the "slackers" or "hot messes" who can't seem to get anything in on time (flanked by the excuse-makers who suffer heavily from the Dunning-Kruger effect). The most pleasurable students to teach are those who truly care about the subject matter. Unfortunately, a lot of students forget this and are instead overwhelmed by the stress of grades, lack of structure, etc.
Your best bet is to have a frank discussion with the student. Is she currently in danger of failing the class? Is she a borderline case? Whatever you do, don't assume that she's being manipulative. Instead, tell her that you would like to reschedule, but you're concerned that this might happen again. Ask her how she thinks she's doing in the class and what she would like to have happen. From there, talk options. Does she have the option to just drop the class (at most places, faculty can get around deadlines rather easily)? What is her worst case scenario? Is she prepared for the final? She should have the option to take the exam, but it might be a good opportunity to talk about actions she can take to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. Talk about learning from failure and taking measures to prevent this in the future. It's possible she's a pathological liar, but it's also possible that she's a kid who needs more guidance navigating the adult world.
No matter what, you ought to give her a chance to take the exam again and open communication about her status in your class. Invite her to your office hours to talk and tell her to email you back if she can't make it. If she fails to respond, then you have to fail her, but making sure that it's an emotionally neutral experience is probably your best bet.
@Ben It's absurd to decide what to do based on her behaviour before understanding what caused this behaviour. None of us are entirely responsible for what we do. Genes, culture and context all have a much greater influence on what we think and do than anything else. Furthermore, even if the student is indeed a flake (crazy or eccentric), that doesn't stop you from being her teacher and being responsible for her education inside your classroom.
@Shawn And you extend that behaviour to all students who fail a class, I'm sure, not only to those who offer an inappropriate reason?
@sgf I'd say you extend this behaviour to everyone as much as possible, this line of reasoning applies pretty much everywhere in life
In my experience dealing with these types of things correctly takes more time and effort then letting them slide. Continue scheduling exam times for her until she takes the exam or the incomplete automatically converts to a fail. I would even reuse the last remediation exam instead of making a new exam. I would only schedule the exam at times that are convenient for me.
Excellent answer. People can and do have legitimate medical emergencies. Assume the medical need was both sensitive and an emergency (for example, emergency medical treatment for rape). Don't talk about it except a sympathetic I hope you are feeling better.
The good thing about this answer is that if the student still fails the course, then it is entirely her fault. She can't blame you for not giving her another chance. However, she might have gotten some tips from those who did take the remediation exam, and giving the same exam to her would give her an unfair advantage.
My problem is that she's got more time to prepare for the remediation exam than other students who already took it.
@scaaahu yes she is potentially gaming the system and getting an unfair advantage. I just don't think it is worth the effort to prevent it.
This is the "safest and easiest" course for the professor: no risks for challenging the medical issue, no risks for giving a different exam. It's imho not the most fair course though: a new exam should be fine, but since she had a bit more time, it could "randomly" be a bit harder, too.
I'm not entirely in agreement with putting up a harder exam because you suspect the student is putting up a false excuse. The truly fair and ethical thing to do would be to denounce a doctor for providing a false statement and the student for breaching what's most likely a fault in the code of conduct.
Giving her a harder exam, just because of a hunch is unfair if she truly had a medical condition. If the student was really sick, she probably wasn't able to prepare better and is physically/mentally at a disadvantage due to said illness.
@EstebanBrenes I agree. Too make it truly fair, you would have to force rich students to skip meals before the exam and inject all the healthy students with the same diseaes plagueing the sick students. Or you could just concede life is unfair.
@DanielE.Shub: I was also thinking that this is just a way to get more time to study, "Gaming the system", but then I realized, schools is about teaching. When they know the material, they pass. If they don't they fail. Why is speed part of that? For projects and homework they can do on their own time I understand time limits as a measurement. But for an exam? If they study more and learn the stuff good for them!
@EstebanBrenes: No, the truly fair thing to do is to fail the student. Giving one student extra time to take an exam, absent extreme circumstances, puts them at an unfair advantage over other students. ["Wait, why does she get to take the exam late? I could've gotten an A if I'd had another month to study. Uh... I was sick. I had lupus, yeah, lupus, that's the ticket (cough cough)."] Students have all the time on the world to learn the material; this student is asking for extra time to improve their grade. Not the same thing.
@JeffE, it's not unfair if both students with the same circumstances get the same amount of time. It's no less fair than allowing other students to finish their exams after the first person has handed theirs. After all, you're giving them extra time. Why does that case slip under the radar, then? You overestimate the benefits that extra time could give a student.
@EstebanBrenes That's a false analogy; you're comparing apples and oranges. The student who finishes early is not being denied extra time. He chooses not to use existing time already provided to him. The other students are similarly not being granted extra time relative to the early finisher. They all always had the exact same amount of time. Both to prepare for their examinations and to complete it. They all operate within the provided constraints.
@zibadawatimmy, honestly the distinction is really irrelevant. The other students also had the opportunity to get sick, however, they choose not to get sick and instead take the exam at the scheduled time. The fact that the entire class didn't claim sickness to improve their grade shows that there's really no benefit; which is what I was trying to illustrate with my rather loose and abbreviated example. The core point being that if you're sick or ill; that extra time is non-existent hence it doesn't invalidate the constraints.
@JeffE who exactly are you to decide what is an extreme enough illness that lets someone retake exams? If a student has a real/valid note/university-appropriate forms, from a real doctor, that's the end of the discussion.
@mbrig I’m the instructor of record; it’s my responsibility to make a judgement call. Fortunately, there is an appeals process; if my department head or dean instructs me to offer a makeup exam, then I will of course offer a makeup exam.
As a student, if my classmates are sick, I am more than happy for them if they can take the exam later even if they have more time. At least in my part of the world, students think this way, I believe.
I would allow rescheduling, but be sure to use a different exam.
As some other answers indicated, one probably does not want to get embroiled in the details of the student's medical situation, and it may be inappropriate, besides. (I think it would be illegal in the U.S. to ask for details beyond a general note from the doctor.) Thus, one simply cannot have the information to know whether missing the exam was frivolous or not.
With regard to communication, yes, in principle one imagines that the student would have been able to contact you in advance to explain that (s)he'd miss the exam. But, again, without prying, one cannot know.
Yes, the odds may be good that the situation is due to student negligence than medical emergencies... and we should hope so, in the larger scheme of things. But, since we cannot be sure, my choice would be to treat the situation as a medical emergency, whose details I will not know. And allow further exam retake.
As to whether allowing further exam retakes is fair to the students who've managed to do things on schedule... if there was a genuine medical emergency, we are attempting to compare incomparables. If not, my consolation is that, in my experience, students who miss exams due to their own negligence or disorganization similarly fail to "profit" by extra chances.
Thus, I take claims of medical/personal emergencies at face value, and do not restrict re-takes of exams.
+1. I would like to comment that when I was in school, retakes of exams were always more difficult under the assumption that at least some of the people getting a doctor's note for the sniffles just want more time to prepare, or maybe want to hear from their peers the sort of material presented. After the policy was implemented, there were remarkably fewer doctors' notes presented for excuse due to illness (and no related increase in illness outbreaks on campus.)
At the university where I teach, a student who fails to show up for a registered exam will be given a failing grade unless he or she presents a medical excuse. I suspect it works similar where you are (given the system you're describing).
In this case, I think your best bet is to offer an additional remediation exam, but also indicate that there is a time limit to the extensions she can take—if she has not passed the exam by the end of the semester, a "did not take" or failing grade is to be submitted instead, as appropriate.
When I was in this situation, I just allowed the student to reschedule, but that the exam format would change to an oral exam.
I've found (after a bit of practice) that oral exams are a great way of deciding grades or making pass/fail decisions. I even started to use them in my regular assessments.
The content of the oral exam should be based on the remediation exam that the student missed, but can be more free-ranging in terms of what extra questions you can ask.
I also suggest allowing the student to have a companion present in the exam room. The companion can be there, but cannot speak (unless asked by you). Many students get freaked out by oral exams if they haven't done them before, so allowing a trusted companion to be there often (somewhat) alleviates their stress.
I'm completely puzzled by the “companion” suggestion. I mean, my 3-year old still goes to school with his teddy bear, but I don't suppose I have to accommodate a 20+-year old student for their fear of oral interrogation. In two years, she will have to find a job, and I don't suppose she can ask friends to sit in her job interviews :)
@F'x - To many people, oral exams and job interviews are two completely different things (for one, job interview questions are more often subjective rather than objective, like exam questions usually are), and trigger two completely different emotional responses. For example, I can do a job interview just fine, and be relaxed the whole time, but I'm often shaking from nerves by the end of an oral exam and far more nervous going into it.
@Shauna they shouldn't be… I believe they really exercise the same qualities in a person
nice!
this reduces the workload of the teacher (in preparing a new exam) and is arguably more difficult (adressing the fairness issue)
@F'x: It's a completely cover-your-ass issue: particularly if the student is a different gender from the examiner, you want a witness to see that things are above-board. I stated it from the student's perspective, because I really have seen grown men (college students) cry when trying to answer relatively basic questions in front of a whiteboard.
@PeterK. it's really sad. I do hold one-on-one oral exams now and then with students, and if the venue is relatively quiet, I will leave the door open for this very purpose… but only if that's reasonably possible
@F'x - What you believe and how a person actually reacts are two totally different things. And they may exercise the exact same skills, but the environment and circumstances are different, and can be different enough to cause a different stress response. Pavlovian-like responses have nothing to do with logic and intellect.
Oral exams are not a fair method. For a neurotypical socially adept student it will only be slightly harder, but for anyone with social anxiety or performance anxiety, or a host of other conditions, it will massively increase the difficulty. Examples: Hearing impediment, smaller short-term memory, language differences, etc. Having a written copy of the question to refer to and the ability to make attempts and think about the question before committing to an answer are a significant help and you're denying the student those.
@JKreft Absolute rubbish. I’m hearing impaired and have no problem. There is always a written version to refer to, so that all students get the same information.
@PeterK. You're confusing "your personal experience" with "everyone's experience". Not all oral exams come with a written copy of the question. (and in general, most true oral examinations include follow-up questions.) You're not the only hearing impaired person in the world and many of them have had difficulties with oral exams unless precautious were specifically taken to alleviate that problem.
@JKreft Not really. I’ve taken advice from many academics in Europe where oral exams are the norm, and dealing with the things you suggest is a solved problem. I was personalizing it to me to help you understand.
Our disability experts disagree. The problem with polling colleagues is that they're experts in their field, not experts in pedagogy or how disabilities interact with it. You'd get a very different answer if you surveyed a group of people trained in education who specialize in disabilities in education. Even if you presume that oral exams can be done completely fairly, you're missing the point of my comment which was that using one as a makeup for a written exam is unfair because of the increased difficulty of an oral exam over a written one especially for non-typical students.
Ok. In that case, I see your comment as a very, very small percentage of students. Most such students I have come across work with the university office dedicated to supporting them and make their wishes clear, including problems with assessment types, durations, and timings. You seem to be talking about those who don’t make their wishes clear.
To answer your last question, Should I ask a more specific justification?, I think not.
If you do so, it may constitute a case of intrusion of privacy. She has the right to not tell you any details. And it does not matter what form the justification is. Besides, you might not be able to verify it.
If I were you, I would fail her. You did everything you could including announcement in advance and the administration allows to do so.
Also, you need to look at this issue from other student's perspective. It's not fair to them if you allow her more chances because she would have more time to prepare for the remediation exam than other students who already took it.
Edit
Everybody deserves a second chance. The first line of this question, I have a student who failed at my exam three months ago. I suspect that's why the remediation exam was there for.
In the OP's question, the student missed it without prior warning. She wants it back. It's her responsibility to convince the prof that she has good execuse for missing it. However, nothing indicates that it was an urgent need on her document. The prof wasn't convinced that she had a good reason. So, he asked the question, can he request for more info? He really shouldn't because of privacy concern. The burden is on the student's shoulder, not the prof's.
I would agree that in the general cases, the prof should not fail the student just because of his/her medical conditions. However, in the OP's question, it was a remediation exam already. IMO, one is enough. You missed it. Do you have a good reason? No?
I don't see how it is not fair to the other students. They earned the grades they earned. Even if this extra time means the student goes from an F to an A, the devaluation of the other students marks is trivial. If the student only goes from an F to a C, which seems much more likely, the devaluation is even less.
@DanielE.Shub The exam was already a remediation. If it were a regular exam, I would consider a remediation exam for her and other students who had failed.
I quite disagree with failing her. For all we know the doctor's appointment couldn't be moved. Appointments may involve meeting several specialists in one go and moving those could mean moving it for months — which may be a bad idea if a medical situation progresses negatively.
Students who wish to use their medical conditions as justification for failing to meet the standard terms of assessment have no right of privacy. This should not be a concern.
@JackAidley That is an absurd statement.
If I understand correctly, your student had previous knowledge of her appointment, and I do agree that perhaps it was an appointment that was hard to get (some doctors or conditions may justify it).
I agree that you should not pry, and respect her privacy, and she is entitled not to tell you.
Now, that said, it seems as it was not a medical emergency, so she had full knowledge at least a day ahead of said appointment. If we were living in 1970/80s with no cellphones/email/sms, etc, she might have some justification on not notifying you. But we are not, she should have sent an email (out of sole courtesy for the time you already set apart so she does not fail).
If it were me, I would fail her, it gives 2 messages, you should do well on your first try and, if given a second chance, you cannot get really picky, it also teaches to respect other people's times. (Oh my, three lessons in one go, that is more of what she gets if you keep giving her chances)
"it seems as it was not a medical emergency" but we can't be sure.
I've had friends in this situation -- the thing about medical problems is that some of them are quite chronic (and thus, what happened before could happen again), as opposed to the one-time medical emergency that the system seems designed for.
Compound this with the hardness of getting THAT doctor for THAT date to prevent medications from running out or to avoid being dropped by that doctor, and even a prescheduled appointment becomes a non-neogitable enterprise (although if that were the case, I'd think she could have warned you!)
Let her retest, but I see no need to redo the exam unless you have reason to believe she is using this as a way to cheat or otherwise buy time.
If she does it again, well... you can keep retesting, but I've known professors that failed someone for less. At that point I think it's more a case of whether you like this student enough not to autofail her for something unrelated to the actual material.
While the involved doctor most certainly is not allowed to tell you why she was there, I wouldn't be too surprised if they (or their receptionist) might confirm if the appointment was made long ago or not. That will of course not protect you from them being somehow related to your student and lie, but it's hopefully unlikely.
edit As mentioned in the comments, the doctor/receptionist is not obliged to provide any information and may refuse to do so for their own sake. You could ask your student for a prove if she claims it was not planned long ago, but then again, in dubio pro reo.
You could ask her to either wait until the next year's exam (if possible), or invite her to an oral exam quite soon - after all, the visit to the doctor is supposed to have been spontaneous, so she should be prepared enough to manage that while you can infer whether the student was trying to gain time or not.
And while it would suck to later learn she lied, it would suck even more if you turned out to be wrong. She'll have enough other exams to prove her honesty, I suspect.
If I were the involved medical doctor, I would not release any information pertaining to my patients unless my patient asks me to do so. I would argue that the student should ask the doctor to call the prof. See my updated answer.
@scaaahu That's a good alternative. I'll edit that in, too
She's had plenty of opportunities to study and prepare for the exam. My response would be something like "Have a seat and take the exam now." There's no reason for you to be at all flexible about rescheduling and no excuse that the student can have for not immediately taking the exam. Having the student take (and most likely fail) the exam would settle the issue once and for all.
The student in question had already failed the exam once, (and would thus most likely fail on a second attempt.) The "medical issue" wasn't an excuse for the original exam that the student failed, but rather an excuse for missing the scheduled second attempt. My suggestion was that rather than refusing the student another chance to retake the exam, the student should be given one last chance to retake the exam immediately- there's no reason to draw this out further.
Why do you assume that the student fails the exam most likely only because she failed once before? By this reasoning, why does your institution allow to take an exam twice? Moreover, the student could have something different to do in the next hour (and you also) - only because she once had a medical problem she does not lose all her rights immediately. I do think that under some circumstances, for example if the student got raped, and you force her to sit still and take an exam, you could end up in the newspaper as very inhumane professor, so be careful!
In my school, redo exams have a maximum grade of the minimum grade to pass. The idea is that if a student can't pass the first time, they best they can do is 'just pass' and not more. For medical reasons, maybe consider the first redo an actual first attempt. However, the latest seems like a bit more than reasonable (someone that sick should stop attending classes and focus on her health).
So, I would give her another exam but her maximum grade would be the minimum passing grade.
I grew up from the same system as your school. I wonder if the OP's location allows such rule redo exams have a maximum grade of the minimum grade to pass.
In case anybody wonders what system I had been in. Those students who's got 60 points or more out of 100 are considered pass. Those who's got 50-59 will be given a redo exam (only once). Those who pass the redo exam will get 60. Those who fail or miss the redo exam will fail. Those who fail the redo exam or got <50 in the first place will have to retake the class. A very fair deal to me.
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13464 | How do you address unknown peers in email?
This is one bit of academic etiquette I'm not sure about. When I write to another researcher, a peer (we're both professors). I've never exchanged with before and never met him but I know of him (and he probably knows of me).
Erring on the side of formality, I write to him “Dear professor Mortimer”. I sign with my first name, because that's how I've always signed my emails (there's a formal signature block below, with full name and contact details) and I think it indicates a willingness to be called by my first name (which I prefer, but I don't want to force people one way or the other).
Is that going to be well received? Will people take the hint? Or should I just start using first names from the start? (it does sound weird to write “dear Philipp” to someone you don't know)
You might refer to my answer to a similar question.
@earthling indeed, we follow the same convention… but does it work? do people usually take your hint?
@F'x I find it depends on the culture but for the most part, yes, people do take the hint.
It is of course never wrong to use the title of the person to whom you write. In general I think it is fine to use Dr. since that is the degree most have. This may not work so well in cultures where titles are more of an obsession or where hierarchy is still well established. If the person writing is a professor, then you are of course writing from the top position and so you will either direct letters to someone at the same level or lower. This simplifies things compared to if you, yourself were not at the professor level.
As an editor of a journal I often use the term Colleague instead of Dr. this or Professor that. This is because the tile may not be completely obvious from the manuscript and I do not permit myself time to Google every author to find out. Since I am also a professor, it feels relatively safe to call everyone a colleague.
To sign off I often use my first name except if the mail has some formal aspect where, if it was a letter, I would have used my full name. In all my e-mail correspondence, I have found almost without exception, that once I sign with my first name, the mail reply will inevitably greet me by first name and be signed by a first name. I try to be a little sensitive about it but not overly so; I have "my" culture, the person I correspond with his or hers and none is above the other in my view. So In any correspondence I will open the first mail with Dear Colleague or Dear Dr. So-and-so. If the response is signed by first name then: titles away. Otherwise I will countersign correspondence with first name to break the ice.
It seems e-mail is often more forgiving than regular letters or traditional contacts. I think internet has an informal context which implicitly signals to everyone that it is less formal. I have not seen research on this but I can see, for example how students can ask quite blunt questions over e-mail while almost trembling and excusing themselves when standing at my office door (not that I am in any way trying to be intimidating).
Using titles may sometimes be not that easy. E.g. in Germany you would write "Sehr geehrter Herr Prof. Dr. Smith" while in other countries one never uses the "Dr." if a "Prof." is present. Moreover, I've heard that some people would even prefer to see their kind of Dr. (e.g. Dr.Ing.).
In cases I am not sure about the title I usually go for the full name, i.e. start with "Dear James Smith,". If you know the full name this is not wrong and I think only very few people will mind if no titles are given.
There are people who would mind you using Dr. instead of Dr.Ing., but who would not mind you not using titles at all? The mind boggles…
Actually, in Germany, both "Frau Professor Smith" and "Frau Prof. Dr. Smith" could equally be used without problem.
@aeismail That's true, indeed.
@F'x Indeed confusing. However, omission of some postfix of a title may get percieved as "he thinks I am a ordinary Dr. but I am a Dr.Whatever.!"
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10419 | What is the difference between department and faculty?
Some universities have independent departments, but some put departments under supervision of a faculty. For instance, a university has fifty independent departments, but another has 5 faculties containing departments. In the former, the Dean of Faculty is intermediate between the department chairs and the university administration.
I understand that most of these structures come from the university history, but how these structures affect the department performance, and why universities prefer different structures, instead of a standard one (which should be most efficient).
For example, what is the different of Department of Computer Science in one university, and Department of Computer Science in another university which is part of Faculty of Engineering?
As a rule, universities in the US don't have sub-organizations called "faculties"; we generally call them "colleges". The academic employees (instructors, researchers, and academic administrators) constitute the faculty.
@JeffE I know that in the US terminology, college or school are used; but my question, in general, is about the pros and cons of having such sub-organizations, regardless of their names.
@JeffE: Harvard has a Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
The distinction between "faculty," "department," and "school" depends a lot on where you are. As Peter suggests in his answer, a faculty can be a collection of "departments." However, a faculty in Germany (for instance) consists of a number of "chairs," each of which is closer to a professorship in a department than an actual "department." Thus, the faculty is effectively halfway between the American "department" and "faculty" in its function, as it combines some of the hierarchy and responsibilities of each.
The reason for having multiple subdivisions is that there are often many university functions—including personnel and budget decisions, facilities management, teaching, and so on—that can vary widely across the entire university, but significantly less among certain departments that have a similar focus. For these departments, it makes sense to combine these duties in a central administration, rather than duplicate the effort across multiple departments.
I quite like this answer, except for the comparison to "an actual 'department'". "department" is a very vaguely defined term in general, and in particular, its definition (or various variants thereof) is being discussed in this very question, so using the term as a point of reference is confusing. Maybe "a 'department' as used by many American universities" would be less ambiguous. (The background of this comment is that various German universities indeed split "Fakultäten" ("faculties") into several "Institute" ("institutes"), each of which can contain one or more chairs/groups, each ...
... headed by one professor. In that nomenclature, "Abteilung" ("department") is sometimes used as a synonym for "Institut" ("institute"), and sometimes as a synonym for "chair"/"group" (but never as a synonym for "Fakultät"). Thus, the statement "a faculty can be a collection of 'departments.'" would fully apply, somewhat contradicting the "However, a faculty in Germany" in the next sentence.)
The faculty is a collection of departments. In my system we have the Faculty of Sciences, Law, Humanities, and Social Sciences. In addirions there can be Faculty of Theology, Arts, Languages, Educational Science, Medicine, Pharmacy and probably many others.
The term Faculty is known from the University in Paris already in medieval times. It was a way in which major fields distinguished themeselves from a genral body of learning. The faculties of Philosophy, Law, Theology and Medicine can be found back to the 13th century. As the universities grew and knowledge became more specialized departments started to form within these faculties and we now have the system of faculties as an administrative level in many university systems. Departments are, however, relatively modern creations from the late 19th century.
Sometimes using one word or another is seen as more prestigious or as more independent than another. In one place I was at, they made a big deal of changing their name from "Department of Computer Science" to "School of Computer Science".
Similarly, some people perceive one Faculty as more prestigious for the purposes of undergraduate recruiting. In many Universities in North America, computer science moved from "science" to "engineering" and my father perceived that computer science departments in "engineering" were more promising than those in "science" (as at the time engineers made more money and had more job opportunities than scientists). Of course, the real reason that this happens is often a question of autonomy, funding, and mutual interests behind the scenes.
In the end, the question of "For example, what is the difference of Department of Computer Science in one university, and Department of Computer Science in another university which is part of Faculty of Engineering?" is very, very difficult to answer and I would argue that the differences are much more dependent on the actual "department" than on what faculty/college/administrative area it's under. In North America, most departments (especially computer science departments) are relatively autonomous and do not rely heavily on their college for assistance - it's simply a bureaucratic layer through which funds go through.
In the Nigerian University system, a college has several faculties under it. A college is headed by an elected provost while an elected dean heads a faculty. Departments are under the faculties with an acting or substantive head (HOD).
In Spain, "Faculties", "Schools" and "Departments" (literally facultades, escuelas and departamentos) are legally defined in articles 8 and 9 of the "Organic Law" (ley orgánica) that governs universities. One might summarize (paraphrasing the law) the technical distinction as that faculties/schools (these are essentially equivalent) are charged with organizing teaching and academic processes, while departments are charged with realizing teaching and academic processes. What a department teaches is determined by the faculty/school in which it teaches, but how it teaches the material is determined by the department. The power to create or destroy faculties/schools resides with the regional government, while the power to create or destroy departments resides with the university. A faculty has a Dean (decano), a school has a School Director (functionally equivalent to a dean), and a department has a Departmental Director. A department can belong to several schools/faculties in the same university (for instance a mathematics department can be responsible for the teaching of math in several different engineering schools in the same university, although there are also universities in which each school has its own mathematics department). While the overall organization is similar in concept to what one finds in US universities, it is more rigid in the sense that the powers, competencies and responsibilities associated with each administrative structure are fixed by law.
Around here (Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile), we had "facultades" under a dean, some 10. For example, chemistry had chemistry (the science), chemical engineering and later (as an offshot from chemical engineering and mechanical engineering, mostly by historical reasons) materials science. Others, like electricity had just electrical engineering, and science had mathematics and physics. Around 1975 it was reorganized into three "facultades", engineering, science and business administration (the last was essentially an external institution under the umbrella of UTFSM for legal reasons relating to the right to grant professional degrees). Note that science had three departments (mathematics, physics and chemistry) while engineering had some eleven. Around 1990 the "facultades" were dissolved, and we have just departments. The Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (essentially the business administration "facultad") had regained its independence before. Our current departments are more or less the "facultades" up to the seventies.
As you see, this is mostly an internal organization issue, which very well can change, and names vary.
Faculty is equivalent to College. For example, Faculty of Science contains several departments e.g. Department of Biology, Dept. of Chemistry, etc. This is the same as College of Arts and Science which have several departments e.g. Biology, Physics, etc.
Did you read the comments under the question?
I don't think this is true in all cases. As described in aeismail's answer, this is strongly location-dependent. Here at CMU, if you told someone you were in the "faculty of computer science", they would have no idea what you're talking about.
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8399 | Supervised self-study
Imagine an education model in which teacher/supervisor/mentor does not teach the syllabus to students. Instead, just pushing them towards key topics, and students must study by themselves. The teacher only control/supervise students to keep studying in right direction, but no professional teaching.
This is something like supervising academic research projects at graduate level.
I am curious if there is a pedagogical model/category/method of this kind for education (at lower levels)? For example, is there any example for teaching by this method in any school or university around the world? If yes, what is it called? I had no appropriate keyword to search for it.
Nice question. I believe it largely depends to the level of students (the course level). First year students need more teaching than supervising.
@seteropere definitely, it depends on the level. I am just curious if a model of this kind is used for any course at any level. There are approaches, but I have not seen any serious consideration. For example, delivering a main course by this method.
Is this the kind of method you were wondering about? http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education_update/dec95/vol37/num09/Student-Directed_Learning.aspx
I would love to study in such a department
Problem-based learning is one approach that fits your description. From wikipedia
Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of problem solving. Students learn both thinking strategies and domain knowledge. The goals of PBL are to help the students develop flexible knowledge, effective problem solving skills, self-directed learning, effective collaboration skills and intrinsic motivation. Problem-based learning is a style of active learning.
A related approach is inquiry-based learning, which allows the idea to be used on a much smaller scale than problem-based learning, which, based on what I have read, tends to be rather resource intensive and require vast amounts of planning from the teaching staff.
very nice approach. I know this can be very effective for CS students not sure about the other fields.
PBL is usually too specialized (on a narrow topic of a specific problem) to fill the syllabus of a course. It would be interesting, if there is a course somewhere which is taught by PBL scheme.
@ALL: do you mean course or degree programme? There are plenty of individual courses taught using PBL. These cover CS, engineering, medical disciplines, and possibly more. Let Google be your guide.
@DaveClarke I mean course, but core courses, not elective.
As a matter of fact, I think there is not enough trust in this method comparing with traditional methods. Thus, universities do not take the risk to use such innovative methods to alter the safe traditional system. Such method are more supportive than be part of the main system. To my knowledge, of course.
Apparently, problem-based learning is very common in Finland.
Actually, renowned Maastricht University's College uses PBL for ALL their courses! http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/web/Schools/UCM/TargetGroup/ProspectiveStudents1/ProblemBasedLearning.htm
Some students (medicine) I know had PBL courses. They complained that PBL was very inefficient: The bottomline was that it would have been a good supplement (like excercises) to normal courses, but it is not a good replacement for proper lectures.
At the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY, USA. There are two ways in which this can happen. We have an independent study in which the student will learn about a topic with some guidance from a professor and write a paper about it, this has a broad variety of possibilities only some may fall into your category. One thing that everyone does is a senior design or capstone project where there is generally a faculty adviser but the student works to apply what you he or she has learned and present at the end of the year. This is in many ways similar working on a thesis, but as an undergraduate will take less time and be less intense. This is used in at least in the engineering school and physics department.
There is somewhat a third way, but does not contribute to the students transcript unless the student specifically does an internship for a research group. This is undergraduate research, and the student will contribute to research projects ongoing at the university that have faculty overseeing. In this scenario you may be mentored more by graduate students than faculty or staff.
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5174 | How to find the leading researchers in a new field
I'm in computer sciences, in applied Machine Learning. I often have to switch applications and I find it cumbersome trying to discern the really good and bad works by doing a large survey.
Whenever you are new in a field, how would you direct your survey to find the people doing seminal work in the area, for example in the specific case of Latent Dirichlet Allocation in Computer Science, you can always go to a 2003 paper by Blei, Jordan and Ng. While if you are a seasoned researcher of the area, you already know this paper is relevant, how a newcomer would find such paper?
Do you ask experts in the area? Do you go by number of citations (I often find this deceptive, particularly in Bioinformatics)
I'm interested in this because I'm switching applications now, and I would like to know which group's work I should be following or which person's papers I should be reading.
Leon, I'm afraid the question as currently worded is awfully subjective. The “people doing most of the interesting work” will just not be the same depending whom you ask: what's interesting to you might not be to me, what's groundbreaking to you might be purely conjectural to me, etc. If you're asking “what's a good metric of ‘interesting work’”, I don't think it fits the format. Maybe you can reword it to ask something closer to “what are metrics other than h-index to measure ‘influence’ in the academic world?”, which fits the site better (I think).
Voted to close as not constructive.
The question is IMHO relevant and I see its point, though needs to be reformulated. I vote for not closing this question. Will try to answer as well.
In my opinion an answer that "especially in such cases the "leaderships" is subjective" is an objective answer. I vote to reopen. Not for everyone it needs to be obvious.
@PiotrMigdal it's not an answer to the question asked (how). The question is subjective, and we don't judge the answers, but the question :)
@F'x True. Perhaps I have some scripts in my mind which automatically stackify a question (and in general, I prefer to first reformulate and close if only if it cannot be reformulated or the author opposes it). The question itself touches an important and interesting issue (but yes, in the current form it is hardly answerable).
@PiotrMigdal IMHO, most researchers are looking for solutions/problems that are not found yet. Thus, every researcher is leading in his own topic in that sense. Although comparing the research results is still somewhat subjective, but it would be more answerable than saying who are leading, particularly in a new field. Every researcher is leading to a different direction (frontier) in a young field. Only time can tell who are leading to the right solutions.
Everyone, thanks for the useful comments, I edited the question to try and make it more concise. I hope it works this way.
Problem is that you hamstrung yourself by eliminating the only correct strategy: doing a long literature survey yourself. You wish to rely on proxies, and sometimes surveys can do that for you, but other people's opinions of "good" and "bad" are just that: opinions.
The only way to really get a sense of good and bad is to read a LOT, think a lot about what you read, discuss with people who might know more about the area, think a lot more, read more, and repeat.
I've learnt than relying only on doing long literature surveys by myself was a bad idea (and I've learnt it the hard was; a few times). The reason is that you can easily miss a pearl just because it has not key works you are looking for, or is older, or is not cited enough (there is no way to lookup most citations at more that 1 level).
very true: hence the "discuss with people" part :). I do that even now at conferences to get a sense of what's going on in different areas that I can't monitor myself.
Well, one slightly unorthodox method for finding these might be to find the "society" representing the field, and find who their recent award winners are—particularly if they have "young investigator" awards that will recognize work considered to be of significant impact.
The relative advantage of this approach is that it it represents the consensus of people working in a given field; the disadvantage is that the consensus may be of only a handful of members on a committee. But these are people who in principle should know the ins and outs of their field better than most.
I don't understand the downvote. Could the downvoter please comment?
I guess the answer was too unorthodox. . . .
My personal technique is to read the introduction to a number of research papers and find the most commonly cited papers/authors/author groupings. This will tell you who is the most "influential", i.e. whose work is driving the field and causing others to perform research branching of their original findings. This is similar to examining publication count, but more useful in that you can see how broadly the citations are applied, and judge from context whether the citation has merit.
IMHO, the research work should be around good publications not good "people" even if they are highly cited. In almost any field you will find introductory papers and surveys discussing the problems and the current state of the art. Those are the beginning. If you find the text referring to something interesting to you; visit the references mentioned in that section/subsection/paragraph. Also, well-known journals usually have special issue for new/hot research areas.
Practical advise is to use platforms such as "ScienceDirect" or "Web of Knowledge". If you have institutional access, you can read every journal of a selected field. By the time you will read the same names repeatedly. Also helpful is to look through conference-papers and other documents prepared for conferences.
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14239 | Presenting the publications of a research group online
I'm looking for advice on presenting the research publications of my group on our webpage. Most groups seem to go with a simple publication list, sorted by year and maybe publication type. But there are also more elaborate implementations up to browseable publication directories (e.g., http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~sontag/papers.html ). What would be your recommendation for creating an online presence for research publications that is
informative and useful for readers,
visually pleasant, and
easy to maintain for us?
I'd also be interested in links to websites that you see as role models for this issue.
If you use Drupal, see http://squobble.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-drupal-web-site-for-our-research.html
Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/719/tool-to-manage-and-or-make-available-a-list-of-my-publications-on-the-web
You could use BibBase.org. It's a free web service that I created with the aim to solve the problem you describe. I was originally motivated by the third point (easy to maintain). As input you can use a bibtex file, Zotero, or Mendeley, and unlike bib2html you don't need to rerun any program after making changes to your input. Visitors can resort by different criteria (author, year, keyword, number of downloads, type), get the bibtex source entry (even when not using bibtex as input), and subscribe to an RSS. Here is an example: http://www.isi.edu/integration/karma/#publication
(Disclaimer: I'm the creator of BibBase.)
My dreamed interface puts on the left a list of topics, a list of authors and possibly some other list (venue, maybe). Clicking on them filters the papers that appear on the right.
The papers on the right are in a table that can be sorted by year or title (or possibly something else, number of cites to that paper maybe). On each row there are two icons, one is a PDF icon that leads to the PDF file, the other one is a TeX icon that leads to a GIT repository with the TeX source.
All this can be done (for instance) in Javascript with the data coming from a JSON file that would be the only thing you would need to update to maintain this, so it's quite maintainable. This is my dream. Reality is very far from it, but it may serve as inspiration to you.
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13031 | How to highlight the importance of past positions in CV?
When addressing the past positions in a resume, although titles somewhat describes the role, they cannot clarify the importance of positions.
For example, listing a past position of department chair indicates administrative duties at department level, but it depends on the department. Definitely, chairing a small department with a few faculty members and annual enrollment of 30 undergraduate students is different from a well-funded department with tens of senior faculty members and several PhD programs. However, if a reader does not know that specific department, the term department chair is the same.
This is even more serious when it comes to differences in terminology. In a university, a faculty can be equal to a department, and somewhere else a faculty can be in the size of a university hosting several large departments. Even terms of mid-level administrative positions in academia do not always have the same meaning: e.g., dean, director, chair, head.
How do you fairly clarify the importance of the job you had?
It is possible to add a description, but as it is not very common, it may cause an impression of overestimation.
I think you are making an assumption that past experience as a dean, director, chair, head is important.
@DanielE.Shub definitely when applying for an administrative position, they are crucial. Of course, the importance of any point in a CV depends on the reader (for what purpose he is reading that).
@DanielE.Shub Would you say this assumption does not correspond to the real situation? Is such past experience not important?
If a title or position is unclear, or an institution is possibly not well known, just explain it in a few words:
Director of Supersonic Operations department (15 researchers) at Small U.
Time-management officer, Funny Inc. (in charge of scheduling company-wide meetings)
Information officer, U. of North Virginia (CTO-like position, managing computing resources for 10,000+ students and staff)
Be as concise as possible, but give the reader some idea of the scope of your activities. And if the position is clear or well-known, just don't add any details.
very practical approach!
@All in general on the SE network +1 and thank you type comments are discouraged since you thank people with votes.
@DanielE.Shub I didn't mean thank, but highlighting the type of answer, but I will follow your advice.
This is exactly as it is done in industry. Leading a team is different so you should say if you lead a team of 2 or if you lead a team of 50.
You can put a short (maybe four or five word) explanation in the CV item itself (or more if you think it's really important). You can also give more details in your cover letter about exactly what responsibilities you had. Another option is to ask one of your letter writers to explain; this is a common approach for things like personal reasons for wanting to leave a job, etc.
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13007 | How long the curse of bad education remains in academic career?
It is understandable if considering the educational record (where s/he has studied and how is his/her transcript) of an applicant applied for junior academic positions such as postdoctoral fellow or assistant professor. BUT, for senior academics, the factors for judging a potential full professor is his/her research, teaching, publications, and other academic achievements.
I read in a few job ads for full professors in Europe (mainly Scandinavia), one of the application materials is unofficial transcripts. It seems that the initial review is substantially based on the applicant education achievements two decades ago.
I wonder how much the education of an applicant affects his/her chance to be appointed as a full professor? Does a bad education (having low GPA at PhD level) always affects someone's academic career, even at highest levels?
@CharlesMorisset of course, it is not critical for postdoctoral, as it is normally hired by principal investigator rather then the institute. However, my question is about the cases where applicant is asked for transcript. It is not always the case.
@CharlesMorisset I also rephrased the question. I am on your side, I also wonder why transcripts should be needed for a job application (particularly at early stage). There are many job advertisements asking unofficial transcripts, but I wonder why it can be needed for senior positions. I just seen the latter in European universities.
@CharlesMorisset: As a counterpoint, when I was applying for postdocs and tenure-track jobs in the US (in mathematics), probably about a third of postings required an unofficial transcript with the application, and I believe almost all require a copy as a condition of employment. Specific grades and classes never came up in interviews, though. I don't think it carried a lot of weight; I expect it is mainly to make sure you actually have the degrees you claim to.
@CharlesMorisset I believe NIH NRSA postdoc fellowships (both individual and institutional) require a transcript. That said, I don't know why a faculty position, especially a senior one, would.
@CharlesMorisset: In the US, the diploma is just a fancy piece of paper that you can frame and hang on the wall. They aren't normally used as an official academic record. The transcript serves this purpose instead. An official transcript is mailed directly from the university, in a sealed envelope, on tamper-proof paper. There's usually a fee involved, so unofficial copies are generally accepted in early rounds. But there is the understanding that if hired, you'd be asked for an official transcript, and it had better match.
@NateEldredge and don't forget that some US schools still present diplomas in Latin, requiring the extra step of translating them if you were trying to use them for something official.
@user102 I was once asked for middle school transcript!
From a European perspective: the only time I was ever asked for transcripts was for PhD admission. After that, nobody every asked me for transcripts.
Administrative people asked me for a proof of my degree (a copy of the degree itself, without grades, is what I gave). They only wanted to check I was eligible for the position's formal requirements (having a PhD to become post-doc or assistant professor).
Scientists asked me for my publications, my thesis, the list of topics I had taught, etc. They did not care the least about my grades in undergrad or graduate education.
So, I think the ads you saw asking for transcripts, especially for senior positions, are by far a minority. Once you have a PhD, most people won't care about your earlier educational record, since it is not a good predictor of how awesome you will be as a researcher.
Combining the various comments that this question has elicited:
In some countries and at some institutions, the transcript is the official record certifying completion of the degree. When an institution asks for an unofficial transcript, they are really asking for verification that you earned the degree you said you did. Unfortunately, certain events make some institutions feel justified in asking for proof. You cannot very well mail your diploma! Unofficial copies of your transcript are easy to come by in the digital age.
they are really asking for verification that you earned the degree you said you did. — But then why don't they just ask for an official transcript? After all, transcripts can be faked, too.
From Nate Eldridge's comments - An official transcript is mailed directly from the university, in a sealed envelope, on tamper-proof paper. There's usually a fee involved, so unofficial copies are generally accepted in early rounds. But there is the understanding that if hired, you'd be asked for an official transcript, and it had better match.
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9454 | Capitalisation of "Section" and "Chapter" in a Ph.D. Thesis
I am submitting a Ph.D. thesis fairly soon and my supervisor has flagged my use of capitalisation in "Section" and "Chapter" as possibly incorrect. I have googled about a bit and I see mixed opinions.
So my question is, when writing a computer science Ph.D. thesis, what is the correct way to capitalise "Section", "Chapter", "Appendix", "Figure", "Table", ... ?
For example, what is the correct capitalisation for the following:
"In Chapter 3, it was shown that..."
"In the previous Section, a method was presented to..."
"The graph in Figure 3 shows..."
My flippant comment about this is to go with whatever your advisor tells you to do, assuming that s/he has given you an answer. ;)
"In Chapter 3, it was shown that..."
This seems correct. "Chapter 3" is the name of the third chapter. Names are capitalised.
"In the previous Section, a method was presented to..."
This seems wrong. "Section" is not referring to the previous section by name, therefore no capital.
"The graph in Figure 3 shows..."
Correct. Same as the first example.
So the rule (I use) is, if it is a proper name, then use a capital. This means, if it is of the form "Section $n$", where $n$ is a number, then it needs a capital.
Exactly. Section~3 (remember the ~!) is a proper noun, the same rule holds for all words like theorem, lemma, item, equation, section, table, algorithm, etc. The tilde makes sure that the line doesn't break between "Theorem" and "3" (it's a no-break space character).
(assuming the OP is using a TeX system)
"This seems correct"? Do you have any source for this claim? An answer to this question with no other source that what seems likely to you is next to useless.
@Lii: Dave's answer follows standard English rules: proper nouns like "Section 3" are capitalized; common nouns like "the section" are not. This guidance is thus far from useless.
@aeismail: If he actually stated that this is standard and preferable gave some source for this claim that would be great. But he only writes: "seems correct." and: "the rule (I use)", which is very confusing.
My source is "native English speaker".
Thanks. Any idea about multiple sections, i.e. "as shown in Sections 3.2 and 3.3" vs. "as shown in sections 3.2 and 3.3", or shall I ask a separate question?
@GregKramida Why would that case be any different? I'd use the first version you propose.
The Chicago Manual of Style says that all of them should go in lower caps. Any other Manual of Style I've found is consistent with @DaveClarke . I still have a question. What about "Sections 2 and 3"? I personally don't like it. I would go for "Section 2 and Section 3", but I'm not sure.
"Sections 2 and 3" is fine.
@Rufo: If you till have Chicago Manual of Style, please provide an answer based on that information! That would be much more valuable than Dave's personal feelings.
It is a question of style. The most accepted custom is that given by Dave: you capitalize logical divisions if you refer to them by number.
However, I've never believed that there is any real logic behind that rule, other than emphasis. Identifying things by a number doesn't make them proper nouns: as an example, you don't commonly capitalize “page” as “see Page 10”…
Interesting example with "page". I see a small distinction between pages and sections: sections are intentional divisions into conceptual units, while page boundaries are much less meaningful, so it's natural to conceive of a section as more of a "thing" than a page is. However, it's not clear-cut.
A search on Google Scholar reveals that both the forms
in chapter/section 3
and
in Chapter/Section 3
exist in published scientific articles.
For "chapter" the capitalised version seems to be a little more common. For "section" the capitalised version is much more common.
A lot of terrible/incorrect writing gets published and will be thrown up by Google. Doesn't mean it is correct!
@xadu: Note that this search was in Google Scholar, so it only includes published academic articles. That doesn't necessarily make the practice non-terrible, of course, but it does indicate the current usage.
fair point about current usage. That said, Google Scholar does include material which has not been peer reviewed, such as arxiv postings etc. I'll argue that even published articles often have incorrect/inconsistent grammar.
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12521 | Can I keep items purchased out of my startup funds?
I am a new faculty in US based university. Surprisingly, when I arrived to my new office, there was no computer in it. I wonder, if I will buy a computer with my startup, would I be able to keep it for myself when I will leave the university?
Hi, Lin. Welcome to Academia.SE. It's considered bad form to ask for different responses based on individual university regulations. I've edited your question to be more in conformance with site policies.
When you will leave?
In general, equipment purchased with university-provided funds belong to the university, rather than the individual faculty member who ordered the items. On the other hand, items procured through individual grants (where the university did not directly provide funding), can often be transferred from one institution to another.
However, it is also true that such property is not normally something that you can normally keep for yourself! The primary exception to this might be if the property has been in service long enough to be declared "obsolete," and no longer needs to be inventoried. Then, the university will typically have some sort of policy on the disposition of such equipment, and that is what you should follow.
that's a bit unfortunate, since previous person took all equipment from my office... and also I have better things to do with my startup: pay graduate students or invite people.
If you had expected the department to provide equipment for you separately from the startup funds, it should have been negotiated as part of your hiring package.
It is as likely that it was not the previous occupant who took all the equipment, but the university or department "reclaimed" it.
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13527 | Advanced degrees in two subjects?
Perhaps it is too early to ask this, but I will go ahead anyway, to satisfy my curiosity. I am currently studying Arts in a University, aiming to get a BA Honours in English and German. If I went ahead to get a Masters, would I have to choose one of them, or could I continue with both? And similarly for a Doctoral, if I get that far, does it have to be one subject at a time?
Why would anyone do that? What do you expect as an advantage?
If you're question is:
Can I do a 'double master's' in English and German the same way I can 'double major' in English and German?
The answer is not easily. The reason for this is that admissions to master's programs are normally decided by the department, not by the university as a whole. Therefore, admission to one program (say, a master's in English) does not give you the right to get a master's degree in the other program (here, German). You would have to apply to the programs separately. It is also difficult to study for multiple master's degrees simultaneously, since the coursework tends to be disjoint sets, and therefore you would probably need to complete the degrees sequentially (at best).
The doctoral thesis topic would allow you to combine the two disciplines. However, it may be administratively difficult to have two different departments listed on your degree; this is an administrative issue rather than an academic one. There is usually an approved list of fields that can be listed on the diploma; if you want something else, you will have to petition for it, which could be a difficult process.
I am not sure your comment about MIT is correct. I was given a choice between getting my degree from the school/department.
At least in engineering, we didn't have this choice—at least not back when I graduated. In any case, I've edited this to be more generally applicable—it's pretty clear that you can't put anything you want on the PhD diploma—at least not without permission!
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11945 | How do I respond to papers that present the authors' views and opinions as scientific fact?
Occasionally I encounter papers in which the authors expend significant effort to either:
prove an hypothesis that I know to be false;
promote a new theory that I know to be fundamentally flawed.
To do this, the authors use methods such as forging experimental results, misinterpreting results or misinterpreting cited references.
As I know that the views presented in the paper are false, I can deduce from the paper that the author must have favored promoting their views over correctness. However someone less educated in the topic might not be aware of this and base their work on this paper as they consider the presented views to be scientifically proven.
Is there a commonly accepted method to flag such a paper, so that future readers will be aware that the presented views are forged and false?
How would you know said hypothesis to be false? Is it something you would necessarily read in some other paper somewhere?
The forum matters. Are these papers appearing in otherwise good-quality journals whose peer review has had a momentary lapse, or in bad journals that everyone knows are crap?
If you believe there are significant problems with an existing manuscript, then you should present these issues to the journal in which the "offending" articles appear. The format this response should take depends upon the nature of the problem.
If the issue is in fact "forging experimental results," then the paper deserves to be retracted. However, this is a difficult allegation to prove, and you would need to have strong justification (not evidence, per se) backing up your allegations.
However, if the issue is misinterpretations of results or previous literature, this does not quite rise to the level of "academic dishonesty" as forging results. It is not necessarily correct to have the paper retracted. Instead, you should consider writing a "comment" or "letter to the editor" or even a longer paper in response to the problems in the earlier work.
Note, however, that if the paper has appeared in a reputable journal, it has gone through some sort of peer review process. As a consequence of this, it will be necessary to present a more "airtight" argument than if the paper merely appears in a repository such as arXiv. In the latter case, however, then there's probably not much you can do beyond the aforementioned "response article," as the paper has not been published, and thus retraction depends on the author "self-retracting" the work.
If the author published their paper with malicious intent, then they will not self-retract the work.
That was my point.
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23316 | How to announce a new web-page?
Our lab has recently developed a new webpage; we are thinking of ways to announce it's creation via social media and email:
Is there an etiquette for making such announcements?
Perhaps there are example announcements you could share?
Does it need to be announced? Usually linking to it from your department's site and the lab members' personal sites is enough.
Is the intention of this site (in part) to inform the general public of your research initiatives?
Some social service? Beyond that, I don't know if there is a need.
And be careful not to verge into spamming...
I have removed the link, because it is not germane to this discussion.
Sorry if it seemed like advertising @aeismail the intention was to help to understand our scope of research, but fair decision
The bigger reason why it's not germane is that if you're asking where to advertise your site, then your question can't help others, which makes it off-topic.
In addition to @AustinHenley's point, you might be able to get the webpage linked through a "featured" section on your department website. This will usually have an image and a short description which will be seen immediately by anybody visiting the department site.
If there's a reason for someone to visit your lab's site other than it's new and should be visited, then you could write up a short announcement and post it to a relevant mailing list for your particular discipline or sub-discipline.
Otherwise, the best and most persistent advertising you and your groupmates can do would be to include it as a signature block in your email. People who want to know more about your group can then click on the link. Other methods to generate traffic without purpose will likely tick off more people than inspire them to visit your page.
This is for lab site. Should I add my personal site under my signature?
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96999 | How specific does a "Work Package" in a grant proposal need to be?
I'm currently polishing a grant proposal for the ERC Starting Grant scheme. As is typical doubts beset me. There aren't many samples available, and every one I was able to find exists in a niche of its own.
What seems to be a typical pattern is to describe at a very high level the proposed approach: for instance, we will study issue A using method B but they don't go too much in detail. For example, how is this study exactly going to happen?
Where possible I have tried to explain in as much detail my line of inquiry and the expected outcomes. However, especially for a grant with a horizon of 5 years, it's difficult to explain how the last WPs will be studied, as they might depend on the outcomes of the prior ones.
It is highly likely that these proposals I have seen were the unsuccessful ones. If you have any experience of successful ones, how much detail did you give (or make up)?
Try to look at it from the view of a reviewer. You'll have a limited amount of time to estimate whether
the research will have a good chance of success (knowledge generation is success, so negative results are allowed!)
the applicants know the field well enough to work on the topic without stumbling about too many obstacles (e.g. you should say which methods you are using and why)
the work load is managable
the project is well managed.
Every reviewer knows, that you can not predict the future. If you could detail the research you want to do in three years, it would not have been research in the first three years! But you should make clear you know of the risks of your proposal and demonstrante, how you will handle those uncertenties.
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15249 | Is there any major problem in applying to PhD program in US after getting BSc and MS in UK?
I'm considering getting my BSc and MS in UK instead in US, since I prefer specialization rather than diversity in education. However, I'm not sure whether or not this choice will affect my chance to attend a competitive PhD program at an American university, since people who get MS tend to stay in UK to get PhD. This route may have the following problems:
I will have to take some extra courses in my grad school in US to make up for classes not taken.
I may be disadvantaged in admission because of differences in the educational systems in the US and the UK.
Considering these problems, should I rather stay in US to get BSc and MS? Or are they negligible? For me, it's the best if the time spent to get BSc and MS will be as short as possible. This may seem strange to people in US, but I want to consider the merits of education in both nations, so I can find the course of education which is the most suitable for me.
(I want to study molecular biology.)
Let me clear up an important distinction between graduate school in the US and the UK:
In Europe, the master's degree is generally a pre-requisite for admission to a PhD program.
In the US, the master's degree is not required for admission to a PhD program, and you normally apply to the PhD program with only a bachelor's degree. You can obtain a master's degree as part of the PhD program, but this is by no means a universal requirement. It varies between universities and even departments within a university.
In the UK, options are somewhat ambiguous. You can apply for a master's and PhD program at the same time, while others may require the PhD in advance.
Therefore, if you are admitted to an American PhD program, you will take courses in graduate school, because that is the equivalent of the master's phase in the UK.
Other than that, there's no inherent advantage of applying or attending bachelor's or master's programs in the US or the UK.
Thanks for your informative advice. I had misunderstanding about structure of graduate school in both nations. Is it also meaningless if I will apply to PhD after finishing BSc in UK?
I don't believe that it is necessarily true that one must have a master's degree as a pre-requisite for a phd in the UK (although it might depend on the subject, I've never heard of it.)
Upon further research, @JeremyMiles is correct: UK programs do allow for admission to dual-degree study programs. However, you should check the specific degree requirements for particular programs before applying.
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100487 | Is it reasonable to suggest a PhD thesis topic in an interdisciplinary area in which none of the faculty members specialize?
I think a similar question was answered in PhD Research under guide/advisor of a different department by JeffE. I'm asking a slightly different question. Yet if you find it identical to the above one, you can report it to be 'duplicate.'
I'm interested in both pure math and machine learning, and I chose to apply to math PhD exclusively due to my background. However, recently I've been into (1) developing an algorithm related to proof verification and others for application to mathematics using the state-of-the-art deep learning techniques and (2) deep learning proper without much of sophisticated math involved. I'm certain most or all professors in math department I'm applying to (or anywhere else) aren't working in such an approach as (1), since that's more of a job of professors in CS department.
Though the answer may be case-by-case, is a topic as (1) appropriate for my PhD thesis? I understand that I can have a co-adviser from CS dept., but is this topic likely to get accepted from math department?
If so, by any chance if my interest totally shifts to (2) and has not much to do with mathematics at later stage of my PhD, do I still have to work on something related to math like (1)? (I assume the answer is Yes.)
In fact, one of the programs I got accepted to is quite lenient in letting a math PhD student into its ML PhD program. Is going to this program the only reasonable path for the case that my interest totally shifts to (2)?
Your question is, I believe, out of the scope of this forum, as it is too specific. I recommend that you edit your question to something in the form of "Is it reasonable to suggest a PhD thesis topic in an interdisciplinar area in which none of the faculty members specialize?". In which case it depends. If you are applying to the US, for instance, you don't choose your thesis topic fronthand, but rather explain in your SOP what motivates you and topics on which you would feel comfortable working.
Thanks for your suggestion. I'm applying to the U.S, and I understand how American programs work, other than how they accept thesis topics. I guess I will once again receive the answer "it depends", but anyway I've changed the title.
is [developing an algorithm related to proof verification and others for application to mathematics using the state-of-the-art deep learning techniques] appropriate for my PhD thesis? Maybe... It depends whether this topic constitutes research. can I study this topic in the maths department? Yes, if you can find a supervisor in the maths department. can I study machine learning in the maths department? Again, yes, if you can find a supervisor. (Because you can doesn't mean you should. Perhaps consider whether you should study in the maths department or computer science department.)
Obviously, I can find a co-adviser in other department as suggested by JeffE in the above link, so my question is rather about whether the math dept. approves the topic to be appropriate or not. If you mean this question is equivalent to whether I can find a supervisor in math dept, then it makes sense. Thanks for your answer.
Well, no answer yet? I'll give it a try, even though I'm in CS and I'm residing in Europe. But maybe it helps a bit:
To adress your questions 1-3:
In CS it would - in math it depends on the will of the supervisor.
Depends on your PhD program and supervisor. It might depend who is sponsoring the PhD program as well.
I don't know enough about the US system to answer this one - but you asked for an other option and there is one:
Just quit the program you are in and look for an other one in a CS department! Sounds a bit disruptive, but if this is your research interest, you should follow it!
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26329 | Networking in a symposium as a "non-specialist"
I am going to participate to a symposium (or workshop or conference) for the second time. I am a PhD student and I'm not going to present anything there.
I know that networking is very important but I'm so bad at it!
The first time I spent my time mostly with people of my group or directly involved in my project, and occasionally speaking with people I had met before once or twice (but almost exclusively when they were talking with the people of my group/project).
In both cases the conversation was just small talk (I like this buffet, the weather is nice, there is a seminar next week at our institute) or was led by the other people, and I would intervene if directly involved or if I knew the technical topic well (e.g., I am using the same library, I had the same problem...)
I would like to try this so much praised networking, but I fear I will do just the same as before. I've seen the poster abstracts and there is only one directly related to my project, so I am afraid I will not be able to talk anything technical about other issues. I have a master in Engineering as do most of the other PhD students there, but we have different backgrounds and we have focused on different stuff in our research, so I don't feel talking about problems I have studied five years ago to people who have practiced on them until today.
Is it expected to network as a "non-specialist"? I feel like that if I want to talk something to a fellow PhD student (not directly in a project similar to mine), it would be small talk and maybe the daily problems of a PhD student, but this seems like a poor alternative to me.
Is your advisor also going? (If so, ask him to introduce you to people.)
This time not! But yes, I'll follow the advice
Try consider "networking" as a code-word for "making friends". Did wonders for me at conferences where I knew little on the presentations. Also, use commonalities; if there was a venn diagram between you and your speaking partner, start with what's in between the two circles. (Quick social thinking is not necessarily easy so don't feel down about not being able to think of things :)
Let me tell you first that I can sympathise - networking also does not at all come natural to me. However, like most things, networking can be trained. The best opportunity to train is while doing it (or at least trying to), so your symposium should give you ample opportunity to improve.
First, if possible, do as JeffE says - have your advisor or some other (maybe more senior) person introduce you to people. Don't be embarrassed to talk about your ideas or your papers, or just about what you have learned during the symposium. That you come from a slightly different field may actually be an advantage here - the most interesting conversations I had at conferences often started with somebody saying "I, as an XY, find many of the presentations here really interesting, but why is there so much focus on A and so little work on B?".
Second, don't discard "small talk". Networking is mostly about connecting on a personal level anyway - it really does not matter so much what you talk about with people, as long as you talk to them. Talk to them about whatever comes naturally. It does not have to be about their research, even if this clearly is a natural conversation starter among researchers. Other standard conference convo topics (especially among PhD students) are: (1) life as a grad student, (2) difficulty with course work, (3) estimated time to graduation, (4) the ups and downs of the student's relationship with their advisor (although the last two bullets may be a bit loaded on occasion).
Third, try to not fall into the trap of seeing networking as "work", i.e., something that you'd rather avoid, but you know you need to do. This will make it automatically appear unpleasant, and you may end up just going through the motions so that you can say to yourself that you "networked", without achieving much.
Fourth, talk to people that you like talking to, and avoid like the plague people whose company you do not enjoy (for whatever reason). This sounds like a given, but I have seen many people classify conference participants into "important" and "unimportant", and then make a point to always talk to the "important" ones despite not actually enjoying it. This is a bad idea on multiple levels, including the fact that the PhD students from today are the professors and grant co-authors from tomorrow, so there really are no unimportant people in a conference.
Fifth, don't be too hard on yourself. You don't need to spend every minute of a conference networking. Many people, myself included, need a considerable amount of quiet time to function. Give it to yourself. It is ok to spend a few hours per conference day alone in front of your work, or on your hotel room if you feel tired of networking.
In the end, networking is the part of your work where the most important part is really to enjoy yourself. If you find one friend in the symposium, who you stay in touch with over the years, and who you write a grant proposal with in a few years, you networked successfully even if you talked to literally nobody else all week.
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7794 | What are good resources on how to carry oneself on a PhD course?
I just started a PhD and I was looking for some guidance on what I could expect in the following years, more specifically, what is the recommended way to progress, how should I allocate my research hours and other responsibilities, and , finally, when and how should I start writing my PhD thesis.
Is there any book written on how to conduct yourself during the course of a PhD? What would be your overall recommendations?
You definitely need to have some (long) conversations with your advisor. He/she will have the best answer for you specifically.
This is potentially a good question, but I will edit it to add a more general perspective.
This depends widely on country and field, making it impossible to answer in a generic manner.
When I first started a PhD program, my professor uncle gave me this: http://www.phdcomics.com/book.htm
If possible, the best person to ask is someone finishing PhD at our place, or a fresh postdoc. When it comes to more general things, it can vary with respect to discipline, university and... your own skills and motivations.
Have a look at this excellent memoir by a recent CS PhD: The Grind by Philip Guo
Although written from a CS perspective, many of his experiences transcend disciplines.
Looks like a nice book, i'll start reading it, as a master's student planning on going PHD in the following months...
I will say though that my experience doing a Ph.D at Stanford is absolutely nothing like his. YMMV
Likewise for me at Berkeley. Philip Guo's PhD experience was not typical. Neither, for that matter, was Jorge Cham's (also at Stanford). [On the other hand, I'm not convinced that a "typical" PhD experience actually exists, so this statement may be trivial.]
Page Not Found, would you mind updating post
what is the recommended way to progress
Steadily. Make small progress every day.
how should I allocate my research hours and other responsibilities
Consistently.
when and how should I start writing my PhD thesis.
Now, and in LaTeX. Write down everything you read, everything you do, everything you prove, everything you try that doesn't work, every crazy stupid idea you have. Write, write, write. Always in LaTeX.
Most importantly: It's your PhD. You have to hunt it down and kill it.
This bears repeating over and over again: it's your Ph.D - not your advisor's. It's your job to ..well.. finish it. An advisor merely advises.
There is a lot written on the 'PhD journey' but there are some things I learnt along the way that took me across the void (so as to speak!).
I am listing them in no particular order:
Be true to yourself and your supervisor. Keep your end of the bargain. Meet deadlines. Keep your supervisor in the loop (even on trivial matters - the matter may be trivial from your point of view). Respect him or her. Of course you can have friendly arguments. Follow his or her instructions/suggestions/advice closely.
If you don't know, ask. You can ask your supervisor or email other scholars. My dissertation benefited from several prominent thinkers in the field. I simply emailed them and asked for assistance. There is no shame in asking. It is a learning process.
Celebrate your big and little achievements. When you finish writing a difficult chapter, give yourself a treat. Set small goals - you cannot finish your dissertation in a day but you can draft a section of your chapter in a day.
Learn and try to become an expert in your field. After graduation, you would be expected to have advanced knowledge in your field. Be genuinely interested in what you are doing. Think of new ways of addressing the issues. Discuss your approaches with your fellow PhD students. They are often your first audience. Have a network of support.
Most importantly, recognise that there would be some good days and some bad days. Make the most of them both. On bad days, give yourself a break. I think the literature says that most PhD student will start enthusiastically and then lose interest in the middle years and then gain momentum again.
My overall recommendation is to never lose sight of your goal.
the way i see it (i use excel to track my work, but other people maybe use ms gant or just paper checklist , whatever works for you):
set up an excel mini sheet with Everything you need to learn to deliver your final thesis (from literature review methodologies , to coding and statistics with nvivo or spss) video courses or book , whatever fits the schedule , you can divide the day you work on your phd by 1/2, half learning , the other half thesis and research
set up another excel mini sheet with Everything you need to learn to advance your career on your specific domain (post phd) certifications , continuous learning , because pure research jobs are hard to find(we have high requirements in my country) , require at least 2 good papers indexed in high journals(like elite) and at least 3-5 years experience in a lab or similar research environment
If you dont know just ask , if you need a paper you can ask the author , if your stuck you can ask old staff on the lab , or phd team mates ....
want to keep the momentum , help the community , help new phd students, join a sig on latest current problems and help them on the way , also schedule some time off with friends , family , and hobbies
Draft a timeline and either print it and stick it on your wall or keep it on a folder , each mile stone you reach on your thesis you cross it , this visualisation of your objective on a graph timeline helps you keeping focus and discipline
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89951 | If I notice an error in a figure after manuscript submission, could I be accused of falsification of data during review stage?
I have submitted a paper to a reputed journal (computer science; computer vision to be specific). While i was keenly waiting for the reviews, they were getting delayed. So I began working on an extension of the work.
During that I realized that one of the qualitative figures in the submitted paper might be slightly wrong (a few pixels yet noticeable) due to miscalculation while generating the image. However, the final interpretation and the description of it in the paper still would not change. But, when I critically view the image I think the reviewer may conclude that it could be photoshopped. I checked on the journal tracking system that the reviews have been received.
My questions are:
(i) I am ready for a rejection, but could such a mistake may lead to public shaming or ban from future publications?
(ii) Would it be advisable to write to the editor that I have found a mistake in the submitted paper and explain that it does not impact the discussion. Or should I wait and correct them in the next version?
If you find a mistake, it is good practice to mention that to the editor. It is slightly embarrassing, but not as much as if someone else finds it.
Plagiarism ≠ falsification of data. It seems like you intended the latter, not the former.
@eykanal thanks. Yes I intended that. Updated the title. What should be my next steps
@Captain Emacs Thanks. Should I explain the technical intricacies to the editor that it was due to to a bug in the code. I am not sure what should be my response. O showed it to a colleague and he says the error is minor and probably won't be noticed. I may change it in the next version. However, since.the reviews are over I am not sure if informing editor would be helpful.
@krammer Really, hard to say - only you know how relevant the bug is. If in doubt, inform the editor. Keep in mind that, if your result is of any importance at all, people may be found that will try to reproduce it or may just stumble over it. How much are you going to waste their time? This is - as they say - your call.
To answer your question, it sounds like the difference is so minor that this wouldn't be considered falsification but just a simple (and minor) mistake on your part. You said yourself: the difference doesn't change the conclusions.
Addressing the issue is what the editor is for. Contact them and point out that there was a bug that caused the figure to be generated slightly incorrectly (you are not the first person to have done this). He/she will evaluate it and likely conclude the same as what you have: it is minor, does not affect the overall conclusions of the work, and will have you update it for final publication.
The reviews are complete but it sounds like you haven't gotten the comments back. It's likely that any discussion you have with the editor can conclude with you rolling this image in with the reviewer comments.
Don't overthink it. Everyone involved in this process is human, despite carrying titles like "editor" and "reviewer." Those folks are in those roles because they have experience and know that these types of things happen.
One should note that if reviewers noticed this and recommended rejection, it may still be that the editor rejects the paper even if the authors point out their mistake. But I agree that the more severe consequences indicated by the OP would not happen.
Do not worry at all! This is very common and you can fix it and add a note in the letter to the editor / answers to reviewers in the next revision, clearly explaining the mistake, how you corrected it, and what has changed in this version of the manuscript (figures, conclusions, etc).
As they have already pointed out, reviewers, editors, etc... are human and make the same mistakes than you, or more. Even if it were already published, you could submit a correction.
Falsification of data or fraud is a completely different thing than what you are describing here. Falsification of data is manipulating it on purpose knowing that something is actually wrong to "prove" some claim that benefits you but does not derive from the evidence.
Here you have a recent scandal in Spain: https://forbetterscience.com/2016/03/18/erc-on-susana-gonzalez-suspended-e2mio-grant-peer-reviewers-to-spot-manipulations/
Actually, this exact scenario is not very uncommon. Newer insights into data and mistakes on earlier analysis/data/calculations/etc are found at every stage: before submitting the data, during review and even after publication.
The criterion is as follows: Did you, to the BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE, believe your data & calculations; and conclusions that followed to be true AT THE TIME OF SUBMISSION?
If yes, and if you find a significant change in either the data itself, calculations or conclusions, you can always communicate this to the editors with appropriate explanation.
You fear that reviewers might conclude wrongly that your image/data was 'photoshopped'. You can communicate this fear of yours in your letter and be upfront about it. Most editors will give you the benefit of doubt.
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15347 | Is it worth doing a poster presentation?
I submitted a paper to an IEEE conference (Computer Science). My paper was not accepted for publication but it has been accepted for poster presentation there.
The conference requires the authors to pay full delegate registration fees as is required for authors of published works. Is it a common practice ?
I was a novice student in the field when I submitted the paper, but have worked a lot in past few months in the area. And I am not looking for any specific inputs into that work anymore.
Is it worth doing a poster presentation in such case ?
EDIT: (some additional information)
It is not a top tier conference
I am self funded
The conference requires the authors to pay full delegate registration fees — I'm willing to bet the conference requires everyone who attends to pay full registration fees, whether they have a paper or a poster or both or neither.
yes, noticed that. I don't have much experience in going to conferences. and as @xLeitix says, probably its worth doing one since the experienced gain would be invaluable.
I have some experience publishing in CS, so I'll give you my point of view.
The conference requires the authors to pay full delegate registration fees as is required for authors of published works. Is it a common practice ?
Yes. In general, every participant is expected to pay in full, no matter what kind of contribution he/she has submitted. You are paying the conference, not your publication. One could argue that this is the main point why many (weaker) conferences even have poster and short paper tracks - to get more people to pay full registrations and attend the conference without having to accept too many papers.
I was a novice student in the field when I submitted the paper, but have worked a lot in past few months in the area. And I am not looking for any specific inputs into that work anymore.
I should comment that this is a somewhat questionable attitude. Even if you are not planning to continue a certain line of research, hearing what others think about your work will help you a lot in future research projects and papers. Also, I don't think that you can go from novice to can't learn anything in the field anymore in the timeframe of a conference paper review process, so I'll wager that some in the audience will still have reasonable input on your work.
Is it worth doing a poster presentation in such case ?
I would say this depends on practicalities. Is your advisor OK with paying your conference trip without a full paper to show? Is it far, will the travel be expensive? Is it a top conference that you want to attend for the conference's (and associated networking's) sake? Have you done many presentations, or will it at least be good training?
That being said, from a scientific point of view, most poster presentations are not very valuable. They don't count a lot on your CV (except, maybe, if it really is an absolute top conference), and you will not get that much feedback, realistically.
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13425 | Is it normal to suddenly become clueless about your PhD topic and how to rediscover one?
I am working towards a PhD. My supervisor and I decided upon a topic which interested both of us. I did an exhaustive literature survey, and found that there have been heavy work in this area in the past 2-3 years. The problem statement we started with seems to have been primarily solved, and now extensions to those are appearing in top journals and conferences.
Now, he feels that the work remaining in the area is not worth a PhD so we should look for something else, but he still asked me to explore the area. Now, I am clueless what exactly I am supposed to do and where to look for new problems (given that I have already invested my first year into this along with the course work).
Is it normal during the PhD that the problem that you expected to have not been mostly worked upon, already has so much work done ?
Now, in this case, how should one proceed to look for new problems or extensions of the problem that are worth a PhD ?
My area is Computer Science.
Don't be afraid to completely change the topic if you fail to identify interesting venues to explore. The first year of my PhD was spent at looking at something quite unrelated to the main bulk of my work and I hit a dead end. The work I done in the first year was not even in my Thesis. I also know some people who had switched topic halfway resulting in a multipart thesis on completely different topics.
To answer the title question: Yes, this is completely normal.
Don't consider your time reviewing the field necessarily wasted. You say that you've discovered that the research topic that you wished to pursue has already been thoroughly investigated. If this is true, then you are in the happy position of finding this out now before having invested more of your time.
Now, is it indeed true that the topic has been exhausted? Perhaps this is the basis of your supervisor's request that you continue reading around the topic. Is there a line of investigation still remaining that you can work on? Are you sure all the extensions to the primary findings have been looked at? Is there a way of extending into new and unexpected territory?
On this last point, talking to many other people in the field - or closely related fields - might spark off ideas in your head. Discuss with them whether they think all aspects of the topic have been considered. Find people who are not experts in the specific topic, but are conversant with it who might offer a difference perspective. These people might draw you toward research across two fields. Can the results of the research topic you were looking to work on be extended into other, surprising areas?
I second the need to talk to other people in the field. Many academics are very insightful and have interesting ideas for research within their area.
With the vast output of science it is not surprising that more may be done than what might appear at first. Science is about advancing science and so if your original question has been answered the question becomes what is not answered? A key aspect of all research is that new question spring out of answering (or trying to) question. This leads to the point that one must read up on the literature in the field of interest so that you can identify the new questions that emerge. This is one way of interpreting your advisors suggestion.
It will be very difficult to isolate oneself with a question since others will likely arrive at similar ideas sooner or later. Defining a PhD study can therefore be tricky since it means working on some line of questions for several years. "Knowing your opposition" is therefore a good thing. You need to read up on material not only to identify unsolved questions but also to get a sense of what others are working on. Going to key conferences in your subject is one good way to see what is going on.
At the end, I want to add that I do not think it is your sole responsibility to do all this, after all, your advisor should now more about the field and who is doing what among peers. Getting a PhD is about learning to become an independent researcher and to ask too much of you early on is thus not realistic. What you can do is as stated earlier to read up on literature and build your own picture of the (sub-)field. You will need this knowledge under any circumstance.
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12411 | Adding a faculty as a co-author
I and two other student, did a course project and it has been accepted for publication in an international conference. I am confused now that whether I should add his name as a co-author or acknowledge him in acknowledgements ?
I would like to share that though, the entire implementation and writing the paper was done by us, we were student of his class and the work was produced as a part of course project.
My field is Computer Science.
Edit: As F'x suggests, that I should ask the instructor. What would be an appropriate way to do so given that his name was not added as co-author before acceptance.(We were confident about the work but were not sure about the acceptance. The conference management software was EDAS and it spams email of all co-authors which we wanted to avoid in his case)
Discuss it with your teacher.
The right time to ask this question was before you submitted. But better late than never.
Regarding “given that his name was not added as co-author before acceptance”: ask him ASAP. Be honest, be apologetic, explain clearly the situation and the reasons you did not want to add his name beforehand, but also be very clear that you realize now it was a mistake not to discuss it at the time, and that you made the mistake due to your lack of experience in academic publishing.
And the vast majority of academics I've met will be happy with this approach.
If he/she supervised your work, and/or read your paper, and/or somehow gave his/her contribution to your paper, I think that yes, you should add his/her name as author.
Co-authorship depends on the person and (sometimes) internal rules. For instance, during my PhD it was common for the professors to consider reading a paper + giving feedback as contribution worth authorship. Some of them even thought that they deserve authorship just because they talked to you about your idea:)
During my Masters (at another university) my supervisor did not only read the paper, but also corrected some errors in the formulas and checked the experimental results. When I put him as a co-author, he asked to remove his name motivating this as "I just did the work a normal supervisor will do".
So, as others suggest - do ask the professor ASAP.
P.S. Many professors will not fund your trip to a conference if their name is not on the paper unless explicitly agreed beforehand:)
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19014 | How to proceed when advisor asks you to resign?
This happened with a friend of mine and I am asking this question on his behalf.
My friend was recruited for a sponsored research project in the university and offered a part-time PhD along with that. He is currently completing his coursework (2nd semester) which is pretty exhaustive. He has been working pretty rigorously and one of his poster presentation was accepted in a reputed conference within 6 months of work.
Since the coursework in this semester was tough, he wasn't able to give any tangible output in terms of publications or concrete results. Now, suddenly he has been asked by his advisor to resign. This has come to him as a surprise since he was expecting some scolding as his guide is known for being arrogant (and he is very reputed researcher in the field).
He is unsure whether to leave PhD or how to proceed and convince his advisor.
I believe he is pretty new (1 year of coursework) to the domain and since the project is pure research, he does deserve a chance. But I am unsure of how one should proceed in such cases.
EDIT (based on queries in comment)
Part Time PhD: He was recruited as an employee for the project by the university. And also offered a PhD. The stipend comes from the project cost(funding agency) and not from university funds (as is the case for direct PhD recruits in my university).
Advisor being Arrogant: He is very knowledgeable and reputed but known for scolding students frequently.(Some faculty members also agree to this including my own advisor)
I don't fully follow the logic of your arguments. He should be scolded because his guide is known for being arrogant? He deserves a chance because his project is pure research?
I am not familiar with the term "part-time PhD". In what country is this story taking place?
Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18898/how-do-i-convince-my-professor-to-keep-me-as-his-student
@PeteL.Clark maybe part-time in the sense the friend does this next to his 'normal' job.
@PeteL.Clark: Perhaps what was meant is that a partial stipend was awarded to cover part-time work as an RA?
@DaveClarke I meant the advisor usually isn't very polite to students.
@PeteL.Clark It means that he has been recruited as an employee for the sponsored project and offered a PhD along with the work. (The phd work may or may not be related to the project)
It would actually help if you modified the question to reflect the clarifications, rather than just leaving the unclear text and tacking on an "Edit" block.
This is a difficult situation. Regardless of the facts of the matter, there appears to be have been a breakdown of trust/communication: either the advisor has been sending signals for a while that the person didn't pick up on, or the advisor is indeed pulling this out of the blue, which also signifies a breakdown of communication.
Probably the best first thing to do is for the student to set up a meeting with the advisor to understand the advisor's reasons. It's possible that a face-to-face meeting might allow the advisor to express their underlying concerns in a more productive way that could lead to a concrete plan for activities.
If that fails, or the advisor refuses to meet, the next person to involve is usually the chair of graduate studies at the department (or the equivalent). There is usually someone whose job is to oversee the graduate program and manage conflicts like this. They might be able to mediate a rapproachment between the advisor and student (or even find another advisor for the student). I've had to do this in the past when I served in this capacity.
Bottom line: if the facts are as you outlined, then I think the student deserves a more reasonable explanation from the advisor as to why they're being terminated. Sadly though, in my experience I've often found that students ignore signals being sent to them, and that advisors are unwilling/unable to give direct and clear feedback.
I generally agree with Suresh and Trylks advice. The relationship between your friend and his advisor is broken. That is a problem that your friend cannot avoid.
On the other hand, it is not only your friend's problem. It is his advisor's too and since he is the senior party, he is the one that needs to do more than your friend to fix it. I also do not get this "resign" thing. Your friend has a contract with the university, not with the advisor. It has also probably been assigned a committee for your friend's PHD that includes other professors except his advisor. If your friend is incapable for a PHD, again this decision is not entirely up to the advisor. It is the advisor that needs to prove your friend failed to meet the requirements of the project / PHD and your friend should not just "roll over dead" just because the advisor is not happy with him. So resigning is out of the question. If he has already a poster publication, did well in the required courses then I think the advisor will have a hard time proving your friend is incapable.
So, your friend should ask his advisor what he can do better to make things work. He should follow his advice, be extra nice and work extra hard. But there is absolutely no reason for him to resign. If the advisor is right (and as powerful as he believes he is), he can always fire your friend. But he will still have to justify to his fellow professors why he took a promising student such as your friend (otherwise your friend would not be selected for a PHD) and failed to "advice" him. It is your friend advisor's failure as well and both parties should suffer the consequences.
All this advice is based on your "word" that your friend did actually 90-100% the best he could. In any other case, where the advisor repeatedly warned your friend about potential improvements and your friend deliberately ignored him then he should just suck it up, take it like a man / woman and suffer the consequences. But if the advisor failed to effectively advice your friend, then this failure should be fixed by both parties and not simply by your friend resigning.
Maybe "accept responsibility" instead of "take it like a man" ? I doubt accepting consequences is directly linked to your chromosomal peculiarities :)
@Suresh I think you're deliberately misunderstanding the phrase. The connotation of "like a man" is "and not like a boy, who runs crying to his parents"; it's not "and not like a woman".
next time (or next edit) you can try with "an adult", it's a less ambiguous and more politically correct option.
Situation: FUBAR. I'm quite sorry for your friend. Good thing is: things can't get much worse.
Now he is a student and the professor is reputed, if he resigns then they are both just human beings. These are two different contexts and your friend is, more or least, with one foot on each of them. With the insight of the second context and a potential imminent resign, I'd ask, from a person to another, "why?".
If it's for the lack of results/publications, your friend should check why did that happen and whether that is going to continue in the future. It's not only a matter of doing and finishing a PhD, but also a matter of how worthy a PhD with few publications is in the end, considering the opportunity cost and all the effort and time that it is going to need. It may be a "Pyrrhic victory" and that is something very few people warn about (actually I haven't seen anyone).
Your friend deserves an explanation. Please keep us posted.
On the other hand. This is a failure in communication, as @Suresh pointed. We only have one side of the story, your friend's, through a third person (you), so it's hard to know. But the description you make of the advisor is:
he is arrogant
he makes things suddenly with no prior notice
he doesn't provide arguments or explanations
The best thing to do in such a situation (if possible, usually not easy) is to switch to a different supervisor, because that guy may be reputed and good at research, but he does not seem good (from your description) at dealing with people, managing them and advising in general.
But again, remember, it's hard not to be biased when all the information that we have comes from a friend of one of the parts...
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5101 | Does the eigenfactor ranking depend on number of articles in a journal?
The eigenfactor is offered by ISI Web of Knowledge as an alternative journal score compared to the impact factor. It is explained on their site as follows:
The Eigenfactor Score calculation is based on the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year, but it also considers which journals have contributed these citations so that highly cited journals will influence the network more than lesser cited journals. References from one article in a journal to another article from the same journal are removed, so that Eigenfactor Scores are not influenced by journal self-citation.
From this explanation, I am not sure whether the eigenfactor depends on the total number of articles that a journal publishes?
Wikipedia’s article on the eigenfactor.org ranking of journals answers your question:
The Eigenfactor score is intended to measure the importance of a journal to the scientific community, by considering the origin of the incoming citations, and is thought to reflect how frequently an average researcher would access content from that journal. However, the Eigenfactor score is influenced by the size of the journal, so that the score doubles when the journal doubles in size (measured as published articles per year).
To give a simple example: the Journal of Physical Chemistry B is the highest-ranked journal in physical chemistry by this criterion… in good part because it carries the largest number of articles. It is a good journal, but under all other metrics it is not at the very top of its field.
Eingenfactor.org summarizes their methods here: http://www.eigenfactor.org/methods.php. A nice summary of this procedure would improve the answer.
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177518 | Does the new law "zur Stärkung der Berliner Wissenschaft" make postdocs in Berlin de facto permanent?
In the German city-state of Berlin, a new law titled Gesetz zur Stärkung der Berliner Wissenschaft (law to strengthen Berlin science) was passed. One of the changes has been described as tenure track for all and giving postdocs the right to a permanent position. For example, see this article in the Tagesspiegel. But in another interpretation, such as indicated by this article in Forschung und Lehre, it is not quite as far-reaching:
Laut Novelle kann mit wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeitern, die promovieren, vereinbart werden, "dass im Anschluss an das befristete Beschäftigungsverhältnis der Abschluss eines unbefristeten Beschäftigungsverhältnisses erfolgen wird". Bei bereits promovierten Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeitern, die sich auf einer befristeten Stelle weitequalifizieren [sic] – zum Beispiel mit einer Habilitation oder auf einer Juniorprofessur – muss dagegen eine Anschlusszusage vereinbart werden.
My translation:
As a novelty, it is possible to agree with research scientists, who are graduating (getting a PhD), "that a permanent employment will occur as a follow-up to the fixed-term employment". For already graduated employees, who acquire additional qualifications with a fixed-term employment — such as a Habilitation or a junior professorship — a commitment to a permanent follow-up employment must be agreed.
That rather sounds that it does not apply to the majority of regular postdocs, but that only junior scientists who qualify for a Habilitation or junior professorship must be offered a permanent position. For PhD students, it merely says kann (can), which means there is no right at all. For postdocs who aren't acquiring formal new qualifications (the large majority?), it doesn't say anything at all. However, the Tagesspiegel article also quotes the actual law:
„Sofern die wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin oder der wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter bereits promoviert ist und es sich bei dem Arbeitsvertrag genannten Qualifikationsziel um eine Habilitation, ein Habilitationsäquivalent, den Erwerb von Lehrerfahrung und Lehrbefähigung oder um sonstige Leistungen zum Erwerb der Berufungsfähigkeit (…) handelt, ist eine Anschlusszusage zu vereinbaren.
My translation:
„When the research scientist has already graduated and if the qualification aim, as mentioned in the work contract, is a Habilitation, a Habilitation equivalent, the acquisition of teaching experience or other performances to improve the professional skills (...) then a permanent follow-up contract must be offered.
Which sounds broader: it would appear that not only a Habilitation or equivalent, but any teaching experience or even other performances that strengthen the CV (maybe proposal writing or publication writing?), would entitle the junior researcher to a permanent position.
Who exactly are entitled to a permanent position as a follow-up to a temporary position, under the new law in Berlin? Would it apply to a large majority of postdocs, or would just a small, relatively senior subset benefit?
(Of course, a different question is if this will actually make a big difference in practice, but that is beyond the scope of this post.)
NB: someone better versed in Behördendeutsch and with more experience in German academia than me, please feel free to improve my translations.
If a university wanted to get around that rule, the obvious way to do that seems to be to not mention a qualification aim in the work contract. I believe that my postdoc work contract in Germany (not Berlin) didn't mention any qualification aims.
One important piece of context for an international audience: German universities already have permanent non-professorial scientific positions ("akademischer Rat"). Unlike what "tenure track for all" suggests, it's not that the new law would give postdocs a route to automatically become full professors (or even any kind of professor), it's more meant to prevent universities from stringing together time-bound postdocs without ever committing to permanent researcher positions. (IANAL, my outsider understandin)
@lighthousekeeper: May I ask whether your position was funded by a grant or whether it was a regular position funded by a federal state ("Landesstelle")? I'm asking because one of the issues here apparently is a follows: By federal law in Germany (the so called "Wissenschaftszeitvertraggesetz", which can roughly be translated as "Law about non-permanent positions in academia" - kudos to Mark Twain!), regular positions ("Landesstellen") which are not permanent must necessarily include qualification targets. [...]
[...] I'm not a lawyer, but combined with the new law in Berlin, it seems that this implies that, in Berlin, regular positions ("Landesstellen") for postdocs can no longer be filled by given people non-permanent contracts. For if a postdoc is supposed to take such a position with a non-permanent contract, federal law requires the contract to include qualification targets; but if the contract includes qualification targets, Berlin state law forbids the contract to be non-permannt.
(By the way, I just noticed that's a really nice real-life example example for a proof by contradiction - unfortunately, my first year students are probably not interested in laws about regulation of academic work, so there's no benenfit of using it in class... :-) )
@JochenGlueck Couldn't your students model academia, in particular the mobility of early-career scientists, as a dynamical system? ;-) (NB: the point you make about federal law requiring German Landesstellen to include qualification targets is important, and I was not aware of this)
@gerrit: I'll keep this in mind for an ODE course. :-) But for the time being, I'll be happy if I succeed in explaining to them what a vector space is. ;-)
@gerrit: Just in order to provide a reference for the requirement of qualification targets by federal law: It's the second sentence in §2 (1) of WissZeitVG.
If so, I foresee the number of postdocs in Berlin decreasing…
@JonCuster Universities and parliamentary opposition went to court to block the law on competency grounds (arguing this is an exclusive competency of the federal government), so it might not happen after all, depending on how the court rules.
The first quote simply says that a permanent position can be negotiated, but not that it must. In practice, few universities will want to do that for more than a handful of people because it greatly constrains their future ability to hire someone else for that position.
@WolfgangBangerth It says can for PhD students, but must for postdocs.
Oh, I see now. I wonder whether the intent is just that the question of "Anschluss" simply has to be spelled out in the contract, but without stating what the conclusion is supposed to be (either affirming that there will be an "Anschluss", or declaring that there will be none).
@WolfgangBangerth: From what I've read in the media, the law is definitely meant to force the universities in Berlin to provide permanent contracts for postdocs if their position is not funded by a grant. (But obviously, the law will fail miserably - for the reasons you have already mentioned, and also since Berlin apparently found it a good idea to pass this law, but not such a good idea to provide more money to the universities for additional permanent positions. One of the universities in Berlin has already frozen all hiring processes for now.)
@JochenGlueck My position was indeed funded by a grant. Your explanations for the case of a "Landesstelle"-funded postdoc make sense. In my field, it seems that grant-funded postdocs are much more common, but that might be different in other fields.
Short answer: When a post-doc is hired by a university in Berlin (i.e., not with third-party funding), their contract must contain the conditions which, if met, will lead to them being offered a permanent contract. These conditions should be tied to successfully acquiring the skills that are the goal of the post-doc. This applies to about 2/3 of post-docs in science and art, but not to medical doctors receiving specialized training.
Longer answer...
This law was finally adopted in July 2022. The relevant part of the law states:
(6) Mit einem wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter oder einer wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiterin auf einer Qualifikationsstelle kann vereinbart werden, dass im Anschluss an das befristete Beschäftigungsverhältnis der Abschluss eines unbefristeten Beschäftigungsverhältnisses erfolgen wird (Anschlusszusage), wenn die bei der Anschlusszusage festgelegten wissenschaftlichen Leistungen erbracht wurden und die sonstigen Einstellungsvoraussetzungen vorliegen. Mit promovierten wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeitern und Mitarbeiterinnen ist unter der Bedingung, dass das im Arbeitsvertrag benannte Qualifikationsziel erreicht wird, eine dieses Qualifikationsziel angemessen berücksichtigende Anschlusszusage zu vereinbaren.
My translation:
For a scientific employee in a qualification stage, it can be agreed, that upon the completion of the limited-time employment relationship, a permanent employment relationship (consecutive commitment) will be offered if the specified academic achievements and other employment requirements are met. With PhD-holding scientific employees, such a follow-up commitment is to be offered, subject to the condition that the contractually-named qualification goals are reached.
In other words: offering a follow-on contract to PhD students is optional, but it is required for positions such as post-docs where the primary goal of the position is for the employee to acquire certain skills, and those skills are indeed acquired satisfactorily.
The (potential) problem with this is obvious, and is indeed specified in the article from Forschung und Lehre that you already linked:
Die Landesrektorenkonferenz der Rektoren und Präsidenten der Berliner Hochschulen hatte deshalb...vor einem "massiven Ausbau unbefristeter Beschäftigungsverhältnisse in Forschung und Lehre" gewarnt..."Würden die jetzt vorhandenen Stellen in kurzer Zeit sämtlich besetzt, so bliebe auf Jahre und Jahrzehnte kein Spielraum, künftigen wissenschaftlichen Talenten eine vergleichbare Qualifizierungs- und Beschäftigungsperspektive zu bieten."
which, roughly translated, means:
The state conference of university rectors and presidents of higher education institutes in Berlin had therefore warned...of a "massive increase in the number of permanent employees in research and teaching...if the currently-open positions were all filled [with permanent employees], there would be no space for years or decades to offer equivalent training or employment opportunities to future scientific talent.
Now you specifically asked about who this applies to. The law itself defines this: some of the sections (not reproduced here) define "scientific employees" and make a major distinction between those employees required for the normal functioning of the school versus those whose primary goal is to further qualify themselves for academic jobs. But of course the law does not estimate how many employees that might apply to. For that, we turn to this article:
So rechnete es auch Hochschulexperte Tobias Schulze von der Linken vor: Von den 12.245 wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter:innen an Berliner Hochschulen seien 5000 Postdocs und von ihnen wiederum ein Drittel Drittmittelbeschäftigte. Die verbleibenden 3354 haushaltsfinanzierten Postdoktorand:innen, um die es in §110 geht, machten jedoch nur fünf bis zehn Prozent aller Beschäftigten im Mittelbau aus.
translation:
Hochschule expert Tobias Schutze from der Linken [a political party] estimates it as follows: of the 12,245 scientific employees in Berlin's Hochschulen, 5000 are postdocs, and of these, a third have external funding. The remaining 3,354 university-funded positions, to which Paragraph 110 [this law] applies, therefore make up only five to ten percent of all mid-career employees.
So, it applies to about 2/3 of all post-docs in Berlin. It also applies to similar positions for artists, but not to similar positions for medical doctors.
Now there is still some ambiguity. For example, can universities simply make the conditions equivalent to: "become the type of world-class researcher we would want to hire anyway"? Or must the conditions indeed be so achievable that the current generation of researchers will almost all get permanent positions, to the exclusion of future generations? Time will tell.
It'll be very interesting to see what universities will write down. "The university shall hire the post-doctoral research associate on a permanent contact if the research leads to at least two nobel prizes."
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13596 | Do online recommendation systems ask specific questions about the PhD candidate?
I am applying to fall 2014 PhD programs in computer science. I have heard that the online recommendation system in place at most universities asks the recommender to answer a series of questions about the student in addition to a place where the letter can be typed. What kind of questions are asked?
As a graduate applicant, why should you care? Your only decision is a judicious choice of folks who will write you strong research-y letters of recommendation.
Take a look at this:
They pretty much ask the same sort of questions (mostly in a Likert scale).
FYI: the candidate name and program aren't quite blurred enough, I can almost make them out. (Though maybe they are fake anyway.)
It is probably fake. I took it from Oregon State's website: http://gradschool.oregonstate.edu/help/docs/34#
I doubt if anyone's name is really "New Applicant".
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10320 | Gnuplot in thesis and articles or not?
I'm doing an astrophysics thesis with a lot of programming in Python. I'm currently using gnuplot for my plots, but I wonder if this is actually looking quite professional. Are there other options which look better and are still easy to use?
Here an example of a figure in my thesis:
The vertical line I got with the following command:
set arrow from 4861.3,-1200 to 4861.3,2000 nohead lc 2
I know it reaches out of the figure, but I use this command for all of my script and I know only at the end what the upper and lower boundary of the y-axis will be. Every peak is different.
I do not think there is anything wrong with GNUPlot, it is probably more important how you design the plots within GNUPlot, see for example http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/10282/4394
Do you have an example of a typical plot in your thesis? If you do, then you can probably post it and ask, "What can I do to improve this plot?" and solicit specific advice rather than just asking about alternative software packages that may or may not help you.
@Irwin: editted the question.
@JanosBraem Questions "Is GNUPlot able to generate publication-quality plots?" and "Is this plot (generated by GNUPlot) publication-quality?" are very different. And the later may be unsuitable for StackExchange sites as "too localized" or "off-topic" (as it is about tweaking plot, what has a lot to do with other sites, SE sites, but not - academia).
If you know where the peak is, how come you don't know how high it is? Why use an arrow without a head instead of plotting a new line of data with two points? There are problems with the graph--legends should be larger than tick labels, line width could maybe be a bit thicker, having stuff like u($1/(1.9072)):2 (or even the file name) is not very professional-looking. But these are all fixable with a bit of effort without using something other than Gnuplot.
@RexKerr You're right, a new line with two datapoints would be better. thx
@PiotrMigdal The focus is on the first question. But with the hints and tips here I'm convinced that with some approvements Gnuplot also suits for publication.
See my comment here.
StackOverflow has a gnuplot tag that would be helpful for making your graphs more "professional" looking. In this instance, just using GPVAL_Y_MAX/GPVAL_Y_MIN for the y-limits of the arrow would help to keep the line in the frame of the axis. Alternatively, GPVAL_DATA_Y_MAX contains the maximum y-value of the data line. See, for example: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7330161/accessing-gnuplots-autorange-values
If you do the programming in Python, you could also do the plotting in Python with matplotlib. With a little adjustment of the plotting parameters, it is possible to produce publication-quality plots with this software.
Alternatively, if you need fancy annotations etc., I can recommend the pgfplots package for tikz/LaTeX. You could export data from your Python program to a csv file, and then use that as data source for plotting with pgfplots. If you are also using TeX for the main text, it allows to to produce graphics which nicely fit the formating of the text.
With matplotlib you can also generate figures with LaTeX text and formulas in them
For the plot you've shown, I have a couple of suggestions to make it look more "professional". (Maybe you're already doing some of these in the actual document.)
Use a vector-based file format; your lines will look smoother, up to the resolution of your printer. I suggest set terminal pdf.
Set a meaningful title for the curve: plot "tkrs.txt" using ... title "Dilithium flux density". Or omit it completely: plot "tkrs.txt" using ... notitle.
If plotting a mathematical function (rather than a dataset), set samples 5000 or something similarly high for your final output.
Try to choose a font for the labels that matches the paper's text as closely as possible. See help term pdf for more info, and other interesting tweaks. You can also use non-ASCII characters (e.g. Å instead of angstrom).
Set the plot to a size and aspect ratio that fits nicely on the page, preferably so that your word processor (or LaTeX) doesn't have to rescale it.
For your vertical line, you could cheat and use a parametric function, so that it will be clipped to the boundaries of the plot. It's a little tricky because if you make the line extra long, by default the plot will be rescaled to fit all of it. But there is a way to avoid this:
set xrange [ ] writeback
set yrange [ ] writeback
plot "tkrs.txt" ...
set parametric
set trange [-1200:10000]
set xrange restore
set yrange restore
replot t, 4861.3 notitle
Thx a lot for the hints, I'll try them all next week.
It is difficult to produce professional-looking output from Gnuplot (even harder than it is from Matlab, which I also wouldn't recommend).
Since you're already using Python, matplotlib is the obvious choice. You you can even make a decent attempt at producing full figures, not just one panel.
Typically astrophysics doesn't have much reference to astronomy these days. However, if your thesis does, you might also want to check out APLpy which adds on to matplotlib.
@MarcusAntoninus - What is the difference between "difficult" and "with care"?
@MarcusAntoninus - Just for reference, I view the graphs in http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~zov1/ as borderline in terms of publication-quality.
@RexKerr could you go into more depth as to what is wrong with the plots in the link you gave, they look basic, but essentially functional. I've seen worse in publications.
@PaulHiemstra - All of them are badly aliased. In the first one, the axis labels are too small--all the text is, really--and the erf label is too close to the border. In the second one, the tick labels are not helping anything and the arrow looks cartoonish. The third one is good; only the tick labels are too long. The fourth is just ugly; you need less space and wavy lines not just slashes to indicate space, and you need it on the graph line as well. The fifth has bad axis label spacing (including tick labels), and the smoothing has introduced a shift in the data. You get the idea.
@PaulHiemstra - That said, I've also seen worse, but the nice-looking ones don't look easy, and the easy-looking ones don't look that nice. And the examples don't cover things that gnuplot doesn't do that well like line symbols (e.g. setting line width of your box symbol). Then again, sometimes you don't want your figures to be a work of art but just to get the point across, and then you can usually get something acceptable without changing too many defaults.
The choice of plotting choice will depend on several factors. First, it is important to state that there are many options, from GNUPlot, through commercial plotting packages such as Grapher and Origin, plotting capabilities of Matlab and R to plotting using specific packages such as pgfplots (LaTeX) or graphics packages accompanying programming languages (e.g. PSPlot). What you chose will depend on other factors such as what your peers use, what you may have become familiar with and perhaps what you can afford (thinking of open source vs. commercial).
My personal experience has been that there is no single software that can do everything and so for me the key has been to identify what I need done and to minimize the number of software I need to accomplish it. This has led me to choices that are not common to my peers and has also left me to find my own solutions, not dreawing so much from other pesons experience (thank heavens for sites such as stackexchange)
So stick to what you know as long as it can do what you want but always keep an eye out for new solutions and try to figure out what others are doing that may impress you.
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5820 | Present journal paper at conference or the same work at multiple conferences
Possible Duplicate:
Under what circumstances can one republish a conference paper/presentation?
I have recently completed a Masters of Science which I pursued to fill a personal goal and to advance our development of a regional tsunami warning system.
Having read the thread on multiple publishing and presenting I am still confused as this is a new issue for me. Coming from Government we present on special projects or findings any number of times.
If I wish to publish my findings in an academic journal am I precluded from presenting at any conferences?
If I present at a localised scientific conference without published proceedings, am I precluded from presenting at a global one?
Can I focus one on localised context and the other on the global implications, then cite having presented at the local level?
There are a number of very similar questions, perhaps duplicates. See the links in my answer below.
The exact answer depends on the topic, but normally:
Publishing finding in an academic journal does not preclude presenting at conferences (except in computer science!). In fact, it's quite common to first publish a paper in a peer-reviewed journal, then go to one or even several conferences to advertise it. Just be sure to mention it at the conference, because if there are proceedings, there may exist conferences with different ideas, depending on the field.
Presenting at a local conference does not preclude presenting at a global one, certainly not if the local conference has no proceedings, because then there is not really any publication at all.
The answer to your third question is most likely yes.
To be 100% sure, contact the organisers of the conferences.
See also:
Publishing the same results at multiple conferences
Submitting the same research to multiple conferences
Journal publication and acceptance to competitive conferences
Under what circumstances can one republish a conference paper/presentation?
Dear gerrit and aeismail; Thank you so very much for your quick and informative responses and the additional links. Once I get over the first time gitters it will be ok but I appreciate folks like you who are willing the mentor. All the best and happy holidays - Lis
Publishing finding in an academic journal does not preclude presenting at conferences — Except in computer science.
In fields outside of computer science, publishing a paper does not normally prevent you from presenting your work at a conference; as gerrit points out, the two go hand in hand quite frequently, and many people will speak about just-published research in a presentation. (I know I have!)
However, what publishing a paper can do is change the form of the presentation, int he sense that the journal may place some restrictions on how you can reuse the material that has been published.
For instance, you may need to provide citations when including figures from the paper in your presentation, as well as citing any text that is taken directly from what has been published. For many journals, however, you may do so without asking prior permission, so long as you include the appropriate citations.
Publishing a paper does not normally prevent you from presenting your work at a conference — Except in computer science.
@JeffE: Why does CS seem to work so differently from every other major field of academia?
You have to start with the understanding that conference proceedings are the primary publication venue in CS, and work backwards from there. Presenting at a conference is simply a perk of publishing a paper in a conference proceedings. But if you've already published a paper elsewhere, you can't publish it again in a conference proceedings — no double dipping! — so you can't present it at a conference either.
@JeffE: That I knew. What I don't understand is why only CS seems to have this model. What are the differences in CS's evolution compared to other academic fields that would lead to this radical paradigm change?
The standard fiction is that even in the 70s and 80s, the field moved too fast for journal papers (which typically had a several-months-long review cycle) to be useful. In some subfields, a six-month old paper may as well not exist. Computer scientists were relatively rich, flights were relatively cheap, and there was no internet, so conference proceedings filled that gap. [Other fields have responded to the same pressure by imposing fast review cycles and page limits on their journal papers, but CS has (largely) resisted the urge to abridge our archival publications.]
Also, computer science grew out of a mixture of mathematics and electrical engineering (with occasional bits of physics), which gave us a healthy(?) disrespect for the scholarly traditions of other fields (and our own). So what if everybody else does it differently?
Well, for one thing, it can make it a lot harder to evaluate personnel for an interdisciplinary position. One candidate comes in with 5 or 6 high-quality journal publications. The other comes in with a bunch of conference proceedings (which could also be very high-quality). Guess which one the non-CS people on the panel would likely prefer?
The one with the more convincing recommendation letters, of course. (Ha ha only serious.)
Here in Germany, the letters of recommendation come after the finalists are selected.
A question please: what if the journal and conference were submitted at the same time ? We had this issue before. We could not cite any of them because none of them were published (even at the phase of revised journal and camera-ready conference). This issue raised a lot of opinions. What is your opinion please ?
Not sure exactly what you're asking, but outside of CS, it's OK to present a work at a conference while the journal paper is under consideration. Citations are tricky, because, as you said, there's nothing formally published to cite; however, in the conference presentation, you can always "cite" the paper as "submitted to Journal X."
@JeffE, for me the weird part is to understand which authority dictate this rule in computer science? I posted a full question http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/61547/which-authority-dictates-regulates-that-in-computer-science-a-journal-paper-cann
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26250 | How can/should I indicate that it's okay to use open access content in a paper?
Suppose I want to reuse some substantial piece of content - say, a figure1 - from someone else's paper in my own scholarly work. If the other paper is under a traditional license, I'll have to obtain explicit permission from the copyright holder (usually the publisher), and then when I include the figure in my own work, I can say "Figure from reference [x], used with permission."
However, if the other paper is under an open access license or is in the public domain, and my own work will be released under a compatible license, I don't need to explicitly contact the copyright holder to ask for permission to use their content. When I attribute the figure in my work, can I still say "used with permission"? Legally speaking, I do have permission to use it by virtue of the license under which it is released (or lack thereof, if public domain), but including that phrase makes it sound like I've received an explicit statement of permission from the copyright holder, and I wouldn't want to give a misleading impression about that.
If I shouldn't say "used with permission," what would be a suitable replacement? If it's under a Creative Commons license, for example, I could say something like
Figure from reference [x], used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license
but that seems a little verbose. Is there a better alternative?
I'm also interested in how to handle this when the content is in the public domain, or is under a much more permissive open access license (perhaps one whose attribution requirement is merely "you must credit the author"). I understand that I'm not legally required to include any notice saying that I'm allowed to use content under such a license. But for this question I'm more interested in the ethical obligations that a reader might perceive.
1Even though a single figure would often be considered fair use. But let's pretend for this question that whatever I want to reuse is enough that fair use doesn't apply.
This question concerns a similar situation, but is asking about whether it is legal to reuse content at all, whereas I'm asking about how to properly show that it is legal to do so, after it's been established that no explicit permission is necessary.
Read the terms of the CC license it is licensed under. It spells out, more or less, what you should do.
Almost all CC licenses include an attribution clause. As of the 4.0 version, this means:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
Clicking the "appropriate credit" shows some more information:
If supplied, you must provide the name of the creator and attribution parties, a copyright notice, a license notice, a disclaimer notice, and a link to the material. CC licenses prior to Version 4.0 also require you to provide the title of the material if supplied, and may have other slight differences.
So the easiest way to satisfy this is, indeed, to say
Figure from reference [x], used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
Where your reference should contain the rest of the information, including a link. If you're pressed for space, you can abbreviate the license (CC BY 4.0), or put the text in a footnote.
OK, that helps... but let me nitpick a bit. Sec 3(a)(2) of the license says the information can be provided in any reasonable manner, such as at a URL referenced in the document. The journal page for the paper I'm taking the figure from includes a copyright notice and reference to the CC license etc., so it seems like linking to that URL may satisfy the requirement without me having to include an explicit copyright notice for the figure in my work. If that's true, then what do I need to include in my work to show that I have permission to use the figure?
And if that's not true, here's a better example: suppose the figure is under a different open access license with a less strict attribution requirement - perhaps nothing more than "you must credit the author." Or perhaps it's public domain, so there is no attribution requirement and no legal restrictions at all on its use. What do I need to write in my work to show a reader that I'm allowed to use the figure in that case? That's the question I'm really interested in.
@DavidZ Best practices for attribution gives more info about attribution. In particular, your reasonable manner seems to be satisfied by citing the article in question, as it contains both the author and the source. If you want to avoid naming the license with the figure, and the entire document you're citing is under the same license, you could place the license info in the bibliography as well.
@DavidZ There are no such guidelines for material in the public domain, so anything indicating that the work is in the public domain will do. You should be very careful with this, though. A work's public domain status depends on the copyright law of the country in which it was produced. And in some countries it is impossible for the creator to place something in the public domain before the copyright would expire naturally.
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67015 | How common is it to work extra with one's professor after getting a M.S.?
I'm in a situation where I am continuing to work on some of my M.S. research work after I have filed and will receive my M.S.
It is fine with me and I think it's good because there were loose ends. This is computer science field, and it involves a programming project we want to improve.
In the back of my mind, I'm hoping we can write a journal article. Part of me, though, wonders about whether this may be risky. Will my professor make excessive demands on me, even though we're officially finished? I also need to focus on other demands, such as my job.
So I worry a little about the expectations.
How common is it to continue working after getting one's MS, but without any official agreement (i.e., I just informally meet with my prof and discuss my progress).
Also, in case you're wondering, I'm not currently interested in doing a PhD (maybe later, just not anytime too soon).
What are you worried about? Pay, publication, time commitments? Can you define what you mean by "risky"?
@Ric - Ok, sure I will clarify
Your concern that this is "risky" is somewhat vague, but generally, I'd say that working on something like this is extremely common. I've never "cleanly" finished a project, where it is fully wrapped up, with nothing else to do right as my degree was awarded, I moved to a new position, etc.
I'd say it's extremely common, and if you think that extra work might result in a publication, fairly valuable. There is the possibility of things being too demanding, but generally people are pretty understanding of other obligations that come up, especially if you let them know in advance.
Thanks a lot ! I added a little more, in regards to "risky" comment. But I think I agree - this would be valuable to me if we can get a publication
I must say, overall my professor is very understanding. So, I am more confident now that it would be good to do some more work
As Fomite mentioned this isn't uncommon. With that said, I would like to add to the answer by suggesting a more official agreement. Instead of just working on a project, it's better to actually be part of his lab (even part time). Working in a research lab after you have completed your degree's obligations shows more commitment to research and this can make you a more attractive candidate if you want to consider PhD in the future. This of course depends partly on your time constraints and partly on your advisors decision.
Thank you, this is good suggestion. I will see if my work would allow it (sometimes there are legal clauses about jobs on the side) . thanks !
Definitely! I wish you the best of luck
You mention 'your job', which suggests you've already moved on post-degree.
At the same time, you'd like to write up your work for publication, which is a very admirable and understandable goal. If the above is correct, then you are trying to balance an academic life with an industry life, and they are seldom compatible. For one thing (and I've experienced this), your academic advisor won't 'get' the industry obligations.
From your standpoint, you've already attained the end-goal: get a job. But, if you wish to continue working to get this publication out, do it now and do it quickly. Your advisor will have no qualms about continually asking for further analyses/models/whatever so long as he/she believes you're invested, because honestly, you're working for free at that point. So get it done!
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190529 | Should I use equations in a research statement for faculty positions?
I'm writing a research statement for a faculty position. I've divided the statement into small sections discussing past, current work, and future directions. I'm wondering if people often do use equations in the statement about their research?
The research is on machine learning (ML). The target is a mathematics department with an ML opening.
You are asking the wrong question. The right question you should be asking yourself is "How do I best explain what I want to say, to the audience I have identified for the thing I'm writing". You will notice that I'm saying this not with regard to a research statement as part of an application, but in general: This is the advice you should consider for everything you write: Identify who your audience is, what they know, what they want to get out of what you are writing for them, and then use that insight to decide how you should write.
As for the specific question: Yes, research statements addressed to math departments typically use formulas. That's because that audience is clearly capable to understand these formulas, and will want to see enough detail that it is worth stating them in concise, mathematical notation.
Thanks. Since you are in the math department, how many pages do they usually write? Is 7 pages too much?
In my institution's current job ad, we suggest 3-5 pages for a research statement. By the way, it sounds like you might want to apply for this particular opening…!
@GregMartin wrong link?
3-5 pages sounds like a reasonable number.
I am applying to Ph.D. programs in Optimization/ML this year, and my advisor suggested that I should "put formulas in my research statement to show people the work I have done". However, I find it hard to do in practice since for formulas to make sense you need to define some notations first, which takes a lot of words. Additionally, I cannot explain my research in a sentence if the readers are not familiar with the background, and using words allows me to gross over some details. I wonder if I should still use equations at the cost of conciseness to please the admission committee?
Sorry, the correct link is https://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/20980
"Identify who your audience is, what they know, what they want to get out of what you are writing for them, and then use that insight to decide how you should write." If your audience is the whole department, then you're right that you need to define notation. If your audience is that part of the department that does things related to what you do, then maybe not. In any case, the other universal truth also applies: "Talk to your adviser about it."
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155329 | How should I address my two supervisors (one man, one woman) in an email?
I am currently doing a PhD. My professor, which is my first supervisor, is a man. My second supervisor is a woman and works for my first supervisor. The etiquette and the courtesy, at least in my country, requires to greet the female first, e.g.:
Dear Dr. Female,
Dear Prof. Dr. Male,
This sounds wrong to me, since my professor is my main supervisor. Can I greet my professor first without violating etiquette?
My PhD position is located in Germany; my research field is mathematics and I write everything in English.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
Hierarchy beats Gender in Germany
In a professional context in Germany, hierarchy beats gender, at least according to the Knigge, which is an etiquette guide of nontrivial influence. This goes as far as to be gender-blind. Only rank is important.
So you would address the highest ranking person first, in this case, your professor.
Seems reasonable. I will stick with that, thanks.
This answer is correct (+1), but I would like to add that it is likely that your professors will not notice or care who is mentioned first. Of course this depends on the professor(s) in question. Germany can be a little strict sometimes and it doesn't hurt to err on the side of caution (hence +1), but most people I met (including many Germans) would not care at all.
TIL that there is a canonical ordering by gender in German Ansprache?
@TheoreticalMinimum: Some care, others don't. Thus, assuming equal rank, greeting the woman first is the only safe choice if your goal is not to offend anyone.
@darijgrinberg, "Sehr geehrte Herren und Damen" just sounds wrong.
@o.m.: I know, but I never thought to apply the logic when addressing people by their names.
@darijgrinberg: it is rarely needed in practice because it only acts as tie-breaker where importance in the given context is not sufficient. And even there, on the scale of politeness it is only a comparatively small thing - all other things being equal noone will be upset, but you may use it so as to not need to think about the order. Whereas Fr. Prof. Dr. med. h.c. mult. Heinz may be visibly upset if you greet her OA Dr. med. Müller first: importance beats gender every single time.
@o.m. well, better “Sehr geehrte Herren und Damen” than “Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, liebe Neger”!
This may sound flippant but I’m being 100% serious:
You’re doing a PhD in STEM and addressing your supervisors. The customary form of address is “Hi” or, if you have a very formal relationship with your supervisors, “Hello”; not “Dear Prof. Dr. X” — even in the traditionally hierarchical German system.
Starting an email to your supervisor with “Dear Prof. Dr. X” is distinctly weird and risks coming across as off-putting. If you’re not on first-name terms with your supervisors, simply leave off the name entirely from the salutation (i.e. write just “Hello”, not “Hello Xavier”).
I think "Hi" or "Hello" is far to informal, given the type of question the OP has (if the OP had an informal relation with their supervisors they wouldn't ask it). I'd only switch to that if I'm on a first-name basis. Otherwise, I'd much rather prefer "Dear. Mr. X" than "Hi Prof. X" in level of politeness - the latter feels oddly impolite (including, and in particular, in German, which is not the question here).
I also think that your classification of "Hello" as a "very formal" address is rather odd.
@user151413 I (strongly) disagree. OP also said all communication is in English. “Hello” is a completely acceptable, neutral email greeting even when you don’t know the interlocutors at all; it’s fine even in a fairly formal context. Once you know the interlocutor, it’s more than fine. — As for calling your supervisor “Prof. Dr.”, that should probably be addressed in a separate question but in OP’s professional context (PhD in STEM in Germany in English) it’s also very unusual, and if I had to guess I’d say that OP is committing a minor social faux-pas doing so.
@user151413 I disagree. English is English. What parts are you referring to?
@user91988 I disagree. English is not English. There is a local context. In Germany, I would consider "Hi Prof. X" informal. Not from a student writing from the US, but from a student who has been in Germany for a while. Just as I would find a student who does not know which part of the name is first or last name inappropriate, if they have been around for a while - things might be different in their culture (or english culture, whatever that would even be), but this does not mean you should not try to learn the local standards.
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Although I like this answer – 1. in Germany it's really not that universal to be per du with PhD supervisors. Many professors indeed put all their ≥master students on a “hallo Firstname” basis, but they tend to make this explicit – my master supervisor asked me if I was ok with that. Others do still prefer to stick to the traditional forms.
2. There's at least nothing wrong or weird with using a formal style, even if the professor doesn't care about it. Here in Norway, “hei Firstname” is very much the standard and everybody knows it, yet some of my fellow PhD students (one I have in mind is from Pakistan) apperently aren't comfortable with that and will write something like “dear Prof. Firstname” (in a group chat). I do find this somewhat odd myself, but certainly wouldn't say there's anything wrong with preferring a “polite/professional” mode of conversation, regardless if you're the supervisor or student.
In addition to @PhilYardman's point (which is correct) you also need to consider how directly your email addresses whom. This beats both hierarchy and gender: the importance in the style link in @PhilYardman's answer is evaluated in the context of the email.
The ones who are primarily addressed (To) come first and are always greeted.
So, if you primarily write to your secondary supervisor and "only" keep your supervisor informed of this, the greeting starts with "Dear Dr. Second-Supervisor"
Those who are only informed (CC):
I name them, but usually put that greeting into parentheses. This reminds everyone that more people are reading this email, while also signalling that the ones in parentesis are only notified.
It would also be acceptable to not include them in the greeting.
If there are further people on BCC, they are not named (that would defeat the purpose of BCC), but you may use a generic greeting - depending on the context and content anywhere between "Dear all" and "Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren" [Dear Madam or Sir - but the German version is in plural], or a group address (Say, "Dear supervisors")
I'd adapt the level of formality ("Sehr geehrter Herr Prof. Dr. med. mult. Supervisor" - "Sehr geehrter Herr Prof. Supervisor" - "Lieber Prof. Supervisor" - "Lieber Herr Supervisor" - "Lieber Vorname") to the customs at your institute and to the likes of your supervisors. This varies a lot between fields, institutes and people...
"Prof. Dr." sounds too formal to me for the STEM fields I work with - but e.g. in the medical field it is AFAIK quite common (and there the position in the hospital would be attached as well "Chefarzt Dr. med.").
I think that these are some useful additional hints, thanks.
To me, "Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren" is more what I would use if I don't know who reads this email (similar to "To whom it may concern") - it would be not something I would use to address a set of known people.
+1 On bcc, you can name people (without defeating the purpose) when the intention is to include them just once, e.g., to thank them for the introduction. (By all means edit to include, if you like.)
@user151413: In this case, while I know who gets the email, one important intention of blind copy is to keep privacy of the readers in BCC. That being said, it is often possible to address them in a more direct fashion. Which is what I often prefer to do. E.g. "Dear study participants". However, that is rather informal - if a more formal address is appropriate, "Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren" is IMHO the way to go.
@TheoreticalMinimum: SgDH is entirely appropriate if you do not know who and how many are addressed. Including the special case of only one person happening to be addressed. You here are all people involved, i.e. it is appropriate even if I know, but the recipients could be multiple people of different gender and the recipients do not know each other. It is not appropriate to use plural if everyone involved knows there is only at most one person of each gender, and it is not appropriate to include a gender that cannot possibly be in the "audience". Sehr geehrte Damen is entirely appropriat
for a formal greeting of a female-only group. It will sound old wannabe playboy only if it is not female-only but a group that may comprise other genders as well (for all I or the recipients know) but is guessed by the wannabe playboy to contain females only, ignoring, say, male elementary school teachers. This is still in the context of BCC addresses where recipients know less about each other than in other contexts. But I think we're getting off-topic/quite down the rabbit-hole.
@TheoreticalMinimum: ah, ok - of course. Yes I misunderstood you. As for Sehr geehrte Damen, as a woman I can only say that do not see anything per se inappropriate with it (nor with Sehr geehrte Herren in the opposite case). Neither pronounced by men nor by women. I'd draw the line of inappropriate where it is only estimated/guessed/expected (as oppoesed to known) that noone of the other gender is addressed. Tone/intent may play a role as well. Of course, deliberate mis-addressing is entirely inappropriate.
Let us continue this discussion in chat.
Concerning your examples, note that in the German Anrede, "Professor" ist always spelled out (in contrast to "Dr."), e. g. "Sehr geehrter Herr Professor X", but "Sehr geehrter Herr Dr. X").
Adapting the level of formality is good, but as a German native I would never use the combination 'Lieber Prof' or any 'Liebe/r' plus last name/Sie Form. From formal to informal: Sehr geehrter Prof Last Name, Hallo Prof Last Name, Hallo First Name, Lieber First Name. The last being very informal, I would not really use that in a professional context. So Lieber First Name is ok if you want to ask the prof to drink a beer after work but not if you ask him to proof read your draft.
@quarague: (also native German) I meet the combination of Liebe/r + Lastname quite a lot in situations where Sehr geehrte/r is too formal since one knows each other, but the question of first names never came up. BTW, I'd put Liebe/r Herr/Frau/Prof/Dr. Lastname as less formal than Sehr geehrte/r Herr/Frau/Prof/Dr Lastname, but as more formal than Hallo Herr/Frau/Prof/Dr Lastname. However, it may be that Liebe/r is the old-fashioned version of new-fashioned Hallo. Where I have been, the scientific staff below professor was always on first name basis. (Above it varied - I'm on perfectly friendly
last name terms with some of "my" professors and institute directors, on first name basis with others.) Also with technicians, workshop folk and administration this varied on a case to case basis. I'd still say that a PhD student should not assume they're on a first name basis with a technician who has more years of professional experience than the student is old. In my experience there's a non-negligible fraction of such staff that prefers rather formal ways - and I have seen students/scientific staff who were very condescending. I'd avoid Hallo whereever such sensitivities could lurk.
The etiquette and the courtesy, at least in my country, requires to greet the female first
This answer will be a little bit on the philosophical side (probably too much so for some people’s taste), but I’d like to suggest another way of thinking about the question. Instead of asking what is tantamount to “how can I best conform to what my society expects of me in email greetings?”, you can turn the dilemma around and ask “how can I help dismantle antiquated social norms that assign different genders to predetermined roles, and push society ever so slightly in the direction of being more rational and fair?” In other words, put the focus not on being the best follower, but on being the best leader. Granted, the particular social norm in question is a harmless one, but the point is that it’s part of a larger pattern of gender-aware (or outright sexist) norms which are not all harmless.
If you like the idea of looking at things that way, just write the greeting in the way that seems most logical to you based on the content of your email and your relationships with the two co-advisors.
Of course, the specific dilemma in your question is so trivial that it doesn’t really provide much of an opportunity to be a leader. Whatever you do in this specific situation, I doubt anyone will even notice it, let alone know to interpret your behavior as a conscious attempt at shifting social norms (although if they happen to ask you about it, you can certainly explain the thinking that went into your decision). But I’m mainly suggesting this as a mindset to adopt in similar situations that you may encounter in the future, some of which may be more consequential. In other words, the current situation can be used as a kind of training or practice opportunity to get into the habit of challenging stupid social norms — particularly in a low-stakes environment where no matter what you do, it’s almost certain that nothing bad will happen.
I didn't downvote, but I suspect the downvote is due to some people (and cultures) viewing this as not all that trivial. As for me, if it's more than two people, I usually use "All,". If it's two people and I'm not especially concerned, then it'll be alphabetical by whatever I used (if only first names, then alphabetical by first names) and I make sure names in the "To" window are in the same order. If I'm concerned, then I might use something like "X (and also Y)," and put Y in the 'cc' send window and write the email as if I'm talking to X, where X is the primary person for the email.
@DaveLRenfro I was fully expecting some downvotes (precisely for the reason you mentioned), so I’m not troubled by it. Indeed, if there’s a culture that thinks it matters a lot that the woman’s name comes first in an email greeting, all the more reason to challenge this outdated belief.
I haven't downvoted either, but as I wrote in this meta answer trying to dismantle antiquated social norms may cause issues when one has to deal with old timers. Know your enemy first ;-)
@MassimoOrtolano good point. Well, all the Germans I know are pretty sensible people, so I assume my advice is mostly harmless in this particular situation. In others, yes, of course breaking norms may come with a cost and one should take that into account when making decisions.
In a professional context, it is often acceptable and actually useful to address correspondents using their functional title. In this case I think it would certainly be acceptable to use
Dear Supervisors,
It sidesteps the issue of order and immediately makes it clear in what capacity you address them. This would of course not be appropriate in the context, e.g., of a course that you are assisting with which may have nothing to do with them being your (research) supervisors.
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10126 | Teach in a university with a master degree
I don't know if here is the best place to ask that but I'm finishing my master degree in pure mathematics and I would like to travel and know another countries before enter into a doctorate school. In my country with a master degree you can teach in a private university or even in a public university with tenure in small villages or in public universities with 2-years contract in bigger cities.
I would like to know if in your own home country is easy to work in a temporary job as a "professor" or be a permanent professor with tenure in smaller areas with a master degree.
Remark
I know that is impossible to teach pure mathematics with only a master degree, but there are a lot of faculties of civil and food engineer, actuarial sciences, computer sciences, etc... which have logic, calculus, linear algebra, etc... courses, i.e., simpler courses with doesn't necessarily need a PHD professor to teach it.
Thanks a lot
When you say in your home country are you trying to get information on every country or are there some specific countries you are interested in?
@earthling I'm trying to get information on every country as possible :)
In the United States, a master's degree typically qualifies you to teach at the junior college or community college level, and also to teach as a lecturer at the university level. However, you should know that in mathematics there is substantially less supply of these jobs than there is demand for them. That is, they are hard to find and don't pay very well.
this is true even in small towns? for example, in my country, in a small town, It just opened right now be a "professor" with tenure with just bachelor.
If I've understood your question correctly, you are asking if you can work with your master's degree as an instructor in mathematics while you are touring the world before beginning a doctoral program.
If that is indeed the case, the answer is maybe, although it would be very difficult to accomplish.
The reason for this is that you would likely have to surmount visa issues, which can make it difficult for foreign nationals to gain employment in another country. You'd probably have to line up the position before you traveled, which would complicate things even further.
However, another thing to keep in mind is that in most universities, the math courses are taught out of the math department—including "service" courses taught for other departments, such as CS, engineering, and physical science. Even in these cases, first priority likely goes to faculty, existing teaching staff, and graduate students within the department. Only if there remains a need for additional teaching staff will they be likely to offer you a contract. And, as Stirling points out, they're unlikely to pay very well. (But then again, I suppose this is just a means of supporting yourself during your travels, in which case this might not be such a bad deal.)
not necessarily, For example, in Europe the countries are very near to each other, I can be in a particular place and from that place I can travel in the weekends.
Even in small towns is difficult? for example, in my country, in a small town, It just opened right now be a "professor" with tenure with just bachelor.
"not necessarily, For example, in Europe the countries are very near to each other": Yes, but first you have to get a job in one of those countries, and this needs to be done in advance. You will almost certainly not be able to just show up in Europe and look for jobs.
"Even in small towns is difficult?" If those countries are in most industrialized nations, and most of the ones in Europe, yes. Again, the job hunt will be made more difficult because you're a foreigner, and therefore will have to go through more hurdles. (In most of Europe, for instance, an employer would likely have to show that you have "unique capabilities" that can't be found in the EU.)
I'm not concern with this, I have other means to get a visa. Another possibility is do a PHD out there.
Fine, but the basic answer is that in most Western countries, a tenured position nowadays requires a PhD. Getting around this in most countries simply isn't an option.
The way you're saying that gives me an impression that even with a PHD I would not have easily even a non-tenured professor position.
In many countries, yes, that's true. You can be a lecturer, but not a professor. (A professor is normally expected to advise graduate students who will receive PhD's!)
Do you know which countries I can easily be a lecturer with a PhD? Thank you for your clarifications.
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16545 | What can academics and students do to reduce racism in academia?
I am a postdoc at a university in the UK. Before I came here, a friend warned me that racism is common in the UK. True enough, during my first few months here, I have already received a couple of racist gestures and jeers, including one instance inside the university campus, possibly from a student.
What I would like to ask is this: what part can we play, as academics and students, to reduce such instances of racism in the academic settings?
I come from Indonesia, and being Chinese, racism has been a part of my life. I have seen signs of improvement, but when I grew up, I still remember how it was. I am not complaining about UK, although I must admit that during my study in Norway, I experienced hardly any instances of racism or discrimination whatsoever. I am not asking which country is the worst. I share my experience just to show that it is real. I am not asking how to cope with racism, either. I am asking if there is anything I can do, or we can do, as academic community, to reduce instances of racism in academia, to make it a better environment for an increasingly international academic population. I am citing UK, because that's where I am now; it could have been another country. But wherever I am, I have a part to play in making it a better place.
Is this a case of boat programming ? I.e is there any reason that academia is special and different from other workplaces with regards to racism ?
@Suresh I think there are issues that are particular to universities. See my answer below.
It's not that racism is common in the UK, it's that we have the freedom to complain about it that it seems so prevalent. Coming from Indonesia you should read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_Chinese_Indonesians and understand that the UK is a free, diverse and forward thinking nation and a university by definition is full of educated people. If educated people from a free, diverse forward thinking country have racist tendencies then I wonder how racism in Indonesian universities is? How many black lecturers were there in your university? I had many in my university..
@Aaron I am sure you are right that UK universities are not markedly more racist than in many other countries. However I don't think that was the question or even a suggestion in any of the answers/comments. The question as I read it was about an absolute level of racism. In relation to your specific question, of the UK's 18,510 university professors, 85 are black according to the Guardian newspaper. This figure on its own does not tell me anything about university level racism however.
Professors and lecturers are two totally different things, but anyway.. 85 goes into 18,500 around 200 times, which means for every black professor there are 200 non black professors. This includes Arab, Indian, Chinese and every other classification. While in a completely fair society 200 would be more like 50 (as for every black person there are 50 non black persons) there are many other factors to consider such as cultural differences. I wonder out of those 85 how many are African descent as apposed to Caribbean descent? I'm guessing 90% African at least...
@Aaron, I agree. It is worse in Indonesia, and it is well-known. I grew up with it. The first paragraph is just to share my experience, but perhaps I should have jumped straight into the main question.
@Adipro, I have looked at your university page and some of your work and to be completely honest, you are a real credit to our country (and the human race in general) and I for one am very very very happy that you have come here. Anyone who negatively discriminates against you because of your race is not worth your time. I understand it's tough, an extra obstacle in your way but such is life my friend.
@Aaron I think around 3% of the UK population are officially termed Black or Black British. That would be about 555 professors. However as I said, you can't deduce anything about university level racism from this simple figure.
@Lembik That classification puts a Somalian, Jamaican and Aboriginal Australian in the same set. These three sets of people could not be more different unless you removed some pigment from their skin. I am talking about afro-carribean black people. And as I said, I would be willing to bet my house that 90% of those black professors are of African as apposed to Caribbean or any other descent.
As Aaron rightly pointed out, UK isn't especially racist, at least not more than most of the other countries. I tend to think that bigger the city in which the university is located, the less is the overall prevalence of racism.
That being said, I am sorry to hear you encountered racism in your profession. I do think that the advice by @Shion is a valuable one, and "Do onto others 20% better than you would have them do unto you to account for the subjective error" should be your modus operandi.
If, however, you find the prejudice by a particular person unbearable, and you have solid evidence of racism, don't hesitate to escalate the matters to your or his/her superiors.
I am not white, but I was born and raised in the UK. Studying computer science I suffered from not being able to understand some of my lecturers accents as brilliant as they were. If I could click my fingers and that guys accent disappeared would I have done it? Yes. Alternatively we could have just hired a native speaker. This is not about race, but about understanding. If a white English lecturer used to whisper all the time, I would want to replace him also.
@Watto, how would that modus operandi translate into a practical situation?
Adipro, what Watto means is (collectively as Indonesians) treat those people well enough that you will force them to change their opinion of your race.
Could you give some examples, @Aaron?
Examples of how to treat people well??? If you need to ask for examples, I would have to question whether it's due to your race that you are experiencing adversity...
@Aaron, yes, I suppose it is.
@Aaron, to be more clear, let's say someone insulted me because of my race while I was walking home. What I could do, for example, is to stop, approach him, and invite him for tea at home. But how would I know if this person was going to insult me, that I could have done him good in advance? I would say that "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a general command, while "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you" would be more appropriate in this context.
How come no one discusses the racism of affirmative action, especially against Asians? I can't speak for UK, but there is certainly a lot of that in academia in the United States, especially against Asians.
One of the forms of racism that UK universities suffer from is that they use unfiltered student opinion to inform hiring as well as evaluation of academics. Academics with foreign accents or unfamiliar (or particularly formal) appearances that the students don't like then suffer.
Interestingly this form of racism is widely understood and largely eliminated in the retail sector where no one would be allowed to choose the race of an employee based on the preferences of their customers. It is also a form of racism we could easily eliminate from academia if we honestly faced up to it.
I think the point of my answer has been slightly lost (see comments below). The point is that the students are not asked "Can you understand what the academic says clearly?". They are merely asked to rate the academic using a number and are not required to give any reasoning. This hides any prejudices they have and allows the hiring/evaluation committee to use racial preferences without having explicitly to admit they are doing it. The committee just says "They got low student evaluation scores".
Academics with foreign accents I think that a line needs to be drawn here between racism and objective concerns. I, for example, had an opportunity to listen to a middle-eastern researcher affiliated with a UK University at a conference. I literally have NO words to describe how horrible his accent was. If he wasn't reading his power point presentation word for word, I would have absolutely no idea what he was talking about. I wouldn't be able to attend his lectures if he were my teacher.
@AndrejaKo In my experience it's not that the students literally can't hear the words, it's that they don't like the accent. But actually it is more that they don't feel the academic is the sort of person they would want to go to the pub with. I also think you are on very thin (legal and moral) ice if you allow discrimination based on how familiar a particular accent is to the students. Can you imagine not hiring someone with an Afro-Caribbean accent in a shop because some of the white customers find some of the words he or she says confusing at first?
Yes, I can. The worker in the shop should be capable of communicating with the customers efficiently. Some accent would be OK in my opinion, but if customers can't understand the worker, what's the point of having a worker? That's why I said that a line needs to be drawn. I can't say that it is easy to make objective criteria for the levels of acceptable accents and I also can't say that the cases you may be thinking of aren't just racism pure and simple. I just want to point out that there could be real problems which should not be dismissed because they can be classified as racism.
Also related video.
I agree with @AndrejaKo that this is more blurry. I studied at UK university where 50% of staff and 2/3 of students (including me) were from outside UK or other English-speaking country (continental Europe, Middle East, Far East etc.) as far as I remember. There was one professor though whose accent no one could understand (even after half of year of lectures). (Just to be clear I don't deny that there might be some cases when it's just a dismissal of 'funny' accents).
@MaciejPiechotka I agree that if someone's accent is so strong he/she cannot be understood that is a real problem. However I have never seen that. What I have seen is people with foreign accents and unfamiliar manners (for example always wearing a suit and tie and being very formal) being given low ratings by students and then those ratings being used in hiring decisions or evaluations.
As @AndrejaKo says, accent can certainly be a concern (how frequent of a concern it is or should be is a different matter entirely). My freshman year of university in the US saddled me with a calculus professor with a particularly thick Hungarian accent, which was very difficult for me to understand (and from what I could tell, my peers had difficulty, too). Combined with a soft voice and illegible handwriting, there was no reason for me to attend the lectures save to find out what the homework would be... which required understanding his accent and/or handwriting. (I dropped that class.)
Andre is right. I've worked with many foreigners who have such bad accents they're next to impossible to communicate with verbally (and more often than not have writing styles that need several iterations of question and answer to understand what they're writing). In an environment where precise and exact communications are crucial that's a severe handicap. It'd be racist to assume everyone with a certain skin colour has that handicap, but can you really blame people whose experience with 150 of such people has been uniform to be wary of the 151st?
<> And the reverse is true as well. I'd expect people in say India to have trouble understanding my accent and take that into account when considering me for a position where verbal communications with locals is essential.
@Lembik: What would you suggest as possible ways to eliminate this form of racism which you have observed?
@adipro Universities should treat student evaluation the way a commercial firm would treat customer feedback. That is they can consider specific detailed comments from students that are relevant to the academic's professional abilities but should understand that using raw numerical scores is fraught with difficulties and should generally be avoided. In all cases, they should apply their own professional judgement.
Recognize that you may or may not have an implicit bias, and examine your own actions accordingly. This also goes for sexism. For example, rather than simply assuming "I'm not a racist!", sit down with something like the list of invited speakers for a conference and genuinely ask "Did we include people of color? Did we include women? Were they more than tokens?"
Like all things in academia, reducing bias benefits from rigorous, systematic thought.
It is really unobvious how to implement this in a lot of fields. Assuming that the speakers are chosen because of a) their relevance b) the quality of their recent work and c) their availability, I am not really sure what steps you, as a conference organiser, could take in practice to have more people of color or women (for example) that wouldn't be tokenism. Also, there are many academic fields where women are in the majority so the whole basis seems slightly off.
First clue they're not a token: They were chosen because they were chosen, not because 'Oh crap, we need a minority'. Also, you'd be astonished how many academic fields where women are the majority don't see that reflected in panels, senior researchers, chairs etc. Just because its "unobvious" doesn't mean you, as an individual, cannot sit down and make a considered effort.
I should say "Oh crap, we need a minority" is absolutely standard in UK universities and explicitly built into our internal quota systems for committees and the like. You appear to be firmly against quotas which is a perfectly reasonably point of view but many are in favour of them.
To avoid tokenism, you need to make sure you include a diverse pool of people from the beginning of the process. That is, don't wait until you've made a list of people to invite and then check whether it needs tweaking to be reasonably diverse. Start with a long list of people to consider inviting and make sure that list is reasonably diverse before you start narrowing it down. (If it isn't already, then you've just found evidence of implicit bias in one of its most stubborn forms - the blind spot.)
Sitting down and ticking boxes "50% women, check. 10% blacks, check. 10% Chinese, check. 10% Indians, check" is in itself racist as well as tokenist. You're explicitly setting targets for minimum numbers of specific groups irrespective of their credentials, excluding better qualified members of other groups based on skin colour or sex. And THAT created resentment towards the very people you want to "be more inclusive for to prevent racism". If I'd see my application rejected in favour of someone from another race with worse credentials simply because of his skin colour, I'd be angry...
@jwenting Where did I suggest there was a checkbox, or indeed target percentages? Self reflection, and if you discover you have invited no X asking why perhaps that is, is not the boogyman you're making it out to be.
@Fomite you're still thinking along "we must have X% of this or that group or we're racist" lines, which is the wrong way to go about it. Consider this scenario I've seen myself: a university department gets 100 student applications, ALL whites. Companies trying to hire those students are by law required to hire 10% blacks. They're of course unable to do so because there aren't any blacks, yet they get fined hundreds of thousands and named as "racist companies" in the press for their "refusal to hire minorities".
@jwenting: Fomite is not proposing "not enough X = racist", but rather "did we fairly consider X?" If the answer in good conscience is yes, we fairly considered X, then job well done. But given well-documented implicit biases in academia, refusing to even ask the question is unjust.
@JeffE IMO if you have to ask the question, there's already something wrong... The matter should never come up, people having been selected solely on merit by general principle. Thus if you have to ask the question whether you've invited enough blacks (for example) you're already acting on correct premises, as the race of the invitees should be utterly irrelevant. And yes, I do realise that racial quotas for such things are very common.
@jwenting You're denying the existence of implicit bias, which is well documented. Again, the question is not "Did we invite enough blacks?" but rather "Did we fairly consider the black applicants?"
@JeffE I don't deny it exists. You're however denying the equally real fact of life that quotas exist, and that such questions usually come down to "did we invite enough blacks/indians/women/whatever" rather than "did we pass up a qualified candidate because of his/her skin colour/race/religion/sex". 2 different questions, but often morphed into one with the more insidious one masking and overruling the other.
@jwenting I'm sorry you have such short-sighted colleagues. Please don't assume the same of mine.
@JeffE Your very reasonable point is rather harmed by the existence of quotas where really the question is precisely "Did we invite enough people of type X?".
@Lembik I refer you to the original question.
@JeffE I apologise if I have misunderstood which part of the original question I am being point to but... for maximum clarity, is your view that quotas are themselves racist?
@Lembik My view is that merely enforcing quotas, instead of actually attempting to address fairness, is unjust and ultimately self-defeating. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law .
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
I believe that this is really the only thing that is in your control.
As the popular song goes, "Everybody's a Little Racist". :D
You cannot change minds of people forcefully but you can only change the way in which you behave.
Having said this, I don't think that I have faced any instance of racism inside the ivory tower in the US. Socially, yes. Academically, no.
Would you please add some examples of changing the way in which we behave?
There are many things we can do, here are some that I have been doing as a foreign student in the US and now an edcuator. And hopefully it would help sparking some more new thoughts.
Aim for promoting diversity, NOT eliminating racism
Politically, you will have a lot more buy-in in organizing a "diversity week" than an "anti-racism week." Racism is not something we can eradicate because it stems from the sense of superiority and difference in power, which will always exist in various degree. And in a personal level, given the same race/ethnicity, one person may think a certain treatment is totally fine while the other one may show a strong sign of being offended because the treatment promotes racism. You cannot win.
In most cases, the more one tries very hard not to be a "racist," the more difficult situations one can get into. A fun example: an African American colleague of mine went to watch 12 Years a Slave with her husband and after the movie ended, a white couple came up and said, sorrowfully, "You people really had it hard, didn't you?" I found that attitude of "We had treated your ancestors so badly that now I am going to make up for it," a bit of, well, racist.
Instead, promote diversity. Diversity is less "silo," it incorporates many other aspects like religions, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, etc. What's more, it gives us some goal to achieve, something to build instead of some infinite amount of pests to destroy. This new goal will certainly improve your mental health and open up a lot more possibilities in improving the situation.
Promote critical thinking
Embrace critical thinking in both study and teaching. A lot of racism-related phenomena wouldn't pass the most fundamental critical evaluations. Equipping students with this invaluable skill will help them dissect the situation with higher clarity and certainty. Racism itself is very biasing, to the extent that it's nearly hilarious. For instance, if a member of Purple race commits an atrocious crime, the members of Green race tend to attribute the blame to the whole Purple race. While among the Purple race they tend to attribute the blame to the very criminal as a "bad seed," outlier, or isolated incidence. A simple thinking exercise on situations like this one opens up discussion among students quite well.
An additional benefit of being able to critically think on your feet is that you can instantly downgrade an intense racism argument to a logic-based, evidence-based discussion, pointing out the pitfall in their thought process rather than pointing out that they are a racist.
Know your history well, and be ready to listen to other's history
I found myself somehow have become the go-to person when someone has questions about my country. It is, to some degree, a polymorphic racism. Just because some girl is born in Japan doesn't mean she can dance like a geisha, just because some guy is from China doesn't mean he can recite all the characters in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. However, I do take this consultant role seriously, and try my best to be an ambassador. I tell them the good, the bad, and the disgusting, no reservation.
Don't check your identity tags too soon
This is somewhat similar to that poor answer with like 10 down votes. Sorry to say that but I do agree with that answer to a certain extent. I have never sorted out a clear list of identities for myself. It's not like I am in denial, my identities are always somewhere but I don't tend to flaunt them right at the beginning of an interaction. I feel that in a lot of the times, conflicts happen because we decided that the action or treatment has clashed with our identity a little bit too soon: You said something against penguins, and I am a penguin, so I have to be upset now and punch you in the face. I would, instead, opt for understanding where they come from first. If the situation is non-hostile, I would proceed to explain (with critical thinking and evidence) that it's not always the case, and move on. You can correct the information, you can never correct a person's attitude, they have to do that bit by themselves.
Find an optimal environment
Lastly, it's important that you are promoting diversity in a place that you feel reasonably tolerable and accepting. This whole process of achieving understanding is going to be very long, and it's not worth risking your happiness or even life just because you want to make a statement in a hostile place. In conclusion, don't cave in, be present and remind others of our existence. They don't need to like us, but they do need to know we are here to stay, with a strong will.
+1 for Know your history well. (Plus one for the rest as well, but I can't upvote twice!)
also should be added, fight white supremacy?
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17497 | Recommended rejection of a paper, but invited to review the paper again
I was recently asked to review a paper, and ended up recommending a rejection of the paper. The journal has, apparently, asked the authors to revise their paper, and the journal has come back to me asking me to review the revised paper. There is, however, no option offered for me to decline. I will likely recommend rejection again as I see that the main problem with the paper is still not addressed. What should I do in this case? Should I write to the journal that I am not willing to review this paper again, or should I go ahead with the review and recommend rejection for the second time? Since I need to provide my comments to the authors again, what should I write while still being constructive? This was my first time recommending a rejection.
It's probably good that you were re-invited to review the paper. It'd be worse to have someone who doesn't see your objection review the paper on the second round and weaken your confidence in the review process!
This has happened to me a couple times. As Peter Jansson has pointed out, what probably happened is that, while you recommended rejection, reviewers 2 and 3 said "it's actually publishable if the authors solve such-and-such problems". This is the kind of situation where a sympathetic editor will make a "revise and resubmit" decision.
In this particular case, you have it easy. Just write a very short review along the lines of "in my first review, I recommended rejection of this article because of [problem that made you recommend rejection]. As the authors have not addressed this problem, I'm regrettably forced to maintain my previous evaluation".
[FWIW, one of the times I reviewed a paper like this, the journal actually ended up publishing the paper in question, with the problematic section still exactly as it was when I reviewed and rejected it. Go figure]
I am actually able to see the other reviewer's recommendation, which was major revision. But yes, I understand that the editor is free to make his decision.
The suggested comment is helpful, but would you write the same comment to the authors as to the editors? It does sound hard for the authors.
You can pretty up the comment a little: "In my first review, I wrote the following about the paper ... , which I viewed as grounds for rejection. In this version of the paper in X, Y, and Z, my concerns were not addressed. As such, I cannot recommend this paper for publication." Note that as part of the review process most journals require authors to submit a "response to reviewer comments" letter, so you should also check that to see what their justification for leaving the changes in are. In direct answer to your question, I would not refuse unless you're super busy & can't turn in a review.
That the paper was not rejected probably depends on the second (or more) reviewers comments. I would consider it normal to ask if reviewers wish to review the paper again. That you were still asked may be a mistake, most electronic systems would require you to make a decision on that point. There may also be a flaw since a rejected paper would not need a second review and the paper was not rejected based on your suggestion. One can only speculate. I would consider it only fair to write to the editors and state that you are not interested in re-reviewing the manuscript. You could state that your impression is that a similar result would be likely were you to do the job. But, honestly, why you decline the review is no-ones business and you should have been asked before being faced with the task.
Do you not think that a brief review along the lines suggested by Koldito in his answer (posted a few hours after yours) is a better option than just refusing to re-review?
Whether you want to review or not is a personal question. If you have the time and want to provide information to the editors, that is of course gratefully received by the editors. But, there is no better or worse way as see it. Just because you get a request you have no obligation to put more work into it. Most people will, in my experience, provide more than a "No thanks" in a reply.
OK. It's just that, in this case, the reviewer has already put in enough effort to conclude that the paper should be rejected, so the only work remaining to do is to write the one-sentence review, "I recommend the paper be rejected because the reasons I previously gave for rejecting have not been addressed." That seems to be no more effort than declining to re-review.
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15184 | Can I cite a manuscript in term paper
I am doing a term paper on the subject of minimum spanning trees algorithms,
I need to cite "Shortest connection networks and some generalization" paper for the prim's algorithm made by Prim, after searching I found a manuscript of the paper.
My question is, can I cite the paper? is this allowed in the citing formats?
If you use the information, you must cite the source. End of story. If by manuscript you mean a pre-print, the final peer-reviewed article will carry more weight so you should access the published article if you can.
(You should cite Jarník's earlier paper describing the same algorithm as well. See also this PhD thesis, which includes a detailed literature survey.)
Like many others you should cite: R. C. Prim, “Shortest connection networks and some generalization,” Bell System Technical Journal, 36: 1389-1401, 1957.
Of course you can cite unpublished manuscripts; this is regularly done in academia. However, the important issue is that you must appropriately indicate that it is an unpublished manuscript, and cite (if possible) where the manuscript was found. This will allow for due consideration of the work in context.
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6086 | How do I convert my PhD dissertation so that it can be published as a book?
I have just completed a PhD by research, which I think has some merits in being available as a book (This is, of course, my personal opinion). The research cuts across several fields (e.g. sociology, public policy).
I am wondering what I need to do to take the next step.
In particular:
How do you turn an academic piece like the dissertation (which is written for the examiners) into a book (which is for the general public)?
How do I find publishers who specialise in my field?
Have you asked your advisor about this ? Much like "Don't walk. Run", this could serve as a generic answer for so many questions here :)
What are your goals for publishing. Do you want to make money? Do you want it to count towards tenure? Do you want it to educate the general public? Promote your research?
I want to promote my research to (1) make it widely available and (2) to get some kudos for my CV. Unsure how these two goals could be reconciled.
I mean, a PhD dissertation is written for the examiners (with detailed referencing) but a book to educate the public has a more relaxed and reader-friendly style (i.e. less referencing details etc.).
@JaveerBaker if you start your comments with an @, like I did here, the person will receive a notification. I would say that books for the public don't have a more relaxed referencing style, they just have less detail that needs to be referenced.
There's something wrong if you "write the thesis for the examiners". The aim of thesis is a good thesis, not a good feeling of the examiners. They should be good enough to recognize this. Good theses are written as more general works, proving general knowledge, many references etc., they do not aim to solely present the student's results.
I would second @Suresh's suggestion to consult with your advisor. But their ability to give you useful suggestions depend on whether he/she has experience publishing books (not all professors have books, as many stick to editing books of invited chapter, contributing their papers as chapters, or publishing in journals). If little luck with your advisor, chat with your other committee members. You might want to first check their lists of publications (on CVs) to see if they have any books (series monographs also count). So, do some homework and then consult some faculty you know for advice.
Why do you want the book?
For prestige?: publishers who contact you, don't do any review and charge high prices will only increase your prestige to those that don't know them (and these are probably not those you want to impress).
For dissemination?: why not just put the pdf available (as was already recommended)?. Those who are interested will find it, those who are not will probably not buy a PhD thesis
For money?: I doubt you will really make much out of it.
My recommendation: put it as a pdf on your website / your school's dissertation repository. If you see that lot's of people download it, consider an improved version as book.
In many disciplines (especially the humanities), it is still obligatory to publish a monograph in order to get a PhD. Although, there is shift to cumulated PhD theses with articles in peer-reviewed journals, sociology, at least in Continental Europe, still values monographs.
These questions are very important and I suggest they be considered. In my field, a book published by a shady publisher would only make you look worse as an academic.
-1 In my field it is very uncommon not to have one's PhD thesis transformed into and published as a book. It is also quite important to have the book published by a highly-regarded publisher.
Your first question is quite tricky (to answer and to do). It depends on what you mean by "the public". A version for academics needs little change from a thesis. For students you need to consider how to highlight what can be learnt from your work. For the general general public, you'll have to start thinking about rewriting perhaps quite a bit, keeping your language accessible and building a narrative. As I am in a different field, perhaps some or all of this is already a part of your thesis.
The second question is simpler, who publishes the books that you read for your thesis?
If your university does not require you to publish your dissertation as a book, I would be very reluctant to invest the time needed to get your dissertation published. I would put the PDF of your dissertation on your own website, making it available to everyone who wants to look at it. I would spend the time needed to rewrite your book on writing more peer reviewed articles. Either by publishing chapters from your dissertation, or by doing new research. I think publications are more important than a book, especially for someone like you who still has only a few publications.
As a partial answer, Springer used to publish (theoretically) outstanding PhD thesis in Mathematics in its 'Lecture notes in Mathematics' as research monograph. However I do not know how many of the published volumes are Phd thesis. Definitely a (math) thesis requires a lot of polishing and rewriting before publishing.
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28204 | What, if any, roads are open to graduate schools for athletes with borderline grades?
My understanding is that colleges with sports programs will admit students with "low end" but not "off the charts low" grades if the respective sports teams want them. By this, I mean grades just above the "cut-off" for admissions, without having to make a special case or allowance for the athlete.
Suppose a certified athlete tried to get into a graduate program with similarly minimum grades. To take an example, suppose the Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter retired, went to college, and got something like a 3.3 GPA which is the cut-off for certain graduate school programs.
What constituencies (if any) might such a graduate applicant have (e.g. celebrity value)? Or are "athlete" slots open only to undergraduates?
Do you row to a world-class standard? If so, Oxford or Cambridge would seem to be a good bet.
@aeismail why not grades tag?
@EnthusiasticStudent: Because the question isn't asking about what to do about the grades. It's asking about how being an athlete can help with master's admissions (to compensate for a weak academic record). You could ask the same question with someone who has a strong academic record, and therefore the grades aren't the dominant factor.
@EnergyNumbers: Are you referring to a Rhodes Scholarship? I hadn't thought about it from that angle but that seems like a valid answer.
I'll answer based on the U.S. (which is where these issues are most relevant, I believe).
There is no special consideration for athletes in graduate admissions. Undergraduate admissions are handled by admissions officers who often use all sorts of non-academic criteria, and recruiting athletes to play for the university is a specific goal at many universities. However, graduate admissions is done by departmental committees made up of faculty, and the non-academic criteria that play an important role for undergraduates (well roundedness, extracurricular activities, athletics, etc.) are irrelevant. If anything, a continued desire to participate extensively in high-level athletics could be considered a disadvantage, since it would take time away from academics.
If Derek Jeter wanted to go to graduate school, I'm sure some faculty would be impressed by his fame, but they would also be careful and skeptical in evaluating his qualifications. In any case, there certainly wouldn't be a special admissions slot designated for an athlete.
+1. You might find a special scholarship in some places after being admitted, but getting admitted is a matter of convincing them you can hack it academically. You might consider trying again after you can point to some years of real-world professional experience in that field, so you can argue that those grades are no longer an accurate representation of your skills and focus.
To add to Anonymous Mathematician's answer (i.e. no special treatment), I would add that the major reason to recruit athletes at the undergraduate level is you want them to play for you, in intercollegiate sports. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the governing body for US college sports, and their rules would normally exclude graduate students from playing.
The NCAA eligibility rules are complex, but a general principle (as I understand it) is that each athlete may only play intercollegiate sports for at most four years in their life. Moreover, all four of those years must normally come within 5 years of first enrolling in college (as an undergraduate). A college athlete applying to graduate school would almost certainly have used up their eligibility and would not be able to play for the graduate institution; perhaps for a year at most. Thus the institution would have no real interest in recruiting them for athletic reasons, since they wouldn't be able to play on the intercollegiate teams.
For Derek Jeter, there's another reason he couldn't play: there is an amateurism requirement, and anyone who has played a sport professionally would likely be ineligible under that clause. Indeed, athletic programs have suffered severe penalties merely for letting their athletes talk to agents.
In the case of Derek Jeter, I wasn't thinking of his playing. But I thought that there might be some "celebrity" value in admitting him. Apparently not.
@TomAu: My point is that such an admission could be based only on celebrity value, not on any potential athletic contributions. You could ask the more general question as to whether celebrity is an asset in graduate admissions. But I think that most departments are very sensitive about their academic reputations and don't want to be perceived as compromising them, which might be the case if they admitted a less-than-qualified student for non-academic reasons.
I would imagine a powerhouse school would make all sorts of accommodations for a star althele who was still eligible. That said, I would think they would try and recruit them into an undergraduate program, but if it took offering someone a PhD, even without them having any undergrad education, I bet they would do it.
@StrongBad: I'm skeptical. There are lots of powerhouse schools and lots of star athletes every year, and I've never heard of one being admitted into a graduate program without an undergrad degree.
@NateEldredge but those really desirable star athletes don't even bother graduating since they turn pro after 2 or 3 years. If it is not men's football or basketball it is not powerhouse since the team is not making millions for your school.
As a partially parallel case, Imperial College readmitted Brian May to complete his PhD in astrophysics after a 30 year gap. They might not have done that for someone less famous.
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6170 | Teaching classmates who don't put much effort in
I'm not sure where to ask this so I thought I'd ask you here.
I'm in my 3rd year at university doing maths and some of the modules are a bit tricky. I know this and I know the way that I need to work in order to understand the material and pass the exams well. Due to this, I try and spend a lot of time learning the theory (and recently its been through loads of questions on here). However, what I noticed with some of my friends is that they don't put in the same amount of effort as me (quality wise).
Let's take the example on semidirect products. A lot of us have been struggling with constructing SDP's, however I've tried very hard to learn the theory on them and what the answer's are looking for and what the methods I need to do (and why I'm doing them) to try and learn how to construct them. A lot of that has been on Math.SE but I've been referring to online PDF's and lecture notes as well. Now, my friends know that I put this in and try and learn it and so I can do the work properly, so I think they're trying to take advantage of that.
Today I showed one person how to do a question regarding compositions on Möbius transforms and they just refused to think for themselves. I said "think about it, because I'm not going to tell you what the answer is" and they still wouldn't think (just kept saying "I don't know"), so I didn't tell them the answer. Eventually, after some BIG hints, they got what to do. Now I've noticed people are relying on me to tell them how to construct SDP's (as this is a main question in the exam). From my history, you can see that I've struggled a lot with this and I think I'm close to solving this problem now, but at the same time I can tell that my friends aren't going to learn it themselves. Mentally they've given up and so won't even bother learning it.
My question is this: Should I tell them the answer, when (it is when and not if because I WILL get it!) I figure out how to do it?
I feel bad because obviously I don't want to lie and say "I don't know how to do it" or mess up their exam, but at the same time, I feel like they had the exact same time as me to do this, and the same resources (online, books, notes, ask the lecturer, etc.) yet they still didn't do it. So it's their own fault. Plus, the time it'd take me to teach and explain it to them, I could spend that couple of hours doing my own work. Other examples, revise another module, etc.
What should I do? Do you academics have any tips?
I'm sure you feel like this sometimes when people ask questions on here clearly without thinking about and just expect you to answer it.
This is not an instructor. This is a student talking about working with his fellow students. Edited title to maybe make this a bit more clear since most of the answers seem to have missed this point.
In my experience, undergraduate students are a lot like children. They will be as lazy as you allow them to be. They will resist learning. They will resist doing the work and putting in the time. It's human nature...and it is something we, as teachers, must get the students to change.
Were I in your shoes, I would make it clear how to do something (as any teacher should) but I would certainly NOT do the work for them. If they keep saying "I don't know" then you should tell them "It's OK. Not everybody gets it their first time. Perhaps you get it when you take this class for a second time." I usually see my students' eyes open a bit on this one as they see that you are being so compassionate and understanding while still being refused to be manipulated. They also get the clear understanding that they will fail if they don't do the work.
We need to help students. That includes helping them to not be so lazy.
Are you sure about but I would certainly do the work for them?
Thanks...forgot the very important word NOT. I've edited my answer accordingly.
Undergraduate students ARE children. anyone under 30 is really still a child.
No, undergraduates are adults. The people you're thinking of that resist learning and hard work are called humans.
I've run into this situation far too many times. You're right to be frustrated, and you shouldn't have to devote your precious time to endeavors that bring you no benefit.
Be honest and say something like "I'd really like to help you, but I just don't have the time. If you'd like, I can share with you the resources that helped me understand it, but I have enough on my plate already."
If you have found certain resources useful in your quest to teach yourself then create a zip file containing the most useful to pass out to anyone who asks you for help. This is YOUR qualification and if you feel that you need to spend more time on your own studies in order to get the grade you deserve then don't waste that time spoon feeding others that are unlikely to be a part of your life 2 days after graduation.
Your facility should have some form of online discussion forum so if you really feel responsible for the outcome of your cohorts exam then create a potted version of your findings on there so that everyone can benefit and you can just direct any people with further queries there - the added bonus to this is that your tutor may well add some clarification to what you write so if you have misunderstood something you also gain from doing this.
+1 for "spoon feeding others that are unlikely to be a part of your life 2 days after graduation".
So I was just going through all my old SE stuff and your "unlikely to be a part of your life 2 days after graduation" is a pretty funny comment. Out of all the people I was referring to in this question, there is not a single one I still speak to, after three years of living, working a learning together at uni. Crazy huh
I do agree partially with Paul, when he says that you can feel frustrated and you shouldn't feel forced to answer every question for them.
Although, I've noticed to be able to explain something, you need to understand them quite well. Even some times, you are forced to attack a problem from different point of views depending on who asks, since the same explanation won't be convincing to everyone. By doing so, you might make a new link between different part of the material, and increase your own understanding. In my experience, helping other students has almost always a net benefice and is a really good way to improve yourself.
Also, as you continue, having only the answer will not get you much further and especially in math where concepts build upon each others, you will have a net advantage over all the others.
I suggest repressing the natural urge of "They don't deserve this, I put in the work. They didn't, I deserve this." as while it may feel good, it won't get you anywhere. You might like to keep enjoying the fact that you have shown you are a hard working independent learner, to feel satisfaction (that you deserve).
Look at if from a Advantages and Costs of teaching
Advantages:
Teaching is a fantastic way to cement your knowledge. (Many say it is the best way.)
This gains you friends, or at least positive acquaintances. These people become your colleges, and industry contacts once you graduate.
Gaining a reputation as a self-less helpful person, can open up doors to you.
Teaching is a valuable life skill, that will help you rise through your chosen career
Improving the quality and reputation of your institution. Obviously this is only a small step, but a journey of a thousand miles begins that way. If it becomes known that "Graduates from X, really know there stuff." then you have increased the value of your degree, wrt getting jobs etc.
Costs:
Time (this is a big one)
Boredom, repeating stuff over an over, one you have completely got it, gets you no where.
Grade Scaling: If your university scales the final grade, so that only your position relative to class average matters, letting other people fail will improve your score (by driving the average down). However you really have to cripple someone (or many people) especially in larger classes, to see any really benefit. It's a pretty cold strategy.
Actions:
Look at the costs vs benefits, and be honest with your fellows, if it is not to your benefit to help them .
if you don't have time, tell them (that you don't have time).
If you have got bord, tell them you can't keep going over the same stuff, you've move on the other things.
If you are a harsh enough person to be motivated by Grade Scaling, tell them "We're in direct competition, helping you is only hindering myself."
"Teaching is a fantastic way to cement your knowledge." I totally agree here. But he is complaining that his coeds are not interested in getting taught. They just want the answers. If he tried figuring out how to arrive at the answers more easily, it would help him as well. But a mere game of withholding answers and finally telling them is just a waste of his time. They don't learn anything, he doesn't learn anything.
I never mentioned anything about withholding answers and finally telling them. (Indeed I do not address anything to do with telling them answers, only todo with teaching them. As what you said is obvious). Perhaps that comment was meant to be on another post?
Ahh you did you misinterpret "if you don't have time, tell them?" I will edit to clarify.
Students who don't put much effort in, do so usually because the material does not interest them. If you can make the material interesting enough to get them excited about it, they will begin to put in more effort.
And to answer your question, should you tell them the answer? In most cases, no, you should not. No one learns by being told the answer. People only learn by coming to an answer using their own mind.
On the other hand, if YOU don't know the answer, then you should first find the answer yourself, and THEN still don't tell them the answer but use the fact you now know the answer to help them reach the same conclusion (without telling them the answer).
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156204 | I got an offer from my dream graduate school days after starting grad school somewhere else. What should I do?
I have been offered a PhD in a European country which I have accepted and I started attending (my first month). However, just few days after starting here, I got another offer (from a different country) with a subject that interests me more (honestly, it's my dream research topic since UG school).
Internally, deep inside me, I want to leave and pursue my dreams and the things I am more passionate about. However, I feel very bad and selfish to do this. The supervisor at the first institution struggled to get me the funding and to get me rolled in without hustle and this kills me morally.
I accepted the first offer because the second one was still too far and I wasn't given enough time from the first institution to wait for an offer from the second one (the subject is also the closest among all others to my interests).
My engagement with the first institution is still on the trial period, in which case I can cancel and leave without any problem.
I don't really know what to do now. I have good relationships with my current supervisor, and he has faith in me. I also have great relationships with the research team. I just don't have enough courage to tell them such a shocking decision.
I want to get some advice, from a career point of view (should I pursue my dream research topic or not?), is it morally acceptable to do such a thing in my case? And what are the possible implications on my current supervisor and the first institution (impact on funding, impact on his reputation, etc.)? What are the possible problems I could face from a legal and administrative point of view?
In case I am advised to leave, what is the best and the least hurting way to tell the first institution and the supervisor? Should I do it face to face or only by email? How will I return back their material without showing my face?
And the last question, what could be the possible reaction of my supervisor?
You should be selfish. But also be sure you consider the quality of supervision as well as the research topic.
I am not experienced in the world of academia, but I agree that you should follow your heart. But you should also do your utmost to do the right thing, and that entails sitting down face-to-face with your current supervisor (and anyone else relevant) and explaining to them why you are doing this. They will be disappointed and unhappy but, unless they are a robot, they will understand and honestly wish you the best.
@IanKemp I agree with the sitting down face to face and doing the right thing, but I disagree with the robot. The robot will be rational and understand. It's the humans that may react erratically. :-)
The only thing I would add is that likely "they" (the department) gave you a short time to decide precisely to create this situation. By ensuring that you had to take a decision about them before you had all the responses from other schools, you're encouraged to do the "safe thing." For better or worse your advisor probably did not do this, but your institution did, with the intent of (possibly) getting students who might have otherwise gone to "better" schools. Whether that impacts your "moral" considerations is really up to you.
Are all other things equal, or not? If this was in the world of commerce, rather than Academia, would you hesitate to jump ship?
What are the possible problems I could face from a legal and administrative point of view? - I'm confused. You earlier said this was a trial period and you could leave without any problem.
I would tentatively suggest discussing the situation with Dream Supervisor before making any moves. They are going to find out eventually, and I think it's better addressed sooner than later. Once trust is lost, it's hard to get back. Plus, depending on circumstances, there may be alternative solutions, e.g. a jointly-supervised PhD.
Have you signed a contract for entering the PhD process? In my university in Germany, this contract asks if you have already previously signed this agreement, and starting a second PhD might be more problematic, as you would have to justify why the first PhD was stopped.
For what it's worth, I would stick with the current PhD place and try to turn it into something good. The grass can usually be made green wherever you are - most things are what you make of them anyway. It's usually best in life to stick to the commitments you've made and have your word mean something - that will generally count for more long-term than any particular career choice at the time. And @RobbieGoodwin, I don't think it makes a difference whether this is academia or commerce - same argument.
Visiting the other group would be my first step.
Having the image of an opportunity jumper is not great either...
Academia is a small world and bad news travels fast. If you do go to Dream School, bear in mind you might have to work harder to earn their trust.
In general, you should go to the dream school. But before doing so, you should also evaluate your feelings about the dream school and see if they are based on reality, or just a fantasy. Sometimes people have dreams that don't have much connection to reality. Will it really make a difference in your life if you go to the dream school?
To be honest, you will not be spared the moral decision. There will be a number of angry and/or unhappy people if you leave, there is no way around that.
The core question is: do you know the other supervisor? Will you be happy with them? Is the added value of the other topic/institution so much more than your current that this difficult and costly decision is worth it?
Because, yes, you will burn bridges. You have now to evaluate whether it is worth it. Do not look just at the institution, but also at the topic and supervisor. They are your key factors.
Should you find out it's not the right thing for you after all, that first institution is closed to you. I do not expect them to want to take you back; it would be unbelievably magnanimous (and lucky, namely that they would have a position and would re-offer it to you) from them to do it - and risky, too.
That being said, keep in mind that, they may be unhappy, but it is your life and your future at stake here.
In the end, nobody can make this decision for you. May your decision be the right one for you.
Thanks, I think all what you've said is fair. There is a complete story behind the second PhD and I've known the supervisor for some time. By enthusiastically reading research papers in our common area of interest (while I was doing masters), I randomly read one of his and contacted him just to comment on few things but ended up keeping contact (which proves why I am more into that second PhD). The research topic is tailored and the institution is internationally recognized.
@Noah Ok, so that point's cleared. Now you have to evaluate whether the added value is sufficient to compensate for the downsides. Of course, you could be lucky and, like Jerlich says, the current team will not hold it against you. Here, it is more likely that an experienced supervisor will may take it more lightly than a younger one, but also an older one can find his inner vindicativeness. It should figure in your considerations. As I say, this is your life, so it should not automatically mean that you should not take the opportunity - just be aware of the cost and whether it's worth it.
This is a great answer; you should allow yourself to be a bit selfish. Ask the reverse question: If your current supervisor was offered their dream faculty position at another university, would they turn it down because their PhD student wanted them to stay. Very unlikely. You may burn bridges, but your own career and happiness are perfectly valid moral counterweights to the offense or inconvenience you may cause your current boss.
To add a personal anecdote to D Greenwood's reverse question, the precise thing happened to me, my supervisor left to a new institution for a dream job shortly after we both started. There was obviously a lot things that needed fixing at the time, but we managed. 5 years down the track it's still a thing I'll bring up occasionally, because, lets be honest, it's an unusual thing to happen, but it's all water under the bridge now, and I've never felt any ill will towards him because he handled it very professionally.
@Phill That happened to a friend of mine. They were able to follow the prof to his far away new uni. Before the PhD could be completed, the prof went to a $$$ job in industry. On the other hand, 57.2% of students drop out for various reasons.
Go to the Dream University
This quote from your question says it all.
Internally, deep inside me, I want to leave and pursue my dreams and
the things I am more passionate about. However, I feel very bad and
selfish to do this.
In this case your dream is achievable. Follow it. Everyone else will be OK. Your supervisor will probably get another student and even if he doesn't he'll have forgotten all about you in a year or so.
In contrast if you don't go then passing up this opportunity will eat at you. Whenever things are hard at OK University you'll be imagining "What if I went to Dream University?". You will also start to resent your OK University supervisor. You've given up a dream to avoid inconveniencing him. How can anyone be grateful enough for that? You only make this level of sacrifice for your immediate dependant family (wife and kids.)
Accept the offer in writing with Dream University, get conformation in writing, make sure that you are in. Then tell everyone at OK university what's happening. Use email for the administrators, and tell your OK university supervisor face to face. They'll all be disappointed, but they'll be OK. They'll probably understand.
It might be nice to add to this answer (which I like the best) a remark reminding the OP of what they themselves said: "My engagement with the first institution is still on the trial period, in which case I can cancel and leave without any problem."
If you have just started the first PhD, I don't think there will be that much anger towards you. At this point there has not been a substantial financial, advisory or intellectual commitment to you. You are not abandoning a project midway through its completion.
Of course, it depends on the PI of lab you are leaving. Maybe they had another student that they could have taken instead of you and your leaving will cost them a spot. If they are a senior person with a big group, your departure will have minimal impact on them. If they are a junior person building up their group they may have more invested in you and feel more animosity. I personally would not begrudge you. If your current advisor is a good person you can just ask them for their advice.
I agree. He could just ask his current supervisor. If he is going to be mad, he can just leave to "dream institution". Other responses could be: "ok, go we know it is a better place and you deserve it". Or he can say "it is entirely upon you, it is your decision" - in this case the current supervisor will be maybe suspicious in the long time.
From a career perspective, it doesn’t matter if one is your dream and the other is not. What matters is:
What is the future of each individual field?
How many publications does a PhD student in each group churn out during his/her PhD, what is the quality? There can be orders of magnitude in differences in quality
How is the general funding? If you need expensive equipment, can you get it?
To how many conferences do students typically go?
And if you are not staying in academia (most likely) what are the job prospects in each field?
That is all from a career point of view (which your question asks). From a work perspective, the 'mood' culture of a group is more important. I also think is it a good idea to follow one's dreams (if you did enough due diligence to see if the reality in the field matches approximately what your dream is; example: like I find biophysics extremely interesting, but the daily work would be standing in a lab, which I can only bear for like once a week, it is too dull for me).
I was in a very similar position as a PhD student (although I hadn't actually started a PhD when I made my choice.) I chose not to go to the dream university. I went for the one with the better quality supervision.
Who knows, I might never even have achieved a PhD if I had gone to my dream university? I will never know because I didn't choose to go there.
This was 17 years ago already. I have always regretted my choice and I will regret it for the rest of my life. I advise you to quit and go to the dream university. Good luck!
Nice to hear people admitting regret and using it to help others.
'My engagement with the first institution is still on the trial period, in which case I can cancel and leave without any problem.'
That answers your question. There's a trial period. Use it.
Now, man up. Talk to your supervisor. Just possibly he'll surprise you with 'Oh, THAT'S what you wanted to work on? You can do that here!' OK, probably not :-) But anyway, be honest. A reputation for making hard-headed decisions won't hurt your career. A reputation for unexplained unreliability might.
Reading through comments and answers I think I have a different opinion. First I have to say I commend your moral values and your consideration.
Now, in response to your question, I think leaving the current position is in gray area in terms of morality. After all you wrote a motivation letter and had an interview before getting the position, in which typically people express desire and commitment to the team and project. If situation is horrible in your current position, the answer would be easy but if it is good enough, after getting into the new place you might not be happy(er). I mean, if the supervisor is good, if the team is good and if the university is good enough, I say the outcome mostly rests on your effort. As they say, the grass isn't greener on the other side. It's green where you water it ;)
Now, basically research is driven by enthusiasm and your current supervisor knows that. So, if you discuss with them that your level enthusiasm and endurance is affected simply because you got into this dilemma, they probably find it good for their research team that you leave.
Now my suggestion are in two scenarios:
You decide to stay
You can keep connection with the other (with more prestige) university by:
A. Trying to shift the research so that you can find a overlap
between you research and theirs (if possible, idk)
Getting a research visit position to that university under
supervision of the other prof.
Making your PhD a double-degree (if the rules of both universities
allow, that is totally doable and usually both university will be
happy)
Making publications together with the other professor
Doing post-doc or second PhD after this one in that university
You decide to leave
Lets be honest, your leave will incur and inevitable damage (though small luckily because you are leaving early). Now, I have a few suggestion:
Discuss with your current supervisor that you know if you choose to stay you will not be resilient in research and motivate as before simply because the thought of other position will eat away you moral, so this is good choice for them as well
Offer small compensation for the money they have spend on you (for example you can say give back saving from your salary so far, the money is not important here, this serves as token of gratitude)
Offer (and seriously follow-up after you left) a collaboration with the current team. If your work load is manageable you can still contribute slightly to the work of previous institute (e.g. reviewing the works, brainstorming, etc.)
After you've left, contact and ask if there is something in their research that you could involve and even better ask if they accept your research visit there.
I think if you do those at least you do not end up burning the bridge completely and also you have taken part of damage and responsibility of your decisions.
I really like the answer. I was also wondering if you could find any common research topics and then try to collaborate with the research group (e.g. interning at the other group for X months doing a publication) and then later on trying to go for a postdoc there (might be carreer-wise even better because the post-doc really decides the further path maybe even more than the PhD). So try to see if any synergy could help you for a collaboration. But if you still feel that is not enough leave---with all the consequences.
I picked some quotes about decision-making from a huge list. Here are some that I think might apply to you.
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading”
― Siddhārtha Gautama
“People will always have opinions about your decision because they're not courageous enough to take action on their opinion.”
― Steve Maraboli
“Sometimes you make the right decision, sometimes you make the decision right.”
― Phillip C. McGraw
“The decision is your own voice. An opinion is the echo of someone else's voice.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
“If you have to choose between any two, first choose time to think.”
― Mohith Agadi
“When you decide who you want to be you'll know what to do.”
― Richie Norton
“A wise man makes his own decisions. An ignorant man follows public opinion.”
― Grantland Rice
“Those who refused to create the kind of life they want for themselves will
end up living their lives for others, and such can only earn them little
joy or many sorrow.”
― Bamigboye Olurotimi
“Those who believe in their brainpower and find a way to utilize it fully often end up making valuable contributions to the world.”
― Dr Prem Jagyasi
My answer
Toss a coin. If you like the answer, go for it! If you don't like the answer, continue tossing the coin until you get an answer you like.
It's possible to keep tossing the coin forever without getting the answer you like :)
@Stuart Golodetz - I challenge you to prove this by experiment!
Even if I was allowed to bias the coin to always fall one way, I don't think taking you up on that would be a good idea ;)
Remember, the education is about YOU and the product of the education is your abilities and your knowledge.
The educational institutions getting money, professors and other staff being employed, etc, etc... are all secondary effects.
Do whatever is better for you. You are the only one to decide what is better for you. It is you holding the greatest stake.
But this is about sunk cost.
I would take some time to carefully think about it if you can. A good supervision is also important and it can make you really enjoy what you are doing. It depends also on what kind of person you are. I am the one who needs and wishes to be inspired and the topic is really important, but not the only thing to consider. You will interact with people and you have to enjoy the working style of that department. But if you conclude that the other option is a better choice for yourself, than go for it. That´s your career.
Unless you are going to seriously hurt someone in the process, go follow your dream. You will be dead for ever in a few decades.
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158810 | What do US universities mean when they mention anything above the "Calculus" course?
I am applying for a PhD in pure maths. Now a lot of places that I am applying to are asking for detailed lists of courses and books that I have followed for anything more advanced than calculus.
Now I am not quite sure what they mean here, because in our institute the course that was named calculus was an introduction to differential forms and theorems regarding those. And from there it went on to give us an introduction to manifolds. (This was our third semester undergrad; prior to this we had taken linear algebra, analysis 1, multivariable analysis, topology, and group theory.) I am from India.
Now if this is considered to be a basic calculus course then I am not quite sure how to judge exactly what courses are supposed to be more advanced than this.
Since some folks have asked regarding the syllabus:
Axioms of the real number system without construction, applications of the least-upper-bound- property, Archimedean principle, existence of nth roots of positive real numbers, ax for a > 0 and x > 0.
Convergence of sequences, monotonic sequences, subsequences, Heine-Borel theorem, lim sup and lim inf Cauchy sequences, completeness of R. Infinite series, absolute convergence, comparison test, root test, ratio test, conditional convergence, complex numbers, power series, radius of convergence of power series.
Continuous functions on intervals of R, intermediate value theorem, boundedness of continuous functions on closed and bounded intervals.
Differentiation, mean value theorem, Taylor's theorem, application of Taylor's theorem to maxima and minima, L'Hôpital rules to calculate limits.
Construction of ez using power series, proof of the periodicity of sin and cos.
Riemann Integration: Riemann integrals, Riemann integrablity of continuous functions, fundamental theorem of calculus.
This is the analysis 1 syllabus. I suppose this is going to be equivalent to calculus.
I don't understand your question. Group theory is part of your Calculus class? Or you took Group theory after Calculus?
group theory was a course that I took before taking calculus. I am sorry if that wasn't clear enough.
Did you take multivariable analysis before Calculus? When did you learn Mean value Theorem? Fundamental Theorem of Calculus?
yes of course. I mean it's all but impossible to even define a smooth manifold otherwise.. and to fundamental theorem of calculus was done in first sem. and mvt for multivariable was done in 2nd sem
For U.S. universities a reference to "calculus" means an introductory 3 semester sequence (sometimes done in 2 semesters, sometimes done in 4 semesters) covering the topics listed here. See also the descriptions of Math 115 (1st semester), Math 116 (2nd semester), Math 215 (3rd semester) here. The topics you mentioned are well beyond this.
@DaveLRenfro: so Integration and Derivation are not taught in high school? Or just not with rigourous proofs?
not taught in high school --- It is often the case that students (at least those intending to major in a math, engineering, or physical sciences area) will have studied these in high school (usually it's just the 1st semester calculus material), but they still have to prove competence in some way (varies with the college/university) to obtain credit or to obtain permission to take the next higher level course (these are two different things, the former requiring a higher "standard of proof" of the student's competence).
Incidentally, "rigorous proofs" are usually not done in a typical university calculus sequence. For example, epsilon-delta (or sequence-based) proofs are usually not done, although some instructors will include simple ones and textbooks usually include them somewhere (and if offered, a "honors level" sequence has them). On the other hand, the courses cover algebraic limit calculations of the derivative of simple polynomials and simple rational functions (e.g. x^(-2) and (2x - 1)/(3x + 2)) and probably sqrt(x) before the usual power rule, product rule, etc. short cuts are introduced.
@DaveLRenfro: I see, thank you! (I wasn't aware that epsilon-delta proofs are not done in the first university courses.) Thanks!
@user111388: I wasn't aware that epsilon-delta proofs are not done in the first university courses --- FYI, because the difficulty level is so great from high school to college (in the U.S., excepting of course some especially strong high schools), the 1st semester calculus can be a big jump for students, and even though the rigor tends to increase throughout the calculus sequence, that first step from HS math is often the largest. I usually didn't do epsilon-delta 1st semester, I'd do epsilon-N sequence proofs the 2nd, and I'd do epsilon-delta (disks/balls in the plane/space) the 3rd.
@PabloBhowmik You should be able to find information about these universities' undergraduate curricula from their departments' websites: course descriptions, a list of required courses for undergraduate majors, and in some cases syllabi.
@Pablo Bhowmik: At least in my experience, most of the 1st year undergrad math courses (and many later ones) are aimed more at science & engineering rather than pure math, so "rigorous proofs", or indeed, any proofs at all, are a distant second to practical application. I think it would require a very large university to have a special track devoted to proofs &c.
@jamesqf I think this depends somewhat on the degree of specialization in your university system. In some countries, such as in the US, education at the university level is relatively unspecialized and programs usually do not start with specialized topics such as proof-based math. In other countries (such as in the Netherlands or Germany), you decide to do math the moment you enter the university level, and it is common to have an introduction to proofs in the first seminar, with most courses following being proof-based.
"a special track devoted to proofs" is simply known as a mathematics program in those universities, and in my experience most "good" universities have such a program (in the Netherlands, I believe all accredited universities offer such a program. The terminology "good" is awkward here, but unfortunately many countries do not make a formal distinction between post-high school education that gives me an obvious term. Maybe "research-based" would be better), they don't have to be large or are particularly rare.
@Discrete lizard: Perhaps it's the time period, too. My BS degree is actually in Math (and Physics), because back then they dumped all the computer science courses into the math department. (Because CS didn't exist as a degree program.) So I'm perhaps biased by having been in a "math" department in which future programmers outnumbered aspiring mathematicians by maybe a factor of 5.
Note that the syllabus listed here is for "Analysis 1" not "Calculus", the "Calculus" course covered Spivak's "Calculus on Manifolds" as OP confirms in comments below.
This probably means anything beyond the semi-standarized three introductory Calculus courses.
Examples include:
Differential Equations
Linear Algebra
Discrete Mathematics
Probability
Statistics
Ring Theory
Or basically topics that might consider Calculus as a prerequisite to performing well in the class.
Classes that build a mathematical foundation to take calculus won't apply, like:
Algebra
College Algebra
Pre-Algebra
Any math topic "for some other non-math major" (Statistics for Business majors)
To clarify I've attached the University of Houston's Math department class offerings. Note that Calculus I, II, and III are 1000 (Freshman) and 2000 (Sophmore) level courses. I would assume any 3000 or 4000 level course would satisfy the requirement, and possibly some of the 2000 level courses.
This should help clarify some of the comments about "Algebra" courses. Higher level Algebras that would be post-Calculus include:
Elements of Algebra and Number Theory
Abstract Algebra
I hope this provides a little more clarity.
ok so basically. this pretty much means every math courses that I have ever taken. Thanks..
@PabloBhowmik Glad to help. Sounds like you have your prerequisite covered.
There is the unfortunate aspect of mathematics that the "Algebra" that studies group theory would count as more advanced than calculus, while the "Algebra" that culminates in the quadratic formula would be less advanced than calculus.
What do you mean by "College Algebra"?
@Acccumulation "College Algebra" is a remedial course for those who cannot place into the introductory Calculus courses. It is sometimes termed "College Algebra" instead of just "Algebra" in undergraduate class listings. I'm not 100% sure why they chose this terminology; but, in the USA it may have to do with the variance of learning in High School Algebra offerings. It covers algebra including basic trigonometry, basic matrices, etc.
Regarding the name "College Algebra", this has been used for a long time in the U.S. and I have many older texts on my bookshelves (acquired since the early 1970s) with that name. Some of the more widely used older texts with that name are Henry B. Fine's book (1904; quite advanced by today's standards; archive.org copy), Rietz and Crathorne's book (1909, 1919, 1929, 1939, 1951, 1958; (continued)
1919 archive.org copy), William L. Hart’s book (1926, 1938, 1947, 1953), Palmer and Miser's book (1928, 1937), Raymond W. Brink’s book (1933, 1951), Moses Richardson's book (1947, 1958, 1966, 1973; 1958 archive.org copy).
Incidentally, "remedial" is a technical term at many colleges/universities, and College Algebra rarely qualifies, as one can obtain college credit at most places. Remedial usually ends with Intermediate Algebra (typical content: properties of numbers; fundamental operations with algebraic expressions; polynomials; systems of equations; ratio and proportion; factoring; functions; graphs; solutions of linear inequalities; and linear and quadratic equations). Also, College Algebra was a lot more standard as a first math course before roughly the 1950s, and often calculus started in 2nd year.
Actually, "remedial" is hardly ever used anymore, at least not officially. The current official PC term is "developmental". The college algebra texts I cited earlier were for a different era and were not designed for remedial purposes.
@DaveLRenfro It's true that you won't find the word "remedial" in the course offerings; and, that Algebra will often give one college credit. However, it is important to clarify what kind of college credit Algebra gives. It's typically the kind of credit that rarely satisfies a degree requirement, unless it is counted as a "Math elective" My Computer Science degree (which is honestly an applied branch of discrete Mathematics, in my opinion) would only permit Algebra to be applied against the degree program as a "free elective", with math electives having to be 3000 (Junior) level or higher
These things vary a lot. I've taught at a university that didn't offer college algebra (lowest was a precalculus/trig course) and I've taught at a university where probably nearly half the students didn't place into college algebra. And credit varies greatly by both university and major. For instance, my wife was looking into getting a BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) degree at one place I taught at (she's an RN, and also has a Bachelor's in English), and when they looked at her transcript they said she would have to take college algebra because it wasn't on (continued)
her transcript and college algebra was required there. She pointed out that she had taken Calculus 1, Calculus 2, and linear algebra, but this didn't matter. In particular, they said linear algebra wasn't college algebra, and they require college algebra. She wound up taking some courses in English literature (she was thinking also of getting an MFA degree -- Masters of Fine Arts) and gave up the BSN then. However, a few years ago she did get her BSN, this time at a much more highly ranked university, and guess what --- at this university they said her background took care of college algebra!
I think your question is: What does calculus mean?
Calculus would usually include learning to compute derivatives and integrals.
If you are learning to prove the theorems used to compute derivatives and integrals, that would be more advanced than calculus.
linear algebra analysis 1, multivariable analysis, topology, group theory
All of those would usually be considered more advanced than calculus.
Just out of interest: could you say which courses are not more advanced than calculus? Are there any?
Nothing is completely standardized in the US, but precalculus, "college algebra", and introductory statistics might be common examples.
Ok sry about dragging this further but what exactly is precalculus college algebra ?
( I tried googling it but the varied response from different places seems sorta overwhelming )
@Pablo: Precalculus generally covers the behavior of certain common functions (polynomials and trigonometric functions) for students as a preparation before their first exposure to calculus. College algebra is basic equation manipulation ("solve for x"). If you're majoring in mathematics you probably took them before college.
As far as the US is concerned, "Calculus" is the first introduction to the material. It typically is light on proofs and often geared to the Engineering Curriculum. In Germany (where I grew up) this material was partially high school, partially (in College) classes called ``Higher Mathematics for Engineers''.
To get a more detailed idea,
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~marsden/volume/Calculus/
are (by now somewhat old, but the material has not changed) Calculus textbooks that would be at the upper (more ambitious) level -- many books are weaker.
In the USA, we had already covered most of the Calculus I (limits and derivatives, and very basic integration (fitting quadrilaterals under curves) topics in High School; however, I was very aware that others had not taken these courses as they were electives. The USA High School elective system permits various classes to be optionally taken, and "higher" math classes compete with music, drama, speech, art, auto mechanics, higher level science, foreign languages, computer classes, wood shop, school sponsored early work entry, and any other non-core class.
In light of various clarifications, here's the bottom line for your current situation: You should definitely include this course on a list of courses you have taken "more advanced than calculus" for the purposes of US universities. And you should call it "Analysis" (or maybe "Real Analysis"), not "Calculus".
More generally, the other answers and Dave L Renfro's comments have explained well the difference in how those two labels are used in naming undergraduate university courses in the US. It's not always widely appreciated (either in US academia or elsewhere) that the distinction between those words in US course titles may differ from how they are used either to refer to fields of mathematics (independently of naming classes) or to name courses in other countries.
Thanks for your input but given in my transcript it's mentioned as calculus also given other than this there are 3 other courses which are called analysis (I ,II, III) I don't suppose I should be liberal about this abrupt name changes.
Also given the calculus course is sorta computational ( computing tangent spaces , working with differential form etc ) I suppose there is valid reason why folks in our department chose to call it calculus.
Some schools literally call their real analysis undergrad course "advanced calculus". It's essentially calc one but with rigorous proofs for everything.
@eps That's a good point. Although some other schools use "advanced calculus" to mean a somewhat more advanced real analysis course, which focuses on rigorous multivariable calculus and the beginnings of manifold theory. There's really no way to know exactly what's in a given course just from the title. (But I strongly doubt that it's really important for the OP to provide that much detail in this context anyway.)
This answer is incorrect, because OP has been extremely confusing in sometimes talking about their "Analysis 1" class and sometimes their "Calculus" class (because in both cases they want to know if it's US "calculus"). Neither is US Calculus, but the course called "Calculus" was not a Real Analysis course (that was "Analysis 1") but rather "Calculus on Manifolds."
@NoahSnyder: I gave the answer that appeared to me to be correct at the time I wrote it, based on what had been written in the post and various comments up to that point. Since then the situation has gotten murkier (at least from my point of view), including the very basic point of just how many different courses are being discussed.
But in the hope of giving some more clarity for the sake of anyone reading this thread in the future, let's point out explicitly (as you said in your answer) that courses named "Advanced Calculus" and "Calculus on Manifolds" do not count as "calculus" classes. They are definitely "above calculus".
@MarkMeckes: No worries, it's not your fault, the wording of the question is incredibly confusing!
You can get an idea of what constitutes "Calculus" by looking at the Calculus AP test.
You can get an idea of "pre-calculus" with the UC admission requirements:
Three years of college-preparatory mathematics that include the topics covered in elementary and advanced algebra and two- and three-dimensional geometry. A geometry course or an integrated math course with a sufficient amount of geometry content must be completed. Approved integrated math courses may be used to fulfill part or all of this requirement, as may math courses taken in the seventh and eighth grades if the high school accepts them as equivalent to its own courses; also acceptable are courses that address the previously mentioned content areas and include or integrate probability, statistics or trigonometry. Courses intended for 11th and/or 12th grade levels may satisfy the required third year or recommended fourth year of the subject requirement if approved as an advanced math course.
There are a few courses that are "parallel" to Calculus , neither pre-requisites of Calculus, nor having Calculus as a pre-requisite. In the case of Statistics, the subject does rely on Calculus, but there are basic courses that don't require students to actually do Statistics, so they may be considered "before Calculus". Most other parallel courses would probably be considered "after": Abstract Algebra, Number Theory, Complex Algebra, Linear Algebra, Logic, Set Theory, Graph Theory, Topology. My interpretation is that if it's not taught in American high schools, it should be included.
If in doubt, it's probably better to put something in that you shouldn't than to leave something else that you should have. They probably put this qualification in to save you time, and assure you that you don't need to put in every single math course you've ever taken.
I might call the class you called “Calculus” instead “Calculus on Manifolds,” which is the name of a famous text by Spivak covering that material. Even though it has “calculus” in the title everyone would consider it “more advanced than calculus.”
Funnily enough that's the book that we followed. :)
Great! People know that book and you’re listing the textbook so it’ll be easy for them to understand. Maybe the honest but clear thing is to write the title as “Calculus [on Manifolds].” Square brackets means words you’ve added for clarity that aren’t in the original.
Other courses besides those indicated in earlier answers could be:
Numerical Analysis, Complex Variables, Mathematical Statistics, and Theory of Functions.
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158909 | What should I ask a potential PhD advisor in an informal interview?
I emailed a professor at a school I am applying to, outlining my research interests, two specific projects proposals, and how they align with his research. I let him know that I am applying and I'd be interested in working together and chatting if he's taking students. He said he is taking students and asked if I'd like to set up some time to talk.
What do I talk about?
Here are the main topics regarding his research I can think of:
How did you come to your line of research?
What topics do you feel are under-explored in our sub-area?
What projects are you most actively working on now?
Should I also ask for feedback on my proposals, or would that sound stupid?
To clarify, I closed my email with something like: If you are looking for graduate students and feel our interests align, I'd like to discuss opportunities for working together.
These questions are more likely to be asked by the advisor to a potential candidate but I like "What topics do you feel are under-explored in our sub-area?" also as a question to the advisor. (Be sure to have a good answer ready since you will probably will be asked yourself.)
I will give some advice which is not quite an answer to the question. Find out who the professors former students were. Look at their publication record. Do they write whatever is considered a sufficient amount of papers in your field (with the professor)? Do they stay in academia?
"How many students have you supervised and where are they now?"
Actually, your questions sounds like you are trying to hire him for a position, whereas he would be the one taking on an obligation to you and your future. I would probably have a chuckle if a student asked me those in a first interview. The first question would be good over coffee after we'd worked together for a while. For the last question you might first find a couple of his recent papers rather than ask.
But the more important questions are things like
Can you help me find a topic that interests both of us? Follow up on this question if some suggestions are made.
How independent do I need to be (do you expect me to be) and are you available to help if needed?
How successful have other students of yours have been in completion and in their careers?
Is there a seminar in which you and grad students share ideas?
If you already have a topic that you want to work on then:
Do you think ABC is a fruitful line of enquiry and (if so) can you help me explore it?
But approach such questions cautiously. Some will take offense. Be prepared to be the answerer of questions, not the asker.
"Would you mind introducing me to one or more of your current/former students? I'd like to ask them some questions as well."
You say "If you have a topic that you want to work on". I thought that outside of a few select fields such as Mathematics, PhD students are always supposed to come with a topic in hand. Is this not true?
In the US science context, it's much more common for the advisor to propose the topic (often times as part of funded grant proposal) and then find a student to take on the topic. It's relatively rare for an incoming PhD student to propose their own dissertation topic.
Contra Buffy, I think the questions of in the original post are quite good, and in fact for precisely the reason that when choosing your advisor you are in effect hiring them for a job: the job of guiding you for the next 5 or so years.
One of the questions I asked potential PhD advisors that always provided a lot of insight was "What distinguishes a great grad student from a good one?" It frames things positively and professors will usually tell you exactly what they expect from you.
I'm surprised no one suggested this yet:
Read some of the professor's recent papers and ask specific questions about the papers. This can pique their interest in working with you far more than a lot of the other things you're considering to ask.
Furthermore, if you have ideas on how to extend the work in their recent papers, you could bring that up and ask about the feasibility of working on such extensions of their recent work.
If you are very keen you might even read some of the literature surrounding the professor's recent work, and ask questions about that. For example if the professor's most recent work compares their own novel method to some benchmark dataset, and you find that others are also comparing to the same benchmark dataset, you might wonder about the differences between the two (possibly competing!) methods that are capable of doing something similar.
PhD supervisors often love it when their student (or potential student) is capable of reading and understanding papers on their own, then drawing their own connections foreseeing their own interesting research avenues.
From the professor's perspective I've got to say that this smells a bit of sucking up. I could be impressed if the candidate came up with something really good connecting to some of my papers, but chances are if the student has their own independent ideas, thought through for quite some time, they will be better than what they could come up with taking a few hours to read my papers. If the student suggests something related to my work just for the sake of it and it isn't a particularly good idea, I will like this less than a fine independent proposal.
A student having read and understood my papers, and being able to discuss them, is the single best thing they can do to improve their chances of working with me. If you want to called them "sucking up" for doing that, then so be it.
Fair enough if they do it well. But chances are they need to invest proper time for coming up with something good. It may be hard. It's not an easy recipe for making a good impression. (I have seen one who tried, and really didn't do it well, that's where I'm coming from.)
I agree that it requires serious time commitment. Though my PhD application (to Oxford) was over a decade ago, arXiv still existed and I'd not only demonstrated that I'd read and understood my potential supervisors' recent papers, but also found typos and a broken citations in a pre-print that was soon to be published, and they appreciated me pointing these out in time for the final publication. I was given an offer, along with the Clarendon scholarship, which goes to the top applicant in each department at Oxford. It wasn't just because of the interview, but the interview did go well.
Yes it can go wrong if the applicant doesn't take it seriously. Such an applicant is in my opinion unlikely to be a strong candidate anyway, and at least they've spent some time reading my papers, rather than none.
I'd probably ask how he sees himself as a PhD-supervisor, what his philosophy of supervising is, and what he expects of his students.
"Should I also ask for feedback on my proposals, or would that sound stupid?" This question makes sense to me.
As the professor I wouldn't have problems with the other questions that you have already posted either. Regarding the second one, however, I'd like to clarify to what extent you mean this as a question for potential topics that I may have for you. And for addressing this, I first will have some questions for you (I agree with Buffy that it may well be that the professor does the entertainment by bombarding you with questions rather than the other way round).
PS: Buffy writes "some may take offense" regarding certain questions, and that may well be, although I wonder how big the "some" set is. Personally I have very little intuitive understanding for people who take offense facing harmless and actually reasonable questions like these.
I saw updated my question. I guess since I sort of extended the invitation, that's why I thought I'd have more of an impetus to ask questions. Though perhaps most of these 'informal' chats come from a prospective student writing something similar to me, in which case your advice holds.
From my perspective, putting myself in the role of the professor (which I am these days) this doesn't make a big difference. I'd be fine with your own questions as well as with the ones I have been suggesting, and I'd probably have more or less informative answers to all of these. Same by the way regarding the questions suggested in the other responses. There are many reasonable questions one could ask...
Interviews with potential advisors will usually include a portion (often at the end) where they ask you if you have any questions for them. It is not necessary to use your own questioning period to try to impress a potential advisor. By now your CV and the other aspects of the interview will have told the advisor whether you are good enough to get into the program. The part of the meeting where you ask questions is purely for your own convenience, in case there is anything you want to know about the program you are applying to. A PhD candidature is usually four or more years of your life, so it is not unreasonable that you might have some questions about what you will be doing during this time, and what help/resources you will have.
For that reason, it would be unusual to use this time to dig into the research interests or career evolution of the professor, and it is also not useful to spend that time on technical questions about the topic (there will be plenty of time for those later!). More useful are questions that tell you what you can expect your life to be like if you are a PhD candidate there --- e.g.:
If I am accepted as a PhD candidate here, what would a normal week look like?
How often do you normally meet with your PhD students? What happens if they need extra help from you?
Do you have any existing research problems that would be suitable for a PhD topic, or do you prefer students to find their own topic? (Only if you don't already have your own topic.)
Do you know if the graduate students here socialise together much? Do they have study groups where they get together to help each other?
When asking questions, it is best to take a light touch and don't overwhelm your potential advisor. However, if there are any aspects of the program that you want to know about (and you can't get the information yourself elsewhere) then you should feel free to ask questions to find out what your upcoming four years will be like.
In addition to the previous comments, starting from the papers that he published, you should also consider his research group.
Generally (at least in the UK), you will have a supervisory team, with at least another advisor. It is very important to know if you can have (and trust) someone else's opinion during the project.
I would also ask what kind of support you will receive, starting from the studentship.
If the project is computer-based or if you have to do experiments, what kind of facilities you can use and how the access will be managed.
You should also have a look at the University website and have a look at what kind of support they offer for post-graduate students.
This is an addition to points mentioned in other answers.
Among the other questions do ask or try to find out about past PhD students.
What is now their future as PhD holders.
Are they in Academia?
Are they hired in a company that you would like to work?
Is it a good company? Did their PhD helped them in their career and was it required?
You are about to walk a path that others also walked before you. It makes sense to see where they are now to get some indications on where this path may lead.
Some supervisors will even list past students in their websites.
The research should be extensive and to the level of the specific lab, professor, supervisor. Even within the same school of a university there can be quite a variation.
Here are a couple more things for you to ponder:
How long has this prospective advisor been at that school? I had a young rising star for an advisor, and he left for a lesser university after 3 years (biggest fish in the smaller pond sort of scenario). I started new research with an older, established advisor. It extended my grad school experience considerably.
Where does the funding come from? If you are in engineering, for example, and your funding comes from DARPA or NASA, you might see boom/bust cycles, and end up as a teaching assistant instead of a research assistant. If you want to be a professor, this could be good. If not, the time spent teaching is time you're not doing your own research.
What is the typical time for this advisor's students to go from start to finish? There is wide variation in some departments, for various reasons, and some are somewhat out of your control.
You don't have to grill him on these sorts of topics... a simple, basic question will probably get him talking, and he'll tell you more that you would have thought to ask.
I had a beyond-wonderful advisor, but I've seen some that have made things horrible for their students. I'm not talking about being demanding of hard work, but regular and seemingly arbitrary "resets" of their projects, bad technical advice that must be followed, treating them as a consumable resource etc.
Find wording that is natural to you, and ask a seemingly innocuous question whose answer may flag a basic lack of empathy, or unusual amount of self-importance.
These are easily (and often) masked by a charming disposition and skilled use of language, so a direct question like "Do you care about your students personally?" won't work.
Perhaps "If I may be so bold, would it be possible to ask what you think your students might say if asked for what they liked most and liked least about you as an advisor?" or if the style of conversation seems informal, just "What would your students say was the best and worst part about working for you? Can I ask that?"
Most honest people can probably come up with some reasonable answer, but a narcissist will soar on the first half and either struggle with or cleverly avoid the second half.
I agree with the prior answers. Since the advisor gets to choose you so he gets to ask you more questions. What you should focus on is how would he evaluate your work during phd, what he expects from you, what skills you need to learn, what kind of area should you focus on.
I also feel it is very important that you have a very transparent relationship with him. Meaning, if you plan to take breaks (like I did for the birth of my baby) be upfront about it than hiding. A transparent relationship will really help your career.
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182467 | I’m being asked to research maths for my Python module. Is this right?
I’m a mature student, starting a part-time MSc. computer science degree after a decade in industry, after previously graduating with a BSc degree. I am out of touch with academia, but I am excited to get into it. I have an open mind to this all and I know it’ll be a bumpy ride.
My first module is on Python programming. The course book covers Python and a bunch of Python libraries. It’s basically just a bunch of documentation assembled in a PDF file with some Python history.
The one and only piece of graded work is a written assignment. The “task” is to take the few CSV datasets provided, matching columns in one to columns in another and matching single “x,y” pairs from another dataset to previously identified columns. The criteria for one part is the lowest mean squared error, and for the other it’s not explained quite so succinctly, but it’s a calculation. It’s not specified in any sort of terminology I can relate to, what kind of problem were solving here. The task specification is written in an imperative style and is not really explaining much of the “why”, just a prescriptive “how”.
Where I’m getting lost is, what we’re being assessed on does not seem to be much about Python. We’re to think of a research question which we should then investigate and in doing so, shoehorn this program into it as if it were our own solution to the problem which has not actually been articulated.
We must write 14 or so pages of research. The source code for the program is to be an appendix. Having seen the assessment guidelines, almost all the marks will come from the main body of text, not the source code.
In the chat with students and the course coordinator, people keep asking the same question: can they do something more related to Python? The answers is always no, because it’d be too “documentary” rather than “research”.
But the only suggested topic is always around the criteria by which one set of data are mapped to another. The coordinator makes no secret of his wanting to see us research maths for 14 pages. We have other modules covering maths and there is zero mention of maths in the module description including the learning outcomes.
Is this unusual? It strikes me as quite odd. The few people I know who have done Masters degrees are baffled to the point of annoyance at this.
NB: So far my questions to the coordinator for clarification have gone unanswered, but I only anticipate the same answers everyone else got already. I’m a student, but I’m a paying customer first, and like any sensible customer I will be sure to get my money’s worth.
Well, there are a bazillion different Python libraries. Determining which library, and which function(s) in the library to use is often the much harder problem then writing the program to do it. Documenting what your assumptions on the data and analysis are, going through the libraries to find routines, and documenting which routines actually do what you have assumed the analysis should be seems pretty reasonable, all in all. I would expect a Master's degree holder to be able to figure stuff like that out. It isn't researching 'math', it is analyzing the problem and looking for how to solve it
"Researching math" (from an applied math/statistics perspective) would be inventing Mean Squared Error as a target to minimize in an estimation problem (and explaining why that was a sensible thing to minimize, or why it's better than minimizing something else), or perhaps finding an efficient algorithm to minimize MSE for such a problem. Someone has already done that, long ago. Now that they've done that, writing code to apply their existing algorithm to some specific data is purely a programming task.
Understanding specifications and finding resources (such as mathematical techniques useful for solving the problem) are integral parts of software development. There is more to being a programmer than coding. It sounds to me like the course is trying to put programming into a more realistic context to give you a broader range of programming skills, rather than focussing just on "coding".
I’m a student but I’m a paying customer first, and like any sensible customer I will be sure to get my money’s worth - or else what? Be careful what you wish for - your instructor can read aloud the textbook in class and give out leetcode questions as assignments, that would satisfy the contract for "one semester of Python learning". It might even satisfy you, but it would certainly be worse teaching by any objective standard.
What department/subject area is this class in? (Alternatively, what are the pre-reqs for it?) It sounds like a statistics class, not a language-introduction programming class.
This is exactly how you will use programming in the real world, especially as a computer scientist. Science is carried out in the language of mathematics. Computer science applies computation to those mathematical problems. What, exactly, were your expectations when going into this? Perhaps computer science is not the right field if you're looking for exposure to different aspects of software development. If you were looking for mobile apps, games, web development, or something else then this is entirely the wrong discipline.
At masters level, a course that merely teaches elementary Python coding would lead most other students to walk up to the dean and tell him they're not getting what they're paying their tuition for.
This sounds pretty much perfectly on point as training for conducting computer science research, albeit maybe a tad artificial.
"my questions to the coordinator for clarification have gone unanswered" looks like the biggest issue here. IMO you should be able to expect reasonable on topic questions to be answered in a timely manner by the professor/coordinator. That's part of their job.
I think the main thing being lost by commenters here is that, the programming part of the assignment is not an issue. What I don’t get is the relevance of writing a 14 page written assignment about MSE/Linear Regression or some other aspect of the logic of the specified programming. The actual program I write is worth less than 16% of the grade. I’m being judged on an exploration of mathematical/statistical methods. Or some other methodological aspect of the prescribed program. I’ve yet to see anyone make a case for the relevance.
@pinkstudent Because when you're doing this professionally you'll spend about 16% of your time writing code - at most - and the rest of it on planning, design, architecture, algorithms, specifications, etc. Architects don't spend a lot of time working with hammers and nails - computer scientists don't spend a lot of time writing code. It's the core of how things are implemented, but the hard work happens before you start writing code.
I’m being asked to research maths for my Python module
No, you are not. It sounds like you're being asked to do some elementary data analysis or data science. "Researching math" is a different animal altogether...just take a look at the Annals of Mathematics to get a sense of what "researching math" looks like.
We’re to think of a research question which we should then investigate...
Sounds like a decent exercise -- here is some data, now do some work to understand/visualize the data and confirm or reject a hypothesis.
...and in doing so, shoehorn this program into it as if it were our own solution to the problem
This is a little more alarming....I hope the existing program is just a starting place which students will have to greatly modify and expand upon.
people keep asking the same question: can they do something more related to Python? The answers is always no, because it’d be too “documentary” rather than “research”.
Sounds like the instructor and the students have different visions for the course. The instructor sees this as an "introduction to data analysis using Python," while the students see this as an "introduction to Python."
It is hard to judge such matters from the outside, but I suspect the best option is somewhere in between. You are doing a science degree, not a software engineering degree, and so learning to use code to study data and solve problems, rather than just coding for its own sake, is likely appropriate. On the other hand, students with no coding background at all will need to be taught rather a lot, and so I'm a little alarmed that you only have one graded assignment for the entire semester. Coding, like algebra, is one of those things that you learn by doing, and so I would have expected you to have several hours of Python programming homework per week.
A module might be a sub part of a class that takes a whole semester
True…though I would be just as alarmed in this case; a few weeks of programming will not get them very far!
A module can be taken here to mean a class. So an independent topic of study with its own learning materials etc. We do have data science modules and statistics modules later on. I agree with your point about science vs software engineering. And I’m actually quite excited about defining my own questions, investigating, etc. I’m just a bit confused like many of the other students about the format this is taking. I will just accept it as part of the challenge. Thanks!
As far as coding background, sounds like it's a Computer Science MS, so they have that. Then even if they don't specifically know Python, a 1-week "Python for programmers" crash course would be common enough.
@pinkstudent it sounds like your degree program is more specialised than just computer science, is there a more detailed title of the dergee programme?
@AnonymousM - true, however, skimming through the Annals should clarify why OP got such a negative reaction when they referred to their data analysis exercise as "math research."
I would like to point out a software engineering degree does not (should not) teach coding for its own sake either. It should teach to use code to solve business and engineering problems. So your answer would be valid there, too.
To be fair, OP's usage of "researching math" as "doing some light self-study [googling, reading on Wikipedia] to find out what math to apply" is pretty common. When my wife says she researched what auto insurance gives us the best rate she also does not mean that she got a PhD in it. Words can mean different things to different people.
It seems as though you are been asked to use Python to solve a moderately complex problem. There is nothing wrong with that. Programming languages are written to be useful (mostly, at least) and this is just an application.
Also, you are in a masters program in CS and so the application is not that far from the mainstream of data analysis that researchers normally do. So, yes, being asked to do something hard is pretty usual at the masters level (or even undergraduate).
As for the lack of clear definitions, of things, I suspect that you are expected to find them, just as anyone would on a real project. And as you advance, the projects you will need to be able to handle won't all be simple.
I don't know how it is graded, but the structure and correctness of the implementation can/should be an important element.
This is what computer scientists do to apply knowledge to a given domain. Look on it as an opportunity.
This! At the master's level you should already know how to hold a hammer and be able to figure out on your own how to use a few other tools. It is time to learn how to do something useful with those tools.
I don’t want to say that it’s trivial but the code we must is write is almost written for us. The task is very proscriptive in terms of stating that the code must “do this then that then this then that”. Turning that into Python code does has not been hard and I don’t see other students struggling. And this is reflected in the fact that the code appears to make up a small part of the grade. The bulk of the assignment is to pick part of the unspecified problem which the code addresses, and to investigate it over 14 pages. So methods for finding bet fit between datasets etc. Anyway, thanks!
@pinkstudent That's what real data analysts do all the time. Coding is "easy", especially with all the libraries that are available these days, figuring out the problem and how to apply these techniques to it is the difficult part. You're not a beginning coder if you're in a Master's program.
Mine won't be the answer your looking for...
I'm not a professional programmer. I'm an electrical engineer. But I frequently use programming to solve problems, and the simple reality is that whether as a hobby or as a paid employee, it's my job to figure out how to use the tool to solve the problem. And that's the important point. You're not taking a class just to learn how to use the tool. You're also taking the class to learn how to apply the tool. To use a metaphor, nobody takes a class just to learn how to use a hammer. They take classes to learn how to make cabinets. And it's not unreasonable for the instructor to believe you already know how to use a clamp.
What's unfortunately hurting here is that, as a mature student, you're not taking this class hot on the heels of four years of mathematics courses, such that the instructor can reasonably assume that you have a host of pre-existing skills to immediately draw from. I can feel that pain. It's been 30 years since my last engineering class. If I went back today to get my masters, they'd rightfully expect me to remember all my Calculus courses — and I'd be buried in my old textbooks trying to remember what I once knew but haven't used in decades.
Unfortunately (and here's the part you won't like)... that's not the instructor's problem. No, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect you to do something you should have learned how to do in your undergraduate courses. But I do sympathize.
Having said that. If your co-students are asking the same questions you are, then there is a problem because that would mean the instructor is asking for skills more-or-less no one has learned. I read your post several times, but I can't come to a clear conclusion. Are the other students having the same trouble you are? Or are they asking their own questions and are only getting the same quality of answer you're receiving to your question? Maybe I should have asked about this before posting an answer... but in the long run, I doubt any argument made here will sway your instructor.
Thanks for your answer! Your empathy is valuable. In general the other student have the same questions. I think partly the written assignment document could be better written. There are three pages explaining “the task” and only seven or so words at the start which suggest that actually you need to think up your own research topic. My undergraduate contained next to no maths as it wasn’t CompSci so I was expecting lots of maths self study. Just didn’t think it’d bite me in the Python module haha! I will soldier on! Meaningful goals are never easy.
I'm inclined to agree with this answer. The OP says it's university, for a master's degree after ten years in the industry; I don't think uni is where you go to learn a programming language, it's where you learn the theories behind programming languages and what to use them for. Python is the hammer, and you don't need university to learn how to use a hammer.
I am in a different field, but your professor isn't having you research math. To you, it is researching math because you have never heard of this before. He is making it obscure because there is an entire academic field that does this specific problem. He has disguised it so you cannot google it. If he had used terms that you recognize, this would be a ten minute problem, because you can google the solution.
The irony here is that the code sort of doesn't matter. This is somewhat like a "print{Hello World!}" problem with some sophistication.
He is forcing you to work with a good requirements document that is a bad requirements document for you because you are not a subject matter expert. He is asking you for dihydrogen monoxide instead of water.
You are not researching math, you are researching English. He is forcing you to explore Python. He isn't feeding you Python, he is starving you and making you hunt your own food. While you are hunting the food, you are documenting it.
This is not an undergraduate program where you jump through a set of hoops and a degree comes out on the other side. You are being required to prove independent mastery. You are being required to prove that you no longer need adult supervision.
I have never taught in your field, so my only criticism might be that there should be more work and assignments. However, there may be enough struggle in this for enough students that you would all fail if this were replicated over many assignments. After all, it bothered you enough that you felt you needed to post about it on the internet. It might be doing its job.
The irony is definitely not wasted on me haha! I guess you’re right, this will make it all the more rewarding once I finish it. Thanks.
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15301 | Prerequisities to become an MD-PhD?
Officially, I am studying computer science. However, what I am actually doing is computational neuroscience. More over, the research I do is mostly medical research.
I have noticed that there are programs for MD-PhDs. However, in most countries, there seems to be always some legal requirements one has to fulfill to enter such programs. These requirements are not given very clearly out in most cases.
With an M.Sc in computer science, can I apply to such programs? More trickier question is would it be wise..? I mean, I could just go to a neuroscience program. However, I would be also really interested to help people with psychological, neurological, etc. issues (work in hospital), when having the MD title is a must?
@confused Does your institution have a pre-medical school advisory team? These are usually for bachelor students who want to become MDs. They would know the specifics of what the local requirements are and how to interpret your background.
Most of the "legal requirements" associated with MD-PhD programs are financing related. In general, such programs are usually sponsored and funded by national health ministries (or their equivalents). Therefore, it is preferred (or required) only to have legally qualified citizens participate in such programs.
As for the choice of major, in general, computer science is not one of the usual entry points for MD-PhD programs, which tend to be more closely related to experimental programs and majors (e.g., chemistry, biochemistry, biology, bioengineering). That said, there is more of an emphasis nowadays on computational science in medicine, and more and more MD-PhD programs are expanding their scope to include bioinformatics and computational biology. But it is still definitely not a universal, and CS majors will be at something of a disadvantage.
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34547 | Can a discoverer give the name he wants to his finding?
Let's assume that some scientist discovers a phenomenon that has never been noticed before.
He wants to write a paper about it but he doesn't want to constantly write "effect of change of some properties blahblahblah". Can he therefore name this effect with a name of his choice? For example "Discoverer's name's effect". Or "fluffy puppy effect" (just because he likes puppies)?
The same for constants. Can one name newly discovered constant "my name constant"?
This question can be simplified to: "what are standards for naming new physical entities?"
To add a small point to Floris' good answer: in general, attempting to name something after yourself is considered a massive faux pas, and doing it would cause you to come across as unprofessional or a crank. The discoverer's name is always attached to the discovery by other people writing about it afterwards.
Here's one tactic that I have seen tried to get something named after yourself, but I don't recommend it! Give the phenomenon an awkward name in your paper, hoping that others won't want to adopt that name and that they'll end up using your name instead.
@Nathaniel thanks for the comment. I have incorporated it in my answer - with attribution, of course.
Well you can always try. Take this as an example: http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/17/2/152.abstract (here the author, Tai, "discovered" the widely known trapezoidal rule originally probably due to Poisson circa 1820 and calls this the "Tai Model". The name has not caught on, but the paper's been cited hundreds of times according to Google Scholar)
An example from mathematics: Stefan Banach named an class of objects "spaces of type (B)" and they eventually went on to be known as Banach spaces, and I've heard it speculated that Banach chose the name in the hopes that this would happen.
@MichaelLugo: When Dickson introduced what are today called cyclic algebras, he called them "algebras of type D" and earlier in the paper he had defined algebras of type B and C. (The paper is http://www.ams.org/journals/tran/1926-028-02/S0002-9947-1926-1501341-6/S0002-9947-1926-1501341-6.pdf.) Perhaps he did that so the name "algebras of type D" would not look like a blatant attempt to name them after himself, although I suspect he hoped they would become known as Dickson algebras.
Related: http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/34555/64
Not in physics, but the creator of the unscented transform named it after the unscented deodorant on someone's desk, and the name stuck. 'Fluffy puppy effect' might be more of a stretch.
@alarge - that is a grotesque failure of the peer review system. Thanks for pointing it out. You might want to post it as an answer here?
Usually the way this works is that a researcher discovers some phenomenon and publishes it without giving a name. Then someone else comes along and writes about "Jones' discovery" and before you know it the world talks about the "Jones effect".
Giving things a name yourself is done in some fields - for example, in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) it is conventional that people who develop a new pulse sequence will give that sequence a "catchy" name (usually some clever abbreviation, never really their own name). So you have names like CAIPIRINHA (which is really the name of a drink, but stands for "Controlled Aliasing In Parallel Imaging Results IN Higher Acceleration").
In the end, the name that the community adopts is the name by which something will be known - so you are free to call it the "teletubby galaxy" but if everybody insists on calling it Andromeda-X42 you will be a lone voice. If you have the good fortune of discovering something new and valuable, name it wisely or be ignored.
Reiterating the point made by Nathaniel: suggesting that a particular phenomenon/constant/equation should be named after you is considered a major faux pas. Others will do it for you - when you try to jump the gun and suggest that it be named after you, you will come across as conceited. I can think of no example of a well known effect that a discoverer named for themselves. Some examples where they did not:
Newton's Laws (he called them "Axiomata sive Leges Motus")
Hooke's Law ("Explaining the power of springing bodies")
Josephson effect (for which he got the Nobel prize... not available for Newton or Hooke, or surely they would have qualified) was described by him (Physics Letters Vol 1, No 7, 1962) as "new effects":
he didn't say "we present here the Josephson Effect".
The list could go on and an. If you are the greatest, you don't need to say so - others will do it. No offense intended, Mr Ali.
If you are interested interested, there is a follow-up question on a sister site, History of Science and Math: What famous laws were named by their discoverer?
Turing machines were named a-machines (automatic machines) by Alan Turing.
“I can think of no example of a well known effect that a discoverer named for themselves.” – sounds like a question for HSM.
@Wrzlprmft thanks for the suggestion: http://hsm.stackexchange.com/q/691/543
This method is flawed as per Stigler's Law.
@RenaeLider nice link. Often, the person who gives the discovery visibility gets the credit; indeed that need not be the person who made the discovery. Think Crick and Watts, or Kamerlingh Onnes, to name just two instances off the top of my head.
@Floris And then there are really sad cases such as when somebody else is acknowledged based on no logical grounds - Jocelyn Bell's senior professor winning the Nobel for her discovery! Preposterous, I say.
Jocelyn Bell - wasn't she the one who discovered pulsars? <starts to Google> Hewish taught me at one point... Since the nomination says "to Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars" that is indeed a pretty sad mistake.
My guess is that if you give a catchy name to a phenomenon/algorithm, it is more likely to stick and be remembered by your colleagues. If you give it a dull name such as "$K$-machine", or "method A", it is less likely to be remembered but also more likely to be renamed after you if it's really important. (disclaimer: nothing important is named after me, so these tricks may or may not work.) :)
So basically you suggest that we should name it like "the new method/effect/blablabla" and leave the action to name it to other people?
@Ooker that seems to be the traditional way this is done. You can name it - just not after yourself - seems to be the consensus. See my earlier comment (Dec 19) for a link to further discussion.
I think you can add it into your answer for interested viewers.
@Ooker good suggestion. Done.
There are several levels in your question. A researcher can certainly come up with a name for, say, and effect observed in research. This new name should be descriptive to stand a chance to catch on because it is only when accepted by peers in the field that the name may stick. It is also possible to name effects after their first discoverers and the same applies, if any agree on it it may become used. naming something after one-self is probably a really bad idea. Trying to be funny or ambiguous equally so.
As for constants, one can certainly name a constant anything you wish but if the constant has any wide relevance there are usually organisations that will have to accept names and numbers. some of this work is done within Bureau International des Poids et measures (BIPM) that maintains the SI-system. The different Unions within the The International Council for Science (ICSU) also organise working groups (equiv.) to work on terminology and propose standards for the different fields. within different fields there are varying additional international bodies that organizes nomenclature and terminology.
So standards are usually set by standardizing organisations. There focus on terminology , constants etc. that have wide significance and where accuracy both in terms and numbers are required. On top of that the scientific community self-organizes softer terms such as those of effects or theories but the success of introducing new terminology or what have you is always depending on the peers accepting it in a longer perspective.
This answer is field-specific, as in some fields such as CS, funny and somewhat non-descriptive (e.g. acronyms that only become slightly descriptive with some convoluted explanations) names are more or less the norm.
Specific to what field? And, the question is not just about acronyms, which I agree anyone can come up with and use.
Specific to fields that are not CS or (as mentioned by Floris' answer) MRI. The question is about any names, acronyms are an example thereof, though non-acronym names certainly appear, as well.
Chemists who discover a new element of the Periodic Table have the right to name it. Marie Curie, who won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, named her discovery "polonium" after her native Poland.
I would not be surprised to see this practice followed in other scientific fields.
Except that the modern interpretation of this is that the discoverer gets to propose a name, which IUPAC then votes on. For example, if you discovered an element and tried to name it aurium, this would probably be rejected for sounding too much like gold.
You may absolutely call your findings whatever you want. I have seen it done many many times - but some people may consider you to be an 'arrogant jerk' (shall we say) for naming things after yourself - especially if they are trivial.
I have seen trivial things being named as if it were something incredible or ground breaking, and all I think is: what a loser. Adding two numbers together that both end with the number 3, does not deserved to be called "Peter's Second Principle of Arithmetic" (this isn't actually a thing, but makes my point)
Honestly, unless you discover a new element or your finding is truly notable don't name it anything. As others have mentioned, the academic community will name it for you if they deem it notable enough.
I think there should be a distinction between possessive and non-possessive naming. If Joe Smith relates to something as his Quarkion Principle, then other people should refer to it as Joe Smith's Quarkion Observation. Attaching the principle to himself is not arrogance, but rather the reverse; it would put it on equal parity with similar observations by other people.
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23548 | How did authors prepare figures in their publications before the advent of computers?
I am often amazed at how neat figures in old scientific publications are. How did authors prepare those plots and diagrams, when there were no computers around? Did they draw them by hand? Were there any special methods and tools involved? Did the authors prepare the figures themselves?
Re: methods and tools, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_drawing_tools is an interesting read
The existing answers about ink presumably are valid as far back as we had photo reproduction techniques. Before that, I suppose someone had to engrave a metal printing plate.
Many old images are called woodcuts. Therefore they were presumably cut out of wood and used in the press.
Ink on vellum. Depending on the work place the author may have made their figures themselves or in some cases professionals were involved who would take a sketch and draw an ink original. the techniques were basically the same as for any technical drawing using templates for creating text. A lot of techniques went into making nice figures, sometimes including adhesive rasters to create shading effects etc. A asic technique was also to produce originals is a larger size than final so that when reduced in size, small imperfections would basically dissappear in print.
The professionals, were they employed solely for scientific works?
The professionals would probably have been employed by the graphic arts department, which would have been used for whatever graphics were needed. For large businesses or universities which needed both scientific and non-scientific works, my guess is that some professionals would have specialized in scientific art.
Also, how did they reduce the size of the originals?
@adipro The printing process most likely to have been used (offset lithography), at the time, involved photographing the original and then projecting the negative onto a "plate" along with everything else that would go on that page. The projection step allows the printer to arbitrarily adjust the size. (Nowadays plates can be exposed directly from computer files but I am under the impression that photography is still used at least some of the time.)
@Zack, does that mean that reducing sizes was only possible after the advent of photography?
@adipro No, before photography there were pantographs and scaling grids. But photography makes it a lot easier.
also be aware that offset lithography is dependent on photographic processes, even the new non photographic processes where plates are printed directly from a computer without the aid of any cameras is still a photographic process. (I'm not sure about the new plateless printing process.) There were also photographic processes used in the late letter press days. Prior to that they used engraving and casting.
I believe many of them did the drawing themselves with ink pen, for example. Graphs can be drawn using pins and a metal ruler: you put pins (or small nails) in a measured points of a graph, and then bend a ruler to pass through all nails. The ruler will eventually form a curve, known as a B-spline interpolant of a given set of points.
This is one of many techniques taught to draughtsman (draughtspersons?). In my father's day drafting was a basic skill for a scientist, and though I could see the CAD world coming I learned it myself, and I have never regretted it. I only use those skills every year or two, but they still have the uses.
Calvin Schmid's Handbook of Graphic Presentation has a very detailed chapter with many nice illustrations on this process.
My grandfather wrote geography books. He had some sheets of plastic with wavy lines on them, used to fill in the seas in maps. The plastic was cut to shape and glued to the paper. I assume similar things existed for other regular fills.
Gosh, I feel ancient :)
I graduated just before the Windows became popular. We had 8-bit PCs with MS-DOS and some very basic text-processing software. All the official documents (including my master’s thesis and first research papers) were typed on mechanical (or if one was lucky – on electrical) typewriter. For corrections in the typed document we used a special white fluid (applied it with a little brush over the misspelled letters and once dry retyped the correct ones on top).
All the formulas and figures had to be drawn by hand (using a special ink pen, a ruler, a compass, sometimes a special curved ruler). A piece of grid paper could be glued to the document if necessary, or if the grid was big enough to occupy a whole A4 page, we would buy a ready-made grid page from the university bookshop and insert it where it belonged.
This was the required format for conference papers and all other materials we submitted to the print shop, where they used offset lithography and some other techniques to print conference proceedings, textbooks, etc.
There wasn’t PowerPoint, so the “slides” for presentations were drawn on a big cardboard sheets (A1 or A0), which were then hang/stack/pined to the wall/blackboard. Or, if there was an overhead projector, we did the drawings on transparent plastic sheets.
There was a technician in the department, whose job was to do technical drawings, but usually she was very busy, so I did most of the drawings myself. And, yes, I had studied technical drawing as a part of my engineering degree, it was a mandatory module.
A related subject: preparation of mathematical formulas and equations. These were things that simply couldn't be done (other than very crudely) on a Linotype or similar "hot type" machine. To do it anywhere near "right", skilled typesetters needed to build up the equations by hand from tiny pieces of type and lots of pieces of spacer lead and such. Needless to say, this was very slow and very expensive and prone to error. It went "offshore" to lower wage countries, but even then was still too expensive. Crude typesetting programs existed but produced such poor results that Donald Knuth was driven to produce something that would typeset math to his standards: TeX. TeX (and LaTeX and various permutations) are still the gold standard for setting text, equations, and even some graphs and other figures (such as chemical diagrams) generated on the fly.
You will notice I said "A related subject". The typesetting of math is closely related, and leads into the automatic generation of some graphs and other figures from tabular data. Don't be so quick to condemn!
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16810 | Is it important to publish my article in a journal indexed on Thomson ISI?
If a journal is not indexed this way, is it an academically honorable one?
@dgraziotin Tourism Management. And I am from Iran but of course I am going to publish my work in English.
according to my experience publishing an article depends on which purpose you want to publish that paper and of course ISI journals have more value than other ones.
If we momentarily disregard from discussions regarding the cons of ISI and Thomson-Reuters who run the service etc. and focus on the usefulness of ISI indexed journals for ones career, the answer is yes, it is important at least to some extent. The importance is in part depending on your discipline since ISI indexing is not evenly distributed over disciplines. But generally speaking the ISI listing means the journal publishes papers that are referenced, which is an indication that it is research of some quality and importance.
This does not mean non-ISI-listed journals are not "honourable". But, when choosing a journal in which to publish, you need to make sure it is read by other in your field so that your research is seen and your ideas known by others. You should make a survey of journals that are of reference and if you find ISI-listed journals there is a reason to consider them if your papers fulfill their quality criteria because they will be seen as prestigeous references when you are evaluated for a position etc.
I think this misses the actually important point: some bureaucracies won't count publications in non-ISI journals as "real." If you want to get a job in a country with such a bureaucracy, that is your real issue.
@BenWebster Writing that as an answer would be valuable.
I don't think "honourable" is the correct framework to think about. My general understanding is that most reputable journals will be ISI indexed, and so if you are considering publishing in a journal which is not, you should look hard at whether it is legitimate, and whether people in your field will respect publications in it. You should look at the same thing for ISI-indexed journals.
There are many journals which are ISI-indexed, and I have no reason to believe are not run legitimately, which I have never heard of, and which I would never recommend to someone I know as a place to publish (I don't want to pick on any particular one, but if you go to Web of Science and search for the name of your field, you will find plenty of them). An article in a journal I have never heard of makes a very poor impression to me on a CV, so it is worth researching more carefully what the "word of mouth" reputation of journals is in your field.
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16529 | Is it acceptable to write a reference letter for yourself?
If a student needs a reference letter for graduate admissions or that sort of thing, some profs will ask the student to write a reference letter for themself before sending it off to the prof for minor edits and finalization. This seems to be a somewhat common practice given that some graduate schools ask for several letters of recommendation even when it is not reasonable for the student to have developed deep connections with that many professors, and that most professors are just too busy to write quality letters for all the students that ask them to.
Is it acceptable to write most of the reference letter and have the prof make minor edits? Do academic institutions frown upon this practice? Would it be considered an academic offense if a student wrote a reference letter for themselves and had a prof sign it?
I might even call that fraudulent, given that the professor signs it off as their own writing. It is absolutely unethical. A reference letter is the confidential, honest, and sole opinion of the referee(s). The sacrosanct trust of a confidential reference letter is broken when a student sees, or has direct input towards, the letter.
@scaahu Points to remember when having to write recommendation letter yourself
@Moriarty that's why sometimes references are requested and not reference letters but a contact address, to contact the referers directly. IMHO, that's a much better practice. Specially if contacted by phone, skype or similar methods.
To repeat myself: No. Just...no.
It's called a "resume" . :-). But yeah, IMHO any prof. who does that is just being lazy.
Personal thought: If the employer decides to call the professor to follow up, how likely are they to recall the contents of a letter they didn't write? Bad position to be in. Frankly, if your prof. doesn't respect you enough to take the time to do it themselves, I'd suggest you might want to find another reference. (Also remember that there is no guarantee that what you write is what they eventually mail...)
@Moriarty the prof isn't signing off that they wrote it, but that they agree with it. One would hope that if the student made inaccurate claims that the prof would 'edit' that or throw it back to the student to correct. I would see it more as laziness than a con.
@JamesRyan No. Just... no.
@Moriarty You cannot call it fradulent, because many programs allow the student to request to see the recommendations. So the student seeing it is not necessarily unacceptable. Input is a different matter, though (although I think that is also not as simple as you present it).
I used to meet my referent on average 1 hour every week for one year on work-related matters. When afterwards I asked for a reference letter and was in turn asked for a draft, I was terrified and resolutely replied: "I would be very happy to help you if I could. But that request is against the moral principles." His request also made me feel very bad, as if he had nothing good to write about me after all that time we worked together...
@Moriaty It is not clear that a reference letter is really confidential. Candidates may be able to access them under various laws in different countries.
If a student needs a reference letter for graduate admissions or that sort of thing, some profs will ask the student to write a reference letter for themself before sending it off to the prof for minor edits and finalization.
Some profs lie, cheat and steal as well... occasionally in their professional life. Just because a practice is common does not make it right.
This seems to be a somewhat common practice given that some graduate schools ask for several letters of recommendation even when it is not reasonable for the student to have developed deep connections with that many professors, and that most professors are just too busy to write quality letters for all the students that ask them to.
It is certainly "reasonable" to ask for several letters of recommendation for graduate admissions. That many students will not have had substantial personal contact with faculty is something to keep in mind as one progresses through an undergraduate program. Also connections need not be especially deep in order to result in a good letter: if the writer can be confident that the student will succeed in the graduate program she is applying for, that is enough. Often a truly outstanding performance in a single course is sufficient.
Is it acceptable to write most of the reference letter and have the prof make minor edits?
No, this is a form of plagiarism and academic fraud. What you pass off as your written word must actually be yours except where you explicitly document to the contrary.
Do academic institutions frown upon this practice?
Many of them do, yes.
Would it be considered an academic offense if a student wrote a reference letter for themselves and had a prof sign it?
It depends on the institution and probably the nation in question but in the United States: yes, it certainly could be. If I found out that this happened in an application that I read, I would at the very least throw out the entire letter; I would probably be inclined to dismiss the entire application. I would probably not contact the faculty member because in my view they are equally culpable (if not more so because they should know better), but I would be much more skeptical of letters coming from that person and even that institution in the future.
The above takes a hard ethical line, as I am very frustrated with other answers to this and related questions that seem resigned that one must accept unethical behavior in this situation. But here is a different kind of answer:
A graduate admissions letter that a student writes for herself is going to be a bad letter compared to a "real" letter written by a qualified faculty member. A graduate admissions letter is a communication between one mature academic and another: how would a 22 year-old young adult know how to write such a letter in a convincing way? Without having read hundreds or thousands of other similar letters, how would she know what the faculty want to hear? She wouldn't. If you write your own letter, you are at best forging an ineffectively written letter. Surely you deserve a better one?
As for faculty being very busy: yes, we are. As for having lots of letters to write: yes, we do. But writing such letters is part of our job, so a faculty member who does not take time out to write a good letter is not a good faculty member, at least not in this aspect. Writing a good recommendation letter usually takes several hours and often more than one sitting.
How can you help your professor write a good letter (on their own!):
Give them lots of time to write the letter.
Academics are busy, and our schedules are uneven. If you give me something to do six weeks in advance, then maybe in week three I'll find a spare afternoon and be able to do it. Leaving much less than a month for someone to write a letter is getting off on the wrong foot and already implicitly asking for less than the best possible letter.
Provide information about yourself rather than waiting for the faculty member to ask.
You should not write the letter yourself, but you should certainly include all information that you think might be pertinent, and you are well within your rights to highlight certain information that you think might be especially pertinent. Preparing something like a CV but tailored for a good letter rather than a job would be ideal.
Do everything in your power to minimize the attendant clerical work in submitting the letter.
Faculty members are busy and also, honestly, a bit lazy/snooty about routine work. If you tell me to mail a letter to a certain address, then there is going to be a whole day in which I print out the letter and don't get around to correctly putting it in an envelope. If the letters still need to be mailed (fewer and fewer do, and most but not all faculty members prefer to do things electronically), it would be wise to provide a self-addressed stamped envelope. If the submission is electronic, again try to ensure that the faculty member needs to do as little as possible. Ideally we get a website and a password, we enter those in, and we immediately upload the letter. Much more than that is asking for trouble. My own university makes faculty members jump through many more hoops to submit a letter, and this worries the hell out of me.
3'. If your letter needs to be sent to multiple locations in a way which requires the faculty member to do something multiple times, see if you can figure out a way for the faculty member to submit the letter only once. E.g., perhaps there is an administrative assistant (AA) at your institution that will agree to receive the letter and take care of the nitty gritty of sending it to various places. You may have to ask for this, and you should ask, as nicely as you possibly can. Given the choice between getting a faculty member to do this clerical work and getting an AA to do it, you want the AA to do it: they are superior in every way. Always remember to be extra nice to the AA's: you want in fact to be nicer to them than the average person they have to interact with, as then they will notice and do better work for you than the average person they have to interact with. If you're asking an AA to do something which it is not absolutely clearly part of their job description, go ahead and ask but be extra extra nice: a small gift at the end is a classy move.
Don't be shy about checking up on the faculty member to see whether the letter has been written.
I frankly expect this, to the extent that if you ask me for a letter (including giving me all the information) and never check back again, I almost believe that you changed your mind and didn't really need it after all. It is totally acceptable to ask multiple times for the faculty to turn in the letter. I'm afraid that there has been "email alert inflation" in recent years, to the extent that if I only get one email about something, it feels almost optional. Really important things have a way of resulting in multiple emails coming at shorter and shorter intervals. Even to get me to write my grant reports they are not shy about sending several. You should always be nice about this – at any point the faculty member could in theory change their mind – but we are grateful if it is your mental energy which is being spent on making sure it gets done.
I agree that the practice is unethical, but because confidentiality in the letter-writing process has been broken, not because the letter signer is attesting that the work is his own written work the same way that a journal article has to be written by its authors. The author is signaling her support of the ideas contained in the letter. (For example, what if the letter is written in a foreign language and then translated by a co-worker into English? The author didn't "write" the letter anymore, but is it no longer valid?)
@aeismail: I agree that breaking the confidentiality is another serious issue. I also agree that recommendation letters are not "written work" in the same sense as papers. But I think plagiarism standards still largely apply: in academia you are never allowed to take someone else's words, ideas and/or opinions and pretend they are your own. Translation seems like a red herring: if a letter is being translated, then it should perhaps contain a copy of the original and certainly a "translated by Y", and then I see no issue.
I think there are some cultural issues at work here. For instance, in Germany, there are many things where a professor has to officially "sign off" on something. Often times the professor will not have the ability to draft the letter or document themselves—their group members will draft the letter and edit it. (For instance, changes in course outlines, requests for internal funding, grade changes, and so on.) Officially, though the professor is the only one who can sign it. So is the professor committing plagiarism?
@aeismail: The whole thing is highly culturally dependent, which is why I'm trying to be clear that I am speaking about American culture. In the US there is some sense that certain documents are probably written by more than one person. One can and (I think) should indicate whether a document is written by a person or a person on behalf of a group of people. (And a letter which describes actions taken on behalf of a group ought to be viewed as recording the feelings of the group.) But a recommendation letter is very personal: it's clearly the written work of a single person, right?
I frankly expect this, to the extent that if you ask me for a letter (including giving me all the information) and never check back again, I almost believe that you changed your mind and didn't really need it after all.. People I've asked for reference letters usually sent me a confirmation after they had send them, to which I then replied with a small thank you.
in Germany, there are many things where a professor has to officially "sign off" on something. Often times the professor will not have the ability to draft the letter or document themselves — Also in the US. But a recommendation letter is not one of those things.
@JeffE: I was responding to the claim: "in academia you are never allowed to take someone else's words, ideas and/or opinions and pretend they are your own." And over here, "letters of recommendation" are often treated the way I described. (An underling writes the letter, and the boss signs off on it.) It shouldn't be that way, but it often is.
The grant report thing is pretty ridiculous. They send you an email saying "Your report is now DUE!" when they mean "The two month period in which you're supposed to write the report has started!"
@PeteL.Clark Thanks for your insights. Do you know if any academic institutions explicitly state that this practice is an academic offense? The thing that I'm unsure about is whether the reference letter must be the professor's views (i.e it would only be wrong for the prof to sign off on something they have not read or do not agree with) or strictly their work. One of my profs has a link to an automated reference letter creator app (referencecreator.com) on his website which he encourages students to use before asking him for a reference letter. Is this prof publicly admitting to fraud?
And just to clarify this is a very well-known and successful prof at the university. And the web app I mentioned only creates a paragraph - I would assume that the prof makes edits and adds more information.
@hesson: It sounds like a bit of a joke to me, to be honest. If you feel as strongly about this as I do, you will not suggest that your students write even a little bit of their own recommendation letters. But it is probably best to view this as an idiosyncratic way of providing the information for the letter rather than writing the letter itself. So in summary: I am not amused by your professor's practice, but without further incriminating information I would not describe it as "academic fraud", no.
"writing such letters is part of our job" As defined by whom? It's not in any job description I have seen (outside the US) and I have never heard of anyone suffering a detriment from refusing to write them. Is this a US only view?
@Lembik: Most of the components of an academic job are not codified in any job description. I had a colleague once who had a lot of trouble with the fact that most of the actual expectations for his job were based on a common cultural understanding rather than explicitly enumerated. He ended up quitting the job after several years.
... "I have never heard of anyone suffering a detriment from refusing to write them." This doesn't seem like a reasonable metric, since there are a lot of ways one can let down the students or the community without explicitly suffering a detriment. But for my part I have never heard of any tenure track faculty member categorically refusing to write letters for students. "Is this a US only view?" No, but faculty in the US probably take letters more seriously and spend more time writing them than in most other parts of the academic world.
@PeteL.Clark It seems that the entire culture of how such letters are viewed differs not only based on nationality but also on field. As can be seen from many comment exchanges here, the confidentiality of the letters are not really a thing in Europe (to the extent that "Europe" is a single entity here), but it seems that in math (at least my areas of it), most things are done very much like in the US in this regard.
"how would a 22 year-old young adult know how to write such a letter in a convincing way?" a 22 year-old would not and so edits made wouldn't be minor. hence, if minor edits are unethical, that's fine because minor edits would obviously not be made? (I didn't read the long debates on this page)
I don't think this is a grey zone at all. Senior professionals in all domains, not just acadaemia, routinely sign letters that they did not pen:
Directors signing press releases written by communications managers
Vice-chancellors signing letters to government officials written by deputy vice chancellors
Academics submitting journal articles that were written by a co-author, although the research is shared.
It's completely irrelevant who actually put the words together, unless there is a question over the copyright of the text - which there clearly isn't here. All that matters is that the person signing the letter stands by its content and takes responsibility for it.
If you write a reference letter for yourself that is over the top, they won't sign it. No ethical issues here whatsoever.
(I can't answer whether other institutions would frown on the practice for other reasons though.)
Ok, some research.
Guidance from p. 3 of "Writing a Letter of Recommendation" (an addendum to Making the Right Moves, published by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Burroughs Wellcome Fund):
Tip: Don’t ask the candidate to write a draft of the letter for you. Most heads of labs say this rarely saves time and sometimes leads to a weaker letter. It is better for the candidate to provide you with all the necessary information, from which you can then pick and choose as you write your letter.
...and from p. 9, guidance for the applicant:
You may be asked to write a draft of the letter. As mentioned on page 1, many heads of laboratories say this is not a good idea. However, if you are asked to do it, do it!
From "Letter of Recommendation: Writing One Yourself" on the Peterson's website:
When requesting a letter of recommendation, don't be surprised if your instructor or supervisor hands the forms back to you and says, "Sure, why don't you go ahead and write the first draft yourself, and I'll revise it and sign at the bottom."
From "Writing Your Own Letter of Recommendation" on StudentBranding.com:
The “draft” that you provide to the recommender to sign shouldn’t be a draft at all – it should be a perfectly polished letter ready to be signed, sealed and delivered.
Don’t be insulted when your supervisor decides to edit. They’ll want to apply their own language and voice to your content.
[...]
In my experience as a supervisor . . .
I’ve been asked to write lots of letters of recommendations for students, but I’ve never felt strongly enough to throw the responsibility back at someone. That’s not to say I haven’t managed some phenomenal students; I just haven’t had someone come along who I think is up to the task. So, when he or she does come along, that person will really be top notch.
From "How to Write Your Own Recommendation Letter" on Firsthand.co:
[...] While the standard practice is for references to write their own recommendation letters, it’s becoming increasingly common for time-strapped individuals to ask you to pen the first draft of a letter yourself. [...]
From "Is it OK to Write My Own Letter of Recommendation?" in BusinessMajors.About.com's Recommendation Letter FAQ:
Question: Is it OK to Write My Own Letter of Recommendation?
Answer: The only time it is acceptable to write your own letter of recommendation is when the person you requested the letter from asks you to do it. Even then, it is important to be honest in the letter. Don't write anything the other person wouldn't have written. When you have finished, ask the person to look over the letter, verify the information, and sign. You should never forge someone else's signature.
I don't see much (any) evidence of any ethical quandaries in a professor requesting and submitting a letter of recommendation directly from the student. These examples aren't cherry-picked - they're the first few hits that came up when searching for phrases like "own letter of recommendation" or "letter of recommendation myself".
In summary:
Is it acceptable to write most of the reference letter and have the prof make minor edits?
Clearly, yes - if requested to do so.
Do academic institutions frown upon this practice?
No.
Would it be considered an academic offense if a student wrote a reference letter for themselves and had a prof sign it?
Hell no.
There is a difference between a letter written on behalf of an organization or group and a personal letter. In American academia, recommendation letters are personal: the author is not speaking for anyone but herself. The writer is also being asked to use their professional skills and experience to evaluate the student: signing a letter that you didn't write is falsely alleging that you have done some professional task: that's a form of academic fraud.
I don't think it's any different to writing to the Queen and getting a letter back which was obviously not written by her individually. Same for any public figure, or anyone really. Unless the content explicitly says "I'm personally writing this because..." there's no implication that they wrote it. Just endorsement.
By the same token, when a sports person appears in an advertisement saying, "To perform at my best, I drink Mr Fizzy" - does anyone think they wrote that copy themselves? Of course not. They're just endorsing its content without making any claim of authorship.
I was only addressing the ethical side of the question. Most sites are pretty clear that the best reference letters come from a good connection with a professor who thinks highly of you enough to want to spend the time to personally write a good rec. And I'm certainly not "endorsing" the practice - just because something is not prohibited doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Your answer does a good job of summarising your personal experience and opinions. Mine is a summary of the broader US university sector, with links to admissions offices' specific advice on the matter. Now, enough with the interrogation and ad hominems - they're inappropriate.
I think it's the difference between how you would like the system to operate (clearly many people deplore the idea of candidate-written recs) and how the system actually currently operates.
I've provided plenty of evidence from a wide range of institutions that students do not get in trouble for writing their own letters upon request. Feel free to provide evidence supporting your claim.
Let me summarize many now deleted comments: I am distressed by this answer. I find it irresponsible, and I hope that students (and faculty) are not led astray by it.
@shane: The question whether writing letters of recommendations is an "important professional responsibility" is very culturally dependent. In cultures where letters of recommendation are not usual, the requirement to hand in one is seen as a "pointless formal obstacle" and consequently, spending any time on an exotic wish such as a letter of recommendation has an extremely low priority for many professors. Add to that that depending on the culture, students are anonymous toward teaching staff, and the only way to get a meaningful recommendation letter is by drafting it oneself.
the only way to get a meaningful recommendation letter is by drafting it oneself — That is not what "meaningful" means.
It does not follow from the quoted paragraphs that there is no ethical issue here, just that it's something that does happen. Not to mention that your sources, with the exception of HHMI, your sources do not inspire confidence.
It seems from the comments here that US academics take their personal endorsement of a candidate much more seriously than others do. My guess is that this is related to the status of academics in different countries.
I'm writing as an ethicist - it is morally wrong to ask students to write a letter of rec. Most undergrads and recent masters have no idea, at all, what is expected of them in a PhD program and cannot evaluate themselves in a way that is credible to readers. They do not know which qualities to focus on. And, frankly, the style and tone of undergraduate writing is inappropriate for a letter of rec. No amount of faculty "tweaking" can make a text written by an undergrad look like it has been written by an academic professional. If you can't write your own letter, then don't do it. Period.
@SherriLynnConklin But for a student who is asked to do so, it's not morally wrong to comply?
@SteveBennett - No, but it probably will not be very useful unless the recommender really does substantially edit it. A better solution is to self- advocate (which is a skill that takes a lot of practice and is especially hard with this sort of power dynamic) and offer to send a bulleted list instead or ask someone else, even if they don't know you as well.
@O.R.Mapper - Letters are important in the US and especially in certain disciplines. Anyone writing a letter for an applicant to a US program should take it seriously, otherwise they risk ruining the applicant's chances. It's not a formality in the US. I assume this is true in some other parts of the world. It's the responsibility of the prospective writer to, at least, be knowledgeable about the significance of letters in different cultural context and be aware of the impact a poorly written letter can have on an applicant. A good letter will usually be well received regardless.
I have much bigger ethical problems with a system in which the chances of an applicant depend crucially on practices of recommendation letter writing than with people who ask students to draft (draft!) their letter of recommendation.
There are certainly different degrees of flagrancy here. I know some good professors who will ask for a short paragraph just to "get the juices flowing", but will then modify and expand it into a full letter. I don't think that is wrong, although I wouldn't do it myself.
If the professor signs a letter written by the student without making any modifications, or if the final letter consists mostly of the student's words, I consider that fraudulent -- but it is primarily the professor's fraud. After all, the professor is the one signing his name.
When I write letters, I require the student to give me all the relevant records as well as a description of what they think I should emphasize in the letter. Not a single word of their description would ever be pasted into the letter, and I don't use it as a starting point for the text. It is simply their opportunity to remind me of the impressive things they have done, which I will then write about if I agree.
If I can't write a letter for them in my own words -- for whatever reason -- I will decline to write one at all.
@shane It is often much quicker to edit a document than to write it from scratch.
@shane: I would jump to “dislikes writing” before “moron.” (I’ve known multiple PhD scientists who would rather have a root canal than write a recommendation letter!)
Is it your opinion that anybody who gives a speech not written by themselves is being fraudulent? That speechwriters as an entire profession are a group of frauds?
@JHixson Recommendation letters are not speeches.
In my field, because students often end up going many different directions (academia, industry, government, etc.) and occasionally come from different fields entirely, it's fairly common to ask for a first draft of the letter essentially to make sure that the tone and "message" of the letter reflects what the candidate wants.
For example, one of my letter writers was a clinician, but the positions I was applying for had a large theoretical component. They could have written the type of letter they would for a medical student, but it would have been off-target, and likely would have caused the group reading the letter to go "Wait, what?" Instead, by drafting a letter for them, I could focus on the somewhat subtler point of the translational aspects of my work with them, which was relevant.
The assumption is, no matter how well they know you, that you know you - and what you want/need - better than they do. It's especially helpful for pulling in things they don't know about. For example, do you have a particular publication that's in a journal that's a big deal for the people you're applying to, but less so for them?
A draft allows for such a broad-strokes framework they can then work off of. I would be hesitant if they then don't put their own personal touches in.
While I can believe that some unscrupulous professors would simply take the student's letter and sign it, the one prof that have asked me to write a reference letter have mostly done it as an exercise for me to evaluate myself. I wrote a letter and brought it to him and then he gave me feedback about the letter and what I said about it, and then showed me the entirely different letter that he ended up writing himself.
The question is clearly a grey-zone in that a range of scenarios exist from a self-written letter uncritically signed by someone and sent off to using the self-written text as a base for expansion and critical rewriting by the signee. The former devalues the whole idea of recommendation letters whereas the latter may not be too different from verbally asking about the purpose of the letter. I ask students to provide a text that contains information they think should be in the letter (based on, for example, what information is requested in the application) and then make the changes I see necessary to put my name on the letter. this means I add my valuation of their academic traits. I do this when students apply for money from minor funds but never if they apply for an academic job. A key aspect for me is that the letter will carry my name and I therefore need to stand behind it.
The text I ask a student to provide provides me with details bout the project that I can consider and reject if I deem it not to be possible to support.
Where this becomes problematic, to say the least, is if one would simply sign off on a letter, edits or not and don not even care what it contains. This will be contributing to inflation in the meaning of such letters. I happened to have a very strict advisor in this sense, and as graduate students we always considered whether or not it was useful to get a letter from (in this case ) him. But, the positive in the letter was a real positive. The problem was of course you never knew what sort of letters the "competition" provided in applications. Hence not taking letters of recommendation seriously causes inflation and reduces the worth of them. This is probably why personal references (in the case of job searches) who you contact over conference phone become more important.
"This is clearly a grey-zone." It is not clear: in my opinion it is a highly -- almost maximally -- unethical practice to pass off your own written words (concerning yourself!) as those of someone else. Providing information that you think might be help your recommender in writing a letter is not the same thing at all...clearly.
I totally agree, but that is not what the grey-zone in my reply concerned, it concerned whether or not one could take a text written by a student as basis for a recommendation letter at all. The point being that it depends how you use it, as background information or as the finished letter and between those there is a sliding scale from acceptable to unethical.
@PeteL.Clark I think it is not unethical at all, if the one signing does sincerely agree with exactly what is written. I've been approached by students to sign their words, when I did not know much about the student at all...of course I would never do so, because I would not sign my name to something I do not agree with.
@Peter: I am glad to hear that, but the title of the question is "Is it acceptable to write a reference letter for yourself?" and your answer begins "This is clearly a grey-zone." If your "this" does not mean to refer to the title question, perhaps it would be helpful to clarify your answer.
@earthling: Is plagiarism not plagiarism if one "sincerely agrees with exactly what is written"?
@PeteL.Clark I do not believe this is an issue of plagiarism. In plagiarism, you wrote something worthy of writing and I am taking credit for it (stealing an idea). In this case, I am trying to put my words into your mouth. If you agree, then we both agree and there is no plagiaristic conflict.
@earthling: plagiarism includes language as well as ideas: please see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism. And a letter of recommendation includes some ideas: it is a reasoned argument for why an important decision should be made. A letter of recommendation that simply said "I think student X is very good; you should admit them" would be almost worthless.
@PeteL.Clark I think we will have to agree to disagree on this (because this is not a discussion board and this is going on a bit long). If you look at your link, the first words are Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" in other words, you are stealing (words or ideas) from someone. If I ask you to say something on my behalf, how could you consider that you are stealing my words or ideas?
Just because I sign something doesn't mean I've written it. I've signed plenty of petitions because I agree with the content, without claiming the text is mine in any way.
@earthling: So you think that if a student wrote and published a paper or book entirely on her own and gave permission to her adviser to publish it under his own name, it would not be plagiarism? Are you not aware that faculty members have been censured for exactly this behavior? gerrit: Yes, not everything that you sign has the expectation of being personally written by you. When you sign a lease you don't imply that you have written it. But that is the distinct implication of letters of reference, and hence ethical standards of academic writing apply.
Even if you don't think it's unethical to write your own draft letter, it can be dangerous:
Most such applications require several letters. If two or more letter-writers all ask you for a first draft, and you send them the same draft document, you don't know which parts they will choose to edit. It's possible that two writers will leave the same paragraph unedited, because they both stand by it... which means their letters will contain identical wording. This will raise serious red flags when the admissions committee notices!
It's much safer to send the letter-writers your CV and perhaps a bulleted list of items or traits you'd like the writers to highlight.
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9628 | Can we send our research paper to multiple journals at once?
I have heard that if someone sends his paper to two different conferences and is somehow caught, then there would be severe consequences for the researcher.I did not know that before but I heard two supervisors talking about it yesterday.
So is it okay to send a research paper to different journals at once?( I am talking about sending to all,not publishing in all).
My field is computer science.
If your field is very specialized, chances are quite high that the person reviewing your article will be the same, regardless of journal you submit to. (Also, you might have a specific reviewer in mind). This probably gives a bad impression...
Short answer: No. Then to expand on the different aspects of your question, acceptable or not and effects:
It is generally not acceptable to send the same paper to two journals (in your question your title states "journals" but your text talks about "conferences", I will focus on journals). Typically you sign or agree to a statement that the work is not under consieration elsewhere when you submit work. If so then you are clearly violating an understanding you have agreed to. This does not prevent people from doing so. I have experienced (as editor/reviewer) a paper that was submitted to three journals at the same time.
There is no way to provide formal punishment if you break the rules but you will become "known" for this behaviour quite quickly and you do not want a bad reputation. Again, this does not prevent the problem from happening but I guess some authors think the world is too big for anyone to notice and prior to Internet and its search capabilities, this was probably at least partially true; now it is much easier to trace duplicates.
Your final commnet confuses me a bit. why would you send a paper to a journal if you do not intend to try to get it published there? If this is to get free feedback to improve the manuscript, I would strongly advice against such behaviour.
A final comment: I deliberately did not consider the case of a conference since all conferences may not lead to a publication, but then you would submit an abstract and not a complete manuscript.
I was talking about applying to multiple journals and get it published in the first journal which accepts it.Like we apply for job at multiple companies but accept the first good offer.
@iOsBoy I do not know of any journals to which you "apply". In any case, do not send to multiple journals at once. A good strategy is to send to higher end journals first since if they accept your paper it will be more noticed.
"There is no way to provide formal punishment if you break the rules": In principle, your institution could consider double submission a breach of academic ethics and discipline you. A student could be suspended or expelled; a professor could be censured or fired. This would probably only happen in egregious cases, but in fact there is a way to "provide formal punishment".
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66492 | When writing a letter of reference, is there any reason not to show it to the student?
I only agree to write a reference letter if I can write a positive one. Although it is only hypothetical at this point, I would hesitate to write a reference letter for an individual who chooses not to waive their right to see it. That said, I have sometimes shown students my letters for them since I feel it is useful for them to know what I have written. It also provides them a chance to remind me of things I may have forgotten. I do not do this consistently, but am considering making it a personal policy.
I guess I have two questions. Is there a reason not to show a student their letter of reference? Just to be clear, this is for a letter I have written for the student and not for a reference I have recieved. The second question is, is it reasonable to refuse to write a reference for a student when the student does not waive their right to see the reference.
Would knowing that the subject will read your letter change the way you write it?
Is there a reason not to show a student their letter of reference?
One important reason is if you make direct comparisons with other students, which is one of the most useful things you can do in a letter. If you say "this student is even more promising than X, and perhaps comparable with Y, but not quite as strong as Z", then it doesn't seem appropriate to tell the student. Even if your letter doesn't name anyone specific, but instead says "this student was among the top two in a class of twenty-five", it still leaks a little information about how other students performed in the class.
Even aside from direct comparisons, you'll be making implicit comparisons if several students compare the letters you wrote for them to see whose is more enthusiastic. That doesn't raise the same ethical issues, but it's still awkward. I have no interest in telling students my private opinion of how they compare with each other.
The second question is, is it reasonable to refuse to write a reference for a student when the student does not waive their right to see the reference.
Why not? The fundamental question here is whether you ever have an obligation to write a letter. In general I'd say no, although there are cases in which it would be offensive to refuse to write for anything less than very serious reasons. (For example, Ph.D. advisors owe letters to graduating students.) Under most circumstances, refusing to waive the right to see the letter sounds to me like a fine reason to decline to write one.
There are also all sorts of intermediate options you could choose. For example, you could tell the student you would have to write something like "I warned this student that I could not write a compelling letter if he did not waive the right to see it, because I would be unable to compare him with other students. He insisted that he needed a letter from me but was unwilling to waive this right, so I will do the best I can. I can confirm that he received an A in my class and has sufficient preparation for further study in this field."
Yes, that's two questions.
Yes, you can and should decline to write a reference letter if the student does not waive his right to see it because the receiving institution will discount the letter and it will be a waste of your time.
Since you should never write a bad reference letter (you should decline instead) there is no reason not to provide a copy to the student. Tell them to be cool about having received the copy.
Here is what I tell students: http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/faculty/rbrow211/recommendations/index.html#waiver
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1297 | How to show interest in a candidate when no positions are available?
I occasionally receive "cold-call" applications from graduate or postdoctoral candidates interested in working in my research group. Most of the time, they are of no interest—it's just a "form letter"-type application. However, once in a while, I get an application from someone who I would consider giving an interview to—if I actually had an open position.
What I want to do is to let people know that I am interested in such candidates, even though I don't have an open job for them. Is there a way to express this interest, and to encourage them to apply again when a new position becomes available. Is there a good way to do this—most of the time, such emails sound very trite, and that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid.
Send good emails, "aeismail" anagrams to "A1 emails" :)
This answer is about faculty candidates, not graduate student or postdoc candidates. (I misunderstood the original question.)
First, be honest with the candidate, both about your interest and about your ability to hire. Yes, we are very interested. No, we don't have any regular faculty slots this year. Yes, we would love to fly you out, have you give a talk, meet with some of our faculty and students, maybe have a chat with the dean, and see where things go from there. Make no promises you can't actually keep.
Second, a lack of open slots does not mean it is impossible to hire. Your college or campus may have finds set aside for "excellence" hires, or for cross-departmental research initiatives (like "clean water" or "computational science"), or for dual-career families. Some other overlapping department may be willing to give you half a slot for a joint appointment. Another faculty member in your department or college may have just unexpectedly retired, resigned, moved to administration, failed to get tenure, or died. Your dean may be impressed enough (or encouraged enough by other senior faculty) to give you an extra slot just for that person next year.
Creating a slot takes a lot of legwork and a lot of political capital—you may burn a future slot even if the candidate doesn't come. So they'd better really be special, and you'd better know that they'll come if a position is actually offered.
Yes, I have seen this work.
Thanks for the response, but I should have articulated that this was for graduate or postdoctoral positions. So I'm not forced to create a faculty slot—I just need to find some new project funding. I've edited the question accordingly.
Oops! Sorry I misunderstood.
No problem. It's just a sign that my original question wasn't clear enough.
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5452 | How much customization of letters of recommendation is necessary?
While I know that students are encouraged to "tailor" their applications to the particular school or program they're applying to, does the same hold true for the people writing letters of recommendation on their behalf? In other words, is it possible just to change the "addressee" portion, and use a greeting such as "Dear Members of the Admissions Committee," or is more personalization required?
Just to clarify here, I'm referring to the "pro-forma" parts of the letter, rather than the actual content of the recommendation per se.
Since i'm student i'm not in a position to answer this question but I would say it depends to whom you are writing. Top schools usually need strong ( or even exceptional) letter of recommendations which require the Professors to alter their format accordingly. I had a situation applying to Oxford school and the rejection was mainly because of the not exceptional recommendations :)
@seteropere: Thanks for the comment. Of course the content of the letter has to be good; I'm not actually quite so concerned with that portion in my question. I've revised it accordingly to make my intent clear: I'm worried about the "mechanics" (who's the addressee, what's the greeting, and so on).
Depends entirely whether you know the people at the said place or not. If you do know the person, then you can tailor it and it is infinitely more helpful. If you don't know anyone in that department then the tailoring is meaningless.
If a professor really really wants a particular student to do well, then he can call in and discuss the student's strengths with a committee member.
I have two levels of customization. Firstly, if the letter is for an internship at a lab, or an application to grad school or a job, I tailor the qualities that I emphasize and link those qualities to the specific job.
A second level of customization is if I have any connection to the institution (for example, when writing letters of recommendation for AT&T Labs - where I used to work - I might mention this explicitly in order to convey that I understand the local culture)
This is above and beyond the usual pro-forma customizations for the addressee etc.
Although it really depends on the culture you are in and the culture you are applying, tailored recommendation letters are generally 'stronger'.
Especially in the USA it is recommended to put also the university/department/lab name in the recommendation letter instead of just stating that the student is very good. Even changing the addressee requires the author spend some extra time, which means you are valuable for the author of the letter.
Keep in mind that most of the recommendation letters are not really read. They are there to show whether you can get them. In this perspective, tailored letters mean you have stronger relations with 'worthy people'.
"Keep in mind that most of the recommendation letters are not really read" - [citation needed]
Actually, I think @memin is correct, but perhaps not for the reason he is suggesting. Most recommendation letters are not read, because most applications for most positions are form clearly unsuitable candidates. One the other hand, recommendation letters for strong applicants are pored over with fine-toothed combs and microscopes.
I agree with @JeffE. Graduate schools need to know something about applicants that they can't learn from test scores and transcripts: "Is this person capable of being successful in the research part of the program?" Test scores and transcripts only weed out the unqualified.
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27271 | What to do when you spot a paper on arXiv with the same essential material as yours?
What do you do when you've sent a paper on your fancy new algorithm to a conference, and before the conference has replied to you, you spot a newly submitted paper on arXiv on the same algorithm?
Possible reactions I can imagine:
You immediately submit your work to arXiv and/or open-source your code to "prove" you were working on it too (or at least as much as that might be worth at this point)
You just wait and see if the conference accepts it (but then what?)
You withdraw your paper entirely -- you "lost"
You totally ignore it -- it's not "official" until it's peer-reviewed, so you might still be "first"
Furthermore, who typically gets credit if:
Your paper is accepted, and is first to be published outside of arXiv
Your paper is declined, and is not first to be published outside of arXiv
Update
I'm reading the other group's paper more carefully (I'd only had a chance to glance at it yesterday, and was alarmed because several of the key words and concepts were exactly the same as ours), and it seems like they might not have discovered the same algorithm after all -- it's difficult for me to tell because their notation and terminology varies considerably from ours, but there's a chance that we've found different algorithms, even though several key concepts are the same. I'll continue looking into it, but just thought I'd mention this to add more context. At least now I'm a little bit more hopeful.
Do you have any reason to suspect that your work was stolen, or does it seem to simply be a case of simultaneous invention?
I'll relate a similar recent occurrence from last year in physics: A theoretical paper came out suggesting a new phenomenon. Inspired by this, two research groups ran numerical simulations to probe for the phenomenon and uploaded their results on arXiv. They were four days apart. One of the groups later acknowledged the others' preprint: "At the time of writing this paper, we became aware of a pre-print ... have reached similar conclusions as us." Both got later published in journals. I think uploading to arXiv does get you more visibility especially in case your paper is indeed rejected.
Do you consider contacting people who (re)-produce the same algorithm? Conferences and publications are means to facilitate the communication between researchers, not the opposite.
@Moriarty: No, it's almost certainly simultaneous invention, nothing malicious going on.
@DmitrySavostyanov: That may be a possibility, thanks for the tip.
Weep.
@Lodewijk: Yeah, I'm already doing that...
It happened to me once, when I co-authored a hep-th paper on arXiv the Thursday before Easter. The next Monday, another group published essentially the same paper. On Tuesday, our group did celebrate this event with a round of cake for everyone at our institute :-) The other group had a note in their paper, acknowledging our contribution, and in a second version, we put added a note acknowledging their results.
My advisor was once on the receiving end. He arrived at an informal conference where he and another person in his parallel session both still had to submit their titles (they both were TBA in the program). When he submitted his title, he discovered it was the same as the talk just prior to him. To make it worse: the other group had submitted their talk on arXiv that day. This was on a national holiday in our country, with noone of his collaborators reachable. I think he submitted their work-in-progess within a week after the conference. In the end both papers ended up acknowledging each other.
Anyway, in some fields this happens quite often. I used to be active in the string theory subfield of hep-th, and this used to be quite a fad-driven topic, and simultaneous discoveries were quite common.
It seems to me that the best answer is some combination of 1. and 2. Because you submitted the paper for review before the other work -- call it paper X -- appeared on the arxiv, the community will readily believe that your work does not rely on paper X. (At first I wrote "completely clear that your work does not rely", but that's too strong: it's possible that you had some prior contact with the authors of paper X and learned about their work before it was published. But from your description that didn't actually happen, so no problem there.)
So you are in a fortunate situation: because you submitted the work to the conference before the arxiv posting, you have established your independent priority. The fact that the report hasn't come back yet has nothing to do with that. With respect to the submission, it would be reasonable to just wait for the report -- I am assuming that since it is a conference, it will come back within a month or so? If your paper is accepted, then you should include in the published version and also in your conference talk the information that similar (or the same...) work was independently done in paper X.
However it would be a good idea to write immediately to the authors of paper X and let them know about your work. If you are in a field where the conference paper will be supplemented by a later journal paper, then depending upon the degree of similarity you may want to consider a joint publication. If not, then your journal papers should cocite each other: this establishes that "you both have priority", which is certainly possible, and then both works should be publishable. (But in my opinion a joint paper is the better option if the work is very similar: does the community need two versions of the same work? Can everyone be counted on to know about and value the two works equally? Better to join forces: that seals it.) Depending upon the response you receive and the timing it might be a good idea to post your submission to the arxiv as well, with a note explaining the chronology.
I disagree with both 3. and 4. First, it does not matter who did the work chronologically first but rather that each work was done independently and before the other was published. There does not need to be a "winner" and a "loser" here: you can both "win". It is good that research communities operate in this way, much better than your option 4.: no one has control over which referee report comes back first or which paper goes to press first or anything like that, so if this were the standard it would be at the very least quite unfair and in fact open to all kinds of ethical issues and abuses.
Note: One of the comments asks whether the work was stolen. It seems that the only plausible way for this to happen is for there to be some collusion between the authors of paper X and either the conference organizers or the chosen referees of your paper. This type of behavior is in my experience extremely rare, so I don't want to address it in my answer.
+1 for emphasizing that this is not a zero sum game with winners and losers.
Yeah the conference results will come back soon. One thing that complicates things is that they don't take the submissions and publish them directly -- they will ask for a final revision if they accept the paper, which means the PDF won't be timestamped because it'll be different from the one submitted earlier. Would that matter at all? And what happens if it gets rejected?
@Mehrdad: You should include the citation of the other result in any revisions you make, with language that describes the chronology of the situation (e.g. "After this paper was submitted, we learned..."). You don't need timestamped PDFs because you showed your document to actual people before the other work became available. I would be very surprised if the editors did not keep copies of all the submitted versions; indubitably they will keep the record of when you submitted.
If the paper gets rejected then you can still ensure your priority by including in your next version information about when and where you submitted it, which the editors will certainly be able to corroborate. However I reiterate that contacting the other authors ASAP would be a very good idea: if they agree that your work was independently done there is really no problem here. If you feel at all nervous about arriving at such an agreement, @Mangara's advice to immediately upload your paper to the arxiv seems good. In general, do that whenever you feel the first pangs of "scoop-worry"!
@PeteL.Clark: I don't quite understand why I need to cite the other result though. Citing the results implicitly acknowledges that our work came "after" theirs and give them some credit for being first, whereas in reality I have no reason to believe they did any of this first -- only that they put it on arXiv before we did. I will definitely try to contact them though -- I don't expect they'll disagree this was independent work. Thanks for the advice. +1
@Mehrdad: I do not agree that you only cite work that comes before yours. You also cite work which was done at approximately the same time, if you know about it in time to do so; that's what I meant by "cociting". You seem to be acting as if you don't want to cede the advantage of your work being chronologically first (if in fact it was -- who knows? what does that even mean, really?). I am suggesting that you regard the situation as symmetric between you and the other party: wouldn't you want it that way if the roles were reversed?
Another reason to cocite is the obligation of academic honesty: you need to draw the reader's attention to all related work of which you're aware. Sometimes your awareness changes in the course of the publication/revision process, in which case you do not need to (nor is it necessarily appropriate to) substantially rewrite the paper. But you still need to inform the reader about the other work, since you now know about it.
@PeteL.Clark: I don't understand how the situation would be symmetric in that case, though. It's not like they cited our work in their paper, so if we cite their work they're implicitly first and we're implicitly acknowledging we're second.
@Mehrdad: They don't have a published paper; they have an arxiv preprint which they can (and should) modify. The symmetry is that both parties should cocite each other. Nor do you leave anything implicit: you clearly explain the chronology so the reader understands the situation. See e.g. http://www.math.uga.edu/~pete/thuelemmav6.pdf and http://www.tcnj.edu/~hagedorn/papers/Geometry%20of%20Convenient%20Numbers.pdf: this is quite common.
@PeteL.Clark: Ok I guess that depends on what they say once we contact them, since I'm not planning on citing them if they're not going to cite us at the same time. Of course if they do then we will too, it wouldn't make sense otherwise. But I'm not really thinking of pushing them to. I'm curious though: what would happen if we don't cite them (and they don't cite us)? You mentioned academic honesty, but I'm not sure I understand what the "dishonesty" would be if we don't cite them - as far as I'm aware neither of us knew about each other, so I don't see why this would be a case of dishonesty.
@Mehrdad: At this point I recommend that you ask a followup question, in particular to get other opinions. But briefly: neither of you knew about the other when you were doing the work, but you do now. Uploading a paper within a few days of seeing someone else's paper and not mentioning that other paper is not being forthcoming. You don't only mention papers that you use logically in your work; you have an obligation to inform the reader of directly relevant work. And practically, not mentioning it all is not clarifying the situation: you leave room for misinterpretation.
@Pete: Hmm I think I'm good for now, not really feeling like I have any followup question to ask that isn't a duplicate of this one. Thanks for the advice though!
I'm not planning on citing them if they're not going to cite us at the same time. — Please don't play that game. If I reviewed your submission and was aware of the arXiv preprint, I would insist on your citing them as a condition of acceptance, no matter what the other authors did.
@JeffE: It's easy to tell people to give away credit for their hard work when it's not your own. I would find that quite unreasonable, but I would have few choices then. The situation is symmetric in my view. Barring an event like that, I'm not convinced I should cite a paper in a pre-print whose existence I'm only aware of because of a quick search I did long after I'd finished mine and already it for publication. If the readers are interested in simultaneous work they can find them the same way they found ours. I just can't justify giving away credit for work that is entirely mine.
Citing other people is not "giving away your work". You have admitted that others have independently achieved the same result as you. It follows that you already know that you do not deserve sole credit for your results. (For your actual work, yes. For the results of that work, no.) All you have to do is publicly admit what you already know.
@JeffE: Lots of problems with your quotes and your bolded text. For one thing I never said give away my "work"; I said give away "credit". I also never said I deserve credit for my "results", I said I deserve credit for my "work". I'm also highly bothered by your usage of the word "admit" -- whether or not you intended it, I feel it implicitly makes me look guilty. We'll definitely talk to the other group and figure it out, so don't worry. I do feel neither of us needs to cite the other, though we might anyway. I'm not interested in arguing about it though, so let's end it here.
This actually happened with a paper I worked on. We handled it by:
Immediately submitting our own version to arXiv, including a short mention of the other paper.
Informing the other authors of our result, and offering to write a joint journal paper.
Submitting your own version as soon as possible strongly suggests that it was an independent discovery, especially if the presentation is completely original. It also sends a signal that you're not trying to hide anything.
By writing a joint 'final' version, both parties can share the credit. In our case, the papers had been submitted to different conferences, so we thought a joint journal version would be the most appropriate. In the end, both papers were rejected from these conferences, but the other authors were able to strengthen the original result, while we generalized it. This meant that we were able to write a very strong merged paper, which was accepted to the most important conference in the area.
+1 especially for your first point. For some reason responding with a rapid uploading of your own document makes a convincing case for the independence of the work. (Logically speaking this is unconvincing: I guess people think that intellectual thieves are slow and lazy rather than fast and hard-working? It need not be the case!)
+1 I'll probably upload it soon, hopefully by tomorrow. Just have to make sure I don't make silly mistakes in the public version. Not really convinced why I would need to mention the other paper (nothing in our paper is based on anything they did) but I'll consider it.
Many theorems, algorithms, fundamental scientific ideas, etc bear the name of (or are attributed to) more than one person. This does not always happen because these persons worked together. Sometimes it happens because it is established that they worked on the same issue approximately during the same period and/or published approximately during the same period. An example that I can immediately give from Economics/Econometrics is in the sub-field of Stochastic Frontier Analysis: in 1977 two papers were published independently, laying the fundamentals of the field. Almost 40 years later, they are still mentioned together, when the author wants to refer to those that initiated the whole thing. These papers are
Aigner, D., Lovell, C. A. A., & Schmidt, P. (1977). Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models. journal of Econometrics, 6(1), 21-37.
and
Meeusen, W., & Van den Broeck, J. (1977). Efficiency estimation from Cobb-Douglas production functions with composed error. International economic review, 435-444.
Your algorithm and the other algorithm may be "cousins", and the existence of both may have positive externalities on the research and professional paths of all involved, since it makes for a more vigorous "look here!" shout to the scientific world. I would even consider promoting the other paper alongside yours.
+1 for making the key point that someone else who is interested in what you are working on is a good thing.
@PeteL.Clark: It would be a good thing if I was going to continue working on this. But I've already finished the project and want to stop working on it -- I was only waiting to publish the results somewhere. So if someone else becomes interested that's arguably bad for me because it'll take away valuable time I want to spend elsewhere; I've already spent more time on the project than I ever intended to.
@Mehrdad: Well, I'm not sure what to say about that: you did say "arguably", and you are certainly entitled to your opinion as to whether this development is good or bad. For what it's worth I truly don't see it that way. Alas: academia is a time-consuming business. Also, if you're sticking with it (academia, that is), it seems hard to know whether you'll return to something or not. Many times have I put a project or research area aside for years at a time...only to return later and take it up again.
@PeteL.Clark Thanks for the thumbs-up. Essentially, my answer is a subset of yours, which I just read. I must confess that lately this site emits a much more negative tone than when I first subscribed. Too many questions about allegedly questionable conduct, too many answers suggesting "attack" or "admit defeat". I am an economist and have no issue with competition or even antagonism -but what big bucks I have made in life (monetary, intellectual, emotional) was by "tricking" the competition into ...balanced cooperation -so I guess I am a bit biased on the matter.
If your paper gets accepted in this conference, you win. The submission date is before the arxiv uploading and no one can claim you plagiarized the arxiv preprint.
If your paper gets rejected, you probably lost. In subsequent submissions you have to cite the original arxiv preprint, make extra effort and experiments to differentiate your work from theirs (by augmenting your original work) and claim that both works have reached independently to those parallel findings. Still, this lowers your work's novelty and might lead to another rejection. In that case, the other side might lost too, because your original rejection might also signify that the algorithm is not that seminal or important.
So, you should consider in what ways you can expand your work to actually provide novel content in comparison to the arxiv preprint, in case of rejection. In case of acceptance, you have nothing to worry about.
UPDATE: I really liked the other answers. Submitting to arxiv the OP's paper as soon as possible is probably the best thing to do. Also sharing co-authorship (in case of rejection) is of course the ethical / right thing to do and that is what the OP should do. But:
Case 1. There is some foul play on the other side. In that case, they do not want to share co-authorship but patent / steal the idea. In that case, co-operation is not likely to happen
Case 2. No foul play involved and the OP's paper gets rejected. The other side has already patented those results by their arxiv preprint. They may even already submitted the paper to another conference (many times that is when you upload preprints). Why would they share co-authorship? Would the OP share co-authorship if his paper got accepted? Will he include the other paper in the related work section (of course he should) in his camera ready version (in
case of acceptance), when most of the results are identical? According to his comments he is not going to do that (when he has nothing to lose by that if his paper got accepted). Why does everyone assume that the other side will cooperate? These are serious questions that are easily answered on an ethical basis but the practical side is always more complicated. And what if the other side is more famous / established than the OP? Sometimes in that case they may even refuse co-authorship on that fact alone. Co-operation and co-authorship usually happens between similar / equal parties but they are harder to achieve when the other side has more leverage.
I really hope things work for the OP. But if his paper gets accepted he should definitely cite the other work and explain the situation in his camera ready version.
It's not about winning and losing. If the asker's paper is rejected, a joint paper with the authors of the ArXiv paper is probably on the cards.
@DavidRicherby See the updated answer. I really wish things could work the "right" way but many times unfortunately they do not.
The asker's submission of the work to a conference already establishes their share of priority, even if the paper is rejected. And I, at least, assume that the other group will co-operate because that, in my experience, is what normally happens.
@Alexandros: The OP is rather clearly a young researcher who is trying to learn what to do in this new situation. In my opinion you are not being so helpful by assuming the worst. This is not a Prisoner's Dilemma situation or anything like that: in this case both parties can establish that their work precedes the public availability of the other's, so they both have priority. If one party openly acknowledges this and the other doesn't, then the main thing which is lost is the opportunity to engage in best practices, like consolidating common work. I see no potential tragedy here.
@PeteL.Clark I do not assume the worst. The OP even thought of withdrawing the paper (which would be a huge mistake). But it is a great possibility that the other side has already submitted to another conference. And this is something that previous answers do not address and the OP should have in mind.
@Alexandros: Yeah I've been thinking of the same thing -- I have no idea if they've submitted it to another conference or not, and I'd definitely wondered why no one had mentioned that possibility except you.
"The OP even thought of withdrawing the paper (which would be a huge mistake)." Well, he presented it as one of four choices anyway; I agree that would be the worst thing to do. "But it is a great possibility that the other side has already submitted to another conference. And this is something that previous answers do not address and the OP should have in mind." That is also true. In my mind this is part of what you learn by contacting the authors of paper X. If you have each already submitted to a conference, then probably the two works should be published separately.
When I was speaking of a joint paper, I had in mind mainly a journal paper that would follow the conference paper. (In full disclosure: in my field -- pure mathematics -- we don't have much in the way of conference papers in this sense.) Thanks for making that explicit. I do think however that maintaining a cheery calm is a good reaction to this question: this is very far from a truly sticky situation.
If your paper gets accepted in this conference, you win. — If by "win", you mean "get sole credit", this is inconsistent with my experience. Assuming both papers appear in som form at roughly the same time, you will (eventually) both get credit, as you should.
@JeffE By winning, I mean the OP gets credit for his work. Otherwise he will have to fight for it. I understand that for professors like you, one more publication does not mean that much, but for struggling students who need them for a PHD, it does. And any mishap like that (that happens on real life) it might mean 6 months - 1 year additional work. So, if the paper gets accepted, yes the OP wins because he gets the publication he needs.
That's a bit unfair, @Alexandros. Even though I'm not a student myself any more, I have students of my own, with publication records of their own, in whose success I am personally and materially invested. When similar things have happened to them, I've said exactly the same thing: Finish the paper, and do it right. Part of doing it right is citing your competitors. Otherwise, people will notice that you didn't, when you could/should have, and that lack of generosity/honesty will hurt you more in the long run.
@JeffE Citing the "competitor"'s work, in case of acceptance is something that I have already suggested in my answer. Also, in a similar case I assume you and your students are more happy if the paper gets accepted (before the other party's work) instead of having to negotiate co-authorship and joint papers with them.
@Alexandros Actually, no. I'd really rather join forces. If I were in OP's situation, I'd not only cite the arXiv authors, but also invite them to be coauthors on the conference paper, assuming it's accepted and the PC agrees.
@JeffE: Joining forces is great if you have the time to spend on re-authoring a paper. I'm not sure I do. I just want to publish what I have done and move on.
Too bad. If you don't want the research community (precisely the people who will be judging your suitability for jobs later) to think you're lazy, apathetic, or intentionally negligent, finish the paper properly.
@JeffE: The more of your comments I read the more antagonistic they become. When I say I might not have the time, it quite literally means I might not have the time. It does not mean I'm "lazy" or "apathetic" or "intentionally negligent". You most certainly do not know what my situation is like to be justified in telling me "too bad", as though you're my adviser and I'm just a lazy student who doesn't want to finish his work. Please don't pretend to know people's limitations, motivations, and constraints when you don't.
I'm not claiming that you are lazy or negligent. I'm claiming that not citing the other paper will make you look lazy or negligent. The latter is much worse for your career than the former.
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27180 | When to use a table vs. a plot to present numeric information?
I find that in many cases, either a table or a plot will do an equally good job of presenting numeric information. Does anyone have any advice or even rules about when to prefer using a table over a plot and vice versa? I'm referring to tables and plots in the context of academic journal articles.
I generally prefer plots as they are easier to interpret at a glance. Only use tables when there is lots of information which is hard to put in a plot
I would say: Use tables if the actual values are of importance and use plots if trends (or similar things) are important.
The rationale is simply that one cannot extract actual values of a function at specific places from plot. Vice versa, it's much simpler to see linear growth or periodicity from a plot than from a table.
I would add that when both the actual values and the geometrical form are important it is convenient to provide both of them.
Tufte offers suggestions for making the precise numeric data extractable from plot while still showing the relationships.
As @Dirk says, it's often quite useful to preserve the numeric values - that's the motivation for tabulating data. However, plots have the advantage of being able to easily visualize trends in data.
If you have a set grid of x and y co-ordinates, with each pair of co-ordinates having a numeric value, you can sort of do both.
Here is an example. The trends in the data are made much clearer by plotting and colour-coding the data, but the numeric information is preserved. As a result the readability of the numbers isn't perfect, but (depending on your data) you can sometimes have the best of both worlds.
More often than not, "it's often quite useful to preserve the numeric values" is only true from the perspective of the author, though. :/
what is the name of your program?
@Ooker PGFPlots for LaTeX. See Jake's answer to this question to see how you can do a plot like mine. I just followed his example and added the text annotations using nodes at each set of co-ordinates.
In addition to the other answers, I think it depends on how much data you are trying to show. Personally, I like to use tables when I can. If you have only three data points, a figure wastes a lot of space and ink. Tufte calls this the Data-ink ratio. In his book, he recommends:
Above all else, show the data.
So, if you have hundreds of data points, you would show a figure, unless the exact data values matter (in which case it is rather a reference table). But if you have only a handful of points, it is more efficient to display the data in a table. Unless, as other answers point out, you want to visualise a particular relation or trend — then a visualisation is again more appropriate.
I strongly disagree with your answer. It's one thing to argue that some very limited cases might justify a table. It's another thing entirely to advocate tables as a default choice. I find the later position completely out of sync with current practices in both statistics and scientific publishing. I would suspect that Tufte would in fact disagree with your opinion and he certainly never advocated “using table when [you] can”.
I don't know if current practices in statistics and scientific publishing are to use graphics by default, and if it is, I don't know if that is a good thing. Personally, I often see graphs where I would rather see tables (in particular in the powerpoint/excel world), but rarely the opposite. Maybe it's a matter of taste.
Personally, I do often regret not seeing better plots (dotplots, boxplots, small multiples, plots with the raw data and key indices of central tendency and variability, better ordering when there are several categories, etc.) instead of bar and pie charts but I almost never find myself wishing a table, no. Raw data I would sometimes like, of course, but that's something else. As I explained above what is both currently recommended and very much to my own taste is good plots + raw data and other materials available online.
Are the specific values really, really meaningful and relevant? Do they have meaning outside of the sandbox? Are you, for example, publishing new measurements of fundamental constants? No? Then, most likely, the actual numbers have no business being in your article extended abstract.
My rationale is: you are telling a story. Elements that don't serve to make a (major) plot point or at least support it have to go. Nobody will look at the numbers if their values are not relevant or support a point you are trying to make.
Now, there is data that does not lend itself well to the usual plots you can make (line plots, histogramms, bar charts, ...). Sometimes, a table is all you can do, especially if the data has no useful scale in at least one dimension. For example, assume we have investigated four methods in four scenarios and have collected some quality measure; the bigger the number, the better the method worked in that scenario.
What do we see in this table? Nothing, without really reading which may be a waste of time, given that the numbers may not mean anything on their own.
What is the story we want to tell? Maybe something like this: Methods one and three are complementary and excell in their respective strong scenarios; you should pick one of them if you know which category your application falls into. Method two is somewhat useable in all cases but worse than the specialists; use it if you don't know what you have at hand. Never use the fourth method, it's always bad.
We can improve the table so that it supports that story at one glance by normalising the data (I assume a linear scale from 0 to 250 here) and giving visual indication of "good", "meh" and "bad".
[source]
Now, the layout of the table can be improved and maybe you want to swap columns so that the complementary methods are neighbours. It is hard to show variances with this visualisation. Furthermore, the choice of colors can be debated (red/green may have different meanings in different cultures; also they can not be distinguished by a sizable portion of all readers).
Still, I think the example serves to support my point: be creative when representing data, with a focus on supporting the narrative of the article and less on dumping data (there's other places for that).
There is plenty of literature on visualising data but I'm not intimately familiar with any, so I'll just point you towards some blogs:
FlowingData by Nathan Yau
Statistical Graphics and more by Martin Theus
visualising data by Andy Kirk
They have plenty of inspiring examples.
One further TeXnical note: it's possible to draw small inline-style plots (called sparklines, apparently) with which you could potentially fill a table.
Really intuitive
Great examples and links !
If you are able to do it, use plots, period. What little purpose tables used to have is currently best served by online supplementary material, either on the journal's website or your own.
If you have more than a couple of constants/data points (which would not require a table either), numbers are very difficult to read and (good) plots are much better for human consumption (I don't think this is merely a matter of taste; while I am not an expert there is quite a lot of research on this).
If actual values are actually useful to someone, a table is in fact a very poor way to provide them as anybody wishing to use them must go through a time-consuming and error-prone data entry process. What should actually be done in this case is making the data themselves available electronically. A table is not a decent alternative to that, not anymore.
I respectfully disagree. If you have three values it is possible to use a plot, but it is neither efficient nor helpful. In fact, any table can be converted into a plot, but the reverse is not true.
@gerrit Fair point but I would argue you don't need a table in this case either. A sentence will do… More generally, I am being provocative to stress the point but I do think tables are overused left-overs of another time and plots are almost always better.
Three is an extreme case. But if the three values are the major result of the research, one might want it to stand out more clearly by having a table.
@gerrit I still find it difficult to imagine what such a number could be (a theoretical constant?). In my field, a major result would depend on several experiments and have error bars or variability around it so even if the point estimate is important, there is still value in presenting it in context.
True, three results + corresponding errors compromise more than three pieces of information. Of course the article (or presentation, or poster) provides context, but I think summarising the results in a table is still valuable. Some explanation in the caption, and then "see text for discussion". That's how I would do it.
@gerrit Indeed but my point is that I find it difficult to imagine what three pieces of information might warrant being presented in a table.
I find that in many cases, either a table or a plot will do an equally
good job of presenting numeric information.
Strictly speaking, a plot does NOT present numerical information because it is just a picture. The purpose of a plot is to show geometrical form of some dependence(s) when this form is important. It is impossible to recover original numerical information from such picture. The requirement of reproducibility of scientific results requires to provide all necessary information needed to reproduce the results described in the paper. Most journals do not allow publishing large tables of numerical data but they allow to publish supplementary information online which can contain huge tables in TXT format. It is good idea to supply such information and it is free.
The topic of effective visual presentation of information is subject of infographics:
Ben Fry. Visualizing Data (2008)
Cleveland W.S. The Elements of Graphing Data (1985, 1994)
Cleveland W.S. (1993): A Model for Studying Display Methods of
Statistical Graphics. // Journal of Computational and Graphical
Statistics, 2(4): 323-343.
Tufte E.R. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (2001)
Wilkinson L. The Grammar of Graphics (2005)
and others.
Thanks for the answer, but I think that just posting references is not a good way to answer a question. Use those references and links to support your answer to the question. Even if your answer is an abstract of all those links.
Note that Tufte discusses strategies for preserving the precises numeric data in a plot.
@dmckee Again, plot is just a figure and does not contain numeric data. If the plot is available as a high-quality vector figure, such figure is described using numbers and then it is possible to discuss how precisely the vector data represent original numeric data. But it is a very bad habit to mix numeric data and figures: numeric data usually is presented in tables and allows to create any visual representation you wish, while figure is just a figure - what can you do with it?
Er ... Perhaps you don't recall the form that Tufte shows for exposing the precise numeric values in a plot, but I really meant that. A plot with the raw data. The best of both worlds.
@dmckee Can you provide a reference? If it is in the book "Tufte E.R. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information", please tell which figure do you mean?
My copy is a 1st edition, and I don't know what changed between the 1st and the 2nd. I was thinking in particular of the figure Tufte calls "a further enhancement of the dot-dash-plot". it is near the top of page 152 in my copy; in the chapter "Theory of Data Graphis" shortly before the section "Puzzles and Hierarchy in Graphics". He also approaches the same idea in some figures on the preceding page. There is, of course, a limit to the density of data that can reasonably be presented that way, but the option is present.
@dmckee Thanks, in the 2nd edition it is also on page 152. This is undoubtedly beautiful idea but extremely limited in practical applications: the numeric values should not contain more than about 3 - 4 digits and the number of data points cannot be larger than about 15 - 20. Actually it is a consolidation of a small table with a small scatter plot what impose severe restrictions on the dataset.
Readers and listeners tend to read without no more that 16 or about items on the figure during presentation, so a good table should not be larger that 4x4 or about. This is relatively small size. Use plots if you need to present more data.
Good advice, I think. Does this apply to articles as well?
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11161 | What qualifies as a research publication?
A simple question:
What qualifies as a research publication?
Two criteria spring to mind:
Peer-reviewed: The article has gone through some form of formal peer-review process.
Dead-tree proceedings: The article has been published in a bound collection of thin sheets of dead tree.
In terms of exceptions to 1., many book chapters do not rely on a formal peer-review process but are generally considered as research publications and listed in author bibliographies. Similarly, some may consider arXiv, etc., as publications and counting towards h-index counts.
In terms of exceptions to 2., various workshops (esp. in CS) publish on-line through systems like CEUR or informal web-site proceedings, are peer-reviewed and contain in-depth technical material. As online publishing becomes more commonplace, criterion 2 will grow weaker and weaker.
Is there something else I'm missing?
A poem published in a ("peer-reviewed") poetry magazine satisfies your two criteria, but I don't think it would be considered a research publication.
@badroit this is a great question and I amazed it hasn't been asked before. would you edit the question and remove the justification part?
While this question is interesting, I'm not sure where it's relevant. Any work can be cited, regardless of whether it's a research publication or not; it's up to the reader to decide whether the source is convincing. The only application I can think of is how to list publications on a resume, and that's typically done in sections; peer-reviewed, proceedings, book chapters, etc. The question is interesting, but largely academic.
@eykanal, I had a list of criteria why I felt the question was concrete and important (not an exercise metaphysics): (1) related works: what is in scope for surveys, for declarations of novelty, for comparative studies, (2) publication listings: CVs, homepages, publication indexes, (3) author metrics: publication counts, citation counts, h-indexes, (4) self-plagiarism: what is "already published", what can/not be copied from self verbatim, etc. I removed these per request as people felt they had different answers. I rather feel the question generalises all of these issues.
Your criteria are close, but (at least for computer science) not quite right.
Research: the paper must describe a novel contribution to some field of inquiry. Whether a paper makes a novel (and correct and interesting) contribution is often determined through formal peer review, but not always. Peer review is almost always a formal requirement for a paper to "count" for purposes of formal evaluation for promotion and tenure, but not necessarily for building one's reputation as a researcher. (It's quite common for breakthrough results in theoretical compute science to be announced and discussed in blogs months before they undergo formal peer review.)
Publication: The paper must be, at least in principle, accessible to the public. Two reasonable prerequisites are that the paper has a DOI, and that it is published either in a serial with an ISSN or in a book with an ISBN, but one could make a reasonable case that PDfs on researchers' personal web pages, blog and newsgroup posts, and even StackExchange answers are "publications". (Certainly there are fields, like chemistry, in which journals will not publish anything that has previously appeared on the web, on the grounds that it is "already published".) There is absolutely no requirement that the paper be printed on dead trees to be considered "real".
In particular, I would classify most ArXiv preprints as "research publications", despite the lack of peer review and the absence of dead trees.
Thanks for the comments. Staying within Computer Science, I find that for academic evaluation, even aside from books, invited book chapters with tertiary material are often ranked more highly than hard-fought "A+" conference papers. Similarly, survey journal papers without novel results are often highly cited and highly prized (and no doubt, highly useful aside from having a well-selected title). Hence it seems to me that "novel contributions" (in a technical sense) are not a necessary condition for highly-valued research publications.
With respect to the publication side of things, I agree with the general answer of being accessible to the public and would add "easily found by a diligent member of the public". Still though, this, for me, raises a whole raft of further questions about self-plagiarism (can I copy parts of my own arXiv paper verbatim) and need to discuss and compare to claims that are not peer-reviewed, particularly on the systems/performance side of the spectrum.
...invited book chapters with tertiary material are often ranked more highly than hard-fought "A+" conference papers. — That is not my experience at all, but every department is different. Also: Well-written synthesis of existing results is a novel contribution.
can I copy parts of my own arXiv paper verbatim — In my opinion, only if you're writing another version of the same paper. (Recall that different versions of a single paper may be published as a technical report, as an ArXiv preprint, in a conference proceedings, in a journal, and as a thesis chapter.)
need to discuss and compare to claims that are not peer-reviewed — Somebody else needs to handle that one. I've never understood how systems performance claims are (or can be, even in principle) peer-reviewed.
book chapters ... That is not my experience at all, but every department is different. I think it's often more on a faculty level. CS departments are often within science/math faculties that do not seem to value conference papers, but where book chapters count more towards, e.g., official tenure evaluation. (CS departments themselves would highly value good conference papers.)
I've never understood how systems performance claims are (or can be, even in principle) peer-reviewed ... Probably a good candidate for a separate question, but the key aspects are reproducibility of methods described and consistency of results. Although common and even encouraged, I dislike first-party system comparisons since there is an obvious bias of authors towards their own system. Third-party evaluations or standardised benchmarking schemes work much better and there are often separate tracks for this at conferences.
I think it's often more on a faculty level. — To clarify: That's not my experience either as a postdoc on the job market or as a faculty member serving on hiring and promotion committees.
The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has summarized a standard for responsible publishing for authors (pdf). Although this document does not define scientific publication explicitly, the requirements are implicitly understood by reading about the demands set on an author of such a publication.
The Council of Science Editors (CSE) (quoted by Day & Gastel, 2012, p 19) provides the following definition
An acceptable primary scientific publication must be the first disclosure containing sufficient information to enable peers (1) to assess observations, (2) to repeat experiments, and (3) to evaluate intellectual processes; moreover it must be susceptible to sensory perception, essentially permanent, available to the scientific community without restriction, and available for regular screening by one or more of the major recognized secondary service.
This means that, for example, abstracts, corporate reports do not count as scientific publications. It should be added that review papers of course count although the wording of the definition may not make that clear at first.
Day, R.A. & Gastel, B., 2012 How to write and publish a scientific paper. Seventh Edition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
This is borderline opinion-based, but I would use this definition:
A research publication is any readily available artifact which has passed peer review.
I would exclude non-reviewed book chapters and arXiv etc. preprint submission.
Unlike JeffE, I would include peer-reviewed work which is not novel. In my experience (and according to some bibliometrics), review articles are among the most influential research publications, and they are not novel.
Unlike JeffE, I would not require that the artifact be "descriptive," have a DOI, ISSN, or ISBN. For example, an abstract sculpture that was peer reviewed and displayed to the public could be credited to an art professor in a similar way to a journal article. Peer-reviewed source code and database entries should also be counted.
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185192 | Is it plagiarism if someone attends your talk and then writes a paper about your ideas?
6 months ago I presented a talk describing some research I had been doing and presenting some half finished results. Ive since discovered that one of the attendees took my idea from the talk and decided to pursue the same research project, albeit in a slightly different (but very similar) way. In the end, I uploaded to the arXiv first but we will be submitting to the same conference. One of the authors admitted in writing that they started working on the project after attending my talk. It feels unfair and like my idea has been taken and presented as someone else's, but is this plagiarism?
As you explain, the answer is yes, But i suspect that some details are missing, Too obvious.
It's certainly ungenerous and rude for that other party not to mention that your talk was at least part of the source of the idea.
When you say "One of the authors admitted in writing that they started working on the project after attending my talk", does this mean that they wrote this within their article in question, or somewhere else?
Isn't this essentially what happened with Erdős and Selberg and the Erdős-Selberg proof of the prime number theorem?
You didn't mention whether the authors of that other paper cited your talk in their paper. One of the key measures of success in academia is how often one's works are cited. So if they cited you, that's a good thing for you. It's only a problem if they didn't cite your work.
If I knew this was in pure math I might give one answer. If I knew this was a experimental science I might give another.
Why did you give the talk if you are afraid that someone will hear it?
If your talk merely inspired someone to work on the same problem, but using a completely different approach, then that certainly isn't plagiarism: an acknowledgement would be courteous, but not essential. If you suggested an approach to solving the problem and they followed up on that suggestion, then a failure to acknowledge it would be discourteous, but again, not plagiarism. Plagiarism means presenting your work as their own; Building on your ideas is not plagiarism.
The whole purpose of conferences and talks is to disseminate ideas and knowledge. In some sense, if you had published on the topic and someone else picked up the ideas and used them in a different context, you would probably feel pleased to hear about it. You feel differently because you happened to not have written a publication on the topic, but that's not the other person's fault -- they did what the purpose of talks is: They learned from others and are using the knowledge.
I fail to see that that is wrong. How long would you like others to hold on with using the knowledge that you presented to them before they can use it themselves?
Agree, if you don't want someone to use your ideas then don't discuss them in open forums. Others may come up with the same idea regardless, so need to get them published (or at least up on arXiv) asap to be cited/credited.
Even if it is a rough outline, it still needs to be cited. You cannot just lift substantial ideas from a talk without attribution. The fact that this is not on paper does not relieve the 'ursupers' from the responsibility to cite or acknowledge where they got their ideas from. This is plagiarism, albeit harder to prove than if the ideas were published. Though I agree with Buffy that it might be better to collaborate (assuming they are happy to, which they may not be).
@CaptainEmacs The OP does not actually say whether the other preprint cites anyone. (There is of course the issue that at the time of writing there was nothing to cite -- though there are other ways of pointing to the fact that something builds on others' work.)
@WolfgangBangerth Since OP does not mention it, I assume from the question it's not there. It would be far more borderline (and interesting) if it were, so I assume it's not. As for credit "The idea of wringing sausages through dirty socks was first brought up by John Smith at the Household Optimization conference in July 2022." It does not require much imagination to give even just minimal credit. What's more likely is that the "ursupers" heard the idea, forgot about it, remembered the idea without the origin, and then "nostrified" it without outright malicious intent. Happens a lot.
One can cite even a private conversation, as long as basic ethical standards are met.
I’m really shocked by this answer. Using the results like you would from a paper is fine — but jumping straight into someone’s work-in-progress is seen (in my experience in pure maths) as quite unethical, since it has a clear chilling effect — people get discouraged from discussing their work-in-progress by the fear of being “scooped”. I’d articulate the criterion roughly as: Say I attend X’s talk and it sparks an idea. When X writes up this work, could my idea overlap substantially with that paper? If this seems likely, then I wouldn’t pursue the idea without contacting X.
Disseminating ideas for others to utilize and develop, not for others to pass off as their own or mostly-their-own.
@PLL You seems to imply that the time between sparking of an idea to some important theorem is quite short. Typically, a lot of work is required. If it is so easy to over perform the OP, the idea seems to be rather trivial. Who cares who published some inessential theorem faster?
@yarchik: The issue is that the time to develop and write up work can vary a lot, for many reasons: How experienced a researcher is, how they’re dividing their time with other things, how thoughtfully they want to explore the consequences. Very often, an expert hearing a grad student’s talk can see a few steps ahead, and could (if they focused for a few weeks) work those steps out much faster than the student, and publish some results. You can dismiss this off as “some inessential theorems” but if they’re part of a student’s PhD project it can be devastating.
@PLL agreed, it has been common practice in my field (biology) for people to only present work at a very late stage in the publication process precisely for the reasons you suggest. This is obviously not an option for very early career researchers who don't have a "backlog" of completed work and must present genuine work in progress; if a more established researcher wanted to "take inspiration" from their talk, they would often have more manpower and equipment at their disposal to repeat the work more quickly - something that has absolutely happened to people I know.
All, the OP has not given any details about the other paper, neither in the question nor in any comments. We really can't know, all we can know is this: The purpose of giving talks is to disseminate knowledge. If you don't want others to use what you have come up with, don't give talks.
It is plagiarism if they present your ideas as their own. If they give you credit in some way then it isn't plagiarism, even if it isn't very courteous. Plagiarism is about the proper attribution of ideas. Citation is the way to avoid it. In this case, not enough is known here to make a real judgement, and, you say, they took them in a different direction.
Perhaps you have an opportunity, however, to work with them on these ideas jointly so that attribution is no longer an issue.
Note that you don't "own" ideas. Plagiarism isn't really about "stealing" what another "owns". It is a concept in scholarship that creators should be recognized.
Caveat: Laws vary and I've heard that some forms of plagiarism might be illegal in some places, but that isn't the norm.
+1 for "Perhaps you have an opportunity, however, to work with them on these ideas jointly so that attribution is no longer an issue." You could lose an enemy and gain a coauthor by doing this.
I wonder if this would be a researcher you'd want to collaborate with. Without further details, they seem like the kind of person to act unethically.
@DrakeP perhaps - or perhaps they just thought the research was enough of a different direction to not interfere with OP's own research. imo talking to them about it is the best course of action to figure out how they are thinking about this.
And one should note it may be quite unethical even if it's not plagiarism. Not just discourteous.
The National Science Foundation Research Misconduct regulation defines plagiarism as the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results or words without giving appropriate credit. I cite this source as one of many using the same formulation. Here it is clear it is also the idea that is the property of the "inventor", the persons intellectual property. And strictly based on that statement it seems like a clear case of property theft or plagiarism IF the source of the original idea is not given credit.
To take someones idea and develop it further is not in itself a problem, it is how science works. What is a problem is if the origin of an idea is not ones own and is not credited. Then it is intellectual property theft and something a reasearcher should avoid at all cost. What can be done in the individual case becomes a question of what one is willing to endure. An article based on the idea could be questioned by writing to the journal editor and explaining the case. In thge specific case where it seems two papers originating from the same idea will be published, it will depend on how "the other" paper presents the original idea and then something for the proceedings (equiv.) editor(s) to consider.
Plagiarism and intellectual property issues are issues of ethics.
I like that there are 2 different meanings of (a form of the word) "appropriate" in the NSF's definition.
I think you are using the term "intellectual property" very loosely and inaccurately. It is a legal term and has a precise meaning. An "idea" is only intellectual property if a patent application has been filed. The expression of an idea (a written paper or a recording of a talk) is intellectual property because it is protected by copyright, but copyright only prevents copying the words, not making use of the ideas.
´@MichaelKay I do not think you are corect and you do not provide an reference in support.l Of course, intellectual property is not a universal law since it requires governments globally to adhere to the idea. There are states that clearly violate this idea and as such make the idea void and of no significance. So please clarify your standpoint and provide support for your statement, it could even be a worthwhile response to the original question.
Reach out to them and ask them to cite your paper, as you suspect to be the source of one of their ideas.
As you know their paper exists, you have to cite them as well. Less because it is their idea, more to cover that others are working on this topic, too.
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36458 | Editor rejected my paper stating that reviewers had refused to review it long after submission; How can I understand what is wrong with my paper?
I am having very frustrated at the turn of events and review process. I had sent a paper to an International Journal. The paper was based on my work and well received by PhD committee of my Institute. The paper was submitted 3 years back. The paper was in status "Editor Assigned" for 6 months. After that its status changed to "Under Review". After 9 months in this status (15 months after submission date), I sent a polite mail to editor asking about how much time it will take to complete review? There was no response. After I month similar gentle mail was sent. There was no response. After month, I again sent query (18 months after submission). At that Editor replied saying that they could not review the paper as assigned reviewers either refuse to review or did not agree to review. The paper was rejected after 18 months without any review comment.
So how does one know where it requires improvement? If paper was not of required quality why they kept with them for so long?
I feel that it is wrongly rejected.
Is it correct answer?
How can it show status as Under Review and then Editor says no Reviewer did not accept or refuse. My understanding is that paper goes in "Under Review" state only after "Reviewer" accepts to review. So what would have happened? Why Editor requires 3 months just to tell the status and comes back with mail like this? Editor did not bother reply to mail. Is it that he got angry because of persistent queries.
I had even worst experience with next Journal. The paper was submitted and it remained in status "With Editor" for 9 months. Wiser by experience, I asked Editor about status? After persisting with it for about 2 more months, Chief Editor said that they rejected paper based on quick review as paper is not suitable to Journal as it does not meet its criteria like Originality, Depth etc. Again there no review comments about improvement.
It is not sour grape, I do feel that around 60% papers in that Journal do not possess these qualities and have been published in 6-8 months (after revision).
If paper is not of required standard, they could have rejected in 2-3 months, why it took them such long time. If I would not have sent mail, probably it would have remained with them for long time. This work is now 3 years old not published anywhere and I even do not know what to do to improve. I am feeling very bad and really do not know what to do?
What would happened? Is it wrong to ask editors about status even after 9 months or year? Our University requires two Journal publication for PhD thesis submission and really do not what to do?
Many friends are suggesting that publish in Open Access Journals.
Please read Take a deep breath before writing and [edit] your post accordingly.
Please use paragraphs. The "Chief Editor said ...paper is not suitable to Journal as it does not meet its criteria like Originality, Depth etc" This is a huge red flag that probably the paper is not good enough (by far) at the journals you are trying to submit it to.
Why it should take 9 months to decide that?
@Alexandros: Or the paper may have been sent to the wrong journal. A year or more under review without any sort of feedback is completely unacceptable.
Wow, I can feel your frustration, for otherwise the question is written with more readability. I guess asking a handling editor politely would not result in the result. There are too many factors to allow anyone to conclude... Forget it and move on.
We could have a better understanding of your situation if you pasted the exact wording used by the editors of both journals (editing out what could identify you or the journal).
Your post has a lot of question marks. Which question are you asking us?
"Many friends are suggesting that publish in Open Access Journals." - Have those "many friends" successfully completed their PhD in the same department as you, and (if available) does anyone who has the role of an advisor in your PhD recommend the same?
Not to sound harsh, but if the journal is in English...your lack of proficiency might be the issue. The few short paragraphs you wrote are barely high school level.
I think before you submit to any journal you have to be aware of the expected duration of the revision. Depending on that you can contact the editor. There are some very specific fields that the editors have difficulty to find proper reviewers. As you know, without proper reviewers it is not possible to give you any feedback about your paper.
It is very bad news for an youth researcher. I can understand it but unfortunately we have to accept it. I know it is difficult to accept such situations.
The delays you mention are really excessive (note: I feel that way even though I am a mathematician), and your anger is quite deserved for that.
From what I heard from editors I know, it can happen that a paper is sent to successive referees who decline to referee, or worse accept and then don't do the job and do not respond to queries. At some point, the editor have to either do a referee's job themselves, which usually do not happen, or reject the paper. Usually, this happen with papers that are not clearly wrong or uninteresting, but that are difficult to read and do not really interest the tentative referees. In some case, you can have better result by submitting to a different, e.g. more specialized journal.
In your case, what bothers me is that being in a PhD, you have an advisor. What does she think of the paper? If there is no obvious problem in it, did you submit to journal suggested by her? On what ground? Is it possible that your institute, whose PhD committee you says received your work well, has much lower standards than international journals?
In any case, the only effective answer to your question is: seek feedback from a knowledgeable individual. It could be your advisor, but if needed it could also be another senior researcher in your field and institute, or even someone working elsewhere in your field. The closer the better, as it increase the probability of getting the feedback and the probability that it will be honest.
Last, as already mentioned, open access journal can be as toughly selective as subscription journals, and should not be considered easy shots when everything else has failed. I would not recommend submitting to a shady journal, let alone an OA one since shady OA journal often charge several hundred of dollars for publication.
Note that not all open access journals charge high publishing fees. I'd suggest rephrasing the last sentence of your answer accordingly.
@a3nm: I never heard of a shady OA journal not charging at least in the hundreds of dollars, but I may just not know about them. I do know good OA journal which do not charge authors, I will thus edit to avoid confusion.
oh, sure, I was also thinking of reputable OA journals
I think before one has done a significant amount of reviewing and some amount of editing, it is not easy to understand journal decisions. But one receives regularly papers that are not outstanding in quality and borderline in topic, but not borderline enough to warrant a desk rejection, where it can be quite excruciating to find reviewers who are prepared to do the job. It is not easy to convey to an author that their work is possibly (I do not claim that this is the OP's case) mediocre, uninteresting etc. until one has seen the whole spectrum of good, strong, excellent, brilliant papers.
I have had this happen a couple of times. In my case it meant that the paper was incomprehensible, and the referee(s) couldn't figure out what to make of it. The solution was to rewrite the papers in question and break them up into pieces, and more generally work on the exposition. Eventually I got all the work accepted into journals although it took a few years to sort everything out.
Another possibility I suppose is that you are a "crackpot" and your writeups were technical gibberish. But I will give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that this is not the case. At any rate, if you are a crackpot nothing we say here is going to really help anyhow :)
Even so, you ought to receive a review response saying that it was incomprehensible. Perhaps something along the lines of "It is not clear how the method disclosed could be applied to the motivating scenario" or something similar.
I suspect that most crackpots whose writeups are technical gibberish get their papers rejected much faster.
@BenVoigt You would think so but I have heard reports that some referees at top journals will sometimes just disregard papers which they feel are gibberish and therefore that they were unreasonably asked to referee.
I would not say your manuscript is wrongly rejected. What I would say is that it should perhaps not have taken such a long time.I can see many reasons for the delay, all dealing with personal issues, some understandable and some not so. Sometimes you just have to live with it. So the real problem here seems to be a lack of response as to why exactly the manuscript was rejected. It could be low quality, it could be out of scope and thus very different reasons. I think it would be only fair to ask the editor for a clarification, based on the fact that you accept the rejection and wish to see how it can be improved.
I think a journal should provide feedback on reasons for a rejection but also note that the reasons one journal rejects the manuscript may not be the same reasons another journal does so, if, for example, the reasons for rejection is "out of topic". So trying to get a sense of the reasons may be key to how you should proceed.
Another, to me, obvious way forward is to have a peer look at your manuscript so that you get feedback that can help you decide how to proceed.
Finally, Open Access is not equal to easy to publish. Yes, there are murky waters where shady open access publishers reside but you need to chose your journal with some care., Having a publication in a low quality or even dubious journal will not be of much use to you. So Open Access is not an either or choice but one of the alternatives and chosing the right journal includes also Open Access journals.
I happen to be an editor for a new Open Access journal. I concur with the the general sentiment of the other commentators. I have had similar things happen to me before as well. One Editor flat-rejected a paper of mine on the grounds that "there were already a lot of papers on that subject", even though I had conducted an exhaustive search and even enlisted the help of my school library team and we could not find even one.
The biggest advice I can give you is this; whether you choose a traditional journal, or an Open Access journal, they should have their guidelines clear. In their submission guidelines section they should clearly enumerate what fees are involved, if any. Many Open Access journals like mine don't charge a fee to read or publish. They should also clearly explain the turn around time from the editors. Some journals are published Quarterly so a review period of several months is common, but I have seen many journals with a turn around time of 4-6 weeks. The journal should also clearly explain the review process. For example, in my journal, I first quickly review the article for topic-fit to the journal. If the submission is within scope, then it is submitted to two different reviewers who conduct a double-blind review. At least one reviewer is a methodology expert and at least one is a content expert. The helps to ensure that the article is accurate. We also explain clearly what the outcomes are and what each one means. This is also a pretty common practice. If it is taking that long and the articles are being rejected by the reviewers then it sounds like either: 1. the journal you submitted to doesn't have a very large pool of reviewers, 2. the journal editor has too many submission to handle and is overwhelmed, or 3. the journal editor isn't going through and keeping the list of reviewers clean and is trying to assign articles to inactive reviewers.
In any event, don't get discouraged, just look for a different journal and try again. Check to see when the journal published an issue last and if they have their policies spelled out on the site. Good luck!
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103166 | How can someone be a co-author in a paper by just presenting undocumented evidence?
This recent paper is about birds of prey spreading fires. Some of the co-authors are firefighters which basically tell their personal experience as eyewitnesses to the behavior of these birds but do not present any hard evidence.
How can this be considered enough for co-authorship? Is this an accepted practice in social sciences?
Can you link to the statement of work? I can’t find a breakdown of what each author contributed.
Is this question really about authorship or are you complaining about their scientific methods? I don't see any indication in the article that those co-authors' only contributions to the manuscript were their observations, and there are other observers mentioned who are not co-authors. I might have missed something since I did not fully read the linked work.
Eyewitness accounts are not evidence?
I'm voting to close because I don't think this question is actually about authorship at all, it seems to be a critique of a paper. I'll retract my close vote if the OP is able to clarify.
Eyewitness accounts are exactly hard evidence, no?
@JonCuster How is a eyewitness account reproducible since it doesn't lead to anything more than a story anybody could make up?
@HermanToothrot where did Jon say anything about reproducibility?
@HermanToothrot - I'm the only person in the lab. I read a meter, write down the reading in a notebook, and publish results based on the meter reading. I'm in a forest. I see an animal doing something, write that down in a notebook, and publish results based on what I saw. Very little science is performed in front of an independent audience - it is all eyewitness accounts.
@JonCuster Yes you have a point, that's why I was asking about social/behavioral science. However your two examples are not comparable, reading a meter in a lab is not the same as reporting an animal doing something. I should be able to get almost the same reading if I follow your methodology but a behavior could be a very rare event, so it's not all eyewitness accounts. So a bunch of people that have seen UFOs can write a paper and all be coauthors?
Clearly it would be better if they had pictures or film (haven't read the article, so I don't know). And lots of people do write papers about UFOs - they just aren't published in mainstream journals.
This comment thread makes it more and more clear that this is only disguised as a question of authorship.
@JonCuster you are missing the point, I was discussing reproducibility, results must be reproducible, even though now there is no time,money or interest to do that, it should be a part of the scientific method.
Well, this spring could well be a big fire season, so lots of interview potential of wild land firefighters. Just like astronomers studying novas have to wait for the next one...
I think the true answer depends on what the other co-authors think. In my field and particularly for application-oriented papers and case studies, we often add industry representatives or clinical staffs as co-authors, even when they don't contribute much to the writing of the paper.
We do this because it fosters good relationships, demonstrates their facilitation of the analytical work, and (in our belief) is good a "people-practice."
For others, we simply list them in an 'acknowledgements' section with some comments.
It all depends.
It also recognizes them as "field observers" and their role in bringing the issue to the scientific community as worthy of study. Without them, in this case anyway, there would be no research, no paper.
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100926 | Are PhD students still employed by the University after their scholarships/fellowships have ended but they have not officially received their PhD?
Is being employed by a university during a PhD tied to receiving a salary/stipend/scholarship? Or am I considered an employee until I am awarded the PhD degree?
Because for the state I am considered unemployed, however I have finished my thesis but I am waiting for the PhD defense, so I think technically I am still considered affiliated with the University. I need to know this because I am filling paperwork for another job, and they want to know if I am currently employed or not. It seems a gray area situation.
If you are employed by the university, don't you have a contract?
Following from @MichaelBlondin, answers (to the first two questions) will surely depend on that contract and any local employment laws. But your first two questions don't really seem to be what you actually want to know, you surely just need to know what to write on the job application. Just list yourself as afilliated with the university, you are surely still enrolled as student, so that seems fine. (You may want to edit to add a third question at the end.)
This is strongly dependent on the country and the university. It may even differ per individual. Only your university can answer this question.
@MichaelBlondin: Not in the US.
In my country (and in most, I would assume), being employed in any legal sense is tied to receiving some sort of payment.
In the UK, PhD students are not considered employees of the university at any point, before or after submission of thesis or expiration of funding.
They are nonetheless affiliated with their university.
I would say that if you were asked if you were still a PhD student, the answer is yes. However, the question of employment should hinge on payment. If you’re not receiving any money from the school, then you are not employed by them. (Moreover, if you are officially recognized as unemployed, that should already be a bit of a clue as to what you should say to a potential employer.)
Yes and no, it's a very grey area, because I still have a university email, and access to VPN.
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99357 | What is the advantage of having a 'doctor europaeus' certified doctorate degree?
Universities in European Union countries have the possibility of issuing a PhD degree that is certified as "doctor europaeus" if the PhD student fulfills a certain list of 4 requirements, although this university reports a slightly different list of requirements.
Regardless of the requirements, is there any advantage of having such certification? I am referring to practical advantages, for example a certified degree can be accepted in other EU countries with less bureaucracy. And career advantages (for example more prestige or points gained in postdoc grant applications).
@MJeffryes that question asks what is a european doctorate, I want to know what and if there are any advantages, it's quite clear in my question.
The world, and also academia, is full of people who stop questioning anything if it's got the label "european" tagged to it, while those who still use their brains likely won't hold that extra title against you. So i guess the net effect will surely be positive.
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111611 | Does recording video of a scientific presentation violate the privacy of a PhD student?
The answers to this popular question were somewhat controversial, but many including @dan-romik whose answer was highly upvoted mentioned that recording a video is a violation of personal privacy and in the US, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
I neither can speak for the OP of that question nor approve his/approach, but the strong stance regarding personal privacy puzzled me. The mentioned question says
We have a youtube channel in which students regularly explain their
achievements.
Point 1: Can the reports of a PhD student recorded in video format?
A PhD student normally delivers reports of progress to the
supervisor. This report can be in verbal or written form.
I do not see any problem (including privacy) if the supervisor asks
the PhD student to deliver his/her report in video format.
Alternatively, the supervisor may ask the PhD student to deliver a
public lecture in the department. Since it is a public lecture,
anyone can record the presentation unless otherwise strictly stated
by the organiser.
Similarly, the progress could be presented at a conference. Many
conferences record the presentations.
Point 2: Can a supervisor share the presentations of a PhD student?
A research report is not intended for the supervisor's eyes only. An
educator cannot share the exam sheet of a student (according to
FERP), but the story is completely different for a research report.
The supervisor can/will directly use that report to report to the
funding agency who funded the PhD project in the first place.
The progress report is not only the progress of PhD student but the
work done in the supervisor's group. Therefore, it is not odd for the
supervisor to post the report publicly (e.g., the university website,
researchgate, etc).
Conclusion: Is video different from writing?
For centuries, academics presented their works in both oral and writing formats. Thanks to Johannes Gutenberg, writings are well recorded for centuries. However, video recording of the presentations is new, a few decades of recording, and one decade of sharing.
As a straightforward question, can someone refuse to appear in any recording because of personal privacy? This can apply to the PhD defence meeting too, as some universities record its video to be stored along with the written dissertation.
Since it is a public lecture, anyone can record the presentation unless otherwise strictly stated by the organiser: Everywhere I've ever been has strictly forbidden the recording of any lecture etc. This is the default.
@Marianne013 Who can stop the audience to turn the voice recorder (of their mobile phones) in their pockets? Many conferences have the live stream or share the videos after the conference (take a look at Youtube).
@Marianne013 By the way, even in theatre and music concerts, which are non-free copyrighted materials, nobody can stop the audience from recording and sharing. An academic pays the registration fee to come and share its content.
You can do all kinds of morally, ethically or legally wrong things without people noticing. Doesn´t make it less wrong.
@JayFromA You saw the case from the opposite angle. The example was not about recording a presentation. I said if you present your work at a conference, you know it might be officially or unofficially recorded and shared.
@Googlebot "An academic pays the registration fee to come and share its content." No, I don't believe that last part is true. Do you have anything to back this up? Every conference I have been to where talks were recorded, authors presenting were asked for a consent form. And regardless of whether you paid the fee to attend, certainly you are not allowed to freely share the proceedings of the conference (unless, say, the conference itself makes them freely available).
@ClementC. I meant academics present their works at a conference because they want to share. The organisers get the profit, not the academics. Otherwise, speakers have no problem if the audience get the content free of charge. It is like publishing in journals. The subscribers should pay to read the content, but it is the business model of the publisher. Authors prefer if the contents are freely available (if the journal can maintain its quality without revenue). On the contrary, musicians come on the stage to sell their art. They prefer paying audience, but academics don't (generally)!
This appears to be a legal question. We can't offer legal advice. Perhaps the experts at [Law.SE] are better placed to answer this?
@gerrit I doubt if there is a legal ground for this matter. What puzzled me is the strong and confident stance of several academics (I assumed) in response to the linked question. If many believe this way, it should be a common practice.
This seems like an interesting question, but can you edit it to clarify what you’re asking, and limit it to one or two very specific and related questions? As it is, it’s difficult to understand the source of your confusion and what you want to know exactly. Are you asking about the law (if so, where)? Ethics? Etc.
@DanRomik In points 1 & 2, I tried to articulate my perception from the discussions made in the mentioned question. The conclusion is my question: if presenting in front of the camera different from writing for an academic in terms of personal privacy. Academics used to deliver lectures and write papers from ancient times, but publishing is older than video recording. Are they different in nature? Or the latter has not become a norm yet. I appreciate if you have any suggestion to tidy up the question. Believe it or not, I spent too much time to articulate it in a readable format :)
I don’t have suggestions, sorry, but I find the question unanswerable in its present form (other than a trivial “yes” to “are they different in nature?”).
@DanRomik how do you justify "yes"? We write and present orally, the former was recorded historically, the means for recording the latter is new. If we present something publicly, it will be recorded one way or another in the digital era. If you go to a public place, you will likely appear in the pictures or videos taken by some tourists. It's not an explicit comparison, but my point is that we cannot deny that we are recorded. And I think a PhD student cannot object recording his defence on the ground of privacy if it is the university norm/regulation. A possible answer is, "No, s/he can",
I think this question is missing the important part that the videos were made to be uploaded to YouTube.
EDIT: This post has been restructured into a clear answer, rather than the discussion format it was originally in. Thank you Stella Biderman.
Recording a video of a scientific presentation by itself need not be an invasion of privacy. The invasion comes if and when the video is shared, depending on the nature of sharing medium, the control over shared content and agency to withdraw/clarify one's statement.
A departmental talk may be recorded for internal review. A conference talk may be officially recorded (though I have never seen this personally). As long as these are not shared, and are stored for internal use (quality control, archive, proof of the event), privacy is not invaded. Even so, many individuals may find this distasteful, uncomfortable and even repulsive. This should be respected to the extent possible.
Personal choice is crucial. A conference is certainly a (restricted) public presentation, but presenters go there voluntarily. If someone wants to go on YouTube, that's fine. But nobody is allowed to make them go there. The concern of agency is also important- does the presenter have the right to retract or clarify their stand? Once on social media, it is near-impossible to issue 'errata' or pull something down once people start sharing it.
Yes, video is different from writing.
The medium is of crucial importance, because it determines how the content is disseminated. A journal paper is restricted to subscribers (let's leave illegal downloads out of all discussions). An open access paper is open to all, but typically accessed by those with a prior interest. Both have restrictions on how it can be further shared and used. This is not the case with videos on social media. Those are seen by a mixed population with different levels of interest. They can be shared very easily and without accountability. They lend themselves to defamatory and potentially abusive comments and unwanted, non-constructive scrutiny.
The nature of delivery determines the audience. YouTube is not an academic medium. Neither is a regular newspaper. Both are good for certain purposes, both may be used for outreach and even educational purposes, but are sub-optimal for sharing research. The packaging of academic content to make it engaging to the general public is a serious and involved matter, which should be handled by dedicated workers with necessary expertise. A typical PhD student is not expected to have this expertise. (After all, how many academics after Feynman do you know who did this on a large scale?)
Although I think that you are right, I think this answer would be greatly improved by leveraging your discussion to answer the question being asked.
With all due respect, your reasoning for the medium or possibility for errata is nonsense. Many journals are now open access and it has the requirement of many funding agencies. Limiting the readability of an article is neither privilege nor right for the authors. Errata is a conditional privilege. If your changes are significant, you have to withdraw your article, as you cannot modify a large portion. In any case, like videos, there is no guarantee that readers will notice the errata. Moreover, academics do not always have this privilege (in various reports and materials).
@Googlebot- You mention a series of disconnected objections that are more the exception than the rule. Let me tackle them one at a time. I specifically mentioned open access journals as an exception, possibly you didn't read the answer fully? The authors are not limiting readability (I think you mean access, readability is a characteristic of writing style), the medium is, which is my central point. Yes, errata are conditional - so what? Yes, authors may need to withdraw if changes are significant. Both of these are not available on social media due to it's very nature.
@Googlebot - The journal does it's best to make readers notice the errata by linking it for future downloads or displaying it in a sidebar. No guarantee that it will be read, that's true. But it's still a measure that's missing on a video-sharing platform. If in some reports academics do not have this privilege (I'm yet to come across one such), then those are exceptions again.
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31799 | Is it academic misconduct to post assignment solutions on public websites?
I belong to Computer Science background, and most of my assignments are programming based. I usually use Github(private repos) to maintain assignments during the semester. Since I only have limited private repos, I usually make the code public once the semester is over. In a few subjects, the assignments remain same over semesters but usually the instructor use tools to check for plagiarism from previous submitted assignments for the new submissions.
Seeing this question, Are there universities that consider it academic misconduct for students to publish material created by faculty?. I became curious that whether posting solutions to assignments of courses comes under academic misconduct or dishonesty ?
Even if it does not the breach the letter of the rules (which might vary between universities), it is wise to ask your instructors.
possible duplicate of Are there universities that consider it academic misconduct for students to publish material created by faculty?
@BobBrown the programming assignment questions are from faculty or some online resource, but the solutions are entirely of my own.
@krammer: Then, if a faculty member should re-use an exercise, as you say happens, your having posted the solution would give others an unfair advantage and would be academic misconduct.
@BobBrown Disagree. See my answer below.
@krammer: So, if you posted the bare solutions, you haven't violated anyone's copyright. If, OTOH, you posted problems with solutions, then you've violated the copyright of the person who wrote the problems.
I became curious that whether posting solutions to assignments of courses comes under academic misconduct or dishonesty ?
Generally, I would say that putting material online is not academic misconduct or dishonest. What is important in the question that you have linked is that the "dishonest" part for the student is not that he wanted to take material from the web (this may or may not be against the rules, but it is by itself not dishonest), but that he intended to pretend that he solved the assignments independently. Strictly speaking, I see it not as your responsibility to make sure that students that later on take inspiration from (or outright copy) your solution declare that they did so.
Of course, from a practical point of view, your behaviour may still be somewhat unpopular with your professors, as it clearly opens up additional venues for cheating for the next batches of students. Personally, as a lecturer, I was never bothered, because I strongly believe that you always need to assume that the solutions to an assignment that you "recycle" from the previous year are "out there" in one way or another. However, I know that other lecturers feel differently, so if you want to piss nobody off, you should check with the professors beforehand. In any way you should make sure that you are not uploading material that you do not possess the copyright for (for instance, lecture material or assignment descriptions).
At least where I teach, aiding another in committing misconduct is itself misconduct.
+1 for "assume it's out there one way or another." I know of a case where the TA was handed in their own program, since it had accidentally ended up visible and indexed by Google. Needless to say, the cheater was instantly caught and faced disciplinary action.
@BobBrown By your rationale, anyone who puts any material online that might be of use to any student who isn't supposed to use online resources in completing an assignment, is committing misconduct.
@ff524: Incorrect. By my rationale, anyone who puts on line solutions to specific homework problems is committing academic misconduct.
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10611 | How do journals and conferences verify if the results in paper are genuine
Most of the conferences and journals doesn't ask for code to be submitted along with the paper. How common is it to detect fake or incomplete results in such conference/journal review ? In my field of study in Computer Science, sometimes overwhelming claims are made in some papers, but since the field is still growing, how do reviewers/editors determine the authenticity of the results ? Is it common to ask for code or working demo in such cases.
Peer review ...
possible duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7602/what-should-raise-red-flags-to-detect-fabricated-data/7609#7609
The linked question is very related. But it seems a little more specific than this one.
Since you're referring to computer science, I'll talk about conferences. Peer review, as Dave Clarke mentions, is primarily how papers are scrutinized. But conference reviews are often on a severe time constraint. So for an experimental paper, the reviewer looks at the main ideas, sees if the experiments are convincing and handle the cases that the reviewer thinks are important, and evaluates the overall work for "general excitement". But the reviewer has no ability to check if the work is correct.
In a theoretical paper, a reviewer might skim proofs, and see if the main claims pass a "smell test". If the result is important, or surprising, the reviewer might try to verify key claims in detail, and expect the authors to argue why their techniques should work. But even there, no formal proof checking happens (that happens in the journal review).
Ultimately, there are two (imperfect) safeguards against incorrect claims:
author reputation - you don't want to get a rap for writing faulty papers
reproducibility - I might reproduce your work, or ask for your code, when writing my papers.
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12208 | When to publish and what to include in a work in progress?
I have often seen conferences which invite papers on "work in progress" or "work with not too mature results" along with the original and exhaustive research. So, when is it apt to present your work in such conferences as work in progress in terms of the expected level of maturity, implementation progress and results ?
My field of research is Computer Science.
Presenting work in progress on conferences is a good way to elicit a first discussion of your (preliminary) research results, to establish yourself in a new topic, or to claim first ground in a "hot" research area. The important thing to me seems to be that you are able to present at least some results. Research concepts and plans often do not yield good conference papers.
There's a number of ways in which results can be regarded as premature, such that you would want to present them as "work in progress". I'll give some of them without claim of completeness:
In empirical research:
Small amount of data compared to the standard in your field.
Contradictory results which prevent firm conclusions.
Low amount of replicates or additional supportive data for your conclusions.
Experimental setups which may not capture or control for relevant factors in the system you're looking at.
In theoretical research:
Restrictive assumptions which make a theory applicable to only a fraction of the relevant problems.
Evaluation of a method with a smaller or more restricted test case than what would be done usually.
Mathematical results from numerical experiments without a clear proof.
Missing steps in an implementation such that only partial results could be obtained.
In many cases, it is a difficult decision, whether you should publish preliminary results (in case they are publishable in principle) or rather wait until you get more complete results. It depends on how fast you want to publish something on the topic, whether you can quickly get more complete results or not, and probably a range of other factors which I didn't think of now.
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123187 | How to have confidence in my research?
I'm a PhD student at a reputed institution and in my 4th year now. I'm researching in the domain of information security & privacy.
I've got a number of good conference publications (4 conferences) but not in top conferences.
I attempted for the top conference (S&P or ACM CCS - their workshops as well) but my papers got rejected.
I'm writing my dissertation now, however, I still have this unsatisfied feeling that my work is not really good, it may have been the imposter syndrome. I feel that my work doesn't look as good as other people's (PhD students) work who are working in the same domain. I've got a few questions maybe some experienced researchers who have gone through can answer.
How do you know your PhD work is strong work?
How to gain confidence in your PhD work?
How to know if the main idea of PhD work is a good one? (How to
get rid of this feeling?)
Thank you for your help! :)
Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/61194/how-can-a-new-phd-student-objectively-evaluate-how-well-they-are-doing?rq=1 https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/86124/how-do-i-know-how-well-i-am-progressing-in-my-phd?rq=1
Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2219/how-should-i-deal-with-discouragement-as-a-graduate-student https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11765/ive-somehow-convinced-everyone-that-im-actually-good-at-this-how-to-effect https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/87668/how-do-you-come-to-terms-with-the-fact-that-you-might-never-be-among-the-best-in
I agree to a large degree with the previous answers, to my take on this issue is not to disagree, but to complement them with a somewhat different perspective.
It's really good if someone gets a Nobel prize for a PhD thesis, but remember that the primary purpose of a doctoral work is to demonstrate that you have mastered the craft of being a researcher. In practice it means that you chose a certain problem, made a thorough and rigorous analysis of the state of the art, advanced it to a certain degree, formulated your results and discussed potential impact in an appropriate manner.
A PhD thesis is not only a research, it is also a qualification work that should earn you an official "resarcher" badge. Thus one of the best advices to a PhD student is to stay focused on an goal attainable within a limited and relatively short time of their PhD program (I can recommend reading an excellent book "A PhD Is Not Enough" that discusses this issue among other things) instead of tryng to reach for the moon.
If you want to continue working in academia, you'll always have a chance to do something else. In general, I understand this whole system of impact, H-indices, etc., etc., but honestly speaking I tend to focus on my own interests and passions. The reason is that there are "fashionable" and "not so fashionable" topics, the topics that are relevant to many people and to few people, etc. These matters are important, but they are very indirectly related to scientific value of a particular task. If you enjoy what you are doing, it's already quite an achievement.
How do you know your PhD work is strong work?
How to know if the main idea of PhD work is a good one?
It is strong work if it makes an impact. This could be in terms of highlighting new techniques that get widely adopted, by winning awards, by getting published or by setting up a startup and making millions. A lot of people define success in many different ways. How do you define it? If your metric is publishing in good venues - then I suppose that you can answer your own question.
Your ideas are as good as what you make of them, and as good as how others perceive them.
How to gain confidence in your PhD work?
You need to ask yourself why you're doing the PhD and have a realistic outlook. It is likely that without a good publication record you won't be able to land a strong academic position, but that's hardly the end of the world. There is massive demand out there for CS researchers in all sorts of positions.
What does your advisor say? Do they think your work is good and deserves publication in top venues, and it was just bad luck that plagued you? What do other figures of authority in the field think of your work?
As a general comment - you are getting the highest possible academic university qualification from a top school, in a highly competitive and popular field. And you feel inadequate? Say that last sentence out loud to yourself. You're anything but!
Good luck!
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111720 | Can a supervisor share the research reports of his/her PhD student?
In responses to the answers given to this question, I asked a question. From the answer to my question, I think the problem is rooted in different interpretations of the original question. Since I cannot speak for the OP, I simplify the case based on a logical interpretation (since my previous question has an answer, I cannot entirely change it, and ask a new question here).
Despite the controversial opinions, almost anyone considered the OP's strategy unreasonable or illegitimate.
Which of the following points is unreasonable or illegitimate?
The supervisor asks his/her PhD student to deliver a progress report every few months.
The supervisor instructs the PhD student to read his/her report in front of webcam instead of writing it on paper.
The supervisor shares the video reports of research projects undergoing in his/her group.
One may consider consent for the last step, but it is not the case, as the OP stated each PhD student initially agreed to the public release of the videos.
As I emphasised before I personally don't approve the OP's strategy, but don't understand what justifies such a strong attack to the OP.
My Understanding
Some people stressed that PhD students might not have the required skills. Since the OP did not mention video making, I interpret the task as "explaining their achievements" in front of the camera only.
Some said activities in the social networks is not the responsibility of the PhD students. Again, the OP said, "we have a youtube channel". Thus, I interpret, s/he edits and uploads the videos.
For what it's worth, I think at present and for nearly all fields of research your #2 would be a bad idea from a supervisory viewpoint, because you would not want to deprive your student of needed practice in being able to write technical prose well, something that will be needed later for writing papers, for writing grant proposals, for applying to jobs, for writing lecture notes, etc. And this also applies to various non-academic and non-research jobs, so it's hard for me to see the benefits for #2. But maybe it's OK for something like theater and performance studies, or 50 years from now?
@DaveLRenfro I agree with you as emphased that don't approve the OP's strategy but I don't understand why some consider it as illegitimate as asking a student to make coffee for his/her supervisor.
Yes, I've read all those answers and comments (even those moved to chat), so I think I understand your intention. Regarding your actual question, I'm not quite sure how I feel --- right now I think I'd want to know a lot more details about any such situation, because I can see myself somewhat supporting either side depending on the specifics involved --- but I did want to mention my gut reaction to #2 in case it's actually done somewhere.
@DaveLRenfro one point to add, #2 is not bad practice after all. Though written skill is of utmost importance, in my experience, PhD students more lack the skills for oral presentation. I have seen many well articulated dissertations with terrible presentations, but rarely the other way around.
After looking over various materials pertaining to FERPA (which was pointed at in the various questions/comments/answers), I'm having a hard time seeing how it would apply to work done by a student in the course of their research. The fact that the student is at the university would be considered 'directory information', which is not restricted by FERPA. The research work would not be considered an institutional record, so it would not be restricted by FERPA. But, I'm not a lawyer but am only reading the US Dept. of Education material on FERPA...
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169864 | How does Erasmus Programme work when the language of education is different?
How does an exchange student go to another country for a year when the language of education is different? Doesn't the exchange student attend any lecture or course during the visit?
Except for negligible exceptions, the language of education is the local language, and almost every country has a different language.
EDIT:
I feel the comments/answers are based on the large countries (e.g., many students can speak German or French). Consider small countries like Latvia, Estonia, etc. I doubt anyone learns those languages unless you already have a connection (e.g., a parent is from there, philology student). I think the purpose of exchange projects is to stay in/experience places you normally don't.
I doubt if basic language skills learned in school is sufficient for understanding a course/lecture.
If your choice is based on the language you speak, (formerly the UK), Ireland, (possibly The Netherlands) should be flooded with exchange students (or at least demands).
As a side note, I read somewhere (I will look for it), the popular destinations for Erasmus students are cities with beaches regardless of the country's language or the university's reputation. A popular destination country is Turkey.
I believe Erasmus is a cultural programme rather than an educational one. My question is how education quality assurance is managed/guaranteed.
Why would you even go on Erasmus if you don't speak the language? Those who don't will have a very difficult time.
@Roland if the UK was in high demand because of the language, Ireland should have received the excess demand after Brexit.
@Roland but I haven't heard Ireland has over-quota demand (i.e., waiting list).
Small countries are used to the fact that most people don't speak their language. Many addept by also offering courses in English. You yourself mentioned the Netherlands as an example of a country that should be "flooded" by exchange students (and it is). That is not because so many people know Dutch...
Now you have two very different questions. One on how students learn in a country that speaks a different language, and one on quality control. I would split this up in two questions.
the main impact of the erasmus is not that students learn something relevant for their diploma (although it is possible), but rather that they are exposed to a different culture within Europe.
"Except for negligible exceptions, the language of education is the local language"
that's just not true.
@fqq how many universities in Europe do you know that their taught courses are in English?
@Googlebot many that have at least some programs/courses taught in English. All the universities I attended/worked at (four in three different countries not including the English speaking ones) had at least some courses in English, and some of that was over 10 years ago (there's a trend to increase this).
e.g. the first university that came to my mind in one of the countries you mentioned (I don't know it personally) has many courses in English https://www.tlu.ee/en/exchange-courses
this website https://www.study.eu/ lists thousands of degrees taught in english all around europe
Universities using a lesser known language are far more prone to offer courses on English (or on another popular language, like German). They are also far lesser popular erasmus targets.
Why do you think humans can only communicate in one language? That seems like a very US-centric view of the world (and even in the US, knowing Spanish as well as English can be useful). FWIW I studied three different European languages as well as English in the UK equivalent of high school (and so did everyone else at that school who aspired to a university education).
Exchange students follow lectures in the receiving institution (apart from partying, which they of course also do). They do so by either:
knowing the language before going there (the number of bilingual and multilingual students has often surprised me)
Learn the language when they get there. The purpose of an exchange year is to immerse yourself in the new environment after all.
Limit themselves to courses taught in English. A lot of universities offer at least some of their courses in English.
Most exchange students will try to learn the local language. Whether it is enough to follow courses in that language is another question. But there are enough cases where that is certainly feasible: This is easier when the student already learned the language in secondary school, or when the language is similar to another language they already know. But some students are just very good at learning new languages (I can only envy them).
At least from a UK perspective: It is (was?) common for students to enrol on a course titled " with a year in ", which included some element of instruction in the foreign language in the years preceding the Erasmus year.
@avid that still exists
Some of the books, lecture notes, etc. may be in a different language than the lecture.
For what it's worth, here's my experience studying abroad:
Background
I'm French.
I was studying in France, in order to become an engineer.
I was able to speak English at an intermediate level.
I could not speak any other language.
Thanks to the T.I.M.E. network, I had the opportunity to get a double-degree from any partner university.
Studying in an English-speaking university would have been the easy choice.
I wanted to get the most value out of this experience, so I decided to study at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and learn Spanish there.
I had a few months to learn Spanish in France, but I'm really bad at learning languages in a classroom.
Abroad
I arrived in Madrid 2 weeks before starting my studies there, with a very basic vocabulary. I could count from uno to diez, and... that was about it.
I explicitly avoided hanging out with French students (not too easy in Spain), or with anyone speaking English decently (that was much easier, at least 15 years ago).
So basically, I tricked my brain into having to learn Spanish. I had to travel, find a flat, buy food, and get myself understood, all in Spanish. It was hard at first, but many people were really helpful and patient.
I spent as much time as possible with Spaniards, or people speaking Spanish well.
I had heavy, literal headaches at first, but they slowly disappeared after a month. I could then understand most of what people told me. To be fair, French & Spanish have many words in common.
After less than 2 months, I had no problem getting myself understood. Once again, I simply had no choice : lessons were all in Spanish, and I had 14 exams waiting for me at the end of the year.
After a year, I was basically fluent, and some people didn't notice I was a foreigner during a short conversation.
I studied with many Erasmus students : the difference is that they flew back right before the exams. They didn't have to pass anything, I had to pass all my exams or I would lose both my French & Spanish degrees.
Afterwards
With the same goal of tricking my brain into learning a language, I went to Berlin after my studies, and learned German there.
Many German people speak English well, and are prompt to switch to English. That's really nice of them, but I explicitly asked them to speak German to me, slowly.
I had the exact same headaches as in Spain, and they also disappeared after a month.
@DanielHatton literal headaches. My brain had basically no downtime during the day, and was always trying to process something. I was completely exhausted at the end of each day. That was completely worth it, though.
That sounds definitely plausible: when I was abroad I found it extremely tiring to have a prolonged conversation. It really surprised me; I never felt that tired from a purely mental activity before. I can easily imagine that somebody else would react to that with a headache.
@MaartenBuis: Yes, and Madrid and Berlin are cities full of life. It was really hard to find quiet places, without any Spanish or German to listen to, even inadvertently.
Erasmus students attend lectures and are evaluated like any other student at the host institution. Their home institution converts their grades, when they return, to the local grading scale.
For bachelor degrees institutions seem to mostly use the local language, but for masters degrees there are a lot of options in English. My school doesn't even allow Erasmus while doing your bachelors.
There are limits on how many students each institution receives. At my home institution, for instance, during the application period we're given a table with possible destinations and the amount of slots available for each degree.
For example, we could have 2 slots for computer science and 3 slots for mechanical engineering at Institution X, 2 slots for computer science at Institution Y, and 5 slots for aerospace engineering at Institution Z.
The home institution decides who goes where. If there are 2 slots for CS at Y and 10 students want to go there, they'll rank those students somehow and pick two for the available slots.
Why a student wants to go to a particular institution is going to depend on what that student wants: a university with good reputation, a city/country with beaches nearby and/or interesting places to visit, the availability of courses they like, maybe the opportunity to improve a second language they already speak, and of course money.
Money is important. For a cash-strapped student going to a cheap location (country where wages are low) might be the only option.
Courses for what I've seen you get some leeway when choosing. A CS master student might be allowed to take not only master-level courses but also bachelor-level courses (maybe they have machine learning at the bachelor level and you didn't at your home institution). This of course needs to be approved by both home and host institutions.
I've had colleagues taking courses because they found them interesting. And I've seen others take courses they thought were easier to pass thus giving themselves more free time for traveling.
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44569 | Where to find successful proposals of previous ERC calls?
I plan to apply for ERC ADVANCED GRANT 2015. Is there any place for finding previous winner proposals?
The templates are straightforward, but it is very useful to see what winners have written in their proposals, particularly in the Scientific Proposal (Part B2).
the problem is that winners normally do not wish to share their secret weapons.
Currently, most people don't share their research proposals, whether successful or unsuccessful in their bid for funding.
However, this may soon change in the near future as it has been noted that more transparency would be extremely beneficial for a variety of reasons [1,2].
That said, there's a nice list of publicly available grant proposals in the biological sciences here. None are specifically for the ERC ADVANCED GRANT 2015 though. Figshare is also a good place to check for public research proposals.
UPDATE - There is now also a dedicated website for openly available grant proposals: ogrants.org it is a Moore Foundation funded initiative. One of the grants listed at that site is a European Research Commission Starting Grant (Strategic Predictions for Quantum Field Theories by John Joseph M. Carrasco).
Further Reading
Mietchen D (2014) The Transformative Nature of Transparency in Research Funding. PLoS Biol 12(12): e1002027. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002027
Gurwitz D, Milanesi E, Koenig T (2014) Grant Application Review: The Case of Transparency. PLoS Biol 12(12): e1002010. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002010
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13286 | Who to address on the cover letter?
In the cover letter of an application to an academic job, should we write
Dear Search Committee Members,
or
Dear Professor A, Chair of the Search Committee Members,
or
Dear Professor A, Chair of the department
or what else?
In case we don't know who the chair of the Search Committee is, should we write the department to ask?
And remember to close with "Sincerely Yours" if you addressed a specific person, but with "Faithfully Yours" if you did not. Do people still seriously care?
What about Dear Sir/Madam or To whom it may concern?
I address all cover letters, letters of rec, etc. "Dear Committee Members:" Don't waste your time addressing it to an individual. The only thing you can achieve by doing that is embarrassing yourself and giving the search committee the chance to have a good laugh at your expense. If you do it correctly, it doesn't actually achieve anything; why give yourself one more thing to stress about?
The advertisement usually specifies to whom the application should be sent. In such cases, use the name that's listed in the advertisement. If no name is given, then I would vote for the first option, as it is the most inclusive.
If they don't have any name in the main part of the advertisement but have name in the further information, what should we do?
The further information is part of the announcement. You should probably go ahead and use that.
One catch though: sometimes the name in the advertisement is the name of a secretary who is responsible for filing the applications, but has no part in reading them. In that case, having your letter addressed to the secretary would look weird. It's not always easy to tell when this is the case, but one thing you can do is check the department's website and see if the person is listed as faculty or administrator.
Of course, the committee will be reading so many of these letters that it's doubtful they'll notice the salutation at all.
I was instructed to send my application to [email protected], without any specific name, so I addressed it to the professor I hope to be working with.
In my field I hardly if ever see a name. Nowadays you often have to upload your documents via an online submission system, without any name/addresses.
Following the advises published on How to write a killer cover letter for a postdoctoral application http://www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday/asbmbtoday_article.aspx?id=48927
you should adress your Cover letter to future Principal investigator (PI) of the project:
Start off right. Address your potential future PI properly, as “Dr. (insert surname here).” If you begin your letter with “Dear Sir/Madam” or “To Whom It May Concern,” your application could be dismissed as generic and untailored for the position. A letter that appears to come off an assembly line is likely to ride directly into the trash bin. If you do not invest the time to learn about the PI and his or her research, then the PI is not likely to invest the time to read your application.
In academia, we don't mind, unless it states "to who it may concern", then yeah you're in trouble. (please note the spelling)
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11698 | Showing research experience in graduate applications
As an undergraduate, I have heard this term a lot. I have not graduated but will graduate soon.
When applying to graduate programs, research experience is what everyone tells.
Research Experience is used rather recklessly. Many students, even if they had to just type in data for professors/researchers, check some test tubes in laboratory or whatever depending on discipline mention they had research experience.
Last year, I had an internship at a renowned research organisation. The only thing they do is research and development. As an intern, I did not specifically join saying, I wanted a "Research Experience". I were involved in their project which was a research project. My task consisted of API development, working with Matlab and various stuff important for the project.
Yet, I did not come up with something new. Well, they did.
So, this is far better than what many students mention as research experience. But, is it worth calling this a research experience in my CV or applications? Shall I call this reaserch?
Making the question specific, what does a "Standard Research Experience" consist of? When graduate schools say undergraduate research experience, what kind of activities are they expected to have been involved in?
You're expected to describe research experience. It sounds like you've had some. You should describe it in your application. Talk about what role you had, what sort of things you actually did ("various stuff important for the project" and "working with Matlab" aren't very good descriptions). What was your role? Did you make decisions or did you just assist? What sort of products did you produce and what skills did those products require? How did you solve problems you encountered?
The idea behind these application questions is to try to differentiate people with no experience from some minimal experience (cleaning instruments in a lab and feeding rats) to moderate experience (sounds like what you have) and people who engaged in truly independent research (which is pretty rare, depending on where you did your bachelor degree and in what field). Be honest and detailed, that's all that's expected. Of course people will play up what they did, but if you made substantive contributions that demonstrate your abilities and experience, that will show through in your write-up.
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102882 | Should I stress highlighted articles in my CV
Part of my research attracted some attention like:
Nature research highlights
Monthly DOE (Department of Energy, USA) highlights
Institute newsletter (Is also read by other labs)
Editors suggestions on paper (like PRL)
My question is should I mention those in my CV or publications list or not at all, since the former three are not written by me but only about my work and as such not my work to claim.
Background: I'm drafting my CV for a young investigator grant. My overall resume is solid but nothing that keeps you awake at night. Especially empty are the two sections: received grants and won scientific awards.
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71632 | Career path to professor with an engineering background in Germany
I am in the final year of my master in mechatronics engineering in Germany, and I want to work as a researcher or a professor in a university since i believe a professor/researcher has more freedom than an engineer within a company.
I don't have any experiences in the academic field, so I suppose I have to get some somehow.
What are good option to pursue as a career path in Germany to get a professor position at a university? Do I need to get a PhD? Is it better to become assistant professor on that path, or a research engineer?
Thank you
In which country do you leave ? What do you want to teach ? I am not sure of your definition of freedom...
i live in germany
Why are you saying a professor/researcher has more freedom than an engineer ?
It's just that in a company there is a more strict hiearchy, you don't get to work on the projects that you want, you are more bound to satisfy the clients need, while in research you do that for you own curiosity, it's like creating the new knowledge that will later have an application in engineering, please correct me if i am wrong.
you're not wrong. But thinking you would do everything you want as a researcher is false too. I agree that you're bound to satisfy the need of a client as an engineer, but you don't have to deal as much as a researcher with budget for example. Do you like to teach ? have you any experience in this domain ?
No,unfortunately I don’t have experience with teaching, but i am relatively young so i believe that I have enough time to learn
Ok so reword your question. You don't have any experience in the academics field right ? Before being a researcher, you must at least get some experience. The question here is not which path you should take. I will reword a bit, then put more infos. 2 sec ;)
Let us continue this discussion in chat.
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21223 | Is it advisable to attend a conference in Germany with talks by German presenters in English if you don't speak German?
There is an upcoming conference in Germany, all the talks will be in English, however all the listed participants are also German. Only speaking English I'm wondering if it would be inadvisable to go, as everyone will speak German during non-talk times?
Is this true or am I being too paranoid?
related: What to do when no one speaks English around you?
I suspect many attendees will speak neither German nor English as their first language, and that you will find English used by many as the "lingua franca" if the conference schedule is in English, as attendees will be a self-selected group with a reasonable grasp of the language, and will expect others to be so too. My experience of English-language conferences in Italy and Spain with speakers from many countries was that English was most common in the corridors.
When I was a student visiting various European departments, I always found it easier to hang out with other people not from the host country — for example, French students and postdocs in Germany, or German students and postdocs in France.
as Kate is pointing this out: listed participants = speakers?
Here are some claims that I think you will agree are true:
Anyone who attends a conference where all the talks are in English can understand spoken English reasonably well
You don't live in Germany and are considering attending. You are probably not the only person considering it
Anyone willing to give a technical presentation in English can probably both understand and produce spoken English reasonably well
I believe these add up to you being able to find people for "hallway conversations" in English pretty easily. You might have some lonely lunches if you find yourself at a table with people who all speak German and exclude you. I have this problem with people who all discuss (in English) something I don't understand at all and don't want to learn (eg how to install Exchange on a server.) I generally try to prevent this by striking up a conversation with a fellow attendee at the end of the session that is right before lunch, and suggesting we go to the lunch line together.
+1 for your first point. I think this sums it up entirely.
I would post an answer if I had anything to add to this (so +1). I can offer the anecdotal evidence that I am currently at a conference in Germany, and hallway conversation takes place in many languages, but most commonly English. Then again, in my case the set of attendees is international and most of them don't speak German.
Small hint from a German: Germans tend to fall back to their own language in spare time, not to exclude you, but because it is more efficient for them, and Germans just love efficiency, especially Scientists and Engineers. It is absolutely acceptable if you kindly remind them of the fact that you do not understand German. They will usually excuse for their switch of language and use English to include you.
I disagree with your third point. I have seen some bad presentations in "English".
I not only disagree with point 3, also in the question it's explicitly said that point 2 does not hold either.
@Zane listed participants are typically presenters. It's a rare conference that tells you everyone who is attending. The OP is considering attending. Surely some other nonGermans are too.
In my area (algebra) it's not at all uncommon for the conference website to list all attendees.
The points are mostly true, but I have seen enough evidence against (1) and (3). (Well, I've even been part of the evidence against (1)).
@TaraB: So, in your area, conferences have no last-minute registration that is possible on the morning when the conference begins, for people who spontaneously decide to attend?
@O.R.Mapper, I'm sure they do usually allow last-minute registration, but that's not particularly relevant to the original question, since people who register at the last minute are pretty likely to be locals anyway.
@TaraB: At least at my German university, there are plenty of foreign researchers who have been living here for several years and still do not speak any German.
@TwoThe - but how can it possibly be more efficient to speak German? As any UI designer knows a German sentence is between 10-20% longer as a rule than the English equivalent (at least as written words). That's not just more letters - it's also more syllables....therefore it must surely take more time to speak .... German scientists and engineers would surely appreciate those undeniable metrics when considering efficiency ...
Don't worry, Germans are usually polite. Being polite is to include all people in a conversation. So if the common language of a group is English, they'll switch to English to accommodate you. Furthermore, Germans attending the conference will expect to have attendants not speaking German and that conversations in the hallways will be in English too.
"Germans attending the conference will expect to have attendants not speaking German" - this. If they truly expected everyone attending to speak German, the conference talks would be given in German, as well. In my estimation, Germans are often eager to speak English (for example, readily switching to English when a single person present does not speak German), but not so exaggeratedly that a whole conference would be held in English if 100% of the audience were known to understand German.
There are some herd effects, and in my limited experience (we) Germans tend to switch when talking with each other, even though non-German-speakers are near (maybe more readily than other folks, I don't know). It is always appropriate to ask nicely if they can switch to English, though, and some may even expect you to speak up! (Who knows whether you understand and are just shy? Isn't it rude to assume no German ability just because a person looks foreign? ...)
@Raphael: the assumption that English will work for "foreign-looking people" is not a given. I cannot really distinguish French-speaking and English-speaking people with African origin by their looks. So the first bet outside of particular contexts like a conference is German, with an offer to switch if that does not work. At a conference, it is usually embarrassingly easy to pinpoint Germans from other Western Europeans. It think it's almost harder to tell them from Eastern Europeans.
I assume that the conference attendees will be at a higher educational level,
which probably means they can not only listen to talks in English, but probably are also able to communicate in English.
So yes, I thank it's safe to go to the conference and you will be able to talk to people in English with no big problem.
I guess from your reservations that you are aware that it is not always easy to get along with English in Germany. Don't expect sales agents or bus/taxi drivers to talk English. And even if people speak English, they might not be very fluent.
And I must admit that all other participants being German is strange - whatever reason there is that talks are in English, it is surprising that participants do not come from outside Germany. I'd propose to call the organizers just to make sure that talks are in English.
I don't think you're paranoid here. E.g. Universities will have lectures announced in English, but hold them in German (as long as nobody objects).
And if there are so many German speaking people, groups often will talk in German. Then you shouldn't be shy - just throw in a remark and make clear you only speak English. I'm pretty sure they will switch language then.
Note: I'm saying this as a German living in Germany, with some experience with conferences at different national levels, sometimes visiting conferences where most participants are locals not speaking German. In the last case, it's really important to not be too shy - when you try to join a discussion, make clear you do not understand what they say as soon as you get the chance - maybe a simple "hello, how are you" is already enough to achieve awareness.
I guess you will get to know some nice colleagues.
I am a Brit living in Germany. In Germany it is usual for educated people to speak quite good English. Depending on your subject, most of the books will be in English anyway.
Some people from the East of Germany (what used to be the "new" Bundesländer) may have learned Russian as a first foreign language instead, but if they can't speak English they probably won't turn up anyway?
@RedSonja: good to hear this - however, in Germany a lot of things are quite dependent on education level. Nice nick though.
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5177 | How to organize a Joint Collaboration Plan and Fees
With today's technology it is very easy to collaborate with people around the world (I totally recommend Vyew for that). When you collaborate with people from different countries, are there any rules for who pays the bills? The expenses could be conference fees, attendance fees, journal fees, etc. For collaborations we use Hardy-Littlewood, but is there any such kind of rules for paying the bills? Or is it just a previous agreement or consensus between your coauthors? How do you normally approach the subject to your fellow coauthors?
It depends on the agreement reached with collaborators. Obviously. Did you expect there's a universal rule set in stone (“thou who hath the beard longest shallt pay the bill”)?
Because I don't think there is much of an answer possible other than the obvious one (see above), I suggest to close this question.
I think the better question here to ask is: how does one pay for joint collaborations?
This has never been a concern for me, since I've never had any fees associated with publishing a paper. Specifically, I've never published in any journal that required me to pay to publish. If a coauthor wants to speak on the paper at a conference, then he/she pays for any related conference fees, or possibly uses grant money from an adviser. (For reference, I work in pure math, where conference proceedings don't typically "count" like a journal publication.)
I think is an interesting question if rephrased onto something like "How to organize a Joint Collaboration Plan and Fees"
This question could be edited to be more constructive, as suggested by Leon and aeismail.
Thank you very much for your feedback. I will rewrite the question according to your suggestions. The comment by DanC sounds very interesting to me since I'm in theoretical computer science and the "scientific culture" in TCS is mostly inherited from pure math.
In Big Science (tm) such as particle physics there is a huge body of (often contradictory) theory and practice. Each major collaboration has it's own formal document (often called a "memorandum of understanding" or some other unpresupposing name) laying out the rules that was settled by give and take amongst the original collaborators (perhaps with some input from the funding agencies). But it is too much to write in one post and this rapidly becomes a make-a-list question in which we each relay the stuff that worked for us.
What do you mean by "For collaborations we use Hardy-Littlewood"?
In theoretical computer science (which I work in), the most direct answer is "What bills?"
For remote/electronic collaboration, there really are no significant costs. Each collaborator uses their own computer equipment and their own internet access. They install LaTeX and Skype and svn themselves. They typeset and illustrate their own papers. They each buy their own espresso at their own favorite coffee house. There are no fees associated with submitting or publishing papers.
On the other hand, if you actually want to travel, either to give a conference talk or to work in the same physical location as someone else, there are real costs. For conferences, usually each person (or their grant, or their advisor, or their department) pays for their own travel, lodging, and registration fees. For collaborative travel, every trip is different, but some common protocols include:
The visitor (or their advisor/grant/department) pays all costs for their visit.
The visitor (or their advisor/grant/department) pays for travel, and the host (or their advisor/grant/department) pays for lodging.
The host (or their advisor/grant/department) pays all costs for the visit.
I have used all four of these arrangements (and various ad hoc mixtures), as visitor, as visitor's advisor, and as host. For some visits, I've had small joint grants specifically for collaborative travel; in others, I've used travel money from a larger grant; in others, I've paid (either for myself or for my guest) out of my own pocket.
In short, F'X is exactly right: It depends. Obviously.
Hi JeffE, thanks for your answer. I find your answer very illustrative and that's the kind of answer I was hoping for. I should have asked, "what's your experience in sharing cost for joint collaborations?" or something along the lines. But since asking for someone's experience could be rather subjective, I've tried to write my question objectively.
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59171 | What is the point of ScienceWISE annotation on arXiv?
This is an example of a semantically tagged paper: Distributed Joint Source and Channel Coding with Low-Density Parity-Check Codes. On arXiv, it looks like this:
In the PDF (with Chrome as PDF viewer), it looks like this:
What is the point of this? Why should I, as an author, add this to any publication?
Shouldn't I, if I want a link to Wikipedia, just add it by myself without the usertracking (respecting the privacy of the reader) to my article? And shouldn't I be able to find content of much higher quality and explicitly name it in my paper if it is necessary or otherwise, if it is not necessary because it is quite basic knowledge in the domain I write about just assume that the reader will know what I mean / know the textbooks where he /she can look up the definitions?
See also
https://arxiv.org/help/sciencewise
Could the person who downvoted the question please add an explanation?
I didn't downvote it, but I'd guess the issue is that this looks like a rhetorical question. (Specifically like you are more interested in criticizing ScienceWISE than learning about it.) I can sympathize, since I think ScienceWISE looks ridiculous myself. Some of the tags in the paper you linked to fail to meet even minimal standards (for example, there are irrelevant/misleading definitions for "intensively" and "mass function"), and none of them seems remotely useful to me. However, rhetorical questions often get a poor reception, since they aren't really intended to be answered.
@AnonymousMathematician I doubt that ScienceWISE is worth using, right. However, obviously there is at least one paper which uses it. I've asked this questions because I can see the downsides, but no upside. If this looks as if I only wanted to criticize it, I'm sorry. (It might be a language problem, as English is not my mother tongue. In English, I tend to express myself simpler than I would do in German.) How could I phrase the question differently to get people write the advantage(s) of ScienceWISE?
From ScienceWISE FAQ:
Why do you need all this if there is Wikipedia?
The main difference of our Ontology from most existing online resources is in a possibility to have several single-authored definitions of the same concept. Unlike Wikipedia, ScienceWISE provides a mechanism for scientific community ranking (by linking against the best definitions) and provides a peer-run quality assurance system.
You may have read that already, but unless you explain what is not clear your question is either impossible to further answer or a disguised criticism.
To cite my question: "Shouldn't I, if I want a link to Wikipedia, just add it by myself without the usertracking (respecting the privacy of the reader) to my article?"
That does not say what in the citation you think unclear or beside the point. ScienceWISE explicitly say what they add to wikipedia ("a mechanism for scientific community ranking" and "a peer-run quality assurance system"), you have to explain better why this does not answer your question, at least I don't get it.
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203478 | How should we point out a software error in a paper?
We are conducting a simulation study to compare various clustering methods. However, the implementation of one of the methods used in the study (Mclust) occasionally produces empty clusters, which is not allowed in our study. We only use R in the study. Unfortunately, reimplementing the methods is not a feasible option. However, we don't want to exclude this method from the study.
How should we mention that "we know it occasionally does not work the way we want, but we still want to include it in this section"?
Just a friendly piece of unsolicited advice, but I'd recommend being very sure that the "software error" is not just "user error".
This doesn't sound like an error so much as you using the software in an unexpected way.
It looks like this may be a known issue, and (if I have understood correctly) is related to the fact that Mclust does not produce clusters in a deterministic way: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64323572/clustering-with-mclust-results-in-an-empty-cluster. If that interpretation is right, then I think it's valid to explain why this issue arises (non-deterministic clustering) and the method you chose to deal with it (only keep realizations where all clusters are non empty).
Incidentally, if my above comment is the correct explanation for your issue, then your issue is not a software error but rather a subtlety in interpreting the results of the method, which would be present in any correct implementation.
Ideal solution: you report the bug (you say it's a software error and not intended behavior) to the developer, they fix it promptly, and you obtain your results with the new version.
If this doesn't work out, you can mention the exclusion criteria for the cases you don't use in your analysis as is detailed in EarlGrey's answer. In principle, this is no different than other methodological limitations of your study: reviewers may find it acceptable or objectionable, or help you mitigate the limitation. Regardless, it needs to be disclosed. If possible, estimate the potential impact on your conclusions.
Are you comparing the methods or the implementations of methods? Do not mix them.
If the method behind "Mclust" is what you want, then the implementation is "Z". Use it only when its results match the assumptions of your study (i.e. only when it does not produce empty clusters).
In the text, you should describe the limitation of the implementation (i.e. "Z results are used only for the cases that ...".).
If you cannot find another implementation of the same method, maybe you are lucky and during peer-review you may receive the revision "use "ZY", it works for the cases of Z and also the cases with empy clusters".
Thanks for your suggestion. I edited the post.
People often append modifications to the name to make it clear. If the original method is "Foo" you call it "Foo-NoEmpty".
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114143 | How should an advisor handle an underperforming PhD student?
I'm a junior faculty in academia and I was asked to take a PhD student several months ago.
I was not involved in the hiring process, hence I did not have a chance to evaluate his abilities before joining the program. Indeed, this was the student of someone senior (full professor), but he was transferred to me because the senior person was too busy.
The student is in his first year, and I know he has a lot to learn. However, in these few months the student has not been able to make any progress. I am always the one who needs to keep emailing him and asking him what is happening with X or Y. I have to ask him to come for meetings and sometimes he doesn't show up.
During data collection, he was not even able to put together two columns in Excel. Since then I realized that he does not have the abilities, curiosity, and self-learning capabilities for a PhD. I talked about this with the senior person and told him that I was very concerned that the student will not be able to make it as he is not even capable of managing two columns of data. The senior person suggested me to lightly advice and see if the student could perform. Meanwhile, I hired someone to help with the data (with my own grant), which can be used for other projects if this one doesn't come to fruition.
I asked the student to do a literature review and after literally following him for two months, he submitted something and it is the worst literature review that I have ever seen (I have also worked with undergrads as RAs and they have done far better jobs for data management and literature reviews). I have sent the student several examples, commented on his review, revised it, but still the outcome is horrible.
I asked him to write the theory and he just copied verbatim from other papers. At this point, I don't know what to do. The senior person is pissed off that the student is not making progress, but the student is just not capable and I had discussed that with the senior person before.
Now the question is what to do? I don't want to write the paper for him and take him for a free ride. I don't believe on gifting papers, specially to someone incapable. What I am afraid of are the "political" consequences. There are not many PhD students around here and just because of that they may want to keep him. I am a junior and have several other projects to work on and this student is just draining my time with terrible outputs. How should I deal with the issue?
Update
I appreciate the kind advice of everyone. I had a lengthy talk with the student, he admitted that his work is not up to the standard and that he is not putting in enough effort. He is literally taking this time as vacation by enjoying his days beside the pool (we do have a nice pool in campus btw). He just graduated from an undergraduate degree and doesn't know how to function in the adult world, or so to say. His parents always did everything for him and he has never had the need to make any effort to "earn" anything (the student said this himself; I am not making any assumptions, putting my bias, etc. just giving some background information.).
I implemented several actions to make him report his progress daily and we are meeting twice a week. We are getting connected in an online working platform and he can let me know about any issues immediately. I gave him all the materials I used myself during my PhD, which I had to self-learn and I expect him to do the same. He had taken all the basic courses (including how to write theory and do literature reviews) that our school offers, so it is not like he was "left" alone.
I also told him that he needs to fulfill our work plan with the deadlines that we established together. If he is not willing to put the hours to make it happen he has either to look for a new advisor or drop the program. I was just very honest with him.
As a side note, the student and I do not have any issues or wrong perceptions and I am not denying my responsibility. Some have also assumed that I am not willing to put in the time, which is not true. I am putting more time in than other faculty does with other students. As I mentioned in my original post, I am constantly reviewing his work, meeting with him, giving him feedback and materials.
This is just the most I could do for him. Unfortunately, I am not in a good position to devote my entire time to him. I also have to fulfill my own tenure requirements, maybe if I had tenure and more stable job conditions, I could sit with him and teach him how to use the most basic, even Word and Excel (which he is not proficient with).
I hope this works. If you have any other suggestions on how to improve the situation, feel free to post them.
Have you told the student he needs to improve? Does he understand he is on “probation,” so to speak?
@Dawn, I have been telling him that since the last six months. Sometimes it is not an issue of motivation, but of capability. That's more difficult to fix.
Clear, documented expectations and progress reviews (also documented), together with clear consequences of not being able/willing to deliver.
I don't have time to write a full answer (busy looking after PhD students and associated departmental paperwork) but I would just like to say that my own take is more sympathetic to your difficulties than some of the remarks in the answers below, and I disagree strongly with the opinion voiced below that "[dropping the student] is as much your fault as theirs and that you will strive to do better with future students"
Is this student taking classes? (Many PhD programs start out with a year or two of classes before students jump into research in a big way, which might affect both their knowledge & skill base and how much time they have available.)
It is not reasonable to expect the OP to derail their career (which is what happens if too much time is spend on no-result/“service” work) or act unethically to help a student who is not putting in the needed effort. I would like an answer to focus on how the OP can counsel the student to a new mentor or out of the program.
You may want to ask after the mental well being of the student. Many students get depression during their PhD studies, particularly after events like changing advisers. I went through it myself and I began to believe I was a terrible student and then lived up to my low expectations. Once I got myself mentally in order, I ended up having a very successful PhD.
I want to stress @Barker's comment. I have seen similar behaviour in people with anxiety and depression, and proper counselling can greatly improve the situation. Do check if your university provides any mental health help. And on the legal side, nor giving them help may open you up for liabilities, if it turns out they have health problems.
For what it is worth, I think your resolution of the problem is entirely appropriate.
I second @Buffy's support and would just like to reiterate my earlier comment - I think some of the answers below, while well-intentioned, jumped to conclusions based on their own experiences as PhD students/postdocs, and hence some of the criticisms/suggestions might not apply. That said, it would obviously be best for all concerned if the student is able to turn things around
I want to reiterate my comment about the student's mental health. Some of the things he is saying (like he is not putting in enough effort, he is treating this like a vacation) sound like impostor syndrome.
Could you comment more on the field? Are there no some research training programmes for young postgraduates where that person could learn that a) MS Excel is not a tool for scientific data analysis or research data management? IMHO, the majority of postgraduate programmes that have some analytical components offer people the opportunity to gain some basic insight into principles of data management
I was considering myself unfit for PhD selection. Thanks for this post - given me some hope.
Thanks for the update. That seems like a very responsible and hopefully productive approach.
Some people who start are simply unfit for PhD studies. But for various reasons they end up getting a degree. For example we don't want to admit lack of judgement for taking him on, it will look bad for the department, it will be worse for the professor for every drop out et.c. But it severely washes out the value of the degree every time it happens that unfit students get the degree. The skilled people who see the unsuited people passing and then they should work hard for getting that same diploma. What's the point?
Let's go with the assumption that this student is genuinely unsuited for a PhD. Such people do exist, they do get into graduate programs, and it is not doing them, their advisor, or the field any favors to string them along and waste their time. What should the advisor do with them?
There are two critical things: Communicate, and document.
Communicate with the department chair, with the dean, with the head of the graduate program, and anyone else who is involved with administration. Explain that you are concerned about this student's progress and potential, assure them that you are going to treat the student fairly, and ask them to help you set up a program to monitor the student's progress. Keep communicating with these people during this program. Prepare and send regular updates (at least quarterly, probably more).
Document the student's progress. To do this, you'll need to communicate with the student. Set clear, objective, unambiguous targets. These targets should be achievable by a PhD student without stress or difficulty; they are not stretch goals, they are the minimum that a PhD student should be able to perform. Set multiple goals, a realistic time apart, so that over a period of say a year a minimally competent student would be able to hit each goal on schedule.
Communicate these goals with your chair, grad student advisor, etc, and make sure everyone is on board. Communicate with the student. Explain to the student (ideally in the presence of the grad student coordinator, the departmental chair, the dean, etc) that he or she must hit each of these goals or they will be removed from the PhD program. This goes in writing, signed by you and the student and probably some or all administrators, and you store the document where you can refer to it repeatedly.
Each goal has a target date. Document whether the student did or did not achieve that goal. It will be a temptation to say that the student almost made it, or to decide that the goal was too hard and move the goalposts down. Don't do this. You set these goals so they're the minimum a PhD student should do; if the student doesn't completely achieve each goal, they are not a minimally acceptable PhD student.
If they don't reach every one of the goals, then it's up to the administration. The traditional solution at this point is to offer the student the choice of "Mastering out" (taking a MSc instead of a PhD and moving on), dropping out, or finding another advisor; the latter usually comes with warnings that they are on thin ice if they do.
Is this a lot of work? It sure is, and it should be; this is a major life decision for everyone concerned, and it shouldn't be the easy way out. But there are times when the best way forward for a student is to get out of a program, and there are ways to help them to that conclusion.
I think this is very good specific advice on how to move forwards (rather than taking the OP to task for their assessment/opinion of the student)
Isnt this hard way? I agree with you iayort, but this process you describe will take a lot of time
@SSimon: As stated in the last paragraph, Is this a lot of work? It sure is, and it should be; this is a major life decision for everyone concerned, and it shouldn't be the easy way out.
@tonysdg but this decision can impact his tenure
@SSimon: Not to be rude, but what makes you think dropping a student quickly (without the methodical approach described in the answer) will look better to the tenure committee? This is about as close to a no-win-scenario as you can get, so the best answer is to do everything by-the-book and minimize your losses.
@tonysdg I agree with you, but committee or PhD program head should do that, Bourden should be on them not on the junior scientist or academic that is on the beginning of the career
This is a so-called Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) and is usually used to reduce the fallout for the superior before the employee is terminated. Although it's goals are theoretically to help the employee demonstrate their worth, in practice it's usually an umbrella to document excessively and to include a number of senior people so that nobody can claim that the termination was the whim of the direct superior. Being as it is, I would consider this the nuclear option. First, I doubt OP is experienced enough to set "clear, objective, unambiguous targets" for the student. (1/2)
Second, the student, even if they fulfill all the challenges in a timely manner, would be labelled as "problematic" as the administration and other faculty, students, etc. would become aware that their adviser and imminent superior staff are working to keep them in the program. A grad student is still a student. My opinion is that less radical options have to be explored first which do include the adviser's experience and competence. Of course, if it proves too much for the student, they should be expelled, but I doubt that a PIP is necessary in an academic setting. (2/2)
@user3209815 this should be added to answer!
if it proves too much for the student, they should be expelled According to the question, it has already proved too much for the student. You want to answer a different question based on the assumption that the actual question is wrong. It seems that your answer to the actual question is "they should be expelled". That seems extremely harsh. "Expelling" (in North America anyway) is for serious academic crimes - plagiarism, theft, etc. You're arguing that a PIP is too hard on a student, but expulsion is acceptable. I don't agree.
@iayork I think you misunderstood. Of course is expulsion a serious thing, even if you want to make a difference between being forced to drop out or actually expelled. And it is acceptable only as the final resort. But my point about the PIP is that it either leads to expulsion or to a severely damaged career, especially for borderline students. I argue that a student-mentor relationship is primarily an informal one, with clearly defined responsibilities and mutual understanding on both sides. If formal or legal ways are needed for the two to communicate, they probably should go separate ways.
I will share my perspective. To give a little background, I went from being the doctoral student you described above to being a postdoc with a strong publication rate at a prestigious university. I suppose my major professor was feeling very much the way you are. I know this because I was put on probation after my first year in my phd program. Suffice to say, though, I was completely unprepared to conduct research at a PhD level, even for a first year.
I was put under a junior faculty member to RA by my major professor during my first year and its interesting that what you refer to are the same problems I had. I even produced a terrible literature review as well! I imagine I was more of a hindrance than a help. My second semester was spent doing clerical/inventory work out of the way of the rest of the lab. My major professor and the junior faculty member told me that I was unfit for PhD.
So what changed for me?
I had a senior faculty member take interest in me and take me under his wing. He was closer to retirement and I imagine had more time for mentoring. He was patient with me, took time to talk with me, and took an active interest in me. Slowly and surely I started to turn things around and ended up graduating with a strong publication record that included multiple first authored journal articles and numerous conference proceedings.
In my reflection on my phd career I realize that my core issue was facing the reality of my unpreparedness and then emotionally retreating. This created a spiral of negativity that only kept making things worse and worse. I performed a task poorly, then was chastised, then my motivation declined, then I performed a task even more poorly, then was further chastised, then my motivation declined even further, etc, etc, etc.
For me, the best thing that happened was for my supervisor and the junior faculty member to let another faculty member mentor me. I realize that the relationship I had with the junior faculty member was likely poisoned as she perceived the issues relating to my work as character deficiencies and general inadequacy of abilities.
It seems that you are in this place with your graduate student. You view their performance due to character deficiencies (laziness) and inadequate abilities. It is likely that this will color your perception of any positive progress that the student might make.
If you feel that you can not make a clean start with the student, then perhaps letting someone else mentor them might be best. It was for me.
I will strongly caution you though in making judgments about their character, potential, and abilities. The core issue might be the relationship between you and the student rather than some inherent problem with the student.
unfortunately, this is true, and there is also scientific evidence that confirms this answer. Thank you JWH2006 for writing this.
You are welcome, I hope that my perspective might give the OP a little insight to a possible explanation for their situation. My personal guess is that the issue is the relationship between the OP and their student. This relationship is likely a negative influence on the patience/understanding of the OP and motivation of the student. But, again, i am probably very biased in this regard.
actually OP stated in a comment below that this is the fault of Program, they hire student bcs there was lack of one. Now he needs to deal with him, I hope he can understand-
Very good answer; shows how much difference better mentoring can make.
First, I think you were abused if you were forced to take on a student other than by mutual agreement. I feel bad for your situation. But you gave some level of buy in to it, even if under duress. This gives you responsibilities to the student that are no different than if your relationship had been more traditionally arranged. He is a person, not an artifact.
I think your responsibilities are clear. You must teach him what he needs to know. No professor can ever expect that a student is so well trained/educated in the past that nothing is expected of themselves and that all will be well. If that were true there would be no need for you in the first place.
Teach him how to do data collection. Teach him how to do a lit review. Don't complain about him or compare him to others. He isn't them. His background is different. If it is deficient that isn't your fault, of course, but someone has failed him and you have taken on the responsibility to mentor him.
If you are incapable of that then you need to find a way to sever the relationship in an equitable way. I don't know if that is possible here.
Note that this isn't a rant. I've been in similar situations with unprepared and (seemingly) unmotivated students. It was a royal pain but through a lot of work and coaching, the students I have in mind ended up at the very top of their class. But my office hours were always occupied by these students. At first they don't understand anything and require constant repetition. By the end, they are explaining things to me - correctly, it turns out. Easy? NO. Required. Well, that is the job description of a professor, really.
I'm sorry for your situation, but you need to either fulfill the responsibilities or find a way out. Letting the student naturally fail shouldn't be one of the options.
I include this addendum due to new information from the OP. While I still believe that the solution I stated above is the correct one (teach the student what he needs to know), there are ethical issues for the University itself as well as for its faculty. In fact, my view is that "the University" IS "the faculty".
It is not unethical for a university to accept unprepared students. It may be commendable, in fact. However if it also puts its head in the sand and refuses to see what it is doing and account for it then it is acting unethically. However, if it also wants to organize itself so that such unprepared students are given the specific help they need to be successful, then I congratulate them. Otherwise, however, they are acting unethically.
In the particular case, it seems that the student was admitted with no compensating help. Everything was simply thrown on the student. Sink or Swim, not my problem. Of course, such a student can't do a literature search effectively the first time. Neither can they swim two laps the first time they are pushed into the pool.
However, it isn't completely the responsibility (or shouldn't be) of the OP, here. I think it is equally unethical for a university (and especially a full professor) to push problematic/marginal students off on junior (read inexperienced) faculty. Such faculty typically don't know how to effectively handle such cases since they are, themselves in the pool for the first time.
So, either the university need to uphold stated standards or must find a way to equitably compensate when they don't. And it needs to be equitable for all concerned, both students and (junior) faculty.
But, to be doubly clear, the university and its faculty doesn't owe the candidate a degree. But it does, IMO, owe him all the support he needs. And that doesn't include lowering standards of performance or writing their papers for them. Support and encouragement.
As to advice to the OP, if at all possible, I hope you are looking for a better situation, in which you can more fairly do your own job and work more gradually into the advising game.
The discussion about the student’s suitability and who is to blame has been has been moved to chat. Please read this FAQ before posting any new comments.
In my academic department all faculty who advise graduate students meet once a year and discuss, in detail, each student in turn. It is a gruelling meeting, but it's incredibly useful. In your career you may only have a handful of graduate students, but the department as a whole has had many more, and has probably seen your problems before. They also may interact with your student (in classes, at talks, etc.) and may have information you do not. For example, a student who just isn't performing in your lab is a different situation than one who is also struggling in classes, unable to give talks, etc.
I don't know how to make a department do this if it has not been happening, as it's quite an uncomfortable process. Maybe you could start by asking for a meeting with senior people in your department, if they are any you trust. Be sure to respect your institutional rules on confidentiality.
I will close by saying that I was this grad student myself. My advisor said very pointedly to me late in my second year "You aren't getting anything done; are you in the wrong place?" I blurted out, "My project isn't working and I have no faith it will ever work, for technical reasons X and Y." She responded, "It's good that you know this; now, what are you going to do about it?"
By being pushy in this way, she got me to admit to myself that the project was a failure, and got me moving on finding a new project. I might have sat there for years doing nothing, otherwise.
I have also been the labmate of a struggling student whose advisor just let him skate along. He skated for ten years, doing nothing for the last four (we didn't even see him) and then was informed that the University would discharge him without a degree, at which point he rallied and finished it. I am fairly sure this was a mental health issue, and I have come to feel we did the student no favors by letting him skate for so long; a confrontation would have been better. Ten years is a big chunk of a person's life.
I'm just an undergrad myself, but I felt compelled to give my two cents. It seems to me that this student is severely lacking in some foundational skills and courses. Can you not recommend remedial classes? Tell him what your expectations are for deadlines and quality on his work, and that if they aren't met, you expect him to enroll in undergraduate courses to get up to speed. While looking at grad schools I often saw programs that stated students with insufficient background in the subject matter would be required to make up undergraduate courses. It seems reasonable for you to expect the same. Also make it clear that it is incredibly unprofessional for him to make you chase after him for updates-- that's ridiculous. That's unacceptable for a 17-year-old where I come from, much less an adult. Set up a schedule for his progress and checking-in, and if he fails to keep it, have consequences ready. As someone who often struggles with executive functioning-related tasks like these, I sympathize with him. But, if the quality of his work is so low, I don't see how he will be an asset to the department longterm unless it improves.
If you want to continue helping the student (or are going to help students in the future), I would stress the importance of communication with the student. Being merely a student myself, I always appreciate it if teachers (at any level) take the time to explain or discuss what they expect.
In your case, you mention that the literature study took 2 months and didn't meet your expectations. I don't know how regularly you were in contact with the student, but I believe that if you maintained proper communication this wouldn't have gone on for so long. The reason for that is that you and your student need to know what you want from each other.
At the start of the literature review, you should have a meeting with the student in which you make clear your expectations (try being as specific as possible) and tell them that you are open to communication (this should take no more than 30 minutes, I think). That means that if the student thinks they have a problem or are unsure about something then they contact you. You can even tell them that you rather have a request you have to reject ('you have to figure that out yourself') than to have no communication for (a) week(s) and then finding out the work isn't good enough. This also makes the student feel at ease, they know they aren't in it alone.
Then, in the same meeting, you discuss with the student if they think they can meet those expectations. Ask them how they are going to approach this. Ask them what they think might be problems they will come across and discuss those to give the student some ideas (and boost their confidence).
At the end of the meeting you stress that they can contact you if they have questions or if they think they are going to (have to) diverge from the approach discussed in that meeting. Tell them that you have time (I'm assuming you have) to meet in person to discuss new problems or if approaches don't work.
If you really want to push them to do work ('following him' as you say), tell them to send (by email or in person) a weekly progress update. Tell them to be brief (this should take them at most 15 minutes per week), but informative. You expect to be kept in the loop, make sure the student knows that and that it's their task to do so. That way, reaching out becomes their task, not yours.
By implementing this, you don't give the student any unfair advantage, however, you encourage them to make the most of the project. Now, as one mentor said to his pupil: now, the ball is in your court. ;)
There is a rather fine line that divides what students are expected to know before entering a program and what they are expected to learn. That is relevant at any educational level really, not only exclusive to grad school.
@Buffy's answer focuses on your own competence / willingness to shape your student into a PhD candidate. There is another line there. Sure, you could drop this student and wait for another, then, if he doesn't perform either, drop him too. At some point you will run out of students, and/or the job, as there simply aren't enough high level people out there. On the other hand, you could also invest a tremendous amount of time in a student's career until they realize that that isn't their career of choice and quit. You have again lost a student, admittedly through no fault of your own, but at a cost of your career. As a professor, you are expected to be able to assess whether a student is cut out for the challenge or not.
This is not something that can be initially done at an interview, as it seems you are worried about the student being "forced on you". It is bad practice, but for other reasons. Most of the time, it takes time to get to know the student, their work dynamic, capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. Some students take a longer time to start producing results.
On the other hand you need to pay your part of the bill. As the question reads, I'm getting the feeling that you are not willing to put in the time to actually see whether the student makes any progress. It is their first year, a few months in, yet you are complaining that they produced the worst literature review (I'm assuming their first also) and that they are unable to handle two columns of data. The first occurrence is on you. It is your job to teach them how to write a paper, literature review, thesis, etc. Sure, grad students are expected to show a degree of independence, but the mentor is still critical primarily in those "academic" crafts. The second is in my opinion rather irrelevant. I've met distinguished professors (computer scientists at that) who were unable to restart a PowerPoint presentation. The good thing is, these skills are much easier to learn and be taught than the ones above. If you don't want to invest a few minutes to show how the columns are formatted, at least instruct them to google it and let them figure it out themselves.
The bottom line is, it is easy to dismiss students as incompetent and a waste of time / resources, but doing so reflects badly on you as a person and as a mentor. First and foremost you should ask yourself and perhaps someone senior what you can do to improve the student's performance. Then, if that proves insufficient, you can talk with the student in an effort to identify problems. If all fails, you should consider dropping the student, with the understanding that that is as much your fault as theirs and that you will strive to do better with future students.
I think this answer may be getting at some important points, but the style of writing is a bit hard to follow in paragraphs 2-4.
Just a partial answer addressing the question how to end the advisor–advisee relationship in a way that reduces political repercussions: Is there any chance that the student quits the PhD on their own account, so you would not have to be the one that fires him? They must be somehow aware that they are doing badly and are probably not happy, so it may only need a nudge to dissolve some gridlocked thought patterns.
For example, you could ask him (honestly) why he is still clinging to the PhD programme despite all his troubles. (Such a question may also help to uncover some underlying problems such as psychiatric issues, family troubles, mastering out, etc. that you may help to address.)
Note:
I assume the case that the student has no realistic chance of finishing his PhD.
I do not suggest to talk or even push the student into quitting – just bring up the option.
Wrzlprmft, OP wrote in comments, that Program accepted this student. I think they should deal with it, bcs it would look negative in his file that student didnt success to finish. Not good idea fro tenure
@SSimon: As written in my first note, this answer covers the case that it is clear that the student will not successfully finish either way.
Other answers here have already discussed the role of the adviser in the scientific and personal growth of a PhD student and advised you against being too eager in negatively judging your student. On the basis of my experience, I totally agree with them. Here, I want to suggest a possible last resort, as implemented in some PhD programmes at my university. Indeed, its applicability depends on your university rules, but let me stress that it's an extreme solution and that the final decision should be that of a whole committee, not just yours.
When a student is really not able to make any progress after the first or second year (e.g. out of laziness), the PhD committee can give a six-months probation period after which either the student has shown some progress (at least in the commitment) or they are expelled from the programme. After six months, the committee reexamines the situation and takes the decision.
I think that a meeting with the candidate and a probation period is perfectly acceptable, even commendable. The student has notice, and, I hope, a plan for success that he can accept or not. But I note for the record, that many students stumble early on for reasons completely unrelated to "laziness". But a suitable meeting should bring that out.
This can even be the default way of things, evaluation after one year and maybe after approx. half-time.
@mathreadler We actually evaluate the students each year, but probation is a strong warning.
@MassimoOrtolano So why not connect it to the yearly evaluations?
@mathreadler In fact, it is connected to the yearly evaluations, when the PhD committee meets to discuss students' evaluations. In these occasions an adviser can present critical cases and ask if they can be put on probation. As I said, however, probation is not the norm and is given only in rather extreme cases (< 1%, I'd say).
@MassimoOrtolano of course. A failure looks bad for the professor and is a lost opportunity for his bosses and also costs money for the department. It is completely natural they want to minimize that. The real problem is that this causes excuses to let the students continue and pass no matter how sucky they are. And when really skilled students realize that, then they voluntarily quit because they realize no matter how much better they are and how much harder they work it's not gonna show on paper.
TLDR: GET YOUR STUDENT IN CONTACT WITH A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL
The way you describe this student sounds like there is a reasonable possibility they are struggling with depression. Remember, grad school isn't the easy choice. It is much easier to just get a job out of undergrad and it pays way better than grad school. If the student didn't have a passion for the research, they most likely wouldn't have applied to grad school in the first place. Something happened that is causing this student to feel like their passion isn't worth it any more.
Many PhD students experience feelings of inadequacy while in grad school. Learning how to do good research, keeping up with classes and TA activities you might have, and getting used to the more adult lifestyle of a graduate student is hard. When you look around though, no one else looks like it they are struggling as much as you. At my university, we called this Stanford Duck Syndrome because of the way when viewed from the surface ducks seem to be calmly gliding along, but under the water their feet are paddling like crazy. It is related to Impostor Syndrome where the individual feels like they got where they are based on luck and people will eventually realize they are a "fraud".
The situation you have described sounds like a prime candidate to cause Stanford Duck Syndrome. Being forced to change advisers can make a student feel like a failure and unwanted. Also, I am sure that some of your frustration is coming through as you are trying to encourage your student to improve their performance. It is important you investigate your student's mental well being because they could be in danger. I am good friends with the Vice Provost of Graduate Education at Stanford, and every single quarter he has to use an emergency entry into the grad student housing and hospitalize students who have not left their room in months or tried to harm themselves.
One of the ironies of this syndrome is that the best students are more likely to get it because they are used to standing out as the best. When they get to an environment like grad school where everyone is one of the top people from where ever they came from, even if they are still above average, they feel like they are doing worse than they should be. Once they start feeling bad, their performance drops and it becomes and ugly cycle.
Now it isn't your job to fix this, but as their adviser, you should try to get them to seek help. Many universities offer psychological counseling, so getting them in contact with those services is a good place to start. Talking with some of the more senior facility or your department head is another avenue as your department may have policies in place for dealing with students at risk for depression. The last thing you want is to ignore this or write the student off and then later discover that they came to self harm. Even if it turns out that this student is fine and grad school really just isn't a good fit for them, a counselor may be able to help them realize that and decide to move on.
"If the student didn't have a passion for the research, they most likely wouldn't have applied to grad school in the first place" - I think that this is an admirable view of human nature and current realities but I am not sure this should be taken as an axiom. (Speaking as someone who has supervised students and seen others' students) Your rationalisation of choosing grad school rather than a job also makes implicit assumptions about where the student is from, what the sources are for their financial support, where they are studying, etc
@YemonChoi The words "most likely" were in there for a reason. I am not saying there are no students who go to grad school for the wrong reason. However in my experience (and in the experience of my Vice Provost friend) there are way more who get labeled as bad fits for grad school and are actually having psychological issues. Also, most students who actually just don't care decide to leave on their own when they see how much work it is. Either way, investigating the possibility of mental health problems is the safe way to go.
I appreciate your intent, but I think you are presuming an awful lot about what the situation is of the OP's student, and not really taking account of the specific details that the OP gives. It is certainly very important that students get mental health support; I am not convinced that a lengthy answer about this aspect is really addressing what the OP is describing. Anyway, I don't wish to argue and I don't doubt your sincerity, so we'll just let the upvoting decide :-)
Since then I realised that he does not have the abilities, curiosity,
and self-learning capabilities for a PhD
Lack of abilities: this can be improved with time
Lack of self-learning capabilities: this can be improved with a lot a lot of time.
Lack of curiosity: this will lead to lack of motivation and determination. Drop him.
No matter how slow one is, (s)he can still move forward if they have the determination. On the other hand, no matter how fast one is, he cannot move forward without determination. Doing a PhD requires a lot a lot of determination.
You are completely right, people can mature and get insight several years after a course or a conference. The problem is that a PhD degree is in many cases time-limited connected to a funded project that leaps not much longer than same amound of time. If no other funding can be found then it will crash and burn.
If I understand it correctly, he is just a Bachelor student and he is enrolled as a PhD student now? In my opinion this should only be offered to extremely gifted students and the norm should be to get the Master first, because of exactly the problems you describe. I would switch him to a Masters degree and tell him to apply again when he is finished with that.
Depending on place/subject, going from Bachelors straight to Ph.D. (and possibly not even picking up a Masters along the way) is standard; e.g. in mathematics in the USA.
This is correct. Today's bachelors and masters programmes are so much suckier than just 30 years ago that you (in general) neither have the maturity nor the required knowledge for academic research after just a BSc.
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76976 | Bibliographic entry for a pseudymous work with known real author
This question is the bibliographic pendant to this question.
Let us suppose I write an academic paper where I cite the well known paper English sentences without overt grammatical subject (pdf), written by James d. McCawley under the pseudonym Quang Phúc Đông. What is the bes way to format the bibliography?
[1] Đông Q. P., “English sentences without overt grammatical subject”, doi: 10.1075/z.63.06don. Actually written by McCawlay, J.D. under pseudonym
[2] Đông Q. P. (alias McCawlay, J.D.), “English sentences without overt grammatical subject”, doi: 10.1075/z.63.06don.
[3] McCawlay, J.D. (as Đông Q. P.), “English sentences without overt grammatical subject”, doi: 10.1075/z.63.06don.
Something else ?
I want to make both the name and pseudonym appear in the bibliography.
Bonus question: Once the “academically correct” solution is known, how to implement it in a bibtex bibliography?
The "academically correct" solution is usually to format that bibliographical item as any other item, with the name which appears on the paper (this is also remarked in the answers to the linked question). Then, you can add a bibliographical note saying that the name is a pseudonym: in bibtex you can do this by means of the field note. However, about this, take into account the objections that have been pointed out in the answers and comments to the linked question.
The above solution would roughly correspond to your [1], with the exact details depending on the chosen style.
Of course, if you are writing a paper for a journal, the style guide might require a different formatting or might not accept notes.
Edit: I've checked The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, and it suggest a slightly different style, more similar to your example [2]:
14.81 Pseudonyms -- unknown authorship. If an author's real name is not known, pseud. (roman, in brackets) may follow the name. (In a
text citation, pseud. is omitted.)
and
14.82 Pseudonyms -- known authorship. A widely used pseudonym is generally treated as if it were the author's real name.
[...]
The real name, if of interest to readers, may follow the pseudonym in
brackets.
According to the above, your example would become:
Đông, Q. P. [McCawlay, J.D.], “English sentences without overt grammatical subject”, doi: 10.1075/z.63.06don.
The New Oxford Style Manual suggests the same format.
For what concerns LaTeX, if you want to follow the above format, it appears that the biblatex-chicago supports it. However, it is probably not applicable to specific publications. For instance, the IEEE BibTeX style does not support explicitly pseudonyms, but it has a note field. The people at TeX.SE can probably give you better information on which is the best way to implement that specific format.
The common-sense approach as well as the academically correct one, happily :-). As a good (if extreme example) - consider what you'd do if writing a study of, say, dystopian literary fiction. The bibliography would look very strange if it had "Blair, E. "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949)" in it, even if everyone knows that's the author's real name...
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210417 | How can I work with a senior researcher who is less knowledgeable than myself?
This question is partially inspired by this comment on a recent post which says
[...] Part of being successful is working out how to work productively with people who are not as good/knowledgeable/skillful as you at something and still find that interaction useful.
I have often struggled with this myself where a particular senior researcher is unable to meet me at my level and we often spend a lot of meetings going over the same things. This often leaves me feeling tired and frustrated as things are not moving quickly enough. On the other hand, I have also (and admittedly more often) worked with people who are significantly smarter than me, and have found it to be an inspiring environment where I have been able to learn new ideas relatively fast. The difference (I think) being that I make time to read and learn independently, whereas the senior researcher in question, for whatever reason, relies solely on our meetings to learn about the background research.
The fact that this researcher is significantly more senior than me is perhaps relevant, since if the relationship was the other way around I think the answer would be much more straightforward.
My question specifically concerns the suggestion in the comment — how do I work productively with people who are not as good, knowledgeable, or skillful?
There's a very big difference between working with people who are not as knowledgeable as you are in some area and working with people who are not as smart as you.
Is this your project you're discussing with a collaborator/supervisor/mentor, or theirs??
I do not appreciate user176372's comment above, although I hope it was made in jest. I am borrowing the "good/knowledgeable/skillful" terminology from the linked comment. I don't believe I am more knowledgeable than my senior colleague in some absolute sense. While I tried to describe my experience accurately, I have made a presupposition of knowledge only to simplify the question a little and to keep it sufficiently general (relative to the linked comment).
What is the purpose of these meetings ? I have a colleague who will go into excruciating detail about their work in meetings where what we are actually trying to determine is if we need to send them to a specific workshop/buy some specific hardware etc. If your meeting goals are at cross-purposes (perhaps inadvertently) it might be good to talk about why you ar ehaving these conversations.
@IvoryTower I removed the comment, but I think the point it was trying to make is that your post comes across as possibly entitled or grandiose, by putting the blame on someone else for being "less than" you and assuming someone who you may know more than in some small area is therefore not skillful and taking that to label them as not good. It sounds like you're lacking in appreciation of other skills with this language.
If they can be in senior position, it is likely that they should be smart enough. Maybe you should consider it may be you who cannot explain your idea/details to him.
@BryanKrause, again, I'm just extending from the comment. That is my error.
"whereas the senior researcher in question, for whatever reason, relies solely on our meetings to learn about the background research"
Being a young researcher you are likely much sharper in terms of learning things quickly. You are either still in or fresh out of your training. Of course you are likely to be more knowledgeable than some and less than others and you will experience this at every level in your career.
More senior people are further away from their very active learning phase of their academic career, they often become stretched thinner across multiple projects and multiple ideas, and other duties commensurate with seniority, and find it harder to keep up with all the details all the time. They often have very demanding family dynamics such as young kids, aging parents, and often the onset of nuisance health issues that come about with hitting middle age.... etc... all of these things add up to less time to be an active learner on every topic.
In many ways, they probably enjoy learning from you and your enthusiasm as you do from those who you find more knowledgeable than yourself. The best way to deal with them is the same way you deal with your superiors, your family, your janitorial staff, the barista who makes you coffee..... with kindness and respect.
How do you deal with them professionally? You continue plying your skills to drive projects forward and progress your career... and hope that some day when a new person you've hired finds themselves bored with having to explain things to you, they may show you some grace and continue working with you in a friendly and productive manner.
While all answers are helpful, I think this offers the perspective I needed. I appreciate it very much.
@DanielHatton the OP mentioned senior researcher, not professor, so I did not belabor on teaching and faculty workload because they may well not have teaching requirements as the question is ambiguous in that regard.
Well, one thing you should learn is to explain and to write things in such a way that understanding them (versus inventing/discovering them) would be possible 2 or 3 levels below yours (ideally any decent graduate student in your field should be able to understand your explanations the way you present them). It is not unusual to communicate in some kind of shorthand with your collaborators when all of you are on the same page, but if you see that for some reason it doesn't work, switch to the full explanations, go slower and include more details.
Another thing is that many people have a lot of duties and just cannot devote a lot of their time to the project, so "relying solely on meetings" is not as unusual as you may think. Try to make these meetings as productive as you can. If you want someone to think of something, present him/her with the simplest setup where the problem arises. If you want to communicate something new, present one idea/result/whatever a time and give your collaborator some time to digest it before going to the next step. Never be in a hurry. There are smart people who think fast and there are smart people who think slowly. You can do nothing about that until Elon Musk or somebody else figures out how to rewire the human brain and fuse it with silicon chips in an efficient way. Just take it for granted that you'll meet both people with abilities superior to yours and with abilities inferior to yours and the rule of thumb is that a more able person should adjust (for the trivial reason that it requires much less effort from him/her).
Also, don't confuse being smart with being knowledgeable. Nobody knows everything and even smart people can be rather slow learners when presented with new stuff.
At last, if you see total lack of interest in your collaborators and it is clear that they would rather drop off, just let them go. If doesn't mean that you should abruptly stop all communication, merely that you should stop relying upon them and try to figure everything out by yourself.
The seniority per se plays little role in that all. Most people are at their full strength as soon as 3-4 years after their PhD (and quite a few even earlier than that), so we are all more or less on equal footing regardless of our age, official titles, or accolades, though, of course, some will always be more equal than others.
Just my two cents.
You mean somebody paid by E.M. figures out how to rewire the human brain and fuse it with silicon chips in an efficient way :)
@IvoryTower Not "paid", but "hired". The difference is that a good administrator is way more than just a rich person paying others to do the job. The selection of what to do and whom to put in charge is crucial. As the current NASA director put it, the best decision Musk made regarding SpaceX was to put Gwynne Shotwell in charge (https://jalopnik.com/nasa-director-says-he-trusts-spacex-because-elon-musk-i-1851459790) though I somewhat disagree: IMHO it was his second best. The best one was to start the enterprise. And Gwynne Shotwell doesn't make rocket engines single-handedly too ;-)
You should have a conversation with this senior researcher about what you each hope to gain from these meetings.
I cannot say for certain but it is definitely possible that you currently have very different understandings. For example:
You think that you are collaborating on the project as peers. You expect them to invest in learning the fundamental of the project and make significant contributions.
They think they are providing "high altitude" assistance to a budding researcher. They expect to be a sounding board for your ideas and to give you high level advice without understanding the details.
Differing implicit assumptions can often lead to frustration. The solution is always to be make implicit assumptions explicit in a professional manner. In particular your aim should be to explore difference with curiosity, rather than with an eye to assign blame, and then to try to reach a new understanding which is mutually agreeable.
Many outcomes are possible:
You might adjust your expectations and see the value in the meetings as they are.
They might realize that they would like to invest in the project as a collaborator.
Some sort of compromise might be reached, where they agree to invest a bit more into learning the background stuff so they can give you more fine-grained advice.
Some other completely unexpected creative re-thinking of your purpose could occur.
You might mutually decide that what you each need and have to offer to each other are incompatible, and end your collaboration.
I have personally found the framework of compassionate communication to be invaluable in both my personal and professional life. This cheatsheet (direct pdf link) does a pretty good job of summarizing and might be useful to you as you prepare for this conversation.
Usually, a collaboration arises when both (or several) collaborators have something nontrivial to contribute to a project. It appears that you are asking about a situation when this is not the case. Most frequently, this happens when one is advising a student. In this case what one hopes for is that eventually a student would start to contribute something (after learning enough from the advisor in the process). In the worst case, this never happens and it results in a paper/dissertation written effectively by the advisor. This has happened to me a couple of times. (In one case, the student never finished and in the other case the student defended his dissertation but the paper was never published. This was still not a complete loss since student's dissertation is available as a reference and people still refer to it.) Your situation is different as you are interacting with a senior researcher. This happened to me only once (even though I had many collaborators). This was quite frustrating as my collaborator has decided to "correct" the paper by introducing incorrect theorems. It took quite a bit of effort to convince him that he was wrong.
My suggestion would be to try your best explaining the staff carefully and patiently again and again. You might (and probably will) find this frustrating but this will prepare you for future student advising and also help to sharpen your exposition skills as you may find novel ways to explain some of the ideas. (In my experience, as a research mathematician, the first explanation is usually suboptimal and finding a better one involves quite a bit of thinking.)
If this does not work and things do not seem to be going anywhere, cut your losses and either take over the project completely and write the paper by yourself adding the name of your senior collaborator if you have to, or abandon the entire project and work on something else.
@Trunk: Yes, likely. But I tried to make my advice more general than the situation when a young researcher completely depends on the senior one. For instance, in math (in the US), postdoctoral positions are typically supported by departmental funds rather than individual grants and, as the result, postdocs have more independence.
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44518 | Should I notify the teacher that he accidentally gave out the answers to an assignment?
For one of my class projects, the teacher coded the entire solution, then took out a few sections that we are supposed to complete for our assignment. This incomplete code was distributed to the class as a starting point. When he was writing the solution, he used source control. He forgot to delete his repository, so all of his commits are there... You can checkout the commits to get the full solution. I don't think he is aware of it, because he hasn't brought it up in class.
I found this while I was working on my solution. Once I found it, it was difficult to find a different path to the solution. I think my solution is dissimilar, but I feel I am playing a dangerous game here.
I'm not sure what I should do here. I could choose to not tell him and hope they don't catch it, or I could choose to tell him and basically admit I had access to the solution while I was working on it.
I wouldn't worry about my grades at this point. Reporting the problem will probably render the whole assignment moot. Just be quick to report the problem in order to reduce the amount of hassle for everyone involved.
When this occurred at my uni, it was quickly swept under the rug, grades were lowered, and it wasn't mentioned again. However, I'm suspicious to this day that the mistake was more likely necessity, to keep the few students still enrolled on the course, and achieve performance targets. I personally delivered everything in the leaked example as well as additional info, only to have my grade capped anyway. If you know how to do it already, and why they did it that way, I'd keep shtum and play completely innocent. Else if you struggled with it, own up because you're more likely to be discovered.
@Dom I disagree. It is more ethical, in my opinion, to assume that the professor released the answers by accident and act accordingly than to assume that something corrupt is happening. "Do not ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to stupidity." Also, give the professor in question the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming the worst of him. In Finally, if it really was a mistake and lemondandy does not report it, he may be in a lot of trouble, and rightfully so.
@Kevin I'm not suggesting that ill-doing is likely in this case, only explaining about when I experienced this. What I find absolutely unacceptable is that I had to pay for someone else's mistake. I only found out about it after I'd finished 3/4 of my assignment, and it turned out I was pretty bang on with what was being asked for, regardless though, I lost (ultimately needed) points on my grade because no one had trained this fellow to use a computer/the system (very old chap). FYI, it was an absolutely appalling uni, unless you include the few good professors, than it was barely-okay.
How did he introduce the project? Something like: A fired colleague deleted a part of the application just before he was kicked out. We need the application working, can you help to fill in the missing part? You would be a hero when you pointed out that the colleague didn't really remove the code !
A tangent: I remember hearing about a colleague who realised, returning to his interrupted task shortly after a busy office hour, that the bit of scrap paper on which he and a student had been scribbling solutions was in fact the proof copy of the exam paper. Bum. Moral: I've become slightly paranoid about scrap paper + students ever since (and repos are the new ‘scrap paper’).
It also triggers the question: is competition and grade ethical? The answer may changes depending on the way we look at it.
I remember hearing about professors that had done this on purpose as a test, handing out an assignment with the answers on the back... some people just start working on it problem by problem - others look through at what is on the page - The important part is what you do once you see that the answers are there.
I have a CS professor that I could almost see doing this on purpose. He likes giving out assignments where being diligent and knowing what you're doing can provide a solution a lot easier than the obvious way.
Send him a polite email explaining that, while you completed the assignment on your own (which I am assuming to be true), by stumbling upon the solutions in advance you had a hard time doing anything different. Professors are people--he should recognize his mistake and appreciate that you were forthcoming. Chances are he'll reassign the project or discount its weight toward your grade and just tell people to review it anyway because you need to know the material. The sooner you say something the better though. Indeed, after a while it may look like you were trying to hide it from him.
And let's face it, someone else in the class will have discovered the same, so he will find out one way or another. And kudos to you for discovering it first!
Professors are people? Can you cite a source on this?
You should tell him. It's going to be a headache for him when he finds out, so you may as well give him a heads up. Tell him you've gotten a solution which is similar but that does contain original thought and see what he says. Best case, he'll be appreciative of your honesty. Basically the way I see it is you have one path that's ethically sketchy and one that's a good thing to do (because, again, he'll have to deal with this). So, you know. Do the right thing.
I am a retired university teacher and have made similar mistakes a couple of times during my 32 years at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Each time, be it on a written exam, or on a home assignment, it was rapidly discovered, mainly because students realized it would cause a problem when grading the results.
So, if you don't report it to the teacher, someone else most probably will and all those who took advantage will stick out in a bad manner.
Do tell him.
Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but I find your path to that conclusion perplexing. How do you know all of your mistakes were discovered?
You have a point there. Maybe I should write "Some times" instead of "Each time".
Part of finding a solution for a problem is taking a small amount of time looking for known solutions in available resources. The teacher should not only appreciate your honesty, but also your effort to look for existing solutions and reusing the best parts of it.
You did a good job and could tell him that you did some research during the development and found that a similar solution to yours was found in the source control history.
Well, it seems that the finding of known solutions in this case was not related to a specific search for knwon solutions, so I'm not with you here
Tell him. Your integrity is worth more than any pass mark. If your teacher isn't teaching you that, then he isn't worth jack.
Why question the teacher here? They seem to have simply made a simple mistake...
@jakebeal I don't think Wes is saying the instructor is worthless since he made a mistake. He's saying instructors who don't value integrity are worthless.
Yes, tell the teacher. It's just the right thing to do.
If for some reason you need a self-serving reason: the teacher will immediately realise that your solution is exactly the same as theirs, the whole assignment will have to be reset and you and everyone else will have to do another piece of work. Tell them now so it can be rectified, it's better for everyone.
Tell him. Failing to do so may result in dire repercussions for your academic career. But don't panic, honesty is always appreciated.
Dire repercussions? The student didn't do anything wrong, the prof. did. Please don't overblow the situation.
To be honest I don't know if there is anything you can do at this point. You have completed your assignment and as a fellow student I feel like once you know the answer, its hard to unseen the answer and forget about it and come up with a new one. And if you do tell the teacher about this, most students will probably have realized this too and the sneaky ones will probably have copied it and stored it somewhere before redistributing it again (believe me, and I am probably one of the sneaky ones). So yeah if you do tell him, I don't think it changes anything to be honest. I have a feeling my answer is a bad one.
I think your feeling is correct, and your answer is a bad one.
Yeah. I mean, man, even without having the answers posted or something some people would have the answers anyway and they probably spread it or something. Well I am just saying in a general student point of view.
I appreciate your "speak against the crowd" attitude
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190915 | Unreasonable requests to a TA from a student
One of my students' behaviour just feels always disrespectful to me. A homework was due tonight, and she asked me yesterday evening how to solve multiple questions. I try to respond as soon as I can, so I replied to her this morning. She asked me a lot of questions and though I already answered her question, I guess she was confused, and kept asking the same question to which I had already answered to.
I wanted to avoid giving her the wrong advice due to miscommunication, so I told her to attend an office hour this evening, which is a couple of hours before the deadline. She then told me she has a family dinner to attend, so she can't attend an office hour by then and needs me to answer immediately. I would understand if I had a class today, but I don't, so I told her that I'm busy and cannot respond right now and that she should go check out the office hour. Was this unreasonable of me? I'm scared of being upfront with her as it may lead to a negative teaching evaluation.
She emails me the evening on the day before the deadline
She expects me to answer immediately as she cannot attend an office hour because of her family dinner.
I've already answered her question. She should go back and think instead of fetching the answers from me. I apologize whenever I can't meet her demands, but she keeps replying "no worries". "No worries"??? No, you have to be more respectful. When she comes to class, she also asks me questions that are not related to the work we are currently doing in class.
What are your thoughts?
Can you explain what you find rude about "no worries"? The general behavior you describe certainly comes across as entitled and pushy, but I don't see anything particularly wrong with someone replying "no worries" to an apology. Sure, it isn't super formal, but it's perfectly civil.
I'm not the one to be apologizing but I just say it to keep it amicable, so she should not be saying "no worries" she should be the one apologizing for pestering me so much with out considering about other students and my time. I know it's my fault as I should've been more firm but I did after all this and all she did was like my text and didn't even say a single thank you or apologize. She's so entitled, I don't give a f about your thanksgiving family plans, what about mine? Respect my time.
one thought: she might be asking you questions from the other class because you are available. at least more available then the other TA, perhaps they are more "rough" in their communication or just more strict in their response policy. Can you judge whether that is the case?
Yes you're right. The other TA, I can't even understand her English. Also, I genuinely wanted to help students and made a group chat to make it easier for them to communicate. None of the other TAs do this, and a lot of my students say thank you so much because their other TAs are not as attentive. Most of my students appreciate me and respect me, it's just this one girl. Perhaps she doesn't know the etiquette of academia since my course is taken in the first semester of undergrads but still, I'd expect them to get the hint when I've politely declined her request saying that I'm busy.
I'm just looking at the timestamp of this question and the calendar, and I wonder...was this assignment due on the evening of Thanksgiving Day? If so, the instructor did you no favors with that.
@MatthewLeingang No, it was the day before thanksgiving day so the instructor was right on this one. The student by her own choice chose to go back home and spend time with her family.
Let me be clear: you do not need to answer questions outside of normal office hours. Students are aware of deadlines and of our office hours so it’s up to them to manage their time so they are not in the situation you describe.
I am never in a rush to answer when I get such a request outside regular hours. I made clear at the start of the term that email questions are not ideal and that discussing questions in person are much more constructive academically. It is fine to try to remove last minute confusion but if the same issue comes back again with the same student I will usually politely state that I’ve already done my best with that question.
Some students will make it a habit of being insistent and test the pliability of TAs or instructors. I have found that being polite (especially early in the term) but firm usually solves the problem.
Thank you so much! Ok I'll be more firm and polite from next time on and try to remind them it's their responsibility to finish their work on time.
Your action was reasonable, and she should have shown some respect. It seems she took you for granted.
I faced the same situation many times with a very lazy student. She rarely went to lectures. Before any exam, she spammed my WhatsApp with a lot of questions regarding the course material. I only gave her a partial answer for any question she asked. Sometimes, she asked me if A (a very specific question) would be in the exam. I refused to answer such a question. Once, I offered a Teams meeting to help her with problem-solving. Eventually, it became very annoying. I decided to give her non-informative answers only. It might be unethical.
I wish I could have done it differently by telling her that her exams were her responsibility, not mine. She should have gone to lectures regularly instead of cramming everything just a few days before the exams. She should have asked questions during the teaching period. Then I would have been very happy to help her.
Thanks! Glad to hear I'm not the only one. Yeah, I can tell her it's her responsibility from next time. My student's not lazy, she has the best grades but she's just not appreciative enough. Just because she has her own "dinner", doesn't mean I'm the one to be dealing with of course if it was an emergency situation I will help but in that case she should just ask the prof for extension. Like you, I've also held extra office hours numerous times privately with her and even though I keep telling her there's office hours, she doesn't get the hint and doesn't go to any. Sorry for the rant!
"I wish I could have done it differently [...]" - why couldn't you?
This is classic ask vs. guess culture.
In ask culture, questions have low emotional involvement. You ask for something. If the answer is no then all that's happened is you've learned the answer.
In guess culture, questions have high emotional involvement. Asking something is seen as pressuring/rude. Saying no is seen as rebuking someone/also rude. To avoid that, people often hint or use smaller related questions to find out the answer to something without directly asking.
Actually this is a spectrum--it's more about where you draw the line of which questions are OK to ask outright and which questions aren't, but it's obvious that people draw that line in very different places. Since this question is tagged United States, you can probably move your line far more to the "ask" side than you have it right now.
Look back at your current situation and take your emotion out of it. Imagine your student was asking if you have a particular brand of soda, "No, I only have (other brand of soda)." Question asked, question answered, done. "Are you available at this time?" "No, only at (other time)."
This applies to your personal boundaries, too. E-mails aren't a demand, they just exist. Check your e-mail on your own schedule. Reply to the factual content of e-mails from your students and ignore the emotional content. If someone has a personal emergency they can document it via X, Y, Z steps from the university policy.
I find the best way to take emotion out of things is to assume good intent. That is, whatever behavior someone is doing might need to change but that doesn't mean they're a bad person. So I don't think "this person is so lazy they want me to do all the work for them", instead I think "this person doesn't understand how to use/apply the thing we went over last week". Based on that, "This is the same as ABC problem we worked on last week--which part in particular are you having trouble with?" or even "Actually, this is the same as a problem we did already--do you remember (thing) that let's you determine which category of problem this is?" This is obviously more natural when someone is asking the question in person in conversation vs. e-mail, but if students are treating e-mail as conversation anyway you might as well lean in to it. Someone who's lazy will give up and go away, someone who actually needs help will learn something, either way is fine.
This is very interesting. Why is it called "guess" culture? Do you have some more references?
I agree, I come from a culture where saying a firm "no" is considered rude. Back in my country if I even slightly acted like the way I do in the U.S., people would freak out. Since she doesn't seem to get the hint, she probably comes from an "ask" culture and so if I firmly tell her "no", she probably wouldn't get offended as well. Although, I do think she's still pushy no matter what her culture may be as she kept texting me even after I told her not to. Next time, I'll just reply to her at my own pace so that she doesn't think I'm 24/7 available for her at her disposal.
@PeterMortensen The linked post is somewhat internet-famous, and every reference I've seen to "ask vs guess culture" links to it. I'm guessing that whoever wrote it made the terminology up.
@PeterMortensen Yes, as far as I'm aware the post I linked is the original source for the term. It might be called ask vs. hint or direct vs. indirect or anything along those lines, but the linked post is the earliest I know which identifies the difference so specifically so the term has stuck.
Be very careful. This type of student is likely to cause further problems, and this may even end in a law suit against you. Make sure you are very formal and transparent, but firm, towards the student and keep a written record of all your interactions with the student. You may also inform you superior or even hr already.
This may sound hard, but I have had the exact same experience in an industry context where an employee reporting to me showed a very similar pattern of behaviour and then ended up suing the company for discrimination. (the employee lost of course)
Thank you! Yes, I'm pretty aware of that and how vulnerable being in the position of a TA can be. I'll try to be extra cautious.
You should discuss this student's behavior with the lead instructor for the course. They will probably agree with everyone here that this is not OK, and will take steps to back you up, e.g. sending the student in question a note to tell them to knock it off, making an announcement at the next class to remind everyone that TAs have their own responsibilities and there's a schedule of office hours for a reason, etc.
(If the lead instructor isn't willing to back you up on this sort of thing, you have bigger problems, and in your shoes I'd suggest quietly reporting the entire situation to your department's "TA coordinator" or equivalent role.)
Thank you! Yes, I'll try talking to the instructor if this happens again.
I apologize whenever I can't meet her demands
It's not up to you to meet her demands. It's up to her and other students to work their schedule in line with your previously defined (in the very first class ideally) hours.
I'm scared of being upfront with her as it may lead to a negative teaching evaluation.
There is no need to feel scared. Your superiors will understand that one or two bad evaluations more than likely is not a reflection of your ability. They are experienced educators, so they understand that a student can be disgruntled and try to shift blame. But they will look at how all of your students rated you.
There is also the possibility that this student may in fact be the first one to admit that she is having problems understanding the topics, but also understands that you have been doing your best, and she is in fact very appreciative.
I'm actually taken back by the fact that you communicate with your students and answer their queries at arbitrary times. While that may be admirable, as stated above, you should make it very clear when you can see students outside class hours. The student you speak of might be entitled, but it appears as though you may have inadvertently opened the door to this. Remember this for the next academic year.
Good luck and I'm confident you'll get good evaluations.
Thank you very much, your comment is very useful and encouraging. I will indeed try to make it clear for when I am available in future quarters.
No worries, and good luck with it. cheers.
You seem to believe that if you put in extra time and effort, you are thereby entitled to being appreciated and respected by your students. (You talk about respect and appreciation over and over in your question and in the comments.) Consequently, you get angry when you try to accommodate a student's request only to receive further requests instead of an appreciative response. Particularly when they are entitled, absurd requests like working around her family dinner time.
Here's the thing:
You are not entitled to being appreciated by your students. Not even if you are the single most attentive, available, and accommodating TA at your university. You really are not.
You want to go out of your way to help your students? That's great. It really is. But you need to accept that going above and beyond your duties is your own decision. And it makes no sense to be angry at someone for your own decisions. If you are unhappy with the result, then it's not your student's request that is the cause of your unhappiness, it's your unfounded feeling that you ought to try to accommodate it.
Or, you know, perhaps you are angry with her because you would have loved to play the role of the super-attentive TA if she had displayed the slighest amount of consideration for you, but she didn't, so you can't, and that's frustrating to you. That's another possibility.
Instead of getting hung up on being appreciated by your students, here's a healthier mental frame for your interactions with students:
They are entitled to make whatever requests they like. You are entitled to reject them if you find them unreasonable, and to respond to emails outside of office hours at your leisure. It's great if students are appreciative of your work, but they have no obligation to be. A student asks you to work around her family's dinner time? No skin off your back. Just send her a one-line email in response at your leisure instead of ruminating about how disrespectful you find this.
On the plus side, you get to decide how much you want to go out of your way to help your students. It really is entirely up to you. On the negative side, you don't get to be angry with them if they are (in your opinion) not appreciative enough of your efforts. That's your own problem that you gotta work on, just like your student should probably work on understanding that the world does not revolve around her family's dinner time.
Thanks for taking your time to respond. I believe there are some discrepancies in my thoughts and what you thought I was implying. First of all, I'm not mad. Second, I don't expect them to thank me. I was just asking others how they would deal with the situation if a particular student keeps messaging me after a denial of request and bothers other students. Nonetheless, appreciate your response.
@happypenguin I did not say anything about being thanked. But you do repeatedly complain about this student not being, in your own words, appreciative and respectful enough. It does not make sense to repeatedly complain about the student not being appreciative and respectful enough of your time and effort and then claim that you have no such expectation.
I guess I worded "thanks" and "appreciative" wrong, although I'm implying a similar thing. But thanks for spending a lot of time replying!
@happypenguin It's not about wording. You said: "I know it's my fault as I should've been more firm but I did after all this and all she did was like my text and didn't even say a single thank you or apologize." Also you: "their other TAs are not as attentive. Most of my students appreciate me and respect me, it's just this one girl. " Also you: "she's just not appreciative enough" Again, it seems pretty clear based on what you wrote that her lack of appreciation and respect is something that significantly bothers you about her behavior to the extent that you bring it up over and over again.
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12804 | How do I choose an appropriate scope for a master's thesis in mathematics?
I am a new Master's seeking student in Mathematics, and I'm trying to get a jump on my research focus/concentration for eventually writing my Master's Thesis. My interest is primarily prime, perfect, and Mersenne numbers. When I try to formulate a plan though, my ideas are always too broad and vague, or are way too specific. Does anybody have advice on how to decide on a topic? How long is the average such thesis? Perhaps what I thought was too vague and expansive would be a perfect length and I was just second-guessing myself too much.
Talk to your advisor. If you don't have an advisor, find one now. Only your advisor can tell you the right answer.
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13084 | About multiple applications for graduate programs to the same school
Suppose I applied to a Master's Degree Program when I was at my last year in undergraduate. I got accepted but I couldn't enroll at this school because I failed to finish the undergraduate on time, and I need to spend one more semester in undergraduate.
I want to apply again when I'm finished so what I want ask is how my previous application will affect my next one? Will it affect positively since I got accepted last time, will it affect negatively because I rejected the previous one or will it have no affect at all and they will consider my next application independent than previous one?
This is a very good, but very difficult question. The problem is that there's no definitive answer here.
What we do know:
You turned down a previous offer. This is never helpful for future admissions at a given school.
You were not able to accept because you weren't qualified to start. So long as you clarified this with the school in question, this may be a mitigating factor.
What we don't know:
How the school evaluates candidates. Is it a "rolling" admissions process, in which candidates are considered year round, or is it done on an annual basis?
The last point is probably the most important. If it's a rolling admissions, and you were a high-quality candidate in the previous cycle, you'd probably have a good chance of getting admitted, provided you explain what happened and why you couldn't get in.
On the other hand, if the admissions process is done once a year, then you will have to compete against all of the other candidates in this year's pool. Then, it's not necessarily a given that you would get in having gotten in previously. If you were a "bubble" applicant last time, You may be below the "cutoff" given a different pool of candidates—or you could be a clear admit.
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96438 | How can we find out who was nominated for Nobel Prizes?
While the Nobel laureates are announced each year, are there any online resources that list who was nominated?
In particular, I am asking the Academic side of Nobel prizes, especially in Chemistry, Economics, Literature, Physics, or Physiology-Medicine.
For example, Wikipedia says that Kazuhiko Nishijima (西島 和彦) was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1960 and 1961, but it is not clear where can we find the official/secondary information about other "short-list" nominees.
The nominations are confidential. Claims seen that someone was "nominated" for a Nobel Prize may be true, may be false, may be guesses, may be meaningless (e.g. self-nominations by cranks).
The Nobel prize nominations are confidential for 50 years. An official online database that has most of the nominations (that aren't confidential) can be found at the website of the Nobel prize. As of today the site claims that it covers nominations up to 1963 for all prizes*, except for the physiology and medicine prize, which has data up to 1953 only. However, it does appear to list some more recent nominations. Perhaps it's best to consider lists for later years as incomplete for now.
In particular, for the case of Kazuhiko Nishijima you can find that he was nominated at least four times.
*The prize in Economic Sciences was instituted only in 1968, with the first prize awarded a year later. Thus, 50 years have not yet passed, so you won't find any of those nominations in the database.
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1473 | Publishing previous results from a previous lab
I just looked over this article from Retraction Watch.
To make a long story short, a student used previous data from their former lab and then published it without the PI's permission or knowledge.
While the above is a rather extreme example of poor ethics, I'm curious where the line gets drawn regarding the ownership of research. I can understand if the data was produced in one environment and then get published in another. What about reagents (clones come to mind) that were produced in a previous lab and then were transported to a new lab? What about ideas that were developed in one lab and then taken to another?
I'll leave this to lab scientists to answer, since I think this question is more relevant there. However, it's worth pointing out that you should be very careful about ideas that include input from other people. If there's even the slightest doubt or ambiguity, it's much better to discuss it in advance than to sort it out after a paper has been written. For example, the messiest situation I've ever seen a grad student get into involved an idea they thought someone else had abandoned, but where that person did not think so. You don't want to end up on either side of that mess.
@bobthejoe I totally don't get how does publishing materials from a previous lab, under the previous affiliation, relates in any way to an extreme example of poor ethics. Could you explain it a bit?
@Piotr: Based on the Retraction Watch story, it sounds like the materials were published without including collaborators in the research (who had been asked about publishing but had said it was too preliminary and needed replication first) and without mentioning the original lab at all.
I think that so long as the principal investigator is actively involved in the planning, performance, or analysis of the research being funded, it is the duty of any researcher working in that group to determine the PI's status as a co-author. However, only if there is no active intellectual activity taking place—in other words, it's an entirely self-driven initiative, then it might be possible to say that the PI doesn't merit co-author status. (Even then, though, the provision of financial support should be clearly recognized.)
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3473 | How should a postdoc address senior research staff and faculty members in the USA?
What is the etiquette for addressing senior research staff and faculty members in an academic setting in the USA? A postdoc is no longer a student but at the same time he or she is (in general) not at the level of senior research engineers/scientists and professors. How should he or she address them ("FirstName" or "Dr. LastName") so that proper respect as well as confidence in one's "above-the-students" position is maintained?
Does it depend on the University, Lab group or the level of experience one has acquired before joining the present postdoc position?
This must be field dependent. In computer science, or at least in my subfield and in the departments I've been affiliated with as both student and faculty, most grad students address faculty by their first names, and most faculty strongly encourage this practice.
In my department, it is encouraged that all people address all others by first name, from receptionist to professor.
When I was a grad student, my initial preference was to call faculty "Doctor" or "Professor". At some point (about halfway through, I think) one professor said to me: "If you want them to see you as a peer, you should call the professors the same way that they call each other." At my university, all the professors called each other by their first names (it didn't matter if they were assistant, associate, or full). Since I planned to make a career in academia, I really did want to be viewed as a peer. So I started calling them by their first name (and no one ever told me to do otherwise).
I think you have to make that transition as you go along. Unless asked by your advisor to do so, you should refer to them as "Professor," at least to start. Don't start off on a bad footing by assuming equality right off the bat—unless given license to do so.
@aeismail I agree with aeismail. I think it was a mentor of mine who told me this, and it was after I had taken 3 or 4 classes with him.
I disagree; by default, use their first name. Any objection indicates that that they don't think of you as a colleague, in which case you should immediately start calling them "Professor" and start looking for another advisor. (Again, this advice may be country- and field-dependent)
@JeffE: There's a big difference between your primary advisor and other faculty members. I would never have called another professor by her first name until invited. And I believe that it doesn't take into account the issues of differences in "educational upbringing": faculty who didn't get their degrees in the US may view this issue very differently.
A bit of a rhetorical exaggeration: if someone thinks of me as a "colleague", in the sense of "peer", in the sense of "equal", then they'd surely not want me as their advisor. I claim that there is sometimes an unhelpful confusion of the social or moral sense of "peer", with the professional sense. It is not reasonable to use one to argue about the other.
When I was a grad student, I got into the habit of always referring to everyone as "Professor" or "Doctor". The theory was that no one would be insulted by your referring to them as "Professor", whereas some folks would be insulted if you called them by their first name. This worked very well; the few people who wanted to be on a first-name basis always told me so at our first meeting ("Oh, please, call me Bob").
I have colleagues who would be insulted to be called anything but their first name.
@JeffE - I met people like that as well, and they let me know at our first meeting.
Address senior research staff and faculty members in the same way that they do with you. You're "Robert Doe" and full profs are calling you "Bob"? Then you can do the same.
And if you are the senior, you are supposed to tell explicitly what is the tradition, in order to avoid embarrassment for juniors.
Some risks in this militant egalitarianism, I think. Depends what point one is wanting to make.
As a grad student I was lucky and faculty in my program tended to be clear about what they wanted to be called. Since everyone but the medics wanted to be called by first name, I came to the conclusion that faculty should expect to be called by the first name unless they say otherwise.
There was one awkward Professor in my grad program who never made it clear what he wanted to be called. Soon after deciding to call him by his first name (Lou) I heard my advisor, who has known Lou for 40 years, called him Louis. At that point I decided if my advisor calls him Louis I better stick with Professor. About two weeks later another colleague was talking to me about how he and Louie used to play football together. At my next interaction with Lou I related the stories and asked him what he wanted to be called. He thought Lou would be fine.
What is likely true is that first/given-name form of address expresses a peer-relationship attitude. In some contexts, there is a nearly-mandatory pose that "we are all peers", etc. While, ideally, this is true at a moral or civil level, it is equally obviously false in terms of sheer experience, and, usually commensurately, expertise.
(There is an auxiliary-but-related question simply about age... Given the extreme disparity between my own kids and myself, I don't expect them to address me by my first name... nor as "Professor Garrett" ... but hopefully by some affectionate honorific that does acknowledge (the complexity of) our relationship. Similarly, I pointedly adopt a stylized form of address for my kids. We are all acquainted with the trope that when the mom addresses the kid by the kid's full name, they're in trouble. I myself, especially at the point that I'm older than many postdocs' parents, have a similar feeling about that relationship. Opinions differ, of course.)
Use of an honorific, even if informal-honorific, form of address does express respect. Use of given name expresses familiarity, etc. At worst, given-name address implies a sort of "good ol' buddy" relationship that verges on the demeaning.
Perhaps the genuine issue isn't the words uttered, per se, but the tone-of-voice and body language. But, if we agree with this, then the original question becomes enlarged to the question of whether one should express deference or respect for ... ok, the real question is about how one fills in the blank about the object of this sentence! If it's "one's boss", well, one does what is necessary. If it's "one's mentor/teacher", then perhaps a systematic tone of respect is appropriate. If it's simply "the old person", then who knows? What is your attitude toward your mentor/advisor/teacher?
Operationally, as in some of the other answers, unless there's a pervasive conformity pressure to do "given name address", surely it's better to err on the side of slightly-excessive expression-of-respect, rather than the other way. Wait till some says "Please, just call me ...", rather than the awkward opposite.
(In French and some other languages perhaps-inappropriate first-name address used to have its own name: "tutoyer", meaning to address toooo many people with the familiar "tu", rather than formal-er "vous", but I gather that times have changed...)
In terms of quips, I might suggest that, ... in contrast to the suggestion that if your thesis advisor or postdoc mentor doesn't want you to call them by their first name,then get another, ... if you don't have a mentor you respect enough ... for good reason, that their expertise and insights are nearly-unimaginably superior to yours at this point in your career... to throw a little honorific their way, then you should get a new advisor/mentor.
People won't be offended by your being too polite and respectful, but may be by the opposite. Pretty straightforward, I think.
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189527 | What should I do if the potential supervisor copied my email to another potential supervisor who has already rejected me?
I contacted potential supervisor A (UK university), and A told me he is not sure whether he could supervise me. He copied my email to potential supervisor B (UK university), and the very awkward thing is that B has already rejected my application before I contacted A. So awkward! What should I do? Do I need to send an email to A to say something?
Oof, that does sound awkward. Not much you can do, though ...
Why is this awkward? What did A ask B? Should B be co-supervisor or comment on the topic? Or does A propose that B becomes the supervisor?
You may also find that B always rejects applications unless they come with a recommendation from someone else
I disagree that this is all that awkward: students are expected to correspond with multiple professors looking for a PhD position, and most of them will not have space for the student or will choose someone else (or the student will!). In this situation, both supervisor A and the student thought supervisor B might be a good fit for the student's interests - that validates both supervisor A forwarding the message to B and the student's original contact to B.
I think it's fine to do nothing, but I think it would also be fine to reply-all to the email thread between professors A and B and say both 1) a brief one-sentence 'thanks' to A for considering you and for helpfully suggesting professor B, and 2) acknowledge briefly (one sentence) that you've already heard from professor B that they do not have a position for you.
This accomplishes two things at once: it shows you are gracious, as you'd like to be seen by both A and B as they are professors in your field and will be your peers in the future if your plans work out, and it lets professor B off the hook for needing to respond to A.
No need to apologize for awkwardness or go overboard. Focus your remaining energies on other opportunities.
is very good but I would not do 2). Prof B can change their mind, OP suggesting that it is over already may be premature and closes the door. B may want to respond or not.
@WoJ and it might be the thing to tip B's opinion over. Perhaps he values A's viewpoints and might stumble into something he didn't notice upon his previous contact with the Student. Or he might reconsider his position. B might see A's forwarding of the mail as A believing that Student is a good fit for B's research team.
@Woj I do not think that A redirecting to B is meant to be an endorsement or anything like that; rather, the student probably contacted them with research interests that A recognized overlapped best with B's interests. After all, OP reached out to B first, anyways, probably because they seemed to be the best fit initially. Surely B is capable of determining who is a good fit for their own team, and they have already reviewed the student's application.
The scenario @WoJ describes actually happened to me: I thought joining Prof A was ideal for a postdoc and wrote him, and he didn't respond. A little later, I wrote an e-mail to collaborator Prof B saying I was looking for a postdoc in subject X, who simply forwarded my e-mail to Prof. A. Prof. A responded with an interview request, saying that B prompted him to take another look, and quickly thereafter I received a position with A.
@user71659 Seems a bit different here, where B has already had a look and rejected (which is a stronger behavior than merely failing to both looking and responding). But yes, I suppose if one really wants to keep all doors open you could hold out hope that this mention from A will suddenly change things... I'm doubtful. There are lots of other supervisors out there.
It could be that A was not aware that B had already rejected your application. So, maybe, A was trying to help you by forwarding (CC) your email to B to see if B is interested in being your supervisor.
For now, it seems that both A and B have rejected your request to be your supervisor. Is it true ?
If yes, then you should probably move on and look for a different supervisor. There is no need to talk to A about the fact that B already rejected you.
There is no need to contact A about this issue, but no reason not to stay in contact unless actually rejected.
@Buffy. OK. I've just updated the answer to better reflect my original intention.
Person A has not rejected you. They were, perhaps, trying to be helpful, possibly thinking B would be a better choice. While the situation seems awkward to you, it may not seem so to them, if they are friends/colleagues.
Person A hasn't said why (unless you omitted it) that they "may not be able" to supervise you. Perhaps it had to do with themself, not with you. Perhaps they could change the balance. If they hadn't seem something positive in your request, then they wouldn't have passed it on.
I would continue to try to get A to supervise you, provided that you believe they would be a good choice for reasons you've looked in to and not just a random ask. Give them a good reason to overcome their potential reluctance.
But, pursue all other options in tandem. There is no reason to step back from other possibilities.
You should do nothing. B will probably say thanks but then ignore the suggestion. You both already know B is not interested.
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177669 | How should I answer a question asking to compare the applicant to students previously sent to the university, if there are none?
One of my students is applying to Caltech for a PhD. He asked me for a recommendation letter. I haven't written a recommendation letter before. He is a bright student and I want to help him.
On Caltech's website, there are five questions a recommender needs to answer. The last one is "How does the applicant compare to any previous students who have come to Caltech for their graduate work?"
However, no one from our department ever applied to Caltech. My university is a well-reputed one, but the department is small. Most of the students either choose to pursue a PhD domestically or go for industry positions. Applying for PhD in the US is unheard of. That's why I'm very keen on recommending this student as he is breaking barriers and is the first in our department with such ambitious goals.
I do know that on a letter, it wouldn't look good if I mention that none of our students have joined Caltech. How should I answer this question in a positive light that would be helpful for my student?
"I can honestly say that I have never recommended a more brilliant, energetic, or talented student to pursue further studies at your institution."
"Most of the students either choose to pursue a PhD domestically or go for industry positions" What country? OECD, or developing nation? Do you have any students that have gone to other famous, top-tier universities like Oxford or Cambridge, or to the top university in your country, to compare them with?
Perhaps give comparables?
You can turn it on an sort of advantage perhaps. His/her motivation should be emphasised by this unprecedented decision. How to find the way is your task, but I hope you get what I mean.
Answer it honestly. You won't be the first to just say that no one has applied before.
You can then say, if you haven't elsewhere, that you expect they will be highly successful and are proud to recommend them.
The question quoted by the OP is "How does the applicant compare to any previous students who have come to Caltech for their graduate work". Rather than interpret this as being about former Caltech graduate students from the OP's own institution, the OP could write about other students known personally to the OP who were graduate students at either Caltech or PhD programs with Caltech's reputation or higher: UCLA, Berkeley, and so on. I think that might be a better reply than answering essentially with ¯_(ツ)_/¯ .
@KCd, that would be an impossible question to answer. I have no idea about Caltech grad students, my own or any others. Georgia Tech (etc.) I could say something about and the university I went to, but not otherwise.
Buffy is right. It is impossible for me to compare my student with other Caltech grad students as I don't know them personally.
It's a silly question to begin with --- academics giving recommendations should be comparing the student in question to other students they know/have taught (at same level, etc.), not students at an entirely different institution they have never met. Just answer honestly and resist the temptation to tell them how stupid their question is.
CalTech has a reputation to maintain. So they presumably want to admit students who are comparable to (or better than) previous students. That makes it a reasonable question, even though it may be difficult for the recommender to assess.
@Barmar On the contrary, the question implies that CalTech only wants to admit students that come from institutions/departments that have already provided students to CalTech in the past. That reduces the pool of candidates (considerably, if we are talking in the departmental/chair level) and is probably detrimental to the goal of getting the best students/maintaining a reputation.
@Barmar: It also implies that Caltech has so little regard for the time of outside academics that it seeks to impose on them the task of attempting to research the quality of students at Caltech (instead of just asking them to write a standard reference like every other university in the world). So to the extent that their question gives any information about their reputation, the inferred reputation is that they are assholes.
@ben It's a somewhat common question in America from my limited understanding
@Ben I think you're overblowing this. The point of recommendations is that the professor knows the student better than the school can discover through their own research. If the professor knows other CalTech students, they should be able to compare them. They're not asking the professor to do research, just provide their opinion.
They cannot really have an informed opinion unless they know other graduates who have gone to Caltech, which is very specific information (and even if they do know a few, their personal sample size meeting that criterion is probably going to be small). Hence, asking them to make this comparison is asking them for a comparison they usually cannot provide (as in the case of OP).
The committee will likely know that no one from your school has gone to grad school at Caltech (at least in that department). That was the case for me (I don't think they had this question when I applied), and I was accepted. The issue was that they weren't familiar with my undergrad program, so they didn't know how to interpret me being a top student at my university. In the end, they took a chance on me, and I can tell you I wasn't the worst student there.
Consequently, of course you should be honest, as Buffy says, but if you can compare this student with students who went to grad school at other top places, or even how the student compares with undergrads at well-known schools, that will likely be helpful. (In general, even without this question, you should do this in your letter if possible.)
If not, hopefully the other letter writers will be able to.
See if you know anyone who has gone to Caltech for graduate study (e.g. someone who is an alumnus). It doesn't have to be a former student, it could e.g. be your professional contact. If not, see if you know anyone who has gone to a similar US university for graduate study, preferably a university of a similar stature.
If that's not possible too, the best you can do is probably comparing with PhD students at your university. Fortunately your university is a well-reputed one.
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196841 | Should I contact arXiv if the status "on hold" is pending for a week?
I submitted my research article in mathematics (number theory category) on Thursday. It has been seven days since my paper status was "on hold". I have submitted several papers before, but this time it took a long time.
I always submit my articles from my supervisor's account (through cross-connection), since I don't have an arXiv account. But I have not seen so much in my previous six articles.
Why is arXiv not taking action further? Should I contact arXiv about the delay?
I am not sure, but I think that the arxiv email response always gives a reason why the paper is on hold. Which reason was could well be that action on your side is needed.
Since mid-2022, ArXiv takes longer to make papers public. The reasons were not explained. Perhaps, it has something to do with a large number of papers written in relation to Covid-19, and the fact that some preprints were used as "scientific evidence" in public/political discourse before the results were peer-reviewed and "officially" published.
At the moment, it is quite normal for a preprint to be on hold in ArXiv for 2+ weeks. Sit tight and wait patiently.
Thank you very much for the recent information. I was not aware of it.
That's interesting, but definitely not normal in my arXiv categories.
I don't think this is accurate for OP, who specified math.NT. All the preprints in that category in today's (June 2) release were submitted either on June 1 or late on May 31.
@EspeciallyLime, I submitted my preprint through "differential geometry(DG)" category mentioning the cross connection in number theory (NT). This procedure I have been following since last 3 years.
@learner I had a quick look at math.DG and papers don't seem to take noticeably longer than for math.NT.
*arXiv
Your information seems correct. Finally, arXiv accepted the paper on 13th day from submission. i.e., within 2 weeks
Let me tell you that I always submit my articles from my supervisor's account
This doesn't sound like a good idea. I can't remember the exact rules regarding submission, but why can't your supervisor endorse you to submit to your chosen arXiv category?
Why is Arxiv not taking action further?
Who knows why.
Should I contact Arxiv about the delay?
If you want to know why, then yes. They may also be able to advise you about how your advisor can endorse you so that you can handle the submissions properly.
Indeed, my supervisor is always a coauthor, so I submit from his account. He can not endorse me in "number theory" category because he has different "default" category. Thank you for answer.
@learner AFAIK categories one can endorse depends on whether one has published in those categories, it doesn't have to be the default category
@GoodDeeds: Presumably by "published in those categories" you mean archiving something in ArXiv in those categories? My understanding is that regardless of how much one has formally published (peer review journals), someone without an institutional address requires endorsement even for acceptance in categories one has formally published in.
@DaveLRenfro Yes, that is what I meant (archiving on arXiv in those categories), sorry for the confusion.
@GoodDeeds, to my knowledge one can endorse to a specific category if he/she has at least 4 published papers. My supervisor and I have one published article in a journal in the number-theory category, but the other 5 preprints are in arxiv. So I think my supervisor can not endorse me in the number-theory category. Of course, he can endorse me in his default category, on which I don't work.
@learner I am not sure that is how it works, according to https://info.arxiv.org/help/endorsement.html, the number of submissions needed to have been authored varies by subject but only requires that they have been submitted to arXiv, with no requirement of journal or other publications.
You do not need an endorsement if you open an account with the university domain email address. That is what I did.
I strongly recommend that you absolutely do NOT contact arXiv about why your submission is "on hold". When I did this (e.g., cs.LG, cs.NE, cs.AI), via the suggested support channel that arXiv suggests, I found that doing so leads to a rejection of the paper. I believe the reason for this is that it is annoying to the team/support team to receive queries related to the delay/on-hold status. [Sadly, this quite readily leads to paranoia given that one never really ever knows why their work will be put on hold or is rejected -- you are receiving a peer review without access to the peer review thus you never correct for whatever reason lead to the rejection. Bear in mind that arXiv does explicitly state on their page that it will not provide reasons for rejection.]
Note that it can take 3+ weeks for work be on hold for the cs categories (I believe this is more likely for interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary research). Be patient and just hope for the best.
Anyway, it was accepted later
"it is annoying to the team/support team to receive queries related to the delay/on-hold status" Well, it is annoying to the AUTHORS to now have to face lengthy delays because the moderation team doesn't have their act together. Since the authors are the ones supplying the product, I feel "Be patient and just hope for the best" is an insufficient response. It looks to me like arXiv is strangling itself with poor management.
I agree with you; however, in some disciplinary domains arXiv holds the monopoly on preprints that are taken seriously. Preprints on alternatives like OSF aren’t viewed as much (sadly) and others are looked at as non-legit while viXra is looked at in some domains as work for crackpots, pseudoscience, and alchemy (not true but dominant public perception matters most in science/academia today) thus not leaving other viable options with wide audiences for scientists and students. This means you just have to worry care the moods of the moderators and serve their whims else be banned/backlisted.
I have generally witnessed long waiting time if I upload a word-file converted to PDF (rather than pure latex), which correlated with the fact that the work was not 100% technical but more interdisciplinary (The same observation as made by @gw109).
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5575 | Do university rankings matter for research?
Possible Duplicate:
University rank/stature - How much does it affect one’s career post-Ph.D?
Do rankings of universities matter while pursuing research or should I be more concerned about finding a suitable supervisor irrespective of the university or institute rankings?
See my answer to a related question
I'd strongly endorse JeffE's answer he linked to above. You can find excellent supervisors at some lower-ranked universities, but you typically won't have nearly as strong a cohort of fellow students. (There are far more student positions than faculty positions, so the strongest faculty get spread out over more schools.) You'll spend a lot of time talking and working with your peers, so this makes a big difference. Rankings don't predict this perfectly, but they are highly correlated with it, and these peer effects matter more than the university name on your diploma.
I think the importance you have to attach to this criterion (university ranking) when finding a new research job (from your question, it appears to be a PhD) is limited, because:
What counts if our research output: your results, and how you communicate them to your community. You want people in your field to recognize you as someone who can tackle difficult problems and design creative and efficient solutions.
Of course, your research may not be so stellar that everyone has heard of you. So, coming from a well-known group with a proven track record is important. You want your research group to be famous, because it reflect well on you.
But it's not that simple… not all group leaders are superstars! Failing that, it is better to be affiliated with a well-known department (or university). You want to be in a university/department that people think is good.
But not all people know all universities well enough to be able to judge them. Those who don't rely on externally published rankings.
See how rankings are introduced only as item #4 in the above list. Thus, even considering only the career advancement side of your question, university ranking is not a primary concern. Sure, it plays a role, but lots of students overestimate that role compared to, say, the importance of your own work and results.
In terms of employers, you will face two types of them:
One is interested in only good universities and will make it as a negative point if your university ranking is not that good. Usually those know nothing about your research. It is also subjective and vague for what is a good university ranking? is there any threshold to specify good and bad rankings?. Things are not clear here.
Another type of employers (specially in academia/research positions) they admire your research (if you did good research) and have zero weight on where you come from.
The bottom line here is: if you see your supervisor is going to help you to be better researcher (and thus publish in good journal/conferences) then why not?
There are plenty of good professors affiliated with not-so-good university ranking.
If you could make the two (good university ranking + good supervisor) then this is the perfect solution.
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139654 | I have stack-exchanged through my undergrad math program. Am I likely to succeed in mathematics PhD programs?
I'm currently a third-year mathematics student at a top-20 private research university in the US (though mostly known for the humanities). We have a small undergraduate mathematics department, but we were offered the option to take many graduate courses. I’m always passionate about studying pure math, specifically algebra, and I’m very seriously considering pursuing a PhD degree in mathematics. Nonetheless, I’ve not been able to participate in mathematical research of any kind so far – getting undergraduate research experience is impossible due to personal status issues, and my department has no resource committed to undergraduate research.
Indeed, as of my course load, I’ve finished the three-semester algebra sequence by my second year (i.e., group/representation, ring, field/Galois, category theory, commutative algebra, and homological algebra). Though I started late, I'm also working my way through the analysis and topology/geometry sequence, taking differentiable manifold and complex analysis now. I maintained all As in the graduate courses I’ve taken.
Regarding this, I do have one important confession to make, and it is in fact the reason why I’m asking this question. Math SE is a very robust community with respect to algebra. This worked very conveniently for me as there are very few peers at my school to discuss math with. As a combined consequence I actively seek ideas on SE whenever I get stuck on homework. (Please note that I'm not in violation of any collaboration rules set by my department: I understand and then proceed to write every proof myself.) This happens in about 30% of the assignments. I have no problem with exams since they are usually much easier than assignments.
Only after having recently talked to graduate students and professors at a conference, did I realize this is a terrible approach. I vividly remember one said something like: “unless you went through a textbook and attempted to prove every theorem yourself first you won’t truly understand the subject”, which is, the exact contrary of what I’ve been doing. I’m seriously in doubt about my aptitude over these subjects, fearing that I will be subpar on the level of understanding as well as the ability to conduct research, to approach open questions when I reached graduate school. I fear I never try/explore “hard enough” to come up with proofs like others have suggested. I managed to do most just by familiarity of common methods/tricks and theorems, but those things can be forgotten over time.
So here comes some specifics of my question:
Is searching SE for homework problems common for math students?
How will doing so affect a student’s understanding of the material?
In what ways does doing so tie to one’s ability to do research?
What are some possible ways to remedy this, besides completely re-learning the material?
How much do I have to pay in the future for stack-exchanging through my courses?
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I got to say, this post makes me feel like I'm doing pretty bad in my math major. I'm barely through basic undergraduate math as a third year and have nowhere near all As. Oof.
Obviously user115896 can't see this comment, but for future readers, I would assume that to mean a top-20 research university that is also private.
First of all, I believe this is extremely common these days. More and more I notice students neglecting to develop important problem solving skills and instead developing great “google-fu” and “stack-exchange-fu” skills to achieve the same goals.
Now, don’t get me wrong, SE-fu is a terrific skill to have. Just like you are worried about using the internet too much and coming to rely on it as a crutch, some people genuinely ought to worry about having the opposite problem of obstinately trying to figure everything out themselves even if it takes them weeks or months and refusing to ask for help. This is just hugely inefficient. These people may in fact become excellent problem-solvers given enough time, but it’s just not a practical approach to covering the large amount of material a modern mathematical education requires.
So what I’m saying is, there is a right amount of stack-exchange usage that can be really good for you. Someone who makes the right use of math.SE and other great online resources can really boost their ability to master complex topics and speed up the learning process compared to their peers who don’t use those resources. And then... there is definitely also a wrong amount of stack-exchange usage. It is certainly possible to rely on it too much, or more generally to rely too much on asking other people to help you figure things out when you get stuck (before SE was around, people with such tendencies also existed, they would just nag their friends and class mates with lots of questions instead of using google/SE).
So, is this a fatal flaw or an indication you’re unlikely to succeed? Absolutely not. From your description it sounds like a slightly bad habit at worst, but one that you likely share with a lot of other students (I mean probably something like 70% of them, if we interpret your habit to include heavy use of google and not just SE).
I do advise you however to actively work on shaking this habit and investing more time and effort in trying to solve problems by yourself before you give up and ask for help. Getting yourself unstuck when you get stuck is a skill in and of itself, and involves important sub-skills like learning how to identify when you have a serious misconception about a problem, learning to believe in your ability to solve problems by yourself, learning to be attentive to small details, and probably other things that are equally important but that I would have a hard time articulating in words. When you look up the answer or ask for help on SE, you end up solving a specific short-term problem (figuring out the answer to the specific question you need solved), but deprive yourself of broader opportunities to acquire these very valuable problem-solving skills. It’s certainly not too late to start though, and your tendency to over-rely on help sounds fairly mild in any case, if it even exists. Good luck!
Exactly this. Related to getting help when you believe it is currently beyond you. =)
I really like the balance this post strikes. The people telling the OP that every serious mathematician works through every text by themselves are being absurd, but I also think that the OP has real reason for concern.
@DavidESpeyer thanks. I hope readers here consider that your opinion is all the more meaningful coming as it does from a very successful professional mathematician.
+1 for SE-fu and Google-fu as in kung-fu. Solve problems. Don't flex your muscles out of subject.
Yes! In fact, I think you're well on your way to doing better than your peers! Taking longer to understand something isn't something to be proud of! There's no need to reinvent the wheel. If someone can help you understand something, you would be well-advised to make use of them. In the same way, you would be well-advised to attend the lectures, thereby getting help from the professor, instead of staying at home with the ZFC axioms and attempting to derive the whole of mathematics from scratch.
My experience asking questions on Stack Exchange also indicates that simply writing the problem in a form which others can understand is a great help in clarifying my own understanding of the problem. Indeed, I've solved some of my problems simply by beginning to write a (never asked) question.
Of course, this doesn't mean you should outsource your understanding to others. You should make it so that you can explain the concept to next year's students without help (answer some other SE questions while you're at it!). But even then you should feel free to ask for help with next year's problems.
When you say "taking longer to understand something isn't something to be proud of", do you mean "isn't something to be ashamed of" or "is something to be proud of"? What's written at the moment seems to contradict the otherwise encouraging tone of the answer, so it looks like a mistake.
In this case he means that deliberately spending hours trying to work it out for yourself is needlessly masochistic when you have other resources (i.e. StackExchange) to help.
I get where you're coming from, but I disagree with this answer. A large part of studying is learning how to deal with frustration and push through. It's like training a muscle. When I jog the point isn't to get from point A to B, but to make my heart and legs strong enough to carry me fast for long periods of time. Otherwise I could just call a cab.
@E.T. yes, so one should also make a serious attempt to solve the problem first. However, if it feels like one has run out of ideas and cannot make progress, one should also feel no shame about asking for help.
Would those be the questions you have had closed or the others?
@E.T. Continuing your analogy, what do you do when youre farther out that you can return from? When your legs collapse? Call the cab, of course.
I don't want to discourage anyone from asking for help, but I do think there's a big difference between asking a professor for help in office hours or asking a peer to work on a problem with you, and looking up answers online.
the comment on the benefits of "writing things out" is so true. A classic rubber ducky scenario: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
I think this answer could be improved if there was a direct reference to the work of a PhD program, and maybe some justification of how the asker will be prepared to make a novel contribution.
"...simply writing the problem in a form which others can understand is a great help in clarifying my own understanding of the problem" - YES!
I don't have any disagreement with this answer. Just wanted to mention something I read on twitter - "When you reinvent the wheel you understand all the reasons why it is round. It is a very educational experience."
@NoahSnyder It's not just "looking up answers online", as SE answers tend to elaborate about the process and how the answer is reached, rather than just replying with x=5
I wouldn't worry too much. It sounds like you are making excellent progress. You are still an undergraduate, you have tons of time ahead of you!
There are lots of good ways to learn mathematics. Talking with others (including over the Internet) is one. Allowing yourself to get stuck, and trying hard to come up with your own proofs is another.
If you feel that your study habits have skewed too much towards the former, I'd recommend trying out the latter approach. (Which does not mean you have to change to it permanently.) For example, choose a course or book and try to get through it without SE. See what happens!
There are some techniques the OP may not have learned such as sleep on it, take a walk, write down several alternative approaches, and rubber duck. For proofs, you explain to the duck, in full detail, why there is no way to prove the theorem.
Writing a question on Stackexchange can be like talking to a rubber duck. Many times, I found the answer to my question in the process of writing it up.
I too have found writing questions to be an excellent exercise to help understand a problem better, and I too have sometimes ended up with a solution from an hour or two of just question-writing.
I hope that people who wrote a good question and then found the answer themselves still took the time to post both. A good answer is good regardless of who wrote it. Also, someone else may have an even better answer.
@usernumber - even better, answer a question somewhere where you know the technical vocabulary well enough but have no idea what they're talking about. The OP verbed 'SE' but really they should've said google-fu. To stack exchange something is to employ the scientific method to solve empirical problems, so the only thing you need to learn how to do is take a flippant question, turn it into an empirical one so that it can be answered, going down rabbit holes until you can get back to question as asked. AKA, research.
@MSalters Often enough, I discover while writing up a question that my mistake was a typo in my code. In those cases, I prefer keeping the question and the answer to myself :p
"... unless you went through a textbook and attempted to prove every theorem yourself first you won't truly understand the subject"
Nonsense! This is anxious, perfectionistic thinking, and internalizing thoughts like this ultimately caused me to leave academia. I felt that I couldn't pursue my research unless I fully understood everything from first principles. I would get stuck for weeks trying and failing to get my head around a particular tiny nuance of probability theory. Needless to say, it was exhausting, and I barely managed to finish my master's thesis.
The thing is that learning is a continuous process, and you don't have to understand everything perfectly to move forward. You can learn as you go.
Well, it likely depends a bit on your personality type. Personally, I have always read textbooks from the very first page to the very last, not leaving a page until I have felt that I've understood it well (or memorised it well, if applicable to the subject/situation). And that approach worked very well for me during my 10 years at the university (physics, mathematics, and then medicine). For me, it was a very efficient and enjoyable experience, and I did feel that I understood "everything" very well. But I also understand that we are all different, and I suspect I am the "unusual" one here...
@AndreasRejbrand That's fair! I'm not that type of person, and based on the OP's post I don't think they are either, but I realize that it could be a natural way of learning for some people.
No-one really knows the educational effects of reliance on SE yet, mostly because you, and your generation, are the canaries down the coal-mine. Most of the experts who answer questions on the technical SE sites are people who completed their graduate education before SE existed, and some before the Internet was even in regular use. Those of us who answer questions on these technical SE sites rely on the students who use this facility to have good judgment about when reliance on this assistance is helping them learn, as opposed to being a substitute to learning. From our perspective, we certainly hope this assistance will help your understanding of the material, and we try to frame our answers in this way, but we are relying on you to let us know how it all works out, not the other way around.
So here comes some specifics of my question:
• Is searching SE for homework problem common for Math students?
You are probably in a much better position to judge this than most of us. Ask around the students in your faculty and see if they use this resource, or if it is just you. There are certainly a reasonable number of student questions on SE.math, but the volume is still far below the number of mathematics undergraduates presently studying. This suggests that only a small proportion of math students are using SE to ask questions, though many may be looking up answers to existing questions on that facility.
• How will doing so affect a student's understanding of the material?
This really depends on the exercise of good judgment by the student, so you tell us! Has SE helped you or hindered you? Have SE answers functioned as a tool to assist your learning, or as a substitute for learning? Have there been any instances in which you used an SE answer to substitute having to learn to understand a piece of material? Was this common?
• In what ways does doing so tie to one's ability to do research?
Unless the use of SE answers has hampered your previous learning, there is no reason to think it will impose a limit on your ability to learn to do research. It takes a long time to learn to do research, which is why we have PhD programs, but if you are able to get into one of those programs, there is no inherent reason that you should lack the ability to learn the material and ultimately succeed in this area. You mention your professor's comment that you won't truly understand a subject unless you attempt to prove every theorem in the relevant textbook yourself. I would say that is rather aspirational, and it assumes that the textbook is some kind of golden-tablet that perfectly delineates all necessary knowledge in the subject. In practice, this level of engagement wouldn't necessarily occur, and it is not a necessary condition for expertise. As you acquire expertise in a subject, you are naturally going to be curious to check and re-check all the foundations, so you are probably going to find that at some point you will learn to prove all or most of the relevant theorems yourself. That might occur slowly, as you learn more about your subject and relate it to other relevant areas of mathematics.
In regard to research trainnig, it is worth noting that the major difference between undergraduate mathematics, versus research mathematics, with respect to SE, is that the latter is going to involve problems that are sufficiently difficult that it might be hard to get answers on SE. At the level of graduate research, you are expected to be developing into someone who is becoming an expert in your topic, so at that point the pool of people that can help you diminished substantially. Some researchers do ask questions on SE.math pertaining to research topics, and sometimes they get useful answers, but often the complexity/obscurity of the topic is such that it is difficult to get assistance through this medium.
• What are some possible ways to remedy this besides completely re-learning the material?
You haven't really told us exactly what deficiencies you feel you have that you're trying to remedy. Presumably you have learned something in the courses you passed, so even if there are gaps in your knowledge, plugging those gaps would require only a partial relearning of the material. Certainly, if you feel that there are areas of your mathematics education where you did not acquire the relevant knowledge, go back and have another go at them, and try out some practice problems until you gain the understanding that you missed.
• How much do I have to pay in the future for stack-exchanging through my courses?
As I said at the start, you are the canary in the coalmine here, so we are waiting to see the results, and then you can tell us.
Instead of me looking through your questions on Math SE like Ethan Bolker suggests, let me tell you what I would look for and evaluate instead, and then let yourself do the self-evaluation (which is also an important skill to develop as a researcher!).
Basically, I would look at if your questions are well received. If you hit the hallmarks of a "good question" (as defined on many SE sites), you are probably benefiting from your interaction with Math SE. To list some of these characteristics of good questions:
shows that you have put thought in the problem,
shows that you have attempted to solve the problem yourself,
shows that you understand the material.
If you had good guidance and supervision, you would probably be able to discuss these things with your advisor. If you had many peers with similar interests, you would be able to discuss these things with your peers. Neither your advisor, nor your peers, nor the community at Math SE would value if you came asking for help while showing you had put no effort into understanding the problems yourself.
So if your questions are not well received, SE might be pulling your weight, and the same way the community does not appreciate questions showing low research effort, a prospective adviser would not develop confidence in your understanding and dedication if you expected them to serve you with all the answers.
Additionally, and excellent way to deepen your understanding of mathematics (or any topic, really) is to start answering others' questions. You need a deeper understanding of the material in order to explain something clearly and concisely. This would be similar to explaining a topic to one of your peers asking for help.
Finally, I'd like to note that not everybody has the same learning style: some people benefit more from sole studying with a textbook, some people benefit from using visual aids or drawing, and some people (me included) work and learn (and come up with new ideas!) best when interacting with other people.
To summarise: if you are asking well-received questions and providing well-received answers on Math SE (or a similar technical SE) you are probably benefiting from it similar to what you could get out of a good adviser and peers with similar interests. This is especially true if you have an interactive learning style; you were simply looking for the most effective learning method fitting your learning style which was possible in your situation.
On a personal note: I used to be much more active on Stack Overflow during my BSc and MSc. My activity and reputation graph pretty much follows my project and seminar schedules: they had required me to think about more than we had to do for class, or to combine the course material in new ways. Being able to get feedback on my ideas and approaches was invaluable for my learning and understanding.
That is so much ignored: Different people learn in different ways! You will meet plenty of people who think that if you don't learn in a particular way, you are useless. In reality, if you find one way that works for you, you're fine. (Myself, I have to write something down, and it enters my brain and stays there. Without that step, I don't learn. )
There are a lot of aspects of training to be a mathemtician. For example, you want to learn:
Mathematical theory (definitions, key theorems, key constructions)
Literature search (figuring out what's in which papers, finding results in books, using google to find relevant ideas)
Mathematical tricks and proof techniques
How to struggle with a difficult problem that takes hours or days to solve. What kind of techniques do you use to get unstuck? How do you deal psychologically with being stuck? How do you decide when to give up on a problem or approach?
Writing math papers (dealing with writer's block, making diagrams, organization, clarity of proofs)
Collaboration (learning how to solve problems together with other people, figuring out how to learn from and explain to your peers, etc.)
The bad news is it sounds like you've focused exclusively on the first two bullet points at the detriment of the other ones. Getting stuck on 30% of problems suggests that you're pretty far behind where you should be in terms of mathematical tricks and proof techniques. If you go to a graduate school that has a preliminary exam you're likely to struggle with it. Not having the experience of really struggling with questions you're stuck on, means you're underprepared for the psychological experience of research, and for figuring out how to work on problems to which no one knows the answer. It's important to try to learn the difference between being stuck and close to an answer, and being stuck and far from an answer. By turning to stackexchange exclusively instead of talking with your fellow students and your teachers in person, you've fallen behind on learning how to collaborate.
The good news is that you have time to learn these things during the rest of this year and during your first year or two of graduate school before you move on to research. But you really need to start thinking about the aspects of your mathematical training beyond just learning mathematical theory. You need to stop giving up on problems early, and you need to talk to people in person about problems you're stuck on rather than just finding answers online.
From the question it seems that the OP does not really have many peers to discuss and collaborate with, and the number of faculty members might be quite small too (humanities-based university). I think the rest of this answer is nice, but I wouldn't say that he neglected the collaborative answer by participating in SE
@penelope: Whether or not OP had good opportunities to collaborate, OP hasn’t learned collaboration skills and would be wise to try to develop them. But you’re right that sometimes this isn’t a student’s fault if they don’t have peers. In OP’s case there’s a graduate program, so the faculty is at least medium-sized. I can’t think of a school fitting OPs description that has a genuinely small department. But at any rate you may be right that the lack of collaboration isn’t OPs fault.
For one thing, OP probably isn’t the only student googling through their homework, so there may be few opportunities to work on hard problems with other students since they’ve also looked up the answer. I think the rise of googling for answers has coincided with a huge decrease of students working together. It’s hard for one student to buck that cultural shift.
I would actually say that posting on SE does develop collaboration skills up to a point... now, whether we chose to believe the OP that they didn't have any better opportunities or not is a different question, but I firmly believe that communicating your problem, giving clarifications etc in a good SE format does require (and develop) at least some collaboration skills.
Great answer! It says a lot of the things I was trying to say in my answer, but in a different (in some ways better) way.
Really, the answer to this is very simple.
Everything that you can find on the internet has already been done by someone else.
What you are required to do in PhD research is something which has not been done by anyone else yet.
Of course, the web may still give you good ideas about techniques, etc. But SE or (any other web forum) isn't actually going to "do your PhD for you" in the same way it can "do your homework for you" - even if you have been avoiding straightforward "copying" of what you discovered from web sites.
You will also eventually hit the problem that there are very few people in the world who are working on anything very similar to what you are doing - and that handful of people might not hang out on SE, or anywhere else you are looking on the web for advice!
I think this is probably the correct answer, but could maybe be tempered by pointing out that the OP is unprepared, not necessarily inept, and many other undergraduates are in the same boat--even if they don't use the internet, knowing that the problem is expected to be solvable with tools-to-date certainly leads to a different experience. (Plus just having the ability to do research is not sufficient, hopefully you also enjoy it...)
You can just carry on with this approach through graduate school and well into your career as a professional mathematician.
For instance I have at least one series of papers that started because of answers I got to a mathoverflow post when I was confused about something.
But should they continue to do so? I spend some time on MathOverflow dealing with (a small number of) people who are essentially asking others to do all the mathematical thinking
I intended to answer after looking at the kinds of questions and answers you posted on Math SE. I was surprised to find none linked from your profile.
Stack Exchange can be a good place to "discuss mathematics", but if all you did was lurk, reading other people's entries, you have not discussed much, and may not be as ready for further study as others here suggest.
The profile for this question is marked "new contributor". The OP may have another profile that is active on Math SE.
@PatriciaShanahan That thought occurred to me. Perhaps we'll get an update.
I was wondering about that myself a few hours ago when I first saw this question, and suspected what @Patricia Shanahan said, but still wondered why this obviously easily checked and seemingly inconsistent issue wasn't at least briefly addressed. Also, getting through 3 semesters of graduate algebra by second year (when usual is maybe multivariable calculus and elementary linear algebra) and working on "analysis and topology/geometry sequence, taking differentiable manifold and complex analysis" sounds ultra-accelerated to me (for an undergraduate at a U.S. university).
@EthanBolker Thank you for your answer. This is indeed a new profile created by me like Patricia Shanahan suggested. I have chosen to enjoy the anonymity of the internet in this case mainly because my math.SE account is easily recognizable by people I know and this topic can be potentially controversial. My motivation behind asking this question is to look for ways to "self-diagnose" and ways to improve as needed. I'm sorry if I cannot provide links to questions I've discussed on in the past :(
@FunnyMorphism That makes sense. But it does make it harder to give you advice. I think you'll be OK. Good luck.
If you are looking up the solutions to the exact (or trivially similar) questions you are being asked in your homeworks, then that is cheating. It is bad for all the reasons that cheating is bad:
you are not doing the assignment the professor wants in the manner they want you to do it; you are side-stepping the challenge.
Your performance in the assignment is incorrect feedback to the professor that you understand the problem, potentially causing them to accelerate or at least not bother reviewing and circling back as much. At the very least you should cite the online sources you used so they will know. This provides a good opportunity to test your theory that it is perfectly kosher to use those sources.
Your grade will not represent your abilities as it was meant to, and potential grad schools and employers will be misled into thinking you are better at math than you really are. This is also blatantly unfair to everyone who did not look up solutions.
As for rewriting the theorems after you understand them, this is better than nothing sure, but couldn't you claim the same after "collaborating" to get the answers? That doesn't make cheating ok. Many other answers here focus on the question of learning, but you could also learn wonderfully while plagiarizing fellow students' work, hacking the profs laptop for the solutions, and performing other forms of overt cheating, as long as you did it "properly". Hey we can't expect you to solve every problem in the book yourself right?
When I made this point in a comment it was met with a surprising amount of alarm and the comment was even deleted. To everyone with such mindsets I'd suggest you consider the problem viewed from a higher level of moral development. See here: Kohlberg levels of moral development. What matters is the universal principal underlying the rules against cheating, which I listed above, not what you can get away with due to less-savvy profs and outdated student handbooks.
As for re-doing every proof in a textbook, this is creating a false dichotomy. There are more alternatives between the extremes of cheating through all problems versus re-writing a content-packed book with your eyes closed. That middle ground is the job of your instructor to find for you. You don't really understand math unless you can redo it yourself without first knowing the answer. Yes, that's a fact. You may or may not need to understand every theorem in a particular book. Depends on the book, most aren't even peer-reviewed and have some mix of key topics and the author's personal preferences. Your instructor's job is to feed you material and challenging practice work a little at a time so that you can follow along and keep up.
As for your specific questions, yes it is very common as is all cheating. The modern view of students seems to be that a college degree is worth millions as some kind of job ticket, while merit is practically irrelevant. It will hurt you far more than you realize because your tendency will be to seek help at precisely the times you shouldn't; while you are motivated to do problems yourself when they are easy and you aren't challenged. Expertise requires Deliberate Practice which means increasing challenge, not just working easy problems or reading how others solved problems. This also provides the framework for answering the rest of your questions. Yes working through an entire book is one way to get this increasing challenge. But a better way is to do just certain key parts in a good order from a really good book. Use stackexchange to find these superior resources. Another way of course is to take a class with a good instructor that leads you through the material and provides assistance when you are stuck, rather than you looking to the internet for assistance.
@Heutl So then I suppose they also give out the answers at the same time as the assignment? if not, why not? Personally I tell students they can use the internet but they must cite what they used or run the risk of a plagiarism or collaboration accusation (since multiple students might use the same source). Plus I am very careful not to ask a question that has a available solution elsewhere. When I fail at this, I just get multiple copies of the stackexchange answer. Then I give the same problem on an exam and almost no one can do it. The main victim of cheating is always yourself.
@Heutl That takes complete care of it actually. I personally have stopped "caring" about cheating because I just give minimal credit for homeworks and the cheaters fail the quizzes and exams. Doesn't mean I stopped thinking it's cheating. Do the exams include questions about "answer finding skills" such as the best source of pirated solutions manuals, or which nerds are the most willing to share their answers? Just kidding.
@Heutl that was merely a side note, that even when the prof says its ok, they still could very likely consider it cheating. For my definition of cheating however, read the answer above.
I imagine that this is one of those situations in which far too many people have this "not invented here" mentality. It is something every one of goes through at some point in our lives. For example, a beginner programmer might insist that he or she has to write their own code for any and all functions that they wish to implement, including shunning the use of open-source, freely-available or otherwise acceptable to use libraries, functions, plug-ins or other assists. By the same token (and this is something I have personal experience with) a 3D beginner might insist on refusing to use any texture art, mesh data or keyframe information that they had not explicitly created themselves, even if it served the purpose to flesh out certain areas of a concept they might have been going for in the first place.
There is nothing wrong with properly-attributed work being used to support your case, and examining other people's work (and collaborating with other people) is often a fantastic and accelerated way to learn how to do things. I greatly enjoy 3D modeling, animation and rendering, but I absolutely suck at mathematics. I learned just enough to be able to work on my 3D stuff, and I use computational tools that simply didn't exist 30 years ago to provide me the assistance I need any time I work on anything requiring calculations.
In my experience, you will not be treated poorly by the academic community for using other people's work to support your own, just as long as you are open and honest about doing so. That's the key issue here. Academic dishonesty is severely frowned upon for very good reason, but so long as you do not engage in such shenanigans, I think you'll be fine.
As students read textbooks and solve exercises, but do not have access to them while writing the actual exam. So is the case with StackExchange. You don't have access to it while writing the actual exam. Whatever case you follow, as long as you did well on the exams, why should it matter?
BTW, if you do join PHD, please use mathoverflow.
BTW, if you do join PHD, please use mathoverflow. --- Why? I don't know what "join PHD" means (Enroll in a Ph.D. program? Graduate from a Ph.D. program?), but there are plenty of people with a Ph.D. who participate in Mathematics StackExchange, probably more (by actual number, but perhaps not more by percent) than in mathoverflow.
@DaveLRenfro I am suggesting OP to gain from mathoverflow.com as well during his graduate studies, just as he gained from stackexchange during his undergraduate studies.
I've found mathoverflow to be much more limited in topics, so if the OP is interested in topics emphasized on mathoverflow (and this might very likely be the case, given his extreme advancement in algebra), then certainly mathoverflow should be looked at. Probably scan over both groups, but since questions to Mathematics StackExchange have increased so much in the last few years (from 2011-2013 or so), I no longer bother trying to scroll through all the questions each day (also not the OP). Sometimes I'll pick a tag I'm interested in, or can often help with (e.g. Reference), and look at those.
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180871 | Data used for analysis is not free. What should I do as a reviewer?
I'm doing a review of a paper (very well written, I think) for a journal with a fairly good reputation.
This is my first review, and I have a question regarding data availability which is, according to the journal policy, a necessary condition to publish:
The data, code or other digital research materials must be publicly accessible and clearly indicated as such.
The problem is that the dataset used in the analysis can only be retrieved under the payment of a fee from a link provided by the authors.
How should I behave in this case?
The journal asked me if data was accessible and if it was adequate to allow replication. The honest answer is "no", but the authors could not have done otherwise, since the data has a license and is not free to share.
Actually it is not completely clear that "the honest answer is no." The policy is probably intended to require that the data are available for free, but it doesn't say that. I think you should ask the journal to clarify: do the data have to be available for free, or is being available for a fee sufficient?
must be publicly accessible, doesn't mean it is free. As a side note, the GPL license requires source code to be provided to any binary user that asked and a fee is allowed although it is required that fee to be something reasonable to cover the expenses of posting and data storage device. For sure journal has to clarify what counts as publicly accessible.
Have you asked the author (via the editor, if reviewing is being done blind) to purchase another copy of the data specifically for the reviewer(s)?
You asked, "How should I behave in this case?" Concerning completing the form, the answer is straightforward: No, the data is not freely available.
However, I suppose that your question is asking more than that. If your concern is that you, as a reviewer, do not have sufficient material to adequately review the article according to the journal's standards (that is, you do not have access to the data), then you should email the editor who assigned the review to you and explain the situation. Either they will tell you to proceed with the review taking the authors' analysis in good faith, or they may contact the authors to ask them to provide the data as a condition to continue the review. I suspect that the editor would most likely just ask you to proceed with the review, but I do not know the journal, so they might actually ask the authors to comply with their stated policy.
"publicly accessible" is not the same as "freely available".
"[take] the authors' analysis in good faith" I thought the point of peer review before publication is precisely so that we don't have to just trust that a given paper is correct/true.
It's not clear to me in from the original post that the issue is not being able to adequately review the piece, but rather whether there is an out and out violation of journal policy.
@TylerH Exactly; it is not only about did the authors commit a fraud, or accidentally erred on a detail by tunnel vision (e.g., EuSpIRg). Possibly contributions to OrganicSynthesis in chemistry go beyond the typical milage, it includes could the results replicated with one team submitting, and an other checking (example), names below the reaction scheme serving as abstract.
@CrisLuengo That is a claim that needs a source. There is no commonly accepted legal definition of that term so it will depend entirely on the language of the contract or context in which it is found. Where no explicit definition exists I don't know that it would be unthinkable to interpret "publicly accessible" to imply "accessible without cost".
@J... Just like museums have the mission to make collections accessible to the public, but nobody bats an eye when they have to pay an admission fee.
@TylerH Maybe in some fields, but in my field (physics), it is definitely not expected that reviewers, or anyone, will reproduce the analysis, when usually a paper is the result of years of analysis by a large team. Peer review is more to verify that the steps the authors claimed to use are appropriate for the type of analysis presented.
Since different journals and different editors might have different precise expectation, my basic answer (in bold) is "ask the editor".
@thegreatemu It's not necessarily about reproducing the entire experiment, it's about having access to the data and the methodology so you can determine if something was done incorrectly.
@TylerH I think that's explicitly not what it's about here. There is a strict journal requirement that the data be publicly available. I expect a reviewer's responsibilities to include ensuring the data can indeed be accessed with the provided method and that it follows expectations regarding formatting, documentation, etc. I find it highly unlikely that most reviewers have the time to reproduce enough of the work to "determine if something was done incorrectly."
@CrisLuengo Sure. But extending the museum analogy, this might be the Smithsonian of journals, and be chartered in a way that forbids charging admission.
I doubt this is a problem. I suggest shooting an email to the editor of the journal with this question. It might be the case that the author(s) will be required to provide a local (downloadable) copy of the dataset that they worked with upon approval for publication (supplementary materials). Even if that's not the possible, I wouldn't necessarily interpret "publicly accessible" as "free."
It would also be helpful to know what type or journal / research project / data we're talking about here. When the authors conducted the analysis, did they do so on a local file or through something like an R server with restricted access? If they performed analysis offline, then they should have no problem providing an anonymized copy.
If the original data is behind a fee-wall, I doubt the authors have a license to redistribute it in any way, not matter how they analyzed it.
Yeah could be. It's not really clear at this point where the data came from, so we're all speculating here. Still I doubt the intention of the journal with this rule is to prevent the publication of good work based on data that are behind a paywall.
I would question whether it was good work, if the data necessary to evaluate it is inaccessible. Sounds like a scam. Like all of the ads for good health where they tell you about all of the great results from their method/product, and if you pay $99.99 they will tell you what their product/method is.
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178084 | Reconnecting with a previous professor then asking right away for a reference letter
I am in the process of applying for a Ph.D. and the application process requires several reference letters. Since I only have done significant work with only one supervisor so far in my Master's, I would need to ask from previous professors during my Bachelor's.
Fortunately, the previous professors have already written me reference letters, and therefore the effort would be minimal. What would need to be done is just translate and then maybe change a few words to match the description of the ad.
Nevertheless, I cannot help but feel bad about reconnecting with previous professors with more than two years of no communication, only to ask for a reference letter and to get their permission to list them as referees in my CV.
What is your take on this? How should I approach this without being seen in a bad way?
If you had been a good student, I wouldn't mind writing a letter. If I have nothing to say, regardless when you were a student, I would say no.
They were a grad student trying to get into PhD programs once themselves, they will understand.
You are not “reconnecting”. You are emailing someone to ask for a letter of reference. This is normal and expected. It’s not guaranteed that they’ll say yes, but no one will think any less of you for sending such an email. The people you’re emailing have themselves likely sent a number of such emails to people they don’t know very well over the years. So they will have no issues at all with such a request.
By contrast, what would be a genuine thing to feel bad about, and likely unwelcome, is if you email a professor expressing an inauthentic-sounding desire to “reconnect”, asking some inauthentic-sounding questions about how they are doing, and then emailing them again a few days later to say “Oh, I forgot to mention I’m applying for grad programs, will you write me a letter?” Such a strategy is transparently dishonest and likely to upset people, so don’t do that.
The main thing is to be straight about your intentions. Then you will be fine, and should have no reason to feel bad.
I'll even amplify "this is normal and expected": this happens all the time. OP you're all good!
and please remember to give them a copy of your current CV or some document that lets them know what you've been up to. (and also helps remind them of who you are/were). It helps them 'remember' you, also, and by placing you better in their memory, can also end up reminding them of the past interactions that they had forgotten (but are to your benefit that they recall them).
Normal and expected is putting it mildly. This could literally be in the job description for professors
Students do sometimes ask me for references several years after I have worked with them. I have no problem with that request, even if I have heard nothing in the interim. It's particularly easy to grant if I have written for them before.
That said, I do tell them that letters about current work are more useful than letters from the past.
You might include in your request that you know current references are better but that you have too few of those for your purpose.
The connection itself is useful and fun if they mentored you in any way. I've reconnected just for that and it was appreciated that I thanked them for their early help. I didn't need letters, though.
In my opinion, you lose nothing by trying. We have a saying in Spain: "El no ya lo tienes" (you already have the "no", you just have to win the "yes").
I'm applying for postdocs and last week I contacted a professor I've barely worked with. She is a great reference in the field. To my surprise, she accepted very quickly and very kindly.
Just explain the situation, make the request and take the opportunity to greet the professor and get to know their current situation.
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182978 | A potentially trans student is misgendered in university records. What should I do?
I have noticed* that an undergrad student in a course I teach has "female" written in the "gender" field in the university intranet database (used for course enrollment, grading, etc.), although they present themselves as male in terms of appearance and pronouns.
I would have chalked it up to a simple clerical error, but then I realized that the student's name also is of a somewhat unisex character (it's common for men but not entirely rare for women as well, think "Andy"), so there is a small but nonzero probability the student is actually trans.
Of course I could just ignore the issue completely, but that would mean the wrong gender would keep being shown to dozens of other teachers for years to come, and that might put the student into all kinds of uncomfortable situations.
I'm thus trying to balance the invasion of the student's privacy by bringing this up in some way vs the invasion of their privacy caused by the problematic gender field in the database.
I was thinking about sending them a short e-mail along the lines of:
Dear Student, I have noticed the university records show your gender as female. Should you want to have that corrected, contact the Department of Student Affairs. Feel free to ignore this message if it is not relevant, I don't expect a reply.
Is there a better (read: more respectful, safer, less likely to come across as super creepy) course of action?
*: Noticing this didn't require any investigation whatsoever. When I open the teacher dashboard for my course,I am presented with a list of students. One entry in that list looks like
Andy Smith (F) (photo of a bearded dude)
That's not really easy to miss in a list with less than 30 rows.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Please read this FAQ before posting another comment.
If you must do something (an assumption I would encourage you to question), then probably the best way to help the student avoid uncomfortable situations, without actually putting them in exactly the kind of uncomfortable situation you are trying to spare them, is to alert your university’s registrar to the potential error. The registrar would be in a better position to check whether this is in fact a clerical error or something that is in accordance with the student’s wishes. And the student would probably perceive an email from an anonymous registrar staff member discussing the option of correcting an incorrect entry in their university records as a lot less creepy than a similar email coming from their professor.
Edit: see also the comment by @niemiro, who said that “The registrar could send an email containing every field in the database for that student and ask for confirmation that it’s all still correct”. If/when you email the registrar, you can suggest to them this approach to minimize any creepiness factor and avoid a risk of accidentally outing the student.
Other than this idea, doing nothing is a viable, and, in my opinion, completely satisfactory approach to handling a “problem” that you neither know with certainty is actually a problem, nor falls anywhere near your actual professional duties with respect to the student in question.
I don't think I must do something,just that doing something might be the decent thing to do. If I were a trans student, I think I wouldn't want something very private about me to be shown to every single teacher. I would want to know this was happening so that I could put an end to it.
The student not knowing is by far the least likely scenario. Much more likely that he’s not out to his parents or that your school, state, or country has trans-unfriendly policies.
@TooTea understood. Well, it’s reasonable to do something, and it’s reasonable to do nothing. I’ve given a suggestion for what to do if you want to choose the “do something” path.
If this is indeed a clerical error, contacting the registrar directly would also alert them that they need to double-check the rest of the information for this student as well. Some student profile data (grant/funding information, emergency contacts, etc) could be disastrous if incorrect. Stuff like that doesn't always get audited unless someone lets them know there might be a problem.
If the student prefers the current situation, then the registrar will probably also be aware of this case. In that case they may not even bother the student, but this question would be "taken care of" in OP's mind.
This. The registrar could send an email containing every field in the database for that student and ask for confirmation that it's all still correct and up to date.
Do not do this. You risk outing the student in the case that employers and/or family have access to their records.
@LShaver which records? Outing how exactly? I’m confused about what sort of scenario you’re imagining exactly.
For example, their parents might read their official email. Or maybe some letters are mailed to the students permanent address with a gendered title. Or the parents just open any letters sent to the student at their permanent address. Or maybe gender is mentioned somewhere on financial aid information. Lots of ways this can go horribly wrong.
@NoahSnyder while I personally think doing nothing is the best option, your objections don’t make sense. The “official email”, if such an email is ever sent, will be an email from the registrar asking the student to confirm that the details of their profile are correct. And if the student is worried about the gender being mentioned in official communications, all they need to do is not change their “parent-safe” gender in the university profile. The student will remain 100% in control. I still don’t see how the action I’m suggesting can lead to outing.
@NoahSnyder: The question now says the student's photo is "of a bearded dude". Maybe I'm incorrect here, but that seems unlikely to be someone who maintains a female appearance when seeing their parents. Without that info, yeah I agree there's more concern that the student isn't out to everyone yet.
I don't understand how passing the buck to the registrar solves this problem or even addresses the spirit of the OP's question. Suppose the registrar notices the potentially erroneous gender—then what should the registrar do? (And I second @LShaver's concern about potentially outing the student to family or others.)
@Max I believe these concerns are addressed in my answer and the long discussion in the comments. I don’t have anything to add beyond that.
an undergrad student in a course I teach
Your job is teaching this student. The gender in the university records has no relevance to that job that I can think of. Don't do anything unless the student asks you for help with the record.
wrong gender would keep being shown to dozens of other teachers for years to come
That's true, but I do not see what is has to do with your responsibilities to the student. Sensible faculty know that student records are full of errors, and quite frequently lack student's preferred names, such as Andy instead of Andrew.
Is there a better course of action?
If you want to address students by their correct pronoun, invite all of them to identify their pronoun at the start of the course.
The student uses male pronouns,so at least in that regard I'm safe. And FWIW this is the first case of an error in student records I have seen. They really have to be correct as the data is used directly to issue diplomas,grant scholarships and so on.
If the gender was not relevant it would not have been displayed in the report the teacher sees.
@WoJ In my experience student records displayed to the instructor have loads of irrelevant information.
@WoJ Please elaborate on what relevance does it has? Presumably the OP isn't in charge of arranging housing, university students are typically capable of choosing which restroom to use on their own, and pronouns are best established by just asking... So what are you actually doing differently based on M or F?
@user3067860: I have no idea, I am not American. This does not make any sense in Europe and this kind of information never appears on any report. The US being the US it may make sense there and since it is explicitly mentioned I assume it is there for something.
@WoJ Sorry,when did the US enter the picture? My original question is about the EU (and tagged as such).
As an American, I find the "it does not make sense, therefore it must be American" syllogism rather amusing.
@TooTea: ah, that's a game-changer then :) Which country if I may ask?
@Kevin: no - this is not that. From all I read (and having worked 15 years for a US company) the US is much more, say, aware of race, sex, etc. Problems that do not appear in Europe (or at least in France) do pop up in the US. There is nothing derogatory in my sentence.
@WoJ I work in Czechia and the Netherlands. I'd prefer not to be more specific because this question is now on the HNQ and I don't want to risk deanonymising the student.
@TooTea: I understand, thanks. In that case, things have changed a lot in the last ~25 years since I left academia. Now that I counted and wrote it I feel old and not that surprised anymore that things changed. Thanks for the question anyway!
@WoJ Possibly the list was typed by hand 25 years ago? These days the list is digital and generated using off the shelf software that is sold to thousands of different schools for all ages...and, most importantly, purchasing decisions are made by some administrator who doesn't actually have to use it and probably tries to make sense of competing software packages by comparing nonsense statistics like "number of fields shown".
Assuming that a student's gender identity is irrelevant to the course, AND that the professor has no particular authority or skill for correcting the database, then doing nothing is the best course of action.
By the use of the word "corrected" you are making an assumption. If they haven't made any declaration then don't act on such assumptions.
You could just leave it alone, and if the student wants it changed they will probably act on it. But at most, tell them that they should (might want to) review their student records with the appropriate office to decide on any desired changes.
I'd guess there are students of university age struggling with who they are. To some extend we all experienced that, perhaps.
Right, "corrected" is probably a mistake (although it would be okay if it is a clerical error, which I think is the much more likely explanation). Perhaps "changed" or something would be better? The whole reason I'm even considering doing something about this is that the web form with these basic personal data is quite well hidden from the perspective of a student (it's filled in once by the administration when enroll in the university and then probably never touched again), but the data from there is shown to every teacher as a part of the list of students enrolled into a course.
I'm with @buffy here. You make the assumption that something needs to be changed or corrected. That may be true, but it may also not. The student may very well like to keep an ambiguity about their gender, and it's not your job to point out that the record does not reflect how they present today. I've known a person who showed up as a woman one day at a conference, and as a man the next.
Sometime every year, the central admin at my university asks me (faculty) to check the correctness of the various bits of "information" they have for me. Sure, address, phone, next-of-kin (in case of accident?), and mostly mundane-though-personal things. This also includes expressions of preference about whether bits of info will be publicly accessible, or not. In the past, the default seemed to have been that lots of stuff was public, but not so much now.
Assuming that students have the same option to adjust/update their "personal information", you should just give a blanket encouragement to students... for gender-related but many more... reasons, to be sure to look at the univ's "personal info + preferences" file for them, and update as needed.
I think this approach would avoid a lot of the invasiveness and potential insensitivity/presumption about dealing directly with the specific possible issue-at-hand.
This approach feels like a good start, but I feel are 2 things missing: 1) tell the students where to find the information that is held on them, we have had lots of questions here that amount to students not being good at finding information in university computer systems. 2) Explicitly say that gender is self determined and need not match their passport/id card/whatever. Lots of organisations are pedantic about that, so students may not realise they have a choice.
The intent is good.
I would find a way to do it that’s less likely to be professionally dubious and to the student, alarming/creepy/distressing, though. Which is the likely outcome, handled that way.
I have noticed that an undergrad student in a course I teach...
This is the key, and it’s all that is needed.
If you teach in person, then good, ask them to hold back a moment after a class or supervision session. If not, consider if it’s better to email or ask if you can have a word (adding also "it’s nothing bad, a course admin thing I need to check").
Then simply say something like this:
Hi! It’s nothing big. I wanted to double check what pronouns you want me to use when we talk [or work/during supervisions/whatever, pick one as appropriate]. It matters to get them right and I’d like to be sure rather than make a mistake.
That way you’re using a legitimate reason, that they are your student and you will at some time have to communicate to them, or with them, or about them, to someone or other, be it written course correspondence, exams, informal, educational Q&A, discussions with other staff, whatever. So you want to double check what's right, to not make a hurtful thoughtless mistake.
That’s legitimate. It comes over well. And it doesn’t sound like you trawled records. They’ll probably like and appreciate the care involved, which indeed you show.
If you feel this could be an issue affecting others, it’s also not a bad thing to ask all your students at some convenient time, and let them know its okay to advise of pronouns if they wish. Treat it like any admin thing, as routine as letting them know next class time or handing out coursework.
Hi! Before we start, I have a small administrative thing. I'm updating my records, and I like to check along with names, if anyone has pronouns that they want to let me know. For reference, mine are [whatever]. If anyone wants to make sure my records are correct, please catch me some time or drop me an email. And now, back to (subject).
The people, to whom it matters, will very much notice the invitation.
"What pronouns do you want me to use?" and "what should I have in my own records?" are not the same question as "do you want the university's official records changed?"
The difference is, they are legitimate and valid questions that don't cause issues, and tell you whether the official records have a problem in the first place. Which is what the OP actually wants to know, a non creepy "better course of action". ......
...The answer obtained either confirms the official records are right, or allow the OP to legitimately follow up internally by correcting them without distressing or involving the student further: "Hi, I noticed that X appears to be incorrectly listed as female on our official records but he's just confirmed he's male. It came to light as I was checking my own records. Can we correct this? Thanks!" Additional benefit, its fixed without emotional labour on the part of the student, rather than demanding they jump extra hoops
Or, if so desired, by asking them, "okay, I've noted that on mine. Do you want me to chdck/make sure the official university records say the same?
"Follow up internally without involving the student further" is a very bad idea, when the student hasn't actually indicated that they want OP to do this. As discussed in my answer, it's not safe to assume that changing the record is the student's desired course of action. It's also very unlikely that university admin would be willing to change a student's recorded details just on the say-so of a teacher, without documentation or a direct request from that student.
Yes, check. For sureBut it solve the OPs actual problem which is identifying if there's actually an issue related to recorded gender vs desired use-gender, without creeping out the student.
I suspect that what has happened here is that your student doesn't realise that their registered gender need not match their passport/ID card/birth certificate. So when they filled out the form, they put down the gender they thought they were obliged to use, even though actually they could have picked the right option.
There is also a non-zero chance that some years ago, when they filled out the form, they weren't sure, but now they are more settled. Statistically, an undergraduate is right in the age band where that can happen, and testosterone acts very fast. It might only take a year to acquire a good beard.
Either way, I agree with the answers that suggest a blanket email rather than targeting this student. Is there an LGBT organisation at the university? Maybe you could ask them to send an email around explaining that;
The university welcomes folks of all gender, and respects the gender that students self-id as.
Any student is welcome to change their gender marker in the university database. It need not match any other documents.
That can be done by going to https://..... and clicking on blah
If your student is actually trans it's reasonably likely they open an email with something like "encouraging gender self-id" in the header. Of course, it may be that they don't read their email much at all, but we must live in hope.
99% of students see themselves as either male or female. Among bearded blokes named Andy the percentage may be higher.
A simple question to the person: “Hi, according to the student database you are female. Is that correct?” will give the student an opportunity to either tell you it’s correct, or to fix a mistake. And there’s the possibility that the wrong picture ended up on the database.
And please nothing like “should you want that corrected” - here you are making assumptions. A simple question makes no assumptions. If I was Andy and you said I was a “potentially trans student”, I’d be very annoyed about you making assumptions. PS. I know a lady whose complete name is the same as mine except for one letter. Had we been at the same university, any mixups wouldn’t have been too surprising.
No way this is a wrong picture. We meet in person every week and the student looks very much like the one in the photo. But isn't directly asking about their gender (which is absolutely none of my business) way worse than just pointing out what I see and letting them decide whether to do anything?
You wouldn't ask about the gender. You would ask "is there an error in the student records"? And excuse me, but for most people you get their gender correctly, and for a large portion of the rest you got the gender that they want you to assume.
I very much agree with @gnasher729 here. Don't assume anything, that's non of your bussiness. Nothing here is strictly your responsibility, the only thing you can claim is a general interest in the admin being correct as a member of the institution. So they most you can do is ask 'Is this correct?' and accept whatever answer you get. It's also the best thing to do because it allows the student to just say 'Yes' and walk away (as is their right).
I was thinking about sending them a short e-mail along the lines of:
Dear Student, I have noticed the university records show your gender as female. Should you want to have that corrected, contact the
Department of Student Affairs. Feel free to ignore this message if it
is not relevant, I don't expect a reply.
This is a good approach, but I might tweak the wording a little, e.g.:
...You may already be aware of this, but if not, Student Affairs would be the department to talk to about updating that information.
You're right to take this to the student first and only. Never ever out somebody as trans or maybe-trans without their consent. Let Andy decide whether to take this further.
For a variety of reasons, it's possible that Andy is aware of the record and either doesn't want to change it, or isn't able to change it. Sometimes it's hard, expensive, or even impossible for trans people to get gender markers changed on official docs (e.g. the university requires amended birth certificate, but issuing state refuses to amend).
There can be safety considerations here — Andy might not feel comfortable having such a request on record, or might not want his parents seeing letters addressed to "Mr. Andy Smith".
There can also be administrative reasons, e.g. I know of trans men who've had insurance claims for health services denied because the insurer had a hardcoded rule saying that men couldn't have pap tests.
So, by all means let the student know what's on the record, but don't assume they haven't considered changing it.
I know a person whose father was completely drunk when he arrived at the registry office to record her birth. She didn't get the name that her mum and dad agreed on as a result. She's lucky she was registered as female, that was probably a 50/50 chance.
@gnasher729 I recall at least one case where an immigration official misspelled the family's name and it was easier for the entire family just to change to the misspelling than to get it fixed.
Very hidden in the comments to the question, the OP states
"the student uses male pronouns."
There you go. You absolutely do not need any other information, and if you feel the urge of taking actions, simply write to the maintainer of the database or to the relevant office and point out there is a typo in that database field, but as other already pointed out, it is best to leave that to the student themselves.
No investigations, no typical male physical attributes, no creepy direct question to the student, really noting else is needed.
Sorry, but this isn't going to work. The standard procedure is for students themselves to request any changes to their personal data, and it would be extremely awkward for me to request changes to somebody else's record. It will have to involve the student and the whole point of my question is how to do that.
Actually, whatever pronouns you use, and what gender you identify as, do not need to be linked. So you can't just draw conclusions just like that.
@IvoBeckers very good point. How offensive would you find a direct question "what gender do you identify with?", from a peer and from a person superior to me in the power-scale? I, and I speak for myself, respectively "a bit offensive" and "very offensive".
@EarlGrey for me personally I wouldn't care, but I can imagine a large percentage would find it offensive yeah. I also do not claim to know the best course of action here, I merely wanted to make that remark
@IvoBeckers I totally agree, but in the academia english speaking world, it is common to self express how to be addressed (his/her/their) and it is assumed that such expression clarify the gender (especially with his/her).
Your remark "whatever pronouns you use, and what gender you identify as, do not need to be linked" was true until some years ago, nowadays less and less.
You are seeing the tip of a tree, but there is a forest that you need to burn down as fast as possible: why are students' genders recorded?
The student can take care of themselves. Maybe it has already been done, and maybe they will be a female in three months, who knows. Maybe they already are, and this is none of your business.
You can start a movement to ban the recording of gender in students' registers.
Quite frankly, this is not a hill I'm willing to die on. As you might have noticed I know very little about the issues of gender and the like. I'd love to be able to help one particular student out, but I'm certainly not going to start a big movement to have half of the university systems and processes overhauled.
@EarlGrey Since you asked for feedback, I downvoted because your answer, while correct, does not address the question. The asker, as an instructor, cannot change the fact that gender is recorded.
@TooTea "I'm certainly not going to start a big movement to have half of the university systems and processes overhauled." I am sure you have good intentions, but instead of fixing a potentially dangerous system, you give the burden to the potential victims of "saving" themselves from the dangerous system, while you absolutely have the power to move and change something, since you are in the system.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this (quite interesting) conversation has been moved to chat. Please use the chat for continued discussion; comments below this one should have a realistic chance of leading to the answer being edited.
Re "the tip of a tree": Do you mean "the tip of the iceberg"?
They burn down the forests on other planets, but here? Is it the idiom see the forest for the trees that is referred to?
This is a non-starter, because recording data on gender and other protected categories is all but essential for a university that wants to assure its compliance with anti-discrimination laws. For instance, without that data it's much harder to tell whether your recruitment process is unduly favouring one gender over another.
@PeterMortensen thanks.
@GeoffreyBrent and is it necessary to share these informations with teachers&co?
@EarlGrey Often a person's gender isn't obvious from their physical appearance, and providing that information - assuming it's correct! - can avoid some awkward "sir-er-ma'am-er-sir" moments.
@GeoffreyBrent this goes against whatever small steps against gender discrimination we did in the past few years. Gender is not important, can we get rid of archaic way of expressing ourselves? We are in academia:SE, most of the discussion is about research&progress, but we still use wordings from centuries/millenia ago :) ! Why can't you simply say "dear student"instead of "dear sir/ma'am"? I admit in English is super easy, less so in other languages ...
dear @PeterMortensen I am sorry you could not find a correct codification for that expression, but hey, if John Heywood documented the English use of the proverb in 1546, why can't Peter Mortensen document the international use of such an expression in 2022?
Do as many edits as you want, but ask yourself: am I crystallizing the language?
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197659 | How should I ask my new chair not to hire someone?
I recently received an offer to join another university (in the US). I have not told my new university this, but one of the main reasons I want to leave my current university is because of another member of the faculty (let's call him "Joe").
Joe and I were in the same lab as PhD students and quarreled a lot. Later, we ended up on the faculty of the same university. I have moved on from these quarrels, but Joe continues to hold a grudge. Over the years I have tried to ignore him, but he continues to go out of his way to make my life miserable.
I'm leaving to be rid of Joe. However, my new university wants to hire more faculty in my research field, and Joe was suggested as a possible target for recruitment. They are prepared to make their next recruit a very attractive offer, so Joe may accept.
I haven't yet signed my offer, and I am not interested in it unless I am assured that Joe will not come to my new university. I can think of two ways to make a case against Joe to my new chair.
The diva approach
I directly tell the chair that I won't come unless they agree not to hire Joe. After their considerable time investment into recruiting me, they may agree to seal the deal.
The obvious downside is that this approach makes me sound immature, gripey, and dramatic to my new chair.
The good citizen approach
I make the case that Joe is bad for the department.
One major downside is that Joe did not have issues with many faculty at my current university. If my new chair tries to vet my claim with one of his contacts at my current university, my story may not hold up. Also, this approach won't provide an assurance unless I make it about me (e.g., "Joe is bad for your university, and I can't join a department with someone like him in it"), which still makes me sound like a diva.
Can anyone suggest a way for me to keep Joe out of my new university while minimizing the damage to my own reputation?
Does Joe mind your presence in the same department as much as you mind his? If so, I can imagine the possibility that by joining the new department you will automatically make the idea of moving there unappealing to him.
@DanRomik: On the other hand, I've known personalities who enjoy bullying certain people (in their minds it's "being provocative" or something, for the lulz), and thus this might be extra attractive for the bully.
Of course you let them know why you're leaving! If you don't, then you will only have yourself to blame if Joe gets hired. Just imagine how you'll feel then! It's not worth the risk.
"…over the years…" How many to be precise? How does he make your life miserable? Does he do it when no one is listening? In private messages? Begin recording the snipes, the attacks, the incidents of sarcasm etc. List the dates and time of day when they occur, and as far as possible, describe the verbal abuse (bullying) in as much detail as you can. Keep updating it, bring it to the Dean's attention if despite all efforts "Joe" gets hired and continues to harass you. Do not let him have this power over you.
Would they be recruiting this summer? Or is this a next year problem you can deal with once you have made friends in the department and have some sway?
@DanRomik: Despite that he clearly doesn't like me, he has gone out of his way to be a part of my life, so he seems to enjoy our toxic relationship. Sometimes I think picking on me is cathartic for him, and he feels safe doing it (since he probably doesn't think I will push back). Other times I think that my strategy of ignoring him actually drives him crazy.
@Trunk: It's unlikely that Joe had other offers when he started at my current university. I think it was just a coincidence that we ended up at the same place. I didn't try to prevent him from getting hired because I didn't anticipate he would hold this incredible grudge.
@Dawn: I would start at my new university in the next academic year. Apparently they want to begin recruiting another candidate within the next few months.
@DanielR.Collins: Sadly, this seems to be the case here.
have you tried communicating with him about that issue and try to make peace or like agree to disagree of some sort. or is Joe just plain bully and nothing from you is gonna be regarded by Joe? or maybe ask for a third party to help mediate your case with Joe, someone that know both of you.
You could let your new chair know that part of the reason you left your previous institution is because of personal differences with Joe. You don't have to give any details or make accusations against Joe. You can just say that the two of you don't get along well. It's important to avoid assigning blame to Joe, because that can make it seem like you might be the problem. By maintaining a neutral tone, you are communicating that you are capable of maintaining professionalism despite interpersonal conflicts. After explaining the problem in a neutral tone, you can then express your concern about Joe joining your new department without making any immediate demands.
To add to this: after explaining as you said, OP can wait for the answer, and then she herself should decide whether to join or not. I.e., steer the discussion in the direction of whether that guy will be taken or not; not that he should or should not be. This way she avoids putting the new department under decision pressure.
I also agree and wanted to add - communicate with the new place you'd prefer to not work with Joe and the old one. Just say it's your preference, no ultimatums. If Joe follows you to the new place, your old one is out of two members. Since they will know you only left because of Joe, they should be happy to take you back.
A few days ago, I received an unexpected office call from my new chair. He seemed to be wondering why I haven't signed my offer yet. Without time to plan a response, I went with your advice. It worked, and my chair offered to leave Joe out of their next search. Thank you!
While this is not yet a completely adequate answer I think it is important to note the following insight which may help the OP from inadvertently underplaying their interaction relative to the hiring committees possible future activities.
There is a danger to OP that the hiring people might think OP would appreciate a familiar face and that may count in Joe's favour (not knowing the impediment) and so some information may need to flow about the interpersonal conditions.
Walk left of road, good. Walk right of road, good. Walk middle of road, get squished like grape. If you don't yet have enough rep to comment, try to engage with the site for a while. The site frowns on posting comments in answers. That said, welcome.
@MindwinRememberMonica Love the Miyagi quote.
This could be turned into an answer, remove the part about it being a comment and re-phrase this as "This is why it is important to address this in a neutral manner so that the chair knows OPs concerns. But as it stands it isn't an aswer.
This is certainly fine as an answer and I think it's a good one, and it's obviously well received.
@MindwinRememberMonica Though Mr. Miyagi, in that quote, may have forgotten the many divided highways and streets some indeed with pedestrian friendly medians, so often there is a middle way. My 'answer' has now afforded me the ability to 'comment', I appreciate the patient forbearance.
Forcing people to move between two bands of mechanized traffic is hardly "friendly".
If you really don't want to work with Joe again, I would be as clear as possible about this.
It does not help to find a weak and polite formulation. I would say something like:
"There is an important thing I need you to know: I heard that you consider to hire Joe. Joe and me do not get along at all. If you hire him, I will probably leave."
Unless I have read this incorrectly, surely, if Joe is leaving, then there is no longer a need for you to leave your current university (unless Joe isn't the only reason that you wish to move, although you haven't specified that)... Joe moves on and everyone is happy. You could even turn down the offer from the new University and recommend Joe in your place, that way you increase the chances that Joe leaves.
However, if Joe is leaving and applying to the same university that you are applying to, purely because you are moving and applying, then that changes things - if you then decide to stay put, Joe could also do the same, just so that he can continue annoying you.
You have read it incorrectly. The author of the post is leaving, and is concerned that Joe may follow.
But the main reason for the OP leaving is Joe being in the same Faculty. To quote: ... but one of the main reasons I want to leave my current university is because of another member of the faculty .... Therefore, if Joe is planning on leaving anyway, then there is no need to leave.
Why do you think he is planning on leaving?
Ah, yes... the new Uni is planning on head-hunting him, my mistake.
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12227 | What are good database/grade book software?
I am in the market for a (hopefully free!) grade book software and would like to see some suggestions. This would be used for a math class and I am planning for many grades (15+) per semester.
In particular, if a gradebook has any features that make it stand out from other gradebooks or spreadsheet solutions, I would appreciate knowing that information.
Excel? (or OpenOffice)
Hi Maesumi, welcome to Academia.SE. In order to get a positive response here you should show you have done at least some work trying to find the answer yourself. A quick search turned up quite a few options.
If you have more specific requirements, this would be a more “answerable” question, but in the current state it's just asking for a long list of software…
@F'x I wrote my grade book with Fortran and then with Matlab. Then I used some online service because I wanted to enter grades while in class and so a web-based service made sense. However I eventually went back to paper. It takes a semester of experimentation to see if some software is worth bothering with. The solution should work in class as well as in my office, so it has to be web-based.
@BenCrowell I use Windows.
I'm guessing this question will get closed, but there are many options (as earthling highlighted in the comment). When I taught high school, I invested in Easy Grade Pro and was happy with it. It is not free.
Lately, I've been using a home-made Excel spreadsheet, which has been pretty easy to do, although I have a fair amount of experience with Excel. As F'x said, OpenOffice has a spreadsheet and it is free, and Google Docs also provide a free spreadsheet solution. You can also find pre-made Excel spreadsheets for grading, which you can tweak for your own use.
Another option is to see if your school has a gradebook built-in to it's student-database system. This is a nice solution because you don't have to transfer grades from one system to another, and the students have easy access to grades along the way so they can explicitly track their own progress.
We use Blackboard, which has a gradebook, but it is terrible. It is incapable of doing even basic arithmetic (i.e. take the weighted average of Column 1 and Column 2, with Column 1 counting twice as much) I second Excel or OpenOffice.
If the solution has to be webbased, I think Google Docs (https://drive.google.com/) makes a lot of sense. At the very least, the learning curve is very easy and being a complete spreadsheet solution it has complete flexibility.
I can even imagine that if you create quizzes based on online forms (created from google docs) you could have grades going automatically into your form in some way.
I have found good results in using Edmodo's grade book. Even if you do not wish to use the site's other features, such as on-line homework submission or on-line quizzes, you can still add grades to this from work that students submitted on paper.
Edmodo's grade book does not have a great deal of advanced grading features, however, the advantage of using this over software-based grade books is that students can log into their own accounts to check their grades as often as they like. After I began using this, I stopped getting weekly E-mails from students asking me to tell them their grade. Additionally, by providing such transparent access to grades, it gives students pressure to get their work in. If you want to compute adjustments to the grades once the grades are finished, you can export them to a CSV and analyze the figures in a spreadsheet.
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158295 | Is it okay to send a thank-you-for-teaching to a professor who taught a course a few semesters ago?
In my first semester of Ph.D., I took a course about machine learning (ML), because I find it very fancy and interesting (however, my field of research is theoretical physics, far away from ML).
The professor who taught ML was an old and super cool guy. He made this course a real fun to learn. Now after one year, as a side project, I wrote a "deepfake" ML algorithm (of course, it had already been done, and I took a lot of help from GitHub), but still, the content that I learned in my ML course was very helpful in all this process.
I was about to write an email to the professor who taught the ML course. I wonder if it is okay to send something like, "Professor, I am really very thankful to you for putting all the effort into making the ML course easy and fun. Here is what I have achieved from the content that you taught me [attachments]"?
This looks completely OK to me.
I cannot imagine any gifted teacher that is not pleased to see his students making good use of the skills acquired in their course.
I recently sent an a thank-you email to a professor who taught a course I took in my second last year of undergrad, which was well over 5 years ago, since then i had done a PhD and then gone into industry, where his teachings were suddenly very relevent. He (i suspect vaguely) remembered who i was and was please to hear what i had been up to and how useful the things he taught me were. He seemed happy to get the email.
Deepfakes is potentially a bit of a controversial subject due to the ethical concerns. I would be at least a little hesitant to mention working on that to someone, even on the assumption that you're neither doing anything questionable with it nor furthering research on the topic.
I put in practice something that an instructor taught me about two years prior, and I was sure that my success at implementing it was directly due to that instructor's influence, so I wrote an email to her. She always gave curt 1 or 2 line responses to emails or our class message board when I was her student, but she responded to me with a three paragraph message talking about how excited she gets when her students are able to use their skills in the real world. Not every teacher may be that excited, but I can't imagine anyone not being happy to hear about how they assisted your success.
Please ask yourself instead, how it could not be appropriate? What doubts do you really have?
Yes, it is entirely appropriate and will be appreciated. Let the person know a bit about your current activities - especially successes.
Even better, if it weren't for the pandemic, would be to pay them an in-person visit during office hours. Too few people get a chance to thank their important mentors, I'm afraid.
I'm surprised you're suggesting to drop in. I would expect that at least some teachers don't want to take the time to chat a bit when they have other things that need to be done. (I'm a student, to clarify my perspective)
@lucidbrot Everyone takes breaks. There is probably a coffee room somewhere, also. By "office hours" I intended the time set aside to see students. Most places require a few hours a week.
@lucidbrot As long as you're mindful of social signals (don't barge in if the door is closed, don't stay talking while they keep looking at their watch) most professors are happy to see past students. Especially the type who spent the time to make their course cool and interesting, and especially if you are coming to tell them nice things about how you enjoyed their course.
I also would think office hours are no good idea. The professor may be a bit nervous about having reserved the time for student questions and maybe needing to stop chatting with you when a student comes to ask something. If you did something cool, maybe you could arrange a separate appointment where both of you now you have time without interruptions from people who have a legitimate interest to interrupt you.
Yes it is entirely appropriate. Good unsolicited comments from students are always useful when one has to fill out annual reports or other such paperwork.
You might care to also include their immediate superiors (Chair or Dean) in the list of recipients to maximize the impact of your email.
I'm appalled by the mere utilitarian tone of this answer, limiting the impact of such a thank you email to the annual paperwork. Along 20 years of teaching, I've received many thank you emails or speeches from students: I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have been written or said the way they did, if the students had to share them with my higher ups. For annual reporting and higher-ups, there are the teaching evaluations: keep personal communications personal.
@MassimoOrtolano interesting but I strongly disagree. There can be no doubt that one relishes compliments but telling an instructor in an email he or she was great makes 0 impact to anyone but the instructor. If a student was much influenced through mentoring of an instructor, then much better IMO to tell the higher-ups so this is recognized properly. If you still have faith in course evaluation then I’m afraid that my local world is different from yours.
@ZeroTheHero: makes 0 impact to anyone but the instructor. Sometimes that's specifically what the former student was aiming for - a human social interaction, nothing more. A generally good teacher doesn't need to scraper together random emails to keep their department happy with their teaching, do they?
@PeterCordes I happen to think that the types of mentor described by the OP should be celebrated. Inspirational and aspirational instructors are too few and far between.
I think for most 'normal' students, thinking about promoting an instructor to their chair or dean is not even remotely on their radar. As a result I feel like this would come across as being somewhat disingenuous. Perhaps a separate email to the chair/dean is ok, but again almost no students I know of are going to be thinking along those lines.
+1 for the second sentence. While it was always nice to get a thank-you letter, I always thought it would have done me a lot more good if it had been sent to my employer.
@Cole A lot of normal students go straight to the "boss" whenever they're slightly DISsatisfied...getting in the habit of doing the same when you have positive feedback can only make the world a nicer place. (I try to do this in the rest of the world, too--make positive feedback at least a little public, even if it's just "Cameron was super helpful" or "Kennedy went above and beyond".)
I totally misread this, thinking of how wonderful it would be to get one of these emails an hour into completing reports that have me bored to tears, making the rest of the paperwork feel a while lot less dreary!
I think that a general thank-you email is absolutely okay. Moreover, I think the professor will most probably be really glad to hear a thank you not from fresh graduates who simply liked the course, but from a person who obviously found the course really useful and applicable for whatever they are doing. You may want to include what you have done, why you worked on it, show some results, etc.
Also, a good idea will be to link it all to the course (e.g. "I found this and that topics really useful", or "I followed books A and B that you recommended, the former seemed too formal to me, but the latter was very useful", or "You did not mention Foobar transform, but this was what made everything very easy"). After all, this is probably the information that the professor really wants to hear, as such a feedback will allow them to do any adjustments to their course.
However, I would suggest you not to include specific details such as a GitHub link or source code attached. I'm not a professor, but I teach programming and algorithms to high school students, and I always find it a bit awkward when my former students send me some of their new code. What do they expect me to do with it? Do they want me to review the code, give some suggestions, etc.? If yes, then most often I would not be able to do such a review, yet alone just read the code. If not, then why include the code?
Of course, I can skim the code and just reply something like "Thanks, this looks great", but this seems to be not correct, because I did not really study the code and can not say that it is great. Moreover, in my course I'm rather strict about code quality, and so saying that some code is "great" without thoroughly reviewing it is below my standards...
What I am really glad to know is that the students have found my course useful in real life. I'll be glad to know what specific parts of the course were especially useful. I'll be glad to know what are they working on, and even discuss any specific questions they may have. But sending a large code without a specific request puts me in an awkward position. Think of it as of posting that huge code to Stack Overflow...
So don't include the code or any other information that may require a great deal of attention from the professor. If the professor will be interested, they would ask for the details they want.
This may be cultural, of course.
| Stack Exchange | 2025-03-21T12:55:49.367521 | 2020-10-30T22:14:28 | {
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