<issue_start>username_0: This [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/131523/teaching-a-class-likely-meant-to-inflate-the-gpa-of-student-athletes) and the pertinent answers suggest that, as a rule, college athletes in the United States are not held to the same academic standards as other students. It also seems that this is well-known.

If so, employers and graduate school admissions committees can be expected to discount the degrees and the GPA of college athletes in order to control for an informal "athletes' bonus" when screening applications.

Do employers and admissions committees, in fact (but likely not formally), discount athletes' grades and degrees? What is the approximate "discount rate", as it were (e.g. the average athlete's bonus)?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> employers...can be expected to discount the degrees...of college athletes in order to control for an informal "athlete's bonus"
>
>
>

If an "athlete's bonus" is equivalent to the value add of their sport,\* then no discount is necessary.

\*Competing as an athlete demonstrates attributes not necessarily demonstrated by others. E.g., non-athletes may not have shown the commitment an athlete has.

>
> Do employers...discount athlete's grades...?
>
>
>

Such a discount could be considered as discrimination, which is illegal in many jurisdictions and likely something employers should avoid.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: "College athletes" is much too broad a brush. The kind of double-standard you're referring to is mostly focused on a much smaller group of men's basketball and football players at Division I schools. These are essentially full-time professional athletes. A lot of the very best athletes among this group do not stay long enough to graduate anyway.

I also think you're overestimating the value of academics and underrating the value of athletics to employers. It takes incredible dedication to become one of the best people in the world in a sport. That's genuinely valuable to employers.

Finally, even in the revenue sports, there are many fantastic students who get good grades in rigorous classes. I've had great students who are world-class elite athletes. Looking at the major and the grades gives a pretty clear indication of the level of rigor involved. And of course there are plenty of non-athletes with non-rigorous majors and mediocre grades.

This last point is especially clear in the context of graduate admissions. Graduate applications include letters of recommendation and a full transcript. It is easy to see directly whether someone is taking rigorous advanced classes and doing well in them. There’s no reason whatsoever to discount athletes based on the existence of easier classes when you can see what classes they actually took.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> If so, employers, and graduate school admissions committees can be expected to discount the degrees and the GPA of college athletes in order to control for an informal "athlete's bonus", when screening applications.
>
>
>

I have rarely been asked my GPA (Grade Point Average) when applying. So I suspect that college athletes grades aren't discounted because they simply aren't evaluated.

If athletes' GPAs were evaluated, then it's not really necessary to devalue them. When the answers to [that question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/131523/109672) say that GPA is inflated, they don't mean from a 2.0 to a 4.0. They mean that the GPA is inflated from a 0.8 to a 2.1.

[A summary of the requirements](https://www.ncsasports.org/ncaa-eligibility-center/gpa-requirements):

>
> ### Maintaining NCAA eligibility
>
>
> There is another element to NCAA academic eligibility, and that is maintaining your eligibility once you are in college. While you should have the full support of your college's compliance office to ensure you maintain eligibility, here is a rough breakdown of the academic requirements once you are in college:
>
>
> By the START of sophomore year, you must:
>
>
> * have a cumulative GPA of 1.8
> * have completed 36 units
>
>
> By the END of sophomore year, you must:
>
>
> * declare a major
>
>
> By the START of junior year, you must:
>
>
> * have a cumulative GPA of 1.9
> * have completed 72 units (40 percent of your total degree requirements)
>
>
> By the START of senior year, you must:
>
>
> * have a cumulative GPA of 2.0
> * have completed 108 units (60 percent of your degree requirements)
>
>
> By the START of a fifth year, you must:
>
>
> * have a cumulative GPA of 2.0
> * have completed 144 units (80 percent of your degree requirements)
>
>
>

A 1.8 or 2.0 is a mediocre GPA. A student with much lower grades will be flunking out of school. The NCAA (National College Athletics Association) is basically saying that students have to be students passing classes on their way to a degree, not just athletes pretending to attend the school.

This is especially a problem in college football (American rules, not soccer). Because football doesn't have a minor league system where an athlete can turn professional straight out of high school. So the only place where someone who wants to play those sports professionally can go is college (unless they are so good that they can skip college, which is nearly unheard of in football).

In terms of GPA then, there is little need to discount the GPA. For the relevant students, their GPA is already lousy.

I would also agree with [this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/131739/109672) that college athletics has value of its own that may offset bad grades. College athletes demonstrate that they can maintain a high level of efficiency in an endeavor. For some careers, that may be sufficient. I would not want someone like this to be my boss, but I wouldn't mind seeing such people in sales. The ability to get good grades does not necessarily indicate that someone is good at sales. My position and my boss' position would require a stronger athletic background.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Speaking from the perspective of hiring in industry, I've neither asked for nor considered GPA as a factor when evaluating a resume. The reputation of the school plays a small role (commercial for-profit schools, in particular, warrant further scrutiny), but mostly for an entry level position I'm looking for work experience and extracurriculars. The existence of a degree and (to a lesser extent) a relevant major is a first-pass filter, but mostly I want to know if it's someone who can work in a team and learn quickly. Athletics might actually be a benefit in that regard, since it requires working with a team and time management skills, but even better would be internships or other work experience, particularly if it's related to our industry.

To put it somewhat bluntly, I don't discount the value of the degree because the degree honestly has very little value in industry, other than as a checkmark in an HR filtering process and possibly as a conversation starter for the interview for an entry level candidate. This isn't to say that the process of earning that degree isn't personally valuable and might not develop valuable perspectives and life skills, just that academic performance is, in and of itself, largely irrelevant to industry.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I don't think that employers will discount the degree of a college athlete merely because they are an athlete, but there is a chance that in some cases an employer might discount the degree because of the *major* that the college athlete had. I couldn't find recent statistics (or any statistics which cover all college athletes) but [this article](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2521779-most-popular-academic-majors-for-2015-power-5-conference-football-players#slide2) looked at the most common majors for major college football programs. Not surprisingly, STEM disciplines as well as the more rigorous humanities such as history and philosophy are under-represented. There is a chance that a degree in General Studies (whatever that is) might fail to impress prospective employers.

On the other hand, if someone is applying for graduate school, then more likely than not they didn't take an easy route to graduate and are furthermore applying either to the same or a related field as their major. In this case, the choice of major won't be an issue.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Mildly, yes, they are. Even if you get high grades and in a tough major, people know you had to spend significant time in a side area and likely did well by disciplined time use versus immersion in the major. That said, there are some fields (sales, military, etc.) where the athletics may give you a benefit as well. Overall, I don't think it's a huge deal.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: In the industry I work in (software development), the standard practice is to test candidates, by giving them practical tasks to complete in a real programming language, either on paper/whiteboard, or on an actual computer, and then review their solution.

It's also done through complex technical discussions, where it's usually clear whether the candidate knows his stuff or not.

How he got the knowledge or skills is much less important. University, work in other companies, open source projects, whatever - the point is whether he has the skills and knowledge or not.

This will naturally filter out those who didn't really study - regardless of whether the reason for it is them getting some sort of athlete special treatment, or any other reason, without the company needing to take each of these causes into account.

I'm not saying that >> every << company does this, but most of them do.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_8: @Johnny question to @NoahSnyder's excellence answer.

>
> *I also think you're overestimating the value of academics and underrating the value of athletics to employers*. In 20+ years of
>  hiring, I have never once noticed an applicants athletic skills nor
>  used such skills to make a hiring decision and as far as I know, known
>  of my colleagues have been doing so either. But I've been hiring for
>  technical positions, do other fields pay attention to athletics?
>
>
>

During a talk of <NAME> to the students at CMU Silicon Valley campus (you may try looking for some recording).

* He liked to hire PhDs, not because he thought they were more talents than others, but because those people often had a lot of passions on what they do.
* For sale positions, he liked to hire (well-known) athletes, for exactly the same reason in @NoahSnyder's answer: to be at the top of their game, it required incredible dedication and self-discipline, which was very useful in sale.

I know nothing about sale, I only repeat what I heard. So please don't ask me anything.
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: I am a final year PhD student in materials science. My colleagues publish papers at a rate of 2-3 papers a year. By the end of their PhD, they would have around 8-10 papers (first authors) in their name. While I on the other hand, am struggling.... struggling hard.

How do people produce so many work in such a short time? I take around 3 months trying out some hypothesis and if it does work then I require at least 2 months to produce enough data. So, in all, it takes around 7 months to complete a work for a paper. Then it will get submitted and so on.

While my colleagues start a work and publish it within 7 months. Which means they conceptualize, run simulations, gather data and write a manuscript in 3 months! I am not able to comprehend this.

What am I doing wrong? How can one be so productive? I feel so inadequate and am thinking of quitting academia after my PhD. Probably, I am not fit for academic life. I love doing research, but I have realized late that, just loving research is not enough.

My advisor says my progress is good. But, having looked at my advisor's PhD thesis, she had 5 submitted papers towards the end of her PhD.<issue_comment>username_1: Number of papers is a notoriously poor measure of research output. For example, is one major paper worth less than 2-3 minor papers?

Some people are really productive for various reasons. Sometimes people have been very lucky and their projects have worked out very quickly. Also, everyone develops as a researcher at different rates. As you get more experience you will be able to avoid many time consuming pitfalls and your publication rate (and quality) should increase. So maybe you're behind your peers and maybe you're not, it's impossible for us to say.

If your supervisor says your progress is good then I think you need to accept this at face value. If you're still concerned about it you should have a frank discussion about your concerns with your supervisor and/or another mentor in your field who can give you an unbiased view of your progress and prospects for an academic career.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: For better or worse, number of publications is increasingly seen as a metric for productivity and competence in some fields and countries. Depending on where you are (geographically and discipline-wise) it is more about producing and publishing papers than about having something novel and relevant to show, unfortunately.

As an early career scholar, it is important to find out if you are in one of those places where you should be producing papers instead of producing knowledge. If that is the case, try to learn what are the tricks used by people around you and emulate them. As much as I’d like to tell you to not do that, it may be the only way to stay in the game in the long run. How can you produce good and relevant research if you have been forced out of academia by the “publish or perish” system?

If it is the case that you are in one of those environments/disciplines where publication counts are inflated, you need to play along if you want to stay in the game. You need to strike a balance between doing the really interesting high quality stuff and doing the cookie-cutter low-hanging-fruit run-of-the-mill papers that increase your publication count.

Some people who publish a lot are truly doing cutting-edge research and publishing a lot due to that. Not everyone is that lucky or that good. If you look closely, many of those publishing a lot are compromising in terms of quality and impact. They may have their own tricks, perhaps involving dubious practices like fishing for significance, for example, or perhaps they are just really good at slicing the sausage really thin and turning one good study into a dozen papers. If your discipline in your country is one of those that only care for quantity (some places reward mediocrity in large numbers over geniality), you will only harm your career prospects by going against that system. Learn from how your peers do it, at least for the moment, so that you can get tenure. Once your place within academia is secured, then you can worry about the rest.

Lastly, once you have your research group and your collaboration networks, then you can further inflate your publication counts by co-authoring with your colleagues, PhD students, and post-docs, but that is something further down the road for you.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I also work in a field where 8 to 10 first-authored papers are not unheard of for PhD students. This can be intimidating for early-phase students, as it feels like (and, objectively, often is the case) that the first paper is 2 years in the making. This makes it hard to imagine how one would end up with close to a double-digit number of papers by the end of a PhD.

However, one important observation is that paper production is not nearly the linear process you describe - students writing 10 papers in their PhD almost certainly don't generate a completely new hypothesis, generate completely new data, and write everything from scratch for every paper. Instead, they are probably working on an interesting *family* of related hypotheses, for which they collect a wide range of related data, about which they then write multiple related papers. Note that oftentimes the "costs" (in terms of time and effort) for collecting more related data is rather small in comparison of the fixed costs for starting to generate data at all (e.g., if you have all the measurement infrastructure in place, collecting data on some more types of subjects is much smaller than starting from scratch with a completely different setup). This model means that ultimately the student probably takes longer to produce the *first* paper, but is paid off when latter papers can re-use much of what has already been done. Most of my students publish little in the first years of their PhD, but get a seeming burst of outside-visible productivity after around the half-time point in their PhD. A nice side effect of this model is that one ends up with a clearer "story" for the PhD dissertation than if one just writes X completely independent papers.

Another question, of course, is how many of these 8 to 10 papers are actually full-blown original research papers. Again, speaking from my field, a subset of papers of PhD students are typically either more expository work (say, articles in scientific magazines which do not have the same level of expectation regarding novelty) or work-in-progress reports of some sort (e.g., published in academic workshops).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: It's about problem selection. Doing laser studies of air sensitive compounds with a non-commercial laser, involves many ways the experiment can be derailed. Doing oxide phase diagrams is like taking candy from a baby. I'm not arguing which is better or worse for society or which is more fun. (Although I have an opinion.) But if you decide to do one of these butt hard topics and don't at least know the disadvantage, you are not a careful thinker.

-Cynical view but with insight.

P.s. And yes, real analysis, caveat-lovers, there could be other reasons (lack of effort, lack of skill, poor writing ability, etc.) But I want to emphasize the key issue for a researcher...there are always more things possible to try than time. You should have an independent assessment of that as a researcher. Yes, even with a very hierarchical advisor. It is easy to be passive aggressive and spend time on what you believe in and not what you don't. Your time on this earth is limited. Use it strategically.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: **Re: Struggling hard..**

You're not alone. I am in the same situation. But it shouldn't disappoint you and you should never look down at yourself and your research. If you like your field of research, then that's the important thing, you will definitely reach a point that you have many publications.

**Re: How do people produce so many work in such a short time?**

In my experience, there are different reasons:

1. They are continuing a research and they take different approaches to
solve it.
2. The papers are not sent to quality journals.
3. They are based in a strong team that helps them.
4. They are familiar with the tips and tricks of publishing in a
specific journal.

**Re: Publishing in short time**

Unfortunately sometimes people are not very honest, so simply don't listen to them. Like so many things in life, stick to your idea and don't criticize yourself by comparing yourself with what other people claim.
Also, when you want to publish, you can check the editorial process time; it can save you a lot of time (you can check my response here: [How to find Elsevier journal-specific average publishing time](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/119426/how-to-find-elsevier-journal-specific-average-publishing-time/131444#131444)).

Also make sure that you're sending your paper to the right journal. You can do this by reading the abstracts and conclusions in some of the articles in that journal.

**Re: What am I doing wrong?**

You are doing nothing wrong; like me, you are in a learning process. Publishing papers requires its own skills and we are both learning it. Nowadays there are some online courses that can teach you the skills. I haven't checked them myself, but we can get some ideas from them (e.g. <https://www.udemy.com/publishing-in-impact-factor-journals-tips-and-tricks/>)

**Re: My adviser says my progress is good**

My two journal papers during my PhD was rejected and I was so disappointed. But same as you, my supervisor liked my research and contribution. Since it wasn't mandatory for me to publish journal papers to get my PhD and I just had to submit my thesis for external examiners to review and comment, my supervisor asked me to focus only on my thesis. Now the thesis is finished, I have time to learn how to publish.
Besides, I personally don't agree with 'Publish or Perish' idea. I didn't publish anything, but I managed to demonstrate that I like doing research and I have other skills. With that, I didn't get an academic job (with no publications), but I manged to stay at university for a part-time research assistant job, so I can have some time to learn and publish.

**Last humble advice:**

I'm reaching out to people and I talk about my research field and I'm asking if I can contribute in their articles; it will give me a chance to learn how to publish and also have my name as co-author.
I hope it helps and I wish you all the best.
Just don't give up :)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I completely agree with all the other answers, but one thing I would like to add is to start to publish your paper in a more narrow domain in your field, although it may not have as impact as other papers that are applicable to a wider domains, It will make *some* impact, and best of all, boost your confidence to take up writing better papers.

I am in a similar situation, although I am not a PhD, but a researcher in an industry, recently I published a paper limited to a very small domain in my field of work, it was just appreciated by a small group of people whom I know, but that was sufficient for me to get started.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Have you spoken to your PhD supervisor and colleagues about this?
Maybe you need to help co-author and get regular mentorship and structure to help you get some papers out?

Sometimes contacting editors with publication ideas from your current work can be helpful. Editors are usually helpful and provide some practical and useful advice.
Upvotes: 1


<issue_start>username_0: I just don't understand why the overall findings & implications of a PhD cannot be communicated in the style of a research paper?

Succinctness is a virtue in a field characterised by time pressure.

The research output is equal to or less than that of a 3 year postdoc - which is always communicated as a research paper.

Just seems like added embellishment for the sake of embellishment.

What am I missing?<issue_comment>username_1: Your question includes a number of assumptions, which are not universal and may be simply wrong for some areas.

1. You probably know that <NAME> had one of the shortest PhD theses with only 26 pages and 2 references. PhD theses of 300+ pages are also not unusual, particularly in humanities.
2. I would expect a postdoctoral researcher in Mathematics to participate / contribute to at least 1 paper per year. I know of colleagues in Engineering / Computer Science for whom this expectation seems very low - a postdoctoral researcher in their group would put their name on 3-5 outputs per year.

Number of pages, as well as the number of outputs, is an very poor metric of research effort and performance. Some universities may put an upper boundary on the number of pages to make sure that their supervisors are not overwhelmed with the amount of material they have to read and comment on during the supervision (after all, Universities want their staff to do a lot of work apart of supervising the particular student). I don't think that the lower boundary is very usual.

Having said this, there is definitely an expectation that a PhD theses should contain a detailed introduction and thorough literature review. After all, a PhD student should study the area and then train themselves to become a professional researcher in this area. In contrast, a postdoctoral researcher is already expected to be trained and their work is only to do novel research. For a PhD student, a lot of emphasis is on studying the methodology, and writing about it takes time and a significant number of pages.

Finally, compare the number of references: a typical journal paper could have 30, while a PhD theses can easily have 300. This clearly shows that the scope of a PhD theses is much wider than the scope of an academic research paper, while a paper may be more focused and deep.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't know where your 150 page idea comes from since I have never heard this as a guideline. However, in my field, "staple theses" are common, composed of roughly 3 papers stapled together (either already published or publishable drafts), with an added introduction and conclusion that tie the works together and may get a bit deeper into background than is acceptable in a published manuscript.

Therefore, they must be at least the length of three research papers, and aren't typically all that much longer than that. However, theses are also typically formatted in a longer form, more similar to the original word-processed manuscript, whereas journal articles are composed in a dense, newspaper-like format. Figures may have their own pages. In sum, a manuscript that is 10-15 published pages can easily be 30-50 pages in this format.

No embellishment necessary to get to 150 pages.

I'd also add that a post doc in my field who only produced 1 paper in 3 years would probably have their next job in industry; a graduate student with only one paper will have been quite disappointing (it may happen that only one paper is publishable due to being scooped or unexpected failures, but even those outcomes can be part of a thesis). Not necessarily, it's possible that paper could be highly impactful, and might be reasonable in some subfields, but generally that would not be a suitable output for an academic career.

---

*Edit: decided to pull up my own thesis from the archives. 230 pages. Of those, 53 pages are "thesis-only" pages; the other 177 pages are verbatim copies from 2 published papers and a third draft manuscript which was later revised and published, all reformatted to fit the thesis formatting requirements. Of the remaining 53 pages of "fluff," 6 pages are title/contents/acknowledgements/abstract, and about 19 are references for the introduction/conclusion chapters, so about 28 extra pages of generously spaced writing, to be treated as "embellishment" if you wish, or alternatively, to provide enough background and context for the work for someone familiar with the field but not previously familiar with my research area, such as members of my thesis committee besides my advisor.*

*In summary, even if my thesis had nothing but 3 published/publishable manuscripts, it would already be >150 pages.*
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Succinctness may be a virtue, but page limits means that papers are often overly terse. They also commonly leave out important information, helpful steps, and additional but less eye catching results. The presentation and style of a paper is also often geared towards experts in a field, while you have more freedom to be pedagogical and explicit in a dissertation. Factor in a double-spaced one-column format and some front matter, and it's easy to get to 150 pages and beyond.

In fact, one of my papers during the PhD (physics) was five pages long when published, plus references (not counted in page limit). Six pages of supplemental material was deposited along with the paper, for a total of 11 pages. The corresponding chapter in the dissertation is 46 pages long, with some details still relegated to appendices... The main difference in presentation, however, isn't the length or layout - it's that I attempted to make the description more self-contained. A new graduate student may actually get a reasonable idea of the background and calculations from reading this chapter and the introduction. In contrast, there's no way the same grad student could get all details from the paper and be able to reproduce the calculations without following a bunch of references, well *unless they already were an expert*. And if you do read those papers, the amount of material to go through would quickly exceed 150 pages anyway.

Yes, many dissertations could be made more compact, but why? The dissertation is a rare opportunity where you don't have to compromise style or contents. It's an opportunity to provide an alternate description than already exists in preprints or published papers that can be useful to another audience. It's also a place where you can make deposit certain results, derivations, proofs or procedures that don't fit elsewhere in explicit form for later use by *yourself* as well as others. So if you want to write a shorter dissertation yourself, that's alright, but avoid judging others for trying to be more pedagogical than the journal paper form allows.
Upvotes: 3


<issue_start>username_0: I've read that in Belgium academic salaries are based on years since PhD. If this is the case, is this always the case? Are there special cases where someone would be paid more than their "years since" rate? Like, for example, if an early career scholar brings in a very large research grant: still the "years since" rate? It would seem difficult to keep talent with such a system so perhaps I am misunderstanding something.<issue_comment>username_1: Editors don't read every paper completely before sending to potential peer reviewers. Asking him doesn't help you. Either the formal style (english, figure quality) or topic (abstract, introduction) or impact was not matching quality and socpe of this journal. At this point you have to ask and talk with your advisor and co-authors, not the editor.

Top-tier journals have acceptance rates below 10%. There is no time to advise authors of not reviewed papers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Re "For example, if he recommend another journal or some advice on improving my paper?": I think both questions are totally fine. It sounds like the editor is a very busy person, so don't be discouraged if they don't reply, but I see nothing wrong with asking these questions.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: It is not the editor’s job to give you advice on how to improve your paper or where to submit it. And it *is* the editor’s job to do lots of other things, which usually keep them pretty busy. So at the very least, you’d be imposing on them by contacting them with such questions. You might get lucky and get some advice, but be aware that you are essentially betting on the editor being willing to spend time answering a question from a random person they don’t know and whose question they have no professional obligation to answer. If you lose the bet (or even potentially if you win the bet) it might not leave the best impression.

As a general rule, it makes more sense to discuss these sorts of questions with your adviser, a mentor, or a colleague you are on friendly terms with.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]


<issue_start>username_0: I have noticed from time to time that some PhD students at good, sometimes top, universities (who must have shown promise at some point) start to act as if they're gone a bit crankish. Say, they speak cryptically about how they are working on [insert famous research problem here, like quantum gravity or the Riemann Hypothesis].

As an advisor, how would you deal with such a student? Clearly there is a risk for the advisor's reputation if this gets out of hand (e.g. the student suddenly posts a patently wrong preprint purporting to solve that famous problem). But how long to wait, and how much efforts to do, before thinking seriously about terminating their contract?<issue_comment>username_1: I assume that you mean that they turn into a "cranK" prior to graduation. There are some famous cases of this happening later, though the seeds may have been there before graduation. One famous case is [The Unabomber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski) who holds a doctorate in mathematics from University of Michigan. Had his "career" as a crank been started earlier, the proper response would be to contact the police.

But in the more common situation, people can just drift away, not needing action from the advisor. Large universities usually have some sort of counseling available and people drifting into abnormal behavior can often be referred to them, though privacy laws might prevent that from happening. It is available if the person her/himself notices it.

And, don't forget that some "crankish" graduate student might just succeed in solving some long standing important problem someday, though the likelihood in individual cases is small.

Also being crankish takes many forms. Some are benign. Everyone is different. Your crank may be just my brilliant, but socially awkward, sister.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my opinion, every smart theoretician should take a crack at the major open problems in their field, at least for fun. Often the key to "solving" such problems is to not actually bang your head through the same wall everyone else has been stuck by, but to change the perspective or cheat the problem somehow. Even if you aren't smarter than everyone else, perhaps you can think of an outside-the-box idea others haven't. And as <NAME> put it, we aren't as smart as we think we are. If I remember correctly, he said this when interviewed about Fermat's last theorem, which was unsolved at the time.

Of course if someone actually is "smart" enough to continue in research, they will be able to tell if they have failed. And they will be able to make a rational assessment of risk versus reward in pursuing such a path where the likelihood of funding and career success would be low. Hence pursuing such problems isn't all that different from pursuing other very-high-risk ideas. Just a little farther out on the spectrum.

One situation where this risk-reward assessment breaks down, of course, is mental illness. A manic person might think they are superhuman, for example. And there are some professors that I really wonder about. But mental illness is beyond the scope of sites like this, and I'd note that people with diagnosed illnesses can still function normally (or better) and be very successful in research.

The short answer is if you can't prove (rigorousy) they will fail, you can't prove they are fools for trying.
Upvotes: 3


<issue_start>username_0: ### Context

It's becoming common in the natural sciences for grad students to include papers they have previously published as part of their dissertation as a ["sandwich thesis" or "stapled thesis"](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/149/32794). Some joke about merely "stapling three papers together with an intro and conclusion" and calling it a dissertation. This allows grad students to focus on doing research rather than writing a monolithic document in addition to any other publications.

### My Concerns

This practice -- though I love the intent -- concerns me because I care about copyright issues. If I've published a paper, the publisher has the copyright, so I may not be able to use my own work in a dissertation that gets published.

### My Question

**Assuming that this practice is approved of by one's dissertation committee and university, how might one go about doing this correctly? What legal requirements might there be?**

Although the following list of questions might be best split into multiple questions on this site, my intent is to clarify what kinds of procedures I'm asking about.

* Which Creative Commons licenses would permit this?
* Would one need to ask permission from the publisher(s) of the paper(s)? (I assume so....)
* Does it matter whether or not the manuscript(s) are published under an open-access license?
* Does it matter how the dissertation is published?
* If this is allowed under any circumstances, how much modification is appropriate? Would the paper(s) need to be reproduced in their published form (i.e. with the publisher's typesetting et al.), or could the author copy-paste the text into their dissertation with new formatting?

I acknowledge that this question is similar to [Can I use the work in my journal/conference publications as chapters in my dissertation?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2029/32794). Whereas that question broadly asked whether such a practice was permissible, I'm asking more about how to handle copyright issues — assuming one's committee and institution are okay with it.<issue_comment>username_1: The copyright issues are the same as always. If you don't hold copyright on something, say you have given it to a publisher, then you need permission from the copyright holder to reproduce it *for publication.*

But you also need to be clear, if you just include copies of old work (copy paste) that you cite the original to avoid claims of self plagiarism. Claiming old work as new (or seeming to) is normally treated as an ethical lapse, similar to treating the work of others as your own. Cite and be safe.

To me, a "stapled dissertation" should be exactly that. An introduction, some material tying everything together, a conclusion, and literally stapling copies of the old papers. I doubt that very many would agree with me, but if that is what it is, then present it as such. Those places that permit such dissertations believe that a doctoral should be awarded for a *body of work* not necessarily for a single major work. The philosophy is sound, though I've never used it. That is to say, the "joke" isn't really a joke. It is fine if permitted by your committee and university.

Creative commons doesn't apply if you have all rights to your own work. Any license or no license would be fine. But it is the permission of the actual copyright holder that is needed. If *they* have licensed it generally under Creative Commons then it is likely that you can rely on the generally permissive nature of those licenses in your work. But if not, you can request permission (an individual license) to do what you want to do. I think that most reputable journals and conferences would be happy to give you back any required permissions, while they still hold the copyright.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Stop worrying about this. No legitimate academic journal is going to come after anybody for reusing material from their own published paper in a thesis. Doing that is just a normal part of the research process.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Here’s part of the copyright transfer agreement from [IOP Publishing](https://ioppublishing.org/) which relates to residual rights of the authors.

>
> 3.2 The rights are:
>
>
> ...
>
>
> 3.2.2 To include the Final Published Version of the Article (all or part) in a research thesis or dissertation provided it is not then published commercially;
>
>
> 3.2.3 To make oral presentation of the Final Published Version of the Article (all or part) and to include a summary and/or highlights of it in papers distributed at such presentations or in conference proceedings; and...
>
>
>

so you’d be covered there under 3.2.2. I could hunt down the agreements for other publishers but I can’t recall any publisher being at great variance from what is above.

Of course it is better to check ahead of time but I would be amazed to find an instance where permission is NOT granted: no sane thesis director would publish there with any student, and the journal would loose out.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Copyright issues are significant when doing a hybrid or a thesis by publication. In the early 2000s, there was the suggestion to focus on journals that are open-access due to copyright fears. Now that advice is not as relevant as most publishers accept the importance of e-theses and storage at an institutional repository (as username_3 suggested). It was only recently that the Elsevier changed their [sharing policy on etheses](https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/sharing) to support PhD student publications.

>
> Theses and dissertations which contain embedded PJAs as part of the formal submission can be posted publicly by the awarding institution with DOI links back to the formal publications on ScienceDirect
>
>
>

Realise that PhD students are a major player in the academic publishing world. I heard a speaker say that nearly 50 to 60% of articles are written by students, PhD/Masters etc (google is not coming up with evidence for me). So no surprise that if PhD students are starting to avoid journals with their significant research, then journals will react to protect their impact factor.

Another issue, hybrid theses has evolved over time as well from the 1990s. In general, it is no longer acceptable to cobble together a thesis - "stapling three papers together with an intro and conclusion and calling it a dissertation". Hybrid theses now need to adhere to a coherent narrative throughout. Publications that don't add or fit the narrative tend to go into the appendix now.

>
> a research thesis is a coherent and cohesive narrative describing a body of scholarly activity that adds to knowledge.
>  At the University a collection of published papers is not a thesis, neither is a publication on its own sufficient to warrant the award of a research degree - [Sydney Uni theses including publications](https://sydney.edu.au/students/hdr-research-skills/theses-including-publications.html)
>
>
>
Upvotes: 0


<issue_start>username_0: I am clearly disheartened by the editor's behaviour:

I sent a manuscript for peer review nearly three months back to an Elsevier journal with impact factor 0.625 in mathematics.

I inquired about the status of my manuscript after 1.5 months since it was still showing "With Editor " status.

The editor said review process is on and a decision can be obtained after 1 month.

After 1 month I again inquired about its status, to which the editor said that the report can be obtained in a few days.

But, since then, nearly 3 weeks have passed, but I did not get the report.
I have mailed the editor 2 times and the associate editor 1 time but no one replied.

The status is still showing **With Editor**.

Why is the editor behaving this way with me? I am waiting anxiously for my report as it matters a lot to me.

Are they avoiding my mails intentionally by not replying?

What is their aim? Do they want me to withdraw my paper? Should I withdraw my paper because the editor is behaving so badly with me?

**NOTE**: Also, if the editor is busy, why is the associate editor not replying?

My question is not a duplicate of [submission review is taking too long](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/120623/110145) because I never asked why my review process is taking long.

My question was

>
> If the Editor said that I will get a report in a few days , why did he not keep his/her word and now when I am sending him mails, why is he/she not responding?
>
>
>

The two questions are clearly different as far as my knowledge goes.<issue_comment>username_1: The situation is sub-optimal, but not as bad as you seem to think. Remember that being an editor to a scientific journal, even one published by Elsevier, is often a volunteer job. Moreover, the editors have no control over how long the reviewers take to review your article. (which reminds me...) So what they gave you was only a guess. If the guess was wrong, then that happens. What seems to worry you the most was the status of your paper. I would not worry about that. Sometimes editors use these function to track submission and sometimes they don't. If they do, then the status is probably fairly accurate, if they don't then it means nothing.

My suggestion is to think about publishing your article until you submit the article. After that you just forget about it (don't look at the journal website, don't think about it), because there is nothing you can do. Instead, focus on writing the next article. Only when you get your rejection letter, you start thinking about it again, and improve the paper and submit it to the next journal.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The typical time to get a decision from a math journal is about 10 months. To put this in perspective, I was recently asked to referee a long math paper and the editor said I can take four months. As such, it is a bit unusual to contact the journal after less than two months.

However, *don't wait forever*. I once waited a year to contact the editor, and was told the paper had been accepted 11 months earlier. A mishap in the mailroom, it seems. (This was decades ago.) I generally contact the editor at about the 5 month mark. I have had too many papers get lost when there is a change in the editorial board, or whatnot.

So I say: if an editor is behaving badly, you can consider withdrawl. Just be prepared to give the new journal a year. In your case, the editor is *not* behaving badly. At worst, the editor meant "I expect a report from a referee in a few days" and wrote "you will see a decision in a few days."

By the way, my first paper took about two years to be accepted. I assume that had a small negative effect on my career. One reason to write smaller papers is that it increases the odds that one is accepted before the next job-hunt or grant-submission season.

By the way, I am speaking about pure math. I only have one applied math paper so am not sure how things work for applied math journals.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I inquired about the status of my manuscript after 1.5 months since it
>  was still showing "With Editor " status.
>
>
>

I've found that six months tends to be about the average length of time before a paper in pure mathematics receives a referee's report, though it might take a few months less if the paper is especially short or non-technical, and a few months longer if the paper is on the technical side or is hard to find a referee for. Even when dealing with journals that I know for a fact explicitly tell their referees to get them a report within a few months (since I also have refereed for them) I've found that it's pretty rare to get a report before six or so months have gone by.

You've said that you inquired about the status of your manuscript after going 1.5 months without a report. I'm sad to have to be the one to break the news to you that, at least in the areas of math I'm familiar with, there's an excellent chance that the referee hasn't printed out your paper to start reading it yet.

>
> Why is the Editor behaving this way with me? I am waiting anxiously
>  for my report as it matters a lot to me.
>
>
>

Remember, the editor and referee aren't being paid by the journal. So if they have to choose between spending time with your paper and spending time prepping their classes, writing a lecture, meeting with their students, etc, your paper is going to get pushed aside.

Also, and I think this gets forgotten too often, the editor and referees are people. Perhaps the past couple of months have been very stressful for them. Perhaps they have something major happening in their personal lives. Perhaps they're even sick in the hospital. (I once had an editor pass away while handling a paper of mine.)

The point of the above isn't that you shouldn't expect editors and referees to take your paper seriously. It's that you should remember that they aren't your personal employees. Sending a polite inquiry about the status of your paper every few months is totally acceptable, though you should probably wait until at least 3 or 4 months have gone by first. Sending near daily emails is not acceptable and is, I think, extremely unlikely to wind up with a positive result for you.

Finally, you should keep in mind that it's definitely possible that the referee is having trouble finding a referee for the paper. (You should take the online status updates like "With an Editor", "Under review," etc with a grain of salt.) Finding a good referee for a paper can take quite a bit of time if the paper is technical or in a niche area.

>
> Are they avoiding my mails intentionally by not replying?
>
>
>

If you've been sending an abnormal number of emails then perhaps they are intentionally not responding. But it's also possible that they simply don't have anything to say. Perhaps after they received your initial email they reminded the referee about the paper and asked when they might expect a report. If you email them again two weeks later then there probably isn't much that they can even do. After all, if they start sending frequent harassing emails to the referee then they'll likely be told either (1) that the referee won't be able to complete the report in the timeline that the editor wants and that perhaps they should get someone else, and / or (2) that the referee won't want to referee any future papers for the paper. Either way it's a loss for the editor.

>
> What is their aim? Do they want me to withdraw my paper? Should I
>  withdraw my paper because the Editor is behaving so badly with me?
>
>
>

I know that it's extremely important to you that your paper be published in a reasonable amount of time, but as I said above, you should keep in mind that most pure math papers take 6-ish months to get refereed, and *many* mathematicians have had papers that took *years* to get refereed.

Mu suggestion is that you try to remember that the editors and referees involved with your paper are almost certainly doing so voluntarily as a service to the mathematical community, and while they are committed to doing a good job, have their own full time jobs to worry about.

You can withdraw your paper, but this means you have to start the process all over again. And of course there's also the possibility that you simply get assigned the same referee.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: If you want to withdraw then why did you sent in anything in the first place? Do you achieve your goal by withdrawing?

Keep in mind what your goals are and always focus on how to get there. This is a piece of advice that goes for any goal one might have. The reason they have to not do the reviews are anybody’s guess, but it’s a hurdle you’ll just have to sit through if you want to get to your ultimate goal. If their actions might prevent your from achieving your goals it’s time for action, but right now it seems by withdrawing you’ll make sure nothing will get reviewed for sure. And that is not what your ultimate goal was, was it?
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: I'm a college student attending a very prestigious university. I did an independent research during this summer, and I recently submitted my conference paper to an international conference. The acceptance letter was very fast (2-3 days), and after doing much research, I realized that the organization is in Beall's list. The DOI number of the conference paper already came out and it seems that my paper is going to be published in a conference proceeding (it's going to be on google scholar as well). I don't want to hurt my career by going to a predatory conference, but at the same time, I think it's going to be a valuable experience for me to attend a non-undergraduate conference, as it is the first time for me. Does anyone have any suggestions about what I should do?<issue_comment>username_1: Don't go.

You write that it's a valuable experience to attend a non-undergraduate conference, and it would indeed be the case, but you won't be attending anything like a non-undergraduate conference. [Example story](https://www.technologynetworks.com/tn/articles/inside-a-fake-conference-a-journey-into-predatory-science-321619), and that actually reads like one of the "better" predatory conferences, since I've read about other predatory conferences where keynote speakers don't show up and attendees talk about completely unrelated stuff (e.g. a number theory talk at a food science conference).

This kind of event won't help your CV either, because if someone checks the conference out they'll discover that there's no quality control, meaning the quality of whatever you presented is now suspect.

Since you gain nothing by going, is there still worth going? Possibly, but any reason for going would be much less tied to the conference than to other things, e.g. perhaps you know someone who lives near the conference venue and have been looking for a reason to visit. If you don't have these reasons, you might as well save on the cost of travel.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The first step is to get a professor in the area of your research at your university to help you. This does sound like a scam conference. It sounds as if you found the conference yourself, without guidance.

The tougher issue is the paper withdrawal. It probably is worth some effort to do this. If what you sent in is weak, having it out there might embarrass you later. If what you sent is was strong, publishing in this venue might block you from publishing in a better outlet or presenting at a good conference.

At most legitimate conferences, writing to say you cannot attend (didn't your cousin just moved her wedding day) will stop the publication. If you have not send them any money yet, perhaps withholding money will stop them publishing.

This is not something older professors dealt with during undergrad years. Browse this site and you will see that you are not the only one caught in this sort of scam. I like to think graduate admissions committees are getting used to seeing situations like this.
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: I received a major revision decision. But it is a strange one:

* Reviewer 1 loved my article, called it excellent and recommended publication with very, very minor comments against it.
* Reviewer 2 believes that my article's scope is too narrow and wants me to take on much more research, which would yield a different article with the same structure but longer. R2 has no other major problems with the idea or content of the article, in fact I believe that R2 liked the idea and that what R2 wants me to do is enlarging the article to provide additional support for what it countenances.

To take on all the additional research and writing for a much longer article would take time away from my current PhD research. Should I tell the editor that my article's scope is what it is and that I think it does a good job whitin that scope?<issue_comment>username_1: Just say no. It is normal to have to constrain research and even to write up "what was done so far" when funding runs out. As long as you are honest, then it is fine. IF not, then just move to another journal.

Note: I would be VERY resistant to doing extra experiments. It's one thing if there is a questionable interpretation or the like. But extra work? No. Be like Nancy Reagan. Just move on if needed. Don't even waste much time.

You need to dig in your heels on changing actual scope. Provided you don't oversell the interpretation, almost any reasonable set of experiments can be written up and reported on. I have literally (and not how the millenials use that word) reported, in the lit, good journal, and included comment that a sample was missing as it was dropped on the floor. If anything the ballsy honesty surprised them and my papers went through without revision. But if not...just boogie.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I interpret the totality of the response is that your article is probably just about right as is, but you have the opportunity for a follow up. I would make the changes you feel are warranted and send in the revised version with a note that you will consider another article to follow that will address R2.

If it gets done, fine. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

Of course, the editor may suggest more, but I doubt you need to ask first. In general, the reviewers don't take ownership of your paper. It is still yours to update with the suggestions. You should *consider* all suggestions, but don't need to explicitly change anything based on them. But the editor still gets to decide.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: This is a very frustrating aspect about academic publishing. Reviewers are supposed to be referees who evaluate a paper's quality. But as acceptance rates for journals keep dropping, many reviewers seem to have branched out into becoming critics, program managers, or just the old guy at the bridge who demands you solve three riddles before you can cross.

However there are real reasons reviewers behave this way. Science fields today have widespread problems with reproducibility and publication bias. And the increase in submissions (which caused the acceptance rates to drop) also lead to pressuring people for reviews a lot more. So you very commonly get reviewers who clearly don't want to read your paper (making for a terrible test audience) and of course they are afraid to simply give you benefit of the doubt and recommend acceptance due to all the bad science going on out there.

Of course there are other reasons reviewers make their demands. But this is one you may be able to solve by addressing the above problems with the text. Assume they are not clear what you have done, so try to clarify it further; think of a better way to "market" the result in terms of a picture and description for a general audience. As they apparently do not think you have many (or really any) results, be very specific about emphasizing the results which are novel starting and emphasizing their value. Many authors tend to be overly-cautious about claiming novelty as you can never be sure what everyone else has done. You need to take the risk and claim what you think is there. Use "to our knowledge" as needed.

Don't just argue with the reviewer. Give a response that both clarifies to them what you have done and makes a case that you have plenty results and these results are important. *And* make significant changes to the text to communicate these same same clarifications for readers. Yes the manuscript already has text for this but rewrite it anyway, adding more if possible. Point out to the reviewer how you changed the text for them. I have done this and (somewhat to my surprise) reviewers have accepted it.

Another tactic is to hold back some results when you submit a manuscript. Then add these "new results" at revision time to placate demanding reviewers. It isn't what they asked for but hey here's more work just for them. Yes it's ridiculous.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The answer of reviewer #2 as you describe it here doesn't make much sense. An article doesn't have to be long, and if your article would only become longer without different structure or arguments, this point rather to the fact that you didn't understand the reviewer or the reviewer has not much experience what is expected from him. In the latter case I would contact the editor to ask reviewer #2 to clarify to you.

In experimental fields, **it can be necessary to do extra experimental work and measurements** and without it likely no reviewer of any journal will accept your article (e.g. showing necessary but not sufficient results that you have produced a room temperature superconductor). Interpretation of data can be difficult and the reporter wants to see what he wants to report...

But either you or reviewer have not understood **originality and significance of scientific research, if you both argue about the length or scope of the article**. The scope fulfillment was partly made by the editor sending your paper to the reviewers. This varies among journals, for some the reviewers make a comment or even highlight the article in the journal, for some it is the job of the journal staff to decide if you article matches the scope of the journal. The reviewers have to testify the plausibility, the possible reproducibility of your results and the conclusions. **If extra work is demanded they have to clearly state why and what**, you are not submitting a book chapter or review where a gap of done work in community would be detrimental to the future reader. If you announced in abstract and introduction more answers to questions which are not appearing then in the manuscript, this could be a matter of missing content/scope
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I've been R2 a few times: I consider the paper's quality clearly below the standards of the journal (because of lack of detail, for instance, to the point where I can't fully understand the paper's methodology; or lack of sufficient evaluation), so that in principle I should just reject the paper outright. On the other hand, there is something about the underlying idea that has promise, and I don't want the authors to get so discouraged that they bury it by resubmitting the paper to some third-tier venue.

So I use Major Revisions as a kind of contract with the authors, laying out exactly the changes the authors would need to make in order for the paper to become acceptable, even if these changes are very extensive. The ball is now in their court: they can either take the time to make the required changes, with a high chance that the paper is then accepted, or, if they really don't want to spend the time, they can resubmit to a lower-tier conference or journal.

And of course, Major Revisions is also an easier recommendation for the editor to ignore than Reject, in case my views are not aligned with those of the other reviewers. In your case, it sounds like you only have two reviewers, who drastically disagree. You could submit only minor revisions, and hope that the editor agrees with R1 that the paper is acceptable without a lot of extra work. Or R1 might look at the revisions, and R2's review, and say to themselves, "oh, R2 is raising a lot of good points. They're right, this paper does need more detail to be understandable/reproducible!" The only way to know for sure is to submit a revision and see what happens, though one potentially useful piece of information: if the editor really did agree with R1 much more strongly than R2, they would have required minor instead of major revisions.

(PS: Writing up your research to a sufficient level of quality that it passes peer review does not "take away from your PhD research." It **is** your PhD research.)
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_6: Typically editors will want to see that you are being reasonably cooperative and that you gave due thought to each point the reviewers make. The strategy here will be to essentially argue the case you are making here in your supplemental letter. Obviously, diligently implement the minor points made by R1 and express your gratitude to R1 for these helpful points.

When it comes to R2: In your revisions, try to address any reasonably implementable points made by R2. Then, in your response letter, address each of the reviewer's points one by one. Wherever you have been able to make changes, point them out and be thankful to the reviewer for their excellent points. In all cases, acknowledge the reasonable kernel of truth in the reviewer's point. Then, in cases in which the reviewer is asking you to go way beyond the scope of the project, simply say so and explain briefly why you think so.

At that point, it's up to the editor to decide. If the editor rejects, move on to another journal and don't think twice about it.

EDIT: Also, I would reinforce from the comments that this is something you need to be getting advice from your PhD advisor on. It is absolutely part of their responsibilities to guide you through this process. I would forward the reviews in full to your advisor and strategize with them.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: What is the scope of the journal? Your supervisor and/or the Editor will be able to tell you what's going on here.

It can be that R2's desires fall completely out of the journal's interest --- only short papers accepted, theoretical vs practical, etc --- or that they exactly describe it. It was the Editor's job to make this somewhat clear to you (maybe unless it's a very well-known journal where it can be seen as understood), so contact them for clarification:

It saves the Editor time (and reviewer-goodwill, that limited commodity!) having to re-review your expanded version just to reject, if you're headed the wrong way anyhow.
Upvotes: 0


<issue_start>username_0: I submitted my manuscript to two journals online (not at the same time). During the process of submissions I was asked to determine the editor and I selected the same editor in both journals. Need to say, the editor whom I selected is a specialist in my field word (mathematics). Unfortunately, in both journals, my manuscript was rejected. In the first journal, I received no report about rejection, that is why I submitted to the second one. The second journal rejected my article with a report on the technical reason of rejection including some reasoning. Now I have already tried to solve the errors and prepared a new version of that. I would like to try to submit it again to another journal again with the same editor of previous journals. Does it have a bad effect if I submit again for this editor? Can I send an email to potential editor to ask his opinion on my new version of manuscript, then I submit it formally to the journal who is its editor? I am asking this because I suppose he probably has a presence of his mind about my manuscript and it helps me to speed out the publication of paper.<issue_comment>username_1: Unfortunately this depends somewhat on personalities so a definite answer is impossible. But if your communication with the editor has been helpful/cordial then it might not entail much risk, contacting that editor.

But since you already have two rejections where the person was involved, you might want to try for a fresh look at your paper with a different editor. This is especially the case since you weren't encouraged to resubmit with revisions.

You might also try contacting that editor without sending the paper and just give the title and state that you have revised the paper with advice from the reviewer and ask for any advice they might be willing to give. Perhaps they ask to see the paper. Or not.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I don’t see the benefit of trying a third journal with the same editor. This person already rejected your paper twice, that suggests they do not think highly of it. There are plenty of math journals, I strongly suggest finding one with a new editor who will look at your paper with fresh eyes.

As for a pre-submission email, that would be going outside the normal process, and the normal process exists precisely so that all authors have a uniform, consistent process to have their papers evaluated. It’s frustrating to get repeated rejections and to deal with automated submission workflows, but this is how the system is set up - for everyone - and there are no shortcuts. In very exceptional cases I’d say it’s acceptable to ask for an editor’s informal opinion, but your situation doesn’t sound like one of them.

In any case, good luck!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: This person already rejected your manuscript twice. So there is a little chance you will be able to convince him in the third attempt unless you have revised your manuscript with some major corrections.

Also, I don't think sending a manuscript to a person is a good idea unless you know and trust the person very well.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: You could find the official email address and contact the editor. The editor will tell you some information. If it is OK, you could send the new paper to the editor directly. By the way, if the editor has contacted you, you also you could send it to the editor.

I am an editor. If there are authors who send new papers to my email address，I will send the feedback to them in time.
Upvotes: 0


<issue_start>username_0: With the GREs being phased out of so many PhD applications in the sciences, I think this question is reasonably fresh.

I have taken the GRE and scored in the 70 percentiles for verbal and math. I scored a 6/6 on the essay. This score is fine, but not "great" for top biomedical science Ph.D. programs that I am applying to (e.g. Duke, that wants 90+ percentiles).

**Do you think it would be worth it to send my GRE report to show that I have taken the GRE and did attain a "reasonable" score?** I have a strong application when looking at other factors (e.g. research experience since freshman year, 2 summer research internships at a hospital and in Amgen Scholar program, strong GPA, 3 letters of rec. from my 3 research PIs). Thus, I feel that my GRE score is the one component that does not equally compare to the rest of my application.

This may be irrational of me, but I am somewhat worried that the programs will wonder why I am not submitting a score given that it's clear I have not experienced major financial problems throughout my undergraduate career (nor do I come from an underrepresented/underprivileged background, which is a large reason to why the GRE has become an "optional" test now).

Thank you for your opinions.<issue_comment>username_1: If the institution requires them they must be sent, of course. But, as you say, that is becoming more rare.

But if they are not required I would only recommend sending them if they were truly superlative, which yours don't seem to be. I doubt that anyone would consider that you were hiding anything if they aren't required.

Your application need to contain (only) reasons why you are well qualified for the position and highly likely to be a success. Don't include things that point in other directions unless required.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Sounds like you might not be the sort of student capable of succesfully completing your studies in a top-tier program. This is okay. Just aim lower.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: It really depends on the rest of your application. Are you a top applicant everywhere else and the score brings the package down? And how competitive is the program you are applying to? Is your score within their typical range? When standardized tests are optional, applicants will self-select where disproportionately only those with good scores will send them. And those with terrible scores but great everywhere else will apply to GRE-optional schools that are ranked higher than they might have gotten into if test scores were required.

Of course because of this, another sneaky side-effect of making GRE's optional is that the average test scores of these schools will increase. But I'm sure their motives are pure.

I suppose that does answer your question to a degree. Some people may suspect you didn't send them because they would hurt you. But others will not care, or actually be staunchly against standardized testing. Also we obviously can't be sure whether you took the test and did poorly, or just wanted to save your time and money and skip the hassle of taking it.

One final caveat though, people who don't want to see test scores generally may still be interested in test scores where they are absolutely the only way to rate a student's background, such as if you come from far away and attended an unaccredited school no one knows anything about. I don't know how widespread it is, but I have seen complaints about "discrimination against schools" on the part of some western graduate schools, where they don't even consider applicants from many schools. Basically (I presume) they don't trust the school's grades. A lack of standardized test scores to counter this would only hurt you more.
Upvotes: 0


<issue_start>username_0: There is a concept circling in the air that

1. [doing a Ph.D. is a waste of time](https://medium.economist.com/why-doing-a-phd-is-often-a-waste-of-time-349206f9addb)
2. [a Ph.D. is worthless](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-phd-worthless-lesley-crane-phd-ma-bsc-hons/)
3. and [more](https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNRY9m8HEUd7ZmE1rnkpzxItRKwOzw:1573298720434&q=why%20phds%20are%20useless&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHke26gt3lAhWo1aYKHQ2UA4IQBQguKAA&biw=1366&bih=621)

But, today, [the following comment](https://qr.ae/TW4S0Z) caught my attention:

>
> [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9IW3V.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9IW3V.png)
>
>
>

I am asking this question, coz, I am venturing into a Ph.D., but these types of news are making me demotivated.

Does this have anything to do with academia or simply bad life-decisions?<issue_comment>username_1: In reality, few PdDs wind up homeless. A few do, and at certain times more do. But, in general, it shouldn't be a concern for someone wanting to study for a doctorate. But occasionally...

There are a lot of factors. The general state of a nation's economy at the time you finish can have a lot to do with it. When I finished (1970's) there were almost no jobs for mathematicians. We had landed on the moon and all money for science suddenly dried up for several years. I was lucky to stay in academia at all, and many PhDs at the time were pumping gas, etc. It cleared up in a few (several) years.

Some people get a doctorate not intending to use it for anything but the love of knowledge. Some turn out to be writers.

<NAME> (the Unabomber) was evading capture by the police.

Lots of reasons.

At the current moment there is a glut of doctoral graduates relative to the market for those skills in many fields. Academia in general graduates more PhDs in a given year than there are positions open in academia. So the system depends on jobs being available elsewhere. Sometimes that is true and sometimes not.

A lot of people take jobs below what their skills and education would require, such as teaching school with a doctorate.

And, as to bad life decisions, it is impossible to say. Having a job shouldn't be your highest lifetime goal, actually. Moreover, because of the length of time it takes to earn a doctorate the economy and the demand for your skills can change drastically before you finish. This is what happened to me. When I started grad school everyone would predict a bright future for a mathematician. When I finished, not so much. Nothing, really. I looked into becoming an actuary, for example. And, I switched fields to CS to become more employable in the short term.

But, I'm glad things are better in Kenya. Here (US) politicians have decided to drastically decrease funding for education at all levels. The feeling among some of them is that it is up to you, not society, to see to your education. This is a great way to assure that the population gets dumber and dumber and poorer and poorer over time. I have an opposite view that an educated populace is a national resource that shouldn't be compromised. Silly me.

---

Postscript: I didn't interpret the question as "Why do so many...". I don't see that implication anywhere in the original post.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: To add another perspective to this, there are two important factors that make people start a PhD, not least of which is a misconception about their likelihood of success.

The glut in PhD candidates is partially fueled by faculty members misrepresenting one's prospects post graduation. Doing a PhD in the hopes of securing a position in an R1 faculty position is, statistically speaking, a (very) risky prospect - lots of good people competing for very few positions.

Of course, faculty members who are *already in these positions* suffer from observation bias, and see their road to these positions as straightforward, whereas it is in fact far from it. I don't think that faculty members who encourage people to enter grad school are being malicious: they genuinely believe that their success can be replicated with hard work and determination; this is often not enough to succeed (there's a tremendous amount of luck, and qualities like creativity that are hard to teach). School recruitment of course has no interest in telling you otherwise - they want to keep those enrollment numbers high, thus you may get very skewed signals.

One might say that even after graduation students are still (weakly) more employable than they were before studies. This is probably true (you probably won't become homeless!), *however*, you are not factoring in lost wages, job experience, and losing what are probably your best years career development wise.

As an example, some people (in CS and related disciplines) start their PhD under the false impression that it will improve their chances of securing a software engineering job. As I cover in [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/135211/why-is-getting-a-phd-considered-financially-irresponsible-by-some-people/135217#135217) answer, you stand to lose roughly $500k++ (probably more) by simply entering the PhD program. While you won't end up being homeless (probably) if you graduate with a CS PhD, losing out on this amount of money in sunk costs/lost wages is something that most graduate students don't even consider when entering the program (at least not the ones I had a chance to interact with).

This is not counting time spent doing a postdoc, or adjunct teaching. Both positions pay peanuts (I think in some disciplines you're better off financially by flipping burgers), and that's again time and wages lost.

To conclude, people tend to romanticize academia, and overestimate their chances of succeeding after graduation. This tends to lead to them making poor choices, and unfortunately, faculty members/recruiters often enough are not helping them understand what they're getting into.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: They do not "become homeless". This is a myth.
==============================================

It's as simple as that. Or at least the implied softer statement that a person with a PhD is somehow more at risk of unemployment than other groups of people. Obviously, there is bound to be *some* unemployment even in that group, just by chance; unfortunate accidents can happen to anyone. But on the whole, a PhD is protective against unemployment, and for many reasons other than the simple topic studied (e.g. a boatload of transferable skills, for one, opening far more doors than their narrow topic of specialization might imply).

Your question is an example of the Bulverist Fallacy, i.e. presenting a loaded argument of the form "A is true. Why is A true?". Any attempt at answering this question that jumps straight into "Why" is fallacious to the extent that it has not addressed whether A is in fact true or not.

As for your specific question, the answer is that it simply is not the case. People with PhDs are far less likely to be unemployed than people without one.

<https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/05/employment-crisis-new-phds-illusion>

---

Now, *if* and *when* they are in the minority of people who *do* end up unemployed for whatever reason, username_1 has an excellent answer on the kinds of reasons that might lead to that. But it's worth nothing that you might as well have asked "Why are there so many unemployed green aliens on earth"? The answer would have been equally valid. In that it's mostly not, simply because the premise is largely untrue in the first place.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]


<issue_start>username_0: I am at the end of my fourth-year in the Ph.D. program at an average university and I am trying to decide if it's the right decision to leave without getting Ph.D. degree. I have an M.Sc. degree and it's ABD. Although I published many conference papers, I didn't publish a journal. One reason is that I worked a lot for many projects as the lead research assistant. Other reason is that my motivation to work on these journals keeps decreasing. I am making very small progress and I always feel very bad about it. I feel like I will never be able to finish these papers. Quitting will give me relief but it also means that I wasted at least two years of my life. Also, I don't want to regret this.
My relationship with my supervisor is not good. Working with him made me really depressed. I lost all my self-confidence. I sought professional counseling but it doesn't help much. Also, my partner is graduating next semester and needs to leave and find a job. I don't need a Ph.D. to get a job. I've already got many job offers. I don't want to work in academia.<issue_comment>username_1: Since you don't list any positive aspects for continuing, I suspect that you have already made up your mind. However, it would be worth listing all of the positives and negatives so you have a balanced view. Try to weight the importance of each factor, both positive and negative.

But, if you and your partner are probably moving, perhaps you can continue at a different university with a more compatible advisor. That might make a difference.

You also don't mention your field. In CS, conference papers are highly valued, for example.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Just because you did not complete is not a guarantee that 2 years were wasted - those job offers are probably based on that very experience.

Who knows, you may be able to put the Phd on hold, do some work and then come back and finish it.

Even changing institution could be the game changer as mentioned in the other answer.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Think of being a PhD student as a job. If you think there’s another job you’d prefer, then switch jobs. It’s no more of a waste than spending two years at another job that you end up leaving.

That said if you already have some substantial work finished you might ask your advisor if you can just graduate this year with a weak thesis.
Upvotes: 2


<issue_start>username_0: I recently completed a paper and I am considering applying for the Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). Before submission, the paper plaza had a few guidelines which said

>
> IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) is a hybrid access journal, allowing either traditional or Open Access ("golden", or author-pays OA) manuscript submission. According to the IEEE policy, you will only be able to select the Open Access option after acceptance, at the time of final submission. By selecting that option, you commit to pay the $1,950 OA fee in order to enable unrestricted public access.
>
>
>

I am confused with what this means? Does it mean that I will only be able to select the Open Access Option? Does it mean that I can choose the traditional option, but in case I prefer Open Access it will only be after acceptance.<issue_comment>username_1: The key would be to offer the department something attractive. Let me give you a well known example.

Previously in philosophy there have been many workers who have studied the questions around "what is the mind?" They have asked a huge variety of questions such as:

- How do we recognize a mind in another?

- How does the mind connect to the body?

- What does it mean to be conscious?

- What happens to the mind when we sleep? Get knocked out?

And many many *MANY* other questions. Whole aisles in the library of books published on such questions.

Then along comes artificial intelligence. And a new philosophical "industry" is born. You can go look at nearly any of those books and check what happens if, instead of a biological mind, you use a computer made of silicon and transistors and so on. And instead of memory and sensations it runs on software and electronics. This can be a hugely productive research program that can, in principle, interest both the philosophy department and the computer science department. And possibly the neuro-science types in the medicine research areas.

There is another example. Consider the idea of evolutionary biology. This area studies how characteristics relate to genetics and evolutionary selection pressures. Then along comes [Prof. <NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gad_Saad) who studies the evolution of psychology, with emphasis on why people value certain things over competing interests. Such as why people select their mates, why they prefer certain clothes, etc. And he is a prof of Marketing.

Now you enter with your degree in some other science. Is there the possibility you can relate this to some important philosophical question? In principle, you could found an entire new channel of philosophical investigation.

Crossovers of two seemingly disparate lines of research can be massively productive. There can, of course, be some difficult times at the start. But if you can establish it, you could wind up being the wellspring of a huge amount of highly interesting research.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: You seem to be doing the right things to make this possible. But, like any candidate, you will ultimately need to convince some philosophy department to take you on. That will depend, ultimately on your qualifications.

One problem you will have, I fear, is that there are probably more doctorates granted in philosophy than there are jobs for them. Some folks have a terrible time finding employment. So, the competition for a philosophy position will be fierce, and many candidates may be better prepared in philosophy than yourself.

But one option you have is to find a position that lets you work in two departments, perhaps just in a minor way, initially, in philosophy. Depending on how your career develops you might, then, have options to move more in one direction or the other. Flexibility is good.

And, of course, tenured faculty have wide latitude in what they study and in their research trajectory. But, you have to get there first.
Upvotes: 0


<issue_start>username_0: I would like to have advice on how a software engineer with a decent (>10 years) of industry experience can join a team doing academic research in the areas of physics, chemistry, biology or climate science. I am curious if there exists software engineer positions in these types of projects without having domain-specific knowledge or an advanced degree.

Is it necessary to be pursuing an academic degree such as a Masters/PhD or to have one already?

As I have never worked in academia before, I am looking for an insider perspective on this.<issue_comment>username_1: I think that for most projects there is little hope unless you get in to a doctoral (or maybe masters) program. The sort of work you envision, is mostly done by students and forms an integral part of their studies. Many projects in the sciences consist of testing hypotheses (made by students) by building things, again by those same students.

But if you are near some monster sized national or international lab in which a large number of specialists from different fields collaborate on things, then you might find a position. But we re speaking of CERN level projects, or TOKAMAK sorts of things. Or things related to astronomy or space exploration. These aren't typical projects in scope. I also can't predict what sort of career you could have doing such things as experiments eventually finish and people go on to do new things. But these are the sorts of things that require government (and grant) funding.

But if you want to get your feet wet, go to some local (large) university and ask there whether they can use some help, paid or not. This could help you decide if this is an avenue you really want to explore and also make the contacts and get the experience that could get you into some degree program. Having a doctorate is the normal path to an academic career. There are few other doors.

And if you can make a few contacts, it isn't impossible that a position might be written in for you in the next large grant proposal. But, that, again, is only a temporary solution. Grants end, though some are renewed.

However, there are also industrial labs, say IBM or Google, where the research isn't a lot different from that done in university labs. It is more applied at the current time (product focused) rather than pure theoretical research, but the organization of some of them is similar to that which you find in academia. Not all such places are very supportive, of course (think [Dilbert](https://dilbert.com)), so you need to do some explorations before joining them. Some of the pharmaceutical companies still do real science.

And it would be a big plus in many projects if you are skilled in statistics and, maybe, mathematical modeling.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it's possible, though the opportunities are likely to be somewhat rare, and might require specialist knowledge within *software engineering* just like you'd expect in your industry jobs.

Your work would likely be in more of a support role, though. Rather than driving the research project you'd be using your software expertise to write custom software or manage data. I disagree a bit with @username_1 on the scope of project that would hire software engineers; there are much smaller projects that can make use of programming skills, and in the past my small research group has had a share of a programmer's time.

I would recommend you start by looking at job postings at universities near you (or where you would like to live).

Expect salaries that are below what you would expect for your level of experience outside academia, and that many positions will be fixed-term.
Upvotes: 3


<issue_start>username_0: From time to time, I see what I mention in the title. For example: "It has been suggested this figure may be in excess of 800 gazillion dollars (Smith et al. unpublished data)."

My question is why this is allowed in fields where statements usually have to be backed up by facts? Do reviewers get to see this unpublished data sometimes? Or, is it reserved for speculative statements and as long as you aren't indicating they are cold hard truths it is accepted?

I am just curious on the conventions for its use, since it seems quite contradictory to normal conventions for providing sources.<issue_comment>username_1: The point of a reference is to acknowledge where things came from. If Smith et al had the idea first, but didn't publish it, then you have to acknowledge that they came up with it first.

What you are saying here is "you'll just have to trust me on this one", and it is up to the reader/reviewer to judge if they believe it or not. Thus, you are very unlikely to see it used to support something that is important to the arguement. You are most likely to see it supporting speculation or scene setting.

The other place you might see it is "we didn't do this, because Smith et al told us they tried it and it didn't work and we didn't want to waste time and money on something that didn't work".

It is possible sometimes that a reviewer will see thing that don't make it into the final paper, but that would more likely with "(data not shown)" than "(Unpublished data)".
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The fact that the data behind a claim is unpublished and unavailable obviously makes it hard to establish the veracity of the factual claim purportedly supported by that data. However, it does not necessarily mean that you can't confirm that *a factual claim was made*, and in some cases that may be relevant information for your paper. The example you give is:

```
"It has been suggested this figure may be in excess of 800 gazillion dollars..."

```

In some cases, the fact that a particular estimate of an unknown figure was made might be relevant information for a paper, even if only to give some context for the range of estimates people have come up with for an unknown figure. That is a weaker claim than if you remove the middle-man and just say that:

```
"This figure may be in excess of 800 gazillion dollars..."

```

In the former case, the claim is just saying that someone else made an estimate of an unknown thing; in the latter case, the claim *is the estimate* of the unknown thing. To confirm the first statement, you need only show that there is a work that makes this estimate; access to the data is not required. However, to confirm the second statement the actual data backing the estimate becomes important.

Now, it is probably not good practice to make the second claim above and then cite unpublished data, because it will leave your reader skeptical of the estimate, and they will blame you if it turns out to be baloney. However, if you just report to them that someone else has made an estimate, but the data purportedly supporting the estimate is not available, you are not weighing in on whether or not it is a good estimate. The reader will still read the estimate about the 800 gazillion dollars with skepticism, but they will be able to confirm your claim that someone made this estimate.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]