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[ { "answer_id": 1204, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One possibility is <a href=\"http://www.wikidot.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wikidot</a>; its main version is free plus has some additional features for researchers and teachers. </p>\n\n<p>Another one is <a href=\"http://wordpress.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">WordPress.com</a>, which you already have mentioned. If you have a server, <a href=\"http://wordpress.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">WordPress.org</a> may be even a better option (as it is much more adjustable).</p>\n\n<p>However, for papers/conferences/etc it may be better to use widget from a dedicated server (or add by hand).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1205, "author": "dearN", "author_id": 21, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What about <a href=\"https://sites.google.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">google sites</a>? I have a \"website\" on it. I don't quite remember the amount of data you can have on it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1207, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's not academic specific, but <a href=\"http://amazon.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">Amazon.com</a> has instructions for setting up a free web server using their free Micro EC2 instance type. As specific academic websites are fairly low traffic, generally speaking, that might be an option that gives you the scripting flexibility you're hoping for.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1230, "author": "Evan Sosenko", "author_id": 500, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/500", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You could look into a cloud application platform like <a href=\"http://www.heroku.com/\">Heroku</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Essentially, you can deploy web applications for free (with or without a custom domain name). You only pay if you need more power or more database storage. They also have addons, some free and some paid. You don't manage the details of the server, you only worry about your application.</p>\n\n<p>For example, you can instantly deploy a rails app with a git push command. If you need to run a periodic tasks, you can enable a cron addon: free for a daily task or a fee for a more frequent task.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3404, "author": "yoavram", "author_id": 2688, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2688", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I recently created a website with Google Sites (https://sites.google.com/site/hadanylab/) and I think it was a good experience and a nice result. Easy to use, editing is the same as in Google Docs which is nice. Customization can be a pain, but that is expected. You can get around some of the difficulties using widgets, though.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3413, "author": "ShadowWarrior", "author_id": 675, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/675", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To my knowledge, <strong>Google Sites</strong> with a custom domain is the best solution here. Google sites gives 100MB space with unlimited bandwidth. Also, you can keep your pre-prints on Google docs and make them public. Additionally, you can use some widget like writing a blog.</p>\n\n<p>Edit: Link to my website removed as it's no longer available.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3414, "author": "Federico Poloni", "author_id": 958, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Both <a href=\"https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/BITBUCKET/Publishing+a+Website+on+bitbucket\" rel=\"noreferrer\">bitbucket</a> and <a href=\"https://github.com/blog/272-github-pages\" rel=\"noreferrer\">github</a> allow you to publish a static website, which is handled under the same version control policies as everything else that you publish there. </p>\n\n<p>You get no php/database support, but for academic web sites a static website generator such as <a href=\"http://jekyllrb.com/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Jekyll</a>, which they both use, is more than enough.</p>\n\n<p>Note added after reading @RebeccaJ.Stones <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1200/free-web-hosting-for-academics/3414#comment148880_3404\">comment</a> to another answer: github is currently blocked in China, while bitbucket <a href=\"http://viewdns.info/chinesefirewall/?domain=bitbucket.org\" rel=\"noreferrer\">is not</a>, so you may want to go for the latter, to make sure that everyone can access your website.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3416, "author": "Federico Poloni", "author_id": 958, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/958", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I personally use <a href=\"http://en.altervista.org/\">altervista.org</a> and I am satisfied with it. They give me 500MB space and 10Gb bandwidth for free, an address of the form <code>yourname.altervista.org</code>, run php 4 and 5 and a database service (with low performance in the free version), and allow a custom <code>.htaccess</code>. They offer paid upgrades and the option of putting banners for a revenue, but you can say no without any disadvantage.</p>\n\n<p>They allow file upload only via (unencrypted) ftp, but you can automate that part easily. </p>\n\n<p>It's not academics-specific, but as far as I can see neither is any other answer given up to now.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28541, "author": "enthu", "author_id": 15723, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15723", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As you are looking for free online services, you should seek a free web hosting service as stated in this answer [<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/3413/15723\">1</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/3416/15723\">2</a>] by which you can make your own website or you can make use of separate free services and make a free webpage to list all your accounts there.</p>\n\n<p>Recently, I have visited <a href=\"https://about.me\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">about.me</a> website and I really liked the domain, it's interface and it's services.</p>\n\n<p>This is my suggestion:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Files Hosting:</strong> host your files on a <a href=\"http://dropbox.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">dropbox</a>, <a href=\"http://drive.google.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">google drive</a> or any other free hosting service;</li>\n<li><strong>Publications List:</strong> list your publications in a <a href=\"http://scholar.google.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">google scholar</a> account or <a href=\"http://academia.edu\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">academia.edu</a>;</li>\n<li><strong>Free domain and URL:</strong> build your page on <a href=\"https://about.me\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">about.me</a> website;</li>\n<li><strong>Weblog:</strong> If you like to write something; make a <a href=\"http://wordpress.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">wordpress.com</a> or <a href=\"http://blogger.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">blogger</a> weblog;</li>\n<li><strong>Social Media:</strong> You may have some <a href=\"http://facebook.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">facebook</a> or <a href=\"http://twitter.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">twitter</a> accounts too;</li>\n</ol>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>HOW TO MAKE YOUR WEBSITE?</strong><br>\nPresent a short biography and list of those links above in a single <a href=\"https://about.me\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">about.me</a> webpage. You can have this website anywhere and anytime; even if you change your affiliation, simply change your info on your about.me website.</p>\n\n<p>Also, in your institute's page, you can easily put your <a href=\"https://about.me\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">about.me</a> link and by opening it, the user will have access to you publications, files you want to share with, social media sites, personal weblog, etc.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1200", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1224, "author": "Hauser", "author_id": 213, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/213", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Sounds like a Fermi Problem :)</p>\n\n<p>A question I asked myself recently, based on the many cases of plagiarism by top-politicians in Germany in humanities, was, are in humanities more articles/texts published than scholars can actually read completly. The amount of copied text in single phd thesis showed by plagiarism-detection communities in Germany like <em>Vroniplag</em> or <em>Guttenplag</em> is shocking to me. Often 50% of text is not marked correctly as citation. Even the supervisors at the local universities look like they never read some of these thesis completly. I really hope this is not representative, but fear it might be the tip of the iceberg in humanities (in Germany).</p>\n\n<p>Personally, coming and working in a STEM field, I did a very specialized thesis, there are often less than a dozen groups worldwide working on such a narrow-specialized topic (matter of scientific competition/finding a niche, time, expertise and lab hardware in such fields). <strong>So there will be articles in peer-reviewed journals that are not really interesting to more than 20-50 researcher and probably a similar number of industry-researchers worldwide in STEM</strong> (competition between companies and research groups being not that different due to economic contraints). Without modern search engines, most non-scholars/private men would have a hard time to find such articles. This is another point in your estimation. The reader count for nature/sciene vs. very specialized journals varies a lot, I don't think any average number really helps you a lot or is that interesting. If you know your specialized field, you should notice pretty fast studying some journals, how many scholars have really a interest in that field. </p>\n\n<p>Your PlosOne link is interesting. I can back this up a bit to give you at least a rough magnitude of order, what the reader count of top, specialized, ... journals is. I think it's quite normal, to read articles not completely (even if you cite them), but I take a close look on articles I downloaded, often due to the fact that I use many keywords and google operators to really filter out the stuff I'm looking for. This is something that varies also a lot between different scholars/students. I'm often shocked how students make use of search engines, if it is laziness or ignorance of search operators. This can save you so much reading time. <strong>Therefore, I think the extrapolated reader count based on citation factor might be more representative and reliable than using site views/downloads</strong> due to scholars, private people, laymen often downloading articles with information they didn't look for because of bad search engine use. Growing redundancy/plagiarism is a further factor here.</p>\n\n<p>Some possible heuristics:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>comparison of published aricles per month and web site/interface visitors per month on download platforms like PlosOne, arxiv, nature. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>arxiv has around <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/show_monthly_submissions\">6000 published articels per month</a>, unique visits <a href=\"http://siteanalytics.compete.com/arxiv.org/\">100000</a>, <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/help/support/2011_usage\">12,4 million downloads by academic institutions, 50 million overall</a> vs. 12x6000 articles 2011 means <strong>downloads/view of abstract of around 170 (I used 12,4 million here)</strong>, of course, that doesnt count articles not published in that year, <strong>so the average read count of a single arxiv article is probably lower than 170 and more touching the 20-50 mark I explained above. But here you have IMO a reasonable and quite objective minimum and maximum limit for a scientific article other scholars are really interested in, 50-170</strong></p>\n\n<p>nature has <a href=\"http://siteanalytics.compete.com/nature.com/\">900000</a> unique visits per month, around <a href=\"http://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21206&amp;tip=sid&amp;clean=0\">200</a> articles per month, so you see why having an article published in nature is probably more worth than 10 articles on arxiv, PlosOne or many other specialized journals in a distinct branch, even if they are peer reviewed ;) </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>looking up bibliographies of a some phd thesis in your field at your local university, the number of cited articles is in STEM often in the range of 50-200 (You see even here it varies a lot what a single phd student will/has to read). Of course you do not cite all articles you read, but the factor shouldn't be higher than 2 between (or your search engine use is imho suboptimal) cited and read articles. Considering the phd student will publish 3-5 (in STEM reasonable number or 1 nature article :) ) articles during his phd work and multiplying 3-5*20-50 (average read count by institutional scholars) you also get the number of articles in a phd thesis bibliography of 50-200. Pure Chance?! Looks like a strange calculation, but there is a link between how much article input a average scholar needs and how much output he creates (thats why I multiply both values) and it strengthens my experience/analysis above that 10-100 readers is a reasonable magnitude of order for people being really interested in an single average article. To me it doesn't look like pure chance, but that's the main problem with Fermi questions and answers :) </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>PS: notice this analysis is focused on STEM, I believe the average read count is much lower in humanities and side-effects like different languages and plagiarism seem to play a bigger role to make a really objective guesstimate</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 19205, "author": "R. Gardner", "author_id": 14025, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14025", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/half-academic-studies-are-never-read-more-three-people-180950222/?no-ist\" rel=\"nofollow\">Smithsonian.com</a> recently noted that there are about 1.8 million scholarly articles and scientific papers published each year in 28,000 journals. About half of these are not read by anyone other than the author, a journal editor, and a couple of reviewers. They report that 90 percent are never cited by other papers. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1206", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1209, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>SMC sounds like a very interesting but somewhat narrow specialization. Since it's not likely that an expert will appear to answer this question, here are some comments:</p>\n\n<p>One key question regarding career paths is how bad you would feel if they fell through. For example, suppose you got a Ph.D. in SMC, tried and failed to get an academic job in this area, and ended up getting a job in industry that was relevant but didn't really require the full Ph.D. Would you regret having started on this path, or would you be happy to have had a chance to study something exciting and to have developed expertise that might still serve you well in the future? If you would regret it, then you need to think very carefully about the job market, but if your personality could handle this situation, then this path could be a wise choice.</p>\n\n<p>The big danger with unusual fields is that few people will be specifically looking to hire in this area. You may get lucky and find someone who is, but you may need to create your own opportunities. If you have an outgoing personality and are good at networking and making connections, then there will be less risk.</p>\n\n<p>In academia, you'll run into two difficulties. One is that no CS program will <em>need</em> to have this area represented, so you'll have to make a stronger case for why you would be a great hire. The other problem is that if a school is open to SMC, then they may already have someone in this area, and it's a narrow enough field that making multiple hires could be a very tough sell. So you would be looking for the schools that are interested, but not so interested that they have already hired someone. Of course, it's far from impossible, but some other branches of CS may be a little easier.</p>\n\n<p>As for switching areas, it can certainly be done. You may run into a little resistance, depending on what you were originally hired to do. (This could be a serious issue in industry, and even in academia your colleagues may be counting on you to teach the introductory course in your old field.)</p>\n\n<p>If you are equally interested in and talented at algorithms and SMC, then it's probably a little safer to start with algorithms. However, if only one of them will make you happy and inspire you to do your best work, then that one would be the better choice.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1212, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Every PhD is necessarily specialized, but along the way you must obtain different depths of knowledge from different fields. </p>\n\n<p>So rather than selling yourself as someone researching Sound and Music Computing, you should mold yourself as someone doing, for example, Machine Learning with a focus on Sound and Music applications. This way, when you have finished your PhD doing what you love, you will still have skills that some department will be willing to hire you for. If you know machine learning, then you'll be able to teach machine learning courses. You'll be able to adapt that knowledge to solve other problems that may have similarities at some abstract level to Sound and Music, perhaps because they involve temporal streams of almost repeating data points. </p>\n\n<p>When publishing, you will need to try to publish in top quality, general conferences or journals, rather than publishing everything in smaller, Sound and Music specific events. Naturally, the small events may provide you with good feedback and exposure within your community, but the larger events are what count when people are looking at your CV.</p>\n\n<p>I think that it is very important to study what you find interesting, but do not overspecialized yourself into a tiny niche.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 123913, "author": "Peter Williams", "author_id": 103645, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/103645", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>SMC is not a narrow field. You listed some topics, but in reality this area can cover anything from speech recognition (machine learning, signal processing, etc) to art installation design, covering architecture, musical instruments, computer architecture, virtual reality and hearing aid design along the way.</p>\n\n<p>Have a clear idea of both what interests you, and what career path you might want before you apply though. I took my master's in this field in an attempt to find a new career path. It opened so many doors that I am now frozen trying to decide which way to go.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 123928, "author": "guest", "author_id": 103663, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/103663", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think it would be fine. How would it be that much different from someone in EE, physics, or CS who does a general degree in their topic and then a project on acoustics? Even then, they would not be restricted to acoustic jobs but could do a lot of things in signal processing, spectral analysis, sonar, speech processing, NSA crap, even geophysics perhaps, later. </p>\n\n<p>Yeah, you don't get a general grad degree but in some ways get even more breadth (acoustics plus computing). It sounds like a really cool program. Get to do all that cool acoustics and never have to do graduate physics E&amp;M with teh Jackson.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1208", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/625/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1220, "author": "bobthejoe", "author_id": 319, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/319", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Making an OpenCourseWare course isn't as simple as getting a team of kids with videocameras and uploading the course onto YouTube. There is a surprisingly high standard that the Professor and the University attempts to meet when they prepare a course to be deposited onto OpenCourseWare.</p>\n\n<p>Stanford had built entire classrooms for the purpose of sharing online classes. Many of them have 3-4 cameras controlled by two operators while another is entirely responsible for the sound. Classes that require a balance between boardwork, slides, and discussion require a very well-trained team of videographers to recognize what they are supposed to be looking at without breaking the rhythm of the course and capturing the intent of the lecturer. </p>\n\n<p>Ask any Professor how prepared their lectures are. Despite how absent-minded most professors seem, there is a large amount of practice and slidology behind each lecture. OCW adds a whole other layer to preparation since the course actually has to run on schedule and conclude with the course completed. The materials used require additional thought since OCW is limited to only a single camera. Look at some of Yale's early OTC courses; the professor will make references to a figure and the camera will be focused on his gestures rather than the actual information that they are trying to portray.</p>\n\n<p>Lastly online courses are extremely expensive and don't truly make the return on investment as one would imagine. For instance, Utah State was forced to <a href=\"http://chronicle.com/article/Free-Online-Courses-at-a-V/48777/\">end their OpenCourseWare initiative</a>. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1229, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Along with @bobthejoe's excellent answer, I've heard a few other reasons not to post certain types of courses online:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>The notion of \"supporting\" the course. If you put your course online, are you obligated to answer questions, provide student support, etc.? I'm not talking about a contractual obligation as much as \"If I put my lecture up there, how do <em>I</em> feel about 'Good luck with this material, you're on your own'?</li>\n<li>Based on your answer to the above, you may have to actually redesign your course so it can \"stand alone\" as a series of videos, rather than how you prefer to teach face-to-face. </li>\n<li>Some professors who run heavily student-interaction based classes are reluctant to post those lectures, because they want their students to be free to ask questions freely, make mistakes, etc. without those errors being archived on the internet for all time.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>But I think the technical one is the biggest hurdle. OpenCourseWare needs to actually have production values in order to be worthwhile, as anyone whose remotely participated in a course where the lecture is in a room with poor acoustics and a single camera in the back will tell you.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1219", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1225, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you have the time and financial resources to apply, there's no reason <em>not</em> to apply to schools that you think you have a chance to be admitted to. One thing that you could do is to see if you can get an appointment to talk with a graduate admissions officer at one of the departments you're interested in; you'll find out pretty quickly what the officer thinks of your admission chances. (It was how I learned not to worry about my credentials when I applied way back when.) In addition, the initiative may be appreciated by the officer, which may help your chances of admissions in the long run.</p>\n\n<p>As for deferment policies, those are strictly school- and department-dependent. I would hope that you would be considered equally both years, but the truth is that you are usually compared to other applicants <em>in the year that you apply</em>. Therefore, a weaker application next year will not help. (Although if your grades in the major are strong, weaknesses outside the major won't hurt you so much.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1226, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'll address the chances of being admitted again next year at a school that accepted you this year. Certainly they aren't 100%, or even 95%, since if they were that high, then the department would save itself the trouble and simply allow deferrals. As Aeismail points out, it also depends on the strength of the applicant pool, and that can fluctuate from year to year. For example, in a bad economy, or if the department hires a star faculty member, it can become harder to get admitted.</p>\n\n<p>Department admissions procedures vary greatly. In some departments, having strong support from a single faculty member may be enough to guarantee admission. That is not true in my department, and I'd estimate that the average chances of being admitted again in this department are about 75%. (Don't take this figure too seriously, but it's a better estimate than 50% or 100%. It's based on experience and thought experiments rather than data.)</p>\n\n<p>Roughly, the top 25% of the class is admitted quickly and easily, with little debate. The next 25% involves more discussion, but the answers are probably pretty consistent, and the main issue is ranking for things like fellowships. It's the bottom half that involves increasing amounts of randomness. The number of plausible acceptances - people where nobody would think it strange if they were admitted - is substantially larger than the number we will actually accept. Near the dividing line, there are a lot of people whose applications are really pretty comparable. We arrange them in order, after a lot of discussion, and draw lines for admission and waiting list. The order is not completely random, of course; the stronger your application is, the higher you are likely to be ranked. But there's a lot of arbitrariness to it, since it's a matter of small distinctions. The trickiest cases are the applicants who have notable strengths and weaknesses, and their positions depend sensitively on who is on the committee: getting a high ranking depends on having some committee member who strongly supports your case, and nobody who is strongly opposed. (Admissions committee are often risk averse, so opposition counts more than support.)</p>\n\n<p>Overall, I'd guess that as many as half of the people in the bottom half of the list might have been replaced with someone else if another committee had examined the applications from scratch. That would correspond to a 75% overlap between the decisions.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, this figure is pretty much meaningless for individuals. If you are a star, then you will definitely be accepted again. If you were the most controversial and lowest-ranked person last year, then your chances of being lucky next year as well are not good. The truth is most likely to be in between.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 71416, "author": "Dilworth", "author_id": 8760, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8760", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would assume that your chances to be readmitted are not high: the graduate committees would probably remember that you did not come last year, and will not want to risk another deferral. It is not like a faculty position re-application in which the recruiting committee has more time to think through process, and would have time to evaluate the chances that an applicant that deferred in the past would come this year. In graduate school admissions, I believe decisions are made quite fast.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1223", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/454/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1266, "author": "Trevor Owens", "author_id": 726, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/726", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>In my experience, a lot of academics tend to shy away from things like a pizza party. I would suggest thinking about things that connect common interests. For example, consider starting a book club on some relatively broad topic of interest, or a group where folks read and comment on each other's work. These kind of things can be really valuable of they ring together folks from different specalizations. It is always good to get a different perspective. </p>\n\n<p>As another example, think about setting up a brown bag lecture series. These can be great ways to get folks out of their offices and talking. </p>\n\n<p>Beyond this, I would generaly suggest not trying to set up events that have 150 people invited. Think smaller and more targeted. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1268, "author": "bobthejoe", "author_id": 319, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/319", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Eat lunch with people.</strong></p>\n\n<p>While many researcher don't have very flexible schedules, they do occasionally eat. However, creating a structured lunch environment where there is a daily meeting location at a consistent time with a knowledge that anyone can drop by without feeling excluded, closeted academics might feel like they might have to make time to grab some lunch.</p>\n\n<p>Then there are the occasional department happy hours.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1269, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In our department, the assistant professors go out for drinks once a month (a fixed day of the week and a fixed week of the month). That tends to work out quite well: we can let off steam, compare notes on our students (and what senior faculty dish out in the name of advice :)), and generally get a nice group. I've had a few collaborations start because of this as well. </p>\n\n<p>The general faculty also do a drinks night occasionally, but not as regularly. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5042, "author": "Hamed", "author_id": 3943, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3943", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Be a leader!\nMake a research group,\nKnow what you want to do and divide the works,\nDo not waste your time on finding friends,\nBe a person whose character is interesting for other people,\nBe yourself, be the guy who has big dreams,\nThen you have a team with people who want to have a role in your work.\nNever try to be the person who follows the others,\nBe the person who is followed by others.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1232", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1234, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>On Mac Os only, you can use <a href=\"http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Keynote</a> and <a href=\"http://pierre.chachatelier.fr/latexit/latexit-home.php\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Latexit</a>, as explained in this question: <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/301/102\">How to make a presentation that includes math symbols?</a> I've been using this technique recently, and it's very nice!\nHowever, as far as I know, you cannot show Keynote presentation on Windows. A possible solution could be to export them as PPT, but I've just tried, and it's not very nice, especially for the included formulas. You can also export them as PDF, in which case it's graphically nice, but you lose any animated transition. </p>\n\n<p>Another solution could be to use Latexit to generate PDF, and to include the PDF directly in Powerpoint. If you use a white background, that can do the trick, since formulas will be exported with a white background (but maybe it's possible to set it up, I've never tried with Powerpoint to be honest, so maybe you can import SVG format directly in Powerpoint). </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1235, "author": "Ran G.", "author_id": 324, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/324", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Another possible solution is to work directly in tex (that is, via <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamer_%28LaTeX%29\" rel=\"nofollow\">Beamer</a>) and get a cross-platform presentations. Although, if you want to do presentation animations and sophisticated tricks, this is inferior to PPT/Keynote. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1233", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/710/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1237, "author": "dearN", "author_id": 21, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/21", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You could ask members of your doctoral committee to write you a letter of recommendation each. They would probably need some details about the job and what it entails. They would also want to see your transcripts and a copy of your curriculum vitae but that shouldn't be a biggy!</p>\n\n<p>Research related recommendation letters are obviously great if you are applying for a research job. Either way, you could ask your <em>advisor</em> to write you a letter that carries a good balance of <em>research aptitude</em> and general <em>work skills</em>.</p>\n\n<p>In my experience, it is difficult to get letters of recommendation on short notice. They could take a couple weeks to a month or so.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1238, "author": "Ellen Spertus", "author_id": 269, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/269", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you are applying for a position that involves teaching, you should have one or more letters addressing your teaching. If you were the TA for the course, they should come for the lead or recitation instructor. If you were the lead instructor, it should be whoever supervised you, possibly an administrator. If you apply for a teaching position without any such letters, they will infer you really want a research position and are only applying to them as a fallback position, which does not make you an attractive candidate. (I've been on both sides.)</p>\n\n<p>I second the recommendation to solicit letters from members of your doctoral committee, as well as anyone with whom you have co-authored a paper, done an internship with, particularly impressed while taking their class, etc.</p>\n\n<p>If you have done impressive service, you can get a letter from someone about that.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1241, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You need to strategize with your advisor, or a trusted mentor, about this. You need recommenders who have a high opinion of your work, are willing to put in the time to write a good letter, and know how to do so (which rules out more people than you might think). Ideally, you need advice from someone who knows what sorts of letters different people write and can help you choose who might be most appropriate.</p>\n\n<p>What I recommend for my students is:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>A letter from me, which will discuss in detail what they have done, why it's important, what the student's key contributions were, what the future might hold, etc. I'll also sit in on a class the student teaches and talk with them about teaching, so I can put in a reasonably well-informed paragraph about that, but the focus of the letter will be research. (I'll have a different version of this letter, which emphasizes teaching more, to be sent to highly teaching-oriented jobs.)</p></li>\n<li><p>A teaching letter from someone in the department who is well known for excellent teaching and can evaluate the quality of their teaching.</p></li>\n<li><p>A research letter from another faculty member in the department. This will be from someone the student has met with at least a couple of times each semester for the last year or two, if not more often, so they will be in an excellent position to write a serious letter.</p></li>\n<li><p>A research letter from someone at another university, typically someone I know who has interacted with the student at conferences, seen the student give at least one talk, and read at least one paper by the student. This proves that the student is developing a reputation outside their university, and it supplies a letter from someone who has less of a vested interest in seeing the student succeed.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Of course, it's hard to set up (3) and (4) on short notice. It's often helpful if your advisor asks someone. I can say \"You remember my excellent student Alice, the one who wrote the paper on X? She's graduating this year, and I think she's going to do very well on the job market, but she still needs one more recommendation, and we're hoping for one from another university. Could you help?\" By contrast, there's nothing a student can write that will be as effective. (From a student's perspective, the letter is a favor to the student, but faculty sometimes think of it as a favor to the advisor.)</p>\n\n<p>The biggest problem is if your advisor can't or won't help with this. Then you'll have to pick the most supportive people you know and ask them yourself. It's helpful to offer to meet with them to tell them about your work, to make sure they are fully up to date. You should send them copies of all your application materials. It's also helpful if you supply additional background and commentary, to help give them more of a feeling for your work and its context. This makes it easier to write the letter, by supplying interesting ideas and facts the letter writer can mention. (That's the lazy approach to writing a letter, but if someone is going to be lazy, you want to make it as easy as possible for them.) Make sure everyone writing a research letter actually plans to discuss your research. It can really hurt your application if a letter just says \"Bob took my advanced phrenology class and received an A. I was particularly impressed with his insightful questions regarding retrophrenology, and I became convinced that this bright young man has an extraordinary future in pseudoscience. I haven't read any of his papers, but his advisor assures me that they are wonderful, so Bob has my strongest recommendation.\" When you get your Ph.D., you should be judged based on your research (and teaching), not your performance in classes.</p>\n\n<p>You should request letters at least one month before the deadline. It doesn't really take a month to write a letter, but it can take a number of hours (looking at papers and application materials, thinking, and then writing). Any given week may be very busy - for example, someone may be travelling or facing a major deadline - and faculty members often have to write dozens of letters, so if you do not ask far enough in advance, then there may simply not be enough time for your letter. If you need a letter very quickly, then you are asking for a huge favor, and the letter probably won't be as long or compelling as it might have been otherwise.</p>\n\n<p>As for some of your sub-questions: The writer does not need to know the student well, but must know something about the student's work (for example, from papers or talks). For most academic jobs in the fields I know about, there is no way to avoid submitting recommendations with the initial application.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2612, "author": "Dan C", "author_id": 1069, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1069", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Really, you should start thinking about who you'll ask to write letters a couple of years before you ask for them. Then you'll have time to develop relationships with your letter writers. If you'd like to get a letter of recommendation from someone (particularly at your university), but haven't worked with them, try to start a collaboration. For faculty other than your adviser, your \"researchy\" interaction with them will often start with a reading course (or independent study).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2619, "author": "Aaron", "author_id": 1228, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1228", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In some areas of computer science, summer internships at corporate research labs (Microsoft Research, IBM research, and AT&amp;T research mostly) have become an important part of the PhD process. The main benefit of doing an internship or two is to broaden the student's set of collaborators. This is helpful for them to get exposed to new areas of research that will eventually form a part of their thesis, but it is also an excellent source of recommendation letters. A researcher who supervised a student for a summer, and with whom he wrote a paper (or two, or three!) is in an excellent position to write a strong letter. </p>\n\n<p>Of course, your thesis committee is another good place to look. Many times you will need 4 people on your committee (Your advisor, two others from your department, and sometimes an external researcher). With luck, at least 3 of these people will know your work well enough to write for you. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1236", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/713/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1250, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I've never heard of a field dedicated to the study of research methods. There are journals dedicated to advances in methodology (e.g., <a href=\"http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-neuroscience-methods/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">[1]</a>, <a href=\"http://www.biotechniques.com/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">[2]</a>), but the closest concept I've encountered to a field dedicated to researching research is Thomas Kuhn's classic work <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions\" rel=\"noreferrer\">The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a> and other similar philosophical works, which discuss how science, as a field, progresses and evolves.</p>\n\n<p>I would guess that the reason for the lack of such a field is such research is part and parcel of the actual work done in the field. In order to study biochemistry, one must understand <em>how</em> to study biochemistry; in order to study mathematics, one must know the types of questions and the methods used to find answers in mathematics. Each field is unique, and each field will find specific methods that will optimally serve the needs of that specific field. While there may be broadly-applicable research techniques, each field will solve the problem of \"how to do research\" differently, in the way that best suits that field.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1253, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is plenty of <em>\"research on research\"</em> (or <em>\"science of science\"</em>).</p>\n\n<p>There are dividid into different fields, e.g.:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientometrics\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Scientometrics</a> - measuring citations, networks of collaborators, relations between topics and other quantities characterizing the scientific output.</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_scientific_knowledge\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Sociology of science</a> - treating science as a activity of groups of people, with its history etc.<br>\nFor example there is a great book <a href=\"http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/202695.Genesis_and_Development_of_a_Scientific_Fact\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact</a>.</li>\n<li>Research on <em>collective intelligence</em>, <em>innovation</em> (when, where and how does it happen), etc.</li>\n<li>General fields related to education, didactics, teamwork and management.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>As you asking about <em>engineering</em> (i.e. how things work in practice), I don't even mention things like <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">philosophy of science</a>. Also, as you see, the answer depends on scale - from an individual, through a group or an institution to a country, the world nowadays or our civilization.</p>\n\n<p>Typically it is done under umbrella of complex systems, complexity, network science, econophysics or data-mining and modeling in sociology. There are institutes doing it, see e.g. the front page of the <a href=\"http://www.santafe.edu/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Santa Fe Institute</a>. Also, there are some projects on it, e.g. <a href=\"http://www.qlectives.eu/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">QLectives</a>.</p>\n\n<p>ADDED:</p>\n\n<p>As you are interested in the optimization (not only the observation) and on the micro scale: some findings may implicitly give hints, e.g.:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>R. Kenna, B. Berche, <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.0928\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Critical mass and the dependency of research quality on group size</a> (2010) says that you need a critical number of researchers to make it working smoothly,</li>\n<li>B. Jamtveita, E. Jettestuena, J. Mathiesena, <a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903190106\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Scaling properties of European research units</a> (2009) says that the larger an institute, the higher percentage of administrative workers it has.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Other things may be harder to find, as in science it works a lot in apprentice-master mode, with approaches differing from a group to a group. So it may be not as easy to be serialized (as in different fields, countries, etc. one may need to have different approach); and when you don't a large enough sample, you cannot use quantitive methods in a meaningful way.</p>\n\n<p>Moreover, now we are in the phase preceding formalized studies, as only recently people started to share with the world their <em>soft and subjective</em> findings on that matter, e.g.:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/UriAlon/nurturing/index.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Materials for Nurturing Scientists</a> (a collection) on <a href=\"http://www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/UriAlon/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Uri Alon Lab website</a> (BTW: he is the right person to talk about it, as he promotes such exchange of information on research)</li>\n<li>G. Whitesides, <a href=\"http://www.egr.msu.edu/~mason/teaching/How2WriteApaper.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Whitesides' Group: Writing a Paper</a> (2004)</li>\n<li>J. Gallian, <a href=\"http://www.d.umn.edu/~jgallian/goodPPtalk.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Advice on giving a good powerpoint presentation</a> (2006)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>and on things like <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/\">academia.SE</a>, for a bit of self-reference.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1239", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/80/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1247, "author": "Bravo", "author_id": 411, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<ul>\n<li><p>If you are listed as an author in the paper, then you can always include the paper in your publications list. </p></li>\n<li><p>If you are pruning your resume to be a 2-page one and if you have better publications (say where you are the lead author) to show, then have a single category titled \"Selected Publications\" and exclude this paper. </p></li>\n<li><p>If you are making a very detailed list of publications, say one on a webpage, then do consider including the name of all authors in the same order as in the published paper. </p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1248, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Looking at the CV that's linked to your website, I don't see anything inappropriate about what you've done. The only thing to make sure of is that when you have a team listed explicitly as the author in a paper (e.g., \"Author X, Author Y, and The A-Team\"), you will need to make sure that there is a publicly available listing of the team members available for reference. This could be as a supplement to the paper online (as \"supporting information\"), or it can be on a permanent web site for the team's endeavors. However, people should be able to confirm that you are a member of this collaboration beyond just what's on your CV.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1246", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/185/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1251, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Reputable journals will waive publication charges for authors who cannot pay them, so you should ask about that. If everything goes well, then that will simply solve your financial problems. I see only two ways you can get stuck:</p>\n\n<p>(1) The journal insists you can pay, perhaps because your advisor has plenty of grant money, but your advisor refuses. In that case you have a serious problem, and it is much deeper than just paying for these publication charges; you need to sort things out with your advisor.</p>\n\n<p>(2) The journal does not have a procedure for waiving the charges. In that case, the journal acceptance is worthless. The journals in this category are money-making operations with no academic validity. Nobody will care that they accepted your paper, because they just wanted your publication fees.</p>\n\n<p>The first thing you need to determine is which case you are in. For example, one valid reason for an advisor to refuse to pay is because the journals are not reputable. If you are in that case, then you need to rethink everything. Otherwise, it sounds like you may be in a complicated situation with your advisor.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1257, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This would raise a red flag for me generally - I've never published in a journal that had publication fees just for publishing the papers themselves. Color charges, sure, and if I had submitted to an open access journal they have fees, but nearly every one of them has a mechanism for waiving the fee in the case that the author can't pay. My four suggestions are this:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Make doubly-sure, as @AnonymousMathematician has stated, that you're not accidentally trying to get published in a for-profit vanity press journal. These won't actually do you much good.</li>\n<li>Contact the journal and see if you can get the fees waived, if they are indeed a legitimate scientific journal.</li>\n<li>Get in touch with your institution's librarians. Universities often have discount deals with some publishers, are members of groups that waive the fees, etc. Make sure you're not covered that way.</li>\n<li>Stop submitting to journals with publication charges if you don't have grant backing. Submitted, or even accepted papers that aren't in press (and it sounds like will never see the light of day) don't do you much good. Those papers are currently just rotting there - no journal is good enough for you to let your work languish without publishing it.</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1249", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/721/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1254, "author": "Henry", "author_id": 8, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It may be that even if the faculty at the institution are not themselves active in research, they are likely to know people they are (after all, they got their own degrees somewhere). The best route, if at all possible, would be for one of the the local faculty to put the student in touch with someone who is active in research. The personal introduction makes it much likely that the work will get actual feedback. (I'm assuming here that the student has actually talked to the local people and determined that they're not interested; just because a faculty members isn't currently active in research doesn't automatically mean they don't care and won't be able to help an interested student.)</p>\n\n<p>If that's not an option, the student might be able to meet researchers through some sort of event, either one aimed directly at undergraduates (for instance, in the US, there are many summer programs for undergraduates), or even just by attending a conference and trying to meet people. This may not be an option (summer programs require being accepted, for instance, and attending a conference on one's own can be expensive).</p>\n\n<p>If that's off the table as well, it may be time to personally e-mail researchers in the area. It's true that there's some risk the work will be ignored, but there are steps that can be taken to minimize this: choose a person to contact carefully, making sure it's someone actually interested in the exact topic of your research (on the one hand, you want it to be someone you cite, or at least someone who's worked directly in the area, but on the other hand, you don't want to e-mail the biggest name who has anything to do with the subject); and write a personal e-mail which makes your situation clear without being too verbose, and which explains why you're e-mailing this particular person.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1255, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>You want to try a combination of <strong>networking</strong> and <strong>learning how to ask good questions</strong>.</p>\n<ol>\n<li><p>Networking—you have to find people in your field in order to grow, and you can only find people in your field by networking appropriately. Try to find money in the department/broader university to attend a conference, or even just email authors of papers you cite. Describe your situation (briefly). If they're local, ask to meet with them for 30 minutes-1 hr; if not, try for phone calls.</p>\n<p>Do note that, generally speaking, graduate students/postdocs will be more willing to give you time than advisors; try to get in touch with them as well.</p>\n</li>\n<li><p>Asking good questions—you can and should assume that no one has time to act as your advisor. Because of this, your interaction with those whom advise you will be brief. Make the most of those minutes. Give a summary of your work, ask very directed, substantial questions. Make the most of your meetings.</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<p>Personally, the most productive meeting I had in the entirety of my just-under-five year graduate school stint was one with a member of my thesis committee, and the entire meeting lasted 15 minutes. I gave the right background, asked the right questions, and came away with what turned into my thesis project. (I don't think I've done that well since.) Do your homework, and you may benefit nicely.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1252", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1264, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Usually, MBA is something that you do when you have significant work experience. There is a good reason for that. If you go straight from your graduation into the program, you will learn a few thing on the theoretical side of business administration. But if you already have encountered troubles in management, you will learn a lot from the numerous case studies (because most of the learning in a MBA is through case studies) and exchanges with other \"students\".\nMoreover, the main advantage of a MBA, besides the few things you learn, is the network that you will acquire, and only a few fellow students will be ready to network with somebody without experience.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8926, "author": "Colin Fukai", "author_id": 6494, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6494", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree that the more practical working experience you have, the more useful your MBA studies will be. That being said, the purpose of the MBA and the related timing will also be important. I assume you want this MBA to further your career (move outside of the technical/engineering side of your work and into management, marketing, etc.). If you think the MBA is going to help you do that and you want to move into the business side sooner rather than later in your career then it might be advantageous start the MBA sooner, especially since your undergraduate degree is non-business.</p>\n\n<p>It depends on the school I imagine, but when I did an MBA all of the students with non-business undergraduate degrees had to take a set of core business courses before being allowed to proceed on with MBA courses. If you were working during the day and going to school at night I imagine this would add some time to your total time in the program, so getting started early might be a good idea. </p>\n\n<p>Additionally, if you have to pass a test to get into the MBA program (GMAT, etc.) then taking that soon after you graduate might be advantageous as you are still kind of in the \"study mode\" of school and preparing for the test will be simpler than if you let years go by without having taken an exam. You should check, but I believe the GMAT is good for X number of years after you take it so if you pass it early after graduating you can still wait a while before actually applying. You say you want to go to a top level school as well, so I imagine a high score on this test will also be important. Starting early if you think it will take a few tries to get that high mark would also be smart.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 31161, "author": "Reed -SE is a Fish on Dry Land", "author_id": 23868, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/23868", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you want to get headhunted or an “MBA salary” after you graduate you need work experience, at least 5 years. However if you want to build your company or move up the ladder later you can do it now. </p>\n\n<p>The MBA is in no way theoretical, you may get more out of it with previous work experience, but you will acquire “real” work experience through study by cases and simulations. You get to solve real world problems, and that gives you experience. Also, a Business School is a microcosm of the working world and you have teachers/bosses to please, team-members/colleagues to manage, bureaucratese/paperwork to deal with, etc. </p>\n\n<p>Many programs do accept MBA students straight from undergrad. </p>\n\n<p>Networking? Vaguely heard of it but never experienced it, especially as a foreign student. Maybe that was real in the dark ages when there where 20 MBA programs in the world. Now when there is a B school behind every bush and corner I do not believe in such think as networking. Though I may be wrong especially at top universities MBA programs.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1260", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/724/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1262, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It also depends on what should be the final format of your document. For instance, I write all my articles in Latex, and when collaborating with other researchers, I use <a href=\"https://bitbucket.org/\">BitBucket</a>: I create a Latex repository, and give access rights to the other authors. One good aspect of BitBucket is that they have a special plan for academics, where you can get an unlimited number of collaborators for free. In order to avoid conflicts as much as possible, we usually decompose the main document in one file for each section, and we try to avoid working on the same section at the same time, but even if it happens, then it's usually possible to easily merge the different edits. One nice feature is the possibility to automatically receive notifications when one author commit her changes. Also, since anybody can create a BitBucket account, there isn't the problem of creating an account to an external collaborator on an internal server. </p>\n\n<p>Of course, BitBucket is not the only possibility, and one could also use <a href=\"http://git-scm.com/\">Git</a>, or even <a href=\"https://www.dropbox.com/\">Dropbox</a>, although for the latter, I don't really like the lack of native versioning system. </p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, if I don't work directly on a paper, but for instance on a draft for a project proposal, then I use <a href=\"https://docs.google.com/\">Google Docs</a>, because it's quite simple to do some collaborative editing. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1263, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>If your collaborator is not technically inclined, then there are a few possibilities:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://docs.google.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Google Docs</a><br>\nIt is very simple, robust and real-time (no need of thinking 'which version is the most recent'). I created a lot of documents with it (though only 1 scientific article). A good idea is to use different colours so that it is clear who wrote what. One drawback is that it may be not as simple for equations and than you will need to copy things from there to LateX manually.</li>\n<li>Annotating PDF files with <a href=\"http://get.adobe.com/reader/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Adobe Reader</a> or sth equivalent<br>\nAlso simple and robust. However, as it is not real-time you need to keep track of which version is current and it is not possible to make changes in the same time. Here you are the only person responsible for changes in LaTeX file.</li>\n<li>Annotating or changing with <a href=\"http://www.openoffice.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">OpenOffice</a>, MS Word or another office package...<br>\nAnother variant which allows you collaborator to make direct changes, at cost of some robustness.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>As a practical remark for the two last: always keep track of the version, e.g. <code>draft_20120424_prof.pdf</code>, where you add both date of the last edit (not <code>final5</code>!) and name of the last editor. When exchanging things by e-mail it is easy to loose track which version is the most recent and in fact lost changes (often not knowing about that.)</p>\n\n<p>Other possibilities, requiring some technical knowledge:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://writelatex.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">writeLaTeX</a> or sth similar (<a href=\"https://www.sharelatex.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ShareLaTeX</a>, <a href=\"http://scribtex.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ScribTeX</a>, <a href=\"http://docs.latexlab.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">LaTeX Lab</a> - the one using GoogleDocs, ...)<br>\nTools for editing documents collaboratively (in real-time) and compile it within one's browser (so no need to install anything). Though some knowledge of LaTeX is required (at least to know how not to spoil a file).<br>\nScribTeX(the only one I used) gives version control and you can see which lines were changed (as in version control system), so not need of guessing what might have been changed.<br>\nEDIT: ScribTeX is being replaced by ShareLaTeX.<br>\nwriteLaTeX has live preview and may be the most suitable for beginners.</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(software)\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Git</a> or another version-control system, e.g. at <a href=\"https://github.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">GitHub</a><br>\nHowever, it may require technical skills beyond edition of LaTeX. While it is not hard to use it, <strike>I never did</strike> <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5277/why-use-version-control-systems-for-writing-a-paper\">I am using</a> it for writing papers and I would never try to use it with someone with low computer literacy. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>When it comes to <a href=\"http://www.dropbox.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Dropbox</a> - it is a good stuff for sharing files for a project but NOT for making changes in files. First, you never know <em>when</em> the changes happen. Second, you don't know <em>where</em> the changes happen.</p>\n\n<p>There is also an article on it: <a href=\"http://robjhyndman.com/researchtips/online-collaborative-writing/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Research tips - Online collaborative writing</a>.</p>\n\n<p>See also a few questions:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/27549/simultaneous-collaborative-editing-of-a-latex-file\">Simultaneous collaborative editing of a LaTeX file</a> - <a href=\"https://tex.stackexchange.com/\">tex.SE</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://mathoverflow.net/questions/3044/tools-for-collaborative-paper-writing\">Tools for collaborative paper-writing</a> - <a href=\"https://mathoverflow.net/\">MathOverflow</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3/compiling-documents-online\">Compiling documents online</a> - <a href=\"https://tex.stackexchange.com/\">tex.SE</a></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1265, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you're working with Word documents, Word 2007 included a <em>very</em> nifty merge changes feature. <a href=\"http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/merge-comments-and-changes-from-several-documents-into-1-document-HP001221654.aspx\" rel=\"noreferrer\">This online help document from microsoft.com</a> details how it works, but doesn't really do the feature justice. See the following screenshot for an idea:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/qRNnZ.png\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><img src=\"https://i.stack.imgur.com/qRNnZ.png\" alt=\"Document compare in Word 2007\"></a></p>\n\n<p>Briefly, you can click on \"compare\" (in ribbon, third from right), and it lets you choose two source documents. From there, it opens the very nice interface shown above, with the two source docs on the right, the merged doc in the middle, and the changes on the left (or bottom, you can hide it if you don't wan t it). You use it like any other \"track changes\"; just go through, change by change, using the \"previous\", \"next\", \"accept\", and \"reject\" buttons om the Changes section of the ribbon. When you're done just save the combined document, and you've got your merged doc.</p>\n\n<p>I've used this a number of times, and it's a very useful feature. By far the best aspect of this is that it can be used with the technically incompetent. Just tell them, \"take the document, make changes, I'll deal with it\"; I've used this with my technologically challenged boss a number of times, and it's been a lifesaver. Given your situation, this may be your best bet.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 9620, "author": "Irwin", "author_id": 5944, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/5944", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>We do token passing and some kind of method to exchange the files. I think this method was covered in the comments but let me elaborate it here. I'll use Word as an example, since chances are if you're doing manual token passing, it's because you haven't been able to convince anyone in your team to switch to LaTeX, and people who don't want to switch to LaTeX are probably the type who don't want to deal with version control.</p>\n\n<p>The \"shared folder\" is the mechanism you use for sharing files. It could be a Dropbox folder, email, WebDAV, a remote directory on an SSH-accessible server, etc.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p><strong>Locking</strong>: Person who starts with the file renames it so that their name is on the end. They send an email to the group saying, \"I am locking Section 1.\" List the locks in the email.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Unlocking</strong>: This is a multi-step process.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>a. If no one else <strong>unlocked</strong> a section before you unlocked, then you can rename the file to the current date and time, then put it in the shared folder.</p>\n\n<p>b. If another collaborator <strong>unlocked</strong> a section before you unlocked, then you must take the latest version off of the shared folder, copy the section you were working on, and paste it into the latest version you just downloaded. Rename the just-edited file to the current date and time, then put it in the shared folder.</p>\n\n<p>The reason you do it this way and not the other way (copying and pasting everyone else's sections into your document) is because doing so means you have to keep track of what everyone else did, whereas this way you only need to keep track of what you did.</p>\n\n<p>That's basically it. The biggest problem is when someone's not paying attention and doesn't merge properly, or when two people try to lock something at the same time (since Email has a delay) but usually you'll have to have someone who knows the process keep an eye out for it.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1261", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/319/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1271, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>How important is math emphasis in an applied field like networking?\n Industry work is almost always simulation-based from whatever I have\n seen. After all, networks are there to be implemented and deployed, so\n why bother about probabilistic modelling and research? In other words,\n why should an engineering department award a degree to a thesis where\n the problem has an engineering cause, but everything is simply applied\n math?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In these fields, math is a tool, as coding or lab experiment. Even if you have a full mathematical analysis of a protocol, you have to conduct experiments, because real life is not one of our - too simple - models. Why bother on probabilistic modelling? because we have to find ideas for designing algorithms, hoping that the performance in the real world will be somehow related to those in the formal model.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>When there are two modes of research in a particular field, will the\n PhD student's approach play a role in faculty recruitment?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes it almost always will. You apply in a team, probably the team is inclined in some of the ways, and want either to make the team even stronger wrt an approach or, to the contrary, to open itself to other ways of thinking.\nI also remember my own recruitment, where the fact that I am in the middle (maths + experiments) was a big plus for me- since people assumed that I will be able to speak to a lot of people in the lab, from theory to practical people (and that's what happened).</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Is there a widespread notion of one being superior to another? I\n know of professors and students who widely emphasise math and\n pooh-pooh \"S-BAA: simulation-based on arbitrary algorithm\" type of\n papers.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>At the end, only one thing is important: making things that work. You will always find people that think that the theoretical approach (resp. the experimental approach) is superior to the experimental approach (resp. the theoretical approach). Both are wrong, what we want is usable (in real conditions) algorithms with guarantees (controlled error, correctness, etc.), how we achieve this goal is interesting for us, but not the main point of our research (<strong><em>recall that the question is about engineering research</em></strong>).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1272, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<ul>\n<li><strong>How important is math emphasis in <strike>an applied field like</strike> networking?</strong></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Networking is an enormous field, which runs the full spectrum from pure mathematics to actual real-world deployment, with many shades of applied mathematics, algorithm development, modeling, simulation, and experimentation in between. There are far more than \"two modes of research\" in networking, as you put it. Mathematical emphasis is fundamental at the mathematical end of the field, useless at the deployment end, and somewhere in between in between.</p>\n\n<p>To put it differently, it depends on what you mean by \"networking\".</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why should an engineering department award a degree to a thesis where the problem has an engineering cause, but everything is simply applied math?</strong></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>There is no contradiction here. I'd estimate that somewhere between a third and half of our engineering faculty at my university can legitimately call themselves applied mathematicians. There was even a small but serious proposal a few years ago to move our mathematics department into our college of engineering.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Will the PhD student's approach play a role in faculty recruitment?</strong></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Of course! Hiring patterns at my own university (in both CS and ECE) suggest that the networking PhDs most likely to be hired as faculty comfortably bridge the so-called gap between theory and application, speaking to both camps in their native languages, and applying techniques from both camps to Actually Make Things Work. (Sylvain's answer is consistent with this observation.)</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Is there a widespread notion of one being superior to another?</strong></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Of course. Networking people are people. As in any other wide-ranging field, many experimentalists think all theoretical work is pointless symbol-pushing, and many theoreticians think that all experimental work is mindless hacking. They're both wrong. <strong>Some</strong> theoretical work is pointless symbol-pushing, and <strong>some</strong> experimental work is mindless hacking, which is exactly as it should be. Neither viewpoint is \"better\"; they're just different.</p>\n\n<p>Not chalk and cheese, but chocolate and ginger.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1270", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1344, "author": "John Garrigus", "author_id": 756, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/756", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am an academic [history] who adopted org-mode about 18 months ago. Frankly, I'm puzzled by all the warnings about the steepness of the emacs learning curve. For a newcomer who doesn't do a lot of command-line work, the hardest part for me was configuring emacs on my Win and Ubuntu machines. But there are lots of resources and tutorials out there, many of them accessible from orgmode.org.</p>\n\n<p>I started out only using emacs for org-mode. After watching a few screencasts I knew enough to start outlining. Gradually i've been using emacs for more and more tasks outside org-mode, though that remains my main use for the editor. I've been gradually increasing the complexity of my workflow over the last year, adapting bits of the various GTD setups linked to the org-mode.org. I am not a programmer and had only started working with a Linux machine a few months before getting into org-mode. </p>\n\n<p>In my opinion, one of the obstacles to greater adoption of org-mode is that people see the amazing workflows set-up by gurus and assume they need to use emacs at that level. My opinion: for writing, organizing and work-flow, you can get 80% of the ultimate value of org-mode in about 20 minutes of instruction. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1364, "author": "Josephine Moeller", "author_id": 762, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/762", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I use org-mode as an grad student (computer science), and primarily use it for throwing together fast documents. It isn't great for papers/articles, but it is great for homework and notes, because it uses markdown for formatting. There is very little to learn here that can't be found in the manual. See the sections on exporting/publishing, and pay attention to the parts on LaTeX.</p>\n\n<p>I used to use org-mode for scheduling and it was great (I went on vacation and lost interest in tracking all of my time). It's great for tracking how much time you spend on projects and doesn't need much configuration up front.</p>\n\n<p>I also used it for collecting references, but that took some nontrivial configuration. It wasn't hard for me because I'm used to programming, but your mileage may vary.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1388, "author": "Brian Maicke", "author_id": 662, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/662", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I use <a href=\"http://orgmode.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Org-mode</a> and <a href=\"http://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">AUCTeX</a> (Emacs LaTeX package), to do all three tasks\nyou outline. I have an Org folder that I sync across machines using\nDropbox, which I find to be a simple solution for someone who does not\nuse version control on a regular basis.</p>\n\n<h1>Organization</h1>\n\n<p>I separate my tasks into broad groups with each group getting its own\n.org file. For example, I have .org files for administrative tasks,\njournal publications, service, research topics, and any major projects\nthat I am currently working on.</p>\n\n<p>The structure of an .org file is relatively simple, for example a file to\ntrack journal submissions, revisions, etc. may look something like this:</p>\n\n<pre><code>* Initial Submissions\n* Accepted\n* Rejected\n* Revisions\n* Book Chapters\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Org-mode uses asterisks to denote levels of headings, and <code>&lt;Tab&gt;</code> to\nfold and unfold the headings. So expanding the revisions heading would\nlead to:</p>\n\n<pre><code>* Revisions\n** Paper 1\n** Paper 2\n DEADLINE: &lt;2012-05-04 Fri&gt;\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>You can set deadlines for any task by pressing <code>C-c C-d</code>, which will\ngenerate the the DEADLINE: line you see above. Setting a deadline for\na task will make the task show up in the agenda view (accessed through\n<code>C-c a a</code>), which is my main project planning tool for day to day\nwork inside of Org-mode.</p>\n\n<p>You can also track the time you spend on tasks with <code>C-c C-x C-i</code>,\nwhich will clock you in to a task and <code>C-c C-x C-o</code>, which clocks you\nout. The tracked time will show up in the agenda view and can be\nuseful for project planning or reporting. You can also generate\nseparate standalone tables inside your .org files if you prefer a bit\nmore customization.</p>\n\n<p>All of this can be done with a vanilla Org-mode install and no\ncustomization. I have my tasks set as multi-state TODO lists that I\ncan cycle from TODO->STARTED->WAITING->DONE->CANCELED. I have my\nkeywords set in my .emacs configuration file with the following:</p>\n\n<pre><code>(setq org-todo-keywords\n '((sequence \"TODO\" \"STARTED\" \"WAITING\" \"|\" \"DONE\" \"CANCELED\")))\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>The <code>\"|\"</code> separates in process keywords from finished state keywords.\nIf you are looking for more elaborate reports, such as Gantt charts,\nmy answer to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/1215/662\">this question</a> briefly discusses some of the options\navailable.</p>\n\n<h1>Outlining</h1>\n\n<p>For outlining and writing long documents, you can just create a new\n.org file and outline using the * heading approach. Org-mode makes it\neasy to move headings around if you want to restructure your document\nat any stage. For example, if you had this outline:</p>\n\n<pre><code>* Intro\n* Part 2\n** Part 2a\n** Part 2b\n* Part 1\n** Part 1a\n** Part 1b\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>You realize that Part 1 should really come before Part 2 so you move\nthe cursor to the Part 2 heading and press <code>C-&lt;down arrow&gt;</code>, and Part\n2 and all of its subheadings will move to the proper position.</p>\n\n<pre><code>* Intro\n* Part 1\n** Part 1a\n** Part 1b\n* Part 2\n** Part 2a\n** Part 2b\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Depending on your needs, writing a paper based on the outline can be\ndone in much the same way. Org-mode has support for LaTeX, both for\ninline fragments and for environments. Since you mention LyX, I would\nimagine the transition to stand-alone LaTeX should not be too onerous. The Org-mode LaTeX export does a fairly good job but if you have a document with a significant amount of LaTeX syntax, it may be better to just write the draft in LaTeX using AUCTeX, but this is beyond the scope of the question.</p>\n\n<h1>Reference Management</h1>\n\n<p>I use a combination of Org-mode and RefTeX (available with AUCTeX) to\nmanage my references and to make notes. As mentioned in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/1364/662\">John\nMoeller's answer</a> this takes some non-trivial configuration. I used\n<a href=\"http://tincman.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/research-paper-management-with-emacs-org-mode-and-reftex/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this setup</a> almost verbatim to start my reference management, and I\nhave found that it works well. <a href=\"http://www-public.it-sudparis.eu/~berger_o/weblog/2012/03/23/how-to-manage-and-export-bibliographic-notesrefs-in-org-mode/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">This link</a> was inspired by the same setup and may be useful for both reference management and writing drafts in Org-mode that contain extensive references.</p>\n\n<p>I start with a master .bib file, that contains the bibliographic\nmaterial for each reference. After adding updating the .bib file, I\nuse <code>C-c )</code> to insert a new heading into my notes.org file. The\ncustomization will generate a heading with the title of the paper and\na link to the PDF of the paper. For any notes I take on the paper, I\ncan use the rest of Org-mode's abilities to either have multi-heading\noutline style notes as subheadings, or just write paragraphs separated\nby a blank line. The end result is an .org file with headings for\npapers, textbooks, etc. and subheadings for each paper with links to PDFs and all my notes in a single file.</p>\n\n<h1>Tips for Starting Out</h1>\n\n<p>There are a few ways to help smooth the way to working with Emacs,\nOrg-mode, and AUCTeX.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Install Emacs 24 pretest instead of Emacs 23. Emacs 24 has package\nmanagement included in the vanilla install which makes it much\neasier to add packages without a lot of programming experience. It\nalso has Org-mode included in the default install. <a href=\"http://batsov.com/articles/2011/10/09/getting-started-with-emacs-24/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">This link</a> gives\ninstructions for a variety of operating systems. I have been using it for awhile now and I have found it to be very stable.</p></li>\n<li><p>Go through the Emacs tutorial, accessed via C-h t. This will give\nyou the basics of navigating using the Emacs keys. It will likely\ntake some getting used to, especially how Emacs handles selection,\ncutting, and pasting. This will likely be the biggest hurdle if\nyou are used to the cutting/pasting/navigation in word processors.</p></li>\n<li><p>Keep <a href=\"http://refcards.com/docs/gildeas/gnu-emacs/emacs-refcard-a4.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this reference card</a> handy. It has nearly all of the commands\nthat you will use on a daily basis.</p></li>\n<li><p>For Org-mode specifically, look through the <a href=\"http://orgmode.org/manual/index.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">manual</a>, but more\nimportantly look at the <a href=\"http://orgmode.org/worg/org-tutorials/index.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">tutorials</a>. Specifically the general\nintroductions and the power users describe their setup sections\n(the first two sections linked above). These tutorials will\nhighlight the customizations made to the initialization file\n(.emacs) for these users. Even without elisp experience, you\nshould be able to find something close to your desired workflow and\nbe able to modify it with some trial and error.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>When I started with Emacs and Org-mode I had very little experience\nwith Emacs. A vanilla Org-mode install with no customization is still a powerful tool. As you get more comfortable with working in Org-mode you can start to work on customization. Even with very little interest in programming there is a significant enough user base that someone may have already done something close to what you are looking for. </p>\n\n<p>After I got comfortable with Org-mode, I started using <a href=\"http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Bernt Hansen's set-up</a> with no\nchanges. It is a bit intimidating on the whole as he has some extensive customizations, but he documents them well and explains almost everything he does.\nThen after using it for awhile, I was able to modify\nthe initialization to something that better suited my workflow. It\ntook some trial and error and a bit of extra time on the learning\nside, but I believe that it has payed off in the long run.</p>\n\n<p>Once you are comfortable with Emacs, I would also recommend the <a href=\"http://emacswiki.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Emacs\nwiki</a>. It has some descriptions of useful packages, some discussion,\nand even some configuration suggestions to help build up your\ninitialization file. If you ever get to the point in your setup where you think, \"I wish I could do XXX\", the odds are someone else has written a package that covers what you need.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3539, "author": "Tanya Murphy", "author_id": 2752, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2752", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I really like Bernt Hansen's org-mode setup. I am not a programmer and I do feel a little lost in Emacs, but I'm having no trouble using org-mode. I started with Vincent Goulet's Emacs package because I also use emacs to edit latex and R scripts. Then I added Hansen's code to my .emacs file a few sections at a time where it seemed applicable to my workflow, editing slightly when I could decipher it and see a way to make it more applicable. It took a couple of days plus little tweaks occasionally since, but very manageable. </p>\n\n<p>In addition to what has been mentioned, I use clocking into the different steps of a project almost religiously because I am working on estimating the time I spend on different tasks in order to better plan future projects. I've been terribly over-optimistic with promises of submitting work in the past. </p>\n\n<p>Finally, I would highly recommend JabRef for literature management if you want to stay with free open source software. I've had no trouble with RefTex---I didn't have to do anything beyond Goulet's instructions. JabRef imports references in the usual way (e.g. Reference Manager, etc) and has a database-like interface, but creates a bibtex file in the background. Citations in Latex (in emacs) worked perfectly.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1273", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/314/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1276, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The main advantages of a research report is that it's published very fast, and without reviewing process. From what I've seen, a research report is basically used: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>to publish a longer version of a paper, for instance including proofs or detailed examples that couldn't fit in a version submitted to a conference. </li>\n<li>to put a timestamp on an idea, in order to be able to claim \"We did it back then\"</li>\n<li>to create a reference that can be cited for project reporting, even though the work has not been published (yet). </li>\n<li>to make a pre-print document freely available, for instance if the published version is behind a paywall. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Such features are particularly useful when one wants to disseminate (for instance sharing with some colleagues) some unpublished material. Basically, I'd say that most of this can also be achieved by submitting the paper to a public repository, such as <a href=\"http://arxiv.org\">arXiv</a>. </p>\n\n<p>EDIT: considering the language question, intuitively, I would say that when research reports are used in the publication process, it's likely they are written in English. If a non-English speaking university does not offer a mechanism to submit research reports written in English, that might explain why it's not used. However, I've written research reports in France and Italy (in English). </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1277, "author": "Andy W", "author_id": 3, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Perhaps it varies by field but other uses I have come across in my field are;</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Required by a grant funding agency (i.e. a report of the findings from the study to the grant agency). <a href=\"https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/236057.pdf\">Here is such an example of a NIJ report</a>. These tend to be <em>much</em> longer and more detailed than a single journal article. </li>\n<li>Reports disseminated by other institutions. For instance, the non-for-profit I work for releases technical reports that we want to disseminate to the public (the same goes for the state agency I work for). The material <em>may</em> be the same as subsequent journal articles but the intended audience is not limited to academics and is much broader. <a href=\"http://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP325.html\">Here is an example of this by the RAND corporation</a>. Another popular one in the Social Sciences is the <a href=\"http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/library.php\">Campbell collaboration library of meta-analysis</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>These are similar to what Charles stated, but I would nit-pick a bit with the motivation. They aren't always just another means to disseminate what are otherwise journal articles. It is also a very potential heterogeneous field of papers. The RAND and Campbell articles I cited above are typically considered very high esteem (and go through a similar peer-review process to more typical journals). But pretty much any agency can release a technical report (put your agency name on it and post the pdf on the internet) so they can vary dramatically in quality.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1290, "author": "JRN", "author_id": 64, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/64", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In addition to the answers already posted, sometimes when a professor is given a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professorial_chair\" rel=\"nofollow\">professorial chair</a> (endowment), he or she is required to submit formal documentation describing the research done while \"sitting in the chair.\" Some departments/colleges/universities will accept (non-refereed) technical reports in lieu of refereed papers just to get around the technicality.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3677, "author": "dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten", "author_id": 440, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/440", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In the particle physics world---where we have large organization that operate for decades---\"technical report\" is one of the several names given to internal documents and communications with the funding agencies that are intended to </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>communicate important technical details between units (e.g. the accelerator division needs to inform the experimental scientists of the operational limits of the beam position monitors) </li>\n<li>propagate and preserve specialized knowledge and competencies</li>\n<li>to document details that won't be written up in a paper for many years (large experiments often leave off writing a detailed description of the experiment as built and run until after several data papers have appeared; by the time you get ready to write this \"instrumentation paper\" many of the people who installed the device may have moved on)</li>\n<li>provided supporting justification for grant requests and project proposals</li>\n<li>demonstrate readiness to actually start spending money on conditionally approved projects (which is essentially <em>all</em> US projects in the post SSC era; and both the Europeans and the Japanese have similar administrative protections)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Accordingly most particle physicist will spend some time writing such documents every few years.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1275", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1282, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>First of all: note that there is a difference between an academic CV and a resume.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>An <strong>academic CV</strong> typically lists everything you've done related to academia; every talk, every conference paper, every award, every grant, every mentored postdoc, grad, and possibly undergrad.</li>\n<li>A <strong>resume</strong> is a two-page document that summarizes your work/academic experience.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>(Terminology may differ, some may refer to the first as a resume also; semantics aside, there is a distinction between the two documents.)</p>\n\n<p>That being said, the answer to your question depends on which document you want to complete. The first should have everything, no matter how old. The second should list your most important, more recent accomplishments, in the interest of space. Regarding the second, the answer to \"when should I remove stuff\" is simply \"whenever you have newer and better things to put in it's place\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1283, "author": "Lev Reyzin", "author_id": 10, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As you do more things, you can become more selective with what you list. I think most computer scientists quickly stop listing conference talks for papers that already appear in their CV. Then you can stop listing small talks you gave at your own department, etc. People who are very well established often become even more selective, listing only the big invited talks. You have to figure out the right balance to strike.</p>\n\n<p>I think there's no right or wrong answer -- it's just a matter of how you want to present yourself and what you want to emphasize. I also don't think that section is at all the most important. It's good to show you've gone around and given some talks, but I think you're mostly evaluated on your actual research. Also, I don't understand the concern of running out of space on a CV; CVs unlike resumes have no page limits.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5623, "author": "luispedro", "author_id": 166, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/166", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here is what I do. I distinguish between talks/posters where you basically just applied and paid the conference fee versus any talks where someone invited you.</p>\n\n<p>A poster where you just submitted an abstract often just means you paid to attend the conference (there is normally a bit of filtering to exclude any overtly commercial offerings, but this is not peer-review, as 90+% of things are accepted). Things like a department seminar, where every student can or is even required to present, similarly just means that you were attending that school. So, do not have these on your CV as you probably already list which schools you attended.</p>\n\n<p>If, however, you got invited to give a talk somewhere, this is different as it means someone thought it was worth their time and money to have you come over and give them your ideas.</p>\n\n<p>As for talks or posters related to peer-reviewed conference proceedings, list them as such (\"peer-reviewed proceedings publication\" or some equivalent formulation) and not as talks.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5723, "author": "Zai", "author_id": 4318, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4318", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What I've seen from faculty candidates and faculty has been a graduation to \"Invited talks\" after a certain point on their CV. Invited Talks cuts out talks that you did at conferences (because it's assumed if your paper got in then you went to present your work) and stuff you volunteered to do. It does include when you've been asked to go somewhere to present (e.g., job talks about your research, when your advisor invited you back to talk about your new research/company, etc.) So if you feel like that section is getting really long, that's one thing you could do. </p>\n\n<p>Your mileage may vary depending on your discipline though, this is specifically in Computer Science.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1280", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1289, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I can't see this happening in any sort of large-scale conference. This would involve too much work and logistical planning on the part of everyone involved to be successful. It's hard enough to get abstracts for many conferences—let alone finished papers far enough in advance that people have time to read them!</p>\n\n<p>In addition, this last point is another major obstacle: people don't have a lot of time to read all the papers that we're supposed to, let alone a bunch for a particular conference. The main reason why I would undertake that much work was if it were for a relatively specialized workshop in my personal field of endeavor. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1292, "author": "Ivan Machado", "author_id": 690, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/690", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I've seen some workshops in the CS field (more specifically in a subfield of Software Engineering, e.g. VaMoS - see <a href=\"http://uni-leipzig.de/~vamos2012/?q=node/1\" rel=\"nofollow\">workshop format</a> -, in which there is a kind of \"precirculation of papers\", before the event take place. The workshop format includes a kind of \"discussion session\", in which, before attending the event, one paper is sent to an attendee other than the paper's (set of) author(s), so that he/she is in charge of reading the paper and preparing some discussion slides. During the event, after the paper's presentation, the discussant will provide attendance with his/her point of view on the paper, thus promoting the actual \"discussion session\".</p>\n\n<p>Indeed, it is a small-scale precirculation of papers, in a sense that a paper is sent previously to only a few people (usually an author of another paper). However IMHO such a format provides event's participants with an interactive environment (in the worst case, at least you, as a paper author, will be sure that at least one another peer has read you paper... lol).</p>\n\n<p>Quoting the mentioned <a href=\"http://uni-leipzig.de/~vamos2012/?q=node/1\" rel=\"nofollow\">workshop website</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Each session will be organized such that discussions among presenters\n of papers, discussants and other participants are stimulated.\n Typically, after a paper is presented, it is immediately discussed by\n pre-assigned discussants, after which a free discussion involving all\n participants follows. Each session is closed by a general discussion\n of all papers presented in the session.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>To be very honest, I guess it's not feasible to do such a thing in big conferences, due to time constraints, but for small (and focused) events, like workshops, I guess this idea is very welcome. </p>\n\n<p>As I said before, there are some other workshops that follow this same format: <a href=\"http://planet-sl.org/fosd2012/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=90%3aworkshop-format&amp;catid=35%3apresentation&amp;Itemid=313\" rel=\"nofollow\">FOSD</a> and <a href=\"http://please2012.haifa.il.ibm.com/format.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow\">PLEASE</a>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1284", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/726/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1288, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Book writing is a very thankless task—it takes a long time, and the profits probably don't make up for the cost of the time it takes you to write the book, unless you happen to write a textbook that becomes the default for a field. On the other hand, in some disciplines (particularly in the humanities), a published book is practically a requirement for tenure, so you'll want to make sure that you do things right. </p>\n\n<p>So my advice would depend upon where you are in the process. If you haven't already started writing, I'd shop around a prospective outline of the book plus an introductory chapter or two <em>before</em> you get too much further. Then you'll have a sense of what the publishers would be interested in. If you've gotten a lot written, then you just need to start shopping the full idea around.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1291, "author": "Anthony Labarre", "author_id": 26, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't know what is better, but I think it depends on where you want to publish. I can only talk about my limited experience, hoping it will be helpful.</p>\n\n<p>I've published a book with the MIT Press, and when my coauthors and I decided to contact them, the book was far from finished, but we had enough content for them to have an idea of what to expect -- which was one of their requirements. We then had to answer questions to help them decide whether or not our project would be worth their time and investment and to tell them when we would be done with the final (preprint) version of our manuscript. </p>\n\n<p>They haven't been involved at all in shaping the project as you say, although they did a wonderful job of proofreading the final text. Which was a relief, given that none of us are native English speakers. But I have the feeling that publishers typically limit themselves to that job.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1285", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/726/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1287, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<ol>\n<li><p>It is also polite to write a cover letter, even if nobody asks for it. And the purpose is often to ease the process of finding the referees, so helping to do so by giving insights about the paper that cannot be write in the paper is a good thing.</p></li>\n<li><p>If you mention potential referees, I guess it will not be sent to the chosen referees. Otherwise (in my experience) it is.</p></li>\n<li><p>You don't have to praise your results in the cover letter. Just state shortly the results (say more than the abstract, less than the introduction). If you think that there are issues related to the paper, this is also the place to state them (conflict of interest, new way of considering something - which can hurt someone's feelings -, direct negative comment on related work, etc.). If you think that, because your paper is gap-bridging, you need reviewers from several fields, you should say it as well.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2979, "author": "userJT", "author_id": 1537, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1537", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<ol>\n<li><p>Sometimes it could be. Sometimes one has to explain some prior publications and how they relate to the current manuscript.</p></li>\n<li><p>Usually, the cover letter is not sent to reviewers.</p></li>\n<li><p>Brief statement should be fine. It is not required.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45673, "author": "GEdgar", "author_id": 4484, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4484", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><p>Nowadays when referees interact with the journal on-line, the cover letter (if any) will be available to them. (Of course you send it electronically to the journal, right?)</p></li>\n<li><p>No praising.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45719, "author": "CrepusculeWithNellie", "author_id": 34524, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34524", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This depends on the journal. In one journal i am involved with a cover letter is actually required and needs to contain a declaration that the manuscript is not under submission elsewhere and won't be sent elsewhere before the journal made a decision. And reviewers always get the cover letter.</p>\n\n<p>From a reviewer perspective i think a summary of the paper contributions is not needed, as i am going to read about them anyway. If the paper is based on a conference contribution (and in my field, CS, this happens a lot) then a description of the differences is very useful, so i do not have to spend additional time reading the conference paper.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45897, "author": "jakebeal", "author_id": 22733, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/22733", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you are aiming for a high-impact general-interest journal, then the goal of the cover letter is to avoid editorial rejection. </p>\n\n<p>When you are aiming at a broad journal that takes lots of submissions (e.g., PLOS ONE) or a field-specific journal that sends pretty much everything out for review, a bare-bones cover letter as described in some of the other answers is probably fine.</p>\n\n<p>If you're aiming for something where there is strong editorial selection, however, it's a different matter. A good indicator you are dealing with such a journal is if they make a point of inviting pre-submission inquiries (though some don't). In this case, most papers are never sent out for review: they are rejected by an editor as \"not being of sufficiently broad interest\" or \"not likely to have sufficient significance\" or something of the sort. In this case, the cover letter is a big part of the decision, because the cover letter is the first impression you will make on the editor, and is where you can explain your work and its significance more informally.</p>\n\n<p>The form that I have seen used for cover letters of this type is approximately as follows:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Short summary of the paper and its key results</li>\n<li>Explanation of the significance of the paper</li>\n<li>Explanation of the community who will find the paper interesting (which should be one of the key communities served by the journal)</li>\n</ol>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1286", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/280/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1296, "author": "Willie Wong", "author_id": 94, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The best source of advice on these issues are the journal editorial staff. Some journals may require you to list your last affiliation with the word \"retired\" added in parentheses; some journals may prefer you not to list an affiliation at all. Some others may not care.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 96959, "author": "rick wunderman", "author_id": 80886, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/80886", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here's one approach: “(Ret.)”; subtle, direct, and in the literature (see 2):</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>1.Department of Earth Sciences University of Bristol, Bristol, UK<br>\n 2.Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian Institution (Ret.) Washington USA<br>\n 3.USGS Cascades Volcano ObservatoryVancouver USA</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1294", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/546/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1300, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>This answer is about faculty candidates, not graduate student or postdoc candidates. (I misunderstood the original question.)</strong></p>\n\n<p>First, be honest with the candidate, both about your interest and about your ability to hire. Yes, we are very interested. No, we don't have any regular faculty slots this year. Yes, we would love to fly you out, have you give a talk, meet with some of our faculty and students, maybe have a chat with the dean, and see where things go from there. Make no promises you can't actually keep.</p>\n\n<p>Second, a lack of open slots does <em>not</em> mean it is impossible to hire. Your college or campus may have finds set aside for \"excellence\" hires, or for cross-departmental research initiatives (like \"clean water\" or \"computational science\"), or for dual-career families. Some other overlapping department may be willing to give you half a slot for a joint appointment. Another faculty member in your department or college may have just unexpectedly retired, resigned, moved to administration, failed to get tenure, or died. Your dean may be impressed enough (or encouraged enough by other senior faculty) to give you an extra slot just for that person <em>next</em> year.</p>\n\n<p>Creating a slot takes a lot of legwork and a lot of political capital—you may burn a future slot even if the candidate doesn't come. So they'd better <em>really</em> be special, and you'd better know that they'll come if a position is actually offered.</p>\n\n<p>Yes, I have seen this work.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1302, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Being in the situation of looking for postdoctoral positions, I can at least give you my feelings of how I would understand that the person I contacted is interested, but cannot provide a position right now: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>First of all, replying is already a good sign of interest. There are many persons who don't even take the time to answer to an official application for an open position (apart from the standard acknowledgement email), and you have to consider that you don't get the job if you don't hear from them. So, if you take the time to answer, that shows that you have at least a bit of interest</p></li>\n<li><p>Then, if you provide a \"personalized\" answer, that shows that you took the time to read some of the applicant's papers, then it's clear that you are interested, and even if you can't provide a position, you might be interested in a collaboration. </p></li>\n<li><p>The ideal would be if you can invite the applicant to give a talk, even though it's clear that there is no job following It would be a good opportunity for the applicant to talk about his work, to get some practice, meet new people, and that can also give you the opportunity to talk about creating a project together. </p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Basically, when one contacts a professor even though there are no official open positions, there are no really high expectations. But knowing that the professor is interested, but has no funding, is great, because it also opens the possibility to apply for a position in one year or two, when some funding is available. In order to show your interest, you can consider it as offering a potential collaboration: you can't provide money, but you would be glad to work with the applicant. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1297", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1299, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For the most part, yes, it is too late to be considered for graduate admissions at most programs for this coming fall, as most schools have already made their decisions as to who they will admit. </p>\n\n<p>That said, if you are an exceptionally qualified candidate, and unusual circumstances have taken place, it <em>may</em> be possible to be considered by specific programs. However, there has to be some really strange events taking place. (For instance, one school I know had a banquet during their one prospective students' weekend, and accidentally food poisoned everybody—and ended up with 20% of their expected yield of students. They probably would have loved additional late applicants!)</p>\n\n<p>But, basically, you'd need a department that had a major shortfall of accepted students compared to their research needs, and you'd need to be a candidate that would be strong enough to accept in the regular admissions cycle.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 7862, "author": "Herman Toothrot", "author_id": 4050, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4050", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The short answer is yes it is too late. The long answer is that usually only top programs have only one round of admission and other schools actually have also a spring round of admissions so you could trying going for that. This is not common but I found a few schools that do that, and some of them are actually decent schools. But I would say 85% don't accept late applications. </p>\n\n<p>How about getting a lab tech position at your current school and get more experience/pubs under your belt?</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1298", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/736/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1307, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I asked my wife, which works in art history/egyptology. So first, \"it depends of how the person works\" ;). </p>\n\n<p>However, it seems that many people are making a large number of thematic reading synthesis, research notes (as we do) and she also pointed out the importance of her personal database, where she stores archaeological artefacts, their descriptions, the related bibliography, personal notes about them, their relations, etc. According to her, this is THE most important thing for her work.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10011, "author": "Samuel Russell", "author_id": 4429, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4429", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>From my impression, the nearest equivalent would be an academics' text source repository. This could be a library of theoretical works personally owned (and almost certainly monographic rather than papers). It could be a set of commonly referenced canon texts spread across four or five libraries in their region that they consult. It could be the items above plus documentary series such as archives, cultural texts.</p>\n\n<p>The objects manipulated, day to day, in conducting humanities research are texts; whether these are straight texts, or the meanings developed from physical records, or the meanings developed reflecting on terse problem statements.</p>\n\n<p>In my experience, some scholars keep detailed notes, and others don't. I try and keep my notes and sources in a deep text searchable database with what meta-data I can cheaply acquire. There is no standard for keeping a repository, and the way in which a scholar learns to keep an adequate repository is idiosyncratic.</p>\n\n<p>There isn't a disciplinary standard for keeping a repository, above and beyond \"study skills\" type courses which aren't mandatory or systematised. To evidence of the adequacy of the \"experiment\" equivalent scholars demonstrate their mastery over the relevant texts by providing evidence of firmly supportable readings through citation and footnoting, or by quality argument.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 27227, "author": "gman", "author_id": 12454, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12454", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Personally I've not heard of a dedicated \"research notebook\" in my discipline history, as may be used in the sciences. Like Sylvain Peyronnet's answer it very much depends on how a person works.</p>\n\n<p>In history, as Samuel Russell's answer alludes to, most of a person's ideas or arguments are gleaned from primary documents. Because of this it becomes very important to be able to keep a track of the primary documents that may be relevant to your area of research. Personally I use Mendeley to keep track of everything and the notes/annotations I make in that go someway towards forming my research arguments later. I note though that even the use of software like Mendeley is not common in my department. </p>\n\n<p>I believe one of the advantages of the research notebook is that it can keep track of when work was conducted by date, something that I have never heard mentioned in the Humanities. The disadvantage of this is that there is no way of proving when you may have had an idea based on your readings. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 65031, "author": "Stephen", "author_id": 50684, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/50684", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think you really need to understand research methods humanities, and this varies field to field.</p>\n\n<p>One (but not the only) approach are Qualitative Data Analysis(QDA) <a href=\"http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk/methodologies.php\" rel=\"nofollow\">methodologies</a> used widely enough to support a small industry of software vendors delivering (often very expensive) QDA tools. Examples include <a href=\"http://atlasti.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">Atlas-Ti</a>, <a href=\"http://www.qsrinternational.com/industry/nvivo-in-education\" rel=\"nofollow\">NVIVO</a>, <a href=\"http://provalisresearch.com/products/qualitative-data-analysis-software/\" rel=\"nofollow\">QDA Miner</a> and <a href=\"http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/Using/UnderstandingWhatPeopleS.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Tinderbox</a>.</p>\n\n<p>These tools provide the closest thing I can think of to a 'research notebook' for academics in the humanities. </p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/Using/UnderstandingWhatPeopleS.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">Understanding what people say</a> is a QDA example in Tinderbox, representative of the sort of work done in QDA tools. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1301", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1304, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Just from a perspective of one who has been rejected a lot of times (although from schools and research programmer, then as an undergraduate), fast and informative feedback is the most important.</p>\n\n<p>For me there is little difference between hearing <em>\"the competition was very high\"</em> and <em>\"get out\"</em>. Saying that <em>\"there was only one place\"</em> when if fact you don't want to hire someone is very short sighted. It may make the decision smoother, but in a long run it will create false impressions and hopes; and, in fact, such approach makes it impossible to say that actually you want to hire someone, but you run out of positions (see <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1297/how-to-show-interest-in-a-candidate-when-no-positions-are-available\">How to show interest in a candidate when no positions are available?</a>).</p>\n\n<p>Moreover: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>waiting long is bad both psychologically and for practical reasons (i.e. other plans); I don't see a reason for not rejecting as soon as you are sure,</li>\n<li>it is important to distinguish if you don't want someone now or at all,</li>\n<li>any feedback is of great value;<br>\notherwise one gets no idea what was wrong, if it makes sense to apply again and how to improve; I would love to hear <em>\"there were 5 places but only 1 funding for someone with your status; I had expected someone with stronger skills in X and Y (but your Z is more than fine)\"</em>.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1310, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In addition to Piotr's answer, I would add that it also depends on the profile of the applicant. For instance, if the applicant does not have a CV that matches exactly the ad, then there is nothing wrong to answer with a succinct \"Sorry, your profile is not what we are looking for\": the applicant took a chance, to see if a different profile could be of interest, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, and there is no shame in \"failing\" in this case. </p>\n\n<p>However, if the profile matches, but is too weak, then it could be helpful to point out if the applicant is good, but there was a better one (in which case it might be worth to keep in touch in case the stronger applicant decline the offer, or leaves for any reason after a few months), or if the applicant is just not good enough (for instance, not enough publications, not enough publication in top conf/journals, not enough external collaborations, not enough teaching experience, not enough grant applications, etc). I guess it's worth doing so at least for short-listed applicants, who took the time to come for an interview, and maybe a public talk, and that can help them understanding what points they need to focus on in the future, especially for the youngest applicants. </p>\n\n<p>That being said, I also know that some recruiter can be reluctant to give detail as to why they didn't recruit an applicant because they are afraid that it could provide means to the applicant to official contest the recruiting process, and maybe sue the university. In this case, I would suggest to say this kind of things by telephone, i.e. without leaving a written trace. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1303", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1306, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Actually, I think the frame of this question isn't quite right. I would argue that these are criteria that I would use if I were choosing between multiple postdoc <em>offers</em>, but these are not necessarily appropriate when deciding where to <em>apply</em>.</p>\n\n<p>What I would do is decide what my \"deal-breakers\" are: that is, what are the criteria that would prevent me from accepting an offer, regardless of how good it is? For instance, if you need to take care of an ill family member that lives in a specific location, then you're probably not going to want to consider international programs. Similarly, if you're determined to go into industry, you're not going to be inclined to take a purely theoretical postdoc project.</p>\n\n<p>However, once you've decided upon those deal-breakers, if you then see a project for which those criteria do not apply, then you should go ahead and submit an application. You don't have much to lose by doing so.</p>\n\n<p>Once you have the offers, the challenge is tougher. All of the criteria you've listed are valid, and it's hard to say which of those might be the most important—it all depends on your own personal circumstances. One hopes that research concerns are the most important of all, but as I've mentioned above, there are valid reasons why that might not be the case. The only thing that I would make sure of is that whatever option you decide for in the end, it helps you in moving on with your career beyond your postdoc. There's nothing worse than getting stuck in \"PD purgatory,\" where you can't really stay as a postdoc any longer, but are having problems moving to a permanent position afterward. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1315, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>aeismail's answer points out two very important points: the deal-breakers and the PD purgatory. Basically, your choices of postdoc should reflect somehow a strategy to get a permanent position at some point. Hence, you need first to understand what kind of position you eventually want (for instance a teaching position or a \"pure\" researcher position, academic or industry, which country you want to be), and then understand which aspects of your profile you want to strengthen. </p>\n\n<p>For instance, if you already have strong publications and you want to work only research, you might be more interested in going abroad and strengthen your network and your ability to work in international projects. On the other hand, if you lack some strong publications, then you might be more interested in finding a place where you could get such publications, for instance in a team with which you already have some collaborations and ongoing projects. </p>\n\n<p>If you want to teach, then you need to look for places where you can be involved in teaching, which also means that you need to speak the local language (or to go somewhere where the teaching language is English). </p>\n\n<p>If you eventually want to get a permanent position in a country where internal recruitment is basically the norm (from what I've seen, Italy seems to qualify for this) then you need to take into account the fact that you will need to go as a postdoc in this country eventually. </p>\n\n<p>So, I think you first need to assess your current profile, and to understand what are your expectations for your permanent position, in order to see what could be best for your postdoc. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1305", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1309, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>According to the New Oxford American Dictionary (that I have by default on my Mac :)): </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The spellings adviser and advisor are both correct. Adviser is more common, but advisor is also widely used, especially in North America. Adviser may be seen as less formal, while advisor often suggests an official position.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Since it's an official position, I'd rather go for <strong>Ph.D. advisor</strong></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1311, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I grew up learning the spelling as \"advisor,\" which goes along with \"supervisor.\" I've never seen \"superviser,\" either, and \"adviser\" just looks strange to me.</p>\n\n<p>This may actually be a <em>field-dependent</em> issue: in academia, I've always seen \"advisor\" as the preferred spelling (and <a href=\"http://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/agcomm/ontarget/0502/adviser_advisor.htm\">a number of schools agree with that assessment</a>). However, outside of academic contexts, \"adviser\" seems to be preferred, both in the UK and the US, <a href=\"http://grammarist.com/spelling/adviser-advisor/\">as shown here</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1314, "author": "user1247142", "author_id": 741, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/741", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In my high school, my teacher said it is British English Vs American English. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1308", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/263/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1313, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Officially and in general, no.</p>\n\n<p>The teacher of a class should in general not share grades with his colleagues. Informally, however, there might be some communication of individual students' performance in ways that don't violate confidentiality: \"she did very well on my class\"; \"he struggled on the exams, but did a very good job on the final project.\" Typically, this would be in the context of a colleague inquiring about hiring a student as a student worker or as a graduate student. Aggregate information could also be shared without harm to enable better matching of teaching to student needs and abilities.</p>\n\n<p>That said, there are exceptions to this rule. For instance, your academic or research advisor will typically have access to all of your grades. Similarly, an evaluation panel—such as one that convenes for a graduate student's qualifying exams—will probably have access to all of the student's academic record.</p>\n\n<p>But a random professor generally will not see a student's grades in all courses. This is by design and a logical move.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2988, "author": "Dan C", "author_id": 1069, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1069", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This seems to have changed somewhat recently at our school. I used to only have access to the grades of my advisees and perhaps current students. For the last year or two though, I seem to have much wider access. </p>\n\n<p>A student from another department stopped by to talk with me about possibly attending grad school in our program. I looked him up in our computer system, and could see his whole transcript (which classes were taken in which semesters and the course grade for each). I've never looked up transcripts for students who I don't somehow know (either my advisee, or in a class I'm teaching, or at least someone who has asked me advising questions), but for the last year or more <strong>I've had access to every student transcript that I've looked for</strong>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3412, "author": "earthling", "author_id": 2692, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2692", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>At the college I taught at, it was forbidden for anyone to reveal grades to anyone. The only people who had access to grades were the teachers who taught the course in question (I could see your scores only for classes I taught you) and counselors. Other teachers did not have access. Of course, some teachers did share grades informally.</p>\n\n<p>In the Vietnamese university I teach at now, grades are posted publicly and actually emailed to every other student in the same cohort and teachers freely share grades with each other because they are not considered private.</p>\n\n<p>In short, it depends on the rules and regulations where you are in addition to the informal relationships around that institution.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45285, "author": "O. R. Mapper", "author_id": 14017, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14017", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Another variant of the various models described in these answers, to illustrate the vast diversity in procedures and how there is no globally correct single answer to the question:</p>\n\n<p>I am most used to <strong>exam corrections being community efforts</strong>. That is, when a (written) exam of a class by one professor has taken place, the <strong>whole department of that professor will be asked to help checking the exams</strong>. This is so the (substantial!) workload of correcting 50+ exams is shared.</p>\n\n<p>In effect, it usually means that a considerable part of the PhD candidates of the department will do the checking, and often (as one person checking one particular task across all students is more efficient than one person checking all tasks only for a small set of students) this means that each of these PhD candidates will have seen the overall performance of each student in the exam.</p>\n\n<p>Summary: <strong>In some places, it can be assumed that everyone within one department knows about student grades in some way obtained from that same department.</strong></p>\n\n<p><em>As a rough guideline, this can easily mean <strong>some 20 people or more</strong> were involved.</em></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45310, "author": "Miguel", "author_id": 14695, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14695", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As others have mentioned this depends upon the place where you are.</p>\n\n<p>In Spain, at the end of each term the grades of all the students registered for each of the available courses are publicly posted on a board.</p>\n\n<p>I suspect it might be similar elsewhere in Europe. I remember seeing similar grade spreadsheets posted on a board here in Finland.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1312", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/740/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1319, "author": "Henry", "author_id": 8, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Perhaps it's different in other fields, but in math, it isn't pretentious for a PhD student to operate their own website, and it's quite common. (Most schools, at least in the US, provide the space for students to host a personal website.)</p>\n\n<p>Furthermore, I'd say that after a couple years, a PhD student (again, in math) absolutely should have a personal website. Formats oriented around published papers or formal CV aren't very useful for giving information about a grad student because there isn't that much of either. If I meet someone or hear about them from their advisor, and want to learn more about their work, a personal website is best way to get some information about where they're likely to be when they finish.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1320, "author": "Bravo", "author_id": 411, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Personally the professors and PhD students I remember well are the ones with an elaborate page for themselves. From what I have learnt from this site, a PhD is simply not merely about publications, citations and academic work. You need to build contacts, make friends and network in the academia, which as such is a small place. </p>\n\n<p>Having a page for yourselves is hardly pretentious. It is just like having a Facebook profile or a Twitter account, a means to show others that you are alive and kicking. And publications are not the only thing you may have there. Add a lot of extra-curricular details, your non-academic passions and interests, some photos that may make people take interest in you as a person. </p>\n\n<p>For further details, I would like to redirect you to some wonderful answers to <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/726/on-being-a-well-known-phd-student\">the question I asked here</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1321, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 6, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As soon as you have even a single preprint, people will begin searching online to find out who you are and what else you have done, so you must have a web page. It doesn't have to be elaborate, and it's enough to start with a few lines of professional contact information and a list of links to papers, but you have to have something.</p>\n\n<p>I think a generic web page looks more professional than one created using a social networking site, but perhaps that's because I'm old. However, there is one absolutely critical issue: the page must allow visitors to download any content without logging in. At least one of the social sites lets visitors view papers on the site, but insists that you create an account if you want to download anything. This is terrible! In my experience, nobody's going to create an account unless they really, really want that paper, and either way they are going to be unhappy at the imposition. Offering access to papers and then harassing anyone who tries to download them leaves a very bad impression.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16023, "author": "nagniemerg", "author_id": 11084, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11084", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think that a web presence is a must in academia (at least nowadays!).</p>\n\n<p>At the very least you should have a site for the current course you are teaching, as a graduate student. This is not necessary, but it is starting to become expected by students (although, who cares what they think ;) ). I think a webpage is good because you can update it at a moment's notice, almost everyone has access to it, and if not, it's easily done, and you can also provide solutions for problems, quizzes, and past exams, as well as have links for cool math-y things (my area of expertise), wolfram alpha apps, java apps, matlab code, etc.</p>\n\n<p>However, I believe that this post was inquiring more along the lines of having a webpage as an early researcher. In that regard, yes and yes (and dare I say yes again?). </p>\n\n<p>Having a general page of your research interests, several sub-topics, collaborators, and even, (dare I say it?), a personal portion of it about you, is a good idea. People expect to be able to access documents for pre-prints, post-prints (assuming you have the appropriate copyright), software, CV, etc., and at this point it is not unreasonable for them to think so.</p>\n\n<p>I would also suggest having a site not at your university. You can redirect your university site to your other site and you don't have to worry about migrating files over when you move from grad to post-doc to post-doc to tenure-track at a tier 1 research institution (except for maybe the last transition).</p>\n\n<p>Also, if you host your own site, you can have your own diaspora pod running, and we can move more towards open-source networking.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16143, "author": "yo'", "author_id": 1471, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1471", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You should be sure to make your papers available somewhere (to the extent the jounral policies allow, or more at your own risk). The options are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Personal webpage –</strong> IMHO a must-have, but I'm in math/TCS, in other fields it can be different.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong><a href=\"http://arxiv.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">arXiv.org</a> –</strong> open-access reliable scientific works repository, I like it.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong><a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">LinkedIn</a> –</strong> looks similar to other social networking sites, but is more carrier-oriented, you can put any publications there, and link them to either your homepage or arXiv or whatever, or don't link them at all, that's up to you.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong><a href=\"http://www.researchgate.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ResearchGate</a> –</strong> I have no true experience with RG since it's not so popular amongst my colleagues. But it seems to me that you can both put the whole article there, or just put the reference there with the option that people can ask you to send them the paper. This is very nice since you need not to break any journal's policies to make it work.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong><a href=\"http://www.academia.edu\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Academia.edu</a> –</strong> IMHO a no-no since <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/16050/why-does-academia-edu-reserve-the-right-to-sell-modify-and-exploit-my-papers\">their Terms of Service are pretty bad.</a></p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>For me, I have a homepage, LinkedIn and I put everything on arXiv. It seems to be a good amount of various resources, so that people can find me easily, but I don't spend too much time with maintanance.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 16170, "author": "cbeleites unhappy with SX", "author_id": 725, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/725", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'd like to add to @tohecz's answer that one important point to consider are the self-archiving policies of the journals you publish in.</p>\n<p>E.g. <a href=\"http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/article-posting-policy#accepted-author-manuscript\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Elsevier</a> usually allows you to put your accepted manuscript on your personal home page but not into repositories like ResearchGate (exception is arXiv)</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Elsevier's AAM Policy: Authors retain the right to use the accepted author manuscript for [...] permitted scholarly posting provided that these are not for purposes of commercial use or systematic distribution.</p>\n<p>Elsevier believes that individual authors should be able to distribute their AAMs [...] e.g. posting to their websites or their institution’s repository [...]. However, our policies differ regarding the systematic aggregation or distribution of AAMs [...]. Therefore, deposit in, or posting to, subject-oriented or centralized repositories (such as PubMed Central), or institutional repositories with systematic posting mandates is permitted only under specific agreements between Elsevier and the repository, agency or institution, and only consistent with the publisher’s policies concerning such repositories. Voluntary posting of AAMs in the arXiv subject repository is permitted.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17058, "author": "just-learning", "author_id": 10483, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10483", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In addition to the options listed in tohecz answer, it could be quite helpful to set up a <strong>Google Scholar Profile</strong>, see e.g. these links for details:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/citations.html\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/citations.html</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://fyi.libmedia.nymc.edu/?p=2517\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://fyi.libmedia.nymc.edu/?p=2517</a></p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://libguides.lib.uci.edu/content.php?pid=215869&amp;sid=3311417\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://libguides.lib.uci.edu/content.php?pid=215869&amp;sid=3311417</a></p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 28299, "author": "Benedict Eastaugh", "author_id": 6067, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6067", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>While sites like <a href=\"http://www.academia.edu\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Academia.edu</a> and <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com\" rel=\"noreferrer\">LinkedIn</a> offer built-in 'networking' facilities and mean that one doesn't have to learn anything technical, in using them as one's primary academic web presence one is handing over control of one's professional identity to a third party whose goals are far from guaranteed to be aligned with one's own.</p>\n\n<p>If nothing else there is the obvious threat that they may go out of business and leave one's web identity untethered, so to speak. They might also decide to run adverts against your profile, sell your data to other companies, and so on. With a personal website on one's own domain there is a level of control and security that can't be obtained from these other services. Convenience and ubiquity are benefits, but they should be weighed against other considerations, not taken as overriding reasons for action.</p>\n\n<p>To answer the question more directly: it is (certainly in my field, philosophy) perfectly normal and appropriate to have a personal website while still a graduate student, and there are numerous advantages to doing so.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 69254, "author": "Martin Thoma", "author_id": 4092, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4092", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>I was wondering which web-based solution is the best suited to present myself and my work</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Advantages of social sites are only of technical nature:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Easy to get started</li>\n<li>Currently (at least for ResearchGate) not cost of having the site</li>\n<li>You don't have to deal with SEO / design / availability of the site</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>The advantages of your personal side are more interesting:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Flexibility</strong>: You can create the page like you want it. You can upload demos / focus on stuff you like.</li>\n<li><strong>Explorability</strong>: You can have your own e-mail address which you can put on papers (and not change it). If you have [email protected] or something similar, people might have a look at yourname.com when they see the email address on a paper.</li>\n<li><strong>No / other spam</strong>: You don't get spam from \"social\" features informing you of stuff you don't need to know (that was the reason why I quit ResearchGate). You might get more spam to your e-mail address, though.</li>\n<li>In combination with <a href=\"https://orcid.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">ORCiD</a>, you can get started relatively easy. You can manage your papers on ORCiD and link to your ORCiD account on your personal site. Your personal site is the one always being \"the main thing\", then you can also try other sites and just link to your profile there.</li>\n<li><strong>You own your stuff</strong>. A social site - no matter how big - might permanently go down or change it terms of service to something you don't like. When you have your own website, you are independent.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>What I particularly did not like of ResearchID is that they created other links of my papers. They added another first page with their logo / link to the PDF and then came the arXiv PDF. People were asking me through ResearchID for papers which are easily available through arXiv.</p>\n\n<p>What you might consider for a personal website:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Having the basic information: Your name, your research interests, your publications, what you're currently working on. You might have a look at other pages of people in your field / what you're looking for when you are searching for profiles.</li>\n<li>Adding an RSS feed for your papers. Then people can follow you / your publications.</li>\n<li>Microformats such as <a href=\"http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-profile\" rel=\"nofollow\">hcard-profile</a></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 85696, "author": "Denis", "author_id": 69861, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/69861", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The more platforms you use to present yourself the better. So the right question is not use 1 or 2 or 3 but use 1 and 2 and 3. It depends on a particular discipline but I would suggest to have profiles on the following resources:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Google Scholar: very useful for others to quickly evaluate your imprint (#papers and #citations)</li>\n<li>ResearchGate: some sort of social network for researchers; saw lots of activities have been happening there for last year or so</li>\n<li>Mendeley: a great organizer of research publications (typically in PDF format); it also positions itself as a social network for researchers; imo, as a research social network and activities on it Mendeley is rather declining</li>\n<li>Academia: a competitor to ResearchGate; didn't use it so cannot comment on whether is growing or declining</li>\n<li>Linkedin: while it is not focused on researchers, a lot of them are there; your profile there can be really advanced and even serve as a proper CV </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Lastly, having a web page(-s) describing yourself and your projects is a must. As a very minimum, it might be just one (simple, non-fancy looking is ok) page with your contact information and links to your profiles on platforms mentioned above. Usually, one's department/organization/lab provides an easy way to create/edit such a page. Besides, it is very easy (with no special technical skills) to create your pages (in form of a blog) on some free blog platform. In fact, I would really advocate that PhD students would be pushed to write a blog post about each published work of theirs where the content/ideas/discussion/etc of a publication is described in nutshell. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1316", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/481/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1318, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Most of the courses that I've seen explicitly state that you obtain no credit for doing the course. More explicitly, they may offer certificates of completion, but these certificates do not convey academic credit. For example, from Coursea's <a href=\"https://www.coursera.org/about/terms\">Term's of Service</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>This Letter of Completion, if provided to you, would be from Coursera and/or from the instructors. You acknowledge that the Letter of Completion, if provided to you, may not be affiliated with Coursera or any college or university. Further, Coursera offers the right to offer or not offer any such Letter of Completion for a class. You acknowledge that the Letter of Completion, and Coursera’s Online Courses, will not stand in the place of a course taken at an accredited institution, and do not convey academic credit. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So the short answer is that you will be unlikely to obtain such credit. Certainly, read the terms of service to be sure. Nevertheless, you could add such things to your CV to demonstrate your interest in a particular field.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1362, "author": "David Blake", "author_id": 760, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/760", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are no services to help you get that coursework accredited. However, Degreed.com helps you validate that you have taken those courses so you can let employers know. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 12708, "author": "asheeshr", "author_id": 4227, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4227", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are ways to get accredited for completing online courses on Courses as of 2013.</p>\n\n<p>Coursera now offers <em>Signature Tracks</em> for some courses, on completing which you get a <em>Verified Certificate</em>. In a Signature Track, on submitting each assignment, you are asked to submit some written text as well, which is verified against a handwriting sample given by you at the beginning of the course. There are other techniques used too, such as facial recognition via webcam, etc.</p>\n\n<p>Also, some courses have started to provide an option to give the final exam at a certified Testing Center to earn a similar Verified Certificate.</p>\n\n<p>Each of these, of course, cost money.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1317", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1323, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p><strong>Why do universities splurge lots of money to publish in third-party\n journals?</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Because researchers ask for these journals, and the money is given by the university, and most researchers just recently discovered the cost of all this stuff. Now that we are all aware of the cost, and now that universities are running out of money, we, at last, want to change the way publishing is done.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p><strong>Why should not universities collaborate to create free, open access,\n peer-reviewed journals?</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Because to run a journal, you need people whose jobs are to run a journal. This is not the work of researchers or actual faculty staff. At the moment, hiring new profiles in universities is unlikely. Moreover, maybe this should be done at a higher level (funding agency or state level?).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1324, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>This is a really big question, which unfortunately has no simple answer. Some short comments:</p>\n\n<p>Universities have very little choice about subscribing to journals, as long they publish good papers, since faculty <em>need</em> access to those papers to do their research. The solution has to start on the publishing side.</p>\n\n<p>Collaborating to create free, open access, peer-reviewed journals is a fine idea, but either you need to convince universities to support this financially, or you need to recruit enormous numbers of dedicated volunteers. (Whenever this topic comes up, someone is sure to point out that volunteers run some free, high-quality online journals. Of course they do, but the question is how to recruit hundreds of times as many volunteers.)</p>\n\n<p>Printing is a non-issue. Everything is already available online, with printed copies only for those who want them.</p>\n\n<p>In a mathematics context, see <a href=\"http://gowers.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/elsevierstatementfinal.pdf\">http://gowers.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/elsevierstatementfinal.pdf</a> and <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.1351\">http://arxiv.org/abs/1204.1351</a> for more details.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1328, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Another (admittedly cynical) viewpoint is that the reason there are so many journals out there, and so many high-priced third-party journals, is that academics want to publish, and the system in which they work more or less demands publications in exchange for career advancement. The need of so many researchers from so many countries, as well as the fractionation of existing research fields into many sub-specialties, allows for this kind of behavior.</p>\n\n<p>Although I would argue that \"splurge\" is the wrong word—researchers want access to as many journals as possible, and as a result, libraries are <em>forced</em> to spend substantial parts of their acquisition budgets on journals, which, with policies like Elsevier's, mean many of them will go largely unused in exchange for a handful of high-quality journals that aren't quite worth collectively what Elsevier charges for them.</p>\n\n<p>The solution will be for the university libraries to join forces together and bargain collectively with the publishers. Working individually, they have no leverage. A hundred or a thousand libraries working together will have an impact.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1330, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My take on parts of your question:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Currently we do have an arXiv, maintained by academia and where researchers regularly upload parts of their work.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>I may be on something of a crusade against arXiv users who believe arXiv is more than it is, more more widely adopted than it is. \"We\" don't have arXiv - certain disciplines have it. Other disciplines, equally valid as those which support arXiv, both don't use it and have understandable issues with the reliance on a pre-print site as a way to disseminate findings.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Why do universities splurge lots of money to publish in third-party journals?\n The question especially applies to journals that operate with a rigorous profit motive.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>First, they're not paying money to publish in the journals. They're paying money to be able to read said journals. I've published in for-profit journals, even ones my university didn't subscribe to, for free.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The subscription is very high, so wouldn't publishing in such journals affect the paper's citation count and deter the spread of knowledge about the work within academic circles?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Not necessarily. Papers are often available from the author, inter-library loans, etc. Beyond that, how a paper gets cited is a far more complex question than just \"Do you have to pay for a subscription\", and I don't think Open Access journals have compellingly showed that the citation counts are higher for open journals. The readership and downloads? Probably, but in terms of citation the Open Access journals are still struggling with a perceived gap between their prestige and the prestige of the \"leading\" for-profit journals. Perhaps that will change in time, but there are ways to get journal articles that your institution doesn't subscribe to, and those ways are often fairly trivial.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Why should not universities collaborate to create free, open access, peer-reviewed journals?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Some do - but for many the cost of laying out and producing a twice monthly journal would be distracting from the core mission of the university (or more likely, particular departments), and they'd run into staffing and budget concerns. Most don't have the money to fund what they actually need to do, let alone add a publishing arm that may or may not ever make money.</p>\n\n<p>And those groups that are interested, like professional societies and the occasional university? They often turn to for-profit publishers to outsource it. For example <em>Epidemiology</em>, a publication of The International Society for Environmental Epidemiology is published by Lippincott. <em>The American Journal of Epidemiology</em>, which is put out by Johns Hopkins and sponsored by the Society for Epidemiologic Research? Published by Oxford.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Moreover, given the need to conserve paper, why should journals spend on printing research papers? Wouldn't an online version suffice, as most people use only local computer printouts anyway? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Because some readers want the paper versions. Seriously, nearly every journal I know has an \"online only\" subscription for less money. But if you want a paper version, why shouldn't you be able to get it?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1416, "author": "hnltraveler", "author_id": 782, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/782", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One of the big factors driving the traditional publishing model is the tenure and promotion process. To win tenure and promotion, faculty members must publish in peer-reviewed journals... and journal reputation counts. Thus, many top researchers will strive to publish in journals with high reputation and university libraries will want to maintain collections that feature journals of high reputation (especially if those journals feature the work of its faculty).</p>\n\n<p>Journal publishers point to the value added during the traditional publishing process, including peer review, editing and layout. This argument, however, is controversial, as many editorial and peer review panels are voluntary, unpaid positions.</p>\n\n<p>Finally, electronic journals are not necessarily cheaper than print journals. Often, electronic journals are sold in expensive bundles and libraries are not allowed to select individual titles (this is how, say, EBSCO operates). Thus, libraries have to pay to subscribe to the whole database, which will include journals that are of little interest to the university.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1442, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Nothing actually comes for free. Expensive journals tend to have established their merit with a long history, and managing / maintaining that quality across decades and editors has traditionally been the job of publishers. Why?</p>\n\n<p>Although publishing can be a pain, but it is absolutely key to academic progress. We need to be able to rank contributions if for no other reason than to determine what to spend our precious time reading. Like all systems with power, publication is potentially subject to corruption. Publishers are traditionally seen as more objective than authors or universities, since their reputation and income is entirely determined by how good a job they do of publishing selectively.</p>\n\n<p>You could imagine a situation where a bunch of universities got together, dedicated their resources (paid their staff's time) to make an objective publishing system that was not controlled by any one academic institution. But that is actually what most academic publishers are. In fact, many academic publishers <em>are</em> associated with individual universities.</p>\n\n<p>The problem remains, who pays? Currently, in general readers / consumers pay, and they probably are really in the best place to know whether research is worth purchasing. But under open access, the authors pay. This can actually be immensely more expensive for universities than paying subscriptions, since they produce a lot of research. For example, my university spends less than the cost of two PLoS open-access articles per year per academic on subscriptions, but most academics are expected to publish a lot more than two articles a year. The other problem with authors paying is that there is then a moral hazard. Journals are effectively bribed to take papers, which may result in compromising the selective process that underlies academic progress. This would be a terrible cost.</p>\n\n<p>Many academics self-publish by putting their papers on line or just writing blogs. This can be effective, but note that it returns to the problem of knowing what is worth reading. Generally, successful academic blogs are run by people who also prove themselves as academics by publishing in highly-rated journals, so this is not really an independent solution.</p>\n\n<p>The short answer then is: because paying to read publications is the best system we currently know.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4824, "author": "David Ketcheson", "author_id": 81, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Publishing journals costs money. If a university publishes journals itself, it bears the direct costs. If a university subscribes to journals, it pays for those costs indirectly. Either way, universities must spend money on journals.</p>\n\n<p>A discussion of why universities pay fees for some journals that are much higher than what is required to run the journal would be useful but not in the scope of the question as written.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 4869, "author": "David Ketcheson", "author_id": 81, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/81", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Universities do not have to <strong>splurge</strong> on journals. If you think your university is splurging, then you must consider journals to be a luxury. However, a university with no journal subscriptions would not be able to attract faculty or students.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 35251, "author": "Aubrey", "author_id": 26682, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26682", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/35228/26682\">this answer</a> I tried to describe the main strategies of the Open Access movement.</p>\n\n<p>I would though address few points in your question:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Why do universities spend lots of money to publish in third-party journals?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Fomite says, <em>\"First, they're not paying money to publish in the journals. They're paying money to be able to read said journals.\"</em>.\nThis is an important distiction. \nWhy universities don't always publish journals (not necessarily OA, for that matter) is more of an <em>organizational</em> issues. Not all departments have time and resources to do teaching, research and also publish peer reviewed journals. \nMany do, now, also thanks to free software like <a href=\"https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Open Journals System</a>(as a mere example, <a href=\"http://journals.unibo.it/riviste/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">these are</a> the open access journals I used to manage for University of Bologna). </p>\n\n<p><strong>Peer-review</strong> is a crucial point here. \nThe <em>self-archiving</em> strategy of publishing pre-prints in repositories like archive is very important for OA, but doesn't address the need of a validation of publication. The only decent system that academia has found to evaluate publications is the review of its peers (there are also scientometric indicators like <em>Impact Factor</em>, but they do not substitute peer review). </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Why should not universities collaborate to create free, open access, peer-reviewed journals?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Why shouldn't they? No reasons, if you ask me. </p>\n\n<p>But read this <a href=\"http://aubreymcfato.com/2013/01/15/how-to-exploit-academics/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">great joke from Scott Aaronson</a>. </p>\n\n<p><em>Collaboration</em> is the most crucial issue here. \nAcademia is a highly competitive social structure. You compete for your PhD, for grant research, for tenure, for gear lab, for everything. </p>\n\n<p>I'm no expert in \"history of academia\", but I do know that different disciplines (aka, different <em>communities</em>) have different attitude to collaboration. \nAnd I'm merely thinking about scholars collaboration between themselves in writing articles or doing research. \nWhen you need a particle collider in order to do research, you are in the need of different scholars, different universities, different <em>nations</em> to collaborate at very different levels. This is the main reason, for example, why the field of High Energy Physics is one of the most advanced in Open Access (i.e. \"<a href=\"http://scoap3.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">SCOAP3</a> is a partnership of thousands of libraries and key funding agencies and research centers. Working with publishers, they converted key journals in the field of High-Energy Physics to Open Access at no cost for authors\").\nCollaboration is difficult, and it is not what academia is doing best.</p>\n\n<p>Academia is a very complex <em>social</em> and <em>economic</em> structure. You cannot fund a system in competition and then ask the same system to set up an mass-scale collaboration to take over the publishers that took advantage of the scattered monadism of academia in the first place.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 111222, "author": "Allure", "author_id": 84834, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/84834", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is a very big, multi-faceted question. A hidden undertone is whether academic publishers make too much money, which is not something I want to discuss in this answer. Some thoughts on the rest of the question:</p>\n\n<p><strong>Do we need journals?</strong> If arXiv is so good, do we need journals at all? Can we do away with journals and just have everyone upload their papers onto arXiv? If you believe we don't need journals entirely then we can also do away with most of the publication costs.</p>\n\n<p>arXiv does have operational costs, so presumably there'd still be a small (say ~$10) charge per uploaded paper, which is a far cry from typical OA costs. On the other hand this would be the end of peer review (at least organized peer review), it would make science communication more difficult, and authors from developing countries could really struggle. Whether or not this is worth it regardless is up to your perspective. This is the most drastic option; for everything below I assume \"yes we do need journals\".</p>\n\n<p><strong>Assuming we need journals, costs are to be expected. Who pays for these then?</strong> Realistically there're only a few options:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Authors. This is open access. OA has the fundamental problem of conflict of interest. Since only accepted papers generate revenue for the publisher, the publisher (and by extension the editorial board) is incentivized to accept papers. The COI can potentially be sidestepped by charging a (substantial) submission fee. Is the academic community willing to accept this, knowing there is a nontrivial chance of rejection? I don't know the answer to this; your guess is as good as mine.</li>\n<li>Readers, i.e. pay-per-view, if you want to view the paper then you pay for it. This is likely doable but an administrative hassle. It's much easier to log in to your university's library and then access every paper, rather than work through payment every time you want to read something. (Also usage statistics for most papers are very low indeed.)</li>\n<li>Universities. This is the current arrangement for subscription journals. A potential cost is that the university also pays for papers that its academics don't read (however you can be sure your library tracks usage statistics, which it uses to decide which journals to subscribe to).</li>\n<li>Advertisers. Does not work in practice since demand for advertising in academic journals is too low to sustain the journal.</li>\n<li>The general public. This is how things work for non-academic books: the author writes, gets paid a royalty, and the general public pays for the books. The problem with this is that academic papers are pretty bloody impossible to sell to the general public. They're so dense that <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/110105/why-are-research-papers-written-in-language-thats-difficult-for-undergraduate-s/\">undergraduates can't understand them</a>, let alone the general public.</li>\n<li>Funding agencies. \"Someone\" pays the publisher, which then operates the journal with free submission and free access. This is the diamond open access model. The problem is who that \"someone\" should be. If it's a university, then we're effectively back at option #3, worded differently. If it's an academic society, then the question shifts to where they are getting the money from, and likely means they have less money to do other activities like outreach. If it's the government, then unless they put more money into academia, they'll have to move money away from somewhere else, most likely research funding. Is the community willing to take a collective funding cut so there's money to use for this? Again, your guess is as good as mine.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Ultimately, if you can think of a stronger business model, you can put it into practice and it'll probably supplant the former one. The fact that the status quo has largely remained is, I would say, an indication the current business model is the most reliable, however flawed it might be.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1322", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1326, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I would do it per paper, unless the paper is extremely long and some abbreviations are defined (and used) in the start, but not used again until 20 or 30 pages later.</p>\n\n<p>It's okay to remind a reader what the abbreviations mean, but avoid annoying the reader by being overly and unnecessarily repetitive. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1338, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The standard is once per \"document,\" whether that's a report, or a book, or a journal article. However, longer documents will typically come with lists of abbreviations and symbols; many journals also do this. Even then, it's still better to define it once in the text first:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>standard widget units (SWUs)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>before using it again later.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1325", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/748/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1332, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>One paper that looks relevant is \"A Signaling Theory of Grade Inflation\" by Chan, Hao, and Suen (2007). From their abstract, it seems like this is what you're looking for. </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>When employers cannot tell whether a school truly has many good\n students or just gives easy grades, a school has incentives to inflate\n grades to help its mediocre students, despite concerns about\n preserving the value of good grades for its good students. We\n construct a signaling model where grades are inflated in equilibrium.\n The inability to commit to an honest grading policy reduces the\n efficiency of job assignment and hurts a school. Grade inflation by\n one school makes it easier for another school to do likewise, thus\n providing a channel to make grade exaggeration contagious.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Also check out \"Comparative cheap talk\" by Chakrabortya and Harbaugh (2005). From the introduction: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Are such statements more credible than claims such as “they both look\n great” or “every student is excellent”? How much information can\n comparative statements convey? When does it make sense to withhold\n comparative information? And, are comparative statements still\n credible when the speaker is not impartial, e.g. when a professor has\n a favorite student, or a salesperson receives a larger commission on a\n particular product?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In particular, section 4.2 discusses \"Recommendation games\". They consider situations where an expert with private information can rank alternatives for a decision maker. Here is their description: </p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>In recommendation games we find that the expert prefers ex ante to\n reveal a partial ranking rather than the complete ranking. For\n instance, if there are three students being recommended by a professor\n and the middle student is unlikely to receive a job based on the\n complete ranking, an alternative is to put the top two students in a\n group and not differentiate between them. As the number of issues\n increases, such groupings can be used more and more effectively to\n maximize the expert’s payoffs. The gains from partial rankings may\n explain why highly ranked schools often obscure the relative quality\n of their graduates, either by grade inflation as in Ivy League\n undergraduate programs, or by withholding grades from employers as in\n some elite M.B.A. programs</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>One of the conclusion they reach is that grade inflation \"should be more severe when average student quality is increasing\" so \"grades should be more inflated in elite schools\". Look into their section 4.2 for a detailed analysis. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1333, "author": "Tom Au", "author_id": 755, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/755", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Schools want their students to get more than \"their share\" of jobs. One way to do this is through grade inflation, that may convince employers that the one school's students are \"smarter\" than those of other schools with \"lower\" grades.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, when the other schools catch on, they will raise THEIR grades too, cancelling out the first school's advantage, but causing grade inflation.</p>\n\n<p>It's like watching a performance at a standing room only event. Any ONE person can get a better view of it by standing on tiptoes. But if ALL of them do it, this just cancels out. That's what game theory would predict.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1334, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As a college professor, I can tell you that student evaluations are a major cause of grade inflation. College administrations use student evaluations of professors as a major determinant in promotions, assigning classes, tenure, any form of recognition. </p>\n\n<p>From the professor's perspective, if you start to get too many bad evaluations, your career is in jeopardy. So, why not go with the flow? Call a C an A- and everyone is happy. Of course, the integrity of the educational system is destroyed in the process. </p>\n\n<p>From the standpoint of the university administration, who wants the hassle of dealing with student complaints? The way to get ahead is to grow your program and generate income. This is especially true of MBA programs that are generally funded not by students, but by their employers. One way to compete with other MBA programs is to make the grading easy, but universities also make the degree programs shorter and the experience more entertaining\n. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1331", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/111/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1337, "author": "Steve P", "author_id": 315, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/315", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'll hopefully be in your position in another year or two, so I'm not speaking from experience. But a few things come to mind:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Laptop (be specific) and associated technical support</li>\n<li>Any software licenses you need to complete your research and teach</li>\n<li>Office space and furniture</li>\n<li>Lab space</li>\n<li>Lab equipment (be specific)</li>\n<li>Access to shared lab equipment as needed (be specific)</li>\n<li>Access to server(s) where you can test your code/algorithms/etc.</li>\n<li>Access to cluster computing resources (if that fits in with your research)</li>\n<li>Lighter teaching load your first 1-3 years</li>\n<li>Lighter service load your first 1-3 years (not sure if that's something you would explicitly ask for though)</li>\n<li>Salary (and benefits where applicable) for any students, staff, post-docs you will need to be successful in getting papers and grants written</li>\n<li>Money for other miscellaneous expenses that you envision will be necessary</li>\n<li>Money to travel to 1-2 conferences per year</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I'm sure others could think of more to add...</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1339, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Congratulations on the offers.</p>\n\n<p>With respect to negotiations, you should privately keep track of what you really need, and then ask for a bit more than that in the negotiations. Since the department (or university) will likely want to negotiate downwards, starting with just what you need might leave you after negotiations with a somewhat undersized package.</p>\n\n<p>To borrow from Steve P's answer, however, perhaps the single most important component that can help you get the group off the ground is to get as much salary support for additional employees as you can. Having that first postdoc and grad student can make a <em>huge</em> difference in a new group.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1350, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In many departments, while it might seem like you're negotiating with the department, you're actually negotiating with the dean and the department is really trying to help you. If there's a way to determine this (talk to recently hired faculty at the department), then it changes your strategy, because now your goal in the negotiation is to provide the department with plausible arguments (not iron-clad) for why you need what you need. </p>\n\n<p>There are probably comp bio specific needs you have for which you should consult colleagues who've recently joined other universities, or even any senior mentors you have who sit on the other side of these negotiations. For generic things, Steve P's list is great. Just remember that each department at each university has their own customs and things they \"usually\" give out - you don't have to stick to that, but it's good to know what the baseline is. </p>\n\n<p>Also, it always helps to provide justification (for equipment, student support, postdoc money, and so on). It's a lot harder to argue for salary raises unless the school is private (since public schools often have fixed scales). </p>\n\n<p>Bottom line though: there's no harm in asking as long as you can provide a reason. Definitely ask for all that you need, and let them whittle you down. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1701, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would add to the list of @Steve</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Summer salary</li>\n<li>Duration for which start up capital is good (if you get a grant, you want to be able to keep your startup)</li>\n<li>Lab renovations</li>\n<li>Moving expenses</li>\n<li>Web page design</li>\n<li>Page charges</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>You want to provide whoever you are negotiating with justification, and ideally quote(s), for everything. In general, they want to give you as good of a startup package as possible.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1336", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/753/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1342, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Firstly, the \"official\" ways that researchers state their opinion is by stating it in either a publication or in a presentation at a conference. It is from here that we can gain any idea of what <em>any</em> researcher thinks about a given topic.¹</p>\n\n<p>That being said, the only way to know whether something is \"widely accepted\" is to be familiar with most of the current (academic) literature on a given topic. Only by really having read the publications of most of the preeminent researchers in a given field can you really get a sense of what the consensus is on that topic. This, of course, requires a lot of time and expertise (and, if you don't have access to a university library with journal subscriptions, money). It took me years as a graduate student to learn what was the consensus about certain topics <em>within my own field</em>.</p>\n\n<p>Because of this, anyone can state anything and most people won't know the difference. The easiest way to really determine if it's true is to ask two or three recognized researchers if they agree with the statement of interest. You can do this via email, but they likely won't get back to you. You can ask grad students in their lab and the answer will be that much less reliable, but still close to the source. Beyond that, you'll just have to find experts you can trust and rely on them.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>¹ Obviously, researchers are people like anyone else, and will discuss their pet theories with friends and colleagues over email and in person; it's very hard to quantify these, and you only rarely see this sort of discourse being formally recognized. Occasionally a publication will cite \"unpublished discourse\", but that's a rare occasion.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1343, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Structured review papers can be a very good route into establishing what's the most-widely accepted state of current research.</p>\n\n<p>In health care, the <a href=\"http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane-reviews\">Cochrane Reviews</a> are a good example.</p>\n\n<p>Some subjects have journals dedicated to such structured reviews, such as <a href=\"http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-and-sustainable-energy-reviews/\">Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews</a></p>\n\n<p>Occasionally, a subject is so important that international organisations are set up to establish the state of the art in a current subject: the <a href=\"http://www.ipcc.ch/\">International Panel on Climate Change</a> is one such example, and this produces a <a href=\"http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml\">whole-field review</a> every few years. At time of posting this, one (AR5) is being compiled at the moment, for publication in 2013-4. The previous one (AR4) was published in 2007.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1340", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/754/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1346, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My advice is to use at least 3 names (including your surname) so that you will be uniquely identifiable. It probably doesn't matter if you do not use your first name unabbreviated. I know a few researchers whose names are of the form: C. Harry Kay. I also know of researchers who go by a single name (Robby, Arvind). So just fill in whatever names you want , abbreviated or not, into the first names field. </p>\n\n<p>Make sure you use the same configuration of names for your entire career, so that all your papers can be linked to you (I made this mistake). </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1347, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>This shouldn't really be a problem these days in most places, because the entry fields on most web-based entry forms are smart enough to recognize and accept spaces. Thus, even when the site asks for a first name only, you can put in \"Md. [Middle Name]\" as your first name.</p>\n\n<p>As Dave suggests in the comment, unless you have a really uncommon last name—one that doesn't show up in ISI or arXiv.org searches at all right now, you're better off having parts of three names show up. It's also helpful to keep your professional name fixed throughout your career. (In other words, if you want to go by Md. [Middle] [Last], use that same form whenever possible.)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1345", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/675/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 2758, "author": "mac389", "author_id": 28, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>It is my opinion that unless you have a PhD in Arabic or something intimately related to it you won't get more than a part-time adjunct instructor position. If your goal is to teach some classes without working towards a full appointment, then you might not need the PhD.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 17055, "author": "user26732", "author_id": 12028, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12028", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Are you a native speaker? If you are not, don't bother. \nIf you are, try substituting. Teach adult education courses. Military courses. Speak to your own professors for suggestions. You may have to relocate. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1348", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/621/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1352, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<p>An <em>abstract</em> is a preliminary submission that summarizes the contribution of a paper. There are usually strict limits on the length of an abstract, either in terms of words or of total characters (rarely do they exceed 1000 words or 5000 characters; they are often substantially shorter than this.</p>\n\n<p>An <em>extended abstract</em> and a <em>full paper</em> are nearly the same; the primary difference is that an extended abstract tends to be somewhat shorter than a full paper; I've seen extended abstracts from 2 pages up to 6 pages, while conference papers run from 4 up to about 12 or 15, depending on the space allotted.</p>\n\n<p>One other important difference—outside of computer science, extended abstracts almost never go through a formal peer-review process before being published, while a conference paper will typically have at least one reviewer. (I think this is the case for almost all such papers, but there may be exceptions.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1356, "author": "Jukka Suomela", "author_id": 351, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/351", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In computer science conferences, the terms \"full paper\" and \"extended abstract\" are often used interchangeably.</p>\n\n<p>For example, STOC calls it an \"<a href=\"http://cs.nyu.edu/~stoc2012/CallForPapers.htm\">extended abstract</a>\" while SODA calls it a \"<a href=\"http://www.siam.org/meetings/da12/submissions.php\">full paper</a>\". In this case there is no difference that you can infer from the choice of the terminology: they are of the same length (approx. 10 pages + appendix) and they go through a similar peer review process.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 55586, "author": "MERose", "author_id": 31167, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/31167", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Reading the other answers, it is definitely not the case that all disciplines understand the same when speaking about extended abstracts (while they can agree on abstracts and full papers).</p>\n\n<p>In Economics, an extended abstract is something between an abstract and an introduction - being more close to the introduction. That is, it includes the What, the Why and a little bit of the the How, along with references and results. Results are, however, only preliminary, which is why there is only an extended abstract. There are usually no tables nor graphs in it. There are also no chapters.</p>\n\n<p>I believe the Why is the most important part, as it distinguishes your work from the literature and shows what you are going to add.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 99089, "author": "Björn", "author_id": 83053, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/83053", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My view is that in economics an extended abstract is a short version of the paper. Conferences that accept extended abstracts usually expect them to include results, methodology and a short discussion, to be able to gauge the plausibility of findings and appropriateness of the methodology. </p>\n\n<p>In terms of lengths, I'd say 2-6 pages, while a full paper is anything from 15 to 100 pages. So, while very different in terms of length, the main contributions in the paper should be found in the extended abstract. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 193197, "author": "宋天一", "author_id": 167587, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/167587", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Just answer from the perspective of whether it will be included in the proceedings, some conferences will be included in the proceedings like regular research, but some won't, you need to confirm it by email.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1351", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/333/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1355, "author": "Ivan Machado", "author_id": 690, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/690", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I guess it is not correct for an institution to host the students' works, but Theses, Dissertations, and Technical Reports, in its internal digital library (usually open to externals). The reason is simple, most papers are published under copyright terms. This way, one is not allowed to host this \"copyrighted\" content, without the publisher permission. I see many departments, research groups, and so on, making public available the list of publications, with a link to the original source.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1359, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't know how common it is, but certainly some institutions allow student papers. For example, Harvard's repository \"provides open access to peer reviewed scholarly articles authored or co-authored by faculty, staff, and students of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences\" (<a href=\"http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/2\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/2</a>). I can't think of any good reason to exclude students, so I'm puzzled by why a university would do that.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1415, "author": "hnltraveler", "author_id": 782, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/782", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Most university institutional repositories will allow students to submit their work, as the aim of an institutional repository is, generally, to capture the scholarly, research and creative output of a university. This would include work being created by faculty, of course, but also staff and students.</p>\n\n<p>What differs between universities is the emphasis they place on different creators. At a large research university, increasing citation counts of faculty members will be a key consideration that may make the acquisition of faculty works a higher priority than student works. Liberal arts colleges will, based on their institutional missions as teaching centres, will be able to focus on undergraduate research on a level that many research universities would be unable to do.</p>\n\n<p>I have recently become the Digital Repository Coordinator at a research university, and one of the challenges I face is trying to balance acquiring faculty and staff work vs. student work. Many of the faculty I have talked to, however, are excited by the potential of using the institutional repository as a way to showcase their students' work.</p>\n\n<p>As a doctoral student, especially, I would assume that you would be able to submit work to your university's institutional repository. Looking at your profile, I believe that your university's repository does allow students to submit work (See <a href=\"http://digilib.gmu.edu/dspace/handle/1920/2883\">http://digilib.gmu.edu/dspace/handle/1920/2883</a>, for example). If it's not clear how to do so, contact your university's repository coordinator to make it happen! They'd more than likely be thrilled a student (1) knows what an institutional repository is, and (2) is interested in depositing their work.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1445, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Have you tried asking your supervisor to deposit the papers? Certainly in the old days there was usually some kind of review process for technical reports which might still be applicable to solely-authored-by-students papers, but I should think that if it is actually published in a journal and/or a member of faculty will vouch for it then the repository should accept it.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1354", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/726/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1365, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A wiki is a platform, which you can use in whatever way you see fit. Personally, I've used them academically for the following purposes:</p>\n\n<h2>Lab notebook</h2>\n\n<p>I was running cognitive psychology experiments on subjects. I would make a top-level page that contained links to a separate page for all of my research projects. On each research project page, I had links to separate pages for each of the following:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Study protocols (behavioral testing, brain scanning, data cleaning, data analysis) - separate pages for each</li>\n<li>Change log to the paradigm itself</li>\n<li>Troubleshooting notes... as I encountered problems, write them down here</li>\n<li>Subjects (one page per subject</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Each subject page contained notes on each session, results, general info (\"subject performed poorly today, possibly due to stress from midterms\"), as well as the results of their data analysis.</p>\n\n<h2>Publication repository</h2>\n\n<p>This wiki was basically a place for me to store papers. Many wikis allow embedding of pdfs, and I would store pages as follows. The top-level page segmented topics. Each topic page contained links to pages about individual papers, as well as links to ongoing summaries of my reading. This was where I would write down my thoughts and conclusions after reading papers, and made it easier for me to combine my thoughts on multiple papers... after reading a new article, I would review what I had written there and try to somehow incorporate the new article in my ideas (if relevant, more often than not it wasn't).</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>These are just two ideas, and they were just used by me, not my whole lab. I'm sure you can think of more (managing lab meetings, managing collaborations, managing lab-wide protocols, etc).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1475, "author": "Artem Kaznatcheev", "author_id": 66, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/66", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>In one of the <strong>labs (about a dozen people)</strong> I work with, we use a <a href=\"http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki\" rel=\"nofollow\">MediaWiki</a> install given to use by the university that requires log-in to view everything but the front page or to edit. Although the learning curve is not steep (most people already know how to use Wikipedia) it has been hard to convince the undergraduate lab members to use the wiki. It mostly serves as a place for:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>short project summaries (since the lab has many different projects)</li>\n<li>notes/minutes from lab meetings, a place to store slides and presentations, and </li>\n<li>link repository (for instance I maintain a big collection of links to relevant StackExchange questions).</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>With a former supervisor, we used to have a private MediaWiki install that was used by a our <strong>small group (3 or 4 people)</strong>. Since we worked on theory/math it contained:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>short tutorials on how to do automated calculations as experiments for testing potential theorems (before trying to prove them), and </li>\n<li>collection of special cases that we had calculated by hand. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It was relatively well maintained by the prof, and a pretty good guide for understanding some of the work behind his earlier papers.</p>\n\n<p>I also keep a <strong>personal</strong> private <a href=\"http://www.tiddlywiki.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">TiddlyWiki</a>, there I keep:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>notes from papers I've read (although I am slowly moving this over to <a href=\"http://www.mendeley.com/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mendeley</a>)</li>\n<li>collections of relevant links from the internet</li>\n<li>a more structured index of the folders and files on my harddrive (through local links) that is easier to navigate and search than my file system directly.</li>\n<li>partial documentation of code and notes on partial results of simulations</li>\n<li>administrative stuff like members of mailing lists, and groups I organize.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>For me, the most useful was the private Wiki, the second most useful was the small group wiki because of the good maintenance by my prof, and least useful is the large lab wiki.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1358", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/319/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1361, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Yes, decisions based at least partially on personality do occur. It's not clear to me what the legal technicalities are - for example, depending on your country there may be laws regarding things like discrimination against the mentally ill - but in practice an admissions committee can do whatever it likes, and nobody will be able to prove there was any illegal discrimination.</p>\n\n<p>The way it typically works is that having a particularly pleasant or agreeable personality won't help you, but having an unpleasant personality may hurt you. If you seem likely to be difficult to get along with, rude, disruptive, uncooperative, or otherwise problematic, then that will generally be held against you. (This may be judged based on your personal statement, letters of recommendation, etc.) It won't necessarily doom your chances: some committee members just won't care, and others may be willing to excuse bad behavior if you are sufficiently talented. However, on average it will hurt your chances, sometimes substantially.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1367, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Personalities <em>can</em> count, because nobody wants to be an environment with lots of boorish colleagues. It's just not very fun.</p>\n\n<p>However, in most cases—at least in the US—admissions are done without interviews. Therefore, the only way the personality of the candidate comes through is through what's written in the application. Either the personal statement or the letters of reference might reveal some details about the personality of the applicant. Usually, though, this is negative; I don't put much stock in letters of reference saying \"so-and-so has a pleasant personality,\" since that is almost a <em>de rigeur</em> statement. (Something exceptional that goes into considerable detail, however, is different.)</p>\n\n<p>When you have an interview, however, it's hard to hide your personality for very long. It can make a difference—but generally only if you're a candidate \"on the bubble,\" or if your personality is so polarizing that nobody wants to bother with you, regardless of how nice you are. On the converse, though, I don't think a super-nice personality is enough to get someone on the bubble <em>in</em>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1360", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/740/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1366, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>About a month ago, MIT published their most recent <a href=\"http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/images/documents/women-report-2011.pdf\"><em>Report on the Status of Women Faculty in Science and Engineering</em></a>, following up on previous reports from 1999 and 2002. It's not exactly a \"survival guide\"—it's written for existing faculty and administrators more than for prospective academics—but it does clearly describe several barriers to gender inequality, both past and present. The National Academies published a <a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9813/\">similar report</a> in 2006.</p>\n\n<p>Even more recently, Nancy Hopkins (one of the authors of the MIT reports) gave <a href=\"http://techtv.mit.edu/tags/124-science/videos/12205-keynote-the-status-of-women-in-science-and-engineering-at-mit-\">a fascinating talk</a> about MIT's efforts to attract and retain female faculty.</p>\n\n<p>(Hopefully someone else will suggest something more useful for prospective academics.) </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Update:</strong> One of my female colleagues sent me the following reply, which I'm posting with her permission. (I'll delete this update if she decides to post an answer herself.)</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>My more recent reading has focused more on survival with children in\n academia, which is not quite the same thing. However, some of the\n issues might be the same. Two good books are <a href=\"http://www.mamaphd.com/\"><em>Mama,\n PhD</em></a> and <a href=\"http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0801446643\"><em>Motherhood: the Elephant in the\n Library</em></a>,\n both of which are essay-based, with women sharing their stories. Both\n are available on Amazon, and are quite good.</p>\n \n <p>Some of the best survival guides these days are the blogs - there are\n a bunch of good ones which provided sanity and good advice along the\n way. My two favorite aren't active anymore, but their archives are\n nice, and there are plenty of good ones still active:</p>\n \n <ul>\n <li><a href=\"http://scienceblogs.com/sciencewoman/\">http://scienceblogs.com/sciencewoman/</a></li>\n <li><a href=\"http://scienceblogs.com/seejanecompute/\">http://scienceblogs.com/seejanecompute/</a></li>\n <li><a href=\"http://science-professor.blogspot.com/\">http://science-professor.blogspot.com/</a></li>\n </ul>\n \n <p>There are tons of research papers on the issue, but to be honest, at\n least for me, those tend to be more depressing than helpful. For\n example, an interesting (but outdated) one:\n <a href=\"http://people.mills.edu/spertus/Gender/EKNU.html\">http://people.mills.edu/spertus/Gender/EKNU.html</a> There was a recent\n article that retention is going better among faculty (except in math,\n which surprised me):\n <a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6070/864.abstract\">http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6070/864.abstract</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1448, "author": "D.W.", "author_id": 705, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/705", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Here are two blogs that academics might enjoy:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://femalecomputerscientist.blogspot.com/\">Female Computer Scientist</a> - Especially, read the archives, starting from the beginning and moving forward, for a perspective from a graduate student who later went on to a professor position. Lots of great advice for men and women alike.</p></li>\n<li><p><a href=\"http://science-professor.blogspot.com/\">Female Science Professor</a> - Worth reading, and with a sense of humor. Written from the perspective of a mid-career science professor. Probably more likely to be of interest to faculty than grad students, but for faculty, you may find some of her writing spot-on.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I certainly found some of the stuff there helpful. I don't know if it will help women in the position you mentioned, except perhaps to feel a sense that others have gone through this and that it is possible to remain a sane, productive person despite the hurdles.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 21219, "author": "Jackson", "author_id": 15445, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15445", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What advice would you give men wanting to do the same things?</p>\n\n<p>That advice that you would give them, you give to women.</p>\n\n<p>It'd be quite foolish to give women different advice and expect them to have realistic expectations and not set them up to fail, unless you feel that women aren't as competent and need to have their hands held, which would be wildly sexist.</p>\n\n<p>Chances are high that if you direct them to a source that's \"for women,\" it will more than likely ensure a negative outlook about their future coworkers and employment.</p>\n\n<p>Engineering is engineering. Gender need not apply.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1363", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/761/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1370, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Warning - anecdotal evidence ahead:</strong></p>\n\n<p>We have a couple of pet statisticians that we run things past: they review our statistical methodology, and can check that the code does what we think it's doing. (That is to say, we borrow a few hours of time from colleagues in other departments. And in some funding bids / project proposals, we explicitly put in time for them). In some cases, we've coded up algorithms in different languages, and checked that results have been reproduced.</p>\n\n<p>The incentives for cross-disciplinary collaboration are, I believe, already there. When we've explained to our statisticians what we're trying to do, for a stats health check, they've often been able to suggest additional tests. And they love getting their paws on new datasets, to go mining on. So it's constructive for all parties.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1371, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>You need the journals...</p>\n\n<p>Nothing will move without it. The American Economics Review has taken the lead in requiring all data papers to make their data and source code available. Unfortunately, there's no real indication that other journals will follow suit, despite the formidable reputation of AER. Sadly, even the AER doesn't have a clear repository and not all code is available even though they require it of the authors.</p>\n\n<p>Beyond that, David Card has a nice repository of sorts for structural econometrics data. Josh Angrist and David Autor should be praised for creating Data Archives that document their own work. But at this point it's still up to individuals to make their research transparent and their code available.</p>\n\n<p>For what it's worth, I've been thinking about this issue a lot lately and decided to create a Google Code Project where economists can upload their code:\n<a href=\"http://code.google.com/p/econ-code/\">http://code.google.com/p/econ-code/</a> ... That said, I have not yet tried to publicize it and think the ultimate key to adoption lies with the journals.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 14478, "author": "everybody", "author_id": 9765, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9765", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Another approach is to ease the process of making your data/code open. The <a href=\"http://centerforopenscience.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Center for Open Science</a> is an interesting non-profit that started this year. They're developing <a href=\"https://openscienceframework.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Open Science Framework</a>, which is a tool meant to assist with the research workflow--it facilitates collaboration, version control, and it reduces making your data/code open (completely or in parts) to a single click. I guess the strategy is to lure researchers into using the software by making a useful tool, and hoping that if openness is only a click away, more of them will just click the button. I could see this or something like it making a real impact.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 14894, "author": "Hedge Fund", "author_id": 10098, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10098", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I agree with dchandler. The journals have to require it and publicize it on their websites. There is no other way. There is another example from S. D. Levitt of Freakonomics fame in which a paper had erroneous conclusions that were demonstrated by trying to replicate the results. This is a serious issue that needs attention. Scientific rigor goes as far as the academic rigor, but academics have regrettably, large incentives to \"make mistakes\" in their coding to obtain conclusions beneficial to their research programme. There hardly is a more pressing issue in academic research than making the research process public. Technically it is a breeze to do, what is required is the political will for the journals to implement it. Hopefully, the issue can be raised in future annual meetings of the corresponding associations.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1369", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/775/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1373, "author": "Ivan Machado", "author_id": 690, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/690", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As far as I know, once you pursue a Ph.D. you are encouraged to put only that achievement right after your name, since it is more relevant that everything else. I maybe wrong, but it's what I've seen for years.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1374, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This varies between countries. My impression is that listing titles after the name is more common in the UK and Australia, and there may be fixed conventions as to the ordering, but I can't address that. What I can deal with is the U.S., and my advice in that context is simple: don't do it. In the U.S., if you list one title (\"John Smith, Ph.D.\"), you'll look a little pompous and like you are overemphasizing your degree (leading to questions like \"Gee, is that Ph.D. still his proudest achievement?\" or \"Does he worry people will think he didn't get a Ph.D.?\"), and if you list more than one it will look ridiculous. In particular, don't list titles after your name in academic job applications, CVs, signatures for letters of recommendation, etc. that are being sent to the U.S. Of course, conventions in other countries may be different.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1387, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Even in countries like Germany, where titles get stacked up, only your highest degree <em>in a given field</em> is listed. However, in your case, you have two different degrees in very different areas, so it might be helpful to list both the master's and the doctorate in your title. However, the bachelor's is superseded by the master's, so it doesn't appear in any case.</p>\n\n<p>But beyond that, I think it's a function of context: whichever degree is most important for you in the situation should be right after your name, and then the other degree. If it's a IT-related issue, then the MSc is probably more important than the PhD; the PhD matters for philosophy-related stuff.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 64123, "author": "Guest", "author_id": 49890, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49890", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You absolutely list your credentials. ALWAYS! In the U.S., list the highest one in each field. In the EU, it's more common to list them all.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 64205, "author": "vonbrand", "author_id": 38135, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/38135", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It depends on local custom. Around here (Chile) titles are rarely used at all. In neighbouring countries it is extremely rude not to address somebody by degree, including bachelor.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1372", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1381, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It sounds like this subarea might be somewhat marginalized in the larger area the department represents, and this is consistent across universities. Why is that ? is the subarea not particularly popular, or interesting, or does it lack the ability to get funding ? In all these case, you do have to ask yourself whether the risk of getting into such an area is worth it.</p>\n\n<p>But on the more direct question of whether you should favor the few schools that have more than one professor, the right question is: what are you planning to do after a Ph.D ? And in what way can this professor (or professors) help with that goal ? If you want to go into academia (say), are these professors the dominant players in the area ? and so on.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1385, "author": "Henry", "author_id": 8, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Yes, having other professors in your subfield is a benefit. You and your advisor might have a falling out, or some freak tragedy could befall your advisor, or your advisor might leave for a job elsewhere and not get you an adequate (or any) offer to bring you.</p>\n\n<p>But that doesn't make it an absolute necessity, since there are plenty of other really important things to consider. You should consider it a plus at the institutions that have two, but only you can evaluate how big a plus.</p>\n\n<p>You should also think about ways to mitigate the problem at other places. For instance, there might be people in related areas, even if not your exact subfield, who are close enough to potentially supervise you, especially if they're switching in half-way through your PhD. Or there might be other faculty in the area near-by, at other schools in easy reach, who might at least be able to help out if something happens.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1386, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>As the author of the <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/925/767\">original answer</a>, I suppose some further clarification is appropriate. The issues are: </p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Are you willing to work on a topic outside of your intended subfield?</li>\n<li>Does your program assign students directly to a research supervisor at the time of admission?</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>If the answer to <em>both</em> questions is \"no,\" then you have a potential problem on your hands, and then you should be very cautious. However, if you are willing to move outside your intended subfield if there are no positions available, or if you're guaranteed entry to the desired research group at the time, it's not nearly as serious a situation.</p>\n\n<p>That said, if you only want to stay in your subfield, and it's only represented by one faculty at most institutions, then you'll need to do due diligence and figure out who will be the best fit for you, both in terms of research but in terms of \"fit.\" A significant concern would then be: \"Whose advising and supervision style best meshes with my own preferences?\"</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1375", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/767/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1379, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I suspect Sean Carroll is emphasizing this more than most people would, thanks to his tenure denial. It's not always important - plenty of serious bloggers have received tenure, and I know of one mathematician who published a novel before successfully getting tenure at a serious research university. However, Carroll's right about the risks: it will hurt your chances if people spend too much time comparing what you did accomplish to what they imagine you might have accomplished if you had focused more. If your hobbies could be viewed as taking time away from research, then it gives anyone who doesn't want you to get tenure an excellent opportunity to try to derail your case.</p>\n\n<p>So basically, if your tenure case could be viewed as marginal or you might have enemies in the department (or among your letter writers), then you should worry about this. Otherwise, I wouldn't let it dictate your life, but I guess it depends on your tolerance for risk. One common-sense approach is not to go around emphasizing to colleagues how much time you are spending on hobbies.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 31363, "author": "RoboKaren", "author_id": 14885, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14885", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Work-life balance is important. The years until you get tenure are very stress-filled. You need something to balance out work -- whether that's your family or whether it's doing some underwater basket weaving.</p>\n\n<p>That being said, you also do not want to give the impression that you are slouching off or not anything than fully dedicated to your work. </p>\n\n<p>So at least until you get tenure, I would recommend having a hobby in order to maintain your sanity but not talking about it at work and keeping a low social-network profile. </p>\n\n<p>At my previous job, I was an avid woodworker with an entire woodshop in my basement. It helped keep my head on and provided a social sphere entirely separate from school.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45183, "author": "TeleOne", "author_id": 34332, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34332", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It definitely depends on the one who reads your CV. Those who don't care about hobbies will simply scroll this lines about hobbies. Those who care will decide based on their own opinion. <br><br>\nAlso it is nice when it will be possible to do your hobbies at the University you apply to. E.g. \"sailing\" in the middle of continent would look stupid, but same \"sailing\" in some seaside city can make sense and add another reason why you would like to work there. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1377", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1380, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>One difficulty is that it's far from clear what the ideal dropout rate should be. Probably not zero, for two reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Even the best students sometimes find that their interests change over time, in ways nobody could have predicted. Dropping out may become a quite sensible choice, in which case it's harmful for the university to discourage it.</p></li>\n<li><p>It's reasonable for a university to give someone a chance even if it's not certain that they will succeed. The only way to get a really low drop-out rate is to admit just the applicants that are obviously destined for success. The top few schools can get away with this, but if everyone tried it, then many talented candidates would be shut out from graduate school.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So some attrition is OK, and some is bad but may be a necessary consequence of policies that are on the whole good. The question then becomes how you distinguish these kinds from needless and damaging attrition, and then how you minimize that kind.</p>\n\n<p>Advisors play a key role here, because some are much better than others at being supportive or motivational. However, at least in mathematics, most advisors don't supervise very many students, so the numbers often aren't large enough to see patterns clearly.</p>\n\n<p>I'm sure people have studied this problem, and perhaps identified best practices for addressing it. However, in my experience any studies or solutions are not especially influential (at least in the few math departments I've been in). Most discussions are at the stage of trying to figure out whether there is a real problem and if so why, rather than what to do about it.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1382, "author": "DavideChicco.it", "author_id": 379, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think that the problem is that often many professors underestimate the PhD student's will and personal scientific aims.</p>\n\n<p>Often it happens that a perspective PhD student apply for PhD admission to work on a project X, and then, once he/she starts the doctorate program, professors say to him or her \"Surely you will work on X some day, but now you have to work on Y\".</p>\n\n<p>But, effectively, that \"some day\" never arrives. So the PhD student looses motivations, gets sick, and finally quits...</p>\n\n<p>To answer the question, I would sat that PhD student supervisors should take more care of the PhD student will and expectations, and understand that letting him/her work on the topic he/she prefers will make him/her more motivated and finally get better results than working on someone's else objectives.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1384, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think this is asking the wrong question. To me, the right question is, <em>what are the main reasons that students drop out, and what steps can be taken to address those reasons?</em> To properly examine this data would need to be gathered, but anecdotally I can think of a few reasons:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Student gets bored/loses interest/experiences major life changes (marriage, death in family, midlife crisis, etc.)</strong>. This will happen in any profession, and are essentially unavoidable. It can be mitigated somewhat by stressing at the outset the time commitment necessary to complete a PhD, but that can only do so much... a lot can happen in four (or five, or six, or...) years.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Student has major fallout with advisor</strong>. Again, this happens in every profession... people have personality conflicts with their bosses all the time. Communication, and lots of it, is often cited as the best tonic for this problem.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Students become disillusioned with academia</strong>. This problem often manifests later on in the career, as papers are rejected, grant applications are rejected, and/or the student has difficulty with his or her research. I would venture that this is simultaneously the most treatable problem and the most difficult to treat correctly; the advisor has to work very closely with the student and give them good academic and professional advice. From my experience, the success of the advisor in this task is often the main factor in whether the student remains in academia.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>There are likely other reasons students drop out; if I think of more I'll add them, and please list others in the comments.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1446, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Possibly universities should be more careful about hiring PhD students in the first place. It's not enough that they are smart. Students need to be persistent and motivated and their motivations should be realistic. I think it helps a lot of if the students have had some time out of academia so they know early whether this really is what they want to do with their time. I've seen a lot of faculty try to talk smart students into staying when if anything we should be trying to talk them out of staying to make sure they really want to be here. (And \"staying\" is a bad idea anyway, it's better to change institution so it really does feel like you aren't at school anymore, because a PhD is a <strong>lot</strong> different from a college degree.)</p>\n\n<p>I think the worst thing is students that hang around forever neither quitting nor working hard. It is the student's life and career and time, and they need to take it in hand and change supervisor if they need to, or change project, or leave. But wasting everyone's time including their own is almost criminal.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 180766, "author": "Piotr Golacki", "author_id": 151874, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/151874", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As a person who dropped out from a part-time PhD programme in Engineering in the UK. I can add my reasons for dropping out.</p>\n<ol>\n<li>Family - being a father and husband changes worldview and sometimes it becomes apparent that there are more effective ways to further one's career than PhD if your aim is not to be an academic. But a university can't do much about this</li>\n<li>Lack of proper academic knowledge in the area of PhD project. For example my professional experience and academic background was in electronics, audio and acoustical engineering whereas PhD turned out to be be essentially a theoretical physics. Any physics bachelor would have easier time than me.</li>\n<li>Supervisor is not an expert in the area of PhD project. Especially difficult if also the situation in point 2. is present. The lack of appropriate guidance in this case is harmful.</li>\n<li>The experimental part is not within control of your department/unit in my case it was not possible to just pop down to the lab to do experiments. It was a cross faculty project and it was difficult to communicate with the other people from outside you faculty</li>\n<li>Lack of community support. As a part time student it was difficult to have other PhD students available as you colleagues. Also the project was so removed from anything that the other PhD student were doing so it was quite alienating project.</li>\n<li>If your goal is just to further your knowledge it actually may not be the best way to do it. As rigour required to prove your method would steal your learning time.</li>\n<li>Topic, it is true that even if you love the topic you will hate, but is also true you can grow into the topic and will start be passionate about it. But if your project has no purpose to you it will be extremely difficult to finish. You need to believe in it. In this case supervisor should at the beginning talk about possible applications or importance of the problem. But there is only so much they can do.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>I need to add that the University and my supervisors were really helpful and nice, but the hurdles were just too much for me.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 180797, "author": "FourierFlux", "author_id": 110698, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/110698", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Pay, if you paid me what I would make working on an industry project I would have been a lot more compelled to stay.</p>\n<p>At the moment, even looking purely at GRA hourly rate it's almost half the hourly rate of a junior engineer. The way current PhD system works is basically projects get subcontracted out to universities who then pay the people involved a fraction of their real worth in hopes of getting a degree afterwards.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1378", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1400, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>This answer is based on the situation in Sweden, I think similar principles would apply in the Nordic countries and possibly in north Europe.\nFirst cost of education is very low compared to US, as can be seen in the following references:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.swedenabroad.com/SelectImageX/165193/Funding-the-swedish-school-system-080403[1].pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\" title=\"Link to educational costs in Sweden\">Sweden Abroad's paper on education costs in Sweden</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://gse.buffalo.edu/org/inthigheredfinance/files/Country_Profiles/Europe/Sweden.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Higher Education Finance and Cost-Sharing in Sweden</a></p>\n\n<p>There are no tuition fees for European citizens (non Europeans pay a tuition fee which varies based on the University and the Education. For example a technical education for a non European may cost in the range of US$12000/year. The government also provides a grant and a loan on favourable conditions. Everyone who wants to study can get a seat. </p>\n\n<p>It could be argued that even when the government subsidies something there is still a real price, and if there is a real market driver the price should go up. </p>\n\n<p>The government provides resources to a University based on the number of students and the number of courses provided. The amount differs based on the course. For example for natural science and technology the amount is higher than for social sciences. Half the amount is given when the student signs up for a course and half when he or she passes the course. Since the government provides means based on the number of students, there is no reason for why supply and demand should not be met and there should not be any price driver as in US.</p>\n\n<p>For certain very popular educations there are limited seats, and the college would then limit access to these seats based on scores. But money is still not the driver.</p>\n\n<p>For commercial education such as a professional MBA at Stockholm School of Economics there are market price and there prices have increased dramatically over the years. The current cost is in the range of SEK 500K.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2660, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In the UK universities have received about £10,000 (15,000 USD) in tuition and fees per student per year. This has been pretty constant with small increases over the years. Students who are not part of the EU are expected to pay the fees in their entirety \"up front\". EU students who are not part of the UK pay £6000 a year up front. For UK students the rules vary amongst Scotland, Wales, and England. In Scotland university is free for Scots. I am not sure how much, if anything other Brits pay. In England, the fees just rose from £4000 to £9000. Students don't have to pay until after they graduate and begin making more than £25,000 a year.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1399", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7701/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1402, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Read carefully, underline everything it says about anything to do with the data, but it is likely you won't get it quite right. For Labor we were assigned to reproduce \"<a href=\"http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2118419\" rel=\"nofollow\">Tax Incentives and the Decision to Purchase Health Insurance: Evidence from the Self-Employed</a>\" by Jonathan Gruber and James Poterba (QJE, 1994) and \"<a href=\"http://www.jstor.org/stable/116844\" rel=\"nofollow\">Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size</a>\" by Joshua D. Angrist and William N. Evans (AER, 1998). Try as we might, no one in the class ever got exactly the same things as in the papers. It was always about right, and enough people did it independently that we trusted we were doing the right thing. After a while the small differences stopped bothering my classmates and I.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1403, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Email the author nominated for communications, and ask them for a copy of their dataset and enough specifications to reproduce their numeric results. As a backstop, ask for the specific criteria they used to exclude cases. Consider offering co-authorship on any papers that will result from your analysis, as incentive. Give them enough context about you &amp; your own work, so that they know your enquiry is serious, and that you're looking to constructively build on their work, (and not to stitch them up!)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1444, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Replication is an incredibly important part of academia. Don't forget that it's possible you are failing to replicate because the original authors did something wrong! You should absolutely email them, but keep in mind that failure to replicate can be publishable, provided your differences are significant and you can couch couch our results in current theory.</p>\n\n<p>Have a look at Gary King's \"<a href=\"http://gking.harvard.edu/files/abs/replication-abs.shtml\">Replication, Replication</a>\"</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 184989, "author": "Angela Devison", "author_id": 156174, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/156174", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My first thought is that you may ask help in support team where this dataset is placed. Also, you may ask and find out what is wrong with the author. Some data may not be available or partially shown, although access is open. Perhaps this was done for reasons of plagiarism.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1401", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1409, "author": "Armatus", "author_id": 754, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/754", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would say definitely - it's worth a try. I am studying at a university that usually ends up high in rankings (although it dropped quite a bit now because of student feedback), the oldest person in my course is about 9 years older than the rest of us. He spent around 5 years after school working (he had already worked there during school) and then two years ago took some additional courses at an adults' school and applied here. What should I say, they happily took him and he's constantly getting the best grades in the year.</p>\n\n<p>As you mention that you have professional experience related to the subject, I think you may find it interesting that his years of work were completely unrelated to the subject he is studying now. I think that's a good factor as well.</p>\n\n<p>I think in such a situation I would put much more stress on what I have done <em>since</em> school rather than what I achieved at school. With such a long gap, what happened at school should be practically irrelevant unless you can demonstrate what strengths you have taken from school that you still maintain today. This should go by the same reasons for which certificates such as IELTS or TOEFL are not accepted more than two years after getting them.</p>\n\n<p>Finally I should add that this is a UK university. Procedures in the USA may of course be very different and so may your chances - but in any case it's worth a shot. It can't get much worse than having your application rejected can it?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1443, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Universities take all sorts of information into consideration when they take in undergraduates (or postgradautes). Essays, recommendations, your CV (your experience) all matter. For a mature student, your high school record will normally matter somewhat, but it will almost certainly not be weighted as highly as it would for a person with no other experience or evidence of their quality of work.</p>\n\n<p>Different universities have different strategies and requirements, and you should check into those of the one you are interested in. For example, when I was working in Chicago I took night classes from one of the local universities, I think it was Northwestern although the classes were at Roosevelt. At the time at least, they would let anyone sign up for up to four undergraduate classes, no questions asked. Then after four classes you were called in to consider really registering for your degree, and that was done almost entirely on the basis of your four classes. I actually already had a degree, but I remember being incredibly impressed with the system, it seemed immensely sensible and fair.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10265, "author": "Shion", "author_id": 1429, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1429", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>My answer is going to be anecdotal. One of my good friends in university right now is a senior (graduating next semester). He was a professional musician and learnt a trade as an apprentice for many years (I think about 7 years). Then he went to community college for 2 years and transferred to my current university as a sophomore. He has distinguished himself very well and has been an undergraduate research assistant for the last 3 semesters. In fact, now he wants a PhD and is doing all that he can to get into the best school that he can.</p>\n\n<p>Therefore, <strong><em>anecdotally,</em></strong> I can tell you that prepare the best you can ; perhaps by even going to community college (its cheap !) and taking relevant courses and then either applying as a freshman or sophomore to the university you really want to go to. I think that (as others have pointed out), your experiences will serve you in good stead.</p>\n\n<p><strong>PS:</strong> This is in context to the USA</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 56779, "author": "ShadSterling", "author_id": 15674, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/15674", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Ask the university.</p>\n\n<p>I went to college for one year after high school, then enrolled in a different university several years later (which I completed; both in the U.S.). My second university used my high school transcript and test scores from when I was in high school (I had to pay an extra fee to retrieve my old scores), as well as my transcript from my previous year of college (even though only one class actually counted for anything). They did not consider any professional experience.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 56782, "author": "Broklynite", "author_id": 42092, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/42092", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It varies from college to college. Some make a point of being \"returning student\" friendly while others don't. Your best bet is likely to look into the ones you are interested and call up the admissions office. You might be surprised. One of my former colleges made a huge point of being returning student friendly, and it was a great idea because they were often amongst the best students in the class because they knew the importance of hard work and study.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1407", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/772/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1420, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Since a Ph.D is always granted through some kind of Ph.D granting institution (usually a university) I assume your question is about being <strong>funded</strong> by a research laboratory while being formally affiliated with a university ? </p>\n\n<p>As with most things, it depends on the context. First of all, I wouldn't be so sure that a permanent job is guaranteed. Unless you have an explicit letter in writing saying so, nothing is set in stone. Secondly, I'd worry about your potential future marketability in the event that you <strong>do</strong> have to look for a job elsewhere. Again, whether this is an issue depends on the specific context of your arrangement. Finally, your last \"pro\" about working with students AND researchers may not be true unless the lab and university are relatively close to each other. There's also the risk of your advisor tuning you out, unless there's already a structure of collaboration in place. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1462, "author": "ESultanik", "author_id": 92, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/92", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Throughout graduate school I worked at and was funded by a university-run laboratory that operated somewhat like a government laboratory and was largely funded for applied research. I now work at a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Affiliated_Research_Center\">UARC</a> (which is similar to an <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federally_Funded_Research_and_Development_Center\">FFRDC</a>). Given that my graduate school lab was already affiliated with the University, though, my situation is slightly different than yours.</p>\n\n<p>At least in the US, it is relatively hard for non-academic laboratories to find funding for basic research; funding agencies like the NSF have a prejudice toward funding degree-granting institutions. Therefore, in my experience, much of the flavor of the funding at non-academic laboratories is geared toward applied research. This might not be a problem, but it can be a challenge to find a deep, Ph.D.-level problem to solve when your sponsors are interested in seeing more concrete results.</p>\n\n<p>In my case, working at an applied research laboratory to fund my graduate degrees was actually somewhat of a benefit. Due to the reasons I listed above, it was difficult for me to latch onto a deep problem to solve for which there was stable, direct funding. Therefore, I used my position at the laboratory to basically \"pay the bills\" (it covered my stipend, tuition remission, <em>&amp;c.</em>). That gave me the freedom to work on related—but not directly funded—problems that interested me. This of course had the overhead of essentially working two jobs at once, but it had the added benefit of providing visibility to my \"side\" research to the sponsors who were funding my \"pay the bills\" research. It also paid for my trips to relevant conferences, at which I was able to present <em>both</em> flavors of my research.</p>\n\n<p>Now that I am working at a UARC, I see others here who are also pursuing part-time Ph.D.s. Most of them seem to have found a similar model to mine: They use their position at the non-academic lab to \"pay the bills\", and then focus their actual research on a related but independent problem. If you are able to fund yourself (<em>i.e.</em>, if your Ph.D. advisor doesn't have to worry about finding funding for you), then many advisors will be willing to take you on as a student.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 20491, "author": "nivag", "author_id": 14115, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14115", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I am currently doing basically this in the UK. I can definitely say it is a viable option, although there are definitely some drawbacks.</p>\n\n<p>The biggest disadvantage is that you lack lots of the support the being based at a academic institution has. There is no student union or similar structures to support you. While you will have access to these facilities via your academic institution they are generally much harder to access due to your physical separation.</p>\n\n<p>Similarly the social life at non-academic institutions is very different. Most of your colleges will not be students and probably have a very different outlook on life, e.g. many more older people with families. Similarly there is no union, clubs or other formalised ways to meet people socially. Although this probably depends more your personality and the specific place your at.</p>\n\n<p>You are also correct that travel to/from your academic institution can be very annoying. For meeting with your supervisor I strongly recommend trying to do as much by skype as possible.</p>\n\n<p>Finally non-academic institutions, even government labs/NMIs tend to be less research focused and more focused on providing a service/developing a product, which might involve significant research. This isn't necessarily a problem as long as your project is well defined and your not at risk of doing several small unrelated projects.</p>\n\n<p>On the plus side, you will probably be more exposed to industry and get a wider understanding of what is viewed as important by end users.</p>\n\n<p>Many of the researchers at these labs are world-leading in there own right and some labs are very highly regarded which can't hurt your future prospects. </p>\n\n<p>Also, they are presumably providing funding for the project. Which is always import to have :). </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1414", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/767/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1428, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Basically, is your question is \"Is it worth it to enroll in distance learning when you could do the same attending free online lectures?\" I believe you can have some good input from <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/603/102\">Looking for sources of online graduate-level education</a> and <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1317/102\">Does one get academic credit towards a degree for open online courses?</a>. </p>\n\n<p>The bottom line is: online lectures usually don't provide academic credits. So you can't show an official degree to an employer, so it depends on the kind of job you want to do: if it's enough to show what you can do (say, for instance, you want to be a web-designer, then your portfolio is likely to be more important than your degree), then why not. But otherwise, you might have to stick with the distance learning. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 45199, "author": "Tom Beatty", "author_id": 34344, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34344", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It's true that most MOOCs these days provide more interaction than typical courses in the UoL external program (I've done both). However, you cannot get academic credit for a MOOC (except in some very limited cases - introductory courses, and the like). A UoL degree will be recognized as an accredited degree. Ironically, the emergence of MOOCs has, perhaps, made accredited degrees more valuable, as they distinguish you from MOOCs.</p>\n\n<p>Your same question could be re-framed to include MOOCs vs. brick and mortar schools: Why am I paying a lot of money to sit in a classroom and listen to a professor when I can get a simulated version in a MOOC? Again, I think the answer boils down to academic credit. If you want the degree, you'll have to go the \"traditional\" route, where traditional, in this case, means traditional distance learning, or traditional brick and mortar.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1417", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/785/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1423, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Because URL are (usually) not eternal, but hopefully your publication is, then I wouldn't advise to only put an URL, especially for books or paper. It doesn't add much to make a full biblio item, that can of course include the URL!\nNote that <a href=\"http://www.bibtex.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Bibtex</a> has a special field for url, but you can also add it as a note. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1424, "author": "Jake Hoggs", "author_id": 788, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/788", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>No, it's not OK to cite URLs because firstly, you are citing ONLY the URL! The URL could change at any given time without notice. Also, you are assuming that everyone is reading your paper electronically and has access to the internet.</p>\n\n<p>You NEED to give the name of the paper, the author(s), the Journal it was published in and the year it was published.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1426, "author": "Henry", "author_id": 8, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Absolutely not! The other answers mention impermanence of URLs, which is an issue, but not, I think, the most important one. The most important reason is that some of the information in a citation, especially the author and year of publication, is important context for interpreting a citation, and is therefore essential content to the paper itself.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1434, "author": "kertronux", "author_id": 793, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/793", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>URL sources are a grey area. When possible, cite the original source. For example if you are citing books.google.* , then you need to cite that book as a book and not a URL. For academic publications, there is an OPTIONAL URL field you may use, but this should be in addition to citing the original conference/journal/workshop/etc. </p>\n\n<p>There are circumstances where a URL is the best identifier of the resource, and in those cases, you'll have to cite the URL. For example, I used a URL resource from the libary of congress because it was unpublished historical (circa 1890AD) blueprints scanned into their library. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1435, "author": "Matthew Flynn", "author_id": 794, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/794", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The MLA Style guide (via <a href=\"http://www.indiana.edu/~libugls/Publications/electronic_mla.html\">Indiana University</a>) says the following:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>World Wide Web Sites:</p>\n \n <p>There are many different kinds of web sites, so it is impossible to give just one set of precise instructions for citation format. If you can not find some of the information needed, cite what is available. The following Works Cited/Bibliography examples are only guidelines; utilize the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers for additional examples.</p>\n \n <p>What you need (at minimum):</p>\n\n<pre><code> Site title (if there is no title use a description such as \"Home Page\")\n Date you accessed the information\n URL\n</code></pre>\n \n <p>What you need (if available):</p>\n\n<pre><code> Author(s)/Editor(s) name\n Publication or last update date\n Organization/Institution name associated with the site\n</code></pre>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1436, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The point of a bibliography is not only to identify your sources, but to allow your readers to read those sources themselves, at some indefinite time in the future. Bare URLs rarely serve that function, in part because URLs are (by design) transient, and in part because <strong>you cannot assume that your unknown future reader will have internet access.</strong> This is the same reason why citations should still include page numbers, even though a quick Google search on the title and authors almost always finds the paper.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, books go out of print, library subscriptions lapse, some conference proceedings are only distributed online, some papers are still preprints, and sometimes the source in question is a blog, a usenet post, a source code repository, or a StackExchange question. For sources without permanent reliable offline access, I think you <strong>must</strong> include a URL in your bibliography, despite its transience, in addition to as much traditional identifying information (authors, title, journal/conference/book title, page numbers, date) as possible.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3641, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For everything that have been reviewed AND permanently archived then the bibliography is fine. For all the rest footnotes are the place to be.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3642, "author": "paul garrett", "author_id": 980, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>(I think:) <em>Definitely</em> give a URL if there is one, <em>with</em> the date you down/up-loaded the paper, and perhaps give a revision date of the paper, if it itself gives one. </p>\n\n<p><em>AND</em> give the more traditional reference information as well.</p>\n\n<p>The URL allows people to find an e-copy, at least for a while. The conventional references do not necessarily produce copies accessible through the internet, though sometimes they do.</p>\n\n<p>For the time being, these two sorts of citations give different information, have different utilities. One may take the pose that one makes the other irrelevant, but I think this is not accurate. The common \"objections\" to internet-accessible things, that they are \"transient\", while physical references are \"permanent\", is disingenuous, upon some thought. First, many good things are transient, which is not an argument against them! Second, physical references are equally transient, if in a different way... usually that many different libraries throughout the world maintain \"cached\" copies. Well, maybe Google has cached the now-gone document at a vanished URL? :)</p>\n\n<p>In summary, operationally, give all the information you have in citations, even while recognizing that some of it has an expiration date.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 3646, "author": "Noah Snyder", "author_id": 25, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The best practice is to include standard bibliographic information, a relatively stable hypertext link for current readers (e.g. to the ArXiv), and the DOI.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 36424, "author": "Todd Booth", "author_id": 26573, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/26573", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>No, it is clearly and everyone agrees, not acceptable practice to cite only the URL. So download a PDF copy of the exact web page. You can even state in the publication that you have a copy of the exact PDF which corresponds with your reference. If anyone asks you for sa copy of the PDF, you may wish to do one of the following:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Immediately give them the pdf (which may be a license violation). I feel comfortable to do this, in some situations, but not all.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>or</p>\n\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>Tell them you would like to give them your saved copy, after they convince you, that the web site will allow you to give them a copy.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>It is not your problem, if the web site will not give you permission, to give others a copy of the saved PDF. However a license violation would be your fault.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1422", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/477/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1431, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>You should never offer a link shortener as the only option in an academic paper, for two reasons:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>It's adding another point of failure: if the shortening service is down, then the link cannot be followed. This is a particular worry over time, since the service may go out of business.</p></li>\n<li><p>One of the big reasons why link shorteners are so popular is that they keep track of usage statistics. I'd be offended if I thought an author was using this to monitor when the link was followed, where the people following it were located, etc.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>So if you offer a shortened URL, it should only be in addition to the real URL, not in place of it. However, I'd tend to avoid even that. It doesn't look professional to me, and I don't think there's much savings for the reader. (Online papers should have clickable URLs, or at least ones that can be copied and pasted, so this only arises for someone who has a printed copy but no online copy. That can happen, but it's hardly a major issue.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1432, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm not sure what you mean when you say it's easier to enter. If someone is reading the paper online, it's a click (in the PDF) either way. And as @AM points out, link rot can then get you in two ways instead of one. In fact you should in general be leery about linking to URLs in a paper unless you have some belief that the URL will persist for the life of the paper itself.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1433, "author": "txwikinger", "author_id": 792, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/792", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Short answer: It depends!</p>\n\n<p>Long answer: Shortlinks are very useful when space is essential, i.e. when advertising something on twitter. Futhermore, they can often be used for analytics which some of those services offer.</p>\n\n<p>Otherwise, it is often better to provide a full link. It looks more professional and gives more information. Since it is a link, it does not need to be typed in, so it might even be better to show a description instead of the link. The full domain also allows users to decide if they want to follow since it gives additional authenticity when the domain is well known. A lot of shortened urls lead to spam sites, or sites that try to introduce trojans. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 26299, "author": "Ooker", "author_id": 14341, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14341", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I have no problem with shortening a link. In a paper, you won't risk your reputation just to have a spam or contained virus link, therefore people won't need to worry about the security. Also, I don't know if other services have this feature, but you can make an customized link as long as it is unique. </p>\n\n<p>For example, this was my link to my dissertation: <a href=\"http://bit.ly/epHIVprotease\" rel=\"nofollow\">bit.ly/epHIVprotease</a>. (Need not to follow it, I have pulled it down)</p>\n\n<p>Anyone in my field will immediately understand what it says: <strong>electrostatic potential</strong> of a <strong>HIV protease</strong>. So it's also looked professional, I think.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 49665, "author": "Thomas Arildsen", "author_id": 6924, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6924", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A better alternative is to use a <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier\">DOI</a> if one is available. The providers of a DOI are supposed to ensure that the DOI is always up to date and points to the correct resource and as such a DOI is a better insurance against link rot than the original URL itself.\nDOIs are available for most recent papers (at least the ones I know of) as well as data etc. hosted on for example <a href=\"http://figshare.com\">figshare</a> and <a href=\"https://zenodo.org/\">Zenodo</a>. Apart from such resources, DOIs are generally not available and in that case I also recommend using the original URL directly.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1430", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/790/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1441, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In the U.S., most academic fields are not like medicine: there is no licensing and for most purposes there are not strict legal requirements for what constitutes a degree. In particular, there is nothing that needs to or can be done to accredit a foreign Ph.D. (Other countries may differ. For example, Germany used to treat non-EU Ph.D.'s differently; see <a href=\"http://www.zeit.de/2008/12/C-Seitenhieb-12\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.zeit.de/2008/12/C-Seitenhieb-12</a>.)</p>\n\n<p>Regarding more specific issues:</p>\n\n<p>Employers sometimes verify CVs, but that is not your responsibility. If they need to check that you have a legitimate Ph.D. from Cairo University, then they will get in touch with the university directly to verify this. You do not need to help (and in fact they won't allow you to help, to make sure the verification is unbiased), so all you need to do is to make sure everything on your CV is true.</p>\n\n<p>You may run into people who acknowledge that you have a legitimate Ph.D. but have no idea what the standards of Cairo University are. That will give you a modest disadvantage compared with students from, say, Stanford, but there's nothing you can do about it. Ultimately, if you publish strong papers in prestigious venues, then that will matter much more than where your Ph.D. is from. If you don't, then you will not get a research job anyway, wherever you studied.</p>\n\n<p>If you are talking about upgrading the degree somehow - perhaps getting additional certification or even another degree from a particularly prestigious school - then it basically can't be done. It's not truly impossible, and I know of a couple of cases in which people with Ph.D.s from other countries enrolled as students in the U.S. in order to improve their job chances. However, most U.S. universities strongly discourage this, on the grounds that it's a waste of time and resources to devote a space in a graduate program to someone who already has a Ph.D. in the same field (or a closely related one).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1453, "author": "hnltraveler", "author_id": 782, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/782", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Although it is not possible to \"accredit\" a foreign degree, there are services out there that will determine if your foreign degree is equivalent to a degree issued by an accredited university in the United States. This type of service might be useful for immigration purposes and it might be necessary to apply for certain jobs in the United States, especially in the public sector. <a href=\"http://www.osp.state.nc.us/ExternalHome/Group5/LocalGovmt/ForeignDegreeEquiv.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">There are lists of foreign degree equivalency service providers available.</a></p>\n\n<p>If you look at the services offered by Educational Credential Evaluators, the reports <a href=\"https://www.ece.org/main/content=EvaluationServices&amp;SubSite=1&amp;LeftNav=2\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">that can be purchased</a> vary in detail (and, of course, cost). These reports are not cheap and, in most instances, probably unnecessary, so I would hold off on getting one done until I'm positive I'll need one.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1437", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/795/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1456, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To riff of off JeffE's comment:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Although only three letters of recommendation are allowed to be considered, you should always have an \"emergency\" writer on backup just in case one of the other writers can't submit the letter on time for whatever reason (sudden illness, job change, etc.). You don't want to miss out on the opportunity because somebody <em>else</em> dropped the ball.</p></li>\n<li><p>You should notify them as far in advance as is logistically possible. You should already know who your letter-writers will be; you should find out how much advance time they need now, so that you can plan accordingly in the fall.</p></li>\n<li><p>While most of those sites would count as public reach, I don't think Academia.SE would fall under that rubric. Something discipline-specific, on the other hand, would.</p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1457, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I think it's helpful to understand how NSF graduate research fellowship applications are reviewed. <em>[<strong>Caveat lector:</strong> This answer was written in <strong>2012</strong>; the application requirements and the evaluation procedure have both changed significantly since then. I strongly recommending consulting someone who has been on the review panel more recently.]</em></p>\n\n<p>Each application consists of the following components: a 2-page personal statement; a 2-page description of past research; a 2-page description of proposed future research, transcripts, and <strong><em>exactly three</em></strong> recommendation letters. If you attempt to send four, NSF simply refuses the fourth letter; on the other hand, if only two letters arrive by the deadline, your application is rejected without review.</p>\n\n<p>All 10000+ applications are reviewed in a single three-day physical meeting. Applications are split into 30+ subject areas, each considered by a separate review panel. Each panel has 20-30 members and reviews 300-400 proposals. (All these figures are ballparky; panels vary in size depending on the number of applications.)</p>\n\n<p>Before review, applications are divided into levels based on the applicants' time in graduate school: None (30%), less than a semester (30%), less than 12 months (30%), and more than 12 months (10%). All level-1 applications are reviewed together, then all level-2 applications, and so on. <strong>Expectations are significantly higher for more experienced applicants.</strong> The precise expectations obviously vary by discipline, but in computer science, pre-students need a credible research plan, early students need publishable results, and older students usually need multiple publications. The \"more than 12 months\" level is only for people with extenuating circumstances, like a <em>significant</em> change of field.</p>\n\n<p>The 12-month limit counts time that applicants have actually been registered, <em>not</em> time since entering their first graduate program. So a student who started a PhD program in August 2011 and does not register for classes this summer will still be eligible in September 2012. <strong>If you want to apply in your second year, do not take classes your first summer.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Each review consists of a \"letter grade\" (excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor) and a narrative evaluation of \"Intellectual Merit\"; a letter grade and a narrative evaluation of \"Broader Impact\"; and an overall numerical score. The panelists use the numerical scores to cluster the applications into four categories: Yes (10%), Maybe (25%), Honorable Mention (5%), and No (60%). NSF uses the narrative evaluations to decide which Maybes get fellowships and which get honorable mentions.</p>\n\n<p>Every proposal is reviewed twice, the proposals in the <em>No</em> pile are retired, and each of the remaining proposals is reviewed a third time. Thus, each reviewer reviews roughly 35-40 proposals. <strong>On average, each reviewer spends 20-30 minutes on each proposal.</strong> That's just enough time to read each of the documents once, make a snap judgement, and then assemble a narrative review from a pile of boilerplate sentences. It's brutal, especially because <strong>most applications are strong</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>So anything you can do to make your reviewers' life easier will work to your advantage. <em>Every</em> component of your application should <em>directly</em> address each of the <a href=\"http://www.nsfgrfp.org/how_to_apply/review_criteria\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">two main review criteria</a>. In particular, all three statements and all three recommendation letters should include a paragraph describing intellectual merit, starting with the phrase <strong>Intellectual Merit</strong> in boldface type, and another paragraph describing broader impact, starting with the phrase <strong>Broader Impact</strong> in boldface type. Both paragraphs should say something specific, substantial, and credible.</p>\n\n<p>For security/privacy reasons, the review panel does <em>not</em> have internet access; reviewers are not even permitted to use their own laptops. So if you use your StackExchange participation as an example of broader impact, be specific about <em>how</em> you participate; the panelists can't look up your answers or your reputation.</p>\n\n<p>Another point to keep in mind is that reviewers are probably <em>not</em> experts in the applicant's chosen subdiscipline. An application by an aspiring astrophysicist studying planetary climatology (to make up a random example) might be reviewed by a high-energy astrophysicist, an expert in planetary formation, and a string theorist. Yes, your statements must include enough field-specific technical detail in your statements to be credible, but the overall goals and merits of your proposed research should be clear to a broader audience.</p>\n\n<p>For fine details, it's always best to talk with faculty in your field who have experience with NSF fellowship winners, either as an advisor, a reference, or a panelist. (The most useful letters read \"I have written reference letters for <em>x</em> NSF fellowship applicants, of which <em>y</em> were successful; I would rank this student among the top <em>z</em> of those fellowship winners.\") It's also a good idea to talk with <a href=\"https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/grfp/AwardeeList.do?method=loadAwardeeList\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">past fellowship winners</a> in your (target) department; ask to read their applications <em>and their reviews</em>.</p>\n\n<p>See also <a href=\"http://nsfgrfp.org/applicants/tips_for_applying\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">NSF's advice</a>.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1447", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1451, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Here are a couple ways that have resulted in new research directions for me:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Reading a paper/book.</strong> Reading a paper/book can inspire new ideas. You may find that a paper is missing something, or you think of a way of doing it better, or perhaps you can combine the ideas in the paper with something you already know.</li>\n<li><strong>Obtaining funding.</strong> Often funding is obtained in groups, generally to inspire collaboration and cross-fertilization of ideas. As a result, one is <em>forced</em> to venture into new territory.</li>\n<li><strong>Talking to a colleague (generally from other institute)</strong>. Simply chatting with someone at a conference or when visiting another institute can inspire new research directions. They may have a problem; you may have the tools to solve it.</li>\n<li><strong>Changing job</strong>. This brings you in contact with new people who have new problems. Collaborations my result from conversations in the coffee room, or by going to research discussions within the new department.</li>\n<li><strong>Following up on something a student has done</strong>. You may set a masters student, for example, to look at something you find interesting, but have not yet had time to explore in depth. The student may come up with something useful, but then leaves. </li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1458, "author": "Hauser", "author_id": 213, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/213", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Some points (I'm no Prof., but which research topics might \"pay out\" (wether citations, patents, fame) is imo rather a matter of common scientific sense):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>It may be cheap/easy/time-efficient based on the current lab hardware and expertise/knowledge of the group to \"dive\" into a additional topic. So I would call this economical reasoning to exploit new research opportunities similar to funding reasons.</p></li>\n<li><p>Publish or perish. Which research fields are trendy or will become trendy and offer high chance to publish and get citations. <a href=\"http://well-formed.eigenfactor.org/\">Visualisation tools</a> for the publishing landscape or search engines might show you which fields are currently booming more or less. Or browse research forums like mathoverflow,citeulike,... to see what top and experienced scientist are currently interested in.</p></li>\n<li><p>Finding a niche, which needs of course a really good overview on and understanding of a research field. Contrary to bullet point 2, focusing on a topic/problem no one else is interested in or thinks of may give you the chance to become a trendsetter, find a new effect/phenomenon and may earn you a lot \"automatic\" citations.</p></li>\n<li><p>simply working off the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems\">list of unsolved problems</a> :) (Wikipedia knows also, what we don't know!), <a href=\"http://www.openproblems.net/\">http://www.openproblems.net/</a>, science's magazine <a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5731/78.2.full\">125 big questions</a></p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1463, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/1451/73\">Dave Clarke's answer</a> is excellent, and just to add a few more:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Changing funding opportunities</strong>. The unfortunate reality is that grants are often hard to come by, and it's not unusual for professors to tailor specific grant applications to the nature of the grants being offered. Depending on how unpopular the professor's previous research interests are at the time, this may result in a shift in research topics.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Single topic diverges into multiple topics</strong>. To describe this via example, at one time our lab was working on a neural imaging project related to human decision making. This research led to investigating decision-making on a larger scale, as we tried to create computational models. This led to a few papers detailing the applications of <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ontologies</a> to behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. Simply by following the various aspects of the project we were able to investigate a wide range of topics.</p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2047, "author": "Dan C", "author_id": 1069, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1069", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>As much as possible, I'd encourage you to pick research topics because they really interest you, rather than because you think you can get funding for them. It's so much easier to bring passion and energy to your research when you love it (rather than when you've chosen it to get funding). That said here are a few more ways to develop new research interests.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p><strong>Hear a talk</strong> at a conference.</p></li>\n<li><p>Write a paper with a <strong>colleague who knows a different area than you</strong>.</p></li>\n<li><p>Chase <strong>references for a paper you are reading or writing</strong>. I often learn quite a bit the first time that I write the introduction of a paper in an area that's new to me.</p></li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1449", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1455, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Actually, I prefer to have the résumé or CV attached in the email. If there's not enough detail for me to decide if someone is going to be able to actively contribute to the group, there's no incentive for me to pursue the candidate further. </p>\n\n<p>That said, if someone tells me in the body of the email something like: \"I have done X, Y, and Z; and would like to do A and B using method C,\" then that's OK. At a certain point, the letter does provide enough information for me to determine that (a) the student is competent and (b) will be a good fit for my group. However, my response would be: \"That's great—sounds like you're what we're looking for. Can you send me a CV and a list of references?\" So we're right back to square one.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1460, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I slightly prefer attachments. The problem is that I'm reluctant to reply to e-mails asking for more information, or even to show up on server logs following links, because it may be interpreted as a sign of interest.</p>\n\n<p>Like most faculty members (at least in technical areas), I get enormous numbers of junk e-mails regarding PhD positions or summer research. The general pattern is that they are form letters sent to large numbers of people, almost all of whom ignore the letters. If anyone replies in anything but the most discouraging way, then it inspires a potentially lengthy e-mail exchange that will probably just waste everyone's time.</p>\n\n<p>This is a real problem, and I don't know what to do about it. It's not really fair, but right now the burden is on applicants to stand out from the junk e-mails. In particular, your e-mail should provide compelling proof that you spent at least as long thinking about it and writing it as you expect the faculty member to spend on it. If it looks like it could be a form letter with the professor's name and research topic pasted in, then I'll ignore it, as will many other people. [I should point out that I work in a department with centralized admissions, so I cannot accept students on my own. This is explained on my web page and the department's.]</p>\n\n<p>For example, a clearly personalized e-mail that discusses the professor's research in detail is good. Keep in mind that plenty of people are trying to cheat with this. For example, I regularly receive e-mails saying something like \"I found your paper X fascinating when we read it in our seminar\", with no further details. This looks like a form letter, and there have been a couple of times when I've received e-mails from the same sender that were identical except for having different paper titles pasted in, with no indication that they had previously e-mailed me about another paper. Maybe a few e-mails are genuine, but they sure look like lies.</p>\n\n<p>So when I get an e-mail regarding PhD admissions or summer research, I'm very skeptical that it's more than spam. There's a five or ten second window to convince me that it's different from the other e-mails, before I set it aside. If it looks promising, then I'll read further, and I'm a little more likely to do so if any information I need is available right there. So I'd recommend attaching whatever is needed.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 9546, "author": "Peter Jansson", "author_id": 4394, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4394", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I do not mind getting a résumé attached to e-mails. However, a tendency I have noted is that I also tend to get scanned copies of assorted certificates sometimes numbering several tens of Mb files. There is no way I will run through such quantities of information. So if you send a résumé, make it brief and to the point. </p>\n\n<p>As Aeismail points out, also make the mail itself concise and clear as to what you are looking for. It may seem like a lengthy mail may be more polite but remember that e-mails are typically used for brief messages. Your mail will end up as one of perhaps hundred on a particular day and a lengthy mail may be put in the \"to do list\" and postponed until enough time is free to read it (which usually does not happen).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1450", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1454, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The first point is impossible to carry out without a cross-sample of the professor's existing letters; obtaining such a cross-sample, however, is just as unethical as writing one's own letter of recommendation. The second is difficult for someone without experience of writing their own letters of recommendation, and the third point is challenging for anyone who isn't a good writer of his or her own accord.</p>\n\n<p>In general, I have to admit that most letters of recommendation I receive from candidates in non-Western countries falls under the rubric of \"not helpful to the candidate\"; many actively hurt the candidate's chances by not providing any distinguishing information that can help me make a case for why this should be the one candidate in 20 we choose to admit. (Yes, we have an admit rate below 5% in my program!) On the other hand, having seen a number of candidates' applications with letters of recommendation that contain similar phrasing, I can attest that this usually raises my hackles—and usually leads me to rejecting such candidates from further consideration.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1465, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The ethics of the question is moot here; this practice is widespread, and the questioner is asking for a solution to his problem, not for an ethical reform of the international academic community.</p>\n\n<p>The guidelines for such a letter would be identical to writing any other letter of recommendation. If you must write your own and have a professor sign off on it, read up on <a href=\"http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Write-a-Good/45944\">how to write a good letter of recommendation</a> and follow any tips you may come across. You probably have little to no experience writing letters such as this one; there are many subtle nuances, both in what you say and in what you don't say. Take the time to write it correctly. If you find yourself completely stuck, ask someone else with experience to write it.</p>\n\n<p>If you're having difficulty writing a letter about yourself, imagine you're writing about a colleague who has done all the things you have done. It may make the task easier.</p>\n\n<p>Regarding trying to mimic the professor's style, if he asked you to write your own letter, then he likely asked all his other students to write <em>their</em> own letters. There will be no consistent style, and that will be a reality of this individual's letter. If the department/faculty member receiving the letter has received letters from this professor in the past, this likely will count against you, and you should consider that when asking this person for a recommendation.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1466, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When I applied for graduate studies, one of my recommendation letter providers was not that comfortable in English; he asked me to write the letter completely on my own and give it to him. He would edit it if necessary and then would submit it. I knew that he would not make many edits. </p>\n\n<p>The point in such cases is to make a compromise: between the authenticity/credibility of the letter (which should ideally reduce your involvement) and the helping the language shortcomings of the professor (increasing your involvement)</p>\n\n<p>As far as your 3 points are concerned, I strongly am against all of them.</p>\n\n<p>Here is how you can try reaching a compromise:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>In case the professor's first language is NOT English (which I believe is the case in India), go to him and talk to him in whatever language and extract bullet points of what he would like to write in a letter for you. The problem with most colleges is that the professor might have things to say but owing to language barriers, is unable to say it coherently in English. Thus, they are hesitant in writing their own letters. Go to him and explain it to him clearly what a recommendation letter is supposed to be and it's structure. Ask him for things he would like to say. It is important to let him be frank. Sometimes, they can be a bit hesitant to talk openly (if you don't make an atmosphere where you welcome negative comments about you, he will be very hesitant) make sure you are creating an open discussion.</p></li>\n<li><p>Convert those bullet points into a skeleton. For instance, suppose he liked your analytical abilities but found you to be lazy (&amp; cited classroom/research experiences for the same), you can have a skeleton like :\n<em>Only student to have solved difficult problem - Analytical skills high - usually late with assignments although they are well thought - maybe lazy</em></p></li>\n<li><p>Go over this process (talk, skeleton, talk, skeleton) till you have clarity in your skeleton. This might happen in the first attempt if the environment is set right or it might take several. It should contain essentials without grammar. Example (fictional):\n<em>taught 3 courses, did well in all, strong:analysis,math,communication, weak:lazy,impatient, only student to have scored 100/100 in finals,add some examples or whatever</em></p></li>\n<li><p>Give this to the professor to write it off assisting him when required. Although he might still be hesitant, try to work up a compromise.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Although this might not answer your actual question, I felt it was necessary to think of a way to cut through the problem when professors wish to give you the letter, have good things to say, have time but can't.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1587, "author": "just_somebody", "author_id": 875, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/875", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is a larger question at hand:</p>\n\n<p><strong>Why have you people been historically trusting a signed piece of paper?</strong></p>\n\n<p>There is never any good proof the person who wrote the text has been honest, even if this person holds a professor position at some university.</p>\n\n<p>Letters of recommendations is the historic absurd which make no sense whatsoever.</p>\n\n<p>Me too I had my letters of recommendations written not by professors but by other people who knew me (I'm from Russia). Why? Because when I approached professors only one really took the time and effort to write one, while others honestly said they didn't know how to write something like that and they didn't know me well enough to be a judge to my character. They told me to get the text written any way I liked it and they would sign it. That was it. So I asked other people if they would be kind enough to write a few words about me and they were.</p>\n\n<p>There hasn't been a history of writing letters of recommendations in my country, then what do you expect people to do if they wish to apply to a Western university? They do fake letters and they will continue to do so for as long as this stupid practice exists.</p>\n\n<p>The best advice I can give here is to ask somebody else who knows you well and knows your subject area well to write a letter for you. If you attempt to write about yourself it may eventually suck.</p>\n\n<p>One other thought: in some countries (notably Germany) there is a practice of putting watermarks in this sort of papers (sequencing of words, particular wording and other tricks) to convey hidden information about the person. Sometimes it would make sense to put a notice into the letter stating that this text has been written by e.g a Chinese professor who is not familiar with hidden language ubiquitous in e.g Germany. Should such things be discovered this should be attributed to mere coincidence and should be discarded as such, the text written should be understood as it is written with no \"alternative\" interpretation.</p>\n\n<p>With regard to the hidden language of reference letters:</p>\n\n<p>The keywords to google for are \"Geheimsprache\", \"Geheimcodes\", \"Zeugnissprache\". There are tons of pages. Just a few to provide an overview:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.zeugnisdeutsch.de/arbeitszeugnis/geheimcodes.php\" rel=\"nofollow\">Geheimcodes</a></p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.arbeitszeugnis.de/arbeitszeugnis-code.php\" rel=\"nofollow\">Der Arbeitszeugnis-Code</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1677, "author": "Frenchfries", "author_id": 919, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/919", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A lot has already said in previous comments. I will add the following points.</p>\n\n<p>When you wrtie a letter of recommendation for others or yourself for others to endorse, make sure you write and justify :</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>In which circumstances have you know the recommendee (student) and for how long ( 4 years undergrad.) in which capacity ( I am his professor of Biology) ?</p></li>\n<li><p>What is your impression of his academic achievements and skills\n(you have to back up with facts your statement) ?</p></li>\n<li><p>What do you think of his character and personality ?</p></li>\n<li><p>How much (strongly, simply) do you recommend him/her for other institutions ?</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I hope this helps.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 14849, "author": "penelope", "author_id": 4249, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/4249", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I realize this is a very old question, but I guess no harm in me adding my two pennies even after a year.</p>\n\n<p>I agree that it's not good practice writing letters for oneself, but, a lot of bad things happen in academia and this is one of them. It happened to me, and that with a good and dedicated professor: it was just a set of circumstances.</p>\n\n<p>While I asked this person for a letter a few months in advance and he agreed to write it when I apply somewhere, when I stumbled upon my (then, potential, now, current) supervisors, realized we want to work together, there was about a week left to apply for the grant. When I asked for a recommendation, the professor was on a conference / trip and could not find the time to do it himself. He asked me for <strong>a \"draft\" to see what points the letter should cover</strong> which he actually did modify later. And I have a feeling he would have preferred to write it than to just modify my writing, but, hey, <em>circumstances</em>.</p>\n\n<p>So, the points I was focusing on when I was writing the letter:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>For <strong>each letter-writer</strong> I contacted, <strong>I had a specific purpose in mind</strong>. Each of those people could <strong>attest to a different set of skills and give a different view of me</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>_{^{This particular letter was to attest how I have diverse interests (the professor had me on some small extra-curriculum classes), and how I'm good with working with students and explaining stuff (I did some T.A.-like work for him).}}</p>\n\n<p>So, basically, I wrote about the experiences, facts and results that made me want to ask this person for a letter in the first place. Shortly: <strong>Keep to the point and don't digress too much.</strong></p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Support your statements by facts.</strong></p>\n\n<p>(I guess) nobody wants a read list of synonyms for \"awesome\". A good rule might be: <em>situation</em> (in which the professor was working with you), <em>result</em> (of your working in that situation), <em>conclusions</em> and <em>reasoning</em> (about your ability, based on the situation).</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Try to put the conclusions in context with what you are applying for.</strong></p>\n\n<p>If you are writing a letter attesting (among other things) that you have diverse interests. Maybe you're applying something that is slightly different from your current/previous works, and having diverse interests and an aptitude for learning is certainly a strong point.</p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Make sure your language is flawless.</strong></p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Keep to a structure.</strong> (not like my bullet points)</p>\n\n<p>A good one might be: <em>firstly</em>, introduce the professor. Shortly list all or some of the situations which make that professor a relevant and good choice for a reference. <em>Secondly</em>, for the \"meat\", expand on the reasoning for the recommendation. <em>Lastly</em>, summarize the good points and their relevance to the position you are applying for, and <strong>include a sentence explicitly saying that you the professor would recommend you</strong>. Something, maybe, like <em>Based on my experience with Mister X., I would wholeheartedly recommend X for the position Y.</em></p></li>\n<li><p><strong>Don't write a novel.</strong> One page should be quite enough. (again, not like my answer :) )</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>I think this advice should not only <strong>help you to write a passable / good recommendation letter</strong>, <strong>but also increase the chances of the professor actually reading and reviewing what you wrote</strong> instead of just signing it. If everything is written concise and to the point, the professor (even the one with very little free time), might be more inclined to change things, because he can identify faster what he disagrees with, what he maybe wants to expand, add, or omit.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1452", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1461, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Yes, that's a problem, and you will absolutely want to fix it. The problem is that it's actually a two-stage problem to correct:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>First, you will need to contact the journal to fix the citation.</li>\n<li>Then, after the citation has been corrected in the article, you'll need to submit a correction request to the various citation trackers (such as ISI and Scopus). They will need to fix your citation in their database, if the article has already been entered. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Note: It may or may not be possible to correct the journal—the editors may or may not be willing to issue a correction to fix a reference. However, it may be possible to correct the reference with the citation indices, even if it's not correct in the journal. However, the road will be tougher; you'll need to show that the paper that should be cited is indisputably yours.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2312, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In addition to the earlier answer, you may also want to email the authors of the paper and inform them of their error, providing the correct bibliographic information, to prevent the problem in the future.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1459", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/675/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1468, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't like it either. My understanding is that it's for historical reasons: in the dark ages, publishers asked for double-spaced manuscripts (produced on typewriters) because it would leave space for the typesetters to mark up the manuscript. Some authors got used to doing this and have continued the tradition to this day, despite the fact that publishers no longer care, and a few younger authors even imitate it. I think a lot of people find it a little annoying, but they typically don't care enough to complain to the authors, so it will take a while for this practice to die out.</p>\n\n<p>P.S. It's not just the arXiv, but also journal submissions.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1491, "author": "David Z", "author_id": 236, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/236", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>I think the real underlying cause is just what Anonymous Mathematician said, that having a double-spaced version of a paper is more convenient for going through and making notes on a printed copy. But it's not just a phenomenon of the dark ages; many people still do this today during the revision process when a paper is being prepared for submission.</p>\n\n<p>In fact, at least in physics (my field), the tradition of double-spacing is perpetuated by the fact that at least <a href=\"https://authors.aps.org/revtex4/\">one of the major journal publishers' LaTeX class</a> defaults to a <code>preprint</code> mode which sets the line spacing to double. It is possible to change this to single line spacing by passing a class option for the appropriate journal (<code>pra</code>, <code>prb</code>, <code>prl</code>, etc.), but many authors forget to do this - and somewhat understandably, I think, because their job is to do research, not to be proficient with LaTeX. I would imagine that a similar situation might arise with LaTeX classes used by other publishers and in other fields.</p>\n\n<p>It's worth noting that arXiv <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/help/submit_tex#double\">recommends</a> <em>not</em> submitting in double-spaced mode. But probably very few submitters have the patience to read through the instructions in their entirety.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1464", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1470, "author": "Lev Reyzin", "author_id": 10, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Edit:</strong> This answer applies only to the US.</p>\n\n<p>For me, the typical case seemed to be:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Day 1: Fly in mid-afternoon. Meet your faculty host and 3-4 faculty members for dinner where you have informal discussions about research, the university, or anything else.</li>\n<li>Day 2: This is the main day. The day lasts from about 8am until about 6pm. You give your 1 hour talk, interview with about 6 different members of the faculty (sometimes more if the meetings are in groups), have lunch, meet with graduate students, meet with the dean, and meet with the chair. After 6pm, you usually get taken to dinner with 3-4 more members of the faculty.</li>\n<li>Day 3: Sometimes you'll have breakfast with your host, sometimes not. Then you fly out.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It also wasn't so different for research labs. Just replace \"faculty member\" with \"research scientist.\"</p>\n\n<p>I'd say that these visits aren't any longer than a prospective Ph.D. visit, but much more intensive. Also, Ph.D. students usually visit after being admitted, whereas faculty members visit to interview.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1479, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Once again, this depends on where you're applying for jobs. In the US, the typical interview is between one and three days, with public presentation, closed presentation to the faculty (or hiring committee), and one-on-one meetings with faculty and possibly students.</p>\n\n<p>In contrast, in Germany, where I now work, the interview is just a public presentation and an interview with the hiring committee. There are no one-on-one meetings, and the idea that they should be scheduled (when I asked about them) struck the organizer of the interview as an entirely novel idea. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1469", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1477, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Two points from experience (as a student):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Don't ask/talk about something that can be googled</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If you want to talk about the professor's research interest, that's great but the key point is not to talk/ask things that can be answered in a Google search. Asking a professor about his research interest might qualify as one of these cases. Checking his webpage (if updated) might answer the question. \"Why did you use X instead of Y in your paper titled Z\" might probably be a good question to ask (depending upon the occasion). \n<em>Now that I reread my answer, I feel professors are like SE sites. Ask closed non-google-able questions while showing interest and initiative and you will have a good time.</em></p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Gauge the occasion</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Needless to say, meeting a professor for the first time in an orientation party, conference or a course orientation might call for different \"first conversations\". Don't force what you want to talk about on the professor. (But then, this is true for all people not just professors.)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1483, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It depends on the context I guess. </p>\n\n<p>If you are alone at a coffee break, and eager to discuss with someone, you should maybe consider discussing on something else, or on someone else research (talk about the talk just before the break, talk about the nice venue, talk about the quality of the banquet, etc.).</p>\n\n<p>But If you have a purpose wrt talking to a specific person, go straight to the point. You have a technical question about one of my paper, ask it! You are looking for an intership, say it! Don't try to be too smart by starting a broad discussion that you will narrow later. You have only a few minutes to go from the status of \"yet another boring chitchat\" to \"mmm, interesting\", don't spoil these minutes.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1471", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1474, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>\"Published\" is a vague word, since for example you can even self-publish a book.</p>\n\n<p>Ideally, a published book will have been carefully selected and edited, widely distributed, archived in many libraries, etc. How close it comes to this ideal varies, of course.</p>\n\n<p>I don't know whether what you are describing would meet a formal definition of publication, but I'd be careful about how you describe it.</p>\n\n<p>For example, if your book has an ISBN, is labeled with a publisher like \"X University Press\", and is publicly offered for sale (perhaps only through the university's website and university bookstore), then I would consider it published, even if only on a small scale. (It may be cheap, but there's no requirement that a published book must have gilded pages.) However, that sounds unlikely to be true in the case you've described.</p>\n\n<p>Instead, you could describe it in other ways:</p>\n\n<p>If anyone who wants a copy can buy one by getting in touch with your department, then you could describe it as a \"book distributed by the Department of ... at University X\".</p>\n\n<p>If your book is not offered for sale to anyone except students in the course, then you might describe it as a \"book prepared as course materials for ... at University X\".</p>\n\n<p>You might also want to specify something like the number of pages, to help distinguish between a lengthy book and shorter lecture notes.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 103141, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is more a question of definitions, and I disagree with the 2 current answers.</p>\n\n<p>Publish is a more general word than print, but the 2 words are not even really related.</p>\n\n<p>To publish a book means to have it printed and to make it available to the public (which could be for free, or for sale).</p>\n\n<p>Printing is only related to printed press, so note that publishing an article in a scientific journal may require no printing.</p>\n\n<p>You can publish a game on steam, which requires no printing.</p>\n\n<p>So publishing something really means to \"ship\" it. Publishing means saying \"this is the final (or maybe just the first) version, and it's ready for you guys to read\". And to make it available to the world. Publishing something means it's no longer your private information/document/product/program etc - it is available for purchase/free.</p>\n\n<p>Note that the definition require that the content be made \"public\". Some may interpret this to mean that because only students at your university can buy it, it is not really public, so you can't use the word \"publish\". This is not accurate. Even in such a case the book is considered published and is considered publicly available to the whole world because anyone in the world could become a student of your university and could then purchase the book. Note that some scientific journal articles which \"publish\" their journals, only sell their articles selectively to users who have a specific subscription from a research body or a university. These are still considered published, because anyone could get access to such a subscription and would then be able to purchase the articles.</p>\n\n<p>Regarding the specific details of your situation: your book would be considered published. Since you would have a finished book ready for print, you could consider contacting other publishers and getting a deal for them to publish it further, nationwide or worldwide.</p>\n\n<p>So yes the book would be published, just as when I hit \"Post your answer\" I am publishing my answer. The difference is that I am publishing an answer, while you are publishing a book to your university book shop. So congratulations and please consider contacting other publishers and expanding it further.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 103148, "author": "Acccumulation", "author_id": 80651, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/80651", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The \"vernacular\" meanings of \"publish\" and \"print\" overlap quite a bit, but academically and legally, there are significant differences. Academically, \"publish\" implies a level of peer review, endorsement, and selectivity that \"print\" does not. Otherwise, the term \"published author\" would be a meaningless term. Legally, \"publish\" also implies a level of editorial discretion and endorsement that \"print\" does not. If you write a book making a bunch of assertions about someone, then not only you but also its publisher are liable in a libel suit if the claims can be shown false. But if the \"publisher\" is simply a print shop that allows the general public to print anything for a fee, and it does not exercise any control over the content of the material, then it will not be liable. An issue in the early days of the internet was in what category sites like Stack Exchange fall: is this answer that you are now reading \"printed\" by SE, or is it \"published\" by SE? This has been largely resolved towards \"printed\" by <a href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act</a>:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1472", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1492, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The cynical answer is \"nothing\". But in truth there are other ways to monitor progress and dole out rewards/lack of reward. </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>If your productivity drops off a cliff after tenure, you're unlikely to get promoted to full professor (US-specific), and get the associated salary increases etc. You may be comfortable with this (less service is a good thing!)</li>\n<li>Some universities do 5-yearly post-tenure review. Doing poorly on such reviews can lead to loss of raises, reduced access to new space and facilities, increased service load (if you're not pulling in funding or teaching well for example), and so on. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>but ultimately, the final incentive is your own desire to perform. It's very hard to fire faculty. But administrators can try to kill entire departments. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1502, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Universities can and do fire tenured faculty who are egregiously derelict in their duties — doing <em>no</em> research, performing <em>no</em> service to the university, and doing <em>no</em> (or only perfunctory) teaching — or how have committed a truly serious ethical or criminal offense.</p>\n\n<p>But even under these circumstances, firing a tenured faculty member requires extensive documentation (in the case of \"just not doing their job\", covering a period of several years) and a long legal battle that is expensive for both sides. When faced with the necessary mountain of evidence, I suspect most offending faculty are convinced to resign instead.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1536, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>At good universities it is very difficult to get tenure if you aren't very much driven to be an academic, that is, self motivated. There may thus be a little slackening off, but often not much. I've known of academics who got divorced <strong>after</strong> tenure because their spouses hadn't realised they just really did love working that way and were never going to change. I don't recommend that; it does make sense to balance your life a bit more when your job is safe. Organisations that can't allow their employees to age gracefully and live full lives will lose a lot of valuable talent. But in general, tenured faculty are either still very active or else quite useful for administration.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1478", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1485, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you need to distribute stuff anonymously via the web, as far as code goes, you could create a pseudonymous github or Google account for a \"project,\" and then make it accessible during the review period. Once the review period is finished, you could delete the site, if intellectual property issues are a concern.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1486, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>There are three criteria: the solution must obscure your identity, it must not allow you to learn anything about the reviewers, and the second criterion must be common knowledge.</p>\n\n<p>Any attempt to distribute files yourself through the web will fail to satisfy these conditions. For example, if you use a website you own (under a pseudonym, say), then you can inspect the logs. Even if you have arranged to use a service that will not provide any logs or allow you to tag pages or link to outside services, the reviewers may not notice that you have done so, and they may not even be willing to believe that you are not doing something tricky.</p>\n\n<p>So this is a problem you cannot solve yourself. You should get in touch with the program committee chair and ask whether the committee could make this data available to the reviewers. As long as it goes through them, it doesn't matter how they provide it.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1481", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1484, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Given the complexity of the modern PhD thesis, and the number of references to other works in the literature that such a work would normally contain, being able to catch plagiarism can be difficult. This is especially true when you only have a printed version of the thesis to work from. Moreover, the time to review a thesis is normally quite short—a few weeks to a month at most. Given the number of <em>other</em> responsibilities most faculty members have, it's unlikely that they're actually able to verify every fact and every citation, let alone check for evidence of plagiarism!</p>\n\n<p>On a general level, it is also assumed that everybody plays by the rules, and that therefore plagiarism shouldn't be likely in a PhD thesis. Only if suspicions somehow get raised do people take a second look. It's probably an invalid assumption, but it keeps the system moving. Unless we want to move to a QA-like scheme in which every claim and source has to be verified against the original, I'm not sure what other options there are. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1487, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Plagarism in journal publications is a large concern because the professors are often running their own labs, doing their own research, with very little oversight. The only chance to catch fraud is through a careful analysis of their publications, which is done both by the publications themselves, their peers, and the public at large.</p>\n\n<p>Regarding PhD theses, the student is working with an advisor, doing (hopefully) original research. Any actual publications the student submits will go through the peer-review process, which will hopefully find any plagiarized references. Regarding the dissertation itself, it's often simply cut-and-paste from their actual publications, and once submitted, never read again.</p>\n\n<p>It's likely for this reason that people probably don't dedicate much effort to finding plagiarized works in their thesis. The student <em>is</em> doing original work, as verified by their advisor and their committee, and any publications by the student have been peer-reviewed. No one cares about their thesis, and if they try to continue their behavior as they progress in their career then they'll simply get caught when it actually matters (i.e., during the peer-review process) in the future.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1488, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The problem is that the PhD system is designed for people who intend to become researchers. For these cases, plagiarism is not at all a common problem. You are expected to published your research, and you will not have a successful career unless it is widely read and cited. That gives lots of opportunities to get caught, and the penalties for plagiarism are a huge deterrent.</p>\n\n<p>To the extent you find plagiarism, it's generally people who do not want a research career, but instead view the PhD simply as an obstacle on the road to a teaching (or other) career. Probably the community should scrutinize these sorts of theses more carefully, but it can be hard to work up the energy to do so when most of them are OK, and when these theses really don't matter much for the research world.</p>\n\n<p>The German politicians are pretty much the worst case scenario. In the US, the stereotypical case is educational administrators. Typically, you have a distinguished person who starts to feel the need for a PhD. Perhaps it's because they associate with academics and feel looked down upon, or perhaps it's because an academic endorsement would make the public value their expertise more. This student is very smart and accomplished, and nobody suspects them of any dishonesty. However, they are also very busy, often working on a PhD while pursuing other projects as well, and academic research is not a priority. At some point, they succumb to pressure and start taking shortcuts. Probably it starts with small things, but the shortcuts gradually grow larger. They rationalize that the thesis doesn't really matter anyway, because they have no intention of following an academic career track. After all, they have the knowledge and experience, and they deserve the PhD title, so what difference does one document make anyway? Meanwhile, the advisor probably doesn't spend that much time working with the student, and has no reason to suspect anything. The advisor really ought to be extra careful in cases like this, but that would seem like an insult to the student, so it's easiest just to trust them.</p>\n\n<p>So my take on this is that plagiarism is not as widespread as news stories might suggest. It's just particularly likely to happen in cases where it would attract media attention.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1495, "author": "Nicolai Reuschling", "author_id": 764, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/764", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is not a proper answer to the question at hand but since Ivar Persson used the term \"responsible\" - I only see <em>one</em> responsibility*: The responsibility of the PhD candidate to follow the main academic goal: the search for the truth with true methods and true intent.</p>\n\n<p>Do we really blame mentors (or: advisors) for failing to detect plagiarism when the problem is on the other side of this mentor-mentee relationship? .</p>\n\n<p>_{* for a responsibility term close to what Christopher Avery proposes}</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10521, "author": "Benoît Kloeckner", "author_id": 946, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It seems like no one thought of who sounds obvious to me: the PhD examination jury. It bears the responsibility to award the thesis, is made of international experts of the field, and should therefore be able to detect ideas that have been borrowed; also the advisor, who supervised the work, has a prominent responsibility among them. </p>\n\n<p>I do not buy the argument according to which an advisor might have trouble detecting plagiarism of a obscure paper: she often propose the questions to the student, and should therefore know the surrounding literature.</p>\n\n<p>More precisely, there may be cases where the plagiarism is difficult to catch; nevertheless, right after the author these people, to who the university asks whether the work deserves a PhD, have the main responsibility.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 38573, "author": "DaveC49", "author_id": 29118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/29118", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>All of the candidate, his/her advisors, examiners, colleagues and peers have levels of responsibility for detecting plagiarism, however it is not the primary objective of a Ph.D. system. The primary objective is to determine whether the candidate has the ability to carry out research, think logically and clearly about that research and communicate the results of the research, the implications and possible directions for further research based on the results. </p>\n\n<p>When it is detected, the serious consequences (loss of reputation, loss of career, public exposure etc.) are the principal deterrent to others. Of course advisors and examiners should be actively on the lookout for plagiarism however their principle activity is to advise on the development of the work and examine the result of the work. Ph.D.s are, in some cases, supervised and examined by early career researchers, who may not have the depth and breadth of knowledge of the literature to detect some cases of plagiarism. No matter what, the candidate carries the ultimate responsibility.</p>\n\n<p>No system we can devise will ever be perfect. Students are not often given much guidance about what constitutes plagiarism, other than having to sign and agree to be bound by the universities policy on it. There is far more advice available now than when I did my PH.D., and many more sources of advice on what constitutes plagiarism. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1482", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/314/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1501, "author": "Ivar Persson", "author_id": 314, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/314", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Mentioning the city in the bibliography is important because sometimes the same edition published in different cities would have <strong>different pagination</strong>, and occasionally even <strong>redacted content</strong>. Therefore when someone wants to look up the original source, they need to have this additional information available to them.</p>\n\n<p>Another important reason to keep the bibliographic information on place of publication is for reasons of style. Many of us might have bibliographies stretching a century or more, and it would look odd to mention place for some and not for others. </p>\n\n<p>But naturally changes in citation styles are continual, and another element of the citation that is of lessening importance is the page number for journal articles. For one of my publications, I was actually required to <em>remove</em> the page numbers in the in text citation, because the relevant information is easier to find using a search engine rather than by leafing to the correct page in a printed copy.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1768, "author": "D.W.", "author_id": 705, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/705", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In most cases, mentioning the city in the bibliography is not important. It appears to be largely a legacy of older practices. For this reason, I usually don't include the name of the city in my references, unless there is some particular reason to include it.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1490", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/18/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1499, "author": "Gopi", "author_id": 87, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/87", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I disagree with the statement that a PhD student never doubt a published article (at least in my field).</p>\n\n<p>This said, it seems to me that one of the first work of a PhD student is to read and \"review\" papers: for example, when we start a new project, my advisors always ask me to do a whole bibliographical work, sum up the papers read to them, comment them, try to find what is good and what can be improved in the previous work. Even after, I am also asked to always follow on the new papers that could correspond to our work.</p>\n\n<p>I believe it is one of the work of the advisor to help her/his PhD student to learn to do this sort of work.</p>\n\n<p>Then if one really wants to review unreviewed papers, there is always <a href=\"http://arxiv.org\">ArXiv</a> (or other equivalent repository for papers) where one can subscribe to the rss feed, then work on reviewing for oneself (or for one's advisor) the papers read that are close to your work.</p>\n\n<p>Since your question seemed to be how can we <em>do</em> a review, I believe it is not important whether it is an official review or not: the important part was to review a paper in the first place.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1500, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 6, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm going to address your question, but first, I have some issues with it generally:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I think that one of the problems of most PhD students (and postDocs and researchers in general) nowadays is that they don't read scientific papers with a critical judgement. They often think that everything is right in a scientific paper; they're not used to doubting its content...</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is manifestly not true in my opinion. Indeed in my experience (and I've seen this shared by others), I've watched faculty members reign in students who had torn into a published paper for what were essentially minor methodological flaws that wouldn't change the substantive findings of the paper one way or the other. I think a far more common problem is \"failing to see the forest from the trees\".</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>But, anyway, review opportunities for PhD students are not many.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>They can be. I've reviewed 4 or 5 papers for journals in my time as a PhD student, and a disheartening number of conference abstracts.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>How does one solve this problem?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There are three ways I've gotten papers to review:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Your advisor puts in a good word for you. Essentially, a journal asks them to review a paper (or if they're an editor somewhere, a paper hits their pile) and they redirect it to you, either formally or informally.</li>\n<li>Publish. All of the papers I've reviewed are in areas where I already have a well received publication, which bypasses the \"Journals don't think PhD students are competent\" problem.</li>\n<li>Some conferences put out calls for reviewers. Keep an eye out and sign up.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>What would you suggest a PhD student who wants to do some review?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Publish. The strongest way I've ever ended up getting papers to review has been from papers I've published. Talk to your advisor. Look out for opportunities - I've seen at least three calls for reviewers in my time expressly open to students. This also gives you an experience <em>being</em> reviewed, which is important both for honing your own skills as a reviewer, and something you need to learn how to deal with.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Are there any open-to-review journals where one could train oneself?</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>You don't need a journal to do this. One of the most useful things you can do to train is to get a faculty member to support a journal club where, in addition to presenting the paper, the student writes a critique in the style of a review. Not only does this force you to read the paper you're presenting more closely, but it will let you learn in a protected, mentored environment rather than \"out in the wild\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1504, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Just to add some personal experience to the other answers. I did quite a lot of reviews as my advisor and other people in my group who were on programme committees asked me to do some of the reviews they were assigned to do.</p>\n\n<p>As far as I can tell, this is quite common practice in Computer Science. You would probably have more trouble avoiding doing reviews than doing them.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2595, "author": "gerrit", "author_id": 1033, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I don't know what field you're in, but in my field, there exist journals with a public discussion phase. Anybody can comment. For example, <a href=\"http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/2/315/2011/esdd-2-315-2011-discussion.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">this interesting paper explaining why there is no easy way out to anthropogenic climate change</a> had a lengthy discussion (most papers do not). Assigned peer reviewers are required to comment, and naturally the author is required to respond. But in addition, anybody else can respond. Unlike Stack Exchange, there is no voting (-;.</p>\n\n<p>In geophysical sciences, the European Geophysical Union has the following two-stage journals (as of July 2012):</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.atmos-meas-tech-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Atmospheric Measurement Techniques &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.biogeosciences-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Biogeosciences &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.clim-past-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Climate of the Past &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.drink-water-eng-sci-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Drinking water Engineering Science &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Earth System Dynamics &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Earth System Science Data &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.geosci-instrum-method-data-syst-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.geosci-model-dev-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Geoscientific Model Development &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Hydrology and Earth System Sciences &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Ocean Science &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.soc-geogr-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Social Geography &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.solid-earth-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Solid Earth &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">The Cryosphere &amp; Discussions</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Possibly, there may be other fields where such kind of journals exist. Then you can exercise your reviewing by posting an unrequited review for a paper — note, however, that unrequited reviews (short comments) are not formally anonymous — although I have seen instances of people posting under a false name...</p>\n\n<p>For a discussion on the wisdom of actually posting there, see: <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2510/pros-and-cons-on-commenting-on-public-review-papers\">Pros and cons on commenting on public review papers</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1498", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1506, "author": "dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten", "author_id": 440, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/440", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><s>I don't see where it says that you must have a institutional affiliation,</s> \nReading comprehension is not my strength.</p>\n\n<p>It also says that you must represent your affiliation correctly. If your current employment is concerned with certain areas of Computer Science or Mathematics (and your paper is in a related area) this will probably count. Otherwise, I'd suggest entering \"none\", as that is the truth of the matter.</p>\n\n<p>However, I believe that without either an affiliation or a history with arXiv they will expect you to <a href=\"http://arxiv.org/help/endorsement\">get endorsed before they accept your submissions</a>.</p>\n\n<p>As for finding endorser they write</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>If you're looking for an endorsement, you can find somebody qualified to endorse by clicking on the link titled \"Which of these authors are endorsers?\" at the bottom of every abstract.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Now all that is left is for you to convince one of these people that you are serious and competent. Assuming that you were previously affiliated with a institution in the appropriate field you should probably use your contacts there to get in touch with an endorser: they are like to suspect that anyone who contacts them out of the blue is a Not-Very-Serious-Person (tm).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1508, "author": "John R Ramsden", "author_id": 821, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/821", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>If you have no luck, you can always fall back on <a href=\"http://vixra.org/\">http://vixra.org/</a> [ <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViXra\">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViXra</a> ]</p>\n\n<p>Many papers there look distinctly dubious at the very least, or trivial, as one would expect from an unmoderated repository. But I'm sure some are sound and worthwhile.</p>\n\n<p>Although perhaps not ideal, one advantage is that at least you'll have evidence of when your paper was submitted, in the event of priority disputes. Also, it is handy to give a standard(ish) URL for references.</p>\n\n<p>The guy who founded ViXra and runs it, Phil Gibbs, is a physics graduate himself, and as clever as a tree full of owls. But there's no getting away from the fact that in academia ViXra is generally treated with a fair degree of contempt.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 137568, "author": "Geremia", "author_id": 9425, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/9425", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You can upload your paper to <a href=\"https://zenodo.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Zenodo</a> and/or <a href=\"https://explore.researchgate.net/display/support/ResearchGate+DOIs\" rel=\"noreferrer\">ResearchGate</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Also, <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/62480/9425\">unlike arXiv</a> or viXra, <a href=\"https://zenodo.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">Zenodo</a> and/or <a href=\"https://explore.researchgate.net/display/support/ResearchGate+DOIs\" rel=\"noreferrer\">ResearchGate</a> have the added benefit that assign they can assign a DOI to your paper for free.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1505", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/819/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1511, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>At first glance, I don't think it would be an ethical problem, but it could be a management one: if you need to update the pre-print, you could take the risk to have inconsistent versions available. It could also be confusing for those who are looking for your paper: if I see a paper with the same title on two different open repositories, I might wonder if there is a difference between the two versions, download the two versions, realize they are the same, and dislike the fact that I just wasted some time.</p>\n\n<p>Moreover, it could also be interpreted as an attempt to artificially increase your citation count, and that could be frowned upon. For instance, in Computer Science, DBLP is often considered as a good publication indicator. If you publish a paper on arXiv, on ePrint and at a conference later, that's 3 references for a single paper. Someone realizing this might think that you're just trying to abuse the system. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1541, "author": "hnltraveler", "author_id": 782, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/782", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>From the viewpoint of the repository (although, I am speaking primarily from the viewpoint of a university institutional repository), it would not be considered unethical or undesirable for authors to submit their work to more than one repository. Open repositories are built to increase access to the products of research and creativity, by making works publicly and freely available online. Submitting work to more than one repository is another way for an author to increase accessibility to his/her work.</p>\n<p>The only copyright issue present would lie in the relationship between the author and the publisher that published the author's article. Most journals allow authors to deposit preprints of their work, that do not contain any edits or revisions from the publication process, in open repositories. Others allow authors to deposit preprints of their work that have been revised to show the revisions made in the publication process, and a few journals will allow authors to deposit the final publisher's version of the article. Some publishers will want their authors to wait a few months after publication before making their works accessible through open repositories.</p>\n<p>Journals rely on the quality and originality of the articles they publish to build a reputation. As most journals charge subscription fees, the originality of their articles is important. Open repositories do not operate on this model, so the ethics of publishing in the journal do not translate to depositing your work in an open repository. Most repositories require their authors to sign a non-exclusive distribution license to deposit their work, which allows the repository to make the work accessible online. As a non-exclusive license, authors retain the right to submit their work to journals, other publications and other repositories.</p>\n<p>Different open repositories have different functions. Institutional repositories capture the research and creative outputs of their host institutions. Subject-based repositories capture the work being done in a specific field. Because repositories exist for different reasons, I would see no problem in submitting your work to multiple repositories.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 107560, "author": "Maurice Schleußinger", "author_id": 80100, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/80100", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In addition to the great answers by <em>hnltraveler</em> and <em>user102</em> on the moral aspects of the question let me add some more <strong>technical</strong> points:</p>\n<h1>Duplicates in scholar search services</h1>\n<p>If you are searching for publications with Google Schoolar or similar you will find that these systems already aggregate multiple sources for the same publication.</p>\n<p><strong>Examples</strong></p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://scholar.google.de/scholar?cluster=8438855113118236565&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=0,5\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Google Scholar </a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2170488656\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Microsoft Academic Search</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://apps.webofknowledge.com/full_record.do?product=WOS&amp;search_mode=GeneralSearch&amp;qid=2&amp;SID=F3N6QF8F4CVgDxZcnc5&amp;page=1&amp;doc=1\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Web of Science</a></li>\n</ul>\n<p>So you wont confuse your audience with multiple <strong>identical</strong> versions (just be sure to update all of them if you change something).</p>\n<h1>Licences</h1>\n<p>Preprint services let you choose the license of your work (for example <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Creative Commons</a>) and with many of these even other people could re-upload your work onto other services. As long as you hold the copyright to your work (or remain the right to publish a preprint version) you can upload your paper to as many repositories as you like.</p>\n<h1>References/Persistent Identifier</h1>\n<p>Some preprint services like Zenodo allow you to set a relation to another source (via Identifier like DOI): <a href=\"https://zenodo.org/record/1212228\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Zenodo Example</a>*</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Related identifiers:</p>\n<p>Identical to:</p>\n<p>10.17605/OSF.IO/FN5ST</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>You can also add multiple references to the same work in your ORCID profile: <a href=\"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2709-1067\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">ORCID Example</a>*</p>\n<ul>\n<li>References to my own work as I didn't find other examples really quickly enough.</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1510", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/819/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1953, "author": "user823", "author_id": 823, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/823", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In the largest national survey collecting this data is the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. (http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/nsopf/design.asp) It was last conducted in 2003-4. The average number of classroom hours for full-time faculty ranged from 7.9 in engineering to 11.0 in fine arts (as of 2003). See:\n<a href=\"http://nces.ed.gov/das/library/tables_listings/showTable2005.asp?popup=true&amp;tableID=2128&amp;rt=p\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://nces.ed.gov/das/library/tables_listings/showTable2005.asp?popup=true&amp;tableID=2128&amp;rt=p</a></p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1959, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is no standard load; it depends widely on the department, the number of students enrolled, the available number of faculty, and so on. </p>\n\n<p>Moreover, in some departments, it is possible to fundraise your way out of commitments. For instance, if you bring in X dollars in overhead, you can \"buy\" out of teaching a class for a semester.</p>\n\n<p>In addition, stating that a load is \"1-and-1\" can mean different things. In the department where I did my graduate work, professors now co-teach one class per semester, and sometimes offer an elective course on top of that 1-and-1 load.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1963, "author": "InquilineKea", "author_id": 77, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It does depend on how popular the field is among undergrad majors, and whether or not their courses are often pre-requisites for courses in other majors.</p>\n\n<p>In the fields I'm in (astronomy, earth/atmospheric science), there are so few undergrad majors, and so few majors that use their courses as requirements, that the professors generally tend to have much lighter teaching loads (often one course per year) than professors in other fields with more undergrad students. </p>\n\n<p>And in some departments where there isn't even an undergraduate major in them, professors often have years without needing to teach at all (e.g. Pathology or Physiology/Biophysics at the University of Washington).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1512", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/10/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1521, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p><em>in what follows, I'm assuming you're correct in your assessment of the flaw.</em> </p>\n\n<p>The first step is to communicate with the authors. If you mutually resolve the flaw (they accept the mistake, and/or redo the proof), then you either cite the corrected version or mention when citing the paper that it has a flaw and cite your discussion with them as a personal communication.</p>\n\n<p>If the conversation with the authors stall (they're nonresponsive or shift the goalposts), then you can cite the paper and briefly outline the flaw in an appendix (or if you're space constrained, post a brief link to a document available elsewhere). I'm not entirely happy with this last idea, but I can't think of anything better in a space-constrained scenario.</p>\n\n<p>I don't think that incomprehensibility is a good reason for not citing, or citing negatively. You'd have to narrow down the incomprehensibility to something in particular that the authors are not clear on (a definition, a set of cases, or something like that). Again, this should be a last resort if the authors are not responsive to contact - ideally, matters of lack of understanding should be resolved between the authors without it making it into the paper. </p>\n\n<p><em>post-caveat: my answer deals mostly with theoretical papers. In more applied works, it might be trickier to determine whether something is \"known to be incorrect\" or \"not known to be correct\".</em> </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1534, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would never cite a pre-print except possibly as \"personal communication\". In fact, that is how authors have asked me to cite their pre-prints. If it is not published, it is not a part of the cannon. That's what publishing is about.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 114310, "author": "paul garrett", "author_id": 980, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To reiterate some other points: to my mind, citation (or not) is not about approval or endorsement, but simply acknowledgement of prior art. (I am in mathematics... in the the U.S., ...) </p>\n\n<p>It is unfortunately true that most \"peer-reviewed journal articles\" are not at all scrupulous about acknowledging competitors' work. Nevertheless, if the question is about what one <em>should</em> do, one should acknowledge competitors, even if they've failed to reciprocate, and probably never will.</p>\n\n<p>(Sadly-amazingly, a very good mathematician once told me that he scrupulously avoided looking at the papers of his competitors, so that he could in good conscience never cite them. One might think that he was joking, but, based on the citations in his papers, he was not.)</p>\n\n<p>The issue of \"non-canon\" papers, e.g., arXiv and so on (for math, in the U.S., this is still slightly non-canon) I think is really the same, at least in the future. Sure, having editors approve and a referee or two approve is something positive... but, srsly, folks, if something serious of my own depends on it, I will want to have checked it through <em>myself</em>. For that matter, in recent years the requests for refereeing I get mostly say that it is <em>not</em> the referee's responsibility to certify correctness (!!!???!!!)... Whoa. Or, even if they do, that's only one other person... who very possibly has nothing on-the-line if the paper turns out to have a problem, in contrast to oneself, needing to depend on it.</p>\n\n<p>That is, even before the internet and on-line archives, it was not truly feasible (or safe) to rely upon \"refereed\" journal articles. The main distinction between them and \"preprints\", in those days, was that people at universities did have access to the \"published\" (both literally and figuratively), but probably not to preprints, unless one had personal connections. This was why it was important in those days to go to conferences.</p>\n\n<p>In particular, the alleged distinction between refereed and unrefereed (please, let's recover from burdening \"published\" with a special meaning so contrary to current reality) has become tenuous. Anything that is quasi-stably publicly available is \"published\", literally. If at a reputable site, by reputable authors, it is ordinarily taken seriously. Even if it is deeply flawed, it should be taken seriously, and acknowledged.</p>\n\n<p>The subtler question is about language in one's own document to refer to other documents... that one may perceive as flawed, as pernicious, etc. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 160948, "author": "Guilherme Zilli", "author_id": 133577, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/133577", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I understand that this may depend on the field.</p>\n<p>I would personally avoid citing that paper if I am not very confident and there are plenty of other better references in the subject. I'd rather avoid introducing noise to the review process...</p>\n<p>I once had a similar situation and didn't have many other references available. I wasn't being able to reproduce the results of one paper, and the other was really badly written. The first thing I tried was to contact the authors to clarify my concerns. Since neither responded, I decided not to cite them.\nIn my opinion, it's the authors' responsibility to ensure the results are reproducible and it's clearly reported if they expect to be cited.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1519", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1557, "author": "luispedro", "author_id": 166, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/166", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Delay applying for a year and work on a new project, where you can perform much better (now that you have more experience). Get a publication out of that and work with someone new, who will write you a good recommendation letter.</p>\n\n<p>I know for a fact that many labs are very interested in getting bioinformaticians, so it shouldn't be hard if you are not looking for a great salary (which you shouldn't be: this is a career investment).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1558, "author": "ucsky", "author_id": 866, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/866", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Personally, I have seen some people that were very good in their Masters totally screw up their PhD. And other people are not doing very good in the Masters but doing a great PhD after and get an academic position. A PhD is long time, so be sure that you like the subject, be sure that you can publish within the subject. You have to be comfortable with the people you will working with. If you can work with the people that will offer you a PhD before starting the PhD, that is a very good point. That maybe out of the question but even after 6 months or one year, if you see that not doing it, that better to leave and try to find another PhD. You can do well on your second PhD and get an academic position, I know someone who has done this.</p>\n\n<p>If you don't find a PhD that you feel is good for you it's definitely better to wait. Going back to work or doing an other Master, but in a related field. That gives you more experience and more time to find a good PhD subject.</p>\n\n<p>When you start your PhD it's kind to be like in a tunnel, sometime you never really see the end. I think most of people get discouraged at one time in their PhD, even the better, you really need to believe in yourself. </p>\n\n<p>The main problem by doing a PhD after a not so good Master is that you will have more difficulty to find a good PhD subject. You can definitely find one but you have to find a good one for you. If nobody wants a PhD subject, there is a reason. That's not mean that it's bad subject but you have to figure out why it's less attractive.</p>\n\n<p>Some questions that may help you:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Did you mentor have previous PhD candidates and how did those PhD candidates end up? Generally when there is not a full transparency from the mentor there is a problem.</p></li>\n<li><p>Are you comfortable with your mentor and the team that you will working with (if there is a team)? Can you talk freely? If it's not comfortable when starting I don't think it's will going better with the stress of the PhD.</p></li>\n<li><p>Is the plan of action of the PhD well defined? </p></li>\n<li><p>When can you expect the first publication? For example if the mentor said you that there is a publication in progress and they can add your name to it that a good point.</p></li>\n<li><p>Do you feel comfortable with the subject or does it look too hard? Especially if you have to write a program or build an experiment. You have to estimate the time that it will take you and if you can get publication from this. Some mentors don't hesitate to take a PhD candidate just for coding as cheap workforce.</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Hope it helps, good luck!</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1523", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/838/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 5001, "author": "Francisco Morales", "author_id": 2775, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/2775", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would suggest to design a <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubric_%28academic%29\" rel=\"nofollow\"><strong>rubric</strong></a> to assess the work of students. The design of a rubric is difficult and may require a lot of work for the teacher, but it will isolate the grading process from other factors. <a href=\"http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/1579221157\" rel=\"nofollow\">Here</a> you can find a book about rubrics.</p>\n\n<p>One of the advantages of using a rubric is that students can easily observe how their work is going to be evaluated. Another advantage is that teachers can easily apply the same criteria across all the work to be graded.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5009, "author": "gerrit", "author_id": 1033, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If at all possible, have all papers and/or exams graded by two people independently, for example, two teaching assistants / graduate students. Then the official examiner can browse through the results. Where the two agree, one can directly go along with it. Where they don't agree, the examiner can judge what is correct.</p>\n\n<p>This protects not only against favouritism, but also against simple, honest mistakes in grading. Of course, it's possible that two or even three all make the same error, but that's why students have the opportunity to appeal, don't they?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 60358, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Where possible, exams and courseworks should be anonymised before grading. But otherwise, we have to depend on the professionalism of academics, a strategy I think is sometimes undervalued. Academics are professionals, and one part of many professions is striving to be objective. </p>\n\n<p>Of course, psychologically it is impossible not to be influenced by knowledge, but it shouldn't be assumed that academics can't compensate for this adequately to give fair marks. Some people may actually <em>overcompensate</em> and mark students they know <em>harder</em>, not easier, but hopefully the experience of learning from working with faculty makes up for this risk. </p>\n\n<p>The ultimate academic \"grade\", a PhD, is entirely assessed by letters written by people who know the holder both personally and professionally. Again, the same is true in other industries.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1525", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/840/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1532, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 3, "selected": true, "text": "<p>At my university (Bath), prestigious university scholarships are awarded through a competition that has its first rounds of evaluations in January, so we recommend submitting December of the year before. However, in the UK and Europe generally much research is funded by grants from research councils and industry which may be awarded at any time. These studentships are on particular topics and will be advertised on relevant mailing lists and sites like <a href=\"http://jobs.ac.uk\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://jobs.ac.uk</a>. In addition, often multiple universities offer the same top students studentships, so occasionally funding gets returned and reoffered to a new applicant.</p>\n\n<p>Application times for American academic positions (both faculty and postgraduate) seem to be more structured, at least in my experience. At MIT they said they had at least 120-150 fully-qualified applicants for the 30 slots they had the year I was lucky enough to get in (note: this means getting rejected does NOT necessarily mean you weren't good enough to get in!) So I don't think there is any chance they would look at someone who missed their application deadline if they applied late. But I could be wrong, and certainly it might be different at smaller universities.</p>\n\n<p>In general though I'd recommend spending the time between now &amp; the next deadline making yourself a better candidate, e.g. by publishing, working in a lab, or helping out with a conference or even just getting a job. Even if you put in another application this year, this is still good advice in case you reapply for next year.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1538, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Yes, it's too late</strong>, at least in the US.</p>\n\n<p>All the PhD programs I'm familiar with (mostly in North America, but a few European programs too) require admitted applicants to accept or decline admission offers by April 15. The admission offers themselves are sent out weeks or even months earlier. For example, my department tries to finalize all PhD admission offers by mid-February. We get about 750 PhD applications every year, so to keep ourselves (relatively) sane, we don't even consider applications that arrive after the December deadline.</p>\n\n<p>A few PhD programs do consider applicants for admission in the spring semester. But I wouldn't recommend trying for spring admissions to the same programs that already turned you down. In my experience, spring admission is <em>more</em> competitive. Moreover, a few months is unlikely to significantly improve your application, especially since they've already formed an opinion.</p>\n\n<p>I also agree with Joanna's recommendation: <strong>Your best bet is to strengthen your record and apply again next year, for admission in Fall 2013.</strong> If possible, get involved in a research project with the goal of publication. At a minimum, do something independent, creative, and technical to show off your potential for research. Show your complete application to your letter writers (or other faculty mentors), especially your research statement, and ask for their detailed <em>and brutally honest</em> feedback. Listen to them. Finally, confirm with your references (by asking them directly) that they are willing to write you strong letters emphasizing your research potential.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1577, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>At my university (KU Leuven, Belgium), PhD positions are available all year round, as admissions depend very strongly on faculty obtaining grants, and these are available at different times of the year. Faculty select their own PhD students individually, rather than depending on a centralised procedure. Just check the web site of the faculty you are interested in and look for open positions.</p>\n\n<p>The same procedure may be used by other Flemish universities, but I cannot say for sure.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1531", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/399/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1540, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 6, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It depends a little on the circumstances, but generally not. If the student is your Ph.D. student, then it's probably OK to accept a friend request, but you shouldn't initiate it (and some people might not even approve of accepting it, depending on the sort of advising relationship you have). If it's an undergraduate in one of your classes, then I don't think you should even accept a friend request, and sending one would be very improper.</p>\n\n<p>There are three basic principles:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>You shouldn't put your students in situations where they might feel awkward or uncomfortable. For example, would turning down a friend request from one's professor come across as rude?</p></li>\n<li><p>It's not healthy for class dynamics if there's a perception that you have a closer, friendlier relationship with some of the students than with others.</p></li>\n<li><p>You need to be very careful not to do anything that could be misinterpreted (or, worse yet, correctly interpreted) as showing romantic interest. Some people will interpret things that way if it's even vaguely plausible, and fair or not you've got to keep this in mind.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1542, "author": "mythealias", "author_id": 847, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/847", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would avoid it and refer them to linkedin as an alternative.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1543, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>People use Facebook in different ways*). Some are actually spreading links, thoughts and comments related to their professional work.</p>\n\n<p>However: most of the time people are using it for things related to their personal life.</p>\n\n<p>I know examples of TAs, who are FB-friending their students. But most aren't.</p>\n\n<p>So the main question are:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>do you want them to see your all FB stuff,</li>\n<li>do you want to see all their stuff,</li>\n<li>do you call them your friends,</li>\n<li>and do you want them to call you a friend?</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If not, why adding them?</p>\n\n<p>Most likely, it depends highly on:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>your personal approach to such social networks,</li>\n<li>your natural contact with your students (if it is formal or even semi-formal, perhaps FB is not the right tool).</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Depending on both, it may be either natural, acceptable, improper or really creepy.</p>\n\n<p>*) And also there are different philosophies when it comes to adding friends. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1549, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To second &amp; enlarge upon what Md. Golam Rashed said in a comment: <a href=\"http://academia.edu/\">Academia.edu</a> is designed as a networking site for academics (rather than, say, originating in a site where users picked which of two students' photos was \"hotter\"). So referring any students who approach you on facebook, to Academia.edu instead, would be contextually appropriate, and give you a defensible position that you were linked to them via a site that exists to allow academics to network.</p>\n\n<p>(disclaimer: I have no commercial connection to Academia.edu : I'm simply registered there)</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1551, "author": "Sylvain Peyronnet", "author_id": 43, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/43", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>It clearly depends on how you use Facebook, as it says in an earlier comment friend on facebook are not real life friends. I think that is is clear for everyone, so if you have a policy of accepting anyone as facebook friend, and if you have nothing personal on your facebook account, I don't see any problem in having students as facebook friends. \nFor me, facebook friends are no different than linkedin connections or google+ circles members, and I have the same policy for all social networks: I accept almost everybody.</p>\n\n<p>edit: and for really personal matters, I have an additional account, totally anonymous, except for the family and real friends. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1552, "author": "Joanna Bryson", "author_id": 384, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/384", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When facebook was new some PhDs at my university asked everyone to join, so my first \"friends\" were other academics &amp; PhD students. Immediately that first year undergraduates tried to friend too, so I made a rule: <strong>some people do not really want to know your internal state, so they should be put on \"limited profile\" and not allowed to see your wall. All undergraduates are in this category</strong> until at least a year after they graduate.</p>\n\n<p>Since then facebook security has gotten a lot freakier, and also I have gotten older, while grad students by and large haven't. One thing to consider: <strong>do you really want to see your graduate students that are not writing their dissertations stories about the on line gaming they do in your facebook feed?</strong> </p>\n\n<p>I like to encourage my PhD students to think of themselves as peers, so I friend them like peers if they ask. But if some do &amp; some don't, is that discriminating against the ones who don't? Even if it's their own choice? I don't think so, but it is weird &amp; I am rethinking my policy. But then, I'm always rethinking facebook.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1556, "author": "Willie Wong", "author_id": 94, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One should also bear in mind local government rules and/or school policies. For example, recently it was clarified by the New York City Education Department that that <em>public school teachers</em> (so not quite University professors as I think the original question intends) <strong>may not</strong> contact students through FaceBook (<a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/nyregion/social-media-rules-for-nyc-school-staff-limits-contact-with-students.html?pagewanted=all\">link to New York Times article</a>). It is not inconceivable that similar rules may be put in place by other local governing bodies and/or university regulations. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1575, "author": "Noah Snyder", "author_id": 25, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There are two simple important rules:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Never initiate a friend request with a student</li>\n<li>If you accept a Facebook friend request from a student in a class that you are currently teaching then you must accept friend requests from all students in that class.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Beyond those rules things are more complicated.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1673, "author": "Frenchfries", "author_id": 919, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/919", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is a difference between being \"connected\" to someone and being a \"friend\" on social media tools. </p>\n\n<p>Facebook and the likes connect people together but uses the word \"friend\" to make this connection look nice and appealing to users. LinkedIn \"connects\" users on a professional|business level. </p>\n\n<p>I do not believe that a Facebook \"connection\" should be interpreted as real \"friendship\" unless you make it happen as such. I have the impression that many of us have lost the true sense of friendship.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1700, "author": "StrongBad", "author_id": 929, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/929", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I follow 4 rules</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>I never initiate contact with students or post-docs</li>\n<li>I do not accept requests from undergraduates until they graduate</li>\n<li>I always accept requests from post-grad students and post-docs</li>\n<li>I attempt to never post anything that could cause me problems</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 5040, "author": "Fuhrmanator", "author_id": 3859, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3859", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<blockquote>\n <p>Is it okay... ? </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sure, but it's not without risks (to BOTH sides). </p>\n\n<p>Whether you're a student or a professor, there are a couple of things to help minimize the risk: </p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Use <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=200538509990389#How-do-I-use-lists-to-organize-my-friends?\" rel=\"nofollow\">lists to organize your friends</a></strong> and make sure you put your professors/students on the list you want to restrict information to. <br/><br/><strong>Scenario A:</strong> a grad student is 3 weeks late on a draft, yet the professor can see he's been updating his photo albums of football games for the past three weekends. <strong>Scenario B:</strong> professor is late at returning grades on the midterm, yet the students can see he's been posting about how fun his weekend bicycle workouts have been. Using lists properly can prevent these awkward situations (<em>but so can not procrastinating!</em>). <br/><br/>However, even if you put your professors/students on the restricted list, <strong>replies you make to posts with Public visibility will be seen by everyone</strong>. So, you still have to take a lot of care with this approach at what you say.</li>\n<li>A less risky (but more distant) approach for professors is to <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php\" rel=\"nofollow\"><strong>create a Public Figure (Teacher) page</a></strong>. Then, students need only \"like\" that page to be associated with it. In this case, the relationship is not really bi-directional, which is why the risk is reduced both ways. As a professor, I've tied my Google Blog to a <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Fuhrman-Professeur/131998500267101?ref=hl\" rel=\"nofollow\">Facebook Teacher page</a>, so that blog updates automatically feed to Facebook. Another advantage is that my \"nerdy\" posts don't get seen by all the people I'm friends with.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Finally, LinkedIn doesn't have the relationship of student-professor, which I find annoying when I get requests. They're not \"classmates\" even though a lot of students request a link to me using that relationship. In the beginning, I would refuse connections, unless the relationship involved some kind of professional contract (e.g., a TA or lab assistant, funded research student). It makes sense when a student asks you for a review on LinkedIn if that student \"worked\" for you in some degree. </p>\n\n<p>However, part of the goal of LinkedIn is to build connections, and coop programs are important for undergrads at my school. Saying I know students (even if they're just in my undergrad courses) might help them somehow. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 156014, "author": "allo", "author_id": 79727, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79727", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Maybe you can suggest using a science site for this? You could be &quot;friends&quot; on researchgate with them instead of using a generic social network.</p>\n<p>This would allow your students to follow your research and ask community questions that you are able to see and still separate your academic life from your personal life.</p>\n<p>When you have profiles on such sites, you can put them on the first (or last) slide and students and students can follow you there. This also allows you to deflect &quot;Can I add you on facebook&quot; questions with &quot;I add people from my academic work on researchgate, you'll find my profile linked on the institute website&quot;.</p>\n<p><em>(I do not want to endorse researchgate in particular, it's just one example for more serious networking sites)</em></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1539", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/840/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1545, "author": "Henry", "author_id": 8, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/8", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The short answer is that if a reviewer found an error, the reviewer will generally tell you. If you get a rejection without any further comments, the likely reason is that the reviewer read the outline and main results, and concluded that it wasn't necessary to go through the paper carefully to decide to reject it, probably because the results weren't significant enough for that journal. (Some journals specifically request that reviewers do a quick read of the article within a couple weeks of receipt, to see if it has any hope of being published; it often takes reviewers months to do a full read through, and if it has no chance, it's kinder to the author to give a quick rejection so the author can promptly resubmit to a journal which might publish it.)</p>\n\n<p>However sometimes the reviewer has carefully read through the paper before recommending rejecting it, and in that case the reviewer usually (at least in my experience) includes a list of suggestions or comments (including pointing out any errors the reviewer found).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1546, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>When a journal rejects a paper because it is not of sufficient interest for them or it does not meet the standards of the journal, it generally means exactly what they said. They thought the paper wasn't interesting or important enough.</p>\n\n<p>Journals vary enormously in how selective or prestigious they are. Some journals will accept any paper that seems to be correct, original, and at least somewhat interesting. If a journal like that rejects a paper for this reason, then either it's not a very good paper, or they are being unfair (perhaps accidentally - peer review isn't perfect, so occasionally you just have to try again), or you submitted it to the wrong sort of journal (the line between different subfields can be blurry, but if you choose the wrong side it decreases your chances of acceptance).</p>\n\n<p>Other journals impose extremely high standards and only want to publish papers on exciting breakthroughs. In that case, there might be nothing wrong with the paper at all, and the only issue is that they have received other submissions they like even better.</p>\n\n<p>And, of course, there's a whole range of journals in between these extremes. Depending on where the journal is in this range, it will shift from a statement about your paper to a statement about the journal's high standards, and there's no way to be more precise without knowing more about the situation.</p>\n\n<p>The best source of advice is a trusted mentor in your field, but I wouldn't get too worried on the basis of one rejection. Look over the paper again with fresh eyes, make sure the introduction and conclusions are compelling, choose another journal, and resubmit. If you run into this problem repeatedly, then something's wrong (either the paper needs work or you need to choose more appropriate journals) and that would be a good time to seek more detailed advice.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1617, "author": "David LeBauer", "author_id": 258, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/258", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Often, when a paper is rejected by the editor (without being sent out for review), the standard response is along the lines of \"not of sufficient interest\".</p>\n\n<p>How should you interpret this? One interpretation is to be humble and select another journal that will be interest. Another interpretation is that good and interesting science has been poorly presented. </p>\n\n<p>One possibility that has not yet been covered is that the paper did not present interesting science in an interesting way. I had a paper that was rejected from a number of journals although I felt strongly that these judgements were inconsistent with the work that I had done. I also recognized that such quick judgments can be based on the title and abstract, and on re-reading these, I realized that the main, important points of my paper were not given enough emphasis up front. After minor revisions to focus my readers, my next submission was very warmly received.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1544", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/849/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1548, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I expect that it differs from university to university, but in general you won't be able to do this unless you buy the rights from them. Somebody in your students' union/student support services might be able to give you a better answer.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1550, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The first question is why you want the rights. For example, if you are working on something with serious commercial applications and hope to start a company or sell the technology, then this is a very serious issue. The first step is hiring a lawyer, who can advise you on precisely which rights you and the university currently hold, and who can help you negotiate with the university regarding commercialization.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, most student projects are of no commercial value. If you just want to display your work online (to help build a portfolio for job applications and in case this work is useful for someone else), then it's probably easier. It may depend on the university, but presumably they don't want to limit the dissemination of student projects, so if you ask them I bet they'll grant permission. You should think about exactly what you want to provide and under what sort of license (for example, if you put code on the web, nobody's allowed to use it unless you license that). I imagine the university would be happy with some sort of Creative Commons license.</p>\n\n<p>I'd recommend being very clear and straightforward when asking, to avoid raising suspicions that you are trying to trick them into giving up the rights to valuable technology.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 9962, "author": "silvado", "author_id": 3890, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/3890", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would double-check on that statement of your friends. If you are not employed by someone to produce some intellectual property, then <strong>you will own the copyright</strong> to all texts and other material that you create. You are then free to transfer that right to someone else (at least in the UK), or give out licenses.</p>\n\n<p>So unless either</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>you have a <strong>work contract</strong> with your university for this project, or</li>\n<li>you signed an <strong>agreement</strong> that the university will own the rights to your project,</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>I would expect that you retain all rights in the project.</p>\n\n<p>There is one caveat: Any <strong>material that is provided to you by the advisor</strong> of your project is of course not your intellectual property, and you would have to deal with it as with any external source. This may include even the initial project description, if it is of substantial intellectual value!</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1547", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/827/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1569, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>We encourage our graduate students to take internships for 3 months during summer (at Microsoft Redmond and MSR Cambridge). This is a bit like a sabbatical. In our experience, these are extremely valuable for the students and for fostering research collaborations. Usually one publication results for the student, but the experience and the contacts they gain cannot be measure in the regular units.</p>\n\n<p>We do not allow our students to go on such 'sabbaticals' if they are not already performing well. The lucky students who do get to go need to act as ambassadors for our university. We do not use internships as a way of kick-stacking the research of a student-gone-astray. </p>\n\n<p>Unless by sabbatical, you mean vacation, in which case, I've answered the wrong question. Students are entitled to 6 weeks vacation per year (not including Christmas). They may take it in one chunk if they wish. Whether we allow it depends on what project deadlines need to be met and so forth. Generally, we encourage them to split up their vacation into smaller chunks (1 week here, 2 weeks there).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1571, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>From my experience, academic sabbaticals have a direct, stated purpose; for example, performing research (and having some fun) in a different country with a different academic environment, casting your hand at doing some work in a completely different field, taking a break from work to write a few long review papers. To this end, I'm not sure what a student would <em>do</em> on a sabbatical; most graduate students have a single project, and they haven't been involved in research to be able to try something else–they're still learning their first field, for goodness sake. I'm not sure how anyone would benefit from a student taking a sabbatical. On the other hand, there are numerous downsides, the main one being that there is a definite chance that the student will not return to their research after doing something else for a few months. I can't think of any reason why this could be a good idea.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1561", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1564, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is such a loaded question I'm hesitant to answer. While it might seem that a student was \"kicked out\" of a program for conflicts with an advisor, most departments (including ours!) have a procedure and policy for when students are asked to leave the program. </p>\n\n<p>Usually, the reasons would be some mixture of lack of basic minimum grades and lack of satisfactory progress. if there's conflict between a student and advisor, there's usually some departmental mediator (a director of the graduate program) who should be able to step in and deal with the situation (either finding the student another advisor, or something like that). </p>\n\n<p>But I'm not aware of it being generally possible for an advisor to fire a student and have that student then be removed from the graduate program: these two things are usually separate. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1565, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The answer is \"it depends\". It depends on the country and it probably even varies between universities.</p>\n\n<p>In some countries, Sweden or the Netherlands, for example, it is virtually impossible to force a graduate student to leave, though eventually the funding allocated to that student may expire. I am aware of one case of academic misconduct in the Netherlands where the student was more or less forced to quit or otherwise face a long and painful series of disciplinary hearings to officially make him leave.</p>\n\n<p>In other places, Belgium, for example, students are often paid based on year long contracts (graduate students are employees). The contracts can be evaluated each year and terminated in the case of unsatisfactory performance. Of course, matters are handled delicately, and often by involving the student in the process. That is, discuss the student's performance and paint a bleak picture and let him/her see that quitting is the best option.</p>\n\n<p>From the student's perspective, it is best that they do not waste 4+ years of their lives and achieve nothing.</p>\n\n<p>From the university/department/professor's perspective, it is best that the student does not waste 4+ years of funding and achieve nothing.</p>\n\n<p>It's a win-win.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1579, "author": "D.W.", "author_id": 705, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/705", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Like @Suresh says, in the US, I would expect that the advisor-advisee relationship would be separate from enrollment in the department. The advisor can decline to continue funding the student, and can decline to continue advising the student. However usually the advisor cannot force the student out of the graduate program; that's up to the department or university. I would expect that most departments or universities would have an established process for asking students to leave, which would typically be if the student is not making satisfactory progress towards their degree or meeting other requirements. Normally I would expect this process to include some degree of warnings and feedback.</p>\n\n<p>That said, there is some coupling between the advisor-advisee relationship and one's status as a graduate student. Many PhD programs have a requirement that the graduate student must have a faculty advisor. If the student's current advisor is no longer willing to continue advising them, and if no other faculty is willing to advise the student, then this may eventually lead to the student being asked to leave the graduate program, for failure to meet the program requirements. Normally I would expect that to happen only in egregious cases: most departments probably feel a sense of responsibility towards their graduate students, take care to look out for their students, and try to create an environment that gives students a chance to finish their degree.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1847, "author": "ayush", "author_id": 989, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/989", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In my college a graduate student was terminated with a master degree in the middle of PhD due to his inabilities to perform well in the lab.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1563", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1576, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I suspect the reason you're having difficult getting answers is because your goal is unclear from your question. The best way to have your work added to an online repository is to submit your work to a recognized engineering journal, such as one of the IEEE societies. If you don't want to support paid publishers, you could consider checking out the <a href=\"http://www.plos.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">PLoS</a> journals.</p>\n\n<p>However, you have to recognize something fundamental about your work; from my experience, people doing serious research aren't trawling the web looking for information that happens to be placed on the internet that just happens to be related to their field of interest. Researchers overwhelmingly use journals to communicate, for the simple reason that journals provide a peer-review process, meaning that the content is vetted for accuracy, quality, and relevance. If you simply want to put your stuff online, get a blog, but if you want others to read it—particularly others recognized as leaders in the field—you will almost certainly want to submit to a journal. Most well-known researchers that I know wouldn't look to \"online repositories\", if they exist, simply because the signal to noise ratio is guaranteed to be far too high to be worth their time.</p>\n\n<p>tl;dr - I'm not sure of your end goal. Consider submitting your results to be published (and added to the publisher's archive). Also, interesting discussion in comments; read them below.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1584, "author": "Mohsen Sheriff", "author_id": 872, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/872", "pm_score": -1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>the best source for scientific papers is American Society of Civil Engineers witch you can visit at: <a href=\"http://ascelibrary.org\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://ascelibrary.org</a></p>\n\n<p>second source is ICE Virtual Library at this address \n<a href=\"http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com</a></p>\n\n<p>anyway, many publishers have journals in field of civil engineering, but as you said, most of them require subscription (personal or via university)</p>\n\n<p>also, you can find some journals in Directory of Open Access Journals</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 75987, "author": "Eike P.", "author_id": 61059, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/61059", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p><strong>Update 2020</strong>: There is <em>still</em> no widely used preprint server for engineering articles.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are (now?) a few engineering categories on arxiv, e.g. electrical and computer engineering. Everything that has anything to do with machine learning or data analysis is a good fit, anyway. I have uploaded a few biomedical signal processing papers on arxiv as well. See <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://arxiv.org/</a> for the list of categories.</li>\n<li>Very recently, <a href=\"https://www.ieee.org/about/news/2020/ieee-introduces-techrxiv.html\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">IEEE introduced its own preprint server</a>, &quot;a preprint server for the global technology community&quot;: <a href=\"https://www.techrxiv.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.techrxiv.org/</a>. I could imagine that with the backing of IEEE, this could become reasonably popular in some time.</li>\n<li>Of the three preprint servers I mentioned below in 2016, <a href=\"https://engrxiv.org\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://engrxiv.org</a> appears to be the only one that's still reasonably active.</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://www.preprints.org/subject/browse/engineering\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">https://www.preprints.org/subject/browse/engineering</a> also appears to be reasonably active.</li>\n</ul>\n<hr />\n<p>It appears that there is currently no widely used preprint server for engineering articles. Interestingly, there appears to be a bunch of platforms that have all been launched very recently, and which all target (among others) engineering preprints:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Launched in July 2016, there is now (currently only in a preliminary version) <a href=\"https://osf.io/view/engrxiv/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">engrXiv</a>, which is a dedicated preprint server for the engineering sciences. It is supported / advocated by <a href=\"https://cos.io/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">the center for open science</a>.</li>\n<li>There is the <a href=\"http://www.sjscience.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Self-Journal of Science</a> which provides an innovative, open peer review process and also allows for publication of preprints.</li>\n<li>Finally, there is <a href=\"https://thewinnower.com/about\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">The Winnower</a> which also provides a platform for an open peer review process.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>Unfortunately, in all of these, activity is currently rather low, probably due to the novelty of these platforms. Time will show whether one of these will become really popular.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 86718, "author": "Dejan", "author_id": 70962, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/70962", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I believe that you are looking exactly for this:\n<a href=\"http://www.preprints.org/subject/browse/engineering/civil_engineering\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://www.preprints.org/subject/browse/engineering/civil_engineering</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1574", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/675/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1581, "author": "Jeromy Anglim", "author_id": 62, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<h3>Issue of citing authorship</h3>\n<p>Starting from first principles, I think in most instances on StackExchange it would be <strong>the original poster of the quoted answer</strong> that would be the relevant author. The person asking the question is useful but it is typically the information provided in a particular answer that would be the typical candidate for citation.</p>\n<p>That said, I imagine there could be instances where the question itself or an overall exchange represents the unit of citation. In such a case, it would make sense to cite all relevant contributors.</p>\n<h3>Does something learnt from StackExchange need to be cited?</h3>\n<p>A lot of learning goes into a journal article. This learning comes from many sources. That which gets cited is only a small fraction of that. A scientist might (a) read a statistics book; (b) ask a friend; or (c) ask a question on Stats.StackExchange.com to learn more about how to analyse his or her data. In both cases, the person has devised an analysis plan based on having learnt something. However, generally these sources are not cited. In each case the scientist has learnt how to do something, but ultimately the knowledge is already established in the literature.</p>\n<p>I also think that the vast majority of posts on StackExchange do not constitute a citable unit of original research. That said, where this does occur and it it influences your work, it makes sense to cite the source.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1583, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>What merits a citation or coauthorship is a subtle question, but the answer doesn't change when people interact online. The main difference is that the interaction is more visible: authors may feel awkward if they decline to cite a publicly visible (but unimportant) contribution, and the contributor may feel encouraged to complain. This adds to the pressure of the decision, but it shouldn't change the answer, and the other issues and subtleties are the same as in offline interaction.</p>\n\n<p>As for online contributions being \"published\", I suppose that's true in the technical sense that they have been made available to the public, but that's not what academics mean when they talk about publication. For example, listing a stackexchange answer as a publication on one's CV would be considered at least eccentric, if not deceptive, regardless of how impressive the answer was. (The best one could hope for is to list it somewhere else.)</p>\n\n<p>I'm not sure what the relevance of the second paragraph of the question is, but here's a guess. Suppose Alice is writing a paper and Bob makes an absolutely critical intellectual contribution via a stackexchange answer. Normally such a contribution would merit coauthorship, but Alice might declare that Bob's work is already published via stackexchange and that she will simply cite it rather than making him an author. That would be unreasonable and unfair to Bob, but if Alice was scrupulous in citing Bob's answer and giving him full credit for its contents, then it's not clear that Bob would have any recourse. I'm not convinced this is more than a theoretical problem, since the number of stackexchange answers that could merit coauthorship is tiny (maybe not zero, but that's a good first approximation) and most authors are well behaved anyway. However, I suppose it could happen.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1585, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Citing a forum post is very close to \"personal communications\". </p>\n\n<p>The benefit of actually citing (instead of thanking the author in the acknowledgements) is that you:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>explicitly say what was <strong>their contribution</strong>,</li>\n<li>give more <strong>details</strong> or provide the context<br>(sometimes the post is longer, with more threads than those mentioned in the paper),</li>\n<li>implicitly <strong>build visibility</strong> or prestige of the forum/SE site/MO/... </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>When it comes to the author(s), there is no established approach. Typically (default from <code>cite</code> on the MathOverflow and <code>link -&gt; cite</code> on the StackExchange) <strong>you cite the exact post</strong> (e.g. the selected answer with its author). However, if you want to point explicitly to more authors (e.g. actually you base on two answers or the question itself is non-trivial), then it may be a good idea to include them as well.</p>\n\n<p>If you consider that their contribution is substantial, then you can decide to have them as <strong>coauthors</strong> (of course assuming they agree). But then the rules are no different from talking in person. (Except for the fact, that on fora some people may be unreachable).</p>\n\n<p>Moreover, if something is simple (but not trivial, i.e. present in standard textbooks), citation is welcome. For that reason people quote tables of integrals and for the same reason I think that simple <strong>findings you base on should be cited</strong> as well.</p>\n\n<p>I think that hiding one's sources is neither productive nor fair.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1586, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There's a simple test for citing/acknowledging. Did you come up with the contribution yourself ? If not, then you need to cite whoever did. </p>\n\n<p>Whether this amounts to authorship, and how exactly to cite the contribution (as a footnote, acknowledgement, personal contribution or whatever), depends on the conventions of your research area (especially for authorship thresholds). In general, if you're merely deciding between different kinds of citation, more information is usually better. </p>\n\n<p>As for the entire second paragraph about conventions in publishing, I think that's irrelevant. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1580", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/833/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1592, "author": "bobthejoe", "author_id": 319, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/319", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I hate to resort to youtube but:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://youtu.be/WgWNQVdhE9A\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">http://youtu.be/WgWNQVdhE9A</a></p>\n\n<p>Channing Robertson at Stanford teaches Intro to Chemical Engineering which is essentially a glorified way to say Mass Balance and Stoichiometry. It is literally a course on converting values from Metric units into English units. It is literally a course about realizing that what goes in a box must come out of the box. It is dry and boring material.</p>\n\n<p>As described in <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1219/319\">Why do so few universities offer OpenCourseWare videos of their lessons?</a>, not every class is worth making an OpenCourseWare video but they did for this one. He kills time with stories and lots of them. He goes into the history of chemical engineering. He teaches use the Socratic method. They do problem sets and then go on field trip to see what their problem set was about. It may be dry stuff but at least it would be entertaining.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1596, "author": "Alexander Serebrenik", "author_id": 882, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/882", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>There are many ways to motivate students, including but not limited to</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>showing practical relevance of the course</li>\n<li>explaining what makes <em>the teacher</em> passionate about the subject</li>\n<li>linking the course topic to their own experience</li>\n<li>actively engaging the students in discussions</li>\n<li>giving the students adequate tasks and providing them with rapid and positive feedback (adequate = not too difficult and not too easy)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Some tips and tricks can be found on <a href=\"http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/motivation.html\">http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/motivation.html</a></p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1591", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1594, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In theoretical computer science:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>Papers are written, illustrated, and typeset (in LaTeX) by authors and refereed by unpaid volunteers. Some publishers give free journal subscriptions to editorial board members; a few pay a small stipend to the editors-in-chief of each journal; otherwise, editors are also unpaid volunteers.</p></li>\n<li><p>Most journal publishers provide an online system to help editors track submissions and communicate with referees. Conference publishers do not; most program committees use free systems like <a href=\"http://www.easychair.org/\">EasyChair</a> or <a href=\"http://www.read.seas.harvard.edu/~kohler/hotcrp/\">HotCRP</a>.</p></li>\n<li><p>Some journal publishers employ copy editors, who produce the final camera-ready paper directly from author-provided LaTeX and image files. Specifically, copy editors correct (and invariably insert) spelling and grammar errors, and reformat the paper (especially the bibliography) to fit the publisher's standards. For other journals and most conference proceedings (Springer's LNCS series being a notable exception), copy editors simply do not exist; camera-ready papers are produced by authors using publisher-provided LaTeX packages, except possibly for page numbers.</p></li>\n<li><p>Most publishers provide electronic versions of their papers to subscribers. Some publishers also provide extensive indexing and cross-referencing of their publication catalog. Online-only venues are still relatively rare, so for most venues, publishers print, bind, and ship paper copies.</p></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1643, "author": "Alex Holcombe", "author_id": 590, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/590", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In psychology and neuroscience, in addition to all the services noted by JeffE for theoretical computer science, the publisher lays out the text and the figures on the page to fit the standard journal layout.</p>\n\n<p>This usually requires manual intervention because papers in psychology and neuroscience are rarely composed with LaTeX. More often they are submitted as a Microsoft Word document or a PDF. The need for intervention by a person makes this process expensive, although it is sometimes outsourced to India to make it cheaper. In many cases, layout seems to be the process that preventes academics from publishing their journals online themselves without a publisher. Doing the layout seems too time-consuming for academics to manage on their own. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1740, "author": "Benoît Kloeckner", "author_id": 946, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In mathematics, the publisher mainly:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>organizes the peer-review (for example by providing an electronic platform for submission, communication with authors and referees, etc.);</li>\n<li>provides copy-editing;</li>\n<li>publishes in paper (organizes printing, sends the volumes, etc.) and electronic formats (manages a website, cross-links, a database, etc.).</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I would add a remark: it seems that many of the cheapest journals do all these three things a lot better than most the expensive ones. For example the professionalism of copy-editing was far better for my papers handled by the London Mathematical Society or the American Mathematical Society than for the one I got published by Elsevier, Springer or World Scientific. My only copy-editing horror story happened at Springer (seven errors in formulas introduced <em>after</em> the proofs).</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 107616, "author": "Allure", "author_id": 84834, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/84834", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I used to work at an academic publisher and so have some knowledge of what services are provided to all STEM fields. Social sciences should be similar, although I am less familiar with them.</p>\n\n<p>Publishers provide:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>An editorial management system (\"EMS\"). <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/101864/can-you-share-some-screenshots-of-editors-control-panels\">See this question</a>. EMSes help the editors keep track of the status of each paper, as well as things such as the performance of reviewers, author blacklists, and so on. EMSes (at least the more powerful ones) are usually not free and charge by per paper handled.</li>\n<li>Editorial office support (the \"desk editor\"). Desk editors are usually degree holders although not necessarily in a relevant discipline. They handle everything that might need to be done for the journal. Examples: answer author queries, liaise with Clarivate Analytics to get a journal indexed in Web of Science (see <a href=\"https://clarivate.com/essays/journal-selection-process/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">selection process</a> and the list of deliverables), operate the EMS for editors / reviewers who can't figure out how to use it or are not interested in learning, negotiate special issues with conference organizers, choose articles to feature on the journal's website, maintaining a publishing licence from the government.</li>\n<li>Acquisitions. The editorial board does a lot of this, but it's also possible a motivated desk editor or more senior editorial consultant will do some acquisition work too. Typically this involves emailing researchers and asking if they'd be interested to write on ____. They may discuss the topic with the editorial board before attempting to acquire for it. Usually editorial board approval is still required. The publisher may also attempt to invite people to join the editorial board.</li>\n<li>Peer review. Some journals are set up so that the desk editor assigns a member of the board to handle the paper. Desk rejections can also be due to the desk editor, although it requires some experience on his or her part. Actually handling the peer review process also happens relatively often in my experience. Sometimes the editorial board is either not very active or that no member of the board is interested in handling the paper, whereupon someone has to do it and that someone is the desk editor (or editorial consultant). Alternatively there could be an editor assigned who doesn't do anything for two months (<a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/103418/with-editor-from-more-than-4-months\">example</a>), and the desk editor moves the paper forward by inviting reviewers.</li>\n<li>Marketing. There're often publisher booths at major conference. One may also see insertions in these conferences. Other marketing activities include making flyers (visit your local library if you want to see what these are like), usage marketing, or things like \"we just discovered gravitational waves, here're some of our papers on gravitational waves for free\".</li>\n<li>Copyediting &amp; proofreading. Self-explanatory.</li>\n<li>Typesetting. Most authors actually don't know LaTeX very well, if they use LaTeX at all. It is very rare that a manuscript does not require typesetting. Expressions such as \"Ref (??)\" or figures being placed 3 pages away from where they are referenced are quite common, as are poor quality figures or even hand-drawn ones which need to be fixed. TeX occasionally also does things like split the caption of a figure between two pages. If one has reviewed papers in one's field one should also be able to see firsthand what the typesetting does, since the paper that's sent for review has not been typeset yet. </li>\n<li>Website maintenance. Self-explanatory.</li>\n<li>Electronic distribution of published papers. This includes generating epub files, xml files, and DOIs.</li>\n<li>Customer service. This could e.g. be librarians asking why they haven't received an issue of the journal they subscribed to (which is a reason to publish issues whenever ready and not hold papers in reserve). If print issues are necessary, they + their distribution are also handled by the publisher.</li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1593", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1600, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>\"Thank you for your useful contribution to the field\" seems to be a popular opening in such cases.</p>\n\n<p>And as it might be you, rather than the author, who's got it wrong, then proceeding by the Socratic method can be both tactful and constructive. Start with establishing common assumptions, focussing on those areas where you think the mistake starts: \"So I think you started by assuming XXX - have I got that right?\" Then continue asking questions, stepping through their methodology, giving them an opportunity to either contradict themselves, or to clear up your own misunderstanding.</p>\n\n<p>Failing that, there's the altogether briefer: \"Thank you for your useful contribution to the field. Oh, please excuse me, there's someone over there I've been trying to catch up with for some time, and I must catch them now, while I can\".</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1601, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<ul>\n<li><strong>Be polite.</strong> There's nothing to be gained by being a jerk. It's funny in the movies, but do people really say things like that in real life?</li>\n<li><strong>Be diplomatic.</strong> State initially that you do not fully understand the approach or the motivation, and then after some discussion state that you do not fully agree with the approach taken.</li>\n<li><strong>Be succinct.</strong> Point out clearly what you see as being the problem with the paper.</li>\n<li><strong>Be constructive.</strong> Indicate places where you think the paper/research could be improved, with concrete suggestions of how you would make the improvements. </li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Alternatively,</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Avoid the topic</strong>. Talk about the football scores instead. <em>What about those Bears?</em></li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1602, "author": "Piotr Migdal", "author_id": 49, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/49", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To understand that a paper is wrong can be much more difficult than that it is right. You might simply not get an idea or it could be badly written, or with rather a typo than an error.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"Could you explain me the main idea of your paper?\"</li>\n<li>\"How can it be related to other research, ...\"</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>or more technically</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"I don't understand how does X imply Y, could you explain it to me?\" (*)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>or if it is about the general approach/philosophy</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\"Personally, I prefer loop quantum gravity to string theory.\"</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If there is a plain error, there is no reason to hide it. (Otherwise you would value tact over truth, which is IMHO a very bad approach to science.) But still it can be done politely, perhaps using (*). </p>\n\n<p>Rants are rarely successful at anything.</p>\n\n<p>Moreover, judging quality or impact of a work is risky.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8744, "author": "Anon", "author_id": 6211, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6211", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For a published departure from conventional scientific professional etiquette, see the survey article “<a href=\"http://www.ams.org/notices/200905/rtx090500586p.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">Mathematics and the Internet: A Source of Enormous Confusion and Great Potential</a>,” in which Walter Willinger, David Alderson, and John C. Doyle criticize scale-invariant network models of the Internet. The article is unusual for its polemic, insulting tone. While it is not unusual for researchers to insult other researchers in private conversation, it is unusual to see this in print. Its authors spare no opportunity to criticize their competition, as well as mathematicians and physicists generally, whom they regard as foppish, insular ivory tower aesthetes, whose nostrils are unacquainted with the bracing scent of an expertly soldered electrical connection.</p>\n\n<p>The authors deploy a literary reference to insult their competition:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>“What about replacing power-laws by the somewhat more plausible\n assumption of high variability in node degrees? While the answer of\n the scale-free modeling approach consists of tweaks to the PA\n mechanism to enforce an exponential cut-off of the power-law node\n degree distribution at the upper tail, the engineering-based approach\n demystifies high-variability in node degrees altogether by identifying\n its root cause in the form of high variability in end-user bandwidth\n demands (see [33] for details). In view of such a simple physical\n explanation of the origins of node degree variability in the\n Internet’s router-level topology, Strogatz’ question, paraphrasing\n Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “… power-law scaling, full of sound and fury,\n signifying nothing?” [52] has a resounding affirmative answer.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The authors seem to suggest by this literary reference, which would not be lost on readers of the AMS Notices, that a model of the internet that predicts a power law node degree distribution is a “tale told by an idiot.”</p>\n\n<p>The authors suggest that mathematicians and physicists must get their hands dirty, do some engineering and then contemplate the authors’ HOT models of Internet connectivity, which they assert, will be more mathematically interesting “… and certainly more relevant and hence more rewarding than that of the scale-free models of the PA type.” This sentence combines a dubious claim about what mathematicians should find interesting with a swipe at scale-free preferential attachment models of the Internet. </p>\n\n<p>The authors conclude with these remarks:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>“In this article, the Internet has served as a clear case study, but\n the issues discussed apply more generally and are even more pertinent\n in contexts of biology and social systems, where measurement is\n inherently more difficult and more error prone. … Although the\n Internet story may seem all too obvious in retrospect, managing to\n avoid the same mistakes in the context of next generation network\n science remains an open challenge. The consequences of repeating such\n errors in the context of, say, biology are potentially much more grave\n and would reflect poorly on mathematics as a discipline.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Why would mathematics be at fault? The authors do not cite the literature on the independent history of debate over the applicability of power law models in biology and the social sciences, e.g., <a href=\"http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~michaelm/postscripts/im2004a.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">A Brief History of Generative Models for Power Law and Lognormal Distributions</a> by Mitzenmacher.</p>\n\n<p>Again I mention this as an unusual example in print of what appears to me to be a departure from conventional scientific etiquette. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8757, "author": "StasK", "author_id": 739, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/739", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This could be tangential, but as an Associate Editor of a reasonably good journal, I once received a note from one of the authors:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Reading your comments I found that there is a clear gap between your understanding and\n mine on what has already been in the literature, and what makes the contribution of the paper.\n I made multiple changes following your comments. But I did not follow those that are out of\n context.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>with a personal email stating that</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>I also never have experienced so much misunderstanding by either reviews or AEs in the history of my submissions. </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>on a paper that I gave my own review before sending it to other reviewers. So sometimes a rather strong language is being used. This particular author has published upwards of 50, may be close to 100, papers, which is a lot by the standards of the discipline we are in.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8774, "author": "paul garrett", "author_id": 980, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To add to other good answers: I'd try to avoid \"engaging\" on such an issue, either directly with the author or with a third party. Anything else risks being interpreted as either being an <em>overt</em> jerk, or merely a passive-aggressive jerk. Only when you are a big-shot of some sort can you perhaps \"get away with\" being a jerk. But these dynamics are much more reminiscent of grad-school common-room wrangling among first-year grad students than of collective working toward a common good. If you must say something (because you think that others are being disserved by bad work being mistaken for good), I'd advise being extreeeeemely apologetic, and not sounding sarcastic when you say \"I'm sorry, I don't understand how ...\" and then \"Ok, maybe I'm just being dense, but I still don't see...\"</p>\n\n<p>Perhaps the interpersonal model that would keep you out of trouble best would be the mental image of a student of <em>yours</em> who has made a large mistake, but with good intentions, and whom you hope to steer back to something more sensible ... or else discover your own error ... but in either/all cases without <em>alienating</em> anyone.</p>\n\n<p>Indeed, here, again, the situation is that <em>you</em> stand to profit by the errors or failings of competitors, so, although on one hand your judgement may be expert, and, thus, trustworthy, on the other hand you have some incentive to be hypercritical, and, thus, mistrusted.</p>\n\n<p>And other parties have some motivation to \"stir the pot\" just for recreation, so... watch out.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 8792, "author": "che_kid", "author_id": 6093, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/6093", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'm having trouble understanding why a conversation with someone whose work you don't think highly of should be all together different than conversations with others. Sure you may disagree with their work, but unless you are a real leader in your field remember that someone is looking down on your own work (and probably even if you are a leader!).</p>\n\n<p>I've found most academic types to be cordial and get along fine. There are a few \"rough\" people that seem to bark a lot and act rude towards others, but they get a reputation pretty quick. You don't want to be that person, especially young in your career. Call me naive, but I guess I believe that what goes around comes around.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1599", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/411/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1605, "author": "eykanal", "author_id": 73, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/73", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I'll start with some steps prior to yours in the interest of making the answer more generalizable:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Determine which universities to apply to.</strong> This will involve weighing factors such as ranking, faculty members, student opinions (from online discussion sources like this one or face-to-face discussions), sub-field specialties, and location, among others. You can prepare for this by looking all this stuff up:\n\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">US News &amp; World Reports rankings for graduate programs</a> is a good ranking system; there may be better ones I'm not familiar with.</li>\n<li>Check the department's faculty page (<a href=\"http://www.engineering.pitt.edu/Bioengineering/Research/Faculty_Research_Interests/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">example</a>) for each university to see broadly-defined research interests for faculty members. Some people will explicitly list whether they're taking on new graduate students or not.</li>\n<li>If you know anyone in the field, talk to them to see which universities/professors/labs would be good to check out.</li>\n</ol></li>\n<li><strong>Determine which lab to apply to.</strong> This will involve a lot of the above, but specifically it will involve talking to graduate students. <a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/353/73\">This question covers that topic in pretty good depth</a>.</li>\n<li><p><strong>Read up on the fundamentals of the topic you're interested in.</strong> I would suggest you be familiar with the field enough to ask a basic question about it. In my field, review papers would be a great resource for this, although I will admit that it may be hard for you to find a good one. Speak with one of the subject matter librarians in your university (i.e., if engineering, talk to the librarians in the engineering library) and ask them to help you find recent review papers on your topic.</p>\n\n<p>I'll concede this is a difficult task, but being able to ask even simple questions about the field shows familiarity, and will make you look better during the interview. I recall some of my graduate school interviews where I just sat there, almost completely unfamiliar with the lab's research topic, and I felt very foolish indeed. </p></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/958/priority-of-application-materials-for-admission-decision\"><strong>All the stuff in the question you linked to above</strong></a>.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>At this point, most of your work is already set in stone; your undergraduate grades are set, your summer internships are complete, you finished the GRE, and it isn't likely you can do anything for your professors at this point to improve your recommendation letters. Just focus on the labs themselves and learn as much as you can before making decisions.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1606, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The answer to your question also depends on whether you want to apply to a specific group (which I think of as the \"European model\" of admissions) or to an entire department (\"US model\"). </p>\n\n<p>In the US model, test scores, transcripts, and letters of recommendation tend to be the most important factor, with the statement of purpose being a less weighted criterion, as you tend not to be \"locked in\" to the area you outline in your statement of purpose. In that case, selecting a group follows admission, and then you need to do your homework on the different groups at the institutions you're interested in. </p>\n\n<p>However, in the European model, selecting a group occurs <em>before</em> the admissions process begins. In that case, everything eykanal mentions in his answer is important. However, the key thing will be to convince me that you are directly and actively interested in applying to <em>my group</em>:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Indicate how your skills and background are tied in to the projects available in my group. </li>\n<li>Show that you've done some looking into the recent work in my group.</li>\n<li>If you've established previous contact with me, raise a reminder of that.</li>\n<li>Explain why you would make a good fit in my group.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If you start doing those things, you'll make me want to request letters of reference and call you for an interview. If not, it's likely I'll send your application to the \"circular file\" without further consideration.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1604", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/379/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1611, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>If it's a blind process, you're not meant to find out. As various people have pointed out in the comments already, discussing your review with them is therefore a big no.</p>\n\n<p>One of the main principles of reviewing by several people is that you get independent opinions, so that if a particular (maybe well-known and well-respected) person doesn't like the research, they can't just make it disappear by convincing everybody else that it's bad.</p>\n\n<p>For some conferences (and maybe journals?), you are able to discuss your review with the other reviewers after the initial submission. But in this case the facilities for doing this are provided by the submission system. There are two important differences to the situtation you've described though. First, your initial review will not be influenced by the discussion and second, there is a record of the conversations and changes made.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1910, "author": "D.W.", "author_id": 705, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/705", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think it depends upon the context and field.</p>\n\n<p>For instance, on program committees in my field, once you've submitted your own review, it is normal to know who the other reviewers are and be able to see their reviews. (As a program committee member, I've always been able to see other reviewers' reviews and see their identity. If I was barred from doing so, I would probably refuse to serve on the program committee.) I always read the other reviewers' reviews, and sometimes discover that I'd missed something important. It is not uncommon for me to adjust my review in light of insightful comments found in other reviews. Therefore, I think it is helpful to be able to read other reviews.</p>\n\n<p>Generally, I think the reviewing process assumes that reviewers will be independent. This is important, to give authors a fair shake and combat groupthink. For instance, in my field, we generally try to ensure that every submitted paper receives at least 2 reviews (usually at least 3 reviews). Why do we do this? Because we know that reviewers are human and can make mistakes, and it is possible for one reviewer to dislike a paper that is nonetheless great and worthy of publication. Therefore, our system relies upon reviewers to independently evaluate the paper in their initial review, without talking to other reviewers. If all reviewers got together and shared notes before forming their own evaluation or submitting their own review, it would create significant dangers of groupthink and undermine the purpose of having multiple reviewers read every paper.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, once you and the other reviewer have submitted your initial review, it's probably fair game to exchange notes -- but this may be dependent upon the culture in your field or conference/journal. If you are not familiar with the culture, I recommend that you contact the program committee chair or journal editor to find out what process they want you to follow.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1918, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I largely agree with @Lars Kotthoff's answer, but I think there's another important aspect to the reviewers not discussing the paper with each other.</p>\n\n<p>It encourages you not to rely on the other reviewers.</p>\n\n<p>If I knew that X, who is really good at the mathematical side of things, was reviewing the paper, and talked it over with them, I might very well be tempted not to go over the math aspects of a paper with a fine-toothed comb, figuring \"they've got it\". Similarly, they might rely on me to pick over the data analysis or parameter choices, etc.</p>\n\n<p>That's bad. Reviewers should be reviewing <em>papers</em>, not chunks of papers. It's one area where division of labor isn't desirable.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1609", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/324/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1611, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>If it's a blind process, you're not meant to find out. As various people have pointed out in the comments already, discussing your review with them is therefore a big no.</p>\n\n<p>One of the main principles of reviewing by several people is that you get independent opinions, so that if a particular (maybe well-known and well-respected) person doesn't like the research, they can't just make it disappear by convincing everybody else that it's bad.</p>\n\n<p>For some conferences (and maybe journals?), you are able to discuss your review with the other reviewers after the initial submission. But in this case the facilities for doing this are provided by the submission system. There are two important differences to the situtation you've described though. First, your initial review will not be influenced by the discussion and second, there is a record of the conversations and changes made.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1910, "author": "D.W.", "author_id": 705, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/705", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think it depends upon the context and field.</p>\n\n<p>For instance, on program committees in my field, once you've submitted your own review, it is normal to know who the other reviewers are and be able to see their reviews. (As a program committee member, I've always been able to see other reviewers' reviews and see their identity. If I was barred from doing so, I would probably refuse to serve on the program committee.) I always read the other reviewers' reviews, and sometimes discover that I'd missed something important. It is not uncommon for me to adjust my review in light of insightful comments found in other reviews. Therefore, I think it is helpful to be able to read other reviews.</p>\n\n<p>Generally, I think the reviewing process assumes that reviewers will be independent. This is important, to give authors a fair shake and combat groupthink. For instance, in my field, we generally try to ensure that every submitted paper receives at least 2 reviews (usually at least 3 reviews). Why do we do this? Because we know that reviewers are human and can make mistakes, and it is possible for one reviewer to dislike a paper that is nonetheless great and worthy of publication. Therefore, our system relies upon reviewers to independently evaluate the paper in their initial review, without talking to other reviewers. If all reviewers got together and shared notes before forming their own evaluation or submitting their own review, it would create significant dangers of groupthink and undermine the purpose of having multiple reviewers read every paper.</p>\n\n<p>On the other hand, once you and the other reviewer have submitted your initial review, it's probably fair game to exchange notes -- but this may be dependent upon the culture in your field or conference/journal. If you are not familiar with the culture, I recommend that you contact the program committee chair or journal editor to find out what process they want you to follow.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1918, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I largely agree with @Lars Kotthoff's answer, but I think there's another important aspect to the reviewers not discussing the paper with each other.</p>\n\n<p>It encourages you not to rely on the other reviewers.</p>\n\n<p>If I knew that X, who is really good at the mathematical side of things, was reviewing the paper, and talked it over with them, I might very well be tempted not to go over the math aspects of a paper with a fine-toothed comb, figuring \"they've got it\". Similarly, they might rely on me to pick over the data analysis or parameter choices, etc.</p>\n\n<p>That's bad. Reviewers should be reviewing <em>papers</em>, not chunks of papers. It's one area where division of labor isn't desirable.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1613", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1618, "author": "Alexander Serebrenik", "author_id": 882, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/882", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Considered important by whom? Funding agencies will obviously prefer something \"objective\" like the impact factor, immediacy index or cited half-life. Researchers usually have less quantitative criteria like where do my peers publish or what is the journal's reputation.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1619, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To expand on JeffE's comment, impact factor gets zero respect among mathematicians. It gets very little respect in any field, as far as I know, but it's a particularly bad measure for mathematics journals. For example, it only counts citation received within two years of publication, which is just about the quickest turnaround time you could get in mathematics (given math's publishing practices and timing). So numerically, the impact factor amounts to saying that if your paper doesn't inspire people to drop everything else and rush to get followup work into print quickly enough, then it has had zero impact. </p>\n\n<p>Impact factors are also <a href=\"http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/04/10/emergence-of-a-citation-cartel/\">manipulated</a> by journal editors, often enough to require serious work detecting and punishing this behavior.</p>\n\n<p>The only reason impact factors exist at all is that administrators want simple ways to rate research productivity, especially in dysfunctional settings where there's no infrastructure of trusted experts. Counting citations is easier to defend as \"unbiased\" than most other approaches.</p>\n\n<p>There are many other numerical measures of journal quality, such as <a href=\"http://www.eigenfactor.org/\">eigenfactors</a>, but they are not popular or widely used.</p>\n\n<p>In 2010, the Australian Research Council rated 20,000 journals by quality based on expert opinion (for example, see <a href=\"http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/math-journal-ratings/\">here</a> for the math journals). This is still not great, since the ratings miss subtleties (such as journals with greater strength in some subfields than others) and it's not clear how reliable they are for lesser-known journals anyway. However, this is the closest anyone has come to giving a replacement for impact factors based on expert opinion. Unfortunately, it was so much work that they decided not to do it again.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1739, "author": "Benoît Kloeckner", "author_id": 946, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Now the Web of knowledge issues a five-year impact factor that may be considered (slightly) more relevant in some fields, like mathematics. Mathematicians sometimes convince people rating them to use the MathSciNet MCQ instead, which is a five-year impact factor computed with a mostly mathematic database.</p>\n\n<p>The AMS Notices publish yearly a survey of the processing time of many mathematical journals; this is one aspect of the editorial process quality, probably the easiest to measure.</p>\n\n<p>You can find surveys on the prices of journal, which is certainly a good measure of the commercial talent of the publisher.</p>\n\n<p>Overall, quality can mean a lot different things and you should explain for what purpose you intend the measures to be used.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1616", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/893/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1627, "author": "Alexander Serebrenik", "author_id": 882, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/882", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>No. The important point is whether the journals are <em>good</em> (= publish good papers) rather whether the access is open or restricted. This being said, in many fields AFAIK the better journals are access-restricted.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 2415, "author": "gerrit", "author_id": 1033, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1033", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Some funding agencies require to publish in open-access journals, or at least strongly encourage it. For example, I am funded by a funding agency that strongly encourages to do so. Unfortunately, in many fields, there simply aren't any high-quality open-access journals around.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 19993, "author": "derelict", "author_id": 14547, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/14547", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I see this question is old and has been answered, but I would like to add that the accepted answer by Alexander is really just an opinion, and in my opinion, there can be disadvantages for publishing in open access journals. I'm not arguing against open access, but the disadvantages should be mentioned and taken into consideration. </p>\n\n<p>The biggest disadvantage, in my opinion, is that <em>some</em> people consider open access journals to be a dumping ground for mediocre or crap science. These may or may not be the same people who are reviewing your CV or tenure. This may or may not be more true at older, more prestigious institutions, and/or older, stuck-in-their-ways scientists/academics. Some people even consider publishing in open access as <a href=\"http://earlycareerecologists.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/why-i-published-in-plos-one-and-why-i-probably-wont-again-for-awhile/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">career suicide</a>. </p>\n\n<p>With all that being said, I am a fan of open access, and think science should be accessible to everyone. <strong>\"What if one has majority of his publications on open access journals?\"</strong> I plan to publish my next manuscript in open access, but I will limit it to just one for awhile. Having the majority of publications in open access may throw up a red flag to some people. Of course, others may appreciate more open access publications. I am PhD student, and need more 1st author publications, but I don't want too many open access journals on my CV (for now). </p>\n\n<p>Other things you might want to consider when choosing a journal:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Cost is a major concern, and is one of the biggest reasons why I will go open access with the next paper. </li>\n<li>Impact factor is another reason. Many open access journals have a large readership and high impact factor, which is good. However, impact factor should not be your main goal. </li>\n<li>Citations should be your biggest concern. It's not enough for people to read your papers, you need them to cite you. And for that to happen, you need to have quality science and writing. Although a high impact factor may help with that. </li>\n</ul>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1621", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/675/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1629, "author": "Anonymous Mathematician", "author_id": 612, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/612", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>At least for most graduate programs in pure mathematics in the US, there's no need to have a specialization in mind when applying. [This may be very different in other countries.]</p>\n\n<p>It's valuable to demonstrate in your application that you have studied some serious mathematics, by discussing undergraduate research or advanced coursework. However, there's no implication that you intend to focus on the same fields in graduate school.</p>\n\n<p>It's common to indicate an interest in a few possible specialties, usually at a level of detail ranging from \"algebra\" to \"analytic number theory\". If you are completely undecided, then that could come across negatively, by suggesting a general lack of enthusiasm. However, being too specific is also problematic. Matching a possible advisor too closely comes across as pandering, while being specific without matching anyone makes it look like you aren't a good fit for this particular department.</p>\n\n<p>Overall, the general feeling is that incoming graduate students don't know enough to make well-informed decisions about specialization, and that anything they say is a little unreliable because their interests may shift as they learn more. From that perspective, it's not worth worrying about this too much.</p>\n\n<p>As for talking with professors, at least at the schools I'm familiar with this will not increase the chances of admission (the decisions are made by a committee). After you've been admitted, it's important to talk with faculty and try to gauge the chances of finding a suitable advisor. However, that can and should wait until February.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1636, "author": "Willie Wong", "author_id": 94, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>To add to what the Anonymous Mathematician said (so again, this has to do with United States)</p>\n\n<p>If you have not already decided on a specialisation, you should <em>certainly not</em> try to shoehorn yourself into one just for the sake of applying for graduate school. If you have already decided on a specialisation, however, you should certainly specify it <em>and</em> try to talk to faculty members before and/or during the admission process. This is not so much to improve your chances at the school per se; this is mostly to find out whether that school would be a good fit for what <em>you</em> want to study. </p>\n\n<p>When I was applying for graduate schools I had just one such experience. I was already quite sure about what I wanted to study, and so contacted some faculty members at places where I applied to who may be good advisors. One of them told me that (a) I have a pretty strong application and they will probably admit me (b) But he is personally busy with his existing students and won't want to take another one (c) There's no one in the same department that he sees as having similar enough interests to be a good advisor for me and (d) The department is running a bit low on money so unless I get a fellowship somehow I will have a hellish teaching load. </p>\n\n<p>In the end I took an offer from another school. </p>\n\n<p>For emphasis, however, what I mean by specialisation is very narrow: \"partial differential equations\" is still too broad. For my advice above to apply you need to be able to say which type of PDEs you are interested it (elliptic, parabolic, evolutionary, dispersive, transport, kinetic theory, fluids, and/or optimal control to list a few) and to be able to hold an informed (not necessarily expert) discussion on the subject and why you want to study it. </p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>For other countries the system can vastly differ; this is especially so for degree programs which <em>require</em> a Masters or equivalent degree for admission. Many of those programs require submission of a research proposal and admission is contingent on the research being likely to be able to be conducted at said university and that a suitable advisor can be found for your research proposal. But for these kinds of degrees the opposite of the expectation described by Anonymous Mathematician holds: the incoming students are expected to be sufficiently educated (by the Masters degree) to make informed decisions and are also expected to have a good idea what is involved in pursuing PhD research and know what they want to work on. But you can general tell the expectations by reading up on the qualifications for admission and on what the departments/universities expect on the application form. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1737, "author": "Benoît Kloeckner", "author_id": 946, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/946", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>In France the picture is very different from the US, since you start right away your PhD research (so you must have an adviser from the beginning, and an idea what you will be working on). </p>\n\n<p>If one includes the M2 (second-year master) in graduate studies, then anyway most of them are specialized, so by picking one you do choose a specific field. You can switch for your PhD, but for some fields with many prerequisites it is usually a bad idea.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1623", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1632, "author": "Jeromy Anglim", "author_id": 62, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<h3>OTexts</h3>\n\n<p>I just remembered that Professor Rob Hyndman had spoken about his upcoming textbook <a href=\"https://www.otexts.org/fpp\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">Forecasting: Principles and Practice</a></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>The entire book is avail­able online and free-of-charge. Of course, we\n won’t make much money doing this, but text­books never make much money\n any­way — the pub­lish­ers make all the money. We’d rather cre­ate\n some­thing that is widely used and use­ful, than have large\n pub­lish­ers profit from our efforts.</p>\n \n <p>Even­tu­ally a print ver­sion of the book will be avail­able to\n pur­chase on Ama­zon, but not until a few more chap­ters are written.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The publisher is called \"OTexts\".\nIt says on <a href=\"http://otexts.org/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\">their website</a>.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>OTexts represents a new approach to university textbooks. All our\n books will always be completely and freely available online. Why spend\n hundreds of dollars on printed books which are soon out-of-date when\n you can have continually updated online books for nothing!</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>At time of posting Rob's book appears to be the first text book to be published with this publisher.</p>\n\n<p>It says at time of posting under the \"For Authors\" section</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Print royalties are shared 50-50 between the author and OTexts.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h3>Reflections</h3>\n\n<p>On the face of it, this sounds perfect for an author keen to maximise academic impact. </p>\n\n<p>However:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>This is a very new company.</li>\n<li>I'm not sure what the implications would be for grants, promotions, jobs relative to publishing with an established academic publisher.</li>\n</ul>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1633, "author": "JeffE", "author_id": 65, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/65", "pm_score": 7, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Cambridge University Press allows authors to freely distribute electronic copies of the books that it publishes, at least in mathematics and computer science. (Of course this has to be explicitly negotiated into the publishing contract.) Two good examples are <a href=\"http://www.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/AT/ATpage.html\">Allen Hatcher's <em>Algebraic Topology</em></a> and <a href=\"http://planning.cs.uiuc.edu\">Steve LaValle's <em>Planning Algorithms</em></a>.</p>\n\n<p>You could also just release the book on the web, let people create their own physical copies through a book-printing service like <a href=\"http://www.lulu.com/\">Lulu</a> or <a href=\"http://www.blurb.com/\">Blurb</a>, and rely on the quality of the text to bolster your reputation instead of a traditional publisher's imprimatur. See, for example, <a href=\"http://opendatastructures.org/\">Pat Morin's excellent <em>Open Data Structures</em></a>. However, I don't recommend this route unless (a) you write an <em>amazingly</em> good book, and (b) you already have tenure.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1634, "author": "Open the way", "author_id": 284, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/284", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>For instance, you can try with <a href=\"http://www.intechopen.com/\">INTECH</a>.</p>\n\n<p>From the website:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>InTech is a pioneer and world's largest multidisciplinary open access\n publisher of books covering the fields of Science, Technology and\n Medicine. Since 2004, InTech has collaborated with more than 60 000\n authors and published 1720 books and 13 journals with the aim of\n providing free online access to high-quality research and helping\n leading academics to make their work visible and accessible to diverse\n new audiences around the world.</p>\n</blockquote>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1635, "author": "Willie Wong", "author_id": 94, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/94", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>One possibility is to self-publish. <a href=\"http://www.essex.ac.uk/maths/staff/profile.aspx?ID=1309\">DH Fremlin</a> published his extremely well-respected treatises on <a href=\"http://www.essex.ac.uk/maths/people/fremlin/mt.htm\"><em>Measure Theory</em></a> with <a href=\"http://www.lulu.com/\">Lulu.com</a>. The books (in fact, the TeX source files) are available on his website for free; all the while his books are well-enough received that many university mathematics libraries have purchased physical copies of the books. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1637, "author": "James Davies", "author_id": 903, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/903", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You may wish to investigate <a href=\"http://re-press.org/\">http://re-press.org/</a> in Australia. They are an academic press that is, I believe, affiliated with an Australian University. They appear to do exactly what you describe -- make the PDF freely available and simultaneously offer a print version. We will be offering PDFs of our books through Google Play, but haven't yet found a way to subsidize this; at this stage of our development, we still have to charge, both for print versions and for PDFs.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 10607, "author": "Pat Morin", "author_id": 1298, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/1298", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Another open-access friendly publisher is Athabasca University Press. They're currently in the process of publishing my textbook that @JeffE mentioned.</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120226\" rel=\"noreferrer\">http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120226</a></p>\n\n<p>They've been pleasant to work with and, in particular, were fine accepting a non-exclusive license to publish the work. This still allows, for example, a student society to print, bind, and sell their own copies if they can do it for less than what the publisher is charging.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 93315, "author": "darij grinberg", "author_id": 7725, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7725", "pm_score": 0, "selected": false, "text": "<p><a href=\"https://spartacus-idh.com/\" rel=\"nofollow noreferrer\"><strong>Spartacus-IDH</strong></a> is a French science publisher. If I correctly understand the site, all books are freely viewable and some are freely downloadable as PDF. The catalogue is meager so far, but I see no reason why it shouldn't grow.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1628", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1640, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The answer (as in case of most answers in academia.SE) is it depends, often widely from case-to-case. Unless presented with an exceptional example, I would generally view having more than two advisers as a major hindrance - the perceived benefit of having another source of ideas is negated heavily by the communications overhead between them, and the scope for misunderstandings about their role, which might cause the student to be either overloaded in multiple (possibly conflicting) areas, or languishing without any significant guidance. The rest of my answer is based on the assumption that the number of advisers is 2.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>What is the defined role of the said advisers - are they equally responsible for guiding the student towards completion of their graduate studies (as I've been told is the case in some European schools/research schools), or is one of them the principal guide and the other a co-guide? The amount of time/effort invested by each would depend on their perception of how much they are actually responsible for the student's growth as a researcher.</p></li>\n<li><p>As with most social interactions, it would help greatly if there is a good (or at least professional) working relationship between the 2 guides, as well as a healthy overlap of research areas - a new student might not be able to handle multiple research problems in completely different areas at the same time (without affecting the time to graduate, or the quality of results).</p></li>\n<li><p>Assuming the student publishes with both of them independently, it would look good on her CV that she can produce publishable research with multiple established researchers. This could also have the side-effect of enhancing the student's research network - as a lot of papers (in CS at least) have more than 2 authors, and often collaborating on an paper could lead to more papers/research done with the same set of persons in future.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1642, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think it's detrimental to research progress to have more than two advisors \"in practice.\" (By this, I mean that there should not be more than two people directly involved in day-to-day matters. A \"formal advisor\" who does not play a substantial role in the thesis would not count.)</p>\n\n<p>There are a number of reasons for this:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>It can be very difficult to get all of the advisors together in the physical sense, and even harder to get them to agree on anything, when they all will want to have their viewpoint considered and accepted.</p></li>\n<li><p>A substantial part of your time as a research student may be spent \"translating\" back and forth between the different advisors. On the other hand, this can also be a potential strength, in that you will have to learn how to make arguments using several different research \"languages.\"</p></li>\n<li><p>Funding and bureaucracy will become more complicated the more advisors you have. (This will be true for multiple advisors, even if some of them are \"hands off\" or formal rather than practicing advisors.)</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So, in general, it's best to have one or two advisors. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1639", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/77/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1640, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 5, "selected": true, "text": "<p>The answer (as in case of most answers in academia.SE) is it depends, often widely from case-to-case. Unless presented with an exceptional example, I would generally view having more than two advisers as a major hindrance - the perceived benefit of having another source of ideas is negated heavily by the communications overhead between them, and the scope for misunderstandings about their role, which might cause the student to be either overloaded in multiple (possibly conflicting) areas, or languishing without any significant guidance. The rest of my answer is based on the assumption that the number of advisers is 2.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>What is the defined role of the said advisers - are they equally responsible for guiding the student towards completion of their graduate studies (as I've been told is the case in some European schools/research schools), or is one of them the principal guide and the other a co-guide? The amount of time/effort invested by each would depend on their perception of how much they are actually responsible for the student's growth as a researcher.</p></li>\n<li><p>As with most social interactions, it would help greatly if there is a good (or at least professional) working relationship between the 2 guides, as well as a healthy overlap of research areas - a new student might not be able to handle multiple research problems in completely different areas at the same time (without affecting the time to graduate, or the quality of results).</p></li>\n<li><p>Assuming the student publishes with both of them independently, it would look good on her CV that she can produce publishable research with multiple established researchers. This could also have the side-effect of enhancing the student's research network - as a lot of papers (in CS at least) have more than 2 authors, and often collaborating on an paper could lead to more papers/research done with the same set of persons in future.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1642, "author": "aeismail", "author_id": 53, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/53", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I think it's detrimental to research progress to have more than two advisors \"in practice.\" (By this, I mean that there should not be more than two people directly involved in day-to-day matters. A \"formal advisor\" who does not play a substantial role in the thesis would not count.)</p>\n\n<p>There are a number of reasons for this:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><p>It can be very difficult to get all of the advisors together in the physical sense, and even harder to get them to agree on anything, when they all will want to have their viewpoint considered and accepted.</p></li>\n<li><p>A substantial part of your time as a research student may be spent \"translating\" back and forth between the different advisors. On the other hand, this can also be a potential strength, in that you will have to learn how to make arguments using several different research \"languages.\"</p></li>\n<li><p>Funding and bureaucracy will become more complicated the more advisors you have. (This will be true for multiple advisors, even if some of them are \"hands off\" or formal rather than practicing advisors.)</p></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>So, in general, it's best to have one or two advisors. </p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1644", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/870/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1647, "author": "alinoz", "author_id": 899, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/899", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would look what are the domain of interest of my advisor, see what he dose, and pick a thesis on one of that domain (In case I can run in trouble he can help). But I will take care to be a topic that I can also find interesting.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1649, "author": "Bastiaan Quast", "author_id": 870, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/870", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I would recommend that you read into some area of your Master which your find interesting. After you have an outline of an idea, then see on your university website which of the professors might be a suitable supervisor.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1664, "author": "ted.strauss", "author_id": 914, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/914", "pm_score": 5, "selected": false, "text": "<p>You'll be amazed at how much the choice of Master's thesis will influence your long-term interest in the field, prospects for jobs within and outside of academia.\nI'd suggest picking up some mainstream journals or magazines in your field and see what is currently trendy in the field, and what are bread and butter topics. Having a birds eye view of what's going on in the field allows you to be strategic about your topic, with the goal of planning a successful career. </p>\n\n<p>Most likely, a successful career is one that will hook into an existing community of researchers in a topic, with a reliable source of funds that pay for conferences, departments, and students to populate them. A strategic topic is one that has the potential to make an impact in the field, and has the potential to cross-over into related disciplines, or even to have practical applications to real people (god forbid).</p>\n\n<p>Finally, and most importantly, choose a topic that gets your blood flowing. Your master's topic could very easily become a PhD topic, which could then become a career focus. A lot of grad student burn-out is the result of students reaching their limit of interest in a topic, and thus deciding they've had enough. </p>\n\n<p>As you survey mainstream and more specific literatures, be aware of what problems and topics get you excited. Choose something that you actually get excited about, that you can't stop thinking and talking about, and that you can even get other people excited about. That's the topic that will keep you going when you get stuck in the muck of research and don't know if you can keep going for another year.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1666, "author": "Dave Clarke", "author_id": 643, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/643", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>One approach is follows:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Find one or two good recent PhD theses in your chosen area. Read these thoroughly. As you read, write down every question that pops into your mind, write down every time the author states that something is left for future work or needs further investigation. \nThis will have a dual effect. Firstly, you will get a good introduction to a particular research field. Secondly, you will have a bunch of questions that need to be investigated.</p></li>\n<li><p>Prune trivial questions, non-sensible ones, etc. </p></li>\n<li><p>Next, organize your questions thematically and see whether you can find a common thread to these questions, something that could form the basis of your research. </p></li>\n<li><p>Remove any questions that do not fit will with the others.</p></li>\n<li><p>Based on the remaining questions, formulate a couple of coherent questions that your research could address.</p></li>\n<li><p>Write a plan to address these questions.</p></li>\n<li><p>Work through plan.</p></li>\n<li><p>Write thesis.</p></li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 32401, "author": "David Blay", "author_id": 20043, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20043", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>This is summary of what i got from a blog i read. The link will be provided below</p>\n\n<p><strong>1.Idea generation</strong></p>\n\n<p>Rather than look for one perfect idea, it is better to consider several. In the initial stages, you should be open to all ideas, even if they seem crazy.\nThe ideas don’t need to be completely unique, you could start with one idea, then consider multiple variations on a theme. However you approach it, take some time to think of as many different topics as you can.</p>\n\n<p><strong>2.Testing</strong></p>\n\n<p>This stage is crucial, and can save you years of pain.</p>\n\n<p>Before you finalise your thesis topic, you need to test potential ideas for viability. Is the project possible? How will you go about it? What do you need?</p>\n\n<p>Ask yourself, what is the simplest first step that would need to be taken, and figure out if it is possible</p>\n\n<p><strong>3. Elimination and refinement</strong></p>\n\n<p>It’s OK to let go of ideas if they don’t work or are impractical (and much easier to do if you start with several possibilities). But others may just need a little refinement to become viable.</p>\n\n<p>Check out this blog by James Hayton (<a href=\"http://jameshaytonphd.com/how-to-choose-a-thesis-topic/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://jameshaytonphd.com/how-to-choose-a-thesis-topic/</a>).</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1646", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/600/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1653, "author": "Lars Kotthoff", "author_id": 12, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/12", "pm_score": 6, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Your best bet is probably to ask your colleagues if they would have you let a look at their (successful) grant proposals. That way you can also ask questions.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1656, "author": "Jeromy Anglim", "author_id": 62, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>Many universities have a unit devoted to providing support with grant applications. Often they will have a database of previous grants (from members of the university), which you can examine.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1663, "author": "Brian Maicke", "author_id": 662, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/662", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>If you are writing proposals for NSF consider volunteering as a <a href=\"http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/meritreview/reviewer.jsp#2\">reviewer</a> in your discipline. This way you have both the opportunity to see a number of proposals and discuss them critically with others in your area. It is not a short term solution as it involves a significant committment of time and energy, but in addition to helping with your own proposals, you provide a valuable service and gain the opportunity to network with others in your area.</p>\n\n<p>NSF also has a number of workshops on grant-writing that may help, but you likely will not see actual proposals during the workshop. In my area, NSF hosts a <a href=\"http://www.cmmigranteeconference.org/\">conference</a> every 18 months with a number of grant-writing or career development break-out sessions which may help with the proposal writing process.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 19145, "author": "Daniel Mietchen", "author_id": 11244, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11244", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A good start would seem to be compilations of grant proposals that have been made public by their authors, e.g. <a href=\"http://jabberwocky.weecology.org/2012/08/10/a-list-of-publicly-available-grant-proposals-in-the-biological-sciences/\">here</a>.</p>\n\n<p>A more long-term approach would be to work on making grant proposals public more systematically, as discussed <a href=\"https://www.newschallenge.org/challenge/2014/submissions/opening-up-research-proposals\">here</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 34734, "author": "Daniel Mietchen", "author_id": 11244, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11244", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A proposal in response to an EU call is currently being drafted in the open <a href=\"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Wikidata_for_research\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>. For background, see <a href=\"http://blog.wikimedia.de/2014/12/19/wikidata-for-research-presenting-the-team-and-a-first-sketch-of-the-workplan/\" rel=\"nofollow\">here</a>.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 97273, "author": "Daniel Mietchen", "author_id": 11244, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/11244", "pm_score": 3, "selected": false, "text": "<p>There is now a dedicated site Open Grants (<a href=\"https://www.ogrants.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer\">https://www.ogrants.org/</a>)\nwhich states</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>An increasing number of researchers are sharing their grant proposals openly. They do this to open up science so that all stages of the process can benefit from better interaction and communication and to provide examples for early career scientists writing grants. This is a list of 132 of these proposals to help you find them.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Of course, that number keeps going up.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 97275, "author": "paul garrett", "author_id": 980, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/980", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The obvious premise, that imitating succesful proposals makes a new proposal more likely to be successful, is plausibly true, <em>up</em> <em>to</em> <em>a</em> <em>point</em>. Namely, sure, silly language or silly formatting or silly worldview or obvious ignorance of prior work will not get funding. But these things are relatively superficial. Avoiding those loud failures will not guarantee funding, rather, they are just entry barriers... sanity checks. Avoiding them will just get you to the starting line.</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 97291, "author": "Fomite", "author_id": 118, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/118", "pm_score": 1, "selected": false, "text": "<p>A few possible sources:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Ask friends and colleagues. Many are happy to share their proposals in confidence.</li>\n<li>Find out if your institution has a grant development office - and if they have a collection of old proposals to look at. Some of them maintain collections like this.</li>\n<li>Following up on #2, find out if your institution, department, etc. has a group engaged in \"proposal red teaming\", wherein you review in-development proposals from your peers as if you were an external reviewer.</li>\n<li>Try to become a proposal reviewer - for internal grant projects, or NIH/NSF study sections, etc.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>There are also some groups that have been using FOIA requests to see grant proposals written at public institutions. Doing that is <em>extremely</em> controversial, and while legal, likely falls in the \"bad academic citizenship\" category.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Related question: maybe I am naive, why don't NSF and other funding\n agencies publish the full proposal of the ones that were accepted, say\n 5, 10 years after the funding ends? It seems to me that these older\n projects should have wrapped up already and there are probably minimal\n risk of being scooped.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>These proposals often contain long-term or overarching research plans that may not be complete in five years, unpublished data, etc. My guess is its easier to simply <em>not</em> than to try to parse that out and/or redact that information.</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1652", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/456/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1657, "author": "TCSGrad", "author_id": 79, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/79", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I believe you have a number of options, which I'm stating in no particular oder:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>You can use the <a href=\"http://archive.org/index.php\" rel=\"nofollow\">Wayback Machine</a>, which strives to store snapshots of web-pages across time. You can also use the more personalized <a href=\"http://www.archive-it.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">archive-it</a> service, which lets you manage your <em>own</em> collection, at the same time sharing it with the public - this is mostly used by institutions I think.</p></li>\n<li><p>Alternatively, you can host your own blog on a licensed domain name, where you've prepaid the fees for enough years in advance.</p></li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>Lastly, a very simple suggestion - if the content of the website is tending towards the academic quality/nature of a book, why not publish it as a short collection essays, which you can then disseminate freely over open web libraries etc?</p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1659, "author": "Community", "author_id": -1, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/-1", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I guess that unfortunately, it's not possible to rely on any private service to ensure a long-term accessibility, since any service can shut down (in a similar way that any book editor can disappear, making impossible to print new editions of old books). </p>\n\n<p>For your own blog, you basically need to have a local copy of it, and either you back-up the public version. For instance, you have a wordpress blog, and you back-up every new article you publish locally. In my case, I have a local version of my own website running on my personal computer (with a webserver and database), and I just sync my local copy with the server it's hosted on, so that there are always two versions of it. The likelihood of losing both at the same time is low enough to make it safe. If you have a decent Internet connection, you can also have your own server at home, and back it up online, so that there are always at least two versions in two different places. </p>\n\n<p>For the other blogs, that's why it's important when you cite one blog not only to put a link, but also to put the text you're quoting, or some text you find interesting. Hence, if the original source disappear, there still exists a copy in many other places. That's the reason why on the SE network, it is asked not to put only links, but also the (description of the) content of the link. In other words, copyright problems aside, it's a good thing to copy! </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1661, "author": "410 gone", "author_id": 96, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/96", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<ol>\n<li><strong>keep up-to-date backups</strong> so that you've got copies in at least two geographical locations (e.g. one at home, one at work) of everything you want to keep.</li>\n<li><strong>route everything via your own personal domain</strong>: so that even when things are hosted elsewhere (current university website, pre-print archives, whatever), the URL people see and bookmark is the one on your own personal domain. That way, their bookmarks will still work when you change your affiliation away from your current university.</li>\n<li><a href=\"http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI\" rel=\"nofollow\">pick good URIs, and then stick to them</a>.</li>\n</ol>\n" }, { "answer_id": 1662, "author": "hnltraveler", "author_id": 782, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/782", "pm_score": 4, "selected": true, "text": "<p>Digital preservation is an evolving area, and the ability to preserve websites over the long-term is one of the most problematic areas. There are several reasons for this: the dynamic nature of contemporary websites (especially in a format like a blog, where content is update regularly and interactive components such as commenting), hyperlinking (which will eventually lead to broken links and broken images, which, if you point to content external to your site, is out of your control) and the instability of Web formats (websites might look better in one browser than another, much less how websites hold up over time) are just a few of the challenges in preserving websites. </p>\n\n<p>There are, however, several things you can do to help preserve your website:</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Backup—keep your content stored in more than one location (on your server, on your hard drive, on an external hard drive, in the cloud, etc.) and don't use an external service as your primary storage location, as they can collapse at any time (Geocities was a huge service when it was shuttered);</li>\n<li>Keep up to date in changes in file formats and browser software—when browsers get updated to view HTML 5, 6, or whatever may replace HTML in the future, will they be backwards compatible to be able to view the blog you're authoring today, or will you need to migrate your website to a contemporary format?;</li>\n<li>Utilize pockets of expertise on campus—archivists on many campuses have been working towards digital preservation solution and your university's archivist (especially at larger universities) may be able to provide solutions for the long-term preservation of your website; and</li>\n<li>Consider normalizing your website to a preservation format—although creating a copy of your website as a PDF may mean losses in functionality (in terms of interactivity), it is a way to preserve the content and appearance of the site in a file format that is considered a safer bet for long-term preservation.</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>The Library of Congress also provides some tips on how to design preservable websites including following available web and accessibility standards, embedding metadata and maintaining stable URLs.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n <p>Taylor, N. (2012, February 6). Designing Preservable Websites, Redux.\n Retrieved May 23, 2012, from\n <a href=\"http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2012/02/designing-preservable-websites-redux/\" rel=\"nofollow\">http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2012/02/designing-preservable-websites-redux/</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1655", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62/" ]

[ { "answer_id": 1669, "author": "Suresh", "author_id": 346, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/346", "pm_score": 4, "selected": false, "text": "<p>I routinely mention my participation in cstheory as a moderator on grant applications (under Broader Impact). I also mention it as part of 'synergistic activities' in my NSF 2-page bio. </p>\n\n<p>For departmental review, I'd view this as external service. </p>\n" }, { "answer_id": 69380, "author": "Wetlab Walter", "author_id": 28355, "author_profile": "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/28355", "pm_score": 2, "selected": false, "text": "<p>The StackExchange point system is not a metric for anything other than &quot;how much we trust you to use the site correctly&quot;. The idea exists to balance the needs of a public/open/crowdsourced/self-moderating Q&amp;A system, with protection from internet trolls and defacement. The authors of SE even said themselves that &quot;reputation was useless,&quot; and not a proxy for the value someone brings to the site.</p>\n<p>For example, some people like Brian Tompsett rack up huge amounts of points by editing posts with minor spelling corrections. This is NOT to say Brian's work is meaningless though - it absolutely is not - but you can't just look at a score and directly convert it into value to the community since there are so many different ways to gain rep.</p>\n<p>I am myself a pretty good example of this. Recently I made a question regarding my poor working conditions which gained the most number of views for a question on the site to date. Probably because many people felt sympathetic to my circumstances, it gained a large number of upvotes too. I am under no illusion however, that my question and thus my account has anything like the value to the community that my rep score indicates. The large number of upvotes however, gave me the psychological support i needed to tell my boss that my working conditions <em>are</em> unfair, despite what he claims, and now everything on my end is much much better - so ironically, it was the upvotes themselves that had value, not the question.</p>\n<p>There are also numerous answers that contain &quot;hard truths&quot; that get heavily down-voted not because they are inaccurate, but because people just don't like what they are reading - despite it having considerable value. People who play devil's advocate get hit by this the hardest.</p>\n<p>So you see there is only a weak correlation between between rep and value to the site - and that is by design. Anyone who would know what to do with your rep score if seen on a CV would likely know this too, so if you do go on to put your academia.SE details on your CV, make sure to highlight why you like helping people, whether you like to ask good/insightful questions or answer technical/demanding questions with research, etc etc. Don't make any reference to rep, because the person reading the review won't be impressed - particularly if their rep score is lower or much higher than yours ;)</p>\n" } ]

[ "https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1658", "https://academia.stackexchange.com", "https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/62/" ]