It appears that a number of people dislike the categorization of STEM into hard and soft STEM and I understand their reasons. Additionally, if I were a guy, there is an obvious reason why I would never want to be known as "soft." But it seems people dislike being categorized altogether.
I think we all like to think we are unique, snowflake-like researchers who totally escape all categorization. We bridge multiple fields, we do a little bit of this and a little bit of that, all in our own unique way. There is no chance that there is anyone quite as awesome, versatile, and interdisciplinary as we are, right? But, alas, who can ever really evaluate us in all our unique interdisciplinary glory?
Let's try the following scenario: You are up for tenure. Your department colleagues want to promote you. But, there is usually at least one additional step, where a committee composed of members of different departments is supposed to evaluate your case and often this is who really decides your destiny. These committees usually have different department compositions in different years. Bear in mind that a representative of your department cannot vote (even if there is one on the committee) and neither can any of your close collaborators that happen to be on the committee.
So, which departments are likely to yield a representative that will be able to adequately assess your tenure dossier? In particular, which department's representatives will be most appreciative of the research metrics such as your publication record (e.g. publication quality, publication rate, relevant journals) and your funding record, without entirely relying on the information in the external evaluation letters? If you comment on this, please state what your field is and list 3-5 such departments, whose representatives are likely to fully appreciate your awesome record and if necessary be able to champion your case to the rest of the committee.
If thoughts of a tenure decision leave you drenched in sweat (e.g. because you don't want to live through it again or because it's coming up soon), you can consider a similar scenario where you are up for an Excellence in Research university award, as to be determined by a committee of 5 people. Which 3-5 departments are those whose representatives you woul ideally want on the committee to ensure full appreciation of your research awesomeness?
While each of us may well be a unique, snowflake-like researcher who totally escapes all categorization, it's not a bad idea to sometimes think which other fields we can easily (or not so easily) make a bridge to. This is important when we are evaluated for tenure and promotion, when we seek new funding, when we think of new research directions, when we start collaborations. (Or when someone on the internet invites us to take a poll about where our discipline belongs.) Sometimes the best new research directions come precisely from realizing that another field is sufficiently different from ours that some well-known techniques from our field may enable some very exciting breakthroughs in the other field.
Different categorizations emphasize different common aspects, no more and no less: with some fields we share the same scientific journals and/or the sources of funding; with some others we may share the same poor representation of women or minorities among faculty and students; with many more we get grouped into colleges and schools, according to tradition, or politics, or disciplinary similarities. Finally, there are many aspects all academics share, such as our teaching and service missions, and that's why we are all grouped into universities.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
What's Your STEM?
Sometimes I wonder why there are so few hard STEM (see clarification below) voices in the scientific blogosphere. There are technical blogs, but at least among the blogs I find appealing -- blogs which talk about cross-disciplinary academic issues (grants, peer review, tenure) without too many narrowly technical issues -- it appears that the vast majority are soft-STEM voices. There appear to be many students, postdocs, and faculty (untenured and tenured) in the biological and biomedical sciences/engineering fields. The only high profile hard STEM blogger I know of is FSP, and from the comments I have the impression that she draws a fair bit of hard STEM readership, but I am not sure. I am aware of several younger hard-STEM bloggers on blog collectives, such as Lab Spaces.
So where are the hard STEM science bloggers? Do they lurk but don't blog? Do they comment mostly anonymously? Do they blog but are largely independent so harder to find?
It is totally possible that I only sample a teeny tiny corner of the scientific blogosphere and have an unrealistic view of the disciplinary cross section.
My puzzlement with the dearth of hard STEM bloggers can be due to my general cluelessness and a short blogging career, I can totally accept that. If someone actually wrote about this issue and/or polled people, and this is well-known and settled, please just send me some relevant links so we can all get (re)educated.
In case I am not imagining the dearth of hard STEM science bloggers, let me ask: What's your STEM discipline?
Below is a list of STEM categories, as found for instance here (with subcategories). I took the liberty of moving Biomedical Engineering to join with Biological Sciences; this way we have the first and second categories as soft STEM, the others are mostly hard STEM (I am not sure if Environmental Sciences belong to hard or soft STEM, I suppose it depends on the subdiscipline).
Please take the poll to your right and let us know which category best descries your discipline. You can select more than one category (for instance, I am both "Physics and Astronomy" and "Engineering").
My blog is not high-traffic, so it would really be good if more people would take part in trying to understand what the profesional cross section of the scientific blogosphere looks like. If you care about this issue, consider yourself tagged and consider following up with a similar poll or a post exploring the hard STEM vs soft STEM representation in the scientific blogosphere.
Also, below is a second poll, asking you to tell us what your career stage is.
I also encourage you to share, in the comments, what your specific discipline is, what career stage you are at, and what you think about the representation of your discipline in the blogosphere.
And if you know of a cool hard-STEM blog that addresses cross-disciplinary academic issues we can all enjoy reading, please share the link!
------------------
Some people dislike the hard STEM/soft STEM distinction as it seems to imply that one of them is hard as in difficult and the other one is not. I most certainly don't think that and I don't know anyone who does; my understanding is that "soft" pertains to soft materials, of which biological materials are probably the most widely studied class. So I simply use the above distinction as equivalent to a non-bio STEM/bio STEM field distinction and most people I know do the same. But, as Namezia says below, you can alternatively consider it the physical/biological sciences distinction, although I am not sure where this type of classification leaves math and CS people or people who are engineers.
So where are the hard STEM science bloggers? Do they lurk but don't blog? Do they comment mostly anonymously? Do they blog but are largely independent so harder to find?
It is totally possible that I only sample a teeny tiny corner of the scientific blogosphere and have an unrealistic view of the disciplinary cross section.
My puzzlement with the dearth of hard STEM bloggers can be due to my general cluelessness and a short blogging career, I can totally accept that. If someone actually wrote about this issue and/or polled people, and this is well-known and settled, please just send me some relevant links so we can all get (re)educated.
In case I am not imagining the dearth of hard STEM science bloggers, let me ask: What's your STEM discipline?
Below is a list of STEM categories, as found for instance here (with subcategories). I took the liberty of moving Biomedical Engineering to join with Biological Sciences; this way we have the first and second categories as soft STEM, the others are mostly hard STEM (I am not sure if Environmental Sciences belong to hard or soft STEM, I suppose it depends on the subdiscipline).
Please take the poll to your right and let us know which category best descries your discipline. You can select more than one category (for instance, I am both "Physics and Astronomy" and "Engineering").
My blog is not high-traffic, so it would really be good if more people would take part in trying to understand what the profesional cross section of the scientific blogosphere looks like. If you care about this issue, consider yourself tagged and consider following up with a similar poll or a post exploring the hard STEM vs soft STEM representation in the scientific blogosphere.
Also, below is a second poll, asking you to tell us what your career stage is.
I also encourage you to share, in the comments, what your specific discipline is, what career stage you are at, and what you think about the representation of your discipline in the blogosphere.
And if you know of a cool hard-STEM blog that addresses cross-disciplinary academic issues we can all enjoy reading, please share the link!
------------------
Some people dislike the hard STEM/soft STEM distinction as it seems to imply that one of them is hard as in difficult and the other one is not. I most certainly don't think that and I don't know anyone who does; my understanding is that "soft" pertains to soft materials, of which biological materials are probably the most widely studied class. So I simply use the above distinction as equivalent to a non-bio STEM/bio STEM field distinction and most people I know do the same. But, as Namezia says below, you can alternatively consider it the physical/biological sciences distinction, although I am not sure where this type of classification leaves math and CS people or people who are engineers.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Universal PhD Criteria vs Student Career Objectives
If you don't already read The Prodigal Academic blog, I highly recommend it. Her last two posts ("Overproduction of PhDs?" and "What's a degree worth?") were really interesting, as were the comments (warning: I have, ahem, a slight commentoholism problem).
Basically, one of the issues raised is what the PhD degree is for and whether it should be tailored (and to what degree) to a student's potential/desired career outcomes and/or to the needs of the PI or the universtity.
Should we close the doors at the admission end and admit only very qualified applicants?
Departments get funding from the university according to the number of students; this especially holds true for departments that teach large service courses. Everyone is in trouble if students (undergrad or grad) don't enroll. After excellent applicants are admitted, less than excellent ones can be admitted too. Unless you are a top-5 school, admission capacity is (sometimes significantly) higher than the pool of unambiguously fabulous graduate students. Which is OK, because there are many fabulous students that may not look fabulous on paper -- and this is great for all the faculty who are not at top-5 universities, as they have a chance to work with talented students after top-5’s have passed them due to their not-blatantly-obvious fabulousness.
My best student, bar none, did a so-so job on his GRE. I am very grateful for that little slip, because in every aspect he is a student anyone would be delighted to work with, so I am glad he's here at GMP Big Public University and not at a Fancy Private School. The bright deep thinkers who can go on to advance science are highly sought after as grad students, but at most places they are a rarity rather than the norm.
I think many people are romanticizing what universities used to be (how many of us really know what univerities were like 40+ years ago?): they produced brilliant thinkers but were also much less inclusive. Giving a larger pool of people a chance at success is a good thing – no one can foresee, with 100% accuracy at admission time, who will make it out.
Should we train all students as though they are to become faculty?
Most PI's want to train the students as best they can to become independent scientists. PI's are passionate about their work and like nothing better than to propagate the passion and clone little new PI's. But, I know for a fact that even top-5-univerity faculty complain that a significant portion of admitted students are not capable of being successful PI's at an R1 university. For instance, some are technically brilliant, but hopeless at public speaking or writing. Being a faculty, like any job, comes with a lot of required skills, not all of them technical; and it requires a fair bit of luck. Also, tying a PhD to the prospect of getting a faculty position means no faculty should produce more than 1 or 2 PhD in their lifetime, if they are all supposed to only get tenure track positions at comparable institutions. If that were true, I assure you that many of us with PhD's would not even be given a chance to do a PhD at all.
When they first join the group, I ask my students what they want to be when they "grow up". And then as they progress, I periodically ask them how they view their own progress, their project, and if they think we should change focus or approach, and if their end goals have changed. Sometimes, their end goals change, sometimes they don't.
I think it is absolutely possible to define non-negotiable PhD level skills: technical prowess, familiarity with relevant literature, paper writing, presentation of work (I am sure other people wrote about it, I am sure DrugMonkey or CPP did, but I can’t find the links now). I also have a minimum of 3 first-author papers (good students have many more). Coupled to these is some basic level of independence -- a student should show some initiative, to move 2 or 3 small steps alone and not expect to have their hand held all the time. These are all necessary for a PhD in my opinion, and the PI sets the standards.
But there are students who satisfy the universal (i.e. indepenent of student career goals after graduation) PhD criteria, but on top of that also show extraordinary inventiveness, or are excellent at giving talks, or are wonderful writers. I think it is totally OK to work with them to build on their strengths and correct their weaknesses in order to best further their career goals. Sometimes a student is absolutely phenomenal (like my collaborator’s student from this post who is about to graduate) and would make a great PI, but does not want to go that way. She says there are other things in life she wants to try. There you have it -- not everyone wants to be a PI even when they can. These are not loser PhD students, often they are the stars of their programs and just decide it’s not their thing.
In STEM, getting an MS or a PhD degree does significantly improve the initial earning potential outside academia. However, I think there are differences among different STEM fields (my students are most likely to be hired in an industry with a marked salary difference for PhD vs MS vs Bachelor's at equivalent experience levels, and graduate degrees are really sought after. I would say a graduate degree is virtually a necessity).
Going to grad school is a good choice for many STEM students (get paid AND get a degree), and they are certainly not confined to academic positions. I don't see why a smart person who can get a well paying job in industry would not do so. That does NOT mean they were trained as second-class scientists. Industry, like academia, has a required set of skills for different positions, many of them non-technical. Some overlap with those of academia, some don't. I am sure that many successful academics would not make very good industrial scientists.
So what if a student is not cut out for a PhD?
With proper attention, a PI can have a pretty good idea by end of first year, if not sooner, if the student should pursue a PhD in the PI's group (fields where rotations are mandatory for a year or two before joining any PI's group obviously can take longer overall). Getting an MS "in passing" is a good course of action in that case -- a degree to show for the advanced course work and time put in.
However, I must say that it sometimes happens the student has it in him/her to become a successful scientist, but needs different mentoring or different type of project. For instance, a brilliant theoretical physicist may have been disastrous in the lab, and true potential revealed only after he/she (fortuitously) switched advisors and subfields... So sometimes all it takes is for the student to find their vocation. So I never tell a student "There is no way in hell you will ever be worthy of a PhD" but rather that they are not a good match for the group, that I recommend an MS at this time, and that they should think hard about whether they really want to continue for a PhD and, if so, what other topics (in other groups) they think they would find inspiring. I also try to lay the options available after an MS. Some students will leave after an MS, some will try another advisor -- of these who do, however, more than 50% eventually leave without a PhD...
Overall, a PhD is a long period that involves a fair bit of self-discovery, coupled with the scientific discovery. During these years, the student changes, his/her wishes and priorities change. It is only fair for the PI to help tailor the experience so that both the PI's and the student's career objectives are met. I think this can be done without sacrificing the quality of the PhD degree, if the non-negotiable criteria of PhD level scholarship – set forth by the PI, in the context of the norms upheld by the university and the discipline -- are successfully met.
Basically, one of the issues raised is what the PhD degree is for and whether it should be tailored (and to what degree) to a student's potential/desired career outcomes and/or to the needs of the PI or the universtity.
Should we close the doors at the admission end and admit only very qualified applicants?
Departments get funding from the university according to the number of students; this especially holds true for departments that teach large service courses. Everyone is in trouble if students (undergrad or grad) don't enroll. After excellent applicants are admitted, less than excellent ones can be admitted too. Unless you are a top-5 school, admission capacity is (sometimes significantly) higher than the pool of unambiguously fabulous graduate students. Which is OK, because there are many fabulous students that may not look fabulous on paper -- and this is great for all the faculty who are not at top-5 universities, as they have a chance to work with talented students after top-5’s have passed them due to their not-blatantly-obvious fabulousness.
My best student, bar none, did a so-so job on his GRE. I am very grateful for that little slip, because in every aspect he is a student anyone would be delighted to work with, so I am glad he's here at GMP Big Public University and not at a Fancy Private School. The bright deep thinkers who can go on to advance science are highly sought after as grad students, but at most places they are a rarity rather than the norm.
I think many people are romanticizing what universities used to be (how many of us really know what univerities were like 40+ years ago?): they produced brilliant thinkers but were also much less inclusive. Giving a larger pool of people a chance at success is a good thing – no one can foresee, with 100% accuracy at admission time, who will make it out.
Should we train all students as though they are to become faculty?
Most PI's want to train the students as best they can to become independent scientists. PI's are passionate about their work and like nothing better than to propagate the passion and clone little new PI's. But, I know for a fact that even top-5-univerity faculty complain that a significant portion of admitted students are not capable of being successful PI's at an R1 university. For instance, some are technically brilliant, but hopeless at public speaking or writing. Being a faculty, like any job, comes with a lot of required skills, not all of them technical; and it requires a fair bit of luck. Also, tying a PhD to the prospect of getting a faculty position means no faculty should produce more than 1 or 2 PhD in their lifetime, if they are all supposed to only get tenure track positions at comparable institutions. If that were true, I assure you that many of us with PhD's would not even be given a chance to do a PhD at all.
When they first join the group, I ask my students what they want to be when they "grow up". And then as they progress, I periodically ask them how they view their own progress, their project, and if they think we should change focus or approach, and if their end goals have changed. Sometimes, their end goals change, sometimes they don't.
I think it is absolutely possible to define non-negotiable PhD level skills: technical prowess, familiarity with relevant literature, paper writing, presentation of work (I am sure other people wrote about it, I am sure DrugMonkey or CPP did, but I can’t find the links now). I also have a minimum of 3 first-author papers (good students have many more). Coupled to these is some basic level of independence -- a student should show some initiative, to move 2 or 3 small steps alone and not expect to have their hand held all the time. These are all necessary for a PhD in my opinion, and the PI sets the standards.
But there are students who satisfy the universal (i.e. indepenent of student career goals after graduation) PhD criteria, but on top of that also show extraordinary inventiveness, or are excellent at giving talks, or are wonderful writers. I think it is totally OK to work with them to build on their strengths and correct their weaknesses in order to best further their career goals. Sometimes a student is absolutely phenomenal (like my collaborator’s student from this post who is about to graduate) and would make a great PI, but does not want to go that way. She says there are other things in life she wants to try. There you have it -- not everyone wants to be a PI even when they can. These are not loser PhD students, often they are the stars of their programs and just decide it’s not their thing.
In STEM, getting an MS or a PhD degree does significantly improve the initial earning potential outside academia. However, I think there are differences among different STEM fields (my students are most likely to be hired in an industry with a marked salary difference for PhD vs MS vs Bachelor's at equivalent experience levels, and graduate degrees are really sought after. I would say a graduate degree is virtually a necessity).
Going to grad school is a good choice for many STEM students (get paid AND get a degree), and they are certainly not confined to academic positions. I don't see why a smart person who can get a well paying job in industry would not do so. That does NOT mean they were trained as second-class scientists. Industry, like academia, has a required set of skills for different positions, many of them non-technical. Some overlap with those of academia, some don't. I am sure that many successful academics would not make very good industrial scientists.
So what if a student is not cut out for a PhD?
With proper attention, a PI can have a pretty good idea by end of first year, if not sooner, if the student should pursue a PhD in the PI's group (fields where rotations are mandatory for a year or two before joining any PI's group obviously can take longer overall). Getting an MS "in passing" is a good course of action in that case -- a degree to show for the advanced course work and time put in.
However, I must say that it sometimes happens the student has it in him/her to become a successful scientist, but needs different mentoring or different type of project. For instance, a brilliant theoretical physicist may have been disastrous in the lab, and true potential revealed only after he/she (fortuitously) switched advisors and subfields... So sometimes all it takes is for the student to find their vocation. So I never tell a student "There is no way in hell you will ever be worthy of a PhD" but rather that they are not a good match for the group, that I recommend an MS at this time, and that they should think hard about whether they really want to continue for a PhD and, if so, what other topics (in other groups) they think they would find inspiring. I also try to lay the options available after an MS. Some students will leave after an MS, some will try another advisor -- of these who do, however, more than 50% eventually leave without a PhD...
Overall, a PhD is a long period that involves a fair bit of self-discovery, coupled with the scientific discovery. During these years, the student changes, his/her wishes and priorities change. It is only fair for the PI to help tailor the experience so that both the PI's and the student's career objectives are met. I think this can be done without sacrificing the quality of the PhD degree, if the non-negotiable criteria of PhD level scholarship – set forth by the PI, in the context of the norms upheld by the university and the discipline -- are successfully met.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Out of Focus
A little while ago PUI wrote a post that explored what one's inherent capacity or potential for creative work is. One aspect she brought up is one's ability to focus for long periods of time. She mentions a collaborator (verbatim from PUI's post):
I worked with an amazing scientist on a project recently. Let's call him Co-author. He would wake up early, be in lab early, and work with intense focus until very late into the night. He didn't even seem to slow down for mealtimes. He had the ability to either be doing exactly the right thing at the right time in the right order or thinking about the next step and the experimental design while waiting for something to happen. He was highly successful in his career and could really make things happen in a short amount of time.
It strikes me that Co-author likely does not have family obligations (can stay at work every day for 12+ hours), which means he either has no family or someone else is holding the fort. I am positive different people have different capacity, but I am also completely sure that parents of young children, who are actually involved in childrearing, are not working at their full potential. And that's the way it should be, at least from the standpoint of family. When it comes to intellectually nontrivial pursuits, my most productive times used to be early mornings and evenings, but now I am up to my elbows in diapers and dishes at those times. I have almost made my peace with the fact that this is how it has to be, at least for now. Sometimes I really wish I didn't have to leave at 5:30 when I am in the middle of something exciting, but that's not an option... Another aspect is the job: like most faculty, I work well over 40 hours a week, but much of this work is not extremely intellectually challenging (administration, reports, much classroom teaching). Due to a combination of the job requirements and family obligations, I do not work at my full intellectual capacity, not even close. I do, however, work over capacity for sleep deprivation, mindless busy work, and overall aggravation.
I believe that the ability to focus is inherent only in part (see Proflike Substance's take on the issue); the other, very large part is what counts as a societal gift -- no obligations requiring you to break the focus -- and it varies with life choices. Most of us in academia simply don't have that gift any more: the ability to immerse oneself in one's intellectually challenging pursuits is a priviledge of grad students and postdocs, especially if they are unattached; I wish they would appreciate and savor it more. I wish I had appreciated and savored it more.
Regarding the necessity of focus in success I recommend "You and Your Research," by Richard Hamming (a big name in computer science). If you google it there are a bunch of links to the same transcript of his famous 1986 colloquium, most html, the link I provided is to a pdf. Hamming does advocate a fairly extreme view of the balance between work and life (hint: it's all work), but the read is provocative and invites us all to think about the quality of problems we work on. When I first read the transcript I was a bit enraged, as he does ride a high horse. But, what I chose to take from this text is the following message: Choose what you work on wisely: work only on really important problems, problems that matter. This becomes exceedingly important if you don't have unlimited time to devote to creative work.
I worked with an amazing scientist on a project recently. Let's call him Co-author. He would wake up early, be in lab early, and work with intense focus until very late into the night. He didn't even seem to slow down for mealtimes. He had the ability to either be doing exactly the right thing at the right time in the right order or thinking about the next step and the experimental design while waiting for something to happen. He was highly successful in his career and could really make things happen in a short amount of time.
It strikes me that Co-author likely does not have family obligations (can stay at work every day for 12+ hours), which means he either has no family or someone else is holding the fort. I am positive different people have different capacity, but I am also completely sure that parents of young children, who are actually involved in childrearing, are not working at their full potential. And that's the way it should be, at least from the standpoint of family. When it comes to intellectually nontrivial pursuits, my most productive times used to be early mornings and evenings, but now I am up to my elbows in diapers and dishes at those times. I have almost made my peace with the fact that this is how it has to be, at least for now. Sometimes I really wish I didn't have to leave at 5:30 when I am in the middle of something exciting, but that's not an option... Another aspect is the job: like most faculty, I work well over 40 hours a week, but much of this work is not extremely intellectually challenging (administration, reports, much classroom teaching). Due to a combination of the job requirements and family obligations, I do not work at my full intellectual capacity, not even close. I do, however, work over capacity for sleep deprivation, mindless busy work, and overall aggravation.
I believe that the ability to focus is inherent only in part (see Proflike Substance's take on the issue); the other, very large part is what counts as a societal gift -- no obligations requiring you to break the focus -- and it varies with life choices. Most of us in academia simply don't have that gift any more: the ability to immerse oneself in one's intellectually challenging pursuits is a priviledge of grad students and postdocs, especially if they are unattached; I wish they would appreciate and savor it more. I wish I had appreciated and savored it more.
Regarding the necessity of focus in success I recommend "You and Your Research," by Richard Hamming (a big name in computer science). If you google it there are a bunch of links to the same transcript of his famous 1986 colloquium, most html, the link I provided is to a pdf. Hamming does advocate a fairly extreme view of the balance between work and life (hint: it's all work), but the read is provocative and invites us all to think about the quality of problems we work on. When I first read the transcript I was a bit enraged, as he does ride a high horse. But, what I chose to take from this text is the following message: Choose what you work on wisely: work only on really important problems, problems that matter. This becomes exceedingly important if you don't have unlimited time to devote to creative work.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
The Wall
I have two students graduating in December. They both did a great job on their PhD and will hopefully move on to greener pastures. The first student has been with me since 2005, and has a very strong publication record. It has been a pleasure to see him turn into a well-rounded scientist, who takes immense pride in his work. The other student is only partly "mine" -- I have been coadvising her with another faculty since 2008, and while we do interact quite often on technical issues, I would say that she largely developed her science personality and adopted many non-technical practices as part of the other faculty's group.
A few days ago, the second student came to my office visibly upset, having what seemed like a minor panic attack. She realized that a final part of her work was just not coming through, and it dawned on her that it would possibly never work and that she would never ever finish her PhD, let alone in December. She was hyperventilating.
We all know what she is experiencing: once you are running that final lap towards your PhD -- you think you are done, there it is, you can almost touch it -- when all of a sudden a huge, insurmountable obstacle shows up out of nowhere, sky-high and impenetrable like a brick wall. It is terrifying, paralyzing. It is The Last Wall of the PhD. I told her not to worry, that this always happens, and that she should consider it a good sign that the end of her PhD is really near. She calmed down eventually. What I didn't tell her is that it is possible to be stuck with this last obstacle for quite a while...
The first student had been stuck at The Wall for nearly a year now, and we finally had a breakthrough yesterday. A small error in his code, very hard to catch. The data he was getting was reasonable, so the error was almost invisible, so slight that we were wondering if there was an error at all; but, diagnostic tests did reveal some unphysical behavior in certain situations. The student put a lot of work into the project and was determined to get it right. The nasty little error was messing with his data and his brain for such a long time that he was getting positively disillusioned. What helped keep his spirit up was assigning him a couple of side mini projects with collaborators, giving him a junior grad student to train, and having him partake in several outreach activities. I think these professional development opportunities, very valuable in their own right, were also instrumental in preventing total burnout and getting him through a difficult research time.
Now that his last obstacle is down, we have a couple of papers to finalize -- they were simmering at the edge of submission, waiting for the missing piece of the puzzle. I am really looking forward to what lies ahead, as writing papers is one of the most enjoyable parts of my life as a faculty. We get to tell the cool story to the world! And he gets to write a smashing dissertation and move on with his life.
So when I talk to my panicked second student, I say not to worry, as I think her problem is much easier to diagnose and fix. I don't want to scare her that some people do get stuck at The Wall for many months. Some smart people are never able to break it down or go around it. Some advisors eventually abandon students at The Wall, leaving them stranded and ultimately degree-less. The Wall is the final rite of passage to the PhD, and in my experience everyone hits one.
To conclude, I give you a silly little poem to celebrate my student's breakthrough and cheer up all those presently making that last lap towards our beloved three-letter title.
PhD you seek
Quest not for the weak
Be it big or small
You will hit The Wall
Through it or around it
Somehow must surmount it
Because if you can't
PhD you ain't
(Obviously, I am keeping my day job.)
But now may be a really good time to listen to "The Wall" by Pink Floyd.
A few days ago, the second student came to my office visibly upset, having what seemed like a minor panic attack. She realized that a final part of her work was just not coming through, and it dawned on her that it would possibly never work and that she would never ever finish her PhD, let alone in December. She was hyperventilating.
We all know what she is experiencing: once you are running that final lap towards your PhD -- you think you are done, there it is, you can almost touch it -- when all of a sudden a huge, insurmountable obstacle shows up out of nowhere, sky-high and impenetrable like a brick wall. It is terrifying, paralyzing. It is The Last Wall of the PhD. I told her not to worry, that this always happens, and that she should consider it a good sign that the end of her PhD is really near. She calmed down eventually. What I didn't tell her is that it is possible to be stuck with this last obstacle for quite a while...
The first student had been stuck at The Wall for nearly a year now, and we finally had a breakthrough yesterday. A small error in his code, very hard to catch. The data he was getting was reasonable, so the error was almost invisible, so slight that we were wondering if there was an error at all; but, diagnostic tests did reveal some unphysical behavior in certain situations. The student put a lot of work into the project and was determined to get it right. The nasty little error was messing with his data and his brain for such a long time that he was getting positively disillusioned. What helped keep his spirit up was assigning him a couple of side mini projects with collaborators, giving him a junior grad student to train, and having him partake in several outreach activities. I think these professional development opportunities, very valuable in their own right, were also instrumental in preventing total burnout and getting him through a difficult research time.
Now that his last obstacle is down, we have a couple of papers to finalize -- they were simmering at the edge of submission, waiting for the missing piece of the puzzle. I am really looking forward to what lies ahead, as writing papers is one of the most enjoyable parts of my life as a faculty. We get to tell the cool story to the world! And he gets to write a smashing dissertation and move on with his life.
So when I talk to my panicked second student, I say not to worry, as I think her problem is much easier to diagnose and fix. I don't want to scare her that some people do get stuck at The Wall for many months. Some smart people are never able to break it down or go around it. Some advisors eventually abandon students at The Wall, leaving them stranded and ultimately degree-less. The Wall is the final rite of passage to the PhD, and in my experience everyone hits one.
To conclude, I give you a silly little poem to celebrate my student's breakthrough and cheer up all those presently making that last lap towards our beloved three-letter title.
PhD you seek
Quest not for the weak
Be it big or small
You will hit The Wall
Through it or around it
Somehow must surmount it
Because if you can't
PhD you ain't
(Obviously, I am keeping my day job.)
But now may be a really good time to listen to "The Wall" by Pink Floyd.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Tenure, for Better or for Worse
In her Friday post, FSP discussed the issue of tenure. The article that FSP discussed in her post and a number of commenters brought up the usual arguments against tenure -- deadwood faculty drain university resources, no other industry has perfect job security so why should academia.
For a person with my background, there are very good employment opportunities in industry. My PhD students, fresh out of grad school, get higher starting salaries in industry than mine is now. And that's without bonuses and stock options. And I don't see their employers discarding them carelessly, because industry needs good people with specialized skills, and these people are NOT a dime a dozen. Quality PhDs are not easily expendable, at least not in my field. Since professors are paid significantly less than their industry counterparts, yes, to sweeten the deal and actually get people to work in academia, you need to offer job security.
Now, I am in a STEM field at an R1 institution, a big, well-known, public research university. From where I am standing, being a faculty NEVER stops being a rat race. We have annual review and evaluation, based on which salary increases are calculated. You do poorly, you don't get a raise. If you don't bring in research money or publish papers, you must teach more than those who do. Also, every tenured faculty has a big review every 5 years, so there is quality control in place. We have people retiring who still have federal funding, which means they pulled in the dough and advised students actively for good 30+ years. I don't see any deadwood faculty.
One comment over at FSP place was particularly irksome. In a nutshell, the person hates it when a tenured female professor has a baby and then it's all downhill from there. I think the same person follows by saying that not working is like a drug (the less you work, the less you want to work). Huh? So all people are inherently lazy, and only work because someone is forcing them? Did you hear that, ambitious people?
I do not know of a single tenured female who turned into deadwood due to childbearing. If research productivity suffers at all, it's for no more than a few months. Most of the time, since tenured academic women have established research programs that run uninterrupted during their absence, you would not even see a glitch in the womens' research records due to childbearing. As for being absent from teaching and advising, many women take no time off. Those who do, work extra beforehand or after they come back, or arrange for colleague coverage which they return later. I hate comments such as those above, because they basically state that academia -- a multi-decade commitment for academics -- should never make any accommodation for anyone’s life challenges. God forbid any academic, male or female, should be allowed to temporarily slow down for a birth, death, or illness in the family.
I have several colleagues who have gotten seriously and irreversibly ill on tenure track or shortly thereafter, largely because of the stress. We all have colleagues who ended up divorced or have forsaken having kids altogether because of professional demands. No job should deserve this kind of personal sacrifice without something pretty major in return. In the case of academia, that something is tenure. (For a discussion on whether it's worth it, see Odyssey's post).
My understanding is that you only really want to tenure those people who will not slow down significantly or permanently after they receive tenure. I.e., you want to tenure people who have the fire in the belly that drives them to excel irrespective of external stimuli (or lack thereof). People who are truly ambitious and passionate about their work. People who have worked their hardest towards developing their research program and are not just going to drop it and let it die away.
But, then you don't really need tenure, do you? If these awesome people are the only ones whom you want to tenure, and they will just keep chugging along and never stop, they don't care about or need the protection of tenure, right? Tenure is just for lazy people, right? WRONG! Why? Because 30+ years is a very, very long time. And life happens.
A friend of mine is launching a startup after several years at a major corporation. He's a young and unattached guy with a PhD and a lot of spunk, who can put in all the hours needed into a startup, and that's exactly what he's doing right now. He says he would not be doing this if he had a family, and this may be his last chance to do it, because he plans to have a family in a few years.
Another friend of mine, a lawyer, works for a District Attorney's office in another state. She used to work on cases that were extremely high-profile, stressful, and required long hours; then she got married and had a child and decided to move to a different division, where she can still do her job but with less stress, and she has more control over her schedule.
What I am trying to emphasize is that, in most careers, highly trained people are able to change jobs, or to adjust their work hours and schedule to suit their life's demands. In large companies, there are often opportunities for lateral transfer or going part time. None of these are available for academics. It is very rare for faculty to go part-time because of the stigma of not being "serious enough"; moving laterally within the university is not possible because there are no "less stressful" faculty positions. You can get demoted to a lecturer or an adjunct, but they are so severely underpaid and overall abused that it is hardly a viable option.
In my opinion, tenure track is like dating, while tenure is like a marriage between the university and the faculty: for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till retirement do us part (most academics will spend the bulk of their independent career at a single institution). While on the tenure track, just like while dating, assistant professors try perhaps a little bit harder to please the object of their affection than they do after receiving tenure. But, ultimately, the relationship is doomed to fail if it's based on incompatibility or pretense, so a long dating period is advisable. Six years (duration of a typical tenure clock) is a pretty long time to pretend to be ambitious, work your butt off, and convince everybody around you (your department, university, and your professional community) that you love your work, are genuinely driven, and have something unique to contribute to science in general and to your university in particular. Bottom line is that a person's real ambition and abilities do come across fairly accurately on the tenure track.
This committed relationship between a faculty and a university typically lasts for over three decades, during which the faculty's children are born, parents get sick and die, and the winds of change in research funding availability blow every which way. If an academic is supposed to put in all these years of work into a university, the university should show comparable commitment during the faculty's trying personal times. Tenure, like marriage, shows the world that the cute couple -- the academic and the university -- are both in it for the long haul.
For a person with my background, there are very good employment opportunities in industry. My PhD students, fresh out of grad school, get higher starting salaries in industry than mine is now. And that's without bonuses and stock options. And I don't see their employers discarding them carelessly, because industry needs good people with specialized skills, and these people are NOT a dime a dozen. Quality PhDs are not easily expendable, at least not in my field. Since professors are paid significantly less than their industry counterparts, yes, to sweeten the deal and actually get people to work in academia, you need to offer job security.
Now, I am in a STEM field at an R1 institution, a big, well-known, public research university. From where I am standing, being a faculty NEVER stops being a rat race. We have annual review and evaluation, based on which salary increases are calculated. You do poorly, you don't get a raise. If you don't bring in research money or publish papers, you must teach more than those who do. Also, every tenured faculty has a big review every 5 years, so there is quality control in place. We have people retiring who still have federal funding, which means they pulled in the dough and advised students actively for good 30+ years. I don't see any deadwood faculty.
One comment over at FSP place was particularly irksome. In a nutshell, the person hates it when a tenured female professor has a baby and then it's all downhill from there. I think the same person follows by saying that not working is like a drug (the less you work, the less you want to work). Huh? So all people are inherently lazy, and only work because someone is forcing them? Did you hear that, ambitious people?
I do not know of a single tenured female who turned into deadwood due to childbearing. If research productivity suffers at all, it's for no more than a few months. Most of the time, since tenured academic women have established research programs that run uninterrupted during their absence, you would not even see a glitch in the womens' research records due to childbearing. As for being absent from teaching and advising, many women take no time off. Those who do, work extra beforehand or after they come back, or arrange for colleague coverage which they return later. I hate comments such as those above, because they basically state that academia -- a multi-decade commitment for academics -- should never make any accommodation for anyone’s life challenges. God forbid any academic, male or female, should be allowed to temporarily slow down for a birth, death, or illness in the family.
I have several colleagues who have gotten seriously and irreversibly ill on tenure track or shortly thereafter, largely because of the stress. We all have colleagues who ended up divorced or have forsaken having kids altogether because of professional demands. No job should deserve this kind of personal sacrifice without something pretty major in return. In the case of academia, that something is tenure. (For a discussion on whether it's worth it, see Odyssey's post).
My understanding is that you only really want to tenure those people who will not slow down significantly or permanently after they receive tenure. I.e., you want to tenure people who have the fire in the belly that drives them to excel irrespective of external stimuli (or lack thereof). People who are truly ambitious and passionate about their work. People who have worked their hardest towards developing their research program and are not just going to drop it and let it die away.
But, then you don't really need tenure, do you? If these awesome people are the only ones whom you want to tenure, and they will just keep chugging along and never stop, they don't care about or need the protection of tenure, right? Tenure is just for lazy people, right? WRONG! Why? Because 30+ years is a very, very long time. And life happens.
A friend of mine is launching a startup after several years at a major corporation. He's a young and unattached guy with a PhD and a lot of spunk, who can put in all the hours needed into a startup, and that's exactly what he's doing right now. He says he would not be doing this if he had a family, and this may be his last chance to do it, because he plans to have a family in a few years.
Another friend of mine, a lawyer, works for a District Attorney's office in another state. She used to work on cases that were extremely high-profile, stressful, and required long hours; then she got married and had a child and decided to move to a different division, where she can still do her job but with less stress, and she has more control over her schedule.
What I am trying to emphasize is that, in most careers, highly trained people are able to change jobs, or to adjust their work hours and schedule to suit their life's demands. In large companies, there are often opportunities for lateral transfer or going part time. None of these are available for academics. It is very rare for faculty to go part-time because of the stigma of not being "serious enough"; moving laterally within the university is not possible because there are no "less stressful" faculty positions. You can get demoted to a lecturer or an adjunct, but they are so severely underpaid and overall abused that it is hardly a viable option.
In my opinion, tenure track is like dating, while tenure is like a marriage between the university and the faculty: for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till retirement do us part (most academics will spend the bulk of their independent career at a single institution). While on the tenure track, just like while dating, assistant professors try perhaps a little bit harder to please the object of their affection than they do after receiving tenure. But, ultimately, the relationship is doomed to fail if it's based on incompatibility or pretense, so a long dating period is advisable. Six years (duration of a typical tenure clock) is a pretty long time to pretend to be ambitious, work your butt off, and convince everybody around you (your department, university, and your professional community) that you love your work, are genuinely driven, and have something unique to contribute to science in general and to your university in particular. Bottom line is that a person's real ambition and abilities do come across fairly accurately on the tenure track.
This committed relationship between a faculty and a university typically lasts for over three decades, during which the faculty's children are born, parents get sick and die, and the winds of change in research funding availability blow every which way. If an academic is supposed to put in all these years of work into a university, the university should show comparable commitment during the faculty's trying personal times. Tenure, like marriage, shows the world that the cute couple -- the academic and the university -- are both in it for the long haul.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
How Old?
Here's a light-hearted and self-centered post after all the serious manuscript review stuff.
A fellow blogger made a comment, which made me realize that my blogosphere persona may not appear to be of the same age as my real-life self. So we had a little poll for those who read this blog: how old do you think I am?
Here are the poll results as of this morning.
Soooo, how old is GMP?
Well...
A fellow blogger made a comment, which made me realize that my blogosphere persona may not appear to be of the same age as my real-life self. So we had a little poll for those who read this blog: how old do you think I am?
Here are the poll results as of this morning.
Soooo, how old is GMP?
Well...
.
.
.
.
here it comes...
.
.
.
and the answer is...
.
and the answer is...
.
.
.
.
drumroll...
.
.
.
GMP is 37!
Apparently, the poll says that I seem/sound a bit older than I am.
Apparently, the poll says that I seem/sound a bit older than I am.
It may be my "wisdom" :) as Dr. G says, or having tenure as Alyssa says, or just general weariness (I have two boys, ages 10 and 3. And a whole bunch of students).
Thank you for playing!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Manuscript Review Questions
Among comments to the previous post, Nick and Mizumi asked two questions that warrant a longer response.
Nick asked: I was not given a chance to review the paper post changes. Is this normal? As an author I just assumed that my responses always went back to the reviewer for final approval, but I guess not? If the flaws are major enough, do I request to see the authors' response prior to final acceptance?
I am speaking here from an author's perspective, and some of the responses may be field specific (I am in a hard STEM field). Those of you who are editors or simply in a different field, please chime in and correct/add.
If all referees requested minor revisions, it is likely that the editor will just look over the resubmission letter and make a decision without a second round of review. If the review featured a mix of minor and major revision requests, the resubmission can go back to all reviewers or it can only go back to those who requested major revisions (whereas they are sometimes asked to make sure the authors considered all the suggestions in all the reports). Indeed, when you request mandatory revisions, the resubmitted paper will most likely come back to you for a second round of review.
However, it is possble for you, as a reviewer, to request mandatory revisions and still not get the paper back. The scenarios in which this happens are the following:
(a) the other referee convincingly argues that the paper is beyond salvation, so the editor rejects it flat out and does not encourage resubmission;
(b) the other referee requires major revisions or recommends rejection, the editor does encourage resubmission, but the authors decide the reviews are so negative that it is not worth their time to try to fight it and never resubmit. They may go to another journal, but if they are smart they will take your review into account before submitting anywhere else.
(c) same as (b), but where the authors decide to wait a couple of months to resubmit. Due to the delay, the paper is considered a new submission and assigned a new set of reviewers;
(d) your review was so negative that the authors argued you were needlessly hostile and/or not objective, and they requested that the paper not be sent to you any more but that another referee be chosen. The editor was convinced and complied, so you as a referee are supplanted at resubmission. (FSP has a post that describes this scenario.)
I would say that (a), (b), and (c) are fairly common. I don't know if (d) has ever happened to me as a reviewer, but I have been on a team where we were the authors in a (d) scenario; once or twice we actually did get another reviewer.
As for final acceptance, the decision is ultimately in the hands of the editor. You as a reviewer are really advisory to the editor, and editors usually follow the reviewers' recommendations, but the final decision is the editors'. I am sure, though, that if a decision has been made on the paper you reviwed, you can shoot the editor an email and ask for a status update. I might have done that once or twice, and the response each time was that the authors never resubmitted.
@ Mizumi: Are there opinions on what is "fair" number of reviews to accept? Over the past few years as a PhD student and then postdoc I've maybe drawn 8-10 reviews per year. Does that mean 8-10 is a good number to take on, so at least I am not a net drain on reviewer resources?
Mizumi, how many papers to review per year is really a question of how much time you have and how much you like reviewing papers. It's an activity that is fun to do every so often (after all, it's the fun science you get to read and help improve), but it does become a chore if you are under constant siege. One paper a month, which is approximately what you have been doing, is likely feasible even for very busy people. Would you be able to do one review every two weeks? How about one review per week? I think more than one a week (~ 50 per year) is difficult to accommodate. Unfortunately, the higher you are on the totem pole, the more requests you get per unit time -- easily multiple requests per week. My goal is to hover around 1/week, but I will usually end up having 2 or 3 on my desk at any point in time, and another one or two which I have delegated to my students or postdocs. For instance, I review papers from multiple journals, maybe 8-10 journals fairly regularly. So even if each journal sends you a paper once a month, that's still plenty.
As with most things in life, start on the lighter side -- 1 or 2 papers per month are certainly a good service to your community, and the load will likely not smother you.
I am curious to hear how much of a review load other people have (please state career stage) and, from our readers who are also editors, how much refereeing load they think is appropriate.
Nick asked: I was not given a chance to review the paper post changes. Is this normal? As an author I just assumed that my responses always went back to the reviewer for final approval, but I guess not? If the flaws are major enough, do I request to see the authors' response prior to final acceptance?
I am speaking here from an author's perspective, and some of the responses may be field specific (I am in a hard STEM field). Those of you who are editors or simply in a different field, please chime in and correct/add.
If all referees requested minor revisions, it is likely that the editor will just look over the resubmission letter and make a decision without a second round of review. If the review featured a mix of minor and major revision requests, the resubmission can go back to all reviewers or it can only go back to those who requested major revisions (whereas they are sometimes asked to make sure the authors considered all the suggestions in all the reports). Indeed, when you request mandatory revisions, the resubmitted paper will most likely come back to you for a second round of review.
However, it is possble for you, as a reviewer, to request mandatory revisions and still not get the paper back. The scenarios in which this happens are the following:
(a) the other referee convincingly argues that the paper is beyond salvation, so the editor rejects it flat out and does not encourage resubmission;
(b) the other referee requires major revisions or recommends rejection, the editor does encourage resubmission, but the authors decide the reviews are so negative that it is not worth their time to try to fight it and never resubmit. They may go to another journal, but if they are smart they will take your review into account before submitting anywhere else.
(c) same as (b), but where the authors decide to wait a couple of months to resubmit. Due to the delay, the paper is considered a new submission and assigned a new set of reviewers;
(d) your review was so negative that the authors argued you were needlessly hostile and/or not objective, and they requested that the paper not be sent to you any more but that another referee be chosen. The editor was convinced and complied, so you as a referee are supplanted at resubmission. (FSP has a post that describes this scenario.)
I would say that (a), (b), and (c) are fairly common. I don't know if (d) has ever happened to me as a reviewer, but I have been on a team where we were the authors in a (d) scenario; once or twice we actually did get another reviewer.
As for final acceptance, the decision is ultimately in the hands of the editor. You as a reviewer are really advisory to the editor, and editors usually follow the reviewers' recommendations, but the final decision is the editors'. I am sure, though, that if a decision has been made on the paper you reviwed, you can shoot the editor an email and ask for a status update. I might have done that once or twice, and the response each time was that the authors never resubmitted.
@ Mizumi: Are there opinions on what is "fair" number of reviews to accept? Over the past few years as a PhD student and then postdoc I've maybe drawn 8-10 reviews per year. Does that mean 8-10 is a good number to take on, so at least I am not a net drain on reviewer resources?
Mizumi, how many papers to review per year is really a question of how much time you have and how much you like reviewing papers. It's an activity that is fun to do every so often (after all, it's the fun science you get to read and help improve), but it does become a chore if you are under constant siege. One paper a month, which is approximately what you have been doing, is likely feasible even for very busy people. Would you be able to do one review every two weeks? How about one review per week? I think more than one a week (~ 50 per year) is difficult to accommodate. Unfortunately, the higher you are on the totem pole, the more requests you get per unit time -- easily multiple requests per week. My goal is to hover around 1/week, but I will usually end up having 2 or 3 on my desk at any point in time, and another one or two which I have delegated to my students or postdocs. For instance, I review papers from multiple journals, maybe 8-10 journals fairly regularly. So even if each journal sends you a paper once a month, that's still plenty.
As with most things in life, start on the lighter side -- 1 or 2 papers per month are certainly a good service to your community, and the load will likely not smother you.
I am curious to hear how much of a review load other people have (please state career stage) and, from our readers who are also editors, how much refereeing load they think is appropriate.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
In Defense of Tardy Reviewers
Professor in Training has a cool post about how tardy reviewers are a pain in the butt of editors. She rightfully asks why someone would agree to referee a paper and then be several weeks late.
Being an author, I totally understand and agree. But, being a sometimes tardy reviewer myself, I feel I also need to speak in defense of my tardy brethren. We are very sorry to be late. We really mean it. We should certainly write an email to the editor, saying we need additional time. We actually say yes to a request to review because, upon cursory inspection of the paper, it appears interesting and within out field of expertise. We don't get much (if any) benefit from reviewing a massive number of papers every year, but we value journal review as an important service and are willing to put in the time. However, even with the best of intentions, life intervenes, and because paper review is a service activity with no recognition for the reviewer, it often gets demoted as people need to reprioritize. And boy, do we need to reprioritize!
Here's an example: I was recently on vacation and took a couple of papers to review with me. During the vacation, I got several more requests, of which I declined all but two. One was for a short paper which I reviewed promptly and one was for a longer paper, and I left it for after the vacation. When I came back from vacation, there was a major "fire" that needed putting out: I am a co-PI on a big, multi-PI grant that is up for renewal. There was a ton of work that had to be done over that very week on the grant proposal, because two big players were going to leave the country the following week, one of them for a whole year. So no paper review happened that week despite my intentions, but neither did some other important things, such as meeting with several of my students who got stuck with their projects while I was away.
Among comments to PiT's post, Dr. Girlfriend says it is just pain rude to say yes and then stress everyone else by not delivering in a timely manner. I agree, but...
Consider this instead — if people said yes to a review request only if they were 100% certain they could deliver by a given date, the editor would likely have to ask 20 people to get 2 to say yes and deliver; that alone would take a very large amount of time. Wouldn’t you rather have an occassional reviewer late? Remember that reviewing is an important service, but also a time-consuming activity that does not benefit the reviewer so yes it will get lower priority when more urgent stuff comes up. Ironically, when you are a reliable reviewer, editors tend to pile on you, so you end up being late. Personally, I would much rather my paper be reviewed by the editor's 1st or 2nd choice, even if the review is late, than the editor's 15th choice, because by that time we are likely moving far from the desired expertise of the reviewer. (See Odyssey's comment, who speaks from an editorial perspective.)
When I was a student I was always upset about late reviews of my papers; now that I review non-stop, I am no longer upset at people being late as I know what's going on. I am that reviewer who writes you a two-page report. Actually, I spend much more time on reports for unfavorably reviewed papers than the favorably reviewed ones, because it's important to give people something to work with to improve their papers. I try to complete my reviews in a timely fashion, but sometimes it ends up not being timely. Such is life. In fact, when I look at how long it takes me to get reviews back and how long I take to return them, I feel that the duration of the actual technical review correlates with the size of the paper (shorter papers review faster), time of year (high season for travel or not, grant proposal deadlines), and the quality of writing (if the paper is poorly written, my opinion is that it can delay the review, as the reviewer will likely try reading it several times, get pissed each time and just leave the manuscript for later. I do this, and so do several of my colleagues. So writing a nice readable paper will also increase your chances of getting the review back promptly.)
The review duration also correlates with the seniority of the reviewer (big shots get more review requests and are overall busier); to enhance the review speed, in some journals in my field, editors are encouraged to recruit more junior people (e.g. postdocs) as reviewers for precisely this reason — they are less busy and more likely to review in a timely fashion.
While I no longer wish all the worst to tardy reviewers, as I did as a student, I am still quite aware that publication speed makes a significant difference for the career prospects of students and postdocs. It is often favorable to choose a fast journal with prompt editorial attention over a sluggish one even at the expense of a couple of impact factor points. What does vary dramatically among journals is how long it takes the editor to make successful referrals and how prompt he/she is about making a decision once the reports are back; in my experience, editors who are practicing scientists (as opposed to career editors) as well as organized individuals have some of the best turnaround times I have seen. I am curious if this is universally true: dear readers, who do you think makes for an overall faster review process -- career editors or editors who are practicing scientists?
Being an author, I totally understand and agree. But, being a sometimes tardy reviewer myself, I feel I also need to speak in defense of my tardy brethren. We are very sorry to be late. We really mean it. We should certainly write an email to the editor, saying we need additional time. We actually say yes to a request to review because, upon cursory inspection of the paper, it appears interesting and within out field of expertise. We don't get much (if any) benefit from reviewing a massive number of papers every year, but we value journal review as an important service and are willing to put in the time. However, even with the best of intentions, life intervenes, and because paper review is a service activity with no recognition for the reviewer, it often gets demoted as people need to reprioritize. And boy, do we need to reprioritize!
Here's an example: I was recently on vacation and took a couple of papers to review with me. During the vacation, I got several more requests, of which I declined all but two. One was for a short paper which I reviewed promptly and one was for a longer paper, and I left it for after the vacation. When I came back from vacation, there was a major "fire" that needed putting out: I am a co-PI on a big, multi-PI grant that is up for renewal. There was a ton of work that had to be done over that very week on the grant proposal, because two big players were going to leave the country the following week, one of them for a whole year. So no paper review happened that week despite my intentions, but neither did some other important things, such as meeting with several of my students who got stuck with their projects while I was away.
Among comments to PiT's post, Dr. Girlfriend says it is just pain rude to say yes and then stress everyone else by not delivering in a timely manner. I agree, but...
Consider this instead — if people said yes to a review request only if they were 100% certain they could deliver by a given date, the editor would likely have to ask 20 people to get 2 to say yes and deliver; that alone would take a very large amount of time. Wouldn’t you rather have an occassional reviewer late? Remember that reviewing is an important service, but also a time-consuming activity that does not benefit the reviewer so yes it will get lower priority when more urgent stuff comes up. Ironically, when you are a reliable reviewer, editors tend to pile on you, so you end up being late. Personally, I would much rather my paper be reviewed by the editor's 1st or 2nd choice, even if the review is late, than the editor's 15th choice, because by that time we are likely moving far from the desired expertise of the reviewer. (See Odyssey's comment, who speaks from an editorial perspective.)
When I was a student I was always upset about late reviews of my papers; now that I review non-stop, I am no longer upset at people being late as I know what's going on. I am that reviewer who writes you a two-page report. Actually, I spend much more time on reports for unfavorably reviewed papers than the favorably reviewed ones, because it's important to give people something to work with to improve their papers. I try to complete my reviews in a timely fashion, but sometimes it ends up not being timely. Such is life. In fact, when I look at how long it takes me to get reviews back and how long I take to return them, I feel that the duration of the actual technical review correlates with the size of the paper (shorter papers review faster), time of year (high season for travel or not, grant proposal deadlines), and the quality of writing (if the paper is poorly written, my opinion is that it can delay the review, as the reviewer will likely try reading it several times, get pissed each time and just leave the manuscript for later. I do this, and so do several of my colleagues. So writing a nice readable paper will also increase your chances of getting the review back promptly.)
The review duration also correlates with the seniority of the reviewer (big shots get more review requests and are overall busier); to enhance the review speed, in some journals in my field, editors are encouraged to recruit more junior people (e.g. postdocs) as reviewers for precisely this reason — they are less busy and more likely to review in a timely fashion.
While I no longer wish all the worst to tardy reviewers, as I did as a student, I am still quite aware that publication speed makes a significant difference for the career prospects of students and postdocs. It is often favorable to choose a fast journal with prompt editorial attention over a sluggish one even at the expense of a couple of impact factor points. What does vary dramatically among journals is how long it takes the editor to make successful referrals and how prompt he/she is about making a decision once the reports are back; in my experience, editors who are practicing scientists (as opposed to career editors) as well as organized individuals have some of the best turnaround times I have seen. I am curious if this is universally true: dear readers, who do you think makes for an overall faster review process -- career editors or editors who are practicing scientists?
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Jungle Juggle
Okay, I am refreshed and ready to be told I am full of shit.
I actually missed blogging these few days that the blog was down.
I did pester people as a commenter, so that took the edge off.
In the meantime, I thought about whether I would blog again and, if so, what I needed to do differently so I would not get sick of it, throw a hissy fit and quit again, only to come back to it a few days later.
So here are some of the things I realized:
I feel that the advice-giving GMP persona was stifling me. I am not that old or that wise or that stuffy, and I don't like to take myself as seriously as it came across in most of my early posts. And I really, really dislike people who take themselves too seriously, so I really, really disliked myself on the blog.
I would like to discuss personal issues a bit more. I enjoy blogs that freely mix personal and academic and allow the reader to get to know the blogger. I have found I enjoy those blogs where I feel like the blogger and I share common messy human experiences, while fully embracing all the messiness. So I would like to speak more about my experiences as a prof, mom, geek, woman, bystander, tax payer... You get the idea.
Also, I am happy in relative obscurity. Taking down the blog for a few days is probably enough for a whole bunch of people to forget about me and remove me from their blogrolls. I am also moving to a new URL (I know, I know, I was bitching and moaning in the previous post about people moving -- I am a total hypocrite); this will hopefully contribute to obscurity. In the future, I will be drastically more careful about where I comment with a backlink to my place. My new place is, obvioulsy, here -- at http://academic-jungle.blogspot.com/ -- and called Academic Jungle, as before. I didn't want to change the pseudonym or the blog title because I actually want to own my old posts -- I am proud of most of them. Also, I really like the blog title. And my Hofstadter butterfly pic.
So the following can be considered a mock constitution of the new-and-improved Academic Jungle:
I will try to write candidly about the things important to me, professional and personal. There may be mild profanity, for the purposes of emphasis, illustration, or emoting. If I have advice to give, I will try to avoid sounding preachy and stuffy; if I fail, someone please call me on it.
Thank you for reading and sorry for the commotion!
I actually missed blogging these few days that the blog was down.
I did pester people as a commenter, so that took the edge off.
In the meantime, I thought about whether I would blog again and, if so, what I needed to do differently so I would not get sick of it, throw a hissy fit and quit again, only to come back to it a few days later.
So here are some of the things I realized:
I feel that the advice-giving GMP persona was stifling me. I am not that old or that wise or that stuffy, and I don't like to take myself as seriously as it came across in most of my early posts. And I really, really dislike people who take themselves too seriously, so I really, really disliked myself on the blog.
I would like to discuss personal issues a bit more. I enjoy blogs that freely mix personal and academic and allow the reader to get to know the blogger. I have found I enjoy those blogs where I feel like the blogger and I share common messy human experiences, while fully embracing all the messiness. So I would like to speak more about my experiences as a prof, mom, geek, woman, bystander, tax payer... You get the idea.
Also, I am happy in relative obscurity. Taking down the blog for a few days is probably enough for a whole bunch of people to forget about me and remove me from their blogrolls. I am also moving to a new URL (I know, I know, I was bitching and moaning in the previous post about people moving -- I am a total hypocrite); this will hopefully contribute to obscurity. In the future, I will be drastically more careful about where I comment with a backlink to my place. My new place is, obvioulsy, here -- at http://academic-jungle.blogspot.com/ -- and called Academic Jungle, as before. I didn't want to change the pseudonym or the blog title because I actually want to own my old posts -- I am proud of most of them. Also, I really like the blog title. And my Hofstadter butterfly pic.
So the following can be considered a mock constitution of the new-and-improved Academic Jungle:
I will try to write candidly about the things important to me, professional and personal. There may be mild profanity, for the purposes of emphasis, illustration, or emoting. If I have advice to give, I will try to avoid sounding preachy and stuffy; if I fail, someone please call me on it.
Thank you for reading and sorry for the commotion!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Yawn
I have been following, somewhat closely, the whole Pepsiblogate or Pepsipocalipse thing at ScienceBlogs, the massive departure of SciBlings and what seems to be their eventual re-emergence now at Scientopia.
I would say that the bulk of activity throughout July was focused on who leaves or doesn't and who goes where and how ScienceBlogs have failed and whathaveyou.
Which is all nice, except that I so don't care. I tried to, I really did, but I can't. I do not give a rat's ass about who goes where.
I think I am officially exhausted by following science blogs.
In my humble opinion, most science bloggers take themselves way too seriously (I am sure I do too). Come to think of it, most scientists take themselves too seriously (I am absolutely guilty of this one).
This is not real life. Just the darn blogosphere. Nothing happens if we don't blog. If all science bloggers everywhere stopped blogging this instant, nothing would happen. It's almost amusing how inconsequential all this is, yet how important it seems to people.
I said almost amusing. It's really not. Yawn.
Moving a blog, renaming a blog, or ceasing to blog are not earthshattering events. Quite the contrary. Life goes on. Except that it perhaps becomes a tiny bit better every time an egotistical smartass goes offline.
To put my money where my mouth is and make the world a better place, this is my last post. Comment at will, and in a couple of days I will pull down the whole blog. Thanks for reading. See you among comments on other people's blogs.
I would say that the bulk of activity throughout July was focused on who leaves or doesn't and who goes where and how ScienceBlogs have failed and whathaveyou.
Which is all nice, except that I so don't care. I tried to, I really did, but I can't. I do not give a rat's ass about who goes where.
I think I am officially exhausted by following science blogs.
In my humble opinion, most science bloggers take themselves way too seriously (I am sure I do too). Come to think of it, most scientists take themselves too seriously (I am absolutely guilty of this one).
This is not real life. Just the darn blogosphere. Nothing happens if we don't blog. If all science bloggers everywhere stopped blogging this instant, nothing would happen. It's almost amusing how inconsequential all this is, yet how important it seems to people.
I said almost amusing. It's really not. Yawn.
Moving a blog, renaming a blog, or ceasing to blog are not earthshattering events. Quite the contrary. Life goes on. Except that it perhaps becomes a tiny bit better every time an egotistical smartass goes offline.
To put my money where my mouth is and make the world a better place, this is my last post. Comment at will, and in a couple of days I will pull down the whole blog. Thanks for reading. See you among comments on other people's blogs.
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