graduate students

On Maximizing the Productivity of Your Graduate Students

catdynamics — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 11:35:35 +0000

On Maximizing the Productivity of Your Graduate Students

Or, how may hours should graduate students work?

Well, depends...

However Many You Like
As Many As They Can
As Many As Are Needed
All Of Them

The answer may sometimes lie in the above range, sometimes may be somewhat less, and occasionally even more.

We've all been there, and all suffer from survivor bias, confirmation bias and not a little survivor's guilt.

The occasion of course, is The Letter very helpfully sent to all the astronomy graduate students at a distinguished research university by a well intentioned distinguished faculty member.

It is causing quite the buzz in astro social media, including the increasingly useful "Astronomers" group on fb.

Kelly at Astro Better started it

A number of colleagues have opined:

Julianne at CV has a good take

John John provides a good perspective

The Telescope peers at it from the across the pond

Ethan takes a calm overview

I am not going to chime in at this point - I am currently the Head of Graduate Studies at one of the larger astronomy departments, and will be spending some time next week discussing such things with our first year grads at our "freshman graduate student" seminar.

Then I may be able to say something productive...

catdynamics Thu, 10/11/2012 - 07:35

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Academia

astro

Science

Astronomy

graduate students

Hi Steinn, the link for Ethan's article seems broken

fixed

Pack your bags: assessing young scientists' commitment to science.

jstemwedel — Thu, 06 May 2010 11:46:45 +0000

Pack your bags: assessing young scientists' commitment to science.

DrugMonkey has a poll up asking for reader reports of the science career advice they have gotten firsthand. Here's the framing of the poll:

It boils down to what I see as traditional scientific career counselling to the effect that there is something wrong or inadvisable about staying in the same geographical location or University when a scientist move across the training stages. From undergrad to grad, grad to postdoc or postdoc to faculty.

First, if you've gotten advice on your scientific career, go respond to the poll. Then, come back and we'll chat.

Now, if one's goal is to become a grown-up scientist in an academic setting, there is certainly something that could be useful about gaining firsthand experience of a number of different academic institutions -- if for no other reason that the cultures of various colleges and universities can vary quite widely (as can how secure or precarious their funding situations are, what this does to the state of facilities and administrative support, not to mention teaching loads, etc.). From this point of view, it can make a lot of sense to do graduate training someplace other than one's undergraduate institution, and to do a postdoctoral stint someplace other than one's graduate institution.

Institution-hopping ought also to connect the scientist-in-training to different mentors (potentially with distinct mentoring styles) and to help him or her establish a broader set of contacts (and collaborators, and advocates) in his or her chosen field.

As well, especially at the postdoc career stage, the ability to get new research started reasonably efficiently in a new institutional context might serve as something of a dry-run for the anticipated start-up in one's own lab as a newly appointed faculty member. You're walking the high-wire with less of a net if you're doing it in an institution that's new to you, or so the thinking goes.

However, in the career advice about changing institutions and cultivating "geographic flexibility", it seems like there is sometimes another issue lurking in the background.

Sometimes, willingness to change not just institutions but geographical regions -- and drastically so -- at each career stage seems to be taken as an indication of greater "commitment" to science and to the scientific life. And the only interpretation of this fact that makes much sense to me is that commitment to science is, in these cases, being judged on the basis of one's willingness to throw all non-career-centered considerations to the wind:

"See how much s/he loves science? No partner who wasn't willing to act as a scientist's helpmeet would follow that pathway, shifting hundreds or thousands of miles every few years. The only roots this candidate has put down are roots to this scientific field. Clearly, with what grad stipends and postdocs pay, it's not like s/he could have purchased a home anyway, even if s/he wasn't ready to pack up and follow the siren song of science to the ends of the earth. We don't have to worry that this candidate will ever leave us because of a partner's career, or family responsibilities, or to surf -- see how much already has been sacrificed to the dream of being a scientist!"

This is not to say that most search committees would come right out and make rootlessness an official criterion for the successful job applicant, but that does not mean than it's not part of what some search committee members are really looking for. (I'm surely not the only one privy to reports, from people in a position to know, that a candidate's lack of traces of "a life" beyond the career gave that candidate an edge over others with similar educational pedigrees, publication records, and so forth who did have visible traces of "a life".)

I'm not going to argue that combining an academic career and "a life" is not a challenge (especially as I've discussed some dimensions of what can make it challenging). And indeed, I've recently noted that having a partner who does not live just to further your interests, but who may have interests of his or her own (which you might work to further as part of your commitment to that partner), may complicate your decision-making landscape when it comes to your won career. Assuredly, these three-dimensional partners can make some prime candidates for scientific jobs harder to hire or to retain.

But it's not clear to me that preferring the rootless candidate who is married first and foremost to science is always the best hiring move. Why, for example, would you not view such a scientist as a flight risk -- the kind of person who might, at the drop of a hat, run off and do more exciting science with some other institution far away?

jstemwedel Thu, 05/06/2010 - 07:46

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the kind of person who might, at the drop of a hat, run off and do more exciting science with some other institution far away?

or do so because s/he has developed to that point in life where other things ARE more important. And has found that special person at some other institution far away...and they need to find a co-employed solution.

I know a couple of people who became tenured faculty at the university where they received their PhD, but that is very unusual. If you want a job at institution X, you better get your PhD at institution Y.

There are several considerations that need to be differentiated here.

1. There are not a lot of faculty jobs available in the world. This means that being tied down to a particular geographic location can greatly limit your future potential (possibly even limit it out of existence). This means that willingness to move is a valid and important issue at the entering graduate school and entering postdoc level. An admissions committee may be wary of a graduate student with limited potential.

2. I don't know any faculty search committees that care about willingness to move geographic locations. I DO know many faculty search committees that care greatly about willingness to move between institutions. This is because science depends on cross-fertilization. A school whose faculty was trained at the same school produces inbreeding, and group-think, neither of which are good things for science.

It was actually rather common at my former institution for members of a particular department to groom their trainees towards moving up within the same department. As qaz mentions, this did result in some inbreeding and group-think. It also resulted in a department that was a powerhouse in their particular (chosen and stocked for) sub-ology. It also meant that some more junior faculty continued to be treated as somewhat less independent than they might have been had they moved institutions. Strange hierarchy in that department. Both good and bad for the junior members, but definitely good for the health (measured in grant $$$) of the department. It seemed to me that this practice was more prevalent in clinical departments or those in which MD/PhD PIs were over-represented, though I have no hard data to back up this observation.

Hm. Interesting post. One thing I'd like to add is that a drastic change of the geographical location helps one to get a broader mind, enhances ones ability to look at things from other perspectives, and to deal with people with a different mind set.

I've learned so much from living in different countries, how different approaches to the same problems may get people to reach the same goals (be it in science, administration, health care or what have you). It broadens one's mind. When I speak now with friends who've never moved away from where they went to school, I am often shocked by their inability to change perspective.

A school whose faculty was trained at the same school produces inbreeding, and group-think, neither of which are good things for science.

got any evidence for this qaz? any evidence that other types of grouping (say, GlamourMag obsession, major funding IC, topical focus, model focus, third gen of scientific family) magically avoids the group-think?

A hiring department could easily find a candidate who brings very little diversity from half-way across the country, or even abroad. Likewise they could source someone from the department which occupies the lower half of the building and get totally new and synergistic skills. I don't see how training at the same MRU is a good criterion.

I am a footloose and fancy free type without obvious 'life' issues. I have a life outside the lab, so I am not married to science; but I have no spouse, do not own a home, have no family where my institution is, and have no other personal ties to this location. My institution most definitely sees me as a flight risk. I'm forever being asked whether I've thought about buying a home, and bringing a date to a department function is a bad idea, because I'll be asked for months afterward how things are going with said person...

Why should this be surprising? Every gang has similar requirements for serious membership. Fraternity hazing, for instance, acts both to screen out those who aren't willing to go through it and cements the commitment of those who have -- they're invested. Likewise, gangs all have ritual requirements for new members to break with their pasts by doing something (murder, for instance) which makes as complete a break with their past (and alternative futures) as possible.

A PhD all by itself is partly that way, since in many fields it results in the individual being "overqualified" for potential alternative careers. However, given the generally low regard for education in the USA the mere possession of an advanced degree isn't a complete bar to other plans so additional tests may be necessary.

Among my MD or MD/PhD colleagues, at every institution I've worked at (medical colleges), it is not unusual for them to stay at the same institution at which they were Fellows. This had to do with their clinical skills more than anything else. It was far easier for them to get promoted to Instructor and then to Assistant Professor, etc. than it was for the PhD's who were doing postdocs at those institutions.

I know a few PhD's who stuck around at the same institutions after grad school and postdocs because of significant others. Surprisingly, they were quite successful, and were hired on by different departments at the same institutions because of the collaborations they could set up between departments.

I, too, do not understand why moving around should imply commitment, either. The long hours for low pay/benefits for so many years already show more than enough commitment.

Ya'know... I have had no one tell me this is so. And I answered as such on the poll. But I always assumed that it would show diversity and that I had passed the candidate test on more than one occasion, showing that I was a worthwhile hire-on. Truthfully, I have no idea where I got this idea from, as I clearly wouldn't be in a position to know what those who accept/decline applicants looks for.

I'm pursuing my third degree (PhD) at my fourth institution, having quit a previous attempt at a PhD at a different institution. Undergrad, M.Sc., PhD attempt #1, PhD attempt #2, each has a unique institution and geographical location associated with it. I have essentially no life (which makes conversations with my supervisor about "work-life balance" amusing in an ironic fashion), no spouse, no romantic relationship of any kind, and no family in the same time zone. I don't even have a pet, and my hobbies (such as they are) can be practiced pretty much anywhere - I know of no research institutions that lack interesting nearby locations for amateur photography.

I sincerly hope, for my own selfish purposes, that faculty hiring committees do prefer candidates with highly mobile pasts. Having a life would make it easier for someone to write a letter of reference about me, but I'm not particularly interested in "settling down" or "establishing roots in the community" (whatever that might mean).

I can see why an academic department would be interested in their new hires forming permanent associations with the institution and location. Wanderlust may be habit-forming, though I would think tenure-track on its own would be a pretty significant reason to invest in long-term plans in one place. Of course, the flip side of this is the handful of faculty I've talked to who were denied tenure more-or-less immediately started packing and looking for a new position far, far away. And a couple of faculty I've talked to have told me they had tenure at one institution, but moved to another for some reason (in one case, a spousal appointment) and had to re-earn it.

This touches on some issues similar to discussions of turnover in high pressure IT jobs which have long hours or lots of travel. The people who leave voluntarily tend to be either at the top or the bottom of the performance spectrum. The ones at the bottom are either not very ambitious, so they don't see the job as worth the effort, or not very skilled so they struggle to keep up while having even a basic life outside of work. The ones at the top realize that since they're sought after enough they can find positions where they can get enough of whatever they're looking for out of their job, whether it be money, prestige or intellectual challenges. Bad working conditions with a good payoffs tends to select for those of great ambition but average skill, since persistence can make up for a lack of talent.

FWIW, when I was considering graduate school, I was told it was strongly encouraged to switch institutions between grad and undergrad, and grad and post-doc, and not doing so was possible but considered a sign of lacking either ambition or skill.

DM #6: There are lots of ways to produce inbreeding and groupthink. (As your usual "bunny hopping" study section examples always come back to.) And just as there are people studying bunny-hopping in bunny-hopping study sections who are actually making major breakthroughs, there are certainly people who have stayed at institutions who have made major contributions and succeeded independently and brilliantly. And of course, it's definitely possible to bring in a candidate with little diversity from across the country.

We're talking generalities here and the only real way to test this would be to do a scientific study of this, comparing departments who breed their own with departments who hire outside. I would point out, however, that (1) NRSA study sections hate staying at the same institution [As Pascale notes over at your place.], (2) Studies of scientific impact have shown that breakthroughs are communicated by postdoctoral cross-fertilization, and (3) there are examples of departments who have gotten themselves into trouble building internal empires of group-think. Unfortunately, I can't identify the examples I'm thinking of because I'm not willing to get into slander fights. The point is that it is generally a lot harder to become independent and to get as much cross-fertilization and cross-training if you stay at the same institution between life stages.

Nevertheless, I agree that it is possible to stay at an institution and become independent and it is possible to stay at an institution and make a sufficient change to get an NRSA and it is possible to stay at an institution and do very well. These are the exceptions that prove the rule. In general, I believe (and I tell my students) that moving institutions between UG & grad, grad & PD, PD & faculty, is generally good advice.

(I'm surely not the only one privy to reports, from people in a position to know, that a candidate's lack of traces of "a life" beyond the career gave that candidate an edge over others with similar educational pedigrees, publication records, and so forth who did have visible traces of "a life".)

I have never got the slightest whiff of this in any of my numerous stints on faculty search committees, nor have I ever got the slightest whiff when I was a trainee on my own part or that of my cohorts of the perception that faculty search committees would reason this way.

Back when we were looking for a particular tenure track position, We had a person basically filling the position on yearly contract. When I discussed the position with the Vice President and Provost, he told me we could not hire anyone presently employed at the university. (I think this was a general reaction to a problem in another department.) I thought, yeah sure, we are going to do a nationwide search, and if the person in place is best qualified, I'll see to it you publicly explain why working here makes one unqualified to work here. Anyway, we ran the search; our person was the only qualified applicant and was hired without any fuss.

The corresponding question for the science PIs: graduate student work hours.

jstemwedel — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:55:11 +0000

The corresponding question for the science PIs: graduate student work hours.

From the last poll you probably guessed that this one was coming.

I'll be interested to see whether there's any correspondence between the hours demanded by PIs who read this blog and the hours demanded of graduate students who read this blog.

Once again, feel free to discuss the issue of appropriate student workload and/or humane management of graduate students in the comments.

jstemwedel Thu, 04/29/2010 - 13:55

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Interesting- I think my PI would say he doesn't require set hours. But when I asked him directly at the start of my first rotation, he said he likes his students to be in when most everyone else is, 9-5 M-F, and that he thinks it helps to work a half day on the weekend to catch up on things and get ready for the next week. So, no requirement, and the expectation is based on what it takes to be productive.

Most grad students only get paid a part time wage, therefore they should only work part time. Anything beyond this should be voluntary considering they are also taking classes.

I picked "No set amount of time...." However, I almost chose "Other," because Im unhappy with the "its not unreasonable" clause. Based on some of the comments on the previous related thread and above, I expect this is a moving target.

What I find odd is that lost in these ideas is the "education" component of graduate school. Getting a PhD is not the culmination of 10000 hours of work. There is significant training that occurs as well, simply practicing the art of science is training. In many fields graduate students pay for their degrees, they do not get paid with benefits. I wonder if this mentality is the fruition of our societal upbringing of this generation of students. I see it at the undergraduate level with students who expect a decent grade for simply showing up and because they paid there money.

Luckily my graduate students are/were outstanding individuals that are going to be strong research scientists. At least if they choose to stay in the field.

Two of my best grad students were 9-5ers. One had two kids at home and had no choice. The other had worked in industry before coming to grad school. The trick is that they were excellent at setting goals and organizing their time. (I wish I were as good).
What I would like to see more of is the passionate student, the one who will not leave until she/he gets the result. I think that increases in grad student salaries have led to students treating grad school more like a job. They are certainly worth the money and deserve it, but they are not as hungry, not as eager to get the data and the papers as when students were paid less.

I don't know what planet you are on Joe (#4), but I sure felt hungry for results and poor making $22K / year as a grad student in a pricey metropolitan area fairly recently. If I had been paid any less I would not have been able to pay my rent and eat.

The other extreme (#2) is equally misguided. Grad school is not a job. It's a time to become an expert in your field. You can't do that by erecting arbitrary barriers that rationalize you working "part-time" as a researcher.

I am a young PI, and I emphasize to my students that they work with me but for themselves. They have ambitious career goals and know what level of productivity those goals will require.

Jesse, do you mind if I ask if you are a graduate student or ever were one?
I regularly work 60 hours a week for my lab (cognitive neuroscience). When I have classes it might drop down to 40-50 plus a little less than 20 hours on courses.
My adviser never gave me a set hour expectation - but I am aware that I am here to become an expert in my field. I am competing with a lot of people doing the same thing as me. To be fair, I am unmarried and have no children. This is in part because my significant other and I decided we could live in different cities for as long as we need to.
This is exactly what I thought I was signing up for. Am I crazy? Am I the only grad student sitting at her computer programming on weekends?
(PS I would not have gone to grad school if I had children. For one, I make $15,000 in an expensive city.)

A quick question for the science graduate students: work hours.

jstemwedel — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:52:36 +0000

A quick question for the science graduate students: work hours.

The issue came up in my "Ethics in Science" class today, so I figured it was worth mounting a quick (and obviously unscientific) poll:

Feel free to discuss in the comments.

jstemwedel Thu, 04/29/2010 - 10:52

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"50-60h, at minimum"

He'd like to see 8-7:30 M-F and 8-12 Saturday with a bit extra thrown in on Sunday for cell culture and reading papers @ home.
It doesn't happen, but that's what he'd like.

Both my wife and I have always treated grad school as a 9-5 job, and rejected the notion that it requires you to work weekends and evenings, or to eschew a life outside of school. At the same time, I can't say that I ever encountered any expectation on the part of my supervisor(s) to either keep minimum hours, or even to be present at all. If there was ever any pressure, it was either self-imposed or inspired by guilt from watching other students spend day and night in the lab.

"There are 3 eight hour shifts in a day. You should be working 2 of them. There are 7 days in a week. You should work seven."

Yes, the "as much as necessary" approach, so you guilt yourself into working crazy hours. They're clever, those PIs.

I have the best PI. She expects me to be an adult and get my shit done. there are no expectations to be in the lab for crazy amounts of time either. I realize she is rare.

Good poll! At my current (second) attempt at a PhD, my supervisor insists that everyone maintains "work-life balance". I don't have much of a life, but I do limit my time in the lab to about 40-45 hours per week. Partly this is also due to fieldwork; I'll be away for 6 weeks this summer, working 9-10 hours per day (at least), 7 days a week.

My previous attempt at a PhD, under a different supervisor at a different university, was characterized by overwork. I was spending up to 80 hours per week in the lab, and when one is working on a failing project (the brick wall bashes back) that level of effort for no return is extremely frustrating. I can tell you from direct experience it's the route to burnout.

In hindsight, this poll probably would have been better split into two polls:
1) How much time are you expected to be in the office/lab?
2) How much time do you actually spend in the office/lab?

And perhaps a third question:
3) What proportion of your time spent in the office/lab is actually productive?

I also hate these kind of polls. If you require students to work more than 40 hrs a week, you're an evil taskmaster. If you have them work 9-5 M-F, you are paying technicians too little money, but giving away the highest degree possible. Graduate school is not a job, or at least not just a job. These types of analyses have, in my opinion, the intrinsic idea that being a graduate student is comparable with selling books and stocking shelves at B&N.

For the record, Im in the no set amount of time, as long as shit's getting done type of PI. Im interested in what kind of science fits easily into the 9-5 M-F time frame. My technicians will come in on a weekend or work a long day if the experiment requires it.

since i finished grad school fairly recently, i'll answer... it varies by condition.

average week, about 50 hours.
i'm-on-a-roll week, 70 hours.
when i was major caretaker to spouse, as much as i could.
finally it's time to defend? oh crap!, 90 hours.
dissertation writing, working to some capacity nearly all waking hours. (but very short term and exhausting.)

V. infernalis -- Both you and your wife are in for a rude awakening (if you want a career in academic science).

If you want a 9-5 lifestyle, you can always work as a clerk at The Gap.

I keep track of my hours and in my first year of grad school I average 65 hours a week including holidays and sick time, with a range from 40 hours to 83 hours. A comfortable week for me is about 70 hours when I'm not sick or dealing with other major life issues. In our program we don't do research our first year, so I don't know what my advisor expects of me, but when I told my department head I was working 70 hours on average first semester he said that was about right.

I don't think it was ever discussed directly, but my PI expected us in the lab 50ish hours a week. Time spent teaching, grading papers, attending classes or seminars did not count towards those hours. There was no sick time and no vacation time, and the pay was abysmal.

Actually, most Gaps are open a lot more than 9-5. If you want a 9-5 lifestyle, you could work as a pharmacist, a nurse (with extra bonus dollars if your biologically optimal 9-5 is actually 9pm to 5am), a bank teller, K-12 school teacher, a microbiologist in a hospital or food industry, plenty of doctors that have their own practice, plenty of accountants types (e.g. "corporate finance"), some lawyer types (e.g. tax attorney), some computer programmers (stereotypical codemonkey e.g. IT security), many scientists affiliated with the government...
Seriously Neuro-conservative, the whole sneering at someone desiring work-life balance as simply wanting boring, low-paying, clerk work at corporate hellhole is really Stolkholm syndrome based. Not to mention counterproductive... "I LOVE my STRESS!!!! You will become BORING and UNFUFILLED if you have a job that is within your capacities and only takes 40h a week!!! You MUST compete with all the other PhD students and go exactly where they are going if you want to be a REAL SCIENTIST with a REAL CAREER"

My Graduate advisor:

"You should be in bed, in lab, or in transit."

becca @13 -- It is a shame that you view the choices as stress vs 40 hrs, or that balance requires lack of stress and no greater than 40 hours commitment to career.

What about passion for knowledge? What about staying up late or going into lab on Sunday because you just can't wait to see the results of that last run?

If you lack that sort of thirst, a career in science (or just about any career, as opposed to merely job) is not for you.

P.S. I know doctors, lawyers, and corporate finance people. Doctors, lawyers, and corporate finance people are friends of mine. And none of them work even close to 40 hour weeks.

P.P.S. If you think counting pills or cashing checks is a rewarding career, more power to you.

It seems to me there are two issues here: (1) time spent working on your own research, and (2) time spent doing a job for someone else, whether being a teaching assistant or a research assistant.

When I was a grad student, in my department these were clearly differentiated, and I wasn't aware in my lab of any expectation that a particular number of hours was supposed to be spent on MY research. Rather, it was a matter of overall progress. But this might be only because I didn't finish my Ph.D. and I might have encountered that later.

OTOH, there were clear expectations about the amount of time I spent as a TA. In theory it was half time; in practice, more like 30 hours per week, or "as much as it took to get the job done."

Our major source of envy was that it seemed to us, in a relatively "pure research" discipline, that all of our "research assistant" time was spent doing our professor's research. But the grad students in the more industry-supported departments spent 75-90% of their RA time working on their _own_ research rather than someone else's. We didn't think that was very fair.

I realize the line between the two isn't always that clear, though.

"- It is a shame that you view the choices as stress vs 40 hrs, or that balance requires lack of stress and no greater than 40 hours commitment to career."
I said no such thing. But I understand that there are people that do feel that way, and that it's not my place to judge them, or to tell them that their efforts should necessarily be aimed at encouraging shallow conspicuous consumerism driven corporate greed (The Gap, Seriously?). Particularly when a large percentage of such people have concerns (be they physical disabilities, family obligations, or just non-work-related personal endeavors) that prohibit staying up late or coming in on Sunday with the same naive carefree attitude you do.

"P.P.S. If you think counting pills or cashing checks is a rewarding career, more power to you."
As it happens, I'm not particularly sure I would, for myself. But I am not so foolish as to judge those who do. In fact, without several *very good* pharmacists and bank employees, some exceptionally stressful times in my life (e.g. illnesses, needing morning after-pills, and buying a car) could have been very ugly indeed. Instead, they were manageable BECAUSE of good pharmacists and bank employees. I value those people and their work. You don't have to, but it makes you a certifiable jerk.

Do you want people to discuss your published work?

jstemwedel — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:12:54 +0000

Do you want people to discuss your published work?

There's a recent paper on blogs as a channel of scientific communication that has been making the rounds. Other bloggers have discussed the paper and its methodology in some detail (including but not limited to Bora and DrugMonkey and Dr. Isis), so I'm not going to do that. Rather, I want to pull back and "get meta" with the blogospheric discussion of the paper, and especially the suggestion that it might be out of bounds for science bloggers (some of whom write the blogs that provided the data for the paper in question) to mount such a vigorous critique of a paper that was, as it turns out, authored by a graduate student.

So, let's consider the situation more generally:

Let's say you are a graduate student. You have undertaken a research study (which maybe is central to your dissertation project, or perhaps is peripheral to your dissertation project). You think the research poses an interesting and important question, and that it makes a contribution to working out an empirically grounded answer to that question. Probably your research won't be the last word on it, but you think it's an important step forward (maybe because it puts forward a reasonable methodological strategy for tackling the question, or it at least tries to get relevant data where previous discussion have been data-free).

You write the research up and you submit a manuscript to a journal. Maybe it's a high prestige journal, or maybe it's a more "low key" journal. Maybe your graduate advisor (or another mentor) has given you a lot of feedback as you did the research and wrote the manuscript; on the other hand, maybe you've been feeling your way through the process pretty much on your own.

The journal editor sends you a bunch of comments from the people who refereed your manuscript.

You read these comments, make whatever revisions you're inclined to make (or whatever revisions the communique from the journal editor makes it sound like you need to make to get the manuscript published, or whatever revisions your graduate advisor or other mentor makes it sound like you ought to make before the manuscript is published), and you send that revised manuscript back to the journal editor.

Then, the journal publishes your manuscript.

At this stage, what do you want?

Do you want people to read your article and discuss it?

If so, does it matter to you if this discussion is in private spaces (where you don't know how it's being discussed, or even that it's being discussed at all)? Or in traditional scholarly public spaces (like print journals or conference sessions or letters to the editor of the journal where your article was published)? Or in public spaces like listservs and blogs (where you -- or others who have read your published article -- might happen on them via a search engine)? Why or why not?

Do you want the people having these discussions to point out what they see as the limitations of your data, or the shortcomings in your methodology? Why or why not?

Do you want people who might discuss your paper, positively or negatively, to take special account of the fact that you are a graduate student? Why or why not?

jstemwedel Tue, 03/16/2010 - 15:12

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Teaching and Learning

Blogging

graduate students

peer reviewed journals

The same question can (and perhaps should) be asked of a post-doc. In a way, the post-doc has more at stake. Graduate students have more room to be controversial and/or stupid. At least there is a sense of engagement. Post-docs on the other hand have the potential to do some real damage to their careers.

I don't think I can even begin to answers those questions at a meta-level, but I'll try to answer them from my own experience. Mind you, my experience is in trying to get published (journalistically) rather than academically, but I think there is significant overlap in the post-publishing process.

I think it really all comes back to education as process rather than product. Opening your work to wide-spread scrutiny will give you more eyes to find errors. Assuming you're interested in the topic you're writing about, this will only lead to making your next paper stronger. I think the preferred forum for all this to play out is on blogs/twitter etc, as they are the most open. You will actually be able to respond/discuss the problems they inevitably find, rather than be forced to read them from afar.

As an example from my own current experience, I put interview transcripts and the first draft of an article on my blog. The interviewees shared links with people they know, and a significant amount of discussion has spawned out of it. One of the biggest selfish benefits of this is that I've been introduced to a suite of ideas - ideas I hadn't even considered. The second draft of my article will take some of these opinions into consideration, and the final product will be vastly improved.

As for special consideration for being a grad student... I'm not really sure what form that would be able to take. Respect and constructive discussion is beneficial for anyone, not just grad students.

At this stage, what do you want?

Do you want people to read your article and discuss it?

I don't give a single flying fuck whether people read or discuss my article. I want them to fucking cite it in the peer reviewed literature.

Catharine @1, I have a feeling that how much room grad students are given to "be stupid" in the literature is a field-related issue. For example, a number of faculty my grad program in philosophy warned grad students off publishing "too soon" and being saddled, for their whole career, with authorship of an unfortunate (or badly-defended) view.

This is tough. As a graduate student still learning the ropes of science in many ways, I do sometimes shrink under criticism. When it's coming from my mentor, my course instructors, or my peers, I can take it because I know that A) it's intended to help me do better work in the future, and B) these people don't actually hate my guts. Depending on how critical comments were made in the blogosphere, I could see myself being unsure of whether points A and B still applied.

Still, I think any criticism that's based on the content of my work is worth hearing, even if I am upset by the tone with which it's delivered, because it provides an opportunity for improvement. If the criticism refers to an experimental method, or a statistical analysis, or something else objective, it's pretty easy to say, "I was unaware of that, and I'll take it into consideration next time." For something more subjective, though, it's hard. I've had to deal with meeting much more senior scientists who (GASP!) disagree with me about scientific models or philosophical/political ideas that are close to my heart, and while it is tough to take sometimes (especially if those senior scientists get... heated... during discussion), ultimately I see that as an opportunity for growth, too. I may decide to retain my opinions in the end, but seeing things from another perspective is useful.

I do think that some criticism can be so personal as to become inappropriate, though. I haven't read all the comments on this particular article, so I can't say whether I think any of them have crossed that line.

My god! Of course you want people to discuss it! That's how science works. We publish our results in journals, people discuss them, people discuss the interpretations and implications of them, people test the predictions and try to replicate them. The worst thing for a scientific result is to be ignored.

As to whether it matters if you're a graduate student or not... it doesn't matter at all. Hopefully, the graduate student's friends and mentors will make sure that the student takes comments and discussion in the correct light and keeps them from getting discouraged, but that has absolutely nothing to do with who the author is, whether the author is wimpy graduate student whose feelings you don't want to hurt or angry senior PI who you are scared of.

This is why impact is measured as "impact factor" - how much your work is discussed. Note that a citation saying "X says Y is true, but we think X is wrong" is a citation. As my old advisor used to say, I don't care if you trash my work... just spell my name right.

Science is about open discussion. That's what makes the scientific method work. Anything else is just masturbation. Look, this isn't an f'ing carebears party. We're trying to discover things here. That means that the scientific record is for discussion. "Don't argue with me" is not science.

At this stage, what do you want?

The question might or might be interesting - but is completely irrelevant. You may be a grizzled veteran or a budding graduate student getting into the pool for the very first time - but that, too, is completely irrelevant. You've published it and you don't have a say in how people react to your work anymore than any author, artist, musician, programmer or anyone publishing things for others to see.

To put it this way: if the graduate student had published their first novel - "Burning Bunsens, Burning Passions", a steamy pageturner about forbidden love in a chemistry lab, say - then they would have no say in how critics and the public received it, right? They'd have no right to direct how people discuss it, and have no cause to argue that they should not face criticism because it's their first book.

The work sucks or soars, and people will say so. The author has no voice over and above any other, whether the work is a novel or a piece of research.

A couple years ago, there was a commentary published in Nature Geoscience that argued that blogging about research articles was problematic: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n4/abs/ngeo174.html . (Unfortunately, it's behind a paywall.) Chris Rowan and I both discussed it on our respective blogs.
(Chris here: http://scienceblogs.com/highlyallochthonous/2008/04/bloggers_and_bloggi… ; me here: http://shearsensibility.blogspot.com/2008/04/is-it-unethical-to-blog-ab… .)

This is really field-dependent. I can't imagine anyone who does basic science caring about lay opinions of his or her work, but in the public health sciences, lay perception of work makes a huge difference to funding priorities.

If people think that conversations they are seeing on blogs are the exact same conversations that are happening in labs and journal clubs, they are deluded. At least here they are easily accesible.

CPP #3: I agree that getting lots of citations is the desired result. But before other people can cite my paper, they have to know about it. So if people are reading and discussing my paper, that's a good thing.

I want people to read and discuss my work. Although, as CPP so eloquently points out, I want that more as a means-to-an-end of being cited or otherwise building a professional reputation, than an end in itself.
Discussion is particularly important to get a good grasp on different views of strengths/weaknesses of my work. Up until the point I've figured out what the limitations are, criticism (particularly of the "what would really improve this study is..." variety) is hugely beneficial.

In this particular case, it would appear that Bora was being a laudable scientific citizen in his original peer-review, and that he was going above and beyond at working toward a solid scientific record in his subsequent write up. However, from my view, it would seem that others have yet to add anything that constitutes an original insight into the limitations of the paper.
In short, if we are going meta, it's been mostly unoriginal analysis of unoriginal analysis... and none of it particularly constructive (with the exception of Bora's input).

Given the relative lack of focus on improving the work, and the fact that Dr. Isis and DM's tones could strike the unaware as condescending and abrasive, I am sympathetic to those that view this as academic bullying. I wouldn't want my work discussed like that (well, not if I didn't know Dr. Isis and DM well enough to be able to accept them as well-intentioned... but if your friends *have* to use the fact that you are their friend to defend your actions... something about your actions might not be optimal).

Do grad students really get the chance to publish something unfortunate?
Even if my mentors had allowed something bad to get submitted, peer review would have smacked it down HARD. Just as it smacks down some stuff I submit as a senior PI type person.
How does something (like the article in question) get through peer review with major holes in it?

One publishes one's work with the expectation that it will be discussed. One does not get to ask the question you are asking here.

Having said that, what is the evidence that people do not want this paper discussed by bloggers? I've read the blog posts you cite and some others you did not cite, and some of the comments, and I have not seen anyone making the suggestion that the blogs should keep their mitts off this paper. Please provided documentation of this. (Not because I do not believe you, I simply would like to see what people have said out of interest.)

This is another serious look at that paper, from a perspective of someone who has experience in social/qualitative research.

It's probably good practice for the students in question. It takes a rather thick hide to survive in science. That said, whether the criticisms are done respectfully -- that is, as thoroughly as needed, but without too much 'viciousness' -- is the responsibility of the blogger.

I'd suspect that the criticisms on public blogs are mild and gentle compared to how some of these papers are discussed in private. I've called papers and hypotheses "fucking stupid" in private with my friends, but I generally refrain from even that tone in public writing. Except for creationists with an agenda. But even there being aggressive detracts from your argument. I imagine most other bloggers have similar guidelines. And honestly, we can't be -that- much worse than many reviewers!

Furthermore, personally I'd kind of -like- people to actually react to anything I write publicly. Anything meant for viewing by others -- that is, pretty much anything besides a private diary or something -- should be intended for some sort of reaction on the part of the reader, and reactions go both ways...

It doesn't really matter whether you want people to or not.

One of the many (assumed/given) key activities of scientific research is openness. With properly public discussion you get much wider distribution and more input (some of it criticism), and this is a Good Thing past the immediate short term emotional involvement with a particular paper. Whether you like it or not...

One thing I was hoping for, but did not happen (yet) was for the author (and/or advisor) to come and respond in the comments of my blog post, to enlighten us a little bit about the thought processes behind the study, the chosen methodology, etc. and to engage with the critique.

I had to laugh at #3 response, since obviously the commenter considers number of citations as the ultimate indicator of excellence of his/her cited scientific work. This, of course, is the falacy of simply counting citations as an indicator of excellence. The scientific literature is flooded with examples of papers that received great number of citations only to be exposed as poorly designed, wrongly analyzed or completely fabricated.

I see a huge upside to blogging on and discussion of a published scientific paper's merits, especially when certain problems with the published work could be exposed early.

I do not like when such discussions lead to personal attacks on the author(s), as is evident in the post by Dr. Isis.

Does anyone know if the graduate student in question is even aware of the conversations her paper has initiated, and whether she is contributing in any way?

If I were her, I suppose I would be mortified, because the criticism has been (understandably, IMO) strong. That said, I have felt some unease at the strength of the reviews given she is a grad student... and some frustration with the journal for publishing something with a heterogeneous n of 11. I think Coturnix's review does a good job of implicating the journal has some responsibility here, since he has records of voicing concerns with the manuscript that were not addressed.

And if I were her, while right now I may want to crawl under a rock, I would like to think that in a year or two I would have a renewed perspective and an appreciation that so many people care enough about this field and their stake in it that they would talk so much about her paper.

I want people to read and discuss my work- everyone likes to hear only the good comments about their work, but I would like to hear the bad too - what can I do to improve? Was there something I missed that I should have caught? Even better if I can see those comments - if I never hear the negative comments, then I can neither respond to them (if they aren't valid) nor do anything about them (if they are valid). I'd much rather that happen in public - where I can find out, than in a journal club somewhere where I'll never hear about useful critiques of my work. (Not that journal clubs are bad - I just don't have legions of spies reporting to me...)

One thing I notice about cranks is that they tend to work alone - no-one points out to them early on that they're making a basic mistake. Then ten-years later, they're too invested in their work to give it up for being wrong - it must be the basic theory that's wrong. I don't want to go down that road!

@qaz #6: what you say is field dependent. Mathematicians easily reach consensus on right/wrong issues (not so much on interesting) and you can't publish something wrong once the referee notices. On the other hand, if you write something difficult it might well take the community 10+ years to fully digest it.
That's why for us citation number is not really relevant - we're measured by letters (and invitations, grants, etc: ultimately it's always peer review).
It's also a field were as a grad student you can be as silly as you want - all the blame goes to your advisor (who is not supposed to co-sign, even if they found the problem for you and taught you everything you need to know to solve it).

Hi Janet

It's always a writer's fault if the reader misunderstands them. Or so I'm told.

I don't mind being used as a discussion starter but I think my position isn't quite what you are implying.

To channel physioprof I am the motherfucking ninja of robust peer review. I love it. I've learnt shitloads from good peer-reviewers. Grad students should be peer-reviewed the hell out of- it's part of their training. Post publication peer review on blogs is awesome- especially when it's done by people like DM, Janet or Bora.

I thought DMs original post was excellent. I did not mean to give the impression that I questioned its relevance. My fear was that the repetition of posting was in danger of moving beyond a legitimate and robust peer-review and into something more like an academic blood sport.

Prosaica #22 -

No, it is not field dependent. I've worked in mathematics and the same thing applies. While it is true that in mathematics, it is possible to lay out the entire logic in the publication, there are many publications in mathematics where the implications are discussed for many years after publication. In particular, the generality (and sometimes even the validity) has been/can be questioned after publication.

Science (I'll include mathematics here, but not literary criticism) is based on a self-correction process by which replication, open discussion, and community checking gets at a truth that can't be reliably gotten in any other way.

Obviously it is field dependent, and obviously what you want is sort of irrelevant. But I do think I personally would have drawn the line at the photo implying the author was taking a dump when they wrote the paper, given that they are a grad student ;-).

Sharon

"I personally would have drawn the line at the photo implying the author was taking a dump when they wrote the paper, given that they are a grad student."

This is just another sign that science has become a blood sport and many of its practitioners today are seeing themselves as its gladiators. It also goes into the issue of incivility on the bloggosphere. Even more disturbing is the fact that the blogger who described the author of this study as "taking a dump" while writing it, has declared herself "a fighter for women equality in science" yet, she easily disparages a female colleague who also happened to be a graduate student. This fake defender of women equality in science would be the first one to launch an all out attack on all "white male scientists" if even one of them would dare describing a female author of a scientific paper as sitting on the toilet seat while writing the paper.

BTW, some of the best ideas may emerge, while one is sitting in the restroom, the only place one really knows what one does! ;)

Once something is published, it is fair game. So if whiny ignored reviewers want to debase themselves by whinging to cyberspace, there is nothing unethical about them doing so.