Overview of tt_dan on PostgraduateForum.com

Overview of tt_dan

Signup date: 01 Jan 2012 at 4:07am

Last login: 10 Nov 2013 at 5:58pm

Post count: 359

Recent Posts

Can supervisor get rid of me for asking for time off due to ill health?

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

Quote From Anxious_PhDgirl:
The reason I'm stressing though is because recently his attitude has changed - at first he was sympathetic that I was doing my best despite feeling unwell, and now he's piling on the pressure and seems to get irritated when I talk to him about my work. He doesn't fully understand the time scales of my experiments and I think he's starting to think I'm fobbing him off when I say it'll take a couple of weeks to get results, etc.

Hi Anxious_PhDgirl,

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. In what way is he piling on the pressure and showing irritation? Maybe after explaining it, we can have a more clear view of the situation?

How to improve academic writing?

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

*Looking at the stars and the moon... wondering how I'm going to improve my academic writing skills* : [

Anyone can give me some advice? My peers said that my writing is good but it needs some scientific/academic twist in it. How do I do that? : /

How do you tell your supervisor that you're unhappy with their supervision?

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

I think the title says it all.

My supervisor is incredibly disorganized to the point his disorganization messes up my papers. He never commented on my works and he will ask me to do stuff hours before the deadline.

I feel that his disorganization is incredibly childish (very ironic since I worked with children before and they are ever more organized!) to the point that now I'm more worried about his (bad) random decision making skills jeopardizing my work.

I would like to tell you more but I think I'd rather be safe than sorry : /

Could anyone offer me some advice please : (

Sooo many things to edit and check!

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

I'm at the moment editing a paper of mine for submission and I'm checking each of the reference for correctness e.g. correctly citing the works, correctly citing who says what, etc.

omg...

SOOOO many references to checkl! *screams*. lol.

Any tips to stay motivated to do this mundane work >.<

Publications: which one is not the best situation?

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

Quote From HazyJane:
Always aim for (i) peer review and preferably (ii) indexed. Don't worry so much about citations - that can always develop over time. I don't think anyone would judge an early career researcher adversely if their research had yet to be cited, but they might query the quality of work if it wasn't peer reviewed.

At this stage, if you come out of your PhD with a couple of first/second author peer reviewed publications, you're doing well. Conference proceedings (even if indexed) are generally less important, though that can vary by field. Which field/discipline are you in?

As for your second scenario comparison, PhD vs publications and MSc, it depends entirely what job you'd be going for.

The librarian said the exact same thing! She said that as long as the paper is peer reviewed, then you're doing fine.
I'm in a mix field; CS and Math.

HazyJane, I heard that sometimes the proceedings itself outranked the journal; would this be true?

Lets assume that the job you're looking for is an RA job.

Publications: which one is not the best situation?

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

Ok, I've thought about these various situations quite a lot and I would like to hear your views; assume you have some papers from proceedings and journals:

Situation 1a:
All papers have been published in a nonindexed proceedings/journals and not peer-reviewed. No one has cited your paper or it has been cited by 5-6 people only. The papers have a mixture of you as a first author and co-authors

Situation 2a:
All papers have a mixture of peer-reviewed and indexed and nonindexed proceedings/journals but most of your cited papers have been cited by you only. The papers have a mixture of you as a first author and co-authors

Situation 3a:
Same as situation 1a, but you are the first author for most of the papers.

Situation 4a:
Same as situation 2a, but you are the first author for most of the papers.

Situation 5a:
You only have nonindexed nonpeer-reviewed proceeding publications

For the 5 situations, which one will put you in a bad (as well as good maybe) position in terms of job prospects?
I was thinking about this as I'm getting increasingly worried about publications and job prospects : (

Another completely different situation:

Situation 1b:
No publications but have a PhD.

Situation 2b:
Some good publications but have only a Masters.

Which one is more promising?

Submit paper or not?

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

Quote From ape_boy:
For the full last year I've been stuck on a paper I've been writing. The paper documents the workings of a new algorithm I made to solve a computer vision problem. We submitted it to a journal and it was rejected on the basis of not having enough theoretical novelty. I made a lot of major modifications, then submitted it to a different journal, who rejected it for mostly similar reasons (and this time the reviews were much more critical, even though to me it seemed like a better paper).

Now that I've been working on this problem for so long I can see that there are good reasons why it wouldn't get accepted. It really doesn't offer anything new to the table. If I were a reviewer I would reject it. I feel like I am wasting my time on this and that I should cut my losses and try to scrape up what I have and work towards another paper. I am already 2 years into my phd, I don't want to waste any more time.

My supervisor has been pushing me to submit the paper. He has his own concerns - getting grants and pushing phd students through the door, and I can see why he wants to do this, despite being vaguely aware of the flaws. But I am certain the paper won't get accepted. I am certain that ahead lies months and months of rejection and heartbreak (and not to mention my supervisor's view of my abilities steadily declining). I don't want to risk that.

I really don't know what to do here. Has anyone been in this situation before?

How about submitting it to a conference first? At least you would have some track record for publications?

Half of your papers have been cited by YOUR OWNSELF.

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

Quote From brit27:

Quote From tt_dan:
I once saw this particular researcher who seems to like bragging about himself. So, I checked his profile on Google Scholar and he has around 30+ citations on one of his papers; however, I just found out half of his paper was cited by himself.

Is he in the right to be bragging about his accomplishment if his paper has been cited by himself?

No. That shows desperation.

Desperation?

Half of your papers have been cited by YOUR OWNSELF.

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

I once saw this particular researcher who seems to like bragging about himself. So, I checked his profile on Google Scholar and he has around 30+ citations on one of his papers; however, I just found out half of his paper was cited by himself.

Is he in the right to be bragging about his accomplishment if his paper has been cited by himself?

When do you ask for references?

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

Would it be the best time if I asked my supervisors for references (for future jobs) during the final year (early month) of the PhD programme?

My rationale is that they would be busy (most of the time) so I might just ask them as soon as possible; do you think it's reasonable?

Is a PI a supervisor and a supervisor a PI? Confused

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

Quote From MeaninginLife:
In a sense, it is true. Jocelyn Bell, discovered the radio source which was ultimately recognised as the first pulsar. However, her supervisor, Antony Hewish, received the Nobel Prize.

I read that his Nobel prize is the NO-bel of the Nobel prizes.

Is a PI a supervisor and a supervisor a PI? Confused

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

Quote From DrJeckyll:
Hi tt_dan,

ask your supervisor. Normally professors don't put their names on papers unless they are really good.

I met this particular person today and they said that if any student were to be under their supervision, the work belongs to them, not the student, because they "supervise" them.

I asked them; "what if the student were the one who proposed the idea?". They said that the work still belongs to them because they supervised them, and they pay for the paper's conferences.

This person doesn't have a PhD.

Is a PI a supervisor and a supervisor a PI? Confused

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

Quote From psychresearcher:
PI = Principal Investigator for the grant .. i.e who got the money in for the particular project. I would imagine your supervisor was a Co-I on the project proposal perhaps?

Thank you for the reply!

I don't quite see what they are "investigating" actually. the PI never even did supervise/give me advice on anything.
The project proposal was created and written by me. My supervisor mainly forwarded them to get the grant. Furthermore, my supervisor is mainly giving me general advice on general research.

Now, I'm this pickle; should I include this "PI" on my paper as an author? I'm confused since as I understand it, a PI is normally the one who proposed and lead the project, thus they are normally included as a co-author.

Is a PI a supervisor and a supervisor a PI? Confused

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

I'm somewhat confused; is the PI your supervisor if you're a PhD student or a PI is a completely different person than the supervisor? - probably a noob question; sorry!

I've my own supervisor at the moment, and today, I saw this particular signature, signing off a grant for my main project. Under their name has the title the head of research, which is different than my supervisor's signature,

Please help!

tt_dan 359 posts
11 years ago

I was thinking the same topic as well! *high five to invogue*