Timeline for Are problems in PhD science labs not present in math phd research?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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| Sep 19, 2018 at 5:14 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| Aug 26, 2018 at 21:21 | comment | added | Wolfgang Bangerth | I'll point out that most of the comments above are about "pure mathematics". In applied mathematics, these days, solo papers are rare. Student papers are almost always with their advisers, and often other collaborators as well. | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 21:19 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | @JeffE: The funding model also means math mostly avoids the situation where external funding for a project dries up, and the advisor has to cut off a student despite being satisfied with their progress - or where an advisor has to choose which of several satisfactory students to support because there's no longer enough money for all of them. | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 21:16 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | @JeffE: Certainly. On the other hand, funding isn't tied to any particular advisor, which makes it somewhat more possible to switch to a new advisor if the relationship with the current one isn't good - without having to worry about whether the new advisor has funding available. There are still issues involved in doing this - potentially having to start over with a new project, time limits, willingness of new advisor to spend time working with you - but taking funding off the table at least removes one complicating factor. | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 21:10 | comment | added | JeffE | But a student really isn't completely reliant on their advisor for funding — They are, however, reliant on their advisor to give a positive enough evaluation of their progress that the department will give them a TAship, or even let them continue in the PhD program. Advisors still hold considerable power in math departments. | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 19:38 | comment | added | Alexander Woo | I have written a recommendation letter for finishing PhD who was not my student where I pointed out (iii). At least in North America, these things tend to get sorted out in letters. | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 19:12 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | Let me also say that the message conveyed by a student publishing with their advisor is not very clear. Does it mean (i) they are weak, (ii) they were strong enough to truly collaborate with their advisor to arrive at a result better than what either could have done independently, or (iii) neither, but their advisor is more honest with regard to putting their name on the paper if they were crucially involved with the work than the not-so-honest "standard mathematical culture"? Speaking for myself, I have coauthored papers with students under both (ii) and (iii). | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 19:08 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | @Earthliŋ: Since we are talking about cultural norms, there is (i) some subtlety and (ii) some geographic variation, as Najib Idrissi mentioned. From your profile it looks like you may be working in Asia? I don't know much about the academic culture there, and anyway, this is one reason why the letter from the thesis advisor is so critical: the amount of independence of the work ought to be described (and argued for) therein. | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 18:40 | comment | added | Earthliŋ | @PeteL.Clark That is unfortunate, as my PhD supervisor insists on publishing my thesis results jointly with me, even though I proved the main results myself without "an unusual amount of help". (Of course, since he is my coauthor, he is involved in the formulation of the idea as well as some parts of the write-up, so being a coauthor is not unreasonable/unethical.) I do have a solo paper from the results of my Master's thesis (different supervisor). What I said may indicate that my PhD supervisor is ignorant of this unwritten rule you mention, but shouldn't mean I am a weak student...? | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 15:56 | comment | added | user9646 | @PeteL.Clark I agree (and it's like this in France in any case), but there are also some regional variations apparently. I have friends in Switzerland (or who did their PhDs there) and it's not unusual for the advisor to be coauthor, although it's expected that the student has at least one solo paper, which is then necessarily a true solo paper. One of them had a hard time explaining that to job committees in France. (Though this had a very happy ending!) | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 15:37 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | I agree with most of this, except that in mathematics I think a joint paper published by a student with their thesis advisor is usually worth distinctly less than a solo paper by the student -- within the standard culture of mathematics, the former indicates an unusual amount of help. In my experience, it is more common for this to be violated in favor of the student, so that e.g. certain solo papers arising from student theses were largely told to the student by their eminent advisor. Our community seems bad at recognizing that there are still victims here...just not the student. | |
| Aug 26, 2018 at 15:30 | history | answered | Nate Eldredge | CC BY-SA 4.0 |