Timeline for How should I ask a potential advisor why they haven't published in the last 3 years?
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| Jun 10, 2020 at 14:12 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Dec 19, 2018 at 22:59 | comment | added | LSpice | @Kimball, agreed, but there is a difference between "don't publish with your advisor as a student" and "don't only publish with your advisor as a student." | |
| Dec 19, 2018 at 14:37 | comment | added | Kimball | @LSpice But I think in our area of pure math it's a bit worrisome if all of a student's papers are joint with their advisor. I've certainly had discussions with colleagues about this, even though I know people who've done it and been successful. It's like how if a tenure-track applicant's publications are all joint with senior people, this can cause some doubt over a candidate. | |
| Dec 19, 2018 at 12:12 | comment | added | LSpice | @MarkMeckes, good point. I read "in some traditions and communities in my area (pure maths FWIW), supervisors actively avoid …" as "in … pure maths … supervisors actively avoid …", but I now see that "(pure maths FWIW)" was just indicating @YemonChoi's area. | |
| Dec 19, 2018 at 11:51 | comment | added | Mark Meckes | For a range of views from mathematicians, see mathoverflow.net/questions/57337/… | |
| Dec 19, 2018 at 11:50 | comment | added | Mark Meckes | I am a pure mathematician, and didn't publish with either of my advisors until several years after finishing my PhD. My wife is also a pure mathematician, and the one paper she published with her advisor was disjoint from her PhD thesis. @LSpice: it didn't look to me like Yemon claimed this was universal in pure maths. But it certainly is common in some subcommunities. | |
| Dec 19, 2018 at 1:49 | comment | added | Vladhagen | @YemonChoi I also have done work in pure maths (group representation theory) and I have never heard of this concept of not publishing with your graduate students. Maybe this was the case 60 years ago. | |
| Dec 19, 2018 at 1:37 | comment | added | LSpice | @YemonChoi, are you sure it’s a universal habit in pure maths not to publish with one’s advisers (or advisor)? I am a pure mathematician, but have never heard of such a convention. | |
| Dec 18, 2018 at 20:49 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | Lastly for now: "it essentially sounds like you are advocating giving PhD students projects which do nothing to further your own academic career." Well, certainly not all of my colleagues would agree with me, but yes, when I think of a good PhD (sub)project for a new student, I am not doing it so they can help me with my research, because my research requires a large chunk of the 10 years' headstart I have on my students. I choose a project where I think the student can learn, with my guidance, how to do research, not how to do the gruntwork for my research | |
| Dec 18, 2018 at 20:47 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | Vladhagen, I certainly don't claim to speak for the entirety of pure maths, but the approaches I have described are not just limited to "me and my mates". It is how I and several of my peers were trained; it is how several people both senior to me and at the same level think about training their students. Also, I must push back on "you don't want to waste time on a project". It is more that I am mindful that it can be good to leave more accessible things for PhD students to cut their teeth on, which will spur them to learn & understand new things | |
| Dec 18, 2018 at 20:26 | comment | added | Vladhagen | @YemonChoi What you have described is a bit frightening. I do not want to oversimplify your comments, but it essentially sounds like you are advocating giving PhD students projects which do nothing to further your own academic career. In other words, you don't want to waste time on a project, so you assign it to a grad student to beat their head on. You also seem to want to speak to the entirety of pure mathematics. (Is this an inadvertent assumption that one's experience is universal?) | |
| Dec 18, 2018 at 20:08 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | It is also not uncommon in pure maths (well, at least it was this way in the not too distant past) to come across something in one's research and think: hmm, this could probably be pushed further but it's a distraction from the main topics I think about and could be hard to get published in the places my employers wish me to publish in, but it would be ideal as an initial project for a PhD student to learn the tools of the trade. | |
| Dec 18, 2018 at 20:06 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | because people don't always get given the time needed to write up their results, because it can take a long time for hard or unfashionable papers to get refereed, and because in pure mathematics there is a lot of value in knowing and understanding the accumulated knowledge and results of the past. | |
| Dec 18, 2018 at 19:52 | comment | added | Vladhagen | @YemonChoi It is hard for me to see how someone who produces no research would be good at training someone to do research. This isn't pro-basketball. I of course do not believe that one must only look at advisers with extensive publication records. However, if a professor has no publications in the last three years, that is a bad sign. | |
| Dec 18, 2018 at 19:13 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | Also, the implication that the length/density of a publication list is the most important measure of the worth of a researcher/scholar is ... disputable in some subjects and contexts, and does NOT mean they would be bad at training someone for research. (My 2cents, YMMV, etc) | |
| Dec 18, 2018 at 19:08 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | I note that in some traditions and communities in my area (pure maths FWIW), supervisors actively avoid publishing with their students during the period of the PhD. Also "accountability" seems a strange choice of word to me | |
| Dec 18, 2018 at 18:25 | history | answered | Vladhagen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |