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"The only real critique I had on my thesis was that the chapter I sent you had typos. I went through this chapter again and found quite a few. In the future when someone asks you to review a chapter you need to carefully check and find typos because it's embarrassing to send a final thesis with a chapter filled with typos. Its disappointing when you ...
62
You don't owe this person anything, were under no obligation to help them, and everything you do for them is done in a spirit of generosity and kindness. If they don't think you did a good enough job, that's their problem, not yours. If they don't want your help, they are under no obligation to ask for it.
It sounds to me that you did it exactly right, ...
25
That student's response is obviously unnaceptable and quite rude. You should gently remind the student that ultimately they are responsible for their own work when they submit a document and if editing was so important to him/her next time they should hire an editor.
That being said, in the future it's a nice gesture to let others know ahead of time if you ...
21
Once as an undergraduate I gave a professor a draft of a scholarship essay for review. I told the professor that it was a rough draft but that the main idea was there and that I'd appreciate feedback on the main ideas in the essay. When I got the review back, the professor was furious and proceeded to chew me out. I had wasted their time by giving them a ...
14
This lab mate should take full responsibility for the contents of their own graduate thesis. Having a friend or colleague look over a chapter is fine, but it does not relieve the main author from that responsibility. The email that this person sent to you is unacceptable, and you should not feel bad.
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"(...) Its disappointing when you rely on someone and they screw you I hope in the future you do a better job"
The rest of the text chain did not go well.
Oh man, I had to take a walk to cool down. I truly (and seriously) admire all the answers you got here and that none of them told you to reply to this guy to fuck off.
I've learned a lesson: I ...
7
This question, combined with your previous one, makes me think that you are confusing two issues: transcribing information and understanding information. These are not the same thing. In fact, if you focus more on transcribing information in detail, but you might actually learn less than if you had taken no notes at all. See for example this article: https:...
7
I've been in similar situations, and I've learned that people have different ideas of what "editing" or "looking over" means. If that happens, I am sure to be absolutely certain what the person is expecting, and what I will offer. I don't think you are to blame in this situation; use it as a learning experience and be sure to clarify the ...
5
I often review papers for a certain college student, and always explicitly ask if they're looking for deep technical review of their writing - typos, punctuation, word choice, verb tenses - or more of a broad overview of the content (need more explanation here, rework this example, you haven't defined this term yet). And in any event - unless you edited &...
5
Let me start off by admitting that I am able to see my fault in this.
No.
Don't let your labmate shift the blame to you from himself. In all honestness, you made no error and there's no fault on your part. You did a voluntary review of a text he was responsible of, nothing more. It feels he is coping with the critique by finding someone to blame instead of ...
5
Others have already elaborated that you did not do anything wrong, and I have nothing to add to this. I will only address your other two subquestions:
What could I have done better?
While setting expectations could have prevented the entire affair (not that it was justified), there is another strategy.
I review a lot of stuff for colleagues, students, ...
4
Your colleague wrote "I went through this chapter again and found quite a few [typos] ... "
I would suggest to your "colleague" (who isn't acting very collegial) that it was clearly their responsibility to go through their chapters themselves prior to submitting their thesis. In addition to coming across as rude, they come across as ...
4
You're in the right, but don't continue the flame war
The person who requested the review from you appears to be either mentally unstable (e.g. a wound collector; see: psychologytoday.com/us/blog/spycatcher/201509/wound-collectors) or extremely manipulative. Either way try not to inflame the situation anymore than it already is, silently cut your ties with ...
2
There is an old joke that goes like this:
A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He spots a man down below and lowers the balloon to shout: “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man below says: “Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 ...
2
Pretty much anything is fine. Introduce yourself and say a bit about your interest and your reasons for inquiring. Don't make it too long, but say at least that much. If you will be asking for their code, you might wait until you have established a bit of rapport.
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I was curious on hearing any tips from the community regarding: Preventing perfectionism when it comes to notetaking?
You shouldn't prevent perfectionism, and you shouldn't stop trying to make your notes as perfectly as you can. What you should do is to understand that aesthetics has little to do with perfectness. Perfectness is about how well your notes ...
1
Perfectionism is a positive trait, and I share your sentiment about organization (which is what I assume you mean by "aesthetic looking" notes). However, I would recommend not worrying too much about this as you're taking the notes in class. Just try to write down as much as you can, and then you can rewrite/reorganize them later; this way you're ...
1
Let me make a few suggestions:
First you want to understand how the mind works in order to know how to optimize your study. It turns out that to learn, we actually need to physically change the brain, reconnecting neurons. For the science behind it see: The Art of Changing the Brain by James E Zull. The implication is that we learn by reinforcement (...
1
A simple way is to use the SmartArt feature in various Microsoft Office programs (e.g. PowerPoint) to create a timeline. Google Slides can also be used (Insert -> Diagrams -> Timeline). See e.g. this guide for more details and inspiration. Alternatively, as henning states in a comment, you can just use a generic drawing app.
TeX solutions also exist, ...
1
Communicate more directly with your advisor about your expectations: state that you are concerned about your writing and would prefer more feedback on it, and be specific. Are you concerned about organization? Word choice? Grammar?
If your advisor isn't a native English speaker, they may not be the best person to give you feedback on some of these; they may ...
1
Did you knowingly and willingly avoided telling him of his many typos, just to make him look bad? You don't mention this part; you simply say that it's not your job to do so. But if you knowingly didn't tell him of his typos, then while he was out of line in calling you out, you do have some responsibility in this. I've seen many lab mates that are ...
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