historicallinguist

Good enough for your to get a sky interview from uhawii manoa which is a department has strength in language documentation and historical linguistics for austronesian languages. Unless you are applying for an MA that does not require interview, this score is good enough, as GRE is probably not that a big deal for linguistics Ph.D. admission.(In fact, some top programs do not require GRE at all). The deal lies in SOP, LORs, and writing sample. Probably SOP is the most important among the three. You just cannot get into a program with a crappy SOP, even if you got a perfect GRE score. I do not know about Berkeley. But just a side note, Berkeley has a good number of people working in language documentation.

This is a good point. The student obviously was sending unsolicited suggestion/criticism to the OP. In higher education settings, unsolicited criticisms are generally not welcomed by the department, and in some cases may result in adverse consequences against those who dare to raise those issues and ask for improvement. The student may send the email under his/her .edu email account, but, in order to do so, he/she must use some sort of academese/legalese (i.e. formal polite language in a style that could best be described as probably "Oxbridge" style of communication) to express the intended suggestion, so as to overcome the first common fire-back called "rudeness". Such language use, unless the student has been communicated with such language for years, will be hard for an undergraduate to employ. Potential retaliations commonly seen include lowering attendance grade, lowering grades for open-ended questions for which the TA has quite a lot of a discretion, etc. The student, who may have already sensed potential retaliations, when trying to send out a quick message without having the trouble of framing the message in academese/legalese, sends the message anonymously, and I think the anonymity is quite justifiable, given the culture that many departments and TAs do not appreciate "unsolicited noises" at all. In fact, one of the more senior TA sent out a guide to all TAs (including me) in my department, and asked us to forward that guide to all of our students so as to make sure that they write emails in an appropriate style. I knew he sent out the guide in good faith. But the style of writing really obscures the real issues raised in the email. I feel that the criticism over method of delivery or style of writing or the tone sounds more like an excuse to ignore the issues (probably legitimate, depending on the regulations of the university) raised in the email. I beg to differ on this point. If part of the duties of TAs and professors are not customer service, what exactly is the relationship between TA and professors, and students. More importantly, it sounds ridiculous to ask students to pay for their tuitions and fees, and, when they have complaints, they are told that you paid but sorry you are not customers. I went to a private school for my undergrad, and I was not graded/taught by even one TA throughout my undergrad career. In fact, mistreatment by TAs against undergraduate students is more common and widespread than you are willing to admit. First thing first, many TAs,especially in non-top tier state universities, are underpaid. So, generally, it is hard to expect the underpaid TAs to devote much of their time and attentions to their students, because they work for what they are paid for. Second, you need to understand how ridiculous class size could be in some undergraduate schools. Some, especially state/public universities, have lower division classes as large as 500 students in a single lecture. I just cannot see how the tuition they pay worth merely 1/500 attention from the Prof and TAs. Schools are oversizing a single lecture into a huge lecture hall to maximize revenue of tuition from a large pool of students. Look, essentially, the poor relationships with undergraduates derive from the mismatch between the financial input by these undergraduate and what they can get out from a huge lecture hall. Isn't this a problem? Well, as a TA, it is not a problem for me, but, as a student, and as a person, it is definitely a problem, even if this is a problem that we may not be willing to recognize at all, not to say solve it. As for your comments for students aren't majoring in humanities, I have some other thoughts. First, humanities, with the exception of philosophy, rarely reflect on whether the discipline is worth studying or not. I was a humanities major when I was an undergraduate. I witnessed too many professors teaching non-philosophy humanities cannot give coherent thoughts. Simply put, many humanities disciplines cannot be subject themselves to the scrutiny of rationality. Find a work of literary criticism, and I can guarantee you that you will find tautology in this book. Not sure why authors did this kind of thing, but they did it anyways. You asserted the great value of humanities major (some, such as philosophy, do have great values.), but how are you going to explain the fact that so many past graduates in subjects such as comparative literature, English, history, etc, can not get a job, after paying so much tuitions (probably by taking tons of loans) and spending so much time working through 4 years in the subject? They just cannot stay hungry with no food whatsoever, and continue enjoy the works of Dickens throughout the week. STEMs and business schools deserve more support, because they generate better results for the students at least in terms of their career. In fact, humanities subjects such as history are like a blackhole that sucks funding into the discipline, and barely, if ever, produces some tangible improvements of the material lives of those who work in the discipline and those who provided funding to support the discipline. STEMs are much better at making their case to their sponsors to persuade sponsors' to support them.(bottom line, STEMs proposals seem to have better agenda as to what to do, why do what is planned to do, etc). After all, you cannot just ask support and then tell those who support you that they should not expect something (probably more than what you get from them in terms of value) back from you. This is also true for student tuition. You cannot ask students to pay their tuitions and fees, and then tell them that they are not customers. If you are working in a non-profit organization that is not a university , you are not going to treat those who sponsor your organization (i.e. the patrons) in the way TAs treat students, aren't you? Then, why do you assert that students are not customers? Can a university continue to run, professors and TAs continue to get paid, if all students in a university refuse to pay their tuitions?

Honestly, as a TA, I agree with you that the email sounds rude, but, as a student, I do not think it is problematic with regard to the content. I remember that many years ago when I was an undergraduate I wrote some similar stuff to one of my profs, and obviously this prof was upset by the uncourteous style of my email. He then taught me to write in the appropriate form (with salutation, closing, better tone, etc). Well, obviously I got better respondences from profs since then, because the style is more courteous and formal. But now I am in graduate school, and I actually witness some profs do not follow these conventionality of email courtesy. They write something like "hi.XXXXX" or simply "XXXXXX PERIOD" with no salutation, closing, etc. While I feel profs writing stuffs like these are rude, it is hard for me to justify to say the content they say via such a format is problematic.(Of course, I do have bad perception over profs writing stuffs in such a way, and feel like to steering clear of in the future when possible ). So, maybe the OP could respond, by simply citing that XXX behavior is not prohibited by the regulations of xxx university.

Not every program. But given that you are planning to pay out of packet, here is the deal. Most Australian universities will very likely to be within your reach as long as your past GPA is above 2.7.. U Arizona, Carnegie mellon, u washington seattle, maybe. UIUC, maybe more difficult. McGill, very difficult, good luck with this one. Why don't you go to the Cambridge textbook in linguistics series, and find one book in the series that interests you? Read the book you pick, and do some of the exercises in the book. And submit the solutions of some of the exercises you do in the book as writing sample. In this way, you at least are dealing with the right problems, regardless of how well your solutions are. If you formulate some problems on your own, chances are either you may formulate some problems you cannot solve or you may formulate some problems that are not well formulated. Disclaimer first: I could be wrong. I think you should not spend too much time detailing your background in your SOP. After all, the Adcom could tell your background from your CV, transcript, and LORs, and you should not repeat the informations that are already there. Second, I think you should very briefly mention your background as it is relevant to the research project you plan to undertake in the department you are applying to. Then, say something about your idea about your plan of research. Outline the project with some jargons (for example, lambda conversion, conservativity, scope ambiguity, operator, opacity, etc). At least some profs in the adcom (based on my experience) will take your use of jargons as a sign that you have a lot of backgrounds in your proposed subfield. Also, should there be a Skype interview, be prepared to explain the jargons, and if you could explain well the jargons during the interview, you should be on the right track of being admitted. After outlining the project, then name each prof and say something about how each prof's specialization could support certain aspect of your overall interest in subfield X. Then, summarize and say something about the department as a whole and show that the department as a whole could support your interests. Rule of thumb, find at least 3 three profs to say something about in the SOP.

Definitely you should do this. Overall fit with the department as a whole is one important factor, if not the most important, that will determine whether you get admitted or not. This school is fairly easy to get in, if you tell them in advance that you are going to pay everything on your own.Well, actually, a better way to say it is something like "even if there is no funding available, I still want to be considered for admission." Alternatively, why don't you try to find a problem to solve and submit the solution as your writing sample. If you are trying to do computational ling, the emphasis should be placed on ling, not Spanish. It sounds like you are planning to do something in computational phonology with emphasis on applying computational methods to build (or extend) corpora. If that is the case, definitely you should focus on linguistic theories and computational methods, and avoid saying too much about your interests in Spanish or any other specific natural language. Also, if you had backgrounds in computer science, definitely emphasize this background in your SOP. This background is very valuable and may make you stand out above many other applicants who have humanities (i.e. BA) degree for their undergrad. Finally, I do not think using one SOP for all programs is a good idea. The better approach would be adjust your SOP for each department so that your interests could well align to those of the POIs in each department you mentioned in your SOP.

GPA is not that a big deal when it comes to linguistics application. This is weird but true. I think the real deal lies in SOP, specifically how well you can formulate your interests to show that your interests match with those of the faculty members in the department. For GRE, this may be the least important thing you need to worry. In fact, many top departments do not require GRE at all. If it is required, it is more likely a formality or for the purpose of nominating you for university/college-wide scholarship/fellowship which generally has some sort of threshold for GRE score.

Hi. Fellow linguists. It has been recently come to my attention that one of the Profs in my school has been involved in plagiarism several times. I am so sure because when I did research in the library I (accidentally) found that this prof actually copied data from an old series of linguistics journal, distorted and fabricated the data to confirm his intended conclusions. This prof presented orally and in writing the data this prof copied from somewhere else as if this prof had elicited the data in person (i.e. doing field work) or could speak the languages. But based on my conversation with this prof and the prof's colleagues and based on the information on this prof's website, it becomes obvious that this prof never did field work in these languages, and could not speak these languages. Is there anyone here who had encountered similar situation like this? Should I simply stay silent and do nothing? Or should I report this incident (maybe anonymously) to the ombudsperson and/or dean? Thanks in advance for your input.

Thanks for the information. I was not sure because, when I checked the definition of "cheating", definitions from different sources vary, and it was hard for me to figure out which one to follow. For example, some definitions involve "discussing the materials with other unauthorized parties without prior authorization", whereas some other definitions are limited to what you just said. I checked out the website of the fellowship application organization, and they don't have any clear guideline about how they define "cheating". Nor do they say anything about whether unauthorized discussion is allowed. This is why I was very confused. And I then assumed the organization may just follow some kind of norms of fellowship application in general, but I was not sure what the hidden norms are. This is why I was asking.

Hi. Fellow graduate students! I am now applying for an external(non-deparmtnetal) fellowship that is based on a humanity/social justice theme. I wonder whether it would be considered cheating, if I discuss about my fellowship application with my peers from a different department. In particular, is it okay to discuss with my peers about the philosophy/ideology behind the organization that sponsors the fellowship? It is my first time applying for a fellowship, and obviously I am not quite familiar with the quirk of fellowship application process yet. Any one has any idea about the norm?

Maybe it is a bit cynical but I do think that unpaid internship is just a way for employer to get free human resources. So, it rarely helps when it comes to Ph.D. application. You need to understand that the Ph.D. you are applying to is a research degree, not an applied professional degree. So, admission committees will generally look at your academic record, personal statement(how well you can articulate your proposed research project), and other things relevant to your proposed research project. If you are applying to a lab, you need to first find a PI that suits your research interests. You said you are dedicated to Marine science. Great, you are passionate about it. But more importantly, in what specific sub fields of marine science do you do more research on? You need to be more specific about what you want to do if you are admitted. That way, it is better for you, and for those who admit you. You don't want to get admitted and, after you start your program, find that the program does not fit your academic interests, and struggle for the next several years.

You know. I was kind of expecting some kind of problems when I registered for this class. His previous students gave him quite a lot of negative reviews on ratemyprofessor.com, specifically taking issue with his ambiguity and, of course, tough grading. Although I admit some reviews on this website are off base and unreasonable, I have to say that, if an instructor consistently receives negative reviews over years on this website, it does say something about this instructor at least in terms of his performance in a class setting. Although the website says nothing about whether an instructor is a good thesis advisor, it does say a lot about grading, clarity/unclarity of requirements, effectiveness/ineffectiveness of lecturing, willingness/unwillingness to teach/help students, and things of these kinds. Some instructors consistently receive positive ratings on this website over years, while some others consistently receive negative ratings. If we summarily dismiss it as unworthy, it would be hard to explain why some consistently get reviewed positively while others negatively. My undergraduate advisor (he got very positive ratings over years on the website, obviously, and this was part of the reasons why I picked him), when I was graduating, even confessed to me that ratemyprofessor is more accurately reflecting student satisfaction/dissatisfaction than end-of-semester satisfaction surveys do. I am a TA now, and I may eventually become an instructor, and thus be rated on this website someday. But I do think it is important to hear what students have to say about instructors rather than simply dismiss their opinions as "anger lashed out because of bad grades", noting that their opinions written on this site are not summarily negative toward every instructor. Summarily dismissing would miss the point to explain the discrepancy of ratings among different instructors, some having high ratings while some others having low ratings.

@fuzzylogician@TakeruK@rising_star Just got a deal. He is going to summarily drop the grade for this assignment for the whole class.

Hello linguists. I know this is not much a problem for natural language semantics (formal semantics), experimental phonetics, and computational linguistics, etc (because these areas generally deal with English, or some other programming languages), but it is quite an epistemological issue particularly relevant to problems dealing with language typology and language documentation. In particular, the core of the linguistic epistemological problem lies in whether it is a valid argument to base one's result (at least partially) on something beyond the data. For example, if I am dealing with Swedish data and I happen to know Swedish (as a L2 speaker, or native speaker), is it a valid argument that say that I know X is right because I know Swedish even if there is no evidence in data suggesting X? I raised this epistemological problem to different profs. Generally, I got two camps of profs. Theoretical folks gave me a staunch no, and said that any argument about the data must be based on the data in the dataset. They reasoned that, because we are dealing with data, conclusion must be based on data, and nothing else. Sociolinguistic and anthropological linguistic folks gave me a yes, and said that it is okay to use external knowledge beyond the data as an argument for some conclusion about the data in a dataset. They reasoned that, because our knowledge about linguistic universal (they are referring to Greenberg Universals) and specific languages is part of our general knowledge about language, there is no reason why we should block our general knowledge and confine ourselves to the data in the dataset. I personally incline to the theoretical folks, but admit that the sociolinguistic and anthropological linguistic's argument worths entertaining further. What is your take on this epistemological problem?

One quick follow up: Another student in class got an even worse grade for the same reason!

@TakeruK@fuzzylogician@rising_star Thank you for your inputs. Before I wrote that email 2 days ago (now 3 days ago), expecting that there will be another problem set due early next week, I was trying to meet with him in person during his office hour this week and ask for clarification of expectation so that any potential future dispute can be avoided and for some kind of explanation of the graded problem set . But during his office hour, he was not in office! In class, expecting that next Monday is a holiday, I am not sure whether he is going to have office hour then. Therefore, I asked him, and he said yes! What a surprise! But then the next day, he emailed me saying that he forgot next Monday is going to be a holiday and asked me to email him whatever questions I have. Therefore, I wrote that email two days ago. It is true that one problem set is not that a big deal. But I still do not get clarification of his expectation over the whole week, and the second problem set is going to due soon. As for previous office hours, I virtually visited his every office hours (sometimes he was in his office during his office, sometimes not). I actually asked for clarification of his expectation of the problem set. But he was telling me something like "I am a easy grader", "Don't worry much about your grade. Focus on learning" etc. Not really answering my questions. But assuming what he said was true, and he was a easy grader, I did not ask further. But it turned out that he is certainly not an easy grader he claimed to be. The problem set is for 40 percent of the final grade. But how many problem sets are there? I do not even know! On the syllabus, there are 45 problem sets. On the first day of class, he said all 45 are going to be graded. The next week (i.e. the second week) the number becomes 43, because he said he felt like to not to grade two of the three problem set submitted this week. What the number would eventually become? I cannot tell! Fuzzy and Takeruk, you guys raised a very good question. The core issue here is that I do not even know for which X, Y, Z did I lose points. He wrote in his comments that "You did not make general observations" for the data. Clearly, he thought I answered only part of the question. But the issue here is that "making general observations" is not part of the question. The question was asking me to list words and their meanings (very different things!). It would be absurd to make whole bunch of general observation (e.g. XXX language is a SOV language), instead of following the prompt of the question to list words and state their meanings. I just checked out with another colleague in my class, he got the exactly same score with me, and experienced the exactly same problem. It looks like I am not the only one in class having this problem. But certainly I somewhat feel worse than my colleague. There is one extra thing I forgot to point out in the previous post. He required me to submit the solution of my problem set at the beginning of the class, while allowing all other students to revise during class and submit the revised version for grading. The bottom line is, my colleagues at least have some chances to revise their solution during class as he goes over the problem set, but I don't! This was another thing I feel really uncomfortable, and I was trying to talk to him in person to make some suggestion for change, because this also adversely affect my grade. But again, as said in previous paragraph, he was not in office during his office hour. He asked me to email him, so I did, but heard back nothing from him yet.

Hello. Linguists. I am a first year MA student in school A who will transfer to a Ph.D. program in school B next year (with an offer in hand already). So, now I have a problem. I am taking one class required by the MA program taught by a Prof who is both the chair of the department and my advisor. I know that the semester just started but problems come very soon (just like the problems sets!). The core issue here is that he reduced my grade of the submitted problem sets by 25 percent for some absurd reasons. If I did something wrong in the problem set, fine and I would accept the grade. But he was basically saying that I did not answer some of the questions that were not even asked by the prompts of the problem, and therefore I missed some important points he expected me to make in the solution, and thus a big chunk of my grade was taken away. I feel this is not fair, and such grading is capriciously arbitrary with no rubric whatsoever. I wrote to him a two days ago, trying to solve the issue and find some way to avoid potential similar disputes in the future, without escalating the issue to the higher administration. But I haven't heard anything back from him yet, and I am not sure whether he is going to write back to me to address this issue. In case that he refuses to address the issue, what should I do next? This one grade in itself is one issue, but may be not the most worrisome. The more worrisome issue I have is that he may continue to do such things, assigning grades arbitrarily and capriciously, with no good rationale behind how he grades problem sets or other works.(He does not even have a grading system in the syllabus explicitly telling me what ranges are for A, B, C, D, and F respectively!) Because now it is the beginning of the semester and I do want to avoid such potential disastrous situation that may be too late to handle at the later time, I checked out the student rights page of my university. According to the page, I have the right to file two complaint for instructor misconduct for "not stating clearly grading scale and criteria", and for grade grievance respectively. The issue at hand here is whether it worths to go so far to file a complaint or two complaints, escalating the issue beyond the level of the department. Filing a complaint or two complaints would certainly save me from potential continuous unjust treatments in this class, and thus have a decent grade out of the class. This is the thing I could get out of the filing process. But filing such complaints will certainly damage my relationship with him, and potentially alienate some other people in the department. This is the downside of the filing. On the other hand, not filing would potentially keep me acquiescing to accept the unfair treatment and therefore I would end up with a bad grade, no matter how hard I work in this class. The good side of not filing would be maintaining cordial relationship with him and other people in the department. So, I got a dilemma right here. Should I file or not file? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

A good way to go would be to follow the guideline on the website of the department. But FWIW, the target language version in most cases is for the ADCOM to have an idea how well you can write in the target language. Many programs do not even require a target language version of SOP (At least, this was my case in my former program). Although in two different languages, I think the content should be more or less the same, because they are after all SOPs. If the two versions are completely different, it will be difficult for the AdCom to figure out what you are interested in, with whom you want to work, why this program is a good fit for you, etc, because they will get two sets of parameters in hand and yet pretty much are unable to decide which set of parameters derived respectively from each SOP that is different from the other should be applied to your case. Therefore, I would recommend that you write more or less similar stuffs for both versions.

@fuzzylogician@TakeruK @avflinsch Thank you for all of your advices, and I contacted the HR today, and the problem has now been solved!

I want to do the exemption thing primarily because I do not think my income for 2016 will reach the filing threshold. If some portion of the salary is withheld, then even if I am NOT required to file tax for 2016, I will still need to file in order to get the withheld money back. Therefore, getting an exemption from withholding would save me a lot of work (because I have never reached the filing threshold, and therefore was never required to file, and thus never filed. If I file for 2016 in order to get the money back even if I am not required, I will have to spend tons of time to figure out how to file tax. That is really a lot of work.)

Thank you for your advices, Fuzzy. I checked out the withholding calculator. The calculation turns out to yield a result of 0 expected tax liability for 2016, and yield two different recommendations: 1. put 4 allowances and not claiming exemption from withholding (thus they expect to withhold less than 25 dollar for 2016, according to the result page) 2. claim exemption that I may be eligible, according the result page. I guess I should print this result page out and bring to the HR tomorrow, and ask which one I should pick......

Hi. So, I am starting my new TA job in the new linguistics department. This is my first salary-based (i.e. not hourly wage-based) job. I am now required by the Human Resource of my school to file federal W4 form so that the HR can figure out whether they should withhold federal income tax from my salary, and, if they should, how much tax should be withheld. Here is the dilemma. I did not have a job last year, and I was basically living on federal student loan last year. So, I was not required to file tax for 2015, because I do not meet the filing threshold of the IRS. On the W4 form, it says, in order to be exempted from tax withholding by the federal government, I will have to meet the following requirement: "Last year I had a right to a refund of all federal income tax withheld because I had no tax liability". Surely, I did not have any tax liability last year. But for the first part of the clause, I am not sure quite sure about the meaning of the quantifier "all". Could it include an interpretation of 0? For example, if 0 federal income tax was withhold and 0 withheld tax can be refunded, is it true to say that I did have the right to a refund of all federal income tax withheld? Any semanticist around could solve this problem?

Kant's writings are definitely very difficult to read (a lot of jargons) (at least this is the case for someone who just got into philosophy). Very tough readings, but worth reading. Usually, I read Kant's writings along with an online search engine, so that I can search the definition of the jargon when I need to!

I agree. The Stanford Encyclopedia is a very good place to start. In addition to what has been said about relevant topics to look at, the OP may also look at these entries: the history of utilitarianism, contractarianism, Kant's moral philosophy, Aristotle's ethics. Very good intro, highly readable. I am not a professional philosopher, but the Stanford Encyclopedia in my opinion is much better than a traditional intro textbook.

Actually, I had told her what I have told you in the box, but she said that is not enough to be exempted once being singled out. The test is not written. It is an oral exam where I will talk to a recording machine (reading words etc) . That said, the grading of the courses following the test seems to be based on both oral and written assignments. Again, it is quite unclear how they are going to grade for these following courses based on the information on the website. To be honest, she is unlikely to budge. The only other person who seems to be likely to get me out of this may be the chair of the department. In any event, you are right, and the negative effects outweight the positive effects. So, given that Fuzzy offered an amazing solution for the transcript thing, there is no point for me to fight the case at all cost. So, I will probably just take the test, and the course, if they wish me to do so.

Thank you so much Fuzzy. I now kind of know what to do next. Believe it or not, the transcript thing is the main motivation that propelled me to fight this battle (spending 6 hours today reading civil laws and university regulations). But now that I know how to deal with the transcript thing, there is no point to win the battle at the high cost of getting a bad reputation (and potentially losing the LORs in the future). Believe it or not, earlier today, I was getting so nervous that I even consulted with the J.D.s in the College of Law in this university for 20 minutes and informally (and confidentially) asked them what to do. I can now forget the lawsuit thing. Actually, I tried the line of argument that assumed honest error. But somehow I got filibustered. This is why I was switching to the latter line of argument that assumes malevolence (but fortunately, I haven't sent out the long draft (it is more than 2000 words) that elaborates how such malevolence is manifested. But again, I am going to switch back the the former argument that assumes honest error. And if I lose the case within the department, I will just let it go and not pursue it further and take the test (because the transcript concern is gone)!!!!