fuzzylogician

Two of the best journals in my field have IFs of 0.76 and 1.59. Those were the first two that I checked; I didn't check others but I'm sure they're also somewhere around there. The IF just isn't a useful metric in my field and no one decides where to submit a paper or how to regard its prestige based on the journal's IF.

Planning/hoping/wanting to win everything will drive you crazy and you already know it just has to fail. There's always someone better, something more you can do, another conference you could apply to -- it never ends. I sincerely doubt that your advisors would have that kind of expectation of you because it's just so clearly unrealistic. I'd take what they said simply as a compliment: they think you are a strong student who has a good chance of succeeding in various academia-related activities. Many students don't get that much encouragement from their advisors during their entire graduate school career! Anyway, I wouldn't worry about "only" getting one scholarship. You got one scholarship, and that's great. You may win some of the other awards you've applied for, but your advisors are realistic people so I'm sure all they expect is that you try your best, not to necessarily win them all. You'll get over being intimidated by them as you get to know them better -- they're just people and as you work with them more you'll get used to it. You can talk to them about this if you want, but I think it'll all work itself out if you just give it a little more time.

You can't submit a co-authored paper without the consent of the other authors. There are several options - you two can sit down and agree on the content, you can get him to agree not to be co-author and then you can submit whatever you want, or you don't submit at all. I'm still not following exactly why your advisor doesn't want you to submit, or what he wants you to do before then. Why does he appear to be sabotaging you? Is it on purpose? -- that would call for a different course of action than if he is just asking for things you disagree with, in which case I'd say find a way to make it work that you can live with and just get the paper out to review because the process will take a while and if you're right about the changes, the reviewers will ask for them anyway, and you can just figure it out once the paper comes back from review. You're in a delicate spot because you need to get a letter of recommendation from your advisor to get your next job. One possibility that comes to mind is getting a post-doc and doing all of your publishing once you're out of this person's reach, especially if it's possible for you to then submit papers without him as co-author. Or else if it's possible to just give him a reasonable X amount of time to suggest changes or to approve what you wrote and tell him that after that you're submitting either way, without him as co-author if he can't contribute, that'd be an option too (but then there is a delicate issue of how credit is distributed, and I don't know how that's decided in your field since you don't specify what it is; I know that's not really an option in some fields). It might also help to get support from another faculty member at your current department, though that too is difficult because of the inter-departmental politics you'll be disturbing. Is there someone on your committee other than your advisor who might be willing to take on the role of helper? Who might email you and cc him, saying you should submit paper X and do Y before you submit it? That will be very helpful to your cause.

I submitted one paper 9 months ago and another one 8 months ago and I'm still waiting I'd say the first thing to find out is what "relatively fast" means in your field -- in mine if you hear back after 3 months you consider yourself extremely lucky. If it's true that you should have heard back already, then send the journal editors (or the editor assigned to your paper if you know who that is) a polite email asking when you might expect to hear back. I do this with every paper I have submitted to a journal -- I start sending emails 3 months after the submission date and then I send another email periodically, roughly in one-month intervals. It's a good way to make sure they don't forget about you. As long as you're polite, you should be fine. If the email you get back expresses irritation with the request, I'd wait longer before contacting them again, and be even more humble in my next email.

Unfortunately, that's not unheard of. I think that (as far as scooping goes) getting scooped by your advisor is probably one of more common ways to get scooped, if for no other reason than that they know their advisees well and can take advantage of that knowledge. See some examples in the post here.

Please don't post the same question over and over again. Also please stop posting in old threads -- the threads you're posting in are all a year old or more. I'm keeping this post only because juilletmercredi has taken the time to post a thoughtful reply. I hope you read it carefully and take it to heart.

No problem It's just unnecessary and it pushes down other people's posts, which I'm sure they're as eager as you are to get comments on. (Sorry I can't actually answer any of your questions!)

Please don't post the same question multiple times. Your questions have all been merged here.

- I'd probably go if it was a one-time thing but I would not feel obligated to do so, especially if it was a recurring event. - I can hardly imagine buying the book in such a context, and if I knew or suspected it would be expected I would just not show up to begin with. I would also never mention it in office hours. I don't know, it honestly would seem very inappropriate. - When at events, it's important to socialize. Physically being there is not enough. This is hard, but crucial. You need to make connections both within your department and without (in conferences and such) to survive in your field. Department parties might be a safe place to practice. To start, try and stay around until the first people leave and go with them, and while there challenge yourself to talk to at least one student and one professor who are outside your comfort zone. Eventually it'll be important to also do this at e.g. conference parties, and there the stakes will be higher. But people understand many others are nervous and awkward so they tend to be very forgiving. And yes, faculty drama can be intense! It's good to be aware of it precisely so you can steer clear of the drama spilling over into your life (e.g., it'd be terribly inadvisable to have two 'enemies' on your committee). One good way to know about it is to go to parties and chat with people; grad students will tell you everything if you just give them some alcohol..

I wouldn't worry about it too much. If there is someone you want to contact, just go ahead and do it. If he is not interested, he will let you know. I wouldn't let an email signature stop me.

Well then say you're interested in an intern position, and (a) if you know that there are several types of intern positions, say which ones you're most interested in, or if not (b ) ask whether there is more than one type of such position, and indicate that you're interested in learning more about that.

Your question is too vague. Was this email unsolicited, or did you apply for a position at the university/firm that you got the email from? What position was it? What is your education? Are you even looking for work, and if so then in what?

I simply write: Logician, F. (forthcoming) Basket-weaving and the Socratic method. Journal of colorful music. That's a common citation format in my field; you should find out what is accepted practice in your field and do the same, it's hard to give advice without knowing your field. Am I understanding correctly, that you are required to provide that additional information? If so, I think the way you have it is perfectly fine. I might try: Logician, F. (forthcoming) Basket-weaving and the Socratic method. Journal of colorful music. 22 pages. MS# 123456, accepted 12/12/12.

Maybe I'm missing something. Your first post sounds as if there is an established pattern of discrimination against you and others in your degree program. Then you describe two incidents, both not pleasant, but neither amounting to discrimination. I'm not sure what you were asking and why you (think you) were ignored, but it happens that professors run out of time because there are too many people at office hours, and it also unfortunately happens that they are late or forget a meeting with you. Some people are also just plain rude or lack in social skills, but that all says nothing about you personally. If you are being treated curtly, my guess would be that it has something to do with the sense of outrage that can be read in your posts, and which I wouldn't be surprised if also comes across in your tone of voice when you ask questions. I could be completely wrong, of course, I don't know you and posts are easily misread -- but so are tones of voice and innocent questions. I'd encourage you to assume neutrality of everyone in your program, unless there is reason to assume otherwise. Once that's done, as an uninvolved observer, all we're left with here are a couple of incidents that seem to have been blown out of proportion.

I moved this thread to the Applications forum. Let me know if you think there is a better place for it and I can move it there. I suggest you do a search of the forum. Your question has been asked and answered several times, and you may even find answers that are specific for your field of study (whatever it is).

I think there should be a way to describe the research question(s) you are interested in without actually spelling out the details of the specific project that you have in mind. You're in a good position to think about this, since you've already written a research proposal that tackles some of the specifics. From that, what you want to do (and this is hard!) is step back and define a broader question or issue that your project is a special case of. You then open your SOP with defining this broader issue as your interest, introduce your previous work and writing sample as one way in which you've pursued this interest (and that helped develop it in your mind), and then you sketch how you want to continue pursuing this idea in your graduate work by briefly spelling out some portion of your proposed project. You don't need to go into too many details to show that you have a broad research interest and that you can think of case studies of that interest. I've recently done this for job applications, where defining a broad theme with examples of specific ways you've studied it (and how you'll expand on it in the future) is absolutely essential. Whatever project you do during your graduate career should really be a case-study of something larger, just one instance of a whole set of questions you have in mind. If you can do something like that on a small scale now, I think that has a very good chance of being noticed by professors as a mature proposal by someone who will be able to succeed in this business, so to speak.

This actually looks like a straight up statement of purpose prompt, not a personal statement one. The questions that you are being asked are about your professional background, your future goals, and why the school you are applying to is a good place to pursue these goals. This means that the first two paragraphs in your essay are not answering any question that was being asked; this is a good 25-30% of the essay that was not asked for at all. The third paragraph, too, feels like a lot of telling where you should be showing the relevant skills. It's much more effective to discuss the facts about past experiences in a way that shows that you are e.g. well-rounded, but just saying it is not all that convincing (even if true). The fourth and fifth paragraphs are good first drafts, but require more work to polish them and make them more professional sounding. In particular, if I understand the 5th paragraph correctly, it's where you identify a possible faculty advisor, but still your reasoning for choosing is person seems vague. What is your particular interest and how will this person support it? explain what research goals you have and how they fit with the advisor's goals. The final paragraph is then extremely vague and contains too many generalities. So, from how I read the prompt and your response, you are not structuring the essay correctly at this point. Think of it from the adcom's point of view -- they have actually given you a very helpful prompt, but you are not responding in kind. You are not clearly answering question 1; you are also not really answering question 2; and you aren't giving a good answer to question 4. You spend close to half of the statement either on things that weren't asked or on such vague generalities that cannot and will not distinguish you from other applicants. My advice would be to consolidate and greatly edit the first two paragraphs; I would propose that not more than a sentence or two should remain of it, if any. Rewrite the third paragraph extensively: talk about facts and specific experiences, don't describe your character because, trust me, it's not half as compelling as conveying these thoughts through your actions. Clean up paragraph 4, and rewrite paragraph 5 to do a better job of showing why the professor you identify is a good fit. Get rid of paragraph 6 and either write something more specific, or don't write anything at all. I also suggest you re-structure the essay: start with identifying your research interests (question 1) in your introduction. Once you identify a particular interest or set of interests, you can then identify a professor who you would like to work with at the new school, and explain why and how they will support you in studying your questions (question 5). Talk about how your interests developed and how your background prepares you for your studies (question 3) -- this is where you expand on past research experiences, and if you want - briefly mention the personal background. Then talk about your short-term and long-term goals (this should include goals past your PhD education! -- question 4). Finally, conclude by explaining why school X is best suited to help you pursue the goals you just described, and be specific! (question 2). This kind of re-write might actually be much easier to do if you start over from scratch instead of trying to editing and moving around parts of what you have written here. I hope this helps -- I'm sorry I don't have the time to do line-by-line edits but honestly I think you need to do too much re-writing for edits to be very useful now.

There should be an edit button at the bottom of the post next to the MultiQuote button. You have the ability to edit the post for a short time after posting it. If you can't find it, PM me and I can edit the post for you. If this is a personal statement - that is, there is another research-oriented statement - then this statement seems way too research heavy for me. If, on the other hand, this is the one statement you have to describe your research fit and goals, this has too much of an emphasis on the personal side. Either way, it's somewhat of a hybrid. Could you post the prompt that you were looking at when you wrote this essay?

Is this a personal statement or a statement of purpose -- that is, is there another document that is more about your research, while this one is supposed to be more about your personal past and development? Also, let me know if you want to anonymize this post. If it were me, I would not post the actual name of the university I attend and the professors I (want to) work with.

Research proposal sounds like a non-US requirement.. am I right? If so, you should take everything I say not just with a grain of salt but a whole teaspoon. For a research proposal (what length?) I'd say the majority of the text needs to be a detailed proposal of the project and not how you got there. Your ability to propose a project that is both detailed and feasible will show that you have the training and background that is needed to carry it out. Since that is often missing in an American SOP -- you don't even need to propose a research question, let alone sketch some lit review and explain how you'll go about answering it -- you need to be much more explicit about your background and preparation for the degree you're proposing to undertake. I'm less familiar with non-US degrees but if it's a European degree my best advice at this point would be to try and contact someone in charge of admissions at the schools you're applying to and ask if/how you should explain your non-traditional background. I can imagine several solutions, including some explanations in the CV, in a supplementary document or in an appendix to the research statement, but the people who will read your proposal might have a preference and you should try and find out what it is. Another solution is to have one or more of your recommenders address your background, if they are willing to do so -- that one may be a good idea even if you have some explanations of your own as well, it sounds different when the explanation comes from a letter writer as opposed to you yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few people with unusual backgrounds in your field, so I'm sure you're not going to be the first person to ever ask this question.

You can find out about submitting a CV even if one wasn't asked for. I ended up submitting a CV to all my schools and if remember correctly, it wasn't required by any. You can and should also talk about your research experience in your SOP. Any research experience will go a long way because people's interests often change during their PhD studies, so the important thing is to know that you are prepared for the PhD and you know what you're getting into (and can get yourself to the other side). The topics may not have been what you want to study in your PhD, but maybe you can find ways to connect what you've done to what you want to do - talk about skills you've learned, how your interests have changed and matured, how they changed the way you think about your field or guided your choice of research questions, how they helped you decide you want a PhD to begin with (and why).

The NSF dissertation improvement grant. If you want a grant starting this summer, you will need to apply for the nearest deadline, so you need to start thinking of a dissertation project and proposal. There are also field-specific fellowships in some fields. It really depends on whether you need to go to archives, go into the field, pay subject or whatnot. There are some fellowships geared towards very specific needs of some fields.

Definitely. I don't think you need to develop a proposal in a grant-proposal style at all. For many places that would be construed as narrow-minded and not open to growth. Instead you want to define some areas of interests, possibly in the form of several related broad research questions or topics that you are interested in. Ideally, the past projects you describe feed into these interests and if they do (and you clearly demonstrate it), to me that counts as part of the present/future portion of the SOP. The past portion is really background about things that are done and over with -- classes, projects that are not continued or relevant now, "how I first learned about my field" (if you feel the need to add such an opening paragraph). In poorly written statements, things that could be made relevant to your present and future goals are described as past events without any demonstration of how they are relevant now. For most things, however, I think that you can and should tie them into your present and future goals, so they may be describing something in your past but you use it to demonstrate things relevant for now and later - e.g. that you are a hard worker, that you have experience in X, that you've actually thought through and understand what it means to study for a PhD, that you have seriously given thought to the questions that you say that you are interested in, that you've developed the skills to study them, that you can formulate some (general) questions that your field is interested in and aren't too narrow or extremely broad. If you do those things in that way -- always keep an eye on the present and future goals and link past events directly in that way, I count that in the present/future portion. Part of what that means is that it may not always be important to describe every detail of every project, but rather pick and choose and make a strong case for yourself by concentrating on just parts of projects -- e.g., concentrating on skills you learned from a project whose actual topic is not relevant to your proposed studies, or talking more about the questions and what you learned from them if, say, you had a project that failed or just ended but made you think about something that you've since become very interested in.

Think of the SOP as future-oriented and a way to explain fit (=what you want to do should hopefully be something the program you're applying to can support you in doing). A good balance might be 30% past, 70% current interests and future plans + fit. Describing 5-6 projects in detail sounds like a bit much to me; there are ways of getting around this - for example, by having some details in your CV. You can also mention several projects that together contributed to the development of some interest or skill that are useful for you now. I'd only go into details for two, maybe three projects. Even when doing so, the goal should always be to show how what you did is relevant now and in the future, so explain what you did in the context of what it taught you, the interests it sparked, how it changed your perception of your field, helped re-formulate a research question, etc. It's ok to propose to continue or expand on a current interest in your SOP, too. The important thing is to always make sure what you're talking about explains the future and not just the past.

I don't think that applying to that 10-15 schools is necessarily a lot, at least in some fields. It depends more on the kinds of choices you make about what schools you apply to. There could be interesting people to work with at several places, but you want to have a clear vision of the kind of institution you want to study at and the education you'll get there. Not every place is the same, but it's not unimaginable that there are 15 places where you could do similar kinds of work and get an education with a similar content.