How Nice Are You?

In 2008 at this time of year (that is, the Thanksgiving holiday in the US), I had a post about whether or not I give exams just before a major holiday break (I do not). As usual, there were some interesting comments, but I think this question deserves a poll in 2011.

In this poll, a "No" answer implies a deliberate choice to not give an exam or quiz before a major break (you can explain why in the comments).

An answer of "Maybe" implies that you don't really pay attention to holidays/breaks and you just create the schedule however makes the most sense for the class/topic; if a quiz falls just before (or just after) a break, so be it.

A "Yes" answer implies that you deliberately schedule exams just before a break because .. (explain in the comments); e.g., this ensures attendance, you'd rather give an exam just before than just after a break, you are evil etc.

Do you give exams just before a major holiday break?
	No, never
	Maybe, if that's the way the schedule turns out
	Yes, very often or always
pollcode.com free polls

Take Down

For some reason -- or, possibly, for no reason -- the manuscripts I have been sent to review lately have been of a certain type: the type of paper that has an interesting dataset or idea that would make an interesting focus for the paper, but the authors instead choose to spin the paper as an attack on someone else's idea/s. That is, the papers seem to be aimed mostly at criticizing someone else's published work and proposing something different instead, even if that something:

• isn't all that different from the original idea they are trashing;

• isn't nearly as interesting as what they could focus on instead (says me); and/or

• isn't supported by their own data.

These cases are different from those in which there is clear evidence that a published idea or dataset is wrong and that wrong needs righting.

I have disproved the work of others before (including one of my early grad advisors, who hated me for it), but I don't derive any particular pleasure from it -- at least, not on a personal level. As a scientist, I can appreciate the sweeping away of an old, bad idea and replacing it with a beautiful new idea that explains things, and I feel satisfaction and pride if it's my research that does this or helps with this process, but I don't enjoy an attack for the sake of an attack.

For that reason, I find it hard to understand when someone else chooses -- and it is a choice -- to go that route when there really isn't much of a point to doing so. That is, when some researchers try very hard to find something, anything, no matter how unimportant, to tear down, and focus on that so much that the rest of their work is subsumed.

Yes, I know that sometimes there is personal animosity involved, but in the cases I recently encountered, the people involved actually get along quite well, at least as far as I know. The attacks in the manuscripts under review are not vicious or personal; they seem almost formulaic, as if the primary authors were told that this was the best way to write a paper that will be noticed (cited) or that they should be sure to distinguish their work from that of others.

In fact, the primary authors of these manuscripts have all been PhD students or postdocs. Maybe they are trying to make a splash? I think the papers could be really nice contributions if the focus were more on the substance of the research, not on some far-fetched or unfounded undermining of a minor point in some other publication. 

Probably my reviews will sound patronizing to the authors, and of course they and the editors can ignore my advice, but I think it is a mistake to go negative when there is nothing to be gained by doing so.

If you have gotten advice, particularly as an early-career researcher, about the best way to set up a paper, did that advice include anything about this issue? For example: framing a paper as an argument or attack is a good way to write a paper (no matter what), this is a bad way to write a paper, only do this if you think you are totally justified and it is an important issue etc.?

To Stay or Not to Stay

Over in Scientopia, the topic of discussion today is whether it is bad to stay at the same institution for a postdoc after a PhD, and various other scenarios related to staying vs. moving on at different academic stages.

S/he

Can you think of a (good) reason why a journal would need to know the gender of authors and reviewers?

A reader wrote to me with this question, as a result of being required to select a gender-revealing option when registering on a journal's website. This option was separate from one asking for the professional title (Prof., Dr., Prof. Dr. etc.). It was not possible for this person, even after communicating with journal staff, to register without checking this box. In fact, the journal staff insisted that this information was essential because otherwise communication was too difficult and would involve the awkward use of "he/she" in letters, or perhaps embarrassing mistakes if the gender of the person wasn't clear from their name.

I can think of reasons why a woman would not want reviewers and editors to know her gender, but I can't think of a good reason why reviewers and editors would need to know the gender of an author or reviewer. It occurred to me that a journal might want to keep track of how many papers are published by male vs. female authors (or lead authors, in fields that make this distinction), but that is not the reason the journal gave to the reader who wrote to me about this issue. In that case, the concern was making embarrassing mistakes in using pronouns in correspondence or that someone would be offended if referred to as he/she instead of by the correct pronoun.

If a journal did want to keep track of gender data, those data could be separated from individual papers, so that editors and reviewers did not see it for any particular individual or paper. 

If you are writing to someone whose gender you do not know, why would you even use he/she or his/her in direct correspondence with them? This is a real question. Am I overlooking something?

In my role as editor and reviewer, I do not need it; 'you' is nice and direct, or I use the person's name or title. In correspondence about someone, I can use their title, a term such as "Reviewer 1" (if they are anonymous, you shouldn't use a pronoun anyway), or I refer indirectly to "the author/s", depending on context. The journal with which I am most closely involved is based in Europe, with close ties to Asia, North America, and Australia. It is more formal than many North American-based journals in its correspondence traditions, but even so, we do not need to know the gender of authors or reviewers.

Yes, I know about Frau Professor, Herr Professor etc., but those can be options for those who prefer those titles. There should not a requirement to inform a journal of your gender before you submit a paper or review an article.

Nature Error

OK, OK, yes I saw the stupid "Futures" story(?) titled Womanspace in Nature in late September, I read the comments (many of which are great), and I agree that Nature should not have published this thing, not just because it is offensive, but because it is bad -- bad writing, bad story, bad way to crank up traffic on the site -- and should not be in a journal, not even in an obscure corner of a journal website. The editor showed appalling judgement.

Many of the ensuing comments are great, and I don't have much to add, except that some of the comments struck me as outstanding examples of classic responses flung out whenever there is a suggestion that something just might possibly be sexist or at the very least offensive to many people. In the case in question, that something was written (and published in Nature) explicitly for male readers with female significant others, portraying women in general as having certain shopping tendencies, and including generalizations that would be unthinkable to write about people of, say, a particular religion or ethnicity (but are apparently OK if you are writing about women as a group).

One of the classic responses is along the lines of: "I was just joking. If you weren't so humorless you would see how funny I am." I have written about these "jokes" before. They have no place in a professional venue.

The other insidious classic response is the "My wife wasn't offended by what I wrote and she is a woman and not only that but she is also really smart and I sometimes do the cooking at home and therefore my participation in what is traditionally a very female household job makes me by definition a non-sexist, hear me roar."

Or something like that. Variations on this are "I am that man's wife and I thought what he wrote was very funny" (so he is not sexist; see the comments in Nature, including the one from the author's wife) and/or "I am a woman and I wasn't offended".. ergo, the author is not a sexist.

I am not sure I am following the reasoning here. Is it that men are only sexist if they say they are, but they never are if someone else says they are? And any woman can speak for all other women (just as we apparently all shop the same way) and therefore if only one woman is not offended, sexism doesn't exist, even if many women (and men) were offended? That is, sexism can never exist, it can only not exist?

I think I am beginning to develop a hypothesis. Maybe Nature will publish it?

Independence

Today in Scientopia, I discuss issues related to the independence, or lack thereof, of graduate students, and whether the preferred amount of independence in research is a good match with the advisor's preferences.

Man Boy(cott) 2011

This is a repeat topic, but it's something that keeps happening, so here it is again.

There is a conference that is of some interest to me. It's not a super-major conference and it is not urgent for me to attend, but it will be an interesting group of people, and I expect the level of intellectually stimulating conversation and exchange of ideas to be high, making the trip worthwhile. I think that I will go to the conference.

And then I look at the list of keynote speakers: all men, no women. I won't specify the exact number of speakers, but let's just say it is in the vicinity of 10, so it's not as if there's just one or two.

The conference topic is one that involves many women researchers worldwide. I can easily think of several without even trying. By "without even trying", I mean that without specifically trying to think of women researchers -- when I just think of people doing interesting research in this field -- many of these people are women.

[Note: I am rather peripheral to this topic, so am not implying that I think I should have been invited; I do not think this.]

Sometimes when I encounter these all-men slates of keynotes for a conference that I'm not sure I want to attend, that fact tips the balance for me and I do not go. If, however, I think the conference will be overall worthwhile anyway, I may go, and I will likely speak with the conference organizer, asking about the lack of women speakers.

Last time I wrote about this, I asked for comments on whether an all-men slate of keynote speakers would be a non-issue, a maybe-issue, or a deal-breaker for readers in their decisions to attend conferences. There were many interesting comments, with of course the usual wide range of opinions. Today I am asking the same question, but in poll form. This tends to increase the number of responses, but of course we lose a bit of the nuance, so feel free to leave a new or repeat comment on the topic in addition to voting. 

Does an all-men speaker slate influence your decision about whether to attend a conference?
	No, it is always a non-issue for me.
	It can be a deciding factor.
	Yes, it is a deal-breaker for me.
pollcode.com free polls