tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post7380604273916222918..comments2024-03-10T05:26:42.148-04:00Comments on My Biased Coin: More on AuthorshipMichael Mitzenmacherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738274256402616703noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-7246903187627374592010-04-13T17:32:09.993-04:002010-04-13T17:32:09.993-04:00I have no respect for him, even though he watches ...<i>I have no respect for him, even though he watches out for my interests by trying to get funding for me.</i><br /><br />Don't feel guilty about this for a second. Maybe some of that funding might come your way but it is not altruism. Your advisor would be applying for it whether or not you are there and no one, repeat, no one pays graduate students out of charity. They expect research in return and even if success is more difficult to measure compared to workers on an assembly line making Fords, research is a job like any other and you don't have to feel guilty that you took money in exchange for your work. Maybe your advisor doesn't mind that getting those grants also benefits you, but he's watching out for himself, and you have to do the same.<br /><br />Good luck to you and I hope you end up swimming and not sinking long enough to get out and let your advisor fend for himself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-14761801613128010642010-04-13T09:18:05.761-04:002010-04-13T09:18:05.761-04:00I am also a grad student in (2) and can understand...I am also a grad student in (2) and can understand the angst of the other grad students in similar situations. To anonymous no. 3, I can say that they're lucky that the advisor contributed so much... my advisor is only a passive listener. In the beginning I would go into his office every other week and present things that I had thought about seeking to get feedback but he didn't seem sufficiently interested or involved. Never asked me to read any paper, didn't seem to have references for any of the problems I was facing that he was supposed to be the expert on. In the beginning I was a little confused, I thought that he just wasn't interested in the problem I had chosen. He would say the problem is interesting, but I never got any useful comments from him, in fact other grad students in the department I talked to and who weren't even collaborating on the problem had more useful feedback than him. Slowly it dawned on me that all he was interested in was results, a paper that he could put his name on by doing some editing, it seemed he had no problem in demanding (confirming politely) his name be put on the paper I had written, with the problem being picked by me and the entire result having been worked out all by myself. I don't think I will ever confront him on this, but I have no respect for him, even though he watches out for my interests by trying to get funding for me. In my opinion he is a very unethical person, and my personal experience makes me think about how much his contribution really is in the papers he has co-authored with other subordinates. I only hope that he is an outlier.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-84465059710571914732010-04-12T19:54:00.482-04:002010-04-12T19:54:00.482-04:00You can also just indicate that the first 2-3 auth...You can also just indicate that the first 2-3 authors made roughly equal contributions, e.g.:<br /><br />http://people.csail.mit.edu/mcollins/papers/egjournal.pdf<br /><br />In a multi-author computer science paper, people are unlikely to care about who is the 4th or 5th author. So long as the people who did the most work are recognized, it is fine.Yisong Yuehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07112299585878991257noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-91183925104001138962010-04-11T18:26:26.383-04:002010-04-11T18:26:26.383-04:00I think its fairly common, by design, that systems...I think its fairly common, by design, that systems papers have a "lead". Certainly in our group we try to create this notion a priori -- that one students will lead in a particular project while others will help, and that this relationship is reversed in other projects (this happens naturally when students come up with the project idea, but we try to engineer it even if faculty come up with the ideas). This reflects a reality that for many systems projects there are a range of "moving pieces" (this is not limited to artifact building, but there can also be different pieces of measurement or analysis work) far beyond what any one person can do alone and yet there is also a necessity for someone to own the "big picture", do integration and make sure the whole project succeeds. This structure helps students to work on more than one project at a time (there is a communal expectation that you'll help on the project's other people are leading just as they'll help on those you lead) and encourages them to develop non-technical skills (developing new research directions, research integration/management, leadership, etc) as they work in both roles. <br /><br />As a consequence, this notion of "lead" is easy to identify and in the 80 some papers I've been involved with I think there were only a handful of cases where it wasn't clear (and perhaps only two where this became problematic). <br /><br />Again, it comes down to culture and expectations. We're very clear with our students how we do things, we create opportunities for everyone to participate at all levels and we encourage all of our students to welcome co-authors rather than worry about credit (I think its self-destructive to worry about credit too much). The culture of author order is thus an extension of the culture of how the research gets done.<br /><br />In principal we could identify what each person did (ala Nature), but I think this would hurt the esprit de corps that develops in a team project (instead of being part of a team that put together a cool result, you're now just the person who developed a technical widget). When it matters such things come out in letters... its not clear to me what's served by putting it in the paper. <br /><br />Anyway, this is probably as much as I can say on the topic (indeed, far more than it deserves). Other approaches have their own advantages/disadvantages and may indeed be preferable at times (I've use alphabetical in at least one case for this reason). Thus, I'll be happy to simply concede the point after this rather than defend what the systems community does in general (bearing in mind that I don't see the systems community changing any time soon :-)Stefan Savagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04899968055883156907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-26530321664520488402010-04-11T16:05:07.337-04:002010-04-11T16:05:07.337-04:00Anon #39 : I think you and Stefan have a point; ...Anon #39 : I think you and Stefan have a point; perhaps, in fields with greatly disparate contributions, order-by-contribution is best. Although, in that case, I think the approach by Nature -- all authors should list their contribution -- is arguably better. I'm also not clear if things are really like that in most fields. I do understand it CAN be that way for systems papers, but is it really the norm?Michael Mitzenmacherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02161161032642563814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-7604348435168085972010-04-11T12:42:57.775-04:002010-04-11T12:42:57.775-04:00I would argue that the best approach depends on th...I would argue that the best approach depends on the field. In fields where the nature of the work creates very unequal collaborations, order by contribution is best. In fields where more equal collaborations are the norm, alphabetical is best.<br /><br />To some extent, arguing which is better is like arguing whether uniform or exponential distributions are better. Clearly, it depends!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-599900141748309222010-04-11T00:49:09.432-04:002010-04-11T00:49:09.432-04:00It amazes me that among people who prove theorems ...<i>It amazes me that among people who prove theorems for a living, there are so many who are reluctant to employ basic logic when it comes to dealing with personal problems. You cannot disprove the existence of abusive advisors by demonstrating the existence of non-abusive advisors.</i><br /><br />Heed your own advice: anonymous 9:16am never claimed nor implied that were no abusive advisors.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-58558353853962422822010-04-10T19:25:57.337-04:002010-04-10T19:25:57.337-04:00Stefan --
As usual I thank you for your comment (...Stefan --<br /><br />As usual I thank you for your comment (and willingness to use your name). I agree with you that expectations are key, and that it is hard to break away from what is being done traditionally within a community. However, I feel your comment helps make my point that alphabetical order is to be preferred.<br /><br />Specifically, statements like "While not a "rule" per se, its generally considered a bit tacky if a faculty member has their name first on a paper (there are a few exceptions, but they'd take more time to explain than its worth)." and "The premise is that people in the systems community remember the first author and they know to look to the last author(s) for the adviser(s) but the middle is largely undifferentiated by the reader" make the system seem a bit complex and perhaps even arbitrary in how it's "assigning" credit. <br /><br />I'd like to think that even in systems alphabetical order is a possible alternative, perhaps used to denote that everyone worked on the project. I've used it for several systems papers in the past.Michael Mitzenmacherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02161161032642563814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-67832226941365688882010-04-10T16:49:14.454-04:002010-04-10T16:49:14.454-04:00@anon-3:48: Yeah, right, banish the profs who seek...@anon-3:48: Yeah, right, banish the profs who seek money to becoming CEOs of banks. Let's see you do research on an empty stomach. <br /><br />People who make comments such as the above, and also those that suggest that their advisor "only suggested the problem" seem to grossly underestimate the efforts involved in getting grants and identifying interesting research problems.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-9069749087446687932010-04-10T16:46:01.763-04:002010-04-10T16:46:01.763-04:00interesting battle among anonymous students and an...<i>interesting battle among anonymous students and anonymous advisors</i><br /><br />Here's the most interesting part. If a student non-anonymously calls out their advisor for unethical behavior (through a blog post or more directly through the university), they likely lose their jobs and kill their careers. Even if they still graduate, no one goes anywhere in this business without an advisor's letter of recommendation. Professors on the other hand have tenure. It's easy to criticize posting anonymously when you have tenure, a privilege whose primary purpose is to ensure that you cannot be fired from your job for saying things your colleagues or administration or government don't like. But those with tenure should consider for a moment what sort of power imbalance that creates between a tenured professor and a grad student, who can be booted out for basically any reason whatsoever.<br /><br />So what can a student in such a situation do? Well I don't know. But whenever I see a post (not accusing Michael of this but rather some commenters on this thread) that is based on the underlying assumption that all professors are saints and the only problem with advisor/student relationships is how to best communicate to students that every problem is due to their own misapprehension of their advisor's saintliness, I feel like there is a bubble of ignorance surrounding tenured professors that must be popped.<br /><br />Let me be clear: Some advisors are saints. Some advisors who are saints have students who wrongly believe they are devils, and these students must be educated to think more carefully about the duties of their advisor before criticizing. But some advisors are devils, and their tenured colleagues are best in a position 1) to notice this, since they know from years of experience what proper and improper behavior of advisors looks like, and 2) to do something about it, because they don't face the same risk of career-destruction faced by that devil advisor's students.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-34246927913173263872010-04-10T15:48:24.804-04:002010-04-10T15:48:24.804-04:00I strongly agree with one of the comments above ab...I strongly agree with one of the comments above about some profs being just middle man between funding agency and PhDs, post doc. <br />They have lost all their scientific skills and are only money manages. <br />The funding mafias, a menace which should be eradicated. Such people better of being CEO of some company or banks. At least, this way the research environment will remain pure.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-17763244803987994382010-04-10T15:06:11.339-04:002010-04-10T15:06:11.339-04:00Indeed, troll posts are known to instigate a lot o...Indeed, troll posts are known to instigate a lot of battles.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-31296819269273101962010-04-10T14:37:47.646-04:002010-04-10T14:37:47.646-04:00interesting battle among anonymous students and an...interesting battle among anonymous students and anonymous advisorsBMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-89358689801254750582010-04-10T13:55:45.659-04:002010-04-10T13:55:45.659-04:00We all know cases of students whose supervisor poi...<i>We all know cases of students whose supervisor pointed out to them a problem; the supervisor has already worked out more than half the solution in his head; the supervisor often got the student unstuck at critical times, only for the student to say at the end"I did all the work, my supervisor just added his name to the paper".</i><br /><br />...<br /><br /><i>Those students complaining about their supervisor are also wrong of course: initiating a research, by contributing the problem to work on, and maybe even hinting on the solution or technique to be used (even if common knowledge for some), is a major contribution.</i><br /><br />Let A = either paragraph above. Let B = "There exist advisors that contribute nothing to a research project, not even unappreciated but valuable background work.". Then A ≠ B.<br /><br />It amazes me that among people who prove theorems for a living, there are so many who are reluctant to employ basic logic when it comes to dealing with personal problems. You cannot disprove the existence of abusive advisors by demonstrating the existence of non-abusive advisors. Some students have advisors who do valuable background work, and if the students are immature they may wrongly believe that their advisor is doing nothing at all. Of course this happens and no one disputes it. In no way does this imply that for all students everywhere who have problems with their advisor, the only credible explanation is that the advisor is providing valuable support and the student merely fails to appreciate it. Sometimes the advisor really is just taking advantage.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-83585231826196036782010-04-10T10:59:25.630-04:002010-04-10T10:59:25.630-04:00This is almost a troll post. The subject itself is...This is almost a troll post. The subject itself is pretty unimportant scientifically, and I would say even career-wise. <br /><br />Nevertheless, let me say that there are certain persons who always think they have done more than others. This is a psychological issue. Alphabetical ordering is thus very good in this respect. <br /><br />Those students complaining about their supervisor are also wrong of course: initiating a research, by contributing the problem to work on, and maybe even hinting on the solution or technique to be used (even if common knowledge for some), is a major contribution.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-47708153341743911562010-04-10T09:16:16.550-04:002010-04-10T09:16:16.550-04:00If you want to take ownership of a paper, then sta...<i>If you want to take ownership of a paper, then start by writing it yourself.</i><br /><br />Often students undervalue the supervisor contributions, which reminds me of an old comic strip:<br /><br />- I'm beginning to suspect that when the teacher asks a question in class is not because she herself doesn't know the answer<br /><br />- You dunce! Have you just noticed this or are you joking?<br /><br />- I'm just joking!<br /><br />- Don't waste my time then.<br /><br />[silence]<br /><br />- ...and me answering all her fake questions using a stupid paternalistic tone!<br /><br /><br />We all know cases of students whose supervisor pointed out to them a problem; the supervisor has already worked out more than half the solution in his head; the supervisor often got the student unstuck at critical times, only for the student to say at the end"I did all the work, my supervisor just added his name to the paper".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-28068666119658457342010-04-10T01:26:53.915-04:002010-04-10T01:26:53.915-04:00"He is the one who told me that I can work on..."He is the one who told me that I can work on those problems and listened to my solution once I have solved it. He also helped out in writing the introduction and proof-reading the paper."<br /><br />Introducing a good problem is a big contribution. Helping to write the paper is a MAJOR contribution. If you want to take ownership of a paper, then start by writing it yourself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-81986505646885503052010-04-10T00:24:55.755-04:002010-04-10T00:24:55.755-04:00I believe I also get the same kind of credit for d...<i>I believe I also get the same kind of credit for doing nothing if I become a professor some time. So that keeps me motivated :)</i><br /><br />I appreciate this sentiment, especially given the crazy competitiveness of the job and grant market, but I cannot imagine going into science thinking that this is inherently a good thing. I went into science because I like thinking about problems and solving them, whether alone or collaboratively. I could never imagine going into science not because solving problems is fun, but because taking credit for solving them is fun. To each his own, but I figure that there are more lucrative ways to make money doing something you don't really enjoy. I understand the reality that the more senior you are, the more of your time is sucked into non-science, but the moment I am not spending <i>any</i> time actually doing science, I will leave and never look back.<br /><br />And yet here we are, with scores of professors doing exactly this, participating in no part of the project, from the initial direction and ideas to the final writing. They are essentially being paid to push around piles of money from the NSF to grad students and postdocs, while skimming a big heap off the top as the middle man. <br /><br />And to those professors who believe that the existence of such unethical advisors can be disproven by counterexample, by stating that they and a few other professors they know always participate at least somewhat for authorship, I say this: Look around your department. I don't care if it is Harvard or Hayfield State University. <b>Someone</b> in your department is abusing grad students in this way, even if you aren't. I guarantee it. Use your tenure for something positive and say something about it. Tell them to stop it. Their grad students have no power but you do because you can't lose your job for standing up for what you believe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-89468017402349215322010-04-09T23:08:05.033-04:002010-04-09T23:08:05.033-04:00I think, as with most things, this is one of those...I think, as with most things, this is one of those cases where there is no single best solution and thus different communities make different trade offs. What matters as much as anything is the understanding and expectations around such things (i.e., what is understood to have been communicated by those reading the author list and what do the authors expect about that). <br /><br />Rather than expound on why one scheme is the best, let me share what I've observed that the academic systems community does, what I do in particular and why.<br /><br />In general, the systems community does not follow an alphabetical model, but encodes some meaning in the author order. There are two near-universal aspects to this: 1) the first author is the one who is believed to deserve the most credit, and 2) students precede faculty. The first is meant to recognize leadership/ownership of a project and while it is imperfect (e.g., I've worked on papers where it would be hard to assign ownership to any one person) by and large it works. Moreover, its not like you can punt on this decision by going alphabetical because you still need to pick someone to give the talk. The second aspect reflects an implicit acknowledgment that the work done by faculty and students is of a different character and that students should be promoted. While not a "rule" per se, its generally considered a bit tacky if a faculty member has their name first on a paper (there are a few exceptions, but they'd take more time to explain than its worth). The middle range (i.e., between the first student author and the faculty authors) is ad hoc... it gets done lots of different ways. The premise is that people in the systems community remember the first author and they know to look to the last author(s) for the adviser(s) but the middle is largely undifferentiated by the reader. Some groups try to reflect some secondary notion of contribution, but it becomes tough to differentiate by the 3rd or 4th author. <br /><br />In the UCSD systems group we further tend to order the _faculty_ authors inversely with some marginal sense of contribution (i.e., the most involved faculty member is at the end). In truth, many of such distinctions are small but it breaks up the monotony of consistent placement when you work with the same people for many years.<br /><br />In general, this approach creates more opportunities for conflict (e.g., if two students could both be called "lead"), but has the advantage of communicating information in a way that persists. Moreover, it makes it "cheaper" to add smaller contributors to the author list because their presence does not "de-value" the contributions of the true lead authors (I like this aspect quite a bit because many of my projects benefit from an array of contributors and I like to acknowledge them). <br /><br />Finally, as I said before, expectation is key here. The scheme I described above is "what the community does". A systems paper with alphabetical authors (or faculty before students) would be seen as "other" in the same way perhaps as a math paper in contribution order might be seen as unusual.Stefan Savagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04899968055883156907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-27764215289753181032010-04-09T21:32:12.308-04:002010-04-09T21:32:12.308-04:00"And what about cases where actually two (or ...<i>"And what about cases where actually two (or more!) students did the coding together, and you really can't say who did "more". Rumor has it that this actually happens."<br /><br />Yes, this happens. I was in one of such projects, and we decided to go with alphabetical ordering.<br /></i><br /><br />Just to throw in another story:<br /><br />I was once on a (systems) paper like this, where I and a student did most of the work, and there were 2 other authors. They were the last two, and we went in alphabetical order for the first two.<br /><br />The trouble is that to an outside observer assigning credit, there is absolutely no way of telling why the order for the first two authors was what it was. Thus ironically, the system inherently and unfairly favors those with earlier last names.<br /><br />Additionally, the non-alphabetical system discourages me from collaborating 50-50 with other people whose names come before me, since I know I will not get fair credit.<br /><br />The alphabetical-only system would have done better since there is no expectation of a correlation between author order and contribution.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-24364656333162867072010-04-09T20:47:14.976-04:002010-04-09T20:47:14.976-04:00@Paul Beame: Probably you are saying what you do. ...@Paul Beame: Probably you are saying what you do. In the couple of theory papers that I have wrote with my advisor, he has no technical contribution. He is the one who told me that I can work on those problems and listened to my solution once I have solved it. He also helped out in writing the introduction and proof-reading the paper. So he is an author in the paper. How much credit will you give to him for this ?<br /><br />I also collaborate with others and my advisor is totally cool with that. He doesn't know the problem, I haven't discussed the problem with him even once, so he is not part of the paper. He thus have students who have written papers (and have got best student paper award) without the advisor's name. But that reflects nothing about his 10% contribution in the works where he is a coauthor.<br /><br />I believe I also get the same kind of credit for doing nothing if I become a professor some time. So that keeps me motivated :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-19540822409208762622010-04-09T20:38:57.198-04:002010-04-09T20:38:57.198-04:00Just to have some fun on the topic:
http://www.ph...Just to have some fun on the topic:<br /><br />http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562<br /><br />I agree with David's policy, which seems both practical and fair.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-55153867600048790992010-04-09T20:21:00.492-04:002010-04-09T20:21:00.492-04:00Just read it today:
"when (...) came across ...Just read it today:<br /><br />"when (...) came across an article titled "The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical summary" in The Astronomical Journal, in many ways it seemed "pretty ordinary".<br /><br />It was 5,230 words long, including the text of its 39 footnotes, and had 45 references.<br /><br />Yet it was also an article with "more authors than any other publication I have ever come across in any of the areas in which I have worked", Professor Fairbairn said.<br /><br />A total of 144 authors were listed - equating to a mean contribution of 36.3 words each."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-62111148285446874212010-04-09T20:19:33.467-04:002010-04-09T20:19:33.467-04:00I don't know why one would think that alphabet...I don't know why one would think that alphabetical ordering hurts women/minorities.<br /><br />What I've seen with respect to people who may be more isolated, is that they tend to publish more single-author papers. But then when the time comes for hiring/evaluation, people in judgment use that as a negative. Instead of appreciating the fact that the candidate can work independently, they say that the candidate does not appear to be a good collaborator, and the independent work will actually hurt the candidate.<br /><br />I'd think any conventions that improve collaboration in general would be better for women/minorities/people who are isolated, but don't want to be.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8890204.post-21573060585217068282010-04-09T20:18:38.081-04:002010-04-09T20:18:38.081-04:00Some stories:
Two great researchers were working ...Some stories:<br /><br />Two great researchers were working together for a few years. At some moment, the one who was always the 2nd in the alphabetic order asked to be the 1st author in one paper. They published a joint paper and the other author often hears comments that most likely he was a 10% author, for otherwise they wouldn't change the order. The paper (as they claim) was 50-50.<br /><br />A junior researcher was working in for several years and didn't have a single strong paper until he moved as a post-doc to an experienced researcher. The experienced researcher gave him an interesting topic to work on, some key ideas, but then the junior researcher spent a lot of time working on the problem, and they gotten two papers. The junior researcher was upset that the experienced researcher was a coauthor. Then he moved to other place and didn't have a good paper for a few years.<br /><br />I also often hears some complains from students who are saying that they feel that they contribution is undermined by their advisor. In a few cases I know that students contribution was mostly in trivial parts and I think their advisors are too generous giving them 40% or even 50% credit. But also in a few cases they're right, as someone mentioned earlier, just reading the paper and fixing some typos may be sufficient for an advisor to be a couthor.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com