Category: 1. Research
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A short critique of CRediT
CRediT is a system for classifying contributions to research with the goal of documenting who did what for a given publication. Ann Barcomb, formerly a Postdoc in my research group, now a professor at U of Calgary, pointed me to it. The system may or may not be used by journals. As a long-time modeler,…
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Making your theory practical
The output of research is theory, initially just proposed, later validated (or invalidated). A theory is a description or model of phenomena of interest, and its main value is to make predictions about these phenomena. No predictions, no theory. Predictions are turned into hypotheses to put a theory to the test. Sadly, the word theory…
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The role of a literature review in grant proposals
Christmas is coming up, so what’s a professor got to do? Hide from the family and work on grant proposals, naturally. Right now I’m upset about the misunderstanding of the role that literature reviews play in grant proposals (by way of reviewer comments). Reviewing literature is just a general activity, but one that can serve…
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How to not cite related work
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The student, the researcher, and the professor
The student: I can’t access the research paper; it is behind a paywall. The researcher: Fret not, you will find it on sci-hub. The professor: Just ask the author.
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Dear Ph.D. student: Don’t be afraid of prior art
A first step in a one-person research project in a domain new to a researcher (Ph.D. student) is to read-up on related work. This can be daunting, as sometimes it feels like everything has been done already, and there is nothing new to write a dissertation about. Fear not! With enough digging, the opportunities will…