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jszym

@jszym@cosocial.ca

PhD student @ #McGill University studying deep learning models for biological networks.

Born & raised in #montreal

I wrote RAPPPID, which you should totally check out (https://github.com/jszym/rapppid)

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jszym , to AcademicChatter group
@jszym@cosocial.ca avatar

I've gotten to that delirious, sleep-deprived point of the submission process where looking up a list of species names has me thinking that "Gorilla gorilla gorilla" is something I need to share with other humans.

@academicchatter

jszym , to AcademicChatter group
@jszym@cosocial.ca avatar

Anyone have access to this paper? Can't find it anywhere...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2665991321000102

#ICanHazPDF #academicchatter #academia @academicchatter

meghana , to AcademicChatter group
@meghana@infosec.exchange avatar

Academics of Mastodon: is it normal for to go through the cycles of feeling like your research is irrelevant to feeling like yes, everything clicks in one place now, to again feeling like you know nothing at all about anything?

How do you battle that? How do you develop a concrete sense of “knowing”? I’ve seen a lot of output driven performance metrics like number of pages written or number of papers published and stuff, but is there any input driven performance metrics that you keep track of for personal growth?

@academicchatter

jszym ,
@jszym@cosocial.ca avatar

@meghana @academicchatter I often tell junior grad students who ask for advice that it's normal for a PhD to sometimes feel like a series of existential crises.
IMHO, there's a few of totally healthy reasons for this:

  1. The more you know about a topic, the more aware you are of what you don't know.

  2. A fundamental skill of research is being able to critically analyze your work and the work of others.

There are a couple of not so healthy reasons...

jszym ,
@jszym@cosocial.ca avatar

@meghana @academicchatter

Some of those unhealthy reasons are related to overall self-confidence, not having a supportive community/supervisor to lean on.

There are a couple of ways I've found to combat the doubt:

  1. Be rigorous as you can.
  2. Forgive yourself readily.
  3. Embrace the fact that you are enriched by the process of research, regardless of the outcomes.
  4. Having an amazing support system/community, scientific and otherwise.
maartjeoostdijk , to AcademicChatter group
@maartjeoostdijk@mstdn.social avatar

How to respond to a reviewer who thinks using 'we' consistently throughout a manuscript (in methods and a little in discussion 'we found' etc) sounds unscientific? @academicchatter #academicchatter #academicwriting

jszym ,
@jszym@cosocial.ca avatar

@IanSudbery @sfmatheson @jsdodge @maartjeoostdijk @academicchatter

I try not to use the passive voice because I've read countless accounts such as this one which outline that it reduces readability.

That said, I see the appeal in scientific writing. It refocuses the attention from the author to the subject matter.

One shouldn't pay much mind to the fact that I or we "synthesized fluorinated silyl functionalized zirconia", but rather that it was, with accompanying observation.

jszym ,
@jszym@cosocial.ca avatar

@IanSudbery @sfmatheson @jsdodge @maartjeoostdijk @academicchatter

To reiterate, I avoid the passive voice, and I thank folks like you for encouraging people to write what the consensus of folks find legible.

However, I feel the need to let folks know that it isn't just "bad chops", but often just this idea that if you extricate this particular scientist from the text, that the truth should hold.

Of course, that's not always true, and who conducts an experiment is germane to the result

jszym ,
@jszym@cosocial.ca avatar

@IanSudbery @sfmatheson @jsdodge @maartjeoostdijk @academicchatter

Well, I think it's inferred here: "Finally, passive voice encourages complex sentences with low content-to-word ratio..."

But you're absolutely right that it isn't the main thrust of the article. It isn't perscriptivist, and I'm bookmarking it to remind myself why I'm avoiding relying too much on the passive voice :P

Thanks for sharing!

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