Activities and duties of PhD students

Read the text paying attention to activities and duties expected from a PhD student. Consult the word list below. Having read the text answer the following questions:

1. What activities are expected from a PhD student/beginning researcher?

2. What are researchers in Universities actually busy with?

3. What should you include in your scientific activity report or curriculum vitae?

“Experience is the mother of science”.
Henry George Bohm

Official requirements to PhD students or beginning researchers include yearly submissions of a 1-2 page activity report containing the results of studies conducted during academic years. The report will be considered and the department committee will question the researcher in order to check whether he is advancing well. If for a year or more a PhD student shows no significant progress and really seems unable to produce any significant activities, his scholarship may be stopped.

The next requirement is to participate as much as possible in seminars, scientific local or on-line conferences and other department-organized activities for interacting with other specialists. The actual frequency of these activities depends on the progress of the researching. In addition to personal participation in scientific events, PhD students must write and publish one or more papers detailing their latest results. The papers must be submitted to journals or proceedings. A typical full-time PhD researcher should produce more than 10 effectively published peer-refereed papers. If the papers are well-structured and investigate different aspects of the same broad subject, you will have enough material to elaborate it into a coherent thesis, to defend it, get your doctoral degree and participate in conferences.

During the first year, PhD students are to explore the literature and go to conferences or lectures, discuss the problems with experts or colleagues, gather and process data, create a collection of notes organizing their thoughts. At this stage, they have little concrete ideas of their own to present or write down yet. However, advancing in their work they deepen their knowledge and develop their ideas, academic skills and therefore, their self-confidence. They are strongly recommended to take specialized courses, perform experiments, analyze data, observe cases or go for study visits to other universities. PhD students may be writing computer programs depending on their research topic.

The final obligation is the submission of the thesis and its public defense. By the third year PhD students should produce several papers, but as a rule-of-thumb, all their energy must be channeled into the thesis itself. In addition to this concrete output, researchers are also likely to prepare proposals and initiate collaborations, get involved in useful experience by organizing seminars or conferences. Once a PhD researcher has become more experienced, he can look forward to a further scientific career.

One of the most important “record” providing documentary evidence for further scientific career is academic curriculum vitae that lists all the research-related activities and achievements of a researcher. Using this document each PhD student can be checked whether he is advancing well in his research and therefore is entitled to a scholarship. To make this record complete and convincing PhD students should invest a lot of effort in creating several files containing publications (with full bibliographic references) in peer-refereed and high-impact journals; publications in conference proceedings with referee system; verbal reports at conferences; other research-related achievements. The research file should also include indicators of scientific recognition (citations, impact factors, etc.); scientific awards and distinctions; obtained patents; inventions and discoveries; invitations for cooperation with foreign research groups; active participation in scientific activities: conferences, seminars, symposia, etc. This file may be followed by the list of positions in the various university and faculty councils and committees or some other forms of participation in the university organizations.

The teaching file may include specific tasks related to teaching (development of textbooks and teaching materials); participation in exchange programs (as lecturer); subject matter of the courses taught at host University; assessment of your teaching by students and peers, complemented with personal observations. The teaching file of experienced researches may contain membership of scientific associations; supervision of PhD or Master’s thesis; functions in the editorial board of scientific journals; reviews; publications in book form (including parts of books); research management: number and amount of acquired research funding, etc. Experienced scientists must contribute to the social impact of the University by participation in external committees and conferences; etc.

Table 5 Word List

№	Words and word combinations	Translation
1.	academic curriculum vitae	сведения о научном опыте
2.	activity report	отчёт о работе аспиранта
3.	be entitled to a scholarship	иметь право на стипендию
	contributions to science	вклад в науку
4.	department committee	факультетская комиссия
5.	development of textbooks and teaching materials	создание учебников и учебно-методических материалов
6.	editorial board	редакционная коллегия
7.	evidence for a hypotheses	доказательство, подтверждение гипотезы
8.	explore literature	изучать литературу
9.	h-index	ирдекс Хирша
10.	high-impact journal	журнал с высоким уровнем цитирования
11.	host University	принимающий университет
12.	impact factor	индекс цитирования
13.	junior researchers	молодые учёные
14.	large-scale surveys	широкомасштабный обзор
15.	patent holder	обладатель патента
16..	peer-refereed paper	статья, рецензируемая специалистами в данной области
17.	conference proceedings	труды конференции
18.	participation in exchange programs	участие в программах обмена
19.	perform Internet searches	вести поиск в Интернете
20.	protect findings by a patent	защищать открытия патентом
21.	public defense	публичная защита
22.	research topic, subject matter	тема исследования
23.	rule-of-thumb	практический способ, метод (в отличие от научного)
24.	scientific awards and distinctions	научные награды и отличия (признания)
25.	solitary thinking	самостоятельное обдумывание
26.	stick to a true scientific approach	следовать научному подходу
27.	submission of the thesis	представление диссертации
28.	verbal report	устный доклад

Exercise 2.1.1

Read the text consulting the word list above and answer the questions “What does research mean in essence?” and ”What do academic researchers mostly spend their time on?”

Many junior researchers consider an academic career but have not enough experience in this domain. They realize that research means developing new knowledge based on accurate data, fresh ideas and deep reflection. You are expected to become an expert on your subject matter. New findings, as the product of research, should be published in scientific journals, conference proceedings, or books. At present, all publications can be put on a website, and everybody can freely download any information. If your findings have not been published, it is if your results do not exist, because nobody can criticize, test and use them or investigate further on them. Publication means collaboration by information exchange and discussion.

The most important criterion for any publication is the quantity and quality, which is measured by the number of citations a publication gets, and by the “impact factor” of the journal in which it is published. A useful overall measure of success is the “h-index”, which combines the number of publications with their number of citations. If your research, published in the right places, is truly novel and important, you will be able to score well on these and other indicators.

Academic freedom provides you with free choosing of the subject to investigate if it catches your interest, and interpret your results. Anyway, you must stick to a true scientific approach, collect as much as possible evidence for your hypotheses, and remain critical. Data gathering and processing, the formulation of hypotheses explaining your idea may need large-scale surveys, complex and expensive equipment, computer simulations and different scientific methods (such as statistics and data mining), prediction and observations. Data explanation is formulating clear concepts and turn findings into new knowledge. Finding general patterns in more specific data takes place during solitary thinking and during discussions with colleagues.

The disadvantage of researching is that data gathering including reading, performing Internet searches, and attending lectures, tends to leave not much time for theoretical reflection. A researcher must writedown results not only in the form of personal notes, but in the form of papers and thesis intended for publication and defense. This is a difficult, but creative and rewarding, process including the formatting, copy-editing, submitting to the right journal and correcting after having taken into account referee comments. The participation in conferences will show to all the colleagues that the contributions to science are worthwhile, and the author deserves to build up a long academic career.

Non-academic research is performed by companies, corporations or other centers, which protect their findings from rival groups by a patent. The patent holder keeps control of the knowledge.

Exercise 2.1.2

The following pattern will help you if you are asked to introduce yourself as a researcher. Complement this pattern with some extra information about your background. What motivates you in your choice of research? Where do you see yourself in a few years?