Does the number of exclamation points and question marks in a RG question influence your perception of the poster of the question? Many questions posed on RG are both badly grammatically phrased and may contain any number of question marks and exclamation points.
Sometimes English is not a first language and some degree of grammatical errors could or may be justified. But does this apply to punctuation? What if scientific papers degenerated into text, slang, and emojis and publishing was on Twitter (because we all have short attention spans)?
While blue is superior to green, ! is far better than?. ? always indicates that your knowledge is somehow limited and you seek help, if not used rhetorically. :-) is very important and highly relevant in modern science. It indicates a cheerful and simple mind. I hope Biden wins.
E = mc2 ?????????????????????????????
Too lazy to use the superscript feature below the edit box?? !!!! !:!::!!:!: :))))
------------>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> E = mc2
John Francis Miller
But can you use the superscript when formulating/asking a question? Try it and see...
@Alan F Rawle
Some posters may want to emphasize the severity of their confusion by adding several question marks. The question may not be taken seriously and the poster might not get the answers he or she needed.
Einstein in 2020 science-speak: "Mass, energy - whatever, dude. It's like all the same."
Here's a PM I received today (sender's name omitted to protect the guilty):
hi dear Dr. Alan
hope you are well.
i have a problem with Zeta-Sizer DLS.
actually the intensity and the number % for my sample(albumin nanoparticles ~ 100nm ) does not match !!!
also the size that it shows is different from the TEM pictures.
in addition, when i use BSA solution as a control, the size measured around 2nm, which should be around 7!!!
but for other researchers, it is matched and shows good data (polymeric nanoparticles and Gold nanoparticle).
what is the problem do you think ???
thanks in advance for your time and kindly reply.
Should private messaging be banned on RG? The above questions are easily answered with any RG (indeed Google) search but it appears that soup-to-nuts 'consultancy' is requested...
Alan F Rawle This makes me wonder if these "researchers" have no supervisors.
Frank T. Edelmann
They don't ask their colleagues, supervisors, or friends it appears... Or their local distributor, in this case. They don't use the Internet, it seems too - very surprising.
In my day, it was the university library and many hours (or longer if a paper or book request was in) to find out things that today we do on the internet with the click of a button...
We're experiencing the scientific equivalent of the decline of the Roman Empire.
I am appalled at the decline in quality of peer-reviewed publications. It seems to me that today's new researchers are not being taught the basic skills of literature searches nor the reasons why they are important. I see "discoveries" reported in nanomedicine that were reported 40+ years ago. But, if you look at most modern papers, you will rarely find references to papers not of this millennium. It even seems to be encouraged not to go too far back.
There's a serious implication of this when paired with the rise of vanity open access journals. I've seen many examples of fundamentally flawed science published in "journals" that have less merit than toilet paper (which, in today's predicament, has much merit) that subsequently gets referenced as credible in established journals. The rot has set in. I used to be able to read a paper and trust it. I cannot do that any more.
Combine the laziness and spread of bad science with the typical gestation period of a new generation of academics, you have a disaster waiting in the wings. Consider a new PhD student - it may take 5 or 6 years to secure an assistant professorship somewhere. When your Google search skills only take you back perhaps 10 years, the problem is clear.
I've just published a paper (I won't shamefully link to it but will say it is in Langmuir) that took me 8 months to write. Two weeks to generate the experimental data, an initial 2 or 3 months to dig into the literature (not easy as an independent researcher), followed by a couple of cycles of seeing new papers that required that I rethink my own.
I worked in late phase product development and manufacturing in the pharmaceutical industry for 24 years and so I had few publishing opportunities or the need to stay close to my formal discipline. When I entered the field again, I was appalled. Not just the bad science but the shameless claiming of new ideas and wanton disregard of the years of work by dozens of previous researchers, many of whom I worked with. One of the most blatant examples of which is now editor-in-chief of what I used to consider the leading journal in my field.
I should have started this reply with so I can conclude with
:) :) :)
Getting the right information on the internet is not easy. It is sometimes better to consult the experts
Vad Pérez " Siri, OkGoogle and Alexa still have where to expand "
Do you mean that new researchers only use the likes of Siri etc and cannot be bothered (are too lazy) to do it properly? If so, I agree.
Per Alan F Rawle , I wish I could travel back in time with a student of today to the late 1980s in my university's chemistry library to show how it was done...
Alan F Rawle
I mean, asking someone else has become the first natural impulse. It seems that the sense of what is a trivial question (a "googleable" one) and a research one has been lost.
There is a visible demand linked to the first (just because there is such place as RG, an "oracle" that will provide an answer), so a chat bot would greatly reduce the load. Of course, it will not contribute to the formation of scientists, but will certainly contribute to your inner peace.
John Francis Miller
Fully agree with your . I'll provide more support for your pov shortly.
Eric Nkansah Opoku
Thank you for your comment. As a young researcher, you should be looking for good review papers by experts in your field and those published by renowned and credible institutions. Google Scholar is a help but ask the professors in your department. Read conference proceedings noting who is editing them and who is chairing the sessions. Here are a couple of handy hints. To avoid paywalls (but usually academia has less issue here) use http://www.freefullpdf.com/. Search the patent literature (use Google patents or use (after registration: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/)
as this literature often does a superb job of describing the prior art.
Again I whine that I didn't, as a Ph.D student, have access to a computer, never mind the internet. My Ph.D thesis was written by hand chapter-by-chapter and typed on a pre-golf ball typewriter by a retired secretary from the Chemistry department. I had to find out by long sessions in the library what the literature was in my field... When I came across a relevant review paper, you cannot imagine my delight and joy. Another tip: use tinyurl to cut down on those enormous url's provided by Google Books/Maps and Amazon, for example.
Eric Nkansah Opoku If I get an unsolicited question from someone with a higher degree in a scientific field related to mine, I expect them to have been taught how to conduct a literature search that isn't restricted to ten minutes on Wikipedia or Google.
A few times I have reached out to people who have contacted me on RG (or LinkedIn) and given 30 minutes of my time for free on a Skype call. These people worked for multibillion dollar companies but, when I mentioned that I will charge a fee beyond that call, they became very offended and insisted I should just "tell me for free" (real quote).
On the other hand, I have performed free work for a number of PhD students who clearly have made an effort to understand.
The difference is the obvious sense of entitlement and laziness the former type demonstrate compared to the latter.
Vad Pérez
OK, understood and I fully agree. It seems though that the initial work isn't done and an 'expert' (or I sometimes see the same dross sent to a number of people via copy and paste) is buzzed by PM on RG. Or our overworked Help Desks are burdened with trivia. Even within our own organization, it seems that people can't use our powerful website with hundreds of application notes, webinars, and other supporting material. Queries such as 'my instrument isn't working' come in direct to the website and local contacts/experts are circumvented. Back to the Help Desk - 80% of the queries we have on optical properties can be answered by typing "refractive index" + "name of material" into Google. Does no one know the power of the quotation marks? And does no American (to quote another entertaining example) know what 'inverted commas' are...?
It would probably have wider distribution in prestigious journals like the national enquirer.
Rick Manner
Not sure how many oxymorons you've managed to get into 'prestigious journals like the National Enquirer'... I like it!
Alan F Rawle
Be sure, such educational bots are being created. And will cost. Because they will provide the privilege to be lazy.
And it will be a real luck if at some point they would say — "It's an interesting question and answer is yet unknown. You can look in the book AAA, p.XYZ, some experiments are also required":
But for some reason I doubt it will happen.....
John Francis Miller
The other people that I get asked for free information is lawyers often related to (the timing on) prior art/patents in relation to early publications of mine. When I ask for some form of nominal fee (paid to the company not to me) they get offended it seems and I've had a couple say that I should be providing this 'science' free (it's really about priority dates and people trying to demonstrate that their 'new discovery' doesn't date back to the 1880's or 1930's - 2 glorious periods in science) . When I state that the $ clock starts ticking as soon as I would walk into their office, they seem to think that that is fine but that my time isn't valuable. I think this is because scientists must undervalue themselves and their contribution in a financial sense.
John Francis Miller
Your comment 'The difference is the obvious sense of entitlement and laziness the former type demonstrate compared to the latter' reminds me of a chat I had, many years ago, with Ric Sanders (the fiddle player in Fairport Convention. BTW, what's the difference between a violin and a fiddle? You can spill a pint of Guinness on a fiddle) who said that there wouldn't be enough money in the world to get him to do a commercial for McDonald's but he'd provide his 'services' free for a full afternoon at his local church hall (and that's not because of, or lack of, religion).
I'll share the example of the one literature search that changed the course of my PhD and would affect Alan F Rawle 's day-to-day work, too.
I inherited an lab instrument that was to be the key tool for my PhD research. After a year of trying to get meaningful data from it, I realized it simply was not fit for purpose. I needed to find out if there was some other way I could make use of the same apparatus. After a day or two of painful study of the printed volumes of Chemical Abstracts, I asked my supervisor's permission to conduct a computer-based search. His budget would have to pay for it. I booked an appointment with the librarian and explained my need. She needed some keywords. For my research, the most important keyword was "electrophoresis". Once we had agreed the keyword list, she logged into to the system and ran the search. "OK, when the search is complete, they [the central agency in Germany] will print out each abstract on a sheet of A4 paper and send them all here. It will be about 3 weeks."
Three weeks later, a box of 923 sheets of A4 paper arrived, each printed with the abstract of one of the search hits. As I started to look through them, I realized I had never heard of "gel electrophoresis" and that about 85% of the hits were useless for me. Imagine searching for "virus" as a biologist and not knowing about computer viruses. 922 abstracts were of no value. One was and changed the direction of my research and ultimately led to an analytical method used by thousands of researchers today. That one paper was, at first, incomprehensible to me. It took a further few weeks of reading the associated literature to understand it and realize how I could make use of it.
Imagine using Google but you only get one attempt at the search term, you don't know how many hits you will get, you have to pay for each hit and you have to wait weeks to get the results. Not only that, the results are on paper. There are no hyperlinks and you have to manually retrieve the article.
This is why I struggle to accept any excuses when people today complain about how hard it is to find information.
I fully agree with you @John Francis Miller. It is a waste of time to help people who are not ready to be helped. Helping the few genuine ones who really need help brings fulfilment to the helper
@Alan F Rawle
This is clear evidence of the need to consult expert. The tips you have given me are golden especially the free pdf website. I can imagine your joy when you found literatures in the 1980s. I am experiencing a little bit of that now. Thanks so much
Vad Pérez
I always thought that there should be a 'stupidity tax' (You're too stupid to use the instrument now. Pay a charge') on those asking obvious or trite questions (and RG is loaded with the latter that I try to avoid following). People who pay (I did write 'can afford' but this is clearly wrong) ridiculous charges for cable/satellite TV, cell 'phones, junk food, alcohol, and cigarettes won't pay for essential training or information. The expectation is that this is provided free for the life of the instrument, no matter how many people have left their organization or been transferred to another department.
Eric Nkansah Opoku
'I can imagine your joy when you found literatures in the 1980s'.
Unfortunately, the 1970's... I remember little of the 1980's...
If you can just get your mind together Then come on across to me We'll hold hands an' then we'll watch the sun rise From the bottom of the sea But first
Are You Experienced? Ah! Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have
Jimi Hendrix
Rick Manner I know the song and album well - one of the first albums I bought and then not too long followed by Axis: Bold as Love (Little Wing). Wow! That seems a long time ago, but just like yesterday in many ways...
Alan F Rawle You must be old like me. Jimi died 50 years ago - there will never be another like him.
Alan F Rawle Being old isn't perfect - but its better than the alternative.
Whilst excessive punctuation can be irritating, in the spirit of the Researchgate community I think we should try to look beyond this and help the person asking the question to get the answers they need.
While blue is superior to green, ! is far better than?. ? always indicates that your knowledge is somehow limited and you seek help, if not used rhetorically. :-) is very important and highly relevant in modern science. It indicates a cheerful and simple mind. I hope Biden wins.
Christian G Meyer 'The government you elect is the government you deserve'. Jefferson
'As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron' H L Mencken
Yes, it'll be an interesting election. I already have my mail-in ballot for the primaries. They only sent me one ballot to complete though, not the millions that some people claim would be existing...
This is an interesting post to run into! While I am not sure about the superiority of blue, I definitely have found serious problems with RG and how the system works. It does appear many on here do not have a supervisor/mentor/graduate advisor that is willing to help or able to help. And what is it with a 'Recommendation' for a wonderful contribution such as 'Following'?
Robert John Wolff
Thank you for your comment. You may find the following discussion to be interesting too:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/People_asking_questions_here_on_researchgate_often_do_not_feed_back_to_answers_at_all2
Alan F Rawle 8-)) typography of emotions, stucked button in keybord (or in the mind) or ASCII art !.!.! = |\/| C^2
Dear Alan F Rawle and Jan Schäfer yes, the good old days... In our field of research, X-ray crystal structures are very important to determine the molecular structures of new molecules. Today such an analysis can be done in one day. I still remember the 1970's where just the measurement of a crystal took 3-4 days. After that we were handed out a box with punchcards that we took to the university computer center to start the calculations which took another 3-4 weeks.
Was Einstein the First to Invent E = mc2 ?
"The great physicist was not the first to equate forms of mass to energy, nor did he definitively prove the relationship."
Tony Rothman
24 August 2015
Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/was-einstein-the-first-to-invent-e-mc2/#:~:text=According%20to%20scientific%20folklore%2C%20Albert,in%20stars%20and%20nuclear%20explosions
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