Writing with a foreign co-author can sometimes increase the chance of getting your work published (e.g. if you wish to get data from abroad). Do you find your co-authors at conferences, through colleagues' recommendations, Researchgate, Linkedin, Facebook and other websites, or have they found you?
Tiia, sometimes it is more difficult to collaborate with somebody IN THE SAME BUILDING :) compared to somebody THAT IS IN A DIFFERENT CONTINENT !!!
I would say that, as long as the two co-authors have the same mindset, the LOCATION makes approximately ZERO difference !!!
Currently, I am writing a research proposal with a collaborating faculty who is on vacation in India, and he Skype's in. Aside from the 12 hour difference, there is about a zero difficulty. We use Dropbox to share documents. I make a change, and he sees the changes in about 10 seconds. We have scheduled Skype meetings at 10AM, which works good for both US and India ...
Last year, I wrote a similar research proposal with a faculty member who was at a conference in Romania. We used Facetime on IPhone for the meetings. It was like he was here :)
Last month, I submitted a conference paper with a Ph.D. student that I just accepted from Iran. He is the primary author, and I am the secondary author . There was zero difficulty in co-authoring. Again, we used Skype for regular meetings, and Dropbox for sharing documents ...
Technology has advanced to the point, where the entire planet is a single click away !!! I love this :) If two people have the mindset and can co-author, location is no longer relevant parameter.
This year, for the first time I found someone to collaborate with via RG. I was answering her Socratic questions in the open, to the point where I got hooked on the topic, and so I proposed that we research and write a paper, which has now been submitted.
Academia is in second place to RG.
LI and FB are useless for finding co-authors, but I do still use (advert full) FB to keep in (social) contact with previous coauthors, found by a mix of all the old ways. About half the time I proposed a collaboration, and half the time I was proposed to!
I have found my co-authors at conferences (and published some papers already) and also discussed some ideas at this site, but we haven't submitted anything yet.
I was a bit puzzled by the question. Being in an experimental research field I look for COLLABORATORS, i.e. scientists who would be willing to participate in a joint research project. Frequently, these collaborators have infrastructures, techniques and/or expert knowledge which I lack, but are complementary so that both partners benefit from the collaboration. If the project is fruitful, it should result in joint paper(s) being published.
The idea of looking for a CO-AUTHOR implies that you're looking for a person who comes into the research process quite late - at the writing stage, and you indicate that you're doing this primarily to improve your chances of getting published!?
I've seen a few similar comments on RG where it appears that some authors feel that by offering established researchers co-authorship, they increase their chances of getting published and this is acceptable practice.
Such discussions need also to examine what criteria are deemed ethically acceptable for co-authorship. The Vancouver Convention adopted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors includes the following four criteria for authorship:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- Final approval of the version to be published; AND
- Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
http://www.icmje.org/roles_a.html
A list of criteria suggested more recently by Paul J. Friedman from the UCSC and the Council of Science Editors lists several criteria, and suggests that a person should fulfill at least 2-3 of these to be a coauthor on a paper:
CONCEPT: the idea for the research or article, framing the hypothesis
DESIGN: planning the methods to generate results
SUPERVISION: oversight and responsibility for the organization and course of the project and the manuscript
RESOURCES: dollars, equipment, space, personnel vital to the project
MATERIAL: biological materials, reagents, referred patients
DATA COLLECTION/PROCESSING: responsibility for doing experiments, managing patients, organizing and reporting data
ANALYSIS/INTERPRETATION. responsibility for making sense of and presenting the results
LITERATURE SEARCH. responsibility for this necessary function
WRITING. responsibility for creating all or a substantive part of the manuscript
CRITICAL REVIEW. reworking the manuscript for intellectual content before submission, not just spelling and grammar checking
OTHER. for novel contributions
http://openwetware.org/wiki/Authorship
Perhaps, I'm overreacting to your question, because perhaps you mean to ask "how to find collaborators?", but if you (and others) are entertaining the thought of recruiting co-authors (for whatever reason) at the stage when the research is being written up to be submitted to a journal, I'd say that's far too late in the intellectual process to warrant co-authorship. A person who only helps with writing a paper deserves acknowledgements, not co-authorship.
I do not wish to find co-authors to finish (polish) my papers, and I'm not interested in just adding somebody's name to increase the chance of publication (although I've heard that some people do that). I am interested in finding people who can contribute to the paper in terms of data collection, analysis and other important ways.
In my experience, getting a foreign co-author (or any co-author at all), by itself, does not in any way increase the chance of getting my work published. In my career, I published several tens of papers, mostly as a single author, and perhaps two or three dozen using my home address, either with an academic affiliation as a secondary address (a formal requirement by some of the fellowships or employments I was holding at the time, or a honorary associateship with some or another institution that costs nothing and implies nothing on either part), or more often no academic affiliation visible on the paper itself or to the journal editors. It just does not matter. Having a foreign co-author or academic co-author does not matter, either. If the MS is good, it will be published regardless.
If this co-author can significantly contribute to the research project and/or paper, on the other hand, things change. This scenario might include a special competence I don't have, and/or access to facilities and materials not available to me, and/or a substantial contribution to writing the paper.
So far, I have chosen co-authors only among people I personally know and worked with. I made a few attempts to get co-authors I had never met, with scarce success. Apparently, their commitment to devote a sufficient amount of time to the study/paper was substantially lower than I usually found among personal acquaintances.
I used less stringent criteria when choosing authors for a book I was editing, and contacted several of them I only knew based on their earlier papers. I factored a waning commitment by authors into the project, and as expected I received final manuscripts from about 40 of the 60-odd authors who initially accepted to send a contribution. I don't know whether a dropout rate of 1/3 of the authors on a two- or three-year book project can be regarded as typical, or whether you should expect a similar dropout rate from co-authors you only met briefly or not at all.
Finally, you should consider whether the risk of a co-author causing a project to be substantially delayed or fail is worth taking. For instance, can you afford to waste a year or more because your co-author decides he/she has something better or more urgent to do for a while? Can you afford to let a potential paper you might have been able to publish alone (even with a smaller impact) becoming "lost" in limbo because he/she simply stops replying to your e-mail?
There are risks in co-authoring with somebody you have never met, or even heard of before. I recommend a formal agreement to co-author.
Dear Tiia,
What are your research interest? We can collaborate for something. As Judie have explained a very good path.
My area is international business, and I am especially interested in internationalization processes, so I am interested in case study and survey data on internationalization of firms from different countries.
All these ways are good. But
the very question for me is how to maintain a strong contact and to finally realize the paper with not well-known potential co-authors.
@Cédric: You need to seek co-workers with a similar interests. You must provide complementary skills and always be committed and enthusiastic to maintain the workflow. Put up your research question on ResearchGate as bait. Look at who nibbles at the bait. Quality answers will indicate interested posters, who you can approach to do work with.
@Enrico: I do admit that it is easier to put pressure on a colleague who is forced to look you in the eyes every day in the common room than to put pressure on somebody you have never met!
Tiia,
I can support you in data collection from India and in data analysis also. As I am good in the statistical procedure.
Share the idea of paper at [email protected]
There are two ways:
1. Go to international conferences and find the authors there.
2. You are already on Research Gate, you can find many people who share the same research interests as you and maybe some of them are pros. in the same field as you. This is the fastest way for you.
The first thing is to share a common interest. At the Organization for Tropical Studies or OTS we have about 55 academic and research member institutions. What we do is generate interaction opportunities to foster co-authorships. OTS focuses on tropical research in Costa Rica and South Africa; although we have members from Mexico and Australia also. The most difficult aspect of this collaboration is the identification of funds to execute a project.
I recommend a sincere collaboration, on a topic of common or complementary interests and expertise. Best to meet foreign collaborators through conferences, then research exchanges, and SHARING the research. Many granting agencies in Canada and abroad support such foreign collaboration opportunities. I question the ethics of foreign co-authors simply for the sake of "international authorship", without the sincere international collaboration on the research topic.
Research Gate and PUBMED are dedicated to connect scientific world in every topic. You must read and go to congress. Do not be ashamed to ask any question to your peers .It is a pleasure to answer questions because it is a way to open your,and our knowledge.
@Ian, up to what point You have goti in editing your book " How to do Research: Todays Tools and Tips " ? This source might have some interesting and valuable answers for many questions asked here and all over RG.
Good luck!
Ljubomir Jacic
@Tiia,
is there a new incentive in Estonia - are you asked to have co-authors from your authorities? Or this is a hoax?
This is not a hoax or an incentive: it's a problem that Estonia is not as 'hot' as a country as e.g. China, so, it is not easy to get case study papers (in my field: international business) about Estonia published as the editors will not believe that such an article would interest a wide audience: even if I find something that differs from the mainstream findings, people will stil lask 'so what? maybe Estonia is just a special case as the population is only 1.3 million?'. I have written about China with my former PhD student who is Chinese, and I have seen that it is sometimes easier to get published if I write about China.
I see. thanks, Lithuania is just 2x bigger in the population, and the same small and dull country for editors :(
@Ljubomir, I am nearly finished editing: :-) I am busy sorting the references out. :-(
@Tiia,
Tell me your idea of research. We can explore it further...
Tiia, sometimes it is more difficult to collaborate with somebody IN THE SAME BUILDING :) compared to somebody THAT IS IN A DIFFERENT CONTINENT !!!
I would say that, as long as the two co-authors have the same mindset, the LOCATION makes approximately ZERO difference !!!
Currently, I am writing a research proposal with a collaborating faculty who is on vacation in India, and he Skype's in. Aside from the 12 hour difference, there is about a zero difficulty. We use Dropbox to share documents. I make a change, and he sees the changes in about 10 seconds. We have scheduled Skype meetings at 10AM, which works good for both US and India ...
Last year, I wrote a similar research proposal with a faculty member who was at a conference in Romania. We used Facetime on IPhone for the meetings. It was like he was here :)
Last month, I submitted a conference paper with a Ph.D. student that I just accepted from Iran. He is the primary author, and I am the secondary author . There was zero difficulty in co-authoring. Again, we used Skype for regular meetings, and Dropbox for sharing documents ...
Technology has advanced to the point, where the entire planet is a single click away !!! I love this :) If two people have the mindset and can co-author, location is no longer relevant parameter.
@Rahul: I am interested in internationalization, especially de- and re-internationalization of firms from different countries: case studies and survey data. I need export data by years by countries together with reasons why firms exited and re-entered these countries.
Comment on Vitaly's statement : "you need to have something that others do not."
I think this is the reason, why it is very useful to have connections outside your usual circle (like, your own university, etc ...) International connections are no exception ...
Since multi-disciplinary collaborations create much more exciting research projects, it becomes very difficult to find the right collaborators ... Expanding your boundaries beyond your usual circle could prove incredibly resourceful.
I collaborate with many different disciplines in our university, but, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea of collaborating way outside this network, or, internationally, as long as they are completing a missing piece in my research group ...
Going back to the original question Tiia brought up, I usually identify potential candidates, and start a nice and scholar conversation and understand if there is a match in research interests ... If there is, the conversation expands beyond that.
Great input, Tolga! I absolutely agree that location should not matter. While attending conferences abroad, I've often felt that connection with people from various backgrounds - a connection based on interests (general and research), character (and most probably instinct) which is not bound by country of origin, gender or age. It is very funny when you find some people are attending the same sessions as you (in case of parallel talks) and you share the same opinion on a talk/presenter.
Sometimes you are learning something you think you don't need but that accidental information later happens to be of great use. Makes you wonder whether there are accidents in life and if randomness is anything but a higher order.
I have been helped (finding papers which I found important for my research; I had an article proofread for free and with no strings attached) by researchers I met at conferences and via LinkedIn. I think it can happen through any channel. They are just a medium, the important thing is what you are doing there - joining resourceful topics and pages, sharing papers, links, opinions rather than just adding connections, photos, etc.
Dear Tiia! Dear all contributors!
Regarding my own (and my colleagues') experiences I would recommend you to find money to get to an important int'l conference and then try to contact as many authors, that attracted your attention, as possible. Then the things will proceed by them own.
Contacting a person blindly (e.g. by e-mail) before having a full contact (e.g. on a conference) is a rarely successful option.
A possible hint: Try making a State-of-the-Art review paper and properly comment the achievements of other authors. Such a paper is usually read by a broad audience and people (discussed authors) may readily contact you by themselves …
A lot of good connections!
Boris
Dear Tolga, i like your comments on communication technology develop and use. However, this method is useful into universities and research centers with open and free management form; Into ones under centralized and bureaucratic control, this method through media tools couldn't be very useful;
Vitaly, it happens to me too but negatively, so be aware of enigmatic or perplexing neighbors of banquet table....it is not usually funny..
Yes i understand you, at 99% it is a pleasure to meet random neighbors, generally discussions are open as people do not know each others and do not have any prejudgment; generally people enjoy very much banquets and make good contacts. But the random1% rest could hold some enigma....It was my unique experience in such case, and it happened to me may be randomly
A good way to meet co-authors is in International Scientific Conferences related to your working field.
Conference banquets are really good place to get contact. Fully agree.
Not only the banquets, also the coffe breaks and the conference meetings!
Tiia's original question really brought up two questions :
1) How do you find co-authors internationally ?
2) does it increase your chance of being published ?
================
For (1), what I do is, be aware of the people in my field, and follow their work, and send a "starter" email and chit chat about their work. If you get zero response, this is a good indication that, (s)he is not open to collaboration ... or, may be not such a fan of email concept !!! Of course, you can connect with that person at a conference, but, your target "collaborator" might not be at that specific conference you are going to. Besides, conferences could cost a lot of money to go to, and a lot of your time. Email is free and instant ! I don't think a proper email will weaken the "personal touch" aspect ... Sometimes, the connection starts with an email and you say "Oh, I will see you at such and such conference anyway ..." Good relationships do not happen in a few days, it could be a six month cycle to turn an initial email into a collaboration on a paper, and may be a year on a book ... If not more ...
======================
While part of the answer to (2) might be field-dependent, I think, in general, what matters is that, the quality of the paper is inline with the requirements of the conference, journal, or the book ... Also, it would depend completely on whether the conference is DOUBLE0BLIND, or SINGLE-BLIND. If it is single-blind, you can see the author names, and if we had to be honest in answering this question, a reviewer from the same country might sympathize a co-author from the same country. But, this is possibly a few percent difference, not enough to turn a REJECT into an ACCEPT.
Another reason why the answer to (2) could be YES is that, since it is expensive to go to a conference internationally, your co-author (from that nationality) might allow you to publish and (s)he could be the one presenting. This is actually not hypothetical. It really happens to us all the time. I have Chinese and Indian collaborators, and although I might not have the research funds to go to one of these countries typically, my collaborators could present the paper at a conference in, say, India, which makes the paper happen for all of us ! In fact, I went to a conference in Turkey last year, and presented a paper for my research team while visiting my family in Turkey ! You plan your vacations around the conference schedule :) Unfortunately, most conferences require you to be physically present to publish your work ...
Also depends on the field of your scientific activity. biologist (especially field working biologist) perhaps could be rarely get by sending chit-chat e-mail. Couple of beer work better in this firld :)
I remember finding interesting people to work with, through my critics on Amazon.
The many ways to get in touch with authors:
1. Writing to current researchers in the area (obtained from recent publications)
2. Contacting people of research groups and society groups in similar domain
3. Projecting a valid point or attentive punch line for grabbing attention
4. Use linked list mechanism to extend your friends contacts
5. Try to add credibility factor to your collaboration proposal or work for better results.
Good luck for hunting.
Djamel, very interesting point !!! I agree 100% !!! I always compared the adviser-student relationship to a MARRIAGE. I have seen quite a few people agree ... Marriage could go either way ... Co-authorship is very similar .. TECHNICAL part plays a role only to a certain point ... if the personalities are not a match, something will eventually go wrong ! And, the MATCH should be carefully defined here too. Sometimes, a very organized person COMPLETEs a less-organized, but much more creative person, and the co-authorship of two very creative and UNorganized people can be a disaster, even if the publication content is excellent: for example, if neither co-author was paying attention to critical deadlines, and the team angered the publisher ...
That will also, do the job, but the scope of co-operation will be considerably low.
@Vitaly
are you sure that in biomedical research there is much to do in such way? I certainly would like number of my publications rise in the way, when someone makes additional papers from already published.
and, of course - personal contacts are very good as a way to get co-author; you ask friends of your friends, they confirm you are a good guy. It works.
scientific forums and groups like Researchgate and through contacting the authors of the papers you find yourself that they are clever.
Scientific forums are sure a great oportunity to meet other potential co-authors. Scientific conferences also!
I have worked closely with fellow scientists based outside my country on many projects and we do have many publications under joint authorship too. I feel that there has to be a common meeting ground to find people who have similar working interests, and are willing to collaborate in research and its subsequent publication. International conferences or workshops are the best platforms to meet such people. In addition, in some networked internationally collaborative projects, the local scientists/ authors do get an opportunity to meet, interact and work jointly, resulting in joint publications in future.
However, many a times it has been observed that foreign research collaborators despite getting adequate support from you, shy away from sharing authorship with local partners, and this in long run discourages genuine collaborative work culture.
Contacting your reviewers, if you may get their names from the blind review (sometimes is enough to look at "File" "Properties"
I am amazed with your ideas. Highly knowledgeable. My experience of co-auhorship is rather humble and restricted to a coleague who happens to be a Mexican researcher, a very good Arquitect and an expert in Mathematics (meaning a professor who trains or backs professors in Maths). Perhaps, the secret of our relationship is that we are a little bit crazy and working in opposite fields. Everytime we start talking, I take notes. I value our encounters very much and I try to learn as much as I am able to from him. Immediately my brain starts jumping, I raise questions, He answers them. I link things and so on. Afterwards, I land our ideas and start working, revising, discarding together.
On my side, I am interested in the relationship between Science and Art, Word and Image, Literature and Paintings, so you can imagine that I am always in the verge of finding connections between various hard sciences zones and Humanities as well. The type of analysis I always approach must be very alive, interactive, related to things to be solved out, conceived or created. The need to look throughfully into things feeds my brain. I don't know how to say it. in English.
Once in a while I publish papers with my students. I like doing it when they are genuinely interested in learning how to dig into things, specially with those interested in my Projects.
Well! ResearchGate certainly provides the best solution as to how to search for a co-author.
I agree with Linas, contacting reviwers is a very good strategy
Look for researchers in your topic in the net and see what S(h)e is doing. Contact him/her if you have an idea for collaborating.
May I profit of this interesting and useful dialog to express my deep interest in REAL collaborative research on humanistic studies (politics, economics, ethics, management, anthropologics etc.)? Write me at FB (messages): www.facebook.com/ liviu.drugus Thank you!
@Liviu,
and what for the persons, not using Facebook? I think, that really subscribing and using all the media available will leave you without time to scientific research. RGates takes some time every day - but this the only media I am using.
Life has its ways of bringing us opportunities. We just have to believe, be patient and follow our interests. Sometimes opportunities come even when we are not actively looking for them.
Realistically, though, I think that research status (being a student opposed to a stable post, e.g. prof. ) and country of origin are problematic in a potential relationship with co-authors, and there are few networks which encourage peer-to-peer contacts among young scientists, not to mention the perceived feeling of competition and mistrust. I think there are still empty niches for social networks if they would like to attract that audience -- research networking for future publication and other joint projects, mentoring schemes (student - prof; industry-academia). I hope to see some networks going in this direction in the near future as well as some kind of pre-/post-conference follow-up online networks.
Liviu and Linas
The two tools are a good way. In fact ResearchGate can be used in a positive way as a kind of facebook for researchers.
I have found that young researchers frequently send messages asking for advice. ResearchGate is not exactly like Facebook, not at all!
Hi Tiia,
Collaborators not always make the work easier. Sometime they make it more complicated. Especially when you don’t know them. I wouldn’t start a collaboration unless I really need the guy. So if you need somebody for a particular reason you may find him from his articles.
Finding new foreign coauthors becomes easy if one meets them at week-long professional conventions. There one can connect with foreign-born minds and recognize elective affinities. True, collaborators can complicate the common project, but this happens no matter the birthplace of said collaborators. My own early professional affiliation with the Seminar of Spanish and Spanish-American Philosophy at the University of Salamanca (Spain) opened me to a (philosophical) horizon which did not exist outside Spain. When I began my professional career, Hispanic philosophy was nowhere recognized, and I had to study Hispanic letters as well (which in itself was a delight). Hence I had access to a largely unexplored discipline, which led to many collaborations mainly because I was a non-Spaniard. At the time, such useful intellectual institutions as ResearchGate did not exist. No, I recommend making the effort to travel abroad in the search for possible collaborators.
Yes very recently Research gate helped me collaborate with One researcher from Pakistan. I will vote for Research Gate, LinkedIn ....
@Saumend, agree! That is exactly what I have said in first answer of this thread! Yes, RG! Also, I am gonna be very honest, @Amir's contemplation of the unknown co-author is very close to my point of view.
Every way of contacting other author is a good way and RG, Linkedln and even facebook can help keeping scientist in contact.
I think first you suggest a topic.
Ask who is interested to write a paragraph or two
Initiate a leadership role in writing the paper
Agree where the paper could be published.
Agree on components and who will write what.
As a Leader compile and finalize paper and publication.
Searching for an author who writes research article of your interest and getting connected with technology and /or meeting in a conference with those person could be one way of finding co-author.
Dear Tiaa
I think one should take it one step back and realize that coauthors are collaborators before they appear as authors, so the question is how to find good collaborators. I find inspiration for collaboration through other peoples work, which I meet in publications, conferences and the internet. Most scientists are happy to get response on their work, so writing an email to discuss a particular topic with a potential collaborator is often the way it starts...and if the discussion is good and constructive, a collaboration may be the next step.
When this is said, I think is also worth mentioning, that co-authors may also appear, which are not really collaborators, but are included in the author list for other reasons, e.g. for increasing the chance of publication as you mention. I find this and similar practices wrong and strongly support that we establish a system to record each authors true contributions. The "contributions" feature in ResearchGate could be used for this. I refer you to my commentary on this topic:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231225109_It_is_time_for_full_disclosure_of_author_contributions
Article It is time for full disclosure of author contributions
Thanks for the question and Thanks for all valuable comments. I wish all of you a Happy New Year 2014.
Possibility of the distance papers writing is difficult and depends on discipline. I did it, but I know my co-authors before. Timely task fullfuilling is critical. You can find valuable co-authors here (RG), but you should very careful analyze their publications within last five years, impact to the science, position, etc. Due to task complexity in the case of selected research work it may be impossible. Easier is find authors of single chapter for edited monography - it is more popular., I did it as chapters author before.
Dear Tiia
If you are asking the question of co=authoring I assume that you have an idea about the topic you want to address. I would suggest that you first look for the people who published/researched in the same field or around it and contact them officially with your proposal. Conferences is another way to initiate a collaboration. But in all cases I would not see a fruitful collaboration with someone whom you have never heard of. most of my research is done either with local colleagues or with researchers I met in conferences. I am right now preparing a proposal for a research that I share with people from UK, Iran and India. All co-researchers I have met them in several conferences... for our working sessions we use dropbox, googletalk, or even facebook.
Best of luck!
A recent collaboration was with a former university student of mine and a fella I met at a conference who liked fishing as much as me. The point is, creativity. Never know what might work in a specific incidence -- keep all doors open. Good wishes....
Research Gate is one of the avenue to advertise your work and at the same time ask for those who are interested in the topics to indicate interest. Currently, I have been able to link up with a co-author outside my country through Research Gate. Conferences can also help researchers to identify those who are working in the same areas of concern then collaboration can be established. Browsing the internet for work that had been done in the area of interest can also help author to identify collaborators and co-authors. People working within the Faculty can contact each other through personal contact, friends and mentors.
dear Tolga Soyata · , no body is good to his neighbour
dear all , some of the tips below :
1.If
1.If you had worked in a lab., and you know people take their help and co author them
2.If your student is doing PDF/Phd and through him make sure whether they do really good work and take their help and co author
(In India for uni accreditation this is a must - try after ascertaining their credentials
Dear all confences are to make friends , acquaintances - not co authors- i co authored more than 40 papers with in india as i know their work and credentials
Dear Prof. Muralidharan, in the Humanities my experience has been the contrary: all my collaborations with foreign co-authors have emerged out of conferences that I have attended, either directly or indirectly. For us there is no such thing as collaboration in labs.
Certainly through conferences you saw them , talked to them and co authored - after agreement , you have co authored - good
Collaboration with foreign co-authors gave a radically new slant to my research. Previously I had confined my work to Hispanic literature. After attending a conference with foreign researchers in the 1970s, I began concentrating on Hispanic philosophy, an orientation which remained in my writing until only recently. For this reason I would advice new researchers in the Humanities to attend conferences abroad.
@Nelson: advice = noun: advise = verb.
VS gave a good suggestion. I suggest that you follow his words of wisdom to help you to avoid the mistake.
Ian, my misprint. You advise and suggest that I hire a secretary to edit my answers on Researchgate. Very good advice and a superb suggestion.
Ganesh, those are fine ideas that you submitted. At conferences organized abroad, participants submit their papers in the form of proceedings. I find these useful contributions in which the author can indeed take pride.
@Tiia, here I am again! After re-reading the many responses under this perfect thread, I must quote part of @Tolga's discussion: "Technology has advanced to the point, where the entire planet is a single click away !!! I love this :) If two people have the mindset and can co-author, location is no longer relevant parameter." Very true!
I may be considered old-fashioned, but ,regardless to the available technology, direct contact between future associates is something I would prefer, if any chances appear!
:)))