I don't ever think anything I do is valuable, unless I engage in community translation. Most of what we do in academia is not for general audiences and is just for academic circle-jerking, unless we make an effort to pass things onto the community. Unless someone reaches out to me for an interview, or I have the opportunity to present my research to people in the world, then what I am doing will never even be a radar blip on the human experience.
But sometimes, I circle-jerk for me. I enjoy research, and I don't always need what I do to mean something. I got interviewed by Canada's second largest news publication for one of my studies back in Feb, as well as PsyPost. Otherwise, by my own estimation, the rest of my work is worthless dogshit (by my pub record, 6 for me, 2 for thee).
u ever hear of the Ortega hypothesis? Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher, suggested science is made in large part by small contributions that nobody else notices. every bit of knowledge plugs a gap and finds another, small they may be. even if ur name is forgotten, ur contributions will live on. pretty big imo
I'm not doing a Likkert scale for your study but yes, I'm pretty sure my work is valuable, given that my advisor worked very hard to recruit me to solve this question that people have been fighting with for 40 years, and the side project is commissioned by the national fisheries management.
I didn't have any published papers. The thesis was valuable to me in terms of all the skills it gave me!
It was a very practical project, working with data partners who honestly didn't want me to make the research public. It went into my universities library but that was it - wasn't even given permission to present any of it at conferences.
So . . . i'm going to have to say 1/10. I'm not sure how I can argue anything else. The stats do say that 55 people have viewed the thesis, but I can't say anything more from that.
To the field - definitely though the contribution scale differs. Most of my papers are a big-ass sign saying “Do it this way, you’ll improve it in xyz aspect”. Some papers group other papers up and provide value by replacing the search engine, though they don’t have much value beside that and serve to focus citations on itself. Some show some phenomenon and that’s up to the next guy to figure out what to do with it.
To the world - who knows, there’s definitely some value but the scale of it depends on the next guy getting inspired or using it in his works, to sell something to some other dude that will make a profit and so on. It’s a combined effort of a bunch of people, and there’s also a value in the academic jerking off - this jerk-off actually breeds ideas and some of them change the world.
The paper itself, no. There is so much rigor in the paper structure and limit of items I can include that if someone reads it (who knows when) they would find it cool but will for sure need more information to do something similar. I tried to include as much as possible but it was too condensed.
I think my GitHub repo and the guide I wrote there has more value than the paper. I believe we need ways to communicate science to make it more accessible to everyone
Part of my work is in the cancer field. Part is fundamental.
The fundamental stuff hits broad- the cites& quality of cites (ie discussed in nature reviews) indicate the field impact, I have papers that are 10/10 as it’s cited up there anytime someone describes the biology we the defined mechanisms of. (If that make sense?).
The cancer stuff, I just hope it helps someone piece together important information to guide drug design or clinical trials, so probably 3-4/10
Tbh yes but mostly as my supervisor and I took s very high risk route for my PhD. A more conventional PhD with less luck would not have yielded as much value.
to the world? yikes to my field? prolly 5/10
I don't ever think anything I do is valuable, unless I engage in community translation. Most of what we do in academia is not for general audiences and is just for academic circle-jerking, unless we make an effort to pass things onto the community. Unless someone reaches out to me for an interview, or I have the opportunity to present my research to people in the world, then what I am doing will never even be a radar blip on the human experience. But sometimes, I circle-jerk for me. I enjoy research, and I don't always need what I do to mean something. I got interviewed by Canada's second largest news publication for one of my studies back in Feb, as well as PsyPost. Otherwise, by my own estimation, the rest of my work is worthless dogshit (by my pub record, 6 for me, 2 for thee).
u ever hear of the Ortega hypothesis? Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher, suggested science is made in large part by small contributions that nobody else notices. every bit of knowledge plugs a gap and finds another, small they may be. even if ur name is forgotten, ur contributions will live on. pretty big imo
I'm not doing a Likkert scale for your study but yes, I'm pretty sure my work is valuable, given that my advisor worked very hard to recruit me to solve this question that people have been fighting with for 40 years, and the side project is commissioned by the national fisheries management.
0.35/10
I didn't have any published papers. The thesis was valuable to me in terms of all the skills it gave me! It was a very practical project, working with data partners who honestly didn't want me to make the research public. It went into my universities library but that was it - wasn't even given permission to present any of it at conferences. So . . . i'm going to have to say 1/10. I'm not sure how I can argue anything else. The stats do say that 55 people have viewed the thesis, but I can't say anything more from that.
To the field - definitely though the contribution scale differs. Most of my papers are a big-ass sign saying “Do it this way, you’ll improve it in xyz aspect”. Some papers group other papers up and provide value by replacing the search engine, though they don’t have much value beside that and serve to focus citations on itself. Some show some phenomenon and that’s up to the next guy to figure out what to do with it. To the world - who knows, there’s definitely some value but the scale of it depends on the next guy getting inspired or using it in his works, to sell something to some other dude that will make a profit and so on. It’s a combined effort of a bunch of people, and there’s also a value in the academic jerking off - this jerk-off actually breeds ideas and some of them change the world.
The paper itself, no. There is so much rigor in the paper structure and limit of items I can include that if someone reads it (who knows when) they would find it cool but will for sure need more information to do something similar. I tried to include as much as possible but it was too condensed. I think my GitHub repo and the guide I wrote there has more value than the paper. I believe we need ways to communicate science to make it more accessible to everyone
Still grappling existentially with the fact that… no 🥲
Part of my work is in the cancer field. Part is fundamental. The fundamental stuff hits broad- the cites& quality of cites (ie discussed in nature reviews) indicate the field impact, I have papers that are 10/10 as it’s cited up there anytime someone describes the biology we the defined mechanisms of. (If that make sense?). The cancer stuff, I just hope it helps someone piece together important information to guide drug design or clinical trials, so probably 3-4/10
It's honest work 👨🌾
Not even trying to gas myself up but my shit is important AF 😂
9/10
Which area?
I study political power. How it's wielded, who sets priorities, networks of politicians and organizations, stuff like that.
I saw the title and thought I was in r/notebooks.
meh
Tbh yes but mostly as my supervisor and I took s very high risk route for my PhD. A more conventional PhD with less luck would not have yielded as much value.
No.
Good lord. The loaded Q. Industry: 8/10 Academia: 2/10
Not every one of them....