何毓琦：麻省理工与哈佛博士教育之比较 + 年轻人如何写科技文章(En)

wamway

On Ph.D Education and Research (4)- MIT vs. Harvard


本文引用地址及中文翻译：http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=2768。


I spent almost my entire adult life (9/1950-2/1955, 2/1958-date) in Cambridge, MA and


received my B.S. and M.S. from MIT, and Ph.D from Harvard and taught at the latter


since 1961. The two schools are separated by less than two miles from each other.


Students from each school can take course from the other school and receive credit for


work done in the other school. In science and technology, the two schools have many


cooperative degree programs and colleagues often work together (NOTE: in the medical


science and technology they have a joint Ph.D and M.D. program and its most illustrious


graduate is David Ho, 何大一, the inventor of AIDS cocktail medicine, and foreign


member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering).


However, the two schools follow rather different educational philosophy and tradition


which are worth comparing.


MIT, being much larger in the number of students and courses, strives for guaranteeing


the high average quality of her graduates. You can be sure that a MIT graduate possesses


certain knowledge and skill and the ability to learn on his/her own. In each course, there


was always much home work, examinations and tests. You must do well on them in order


to receive a good grade. I remember when I left MIT for an industrial research job in


industry in 1955, I was well equipped with the latest in electronics and servomechanism


and was ready to tackle problems in those areas. My first boss, also an MIT Ph.D, instead


assigned me to learn all about the then nascent area of digital computers. I did not know


anything about digital computers. But MIT has prepared me well to learn on my own. As


a result, I received three patents on numerical and digital control and wrote my first paper


on the subject. The company actually established a division to commercialize the


inventions in 1958 when I decided to return to school.


Harvard, on the other hand, has a more liberal educational philosophy. While there are


heavy reading assignments, examination and tests are few. Often the entire course grade


is based on one term paper or one final exam. Ph.D qualifying examination are based on


one three hour oral examination as opposed to both extensive written and oral


examinations in the case of MIT (Note: detail regulations for qualifying exams are


determined by individual departments and many vary. I am only talking about general


principles here). Thus, in short, MIT wants to make sure that you KNOW certain things


while Harvard takes a more "lassie faire" attitude. A smart but lazy student can get


through Harvard by taking easy courses, work with not-so-strict advisers, and generally


have a lot of free time to do as s/he pleases. Given my Chinese upbringing and the MIT


training, I first found the Harvard approach rather un-nerving and un-settling. I often


wonder how can a student in this and that area not know such-and-such topic. Sometimes,


I even question how can this student qualify to receive a Ph.D degree from Harvard. But


over the years, I began to change my mind and see the wisdom and necessity of both


approaches to education and excellence. Being a volume producer, MIT has the


responsibility of graduating a large number of qualified students for society. Rigorous


testing and regulations on what students need to know are necessary to guarantee the


standard of her product. Harvard has a much smaller effort can aim differently (Note: the


entire school of applied science and engineering at Harvard is only one third the size of


the electrical engineering department of MIT). Harvard takes a more liberal attitude, does


not attempt to compete with MIT and cover every subject in applied science and


engineering. She encourages her students to range widely and take courses in other


departments, such as economics and philosophy. In a sense, she wants her good students


free to explore on their own and not to take the easiest way out. To put it very roughly,


MIT aims for high average and a narrow variance for her products while Harvard also


aims for a high average but permit more variance in hers. One partial evidence of this can


be seen in the number of Nobel prizes and high tech companies nurtured by Harvard vs.MIT


respectively – both have excellent records but Harvard is ahead in one category while


MIT in the other. By this I do not mean one approach is better than the other. A great country needs both. And there


is no one best educational philosophy but one common endeavor


– to educate you so that you can learn on your own and to be able to pose


problems rather than just solve problems.  It is also worth noting both


MIT and Harvard are private institutions which means they are not subject


government regulations on what to teach, how to teach, and whom to teach.


In my earlier days of visiting China, I often complain about the excessive regulation and


quantitative vs qualitative measure in the Chinese educational and research system. But


more lately, I realize that in a developing country, the MIT approach perhaps is more


needed during the transitional phase. Without regulations and strict control, chaos and


abuse can prevail (天下大乱). As she matures and begins to ahere to the world standard


for quality, a combination of the MIT and Harvard approach can be then implemented.


This will also depends on the nature, size, and goal of the school involved (Note:


the range of quality of American higher education covers a wide spectrum ranging


from mail-order $500 ph.d. diploma mill to first rank teaching colleges to top


research public and private universities.).  
本文引用地址：http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=2768

[ 本帖最后由 wamway 于 2007-8-6 00:23 编辑 ]

wamway

原帖由 无用书生 于 2007-8-11 16:01 发表
有汉语的没

前篇有，后篇没。

无用书生

有汉语的没

wamway

On Writing a Technical Paper


There is a joke that a technical paper published in a professional journal is read on the
average by five persons – the author, the editor, and the three reviewers of the paper. This
is not far from the truth because most technical papers are difficult to understand and
follow even for the professionals. This does not even take into account the other
approximately three times of the amount rejected due to poor writing and
incomprehensibility.

Thus, if the purpose of your writing a paper is to have it accepted AND to have your
ideas widely known, then special care must be taken to write the paper. It is worth
remembering that three entiRely separate, different , and equally important tasks are:
1. having a good idea and work out the required analysis, experimentation, and
verifications.
2. devising a powerpoint presentation that can impress your audience and "sell" your
ideas.
3. write a technical paper of archival quality that will be read and referenced by
others; and in some rare instances, stand the test of time.
Most young or beginning authors consider #1 to be 90% of a technical person's effort.
Tasks #2 and #3 are considered as unpleasant and minor exercises unworthy of much
attention. When most authors undertake tasks #2 and #3, they tend to follow the recipe of
recording their stream of conscious thought – a totally self-centered experience.
However, if tasks #2 and 3 are to be accomplished successfully, the effort must be
READER- or AUDIENCE-CEDNTERED. We have discussed the "how-to" for #2
elsewhere [see
Introduction To The World Of Science For Young Scholars, Y.C. Ho, et al Tsinghua
University Press 2004]. This short article is devoted to task #3.

There are generally three types of readers for your paper. First type is the reader who
only wish to find out if the paper contains material of interest to him. A well written
abstract is what you need here. Generally, as far as transmitting contents are concerned,
short paragraphs is much more difficult than long texts (Recall here the famous quote
attributed to Samuel Johnson who apologizes for writing a long letter because he does not
have the time to write a short one.) Thus do not dismiss this as a simple task. Secondly,
there are readers who is only interested in the basic idea and/or history of the paper but
not necessarily the detail "nuts and bolts" of the paper. S/he is willing to spend sometime
reading the introductory section or two to accomplish his/her goal.  You do this using
everyday not technical language so that the maximal number of readers can follow your
text. Remember an average reader can retain the definition and meaning of only four or
five mathematical symbols at anytime . Thus use mathematics only when absolute
necessary in introductory sections and these must be repeatedly reinforced later on.
Appeal to intuition and common sense to convey the big picture here and avoid details
like the plague. The second type of reader may stop reading after the introductory
sections either because s/he got what they wanted or decided that s/he has no more
interest to read further. Ineither case, s/he will thank you for not waste his/her time which
is often the most precious resources a scholar possesses. Even if you are the third type of
reader who is interested in all the gory details, a well written introductory sections
will have properly prepared you to follow the details. A map reading metaphor is
appropriate here. If you have a clear picture of the general geography of an area in terms
of major roadway and sign posts, then it is much more difficult to get lost and easier to
follow a detail map. Several of the advices and techniques discussed in carrying out task
#2 in the above reference are also conceptually applicable for writing the introductory
sections. Finally. when you write for the third type of detail oriented reader, you still need
to differentiate important details from those that are side issues or branches of thought.
Thus, you often see a theorem or result precisely stated and its significance carefully
explained. But the proof of the theorem or the detail derivation is relegated to an
appendix. The principle to observe here is that you want the reader to follow the details in
one smooth reading without constantly pausing to think, backtracking, remembering a
particular definition several pages earlier, (or worse, to have to read another paper
referenced) and any act that interrupts the thought you want him to follow as you develop
your text.

To get a paper accepted, you must win the approval of the reviewers of your paper. They
are not willing readers of your paper. They are forced to be reader type number three.
Thus, the more you make their job easier, the better impression you will make. You may
also want to go a step beyond a reader-centered writing by becoming reviewer-centered.
Again this is discussed elsewhere in the above reference. The main point is that "walk in
other people's shoes".

Other specific comments:

o Don't over inflate your claims or over promise what is to come in your
introductions. It is bad form and often you live to regret it.
o Give proper credit and reference to others. Don't be stingy.
o Don't turn one paper into three slightly different versions of the same idea. You
can give a good presentation talk several times. But publishing essentially the same paper
several times is bad form.
o Do not submit a paper to several journals at the same time in the hope of
increasing the chance of acceptance. This is unethical and waste valuable reviewers' time
which are always in short supply. .Editors will hate you for it. Unfortunately, at least in
areas I am familiar with, Chinese authors have already acquired a bad international
reputation for doing this.
  
The discipline of mathematics has her own set of traditions and protocol for writing
mathematical papers. This note applies only to scientific and engineering type of
technical papers.

本文引用地址：http://www.sciencenet.cn/blog/user_content.aspx?id=4939