October 21, 2009 – 7:04 am
While there have been some recent updates to the wiki devoted to journal turn-around times and experiences, it’s been largely neglected of late.
I thought a plug on scatterplot might reinvigorate it. Certainly some of our readers have had good, bad, or ugly experiences with a journal or two – particularly post-summer.
September 21, 2009 – 11:03 am
I’m on the committee to select the book UNC will recommend that incoming students read and then discuss during orientation. The selection has been controversial before, and sometimes not, and I enjoyed the committee last time. However, I’m concerned that too often we pick pretty straightforward narrative journalism about some case that doesn’t really challenge [...]
Given the depressing “What is your school doing?” post, I thought this would be a good place to get the word out. There will be at least one job in the employment bulletin job bank this fall. We’ve got a tenure-track, open rank, faculty position that we’ll be hiring for.
The catch?
(at least for people like me).
Opened my email this morning to find this new (and in my opinion, horribly argued) report from the American Sociological Association, about the sociology job market. (EDIT – OLD REPORT).
Spoiler – their conclusion: “These findings suggest a relatively good market for new sociology PhDs.”
Their justification for this statement? There were more assistant professor jobs posted [...]
Like most of you, I’m sure, I write a fair number of recommendation letters for students. The vast majority are for internal programs (usually study abroad) because such things abound at this university. However, I still write a number of letters for fellowships, summer programs, graduate schools, and so forth.
Never ever have I been asked [...]
The time has come to plan my syllabus for fall, 2009, graduate social theory. Last semester I screwed it up (yes, for those of you in the class, I admit it!) — I assigned a newish book I hadn’t read, by a reputable author, which turned out to be awful. The class was sporting about [...]
When I was in grad school, someone I knew submitted an article to ASR with a cover letter suggesting a few reviewers who might be good for the article. The rejection came back in a snide letter noting that it was reject even though it was sent to some of “your hand-picked reviewers.” It strongly [...]
November 12, 2008 – 1:21 pm
Here are some of the things that annoy me in papers, presentations, etc., and that I’m apt to edit out or mark on manuscripts/papers I’m reviewing/grading:
Comprise vs. compose
Split infinitives
Use of “they” as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun
Use of the second person, just about ever
Use of “natural” or “human nature” as (implicit or explicit) cause of outcomes
Which [...]
September 23, 2008 – 2:23 pm
Inside Higher Ed has an article on “lecture capture,” an automated way of podcasting class lectures so that students can download them at their convenience. The article reports that a new survey shows that students prefer to have access to this technology, and it shares some faculty concerns that podcasting lectures diminishes the quality of [...]
September 22, 2008 – 8:45 pm
Whew. I found myself in uncharted territory this afternoon. On my way to picking my son up from school, I heard Newt Gingrich interviewed on NPR about his opposition to the bailout, expressed in his recent post on the National Review blog. And I agreed with him. Ugh! The Newt Gingrich, the one of Contract [...]
September 11, 2008 – 10:00 am
I was in my first semester teaching at UNC. I had a young child – about to turn 1 – at home. I was in my office early, preparing for class (SOCI 10, Introduction to Sociology), when Ted Mouw came to my door. “Hey, did you hear, a plane hit the World Trade Center.”
September 4, 2008 – 2:42 pm
In case you’re not seeing a pattern, or the irony, there’s a close-up…
August 21, 2008 – 11:26 am
The reporter from last week just called back. First, his analysis of disparities in a particular crime revealed no difference, so the story is not going forward. Just like academics? Second, he’s got something new going and is asking me questions about how to run his copy of SPSS (!) a program I don’t use [...]
August 12, 2008 – 10:38 am
Like many relatively young sociologists I am an occasional, even frequent, user of Stata. While I have been assured- over and over again- by older and wiser heads that SAS is the way to go, I have generally found that Stata serves my needs rather well. It has been, as I have remarked before, quite [...]
