In article <v03102800b1c8dfe816e4@[130.127.121.123]>,
Caroline J. Walker <walkerc at CLEMSON.EDU> wrote:
It was amusing that some posters in
>the somewhat pro-hazing side are considering themselves misinterpreted and
>at the same time posing the question of "shouldn't I tell my student when
>they are wrong or if they are lazy?". This is a classic defense of hazing
>(I live in SC so we get to hear this stuff a lot) by making it sound like
>the only alternative to hazing is to never reprimand or criticise!
I think this is the point: both sides are being misinterpreted, although
I don't think it's deliberate on anyone's part. I don't think anyone's
advocating "hazing," even though there are, as you say, some similarities
to the arguments. At the same time, no one is advocating rubber stamp
PhDs or hand-holding, either.
I don't have any special authority on the subject, but it seems to me
that common ground can be found in a consensus that "constructive
criticism" is a good thing, and "hazing" is not. What often surprises
me is the wide range of what people think is "constructive" and the
complete lack of any kind of road map or rules among scientists to help
people out in this regard.
I find this a rather remarkable contrast with the somewhat limited
experience I've had in fiction-writing workshops. There, I have observed
a (relatively) clear consensus emerging on what is "constructive
criticism" and what is not. Specifically:
1. Criticize the work, not the person. I.e. "this story was muddled,"
or "this experiment was uninformative." Not "you are lazy."
2. Be specific. I.e. "On p. 2, your character Ginger does not sound
like a grandmother when she says 'Hey duude!'" not "you obviously
don't know a thing about people over 50." And in science, "you didn't
show whether the receptors were definitively expressed only on neurons
so you can't rule out an indirect effect via the glia with that
experiment," not "I don't believe your results because you did a lousy
job with the tissue culture.
and finally,
3. Be constructive. I.e. "You need to repeat that experiment
using the Qiagen kit because it might yield more DNA with that plasmid,"
not "You can't even get plasmid preps to work".
It seems to me that remembering just these three rules would virtually
eliminate hazing without getting rid of constructive criticism or
turning it into hand-holding.
Karen
