The doctoral defence is the oral examination of the doctoral thesis. While it is a major milestone for doctoral candidates, this event is often shrouded in mystery. In this article, I explore the doctoral defence from an international perspective. I have studied the format of the defence based on written testimonies as well as the literature on…

Despite shrinking newsrooms, we have more journalism choices, in part because of freelance journalists. Freelancing creates workers who are particularly adaptive and creative; skills educators want to instill in students. I interviewed and surveyed more than 50 freelance journalists in several countries, including Turkey, Egypt, Colombia, Israel,…

Introduction: We report an investigation on collaboration practices in research papers published in the most prestigious English-medium astrophysics journals. Method: We propose an evaluation method based on three numerical indicators to study and compare, in absolute terms, three different types of collaboration (international, national and…

The current article analyses the papers presented at the 2011 BELMAS Conference in order to understand the sorts of works it contained in terms of topics addressed and types of papers, as well as authorship patterns of the presenters. Based on an analysis of 57 works presented at the Conference, it was found that the typical paper was authored by…

There is an extensive literature on the productivity of universities. Little is known, however, about how different types of leaders affect a university's performance. To address this question, this paper blends quantitative and qualitative evidence. First, I establish that the best universities in the world are led by respected scholars. Next, by…

The totally unusual experience of participating in the writing of "The University and the Teachers: France, the United States, England" is recalled here by one of the co-authors. This was a collective enterprise, under the direction of Harry Judge, and the other members of the team were two American researchers, Lynn Paine and Michael…

Summarizes the subject matter presented by an American teacher visiting the University of Paris in a two-week seminar on technical writing. Identifies the following topics: style of technical writing, oral presentation of technical information, nonverbal communication during interviews, preparation of resumes, and writing for publication. (KEH)

Investigates the quantitative and qualitative evolution of debate-creating vs. accounting references in 90 French medical articles published between 1810 and 1995. Suggests that nineteenth-century French academic writing tends to be more polemical or oppositional than cooperative by contrast to its twentieth-century counterpart. Suggests that the…

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the use and importance of examining dissertations listed in scholarly journals, while focusing on a critical period of French doctoral education in historical studies. French dissertations in history were bibliometrically examined from "Revue historique," a mainstream history journal published…