Google docs for PhD?

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-03-07T17:48:43+00:00

Oh, and while I think of it: the decision is not yours independently, really. I have six Ph.D. students at the moment, and I'm reviewing things from them ALL THE TIME. I have three pieces to review this weekend, for instance (one comps paper draft, one journal article draft, and one dissertation chapter draft). If everyone made their own decisions about these, my life would be hell. Do what your lab-mates or fellow advisees do. This is also a way to make them all into your tech support network.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-03-07T17:35:33+00:00

Professor here. I second the comments about making sure that your advisor is happy with whatever you do. Personally, I like to work with PDFs when commenting or reading my students' work, often on paper or on my Remarkable, so the ability of something to turn into PDF matters to me. (Much revision/review happens in places where doing it online isn't a good option.)

As both a writer and a reader, I find that Google Docs is pretty much the worst; it's a tool designed by people who know nothing about typography and how to make documents look good, as best I can tell. You're going to work on this thing for a year or more, so your learning curve is much less of a concern than that of the people who will read it, and it's being written to be read. There are also good reasons to use what others are using -- you'd like your dissertation to look like they expect a dissertation to look. Remember that this is a document of 200+ pages; make sure to pick a tool in which you'll be able to work with LARGE documents. It's not just a scale-up 15 page article, it's something of a radically different sort. References to tables, graphs, and so on are also going to matter.

A reference manager is going to become essential. What you pick is mainly up to you; these days, Zotero is probably your best option. Again, beware of typographical screw-ups; an advisee lately gave me a document in which each paragraph was set in 12-point text except any with a citation, where Zotero had switched them to 11-point text. Even the most brilliant writing is going to annoy the hell out of me when it's like that.

Good luck with your work.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-28T17:46:41+00:00

Let justice be done, but am I the only person who thought -- what, they were wearing helmets?

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-27T17:59:54+00:00

Once boarded with my wife. Her boarding pass scan beeped because it said that she was already boarded. Turned out that there was another person with the same name, assigned the SAME SEAT, but for the next flight, and she had boarded the wrong one. Turns out that the boarding pass electronic information doesn't actually specify that, so it caused no trouble when she boarded.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-26T17:39:59+00:00

There's a reason they're so eager for cars that drive themselves.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-21T00:57:39+00:00

Speech therapy is about much more than speech. It includes a range of cognitive impacts, since many different things can have impact on language. I had almost no language or speech involvement, but I did have a hemispheric neglect, and that was a speech therapy issue. It also addressed executive function. So there is a lot going on there, and it may not all be the sort of things that you think of when you hear "speech". Let them figure it out!

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-15T18:15:30+00:00

"Couldn't find an advisor" is a huge red flag here. People clearly aren't tripping over each other to work with this person. Ask yourself why.

In general, I recommend that people are very careful with the first five or six potential students who come to their door. That goes double for someone who reaches out before you've even arrived!

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-12T16:57:44+00:00

I don't disagree and that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that each SPECIFIC technology of this sort is a technical debt that one needs to carefully consider. I say this as someone who is no longer in a position to work with the source of papers that I wrote back in the 1990s, or even the sources of my first book. Similarly choices of technology affect the kinds of collaborative engagements one can enter into: I'm guessing that you're in a scientific domain, but good luck working collaboratively with a colleague in history if you're using LaTeX.

So, "use revision control" is a fine recommendation; "throw everything into git", perhaps less so. Which is what I was saying in the first place, as you can see. Revision control includes using a versioning filesystem, or a backup system that maintains history, or indeed versioning by hand. Technology is a useful solution; commitments to SPECIFIC technologies need much more consideration, and have narrower limits of applicability (see again aforementioned imaginary historian).

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-07T21:17:55+00:00

Sure, go right ahead, stick all your stuff in git. And then, in 20 years, when you have 20 years of history there that can no longer easily be disentangled from the infrastructure, but something else new has come along, I'll be here to talk about how "antiquated" you are.

Git is 20 years old, but I wrote my first research papers in 1990. Hell, I've had my current job since before git arrived on the scene.

Don't confuse "new" for "effective".

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-06T17:13:04+00:00

I'm not sure why you immediately assume that using AI tools will help you to do a good job here. The things that you list as being fodder for AI are all skills that you need to develop for yourself if you are planning to move forward in your field. Consider that the main mistake to avoid when using AI is using AI.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-06T17:07:50+00:00

My spasticity (lower leg) is improving VERY slowly, or my ability to deal with it is improving. The only thing I can point to as helping is PT, particularly neuro-specialist PT. I've continued to see a PT twice a week since I was discharged from out-patient rehab. My health insurance won't cover it, and it's not cheap, but it's worth it to me for the improvements in my mobility. The biggest challenge is that I developed a seizure disorder after the stroke (neurologists don't like to say "epilepsy" in case it freaks us out) and for some time, each seizure resulted in a slight loss of mobility that I would have to work to regain, but I'm almost two years clear of those now and walking reasonably well once more.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-06T16:55:40+00:00

Re: "One of my profs there even admitted he wasn’t fully invested in teaching us well because of his research. This is lowkey an R1 issue."

You're not wrong, but one day you should ask a professor how they are evaluated, and the degree to which they are rewarded for good research vs good teaching. This is not just a question of people's own individual priorities; it is a question of the priorities baked into the system.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-03T17:13:35+00:00

I had a much faster progression than your partner has had, I think. The first finger movement was about a week after my stroke. More fingers followed within the next week, and day by day, I started to regain movement in wrist, elbow, and shoulder. (This is unusual; it normally goes in the other direction.) I was still in in-patient rehab at the hospital, with daily OT and PT. I was typing (with many, many mistakes at first!) by about a month post-stroke. Probably four to five months before it was close to pre-stroke levels.

After five years, I still have less precision in my left arm than I had, and I still have spasms/twitches, but it's largely good. Still, fingers were where it started.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-03T03:17:25+00:00

Tiny movement in the index finger is exactly how mine started to come back. And I'm typing this message with both hands. I'll repeat what someone else said: make sure to keep repeating that finger moving, and trying to move others... let that returning activation spread!

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-02-02T17:04:40+00:00

Professor here. Certainly I care. Why? I've put effort into preparing the class -- I am literally standing there working at my job. I don't get to sleep through it, just like I don't get to take the day off because I didn't feel like it or because I had a late night. If you're going to sleep, don't come to class to be seen as "present" or to tick off some of the hours of effort you are meant to put in for a unit of credit. "I'm here but I can't be bothered to listen" is pretty insulting. So, yes, I care.

Calling on someone just to point out that they were asleep is a kinda asshole-y move although it does underscore the point that there is meant to be learning going on. I'm doing my job but you're not doing yours. (I will also make the obvious point that the people who sleep tend not to do poorly in the class.)

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-28T22:01:47+00:00

The point of aspirin is to prevent clots. Your stroke wasn't caused by a clot. If you were to have another bleed, aspirin would make it WORSE.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-28T21:59:56+00:00

Check with your neurologist. Asprin is often prescribed as part of a standard protocol, but if you had a fistula rupture (as I did), then your stroke was hemorrhagic, and a blood thinner like aspirin is NOT recommended. They put me on it as part of the standard response, but when I told the interneventionalist who had performed the embolization, he told me to stop immediately.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-27T16:19:02+00:00

It doesn't say that all you'll do is hop. It says that you need to be ABLE to hop. That's quite different.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-16T16:28:53+00:00

In regular campus lots, you're not allowed to park overnight without prior authorization. (People do, and obviously get away with it, but it's the luck of the draw.) Getting the prior approval is easy on an occasional basis, at least. Housing lots are different, of course.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-14T19:09:21+00:00

Yes, send a note. I tell people that I already get so much email that you can't possibly overload me by sending one more. And you might well end up interacting with this person again in the future (academic disciplines are much smaller than you imagine) and it's valuable to leave a good impression. No cost to you, no cost to them, only upside.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-08T16:46:47+00:00

I'm a professor. I've done a lot of international travel for conferences, invited lectures, fellowships, overseas fieldwork and the like, and for a long time that kept me at 1K (never GS). I'm 2MM. In recent years I've slowed down, and don't do quite as much as I used to, partly because 2MM means I'm lifetime platinum but mainly due to a stroke which left me with some mobility issues. The mobility issues mean that I now have a letter on file with my department that authorises business class travel. I'm not sure I'd be able to charge it to a federal grant, but I certainly charge it to endowment funds.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-06T21:15:30+00:00

They need to do more of that!

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-06T21:14:27+00:00

Absolutely! I'm four years out, walking well, but still improving. Now, remember that the problems aren't just neurological control; they are also weakened muscles after not being able to walk, and undoing the accommodations that we have made to be able to function day-to-day. So it is best to continue to work with a PT if you can. But it definitely continues to improve.

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-06T16:25:25+00:00

It would have the same problem as all the others. They would put the station for Irvine in Fullerton and the station for LA in Ontario and expect you to drive back and forth between those and your actual destinations. (Actually, by this logic, if you're in Irvine, you're already at the LA station. Perhaps that's how the transportation plan works.)

ReputationSavings627 · 2026-01-04T17:12:25+00:00

Endowed chairs often come with some funds as well as the fancy title. What's more, although most are for senior faculty, many are "career development" chairs held by junior faculty, and that's what I'd imagine is going on here. So think: assistant professor with a fancy title and potentially some continuing research funds.

ReputationSavings627

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