• Question: describe a situation in which your work was criticized, how did you react and address the situation ?

    Asked by samuelax to Greg, Jen, Laura, Mobeen, Paul on 15 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Paul O'Mahoney

      Paul O'Mahoney answered on 15 Mar 2016:

      When you finish your PhD, you usually have to do a viva, which is basically an exam where you sit down with 2 or 3 examiners and they question you for a few hours (my viva was 4.5 hours!) about all the work you have done. It can be a bit daunting and it’s really just important to not take any criticism personally and try to find something constructive in it and learn from other peoples input.

    • Photo: Greg Melia

      Greg Melia answered on 15 Mar 2016:

      When you submit a paper for publication in a scientific journal or at a conference, it gets sent for ‘peer review’. That means it gets sent to leading scientists in the field, who either recommend it for publication, or for rejection, or for publication with amendments. Some of the comments can be quite harsh, especially if a reviewer ‘just doesn’t get’ what you were trying to say, but you have to take them on board and alter your paper if you want to get published.

      I recently saw this from the other side as I was asked to review someone else’s paper. I must admit, I dealt out some fairly harsh criticism myself!

      (Oh and Paul, your viva was 4.5 hours? Ow ow ow ow ow! Mine was a snip at 2 hours, it was mostly nice and chilled!)

    • Photo: Laura Haworth

      Laura Haworth answered on 15 Mar 2016:

      For my current project I needed ethical approval as I was involving patients. For this I had to attend an interview with about 12 people who have read your project idea. A lot of these people have no idea about anything to do with your project. They rip your project to shreds and make you feel pretty rubbish about it but I tried to stay confident throughout and try to think of a good reply to all the questions. i made sure I prepared well for the interview and knew my project in side out. At the end of the day these people who are on the ethics committee have to ensure that everything is considered and patient is at the heart of every decision and no harm will occur to them. I used their feedback in a positive way in order to improve my project and ensure patient safety was my priority. it was also brought up ideas that I had’t previously considered.

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