2024-09-02: Guide for Interacting With Faculty: I added a paragraph to the section about reference letters, about how many letters a professor is willing to provide.
2024-08-25: Guide for Joining My Lab: I modified the instructions for contacting me.
2024-08-15: My paper "Documenting the Unwritten Curriculum of Student Research", about my advice pages, won the TeachingNLP 2024 Best Teaching Material award.
2024-08-01: Guide for Student Research: I added "It Seems Like Someone Already Did the Same Research" to Common Obstacles.
2024-07-28: Here's a preprint of my TeachNLP 2024 paper, "Documenting the Unwritten Curriculum of Student Research". This is my first publication about my advice pages.
2024-07-09: Guide to Professorspeak: I added desk reject, financial exigency, research faculty, and teaching faculty.
2024-05-17: I added a link to the advice index page, under Autobiographical, to my Medium article about being a NICU dad.
2024-05-12: I added Tenure Worth Wanting, a page of advice for pretenure faculty.
2024-03-24: I added Example CV for PhD Students.
2024-03-01: Guide for Research Conferences: I added a section "The Professor's View" with a diagram showing all of my lab's manuscript submissions over a period of five years.
2023-10-30: Guide to Professorspeak: I added "base salary" and "discretionary funds".
2023-10-11: I added Thoughts on Uncertainty.
2023-09-28: Guide to the Advice: I added a section "About My Writing Process".
2023-09-26: I've renamed "Advice for Students" to simply "Advice", to reflect the growing number of pages I've written for faculty.
2023-09-08: Guide to Professorspeak: I added "department chair, department head".
2023-09-03: Thoughts on Failure: I added a postscript, "Thoughts on Success".
2023-07-29: Inglorious Proposals: I added a section with an overview of all the grant proposals I submitted during my first five pre-tenure years.
2023-07-27: Inglorious Proposals: I changed Six Tries to Seven Tries and updated its narrative, as I discovered that I had missed one proposal submission when I first wrote it.
2023-05-27: Guide to Professorspeak: I added bibliometrics, capital budget, cost sharing, downselect, sevice teaching, and tech transfer.
2023-05-21: Job Market Guide: I added a section "Deciding Whether to Apply". In the section "Campus Interviews", I added some suggestions on how to ask questions and how to interpret answers. In the section "Offers", I added a paragraph about sharing experiences for the benefit of others.
2023-05-19: Working Guide: I removed mentions to Microsoft Word in the section about writing, removed Nessie's specs (they were out of date), and removed a mention to the Engineering Copy Center (as there are now multiple options for poster printing on campus).
2023-04-27: Guide to Professorspeak: I added de novo.
2023-03-19: Guide to the Advice: I added a welcome video.
2023-03-02: Guide for Joining My Lab: I explained that I'm not always able to reply to inquiries about joining my lab, due to the large volume of email I receive.
2023-02-20: I added a new page, Inglorious Proposals, which contains chronlogy case studies and observations on applying for research grants from NSF.
2022-12-19: Working Guide: I removed references to the lab website (hltlab.org), as I plan to merge its contents into the Research page on my personal website (shomir.net).
2022-11-14: Working Guide: I removed the lab listserv, as I've switched to directly emailing the list of lab members
2022-11-06: Working Guide: I specified in "Cancellations" that a few weekdays' advance notice is appropriate when cancelling meetings.
2022-11-03: Guide for Joining My Lab: I changed the entry about prospective MS students to include that funding opportunities sometimes exist for them.
2022-10-23: Guide for Interacting With Faculty: I modified the answer to how to address faculty to clarify the scope.
2022-09-17: Writing Guide: Under "Avoid Informal Language", I added avoiding "&" and "/" as substitutes for "and" and "or" respectively.
2022-08-30: Added "For Teaching Assistants" to Quick Replies.
2022-08-11: Guide for Interacting With Faculty: I added a paragraph about giving professors sufficient time to reply to email. I also adjusted Emailing a Professor to include insufficient turnaround time.
2022-07-03: Writing Guide: I added a section "State What Changed Between Revisions".
2022-06-14: Guide for Joining My Lab: I updated the answer to "I'm an undergraduate at Penn State. Can I join your lab?" to include publishing as a goal for senior thesis work. Working Guide: Under "Scheduling", I added a paragraph about meeting modality. Advice for Students directory page: I added brief nicknames in parentheses for some of the guides. Writing Guide: I changed "Avoid Words That Embellish Your Work" to "Avoid Vague Judgmental Language" and expanded the explanation.
2022-05-06: Guide to Professorspeak: I added an entry for "CFP".
2022-04-01: I added a quick reply called Enrollment Assistance.
2022-03-28: Guide for Working in HLT Lab: I added more content to "Presenting Your Work at a Lab Meeting".
2022-03-21: Guide for Interacting With Faculty: I added "Why do I occasionally see faculty members in the audience in other faculty members' classes?"
2022-03-12: Guide to Professorspeak: I added "regional colleges, regional universities" and "Division I, Division II, Division, III".
2022-03-07: Guide for Research Conferences: I changed the title from the "Guide for Publishing in Conferences and Attending Them" to the "Guide for Research Conferences". I also replaced the subsection "First Steps" with "Preparation", which now includes a list of items to do three weeks out and two weeks out from a submission deadline.
2022-02-13: Guide for Working in HLT Lab: I changed "Project Meetings" to "Scheduling" and merged in the content from "Scheduling Meetings With 3+ Attendees", which I removed.
2022-02-06: Guide for Student Research: In Read This First, I added a few sentences about "research" in the different sense of finding information in written archives. Guide for Interacting With Faculty: I split off some questions in Miscellany into More about Professors, and added an explanation of CVs.
2022-01-30: I added a quick reply Absence From Class.
2021-12-17: I added the Guide for Student Research, and I reorganized the advice directory page.
2021-12-17: My Academic Journey: Under "What Surprises People", I expanded the explanation of why it's difficult to generalize what professors' jobs are like. Under "What I Enjoy", I added several items.
2021-12-12: Guide for Working in HLT Lab: I added an item "When You're Leaving" about how to separate smoothly from the lab.
2021-12-06: Guide for Joining My Lab: I added a minimum two-semester commitment to the section for Penn State undergraduates.
2021-11-25: Guide for Working in HLT Lab: I added more to "Use time carefully", under Project Meetings.
2021-11-05: Guide to the Advice: I edited wording in "What Should You Read?" and added a link to My Academic Journey.
2021-11-04: I added My Academic Journey.
2021-10-29: Guide for Working in HLT Lab (formerly "Guide for Working in My Lab"): I added a "Calendar Invitations" subsection and added a sentence to "Physical Lab Space" about physical assets remaining in our labspace.
2021-09-11: Guide for Joining My Lab: I added a few more sentences about my advising style. Guide for Lab Resources: I reorganized the first two sections and added several subsections; I also renamed this guide to "Guide for Working in My Lab".
2021-09-08: Guide for Joining My Lab: I added "What is the relationship between the research a PhD student performs for an RA position and their thesis?" and "Why can't you advise all the students who want to work with you?"
2021-08-28: Guide for Joining My Lab: Under advisor-advisee fit, I updated the question and answer about independently chosen projects.
2021-08-23: Guide for Joining My Lab: I added a sentence for prospective MS advisees contacting me.
2021-08-23: Guide to Professorspeak: I added a definition of "university system".
2021-08-14: Guide to Professorspeak: I added a definition of "training grant" and a disclaimer that the guide is unofficial.
2021-08-06: Reference Letter Procedure: I added a request for materials three weeks before the deadline.
2021-08-01: Guide to Professorspeak: I added a definition of "DCL".
2021-06-20: I added the Guide to Professorspeak, added a link to it in the tenure-track jobs guide, and reorganized the Advice for Students index page. I also changed Thoughts on the Advice to Guide to the Advice and added a section on which pages to read.
2021-06-18: Guide for Joining My Lab: I noted that TA positions don't require prior teaching experience.
2021-06-17: Guide for Joining My Lab: I added "I'm an undergraduate. Do I need to graduate before applying to a PhD program?"
2021-06-16: Guide for Interacting With Faculty: I added a sentence further explaining research-track faculty positions.
2021-05-25: Guide for Lab Resources: I added a "Research Meetings" section with some guidelines.
2021-05-04: Guide for Lab Resources: I renamed the "Reference Letters" section to "Applying for Things" and added more content.
2021-04-06: Guide for Lab Resources: I added a sentence to Lab Branding about the lab name.
Guide for Publishing: I added a link to Guide for Lab Resources in "If the Submission is Accepted".
2021-03-14: Guide for Joining My Lab: I revised the descriptions of RAs, TAs, and graduate fellowships.
2021-02-14: I added Thoughts on Competition in Academia.
2021-01-15: Guide for Publishing in Conferences and Attending Them: I added an explanation and link to CRediT.
2021-01-12: Guide for Publishing in Conferences and Attending Them: I added more about author response periods, including a template for writing an author response. I explained what shepherding is and how it works. I added more detail to Anonymity for Peer Review. Also, I moved this changelog to its own page.
2021-01-05: I created a quick-reply page with instructions for students when I agree to write them reference letters.
2020-12-20: Guide for Lab Resources: I added information about our lab's servers under Centralized Computing Resources. Under Statistics, I added a link to Penn State's Statistics Consulting Center.
2020-12-03: I added Thoughts on the Advice.
2020-11-27: Guide for Publishing in Conferences and Attending Them: I added links to a revisions spreadsheet and an example of its usage, both under "If the Submission is Rejected".
2020-11-24: Guide for Scholarly Writing: I added a section on LaTeX.
2020-11-08: Thoughts on Failure: I added some quotes (which appear in boxes) and a new section, "Success is Never Guaranteed".
2020-10-19: I reorganized the Advice for Students index page and added Emailing a Professor: How to do it Well.
2020-09-13: Guide for Scholarly Writing: I added a section titled "Give Meaning to Figures and Tables".
2020-09-07: Guide for Joining My Lab: I added an item about postdoc inquiries.
2020-08-15: Guide for Lab Resources: I made several changes and updates to Miscellany.
Guide for Publishing in Conferences and Attending Them: I added an explanation of what it's like to present a poster.
2020-07-20: I renamed the "Guide for Publishing in Computer/Information Science Venues" to the "Guide for Publishing in Conferences and Attending Them", and I added a section on what it's like to attend a computer science or information science conference.
2020-06-16: I added Thoughts on Failure and reorganized the Advice for Students main page.
2020-06-13: Guide for the Tenure-Track Job Market...: I added a paragraph about the differences between tenure-track, research-track, and teaching-track.
2020-05-18: Guide for Joining My Lab: I added an explanation of TA and RA positions.
2020-05-07: I added the Guide for Publishing in Computer/Information Science Venues.
2020-05-05: Guide for Lab Resources: I added a section on publication opportunities.
2020-04-26: Guide for Scholarly Writing: I expanded the section about tables and figures.
2020-02-20: I reorganized the directory page and added the Guide for Lab Resources.
2020-02-19: Guide for Scholarly Writing: I made small changes to Avoid Aspirational Predictions.
2020-02-09: I added Thoughts on Photography.
2020-01-22: Guide for Interacting With Faculty: I added (1) a note about "Professor [first name]" being the preferred form of address in some countries and (2) an explanation of "Professor of the Practice".