Didier Ruedin · Notes2026-03-09T10:00:00Zhttps://druedin.com.com/feed.xmlDidier RuedinOn academic junk: do not respond!https://druedin.com/notes/academic_junk.html2026-03-09T10:00:00ZI have recently submitted a pre-print to medRxiv, which triggered a flurry of spam. I use this opportunity to react to the phenomenon of academic junk and predatory publishing more generally. A typical mail...Writing about causalityhttps://druedin.com/notes/writing-about-causality.html2025-12-18T10:00:00ZOne thing we try to avoid when writing journal articles is to surprise readers (and before that, reviewers) about the limitations of the analysis. We can avoid such negative surprises by being open...Narrative CV and LLMhttps://druedin.com/notes/narrative-cv-and-llm.html2025-03-19T10:00:00ZI have previously mentioned how the shift to narrative CV is changing selection criteria. Now that we increasingly see LLM (a.k.a. ChatGPT) used in motivation letter...Stacked barplot for only one categorical variable in Rhttps://druedin.com/notes/stacked-barplot-for-only-one-categorical-variable-in-r.html2025-02-04T10:00:00ZUsing a barplot horizontally in R can sometimes be a bit tricky. This is what we want to achieve: For a vector, it shows the bars next to each other, for a matrix it stacks. That’s how it’s documented, ...Using ChatGPT for coding — do I still have to learn anything?https://druedin.com/notes/using-chatgpt-for-coding-do-i-still-have-to-learn-anything.html2025-01-03T10:00:00ZI have the pleasure of teaching students who, on the whole, are curious and eager to learn. This also applies to the methods classes I teach, and methods do have a reputation for being hard...How to become a sociology professorhttps://druedin.com/notes/how-to-become-a-sociology-professor.html2024-12-27T10:00:00ZIn its Bulletin 165, the Swiss Sociological Association presents contributions on how to become a sociology professor [in Switzerland]. Short version: you don’t...Write in the first person to avoid unintended causal claimshttps://druedin.com/notes/write-in-the-first-person-to-avoid-unintended-causal-claims.html2024-08-27T10:00:00ZIn academic writing, we’ve historically been encouraged to write in a detached way, avoiding the first person. We often see the passive voice (“an experiment was carried out”)...Glorifying journals, not contenthttps://druedin.com/notes/glorifying-journals-not-content.html2024-08-26T10:00:00ZCan we please stop descriptions like “Their work has appeared in journals such as American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Science Research, and International Migration Review.”...Inclusivityhttps://druedin.com/notes/inclusivity.html2024-08-05T10:00:00ZThis language policy got me thinking: “To further enhance inclusivity and enrich academic discussions, IPSA introduced a new policy for the World Congress that allows...I won’t review for commercial publishershttps://druedin.com/notes/i-wont-review-for-commercial-publishers.html2024-08-01T10:00:00ZAs of 1 August 2024, I won’t review for commercial publishers: I will not accept any new reviews and might link to this post when I decline. In the past, I thought...How to find untagged items in Zoterohttps://druedin.com/notes/how-to-find-untagged-items-in-zotero.html2024-07-11T10:00:00ZIn Zotero, we can use a (saved) search and the wildcard % to find all entries that have not been tagged. Right-click on the library, and choose...