The special lecture for graduate students of the School of Mathematics and Statistics, Wuhan University “Teachers’ and Outstanding Students’ Lesson” was held at 14:30 on April 26, 2019. This lecture was hosted by Wuhan University’s Graduate Student Union of School of Mathematics and Statistics. It aimed to help our graduate students improve their academic research ability, understand the paper publishing process, and push them to publish high-level papers.
Deputy secretary of the Party committee of the School of Mathematics and Statistics, Huang Anyun attended this lecture. This lecture invited three young teachers and four outstanding graduate students who received 2018 national scholarships to share their academic research experience. The three young teachers were: Hong Guixiang from Pure Mathematics, Chen Guoxian from Computational Mathematics, and Liu Wei from Probability & Mathematical Statistics. The four graduate student representatives were: Chen Jiale from Pure Mathematics, Yu Ke from Probability & Mathematical Statistics, Cao Meng from Computational Mathematics, and Wang Songwei from Applied Mathematics.
The lecture was divided into two parts. The first part was the “Teachers’ Lesson”, in which three teachers offered suggestions based on their own experience of scientific life, paper publishing, and other related matters. Chen Guoxian suggested that students should select topics that are relevant to their own reality, that more research should be conducted during the investigation process, and that more information about international progress should be preferred. In the face of difficulties, students could consider non-professional knowledge and try to think from other perspectives. Hong Guixiang emphasized the importance of understanding in the process of mathematics learning and scientific research. He recommended that students independently prove the theorem and explore the most fundamental content of the theorem. Liu Wei mainly gave an overview of the process of paper submission. He emphasized that students should pay close attention to paper format, and suggested that students refer to excellent papers and study the framework and structure of the papers before they begin writing their own. In addition, all three teachers advised the students to engage in reporting as often as possible, because it would help them learn more about the frontier and processes of their research field, and broaden their horizons.
The second part was the “Outstanding Students’ Lesson”. Four national scholarship winners exchanged their ideas regarding a broad range of subjects, including specialized course learning experience, paper topic selection and publishing, and the contribution process. Chen Jiale suggested the attendees make reading books a regular part of their lives and emphasized the importance of thinking and practicing. Regarding the reading of papers, he pointed out that the framework of an article was also very important, and we should focus on more than just the proof of the theorem. At the same time he advised that we regularly browse periodicals related to this major to stay aware of development trends. Yu Ke’s share included study and scientific research. He thought lesson preview and review were very important. For scientific research he believed that when you have an idea, you should put it into practice as soon as possible. Cao Meng shared more of her experience regarding papers, including literature review, topic selection, writing, contribution, and revision. She suggested two directions for selecting a topic: promotion and analogy. Writing thoughts should be determined in Chinese first and then filled in. She advised us to read more papers and to try to avoid Chinglish. Wang Songwei suggested that students initially determine their preferred periodicals before writing. Every periodical’s guideline can be downloaded on their websites. We should write according to each periodical’s format requirements.
Students listened to the suggestions of their teachers and seniors very carefully and made records. We believe that this activity will be helpful to every student’s scientific research.
