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I recently ran a poll on Twitter on the use of first person in academic writing. This poll was by large the most-voted poll I've ever organized, and the discussion was lively as well. The majority of the people that voted in the poll use "I" in their academic writing. For me, this fact is rather surprising. In my field, it's quite uncommon to use first person in our writing. I tend to use it in some of my reports, to emphasize that I did the calculations, but in most cases (as you may have noticed from the abstract that I've published on this blog) I leave myself out of my writing. Perhaps it's related to my type of work as well - it's quite clear to write something like "The bridge has a length of XX m". Here's the poll and its wake:

My colleagues and I published two papers in the recent ACI SP-323 "Evaluation of Concrete Bridge Behavior through Load Testing – International Perspectives", of which Dr. Pinar Okumus and myself were coeditors. The two papers are: SP-323—1: ASSESSMENT OF SLAB BRIDGES THROUGH PROOF LOADING IN THE NETHERLANDS Eva O. L. Lantsoght, Cor van der Veen, Ane de Boer and Dick A. Hordijk Abstract A large subset of the Dutch bridge stock consists of reinforced concrete slab bridges, for which assessment often results in low ratings. To prioritize the efforts of the bridge owner, more suitable assessment methods for slab bridges are necessary. Research efforts over the past years resulted in the development of several methods, at levels requiring increasing costs, time, and effort for increasing accuracy. The last option, when an analytical assessment is not possible due to uncertainties, is to use proof load testing to evaluate the bridge directly. To develop recommendations for the proo...

Together with Miguel Abambres , Tiago Ribeiro , and Ana Sousa I've recently published a preprint titled "Research Counts, Not the Journal". As we're exploring post-publication peer review and the use of preprints, working only open access and bypassing for-profit publishers, this paper is on OSF Preprints and open for discussion on ResearchGate . I'd be grateful if you find a moment to read the paper and share your thoughts with us on its contents! Here's the abstract of the paper: If there is one thing every bibliometrician agrees, is that you should never use the journal impact factor (JIF) to evaluate research performance for an article or an individual-that is a mortal sin'. Few sentences could define so precisely the uses and misuses of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) better than Anthony van Raan's. This manuscript presents a critical overview on the international use, by governments and institutions, of the JIF and/or journal indexing informatio...

Together with Miguel Abambres , Tiago Ribeiro , and Ana Sousa I've recently published a preprint titled "Ineffective Obsessions in Brazilian Academia and Proposals Towards Meritocracy". As we're exploring post-publication peer review and the use of preprints, working only open access and bypassing for-profit publishers, this paper is on OSF Preprints and open for discussion on ResearchGate . I'd be grateful if you find a moment to read the paper and share your thoughts with us on its contents! Here's the abstract of the paper: Albeit its constitutional claim for quality, Brazilian academia has largely been referred to as unmeritocratic and academic hiring is still inward-oriented. Lattes platform, a public curricular information system, reflects elements of this protectionism. This article assesses two ‘obsessions’ in Brazilian academia: (i) the ‘mandatory’ Lattes CV, and (ii) the candidates’ assessment criteria in public tenders for faculty positions. Severa...

As a follow-up to my recent poll about the use of first person in academic writing, I recently ran a poll on the use of passive voice in academic writing. As I had some issues with my Twitter account, the poll accidentally got posted twice. For both polls, luckily, the answer is the same: most authors avoid the use of passive voice. For me, avoiding passive voice is something I am working on, but I know I could (and should!) do better in that regard. This poll has reminded me of my problem with the passive voice (and I also sometimes write sentences that are too long when I use the passive voice). Here's the result of the poll and its associated wake:

Today, I am welcoming Dr. Nancy R Gough who shares her views on academic publishing as an editor. Nancy R. Gough is the owner and founder of BioSerendipity . After 17 years with AAAS, she stepped down as the Editor of Science Signaling (a weekly journal on the topic of cellular and organismal regulatory biology), she left to start her company. She is dedicated to helping scientists communicate effectively. Dr. Gough has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from the University of Maryland Medical School and was a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University. You can email her at ngough@bioserendipity.com and follow her on Twitter @NancyRGough and Facebook . Science Signaling is a weekly journal about regulatory biology at all scales. Submitted papers included those about mechanisms of molecular regulation, cellular regulation, regulatory biology in model organisms, and in plants and man. I also had the opportunity to evaluate basic and applied or translational re...

My coauthors and I recently published a paper "Modelling of the proof load test on viaduct De Beek" for the Euro-C conference that was held in Bad Hofgastein in Austria. The paper discusses how finite element models of a bridge that was load tested can be updated with the results of the bridge test, and how this influences the assessment of the bridge. The abstract is: In a proof load test, a load corresponding to the factored live load is applied to a bridge, to directly demonstrate that a bridge fulfils the code requirements. The case of viaduct De Beek, a four-span reinforced concrete slab bridge that did not fulfil the requirements for bending moment after an inspection survey is studied. The middle spans, located above highway lanes, which could not be tested in the field, are the criti-cal spans of this structure. Therefore, the observations from the field are used to check the finite element model, and improve the rating of the critical middle spans. The proposed metho...

This post is part of the series PhD Talk for AcademicTransfer: posts written for the Dutch academic career network AcademicTransfer , your go-to resource for all research positions in the Netherlands. These posts are sponsored by AcademicTransfer, and tailored to those of you interested in pursuing a research position in the Netherlands. If these posts raise your interest in working as a researcher in the Netherlands, even better - and feel free to fire away any questions you might have on this topic! As you reach the end of your PhD years, you may be invited as a reviewer for scientific journals for the first time. If you have never been asked to review a paper, and feel ready to take on the task, you can follow the recommendations of Dr. Cheplygina in this post . Once you are invited to write the review, you can follow the procedure that I recommend for writing a review of a paper . But what do you do after you have finished reviewing a paper? How can you keep track of your efforts a...

My coauthors and I recently published a paper titled "Long-term material and structural behavior of high-strength concrete cantilever bridge: Results of 20 years monitoring" in Structural Concrete. In this paper, we report the results of material and structural behavior based on twenty years of measurements on the Second Stichtse Bridge. This bridge was the first highstrenght prestressed concrete bridge built with the balanced cantilever method in the Netherlands. Of course, I did not carry out the measurements over the last 20 years - I only got involved with the project in the summer of 2017. My colleagues have worked on the measurements and the analysis of the behavior of this bridge for more than twenty years, and it was very interesting to work with them and learn from their experience. The abstract is as follows: In 1997, the Second Stichtse Bridge was built in the Netherlands using the balanced cantilever method. The use of high-strength concrete was proposed. At that ...

I recently ran a poll on Twitter to see if it is common to write discussions to journal papers. With this term, I meant to ask if researchers submit a written discussion of an interesting recently published paper. I've only done so once, and I have the impression that submitting discussions is now less common than it used to. I think researchers used to read the print copy of their favorite journal and then perhaps send a discussion, whereas nowadays we read mostly electronically, access PDFs and read across a variety of journals. The results of the poll are below - although it seems there was some confusion with regard to the term "discussions":

I recentlly ran a poll on Twitter to see how much or little academics publish open access. I had just learned that TU Delft wants to publish 60% of articles open access this year, and that open access publishing fees are waived for TU authors and authors based in the Netherlands by a number of publishers. As such, I decided to look a bit deeper into the topic. And the result is that the opinions and practices are divided. Here are the results of the poll: Which percentage of your journal articles do you publish open access? #acwri #openaccess — Dr Eva Lantsoght (@evalantsoght) December 9, 2017 Here's a pearltree collection of the tweets of this topic (note: now that Storify has called it quits, I'm still looking for an alternative that works well and trying out pearltree for the first time): Open Access , by evalantsoght

I recenlty published a chapter titled "Field assessment of a concrete bridge" in the book " Eco-efficient Repair and Rehabilitation of Concrete Infrastructures ", edited by Fernando Pacheco-Torgal, Robert Melchers, Nele de Belie, Xianming Shi, Kim Van Tittelboom, and Andres Saez Perez. This book is part of the Woodhead Publishing series in Civil and Structural Engineering . The description of the book is as follows: Eco-efficient Repair and Rehabilitation of Concrete Infrastructures provides an updated state-of-the-art review on eco-efficient repair and rehabilitation of concrete infrastructure. The first section focuses on deterioration assessment methods, and includes chapters on stress wave assessment, ground-penetrating radar, monitoring of corrosion, SHM using acoustic emission and optical fiber sensors. Other sections discuss the development and application of several new innovative repair and rehabilitation materials, including geopolymer concrete, sulfoalumi...

Today, I'm hosting Dr. Rasheda Weaver, who shares with us what she learned about writing during her PhD. Rasheda L. Weaver, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Community Entrepreneurship at the University of Vermont where she teaches classes and conducts research on social enterprises, businesses that seek to combat social problems. She conducted the first large-scale study of the social, economic, and legal activities on social enterprises in the United States. You can email her at Rasheda.weaver@uvm.edu and follow her on Twitter @RLWeaverPhD. After graduating with a PhD in Public Affairs from Rutgers University in May 2017, I wanted to take some time to reflect, discuss, and share some of the lessons that I learned about writing for peer-reviewed journals throughout my doctoral program. The lessons are organized below by the following three themes: 1) The Writing Process, 2) Organization and Interpretation, and 3) Peer-Reviewed Publications and the Job Search. The Writing Process * ...

My colleagues and myself recently published a paper in the Journal of Bridge Engineering, titled "Pilot Proof-Load Test on Viaduct De Beek: Case Study". The paper reports on the proof load test on viaduct De Beek which our research group carried out in November 2015. I couldn't join my colleagues in the field at that time, but in the summer of 2016, I helped finalizing the analysis report of the test. The abstract is as follows: For existing bridges, proof-load testing can be a suitable assessment method. This paper addresses the evaluation of a posted reinforced concrete slab bridge over a highway through proof-load testing, detailing the preparation, execution, and analysis of the test. As the target proof-load and the required measurements for proof-load testing currently are not well-defined in the existing codes, this pilot case was used to develop and evaluate proposed recommendations for proof-load testing for a future guideline on proof-load testing for the Nether...

My colleagues and I recently published a paper titled "Plastic model for asymmetrically loaded reinforced concrete slabs" in a Special Publication of the ACI, ACI-SP 321 "Recent Developments in Two-Way Slabs: Design, Analysis, Construction, and Evaluation". This SP is the result of a session held at the ACI Fall Convention in 2015. You can purchase the SP through the ACI website. The abstract of our paper is as follows: Most methods for the design and analysis of reinforced concrete slabs for punching are based on experiments on slab-column connections, reflecting the situation in building slabs. Slab-column connections with unbalanced moments have also been studied in the past. Experiments indicate that the accuracy of models for asymmetrically loaded slabs is lower than for symmetrically loaded slabs. In this paper, the difference in accuracy between test predictions for symmetrically and asymmetrically loaded slabs is tackled. A plastic model, the Extended Strip ...

My co-authors and myself recently published a paper in Structure and Infrastructure Engineering about the load test on viaduct Zijlweg. The paper is titled "Towards standardisation of proof load testing: pilot test on viaduct Zijlweg". You can access the paper through this link . The abstract is as follows: Proof load tests of bridges can be very useful for structures with a lack of information, or for structures of which the effect of material degradation is difficult to assess. Contrary to diagnostic load testing, proof load testing is not well-defined in current standards in terms of required load and analysis of measurements. The risk related to the high loads used in proof load testing requires standardisation for these tests. The paper highlights important considerations for proof load testing that may lead to the development of guidelines in the Netherlands, by illustrating a pilot study on the viaduct Zijlweg in the Netherlands. This reinforced concrete bridge rates t...

My coauthors and myself recently published a paper titled "Beam Experiments on Acceptance Criteria for Bridge Load Tests" in the ACI Structural Journal. You can access this paper through the ACI website . The abstract is as follows: Loading protocols and acceptance criteria are available in the literature for load tests on buildings. For bridges, proof load tests are interesting when crucial information about the structure is missing, or when the uncertainties about the structural response are large. The acceptance criteria can then be applied to evaluate if further loading is acceptable, or could lead to permanent damage to the structure. To develop loading protocols and acceptance criteria for proof loading of reinforced concrete bridges, beam experiments were analysed. In these experiments, different loading speeds, constant load level times, numbers of loading cycles, and required number of load levels were evaluated. The result of these experiments is the development of ...

My colleagues and I recently published a paper in Engineering Structures, titled "Development of recommendations for proof load testing of reinforced concrete slab bridges". You can download the paper for free for the next 50 days through this link. This paper is the last journal paper in a series of papers based on the research I carried out with regard to proof load testing. I have a few more conference papers planned on smaller analyses that I did as part of the research, but my data are depleted by now. On to new research and/or more testing to deepen this topic (wherever the funding takes us)! The abstract of the paper is as follows: As the bridge stock in the Netherlands and Europe is ageing, various methods to analyze existing bridges are being studied. Proof load testing of bridges is an option to experimentally demonstrate that a given bridge can carry the prescribed live loads. Based on extensive research on proof load testing of reinforced concrete slab bridges car...

We recently published a paper in Engineering Structures, titled "Required proof load magnitude for probabilistic field assessment of viaduct De Beek". You can download the article for free through this link until October 7th 2017. The abstract is as follows: Proof load testing is part of the engineering practice, and can be particularly useful for the rating of existing bridges. This paper addresses how reliability-based concepts can be used in combination with proof load testing, and discusses how this approach differs from the current practice for proof load testing. Whereas the calculation methods for determining the updated reliability index after a proof load test are available in the literature, this approach is now used to determine the proof load magnitude required to demonstrate a certain reliability level in a bridge, the viaduct De Beek. To determine the required proof load magnitude, the known integrals of the limit state function are solved. The method is applie...

My coauthors and myself recently published a review paper on load testing, titled "State-of-the-art on load testing of concrete bridges" in Engineering Structures. You can download the article for free until September 13th 2017 by accessing this link. The abstract of the paper is as follows: Load testing of bridges is a practice that is as old as their construction. In the past, load testing gave the traveling public a feeling that a newly opened bridge is safe. Nowadays, the bridge stock in many countries is aging, and load testing is used for the assessment of existing bridges. This paper aims at giving an overview of the current state-of-the-art with regard to load testing of concrete bridges. The work is based on an extensive literature review, dealing with diagnostic and proof load testing, and looking at the current areas of research. Additional available information about load testing of steel, timber, and masonry bridges, buildings, and collapse testing is briefly cit...