Dartblog

“Our faculty are among the leaders in their fields…”

One sure hears that phrase a lot around here — I mean that exact phrase, as if everyone were on message in a political-campaign sense. Look at President Wright’s old speeches, his community letter, AskDartmouth, the Dartmouth News, the Dean of the College Mission Statement, Carol Folt on the Class of 2012, Dartmouth Life, and even U.S. News’ recent reveiw of the College.

Well, I say, Доверяй, но проверяй: “Trust but Verify,” as the Russian phrase goes.

Google Scholar is the means by which you can do this.

Click onto the site and enter your professor’s name. Up will come all of your prof’s scholarly works — individual articles and books, and collaborative efforts — and most importantly, the frequency with which they have been cited by other scholars in their own work. Google Scholar orders the citations this way. The greater the number of citations, the more significant the impact of the work on other researchers.

Below is an excerpt from Economics Professor Andrew Samwick’s Google Scholar Page. At 583 citations (see yellow highlight), Samwick’s piece has received enormous attention from his colleagues. That would place him among the …

How about your own professors? Given that this past fall about one third of the College’s classes were taught by people who are neither tenure-track nor tenured faculty, the results can be quite revealing. Someone who has not published works that are read and cited by numerous colleagues cannot be said to be leading much of anything.