Talk:Doctor of Philosophy

Several of the countries on the 'PhD Graduates in the workforce' graph (x-axis) are incorrect.

Several of the countries on the 'PhD Graduates in the workforce' graph (x-axis) are incorrect.

e.g. UK and US are indistinguishable, New Zealand is just 'New'. One label states 'Slovak'.

Fully protected edit request on 27 January 2024

A protected redirect, PhD, needs redirect category (rcat) templates added. Please modify it as follows:

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#REDIRECT [[Doctor of Philosophy]]
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• to this:

#REDIRECT [[Doctor of Philosophy]]

{{Redirect category shell|
{{R from initialism}}
{{R mentioned in hatnote}}
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• WHEN YOU COPY & PASTE, PLEASE LEAVE THE SKIPPED LINE BLANK FOR READABILITY.

The {{Redirect category shell}} template is used to sort redirects into one or more categories. When {{pp-protected}} and/or {{pp-move}} suffice, the Redirect category shell template will detect the protection level(s) and categorize the redirect automatically. (Also, the categories will be automatically removed or changed when and if protection is lifted, raised or lowered.) Thank you in advance! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 17:09, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

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 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:28, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much, * Pppery *! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 19:07, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

New Image

I changed the image at the top of the article. On 13 Feb 2023, the lead image was changed from McGill graduates wearing doctoral robes to an image of a 1973 PhD diploma from the University at Buffalo. The imagine seemed entirely arbitrary, as U.Buffalo was not the first university to offer a PhD, nor was U.Buffalo mentioned anywhere in the article. The year 1973 is also not noted as an important year in the development of the PhD. The individual listed on the 1973 degree is an active wikipedia editor, so I suspect whomever made the change did so as a thoughtful mark of respect. A better image would be a scan of a PhD diploma from an early 19th century German university, but being unable to find one I instead used an 1861 Yale Diploma, as it was the first university in North America to award PhDs. An image of a ~1800 diploma from Berlin or Bonn would be even better, if a user can find one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8805:3D00:1EF:8CA3:F342:D8E4:A8F8 (talk) 23:31, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

None of those factors really apply here. An antiquated diploma is better left in the body, but its less relevant to readers than a more recent PhD diploma. GuardianH (talk) 02:04, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I completely disagree - I think our unregistered colleague has it right. Unfortunately, the specific image they added is a particularly terrible one even if the subject of the image is much, much more appropriate. I think it's completely okay for us to not have an image in the infobox at all until we can find a better one. ElKevbo (talk) 02:14, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@ElKevbo What makes the image so bad in your view? GuardianH (talk) 06:15, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

If you're referring to the "new" image added by the unregistered editor, my objections are simply to the image quality. I imagine that someone proficient with image editing and restoration could clean up some of that. I also think that it's not ideal to use an image with a watermark (or whatever we should call the metadata that is included in the image by the organization who holds the physical artifact). For what it's worth, I also agree with our colleague that a photo of an older German diploma would be better both because it would be more historically important but also because it would be good to not continue to overrepresent the U.S. in Wikipedia. ElKevbo (talk) 12:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 24 May 2024

Doctor of Philosophy → PhD – Per WP:COMMONNAME the abreviated form without dots is the most common in ngrams, more than twice as common as "Ph.D." and much more common than the full name, which doesn't seem to be very widely used in comparison ([1]). The proposed term is also more common in google scholar, with 18k results since 2010 ([2]), compared to less than 17k for "Ph.D." ([3]) and less than 8k for "Doctor of Philosophy" ([4]). Vpab15 (talk) 16:03, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support. The term "PhD" is almost universally recognized, while the full title "Doctor of Philosophy" is less commonly used. JLCop (talk) 23:54, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. We generally avoid using abbreviations in page titles unless something is universally known by its initials. It would also be inconsistent with the established pattern of the names of articles on degrees. Robminchin (talk) 02:59, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Support per MOS:ACROTITLE. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:11, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if it matters very much but "PhD" is an abbreviation, not an acronym. ElKevbo (talk) 03:28, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

AFAIK both follow that guidance. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:32, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

• I'm uncertain on where I stand. I think that making an empirical argument based on common usage, especially automated tools like Google ngrams, is very difficult because the abbreviation is very frequently used as part of titles and signatures for recipients of this degree. This article, of course, is about much more than just how the abbreviation is used in those instances. ElKevbo (talk) 03:27, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CONSISTENT, given the title of every other article about an academic degree (including, e.g., Bachelor of Arts, which is frequently referred to by its initialism). Graham (talk) 04:40, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. My "Doctor of Philosophy" from Oxford University is a D. Phil., not a Ph. D. Clearly the full name covers more ground. Bduke (talk) 05:22, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:ACRONYMTITLE. PhD is merely an abbreviation of Doctor of Philosophy. As a encyclopedia, we should be using the full name of the topic as our title. Station1 (talk) 05:27, 25 May 2024 (UTC)