Effective Mentoring and the Problem of Assessing Quality in Science

Abstract

In this short essay, I re‐emphasize the inter‐relationship between mentoring doctoral students or postdocs and the never ending problem of assessing the quality of scientific outputs. It includes the plea to mentees and mentors not to employ an overblown language in papers, posters and lectures, which constitute a gross exaggeration of the true state of affairs. Doubt is also cast on the present use of Hirsch‐factors and other bibliometric data as well as certain social media claiming to be effective in assessing scientific quality.