<p>Quantmech:</p>
<p>My S is a bit a “seat of the pants” guy and I can see that many profs would like their students to have a good grasp of the basics. But in the humanities and social sciences, there is not as much emphasis on the basics. At the same time, students who are trained to be overly respectful of authority (and this does not apply solely to PRC students by any means) may be unwilling to be critical of what they read and to express their own opinions, even orally, let alone in writing. For good or ill, in the US, Ph.D. work entails “making a contribution to the field” which many students interpret as writing a dissertation that is a magnum opus that shows creativity, theoretical insights, original research, good writing, etc… As I’m sure you know, a lot of academic books are revised Ph.D. dissertations. In fact, in many cases, these are the only publications some profs have.</p>