>Personally I respect somebody who “freestyled” his way through PhD as measured by research output a lot. E.g., quite a few women take that route along with mat

>Personally I respect somebody who “freestyled” his way through PhD as measured by research output a lot. E.g., quite a few women take that route along with maternity leaves Nitpick: You may want to change "his way" to the gender neutral "their way" especially since you use women taking maternity leave as an example. :)