texts: Can a professor post a grade online and then change it?

texts: Can a University professor post a grade on web-campus or blackboard and then change the grade the next day? Yesterday I received a B and today I it had been changed to a C... C's do not pass the class in the masters program.


texts: Are the contents of discussion between a University and a student private or public?

texts:
I have the opportunity to reject an offer from a University in US. As a follow up email I was asked which university did I choose and what was the reason behind it. Can I simply ignore the follow up mail, or can I divulge the information as a good  gesture?

Personally, I do not like to reveal stuff, but is the information where I am going to study or whether or not I received funding from a particular university public? If I reveal it to staff of another university  will it not be a problem?


texts: Wife: advantage or drawback when asking for visiting student position?

texts:
My wife and I are both PhD candidate in major-but-not-elite French universities. We study in completely different fields.

She got a visiting student position in the US for 1 semester as of January 2017. I would also like to go to the US as visiting student, at the same time,  for both personal (i.e. not being one ocean away from her during 6 months) and professional reasons (i.e. experiencing the anglo-saxon scientific research paradigm, international experience, etc.).

Question: When contacting Professors of local universities, should I mention that my wife will be in the US at the same time, or not? In other words, would P.I.s be more prone to accept me as visiting student (I'm financially autonomous, so I'm not asking for a funding) if they know my wife will be there (because of empathy or whatever), or would they tend to consider that I apply because of my wife, and not because of the research -- so that I'm not motivated enough?

Edit: As given answers made me figure out, a motive of my question is that there is no research team in the US that study my particular sub-field. So the question "why are you asking for a position in our lab, since this other lab in the UK is closer of your research topic?" might be raised.


texts: How to describe my favourite scientific publication? And why I have to do that?

texts:
I recently obtained my degree and I am applying this period for PhD studies  in order to start next year. In one graduate program where I am applying they ask me to give details about my favorite scientific publication and the reasons why I choose this publication.

Honestly, I found this question harder than any other (describe my research experience/research interests etc.). I have research experience and a paper (first author in quite good journal), I have read quite a lot papers in the last two years however I can not say "This is my favorite publication" only a "review" paper which describes the achievements of my field in the last decade and the future goals.

Is a review paper a good choice for this kind of question? What should I to in this situation?


texts: when a PhD position is re-posted after I had an interview

texts:
I had a PhD interview and they said this decision will be made by the end of this week.
I haven't received any email from them yet.

However, I saw a new advertisement about the same position as I applied a few days ago.

Does this mean I am rejected?
Should I send an email to an administers to ask if I had failed?


texts: What exactly does it mean to say that a conference is "peer reviewed"?

texts:
I think as a PhD student, you should publish only in high IF journals rather than conferences. But if it is conference, then it should be at least "peer reviewed" one!

Some conferences first ask for an abstract. After the selection based on only abstracts they ask for a limited page number paper (like 3-4 pages). After all, you receive no any comments from any Reviewers. At best case, some few typographical comments from the editor.

Is this called peer reviewed?


texts: What are good argument against strict attendance policy, and university making it harder for students to maintain attendance?

texts:
My university have a very strict attendance policy, attendance affect the students marks a lot and if attendance is lower than 75% at the end of the semester, students are not allowed to sit in finals. Not only in the end of the year, if attendance get lower than 75% at any point of the semester Internal marks are lowered a lot.

Not only this, University administration keeps trying to make it harder for students to maintain students by adding more and more classes, sometimes by cutting the holidays or by adding more classes in already busy schedule of students.

I reached out to students, and almost all the students are finding it hard to give time to self study and for other stuff.

What are good arguments against this to be presented in front of higher authorities of the university.

thanks in advance.


texts: Disclosing consideration for funded Master's during PhD program admissions

texts:
As an undergraduate in the admissions process for a PhD program, should I disclose my status as a finalist for a separate and prestigious fellowship that would fund a Master's program? (I have already completed my applications, so any disclosure would occur after having been made an offer by a PhD program.)

If so, when is the appropriate and responsible time to disclose this information?

Importantly, if I were to receive the MA fellowship, I would certainly accept due to its prestige.

My concerns are twofold:

1) I do not wish to lessen my bargaining power by disclosing this information too early in the admissions process (i.e. during negotiations over PhD funding or prior to an official offer).

2) I do not wish to provoke the ire of admissions boards and department faculties by withholding this information until too far into the admissions process. Particularly because I intend to complete my PhD after the MA program, should I happen to be awarded the fellowship.

In terms of a timeline, notification for MA fellowship recipients will be made between March and late April. Most PhD programs expect a decision notification in April.


texts: Whether to report someone receiving extraordinary levels of help for PhD

texts:
This is a real life scenario, but I'll refer to the people involved as A and B.

A and B are both retired. A is doing a part-time PhD (humanities), but for at least a year* B has been working nearly 9-5 every day helping A. The help seems to involve research (finding and reading papers/sources), discussion and input, proof-reading and re-touching the thesis, but I don't know about actually writing large chunks although I wouldn't be surprised.

As far as I know Masters and PhD theses usually need a declaration saying something like "this work is all my own except where explicitly marked".  To me it seems as if the declaration would be false, and anyway, even if person A declared they'd received significant help presumably joint PhDs aren't granted, and B isn't enrolled on a course of any kind.

What's my best course of action? Ethically, I feel as if the university should know about this, although presumably the fact that a lot of work has been done (by whomever) shouldn't go to waste.

(*The help has been going on for years, but I only know the specifics of the time invested for the past year or so.)


texts: Taking a graduate version of a course I took in undergrad

texts:
I am currently a second year masters student that will be applying to PhD programs in CS Theory. I have finished all of my required coursework for graduation, but my tuition is essentially free and I enjoy taking classes so I am looking for one to take this semester. The few that I am very interested in are full (with no chance of additional spots opening) but there is another that I can take.

My problem is this: It is a introductory graduate level combinatorics course. My undergraduate degree was heavily focused on discrete mathematics so I took two combinatorics courses (one that had a similar syllabus to this one until about halfway through the class). I did ok in the class as an undergrad but not as well as I would have liked in terms of grades.

My question is this: How would taking this course look to PhD admissions committees? Would they think I was sandbagging not taking serious coursework or simply retaking a class to boost my GPA (I would like to note that this is not the reason I want to take it. I am interested in the sections of the course that I did not have in my undergraduate class, but the difference between the classes will probably not be known to PhD admission committees. That is, they will just see Combinatorics for both.).

My undergraduate GPA was quite low, but I have good research experience. In this sense, my main goal is to minimize the impact of my undergrad GPA on my admission chances by taking graduate coursework and doing well (so far, my graduate GPA has been very high).

Thanks in advance.

Edited to clarify "sandbagging".


texts: Which is more important when applying to grad school (particularly top grad schools): Research or Letters?

texts:
While looking around for an answer to this, I have been getting conflicting opinions/answers, so I decided to ask here: Is publishing a great research paper as an undergrad more important than great letters from your professors when applying to grad school?

Another phrasing: If you had only one of these (great research vs. great letters), which scenario would more likely help the graduate application?


texts: Why don't high-ranking journals go solo?

texts:
There are so many debates and criticisms around the topic of publishers, who are accused of charging excessive fees for access when all the work of the journal is done for free by academics. But why don't some of the big journals just go independent and open access? What do publishers actually provide as a benefit?

These are some of the things that publishers might provide, but it seems to me that they are easily replaced:

Typesetting

I edited a postgraduate journal and typeset it myself on LaTeX. It looks as good as any other journal. Surely there are many students familiar with LaTeX who would typeset for not much money, especially if people submitting papers were required at the minimum to provide an endnote/bibtex file of references and use proper document styles etc.

Paywall

Obviously, this would not be a problem for open access journals.

Promotion

Do academic journal publishers really need publishers to do this? Do publishers actually do this?

Website

I design and host my website on Weebly. It looks professional and costs hardly anything.

Printing

Well it's the 21st century, so print articles out yourself or read on a tablet. If this is absolutely necessary, print on demand.

It seems to me at least that to cover the costs of typesetting and webhosting, a journal would require hardly any money. They could raise this through a combination of charging authors (but not crazy money), donations and grants.

Either I'm missing something really important that publishers do or there is something holding back the likes of Mind (top-ranked philosophy journal) from doing this. All I could come up with was that perhaps publishers own the past content of the journal.

UPDATE

Some great responses below. To summarise, it seems there are broadly two answers to the question:

Journals offer more than I and other people sometimes think (e.g. secure web hosting, submission handling, registering papers with various databases).
There are costs associated with trying to leave a publisher. The name of a journal can be owned by the publisher, and the impact factor etc. are all held along with that. These costs present a barrier that already overworked academics rarely consider taking on.


texts: Doing a STEM Masters after a non-recognized Masters/PhD

texts:
I am from a third-world African country. I have a STEM Masters degree from a non-recognized university (ranked 3000 or more worldwide).
I am doing a PhD at the same university where I will be graduating this year (with only 1 publication and some teaching experience). I want to ask if it is possible to pursue another Masters degree in a reputable university (in Canada or Australia) to strengthen my chances of getting an industry job outside Africa.
When I approach supervisors (or the administration) for my application should I:

Not disclose my status of being a PhD student (Though I still worry about my gap in my CV)? or
Tell them the truth of having a PhD (which I think will ruin my chances of being accepted)? or
Tell them I have a Masters,  but I was doing some teaching and research assistant activities after my Masters (trying to not disclose my status)?


texts: What do conference organizers expect from an invited speaker?

texts:
I am asking this because I am going to be a plenary speaker in a couple of months (this is not going to be my first invited/keynote/plenary talk, but for some reason I never stopped to think about this issue before). I've spent  10 minutes thinking of plenary/keynote speakers I've seen in past conferences, and they roughly divide into two classes: (i) a majority who give a talk that, other than being longer, is pretty much indistinguishable from the talks of speakers that get in through peer-review ("here is a very well-delimited problem, which I propose to solve as follows"); (ii) a minority that attempt to give a loftier, programmatic talk ("recent developments have this overarching theme, which is pointing the field into this direction; here are some remarks on what this means for us all and a sketch of some neat things we can do if we take things seriously").

The organizers of this particular conference don't really have a preference either way, but I am wondering if audiences at large do. Personally, I prefer (i), but that is just because I'm more of a problem-solver than a theory-builder.


texts:
I live in a country where the quality of education is poor.
The primary goal seems only to be to teach us how to pass exams and not to learn the material for knowledge sake. It appears that their sole focus is for us to score well on tests so that we can get into a better college an maybe get a good job.

It is only about exams and I feel like I am being deprived of an education.

As I am not familiar with other education systems, I would like to know if there are education system where there are evaluation systems other than exams or where there is less of an emphasis on teaching to the exam?

Are there systems that evaluate a student's performance based on writing papers of doing projects?


texts: How/when to retract a project from a student?

texts:
Take, for example, that a student is nearing the end of their thesis project.

The supervisor has an idea for a new method that can help to verify the results of part of the project. He does not think much of the significance of the idea at the time, [writes up a document outlining the procedure] and passes it to the student to implement.

A week later, a problem arises. The supervisor questions whether the idea was in fact more significant than he originally thought - i.e. could form a paper on its own, and has realised that answering the students questions on the specifics of how to implement the said method would take up more time/effort then just doing it themselves.

So, how would the supervisor go about retracting the new project from the student? From the student's point of view, they would have a strong motivation to try and implement the idea that has been brought to their attention since it is directly relevant to their thesis work. Yet the supervisor does not want to be hassled by the student on learning the specifics (that would form the content of the paper), and does not want the student to claim partial ownership of the idea. The student has not yet produced any results using the method that has been passed to them.

The issues that I see are as follows:

If the supervisor tells the student to relax and think about something else instead, they probably would not listen
If the supervisor works independently from the student to produce the paper (figures, text, observing trends), then the student could still claim that they were involved (?) since they would have probably started working on it too


texts: How to avoid being plagiarised when suggesting an idea to a potential collaborator?

texts:
Say I have some idea about research and I want to suggest it to a potential collaborator (researcher).
Assume that I don’t know the researcher personally and have no any ties with him.
If I write my idea to him, there is a threat that he will steal it and proceed without me, right?
Is there a way to do this in a way that both me and the potential collaborator do not enter that risk?


texts: How to export the reference list for a given paper using Google Scholar?

texts:
Google Scholar allows you to do forward search via cited by - that is, you can get a list of references that cite a given reference. Is there any way to do backward search, i.e. get a list of references cited BY a given reference?

I realize that you can always click the reference, go to the journal page, and likely get the reference list there, but I am wondering if there is any way to do it within the context of Google Scholar.


texts: Awaiting editorial office processing for more than 22 days, Is it appropriate to contact?

texts:
I have recently submitted an article to a tylor & francis journal which uses ScholarOne.

My co-author submitted the article 22 days ago, and since then, the status has remained as "Awaiting Editorial Office Process".

Is it alright that it hasn't been changed for so long?
Should I contact the editor?

How long does the process take normally?

NOTE: thank you for suggesting this page "What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?", I have read this topic. Unfortunately in this paper the average time for "Awaiting Editorial Office Process" was considered to be "A FEW WORK DAYS". My problem is I have waited for 22 days. If anyone have had the same experience, I would really appreciated answering me. Thank You.


texts: Is there an informal understanding at universities about PhD student funding?

texts:
This question was prompted by answers and comments on this question about PhD student funding.

I am under the impression that STEM Ph.D. graduate students, when accepted into an RU/VH university in the United States, will typically be funded for at least 5-6 years, depending on the average length of Ph.D. in the specific field, by either TAs, RAs, a mix, fellowships, etc.

I understand that my university, the University of Arizona, has shirked this duty in a legally binding sense, but is this impression wrong?

If it is, why would I (or any other graduate student) risk having to find a job in the middle of a Ph.D. in order to "pay the bills?"


texts: How to identify top researchers and landmark papers in a field?

texts:
I am currently a student doing research in Neuroscience, and as you can imagine it is a pretty big field. I am trying to better familiarize myself with my own subfield and other fields such stem cell research and genetics.

What is a good way to find some landmark papers and authors who are highly regarded in a certain field?


texts: What is a "residency requirement" in the context of Canadian and US PhD programs?

texts:
An acquaintance is planning to apply to law schools for a Ph.D in Canada. She is reading about the residency requirement and is sure that it means that she would have to live on-campus, possibly even in an undergraduate dormitory. Here's a sample statement from Dalhousie University:

  Applicants must spend at least one full academic year (12 months) in
  full-time residence at Dalhousie after registration for the PhD
  program. The Graduate Studies Committee of the Schulich School of Law
  reserves the right in certain cases to require the completion of a
  second year of residency. It is to be noted, however, that consistent
  with other doctoral programs at Dalhousie University, PhD candidates
  must pay fees at the full-time rate for two years regardless of
  whether they have been required to spend a second year in residence at
  Dalhousie.

I've told her that I believe it's just a requirement to register as a full-time student and live in the area. Are there any Ph.D programs that do require (or strongly suggest) on-campus living? If that's too close to a shopping question, is a Ph.D residency requirement not a requirement to use on-campus housing?

Note: I know of an intensive Master's program that strongly suggests living in campus housing unless you already live in the university area.


texts: Writing a journal paper based on work already published in conference paper

texts:
Im in the Applied Computer Science field (deploying technologies in different areas of society). I published a conference paper last year on one such case study and wanted to reuse this data to create a longer, journal paper about the socio-political realities and broader societal reflections on this work (which was not appropriate for the conference audience).

Im wary of self-plagiarism, so the question is: is it possible to take this same idea and publish it in the journal, if the quotes and participant comments are carried across, does it invalidate my claim to this being unpublished work? (Both SAGE Journals and Elsevier have a journal submission policy that only unpublished writing such as thesis, conference posters etc. can be used for journal writing:
Prior Publication: SAGE Journals

  If a substantial portion of your manuscript has been previously published, your manuscript will generally not be acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, subject to each journal’s policy, there are certain circumstances where material that has been publicly distributed may be considered for publication.

Does rewriting relevant sections that I will be re-using from the conference publication count as a portion from previously published piece?

Similar answers from Academia SO cover some elements of this question, but my question is about the Findings (Participant Interview quotes) being carried over and the other aspects being fresh.

Does conference presentation of preliminary findings conflict with publication?
Using my published work on another paper

Any help with this, or links to resources that help appreciated!


texts: Why would new teachers' grade distribution consist of more As and Fs than more experienced teachers'?

texts:
Three students  came to my office hours and told me that they are straight As but for some reason are failing my class. I have 14 students who got A- and A. 11 are in 80s range, 9 got 70-77, and 9 in 50-60% range (three of those didn't turn in assignments). Is this a normal grade distribution or are some failing because I am doing something wrong? I was told that the problem could be my mid-term exam (it wasn't well-designed!!!) or that I am a difficult grader.

I was also told that this grade distribution (lots of Fs!) are common for new teachers. In other words, new teachers have lots of As and lots of Fs. Honestly, I don't understand the logic behind that. How is that possible? Or why?


texts: Professor invited me to do research and I agreed, but now I am not so sure

texts:
I was invited by the professor to work with him. His area is outside of my background and I agreed because I was curious and haven't found a research area yet. After beginning to read papers and learn more, I find I'm less and less interested in the topic. I feel torn as to whether I should continue, and if I shouldn't, how to gracefully exit.
On the one hand, I feel I should develop professional relationships and skills. The topic is a valuable thing to know about. It would be almost wasteful not to take this professor up on their offered mentorship, and rude to stop now. On the other hand, I find other courses much more compelling. I can't really see myself working in this area for PhD work, so it might be a waste of both of our time to continue.
How can I decide whether or not to continue, and if not, how to politely end the relationship without making the professor feel that I've wasted their time?


texts: How to send a reminder to a US prof who has accepted my internship offer but didnt reply to my follow-up mail

texts: I am a PhD student and I wrote a mail to an US prof for an internship offer, which will be completely funded by my parent institute (fellowship available) and hence the host US prof does not need to spend on anything. He replied in a matter of few hours that he has agreed to host me. I replied to him thanking him and also asking for an official letter from him that he has accepted my offer. He has not replied after that, it has been two days. The deadline is in a week. Do you think I should drop him a reminder or is it too soon?


texts: "Catching up" after two years in the wrong school

texts:
I'm a student in a mid-ranked computer engineering school in France. This is unsatisfying to me for several reasons:

I recently discovered that I strongly prefer the mathematical aspects of computer science to the programming side of it, and I would like to continue my career working on machine learning/statistics, which is not an option in my current school. I've done pure mathematics and physics in my two years of preparatory classes, which ended a year and a half ago, but haven't had a proper math course since then, except for some probabilities and Boolean logic.
The school's ranking and course offering are disappointing to me. I am there as a result of a bad personal situation during my first undergrad years, and I would have aimed for a completely different path if I could.

I'm in my first year of Master's degree (4th year after high school), and considering my options. I wonder if, by working hard enough, it's still possible to get a more theoretical degree from a good school, or if it's already too late to try again and my academic path is set.

Additionally, I would like to go finish my studies abroad at some point, and already have a few cities and universities in mind. I would like a researcher or research engineer's position in the private sector.

I am considering the following options:

Finishing my Master's degree while catching up on maths on the side, then trying to get into a PhD programme abroad.
Finishing my Master's, finding work in a machine learning- or statistics-related field for one year, then applying to a PhD programme. The year off would give me more time to get the required level in maths, and the professional experience could be useful when applying.
Trying right away to get into another school's Master's programme that would be better adapted to my plans.

For all I know, all of these may be unrealistic (starting a PhD after two years without math courses would at least require a lot of work on the side, and I don't see how my application could have a chance without a math-related degree to prove I'm competent; getting into a foreign school's master's programme is probably a very selective and/or expensive transition, especially if I'm coming from a lower-ranked institution).

The ideal way would be to go back to high school and do the preparatory classes again, this time without external problems to discourage me. Of course, this isn't possible.

I realize that what I want to do is hard. I kind of regret the low motivation I had and the choices I made a few years ago. I am mostly trying to get an overview of what I can aim for and what is off the table. What would be a good way to proceed from here?


texts: How to make time to pursue research while employed as a part-time lecturer at two universities?

texts:
Actually I have been working like a Computer Science lecturer, part time, in a couple of universities in my country. Main problem is that those universities are only worried in finances, but not in academic productivity. So that is why almost all the lecturers, my case included, are assigned only lecturing hours, but with no time to make research.

The main problem that I got is that love to make research. Sometimes I come with an idea, and it happened 3 times already, that because of the time I cannot write a paper; so that somebody else has published (in other country, of course) my main idea. I think the phrase "publish or perish" is well suited for me at this moment.

I have started to feel frustrated about this. I still have other ideas for research papers in the field and even for making a couple of books in collaboration with other colleages abroad, but I don´t know where to start.

I seen a lot of Professors that publish like maniacs, and I would like to know if there is a way to increase my productivity in the academic field. How should I distribute my time?. It may sound silly, but I feel that 100% of my time is dedicated only to lecture pretty boring undergraduate stuff. Any advice? Mostly of people that are researchers and are in this field, so they have experience about this.

Thanks


texts: What should you consider before upload a revision to your arXiv paper when you spot an error?

texts:
I am in process of uploading a paper for arXiv. I have looked over the paper for several weeks now and it seems that there are no major issues, however, the paper is 24 pages long so I have accepted the possibility of having a few (non-trivial) typos and grammar mistakes here and there.

My question is, what should you consider before uploading a revision to your already uploaded paper, should you spot a mistake?

I am only asking because it seems that the people I have came across in my field rarely upload a revision, whether or not there are mistakes in their paper. One, for example, contained a glaring mistake in an important part of a proof, but the mistake is still there; I can see it now. The paper has been there for a year now, it has gone through a formal revision at a conference (where the mistake was corrected). But why not simply correct their arXiv copy?

Should I wait until more feedback is received before uploading a new revision? If so, how long? Is it okay to upload the revised version immediately or is there some arXiv mechanism that prevents me from doing so?

Is there a catch for uploading revisions?


texts: Postdoc project with poor scientific content and unlikely to lead to publications

texts:
I have started a 2-year postdoc six months ago, in the US. I am starting being concerned about its outcome in terms of publication and scientific production in general. These are the issues:

the project is basically turning out to be pretty poor in terms of scientific content, and that was sold in a completely different way when I was offered the position. In particular, what I was meant to do was developing mathematical models and implementing them as new code. However, what I am actually doing is just debugging a pre-existing code, which is hardly leading to significant publications.
Mind, I wasn’t expecting to publish during the first six months of the postdoc, but looking at what is planned for the future, I can’t realistically expect that the nature of the project is going to change. Moreover, my institution is trying to keep alive a rather obsolete and seriously limited code, which is unlikely to be competitive with other research groups. Unfortunately, I do not have much freedom change code and/or approach (see point 2). Whenever I proposed something new, it was basically dismissed as a distraction.

Due to my group policy, I do not have much independence to add anything to what the sponsor is paying for. I cannot even use my affiliation to publish independent research that I may carry out while being off duty (this is security policy, providing details is not going to add any significant information).
In my PhD, I doubled my publication outcome by doing research in my free time, now I’d have to publish without an affiliation. While I knew this in advance, I was expecting to be able to publish from my main project. In any case, I don’t believe that having to rely on my free time is the best way to grow and be productive.

To sum it up, this is looking more technical consulting than scientific research.
Given this, I am being seriously worried that this might impact negatively on my future career in research, unless I become permanent at my current institution (which is not granted at all, especially  considering the project I was put onto). It is hard to grow as a scientist or even as an engineer by doing ‘‘monkey’’ work.
I am asking for advice on how to prevent this. As I have said, if things go on like now, I will have a two-year ‘‘publication hole’’ in my resume that won’t likely help me to find new positions. I will be really sorry if this happens as I was able to publish much more than the average during my PhD, and I don’t want to ruin it all.
On the other hand, if I stay open to other opportunities now, I am not sure how well it may be perceived.
So, I’d wish to know what you think about this situation: am I worrying to much or am I right to be concerned? I am not learning anything from this activity, nor producing, in a period in which I’d wish to grow further, and I am feeling like wasting all my previous efforts and results.
And for the better of my future career (I want to go on doing research), should I wait till the contract ends or should I act now and look for something else?


texts: How important is advisor's supervision for a Ph.D. student to be an independent researcher?

texts:
I have seen one extreme of the spectrum, where a person conducts great research without even attending college. For a student to become an independent researcher, how much is on the advisor's shoulder and how much on the student? I know the answers may be all over the map. Just curious what your takes are on this question. Anecdotes and personal examples are welcome.

I have noticed some professors are more successful in supervising students to become independent researchers (approximated by the number/ratio of alumni who land research jobs) than others, even though their research portfolios and student qualities are similar (e.g., in the same department). That's one reason I bring up this question.


texts:
Both my girlfriend and I (both white) applied to the same PhD programs in mathematics. Most of these schools are AMS Group I and some Group II.

I got denied by a majority of these programs while she got accepted to a majority of them. I sincerely do believe my profile is stronger (see comparison below) so I think there is a definite unfair advantage geared towards females candidates for graduate admissions. Am I able to legally sue some of these schools for gender bias? Why are the admission committees doing this? Shouldn't admission decisions be based on "who is best fit and capable to be doing math research" instead of "who will look best for our department"?

Comparison:

We went to the same college, and have the same math classes except for 5-6 courses that are not math since we knew each other since high school. My GPA is 3.9, 0.2 higher than hers.
My Math GRE subject test score is above 80% while hers is less than 40%.
I have done 3 REUs, coauthored some (over 3) papers while she only did one REU last summer with no publications.

Furthermore, in my school, some of the incoming female PHD students know less math (insufficient preparation) than a typical junior/senior undergraduates, which supports my theory.

Am I the only person thinking this is unfair? Aren't the actions of these admissions committee members jeopardizing the output of their math department by choosing less capable people?


texts:
I'm currently peer-reviewing a paper (for a computer science conference; review is double-blind). While reading it, I came up with a method for the problem they're solving, somewhat inspired by their approach but fairly separate. I haven't implemented and tested it yet, but I expect it to be better than their approach, and it is definitely (in my mind) simpler. The idea came from slightly reframing their approach based on papers that they've cited in their submission, so they had the tools to do so, but they may not be as familiar with as I am (it happens to be right in my wheelhouse).

I see two options here:

Suggest the reframing and the new method to them in the review. They may or may not do anything about it, but if they do, all I get is thanks to an anonymous reviewer in their acknowledgements, assuming the paper gets in. (In my opinion, their paper is probably borderline for this conference.) If they don't use the idea, then it just goes away.
Don't say anything about it in the review; develop the method independently. think, at this early stage, that it's reasonably likely a whole new paper can be written based on this method and related improvements I have in mind. If their paper gets in to this conference, or is put online / gets in somewhere else before I'm done with my paper, cite them. If it doesn't, I could either ignore their paper and write my own – which feels somewhat dishonest, though I wouldn't really be using their results in my new paper – or ask the PC to get me in touch with the authors for possibly collaborating on a single joint paper with both methods. I don't know if that kind of thing is ever done.

Option 1 is clearly ethical, but if option 2 is also ethical, it's both better for my career and possibly better for scientific progress as a whole (if they don't end up using the idea). So my question is: is option 2 okay? What do I do in the case where their paper doesn't get in?


texts: Is it self plagirism if i use the same assignent twice in the same course?

texts: The final essay of my course is asking a question I extensively answered in an essay earlier in the same course. Rather than doing essentially the same assignment twice. Is it wrong to edit and expand on my previous assignment and hand that in?


texts: Changing from 100% research to 20% teaching and 80% research: Seems like a raw deal, would you do it?

texts:
I'm a named researcher (but basically a Postdoc) on a funded project in the UK which pays my salary. I've got a good CV and currently do 4 hours of teaching per year.

The principal investigator (PI) has asked if I would take over their teaching, marking and project students in exchange for renaming my contract to 80% research and 20% teaching. The increased estimated total workload would be 140h, mostly before Christmas. Seems like a raw deal as I get nothing apart from CV experience, in return. What would you do?

The PI said they would use the money saved on my contract to pay for someone else to do something unrelated to my work (but still on the project). It's not clear to me what 20% of the project I wouldn't be involved in anymore and I think I would be expected to do it all anyway.

I asked for a salary increase: No. I asked for a lectureship: No.

My choices:

I'm thinking about asking for a funded PhD student if I get a fellowship in return for doing the teaching.
Do the teaching as a "favour" but don't change the contract.

What's my leverage and what are the pros and cons?


texts: Can I send math subject GRE scores to programs that do not require them?

texts:
I'm applying math graduate program and know that some program reads "gre math subject is not required". Does that mean I can't send gre subject score to them?

And if I also want to apply cs program, can I send gre math sub score to them to exhibit my mathematical ability?


texts: How long does it take to receive feedback for Junior Professorship (W1) in Germany after interview?

texts:
I was invited for an interview in a German university in Ruhr area, for a Junior Professorship position.
In total three people (including me) were interviewed, so I guess it should not take so much for the committee to decide!
Does any one have any idea how long it will take for them to conclude the recruiting process? I have an offer for a postdoc and need to let them know if I would take the offer for the postdoc.
Thanks.


texts: Can I keep using my old academic affiliation for publishing?

texts: I have recently completed my Ph.D. and would be joining the industry in an analytics profile where publishing is not mandatory. I want to keep on publishing to ensure my return to academia if I feel like it someday. Can I keep sending papers to journals and conferences using my old academic affiliation?


texts: Ask an expert in your field that you have never met to write a reference letter?

texts:
To be more specific, I work in pure mathematics and I am applying for a postdoc position in the US.

Prior to this, I have only had my recommendation letters written by my former advisors and PhD defense committee members.
However,  my recent research, as well as the scientific profile of the job I'm applying for, deviates from what I did as a PhD.  So I feel it more useful to have professor A (an expert in the field) reference me rather than those people.

But I merely have email correspondence with A and we have never met. Indeed, in the past year I released a paper which generalizes A's earlier work, and our emails are mainly technical discussions on his work and mine.
So my question is: in these circumstances, is it appropriate to ask A for a reference letter?


texts: Taking year off after PhD and focus on research? Does it look bad?

texts:
Say I have finished my PhD and I would love to just write a few papers and do some research before getting a job at a university which will also involve teaching & administrative things. Also, assume I would have the money to do just that for a year, or two (I am in the Humanities & have access to a library, no need for a lab)

How would this look on my CV, how would this affect my future chances of getting a teaching position? If I don't publish anything, it will be horrific for my CV I'd assume. What if I would actually manage to publish a few good papers (and more or better ones than I would have been able to with a teaching position)


texts: How shall I report a critical error in a given paper?

texts:
This is a follow-up of my previous question about this course task:

  Find an existing, published research paper in the field of Chemical Engineering and try to autonomously replicate its results (plots, data, equations et similia).

In my replication study, I found that there was a report error; that is, a mathematical model was wrongly written, but the results shown on the paper were related to its correct form.

  After my revision and replication trial, I found that using their same model, I do not obtain the paper results. There is no presence of replication error by me, and my TA pointed out flaws (of fundamental nature, for example F = mv instead of F = ma) in the model, that once corrected allowed me to obtain the results shown in the paper.

Now, I discovered a pure error in one of the basic assumptions of the model (namely, the molar mass of molecular oxygen set to 16 u, and not 32 u). This error in itself changes all the results of the paper, since it invalidates the reactor model and the subsequent optimization.

I have verified and consistently proved that the error exists, as I can reproduce the paper results including said error. What are my options now? I want someone to take notice and fix this paper, since I have proved it contains wrong results.


texts: Where can I expect to receive responses to applications for jobs in math departments at universities?

texts:
I am in the final stages of my PhD in pure math, and have been submitting applications to positions. Most of these have been through mathjobs.org but some positions of interest to me don't use that site.

When applying through mathjobs.org, I have a standard AMS cover sheet (generated by the site) giving my personal address, the address of my department at my university, my email address, and my phone number.

I've also written a cover letter for each school that requires one. Following advice of professors at my school, these cover letters give the university address as the return address, not my personal one. Apparently this makes it clear that I can actually be contacted through the school I'm saying I attend, and that I'm not some crazy person pretending to be getting a PhD. But in reality I am not in the habit of getting mail at my school. Also in the midst of sending out many applications it slipped my mind that some non-mathjobs.org applications have now been sent with only my school address, since they don't have the AMS cover sheet. Is it really not appropriate to have my own address on a cover letter?

Where would a response from a hiring committee typically be sent? Should I get in the habit of checking for mail to me at my department? Is this usually done by email? Or would a job offer be sent to my personal address? Would they call me on the phone?

While I'm at it, how long should I expect to wait before receiving any responses? I know this depends highly on which job it is, but just a rough idea of this would be helpful.


texts: Potential disadvantages of a math postdoc in Europe vs US

texts:
I am a mathematics Ph.D student in the United States, and recently received a 3 year postdoctoral offer in Germany, which I have only a few weeks to accept or decline. The offer is very good (high salary, travel funding, no teaching unless I want to) the PI is basically the top person in my field, and the position also solves my 2 body problem (my SO has a similar offer from the same place), so I am tempted to accept it.

However, I have sometimes heard that an American doing a postdoc in Europe is at a disadvantage applying for permanent jobs since European positions are often restricted to EU citizens and American schools are less likely to hire someone who did a postdoc in Europe.
Can someone (on either side of the pond) offer perspective on whether my concerns are valid?
I need to accept or decline the position before offers for US postdocs are sent out.


texts: Why do universities tolerate uploading papers on their websites?

texts:
Lots of professors provide their full papers published by scholarly journals on their personal website (in the university official domain). PDF files of their final papers published by different publishers are available online. However, this is against the copyright transfer agreement, and the authors have no right to distribute their papers publicly. In other words, the authors have the same right as well as others to distribute their own papers publicly, as this is the marketing right of the publisher.

This is clear violation of the US copyright law, like distributing cracked software programs or movies without copyright. Why the university officials do not take action over this copyright violation?

One may say that this is their personal website and they are legally responsible, but if someone distribute an illegal item on his/her personal website, the university will not allow this because it is part of the university domain.

I think universities ignore this because it seems to be less criminal, but why? as it is still illegal. So much the worse, it is even common in top universities where considering legal issues in different aspects is quite serious.


texts:
I contacted a group leader, and he strongly liked my CV. He encouraged me to join his group as a postdoc fellow, but he mentioned that the position he may offer is unpaid (so, I must cover my living expenses).

He mentioned that I can publish good papers in his group following my previous works. Then, I can get a good paid job. So, it is worth of accepting an unpaid job.

I'm wondering if it is common for postdoc fellows to accept unpaid positions?


texts: How to target possible authors? Ethics of increasing the visibility of open access journals

texts:
My colleague and I work at an Open Access journal, published by a regional scholarly association. The field is Communication and Media Studies. Recently we started to encounter problems with reaching out for authors. We use a small set of professional email lists, listservers and newsletters to disseminate our Call for Articles, which worked in the past 3 years; meaning we always had enough quality submissions from which we could build up a full and content-wise well-balanced issue.

Problem is that recently, we launched a digital marketing campaign after which we received only a handful of manuscripts with average to good publication potential compared to a swarm of plagiarized/incomprehensive/ below-standard/simply uninteresting manuscript mainly from third world countries, India and China (just for clarifications, we do not collect author fees or APCs and all content are free for our readers, so I thought it was clear for everyone that we are not in the pay-to-publish business). We desk reject the majority but enough will remain to completely drain out our reviewer pool for the next 6 months.

I'm asking the community to suggest a better way of reaching out for professional authors. Locally, we are in Eastern Europe and the journal is not ISI or SCOPUS-indexed, so it is not the best for bean-counting purposes; but we have quality content and peer review process. Are there any techniques that should help us convincing western universities to circulate our calls or publish it on their websites? Anyone in the same shoes as we are?


texts: Two professors teaching the same course, should they unify their exams?

texts: Consider an advanced, specialized, undergrad course. Students are divided into two sections. Each section is taught by a different professor. Both professors follow the same syllabus and textbook (or they are expected to do so to a lrage extent). Do you think they must provide the same exams (i.e. students of each section are given the same exam questions)? Or is it enough for the professors to coordinate and share views, suggestions, etc. and each one can have the freedom to write their own exam for their section? What is the policy in your University?


texts: How can I quit an internship before the agreed upon end date without burning bridges?

texts:
I'm a recent college graduate, and I'm currently four months into a research internship. My original plan was to take a year off before applying to graduate school (in physics) and use this internship as an interim job. The full story is complicated, and I don't want to go into especially much detail, but I've been dealing with mental health issues for several years now, and I've realized that I really need to take some more time and get professional help and actually put effort into dealing with this rather than going to grad school next year. I don't think that staying at this internship, in a city/state where I don't know anyone, and which it turns out isn't that related to my interests, is the most productive way to do that. So, what I would like to do is to quit at the end of this year, when my funding is up for review. I'm not really doing important work for the team, so I don't think my leaving early would actually be a significant hardship for anyone, and furthermore I am saving them the trouble of trying to find new funding to keep me here. But, I don't want to sound ungrateful to them for taking me on as an intern to begin with, or for the effort my mentor has put into helping me out with my projects so far, and I'd really like it if I could still get a rec letter from him when I do apply for grad school (my mentor has told me on several occasions that he is pleased with my work so far, so I'm pretty sure he would write me a good one).

So: how should I frame my conversation with my supervisor about leaving before the initially agreed upon end date? Should I talk about my interests not lining up with the group's work? Should I talk about my doubts about wanting to go to grad school immediately? This is not the sort of thing I've ever done before (quitting) and I wouldn't do it if I didn't feel like I had very compelling reasons to do so, but I don't necessarily think that it would be professional to share my actual reasons given general stigma against mental health problems, hence my need for advice.


texts: What are some of the issues one should keep in mind while choosing between a fully funded offer and another with no funding?

texts:
I have been offered a place for a masters program in 2 places. One which is fully funded and another one where there is no aid that has been offered at the time of admission.

I guess if the everything else was the same between the two then the answer is obvious, which is to go for the funded one. But the problem in my case is this:
In the fully funded case I have been offered a place in a research group I have no primary interest in (and no previous knowledge of) and something which I would not have definitely chosen if I was given a choice. So in sum, although it comes with a lot of money, the work is something I'm unsure if I will enjoy.

In the second case, there is no aid. The tuition fee + living is something which is not completely unaffordable for, I hope to manage those with loans and some family money. Aside that, I feel there is a lot of flexibility (or at least some flexibility), as I can choose my domain of work and my advisor once I have enrolled, and maybe been through a semester. Also the coursework here is a lot more closer to my preferred area of research.

Additional info: Comparing the two universities as such, the second one (the one without aid) is higher ranked than the other one (with full funding).

So given all this, how do you think I should make a decision and what is your opinion on the same?

Edit: Both programs are research-based and require a thesis.


texts: What exactly is "briefly explain your master research project" in a PhD application? (CS field)

texts: Are they actually interested in my project or do they want to know how I solve problems? How can I ace this part of the application?


texts: Asking a professor whether my application has been accepted or not

texts: I applied to a university which has offered acceptance letters to a few students so far. What would be a polite way to ask my professor whether my application has been accepted or not by the review committee.


texts: Why won't good journals retract papers that were proven wrong?

texts:
I saw some research papers still present in good and reputed journals even though they were proven wrong by other papers. The subject is cryptography.

If a paper is proven wrong, it does not contribute a valid result to the corresponding topic. What is the reason for keeping them intact, which can cause issues for newbies?


texts: How to Store Incidental Information Gleaned in the Course of Conducting Research

texts:
I'm in the throes of writing my first substantial research paper in the field of Information Science. The topic looks promising and my advisor seems pleased with the work. Because of the nature of the work, there are a lot of intermediate steps involved in obtaining the raw data, preprocessing the data, then running the experiment proper and recording the results. These intermediate steps involved a lot of programming on my part, building one-shot tools to solve problems along the way to conducting the experiments.

I understand that reproducibility is a huge issue in computer science and I wish to lessen the burden upon my future self and upon my lab mates if/when the time comes to follow up on this trail of experiments. Certain software has to be installed, path variables have to be configured, firewall settings have to be set up to allow transference of data - and similar technical problems that wouldn't be appropriate to include in the resultant research paper proper.

How do I record all of these technical and procedural steps such that a future interested party (be it myself or one of my lab mates, or perhaps even an outsider to the lab who has an academic interest in the resultant paper and software) can reproduce the experiment? Do I leave myself open to being "scooped" if I set up a website with an academic blog or wiki in it?


texts: Address on cover letter for PhD application

texts:
There are 3 PhD positions advertised on university's website and I am interested in two of them. University welcomes to give more than one choices for which candidate should be considered. For both positions requirements are similar. I know the names of professors who will supervise these PhDs but I am not sure if they are the only ones who will judge the applications. Moreover, it is written to upload cover letter in university's application system not to sent to Professors directly.

I am confused how should I address Cover Letter to be considered for both positions. Currently, I have the following

  PhD Candidate Search Committee

  {Department name}

  {University name}

  {City, Country}

  {postcode}

  Dear Members of the Search Committee,

Is it a good way to address in cover letter?


texts: How to deal with unbalanced collaborations?

texts:
As a postdoc in a theoretical STEM field, I have had many wonderful collaborations where all authors contribute non-trivially to the final product. However, there was also many "unbalanced" collaborations: where one author does 90% of the work for example. I am not talking about a situation in which a senior professor is automatically given authorship because of politics. For this question, let's say that we talk about collaborations between researchers of the same academic age/position (e.g. all postdocs).
These unbalanced collaborations are often not a problem per se but can be draining and time-consuming in the long run. To give an example, I have had collaborations where I was almost feeling like a PhD advisor to my collaborator, having to explain/redo everything. In contrast, the balanced collaborations that I experienced were always extremely enriching and efficient in comparison.
As a young and inexperienced researcher, my question is: what is the best approach to choose collaborators?
I see two extreme options:

Don't worry about it. Accept and nurture every collaboration as they come. If your collaborators are not useful, take the time to help them and make them grow, even at the expense of your own growth. At some point, you might also be the "useless" collaborator and you will be thankful to having been accepted in the collaboration.
Avoid unbalanced collaborations by seeking only collaborators you can benefit from. This is probably the best approach career-wise. However, I feel like it can lead to toxic behaviors which might do more harm than good in the long run.

Even though there is probably not a right answer to the question, this is something that has been bothering me lately, and I would benefit a lot from insights of more experienced researchers.
Many thanks!


texts: Should I state my chronic illness as one of the reason I have few Extra curricular activities in my application for Masters Program?

texts:
This is my First question, so correct me if I am going off topic.

I am an Indian male. My age is 20. I am pursuing my B.Tech Mechanical Engineering from India's premier institute. I am currently moving to my final year. After that, I wish to apply for Masters abroad. I have a good GPA of 9.12/10, and I would rank top 5 in my class.

I have been suffering from Crohn's disease for the last three years. Due to this illness, my energy is very much limited and I cannot afford to play sports or do any extra curricular activities or join any clubs. As I was filling up my application I have become aware of it. So the question is: "Is it okay if I justify that due to the above illness I could not do any other activities or will it have any negative impact on my application?"
I am aiming for top 10 Universities.

For those of you who don't know what Crohn's disease is, Please read in the following links. https://www.medicinenet.com/crohns_disease/article.htm#crohns_disease_definition_and_facts
https://www.everydayhealth.com/crohns-disease/living-with/staying-energized-with-crohns-disease/


texts: Is it reasonable to do a second master's degree just for the letters of recommendation?

texts:
I have a master's degree in theoretical physics. I want to do a PhD and start a career in research.
The problem is my letters of recommendation. I had a horrible relationship with my master's supervisor, who was also my undergraduate supervisor. I ended up graduating, but with no publications and no thesis. He will not provide a letter. I've already asked other professors: some said no; a few did agree, but they don't really know me. My field is very theoretical, so getting a job and asking my boss for a letter does not seem like it would be helpful.
The only thing I can think of is to do a second master's degree with the specific goal of forming relationships with professors who can write me letters of recommendation. Does this seem like a reasonable thing to do? I'm scared about getting too old or failing again at the thesis.


texts: How do I politely say that I am not applying to my alma mater anymore?

texts: I am a PhD student in Y university in United States and I finished my MS in X university before my PhD. All professors who provided my recommendation letters work for X. Lately, I have been feeling that I made the wrong choice coming to Y and wanted to go to back to X and talked to my professors from X university. They were very sympathetic to my concerns and agreed to recommend me again for X university. I don't think I am applying to X anymore and will stay in Y. How do I get back to my professors about this? I wish to maintain a cordial relationship with them.


texts:
Project based assessments are advocated by some as an alternative to oral exams and written exams for assessing students' knowledge at the end of a course, for example here: How to detect cheating when students take online quizzes or exams from home?
Some ways of cheating that are available during exams are not available for project work, for example looking up solutions online during a take home exam.
On the other hand, some other ways of cheating are still available, for example paying someone else to complete the course for them.
Therefore the question:

How should project based assessments be implemented in order to prevent cheating?

One example mentioned in M. Halaweh: Are Universities Using the Right Assessment Tools During the Pandemic and Crisis Times? had the instructor oversee group discussion meetings and ask each student questions about their project after submission.
This seems to be just effective as oral exams when it comes to preventing cheating, but seems to be more labour intensive than holding an oral exam for each student which would be prohibitive in big lectures with 500 students or more.
In light of this, I am also interested in answers to the following second question:

How should project based assessments for lectures with 500 students or more be implemented in order to prevent cheating?

For context, the lecture I have in mind is an Analysis lecture with around 500 students, one professor, six PhD student teaching assistants who each hold two weekly tutorials, and eight graders (mostly Master's students) who work 10 hours per week each.


texts: Web application for managing a library of papers

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Keeping track of bibliography references for an entire research group

Is there a web application which can help the researchers at my group collaboratively manage a collection of scientific papers?

Desired features are:

easily upload pdfs and edit bibliographic info
query the database
export the database (or a subset) as a BibTeX file
define subsets/folders of publications (e.g., all papers related to a project, all papers by members of the group etc.)
should be accessible only for members
should be hosted on our own servers


texts: Is it ethical to reject an article after acceptance?

texts:
I submitted a journal article to Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research back in September-October 2016. By February 2017, I received an R&R. April 2017, official acceptance. We were in the midst of the final edits, but I couldn't fully understand the editing requests of the editor. She threw the broad recommendations at me to "fix references" and to "improve readability". But even though I adhered and responded to all the specific queries/comments marked by reviewers throughout the paper and went through the paper multiple rounds after, the editor still wasn't satisfied. She snarked at me telling me she was "repeating herself now", and refused to read my paper in-depth until I'd made the appropriate changes. I apologized several times, but at this point, whatever responses/comments I'd written in the paper itself I now had to email directly to her or she wouldn't see them. I noticed in the edits she'd misunderstood some italicized words for a quote, so I kindly brought up that my italics were actually for emphasis and not quotation. I then asked her to simply identify which sections didn't look right or "readable", and I'd be most happy to edit it. Immediately after, she straight-out told me she decided not to publish my article, because she felt attacked by what I asked and because I had one reference that didn't conform to her guidelines (I wrote "trans." for translation rather than "transl by."). This happened this week in June 2017. I feel like I had a lot of my time wasted, and it feels unfair to have my article rejected AFTER acceptance. And even more so because the rejection wasn't for the quality of my paper nor the fit of my article, but because of a personal grievance of hers about something that I didn't even do, and a citation detail that doesn't really seem significant. Is recanting an acceptance this close to the finish line ethical? Can an editor decide this without consulting any of the reviewers or editorial board? I understand I made some mistakes, but they were just references and some issue with "readability" that I didn't understand, which is why I simply asked -- were these really so serious that an editor could justifiably do what she did? How should I respond?

Edit: I should add the readability issue is related to a language barrier, as the Editor was not a native English speaker. I've published a lot over my career in reputable journals, so I'm fairly confident my writing's fine.


texts: Masters Admissions and Academic Dishonesty

texts:
The summer before my last year of undergrad I committed academic dishonesty in one of my summer classes. I received a sanction of a course grade of 0 and a notation on my transcript until I graduate, which would be June of 2015. I decided to take a year off in light of my transgressions (I wasn't suspended but felt that if I could do something that heinous I needed to take a step back and reevaluate  everything).

I'm a psych&stats major and I wanted to eventually work in research or some related field as I work as a RA at school and it's something I'm interested in. My overall goal was to find work after graduation and at some point when I have some career direction apply to a Master's program. However, in light of the academic dishonesty I'm not sure how it will affect my application, or if it's something that's redeemable?

Thanks for reading.


texts: How long typically are paper reviews? Is there such a thing as “too long”?

texts:
When you review papers submitted for publication, is there an “optimal” length for reviews?
In my experience as an author and referee, I have seen a large range of review lengths (for reference, a paper in my field is typically between 3 and 8 printed pages):

Zero length: for some of the papers I have authored, the reviewer just clicked the “accept as is” or “reject” checkmark on the review sheet, without adding any comment (at least, not any comment visible to me). It's not so common, but it has happened.
Short length: a lot of time, I received reviews who consisted of a single paragraph.
Medium: one full page, maybe two pages.

Although I have never received any such long reviews, I have myself written on a few occasions reviews that exceed two pages, including once or twice a four or five-page review.  These were cases where the paper was good, but could be (in my view) much improved and some of the aspects/consequences had escaped the authors' consideration.

I am wondering how useful reviews of various length are to editors. I often consider that “unmotivated” reviews are useless, as they do not give any real insight about the paper to the editor. For example, if the editor gets two conflicting non motivated reviews, how is she to decide?

On the other hand, although I write some from time to time, I have never received long reviews, so… is this something frowned upon?


texts: Is it unethical to send unofficial feedback to authors of a paper which I declined to review due to conflict of interest?

texts:
I was asked to review a paper which was submitted to a conference. The author of the paper was one of my former professors* and of course I declined to review the submission due to conflict interest.

I was wondering however, would it be unethical to write an email to my professor give him a feedback on the paper and perhaps, provide him some kind of unofficial review?

Of course it would not change the fate of the paper but if the paper gets accepted, they can use my pseudo-review when doing their final editing. I was not sure if this is ethical and/or according to the etiquette of academia.

Edit: Perhaps I should clarify what do I mean by feedback. What I had in my mind wasn't a complete review but rather some suggestions. Something in the lines of:

  Very interesting stuff bla bla... however, I think it would be better
  if you had written sec. IV in this fashion and you add data-field foo
  to figure bar.

*I have a good relationship with professor but we never had any projects or publications together.


texts: Where to ask for more detail of a paper?

texts:
I'm reading some papers and I think some of them are not clear in some parts or I want to know more in detail in some points to replicate, etc...

Also some papers I also notice (still not sure) some suspicious results or unfair comparison in result section.

Do you know where good websites/forums to ask or discuss about papers in general? (Certainly after I tried other ways like sending email, try to contact them via LinkedIn and so on).

I tried research gate and here but it seems like the researchers are busy with their work and never pay any attention on their accepted paper (I'm in Computer Science major).

(Edited) I mainly expected the help/hint/explanation from other researchers who also share the same research direction/paper on the paper I wanted to learn. (I knew no way the authors know/get notified someone ask/discuss their papers on somewhere on this big Internet)


texts: How to ask for a recommendation letter if no professor knows me in person?

texts:
I suffer from the following mental disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, avoidant personality disorder and body dysmorphic disorder and at times I had depression and because of that I was unable to communicate and a lot of times attend the lectures so no professor knows me and they don't even answer my emails. I am very interested in having a master in mathematics and I need recommendation letters to apply, what should I do to get those?

I somehow consider it rude to ask for it, especially when the professors don't know me, but I attempted to communicate with them through emails because I had no other choise, and never got an answer. If it was up to me, I would never ask for anything, but it is necessary.


texts: Should I Cite a Journal's Page Number, or an Article's?

texts: When I'm citing a page in a journal, and the article has an independent page numbering system, should I cite the page number of the journal or the article?


texts: Referencing specific files in source code in a dissertation

texts:
I am making a statement in my dissertation based on a comment written in the Linux kernel source code. I would like to be able to reference this comment. At least I would like to be able to name the file to which I'm referring.

Is this (citing files in large pieces of source code) recommended?

What is the best way to go about doing this?


texts: How to deal with disagreement with advisor regarding research proposal and direction?

texts:
I am currently writing a proposal for a new research topic in my field of system biology. This proposal will determine what I will be working on for the next couple of years.

However, I am running into disagreement with my advisor on the viability of the research proposal. I think he is completely in the wrong on this one and I cannot convince him otherwise (after talking to him), and the research proposal is due soon.

Essentially, his vision is that a new method X (of a class of methods) might work "better" than exisiting method Y on our problem. So I should do research on method X for the next two-three years. I should put into my proposal that method X could work "better" than Y.

However, I am convinced that there is no evidence that method X will perform better than method Y on our problem.

My argument is that

Comparing method X and method Y is like comparing apple with
oranges. Method Z is the one that should be compared with method Y.
But it is already known that method Z does not yield benefits as
compared to method Y. In fact, they are the same, just different order of execution.
There has been no evidence that any method X
has performed better than method Y for any related problems.
In fact,
some instances of method X is the same as method Y. So the problem is ill-posed.
Other researchers are already aware of method X, but they do not use it. We can all guess why.

I think the line of research is fundamentally wrong and I cannot convince myself to write up a research proposal on something I disagree with and imagine spending the rest of my research career on. I almost feel like he is trying to fail me, because I read his rationale for pursuing this problem (benefits of method X) and the rationales were wrong or very hard to arrive at a conclusion at the present moment. Plus he is definitely not an expert in method X in any sense.

I am lost as to what to do. The proposal is due in 5 days and I cannot bring myself to write a single word. To be honest it feels like I am writing utter bullshit. I do not have time to quickly check method X (because it is an entire class of methods with some variations) and to compare with method Y in order to come up with evidence that it is indeed better.

Is there anyone out there who had these sorts of disagreement with their advisor on a research direction and how did you solve it?


texts: Expressing Interest for Waitlists on more than 1 program (Ph.D Admissions in STEM)

texts:
This is for Ph.D admissions in STEM area.
I was put on the waitlist for >5 schools where I have applied to, some of which have emailed me asking if I am still interested for consideration of their "second round of offers."
The dilemma is, what if I expressed interest to (say) >3 schools that I am still interested, but at the end I ended up with >1 offer from them? Doesn't that make me a liar since I have to (due to pigeonhole's) decline at least 1 offer?
Don't get me wrong. I'm more than willing to attend any of the schools where I'm currently on the waitlist, I'm just worried it will put me in an awkward position.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
(posting anonymously, since some of the contributors here are graduate directors of programs I applied to)


texts: Do you think it's possible to pay off student debt during a PhD?

texts:
I was recently talking to someone who mentioned that they managed to pay off around $40,000 in debt incurred from their masters program, during their PhD. They said they managed to do this from their yearly stipend alone, living in a relatively expensive American city as well. I'm wondering if there are others who have attempted this for themselves and had reasonable or even moderate success.
I should also add that I am not seeing advice here concerning the general advisability, financial or otherwise, of an academic career, or of incurring debt during graduate studies.


texts: What is the difference between IEEE transactions, magazines, conferences and journals

texts:
IEEE Repository has various types of documents including transactions, magazines, conferences and journals.
What is the difference between the above four?


texts: Impact on transferring and graduating early for graduate school admissions

texts:
I'm an uprising sophomore, majoring in science.  I just transferred out of a public university, to another public university.  I'm just wondering, what's the impact of transferring between schools to graduate school admissions?  Taking into account that I don't have a great GPA from the previous school (like a low 3), even though I get a 4.0 GPA from my current school, how hard would the low GPA from my previous school affect my graduate school admissions?  Do graduate schools look into freshman year GPA that heavily?

Since I have an amount of AP credits, I can graduate in 3 years.  Is it really a good idea to do so, if I wanted to go to graduate school?  Since I don't have a really high GPA from my previous school, should I just do 4 years instead?

Also, as a add-on question: I'm not sure what field or career I should go into, how do you know that you want to go into academia? Or is it a little too early for me to decide?

Thanks for the advices and opinions in advanced!


texts: Can reading book review substitute reading the whole book in a literature review?

texts:
This book has 570 pages, a lot of information about my research subject and several studies are included.
However, I don't want to spend my time reading it because one professor wrote already 12 pages review, emphasizing most important finding and conclusions. As well critical perspective.

Should I cite both of them in my literature review so I can honor in a way book author or is it dishonest from my side to cite something I didn't read? I don't doubt he did a great job, even people from Cambridge are praising him, but I think I will lose a lot of time since I am a slow reader and in the review is represented a lot what I would like to know.


texts: Are cover letters sent to referees and should you highlight the contribution of your paper in the cover letter?

texts:
How to write a cover letter to journal when submitting a manuscript?

In the letter, it is expected that I propose 5 referees. Is this the only reason to write a cover letter?
Will the cover letter be sent to the referees or only to Journal's staff?
I feel reluctant to praise my contribution in the cover letter. The article should defend it itself. Is the praising important part of the cover letter? Is it required?


texts: How are textbooks meant to be referenced?

texts:
I'm studying maths, and I've found it beneficial to write my notes as if I were writing a textbook for someone else's self study - forces me to understand the material to some extent.

It's of course incredibly unlikely these notes could actually be made into a textbook, but hypothetically, if I decided in some distant future to attempt to publish a textbook on maths, what are the rules for referencing?

Is it acceptable to source material almost solely from other textbooks, and simply place in the references at the back the names of those text books, or...?

Exercises. If I borrow exercises from other textbooks which look challenging (not every exercise) then how required am I to reference the book I found the exercise in? Even if I do reference, is there any issue that could stem from using those exercises? I've seen Wilson's theorem used as an exercise for almost every abstract algebra book I've read.


texts: Is an instructor position a possibility to pursue research (semi-)seriously?

texts:
I have been offered two positions, in two different countries, and I am trying to determine which one is a better fit.

POSITION 1: The first position is as Instructor - a teaching only position - which is offered in one year contracts for the first three years, then in three year contracts, until certain conditions of excellence have been satisfied in which case I may qualify for the status of "senior instructor." This position comes with the summer's free to pursue research or any other opportunity.

POSITION 2: The second is an Assistant Professor (equivalent) position in my home country, where the pay is less than half, and this position comes with the same teaching load, but also the expectation of research. This type of position is known to be strenuous and I have rarely met individuals holding this position that seemed happy (it comes with the usual tiresome academic hassles). The only silver-lining - and at this point I am not sure I consider it a silver-lining - is that this position comes with lifelong job security.

Both positions are in top 10 universities in their respective countries.

I guess I have two questions.

First: I am being told by the recruiting committee of position 1, that people recruited in this position have found it easy to continue working on research part time. Yet this could be to convince me to take the job. And it could also be a case of the "Most say that they would do research, but instead discover that teaching fulfills all their needs" (which might be the case, or rather might be that most people are susceptible to inertia). I do not have the perspective to judge how likely this is.
Second: I cannot either determine if this type of position - by contract - is meant to be long term or not. Even though it is something favorable to me, I am intellectually opposed to tenure, even if I understand how it is important for research where month to month (or yearly) productivity is not guaranteed - but it seems less pertinent for a position evaluated on the basis of teaching alone.

Yet if this position is only going to last me a year or two, it seems suicidal to turn down another more permanent position - however weak it is.

Any opinion on this would be truly appreciated.

(Finally, for full disclosure, I should mention, to be fair, that position 2 is in a city that has a significant richer cultural life.)


texts: Should sections of a chapter have introductions and conclusions?

texts:
Consider the following situation:
The review of the literature chapter has seven sections: the first one is for the introduction, the five medial are for different themes, the last one for the conclusion.

In writing the five medial sections, should I write an introduction and conclusion for each or just paragraphs discussing certain points?


texts: How can I ask a professor I've had as an undergrad for a recommendation

texts:
I am currently a Masters student adn I'm applying for an abroad research program which requires two letters of recommendation. This professor already wrote my recommendation to get into grad school (he was my professor during undergrad) and I want him to resubmit the letter to my research program. I wanted to know if this would be an okay email to send:

"Hi Professor __,

I hope you're doing well! I wanted to reach out to you because I'm currently enrolled in a Masters Program and I found out a few days ago about a research program called ____ in Germany. I was hoping to apply for it for this summer, and I wanted to know if you would resubmit my letter of recommendation (the one which you wrote last year)? The deadline for the application is ____. Sorry for such a last minute notice, I only recently found out about this program. I completely understand if it wouldn't be doable or if you don't have the prior recommendation, no worries if that's the case! Thanks again!

Best,

"


texts: Accepted for Masters, Is It Rude To Ask About Scholarships?

texts:
First things first: I'm not a native American, and I was accepted for my masters at an American college. So far, I still need to send some documentation before the official offer is made.

On their website, it is stated that accepted students are eligible for a scholarship. So, is it rude, while I'm still sending and solving the documents, to ask how can I obtain the scholarship mentioned?


texts: Are there any citation managers that track author-specific affiliations?

texts: I'm looking to clean up our citation database and would like to be able to record the institutions that authors are affiliated, especially in cases where a publication is reporting on a collaboration beyond a single lab or institution. However as far as I can tell, Zotero, Mendeley and Papers (Mac) don't support the ability to associate each author with a particular university or institution. Does anyone know of any citation or bibliography management software that enables this level of detail in capturing citations?


texts: arXiv article says that code has been made available with the article, but I cannot find it

texts:
I'm reading an article on published a few years ago (https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.08130). It says in the article (p.4 at the bottom) that a Mathematica code was made available "as an auxiliary file associated with the preprint of the paper on arXiv" to reproduce the plots they show there, but I cannot seem to recover it on arXiv (there is no code available under the corresponding tab). Am I missing something? Is it common for this kind of code to be 'unshared' after a while? Is there still another way to find it besides directly contacting the author?
Thanks in advance!


texts: Protocol for writing a recommendation letter for someone you only know on a personal basis

texts:
I am a graduate student. A close friend of mine is applying to post graduate research position and has asked me to provide a recommendation for her. I have never written a formal recommendation letter before and would like some advice on how to write this.

For some background, I am studying in a unrelated field compared to what she is applying for - Quantitative Finance vs. psychological counseling. I have personally known her for many years and she is very supportive with strengths such as a warm personality, a nurturing nature, and a great sense of humor. Her attitude is very laid back and she is very easy to get to know. Her loyalty and trust is unshakeable. However, my relationship with her is only on a personal level. While I think she is an amazing person, my knowledge of her academically and research wise is meager at best.

What are graduate admissions panels typically looking for in a recommendation letter? Is there a particular format they require? I just want to be the most help I can and help my friend achieve admission.


texts: When do you stop reading books cover to cover?

texts:
During my undergrad, we had a reading assignment (for most courses) which would nearly cover up the entire textbook including introductions, summaries, "did you know" and other such fluff material.

In graduate school as pointed out in most answers here on SE, one does not read the whole book cover to cover but just read the parts you need and backtrack if doubts. But is this also true if I'm starting out in a new field?

I had my BS in Engineering and I'm pursuing my grad studies in Math, certain topics like Topology are completely new to me. I don't need the whole of Topology but just certain bits and pieces.

Should I attain some familiarity with the topic by reading a good introductory book cover to cover or just dive in (into a completely alien field) and understand only the parts I need?


texts: Why do editors sometimes reject manuscripts for being out of scope even though they cite references from the same journal?

texts:
I wonder why editors sometimes do reject  submitted manuscripts for being out of the journal's scopes while the authors have utilized published papers from the same journals.

Is it just a polite way of rejection?


texts: In which regions of the world do graduate programs typically require a GRE score?

texts:
I know that in most U.S. universities, most programs for graduate studies require a GRE score.

1- Are there any graduate programs in the U.S. which does not require this?

2- Is it required for graduate programs in Europe, Australia or other parts of the world?


texts:
I decided to pursue a PhD degree after a few years in industry, so I contacted a professor from the university where I had received my Diploma a few years back. We had some conversations, she was rather positive as I had good grades and I used to attend her lectures.  I could not apply officially yet, since the PhD applications start during summer. As coronavirus came, we all stopped going to the lab.
I emailed the professor about 10 days ago about how to proceed. However, I did not get any answer. Is it possible that she changed her mind about having me work in the team as a PhD candidate, since we had no communication for around 1 month?


texts: Asking an editor about supplementary files to avoid journal overlength?

texts: Is it OK to write to the editor of a journal requesting that you be allowed to move some parts of the paper to a supplementary file, in order to incorporate the review comments and not exceeding the normal page length? If yes, how do we write such an email?


texts: Can I add an "author contributions" section to make clear that I did all the work on a paper?

texts:
I have a paper where I have many co-authors and most of them did not contribute much. As a PhD student I am in a weak position to reject such inquiries of senior faculty.

To address this, I want to add a section on author contributions. However, the journal where I have this paper under review does not have this section as a default.
Is it still OK to add this or how should I proceed to make it more clear that I did all the work on this paper?

UPDATE: thanks to all, I am overwhelmed with the feedback I got. Based on your advice, I decided to not take any actions and make this a lesson learned for future situations. As the paper is already under review it is also too late. In the future, I will try to convince "coauthors" to be mentioned in the acknowledgements instead.


texts: Have traditionally pure math departments gotten more 'applied' with the boom in Data Science?

texts:
Specifically, I am thinking of top pure math departments in the U.S., e.g., Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Yale, UCLA, Berkeley, etc.

I know that many of these top places now have entirely separate interdisciplinary Applied Math PhD programs, and very soon Data Science PhD programs, but I'm wondering about whether the pure math groups themselves have gotten more applied.


texts:
I'm aware of many mailing-list and RSS feeds advertising about calls for papers/participation, available positions, events, etc, but I find it much harder to know about funding opportunities, such as calls for proposal, grant applications, etc. I'm based in the UK, and there are many funding agencies, including of course EPSRC and the EU, but also many smaller ones, and I'm pretty sure I'm missing interesting opportunities.

So my question: are there some website/systems where I can register my interest, and get to know about existing or soon to come opportunities?

In case it matters, I'm in Computer Science.


texts: How to approach bad communication with my department

texts:
I am a mathematics student at a top 10 math department in the US.  Something I have been struggling to handle is an on-going situation I have been facing with with the administration.

When I was accepted to this university I was instructed to submit the syllabi of the graduate courses I had taken at the institution I came from.  My initial email to them was in the beginning of this year.  After 1 month without hearing from them I sent another email following up.  The third email was done in the beginning of April with again no response.

I have tried to reach out to different people within the department, but I have gotten no response.  As emails are easier to ignore, I tried going to the administrative office in person.  The receptionist said that they were not accepting walk-in appointments and I should try emailing them.  I explained to them the situation, however the receptionist would not budge on their stance.

As this situation progresses I am getting increasingly frustrated and paranoid about my treatment.  These issues I did not experience at any of my previous universities.  As such, I am kindly requesting if someone has any suggestions or experiences on this matter.


texts: Is there a difference in academic writing styles between engineering and women's studies?

texts:
Coming from engineering, when you write a paper, the goal is to be objective and analytical.  We use references and try to define terms for a clear understanding.  The goal at least is to provide facts that support a hypothesis in as unbiased a way as possible.  I think there may be some difficulty in always remaining unbiased, but recently I came across an article that seems to be written like an opinion piece more than a piece of academic work.  After going through it I looked up the author, who is a professor of women's studies.  She writes about robotics being sexist.  Does women's studies have different goals in academic writing than engineering?

To be specific, it is these types of sentences that confuse me on the intent of the academic writing in women's studies:

  Enter HRP-4C, a new-generation gynoid that was unveiled in the spring of 2009 as a body double of and for (or to replace?) the average human female.

Why would a journal allow the publication of the unsupported rhetorical question "or to replace"?

  The android wears his maker's unfashionable beige shirt, dark trousers and black windbreaker jacket."

Is it professional to call a world-famous robotics researcher "unfashionable", and why is it necessary?

  . . . exact body consists of silver and black plastic molded to resemble a Barbarella-like custome, which accentuates her ample breasts and shapely, naturalistic buttocks."

There is no supporting information of how the square, minutely curved metal is purposefully making the visual the author interprets.  But what I don't understand with this is instead of referring to the robot by its name or the paper, the author continues to refer to it as "robo-Barbarella."

Did I just happen to come across a unique piece of writing, or are there very different styles of writing in academic disciplines?


texts: How can I do research mathematics without enrolling at a university?

texts:
My goal is to find the general form for the asymptotic cardinality of a compound arithmetic progression.  I'm not affiliated with a university and I certainly don't have any obligation to continue my research.  However, it is very fulfilling to me.  I spend my time in the library; I study through the books on the shelves and I don't really have anyone to tell me that my efforts are not good enough.

The problem comes in when I realized that if I was stronger in Analytic Number Theory, then I could start to look for the general estimate for the asymptotic cardinality of any compound arithmetic progression, and I'm terribly curious about how it works out.  I am jealous of professional students with academic affiliations, access to reviewers, and journals; terribly.  I admit that and it's a big obstacle.  And I'm envious that they had the opportunity to enjoy more prestigious settings.  I wish I could get a foot hold like that too.  But at the same time I just don't think it's going to be possible for me to be published or be respected on the same level, no matter what I do.

Is it healthy for me to behave like this?  Or am I being too optimistic in thinking that I have something to contribute that could blossom into graduate level, age appropriate research and/or a funded project?

The point is that I've given up looking for a degree or trying to participate in the research projects of others; it places the burden on them to find a place for me in their work and I'd rather be sharpening my own offering instead of going on a wild goose chase.  Math doesn't require the same kind of budgetary overhead, or anywhere near the same level of oversight as the life sciences.  I don't need a lab.  I don't need dangerous chemicals or expensive equipment, and I don't need a workshop, either.

The other question (of which this was marked as a duplicate) was asked by a much more established individual that already finished a Master's degree and wanted to collaborate on somebody else's research; putting together a CV to apply for a research spot is much easier when there's something to anchor it.


texts: How to get academic reference for grad school admission if I didn't interact with professors in my online bachelor's degree?

texts:
I need a letter of recommendation, but am unsure how to get it.

I am applying to graduate school. I need three letters of recommendation. I have 2/3. Some schools to which I am applying require the third to be from an academic, such as a professor.

My undergraduate education was online. I never interacted with a professor. Even if I could get a letter of recommendation, I am not sure that it would be relevant. I am applying to graduate school in a field completely unrelated to business.

Do I submit a non-academic reference? Do I ask a professor with whom I have no pre-existing relationship?


texts: Article got accepted into PRL -- do I pay the costs?

texts:
Last week we got an article accepted into PRL (Physical Review Letters). As is standard, they afterwards sent out an email saying

  To help defray editorial and production expenses, APS, a
  not-for-profit, society publisher, expects authors of manuscripts to
  pay appropriate publication charges; publication charges are
  contributions from authors' institutions to the cost of disseminating
  research results and should be regarded as an essential and proper
  part of their research budget.  You are requested to make a payment of
  $765 toward the cost of disseminating your research results.  However,
  the inability to pay this charge will not affect the publication
  process of your manuscript.

So they say they expect us to pay, but at the same time they say the publication process continues independently of whether this happens.

What is the 'proper'/'sensible' thing to do? What is commonly done?