texts: What happens if your research doesn't get published?

texts:
In research work, I'm guessing that the primary product you want to create is some sort of publication. But what happens if you don't get you published? Does that mean the research you did is invalid / you can't reference what you learned in any future work?

For example:
Let's say someone gets a grant to research a question. The research is good/accurate, but for whatever reason, they can't get it published or they run out of funding. On the other hand, they get a different grant to do similar research where research from the first project would be useful. Only thing is, it isn't published. Can they still reference it in their new work? I guess another way to ask it is: Is publication the only way researchers can validate their work?

I currently work in development, but I'm interested in how research-heavy projects work. So sorry if this is a simple question.


texts: Mentioning my clinical depression in a statement of purpose

texts: I have been struggling with clinical depression for over an year now and that has affected my grades. Is it a good idea to mention that in a statement of purpose while applying to a university (for a M.Sc+Ph.D programme)?


texts: I have been asked to change the review I gave to a paper

texts:
I rejected a paper after careful review and consideration, writing six pages to justify my decision.
In less than 24 h I have received a petition to change my verdict to major changes. The rationale is that the other two reviewers have given major changes and that my review is too harsh and not well enough substantiated.

Is this normal?
Is this ethical?
Any further thoughts?

Thank you


texts: Can my age play as an obstacle in my Ph.D. application, and while getting student visa?

texts:
I'm 42, got my master degree in Feb 2017. I´ve 17 years of work experience in the industrial field and I'm still doing academic research with my former supervisor and publishing papers.

I am going to pursue my higher education in Australia or New Zealand.
I also need to apply for a student visa once I get my admission.

Can my age play as an obstacle in my Ph.D. application?
Would my age cause trouble when I issue a student visa too?


texts:
At this point, most US PhD programs have made decisions for many students and are considering a few.

I will have the opportunity to be at a university these days. Will it be a good idea to email a potential adviser who interviewed me and ask him to talk for a few minutes with him and members of the research group since, if accepted, I won't be able to visit at the visit days?

They have yet to decide about me - and since I wasn't accepted on the 1st wave I am getting a bit nervous...


texts: How does peer-review work for "gigantic" collaboration projects?

texts:
Big collaboration projects such as LHC experiments  (ATLAS, ALICE _e.g.) and LIGO result in academic papers featuring hundreds or even more than 1000 authors. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in fields like particle physics, researchers seem to belong to one of a small number of possibly competing collaboration projects. So if a paper resulting from a huge collaboration is submitted for peer review, the number of qualified referees would be very small (excluding researchers from competing collaboration projects), such that the anonymity of the referees would likely be compromised.

Is peer review still meaningful for papers resulted from huge collaboration? If yes, how should it be conducted?


texts: Are there any examples of people who successfully did a startup AND worked in academia? Or is it better to just choose one?

texts:
I'm a newly minted PhD researcher from Sweden who just finished my defense this summer (after a really stressfull and draining final year). Ever since then I have been thinking about my future in academia. I basically decided I wanted to build a startup together some friends of mine and we are now in the middle of developing a note-taking app for academia to make it easier to write and organize notes when writing research articles. We've received a bunch of really encouraging feedback so far from the people who have signed up for the free test version. However, I realize that the more time I spend on this, the less time I have to build my academic profile, publish papers and so forth.

So my specific questions are:

Are there any successful examples of people who have managed to both be part of a growing startup and continue on in academia?
I've currently chosen to work in academia only part-time (making basically 1/3 of the salary that I made as a PhD student, just barely enough to pay the bills so I don't take from my limited savings) but I keep hearing the advice that it's better to go all in and remove any safety net? Is this good advice or is it better to do it gradually?


texts: What if my professor writes me a negative LOR, in order to keep me working with him?

texts:
I am a undergrad student, and I am currently conducting summer research under a professor.

During our last meeting, I have revealed that I wish to go to school A for my graduate study. But my prof rather wanted me to stay at my current school for master/phd; i.e., stay and work for him.

Well, I have already spent 3 years in my current undergrad school and I know it too well it is not where I want to go.

The problem is that, this prof is the only person who can comment on my research experience/potential.  (Because I have been working 2 years with him; this year is the second year).

Right now, I can sense something not right in the relationship between my prof and I. At the end, if I go ahead and ask him to write me a recommendation letter, I am sure he would write one. But the question is, there can be a chance that he writes negatively, such that I would get rejected everywhere, and have nowhere to go except staying at my current school and do graduate study with him.

What should I do?

More detail info:

There used to be a PhD student who published quality paper and taking care of things in the lab. The Prof is almost always away so he definely need someone to do this kind of lab managing job. As far as I know, none of his graduate students publish paper for 3 years in a row except for that Phd student. Currently, that PhD student is graduated this year so I guess he was looking for a candidate as a replacement.


texts: Can I ask the editor for rapid processing (rapid peer review) in the cover letter of my paper submission?

texts:
I'm a PhD student and I need to (almost desperately) squeeze in another paper for my dissertation in the next 6 months. Is it acceptable to explain my situation to the editor and ask to set a tighter deadline to the reviewers?

My field is health sciences and biostatistics.


texts: How to find ranking of textbooks by popularity used in a course?

texts:
Is there a way that I can find the ranking of textbooks by popularity used in a specific course, say Linear Algebra. Here the ranking based on either

the number of students using the book (as the main textbook)

or

the number of institutions using the book (as the main textbook)

or both will be a useful resource in choosing a textbook of the course.


texts: Does membership of academic honour societies carry any professional weight / recognition?

texts:
I understand honour societies have been around for years and it is a tradition more prevalent in the western world to recognise outstanding academic talent.

The largest honour society is perhaps the Golden Key which operates worldwide and has over 2 million members. It provides a range of services to members, including leadership training, networking and the opportunity to do good. Membership is by invitation only and only those who are in the top 15% of their class or high performing graduate students are eligible. The eligibility is based solely on academic performance.

I presume being invited to join a honour society is an 'honour' in itself, as the mere mention of this affiliation on the CV would indicate that you are a top achiever.

Question 1: Does membership of honour society carry any professional weight?

(i.e. does it give any additional advantages?)

Note: Honour society is not the same as professional society. The latter, as I understand it, is open to all persons in a particular field (irrespective of their academic achievement but as long as certain criteria are met, e.g. successful registration as a teacher to join a teacher's union).

Question 2: Are there other honour societies in addition to the Golden Key (which seems to be the most dominant one)?

PS: I am unsure of the tag, so putting CV. Please update!

Disclaimer: I am not associated with Golden Key.


texts: Unusual presentation for a postdoc interview on topic "How would you manage the lab"

texts:
I have done postdoc interview-presentations before and usually you are asked to talk about your past research projects and/or your research/teaching expertise/background.
But the requirement from most recent employer got me more than a bit puzzled. They want me to talk how would I manage a research lab. And it really is for a postdoc position, not a technician or lab manager.
From what I gathered I basically would have to talk in a creative way on how my expertise and skills match their requirements and job description.
But I just don't now where to start, and how to go about it. The general tone, the structure on how to put the talk together - no idea. And it has to be 10 minutes, which makes for even bigger challenge, as I would have to polish every word to fit the timeframe.
I tried to google for some tips/examples, but it seems like such presentation type is so very unusual, that it wasn't mentioned even.
Anybody had similar experiences? Any tips anybody? I still have some time to prepare, but it starts to eat on my nerves.
Thanks in advance.


texts: Problems in making a submitted paper available to interested fellow researchers

texts:
This summer, I present a paper at two conferences. I submitted the paper to the conferences earlier this year, then improved it significantly and submitted it to a journal where it is now under review.

I now presented/am going to present my paper with the updated contents, in the form more or less identical to what I submitted to the journal (i.e., no differences that would be visible in a 15-minute presentation), because it makes no sense to present the old version with certain weakpoints.

Now, I seem to have sparked interest in fellow researchers that came to me after my presentation. One wants her Master student's thesis to include a large, comparative literature review, for which she would love to receive the full version of my paper.
The other is researching in the same area and would like to "just" read my paper, without having mentioned any "specific" usage.

Can I send to them the most updated version of my paper, in the form that is currently submitted and under review at the journal? I understand that me distributing the paper when I actually want the journal to publish it and distribute it for me could be a problem.
Should I disclose this to the journal? Their guidelines for authors mention only submissions to other journals explicitly.

Furthermore, is it common practice or perhaps risky to send out relatively finished papers that are sent out to a journal? I would overlay a watermark over all pages, "do not circulate" or similar, is this reasonable?

One of the two people asked me if I submitted already, and I told her it is under review. I was not sure how to interpret that she asked this question.


texts: Citations in a Postdoc Research Statement (Humanities)

texts: In a research statement for a postdoc application, is it common or expected to provide formal citations (footnotes) for claims, especially in regards to existing scholarship?


texts: Would a paper on the integration of multiple technologies make sense?

texts:
I am currently working on a project for my research internship. This basically consists in taking a few pre-existing concepts and pieces of technology and combining them into a new product/tool.

Apart from publishing results of testing the tool's effectiveness at solving the problem, would it be possible to publish a paper about its development? or does the fact that no new technology was created not make it novel research?

I work in the field of robotics applied to the human body. The device will help users maintain a proper posture.

I realize this might be opinion based, but I still feel that it's relevant.


texts: Dealing with mistake in scheduling an extra lecture

texts:
I am a TA for an undergraduate class, and I have the following situation:

Usually, I give my (one-hour) lectures (which consists of solving exercises and reviewing theory as needed) at Thursdays 12 p.m., but this week they have the midterm right at this time, so I decided to move this week's lecture to Tuesday (today) to help the students. The professor is aware of this and saw no problem, although it might be relevant to say that I had no obligation to do so: I could say "there's no lecture this week" and be done with it. Instead, I said that this lecture would be at the same time, 12 p.m., but I mistakingly wrote 1 p.m. at the webpage of the course. When a student emailed me yesterday asking for confirmation, I hastily confirmed the 1 p.m. mistake, only to realize the screw up.

To minimize the harm, I decided to show up at 12 p.m. and give a two-hour lecture. I put a follow-up message on the webpage informing that I would be there earlier, and sent an email to that student (I do not have everyone's email address). A lot of people showed up at 12, asked their questions, then a lot more people appeared at 1, visibly upset, and asked their questions. All in all, in the end, it seemed that everyone had their questions addressed, so I won't lose any sleep over this.

I would like to know, though, if I could have dealt with the situation better. Or if there is a standard strategy for dealing with this kind of mistake (certainly I'm not the first nor will be the last TA to do this).


texts: Can I put a postdoc as one of the references in my CV?

texts:
I'm applying for a postdoc (Computer Science) and some positions ask for the contact information of 3 references. Beside my Ph.D. supervisor, I work with other departments in my institute, but mostly with the postdocs who were in charge of the projects. For instance, the professor head of department X knows who I am and that I did/do collaborations with them, but has no idea about the details. However, his postdoc researcher can provide much better detail regarding our collaborations and etc.

Nevertheless, I have a feeling that the employers (especially in academia) rely on professor-level references than a postdoc. So, I'm not sure about this situation.


texts: Am I rational to be hopeless to have an academic career after my mental recovery?

texts:
I used to be a PhD student in one of the top research institutes in Germany. Then I realized I have a mental illness and my mother insisted that I go to a psychologist. He told me that I have a moderate level mental illness and prescribed me some medications.
I started taking them and felt very happy but I also lost my ability to focus and was not able to work anymore. I lost my position and went to another doctor and realized the initial prescribed medication was too much. I changed my medication but I still could not focus and was very slow to work.
It took me two years to find another PhD position in a not very good university. During the PhD, I tried to replace the medications with sports and I was mostly successful.
Now I am at the end of my PhD and have become more sober. I have realized that my peers have become assistant professors or senior researchers and this makes me very disappointed. I also have realized that my supervisor is not very good and does not have many connections for postdoc positions.
I still wish I had not listened to my mother and had tried to treat myself without medication. I feel like all my dreams to have an academic career are destroyed. Do you think these feeling are rational?


texts: Can section, subsection, or sub-subsection headings be formatted as questions in a master's thesis? (not all of them at the same time)

texts:
I am wondering if section, subsection, or sub-subsection headings can be formatted as questions. I am working on my masters thesis (Economics) and am following the Chicago Manual of Style Guide (17th ed.).

I have a section (call it Section 3). Section 3 has three subsections (subsections 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3). Now, 3.2 and 3.3 will have four parts each. I only need 3.2.1 - 3.2.4 to have headings phrased as questions.

  Section 3 Heading

    3.1 Subsection Heading

    3.2 Subsection Heading

      3.2.1 Heading Phrased as a Question?  (e.g., Why does the ABC program do X?)
      3.2.2 Heading Phrased as a Question?  (e.g., Is Z the appropriate indicator for the purpose?)
      3.2.3 Heading Phrased as a Question?
      3.2.4 Heading Phrased as a Question?

I want to know if anyone has formatted their section, subsection, or sub-subsection headings as questions in their thesis/dissertation/etc.

Note:

I came across this question in Writing SE but it is more than 5 years old and has only one answer. This post does not work for me because (1) the answer seems to be one dimensional, (2) I have seen many published journal articles with fancy titles (some are formatted as questions), (3) there are no other answers or comments to see what others think or have done, and (4) I just don't feel that the answer is 100% accurate and applicable for all disciplines. I also don't like how the answer says "A great title gives away the ending." To me, interesting titles are what makes me wonder and want to find out the answer.


texts: Comparing the scientific outputs of researchers

texts:
We want to compare the scientific outputs of researchers across various fields (such as theoretical physics versus organic chemistry) quantitatively. Is the following formula appropriate?

Let us consider researcher A in theoretical physics and researcher B in organic chemistry.  First we obtain MIF (mean impact factor) for each researcher’s  field.
Then, let us denote sum totals of the impact factors of each researcher’s papers published during a year to be S(A) and S(B).  Now, we can divide S(A) and S(B) by MIFs of each field. The ratio of the values obtained for each researcher can provide us with a relatively appropriate ground for comparing the outputs of these two researchers, who belong to essentially different fields of research.


texts: Publishing Valuable but Incremental Result

texts:
I am a Ph.D. student and recently I solved an important problem in my domain. Unfortunately, the paper got rejected stating that the results are interesting but incremental.
I discussed this issue with my peers. They said that they have gone through the similar rejection scenarios.
This thing is worrying me a lot. I picked that particular problem statement thinking that solving it would be a great contribution. And, my supervisor thought the same. However, we were able to solve the problem based on existing techniques and there are about 1-2 novel ideas in our work. It means our solution is simple and elegant.
If somebody would have solved the same problem with a rather complicated set of techniques while overlooking the simpler ones; that paper probably would have got accepted. My question is why the paper is judged based on it being incremental while it still being non-trivial? Why a work is not given more importance based on the value of the result instead of the method of obtaining it? Furthermore, I believe that simpler results should be preferred by the community instead of the complicated ones. And, they should completely omit the term "incremental" in their reviews. It is quite frustrating. Even the Google Scholar's tagline is "Stand on the shoulders of giants" :/


texts: Software for tracking next manuscripts to submit

texts: I manage a research group and need to track, for all manuscripts I am going to submit soon, things like funding agency I need to add for that manuscript, authors for the other, potential journals for submission, etc, etc. Currently I build an excel sheet but things are getting very complicated due to all details I need to add, and wonder whether you have the same problem and which solution did you find, if you can share it, or if you use any other software for this.


texts: Using my published work on another paper

texts:
I am currently working on a new publication that uses the same control algorithms that I implemented on another experiment. The controllers are well explained in the published paper but I wish to incorporate the block diagrams and a summarized explanation of the controllers in the new paper.

My question is: can I reuse these figures? do I require permission or a citation will suffice? My reasoning for doing this is to provide the reader with a clear picture of the controllers rather than just a reference to a paper.

thank you


texts: How to find scientists that cited several of my papers?

texts:
There are several ways to find online scientists that cited one of your papers (Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, etc). Recently, however, I ran into a scenario in which I wanted to find authors that cited a specific subset of my papers. To clarify, I don't mean that these citations have to be in the same paper - they could be in different papers by the same author.

One option would be to export the citation data for each of my papers and write some script that parses and extracts the answer. Does anyone know of a simpler/online method of doing this sort of complex query?


texts: Engineering Major applying to Pure Math Grad school

texts:
I'm an engineering student from Korea, but I'm going to apply to graduate school in pure mathematics (to US, UK, and other European schools). I took several classes in math and I'd like to know what other courses I should take for my application to be considered "good enough". I took and got A from the following courses:

Undergraduate: Calculus, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Number Theory, Algebraic Curves
Graduate: Algebra I, Commutative Algebra, Differentiable Manifolds, Riemannian Geometry, Algebraic Topology

What other math courses should I take for my application to be considered seriously?
Can I take graduate courses instead to demonstrate proficiency in the courses in Question 1?
For example, if I am advised to take undergraduate Topology class, does taking graduate Algebraic Topology class count as taking the undergraduate Topology class?
Is it bad if I took all the courses in Question 1, but didn't meet the requirements for obtaining B.Sc in Mathematics in my school?
For example, my school requires that I take Statistics as part of the B.Sc requirement, but other schools may not.

Thanks a lot in advance..!

Edit: I added where I'm studying at and where I'll be applying to.


texts: Conflicts with colleagues as a postdoc - reason enough to start looking for the next job?

texts:
I have recently started as a postdoc at a well-regarded foreign university. I like the place and I have no particular problems with my professor (even though his style isn't exactly to my taste, but I could live with that and take the difference as a learning opportunity).

However, I have a major problem with my fellow postdocs and other junior colleagues. I get the feeling they're just too full of themselves -- but whatever the reason, the situation is that I simply want nothing to do with them. Given that our research group is the only group at the department whose research I could plausibly participate in at the moment, this leaves me with practically no opportunities for fruitful daily scientific interaction.

I'd like to return to my home country after a couple of years of postdoc positions abroad, so I'm feeling some pressure to get the most of my time. I have often heard that the most valuable thing you get out of postdoc positions is the contacts you make. If this is the case, I'm probably wasting my time at my current job. On the other hand, my current institution has much more resources, scientific activities and opportunities to meet distinguished visiting researchers than pretty much any place else I might get to.

So the question is: what should I prioritize when deciding whether to continue at my current job? Is it worth tolerating intolerable colleagues for the opportunity of working at a prestigious and well-endowed university?

I'm sure a recommendation from my current professor would weigh a lot when looking for the next job, but I'm also quite sure I haven't been able to prove myself to him yet.

(Copied from an answer posted below by the original poster:)

I was deliberately vague about the nature of my issues with my colleagues, but I do understand it's relevant.

Of course, it might be just culture shock, as someone suggested. On the other hand, I do feel there's a very unpleasant group dynamic in my research group.

We're conducting research on the beetles of Borneo. I used to be in a group that studies the beetles of New Guinea, and we often have guests who study the beetles of Java or even some other island. But the general atmosphere among my colleagues is that only Borneoan beetles are worth studying. My earlier work is considered definitely useless and irrelevant - and this was also told me explicitly, right after I had presented my work.

The professor seems to share the attitude in some respects, but he's old and experienced enough to understand that even though he might himself care only about the beetles of Borneo, others might still care more about beetles elsewhere. My junior colleagues just think that if it isn't Borneo, it's bullshit.

If I isolate myself, I will have problems learning about Borneo. If I try to learn about Borneo from my colleagues, I'll have to endure constant putdowns of my own interests and earlier work.

(To anyone who actually studies beetles: I'm sorry for using you as an example.)


texts: Applying for second PhD after quitting first one after 2 years on same topic

texts:
I left my first PhD program after two years and after that took up a teaching job for two years and now I am planning to apply for the PhD on the same topic again.

In my first PhD i was not a failure , I took all advanced level courses and got decent grades. However my advisor who is a nice person otherwise works very fast and wants immediate results while since it is theoretical physics I was in general overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things I did not know and needed some time to adjust while the advisor just wanted to pick up topic and start working and had little patience for mistakes which I made a lot in the beginning. I got very little time to absorb things on my own and since I am mostly a self taught person it was more difficult for me to work as per his schedule. He advised me to change advisor however no one in our department was working on the same topic and changing advisor would have meant changing topic of my PhD which I was not willing to do. So I just quit my PhD ,took two years break , did projects with other postdoc , faculties of different universities and currently have four papers under my belt. Have very strong background on all advanced topics in Physics. And am extremely comfortable with research now ( something I was not during my first PhD since I have had time to absorb thing my way) I have managed to secure two letter of recommendations which are not from my ex advisor. Although we ended up on amicable terms , his opinion was that I am not going to make a successful researcher so we are not in contact anymore.

My question is

1.In SoP how do I exactly define the reason for quitting first PhD while I am looking for PhD on same topic second time as well.

2.How is the gap , quitting PhD going to affect my applications? What are my chances of getting selected.

I am mainly planning to apply to Europe.


texts: How to complete PhD when your advisor knows very little about your subject area

texts:
My advisor is very young full professor who has been an advisor for only less than 10 years. She has many diverse projects. The project which I've started is 1 year old and this field is quite New to her and she is not so good at it.

However, the main problem is that she does not have enough time to help me. She is chair of academic courses and has lot of industry projects. So currently she is more like manager managing money and resources for projects.

So my problem is:

Whom should i approach when I'm stuck ?
I have many ideas, but i find very little utility in discussing with her as she understands nothing. What should i do ?

Thanks in advance


texts: Database of funded US Department of Defense (DoD) component grant proposals with abstracts: Does it exist?

texts:
I'm looking for a database of funded grant proposals with abstracts for various DoD components (e.g., DARPA, AFRL, etc.), similar to the one for the NSF.

The Federal Business Opportunities (a.k.a. FedBizOpps) website exists, but it doesn't list the abstracts, the information it does give is not really useful, and the search capabilities on that site are kind of clunky.

Does such a database of funded grant proposals with abstracts for
US DoD components exist?


texts: What to bear in mind while publishing a research article in SCI journal?

texts:
I want to submit my article in a reputed journal indexed in the science citation index (SCI). Is it necessary to read and cite only articles from journals indexed by SCI when submitting your article to journals indexed by SCI?

I am asking this because there are a lot of non-SCI indexed journals (including predatory and just-for-profit fake journals) and, if I cite some data from those fake journal articles, will it cause my article to be perceived as having a poorer quality and hinder the chances of my article being accepted in an SCI-indexed journals ?


texts:
I'm writing a series of three papers. Each paper I'm writing contains two parts (part A + part X), where part A is a new technology and part X is the field of applying it. Part A is common in all the three papers while part X (the field) is variable according to the field the paper discusses.

Can I use the resources of part A in the same arrangement (but with different paraphrasing) in all three papers, or should I get different resources for the same information in part A for all of them?

my question here represent my intention to understand the scientific logic not to suggest bad solution because i am a beginner still .


texts: Is it self-plagiarism if I upload a paper in error, delete it, and then upload a modified version again somewhere else?

texts: Last week, I did a paper, and posted it on my school's online blackboard.  Not even five minutes later, I realized I had misread the directions and took it down.  Some of my points were still relevant, so I used them exactly as i had written them before.  Is this self-plagiarism?


texts: emailing contacts after applying for faculty jobs

texts:
I was talking to some colleagues at work and they strongly advised me to contact people that I know at the universities I applied and let them know that I submitted my application and have interest in joining their departments.

I thought about writing a message but I struggle on what I should ask them specifically. I don’t want to look as I am asking for a favor or being inappropriate. Any 'example' or comment on this will be very valuable.


texts: Examiner proof-reading master thesis before submission. Is this allowed?

texts:
I know someone who is currently writing their master’s thesis. They will be the single author of the document. Our (German) university requires a statement that says something like: ‘I wrote all of this thesis myself unless otherwise specified’, meaning everything not cited is your own work (Eigenständigkeitserklärung).
Now the amount of supervision given for students of course varies between both students and supervisors, but it is generally understood that thesis examiners will read the thesis for grading.
However, one of the advisor’s/examiner’s of my acquaintance offered to proof-read their thesis. This proof-reading can be expected to be both for grammar and content, as the same thing was apparently done by both advisors for the person’s bachelor thesis.
This is not common in my department as far as I can tell. It seems unfair to me: the thesis to be graded was already improved by comments of people who will grade it. In addition, why would they proof-read something for their own examination?
I will most definitely not take any action in this issue. My opinion though is that this is different from proof-reading, e.g., a publication, because the thesis is subject to grading and will not necessarily be published.
Question: Would this situation be considered cheating, micro-managing or just better supervision than average?
(or none of the above?)

This question is somewhat related, but the proof-reading is done by peers instead of examiners. Comments and answers are generally in favour of proof-reading, and one answer mentions proof-reading by supervisors is customary in the UK. I'm not sure whether this applies to Germany, since I haven’t heard about it before.


texts: What do statements of interest, teaching, and research mean when applying for an academic job?

texts:
I'm looking at a job application that asks for the following:

C.V. (required)
Statement of Interests (required)
Cover letter (optional)
Statement of Research (optional)
Statement of Teaching (optional)

I find this confusing because I don't understand what a "Statement of Interests" is supposed to be, relative to the others.  Does anyone know what's expected in a document of this kind?  I'm a bit shy to ask the institution in question just yet, for fear that it's something well-known.


texts: Website for professorship positions in Germany?

texts: Is there any website for professorship positions in Germany? I find few websites, but they don't cover most of the universities. There are more up-to-date advertisements on the website of universities, but it is very time consuming to check them one by one.


texts: How do I find a collaborator for a social science research project if I'm not in school?

texts:
For context: I know exactly the topic and have an idea for the methods. I have done background research and seen what similar research has been done (and how). I have an associate’s degree. I live in Boston where I feel confident there must be some professor or postdoc or grad student who understands the details of the scientific method and academic publishing around here, but I am not in their social circle.

For now, I am mostly looking for someone to at least look over my methods and critique how scientifically sound they are (or perhaps propose better methods). Ideally they would also help me to publish this in an academic journal and offer some guidance as I conduct the project.

I will be doing this research either way as it is about an important social issue. I will be sharing the results with (hopefully) in news media, with (small grassroots) advocacy organizations I work with, and with local legislators. I figure, if I’m doing it either way, it would be best to have the institutional backing of academia. But I don’t really know anyone, so how?


texts: Should I apply for the scholarships if I currently have a RA position in my supervisor lab?

texts:
I am a M.Sc. graduated and I will start my PhD in September and in a top university abroad (Canada). My supervisor guaranteed a yearly stipend during my studies as long as I am in good academic standing from his own grants.
Recently, department secretary advertised the PhD scholarship competition of the university which covers the stipends of students during their PhD studies. The amount of scholarship is just slightly better than my current RA funding (~2k per year difference), so it is not a major monetary benefit in that. More over, I wondering if accepting the scholarship leads the professor to pay less attention to my project as he is not under some pressure to complete the projects that he did not receive grants for. On the other hand, accepting the scholarship may give the students some degree of security about their funding (e.g. if they find conflicts with their advisor in future and want to change advisor).
All in all, I would like to know if is it a good idea to accept an scholarship instead of the RA funding of the lab you work in?


texts: risk of shifting to online learning permanently

texts:
My university, like many others, has recently moved to remote teaching in response to the corona virus situation. In my department, the faculty have taken the lead on finding and adopting solutions to the difficulties posed by the transition. I am a postdoc and not directly involved in a lot of the big changes. But I wonder if the faculty are sealing their fate, being so helpful when there is a counterparty, the administration, that may not have the faculty's best interests at heart (note, I have no direct knowledge either way).

Specifically, barring any big disasters in remote teaching these next weeks/months, I would guess 1) smaller schools close to insolvency, many of which have closed these last few years, would instead have an opportunity to cut costs by dispensing with or heavily decreasing in-person instruction, without facing the PR issues or other pushback that would otherwise bring, and 2) even in schools with secure finances, or where it is unrealistic to get rid of in-person instruction, professors would lose a lot of bargaining power in any negotiations with the administration, since they will be regarded as that much less necessarily. Possibly the next few weeks/months will demonstrate that the professors are in fact less necessary, and remote learning is perhaps preferable. I am not really asking about that, my question is more selfish as someone going on the job market soon. Are these outcomes likely? This type of concern must be on the radar of professors' unions, no?


texts: Google Scholar Public Access new feature and lost citations

texts:
Google's new "Public Access" feature invites you to upload preprints of some of your papers. These preprints are stored in Google Drive.
Today I used this feature and uploaded two preprints. Then, I realized that my total citation count decreased exactly by an amount corresponding to the citations by those two papers.
If I add up all the citations individually I still can recover my old total citation count but the right panel has a lower citation count.
Is this a bug of the new feature? has anybody experienced this?


texts: Recommender choice for admission to a MSc program

texts:
I am planning to apply for an MSc program in Northern Europe or the UK, starting September 2014, which typically requires two recommendation letters from my former university professors. I have the following dilemma:

I have a personal relationship with two professors from my faculty, whom i know are going to give excellent recommendations for me. However, I chose neither of them as my supervisor for my Bachelor thesis, and I prefered to work on it under the supervision of a third professor, whom i have a slightly less personal relationship and spent limited time with during my undergraduate years (reason for that being my subject of choice overlapping with his/his groups research). In fact I only had extensive direct contact with one of his PhDs, under the guidance of whom i conducted my project.

So what I really want to ask is: Is it considered necessary for one of my LOR to be given from my thesis advisor? Is it going to look bad or somewhat odd to the eyes of the admissions committee if not?


texts: Is it good to label papers as Part I, Part II?

texts:
If a paper is too long, I was advised to split it into two papers. What is the general opinion of reviewers/editors on having "Part I", "Part II" literally in the title of the papers?

Or is it better if I replace "Part I", "Part II" by more descriptive titles?

Thanks. (My field is in Math.)


texts: How to set the threshold below which students get a failing grade in a university-level course?

texts:
What criteria (in light of the best practices or teaching experience) should one consider when deciding the passing percentage of the course?  (By the passing percentage I mean the grade threshold below which the student will receive an F)

How should the threshold below which students get a failing grade depend qualitatively on these criteria?


texts: Resources for English speaking students with poor command of grammar and writing style

texts:
I sometimes read student assignments  where the grammar and writing style is poor. Paragraphs don't really flow. Sentences go on for ever. The ordering of words is awkward. Instead of concisely introducing the subject of the sentence, it goes on forever.

I'd like to be able to recommend resources to such students. Ideally, such a resources would be available online so I could just give them a link or two to some writing style and grammar materials with exercises.

What is a good resource (preferably online) for teaching English speaking university students how to improve their writing style?


texts: How much information should I reveal in a postdoc interview, when I am also applying for a fellowship at a different institution?

texts:
I have been invited for an interview to a post-doc position. In the same time, I am applying for a post-doc fellowship to a different organisation. If that fellowship application will be successfull, I will have to quit the postdoc position (where I am going to do interview) somewhere in the middle, because I am more interested in that position with the fellowship.

I know, I don´t have any clues whether any of the two positions will work out, but how should I address this fellowship opportunity on the intreview?

Should I let them know in advance that I am applying for a fellowship and let them decide whether they want to interview me anyway? Or should I mention only at the interview, that I am applying for a fellowship? Or shouldn´t I mention it at all?


texts: Understanding a proposed schedule of a journal special issue

texts:
For my first time I submitted a manuscript to a journal special issue months ago. The special issue had a proposed schedule as follows:

Submission deadline: 1st date
Papers reviewed: 2nd date
Revised papers reviewed and accepted : 3rd date
Notifications to authors: 4th date
Publication: Approximate date

A- If it is supposed to send a revision on the (3rd date), does it mean that review comments/scores will be delivered at the (2nd date)? In my case I didn't get review comments even after many days of the (2nd date).

B- The (3th date) mentions "Revised papers reviewed and accepted". Does it mean papers are accepted for granted after the first review round and need only a revision? I thought that usually there are 2 review rounds before final decision.


texts: Publishing an article in a journal without a related degree

texts:
Are their any requirements to publish an article in a journal without a degree in the field? If so, what are they?

I was curious if people in general can publish in an journal when they have not obtained a degree in the field.


texts:
Is being a poor writer a serious impediment as a researcher? I mean if you're particularly bad at writing reports and always get bad feedback as a student for your reports, does that mean my research career would never take off?
The question asks whether researchers working in teams are all required to contribute to composing the reports or can you get away with it if you compensate with other skills?


texts: How can I cite multiple geo-locational data used from Google maps?

texts:
I am preparing my journal paper for submission. For the data analysis in this paper, I utilized geo-positional coordinates of all the convenience stores locations in my study area (approximately 90 stores, i.e., 90 set of coordinates). This coordinate dataset for the 90 store locations was obtained from searching on Google maps. I would like to know how to cite where I collected/retrieved this data. Given that it is over 90 stores, how would I go about doing this? Any insights would be appreciated. Cheers.

Edit: Please see the 'Example' under section 'APA 7th Edition' here.
You can see in their example that this a single citation for map directions between two places. In my case the information I am extracting from Google maps are 90 individual place locations/GPS coordinates. Would it then call for a citation for each? (Of course not, as this would be ridiculous, I am simply looking for the most appropiate way to cite the 90 locations in a combined way).


texts: Choosing a PI for my MS/PhD degree in EE based on the h-index?

texts:
I am an EE undergraduate senior who is about to become a graduate student next semester.

I applied for integrated MS/PhD and there are two PIs I can choose. However, the problem is that I do not know choosing which PI will benefit myself in long term perspective.

Their research fields are 90% the same. Furthermore, they are currently assistant professors who came to this school this year which means that they have no alumni yet. The only apparent difference is the h-index based on Google Scholar where that of one PI is almost twice that of the other.

Is this case, is it obvious to choose the one with the higher h-index? First, I thought choosing the PI with the higher h-index would be a wise choice because they are almost the same age, studying the same research field with same alumni status which is 0 since they are both new. If all conditions are the same, considering the h-index difference would be a relevant comparison.

However, thinking another way, the department committee are not idiots; they would have hired the PI with the lower h-index for some reason that cannot be explained by the lower h-index. So, maybe, choosing the one with the lower h-index will be a harmless choice or even might be a good choice for me.

I heard hundreds of pieces of advice that comparing PIs in terms of h-index is not relevant due to different research fields, ages, alumni status, etc. However, in my case, the fact that they are so alike in everything except the h-index makes me confused. What will be a good choice for me? Or at least, even if you don't have a definite answer, please give me advice.


texts: Reviving a Rejected Proposal -- Question on Ethical Considerations

texts:
A friend of mine wrote a research proposal a few years ago. When he had 80% of it done, he pitched the idea to a colleague who joined and wrote the extra 20%. The proposal got rejected. A few years later the friend is trying to write a different proposal that has some aspects (but not content) in common with the old proposal. However, the colleague who co-wrote the old proposal will not respond to multiple emails requesting him to join the new proposal -- they probably lost interest but for some reason won't come out to say so.

Lets assume the proposal goes ahead to submission  without involving the earlier collaborator. If the proposal were to get funded, isn't there a risk, that the earlier collaborator could turn around and claim they somehow influenced the direction of the new  proposal yet is not credited on the proposal? How in general do people move on after a joint proposal gets rejected; and some members won't be interested in joining offshoots of the old proposal. Of course in this case there is the added challenge of the earlier collaborator refusing to come out and make it clear that he is uninterested. How does one avoid the potential accusations of being unethical?


texts: How do I abbreviate the titles after my name?

texts:
I just got my Ph.D and I'm trying to work out how to do the full series of abbreviations after my name.

My scholastic qualifications are:

Ph.D University of New South Wales, Philosophy
Masters of Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, Information Technology
Bachelors of Science, RIT, Information Technology

RIT Scholar (University Medal)
Highest Honors.

Given that I have both American and Australian degrees, what series of abbreviations is appropriate to put after my name?


texts: How to find funding for your PhD? (Canadian university)

texts:
I am considering pursuing my Phd in Canada.

However, I see that I will have to secure funding to cater for my tuition and accomomdation costs, unlike in  the UK where we are treated as University employees and given a monthly pay.

I have done some online research into scholarships and funding, but still need some assistance on how the Canadian systems work on funding.


texts:
I developed a survey and my study using the survey is still under review for a publication.  However, my friend wants to use the survey and data for her study. I collected the data only in my school; she wants to collect additional data from a different school.

My concerns are:

If her study is published before mine, my study could be meaningless.
Also, the two studies could be very similar.

Is it okay to allow her to use my survey as well as my data?


texts: Research activity conflicts with advisor

texts:
I've been in distress for the last several months because of this. My PhD advisor somehow decided to start her own field research in the same region where I have been working on for a few years now. Then when I was doing my fieldwork last time, she was there too and she used the same resources I have - contacts, measurement equipment and lab, etc. It became awkward for not only us but also for other researchers involved. Even worse, once I told her that I wouldn't be able to help 'her' project (I'm busy with mine!), she started cutting me off from my resources, withholding information, etc. She's still my advisor and I am wondering where I should go from here - too late to change advisor but this is getting too toxic. When I consulted other professor, he said it was pretty normal that multiple researchers do similar researches at the same time in the same region. But is it common between advisor and her student as well? Any advice will be appreciated.

PS: I have my research fund. Although my advisor wrote recommendation letters for me to get the funding, I've never been her research assistant.


texts: Why do some instructors care so much about attendance?

texts:
It seems that in higher education, some instructors either do not care at all whether students attend, and others care minimally (often resulting in a 1-5% attendance grade or tie-breaker rule).

However there are also many instructors who seem to feel very, very strongly about attendance, and take it upon themselves to enforce this in various ways.

For instance, I was shocked by a recent question claiming that 15% of the grade would be lost for missing 2 lectures - according to the question author, the class meets so frequently that this would constitute missing less than 3% of the lectures! While this seems like an extreme case, it seems like it's not uncommon to find professors who may deduct 10% or so for missing a small fraction of lectures.

Why are these professors so preoccupied with making students attend? If attendance is so crucial to doing well in the class, wouldn't the students who don't attend do poorly in the exams anyway? Why additionally punish those students who did not attend, but did well regardless?


texts: Is is okay to write "awarded" when the selected list is released online, but final offer yet to receive?

texts:
Is it okay if I write in letter/e-mail, the following?
   "I have been awarded recently ..."
when the final selected list for the award is published online, but the actual award offer letter is yet to receive?


texts: Overcoming a profound basis of underperformance as a freshman

texts:
Relevant background:

Freshman at large public research university, pursuing Engineering/Applied Mathematics dual major.

Labeled 'gifted' after neuropsych evaluation in Elementary school. Processing speed about 2 standard deviations lower than other subscores, this may have contributed to learning maladaptations that have become evident in University.

K-8: Programs where I got A's and B's without actually making the effort to learn the material. Never a straight-A student, usually got discouraged when my (also 'gifted') peers did stuff more quickly than I could, decided I didn't like what I wasn't good at.

I got a few A's but mostly B's in high school math, where I completed up to Multivariable Calculus, in which I received a B.

This semester I took Linear Algebra & Differential Equations (1 course) which comprised 2 midterms and a final. I got an A on the LA midterm, didn't have much trouble with that. However I got a D on the DE midterm; it turns out I can't integrate worth a damn anymore. My final grade is TBD, but I'm guessing I will earn a B in the class.

The cruel irony is that by the time I realized I enjoyed math I also handicapped myself to learning it.

Question:

Has anyone here been in or witnessed an applicable situation? It feels as if I've dug myself a hole that may not be possible to get out of regarding future math classes.


texts: Should I repeat experiment affected by external factors until achieving consistent result

texts:
I am doing an experiment assumed to be performed in ideal environment although it is not, e.g. resource is fully allocated from a resource pool shared between different organisations. As my experiment is affected by external factors (e.g. a shared pool may not fully allocate all requested resource) the result sometime is different from what I expect. However, since my model is proven to work in an ideal environment, I am sure that if I keep repeating the experiment, I will get a result which is consistent with my calculation, e.g. when a shared pool have enough resource to allocate to my request.

Notably, when I run an experiment, I do it few times to get the average result. Moreover, I'm aware that an environment is not ideal and planning to address it in my future research.

So, is it acceptable to keep repeating the experiment until I get the (average) result which is consistent with my calculation? Furthermore, should I mention in my paper how many times I perform my experiment to get the presented result or just mention briefly about the imperfect environment and a plan to handle it in future research?

Update: my research aims to use shared or volunteer resources to perform computation. It is in the early state when I calculate the required resource for a job prior to its execution. In other words, during an execution, I assume that there are enough resources for me, which doesn't always happen. As I said, I'm planning to investigate dynamic calculation in the future.


texts:
My M.Sc. Thesis' abstract got accepted for presentation at a conference this year and I am about to send the paper. Should I give the paper to my current supervisor (of my Ph.D. in a different University) to read it and have an opinion?

EDIT: Including answers to comments

My previous supervisor has read it and gave me feedback. He suggested me sending the abstract and his relationship with my current supervisor does not exist since they don't know each other.


texts: In medical research, what is the relative value of confirming old work vs. new discoveries?

texts:
I am an MS student in medical immunology. I am looking for my research proposal, and would like to get a nice publication (i.e., publish in a journal with a high impact factor). Given this, is it better to do something totally new, or is there value in repeating old work?

I ask because my supervisor is busy and gives me considerable freedom. I have the idea of experimenting with the role of some gene in an autoimmune disease but no one has done that work before. Is it good to pursue this? When I write it up, how will I do citations?


texts: What is the scope of an unregistered IRB?

texts: The community college I attend has an IRB that is not registered with the FDA and is supposed to review projects conducted by students or faculty. I (as a student) would like to conduct a survey (that involves minimal risk) through a mobile application that would be meant for, and open to the general public. I contacted my institution’s IRB and they said that this type of research would be out of the scope of my community college’s IRB. Is this true? Do I even need IRB approval for my research? I do not plan on publishing any information or receiving any federal or state funding, but the data collected through my survey might be used to create a product/service that might require FDA approval. Again, the survey and the mobile application through which the survey is conducted will not be submitted for FDA approval, but a product created from the data I collect (which is all anonymized before I receive it) might be. What do you recommend for my situation? I do not have the resources to get approval from a commercial IRB, and the universities I have contacted (who have federally registered IRBs), say they cannot review research from a student of another institution.


texts: What is known about the evaluation behavior of students?

texts:
Much information can be found about what influences student evaluations of teaching. The evaluation results of an instructor depend on gender, race, attractiveness, personality traits, bringing cookies to class, grades expected, and other such variables.

What is known the evaluation behavior of students? Is there any research about which variables influence whether a student is full of praise or critical towards their instructor?


texts: How to check how fast the review and publication process in a journal

texts:
I am trying to decide on the journal where I want to submit my article. Besides the ranking of the journal, what I care is the speed with which the journal review articles. OK, I do not accept a super-fast review process from any journal, but sometimes it can be painful to wait too long as many of you have already experienced.

I know that some journals shares information about dates when the articles was first received. I can use this information to make an estimation about the length of review process. But, many others do not share any information about this.

So, I wonder if there are some ways to have an idea to publish an article in a journal before submitting?


texts:
Are Masters degrees from German universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen) eligible for PhD?

If I do a Masters in any of the German universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen), would I be able to apply for a PhD in any other Universities/research institutes in Germany?


texts: Differences between “Polytechnic” and “Technology”?

texts:
Some universities are called Polytechnic and some other contain Technology in their name, for example the Valencia Polytechnic University (UPV) vs. the Technical University of Berlin (TUB).

What are the differences between them?


texts: Are there online resources for finding information on M.S. programs that fit my criteria, without having to go through every school's website?

texts:
I'm looking for an M.S. in Computer Science and I found it difficult to properly navigate all the available degrees. I'm interested in a particular focus (computer graphics, not modelling and that kind of stuff but how to do use algorithms in order to create graphics). I also have some constraints on language: I currently speak both Dutch and English, so no German or French master's for me.

There are other questions on this site about finding graduate programs and their curriculums, but I'm mainly looking for quick preselection (like a top 30 of options I have). I'm looking for a overview of courses as it enables quick elimination which if I have to wait for each uni to answer will take quite a long time

Is there any website or other online resource that will allow me to filter all M.S. programs by my requirements (language or country, research focus) and then find out information (such as the list of courses that comprise the degree) about the programs that meet my criteria, all in one place?


texts: Find article link by bibtex citation key

texts:
I have a list of citation keys (entry names in bib file) but I don't have the name of article. How can I find the article link?

For example, according to bib file of this article, the citation key is JagadeeshChandraBose2010. Suppose I only have JagadeeshChandraBose2010 and I need to find the link to article. How can I do it?

I tried Google and all search engines listed here, but I didn't find a solution.


texts: How to read one to more research papers that are nearly 20- 30 pages in a short time since I have other miscellaneous works ?


texts: How to reference a technical document (like an RFC) in APA style?

texts:
Like, this document, for instance:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791

It's an official Internet Engineering Taskforce document that defines things like network protocols, etc. Often times there's really no specific individual(s) credited as the author(s), and even the official title can seem ambiguous.

The information on the title page is:

INTERNET PROTOCOL
DARPA INTERNET PROGRAM
PROTOCOL SPECIFICATION
September 1981

prepared for
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Information Processing Techniques
Office
1400 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, Virginia 22209

by
Information Sciences Institute
University of Southern California
4676 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, California 90291

So what's the official title and who get's the credit; DARPA, IPTO, ISI, USC, or IETF? I was going to do something like below, but I thought I should check with you guys.

DARPA. (1981, September). Internet Protocol Specification. RFC 791. Retrieved from https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791


texts: How to deal with potential data falsification?

texts:
TL;DR

We cannot reproduce very good simulation results of our paper and the person who was responsible for writing the code and running the simulations does not have the code anymore and cannot explain how the results were obtained. How should we deal with potential data falsification?

Long version

I co-authored a paper that included some Monte Carlo simulations. One of the coauthors was responsible for the simulations, allegedly wrote the code and gave us the results of the simulations. Later on, I wanted to reuse the code for another project. He reluctantly sent me the code after a long delay. However, the code did not generate the results that we reported in the paper. He said that he lost the code that he used to generate the results of the paper. The code that he sent me is some code that he used at some point of writing the code for the paper, but might not be the final one. He could not explain how the results of the paper were obtained.

We were also working on another project with the same person. He was also responsible for simulations of that project. He again lost the code and could not explain how the results were obtained. The paper of the second project was rejected by the journal and we are going to be able to rerun the simulations and report the correct results.

I suspect that this person just falsified the results.

We are thinking about removing this person from the project and removing this person from the list of authors when we resubmit that paper. Even though the person cannot explain how the results were obtain, there is still a chance that he somehow made some mistake that led to very good results. However, I think it is unlikely. Removing this person from the list of the authors would probably affect his career in a bad way so I would not want to do that without enough evidence. However, I do not think that we can continue working with this person because he lost our trust.

What should we do? How should we deal with this potential data falsification by a coauthor?


texts: Do faculty hiring committees inform the candidates of the results?

texts:
Context: I've applied for several tenure-track positions. I have one or two favorites, but I'd gladly embrace any of them, basically because I only applied to good universities, with good programs, in good cities.

Question: Usually, they will just ignore the 'discarded' candidates or inform us of the decision?

In my previous experience, I was informed, after I asked via e-mail, several months later. I understand that it would be a significant amount of work, most places have more than 250 applicants per process, but no information at all is kind of rude, isn't?

I also know that the candidates that are selected for the interview are contacted, some universities give a tentative timeline, so you can infer if you were selected or not, but that's not the general case...


texts: As a full-time paid RA, should I get co-authorship on a paper that I have written?

texts:
I am working as a full-time research assistant at a university. I recently wrote a paper almost entirely independently. The contribution of the professor I work under was limited to telling me the topic that the paper is to be written on, and providing minimal inputs on the drafts (things like changes in grammar, or the inclusion of another aspect of the topic).

Now he is presenting the paper at a conference, and is listed as the sole author of the paper. As far as I know, I am not even noted in the acknowledgements. Am I incorrect in thinking that I should be listed as at least a co-author on the paper?

The only reason I am confused is because I am paid for my work at the university. However the work that I have done on the paper goes far beyond my professional responsibilities. Furthermore, I was hired to work on a completely different project altogether, but am helping the professor with most of his research.


texts: Reviewers had questions about why my supervisor wasn't on manuscript

texts: I completed my MS by research under a supervisor. There was considerable delay in completing because my supervisor suddenly lost interest in research midway through my program. I had sent him a research paper for his comments but even after several reminders, he did not show interest in looking at the paper. After graduating from the program, I decided to send it to a journal myself. I sought permission from my supervisor and he was ok with it. Since he had not reviewed it, he said he could send it without including his name as one of the authors. So, I had acknowledged his guidance in the paper in the acknowledgement section. I had sent the paper and now, in the reviewer comments, one of the reviewers has asked about not adding the supervisor's name in the author list (it was listed under minor comments). I'm not sure how to respond to this question. Right now, I'm not exactly on speaking terms with my supervisor. Can anyone please help me?


texts: How to address dependencies when publishing a chain of papers

texts:
In computer systems, it's relatively common to have a large problem which is broken up into multiple sub-problems, each of which is substantial in its own right and is in the realm of different subsets of students. Suppose there's two parts, A and B. Suppose that properly presenting B requires explanations and background which A establishes (concepts, principles, etc.), and preferably would reproduce some figures for clarity. However, A has been written but not yet accepted/published.
How should the authors of B proceed? Ideally the figures would be reproduced from the drafts and clearly cited as copies, but it seems weird as the original is yet unpublished. This also creates the worry that reviewers for a later submission of A would complain that these contributions are not novel as B's earlier publication have already presented them.


texts: Best way to show relevant experience when applying for a loosely related Masters?

texts:
I am currently in full time employment, but looking to return to University in order to complete a Masters in Computer Science in 2018, so I have plenty of time to implement your suggestions here.

My Bachelors was in an Economics related field, but I only managed to achieve a Third, due to personal reasons and a general lack of passion for the subject area, I should have done a Bachelors in Computer Science, but hindsight is 20:20

I graduated around three years ago and have been in positions with a heavy programming element, having implemented some projects using OOP and T-SQL on a regular basis in real life applications. I believe I will be able to handle any of the programming requirements of any such Masters in the Computer Science field because of this.

Obviously, institutions requiring a strict degree level are closed to me, but many institutions I am interested in state that work experience will be taken into consideration.

How do I best present my experience and attitude to these institutions?

Edit: Thanks for all the good advice so far, just to add that I am UK based, but you have given truly actionable steps so far.


texts: With regards to PhD theses, what level of knowledge should one assume the reader to have? And, if needed, where should basic information be placed?

texts:
With regards to PhD thesis that spans several disciplines, at what point does one assume that an article doesn't require explanation and it is  standard knowledge?

I have had this discussion with several academics and there doesn't appear to be consensus. One suggested a middle ground that I quite liked: Anything considered standard knowledge, should be placed into an appendix so as to not disturb the flow of the thesis but still somewhere handy enough for the reader to bush up on or explore.

Is this a common technique? I've read so many theses that contain waffle and filler explaining (what I consider to be) the basic requirements of the field, however my option of "basic" is just that; An option. People have different degrees, life experiences, interests and so their options will no doubt differ regarding what is considered standard knowledge.

So at what point is something consider "standard knowledge"? If a technique/paper/method is widely written about in master/Bachelor's course texts, journal papers and has a wiki page - does that qualify? For example; consider the most basis statistical techniques, such as chi squared test etc - does one really need to explain, in detail, what it is? Would a reference suffice or would a thesis begin to look ridiculously short? Perhaps placing it into an appendix?

Is there a general accepted rule of thumb that I am unaware of? Or is it truly a black art? I don't want to look lazy by not including material, but at the same time I don't want to waffle on.


texts: Adding Authors After Manuscript Acceptance

texts:
I was recently informed that a manuscript that I submitted to a journal a long time ago has been accepted.

I submitted it as the sole author, however, my advisor had some comments and suggestions that I applied to the manuscript.

As a courtesy I would now like to add him as an author.

My question: can a second author, i.e. my advisor, be added once I receive the galley proof, or whatever that is called, to the manuscript.

Any thoughts would be highly appreciated.

Possibly related to this question.


texts: How much time should one spend refereeing a paper?

texts:
I finished my PhD about a year ago and every now and then I get asked to referee a paper (perhaps once every two months from a reputable journal). I tend to accept as many as possible (except from crappy so-called "predatory" publishers, which I decline immediately) because I find refereeing papers is a good way to force myself to learn new things. There is also the moral obligation to referee a peer's paper to compensate for the time your peers spend refereeing yours.

My problem is that, at this early stage in my career, I'm familiar with the work I did during my PhD and little else. Since I try to be as fair as possible (I hate it when I get a report from someone who has clearly not understood the paper or just skimmed through the text), this means I spend a lot of time reviewing literature and trying to understand a paper before submitting a report. For something very close to what I have done in the past, I could finish the report in half a day. For something further away, I could be looking at anywhere from one to three days, depending on how familiar I am with the methods used and the length of the manuscript. As everyone in the academic world knows, it sometimes gets very busy (just "normal" busy otherwise), and these breaks tend to disrupt my "paid" job routine (I understand reviewing is also part of my unpaid duties).

I guess reviewing will get easier and quicker as I gain experience, but is it usual to spend so much time refereeing papers? What would be an acceptable compromise between a rigorous review and reconciling it with your paid duties?


texts: Pure Math PhD Application with an accidental F (But with some rescue action)

texts:
There are certain concerns that say this might be duplicate of this question:
How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students?. However, I believe that is not the case. That question talks about a low overall GPA. I do not have a low overall GPA but just an accidental F. I think that is different.

My situation is a little bit special so I am sorry if I did not write a perfect title to summarize the whole story. I will briefly tell the case and my situations and then ask the questions in detail.

I am an international student in pure math at a US college with 10-20 ranking and I plan to be a mathematician from the very beginning since I was young. However, I got into an accident in the first half of my 3rd year. I missed the deadline of the final of my PDE class and that final counted up for 40% of the grade, making me fail the course. This made me so depressed, since my school will show both grades even if you retake the course. I can retake the course but some of the grad schools that I hope to get into have an application deadline before my fall semester grade come out, which is really troublesome.

Also here is some of my overall performance in college

1.After fail, I still have an overall GPA about 3.8

2.I had top performance on other my courses and even I can do better than grad students in grad level course. For example, I just got a solid A+ in commutative algebra and functional analysis for the last semester.

3.I attended a wide range of math courses in graduate level like algebraic number theory, knot theory and geometric topologies with A grade.

4.I will retake PDE in fall 2016 and I am very likely to get a rec letter from the professors of that course. Also, the professor of PDE course in fall 2015 agrees to write a supportive letter for me confirming my situation.

5.I got independent study experience in pure math. (You cannot do original research in pure math as undergrad, usually)I did a very successful reading and presenting course in hyperbolic manifold (with 6 A+ credits) and I will do another courses like this in OPUC in fall 2016. However, that is all I can get. I was rejected by all REU I applied since unfornately all REU I was interested in did not accept non native students.

6.Because of 5, my other two rec letters will be from a very recognized professor in my department and from my department chair.

7.I have a high GRE general/subject test score.

Now is my question:

Based on my overall performance and the rescue actions I took, How badly this F will affect my PhD application?
If I want to apply for a school whose deadline of application is earlier than the time when my fall grades come out, how can I show that I have come back and fixed my mistakes?

I apologize in advance for grammar mistakes and awkward expressions if there are any. I really love mathematics and I really want to get into top tier school. Thanks so much.


texts: Why do predatory journals invite people to editorial boards?

texts:
I've been invited to the editorial board of a predatory journal. I know not to accept the invitation or reply in any way shape or form, but I don't understand why they are doing this, which is a bit concerning. How does the scam work?

I assume board members don't pay money to the journal.

If they want me to make them look legitimate, can't they just copy my photo and biography from my employer's website and falsely claim I'm on their board? Why bother emailing me and bringing them to my attention?


texts: Which preprint repositories assign DOIs for free?

texts: ArXiv.org does not assign DOIs to its preprints, but ResearchGate does. Are there other preprint repositories that assign DOIs for free?


texts: How/when to become independent in research as a graduate student?

texts:
I am in the last months of my MSc and I have done my thesis. I have published some conference papers but most of them were literature reviews.  My MSc thesis is about solving wave equations by means of method of potentials and boundary elements. I am interested in pursuing research in another field (differential equations) but I have no idea how to start any topic that may lead to a journal publication.

By asking this question, I want to understand how a research student, whether a recently graduated MSc student or a PhD student, can start searching for a new research topic and develop some researches based on his own interests. Specially, I would like to know:

To what extent should a graduate student be dependent on faculty members? How can he be more independent and start his own research activities?
Is it a good idea that the graduate work on another topic with the faculty member or work independently on a more recent research topic?
If the person is in a research group or at the university, is it a good idea or is it ethical that he develop his own research interests, besides to the topics which are being developed in that institute?
How should a graduate student manage this and make some progress in the research fields of his own interest? (In particular, sometimes the faculty members are not interested in the topics you are interested in and the person has to start his own research activity.)

And also, if this research is part of his independent research, at the time of publishing what affiliation should be used in the publications. Should it be "Independent Scholar" as mentioned in this link or something else? This is important in academic publications, because sometimes, the person is in a research group, but he is publishing a paper as part of his own researches not the things he is doing in that institute; in this case, has he mention that institute's affiliation or use his own one? So please make it clear that how the affiliation would be when the person does research independently in the cases like when he is not working in a research group or he is working with a professor or research group but his publication is output of his own research activities? It is a little unclear.


texts: On a Conflict of Interest disclosure, what's the difference between 'ongoing' and 'current'?

texts:
For an upcoming publication, the corresponding author has forwarded me the copyright release and conflict of interest disclosure form.

On this form is a table to be completed regarding "Did you or your institution at any time receive payment or support in kind for any aspect of the submitted work", with rows for grants, consulting, support for travel, and so forth.

One of the columns is a multiple-choice question "Is the relationship
current (C), ongoing(O), or past (P)?"

It's pretty clear what it means for a relationship to be 'past', but what is the difference between 'current' and 'ongoing'?  Is 'current' a relationship that existed at the time of the work, and 'ongoing' a relationship that exists at the time of submission for publication?

The additional guidance in the instructions for this table is quite unhelpful, as it gives external instructions to consult for every other column but this one.

  Note: Items 1, 2, and 3 listed below come from the ICMJE Uniform Disclosure
  Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest at http://www.icmje.org/update.html
  (dated July 2010), except for the columns in numbers 1 and 2 that ask
  whether the relationship is current, ongoing, or past.


texts: How to collaborate with unmotivated postdocs

texts:
As a PhD student in a multidisciplinary subject, I am grouped with a postdoc by my supervisor. In our lab, the usual rule is student do the theory and coding, and postdoc do the experiment.

My collaborator postdoc is highly unmotivated: he badly performed the experimental tasks that I told him to do (most of the time, the experiments was unqualified), and delayed our project progress.

I am much younger than him, and he refused to follow my instructions, and instead fed me with unreliable “ideas” and asked me to do his job... My supervisor knows the situation, but does nothing and just watches. Each weekly meeting I am the only guy having progress.

At end I had to do the experimental part myself. It was tough but finally the project was accepted to a top journal. I have done 95%+ works, but have to add the postdoc as a coauthor (he didn’t even take part in writing the paper)

I anticipate similar course of action in future projects. I can’t change the group.

How can I properly motivate my postdoc to get him work for me?

Edits:

The question has been revived and let me summarize some of comments. It helps to clarify some statements:

"get him work for me" simply means "do his duty as a collaborator".
The postdoc received authorship; but I am actually the guy doing all the works.
The whole story is, I gave up pushing on him, did the bio training myself, and finished the data acquisition myself.
In this question I am humbly asking how to avoid similar situations from happening again.
I am not being harsh from the very first beginning. I was polite to the postdoc, even after wasting months.
Technician is not a negative word. If you are familar with bio labs, you will know most postdocs are no more than a "technician", most of them cannot get a decent faculty position (e.g. top 100 US universities). I am a technician too, but just in coding. The only scientist is the professor.


texts: Is there position statement on academic research workplace

texts:
I wonder if there is any professional research organization (like Society for Neuroscience or National Academy of Science) that released an independent position statement or an opinion piece published in reputable journal that addresses best practices for research workplace.

I am looking for a written document that answers the question:

  In what conditions academic researchers want to work?

Conditions include paid family leave, building quality, office space, infrastructure, budgeting standards, how students are treated, benefits etc.

For this question by "academic researchers" I mean tenured and research professors, maybe postdocs at R1 universities. But other similar answers are encouraged.

Here are examples of existing statements, but they don't address institutional policies or workplace enough:

Building a Culture of Research: Recommended Practices
How to build a better PhD
Key Strategies for Building Research Capacity of University Faculty Members


texts:
I am an undergraduate senior. I wonder why people keep doing page breaking in their thesis, like one diagram for one page. Is that for the page count? or just because they have to? Also, I wonder if it is a good thing to do in my thesis.

thanks.


texts: More co-authored than solo papers in the Humanities

texts:
I am halfway through a PhD in History in the UK, in a highly unusual subfield. As my competences are quite rare, I have already been asked to help out with, and be a co-author of, two different papers with postdocs/professors in other areas of the Humanities. The results are interdisciplinary articles that I am quite happy with. I am also writing an additional article with a fellow PhD student (I will be the first author there).
As I am only now finishing up my first solo paper, I am concerned that having more co-authored papers (3) than solo ones (1) will hurt my CV when I apply for postdocs/jobs. Will institutions look down on me for co-authoring more papers than the norm in the Humanities?


texts: How do I cite or reference code that has not been officially published?

texts:
Let's say I go to someone's website, look up the source and use some of the JavaScript idea/pattern/code that is not a part of the wider framerwork/something similar, but a unique code that was written by the author of the website.

If it's not officially published in e.g. some coding tutorial, but I looked up the source of the website, is it appropriate to reference directly to the code on that website? (e.g. http://example.com/someonesscript.js)

Small edit #1: Just to mention, I have extensively edited the script, it is still similar, but not the same. It is about 100% longer, but there are similarities.


texts: I just got done with my bachelors in Computer Science. After four years of CS, I realized I don't really like programming or anything to do with computers. I'd rather work for organisations which solve real world problems. Anyhow, I was wondering if I could get admission in Economics or international relations or something. Will I be able to get into a good university (I'm interested in European unis) and what future prospects would I have as a professional?


texts:
I'm trying to perform a specific query on Scopus. To be precise, I am looking for books from Wiley that are related to real time systems.
Maybe I did a mistake because there aren't results. The query I tried is:
DOCTYPE(bk) EDITOR(wiley) KEY(real time systems)
Could you tell me how to do it please?


texts: Does your previous university’s reputation matter when applying for a PhD?

texts:
I have been applying to PhD programs for the past 2+ years and keep getting rejected. I have pretty good degrees that I worked hard for from good universities (not the top unis).

For the past year I’ve been doing everything I could think of to improve my CV; working for free as a research assistant at a research institute, publishing, attending seminars and conferences, etc.

I always thought that all applicants were treated equally and were judged only by their grades, personal statement and CV. However, I just got my 15th rejection letter, and the university was “kind” enough to tell me that I was rejected because I didn’t meet their entry requirements, specifically, that the universities where I did my Bsc and MSc don’t have a good enough reputation for my application to be considered.

I have been told by academics in the past that potential PhD candidates aren’t judged using this criterion. So my question is, are Phd applications one of those things where people are told that everyone has an equal opportunity while the reality is wildly different? Because I would like to know if I’m wasting my time applying and putting myself through all this stress unnecessarily.


texts: Advantages and disadvantages of doing a PostDoc

texts:
Maybe the answer to this question varies depending on the field of study. I am asking it from an Engineering perspective. I am currently enrolled in a PhD program in Mechanical Engineering (carried out with an industrial partner) and would like to join a research department in the aeronautical/aerospace industry.

For PhD students in a similar situation, what would you consider to be the main advantages (and disadvantages) of doing a Post-Doc ? Should you target a better ranked university than where you did your PhD, same level or lower ? or should you rather join industry straight after finishing the PhD ?

Feel free to share your thoughts and experience. There's probably multiple answers to this question.


texts: How to cope with YouTube and use it as an aid for effective teaching

texts:
YouTube rules the roost. It is first resource that people refer to when they want to learn something new. After all, who would teach me how to replace a RAM on my laptop or to change the new windshield wiper blade on my old car?

YouTube is an extremely valuable resource. However, things do not work out that well if it is something more complicated like Linear Algebra or NMR spectroscopy.

Frequently, I meet students who have watched all the YouTube lectures even before the semester begins. They are also very judgmental about classroom lectures. I am soliciting help from the community about

How to tell them that watching videos is no substitute for learning. Usually this needs to be conveyed at the start of the course, when they pay no attention to it. By the time they understand it, we are well into the depths of the course and it is too late.
Not watching videos is also not a wise thing to do. There are excellent makers who create excellent animations which I wouldn't be able to do ... actually never! How do I tell this to the students without appearing like abandoning my duties?
The biggest problem is enrolling students. Students (often the brighter ones) believe they have learnt the subject via YouTube well enough to skip the course altogether. How do I convince them that I will really help them study this subject beyond what they can manage via YT? How do I do this without sounding like a pimp? How do I politely tell them that they haven't learnt the subject via YT (or other online resources) at all beyond some mumbo-jumbo? Some of them might actually have learnt the subject to some extent ... How do I convince them of the utility of my course?

Thank you all.

EDIT: In light of objections by Anonymous Physicist, I must add that a succinct summary of my question is : "How to handle YouTube-aware students? 1) At the time of enrollment 2) at the begining of the course and 3) during the course?"


texts: Are masters programs generally easier to get into than PhD?

texts:
I'm doing my bachelors degree in mathematics right now at a state school. I know I'm not a top student and have made just pretty good grades in my undergrad career, but fell behind in others (a D in a conceptual physics course) due to numerous reason like 18 hr semesters while working, got married, had some health and family issues, (not to mention my freshman and sophomore years in which I didn't even want to be in school, and even went on academic probation). After retaking a couple core courses, I have a 3.2 GPA out of 4.0. Also, I will have done undergrad research (starting next semester).

However things are calming down too little too late, and I've got about 2 semesters left. I've really come to love the study of math, and I would really like to study at the master's degree level.

Most of the 'poor GPA blah blah' questions around here have to do with getting into a doctoral program. I'm curious though if it may be easier for me to get into a decent masters program than if I were attempting a PhD? I'm not looking to get into some Ivy or otherwise 'prestigious' school, but I would like to get into something good.

I would be doing it part time (2 courses per semester) so I can focus and make good grades.

Is there hope?


texts: Is consistent disregard for students' time "normal" in undergraduate research?

texts:
The title has my primary question. My research professor whom I have known since the beginning of the calendar year has quite consistently canceled on meetings last minute, most often due to personal reasons or last-minute department meetings. Despite the difficulties this causes with my own and my research peers' schedules, it's somewhat understandable. But there's rarely any follow-up for makeup meetings; if there is, it never moves past us giving our research professor our alternative meeting availabilities.

As an undergraduate, I wonder if this is simply to be expected at some level when doing research with a senior professor- is it? I enjoy the subject matter of the research quite a bit so I do not prefer to leave the team. Any advice is welcome on how to navigate this situation, if it is to be navigated at all, or instead accepted as is.


texts: Authorship for paper with questionable statistical analysis

texts:
For my master thesis in clinical medicine I have collected and analyzed data for a retrospective cohort study. Now one year later, a research assistant of the group is about to submit a manuscript based on my master thesis and I have been offered shared first co-authorship with said research assistant. Upon internal review I have noticed the following issues:

Definitions of clinical outcomes of the study have been changed such that they are now not well defined and not even of clinical interest
The statistical analysis I had performed for my thesis was completely ignored and omitted in the manuscript. For the manuscript, the research assistant employed statistical models I deem inappropriate as confirmed by fellow researchers external to the group. In addition, reporting of methods and results is poorly written with critical information missing.

I have provided feedback concerning the statistical methods but it was ignored. My advisor refused my request to see the new statistical analysis (in particular, I asked for the statistical software files edited by the research assistant), telling me that even though I have shared co-first authorship for the paper, I am not entitled to any insight in the statistical analysis, since the research assistant is in charge of it. I’m having a hard time accepting publication of a study of which I’m co-first author but haven’t seen the analysis behind it, especially since I highly suspect it is inappropriate. My advisor threatened to remove me from the paper completely if I don’t agree blindly.
Shall I renounce and let it be published without my name? Shall I agree and accept to have a paper published with my name and the knowledge that the quality might be really bad? Shall I contact the editors of the journal they want to submit it to?
Edit: Thank you all so much for your thoughtful answers and comments! I appreciate your help!


texts:
In my field (Computer Vision), the largest international conference (CVPR) has the following format: two simultaneous oral sessions (with talks awarded to ~10% of accepted papers), followed by a single poster sessions (awarded to ~90% of accepted papers). I have recently had an oral presentation of my work at this conference, and I am now writing a cover letter for a job which will be reviewed by a non-specialist, who will not necessarily understand the prestige of such a talk.

So, rather than writing "I was awarded an oral presentation of my work", I'm wondering how fair it would be to say "I was awarded an oral / plenary presentation of my work", to indicate that the oral sessions are to half of the entire conference delegates. If I just wrote the first option, then it may be assumed that the oral sessions is just with a small group and among many simultaneous oral sessions, as is typical at many conferences.

So would it be correct to say "oral / plenary", or does this imply something even more prestigious (e.g. a keynote)?

Thanks!


texts: Is recommendation letter a completely professional thing or keeping good personal relation with the writer required?

texts: Is recommendation letter (faculty position) a completely professional thing ? I mean I completed PhD one year ago, I had good relation with my Phd advisor when I was his student. After that I left my country for postdoc and obviously the relation is not like earlier. Does keeping good relation influences recommendation letter or it is completely professional thing ?


texts: Plotting a return course for academia: publications

texts:
During the final stretch of my PhD in the social sciences (waiting for the oral defense date, publishing the dissertation as a book) I returned to my home country and pursued a career in journalism. Those two years were exciting, but I also realized that I wanted to teach (I was a guest lecturer for a journalism course for undergrads).

My question is, how can I plot a return course back to academia? I would like to apply for some lecture positions, but my greatest weakness is a lack of publications (aside from my dissertation) in the past few years.

If the application is due in two months, would it make sense at least to submit a few articles based on some parts of the dissertation to a few journals (thought I no longer have any academic affiliations)?

Is it conceivable for the hiring committee to consider my years outside of the PhD as a potential asset rather than a blank spot without publications?

Any insights and experiences on the matter would be appreciated. Thank you.


texts: How do professors learn how to write letters of recommendation?

texts:
Writing letters of recommendation must be a fine art. Culture across fields and countries vary wildly in almost any respect, and this is likely to the case for LoR.

How/when do professors learn how to appropriately convey the value of the person they recommend?

As they write them, by trial and error seeing which students land the position. But this would require a large number of trials, given so many factors come into play (including circumstances that have nothing to do with letter writing)
As they read them, while sitting on admission committee. I am then almost completely oblivious to the procedures, but as above, many observation might be required before one can be confident on its ability to write a proper letter.


texts: Regarding a PhD advisor rejecting student due to health problems

texts:
I have a colleague (call them "Joe") in my PhD math program who told me that they approached a certain professor (call them "Dr. X") to ask them to be their advisor. Joe seemed very interested and capable to do research with Dr. X. However, Dr. X told Joe that they didn't want to do research with them because they had health issues. Namely, Joe delayed taking the qualifying exams because of a kidney stone surgery (a laser lithotripsy). Despite this, Joe took the qualifying exams and did very well. Dr. X still had a bias against Joe and did not want them in their research group because of their health problems.
Yes, this is an actual story that happened to a friend of mine.
Is there any basis in the professor not wanting to take Joe as their student? Or, are there legality issues? I know an employer cannot discriminate with regards to disabilities or health condition, but does this apply to prospective PhD supervisors?