texts:
This question has two parts. First, a comparative question. Second, a broad  question about why PhD students get so stressed and complain so much.

Do PhD students complain more than people in other professions?

In my limited and biased experience, yes. More generally, there are so many websites about how hard life as a PhD student is. So many memes. These are clearly all composed by current or former PhD students. My cohort's facebook feeds read like journals written in prison. Party conversation demonstrates a general obsession with complaining about life in a PhD program. People often half-joke about how starting the PhD program was a horrible mistake.  PhD students have even been roasted on 30 Rock. And they're often weirdly nervous about trivial stuff. Yes, these are online comedy bits, but they are funny because they capture something true.

Many jobs are stressful and I believe that people in other fields handle their stress better or, at the very least, feel compelled to maintain that appearance. I started my PhD a bit later than average. Before doing so I worked in a few other fields, some of them more stressful than academia by reasonable standards (higher consequences of mistakes for oneself and/or for others, faster pace work environment, higher likelihood of being insulted/embarrassed by supervisors, what have you).

Why do PhD students complain so much?

I see a few reasons why PhD students have such a hard time.

Admittedly, there is a lot of work. But there are lots of jobs where you need to work very hard for long hours.

In many disciplines, there is no clear management structure where someone can tell you what to do when and when you are done. Of course, this can be stressful.

Because of the nature of theoretical innovation and research, one is never "done" with work. There is only a choice of when one is going to stop for the day or stop on a particular project (e.g., by submitting for publication).

Many PhD students have spent little time outside of school and academia. Most of their schooling until the PhD program was very structured with short-term goals. In a PhD and now they are responsible for defining their own projects.

PhD programs may attract uniquely stressful, driven people.

Maybe the idea of being a "student" fosters immature attitudes about the work environment, even though PhD students must deal with real adult workloads. People in many other lines of work have no illusions about their obligation to handle their workload.


texts: Can a graduate program rescind my offer if I don't complete a previously declared Minor?

texts:
I am a physics major and had declared a 'Minor in Computer Science (Expected)' on my US graduate school (PhD) applications. I have been accepted by a couple of programs but I am currently still one course short of completing the number of required courses for the minor. I am currently enrolled in this last course (a theoretical Computer Science course) in my current (last) semester. The course is not very relevant to the programs I have applied to (Physics and Data Science) -- more 'relevant'/applied courses that I have an interest in were unavailable. The course is quite time consuming and is affecting my performance in other courses I am enrolled in (physics graduate electives and statistics). I would very much like to withdraw the course, however, if I do so, I would only have completed 4 of the 5 required CSE courses counting toward a minor and will not get a minor.

I am concerned about how the graduate program I decide to attend will view this. My ultimate worry, of course, is whether my acceptance could actually be rescinded for not having completed the minor. (I have still completed 16 of the 20 required credits, so I still have courses in Computer Science, I would just not receive this tag of a 'Minor in CSE'.)


texts: How do I explain to a student why departments that do similar things have seemingly different names?

texts:
I was asked by a potential PhD student
why departments that do similar things as my department have different names.
For example, some of the researchers who
work in research areas that are similar to my own
are in departments with names such as:

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering
Management Science and Engineering
Systems Engineering and Engineering Management
Technology and Operations Management
Decision Sciences
Business Statistics and Operations Management
Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics
Management Science and Operations

He claims that this is confusing, which indeed it is,
given that as an "insider"
I know that the people in these departments
work in very similar research areas.

What is a good explanation for why departments doing similar research
often in practice have very different sounding names?


texts:
I read on https://ropengov.github.io/r/2016/06/10/FOI/:

Finland becomes to our knowledge the first country where annual subscription fees for all individual publishers and all major research institutions have been made available.
[…]
Limited access to detailed pricing information and agreement details are likely to result in suboptimal contracts (Cockerill, 2006; Shieber, 2009). Improved access to subscription costs can hence be expected to lead to better deals and lower costs for the universities. It can also facilitate transition to the Open Access (OA) publishing model.

Why don't major research institutions systematically publish their subscription fees to scientific journals?

References:

Shieber, S M (2009). Equity for Open-Access Journal Publishing. PLOS Biology 7(8): e1000165.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000165
Cockerill, M (2006). The Economics of Open Access Publishing. Information Services and Use 26(2): 151–157. Available at: http://content.iospress.com/articles/information-services-and-use/isu499 [Last accessed 28 October 2015].


texts: working on an open problem for the master's thesis, without any guidance or help

texts:
I am a master’s student studying mathematics (from Germany), currently writing my master’s thesis. In total, I have around six months to prepare, write and finish my thesis.

My advisor gave me an open problem to work on and he does not expect that I will solve it, but he expects that I am able to make new contributions on it, so that I have something new for my thesis. However, many established researchers in this research area are trying to attack this problem as well and for many years, but no one was able to proof even special cases or intermediate results until now. And my advisor doesn’t really know how to attack this problem as well, and this is one of the reasons why he does not guide me.

Already at the very beginning I told him that I’m pessimistic to be able to do this, but I just wanted to give it a try and I didn’t know that I have to work completely on my own. Now, I have tried it for two to three months, and all my attempts failed and my ideas didn’t work. Furthermore, my professional knowledge is still very limited, meanwhile I hit the wall and don’t know how to proceed.

I literally explained my advisor that I need his help and guidance to make some progress and I have told him all my attempts. The only reaction is always: He doesn’t know it either, and every time he just gives me another open problem (sometimes liked to the old one), without any idea how to attack these other problems. After trying the other suggestions, unsuccessfully, I decided to work on the first problem again (but still without any progress). I asked him again for help, and I literally explained him my situation that I'm stuck, and giving me another open problems is not that type of help which I need, what I need is guidance. But still no help..
Since I have to hand in a thesis this summer and there is no possibility to change the advisor, I really don't know what to do...

Do you have any idea or suggestion what I can do, or do you have similar experience? Or if it’s too opinion-based: what are possible ways to get out of such or similar situations?


texts:
I am a PhD student in chemistry and my funding is specific for a certain project. This funding also funds another PhD student, a biochemist, with a different advisor (both our advisors are very well-respected). We're both in the 3rd year of our PhDs.

The project is now in its sixth year. The distribution of work is as follows:

Some post-docs had done the first 4 years of this work
The other student provides the animal samples and some biochemical test
I do the "novel test". This test is labour-intensive and time consuming. I very often work on holidays, while the other student doesn't even answer mail after hours, despite having a technician to help her.

The problem is the papers. We are now going to start our third sub-project on this work:

Paper #1 [last year] was primarily the post-docs work, with authoring PostDoc*, OtherStudent* (where * denotes equal contribution)
Paper #2 [last year] was mostly my work, with authoring me*, OtherStudent*. I was extremely heart-broken and wanted to quit, but my advisor assured me that this would not happen again
Paper #3 [this year] is the problem. The other student sent a new batch of samples in for a new paper. My advisor said that it is very likely that the other group will ask a paper co-first authored as: OtherStudent*, Me*, since the other student had not been in the first position of the co-first-authorship yet.

I believe it is unfair that I have fewer papers than this other student despite doing much more work. Indeed, this other student has time to work on other things and get still more papers published, where I am working flat-out on this effort.

My advisor and I argued and I told him that I want to switch to a different project, but he said I can't because my funding is specific to this project. I'm thinking to quit and apply for a new PhD somewhere else but I have spent 2 years and 2 months in my PhD and I believe I will also have problems in the new place (hopefully not as bad).

Am I right to be angry? How should I approach this situation?
How do people in academia actually look at co-first authorship? Is the order important?


texts:
During the last month, I applied for PhD programs in some of the top US Universities in my scientific field. At the same time, I applied also for a PhD position in a very good European University. About one month after I submitted my application to this European University, I was offered a full-time, funded PhD position, in which I was supposed to begin as soon as possible.

Admissions for the US Universities are announced in the spring. So, I currently have an offer from Europe and a very short deadline for accepting or rejecting this offer. My ultimate career goal, however, is to study and work in the US, and there are some serious reasons for this. If I reject this offer from Europe and if I won't be admitted in the US, I will have lost every chance for a PhD, since a long educational gap will have been accumulated, putting my career at risk.

So, I'm thinking to accept this offer from Europe, until next academic year, and if I have a positive answer from the US, then quit my PhD studies in Europe and begin a new PhD in the US. I would like some insight about people in Academia. I acknowledge that such a scenario might affect the whole PhD project because of my possible withdrawal. Would this considered to be immoral? Could I have any consequences? Could this choice of mine - quit a PhD for another one, in a new country - seem bad to prospective supervisors in the US?

I already know that pursuing a PhD is a serious career choice, and I have no intention to take silly decisions for no reason. I just want the best for my career. To my eyes, this would be no different from quitting a job for a better one, for a better "company", in a "market" with greater opportunities. I would appreciate every advice from you people, since I have no experience related to Academia other than my undergraduate studies.


texts: How should "et al." be used for parenthetical versus non-parenthetical citations using the APA citation style?

texts:
Someone told me that in APA style you treat parenthetical versus non-parenthetical in-text references separately when applying et al.

For example, let's say you're citing Smith, Jones, and Roberts (2012).

You would write

  Smith, Jones, and Roberts (2012) write that bla bla bla bla.
  Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla (Smith, Jones & Roberts, 2012).

That is, because in the second line it is the first time you mention the authors parenthetically, you have to restate the authors' names....

I always thought you treat parenthetical and non-parenthetical citations the same.  So it would be the following:

  Smith, Jones, and Roberts (2012) write that bla bla bla bla.
  Bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla (Smith et al., 2012).

Can anyone confirm or clarify this for me?

The reference they gave for this rule is table 6.1 on page 177 of the APA Manual, 6th edition.
They interpreted the column titled "First citation in-text" and "Parenthetical Format, first citation in text) as indicating that those two formats should be treated separately.  However, this doesn't make sense to me and I think that APA would have made this more explicit if it had intended this interpretation.


texts: How are arXiv papers cited using IEEE citation style?

texts:
I have been trying to find an IEEE publication which cites an arXiv paper.

However, it seems that electrical engineers shy away from citing anything arXiv related.

I have been looking around for a while but couldn't find any, can anyone provide a reference to a sample IEEE paper that cites an arXiv paper IEEE style?


texts: As a beginning graduate student, can you do without conferences in theoretical CS?

texts:
I'm beginning my graduate study in theoretical computer science soon, and I've been admitted to two graduate schools in Northeastern Asia.

One of those makes it a rule to grant compensation for travel to conferences to graduate students who finished their master's thesis.  However, for beginning graduate students, they said they cannot be sure if they can fully afford their travel costs for conferences.

The graduate school requires the students little coursework and all I will do there will be do actual research.  As you may know, conferences are important in computer science and reputable conferences are usually held far removed from us in Northeast Asia.

Can I do with journals and preprint servers, and possibly without reputable conferences, in the field of theoretical computer science, as a beginning graduate student?

(By the way, the cons of the other school are that the professor supervises too many students and that he hasn't been nice to me.)


texts: Working from distance as a postdoc for a Company

texts: Almost 5 months ago I got an offer for a postdoc in USA. As we knew due to my nationality it will take some time to get the visa, I started working on the project from distance. Even though, my postdoc will be in USA but the project I was working on, was for a company in Canada which has some collaboration with my future postdoc supervisor. Yesterday, I have received an email from supervisor that the company would like to pay me some salary in a consultant basis. I am totally unfamiliar with USA and Canada system and have no idea what does this mean. What should be my expectation for this payment? Will it be the same as my future postdoc salary? Or it may be much lower? I have been working fully on the project and personally expect full salary. Any experiences and advises? Thanks


texts: Applying to my first reference and using him as referee

texts:
The question may be ill structured, because I do not know how to put it more concisely. I am applying for a research position (officially, using the application portal) to my best reference.

Is it okay to use my best reference's email as my primary reference for the position?

Just to make things clearer, Mr.A is my best reference. I really loved working under Mr.A and but before I could join him for further studies, he went to a different school. He, however did become my best reference and helped me with many references. Now that Mr.A has open position, I want to apply under him. However, because he is my best reference, is it okay to give his email as my first reference?


texts:
I had my math paper rejected for publication. From the referee report,

  [M]y opinion is to reject this paper. In order to save its positive aspects, I propose: 1) either reduce the length of the paper eliminating superfluous parts, and presenting it as a note (not a research paper), or 2) add new material, so that it becomes a true research paper, and present it again as a new work.

I am confused. Is a note a paper that lacks content or simply one that is short? In what way does a note differ from a research paper, or "a true research paper"?

Would one consider John Nash's famous 2 pages paper Equilibrium points in n-person games and Watson and Crick's Nobel-Prize-winning 2 pages paper A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid a note or a research paper?

Lastly, how does publishing a note vs a research paper affect a scholar, e.g. prestige and/or income?


texts:
I was wondering if there is a  central or an updated repository of various university publications (like ieee, but a bit more updated). I am using a university network, and I should have access to most of them.

Thanks


texts: Asking about possible future collaboration

texts: Last year, a researcher produced a nice dataset that happens to be uniquely well-suited for use in a study I plan to carry out. At this time, I am in the process of applying for funds. Does it make sense to contact him asking if he would be interested in a future collaboration which, provided the project is funded, would commence in 2019? The advantage of doing this now would be to mention the potential collaboration in my proposal. Note that the data is open access, so I could just use it without contacting him. Nor is he anyone famous, but I feel that a connection would make my project appear more concrete and realizable. I wonder how all this might be perceived by him however, what would you expect?


texts:
I am working on my Masters' thesis in aeronautical engineering and would like to make high-quality drawings (not technical drawings as in detail designs in CAD, but drawings of concepts and ideas, eg airplane with basic forces acting on it).

I am sure is this a common task in technical writings and would like to know if there is software available for such purposes?

Disclaimer: I am not a graphic designer and don't have the skill or time to make nice drawings from scratch. I am hoping there is software that has a library of a bunch of basic shapes and images that can be edited and freely used.


texts: Why older papers are more difficult to read than the new ones?

texts: Skimming through the literature, I find that in theoretical high-energy physics (modern gravitation theories, scalar tensor theories, etc.), older papers are more difficult to read than new papers written in the field, as I spend more time to read an older paper than a fresh one. I wonder why there is such difficulty and contrast for papers written some more than 20 years ago.


texts: Applying for graduate programs, will missing classes count against me?

texts:
I'm working on some graduate school applications, and I've been wondering...
If I'm missing some classes these schools require(this is more relevant in different states)will my application be less desirable to that particular school, because I will have to take some extra classes in order to start that program.


texts:
Should I mention that I'm able to self fund my degree in my SOP? I don't find anywhere else in the application process where I can communicate such information.

I'm a prospective international student applying in the US in the field of Electrical and Computer Engineering.


texts: To resubmit a rejected paper or to choose another journal? How to decide?

texts:
Last week I received the decision on my paper which I had submitted to a high rank physics journal. Their response was:

  These comments suggest that the present version of the manuscript is
  not suitable for publication in the ... However, if you
  feel that you can refute the criticisms, we will give further
  consideration. Please accompany any resubmittal by a summary of the
  changes made and a brief response to all recommendations and
  criticisms.

My supervisor wishes to resubmit this paper to the same journal. How can I decide whether to resubmit to the same journal or to another journal?


texts: Advice on what to do before applying to Grad School in CS

texts:
I’m a graduate of Carnegie Mellon, B.S. Computer Science. I am contemplating doing a masters in something Computer Science-related as well, but my GPA is a bit on the low side (barely above a 3.0). I went through a rough patch during my time at CMU, and in many of my core CS classes I struggled a bit, oftentimes not getting anything better than a C. I also found it quite tough to find a internship/job in the tech industry in spite of doing all the interview preparation I could possibly think of. I eventually ended up getting a full-time software job at a corporate and investment bank, where I currently work. I thought I would take a break from school and get experience working for at least a couple of years before deciding what to do further.
Although I don’t miss the stress/anxiety that I went through in my undergrad years, I do kind of miss some of the challenging material I got exposed to in my classes (especially those related to algorithms, complexity and machine learning), and I feel like I want to contribute something to the world of Computer Science, as crazy as it might seem. In particular, I am interested in applications of Computer Science in Economics, as well as in addressing the issue of Climate Change. Since my time at CMU, I have taken a really hard look at myself and what went wrong back then, and am determined to change myself for the better. Right now, I feel convinced that I had the wrong mindset and simply made a series of poor decisions that prevented me from doing well, learning, growing and getting opportunities.
Given the position I am in right now, I know it is really difficult to get into grad school with the grades I have, especially after reading a few forums online (Need help and advice concerning how to apply and look for grad schools and How do you get a bad transcript past Ph.D. admissions?) and discussing with a few people. However, I do feel that I am still interested in Computer Science, and would consider having a research job in the future (apart from being a senior software engineer), either in academia or industry. Does anyone have any advice on what I should do before I even bother applying for a masters to advance in my career path? Should I take online classes as well? I know for a fact that I need recommendations from research professors and quite possibly even a published paper on a research project, but I’m not even sure where to start or how to get there, given where I work right now. Any advice would be greatly appreciated - thank you!


texts: What if I don't join someone for postdoc to whom I previously applied

texts: I am a PhD student in applied mathematics. I have submitted my PhD thesis and started applying for postdoc positions. Now suppose I informally email somebody and suppose he says that he has no funding currently and once he has funding he will inform me. Now, suppose at the time he has funding, I have some better option, so I don't join him. Can that create a bad impression of me to him ?


texts: An assessment system to indicate the outcome of completing an online course

texts:
I am a 4th year Electronics engineering student studying in India. I applied to Master's of Science in computer science programs (I wish to change fields) offered by 11 universities in the US, but my application was rejected by all 11 of them.

I am planning to apply to Master's in Computer Science courses for the fall 2017 term, and trying to strengthen my application.

An important part of my application that I wish to address is the lack of formal background courses. Most universities list some courses (particularly : algorithms, datastructures, operating systems, programming languages) as prerequisites to the Master's degree in Computer science, and I possess formal background in none (even though I possess a lot of informal background, but looking at the rejections, it seems that this is not enough).

The last question that I asked addressed (or should I say still addressing) the dilemma whether I should consider enrolling in a graduate pathway program over taking MOOC's. After looking at the responses, and looking many other similar questions, the consensus seems that taking MOOC's is only looked as an indicator of how motivated a student is, and not how much knowledge did the student gain.

To address this problem, I am thinking about (right now just thinking) devising a system that I would follow, that would guarantee to an outsider (the admissions committee) that I have mastered the topic. I quite frequently learn a lot of subjects from MIT's open courseware, and I am thinking of some way (more like an organisational system) to more formally present the things that I have learnt in such a way that reflects the understanding and mastery of the coursework.

MIT OCW courses, and for that matter courses on EdX and Coursera include a lot of material that is actually included in the courses that take place at these universities, and a lot of this material can be used to assess how much a person understands the topic. I think the only problem that needs to be addressed is how to represent the outcome each aspect of the course (say tutorials, recitations, lectures, quizzes, ...)

My final AIM is to design a system (and obviously follow it), and then write down the results (could be daily, weekly, only the test results, ... anything) such that these results clearly represent what and how much have I learnt over a course.

Any and all advise will be helpful. Thank you.


texts:
I will soon end my work on book about a statistical computing environment and its use in my field. It will require the reader to use the electronic copy alongside with the particular software open in his computer. For this reason, there is little incentive to have it printed. The book will be self published, as I am familiar with LaTeX and similar tools.

Digital identifiers are quick and easy to  obtain now-a-days. One can upload the material to Zenodo.org and close its source, thus generating a DOI that will be further indexed by Google Scholar.

In this scenario does it make any sense in trying to register this material with a ISBN?


texts: How to build healthy working relationships with my male colleagues as a young-ish, attractive-ish woman?

texts:
I'm a PhD candidate from Asia currently visiting a prestigious university in Europe. Recently I've noticed quite some "strange" behaviours of male "colleagues" around me (by "colleagues", I don't mean that we work on the same projects or from the same office. They are just people who work at or visit this place: faculty members, PhDs, or research staff).

For example, these gentlemen seem to be giving me a bit of extra attention: following me to the pantry; "appearing" several times at the same time at the place that I'd show up; or even try to wait for me when I leave. (Please don't suggest that I might be overreacting - I am quite confident that I'm not exaggerating here.)

Honestly, I am more annoyed than flattered. I want to focus on my research and want to be able to have healthy, normal, constructive working relationships with these people. I don't want any extra attention other than that I am a dedicated and capable researcher, and a nice person in general. However, because of these strange behaviours, I have to try to distance myself from some of them who I have had some friendly exchanges before. I've become a bit cold and unapproachable to them - I guess I am trying to say that I am not interested in anything romantic, and I don't want any attention in that matter. I guess some people might say, well, just tell them openly that you are not interested. I simply am not able to do that: first, they don't say anything or do anything that would allow me to bring up this topic; second, some of them might not even really want to pursue a relationship (they are married, or too young/too old for me anyway), but just kind of show some sort of admiration I guess.

However, I also feel very uncomfortable about that. I am by nature a nice and friendly person. I really feel bad about being cold and unfriendly to other people. Also, I want to have a circle of contacts that I can talk with about my research and their research, and get feedback and/or inspiration from that. I am not sure how I am able to have that type of positive working relationships in this kind of situation.

To clarify a few things...

These male colleagues are decent, respectable, and in some cases, brilliant and achieved people. There is no inappropriate advance from them or anything creepy in this (or it would be rather easy to handle the situation). It is just the continued, affectionate attention that is making me uncomfortable.
I am not sure this is associated with my newness or novelty. I have been here for eight months now and I did not notice this kind of attention at the beginning. Instead, I noticed the association with me slowly building up myself professionally here. I'd assume these male colleagues are slightly more refined than the general public and would look a bit further than a pretty face for a pretty mind (not that I am suggesting I am any or both of these). If this is true, then I would assume this issue would not go away as time goes by, but might hang around or even intensify as I become more established as a capable researcher. In that case I would have to find a solution for myself in the long term.
After second thought, I guess I wouldn't be able to take the "dressing down" advice. I like to dress in a classy and elegant way and that makes me feel good (it is like I enjoy making my room clean and nice and that makes me feel good). I don't see anything wrong with it and don't want to punish myself with other people's reactions to me. In fact, I have become more convinced that the solution to this type of issue is not to make women less feminine/attractive. There should be other solutions where we can be ourselves and still be comfortable around male colleagues. I don't know what those solutions are though.

Please give me some advice on how to handle a situation like this.


texts: In fields that alphabetize authors, which author to contact

texts: For papers in disciplines where the authors are alphabetized, how does one decide which author of a paper to contact for more information? Suppose for the sake of argument that one doesn't know any of the authors even by reputation, so it's impossible to decide that way.


texts: Can I use examples of others' research in my presentation on scientific conference?

texts:
I'm giving a talk on scientific conference in a couple of days and I have prepared my concept and my presentation. Because what I'm going to talk about is not done in practise in my country, I have included in my presentation examples and research results from the past from other academics and researchers.

Is this okay? I will also give credits underneath each slide to the respected researchers.


texts: Potential supervisor asked for description of previous projects

texts:
As above, I emailed a potential PhD supervisor and he has asked me to send him a CV and a description of some previous projects I've worked on.

I am wondering how long/detailed should this be, and what exactly is he trying to find out? So that I can try and tailor it to that.

The programme I am applying to is also a MS+PhD in a different subject to my undergrad ( moving from mech eng -> comp sci/robotics ), so a lot of my projects aren't totally relevant, should I still list them?


texts: Do non-academic extra curricular activities matter for grad school applications?

texts:
I just got into a PhD program and was asked to give a presentation to my juniors regarding grad school applications.

In my country (Asia region), people are fanatical about non-academic extra curricular activities that are totally not related to their topic (sports, debate team, run charities etc). E.g. A student with good grades and is the captain of the school's basket ball team can get picked for a mathematics PhD scholarship over the top mathematics student with zero non-academic activities. The belief is that scholars should be "all rounded".

I think the situation is different in the USA. I would like to encourage my juniors who have excellent academic records but without significant non-academic extra curricular activities to try for the USA because of this.

I understand there are scholarships like the Rhodes which do look at non-academic achievements. But is my general understanding of non-academic activities for USA PhD admissions correct?


texts: Will it affect my Reputation to leave my MSc without finishing the Thesis?

texts:
I am currently doing my MSc thesis (in an area of science).  I have completed the exams but I am having real difficulties with the research project.  Both my supervisors are based remotely and when I ask them for help with the coding I am doing one of them says she is too busy going to conferences to Skype me and tells me to go back to previous 'training' we did: this training consisted of  two Skype calls which were made 6 months ago and I did not really follow due to having problems understanding her English at times (made worse by poor sound quality and microphones).  The second supervisor just keeps describing the task which I need to do, but is not explaining how to do it or how it works, even though I have said that I need some more guidance as I have limited programming experience.  If I ask for guidance, he just describes what I need to do again: 'you need to do this and get some results' without explaining how to do it.  I have tried for months but they are just not helping me, and the stuff is too specialized to get much help from anyone else.

I know, suck it up and stop whining, that is what I am trying to do, but theoretically, would it come back to bite me if I terminate and leave with a PGDip (or whatever you get for completing the exam component), as I feel like I could use the summer to get back in touch with my previous supervisor to continue with the project we were working on together.  The offer I have for a PhD is unconditional and based on undergraduate results so I could theoretically leave the MSc now and then start the PhD regardless.  The PhD is in a completely different area, not related to the MSc, and it is the only PhD offer I have received so I feel like this is all a pointless exercise and feel like my motivation to do this thesis is draining away from me every day, as it is mostly 'training' for a particular area which I know I am not going into now as I have not received offers in this area.


texts: Formal letters: is it okay to list your credentials in a long sentence?

texts:
In the context of writing formal letters, usually it is required to mention person's credentials, e.g., their degree along with the dat on which the degree was conferred.

I was wondering if it would be OK if I wrote something with the format:

  <'degree title'> conferred upon <'name'> by <'the dept., college, university'> on<'data of the award'>.

Is it too long for a formal letter? You might also need to add opening words, something like:

  This is to further acknowledge that The College of Computer and Information Sciences at XYZ University conferred a Master of Science in Computer science upon Ms.Sara XYZ on 1st of July 2011.

Note: if the addressing language looks odd in the example, it is because the letter will be signed by the registration office.


texts:
Why is access to research databases (ebrary, EBSCO, JSTOR, LexisNexis, Project MUSE, Proquest, Sage, Science Direct, etc) – even when you’re a student or faculty member at an institution with a subscription - such a hassle, especially when off-campus or on a phone/tablet? Is there any way to solve this?

I’m also curious which database is least painful to deal with, and what a solution to this problem could be.  Who would be best positioned to fix this problem?  How should they fix it?


texts: How to balance trying hard in a Master's program with stress of working too hard and not having a life?

texts:
I have a nice problem but it's making me miserable.

My background is in visual communication and I'm used to getting regular feedback as well as seeing what my classmates are up to. Also, the grades we would get back then didn't really matter but the quality of the work was what would land us a job later so I'm always concerned with the quality of what I'm doing. Also, this sometimes makes me feel like I'm starting with a handicap as I'm not used to writing papers and English is not my first language.

Ever since I joined a Master's program in a different field, I can't seem to set reasonable expectations for myself (or align my expectations to the ones for the course). As I work on a project, I keep finding holes and making it better until I'm satisfied. Since there is little feedback and that I don't know what my classmates are doing, I just do my best or as close as I'm able to. The nice part is that sometimes the work ends up having potential for publication, I get a nice GPA and the esteem of my teachers. The not-so-good part is that I just don't have a life until school is over and my stress is really ramping up. The obvious solution would be to not try so hard but that seems like a waste of an education.

Any advice?


texts: How to address Phd dissertation committee members in email?

texts:
I am in the process of notifying my PhD dissertation committee (already formed)on the proposal exam. I would like to send an email to all of them and now I am confused as to how to address them. Should I address them as committee members or Professors ABC, PQR, XYZ or Sirs, etc. What would be the best option to address them:

Dear Committee members
Dear Committee
Dear Professors ABC, PQR, XYZ
Respected Sirs
Sirs
Dear All


texts: How does the US government shutdown affect academics?

texts:
I hope this question does not offend our American fellows.

I've read in news that the US government is partially closed  and many agencies and services run by US federal government is no longer available, for example national parks, many websites, etc. I was wondering if this temporary government shutdown has any negative effects on academic life in US?


texts: Who is the corresponding author in a field like Philosophy where there is no experimental work to be done and where sometimes the two authors are all senior philosophers?


texts: What are some strategies for dealing with feedback from multiple people?

texts:
It can be difficult to sort through feedback on a paper/chapter when you have feedback from multiple collaborators. Sometimes collaborators might have a conflicting point of view, or making all of the improvements suggested by each would make the paper far too large.

What are some strategies on working through this feedback efficiently? Should you fully address each collaborator's comments one by one, attempt to merge all the comments together before editing the manuscript, or take some sort of hybrid approach?


texts: Can I perform and publish studies on patented chemical compounds?

texts:
If a set of chemical compounds is patented by somebody else, am I allowed to perform studies (e.g. Pharmacophore, structure-activity relationship or QSAR analysis) on these patented compounds and publish the studies ? Provided that I'll cite the patent (as citing articles) but without having any type of permission.

Thanks


texts:
I came across this article which has section named uncited references.

Why it is there and what is the purpose of that section ?


texts: Should I mention in my SOP for PhD that I was accepted for an MS in the same university earlier?

texts: I was accepted into an MS program at Stanford university two years ago and although it was my dream university, I decided to forgo it in favour of a fully funded MS in an Erasmus Mundus program simply because I could not afford the former. I will soon be applying for PhD again and was wondering whether I should mention that I was accepted into the MS program earlier. Will that help or harm my application in any way? Also, any suggestions on how to stand out among the large pool of applicants vying for a few spots?


texts: In peer-review, is it common for a reviewer to be shown and asked to comment on other reviewers' reports?

texts:
Some months ago, I was asked to review a paper for a computer science conference. I submitted my report about a week before the deadline, and I strongly recommended acceptance subject to a few minor corrections.

Just after the deadline, I was contacted by the programme committee member who originally asked me to review the paper. He sent me another reviewer's report (without a name or other identifying information) and asked for my opinion
of it. The other reviewer had recommended rejection on the grounds that an example in the paper supposedly contradicted the claim of the main theorem. I explained that the other reviewer has misunderstood the example (in fairness, the authors of the paper could have stated it more carefully), and I see that the paper was ultimately accepted.

I have never before seen or been asked to comment on another reviewer's report, but my field is primarily mathematics, where there is often only a single reviewer for a paper, and I have only reviewed a few computer science papers.

So my question is this: in fields where it is usual to have multiple reviewers, is it common to be shown and asked to comment on other reviewers' reports?

A secondary question would be: if it is not uncommon, does it mainly occur when reviewers take opposing positions on a paper, like in the situation I describe?


texts: How do I address my research publication being 'scooped'?

texts:
Back in spring 2016, I submitted a manuscript for publication. I revised the manuscript in winter 2016 and have been waiting for reviews since then. Two of the three reviewers responded in a timely manner, while the third has consistently delayed their response. This delay has been going on for almost half a year. I have been patiently waiting and in communication with the editor. The editor has sent numerous reminders and personal emails to the third reviewer to send their re-review, but nothing has come out of these efforts. The editor recently sent out the manuscript to a new 3rd reviewer who is considered more ‘reliable’ but the deadline has passed.

During this time, I received an email to review a new manuscript submitted to a large journal with similar research, methods and analyses used. I feel that this other manuscript will scoop my research that has been sitting for nearly a year and been delayed continuously.

As an aside, in Winter 2016 I saw a collaborator present research similar to mine (in terms of methodology used). This methodology has not been applied in my field until I put together my manuscript. I was surprised to see this in their presentation at a conference and was confused by how they knew what I was working on (it didn’t share with them). This is speculative, but my best guess (and this is also based on this person’s track record with others) is that they had access to my manuscript that was under review. The new manuscript that surfaced this past week doesn't include this person as a coauthor, but it seems likely that they encouraged these authors to use methods and research similar to mine.

For me personally, I want to see the manuscript published with an acceptance date that precedes this new manuscript. I notified the editor and they alerted the chief editor, but nothing has been done yet to rectify the situation. Typically, two reviews are required for this journal, but a third volunteered, and as a result, my manuscript requires three reviewers and not two. The editor and chief editor acknowledge the seriousness of the issue, but I don’t know if/how to encourage them to take further action rather than continuing to wait for a response to the third reviewer. I feel like this approach has been overused in my circumstance and has not produced anything out of it. I would like to move forward with the response from the two reviewers, but I don’t know if that is possible or how to suggest this to the chief editor.

Is there anything else that you recommend I do to rectify this situation?


texts: How to deal with cheating when university policy is ineffective?

texts:
I am co-teaching a relatively large class with two other colleagues in a big university. Each semester, most students are amazing, trustworthy, and well-behaved and it is a pleasure to work with my students. But there is a very small group of students each semester who cheat and I don't know how to deal with them.

The university has a detailed, strict, and elaborate policy for dealing with cheating. We send students suspected of cheating to a special committee where they decide if the student actually did anything wrong. The committee demands a copious amount of evidence before it convicts any student, yet at the same time, the university policy is so restrictive that we cannot collect evidence. For example, we are not allowed to do anything that indicates or suggest a student may have cheated. We are not allowed to mark their papers, move them during exams, or even talk to them. This means that most students get away with cheating if they are sent to the committee. Students who have copied identical answers from a neighbor over and over in quizzes got away with it in the committee. This process is so pointless that the course coordinator does not report most of the cases to the committee anymore.

I don't mind that a few students get away with cheating but the universities' restrictive policy shuts all the doors to any further discussion with the students. I am not looking for ways to punish my students. I want them to understand why cheating is unfair to other students and, hence, unacceptable. I want them to understand integrity and honesty are far more valuable traits than getting good grades in college.

Any suggestion on how I can communicate these ideas and their importance to my students?

Edit:

I am sorry for not being clear. My question is not about how to prevent cheating.  It is bout how to have a conversation with cheaters.

We do what we can to prevent cheating. We randomly seat students, make two copies of the exams, assign a good portion the final grade to labs, and use various other techniques. This question is about reaching to the cheaters and having a discussion with them.


texts: Is it advisable to upload theses to the arXiv?

texts:
I'm currently uploading my MRes thesis to my university website, but I have some doubts regarding the permanence of the link as it may change after I graduate. I do not have many illusions over who may want to read my thesis in the future, but I would like to have a link to give to people or to put on papers in the future without fear of the link breaking in the near/mid/far future. Additionally, I know that having it available in a place spiders are more likely to look makes it (marginally) more visible to web searches and thus more discoverable.

A quick search turns up a good bunch of PhD theses, but it doesn't say how many there aren't very many MSc or BSc theses in there. My reading on this is that it is OK but by no means a standard practice.

Before I upload it though, I would like to know if there are reasons not to put it in such a public place. I am after all a bit of an arXiv fanatic and there may be factors I'm not considering. Any thoughts?


texts: How can I find the original article of an often-plagiarised work?

texts:
I am currently trying to read an article on a particular topic. I really want to read and reference the proper original article, and attribute the work to the ones who deserve it; however, I'm finding it hard to determine just who that is.

I have found articles, all of which seem to be ripped off from the same source. It could be that one of them is the original, or none of them are. (Some of them are obviously fake.)

I'm inclined to believe a particular one is legitimate. It's the one with the earliest date, which admittedly can be faked, but it's also in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library, which I trust.

However, I'm not even sure how much I can trust any digital source now, because one of the other articles turns up in search results from my own institute's digital library! It seems they're indexing a particular journal that is not trustworthy.

So how do I determine the original authors of the work, or who can I trust to tell me?

As an example of what I'm talking about, here's what I'm witnessing:

IBC Secured Key Partition for A Peer-To-Peer
Network in Delivery of Message
Implementing a Secure Key Issuing Scheme for Communication in P2P Networks
IBC Secured Key Partition for A Peer-To-Peer Network
SKIP: A Secure Key Issuing Scheme for Peer-to-Peer Networks

The third article is the one that is returned by my library's journal index. The last one is the one I believe to be original.


texts: How to deal with incompetent PhD student as an undergrad

texts:
I am an undergrad who was recruited to join a lab by this PhD student and help her with her thesis, but since working with her I have come to the conclusion that she is incompetent and probably not going to finish her PhD. I often question her judgment especially related to safety and her research. This is my first research job, so sometimes I am unsure if this is normal, but at the same time I don't want to pick up bad habits. Some of the highlights include:

Lack of safety awareness. No gloves/splash goggles when working with (hot) concentrated acids and bases. Some of these experiments are run outside the fume hood, and sometimes on the floor when there is no space on the lab bench. Lab bench is a mess and when I mention cleaning up she says it'll take too much time.
When I ask her about her research proposal, she seems confused and is unable to answer basic questions about previous results. Previous experiments all seem inconclusive, need to be rerun, or she can't remember. One of the major part of her proposal is to investigate a particular mechanism, but when I ask what tests she plans on running, she has no idea.
I will talk to her about papers that I found, sometimes exactly matching the experiments we want to run, and she seems surprised. I will mention things from papers we've both read or thesis of previous students and she has no clue so most conversations about research is unproductive or she offers very superficial, obvious observations. Conversations with other group members are much more productive.
She (and I) have very little to share during group meetings because experiments are sometimes poorly designed and she does not plan them out. She will have a rough idea of what she wants to do, but no procedures or plan so lab time is spent planning the experiments out. She seems to have a very bizarre attention to some details but not others. For example, when running some high purity experiments she doesn't want us to wash the beakers with soap due to fear of contamination, but then she'll proceed to run these experiments on the dirty lab floor.
She has poor organization and samples are sometimes lost or results are not written down.
She has very rudimentary technical skills. I have watched her use the computer multiple times and instructions on how to use simple programs need to be written down step-by-step with very specific instructions on which button to press... etc. Sometimes she wants me to write a program from a paper, but she is so inept that she is unable to offer any assistance/advice, and after I'm finished writing the program she will have no clue how it works.

At times, it seems like I'm doing all the literature search, running the experiments, writing the programs, and coming up with new ideas while she grades homework. She says she is going to graduate this year.
Our PI is a very hands off person. I spend a lot of time reading literature and have ideas of other experiments we can run related to this research area in general. I would like to run these experiments myself. Since we're working in the same research area, however, sometimes when I discuss these ideas the grad student will mention wanting to include it in her thesis (even though it wasn't in her proposal). And because of how unproductive she is, I would prefer not to work with her anyways. I'm also concerned that the PI will think that these are good ideas and that I should work with this student to test them, particularly because I am an undergrad.
How can I politely distance myself with her and start doing some independent research?


texts: How is a MSc thesis evaluated in an application to a PhD program?

texts:
I am planning to apply to a PhD program in applied mathematics next year, and by that time my MSc thesis (which is in pure mathematics) should be finished.

In case my research results are not significant enough to be published in a journal, how will my thesis be evaluated for the sake of the admission process? Will someone from the committee actually read parts of it (note that a potential advisor will probably not be very familiar with my MSc field)? Will my research potential be judged solely based on my references' recommendation letters referring to my thesis/research? (In which case, is it even worth putting effort in how the thesis is written, assuming my grad school is happy enough with it to award me a degree?)


texts: Is it standard to include a photo of yourself in a CV for a Swedish job search?

texts: I know it's normal in a lot of European countries, but I don't know which way the Swedes roll.


texts: How to write an aside in a journal article?

texts:
So the question is simple: What is the common way of saying something in parentheses in a journal paper like engineering or mathematics.

Assume you are talking about a mathematical approach, but in the middle you want to point out to something else, or mention an special case. I give an example:

  ...our approach is based on the following linear equations....

  Eq.(1).....

  (now here I want to make a big parenthesis or a break to discuss about something regarding the approach which is not too long to be considered as an Appendix, maybe only one paragraph )

  One can think of the other approach such as .....

So the question is it, how this feature is normally handled in papers, and what is the latex function to do so.


texts: Is it okay to ask a supervisor for the email addresses of their current students?

texts:
I am doing an integrated Masters course as part of my undergraduate degree, and we have been asked to select the top 6 projects from a list of ~40 projects. We will then be allocated projects (and supervisors) based on these 6, and our previous academic performance.
Is it appropriate to ask project supervisors for the email-addresses of some of their current students? I would then contact their current students and ask what their supervisor is like to work with.
Would most supervisors take this poorly? Would I jeopardise my relationship with them before even starting my Project?


texts: I finished my M.Sc. dissertation a while back but I wrote it in Portuguese. I am applying for postdocs now and in some they ask for my research documents. Should I translate my Dissertation or is it wrong? And if yes, what notes and where should I write to identify it as a translation?


texts: I have a Belgian colleague who is “Prof. Dr. ir.”. What does it mean?


texts: Can I ask for authorship/acknowledgement for writing small data analysis program for a large study?

texts:
Earlier this year I entered into a high-profile molecular biology lab and started doing wet lab work (I am an undergraduate). Knowing that I have a computational background, my PI asked that I also help with a project that had been conducted over the last two years and was nearing its completion. I was told that if I made enough of a contribution that I could be listed as a coauthor. I wrote a program for the post-doc that is leading this project and used it to analyze the validity of part of his data. The most current (nearly final) version of the project's manuscript that is being passed around the lab unfortunately don't have my name anywhere on it, even though my code is listed in the supplementary information section.

I have always heard that you should get an authorship on a paper if your work resulted in a figure or sizable part of the discussion. My contribution to this project only slightly altered one figure, ensured the figure's validity, and got about 2 sentences in the discussion. My relationship with my lab and my PI especially is very important to me (I would love to continue my work here for at least another 2 years), so is it worth asking for a co-authorship, or at least an acknowledgement? Would doing so be inappropriate given my relative contribution (a month vs. 2 years) and status as an undergraduate in the lab?


texts: Is social media helpful for research dissemination?

texts:
Is there any quantitative evidence that using social media helps academics disseminate their research results?  What about the cost-effectiveness of social media?

My guess is that search engines are much more important than social media, and take less effort?


texts: How to change career as a software engineer in UK at 30 s' age? I am BSc graduate(Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry)

texts: I have no any software developing experience. But I love to enter the field. Currently working as production planner in manufacturing and going to migrate UK.


texts: About listing papers under review in your CV

texts:
I'm a PhD student and recently submitted my first paper to a journal.
I listed this paper as under review in my CV with its title, but not with the journal name. (My CV is available on my personal website and the lab's website)

In my field, it seems pretty common that grad students/post docs who are in the early stage of their career list their under review papers to advertise their productivity, and people don't seem to worry about its potential impact on review processes.

Is it possible that reviewers happen to learn that I'm the author of the paper either because they google the title or because they come across it on my CV?

Maybe I'm overthinking, I don't think reivewers would proactively try to find out info about authors.
But I'd like to hear what other people think and whether I should be more cautious about listing my under review papers in my CV. Thanks!


texts: I'm admitted to a PhD program in mathematics, but only achieved a pass (no distinction) in masters. Will this affect my reputation in the PhD program?

texts:
I'm a maths student who did his BSc at a top 10 university in England and got solid first.
After this, I decided to go to Cambridge to do Part III of the Mathematical tripos (a Masters). This was a HUGE step up for me and I felt like a fish out of water. It didn't help that I had personal problems going on in my life around the time of exams, and this ended up having an effect on my results: I got a pass grade.

The next step for me is a PhD and I have already been admitted to a program. My worry is that I don't feel I am good enough to do this. Yes, I got the place but it seems that everyone else I know who's doing a PhD ended up getting a distinction in their masters.

My question is this: how much does the Masters grade matter for fellow PhD students and supervisors? Are students with 'only' a pass looked down upon?


texts: Is it worth it to accept this PhD scholarship?

texts: I got a scholarship offer which requires me to work for a financial institution for three days (24 hours) a week. The scholarship is quite generous (50k AUD per year). Is it worth it to take it if I don't have to take the responsibility of TA and RA? I am just afraid it will influence my academic performance during my PhD life. After all, I take a PhD for making myself have a position in the academia world. If my publication record will be influenced by the three-day work, I'd rather not take this scholarship and turn to self-fund(I don't have any other scholarship). Can someone who has already experienced a PhD life help me estimate the pros and cons of this scholarship?


texts: Waiting times and hurdles between inclusion in ESCI and getting an impact factor?

texts:
In two cases recently, my co-authors are considering/decided to submit joint work to some young journals which I think are a good match. However those journals happen to be only indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index and thus not having an impact factor. Unfortunately, my academic employer cares literally only about impact factors (sad, I know). I would like to make a rough guess how likely are those journals to get an impact factor in the near future and conversely, how likely is supporting those journals by sending them our work to be an issue career-wise. My results are currently not stellar metric-wise, so those publications could plausibly really make a (small-ish) difference at some point.
Did someone publish data on how long journals spend in ESCI and how much citations/publications/... they need to gather before "moving up"? I understand this will be field-specific, but really I just want to be able to make a rough guess...
The journals in question are:

Research Integrity and Peer Review (by BMC),

in ESCI since 2018
48 publications in ESCI total
130 citations (without self) according to Clarivate, including 4 citations from Nature

Statistics surveys (this one is non-profit, open access without publication fees and I really like it!)

in ESCI since 2015
22 publications in ESCI total
112 citations (without self), also including a bunch of reputable journals.


texts: File / Data / Script management as a PhD

texts:
I started my PhD 7 months ago, and as I generate more and more data, and do more and more analysis, my folder structure is getting out of hand. I wanted to ask for best practices and opinions on how to organize my files in order to not lose track of everything and quickly find what I need. I am a geoscientist and have lots of analytical data as well as programming scripts. Along that I also have README.md for some analysis and snippets of ms word or plain text, if I wwrite something down to remember for a paper possibly.

I've made it a habit not to edit raw data at all and to backup regularly for obvious reasons.

Right now my simplified general structure looks a bit like this:

├── data
│   ├── analysis
│   │   ├── isotope_temperature_reconstruction
│   │   │   ├── report.ipynb
│   │   │   └── script523.py
│   │   └── light_micro_growth-line-analysis
│   │       ├── img1.svg
│   │       └── regression.py
│   └── raw
│       ├── isotopes
│       │   ├── run2019_02_19
│       │   └── run2019_02_24
│       ├── light_microscope
│       │   ├── sample_xy123123
│       │   └── sample_xy123124
│       └── sem
│           ├── sample_xy123123
│           └── sample_xy123124
└── documents
    └── paper1

I know the system my files are organized in doesn't really matter as long as it is consistent. However I am facing some struggles:

The data usually varies in "quality" and "ripeness". I have data that resulted from:

Some trivial test -> won't be used ever again
Is for calibration -> Doesn't belong to any project, but matters in many cases
Is directly and only needed for a certain publication

My problems with this are:

I find myself often linking and copypasting my data all over the place, because it is not where it's currently needed. As a consequence i also make edits only in certain places and not everywhere, and lose track of whats the most recent file. I also lose track of what files are handled programatically and where I edited something "per hand".
I have a lot of duplicate python/R/whatever scripts that I copypaste wherever needed. I think this is the easier part to resolve by modulating code and putting it into version controlled system wide libraries.
I sometimes have snippets of word or plain text that contain relevant research insights, but are scattered all over the place, because they are not directly related to a paper / data.

So I am looking for suggestions to address these problems, as well as suggestions for general file and data management, and general organization at a researchers main desktop machine.

The only problem that I feel adequately solved is my literature management because I just use zotero and let it organuize all my papers in a coherent folder structure. (It also makes it easy to search via tags, which would be super cool for data files)


texts: Minimizing cheating in online final exam?

texts:
What technologies or techniques are practical for minimizing cheating and collaboration in a University final examination that is to be held online?

I have seen some third-party arrangement which requires the student to keep a webcam operating during the entire duration of the examination, and read here of using a Zoom teleconference to monitor all the students as kind of a remote proctoring.

As we get into the fall term with COVID-19 restrictions still in place in many countries, this has to be a common concern to ensure the value of the resulting credentials. My immediate question is triggered by a colleague teaching an advanced undergraduate 4th year online course in an engineering discipline, and the student body is pretty international both ethnically and probably (at that time) geographically, so time zone differences may be a factor. Questions are more theoretical than numerical so the MOOC techniques of randomizing are unlikely to be of much value.

My thought is that some form of remote proctoring (preferably by an as-yet unidentified trusted third party recording the webcams and flagging suspected transgressions) and to force the students into one compromise time period (regardless of their location and time zone) would suffice.


texts: Is it reasonable to leave a PhD if your supervisor leaves the university?

texts:
I am a first year PhD student in Physics in a very important university in Germany. I started five months ago and unfortunately my first advisor is moving to a company. The university is important, but I actually chose to be there mainly to be supervised by her. She is well known in this field.

The topic is not my favourite one, but it is interesting and I've been working hard since the first day that I started.

However, I don't know why, the second supervisor is not considering me as a PhD student. In fact, we haven't had any meeting yet. On the other hand, I have a good working relationship with the third one.

At this point I don't know what I can do. I'm frustrated and sad since now I would like to make a different choice. Since it's my first year, I'm considering to move to another university even if less prestigious of this one. I'm here alone and I would have the possibility to be with my boyfriend.

By living this situation, maybe, I don't have the possibility to have a clear reasoning, so I need your help and advice in order to make the best choice possible. I'm considering to:

Complete this year and move to another university next year in order to: (1) work on a more interesting topic, and (2) have the possibility to stay with my boyfriend.
Remain here with few moral and supervised by professors that I didn't choose.

EDIT. I'm following the precious advice below to make a more general question. I remain of the idea that I'll consider only the two options above. Anyway, for me, and other PhD students in this situation, it'll be very useful to know other similar stories. With regard to this, I'd like to understand if it's reasonable to leave a PhD when your supervisor leaves the university. In particular, when you decided to apply for a particular university only to have the possibility to be supervised by a great professor, well known in his/her field. Unfortunately, differently from other stories where a supervisor moves to another university, in this case she leaves the university to move to a company. From other threads I understand that it's fundamental to maintain a good relationship with your ex-supervisor, since when you're already a PhD student and you decide to move, a reference letter from your ex-supervisor is critical since a transfer has to be highly justified.
Finally, I love this field and for me a PhD is the right pathway to follow, but at the same time I'm scared because I don't know if a PhD transfer is easy to achieve.

2nd EDIT. Maybe the bold sentences are too personal and a good answer cannot be given. So, I'd like to update the question in: Is it reasonable to leave a PhD and apply for another university if your supervisor leaves? In particular I'm trying to understand if the fact that you leave the PhD in a university can badly influence the application in the new university.


texts: How much is an average time of waiting to receive a reply from Professional co-author?

texts: I have sent my manuscript to a professor of math about one month ago. This manuscript was written according to his encouragement for a joint research work. He told me that send him what I have done from my side, and then he will add additional materials from his own side. I want to send a tracking email about the status of that. Should I do that or I must wait for his reply?


texts: Getting married abroad on August 21st, job begins on August 23rd. What do I do?

texts:
I just completed my Ph.D. and have recently been offered a lecturer position in a university. The first day of classes is on August 23rd, and I am getting married abroad in Europe on August 21st. The university is not aware of this, and I am not exactly sure about what to do.
I am considering catching a flight the day after my wedding (Aug 22nd) and then going to work on the 23rd, although this is risky and very stressful. Perhaps I will be expected to be present the week before I begin working, which is out of the question for me.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to handle this situation?


texts: What do publishers provide to authors in different disciplines?

texts:
Discussions about academic publication (for example, the recent Elsevier boycott, the actual cost of publication, open-access initiatives by universities and funding agencies, citation cartels, or post-publication review) are often muddled by the fact that publication practices and culture vary significantly from one discipline to the next.  I would like to see some of these differences explicitly teased apart.

I'm particularly interested in exactly how publishers in different disciplines help move authors' ideas to formally published papers.  Publishing in any discipline requires the combined effort of authors, publishers, editors, and reviewers, but the distribution of these efforts (and their associated costs) seems to vary from one discipline to the next.

What specific services do publishers provide to authors in your discipline? Please only one answer per discipline.  (If necessary, define "discipline" as "set of researchers with the same publication practices".)

(At a deeper level, I am curious why so many people seem to associate the value, authority, and prestige of various publication venues with their publishers instead of their authors, editors, and readers.  But that's not a good question for StackExchange; let's stick to the narrower factual question.)

I'll provide an answer for my own discipline.


texts:
Salam. Has anyone ever applied to any conference in China?

I am having difficulty in filing visa application here in NZ. The Chinese embassy has returned my application without processing twice and the demand "A Letter of Invitation (TE) from local foreign affairs in China"...

I do not have the slightest of idea what it means and why would foreign affairs in China invite me? Can anyone help me in this regard?


texts: Asking for funds to attend a conference from a current advisor for previous work

texts:
I have an accepted publication in a conference from work I have done in a previous research group, my adviser from the previous research group wants me to present the work in the conference, but he might find difficulty securing funds for me to attend the conference as I am now in a different university.

Assuming I can't secure funding from other sources, would it be okay if I asked my current adviser for funds to attend this conference?


texts: Options for a teaching position in a liberal arts college in Europe vs US?

texts:
I am a 4th year PhD student doing Computer Science in an Ivy League School. During the past months the question of what I want to do once I graduate in the next 2 years seems to absorb most of my time during the day.

I have crossed industry out, and I don't feel particularly strong for a research position in an academic or research institution for various reasons. Instead I realize that I am more intrigued by the teaching process, since I love interacting with students and helping them discover the numerous possibilities that CS has to offer. I would love the idea of following a teaching path in a liberal arts college but I have many concerns that derive from conflicts of interests (in my head). I would love to hear your opinions and advice.

1)In theory the easiest way to follow would be to apply for teaching positions in liberal arts colleges in the US. My concerns are: I am an international student, that means that they would need to sponsor my visa status. Why would they choose me instead of an American candidate, since they wouldn't have the language barrier and would cost significantly less. More importantly, since the PhD program I am currently enrolled is heavily biased towards research I feel that I cannot demonstrate an impressive teaching portfolio. My teaching experience is limited in a couple of courses I have TAed and seminars on didactics and pedagogics. There might be a possibility of teaching a class on my own before I graduate, but it is a long shot and something that does not happen really easily in my department. If I wanted to follow this path what advice would you give me in order to better prepare myself and become a more competent candidate?

2)Given that I come from Europe I am more inclined to return closer to home. Every time that I search for teaching opportunities in Europe though I come to understand that it is extremely hard to get in an educational system that I do not speak the language, I do not have the corresponding citizenship, and I am not particularly interested in doing research. The descriptions of the jobs that I am finding are in German, French, etc, and I do not speak any of these languages. Is there even the notion of teaching schools in Europe? How can a holder of a US PhD try to acquire such a position? I am even more lost here since I have no idea where to look for jobs and if there are any that would match the profile of a professor in a liberal arts college in the US.


texts: How do I find new problems to work on while attending a workshop?

texts:
I am attending my first ever workshop next week, in Theoretical Computer Science. My goal is plain - discuss interesting ideas to find new problems to work on and collaborators to work with. My advisor is very supportive of this, as he says one must always try to work on problems independently (or at least with other students/non-professors) on the side.

While I'm very excited at the prospect of something good panning out of this, I'm also very nervous for the following reasons: 1) I have zero publications. Our current work is not completely written up yet. 2) I also am slow in understanding things, so I tend to ask lots of questions in talks otherwise can't get anything out of them and quickly get lost.

I am worried that these two characteristics will make me appear very undesirable as a collaborator.

I am also not totally clear on  how I can steer a conversation with someone (say during a coffee break) to "Do you have any problems you are interested in that I could also work on?". Obviously this is 100% selfish, but it's really my only interest in being at the workshop.

Any advice is much appreciated!


texts: How do advisors typically apply pressure on PhD students to get work done?

texts:
I tend to get much work done when some external force (a teacher) applies pressure. Skills such as speed reading and rapid writing come to me only while working under pressure. Also, sometimes the best solutions only come to me immediately before deadlines. I am interested in starting a PhD, but nervous that there will be long stretches where I will not have to submit progress or there might not be much pressure for me to get work done.

Do students working towards a PhD thesis typically face frequent deadlines and pressure in the form of specific targets? How do advisors typically apply pressure to their PhD students?


texts: When do you italicize the name of a book, article or website in APA style citations and references?

texts: I am  writing a paper that is using APA Citation and I'm confused on how the in text citations are supposed to go. Do you italizize the name of the website, book, article in which you are citing? Or can it be left normal?


texts: Is it better to have a single-author paper or a joint-authored paper?

texts:
I am a new graduate student and I am about to start writing my first paper. Some of my adviser's other students have been working on similar topic to what I have been working on and he has been pushing us to combine our results into one paper. However, I feel my results could be a paper on their own. I want to start beefing up my CV so that I can get extra funding and, hopefully down the road, a research position but I am afraid that if I am only a coauthor on a paper it won't look as good as if I am the sole author (especially since I worked completely on my own for my section).

So my question is: would it be better to try and publish a paper in which I am the sole author or would it be better to try and publish a slightly better paper in which I have 2 or 3 additional coauthors? Do funding selection committees and the like give precedence to people with papers that they are sole authors over ones who have coauthors?

Edit: My field is math, in case this matters.


texts: Can we buy licenses for e-books and lend them to students?

texts:
We are thinking about buying new textbooks for our students. Is there an established practice of buying digital copies of books for students? I expect that e-books should generally be cheaper and we might also be able to save money on delivery.

If the school were to purchase 10 copies of some particular title (e.g., this condensed matter physics book), would it be possible to loan these e-books to one set of students for some period of time (2 years), and later use the same licensed e-books for the next set of students?

Edit

I'm asking is it legal to give the same e-book file to multiple student generations, given that the particular licensed copy is only used by one student at a time.

If it is legal, I'm interesting in the established procedure for doing so. Are there any special considerations for different vendors or for different e-book formats?


texts: Will similarity index in an unpublished yet accepted conference paper count after its journal version appeared online

texts:
I submitted my conference paper to IEEE ICC. It took nearly 4 months in decision.
During waiting time, I also submitted its 2 extended versions to 2 different journals.
The conference paper met acceptance and I uploaded camera ready version, but the conference is yet to be held and therefore the paper is still unpublished.
Meanwhile, my journal papers also met acceptance and appeared online. Now, when I check plagiarism of my unpublished conference paper, it is 37%, higher than allowed. Previously it was 8%.
My question is will IEEE be able to publish or reject my paper at this stage?


texts: What are the consequences if I cut ties with my former PhD supervisor?

texts:
Background

I did my Master's and PhD with my former PhD advisor in an Australian university. Coming from the experimental biology background, my advisor switched to the field of bioinformatics around the time when I started my Master's.

For my Master's project, I mainly used Graphic User Interface (GUI)-based programs and platforms such as Galaxy. During my Master's I started learning several computer languages without any support from my advisor. After six month into my PhD program, my advisor decided the whole lab would focus on a newly emerged sub-field which relies heavily on command-line-executed programs for data analysis. I have successfully completed a couple of projects and graduated by a series of publications last year and my degree was conferred in Nov 2018.

My former advisor was not the most knowledgeable person in programming language and statistics.  Likewise, my fellow students in the lab all had the same level of statistical and programming proficiency. As a result, I had to provide support to each single fellow student from data downloading to differential testing and many micro tasks in-between, even after my graduation in Nov last year. I've shared online resources on programming and basic statistics with the lab, however there was little improvement or progress. Six months after my official graduation, I find myself answering emails from fellow students and former advisor on a weekly basis, sometimes ten emails a week; many times I had to rerun their analysis or debug their codes, a good amount of my time went to my former lab. Lately my former advisor even introduced to me via email a new honours (an undergraduate-level research year) student who has just started this year, hoping I could teach the student to generate a specific type of plot for their honours project. Either teaching the student via email or generate the plot by myself will be very time-consuming as the program has a steep learning curve and requires a lot of pre-process of input data, all for a non-essential plot for an undergraduate level thesis.

Reasons that cutting tiers with my former advisor seems inevitable:

I can't see an end to my current situation as a free labour for my former lab. The more support I offered, the more demanding they become. I've decided to stop replying to the students' emails altogether. However, very likely my former advisor will eventually step in since I am the only person they know who could solve their problems, but I am unwilling to do any more work for them. They have no funding currently so hiring a post-doc or a bioinformatician is out of question. That being said, I don't think the burden is on me. Frankly, having been exploited by them (Should I decline unrelated work assigned by PhD advisor?), I am not particularly grateful to my former advisor and just want to stay away from them.

Questions:

1) Am I obligated to teach other students even I have developed the necessary skills by myself without my advisor's support and that I have graduated almost six months ago?

2) What are the consequences if I choose to cut ties entirely with my former advisor?

I plan to work as a freelance bioinformatician therefore their recommendation letters don't really matter right now. If I want to go back to academia later, I figured the price I have to pay (in labour) will be overly high anyway so I will probably try applying jobs without their recommendation letter.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


texts: Is this a case of data manipulation? What should I do if this is the case?

texts:
I come across this recent paper  "Discriminating Traces with Time", which proposed a program analysis technique based on machine learning, with application to security (side-channel attack). Some information:

This paper was published in TACAS 2017, which is a very good conference in program analysis, but most (if not all) people have no idea about security or machine learning.
The second and third authors are professors with strong publication records in program analysis, but I couldn't find a single paper of theirs related to machine learning before this one. So I guess this is all the work of the first author, who is a PhD student.

There are 3 reasons I think this is research misconduct:

1) In page 14, "Threats to Validity.", it was written as the following:

  Clearly,  the  most  significant  threat  to  validity  is  whether
  these programs  are  representative  of  other  applications.  To
  mitigate,  we  considered programs not created by us nor known to us
  prior to this study.

This is a lie.

In the same page, immediately previous this paragraph is the discussion about the case study TextCrunchr. The authors provides 4 types of text inputs, and one of the four, reversed-shuffled arrays of characters, is the one that lead to worst-case behavior that the tool needs to detect. They even admitted that:

  Although the input provided to Discriminer for analyzing TextCrunchr
  include carefully crafted inputs

How did they craft the input if they hadn't known the program prior to that study? By their own words, this is the most significant threat to validity. So the conclusion is this is not a valid method?

2) The experiments are inadequate.

The TextCrunchr case study above was said to be taken from a DARPA program. Searching with keywords "DARPA" and "TextCrunchr" leads me to another paper which demonstrated on exactly the same case study.

Symbolic Complexity Analysis Using Context-Preserving Histories. ICST 2017.

However, that paper used some sophisticated analysis to derive the inputs with reversed-shuffled arrays of characters instead of assuming they are given.

Another case study from DARPA discussed in the paper is SnapBuddy. The authors claimed that they discovered a vulnerability with their tool at the beginning of page 14.

  ...What leaks is thus the number of 1s in the private key.

I was surprised. This case study is about modular exponentiation (modpow). It is well-known for decades that several implementations of modpow have timing channel that leaks all the private key. While in this case study, knowing the number of 1s is practically useless. So again I searched for DARPA and SnapBuddy, and managed to find the source code of this case study in the appendix of another paper.

This confirmed my guess, there is a vulnerability in the method  standardMultiply, which can leak all the private key. The authors of the machine learning paper had fail to recognize.

So the tool is useless even with crafted inputs.

3) This point may be controversial. I don't think this approach will ever work in practice. For example, the TextCrunchr takes text as input. So assuming all the text are ASCII, and only has 11 characters, enough to store "HelloWorld!". The state space is 2^88. How do sampling work in this input space? The encryption in SnapBuddy is more than 1500 bytes, i.e. more than 2^1500 in the input space.

Amazingly, the authors managed to discovered the vulnerability by sampling a couple of thousands. How can I believe their results?

With the facts I gave above, is this the case of data manipulation? What should I do?

To be honest, I'm very upset that a paper with this quality could get into TACAS.


texts: What to do if I can't get a visa to attend a conference that accepted my paper?

texts:
My work got accepted into a very good category in a very good conference in my field. Due to complicated visa issues it will be very hard for me to attend that conference.

If I don't attend the conference they are certainly going to remove my work from the proceedings.

I am worried I won't be able to claim any sort of achievement if I don't attend this conference.

Can I still add it to my CV and specify that my work got accepted in this conference in a very good category?


texts: When should a student attempt unsupervised research?

texts:
I just finished my masters and am currently working as a research assistant before starting a PhD in applied mathematics. I was doing some preliminary work for a possible project and derived some minor results which I find interesting, but in the end, we decided not to go ahead with the project.

I still find the minor results interesting and thought of digging a little bit deeper by myself. However, since the group is no longer interested in this, I would have to do this by myself, unsupervised. Is this a very bad thing? Or a good learning experience?

I had a bad experience doing unsupervised research (wasted a lot of time for no results). However, I know that as a PhD student, I must eventually publish first-authored papers. How do I know when to make the switch?


texts: How do I tell my PhD advisor that I'm about to start medications that impair my cognition?

texts:
So I'm bipolar, and earlier this year my doctor put me on antipsychotics.  They made it really hard for me to think, and my advisor expressed frustration with me not doing calculations fast enough, and not being able to keep our entire project in my head at once.  (I didn't tell him about the medication.)

This summer my doctor switched me to antidepressants, and I instantly became smarter and more productive, and my advisor became a lot happier with me.  But it looks like I'm having a hypomanic episode, so my doctor will probably want me to restart antipsychotics when I see her this week.

How should I explain to my advisor that I'm about to become stupid again, possibly for the rest of my time in grad school?  I have a wonderful advisor who seems to genuinely care for my well-being, but I'm afraid he might fire me if he thinks I'll be permanently unproductive.


texts: How long should the background section of the literature review be for an engineering thesis?

texts:
I am writing my M Phil thesis in engineering, on the development of a new process for treating a particular type of wastewater.

In my literature review I have a background section, which describes the nature of the problem to be solved.

Originally I used this section to thoroughly describe the problem my thesis is trying to solve.  For example, I explained the mechanism by which each contaminant effects the environment.  This section was about 3 pages long.

However, I then noticed another thesis that had recently been accepted from my university simply stated "Wastewater from process X is a serious problem" and referenced a review article.

After seeing this I rewrote my background section in a similar style to the above, and got it down to under one page.

I believe the shorter style makes more sense because the problem I am attempting to solve is well known in the literature.  If the reader wishes to know more information they can read one of the many articles describing it.

For now I am planning to go with the shorter style.  Does anyone have any insights as to which style would be better?

Also, if you are wondering why I do not ask my supervisor, it is a long story but this is not possible.

I appreciate anyone's time and thank you in advance.


texts:
It’s a well known fact that textbooks are expensive and that writing a textbook earns you very little in royalties (e.g. https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/167367/11353 ). At the same time self-publishing is becoming a bigger and bigger deal in non-academic circles. This sounds like an ideal solution for academic textbooks.
Are there any examples of popular self published textbooks?
I am not looking for any type of (exhaustive) lists. I am either interested in even a single example of such a textbook or alternatively answers that explore the main issues with this approach. Going through my collection of books from the time when I was ‘in academics’, I cannot find a single book that looks like it wasn’t published through an (academic) publisher.


texts: How to start a cover letter during submission?

texts:
I'm submitting a paper to an Elsevier journal. One of the submission steps seems to be writing a cover letter to the journal office. They say that:

  Please enter any comments you would like to send to the Journal
  Office.

In order to start the cover letter, I wanted to write:

  Dear editor

but after googling the sample cover letters, I found out that I should write the editor's name. But the question is that which editor?

The journal has one editor-in-chief and multiple other editors. Which one's name should I mention? Will the editor-in-chief investigate the submission or who?

Should I use another terms instead of "dear ..."?


texts: How to interpret this rejection email from Journal of American Math Society? Anything to read between the lines?

texts:
I had submitted a paper manuscript to JAMS (J. of Amer. Math Soc) and recieved the following email 2 months after the submission. Can you help me interpret this email, as to what the situation is and what would be the best way moving forward.
Are there any positives/negatives that can be taken. I have not received any referee reports or any technical points on my work, which is what disappointing me. I would like to understand the circumstances/rationale behind this decision.

I am new to journal publishing. I want to know how i can take this decision moving forward, while choosing another journal for submitting. And also self evaluating my work from this. Is there anything to loose heart?

email : (names and references removed for privacy reasons)

  Dear Professor XXXX,

  This message concerns the manuscript

  XXXXX    by XXXX

  submitted to the Journal of the AMS.

  We regret to inform you that we cannot accept this paper for
  publication in JAMS. The reviewers who evaluated this submission did
  not think that it meets the acceptance standards at JAMS.

  JAMS is the premier journal of the AMS, with extremely selective
  acceptance criteria. A paper must be truly exceptional to obtain the
  unanimous approval from the editors, which is required for
  publication. We publish fewer than 30 papers per year in all of
  mathematics. As a result, less than 10% of submissions are accepted
  for publication, and many excellent papers are rejected.

  One reviewer suggested that the discussion in your paper should
  include a comparison with the following reference:

  XXX, XXXX, XXX. XXXX: XXX.XXXXX XXXXX XXXX, Journal of XXXXX.
  5555;5(XXX):5555-4444.

  Sincerely,

  XXXXXX, Editorial Assistant Journal of the American Mathematical
  Society

  --- Sent via EditFlow by JAMS Editor  <journal.american.math.society@gmail.co

  Dear Professor XXXXX,

  The reviews we received were intended for the editors' eyes only, so
  we are unable to send them to you.

  Apologies, XXXX


texts: Honor Listed in undergrad. Should it go on the CV for grad applications ?

texts:
I was placed on the "Honor list" by the university during my undergrad study several times. Students are placed according to their GPAs.

My question, should this be mentioned in the awards and honors section in the CV especially if this CV is forwarded to graduate study somewhere else ? How would they look at it ? (Good, Bad, We really don't care and you wasted our time).


texts: How to make thesis-writing feel less tedious?

texts:
I'm about to finish my master's thesis on a TCS topic (algorithms). I'm quite happy with my results; the most engaging part of the thesis was grappling with getting up to speed on the state of the art, then taking that and developing new and/or more efficient algorithms for the specific model I'm working on. Proving that the algorithms actually work has been very satisfying as well.

However, I'm having a hard time sitting down and TeXing it all; it feels very tedious. I did write out the most important bits very soon after I had them figured out so I could give them to my advisor. Yet for the better part of the past two weeks, every day I considered getting down to it and putting it all together into a presentable thesis, eventually deciding to put it off for another day. As I'm hoping to do a PhD afterwards, I thought I should nip this in the bud so I won't be wasting time like this for too long.

What are effective methods to motivate myself to do what is necessary in research as efficiently as possible so I can focus more on the actually interesting, creative parts?

(I could not figure out how to tag this; feel free to edit tags)

There is a number of great answers speaking to organization and extrinsic motivation by now; I was wondering if anyone has had any success in finding/improving their intrinsic motivation with regard to writing? Possibly a change in attitude, maybe a point of view that may not have occurred to me that makes writing appear more useful?


texts: Credit with helping to write a PhD thesis

texts:
I am an undergraduate student doing summer research and I am helping a PhD student to write a portion of her PhD thesis and with a bit of editing here and there. I am wondering how would credit be distributed since I don't think a  PhD thesis can be co-authored. Also, when I apply to graduate school afterwards, how would I show the admission committee that I have done this work?

To clarify: I had two kinds of contributions to this thesis. There are parts describing research we collaborated on, but it was mainly me in that I collected the data and performed the analysis but she gave me advice. There are also parts that describe her research, that I helped to edit.


texts: Is there a difference between a symposium paper and a conference paper

texts:
My university requires for PhD candidates to publish 1 journal paper + 2 conference papers in order to be able to proceed to the viva.

Recently, I submitted a paper to a symposium that has a proceeding with an ISBN. The proceeding, however, will not be published online (only a hard copy, but I found the citations of previous conference in google scholar). The paper is accepted and today is the deadline to pay the registration fees. Both the university direction and my supervisor did not respond to my emails, so I have to make the decision on my own.

My question is: can we call a symposium paper a conference paper? And is there any difference in terms of quality?

My domain is Project Management.


texts: How do professors from very small or unranked universities in the U.S. attract graduate students?

texts: US News and World only ranks about 100 graduate programs in computer science 300 research universities in the US. How do graduate programs of small and/or unranked universities attract graduate students?