texts: Physics masters and PhD degrees in England/UK

texts:
This question is about academia in the UK/England. I understand that in physics, the PhD thesis one produces must be of their own studies, almost like publishing a paper. If you will, a kind of discovery they themselves or along with others have made.

However, I'm not so sure about a physics masters thesis, if there even is one?

I'm assuming here that you do have to produce a masters thesis as I've seen people ask about masters thesis questions for other subjects, please do correct me if I'm wrong.

In a physics masters thesis, is it the same basis and a PhD thesis (something on research you've conducted yourself)?
Is it a thesis question on something you find interesting and you're just writing as a good a question as you can about it (so something someone else has discovered)?
Or is it something completely different from the two of these?


texts: I want to transition from Mathematics to Computer Science for a PhD. Will post-baccalaureate studies in Computer Science help me?

texts:
In order to better understand my questions it is best to provide some context to them.

Background: I completed a B.Sc. degree in pure mathematics several years ago. I kept in contact with my letters of recommenders (their letters are strong), and published in an undergraduate mathematics journal. I want to transition from mathematics to computer science for a PhD program. I delayed my entrance into a PhD program to work in industry. Now I am in a position where I can enter back into school.

The problem I face is that 1) I lack many of the preliminary courses required by many PhD programs in Computer Science and 2) My GPA is on the low side due to extenuating circumstances during those respective semesters (which relates to my reasons of delaying a PhD to pursue industry work).

The PhD programs I am interested in are very competitive. I contacted a professor at one of these universities (nationally ranked & well-known) and he said he'd vouch for me whenever I applied and a few of my recommenders know him personally. But according to the school's website individual faculty have little input in admission decisions (as admissions is determined by a group of faculty) and they seem to have a strict set of coursework requirements needed in order to be admitted into their program. Also, my GPA falls outside the range of the "average" admitted students.

So, even though I have strong LoRs, strong research experience and a professor interested in me, I have a low GPA and not nearly enough of the core courses to satisfy their coursework requirements.

I applied/was accepted to do a post-bac at a well-regarded school. I will be a credit (but non-degree seeking) undergraduate student and can take any range of courses I want (both undergrad + grad).

Question:

1) Will pursuing a post-bac route help me get into a CS PhD program? My aim here is to complete the core set of requirements, bolster my GPA, and make myself competitive for PhD programs in CS (I don't want to do an MS program). Since I lack basic CS coursework I'll be taking courses in programming, data structures, analysis of algorithms, computer organizations and the like.

2) When will be the best time to apply for PhD programs? I plan to take courses on a part-time basis (since I am working full-time), so a max of 1-2 courses a semester. I was thinking if I applied next Fall then I'd only have two programming courses completed (required sequence), and a data structure course in progress. I still wouldn't have completed analysis of algorithms, etc. courses by that time. Luckily, I already taken all of the program's math requirements with high marks.

3) Is it fine to not satisfy every coursework requirement in the list? It is also recommended to have other courses completed outside of the core, but I am very eager to get the core completed and move into research. Lastly, would a B in any of these courses be a death kneel for my purpose? Some of these courses have a reputation of being extremely difficult.

Thanks for the help!


texts: Can I write two separate Resumes to apply for two different graduate programs in same university?

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I am applying to two graduate programs in the same University (Electrical Engineering and Financial Engineering).

One of the required documents is the latest resume.

In the past, when I applied for jobs, I would tailor my resume to fit the job description and skills they require, and include only relevant accomplishments.

Now that I am applying to two different programs in the same University, should I

Write two separate resumes to tailor to each program, i.e. one for Electrical, one for Finance
Write identical resumes, because two resumes may be compared.

And the application is 100% online, if that is relevant.


texts: How does a highschool student intern under a professor?

texts: I have read that interning under a professor can not only help you gain a better understanding of a subject but also it can look good on your college resume. I was wondering how I could possibly do this in ninth grade. Do I email the professor I want to research under or does he have to ask me or can it be both?


texts: What would be different between two years of graduate admissions?

texts:
A bit of background to contextualize:

So I'm in a bit of a two-body problem with both me and my wife interested in applying for programs in the near future. Mine would be five-year-plus program and hers on the order of a year and a half.

If we were to apply for programs near to each other (but not near to our current location), and she didn't get into hers and I chose to decline that program, what sort of variables could change between years that might affect my chances to be admitted a second time?

I'm curious mostly about what would change on the department's end. This program would be in a funded, psychology-related program.


texts:
This past summer, I came up with a research project that I wanted to pursue (I am in high school). At first, I thought that the experiment would take about a month. However, I experienced more problems than I could have ever imagined. Finally, over half a year later (and after hours upon hours of research), I ran my experiment. During the whole research process, I believed that my alternative hypothesis would be supported. However, it wasn't.

I will be presenting my research at science fairs very soon, but I fear that all of my hard work will be overlooked because of my negative result. Is this fear warranted? Is there anything that I can do to ensure that this does not happen?


texts: Advice for research and taking graduate classes for undergraduate student

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there are multiple questions in here so please bear with me.

I am currently a freshman undergraduate student at a large public university in the US. Looking at my coursework and credits, I noticed that I am a bit ahead and will graduate within 3 years.

1.) What should I do with my fourth year?
I am interested in pursuing an MD/PHD, and was wondering if I should take additional graduate classes, take some time off to prepare for the MCAT, or just directly apply after my third year.

2.) Should I pursue a thesis or try to go for some publications? One of the things that I read here in the Academia Stackexchange was publishing something, for instance submitting a thesis or printing a book, disqualifies you from sending that piece of work towards journals. What are the benefits of doing one or the other and what do admissions committees look favorably to?

3.) How do you deal with failure and discouragement in research? Lately I've failed again and again for the past few weeks. I have created a pretty established protocol tailored for the lab that I am working at and I run the experiment beforehand in my head over and over. After performing a run, I get reproducible results however the data that I get is not what what I am looking for. I then evaluate all the work that has been done and try to see if there are any improvements or things that I could have done better, sources of error that may have affected the results, and refine my protocol. As of right now, I am kind of stuck and do not wish to blindly use reagents and hope for a serendipitous outcome.

Thank you for your time.


texts: How to approach research on an unproven theory for academic submission?

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I'd like to look more into the Fermi Paradox for research purposes and possibly submit it as an academic paper.

The Fermi Paradox is a theory proposed by a scientist that has some very interesting and factual points based on our current knowledge of space and technology advancements.

My only concerns are the entire theory is based on speculation while it's not possible to disprove it's also not possible to prove.

Is it acceptable to research from one stand point either against or for the theory. Or is it better to approach it from a non bias stand point and show the evidence and the possible counter evidence?


texts: What do I need to do to get a master's degree in neuroscience?

texts:
I am an international student in the U.S who recently got a B.A in architecture. I am currently looking for a full-time job in architecture to support myself. But my future plan is to study neuroscience in graduate school and go into science field.
I want to know:
how possible it is for me to get into a masters degree program in neuroscience without any background in it. Now I am thinking to take GRE in physics, chemistry, biology and math. I think I will also need to take some required courses that I didn't take in my undergrad level either online or either at the university where I am going for a masters degree.
I also want to have an idea of how long it is going to take me to pursue it. A regular masters degree program takes about two years, but in my case I think it will take more than that.
Lastly, what are the other things I need to do to make my transition from architecture to neuroscience less time-consuming?
Thanks!


texts: Classification framework in conceptual paper

texts:
I would like to ask you for a piece of advice concerning the justification of the classification framework in a systematic review article.

I am writing an article in a retailing context and I want to classify from a marketing perspective. I managed to classify some of the articles. However, I do not know what approaches I can use for the classification.

I was thinking to categorize the articles into sub-disciplines such as consumer behaviour, innovations etc. but I am not sure if there is a way to justify the subjective criteria.

Moreover, probably similar categorizations have been already used even it is in regards to other concepts, not those that I want to explore, so I am afraid if I can prove my contribution in my paper.

How should I proceed?


texts: Strategies to remember papers that you read

texts:
What strategies do you use to remember papers that you read?
I usually take notes, but when after a while I look at the notes, I don't remember most of the details. So I have to go back to the original paper and read many sections once again.
Are there better strategies for remembering key points from papers you read for a longer time? I am mostly talking about CS and Math papers in which details can be very easily forgotten.


texts: What should I do about a group project in which I did almost everything?

texts: I had a history project at school. There were two other partners besides me. So I did basically 98% of the work, another person did approximately 2% of the work, and the last person did 0%. :( Now we are (I am) almost done.  For the video we had to make on Japanese calligraphy, I draw a LOT of drawings, found music, did 2 voiceovers, made all of the slides, and put together the entire video. The second person helped a tiny bit on putting together the video and also did 2 voiceovers, but nothing else. Finally, the 3rd person did.. umm... I don’t know (nothing). In class, we evaluated our team members. I didn’t give them very high scores, but now I feel like their scores should have been even lower. We made a group chat, and I STILL don’t have the 2 voiceovers of the 3rd person. This is completely unfair. Should I tell the teacher or not?


texts: How to be efficient with large blocks of time?

texts:
I'm currently a graduate student in engineering (working toward my Master's). Over the summer semester I'm taking three classes in addition to researching at my adviser's lab.

The lab is located off-campus (about a 30 minute commute), so it doesn't make much sense to fill in all of my gaps between classes with research time.

However, after making my schedule, I realize that I have these awkward 2-hour breaks in the afternoon. I also have 30-minute breaks later in the day, as well.

Given that I can't research in these times (the commute is too long), and given that I'm generally a nocturnal person and like to work on problem sets at night (from the comfort of my dorm), what is the best academic use of my time during these breaks?


texts:
Can I submit a paper to a conference if I have presented it at another conference earlier but it wasn't published in proceedings?
Last year I submitted my work to a conference and it was accepted as a long paper, so I thought it was going to be published in the proceedings, but it seems they have a loophole in their rules. Long story short they they didn't publish the long paper. They published my other abstracts, but not the long papers due to this awkward loophole. I was planning to submit to a journal, but with the reviews and revisions, it will be a lot different from what I have right now. Can/should I submit the paper to another conference instead? One that will actually publish?


texts: Does the year of publishing for corrected proofs change in the final version?

texts:
I have an accepted manuscript published in an Elsevier engineering journal. The status of the article on its sciencedirect page is "In press, corrected proof". For now the article can be cited using its DOI and year of publication (2017). However, the journal is now working on two volumes: the December volume of 2017 and the January volume of 2018. I have noticed that some articles accepted after mine have been assigned to the January 2018 volume, while my article and some other articles accepted within the same week (1-7 July) are still in the corrected proof status.
So I have two question:
1- Can the article get assigned to the January 2018 volume considering that it is now cited as an 2017 article?
2- Is their any priority criterion for publishing? Topic? First submission date? ... etc?


texts: Should I hold back some ideas for after my PhD?

texts:
I guess this a question about 'career pacing'. I am currently a first-year grad student studying for a PhD in Aerospace Engineering at a research university in the US. Even though I have only been studying this field for about 5 months, I am already starting to get quite a few ideas about interesting potential avenues for research. For example, possible numerical simulations or experiments that could be done.
I am thinking about pursuing an academic career post-PhD, so my question is: would it make sense for me to keep some of these ideas 'in reserve' for a possible post-doc or tenure track position? If I have one or more really 'great' ideas, when is the best time to pull those out of the bag? Now, during the PhD, or save them for later?
What I'm thinking is: if I pull out my best ideas now, it might be less clear whether they were really my ideas or my PI's; however, if I wait, then someone else might have similar ideas and beat me to it (i.e. publish or perish).
To look at it in another way: when is the optimal time during an academic career to fire off your 'biggest impact' ideas (if there is such a thing)? If I have more 'promising' ideas than I think I can work on during the PhD, would it make sense then to keep some in reserve?


texts: Is it advisable to self-advertise in conferences being on the job market

texts: While giving presentations in conferences or talks in research meetings, is it ok to self-advertise that I'm on the job market (academic or industry)? Is it advisable or does it make more sense to mention that during networking in teams?


texts: Why would a potential supervisor emphasize kind of doctoral degree?

texts:
I was talking to a potential PhD supervisor about doing a "PhD" in his institution (in Germany). In several occasions he mentioned in an "emphasizing manner" that they award "Dr. rer. nat." in contrast to other doctoral degrees (like "Dr. phil." / PhD).
In my environment/institution (also Germany), many have a PhD from universities outside Germany and he is aware of that.

Why would he emphasize that? Are differenct "kinds" of doctoral degrees considered harder to get or more prestigious or something like that?

Note: I had the impression that he was saying "be aware of what you´re getting into, "Dr. rer. nat." is serious business" to exaggerate a little...

The field is CS/maths if that is relevant.


texts: Is it called research misconduct when someone publish his own work under the name of other people?

texts: One of my friends has a lot of research works, but he is kinda of lazy in the publishing process. As a result, he has a lot of unpublished research materials. Right now, he is realized that he needs citation count to be able to get some benefits which I don't want to disclose here but I could just tell it's not academic benefit but it is heavily related to only citation count and not even the number of publications (ridiculous yeah? but sadly true!). Also, if he publishes those research materials under his own name and cite himself it will be counted as self-citation and again it is worthless to be qualified for that benefit. This matter leads him to publish his research works under the name of his other friends and in those papers he cite himself just for sake of citation count. The research materials are not questionable and in my opinion even they're remarkable. But he is reluctant to publish it under his own name because he thinks he will miss that benefit and he does not have such a long time to publish his researches under his own name and wait at least a couple of years to accumulate citation counts. This is a really complicated problem and I'm wondering is it a real research misconduct or not? More generally, it really hurts me that some good researchers will be judged solely based on some numbers like citation count, which leads people to these kind of activities. Any idea or suggestion is appreciated.


texts: Unhappy with my PhD program in my home country, thinking about applying to another university in UK

texts:
My problem is a bit unusual and I would love to get some advice…

I'm a first year PhD student in social-sciences and I already got my proposal approved. I moved back to my home country (where I am currently doing a PhD) after completing an undergraduate and an MSc. I am very unhappy here.

I would like to have a future as an academic. The only reason I decided to a PhD in my home country and not abroad was because I was determined to try, stay, and make it work here, but recently I been thinking it was a mistake. I am thinking more and more about discontinuing my program here and applying for doctoral studies in the UK, as a new student (after a bit of online research I found that they rarely accept a transfer and it is best to start as a new student).

I would love to get your thoughts regarding my situation,

I am considering sending an email to a potential supervisor but I am not sure how to explain why I want to drop-out of my current PhD program without talking my university down? How do you suggest I do that?
Did anyone had a similar experience or have some advice?


texts: Are search committees biased in terms of a candidate's looks, such as long hair for men?

texts:
As a male Ph.D. student in engineering, I have not had a problem with long hair at any of the reviews I've attended with funding agencies, conferences, etc. However, I wonder if search committees will view long hair in a negative light.

I would particularly like to know if anyone has known of any instance in which a male candidate's long hair worked against their chances of obtaining an academic position, but I've edited this question title to be more general with respect to a candidate's outward appearance attributes which are under their control.


texts: Is excluding my middle name on a graduate application acceptable?

texts:
I was born in Ukraine and when I immigrated to the United States at a young age my middle name was translated phonetically. In Eastern Slavic cultures, our middle names aren't quite the same as middle names in the United States. It's not simply an "alternative name" for me. Our middle names are patronymic. They are our father's names. I do not consider my middle name to be the same as the traditional middle name used in the United States.

I am currently applying to graduate programs and I have decided to leave my middle name out. The name is long and unpronounceable by most. On top of it being my father's name, it has a suffix ending "-evich" tacked on at the end. This makes it 11 characters long and it usually gets truncated to fewer characters when seen in my undergraduate university's system. This bothers me and I would just rather then not have the patronymic middle name in my records at all.

Are there specific reasons I should include my middle name on my graduate school applications?


texts: On how/if I should ask my supervisor about lead authorship?

texts:
Some time last year, I was casually talking to my professor when he asked me to look at this paper that he and his previous student had worked on but couldn't finish. I was hesitant but I took a look and decided to work on it. I've been at it for a few months now and I've developed it beyond the scope and reach of the initial paper. As such, my prof asked me to write a new paper from scratch, but I don't know if I'll get first(or even 2nd) author on it or if I'll have to settle for 3rd behind the initial authors.

Is it appropriate to ask such a question? I feel like I deserve it but I'm not sure if it's rude to ask for it or about it. He's going to be one of my recommendations for grad school in the very near future so I don't want to do something rude and lose any goodwill.


texts: Equivalent of french CAPES or agrégation exam without having to teach

texts:
I am a mathematics student in a French university.
But I have studied many other subjects on my own with university books.
So I would like to have a diploma or an exam that proves that I have a certain level in these subjects.
I had thought about the CAPES or the agrégation exam but I don't want to have to teach after I have obtained them.
Note. I am moving towards an academic career.


texts: How to avoid plagiarism when including definitions and proofs from textbook?

texts:
I need to include some basic definitions, and simple proofs from a standard text book to my thesis. Those definitions and proofs are very basic, e.g. probability, entropy etc. Everybody knows they should be in some text books.

Consider, for example, this proof from wiki. My questions are:

Is this plagiarism if I bring this whole proof word by word into my thesis?
If this is plagiarism, what is the method to "paraphrase" a proof? Since the derivation is straightforward, and it is very difficult to write it in a different way?

Thank you.


texts: How do academic grants work in the U.S.?

texts:
When a professor is awarded a grant, what happens next?

Does the professor get the money?

Does the school get the money? If so, why?

Is it extra income for the professor?

How about when there are multiple professors on a project? Is the money theirs? Do they split the money?

How about when a graduate student gets funding from an agency? Does the student get the money? Does the school get it?


texts: Using Industry experience to recover from bad undergrad record

texts:
I graduated 2 years ago from a (frankly shitty) US state school with a 2.9 GPA and a Bachelor's of Arts in Computer science and no research experience.

I am well aware that this is a very poor undergraduate record. My mental health has has improved markedly since I left undergraduate and I have continued educating myself (self study/undergraduate courses).

I have the opportunity to move to a group within my company that does machine learning and statistics. Provided I take this position, will this experience be a positive mark on an application to a Master's program in a related field (comp. sci, statistics)? If so, how can I maximize the utility of this work experience in terms of admission?

More generally, what can I do to prevent myself from being permanently locked out of acceptance into graduate studies?


texts: Why would a professor assign more grades to a presentation than a report in a software engineering subject?

texts:
I am doing my master's in Software Engineering at a German university. I had been told that the seminar presentation influences the final grade more than the contents of the seminar paper.

But the irony is I work more for the contents of the paper (about 2 months) than the presentation (about 5 days). Why is it so?

FYI, I constantly discuss with my supervisor (who decides the grade) regarding my progress and incorporate his comments as well.


texts: Is it okay to keep my margs as 0.9 inch instead of 1 inch for my SOP

texts:
My SOP is extending the general 2 page limit by exactly 2 lines.
Will it be okay if use a 0.9inch margin (all sides) instead of 1inch? I am using an overleaf template so all the other norms are being followed.
I am asking because then it will be exactly 2-pages.


texts: Is it bad to update a job application after the due date?

texts:
I am graduating from a math PhD program next May, so I am on the job market now. I have already submitted some applications (via mathjobs.org). But most applications are due in the next week or so and I have been working on my research statement quite a lot. Now I've made many changes since the version that I submitted.

So my question is: would it be bad to upload a new version of my research statement to jobs that I already applied to and whose first deadline has past?
Most job ads say that applications submitted before the first deadline will receive full consideration. I don't want to risk begin omitted from that group by updating my application.

Thanks for any replies or comments!


texts: Does gold open-access with article processing charge (APC) really help access to science and save taxpayer money?

texts:
I value the reputation of the journals to which I submit articles. Mostly, I wish to confront my work with the most competent researchers in my field through peer review, in order to have an expert opinion on its quality. In my field, the best ranked/most reputable journals are dominantly subscription-based (although all offer 3'000$ open access (OA) options, that not many researcher choose). So I give priority to reputation/quality over OA policy. On the other hand, I'm well aware that subscription journals are a big weight on universities budget.

So, does OA* really help access to science and save taxpayer money?

The arguments I know about that suggest it does:

I'm aware of the arguments (very efficiently publicized by big OA publishers like Frontiers) that OA is good karma because it gives access to science 'for free'. People argue that when the taxpayers pay for research, they should also get to read the results without paying a subscription.

Reasons for which I'm not sure it does:

I believe that if every article costs 500-3000$ just to publish, and the total number of article explodes, taxpayers (or private scientific funding agencies) are not winning a lot in the change. I also think that people can go to the library to get access to research.

Isn't it reasonable to use the options that we have to freely give access to our work (self-archiving, sending preprint to people who ask politely, etc.).

ps. I published in both OA and subscription-based, and I will gladly submit to OA journals if they end up being the highest quality ones in my field.

*I'm talking about OA journals with article processing charge. I'm aware of the existence of completely free OA journals (funded by universities I presume), but they are only relevant for a few research topics. And not mine.

Edit apparently the science funding agencies of the UK think that gold OA is not that good of a strategy.


texts: Is copying standard definitions from e.g. ICD without quotes considered verbatim plagiarism

texts:
In  textbooks published by my faculty staff members, Authors often include definitions from WHO or ICD using passive speech (... is defined as ...)

Is this legal?
Is copying these standard definitions without quotation marks considered as
verbatim plagiarism ?


texts: What can I do when my e-mails to professors go unanswered?

texts: I have accepted as postdoc researcher in a Swedish university. Three professors in the university are correspondent for this position. I have to travel to Sweden within 2 weeks and start my new job. However, I should make sure about some issue before leaving my homeland. They all are so quick in answering. However, I sent them a short e-mail but did not receive any reply from 10 days ago. I don't  know what I should do. Does such a behavior mean "No"? Or am I annoying them because of my e-mail?


texts: Should I assume that attendees have read my papers when I give a talk?

texts:
On occasion during talks, presenters will say, "as you know from reading my papers" or during a Q&A someone will say "you should know from my papers".

The above clearly seems inappropriate for most settings outside of a group meeting. However, to what extent should I expect my audience to know what I am talking about vs. completely assuming that my audience know nothing?


texts: What do I do if I don't have anyone to write my letters of recommendation for undergraduate research programs?

texts:
I'm currently a second year student in maths and I want to apply to some REUs but I haven't made any remarkable relationships with my profs or anyone in the department. As well, I've just been an average student, just As and Bs, so I don't have anything exceptional to show for my attendance in my profs' classes. Thus, if anyone has any advice on what I can do for LORs, I'd appreciate it.

Additional info: I am doing research in my university, just not in maths, it's in pedagogy, but my supervisors don't know what's going on in my classes. I also have emailed this great prof I had last year once this year and have asked her for an LOR already, but I don't know how wiling she will be to give me another one since it's been a couple of months since we've last talked.


texts: Course planning: How to assign homework to highlight important sections

texts:
I'm planning a course on advanced calculus.  Some of my topics align quite well with entire chapters of the textbook, so it makes sense for me to teach the entire topic, link it to a textbook chapter and additional resources, and assign homework from the end of the chapter.  However, some of my topics take material from several chapters of the textbook and other resources, either because it's a very quick review or because the textbook presents things in a way I don't like.

What is happening is that some topics are getting a disproportionate amount of suggested practice, given how much time we spend on them in lecture.  For example, I'm dedicating only one 50-minute lecture to the four topics of vectors, lines, planes, and distance, since they've already seen this stuff 3 times.  However, that's 5 textbook chapters, and it's looking to be about 40 suggested practice problems.  On the other hand, I'm dedicating the exact same amount of time to a single topic, parametric equations in space, and they will only get about 20 suggested practice problems.  For the course itself, parametric equations are a more important topic and should be practiced a lot more.  However, I don't want to assign just one question per topic for the review stuff, since practice and review is important.

Is there a nice way to communicate to students that a particular topic is more important for their understanding of the course, but that another topic should be reviewed until they are comfortable so that the important topics are simpler?


texts: Costs of having a US-based PhD supervisor doing a PhD in Germany?

texts:
A little background first, as this is maybe not familiar to people outside Germany: In Germany there are universities that can not award PhDs. So called "Hochschulen/Fachhochschulen". This means they have to cooperate with a university that can award PhDs at which the student is then enrolled as PhD student and also has an official PhD supervisor. But the work (and in practice most of the supervision) is done at the "Hochschule". Also notice that in Germany getting a PhD is normally "thesis only", so no course work. Also in this setting the student already has a Masters, which is a requirement in Germany for starting a PhD.

If someone wants to partner with universities in the US to get a PhD, will the student have to pay regular fees / tuition even if it is "thesis only"?

Or do you even need to be officially enrolled at the US university if you have a professor there who agrees the supervise you?


texts: How to get a book indexed by Google Scholar: How to upload to Google book search and what makes a book scholarly?

texts:
I have seen similar posts to this one, but none of which answer my specific questions. The google scholar help documentation states:

Documents larger than 5MB, such as books and long dissertations, should be uploaded to Google Book Search; Google Scholar automatically includes scholarly works from Google Book Search.

What is implied by "uploading to Google Book Search"?
I see no way to upload to the search.
How does google scholar determine if one's book is scholarly?
Criteria for articles include abstracting and bibliographies. Since books do not usually contain abstracts, is the entire criteria for scholarly containing a bibliography? If not, what is it?
(See https://scholar.google.com/scholar/inclusion.html#content)


texts: I am an undergraduate student from India. English is my third language and I am not grammatically sound in it. How bad could it be for my career (in academia) and how can I improve on it.


texts: Unprofessional to write (in a paper) that something is "really cool"?

texts: Is it unprofessional to write (in a paper) that something is "really cool", for example, when describing a colliding black hole simulation?


texts: How can I list on my CV that I graduated from college in 3 years?

texts:
Without naming the university (to protect my privacy), I attended one of the top 20 universities in the US for my undergrad and graduated in 3 years with honors. While graduating from this school in 3 years isn't impossible, it's certainly rare. On top of that, I have a good GPA and finished a humanities-based CogNeuro major, a Writing minor, and all my pre-med coursework.

Now I'm applying to grad school for CogNeuro, and I'd like to highlight the fact that I graduated in 3 years on my CV, for 2 reasons. First, I genuinely think my accomplishments are made more impressive by that fact. And second, because it explains why I have less research experience than some of my peers. So I guess my question is twofold: Should I even bother mentioning that I graduated early, or am I just being arrogant in doing so? And if that's a good thing to mention, how can I do so without being heavy-handed?

Currently I have my high school name and graduation year listed under my "Education" section, not because my high school matters, but because it's the only way I can think of to show that I graduated from college early.


texts: Read latest journal articles on your phone?

texts:
I'm not sure if this is the right stackexchange.

But i was wondering if there is a way to select a number of journals in your field, and have the latest articles of those journals on your phone, so that you can open the latest articles of specific journals with the tap of a finger.

Given how addictive smartphone apps can be, it seems like its better to be addicted to reading journal articles than to facebook.

Take an analogy with newspapers: A newspaper is an aggregation of relevant new information. When you read the newspaper you're not beforehand specifying that you want to know something about a war in the middle east. Its just that something happened in the middle east that you didn't know about and couldn't have searched for. Essentially I'm looking for a (metaphorical) "newspaper of journal articles on my phone"


texts: Leaving an Area of Specialization (AOS) off of my CV?

texts:
So with the job market being as it is, I'm considering the prospect of leaving academia after my PhD. The problem that I have is that the name of one of my Areas of Specialization has been co-opted by some new age mystics and if you search "X" after seeing that I specialized in "X", you're more likely to think I specialized in some arcane form of crystal healing than the work I actually did.

My other AOSs sound fine, even semi-impressive to the layman, and so don't really concern me. This one, however....

So, two quick and related questions:

Am I right to think that my AOSs at least would still remain when listing my PhD on a non-academic CV/resume? Or just "PhD in field X"? (The question on CV for leaving academia didn't provide too much specific guidance here.)
Is it ethical to leave one of my AOSs off of the CV, assuming I leave the others untouched? In a sense it is misrepresenting what I did during my PhD, since I really did a lot of work in all three of these areas. On the other hand, listing this troublesome AOS might misrepresent what I did even more--- crystal healing and such.


texts: Fate of publications under review after accepting a tenure-track offer

texts:
"A", an independent researcher, has accepted a tenure-track offer* and will be starting in few months from now. "A" also has few manuscripts that are currently under review in high impact journals. Say that 1-2 manuscripts are accepted before "A" joins his/her new institution, will it be ethical/possible for "A" to contact the editors to ask them to delay publishing his/her accepted manuscript(s) to a later issue to when "A" joins his/her new institution? The rationale is that this new work won't be counted toward his/her tenure if it is to be published before he/she joins the new institution.

*This scenario is for an R1 school in the US.

Please note that "A" has discussed this issue with his/her new Dept. Chair as well as a senior mentor who serve at T&P committee (at a different school) and both advised to contact the editors for this manner.


texts: I am an undergraduate student with major aspirations to go to graduate school. I am in my final year. I am currently working on a research project with 2 supervisors (1 of them marks my work and the other just signs off on it). I have meetings with one of them every couple weeks and he always tells me "send me a message whenever you have a question, there are no restrictions". So I had a question last Thursday, yet never received a response. In addition, I have a presentation tomorrow and need his approval before printing out the presentation (it's a poster) to ensure that no private data is shown. He told me to send him my presentation on Monday so I did. However, I have not heard back from him and my presentation is tomorrow. I am not sure if this is a common situation with supervisors? I know the simple solution would be to send him a reminder. However, I really don't want to make anyone angry. I will honestly "kiss up" to anyone to get into my graduate program. So I am treading carefully. If I do send him an email, how should I phrase it?


texts: Do goofs in a recommendation letter hurt a student applying for grad school?

texts:
When rereading my copies of letters of recommendation I wrote when a student of mine applied to multiple graduate schools, I was appalled to see mistakes I made where the wrong graduate program was mentioned in the letter.  For example, in a letter to CMU, I recommended the student to Georgia Tech.

Do mistakes like this hurt a grad student applicant, perhaps by showing they are applying to other programs, or do they only reflect poorly on the letter writer?  In this case, the schools were all in the same (top) tier.


texts: Is there a term for completing graduation and post-graduation degree from the same college?

texts: I have done my graduation from a college in India and I am pursuing my M. Tech from the same college. When I get my degree will I be a "double alumnus" of the institution? Or is the term something else? Please help.


texts:
I did a successfull research project for my studies. My team created a software prototype and a promising evaluation therefore. It has potential for further research and eventually for an industry product.

The idea of the overall prototype is mine, but one core component originally comes from my advisor at that time. However, I reprogrammed it in another programming language and did several improvements on it, but the core algorithm is unchanged.

I eventually have the chance to do more about it, e.g. deliver it as a product to a company or get research fundings or a PhD grant. Therefore, I want to replace all code lines (~150) that I copied from my former advisor with own ones and leave him uninformed about what I am doing. Why?

As I said, the idea for the overall prototype was mine.
During the work with our advisor, I and my colleagues found him to be a difficult person. He has a tense and controlling attitude, which I think is distrustfull.
At the end of our project our team wanted to make our code Open Source. He refused.
He wanted to be informed about everything that I would do about the prototype. Especially, he wanted to have a veto about if regarding further scientific publications can be submitted.

So, things will get complicated if I inform him about my procedure or use his unchanged code.

Do you think this would be correct from an ethical and juristical perspective? What is your personal opinion about my thoughts and behaviour?

Furthermore, do you think my behaviour could have negative consequences for my potential academic career, since my former advisor works at a different chair on the same university? Is it possible, that my former advisor's boss will be notably pissed off by me?

Thanks in advance!


texts: An undergraduate said they may hire a freelancer to do their work for them. What should I do?

texts:
I, a graduate student, have started tutoring undergraduates in computer science at my university to help make ends meet. One student who inquired about my services turned me down upon hearing my rates and remarked (in writing) that they might as well just buy solutions to their projects on a particular freelancing website for that price, as their friends do.

Should I tell the professor about this student, in case he wants to review their submissions more closely? I don't have any proof that they have already cheated, but to me their exact words (which to protect my anonymity, I have chosen not to publish) and phrasing suggest strongly that they are likely to. In this question, the OP appears to have evidence to suggest that cheating has taken place already, which seems more clear-cut.


texts: Received a mail from a collections agency

texts:
This is slightly long so please bear with me. This is for a friend and I'll be writing from his perspective.

I am an international graduate student at the University A. In 2016 when I was receiving decisions from grad schools about my applications, I got accepted into University B. I enrolled in a few courses(12 credits) while I was waiting for other decisions. Before I even requested an i20 (a document that international students request when they wish to go to a certain university in the US after being accepted by that uni) from B, I got accepted into A and went there instead for grad school, and consequently never requested an i20 from B.

This week I got a mail from a collections agency stating I owed 22k in fees for the courses I enrolled in all the way back in 2016. I checked every bit of mail, physical or electronic, that I may have received from B in regard to these courses in all my email accounts and residences, which I never did. In fact, the only emails that were found in my gmail were those of my failure to check in after my acceptance from them.

I contacted student accounts at B asking them about this issue and they asked me to get a tuition exception recommendation from the school of engineering. The school of engineering is recommending me for this exemption. The next step in this process is me submitting an appeal to the student accounts department.

This is where the issue arises. Student accounts states within its tuition exception process and guidelines document that appeals for tuition exception must be made within the same term as the courses. I am worried that they won't accept this recommendation from the engineering department despite them knowing the details of my case and never having raised this rule when I spoke to them earlier.

What recourse do I have if they refuse my appeal? I never requested an I20 from B which indicates I never checked in despite their emails to my gmail account they created for me. And most notably, they never sent me any course material or any TA emails for those courses, as is the norm for any courses that people are legitimately enrolled in. I don't have 22k to pay these people.


texts: Job Market Cover Letter - Mention undergrad experiences?

texts:
I am on the academic job market in America in the social sciences. I am applying to R1/R2s, with a few liberal arts colleges sprinkled in.

I've heard from a few people that mentioning undergrad experiences are a big no-no in both the CV and application cover letter. Specifically, I've heard that mentioning undergrad experiences makes it look like you have not done enough in grad school and need to pad your resume/cover letter AND that search committees don't actually care about what happened to you in undergrad.

My undergrad degree was from a top school in my field (higher ranked than my graduate school) and I wanted to briefly mention what inspired me to enter this field. Is this a waste of space? Or worse, will I look amateurish?


texts: More formal way to write "canned algorithm"

texts:
This question pertains to English writing; although a English Language and Usage SE Community exists, I thought I would post here as I am writing academic literature, and most academics are on this community.

So here's my question. I'd like to say the following:
"A canned algorithm is used to find the closest distance between two locations on Earth given their latitude and longitude coordinates."

However, "canned" sounds rather informal. What are the established ways in literature to refer to a method such as this - an unoriginal, well-known procedure (although there may be several equally good algorithms out there).

A "standard algorithm"? Perhaps a "well-known algorithm"?


texts:
I'm about to finish my 4th semester as a pure mathematics undergraduate. I took one introductory course to programming in my first semester, and another more advanced one lately. Although it was only one course out of several others I took last semester, I spent much more time on the computer than on the math books, and I conjectured that I would probably be happier as a programmer than as a mathematician.

The problem is that I spent most of the past 3-4 years doing nothing but mathematics. Practicing problem-solving, developing critical thinking, establishing deep knowledge in foundational mathematics and growing very good general knowledge about advanced math topics and history of mathematics. Besides, I get top grades in my college, and I do like what I am doing.

In brief, I can see myself as a promising person in the world of mathematics. I am confident that in comparison to most of my peers, I am more powerful in this domain. And this, in particular, is what makes me hesitate about even thinking of switching my major.

Above all, I enjoyed that programming course much more than I enjoyed any other math course that I took (except, perhaps, metric topology and some abstract algebra). And I have a feeling that this is what I should truly go for.

What is the best decision that could be done? Especially that I still have only one year to get my Bachelor degree. If I would switch my major, I'll have lost one year of my life because of the regulations in our college.

Thank you.


texts: Should I inform my potential advisor that my paper got rejected?

texts:
I am a recent M.Sc. graduate and I have applied for a few PhD programs abroad.

A few months ago, we submitted our paper (which was about my thesis results) to a journal and also uploaded it to a pre-print server. Then, I mentioned the paper in my CV with the status "submitted to journal X". In my Skype meeting with a potential advisor from a university abroad, I mentioned the fact that we submitted the paper and we have not been notified about the result yet. Then, I sent the link of the paper on pre-print server to him according to his request.

Today, I got informed by the journal's editor that our paper got rejected from journal X. Now I don't know if I need to tell this fact to the potential advisor in our next Skype meeting or through other mediums like email? In general, I guess he will not ask about the status of our paper. If he asks about it, I definitely would answer truthfully. But I don't know should I tell him about the rejection even if he does not ask about it?

Actually, the journal quality is very high and we believe that we can publish our paper in another good journal elsewhere. However, the professor is from a different field and he may not know how hard it is to publish in journal X. Thus, I think that this news unfairly ruin my admission chance.


texts: Approach a new advisor in addition to existing one

texts:
What should one do if one is interested in working on a subfield not within her advisor's expertise during PhD? I'm still in 1st year but have been working with current advisor for 2 years before PhD. I just become really interested in this other topic. The final PhD advisor pick is not confirmed until 2nd year but I feel it's not right to "abandon ship" because the advisor was main reason I was here in the first place. Plus I have become "estranged" from my advisor. We met twice in the past year and is not working on anything together. Usually it was me who read and work on things and approach her for a discussion. But since I shifted my attention elsewhere, this link is broken. She was like a friend who would occasionally check in on what you are reading and are doing what, as opposed to someone who guides you on which research question is important in the field and which direction you should and should not go. I feel it is right to approach some other people because I can genuinely use some expert guidance and I'm sure she wouldn't mind it too much so long as I eventually kept her as co-advisor. After all, most her previous advisees did the same thing because of her hands-off style.
The main issue is when I approach professors in this other field, what should I say? Do I just ask if they want to advise me directly or do I beat around the bush by talking about a "potential research question" etc as an interested student as  opposed to someone who is looking for an advisor.  Also how should I address my relationship to the current advisor? In fact, I think whoever I approach now will become the primary advisor. Should I just present myself as a "vanilla" student who is looking for full, devoted advisory or someone who they will advise on a shared capacity?


texts: E-mailing a paper under review to a prospective PhD advisor; a co-author wants all co-authors to be CC-ed. Is this OK?

texts:
So I am stuck in a very weird situation. I am a prospective PhD student, and I emailed a supervisor that works in a field of research very close to mine, and is very successful.
He replied stating that he is interested to have me in his team, and requested my papers. One of my papers is under review.
I asked my co-author which is my advisor for a permission, and she said it is okay to send the papers as long as I cc all co-authors in the email.
I feel like this is not a nice way of emailing a distinguished professor, especially that I do not understand the point of ccing the co-authors. I might offend the professor, which I do not want to happen.
I appreciate the advice.


texts: How to get women to apply for theses and research projects requiring (rudimentary) programming skills?

texts:
I started my own research (sub) group in a STEM field some months ago at an EU university (bachelor/master/PhD system). Every student has to do a bachelor's thesis (6 weeks), research internships (total of 6 weeks), and a master's thesis (6 months). Since I believe that introducing students to actual research early is beneficial, I use these to let students work on part of my own research. This also allows me to care more about their work.
However, almost no female students show interest in doing their research projects in my group. I don't think it's because of me as person, since in the past almost 75% of students I supervised were women, most of them approaching me with the desire to work with me. However, I switched from an experimental research focus to a theoretical one and I require students to have some basic understanding of programming, since it's necessary for the research I'm doing now. I strongly suspect that this is the factor that leads to this problem.
Given the short time of many of those internships I don't see it as an option to teach these skills in that time in addition to the other necessary skills I have to convey. The university has coding courses and even special courses only for women, however, they don't seem to be very popular.
Any good ideas how I could motivate female students to pick up a basic knowledge in programming (either in the university provided courses or "on their own") and not being scared off by this requirement?


texts: What courses should I count when calculating my GPA in major?

texts: When calculating my GPA in major, should/can I only count courses that are meeting the requirement for major or should I count any course on the same topic and from the same department as my major? For example, if my major is Physics, and I have completed my major with courses A through J, but have also taken the course K after completing all the requirements as an optional course (which does not even count for graduation; a completely optional course), should I count the grade for course K when calculating my major GPA for reporting it on my CV and in applications, or can I not count that one?


texts: What does "signposted" mean in the context of figures in a paper?

texts:
In the comments I received for a paper, the reviewers would like some of my figures' panels to be "signposted". I have no idea what it means other than it is supposed to be a technique to make the figures easier to read. What should I do in this case? The reviewers are talking about figures with multiple (>4) panels.

Thanks1


texts: Electrical Engineering Master of Science: Taking Letters of Recommendations from different departments or fields

texts:
I would like to apply for Master of Science about electrical engineering, in USA. Most universities require 3 letters of recommendation and I am a little confused about from whom to get them.

I scored a very high GPA but I did not participate in any kind of research activities. However, there are many professors that know me very well, particularly my enthusiasm, my potential, my passion to learn new things and my ability to critical think and judge the information without taking it for granted.

I want to apply to the schools with the "electronics, semi-conductors" branch.

However, the professors who know me well are from : 1) electrical engineering, power electronics area 2) electrical engineering, computer branch and 3) mathematics department, I took differential equations and calculus from this professor.

I want to ask the followings:

1) Are old professors regarded more important or less important compared to younger professors ?

2) Is it OK to take letter of recommendation from a professor in another discipline or even different faculty, knowing that he will write a very good letter ?

3) Is a letter of recommendation from a famous faculty member that does not know me very well is better than a letter of recommendation from a less well-known professor that knows me very well ?

4) Is a professor that did his/her Masters or doctorate in USA regarded as more important compared to ones who did not ?


texts: How to decide whether I should use “we” in an essay?

texts:
The answers to this question promote a view that the personal pronoun we is acceptable in an academic paper. But I did not see an answer there, or more generally on this site, that discourages the use of we. This question is different to the one mentioned above because it queries whether the word we should be used at all, not just to ask whether I or we is more appropriate.

The economics department at my university (UCT) discourages the use of personal pronouns in an essay – I was marked down in my essay for my use of the word we. At the end of my essay, I wrote

  In conclusion, we note that the European sovereign debt crisis created uncertainty in the global financial market, and South Africa was one of many countries that dealt with this.

I decided to use we in my essay because I had grown accustomed to seeing it in mathematics textbooks, so I assumed that it was formal enough. But the economics department says that it is not formal enough.

Even though it seems acceptable to use we in some circles, it seems that it is a point of debate. What guidelines should I be using in order to make my decision about whether to use we or not?* Should I continue to use we as I see fit, except for economics essays? Or, should I apply this rule to all my academic essays (I also study public policy & administration)?

It would ostensibly be silly to have different writing styles emanating from the same person. The problem has not been brought up before, and I have used the word in a number of sociology essays in first year, and one public policy & administration essay in second year. In those essays, I used the word in the following ways.

  In this section, we discuss motivations for why provincial government should be restructured.

and

  Applying this model to provincial government, we can graph a U-shaped function of long-run average cost.

and

  Approaching the question from the side of the teacher, we find that inequality can be caused via culturally insensitive teaching methods.

As a final clarification, I do prefer to use the word.

* Edit: Although it was not initially made clear, I have not been provided with style guides. However, I doubt that I would ask this question if I were provided with style guides. Saying that I should "follow the style guide" makes perfect sense, but doesn't really help me in my situation. I asked this question on academia.SE so that I could ask others to brainstorm ideas about how I could make the decision without a style guide (e.g. how were those rules formed in the first place?).


texts: Should I inform my letter writer about a summer school rejection? Should I ask the same professor to write me a letter for grad school?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate math major (just completed my second year), and I had applied for a summer school (online due to the pandemic) in one of my interest areas. I have taken two courses in this area with the same professor (one of them was a graduate course if it matters). I did pretty well in both courses, i.e. got As.
I requested the aforementioned professor to write me a recommendation letter for the summer school, which they gladly did - but unfortunately, I did not get accepted (the school has about a 14% selection rate).

Should I inform the professor (i.e. my letter writer for this program) that I have been rejected? Do they already know, in which case I don't have to do anything? Do programs typically inform about acceptance/rejections to letter writers too, or do they only inform the applicants? This is my first time applying to a summer school, so I don't really know how this works.

Also, given this experience, would it make sense to ask the same professor again to write me a letter for graduate school applications? I don't know what went wrong - (i) if the professor didn't write me a strong enough letter, or (ii) if I really wasn't good enough to get into the program. It's probably the latter, but given the probabilistic nature of this dilemma, I really don't know what conclusion to draw. Moreover, graduate school applications are going to be far more important than applying to a summer program, so I should know what to do.

Please let me know in case any clarifications are needed. Thanks a lot!


texts: How can I cite an entire paragraph from one source minus a line in the middle

texts: I have an entire paragraph mostly based off one source, but in the middle of the paragraph I have a sentence that comes from a direct quote and then the rest of the paragraph is from that first source. How can I cite this using MLA-style?


texts: "Official" grade conversion is skewed at my disadvantage, how to proceed?

texts:
I am a Master's student in Italy, and I'm applying for a thesis internship in a lab in the US. To this end, I'm required to send my Master's transcript as well as my Bachelor's; however, in the case of the latter i have a problem with grade conversion.

My institute offers a supplement that is meant to convert grades to their ECTS equivalent (A to E scale, similar to the American one with one additional step); however, they do so by grading on a curve even when the original courses weren't. As I followed a program with an unusual concentration of high-achievers, my (not distinguished, but acceptable) grades average is strongly shifted downwards according to this system (think a hard C instead of B+), yet in Italian grades it's higher than the institute-wise average for Bachelor's degrees (26.0/30 vs 24.3/30).

The absurdity of this system is evidenced by the fact that, for the same exact course and exam , the ECTS grade calculated with this system widely varies according to the different program overall averages, resulting in Italian grades lower than mine translating for other programs in ECTS grades higher than mine.

Regarding my application, I believe this leaves me with a few options:

Not doing anything, and expecting the person in charge of scrutinizing the transcripts to understand that a system translating a 30/30 score as a B is far from perfect
Attaching a note to the transcript explaining what i explained here
Supplying my own transcript with only Italian grades and letting them figure that out; maybe also attach a reasonable suggestion for conversion, like the ones evidenced in the answers to this question

Does anyone have suggestions on the best course of action?


texts:
I put on arXiv several months ago a paper that has been submitted at the same time to a conference. The conference paper was rejected, and using the reviews, we have started improving the paper, and one thing leading to another, we have substantially changed the paper, to the point that the title has been changed. However, the new paper is similar in many points to the previous one, in particular about the technical results (the most important changes are rather on the presentation of the results).

We plan to submit in a near future the new version to a journal, and to also put this version on arXiv. My question is therefore the following one:

Should we withdraw the previous version, and submit a new one?
Should we replace the previous version by the new one, even though the title has changed? The arXiv paper is indexed by DBLP, would the DBLP citation be also updated?
Should we keep the previous version, and the submit a new one?


texts: What does an employer want to see from recommendation letters

texts:
Assume that one is searching for some permanent research positions. I am a bit curious what does an employer wants to see in recommendations letters.

Obviously, recommendations have nothing to do with scientific achievements. For that, they can check the publication lists. As I can imagine, the purposes of recommendation letters could be:

demonstration that the applicant can socialize normally with other
people
they want to see recommendations from high-profile people, since these  demonstrate that the applicant has established enough connections and potentials for influence in the community
they want to see recommendations from the applicant's current boss, since it demonstrates that the applicant has worked hard and loyally for his/her current employer
they want to see recommendations from people who they want to collaborate with, such that hiring the applicant would help with social connections
(from  xLeitix) they would like to see the community's view about the applicant's work -- which means anyone in the community qualifies as a referee.

Are these valid purposes for recommendation letters, and what else am I missing here?


texts: How to Cite a conference talk / TED video?

texts: Is it okay to cite a TED presentation or a video lecture or something similar? If so, how to cite that video for your paper/thesis?


texts: Impact of the Designation of the Recommender for a Workplace LOR for MS

texts: I have 2 years of work experience in the CS field and am now intending to apply for my masters. Since I am a bit nervous about contacting my manager for a LOR (since I am not sure of the consequences), I was thinking of asking a colleague in my team, who was my mentor. This person has seen my work from up close and hence would be able to write thoroughly about my qualities. However, the designation of this person is Senior Engineer (lower than that of team lead or manager). Would this be a significant reason to devalue the letter and should I instead go for a letter from my manager, notwithstanding the risks?


texts: Is Manuscripts.io a legit tool? Any experience with it?

texts:
A colleague just tipped me about manuscripts.io which advertises itself as a collaborative writing tool, with some really sweet features like importing docx and LaTeX; searching and adding citations directly from within the platform.. It is also free!

That being the case my metaphorical spider-sense tingle a bit, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I am wondering if anyone knows more about this platform. Are they secure, is the text submitted used for some other purpose (text-mining or so) in the background? In the cut-throat competitive nature of academia, it does not surprise me if it was a scheme of sorts (yes, I do realize how paranoid that sounds).

In any case, just wanted to know if anyone has looked into it and if so, what came out of it.


texts: How does a departmental library decide what new books to order?

texts:
Who decides what books a department (say, of mathematics, at a public university in the US) shall order for its library? Is there usually a formal process?

I am somewhat surprised that I have found essentially no answer to this on the internet, nor on my library's website.


texts: Can someone apply for a Post-doc postition in Italy without having a doctorate?

texts:
One of the top Italian research centre for applied physics, the Area Science Park located in Trieste, just elected its new president.
The president's CV can be found here: https://ginko.unipg.it/ws/sitopersonale/cv.php?humanid=caterina.petrillo&tipo=EV
By reading it, I discovered she got her Physics degree in 1984, starting in 1985 a post-doc bursary at an Italian institution.
Is it still possible to became a postdoc (or eventually apply for fundings/bursaries) in Italy without having completed a PhD?


texts: Professor submitted my letter of recommendation after I removed him

texts:
I had sent a reminder to the professor for submitting my letter of recommendation about two days before the deadline, but he didn't reply to me. He was highly unresponsive after initially agreeing. As the deadline was approaching, I removed him from the recommender list, thinking that he might be too busy to write the letter. But he submitted the letter a few hours before the deadline, and emailed me that the system didn't accept his letter.
It's so embarrassing. I am not sure how I should reply to him. It makes it look like I don't believe him but I did believe it made sense to change the recommender at that moment.


texts: Did scopus choose not to add my paper (from an accepted journal) or did something go wrong?

texts:
I have practically the same question as in here.

My most read/reference article is published in a Scopus indexed journal. The article is from 2016, and its indexed by Google Scholar.

However, when browsing the papers by that journal in Scopus, my article is just not there. Why would this happen? Is this a mistake, or genuinely someone/something in the system decided that my article does not meet some criteria?

If its a mistake, can I do something to fox it?

If its because my article does not pass some criteria, which criteria?


texts: How to get the data to reproduce a published result?

texts:
I'm studying published journal articles on my topic, and I'd like to reproduce their analysis.  How can I get a copy of their dataset and enough specifications to reproduce their numerical results?

In my specific case, I'm studying this work: Stecklov et al. (2005), published in Demography, and they're using PROGRESA datasets which are publicly available, but when I try to reproduce their results, all the base statistics are off by a bit, and the regressions come out a bit different.  Probably I'm just including or excluding a few different cases, but what can I do to identify the difference?


texts: What to write in email to potential PhD advisor?

texts:
I would like to apply for following PhD studies in the Nordic countries, particularly in the field of Computer Science. The problem that I found is that it says in the admission procedure that "before applying one should get a Professor or Researcher that agrees to supervise the applicant".

I have checked up the personal webpages of the Professors and I have found their topics of interests, publications and so on. I like a lot of the topics in which they make research, but I do not really know how to address an email to them asking if they would agree to supervise me. Particularly I have the following doubts:

Should I make a small research article putting my ideas about one research interest of them? The problem here is that I believe I would not have the enough time to go through a lot of papers made on their reseach groups. What can I do if do not have the enough background? Time is running fast for submitting the application and I do not believe I would have enough time to study in deep their research.
Should I send my CV and ask to a specific Professor that I have interest in following PhD studies under their supervision, and if it would be possible if he or she to send me some open question or open research task so that they could see that I will manage to do it well on his or her research group?

I will transcribe what the ad specifically says:

  You must do your best to find a suitable supervisor at the department who agrees to supervise you. Please see the research pages
  of the department, and especially the descriptions of the research
  groups.
  You must agree on a study plan, a research plan and a financing plan together with your (found) supervisor,  and submit an application
  to the steering committee of the department's doctoral programme.

also about the supervisor it says:

  A student who wants to become a PhD student should start the
  application process by finding a supervisor at the department, who
  works in the field of interest of the student and who is willing to
  supervise the student. If the student is unsure of which supervisor to
  contact, he or she may first contact the research coordinator of the
  department who will steer the student in the right direction.
  Generally, a supervisor is a professor and/or principal investigator
  employed by the department.

For what I read it seems, at least to me, that one should really have in mind a good research proposal before applying, am I wrong? or only with an email will suffice to contact the potential supervisor?

What should I do in this situation?

Thanks


texts: How can someone from a developing country study pure mathematics/theoretical physics at a university abroad?

texts:
The quality of university level education in developing countries (North Africa in my case) is mediocre at best, especially in the sciences (my interests lie primarily in mathematics). I've found that the appropriate places for getting this education would be France or Russia, more specifically ENS and l'École Polytechnique in Paris (I'm aware that going to the classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles is strongly advised, but how can I avoid going there if possible?) and the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow (which teaches in Russian which I will vigorously try to learn).

Can I study in my original country for a little while then go there? How do each of them cost? How can I proceed to achieve this almost impossible goal?
If you know of any other good mathematical institution that accepts student from North africa, please suggest it.


texts: Is it acceptable to report private incident of a PhD candidate to the university

texts:
A PhD candidate has damaged possessions of a flatmate in non-university housing  by purposely dropping their laptop and keying their car.

Is it acceptable to report such behavior to the university of the PhD candidate?

Clarification:
This has obviously been already reported to the police. The question was whether this should be reported additionally to the university. The given US university has a lengthy "off-campus student conduct code". However, a contact is only specified for a title IX coordinator. The guideline does not specify how or if non-sexual misconduct as defined by the "off-campus student conduct code" should be reported.

Clarification 2:
All of us from the same university, but no overlap at all in terms of departments.

Clarification 3:
The remaining flatmates and me decided not to take any university-related action. Nevertheless, the thought that the given person will soon graduate as a PhD and get hired by someone expecting a "qualified" postdoc that will "mentor" students is irritating to some degree to me.


texts: I'm graduating engineering program in only six semesters but have gotten no serious work experience along the way. How much will grad schools care?

texts:
I am a pet and Nat gas engineering student. I am graduating in six semesters (three yr) and this fall will be my fifth semester. I did not apply for an internship my freshmen year because I was under the impression no one hired freshmen. Therefore I assumed a rather standard summer job and figured I would certainly get one the next year. Now the oil and gas markets have completely crashed and there are almost zero internships right now. This was my last summer to find an internship before graduating and sending in graduate school applications. How much of a detriment will not having had any serious work experience be to my application?

I began college right out of high school. I have a 3.5 gpa and though I have not taken the GRE yet, I imagine I will perform 95+ percentile judging from my SAT and looking at a few problems.

I do not necessarily want to go to a top 20 graduate school for engineering, but I want to leave the door open because I am not quite sure what discipline I will be pursuing (but it will be some type of engineering or mathematical field). Do you think a six semester graduation in eng. (which judging from lack of online posts about it is almost unheard of) will be enough to be accepted into top 20 schools?

One more question: I have both a stock and Foreign Exchange account which I do profit from. I write backtests and apply statistical analysis to determine what to buy. I do not usually list these "jobs" on resumes or applications because I'd find that pretentious, but do you think I should include it in my graduate school application since I am lacking serious work experience?

EDIT: My question is not answered at all by the recommended question. I am seeking advice from ACADEMIA on this matter as I am not quite sure what to do. I am applying for a masters, not a PhD


texts: How do I appropriately use inline citations for multiple quoted paragraphs?

texts: I'm writing a paper where I have a number of sentences across a few paragraphs, all from the same source. How should I use inline citations in this situation? Should I put them after each listed fact in the sentence at the end of each paragraph, or at the end of all of the paragraphs? The paragraphs are all topically related, but each one is different enough to be a sub-topic. In case it's relevant, the topic being discussed is technology, the paragraphs detail how companies using that technology.


texts: Is it possible to measure/evaluate one's progress or development in quantitative terms?

texts:
I often end up frustrated over the pace of my work, or rather the lack of "worthy" results. During my feedback talks with my colleagues and superiors I usually get good feedback but I find it distressing that most of it is qualitative arguments.

I sometimes feel like I have not progressed as much as I would have liked to, but not sure how to assess whether or not I have developed "enough" over time. Which led me to wonder if it is possible at all to measure how well a PhD student is progressing.

The usual measures in the community appears to be:

number of publications
which journals the publications appeared in (or rather the impact factor)
number of hours in the lab (regarding how "hard-working" one is)
number of credits taken from courses during phd studies

I personally find none of the above to be a good measure. Publications are a fact of research, or the goal rather. But they should not a be measure of how well a PhD candidate is doing in research. I believe the pragmatic demand on "more publications" has essentially lead to overall lower quality and novelty in individual publications. But even without that subjective comment, it should not be a revelation to anyone here that the amount of publications (and especially in which journals they are published) is more dependent on the seniors on the paper rather than the grad student who wrote it.

As for the other two measures I point to, they are just too naive variables to mean much. I mean you can be in the lab for 18h a day, but not learn much new or even worse not even remember those things you have learned. Besides one can also argue whether or not it's actually better for a grad student to be obsessed with number of hours in the lab, or courses taken.

Summary: Is there a good way to measure your progress through-out your studies? How can I evaluate my development as a scientist, in quantitative (and unbiased) terms?


texts: How to pronounce 'et al' in presentation speech?

texts: For giving a research presentation, I will need to refer to papers with multiple authors. When citing in the slides, I use the convention (as does everyone else) of 'et al.' How should I pronounce this when speaking during the presentation? I don't speak French fluently, but I know that the French pronunciation is 'ai-taal'. I am not sure how this would be pronounced in the English speaking world. What is the conventional pronunciation of 'et al.' in presentations for English speakers/researchers?


texts:
I just came across a question which related to the topic of book review.

I wish to know that how can I start as a reviewer and where can I find sample reviews of some non-technical books or novels?

In this case do I need to directly contact the publisher or there is any other means for doing that.

Thanks.


texts: Trying to find out whether my advisor is ignoring me

texts:
So the story is something like this:

Week-1: My advisor meets me. We have a chat. Then he explains me about his time management style. I said okay.

Week-2: No email replies to anything.

Week-3: I make all pdf's ready, presentations ready, keeping in view of time management. The advisor meets me this time is very delighted of the preparations and says to keep it up. He is also pleased with the work I have done.

Week-4: No email replies to anything.

Week-5: I get to know another parallel group had a meeting and I get a reply back that he is busy with some personal things. He also told maybe he can meet tomorrow.

I am getting a feeling that my advisor is trying to ignore me and I don't have guts to go ask them directly. Is my advisor really ignoring me? I am confused. And thanks in advance for answering the question.


texts: A proper response to an interview question for PhD admission

texts:
What is a proper reply to questions like "Describe your operational knowledge about (some course, i.e. quantum physics)?"

I have taken few courses about quantum physics but it's not a big deal for an M.Sc. physics graduate. Everybody knows that it's essential to take quantum physics courses during B.Sc. and M.Sc. physics.

Should the answer be about the stuff that I learned in that course?


texts: Reapplying to a PhD program while attending another one

texts:
Let's say a person really wants to go to school X for his PhD, but he was not able to get admission in this round of applications. However, he has an offer from another school Y, where a person with strong ties to school X has agreed to be his advisor in case he attends Y. Is there any good strategy that he can use that will help him get into X, if he applies again next year?

At the same time he would still like to attend Y and do research with said person at Y in case X rejects him again. Applying as a transfer student doesn't seem like a very good option, since transfers happen in graduate school only in very special circumstances. Could applying as a freshman work out? Would admission committees view him more critically if they know he is already a graduate student at another institute?


texts: Is it possible to work full time and complete a PhD?

texts: Is it achievable to perform a doctorate while working in a private company (not in college) full time (8 hours per day, 5 days per week)? Or is it too much work or stress?


texts: Where might I find a collection of before and after proofread articles?

texts: Completely unrelated to my field (I do not work in languages) but I have written a small piece of software that proof reads my work for grammar and syntax. I'm interested in finding a few documents (ideally from a range of academic disciplines) that I can use to check my proof reading software.


texts: Is it possible to make minor (making a space between two words) proof corrections after already submitting a proof reading to a journal?

texts: After submitting back an online proof reading corrections of an accepted paper, I found a very trivial mistake; just making space between two words. The words take vague meaning if left not spaced. Is that possible to make one more proof read to correct this typo error?


texts: How to respond to an unofficial PhD offer?

texts: I applied to 10 schools and have heard formally from 3, 2 rejections, 1 admission. I just received an email from another school (a very good one) saying that they are seriously interested in me, but would like to know if I am still interested in them. While I am very interested in this program, which is in my top 4, since I have not heard from the other 6 schools, I am not ready to make a decision. Does saying yes now mean I am committed to accepting their offer?


texts:
Reviewing advertisements for junior faculty positions, I noticed that it is a relatively frequent occurrence, when there is a requirement (or strong preference) for candidates to provide three working papers, along with other materials. Thinking about that aspect and considering the often lengthy process of reviewing papers in decent enough journals, I am considering a strategy of splitting my short-term future efforts (real efforts, not just on paper!) into three more or less related (perhaps, but not necessarily, adjacent) areas of study and preparing three working papers on topics from my research agenda simultaneously. I realize that due to parallel efforts the progress on each paper will be less than, if I would focus on a single topic, but, again, considering lengthy academic review process, following this strategy would allow me to have at some point three relatively developed working papers, which can be listed in CV, presented at conferences or workshops or to hiring committees and, ultimately, transformed into full-blown research papers.

Question: What do you think about such simultaneous working papers strategy? Please mention advantages, disadvantages as well as other potential considerations of my suggested approach.


texts:
Not sure if this is the right place to put this but:

This week I started a six-week school project to write a research paper about diseases. As part of my preperation, I read a short paper on writing research papers (as this is one of the first I have done.) In the paper there was a diagram explaining the MLA guidelines for standardising research paper formatting. My homeschool curriculum is American but I live in the UK. My question is, as a British student, should I write the paper according to MLA guidelines, or is there something else for those of us living across the pond?


texts: Postponing internship confirmation from Student end

texts:
I have received an exciting research internship offer from a professor but have simultaneously applied for certain funded research internship programs as well whose results I am awaiting.
I want to let the professor know that in spite of my interest in working with them, I first want to weigh all my options and choose the best from them in terms of opportunity, experience, and funding. I want to convey to the professor that although I am thankful for the opportunity I can let them know my confirmation to the internship only at a later date. Can someone suggest to me a polite way to do this?
The internship is from May and I can confirm only by March 2021.


texts: Can I upload a paper (status: Under Review) submitted to ACM CSUR to arXiv?


texts: talk with professors about prospective graduate study

texts:
Following some tips about graduate study, I have contacted the professors before the admission cycle, and managed to secure some appointments with them. I have read through their publications that match my research interests, and prepared some brief write up about my research experiences (though I had sent them my CV beforehand).

I am just confused about what I should expect from such meetings. To be frank, do you think to impress them to the point that they agree to accept me is a feasible thing? Or I should aim for something simpler, like maintaining relationships with them through this semester?


texts: Is an interest in the Philosophy of Biology a good reason to pursue grad studies in Evolutionary Biology?

texts: I have always leaned more towards questions surrounding psychology, sociology, and philosophy but fate has me graduating with a BSc in Biology this year. Would it be smart to pursue it further more for the aesthetic beauty I find in its ability to shed light on questions beyond itself than for the science purely in itself?


texts: To what extent can advisors edit our writing?

texts:
When advisors edit our thesis work, what kind of changes can they make? Is there a limit to what they can do? There's proofreading and also editing for style and clarity. Is asking students to paraphrase what they wrote something that occurs commonly? If it's not, what can I do?
Does anyone know any resources where I can read more about this?
Thank you.


texts: Are professional association membership fees usually paid by one's institution?

texts:
An academic usually is a member of a professional association. E.g., a professor in meteorology can be a member of American Association of Meteorology. Sometimes, the fee can be something like $300 per year. Is it always the case, that such membership fees are covered by the University (department) or a research institute? Are there exceptions?

The goal is to understand the prevailing norm (e.g., 40% (or 60? or 80?) of universities usually cover single association membership up to $500/year).


texts: Is it possible to hire graduate students as freelancers?

texts:
I am currently working in the engineering industry. I am developing software in this field in my free time. I got stuck in some algorithm, and I'm looking for help from academia (either professors or students).

Is it possible to hire professors or students from universities to develop an algorithm for me?
Do universities have some kind of forum to invite projects for its researchers?

(I also considered the option to hire from popular websites for freelancers; however, it is difficult to find many people who freelance in engineering. My budget is  between 500 USD to 1000 USD for around 10 hours of work.)


texts:
I have seen an ad from Columbia University for a "Junior Faculty" position. The ad had no details on whether it is a tenure-track position or not.

  Are these tenure track positions? Is this term common in US universities? Is it equivalent to assistant professor?


texts: Translation of Dr. rer. nat. outside of Germany

texts:
Psychology at universities in Germany is either in the natural sciences or in philosophy, depending on the university. This affects the kind of academic title you get. People doing their doctoral thesis either get the doctor in natural sciences (Dr. rer. nat.) or the doctor in philosophy (Dr. phil.).

If I am not mistaken, most doctors in psychology (internationally) are Ph.D.s. So my question is, how would you refer to your title internationally? As a doctor of natural sciences? As a Ph.D. (even if you have a Dr. rer. nat.)? Are there legal requirements? I am thinking about a website that is generally understood internationally and -- perhaps -- about business cards.

(And yup, personally, I think -- and act if -- psychology is closer to natural sciences than philosophy.)

(I'm sorry if I can't specify the question more closely. There's a similar question (Choosing a title to hold upon completion of a doctoral degree: “Dr.” vs. “Ph.D.” [duplicate]) but I don't think it really covers this issue.)


texts: How can one find a research mentor to fulfill a research paper requirement prior to PhD application?

texts:
I will be applying to a Ph.D. program in the fall for Marriage and Family Therapy.
One of the programs I am applying to would like to have me complete a research paper before a completing my application. To do this, I really need the support of a research mentor.

I am currently working in a non-profit and don't have access to university professors. What are ways that one could conduct a preliminary research study, with guidance, in this situation?


texts:
Many teachers at my university have produced custom course books for their students. These books contain all original content, written by the teacher, and tailored specifically for the course and students. The school does publish a trade journal, but to provide the lowest costs available, and perhaps to keep things simple, the school administrators always simply takes the teachers' course books to the school's print center, photocopies them in the necessary numbers, and staples the pages together with a cheap construction paper cover. I am currently preparing some custom textbooks for my own courses.

If these books are prepared in this same way by the university, is it considered “published”?
How might such a work be presented in an academic CV?


texts: What's the standard text that I should put at the bottom of a handout containing unpublished data, asking people not to cite it?

texts: I'm giving a handout out at an upcoming lecture. It contains unpublished data that will soon (within the next year anyway, if accepted) be published. I trust the people at the conference to respect my wishes. What's a polite footer to include at the bottom of the handout to these ends?


texts: Should I inform the graduate admissions committees (of all the Universities I have applied to) of the acceptance of one of my papers?

texts:
I think if it was a standalone question then the answer would be an unequivocal "Yes". So I will present you my situation: while applying to graduate school I had mentioned that two of my papers are under submission at 2 different conferences (I had given the names of the conferences as well). One of them got accepted today and the other one was rejected a few days back.

Now the thing is, I feel that informing them about the acceptance might increase my chances considering this is my first paper and I'm an undergrad currently (is this a myth?). But the issue is, if I inform the committees about the accepted paper alone then I feel guilty about the fact that I'm deliberately concealing information about the rejected paper. And if I don't, I feel I might not be making any use of the fact that the paper got accepted somewhere.

Can someone tell me what could be done?


texts: Second master's degree during doctoral program

texts:
I currently have both my bachelor's and master's degree, and have accepted admission into a doctoral program starting this September.

Most engineering doctoral programs allow you to get a master's while in the doctoral program. In my case, it only requires taking one extra class and writing a master's thesis.

What are the pros and cons of getting a second master's degree? Would it look silly on a CV to have a master's from two different institutions? If I do not complete my doctoral program, do two master's in the same discipline help with job applications at all?


texts: How do researchers from different institutions get to know each other to begin a collaboration?

texts:
Quite often, graduate level research is done by researchers from different institutions, whether different universities or cooperation between a university and a private corporation.

How do the researchers get to know each other? How does the collaboration begin?


texts: Is there a point to setting assignment deadlines and late penalties besides practicality?

texts:
Traditionally assignments handed in on paper need to be handed in at the same time due to time constraints on the instructor, to prevent plagiarism, to maintain pace since most of the teaching happens through physical lectures and if someone is behind they will miss out etc.
Since a massive chunk of grading is automated nowadays with online access to materials, not to mention practically all teaching being online for the time being, most of the reasons that make assignment deadlines necessary do not apply anymore. After all if someone demonstrates the same learning goals as the next person, what is the difference if they do it a couple weeks later? It's not like the instructor needs to spare extra special treatment time for the student doing it slower for grading or even lectures, it's all asynchronous anyway.
So what is the point of maintaining the practice? Some common arguments I see include "deadlines are part of life, students need to deal with it" or "course design requires so" which are not really arguments if you think about it. Another common one is preventing students from getting too collaborative, which also fails since time constraints do not apply anymore, given the resources and technology and whatnot - people can plagiarize entire job interviews spontaneously these days.
The only big argument that holds any water that I have seen is the issue of students suddenly hitting the end of the semester with massive amounts of work piled up and all the cramming and health issues and stress with that, so it is really for their benefit to impose hard deadlines to avoid that. Paternalism in this aside, that to me seems like more of a consequence of the persisting work philosophy of meeting smaller deadlines with whatever one can put together, rather than meeting learning objectives as completely as possible within a given semester. This in turn causes a great deal of common procrastination that it is offered as a solution for.
So what else am I missing that makes it actually beneficial to set traditional deadlines and penalties even for completely asynchronous classes?


texts: Retaking an undergraduate course due to poor grade before graduate school applications

texts:
Due to poor performance on a midterm for an advanced major class I am currently taking, I am expecting to earn a lower grade than I would like to (around a B/B-). I have earned A's in all my other major classes and I am concerned about how this will affect graduate admissions.

Alongside other options such as research for bolstering my future graduate school applications (I am currently a sophomore), I am wondering if retaking the class in the future would look better for graduate admissions. I believe that I would be able to earn a better grade if I retook the class, but I am wondering whether this would be a good use of my time and if it would (at least partially) make up for poor performance in this class, or if I would be better off focusing on other areas, such as getting in more research opportunities. I also have the opportunity to take the graduate version of this course, which I would also consider if this would help my chances for admission into a good graduate program.


texts: Using a number of equations from a paper, how to mention it in my paper

texts:
I am using a number of equations from a different paper. I am using those to derive another quantity.

Is it appropriate to just mention them one after another, without stating the assumptions behind the equations etc, since I am already citing the previous paper like

Equation 1 -- (1)

Equation 2 -- (2)

Equation 3 -- (3)

.

.

.

.

.

Equation 14 -- (14)

then state the physical meaning of each parameter in the above equations?

I tried looking at some example papers but couldn't find any in the particular journal I am writing for.

If it were 1 equation, it would be fine, but I am not sure how to handle so many equations.

Or should I just reference the main equation and state the rest in the supplemental section? I just read and it seems putting too many equations in a paper is not a good idea.