texts: Is it possible to get into a funded master's-level graduate program by applying to labs?

texts:
I graduated from a third-tier university majoring in Aviation engineering with a 3.2 GPA. I want to go to graduate school in order to pursue my dream to become a researcher/research engineer. I landed a research assistant position at another campus right after graduating. My plans were to learn and publish papers (which I did) as I waited for the right opportunity.
After gathering information regarding scholarships, a fully-funded scholarship requires a GPA above 3.5. I talked about my concern to my current professor and he said I'm qualified to enter graduate school with my current experience. He advises me to apply for labs that have my field of interest.
Is it possible to get into graduate school by applying to labs? Do I get fully-funded by the lab? Is it really a thing?
I am mainly interested in graduate programs in Korea or Japan.


texts: Is listing annexed territory listed in author details a valid reason to decline to review?

texts:
I recently accepted a paper review based on an abstract.

On seeing the paper, at least one of the authors has listed their address as being within an unrecognized annexed territory, like this:

  Author, X university, /annexed territory/, /annexing state/

I am interested in the community views on whether this is reason to decline the  review. And, if so, should the reason be declared.

At the moment, I intend to decline as I do not wish to legitimize the annexation in any way. On the other hand, I also do not wish to discriminate against individual researchers.

How much should the decision depend on:

the perceived quality of work?
personal links?
time since/extent of violence during annexation?

Can anyone offer a good framework for thinking about this?

Points of clarification:

The authors do not use the term "annex", "annexed", or "annexing".
It is widely considered an illegitimate annexation (shared with a
majority of world states, UN)
The annexing state is not required for geographical location/postal
address (if anything makes it more confusing).
I do not wish to act in a way that can be perceived as "activism", or to
"create a stink"...
My argument is that adding to the record with the annexing state included
helps (albeit in a very minor way) its potential path to legitimacy.
Please do rebut...

"Annexing" might not be the correct term in this case, perhaps "occupying" is more accurate, I'm not sure - I think the general point of the question stands either way...

It might be helpful to reference what policies journals typically have on this?


texts: My paper has been provisionally accepted, but my latest results are not as reported in the paper. What should I do?

texts:
After presenting a paper at a conference last year, I was invited to submit an expanded version of the paper as a journal paper. The review of the paper has recently been concluded, and the editors recommended acceptance subject to minor revision.

While the paper was under review, however, we developed a more accurate approach which reveals that the finding reported in the paper was too optimistic and what was proposed in that paper did not seem as promising as previously thought.

I have been contemplating which action to take:

Withdraw the paper.
Revise the paper significantly to include the new methodology and the new results.
Keep the paper nearly as it is, only addressing the reviewers' comments (none of the reviewers questioned the previous approach), but adding a note that our latest approach produces something quite different.

I am personally not comfortable with option 3, although it may be the easiest and fastest thing to do. I am deliberating between options 1 and 2. Option 1 because the result doesn't look as promising as before and may not be interesting enough to warrant publication. However, if I withdraw the paper, there is no chance to warn readers that the results presented in the conference paper were too optimistic. Hence option 2, which is the option I am inclined to take. It however needs more time and I am not sure what to say to the editors.


texts: How does doing a PhD with a pre-determined project vs. formulating your own affect your later career?

texts:
Between

Doing a PhD by joining a predetermined research problem
Doing a PhD by formulating one's own research problem

is it possible to say that option #1 is a more advantageous choice in terms of future career?

Why or why not?


texts: getting a job with a PhD in (pure) mathematics

texts:
Probably this concern has been addressed several times here but I will give a try to get other people's perspective from my situation. I am feeling sort of hopeless these times.

I am in my last year of my PhD in mathematics and doing my dissertation soon, my research was mainly devoted to algebraic topology and I made some progress in my advisor's particular area. However, I faced some problems during my studies (personal issues) and I never built a strong relationship with my advisor; so I could not finish all the initial research proposal intended for my PhD thesis.

I recently had a sincere talk with my advisor about my future, and he said that my progress is worth for a PhD thesis but it is not anything very surprising that is worth publishing, so I will be graduating with zero publications. He said that my chances of getting a PostDoc positions are really low and that I can not expect a strong recommendation letter from him. My advisor has a few collaborators (from overseas mainly) and none in the local department. He also never supervised another Master or PhD student while I was under his supervision, then I never got a chance to network or engage properly with other classmates. My advisor kindly suggested to explore other options in the job-market besides academia.

I like to explore new things, and in my free time during my studies I attended several teaching workshops, seminars and courses (I got a small degree in "university teaching"), and I am also familiar with Python, R, Matlab and Sage; however, I learn those things for fun and I have never really worked in
a big project using any of that.

I do not know what to focus on and what kind of job should I look for after I finish my PhD

I would like to keep doing research in Math, but my area is not very popular lately and I feel that I have no chances of succeed getting a PostDoc; I also feel that I do not have (demonstrable) skills to perform a job with "real-life" applications so probably my chances getting there are also low. And I do not really know the Teaching job-market, I think that those positions are temporary and it would be hard to find a place that is willing to sponsor a work visa (I am not a US-citizen, and the job market in the third-world country that I am from is nonexistent for PhD's in this area)


texts: What to do if your research idea has already been published?

texts:
I am an amateur researcher (no PhD, Masters, etc...) and just want to put something out there so I can put it on my resume to demonstrate I know how to perform research and hopefully get a job.  I did a Google search and found a paper that discusses the same idea I had.  However, the paper approaches the problem differently than I would have done (although the more I read the harder it is for me to separate the two in my head), and does not go as in depth as I plan to.  With that said, the underlying concept/theory are the same.
It seems like what I can add to the field are additional evidence that the technique works and maybe (most likely not) an expansion of the technique/theory to allow for it to be used more broadly.  Realistically, I'll probably only be able to offer additional evidence that his technique works, as I am not educated enough and in the field - but one never knows.  I'd have to dig deeper, and will only know after I run my simulations anyways to see if the concept can be expanded.
Is there a case for me to construct a research paper?  Or should I just do a bunch of simulations, which is what I was planning on doing, to demonstrate that his technique works and show how it could be applied.  In the latter case, if my work is deemed unoriginal, I would just publish the results either via a blog or Twitter and reference the original paper or just keep it for personal use/knowledge.  In the former case, if my work is deemed original, I would actually write up a research paper, but still obviously reference his paper.
Thanks!


texts: pros and cons of one's own papers covered by media

texts: One published a paper on a journal. The communications team of their school want to publicize that paper in media. Is there any substantial pros and cons for the paper writer?


texts: How to format the name of an R package in thesis?

texts:
In a thesis, when referring to an R package (a statistical software), how should I write it?

Should it be italicized/treated like a title?

Or just like any other word. The package name is not a "normal word" so it seems out of place to just write it like

"...using the R package XYZ."


texts: Which differences are there between Math PhD programs in the US and in the UK regarding admission, funding, and reputation?

texts:
I'm an American citizen and a Junior at a US institution and I've recently been compiling a list of graduate schools to apply to. I'm mostly interested in differential geometry and geometric analysis. In addition to domestic institutions I have been looking at institutions in the UK such as the London School of Geometry and Number Theory, Cambridge, Oxford, etc...

Are there any fundamental differences in the way UK PhD programs admit and train their students? As an international student would I also be able to obtain funding for my education the same way I would be able to in the United States? Finally, how are UK PhD's looked upon in the American Academic job market? I imagine there shouldn't be much difference but there could be some politics I'm overlooking. Thank you.


texts: Literature search methodology for non-academics?

texts:
I moved straight into the professional world after my bachelor's degree, and have no experience with formal research of any sort. Recently, however, my university has granted alumni access to a large portion of its collection of research journal subscriptions. I would like to leverage this access to improve my understanding of my field--and of other fields I explore in the future as a hobbyist.

But I do not even know how to search for information relevant to my interests. For example, if I am interested in looking into research done on the relationship between the brain's ability to focus on one task for a given length of time and efficacy of study methods, the first thing I think of is 'attention span,' but this appears to yield articles in primary education journals outlining techniques for managing children with short attention spans. If I try 'focus,' I end up chiefly with results discussing the practice of selecting a focus for one's undergraduate degree. If I try 'concentration,' I end up with myriad articles describing the impacts of either chemical concentrations or demographic concentrations on psychological health and development. None of these things are close to what I am actually searching for, even after filtering the results for the fields I thought would be obvious choices--Education and Psychology.

After sniffing around on my own, a widespread assumption in the existing advice I've found is that the article-seeker will be an academic well-versed in the jargon of their field, or who are looking to expand out from a paper they've already found or been directed to by someone knowledgeable. Is there a consistent methodology for a non-academic to gain a foothold of understanding on a given topic--as with my 'attention spans and study methods' example--that allows one to branch out from there?


texts: What type of education should I select in this form?

texts:
I am filling an application form for a PhD position and came upon this field:

It seems like a stupid question, but I am not familiar with this type of categorization. For a Master's degree, which one should I choose?


texts: My human subjects research is "exempt" under US regulations. Does that mean I can skip ethics review?

texts:
This question was inspired by some wrong information on this site.

Human subjects research usually requires review by an ethics committee (IRB).  Some research is "exempt" under US law.  If my research is "exempt," can I skip the ethics process?


texts: What should a student do about a professor who uses class time poorly?

texts:
One of my professors is quite enthusiastic about teaching the subject. He often deviates from the main content and gets lost in details vastly beside or beyond the matter at hand - which is interesting, though not immediately helpful.
Effectively, this means that he regularly fails to complete the day's chapter. To compensate, he always overruns on time (15 minutes are not unusual at all).
Despite that, he failed to finish several chapters that (according to him) were intended to be taught (and indeed have been in the year before), and did not discuss or even provide solutions to previous homework due to lack of time in class.
I'm looking for advice how to deal with this situation. How can we make him stick to relevant content?
My fear is that the students will a) lack knowledge from missing several chapters, leading to future problems in subsequent courses and b) have worse conditions to succeed in this course's exam, as they lack relevant information and experience.
I'm baffled how he is able to continue like this - he clearly noticed the problem and also apologized to the students about it several times, but did not yet change his habits at all.
As I have already talked to him about other problems before, which he is attempting to fix now, I do not want to "complain" to him again if possible. I'm also a bit unsure what that would accomplish, seeing that he appears to be completely unable to keep his lectures on point.
If the students were to talk to the department head, is he likely to take action, or is this rather within the professors individual judgement? If they do, I'm clueless to imagine how he would take it.
Regarding the missing homework solutions, I considered requesting written solutions to the tasks we failed to look at in class. However, this kind of exercise does not benefit from just solutions and instead requires explanations.


texts: As a tutor, should I encourage exploration at the risk of incorrect information?

texts:
I am a junior undergraduate computer science student at a small engineering school. For the last term I have been paid as a teaching assistant for one of the more difficult courses in the CS curriculum. Because this is a small school, that means that I am basically a public tutor in our CS labs for about 10 hours a week and occaisonally help grade exams and assignments. I took the class earlier this year and did very well, but I am in no way an expert on the topic.

The largest part of the course is to write a small interpreter in Scheme. The students are given a starting point and are told conceptually how to implement most of the interpreter in the lectures, but the actual implementation is left fairly open. Because of this, there are quite a few valid ways to implement any given part of the project, and I do not think I could possibly learn all of them without dropping out of school to make this my full time job. The difficult part is that the advice I give to any given student depends heavily on how they have completed the interpreter thus far, and so I sometimes have low confidence that my ideas are correct.

I don't see a great way to avoid this without telling them to do it the way I did it when I took the class. I think that a strong point of the course is getting students to think about programming in different ways, and suggesting that my way is the best way seems to very directly contradict that. I also have low confidence in most of the students to tell me that I am wrong as they generally come to me at least a little bit confused in the first place.

As a paid assistant for our computer science department, should I encourage different solutions at the risk of incorrect solutions, and potentially at the risk of other students' grades? Or should I encourage solutions I am confident in at the risk of throwing out good ideas?

In the former case I don't feel like I am helping students in the same way that any of them are hoping for, but in the latter case I think I could just as well be replaced by a solution manual. I would like to nudge in the right direction as much as possible, but I don't always know exactly which direction is the correct one given several different thousand line projects in a single day.


texts: Do "research team" and "research group" mean the same thing?

texts: I see some papers use "research team" while others use "research group". Do they mean the same thing, a few of researchers that form a team dedicated to a research?


texts: What is the procedure stop the DAAD scholarship(Germany) in the middle of the study(PhD or Master)? Is there any legal issue behind on leaving the scholarship?


texts: MPhil applications - How flexible/sure should I be, and should I mention this possibility?

texts:
(I don't think there's a master of philosophy tag here)

I'm applying to PhD programs in pure math. I have a research master's degree in applied math. While it doesn't have a thesis, it has a course project. I've been reading about requirements for PhD programs and it turns out US-style PhDs expect only a bachelor's and a statement of purpose while European-style PhDs expect a (research) master's degree

I'm applying to universities places not in Europe or in the US that are somewhere in the middle. These universities offer MPhil.

Now, I have a feeling I won't be seen by universities as qualified for PhDs but will be qualified for MPhil. My ultimate goal is to pursue a PhD. I am perfectly fine with having to do an MPhil first.

My understanding is that

if I would apply for a PhD, then I should specify a certain area of math (for a statement of purpose; for a research proposal that's just the basics I guess) which I should be sure about researching otherwise I am a candidate who is not sure about research interests
but if I would apply for a master's, I should be flexible and thus state a certain area/s of research as merely a possible route

So what should I do for a statement of purpose for MPhil, which is somewhere in the middle of a master's and PhD? How sure/flexible should I be?
Additionally, is it disadvantageous to:

state in a PhD application that I am open to doing an MPhil?
apply for both an MPhil and a PhD in the same university?

I am concerned that doing either will count against me in being accepted for a PhD because it seems like I'm not so sure of myself.

I was advised to ask the admissions offices of the universities but that seems to me like asking a jury how to appeal to the same jury. I would ask a lawyer how I would appeal to the jury.

I was advised also to apply to MPhil's in some universities and PhD's in others. What do you think?


texts: Examples of top academics who weren't prodigies

texts: I'm looking for examples of people who are at the very top of their fields who weren't child prodigies, and followed quite a "normal" path in life (high school > college > grad school) before finding their passion in a field and then becoming a top academic at a top institution at it. We come across people like Terry Tao who had some sort of divine gift to do mathematics and was very much a child prodigy (he could do high school mathematics at the age of 8-9 and won an Olympiad gold medal at the age of 13), but I'm looking for people who achieved as much success as Tao (even a little less is fine considering that Tao is often regarded as the "best mathematician in the world", but I'm looking for someone in the same tier) without being child prodigies, or knowing what their passion was right from childhood. Examples?


texts: Is providing a slow response to journal reviews a common/good strategy for minimizing the number of review requests?

texts:
It is well known that in mathematics the process of reviewing submitted papers is quite long. There are good reasons for that; intrinsically, reviewing a math paper involves checking and understanding thouroughly the proposed proof, which typically requires a significant time investment. Also, a lot of academics are always very busy and reviewing may not be the most urgent thing they have to do, so it tends to be pushed back.

But it seems that there are other, maybe not so commendable reasons. Apparently, the common wisdom around me is that you should be careful not to turn in your reviews too soon, or you will be flooded with requests by editors (who are all too happy to find someone gullible enough to hurry doing their reviews) and reviews will take up all your time. This is an advice I've often heard given to young researchers, including by people who can honestly not be accused of neglecting the community service aspects of their work. A lot of people I have talked to have a policy of never doing the review before the deadline or the k-th reminder from the editor. I even heard of a person who would do the review almost immediately after accepting it (when time allowed), but only send it after the deadline or later.

In an imperfect world where doing your task sooner than anyone else will mark you as candidate for exploitation, I understand the need for such strategies. But I wanted to check:

Is the risk so big?
Is this practice really generalized (also in other fields than mathematics)?
Do you have alternative strategies to avoid having too many review requests (of course, one can always refuse reviews, but since it can be delicate to do so too often, one may try and avoid requests themselves)?


texts: How long do university libraries keep old copies of dissertations?

texts: How can I get a copy of a dissertation that I need for my research?


texts: How to teach students to ask Polya-type questions

texts:
I've recently read "How to Solve It" by Polya.  In that book, the author basically explains the method that I use in my own teaching - asking relevant, prompting questions to get students to reason through a problem.

However, I have a problem with this method (including in my own teaching) - the real challenge should be to get the students to ask those questions themselves.  I'm not doing anything other than asking "the right" questions to get the students to move forward, but they aren't spectacularly difficult questions to come up with on your own.

I fear that all I'm doing is pushing the responsibility back on myself by taking away the really hard part of problem solving: figuring out the path you need to take.

So how do you teach students to ask good questions while problem solving without the need for teacher assistance?  We can limit the question to STEM problem solving if we'd like, but I'm sure this problem exists in non-STEM fields.


texts: Asking for a letter of recommendation after only some days of collaboration

texts:
I plan to apply for a Master's degree at a new university, and I require three letters of recommendation to do so. At my current university, there are two professors I did seminars/my bachelor thesis with, and both have agreed to write one - so there is one left. However, among the rest of the academic staff, there is none who knows me well (meaning I had one or two lectures with them, but not much personal contact). So I am wondering, if the following alternative is viable:
After finishing my thesis, my professor has offered me to continue research, which has now developed into some mathematical software. Our idea was to integrate it in an open source project, so I participated in an hackathon-style event of said project, where I have met another professor. The event was only 2 days, but he was interested in my project and supported me a lot. Therefore, I consider asking him for the last letter of recommendation, as he probably has a better idea of my work than most lecturers at my university.
Is this reasonable?


texts: Graduate courses or research experience for PhD admissions: Which is more important?

texts:
I am currently at a crossroads, deciding between several MS program offers. I have the choice to do a research based masters, where I would take very few graduate courses but focus almost solely on research, and a more course based masters where I would primarily be taking graduate courses with a small thesis component. My goal is to leverage my MS experience to apply to US PhD programs. My field is applied physics.

Given these choices and my end goal, who would be more attractive to US PhD programs? A candidate with a few graduate courses under their belt but with 1-2 years of research experience (with a paper or two) or a candidate with no papers but who aced many graduate level courses?


texts: Synonym for the job title of assistant professor

texts:
I often go to meetings and professional events outside academia.

I am meeting new people all the time, and most of them are not acquainted with academic ranks and job titles. It happens often that when they realize that my job title is 'assistant professor' they slightly dismiss me and suddenly give an impression that they see me inferior.

Some even ask me who my professor is. So I don't think I am misinterpreting the situations.
Outside academia 'assistant' has often a connotation of a lower and dependent ranking, which may explain it.

I am not obsessed with titles, and I am happy with my job and position, but I have a feeling that in these situations it may close doors as I am getting dismissed before I can show anything.

As I am getting convinced that this happens only because of the job title, I started to think who can I introduce myself with another generic job title that sounds better and does more justice (that I am more senior than I appear: a project leader, supervising people, and do not assist someone).

Is there a synonym that I can use instead? The requirement is that a title isn't fake. I don't want to claim a title that does not belong to me. I just want to find a better way to introduce myself to those who are outside academia.
I was thinking about using titles such as senior scientist, research director, lecturer, but these are actual job titles. Principal investigator, while truthful, may not be understood.

Maybe I should also state that I am male, so it is not about gender. I can imagine that if I were female it would be even worse.


texts: Why are US PhDs different from European PhDs?

texts:
So apparently I heard from here, here and here about the differences in PhDs in the US and in Europe.

To sum up, it takes longer, on average, in the US than in Europe to finish a PhD since US PhD programs require less and have more coursework compared to Eur PhD programs.

Why is that so?

I tried looking it up but seemed to be getting the stuff above, nothing really explaining why that is so.


texts: Resource for learning about research funding system in the UK/Europe

texts:
I am currently considering to take up a tenure-track job in computer science at a UK university. I have little (i.e. no) experience with the research funding situation in Europe.

Is there any resource where I can start reading up on the research funding opportunities and the general system in place in Europe/UK?


texts: How to make good use of a small startup fund?

texts:
I'm starting a tenure track position (in the US, computer science) in fall and the position comes with a startup fund that is insufficient to employ any (postdoc) staff and PhD students are funded directly by the department. Also, my conference travel is taken care of by other funds.

How can I use the (limited) funds that I have to benefit my career?

Edit: I'm mostly working in theoretical research (algorithms).


texts: How formal should a recommendation be in the US?

texts:
I am a lecturer in a European university. A student from my department asked me to write a recommendation for a program somewhere in the US that he wants to attend.

I have read the horror stories about American recommendation letters, where apparently "He is not only quick at learning and good at solving complicated problems, but also with a logical and creative mind that enables him to raise some insightful views. I was also deeply impressed with his diligence and outstanding communication ability, compared with my other students." is considered lukewarm(!) and grounds for rejecting the applicant.

I have found a few sample recommendation letters and advice from different universities/people around the internet and I've used them as inspiration to spruce up what I had initially written. I have also asked colleagues, but understandably they mostly write letter for other European universities, where such superlative language would usually be reserved for sarcasm or toadying.

However, one thing that is rarely consistent is how formal the letter should be.  More precisely:

How should I start the letter? "Dear colleagues"? "To whom it may concern"? "Esteemed organizers"? Similarly, how to end it? "(Best) regards"? "Sincerely yours"?
How to refer to the applicant in the letter? "Jane"? "Jane Doe"? "Mrs. Doe"?

I would rather not penalize the student because I do not understand foreign cultural norms.


texts: My MS thesis advisor wants me to delay my graduation for one semester. What should I do?

texts:
I planned to graduate this summer, and I went through all the process of applying for graduation and my advisor signs all of these.

Now I have just 2 weeks to meet the deadline to officially graduate this summer. I have emailed by advisor to help me prepare my final results, proofread my thesis document. This is 2 weeks back, and I don't have any reply so far.
I get an email from my advisor saying that I can't delay and have to postpone my graduation next semester.  "It is best for you to make an official decision to cancel your graduation, since it is getting too close to the oral defense deadline as well as reviewing thesis."

I am OK to graduate next semester, but what I can't bear to understand is the carelessness of my advisor. I have to pay again for a whole new semester because of this.

Any advice what I should be doing at this moment?


texts: Difference between International edition of a book and a non international one

texts:
Most of the textbooks  I used during my undergraduate studies (outside north America) are International editions, so what is the difference between a national and an international edition of a book?

For example, I have a book that says

  XYZ published this special edition for the benefit of students outside the United States and Canada.

and they don't mention why this international edition is special or what is the benefit!


texts:
A former student of mine asked for advise. This student has been accused of cheating on an assignment.  By their account, approximately 8% of their project is nearly identical to a partial solution posted by a student who took the same course in the past.  My former student claims that they never consulted GitHub, rather they just built the project using the description in the handout.

The former student also claims that the remainder of the project, much more complicated, bears no resemblance to the GitHub posting, per the accusing professor.

The matter is further complicated in that the student has been unable to see the GitHub posting as it was removed prior to the student being accused of plagiarism. I was contacted because I have talked about academic dishonesty in my classes, and given examples to students. The student asks how to proceed.

From my end, I suggested that the student email the professor, and ask for the specifics so that they can be examined.  The professor indicated that the case can go to the academic review board, and points out that it will be likely upheld there. I reminded the student that apparently 90+% of the project appears to be original, and the student denies using anyone else's code. The student wondered if they should admit, as the professor is suggesting.

My advise was to only admit to what you have done.  Ask for the code allegedly used in the project, and in writing justify how the submitted project was developed, explaining the commonality with the GitHub code, if possible.  And before that can be done, the professor should supply the alleged copied code which is relied upon for the assertion of academic dishonesty.

Is there anything else which I should consider or suggest?


texts:
I have a friend who is considering a part time (~10hr/week) consulting gig with a large, well-established software company, doing a mixture of research and coding.  However, there appears to be little quantitative data on past consulting rates for academics, i.e., professors, postdocs, and PhD students whose primary career is not consulting.

Q: How does an academic determine a fair rate for consulting?

...Assuming that a consulting gig is actually compatible with their academic contract! I do of course realize that in many circumstances external employment is prohibited by a contract with the university.  I also realize that consulting rates are largely a function of 1. perceived expertise and 2. negotiation skill.  But a key component of successful negotiation is an objective view of the facts—in this case, some kind of upper and lower bound on reasonable wages.


texts: How CVs in discipline with numerous co-authors are examined?

texts:
In some disciplines such as theoretical physics, it is common to have tens (or even) hundreds of co-authors, probably because of the essential role of many people to run highly advanced facility.

How is the list of publications in these disciplines judged? For a faculty appointment, how does the search committee realize the scientific contribution of the applicant?


texts: What happens if I forget to add taxonomy topics when I submit my paper?

texts:
I submitted a paper recently to an elsevier journal. During the submission, I forgot to add the taxonomy topics related to my manuscript. After I completed the submission, I received an email that the manuscript was received successfully. However, it has been 2 days and the manuscript status is still "With Journal". Is this because I forgot to add the taxonomy topics. If yes, what should I do to fix this.

Thanks in advance for your help ...


texts: Is a professor who's never had to write a grant application disadvantaged in the job market?

texts:
As I understand it, today's professors spend a large amount of time writing grant applications, many of which fail. As a result, I'm thinking of endowing a professorship someday with enough funds to remove this part of the job description - effectively funding the professor for as long as they hold the professorship.
One thing I'm concerned about is that this would also be removing a critical part of the job. For example this job advertisement for a senior lecturer/associate professor explicitly asks for "A proven record of attracting external funding for research". In that case, the professor would never pass this requirement since they would have no experience at writing grant applications, let alone actually getting the funding.
Question: is this a legitimate concern? If so, are there any obvious solutions? This should only matter if the professor leaves the professorship, and presumably that is not likely to happen, but I'd still rather the professorship not become a position which one can enter but not leave because it makes one uncompetitive on the market.


texts: Pursued PhD under an advisor who did not know what to do. Now am stuck with future prospects

texts:
I made a mistake 5 years ago. I changed my field from materials science to civil engineering. I did a PhD under a professor whose research expertise was not in my research topic. I had to independently work on my knowledge and skill set to become productive and produce research. But, due to lack of technical guidance, I produced mediocre research. My research is very novel and rigorous for my field of research, but the scope of getting a future position in the field seems bleak.

I want to diversify to other area of research, but I don't possess the experience or knowledge to carry out the projects. I am getting rejections from all postdoc positions as I don't meet their requirements.

I don't know what I should be doing now? My adviser doesn't have any connections in my research area. She just says to keep trying, and to not lose heart.


texts: Is there any way to escape a terrible cumulative grade average?

texts:
I am an undergrad student studying engineering at one of the top institutions in my country. Doing this degree was not my original plan and I came to it after I was unable to gain full financial funding to study at a prestigious music college overseas in the United States which I got into on a partial scholarship. Regrettably I entered this degree with the mentality that because this was not what I had originally wanted to do it didn't matter if I achieved highly or whether I just passed. I was there to get the certificate. I have what I consider to be a very poor academic record due to bad study habits which have led to me having to do several rewrites of exams despite walking in with decent predicates. At my university when a student does a rewrite the final mark is capped at 50% (We work in percentages and not GPA like in America) and so my academic record is littered with these 50% results for modules.

I am nearing the end of my undergraduate career and sadly only now after having failed a module for the first time last year have realised that a little bit of hard work before exams can actually produce really great results, and that I am capable of doing so when I set my mind to it. In the past year I've become more interested in my field of study and in my own free time have made considerable progress learning a particular foreign language. I recently found a postgraduate scholarship to study overseas in the country where this language is spoken. I think I would stand a good chance of getting it however the minimum requirement for application is 65% in previous studies. Masters programmes in my own country also require this 65% average in past studies. My average currently sits at 59% (equivalent an E in the US) and I have worked out based on my remaining modules that for all practical purposes it will be impossible for me to raise my cumulative average to 65%. In fact even if I get distinctions for all remaining modules I can at most raise my average to 61% (equivalent C in the US).

I know my abilities and that I have many fantastic qualities that would be desirable in a postgraduate environment however I feel that I've now somewhat shot myself in the foot for future studies due to very poor choices in my past. I feel like if anyone looks at my academic record they will only see my potential based on that cumulative average. Is there any way to escape a terrible cumulative average and to continue down a more academic path?


texts: As someone outside academia, how can I get my math paper peer reviewed?

texts:
I have written a math paper and I think/hope it is ready for peer review. I am 40+ years removed from academia and have no access to 'publications' but I have learned from my many re-writes and I have tried to follow the format of a sample "Journal.tex" from the Journal of the American Mathematical Society for my abstract, subject classification, and bibliography.
I would like to have peer review of my work. How do I begin?


texts: Does leaving a lab disqualify me from being a coauthor?

texts:
Are there any standard rules by referring to which you can claim authorship? Or do the rules differ from lab to lab and depend on the PI?

I have worked for almost two years in lab X on some project. After that I joined lab Y. After that the PI from lab X drafted a manuscript (based, in part, on my work) and submitted it for publication. When I inquired about my major role in that paper, they told me that "since you have left this lab, you cannot claim authorship"... Does this happen in every lab?

What is the ethically right approach in such situation?

Edited

I was involved in data analysis along with the first author of the manuscript. I agree that manuscript drafting and writing is major task for claiming an authorship.. But I was not even invited for it..


texts: Should the PhD supervisor's name be first in a scientific journal?

texts:
I am a self funded PhD student and have been told by my supervisor that her name should be first on any future journal I will be publishing during my studies under her supervision as "this is the only thing she gets from her PhD students".

I am just wondering if the ordering of author names matter? She is going to help me only by proof writing my article. All research will be done by myself.

Is she legally allowed to say it? Should I accept it?


texts: Finding a research internship with little prior experience

texts:
I am a second year physics major student and I know for sure that I want to stay in academia and become a scientist, so I have started to search for research internships(abroad) and do research with my profs at my university (in Kazakhstan).

However, in the application there are documents like a description of your research or computational experience, which I don't have, except for my classes as Programming I and one year of research work with an engineering professor with no result. I can ask for a recommendation letter from this professor and that's it, but regarding computational work and research I can say only that I know C++.

Since doing that research work I realised that I don't really like engineering and want to pursue theoretical physics, Where I don't have any experience except for studying general relativity under the mentorship of one professor. Due to wasting a year studying engineering, my GPA is 3.38.

How can I improve my situation and make my candidate for research internships(in the US/Canada) more attractive?


texts: References must be cited vs. need not be cited

texts:
In reviewing publishing guidelines prior to submission to a journal, it is listed that "References need not be cited in text." This is also listed in the style guide for the associated professional society.

While simultaneously, the Elsevier guide for authors states "Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa)." Likewise, a previous question asked on this board received almost unilateral support for  the one citation, one reference style.

My question is what purposes would there be for allowing uncited references?

Or alternatively, could someone clarify what is meant by "References need not be cited in text."

Edit to clarify: My interpretation of "References need not be cited in text" is that it is allowable to include a reference in the reference section of a manuscript without citing this reference in the text of the same manuscript.


texts: Is it possible to get a PhD through government/industry/military lab, and if it is, what is the process?

texts:
Is it possible to apply for a PhD through a government or a military research laboratory?

If so what would be the process? Is the qualifying exam required? How is that scheduled? How about course work?


texts: Is 14/20 a good grade on master studies in France?

texts:
When I asked my professor why Is my grade so low, he told me that it is a good grade. Maybe he didn't want to make me sad? In my country 14/20 is just "not being dumb" grade.
I am an international student and study on one of the best universities in France.


texts: How to deal with bad smelling (smoking) co-student

texts:
For a graduate project I need to work together with a fellow student who smokes a lot (every time we take a break); the smell is really strong and actually distracts from the work at times. Some days we work from about 8am to 6pm together, which is quite a long time.

I'm not sure how to approach him about it, you can't really forbid someone to smoke, of course. Surely not for the duration of a whole day (I doubt someone who is addicted to it can go without for that long anyway). In a workplace setting, as ff524 mentioned, I might go to a manager, etc, but that is not always an option in academia.

In addition, I'm quite sure that he's unaware of this..


texts: I hold a bachelors in Engineering from an Indian university and have six years of work experience in the software industry. Is there any foreign university that offers a PhD related to finance in distance learning mode?


texts: At the various levels of a post-graduate career, how much freedom of research will I have?

texts: I'm an undergrad who is planning on a career in academia. At the various levels (graduate, postdoc, professorship) how much freedom will I have to research whatever I want?


texts: Quit a PhD program and transfer to another?

texts:
I am currently enrolled in a PhD program in electrical engineering in Europe since 1 year up to now. I am not absolutely satisfied by the outcome of this year and the environment inside the institute. I really think I am wasting time here (my research is meaningless, changing topic time to time according to the willing of my supervisor) and my supervisor is not interested anymore in my research topic. Thus, I was thinking about quitting and transfer to another university.

However, I am worried about the references/recommendation letters, since if I quit I don´t think I can ask for recommendation letters from my current situation. Moreover, I am worried that other research groups would not accept me, because they may think that I am low on perseverance.

Is it an uncommon situation? What do you suggest to do?

Thanks for any help,


texts: Is it legit to change from one university to another?

texts:
Currently am doing my first year in bcom (accounting). I enrolled with a certain university earlier this year did my first semester and wrote my first semester examinations, but because of financial problems my faculty administrator did not register me for my second semester modules.
Therefore I would like to know if I could get funding next year will I be able to register with a different university?


texts: How do I handle a mistake in a mathematical proof that does not invalidate the main conclusion of our paper?

texts: I recently found a mistake in a mathematical proof of a result I published in 2016. In a nutshell, a subtle error led me to claim that two conditions were equivalent. Unfortunately one of the two implications is not true. Luckily, the main result of our paper relies only on the correct implication so the main conclusion of the paper is correct. How should I handle this?


texts: Post-doc application: references not requested?

texts:
I have seen that some post-doc ads (in the US) do not explicitly ask for contact details of references. This is more or less common on LinkedIn, even for academic post-docs.

Is it ok to not provide those contact details initially, and just send a cover letter with the standard "please do not hesitate to contact me for additional information"? Or will it harm the application?


texts: IEEE Transaction on Circuits and Systems Review Process

texts:
I submitted a journal paper to IEEE Transaction on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology on June 12th. Today, after 40 days, I checked its status and it went from "In Peer Review" to "Awaiting Recommendation". What does "Awaiting Recommendation" mean? Also, Considering that it usually takes the review process about 100 days to finish, should I expect the manuscript to be rejected?

Thanks


texts: Does journal access significantly influence choice in which journal to publish in?

texts:
The University of California has been out of contract with Elsevier this year following disputes on higher costs and reduced rights to a number of journals.

My lab has published numerous papers in various Elsevier journals, many of which are highly considered in their respective fields, but my principal investigator has opted for other journals following the breakdown of the contract. I am a proponent of open-access, but I am wondering whether journal access has influenced your decision to publish in specific journals. I am also interested in the rationales for continuing to publish in closed access journals vs. other journals.

I could see the number of citations and h-indices being factors that heavily influence the decision.


texts: Normal length of time taken to arrive at a phd admission decision?

texts:
I would like to know, if possible, how long it takes on the average to reach a first admission decision for doctoral programs?

Let us say a doctoral program promises to inform the applicants of the outcome three months after the deadline for submitting application packages. Does this really mean that to reach a decision requires exactly three months?


texts: Best practices to teach while wearing a mask

texts:
The title of the question pretty much says it all: starting Fall 2020, my university should resume face-to-face classes, requiring that

all faculty, staff, students, and visitors […] wear an appropriate face covering while inside campus facilities/buildings where six feet social distancing may not always be possible

Assuming that social distancing will not be possible while I'm teaching at the white board (we may have to use the first row, which is fairly close to the white board), what are the best practices to teach while wearing a mask?
My main concern is my voice may be muffled, but there may be other issues that I've overlooked.


texts: What's the difference between a degree in Mathematics and in Mathematical Sciences?

texts: I'm considering degrees (in England) and I noticed that Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences are separate. What is the difference? Is it the case that one subject is a sub-subject of another? Would either have no advantages to studying over the other?


texts: How to test students in computer science lecture?

texts:
Preliminaries

I am giving my first lecture at university. The topic is about Big Data and takes 40 hours (1 hour = 60 minutes). I am wondering how to test the students. I am at this university for the first time and I have no idea how full the student's schedule is and how good they are. I am also not sure how many students I will have, but I think it should be between 20 to 30. I think they are going to be at the end of their Bachelor / beginning of Master.

Options

I see three options:

1. written exam

It's the least amount of work for the students (only learning) - which might be a good thing if their schedule is very full.

Disadvantages: They learn the least I think.

2. presentation

I'd let the students present a topic - probably a software technology that wasn't part of my lecture so far.

Advantages are that

they learn more,
they learn research technologies (I've been working in the industry for a while and researching how technologies work is an important part of the work in this area, so it's a real-live skill in itself).

Disadvantages are

that it might get difficult for me to judge their effort in terms of grades,
it might take quite some time for them to prepare (issue if their schedules are really full),
they might not be able to find good information and might not have the skills to put the information into a good presentation.

3. project

I'd have them do a small software project.

Advantages are that they would gain practical experience.

Disadvantages might be that

these take quite a lot of time,
it might get difficult for me to judge their effort in terms of grades,
the projects might fail if they are not proficient enough, which might be rather frustrating.

Question(s)

I tend to take either 2 or 3 since - back in the day - I learned most from those and little from tests. However I fear that those might fail, because the students don't have the time or skills to excel in those.

For 2 and 3 I would put the students into groups.

I might be able to decide after the first week of lecture, but not just before the course ends.

Going out to fellow professors, lecturers etc.:

What are your experiences? What options would you suggest? What do I have to consider?
If I'd take 2 or 3: How many students should a group have approximately (minimum, maximum)?
Can I simply ask them how they would like to get tested?


texts: Are my responsibilities as a lecturer the same as a teacher at school?

texts:
I am employed at an university in my country. I am teaching the statistic. The rule of the students is to spoon feed. That is, they expect the lecturer to care about them as if they are at high-school. I told my dean that this is not my role. They said that I need to ask the students to solve the questions on the board. Also, to ask the students many times about the new subject. I told them that as I lecture, I give the new class, asking some questions. The students must prepare for their tutorials. They must work with me, then, at the end I would help them with the common difficulties they face.

The dean disagreed with me and said that that is a very bad way of teaching.

My question is, is my responsibility similar to the one of a high-school teacher? Please give me advice.


texts: I'm doing a study about soft drinks showing their effects on a certain group of people. I'm using brand names like Coca Cola, Pepsi, etc. and I wonder if I can use the names in the research paper and I if it can be published in journals.


texts: Transferring PhD programs after leaving a PhD due to medical issues

texts:
Let's say that I was given unacceptable conditions for returning from medical leave; basically I had to self-fund at least the following year of a physics PhD. Knowing that doing so would result in a financial disaster, I am definitely withdrawing from the program, with the understanding that, if I still wanted to earn a PhD at some point, I would have to transfer.

I could always mention, in an addendum (if there is space for one), medical problems, going to medical services, such as a physician (on-campus and later off-campus) on a regular basis for 75% of the only semester I ended up attending, and leaving school to take better care of myself. (I feel I did what was right from a medical standpoint) But when there is no space for an addendum in an application, I was advised to just drop a line about "personal problems" or "extenuating circumstances" (now resolved) and I am excited to do research again.

And also, I have two publications on file by now, whereas I had none when I applied to PhD programs the first time around (2015 cycle). Because I do not feel my GRE scores were an issue, I do not feel the need to re-take the GRE, general or physics, since they are still valid. But TOEFL, on the other hand, I would have to retake because the scores are no longer valid.

P.S.: I never had Ws before that particular semester, but still somehow ended up with 3.80 for what coursework I still managed to complete. If you need more information about my file or anything else, please, let me know.

How will an early departure from a PhD program (in its early stages) due to medical reasons affect future PhD applications?


texts: Reasons to publish in a "Letters" journal?

texts: I am a researcher in computer science. I have seen few research papers in a journal called Information Processing Letters, which seems to cover a very broad subject area. I am not getting what distinguishes such a journal from other journals in the area of computer science. Why would somebody publish in such a letter journal?


texts: Finishing incomplete degree after a decade to switch to industry

texts:
I'm considering the possibility of completing a degree from which I dropped out almost a decade ago. In part because I feel I should, in part because I think it could be useful for switching to industry.

Context

Started a degree in Engineering in a non-US university with traditional system of long degree programs(five to six years), roughly equivalent to B.Sc.+M.Sc.
I dropped out from the Engineering degree to pursue a career in Physics, which I did to some extent. I'll be finishing a Ph.D. this year with published work, good academic records, TA experience and all the usual academic stuff.

Even though I don't regret having switched from Engineering to Physics, I have decided that I want to pursue a career in the industry and not in the academy. However, I'd like to keep in contact with the academic world through a part time position as a professor.

I'm 29 years old. Almost no real world work experience, apart from a short internship some years ago.

Questions

Is it advisable to finish the degree in Engineering? I still have all the credits previously earned. I'd take me a year and a half studying full time or three years doing it part time.

Asuming I finish the degree in Engineering, how should I present it in a CV? Just the graduation date? The entire time span from starting date to finishing date like "from 2008 to 2020"? The time spans of the two phases like "from 2008 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2020"?

In the event of having a good postdoctoral opportunity with connections to the industry and real world applications, should I take it or should I start working in the private sector as soon as possible?


texts: How do we identify a Scientist as Early-career scientist?

texts: I am currently a graduate student and a member of an organization in my field. In my organization, there is this Early-career group composed of young scientists who already earned their Ph.D.'s, taking post-docs, and running their own research groups. In the case of graduate students, does early-career or the term applicable? and what is the difference between the terms early-career scientist, a budding scientist, young-scientist?


texts: How to know whether references, tables, and figures are included in journal word limits?

texts:
Whenever a journal asks for "Articles should be limited to 3500 words + 5 figures/tables", do they mean the texts in the tables and figures will not be counted in the 3500 words limit?
Also, will the reference section be included in this word limit? Or, it just means only the Abstract, key-words, introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections will be bound to 3500 words limit?


texts: How should I describe a result from a submitted paper such that the reviewers can do their work?

texts:
A month ago, I submitted a paper to a prestigious journal. In that paper, we proposed a general method (method A), and we proposed a set of methods  for doing some work based on this method A. I now have to work on another paper, which relies on method A, which I will be submitting to a less prestigious journal. Since I need this paper to graduate (I am a PhD student), I can't wait for the first one to be accepted before submitting the second one.

I didn't find any policy regarding referencing a submitted paper in the second journal (from Elsevier).

Is it a good idea to very briefly describe the method A in the second journal paper and also reference it as a submitted paper? Method A has some proofs which I will not restate in the second paper.

This way, the reviewers will be able to do their work. Note that it is very important that I don't want to hurt the chance of acceptance of the first paper or my reputation in any way.

In other words, how can I describe a result from a submitted paper so  that the reviewers can do their work?

What would you suggest for someone like me who has to submit another paper (for faster graduation) in this situation?


texts: What to do if a university is pushing for a response before making a formal offer for a tenure-track position?

texts:
I have interviewed for a tenure-track position. I got a call (followed by an email) saying that they would like to offer me this position and I am their top candidate.

This being said, in the negotiations that followed for a few days after, the department showed no desire in increasing the salary or startup package (which are already pretty low compared to other institutions). This is even after I told them that I have two other offers pending.

I have not seen the formal letter yet, and they are pushing me for a response only a few days after they offered the position on the phone.

I feel like they are low-balling me and being very aggressive. What actions should I take?

BTW, I asked for an extension and they gave me less than a week.


texts: Legal or duplicate to publish results in both dissertation and journal

texts:
Suppose one has published his results in a journal, then uses them in his dissertation, is it legal or duplicate?

Conversely, if one tend to publish some important results in his dissertation to a journal, is it legal or duplicate?

I know to publish same results in two journals is duplicate, but what about it between dissertation and a journal?


texts: When shall one write a mathematical expression as a separate line in a paper/Ph.D. thesis?

texts:
When do we write a mathematical expression on a separate line, and when do we write it inline with the text?

I believe that the answer is the same for researching papers and Ph.D. theses, or maybe even textbooks; but please correct me if I am wrong.

Here I am referring to a paper/thesis on mathematics. When one writes a mathematical paper, sometimes one writes a mathematical expression in a separate line such as in the following example:

  We know that the identity
  a2+b2=c2
  holds true if ....

While sometimes one writes the mathematical expression inline with the text, such as in the following example:

  Let f:X->Y be a one-to-one map, ...

My impression is the longer the expression is, the more likely it is written in a separate line. But is there any (possibly unwritten) rule for it?


texts:
Should I include an appendix before or after the reference for my course physics project?
Thanks.


texts: Researchers had a paper retracted due to plagiarism and no one at their university is aware of it

texts:
A year ago a professor at my department and her grad student had plagiarized a journal paper and published it. The paper was retracted, and the journal published a clear notice that it was due to serious fraud, as several paragraphs and the results were stolen (verbatim) from a previously published paper.

However, it seems that I am still the only one at my department who knows about this misconduct, probably because people do not follow that journal.

The retracted paper is still listed in the publications of both researchers in the university database and in their CVs, and what is most appalling, the grad student looks like he will get his PhD degree in a few months, based on the work of someone else. In short, it looks like no one will have any consequences, and moreover that they ignore the retraction.

As an academic I find it as a duty to expose this case, but I don’t know how to proceed, and if it's worth pursuing this. The thing is that I am not in a developed country in which universities have a firm attitude about plagiarism, and also people here at universities are politically connected and protect each other.

If notified, the head of the department (and anyone else high in the organization) probably wouldn’t like to mess with it in order to avoid conflicts and degrading the image of the institution, and since I am low in the hierarchy I cannot do much myself, and moreover I am risking my own career. But this is not something that can be swept under the carpet...

What should I do?

Update

Thank you for the response, I did not expect this question to be so popular. While I was thinking what to do, the grad student suddenly quit. The professor did not know about the plagiarism and did not try to cover up the retraction. I don't know the details because there are only rumors, but I suspect the student was forced to quit after the professor (and co-author) became aware of this.

I am surprised with the positive outcome. I would like to underline vsz's comment: "Many people in the West underestimate how much corruption there can be at universities in less developed countries."
Such turn of events is not typical for my country, so questions like mine should not be surprising...


texts: Conducting independent research while in a university

texts: This could possibly be very specific to each university, but I was wondering if there is a rule prohibiting researchers who are working within a university from conducting independent research — perhaps external funding.


texts: How can I cite research material from meetings or presentations?

texts:
I am writing a post-doc research paper. I want to cite research material from this meeting presentation: https://www.sitcancer.org/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=0d2d7f53-3673-7aaf-3a80-518e0990e918&forceDialog=1

This meeting presentation is from the "SITC 2015 Workshop on New Perspectives for Target Antigens in the Changing Cancer Immunotherapy Landscape." Link here: https://www.sitcancer.org/communities/community-home/librarydocuments/viewdocument?DocumentKey=c4c7b592-7aae-4793-bf5a-1d136e87af3d

How should I cite material from these meetings/presentations?


texts: How often do techniques/methods that are considered old or obsolete become relevant again?

texts:
In many, if not most, disciplines methods age, get old and eventually become more or less obsolete, in the sense that some other method perhaps using a different technology becomes common-practice for a particular type of experimentation. One such example could be Edman sequencing, which used to be the method for sequencing peptides, but is pretty much outdated nowadays, not because it does not work, but because it's costly in time and labor.

In my experience, these old/obsolete techniques are taught both at Masters and PhD level, primarily to give a deep understanding of the field, albeit being more theory than practice. Are there any other benefits in learning/studying older methods, rather than only studying the state-of-the-art?

I was wondering how often, if at all, such old methodologies come back (perhaps following a breakthrough in overcoming some original limitation) and regain popularity. Are there known examples?

As a follow-up; is such change in methodologies a phenomenon observed in experimental research, or are there equivalent scenarios in theoretical research as well?


texts: Add unpublished but widely cited paper to CV?

texts:
I wrote an expository term paper in graduate school and posted it on my website, never trying to get it into a journal. Google Scholar says it now has 19 citations from various countries ("widely" is of course relative; what I mean is that this is more citations than my other publications have).

Since the article apparently resonated with an audience, should it now appear on my CV? If so, should I describe it with the name of the professor or course for which I wrote it, or just a title with no venue?


texts: Can corresponding authors include their personal website to be contacted?

texts:
I wonder if corresponding authors in peer-reviewed publications can include their personal websites to be contacted besides their address, telephone and email.

In the case that the corresponding author is between two jobs, she/he can still be contacted in case her/his previous email account is deleted once her/his previous job has come to and end.


texts: Dividing paper after Reject & Resubmit decision

texts:
In a recent manuscript, we used a first principles calculation A and used it to explain experimental results B. A and B are based on existing methods, the novelty primarily lies in combining them and going from theory to real world application.

The reviewer gave several comments (fair & helpful), one of them being to divide the work into A and B. The decision was Reject & Resubmit. We (the authors) are divided on:

Submitting A as a letter (short communication) and B as a full paper to the same journal, together, explaining the changes to the editor and attaching response to reviewer.
Submitting A as a letter to a new journal and B as a full paper to the original journal, giving response to reviewer only to the original journal.
Submitting an edited but undivided paper to a lower impact journal.

Which of these is the optimal option?

*Additional information:

The original journal has perhaps 10% acceptance ratio, the lower impact journal closer to 40% (anecdotal numbers only).

Besides the division, reviewer comments are significant and there is some chance that we may not be able to satisfy all the suggestions.

In this field, A and B are generally treated as separate domains, though this is changing now.*

EDIT: Clarification about letter and full paper:
For the journals in question, a full paper reports new, original results, typically without stringent page limits (but conventionally 5000-8000 words). A letter on the other hand reports brief results of immediate interest. These often describe a breakthrough that may not be fully developed, but which opens up avenues for further work. These letters are strictly limited to 2000 words and have a cap on figures etc (typically 3 max.).


texts:
I am currently trying to defend my second MA degree. I got my first one from the university of Warsaw (Poland), where I graduated summa cum laude, so I always thought, I had some idea of how to write a thesis. At this new university however (it's in Kazakhstan, but it follows a curriculum that's leaning towards that of what's considered to be a typical US university), I've been told that my thesis is no good, as it's in the wrong format, has not research question and is generally bad.
Now, I'm aware that this thesis is certainly not a masterpiece, it was written during a lockdown when I had little access to literature, so the literature review part of the thesis is merely 20 pages long.
However the most confusing part for me was that of this "research question" matter. I've been told that there isn't one, to which I replied "that's because I didn't ask any question".
My thesis is describing the lack of certain aspects of ESL education in Kazakhstan, including a survey in which teachers and students were asked whether those missing aspects should be included in the curriculum or whether they find them irrelevant.
I've written my first thesis in the exact same way, and I was told it was fine.
My question is, is there any way that I can get this though a defense without completely rewriting it?


texts: Is it a good idea to link your LinkedIn profile in the CV section of your dissertation?

texts:
I've passed the disputation and am now preparing the document for the printing press and final submission. We're required to have a CV in the back matter of the dissertation, and I was wondering if it is a good idea to link to my LinkedIn profile in addition (perhaps with a QR code) because it'll be far more up to date than the CV in my dissertation.

Do you think this is a good idea? Are there any things I should consider when doing this?


texts: Is it a bad idea to submit a paper merely to elicit reviewers' comments?

texts:
Some days ago I was talking with a friend of mine, who is currently a post-doc at the illustrious Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) working on humanoid robotics.

He was quite disgruntled because he recently spent a lot of time testing his latest discoveries and writing a scientific paper to submit to an important artificial intelligence conference, but on the day of the deadline, his supervisor asked him not to submit the paper. Indeed, his supervisor felt the experiments were not good enough, or the results were not excellent.

Anyway, he did not want him to submit the paper, and so he did not do it.

We discussed about it and we both stated that, even if the paper and the discoveries were not excellent, they should have sent the paper anyway. The eventual rejection maybe would have come later, by the reviewers, together with the important review notes.
This way, they would have probably got a paper rejection, but they would have been able to treasure the reviewers' review notes.
Instead, with his supervisor initial rejection, they won't get anything except their opinions.

So we thought that his supervisor had a bad idea.

My question is: why did his supervisor suggest him not to submit the paper? Why did he not think about the possibility of getting at least the reviewers' comments?

Is a paper rejection so grave a fact?
Is it so dishonorable to get a paper rejection?


texts: Do german professors like to be called "Herr X"?

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I am a German student at a German university. I and everyone I know usually addresses my professors with "Herr Lastname" or "Frau Lastname". Sometimes I wonder whether they would prefer if I addressed them as "Professor Lastname".

On the one hand it sounds way too formal, especially after I heard them addressing each other using their first name only. On the other hand I sometimes feel like I am not showing them enough respect. I would like to hear some personal opinions of actual professors teaching in Germany:

Would you prefer being called "Professor LASTNAME"? Please differentiate between normal and written conversation.


texts: How to revoke my old paper from a fake journal (waset.org)?

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It was like more than 6 years ago, I was an undergrad senior in a south asian university, we did not have much internet connectivity back then.

I wanted to publish something on a journal/conference to get a feedback on my undergrad thesis (I was curious to know about the quality of my work) and submitted a paper to one of the journals listed on that notorious waset.org.

I was young and novice, above all, I had no idea that people could do such a scam with intellectual issues like "research papers", anyway.

but the thing is that when I search my name on a web search engine (google, duck-duck-go etc.), that biggest mistake of my life still comes up on the first page, I am now near the end of my PhD and looking for an academic/research job. So, I wanted to communicate with them so that I can request them to revoke my paper.

However, their site does not provide any specific contact address/person to whom I can discuss with.

I have no wish to resubmit that to any other place, after 7 years now I can understand that my undergrad thesis work was too "trivial" to be "published".

Is there anyone who is in the similar situation? and is there any way to retract the paper from waset.org ?

any pointer will be greatly appreciated.

Apology: I am feeling very uneasy to share the link of my paper, but their website is provided.


texts: Is it possible to become a researcher in Artificial intelligence through a statistics phd?

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Or is a computer science phd required? Is having a statistics phd a disadvantage for AI research positions or does the research you publish and work on during the phd matter more?

Although artificial intelligence research is interdisciplinary (math+cs+stats+logic, etc), I see mainly computer scientists working as AI researchers in industry at places like Google Brain, Open AI, DeepMid which makes sense since AI is an area in CS. Is it more because statistics phds aren't interested in working in AI or are these positions are mainly for computer scientists?

I am deciding whether to accept a statistics phd from a top school where a lot of good AI research is happening and the CS and stats departments are traditionally close. I believe I could work with an advisor who is in both departments or have one advisor in the stats department and the other in the CS.

Thanks!


texts: Averaging exam scores with very different means/distributions

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I'm teaching a course that has two exams which together form a large part of the students' grades.

On the first exam, the mean score was very high (~90%) with the majority of students scoring over 80%.

On the second exam, the mean score was much lower (~70%), with many students scoring below 50%. The distribution was also much "flatter". (This is not too surprising, since the second exam covered more material and more difficult material.)

On both exams, there were some students who scored ~100%.  There were even some students (that I feel should be rewarded) who scored much better on the harder second exam than  on the first easier exam.

When computing final grades, is it fair to simply average (with equal weight) the scores on these two exams?

Other possible options, none of which feel completely satisfactory to me:

Scale the second exam up in some way so that it has a higher average, then combine the scores. This seems unsatisfactory to me, since it will actually hurt students (relative to their classmates) who did better on the second exam than the first.
Weight each students' higher exam score more heavily. This seems problematic for the same reason as before.
Simply weight more heavily the more difficult second exam. This is nice in that it helps students who did well on a more difficult exam and rewards improvement over time. But is it fair to do without telling the students in advance?

What do you usually do in these situations? Am I overthinking it?


texts: How much contribution justifies being a co-author of paper

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I am part of a Computer Graphics lab where I got to help a small team already working on a paper, by assimilating/cleaning up some data sets which they required. I was also part of some discussions and shared my views whenever possible trying to help them in analysis phase. I have hardly any other contribution other wise.

Going forward, I am now being offered to be one of the co-authors of the paper. I kind of feel that I haven't really done enough and its almost reaching it's ending stage anyways, so not much chance in future as well.

Other team members are making a point that it won't be just on their part if this work takes up my time even when I don't get to be an author. I am in kind of a moral dilemma as I don't feel my contribution is enough.

Q1. Is just helping out a good enough reason to be a  co-author ?

Q2. How do I justify to myself if I have really contributed enough ? Or should I let the team decide if my work is sufficient ?

Q3. In general, are their any tangible points/guideline I can verify my contribution with ?


texts: How to take advantage of scientific international association membership for career?

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In the last decades, many international scientific associations have been created. Organizations such as AAAS, IEEE, ACM, involve thousands of scientists and professors that have similar scientific backgrounds and objectives.

However, besides technical and resource taks (such as providing documentation, articles, books, and organizing conferences) their aim is to push scientists closer, and let them connect with each other and network.

Concerning this last point, I've always wondered: yes, but how?

I'm member of several scientific societies, and I think I should take more advantage of my membership to connect with other scientists.
But, anyway, except for conferences where we meet in person, how could I use my membership to get more connections?

How would you do?
What's your experience?
Are you member of some scientific associations? How do you take advantage of your membership in professional connections?

Many thanks!


texts: How to address a professor in an office setting

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I will be working at a private company as an engineer (but in a heavily research oriented team), and I just learned the contact information of my manager. I will be sending an email to introduce myself, but I am not sure how to address him.

Just by searching his name online, I learnt that he works as a professor at a university (but is on a leave of absence, at least his page says so) but his current title in the company is engineer. So, in this case, should I address him as "Professor surname" or "Dr _surname" in the email or just by his first name (which is the preffered way at this company)?


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I was enrolled in a PhD program within an experimental topic (experimental physics), but 6 months in the project I had a talk with my supervisor: I was not satisfied with the lack of theoretical work (at my interview we had decided that there should/would be some).

A few meetings followed, where we concluded that it would not be realistic to do any major theoretical work at all. Together with my supervisor we decided that it was best for me to stop my PhD-program and he encouraged me to enroll for a new one in theoretical physics, such that I didn't waste 3 years of my life doing something I would regret. He wrote a recommendation letter for me and I got accepted into a theoretical program.

Here is my problem: I now have to write a short statement now on why I have discontinued my former topic and started a new one. However, I am worried that it might sound as if I stopped due to conflicts/disagreements with my supervisor, which was not the case at all. Quite the contrary, he was very helpful through the whole process.

Can it be interpreted as such if I write something along the lines of "former project could not accomodate my theoretical ambitions"? How should I tackle this?


texts: How to write about the history of a new line of research in a grant application?

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I'm a Ph.D. student and my advisor has asked me to write a few paragraphs about the history and the existing literature of a relatively new line of research (the first paper on this topic was published in 2014 and there are only 3-4 major papers on this topic) to be included in a grant application. Since this is my first encounter with grant writing, I would appreciate any help with what to include in these paragraphs given that there are only a few major papers on this topic.

Thanks a lot in advance!


texts: Source code plagiarism detection tool that checks against online content

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I asked this question on Stackoverflow and was directed to ask it here. The question is:

I wanted to ask about plagiarism detection tools for source code written in C++. When I searched Google the ones I found compare between documents that you already have. What I'm looking for is a tool that compares against content on the internet (i.e Github).


texts: Does presenting results in conference and publishing in unreviewed proceedings prevent better publications?

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Recently I have been attending a couple of conferences/workshops, presenting my latest results in oral and poster sessions. I really enjoyed doing that and the following live discussions.

However the proceedings of these conferences are not reviewed and for many people they do not count as "real" publications. I wouldn't like to stop going to conferences, discussing with people and collecting the visibility that arises from this, but on the other hand I also wouldn't like to waste my precious results in publications that are not seen as serious enough.

What is the best practice in this case?

I spoke with people saying that they do not even bother about writing workshop proceedings, but I don't feel quite comfortable with this approach.

My field is accelerator physics, especially machine design and beam dynamics simulations.


texts: Is one or two years' postdoc experience helpful for a (nonacademic) research career?

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I just graduated with a Ph.D. in Asia. And I'm considering to look for a postdoc position in US in the field of computer science (to be specific, machine learning and computer vision). But I don't want to go for a faculty position (at least I don't want to at this moment) in the future. I'd prefer to find some research position in industry or some research institute in US. My question is that do you think one or two years' postdoc experience really helpful for a research career, considering it may not be that easy for an oversea student to directly get a research position in industry or research institutes?

Some of the advantages I can think of are:

Postdoc's supervisor's networking with other people in industry or researh institutes
More publications before job hunting
Get to know more people in my area

Hope to hear some advice from you. Thank you very much.


texts: Can I ask reviewers (via the editor) whether they lost track halfway through the paper?

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I submitted a paper to a journal in linguistics. It was accepted pending some minor revisions w.r.t. typesetting and a few sentences that had to be reformulated. The reviewers gave eight comments on the introductory section, comprising roughly 1/3 of the paper, and only one on the rest. On the one hand, this may be expected, because I am less proficient with the broader context of the introduction and had most difficulties writing that section. On the other hand, I'm slightly worried that the reviewers lost track of the train of thought halfway through the paper.

I would like to know if the reviewers got lost in the paper, and what I might do to improve it if necessary. However, I have not found a good way to ask the editor. I don't want to suggest that the paper should not be published or that the reviewers may have been lazy or stupid. How can I ask for more feedback? Or should I just assume that no comments means well written?

I do not know how many people reviewed the paper; the editor aggregated the comments before sending them to me.


texts: Resigning from tenure-track position after sabbatical for industry -- how little research can I do before I leave?

texts: I'm on tenure-track and going to go on sabbatical in the fall for one semester. When I return from my sabbatical, I plan on giving a year's notice and switching to teaching part-time while I take over family business. Research is not for me, but I like and respect my colleagues and I want to do "right by them." My question is, how little research-related work can I do during my sabbatical and in the following year without jeopardizing my prospects for being hired as an adjunct afterwards and my relations with the department in general. I should mention that I am much liked as a teacher and coordinate a huge part of the undergraduate curriculum, so I trust that the department will want me to stick around...


texts: How to cold email multiple faculty members to propose a collaboration?

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I am currently looking at an advertised postdoctoral fellowship (in the US if that matters), where it is stated that the topic of the research proposal should be discussed with faculty members before submission. My proposal is interdisciplinary and would ideally be a collaboration between multiple faculty members, which is one of the reasons why I chose the institution in question.
Since I don't know any of the faculty members at this institution personally, I will have to cold email them in one form or another. I would know what to write if I wanted to only work with one of them. How do I approach multiple of them to propose such a collaboration?
I see three options:

"All in one": Email them all at the same time in one email. I feel this could be the most efficient option. However, I am concerned that this might seem overly forward since then they might have to coordinate a response among themselves.
"Separate": Email them all at the same time, but in separate emails with a note that I emailed the other people as well. This would be less forward, but also less efficient. In addition, it could lead to awkward situations if only a subset of them respond or are interested. On the other hand, it may also increase the chance of actually getting a response.
"Separate and sequential": Email them one at a time and wait for a response before emailing the next one. This option seems hugely inefficient, but may be the most polite.

Is there any accepted etiquette for such emails?


texts: How to work with an advisor that changes their mind regarding project scope?

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I've been working with an advisor that has changed her mind regarding project scope for the past two projects I've been working with her. (So far I've only started two projects with her)

For the first project, we were thinking of building a system with two components, A and B. I worked weekdays and weekends on the project for one month, but she decided to drop component A and only keep component B. She mentioned that she would like some collaborators to join the project, and they would only be interested in component B. I was disappointed, but yielded when the advisor insisted.

The second project started six months after the first project started (the first project is still ongoing). For the second project, we decided we wanted to test the effectiveness of a certain class of interventions (call this class C). Bearing in mind that my advisor might change their mind, I worked less quickly on this project, avoiding overtime as much as possible so as to be flexible to a possible change of mind. (My advisor did say that I was working too slowly, but those were minor complaints) I roughly spent one day a week on the project for two months. At the two month mark, she said she wanted to study a much broader class of interventions (call this class D), which meant that most of the previous work was wasted as class C was only a small subset of class D (maybe only 10% of the size). She didn't give any reason initially, but when pressed, she mentioned that it would be good to combine this project with an upcoming project which touched on class D.

How can I deal with an advisor that changes their mind regarding project scope? On the one hand, I can't work too quickly as I will be too emotionally frustrated if things change. On the other hand, if I work too slowly, she may not be happy, and I may not have enough publications.


texts: How GRE score affect your acceptance rate

texts: Suppose you are very bad at undergraduate but did well on your GRE test. How would that affect you application?


texts: can one write a research paper which is based on his previous paper

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I presented a paper in one of the IEEE conferences last month. The paper is still not available in IEEE Xplore. The paper addresses the problem of detection and recovery of X in images. However, the recovery of X needs to be improved both computationally and quality-wise. Currently, I have figured out three different ways of improving the recovery of X. Each of these three recovery methods is better than the one presented in first paper.

Is it OK to write three papers demonstrating results with each of the new recovery results, given that the detection part will mostly be the same. Am I doing some sort of self-plagiarism here? Please help me understand this.

Further, if I am borrowing detection method from my previous paper, is it required to explain it in detail again or I can just write about it briefly and put a reference?


texts: How to emphasize special issue publications in a CV?

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Recently I have had a paper accepted by peer review (4 reviewers!) and received an invitation to have it included as part of a 'special issue' (which, of course, I accepted).

The question is: how to emphasize in a CV that the paper is published in a special issue (without being too pretentious about it)?

Related question: is it even worthwhile to emphasize this?

This is related to the question: How best to present publications in different areas on a CV?, would it be best placed in its own section or emphasized as part of the normal bibliographic record.


texts: Prospective supervisor wants me to do irrelevant videos as a condition for supervision. Can I say yes when I mean no?

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This question is the reverse of Dealing with a PhD student reneging on an agreement to appear in social media, in which the student had agreed during interviewing to participate in social media outreach but refused to do so when hired. The top answers in the linked question sided with the student.

Suppose I'm a prospective PhD student looking for potential supervisors. I'm attracted to one professor in particular for both academic (e.g. matching research interests) and non-academic reasons (e.g. solves my two-body problem). The only problem is, he wants me to make social media videos to boost the profile of his research group. I think this is unreasonable, since doing this isn't part of the requirements for a PhD. I know I'm unlikely to enjoy doing these things as well, and would rather concentrate on my PhD.

The professor wants me to confirm both verbally and in writing that I'm willing to make these promotional videos. It's likely that if I say no, he will decline to supervise me. Is it OK to say yes, and then try to get out of making the videos?


texts: How important is the orthographic/typographic rigor?

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Science and Orthographic/Typographical Errors

Some people appreciate the attention to have their orthographic/typographical errors corrected/pointed out.

Others find it uncool to just point formal errors, finding it ideal to jointly comment on the content.

Given that, in terms of scientific rigor, how important is the orthographic/typographic rigor? And how does that vary?

As a side note, on a personal level, I find that reading a scientific text with orthographic/typographical errors is quite a turn off.


texts: Why and how do professors go for sabbatical?

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I read several questions about sabbatical leaves in this website. When checking a faculty list, it is common that some are on sabbatical leave and some are visiting professors. When emailing professors, it is not strange to receive a reply that he or she is on sabbatical leave.

However, the general picture of sabbatical visits is unclear to me. It is interesting to experience a new academic environment in a different country; but how do people handle it?

Cost of Living/Moving: When someone goes to another country, there are lots of unexpected expenses. High rent for a furnished house (for a year). They still have expenses in their home country (like mortgage). They will receive half of their salary from home the university and zero from the host university (not considering exceptions where getting paid for occasional tasks).
Research Output: The professor cannot plan for a long-term research. Probably co-supervise some graduate students.
Position: It is not clear to me what the place of a visiting professor is. In a research group, he is not a postdoc to follow the PI plans to get hand in experimental works, and he is not the boss to plan and conduct others. In a department, the head cannot force him to teach a course (it is not his duty), and the department has not offered him an official position, space and service for doing nothing. The vague point for me is that there is no official contract to define each party responsibility (as the host university is not paying).

How can one handle the expenses? And what is the professional motivation to do a temporary job (beside the fun part of going somewhere)?

Sorry for a series of questions, I could not separate them.


texts: Positive review from an additional (third) reviewer (endorsing the 2nd reviewer) against a negative review from the 1st reviewer

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I submitted a manuscript to a well-known journal (in education) and got two discrepant review results from two reviewers: one very positive (minor revision) and one negative review result (suggesting the editor to reject my submission). In spite of this, the editor gave me a major revision decision. I revised the manuscript; but the reviewer that gave me a negative review was still not happy after reading my first round of revision.

After seeing this, the editor thus invited a third (additional) reviewer to re-review the paper (during the second round of review). The third reviewer gave a very positive review endorsing the positive review from the second reviewer, and noted that "the submission is very insightful". The second reviewer did not gave further comments (hinting that s/he is probably happy with my revision). In this case, what do I expect next? I believe that I will never able to convince the first reviewer, although I did manage to revise the manuscript in full compliance with his suggestion. I believe that my second major revision will still sent back to all the three reviewers. If the first reviewer is still not happy, will the editor adopts the views from the 2nd and the additional reviewer? I personally feel that it would be unfair if the additional reviewer's view is not considered. By the way, I found that the third reviewer's comments are generally easy to tackle with (most of the comments are only asking for clarification).

Please advise based on your prior experience. Thanks very much.


texts: Why should a publication present results in a way that significantly differs from the discovery of said results?

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In the various projects I've worked on, professors have insisted that a writeup for a journal submission should state and prove only the final results (rather than describe the process of arriving at those results). I see how this makes things concise, but it seems to obscure the process of discovery.

Here's an example of this situation from a mathematics paper I've worked on.

What I did:

I have a direct proof for "X".
After looking at my direct proof for "X", I see that I could generalize "X" if I prove "Y" (it was not immediately clear that proving "Y" was useful for proving "X").
I prove "Y", then prove "Generalized X" (duplicating some work from the proof of "X").

What the paper does:

Prove "Y".
Use "Y" to prove "Generalized X".
Refine the proof of "Generalized X" ever so slightly to get "X".

My frustration:

I feel like the paper is good reference material, but it's not educational. I think a reader would stand to benefit much more from a direct proof of "X", since it shows why I would try to show "Y" in the first place.


texts: Chair and one of directors insisted that my project is theirs... what should I do?

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This is my first semester as an assistant professor.  I developed a project (with three publishable sub-topics) and got the IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval.  I prepared a proposal to attend a conference, and submitted it to get my Departmental approval.

Then suddenly my Department Chair and a director "insist" that the project is from their idea; so I should stop working on the project and then give it to them.  Even my chair sends me a formal email including staff members - I developed their idea and so it is unethical....

I decided to leave this school from this ridiculous situation.  However, I am still unsure how to handle this situation.  I really do not care whatever they do.  I just do not want that they use all of my instruments such as surveys for their study.  However, I really do not know what to do.  Would you help?