texts: Denying offer of admission from graduate school after accepting

texts: The university that gave me an offer only gave me two weeks to accept the offer. I asked them for an extension, and they only gave me a week more. I have still yet to hear from the other universities I applied to; since it is only mid March. I am quite confused as to what I should do, I don't want to give back the offer after accepting it. But I also can't predict what the other universities decisions would be and neither am I too confident as to reject the one offer I do have. Would appreciate some advice. I applied to Masters program in Physics, in Canada.


texts: How to deal with a student found seeking an answer to a coursework question online?

texts:
I have just found that a student has posted one of their assignment questions on a forum and is seeking help in getting a solution.

I have a good idea who the student is, but no definitive proof. How would you handle this situation?


texts:
I recently submitted to a machine learning conference, and got 3 weak accepts. One concern was, that the work may be of limited interest. Therefore I went ahead and collected more example in the literature that were related, and found a bunch of them (most very recently, so I couldnt have included them in the original submission). However, if I want to include all of them, it takes more than half of my one page limit, and I don't have enough space left to address the rest.
How strict are these limits if it is only references that are over the one page limit?

Alternatively some of the other criticism is just typos. I could try to address them by just generally saying something like: 'Thank you for pointing out the typos, we have fixed all of them', without naming them separately. Would you recommend that, or could that be too brief for a reviewer (not acknowledging his work enough?)


texts: How to send your transcript directly from your US university to grad schools without the transcript office knowing which schools

texts:
I know it sounds weird, but I don't want the transcript office of my US alma mater keeping records of where my transcripts were sent.
The reason is I don't want people I know to call the transcript office pretending to be me and get the names of schools I applied to.


texts: Do instructors have the right to know how many students test positive for COVID-19?

texts:
My university tests every student.
So they have the data.
I can understand that for privacy,
the names of the students who tested positive are not released to the public or the instructors.
But do instructors have right to know how many or if any student in his/her class tested positive?


texts: What is the notation for inserting algorithms in scientific papers

texts:
I have some papers which describe some computer algorithms.
My algorithms have some input, output, static (global) variables, comments ...
something like the following algorithm, however I borrowed it from a book about artificial intelligence and I am not sure that is the style for a paper

function SIMPLE-REFLEX-AGENT(percept) returns an action
    static: rules, a set of condition-action rules
    state← INTERPRET-INPUT(percept)
    rule← RULE-MATCH(state, rules)
    action← RULE-ACTION[rule]
return action

What is the standard notation to insert such algorithms into a paper?


texts: Can a non-committee-member ask questions while watching a friend's PhD defense?

texts: I'm going to a PhD defense tomorrow and his topic and methods are sort of close to what I have in mind for pursuing myself, and I'd like to be an active participant during the talk; what is the typical etiquette to follow?  Do only the committee members ask questions during the defense?


texts: Consequences for foreign students of being dropped from a class?

texts: Say a student from another country is in the US on a student visa, and is enrolled in my community college class. I'm required to drop students who aren't participating in the class, and I have a policy in my syllabus that lays out criteria for dropping people (e.g., not showing up to the first class, or not showing up to class for a certain amount of time). If I do this, and it causes the student to go below a full load, what are the consequences for the student? Is it true that they might be deported within a matter of weeks? Does it matter if it's before or after census? If the student stays enrolled, but doesn't pass the class, are the consequences the same?


texts: What are some cons of going to a non-top-tier PhD program if one is primarily interested in professors in another department?

texts:
I'm a rising senior majoring in math, and my coursework almost exclusively consists of grad-level pure math courses. However, I'm getting more and more interested in Machine Learning. I've studied applied math and machine learning by myself, and now that I've graduated from a college, I'm going to do research in machine learning full-time with a professor in another institution until the next summer. Nevertheless, I suppose I have better chance for math PhD programs due to my coursework (note that I may not publish before the admission), and there are some non-top-tier (though strong in some areas) math PhD programs whose university has a top-tier group of ML researchers in the CS department. A good example would be CMU. Of course, it would be better if one can go to the universities which are both top-level at math and ML, but math programs of such universities (e.g Berkeley, MIT and Stanford) are harder to get into.

My guess is that I just should go to the math PhD program of CMU if it has a ML researcher of my interest, and everything that decides my career afterward is the quality of my publications. But are there some obvious cons for this option?


texts: Submitting an extension paper of a paper that is currently in review for a considerable amount of time?

texts:
I have a paper under review for over 6 months now. Recently I have done some more work which is an extension of paper under review and wrote it as a new paper. As there is dependency on the paper under review, I have included some important theorems of paper under review in appendix of the new paper. Can I submit this new paper to (a) the same journal, although there is a paper already under review for a long time. (b) Should I submit to another journal, even before the review process of current paper still going on.
(c) should i seek advice of the EIC of the current paper under review
(d) Don't do anything and wait for the decision on the current paper under review and proceed accordingly?

Appreciate any pros and cons or suggestions/advice in this scenario.


texts: What is the optimal balance of time spent on research vs. volunteering/leadership/organizing in grad school and beyond?

texts:
In graduate school I have found that along with being a producer of good research, fellowships/post-doctoral advisers/faculty search committee are also often interested in what one has done outside of research (or teaching/TA-ing) as well. Examples of such activities include (but are not limited to) volunteering with younger students in science, organizing a journal club, mentoring undergraduate researchers, etc. In some cases, the importance of these activities is immense: for the NSF CAREER award, for example, having outreach is a substantial part of the application.

However, clearly, spending all of one's time on these activities is not the best idea, since then no research gets done.

So, my question is:

What is the optimal fraction/amount of time to spend on "outreach" activities like those mentioned above, which are explicitly not research or teaching activities, for someone looking to pursue a career at a research university?


texts: Could the conference presentation be a part of my abstract？

texts: I wrote the abstract according to my thesis but realized that it's too much for a conference presentation. Could I use a part of the abstract to present？


texts: How to interpret reviewers comments for an accepted conference paper?

texts:
our manuscript was accepted as a full paper at a new but what seems a quite respectable conference venue (indexed in Scopus, good papers in the previous years, quite critical peer review). The manuscript was already squeezed to fit the page limit of 10 pages. Although the paper was accepted, there are really a lot of reviewers comments from 3 reviewers, and i do not really think, that we can address even most of them, because there is not much text to cut, and much additional text, and figures would be required.

I am not very experienced, but I co-authored some journal papers, and there was the possibility for several major and minor revision iterations, but at this conference there apparently is no time for this, since they speak about "camera ready submission", together with a rebuttal letter, as the next step.

I agree with most of the reviewer comments, but many points they bring up have been omitted for the sake of brevity, in order to meet the page limit. It was our intention, to present the main idea as a conference paper, and submit an longer and extended manuscript to a journal in a later stage. In fact it was my impression, and that of my supervisors, that the conference paper can have some preliminary flavour to it.

What is the usual way to address such a situation, and in what perspective should i see the reviewers comments, for a conference. Are they required modifications (similar as in a journal review), or should they be interpreted as suggestions for follow up work, and does the acceptance means that in its present form it is accepted? Is it necessary to retract the paper, if we can not implement many of the comments? I also do not really understand, why they already mention that the paper is accepted, compared to journal papers, where it is only accepted after all reviewers are happy. Is this usual for conferences?

Any suggestions, or clarifications about the difference between reviews of journals and conferences would be very welcome.


texts: How to motivate speakers to give less specialized talks at a "colloquium?"

texts:
Our applied math department is beginning to have a serious attendance problem at our colloquium. The appropriate level for our colloquium is that any person with an undergraduate degree in a quantitative/theoretical field should be able to follow the talk as long as they are paying close attention.

In an invitation letter to our speakers, who are mostly faculty members at other Universities in a variety of fields but also include some faculty at our university, we say

  "Your talk should be entirely self contained. You can assume the audience is mathematically mature and has a solid understanding of undergraduate real analysis and linear algebra but do not assume any prior knowledge in physics, biology or more specialized mathematics. Of course feel free to talk about such topics, just be sure to explain all basic concepts needed to follow the rest of the presentation as soon as they come up."

Despite this warning, speakers go on, as usual, giving seminar level talks. Graduate students and the few advanced undergraduates that used to attend have basically stopped attending, which looks bad on our department, and lowers graduate student morale. Note the target audience is not undergrads. The target audience is first year grad students (and up) and faculty from many different quantitative fields.

I think part of the problem is that speakers assume applied math means "The math done in my field of research". They don't understand despite us linking to our graduate student's list of research interests in the email that applied math is extremely broad. Some researchers will have never taken probability theory or optimization and some who work in theoretical computer science haven't studied a differential equation since their sophomore years of college. And science backgrounds outside of math will be even broader.

Besides adding the request in our email, that the talk not be too technical, is there anyway to prevent speakers from giving talks that are too specialized or advanced?


texts: I am a visiting faculty, professor in B-schools. How does one go about in designing or compiling an open book exam, ensuring that it's not tough and neither too easy. At the same time someone who has not read the book will not be able to answer the question. What at the pointers or measures that should be taken care? Isn't designing an open book exam difficult compared to traditional exam?


texts: Forwarding a student’s question about exam modalities to a professor as a TA?

texts:
I am currently working as a teaching assistant.

My tasks this semester include writing/putting together a formula sheet containing a lot of formulas and some graphs that the students should not have to memorize.
This sheet will be used in the final exam.

A student recently send an e-mail asking whether he should print it out himself or will be given a copy upon taking the exam. Since I am not responsible for the exam or anything grading-related, this mail should have been addressed to the professor, since I can only guess
(although I am fairly certain it would not be useful to let students bring the sheets themselves and thus giving them a chance to alter them).

Now how I see it, I have the following options:

Forward the e-mail to my professor.
Answer the student vaguely, recommending to mail the professor.
Contact the professor; ask him what to do.

I’m unsure whether forwarding this mail would be appropriate. I’d also feel stupid for asking the professor about something that should be obvious.

Which of the outlined possibilities would be the most efficient, yet still appropriate way to go?


texts: Acknowledge startup funding in manucript

texts: Has anyone acknowledged their own university for startup funding that was used to conduct the research to be published in an article? If so could you please share the wordings that you used? Thanks!


texts: When should the erratum (or other published correction) for a paper be cited?

texts:
I am curious as to whether there are any accepted standard rules on when to cite, or not to cite, a published correction (erratum/corrigendum) along with a paper.
The meanings of these terms are not universal across all publishers, so for the purposes of this question, I will follow the convention of APS journals where errata are used for corrections by the authors. In my field (physics), I often see an erratum get between zero and a handful of citations, while the main paper keeps amassing them after publication of the erratum.
Clearly then, (at least in physics) there is no expectation that an author  should always cite the corrections. This is reasonable to me: If I cite a paper in my introduction about a related interesting system, the fact that the paper has a typo in eq. (33) isn't very relevant, so no need to have it clutter up the bibliography. On the other hand, it seems obvious to cite the erratum if my paper directly depends on the contents of the erratum. Presumably there's a line somewhere in-between. However, I have never seen this formalized. What if my work builds on a paper, but is not affected by the published corrections?
So my question is essentially:

Under what conditions should the erratum be cited? Are there any relevant guidelines, or rules of thumb?

(I also welcome any discussion on how the standards might vary between fields, or between different types of publications.)


texts: How to report plagiarism in a publication

texts: A friend showed me a paper that literally copied two pages of another paper, without any reference. This clearly is a fraud. He tried to inform the authors of the original paper. Is there any other way to deal with this situation?


texts: Academic application - how to address lack of citations?

texts: I am applying for an academic position and have been shortlisted. My one potential major stumbling block is in terms of publications. I have a number of them, but none of them are A grade publications. More worrying though, I have virtually no citations. These publications range in age from 6 months to 4 years ago. How might I address this in the context of an interview?


texts: What is the historic basis and/or context for "Honoris Causa" degrees? What were the original reasons for granting these?


texts: Appendix before references when asked for separate page of references

texts:
I'm submitting to a conference, which has the following text in the call for papers:

  Papers must be submitted in PDF format according to ACM guidelines and
  style files to fit within X pages including any diagrams and
  appendices, plus up to 1 additional page of references.

The ACM style files have the references before the appendix, but this text makes it seem like the references should be separate. How would you arrange the references and the appendix? Which would be placed first?


texts: Recommendation Letters for MS CS programs

texts:
I have graduated nearly 5 years ago and I want to get a Computer Science Master's degree from an above average school in U.S. or Canada, preferably a thesis based degree.

However, I am having difficulty in getting recommendation letters since I graduated long time ago. And, even if I get any letters, my professors are not professional, they ask me to write them myself. Long ago when I asked for a position they did so and sure they will do the same now. So I got stuck in an handicapped position for my future grad school pursuits.

Please recommend me some ways to overcome this situation. Should I go for a one term non-degree program in U.S. or Europe to get a letter from a professional member of an academic community who is capable of doing this job.

End Note: I am in a third world country.


texts: Advice for Returning to Academia - CS/SOC

texts:
Looking for career-strategy advice here. I'm a recent Sociology PhD (Computational Network Social Science), who took a 6 year leave during my PhD to work as a Software Engineer with a handful of successful startups in the Bay Area. I'm looking to return to academia as an Assistant Professor. Aside from a recently completed dissertation, I have only one or two articles from over 5 years ago.

My research interest and knowledge-set straddles CS and SOC. Given the high(er) demand for CS professors these days, should I be aiming my efforts at finding a CS professor position? If so, should I focus on increasing my publication output prior to application, or rest on professional experience within private industry?

In short, how should I treat the professional leave from academic research when it demonstrates domain competence, but leaves no research output ( articles, books )? Any advice would be appreciated.


texts: What should I comment on when contacting a potential advisor?

texts: I’m applying to a masters program and I need to find a potential advisor prior to applying. I’ve heard that it’s a great idea to reads some papers from the potential advisor and make thought-out comments on the papers when contacting the advisor(s) to show that you have genuine interest in their research. I am awful at thinking of questions / interesting comments. Although it would be impossible for you to suggest what I should mention about the paper without having read it, what areas of a research paper should I focus on when making insightful comments about it?


texts: How should one interpret a requirement that a proposal in pure math be "jargon-free?"

texts:
I'm applying for a fellowship wherein they ask for a long proposal about what I'm working on (a PhD thesis in pure math).  Then they advise me that some of those evaluating me will be from non-math departments, so the proposal "should be jargon-free."

Right off the bat I guess [PSL2(Od):Γ] < ∞ is out of the question...  I could explain what a manifold is to a mixed audience, but I think they'd need to do some homework before they followed what it might have to do with finite index subgroups of Bianchi groups (or whatever topic you might be studying).  Without the "jargon" I feel like my whole language for it is gone. Afterall the reason we have so many definitions is because each one refers to a distinctly defined thing that we previously had no name for!

I can see that I could take a more historical, conceptual perspective, but I'd still be dancing around what I'm actually doing.  It's especially hard to summarize something that is not even fully developed.  I think that for people who don't study math, the only reference point is science applications, but those don't really exist here because then it would be applied math and not pure math.

I'm coming up short looking for anyone addressing this online.  There are multidisciplinary tips about writing proposals, but I think the accessibility problem is at its biggest with pure math.


texts:
I am currently an undergraduate student in computer science, rising senior.

I have had extensive research experiences throughout college at competitive universities and research companies (but no publications).

I do not feel prepared to pursue graduate school right after college (due to burnout, health concerns, and general need to prepare for PhD requirements such as recommendations, GRE, etc).

I also come from a low income family, and I would like to take a couple of years to save money, as well as improve my math skills and explore the subfield of CS I would really like to pursue in graduate school.

I know there is some debate surrounding the role of gap years in students’ will to pursue grad school, but I am certain this is the best choice for me.

I would like some advice on what sorts of roles to pursue post-college.

The answer to this question hasn’t been so straightforward for me because I have a couple of conditions that are especially relevant to my needs and aspirations:

  I want something that offers a competitive salary (80k-100k a year in the Boston area)
  I want to start working immediately after I graduate college
  Unfortunately, I do not have the option of pursuing an unrelated activity for the 2 year duration (like, say, backpacking in Europe or
  teaching in China) due to my financial circumstances
  I want to remain a competitive grad school applicant

I’ve considered a couple of options:

Working as a software engineer at a company

  Though I have limited experience in development (because every role
  I’ve ever had since the beginning of college has been
  research-oriented), I think I can use the coming year to update my
  engineering skills and land a role.

  Pro: This sort of role would likely offer a more competitive salary

  Con: I’m not sure it would make me more competitive candidate for
  graduate school

Working in research at a university or national laboratory

  Because I have extensive research experience from college, I think I
  have a good chance at landing a role like this.

  Pro: I think this would make me more competitive for graduate school

  Con: The salary would likely not be competitive

Working in research at a research company

  This would be the best option, but the hardest to land.

  Pros: Likely offers a competitive salary, and will likely make me more
  competitive for graduate school

  Con: I don't think I can land a role like this easily after college, as they usually require at least a masters degree and favorably a PhD, with extensive research experience

I would just like some advice on this situation. Are there some other options I could consider? Is a software engineering role my best bet? If you've been in this situation and in this particular field, what has been your experience? What did you decide to do?


texts: Should I consider quitting my Ph.D. after 6 months?

texts:
About my background:
I finished my master's six months ago with a cum laude in Europe (A tier 1 university) and my research was very theoretical and I did invest a lot of thought into it. I like it a lot. Even though it was challenging, I was motivated. Therefore, I like to research a lot, I really do.
Because of my dedication, I was approached by my professor for a Ph.D. position. He listened to my interests and gave me some advice and some facts. According to him, people don't consider hiring people for a Ph.D. in the area I was interested in unless they have a solid background.
Then, he offered me a Ph.D. which is not related to what I did in my masters. I would say it is more applied than fundamental. I didn't do all courses related to that topic before to understand it fully. He promised to change the topic a little bit so that it fits my interests.
I did a literature review and I found questions to solve. He assigned me a daily supervisor who works under him. Let's call him DS (Daily Supervisor). I had heard not very good reviews about him earlier. People under him tend to finish their Masters and Ph.D. later than they originally are supposed to. He doesn't have a hold of concepts when it comes to research but at the same time has a lot of ideas that are scattered all over the place.
He confuses me all the time. When I came up with my research questions more towards my interests, he really tried forcing me to consider finding questions related to the more applied stuff and more towards its application side which is not my strong point because simply I don't have a solid background in it. Both the main professor and DS had some clash of ideas.
I am a direct person and if I don't like something I complain. They did find a direction for me and again promised that I would do something of my own interests after a year.
Now. I feel like I am trapped. My main professor is very considerate. I am thinking of asking him if I can do a post-masters here instead of a Ph.D. and do some TA work for the next six months and I will ask him to recommend me for some work abroad related to A for my next Ph.D.
The main professor still thinks I am creative, I have an analytical mind and also he trusts me. He may consider writing me a good recommendation. However, I may really hurt his trust that he has in me. Although I am really grateful I have this position and I can repay my loans, I am always in a position to complain. And, practically he reviews my results for the papers I want to write. It may affect it significantly and I wouldn't have any papers before I apply somewhere else.
I am really confused about what to do. The more I want to make the communication with my prof and DS transparent, the more they get me confused and I feel like a very bad student even though at the back of my head I know I was a cum laude student. Please give me your feedback on what you would do if you were me.


texts: Scientific publications and related software sourcecode

texts:
I want to create a dataset (offline, only for my research purposes) based on scientific publications (research papers), which are somehow connected to software source code (for example given by a git-repository). The research domains of the publications are irrelevant, as long as they are talking about related software source code (for example by mentioning functions or variables).

In order to create the dataset, I need journals/websites where papers and their related code are listed. I already found the Journal of Open Research Software, which fits my requirements, but I am pretty sure there are more resources like this out there.

How can I find publication venues in which papers regularly include links to related source code?


texts: Recommendation letter from advisor with different research interest

texts:
While I was an undergrad, I wrote a paper on topic A with my advisor. Currently, I'm working in a research institution with an Economist whose work mainly lies on topic B. However, I've come to understand that I do not like A or B, but I'm more interested in topic C, and I've done some independent study on topic C. I'm thinking of asking my undergrad advisor and my current Economist for recommendation letter to apply for PhD in topic C.

How will admission committee for PhD view such recommendation letters from academics whose work is not on my current interest? That is, will it have any negative influence in my application, if I seemed to change my interest often?

To be specific, all topic A, B and C is under the field of Economics, but are vastly different from one another (especially the switch from A to B; it was like learning completely new subject). Knowledge gained from A and B can only be partially transferred to C.

Related, but does not quite answer the question that I have: Value of recommendation letters from professors in a different field. My question is more focused on the fact that two recommendation letters will show my interest in certain research topics were very short-lived.


texts: What affiliation is appropriate to list for journal publication?

texts:
On journals for example this one, I am required to provide "the department and institution to which the work should be attributed" on the title page.

What does attributing the work to an institution mean?

For my situation, I am a student at University of A, but I was approached by a researcher at Hospital B to finish the project, i.e. we are at two different institutions and labs. The project is mostly developing a signal processing algorithm and there was no particular funding source.

Sorry if this is a silly question as this is my first time submitting a paper myself.


texts:
I am set to begin a MS/PhD in an engineering discipline at a top 5 program. I mention this because, despite the concerns I will lay out below, I am sure that I'll be able to make good connections through this department.
However, in my specific subfield the options are a bit limited. The sort of research I originally intended to focus on I would be able to conduct at this school. That being said, this field is very interdisciplinary and, after lots of preparatory literature search this summer, I am starting to feel my interests shift. I now feel that a different side of this field would probably fit me better, research for which would fall under a different department. The problem is that there is nobody who specializes in this particular concentration.
On top of this, the weirdness of starting a graduate program during a pandemic has me wondering if I would be better off deferring and possibly reapplying. My undergraduate record is pretty strong (high gpa, multiple publications, etc.) and I feel confident I would be able to get in somewhere. However, I worry that this coming admissions cycle will be brutal and if I am better off taking my current offer and trying to make it work.
Perhaps it would be best to go and, if I truly want to shift focus and cannot there, master out and reapply. To be clear, I would re-apply for a different engineering discipline.
Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks.


texts: Prospects for an older student with a roller coaster of grades

texts:
Apologies for my verbosity.

There have been more than a few questions from applicants with less than stellar grades.  My situation is significantly different from those I have read, but I believe broadly applicable to others.

I am 30 years old and will soon be finishing undergrad with multiple degrees.  My late teens and early twenties were tumultuous and despite far above average SAT/AP scores, I did poorly.  I was majoring in fine arts and philosophy, struggling with my mental health, and earned grades ranging from A to F.  I dropped out.

In my late twenties I returned to my local, unranked, state university majoring in Mathematics, Computer Science, and minoring in Philosophy of Science and Technology.  I have earned good grades (18 A's, 2 B's, 3 C's) and have a few excused grades.  I earned two C's while working far more hours than allotted by grading 8 sections (240 students) and tutoring:  I did not complete all my coursework though the work I did do earned ~100%.  The third C was due to being burned out. The C's are most recent, in my majors, followed a period of 4.0 semesters, and were concurrent with some A's.

I intend to earn ~ 8 more A's and possibly B's before finishing, and will take more electives than necessary.

My cummulative gpa is low (3.373) due mainly to the early failures.  I have a huge number of credits, so each new A raises it an insignificant amount.

I wish to apply to PhD programs in mathematics.

Assume the early semesters and EX grades cannot be erased.  Keep in mind an older student at an unranked, local, state university.  All other things being equal:

Are EX grades truly neutral or are they negative?
To what extent does the multi year gap between the tumutltuous period and my current success mitigate those early failures?
To what extent does the fact that my poor grades were in completely unrelated areas and are not even applied to my degree mitigate my low gpa?
Will the above matter and be seen considering unofficial cutoffs (i.e. the "on the ground reality" of what happens in admissions committees)?
To what extent will the several C's diminish my "upward trend"?
I believe my TA duties were excessive though indicating this in my SOP would just be complaining.  Truly though, is my performance during that period indicative of an inability to handle the workload of a PhD student?
How can a CV and SOP present these issues in a mitigating way while still leaving room to discuss the students purpose, passion, and strengths?

I have TA experience but not research (none was available at my department).  I will have good to excellent LOR's from professors of diverse type.   I will be (probably the only student at my insitution) taking the Putnam exam.  All indications are that my GRE scores will be in the very high range, and my subject GRE score will be in the middle to high range.

What tier of departments should a student with my background be aiming for?

I am especially concerned because I have found few programs with faculty in the (sub)specialties I am considering ranked outside the top 15.  Most universities have at most one rarely offered course and no faculty in my area.

Is a weaker student wishing to specialize in the uncommon strengths of a top department competitive with a stronger student wishing to specialize in more common areas?  (i.e. I may apply to a top university not just "because it is a top university" but because it is a good fit).

I apologize for the multiple questions, they are intertwined so please consider them a focusing of "how do these various factors affect the prospects of an older student?"

Thank you for reading.


texts: Evaluating Grad Schools on grounds other than research

texts:
Assuming that an applicant does his research and applies to a bunch of schools for a PhD. He gets accepted by a few of them with full aid.

Assuming that the research and faculty at all places is more or less of the same quality, what factors come into play when deciding where to go?
(Also assume that the student is an international student)

How important are the following factors:

Location (Urban/Rural) of School
Country of School
Rankings (For instace, U Tennessee Knoxville has awesome Supercomputing Research but a not-so-good overall Ranking)
Size of Department
Diversity
Student Faculty Ratio


texts: Does there exist Top 50 rankings of applied math phd programs?

texts:
For example, if one were to apply to Top 50 business schools for a full-time MBA program, one could get rankings from the NYTimes, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, and the Economist, just to name a few sources - I bet there are plenty more.

I plan to apply to Top 50 applied math phd programs, however I cannot find any sort of rankings other than the one from the U.S. News and World Report, which only ranks up to Top 14 -- schools that I wouldn't realistically have a shot at getting into.  So, I am looking to aim a bit lower but am not sure where to even start.

How should I go about figuring out which applied math departments are generally regarded as  "Top 50 applied math departments"?

Why aren't there a ton of different sources where I can get rankings from -- like in the business school world (and probably law school world too)?


texts: When looking for students to work on a research project: contact good students directly or contact all class then select the good ones?

texts: When teaching an undergraduate or graduate course and knowing about some good students, what would be the best approach in inviting them to join a research project? Contacting them directly, or send an email to all students and then select the "good students" that are also interested?


texts: How to get ready for a visit to a lab where I would like to do undergrad research?

texts:
I am a senior physics major and I recently applied to a national lab that is associated with my university. I applied for a student research position through their website (uploaded my resume and wrote a cover letter etc.) I was contacted by the PI of the research team to come for a 'visit' for an hour with him and his team. He went through the hassle of giving out the visitor pass for me.

More about me, I am a senior but I have no research experience. I don't have a strong GPA and I admit I am not that 'smart' like other students. Should I have to explain about my GPA?

So my question is what should I prepare myself prior to my visit? Do you think it would be some sort of an interview? What sort of questions (academical/personal) should I prepare? Also, should I take an updated resume (I don't think it has really changed since I applied)?


texts: Letter of Recommendation/Reference Protocols

texts:
I have a few questions about letters of recommendation for graduate school. I'll include my current situation, as I'm not sure what is relevant and what is not. I'm entering my fourth year of my bachelors in math, but I may stay an extra couple semesters to finish my minor (I also had a small setback, so doing the degree in 4 years wasn't entirely possible). I'll be applying for grad school in math. Here are my questions:

Can you ask a Prof to give a letter of reference to more than one university? For example, lets say that each school I apply to requires 3 letters of reference. Then, if I were to apply to 3 grad schools, would I need 9 distinct professors to ask for letters?
Do I get to see the letters which are sent?
There is one Prof who I've taken a course under, and I did well in his class. During that term, I showed an interest in the material, but I also think he does not like me (well, I'm not sure). This may or may not be the case, but let's say it is. Would it be unwise to ask this person for a letter?

Thanks.


texts: How to cite a newspaper article with no author in APA style using MS Word?

texts:
I have cited a news story appeared in a newspaper with no author in APA style using MS Word 2013, but I don't know if I have done it in the right way. I classified it as "Article in a Periodical", but the outcome is different from the one I get from this web service (https://www.citethisforme.com/). Can I help me in this case?

MS Word version:

In-text: (Zarif: We’ve never claimed nuclear deal only favors Iran, 2015, p. 1)

In Bibliography: Zarif: We’ve never claimed nuclear deal only favors Iran. (2015, July 22). Tehran TImes(12321), p. 1.

Cite This For Me" version:

In-text: (Tehran Times, 2015)

In Bibliography: Tehran Times,. (2015). Zarif: We’ve never claimed nuclear deal only favors Iran, p. 1.

I feel that MS Word's version is correct, but its in-text citation seems awkward to me.


texts: Using social media brands (logos) in academic publications

texts:
I'm working on an illustration related to citizen science and would like to include the concept of social media in that graphic.

The most well known social media brands (as of now) are arguably Facebook and Twitter. According to their guidelines (Facebook, Twitter) it is perfectly fine to use their brand identity in form of a non-altered logo. I do not want to refer to anything specific on these platforms, merely use their logo to symbolize "social media".

However I'm not really sure if this is appropriate for an academic publication for a number of reasons: a) it may be considered a promotion or endowment of mentioned brands. b) it may be considered unprofessional. c) it may loose relevance with time.

Are these doubts justified? Any suggestions or (better) experience with a similar case?
What are solutions to this dilemma? I suppose replacing brand logos with generic ones that symbolize "social media" as well would be one thing to consider ...


texts: Can good grades alone get me into grad school?

texts: I'm interested in going to grad school for a master's in computer science (I'm also applying to a MS/MBA program at a few schools). I have a 3.8 GPA from a highly regarded school, 99th percentile GRE scores, and not much else. I have no publications or research, minimal connections with professors, and my references will likely be only average. I do have some internship experience though. Should I bother?


texts: How do citations get counted for a book and for an electronic book?

texts: I am very curious to learn how citation engines work for both books and ebooks. I assume that these computer engines (Scopus, the web of science, Google scholar) take the bibliographic data from papers, review articles and books, and somehow get a unique identifier for each bibliographic entry. Then they associate a counter to each unique identifier, and this counter is increased by one every time a citation is made. I'm speculating here as I'm by no means an expert. But if this is the case, then what happens for a book that is both in paper and electronic version? How is this unique identifier created (is it by the ISBN or by the DOI)?


texts: Is using the phrase "... is left as an exercise for the reader" considered good style in academic papers/theses?

texts:
Possible arguments:

Pro

For brevity for trivial deductions

Contra

Looks like the writer could not be bothered to write an extensive explanation
Definition of what is trivial to which reader and what not


texts:
Notes and Queries is a very famous and very long-running humanities journal, noted for its pioneering question-and-answer format.  It's spun off a number of regional editions, a series of anthologies, and given rise to countless imitators.

I'd like to know whether (and if so, which types of) contributions to Notes and Queries are peer-reviewed.  The journal's own website is silent on the matter—the only reference I can find to the review process is a short statement in the guidance for contributors that professional editing can help non-native speakers of English "ensure that the academic content of [their] paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers" (emphasis mine—and note that this statement refers only to "reviewers", not "peer reviewers").  And third-party sources give conflicting or incomplete information on the journal's peer-reviewed status.  For example:

The journal index of the MLA International Bibliography lists Notes and Queries as peer-reviewed, but doesn't indicate whether this applies to all types of submissions.  (Maybe only the peer-reviewed submissions get indexed.)
Various author-contributed reports on the English Literature Journals page of the Humanities Journals Wiki mention a (sometimes lengthy) review process for submissions, but they never mention whether this is peer review or editorial review.
An informal but fairly lengthy review of Notes and Queries by Richard Rohlin (then a graduate student at Signum University) states that the journal is not peer-reviewed.

So what's the story here?  Notes and Queries clearly has some sort of review process, but is it peer review?  And if so, which of its four types of contributions (Notes, Queries, Replies, and Reviews) are peer-reviewed?


texts: Publish paper without consulting project guide?

texts:
I graduated with engineering degree. I (along with 2 other) had done project on SDN, and we have a research paper to publish. But our project guide(, and former project guide ) is forcing us to mention add their name as first, second author and all fee should be paid by us.

Paying fee is not a big deal, but we cannot add their name as first and second author as they have less/no contribution.

We finally decided to remove all instance their name  from the paper, and publish it. It is right, or we should inform them before publishing. In all case, we are going to remove every instance of their name. Or any other way to deal it or accept their name and get out of this thing.

We are OK with adding their names, but how should be the order of names?

Edit1

Top/first page. First comes their name, then ours. We are OK with it.

Bottom(Authors section, biography in some). They want only their name to be written.

Edit2: By less contribution I mean on scale of 10, 3 of us have 7-10, and they have 0-3


texts:
How does a math journal react to a crackpot math research paper?
In mathematics (especially in Number Theory) there are many meaningless papers on the web, and possibly a ton of meaningless submissions. Also, how does a journal react when a proof of a major unsolved problems, such as the 'Riemann Hypothesis', is submitted?


texts: Proposing a research project when contacting potential supervisors before master’s admission?

texts:
Is it okay to propose a project, with a brief introduction to what you want to do as your master’s thesis project when contacting potential supervisors?

Specifically, I am interested in the work someone has done, and I have a similar project that I’d want to work on. Can I propose that in the introductory e-mail? Or should I say something like: “I have a project in mind related to the work you have done and I’d like to get your opinion and hopefully conduct my research under your supervision.”

What if, for whatever reason (except that my proposed project is silly), the professor rejects me and/or doesn’t even reply given the time constraints faculty members are bound to?

I mean, I wouldn’t blame them if they later read it and found that the project was cool enough and contacted me. And since I’d have already enrolled or taken admission in any other university, or maybe I got a job or whatever the situation would be then, they might wanna start working on it themselves, which is fair, since I did plant the idea in their head.

What would you do?

Location: Canada

Type: International Student

Program: Electrical and Computer Engineering (M.A.Sc.)

Note: I am aware my project might be a long-shot bound-to-fail thing, but I am assuming here that the project the student wants to pitch is feasible.


texts: List of open problems: pros and cons of making it public

texts:
I am currently a 4th-year PhD student in Theoretical Computer Science, expected to graduate next year.
Since I end up finding more questions I'd be interested in solving that time or brainpower to actually solve them all, I am maintaining and keeping for myself a list of research problems I'd like to solve at some point, or see solved.
I have mentioned a few of these questions to friends or during open problem sessions in workshops, and currently this list is hidden somewhere on my academic website for ease of access.
Some of these problems, I really would like to see them solved, and I fear that I may not have the right set of tools or sufficient insight/intellect to achieve it by myself.
Ideally, I'd love to see someone get interested in them, and possibly start a collaboration leading to a solution. But I'd hate to see these questions get buried and forgotten, fading into oblivion without ever being addressed — just because I kept them to myself.
What are the pros and cons of making this list actually public? I am specifically thinking along the following axes:

Research: while I suppose advertising problems I deem interesting can only be good for the field I am in, is there any downside?

Short-term interests: I like these problems, and I do believe at least some of them are good ones. I'd be rather sad if some other people methodically solved all of them without me, although it's a bit selfish of me. Especially if I do spend some time on some of them before my graduation -- I only have that much time left to get new results and consolidate job applications for postdocs.

Long-term interests: Sooner or later I'd like to have a position in academia, and who knows even advise students. As far as I can tell, being able to suggest research ideas taylored to a student's interest is a big part of the job. Should I try and keep as many as these questions as possible in case I may need them sometime for this purpose?


texts: Why and how to reference chemical vendors in paper

texts:
In my paper I used a chemical bought from Sigma-Aldrich.

I've seen some papers refer to the chemical vendor, so my questions are:

Why should I include the chemical vendor in my paper?
How should I cite/format the reference to the vendor?


texts: Translating academic CV - translate names of papers/thesis?

texts:
I have found links on academia-SE pertaining to translation of documents here and here, but those were not for a CV. Please tell me if my question is a duplicate.

I have just moved to France from an English-speaking country for a PhD. My French is not amazing currently; this is a work in progress and I'm going half-time on my research to take an intensive language course in May. However, in June I hope to attend a school which will be taught in French, and for this reason I need to translate my CV into French to apply.

Question:

When translating my CV from one language to another, should I:

translate the names of past works e.g. the name of my masters and bachelors dissertations? Or leave them in English, as they were submitted to my past university?
translate the names of publications (and leave the name of the journal as-is)?
leave the names of the university and the qualification as-is per link 1, or put in parentheses the French name equivalent of my prior qualification?

And mostly: Are the rules different between translating a CV and translating a publication/bibliography?


texts: Is there a reliable way to measure how difficult it is to be admitted to a PhD program?

texts: If I wanted to check how competitive it is to get into a school's PhD (or MS/PhD track) program, what should I look at? For undergraduate, I usually search for the incoming SAT/ACT scores and the acceptance rate, and I found that pretty reliable. Is there something like that for grad schools?


texts: how to include editorial work in list of publications

texts: Is there an acceptable way to include editorial work on journal articles in my list of publications?


texts: Own Idea vs Professors Project for Masters Thesis?

texts:
I'm in a masters program where a thesis is required. I haven't officially started my thesis yet but I wrote a work-in-progress paper for an IEEE conference. The topic is on a mechanism I thought of to prevent unauthorised account use using AI. I found 2 professors to give me some feedback and they became co-authors on the paper. Though the feedback was mainly related to writing as neither had any background in security, though they are familiar with AI related topics.

Now that the work-in-progress paper has been submitted I received an email from one of the professors asking if I wanted to collaborate with him on a project. He mentioned he doesn't have funding for it now but he just applied. The topic is related adaptive learning systems making use of reinforcement learning. It seems many of the professors in my department are interested in how AI and computer systems can be used to improve education. Where as no one is working on anything security related.

I'm trying to decide if I should work on the project proposed by the professor for my thesis or the original idea I wrote about in my work-in-progress paper. I'm more interested in my own idea, but I'm thinking working on the other idea might give me access to research assistant funding (though this is not a sure thing). Is it normal to take on topics popular in your specific school's department?


texts: Change of affiliation in manuscript under preparation

texts:
I have submitted a paper to a journal as part of my degree at university X. This paper includes my correspondence e-mail and affiliation to the laboratory at university X, of which my co-authors were a part.

I have now moved to another university in a different country and the paper has been returned with the reviewers' comments. Should I be updating my affiliation and e-mail, especially considering that the majority of the work (the submitted draft) was completed at my old lab? I'm not sure if this is important at all, or whether it has any implications for the eventual transfer of copyright.


texts: How to preserve a rare version of a book respecting the copyright as well?

texts:
Electromagnetism by EM Purcell is a classic book on electromagnetism. Luckily in my college library I found all the three editions of this book. After many months of observation, I found that the first edition published in 1965 had many concepts, practice problems and explanations which were omitted in second and third editions. The author explains in preface to second edition that it was necessary as these subtle points were either not suitable or were presented in a tough way for first reading hence were modified or omitted.

However I realize that they are invaluable for someone who has done a course already to learn and ponder on new tricky arguments but I was not able to find any PDF for first edition on internet and the books in my library are already in torn condition and may get lost within years. In this case what can I do to get this edition preserved and people from my college may continue to benefit from it?

The first edition of this book was funded by National Science foundation and I read on Wikipedia that these books had some copyright relaxation, however I couldn't comprehend it. In this case, is it allowed to scan it and circulate its soft copy? - I thought of it or should I request the library?

PS: This is the copyright page from the first edition:


texts: How should I display scientific and non-scientific functions at the university on my email signature?

texts:
I am an Associate Professor at a British University who also has a function as Coordinator for a research team.

Should my signature and business card be:

  Assoc. Prof. Dr. T. Koznin (? Assoc. Prof. T. Kozin, PhD)

  Cöordinator, A Research Team

  University of Pleasure

Or:

  Dr. T. Koznin

  Associate Prof., Faculty of Cheesecake

  Cöordinator, A Research Team

  University of Pleasure

I wonder:

Is it strange or redundant to have "Assoc. Prof." before Dr.?


texts: Printing a collection of articles in a 'proceedings' for a maths conference

texts:
I am organising a one day meeting on a maths topic. I would like to print a proceedings consisting  of papers recommended by each of the (seven) speakers to try and keep a review of the topics discussed. No profit will be made, all copies will be provided free.

Is this possible? Is this unprofessional? What copyright laws would I encounter from journals (where a paper may have already appeared)? Can I collect papers without calling it a publication?


texts: I seem to have lost the focus that I once used to have. Few years back I was able to study for 4 hours straight but now its hardly possible for me to focus for 15 minutes. Any advice on how to regain lost focus in studying?


texts: Should a postdoc apply for a tenured position?

texts:
I have two related questions, which are similar to my other question

Should I simultaneously apply for multiple jobs in different ranks at the same university?

The first one is say a school is opening a tenure position in the Associate Professor rank. I like to know how the job committee will view the application from a candidate who is currently a postdoc?

The second one is that say the school opens both a tenured-track Assistant Professor and a  tenure Associate Professor. Should a candidate who is a postdoc apply to both or only to the tenured-track position? If he/she applies to both, whether that affects his/her application negatively?


texts: Should conference abstracts be included in profiles on sites like ResearchGate and Google Scholar?

texts:
I think it depends on the field. in physics i don't see it as much, whereas in life sciences it is quite popular.

Is it cluttering the profile of a postdoc applicant (let's say in biophysics)?


texts: Will a good GRE Computer Science subject test score overcome a "weak" academic record?

texts:
Disclaimer: The GRE Program discontinued the Computer Science Test

I'm from an unknown school in Georgia. I want to apply for grad school in U.S, but I don't have a good GPA although I am at the top %15 of the class. Here we have some strange grading system - we use 4.0 system but grading is not similar to the western world. I am confident on my knowledge and I believe that I can do well on GRE CS Subject exam.

So do you care about or value GRE Subject test results ?
If so, what score do you expect from a candidate ?
Is it possible to get some funding at top 40-70 range schools?
Regarding research, I don't have possibility of doing any research and it is not a top priority here, so we aren't provided opportunities for research.


texts: Can I take master's level courses if I decide to do my PhD in Germany (astrophysics/particle physics)?

texts:
I know that it is not compulsory to taking classes during the PhD (in Germany). But if I want to take some classes in subjects that I missed during my master program, is it possible to take some classes 2-3 in the related field that my PhD is in?
I want both take the exam and follow the course


texts: Visualising connections between scientific papers

texts:
So i just began to write my literature review and have a big bunch of research papers saved in a folder.

Is there a tool that would help me visualize the references between those papers saved in my folder?

I.e. for example paper A mentioned paper B in its bibliography, and B referenced C, C referenced D and E, A referenced E.


texts: PhD Dropout Applying to Unrelated Master's Program. How to explain it on SOP?

texts:
I dropped out of a PhD program four years ago after one semester in good standing and am now preparing an application for a master's program in an unrelated field.  Obviously, I have to submit my transcripts from all universities, and my quitting will raise some questions.  So, what can I say in my statement of purpose (or anywhere, I suppose) that will put my quitting in the best possible light?

Thanks in advance for all your help!


texts: Handling Disruptive Student on the Autism Spectrum

texts:
I have a student who's on the autistic spectrum. He exhibits several disruptive behaviors in class, such as

Inability to moderate his volume/interjections: he will shout out questions and comments irrespective of whether others are speaking (be it myself or other students).
Unintentionally mocking other students: when other students ask questions, he will sometimes say things like "you should know this stuff by now!"
Physically inappropriate behavior: he will lie down on the floor in front of his seat, or sneeze loudly. He will sit in the front row and at times pick up stuff from my table (e.g. my notes or my markers) and play with them.

I recognize that he cannot control most of these things, and that they're not done with ill intent. Thus, my inclination is to handle it in a more forgiving manner than I would a normal disruptive student, but this is not a straightforward solution. First, there are many other students who shouldn't suffer because of one disruptive student. Second, when I do make a harsher comment he often completely shuts down for the rest of the class, which makes me feel really guilty.

The undergraduate office is aware of the situation and has already received numerous complaints from other courses he attended. The problem is that their hands are mostly tied as he is not registered as a special needs student (I'm guessing his parents are refusing to do this for their own reasons), though he is officially diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. Other lecturers have basically been treating him increasingly harshly, or ignoring him.

I am wondering whether anyone here has any experience with these kinds of situations, and how did you approach it. I am more than happy to accommodate him, but would not want to compromise the course quality for everyone else.

Edit: thank you all for the great suggestions. The other question mentioned here is somewhat similar but the behavior pattern strikes me as sufficiently different to warrant a separate discussion. In any case, I have scheduled a personal meeting with him and we’ll try to establish a better interaction dynamic. I will definitely try to strike a positive tone rather than a disciplinary one. He told me his parents will kick him out of the house if I contact them so that’s definitely not happening. The undergraduate office is sympathetic but is limited in what they can do...

Second Edit: I had a talk with the student and things are much better. He’s been a positive force in the class since (albeit a slightly loud one). Thank you for the suggestions!


texts:
Do scientific methodological beliefs affect the topics that are investigated?
I've lately been led to this question, since I've wondered about what a difference would it be to do a "very empirical" vs "very definitional/mathematical" Ph. D. thesis. In e.g. image processing one can find applications and technique introductions. While technique introductions are often tested on empirical data, their results may not be like those of real empirical phenomena. On the other hand, doing empirical studies might require those methods. There are e.g. plenty of classification and segmentation algorithms that truly work well only in "specific types of data", when "in empirical sense" they should work on "data with broad variations". But on the other hand things like CNNs seem to approach this kind of "data as it is" -view.
But if "scientific methodological beliefs" for example assume that "empirical is hard", then could this motivate more studies on "easy approximations", rather than "phenomena themselves"? Intuitively they need to agree somewhere, but I was more thinking along the lines of:
Is it possible to produce a lot of research by researching "easy approximations" than "studying the real thing"? Does scientific belief justify this by making people "okay with easy approximations"?


texts: Should references to the appendix be removed from a camera ready paper?

texts:
It is not uncommon for conferences in say theoretical computer science to have a strict page limit for the camera ready version (like 12 pages). In addition, the original submitted papers might often contain perhaps even a long appendix.

The submitted paper might postpone proofs to the appendix, or say something like "due to lack of space, you can find this and that in the appendix". However, for the proceedings, it is my understanding that the appendix is completely omitted. I think I have often seen proceedings papers which make "forward references" to the appendix, but strictly speaking this makes little sense because there is no appendix.

So should one remove all references to the appendix in the camera ready version? Or do people typically not care, because it is understood that there is an arXiv version, or because a full version will appear later, or something else?


texts: Should I inform my bosses that I'm about to start doing a PhD research?

texts:
I was recently admitted in a PhD program, I haven't started any research yet and Intended to keep my full day job and try do a research while working.

I think my bosses are unaware of this for now but the thing is that I would like to brag about me doing a PhD by posting on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Doing a research will probably put some additional pressure on me and from a certain moment on, I will probably have some duties at the University which might obligate me to spend some time on campus. That will affect to some degree when I'm able to work an probably my performance.

Would it be safe for me to post and update profiles on Social and Professional Networks and do I need to officially inform my bosses first?

PS. My Job is something of a embedded programmer and the future research will be about image analysis and pattern recognition. I think the job I do and the research are not directly related but after all there are embedded devices running vision algorithms. I also think that my boss could agree to a more flexible working time.


texts: How can I make self-studied course in undergraduate official when applying to graduate school?

texts:
I'm a second year Physics and Mathematics student.

Although I haven't attended many different professor's lectures, from what I have experienced, and what I know about the professors in both of my departments, I generally don't like the style that the lecturers uses in both departments. What I mean by this is that, for example, in physics courses, generally lecturers tend to justify their claim by doing "sloppy mathematics" and generally without clearly stating their assumptions, and they don't explicitly state what is an experimental result and what is a mathematical result, so this generally confuses me.Of course this is just one of the examples only in physics department.Therefore, mostly I studied the subject by myself, and ask the questions either to the T.A, or the professor's itself depending on situation.

I should also note that, in both departments, there are some professors whose way of explains things coincides with how I think, so if I cannot understand a subject that I'm self-studying, I generally go to those professors and ask them.

So, for this reason, I'm going to ended up studying lots of subject by myself, and for that reason I will not take course on those subject because why should I waste time by taking the lectures on subjects that I have already know.Instead I can take different course that I really benefit from.

However, the only problem in this way is that I will not have an official account on those subjects that I will have beed studied when I apply to graduate school.

So my question is that how can I make these studies official ? I mean, for example, I will study point-set topology in the next spring break and I will not take this course from the department, but how can I prove that I know this subject when I apply to graduate school.

I'm hoping that I'm able to clearly express what I'm asking.If not, please say it what is not clear.

Note that, I have seen this question, but even though I don't exactly know the content of GRE tests, I don't think it will be a valid method in my case.


texts:
My spouse and I are both recent PhDs. Spouse has got a post-doc position in the US and will be applying for a J1 visa. I expect to get a post-doc (also in the US) only a few months down the line.

Now, I am considering two approaches:

Apply for a J2 dependent visa, then apply for J1 when I get the post-doc position.
Use my existing, valid (multiple-entry) B1/B2 visa to travel to the US, then apply for a J1 when I get the post-doc position.

What are the pros and cons of either approach? Are there rules for 'conversion'/tranfer from from J2 to J1 or B to J1? Does either require travelling back to, and applying from the home country?

PS: Although this seems to be a Travel.SE question, I ask here because it pertains to the J visa which is specific to academia.
PS2: We're both Indian citizens.


texts: Is it wise to resubmit a substantially revised version of my writing sample that has already been submitted for phd applications review?

texts:
My applications for doctoral programs have been submitted. But during this period, I have made a major revision of my submitted writing sample.

My question is: Is it fine to resubmit this revised writing sample to the schools I am applying to?


texts: Responsibilities of instructors to students when teaching controversial subjects

texts:
When teaching a course on a topic that might be controversial, what are the responsibilities of instructors to facilitate an open learning environment?  If the instructor has a strongly held opinion, is it appropriate for the instructor to structure the course and the readings around this opinion?  Does the instructor have a responsibility to structure the course in a way that is agnostic about the topic?  When selecting the readings and the lecture schedule, does the instructor have a responsibility to give equal time to opposing viewpoints, if those opposing viewpoints plausibly have equal intellectual merit?

I'm familiar with the notion of academic freedom for instructors, where instructors should be protected from external influence (from outside the academy: e.g., from politicians) in their ability to shape their courses and express their findings and opinions.  Is there a corresponding responsibility to protect the academic freedom of students, by structuring courses so that they do not make students feel uncomfortable expressing views that disagree with the instructor's?

Are there any guiding principles or resources for how these issues should be navigated?  What are the social norms within academia?  Are there any lines that, if crossed, might lead to disapproval from a significant fraction of fellow academics?  I'm mostly familiar with engineering/science/mathematics courses where this sort of issue rarely comes up, so this is new to me.


texts: Where can I find scientific poster examples?

texts: I have in a few days a scientific conference and I will present my work in the form of a poster. Now I am in the process of looking for models of scientific posters, Please who can help me find some example.


texts:
I have been contacted out of the blue by a seemingly highly motivated high school student who has requested the opportunity to do a research project under my supervision (in the field of stellar astrophysics). I am not opposed to supervising such a young student, but I fear that they will lack all of the prerequisites to even get started on any kind of project.

How should I approach this?


texts: Is this rejection rude? Should I apply to another position in the same University?

texts:
I applied for an adjunct position and never heard back from the school. I emailed them to learn about the status of my application and this is the response I received: Your resume is competitive but doesn't meet our needs. Am I overreacting for thinking that this is a rude rejection letter (well, one sentence!)? There is another position open, but I am hesitant to apply. What would you do if you were me?
p.s.1 Sorry, I know this is a petty question, but I have become very picky since I want to work in a healthy environment.
p.s.2 I am pretty confident I am not underqualified for the position.


texts: How secure is a post doc job offer in an email from the department chair prior to receiving the official written letter?

texts:
I'm in/from the US. I'm finishing my PhD this semester. I've been offered a research postdoc, via email, by the dept. chair at one of my top choices, but outside the US (would rather not give too many details). I replied to say I'm accepting the position. Everyone seems very happy: me, the chair, the professor I intend to work with. But I have nothing in writing.

In the meantime I have an offer for a teaching job at another place much closer, which I would definitely take if I were not getting the above postdoc. I don't feel comfortable turning this down until the other setup is official.

I emailed the postdoc place asking for an official letter. They said they would send it out by mail, but ignored my request for a scanned emailed copy, and I need to give a yes or no answer to the second place before their alleged letter would arrive. I emailed them again about the scanned copy and no response though it has only been a couple days.

How confident should I be that this postdoc is really happening? How common is it for informal agreements like that to be backed out of? Are scanned emailed letters less customary outside the US? It would be terrible of I turned down the teaching job and then the postdoc fell through.

Also, what should I say to the other place if I am still unsure about the postdoc by the deadline for my yes/no?

Update: I got the requested scan of the official letter today. I ran it by my adviser and he says this seals the deal and I can cancel any other interviews. Whew!!!


texts: Should I include information about my mental health in my masters personal statements?

texts:
I graduated in 2016 with a 2:2, which I feel was lower than what I could have achieved.

I had had some minor issues before starting university, however I had an amazing support system and managed to get these in check. I completed my first year with only the normal issues (homesickness at first and adjusting to living away from home) until just before the end. I failed the last two exams of the year, partly due to the same issues that reoccurred later.

I had been struggling with one of my elective modules and after talking with my tutor, he recommended not worrying about it as I could fail 20 credits and as a 10 credit module, it would not affect my grade. However, the day of I woke up and completely panicked, zoning in and out all morning. I walked to the exam, and blanked and ended up in my department building instead of the exam hall, which was 20 minutes away and I had to run down a very steep hill to make it to the exam. But I made it and sat the exam.

I injured my knee while running. The problem with this is that my main coping method is exercise and I was on crutches. I then managed to completely space out for the last exam of the year. Meaning I failed both these modules, which was my 20 credit allowance. Despite this I averaged a high 2:1 for the year.

I went into my second year, with added roles and responsibilities. I had lived in catered accommodation in first year and moved to self catered in my second year. I became the social secretary of the physics society and started another sport (total of three) I had been a super human in my first year and wanted to do more. This turned out to be a bad idea, as my mental health started to decline, and my grades took a hit.

I then tried to pull them back up in my third year, but poor living conditions caused a physical health decline, which then exacerbated the mental health problems to a point where some days I couldn't get out of bed.

The main problem being that in my third year I was living with some really shitty people and they were really scathing of mental health issues, meaning I didn't seek the help I needed and am now getting and didn't apply for special circumstance. Hindsight really is 20:20.

I have taken time out of my career to get this sorted and to make sure that I am taking the right path for me. I have now ruled it down to three possible paths and want to apply to see what I can do.

I just want to know whether I should mention these issues and the steps I've taken in my time off to overcome these, on my personal statement. I don't seem to get anywhere else to put this and none of my previous lecturers know about this to mention on any references.


texts: How much involvement should my advisor have in deciding my availability and actions for me?

texts:
I worked in the industry for a few years before starting my PhD and learned many do's and don'ts in the workplace for how you guide subordinates to attend meetings and do things you want them to do. I'm having trouble finding the right mix of transparency/professionalism/availability that I can expect to have with my advisor. Some examples that seem to be ok with my advisor related to availability include:

Advisor tells me I should work and come in over academic breaks
When I'm late for a meeting, sends me an email that says "you're late, get here". Advisor is often late for their own meetings.
On a flight back from a conference, holds a research meeting.
When scheduling a meeting, advisor asks for conflicts, then judges the importance of my conflict vs the meeting. Tells me the meeting is more important.
Advisor schedules recurring meeting over the time I have to eat lunch, tells me I should eat during the meeting
Urges that I come to weekend/post-5pm informal meetups, if I say I cannot attend, asks why my conflict is more important?

Other oddities include:

During research meeting with 15 students, the meeting table is crowded. I grab a chair 5 feet away. Advisor tells me to stand for the meeting (with a laptop).
Advisor tells me I must share a room with another student at the conference hotel

I can't help but feel demeaned by items on this list. I'm a bit older than other students and have a family, so my conflicts are more frequent. Is this advisor-advisee treatment common in academia? I'm trying to seek out the norms of this community.


texts: How to cite raw data shared by a client?

texts: My capstone student project is a consultation report. How do I cite a raw data sample (extracted from Google AdWords) shared directly by my client? No preference between APA and MLA, it's my only source for the report.


texts: Do Statistics PhD programs require their undergraduate / master's applicants to know measure theory?

texts:
I know that many Statistics PhD students come from undergraduate / master's level math / applied math backgrounds.  So, many will have taken a full-year of introductory real analysis and most likely also complex analysis (and lots of linear algebra and linear algebraic courses, such as scientific computing) -- but perhaps not measure-theoretic analysis.

Would you say that it is imperative to try and take a measure theory course to strengthen one's application to PhD programs in Statistics?

A lot of my classmates are fixated on the idea that measure theory is a necessity for Phd admission, while one professor that I spoke with internally thinks that this is a myth.  But, he is a mathematician, so I'd rather ask the question here, just to gather more information.

Thanks,


texts: Is it possible for reviewers to mistakenly reject a quality paper?

texts:
If I am not wrong, turbo codes was submitted to the ICC conference and rejected but accepted later on.

I want to know if there are other similar works (strong works) that were rejected at first but then accepted and considered revolutionary.


texts:
Will it make any difference if you do a PHD full time or part time ?

In my case my diploma/certificate will mention that the PHD was done part-time, how will this affect my career afterwards? will it have any implications on an academic career ?

The reason for which i have to complete my part-time PHD in 3 years is that i am working at the same university, and my job is actually a researcher on the exact same topic of my PHD. I was initially registered as part-time due to the nature of my situation, but apparently i can change that in to full time, however i want to see if it will be worth the struggle.
I find it unfair that i get the PART-TIME on my diploma although i did in 3 years as any other Full time PHD

Also, i would like to mention that in my case, a part time PHD will also have to be completed in 3 years*, same as the full time PHD.

Lets assume money is out of the question in this case


texts: Supervisor complaining about research work is slow and not doing anything properly. Is it possible to continue with him for long?

texts: I am about to finish my first year of MS leading to Ph.D. Our team works on cable Robotics. At first, when I joined prof asked me to do a computer vision problem of tracking. I spent 5 months to do that job with my coursework as well, and then he asked me to do a human-robot interaction job. I did that as well within 2 months. I've written 2 conferences and 1 journal and about to start the 2nd journal. But my supervisor is not happy with me. He always complains to me about you are slow in learning and doing things. I've changed my major and working in a country where I have a language barrier as well. My prof is not helping me in my research work, he is working on a different field. I came here for the purpose of learning from the Prof. And he will assign me some material to learn as I've just an undergrad degree. What should I do? Should I ask him to split my degree into 2 parts, a Masters and a PhD? So that in a worst case scenario, I can leave with one degree.


texts:
Background: 25 years old, I have a BA in Anthropology, graduated in 2016, but currently working in a field unrelated to my degree.

I have been involved within a scientific organization for the past 3 years doing anthropology related projects. The whole involvement was completely voluntary, though I also got to travel two times to different countries because of it. But overrall, it was money loss + missed chances to start my current job earlier.

During the past 2 years, the organization started to publish a journal with collected papers from other people in this field (most of the authors are known only locally in my country). The director (senior colleague of mine) of the organization started to push me to publish in it to which I, naively, accepted without realizing how actually difficult is to write a good paper. The reason he did this is because I had an experience with few methods which are rare in my country, but then no-one could review them to check if they are done correctly.

I have a draft version of the paper, however, the final results are not quite what I was hoping for. Because of the lack of good quality data, the results are obviously flawed and knowingly publishing bad quality results might hurt me in the long term if I decide to pursue academic career later down the road. But currently, I'm quite satisfied with my job (which is unrelated to anthropology) and I will never put this paper in my CV. Furthermore, I doubt that I will continue working in anthropology in the future.

The only thing that's killing me is that I already promised to deliver a paper, and this would be the second time that I would not send a paper for publishing. The first one that I did not send was when I was 22 (two years ago, because of the same reasons). During that time, the director got a bit offended and told me that some one could benefit from the methods (even though they were never actually reviewed by some professional experienced in applying them, so they could've been flawed).

What would be the best thing to do in a scenario such as this? I really do not like to publish bad quality results. Should I talk with the senior colleague and risk to burn bridges?


texts: How to review bogus science without hurting feelings?

texts:
I've been forwarded a four-page outline of some sort of "theory of everything" whose ambition is to explain just about everything in the universe in terms of particles oscillating in and out of some kind of hidden anti-universe. I've been asked to give my opinion on the theory.

It has all the hallmarks of bogus science written by someone with only the vaguest notions of quantum physics and cosmology (no equations, electrons being defined as the antiparticles of protons, cute drawings). Perhaps more telling is that most of the ideas are unfalsifiable, in the sense that I couldn't think of an experiment that would prove or disprove any of it.

I'd like to give my frank opinion about it without hurting the person's feelings. How should I go about it?


texts: Is it acceptable to contact senior people suggested literature?

texts:
I saw a postdoc at a small workshop, and heard him state his research interests. I didn't speak to him in person, but I later contacted him via email, asking whether he has suggested literature on those topics. I haven't yet received a response after a while.

Is it considered unacceptable to contact someone like this, immediately asking for suggestions on literature?


texts: PhDs in the UK: should you know supervisor beforehand?

texts:
(context: undergrad/integrated masters student in a math-related field, planning on a PhD in a CS-related field)
In Asia (at least in India and Singapore), students are generally expected to personally know (and ideally have worked with) their to-be supervisors before starting their PhD.
So it's common for undergrads to try to contact professors for summer projects -- and professors generally like it, because they get free work done and get a good feel of who may be a good graduate student for them to take later.
In the end of my second year at a UK university, I emailed a couple of professors (in other UK universities) asking for a summer project with some semi-generic topic ideas, but quickly realized this was a major faux-pas since:

I didn't receive a reply, positive or negative, suggesting that it was regarded as spam.
I found that some other professors -- though not the ones I had emailed -- had put notices on their website expressing their dislike of summer internship requests.
I saw a question here that seemed to suggest that such requests are considered spam, although that may only be for generic formats for mass-emailing professors (which is not what I did).

So I realize that I don't really know how "getting into a PhD programme" works in the UK. Are you not expected to know a supervisor beforehand? Or do students generally look for other (perhaps less time-consuming for professors) ways to network with potential supervisors, like emailing them about their work?


texts: Is it worth seeking disability accommodations if I get good grades anyway?

texts:
I have bipolar disorder and take medications that make me foggy and confused.  Because of this I am thinking of asking for extra time on tests.  But I generally score in the upper half of my classes, even when I am taking my medication.  Should I still register with the disability office?

Also, my advisor is teaching the class I'm taking, and many of the TAs are people I already know, who may think I am trying to game the system.

Edit: Also, do you think I should try to get accommodations for my qualifying exams?  Or are those not a thing?


texts: What exactly does termination from a PhD program entail?

texts:
I am an engineering PhD candidate at a US university. I left the university a couple of years ago after 5yrs of PhD work to work as an independent scientist, while also working with my advisor on the completion of my PhD on the side (while not being enrolled in the university all this while). I received a notice recently from the department asking me to defend my thesis ASAP or risk being terminated from the PhD program.

What exactly does termination mean, and what does it entail?

On a side note, what are the implications of such a termination on my professional career in the industry? For ex. does it show up in a background check? I have a Bachelor's (from another university) and Master's degree (from the same university).


texts: I need to gauge my chances of landing a postdoc - should I send an e-mail to the contact on the job advertisement?

texts:
I'm a recent PhD graduate looking to work in academia. I have applied for an assistant position (let's call it position A) that I think I have good chances of getting, that starts really soon. However, there is a postdoc position advertised (let's call it position B) in a different institution, which I think would be more beneficial to my career, and which starts a few months later. Trouble is, if I apply for position B now I won't hear back from them until after position A has already started. Also, position B seems to be far less certain.

So I need to gauge the relative risk involved in refusing position A if I get an offer. I was thinking of emailing the contact for position B beforehand, saying something like "I have such-and-such qualifications, do I stand a chance?" but then again I don't want to put them on the spot or make a bad impression. I mean, I know that they can't guarantee I'll get position B, and I don't expect that, but there's the danger that they may interpret my e-mail in this way. I'd like to explain to them that there is another position that I have very good chances of getting, so I need to calculate the risk (again, I know that I may end up not getting position B anyway, I just want to know if getting it is a serious possibility). Should I send such an e-mail, and if so, how should I word it so that it is received well?

I should also mention that I have personally met the contact in question and discussed my work with them in the past, and they will remember me in that respect. At the very least, I'd like to not ruin this relationship.

I really don't know what the right thing is, and I hope you'll understand my anxiety. Any advice will be appreciated... thanks!


texts: Is there any difference between journals and conferences which charge money vs those which don't?

texts: Some journals and conferences charge money before/after paper acceptance, similarly there are some which don't (like Open Access Journals). Does money matter in judging such journals/conferences before sending paper ? Unfortunately my organization is on a cost cutting and isn't funding for any such activities. Is there a list of journals which do not charge fees or charge modest fees, so that I can publish there on my own ?


texts: How similar does a potential supervisors research have to be to mine?

texts:
The proposal I’m shopping around revolves around three broad topics and I’m coming across a lot of academics who are experts in one or two of these areas and I have only been able to find one who hits all three, but working with him is not going to happen for various reasons. I have not been able to find a university that has, even multiple academics who can collaboratively meet all my specialties.

My question is, is it advisable to do your PhD under academics, who together aren’t experts in all the main topics you’re researching.

Also, if you’ve gone through a potential supervisor’s research and they have only ever used the quantitative method and your proposed study will be using the qualitative method, can they still adequately supervise you?


texts: Can we submit accepted and online published IEEE journal (IEEE-JBHI) article to arXiv?

texts: I was reading that submitting a research article to arXiv gives it better visibility. I was wondering if I can submit a research article that is accepted and published in the IEEE-JBHI, to arXiv?


texts: ask PI for more acknowledgement of good work / affirmation

texts:
Setting: PhD student (5th year) at a US research university. Non-native English speaker.

We have a great boss, however sometimes it seems that good things are not being highlighted enough. For example, recently we have published two papers, and it was barely acknowledged. One of the papers was first for the grad student and another took 6 years to publish (i.e. significant achievements).

I think that our whole lab would benefit from more affirmation of good work and good effort that is being made. On the surface, publications, grants awarded, maybe even papers drafted, should be celebrated and highlighted publicly. Same goes for extracurricular activities around the lab (there are few people who contribute significantly to upkeep of lab). I would like to see our lab's work improved, it is not just personal feeling of indignation (which there is a bit :-) As far as I know, positive reinforcement of good behaviors is a proven method of making things better.

How can I bring this up with my professor, or at least express that I wish to see that change?

My take would be somewhat direct:

  I thought that we should celebrate more the achievements around the lab. We talked often about publishing more, so maybe we need to highlight efforts better. It would be especially great to hear from you more often when we do good work.

PS: As I am not native English speaker, I also would like to use some precise language. I have talked to senior colleague, who agreed with my assessment, but haven't given advice on addressing the issue.

PPS: migrated from Workplace@SE based on comments there


texts: How has this decision affected my academic career? (1 year gap)

texts:
I will just project my mind here and see where it goes. A lot of this will seem childish/immature/ Due to various problems from a multitude of directions in my life; some serious, some idiotic (mid-life crisis at 18?! What the hell was I thinking); I decided to defer my enrollment to Imperial College London last year. I will now be joining the Theoretical Physics course this October. For some reason I felt I did not have enough life experience to go to university but I ended up getting a job in consultancy and have plans to travel for a while before going to uni in five months.

On paper it seems there is not much wrong but I am telling you it is not so. The pain of not learning anything new is a lesser one than others but still one I feel keenly. The knowledge of being behind on the treadmill of life compared to my friends is also worrisome. When I read about my lifelong idols (Feynman, Erdos, Einstein etc.), people I respect greatly, I feel for some reason I can never think on the same plane as them anymore due to missing out on a full year of education. I know how silly that sounds, but the feeling is there nontheless.

Either way, feelings aside, how will this year gap affect me career-wise? If there was an alternate-reality, naïve version of me who went to university straight away, what advantages would they have over me? What will professors think when when/if I apply for a PhD? What percentage of academics have also had a similar break, roughly?

Basically I just want to count my losses and ensure I extract as much juice out of the next 5 years as possible, so I look upon this period as just part of my life rather than an ugly blotch. Thanks for reading.


texts: Is a 12-month open access mandate compatible with a 12-month embargo period?

texts:
The conditions of my research grant say that I must ensure open access to the peer reviewed publications describing project results by making them available in a repository "within twelve months of publication" (the accepted manuscript is enough).

Springer's conditions for the embargo period say "Authors may self-archive the author’s accepted manuscript of their articles on their own websites. Authors may also deposit this version of the article in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later."

Are these two things compatible? My understanding is that they are, because the day that comes exactly twelve months after publication is both the last day that is "within twelve months of publication", and the first day that is "12 months after official publication or later", so by making the publication available exactly that day I would be complying with both the funding agency and the publisher. But not being a native English speaker, I'm not 100% sure.


texts: Having a lot of papers published in unimportant conferences VS very few in good ones?

texts:
I'm always confused when I see a lot of PhD students looking to publish papers, even if the papers are not so good. They publish them in not so important conferences or workshops. Is that a good thing? Is it good to have a lot of papers published even in not so popular conferences? Like what is better: to have 10 papers in not so famous conferences or workshops or 1 or 2 in a very famous and good ones?

I have never published a paper before and new to this.


texts: Style of Publications chapter of PhD thesis

texts:
I am writing my PhD thesis currently, and I am wondering about examples of the style for the list of publications (by myself).

I should mention, that my thesis is the classical type meaning a monogram, not just my publications stapled together with some filling, which has become common in some places. I expect around 150 pages in all (field is physics, for reference).

The work that has been published is already included in the thesis in one chapter per publication (plus other chapters of course, for methodology, introduction etc).
The list of publications would be an appendix.

I am using the Arsclassica style, and doing it similarly to the Publications chapter used in ClassicThesis, see page 9 in the ClassicThesis pdf.

It looks nice, but I also heard that some people also include the front page of each publication as a figure or similar. Does anyone have examples of that, or ways to implement it nicely?

From the answers/comments I can conclude, and totally agree, that since it's so flexible, it probably doesn't matter much. I was just looking for different options/inspiration.


texts: Choosing full time vs part time on a PhD application, is one necessarily better than the other for increasing chances of admission?

texts:
Don't know if relevant, but I'm applying for PhD programs in math.

In general for grad school apps*, if I'm asked if I want full time or part time, I choose both if I am allowed to do that.

Is there necessarily a better choice if I am not allowed to tick both or pick either?

I mean:

Does part time indicate I'm open to working at the university as a grad/teaching assistant (and hence full time indicates not being open to such work?) ?
Or does part time indicate that I would have other commitments and so would not be seen as a whole hearted student (and hence full time means that I would be a whole hearted student)?

There may be some other things I'm not considering. Please answer in general. Which option, if I have to choose only one, gives an applicant a better chance of getting in the university?

If this depends on the program, please give examples of programs where indicating full time is a better choice and examples of programs where indicating part time is a better choice

To make this clear, I'm not asking if it's better to take a PhD full time instead of part time or vice-versa. I'm asking which is better in applications assuming I am open to either and am allowed to pick only one.

*or for example databases in ETS or QS Grad School Tours


texts: What is the difference between SCI and SCIE?

texts:
I knew that the difference between SCI (Science Citation Index) and SCIE (Science Citation Index Expanded) is that SCI has a list of top quality journals, while SCIE includes more than the former.

I found a link that seems to support this previous statement. However, I can't find any official information on this regard.

Does someone has some official links to what the difference is? if any.


texts: Academic year awards - best thesis, most promising student, significant contributions to the field, etc

texts:
What are some typical ways that a department determines these awards?

Do thesis committees meet to discuss the year's thesis submissions and use some sort of voting system?  What about awards such as most promising PhD student, or for significant contributions to field X?  Is it also a meeting + voting system from a committee of tenured professors?