texts:
I am writing a briefing paper, and it only consists of facts and citations. Literally every sentence is a quote or a link to another source.

The topic of the paper is pretty much covered and there are no problems with a structure of it (my supervisor told that). The problem is that it is too dry.

How do I add my own comments to it?

I struggle expressing my own thoughts and I do not have an experience with writing. I do not feel like I am qualified to comment on such topics, in some way I feel like adding my own point of view is not right, as everyone should make their own conclusions from the given information. Am I wrong?


texts: How do you send personalized information to each student in Moodle?

texts:
My institution uses Moodle as our learning management system. I want to send some information to each student that is personalized to each student but without any other students seeing it. This is a need I often have from time to time, but my most recent need is to give each student a  unique ID to access a separate online resource.

In the past, I have done things like posting a spreadsheet with all student information, except that I somewhat hid their student IDs by only showing the last four digits of their student IDs: that way, students could identify which row applied to them, but could not easily tell which one applied to any other student (unless they already know their student ID). This is an unsatisfying solution, since a student who knows another student's ID would then know their information.

Is there a way to send small bits of information customized to each student? I'm imagining some sort of interface where I could maybe upload a spreadsheet with each row having a student IDs and the custom information in other columns, and then students would only see own their uploaded information, not any other students' information.

Edit: In response to one of the answers: my point here is that I am looking for an automated solution where I can post feedback to many students (whether 20 or 200) at one time, yet personalized based on some criteria (in my example, giving them individual IDs for an external computer system). So, individual entry of feedback one-by-one is not an option for my need here.

Note: I've searched around other StackExchange sites, and Academia SE seems to be the one that would be best for responding to specific how-to questions for Moodle. I'm surprised there is no tag for "Moodle" or even for "learning-management-system".


texts: Changing the indexing on IEEE style citations on a Microsoft Word document

texts:
I have referenced a source on Microsoft Word 2016 using the IEEE style like so:
[1] C. Petzold, Code - The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, 1st ed., B. Ryan, K. Atkins
    and J. Fuchs, Eds., New York City, New York: Microsoft Press, 2000, pp. 250-251.

Later, after adding some other sources, I want to change the page numbers on the first source ([1]).
However, this gives me:
[11] C. Petzold, Code - The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, 1st ed., B. Ryan, K. Atkins
     and J. Fuchs, Eds., New York City, New York: Microsoft Press, 2000, pp. 115-127, 136, 250-251.

As you can see, this changes the index from [1] to [11].
Is there a way to keep the indexing the same throughout even after edits?


texts: What does "Experience as a superior" mean?

texts:
In the process of applying for a particular faculty position in computer science in Finnland, I got stuck when answering the question

  Experience as a superior

The choices from the dropdown menu are

No experience
Less than 1 year
1-2 years
2-5 years
5-10 years
over 10 years

What could they mean exactly by "a superior"? (Before you cane me: yes, I  asked my contact but have not recieved an answer yet.)


texts: When choosing the institute as a Phd candidate, what aspects should be considered? (In Germany)

texts:
I have finished M.Sc. in Stuttgart, Germany (computational structural mechanics field) and planning to do Phd. Afterward, I would go to industry after Phd.
So, I would like to have your opinions about what aspects should be considered when choosing the field (or institute). I know the top priority is my academical interest. But if there are two topics (or two fields) I equally am interested in, what speculation should be taken account? For example, in Germany, is the power of supervising professor in academia, so could the professor be one of the resources when I am looking for the job in the relevant field?


texts: Going back to university after suspension, how do I move past the shame?

texts:
I was suspended for 1 year from my university for copying an assignment from an online source. There were several extenuating circumstances but I won't go into them as they are irrelevant, I did cheat and I do deserve the punishment I was given - that is not the question.

After I found out my sentence, I found it very hard to attend classes relating to that department, or to look professors or my deans and advisors in the face and carry out conversations with them. The professor who's class I cheated in is one I was hoping to talk to as she is in the same area that I hope to go into one day and I really enjoyed her class, teaching methods, and enthusiasm for the subject. I also am extremely saddened by the fact that since I'm a fourth year, this means all my peers will be graduating and will have left by the time I come back and I'm finding it hard to cope with the thought of being without them for the rest of my undergraduate career.

My question is how do I cope with the stress and shame I am feeling and how do I get over that so that I can return to the academic environment in 1 year? Can I ever approach that professor again, or should I avoid her? I'm asking this here because I'd like the opinions of those who are on the other side of this.


texts: Short citation style for a fellowship proposal

texts: I am writing a NASA fellowship proposal and I am trying to bring down my page count. I am allowed to pick my citation format and I am trying to think of one that would take up a little less room than the ISME Journal style I am using currently. I'd like a style that still has in-text citations but abbreviates the references at the bottom, maybe by using fewer authors and shortening titles. Bonus points if it already exists in the Zotero style repository. If there aren't any good options, I'll edit my own style but I was wondering if there was anything that might just work out of the box.


texts: How to write a white paper for a non-academic?

texts:
I am an apprentice employed to do mechanical engineering but my real passion has always been computing.

I recently came up with IMHO a good idea to help mitigate DDoS attacks on web servers. I would like to do a write-up of my idea to help contribute to some personal portfolio perhaps so it would help me get into a career in computing if/when I decide to take that path.

I have no exposure to University resources etc but feel a white paper on this topic is probably the best way to present it. So how should I go about writing an academic paper as an outsider to academia?


texts: Including conferences in the CV of an undergraduate student

texts:
Do you think it is important to include a list of attended conferences in your CV when you are an undergraduate student?

And what about the seminars you have attended which did not provide you with a certificate confirming you took them? Should they be mentioned too?


texts: Would research internship experience lower my chance of getting a technical job?

texts:
I am a CS/EEE person. A resident of India. I am hoping to apply for an internship in either BARC or TIFR. These are internships related to research. A senior told me that having a Research Internship in his CV counted against him for a technical job interview.
Is this true? Should I rather apply for a Technical Internship instead? The kind of job I am looking to do later is a technical one, not one related to research.

CS/EEE -- Computer Science / Electrical and Electronics Engineering
BARC -- Bhabha Atomic Research Centre
TIFR -- Tata Institute of Fundamental Research


texts: Can master's thesis be simply a description of an original algorithm?

texts:
I'm in a situation where I've probably bitten off more than I can chew. I decided to do my master's thesis on an original (as in, invented by me) machine learning algorithm, which I believe (and my advisor agrees) is interesting and might have something to contribute to the academia.

As a part of the thesis I wanted to implement the algorithm. However, implementing it is turning out to be a major pain. I've been working on the implementation for several months and the end is still nowhere in sight. Due to this, I'd like to change my thesis to be simply a description about the algorithm and comparison of it to existing, similar algorithms.

So my question is, is it feasible to have an original, unproven and untested idea as the main focus of your thesis? This feels iffy to me: master's thesis is supposed to be a sign of academic maturity, but nothing seems more unacademic to me than publishing an untested and unproven idea in the form of thesis, and not even having a working implementation of it.

I'd really appreciate advise, dragging this thesis is really getting the better of me. Thanks.


texts: Department member forwarded complaint about professor to that professor

texts:
I am an undergraduate at a US college. I wanted to take a course in a specific area of my major so that I could do better research during the summer. I do not have the prerequisite courses but I have extensive industry experience in this area so they are much less relevant. The course instructor (A) was ok with allowing me. I tried to respectfully ask permission from the department undergraduate advisor (B) but he refused permission right away and wasn't interested in what I had to say.

In a last-ditch attempt to be able to take the course, I emailed a higher-ranking professor (C) in the department explaining the issue and asking if she could help. This professor (C) forwarded my email to the original advisor B, who immediately sent me a nasty email saying that I don't dare ask someone else after I asked him.

While I can understand why the advisor reacted this way, why would a department member forward an email explaining a problem between a professor and student to the professor? I cannot wrap my head around it. Is this normal behavior for academic faculty?


texts: Is it approriate to point out errors in the literature review in a thesis?

texts:
In a couple of either books or articles that I have read as part of my research there have been some minor errors (when taken in context of the whole work) when they relate to the area I am researching. My general research area is History.

For example one is, Area A operated as a B. Wherein fact it should have said Area A operated as a C.

The reasoning I was thinking of referring to them is to highlight while there is good literature on the topic I'm researching, sometimes errors can occur in more general histories which (hopefully) my thesis can address.

Is it appropriate to refer to such errors in that context?


texts: As an undergraduate student, should I put my temporary address and manuscript on my CV?

texts:
I'm an undergrad applying to REUs. I've done an REU before and taken independent research classes, but I'm afraid that will only look bad since I don't have any publications in spite of my research experience. I have a manuscript we're planning to submit. I know you're generally not supposed to indicate manuscripts on your CV if they haven't even been submitted, but does that look as iffy for undergrads as it does for a grad student/beyond?

Most of the CV templates I've seen online for students include their addresses. Is that just for the purposes of receiving physical mail? I don't really have an address when school isn't in session, but one of my research advisors lets me use her address for mail. Would that be fine or do they need to know where I live for some reason?


texts: Do all references in a reference list need to be cited in text?

texts: Can a reference list for a research paper contains references for resources that are never cited in the text but was useful for the research?


texts: How to regrade an exam that was too difficult?

texts:
Our multiple choice exam was clearly too difficult.

N questions.
N + 10 total duration (in minutes).
All questions have the same value (100 / N).
Wrong answers have a penalty of 25% (25 / N).
Only one correct answer per question.

What strategies do you recommend to consider reviewing the grades?

What we though of:

Remove the penalty for wrong answers.
For each student, increase the value of each correct answer.
Add X (e.g. 10 points) to each final result.
Add X% (e.g. 10%) to each final result.
Remove the questions with worst performance.

We can combine options and each one has advantages and drawbacks. Note that we use absolute grading (not grading on the curve).

What is your experience?

Follow-up: Thank you all for the feedback. In the end, we decided to review each question. In some cases (four in total), we decided to consider as correct some of the incorrect options that were not 100% clear (and had a significant number of students choosing them). Plus, we added a bonus of +1 points to all students. We kept the penalty for wrong answers since it would be unfair to remove it.


texts: apply for faculty while working in industry

texts: For a department focused more on industrial interactions, will going to work in industry for a while before applying for a faculty position in that department be recommended/helpful?


texts: "In the event of failure, the candidate will be asked to withdraw from the Graduate Program.", How is it different from being fired?

texts:
This is from a document explaining the procedure for the comprehensive exam for entering the Ph.D. candidacy at my school. It mentions that the potential candidate should withdraw from the Ph.D. program if they do not pass the comprehensive exam. My question is: What would be the consequences if the potential candidate simply refuses to withdraw? They would be fired, right? Is there any benefit in withdrawing from the program compared to just doing your research and waiting to be fired? Or, it is just the usage of polite language and beating around the bush in this document?
For reference, this is about a university in Canada.


texts: Where do I put the Creative Commons license information in a book?

texts:
We're about to publish a book (conference proceedings) as a PDF online and want to license it under Creative Commons. Before each article, we're giving out information for citing the following article like so:
author, article-title, book-title, publishing-place year, page x–y.

I think it would be best to put the information about the Creative Commons license (in our case CC BY-ND) after this line – what do you think?
Also, I guess it would be a good idea to provide a link to further information about the CC.


texts: Is it ok for one of your letters of recommendation to come from someone in the department/program to which you are applying?

texts:
[See title.] It seems ok, but one might consider it unfair in some sense? I just wanted to make sure this is acceptable. (I am specifically talking about graduate school applications.)

Edit: I apologize for previously withholding some information. Here are some more details.

I am majoring in math and will have two letters from math professors at my undergrad institution.
I also have a letter from a professor in a different department ("probability/statistics") in the same institution and am applying to this department's graduate program.


texts: Citing a source that is yet to be published in a conference proceedings

texts:
I wanted to ask how IEEE cites a paper that is submitted to a conference, approved BUT is yet to be published.

For example, Author A gives a talk entitled Title B in Conference C which is supposed to take place 5 months from now. But the article is accepted already by the conference organizers.

I tried googling it but I was confused on how the answers came about.


texts: How much can you trust a reference of a paper that is not available

texts:
It recently occurred to me that probably more often than it should happen, while reading someones paper, they see a reference to a different paper, and just use the reference without looking.  In my area, a common example is in referencing data, such as average human height, etc.

I came across this as I was looking for data on human dimensions from a somewhat smaller country that does not use English.  I found 9 papers that all referenced the same data sheet.  I then contacted the author of that data sheet and was informed that there is no online version (never has been), and the only print copy exists in that country.  The author herself does not have this book.  I'm guessing the only reason the other authors referenced the data was because the author of the referenced data wrote a paper that referenced her own data.

I am not interested in how to format these citations. I would like to know if it is appropriate to cite this information at all, or cite that someone else cited it.  I am curious as I am not sure about the accuracy of the information.  If I do cite someone else's citation (which i am 99% confident they never saw the data), it seems like I can just make something up myself.  Is there a way to express that maybe this data is accurate, but that I'm not sure, since it is the only available source about that data?  Or should I ignore it all together and pretend as if there is no data?


texts: How do graduate admissions committees view taking a lighter courseload in your final year of undergrad?

texts:
I'm currently an undergraduate Computer Science student entering my fourth year at a Canadian university, planning on applying to graduate programs in Theoretical Computer Science. I'm going to be starting with school in a bit over a week, and I'm still finalizing what courses I plan on taking this coming year. At my school we typically take 5 courses per semester. I'm strongly considering taking a lighter course load (3-4 courses per semester) this year, for a number of reasons, in no particular order:

I've completed all of the requirements for my school's CS program (plus a math minor), and I only need three more courses in any area to finish my degree.
In theoretical CS, I've exhausted all of my university's undergraduate courses in the subject, as well as a couple of grad courses. This year most of my course work will consist of more grad courses in this area.
I'm hoping to spend more time on research this fall. Last year I worked on a research project with a professor, and found myself feeling like I could have gotten more out of it if I had been taking fewer courses at the time.
By taking fewer courses, I can save a few thousand dollars in tuition fees. While I can technically afford the cost of taking a full course load, it doesn't seem to make sense to pay much more than I have to, especially if I can put the money saved towards something else.
Even if I'm not taking as many courses for credit, I'm still planning to audit a few extra courses. These would mainly be outside of my primary area of focus, but where I'm still interested in learning about the material. It would also be less stressful, since I wouldn't have to worry about assignments and exams for these courses.

Overall, I have all of these reasons to justify to myself my plan to take fewer courses during my final year of undergrad. However, I was wondering how this would be seen from the perspective of a graduate admissions committee, since courses that I plan on auditing will of course not be visible on my transcript. I don't want to give off the perception that I had gotten "lazy" in my final year by taking fewer courses, if that makes sense.


texts: What are the main factors driving popularity of US higher education among international students?

texts:
Observation: According to OECD stats, the number of international students at US higher education institutions is the highest in the world and still rising (see also Wikipedia here and a report here).

Question: What are the main factors underpinning the observation above?

I am interested in (partial) answers pointing to studies, or sources of statistical information on the topic, not solely opinions.

This is a reformulation of this question


texts: What to do about negative teaching evaluations during job interviews?

texts:
This past year I taught two undergraduate freshman-level required religion courses (one in the Fall and one in the Spring) and the teaching evaluations from students were rather average-to-poor. These are the only two courses I have taught so far in my career.

Many academic jobs now request you to send proof of teaching excellence along with your application. Have these two courses ruined my chances of getting a full-time job? I don't want to be dishonest and only present a few positive student comments while ignoring the number of negative ones. At the same time I am committed to improving my teaching skills and want to learn from my mistakes.

What is the best way to present this information in a job application? Or should I just not send my evaluations at all?

One more thing I should mention: the student response rate was very low. In both classes less than half of the students filled out the evaluation at all. I don't know if this is relevant (I've read that students with negative opinions tend to be more motivated to fill out evaluations than positive students).


texts: What are good strategies for not losing sight of the novelty and nontriviality of one's work?

texts:
I would like to ask this community for help in finding good strategies for avoiding an aspect of my mindset that I don't much like, which I get when I've been working on a given project for a while - I begin to lose track of how novel and nontrivial the work is, sometimes leading to full-on crises of confidence in my work and, in bad cases, in my capabilities.

This happens to me once I'm rather deep into the project, around the stages of writing it up, defending it in correspondence with referees, and preparing presentations on the subject. (To anchor things a bit, I am a theoretical physicist working on analytical approaches in quantum mechanics.) In the initial stages of the project, and particularly at the times I have significant breakthroughs of either a technical or a conceptual nature, the elation and thrill of discovery will carry me a long way, and I end up building quite elaborate conceptual and mathematical structures that I am quite pleased with.

However, as a result of the familiarity that comes with using those initial breakthroughs over and over again, after some time they begin to 'flatten' in my mind as just regular features of my work, and the nontriviality of the tools I've built begins to wash out as the pains I felt when building them begin to fade into the distance. This is a version of 'familiarity breeds contempt', though maybe contempt is a bit too strong - it's just the over-familiarity that's the problem.

Now, this isn't really burnout, as this doesn't impact my day-to-day motivation to work or the energy I have to do it, and I continue to have interesting questions to work on and interesting answers for them. However, when I'm building a case for my work, particularly in writing, I find it hard to muster enthusiasm about the initial building blocks (usually the key advances in the work, particularly as perceived by an outsider) and to see them as anything other than well-trodden ground and everyday sort of fare. I know that it's because that's the ground I tread on every day, and that no one else does thus far, but it still impacts how I write about those tools and it makes it harder for me to present them with their full impact on the field.

I know that to some extent this sense of 'flattening' comes from the fact that as time goes on, I often find simpler routes to the results and tools of interest, and I know at an intellectual level that the existence of those simpler routes does not negate the effort it took to find the first one. That is, a result X that took months to understand can also be seen by spending a modest amount of effort building Y and then you "just add Z", but that still doesn't mean that the result is obvious to outsiders, and I know that the wholesale replacement of complex machinery for simpler tooling is also an achievement by itself. However, at a gut level, I still struggle seeing the result X in its full nontriviality, and it keeps flattening into just a trivial consequence of Z.

Moreover, I also have a good deal of objective evidence that the results are new and nontrivial, particularly in the fact that if I meet someone and walk them through the work, then the sheer amount of time it takes to go from baseline through the problem and tooling and up to the main results tells me that the material is indeed nontrivial, even after the simplifications. Similarly, the positive feedback I get in those situations tells me the work is worth its salt. However, that often lodges at an intellectual level but fails to register too much at a gut level of emotional handling.

I hope I've been able to describe this mindset sufficiently well. If nothing else, I would like the reassurance of knowing that I'm not the only one that faces this, but more importantly, I would like to know how folks with more punches under their belt handle this kind of situation, and what strategies I can try to regain an outsider's view of how novel and nontrivial my results are.


texts: Why are women even less represented in engineering than in other STEM?

texts:
We know that women in much of the developed countries are less represented in STEM studies. However, such a statement hides the fact that women are approx. half of the students in biology, chemistry and maths (check e.g. here ) but barely 20% in engineering. It is often stated that women tend to choose careers where they feel more useful towards society but that is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the share of women in Chemistry is 50% but only 35% in Chemical Engineering, here. I have tried to find sources that would address this difference but in general the topic treated is STEM as a whole.

Are there studies focusing particularly in this difference in gender representation, engineering vs sciences?


texts: Should I report a labmate who is into drugs?

texts:
I am a second-year PhD student in the US. I work in my lab during the night-time. I find that one of the senior PhD students in my lab is into drugs big league. I would not mind that if it were not to affect me, but it does in two ways - sometimes the smell in the lab during the late hours is horrible, and he moans incongruously and loudly at times without taking others' presence into consideration.

Talking to the supervisor may not be of use, because he takes it coolly and I have heard the two joke about drug use in casual conversations. The fellow PhDs also take fun in his eerie ways, and him being an excellent and helpful chap, they do not want to fuss about his habits.

If at all, should I raise this issue with my advisor, the department or the police? Sometimes I feel I should be silent about it all, bite my teeth and bear it for a year as he will graduate then. But at other times, I am so heckled about being disturbed during my hours of concentration. Is there a discreet way for me to handle this tricky situation?


texts: Open book exam tomorrow but the file with the questions are open to everyone already

texts:
I was going through the files on canvas of my course, then I saw a file called like Examination_(coursename)_2021 and was like "it's probably the practice". I opened it and it seemed like the actual exam, so I sent a message to course group like is this the actual exam? It seems like it is and they asked me to share it with them, which I did. Then I started thinking I should tell my professor that I have access to the questions. I also checked if other people in my class could find the file which they did. So now I'm kind of lost, obviously, I want to do well on the exam but also I don't feel good about it. Although the exam is tomorrow and it is an open book exam, I feel like I should tell my professor just because now my mind isn't focused on the exam at all, I feel I am morally obligated to tell them. Though I would have to tell everyone in my group that I told the professor which I don't think they would be happy about because I asked them if I should tell the professor and they already said no. Another reason I'm worried is that the professor might be able to see when I first viewed the questions, which was a day before, I'm just so lost about what I should do.
Edit:
I think I will tell my professor. However, now I don't know if I should tell the people in my class or just keep it anonymous. I'm worried that if I don't tell my class, some people will only have prepared for the questions and not for the actual course. I definitely regret sharing the exam with the people in my class now, it would've been much easier to have told my professor, if I hadn't shared the questions with the people in my class.
Edit 2:
So I did send an email yesterday and apparently, it was just a past exam from another year. So it's all good. I just completed the actual exam today and feel quite good about it. Thank you to everyone who helped give advice!!


texts:
I have two questions about arXiv and MPRA.

MPRA is a repository for papers in economics; arXiv now accepts papers in theoretical economics. What is the effective difference between the two?
My coauthors and I have a working paper that was deposited at MPRA slightly before arXiv started accepting work in theoretical economics. Without knowing clearly the answer to the first question, it seems that arXiv is the more natural venue for our work (in this paper and others). We have now significantly revised this paper, and would like to put it on arXiv. So

a. Is it acceptable to somehow switch from MPRA to arXiv?

b. If so, would it be acceptable to deposit the revised manuscript at both venues, so that MPRA does not display only a significantly out of date version?

This isn't an attempt to game the system to get more views or citations or whatever. It's an attempt to get as close as possible to the best possible world in which we were able to deposit on arXiv the first time around.


texts: How to save my presentation if the audience does not reply?

texts:
Some time ago, I gave a 60 minutes Zoom presentation in a department seminar.
I usually ask simple questions during my talks, in order to keep the audience awake.
This time, about 15 minutes into the talk, I asked some simple questions and no one replied (I waited for about 30 seconds). I guess they were just not listening; in Zoom it is hard to tell.
Is there anything I can do in this situation in order to "rescue" my presentation?
Or should I just keep talking to "no one" and learn the lesson for the next presentation?


texts: If asked to submit both a shorter and longer abstract, is it possible just to send a shorter one that meets both word limits?

texts:
I saw the following abstract submission guidelines:

  Please submit a 500-word text abstract for technical review purposes that is suitable for publication. Accepted abstracts may be published
  with the printed Technical Program for distribution at the meeting.
  Please also submit a 300-word text abstract suitable for early release. If accepted, this abstract text will be published prior to
  the meeting in the online or printed programs promoting the conference

My question is, how close to the prescribed word count do you have to be? Would it be possible to send one abstract for both requirements?


texts: Journal requires permission to acknowledge people: person not replying

texts:
I am the first author of a paper that we want to submit (Neuroscience). The journal requirement states that the authors should seek permission from any person that they have acknowledged in the paper. Quoted:

  Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

There is a professor from a different university that had given us some advice on how to use their toolbox and we have mentioned his name in the acknowledgments. I have emailed that professor twice asking permission to acknowledge him but have not heard from him (the second email was roughly 10 days after the first). At this stage, it doesn't look like I will receive a reply. I know that the professor is active on Twitter so I am guessing he has seen the email but not replied.

What can I do at this stage? The journal does not require any "proof" of permission to be uploaded. I really don't want to delay the submission of the paper.

1) Would it be ethical to submit this paper even though I have not received permission from the person being acknowledged?

2) What are my options at this stage? Upload the paper but mention that I did not receive a reply in the cover letter (an editor might reject the paper as it does not then meet the journal guidelines)?


texts: Academic faculty expat (Germany) experiences and new research group advice

texts:
I have been offered a W1 professorship to start a research group (CS/Engineering) at a German university and am seeking to learn from others' experiences or someone prepared to be a second-opinion / sounding board outside of the offering institution. In particular, I am interested to hear about the following;

How much leverage did you feel that you have had to negotiate on the package? Granted, that would depends on the situation / competition. In my case, I learned that there was only one other viable candidate.
What did you try / succeed in negotiating in terms of support, resources and package (with respect to relocation costs (spouse, shipping etc) and language course).
In retrospect, what did you wish you tried to negotiate?
Any advice / experience on starting a research group. What would you have done differently? How did you expend your group? which grant schemes did you target? What did you focus on in the first couple of years?
How did you approach industry to seek partnerships / grants?
In my case the professorship is endowed by a large company, what conflicts did you encounter and how were they resolved?
Which academic committees would you recommend to sit on such that one gets sufficient exposure to how the institution works whilst the administrative load is low as to not impede on time for research?
What did you do to establish a specific culture in your group? Share resources, code, libraries, social etc
When and how did you start thinking / working towards the next step (e.g. W2)?
Did you encounter an expat bias?
Any specific cultural or professional dos and do nots?

Some of these questions are not Germany specific, so any advice will be greatly appreciated.


texts: A methods chapter for a PhD thesis comprising multiple closely tied studies?

texts:
You'll notice I have refrained from using "Phd by publication" here, but I think my question might well apply to a PhD by publication, and am happy for my PhD to reside under this category.

Basically - over the course of my Phd I have published in genomics and epidemiology. They will comprise of two results chapters and one combined methods chapter, but the overarching thesis message is that in the future the data types in both realms of research can benefit each other when linked.

Each results chapter will describe the work undertaken in getting multiple papers published - and this is what I am finding difficult. I am writing a standalone methods chapter that describes the general approaches in both research areas, but I keep refraining from going into to too much detail because I feel they need to be presented in close proximity to the results of each paper. I am now finding myself writing the exact methodologies, respective to the results they generate all in the results chapters. It almost seems as if I do not need a standalone methods chapter - but this is science and feels very wrong to think that way!

So what I am asking is: is it entirely possible to have a high-level standalone methods chapter which documents the basic approaches to how I have done my research, listing all the data sources I have used and the software products I have written, to then go on and elaborate in detail during the results chapter? That is, the results chapter than becomes a series of papers with a narrative to link them all together.


texts: Already in grad school, but is grad school for me?

texts:
I'm sure you've seen a dozen variations on this question in this forum, but here's mine:

I've just finished my first year in a top US PhD program in the physical sciences, which I never dreamed I would be admitted to (ok, that's not true; I dreamed about it quite a lot!). It's gone all right, I guess--I wrote some code for my lab, got As in classes (although grades are utterly beside the point). But I'm not sure it's working out, or that I can make it work out. I'm not sure I have what it takes.

I mean, I can hold my own in technical conversations with senior coworkers--even (tactfully) point out flaws in their methods, suggest new approaches, pitch new experiments, and things like that. I've often heard "yeah, good idea!", only for nothing to ever come of it. What's that about? Are they being merely polite? Or am I supposed to be more "enterprising," somehow (whatever that means)? Is it my personality? I'm sometimes told that I need to be more aggressive or self-assured or something like that, but I don't really know what that means (other than "act like more of a jerk"), and don't feel comfortable trying to artificially change my personality in that way. What's wrong with saying "sorry?"

It seems like I'm missing something fundamental, maybe socially. It's been extraordinarily hard for me to get into the flow and be part of the team. Some other students walk into a room where people are discussing a project, make some goofy offhand comment, and get a coauthorship. On the other hand, I'm somehow having a hard time even figuring out who I report to, or if I have a me-project, or how to answer my questions about things like reporting and project ownership. There is something going on that I'm deaf to. I don't get it. Students at $PRESTIGIOUS_INSTITUTION aren't supposed to have this problem.

I also haven't really made any friends here. I'm on the shy side, but this isn't like me. I never knew I was so socially inept. If I'd been able to make friends, I wouldn't be bothering you kind people.

On top of it all, I'm no longer very sure that I believe in my subfield. It's not what I want to think about anymore when I go home. But I'm too old now to throw away the last couple years and start over.

I feel like I've wasted my year. Like I'll never, ever, ever be able to get a thesis together. Is all this the "bad fit" that people talk about when it comes to picking a lab? Am I just incompetent? Do I like reading about science more than I like doing it? Who do I even talk to about this? What do I say, and how do I get answers? Am I just completely trounced? Why don't I go take a job in industry and >quadruple my salary?

Maybe it's as simple as "you're fine; this is normal. Get some sleep and go join a club to find friends. Then you'll get less unhappy, and your work situation will improve." I just don't know.

I know there are no clear answers here, but maybe others have had similar experiences. Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this kind of question, or if there are rules around asking imprecise questions or ones that are similar to previous ones. I also know that it's borderline impossible to infer my actual experiences or mental state from this kind of limited view, so there's no easy way for you to judge what's really going on. But I thought I'd try. Thanks.


texts: Should I cite an article that I can't find?

texts:
I am facing a problem, the article seems a very important reference that everyone talking about the subjects is citing it. However, looking at these articles, they can't give a reference or link to the cited article. Even I use the volume number, article number to search on the net, I still can't find it.

For example, this article, only the second reference doesn't have a pdf link pointing to it. I think the author may be like me can't find the article, but sees others citing it in a very important position, so he also cites it. I can't exclude the possibility that the author reads a paper-based version.

When you search the citing article, many of them can't give a link to that paper, and I can't find it either. Should I cite it anyway? Because from the inspection, this paper seems an indispensable reference when talking about the subject. On the other hand, I can't find it (even on the official site) and I didn't read the abstract or even the title. I think this is not quite equal to the case where the article is behind the paywall, because behind the paywall you at least see the title and abstract.


texts: What do you do when you are asked to perform an official review for a journal of a manuscript written by your supervisor?

texts:
I was just handed a paper for review (official review request by an editor of a journal) written by my current supervisor (the guy with the grant). I have not been involved in this work, and I don't feel inclined to dish out any free goodwill on behalf of him being my supervisor.

I'm well qualified to review it, and I think I would do a good job of it, but I'm worried that this constitutes a conflict of interest, and that I should decline. What is common practice around reviewing co-workers' papers?


texts: I am willing to apply for advertised PhD position in Sweden. Whom should I address my cover letter?

texts:
I am willing to apply for advertised PHD position in Sweden. In the instructions to apply they have mentioned about the required documents which include CV, cover letter, transcripts. I have two questions regarding this

They have not asked for a separate statement of purpose (SOP). So, should i include my motivation and research interest in the cover letter?
Whom should i address my cover letter? to the professor who have given this advertisement or to the department or admission office?


texts: My supervisor won't accept that I won't stay in the lab for a PhD

texts:
I have recently graduated a M.Sc. I have agreed with my supervisor that I will complete the work required in order to make my project publishable (we have agreed that this does not entail any additional analysis, only revisions of the manuscript, polishing some figures etc.) and another small project.
Despite the fact that I have made it clear to my supervisor that I am not interested in any further projects, he keeps offering my to stay in the lab for various projects.
Last week I have informed my supervisor that I have decided to take up a job unrelated to the lab.
The day after I received from him a text message offering me to stay in the lab and work on extension of my project in collaboration with another PI
I replied to him that I thank him for the offer but I that I prefer the job I have taken for personal reasons.
Today I have received an email from our collaborator, most probably written at the behest of my supervisor offering me a joint position with him and my supervisor on some expansion of my masters' project.

While this offer is legitimate in itself, I find it disturbing that my supervisor won't respect my will not do any further work with him.
I have to emphasize that what I have described above was just the latest in a long series of such attempts to persuade me to stay. Typically I say something along the line of "I don't want to stay in the lab because I won't to focus on X (X being some topic/method outside our group's speciality)" to which my supervisor will reply by either trying to persuade me that focusing on X is a bad idea or how can stay with him and still do X.

I also think I have good reasons not to want further work with my supervisor. Namely:

Our areas of interest are fairly different. Based on my experience during my masters' I don't think my supervisor has neither the will nor the required background to guide me in the approaches and methods I am interested in and is unlikely to to allow me to pursue these directions on my own.
We appear to have differences in our basic approach to what constitutes a good scientific work.
We do not have a good inter-personal communication which means that our differences leads to a constant conflict between us.
All of the above causes me considerable emotional distress. In fact, I feel that I have extended as much energy during my masters' on dealing with these emotional issues then on tackling the scientific problem at hand.
Since I know that other students of my supervisor have a much better communication with him, and since I had a very good experience with another PI I am working with, I think that problem doesn't lie squarely with neither of us.

I have started attending psychological consultation a few months ago and am trying to work out my emotions from my side, but I do not think staying in an environment that causes me this kind of distress is a good idea.

My goal is to find a way to convey to my supervisor the message that I am not willing to accept any more offers of this kind from him. I do not want to discuss my reasons with him because he will again attempt to persuade me why I'm wrong, and I definitely don't want to discuss my emotional issue with him.

Any advice on how to do that will be most appreciated.


texts: I prefer paper documents when reviewing manuscripts and grants. While these are confidential documents and generally sent to me electronically, they generally do not come with any instructions not to print them. Am I required to shred them or can I throw them out in my office or put them in the communal recycling bin?


texts: To publish or not to publish a paper in an ERA "type C" conference?

texts:
I have been researching a topic in Computer Science for several years now. The topic was interesting, but while I managed to get some conclusive results, I was not completely happy about them. It was like something was missing, but I knew that I really needed to talk to somebody more specialized in the topic, but unfortunately a lot of external professors that I contacted did not have enough time to collaborate. Anyway I submitted it to two conferences, which were ranked like B according to the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) schema:

A* - flagship conference
A - excellent conference, determined by a mix of indicators
B - good conference, determined by a mix of indicators
C - other ranked conference venues

The final verdict at both conferences was a weak reject. So I made the corrections that the reviewers suggested and submitted it to another conference. This new conference has a rank of C, but it deals with the subject that I was making research; the final verdict was accepted as a borderline paper.

Now, the question that I have is that if I should present my paper at that conference, or should I try to fix other things and resubmit to other higher-ranked venues? For me it would be more practical to leave it as is, and let another researcher pick it up if she is so interested.


texts: finalising a postdoc employment contract

texts:
I have been offered a 2-year postdoc position in a good Dutch university. What they sent me so far is an email stating that they would like to offer me the position, and whether I would like to take up this position. I then replied with a yes instantly. Does this exchange of emails constitute a formal appointment decision (and acceptance)? I heard from others that it will take some time for them to formulate an employment contract. So what I shall do in the meantime is to wait and not to push them?

Also the PT's preferred start date is 1st February. What does 'start date' mean exactly? Is this the date that I will start getting paid? the date that I actually start working? If this is the case, does a starting date of 1st Feb imply that I should arrive earlier, say, in January to look for accommodation and sort everything out before 1st Feb?

Thanks in advance!


texts: Doing a PhD or starting an industrial career?

texts:
I will finish my Master degree in electrical engineering (in Germany) soon, but at the moment I am quite unsure about my future after that. Quite some of my fellow students just joined the institutes of the university whose professors supervised their Master's Theses. There they will work as assistants of the professor and go for the PhD.
I have to do an industrial internship during the next months to finish my Master. After that, I would have the opportunity to join my institute as PhD candidate as well (I know that because one of my friends already told me that they are looking for staff at the moment).
Now I am stuck with the decision whether to go for a PhD or to start working in the industry. Usually I really enjoy research and solving problems while exploring some new topics, like I did in my Master's Thesis. But when I think back to the time of my thesis, there were several problems and "wrong" results (that partly contradicted theory, like wrong simulations) that caused a lot of frustration. Back then, it took half a year to write my thesis, but a German PhD in engineering will take 5-6 years. To be honest, I was really relieved when this half year of writing the Master's Thesis was over and I achieved to submit a really good thesis.
Another thing that discourages me is the way that scientists seem to work these days: The university/faculty/professor wants you to publish at least one paper during a certain period of time. But that contradicts my vision of science: You should publish papers if you discovered something new or at least relevant in a field of study, not because some schedule tells you to.
My supervisor at work (who has a PhD) told me that you should never go for a PhD just for having the title or having better career options. He said that you should truly enjoy research because those 5 or 6 years will be a very tough and often frustrating time. If you lack the passion of research you should not go for it.
I am quite clueless at the moment. My basic goal in life is to be happy in general, not necessarily obtaining the highest educational degree. I really do not know if I have the frustration tolerance to find joy in these 5-6 years of doing a PhD.

Long story short:
Which advice would you give any Master graduate who is facing the choice of whether he should start an industrial career or go for a PhD? Can you provide some experiences of your time as PhD candidate? Which questions would you see as most important to be answered to make this decision?

Best regards!


texts: Should I round up or down my GPA on a resume?

texts: My current cumulative GPA is 3.875. When filling in my information on an online job-site, I can only choose between entering 3.9 or 3.8. In this case, should I round up to 3.9 or round down to 3.8?


texts: Can't attend conference due to canceled travel grant

texts: I am a postdoc fellow and my abstract has been accepted for present at an international conference. I also paid the registration fee and now my name is on schedule of talks. Unfortunately, I was informed that the provider of my scholarship has already canceled the travel grants for all postdocs (because of shortage of money). Due to long distance between the country where I am staying and the country where the conference will be held, therefore, the price of tickets is too high and I will not able to buy the ticket on my money. On the other hand, I believe that having a presentation in this conference will have an excellent effect on my C.V. Is it possible to ask the conference to keep my abstract in their book of abstracts if I can not go there?


texts:
Assume that the student (during his PhD) is faced with a problem which he and his advisor are both completely new to. The advisor is trying to help the student but owing to his lack of experience/knowledge/intuition in the field, is unable to help much. What is the etiquette for the student to seek external help (particularly professors who have dealt with such problems and maybe their grad students)?

Is it necessary to inform your advisor before going to other professors for help?
How should one introduce the subject of external help when the advisor is clearly interested in tackling the problem without any help?


texts:
There are research papers that focus on the presentation and analysis of application of a specific idea on a specific subject; e.g. how a closed-loop (in contradiction to an open-loop) can help patients with early symptoms of Parkinson's disease, experiencing low-amplitude tremor. It includes the application of a specific method (closed-loop) to a specific case of study (Parkinson's disease, early symptoms) using measurements and experimental data that are relevant to this study only and could probably not be useful under a different set of assumptions.
There are also other types of papers where the authors only need to give a general scope a method or set of methods, without considering the uniqueness of any specific case, and by using simpler models and more general assumptions; e.g. how to use closed-loop interventions, to shift brain activity from an initial arbitrary pattern to another.
Are there names for these two types of research papers, based on the above distinction?


texts: Can I ask my supervisor how long would it take to complete my PhD before beginning my PhD studies and post getting acceptance letter?

texts:
Can I ask my supervisor how long would it take to complete my PhD before beginning my PhD studies and after getting my acceptance letter? If so, what would be the best way to do so?
Country: US/Canada
Duration: It is not open ended like Europe. Depends on Professor here.


texts: Stop someone Publishing a thesis without giving credits to original author

texts: I am serving notice period and have written a thesis, matured enough to be published. All the work related to thesis has been done solely by me while I was working there before resignation. Now I am almost sure that my Manager will publish it without giving any due credits to me. How can this be tackled without confronting them?


texts:
I contacted a professor about working on research with him. I met with him in person and he let me know he wanted to work with me, that he would be my research advisor, and if I applied to the department he would get funding for me. I applied to the university, got accepted into the program then filled out a TA application.

I was informed by my research advisor that I was selected as a TA and that I would receive my offer letter soon in the mail. It has been several months since I was told that and he checked on the delay and said that the TA offer letters were being held up in the provost's office for some reason. Classes start in August and I still haven't received my offer letter. Is this sort of thing common, or should I start to worry? My research advisor has guaranteed me I will be funded and I have nothing to worry about.


texts: Difficulties with advisor inattention during MSc

texts:
I'm currently half-way through my graduate research program. I have two advisors, one that was supposed to be my main advisor (who
admitted me into the program) and a co-advisor. Over the past few months, I feel that my main advisor has all but abandoned my efforts.

We're supposed to have weekly meetings but the main advisor will
skip them every other week or so for various reasons. For instance, they skipped
meeting with me recently to continue to help another graduate student with making edits
for a final submission of a paper. I, however, had the same final submission deadline
and also needed assistance with making edits from reviewer comments.

Initially, I thought that the main advisor may have just been unusually busy for the year.
However, I learned that they will email the other two MSc students sometimes 3-4 times in a single
day with correspondence about ideas to try. That is, it seems that they are actively engaged in the other students' projects. Further, their meetings with the other 2 MSc students sometimes go for 3-4 hours or even late into the night.
Conversely, my meetings, if they take place, are ended at the hour.

The co-advisor still meets with me regularly but they have their own graduate students and so
I'm not sure that they prioritize my project. I feel this way because I almost always have to remind them what my project is about at the start of meetings.
I have some questions:

Should I communicate my concerns with them? If so, how do I communicate this without offending
them about their supervisory capabilities?
Maybe I'm being overly sensitive about being de-prioritized and this is a relatively
normal situation? Does that seem to be the case?

I would like to work on a PhD so I want to get the most I can from this degree.


texts: I studied in the US up until the 6th grade, came back to India, completed high school here and finished a bachelor degree in computer science here in India. All my education in India was completed in English only. I am also a US citizen. I want to pursue a masters degree in the US. Do I need to take the TOEFL exam or not?


texts: Can I still publish a paper in a journal after it has already been assigned a DOI through Zenodo or ResearchGate?

texts: Zenodo and ResearchGate can assign a DOI to an article. After publishing an article on Zenodo or ResearchGate with a DOI, if the article is good, will the article still be accepted for publication by peer-reviewed journals?  Assume that the journal in question allows green open access (i.e., posting of a preprint on a public site).


texts: Can I ask the graduate office (US) if I can submit transcript without WES?

texts:
I want to apply for a Ph.D. position in a US university and I already wrote the program director with my CV and he encouraged me to apply. Now, this university needs World Education Services evaluation as I am an international student. But my university where I did my bachelor's, had followed the US grading system.
Due to covid, I am tight on budget. My question is- can I ask the graduate office if they can accept my transcript without WES or if they can waive it? I know it's kind of weird as it's a major criterion to evaluate an applicant but still, I want to know if I can ask it or not?


texts: Can a MSc after medical school count as the German Dr.med?

texts:
I am a medical doctor from a non EU country and have a German MSc in Neuroscience. In Germany only doctors that do a 6 month research internship during their medical studies can get their “Dr.med” title and only the doctors holding and Dr.med.can do clinical research.

I want to get the equivalency of my medical studies. Can I be granted the Dr.med now that I did a whole 2 year MSc after my medical studies? If not why?


texts:
Suppose I'm applying for grad school and I receive a scholarship award to study at grad school A, does it make sense to list such a scholarship award on my CV in my application to grad school B?

Or let's say I go to grad school B, should one still list the declined scholarship award from grad school A in future CV's?

My gut feeling for the first question I asked is that it would seem a bit weird and worse case scenario someone at grad school B is influence to some extent to think  "Well judging by this scholarship award here, this applicant already has a place at another grad school, so declining him/her may not be so bad". Is my gut feeling correct?


texts: Planning to retake English language test for PhD admissions in the UK, but listed previous average in my CV - should I contact professor to explain?

texts:
I participated to an English language test in the autumn. My average score was very good, and above the requirement of a program I am applying to. However, the score of one of the sub-components was less than the given requirement (surprisingly low, but I have no idea why). I had indicated my average score in my CV, but I did not send the test results with the application, because I will soon resit the test. It was not possible to write an explanation on the application form.

Should I contact the professor and explain the situation? He might be wondering why my CV says something and the application something else. Or is this usual, that the document arrives later than the rest of the application (which is allowed according to the application guidelines)?

I would not like to appear as marketing a passing score but not actually having one instead. So, is it better than (1) I bother them, or (2) let them ask if it matters?


texts: How to publish proof of something if the academic level is lower than expected and cannot publish to a journal or a conference?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student with an interest in Computer science, so recently i have discovered new concepts and algorithms related to patterns and simulations (i.e biological simulations & computational models simulations), and how they can be related easily, extremely easily to mathematics in a way that it would envolve a single rule of (1+1=2) and it would take forever to fully analyse and understand all the possible outputs (all the biological & computational simulations) based on that simple rule.

So i have read about similar ideas that exist today (suppose we name it X), it took about (3) well-known physicists and mathematicians (20-30) years to introduce (X) and be accepted in the literature, mainly (X) is based on  two important topics in computer science (Turing machines & Self-replicating machines) these two topics can be considered as the core idea of computers, so like any other researcher i wrote the ideas explaining every detail neatly and revised it more than (30) times then contacted (3) journals about it and they refused to publish although they said and know that the ideas are novel, new and applicable ...

I went to contact some professional people in the field, they still suggested me to submit it to a journal or present it in a conference, so i went for the second choice, they replied "the proofs and ideas in the research paper are true but you can't present something that is not in your area of expertise and even if it was, you still can't because the different academic level between the presenter and the audience, it would be suitable to publish it in a journal", so here is my problem: As an undergraduate, i have a valid proof of something, how to publish it ? So,

1) I have contacted some related journals and they refused.

2) I have submitted the paper to a conference and they refused.

3) Contacted professional people and refered to option (1) & (2).

What's next to do ? Also, this seems to be on-the-edge situation, but i know there is one more thing i can do.


texts: I am leaving current PhD position to move to X university. Should I inform X university that I am currently a PhD student?

texts:
I am currently a 2nd semester PhD student at Y university. My MS is from the same Y university and under the same supervisor. In last months of my MS, I told my supervisor that I want to change university after MS. He said that it's okay to look for better PhD positions but we should first finish the project that we have started. (We are working on a project which will be completed in next one or two months)

I was agree with him and decided to stay at Y university. Now, I have an interview call from X university.

My question is, what should I say when they ask me "Why do you want to leave your current PhD position?"


texts: Taking vacations days in the middle of a semester

texts:
Context: I am an assistant professor at a small institution in the US.

Question: My significant other has the opportunity through work to travel to an exotic location over a long weekend in February, and I would very much like to join.  That said, it would require that I miss both my Thursday and Friday classes before the weekend.  Would it be unreasonable and/or unprofessional for me to join her on this trip?

I can easily structure my content schedule in such a way that I could cancel these classes without losing anything significant, but I'm concerned about how such an absence would be perceived by my colleagues.  I have an excellent relationship with those in my department, my department chair, and my dean.

I would also be curious to hear how dependent the answer is upon my tenure status.  I am tenure-track and plan to apply for tenure three years from now.


texts: Typographical emphasis on text is ambiguous

texts:
I am writing a paper and part of my thesis, and I need some advice to improve the readability of my manuscript(s).

Working in computer science and machine learning, there is a lot of technical stuff going on: I have to write definitions and set the terminology of my work. So, for instance, I have to explain the reader that a training set is a set of example on which my system learns to model some phenomenon.

Now, please, focus on the previous paragraph. As you can see, I used the italics to stress the new piece of terminology, namely the expression “training set”, and to emphasize some other words, namely the word “learn”.

So, having the same style for these two things, with a different semantics, sounds a little confusing to me (and to my supervisors). And there is a lot of this stuff in my paper/thesis.

How can I improve readability in this respect?

--
EDIT. The focus of my question is not if the word "learn" should be emphasized with respect to what it means or not. It is just an example. Idem for the "training set" with respect to the expected background knowledge of the reader. In abstract terms, my question can be generalized to: how to emphasize both the terminology that I am introducing and words that need proper emphasis? A more fitting example could be the following:

We call training set the set of examples on which a Neural Network learns to model some phenomenon. (omissis) At each timestep, our network has to decide if the symbol will be chosen from the first or the second list. In both cases, it has to decide also which symbol will be chosen.


texts: How many words are considered to become subject to verbatim copy?

texts: How many words can become 'subject to verbatim copying'? For example, if I write 'to disseminate content' in my paraphrasing and later on find that 'to disseminate content' is used exactly elsewhere. Is it considered as plagiarism in such a case? (i.e. 3 words matching)


texts: The correct term for a collection of homework?

texts:
I'm looking for the correct wording for a collection of homework that will be given to students throughout the duration of a course/class.

So far I came up with Homework Plan. But I'm wondering if this is correct or widely used or not?

For example: My insert proper term here for the term consists of 6 assignments.


texts: Can a journal article contain a personal circumstance description as motive for justifying the literature approach?

texts:
I was recently invited to have a paper published.

Unfortunately, a similar paper is about to be published on the practical/fun aspect of the project so I've had to re-frame the topic to focus on what we understand about the need for the project rather than the fun stuff itself.

The new paper required discussion on some aspects of psychology. I need to justify why I, as someone not in the field of psychology, felt capable of identifying it as a subject relevant to the discussion and presumably why I have slightly more than a fleeting grasp of the concepts. The gist is a long history of interacting with professionals on what defines my mental processes.

What would be the best way to say the discussion is best accompanied by an overview of the side subjects?


texts: How long and formal should a paper revision letter to the editor be?

texts:
I submitted a paper to a journal, they replied saying that they consider it worthy to be published if I corrected a few minor errors, and I have corrected them so it's ready to be sent back.

Someone told me that you should include a letter to the editor stating this and thanking the reviewer. I've never done this before, so I'm not sure about several factors like formality/length/specifics. For example, do I just say "I've made the requested changes" or do I have to list them more specifically?

Could someone show me a boilerplate letter of this type, or point me to a resource that talks about it?


texts: Do I need in text citations for an article on a historical event if I have links?

texts: I am writing an article on a historical event chronicled by Plutarch and translated by the Harvard University Press and have used certain ideas and facts from his writings in my own article by summarizing some of his statements and combining it with my own ideas. I have a link to the writings that I have referred to at the end of the article, but I was wondering if I needed to add in any in text citations to give proper credit to him and translators of his work.


texts: Which tense to use when presenting my master thesis?

texts:
In a couple of weeks, I have to present my master thesis to both my professors (supervisors) and family and friends. After the title page, I immediately present the main novelty of my thesis (instead of first presenting a lot of "blablabla" about the literature and stuff).

What would be a suitable tense to do this?

For instance:

  I found/ have found/find that [description of findings]

or

  This thesis shows/has shown/showed that [description of findings]

I think you'll get the point. It is basically whether to use the present simple/ present perfect or past simple.

EDIT: My thesis is about the effects of unconventional monetary policy announcements by the Fed on European government bond markets. So w.r.t. to the comment of C26 below, it is something happened in the past. However, I also examined through which channels these announcements influence government bond markets in the eurozone. So this is more like a process; something that is most likely also true in the future (i.e. when these announcements will occur again).


texts: Whom to suggest as an editor when submitting a paper?

texts:
Some journals let authors to suggest who should handle their submission. How should one choose the suggested editors? In my particular case, I struggled with selection because

One of the possible choices was an editor who was one of my co-author's opponent when his dissertation was publicly examined
One editor was affiliated with the same institution as one of my co-authors
One editor had published with one of my co-authors
Two editors were well known by my co-authors (no shared projects)
Two editors I had never heard about

Our paper had about 10 authors from 6 different institutions. I selected an unknown editor because I felt there was some kind of potential conflict of interest (even if just perceived) in selecting someone else. However, I have been wondering whether I did the correct choice? My paper got eventually rejected but I got some nice feedback to improve the work. Therefore, I might face the same situation soon again, when I get to the point of resubmitting the paper to some other journal.


texts: Effective way to handle open-ended student feedback?

texts:
I regularly use a short start/stop/continue-survey on my students to be able to improve my teaching skills. I get a lot of informative data that helps me, but there's a lot of work involved in digging that information out by hand.

Does anyone have any best practice recommendations on how to handle open-ended feedback?

Is there a way of using text analytics to show points of strong consensus?


texts: My supervisor is too involved, what should I do?

texts:
Most PhD students I know have the problem that their supervisor is not involved enough. I have a different problem, my supervisor is too involved.

He wants to be a co author on all three of my PhD papers, and to get them published.

I know that this sounds great, but I do not want to free ride on my supervisors work, I want it to be my own, and I want to be proud of it. Regardless of whether it is published or not. A publication is a bonus, not the end game for me.

I spent half my phd working on what I intended to be my job market paper (the paper I show to employers that best showcases my skills). My supervisor made some suggestions here and there, but nothing substantial. I am now getting ready to submit my paper to a journal and my supervisor has rewritten my entire paper without permission and wants me to sign off on this. He has justified it by saying it has a better shot of being published in its new form. I feel very uncomfortable about this, it is in effect no longer my paper. I thought he would make suggestions and I would fix the paper myself.

He is too involved in other ways too. When I settle on a research question, he throws methodology and research design at me, before I have a chance to think about the topic myself and come to my own conclusions, and then encourages me to do it his way and not explore my way.

Is this normal behaviour from a supervisor?
I have to talk to him about this, but I am unsure how to bring it up and what to say. Do you have any advice?

I need at least one paper where I am the sole author, is it appropriate to mention this to my supervisor, without offending him or his position? He will try to put his name on all my papers.

I do not want to come across ungrateful, I am very happy for his help, and I will be the first to admit that I need help. But all I want is a chance to learn from my mistakes and be given opportunities to grow, I will never be a successful researcher if I cannot exercise this. Unfortunately, I feel like my supervisors research assistant instead of a PhD student.

I am really struggling to continue on the course, and I appreciate any comments you may have.


texts: In mathematical scientific papers, which section would I detail pseudo code or sample source code? Would that be included in an Appendices section or above under Methods?


texts:
I am postdoc in computational biology field and writing one grant proposal. One of the section of the application expect applicant to show

  how he/she will reach maturity to become an independent researcher?

This further expect me to show 'leadership' quality and should be supported by content from my CV. How shall I write this section?

I found this answer which suggests some points for the developed researcher looking for permanent position. At my current (early career) stage, I do NOT have any of following,

Having written and administered a grant proposal
Having been invited to sit on a review panel
Having been an invited speaker
Having organized a conference session
Having published a review paper

I have only mentored few students (but don't have any proof). Any suggestion?


texts: How to make sure one understands each and every detail while reading a textbook/research paper without leaving any gaps?

texts:
I am a physics Master's student.  I have good grades, with CGPA above 9(/10)(However, all courses in my university are graded on a curve so the actual marks are significantly lower than 90%). This has been my marks throughout my undergraduate and graduate courses and I was happy because this was above average. Also, my summer projects in UG were usually computational and any difficulty I had in theoretical aspects I attributed it to my inexperience in advanced Physics.

However, recently I have started to work on pure theoretical project and while reading for the project I realized that I consistently miss some details from each topic. I understand the general idea, can re-derive most of the equations(with some effort) however when I discuss things with my professor or when I read further topics I realize that I have missed certain key-details. This is exactly similar to the case of me missing a few key questions in my exams and getting that 9 grade point instead of 10(or at-least I think so). I was not worried about this before but now I realize that there is some flaw in the way I study (but I do not know what).

Since I want to apply for Physics PhD I realized that I will need to have solid concepts and it would be best to correct my mistakes but I do not know how or even what could be the reason for my imperfect understanding.

Any direct suggestion would help or even certain general guidelines on what I can do.

Things I've tried recently -

1) I've started to written down almost everything I read. This is slightly laborious but is certainly helping. It also helps me to gloss over the things I read previously when I come back the next day.

2) I completely avoid smartphone when I'm library/study room so that I won't get distracted. Not sure if it helps me solve the above problem but certainly helps me study better in general.

3) I've tried to read the topics from several sources. The books I am reading is somewhat like a collection of research papers and hence does not have a exercises. So I though reading from various sources might help get better ideas but it's not really helping because most other sources are too high level as an introductory text. But this will probably help me in cases where it's practical to do this.

4) Somewhat similar to point (1)- I am trying reread, whenever I can, what I've done until that point. But not sure how much this will help me in filling the gaps.


texts: How should a researcher manage the fact that Impact factors change over time?

texts:
Impact factors of journals are one the most commonly use indicator of their quality. As a consequence when someone is looking for a journal in which publish his results, the highest the impact factor, the better. However, over the years journal's impact factors change depending on the quality of their article.

My question, that is more theoretical then practical, is twofold:

Should I care about the future impact factor of the journals I publish in (similarly as when buying stock market).
Would it be advisable to keep track of the impact factor at the time of publication in a list of paper (a bit like saying "I know to impact factor of the journal I published in five years ago is bad, but it was better then").

This question is somehow related to the fact that I hear once or twice about examining boards considering only the papers published in journals above a certain impact factor when assessing the quality of a candidate. In other words, papers published in low impact factor journal are not even worth noticing.


texts: Explaining an unusual undergraduate degree title

texts:
I've got an undergraduate MA, which has, interestingly enough, caused me a significant amount of trouble: Examples include being excluded from student accommodation and being denied funding (they were available only to students working on the "first" "Master's" degree, and they assumed I was working on a second). "Appealing" such decisions is not always possible, as e.g. I only got an official refusal for accommodation two years after applying (about a month before I handed in my thesis), or I got a generic refusal with no explanation or I simply didn't get a response to "appeal" at all.

How can I make the nature of this degree explicit and unambiguous in e.g. contexts of applications?-- Some people simply cannot accept the fact that I do not have a "Bachelor's degree". In fact, a description of the degree is written in English on the second page of my degree transcript, and I have even directed people to this page who then still demanded to see my "Bachelor's degree"; This degree has conferred me the power to actually break bureaucracy despite that I'm not exactly the first person to be awarded such a degree (additionally, undergraduate MAs likely aren't the only example of this). On my CV, I have now put directly before the "MA" title the term (Undergraduate), e.g.:

  2004–2008: (Undergraduate) M. A. (honors) Testing Bureaucracy

Previously, I only had the 2004–2008 part, but actually this wasn't enough to make people understand that this is an undergraduate degree. I haven't had any experiences using the (Undergraduate) note, but there are still places where this is simply not possible to note in this way, such as when filling out pre-fabricated forms for e.g. admission or application of funding.


texts: University providing CGPA but not grading on a curve

texts:
I am studying at a university that provides with a CGPA (as mentioned on mark sheets) but they are not a curve.

The thing is, although my cgpa is 7, I am fourth in the class from a total of 40 students. I am worried that it might be taken negatively when I apply for Graduate Studies. How can share this information across the admissions committee?

I am studying in a not so top university from India. I am studying computer sciences and will be applying for the same.


texts: How can taking a stance against for-profit journals hurt your career?

texts:
I will start by saying that I have nothing against any individual or company making a profit out of goods, services or intellectual property they produce. However, I do not like the fact that publishing houses, such as Elsevier (just to name the largest one), make a profit out of the voluntary/non-retributed work of others. By this, I refer to the fact that the core product these journals are selling are scientific articles written by others, based on research funded by others, and with a quality control (peer review) carried out by others with no cost to them. Then, research and academic organizations pay these publishers large amounts of money in the form of subscription fees to gain access to content the community provides for free.

Because of this, I have decided to, whenever possible, I will try to avoid submitting my articles to for-profit publishing houses and will try to rely as much as I can on the journals published by scientific societies. In my field (physics, materials science, chemistry) this is not necessarily a problem, since the APS, AIP, IoP, ACS, RSC, etc. publish a number of reputable journals that can suit my needs. I understand that other authors might not have a choice, or might simply choose to also publish with for-profit houses. This might force me to publish at a venue not of my liking when I coauthor a paper with people interested in sending the collaborative work to such venues. This is not a huge problem for me.

The case of peer review is more complicated, because refusing to review papers sent to me by a for-profit house does not only hurt the publishing house, but also the authors that submitted the paper, who are precisely the community whose interests I am attempting to protect by taking my overall stance against publishing corporations.

By submitting my work only to specific journals I am not actively engaging in any action that could be considered offensive by the for-profit journals and their editors. However, by refusing to review their papers I am directly saying "no" to the editor who sent me the work. I would like to know how I would be hurting my career by "soft boycotting" for-profit journals in the cases a) not submitting there, b) not agreeing to review their papers and c) both.


texts:
Why does Google Scholar results categorize some books as [BOOK] and some as [CITATION] - what's the difference?
In addition, why are there apparently no citations to some well-known books even though Google includes these in books.google.com? I.e. they should show up in Google Scholar search results, but they don't.


texts: PhD courses instructs language in Germany

texts:
What's the main language used in PhD courses in Germany for most of the fields ? CS, chemistry...
Thanks


texts: Accused of cheating, without anyone witnessing it?

texts:
During a 3 hour midterm, my phone was confiscated because I had it on my person, when we weren't suppose to have the phone with us. My phone was on the chair in between my legs, but I was not using it.

Before the exam started I was reading a forum on my phone (forum for that course) and then I put my phone in my bag. The first hour and a half of the exam (approximately) the prof failed to put up the time. I was extremely worried about my time and I was not wearing a watch. I quickly took out my phone, checked the time and then left the phone on my lap. I checked the time twice and then I realized that the time was on display.

When I was done with my answers, I then realized how bad it is that I have my phone on me. I was about to put my phone back in my bag when I noticed that a TA was watching me. She probably suspected there was something going on because I was jittery and I was moving a lot. Before the exam was done, the TA asked to give up my phone and I did and I told her I just checked the time. Which was the truth. She asked me to open my phone and show it to her and I did. She only looked at the homepage and didn't go through my phone. She put the phone on my desk and I continued checking my exam.

A week later I got a letter that I had to attend a meeting with the department because I was cheating during the exam.
What are my options here? How are they possibly going to accuse me of cheating when it never happened? I've been thinking of witnesses, asking the girl who sat beside me or the girl who was sitting behind me. Do professors or the head of the departments actually believe what anyone would tell them the truth? What if the girl feels the need to lie that I was cheating?
The other thing that worries me is that I usually answer questions very nicely and sometimes word for word. That's just how I memorize things sometimes. Can that work against me?! can they tell me that the answers are too close to what was on the slides and that could count as cheating?!
I am in good academic standing in my program. The lowest grade I've ha din the last year was a B. I don't want this stupid mistake to mess up my future.
I appreciate your insight.


texts:
I am doing my Masters in Mathematics at a reputable university in the UK, but there has been a lot of cheating so far.
Due to Covid, we have two forms of assessment:

Coursework
Open-book, open-internet, two-hour exams

Throughout the first semester, I had multiple students reach out to me for help with their coursework - I would give them some tips or maybe refer them to a section in the lecture notes. This wasn't really an issue. As the semester progressed, there was more evidence of serious cheating. For example, during one of my group coding assignments, within 15 minutes of the assignment being released, an international student sends the group the entire solution. Hundreds of lines of code in 15 minutes, something that would usually take us a week to do. This is just one example. Surely the professors know that this is going on?
During my undergrad, after leaving the exam room, I would have a good estimate of how I did. If I answered 80% of the questions, I would get ~80%. There is no room for guessing, you either know the answer or you don't.
As part of my revision for the winter exams, I did all the past papers and found them fairly easy. The exam, however, I found extremely challenging and not closely related to our lecture notes. This makes sense, it was an open-book, open-internet exam - they wouldn't ask questions that could be answered by looking through the lecture notes.
Fast-forward a couple of weeks, the professor sends out an email, saying that the average grade was 2% higher than previous years' grades. This surprised me, how did students score higher on a substantially more challenging paper?
Last week, I was invited by a coursemate to a discord group. Most of the members were international students and they were speaking Chinese so I couldn't tell what was being said. As I started scrolling through the messages, I found entire exam paper was uploaded to the discord group chat and they were sharing answers!
Should this be reported? How would I go about reporting it? Would anything be done? Do the professors really not know that this is going on?


texts: Can I have show two different approaches in single thesis, regarding the same topic?

texts:
I am doing research on Security Patterns. In First 6 month i was working on Formalization of Security Patterns. I have extended a approach for formalization of Security Patterns. Subsequently, in the next 6 month i did research on Selection of Appropriate security patterns.
Normally, The structure of thesis

Introduction
Related Work
Proposed Work
Implementation
Result , Conclusion and Future.

I am confused in this.
I have different implementation and result respectively for Formalization and Selection techniques.
My Thesis Content will look like

Introduction
Related Work
Formalization(Proposed Work,Implementation and Result).
Selection(Proposed Work, Implementation and Result).
Conclusion.

Can i have two different result and implementation in a thesis. It is acceptable or not?
Thesis is for Master Degree.


texts: When do you stop mentioning your dissertation in the cover letter?

texts: I am re-drafting my cover letter for the tenure track faculty positions in the U.S. While I was finishing my dissertation, I quickly moved to a new research direction. Although I can make the case of how my new research direction grows out of my dissertation, I wonder when do people stop talking about their dissertation in the cover letter? Or must the cover letter contain a dissertation paragraph?


texts: Concurrent workers independently published part of my results. How to convince the referees that I got the results independently?

texts:
In my primary research project (not coauthoring with advisor), I got two results, say result A and result B, back in 2020. I wanted to submit it in 2020, but my advisor says that I need a further result, say result C, to be considered for a top journal.
I agreed with him as I find the (hypothetical) result C way more exciting. Now I am half-way through getting result C.
A competing group tried to get result A (with mistakes) and submitted a paper in 2020. The referee rejected their paper because they made a fatal mistake. They corrected the mistake and submitted the corrected version of result A again. They got their paper accepted at a top journal in March 2021.
I don't know how to speak with my advisor about this without offending him. My advisor says it is a good thing as it proves that I was at the right direction and a super active subfield. I think he is just trying to sooth me by saying nice words.
Now I am submitting the results A and B by myself. I do have timestamps on public cloud services to prove that I did get the correct version of result A before them. However, the timestamp is just on a poorly written draft rather than a fully written paper, because my advisor asked me to work on C.
It is my first time dealing with this issue. Shall I also submit the timestamps to prove that I had the result A?
I am thinking about putting result A into appendix and emphasizing result B in my paper. Am I correct? Is it best to submit the paper to the same journal?
I will cite their paper of course. I want to say that I am a concurrent worker work in parallel. I am afraid that the everyone think I am the follower, who falsely and unethically present myself as a concurrent worker.
What shall I say to make clear in my paper what happened?

PS:
I was not worrying before March because I thought:

The competing group made mistakes so they are not competent competitors

Result A alone is not enough for top publications. Their paper still contains some technical mistakes and exaggerated claims.

However, facts proved that I underestimated the competing group. The hard lesson learnt.
The field is applied statistics. This is a primarily theoretical work that studies the properties of two widely-adopted statistical methods.
Related: Pre-print service like arXiv but with private option, so I can correct my mistakes without publicly advertising my mistakes?


texts:
I am currently an undergraduate freshman student at Tulane University. I thought for a long time that chemistry was my purpose, but after actually interacting with the school's science department I've realized that was a huge headache. I've recently rediscovered love and passion for mathematics, and have switched majors with my new curriculum being math-heavy. I've finished calculus and am currently taking linear algebra and real analysis, with a python class as well so I can teach math to computers as well.
However, most of my career research so far has been for science, with research opportunities and career steps in that field being pretty concrete and clear. I'm now hoping to pursue something like data science, but internship opportunities seem pretty scarce and competitive. Is there anything I can do to give myself a competitive edge and make myself more desireable for REUs and internships? (a la certain classes, online courses etc.,)
Thanks so much!


texts: Transition from Electrical Engineering to Physics

texts: My name is Luka and I am currently third year of electrical engineering, specifically Power and Control Systems. I have very high GPA, and I am certain I will be applying for MSc in two years (I have to finish this year, and specialize next year in order to get Bachelor). I am 100% sure that I will pursue PhD after MSc and hope to continue working in academia. But there is one problem in this. During these years I have confirmed that my passion for physics(especially high energy physics)is much greater than one for engineering. In fact, I do not think I would be able to do any research in engineering. Because of this, I want to switch fields and to get into MSc program for High Energy Physics. My question is: Is there anyone with similar experience that has made a successful transition? And if it is possible, is it possible to follow the material? Any advice or information would be very helpful. Thank you


texts: What does "qualify for a more competitive rate" mean when booking flights for academic travel?

texts: I know this question may be off-topic on academia SE, but really am not sure where to ask. I was admitted to a great PhD program recently, and was also invited to participate in their Open House in March. I was informed that I would be reimbursed for travel expenses. However the email says to book flights as early as possible to "qualify for a more competitive rate". Does this "rate" refer to the ticket price or the rate at which I am reimbursed? I'm afraid to ask the secretary since I don't want to make a bad impression.


texts:
My question is about citing. I found two sectences that were cited in a review article (first sentence[1], extra information about it[2]. Second sentence [3]). And after that i found the original references and read them. (I didn't need ref [2], i just remove it and didn't talk about it)

At the end, i changed the places of them (flipped...1-3 to 3-1). Also i paraphrase them and added some words on them. Because in review article some parts of them were missing. But i gave reference to the original sources not to review article. So, is it considered to be plagiarism in introduction part?

Note: The primary sources are not previous studies on my local research area. They are like descriptions on that field. One of them is reasons of illness and the other one is statistical numbers of sport. Actually i gave the statistical number a bit different like "more than 150 m" instead of "180 m" and I was specific like "who are older than 20 years old". And also for reasons of illness, i gave different reference for ref1 but ref3 kept constant. To be specific; reasons of illness can be described by a doctor easly.

Here, total number of sentences is two.

For example in following link; we see that APA style says that we need to give original reference.

https://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/cite-another-source murdoch university; https://libguides.murdoch.edu.au/APA/secondary apa style blog; https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2010/05/secondary-sources-aka-how-to-cite-a-source-you-found-in-another-source.html

So what about my question's answer? I just obeyed to rule of APA and after i finished my thesis, i learnt that my situation might be considered as plagiarism for 2 citationss? and my M.Sc. degree can be revoked later?


texts: When is it okay to ask your advisor solution to a technical problem?

texts:
For example, if (hypothetically speaking) I am stuck on proving a theorem, is it okay to ask my academic advisor some help for next step? My approach has been, "this is what I have tried, I am stuck here...can you point out how I can continue". But the amount of time that it takes the professor to reply is stressing me out, I am afraid that he is getting exasperated at my question.

What makes thing a bit worse is that the prof says flat out he likes people who are able to solve problems independently. But he also has a reputation of being a fast replier to student emails regarding problems arising in his course. I wonder what he expects of me.

So what is considered appropriate to ask your advisor without pushing him to the limit of having to solve the problem himself. Ultimately I am worried about looking totally incompetent. Is there some way for me to not appear totally incompetent?


texts:
Context: I intend to study mathematics and do research as a career. I am studying analysis and abstract algebra now and I shall begin my undergraduate studies shortly.

  Should I opt for physics as minor for better mathematical intuition?

I have been told my friend that physics may lend one intuition into a few mathematical structures though I am not sure. I can only think of differential equations as an example. In particular, please tell me if physics can serve as a source of motivation and if it is crucial enough.


texts: Under what circumstances would a professor be offended at students taping or recording his or her lecture?

texts:
Are there any policies on taping or recording or even streaming a professor's lecture?

What do professors think about students who do this?

Obviously, most circumstances the professor would never find out, but there was this one instance when a professor got really angry because a student was recording him without his permission.

I don't understand why he would be offended, most likely the student is only using it for review and not commercial purposes as the nature of the class is quite obscure, could anyone shed a light?


texts: Can ResearchGate upload preprints from ArXiv without author's consent?

texts: I recently uploaded a preprint on ArXiv (the journal I submitted the manuscript allows this) under CC BY-NC-ND. However, it can be found on ResearchGate (without my consent). While it can be removed from my profile, it still appears on ResearchGate. Can ResearchGate automatically upload papers from arXiv without the author's consent?