texts:
I am close to an academic who is facing heavy criticism for having used an unorthodox grading scheme in a final exams (there was a multiplication involved to ensure a good grade would mean decent success in two independent parts).

My main question is:

  Q0: what are the main guiding principles you use when designing a test and a grading scheme? Are there any clear limitations imposed to you (legal, moral, or traditional; internal or external)?

Let us assume that the tests handed out are completely anonymous, so that it is given that the grading only depends on the test handed out, and on no other element.
In particular, of course discrimination by gender or race or religious beliefs is not acceptable, but no need to mention it since (proper) anonymity should prevent it.

I would also like to gather a diverse array of ways to test and to grade. This type of "big list" question is sometimes seen at MathOverflow, I don't know if it is welcome here but I think seeing a variety of grading scheme and exam designs would help inform the answers to Q0.

  Q1: What kind of exam design and grading scheme did you actually use (or enforce if you did not grade but coordinated graders)? What are the motivation behind this choice, and what did you conclude from the outcome? Multiple answers for various pairs of exam design/grading scheme is better unless they directly benefit from being gathered.

It is been asked in comment to specify, so let me add that I am more interested by scientific fields. The question clearly makes sense more generally, but is already quite broad.


texts: How to generate credible research in a non-academic setting

texts: How is research normally done in corporate settings or other settings outside of an academic environment? More importantly how do you get the research to be given credit to you by those in the academic community?


texts: What challenges to expect for admission to Masters/PhD in computer science and engineering after chemical engineering undergrad?

texts:
I am a Chemical Engineering undergrad, and interested in pursuing a Masters in Artificial Intelligence and/or Machine Learning. I have taken a few courses in the CSE department as a part of my minor curriculum plus a few other courses, and also doing some projects in the same side-by-side. Now in the past I have faced some difficulties while taking some courses in the CSE department, and not really sure if it is going to be easy (if at all possible) to switch my majors.

What challenges am I going to face in terms of application/selection, and how can I get by them?


texts: Should I tell a senior collaborator how disappointed I am?

texts:
I was part of a small group preparing an overview paper for a special issue, and we missed a final deadline.  All except one of us completed our assigned tasks; the last person had not touched her files for months and was frequently unresponsive with no explanation. To complicate matters, she is a senior member of the community; I'm a mere postdoc, and other members are somewhere in between.

I'm confident I did everything I could to see this paper completed on time, as well as the rest of the cooperative group members.  I've mostly accepted the pending consequences with the journal and my reputation.  I'm also determined to not work with this senior member again.  But should I express my disappointment with her directly, or just cut my losses and move on?


texts: I worked in institute A as a researcher. Then I started my study as Ph.D student at institute B. The work in institute A was not related to my proposal provided for my Ph.D studies. I sent a paper related to my works in institute A and they publish it. In the acknowledgement part I mentioned my gratitude to institute A and also affilitation to Institute A.  I think that I should write my affilitation to institute B? Am I right? If so, is it possible to change my affilitation after publishing?


texts: How should I email a group member from an international group in my area that I previously worked with?

texts:
I am PhD student in biomedical signal processing area. Before starting my PhD in January 2015, I was researcher in a research group in which I had the opportunity to know one of the best researchers in my area of interest who is also a member of the best group in the world.
After starting my PhD I decided to continue in the same area but with a different group. Now I want to get in contact with the researcher, I mentioned above, and ask for collaboration.

What should be the content of my email regarding the researcher's relations with my previous group? Should I explain the about the reason's of changing group or not?


texts: What are acceptable purposes in Statement of Purpose?

texts:
I understand that honesty is the best policy, but is it a good idea to say "I have no clue" when the SOP explicitly asks me to describe my "intentions relative to graduate study and life beyond the University"?

Basically, I don't have any ten-year plan. The main reason I'm going to apply for the Program at the University is that the Degree can give me great resources and offer me better choices after graduation. (Other reasons include I have friends in that area and I love the weather in California, but I guess those don't count?) I haven't really considered my life beyond the University, though: Life is just too dynamic for me to answer questions like whether to stay in academia or to enter the industry at this point, and I don't want to eliminate any possibility as early as now.

On the other hand, I do have some long-term goals, but I don't have a detailed plan on how to realize them. I just keep them in mind when making decisions. However, these goals are probably too ambitious, bold, and maybe stupid to be used as an intention: I'm going to develop a framework to unify Statistics and Machine Learning, turning all current work into "miscellaneous earlier efforts" like Newton did!

To clarify, I'm applying to both Masters and Ph.D. programs, because I don't really know what I'm after, so I'm just exploring different options and will take the best offered.


texts: Should text and picture reference be put together?

texts: I have a report that have me referencing texts and images from different sites. Should I put the source for text in one list and put the source for pictures in another list? Or could I put them in one big list?


texts: Second revision, one of the reviewers said I should completely rewrite paper with new ideas and methods, because it is not innovative

texts:
I have revised my initial manuscript with a major revision after the first decision. After long months of waiting, I received reviewing results with another major revision.
Two reviewers were completely satisfied with my revision and recommended acceptance.
One, possibly, new reviewer suggested some improvements but didn't question the novelty of this manuscript.
And one reviewer from the previous round said that this manuscript lacks novelty and should be completely revised with new ideas, questions and methods. I don't understand how it's even possible to do that without a completely new, written from scratch, manuscript. Also, we have a comparative literature review and listing what is the novelty in the Introduction and we have comparative numerical experiments in the Simulation section. I don't know if this reviewer advised rejecting because major revision looks impossible.
Please, advise on how best to deal with this situation


texts: Can a tenure-track job candidate infer any meaning from the response to an initial contact email?

texts:
I'm on the job market for tenure-track positions in mathematics in the US this application cycle. I was advised by various people to contact the people in the institutions that I would really like to go to, so I have just contacted 4-5 top institutions that I am planning to apply to.

In the usual job market desperation, I may try to decipher every word in their response (if they respond at all), so I am curious about if there is anything to be deciphered at all. I'm only a postdoc and I have not had emails of this sort, but I can see myself responding in various ways.

For example, for a complete no-name who has no chance in my school, maybe the kindest thing is just to thank them, ignore them, or just tell them that we're not hiring in their area.

Maybe if it's someone that looks like they have a shot, maybe I'd respond telling them that I'll read their applications carefully, or something along those lines. Or maybe I'll volunteer some extra information such as our intended area of hire (because those generally don't appear in job ads) or actually pass on the email to the hiring committee.

Or, do you just have a canned response that you send out to everyone who contacts you?

All of this is speculation, and I'm intentionally doing this before getting any response back, so that I don't go crazy over the responses.

Does what I say above have any similarities with the reality? Even a glimmer of hope from any of the responses will put my mind at ease, so I am hoping for many anecdotal stories from current/past faculty who have had to deal with emails of this sort, which I am sure they receive plenty of.


texts: Should I tell my professor that I may need surgery in the middle of the semester?

texts:
I am an undergrad in the second year of a 2-year transfer program at a community college. I am retaking a class that I was forced to drop a couple of semesters ago due to family issues. The instructor is the senior guy in the department for my major, and I will be taking another course with him (both are 4 credits), requiring lab work.

The trouble is, I have known for a few months that I will need surgery. I'm on medications that are working, but the side effects in the strategic term are disastrous. The surgery will leave me bedridden for 3 days to 3 weeks.I am assuming at this point that I will have at least some flexibility in scheduling the surgery. I thought I could get it done over summer break, but that's next to impossible at this point.

So far as I can tell, these are my options;

Tell the instructor immediately (via email) or the first day of class.
Tell the instructor once I have any clarity regarding scheduling, in the hope that I can get it done over winter break.

Since this is a specialist in my major, who can help me with career guidance, references, and hands-on skills, I really want to make the best possible impression. His opinion of me is even more important as I expect to transfer next semester and would like to get As for both courses.

Unfortunately, in addition to making me unable to finish the semester with him, the aforementioned family issues resulted in an anxiety diagnosis which required special testing arrangements. He was not super happy with that. So, on the one hand, I need this surgery as soon as possible. On the other hand, I want to avoid the perception that I am unable to handle a heavy workload for any reason. How/when should I tell him about this, if at all?


texts: How to know I have done enough work in one semester?

texts:
I am a PhD student in computer science (theory). I am worried about my productivity. I try to do as much as possible. I used to take four courses per semester during my first two years of studying. Now I have started doing research. In the last 4 months, I have only read 2-3 proofs and one research paper. It took 2-3 weeks to go over each mathematical proof.

Question: How do I know I have done enough work in one semester? I mean is there any parameter to measure the work that I have done in the last semester? I have heard some students read only one research paper per one semester.

I can get feedback from my research supervisor, but the problem is he might say I did enough work just to keep my motivation high.


texts:
During the process of writing my PhD thesis, I was close to falling out with my adviser, the advice I received from other staff at the lab (including the director) was unhelpful at best.
I have since made up with my adviser and have successfully defended the thesis.
I now have to publish my thesis.

The department says that one can include acknowledgements. All of the theses I have seen in my lab and in my department feature acknowledgements.
Due to this special situation,  I don't quite feel that acknowledgements are called for. Yes, my adviser helped during the first half of the project but then almost completely reverted his stance. In terms of contribution, it is my opinion that he comes out at 0%.

I do not want to address any of the issues in the acknowledgements. I do not think that this is the right place. Likewise, I do not feel like thanking any of the involved people.
Therefore, I would just leave out the acknowledgements completely.
In academia, is this considered worse than lukewarm acknowledgements?
Should I actually care about the acknowledgement, because others do?


texts: Quit PhD due to illness/no support and make a step back and apply to Masters/PhD again

texts:
Years ago I was diagnosed with leukemia and fortunately I won at that time the battle. Beginning of last year I started a PhD and after 1 year, my old illness was again knocking the doors and I had to stop the PhD asking for a Leave of Absence to start my treatment.

I've got a LOA but unfortunately, 6 months later and although my treatment works fine, it seems I'll need around 6 months or more to recover and I'm afraid to have a long year gap in my CV. Moreover, there is a total lack of support and communication from my university and academic committee and I was thinking to quit my PhD.

Therefore, and seeing this gap won't help me, I decided to make a step back in my career, apply for a MSc. in a related area of my PhD and later, apply again to other PhD program in a different university.

I understand is a big step back, but it seems I'll need around a year to recover (if everything works fine) and I don't think I'll get a rec. letter from my supervisor. I also need to refresh again my background and be humble about my situation, so I don't think it's really bad. However, I'd like to hear from you suggestions or ideas.

Thanks in advance for reading and all your comments


texts: How to prosecute plagiarism when the discoverer of the plagiarism is an outside third party?

texts: Recently a group of students have investigated the the alleged plagiarism in the thesis of one of the most famous alumnus's of Glasgow Caledonian University. In one specific case, a crowd-sourced project highlights very convincing evidence of plagiarism throughout the process. Is there any global authority to investigate this type of issue and put it through required legal steps?


texts: Is there a reliable indicator for which which NIH RFAs are open to post-docs?

texts:
I haven't found any guidance on NIH's websites so far whether or not someone who has a Ph.D. but is not yet full-time faculty (e.g. post-doc) is eligible to be named as a co-PI on an R01 grant.

For that matter, the individual eligibility criteria are really vague-- it's not clear that they even exclude a post-doc from being a sole PI on an R01 grant. That makes me think that I'm looking in entirely the wrong place to see if I am eligible for a given RFA.

Is there a foolproof indicator of whether or not a given RFA is open to post-docs either as sole PIs or co-PIs?

Thanks.


texts: Are TED presentations academically credible?

texts:
Many people, including myself, are fascinated by TED speakers. They provide us a new perspective. For example, see the TED talk The best stats you've ever seen by Hans Rosling.

However, when I talked about this to an anthropologist, he said that the statistics in this TED talk are unverifiable. He suggested that the speaker doesn't give us his sources, so therefore the talk is no longer a scientific talk. As a result, he suggested, real scientists are clever enough to stay away from these presentations.

Do TED talks have the necessary rigor and foundation to be citable in papers and other "scholarly" publications?


texts: What are the risks associated with taking a semester off while doing a Master's degree?

texts:
I am curious about this -  I'm currently undergoing a Masters degree and am almost finished.

I finished the coursework, however I still have the thesis project plus the thesis. And it's looking unlikely for the Spring semester.

My prof is a little bit agitated, but i'm just strapped for time. I'm working full-time and school is simply becoming second-fiddle to work. I come home from work, and if I'm lucky I can spend 20 minutes on school material. Weekends are tough also, as I travel to meet family.

However, I feel that taking a semester off only hurts my overall situation. Because even being registered for 1 hour of thesis credit is a sort-of motivation for me. I.E "OK i'm paying money so I better get my money's worth"

However I see the other argument which is "well if you knowyou can't graduate this semester then why not just do the work without paying.. then register  the following semester?"

But I am worried that there'll be some hidden snag associated with re-enrolling?

Does anybody have advice/suggestions? Intuitively i'd rather pay-up and at least stay enrolled, but I caan sympathize with my prof's view.


texts: What rights do students in the U.S. have re gender pronouns?

texts:
What federally protected legal rights does a transgender student in the U.S. have re gender pronouns used in referring to the student?

This question was inspired by the recent discussion of gender pronouns at Academia Meta.


texts: As a dissertation advisor, how can I best help a "typical" graduate student?

texts:
I am about to officially become the Ph.D. advisor to a math grad student at a second-tier state school. (He is about to pass his comprehensive exams.)

He is strong, motivated, and talented, but not to such an extent that I wonder why he's in our program and not some top-20 program. He doesn't know precisely what he wants to work on, and will be looking to me for guidance. He hopes to get some kind of academic job afterwards, but hasn't thought about precisely what.

How can I best help him? For example, should I urge him to work on something difficult, technical, and of interest to experts -- or something less exciting to experts, but easier to explain and motivate?

Typically, although not always, our successful graduates don't get offered research postdocs, but do often go on to faculty positions at second-tier liberal arts schools or branch-campus state universities. Assuming he would be happy with such a position (which of course I will ask!), what can I do to maximize the chances for his success?


texts:
I've attended a few workshops consisting of some talks, and then maybe 10-15 hours of "group work" over the course of a week.  At one, my group more or less solved the question we set out to answer, which was mildly interesting but not particularly ambitious.  (Essentially, it was a computation a few of us had wondered about over coffee at previous conferences.)

The organizers are hoping the groups will write up and post (arxiv+journal?) reports on the outcomes of the work.  My impression is that most people in the group were on board.  It's possible to imagine a continuing project in this direction, but I think everyone has better things to do.

In any case, we do have something to write up, and the result is even mildly amusing.  But if I'd worked it all out myself, I certainly wouldn't arXiv it or submit anywhere.  I'm faced with the possibility of being on a slightly embarrassing, very-many-author paper.

1) is there any polite way to opt to keep my name off of it? (the others are mostly more senior, but I can't really claim I didn't contribute)

2) if this thing does see the light of day, would it be acceptable to omit it from my CV, or list it in some different section?

My perspective is that of a postdoc who will be on the market a couple years from now.  How are these sorts of papers viewed by hiring committees? (My impression is that they are not uncommon these days.)


texts: Best ways to obtain a scholarship for a Masters in financial mathematics/ quantitative finance

texts:
I am not a UK or US citizen but I would like to get a scholarship to study in a master program in either financial mathematics or quantitative finance. My GPA is around 3.65-3.7 but I will still like to study in the best school I can.

Are there any clear guidelines on how to increase one's chances of getting a scholarship in a subject like this to attend a decent school in the UK or US?


texts: Should I warn colleagues of another colleague's sexism?

texts:
Over the years, I have had experiences at some conferences where more senior faculty members have been—shall we say—less than appropriate to women in the field. The same can be said about colleagues being heterosexist and/or racist, but I digress. Sometimes, these are isolated incidents and I didn’t feel comfortable having the confrontation at that point in my career so I let it slide. I am in a field that has a serious gender inequity problem and I am a junior member of the field.

Flash forward a few years and a colleague (of the gender/race/sexuality that the other person disparaged) is going to a conference with the same person. In my field, the conferences are small, so there's little chance they will not interact.

Does one forewarn one’s colleague about such a faculty member? Part of me desires to forewarn, but part of me worries that it will just add drama to the community, preconceived notions to the colleague's experience in the conference, and possibly unnecessary dread during the time interacting with the faculty member. What if the faculty member has gotten better about this? What if it gets back to the faculty member that I’ve said that they’re sexist?

If one doesn’t tell a colleague and then experiences said sexism, then does one confirm their experience about that faculty member to help one’s colleague process that experience?


texts: Is scanning an handwritten peer-review suitable for editor/authors?

texts:
I peer-reviewed a manuscript and am about to send my conclusions to the editor. It occurs to me, though, that because there are many details to be checked/changed in various places of the paper (mathematical notations, in particular), it will take quite some time for me to type it into a proper review (probably using TeX, because it is math-heavy).

So, I am wondering: since my hand-writing is decent and people don't usually find it too hard to decipher, could I simply scan my annotated copy of the paper, along with one page of notes, to the editor? Or will that be unacceptable to them?

I think it raises a few questions, going from practicalities:

will it be as useful as a thoroughly written-down review?
does it give more work to the editor?
should I also include a summary of my comments, in computerized form?

to ethical questions:

does handwritten notes breach rules of anonymity?

I suppose people used to do that in older times, but it have never received a hand-written review so far, so it is (at least in my field) unusual.

So: should I do it? if I do it, what precautions should I take?


texts: Online Slot Management and recruitement tool for lab studies

texts: In Human-Computer Interaction and Psychology (and others) lab studies are performed quite often. Although searching quite a bit, I did not find a tool/piece of software or application to provide a link for students to sign up for the study on a specific date and manage time slots. Besides our homebrewn approach I could not find anything on the net. Is there anybody out there with a better service than google calendar ?


texts: Can I informally ask the special session organizers about the paper's decision?

texts:
I have sent a paper to a special session of a conference, and the notifications will be given in one week.

But I have to send my publication list for a postdoc position this week. Do you think it'd be a good idea to send an informal email to the organizers asking if the decisions have already been taken?


texts: Receiving Degree Late due to late payment of tuition

texts:
I finished my LLM program at NYU in 2006. I haven't yet received my diploma because I am still paying my tuition debt to school. When I finish paying, NYU will give me the degree, but will it show as I received my degree in 2006 or the year I actually finished paying and received it?

I am currently applying for green card lottery where I need to state my level of education as of the date of application. Is it correct to say I have a masters degree or should I say some university level course?

I have graduated academically, I just owe money and I will have it paid by the time green card lottery results are known.


texts: How do you approach your professor if you do not understand or know how to do the homework at all?

texts:
So, I am an undergraduate student taking partial differential equations. This class can be so stressful at times because I do not understand the lecture material, and thus it makes it hard to do homework. Moreover, we have a quiz every Friday based on the homework, and homework is due on Friday.

So far, we are going over 1D wave equations and I do not understand any of the lecture material at all. Moreover, If I do not understand the lecture material I can't do the homework that is due on Friday. Other students in that class are lost too. It just doesn't make sense that this course is required for undergraduate level in order to graduate.

What do I tell my professor in his office hours if I do not understand the homework at all? I am nervous because I do not know how he will react, and I did not put any solution down because I am clueless. How would you react if you were a professor and I went on Wednesdays to your office hours and homework and quiz is due on Friday?


texts:
Last summer I did an Internship at a Company and after finishing it with a positive review, I received the offer to write my bachelor thesis in cooperation with that company.

After finding a suitable subject (taken from the list of available subjects) I contacted the Doctor that initialy posted the subject.

In his reply he told me that he would be interested in supervising me but he has to decline as he has not enough time and the University (Chair) would not reimburse him on supervising extern thesises.

Finally he re-emphasized that he is interested in the topic, and asked me to inform him when the company would find another contingence

I struggle to identify what he means by this.
My first impression is that he'd like to be compensated for supervising me by the company.

I don't know whether this is what he is suggesting or whether this would be indecent at all.

I'd like to here another opinion before proceeding.


texts: A potential collaborator and PhD student took a commanding tone with me (faculty) – how should I react?

texts:
Background about me

I am an early-to-mid-career teaching-track faculty (four years of cross-curricular teaching experience in engineering) in the USA.  I teach courses both at the undergraduate and graduate level.  I also try to keep up with research and publish a conference or journal paper or so every year.  It is hard work and my maturity is growing.

(About ten days ago, my research was identified by a rather senior faculty member (twenty years of research and consulting experience with multiples millions of dollar in grant money and more incoming) as being quite promising.  I had a rather pleasant conversation with him and he was genuinely interested in my work and wanted to collaborate. Happiness abound!)

Main question

A few days ago, his PhD student stopped by my office to discuss my research.  There are some common ideas I and the student are both working on.  I found that although he is a smart student (yet to pass his PhD qualifiers), his attitude was a little off-putting with a superiority complex I have not sensed in the hundreds of students I interact with every semester.  He wants to collaborate with me but kept saying things like “you should do ...” and “you could do ... for my research”. It is okay for a student to suggest a line of action, but I still feel that an instructor–student distance should be maintained.  I certainly did not speak to my adviser in such a fashion and neither did my colleagues (to their advisers, during their PhDs).

I appreciate the exchange of ideas but I am somehow repelled by the idea of a student who I have barely only met has a superiority complex.  This probably stems from him working with an adviser who is pre-eminent in his field.

I know that working with this student would likely lead to being co-PI on research grants but somehow, as mentioned earlier, I am repelled by this idea.

Is this common in academia, to come across PhD students with such a high superiority complex?  Am I just being overly conceited and self-absorbed by feeling repelled?  I am not sure if the student met with me on the behest of his adviser, but my gut feeling is to communicate research ideas directly with his adviser.  At the same time, I feel that ignoring the student could impact my relationship with his adviser (unfounded fear perhaps, but I don't know).

I am reaching out to the larger advisers on this forum to get some perspective and thoughts on such situations.  This is an immense opportunity for me to break into prominent research ranks after somewhat wallowing in teaching.


texts: Zoom Polls: Why do I not see the option?

texts:
I have a Zoom paid account ("Pro") and from googling it seems that the polling option should be available to me.
However when I start a meeting I do not seem to see the option to start a poll. Any clue what I may be doing wrong? Do other see the polling option in free / paid zoom versions?
And in Settings for my account I do See that the Meeting Polls option is already enabled (screenshot below).
Not sure what I am doing wrong!
The use case is that I wanted to ask live questions during my lecture to gauge whether students have understood a concept.


texts: I am interested in graduate studies, but I was dismissed from my undergraduate program for poor grades. Where do I go from here?

texts:
I've had a tumultuous undergraduate experience, to say the least. After being suspended freshman year, being re-admitted in the Spring of 2014, and a rough 2014-2015 academic year, I've been dismissed from my university.

It's extremely upsetting and has left me a little bitter, especially since my trouble in school has been due to ADHD, depression and anxiety that went undiagnosed for an extremely long time as well as an unpleasant living situation to say the least. I have no record of misconduct and was active in student organizations excluding social fraternities. I tried to appeal the decision, but got was rejected. I'm planning on going to a local community college in the fall to at least get an associates degree and transfer to another university, but I'm not sure how well it will go.

I have always loved academia, and ideally want to go to graduate school. Ever since I was a kid, my whole goal was to go to graduate from college. Now it is seeming less and less likely. I feel like my academic record could hang over me for the rest of my life, keeping me not only from continuing the education I want, but also keeping me from a career or leaving home. I'm at an unfortunate crossroads and I don't know what the next step I should take is.

That said, do I still have a chance at completing an undergraduate program and - hopefully - completing a graduate program? While I ideally want to continue my liberal arts education and eventually go into a post-graduate program, should I make a more achievable goal? My cumulative GPA is around 1.5, and I feel as though that it will affect the admissions process almost everywhere I go. Essentially, can I still get my degree, or will most universities not accept me at all on grounds of my academic record?

Related question posted here


texts: At what point is it OK to claim that you review for a journal in a job application?

texts:
I have just been invited to review a paper submitted to a very good journal in my field, and I accepted the request.

However, I will also submit my last PhD application within the next couple of days. Naturally, I will not be able to submit the review this soon.

I am wondering whether I should include in my CV that I am a reviewer for this specific journal. I am not sure how this would be considered in a PhD application, but I think it would strengthen my profile, given that this will be the second most prestigious journal to which I will have provided a review.

Perhaps the question can be better worded as: at which point it is OK to disclose that you review for a journal, particularly in a job application? Is it as soon as you receive the invitation? As soon as you accept the invitation? As soon as you submit the review? As soon as the review process ends? Or after a significant amount of time has passed?


texts:
Next november I will face my third and last year of my PhD. However, my percourse has been torturing and twisted.

I started my PhD in a different group because I was kind of tricked out. My background is molecular biology and microbiology and I ended up in a group about biosensors, which was essentially sensors - nothing bio. The group did not have any senior researcher nor postdoc so essentially we were alone and the supervisor was not there.

I switched group after almost a year to food microbiology. In that period I got another PhD position but I was so stupid to refuse it. However, I was doing fine during the first month in the new group. After some time, I got results that were the contrary of our hypotheresis and I am stuck without any result since then. I must mention that my cosupervisors do not help and mostly critisice my work without knowing about that particular techniques. However, when I do something wrong they are supposed to know, they do not tell me anything, which causes losing months of time. One of them even tried to down my work in front of our boss. Also another important fact, is that our university is so bad organized that the reagents and stuff take 2 motnhs to arrive after you order something.

At this point I have no results after more than a year and a half and my PhD last for 3 years. My cosupervisors are causing me incredible delay and I am just seeing a big failure at the end because they require three submited papers. I end up in a psicologist, I work every weekend and I dont remember the last day I had free since months.

I started applying for jobs because the PhD is not giving me any knowledge at all, just monkey lab work togheter with people who disturb and try to mess around with my very small outcomes.

I just write here because I dont know whether if I can keep going like this anymore. Should I just quit even if I am jobless afterwards? Should I keep pushing harder? Is this even normal? I dont see any other PhD like this here..


texts: Is it OK to use a first name as an initial and write in full in the biography of a paper

texts: I would like to write my initial first name in the title of my paper and i.e with this format "Initial (for first name) Middlename Surname". Is it appropriate to write the full first name in the biography section of the paper i.e Full (First name) Middlename Surname? Note that I would like to keep this consistent.


texts: How to indicate that a thesis is confidential on the title page using APA style?

texts:
I am currently preparing to submit my thesis/paper to my educational institution and to the company who commissioned the study.

The only entities allowed to read the paper are internals of the university and internals of the company

As my paper is confidential, I am wondering, does APA-style offer any guidelines about how to indicate confidentiality? Are there any do's and don'ts?

Right now, I have CONFIDENTIAL written in bold and red, just above the title on the title page. Like this:

Example of current title page


texts: How to include industrial research experience legally?

texts:
I am planning to apply for Ph.D. after spending the last couple of years in Industry.

Problem is, the project I was working on (in this company) though completed, may not have my name as author. As per company policy, as I am leaving before it is getting published.

So, is there any way (or is it legal) I can include the project, in my CV without giving many details?


texts:
I'm a PhD student and I just had my half-time examination. My supervisor thinks my data is "crap", my report "wasn't good", and my presentation was "a disaster". Maybe he is right. However, he doesn't seem to know how to provide feedback constructively.

At other times, his feedback is either vague ("these slides could use a little more oomph") and only helpful half of the times ("the standard way to analyze this is to...").

I am not sure how to cope with with this type of feedback, mentioned in the first paragraph. Any ideas?


texts: Potential advisor offering to fund visit to lab

texts:
I'm planning on travelling to another country to meet a potential PhD advisor (we're both in Europe). He has said his lab will cover the expenses.

Is this usual practice? I'm from a country where standard etiquette when offered money (or indeed, anything) in a circumstance like this is to politely refuse the offer multiple times, even when they insist, and then eventually agree while making clear you feel terrible for accepting their money. Agreeing immediately would be seen as extremely rude.

I'm aware it's almost certainly the lab's budget that will be funding my visit and not coming out of the guy's own pocket, but still, I don't really know what to say, a standard thank you still feels bad to me, but maybe that's just from my culture.


texts: How to decide contribution percentages for authors of a paper which is based on a patent?

texts:
Suppose four authors namely, A, B, C and D (in decreasing order of contribution) are inventors of a patent. The inventors agree to write and publish a research paper, however, authors B and C do most of the paper writing and experimental work. Author A provides them help while not directly indulging in the ground work.

My question is, does author A still deserves to be primary author of the paper? Or, the contribution of authors for paper has to be evaluated separately from patent? Please guide.


texts: Is it necessary to specialize on a topic when writing publications?

texts:
I have written a couple of papers on a certain topic in network communications.  I would like to write my next paper on a different topic, for example something geared toward the electrical engineering side of communications.  These topics are normally thought of as different fields of specialization.

One reason I would like to do this is to demonstrate a broad knowledge base on my resume.  I am also interested in various topics.  Is it at all harmful to write (and perhaps publish) in different tangentially related subjects?


texts: How do SJR and Web of Science journal rankings and quartiles differ?

texts:
I want to know about how journal quartiles  (i.e., Q1 to Q4) calculations differ.

Web of Science (WoS) uses Journal Impact Factor Quartile the journal’s rank in category (X) is based on where the journal stands relative to the total number in the category. InCites (WoS)  displays the best quartile for journals that appear in multiple Web of Science Research Areas. When a research area is specified, the quartile for that particular journal and research area is displayed.

I've recently submitted an article in a ISI journal.
This journal (urban design international) is ranked 36 out of 40 journals in the "urban studies" category; when I searched it in the Scopus, it was showed as a Q2 journal. But according to the web of science calculation, it is Q4 (36/40 = 0.9, Q4>0.75 ~ 0.9 = Q4)

So my questions are:

How  are SJR journal quartiles calculated?
How can SJR and WoS journal quartiles differ so much (e.g., Q2 in SJR and Q4 in web of science)?
Which ranking (SJR or WoS) is more important or valid?
When someone asks about journal quartiles, which system is more commonly used?


texts: Leaving a short-term teaching position early

texts:
I'm a little over a month into a 9-month teaching position, to cover two semesters' worth of courses.  It's my first "proper" job since finishing my PhD.  I've just been offered a 2 1/2-year postdoc (which I'd much rather do than my current job), and been told that the latest I could take it up by is 2/3 the way through next semester.  So if I left to take up the postdoc, my current department would have to find someone else for (at least part of) next semester's courses.

According to the terms of my contract, I'm within my rights to leave, giving 3 months' notice. But if I did that, would I piss the department off so much as to find myself in some way blacklisted in years to come?


texts: What criteria does a research project need to match to be called open science?

texts:
What kind of formal or non-written rules/requirements does our project need to match and follow so we can say that our project is open science?

Is it only about research data which should be accessible to all?

What if the project doesn't make sense and it's publishing correlation data of the number of pirates with global temperature? Does it still match the criteria of 'open science' project?


texts: Asking for PhD admission in a different faculty than potential supervisor

texts:
I've been speaking with a professor with regards to admission into a PhD program at a top European University, and things have been going well so far. The only problem is that it isn't "officially" in my field of choice.

To be more specific, the degree label will be "Mechanical Engineering" (as it was for my B.Eng and M.Eng), while most of the work will involve Numerical Computing and 3D graphics; just that it will be in the Mechanical Engineering domain. In fact, one of the reasons the professor has expressed interest in hiring me is because it isn't common for Mechanical Engineers to also be experienced programmers in the field.

While I'm certainly excited at the opportunity, I am also feeling a little bit reluctant, because I wanted my degree to be titled "Computational Science" or "Software Engineering". The reason being is that I don't want to be seen as an "inexperienced" developer after spending 4 years in a program doing exactly that. The concern might seem shallow, but I don't want to commit 4 years of time I could be using to further my career.

Regardless of my reasoning, is it possible/common to ask for admission into a different faculty than my supervisor, while still being supervised by them? How much effort, if any, should I expend to make sure that the field I am accepted in is the one I want, while working with the same professor? What alternatives are there to advertise my qualifications as a software developer/computational scientist if I choose Mechanical Engineering? And finally, if at all, how will this limit/extend my options in the future?


texts: Double blind peer review when paper cites author's GitHub repo for code

texts:
I and my coauthor wrote a paper and the project involved creating a (small) software library. Part of the novelty of the paper is the output of the code, which is a digital object not intended for by-hand manipulation. The code (open source) would ideally also be useful for others. One journal to which I was considering submitting this requires double-blind peer review, but the GitHub repo where the code is stored, referenced in the paper, identifies one of us simply by looking at the username in the url. We can of course obscure our identities in the paper as authors, but really need to cite the code repository.

I've not had to do double blind review before, and so it's not clear what we should do. My coauthor is going to run into more problems of this sort as they continue research with a similar mix of code-and-paper as output.

Is there anything we can do, at least as a first attempt to soothe the journals worries?


texts: Thanking administrators for bulk information email

texts:
I have recently started to communicate with scholars and administrators at an American institution (I myself am based in Europe) as part of a fellowship program. I have since then received several emails with general information which were addressed to me but likely sent in bulk to all participants. The director of the programme (herself a professor) and another administrator are also copied in the messages.
Should I reply to those emails with a "thank you" email? If so, should I include the professor and the other administrator in the reply?


texts: Application to create 3D figures for papers

texts:
I would like to know of a good and easy-to-use application to create simple but visually appealing vector figures such as spheres, planes, lines.

It should permit transparencies for example, and 3D coordinate representation to be able to show concepts in the 3D space, such as tangency or crossing.

Thanks!


texts: Is it okay to omit (one or multiple) middle names in a bibliography?

texts:
Assuming that the cited work will not be less identifiable:
When including a paper in the body and bibliography of one’s work, is it okay to omit the author’s middle name(s) and just give the first and last name in the bibliography?

The main reason why I consider doing that is as follows:

I often cite different works by the same author, but one work lists the middle name, the other doesn’t.

Usually, when two works of the same author are listed in the bibliography, and the names are consistent, they will appear one below the other, and the second entry will not list the author, but a line of dashes:

Doe, John. Work 1, 1999.
-----. Work 2, 2003.

But if the author is not exactly the same in the bibliography database (in LaTeX, for instance), it will be listed as such:

Doe, John. Work 1, 1999.
Doe, John Jeremy. Work 2, 2003.

This in itself is just cosmetic: it may be bad style, but the bibliography is still correct.

Now imagine there are three works, and only the one that was published between the two others states the middle name of the author.
It would look like this:

Doe, John. Work 1, 1999.
Doe, John. Work 3, 2007.
Doe, John Jeremy. Work 2, 2003.

This is because the bibliographic system doesn’t recognize them as the same author.
This is a problem because the works don’t appear in order of their publishing date.


texts:
Currently an undergraduate in computer science, I am pursuing an Ms+PhD program in oceanography at some top US universities.
I recently got feedback from a PI that I had an interview with before applying, who told me that my "application was ranked highly" and "[they] are currently figuring out funding situations", and that "If [I] find out about [my] own funding at a later date, [I should] please be in touch as this changes opportunities".
Unfortunately I only found out about the effect fellowships and scholarships have on admission late into the game, and as such was only able to apply to the NSF GRSP and one other small fellowship.
What can I do, one week before admission results drop, to improve my funding situation last minute?
I am not a women or minority. I would be able to self-fund part of my PhD but was advised against doing so (and the departments won't allow it anyway).


texts:
I am an undergraduate student. This semester, I'm taking a 1.5 credit course, which is a 1.5 hour lecture once a week from a rotation of different speakers. There will be a final at the end of the semester.

The course coordinator, Mack (Not His Real Name™), cannot come to every lecture. He therefore asked me to give him my notes, both for his review and also as as a basis for the final exam. Because my notes will be a part of the test, he asked that I 1) do not tell anyone that my notes will be a basis for the test 2) do not share my notes with anyone else.

A number of students noticed that I take notes during lecture, and have approached me to ask for a copy of my notes. They're not constantly asking for notes; in fact, at least one of these students (who I know to be a very hard worker in school) does take his own notes, but wants to compare notes just in case he missed something (this is something that he does in every course).

I'm having some difficulty convincing them that they don't want my notes. I told them that I write in partial shorthand (which is true), and that the notes are just rough notes (also true), but some students say they want my notes anyway. I suppose I could always "forget" to give them my notes, but this is neither foolproof nor polite.

How can I politely refuse to share my notes with my classmates in this situation?

I am aware of the XY problem -- I can imagine a solution to the situation where I share the notes anyway, or ask Mack for permission to share my notes. However, I'd like to help Mack (his alternative is to listen to 15 x 1.5 hour recordings), while still remaining on good terms with my classmates, and not ruining the final exam.


texts: Basic paper outside area of expertise: reject or decline?

texts:
It sometimes happens that I receive referee requests for theoretical papers which deals with the same phenomena I do in my research, but from a totally different specific theoretical starting point. I am familiar enough with the "competitors'" theoretical framework that I can read the papers, but they more often than not, it seems that the papers I receive are limited to only basic results of the kind I would not publish myself, but rather leave for my memoirs or a lecture note.

I realize that I am of course a bit biased, since I actively dislike that theoretical framework. For that reason I also have a hard time judging if the papers actually make some kind of incremental contribution, which would warrant publication.

For these reasons, I mostly decline reviewing such papers. But recently I have started to doubt whether I am, in this way, a bit too soft. If everyone, who are not active researchers in that very specific theoretical framework, decline to review their papers, we just end up with a lot of sub-par research being published. On the other hand, I don't want to become one of those petty referees, who will only accept papers that does the kind of theory that I find best.

Are there any good solutions to this dilemma?


texts: Zero papers in first PhD year. Is this common?

texts:
I am terminating in these days the first year of my PhD in computer science. As I come from a different field, I spent the first semester doing courses, and most of the second in posing the basis of the thesis project: we have a couple of results, still nothing actually published, and only one paper waiting for approval (with a very low probability of being accepted ).

At the same time I can see many colleagues who already have published a couple of papers during the first year, so I am a bit worried. Am I going too slow? How common is for a PhD student to publish zero papers in the first year?

Also consider that the length of my PhD is 3 years, and this further worries me..


texts: complete all graduation requirement but delay in degree award

texts:
I have received the phd progrom admission offer with TA fellowship, which will start in 2019 Fall semester.
For undergrad degree, I tried to graduate in this summer and I finished all the requirements.
But for some classes, the final grades were entered too late before the degree award date for summer graduation, so I could not get my official degree certificate before this winter.
My undergrad school awards degree only three times in an academic year - May, August, December.
The school graduation coordinator can write the letter that I have completed all but the degree will be actually awarded in December.

What I worry is, just after I accepted the admission offer, the grad school only has asked to submit the official transcript whether the coursework is still ongoing or not.
They said, if the degree is awarded after I gave them the official transcript, I have to submit the official transcript with all final grades and proof of degree before the second semester registration.
The second semester, 2020 Spring, will start mid-January, and I can get my degree in mid-December and send the degree certificate no later than early January.
And right now I do not need any additional coursework in 2019 Fall in my undergrad school.

I asked the grad school office and they seemed to forward it to the department which I will join their phd program.
The department said they will write a petition for me but this matter is behest of the graduate school if they accept the petition or not.
Based on what the department said, it is the grad school who has the authority over this matter, but I did not get a reply from the grad school.
Instead, it seemed that the grad school just forwarded my email to the department.

I cannot get any clear answer for this, so I wonder if there is anyone who experiences a similar thing to my situation....


texts: What are the benefits of a poster award?

texts: What are the benefits of poster awards? Is being awarded at a conference really useful for one's career (e.g. when applying for a PhD or a job) or is it just scene? In other words: Can I say that having such award on my resumé is better than just nothing?


texts: What should I do if my advisor won't give me input into my own projects?

texts:
I am a third year PhD student, and since joining my advisor's lab, I feel like I have made very little intellectual contribution to any of my projects.  My advisor tells me exactly what to do, rarely asks for my ideas, and whenever I make a suggestion, he comes up with some reason why it's a bad idea and we should do it his way instead.  Generally I feel like I am just carrying out his orders and don't get to do original research on my own.  And if I don't get to do original research, why am I doing a PhD?

Sometimes my advisor gives me problems, and they are pretty interesting.  But they stop being interesting when he tells me exactly how to model the problem, exactly what experiments to conduct, and exactly what figures should go in the resulting paper.  Other people I've worked with just gave me problems and let me figure out how to solve them myself, and at the end of the week I'd send in results and they'd give advice (not orders) on what to do next.  I felt a lot more attached to those projects because I felt like they were mine, and not someone else's.

When we meet with our collaborators about my projects, they mostly talk to each other and I can't get a word in, even though I am the one writing all the code and generating all the figures.  Sometimes they are on the wrong track about something and a single sentence from me would clear up the confusion, but when I try to talk they frequently talk over me as if I weren't there, or didn't have anything valuable to contribute.  Also, if I disagree with my advisor about how to do something, he will just assume I'm being stupid, but if my collaborator disagrees he actually listens.

How can I stop this and be in charge of my own projects?


texts: How to fund a 2nd master's degree (UK), or should I directly go for a PhD?

texts:
I will receive my master's degree soon. Even though it was a nice program, I found out I'm more interested in something else. Now, I'm thinking should I do another MSc (one-year) in the other field before starting a PhD? The MSc program I'm interested in is given in the UK. I think (hope) I'm so good a student, that they would happily take me in.

Well, then there comes the question how to fund the 2nd master's degree.. In general, are master's degrees (fully) funded in the UK? I'm european if that matters. I would also appreciate if you can point me to grant-providing institutions.


texts: Is it plagiarism to closely mimic the structure of a table in a publication?

texts:
I am writing a paper on a topic closely related to previous literature (but in a different study population). As such, the statistical analysis is very similar to a previous publication and I really like the way the previous authors (which I have cited in the literature review) have structured a particular table.

Would essentially copying this structure, but putting in my own results, be a form of plagiarism?


texts: Inventors on patent regarding research results

texts:
In our research institute, advisors give phd students a lot of freedom and sometimes are not so much involved in the research. This was also the case for my latest research project. I gave him some demos every now and then to show my progress and another phd student helped me out a bit with making some examples and nice figures. However, I came up with the initial idea and step by step made the necessary decissions to come to the point where we are now. We are now in a phase where my advisor and the university want to patent my research and we are discussing all the possibilities with people from the legal departement. However, in all documents the other phd student + my advisor are also mentioned as "inventors". Wheras I'm quite sure that according to the laws related to being an inventor on a patent, they are officially not an inventor of this research project. The research that I did is quite applied so there is some chance that we can make some money with it in the future (selling it or starting a company). The university states that the inventors get 30% of all the profit that comes from the patent. This means that I would only get 10% since we are with 3 co-inventers. Also when I would start a company that does something with these results I would still have to give them some of the profit whereas they did not do something significant in the end.

When I look at researchers at other universities, I notice that it is quite common that all the authors on a paper are also the inventors of the patent that is associated with it. I can imagine that for most of these cases all the people involved at some innovative contribution which makes them a legitimate inventor. On the other hand it is also quite hard to say to your advisor that they should not be an inventor on the patent...

Is this an unspoken rule at many universities that advisors and co-workers are also inventors on a patent (similar to authors on a paper)? Is someone having experience a similar situation? How should I bring this up to my advisor and co-worker or would it bring me into more trouble when I would start this discussion?


texts: Are online-only sister journals simply a way to generate revenue?

texts: Some journals have "sister" "open" journals which are online only and require article processing charges as opposed to their counterparts by the same name (e.g., JRSM/JRSM Open, BDJ/BDJ Open). Do they tend to have a lower standard for publication just to generate revenue? Or is it actually to promote scientific publishing?


texts: Do medical doctors publish academic papers and write grant proposals?

texts: I know that medical doctors affiliated with universities can teach at the medical schools as professors and write chapters in textbooks.  But do medical doctors with a university affiliation also have to publish academic papers and write successful grant proposals, in order to be promoted?


texts:
I am writing a paper in Computer Science / Information Technology.  At several points in the paper, I mention the existence of particular types of software products.  For example:

  Advanced web data extraction systems offer the possibility for the user to define and execute Web wrappers by means of interactive graphical users interfaces (GUI) (e.g. Denodo, Kapowtech, Lixto and Mozenda).

The examples I am referencing are commercial products. Some of them have some articles associated with them which I can cite. Should I add reference to these articles? If yes, how can I do that?


texts: How to withdraw ones name from an already published paper

texts:
I am having the following trouble. Within a collaboration I was asked to prepare and pre-characterize some samples. I did so and sent the samples along with a report on the characterization results.

A year later I received a first draft of a paper: some paragraphs related to the collaborators experimental technique some copy paste of older papers of his. I thought I could safely ignore this as it was just meant to signal "we are working on this!".

Next thing I get (four months later): Mail from the submitting author

  Congratulations, paper accepted!

I asked him to send me the draft: Nothing!

Six weeks later, after having met one of his PhD students at a conference the submitting author sends me the proof from the publisher for proofreading. I come up with six pages of corrections (ranging from basic logical errors in argumentation to manipulative data representation), sent it to all coauthors (I assumed the others also might not have seen the manuscript before) and received zero feedback.

Paper was published two weeks later with most of my grammatical and semantical corrections incorporated.

I asked my boss (also co-author on the paper) how to deal with it. His answer: "Take it as one more paper and forget it!".

However, I do agree with this attitude. Now the tricky part: I never agreed on the authorship nor explicitly disagreed (hoping to bring the paper in a decent shape and considering the amount of work already put in). Should I adress the editor asking to withdraw my name arguing that I basically had not seen the paper? Or should I also point out the obvious flaws which might lead to a complete rejection?


texts: Is it appropriate as a referee to contact an author after the editor rejected the manuscript?

texts:
This is related to this question, but it is more a special case of it.

I reviewed a manuscript, which was submitted to a reputable traditional journal. The journal has a single-blind review system. I liked the manuscript a lot, as it was closely related to my research interests. However, the authors did not do a great job in reporting the manuscript, and I provided a long review with several suggestions for improving the report.

I suggested major revisions, but the editor rejected the paper. That is ok for me; it is the editor's responsibility to take such decisions. What is important is that the process is now closed.

By re-reading my review together with the other two referee's reviews, I came up with a couple other suggestions that I truly believe would benefit to the manuscript. Would it be a bad practice to contact the authors now that the paper is no longer under review? I do not mind unveiling my identity, and I would do that only because I want to advance the research in the paper. That is, I just want to help them.


texts: How technical should my oral PhD defense be?

texts:
I thought this would make a good question, and will ask my advisor shortly.

In the fields of optical sciences, electrical engineering, or applied physics at an RU/VH institution in the United States, how technical should the oral PhD defense be?

My last conference talk did not get any questions (on the same topics in my dissertation), so I believe that my presentations may be overly technical.

For some context : This work, some recent work by my former labmate, and recent work in this same niche by my advisor have been heavy on the mathematical/theory side, and none of us have received many questions at recent conferences.


texts: What language should my poster for a national convention be?

texts:
I will present work of mine in form of a poster on a national convention/congress/conference in my broader (STEM-related) field.

A manuscript has already been submitted by me, in english. Manuscripts will be available online for members of the society organizing the conference, and to everybody with internet access after some years. This is why I chose the manuscript to be in english

Last year I have also attended the conference, but presented in form of an (english) talk. In my session, this was the only english talk, but someone approached me afterwards in english. My impression is that only a small majority of the attendees were non-native speakers of my language, though.

I am fluent in both english and my native language.

On the convention/congress website it says (roughly):

  "The conference language is native language, but english
  contributions are welcome as well.

My question is:

Should I write the poster in english to make sure everybody will understand it, or rather chose my native language in order to make it easier for the majority to understand and talk about?

(Also be informed that I would like to have a reasonable change of being considered for the events' poster award)


texts: Getting a 2nd bachelors or go for a masters?

texts:
I majored in information systems and I deeply regret it.. I had an internship where I ended up doing some programming assignments, and I really enjoyed them. But it was also my senior year so I didn't want to switch to CS and spend another 2-3 years..

So I have been trying to take the gre to get into a software engineering program (UC Irvine and San Jose State University). But it's hard studying for it now that I'm out of school. I'm constantly trying to apply for jobs and trying to study for it. I did pretty bad the first time (148 on both quant and verbal and a 4 on the writing).

I've always been bad at these standardized tests. So not sure if I can get better scores the next time (still in the same process of trying to apply for jobs and study).

I've gotten A's in the programming classes that I've taken. It's just hard to get a junior level software engineering job because companies favor CS majors. As for internships, companies only want currently enrolled students.

Any advice? Also consider financial situations etc when giving your input.

I've done a bit of googling and found that UC Irvine offers 2nd bachelors degree in CS or CSE. Anyone know of other schools?

As for masters programs that don't require the gre, I've only found National University here in San Diego. Not sure what those type of schools are like and if they're worth it..

Sorry for writing so much, just having a hard time deciding right now.


texts: What to do if I'm afraid that my idea will get stolen during review process?

texts:
I have an idea that I would like to publish. However, the idea is so simple that basically everyone in the field could reproduce the experiment that shows its benefit within a day or so.

What can I do to ensure that my idea is not stolen during the review process by a reviewer, for example?

If the reviewer holds back my paper and publishes it himself somewhere else, is there something I can do to prevent this?


texts: How do I look for/solicit a move to another university pre-tenure?

texts: I am considering a move to another institution, two years out from tenure. I do have a strong case, but the department has changed in ways that may mean better prospects elsewhere. I am not 100% set on leaving; rather I will be looking. I do think my current department would frown on my looking or actively soliciting a position. Also, my field is small; word will likely get around. How do people do this, correctly and strategically?


texts: When can I make assumptions in scientific papers?

texts:
I would like to know if assumptions are accepted among the scientific community. especially in the field of theoretical computer science.

To be more specific, is it OK to say something like: "The behavior X might be explained by . . ." when you are not 100% sure that it is the correct explanation, or you are not able to explain it mathematically or statistically.

Edit:
Indeed the possible explanation I'm talking about is not the main point of the paper, but a small part of results discussion that is, from my point of view, important for future investigations. Also, if I take the time to run some additional tests it would be off-topic and very time-consuming.


texts: Trust issues with my PhD advisor, is it worth fixing or can I get out?

texts:
I am a math PhD student considering changing universities.
I have suspicions that my supervisor has not been very honest with me
since I told him that I considered changing universities (and therefore
supervisors) because of shift in interests. He got angry with me, told me that it would bring
bad reputation to the research group and that I can't just leave after
1 year.

In a conversation I mentioned a university, in which there is a professor,
call him professor M, whose work interests me.
My supervisor said that professor M is the only
one in his field in the university (apparently
with the intent of discouraging me from
trying to apply to that university).
I looked up the website of professor M's research
group, which seems to tell a different story
(plenty of PhD students, at least one post doc).
I found this a bit suspicious.
Moreover I recently realized that my supervisor
has coathored an article with an emeritus professor, who
is in the university, who has worked on the same field, although
not part of the research group of M. The "research group" in my
university is not that active itself.

When I told him that I want to consider alternatives
he told me that the doctoral programme is collecting
information about PhD students (which was true), and
that he needed to know whether I was part of the group or
not. He gave me 3 days to decide whether to stay or leave the
doctoral program. I asked the coordinator of the program about this,
and he told me that the list in question changes all the time and
that it is not nearly as serious matter as my supervisor claimed.
It should be noted that my supervisor is notoriously bad at
bureucratic/adminstrative university matters.

I suppose in all the above cases it is possible that
the explanation is something less malicious, such
as ignorance or misunderstanding.
In any case I am not in good terms with my supervisor
and I don't think we trust each other very much.

The dilemma is that the funding is good and secured, and that
the alternatives are abroad (and uncertain).

Could the situation be worth fixing?
Should I run for my life?
Is there a risk that if I try to change universities
he will refuse to write a recommendation letter or
write a mild one (he supervised my Master's thesis)?


texts: Does starting a question with 'what is the impact of' make a good qualitative research question?

texts:
I am studying the impact of the internet on a cultural practice in my country. I have been working on this project for months. I have already started data collection and analysis. However, lately I've become unsure of my principal research question.
So, I'm studying an online community through online ethnography.

I am sure it is only a problem with the wording of the question.

What is the impact of the internet on ...?

I wonder if this is a qualitative question because I've read that qualitative questions should not start with 'what'.
Is studying the impact of the internet on a phenomenon consistent with my methodology?

Thank you


texts: Cannot submit revision of preprint in bioRxiv (Current Version Status Closed)

texts:
I went to the 'Author Area', and the first sign of problem was that the 'Submit a Revision' link had 0 papers. After that, I went to 'Author history', found the specific preprint. I noticed that the table's column 'Current Version Status' had entry 'Closed'. The preprint has 'Date of Original Submission' on September 2017.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on? I've searched in bioRxiv's site and in the web, but no clue of any rules related to closing of preprints to revision after some time since last or initial submission.


texts: Urgent Help: Company asked me for my research proposal

texts:
One of the companies I requested permission to recruit participants for my study is asking me to provide my research proposal. My question is, should I send the actual proposal (about 100 pages) or a summary? Is it ethical? Am I allowed to do that?
I cannot contact anyone from my school to ask these questions but until Monday. I really would like to reply to the company right away because I need the participants.
If I have to send a summary only, do you know if there is a format for that?

Your prompt assistance is appreciated!

CS


texts: How to formulate good problem statements in CS research

texts:
Short background: I started my PhD last November and now I am helping a master student writing his MSc thesis. I still have problems when I need to formulate a concise research question and even, at least in workshop papers, some publications fail in formulating clear research questions as well.
The topic the CS student writes about is the following. There is this work by Bracha on pluggable / optional type systems, e.g.  for scripting languages. The student wants to solve the same problem that these 'pluggable typesystem' solves. But he is using dependent-type theory, i.e., to check that values in the scripting language are valid according to a given type. This can solve (or better solve) problems related to scripting languages (e.g. security problems in web programming; because everything is basically a string in scripting languages).

I find it hard to come up with a concise research question. (And possibly also with a method to evaluate the approach).
So, my question is:

Are there any references that can help me to formulate valid research
questions?

The closest reference I have found is this mini-tutorial by Mary Shaw.
From Germany there is also a Memorandum that is interesting, but the focus is only on information systems research and not CS. (I can't find a link to the long version in either English or German yet.)


texts: Should I pay the teammate of the research if they don't contribute many things?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student and I join the research project with two other friends (same class) under my professor supervision. I got some money for the project, this money is divided equally to every member and I have a bonus for the leader position.
During the research, my teammate doesn't contribute much work.  When I submit the paper to the conference, they said I should remove their name and give them the money.
In my opinion, I don't want to give them the money because the total budget is not much, just enough for the submission fee.
So what should I do now, this is the first time I submit the paper and I don't want to feel awkward with them because we still have to study together?
Update:
After considering all the advice from you guys, I decided to give them their money as the team discussed at the beginning of the project. I think it is fair and they deserve to be paid because they do put their effort into this project.


texts: I believe fellow TAs are giving students answers and inflating their tutorial average, what should I do?

texts:
I am first-year graduate student doing teaching assistance for an introductory calculus course.

The course is taught by four instructors, with 12 teaching assistants in total and I am one of them.

Each instructor has three assistant underneath him or her and I am associated with one of the instructors along with two other TAs.

At the end of each hour long tutorial, the TAs will conduct a 20 minute mini-test. Each test has two computational questions selected by the professor. The test questions are related to the lectures prior to the test, and the time prior to the test is for the TAs to review concepts in the lectures and do some examples and exercises from the book. The exercises are drawn from the same source as the test questions, but they are obviously not supposed to overlap in any way.

I don't have strong evidence, but I believe that the other two TAs (who have been  doing this course for longer than me) are giving the student answers, and their students are outperforming those students in my section because of it.

What aroused my suspicion was when I graded the tests from their tutorials. We grade these tests on a rotation. There have been 9 tests so far, so at this point I have graded three of the tests.

What I found is that the students of their sections will give perfect, textbook solution like answers. All the students would make the exact same assumptions, almost as if all 30-40 students are copying from one another. In my section, the students struggle with their questions, sometimes not finishing them. When they do provide answers, there is a large variety of responses as expected of a calculus course. Therefore the students in my section have lower averages.

I don't believe that they are giving students answers directly. Some students would have sounded the alarm by now. What I suspect to have happened is that these TAs are doing the test questions during the tutorial and mixing them into the reviews. This would explain why so many students would follow the exact same procedure, yet still making some mistakes.

I wonder if these TAs are gaming the system. The system being the TA reviews at the end of the semester. These reviews are internal and are used to promote or select future TAs. I also feel bad for the students in my section. I feel that they are being cheated by the people who are supposed to instruct them.

I don't have firm evidence, but I fear that the professor is also in on it. When I first observed this large disparity between student performance, I mentioned to the professor. But there was no reply. Therefore I am afraid of talking to her about this. I am new to the school therefore I don't have anyone I can trust.

What should I do in this case?


texts: In a limbo stage in PhD. How to get out of it?

texts:
I am in the fourth year of my PhD and I am due to complete in four years. My advisor wants 5 journal papers. I have:

One published article.
Two articles under review with two different journals, one of the articles has previously been rejected 3 times.
One manuscript being checked by my advisor.
Two more works-in-progress, but I seem to have reached a limbo with these  works.

Can someone tell me if my progress is bad, average or good?

When I started my PhD, I would give a lot of effort to the work. I
   would keep track of how many hours I am giving to my work, would try
   to make up if the amount of hours dedicated to my work is less.

Recently, for the past 3-4 months, I am unable to feel that
   dedication that I felt earlier. I can see I am working way less, but
   I can't find a way to make myself motivated to work faster and work
   more.

I am feeling helpless. I am feeling very guilty that I am wasting my time. But when I sit with my work, things go blunt, my brain seems to stop working. I really don't know how should I get out of this phase.

I am failing to get myself motivated to work harder. The interest is dwindling. I wish I worked more hours but I am failing to do so. I want to work harder which I am not able to do now.

Please help me out here if possible.

Advisor info: I do all the work, he just checks the grammar. I do not get any technical input from him. If I talk about how low I feel he would just say, " PhD is like this, don't lose hope". The repetition of these lines does not do any good to me.


texts: To which department code should I send my TOEFL score?

texts: I'm thinking about applying for some US physics graduate programs. In the graduate admission procedure about where to send the TOEFL scores, I've often read the sentence "use the institution code ****, department code is not needed." However, the ETS website forces me to choose a department code. Now there seem to be two possible choices: there's the department code 76(physics), and there's the code 99 for "other subjects not in the list". The latter might at first seem ridiculous, but I found some schools explicitly demand department code to be chosen as 99. So for the schools that do not make such explicit statement, which code should I choose? Does it matter at all?


texts: Does the personal life of a researcher interfere with their work?

texts:
I came across this, this, this and this.

This professor at IIT is very well known for his books on physics in India. I can't find the exact link on Quora, but the answer said that he didn't marry because he loved his research too much.

I'm specifically asking if personal (family) life hinders or holds a person back from reaching one's full research potential.

Just a speculation - maybe a person could achieve a Nobel or likewise in his field if he could have spent more time on research than taking care or be there for his family. Maybe not.

I'm not asking strategies to balance work-life.


texts: How to move from experimental to computational research

texts:
I have been doing wet lab chemistry since my undergraduate and master, and my master is going to be finished soon. As time goes by, I find myself more interested in computational research. I have no prior simulation or modelling experience. I can write simple programs in Python but not fluently.

I would like to ask, based on this situation, is that sufficient to convince people to give me a computational research project (PhD, or maybe as a research assistant first)? If it is not sufficient, what should I do to move from experimental to computational research?


texts: Do I need a mathematical background to study astrophysics?

texts:
I don't know where to ask this question and I have found this site. If this is not the right place to ask it, please tell me and I will delete it.

I've been a computer engineer for 20 years but my true vocation is astronomy and astrophysics.

This autumn I'm thinking to start an astrophysics degree but I don't know if I need to do a transition year because I don't remember a lot of the mathematics and physics that I studied 20 years ago.

I'm interested in studying mathematics at university also, so I thought that I could start off studying mathematics first and then physics.

What do you think?

I ask it because physics has a lot mathematics and I don't know if it is better to study mathematics first and then physics.

In a nutshell:

  I'm a computer engineer that has ended his studies twenty years ago (I
  don't remember a lot of things about mathematics and physics) and I
  want to learn astrophysics. Do I need a transition year or maybe I can
  start studying mathematics (that is something that I want to do) first
  and then astrophysics?


texts: Sending students for conference presentation with no additional funding

texts:
Me with my two students got a paper accepted at a high-ranked CS conference. We have to register for the conference along with travel for presentation and other formalities.

I instructed my students to finish the formalities such as register, book for air tickets etc.

However, I find that I don't have fund presently to book for air tickets and do the registration. Although, they agreed for the process, I am not feeling relaxed on this situation.

Did I do justice for this situation?

However, I told them that we can look for some travel grants after the tickets are booked.


texts: How to steer a research fellowship back to the main initial focus rather than the supervisor's programming needs?

texts:
Currently, I work as a part time (0.2 FTE) fixed-term (1 year) Research Fellow in the field of public health - this is not my primary area of research or expertise, but the project looked interesting and had some mutual research interests - primarily the data analytics aspects.

However, as time has gone by (half way), all I have done is programming the primary tool for data collection (Android based), and now the supervisor is started to strongly go on about loosely-relevant web design for another one of her projects.

I have declined to do the web design, as I am not proficient in it and simply not interested - also reminding her that web design was not part of the original plan, nor do I possess the qualifications or experience.

She has mentioned that she has collected data for the main project and in her words 'to save me time', has had a grad student analyse it.  When I politely reminded her that this data analytics was what I was employed to do and are qualified in, she ignores the email and goes on about the web design (and about superficial improvements to the Android program).

How can I steer a research fellowship back to the main initial focus (data analytics) rather than the supervisor's programming needs?


texts: Is it reasonable to not publish data from research for fear of undermining previous work?

texts:
I am a postdoc working in a lab where we are finishing a large project with multiple measures (psychological, behavioral, etc). Some of the measures didn't turn out to have significant results (primarily for methodological reasons I believe). I suggested to the Lead Investigator that we write up some of these as "we tried these measures and didn't get the results we expected for various reasons: here are some lessons we have learned". The reply was:

  My immediate response is not all that positive – especially if it undermined our published papers ... if you’ve published a result then further publications shouldn’t raise more limitations that should have been mentioned in the original publication.

I don't believe the results will undermine anything but, that aside, is his reasoning for not publishing results valid? Also, to be clear, we haven't yet published anything from this work.

I understand him to mean that he doesn't want the results published because they might go against previous work and completely object to such a thought. Have I possibly misinterpreted his words?


texts: Special journals for young scientists or regular peer reviewed papers

texts: I am a 16 year old researcher and was wondering whether to apply to publish my paper in a special journals for young scientists, which have a higher chance of acceptance, or to apply in a regular peer-reviewed journal which might have a less chance of acceptance. I am confused between the quality and impact factor of the two journals and don't know which will be better. My research is completely original and not to show off but kind-of revolutionary.


texts: How to start international research collaborations within a specialised medical field

texts:
I am a researcher with 11 years of experience working on a series of projects in the health and education fields. These projects are loosely linked in that they are psych/ social science based and mostly involve quantitative methodology (e.g. training and development for mid career and older workers, workplace health and safety, inclusive education for children with autism and other disabilities).

However, I have developed a special interest in researching psychosocial health/ quality of life in people with congenital heart disease.

There are no researchers in my country investigating this topic (that I am aware of), however I have identified several researchers and groups internationally.

I would be interested in collaborating with them applying my experience to create different approaches to improving patient outcomes (e.g. flexible work policies/ career guidance for teens and adults, inclusive education for school aged children, positive psychology).

My strategy is to read some of these researchers' works in detail and then contact them with my ideas. I was wondering if I have the right idea or whether I am on the wrong track entirely? I don't have much experience with collaboration.


texts: About opportunities for international student in China?

texts: Are international PhD students offered Teaching Assistant (TA) positions during their research programme in China?


texts: I have seen the title postgraduate researcher in a couple of peoples Linkedin profiles for roles in the UK. The people listed only had masters degree before showing. What is this position formally, is it just someone who has not completed a PhD? Or are these official positions in subjects like astronomy?


texts: What path should I take to make my vision a reality?

texts:
I love German literature, but I am not interested in literary criticism/theory; just in close-reading, by which I mean, "reading while analyzing the grammar, syntax, usages of words, etc."

As my future goal as a researcher, I am thinking of compiling some sort of detailed guidebooks that will help the reader understand how the sentences parse in a systematic fashion; for no one has ever done that, at least not in a detailed, fool-proof kind of way, as far as I know after much research, both in the university library and on the Internet.

What sort of path should I set myself upon to pursue that kind of vision?
Is it even a legitimate research goal?

Thank you in advance.


texts: How should I deal with becoming discouraged as a graduate student?

texts:
I am a third year (starting fourth year in the fall) PhD student in mathematics. I've passed all qualifying exams and am currently doing research. As far as I can tell, I am not doing poorly. I have the good fortune of having a great advisor, being in a very supportive department, and having friends and family who genuinely care about my success.

The fact is research is hard. It appears to consist primarily of staring at a problem for days and days and days without getting anywhere. Sometimes, rarely, I do figure something out and that feels wonderful, but the overwhelming majority of my time appears to be spent banging my head against a mostly figurative wall. I am not complaining about the material being hard, and I am not averse to putting in hard work, but I get frequently discouraged when I realize the vast volumes of mathematics that I yet know nothing about (and probably never will). It's very hard to quantify progress - in particular, there are too few tangible returns after too many hours worked. I find myself thinking along the lines of "Oh, if only someone actually smart were thinking about this problem they would have solved it in moments" and so on.

I've talked about this to some number of people; here is some advice I have received:

Take a day off. Putting in hours upon hours of trying things doesn't magically lead to a solution, particularly if the brain is tired and just wants to sleep.
Have a hobby. Since math research doesn't exactly provide instant gratification, a hobby might provide some instead.
Talk to other graduate students. Realize that many graduate students go through this.

I'm interested to know how other folks have dealt with being discouraged as a graduate student. Does it get better with time and experience? Is this a sign that research is not for me and that I should seriously consider a life outside academia?


texts: Results or Methods - What comes first in discussion section?

texts:
This question is about structure of scientific texts. This can be master thesis or published journal article.

The Disucssion section: Is there a reasonable rule why the discussion of results comes before the discussion of methods?

I often see this in published articles and I argue about that with my professor. But no one gave me a reason for this - not even a bad reason.

In my opinion the order should be different: Discussion of the methods first and then the discussion about results. The reason is that I need to see the results and their value/weight in the light of the methods they are obtained.

I am asking here because I am naive and optimistic and think there is a reason why all journals and professionals do it that way. I don't want to modify their opinion. I just want to know why they do.


texts: Correcting the authors name on google scholar

texts:
I was wondering if anyone here may have had any success with getting title / author's details corrected on Google Scholar?

I have recently published an article and my surname was incorrectly parsed by Google Scholar. As you can see from my username my surname is hyphenated and Google parsed either first or the second part of it as a surname but never both.

I have tried contacting Google Scholar and could not get any human response from them.

Has anyone found/ heard of any way of fixing these bibliographic errors in Google?


texts: What incentive does an institution have to hire expensive research staff instead of having PhD students fill all those roles?

texts:
I don't understand why a research institution (that awards PhDs) would employ (expensive) full-time research officers. Why couldn't those jobs be done by a group of government-funded PhD students instead?  (The PhD students seem to be free or at least less expensive to the institution.)

No funding? Simple, just hire more PhD students! They can do whatever the institute requires them to do, such as publishing X number of papers. They are smart but cheap.


texts: Is it valid to pad an axis slightly in order to enhance point visibility?

texts:
My apologies in advance if this questions is better suited to be migrated elsewhere.

In a standard (X,Y) Cartesian line/dot plot the axis should be placed in a contextually logical place.  In a graph presenting real world quantification with only real positive integers that are possible (>= 0) I am told that the only possible intersection for the axis is (0,0).  Even it seems at the expense of clearly seeing a point at X=0...

I would like to ask if in academic publications there is any validity to permitting your reader to see all your points clearly by applying a subtle shift (padding the axis to the left).  See figure included.

The opposition I am receiving to this concept stems from the inference that the y-axis being placed in a negative region gives rise to the possibility that negative values are possible, even though it's a physical impossibility in this context to go below  0 in terms of having a physical entity.  But because the axis stops (without labels) at the y axis and doesn't carry past it (deeper (except for the tick mark at y=0) into the negative quadrant, it is obvious and better to see the point and it's error bars.  The range is quite significant and so these error bars are hard enough to see.

Here are some of the consequences I see when I plot the axis at (0,0)

Point gets a little hard to see and the error bar almost entirely disapeers
Error bar caps look y axis ticks which make the y axis messy and the error bar almost invisible.  Increasing thickness of error bars looks very messy.
Increasing point size could encompass the error bars in this particular context.


texts: How to include an unpublished work other than a preprint site (i.e.arXiv) in CS PhD Application

texts:
I am a MS student in Computer Science, I will apply for PhD position in the following months. I am also planning to contact with Professors these days. I have a paper which co-authors and I think it is strong (which I am the first author). Which will be submitted to a journal in a week. I definitely want to show that work to the admission committee and Professors.

The problem is that co-authors(2) does not allow me to upload it on arXiv (or any other public preprint service). I am not satisfied with the option of putting the name of the paper as 'submitted' in my CV (or should I be satisfied?). I would like them to have some insight or read it since I think they will find it attractive.

Below there are some options that I could think of, what would you suggest?

Uploading the pdf file to Dropbox(etc.) and putting the link in the CV.
Sending the pdf file attached in the emails that I will send to the Profs. way before the applications
Visiting some Profs. in person and showing them the hard-copy which will be really expensive for me but safe.

P.S: Are the options 1 and 2 risky? Is there any chance that they publish it as it is their own. Note that the same paper has been rejected by a prestigious conference with a different template. Can I testify that the paper is ours in such case?


texts: Is it ethical for a part-time professor to use his position for other interests?

texts:
There is a professor who works part-time at a university as a moderator of one of their student groups. He does not teach any actual classes but spends a hugely considerable amount of time with the members of the group outside of class hours.

Is it ethical that he uses his position to scout between those members for a company in which he is either a founder or a senior-level position (currently cannot recall which). He does not offer them jobs but instead constantly pushes and offers them to become "interns" with no pay, bad hours, and extremely heavy workload.

I'm not very well versed in business ethics but this sounds very wrong to me, and something of a conflict of interest.

Would the university have grounds to officially respond to this such as sanctioning him? I know that this professor was previously warned to stop doing so but nothing official/major was ever done despite him continuing to do so behind the administration's back.


texts: Letter of recommendation from a senior lecturer

texts: Is it OK to have a letter of recommendation from a senior lecturer rather than from a full professor? The lecturer knows me well (I took two of his classes and I'm TA'ing for him) and he really likes me. Unfortunately he is not involved in research, but I should have two other letters from research profs.


texts: Leniency in journals' paper structure "guidelines" (required sections and divisions)

texts:
I have observed in the "author guidelines" of journals, that results and discussion may be requested as

distinct "results" and "discussion" sections,
or as combined "results & discussions".

In particular, more qualitative observation based topics tend to prefer the latter, while direct quantitative measures that may be the dominant tool in the field may be the impetuses of choosing distinct sections.

Has anyone had any experience with journals and just how rigid they may be when it comes to the hierarchical distinction/formatting of results and discussion sections?

My thoughts are that a journal may be more willing to separate the sections than to combine. But I am trying to gauge whether it will even be worth approaching the journal to inquire whether they would consider a manuscript with a combined "Results & Discussion" sections.


texts: How important is a deadline for an open post-doc position?

texts:
I am a last-year phd student, and starting looking for post-docs.

I have seen a very appealing position in a top university, but unfortunately, the application deadline is in the next few days, and I don't have the material time to get the required material (cover letters, CV and so on).

Nevertheless, the deadline seems not very strict, as they literally say:

Applications will be considered on a continuing basis
but candidates are encouraged to apply by November 24, 2017.

Now my question: how important is the 24 November deadline (or a deadline ) for an announcement of this kind? Why to put a date if they will continue to take applications even after? Is it common for post-doc opening deadlines to be postponed?