texts: As an inexperienced/unknown recommendation letter writer, what should I do to make my letter stand out?

texts:
It is generally acknowledged that one should try to get recommendation letters (for grad school, jobs, etc.) from well-known experienced members of your field, if at all possible (for e.g. see some of the answers to this related question: Do letters of recommendation typically include a biography of the writer?). Of course, sometimes this is not possible.

I am a first-year postdoc (in mathematics, but perhaps this is not relevant), and a masters student in the graduate-level class I am currently teaching approached me to write a letter for them when they apply for PhD programs. I am a natural person to write a letter for them since they are interested in the field that I teach (topology) and I'm teaching one of the three courses they are taking (since application deadlines are quite soon, they won't have taken any other courses here before applying). Of course, I am also a poor choice (which I mentioned to them) as a relatively unknown person with little experience.

While it makes sense to me that recommendation letters from senior research-focused faculty are worth more (since they have greater experience interacting with graduate/soon-to-be-graduate students), there are a fair number of students from relatively obscure 4-year universities who apply to graduate school. They might not have had any access to senior research-focused faculty.

  What are some things I should keep in mind when writing a recommendation letter for graduate admissions as a new entrant to my field, or perhaps as an instructor at a relatively obscure primarily teaching-focused school?

Statements like 'they are in the top 7 of all graduate students I've ever taught' carry little weight, since I've only ever taught 7! For what it's worth, the student in question is doing quite well, and my goal is to write a well-deserved relatively glowing letter; I would like to make sure, as much as I can, that my letter is not ignored.


texts: Publishing a review in a peer-reviewed Wiki vs a traditional journal?

texts: The topic of Wikipedia contribution has come up before, but I am interested in the community's opinion on peer-reviewed wiki publishing (e.g., Scholarpedia). I would like to know if there is any advantage for a PhD student to publish in such an online venue versus the traditional journal publication for review content. The advantages I see to the wiki approach is free of charge publication, open access for all, not necessarily being limited by character limits. However, the disadvantages I see could be the citation being completely ignored by the intended audience and therefore missing out on the benefits of scientific communication and the possible loss of accompanying reputation for the publication. I would also worry these publications would be ignored or minimized by future supervisors and review committees.


texts: How do data protection laws apply to faculty applications?

texts:
Last year I applied for an assistant professor position in Sweden and unsuccessful. This year I attended a conference there. In the informal discussions afterward, a professor told me that he works on a related topic and I can give him a visit if I will be in town. After the conference, I visited his office and we had a long and interesting conversation. He told me that my idea is very interesting and we should collaborate. As a joke, I told him that proposed this idea in my last year's application but you didn't like it. He said I am sure there was no such idea in the applications and told me to let's check. He found my application on his computer and we talked about it.

I didn't mind as there was nothing secret in my application. But it made me wonder. I thought (until that moment) that all applications should be treated confidentially within the search committee and all materials should be destroyed (not only at the individual level but also at the institutional level).

Isn't it illegal for the institution and the committee to keep the application materials when the search is completed? (I believe most countries have similar data protection laws, my question is not about Sweden only)?
Isn't it a breach of obligatory confidentiality if a committee member discusses an application outside the search committee? For example, tell a colleague or in another search committee that this person had applied for the other job too. (it was not my case, but I am curious)

When we apply for a faculty position, does the application die after the search or it lives on and on through documents and committee members?


texts: Why do some science journals capitalize the words in a title, and others don't?

texts: How do I know when to capitalize the words in a scientific paper's title? When I look on pubmed I see both styles. To be clear I am talking about the actual title of the paper, not a citation.


texts: How Long Should I Wait After a "I’ll be in touch soon" reply, to follow Up?

texts:
After writing to a potential postdoc advisor in the US, I got replied like;
"... will follow up soon.
....................
...new project is matching with your profile.
....................
Again, I’ll be in touch soon. "

I genuinely like this research group's work. This is one of my best choices among those that I still have a chance for.
Just for the cultural differences and curiosity, I would like to know,
How to politely follow up?
Because waiting longer makes my other chances fade away. So I want to make sure if I am In or OUT.


texts: Correct term to address the "academic publications"

texts:
I am trying to use/find the correct term for the practice of publishing research results in academia, mainly a reference to the practice of publishing research findings in a formal journal or conference.

The term has to have a clear contrast to the practice of publishing full data-sets of research results (ex: in a repository), but which is also a sub-form of "publishing of research results"

I have started my work by using the term "Scholarly Communication" which was somehow influenced by one of my mentors. Although I was happy on the initial suggestion, I am finding myself not so keen on the use of it, as it seems cheaper in contrast to for example: Academic Publishing which seems broader to include more research ventures (done also by non-scholars, but still viable for academic recognition).

The problems with the term Academic Publishing are two for my perspective. 1) I have not been able to find a strong definition of it, and 2) it is so broad that can include the "publishing of research data-sets" which I need to reference separately.

Would appreciate a discussion for a creative term which coins the academic publishing as it has been referenced traditionally?

Update 1: Considering also Academic Literature referenced in a comment below by darthbith


texts: Searching for open source literature management software

texts:
I recently started my PhD and now try to find a convenient software for managing my literature research. What I want it to be able to do is:

Let me highlight PDFs
Add notes to PDFs
Add tags to my literature
(as a bonus:) load methadata and create bibtex files

I personally really like Mendeley as it does pretty much exactly that. At my institute we have a strict open source policy though, which excludes Mendeley. Is there an open source alternative to Mendeley, which runs under Linux Gnome?

Thanks for your input.


texts: My Department head is very condescending - anything I can do about it apart from leaving the new job?

texts:
I have been facing the following "problems" with my department head at an undergraduate institute. I joined it just under a year ago and am already facing (what appears to be) a lot of negativity from her. Here are my main problems:

1) Last semester, she would always come to me/email me telling me what a couple of students said/complained about me - mostly being that I am tough and expecting them to study more - well, it is Physics, you can't just enter the classroom as if you are entering a cinema and expect entertainment - one has to be prepared! Anyhow, I am pretty sure she was asking students "how is the new guy?" which encouraged this behaviour from students - she implied it once during lunch.

2) Towards the end, she failed to put an end to disruptive (and borderline racist) behaviour from one of the students in spite of my complaints, but kept on encouraging it instead of nipping it in the bud when it happened first.

3) Moreover, I am continuously discouraged in collaborating with another department - I haven't had any problems with them so far.

4) A few months ago, when I sent in the new syllabus for this semester (it has to pass through the Dept Head before being posted on the website), she said she wasn't OK with it - it didn't have anything unusual!

5) And now, when I wanted to add points for interaction in the syllabus for the next semester - as positive reinforcement (instead of penalising students), she gave a straight no, and asked me to give her a scientific paper proving that it is effective! I mean.. really?

6) To be in students' good books and get good feedback, she is encouraging a manipulative student - she helps him in doing homework and he will be taking a summer "reading course" with her. So, now this student doesn't have to sit in my course or pass it, and yet complains all the time which is encouraged by her.

I know these things are pretty vague but are definitely giving me a lot of negative vibes... Any advice as of how to face this situation? It looks like she is building a way to get my lose this job or make me go... Or am I just being too "sensitive" about it?

PS - She pretty much has the regular Dept Chair power -- my annual performance review should pass through her, teaching assignments pass through her, etc.

PPS - The disruptive student's concern was that the grade on the website wasn't correct where as everything was as it is supposed to be - she acted like a middle-man everytime he was trying to cause trouble instead of either directing him directly to me or atleast recommending that or telling him that disruptive behaviour is not OK. The manipulative student gets a slap on the wrist for blatantly lying about grades, quiz, etc, she helps him in getting his homework done - he is supposed to do it on his own!


texts: Are journals biased towards more famous authors?

texts:
Say you are an independent researcher, with no affiliation and no famous co-author. Assume that you have authored a paper, which you believe is decently written and reports a method that is at least comparable with state of the art. Some reviewers at a  reputable journal read it and acknowledge the merits of your work, suggesting only minor and addressable corrections. However the editors reject the paper. You attribute this to bad luck.
Then you submit to a few other journals with lower impacts, and the editors desk-reject it, providing a terse comment or two. You know the work you've done, so you don't find the terse editor comments fair and unbiased. They sound more like a made-up excuse to you.
Do all these rejections have anything to do with you being an independent researcher, not affiliated with any academic institution and above all, not having any famous co-author?
Is there another reason behind the curtain? Like the editors asking among themselves "who the heck is this guy?! Where'd he come from?! Who is he to have his work published by us?!"
Final edit: I voted to delete this post. It seems to have caused more mayhem than I intended. And I kinda got my answer anyway. My speculation was probably right. Many thanks to everyone who took part and apologies for any inconvenience.


texts: Ethics of dissertation / thesis proofreading

texts:
OK. Short version, I'm stuck on my PhD because of coronavirus. My university is giving me an extension to my thesis deadline, but I am going to run out of funding pretty soon.

I'm looking at marketable skills I can use to generate a bit of income to bridge the gap, and one of these is scientific writing. I know that there are plenty of people out there who have English as a second language, or who don't express themselves fluently and I think they'd be interested in proofreading / light copy editing. I absolutely don't want to become an essay mill, and I don't want to help people to cheat.

Can anyone advise me on the ethics of this? Where do the boundaries lie?

Thanks!


texts:
A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems -- Alfréd Rényi

All the universities whose staff lounges I've been to have had coffee machines with free coffee. I've seen groups name their meetings after coffee much more than other beverages (e.g. from Google, "AstroCoffee" exists in OSU, IfA Hawaii and Goethe University; a corresponding search for "AstroTea" turns up nothing). I've also witnessed one academic telling another "I'm stuck, don't know what to do next" and the other say, quite seriously, "have some coffee! If you're still stuck, have even more coffee!"

What is it about coffee that makes it so ubiquitous in academic culture?


texts: What is the difference between minor, moderate, and major revisions?

texts: What is the difference between "a moderate revision" and "a major revision"? How much chances in percent increase if you research paper gets moderate revision rather than a major revision?


texts: Name and cite specific figures/results of related work

texts:
Currently I am writing a paper and would like to cite specific things in the related work section of other papers.

For example:

  In figure 4 in name of the related work [\cite] you can see distortions after applying equation 8 of [\cite]. XYZ et. al. have stated this appears due to ...

Would this be legit?

Basically I do not need the most stuff out of this paper which I want to cite, just this one figure, equation and their explanation why this happened. The main research in that paper is irrelevant for me.


texts: How do I remove myself from academic mailing lists?

texts:
When I was a grad student, I participated in a bunch of conferences, and sent papers to journals and the like.

But now I'm no longer in academia. I've been out for more than three years, and I still get a few emails a week notifying me of new conferences, hotel discounts for those who register, extended deadlines and the other usual stuff.

The thing is that none of these emails offer contact information or ways to unsubscribe from the mailing list. And it's not like they're from organizations I previously interacted with, but they are certainly about my former line of research. They are probably worse than spam, because I don't even think you could report them as spam.

I removed myself from all site registrations I can remember, such as IEEE and ACM, but these keep coming and coming and coming and coming.

How can a former academic get himself removed from all these mailing lists?


texts: Professors/Teachers only replying to part of my email

texts:
I've been a Computer Sciences student for 4 years now, give or take, and my experience with emailing teachers/professors (teachers from now on) has been either of two cases:

they reply to my entire email
they read the last sentence or paragraph and reply to that.

Generally, if a teacher fits in one of those categories, they always respond like that.
However, for me it's quite frustrating to receive an email back (within 5 minutes, an hour, a day) with a reply, to only one point, and then having to mail back with my other questions, removing one question at a time.

To note: my e-mails are always very respectful, neatly written, and without spelling or other mistakes.

What can I do to get a higher percentage-of-questions-answered-per-email response?


texts: Is it possible to study abroad as a PhD student?

texts:
I hope to enter a PhD program in economics in the next few years, ideally at a top US school (Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, etc.) Are there usually opportunities to study abroad during such a program? For example, if I attended Berkeley intending to focus on macroeconomics, would it be possible to study abroad with some of the macro theorists at Cambridge or U of Edinburgh?

This would not be an opportunity to "experience the local culture," which many undergraduate study abroad experiences focus on, but more a chance to gain multiple perspectives from academics in different countries. In my opinion the rigors of a top PhD program rule out the former.


texts: Are Ph.D. dissertations always required to include new discoveries? I was wondering if a dissertation could, instead, consist of a reorganization or reformulation of known material. Inventing new things is not my strength. But I think I'm pretty good at organizing information and making it clear and easy to understand. In some cases, I think that this activity might even be more valuable than discovering new things, and I find it to be just as satisfying. I can see that it might lead to a nice book, but I don't know if it could ever get me a doctorate degree. The field is mathematics, if that matters.


texts:
How valid is to refer to previous literature reviews in other papers to 'create' a thorough review?

The thing is that I am working in a new methodology, which I will compare with the current state-of-the-art (published in 2017). In there, the authors have done some literature review, which is not thorough. Hence, I want to focus only on the work that they didnt cover. In addition, there is older work what has been reviewed by others. Putting my literature review contribution, together with the paper from 2017, and together with the two oldest papers, then we have a 'thorough' review. Is this a valid approach?


texts: Uploading online all Data used in thesis?

texts:
For my Ph.D work I used large volume of data which can not be put into my thesis. So, I am planning to put all this data online, so that other could download freely and cross check my work. It would also help future scholars to do the same work conveniently in future. Providing data online used for research is not commonly practiced in my country. I just want to know is it right(also sensible) to do the same? Won't it lead to any complication in future?

Can you also please tell me what is being practiced in other countries like USA and UK regarding data?

[Note : all data is downloaded from free sources so does not involve any copyright issue]


texts:
I have written a journal paper and my supervisor has asked me to submit it in a journal whose impact factor should be close to one.
I have searched for journals of Springer, Elsevier and IEEE and made a list . As I don't have any experience with journal submission. I am confused in many points.

1- What is an "ISSUE" in journal?

2- Importance of impact factor journals

3- I have found some related journals but they are not open access and neither call for paper is mentioned.

4- One Springer journal is relevant but its current issue is not relevant http://www.springer.com/engineering/signals/journal/13638

5- What will happen if i submit in a journal that is not open access and call for paper is not mentioned?

What should i do now? Please suggest me? As my supervisor said he does not know more about them :(


texts: Is there a way to get the complete proceedings for an ACM conference?

texts:
Do you know any way to get the complete proceedings for ACM conferences? I know that I can go to the ACM digital library and see the table of contents for a conference and then get the pdf for individual papers.

But is there a way to get the whole proceedings for a conference in a single pdf?


texts: How to formalise the "extra-mile" work done by an academic?

texts:
In my experience, academics are almost always expected to contribute some of their time to activities beyond their principal teaching or research roles. These extra tasks include, for example, attending open days, visit days, serving on one or more committees, acting as head of a student year group, admissions officer - the list is long.

Whether this should be the case is not in question here.

In one of my previous institutions, there was in place a "brownie-point" system which was supposed to keep a track of how much extra administrative/organisational/outreach or otherwise "extra-mile" work an academic had taken on.  When a new task required action, the academics could use their accumulated points to argue why they shouldn't (or indeed should, in some cases) be allocated the task. Setting the value of a task relative to all the others, as you might imagine, raised some difficulties.

My question is: has anyone experience of any other kind of formalised system of evaluating and allocating these "extra-mile" tasks?


texts: Can political issues between Iran and USA affect me?

texts:
I have already read this question and its answers. However, I believe my question is slightly different.

I was born in Iran but I am from a religious minority called Bahai faith and the followers of the Bahai faith are persecuted in Iran. I was excluded several times from high school for my religious beliefs and I could not study at a university for the same reason. I came to Australia as a refugee (I am an Australian citizen now) and did my undergraduate studies in Australia.

Given the current political state of Iran and USA, will I face difficulties for admission to universities in USA and visa because I was born in Iran?

I find it really unfair. In Iran, I was treated like a dirt since I was not a muslim and now I should be treated the same by USA authorities simply because I was born in Iran.


texts: Graduation paper submitted to conference, suddenly demoted to third author?

texts:
I submitted a thesis to graduate as a Master's student at a European university approximately half a year ago. With my verbal approval, my uni submitted my work to a leading conference in the field of research, after having summarized my work and adding references together with some academic colleagues from another university.

The content, findings and conclusions remain largely identical to my original work, with large pieces of text remaining identical to the original. In my mind, this still makes me the significant author.

Yet, on the conference submission, I'm now listed as a third and last author. The order of authors was not discussed with me prior to submitting the updated paper and I did not receive any updated version up until the point where I was notified of the  submission.

I feel this is incorrect, and while I fully acknowledge that the universities want to promote themselves by placing contributors high on the author's list, this is doing me injustice as it still is my work.

Am I in the wrong here? Are there any intricacies or nuances in academics I should take into account while engaging with my (ex-)university on the matter?


texts: Journal requests reviewers' comments from previous submission to other journals

texts:
Someone I know is submitting her work to a scientific journal. As part of the submission process she is requested to include in the cover letter the reviewers' comments, should the manuscript had already been submitted to other journals previously. The journal's rationale for such a request is that this expedites the acceptance process.

How is this information used by the journal in the acceptance process? What are the pros and cons of providing this information?


texts: Master of Engineering vs Master of Science?

texts:
I am a Final Year Mechanical Engineering student.
I want to do my Masters in the Design Engineering field.
Currently I can see 2 options:

Master of Science - offered in many Universities ex: GeorgiaTech.
It deals more with research. It requires a research thesis most of the times.
It gets completed in about 2 years.
Master of Engineering - offered in few Universities ex: Cornell University.
It deals more with developing your skills required for doing a job in that field.
It does not require a research thesis. It gets completed in a year.

So, my question is:
1. What exactly do we learn/develop skills/improve/do, etc in each of these programs.

I am unable to get a clear picture as to what exactly will be the change in me brought by each of these programs?
What distinguishes a M.S. Graduate from a M.Eng. Graduate & vice versa?
And which one of these Graduates get jobs in Companies easily in the related field?


texts: What incentives have professors to teach a large class (vs. a small class)?

texts:
I am wondering about what incentives professors have to teach a large class (vs. a small class). To put it differently, when a professor is assigned to a class, what motivates him/her to attract students to his class? I am looking for external motivations, not personal ones, such as willingness to share the class materials to as many people as possible.

I am mostly interested in the United States, but curious about other academic systems as well (at Mars University there seems to be none).


texts: Who owns the laptop bought with funding for student training etc. in a fully funded PhD project?

texts: I am a PhD student at a UK university and the project is a collaboration between the University and an industrial partner. My question is when the laptop is bought using the extra money allocated for training etc., who owns the laptop?


texts: Constructing a Mathematics CV - what am I trying to portray to a graduate school admissions committee?

texts:
Bit about me: I recently graduated as an undergraduate in Statistics and would like to pursue graduate school. I will be working as an actuary starting this upcoming month and will be pursuing the GRE and Mathematics GRE Subject Test this September/October.

I'm struggling to write a CV for graduate school. It is not a requirement that I know of currently (I haven't looked at the application requirements yet at the places I plan on applying yet), but I know that I will need to have one ready in case I need it in the future. I have plenty of experience writing resumes for actuarial positions, but none whatsoever for grad school CVs.

I have bolded the questions that I would like answered.

Here's what I currently have so far (in chronological order):

Top: name, contact info

Body: Education, Academic Research, Teaching Experience, Volunteer Experience (if I volunteered as a TA, should I throw this experience in teaching instead if I don't have any other volunteering experience?), Work Experience (consists of an actuarial position + an assessment position), Leadership and Committee Experience, Actuarial Exams, Languages, Computer Skills, Research Interests

Am I missing anything that should be in a mathematics CV?

Also, how much detail am I expected to put in for my experiences? For example, on my research experience, I have the advisor's name, what I did, how I pursued the research, and in some cases, what the research led up to (e.g., one of my projects was used to supplement an already-published mathematics and music text). Am I expected to talk about "excellent communication skills" or "teamwork" in any of my experiences, if applicable? (For an actuarial resume, I would NEVER right anything like this, as it sounds like I'm just trying to fill up white space.)

Lastly, I realize that this isn't the most relevant pertaining to this website specifically, but are there any online forums where I can get feedback on my CV (mathematics-specific would be extremely nice)?


texts: How can I transfer to a different Ph.D. program after experience with a bad advisor?

texts:
I just started my Ph.D. in fall 2015 in a very good, high-ranking school in the United States. However, my advisor and I were not able to work together and I did not like her way of advising, since she uses negative reinforcement. She was harsh, annoying, and trying to get into my personal life. I do not have a co-supervisor.

I started to think about changing school because of her and I applied to different schools but for some reasons I think she got in the middle, because the schools I applied to have raised many questions about why am I transferring! On one occasion, before I applied, I found an advisor and I told him my situation and he agreed to take me (not in writing, though), but then suddenly I received a rejection letter from the school.

I am not sure what to do, I like studying and I like working in research, but my advisor make me sick. She destroy my positive side and now she is in the middle between me and other schools. Hence, I told her that I am not working for her anymore. What should I do in this situation.


texts: Choosing between a one page abstract in conference proceedings and full version on arXiv, or publishing full paper in conference proceedings

texts:
In some conferences in computer science, the authors of accepted papers have a choice between publishing the full paper in the proceedings, and publishing a one-page abstract with a link to the full paper in arXiv.

The rationale for publishing a one-page abstract is that the authors may want to submit the same paper later to a journal, and some journals would not consider publications that appeared in conference proceedings.

This raises two questions:

Why should it make a difference to a journal, if the paper is published in conference proceedings, or in an arXiv paper linked from the proceedings? In both cases the paper is visible online.
Why should it matter to the author, if the paper is published in the proceedings or in arXiv? both cases the paper is visible online. Apparently, there is an advantage to publishing a one-page abstract with link to arXiv: if I later upgrade the arXiv paper, people coming to the paper will notice and may choose to read the newer version.

Is there any disadvantage to publishing a one-page abstract rather than a full proceedings paper?


texts:
Several researchers in my subfield (and in mathematics in general) use not-self-hosted wordpress.com subdomains for their 'professional blog' (to blog about their research, their latest papers, or any topic related to their interests). Few of them use some pages of their blog as 'professional websites' too (to upload their CV, list of publications, material for courses, and so on).

I've made up my mind to start blogging myself; also, I'd like to create a webpage 'independent' from the one on a subdomain of my current institution (to make my life easier when I'll change place and to have some more flexibility).

Should I use a not-self-hosted website for both blogging and collecting academic materials?

So far, these are the results of my research (in and outside my department) on the topic (but I'd like to examine some more objective and expert points):

"Pros"

I like that it is easy to use and set up (without any need to set up (and pay) your hosting yourself and actually "code" your website -- which would be hard since my knowledge of computer science and programming is very limited). Plus, some free themes are nice, essential, and easy to navigate.
I like the idea of connecting blogging and actual academic work.

"Cons" (i.e. the points that I'd mostly like you to address)

A friend of mine (who is not in academia anymore) implied that not-self-hosted websites look very unprofessional and cannot be fully optimized and personalized. Is the perception of not-self-hosted websites as unprofessional a real thing in the academic world? (In my opinion, on the contrary, seeing a website of the form namesurname.com could leave the impression of great pretense).
It has been pointed out to me (by a much senior researcher) that having "serious" (or at least would-be serious) research achievements on the same website as "more relaxed, informal, or expository blog posts" may be detrimental to the perception of the research itself. I strongly disagree on this point, but I'd like to do a reality check to see if this is actually a potential issue or just an "old-styled-man's viewpoint".
These subdomains and (mostly) the themes can be unstable (or be no longer updated/supported) and thus force me to redo the set-up at some point in time. Specifically, they may be more unstable than the website of a university. I really don't know about this, so I'd like to check, but I've heard it from a grad student in computer science.


texts: Can I present the results of a paper that is currently under review?

texts:
Among the presentations in a major conference, I attended one where the author cited a paper (of theirs) under review in another major conference. Not only cited it, but showed some of its results.

I have the impression that it should not be possible, since there's the potential risk of influencing reviewers who could also be in the room during the presentation. Or is it only "good practice" not to do so?


texts: Is simplified writing/accessible tone frowned upon in publications?

texts:
As someone who is just starting to read in the field, I found that most academic papers are quite 'stuffy'. They seem to use a great deal of complicated language and jargon needlessly.

I read Should academic papers necessarily carry a sober tone? and understand that jokes should be kept to a minimum but what about:

Simple language,
Metaphors/Allegories/Similes,
Casual language (speaking to the reader, using contractions, etc).

I think if you can contribute new knowledge to a field, and make it accessible to an 'average' educated user who isn't an expert in your field, then why wouldn't you?

Is casual tone unheard of in papers? Is it frowned upon? Do I ultimately need to learn to write in a more formal manner to get taken seriously in future works?


texts: What are some good writing tablets for taking notes that are heavy on math/physics?

texts:
For the record, I'd like something to replace notebooks. I'm accumulating more and more notebooks, and they're a pain to tug around everywhere. Plus, notebooks are easy to get lost (I've lost notebooks by accidentally leaving them in restrooms), not easily-backup-able, and non-searchable.

So I'd like a tablet that allows me to read PDFs heavy on math/physics, that allows me to easily annotate notes, and that has a thin stylus that allows me to write subscripts and superscripts with ease.


texts: How can an IT undergrad become a Data Scientist.?

texts:
I know asking undergrad questions are not well received here. But I don't know any other place have the standard of this place.

I am a Bachelor of Information technology student. I am maintaining a second upper GPA at school. My target is to become a data scientist. And this is my plan.
 I will learn data science basics on coursera. I will start with a diploma in applied statistics parallel to my final year of my degree. Then I will go for a M.Sc in CS. Where I come from doesn't have undergraduate/pg math degrees available for me (only for few merit students who enter state universities get to those). I will do a research more related to data science. (Not sure if I can do it in a M.Sc in CS)
 I know there should be opinions, and this question won't lead to a one single perfect solution. But I'm asking if you can tell me if this is a good plan.?


texts: What did a good academic job market for mathematicians look like and could it ever come back?

texts:
I'm about to enter a math PhD program at a pretty good school, but the job market for research university professors has been terrible as far as I can remember (since the late 2000s recession). I hear many stories of hundreds of excellent candidates applying for one or two openings.

Older professors tell me it wasn't always like this. What did the market look like when it was considered "good" and could it ever come back by the time I finish in 5-6 years? Or has there been a fundamental shift in academia preventing the good times as we knew it from ever returning?


texts: When does it no longer matter whether you got a PhD or MSc

texts:
In the field of engineering and software development of computational physics, I am wondering whether hiring managers/recruiters would still look carefully if you got a PhD vs having MSc after having a number of years of experience?

Is there a point in the career when having a PhD or Master is no longer the focus point, but it is rather your experience


texts: Does country of author influence the rejection of research paper

texts:
One of my faculty, during a lecture, told the following lines

  some good journals and conferences even consider the country of
  authors and sometimes they think that the research papers from a
  particular country may be not good. So, we need to be more careful
  while writing the paper and regarding its novelty.

Is his claim true? Does the reviewers and editors of the journal consider the country as one of the factors in the decision?


texts: Is it moral to contact a questionnaire participant because of alarming response?

texts:
For a study, we sent out a questionnaire to members of the general public. The questionnaire was containing items related to well-being and happiness, among other items that are completely related to my field (computer science).

One respondent wrote about having suicidal thoughts because of personal issues. No signs of seeking treatment in the reply.

The participant left their e-mail address in the field "contact me back for the results and/or further clarifications".

What is my role here as a researcher? My first thought was to contact the participant and pointing them to seeking help (maybe also providing links to their national suicide prevention programs).


texts: CS PhD application with low GPA but extensive research experience

texts:
I have recently graduated from a non EEA university—though arguably one of the better/best schools in its field in my country—with a CGPA of 2.90, majoring in Computer science. I used to study Bioengineering/Bioinformatics—from which I hold a publication—before switching to CS. I suffered from an extensive period of burnout and some personal problems starting my second year in college—after getting a 3.30 in my freshman year, not exactly an upward trend in my grades in following years either—resulting in my current CGPA. I did a summer research at my school after my 2nd year which resulted with that conference publication I mentioned above, did two internships of Computer science (first one at a company, second one at one of the top 3 CS universities in the USA), I have two posters from my graduation project (one presented at an international conference the other one not-so international), and an upcoming journal or conference paper depending on deadline circumstances.

So, my cliche question is: should I take my chances with good/top Computer science master's programs throughout Europe (e.g., TU Eindhoven, EPFL, RWTH Aachen or TU Munchen) before applying for a PhD, or should I stay at my school for my MSc and then apply for the PhD? I'm not even hoping for a scholarship at this point, just an acceptance. I haven't taken the TOEFL and the GRE yet since now I'm in my gap year, I will be taking them soon in order to start my application procedure.


texts: Does making Youtube videos improve your CV?

texts:
Is the creation of youtube content/lectures in your field worth showing off on an Academic CV?

In the most extreme case: if someone who is considering hiring for a teaching position in a university/college is looking at two candidates who are identical in qualifications except for one candidate having a youtube channel which teaches topics in his/her field (with somewhat decent content) would that candidate be considered more "qualified" (in the broadest sense of the word).


texts: Why do professors want to make sure that their notes written on the blackboard will not be published?

texts:
I am a university student and have recently found out how much easier it is to use my smart phone to take snapshots of notes professors write on the blackboard during lectures (since I am quite bad at understanding and writing at the same time, it is very useful).

To make sure the professors do not have problems with this, I asked each of them before starting to take pictures. They all had the same response: they are fine with it, as long as I do not make the shots publicly available. Of course, I have no intention of doing so. However, it made me think: why do professors emphasise this? All of the material is already public, tens of different lecture notes exist, some of the profs even made their own lecture notes freely downloadable for anybody.

So my questions are:

How could bad quality pictures of the blackboard cause any harm to them?
Why would it make a difference if I copied the content into my notebook or typed it in word by word and published that? (I have never heard any professors asking the students not to upload the notes, they write themselves during the lecture.)


texts: Is it possible to get my habilitation in France while being in industry?

texts:
I've finished my PhD in pure mathematics in late 2013 in the US (2 published papers, 1 preprint), and after almost 4 years of postdoc in the subjects of pure math (1 year-unproductive), medical imaging and computer vision (3 years- 3 papers), I'm joining a research position in industry in France. I've done 3 years of postdoc in France (and currently here) and 1 in the US.

I'll be working alongside a professor of statistics in France who's a consultant for my company, and the company also encourages publications (after they get patent etc.). Besides, I'm collaborating with two people from academia and industry, and in 2-3 years or so, I hope to have 2-3 more publications.

My goal is to defend my habilitation in statistics/machine learning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation) in 3-4 years from now, as I'm very interested to have a joint academic-industrial position in the future. To elaborate, I'd like to hold a professor position in academia and also a researcher/research consultant position in industry. I'm happy to indirectly supervise PhD students alongside someone else but not directly. And somewhat shamelessly, I'd like to have a second income from academia on top of industry. I'm not a EU or US citizen, by the way.

My question is: is it possible for me to defend my habilitation in France when I'm not a part of French academia? Normally, I've seen only academics do that.

Thanks in advance!


texts: I'm beginner in research and I'm doing my PhD. I would like to know why when I read a paper I worry as if I have exam tomorrow and I have to prepare for it. How can I ignore that feeling and increase my productivity?


texts: Is it advisable to publish a paper with the same name as your thesis?

texts:
I am about to submit my MSc thesis which is written in the shape of a paper manuscript plus introduction, extended conclusions and the appendix. My research group encourages this format to streamline the publication of research results. I now have to chose an appropriate title for both the paper manuscript and the thesis itself.

Would it be ill-advised to choose the same titles here? On the one hand both works deal with exactly the same topic and I initially put the same titles, on the other hand it might be weird to end up with two publications of the same name once the paper gets published somewhere (considering search engines etc). This whole format is fairly new to me (and my supervisor) so I am interested in opinions and experiences from the community.


texts: Is it advisable in my case to take a second bachelor's degree?

texts:
I graduated from an unprestigious school that most people consider a diploma mill.  I finished a social science degree in the College of Arts and Sciences of the school, but I’m ashamed to tell other people about it because of the school’s bad reputation.

There are only few professors in the College of Arts and Sciences, since the school, based on what I’ve heard, is facing financial difficulties, forcing it to make cutbacks on the number of employees. The problem is, these few professors only hold a master’s degree, and sometimes they have to teach minor subjects that are far from their field of specialization. In one instance, a psychology professor had to handle a minor subject in philosophy.  More so, major subjects in, say, psychology are taught almost exclusively by only one professor. In fact, I only had two professors for all the major subjects required in my undergraduate degree. But this isn't the worst, because other departments sometimes accept fresh graduates to teach minor subjects.  The school also has a high acceptance rate and lenient retention policies. Hence, a student can enroll for the next semester even when he failed most of his subjects in previous semesters.

The only reason I stayed in this school is because I was given a full scholarship. Now, I’m desperate to finish a new bachelor’s degree. Should I pursue graduate studies? Any advice?


texts: How to cite a bookchapter that is accepted and To appear?

texts:
I have a book chapter that is accepted and I want to cite it on a conference paper that I should upload its camera ready today. What is the best way to cite it ? here is my bibtex.

@inbook{book_chapter2,
      author={Names of authors},
   year= 2019,
 chapter={chapter title},
   title= {Book Name},
   publisher= {Springer},
       Editor=  {Edited X and Y}
    Note= {Accepted and To Appear}

}


texts: How much is the normal salary of a postdoctoral fellow in North America and Western Europe?

texts:
I understand that the salary of a postdoctoral fellow depends on the field, project, contract, and so forth, but I am curious how much is the normal range for a fellow. Someone told me that he prefer to continue postdoctoral fellowship, as he gets the same salary of assistant professorship with less official duties.

In my experience, the range of salary for a postdoctoral fellow is much less than an assistant professor, something between $25,000 - $50,000. In Europe, it is in the lower side, but it is usually higher in the US.

I am curious to know what is the actual rate, and is there a norm for estimating the salary of a postdoctoral fellow?

In other words, when looking at postdoctoral openings, how much is an excellent/good/normal deal?


texts: What should I do if I want to do a PhD at a particular lab but cannot secure a scholarship?

texts:
I was able to make a good impression on a potential supervisor and he was willing to take me in provided I manage to secure a funding. We both hoped I could get the scholarship from PhD programme but I was not selected.

Now, I still want to join his lab but I was strongly discouraged from doing a totally non-funded PhD. I could wait and apply next year but I don't want a year break. I also don't plan doing a Masters degree as I got plenty of experience from my industrial placement year. Plus, I hope to save paying international tuition fees.

I talked with my university tutor and other researchers that I know and they encouraged me to contact the supervisor and try any way possible to work with him. I could propose working voluntarily during the summer (start the project maybe?) and ask for a technician/assistant position (short contract, 1-2 years) with the hope of him applying for grants when I'm already there, showing my skills etc? That's what I was advised to do.

I wonder how should I phrase that in the email. I don't want to write too much but I still need to convey everything. I guess, I'm not too good at writing and I don't want to ruin any chances I have with him.


texts: ECTS credits for US teaching credentials

texts:
In the southern United States, one of the general requirements for teaching a given course is to have 18 semester hours at the graduate level.

I currently have 12 graduate hours in two separate fields. Though it's unlikely I'd ever be asked to teach a course in either, I am curious.  If one were to take courses in Europe, how would the ETCS credits be likely interpreted for such a requirement?  Would the common 2 ECTS = 1 American semester hour conversion be used?


texts: How should I refer to my master's thesis in its text? A paper?

texts:
Occasionally I need to refer to my master's thesis itself in its text, e.g. in the sentence "These rules are sufficient to compute any differential in this ____".

I was wondering which of the following terms are appropriate to fill the gap: paper, thesis, text, work.


texts: What will happen to my IEEE conference paper if the status of the accepted paper is "AAR"

texts:
I have been notified by the IEEE organizing committee that my paper has been accepted for their conference and requested to register. and the status of the paper is AAR. Please see the quotation below.

[AAR]This paper need thorough revision to be accepted as a full paper
for the conference.

I have attached an image of their review process.

What will happen to my paper after the submission of the camera-ready paper? Is there any possibility for my paper not to be published in the proceedings and IEEE Xplore? Or is it guaranteed to be published after the submission of camera-ready paper?


texts: What might be some reasons to ask to stop reviewing an article by the editor?

texts: Recently I have been asked by a journal to review an article as a referee. I did it within 3 days, and the very next day another mail came asking me to review another article. I was reviewing it when, aft after 2 days, the editor sent me an email saying I don't need to review it anymore. What might be the reasons behind this?


texts: Is it in the best interest of supervisors that his/her students publish their research results in top journals?

texts: I am a math PhD student in a foreign country. When finishing my papers, my advisor (who is a big name in the field) always proposes me to submit them to a journal. The problem is that so far none of these have been top-tier journals. On the other hand, in my mind, there is no doubt that the results are good enough to be published in really good ones, and I have also confirmed this fact after giving talks at conferences. In addition, in one of these papers, he/she was signed as a corresponding author, even when I did 99% of the job. Why would someone do this to his/her student?


texts: What are some good project-management tools for academics?

texts: My advisers are starting to use Basecamp for my project, and I like most of it so far. I am wondering, though, about the arguments for and against Basecamp.


texts: Hosting a graduate student on a campus visit

texts:
A prospective graduate student is coming to visit a program and does not have a place to stay. As is sometimes the case, the program is not funding a hotel for the student and it seems likely that it would be an economic hardship for the student to host themselves. Let's say that the student is accepted to the program so this is more in the context of trying to impress the student and get her to join the program (although I'd be interested to hear if a similar situation with a non-accepted student would be different).

Is it appropriate for a faculty member to try to arrange for a host stay with a current student in the department?

Would it be appropriate for a faculty member interested in working with the student to offer to host the student in a guest room in their home?

Are there other or better options?


texts: What type of workplace accommodations are departments required to make for a mentally unhealthy faculty member?

texts: We have a faculty member in my department who has mental health issues. These issues tend to flare up about three times a year, right at the beginning of the year, in January when grading is due and new teaching starts, and again at the end of the year when grading is due. In general these flair ups last about two weeks and are, to my understanding always accompanied by medical evidence that recommends a two week leave and a follow up evaluation after the two weeks. She is not the most mentally stable person at the best of times and I have no doubt that the additional stress from teaching and grading causes her additional issues. That said, her flare ups mean that her teaching generally gets cancelled and her grading gets reassigned. What type of accommodations does a department have to make for an individual who does not seem to be healthy enough, in this case mentally, to carry out core responsibilities and how does a department go about making those accommodations? I am interested in both legal and moral obligations and am located in the UK, to the extent that it matters.


texts: What are pros and cons for using summer-break to work in another research group?

texts:
Here at my university, we have 12-13 week-long summer break for the students excluding summer-school. It is almost as long as a semester. I guess this is roughly the case for other institutions. In fact I often observe that some grad students use this break to work in another research group usually in another country (European countries mostly, USA rarely). Even some others spend entire two-semeter academic term in another university.

My question is as follows: What would be the pros and cons for using summer-time to work in another research group away from your supervisor and/or your research topic? I guess the situation would be different for a masters and a PhD student (I am currently interested in the situation for a masters student, but general ideas covering the situation would be OK).


texts: How do I get mathematics recommenders out of undergrad?

texts:
I am a few years out of undergrad, graduated with a CompE BS with math minor, but was wanting to head into graduate school for mathematics and/or mathematical physics (particle or high energy theory). How do I get back into the mathematics/physics community to the point where I would have good recommendations for the next round of applications (currently I have none)?

Thanks in advance.


texts: Making a joke in an email asking for a PhD vacancy?

texts:
In How to contact professors for PhD vacancies?, Suresh suggests (and I believe most of you agree with this):

  Think about their work. Find something intelligent to say (even a question).

I have read a couple of the recent, most cited papers of the professor. It is considered to be a breakthrough in the field, and of course very interesting. I have some questions, but I'm afraid that they are just trivial, that the answers are lying apparently in the papers (in the professor's perspective) that I can't see.

But I decide to write an email to them anyway. When I'm about to describe what I've read, I come up with a joke about that breakthrough method. That joke is only one sentence long, and for me obviously it's funny. However, I'm afraid there are some backfires if I decide to joke about it. Maybe the professor will see that the joke has no relevant to the method (explaining kills the joke), or it will be too informal in the first contact.

So is it safe to put the joke into the email?

TL;DR: Women rates funny guys as more intelligent. Are professors the same?


texts: How should a job market candidate leverage his or her network?

texts:
I am a job market candidate who has really “worked” conferences for the past 4 years. Now when I go to conferences, I find it easy to have coffee with a variety of junior (and some senior) professors in my field from other universities. I get invited to their dinners. I chat with them easily at the cocktail hours. Now that I am on the job market, I am not sure how to use those contacts to their fullest potential.

I mentioned this to my chair (whose work is in a different subfield than mine is), and he said I should not contact my network about potential jobs at any particular university because I would sound too “desperate”. This strikes me as incorrect, or at least incomplete, advice.

Should I let proactively let people in my network know that I am on the market? If so, what is a good strategy for emailing people in my network and letting them know I am on the job market? (Do I send around my job market paper and CV? A link to my website?) Is there anyone I should not email?


texts:
I define top university as Harvard, Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Caltech, Yale and similar.

If relevant, I am talking about computer science field.

I am interested in all levels - bachelor, master, phd, post-doc.

Should anything beside: GPA, published papers, supervisor, commercial experience, teaching experience or alma mater ranking be relevant?

How does average profile of person that got accepted into top university look like? What does one need to have to feel reasonably secure about being accepted into top universities?


texts: Why do even prominent institutions hire publishing houses (Springer / Elsevier etc.) for their journals?

texts:
The Institution of Engineers (India) is a prestigious organisation with more than one million members in 15 engineering disciplines in 114 centers or chapters in India and overseas.

Yet, it doesn't prefer to publish its journals itself. All of its journals are published by Springer. This concerns me slightly because it helps in maintaining the monopoly that publishing houses have on research publications.

Why do even such large and reputed institutions not choose to publish on their own?


texts: What is the purpose of career objective in an Ph.D. admission form?

texts: I have a very basic doubt. What is the purpose of career objective in a Ph.D. admission form especially when the applicants are from a wide variety of a subject backgrounds? For example take the case of a PhD admissions in computational biology where students from even electronics background are allowed to apply. The prior knowledge from masters is not going to help them much.


texts: How important are undergraduate and masters studies transcripts in applying for a faculty position?

texts: I am going to apply for a faculty position via online system. In the announcement of the position  they have just asked for cover letter, contact info of references and C.V. But in the online process of application I noticed that there exists some taps related to uploading transcripts of B.Sc, M.Sc and Ph.D. I do not know whether they need transcripts or not? Can a bad transcript have bad effect on applying for a a faculty position?


texts: Is it more difficult to publish in a journal when not affiliated with an institution?

texts: Can one generally expect it to be more difficult to publish in a journal when one is not affiliated with an institution? I like the idea of being an independent researcher at some point in the future, but I'm wondering whether getting my pieces published might get a little more difficult? Do people have experiences with this?


texts: Don't want someone else to continue on the topic of my thesis

texts:
Today I defended by Bachelor's thesis and I did well. The thesis is handed in. However the process of developing it was a real nightmare, I had many panic attacks, etc. and it was just awful. But now I realized that I have mentioned in my thesis that there is room for more research in this field when there barely is any and if someone decides to continue my research with my results they are going to have a really bad time. I just really don't want anyone to suffer the way I did or even more.

Should I be stressed about it and is there any action I can take?


texts: Signed up for conference, having second thoughts

texts:
My advisor suggested that I should sign up for a conference, which I did - I now have to give a 15 minute talk.

However, the conference is taking place very far from me (+20 hour flight), and I am having second thoughts on whether I should go or not. Here are my thoughts:

Pro

Meet new people/socialize
Present my work at a talk, instead of merely a poster session

Con

Conference is only 4 days, two ~20 hours flights are very exhausting
The audience are not completely aligned with my field, so I have to make my presentation simpler than what the work actually is
Will not learn things that I directly need for my research because of the audience (they are in geology and engineering, I'm in math)

Honestly, I don't feel like going because of the above list. But I am worried that

My advisor will think I'm being annoying by "backing" out
I can't say no now, since I have been given a talk

I would be very happy to hear your opinions on this matter. Maybe I am putting too much thought into this.


texts: What kind of questions can I expect to see on a qualifying exam?

texts: In mathematics, there are certain open questions which are the subject of current research (think of the newest papers in the top journals).  I have also heard that some graduate programs ask questions such as these on their qualifying exam.  How common is this practice?  What kinds of questions can I expect to see on a qualifying exam?  I know that a qualifying exam typically tests the knowledge gained in graduate school, but I'm not sure to what extent this knowledge is tested?  How "advanced" should I expect these questions to be?


texts: How do I keep the high efficiency in non exam week?

texts: My efficiency is very high during exam week. How do I keep this high efficiency at other times?


texts: Getting into math ten years after a BA in English

texts:
I got a BA in English at a pretty good school, spent the next 10 years in a fruitless pursuit of screenwriting with a day job in a legal department, and now that I'm sick of all that, I'd like to do something mathy. And it seems pretty clear that that's going to require going back to school.

Since this is a HUGE redirection -- a ridiculous one, really -- I assume I should get a second BA/BS before even considering a masters, right? I did well in math in school, but I left off at single variable calc. (I'm currently studying linear algebra on my own and loving it.) But what, really, are my chances for even getting into a decent second bachelor's program?? I'm thinking of taking college extension classes to get more experience and recommendation letters for that purpose. If I get some online bachelors degree (EDIT: or a post-bac), are any (reputable) masters programs even going to consider me??

You may well ask what my eventual goal is, but I'm at such a basic level that I'm not sure that that question is all that relevant. If I were to pick a goal just for the sake of aiming for something, getting a job in statistics sounds interesting, but who knows what I'd want to do after getting a second bachelors. I'd like to try my hand at research, but that sounds way too pie-in-the-sky given my background.

Thanks for any advice or feedback.


texts: Is it inappropriate to ask department staff for syllabi previously used for courses I am to teach in upcoming year?

texts: I've been hired to teach two courses as an adjunct professor in the US (my first time teaching). I would like to review syllabi previously used for these courses, simply to inform my thinking on these courses. Is this an inappropriate request? It is likely I would ask the department head's administrative assistant for these documents. (As far as I can tell, they are not available online.)


texts: How do you add two independent master's degrees to your name?

texts:
Assuming you add one master's degree (Master of Science) like that:
FirstName LastName, M.Sc.

What is a proper way to add two independent1 master's degrees (both Master of Science)? Do you just add them both to the end?
FirstName LastName, M.Sc., M.Sc.

1 independent: Different universities, different fields, 2x 120 ECTS = 240 ECTS in total. Not the result of a double degree program.

Just to be clear, I am not looking for recommendations, if or when I should decorate my name with academic degrees. I do not even plan to do it on a regular basis. Even in my country, you don't do it very often. But if there is this one single time in my whole life where I should do it, then I want to do it right. That's all I am asking for: Are there rules or good/best practices on how to do it with two M.Sc. degrees.
Example situation: If you get mentioned on someone else's thesis as an examiner or as a supervisor the names will be decorated with degrees. A german doctor with three doctoral degress can either be Dr. Dr. Dr. FirstName LastName or Dr. mult. FirstName LastName. This example shows two possible rules:

You can stack titles/degrees. Just add as much as you have. That's from where I derived FirstName LastName, M.Sc., M.Sc..
You can condense - at least multiple doctoral - degrees by adding mult. to the mention of one single title/degree. I have never seen this in combination with other degrees.


texts:
Michael Schreiber proposed the Hm-Index.
It is related to the h-index but it adjusts for the number of authors on a paper.
So, for instance, if you had two people with a h-index of 10, but one had all sole-author papers and the other had multi-author papers, the one with the sole-author papers would have a higher hm-index.
However, I can't find a concise statement of the formula on the internet.
While a close reading of the paper provides the answer,  I think there should be a concise statement of the method quickly available on the interent.
Thus, how do you calculate the hm-index?
Schreiber, M. (2008). A modification of the h-index: The hm-index accounts for multi-authored manuscripts. Journal of Informetrics, 2(3), 211-216.


texts: Paper claims that there is no solution for a problem I solved. Should I approach authors or editor first if I want that information to be included?

texts:
This question is the result of a discussion in another question. If I publish an article, solving a problem, or finding relevant data, and subsequently another article gets published, explicitly stating that the problem is unsolved, or that there are no relevant data, what should I do?

Should I contact the editor of the journal where the second paper was published, to inform him that the paper is faulty? Would authors take exception to the fact that I didn't bring up the matter with them first? And would the right thing to do be to talk to the authors first, even if they can't find out who brought the matter to the editor's attention? Do I owe it to the editor, or to the academic community as a whole, to try to get the paper changed as quickly as I can by going directly to the editor? And does the answer depend on whether I believe that the authors acted in good faith or not?

Anything below this line is not part of my question and just justification for asking it.

Note that this question is about a specific bit of advice given in an answer in the other question, which I find questionable. As such, obviously this question has an answer in the other question. My question is whether that specific bit of advice is correct. Obviously the answer that prompted me to ask this question says so.

However, the point of the the other question is not to find out whether that specific advice is correct, and so there is no mechanism there for

a) showing agreement or disagreement for this bit of advice or any rival advice as to how to proceed (since the question is not about how to proceed in the first place.)

b) posting answers and/or thoughts about the correct way to proceed (since that question is not about how to proceed in the first place.)

So there is no way to extract any useful information from the fact that that answer has X votes: Was it given the votes because of or inspite of that bit of advice? Would people upvote the opposite course of action? Who knows. So I see some value in posting it as a separate question.

Feel free to remove this part once it has been decided whether this question is valid or already answered.

Another line: Why this is not a duplicate of Recently published paper does not cite my very relevant work: That question deals with the issue of plagiarism and asks for specific advice if you suspect this happening. The answers there advise to do nothing. My question is for the case that the authors explicitly and wrongly state that there is no research or data available, and I have (for good or for ill) chosen to take action to get this factually incorrect point to be corrected. My question is not "What should I do if people don't cite me?", my question is "If I already have decided to make it known that the paper is wrong in claiming that it offers the first, or only, solution to a problem, and am trying to get that changed, would the correct way of going about be alerting the authors that the claim they made is wrong, or should I write directly to the editor." I have edited the question a bit to make that clearer, but even with the old question I don't see how people can construe this as the same question (and could consider any answer in the other question to be a valid answer for this question.)


texts: Math / physics conference with one week review period - reasonable?

texts:
I recently received an invitation to review a mathematics paper for a conference called "International Conference on Physics, Mathematics and Statistics".  It's not one I'm familiar with, but their proceedings are to be published by what appears to be a reputable publisher (IOP; Journal of Physics: Conference Series).

The invitation said "The review period will be 1 week."  This seemed quite unusual based on my experience with math journals - reviewers are usually given at least 2-3 months and often more, as it is necessary to carefully check the proofs for logical correctness.  It made me wonder whether the conference was "real" or predatory.

I declined the invitation with a somewhat snappish comment about the review period being unreasonably short, but I wonder if I was out of line.  I don't have a lot of experience with conferences that publish proceedings.  Was their timeline at all normal or reasonable by prevailing standards?


texts: Is there such thing as a person who books guest lectures?

texts:
I'm a professional photographer. I have done numerous lectures at colleges and high schools about photography and photo assisting. This has always been for ex-professors or peers that have become professors. I thoroughly enjoy it and looking to branch out beyond my personal contacts to do about 4 of these a year.
Do you know if someone exists that is a guest lecture booker or guest lecture PR type person? I imagine this person would contact schools and try and set something up. I guess they wouldn't have to have industry-specific experience but I imagine that someone in academia with previous relationships may be more effective.


texts: How can I overcome feelings of unworthiness after finding mistakes in my research?

texts:
I'm currently a PhD student suffering from extreme anxiety after finding some mistakes in my scientific paper 7 months back. I've talked to my supervisor about it and he said that those were simple errors that would not affect my conclusions... Something that triggers for my anxiety is the fact that we issued a formal statement to correct them, hence this will be forever on my record. Furthermore, I discovered a ridiculous calculation error in the estimation of one of the parameters that I'm comparing in my paper that would change the looks of three points in my graph (which has around 30 points in total) -and this wasn't corrected in the statement because the estimation I used, even though originated from a silly mistake, can still be valid depending on how you consider the system. I suffer from constant fear of people thinking that I'm a dishonest researcher and that I fabricated data, because the data that I got from a mistake looks better than the "correct" one, even though the main parameter we show in this particular figure doesn't change in either case... I'm really against dishonesty of any kind, so this is a huge deal for me.

I know that my supervisor assured me that everything was ok and that he is happy with my performance regardless of those mistakes, however I can't help but think that my record is "stained" and that I'm a bad person that does not belong in academia. I was doing pretty well so far, but then my entire life fell apart after this. I feel like I lost the ability of feeling excited about my research... I think I've failed my life goals and my moral values.

Have someone gone through something comparable in academic life? How did you cope with the constant feeling of unworthiness?

Thanks in advance...

Edit: Differently from the question pointed out as duplicate, I would also like to know how researchers view my mistakes and how can I regain my confidence to carry on with my work..


texts: Student asks for letter of recommendation: I can't remember the student

texts:
I have already had this issue a few times. I just received an e-mail from a former student of an undergraduate course, asking for a letter of recommendation to apply for graduate studies. This course took place almost 5 years ago. I don't think I had any contact with the student after the course, although it's hard to say: I can't remember the student, and I don't even work at the same university anymore, so I don't even have access to grades, etc. He sent me his transcripts but can I write a letter only with that?

What do people do in this cases? Write a standard letter quoting some of the grades (from the transcript)? How can that be useful to anyone?


texts:
Forgive me if this is not the right place to ask pedagogical questions, but it seemed the most appropriate.

I am a TA for a programming/CS course. This is my first time teaching recitation and I'm not really sure what the best approach is. What I've been doing is covering what the professor asked me to, with a mix of lecturing (which I don't really like as I feel the students get enough of that) and me solving problems on the board with their help (which is OK but it's usually the same students answering the questions).

I can think of several different methods of recitation:

Lecturing (elucidating ideas or going over proofs)
Solving problems with the students
Having a class discussion, which sounds great, but coming up with discussion topics for this type of course is difficult, I feel
Having the students solve worksheets (which seems unnecessary considering they already have enough homework)
Or having them work together in groups to solve more difficult problems

Can anyone provide insight for which of these ideas are most effective?

Further information: It's a summer course, so the pace is pretty fast. Furthermore there are three recitations a week, each an hour and a half. It's the second CS course, so it's mostly programming (data structures and safe code) with a bit of theory thrown in.


texts: Submitting a paper, and presenting it at a conference - conflicts?

texts:
So, sorry if this is a daft question...

I've recently completed a paper that I'm hoping to submit to a journal later this week.

I think we have something important to say, and I want to disseminate the results more widely, in particular there's a conference I have my eye on. Their deadline is also at the end of this week.

Is it acceptable to submit the same paper to both journal and conference? Or will I get into trouble in the same way that I would if I submitted to two journals at the same time?

Thanks!


texts: Are My Interests More Suited for PhD in CS or Mathematics?

texts:
So let me give a little info of who I am and what my interests are. I just graduated with a BA in Mathematics, concentrating almost exclusively in pure math courses (favoring analysis, algebra, topology, number theory, and combinatorics over computational/applied classes). Next semester I'm beginning a 2-year masters program in computational mathematics (at a group-1 public school, under old AMS rankings).

My research interests are currently strongest in the following areas:

Combinatorics, especially algorithmic/computational and combinatorial optimization
Cryptography, information encryption/decryption and security
Number theory, but really just for the purposes of encryption/decryption

After doing some research on the Web, it seems to be the case that my interests fall into the field of theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics.

At this point in time, my idea of an ideal career would be a professor of math or CS at a university, probably a doctoral-granting university. I might also consider working for the government in information security, data analysis, etc.

Also, I definitely want a PhD. It's just been one of the constants in my life as a goal.

So, I pose the question. Given the above information, would a PhD in Math be more appropriate, or would a PhD in CS (probably concentrating in Theoretical CS) be more appropriate?


texts: Postdoctoral job search: positions and job titles

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As I'm currently pursuing an academic job search (in parallel to the industry one), which includes potential postdoctoral positions, I would appreciate some clarifications on the following aspects.

Positions (terminology). I have seen various titles for postdoctoral positions, i.e., postdoctoral scholar (or researcher), research assistant, research associate and similar. Question: Are there any essential differences, implied by these titles, or they are just terminology variations (perhaps, geographically- or university-dependent) for essentially the same type of position?

Note: My field is Information Systems, a discipline, which can be considered as a sub-domain of Management Science, which, in turn, is a social sciences discipline.


texts:
I had utilized an assignment that was under a free license to explain a part of my thesis but did not self-plagiarize by copying my own written work for an earlier submission.
Is it acceptable?


texts: How bad does it look if I asked the director of graduate studies if I can change my program of study from pure to applied math after admission?

texts:
Although I am primarily interested in studying pure math, for certain personal reasons, I had to ask such a question. What I fear now is the mismatch that'll be noticed between my Personal Statement, where I intend to write about my interests in pure math and this query which clearly exhibits the fact that I have as yet not made up my mind. Even if I re-do my personal statement to reflect an interest in applied math instead of pure math, the fact that I wasn't sure at this terminal stage of the application process might go against me. Is there any way to rectify my mistake?

For reference, this question is with regards to a university in the UK.


texts:
I am looking for any indication of how long should it take to write, let's say, a paragraph, for a non-native English speaker (with a good knowledge of English). I know that for the writing process of a paper or essay one should take in account also the time required for research and mind-mapping, which is not easily quantifiable. I am interested in some reference for the time needed to translate the mind map to a paragraph. The only time indication I found was in  http://www.scripps.edu/milligan/em-journal/pdf/Scientific_Writing.pdf (e.g Introduction: 3 days) , but the author clarifies that it is a personal opinion, and anyway it includes the mindmapping procedure. I can spend half an hour writing and editing a couple of sentences (already knowing which concept I need to express), how can I know if this time it's abnormous?

(meta: Feel free to move to personalproductivity if it's the case, I was unsure but then I thought of posting in academia because I am specifically talking about scientific writing)


texts: If you want to do a PhD in mathematics, how important is it to start immediately after finishing undergraduate studies?

texts: I'm about to finish my undergraduates studies; I majored in mathematics and minored in physics, and I always intended on going to grad school to pursue a PhD in mathematics, but I've been having doubts recently. I did well in all my courses (3.92 GPA), but I'm trying to seriously consider if my background is strong enough now and if I'd truly have the motivation to stick it out. I've also been thinking even if I decided to give it a shot, it might be nice to take some time off for rest and to improve on some of my weaker areas. But I've been told by a few people that if you want to do a PhD in mathematics, you have to go pretty much right after undergrad, mainly because recent letters of recommendation are so important, and professors forget you after a time. So I wanted to know if this is true, and also thought I'd ask for advice if anyone has been in a similar situation.


texts: Professor Isn't Teaching the Course we Signed up for

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Okay, so it is kind of a weird situation and we don't know what to do. The situation is this:

I am currently doing a math major and some of courses have two different (but equivalent) options -- application based, or a proof based option.

I am working on a pure math degree and so I opted in for the proof based version of the course, since I think it will better prepare me for later math courses.

However, the professor assigned to teach the course this term has never taught the proof based section before and straight up said in the first lecture that he was going to teach us the application based version of the course despite our choice.

A few of us went to complain to the chair of the dept. but to no avail, he simply addressed the class and said "If you don't like my lectures, don't come." Is there anything that can be done about this situation?


texts: Does doing poorly in a course hurt my chances of getting into grad school?

texts:
I'm a chemistry major and I've developed a strong interest in some areas of physical chemistry (and physics) and I do really well in physics and math courses. However, organic chemistry has really hit my GPA pretty hard.

This is due mostly to the fact that I'm having a tough time with the subject material and recent illness. Aside from being sick, I've been doing well in my other classes (so the blame is really shifted more toward the I'm-not-"getting"-organic) aside from receiving a handful of W's which I know will also hurt.

Since Organic chemistry is definitely a course within my major, I'm worried that it will significantly damage my chances of getting into grad school. I got a C- in the first semester of Organic and an F in the second semester.

I retook Organic I and got a B. I'm retaking Organic II and I'm doing much better, but the initial try will still appear on my transcript.

If I want to pursue physical chemistry, how awful are my organic grades and my Ws going to look to admissions?

(Note: My GPA was pretty awesome before Organic and I'm doing well in my other classes.)

I would graduate with roughly a 3.6 GPA. Other than Organic, I fare well in my courses. I have done undergraduate research and have presented several times and will likely have a paper before I graduate.

Edit: In the time since I've written this, I retook both Organic I and II and attained a B in both classes.


texts: Will it hurt me if my advisor's last name is before mine alphabetically?

texts:
I'm a graduate student in theoretical particle physics, where the standard is that all author lists are alphabetized. However, even in other disciplines of physics, it's quite common for author lists to be ordered by the amount of the contribution. At some point I will probably be judged by people who are not entirely familiar with the standards of particle theory, and even if they are they probably have subconscious biases towards earlier authors.

I also happen to have a last name that's around the middle of the alphabet. I can feasibly find an advisor whose name is after mine, but the most natural choices (including my current advisor) all happen to be before mine alphabetically. My current choice makes me a bit worried because most of his other students also have names before mine alphabetically. I'll probably have a number of publications with other people in the group, and it's not unlikely that I'll be the last author on most or all of these.

Is this something that I should be seriously worried about? (My heart tells me no, but my brain isn't sure.) Will I have much more trouble in the future than comparable candidates who are listed earlier? Or is it a fairly small effect which is much less significant than choosing a good advisor in the long term?


texts: Write "ongoing research projects" in a CV

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What is a neat way to include "ongoing research projects" in a mathematician's academic CV?

By this, I mean something that is narrower than a generic "research interest", but not quite as defined as a "paper in preparation".

One colleague of mine uses the following notation:

  Cubic Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation

  main objectives: study of such and such properties;

  in collaboration with Dr. X and Dr. Y


texts: Is it acceptable to use non-English references in a computer science paper?

texts:
I am currently reviewing an interdisciplinary computer science paper which is heavily based on previous works in logistics and process engineering that have been unfortunately published only in German (18 out of total 30 references). The overall idea is sound, but as the logistics structures are in some sense a basis of the paper, I have a strong inclination to reject the manuscript as the research cannot be followed and reconstructed by a researcher that does not understand German.

On top of that, virtually none of them are available online, or otherwise easily accessible.

I was going to hit the "Reject" button just a few moments ago, but I still have my doubts: I know that in humanities and also in mathematics people often cite publications written in other languages, but I have not yet seen something like that in computer science. Also, if it were one or two references, but 60%? The journal reviewing policy does not help me in this case.

I was thinking about proposing the following workarounds:

Extending the paper - this is probably not an option as the journal imposes quite a strong page limit, or
A supplementary report - the vital parts of the non-English text could be made available as an Technical Report or an on-line publication (I was thinking about arXiv) and this can be referenced in the manuscript.

Is it fair to reject it? Has anyone experienced something similar? What was your decision?


texts: Can it be unfair when the same referee reviews a manuscript again at a different journal?

texts:
I know it is fairly common to review the same paper twice. However, I want to ask whether this can be unfair to the authors.

I recently had a paper rejected in two very prestigious applied math journals. Both times I received one very good review and both times I received the same very negative review (with minor adjustments to accomodate for the improved manuscript).

The problem is that the negative review is blatantly wrong and off the mark, criticizing everything and not suggesting anything specific. It seems to be a very peculiar opinion about my paper, written by someone that can only appreciate his own views of the subject.

It seems unfair to me that one single person was able to ruin my chances in both journals, with a possibly odd opinion. When I was at the other end of this situation, I denied to review the paper for a second time, as I'd want the authors to have a fresh judgement of their work.

So, can it be that our common policy of giving multiple reviews of the same paper, especially when we don't propose any improvement to be done, is unfair to the authors as we can be the ones wrong?

And can I, as an author, do something about this situation?


texts: How to write research proposal without the risk of getting my idea stolen

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I am applying to some PhD programs this year. For some programs they require a research proposal - and this creates a dilemma for me. The more detailed the proposal is, the higher chance I get into the program but also the higher the risk that my idea is stolen. What can I do in this situation?
Thank you!


texts: Is it standard practice to make sure that multiple, numbered citations occuring together are ordered?

texts:
If including multiple, numbered citations together, is it standard practice^ to order them according to number? For example, one might see

Several studies [1,3,5] show that quantity X is relevant to Y.

Or

Several studies [1][3][5] show that quantity X is relevant to Y.

It is also common to see

Several studies [5,1,3] show that quantity X is relevant to Y.

The last is easy to achieve if using a tool such as bibtex, with a bibliography ordered in some way other than order of mention in the text.

Is there any authoritative reference that such ordering is preferable in general? To clarify, since this question was marked off-topic, the issue is whether, in the absence of guidelines from a journal, etc. there is any sufficiently-authorative concept of general style here. If the answer is "no" (which I believe it is), that is acceptable. If the answer is "yes," it can be defended with references to general academic style guides.

^as far as this can be determined across fields. I'm personally interested in mathematics, computer science, computational science, physics, and related fields.


texts: Can a rejected manuscript be submitted to another Elsevier journal?

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Can one submit a rejected manuscript from one Elsevier journal to another relevant/similar Elsevier journal after apply the given feedback from the reviewers?
Is there any minimum wait time?
Is it recommended to do so?
Would the other Elsevier journal know the status about the previous submission to the first journal? Will this have any impact on the decision of the second Elsevier journal?


texts: Is it normal for professors to give credit to their students even when they don't deserve it?

texts:
My advisor told me to write a blog post, so I wrote a draft of it.  He didn't like it, so he told me to write another draft.  He didn't like that one either, so he wrote a third draft himself, which contained none of the words from the previous two drafts.  He listed me as the sole author of the blog post and has been going around telling everyone I wrote it, even though he wrote the entire thing.

He has also done this with actual research papers (he listed me as the first author even though he wrote the whole thing -- I did make all the figures though).

Is this normal advisor behavior?  It makes me feel a bit weird because I didn't actually write it.


texts: At the age of 27 is it worth shifting PhD. from strings to computer science?

texts: Will the effort required to learn a completely new subject from scratch be outweighed by the better job prospects when one is looking for faculty positions?


texts: Is a professional doctorate beneficial for someone looking for a career as a programmer in industry?

texts:
I am a software developer by profession and was wondering what a professional doctorate (PdEng) would add to my career if I plan to work in the industry.

EDIT: I am not talking about a Phd rather a Professional Doctorate program (PDEng).It is a 2 year program and used for getting a job in a very specific sub discipline of a field.


texts: What are my chances of being accepted in a Ph.D. program with poor M.Sc. grades?

texts:
I'm currently studying for a computer science Masters degree in a top UK university and I wish to pursue a career in academia by getting a Ph.D. degree. I got perfect coursework grades, however, I didn't do well in my exams which count for 90% of the total grade in every course. Unfortunately, I'm 90% confirmed that I'll fail one of the courses and even if I resit it I'll only graduate with an overall pass due to the department's regulations related to failed courses. My current thesis supervisor, who also supervised my research course last semester, is very pleased with my work and offered me a Ph.D. position in a newly funded project. However the department's regulations admit only distinction holders, especially students graduating from the same department.

Is there any chance of me being admitted or is it impossible for a "pass" Master holder to continue their studies?


texts: How, if and where to submit a paper when former co-author cannot be contacted

texts:
So I have been on my own completing a paper that I had started with initial discussions with a professor more than an year ago. In the meanwhile I have lost contact with that professor and I haven't heard back from him when I emailed him the recent state of the draft.

I had showed the draft to another expert in the field and he had given me some very positive comments and had asked me to complete a certain part of it more fully. He had introduced me to some other renowned experts in the field to talk to about the paper. But I haven't gotten back any feedback from any of them about the current draft.

As it stands I am unable to find any experts to read my paper.

In this situation can I (a) submit it to arxiv and (b) submit it to a journal?


texts: Should a thesis of the author be listed as "related work"?

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Suppose I write a paper that contains mostly results that I previously published in my M.Sc. or Ph.D. thesis. The paper contains another author that is not related to the thesis (not the supervisor), who contributed some other results. How should I relate to the thesis when writing the paper?

Should I ignore it altogether since the thesis is not formally considered a publication?
Should I cite this as a "previous work"? It is not exactly previous work - it is the current work.
Maybe I am not allowed at all to include these results, since it is considered re-publication of something that already appeared?

(domain: theoretical computer science).
EDIT: I am interested in two cases:

Case 1: the submission is not anonyomous, so I can mention explicitly that it is my thesis.
Case 2: the submission is anonymous, so I am not allowed to mention that is my thesis..


texts:
My idea is learning new methods/fields by reproducing someone else results, and I would like to pick nice/good papers to learn from.
If we define reproducibility as starting from the same samples/data, use the same methods, get the same results I would like to know papers which has already been reproduced.

Is there any project/web-service/method that tracks reproducibility?

Of course, some people citing an article might have (partially) replicate it, but that wouldn't help me as I don't have access to new samples/data.

I am interested in bioinformatics field.


texts: Should I acknowledge the source of a problem in a math assignment?

texts:
For a math assignment that I am giving my students, I have included a problem from Spivak Calculus. I have the following two issues and I do not know what I should do:

If I do not acknowledge the source, it seems that I have committed plagiarism.
And if I acknowledge the source, then the students will go and perhaps find the solution manual and give the same solution as in the solution manual.

Can anyone please discuss what is the best thing to do in my case?


texts: How shall we reply to an editor after a minor revision of a paper?

texts:
I received the editor's comments as follows:

  The revised version of your manuscript xxx has been reviewed by our referees. Referee A is now satisfied with your paper, while Referee B is more or less satisfied but supplies a long list of remarks that need to be taken into account. While we cannot make a definite commitment, we will probably accept your paper for publication, provided you make changes that we judge to be in accordance with the appended comments (or other satisfactory responses are given).

I have revised my manuscript and prepared a detailed explanation of how I have dealt with all of the comments of reviewer B. Actually, there are just 7 comments on the manuscript.

Now, I am going to reply to the editor. Could you suggest me how to write a reply to the editor like this, such as ''While we cannot make a definite commitment, we will probably accept your paper for publication, provided you make changes that we judge to be in accordance with the appended comments''? And What should I need to notice?

Thank you in advance.


texts: Writing a review article on a similar topic already published by other authors

texts: There is already one review article on a topic of interest published few years ago. I want to write a review paper on that broad topic with some new insights.Can I cite the papers that are already used in that older review article?? Or should I only use the newer research articles which were available after the publication of the older review article??


texts: PhD supervisor making me do a LOT of non PhD work

texts:
2nd year PhD student going into 3rd and final year in September, in the UK.

My PhD supervisor is a brilliant researcher, and for the most part I enjoy working with her. I do have a second supervisor but she is essentially useless.

My project is pretty hectic, I enjoy working on different components at once. That said, I have a defined research question and thesis chapters.

However, recently my supervisor has tasked me with helping on lab work for a project which needs to be completed for a grant application. This project has nothing to do with my PhD (other than I will be using the same method). It involves about 10-12 hours of hands on time per week. This is a significant amount of time out of my work which is intense enough without this. I mean I would frequently work from 7-7 on it alone.

I have been told I can only be paid for the weekend work (which consists of about 1 hour of the weekly 10), but this to me seems dodgy. The work has nothing to do with my PhD and is directly impacting my ability to get stuff done.

The fact is I'm scared of saying any of this to my supervisor, as at the end of the day I am planning to do a post with her and I feel like if you present as inflexible it could hurt me down the line. However I do feel a bit taken advantage of, and at the end of the day considering that doing this work for a few months is only prolonging my thesis submission.

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced anything similar or has any advice?


texts:
I would like to apply for PhD studies in Computer Science in a university in Europe, but I have seen that among the requirements is a brief research plan.

Let's suppose that the field in which they are offering the PhD is in topic X focused in Y. For what I know the research plan is the outcome of an agreement between the potential supervisor and the applying PhD student; so what to put there if I only know X and Y, but still have not contacted any of the supervisors (the application does not say explicitly to do so)?

Comment: I know about topic X and a little bit about the specialized topic Y, but I am afraid that if I propose to do some research in Y, maybe, it would appear as a numb or dry topic to them and I end up losing this opportunity.

Any help?