texts: Is it alright for the main body of my paper to not contain any references?

texts:
I have been working on a few set of ideas, and while I can give references on the introduction, about the general idea, and the problems that my ideas can possibly solve in other fields, but unfortunately for me, the work is a little out of the box, and the main body cannot contain references.

I wanted to know if this is against norms or even considered unusual?

Also, some of the work is very old, for example, Descartes, and Tarski.
I was wondering how to get references for that work, and how it could work out, since I am not sure if they ever published papers or how discussion around very old topics tends to go.

The situation is a bit unusual for me, and I want to find the best way to be read and accepted in the community, following all the proper norms, rules and regulations regarding writing a proper academic paper.

The work is all application of informal logic to various other fields. Some of it is philosophical, some of it relates to maths and physics as well. I am just trying to get it read at the moment. I will try to submit it to a journal, but at this point, I am having a hard time finding such a journal.


texts: Rules or Laws to guide sectioning and sub-sectioning

texts:
Regardless of the field or subject, is there a website or organization that has rules on how to section and sub-section a document? I have a document on which I have randomly chosen a layout.
project document outline:
1. Define Goals to stakeholders
2. Product/ Objective/ Expectations
3. Scope
4. Time Frame with phases and processes
5. Project Budget
6. Risk and Benefits
7. Team members and organizational chart w/ roles and responsibilities matrix
8. Rules of Communication
9. extra docs include:
    a. action and issue tracker
    b. project charter
    c. project organization
    d. project roles and responsibilities
    e. project plan
    f. project budget breakdown
    g. stakeholder matrix
    h. risk log
    i. project communication plan
    j. scope statement/requirement specification
    k. change request tracker
    l. design document
    m. possible obstacles & problems

10. Full visualization of organization and process.

This layout is completely a guess, and I am wondering if there is a guide to how to section and subsection, some law or rule to do sectioning or sub-sectioning the proper way that anyone from any field can follow


texts: Discussion turned into argument with the conference keynote speaker, would it be appropriate to email an apology?

texts:
I had a chance to visit as an audience to an international conference in computer science. As usual, there were few keynotes before the scheduled paper presentation is carried out for the day.

During the presentation of one keynote speech, where the speaker (quite renowned in the field) made a very strong argument that the equation/method that he is using will solve a lot of problems. However, I could point that there was a mistake in the method (rather the equation) itself. The method did not obey the basic laws to solve any possible problems.

The discussion with the Professor continued for a while and he never agreed to what I was saying and I also never accepted those not-so-possible facts. This whole thing converted into an argument.

I understand that it happens during such process because of adrenaline rush. Now, after few days of wondering about it, I am thinking that I made a mistake. I am feeling bad. Could it hamper my future/present career prospectives? I am presently in my PhD research. I want to mail to the professor and say sorry for the incident. Not sure.


texts: How to find out if my specific idea is really new, or if someone has already worked on it?

texts:
I started working on my PhD few months ago and I am trying to solve a problem in a particular topic. The topic is quite specific and many people have already worked on it before. I am stuck at the following two scenarios:

I would like to extend the topic in some particular direction which I think is interesting and new. How will I know if people have already worked on that 'new extended topic'? I google hoping to find something, but I don't. I read some review papers (but most of them are old) and they don't cover any. Also, I think it is very difficult to read all recent papers related to the topic of research in a hope to land on my specific topic.
I would like to solve an existing specific topic in a new way, which may be quite simple, but looks efficient. But, I have the feeling that people should have already solved the problem in 'my new way'. How will I find if that has been done? I use google again and land up in quite interesting papers but it still do not solve my problem.

How do you tackle the above situations? I think one way is to do a very extensive literature review of the topic, but how will you achieve that? Review papers? Reading 'all' papers in that topic? I tried to do that right at the beginning, but I realized I can not and should not know everything, but should have a very rough overview of the topic and in depth knowledge in my way of solving the problem.

Edit: My research is in the topic of Computer Vision, in the field of Computer Science. My very specific topic is the topic of marker-less augmented reality.


texts: Online resources for summer schools in software engineering?

texts:
I'm looking for an online resources that lists all summer schools of the actual year in a specific domain. Are there any sites? I just found one: Summer Schools in Europe, but this site seems to be a little bit outdated and doesn't have a lot of summer schools.

In my case, I'm focused on software engineering and Europe. But if it is a world-wide source I wouldn't mind.


texts: Do postdoc salaries or other academic position's salaries differ much between US and Canada?

texts:
I hear that the salaries in US are generally higher with lower taxes compared to Canada. Is this true for postdoc salaries or other academic positions? Sites such as glassdoor give roughly the same salary for postdoc which is 50000 CAD/USD. What a bout taxes, is the tax really lower in US? For an annual salary of 50000 CAD a person pay ~7600 CAD in federal taxes and for 50000 USD a person pays ~5800 USD. This does not include the state taxes. I am a second year postdoc in molecular biology with a background in physics.
My source for Canada federal tax
My source for US federal tax
Glassdoor US postdoc salary
Glassdoor Canada postdoc salary


texts: Can't shake doubts about quality of research, but want to continue

texts:
I'm late in my PhD career, and I recently switched advisors. I'm having major doubts about my work and my choices seem to be: stay on this project or drop out. I'm looking for advice from people who were in similar situations. Sorry for the long posts, PhD complaint posts are probably always long. :-)

I was given a project: read paper "A" and followup paper "B" and figure out how to follow up with "C". While Paper A initially caught my eye as interesting and promising, I now seem inevitably led to the conclusion its logic is basically bogus. It was a real emotional hit when I began to see that -- if Paper A were plausible, my life would be a lot easier right now.

I have mentioned my skepticism to others who have familiarity with Paper A. They say that I am right to have doubts, that the paper is not great and there are flaws, but they still think the general idea is true. I feel like I am not being heard -- if they understood me, they would see that I am saying that the general idea is probably not true.

A relevant fact I should mention here is this: all the people I've talked to so far who have read Paper A participated in publishing Paper B. I am not so naive, and I suspect perhaps cognitive dissonance is at play here.

My SO suggested I briefly write down my doubts and the reasons for them, plus potential other directions for research, and bringing them to my committee. I think this is a good idea.

I will just leave these things here:

My doubts aren't being heard. My advisor said, "You can do this project, or you can find another advisor." I mentioned this to a member on my committee, ready to quit. They said, "Don't worry about that, it's not true and it's just a misguided way of trying to motivate you."
My advisor's techniques seem really outdated. I am trying to show him recent papers which have amazing results we could build on. He both hasn't read them and doubts their methods. How both can be true I'm not sure.

This list was going to be longer but it is painful to write. I am hoping someone can tell me: "look, man, there is a way to solve this", but I think I know what kind of answers I'm going to get.

What sucks is this: I feel like I was made to do good research. I see myself as methodical, precise, skeptical, and a highly motivated problem solver. I have good relationships with my peers, and I'm pretty respectful of others. And I keep ending up with advisors who seem like they don't really give a damn about anything except publishing. Help please.


texts: I can't seem to find a answer regarding this point, I would like to know what the usual timeline from the point of application (for tenure track faculty position) submission to  contact for interviews looks like. I have applied to numerous positions, some in February of this year. More than half have neither rejected or contacted me and May is just around the corner. What can I expect?


texts: What visa is required for a TV-L PhD position in Germany

texts: I am a citizen of a non EU country with an offer for a PhD position in a research training group with a TV-L E13 (65%) salary. I was told getting a student visa would be problematic. Which visa would I require to work under TV-L salary.


texts: Current status "with editor" after a a mix up

texts:
My paper was accepted from the Mathematics Magazine. They told me that there are some corrections and changes that I should do and I could find them in the PDF attachment which already appeared in the editorial management system.

The problem is that the PDF was not about my paper.

I sent several mails to let them know about the mix up and finally they answered that "I will inform the editor about the mix up" etc.
Before two months I uploaded a "revised" submission (I made some corrections but not all since I did not have the PDF) but I did not click on "approve revision".
Suddenly, today I got an email which says that they confirm my revision and the status of my paper is "With Editor".
What is happening?


texts:
When I am preparing slides for a course (as I have been today, weekend be damned), aside from questions of pacing and exposition, I often find myself asking various questions about the layout of slides such as:

Should bullets generally be introduced one-by-one using animations or should the entire slide be displayed immediately?
Is animation generally good or bad for lecture slides?
What is a good approach to take for titling slides?
Should I include "separation slides" to chunk content?
What is the optimal amount of information per slide?
Slides should be numbered, but is it better to give the total number of slides on each (e.g., 4/20) or just the current slide (e.g., 4)?

These are all small questions but I think they add up to something non-trivial in the overall didactic potential of the slides.

I have my own opinions on these questions and I feel that I have a good intuitive sense of how to structure slides, but my hunches are just hunches.

Hence this question is looking for either:

Pointers to scientific studies or other well-argued material on good slide design for teaching
First-hand answers to the above questions (and related ones) accompanied by solid argumentation/anecdotal experience (rather than just subjective preferences)

I'm looking for answers that specifically target teaching rather than research presentations. (For me, there is a significant difference.) I'm also looking for answers that target slide layout and design rather than talk structure.

And though I appreciate that the notion of good slide design varies between different subjects, I still think that there is a meaty intersection of good practices that one could follow across all disciplines. It is precisely this intersection that the question targets.

My students thank you in advance!

On a side note, here's a nice slightly-related question on what to do with the last slide.


texts: Are women overrepresented in the field of child development studies?

texts:
I have the impression that many female scientists, especially after they gave birth to a child, start to develop a research interest in the learning, growing, and developmental behaviors of babies. I got this impression because over time I heard about a couple of female university professors and industry scientists doing research about babies. I personally know 0 male scientist whose research interest is in this area.

I'm wondering whether this trend I see around me is real, and thus wondering: are women more represented in the subfield of child development (or developmental psychology) than in the broader field of psychology?

I'm concerned, and intuitively don't like this (possibly imagined) "trend". I think it may encourage some people to think that female scientists just pick up certain research topics and don't want to touch others. I also see this "trend" as a destruction of many years of effort encouraging women in the "hard-core" science and technology.


texts: What is the scholarly value of a report containing experimental results and the procedure

texts:
I have performed some experiments on approximately 400+ data sets, my PI is thinking of publishing online a report that contains some background information, the software and the procedure used to obtain the results and a detailed table of the results and maybe some analysis and conclusions of the results.

Both the software used to do the tests and the data sets are publicly available, and we didn't contribute in establishing them, i.e. we didn't code the software, nor did we collect or produce the data sets.

He expects that this report will get cites in the future, at least by his group's future work.

My question is: What is the academic value of such report for a student who wants to pursue a phD?


texts: Will it be difficult to get a PhD position if the economy enters into a recession?

texts: Due to the outbreak of Covid-19, it is possible that the economy will enter a recession. As more people will want to get into grad school, will it be more difficult to get a Ph.D. position?


texts: What are the things one should consider while defending a PhD thesis, especially when the two examiners have completely different comments?

texts:
I am a completing Ph.D student. I submitted my thesis 4 months ago and have recently received the comments from the examiners. But to my surprise, two examiners have provided entirely different comments. One of the reviewers has appraised my thesis and congratulated on my work while the other has given intense/critical and harsh comments saying that the thesis may need some more work to be of a standard quality. I learned that the second reviewer who has provided extended comments will be attending in person for my oral exam. Could you please give me tips on how to appear confident and prepare in the best way possible. Most of the comments seem genuine but there are comments where he is beyond the objectives of my study.
Your help would be highly appreciated.
Thank you.


texts: Can I choose the initials I want to use when publishing a paper?

texts:
I am about to publish my first paper, but there is a little question bothering me. I have two middle names and I've noticed that most authors with two middle names choose only one to use as a initial. So their abbreviated names become "Last AB", not "Last ABC" (which apparently doesn't look so good).

However, I've read the "instructions for authors" of many journals, and none of them says anything about choosing the initials you want to use, you just have to put your full name and (I suppose) they abbreviate it by themselves.

Can someone please clarify for me how it works and how people manage to choose the way journals publish their initials?


texts:
What is the British English way of referring to a source in-text.

Is it plural because there are two authors, like this:

  X and Y (2011) describe ...

Or is it singular because you are referring to a singular source, like this:

  X and Y (2011) describes...

So what I am asking is whether you refer to the source or to the authors?


texts: Speech disabilites for PhD admission for international applicants

texts:
One of my Iranian friends wants to apply for a PhD program in computer science to a US university. He can't speak fluently even in our native language at all, but in the other side he has a relatively strong background:

Good GPA in both MSc. and BSc. (> 18 out of 20)
First rank in BSc.
Graduated from most prominent university in Iran (Sharif Univ. of Tech.)

Question: is there any chance for his application to be approved and for him to get funded?

Note that my question is a little general. I'm not considering a particular university. What I am looking for is how much is it possible for a PhD student to not participate in presentations, lectures, team works, typically all works in which he should speak.

In the other hand, I've listed below what he can do perfectly.

Teacher assistant for lower level students (designing exams, assignments, marking exams/quizzes papers, but not presenting at classroom)
Review scholarly articles/papers
Generally all regular jobs that a normal PhD student can do (excluding speech presentations and such assignments)


texts: In dilemma of choosing supervisor for postdoctoral research

texts:
I don't know whether this question has been posted previously or not. I just successfully defended my PhD thesis and right now I am unofficially a PhD holder. I have applied to several institutions for postdoctoral research and so far I have been received two offers. One of the offers was from my current PhD supervisor and another one was from a reputable senior professor in my field. Although I really enjoyed working with my current supervisor, I don't think I have challenged myself enough in research. The research I conducted during my PhD study was a "safe" research and nothing groundbreaking was coming from it. My current supervisor is a nice professor who always listens to my problems, understands my plight as a researcher and always acts as a good boss to me. However, she's not a very good expert in my field and sometime she was clueless with what I was talking and she didn't encourage me to go for risky research during my PhD time. She also doesn't open to ideas of collaboration with experts from other countries as she likes to control everything. However, she has been a very pleasant person throughout my PhD journey.

On the other hand, another senior professor from other institution is a very respected professor from my field. He has a very big lab with many PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. However I have heard a lot of nasty things regarding his treatment to his students. I don't know whether I'll be ready to work with.

So right now I am in a dilemma to choose between these two as my postdoctoral supervisor. What should I do?


texts: Are there avenues/options to pursue a medical degree (with funding) after a Ph.D.?

texts:
I have a Ph.D. in Engineering and I figure a medical degree will be highly valuable to gain a better understanding in my research area (biomedical/neuroscience). However, unlike science/engineering graduate schools, medical schools do not pay your tuition and financial assistance is primarily need based, rather than merit based.

Are there avenues for an interested candidate to pursue a medical degree in the US (perhaps part-time, while working as a post-doc in a relevant field) without taking on significant amounts of debt?


texts: Presenting a paper at a conference: Should I use the same figures as in the paper for the presentation

texts:
I submitted a paper (together with my team) for a conference. The paper has been accepted and I have been asked as speaker to present this work.

In my presentation, should I try to use exact copies of the figures used in the paper, or should I adapt the figures?

Changing figures could make them a bit clearer in the context of a presentation (for example, the presentations are to be done with 16:9 slides, but the paper is written in two-column text, and as such has rather square graphs), but I don't know if this will make them harder to relate to the graphs in the paper.


texts: What to do if you don't know the terms you don't know?

texts:
If in a (mathematics) research paper, you cannot seem to find the term to describe something even after much digging and questioning, is it safe to assume that a word for it does not exist?

This question becomes even more confounding the more simple the concept. For example, I cannot seem to find a common term describing the first index in a sequence that a number divides (the index it is a primitive factor of).

If this assumption is not a safe one, how should I proceed? With one of the few things stalling the self-archiving of a paper being the ambiguity over a term, do I simply assume that there is not a common term and create my own at the risk of seeming like an ignoramus? Is there any other course of action that may be taken, any general approach that other researches have taken?


texts: Referencing Springer products: what name to use for the publisher?

texts:
For references to Springer products, I have come across a lot of names for the publisher, (and all of those are present in my own Mendeley library):

Springer Science+Business Media
Springer-Verlag
Springer

Is there a difference, or can I just go and standardize my library to one of them (preferably Springer. In my area, mathematics, there is no chance of confusion with Springer Publishing, and even less with Axel Springer SE)?

Also, is there a difference between the locations [New York|Heidelberg|Berlin|a combination of the previous] usually found along with Springer, or can I just standardize my library to always use Berlin, since that's where the headquarters are? I understand Springer has major offices in the other cities, but do different books really pertain to those different offices, and does this need to be made clear in the References?

If the answers to one of the questions is no, do you have a hint where to find the correct information? The first pages of the books that I have sometimes list all of the above options in different places. Furthermore, for example my copy of V.I. Arnold's "Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics, Second Edition" says "© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc." without any mentioning of "Springer-Verlag", whereas the website says "Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York".


texts: Should I become first author of a paper for which I did the statistical analysis?

texts:
I am a statistician working at a research institute. We work with data from patients with a certain disease. I am getting paid by the institute, but a part of the money comes from a research grant a doctor brought in. The doctor does not work at the registry, but at a hospital and is working closely together with statisticians of the institute (including me) on research questions.

Together we are doing research on a project. I am doing 100% of the statistics, but all the research questions and ideas come from the doctor. She is also the one writing a manuscript for a paper currently.

Now she wants to put me as first author and herself as last author (as supervisor). The idea comes from other researchers who do something similar, but they usually have medical PhD students and not statisticians as first authors. So basically the reason she wants to put me as first author is to put herself as last author.

I feel uncomfortable being first author and would prefer being second author. I am probably the one putting the most hours into the project by preparing all the data, doing the statistics and explaining the results to the doctor. The statistical analysis will be a big part of the paper.  But the research question is not my idea, I have no medical background, the doctor is writing the paper. I am basically getting paid to do the analysis. While I think it is interesting research, I do not identify with it and I do not agree fully with all the conclusions. So far I worked under the assumption to become co-author and the idea of making me first author came up recently.
My opinion is that I should only be first author of my own research, which would be in statistics, not medicine.

I guess it is very odd to reject being a first author =).

My next step will be to talk to her about it, but I was hoping for some perspective or opinions from the community. Is it harsh/unusual to insist on being co-author only?

Who would you suggest should be first author in this case?


texts: Phd application procedure in European universities, specifically in Scandinavia and the Netherlands

texts: For Phd application in Europe, we often directly apply to the interested group, a little bit like application to a job. I would like to know in general, will they send you a email if they reject you? or only the successful candidate will receive email? (Just like job application) How long does it take for their consideration? I would like to hear some of the experience or general cases because I cannot find enough information on this. (No reply from HR etc)


texts: Is it feasible to become a paramedic full time and do a PhD in an unrelated field?

texts:
Do you think this is reasonable?
I am graduating with a BSc in neuroscience next year. I would like to be a paramedic for a little while (throughout my 20's) before switching careers and becoming a researcher in Neuroscience (for my 30's +).

Scenario A:
After completing my BSc I want to do the 2 years of training to become an EMT. A full time work schedule as an EMT would be something like 12 hour shifts, 3 days on, 3 days off, 4 nights on, 4 nights off, etc. Would it be possible to pursue a masters and a PhD in Neuroscience while working a schedule like that? I imagine that this way I would graduate towards the end of my 20's or early thirties with a PhD. Then I would like to begin a career as a researcher/lecturer. Does this sound impossibly difficult?

Scenario B:
After graduating, spend the next 2 years to become an EMT. Work as an EMT for a few years, then reduce to part-time or quit and pursue funding for a masters + PhD in my mid 20's. I hear that returning to university after a few years off might be more difficult, both to apply, and to be competitive. Is this true?

Scenario C:
Pursue my masters after I finish my BSc. Then do the 2 years to become an EMT, work as an EMT for a few years, then do a PhD. Will the relevance of the masters depreciate over time? If I already have a master's done, how long would it take to finish a PhD?

I guess in general, is this just an insane plan? Or is it possible?


texts: In view of the need of a preprint repository for biology science, why was it necessary to start bioRxiv, instead of a biology section in arXiv?  Is there any fundamental difference between the two?  If bioRxiv becomes popular now, why weren't biologists willing to use arXiv?


texts: Using other people's data for dissertation: ethical or not?

texts:
It was recently shared with me that a professor in my department (and if anyone saw my question about the verbally abusive ex-advisor...yeah, same guy) offered one of his PhD students his own corpus of data for writing her dissertation, and apparently made this offer in response to her deciding to quit the PhD program. As I understand it, she accepted this offer and decided to stay in the PhD program because of it; I also believe that this corpus -while used in a number of publications - as a whole is not publicly available or anything.

Because I am admittedly biased (see the aforementioned question for context) against this professor, I don't entirely trust my judgement. Is it just me, or is this a ridiculously unethical offer?

Next question, if it is unethical, do I say anything about it to anyone? The person who told me did so in confidence, and I don't want to betray that. I'm hoping he reports it (he said he's thinking of talking to the graduate director in our department about it, as he thinks it's shady too) but if he doesn't - should I say something or just let it go? Because I already have a bad relationship with this professor and have complained about him, I feel like me complaining yet again about something else will just make me look bad and not be taken seriously, not to mention there is the whole matter of this not being any of my business.

My heart and soul are all riled up because I just want to see this professor be held accountable for something (I'm pretty sure he's going to get away with how he treated me. See linked post), but my self-interested brain is telling me to let it go and stay out of it. Thoughts?


texts: How can I find out under what license a title was submitted to arXiv?

texts: How can I find out under what license a title was submitted to arXiv, and what conditions apply to sharing or redistribution?


texts: Is research experience or GPA more important when applying to MSCS programs

texts: It seems that for PhD programs the research is more important but, which is more important for masters programs?


texts: Considering a second PhD, this time in statistics. Will any professors be interested in working with me?

texts:
I have a PhD in applied mathematics from a top university. I didn't realise it at the time because I was so focussed on my research, but it seems my research area (numerical analysis of PDEs) is actually very niche in terms of real-world problems in industry.

All the job listings I see are looking for people with a probability/statistics/machine learning background. There are literally hundreds of listings for these types of jobs for every one job in my area. I am currently a postdoc but I plan to leave academia for industry (probably finance) in the near future.

As the need for people with statistical skills is so clear, I have started considering the possibility of doing a second PhD, this time in a statistical area.

It would have to be part-time as I will be working full-time in industry. However, I currently work 7 days a week and very long hours on research as a postdoc, it is my hobby as much as my job. So when I begin working in industry, which is a standard 40 hour Mon-Fri working week, from my perspective I will have a huge amount of free time, i.e. eveninings and weekends, that I could dedicate to statistical research.

So I have several motivating factors for considering doing a second PhD:

Statistical skills are very much in demand and are of far more use in real-world applications than my own niche skillset. I would like to work on important real-world problems and it would be ideal to have a qualification for this.
I absolutely love research and having a goal to work towards to motivate me to get really deep into a topic. I will have alot of free time when I move to industry soon, and I would like to dedicate that time to something constructive.
I am interested in probability and statistics from a theoretical perspective and I would like to make a contribution to this field. Originally I applied for PhDs in this area, along with applied math PhDs; I went with the math PhD as I was also very interested in that area and it was a great opportunity to work with an excellent supervisor and university.

So a second PhD in a statistical area seems to make alot of sense to me.

Questions:

Would any professor even be interested in working with me considering
that I already a PhD and that I plan to work on the second PhD during evenings and weekends?
If you think there are professors that might be interested, how
should I go about approaching them? I would not like to appear
unprofessional.
I don't need any funding as I will be working full-time. Will this help me in finding a professor for a second PhD or is it largely irrelevant?


texts:
I am currently pursuing my master's in bio-medicine. I am taking classes, doing research, and working as a graduate assistant at the same time. So far it has turned out to be very time consuming. I can do the work just fine, but I am having trouble finding any time to spend with my family. I was originally planning to continue with a PhD in bio-medicine after graduating with my master's.

Question
In your experience doing research in a bio-medical PhD program, were you required to spend all of your time working?
Is it possible/likely for me to enter a PhD program that allows me to treat it as a full-time or even overtime job?
Through undergraduate and now in my masters I spend pretty much all of my waking hours working, and I don't think I'm interested in another 4-5 years of this.

Edit: I am in the United States. My goal in getting a PhD is to teach at a university level, but I'm open to research or industry jobs as well.


texts: Is it OK to use "Group A, B, C ..." in a manuscript?,

texts:
I am currently preparing a manuscript which lies in the biomedical field.

My study has five groups, and their identification is a bit tedious to describe in a full term (something like "'abcd' medicine + 10mg of 'efgh' medicine group").

Therefore, In the results section, I want to maximize word economy by not directly lettering out the specifics of the group, but just referring it to Group, such as A, B, C, D, and E. I am planning to propose a table that clearly explains the initial letters (A, B, C, D, E) of the group and its specific descriptions in the materials and methods section.

However, upon my research, many articles just endured the inefficiency of fully describing the group whenever it has to be mentioned. Is this some kind of a rule that has to be kept when writing a manuscript?


texts: How to design a computer-based multiple-choice quiz?

texts:
I am currently the course leader of an introductory course for undergraduates.
Each semester, more than 500 students take the course.
One of the course assessment tasks
is a multiple-choice quiz which is held twice a semester.

One of the problems is that the quiz is currently paper-based,
which makes the quiz logistically challenging.
For example,
we have to reserve multiple large lecture rooms,
we have to print question papers,
we have to collect multiple-choice answer sheets and scan them.
In addition, it is not environmentally friendly
to print and destroy such a large number of pieces of papers
(our quiz consumes a few thousand sheets of paper!).

I am thinking of moving to a computer-based multiple-choice quiz,
which will be held in a computer lab in the university.
Unfortunately, the maximum capacity of a computer lab is about 80 people,
and due to the limited number of computer labs available,
we would not be able to give the quiz to all of the students at the same time.
In order to avoid the students who take the quiz earlier
leaking the questions to the students who take the quiz later,
I would have to design a test bank,
so that the computer system would randomly draw questions from the test bank
to assign them to students.

Questions:

Would such a system be "fair",
given that each student is taking a "different" test?
Do I need to design a very large test bank to protect against
students who take the test early sharing the questions
with students who take the test late?

I would especially appreciate it if teachers
who had successfully administered computer-based quizzes
could share their best practices.


texts:
I am a PhD student in economics in the UK. Recently, I have been hearing how important teaching experience is to find a job in academia as a lecturer. One needs to submit teaching statements and may be asked about one's teaching philosophy.

Can you please share your experience about how important teaching is in becoming a lecturer? I suppose being a teaching assistent and leading example classes is a big plus. Of course, only if the research part of the PhD is going sufficiently well such that there is time for teaching.

What about schemes like the TSP (The Scholars Programme) of the Brilliant Club where PhD Students visit schools the odd times and give mini courses to interested pupils? Does this count as being committed to teaching or is it neglected due to the low level of difficulty?


texts: Bad score in IELTS, should I send it anyway?

texts:
A graduate program I'm applying for in mathematics requires fluency in English but didn't set the lower bound for the IELTS score. I'm very good at English but I went to the test unprepared and got severe headache during the test, couldn't complete some tasks so I got 6.
5.5: reading, listening and writing.
7: speaking
But in reality I can do better. My BSc. thesis is well-written so my question is, if I sent my IELTS score would it be a sign of weakness in my application?
It would be very difficult to take another test before the deadline of the application process but not impossible though.


texts: How good are Taiwanese universities for getting PhD in Industrial Engineering?

texts: My cousins have recommended me to pursue my Ph.D. in Taiwan instead of wasting my time, email constantly to professors to many professors in Europe, The United States, Canada, Australia,..., with a little tangible outcome (not responding to my email, or have financial restriction, or unable to accept further Ph.D. student), and after graduation, I can immigrate to another country such as Australia for work. I do not know a lot about Taiwan, and I do not know if it is worth to spend my time going to Taiwan. Is worth it? I do not know if a country like Australia or Canada accepts my Ph.D. degree. I live in Iran actually and due to economical conditions, political conditions, and social conditions, many well-educated people tend to move out of the country in hope of a better job or life condition. Although the COVIDE-19 pandemic make everything or future unclear


texts: Letter of recommendation from professor who is not longer at your university

texts: I am applying to graduate school in US for MS and Phd program. I wonder is it a good idea to ask for a letter of recommendation from someone that I took his course and I did amazing in his class and he knows me very well but he is now professor at another prestigious institute ?


texts: Should I submit a personal statement even if the program doesn't require one?

texts: One of the programs I'm applying to doesn't even mention a personal statement, but I have one written for other programs that do require it. Should I submit it anyway under the document upload section, or just leave it out?


texts: Telling my supervisor about my medical condition

texts:
I am a graduate student and I am more than half way through with my thesis. I was diagnosed with epilepsy 3 years ago, and in order to control my seizures I take Depakote. Now my seizures are under control, but the medicine has side effects, which hinders my productivity at times. This hindrance causes delay in my work, hence I have a feeling that my thesis will take longer to complete but he does not fund my thesis.
Should I share my medical condition directly with my supervisor or should I first contact the disability center in my college first and let them tell him that?
UPDATE
So I spoke both with the disability center and my supervisor, and things worked out according to my expectations. Both the disability center and my supervisor were very understanding.
Thank you all for your support and suggestions!!!


texts: why do some research articles not have issue number?

texts:
How can I get the information for issue number for this article?

I am trying to cite this article
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004060901300117X?via%3Dihub

doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2013.01.016

this is what I got from doi2bib.org:

@article{Taylor2013,
  doi = {10.1016/j.tsf.2013.01.016},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2013.01.016},
  year = {2013},
  month = mar,
  publisher = {Elsevier {BV}},
  volume = {531},
  pages = {354--361},
  author = {A.A. Taylor and M.J. Cordill and L. Bowles and J. Schalko and G. Dehm},
  title = {An elevated temperature study of a Ti adhesion layer on polyimide},
  journal = {Thin Solid Films}
}


texts: How to overcome preconceived ideas about social scientists?

texts:
I have the opposite problem to this question. Often when I talk to someone from a 'hard' scientific field I am 'taught' how statistics work or how programming works. It is a bit like being mansplained but by a hard scientist (hardsplaining, would that be a word?). Once someone was surprised that I know what the Runge-Kutta method is, and I have lost the count of how many times I have been lectured about stuff like the normal distribution and inferential statistics.

Now, I work with quantitative social science, using statistical methods that many would consider quite advanced (e.g. exponential random graph models for social networks, panel econometrics, simultaneous equations) and had the necessary mathematical training for that.

I am also very familiar with several programming languages. I usually write a lot of code in R or Python, besides being proficient in statistical scripting languages like Stata. I also know a good deal of NetLogo and Java, which I used when I did agent-based modelling. I would write my stuff in Sweave and LaTex if most journals didn't ask for a word document.

My understanding is that precisely because of the observational nature of most social science data, those of us who are into quantitative methods are forced to learn very advanced techniques to deal with issues such as selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity. Furthermore, the intrinsic 'messiness' of social data means that we have to be quite good at data management, usually learning a programming language or two in order to clean our datasets. Moreover, the emergent nature of social phenomena has motivated many of us to use multi-agent simulations in our work, demanding us to learn how to program.

Yet, I get patronised by the person whose randomised experiment allow them to get away with a t-test. How to react when that happens without sounding too defensive?

I know that generations of armchair sociologists theorising about the social construction of this and that probably created this stereotype of the mathematically inept computationally illiterate social scientist, but I believe that this image doesn't reflect a great share of those in my field.

EDIT 1: Given the close vote, I'm adding this clarification to what I'm asking. I want to know of strategies, possibly by others in a similar situation, to assert their research credentials or skills in a friendly manner in a social situation where the phenomenon described happens. The type of prejudice that I describe sometimes leads my opinion or ideas to be disregarded because of judgements made based on an incomplete image of my field of study. I believe that there are others there in a similar situation (Economists, for example), who may have strategies to cope with it. There must be a nice way to convey one's competence past the initial impression caused by the stereotype.


texts: how reference a translation of an already translated text?

texts:
Somebody wrote a text in Latin, let’s call her Alice and let’s call the text De Nihilo. This text was then translated into German by Bob. In my work, I translate Bob’s translation into English.
In the author–date system of the CMoS style, I have adopted this solution for referencing a translation of an already translated text:

My own translation of the following translation from Bob. (Bob 1987; translation in German of De Nihilo by Bob).¹

¹ “[Latin Text]” (Alice 47BC).

Is my solution the correct one?


texts:
In my field (computer science), many conferences have a section dedicated to PhD forums. For example, this one

http://ecmlpkdd2017.ijs.si/submission.html

has the following schedule

Lightning-talks session followed by poster
"Speed dating" with senior researchers
Invited talk
"Experience sharing" talks by senior PhD students/recent graduates

I have no experience of Phd forums, so I am wondering if it is worthwhile to participate at one of them. At a first glance, they seem something like an opportunity to build a bit of network, and to talk with potential postdoc advisors.

Has anyone some positive/negative experience about PhD forums? Do you suggest to participate?


texts: Is it “legal” for a Senior Vice President and Provost of a College to be Intimate with a PHD Candidate in their editing?

texts: Is it “legal” for a Senior Vice President and Provost of a College to be Intimate with a PHD Candidate While working on their dissertation of the same School?


texts: Can a public university block me on their official social media account if I am a student and/or employee?

texts:
I am a Ph.D. student at a large public university in the US. I am working on completing my defense and trying to graduate before the end of the summer term. I found out recently, rather accidentally, that the university's official account had blocked me on social media. This is presumably because I had posted critical comments on a number of their posts.
Are public universities allowed to do this? I believe this violates some federal precedent based on President Donald Trump, where he was made to unblock politicians he disagreed with on social media. I would like to address this for the sake of future students.
If I pursue this, is this likely to harm my academic career? I am concerned about potentially starting a legal battle with the university since I hope to graduate soon and am currently asking for letters of recommendation. The last thing I would want is for a professor who would disagree with my take on a certain issue in favor of the university's position and have that affect possible letters of recommendation.


texts:
As a junior academic I am beginning to get requests to review papers.

What standards do you people out there use to decide which review requests to accept and which to turn down?


texts: How to cite a previous single-author paper by oneself?

texts:
Suppose my name is John Smith, and I am writing a new (single-author) paper which wants to cite a previous (single-author) work by myself.

What is the best style for this?

(1) As we showed in [1], the following condition applies ....

(2) As I showed in [1], the following condition applies ....

(3) As Smith showed in [1], the following condition applies ....

(4) As [1] shows, the following condition applies ....

I would prefer to avoid (4) because it is easier for the reader to follow a discussion where names (rather than numbers) are associated with certain concepts. This leads me to prefer (3), because a specific name is attached.

The problem with (1) is that it can be difficult for the reader to distinguish two meanings of "we" in the context of a (math) paper: first, there is the impersonal use of we as in "we define a group as a set with an operation + etc.", and second there is the use of we as in the actual human writing the paper.

The problem with (2) is that it draws attention to myself as opposed to my ideas, which is the opposite of what I'd like in a scholarly paper

Does it matter if this is in the middle of a paragraph citing a wide variety of authors, only some of whom happen to be equal to myself? For example,
"As Jones showed in [2], ...., As Doe showed in [3], ...., As Smith (or we) or (I) showed in [1], .... "


texts: What is a good enough putnam score to include in an application to PhD programs?

texts:
Many people have said that having a good putnam score could improve one's application for PhD programs in Math / Theoretical CS.

I have certain putnam score, and I am wondering whether to include it in my applications.

In other words, what is the cutoff percentile, where you would / would not include the score in an application to a PhD program?

For context, I am applying to programs in CS Theory such as: UIUC, Rutgers, Cornell, Maryland, Princeton and UTAustin.


texts: Reusing content in papers, conference preceedings and lecture notes

texts:
In physics, it seems to be common practice to reuse your own introductory material, verbatim, multiple times in online lecture notes and conference preceedings, and a final time in a journal article. In most instances, it isn't indicated that the material was previously posted elsewhere, and the original documents may not be referenced at all.

This surprised me. During my undergraduate studies, we were given strict warnings about plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. I understand that authors are reluctant to reuse introductory material once it has been published in journal articles because it would violate copyright.

Is this practice really above board? and does it differ from other fields? If so, why?


texts: Is a higher amount of literature cited in an essay generally seen as better?

texts:
I'm a postgraduate M.Sc. student at a university studying math. Currently I need to write some essay/assignment (about 10 pages) for a seminar where we revisit already published work and describe it in more detail.
By asking other students about their essay I noticed a great difference in the amount of cited literature. While I use over 30 different resources, most of my fellow students only cite a handful of resources besides their main resource.
Now, it is clear that the quality of literature might vary, and that 30 redundant resources and/or unreviewed resources can be considered as 'bad' resources and sloppy research. But that's not exactly what I mean.
In fact, half of my literature comes from an extensive research on the problem's history and related work (and almost all the literature had been published and reviewed in some way or the other). The other half mainly consists of my 'main' resource for the seminar and some books explaining some higher Matrix calculus and other basics (like the volume of a d-Sphere) which I used to explain the 'main' resource in detail.

My questions are:

Is the amount of literature even noticed by teachers? Do they care as much as I think or do they generally just peek into the literature section and see if it makes sense?

Some of the literature I use has been cited in my original 'main' resource. Is it common practice to just cite them again (which leads to drastically more literature)? Or do I only refer to my main resource even if the statement comes from some other paper?

Does it make a good impression to have a long literature section (with useful and non redundant literature)?

While I love knowledge about the history and related work to a problem it is also much easier than explaining the core of the problem. Do teachers find this stuff interesting at all? I believe teachers are normally very familiar with the problem. My concern is that they are only interested in theory and proofs and might find literature reviews boring. (I did explain the core of the problem as it is important, but I would have done it in more detail if I had spared about a page of history and review.)


texts: Do educational programmes need to be in italics within the Harvard system of referencing?

texts:
I am mentioning  educational programmes within my essay and wonder if I need to have the name of the programme in italics? (For example, the Wellmother programme.)

Also I have mentioned a Government document, Midwifery 20/20 in the essay and wonder if this needs to be in italics?


texts: Is a Master of Research qualificaton appreciated in Australia?

texts: I feel like they are fairly unknown. Are they considered worthwhile in academic contexts? What about in the health sector etc?


texts: What PhD programs (Business-Marketing) are open to older applicants?

texts: I'm 46, 20+ years of industry experience, some teaching experience, decent MBA and strong undergrad scores. GRE is okay, working on improving my quantitative score. I'm open to going anywhere in the world (English as a primary language at the school), but I need full time funding. My goal for a PhD is research, publication, and teaching. (I have several research ideas that I've started over the years, and I love teaching.) Are there any schools/regions/countries that are known to be open to older candidates with possibly lower GRE scores? (AACSB accredited preferred)


texts: Interview for postdoc position in mathematics

texts:
I have an interview for a postdoc position in Mathematics at a very good university in the UK. The interview committee comprises a maths professor (not in my field, which is analysis of PDEs) and three other professors from other scientific disciplines.

I do not expect any technical questions since they are not in my field. But I am worried they will ask me: "why is your work important/useful/relevant?" in the context of applications to real-life. What can I say in such a situation? Also does anyone have any general advice to what such a panel might ask me?


texts: Is it okay to send a connection invitation on LinkedIn to an academic event director?

texts:
As a just graduated student, I have submitted my contribution proposal for an academic event and the organising committee has accepted it.
Despite I have still met none of the above mentioned committee members, would it be fine to already send a connection invitation on LinkedIn to most of them (in particular to the event director)? If yes, would it be better to include also a custom message into the invitation request?


texts: how to specify 'pseudo-random seed' in publication, any reference?

texts:
Following suggestions for my post here "Should results of a journal paper always be reproducible?", I have done the simulation using a particular seed in the first part of my result section. Now the issues are, how to mention that particular seed in the paper. I have not come across any particular paper doing so. For this reason, I am uncertain about mentioning it.

Any reference of how people do this would be highly appreciable.

Meanwhile, following is what I am writing

  In practice, nodes can be distributed in a large number of topologies.
  However, the results in Fig. 2,3, and
  4 follow a fixed topology generated by pseudo-random
  seed (1010) to validate the scheme. Later, a more comprehensive
  analysis is shown in Fig. 5 and Table
  I.


texts: Is it an offence to ask a professor to share a soft copy of his recent book with me for my semester?

texts:
My professor (say Mr. X), a theoretical physicist, is in charge of a course on Math Physics in the undergrads. He had co-authored a book on Statistical Mechanics but he never mentioned anything about it to us, since it had no part in that course on Math Physics.

Now, that course was 2 semesters back. And in this semester, I have to study Statistical Mechanics, and this course is conducted by another professor (say Mr. Y). Mr. Y named a few standard books that almost all universities follow (Reif, Greiner, Huang) but not Mr. X's book (BTW X and Y are not enemies). But I came across X's book in google books and I liked it very much. But there is no soft copy of the book available on the net.

What I want to know is:

  Should I ask Mr. X to give me a soft copy of that book?

The book is not old at all ( published in Dec 2016 ) and well available in the market. I dont know whether it sells good or not, since it was published only 10 months back and very people among my friends and seniors know about this book (although Amazon shows it out of stock). The book is really good and I have a nice relation (as student and teacher) with Mr. X. But there are commercial sides also that he might think, regarding the book.

So will he be offended if I ask him about a soft copy of his book?

In that case, how should I approach him?


texts: How to publish in genetics without access to funding or a lab?

texts:
I am currently working in quite new university as lecturer for applied medical science undergrad in genetics subjects. I am facing some issues:

The university requires every lecturer do some publications in their field ( at least 2 papers a year). In genetics, this usually requires access to a lab and good fund for research. However do not have any of those. Any good suggestion ?
I have been trying for roughly a year and half now to do some collaborations with some scientist who I know, but I face the same issue , they asked if I have funding. I fully understand that to do research or ask for collaboration , I should have either funding, access to a lab or ideas, lab or ideas. I tried to give some proposal, but I have not got any response or some of them might not be interested.

I am thinking now to try to do research based on dry lab projects, but I would need some guidance for that.

I hope i can get some suggestions for these issues .

Thanks in advance

i am


texts: Is it okay to ask the professor to let another student continue my Master's thesis topic next year?

texts:
I am a Master's student in an Engineering discipline and I don't think the nature of my Master's thesis topic can be finished in time, realistically speaking (GUI development) and I have a month left. This project was actually proposed by the professor at the start of the year and I naively accepted it at the time. I am trying to suggest to the professor to let another student to continue my project next year and maybe improve on what is lacking and add more functionality. Is it common for projects to continue year after year?

There is one feature or function of the GUI which cannot be finished due to the lack of data quality. The data is actually collected and given to me by other PhD students, so it is not my responsibility to produce the data which is used for my project. The bulk of the main code and GUI has already been worked on and I will be able wrap up my project if this single feature could be dropped. However, if this feature is dropped, the scope of potential applications that my GUI can have becomes very limited. However, my supervisor is very keen on having this feature. What the PhD students are saying is that it is my responsibility to be able to work with low quality data and find solutions to go around it.


texts:
I am currently an undergraduate student in mathematics, applying for graduate programs. To this end, I need to create a CV.

I have no research experience, no scholarships/awards, no academic/volunteer service, no work experience, and my first teaching experience will occur next semester.

My CV includes:

Personal Data
Education
Teaching Experience
Languages
Interests and Activities

and as of now, it is barely more than half a page long.

Is this problematic? Is there anything else I should add to my CV?


texts:
I'm a Master's student at one of the TUs (Technical Universities) in Germany. I have been working as a hiwi ("Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft", or Teaching Assistant) under a PhD for the past one year.

I have signed a new contract starting from December for another six months. Can I breach the contract now? What's the procedure if I have to breach it after the contract begins?

Would it affect my job profile? Would I still be able to work in other institutes?


texts: Can a rejection be appealed after reviewer says comments were addressed, but paper is not original enough for the journal?

texts:
I received a rejection letter from an Editor after I revised and resubmitted my paper by addressing all comments from two reviewers.

The first reviewer has no feedback meaning that he accepted all the responses given.

The second reviewer say that he confirms that all his comments on the previous version of the paper have been addressed.  However he still feel that the paper does not contain an adequate level of originality for it to be published in a journal like "xxxxxxxxxxxx" with a very high impact factor. He did not utter any doubts regarding the originality during the first round

Is it still possible to write an appeal to the Editor-in-chief against the decision?


texts: Do people compete for self-funded studentship?

texts:
I know that any admission application is subject to review, but I was thinking that the main competitions and open calls are for funding. If someone has full funding and a reasonable resume can directly apply for PhD programs in top universities (MIT or Oxford). In other words, there is no limit in available spots for applicants if self-funded and a supervisor is interested.

I saw some call for applications: for example. UEA is not a bad university, but not a university everyone wishes to study there, then waiting for call for application. I mean, students check if Oxford has an open fellowship to apply, but if you have funding, why you should wait for UEA to announce that they have free place for PhD students?

Even for self-funded students, universities normally support with TA or RA programs, but here it is mentioned that a bench fee should be paid in addition to normal tuition fee. And it is needed to have a degree with honors to apply.

My question is: do really student compete for a PhD position even when they are self-funded?

Do they receive some applications on such calls for self-funded studentship OR it is just a tricky advertisement?


texts: My applications for PhD in Neuroscience got rejected? How to be an extraordinary candidate for PhD?

texts:
Please take time to read this, I appreciate any advice from any Ph.D. student or mentor, an advice from a neuroscience or health science field person is more useful to me.

I am an international student from India, pursuing my master's degree in Pharmacology at a US university (a private university not classified as a research university).

Hopefully, I will graduate in May 2018. I have a serious and never-ending interest in doing research in the neuroscience field. I planned to do Ph.D. in neuroscience and took care of all requirements.

My undergrad was in Pharmaceutical Sciences from India, I made an evaluation of my undergrad transcripts and converted into US GPA score by WES, and it is 3.23/4.0.

My maser's GPA as of now (3 semesters) is 3.64/4.0.

GRE: 151 Verbal, 153 Quant, 3.0 Analytical writing
TOEFL: Reading - 27, Listening -29, speaking -20, writing -28 (Total - 104)

I don't have any published research papers yet.

I wrote a cohesive Statement of purpose explaining my research experience in my master's program and also my future research interests and mentioned the names of potential advisors that I searched in the respective university faculty websites.

Sent all documents before deadlines.

I applied to a total of 10 Universities, they are:

Univ of Alabama Birmingham - rejected
Univ of Texas Austin - awaiting decision
Rockefeller University -awaiting decision
Univ of Illinois Urbana Champaign - rejected
Univ of Iowa - Awaiting decision

Univ of Kansas - selected for an interview, but got rejected few days after the interview

Univ of Michigan - Awaiting decision
Icahn School of medicine - rejected
Univ of North Carolina - Awaiting decision
Yale University - rejected

So, I got rejected from 5 universities, out of which one university interviewed me but rejected later. Now, I am waiting for the decision from 5 more. I feel that my confidence levels are dropping already.

I am not worried about falling, I have failed many times at many things, and I am sure that I will apply next year or in two years to the same program.

But one thing I noticed was, many of the Universities that rejected me replied: "because of so many extraordinary applications, we could not give admission to an excellent application like your's".

I don't know whether this reply from them is generalized one or specific to me. But I don't know how to be the extraordinary applicant. One bad thing in my application that I am aware of is my GRE. If there are any experienced Ph.D. students here, please suggest me what to do.

Thank you


texts: How to prepare for the French language exam as part of PhD program?

texts:
I am about to take the French language exam as part of the requirements for the PhD program at my university. The exam will consist of having to translate (with the help of a dictionary) a subset of a mathematics paper written in French. As an Indian international student in the US, I speak a number of languages, but I've grown up knowing them (i.e. never went through the process of having to learn it) and none of them (except perhaps English) give me any insight into the French language, which makes me nervous!

I would appreciate any tips as to how one might prepare for this exam, and materials that might be handy. For example:

  Did you have to take a language exam? How did you prepare for it?
  Has knowing said language helped you out in your mathematical career?
  Do there exist collections of mathematics papers in French that one can practice on?

Thanks you in advance for your answers!


texts:
I was wondering if there are real faculty members who go to conferences or read the abstracts (if it's being published) and scoop others?

If not why some professors are so paranoid? IMHO A real entrepreneur would love to share his ideas and maybe someone else would do it instead of him. Consider Elon Musk for example who shares his ideas on Twitter. I would argue that Einstein wouldn't care if someone else had created general relativity.


texts:
I am considering trying to publish in an established Elsevier journal. I like the idea of having free available science.

As there is no fundings in my project for golden open Access, I researched a bit on the Elsevier page. The journal Remote Sensing of Environment has an Embargo period of 24 months. Yet Elseviers sharing section states different optoins for self distribtution.

I can share the preprint anywhere and any time. The preprint is the version which I submitted in the first round. No questions here.

The interesting part for me is the second: If I get accepted, I can share my accepted manuscript
Immediately on a non-commercial personal homepage. This manuscript contains all the improvements I included during the review. But not the publishers layout. I am just not sure what counts as a personal homepage. Does my ResearchGate profile also count as such? I work within an open source project. Does the software homepage count as such? It is non commercial due to the open source nature, but not private. Can this manuscript be uploaded on my EU project homepage? The third point is demanded by my project.

Coming also to another point. I am able to write in Latex and I found one time the Elsevier template on a Latex template page. I am pretty sure that with that template, I can produce from the Look And Feel a quite professional PDF. Yet the same page states, that the "accepted manuscript should not be added to or enhanced in any way to appear more like, or to substitute for, the published journal article." So I cannot produce something nice formatted, well designed? I would do so anyway, as I always preformat every journal submission. Of course there is also other nice templates which I could use. But then it is a substitute for the published article right?


texts: A friend recently confessed to me that she plagiarised a part of her thesis which was submitted to graduate with honors from her undergraduate university. She graduated a few years ago. Her thesis was in biology, and the part of the thesis in question is the materials and methods section. She told me that her group had used the same non-human primate model for many projects, so she decided to use the same wording that her group had used previously. She says that is was classic copy/paste plagiarism, but she thought is was okay since it was "just methods which are the same in every project." Her thesis was about 50 pages, and about three pages were plagiarized. The rest of the thesis is her own work (introduction, results, discussion, etc.). While any plagiarism is bad, is this cause for worry? I want to reassure her since methods seem, at least to me, to be so routine. Also, her thesis was not published. What advice should I give her? Do I have a responsibility to "turn her in"?


texts: History MA Thesis: Advisor wants my research sent to her

texts:
So, in my planning phase of my MA thesis in history, my advisor says I should have my research to her by X date. What does this mean? What does this look like? I asked her and she answered me with three more questions. That is what she does, she expects you to find the answer to most any question you pose.
So, I guess I am asking, what do I give her? Primary and secondary? Everything I have looked at or just the important things? I have like 10 or so pages of primary research that is mostly quotes or paraphrases for reference when I begin writing. Do I give her that?


texts: Countries where lecture duration does not exceed one hour

texts:
Most (probably all) universities attribute to each subject a fixed number of credits, which in turn are [most of the time] related to the time spent in classes.

In Brazil, the majority of courses are worth 60 credits and lectures are 120 minutes long. During my undergrad (physics) I've watched several lectures from all over the world to help me study, many of them from the US, India and the UK. I've noticed that the lectures in the US and UK were rarely longer than 85-90 minutes, while in India they had most of the time the same duration as in Brazil (120 minutes). I felt that teachers in the US/UK covered less subject in their lectures, but at the same time it seemed as if they had covered exactly what could have given you a hard time studying on your own: intricate details of a proof, obscure references, hints to particular exercises, etc. In Brazil/India it just looked as if they were reading the book and explaining each and every little detail. The result was that, even though the 85 minute lecture covered specifically less than the 120 minute one, I had the impression that I learned more from it, and that it [obviously] made me feel less tired.

I've taken several courses in physics and mathematics and, from my experience, I simply cannot stay focused for more than ~75 minutes in a lecture. I'm therefore wondering how does it work in countries all over the world. Studies like this one show that an even shorter lecture might be as effective as a longer one, and this layman review points out that people can only focus for 15 minutes in a row. This suggests that the optimal length of a lecture should not exceed one hour (perhaps much less), with breaks such that students can assimilate what's being taught. Is there a country where lecture time approaches such patterns, or where other strategies regarding lecture length optimization are employed?


texts: Citing your own unpublished work (poster)

texts:
I've been asked to acknowledge my own unpublished work but am not sure how to do this.

In short I've received a review on one of my papers that states it received favorable reviews and should be suitable for publication. However, the editor notes that the title and first two sentences of my abstract are identical to those from a poster I presented at a conference last year as well as some sentences fragments throughout the paper. The poster represented the early stages of the final manuscript and is not at all representative of the final manuscript. They've asked me to acknowledge the conference abstract in the paper.  It feels a bit out of place to just put the poster in the references section since it was not actually published and I'm not sure of an unobtrusive way to mention in the paper that the early work for this project was presented at a conference. I've written a response letter and am leaning towards putting the poster in the references but would appreciate any advice.

The field I'm working in is statistics if that has any bearing on the best way to do this.


texts: What is an FTE and what are its variations?

texts: What is an FTE, how is it used, and what are the varieties of FTE calculation that you might see in academia?


texts:
I am applying for postdoc positions this fall, and have three references.
My main two writers are doing everything as I expected.
The third agreed to write a letter for me--and he wrote a very good letter. It was very positive and I was even impressed by how personal it was, given that we do not know one another all that well.  He is also very well-known/famous in the field.  However, he simply gave me the letter to use as I wish, so it won't be customized for each position or anything.
I do not really have any good sense of what to do with this, when I apply for postdocs.
My PhD advisor said that he agreed it was strange, but "I would keep the letter and when requested send it and say he sent it to you."  I am just not sure what the least awkward way to do this is.
(I want to add: both my advisor and I are quite certain this letter will help my case.  My first two letters are going to be great, and are written by people who know me very well and will be tailoring, etc.)
Should I simply include, after the contact information for two references on my CV, "An additional letter of recommendation from ________ is available by request."?


texts: What to do when the reviewer is wrong about your paper's scope, technically inaccurate, and clearly haven't read your rebuttals

texts:
You might think the title is a bit of an exaggeration, however this is exactly what has happened.
Note: No, I can't find my answer on How to React to Incorrect Claims by Reviewers? as it addresses the rebuttals/revisions but my question is about what to do after the final decision. (no rebuttal chance)
The reviewer can not differentiate X from Y, is technically wrong and obviously have no in-depth expertise, no let me put it this way even an undergrad knows X from Y, they suggested this is not the first paper using Y in A, when my paper is using X in B (totally different methodology and scope and even the problem addressed).
Moreover, they told me they think the format of my abstract is "extremely odd" because it is divided in 4 sections and they haven't seen it anywhere when it is the author's guidelines, and I sent them the link to the author guidelines and the template file, also copy/pasted that part and included in rebuttal -  and they wrote they "still think it is extremely odd and they haven't seen it elsewhere".
After receiving my first reviews and submitted a complete rebuttal making changes to answer ALL questions, revised writing, added supplementary materials, I was still waiting to hear from the journal after almost 3 months (one week short) for revision - I am a reviewer for the same journal and I am asked to submit reviews in 3 weeks!! so I asked them why it was taking so long, and in a few days I get the reviews and the reject.
The other reviewer's first review was "the technical writing is weak" - this was ALL, no details, no directions - I made substantial changes and wrote very much in detail, the math, the narrative and they wrote "I should reorganize and submit as new" with no details, no directions.
I feel so frustrated, I had an experience like this with the same journal before and got an even worse one who said "the paper was clearly written by a native speaker and that native speaker should help the other revise" - I wrote the whole paper! They also wrote some technical claims about my methodology which was plain wrong.
AND! again, it was also the same - I asked them why it was taking so long (over 4 months after my revision), and in a few days I get the reviews and the reject. Moreover, someone had snatched my exact methodology and used for the same problem and submitted to that journal later. As a reviewer I see papers being accepted all the time with much less novelty and technical writing.
I really don't understand how the editor even lets this happen, the part about the abstract's format made its way to the both reviews! Even after my correction. The reviewer clearly thinks my paper is on something else entirely and lacks expertise.
How can I refute this? Can I refute this? are they doing this on purpose to gatekeep me?
there are not many journals in my field, because this one took so long I couldn't make it to other major conferences, and now I wanted to submit to another journal which is a bit different in scope and is much harder to get into -but- I am not even sure I can because my journal submission here is also accepted as a paper (first version) -but- is not published yet (so I can't submit to another journal because I would need to make a reference to the paper version). Also these are all supposedly Q1 journals.
Should I submit to the same journal and hope there will be reviewers with some common sense? Would I be rejected right away? Considering how slow they have been (7.5 months for these kind of reviews! I doubt they will be kind to answer my emails)


texts: Is it advisable to have many clickable hyperlinks in an academic CV?

texts:
I have recently been updating my academic CV. I realise that some items are not as internationally recognised as to that every reader will be aware of their importance without googling them. Hence, I am thinking about inserting hyperlinks to those items lest the reader wish to learn more.

Now, many items on my CV are clickable, and a reader particularly interested in one item may now just click on it to see a webpage with more details to pop up.

However, I rarely see a CV with many hyperlinks behind those words/phrases. Is this a taboo, or I am OK to do so?


texts: How can I tell if I am short-listed for Phd position?

texts:
I applied for a phd position whose application deadline was 24th March. The project head consistently provided feedback on my project proposal and even invited me to his office to discuss my proposal. At the end of April I contacted my potential mentor asking when to expect the results,
he replied that this week the commission will hand over its list to head of department. He will do interviews with possible candidates, I guess next week. Thereafter the appointment committee will make the final decision.'

Until now I have received no further information from the institution nor was any list published at the institute website. I contacted recently the institution through mail asking whether I am selected or not but got no reply.

So, considering what my potential mentor said, does his words mean that I am not selected for the position? Or should I wait? I am confused about what to do next, in order to know if I am selected or not.


texts: Can the authors grant the permission to reuse figures copyrighted by the publisher?

texts:
I'm preparing a article for possible publication on the journal “Progress in Aerospace Sciences” (published by Elsevier).

I plan to reuse some figures cited from articles published and copyrighted by AIAA.

I tried the Copyright Clearance Center, but to be honest, I may not accept the price.

Thus, I'm trying to contact directly with the authors
(the lead author if no correspondence author is noted).

Can the authors grant me the permission?


texts: Statement of Purpose: How much detail in describing one's research

texts:
I am currently writing my Statement of Purpose for graduate admission in mathematics. I am wondering how specific I should be when describing my own research.

Should I merely include the (broad) area of my research? Should I explicitly state what I am working on, but not more? Or should I also loosely describe the main idea, and explain why this is interesting (possibly also mentioning some results)?


texts: Does Iran's sanction play a pivotal role in rejecting papers from a journal?

texts:
After 1.5 years of hard work on a project,  my former supervisor sent our paper to a journal. After about 10 hours, they sent the following response:

  After careful internal editorial consideration of your manuscript, we regret to inform you that we have decided not to pursue further peer review. We receive an extensive number of quality manuscripts each week and must make difficult decisions regarding which to progress in the peer-review process.  Generally, no editorial comments are available for papers that are not sent for external peer review.

My professor said that these kinds of things are happening frequently nowadays.

I supposed that is because of sanction (we are Iranian). Is this likely to be the case?

We are ordinary people with an academic background who caught up in tensions between countries and do not know what to do. I am going to pursue my Ph.D. in a university in Europe, Australia or New Zealand. In the admission board, they may look at my published papers sections on my CV, and with these kinds of behavior from international journals, I do not know what to do.


texts: Should I try to avoid being the single author of my patent/paper?

texts:
I invented something as part of my job in R&D, and I plan to patent it and get clearance from my company for publication in an academic conference. All the key novel ideas are mine, and I implemented them all and ran all the experiments.

However, I just don't feel comfortable about putting down my name as the sole inventor and author. When I see single-author papers, they always make me wonder if the author is dishonest and/or bad at working with others.

But no matter how much I look at my paper, I just don't see any noteworthy contribution to it from any of my co-workers. We were working on the same problem, but each taking a different approach.

Hence, the solution I've come up with is to put a co-worker's name on my paper and ask (force?) him to make some contribution to it, like helping with the literature citations and/or experiments.

But even then, I'm pretty sure he won't contribute much and I'll still end up doing all the work.

Do I really need to go out of my way to avoid being a single author? :(


texts: Is getting admission as a foreigner to a PhD program through a position within a research project of a principal investigator mostly hopeless?

texts:
There are generally two kinds of ways to get admitted to a PhD program in Europe or some other places—one is through a calling for PhD applications by a research institute, a university department or a research division therein consisting of researchers involved with closely related research topics, and another is through an opening of a position—which can be called PhD position, PhD scholarship, research assistant, or research associate as far as I have seen—within a research project of a principal investigator. The first usually administers once every a fixed short period, like a year, half a year or four months, usually has multiple positions and is flexible in research topics for PhD studies while the second only administers when an principal investigator gets the funding, usually only has one position each opening though it can occasionally have two, and the PhD research topic is confined to that project.

I have long heard that if one wants to pursue a PhD in Holland, they have to first look for a related job vacancy. I guess this means Holland mainly admits PhD students by the second way mentioned above. However, I also heard from activities regarding Studying in Holland in my country that it's almost impossible for a foreigner to win a PhD position through a job vacancy in Holland unless they have a network with related principal investigators in Holland, like they have pursued their MSc in Holland. I wonder whether this also applies to other countries, particularly in Europe, where a PhD position opening within a research project like a job vacancy, that is my aforementioned second way of admission, seems very common as a whole. I heard the reason that Holland rarely awards job-like PhD positions to networkless foreigners is that they don't have many vacancies of that sort and therefore they prioritize their compatriots. I wonder whether this is the same situation for other countries.


texts: Hypothesis incorrectly stated and submitted

texts:
I realise after submitting my dissertation lask week that I posed my hypothesis in the wrong manner.

I posed them as

  I believe that X will not be a predictor of Y

I subsequently went on with results which returned a p value of 0.01 and subsequently said we reject the null throughout my discussion.

It may be simply viewed as a typo. Am I likely to suffer greatly as a result of this mistake. I proceed with my methods, data analysis and discussion as if the hypotheses are proposed in the correct manner and given the overall premise of the dissertation and explanation of the result, it's quite clear what I am trying to achieve I believe.

Am I likely to simply be failed as a result of this error?

Any help greatly appreciated as I'm very as this has been submitted  and I am extremely worried


texts: Will not having a publication affect my PhD chances even though I have research experience?

texts:
By the time I apply for a PhD, I will have almost a year of experience as a Research Assistant, but I doubt I will have a paper published till then. The project is still in the data analysis stage, and it will most probably be in the review stage when I apply. Other than this job, I have no other research experience/papers/projects that are much relevant. Though I have 1.5 years of corporate experience in IT.
I think the above might be a common cause for concern, especially for people looking to switch fields, and thus hope the question is qualified enough for a general audience.

As for my particular case, I am looking for PhD programs at the intersection of Neuroscience and Computer Science (e.g. Cog Sci, Computational Neuroscience, Neural Engineering etc). I have a bachelors in Computer Science, but my grades are bad. My GRE score is quite good however, and I'm from a well-known college in my country.


texts: Why do many papers not have proper PDF metadata?

texts:
Of course, this varies depending on your field etc., but at least for computer science seems to be true, there’s even a paper about this problem.

By proper, I mean even basic things like a title (so I don’t have to rename bla-12345.pdf to something meaningful by hand) or author. This is missing even in papers that were created with LaTeX and the Hyperref package, like these two, which make adding this kind of metadata incredibly easy – even the LibreOffice Writer PDF export sets this metadata correctly.


texts: Is it too late to ask the faculty for a summer research internship position?

texts:
I am wondering if it's too late to ask the faculty about the availability of a summer research internship position? When would be the best time for this?

More information as requested:

I am looking for the positions in the US from May 25th onwards.
I am also a graduate student and I'm thinking of a summer internship with an eye towards the possible continuation as a post-doc.


texts: Found a mistake in advisor's paper - what should I do?

texts:
I was reading over some of my supervisor's old papers and I have found one from 7 years ago in which part of the analysis is fundamentally flawed which effectively undermines half of the conclusions. The issue is in a paper in a subfield of a subfield so it's unlikely that any other people will find this mistake.
My question is what should I do. On one hand, I feel like I have moral obligation to let him know so that the issue can be resolved. On the other hand, I feel uncomfortable bringing it up as I don't want it to have any negative repercussions on our working relationship.
What should I do in this scenario?
Thank you.
Edit: This question is different from Should I warn my professor about some errors that I've found in his paper? as in that case it was a paper in advanced access (e.g. one that was worked on recently), while in this case it is a 7 year old paper.


texts: What is a PhD forum? Is it similar to short paper submission?

texts:
I am a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering and I have been looking at submitting a paper to one particular conference I wanted to go to. In the end, I have missed the deadline for full paper submission. However, I still can have the option of doing a Ph.D. Forum submission. I been to several conferences already, but I am not really familiar with a "Ph.D. Forum".

What is a Ph.D. forum exactly? Is like a short/poster paper? (2-4 pages?) Is work still publishable?

My advisor tells me that it could be good idea for me to do it anyways, if I want.


texts: How much can one download from databases before it is too much?

texts:
According to this article, a student was arrested for downloading ~4 million articles from an on-line database.

I want to review all existing articles in my interest area before writing my paper, so I need to download and skim through several thousand articles. I read the terms of service of my school's database, but it just says I should avoid trying to make a "collection".

At what point does the downloading become enough that the databases start to complain? 1,000? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? Do they send out warnings?


texts: Are delays and 'being stuck' normal in PhDs, and how much should I work to compensate?

texts:
I'm doing a PhD in Computer Science in France (completed 10 months out of 3 years), and I am annoyed at how slow I am to produce results.

Long story short, I have explored various potential solutions to a certain problem in Computer Vision using Deep Learning - defining the problem properly was by itself very difficult - meeting various dead-ends and delays like buggy open source code and issues to reproduce results from existing papers.

I have produced small-ish results, but I haven't got enough for a quality paper yet (e.g. CVPR). I should be close, but then I've been convinced of that for a couple months.

I work full-time on my PhD (8h-17h), with occasional 1-2h overtime. I would say I am usually quite productive although there are days it would have been more useful to stay at home sleeping. I rarely work during week-ends: it is way more efficient to test / develop the algorithms in the lab, and I am just tired. The exception is when I have something to write, which is not the case right now.

My supervisors are somewhat disappointed. On the one hand, I feel like I could  do more, like by working at home or something. It is true that in the beginning of the PhD I wasted some time by leaving work earlier at 4pm (which I kinda regret) and by exploring algorithms that were useless in hindsight. I also feel guilty if I spend my week-end binge-watching movies or playing games on my PC. On the other hand, I am also usually out of ideas or things to try and may not do something useful anyway.

I am somewhat at a loss, hence my question: how far should I go? Should I always try my hardest all the time, like when I prepared exams for engineering schools (classes préparatoires, where free time is an unknown entity)? The thing is that I just do not know how to completely solve the problem I am researching. It is very different from studying for an exam, where I know precisely what to do. If I had the solution, I'd be happy to write the paper...

I always could do something, like looking for new papers to read or studying deep learning. I also sometimes hear about people working until 2am in other labs and publishing papers after 6 months, which does not help. I do not know what I should do, and afraid of regretting my decision either way :|


texts: Providing Methodological Support to Colleagues Outside One's Expertise a Career Killer?

texts:
I have a friend who works at a small university with limited resources. Since he has a gift for methodology and statistics he frequently supports colleagues with their studies. He helps with the methodology and data analysis often. It is not uncommon for him to support people in Education (his field), English, TESOL, and Business since to do simple studies in these fields involves descriptive stats, regression, ANOVA, etc. In other words, basic research methods

In exchange for his support, he gets to be second author on these papers.

His concern is all this wide variety in research on his CV. His own research is focused when he's the lead but whatever his friends want to study is up to them. There aren't too many others available to help out with the technical aspects where he works at. Therefore, If he ever applies for a job somewhere else, what would a committee think of such a chaotic CV?


texts: Do the papers go through the same process when submitted through open access

texts:
This question is in reference to my question here How to know which journal is open access?

I came to know from my previous question that there are journals which are hybrid journals i.e. they support open access  and at the same time they have issues which dont charge fees from the author.

Now the question is what is the difference in publication process of the two ways in the same journal?

Suppose that I submit a paper in the journal "Discrete Maths" which supports both ways.
So what will be the process of my paper getting accepted/rejected go through when I submit through open access and when I dont submit through open access?

Does the paper go through the same process if I pay the fee or it goes through a different process?

And if it goes through the same tedious process why should the authors pay a large sum of money for it?

I am completely new in this field.So any help will be beneficial.


texts: Junior professorship (W1) in Germany without full German proficiency

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I am a Computer Science PhD student aiming for an Academic career. One of the options I am considering after I receive the degree is to apply for a W1 professor position in Germany (Junior professor).

My question is very specific to Germany. Is there a chance I can become a Junior professor without being fluent in German? Most of the job postings I come across are actually written in German. Some of them do not mention German knowledge as a requirement, but it could be that it goes without saying.

I know that many courses, particularly in master programs, are taught in English. So I am sure there is a capacity to teach in English. But I am wondering if there is a culture of preferring and only accepting German speakers. Because if that's the case, I should start putting back up options.

Obviously I could work on my German. But my question is assuming I did not reach the required level of German until the time I start applying for Junior professorship.


texts:
I just finished my first year as an undergraduate student majoring in computer science at a state school not known for computer science. Due to AP credits and such, I have the opportunity to graduate in two more semesters (which will make four in all). To facilitate this, I am taking a class at a different institution this summer. Near the end of last semester, I went through a month or so of anxiety with regards to what to do after graduation. Eventually, I decided that I want to go into academia. Based on what I’ve read on the internet,

There are considerably more CS PhD’s than open faculty positions
Because of (1), it is important that I get a PhD at a prestigious university
PhD applications are highly dependent on research experience and letters of recommendation

I currently have a 4.0 GPA, but my undergraduate college will not help me on applications. Further, I have no research experience. I intend to find a research opportunity when I return to school this Fall, although I don’t know that any of the CS professors at my school are known at the top CS graduate programs.

I am also aiming to talk to some professors at the university I am taking a summer class at about any small possibility of me assisting them in their research over the summer, as this university has a more highly ranked CS program than the one I attend.

My primary interest in in computer security.

Basically, deciding that I want to undertake a PhD kind of puts my schedule on overdrive. I will be taking the GRE and applying to programs in the Fall, so anything I have on my application kind of has to get done over summer.

Have I made any glaringly incorrect conclusions? And

Is there anything else I can do to improve my chances of being accepted into a top PhD program?


texts: Moving to a different PhD program in the United States

texts:
I have been admitted to a Math PhD program in US. The school is ranked in the top 60-80 range. I started school this August. I'm, however, considering the possibility of re-applying to a different program, based on the following reasons:

My undergraduate background is in physics, economics and mathematics. I'm a late comer to the subject (mathematics); therefore, my application wasn't as competitive as it could have been if I had studied the subject for the full four years. This was reflected in the number of acceptances/rejections that I received.
I would like to move to a department that focuses on inter-disciplinary research. Unfortunately, such options aren't available at my current department.
I may have an issue picking an adviser in the future. I will skip the details over here.
My job prospects would be quite bleak in academia (Math) if I choose to stay over here.

Based on a combination of academic and non-academic reasons, I believe I would like to take another shot at applying to different schools. I’d appreciate if you could put this issue in perspective by commenting on:

Whether this is a possibility in the system in place in the US? Are such issues frowned upon?
How does generally view such issues? What’s the overall perception of academics in math departments?
What would be the best way to tackle this issue? For example, what would be the best time to discuss this issue with faculty? I don’t want to antagonize anyone, but, at the same time, I’d like to discuss my aforementioned case with someone in the future so I can consider the possibility of re-applying.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.