texts: Would it be immature to ask my PhD advisor for more background for a paper they've asked me to help with?

texts:
I am doing a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at a U.S. university and after taking Professor X's class this Spring, he has agreed to be my advisor. About a month ago, Professor X asked me to read a particular recent paper of his and prove a conjecture.
I have been reading his paper, and I can understand the logic in his proofs from one line to the next. However, I fail to see the big picture. I would have no answer to the questions such as "What is the motivation behind coming up with this theorem?" or "What is the motivation behind the proof of this lemma?". As a result, I feel like I don't even have the slightest idea of how to prove the conjecture he assigned me.
I think I know the answer to my dilemma: just keep reading and trying until you understand. However, it is possible that he has something else to add. Perhaps he might recommend me to read another paper for more background or something like that.
Would it be immature and not worthy of a PhD student to ask this question of my advisor?


texts: Sending non-fully translated academic transcripts for US PhD admissions

texts:
I am currently applying to PhD programs in the US and got my undergraduate degree from a German university. My university issues English transcripts of records, yet for special (graduate) lectures, the description is often still in German. Instead, a generic english name is used for the name of the lecture. For example, a generic entry might look as follows:

Course Name: Mathematics V
Description: Statistische Inferenz für Netzwerke
Grade: ...

Of course, I would much rather the transcript said "Statistical Inference for Networks". What is the etiquette in such cases? Do I take my German transcript and receive a certified translation, even though technically my institution issues "English" transcripts?

Some universities have an additional upload section, where I can describe the most important courses in more detail (including their content). In such cases, it would not be a problem. Yet, other universities only ask for a pdf of the transcript. Would it be OK to include my own descriptions at the end of the transcript pdf file, so that the committee can take these into account? Or would this rather upset the admissions committee?


texts:
One of my papers were published in a good journal. But Recently I have identified a  major flaw in my methodology. I want to correct it. Is there a way to correct it within the same published paper? Or, do I need to publish the corrected one in another journal?

Thanks in advance for your advice.


texts: Is it plagiarism to use other people's phrases / formulations / wordings?

texts:
Is it plagiarism if I use other peoples formulations and phrases? What if I do so massively? Or let's say, the structure or rough form of their essays?

(I think it should be, but I would like to know what most people think, leaving aside that it might be difficult to discover it when somebody just copies someone very roughly in form)


texts: Should I ask for a letter of recommendation when my performance wasn't great at the beginning?

texts: I recently finished a vector calculus course in which I received an A and I'm considering asking my professor if he would write a letter of recommendation for me when I begin applying for grad school. My biggest problem is that I did not perform well on the first exam. It was a "wake up call", so to speak, and due to grading policies and a substantial improvement in my subsequent performance I was able to get the A grade. I had articulated my concerns in his office hours and met with him again after my second exam went significantly better, but I'm concerned he will view me as lazy for only performing after I had initially done poorly. Is this request ill advised? I should mention that I still have two years of undergraduate studies left, but I've been regrettably lax when it comes to making faculty connections (something I fully intend to remedy in the upcoming semesters), so I'm trying to capitalize on relationships I've already begun to establish.


texts: Publishing working paper before submission to peer-reviewed journal

texts: Could the fact that I publish a working paper in a WP-series at the institution where I am doing my PhD jeopardise my chance to have it accepted in a peer-review journal? Since I know it might depend on editor/journal, I specify I was leaning towards Energy Policy (Elsevier).


texts: Applying to informal call for PhD students

texts:
My question is about PhD positions in computer science, in EU (non UK) countries. In many cases, websites of research groups/professors advertise PhD positions with something like: "We are constantly looking for talented PhD students to join our group. Feel free to contact me anytime. Include your CV, grades and references.".

My questions are: How early should I apply to such positions, relative to the expected starting date of my PhD studies? How polished should such an application be? Should I prepare all material like letters of recommendation before contacting for such a position?


texts: How to deal with people looking at their mobile phone during my presentation?

texts:
I was invited to give a research seminar in another department, and two professors kept looking at their mobile phones while I was talking. They were doing this at the start of my talk, and they kept looking at their mobiles for a fairly long amount of time, maybe 15 minutes, without interruption.

My personal view on this is to be tolerant. I accept that nowadays “technology is in our pockets” and the web offers infinite opportunities for distraction. Moreover, people may look at their smartphones for scholarly reasons, for example they may be doing a quick search for literature related to the topic being presented. I do not know for sure what people are doing on their mobiles, and it’s not up to me to discipline their behaviour.

That being said, I think that the basic rules of politeness and consideration for each other’s’ feelings still have a role and place. For example, if I know that I am going to be distracted during a talk, then I sit at the back of the room and try to get unnoticed. If I can’t resist the lure of the smartphone, then I keep it under the table and I try to look at it only for a short time. And maybe add an apologetic smile.

But on that occasion, both professors were sitting in front of me on the first row, with their mobiles in full view, and acted as if my talk didn’t matter. I must add that both professors are much higher in status than me, also the university where I gave the talk is of much higher rank than my university.

I didn’t want a confrontation so I pushed all the unpleasant feelings aside, and I concentrated on my talk. However, I recently thought about this episode, and it occurred to me that maybe I needed to show more assertiveness. Not for the sake of my ego (I don’t care about these two and what they do in seminars), but because assertiveness shows that we care about our research and our value as scholars, regardless of our status.

How would you deal with people overtly and persistently looking at their mobile device (phone, laptop, etc.) during your talk?


texts: What is the name of the interviewing/research technique where one sample generates questions for the next?

texts:
I'm aware of imagining there is a technique in qualitative research where responses made in one interview are explicitly used to provide prompts/new questions in subsequent interviews.
Does this have a name? It's a bit like snowball sampling, except to identify new questions rather than new samples.


texts: Will taking the math GRE subject test be a plus point for admission in MS/PhD in computer science?

texts: i am undergraduate in computer science looking for admission to MS/Phd in computer science at U.S universities. I know there is no subject test for computer science anymore. In that case, will taking the math GRE subject test be a plus point to my profile?


texts: Can articles published on academia.edu be regarded as scholarly publications?

texts: I am curious to know if articles posted on academia.edu can be regarded as scholarly publications? In other words, can someone list them in his/her publication list or resume? This question may be expanded to foster a discussion of what constitutes a scholarly publication in the online literature era.


texts: Is it acceptable to take photos of slides at a conferences for private use?

texts:
Is it accepted/appropriate to take pictures of presentation slides at conferences for private use?

I am not talking about putting those pictures out in the public afterwards, I know this is illegal without consent of the presenter.

Should it matter, I am talking about math conferences.  And I am asking because I don't see anyone taking pictures.


texts: How long should I wait before following up after being wait-listed?

texts:
One of the faculty members of the Ph.D. program I applied to called me on the phone and told me that I've been wait-listed. He said "You're high on the wait list" and he said it's very likely that I'll get in, but people probably will start declining offers in March.

He said he'll be in touch with me, but I haven't still heard back from him after 3 weeks.

At this point, that program is my top choice among those that I still have a chance for. Should I follow up with him? (even though I still haven't received any offer that would be a reason to ask them to let me know the decision sooner.)

He told me "Your profile is strong and you probably have or will receive excellent offers from other places, so we understand if you prefer to take them", which (besides adding to the pain of actually receiving no offers), makes me worried that they might guess that I have other offers and won't wait for them, if I don't contact them and express that I am still very interested in their program.


texts:
I have the idea to commission a local artist to make an artistic version of a couple of figures I often use for presentations, and that I would probably use for my thesis cover. The figures does not present any numbers, but rather conveys the general idea behind the work (subject area is theoretical chemistry). The artist does not have an online portfolio, but a lot of his work is probably best described as "kind of abstract, bad for people who suffers from trypophobia".

I already know that most of the conservative seniors at my department would think it is a bad idea. Normally we go with quite bland figures and monochrome covers (there is nothing in regulations stating that we can't spice it up though). But I am interested in hearing what you would think, if you saw such a thing, a bit out of the ordinary.

I would, by the way, probably pay him out of my own pocket, as I don't think my grant includes art money. And I am perfectly fine with that.


texts: Almost 14 months after submission the associate editor informed me they still did not start with the review process

texts: Few days ago I received an email from the associate editor. He apologized for my paper has mistakenly been left outside of the normal review process. This happened almost 14 months after my submission. I asked the journal editor for information on the status of the review process about 7 months ago and received an email from the technical staff that my status is "in review" as can be seen in Editorial Manager system. The journal is highly ranked and the review process usually takes a long time. So, I thought everything was ok. The associate editor is asking me now if I still want to proceed this submission. Should I say yes?


texts:
I'm doing a PhD related to my supervisor's research area. Sometimes, I think about problems that I do not immediately know the answer to. Naturally, I come to Stack Exchange and other forums and ask :) But on some occasions, the question is rather specific so I email my supervisor instead.

How often do you generally email a supervisor about research questions? I know he has other PhD students plus his own research to do. I have a weekly 45 min meeting with him, so I try to save questions for that and give a report to him about what I did in the previous week. On very rare occasions, he comes down to the lab and we talk in person. I usually email him when there is some administrative stuff we need to talk about, but I'm asking about research questions here or about giving updates about the progress of my research.


texts: How can I provide proof that my paper has been proofread by a native speaker?

texts:
I have submitted my manuscript to a journal. After several weeks the editor sent me the comments of two reviewers. The editor said that "the authors should provide proof that the paper has been proofread by a native English speaker".

So how can I provide the proof? Should I send the proofreading certificate which I recieved after using the service from a proofreading company?

And if I only ask a native speaker for proofreading without any certificates, how should i provide the proof?


texts: Is it a good idea to do MS two times in separate disciplines than a PhD for an industry job?

texts:
I am getting admitted to a school(college as it is called in many parts of the world) that provides 5 years integrated BS-MS dual degree in the natural sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Bio). You can major in anyone and minor in some other discipline in this school.

However, I am very interested in taking up CS (which is neither offered as a major neither a minor here) and going for an industry job for eg. as a data analyst or machine learning scientist in some IT firm.

Note: I am not interested in a Ph.D. or making a career in academia.

So, is it advisable to go for another MS in CS from some separate school after doing the integrated degree from here? Do universities in US/UK accept students for an MS if he already has an MS in a separate discipline? Will it help me in an industry job?

I also have a second option. Dropping my first year and getting admitted to a separate school which offers a CS degree next year. Is year loss advisable? (Advisable in the sense will it have any detrimental effect in my future career?)


texts: Can a university revoke one's degree for his minor misconduct?

texts: I don't mean misconduct that will make him get expelled or miss his academic requirement. He will have received sanction like making an apology or suspension for a month if the university finds it out earlier. But the student now has graduated and will not be back. Can the university still do something to him?


texts: Should I inform the people that I acknowledged in PhD thesis?

texts:
You write a PhD thesis, in the acknowledgments you thank a series of people from collaborators, to friends, to peers, to professors. Many of these people will never read the thesis so what is the point to acknowledge them? It seems more an exercise for myself. This is different than the acknowledgments in a paper because PhD acknowledgments tend to be more personal and might include friends or people with a non-working relationship that helped in a way that it is not strictly related to the thesis.

Should I send them a copy of the thesis AND mention that I have acknowledged them, or simply let them know in some informal way that I acknowledged them, maybe next time I meet them or sending them a quick email?

It seems a pointless message if they don't know they have been thanked.


texts: Does the ND (NoDerivatives) clause forbid the distribution of any form of text or data mining based on papers with such a license?

texts:
I was reading "Your Guide to Publishing Open Access with Elsevier"
(URL: https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/181433/openaccessbooklet_May.pdf  (mirror)) and saw this table on page 6:

Why does the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license in this Elsevier only allow "Text & data
min[ing]" for private use only and not for distribution? I understand one cannot make commercial use of it but does the ND (NoDerivatives) clause forbid the distribution of any form of text or data mining based on papers with such a license?

ND (NoDerivatives) is described by creativecommons.org as follows:

  If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.

It's not obvious to me that the output of a text mining or data mining program necessarily qualifies as a derivative.


texts: Google scholar citation and title issues

texts:
First question: I have an important article on arXiv and I updated its title in the 2nd version. But after that Google never updated the article title and I know people are citing my 2nd version and because of this issue with Google citations are not visible. How can I force Google scholar to refresh my article list and update any possible change/citation?

Second question: I cited a previous work of mine in an article that is already published and Google detected it but Google didn't catch the citation. How can I make Google scholar to catch the citation?


texts: Can I write I worked as a referee in a journal in my CV?

texts:
I have recently reviewed an article. I am applying for a Ph.D. position nowadays so I am upgrading my CV and writing the professors. Is it ok if I write that I worked as a referee and mention the journal name in the CV? (As I have a part named 'Scientific and Community services' in my CV.)
Also, this is the same journal where all my articles have been published until now


texts: Is it a good idea to ask my Master's supervisor to help me finding a PhD in other universities?

texts: I am in final stages of my Master degree in physics. I am looking for a PhD position in Europe. Is it a good idea to ask my supervisor to help in me finding a position for PhD?


texts: Is it possible to publish a paper on a topic about which you already wrote an online article?

texts:
I am a student and so I have no experience in publishing papers and I do not know much about it. My question: Is it necessary for publishing a paper in a journal, that you never have published something similar on your homepage / blog or on another online project?

I have the feeling that this is not a problem, because the own written online article on the personal blog was never peer-reviewed and publishing papers based on a dissertation does not seem to be a problem. Am I right?


texts: Lack of motivation for self-study during the semesters

texts:
I'm a third year Physics and Mathematics student, and over the years, I've done lots of self-studies, and what I've realised is that, compared to what I learn & experience in my self-studies, the I barely learn anything from the lectures that I'm attending my departments (at least this is true for %95 of them).

However, the thing is, during the semester, there are lots of midterms, homeworks, and lectures to attend etc.. Hence, for most of the time, even though I've time, I cannot find any motivation to continue to study to the subjects that I'm self-studying. Which is not the case in the summer and in the winter breaks; at those times, I generally do not have any problem about the motivation, and I study with quite normally & happily.

Seeing that professors also do most of their research during the holiday seasons as I do (since during the semester, there are lots of teaching to be done, exams to be grade etc.), is such a lack of motivation general in the academia ?

I think if there was no courses, during a whole semester, I would learn more things & deal with more complicated problems, which would require me to think more; however, right now, the things that I have learn are quite boring things (which honestly if you just attend the lecture and listen, you can do it), but these requirements are kinda of pushing me away from studying, as if I'm doing this just because I have to, and not because I think this is interesting.


texts: How important is publication for PhD admission?

texts: As a master's student in computer science, I would really like to go for a PhD at a good CS department. However until now, I have no publications and really have no idea how to start research. I'm interested in many subjects but I have not yet been able to narrow down the choice to a specific one. For someone like me who just began his or her master's studies and wants to plan for a PhD, what is the real number one priority besides a good GPA?


texts:
After extensive research on writing to potential PhD advisors, I drafted three messages that I would consider excellent quality-one for each member I was interested in. I briefly introduced myself, hit the highlights of my research interests, and mentioned specific articles or books the professor wrote that I read, which explained my interest in them as an advisor (and I truly did read them).

After three weeks, I have not received a reply. Why am I not hearing back? Is it completely inappropriate to send a follow up email such as "Hello Professor So and So, I sent you an email a few weeks ago about my research interests and asked for a phone or email correspondence about the program. I wanted to touch base and make sure you received that email"?


texts: How to justify pursuing a Masters after a Ph.D. for Visa purposes?

texts:
I have recently completed my Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. Regarding my background, I have a BSc and an M.Sc. in biotechnology. During my Ph.D., I wanted to work extensively in the Neuroscience domain but since my project was already decided and was funded accordingly, I had no liberty to alter with what I wanted to do with it and had to complete it as per the expected methodology. This in no way means that I am not proficient in Molecular Biology. Nevertheless, I did another project (not so extensive) in the field of Neuroscience in order to satisfy my interest but the scope of the project was fairly basic and I did it on my own expenses.

Soon after completing my Ph.D., I applied for an MSc Neuroscience course in Germany and I recently got into it. I am really excited and happy about this opportunity to learn and work in fields of Clinical Neuroscience and Psychiatric Neurosciences and to finally get a proper specialization (that I am motivated for) for my CV.

Regarding the visa, I need to justify why I want to pursue a Master's after a PhD and I really can not think of how to make them happy about it? The university was quite happy to know about my motivation and everyone in the interview was supportive of my motive as well.

I would appreciate any inputs towards the required justification!


texts: Is it an advantage to be a resident of the state in which you are applying to PhD programs at state universities?

texts: I just moved to a new state (California) for a temporary job and am planning to apply to graduate school (physics PhD programs) at state schools here. If I want, I can establish residency here; this would be somewhat expensive and a take a bit of time, so I have not been particularly motivated to do so. I had assumed that since my tuition would be covered anyways in a PhD program, there was no advantage to being in-state. However, my supervisor raised the possibility that it might be to my benefit when applying to California grad schools to be a California resident; is this true? Does residency have an effect on PhD program admissions at state schools?


texts: Mention MOOCs in email to potential PHD supervisor?

texts:
I graduated from a top Russian university (computer science) with moderately high grades in 2013 and after 3 years of industry experience decided to pursue a PHD abroad (ideally, in Germany). I know exactly what topic I want to investigate, found a professor who had recently done research in this field and am now composing an email to him.

I got some useful pieces of advice here at SE:

How to write a Cover Letter for applying to a PhD programme

Optimal structure of cover letter for PhD application submitted directly to PI

How much detail to include in first email to potential PhD supervisor?

How brief I should be when contacting a professor for a PhD position for the first time?

But one question remains.

In fall 2014 I discovered Coursera and since then completed nearly 30 MOOCs, most of them being relevant to the topic I want to do research in. These courses, despite being undergraduate level, did expand my knowledge a lot and, honestly, gave me a taste of what a world-class higher education looks like. I consider completing these MOOCs a valuable achievement of mine, but do professors think so? I'm afraid that if I briefly mention "some courses on the Internet", it would seem unprofessional (there's a ton of crap on the web that calls itself "online courses"). But if I go into too much detail ("completed MOOC X from Princeton, MOOC Y from Stanford, ..."), it would be too long for the initial email. As I already know, the most important thing when making contact via email is to be brief.

Would you include such information in the first email at all? My concern is that both my undergradute research and my job are not directly (but, somehow) connected to the research topic I'm interested in (the topic is quite new, not much research exists there yet). MOOCs are exactly what gave me a broader perspective and inspired me to continue my education.

What is the proper way to write about it?


texts: Abstract format in a game studies conference

texts:
I will submit an "extended abstract" to a conference in game studies. This is not my primary field of study (more of a hobby), so the stakes are low and I am unaware of the conventions of the field. It is also a reasonably new field of study, so it is not clear how standardized any conventions are.

The guidelines for the abstract submission are as follows:

  The papers to be presented will be chosen based on extended abstract review.
  The abstracts should be 500–1000 words (plus references). Abstracts should be
  delivered in PDF format. Please use 12 pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, for
  your text.

The description leaves some questions open.

Presumably I should add the title of the abstract/talk to the submission.
There is no mention of whether the peer review will be double-blind or not, and consequently whether I should include my name or not.
Is there a standard citation style within the field?

This is the first time this particular conference has an academic track, so it is not possible to consider earlier iterations of it. The conference in question is the academic track of Ropecon 2018.


texts:
I've written a statistical software package and published a paper on it. Recently, it appears to have received moderate use, but with at least less than a 50% citation rate. I know this because Google Scholar will tell me that a paper mentions the name of my software package (it's a nonsense word, so this shouldn't be by chance), but the paper will not cite the package itself; in some cases there will be something like "We used package X for statistical programming language R", with a citation for R but not X.

One the one hand, I'm glad people are using my tools and that makes me happy. On the other hand, I would like citations due, if just from a career standpoint. My guess is that many researchers may not be aware that a citation should be included; I estimate that the majority of users of the package probably work outside the field of statistics. R makes it very easy to cite software (R> citation("X") gives you the bibTex)...but I didn't even know that until I started writing software.

It's my view that at least some of the responsibility should lie with the reviewers/editors. Would it be impolite to point this out to the editors of the journal? I really don't want to be in the business of harassing the users of my software, nor trying to point the finger at them either. Or is it just accepted that you should expect a little under a 50% citation rate?

EDIT:

A good question was asked in the comments: what do I hope to achieve? I'm not 100% sure! I suppose I'm wondering if there's a polite way to raise awareness of proper citations for software? Both writing software and continuing to support users of the software is fairly time consuming (I would estimate I've spent over 300 unfunded hours on those two tasks?), but I'm convinced it's one of the ways statistics researchers can be most helpful to outside researchers. As such, I suppose I would like to gently push the system to be more supportive of that effort...without being a grumpy ol' stats guy complaining about anyone who uses their contributions.


texts: If I use non-government funds to pay for flight on non-U.S. carrier, can I then use government funds for other costs of that trip?

texts:
The Fly America Act states that all U.S.-government funded travel must be done via U.S. air carrier service (there are some exceptions, but none of them apply to my scenario).  I recently received a travel grant from my university, independent of any government research funds, and I know that I am allowed to fly non-U.S. carriers with that university travel grant money.  However, the grant does not cover all of my expenses for this trip, and I wanted to use government funds to cover the remaining.

Can I fly on non-U.S. carriers and pay for the flight portion of the travel costs using the university travel grant?  Would there be any issues with this?  To reiterate, I would only use the government research funds to cover non-flight portions of the travel.


texts: How to manage lot of random yet potential ideas for research and startup?

texts:
I am a graduate student and planning to pursue a PhD. For one year, in search for a research idea, I have been reading random research articles and papers in many dimensions of Computer Science.

Suddenly, I have been blasting my advisor with various ideas. The ideas as per my advisor are possibly a new paradigm but do have great potential. Also, he says the complete idea may or may not be doable by a single PhD student. I also see those ideas converting into good startup ideas as well. (I was an entrepreneur before pursuing research in search of some challenging work).Most of the ideas are not very much related to each other but still concentrated to my specific field of study (Computer Vision).

I am concerned that pondering of so many ideas may prolong my research without results. My questions are:

How can I manage so many wavy ideas in a streamlined way ?
How feasible is it to focus the research so that the outcome may be a startup (since making it commercially viable would require some amount of research in other areas of Computer Science such as Data Mining, Large Scale Search etc. ) ?


texts: In an English work, can a non-English source be cited even if there exists an English translation?

texts:
I'm not a native English speaker. I would like to cite a book originally written in German for a writing sample to be sent for admission purposes to a graduate school in the UK (MA programme).

There are at least two translations of said work: Romanian and English. I have read the Romanian translation, not the English one, because it was far more convenient to do so. Naturally I translated the Romanian passages to English and cited them appropriately, but the citations are based on the Romanian translation (e. g. I have cited a passage to be found on page 52 of the Romanian translation).

Is it a problem that instead of citing the English version of the book, I have cited and translated the Romanian version? I'm afraid so, because the reviewers probably don't speak Romanian, therefore they can't check whether the cited passage is REALLY there in the Romanian translation or I just made up the whole thing. Plus they might think I'm lazy.

If this is indeed a problem, I have to find all of these passages - which I have originally read in Romanian - in the English translation and rewrite all footnotes, bibliography etc. (e.g. the passage which is located on page 52 in the Romanian translation might be located in a different place, say page 63 in the English translation).


texts: In how much detail should one describe their past and projected future work for a junior scientist application to CNRS?

texts:
The competitive application process for CNRS jobs has opened this week, and part of the required documents are a report on past work, as well as a project for future work (together with a list of CNRS labs where this work could be done). There is not much information about what these are expected to contain; the instructions only specify "Report on research completed" and "Proposed research program".

More specifically, for a "chargé de recherche" (junior scientist, a permanent research position with no teaching), how much detail should be given in these two documents? How long should they be? Is there a typical structure that one should follow for them?

It is my understanding that the national committee members may not (and in my case are not, I checked) experts in the specific domain of the applicants, there is e.g. a committee for all of sociology, another for "brain, cognition, behavior" and so on. If this makes any difference, I'm looking for answers that deal with an application in a STEM field, not social science.

CNRS is a national research agency, more-or-less the equivalent of the American NSF. With a budget of 3 billion euros, it employs 11,137 tenured researchers (equivalent to associate and full professors but with no teaching service), in addition to 13,415 engineers and technical staff, and 7,085 contractual staff (postdocs etc). It fully runs 32 "proper" research units, but most of the employees work in one of the 952 "mixed" research units that are half part of CNRS, half part of an university, which can be anywhere in the country and whose members are either employed by the CNRS or by the university.
There also exists 36 international mixed research units and 121 "private-public" research structures. Viewing it as a "single institute" is quite reductive.
(For more info, read the 2016 activity report, in French.)

The competitive application process sees several hundreds people all over the country applying each year, so my question is applicable to a broad audience. A national committee evaluates application in a given discipline, and the committee is rather stable year after year, so "codes" and expectations about the application are bound to have developed over the years. Thus my question is about what in particular is expected in the reports on past and projected works.


texts: Would it be a waste of time to apply to a lecturer position in my school at a different department after PhD?

texts: I would like to apply to some lecturer positions after my graduation which is in August. My school happened to open a new position as lecturer in another department that I am not familiar with professors or anything. I would like to try my chances as it is a position that I'd be happy with and very interested in teaching. However, I read that universities tend not to hire their own PhD grads for tenure or non-tenure tracks like the one I would like to apply. I believe I am a very strong candidate for this position, yet I am curious if this would be a waste of time that the search committee will highly likely disregard me due to me being from the same school.


texts: What is the equivalent of "good honors degree" in terms of universities in EU

texts:
The requirements for applying for a master's programme in National University of Singapore are stated as

  The candidates must possess:

  A good honours degree in computing; or
  A good honours degree in a related discipline with 2 years IT industry experience; or
  A good bachelor's degree in computing with 2 years IT industry experience; or
  A good bachelor's or honours degree in business related discipline    with 2 years IT industry experience.

In my country, a student is considered as an honorable student if he/she completes his/her education with a GPA over 3.00/4.00 but I don't know what is a good honour degree?

I have looked it up on Google but there are a lot of different definitions.
Also, I could not find any statements in the university website. Can you help me?


texts: Finding time for the associate editor job – should one ask institute's management?

texts: An early career researcher (ECR) is asked to become an associate editor for a reputable classical journal. Of course, no renumeration is offered. Based on the experience of other ECRs in a similar situation, I estimate that the job takes on average one full working day per month, or about 5% of working time. Let's not discuss working doing this job in the evenings or weekends (as, most surely often happens in reality). Let's say the ECR will take time from the regular working hours to do the editorial tasks. Now, the question: does the ECR have to discuss the decision of taking the associate editorship with the institute's management? On the one hand, becoming an associate editor is considered cool for the ECR's CV. So, it's not directly evident why the institute should pay for the working hours. On the other hand, helping to carry on with the semi-broken peer-review system is considered a common duty for all the academics, including the academic institutions.


texts: highly technical skills: is it possible for uni staff to provide these skills for a thesis or must you teach your self?

texts:
Note, by highly technical skills I mean anything that isn't directly taught by your course (i.e. programming/coding, use of specialist lab equipment, mathematical expertise)

I am student of Earth Sciences/Geography within the UK.

I'm planning on doing a masters and in brainstorming ideas for my application's thesis proposal, I often run up against the issue of lacking specific technical skills needed to conduct the study. Should I let this hamper me? I worry I'm restricting my potential by only choosing topics in which I can wholly conduct every step of the research/analysis independently.

For example, my undergraduate dissertation required large datasets and modifying open-source software, meaning I independently taught my self to code. Another student looked at microfossils which required the use of a spectrometer.

Although both of skills were not taught to us, I independently taught my self to code while uni staff operated the spectrometer machine for my peer, meaning he didn't have to learn it.

If I want to study, say, microplastics in fish, will I need to be able know how to use the required lab equipment and interpret the results or is it acceptable to outsource this?

Summary

To word my question another way, University thesis: How can you utilise highly technical skills without falling into the rut of teaching your self everything from scratch?

I taught my self coding for the sake of my undergraduate dissertation, at the cost of a loss of free time which could be spent on my area of study (Earth Science, not Computer Science). Coding is not the direction I want to take in life despite the effort to learn it. I, therefore, do not want to invest so heavily in another one-off skill for my masters.

My two main concerns are:

Restricting my potential research topics to studies which I can wholly conduct and interpret each research technique.
Become stuck teaching my self a skill which I do not desire to follow up in the future (i.e. a statistical technique, coding, lab equip)
Use up a lot of time independently learning said technique

Real life example

In the question linked here, a SE user discusses how during his masters two programmers were hired to help with programming. Would it be reasonable to request the university for someone to help with a skill I've not been taught (i.e. coding or high-level statistics) for my master's thesis?


texts: Can I force my professor to give me a copy of his powerpoint presentation?

texts:
In a class, students asked the professor to give us a copy of his powerpoint presentations, but he refused and claimed this is personal property.

Students need the presentations to review the topics presented throughout the semester.

Is the course presentation personal property of the professor or part of the educational materials which must be delivered to the students?

  Edit:  Related question, but from the perspective of the faculty member:
  Is it common to provide digital notes (slides or handwritten) for students?


texts: How can I compile a study material of a course in this case?

texts:
Last year I was appointed to lecture a Data Structures course in a university in my hometown. The material for making my notes were based on several books, articles and also some material from Coursera in the cases that I needed to simplify some material or needed some exercises.

The notes included a final set of references at which the student could look after, like books, articles or urls of some online courses that I found interesting and from where I based my lecture notes.

This year the Dean of my Faculty has told me to convert all that study material into a book that could serve as a guide for the new students. The question that I have is if this would be really necessary? I mean it is not enough that the students could check up the material on this course based on the primary authors in which I based my set of notes? I bet to have a look in the original source would be far way better for the student than just considering the set of notes that I made.

What suggestions do you have to convert this study material into a small book for the students who would take this course?


texts: How should I approach a situation where my head of department doesn't want me there?

texts:
I'm in my first year of a PhD programme in the UK. In this year of the programme we do a few short projects with different supervisors and then choose a supervisor and project for the next 3 years.

My current supervisor is fantastic - I work really well with him and he also thinks highly of me. I am making great progress with my work, everything is going well. Of the ~4 supervisors I've worked with in the past, this experience is by far the best I've had. My supervisor is very keen to have me continue with him for my main project, and I am too.

The problem lies with the head of my supervisor's department, who also happened to have been the head of my master's programme that I took last year (before becoming head of dept this year).

He taught me for a total of three weeks during that master's. I made a bad first impression in the first week when he called on me in class with a question that I didn't know the answer to and I replied with something silly. The second week I was seriously ill and had permission to be absent, but when I came back in the third week he was angry with me for having missed a week. At the end of that short course he gave me a failing grade. I appealed the grade unsuccessfully.

My supervisor has told me that before I started working with him the head of department "warned" him about me and said "I don't want a person like that in my department".

Now my supervisor, having worked with me for a few months, disagrees completely and doesn't understand why the head said that. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, my supervisor doesn't have a very good relationship with the head of department either. I worry that the head will not take his opinion with much weight.

I'm worried that I won't be allowed to continue in this department with my supervisor, and that even if I am there will be trouble down the line. What can I do?


texts: Can I submit a paper to a call for paper and a call for workshops for the same conference?

texts:
I am applying to a top tier ML/Data-Science Conference and I feel that I might have a higher probability getting accepted in the call for workshops over the call for papers.
Can I submit the same idea/algorithm to both the call for papers and the call for workshops?


texts: Will American high schools recognize a foreign MA?

texts: I'm an American who's getting a Master's degree abroad. It's my understanding that an MA leads to an automatic pay raise in public schools, but I'm not sure if my two-year foreign MA would count. To be clear, this isn't a teaching MA but a literature MA, so I'd still have to do education training in the US.


texts: Lecturer in Australia - response to selection criteria

texts:
I am applying for a lecturer position in Australia in computer science. The application process asks for "a statement addressing the selection criteria outlined in the position description". An enumerated list of n (say, n=8) selection criteria is available in the job announcement. The criteria are heterogeneous, ranging from simple "PhD title or equivalent" to elaborate "a high level of communication skills". Which high-level structure is expected?

A continuous, consistent, logically ordered, literary perfect text, from which it follows that the applicant satisfies all the criteria.
A list of n paragraphs, one paragraph per criterion, that technically addresses the requirements, but not more.
A list of n sections, one section per criterion, that technically addresses the requirements, but not more.
...?

How large are the typical statements in each case?


texts: What is the best PhD choice for gauge-gravity duality research?

texts:
I am a mathematician but want to do a PhD in mathematical physics focusing on gauge-gravity duality and more generally quantum gravity, what is the most appropriate PhD choice to do research in this field, is it an astrophysics (cosmology) PhD or a particle physics one?
I am looking for a program that I can take a lot of relevant abstract mathematics courses like topological quantum field theory, functorial quantum field theory, algebraic geometry and topology, while at the same time I can get a good understanding of physics concepts about quantum gravity.


texts:
My advisor will be taking on a number of summer interns, some of whom have been assigned to my projects. The interns are a mix of sophomore and junior undergrads with varied levels of research experience. They will be present for 8 weeks (2 months).

What are some general tips for supervising interns ?


texts: Are citations in PhD theses indexed by Google Scholar?

texts: I've recently seen a few PhD theses that cite work by our lab, but these citations don't seem to be included in Google Scholar despite the fact that the theses themselves are listed as a publication by the authors. Are these citations excluded? If so, why?


texts: Is sending a CV with recommendation letter a good idea?

texts:
My coworker requested me to write a recommendation letter for an academic position  (postdoc). I myself am a postdoc, and afraid that my name may not be known well enough.

In order to support my credentials, I was thinking of either including a short bio or attaching a full CV with my recommendation letter. Is this a bad idea?


texts: Where to define nomenclature in a proposal or dissertation?

texts:
I am writing my proposal and I am borrowing heavily from one of my publications. The published paper has a Nomenclature section at the very beginning (just after the abstract).

What is the appropriate place for a nomenclature in a proposal/thesis? Or is it more advisable to explain the terms near the place where they are used (considering that if Nomenclature is published on a distant page it would be too much of an effort on the reader's part to scroll down and up again)?


texts: Can lewd pictures and videos that non-consensually ended up on porn sites hurt my career in academia/industry?

texts:
I was involved in some not-safe-for-work (NSFW) photoshoots and amateur videos with a photographer in my undergrad (in the US) when I was going through a rough time. The media include my face in them (yes, stupid decision), and since I signed a model release he owns the pictures and videos.

He then set up a Tumblr account and posted the pictures and videos there (which I knew of and didn't mind at the time). However I recently realized that people had been stealing them and posting them on porn sites, and they've been up there for around 3-4 years now. There's no identifying information in them other than my face, so you wouldn't be able to just find them if you searched my name; you have to put in somewhat obscure terms or just happen to come across them to find them, really. Nevertheless I was shocked to see myself there. I'm trying to take them down but the videos are just on so many random porn sites that it'll be impossible to remove all of them. On top of that I don't technically own the media so there's that.

Anyway, I'm wondering how much of an impact this might have on my career? I'm currently doing a PhD in the EU and will apply to both industry and academia jobs in a few years.

I've seen Can leaked nude pictures damage one's academic career?, but decided to post a separate question since the other poster was able to take down the pics and their media was not as widely proliferated as mine are (from what I could tell), plus mine are on porn sites.

I've managed to have the images/videos removed from (what I'd consider) one of the two major websites they were on; hopefully I can get them removed from the other one too and then it'll be even more unlikely that people will find them?


texts: I applied for a PhD but was rejected after the interview. How do I request feedback?

texts:
I interviewed for an advertised PhD and got an email thanking me for interviewing but advising that I wasn't successful. They encouraged me to apply for PhDs at other colleges and their college. I have actually already applied to another advertised PhD with the same supervisor (who knows I have applied), but don't know whether they just didn't like me as a candidate or did like me but had another better candidate. If the former, I won't be considered for PhD2 but if the latter I may be.

This was my first PhD interview and I want some feedback, whether it is about my performance at interview (too nervous, talked too much), or other factors affecting my rejection (lack of research experience, average scores in a particular module that required high scores).

How do I politely request this feedback?


texts: Is it normal to get an angry review that does not address any point of the work?

texts:
I recently submitted a paper for publication. I was amazed to read the tone of one of the reviewers.
Previously, it was read by a pair of peers. I am completely sure that they would tell me if they found something wrong with the manuscript. Instead, their comments were positive.
This reviewer did not address any specific point of the work, just underestimated it as a whole. I could understand if his/her opinion was that the work is poor overall, but I perceive his/her comments as unnecessarily offensive.
As examples, the review contains the sentences:

It seems to the present referee that the author does not realize what constitutes the fundamental problem of molecular quantum mechanics as related to calculation chemistry.
The simple fact that the author ... and then he picks the "best" through statistics and numerology, reflects his attitude and respect towards the concept of THEORY.

On the contrary, very often my colleagues joke about (and many times we have discussed) my obsession with accuracy and scientific rigor. So, I am very convinced that the manuscript can not have an unusually high lack of rigor.
Although I have already published papers, I am inexperienced in publishing. This was the first time that I did the publishing process by myself.
I wish to know

Are these kinds of comments normal from reviewers? If so, what motivates them? I tend to think that the comments should be an objective appreciation of the work and not the author.
How are they perceived by the academic community?
Should I respond in any way?

Edit:
Just for clarification. I don't have evidence that the reviewer misunderstood the work. The only comment he/she made is the second quote that I previously included in the question. It is noteworthy to say that this point is far away from the central point or incumbency of the paper. The other thing he/she mentioned about the work is related to the title.


texts: How should a Phd student deal with rude professors or faculty?

texts: I am a phd student in IIT Bombay. I have found sometimes that professors or faculty behaving rudely especially with phd students. The situation being the student demanding better guidance on his research or while reporting complaints on unavailability of research facilites(infrastructure). Partly it seems the reason for the professors behaving so is because of their own frustration with their job which they pass it on to the students when they raise questions for which they don't have answers. And partly some professors think behaving rudely is the right way to scare students away so that they don't come back and trouble them. Also often the faculty feel they are being embarassed by being compared to their peers elsewhere and are being looked down upon, so have a bellicose attitude and start fighting at the slightest provocation. This is extremely frustrating for graduate students and they ask themselves why they made this grave mistake of joining for graduate studies here. But since few years already pass off by the time they realize this, they just try to finish a half hearted unhappy phd and try to run away from this place quickly with a wounded heart. Many of my seniors have experienced this who are now doing postdocs in US. How does one not let one's heart wounded in such a situation and how does one deal with such unpleasant rudeness on part of faculty?


texts: Importance of diversity statement in graduate application

texts:
I am applying for a PhD in engineering and some universities require a diversity statements which is considered an optional part of the application.

How important is this to the admission ? They don't say how they are going to use this in their admissions process and I believe the department makes the decisions.

Should I spend the time to do this or just forget about it since it is optional ?


texts: What motivates professors to train Ph.D students who aren't nearly as smart as them in their schooldays?

texts:
Many professors got their Ph.D degrees from departments that were much more prestigious than the ones they are working in. So when they train Ph.D students in their current department, (I think)they may have the following comparisons, though they will never speak them out:

"When I was an undergraduate student in Princeton University, I could solve such problems much quickly than you graduate students do".
"When I was taking algebraic topology with *** in Princeton University, we covered the whole book within one semester while you guys...."

At the same time, the students may also have thoughts that they can never make achievements as big as their advisers in the future. For instance, they will get positions in departments that are much less prestigious.
So my question is, what motivates professors to train Ph.D students who aren't nearly as smart or excellent as them? Of course, I am comparing students and they advisers in their schooldays. I know professors just can't refuse students who want to work with them without strong reasons, but what makes them "feel happy" to work with students who are not nearly as good as them?


texts: Consequences of applying for two (or more) programs in one university

texts:
Is it alright to apply for two different programs in one university (and in some cases programs within one department) at the same time?

I wonder whether that would affect the decision of the admission committee. For instance, will that make them reject both applications due to the differences (different ideas expressed) in each statement of purpose? Will it have any effect in general?

Finally, do you recommend such approach?

UPDATE:

I finally applied to two different Master's programmes at one university, and actually got accepted to both of the programmes without any problems. However, the programmes were in different departments! But they were both Computer Science/Technology-related programmes.


texts: How to quote from a source in a different language

texts: I'm writing an essay in English, but much of my source material is in Spanish (my first language). I know how to reference my sources in the bibliography, but how do I quote within the text? Do I translate it myself and still use quotation marks?


texts: How to organize repository of common research papers for lab members?

texts:
The Problem
I am a graduate student in a research lab with several other students, and as such we're all pursuing research and dissertation topics that are at least generally related in nature. We sometimes find papers relevant to others' topics during lit reviews, and right now we're just pushing them into a shared Google Drive folder.

That works fine, but the problem is that we don't really have a way to notify the relevant students when a paper is put into a specific folder (it's a fair-size lab with several students, and we're already drowning in noise emails ... we're not thrilled about adding more and basically CCing everyone the article touches).

The Question
We're looking for a service that essentially pushes a once-daily changelog of the filenames of added papers and the directories they've been committed to, sending them to the email addresses of all students in the lab (so that everyone can look over the daily list and skim it for anything interesting).

Does anyone know if such a thing exists? Or do you perhaps have an idea to help us out of our management woes?

Thanks!


texts: How to organize lots of assumptions/equations in a math paper? (I need to refer to them in my main theorem)

texts:
I'm writing a paper. It has a lot of lemmas that are used to prove a theorem. I put those lemmas first and then my put theorem at the end.
In the lemmas, I introduce assumptions (they're displayed equations that I label so I can recall them later) that are needed to prove the lemma.
Then at the end of the paper, when I get to my theorem, I say "Let equations (1), (5), (21), (24) and (45) be true. Then this wonderful result is true: blah blah blah".
Now a referee for my paper said that it's not nice to do this because he/she has to go back to find (1) and then (5) and then (21) etc.
What's a good practice or the best practice for this? I could collect all of the assumptions right at the start and then refer to them separately later in the lemmas, which doesn't look nice, but then the theorem would look nice because I could say "Let equations (1)-(5) be true..." Another reason against doing this is that the assumptions are different in nature so it doesn't seem natural to put them together, especially if there are like 10 of them.
Does anyone have any advice or examples?


texts: How to address the german “Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. X” in writing?

texts:
I’m not familiar with German academic system.

I got a name card from a German professor and found that his title is as

  Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. X

When I am writing a mail to him, can I starting the mail as follows?

  Dear Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. X, […]


texts: How closely can I follow a cited mathematical derivation in my PhD dissertation?

texts:
There is a well known result from 60 years ago that only ever has its result quoted these days.  I found a 20+ year old MS thesis that had a very clear mathematical derivation of the result from first principles, although it doesn't have any (meaningful) citations.

The derivation is so clear I would like to include a detailed outline of it in my dissertation because I think it really illuminates why we do what we do in our lab, which is what the dissertation is centered around.

It it ok to put something like "Following the derivation of [MS source], first performed by [original source], we start with..." and walking through the 4-5 page derivation to get to the result?  It's obviously not plagiarism, since it's well known and I am citing the source, but it isn't original work.  On the other hand, something that was done decades ago would never be mistaken for original work in 2016, and I think it would really add to my motivation/background chapter.


texts: Doing masters thesis in another institute

texts:
Is it possible to do this? If I find a research group/researcher working on something I like and I just want to do my thesis there. Is it necessary that

I have to go there as an exchange student OR
I will have to enroll in their masters program?

I suppose the only way to do what I am asking about it via an exchange program,but is there any other way?


texts: Physics PhD switching fields after short career break?

texts:
I was hoping to get some advice from anyone here on a situation I find myself in. I am currently about 8 months into studying for a PhD in particle theory at a top UK university. The department is good, my advisor seems like a sound guy (though we haven’t had much contact, entirely my fault), and the culture of academia is still something I really thrive on. However, I have really not fallen in love with my field. I really expected to enjoy HEP, as I had dreamed of doing exactly this since I was in VIth Form, but the reality of the field is really not sitting right with me - I have found it’s too abstract for me to really enjoy.

I have just been offered a fairly well paid graduate role, however it is basically an IT support job. I’m really unenthused by it, in fact I couldn’t care less, however I intend to accept it and use it to save money for later in life (I have a wedding to pay for). There is of course scope for me to develop skills there such as C++/Python skills, so it would not be wasted time.

I have always had a big interest in the climate, meteorology, and atmospheric physics, and I have found myself reading more and more about it rather than studying my actual work. My current goal is to stay in this job until September 2020 and start up again in one of these fields, however I don’t know how:

a) Leaving this PhD will affect my application,

and

b) Whether the unrelated job will cast a shadow on my application.

I intend to study whilst working, both by reading textbooks and literature on climate physics, and also by developing my coding skills. Is there anything that anyone would suggest I do I addition? How should I explain this situation to potential advisors in the future?

Thanks in advance!


texts: Implications for the candidate if a contacted external evaluator declines

texts:
I seem to have reached the phase of my career where I receive regular requests to externally evaluate faculty: this means that I am evaluating the research program of tenure-track faculty (so far always at US institutions, so let's concentrate on this case) and writing a letter to be used in some ways for the pre-tenure / tenure / promotion processes.  If it makes any difference, I would be more interested in answers that apply to the field of mathematics.

Well, sometimes I have reasons that I might not want to do this.  Here is a list of reasons that either have occurred to me or seem plausible that they might occur with others:

I feel that I am too busy: either too busy to do a good job in the time allotted, or just so busy that it would make my life easier to decline.
I don't have much insight into the candidate's work, and I feel that many other people could do a better job.
In order to do a good job I would have to investigate certain things, e.g. whether and why a certain paper has not yet been published.  It's hard to investigate things in academia completely anonymously, and whether this type of investigation would be well-received or even appropriate is not completely clear.
I feel that the candidate's work is not very strong.  (Note: not very strong compared to what is a key question here, but a sticky one.  I have found that institutions which are more teaching focused often ask their candidates to be evaluated by standards which sound very rigorous and exacting to me, a faculty member at a major research university.)

Especially in the last case, it's not so clear "what's in it for me" to write an evaluation that says that a candidate's work is not as good as that of many other people I know in the field.  They are still working in my field, so I would rather have them there than not.  I have no idea what the chance is that my letter would be taken seriously in a failure to hire/promote them.  Either way, there are reasons for concern on my end.

My main question is: if I decline to write such an evaluation, is the act of declining likely to have implications for the candidate?  (E.g. is it likely that the declination would appear on the candidate's dossier?)  The subsidiary question is: if I have reasons like the above that would make me prefer not to write an evaluation, is it nevertheless important to write one?  Is it "the right thing to do"?  (Of course one wants to do a certain amount of service to the academic community.  On the other hand, many/most academics get offered so many service obligations that they have to turn some down.  This question should be understood as relative to doing other service tasks, not doing less overall.)


texts: Should I copy a short a proof from another paper or just refer to it?

texts: I want to use a short (5 lines) mathematical proof from someone else's  machine learning paper in my master thesis. Should I provide it, to help comprehension and save readers the trouble of looking it up, or should I just refer to it? Is it OK to copy-paste the proof, as long as I make clear where it came from, or is that plagiarism?


texts: What should I do if I cannot accept any of the hypotheses in a replicated experiment?

texts:
Before I start explaining my situation, I would like to say that I have read the other questions on this topic but I cannot find what I need on 100%. I am a bachelor student and I am working on my bachelor thesis. The main activity of this thesis is to make a replicated experiment. The experiment involves participants to ask questions which require statistical and accounting intuitions.

After I have performed the experiment, I cannot get on 100% the same results. I know where the problem is coming from but it is too late to re-do the experiment. I am not sure what I should do. How bad is that for my work, as I cannot accept any of the hypothesis compared to the original article?

I have made an extension but I cannot accept the hypothesis of this extension as there are no statistical reasons to do so. I am capable of arguing about why the hypotheses failed to be accepted but I am sure if it is nice to fail at your hypotheses.

I have never written an academic paper before.

Regard Boris


texts: What could be an electronic way to verify that someone is from a specific university department or university?

texts:
How could I verify that a person is a student/faculty/researcher at a specific department of any university in world?  I could ask the user to verify the official email address provided by that university to him but not all universities in world provide a email address to their people. A considerably large percentage of universities do not provide.

What could be other ways to collect only verified people in some group for a university department ?


texts: Is it appropriate to ask for an opinion about a preprint from researchers I don't personally know before submission?

texts:
I'm writing a paper as a Ph.D. student, and I'm starting to feel a little bit unsure about the general approach and results. My supervisor isn't a great help here, and I thought to maybe send a preprint to a couple of authors with more expertise than me, whom I cited a lot, and ask their opinion and if they would find it of interest.
Is this appropriate? I wonder if it would look like I ask them to work as my reviewer or supervisor for free, or I would even look like one of these crazy persons sending researchers their huge manuscripts with fringe theories. On the other hand, I would get feedback during peer review anyway, so I'm further unsure about it.


texts: Just going to start my PhD, found new professor with more exciting project, what to do?

texts:
I am accepted to a PhD program in engineering in the US with 1st year TA-ship as funding.

I have contacted several professor, and eventually, there is this one assistant professor (Dr. A) who want to accept me in his lab. I provided my research plan to him before he finally wants me in his team. His research is cool and I think I will be okay with that.

(Un)fortunately, the department just recruit a new assistant professor (Dr. B), which research topic is in my top priority. I love his research to the moon and back!

What do you think I should do if I want to work with Dr. B?

Until now, I have several choices that I probably take:

Stay with Dr. A :/ (I hope, there is another better solution)
Tell Dr. A that I want to move to another lab (I don't know what/how
to write to him, though)
Ask Dr. B as my co-advisor (for now, I believe that I can intertwine
both professors research, although I am not sure how to convince Dr.
A with this idea)

Any suggestion/comment will be helpful :)

Thanks!


texts: Should I publish my first paper in a conference?

texts: I am a Masters student. I wrote my first paper and sent it to a conference in Spain. To my surprise, they accepted my paper. Now I am hesitating, because I am afraid that my first work is not good enough. It will affect my future plan to study for a PhD. Should I publish it, or just cancel the conference submission and complete the paper to publish later in a journal?


texts: Attributing contributions to academic work that occur in Stack Exchange

texts:
Sometimes we may ask questions on stack exchange or online forums wherein the response is helpful or even essential to a piece of work that gets published in an academic journal. If this occurs, how should credit be given to those involved in the exchange? Should they all be included as authors? Should a link to the forum be included as a reference in the paper?

Once something is in a stack exchange or forum, it's "published". Perhaps in the future, the current peer review model will transform into people writing blogs and posting in forums and databases. But for now, how might this issue be dealt with while forums, blogs, etc coexist with journals?


texts: Easy going advisor versus expert advisor and research experience

texts:
I am fortunate to have a very nice, easy-going advisor (the last because I have seen some horrible PhD advisors). He respects me and my work (I did my master degree under his guidance). Then, I went to another university and returned to him again last year. I am a first year PhD student now. However, I have some issues regarding my research.

First, my advisor does not know much about my area even though he's encouraging me to pursue on it. To make it clear, I can't consult him in my specific area (I do consult him on other things though).

Second, he's not aiming high (top conferences) on publications. He mainly publishes on mid/ lower mid conferences and happy with that.

On the other hand, I have met a professor who is a big name, expert in my area, affiliated with a top university and my work is highly influenced by his research. He also seems to have a very nice personality (I have chatted with his students). I met him several time on different occasions. and he showed an interest to work together for a joint paper.

Most importantly, I believe changing university will result in a  better research experience for me. In particular, I will join a lab with different enthusiastic grad students with critical guidance unlike my current situation where it is only me and my advisor.

About funding, I have external funding and will continue regardless where I am.
I am really wondering which path to take. I am addicted to what I am doing but need the guidance and research experience which I am greatly lacking with my current supervisor.

Update:

The question is: How to approach this professor for acceptance ? specially without saying anything bad about my current advisor.


texts: Is it inappropriate to email a senior academic with whom I have no pre-existing relationship, asking to check/inform my work?

texts:
Is it inappropriate to mail a senior academic (e.g. professor), whom I don’t know, asking –

to check  Lemma, Theorem ( less than 3 to 4, short/ little)
how a graph can be constructed (with given conditions), this might require his ‘intellectual time’ as the class of graph is unlikely to be familiar.
reference related 1,2 .

In general, if I need 1,2,3 as described above how I communicate with an academic over e-mail?


texts: Advice wanted concerning students who have had run ins with the law.

texts:
I am a first year grad student with an expunged felony in the state of Arkansas. I am looking for advice on if and how I should communicate this with my adviser. The felony is due to a drug crime and took place ~decade ago. I ask this because through out my academic career I may need to go to conferences in other countries and this may affect my ability to get through customs and enter those countries hosting the conference.

I am looking for other students who were in the same boat, professors who have dealt with similar situations, and in general opinions from advisers on how they would like to be approached in situations such as this.

Thanks for the communities knowledge in advance.


texts: Should I ask my teacher before using speech-to-text software?

texts:
Should I ask my teacher before using software of speech-to-text in classes ? The software in question does not record (the audio) at all, just "hear" the input and output text.

What about using it in conferences and lectures ? And is it OK to share this with other students ? I'm more worried about legal issues than anything else (European Union and U.S jurisdictions).


texts: Passive discouragement and less supportive senior colleagues: What should I do?

texts:
I am a budding scientist (27 years old, Doctoral candidate) and a lecturer at a university. In the early stage of my career, I have achieved some significant milestones in my field. However, sometimes I experience that my senior colleagues at the university where I work as a lecturer aren't supportive of my ideas: regardless how 'brilliant' they are, they tend to not listen and discredit when I share ideas. Instead, they tend to be more interested in other older colleagues that share the same ideas as mine.
There are times that when I publish my work and share it with them; instead of discussing it, they will ignore it and as if it didn't exist. It's quite difficult to deal with and sometimes I feel discouraged, even though I know I shouldn't, but there are times when it really consumes you.


texts: My advisers did not want to be coauthor of my accepted journal article

texts: Recently a manuscript from my Masters by research thesis has been accepted in a Q1 journal with Impact factor nearly 4. At the beginning of the manuscript submission, I requested my advisers to be the coauthors of my article but they denied my request. Is that ethically ok to publish the accepted manuscript?


texts: How should I cite 3 images that were used to compose a new image?

texts:
I used three images from Wikipedia to compose them to a new image. All other images (not that many) are created by myself.

How should I cite them?

The images are:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Computer-aj_aj_ashton_01.svg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Server-multiple.svg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Server_by_mimooh.svg

I currently use the following text below the description (within the caption):

  The image of a desktop computer on the top left is from
                \url{https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Computer-aj_aj_ashton_01.svg}
                and was created by an unknown artist,
                the server image on the top right is from
                \url{https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Server-multiple.svg} and
  was created by RRZEicons and
                the images that was used three times for classification workers is from
                \url{https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Server_by_mimooh.svg} and
  was created by Mimooh.


texts: Changing Engineering Specialisations after Undergrad

texts:
I am wondering whether it is generally possible to change engineering specialisations after completing a bachelors degree.

I'm currently completing a bachelor of engineering with honours in chemical and materials engineering. I am interested in completing a master's in aerospace engineering as I have a significant interest in aspects of jet propulsion.

I feel there would be a lot of transferable skills which may help me - i.e. thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, pumps and turbines, heat transfer, and materials; although they would be applied in a different context.

I guess my question is, as long as there are some transferable skills to your field of research, can one change specialisation without significant difficulty at the postgraduate level?


texts: How to identify the publications that cite two specific papers?

texts:
Finding the citations of any particular paper is straightforward.

But how do you identify the set of publications that cite two specific papers?

The reason I am asking this is because I am trying to write a review article to resolve an issue in the literature. There are 2 papers that adopt opposite views regarding that issue. To check if any similar study to mine has been attempted before, I am trying to look for any papers that cited those 2 papers together. Any way to do this?

Each paper has hundreds of citations, so looking for common citation is not practical!


texts:
I have been reading a paper and in the Background section the author said something like:

Recent studies suggest that...

and then gave a citation.

I went to that references section, took the name of the other paper and downloaded it.

what was a surprise for me is that this paper also in the literature review section refer to the same studies.

I thought that the first paper refer to this second paper. So, is this allowed on literature review without considering secondary citation?


texts: Paper submitted with repeated sentences in the introduction

texts:
I have submitted a research paper to a peer-reviewed journal two months ago. It is my first submission. I have noticed two unfortunate elements in my introduction:

I wrote the same sentence twice in my introduction.
In one of the sentences, I have repeated the same word twice consecutively.

I think these mistakes came up with copying and pasting when I was trying to adjust my paragraphs in the introduction. Otherwise, I have already made grammar and spell check for the rest of the paper. Also, I am sure that the introduction is clearly written.

My question is that: can this kind of mistake (I think it is a minor mistake) cause a rejection by referees ? (The paper did not get a desk rejection, it is under review.) I will be really happy if you can share your experience regarding this kind of mistakes during the review process.


texts: How many reference letters are too many?

texts:
A friend is applying for a junior faculty position which asks for "at least 3 reference letters from professors". He was lucky enough to have worked with big names in our field, so he was thinking of getting 5 reference letters. Is it too much?

Keep in mind that these are well known professors in top/good universities, not friends and family type of references.


texts: I would like to know if a Research paper is possible for making a change in Open Source software tool

texts:
I have been using this open-source network flow generator and after doing some research i was able to add a network classification engine based on ML into it, put it in other words i added a new feature into it.

So i would like to know if a research paper is possible for such work?


texts:
There is a concept circling in the air that

doing a Ph.D. is a waste of time
a Ph.D. is worthless
and more

But, today, the following comment caught my attention:

I am asking this question, coz, I am venturing into a Ph.D., but these types of news are making me demotivated.

Does this have anything to do with academia or simply bad life-decisions?


texts: How can I join/volunteer a research group for short term?

texts:
I am a working professional and I wish to try working on some research projects after 9-5 job. My average skills doesn't allow me to be a part of big research groups, however, I would still like to volunteer (little or no pay expected) and work with a research group for some time and experience what's it like, gain some exposure on how they are done and finally figure out if it's for me or not?

Goal is to gain some exposure by doing, just like people have summer internship during graduation or "On-job-training" during employment in provisional period.

Are there any open, public or community-driven research groups where I can get a feel for how research is done? How can I search groups like these?

I am looking for something in fields like IT, data, computer security etc.


texts: (Computer science/Machine Learning) Is it better to take lots of math classes or AI/ML courses the first year of a PhD?

texts:
I just finished up my undergrad and am starting a PhD in comp vision/machine learning this fall. I don't have as much math maturity as I'd like.

Do you recommend taking math classes early on or classes such as computer vision/nlp/robotics early on to get a better idea for my research focus?


texts: Discussing time limits in the limitations section?

texts: Is it common to discuss the fact that one didn't have time to do more reading, or didn't have time to elaborate certain sections, in the "limitations" section of a thesis?


texts: Is attending (and presenting at) a summit taken as an "honor'' in a CV elevating the chance for tenure-track applications?

texts:
I've been selected by my school and an external committee to attend this-year version of this summit. As far as I've been informed up to now, the agenda is attending a bunch of interviews with both scientists and non-scientists to broadcast my research (panelists are supposed to be some Nobel Laureates).
To me, the only potential motivation to attend it would be the case based on which such attendance will be considered as an honor in my CV (something similar to, or even more significant than, what a "best paper award in X conference" does bring to mind). Namely by honor, I literally mean whatever may make my CV fancier than before to entice typical admission committees assessing assistant professorship applications. Additionally, I have to pay half of the commutation cost which is a great repulsive factor if this summit really wouldn't make any sensible impact on my future chance to hunt a tenure-track position.

All in all, would a "presenter at summit X" add anything big to my CV (considering I've some scholarships, an IEEE thesis title, a best paper award, etc.)?


texts: Possible jobs in industry (outside the academia) for PhD in Mathematics

texts:
I'm doing MSc in Mathematics with major in Geometry and Topology (combinatorial problems in knots theory). My previous degree is BSc in Physics. As for future plans I would be glad to do a PhD in Mathematics in the USA (I'm not the USA citizen or resident now) because I just enjoy doing research in my topic, but probably don't keep in mind working in academia after obtaining PhD degree because of:

I simply don't like teaching due to my experience as a teaching assistent (TA is a part of my MSc program). Some guys really enjoy it but I don't.
I have heard that nowadays getting even a postdoc position is a hard challenge, there are too many PhDs for too little positions in universities.

So I think about working in industry after completing PhD. Web-search brings me to the conclusion that main paths for non-academic mathematicians are:

Quantitative finance (working in investment banks and hedge-funds or somewhere else in finance)
IT (software developers)
a few number of R&D labs in big corporations also related with IT or finance

So my questions are:

Does the math degree really cost something on a job market outside the academia or should I believe to those who said that such people are overqualified for industry jobs? Of course I understand that nobody interested in pure theories if it can't help making money and industry work should be applied for real solutions of real problems.
Do finance and IT firms really ready to hire people with lack of knowledge in profile areas? It seems rather obvious to me that an average math graduate code worse than CS one (even if we compare PhD with BSc experience!) and know really nothing about economics. As for me, I'm able to code something routine on C and C++, bash (as an experienced GNU/Linux user) and Wolfram Mathematica, but know nothing about big data analysis, machine learning and so on.
Does my major matter if it's not Probability and Statistics? I have heard that people with Probability and Statistics topics preferable for finance quant jobs so should major in another area close doors for me (remind that my research interests are combinatorics, topology and knots theory)?
In this thread I have read that

  For example, if your work involved probability/statistics, or even certain kinds of topology, you could get a job at pretty much any tech company doing machine learning.

Can anyone explain more carefully what kind of work is related with topology in tech companies?

For conclusion let me say that I desire get a PhD because I have all necessary background in mathematics and really enjoying research, my supervisor is pleased with my activity, but an academic position in a future with teaching classes and reading lectures seems not like my cup of tea. I would be glad to be a research mathematician, but as far as I know salaries in academia correspond to teaching hours and if I deny teaching at all my salary will become really pure especially when comparing with industry opportunities.

P.S. Sorry for my English if there are any mistakes.


texts: What is exactly the role of a phd advisor?

texts:
I'm a westerner doing my PhD in an Asian country. While writing this I've just finished my first year, but I'm getting so fed up with my academical environment that I decided to move my PhD.

One of the reasons why I went to Asia is that I'm in a technological field. Now a days with all these Asian countries up-and-coming, developing innovative products, it felt like a good moment to ride along on their train.

In the last year I'm experiencing major difficulties with my advisor and I'm not sure whether it's because of cultural differences or just me. Let me highlight some of the major issues:

When I did my masters, my advisors were actually people who gave me advice. My current professor is somebody who gives orders instead of advice. The big problem with that is that there's usually no room for persuading him with counter arguments. As stubborn as I'm, it usually ends up in me ignoring what he says.
There seems to be a big difference in how I approach weekly meetings. I make a selection of what I investigated during the week and decide myself which direction I go into and thus what I eventually present to him. It seems that he wants every direction thoroughly investigated and presented to him so that he can make a decision about the direction eventually.

These and other reasons, I don't think it makes people better. It won't let people think for themselves when they are just following. I got the comment last week that he thinks that my output is too low, but in fact I'm making the most progress, I'm just not presenting as much as everybody else because I make my own decisions upfront. I noticed that I intentionally not share everything with him anymore, because he always manage to turn everything upside down in one hour per week and ends with "just do it." Like he always creates the strangest and most complicated experimental designs (e.g., 3x3x3) with factors that I don't think are related. I just want to perform a simple 2x2 design and deepening it more and more based on the results. It just feels very odd that somebody who only gets involved into a project an hour per week gives orders about the direction.

Well the thing is that I seems to be the only one who thinks this is not normal. Since I always hear those stories that doing a PhD is always tough and sometimes makes you hate your advisor, I'd like to know where the problem is. I don't mind toughness, but it needs to serve a goal. Before I'm accepted to a different PhD in another country, I'd like to know if I'm getting in the same situation. If so, I don't think a PhD is the right thing for me then.


texts: How to present (key) publications on personal website?

texts:
I am a phd student in a STEM field and currently setting up a personal website. The website is intended to be simple and will basically contain contact details, research interests, a list of publications and links to other profiles in the web (I have a very common name).

Beside the pure list of publications I think it would be a good idea to highlight "key" publications in some way, so that visitors can detect at a glance what I consider my most relevant research. However, I am not sure how to approach this at best.

The only idea I have so far is to provide one picture (maybe animated) for each "key" presentation that gives an overview of the corresponding paper, like e.g. in http://innovate.ee.ucla.edu/refereed-journal-publications.html

Any more/better ideas? Examples?


texts: cross-national and cross-cultural academic collaboration

texts: Are there online avenue(s) for would-be cross-national and cross-cultural academic researcher to meet? There are times where one would want to broaden the scope of one's research.


texts: What is the best way to schedule an office hour appointment with big name professor?

texts:
What is the best way to schedule an office hour appointment with big-name professor?

Directly email him.
Email his secretary, asking for an appointment.
Talk in person causally first and ask his preference (if possible).

I am in a school where some professors do not have a regular office hour, and occasionally, my email is ignored (or replied three weeks later) even if the email is short. Almost all of them have a secretary, who knows the professor’s schedule completely.


texts: I am currently almost one semester into a graduate program at a school in Michigan.  However, I just heard back from my dream school in Florida. Am I able to stop my program at one school and start at another?  I don't even mind starting fresh seeing as I'm only 2 classes deep into my MA.  Any help/suggestions/opinions will be greatly appreciated!


texts: Should I publish a journal article on a new device instead of waiting to patent it?

texts:
I have developed a device that would be patentable, however I have no funds to get an international patent.

I suspect that it might be better to write a research paper on the device so that people can read about it and provide funds for a patent, however I am worried that somebody can patent my device after reading my research paper.  Alternatively, I could wait for a year or so when the college can get me funds and a patent lawyer and patent it with me.

Which should I do?


texts: Do I need permission to use an image from a book from 1942?

texts:
The book is On growth and forms by D'arcy Thompson. It was published in 1942 and Thompson died in 1948. Wikipedia uses the image citing public domain. Can I use extracts and images from the book with proper citation without problem?

The image I want is on this page:
https://archive.org/details/ongrowthform1917thom/page/322

As you can see the book is in public domain and is freely available on archive.org


texts: How to order and divide up "Invited journal articles", "Journal articles", and "Conference articles" on a CV?

texts:
I recently presented a paper at a conference, and it appeared in the proceedings of the conference. I have now been invited to submit an extended version of the paper to a special issue of a journal. This issue will contain the top papers from the conference (but not all papers that appeared in the proceedings). This is relatively common practice in my field of computer science.

I already have listed some journal articles on my CV that were submitted without invitation and accepted. Assuming this most recent article is accepted to the journal special issue, would it make sense to divide my publications list into 'invited' and 'regular' papers?

Specifically, I am considering two options for headings:

"Invited journal articles", "Journal articles", "Conference articles" (i.e. split up)
"Journal articles", "Conference articles" (i.e. leave combined)


texts: Do references count towards the word limit for Science Magazine?

texts:
Quoting from Science Magazine's General Information for Authors,

  Reports (up to ~2500 words including references, notes and captions or ~3 printed pages) ...

This seems to suggest that references are to be counted towards the word limit.

But the reference style guide says,

  Science includes titles in references. These are displayed in the online HTML version, but not in the print or the PDF versions of papers.

The printed (and PDF) version of papers do not have full titles in the references, which makes the reference list much shorter than in the HTML version.  In the end this makes a huge difference in the word count.  If I include titles, the word count of just the references makes up more than 30% of the stated word limit.  This doesn't seem very reasonable!

In general, I am finding it very hard to navigate the author guidelines.  Can someone provide a link to where the word limit (and what counts towards it) is most clearly stated for this journal?  In particular: do references count towards the word limit, and if they do, does that include the titles?  What about counting things like formulas, which might contribute significantly if counted variable by variable, as a naive word processor would do?

I'm seeing much higher word counts in already published Reports than what the guideline says.  For example, this random report appears to have ~4000 words without references, as counted by pasting to Word from the HTML page.


texts: Is the PNG file format acceptable for academic papers?

texts:
When I have to use Microsoft Word for writing a paper, I tend to export most my graphs and charts into the PNG image format since I find it the most convenient due to its smaller size (than TIFF) and higher quality (than JPEG).

However, when I wanted to submit papers for conferences, none of them (three in total) listed PNG as an acceptable format for figures. Two of them requested all figures in either JPEG or TIFF formats, and the other asked for (direct quote):

  Use the following standard image formats: BMP, JPG, JPEG, TIF, WMF, or EPS.

Is there something inherently wrong with PNG figures for representing scientific data that I'm not aware of? Should I quit using it for everything?

I do understand the advantage of vector graphics. I use PDF to store the originals, which I then convert to PNG for use in Microsoft Word. As suggested in Peter's answer, I've sent an email to the support address for that journal to ask for more information.


texts: Contacting professors for PhD supervision past the formal application deadline of the university in USA

texts:
I am interested to do PhD under the supervision of a renowned professor based in the USA. But, I have missed the formal PhD application deadline for the university.

Is it possible to do PhD in the USA by directly contacting the Professor requesting supervision and also mentioning motivation of the PhD, past research experience and academic performance in this email (things asked in a formal application)?


texts: How Can Academics / Researchers Avoid Talking About The Protests With Students & Colleagues?

texts:
Given the current climate in the United States with George Floyd protests &/or riots, there is an intense inflow of political discussion around police, racism, and the role of particular institutions. Whatever someone’s personal politics or thoughts on this subject is, there is a massive grey area where an open discussion about any of these topics with students or colleagues can lend itself to accusations of racism, complacency, or perhaps opening the door wide open for a formal complaint.

How could academics navigate having, or refusing to have, these conversations in academic institutions with students or colleagues to avoid taking a position on the heated subject of the day?

Again, personal politics aside, the concern is to minimize the discussion of a very contentious political topic that is consuming the news world and social media.


texts: Can you defend your thesis without any slide presentation?

texts: You speak and present your thesis without a slide presentation, probably with a pen to explain something on the board. This question came to mind when I was wondering "why do we need a slide presentation?" and "have all thesis defenses in the world been done using a slide presentation?" and "will you be penalized if you defend your thesis without a slide presentation?".


texts: Putting class ranking in CV, but against dept guidelines

texts:
I graduated last year from a master's course where I was fortunate enough to graduate top of my class. However I was told this in confidence by one of my referees to a PhD programme, and they informed me that under no circumstances was I to put this on academic applications, as it would be against 'department guidelines'.

I also tried to enquire with the department directly concerning class rankings, but as expected they were unwilling to reveal this information to me.

I'm now considering applying for a job, and believe that the class ranking would be a good thing for my CV. However I really ought not to know this fact, as it was revealed to me in confidence by my referee, and I risk jeopardising my relationship with him if the department found out.

Am I overthinking this, and should I just put it down, or is there a way to resolve this in a less risky way?


texts: How do I come up with a dissertation topic early on in my degree?

texts:
I'm currently 2 units into my MSc degree (6 units over 2 semesters left).I know this is rather early, But I would like to start work on my dissertation as soon as I can, to give myself enough time and preparation to do "distinction level" work.

How do I come up with a topic I'll stick with? I've had tons of advise from different sources telling me to choose from an area of interest. Considering I still have the bulk of my degree work ahead, this wasn't too useful for me. Do I read all areas ahead of the units to "fast forward" the process?. Any advice is welcome.