texts: advantages in applying early to PhD programs

texts: I am applying to PhD schools in physics in the United States. I would like to know if there is any advantage to applying early rather than just before the deadline. Honestly, I was trying to focus on research and I was also trying to write a good statement of purpose, hence this delay.


texts: What is more important in choosing a research advisor?

texts:
How would you weight each factor below on choosing an advisor?

1 - My interest in the advisor's research topic.

2 - How well he/she dedicates time and effort to guide me.


texts: I want to opensource my code. Is it legal? Can I still publish?

texts:
I am a PhD (stipend) student at a Max Planck Institute (for a biological science) here in Germany. I came here to write software, but ended up spending practically all my time doing wet-lab work. As a consequence, the programming I wanted to do had to be done in the evenings outside of the institute (although what constitutes 'PhD time' and 'programming time' is a bit of a blur, since I use my programs to solve PhD problems...)

Coming to the end of the PhD, I am now finally ready to "publish" the first of the three programs I have written during my time here in Germany, but there are three stakeholders all with competing interests in my software which make it difficult for me to know how to proceed...

The Max Planck - they will want to claim ownership of the software, because I wrote it while doing a PhD with them. Over the course of the PhD, no one from the Max Plank or the University have had any input whatsoever on the software, however, certainly between 10-20% of the code was developed 'on PhD time'.

The Journals - publishing is not a requirement, but it would be nice. It forms a stamp of approval (in some people's minds) and acts as free advertising at the very least. But for this to happen, I suppose I cannot "publish" my code already, meaning open source it and share it so people can bug-check it before publication?

The Users - Arguably the most important stakeholder for me, because I wrote this software for them. I want to make the code's licence as permissive as legally possible, probably under Creative Commons Zero to aid with this, but I feel this will make publishing impossible, and it may not even be allowed if I am not the owner of the copyright in the first place.

How should I proceed?


texts: Can I apply to CS graduate programs and take a year off before actually enrolling?

texts: I am a 4th year Math and CS undergrad with definite plans to enter graduate school. However, I know that I want to take a year off between graduation and grad school, but I don't know if I can apply this year and take a leave of absence or something like that. Should I not apply and apply after my year off?


texts: How to allow survey participants to contact me without breaching anonymity?

texts:
I started a survey yesterday as a part of an empirical experiment, using an online questionnaire. It is among the employees of the institution where I work to pay the bills (that's not the university at which I'm doing my Ph.D.).

Soon I not noticed that there is a problem with the survey. 2/3 of the responses are empty from page 3 on. These are not people who chose to hit the "exit and clear" button, because then the responses won't land in the database. They either closed the browser window, or had a technical difficulty.

Totally stumped at what is happening, I set up a second "survey" with only one question: What problems are you experiencing with the original survey?. I sent it out asking people who experienced a problem to tell me about it. And now I have three attempted answers there - empty.

Now I don't know how to let people tell me about the problem if this isn't working either. If I ask them to tell me per email, I will see who is sending the mail, breaching anonymity. The survey software runs on a university server. If I tell them to write to the university admin, they won't trust him because they don't know him and cannot know he is not going to give out their names. I don't know who I could ask from our institution to assist - nobody here is part of my Ph.D. project, and nobody has any responsibility for the university server. If I ask somebody close to me to act as "problem relay" only as a personal favor, the trust of the participants will be eroded again, because people close enough to me to do me this favor won't be seen as impartial.

Any ideas how to get the problem reported? It doesn't matter if it is technical or the questionnaire is so unreasonable that 2/3 of the participants change their mind about completing it. I need to know what is wrong, as this survey is pivotal for my dissertation.


texts: Remunerated consulting while being a PhD student

texts:
The consulting activity, on the engineering field, would be tightly related to the research, and in fact would help to get the real-world data and reality touch to make it prosper.

Is it possible, in a big University (UC system, Harvard, MIT, Stanford or any other major college) to combine both activities?  Are there any general regulations to the matter or are they dependent of each institution policies?

In case it was possible, is there a salary cap for the total amount a PhD student can be earning?


texts: I have seen many professor are working in a research institute and also a full-time professor at a University. How is it feasible? Are they involve in the dual job and getting a salary from a research institute and university?


texts: Most number of co-authors in a single paper?

texts:
Previous research

I've tried to find the answer to this question looking at the list of "Questions that may already have your answer" as I typed in the question, with no luck.

Question

What are some, say five, examples of publications with the highest recorded number of co-authors ever published, and in each of these how many co-authors were involved?


texts: Should I ask for a confirmation of my interview if I answered late to the invitation?

texts:
I have been short listed to be interviewed for admission to graduate school. A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail with four possible time slots, but I coudln't answer immediately because of a health problem. Indeed, a friend answered for me. My answer was a bit delayed but still on time, during the past weekend. The first slot was on monday morning but certainly, I choose the last slot to be sure I am going to be in the best possible shape for the interview. That slot is in 1 day and half and I haven't received additional information, neither a confirmation nor a plain rejection of my interview.

Should I assume that the interview has been setled and wait next to the phone or write to confirm the interview? If I have to write, which is the best way to do it? I don't want to sound like harrasing the interviewer.


texts:
I feel overwhelmed for the acceptance rate of some conferences. If I submit a "short paper" rather than a regular one, Will that make easier to get accepted? I don't have any JCR* at the moment (nor any paper accepted on high ranked conferences). My research is a software artifact that has been tested (not only unit-tested, but integrated in a bigger architecture and proved to be compatible with external applications) but not evaluated by a broad audience of users.

*i.e.: I don't have any scientific article published in a journal that is indexed by the Thomson's Journal Citation Report. For more info on JCR, please visit: http://thomsonreuters.com/journal-citation-reports/ . JCR index is used, among other things, to measure the quality of a journal.


texts: How far can research deviate from the original research proposal?

texts: During the course of a research project, one may have new, more promising, ideas that were not foreseen and thus not covered in the original research proposal. What should one do in this case? Is it all right to work on the new idea under the original proposal? Or should one stick to the lines suggested in the original proposal and perhaps submit another proposal for the new idea although this means that one has to wait before he can work on the new idea?


texts: Undergraduate European Computer Science Schools and their application process?

texts:
I'm a U.S. sophomore (junior in the fall) studying Computer Science looking to transfer. I have three questions:

What schools in Europe should I look into for Computer Science? To clarify what I'm looking for out of this question, I'm not asking for schools tailored to what I'm seeking (ie, will this school be good specifically for me), but rather the shared consensus of which schools are considered respectable for Computer Science. For example, even in the states I think everyone would say Oxford and Cambridge are well respected, but beyond that most (including myself) are not aware of other schools not in the U.S.
What is the timeframe for applying to these schools? In the U.S. most schools allow you to transfer into the spring or fall semesters, with the application being due approximately 6 months in advance (for example, due in March for fall semester that starts in September) and the application process starting 9 months in advance.
Ballpark, how much does it cost for international students to study at these schools? I've heard that University tuition is much lower in Europe. I have tried transferring to schools in the U.S., but for both schools I got accepted into the financial strain of ~30k in loans per year made it impossible to transfer. I don't want to waste my time applying to schools across seas if the same will happen.


texts: Accepted behaviour while working in international collaborations

texts:
How is getting-job-done outlook perceived in different parts of the academic world? In some parts of physics, I know a person who goes forward and suggests times and dates for meeting up for the workgroup and some improvements will be very welcome do to so since it is viewed as a responsible and active act. However, I noticed that in some research areas (which even might be the nature of the subject or the people involved) this might be seen as an imposing behaviour where they believe in suggesting a meeting and not stating any times/dates to give space to the other people involved.
My question is there any international standard or accepted etiquette in this regard?


texts: Is it normal for graduate tuition to be much cheaper than undergraduate tuition?

texts:
The undergraduate tuition in the University of Rochester is $49260 per year.

On the other hand, graduate tuition adds up to only $27684 (18 credit hours).

Am I missing something?


texts: How do ects grades compare to American grades?

texts:
How does the ECTS ABCD etc grades compare to the American ones?

Would I in particular be right in saying that the European B is worth more than the American B?


texts: Involved in potential friction in department over a postgraduate seminar I co-organised - should I worry?

texts:
I am a second year PhD student at a UK university. Halfway through my first year, I voluntarily took over the organisational duties of a monthly, school-wide postgraduate seminar, along with two other students. This seminar is open to all postgraduate students and staff in the school. We are supervised/overseen in this undertaking by the doctoral programme director (DPD), who is my personal PhD supvervisor (and with whom I get on very well). Our organisational duties include organising speakers (two per seminar - one a PhD student, and one a member of staff or external speaker), scheduling the seminar dates/times and arranging food (pizza).

An important aspect of each seminar is our "skills talk" - given by a member of staff or an external speaker. This talk is given on some area of formal skills training, such as health and safety, equality and diversity in the school, writing up of theses, acquiring and using academic grants, etc.

Recently, our organisational "supervisor" - the DPD - recommended a small change to how we organise speakers for the "skills talk" aspect of the seminar. This involved sending an email to the heads of the research groups in the school, asking whether they could organise some small number of staff speakers from their respective research groups to speak at some of the future meet-ups of our seminar. This email was approved by the DPD and then sent out.

This was met with a request from one of the heads of research groups for a meeting with us as organisers. During this meeting, remarks were made which I found alarming. Specifically:

"You, as students, should not be emailing the heads of groups telling
us what to do"
"It is not right that students are organising a seminar meet-up of
this nature, involving skills training in areas such as health and
safety"
"I am very concerned with the nature of your organisational duties"

We organisers have of course fed this back to the DPD, but the reason that the nature of the remarks alarmed me is that they appeared to imply potential consequences for us as organisers, outside of the seminar itself. Is this something which we should be worried about?


texts:
For a new paper about media archaeology in the context of scientific publication, I found an interesting topic which is not very well researched yet. As far as I know from research, in the year 2000 academic publication was done sometimes electronic and sometimes with printed material. Also, the Science Direct website was not invented yet.

But what is not given in the literature is, if in that time it was possible to do the peer-review process online or only with individual letters over postal mail service. Does anybody know the details of how the peer-review process was done in the year 2000?

I'm asking with a special question in mind. The idea is to describe the technical development of peer-review from the 1980s until the year 2010 with a focus on the work distribution among group of scientists. As far as I know, the idea behind peer review is that it can be done in parallel. But the scheduling must be coordinated, so my question is, if twenty years ago, this was done over e-mail, over postal letters or with the aforementioned Science Direct platform.


texts: How should I write the last sentence in my email to a professor?

texts:
I have to write an official letter to a professor to explain my research interests and my research plan to him, so that he could evaluate my eligibility for support through a research assistantship.

would you please say which of the following sentences is better in order to finish my letter:

I hope this helps. If you need further information, Please feel free to contact me at: My email

I hope this helps you evaluate my eligibility for financial aid better.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you need more information.


texts: Zoom Presentation where I share screen but can annotate or scribble via my tablet

texts:
I present using zoom to my Engineering Univeristy class using my Dell laptiop. I use powerpoint while sharing my Powerpoint app. So far so good.

Now sometimes based on a student question I want to scribble or draw on the slides, or annotate a point etc. Zoom does allow annotation and right now I scribble using my mouse. It works but isn't ideal. My laptop does not have a touchscreen or stylus.

What would be nice is to have a way to "mirror" the slides on my Android tablet where I do have a Stylus and then I could scribble etc. much easier and precisely.

Is this possible to set up the ecosystem in some way as to make this possible? How?  Either via zoom or the Windows OS or a third party app.

PS. I could, of course, switch to zoom on the Tablet entirely. But for multiple reasons that is NOT desirable. e.g. Responding to chats is easier from my laptop keyboard; I share other apps from laptop at times; all my files are on the laptop drive etc.

PS2. Sometimes I am forced to use Webex. So if someone knows the answer to the same question but via Webex I would love to hear that as well.


texts: Can I publish an algorithm without time complexity?

texts:
There's a problem 'A' and there are already algorithms to solve it but I came up with a totally new algorithm. My doubts are:

Should I find time complexity?
Where can I publish my algorithm without time complexity?
Should I publish an algorithm in a math or computer science engineering journal?


texts: How to have a high productivity in research in schools without a PhD program?

texts: I was talking with a faculty member from Electrical Engineering department in a school that doesn't have a PhD program and she had some difficulties in finding students to work on research. How faculty in such schools can work on research if in general, undergraduates and Master students are not interested in doing research?


texts: Taking higher level theoretical mathematics vs taking less math and more courses in application areas?

texts:
I intend to go to graduate school for applied/computational mathematics, specifically a program like this https://icme.stanford.edu/.

At this point, I'm trying to decide whether to take graduate level theoretical math courses in areas like Algebraic Topology, Differential Geometry, etc. (which I don't currently have any experience with, but I could still take), or just take courses in application areas (the ones I'm interested in are statistics, biology, chemistry, computer science).

My math education in the latter case will consist of basic linear algebra+calculus, a course on PDEs, a course on abstract algebra, a complex analysis course with an applied focus, a couple mathematical modeling courses, basic number theory, basic probability theory, a couple numerical analysis courses, and upper-level real analysis. So not a ton, but not negligible either.

There's also a lot of math in the non-math courses I will take (algorithms, theory of computing, quantum mechanics, optimization, stochastic processes, machine learning, etc., some of which are grad-level) However, this schedule is perhaps lighter on mathematical theory, and contains zero grad math classes.

Should I drop some of the courses in application areas (although courses with significant mathematical content that yet focus on applications are perhaps my favorite type of courses) and take graduate-level theory courses to increase my readiness for and chances of getting accepted to graduate school? Or will I have ample time for that in graduate school and should I take courses I enjoy more (and have greater aptitude for) while informally studying theory on my own?

Or do I need to take more theory even as an undergrad, and even though I'm not gunning for pure maths? (I do not plan to go into academia after graduate school, in case that matters.)


texts: Should I reply to a university admission offer email?

texts:
I got an admission offer email from one of the universities that I've applied to for a graduate course. It seems to be from a departmental email ID and has generic content with my name and address filled in. It also contains details about next steps, documents, deadlines, etc.

Am I expected to reply to this email? Since I am waiting for other universities' decisions, how do I send a neutral reply to this one?

Thanks!


texts: What is responsive mode in the context of research funding?

texts: I'm about to finish my PhD in the North of Ireland (Belfast), and I am looking into post-doc funding for the first time. Funders seem to use lots of unfamiliar words, and one that puzzles me is "responsive mode." What is responsive mode?


texts: What should I do if professor grades unfairly?

texts:
Background:

I take the required course through another university in order to graduate earlier, and that is how my nightmare starts.

From the first few weeks, everything was going fine; however, after the mid-term, the professor approached me and said she needed to talk to me.
When I went to see her, the first thing she asked me to do was read aloud of the instruction of the exam (which I felt being insulating because English is not my native language). The instruction is basically said this exam contains the answer key, do not take them with you or take any pics and hand in back as same as it is.

After I read it, she asked me "where is the answer key"? I immediately realized that she thought I took her answer key. I told her that I did not take your answer key, because when I reviewed the exam, I thought the scantron was the answer key. She said it's fine and she would take me out of the report (What report!!??) Per my understanding now, everyone should have an answer key, instruction guild, and scantron on the exam when she hands back for us to review. However, what the hell would I know it as we just had a few mins to review our exam back at that time?

BTW, I remembered when she handed in the exam, I saw my classmates do not even have instruction paper being stapped on the exam, meaning that it may be a simple mistake that she forgot to staple the answer key on my exam.

After this incident happened, she kept giving me lower grades. I compared my papers with my classmates. Most of them got full points without following her instructions or writing properly. She makes comments saying I did not answer questions, but I did answer all the questions in my paper. My friends reviewed my papers and all agree with me, so the professor may not even finish my paper.

I am so upset and I really need to pass this class. What should I do? Go to talk with deen or persons with higher positions? I just felt like because I am not coming from the school she works, so she treats me differently. However, ironically this course is ethics. She was not supposed to accuse me of things I have never done and based on her bias to treat me differently compared with others. I really don't know what to do...


texts: How to anonymize submissions and ensure each student gets exactly one chance to submit?

texts:
I am teaching a subject for a group of students I have not met before, and the exam coming up. It is a 14-day take-home exam. My previous experience with examining similar students indicates that there is a somewhat widespread problem of failing to answer in sufficient detail or sufficient rigor. (My subject is rather "mathematical", but the students are rather "not mathematical", so they are not used to mathematically rigorous thinking.) When reading their answers, I feel I would like to ask about the omitted details*, and I suspect quite many of the students would answer my additional questions correctly. If only I could provide them this chance...
I thought of allowing the students to submit their drafts early. Then I would glance over the answers and comment on those who should be expanded or detailed, without indicating whether the content of the current answer is correct or not. I think this would achieve the goal.
However, there is the problem of anonymity. Normally, the students submit their answers to an online system which anonymizes them and only then do I get to evaluate them. The system cannot be used for early draft submission, though. Another way would be for the students to send me e-mails with their drafts, but that would breach anonymity. Question: Could you recommend a solution of how to anonymize the draft submission? I also would like to ensure that each student is only given one chance to submit the draft (which seems like an additional difficulty in designing an anonymized system).
*You could suggest to formulate the questions absolutely precisely so that there is no way a thoughtful student would miss what the answer should be and how detailed it should be. I am trying this to an extent (taken to the extreme, it would make the questions awkward), but this does not always work as well as I would like. Also, what I am trying to evaluate is primarily not the mathematical rigor but the general understanding and some other things. As long as a student can answer correctly and in sufficient detail (regardless of whether this is right away or after additional questions/comments from me), I feel the student deserves a good grade.


texts: If I accept and defer a PhD offer, should I comply with the April 15th agreement for this year, or next year?

texts:
I got PhD offers from a few US universities this year, and I've been deciding between two of them. I needed to defer my start date to the next year, so I asked both departments. University A deferred my admission (so I'm already admitted for the next year), but University B deferred my offer, but I should accept it now, if I want it deferred.

Question 1:  Now I'm wondering, if I accept Uni B's offer and defer it, will I be required to comply by the terms of April 15th agreement as if I've accepted an offer next year, or as if I accept one this year? I mean, if I decide to take Uni A's offer next year, can I just withdraw my acceptance of B's offer next year and simply accept A's offer (as if I'd been given the offer that year and accepted but changed my mind before April 15th), or will I need a release letter from B?

Question 2: Even if allowed, is doing that so bad that it would destroy bridges for me for later contact with any of the departments (e.g. for getting a job there later)?

I'm more inclined to Uni A, but they deferred my admission without guaranteed funding. They say every PhD student there is funded for the duration of the PhD, but since only my admission is deferred and not my financial package, it is possible (not likely) that they won't offer me a financial package next year. Uni B though, deferred the exact same offer, with guaranteed funding, but asked me to accept my offer this year. I don't know if I can do that, but take A's offer next year.


texts: Presenting a talk on two parallel sessions of the AMS meetings

texts:
On the meetings of the American Mathematical Society there are many parallel sessions subjects of some of them overlap sometimes.

My question is whether it is OK to present the same talk on two parallel sessions if I believe that the subject of my talk is close to both of them.

I was independently invited to two different sessions by the organizers. Should I choose only one session? Or it is OK to accept both invitations?


texts: Doing a habilitation in Mathematics in Europe for a non EU citizen?

texts:
I'm a non-EU citizen, currently doing a postdoc in mathematics in Europe, and I'm thinking of doing a habilitation. Since my google search didn't yield much, I'd appreciate if you could please answer my following questions regarding habilitation:

1) If I understand correctly, habilitation is the highest academic degree you can receive and people do it for getting a permanent academic position in Europe.
How many years or how much/many publication does it normally take to obtain a habilitation degree?

2) Since you could be admitted as a PhD candidate, but not as a 'habilitation candidate' (but instead, say, as a postdoc) can you publish in your postdoc and write the paper(s) as a book and submit it for the defense of habilitation?

3) Suppose you do a one year postdoc in university A, and a second in university B, can you apply to university B for habilitation? How about university A?

4) If you do your PhD and postdoc in unrelated areas, or say even if you switch from pure to applied math, would that be a problem for getting the degree?

5) (Kind of vague question, somewhat opinion-based too) How much does the chance of getting a European tenure increase if you do a successful habilitation?


texts:
Normally when writing technical reports, I just cite an article something like this:

  In the case of binary classifications, the softmax activation function
  is not efficient [1].

But if something is so crucial for a large part of the entire report, it feels like I should mention the surname of the author who contributed greatly in the area I'm writing about. So, should I do this? If so, how do I write that an entire section is based on a book (actually a PhD thesis) written by some person?

Would it be correct to write like this:

  Based on X [1], this section describes...,

where X is the surname of the author.

Or does it need to be written more clearly, like this:

  Based on the PhD thesis by X [1], ...


texts: Are there any positives/negatives in this rejection email ? or, it is just a desk rejection?

texts:
I received the following rejection email today :

Dear Prof. XXX,
This message concerns the manuscript
XXXX by XXX
submitted to XXXXX journal.
Informal consultations with possible reviewers have persuaded me that
your article is too specialized for our journal, and therefore I am
sorry to say we cannot accept it for publication.  We have elected not
to review it fully so as not to cause undue delays in its eventual
publication.
I advise you to submit it to a journal more narrowly focused on number
theory, and I do wish you success in publishing it elsewhere.

Now, my question is:
Are there any positives/negatives that can be taken from this email ? or, it is just a desk rejection ?
Note that I received this email 20 days after the submission.


texts: collaboration in phd project from an undergrad student

texts:
Actually I am making my PhD studies that is in the field of Computer Science and its algorithms related. There is one part in which for proving my ideas I have to program a web related extensive set of tests, but currently I really do not have time to program it. I have met a friend that is following an undergraduate degree in CS and he has been working in web development and programming for almost two years.

The question is if it would be ethical to tell him to program some parts that I need for make the testing. I was thinking to include him as a co-author in some papers that I am planning to do based on my current research, because I consider is the right thing to do. Would that be fair?

Thanks


texts: Why do funding agencies like the NSF not publish accepted grants?

texts:
When the NSF decides to fund a project, they post an abstract of the project, but they do not post any of the material that the project's PIs actually wrote.  Why not?

Some good reasons for publishing these proposals are:

It increases transparency, so that the public directly knows what was funded with tax payer money.
It would help future PIs find example successful proposals in order to create better proposals.

Edit to make the question a bit more concrete:  Has the NSF ever published a justification for not publishing accepted proposals online?


texts: How knowledgable do I have to be when I start a phd?

texts:
Say I wish to pursue a phd in some CS related field. How knowledgable do I have to be in the field I am pursuing? I'm asking because some things happened recently that led me to doubt myself:

I have been doing some machine learning research for the past year and I'm working towards a first author conference submission (as an undergrad). As I was drafting my paper, my professor asked some questions about the project I'd done - such as why I chose certain methods over others, or why I choose a particular parameter for my experiments and more. And I realised that I couldn't answer them. See, in my project, I didn't create anything new. I simply took existing methods and applied them to a relatively unexplored research area, which means that I was just following what other people did. To take something and apply it somewhere else doesn't really require that much knowledge in my opinion. I've been reading papers, trying to explain why some methods outperform others and often times I do not fully understand them. The high level logic maybe I understand, but certainly not the in-depth algorithms or implementations.

I feel as if I know nothing about this field (and I probably really don't know much). Yet, my professor offered me a phd position. I feel like he was placing too much confidence in me. Have I managed to fluff my way through this project, or is this something that happens to other people too? Especially those who completed their bachelors and went for a direct phd.


texts: How to explain past PhD withdrawal to employers/potential supervisors?

texts:
I am currently working in education but also looking for job prospects in more technical/mathematical fields. I signed up to a STEM job site and I am not sure how to give a good response to the question "Could you tell me about the circumstances behind you exiting your PhD?"

Basically, I quit a PhD 8 months after starting for the following reasons:

I hadn't fully developed the soft skills needed to be able to tackle one (e.g. time management, organisation, resilience) which resulted in slow progress.
I was struggling to manage myself in a lot of ways (e.g. money, food, mental health)
The area ended up being quite a bit out of my comfort zone (i.e. more pure mathematics compared to an applied mathematical background) and was chosen more based on fanciful ideologies rather than what I was traditionally good at, and it took me a long time to do things that my supervisor thought were straightforward.
I didn't have a break before starting my PhD and felt consistently burned out/depressed having gone straight into it after my Master's degree - not the best decision to make in hindsight.

I know the reasons in my head for dropping out of the PhD are sound, but I am struggling to come up with a way that explains what happened without potentially giving off an impression that I made a bad decision. I want to make a transition out of high school equivalent teaching (having been doing it for 2-3 years) into something more technical but would appreciate some guidance on how to answer the question I've mentioned above.

Furthermore, suppose I did find a niche of an area I was truly passionate about, or found a Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) which I felt could truly advance my career in some way (say, being able to access some very technical and well-paid STEM role). How would I explain to potential PhD supervisors that I already quit a PhD without them thinking of it as being too much of a red flag?


texts: Is it plagiarism if I use a text I wrote myself but put on the internet before?

texts:
I just rememebered a case when I was still in school: we had to write an essay about a specific topic and one guy put big parts of his essay on Wikipedia before handing it in. When the teacher checked for plagiarism she indeed found big parts of his text in the Wikipedia article and thus accused him of plagiarism.

How would that situation be with journal papers (or other "official" ways of publishing)?
Can I reuse part(s) of texts I wrote myself but that are available publicly/online like on Wikipedia, my Blog, university homepage, etc.?

(Maybe consider that pseudonyms are used on Wikipedia, Blogs, etc.)


texts: Backing down from a faculty position. Future career problems?

texts:
I've gotten myself in a tricky situation.

Before finishing my PhD I applied to several positions, both faculty and postdoc. I received offers for a postdoc position at one of the top universities in my field and an tenure-track faculty position at a good university with a very good salary. Since I really wanted to do a postdoc, I asked to defer the faculty position for one year and it was accepted. They made it clear however that they could only "reserve" the position for 1 year, any further delay would cancel the appointment.

Few months into my postdoc, we found out my wife is expecting and the baby (our first) will arrive the month I'm suppose to move to the new uni. This means that during the final month we would need to search for house in another country, have the baby, arrange for the move, prepare for the new position, move the newborn baby to a new country, find new doctors, etc. I cannot move alone (and don't want to) since it will be too hard on my wife (we have no family in either countries).

My current lab offered to extend the postdoc for another year. However, I would need to back down from my agreement with the other uni. Will this kill my opportunities for a faculty position the years to come? Will it put me in the spot of explaining at every future application that I'm not a badly educated person?

P.S.: just for the record, I was/am really looking forward for the faculty position and I'm not happy that I'll have to do the whole interviewing procedure again...


texts: Should I feel bad for applying to two postdoc positions?

texts:
I'm a finishing PhD student in math. I want to stay in academia so I am applying for two things:

A year-long postdoc position
A 6 month postdoc position

I have been in contact with two professors regarding the two options and am going to send the application forms off today. But I feel bad because suppose I get job offers for both the positions, then I'll have to say no to one of them. Then they will get annoyed at me for wasting their time and will probably never want to work with me on anything again. Both are highly respected so it's doubly bad. What should I do?

Edit: the applications will be decided by a committee, not the professors concerned. Both professors are happy to work with me. I'm in the United Kingdom.


texts: An article not presented in conference but published in conference special issue

texts: Although an article was not presented at the conference, this article published in the conference special issue of a journal after reviewing and editorial process. Considering whether the authors attended the conference or not, is there an ethical problem in this case?


texts: Would using the advanced built-in functions on a CAS calculator be cheating?

texts:
On a test on a course that isn't math, but uses it, such as physics or engineering, would using a CAS to reduce the handiwork I have to do be considered cheating?
For example, what if I used the equation solver to solve equations, rather than do it by hand? Or what if I let the calculator do integrals and differentiations for me?

This is assuming the professor never said anything about what kind of calculators were allowed, nor about what we do with them. (Using them as a cheat sheet would definitely be cheating, but this is not what I am asking about.)


texts: How to structure a theorem with dependencies on lemmata in following sections

texts:
I want to prove correctness for an algorithm that is the composition of three functions.

In order to provide a readable description of the whole process, my document is structured top-down, i.e. it begins with a description of the composition followed by each part. Due to the size of the parts (the composition itself is rather trivial) the top-level view is on the same hierarchy as each part (a section of the chapter).

Because of this structure, I would like to discuss the correctness theorem in the beginning. Naturally, its proof is also rather trivial, given the (much more interesting) correctness of each part. These proofs I would like to present along each part (in a subsection). Therefore, the theorem depends on three lemmata, which are defined later in the document.

What is a good style to introduce these dependencies? Putting them before the theorem might seem a little bit "out of the blue", putting them after the theorem might disturb the flow of reading. Ideally, I'd like to introduce them on the fly in the proof of the theorem and present them later, but what is a good way to do so?


texts: Am I beholden to a professor that helped my application - would it reflect poorly on me if I don't join that professor's group?

texts:
I have just joined a PhD program in the US that I am very excited about. I was accepted despite not having the top grades usually required, in part thanks to good results on my GRE, and in part thanks to a discussion with a professor within the university, who gave me an informal interview and put in a good word for me (the professor is not part of the selection committee). He is all but ready to offer me a spot in his research group, but I would like to have a look at different research groups that might be more in tune with my expectations for my PhD. His group is fairly tiny (as an aside, from your experience, does group size have an influence on the quality of research?), and the research seems quite number-crunching-heavy and I was hoping for more experimentation (we're not in CS).

On one hand, I am very grateful for the opportunity I am given; on the other hand I want to make the most of that opportunity and it could mean not joining that professor's group. Essentially, am I acting spoiled by not automatically accepting that proffered hand?


texts: How can international students improve chances of getting into top US/UK schools

texts:
I graduated last year from my university which is located in a developing country. It is the top university in the country but relatively unknown to the outside world. I graduated from CS at the top of my class. Additionally, I was able to get an internship at a very well known research "company" in Silicon Valley for a couple months. Currently, I am working as an RA at my university.

After saying this, I would like to apply to US/UK universities for Masters and then PhD but got very depressed after browsing these websites gre math profiles and gre physics profiles since international students seem to get rejected from the top universities relatively easy.

I would like to know if there is any advice that will enhance my application so that I can have a better chance to be accepted at both US/UK universities as an international student.

N.B I did not do the GRE's as yet - will complete them later this year.


texts: Will a recommendation letter such as that written for John F. Nash be convincing?

texts:
I noticed in the book "A Beautiful Mind", by Sylvia Nasar, that a recommendation letter, for PhD applications, written for John F. Nash runs as follows: This man is a genius.

Then, out of curiosity, I wonder that if such reference letters for PhD applications work in the present days?

Image taken from the Graduate Alumni Records of Princeton University:


texts: What can I do about nasty comments in student evaluations that could cause me to get fired?

texts:
I recently received the results of student evaluations. After my colleague (who is qualified to make such determinations) observed one of my lectures and said it went very well, a small group of students took it upon themselves to make some very personal, hurtful, and untruthful comments about me and my teaching.

Unfortunately, it is quite a small class and only one other student did the evaluation this year so it looks really bad with all the negative comments and ratings. The place where I work has decided to take no notice of the comments from the lecture observation, nor to the fact that most of the students' comments are easily refutable based on videos that are made of each lecture. They are planning to fire me, despite my having ok (though not perfect) student evaluations in the past.

I personally think it is ridiculous to give student comments such a high importance and ignore anything else, because students often give ratings based on how much homework they get and how easy they think the exam is going to be. One student in the past commented that he had learned a lot in my course, and then proceeded to give me the lowest numerical ratings possible.

Do I have any recourse here? If nobody at my institution will look at the videos to see that the statements made by the students are false, can I make a claim for wrongful dismissal? Can the students be held responsible for their lies? The questonnaires are anonymous but they were done online so it would be possible for the institution to find out the identities of the students.

Thanks.

Update:

Thank you very much for your replies.

This has gone all the way to the point where I have a meeting soon where I'm going to be told whether the head of the department intends to terminate my employment.

At my request, an investigation was done into my allegation that a colleague had influenced my students' opinions against me, but the evidence I presented (emails from that person from before the questionnaires were distributed matching very closely some of the students' comments, the notes from the lecture observation, and videos of my lectures, not to mention my own written and verbal testimony) were not only ignored, but it was claimed that I had provided "no evidence" for my allegation.

I have just found a video of a lecture given by my colleague in which he is seen and heard to completely trash me and make fun of me in a conversation with my students before his lecture begins. I look forward to presenting this at the upcoming meeting.

Does anyone have any predictions for the outcome of this? Will this new video be considered or will they just ignore it as well and fire me anyway?

Thanks again.


texts: What should we say to affected students about Trump's travel ban?

texts: I am an American working overseas.  I work with several students from Iran who have never been to America.  What should I say to students who have been banned from entering my home country?


texts: Put good GRE scores on resume submitted with grad app?

texts: If you have good GRE scores, is it a good idea to put them on the resume that you submit with your grad school application?


texts: Are course grade distributions supposed to be bell shaped?

texts:
I just got done teaching my first course, and my grades are heavily skewed:

I consider my assessments to be fair and have had them vetted by more experienced faculty.  Also, the course averages are usually high in this course (mine was 83.5 or so).  However, it seems like I have a strange distribution of grades.  What might have caused it?


texts: What to wear on one's shoulders to interviews? (bags, backpacks, etc.)

texts: There has been quite a few questions about how to dress to an academic interview. However, no answer to these questions addresses what one should use to carry their things in. For example, is it acceptable to carry your things in a backpack, cheap shoulder/messenger bag made of synthetic materials, briefcase, expensive leather bag, purse etc? A backpack with a suit would look awfully strange. Maybe a cheap messenger bag would still look OK. Links to photos of acceptable/preferred bags would be nice. Is the etiquette different for post-docs vs. faculty positions?


texts: Paper with editor for longer than two and a half months

texts: I have submitted a paper to a journal 2 and a half months ago. Its status remains "With editor". From your experience, is this normal? If not, how should I deal with that?


texts: Citing a Book in Projects/ Research Papers?

texts:
I am Currently Working on Writing my Undergraduate Minor Project Report. For that I need to Study Various Topics from Various Books.
Now, My Process is to Read the Chapters Thoroughly and then write them in my own words (Basically Paraphrasing). But this isn't like Paraphrasing a Paragraph or a Statement. It's a Whole Chapter.
So, Should I Cite the Book from which I read the Chapter ?
If Yes, Then How ?, Because the Topics would be Spread over a Range of Pages.
Now, I know about Research Papers that this will be Considered as Basic Knowledge and Would'nt be cited. Am I Right ?


texts:
What is a "publishable" thesis?

I have often heard this term thrown about in conferences and even as advice to new grad. students.

From what I know, it is indeed rare for a thesis to be published entirely as a book, though one can publish papers out of the thesis.


texts: Is it socially acceptable to directly contact renowned academics as a student?

texts:
Can anyone chime in whether if it is socially acceptable for a (graduate) student to directly contact renowned academics outside your immediate research department with comments on their work or your work?
This is under the assumption that you are not a crank or a stalker or someone who is trying to become an "academic celebrity".
By renowned academic, I refer to people who have published well-known textbooks, ultra-high impact publications, or are important figures (i.e., "Godfather/mother of..."), or have made public appearances, shook hand with the President, etc.
It is not unheard of in the old days. I remember seeing letters from Einstein or Freud answering questions from "concerned citizens" (including kids). But I wonder if it is socially acceptable to do this nowadays. Regardless of the answer, I wonder what are the chances of receiving a serious reply.
Update:
Encouraged by the response I have received, I contacted the person with his work and I posed to question for him asking for advice. The person gave me a very warm reply!


texts: Is it okay to send a letter of intent to attend a grad school, but withdraw if a scholarship is not provided?

texts: Is it okay for a potential student to send a letter of intent to attend a university's grad school program, but withdraw if it becomes clear that a scholarship is not available. What are there any repercussions to this?


texts: Should I publish as sole author and do everything or invite coauthors so that I mostly just do the programming and benchmarking?

texts:
Consider the concept of opportunity cost.

There are two possible situations:

I program everything, do the evaluation with a benchmark, tell nobody, write everything and publish alone.
I program everything, do the evaluation with a benchmark, write something and publish with four other authors, that mostly write the paper.

What should I do?

To answer your possible questions:

They are not going to program, no matter what, so that doesn't help to save any time.
Publishing without telling them anything may be perceived in a suspicious way, specially by external reviewers and considering there may be past papers in which I wasn't alone.
It may also be perceived as if I'm not a good team player, which worries me, as finding a new job may be harder due to this.
The order of the authors is alphabetical, and I'm not lucky in that sense.
They are more reputed than me.

PD: the original idea for the paper either comes from me or it comes from someone else. The implementation is always my task. At this very moment I could refine one of those ideas and improve it (the previous version is submitted but not reviewed). I'm very confused about how to proceed.

PD: I am a postdoc now but I am a PhD in a different institution (I haven't defended my thesis, it's nearly finished).


texts: Will pass/no pass grades in an extracurricular affect graduate school admissions?

texts:
I work for the student newspaper on campus and as a part of it we take a class. On my transcripts, it is listed as Independent Study, and I take it every quarter Pass/No Pass simply because it's an extracurricular.

Will this negatively affect my chances at a good graduate school? My thinking is that because it is an "Independent Study," it won't look too odd -- but I have it listed every quarter, which has me a little worried. That's a lot of P/F.

The only other P/NP grade I have is for a Formal Logic class in the philosophy department. And I should mention that I've passed every one and otherwise have a great GPA.

In terms of graduate schools, I'm interested in Comparative Literature, Law, and Education.


texts: Why would a tenure-track job posting ask for an undergraduate transcript?

texts:
Recently I came across a job posting for a (mathematics) tenure-track position that asks for both graduate and undergraduate transcripts to be submitted. While this is the first time I've had anyone ask to see my undergraduate transcript for such a position, from a previous question here, it appears to not quite be unheard of.

What I haven't seen addressed is the question of why, generally, would a hiring committee ask for undergraduate transcripts? Are they really going to judge my application based on an errant C in a course unrelated to my field, or do they simply want proof that I have the degree from University X that I claim to have obtained?

The reason for my question is that I am hoping to gain insight into any issues that might appear in my own transcript in order to address them in the cover letter.


texts: Find out author’s name in foreign writing system (Chinese, etc.)

texts:
I have some literature written by Chinese authors who I would like to attribute in my bibliography with their names in Chinese characters (汉字). The problem is that, as the literature itself is not in Chinese, their names appear only in their romanized form (Pīnyīn or Wade–Giles).

What resources can I use to find out the correct characters for their names, e. g. library catalogues with both forms given, author lists, etc.?

I am not only looking for Chinese names but Japanese ones as well.

UPDATE:

Examples include:

Pao, Erh-li / Ying Cheng (1982): Wörterbuch der chinesischen Redensarten. Chinesisch–deutsch; Tetragramme des modernen Chinesisch [= 漢語成語]. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.
Huang, Yankai (1964): A dictionary of Chinese idiomatic phrases. Hong Kong: Eton Press.
Hisa, Michitaro (1896): Some Japanized Chinese Proverbs. In: The Journal of American Folklore 9, 33, pp. 132–138.


texts: Somebody made comments and suggestions on my drafts – can I be reasonably accused of plagiarism?

texts:
I am a bachelor student. I have been working with a PhD on an article. So the article was supposed to be co-authored; however, he was mainly going to edit  my draft so it can be published. This is, the content of the article was actually my work, while the edition was going to be his part. I have e-mails with all the drafts I have sent to him until the final draft of the article. In these e-mails, one can see that he mainly suggested me to clarify some ideas or was trying to understand the ideas I was pointing out.

On the other hand, we have stopped working together. Thereby I sent him an e-mail, by recommendation of a professor, asking him if he had any inconvenience if I used my drafts for my bachelor thesis (in my country one first obtains the bachelor degree and then one must present the thesis). He answered that my drafts remain my work and that because of this I am free to use them.

The question which I would like to ask is if there would be any inconvenience if I wanted to publish this draft in a journal as long as it is actually my work. People have told me that as long as I have this e-mail where he is recognizing that my drafts remain my work, I would have no inconvenience, however, I wonder if this is enough for I did not ask him about using my drafts for publishing but just for my bachelor thesis.

I am wondering if he could accuse me of plagiarism if I would publish my work. I think that he could not do so because he has written to me that my drafts are my work and thereby I am free to use them. Besides this I have all the e-mails wherewith I could prove that the drafts are totally my production and that his contribution was mainly motivation and making me some suggestions or comments so that I can better clarify myself. Would that be enough in order I can publish my work without any fear of being accused of plagiarism?

Sending him an e-mail asking him directly is not really an option, for the relationship of work has gone deadly bad.


texts:
I just finished my first semester in a PhD program in Pure and Applied mathematics. My initial focus was on probability, statistics, modeling, and machine learning. To this end I took a course in (Modern) Probability, Nonlinear Optimization, and the mandatory Functional Analysis. Based on my performance in these courses my advisor suggested that I should consider maybe switching to a different focus, as he thinks I will struggle to pass the qualifying exam (specifically in the two elective courses Probability and Nonlinear Optimization).
However, I do not believe my scores reflect my real capability or interest in the subjects, but rather reflect a gap in what was taught and what was tested. I am sure I could study really hard and succeed.
I am posting here to get a second opinion on whether or not I should change my focus, or if I should stick with it and double down and study really hard. I posted on math.stackexchange and was advised to post here for a second opinion. (https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3984219/what-are-some-possible-phd-research-areas-based-on-these-course-pairs?noredirect=1#comment8221305_3984219)
What would you advise? Should I change my focus to another one that I might have a better synergy with? Thank you!


texts: Home university with full research funding or prestigious university with teaching / research assistantship?

texts: I have been accepted to a PhD at a top 10 university. I have also been offered a position at my home university, which is ranked about 50th-60th for the subject. At the top university, I currently do not have a scholarship, though I would be able to fund myself through research and teaching assistantships. At my home university, I would get a scholarship for the first year of classes and then a good salary for four years of pure research. At the top university, my supervisor is one of the top researchers in his field, but I would not be part of a research group. At my home university, the research group I would be in is dynamic and large, and has some very good professors. At the top university, I would be working in the field I have been focusing on so far. At my home university, it would be in a related but different field. Which seems like the best bet? There are aspects of both options I like, but I feel too inexperienced to make the right choice. Thanks for your advice.


texts: Pursuing Ph.D abroad vs staying in a stable job abroad

texts:
I'm kind of in the early-midlife crisis, and I have spent quite some time googling some of my life's questions. I don't have a better idea of where should I ask this and get some insight.
I'm a 29 years old single, from a third world country, MSc graduate from a reputable European university, currently have a relatively decent, stable engineering job in Germany, and long term visa which I know I can already change it to a German-permanent residence permit. However, I'm still craving to go back to the Uni and pursue a Ph.D. I constantly checking the opening Ph.D. vacancies in the city where I live (in the subject of my interest). But I seldom found something interesting vacancies being advertised. I assume I need to make my first move by contacting the suitable professor in order to apply and pursue a Ph.D. in the city where I currently live in the subject I would like to deal. I'm not keen to move to another city/country regarding the visa topic and the fact that I have set up my flat etc. It's just gonna be too much hassle to move again.
However, every time I "accidentally" found Ph.D. vacancies being advertised in other countries in the subject I love, I always question whether staying here is a really good decision. It's been 2-3 years since I live here, and to be honest, I don't feel really happy. Sometimes I feel really isolated, sometimes I convince my self that this city is the best place to settle down, etc. I'm kind of 3 steps away from the subject I would like to deal with every day (research and development in a certain specific area). And the language barrier is real in professional-industrial-work. I'm working really slow on my German. Sometimes I wonder, probably I would have less language issue if I go back to Uni/ move to a "more relax" English speaking country (e.g: NL/UK/US ??).
I'm really lost. Should I stay in this job, should I be more patience learning the language and "create" my own Ph.D. opportunity in the city where I already live (to avoid the hassle of moving again), should I apply when I find interesting PhD opportunity in another country? or even should I go back to my own country? I'm kind of tired of moving, kind of lost the sense of belonging, but at the same time, I'm not happy staying either.
any chance that someone at the moment/ever feeling the same?


texts: Do I need to make a Bachelor's thesis to apply to a master's degree from a top 100 University in the world?

texts:
So let me tell you my story: I studied Industrial and Systems Engineering in the 24th best university in my country, which is around number 1683 in the world. I am from Mexico and thankfully our government is eager to pay our full tuition if we are accepted to one of the best 200 Universities in the World to study a Master's Degree, mainly in engineering.

My main challenge at this moment is to be accepted in a masters' program at an International University. My grades are good, I have a "promedio" of 92, which is pretty high, although not the highest of my class, and I had outstanding results in the professional test. Because of these results, I was exempted of having to do a bachelor's thesis.

Should I sacrifice my opportunity of earning working experience to dedicate myself to make a good Thesis? I am eager to do so if I really need to.

Thanks a lot to the people that took the time to read this.


texts: How to ask my former PhD supervisor to stay away from me and do not contact my prospective new PhD supervisor?

texts:
There are a long list of stories about the issues with my PhD supervisor here in Academia.SE (see it here but these are not the only ones). So, I'm not going to repeat why I'm leaving my current research group. Last week, I decided to change my research group after almost 5 years. Despite its painful nature to switch after 5 years of work, I'm really hopeful that I can find a new PhD advisor who help me to finish my thesis and get my degree.
I was in the same situation of switching to a new research group in Fall 2019, but at that time, still I was not 100% confident that I will not be able to get my PhD degree with my current advisor. In fact, in Fall 2019, I left my current research group for a couple of months and searched for a new PhD advisor. The problem was that every time I reached to a professor, even in other departments, my current advisor sent an email to them and recommended them to not accept me as their student. At the end, when I realized that nobody wants to take me as his/her student, my current advisor requested to have a meeting with me and he said that we are in a really good shape in terms of research progress and I will be able to get graduated soon, which didn't happen at all.
Long story short, I reached the end of my capability to work with my current PhD advisor and even I don't want to see him or hear his voice again. I talked to our graduate coordinator in the department and he also said that I should change my research group and he supports my decision.
Tomorrow, I'm going to have a meeting with my current advisor as well as the chair of the department and graduate coordinator. Based on my discussion to our graduate coordinator, this meeting is going to be a formal briefing about what would happen when I switch to another research group. For example, who owns the data and intellectual property that are created during these 5 years, which I don't have any claim and I want to just accept their requests and do whatever they want me to do and just move on. My current concern is that my current advisor wants to repeat the same strategy to prevent other professors to take me as their student and after that again try to force me to back to his group, which even I prefer to switch to master degree but do not continue my PhD with him. I want to ask him politely tomorrow in front of chair of the department and graduate coordinator to stop sending email to prospective advisors that I would contact in the future, but I don't know how to do that. I really appreciate any help or suggestion.


texts: How to cite that something is *not* on Wikipedia

texts:
I am presently writing an article about a certain class of discrete probability distributions, and I want to mention that the distribution is relatively obscure compared to other common distributions.  As an indicator of its relative obscurity, I would like to mention the fact that this class of distributions does not have its own Wikipedia page, whereas other common distributions (e.g., the binomial, Poisson, hypergeometric, etc.) do have their own pages.

My question: What is the proper way to cite this evidence?  Presumably I will be citing the fact that I have performed a search of Wikipedia at a certain time, and that I found pages for various common discrete distributions, but no page for the one that is the subject of my paper.

What I am NOT asking: I am well aware of the reasons that academic papers do not usually cite Wikipedia as a source.  In this instance I only intend to cite it as an indicator of the fact that a topic is sufficiently obscure that no-one has created a page for it.  As such, I am not seeking answers on the general objections to citations to Wikipedia (which I am already familiar with).


texts: Graduate Internship - Collaborating with other divisions

texts:
I managed to get a 4 month internship (during my PhD) in one of the major US national labs. I'm really enthusiast of this experience and I would like to get the most out of it, both in terms of knowledge and formation as well as in networking with colleague. In fact, I believe this is fundamental to eventually continue my experience at the lab with a postdoc.

My question is very simple. Do you think it would be clever to network with other divisions besides mine? There is a group, with which I'm already in contact by mail, and who study the same things I'm doing in my PhD.

My idea is to proposed them a sort of "pro bono" collaboration (since I'm already paid by my division), helping them in my free time as an extra activity.

I have two question in particular:

1- do you think that it would be appreciated? Or will I sound as an annoying climber?

2- do you think it could upset my first division? (provided that I'll give them full priority, doing parallel activities ONLY in my free time)

Thank you all in advance for your advice!


texts: My paper was under awaiting reviewer assignment then awaiting ed final processing. What does this indicate?

texts: I have submitted a research paper in Elsevier journal. After 18 days the status was "Awaiting Reviewer Assignment". And after 4 months the status changed to "awaiting EIC decision". And now statues is "awaiting ed final processing". Can anybody please tell me what does it indicate?


texts: Does it make sense to pursue two master's degrees?

texts:
Quick background: I am currently pursuing two master's degrees, "Data Engineering and Analytics" from TU Munich and "Computer Linguistics" from LMU Munich. I am in my second semester and plan to finish both in 2 1/2 years. The time frame and work load seems reasonable as of now, I am having fun with it and don't work crazy times. Both degrees deal with quite different topics, though they might seem similar. My master's at TUM is very mathy and proof-based. The other master's is rather practical. For the first Master's I'm expecting a 1.7+- and for the second a 1.3+-.
My motivation to do this is mainly based on my wish to pursue a PhD: 1. LMU is very good in (deep) NLP (<- broad description of my research interest) and one of the Prof's work is very interesting, hence I am currently looking for touch points. 2. I personally don't think the Computer Linguistics programm is super sophisticated, the stuff we do is rather shallow so I think knowledge-wise it's not such a huge gain (I consider my TUM master's my "main" work). Here is my question: 3. I want to distinguish myself. I am looking for an internationally renowned Uni for my next step so I am assuming I have high competition. Under these circumstances could you confirm / give your view if pursuing two degrees is a good idea? Should I channel my resources to do something different (e.g. look for actual research experience, publications, etc.), I don't know many people in these fields yet, the Bachelor's programmes in Germany are quite anonymous.


texts: Finding it hard to find a Master's thesis advisor in mathematics, all the professors I've asked say they are too busy

texts:
I attend a competitive mathematics department that is very active in research.  The downside of this is that it is hard to get any professor to agree to work on a Master's thesis with.

I have tried asking about 5 professors - all say the same thing, "thank you for your interest in wanting to work with me.  I'm afraid I have to say no, because I am very busy."

To be honest, though, I did ask the top researchers in our dept.  Partly because I should take that risk for my own career benefits, and partly because I just do not know much about the younger, less established professors / post-docs, people whom I am guessing I would have a better chance to work with.

What are some general recommendations from this community?  Keep trying to work with a tenured, well-known professor, or better to hedge my bets and just find someone who will say "yes, you can work on a project with me."?


texts: Etiquette with regard to email consolidation

texts:
Background: I am a fourth year math graduate student in the US.

I currently have three active email accounts: personal (gmail), graduate university (windows live), and undergraduate university (also windows live).  Shortly after I began graduate school, I set up the latter two accounts to forward everything to my gmail account.  I vastly prefer gmail's interface to that of windows live, so I almost never even sign into the other two.

I coordinate a student seminar within our department, so I regularly send email messages to the department's list of graduate students.  In an effort to prevent people from spamming that group, the department secretary must approve all messages before they are passed onto the list.  After I sent a message last week, I was reprimanded for not sending it from a university account.  This exchange led me to the following questions:

Do universities/departments ever a formal policy in place about the use of "non-official" email accounts?
Do people find it personally bothersome when colleagues don't use their university account for professional correspondence?
Is there anything I absolutely should not send via a "non-official" account?  (There's a good chance FERPA could be involved here...)

Any responses to these questions or related comments are much appreciated.

Note: I am aware that options exist within gmail that allow it to send email via another account that I own.  It is likely that this will probably be my solution to this problem, but the question I'm specifically asking is about the ramifications of continuing to send mail without the use of this feature.


texts: What should be included in a support letter?

texts:
I would like to know is there any format or things have to be aware when writing a support letter?

The letter is to support the application of a student to an award.


texts: Year of Masters degree completion or cgpa?

texts:
Is it better if I take and a B+ grade and my gpa improves little from 3.44 but the date of completion on my degree will be 2019 or is it better if I take an A grade and my cgpa becomes 3.55 but I get 2020 written on my degree? Incase I apply for further studies abroad
Is cgpa more important or the time period of degree completion


texts: Ethics of Using Victim's Name in Research?

texts:
What are the ethical considerations of using a victim of a violent crime's name in my research?

I understand confidentiality is not an issue as the individual is deceased. Moreover, their death was a high-profile legal case, so it's already a public issue. So while I may be "allowed" to use their name - I am more concerned about what is most respectful of their family/friends. (I think contacting them to ask would be inappropriate).

Would it be better to simply say "the deceased" or "the victim"? What if the details of the case study make it abundantly clear to whom I am referring?

EDIT 1:

To clarify, the case is high profile enough to have a Wikipedia page and have been reported in all major news outlets. None of my data is not already in the public domain.


texts: How to silence the voice that tells you you're being financially irresponsible by spending 4 to 6 years doing a PhD?

texts:
I'm very conflicted regarding applying to (American) PhD programs vs. not doing so and finding a job in industry to have more money.

The thought of doing a PhD makes me feel financially irresponsible; yet, I have concrete research interests and would be doing a PhD for the right reasons.  I've also been told that my application would be strong for some good schools, so I feel I'd waste a valuable opportunity.

How do you decide to do a PhD, knowing that it's the "poor" route to take for the next 4 to 6 years of your life?  It feels like a reckless move, but at the same time, a dream worth pursuing, and that nothing in industry could possibly come close to digging deeper into my research projects that I've started on.


texts: Can I start writing my PhD thesis from the second year?

texts:
I'm going to enter my second year in my PhD after two months from now. I start to think that I can write some chapters from now instead of waiting until the fourth year. This would help me to finish my study early is that possible or at least avoid the stress of writing in my fourth year.

However, most of my friends who are in the third and fourth year suggest not to do that because it is going to waste my time and instead I need to focus more on the literature review and prepare for the field work.

Need advice about this from students who go through this.


texts: Why is citing to old publications seemingly the norm even in fields where much research becomes obsolete as technology progresses?

texts:
While doing literature review towards my Master's dissertation I noticed that many recent papers in my field (robotics/computer vision) frequently cite publications produced a decade or even more ago.

Now, that would not surprise me so much if those were, say, about fundamental algorithm which we still use (even if in modified and updated form). However, often the papers in question are of high-level systems designed to tackle a problem using technology available at the time. If the same problem were to be tackled in the present day, with current technology, the solution offered in such citation would make little sense.

It seems to me that referring to such work in a publication introduces very little (if any) value to the paper and mostly serves as a show-off-y way to generate more words and populate the reference list. And yet, it seems like nobody minds that, because the vast majority of the publications I've been reading have a number of obsolete / pointless references in them.

Is there something I'm missing there? What value, if any, is there in citing a clearly obsolete work? If it is really as pointless as it seems to me, what is the reason for the practice being commonplace in contemporary academic writing?


texts: Asked to draft own recommendation letter for faculty application

texts:
I am applying to faculty positions and two of the people I asked to be my references requested me to draft the recommendation letter.  I am in a STEM field. Is this common practice even when applying for faculty positions?  Should I take it as a really bad sign and try to find other references for the next application I submit?

Writing one draft is daunting enough, but writing two seems even more difficult. I do not know how much the draft will get edited in the end, and I also worry that the two letters might end up looking too similar.  At this point I do wish I had asked someone else, but I do not think I can retract my request.

How can I distinguish the two drafts I write? An obvious thing to take into account is how these two people know me (which will distinguish them). I can also try to introduce differences in tone and style, but doing so feels just wrong.  Yet not doing this risks that it will show through that both were written by the same person.  This is of course assuming that the referees will make only few edits.  Unfortunately I do not know what they will do with the drafts.  If they take the approach form @BrianGPeterson's answer, then there shouldn't be a problem. But I was not asked for a general description of myself or the position. I was asked for a draft.


texts: Placement of numerical references (“[1]”)

texts:
I kind of struggle with my students. I always told them to put the reference number (identification) close to the cited object - to make really clear what is the cited object. For example:

The theorem:

  Theorem A [1] is great ...

The study:

  In the study [1] it is possible to see that ...

The statement:

  It was proven that usage of ... leads to problems [1].

However, my students keep doing something like this:

Citation is related to the previous sentence! (probably):

  ... and it was proven. [1] The general idea ...

As above, but with extra period:

  ... and it was proven. [1]. The general idea ...

After the entire paragraph:

  ... and it was proven. [1]

They are arguing that this referencing is correct according to the ISO norm/suggestions. They keep doing that even though I told them to not do so. And they generally try to comply with my guidelines. This is a real exception. It seems this referencing idea is deeply rooted in their brains.

My questions:

Is their way of referencing legal? If yes, where are informations how to read this fuzzy notation? And why it does not appear in top journals?
How to tell them that this referencing is really unclear in a way that they will understand.

Note: The students I am struggling with are from all continents/countries, pursuing a university degree in electrical/software/mechanical engineering. I would say they are mostly 22±2 years old.


texts: Would a legitimate journal send unsolicited email to an author offering to feature an article in their own publication, for a fee?

texts: I have received an email from a journal in the field of engineering saying that they found an article of mine and want to feature it in their own publications for a fee.  I cannot tell if this is something legit or something they send to everyone they can find.  I have Googled, but there is not much information on them.  How can I tell?


texts:
This is not a usual question on this site, but I think it is appropriate nevertheless since I believe that members of this forum have vast experience on studying and all things that affect studying.

I am a student and I have a "problem" that's basically this: when I start studying something I feel unpleasant and restless if I am not completely sure that I understand the content being studied. This sometimes leads me to spend "too much time" on a particular subject and one might argue that it is a waste of time. My personal opinion is that this is the only way to study, I don't go to the next topic unless I have completely understood everything that's presented and unless I've come up at least with one question that I have to resolve in order to proceed. Sometimes the number of questions increases and usually that's what prolongs the studying of that particular subject.

However, many of my fellow students seem to be satisfied with just a basic understanding of the topic, and the questions that are keeping me from continuing, often don't bother them at all.

What is the better approach to studying in your opinion and why would that be? Am I being too perfectionistic or am I just trying to have a complete understanding of the topic?


texts: I am a Ph.D. student in mathematics, and I am currently applying for jobs. There are some talks that I will be giving later this month and the next few months. Should I put future, confirmed talks on my CV? If so, how should I denote that it is an upcoming talk?


texts: How to properly cite a comment from reddit

texts:
I know this is somewhat strange, however I'm trying to properly cite a quotation from a comment on Reddit.

I'm quoting Edward Snowden from an AMA that he did about 9 months ago. The specific quote for those interested is “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”

In the references list (APA format), how would I cite this?

This is a direct link to the comment that the quote was taken from: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left_to_kill_mass_surveillance_under/crglgh2

This is my best guess at how to cite this:

Reddit. (2015). Just days left to kill mass surveillance under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. We are Edward Snowden and the ACLU's Jameel Jafer. AUA. Retrieved February 20, 2016 from https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/36ru89/just_days_left_to_kill_mass_surveillance_under/crglgh2


texts: Including Award Values on Academic CV When Applying For Graduate School

texts:
I am going to be applying to schools for a PhD in the not so distant future and I received a couple of scholarships in my masters degree that are worth over $10 000.00. I am not sure if it would be a wise idea to include the values next to the awards or just the actual award names themselves. Here are a couple of thoughts I have as to why I should and shouldn't:

Should

Including the award values could be a good signal for graduate committees that I am somebody who is proactive in seeking self funding.
Including the award values might suggest that I have potential to attract more money of the same magnitude

Should Not

It could be considered unprofessional to add award values - I have no idea
It could be potentially viewed as arrogant, boisterous, and off putting
Graduate committees don't actually care how much they're worth and can look the awards up if they're interested.

Question: Should a prospective PhD student include award/scholarship values on the academic CV? Why or why not?


texts: How to cite supplementary material of a Science paper and avoid confusion with my own supplementary material?

texts:
I want to specify in my paper an exact methodology developed by another author and explained in the suplementary material of a Science's paper. The problem is that I already have my own supplementary material's section, formated in the same fashion, and want to avoid confusion. I have tried something on the lines of:

  Therefore, we regarded the results as likely noise and following XXXXX et. al. (2012) methodology (Supplementary material S3.3. (XXXXX, et. al. (2012)) proceeded to reanalize the data.

Citing XXXXXX's paper twice seems cumbersome and out of style, but if I write instead:

  Therefore, we regarded the results as likely noise and following XXXXX et. al. (2012) methodology (Supplementary material S3.3.) proceeded to reanalize the data.

i feel people might get confused and turn to section 3.3. of MY supplementary material, where they, of course, will find something utterly different.

How can I be clear enough that readers should look at XXXXXX's Supplementary material and not mine while keeping the readability of my paper?


texts:
To keep the long story short, I kinda have two options for a PhD.

Option 1

Do a PhD in engineering at a mediocre university in a developing country. Chances at the very top institutions in the same country are not possible due to some uncontrollable constraints.

I love engineering related study. However, there are some drawbacks. Opportunities here seriosly lack during and after the PhD. Funding will mostly be scarce and I will have to work while studying or lean on my own earnings to sustain my life. Also, postdoc chances even at decent universities in the world are extremely low. The county is corrupt, so without (non-merit based) good contacts, chances in good academic and industrial positions are also minuscule.

Option 2

Do a PhD in social sciences at a respected university in Europe or US.

Compared to option 1, opportunities and funding seems to be very well

Although the field is social science, some interdisciplinary study opportunities that require engineering skills might be available. Also, the study area I am interested in is a newly flourishing sub-field. But, still the emphasis is on social sciences. I am also interested in social sciences too, but nowhere close to my interest in engineering.

Questions

Should one choose option1, just for the sake of the love of engineering?

Or, should one choose option2, as engineering specific love might be temporary or be some kind of short-sighted guess for someone who is not very experienced at research to clearly determine his future interests?


texts: How common is it for graduate schools to allow admission to be deferred for a year

texts:
I have a number of Arabic friends applying to graduate school and due to their situation, they tell me they intend to apply and then get a deferment for the next year. I am curious how common it is for grad schools to allow this.

I ask this because I am considering applying to PhD program in statistics and I'm starting a Master's program this fall. My GRE scores will expire at the end of the year and so I am considering applying to PhD programs this fall (with the expectation of deferring acceptance for the following year, which will be right after I get my Masters).

Most of the schools I look at seem to discourage deferment, and the only reason why I can think maybe the Arabic students don't run into difficulties is b/c they don't require any funding (they tend to be on the KSA scholarships).

Just curious if anyone can give me a realistic idea of how grad schools generally deal with deferments?

TIA,
Matt


texts:
Typically, PhD theses are expected to have novel results. As science advances, it is becoming increasingly difficult to accumulate enough knowledge to begin a project that pushes the boundaries. Original findings are often published as papers before the defense, thus the thesis has become valued for its indication of technical expertise, not the discovery itself.

Since ancient history, redoing the work of masters has been seen as a very effective tool for training. It so happens that there is also a need for reproduction studies, but few are willing to do them.

Why don't PhD theses consist of reproducing important, recent, controversial research? Has anyone tried this?

Note: I am deliberately leaving open to interpretation whether the student would reproduce their own advisor's work or that of a researcher from a different group, and whether the original researcher is to assist in this and to what extent.


texts: Are learning by reading from a textbook compared to listening to lectures different roads to same goal

texts: I have seen few people who learn better(or mostly) by reading textbooks themselves in private as that gives them more time to think back and forth about the material. While there are other students who are quick at grasping things transmitted orally like in a lecture and despise reading it through books. Few of the former even have this habit of not being able to learn at all sitting in a class as lesser time is devoted to discussion on a particular topic and the lecturer tries best to move to the next topic as quickly as possible(not always though). So should those who like to learn on their own through books be guilty for not attending classes(mandatory like in bachelors or masters programs) since they are anyway not going to assimilate much and it will be waste of time?


texts: What to do with a thesis adviser that doesn't respond to emails or offer any help?

texts:
I am a master student in computational mathematics, my thesis adviser assigned me a problem in a subfield that is outside his expertise. He is lazy and doesn't know much about the problem he assigned to me that later, after few months, I found that it is even not posed properly, I redefined it myself and of course, I am doubtful. I need an opinion, a discussion and whenever I request a meeting, I don't benefit from it and he says wrong information because he is ignorant about this area he got me in and he avoids me intentionally because he knows I will ask him and he doesn't have answers. I stopped visiting him, he and the other adviser because I don't benefit from the stupid meetings.

Now, even that I am working all by myself, I am sending him emails and he ignores me completely. We are now in quarantine so I can't go to his office even.

Now, what do you advise me to do?
I really came too far now. I can't quit. I have tried to ask other authors who work in the same area, no one responds.
Should I continue anyway by myself? or not?


texts: Do two lesser degrees ever equal a higher degree?

texts: I have an AA in Liberal Arts and am one semester away from an AS in Computer Programming and Analysis. I will have to double check the numbers but I will have around 140 credit hours which is similar to the number required for a Bachelor's degree. Is this equivalent somehow to a Bachelor's? In general, do two lesser degrees equal one higher degree (e.g., do two BA degrees equal a MA or two MS degrees equal a PhD)? Is there any number of lesser degrees that would equal a higher degree? Why or why not?


texts: How to stop a former collaborator from (re-)publishing joint work

texts:
Let us assume that my prior coauthor plagiarizes our common work and is going to re-publish parts of it under his/her sole name in a conference.  I see a preprint of the work on a well-known preprint-site; the venue has not yet taken place. I ran  free plagiarism tools; they show between nothing and 20% (tool-dependent) coincidence with public sources that the tools are aware of, whereas typical "new" papers show up to 2%. The rate would go higher if the 20%-tool were aware of our latest commonly published work before the collaboration broke apart. The author made some textual  substitutions (variable XXX -> variable YYY, function(object) instead of object.function, etc.) and set-theoretical replacements (functions into powerset instead of binary relations) so that the text formally looks different. The author added a tiny bit of new (though, frankly, mediocre) content.

Does the prior coauthor commit plagiarism, self-plagiarism, or both?
I would like to prevent the prior coauthor publishing the paper. Moreover, I'd like the paper to get off the preprint site. The prior coauthor and me don't speak to each other, so, contacting him/her is unlikely to help. Is it possible for me to actually reach my goal, and, if so, how?


texts: PhD dissertation different from master thesis; What might I be able to do about methodology?

texts:
I understand that it's possible, thankfully, to have your dissertation in a different topic from your master's thesis, but I seem to have a problem (see below). Do you know any other problems might I run into?

Background on me:

I am finishing up my master's in mathematical finance and now plan to pursue a PhD with my dissertation being in stochastic analysis/calculus, a branch of mathematics used in finance and physics.

My background on stochastic analysis:

I have had 3 classes related to stochastic analysis and 2 classes applying the concepts.

My thesis, being on the P-side of mathematical finance, has extremely little relevance to stochastic analysis, which is more used in the Q-side of mathematical finance.

The ONLY time stochastic analysis ever came up was encountering something in a paper that gives probabilities in the Q-side, and I thought of using a theorem to convert them to the P-side but later found out the paper was unnecessary or inapplicable (I forgot; I think I figured out another solution).

One problem I seem to have:

Some PhD applications seem to require a PhD proposal including a hypothesis, literature review and methodology.

I am not quite sure how mathematical research is conducted. Most of my research has been mainly in finance and statistics. What might I be able to do about this?

I am considering taking a second master's if needed but hopefully it need not come to that.


texts:
As a business students I have taken tons of management courses - from marketing theories to company strategies to human resources. But I feel I literally got nothing out of them. What we have done is just to study by rote, sit for exams and forget 99% of the content two weeking later. Are they useless or should I have studied them in the other ways?

Here is a bit of my thought: let's take Cousera as an example. It offers degree courses in business, by completing which you could earn a diploma just as on-campus students do. However, they are video-based and lack interactions among students themselves and between professors and students. More importantly, you cannot network as those actually studying on the campus do, which renders them even more useless and in reality these types of degree are not even half as valuable as a full time on-campus degree. So, let's say, if management courses are really useful, why do online degrees still have not got recognition from the industry?


texts: Is the degree conferral date the same as the completion of degree requirements date?

texts:
I am an MSc student in Greece, and this year I am applying  to PhD programs in US universities. My question is about my BSc degree.
Most universities require a conferral date as well as a start and an end date.
The start date is the date I was registered.
The end date is Jan 2020.
Now, my BSc transcripts state that I have completed my studies but I have not attended the graduation ceremony yet. The examination period (Jan 2020) during which I completed them is also mentioned. Furthermore, the date the last exam result was announced is mentioned as well - that is, the last course grade (that result was announced after January). Finally, I don't have the degree certificate yet, because no graduation ceremonies have taken place due to COVID-19.
Is completing my studies equivalent to being a graduate or to being conferred/awarded a degree?
I am worried that if I state that I have earned my degree, I will be required to provide the degree certificate (which I don't have yet) and that my transcripts won't be enough. Should I state that I am expected to earn a degree and leave the expected conferral date blank, or that I have indeed earned my degree, and give the date I fulfilled the requirements as the conferral date?


texts: What is the actual process by which academic ethics change?

texts:
Some of the answers to my question Are academic ethics global or local? indicate the possibility that academic ethics themselves (rather than just laws and policies affecting academics) may change over time.

What is the actual process by which academic ethics may be altered? More specifically, is the process:

Top-down, in which regulatory agencies, funding sources, legislatures, etc. push down new rules onto academics, who are expected to internalize them as normative? (e.g. "Please take note that fooing the bar is now against our Code of Ethics. If you do not cease all bar fooing activity by the end of the fiscal year, your grant will not be renewed.")
Bottom-up, in which written codes of ethics, laws, funding guidelines, etc. are modified as time goes on to match popular consensus? (e.g. "According to our recent surveys, 95% of academics and 82% of the general public Agree with the statement 'It should be considered unethical when academics foo the bar.'. For the 2020 fiscal year, we should make not fooing the bar a requirement for funding.")

The question can alternately be phrased as asking about the nature of academic ethics themselves - whether the "true state" of what is ethical and what is not is part of written rules of academia (and thus reflected in applicable policies, laws, procedures, etc.), or part of the unwritten rules.


texts: Differences between review Perspective and conclusion

texts:
Sorry if this is a simple question, but I am new to scientific writing. I noticed that some review papers uses a "Perspective" section as the final part of review (with no conclusion section) while others have a conclusion.

Since I understand what both means, my question is whether I can cite from the "Perspective" section? Does it matter whether it is not a traditional conclusion?
Thanks.


texts: What is the the history of Qualifying Exams in the US?

texts:
I've been trying to do some research on the history of Qualifying Exams in the US; but, unfortunately, I've not been able to find anything other than the occasional quote, and nothing before the 1950s.
What's going on here? Were they not common practice before the 1940s and 1950s? If not, why? What instigated their creation? I'm just speculating here, but were they a response to GIs returning to academia after the war?
In short, I'm asking... what is the history behind the Qualifying Exams in the US?


texts: How do academia and graduate advisors deal with the fact that the cost of living is dramatically higher but graduate wages is stagnant?

texts:
My supervisor got his PhD in the 1970s while having two kids and a house. He spent 25k on the house. Everyone from that era, even the 80s or 90s, said that their degree was dirt cheap and they were very easily transiting from academia to work life post graduation.

Fast forward to the present day, my graduate wage is 25k/yr (most of which is spent on tuition) and the housing prices in my city are 70k-100k for tiny small apartment. Almost all the housing prices are rising due to speculation and price for even basic daily necessities such as food or even a hair cut is rising.

I am going to a conference but I can't go because the plane ticket alone cost $1000 dollar. Uploading a paper cost $100, an additional one cost $300. Registration $300. All the conference prices are rising and many students are frustrated but the conference organizer insist on places such as fancy resorts or islands. It feels like a hustle.

How do academia rationalize the reality that the cost of living has risen dramatically, yet graduate wages are stagnant, making the graduate degree nowadays a very costly and risky journey. How do academic advisors support students in these times when their students are all living around the poverty line, the same bright students who could easily make 100k-200k working as a programmer?

I sometimes wonder if the only reason I am admitted is that I am from a third world country and people assumed we are satisfied with less and unequal pay. Not unequal with respect to other graduate students, but unequal with respect to people who has citizenship with the same skill.


texts: Math PhD application references from a postdoc

texts: Will a reference from a postdoc be considered less than a reference from a lecturer/professor?  This is assuming that I have done a dissertation under him/her and that the postdoc is in his/her (at least) third postdoc position.  It may be worth to note that he/she has graduated PhD for around 10 years.