texts: Preprint on CV - should I include journal I submitted to?

texts: I'm in a discipline where it is common to make preprints publicly available on arXiv as soon as they're ready to be submitted to a journal, so naturally I list them on my CV. Before the review comes in I would just list the paper as "Preprint" and after it's been officially accepted I would list it as "To appear in XYZ". I wonder what is the best course of action between those two states, that is, after the paper has received positive reviews but there are still corrections to be applied and it has not been officially accepted (but I'm willing to bet that it will be). Is it reasonable mention that the paper is "Submitted to XYZ" in such a case? That has the benefit of providing more complete information, and is definitely a statement that I can justify if pressed. Or is it always preferable to stick with "Preprint" until officially accepted?


texts: Are arXiv papers more read than the journal versions?

texts:
I have a conference paper which is published at IEEE with some errors unfortunately. But I have submitted a version on ArXiv without the errors.

As a researcher, I honestly prefer reading versions on ArXiv because I always think that if such an error has been detected by the authors in the official version (i.e., IEEE, Springer, etc.), they will of course have tried to correct it in their ArXiv version. That is why I usually prefer to read ArXiv versions or that ones present on the authors’ personal page.

Some researchers told me that papers on ArXiv (or HAL for example) are more read than the official versions. Is this true?


texts: What should I do if an admissions office asks me for a bachelor's thesis, when my program didn't require it?

texts: I recently applied to a university for a PhD program.They asked me to submit all of my documents.When I submitted my documents they asked for my Bachelors thesis. There is no Bachelors thesis or undergraduate research in our university.You can do it but its not a requirement and nobody does it given the time constraint of 6 months for Bachelors Final project. I have my Masters thesis but there was no bachelors thesis. There was a final project in bachelors but it was not research based. The hr said that "in case the thesis is not available,you can send an extended abstract". How do I properly address this situation ?


texts: My teachers treat me differenly b/c I have a mental illness. I don't know how to confront them

texts: Lately, ever since I got back from the hospital, my teachers have been treating me much differently from the other students, and have been coming off as condescending to me. It has gotten so bad that some of my peers have been noticing confronting me about it. I do not know what to do about my teachers or my peers. Can you help me?


texts: How do I publish papers taking a middle ground on a controversial topic, when reviewers with strong opinions on either side keep rejecting them?

texts:
In the last few years I have been working on a controversial topic A of my field. As usual, I started doing the state-of-the-art and talked with some scientists, and I discovered that the scientific community is divided in two groups:

~80% of the scientists don't think A can work
The remaining ~20% think A can work

It's difficult to formally prove A (no one has done it yet) and basically not possible to experimentally verify it (we only have some not-so-strong empirical evidences). There are also some sort of philosophical issues (even if the topic is really technical). However, if formally proved, it would have a huge impact on both research and industry.
I think that group 1 is wrong and also group 2 is wrong. The truth, in my vision, is in the middle, and my research focuses on this: trying to find a different modeling or trying to formally prove only part of A, or A but with some extra assumptions, and so on.
However, during the years, these two "factions" started to diverge more and more on opinions, to such an extent that the group 2 now always bases their claims on a couple of very controversial papers (which most people, including me, think are flawed). This way of reasoning of group 2 made most of the community (group 1) to believe that any research claiming A is just wrong (which is not true).
And then, there is me. Probably because I arrived at a later stage of this "discussion", I see things in a different manner: there is hope for A, but we need to recognize the limits of A and the fact that the state-of-the-art works on A have problems. However, when I submit a paper on this topic (from a position paper, to a super-technical paper), I very often get reviews like:

From group 1: "A is a shitty thing", "Oh no, another paper on A", "This is not interesting for the community" *
From group 2: "We already proved A, why we need this work?"

*These are textual transcripts of sentences in reviews of top conferences/journals.
And often these reviews are opinion-based and not fact-based, which make me very frustrated, because they don't criticize the work itself (formal proofs, etc.), but the topic.
Luckily, I have sometimes received reviews that really appreciate my work and some scientists have told me that my way is the right thing to do. However, publishing (especially in top journals and conferences) is very difficult in this way, because I always get at least some reviewers against me (in one sense or in the other, often both of them). Editors most of the time don't care about the controversial reviews, they just reject the paper.
What I'm doing now, for papers on A, is to publish in less-important journals or in journals not 100% on topic, but this reduces the visibility of my works (and unfortunately impact my career...). This makes me sad and I'm really thinking to abandon this topic. Getting a rejection is always frustrating, but getting many rejections based on opinions is really terrible...
I don't know if there is a solution or what I should do. For the pure research spirit, I may publish just on Arxiv or so, hoping that someone will notice them... but you know, an academic career requires you to publish, and to publish in good journals/conferences...
Any suggestions?


texts: Funding for Belgian student to do a PhD in UK?

texts:
I am currently applying for PhD fundings in UK, but as the competition is rude, I am not sure to be accepted, even if I have very good grades and qualifications.

So, I want to look at other PhD fundings opportunities, that may be less obvious. For instance, I know that the European Commission proposed some PhD fundings (Marie Curie scheme or something like that), but I think it is no longer active.

If you could give me some advice, I would greatly appreciate.

Field of study : Theoretical Physics
Country of origin : Belgium, EU.

I'm not wealthy enough to fund myself for my PhD, even for one year.


texts: I am a professional freelance editor. I edited a thesis and subsequently the candidate has refused to pay my fee. Can I claim intellectual property rights over those editing changes and require the candidate not to use them in their submitted or published thesis?


texts: Could it hurt my grad school application if I state a secondary research interest in which I have little experience?

texts:
Background: CS Undergrad applying to CS PhD USA.
I am interested in this 'X' domain but have not really invested time to do 'research' in it because it is computationally very demanding and I do not have access to such resources.
I have covered a good amount of theory in the topic but that doesn't add up to much unless I can show some form of practical implementation. That's just how the domain is.
I would really love to explore/research in the domain during my graduate tenure.
Question: Will it make me look bad if I say so while applying to graduate programs?
Note: I have good amount of research done in my current domain 'Y' and I will be mentioning that I will want to primarily want to work on that during my graduate tenure. But this domain 'X' has few avenues I would like to explore because it has shown to be beneficial when applied in 'Y'. Apart from that, the field on its own is extremely interesting to me.


texts: How to unintrusively distance myself from control-freak advisor and ride out the end of my PhD?

texts:
I am the PhD student of an advisor who is known within my institution as extremely strict, controlling and prone to temper tantrums, making undergrads cry in lecture halls, etc. I am in my final year of writing, 12 months to go with all of my experiments completed and 60% of my writing done.

I have found my own ways of managing our relationship (i.e. to grin and bear it), but now, in my final year of thesis writing, I am finding it increasingly difficult to cope. He is extremely controlling of my personal time: making it clear that he expects me to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week 'just to keep my head above water'. Though he always cheerfully reminds me that 'deadlines are flexible', on the rare occasion that I do try to take him on his word (this has happened twice in 4 years), he completely flips out and makes me work to the deadline (even when this has meant me working 20 hour days). This happens even though the events are out of my control (a problem with an experiment, the death of a friend) and though I have never asked for more than 7 days extension. The death of a friend thing happened recently and is the straw that broke the camel's back, I just can't understand how I couldn't take a week to deal with that (it was over Christmas, when I was still 'supposed to be working'...).

I would almost understand his behavior if I were a terrible PhD student in need of a kick up the backside, but by all objective accounts I am on track to finish well before schedule. My advisor tends to go through periods of bombarding me with compliments and praise for my work, teaching, etc. until I feel totally great about our relationship, only to completely flip and treat me like a child in need of chastisement. What disturbs me about this is that he will often make me agree that he is in the right, and that he is 'not a horrible advisor, just has my best intrests in mind'. Two friends of mine have left our research group because of difficulties working with him, telling me personally 'I don't know how you are able to work with him, I feel sorry for you.' A friend's advisor has said: 'I hope Anon is OK and has someone to talk to, their advisor is really tough'. I'm including this context because I consistently doubt my own perception of this situation, and need to justify my feelings to myself (and anyone reading this) by remembering that others corroborate my perception of my advisor. I am also extremely paranoid about him finding out about this (hence not using my usual SE account).

Usually, I would make my feelings clear and ask for a mature discussion about our needs, but I think my advisor will take that as confrontation and I don't want to jeopardize my thesis or my job prospects in these final stages. I am too apprehensive to talk to other staff in the institute about this in case somehow word gets back to him.

At most, I'd like to get a good reference and bounce out. At least, I want to survive with my sanity and happiness in tact (I have self-esteem problems and am feeling increasingly awful about myself - I see a therapist so I'm accountable to someone and don't plan on hurting myself etc.).

TL;DR: Overbearing advisor, I feel increasingly bad. My strategy at this point of is to continue my mantra of 'grin and bear it', keep a low profile and ride out the end of my PhD. Please could you share some strategies for doing so in a non-confrontational way?


texts:
I'm a PhD student in computer science. In my university, the PhD process is divided in the following steps:

Qualification exam
Research proposal exam: presentation of chosen topics and methodology and plan (near 1-1.5 year after PhD program begining)
Thesis proposal exam: presentation of done and remaining work (near 1-1.5 year after research proposal)
Thesis defence

I'm at the end of my PhD and basically at the end of the dissertation writing. I still have to write the last chapter about the validation results.

I still haven't done the «Thesis proposal exam» and will take it in mid august; then I expect to submit the dissertation draft at the end of august, for a defence expected in late september or in october.

I'm embarrassed, as I basically almost ended the dissertation, by the fact that the «Thesis proposal exam» presentation and the «Thesis defence» presentation will foregone be the same content. It look like the first one will be a sort of rehearsal of the second one.

How can I proceed to present a meaningful «Thesis proposal exam» and still having something new to say during my defence presentation?

Thanks.


texts: In what order should I write acknowledgments?

texts:
In (pure?) mathematics, the order of the authors for a given paper is almost exclusively always alphabetical. This leads me to believe that there may be a similar convention when writing acknowledgements.

In what order should acknowledgments be written in a math paper? By order of importance (increasing or decreasing), by alphabetical order, or something else? Does it not matter?


texts: References in a research article conclusion

texts: Can I put some references in the research article conclusion to clarify my future work?


texts: I failed to respond to a potential advisor

texts: I know that it's a horrible thing to do. It was a professor at a prestigious University who expressed interest in my ideas. I never responded because severe conflict broke out between me and my family regarding my career choice. And that was a year ago. Conflict is still there but I'm stronger, and I sent a sincere apology to the professor, but I still want to know how bad my situation is if I want to reapply to the same University for a Masters (i don't even dare to hope to work with the same professor).


texts:
For some reason, I was always under the impression that people that are included in the acknowledgement section of paper are not contacted to review your paper because they would be predisposed to give a favourable review. However, after reading the discussion in this question it seems like it is standard to send papers out for review to people in the acknowledgements section if there is not another conflict in place (like being from the same institution, for example). Which is it?

Do editors send a paper out for review to people in the acknowledgements section? Can I suggest a person I acknowledge for helpful comments as a potential reviewer (assuming there aren't other conflicts of interest)? If the field matters then I am interested primarily in mathematics, theoretical computer science, and biology.


texts: Publishing policies for conference papers

texts: I got two papers accepted and I am just wondering how to know their policy towards publishing my papers also on CoRR. is it fine to publish the same paper in CoRR and in the conference?


texts: I want to pursue topics from different fields (pure math,CS) as a researcher. Which one to choose for my PhD?

texts:
My background: I have two master degrees in pure math and applied CS. I am interested in working in both areas, and there are certain topics in each area (extensions of my -completely different- two master theses)  that I am interested in working in, so there does not exist the possibility of combining them in any way: math its 100% proofs and nothing else; computer science it's code a prototype, computing the some accuracy metrics, writing more code.

However, my working style is to switch between these two field every 9 month, since I quickly get bored, if I only work in one of the fields.

I recently received an offer for a PhD at a top European university (think Cambridge/Oxford/ETH... ). Like any funded place, this one is tied to a single topic from one of those two fields and some compromises have to be made to harmonize my topic choice with the problems my supervisor likes to work on.

1) Do you know of any strategies that I could use to keep switching topics, so to preserve my passion for both fields?
("Utopically", I would get accepted into a second PhD, where I would work on a topic from the other field and then keep rotating every 0.5 - 1 years between them, i.e. as soon as I achieved a milestone in field and start to feel boredom creeping on, go to the other field. But no sane supervisor would accept that, I think. And the program structure would.)

2) Are there ways to convince my supervisor to let maybe 1.5 take year-long time off? That would already help a lot I think. How should I best go about this, without giving a bad first impression ("you haven't even started, and already you think about going away").

3) Or should I just stick with it and try to finish as fast as possible with the PhD and then try to move to the other field for postdoc (supposing I could get a postdoc position in say, math, if I did my PhD in CS, and only published 2 smaller articles in math in the meantime)?

4) If there absolutely no way to switch between topics for my PhD, I'm unsure which field would be the best to go for for my PhD: Pure math (doing proofs) or CS (coding proof-of-concepts in machine learning and related areas)?

I assume many will say things like "this is a PhD! You have to learn how to stick with one topic, because this is life and life can be hard". But  working on multiple problems at once is a tried and tested way to keep the fun in the research (as done perhaps most famously by Perelman: "he liked to work on several problems at once" quote). Alas, if I knew them, I would not post here; I'm really at a loss for what the best step would be to preserve my love for doing research, while not ending up unemployed and keeping the door open for a career in academia.

edit: While the current answer provides very good general feedback, I would still like to know more (very) concrete information about 1)-4).


texts: Did my instructor somehow pass the buck to me?

texts: When I was TAing a course, some students came to meet me to talk about marking issues. Earlier, the instructor had said that if students cannot reach an agreement with TAs they should talk to the instructor. Thus when I saw some students disputing marks, I referred them to the instructor. However, the instructor later sent me an email saying he couldn't decide the marks as the TAs made the marking scheme. In my view, he somehow refused to fulfill his duty and passed the buck to me.


texts: Having trouble getting recommendation letter for masters

texts:
I completed my undergraduate degree with good grades five years back. After that I have been working for a well-known organization for the last 5 years.

I recently decided to pursue a master's degree. One of the major requirements being recommendation letters from professors, I am having a bit of trouble providing those, since I have not been in touch with my professors for a long time.

I can provide letter from my supervisors from my past and current organizations, but I am not sure how much value it will add to my profile, since none of them are from purely research-oriented background. I have been worried regarding this from quite some time, will it be a road block for my application though I have good grades and relevant industry work experience.


texts: What is the purpose of chairmen at conferences?

texts:
I often struggle when explaining people not familiar with academics or new to academics the concept of a chairmen at conferences or talks. At some point I have to say that this is somehow an academic tradition or a way to give small honour to people with reputation in some field.

Beside this and some obvious things (Someone has to make sure that the speaker is not running out of time, etc. -- Why not the organizer for example?): What is the purpose/what are the arguments of having a chairman?


texts: Taking a course on Pass / No Pass Basis for Grad School

texts: For a PhD application: assuming a student has a good technical GPA (whatever that means from your point of view) and took some challenging technical classes and some grad courses; what would you think if he has taking some "challenging" courses for unrelated topics on Pass/Not Pass basis. My university lets me take one third of my whole units for P/NP basis. For example, as a math major, what if instead of taking easy humanity courses, I take hard humanity courses; but not for letter grade. How would this affect a grad school application?


texts: Is it possible to guess the purpose of my potential PhD supervisor inviting me to lunch?

texts:
I am currently in the process of applying for a PhD programme. I have sent off my application and it has been deemed satisfactory from an academic standpoint i.e. my degree transcript and CV. I am now only waiting for the awarding of a studentship (funding) from the college I have applied to. Last week, I received an e-mail from my potential supervisor inviting myself to have a tour of the college, visit their research group and to have lunch. I suppose the purpose of this invitation could be to:

1) Give my potential supervisor an opportunity to assess my feasibility to undertake a PhD under their supervision or

2) Give my potential supervisor an opportunity to persuade me to accept a PhD offer.

Is it safe to assume that the decision regarding the awarding of funding from the college is all but guaranteed to be successful?


texts: Applying for a faculty job without history of external grants

texts:
I have worked in a research institute (R&D for a parent company) for 10 years after my postdoc. I used to teach occasionally as an adjunct professor. Despite our R&D theme, I have an excellent record of publication (comparable with my peers in terms of quality and quantity; unquestionably good). However, I never applied for external funding, as our research fund was directly provided by the institute.

I applied for some faculty positions but unsuccessful. They didn't give me a detailed feedback but mentioned that a criterion for the job is "demonstrated success in securing external funding".

Should I give up? Because this is something I cannot do anything about it. Unless I assume a faculty position I cannot send research proposals for external funding. And if this is a mandatory condition, I can never assume a faculty position.

I understand that external funding is important for universities, but I wasn't unsuccessful, just didn't need to apply because of my job. I understand that proposal writing might be different but my successful research shows that I can write winning proposals too. I have conducted all my research projects based on initial proposals, but they were internal.


texts: How to cite a French thesis in an international journal?

texts:
What is the right way to cite a French thesis in an international journal like Biomedical Signal Processing and Control? Should I convert the name of the university and the school to the English language?

Example:

  Aina Frau Pascual, Statistical models for the analysis of ASL and BOLD
  Magnetic Resonance modalities to study brain function and disease,
  Ph.D. thesis, Doctoral School of Mathematics, Information Sciences and
  Technologies, Computer Science, GRENOBLE University (2016).

Link to the French thesis: http://www.theses.fr/2016GREAM086.pdf


texts:
I got an externally funded research grant as a lead researcher to carry out a project at a UK University, together with other senior co-PIs. The grant would pay my salary for the duration of the project as a postdoc, which would be 6 months. Due to several administrative and other issues, the project kept being delayed (outside of my control), by what the funding finished, but the project deliverables were not produced. I continued working on the project in the hope that we could finish it at some point, but other issues came up, preventing the project from being completed.

It has been now 4 months that I've been working as a postdoc in this project without any pay, and I can't continue living without any money to support myself. I got some legal advice from a lawyer about this where I was told I should just walk out since my contract finished and I have no obligation to work without a contract. However, being an ECR (early career researcher), it would be extremely damaging for my future career to abandon this project halfway and not get any publication from it.

After several meetings with the PIs discussing what to do with the project, and pointing out I need money to survive, their conclusion was that I must finish the project deliverables, without any further pay, as they are blaming me for the delays in the project (which is not the case, as I stated before). They are also threatening me (indirectly) with damaging my reputation as a scientist, blacklisting me for future grant applications (the senior PIs are in several grant committees in my area of research) and just in general destroying any chances of me having a future research career.

At this point, I have no idea what to do to get out of this problem... It seems my only options are either to quit academia entirely or accepting to being exploited and work without pay.

On top of all this, I discovered recently the grant has some small amount of leftover money from non needed consumables, which I requested to be redirected to my salary. The PIs refused this, as they are saying they will only pay me this amount if the project is finished.

I am looking for any advice on how to deal with this problem, particularly if someone else faced a similar situation before in a UK university.


texts:
I am moving from one job to another (postdoc to tenure track) this summer and I have papers in several stages of being written, these go from handwritten notes with all the necessary arguments to under revision at a journal. All the papers will have my new contact information put on them but where is the line for changing affiliation? It seems obvious to me that the one that is still in the handwritten notes stage will get the new affiliation and that the ones under revision won't. So somewhere in between is a line.

Where is it?

There are some similar questions so far (see here and here but they do not seem to be quite the same situation since I am not changing fields and the appointments are not concurrent.


texts: What problems are caused by pedagogical blogging about a class?

texts:
I am a course TA and I instruct a class of about 20 undergrads. I'm planning to make a public pedagogy blog. I think there could be some potential problems with this. For example, if the students in my class find it, and read "a student is struggling with Y topic", or "I think this student is having problems".

Potentially risky content:

Class plans and preparation
Reflections on each class, including comments on the students
Discussions of course content, and suggested improvements to prescribed classwork

Are there any potential problems I would encounter, given the material I am blogging about?

Possible solutions:

Anonymising my own name
Anonymising all the students' names
Restricting access to course staff (lecturer, TAs)

Do I require any of these solutions?


texts: Ethics questions concerning a referee assignment

texts:
Asking this question here as it was suggested in one of the comments from MO.
I recently refereed a paper that I returned to the author(s) for revision. The thrust of their argument relied on a claim whose justification I felt was lacking. I dutifully raised the issue in my report and, in addition, I corrected another portion of their proof. I also obtained partial results on this problem from another paper (I initially raised the problem they purport to prove).
The author(s) have yet to revise their work and, in the interim, I came up with a justification for their claim. I now have a proof of this result (which is important for another paper I'm working on) and would like to publish it (at least obtain some level of attributionfor the correct proof).

What are the ethics/options here? Do I need to provide them with the correct proof? May I submit the result as my own? If so, must I wait until their revision before I submit my own paper? Should I disentangle myself from any further involvement as the referee?

EDIT: I’d like to add a little context to one of the points made in a response below.
The conjecture they purport to prove is one that I made in a previous paper which included partial results on the conjecture. Thus, I have thought about the problem and the “ownership” of the problem belongs to me.
However, it is clear that I wouldn’t have come up with the proof without their submission.
It seems to me that a co-authorship of some sort would be the best for all parties, or I simply pass along the proof to the author(s).


texts: Received an email from potential advisor and my name was wrong. should I correct him?

texts:
A few months back I contacted a potential advisor I am interested in doing my PhD with and he replied that he is considering my application and will be back in contact with me.

Today, I received another email from him basically saying:

  Dear [My Correct Name],

  Are you still interested in doing PhD with me? If so, I will interview
  you.

I wrote back that I am still interested and gave him my contact information.

He replied:

  Dear [Completely wrong name/ probably another applicant],

  Thanks. I will come back to you later.

Should I send an email correcting him or just forget it?


texts: For PhD, prestigious fellowship at university with poor infrastructure, or prestigious university?

texts:
Two PhD positions were offered to me:

EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland)
In Italy, through a H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship.

I know that Marie Curie are quite prestigious, but also EPFL is ranked among the top 15 universities in the world.
I like both projects and both offer good scholarships. Although the cost of living in Switzerland is much higher than in Italy, the infrastructure in Italy is really old and scarce.
I'm afraid of choosing the MSC ITN, which is at a university not as prestigious as EPFL.

To what extent does the prestige of a fellowship vs. the prestige of an institution matter to a researcher or professor career ? Is infrastructure a limiting factor for graduate studies in chemical and materials engineering?

"Poor infrastructure" means old equipment, not so nice labs, lecture rooms and PhD students offices. Also may you have to wait long for use an equipment...
The infrastructure (roads, trains...) of Italy is good, not so good as Switzerland but acceptable.


texts: How professional should my query for a PostDoc position be?

texts:
I plan to finish my PhD in climate sciences in about one years time. I’m not yet exactly sure what I want to do afterward but I’m considering a position in academia. A professor at my institute recommended to me to start writing some people now, inquiring about possible positions (which is in line with this answer I guess).

I have some groups in mind where I know the group leaders on something I’d call a “we recognize each other at  conferences”-basis (i.e., they’ve probably read my publications and will probably remember who I am when I write them).

To be clear: I don’t want to apply for any specific position but rather want  to find out if there might be a position available in one years time to which I can then apply. Another intention is to make them aware of the fact that I’m looking for a position, so that they might think of me if something comes up.

I recently did a application seminar and the recommendation there was to write a very formal mail (possibly with topic ideas already) and attach a short cv and possibly two main publications. That seems way over the top to me (although that may also be because in geosciences we tend to be more causal about those things than in other disciplines).

When asking about possible PostDoc positions what would be a good grade of professionalism? How long should the mail be and what should be included? (merely asking if somebody knows something would only take a line or two)


texts: Difference between a "general" and a "generic" confidential letter of recommendation?

texts:
In the context of applications to tenure-track assistant professorship positions in computer science in the US, I see both terms:

general confidential letter of recommendation
generic confidential letter of recommendation

What is the difference in the meaning of the terms?


texts:
I'm looking for some advice. In the course of my research on a particular area, I came across 2 papers on the same subject. One was written in 2010;  the other in 2015. Both are published in equally reputable journals, but on different continents. The three authors are all from the same continent, but not same country.

The 2015 paper is larger, and more expansive on the subject, when compared against the 2010 paper. However it has major failings in terms of bibliography (basically non-existant). After reading through both papers a number of times, to get a feel for them, I started to notice something. The 2015 paper has lifted entire tracts from The earlier paper, including citations that are not in their bibliography. The lifted pieces are not mentioned as direct quotes, and the original author is not mentioned in the bibliography.

This seems like a prima fascia and case of academic plagiarism? Any advice on what, if anything, I should do?


texts:
I thought that trustees of a university are leading people in the region or around the country (politicians, industrial leaders, donators, etc). I accidentally saw the Board of Trustees of Princeton University, and was surprised that one of the members is just a student from California.

It makes me wonder, how the trustees are selected? and what are the requirements for becoming a trustee?


texts: Should an e-mail application to a lab for a masters thesis include attachments, or should I wait for these documents to be requested?

texts:
I would like to ask a researcher in a foreign institution to do my master thesis ( 5 months worth of research in Experimental Physics ) under his supervision.

I have written both a motivational letter and a short, coincise email stating what my intentions are.

Should I only send the coincise email, and wait for them to ask me for a motivational letter + curriculum, or should i attach those to the mail?

Otherwise, would it be better if I wrote the motivational letter in plain text under the mail, so that if they want to read it they won't have to ask me for it?

I know from my previous advisor that he often rejected such proposals if they were not coincise enough because he did not want to waste time. He told me that he mainly answer those who "tickle" his interest in few words, but I would like to hear more opinions.

Here is the short mail I was thinking of:

  Dear Professor, I am a graduate physics student at the University of
  QuantumState currently on my first year of my master.

  During my four years of studies I developed a keen interest in the
  peculiar laws that describe lower dimensional quantum systems,
  alongside a passion for the challenges that are encountered in the
  experimental study of such systems. I would like to dedicate my master
  thesis to an experimental study in this field, in particular, I would
  like to do so under your supervision in your research group.

  Alongside my interest in the field ( and I know that your institution
  is one of the top research centers in the area ), I also have a strong
  personal desire of moving to Copenhagen: if during my stay you would
  find me a suitable addition to your group, I would be more than
  looking forward to apply for a Doctorate position at your institution.

  The timeframe allotted by my university for work on the master thesis
  is the period going from february 2016 onwards (usually 5 months). I
  know that it is very early, but to do the research in a foreign
  institution my university requires me to obtain a statement of intent
  from the external advisor long before.

  Attached you find a more throughout letter about my interests and Ideas, and my curriculum.

  Best regards,
  Me Myself


texts: Are there any online tools for student collaborative learning?

texts:
There are many disciplines where collaborative learning is the norm; group projects in engineering, working in pairs in bio & chem laboratories, writing papers in a variety of fields, and Team-Based Learning in medical schools (among other areas). Are there any software tools available that are specifically intended to augment collaborative learning? In my head, this would include capabilities such as:

Asking questions of the group
Enabling real-time group discussion
Sharing attachments


texts: Is copying lab results a form of plagiarism?

texts:
A quick question, which I'm asking out of curiosity rather than an actual problem.

Plagarism and how to detect/combat/punish it seems to be a common topic on this SE. When I was an undergraduate, 20 years ago, I don't remember ever plagerising a book or other student, or any of my classmates doing the same (at least not that I knew of).

However, I did a practical science in which we had 1 or 2 full-day lab workshops every week. It was very common for most of the students in these labs not to get the "expected" result, due largely to inexperience and poor technique. It was equally common for all the students to then copy, and subtly modifiy, the results of the few students who did get it to work. They would then independently use this in writing up the assignments by themselves.

Would this be considered a form of plagerism in a modern academic environment? If so, what should science students with poor practical results do to write up their assignments?

EDIT: after comments, I feel compelled to make clear these were undergraduate labs with previously verified results. We were not undermiming scientific process here.


texts: Is it early to try to read Articles for an undergrad

texts:
As an undergrad student. I would like to read articles but i am not sure how to.
So is it early to try to read articles or how to?


texts: Why is Scientific publishing methods at stagnation in this age of internet?

texts:
To be specific, I have a few questions regarding the Review and Publishing methodology.

1) Why are there no comments sections in the Journals where the first reviewers (or anyone who has read the work) can provide their feedback and it remains open for everyone to see. Isn't it a transparent method?

2) In today's world, journals like 'Jove' are coming up where the videos of the actual experiments can be uploaded, why is that it has not been picked up in the Physics community? This is not only important for Experimentalists but for the Theoreticians too.

3) Where can these suggestions and feedback be provided to the Journals?


texts: How do I get my paper sent to the right editor?

texts: Suppose I have found the perfect journal for my manuscript.  That journal has 50 editors.  Editor A is an expert in the subject of my manuscript.  What can I do to get my paper handled by Editor A, instead of one of the other editors?


texts:
This is the situation. I am a postdoc at a German university. Unfortunately, my boss is not interested in publishing the research results. He prefers to publish just when it is strictly necessary for project reports and publishes old and unimportant results in most cases.

Obviously, it is a problem for my academic career, and I want to leave this division but for personal reasons can't do it in the nearest future. Just to mention, I do not work on industrial projects, and I want to publish the results of the projects I work on. It is also worth noting that the results in our area get "old" quite fast, i.e., in a year the community won't be interested in the results as much as it could be now.

The boss also believes that everything that is developed by people working in the division he is the head of is the property of the division = his own ideas (even though I have come up with all of my paper ideas and have executed the research and papers alone) -- and he requires that everything that comes out from the division to the public should be personally checked and approved by him.

Other colleagues seem to be OK with the situation, but I would like to pursue an academic career and get published.

My question is: if in my free time I study some things on my own that are not included in any project I work on, can I publish the results being a single author? Or, e.g., can I publish a review on the topic on my own? I don't have problems with mentioning the university as my affiliation.
Was someone here in this situation? If so, what have you done about it?


texts: What is the proper way to cite the usage of an API?

texts:
For a grant I am writing, I need to describe how I mined data from social media sites. I collected data from sites such as Twitter using each site's API and a Python wrapper. In writing my methods, I assume that I should mention which APIs I used, or at least that I used an API.

Do I need to provide a citation if I refer to using, say, the Python wrapper for Twitter's API. If so, how do I do that?


texts: How do members of a grad school admission committee make sure they are reading all the applicants' essays with the same level of mental freshness?

texts: I am currently in the process of applying for graduate studies in electrical engineering. A big part of my statement of objectives is dedicated to give a feeling of how I became interested in a specific area of research. I am worried that that part of my essay is going to make my essay be looked at as just another emotionally overdone statement, while I have been told by people who reviewed it that it is quite inspiring. How do members of a graduate school admission committee make sure that they have not built some kind of tolerance to personal stories as they go through a few hundred applications?


texts: Whether to accept co-authorship for conference presentation after making only a small contribution?

texts:
A collaborator sent me an abstract he's submitting to a conference, listing me as a co-author (middle position, implying not a major contribution).  It's for a conference presentation, not a manuscript, and it will not be published in e.g. a supplement or anything like that.

I've spent a fair bit of time with him discussing and planning the project, I'm listed as a co-PI on the grant, and I expect to provide important contributions later in the project, but at this point I haven't specifically contributed, in any hands-on way, to the exact work described in the abstract.

I thanked him, made some minor suggestions about the abstract, and suggested that he didn't need to include me as I hadn't contributed enough yet.  He replied saying that he was happy to include me.

The work is fine and I have no concerns or reservations about it.  We're roughly at equal career stages and neither of us is new, so neither of us is looking for extra prestige etc. If we cared about fine balances, I'm probably helping him more than he's helping me in the project, but I'm happy to do it. I have made significant contributions to the overall experimental design and planning, and it's not ridiculous to be an author, but it is for a smaller contribution than I consider authorship-worthy.

Should I continue to battle to be taken off the authorship?


texts: Suggestions for a non-traditional interview?

texts:
I will have a post-doc interview in social sciences, warned to be a bit nontraditional in the sense that it will focus more on general logical capabilities and unique/creative thoughts instead of specific sets of skill or fit with a particular project. The reason is because this is a training grant I guess. Literally, they want to emphasize on "innovative" aspects of applicants, though I think that it's quite tempting and ambiguous.

So, I guess that I'd want to ask for questions you may have that can train the brain in this direction, some thing thought-intriguing like this:

What is the most significant finding in your field in the last couple of years and how does that mean to your specific work?

Any comments are welcome :) Btw, if you happen to be in social sciences, how would you answer the above question?


texts: What funding to include in an old paper?

texts:
I am currently close to publishing a paper that I first sent for review 5 years ago. The reasons why the review process was so long are not entirely clear to me, and are beside the point. During that time, I have not done any significant work on the paper, except for editing it for clarity—the vast majority of the time, the paper was with the journal.
I'm unsure what funding information I should put on the paper in this case. I wrote it, and it appeared on arXiv, during my PhD. In the meantime, I had a post-doc, and now I have just started a new post-doc. Should I mention all these sources of funding, or only the ones from during the PhD? A similar question applies to affiliations.
My field is mathematics.


texts: How can I judge whether an alternative "impact factor" is from an accepted and genuine source?

texts:
So I was wondering whether the SJIF (Scientific Journal Impact Factor) calculation was authentic and accepted.

How can someone identify whether an alternative impact factor is generally accepted and from a reputable source? What kind of things should one look for in evaluating an impact factor metric?


texts: Why do some professors not post their long list of publications?

texts:
I notice that some professors -- some are now professor emeritus and aren't active in research anymore -- have an essentially blank faculty webpage, only listing their phone number and school address and office location.  What would be typical reasons for professors to leave their webpage blank instead of listing their publications?

Is it a desire for privacy?  An indication that one is no longer active in research?  Disgruntled feelings about academia?


texts: I am a junior in high school and fear that I have messed up. In my freshman and sophomore year, I worked very hard to maintain good grades and participate in extracurriculars. I participated in robotics and research and was able to win a variety of awards. When junior year came around, I was in the mindset that I had to do as much as possible. I signed up for a bunch of extracurriculars, decided to hold 3 leadership positions, etc. The stress has been killing me for months. Recently, I had most of my competitions, and I performed poorly in all of them (except for one research competition). Also, my grades have dropped from last year (by about 0.4 on a 100 point scale). It really depresses me that I went through all of the stress for what feels like nothing. As most of the competitions are over now, I plan to start focusing on my passions again (physics and programming). Nonetheless, I feel as if I messed up my competitiveness when it comes to college admissions and I am afraid that I will look back on my junior year with regret. I don't know what to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


texts: How Can I Specialize In Two Different -but related- Areas

texts: I am a freshman math major. I am very excited to be in university because I want to be a scientist, researcher. I have interest in different areas like sociology, economics, artifical intelligence, neuroscience etc.. I used to think that I can specialize in just one area then I have heard about a professor named Richard Bagozzi and I loved his career because he publishes papers in different areas such as economics, sociology and psychology. What should I do in my college life to be able to make research in more than one area? I am waiting for your advices, thank you.


texts: Paper rejected based on "informal review" - any point in appealing?

texts:
I've recently been trying to get one of my papers published, and have come across the following issue. I started by submitting it to a fairly high-impact journal. It got three reviews, two of which were positive. The third reviewer seemed to find it personally offensive for some reason and hated it. I felt I could respond to all the comments (the negative ones seemed to me to be based on a misunderstanding of the basic premise of the study), but unfortunately the paper was rejected outright without the opportunity to respond.

So, I edited the paper based on the previous reviews (attempting to address all the comments I received, major and minor), re-formatted it and submitted it to a middle-ranking journal in my field (ecology).

This time, the paper received two reviews, both of which were largely positive - mostly minor suggestions for improvement and comments praising the paper. However, the editor said that following comments from an "informal review", he has concerns about the methodology. When describing this he uses the exact wording used by the negative reviewer from my initial submission. Once again, the paper is rejected without opportunity to respond to the reviewers.

I find this very frustrating - both the actual reviews were positive, but the rejection seems to be based on an "informal review" that I'm unable to see, or respond to.

To me, this isn't how the peer review process is supposed to work. Do you think it is worth emailing the editor to appeal his decision? Or is it a waste of time, and I should submit it to another journal?

Thanks


texts: Who gets to access a case study database and how?

texts:
In Case Study Research, Yin (2003) states the importance to build a case study database, in order to increase the reliability of the findings.

  "...without a case study database, the raw data may not be available
  for independent inspection."
  ...
  "...every case study project should strive to develop a formal,
  presentable database, so that in principle, other investigators can
  review the evidence directly and not be limited to the written case
  study reports." (p.102)

Unless I am missing something, he doesn't address how to manage access to a case study database. If my case study database contains sensitive data, that cannot necessarily be anonymized, how should I handle the gatekeeping of this database?

ETA: I'm in social sciences.


texts: How to calculate the rate to pay a recruiting agency for new students?

texts:
When a university allows agencies in other countries (perhaps in the same country?) to recruit students for them, as I understand it, the university will pay the agency some fee for each student admitted. How is the compensation calculated?

Are there universal standards? Perhaps by country? If no standards exist, how would one even start the negotiations with the agencies?

Related to this question is how the agencies protect themselves while the university also protects itself. What if a student comes to the university and forgets to say "ABC Ltd sent me" but later ABC finds out that their student did start and now ABC wants paid.

I'm specifically curious about UK universities and undergraduate students entering universities focusing on business/economics but any information about other geographical areas / subjects could also be helpful.


texts: How to cite the same reference in a paragraph twice in APA style?

texts:
Content in the paper:

  This problem can be solved with the application of machine learning
  algorithms. Machine Learning is the process of programming computers
  to optimize a performance criterion using example data or past
  experience (Alpaydin, 2010). .......[some of my own content] A
  learning routing program is able to adapt to the best path by
  monitoring the network traffic (Alpaydin, 2010).

At the beginning of the paragraph, I have cited the author and then I have some content which are compiled by me. Then I am again using an example given by the author which needs to be cited. So, I have cited him again at the end of the paragraph. Can I do this?


texts: I accidentally submitted my research article to the wrong platform -- how do I let my advisors know?

texts:
I’m an MSc student in Computer Science in the last month of my program.  A few months ago, my advisors and I completed an article that I then submitted to a conference. The notifications of acceptance were supposed to come out in early December, so we were a bit perplexed when we had yet to  receive them even in mid-December. We thought this may be due to logistical problems related to the pandemic, so we weren’t too irritated.
I recently sent the organizers a polite email that we had not received a decision notification, and I was shocked to receive the reply that stated that they had no record of my submission. I replied quickly with my submission number and the (automated) notification of receipt I had obtained from their submission system. It’s been two days and I have not received a reply to this email.
Upon scrolling through the webpage for this conference, I realize they had two ways to different links for submitting an article. I selected the one that apparently goes to some submission platform that they do not even monitor, and had not checked that the other link was to a different platform.
While it’s upsetting that our submission will not even be reviewed let alone accepted, I’m even more dismayed by the thought of how my advisors will take this bad news. We worked on this article for some time and underwent a rather intense crunch to get it completed before the deadline. They’re going to write me reference letters for a PhD program application this month, and I’m very worried that this submission mistake will reflect badly in those letters. My question is: should I break the bad news to them now? Should I wait until I finish my program here (in 3 weeks)?


texts: Is novelty requirement for PhD restricts the selection of research question?

texts:
From the answers to this question. We can clearly know that novelty is a basic requirement for a PhD degree.

Now, consider the following statements:

1) Is Goldbach conjecture true?

2) Is P = NP?

etc.,

All the questions have a lot of attention in that particular field and are not easy to get answers for them. But we cannot say it is impossible to get answers.

Suppose I'm a student and my PhD thesis should be novel. I am highly interested in solving one such question.

In this case, either my supervisor will forbid me in doing research on such question or there are more chances that I may not get PhD because of the sole reason of novelty.

Hence, to the best of my knowledge, either directly or indirectly, the PhD is narrowing down to the topics of recent origin, relatively easily publishable, less saturated etc.,

Isn't it true that the research question has been influenced by novelty aspect of PhD?


texts: How can I express "I can't find any papers written about this"?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate writing a paper for a philosophy course in logic. My paper is exploring a relationship between Leibniz' logic and graph theory. In writing the paper, I've found some material in Leibniz' work on combinatorics that (to me) strongly resembles graph theory. However, I can't find anything that seriously discusses Leibniz in relation to the history of graph theory --- everything seems to start with Euler. (Most read "Leibniz made early contributions to topology. Later on, Euler developed graph theory" and continue onward from there)

I'd like to be able to say "I looked around on Google scholar, etc, and I couldn't find anything about this topic" by way of suggesting "It's possible that the midterm paper that you're reading is bumping up against an original area of research."

What kind of evidence is appropriate in this situation? Would providing something like the number of results of a search on Google scholar be worthwhile? In general, is there a technique to demonstrate the absence of literature about a certain topic?


texts: How to interpret reviews that focus only on grammar mistakes but a decision of "consider after major changes"?

texts:
I recently received the reviews for an article I submitted a few months back to a journal. Reviewers did not comment on the results proved; i.e., they did not indicate the presence of any errors in the proofs. They only commented on grammar mistakes, which I need to correct. They also mentioned that the revised manuscript will undergo a second round of review by the same reviewers.

What is the probability of acceptance of the article?

The number of changes I have to make is : five (grammar plus spelling mistakes)

Recommendation is : "Consider after major changes".


texts: Replying to professor who said that I can join his research group as a PhD student next year

texts:
In search of a Ph.D. position, I emailed a professor and he replied me that I should recontact him next year as he does not have any available position right now. Also, he said that it will be too late for me as I will be wasting one year. Actually, deep inside, I do want to take a break of one year to spend some time with my family as I lived away from home for two years of my Master's study.

My question is, is it okay to tell professor that you want to take a long break before starting your Ph.D.? In other words, what is a proper reply to the professor who is saying that I should contact him next year?


texts: Is copying the exact statement of a definition or a theorem considered plagiarism?

texts: Let's say in a paper when I am talking about a theorem someone else proved, I state the result in the exact same way, word for word, as in their paper. Is this considered plagiarism? I would still give credit and citation to the result, just that I don't paraphrase the statement.


texts: Remote postdoc in the US legal questions

texts:
I have a postdoc fellowship in Europe that will end in several months and I am considering applying for a remote postdoc (my field is theoretical/computational and does not require any in-person work by default). I don't really know what are the formalities related to this kind of contracts.
I was thinking about such postdoc in the US. I only have a Russian passport but I had worked in the US before and I have an SSN and an active US bank account. Currently I don't have a valid US visa (and it would be probably difficult to get a new one for me). Is there a chance I might get a contract like that, at least theoretically? Or it does not even make sense to think about it?
UPD: the answer by @user2768 below suggests it is possible but depends on the willingness of the US institution to work with a company-proxy in my country of residence. Does anyone know how strong is this willingness in the actual COVID times? I.e. are there at least some examples of institutions that do something like that?


texts: How should I highlight extensive changes in a revised manuscript?

texts:
I revised and resubmitted my manuscript (rejected with the chance of resubmission) to the same journal. I listed all my answers to the reviewers' comments at the beginning of the document. Later, the editor asked me to highlight the changes in the text to make it easier to track them. Since I almost rewrote the entire paper (I mention it in the resubmission letter), about 85-90% of the text would be colored.

I have two questions:

Should I fulfill the editor's request even if almost the whole manuscript turns into let's say red? I'd prefer yes.
Should I place color tags in the Latex source file, or should I highlight changes directly in the pdf file? Which of these or even other choices are the most appropriate?


texts: Is it ok to mention assistance in grant writing on your CV?

texts: On behalf of my advisor, I recently wrote a grant to obtain some specialized and expensive hardware. Is it ok to mention this on my CV, even though the grant is in my advisor's name and if yes, what would be a good way to word it ?


texts: How can I quickly learn advanced math concepts for my PhD in engineering?

texts:
I am a PhD student majoring in Medical Engineering. My interest in Math is high, but my knowledge isn't. I have just a bit of knowledge in Calculus, Linear Algebra and a little Statistics (just can do mean, median and mode). When I entered my PhD, I was really surprised at the complexity of the concepts we were expected to know, like SLAM, Green's Theorem, Cholesky factorization, etc.
How can I catch up? The time constraint is really short (2 months), and I want to really understand all the concepts to the point where I can derive them. However, if I am stuck, I don't want to see the answer since it makes me feel depressed and that makes me realize that I really lack in fundamentals.
I really like Mathematics, but after seeing a lot of Math problems on YouTube where I cannot even get close to the solution, I am questioning whether I am fit for Engineering or not.


texts:
Even after having proofread my thesis many times, I think asking another person to proofread it before submission is necessary.

Is it considered cheating to ask a friend or tutor to proofread your thesis before submission?


texts: Is shifting from one field to another helpful for a good career?

texts: I have a Master's Degree in Pharmainformatics (which is quite IT oriented and different than regular Pharma Masters) from India. Since two years I am working on Microbial Genomics, which is Bioinformatics and now I have got a task of Database Management for next year. Is this shifting of fields increasing my exposure to different fields or am I just wasting time learning different things?


texts: How can I get the opportunity to talk during my meetings with professors?

texts:
I am a PhD student and often I will meet with my advisor and our collaborators.  But they always do all the talking even though I am the only one writing code.  And sometimes I will try to ask a question or make a suggestion and then half the time they will just talk over me.

I am wondering if this is because I am a woman, or because I am the only PhD student in the meeting, or if I am just not talking loud enough or something.  I am also wondering if this would keep happening to me if I quit my PhD and worked at a male dominated software company, or if it is more specific to academia, and made worse by the fact that everyone I interact with is much more senior than me.

I have another project where both my collaborators are women and this never happens when I work with them.


texts: What are some good practices for applying to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program?

texts:
Is it possible if I could get 4 letters of recommendation?
How far in advance should I notify those who are writing my letters?
Does activity on sites like Quora, Stack Exchange, and Reddit's AskScience
(as well as a personal webpage/blog of one's research) count as
public outreach?


texts: Are there any negative consequences associated with asking your former advisor about the status of a joint paper collaboration?

texts:
I coauthored a paper with my former advisor and he sent it to an expert for review before submitting it to a journal. A couple of weeks have passed by and I would like to know the status, but I have not heard anything new from my former advisor about the paper.

I thus am wondering:

  Are there any negative consequences associated with asking my former advisor about the status of the paper?

Simply put, I am afraid that my former advisor would feel that I am being pushy or something similar.

Moreover, if there are no negative consequences, I would like to know how to properly formulate such an email.


texts: Is it wise to use the paper reference numbers defined in CV in statement of purpose?

texts: If in my CV I assign to each paper of mine exactly one number, say [1] On ...; [2] On ..., and if I want to introduce my works in my statement of purpose, then is it wise to use these paper reference numbers in my statement of purpose?


texts: presented at a conference but don't appear in proceedings

texts: What's the protocol if you present at a conference but aren't listed on the conference proceedings? As in, my advisor (when I was a doc student) submitted the presentation under her name, but I was asked to join and present. So my name is not attached anywhere, but I was there and presented the work with her. Can I list it on my cv? Or just leave it off and consider it good experience?


texts: Is it discouraged to use a sans-serif font for a scientific thesis?

texts:
I'm currently working on my bachelor's thesis in Computer Science at a European university. I've been fiddling around with the layout a lot recently, and specifically tried out using fonts other than the default one that comes with LaTeX (Computer Modern). I found some sans-serif fonts, e.g. Fira Code or Karmilla, to be very easy to read and pleasing to the eye. I haven't checked with my advisors yet, but I'm almost certain they won't mind -- of course, I will still double check with them before handing in my final draft. There are no specific design guidelines set by my university in regards to fonts either.

Are there any other reasons to avoid using custom fonts, specifically sans-serif ones, when writing a thesis or dissertation?


texts: "Taking summers off" and the impact on tenure decisions

texts:
Assume there is a young tenure-track professor on a 9-month salary who is a good instructor and manages to get research published at an appropriate pace during the school year for tenure consideration. Could the professor's decision on how he/she spends his/her 3 months each summer affect his/her tenure decision? Specifically, if the professor chose to do something unrelated to teaching summer courses or doing research.

I'll propose two examples:

Spend the summers working a completely unrelated (perhaps lower-level) job just to mix things up or out of necessity or delight. Let's say as a cruise-ship tour guide or as a laborer (e.g., painter, landscaper, farmer, mechanic, etc.)
Spend the summer vacationing with family / kids.

If the individual got the work required for tenure completed during the 9-months of the school year, they could do whatever they want the other 3 months (since they are off contract) without repercussions, right?


texts: Is using another methodology for the same question I proposed plagiarism?

texts:
I am not sure if the following course of actions can be considered research misconduct.

My colleagues reviewed my research plan/concept containing unpublished papers and plans in a form of written documents. They took my scientific concept, changed methodology, published a scientific paper and attracted funding. Is this misconduct considering that they took my scientific concept and employed different methodology and they did this after reviewing my written plans, not before?


texts: Does assigning DOI numbers signal anything about the authenticity of a journal? Why do some journals not assign them?

texts:
I have seen few journals which are indexed in well known databases like Zentralblatt MATH, AMS Digital Mathematics, CiteFactor but still does not assign DOI numbers to published articles, what could be the reason? Is this a common thing ? Does DOI number add any value to authenticity of journal ?
Most importantly which purpose does this DOI number serve ?

I am asking this because I have heard if journal do not assign DOI number to its published articles then it could be low profile journal or even could be fake.
The similar question has been asked in Why do some papers not have a DOI?, but my query related to quality/authenticity of journal could not be resolved.

PS. My question is related to authenticity of journal "Computational Methods for Differential Equations" published by university of Tabriz, Iran.


texts: Can a discoverer give the name he wants to his finding?

texts:
Let's assume that some scientist discovers a phenomenon that has never been noticed before.

He wants to write a paper about it but he doesn't want to constantly write "effect of change of some properties blahblahblah". Can he therefore name this effect with a name of his choice? For example "Discoverer's name's effect". Or "fluffy puppy effect" (just because he likes puppies)?

The same for constants. Can one name newly discovered constant "my name constant"?

This question can be simplified to: "what are standards for naming new physical entities?"


texts: Scribd is surely a huge website, but I was wondering if there are some data on its usage in the academic world as a means for sharing lecture notes or research notes.


texts: How to specify Phi Beta Kappa membership?

texts:
I am writing a letter of recommendation for a student whose record includes membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.  How do I express this?

Jane was named to Phi Beta Kappa.
Jane was awarded Phi Beta Kappa.
Jane earned Phi Beta Kappa.
Jane was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Or something else?


texts: Getting into a Bioethics/Philosophy Master's Program

texts:
I'm situated in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and went to one of the country's top schools for my undergrad (University of Toronto). I have a Honors Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, Bioethics, and Psychology. I have four publications at the undergraduate level, have edited on an undergraduate journal, and have worked at least one serious research-assistantship (for a Psychology Dissertation; but this was done online and not in a lab).

I also had a pretty low CGPA (it's right between C+ and a B-). On top of that, I had very little contact with my professors (coming from a huge school and being relatively shy). So my problem now is one of reference letters and making my low CGPA look relatively "okay".

Does anyone have any ideas about who I could ask for reference letters for my Masters program in Philosophy or Bioethics? I know that the the person I worked for as a research assistant could help, but I've heard that's a bad idea. I can also ask one of the professors whose class I did really well in. The problem with him is that he probably doesn't remember me very well and I'm afraid his reference letter will come off as dull/"she asked me and I couldn't say no". For instance, he's given me reference letters before and I've never, ever received any interest/contact from the places I applied to. My other option is to get a reference letter from work. I actually work in university administration and the person I would ask has his MD from the Philippines. My concern with this is that the University is a Caribbean one and there's a lot of taboo about non-Western education (that I at least have noticed) here. I have asked previous TA's to no avail.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me?


texts: Purpose of participating in "student doctoral programs" in conferences

texts:
I am finishing my third year in PhD program, and have at least 1.5 more years before finishing.

I have just recently submitted a regular research paper for a conference, will be waiting for around 2 months to hear back. Meanwhile I see a deadline for the  Student / Doctoral program, for which the conference is expecting a 3-4 pg. research writeup.

I see such student / doctoral program section in almost any reasonable conference. I was wondering what to expect from such programs? Also I was wondering if it makes sense to apply for one, considering I am already submitting a paper there. Of course the paper isn't accepted yet.

Any general feedback about such programs? Thanks


texts: What is better, "self study" or a "research internship"

texts:
I am a 4th year student in an bachelors in Electronics Engineering program in a university in India. I am plan to pursue a career as a researcher in Machine Learning and computer vision, and hence I applied to "Master's of Science in Computer Science" degrees for fall 2016 term to universities in the USA. Sadly couldn't get an admission.

I am preparing for the fall 2017 admissions, and trying to look for ways to to improve application.

Which is better plan ?

1) Self study :

I plan on studying a number of computer science, machine learning and computer vision courses on my own and simultaneously working on projects. I hope that I publish 1-2 technical/research papers during this period, that would improve my chances of admissions.

I personally prefer this option, since I do not have a very strong background (as compared to students that have majored in computer science), and I would like to solidify my background. I am very sure that I can do a substantial amount work by adapting this plan.

But, I am not very sure how much will this help in strengthening my application. I am also not very sure about how I present the self studying part (do I write a blog? Do I make youtube videos? how much do these matter?) in such a way as to influence the admission decision in my favour.

2) Work in as a research intern

This is a plan that a colleague of mine proposed, and also one that my father insists on. I look for a research internship in the US, and work as a research intern for 3-6 months. I hope to publish 1-2 research papers during this term, which will strengthen my application. It might also lead to better letters of recommendation.


texts: What's the most efficient way to schedule a joint meeting with multiple faculties?

texts:
I have the find a time slot that all faculties can attend. As everyone is very busy, I want to do it in a most efficient way, i.e. minimizing back and forth emails as much as possible.

One trick I can think of is to ask each of them "What time you CANNOT attend?" instead of the usual "What time you can attend?" That way, I'm more likely to get all the free slots and able to schedule after only 1 round of emails.

Is there any further tips?

A big remaining obstacle is that the faculties still have to look at their calendar and write back to me all the time slots that are not free. I wonder if there's any technology (e.g. sharing a Google calendar?) that makes this process less time consuming for the faculties.


texts: How should I react to emails from unknown (to me) book publishers?

texts:
Since my Ph.D., I have occasionally received emails from publishers (that I've never heard of before) about writing a book. They all seem like mass emails that have my name and some title of a paper I wrote or the name of a course I've taught pasted in. The majority seem fishy and I just ignore them, but the most recent one may be a legitimate invitation. I'm not interested in writing the book they're asking for at this time, but I have to question whether I should continue to ignore all of these types of emails outright.

Are there smaller/up-and-coming academic publishers out there that are actively recruiting authors in order to expand their catalog? If so, should I engage with them at least for networking purposes?

I am specifically asking about books, and in particular textbooks, not journals. In searching through questions with publisher-related tags, I only saw similar questions about journals.


texts: Is there a difference between "forthcoming" and "in press"?

texts:
Once a paper of mine has definitively been accepted for publication, I typically list it on my CV and in citations as "forthcoming". Other people seem to use "in press" for the same category, and an author once asked me to change my reference to his paper to use "in press" rather than "forthcoming".  Do you feel that there's a literal difference in what's conveyed by these two terms, or some difference of connotation?  I suspect it simply has to do with conventions in different disciplines.

(Personally, I'm a little bit uncomfortable with "in press", since it suggests that the publisher is at least close to the process of printing the paper.  Apart from the fact that that doesn't make sense for online-only journals, I feel funny referring to a paper that I know will appear in a journal issue dated a year and a half into the future as "in press".  Actually being printed is a long way off.)

(On the other hand, I suppose that "forthcoming" might be confusing to someone who doesn't know its standard meaning in academia.  In theory, someone might interpret it as implying no more than "This is something that I'm planning to write, when I get around to it, and this is the journal I expect to publish in."  Obviously, that's not what most academics take "forthcoming" to mean, but any thoughtful person would understand that "in press" implies that you can count on the paper being published.)

EDIT: Obviously, given some of the answers to my question, the way that I thought that nearly all academics obviously interpret "forthcoming" was not correct (assuming that there's not too much weirdness in the sample I've drawn by asking the question here).


texts:
Occasionally I have some material to cover that is best presented in the form of take-home group projects.

Some student groups manage to find a way to coordinate their work well and to complete the projects successfully, with every team member benefiting from the collaboration. Other groups do not do so well:

Some groups evenly divide the work, but still work in isolation, losing the benefits of working with peers.
Some groups push the work to one or two students, while the remaining students merely contribute their name.

I wonder if there are strategies or tools instructors use that can encourage more groups to operate successfully while they are working outside of class?


texts: I have defended my thesis and the PhD was awarded. But now I realize that I have made a mistake. The same images are published for 2 different samples. ( I have  the real two images but somehow 1 was published in both cases). What should I do now? No one has looked into the matter.


texts: How much damage would I be incurring if I turn down an informal postdoc offer?

texts: So I have been in touch with a prof for a few months about being a postdoc in his group. He promised (verbally) one year of funding saying he was not sure if his grant proposal for my second year of funding would be successful. After being in touch with him over six months, he let me know that he the proposal has been successful and he now has funding for my second year. In the mean time, my opinion about being a postdoc and going the academic route have changed quite a bit due to family and other personal circumstances and I want to move into the industry [I have an offer in hand too]. My question is, how bad would it be, in terms of loss of face, if I said no to being a postdoc with the prof? I haven't signed a contract with him or anything and all communication between us has been informal. How do I even begin to explain things to him? I haven't even given a hint to him so far.


texts: Visualizing the list of all active academics for a given topic

texts:
For a long time I have been interested in visualizing the network of all active academics of a certain discipline worldwide (e.g. computer science, mathematics, or by a set of keywords).
I imagine a typical zoomable map of the world, with discs on cities proportionnal to the number of folks working there in that field.
By active, let's say "people who have (pre-)published within the past 7 years, or doing a PhD in the area". So the input would be a list of authors taken from journals and preprint servers, plus the list of all current graduate students from university websites.
Would there be legal problems to create such a list? If no, does it already exist somewhere? If there are legal problems, would a fully anonymized list (e.g. just ranges of numbers: 0-4; 5-9;...) be okay?


texts: I want to send a paper to be reviewed in an academic journal. An early version of this paper is available on a website as part of a grant I received. The early version is not in a journal nor is it reviewed. But one can read it online. The grant programme encourages publication of findings in peer-reviewed journals. However I am not certain whether or not this is considered 'previously published' material? Any advice?


texts: What to do with gaps in mathematical papers?

texts:
Assume the following is given in a published paper:

There is an important result.
The important result might contain a gap, as possibly some people agree.
The authors never respond to questions on that and so maybe they do not want to make it public that there is a gap, which can not be filled.
It is not likely to give a direct counterexample to the important result, but only to point out possible gaps.

What to do then? The problem is obviously that some people might quote and use the result in new papers. How about the idea that such gaps could be marked in the published version of the paper as a motivation for future research? Of course a recent editor of the journal should choose a new referee to decide whether to mark such a paper.
Also I think this should not have bad consequences for the authors as there might be reasons one is not aware of.


texts: What's the difference between Advisor and Mentor?

texts:
In a lot of Curriculum of undergraduate and graduate researchers I see they list their research experiences using Advisor and Mentor too, to describe that people who guide them in the research.

So, what's the difference between Advisor and Mentor in a academic space? I tried to find some information, but only got things about coaching, and business related. Thank you.


texts: Asking a professor to supervise research done with a different professor

texts:
I'm a 4th-year science student planning to do undergraduate research for credit during the summer. I completed an engineering course the previous semester and discussed research opportunities with the professor a handful of times. From what I gathered during our discussions, he is willing to have me do research with him and his other students; he wants to work out the details shortly before the summer starts.

My department allows me to receive research credit from other departments. However, there are some extra hoops to jump through, and the undergraduate adviser recommended that I find a professor who may be adjunct in my department to enroll me for research credit.

I brought this up to my engineering professor, who mentioned the name of a professor in my department that shares similar equipment for their respective projects. I have never met this other professor before, nor have I enrolled in a class with them.

Would it be appropriate to approach this professor and ask them to supervise the research I'm doing with my engineering professor? They wouldn't even have to actually supervise me; the bottom line is I'm wondering if they would be willing to enroll me for research credit within the department.


texts: What should a polite reminder email look like?

texts: I was looking for a summer internship at a university as an undergraduate student. A few days ago I received an email from a professor expressing his interest in having me into his group. I replied. But now it's been nearly a week and I haven't received any responce. I am not sure of the reason. Maybe the professor is simply too busy. I understand that but I really need to schedule my summer plans now. How should I write an appropriate reminder email?


texts:
I just received a PhD invitation letter from a German University which mentions that my remuneration will be 2/3 of full TV-L 13 position. I do not know what a TV-L 13 position is (Google is of no help here), and didn't want to be rude, so I am asking here first.
Is this a common position or specific to Germany? If anyone knows, currently how much remuneration corresponds to a TV-L position?


texts: Are there any fields that merges health and space science?

texts:
Currently, I am an undergraduate majoring in biophysics and minoring in astrophysics. I've always had a deep passion for learning about the universe (especially the field of astrobiology) and I also have strong interests in "applied" biophysics.

Initially, I wanted to pursue higher education to do research in either astrophysics or astrobiology. After spending time in both physics and biology research, however, I realized that research was not what I am most passionate to pursue and I could not find a calling in that career, although I enjoy the subjects very much.

However, through my experience in research, I was introduced to and developed an interest in the field of medicine because of many reasons, but especially because it provides me an opportunity to apply my biophysics passion to work on "practical" things such as creating new medical technology.

My problem is that pursuing further studies towards medicine by going to medical school would almost completely isolate my passion for space. So, currently I am at a crossroad and do not know where to pursue my higher education.

I can't find much information on how I could possibly continue to pursue both passions, which is why I am writing to ask if anyone has any ideas if there are any fields or directions that would still allow me merge my two interests (medicine and astrobiology)?


texts: Can I have a diagram from another book in my work with proper credits?

texts: Is it a nice practice to use diagrams from another work and mention the name of the author? If yes, what is the correct way of doing it? Citing the author in the footnote or an in-line citation?


texts: Where to publish comments on a scholarly book?

texts:
The past year, I've been reading a mathematical manuscript from a well-known university on a particular well-known, graduate curriculum subject. The manuscript language is not English. One can imagine a manuscript on, e.g., Algebra in, e.g., Spanish in the form you usually give it to your students before you hand it over to, say, Springer.
At a certain point I found myself latexing my comments; now they have a subjectively better quality than the original manuscript, and they can be used as auxiliary material for everyone working with that manuscript. The comments are in English. Today, the manuscript volume is around 300 pages. The comments are around 50 pages, are 90% self-contained, and could be potentially turned into a small booklet. The comments are evolving and growing. The comments do not repeat any manuscript material except the usual stuff such as defining notation and claims which deserved new, better proofs. Subjectively, the students who wish to comprehend the manuscript need such comments or equivalent ones.

I have no time for 100% self-containedness (which would take me a few weeks), not even any time to find a coauthor (which would take me at least a few weeks till infinity). But I do have time to put the booklet into a publishable format, which will take me less than a week.

The author of the manuscript is out of question to be contacted in any way (the reasons therefor are private and cannot be elaborated on here).

Now I learned that the manuscript is in the process of being turned into a book by a well-known research publisher. What would be the best way for me to publish my comments

to get research credit by entires in traditional listings of research papers/journals/books,
to get an ISBN, if possible?

I would like to know whether such auxiliary material is typically accepted by an established research publisher (say, AMS, or Springer, etc.) and, if so, what are the typical conditions. Or, otherwise stated, if it is possible to get it published at the same publisher as that of the manuscript at all or whether I should take another one?

PS. This question contains no personal details in comparison to a previous one, which I deleted.

UPDATE: It is no more my intention to earn a bit from selling. It would be just a moral support to get 1 cent per sold copy, but nothing else.


texts: How can I tactfully decline my supervisor's suggestion and set boundaries?

texts:
New here. So I just started my postdoc about a month ago (great time to start a postdoc during a pandemic I know). Learning the ropes and trying to kinda set my own path in the lab has been challenging and I find using my voice or voicing concerns to be hard. So my boss mentioned something about me possibly going to use a piece of equipment on another campus about 2.5 hrs away, it would require me to go daily for about two weeks. I don't really need this equipment for anything at the present moment but she has really dug her heels in about staying productive.

My biggest concern is I'm really serious about these stay at home orders and have been kinda putting that to the side to go to work daily. Because I am new I don't want to seem to difficult, but this recent idea just seems like too much in general let alone during these times.

I have a PhD and I thought that would magically make me more assertive alas it has not. Any ideas on how to tactfully set some boundaries especially since it is in regards to my health.


texts: Can international graduate student take the free online courses offered in Coursera?

texts: Is it necessary to notify to the graduate school when taking the free online courses?


texts: Should citations on PowerPoint slides be shortened?

texts:
Are there guidelines or best practices for adding references to a research PowerPoint presentation?

For example, should I put the full citation at the bottom of the slide?

  Liu, J., Rinzler, A. G., Dai, H., Hafner, J. H., Bradley, R. K., Boul, P. J., Smalley, R. E. (1998). Fullerene Pipes. Science, 280(5367), 1253–1256.

If you have even a couple references, this slide starts to look really busy.

I've seen quite a few presentations with truncated references (just first author, journal, year), like so:

  Liu, J., et al. Science (1998)

Is this shortened reference alright? It looks cleaner on the slide, but at the expense of the ease of the viewer locating a reference. Any other solutions? If it makes a difference, this would be for the engineering/science fields.


texts: How can I politely reply and educate students with unreasonable requests?

texts:
I am a professor at uni, and I have been experiencing a number of unreasonable requests from students on these days, some of them arguing that they need a special treatment due to the current Covid-19 situation, such as students asking for:

additional exam papers with full solutions (there are already three past exam papers with solutions available).
a list of the exact topics that will be examined in each of the exam exercises (this is, if the exam contains five questions, then I should provide the corresponding five topics).
providing the exact structure of the exam, such as one question about definitions, two questions about chapter 1 of the lecture notes, one question about chapter 2, ...
labeling slides and clearly specifying if they cover a topic that will appear in the exam or not (not just if it contains examinable material, but if the exam contains a question about the topic in the corresponding slide).

I want to reply to these requests indicating that they are just asking for too much (I may as well send them the exam with full solutions), and to teach them that the point of the exam is not to regurgitate memorized solutions (i.e., life does not work like that).

What is some advice on potential ways of replying and covering both aims: being polite, but also educating them about how unreasonable/entitled those requests are?


texts: Graduation Robes - What accolades does this guy have?

texts:
I am currently at my brother's graduation ceremony at Adelaide University, and in the Professor's/Post-grad seating area, sits a man fully in green. What does this special gown mean?

(Apologies for the awful picture)


texts: what to do when someone has same name as yours and in IEEE search they show both peoples paper?

texts: I recently published a paper on IEEE transactions journal. in my paper link, when I click on authors tab and then my name,  another pages is opened and shows many papers but they are not mine. it seems, someone else has same name as me. Is this case common? what should I do?


texts: When should I appropriately use adjectives and adverbs?

texts: I heard using adjectives and adverbs should be avoided; which scenarios should I use adjectives and adverbs?


texts: How to start doing undergraduate research in mathematics when I have limited support from my professors?

texts:
I have no research experience and I'm in my junior year of college. I'm very interested in doing research in any field at this point (combinatorics or linear algebra would be especially preferred) and I fully intend to apply for math grad school during my senior year.

I have a decent amount of coursework (abstract algebra [groups, rings, fields and special topics], analysis [real, complex, functional, measures], linear algebra, topology, combinatorics, number theory, partial differential equations, and more). I want to do research this summer (even without funding if need be) and throughout my senior year (I was declined to every REU that I applied for, unfortunately) and I plan to work alone since I have no other options (that I know of).

There aren't any student projects going on at my own college (except for one on wheels) and my professors (5 total though one is leaving and another will be on sabbatical) only seem willing to help if I provide a research topic and if that topic is related to their own expertise (I don't fit in this category) which means that I've had no help so far. I don't know where to look since most journals and blogs seem to be deeply invested into very complicated projects where my ability is likely not high enough to understand. There is no graduate program at my college so there are no grad students.

My questions is this: Where can I find potential research projects or at least a start? How does one decide on what they want to do? I know people from other colleges but they were simply given projects to work on so they didn't know how to find on otherwise.


texts: How do the admission committees look at an applicant's profile if he has not yet figured out his area of research?

texts:
I want to go for masters admissions (and a PhD at some point too). The problem is I am not sure where exactly my research interests lie. As of now, I have almost equal research experience and publications in distributed systems and computer vision and I'm equally interested in both.

In my personal statement, I can't quite figure out if I should stick with one of them or simply state that my domain will be one of these two.

How well will the committee see this issue if I mention both?
Will it be fine if I stick to distributed systems and yet mention that I have research interests in computer vision too?


texts: Upset by male classmates openly comparing female students according to physical appearance

texts:
I'm a female student studying computer science (CS). Some of the male CS students have given me a physical ranking compared to other female CS students, and it has me really upset, but I don’t know what to do about it.

One of the students in particular enjoys telling me when he finds another girl in the vicinity more attractive than me. For example, a girl friend of mine told me I looked pretty today; and the one male student then jumped in and said I wasn’t as beautiful as the actress on the TV show we were watching. Another time, an attractive girl walked in to the computer lab, and he said: “And you thought you were the hottest girl in the lab!”

He’s not the only one. When we are in other settings (not male-heavy, CS classes), I often hear that I now have “competition” since there are other pretty girls.

I’m not sure what to do. I am friends with some of these men (or so I thought) and have committed to working on software projects with them that I can’t back out of. In addition, the school is very small so I can’t avoid them.

What do I say? How do I explain that I’m very upset by this, and not because I’m jealous of the other women? The men I’ve told have said not to worry because they think I'm pretty – they don’t seem to get it. I’m not sure I’m explaining it right.

Please help. I am starting to cry during class.


texts: How can I best use my time as a Mathematical sciences PhD student in the UK

texts:
I would like some useful advice regarding pursuing a PhD in mathematical sciences in the UK. I've just started my PhD in mathematical modelling and would like to know as much as possible about how to make the most of the entire journey. I have some ideas here and there but I want to know what things to do and things to avoid, planning ahead, useful websites etc.

Topic/Question have been edited to broaden scope of question.


texts: What to do when being responsible for data protection in your lab, yet advice is ignored?

texts:
I work in a lab where we conduct research on data acquire from human subjects. As we investigate the effects of different diseases and the related treatments, the data is highly sensitive in regards to data protection.

Most of the lab members work with Windows 10 and I am supposed to set up additional Windows 10 PCs. I have serious concerns about this as Windows 10 is known for sharing much data with Microsoft, e.g. every file which is related to a software crash may or may not be send to Microsoft and thereby unintentionally sharing sensitive health related information with Microsoft.

When mentioning these issues, they are usually waved aside with arguments like "nobody else cares about that" or "this would slow down our work". In general is there very little interest in data protection and the associated risks.

I know the risk of a data leak actually having a effect is rather small, yet I'd like to know how to back myself up in this situation. Should things for whatever reason go sour, I'd like to be on the safe side.

I am in a PhD position actually hired for doing research. Yet due to my background in computer science, I am 'officially' responsible for everything related in our lab to electronic data processing.


texts: Why do some Elsevier journals use a single column format?

texts:
I believe that the majority of Elsevier journals use a standard dual column document class.

However, some journals that are owned by Elsevier use an alternative single column format (e.g. J. Comput. Phys.; J. Sound and Vib.).

What is the reason for using a different format for these journals? My first guess would be that since historically those journals were single column format they may keep this format, but why then did Elsivier move them to their own single column format (narrow margins and smaller font) instead of moving to dual column (easier to read) or just keeping the same words-per-line that the journals had beforehand?

Personally I find it more difficult to read the current single column format (post 2002)