texts: Accepted subject to minor revisions. How should I list this in my CV?

texts:
I submitted a paper to a good journal in theoretical computer science. Today I received an email from the editor stating that the status of the paper is:

"Accepted subject to minor revisions".

The revisions suggested by the referee were only typos. More precisely, there were only 5 typos. The referees strongly recommended to accept the paper.

To tell the truth, this was the paper with the least number of corrections I ever had (even though it may have been the one which required the greatest amount of my time to write). Often when submitting papers to conferences I get a much bigger list of corrections/suggestions. Nevertheless, the paper appears at the conference's list of accepted papers much before the corrections are implemented. So shouldn't the same reasoning apply to journals?

Question: Should I list the paper as "Accepted" in my CV / homepage?

In other words, what do theoretical computer scientists / mathematicians write in their CV in this case?


texts: Training potential vs not knowledgeable in fellowship grant writing

texts:
I have always wondered about the differences between one having "training potential" versus him/her not with enough professional knowledge.

For the F31 fellowship and many other PhD/Post-doc grants, NIH seems to care a lot about whether or not the applicants have training potential. I understand that, but if I say I would need this grant support so that I can learn C++ in the near future, wouldn't the reviewers can naturally argue: if you don't know some C++, how can you manage this project like you proposed to?

In another word, how should I phrase my training potential to make it not misleading please? Thank you.


texts: Is it normal for an academic conference to ask for a revised abstract before paper acceptance?

texts: I applied for an academic conference and inquired about international travel stipends.  I later received an email stating that they were interested in accepting my paper but wanted an elaborated abstract.  I later sent a revised abstract but was told it was too long, I was sent a personal email asking for a concise summary of my research and was asked if I was a Ph.D student and in what discipline?  Is this normal for conference organizers, With so much effort do they really want to accept my paper?  Is this normal for conference organizers, I don't have any experience with this and conferences?  Does it mean they want to accept my paper?  I have never been asked to revise and resubmit an abstract and was wondering if this is normal conference behavior?


texts: Is it cheating if I develop some part of my MSc. thesis in a hackathon in a team?

texts:
I am working on my master thesis in software engineering. I am going to present the idea of my thesis in a hackathon (startup competition), so most probably, we will make a team and develop a minimum viable product based on my thesis.

The question is:

Can I mention to this minimum viable product as the validation of my thesis?
Or it would be considering as plagiarism since i have not developed it alone, but in a team.


texts: How do I reference something I've referred to, but not directly quoted. Or do I?

texts:
I'm writing a report and I've used a website for some of my research. I haven't directly quoted anything from the website but you can tell that's where I got my information from if you know what I mean.

I'm required to use APA 6th referencing.


texts: How widespread is sharing of slides/assignments among educators?

texts:
Often, when taking a course at the university level, I amuse myself by Googling phrases from the instructors' slides, assignments, and other materials. I have found, without exception from any instructor, that the material is more or less identical to some resource I can find online, often course materials posted by a professor at a highly prestigious university (e.g. Stanford). In some cases I will find material that is 10 - 15 years old; other times it is undated. Sometimes I can find the same material posted by a dozen different professors at a dozen different universities.

A few times in the past, I've entertained the idea of reporting the professor for possible plagiarism, but I've never followed through on it because

If the material is undated, there's no way to know who published it first
For all I know these slides and assignments can be purchased from vendors. I have occasionally had a professor use a complete course package, where the publisher of a textbook also offers the assignments and tests to accompany the textbook.
I have been unwilling to risk having to re-take the course, if the instructor is suddenly fired mid-semester for plagiarism

(In some cases the materials are sprinkled with enough informal language that it's obvious that they were not purchased from a vendor.)

Since it seems like all of my professors get all of their slides and assignments from somewhere else, I am curious how common it is to share course materials between instructors. Do college professors commonly purchase their lesson plans and assignments from vendors? Do instructors and universities share premade courses with each other?


texts:
In order to publish a research paper in a journal, one of the requirement may be the reproducibility of results.
I'm wondering, in academia, how does an un-reproducible result even exist?
Is there any classical example for it, in any branch of academia research?


texts: How to avoid disrupting the narrative in a scientific paper when you have done too much work

texts:
I have been working on a project for almost a year now. This project involves the implementation of a computational method to calculate material properties and the application to different material systems. I have also done original modifications to the method during the course of the implementation.

At the moment I am in the process of writing down the details of the implementation and the results of my calculations. I have envisioned that the best way to break down the large amount of work that has been done is to write three papers. Chronologically: 1) one with the improved methodology with pertinent application results, 2) another one with the implementation details and 3) a final one focusing only on application of the code to a very interesting set of systems.

I think that writing papers 2) and 3) will become easier as I can simply refer the reader for details to 1) and 1) & 2), respectively, but I am having quite a bit of trouble finding the right narrative for the first paper, since I want to focus on the big picture of the theory and methodology but the little details of the implementation seem to constantly get in the way. This comes in the way of "we are trying to achieve this big objective A but in the actual implementation we did things a little different by changing B1, B2, B3, ...". This would distract the reader from the main point and becomes extremely disruptive from the point of view of the narrative flow. But somehow, it feels wrong to leave these details out since readers would otherwise assume we use the previous approach, or would simply not know how exactly we carried out the work.

I am wondering what are useful and effective strategies to write papers that can be read smoothly when there is a lot of fine detail involved that has not been previously published.


texts: Who should I ask references from for my computer science master's application?

texts:
I am graduating around this October-December with my BSc in computer science and I want to apply for MSc degree abroad. However, I need around 2-3 referees to write the reference letter. Typically in Finland you don't have much contact with the professors personally. Only one that really knows me academically is my bachelor's thesis adviser who is most likely willing to write me a letter because my thesis received a really good grade.

But the other two references seem harder because I don't know the professors well really. For example would it be okay to ask someone like the department head if I show him my transcripts and CV even though he doesn't really know me personally?

In general, who should I ask the other two references from in my school if I only know one professor well? Technically, I will take a few courses before graduating still so I might have a chance to interact more with the professors but in Finland the student-professor interaction is not really strong usually.


texts: Will it be unethical to ask the author of a published work to share their code?

texts: I have been working on reproducing the implementation of a model described in a published paper. The paper was published in 2007. I have been trying for quite some time, but I am unable to make any significant progress. Can I contact the corresponding author of the paper asking them to share the code for use in my research? After I understand the implementation, I intend to modify the model based on my own research work. Will it be unethical or rude to ask the authors this directly?


texts: Value of contributions to Wikipedia when applying for academic jobs

texts:
The quality of articles in Wikipedia has grown tremendously in the last few years. A "good article" requires a big list of necessities, including coherence, readability, comprehensiveness and credible references. As such contributing technical articles requires academic merit, good explaining skills and mastery of the subject.

How much value is being accorded to doctorates' contributions to Wikipedia during faculty recruitment?
Since, on paper, a Wikipedia article should exposit an article lucidly to a (relative) fresher in the field, can Wikipedia contributions be taken as a partial measure of one's teaching abilities?
How effectively could one list his/her Wikipedia contributions?


texts: Statement of Purpose or Statement of History?

texts: I am applying for graduate programs in Physics (at the US universities) for Fall 2018. I am writing my Statement of Purpose and I read a few successful SoPs before writing my own and it made me all confused. All of them talked all about what they had done and had only a few sentences here and there talking about what they liked or what was their purpose. In the end, they talked about what topics or research groups they would like to work with using just one paragraph. It is safe to say that more than 90% of each of the SoPs I have read talked about what they have done rather than talking about their purpose. So, I want to confirm whether it is the custom or they were not really good SoPs? I understand that stating only the purpose does no good and one must back it up by showing a corresponding background but I think a ratio of something like 60% background 40% purpose is the maximum I would like to lean towards the background. Is this a wise thing to do?


texts: Undergraduate in Computer science and now graduate in Bioinformatics

texts:
I am a computer engineering undergrad (from Asia) and now trying to pursue my graduate studies in bioinformatics (in US). I have quite a strong programming skills and now more than one year of experience too. Since I do not have a strong background of biology, is it good to choose that field? Also, I have been doing some research to get any assistantship (have applied to few colleges) but could not start a communication with the professors. How should I approach?

Any help would be great to me.


texts: Advice for interacting with students reported for cheating on their midterms

texts:
We (professors + TAs) are reporting a few students for cheating on their midterms to the head of undergraduate studies.  We had been monitoring their activities pretty closely, since we noticed they had been cheating throughout the semester on their weekly quizzes but felt that evidence was not compelling enough (e.g., 15 minutes, few questions).  But with their recent cheating activity on an hour-long exam, we are confident in what we are reporting to the University.

In the event that they are allowed back into lectures for the remainder of this semester, how do we interact with these cheating students?  Should we ignore them?  I expect there to be some friction between them and us, and I wish to not be too distracted from teaching the rest of the class of students that have been working diligently and honestly.


texts: How to start research in a field with high standards?

texts:
I'd like to do research on the field Natural Language Processing. However, the current state-of-the-art (BERT) has raised the standards and for me it feels discouraging to start in this field. Should I avoid doing research NLP since it will cost me a lot of time and there is a risk of not improving upon the current standard? Or should I focus my research on the limitations of the current state-of-the-art? Or should I broaden the topic and focus on a different related topic? What would you advice in this situation?

And besides that, do you start with an research question or would you do an initial literature search first?

Best,
CamelCase


texts: Getting a Masters at a school without courses I want?

texts:
I was accepted into a Masters program (MS in Computer Science) at a nice university that has research groups working on the things I want to research (natural language processing).

However, looking through their course catalog, it seems they don't actually have any courses directly focusing on NLP. I like almost everything else about their program except for the lack of courses, though they do have courses in machine learning and related concepts.

Is it a bad idea to go to a school that doesn't have courses related to my exact focus?


texts: Same data, new method, same outcome – can I publish it?

texts:
I applied a new method to a data set, which had already been analyzed in a research paper. My method is generally considered better, but it only slightly modifies the results and does not affect the conclusion of the paper aside from improving the accuracy of results by a small amount. The paper is about a classification problem.

Is it possible to write a research paper about this?


texts: Can a person of average intelligence get a PhD in physics or math if he or she works hard enough?

texts:
Or is a PhD a ceiling that they'll never be able to reach, no matter how hard they worked?

By average intelligence I mean a person who has an IQ of 100.


texts: PhD Length: are shorter PhD degrees (from different countries) valued differently in other counter countries where PhD Is a longer process?

texts:
This question is partially inspired by the question about degree nostrification.
In some countries a PhD is a 3-3.5 year degree (Denmark and the UK for ex) whereas in others like Sweden a PhD is usually 4.5-5 years. Quick disclaimer, I don't mean the time by which a person takes the degree, but rather what is considered "normal pace".
Additionally in the US many PhD programs include some overlap of masters-level courses, I have heard.
Does this get taken into consideration later down the road, when applying for positions, in academia or in industry? If so, how? I am thinking specifically in terms of: a) work experience, and b) age/seniority limits for applying for grants etc.
Edit: Reading some of the answers, I perhaps need to clarify a couple of things:

It's not a matter of whether shorter/longer is better? Just a simple question is whether a PhD is the same wherever, regardless of the length of the program

I did not mean the time it takes an individual to finish the program, but rather what the program is intended to include.
In Sweden, when I was doing my PhD the departments define what a PhD program from that department includes. For me it was 1 years worth of coursework, 3-6 months of department work (teaching, outreach, IT support etc) and the remaining 3 years corresponding to research (not necessarily in that order), totaling a 4.5-years long program. In other departments the teaching was 1 year long, and their PhD program 5 years in total. It's this "planned time" what I a referring to.


texts: What are "advance articles" and how to cite them?

texts:
I noticed some journals are publishing advance articles that are not part of a published volume (i.e. https://academic.oup.com/isr/advance-articles).
I am a bit confused in regards to what is the status of these publications. Will advance articles be part of future volumes or will they remain standalone? Also, how would you cite them in Chicago 17 given the lack of issue and volume numbers?
Thank you.


texts: For an article that I want to publish, I would like to report the results from a survey in a table format but I do not know if I should put Zero or just a blank space/dash (-) whenever the score/percentage is zero. I cannot find any requirements from the journal concerning this issue. I cannot find any articles from that journal that would help me with this issue. How should I proceed? Any ideas?


texts: PhD four years ago; can I publish a paper from PhD work without my supervisor's name?

texts: I did my PhD 4 years ago. I was not comfortable with my guide but I concentrated on my work, and I successfully completed the PhD. But I published a little work with his name as correspondence author. But now I am in good position in another country, so I need to publish my PhD work without his name as co-author. If I publish a paper of my PhD work without my supervisor's name, what will be happen? Are there any legal problems that will be raised?


texts: Manuscript accepted date is just one day after revision -- How to interpret?

texts:
I was reading few journals (in Elsevier) in my field (Biology) and I noticed the time of acceptance period from the revised version is received "Received 8 November 2016; Received in revised form 17 April 2017; Accepted 18 April 2017". Does this mean that the revised manuscript received today is immediately the other day? Or is there any other interpretation for this?
Thanks!


texts: Suggestions for making the most out of a set graduate school program?

texts:
I was recently admitted to a US graduate program in Pure Mathematics with an assistantship that requires teaching. I begin in the Fall.

The program is designed in such a way that Fall and Spring have Analysis/Algebra and their continuations, respectively, give or take optional seminars and a teaching supplement course. In the summer following the first academic year, Qualifying Exams in these topics are required that both allow one to continue into the second year of the MS program and/or pass on directly to PhD program. Both MS and PhD have dissertations at the end of the program.

My concern is the first academic year with the courses restricted to the two A's. While definitely necessary to prepare for the QE's, I wonder how much time that leaves me to study other topics, perhaps topics that would be part of an eventual dissertation. With time split between these intro courses and teaching, which will no doubt be time consuming, how much time does that leave for personal exploration? For branching out into other areas of mathematics?

The immediate conclusion I drew was to read other topics. But self-directed learning moves slow for me, I'm easily distracted and life gets in the way. The classroom environment is where I learn best, to be honest.

I guess I am looking for recommendations to make the most out of the graduate program's pace - how can I build the foundation required for my program while also exploring topics that will not have explicit instruction? To explore other areas is my ultimate goal for returning to school. Suggestions?

Answers both relevant and irrelevant to math are appreciated.


texts: Submitted wrong file while submitting the revision

texts: My paper has been accepted in a journal with minor revision. However, while submitting the revision I mistakenly submitted a wrong file. What to do in this case ? Should I inform the editor ? Thanks


texts:
I'm currently pursuing a master's degree (math) in the US, and I have been accepted to a different PhD program (applied math). I've been offered funding for only four years, though, because I am already pursuing my master's degree. Is this something of a big concern? I'll essentially have to start over at the new program by trying to pass their preliminary examinations, and all other universities seem to provide funding for 5 years, even if students come in with a master's degree because in the US, the PhD process seems to take some time to complete.

Any ideas and suggestions as to whether this is something of a big concern, and whether students can get funded for an additional year even if they're coming in with a master's degree?

Edit:

Here are some details about the two programs. The program that has offered me 4 year of funding has 2 qualifying exams. I will have to take classes for one of those qualifying exam. In principle, I think I can take the second qualifying exam soon, but I would still need to enroll in one one semester class to cover the last 20-30% of the material. This second exam, however, would require me to take at least some substantial time hitting 3-4 books, and practicing a lot to ensure I can actually solve the exam itself on the day of the exam.The program that has offered 5 years of funding has 3 exams, but I can fulfill the requirement for two of them by taking a sequence of graduate level course. One exam has to be written. The exams at both schools are of comparable difficulty, I suppose, with minor differences, of course.

I have been offered TA support by both schools, but I suppose this takes up a lot of time when it actually comes to getting down to doing research. I also don't know how the research experience, of course, is going to pan out.


texts:
"You became a professor at Cornell without ever having received a
  Ph.D. You seem almost proud of that fact.

  Oh, yes. I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system
  is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German
  professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those
  conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going
  to spend their lives being professors. But it has become now a kind of
  union card that you have to have in order to have a job, whether it’s
  being a professor or other things, and it’s quite inappropriate for
  that. It forces people to waste years and years of their lives sort of
  pretending to do research for which they’re not at all well-suited. In
  the end, they have this piece of paper which says they’re qualified,
  but it really doesn’t mean anything. The Ph.D. takes far too long
  and discourages women from becoming scientists, which I consider a
  great tragedy. So I have opposed it all my life without any success
  at all.

  How is it that you were able to escape that requirement?

  I was lucky because I got educated in World War II and everything was
  screwed up so that I could get through without a Ph.D. and finish up
  as a professor. Now that’s quite impossible. So, I’m very proud that I
  don’t have a Ph.D. and I raised six children and none of them has a
  Ph.D., so that’s my contribution."

(From [1])

Which are the Academic alternatives to a Ph.D.? (Actively participate in seminars, write papers,) being supervised without earning a degree? How you become deeply involved in the community of your research interests without a Ph.D.? How you become known in your field? How do you write to a professor for supervision without earning a degree?

[1]: A 'rebel' without a Ph.D. A conversation with the mathematical physicist Freeman Dyson on quantum electrodynamics, climate change, and his latest pet project.


texts: Is it justified for a teacher to refuse your project proposals just because he wants something unique?

texts:
I'm new here and am not sure whether this is the right place to post such a question or not so rather than downvoting just tell me I'll move the question (as I don't want to be banned for having low rep).
I'm currently in my 3rd semester of university majoring in Computer Science and this question is related to a course I'm taking - 'Data Structures and Algorithms'.
A little bit about the teacher -> graduated from the same university in which I'm currently studying last year and was hired to work here
So, the situation is that we have to submit a project (GUI based application made with Java and JavaFX) by 2nd January. Now, here are the problems:
The teacher demands we

we implement every data structure we use from scratch (I have heard this is standard for this course).

only use data structures he hasn't taught us and that all our projects should have unique data structures. Basically, no two groups/individuals can use the same data structure and as you can imagine this will lead to some people being stuck with highly obscure data structure whose implementation or ways of implementation either might not be available or not clear for the person to understand.

use as many data structures as possible. I researched online on a few websites and found out that data structures are important but they are only a small part of the project there are a lot of other things.

As if that wasn't enough of a problem, he rarely responds to our queries on discord or through emails and the upper management doesn't listen to us.
I have also proposed a few project ideas but they were all rejected because there weren't enough data structures used or he didn't want us to use that data structure or some other reason. A few of these were:

Text Editor (not enough data structures).
Sudoku Solver (overused).
Any project that used stacks to implement history and backwards and forwards navigation (don't use stacks).
Todolist (too small project).

Now, I ask is it justified for a teacher to do such things just for getting a truly unique project?
We have barely 3 weeks left to start and finish our projects as not even one of use has gotten their projects approved yet.
EDIT:
Something happened last night, the students that were doing projects in groups collectively decided to not bother getting their projects approved anymore and are now going to go with whatever they want to, they will still use data structures but they are no longer going to strive to meet any of his criteria. They were extremely frustrated and being on the end of their rope they have decided on this and are saying that they will deal with it on the day of the evaluation.


texts:
I am up for tenure at a US university. It is a regional comprehensive 4-year primarily undergraduate university; it's mostly teaching school but has 10-15% graduate students.

I am allowed a maximum of 5 letters of support. I have two from department colleagues (both long-term tenured and one is a sub-dean) and three external. My chair has asked to remove the two department ones as this is basically just ‘not done’ (against the spirit of the guidelines, the guidelines make no mention of who can or cannot write letters). It is not written in either the department tenure guidelines or the university tenure guidelines that you cannot use department faculty for references.

Is it common not be able to use tenured department colleagues to write letters of support for tenure?

Update: thanks all. Got the tenure thing.


texts: Is it appropriate to include actual maths in a mathematics personal statement?

texts:
So, the title speaks for itself, but essentially over the course of the last few weeks I've been doing a course in complex analysis, and some of the identities that pop up are immaculate, and I think including one of these will enable me to convey that not only am I passionate about my subject (mathematics), but I am also well informed. Is this an acceptable thing to do?

In my opinion, it feels "too unconventional to be acceptable," but I'd like to hear your input rather than my own.

Any responses are appreciated.


texts: Is there any real benefit of an honors designation?

texts:
I am currently an undergraduate major in both physics and chemistry. It is possible for me to acquire a BS in both areas, departmental honors in both, and a delegation from the honors college in four years, but is this a wise use of my time?

An honors designation at my university requires 5 classes all 3 credit hours each. The only real immediate benefit I can see is early registration and the classes do not affect my GPA if failed, but the early registration isn't as useful to me because to the amount of credit hours I already have.

So my real question is, should I drop the honor college in favor of other opportunities? Without the honors college, I have the ability to take more courses related to my degree and even graduate courses. It also allows more time for internships and experience outside the academic setting. On the other hand, how beneficial would an honors delegation look on my degree or transcript? Which details do employers weigh more? Does it matter to colleges for graduate studies?


texts: Cannot complete thesis and blocked to go non-thesis. What other avenues towards a degree exist?

texts:
I began my MS 3.5 years ago with the thesis option. The research objectives required by my graduate committee chair will require another half a year at the very least. I am not willing to offer any more of my time having already exceeded my anticipated graduation date by 1 year.

I decided to cut my losses and change to a non-thesis program. I am prevented from doing this by my committee chair who does not approve of this transition.

So my committee chair has me at a bit of an impasse. I cannot spend any more time towards his research, but I cannot switch to a program of study that no longer requires more research without his approval which he is not willing to give. Where do I go from here?


texts: Is a Masters year 1 in France the equivalent of a UK Masters?

texts:
I am currently in the final year of my undergrad degree in the UK. I would love to do a year-long master's in France. I have realised their masters are two years long.
Would it be worthwhile doing the first year of a master's in France and would that be the equivalent to gaining a Master's in the UK or would I need to complete both years?


texts: Pure math field for PhD when planning to go into industry

texts:
I'm a mathematics student just starting my third year. Since entering grad school, I have become rather firmly convinced that academia is not the place for me. The intellectual work is great, but the life side sucks. I hate the administrative bloat, the grad student/post-doc slavery system, being constantly surrounded by people with no social skills, the whole toxic self-sacrifice culture. I think I want to just go into industry, find myself some niche, or work my way up a corporate ladder. Probably in tech or finance since that's who needs mathematicians.

Problem: my research area is real pure, pretty much no direct applications at all. So, since deciding to go into industry, I've started to look at another field which I have taken a class on and is interesting to me, but I don't really know very much about yet. It's a relatively new discipline which has seen recent applications in data. There's a couple of people in my department who do related work so I might ask one of them to be my advisor. (I don't have one yet- the first two years here are very coursework heavy and this is the semester to choose.)

The trouble is, I feel like I'm starting back at square one. I fell in love with my original field during undergrad and have been going hard on it ever since. I was research-level before entering grad school, published a paper in top journal, had a bunch of ongoing side projects, and have read enough that I can easily hold conversations with professors about most topics. I know 100% I could bang out a thesis in the next three years if it was in this field. I even have an original topic based on a generalization of my earlier paper, and have made some progress on it on my own.

In my new field, I feel like a beginner. If my peers in the new field have the same level of expertise as I did in my original field, then I'm way behind. I might take longer to graduate, or have a crappy thesis. Or maybe I'll discover I just have no talent in it, that my brain is only built for original field. I don't know.

  I am very confident in my original field, but from an applied perspective it is useless. Is it worth anything to get a PhD in a pure field if you know 100% you're going into industry? Would it be worthwhile for me to attempt to change to something more relevant in which I am a beginner?


texts: Paid temporary job as research assistant

texts:
I'm a master's degree student. A professor of mine offered me work on some parts of his paper that I have good knowledge about, because of my background. He said he'll pay me in return, and acknowledge me in his paper. I accepted and suggested a 10 EU/h work and he accepted. I suggested that rate mainly because this is my first experience of this kind (and hence, I don't know the average payment rate) and I thought it would at least take 40 hours and the final money will be enough for me to minimally live where I live. Now it turns out that (I guess, unfortunately?) I was faster than I thought and the work was done in around 12 hours. At the same time, of course, I'm not going to lie about my work hours just for the money. What do you think I should do? I had counted on that money, and it seems that my speed is turning against me!

PS 1: He's friendly with me; I'm just thinking bringing this up might make him feel I'm overstepping my friendship with him, and that's the last thing I need him to think.

PS 2: The paper that he's working on is part of a big university project that he's here for. Accordingly, the payment will be done from the budget of the project, not his pocket (or maybe they're the same?)

PS 3: The contract will be prepared by the university in a few days. If I ask him to raise the money and he accepts, he'll probably be able to convince the university for that.


texts: A question about continuing education in an Engineering major or Sciences

texts: I am MSc student of civil engineering and I am so much interested in sciences, mostly applied mathematics. My MSc thesis research is also focused on some analytical and numerical solutions to governing equations in field of the civil engineering. It is too difficult to start a BA in Mathematics, because I have to whether continue my education in civil engineering and apply for a PHD or seek for a job. I am so much interested in analytical solutions which exist in mathematics and applied mathematics; differential equations and PDEs. How should I satisfy my interest in mathematics, besides my future job or in my future academic life?


texts: How strong of an obligation does an advisor have to attend his/her Ph.D. students' graduation?

texts:
I will be graduating my first Ph.D. student this summer. My student is quite strong and has done good work, and I am quite proud of him!

I do face one conundrum. He has expressed the hope that I would be there for his Ph.D. hooding and graduation ceremony. It seems like an utterly natural, totally reasonable thing to ask for. I was tenatively planning on being out of the country at the time, so I need to decide whether to cancel my plans to attend his graduation.

On the one hand, missing my student's graduation seems like the equivalent of missing your best friend's wedding. Or perhaps worse, missing your child's wedding, or your own. On the other, this seems to be very common. My own Ph.D. advisor was out of town for my graduation and I asked another professor on my committee to escort me in his place.

Is there any kind of consensus?


texts: Is there a way to prevent the production team from messing up my paper?

texts:
After reading this post and this post, and after I also encountered a production team that made many unwanted edits in my paper (such as changing words and numbers in the text itself, removing separating lines in tables, etc.), I would like to know if there is any way to prevent this from happening in advance. I.e., after my paper is accepted and before it is sent to production, is it reasonable to contact the production team and say something like:

"Please do not edit the text of my paper. If you think there is a grammatical error that must be edited, please notify me in the author queries and I will fix it myself".
"Please do not remove the separating lines from the tables, as they convey important information".

?


texts: Is time spent in data collection considered "contribution" in Academia?

texts:
I've been educated that the correct scientific theory and analysis are far more important than the data collection.

Let's compare the two papers. The first group of authors collected their data for two years, but they have done very poor analysis, and lead to laughable results.

The second paper simply uses the data from the first group; however, their method is far more rigorous and they got a rigorous result.

Which one is more valuable to academia?


texts: Can I use the same Preliminaries section for multiple papers in Computer Science?

texts:
Some writings in Computer Science papers/conferences usually include the "Preliminaries" section, where we write the general notations and basic knowledge necessary for understanding the contents of the papers.

Can I use the same thing that I wrote in Preliminaries section for (conference or journal) paper A, in Preliminaries section for other papers B, C etc. also? Because basically I will need to say the same thing over and over again..


texts: Including unrelated (but current) job on CV for PhD application?

texts:
I finished my master's degree in September, and I have applied to PhD programs that begin in September 2017. Most of the schools asked for a CV with the application. I've had to take a part-time job in retail to make ends meet while looking for a better job, and I included the retail job on my CV under the employment section. My CV, of course, highlights my more relevant positions (teaching/research assistantships), along with my conferences, awards, etc. But I'm concerned that I may have made a mistake in including the retail job at all - I only felt compelled to do so because I wanted to be honest about my current employment.

Will including the retail job on my CV possibly be seen negatively by PhD admissions committees? I am hoping that it is a non-issue, but I am not sure.

Edit: I realize similar questions have been asked but I don't think my question is a duplicate of the one that was suggested. I'm asking about whether it was a good idea to include current employment, not hobbies and interests.


texts: Papers from thesis - short term postdoc?

texts:
I am a PhD candidate in Physics who handed in his thesis a few months ago and will defend soon. I am based in Sweden and I am now applying for postdocs outside Europe in different fields and working (mostly "translating" materials which was already in the thesis) on three papers from my thesis. At the moment I have no papers published, but my thesis work is quite good.

Do you think it could be possible (and a good idea) to find a short-term (1-2 months) grant, so that I can work full time and finish the papers before starting a postdoc (my supervisor has no funding for that)? Otherwise things will just take longer, I think. Do you have any suggestion regarding where to look? Thanks!


texts: Is it possible to gain admission to an engineering master's program without an undergraduate engineering degree?

texts:
I tried to search for this and could not find it. This is my first stack exchange post so go easy please.

Here is my situation.

I have an undergraduate degree in economics from a top tier economics program, and a very top tier university in general, with a GPA above 3.5. After working in economics research at a highly respected institution for 2 years after graduating, I've realized I want to pursue a different career. The work I do is highly quantitative and involves some computer programming using C++. I'm also pretty good with mathematical and data analysis/statistical software, and have worked multiple RA jobs as an undergraduate.

Ideally I would do something related to software engineering or electrical engineering since I'm interested in computers. My question is, to what extent is this possible? Is it possible at all? Will universities see that I don't have an undergraduate engineering degree and reject me? Do I have any sort of shot here given my background?


texts: If I'm already at a decent school but don't feel like graduating, and a professor at a university agrees to take me as a pure math PhD student, can I join the PhD program or must I get a Bachelor's. The universities I am interested in are medium-upper level math universities (Northwestern, Berkeley, UCLA, Ohio State, etc)


texts: Is use of the word "via" appropriate in an academic essay?

texts:
In many cases the words via and through are interchangeable. However, is via viewed as acceptable to use among the academic community, typically?

I personally have a distaste for it, but that doesn't really mean much.


texts: A journal keeps requesting reviews after I have declined any more

texts:
I recently received an invitation to review two papers from a journal(!) through EDAS, which I have an account with, only because many years ago and while I was studying my Bachelor degree, I submitted two papers through their portal. I had some free time and reviewed the papers right away.
After submitting my reviews, I received other review invitations from the journal's editor. I wrote back to him and explained why I cannot review any more papers, also posted a short response on EDAS portal. However, he kept sending papers! Not only that, he is sending multiple emails reminding me that the review deadlines are approaching fast!
This does not bother me! What bothers me is that one of the papers I reviewed was a very poor paper and its authors withdrew it. After their withdrawal, EDAS sent me and other reviewers an automated message. The surprising thing was that the paper had 9 reviewers!! In other words, the editor had spammed all of us in a way, and EDAS had no mechanism of stopping him from doing this!
Is there anyone else with similar experiences? Should I do something about it or just let it pass?


texts:
I am an undergraduate student who is majoring in physics and computer science (two majors) at Baylor University, but had a bad first semester while taking Elementary Chinese, Calculus I, General Physics I, and Introductory Chemistry I.
I withdrew from Calculus I, but received a B- in physics and a C in both Chinese and Chemistry. In the summer before beginning at the university, I took Calculus I twice at a junior college during 6-week courses, receiving an F the first time and a C the second, but began it again under recommendation from the math department until realizing that I lacked the time management skills necessary to complete all the courses successfully in the first semester. After receiving an A in every class after the first semester at the university, will these first grades harm my image in the eyes of graduate school admission boards or employers? I am seeking admission with universities such as MIT and the University of Chicago for graduate school, so I would like to know what is thought about this problem.


texts: Why pay a fee to have your article (in a subscription-based journal) made open access when you can just put the preprint on arXiv?

texts:
Upon acceptance, some journals offer open access through an optional fee. This model differs from the usual open access model in which all authors pay a fee and all accepted papers are accessible without restriction. Addendum: the latter is referred to as simply open access, while the former is referred to as hybrid open access.

My question is as follows: I publish (most of) my papers on the arXiv, and as such, the preprints are picked up by search engines. When the corresponding camera-ready journal version appears, anyone with an internet connection can still access my arXiv paper, and hence I always opt not to pay the optional fees to make my paper open access.

In fact, most respected researchers in mathematics/computer science/physics/etc. also publish to the arXiv. As such, I am confused as to why this model of open access exists. What demand is it satisfying? Is there some advantage to paying these optional fees that I am not seeing?

P.S. -- The journal I have in mind currently is a SIAM journal. Their open access policies are listed here. Their open access fee is $2,500 USD (this is not an unusual number for publishers following this approach). This (at least to me) is a substantial amount of money per paper.


texts: How can an undergraduate TA ask to give a lecture if they have given one in the past?

texts:
TL;DR: I have given a lecture once for this course in the past during an emergency, and would like to re-challenge myself once I get adequate prep time, as I feel it is an important experience. Is it a possibility for me to do it in a non-emergency situation? How would you feel if an undergraduate TA asked for your permission to give a lecture?

Some background: I am currently a undergraduate teaching assistant for a junior-level undergraduate research statistics course in the US. There is one other TA besides me who is a third year PhD student (referred to as GTA from here). Both TA's only teach the lab and help grade. We (normally) do not go to the lecture sections.

During the third week of school, there was a big conference that GTA was going to attend, so I was supposed to teach the lab alone. No problem. The Friday before, I have a meeting with GTA to cover the lab content. While there, he informed me that I was also supposed to cover the lecture that third week. Apparently, our professor was ill and would not be returning, and I was the only one available to cover the lecture. The GTA and all three of the faculty members with prior experience teaching the course were all going to this same conference and could not teach it. Apparently, an email was sent to GTA, HR, our advisors, and all the important people except me. In the chaos, our professor forgot to inform me that I was giving the lecture.

The first lecture was the following Monday morning, and I did not have enough time to prepare a PowerPoint with the lab prep also going on at the same time. The professor did not have any material pre-made for the course for me to reference (PPT, etc.), so needless to say, I completely botched that lecture. Fortunately, I was able to prepare a very good PPT for the Wednesday lecture and redeemed myself and managed to get through all the required material. However, the whole experience has left a sour taste in my mouth. I KNOW I can do better if I have more than three days to prepare, and I know that week's performance reflects poorly on me. This experience also made me realize how important it is to practice preparing for a lecture before I become a professor and it have a possibility to poorly reflect on my tenure package. I would really like to have a chance to give another lecture in the future for this course .

Now I know my giving a lecture was a very special case, as I have never heard of an undergraduate student giving a lecture. The professor is currently not back yet, and the graduate TA is teaching the lectures. I was informed that the responsibility should not fall on me again this semester, as there are three experienced faculty members that can cover the lecture before it comes to that.

While I probably will not do it until next semester given that the professor is not back yet, I am just wondering if this is something that would be appropriate for me to even try asking permission for. I am not sure how I should approach him on this topic. How would you feel if an undergraduate TA asked for your permission to give a lecture?

Just to add: The professor is not aware that he did not inform me that I was giving the lecture, so I don't want to bring up the fact that I want a second chance, since I don't plan to make him aware of our miscommunication. I don't want to guilt him into giving me another chance if it would make him uncomfortable.

Thank you for your time.


texts: Can a phd thesis be in a different area than the master thesis?

texts:
First of all let me begin with saying that I have seen there is a question quite similar to this one, but I thought I'd ask again so I could get more specific about my situation since I am guessing it's different for every major.
I am currently doing a master in mathematics, thinking about possibly pursuing a phd after that. During my undergraduate studies in mathematics, I mainly took pure math classes with an extra emphasis on algebra related courses(group theory, field theory, applied algebra). So far I thought that if I were to do a phd it would be in algebra.
During my masters I also continued with pure math classes, such as real analysis, algebra etc. But I am currently taking a class in theory of computation and it has really caught my attention. That along with the fact that during the last year of my undergraduate studies I took a class in design & analysis of algorithms which I really enjoyed, has made me thinking that maybe if I were to do a phd, it wouldn't necessarily be in algebra after all but maybe in something in the interface of mathematics and theoretical computer science or in foundations of mathematics,or maybe even something that combines algebra with theoretical computer science if there's even something like that. Not really sure yet.
My questions are:  1. Can my master thesis area be different than my phd area? If yes, how different?Say if I were to do a master thesis in pure or applied algebra, would it be possible to then pursue a phd in something that maybe combines math and theoretical computer science?  2. What kind of background is needed for a phd in a topic somewhere between pure math and theoretical computer science? Would maybe a second masters in computer science be needed? (Also I guess a good 3rd question would be if maybe having taken only 2 classes in theoretical computer science that I enjoyed is not enough for me to be able to tell if I would actually like something like that?)


texts: Is it necessary to add mentions such as "Any opinion expressed in the paper does not necessarily reflect the view of the funder"?

texts:
I sometimes read in papers that the opinions, findings, and conclusion or recommendations expressed in the paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the [funding agency name] in the acknowledgments section. E.g. in this paper:

  Stanford University gratefully acknowledges the support of the Defense
  Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Deep Exploration and
  Filtering of Text (DEFT) Program under Air Force Research Laboratory
  (AFRL) contract no. FA8750-13-2-0040 and the Defense Threat Reduction
  Agency (DTRA) under Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) contract no.
  FA8650- 10-C-7020. Any opinions, findings, and conclusion or
  recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors
  and do not necessarily reflect the view of the DARPA, AFRL, or the US
  government

Is it necessary to mention this? If the authors omit such statements, does this mean that the opinions, findings, and conclusion or recommendations expressed in the paper do reflect the view of the funding agency?


texts: Do graduate students placed on academic probation recover?

texts:
I just completed my first semester of my master's program in EE, and had a rough time adjusting. In the end I received two B's and C (in a class I should have done better in). I realize now that undergraduate effort won't cut it for these classes.

I have a semester to get my GPA up to a 3.0, and I'm sure that if I put in the effort I can get there, but I'm very worried about my ability to succeed. I had a 3.5 undergrad GPA (hard first couple semesters, but finished real strong once I got the hang of things) with good research experience.

Are there others that have been in this position? Does everyone hit the ground running and get a 4.0 first semester? Or am I doomed and not fit for graduate school?


texts: Advice: How to prepare myself for Adjunct Teaching

texts: I will be receiving my Masters Degree in MIS this summer. I have a bachelors in Computer Science.  I also have 3 years professional working experience. I am interested in teaching as an adjunct at community colleges. I have no training in teaching. I had an interview recently. One of the questions that came up was what is my teaching philosophy. I had no answer being that it was the first time had heard of the topic. My question is what can I do to prepare myself to be a better candidate for these positions. Do I need to take teaching courses or is there some reading that I can do to prepare myself. Are there any certifications for teaching at this level?


texts: Is finding answers and paraphrasing cheating?

texts:
Sometimes I have trouble coming to conclusions on my own sometimes and I really do love learning but...

I sometimes scour the internet looking for answers to homework questions and then paraphrase them. I honestly retain and understand better from this, although I know I'm avoiding penalties by doing it.

Do you think this would violate an academic integrity policy? I am never copying the answers, strictly putting them in my own words, and often shortening them to the main points.

Thanks!


texts: In a research proposal for a computer science Ph.D. application, should I use the mathematical equations or just text to explain my ideas?

texts:
I am writing a research proposal for Ph.D. admission. I am confused as to whether the research proposal for the Ph.D. application should be written like a formal paper. In a formal paper that I submit to a conference, I know that the paper will be reviewed by peers in our field, so I always try to write formal mathematical language when the plain text could not fully explain my ideas.

However, I am aware that some professors in the selection committee may not be in my field so they may not understand the equations in my field and I should therefore write down my ideas in a simpler way.

Am I overly concerned? Or I could just write the research proposal like it is a normal paper?


texts: Leave Industry for Ph.D. without Burning Bridges

texts:
I have been working for one of the big tech companies for the last year, but I plan on leaving in August to start a Ph.D. The company I work for has a reputation for not always treating all of its employees well under all circumstances (e.g. making people they don't like miserable until they quit), so I am very wary about letting anyone know of my plans to leave until two weeks beforehand. On the other hand, I have a manager and mentor that have done a lot to help me in my current job, and I have good relationships with them that I would like to keep. Leaving with only two weeks notice will certainly have a negative impact on both of them, and I would like to avoid that if possible.

other relevant details:

I don't think any of the coworkers in question would support my decision to do a Ph.D., as the way to get higher up in this company is to stay in it, not to leave to get a Ph.D.
I don't ever plan on returning to industry, but it still seems like a bad idea to burn bridges

Can I ensure no negative impact on my coworkers while also ensuring no negative impact on myself?


texts: Sources of Income for US Engineering Faculties

texts:
As a PhD student it is interesting to know what are the financial opportunities in pursuing a future academic job. From what I understand, engineering faculty members in US have sources of income other than their 9 month salary. Now, can anyone explain what are the various sources of income for such faculties? I am also interested to know about the "cap"s, if any applies.

Plus, I am curious to know whether faculties can pay themselves from non-industrial projects (Such as NSF projects).


texts: Are USA math graduate students ready for graduate school in math?

texts:
I have seen some answers on this site which say that a bachelor of science in mathematics in USA is a general degree and a student needs to study other subjects as well. It also seems to me that many students who did their undergraduate in USA do not have any research experience in mathematics.

I did my undergraduate in an Australian university and it took me 4 years to complete. Each year, I had to do 8 subjects which all of them were mathematics subjects except one subject in the first year which was a programming course. I also did summer research at the end of each first three years in summer and I had to write a research thesis in the honor year (fourth year).

This makes me wonder if those people who did their undergraduate in USA are ready for graduate school because it seems that they may not have done enough mathematics subjects?

Even though I did all mathematics subjects in my undergraduate, I feel that there is some gap in my mathematics education for graduate school.

How those people who did their undergraduate in USA feel about this? do they also see this gap and that they need to work hard?

What do I mean by ready for graduate school?

By being ready for graduate school, I mean that for instance a graduate student at university of Pennsylvania have seen all the materials in graduate preliminary exam in his undergraduate. Or if a graduate student takes any first year graduate courses, the pre-requisites for doing that course are satisfied and he does not need to learn assumed knowledge in a particular first year graduate course.


texts: Can PIs compete for good postdoc/PhDs by offering better salary than others?

texts:
Not sure if the pay rate for postdocs and PhD students are set nationally.  But I was wondering if PIs compete with each other for good students by marking up the (rather small) salary.  Is this current practice or a good idea or bad idea?

Thanks,
Shuheng


texts: Why do papers found online often not say their publication date?

texts:
I have noticed that it can be hard to figure out how old a paper is from the paper itself. It is not that it is impossible: most of the time it can be found by a Google search. But why is there usually no publication data on the first page of a paper?

Here is an example: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~fritz/absps/imagenet.pdf


texts: How shall I reply to the editor after a major revision of my paper?

texts:
After I received referee's comments, I revised my manuscript a lot. The referee actually made one major comment, and I addressed that in one paragraph. But I also changed other parts of the paper in several places. Now, I am going to reply to the editor, and shall I list all the changes I made for the editor and the referee?

Thank you!

Drakemarqius


texts: Applying for postdocs / lectureships - sorting bad advice from good (UK, mathematics)

texts:
Long story short: I got my PhD a few years ago, and am currently in a temporary job. Anticipating future job applications, I found myself an experienced, senior local mentor. My time in this job is now almost at an end, and I've been submitting dozens of job applications, including to jobs far "below" the one I'm in now. These applications have so far all ended in rejection without interview. So I quietly reached out to some other experienced members of the faculty for their advice.

What I'm experiencing now is a case of too many mentors spoiling the broth. I have been told variously that, in order to get a job, my main, most urgent priority should be:

writing higher-quality papers to publish in top journals
polishing and publishing my older preprints, even if they're not so high-quality
speaking at conferences/seminars on the wider international stage
organising conferences / similar community admin
applying for more grants

etc. etc. I've also been given a list as long as my arm of things that are not my most urgent priority, but are still important. They're all great pieces of advice individually, but I'm finding the lack of coherent prioritisation overwhelming given the few months I have remaining, and I'm struggling to imagine how I could achieve some of these things even if I had a year or more left.

How should I be prioritising my time in the remaining few months? (For the purpose of this question, my goal is to end up not being forced out of UK academia without another job lined up.)
How should I prioritise my time in my next temporary job, if I manage to find one? (For this question, my goal is to end up with a permanent research/teaching contract in the UK within the next few years.)

Edited to add extra background information on request:

I'm in pure mathematics.
I've written several papers that have been published in good-to-very-good, well-known journals, though nothing nearing e.g. Inventiones. The preprints that I haven't yet submitted are likely to be similar. Of course, I'm working on more and better, but I am worried that I'll be forced out of academia long before any of it is finalised, much less published.
I have spoken at conferences and seminars internationally, a couple of times. I'm on the lookout for more opportunities.
I have never organised a conference or done any big admin work like that: my living situation is far too precarious to allow it, because of the lack of stable job.
The amount of smaller admin work (e.g. peer review, session chair) I've done is very limited. I'm on the lookout for opportunities, but not finding anything.
I've applied for a couple of small awards, and I'm in the process of applying for my first grant. Most of them I'm not eligible for, because they don't replace your salary, and need to be co-signed by an employer willing to pay your salary (which I don't have).
I'm aware that postdocs and fixed-term lectureships are different jobs. I include them because their job descriptions are almost identical and because I am applying for both. If you can only answer on one, or have to answer separately for each, please do.


texts: Is it appropriate to bring to an editor's attention non-ethical publishing that can't be directly proven?

texts:
The situation concerns ephemeral facts, that can't be proven to an department outsider.
The sole two authors of an accepted paper have virtually no contribution to the result, but both hold prominent positions of authority within the department and are on top of that have close family ties with each other.

The main theoretical research was done by two computer scientists and the experimental setup & execution by a whole team of software engineers. Both groups are routinely engaged in R&D, but are affiliated with a company, that is owned by the two authors.

These affiliations are nowhere stated in the accepted version of the paper. And there is no chance that anyone will publicly come forward for fear of retribution. So, there is literally no physical evidence.

However, I feel that the conditions warrant that the editor of the journal that accepted the paper be made aware of the circumstances.

I stand to gain nothing from either accepting or retracting the paper, nor am I employed by said company, but I am affiliated with the department and feel that such behavior corrupts out department and science as a whole.

So the question is whether it is appropriate to write an email to the editor stating the above and additional information?


texts: How should a teaching assistant explain his absence to the course instructor?

texts:
As an international TA getting accustomed to the landscape of my University, I managed to earn the ire of my instructor/professor for having not shown up during the discussion/office hours.

In a strongly worded mail, he has sought an explanation while reprimanding me saying that another instance of this would lead to serious consequences.

I am afraid that I may lose my assistantship as I curse my folly for being so careless. I have apologized to the Professor over mail but from the tone of his reply, he seems to have not considered it. Please suggest how I must handle this predicament.


texts: What is the average age of first tenure track positions in the Physics in the US?

texts:
On average, in physics departments in the US, at what age do people get their first tenure track positions? What about associate professor and full professor?

Update: Several commenters have asked for my reasons for asking this question. Here we go.

I grew up in a different country and did my undergraduate studies in a different field, but I always liked physics and decided to become a physicist. When I started my graduate studies in physics, I had no idea what I was signing up for, partly because of my different background, but also because my mentors did not think this was relevant information.

Seven years was the average time it took for a Ph.D. in my institution. Many very good students took much longer than that (and no, having a masters degree didn't help to graduate earlier). Then postdoc for 3 to 5 years, then apply for job and not get any, start a new postdoc, need new results from the new position before applying for jobs. Dragging on for years while watching all of my friends who did not go to graduate school, got jobs, got promoted on their jobs, saved money for their retirement, got married, bought houses, had kids, sent their kids to school, and I am still in school.

I am not sure what decision I would have made had I known all the facts back then, but now that I am starting my own career, I feel like it is very important for me, as a mentor, to give my students all the facts. I do not want to be biased by my own experiences, so I am asking for statistics.


texts:
I have 8 years of IT experience in India, I want to do a Master of Science in the US.
Would my already long professional experience hurt my chances to find a job after the MSc? I intend to settle in the US instead of coming back to India.


texts: How can a decent student find a doctoral advisor from another faculty?

texts:
I am a last year student at the Moscow State University (I study maths). At our university there are two somewhat similar mathematical faculties: Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics (this is where I study at the moment) and the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics - CMC for short.

After almost five years of study, when the time came to think about what will my PhD research topic be and where to apply for PhD study, I started to investigate possible options and eventually found that all the chairs that are close to my interest are of the CMC faculty. So I started contacting professors from CMC, attending their courses, detailing my interests and asking them whether they are interested in teaching me etc.

To my disappointment, all three persons whom I've contacted so far said that my interests are close to theirs, that they may have been interesting in working with me but, unfortunately, they have many students of their own, they have many applications and it would be difficult for me to find a PhD student position at their chair.

I also want to mention that I consider myself a decent student - I have a top mark in absolutely every course I've attended during my 5 - year study. Still, no one seems to want to even bother taking a "foreign" student (or even recommending me to some fellow scientists who may be less busy with students). I don't know what is the reason for this and how to overcome this, and after several refuses I feel demoralised and close to abandoning the very idea of a PhD study. Maybe you can give me some advice on what could help?

Thank you very much in advance.


texts: How to deal with different stylistic advice from two professors/institutions

texts:
I'll start by sketching my situation. I first studied a couple of years at institution A where we were taught a couple of things concerning academic writing. (E.g. don't use passives, distance yourself from your work.) After that I did another bachelor's at another institution B (same field, same country, other city). Even though we didn't have a course dedicated to academic writing there, the promoter of my bachelor paper taught me not to distance myself from my work:

  You did the research, and not some leprechauns, right? People should
  know that you did all this -- it didn't happen magically.

However, after my bachelor's I returned to institution A where I am currently going for my master's. The thing is: even though my grades for the first semester were good, I received feedback from different tutors and professors that my work is too personal and that I should use more passives to distance myself. This is completely the opposite advise my promoter at institution B gave me. Normally I would just go with the advise of the current institution, as that's where I am studying now and I don't want to challenge their style. The problem is that the promoter of my master thesis is the same professor as the one who promoted my bachelor paper. He changed institutions the same year that I went from institution B to A and of course he wants me to write from a personal viewpoint - whereas his (new) colleagues advised against that.

Tl;dr: promoter tells me to follow one specific (personal) style of writing, but his colleagues and other of my professor seem to like a non-personal approach better.

Note that this question isn't restricted to the distinction between personal vs. distanced/distant academic writing. I am interested more in the situation itself: what should one do when his or her promoter advises for A when the institution's approach is the contrary?

A promoter here in Belgium is a professor who is your supervisor when writing your bachelor paper or master's thesis. He or she is typically very knowledgeable about the topic you are writing in. In the process of writing your bachelor paper or master's thesis you can ask him or her questions related to your topic. Not only that, I have found that you can basically ask him or her anything related to academics - as long as it's morally and socially acceptable. He will also be the one will grade your thesis at the end of the year - possible together with a jury. The problem thus occurs that in my case this person gives me advice for something, whereas other authorities in the same institution seem to give advice against that. Since he is the one who will have to grade my work at the end of the year, I'm not sure whose advice I should follow.


texts: Why don't universities reveal the extra time they give to students with disabilities when taking exams?

texts:
Many (most?) universities have a system of allowances for students with particular medical conditions/learning difficulties including dyslexia, dyspraxia and others.  The most common allowance is extra time in exams.  Sometimes this can be an extra half or whole hour but in other cases can be, for example, 8 hours allowed for a 3 hour exam.

There are various arguments in favor of giving this extra time but of course the merits of doing so can also be debated.

When the student graduates, as far as I know no universities include a record of this extra time on their official transcript.  This appears to hide an important piece of information from a potential employer and also makes it very hard to compare one set of grades with another or to interpret the significance of any particular set of grades.  Of course an employer might not care how long it takes a student to solve a problem or write an essay as as long as they do it well. But for some employers it might make a crucial difference.

Why don't universities provide this information on the official grade transcript that a student gets?


texts: A reviewer has stolen my idea – what can I do?

texts:
I submitted a manuscript for publication in May (it was about DFT analysis of a specific system). The manuscript was rejected in October; one reviewer had made some suggestions, and the other recommended rejection as there is nothing new in the paper. I revised the manuscript according to the first reviewer’s suggestion and submitted the manuscript to another journal.

The second journal rejected my manuscript as one reviewer stated that similar analysis has already been published. I checked the reference introduced by the reviewer, and it is exactly the idea of my work with a slightly different method and different discussions. The manuscript had been submitted for publication in July (two months after my first submission). It is hard to assume it is just a coincidence.

I wrote to the editor of the first journal and asked him if the reviewer who rejected my manuscript is one of the authors of this new paper. He replied that he cannot disclose the name of reviewers under any circumstance due to data-protection laws.

Now my research is useless as I cannot publish it anymore. What can I do?


texts: Are full-time and part-time postgraduate students who graduate in same year considered to be the same batch?

texts:
As I understand, in academia 'Class of 20XX' refers to students graduating during the year 20XX irrespective of the year they joined college.

Suppose for a postgraduate course, one person chooses the full-time study mode while another chooses the part-time one. Both of them graduate during the same year. Are the both considered as the same class?


texts: I was interviewed on-campus for an assistant professor position and was told that I would be contacted this week for the result. Yesterday, I received an on-campus interview from another university to be done in 3 weeks. I am excited about both positions and do not know how to respond the second invitation. If the first institution offers the position, I am going to accept it as they will not wait for my decision for a couple of more weeks. But I also want to see my chance and the possible offer of the other university. I just don't want to spend their time and resources for me if I receive an offer from the first university. Is it possible to ask for an accelerated interview by telling the truth? or any other suggestion? Thank you.


texts: 2nd-Year PhD student. PI is taking a new job. Will I be able to transfer?

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I'm a second-year PhD student and my PI is accepting a new job. My PI has yet to confirm whether or not I can transfer with her, but I am anxious about the whole situation. Are there any circumstances where they wouldn't let me transfer?

I'm her only student, and the other two technicians cannot come with. I am hoping that this will somehow give leverage to letting me transfer, rather than her having to move and start the lab all on her own.

Much thanks in advance for all of your assurance...

anthony


texts: Applying for postdoc position in UK - Physics

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I am currently doing my PhD in Cosmology in Germany.
I would like to apply for a postdoc position in UK. Targeted destinations would be Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College.
Do I have realistic possibilities of finding a position there, even though I have not studied for my PhD in the UK? I have the impression that in UK they tend to hire people coming from the UK.


texts: Main author might want to exclude me from the list of authors

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About a year ago, a foreign researcher invited me to co-author a review paper with him. He had already a 50 page long draft that needed editing and improving. After I was done with it (literature review, re-writing big parts of the text, adding big parts to the text, enlarging the bibliography) the paper was 70 pages long; submitted, accepted, in press. So far so good.

A few months later, he invited me to co-author a follow-up review, to which I happily agreed. This  time his draft was of a poorer quality, so in fact I re-wrote it from scratch, using the first version as a skeleton or table of contents.

After I finished and sent him the paper, he stopped responding to my e-mails since several weeks (I don't know him personally). I fear he might want to submit the paper without including me as co-author (it's a justified fear, but I'll refrain from describing the details of our collaboration).

What can I do if this will indeed happen? In its current form, the paper is partially my intellectual property, and I don't allow to publish it without me. I have all the source files and e-mails regarding this work. Could I write to the publisher explaining the situation and demand to withdraw the paper?


texts: How important are independent undergrad projects in grad school applications for CS?

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This may be a particularly specific question, but I am at a point where I can choose to take additional mathematics courses in the final year of my degree to strengthen my transcript for grad school applications to Computer Science, but I am also able to choose to do an 8 month supervised research/project course (essentially an undergrad capstone/thesis equivalent).

Of course it depends on the schools, but in terms of general grad school admissions, would a personal project that requires a large amount of independent work show more strength than a few additional (but still important, some schools I've looked into list these as preferred prerequisites) math classes?


texts: What is special about the MDPI special issues?

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This question is related to this question, but specifically regards the special issues by MDPI. They seem to have a quite high number of special issues for every journal per year and as far as I understand, they are only different from the regular publications by having a dedicated topic and an associated editor.

One thing that confuses me is that papers are already published before the deadlines (this special issue with the deadline in October already has 4 papers published).

Is there anything else that is special about these special issues?


texts: How to contact a potential supervisor when I don't know if I am a good enough candidate?

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I have been following certain mailing lists for PhD opportunities. About a week ago, I found a really interesting position. Unfortunately (?), it is in a top school, so I don't know if my qualifications are enough.

I will finish my master's early next year with decent grades (average is near 4.5 of 5.0). However, my grades in the bachelor's degree are not that good (around 3.0 of 5.0). Anyway, I have several publications, teaching and research experience, and a notable research award. I do not meet desired level of proficiency in one of the sub-components of their preferred english language test (though my average score is higher than what they want).

How would I go about asking more information about the position? I would like to send a brief email but mentioning all of the relevant "positive data" is rather difficult. Should I just ask some specifics, and give a URL to my CV?

What to do here?

(I am aware of the other question asking about how to get bad grades past admission committees. My question here is not the same one. Instead, I would like to know how to make the first contact)


texts: Why are many obviously pointless papers published, or worse studied?

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In the field I specialize in (I'm currently a moderator of crypto-SE), I see many obviously pointless papers published, often in publications where that costs money. I imagine that's the same in many fields. Why are such papers published, or worse, studied?
Example: there are tens of thousand papers on image encryption, including thousands at MDPI, which has Article Processing Charges. Yet, the subject is almost¹ enough to tell the work is pointless: once digitized, and especially after it's compressed (as almost all images are today), image is data that can be encrypted just like anything else. The International Association on Cryptographic Research correspondingly publishes no paper on image encryption in its peer-reviewed publications; many of the papers about image encryption it references are refutations, and they do not go further than its non-reviewed preprint server.
Worse, I regularly see evidence that students at least think they have no choice but study a pointless paper riddled with errors. In this recent example, the paper attempts to apply an (unstated) Elliptic Curve signature scheme to inter-vehicles communications, but examination shows that the authors failed to find parameters for a usable Elliptic Curve. The paper cites 36 references on the same vein, many comparably poor. The OP ended up writing (in chat) "unfortunately I have no other choice but to study this paper", and I could not determine for sure if it was designated to them as a reference, or was just a poor choice.

Addition: what about the hypothesis that some subfields like digitized image encryption are abandoned as obviously not worth attention by actual reviewers, and flourish precisely for that reason? This particular subfield is remarkable in that it has developed standard patterns for the many articles, and some bogus measures of the efficiency of the encryption. To see what I mean, sample the papers this query returns (at least these all are officially free to read, if not to publish).

¹ I admit we must check that the image is encrypted and decrypted by a computer, and that the sole objective is encryption (rather than e.g. hiding data into an image, that is steganography, or Thumbnail-Preserving Encryption). Examination shows that most articles returned by that query are only about encrypting a digitized image, and many of the others are seriously defective.


texts: Should I choose an tenured advisor good at research but bad at teaching or an untenured professor good at teaching?

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I have a Phd option with two professors.

Professor A is tenured and is doing  very good in research .But many people have complained against him that they cannot understand his class. He has 2 Phd Students -one has been working on Phd for 5 years but still hasn't given his candidature. The other student joined his lab in 2012 as Masters Student and is planning to graduate from Phd in 2016. He closely works with corporate and is very well funded and pays his students very high stipends (like 3k+).These students regularly go for internships in these companies. But i see these students working very long hours on weekdays and weekends to complete their class and research projects.He was recently made an distinguished professor of research in my university.

Professor B has been in university for 3 years and has just graduated a PhD student(after 3 years). He is looking for tenure and is very prolific publisher. However he also published to some questionable open access journals  (one's included in Beall's List) to achieve his tenure requirements. There are  3 students in his lab -2 Master's and one 20 hr working CS student to help them out with programming. He has few projects to work on but not as big as tenured professor's. But people have high hopes on this professor as he worked in industry for 6 years prior to becoming an assistant professor.He is also very a good teacher .His Phd student could not get a job in his research field and is now working as a full time research software developer.

Which professor should i choose for an Phd and what should i look out for in each of them like pitfalls and advantages .


texts: Careers in computer science without maths

texts: I am currently studying in BTech CSE 2nd year. My maths is very weak and I have to choose the specialization, but I want to choose a career in computer science which does not require maths. If there is maths in any career it should be very little or easy. Please guide me ..


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I am a German PhD student in South America and am worried about whether my PhD title will be accepted in Germany (as Dr.) and internationally in general.

If you successfully complete a PhD in the EU, you are allowed to carry the title "Dr.", as any PhD in Germany does.

I am working in a faculty with a professor with international experience, who, for research reasons, left a reasonably strong department in Europe for the position in South America, which is incidentally one of the strongest two departments in South America.

I am attending international conferences every now and then, have two papers published in international journals (one jointly, one alone) and two more papers in preparation.

For all I know, I can reasonably expect that my research performance (and eventually, my PhD thesis) is not below the European standard.

The default format for PhDs from a non-EU country is something like "Hans Wurst (Doutorado, Universidade de Ipanema)", which looks like I should just use my self-confidence instead and not mention that I did a PhD unless someone asks.

I don't know if it's off-topic, because this might just be "too localized", but of course I am wondering if it is possible to have my PhD accredited to use my PhD title in Germany like any "normal" PhD.

I'm also wondering, whether the international community is as strict as German law, or whether I should just call myself "Hans Wurst, PhD" on job applications, my professional webpage, etc. (where the place will be listed somewhere), and hope nobody tells me it should be "Hans Wurst (Doutorado, Universidade de Ipanema)" instead.

Did I make a mistake in my career planning in that the only title that is worth carrying (until full tenure, I guess) I can't carry without a large number of not-so-fancy accessories?


texts: Publishing a scientific article without being a student or a researcher

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From what I got to see during my research internship, research master's students, PhD students and researchers, when they do some decent research work or project, they sometimes send a scientific article to get published (after a selection process). In the case of students, whether it be master's or PhD students, there are always mentors or advisers that direct their work and join their names to theirs in the published paper.

I would like to know whether it is possible for anyone (someone who is neither a student nor a research, and who is not even an employed person) who does a research or even an implementation-driven work (such as building an application in the case of computer engineering) to submit a paper for publication and get it published.

Of course I bear in mind that in order to gain some recognition and to be selected for publication, the work should contribute with some knowledge to the scientific community.

If the answer is yes, how to proceed?


texts: Manuscript status changed from "Reviews completed" to "Editor assigned"

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I have been confused with the present status of my manuscript whose status follows the following timeline:

Manuscript initially submitted through Editorial Manager (Springer): 25 Jan 2017
Under Review: 27 Feb 2017 till 9 Jun 2017
Reviews completed: 10 Jun 2017 till 22 Jun 2017
Editor assigned: 22 Jun 2017

The journal is in the field of Computer Science and Computational Mechanics (Applied Computer Science).

My inferences from the above strange timeline:

The reviews have been completed and the system administrator or the journal manager assigned the editor (who is assumed to be associated with it earlier) to take care of the review reports and make a call.
The number of review reports is not sufficient. It would be re-reviewed and handled by another editor.
It is a software issue or a bug.

I have the following questions:

Whether is my inference correct?
As one can see, it has been 6 months already. Is it too early to send a gentle reminder to the editor-in-chief to look after my manuscript?
Is such a timeline of manuscript 'strange' at all? (Although it is difficult to answer this unless the editorial manager software is understood properly.)

Related posts and questions:

Manuscript status changed to editor assigned after under review, what could be the reason?
Editor of manuscript assigned after reviews were completed
My question is different as the timeline does not follow the traditional journal workflow as discussed in the question What does the typical workflow of a journal look like?


texts: The usage of citation signals such as 'see': commonly used?

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When I paraphrase a direct idea from someone, I'd just end the sentence with (John 2010, p. 10). However and sometimes (especially while analyzing to support my claim), I use the citation signal known as 'see' to support an idea.

For example: The company can benefit from its long history (see Company X 2002, para. 1) (where the source 'Company X' does NOT clearly state the idea of the company benefiting from its history but rather 'agree' with my statement since it states that the history of the company dates back to 100 years ago for example).

From Wikipedia:

  “See” indicates that the cited authority clearly supports, but does not directly state the proposition given.

I see that such signals are mainly used in legal matters, is their usage in regular academic writing acceptable? I'm using Harvard.


texts: Clarification on taking Calculus subjects as prerequisites for Economics classes?

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I am mid aged person going back to school and planning to take MicroEconomics I and Econometrics in the Summer. In order to take these classes, I am planning take Calculus as Pre-requisites.

However, we have two levels of Calculus taught in Summer. Calculus - I which is of beginner's version and Calculus - II which is of Advanced Beginner's version.

Though, I dont have much details on each of them.

My question is, whether taking Calculus - I ( Beginner's version ) will be helpful for taking those two Economics classes?


texts:
I am an incoming math PhD student in the US. I am thinking of starting a math blog. The intended audience is myself plus maybe other math graduate students.

I am a little concerned about citations to avoid plagiarism. Of course if a theorem or proof comes from a paper, I need to cite it. What about theorems and proofs coming from textbooks. For example, say I give a definition of a group, which appears in virtually all standard textbooks in introductory algebra.

I guess the latter case will happen more frequently since my blog is mostly entry level graduate material math that you can find in many textbooks.

Questions:

If a theorem or proof comes from a textbook, can I assume that it is considered common knowledge, with respect to the targeted audience, and just state and prove the theorem?
At what point does a theorem or proof stop becoming common knowledge, maybe it only appears in some very advanced textbooks?


texts: If during revision process an author discovers and corrects errors not detected by reviewers, should the author inform the editor of these changes?

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I recently submitted my manuscript to Journal of optics (IOP Publishing). A couple of days ago, I received an email regarding initial decision on my paper. Thankfully, it is a "moderate revision". Referees also have made some comments about typos and grammar and a point or two about the core material of the paper which is only to clarify more. So far, it seems a possible acceptance for my paper. doesn't it?.

The thing is, when I was making the amendments based on the referees' comments, I found that four of the formulas used in the paper are incomplete and I wrote them wrongly. But it does not affect the rest of the paper in any way.  The reviewers did not notice these errors.

This is my first paper. I am a worried that they might reject the manuscript because there were some errors in the original submission that I have now corrected.

I am obliged to make a point-by-point response to the reviewers' comments and make a list of the changes made to the paper.

So, my questions are

Is it common for an author to detect additional errors in a paper during the process of making revisions?
Should I just correct them and make no mention of them in my report to the editor?


texts: Is it plagiarism to copy an ethics statement on animal research?

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There are only so many ways you can say "This research was conducted in strict accordance with the guidelines of XX." I'd had the fear of plagiarism burned into me since high school (I think the rule then was 7 words or more verbatim were disallowed), but is it acceptable in science publishing to have substantial overlap with previously published ethics statements?

A slight variant is when you are describing a technique that has been concisely described by your lab dozens of times already, although this is slightly easier to think of variants than the above. But some amount of "copying" in these situations, whether inadvertently or on purpose, does not seem in the spirit of plagiarism.

How do publishers/the scientific community see it?


texts: Question regarding how to slow down and enjoy academic life

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I am currently an undergraduate student taking an Honours Pure Mathematics degree with an additional major in Astrophysics and I plan to go to a good graduate school (as good as I can get into) for Pure Mathematics to research either Geometric Topology or Convex Geometry.

I know that academia is a cut-throat world where only "the best" end up on top and the ability to get a professorship is becoming harder and harder as time goes on. I enjoy Pure Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and would not want to do anything else with my life just because I could not do anything else since I find them too damn interesting. What I do not enjoy is the grade-driven-here-is-the-next-thing-for-the-exam learning that doesn't give anyone the big picture. I have been working non-stop to make sure I perform in my courses, undergraduate research, etc. and I am just wondering if there is any way to learn about these topics at a slower pace or just have more time to think about the topics eventually. I understand I will have to at least get through graduate school and get a PhD (otherwise there would be a chance I'd turn out as a crackpot), but I'm just really tired of having so much information crammed into me without having the time to think about what I am learning. I want to do my own additional research on topics I see connections between, and think more about the big picture of how the different fields of Pure Mathematics and Theoretical Physics are related. There are so many unfinished papers that I have started throughout my undergraduate on embeddings of low-dimensional manifolds, determining knot invariants by unique methods, etc. but I just have no time to think about what I want to think about when there's that Real Analysis assignment due the day after my midterm in E&M which I had to stay up all night studying for because I had three quizzes the previous week in blah blah blah blah... for years on end.

Essentially, my question is this: Is there any other way that someone (after getting a PhD or a few post-docs) can do research at their own pace and just completely go after their interests without having to justify what they are doing to funding agencies, being swamped with administrative work (such as marking exams and writing grants), etc.?

I know that is asking a lot out for a life style, but I would even be interested in leaving academia altogether to just do my own independent study somewhere and travel around to different universities to collaborate whenever I have new findings or need some new inspiration or ideas. Are there any easy part-time jobs one could do to support such a lifestyle? Julian Barbour would be someone who I look up to in that respect, I believe he did this exact thing by making a living translating Russian academic papers into English.

Any comments, helpful suggestions, about how it would be possible to live an non-traditional academic lifestyle where people still take you to be credible and you can publish your work in journals. I just want to avoid working working working my entire life without a chance to reflect and then just die.


texts: Is there funding for non-research related projects?

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Nowadays to obtain a PhD or a postdoc one needs to conduct independent research and present new results. However, at the frontiers of science there are many non-research related things that could still be done which are not being done by the professors since it would take a lot of time - examples include writing textbooks, translating a classical reference from one language to another (in some areas the classical reference is not available in English, for example), writing websites or programs which could assist one in learning the material.

I was wondering if there are any funding opportunities or academic grants available to hire a student/PhD/postdoc for those sort of projects. To me it would make sense to give such a job to a student rather than a researcher, as a student is learning that material anyway (and so can on his way adapt it so that the next generation can benefit from it) and it doesn't force the researcher to abandon research in favour of writing a textbook for a couple of years.

Paragraph removed by Dirk's suggestion


texts: What is the purpose of publishing in such journals?

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I have always been wondering why some mathematics professors choose to publish problems in journals such as Crux Mathematicorum, Mathematical Reflections etc, which only focus on elementary mathematics.
I don't think that these journals are highly regarded by the academic community and I don't see how publishing problems here helps them in their career(of course, they may only be doing it as a hobby, but it seems highly unlikely for those who publish lots of such problems). Such journals seem more suited for high school teachers, even though I don't see how they may benefit from publishing there either.