texts: Can a thesis approved by supervisor fail? What to do to appeal?

texts:
I am doing PhD in an Australian university.  My thesis was approved by my supervisor, however, one of two examiners suggested revision and re-submission (with harsh criticism and no solid recommendation), and eventually failed it. The committee asked for another examiner and failed it. I would like to know if we can appeal in this situation:

My supervisor has approved the thesis,
I never had any problem in annual review, and
I have made revisions in accordance with the comments received from the examiner.


texts: Around what percentage of universities require(d) Ancient Greek and Latin for admissions?

texts:
I limit this question to universities in Canada, UK, and the US.
 In general:

Please see the titled question, and provide dates if known.

2 Examples: p. 10 of 17 of this PDF states Oxford University's admissions requirement of Ancient Greek until 1920 and Latin until 1960.
This Quora answer quotes this book:

  In 1883, the last year in which the classical languages were compulsory for Harvard freshman, all studied Latin and Greek.


texts: In IEEE conferences is it necessary run the simulation in front of the members?

texts:
My paper was accepted to an IEEE conference, but I am not getting the simulation results I obtained before.

In IEEE conferences will they tell you to run the simulation in front of them?


texts: Caregiver of disabled teenager returning to study, but can't find funding. (UK) Any thoughts?

texts:
I am a parent of disabled teenager. My career has been interrupted, as has my academic path. My son is in and out of hospital and school. But now I am doing a PhD at a top UK university and am winning awards for my projects and am devising and teaching courses. Only problem, I can't get funding. I keep missing out on Studentships as they go to people half my age with straight A academic results.
Well, this is what I am told.
I think this is discrimination. Someone with my background - even with a brilliant, original research project - is never ever going to get a studentship if the decisive criteria is your undergraduate and MA results.
Studentships are lucrative (16K a year in London) and people like me, in the, um, diversity and inclusion basket - are told to search through the Alternative Funding Guide and 'write lots of letters'. It would take a professional fundraiser a year at least to raise the same amount as a studentship!
Does anyone have any experience of seeking funding as a carer doing a PhD, or even some good practice from their institution to share? I'm in the UK so UK examples would be most helpful to me.

Edit 9/22:

My first years part time were funded by my part-time work in a related industry, but due to my teaching and PhD commitments, and Carer commitments, I haven't had time to seek more clients. So that's dried up. I also received a discretionary fund fee waiver for the fees - this wasn't an advertised hardship fund, this was a result of asking and asking until finally finding something was available. You are only supposed to apply to this once during your degree, but I have applied once again because there just is nothing else. Awaiting outcome.

I've had success with small funding for trips abroad to conferences and considerable success with funding for public engagement projects - but I can't pay my living costs or wages with that.

My supervisor thinks that my identity as a carer is something that we can't seem to escape from, so we it is something that will be addressed in my thesis (that's ok with me, and it sits nicely with my ambition to teach creative writing and to explore under-represented groups in film and tv).

I never intended to campaign on this issue, but since posting this question, I have been successful in getting the student union to take up the issue of Carers at our university as one of their priority vulnerable groups, and the first thing we will ask for is for Student Records to include Carers in the equality and diversity questions (not a statutory requirement for this data to be collected, but why not). Our university is behind others in offering support and recognition for carers. Secondly, within the graduate school, the student advisor I was talking to has recommended Carers be considered under the university's Widening Participation policy. And just the other day, I got to explain to the Vice Dean of the Faculty what a Carer is -- it's someone who looks after someone else who has a life limiting condition such as a disability or illness -- for more than 35 hours per week (that's the statuory number of hours in order to apply for Carer's Allowance, a means tested benefit).

So, no studentship yet but I have delegated my campaigning tendencies! I will keep this trail updated and hope others continue to contribute.


texts: Is submitting two papers with identical introduction and methods considered plagiarism?

texts:
Our research (me being one of the co-authors) consists of two main sub-cases which are too long to be in a single paper. So, they were divided into two parts--Part1 and Part2. Both of these papers contain the same text in many places (theory,introduction,procedure). The authors for both the papers are also the same.

If we were to submit this to two different journals, is it plagiarism?


texts: What is the academic value of posts on LinkedIn?

texts:
As LinkedIn is a network of professionals, there is a great scope for sharing one's professional expertise in the form of a short piece (or otherwise write something to influence a cause).

Most posts are well researched (often hyperlinked to relevant sources) and reflect the writer's knowledge and experience in a particular professional field.

I am wondering what perceived value is there for this contribution in terms of any academic recognition. Would it be appropriate to list these posts in a job CV?


texts:
I am from computer science and we typically submit to conferences and less often to journals. Publishing pre-prints to arXiv becomes more and more popular in my field. From the discussion here on AS I get the impression that arXiv is more than just putting something on a personal website.
For example from What to do when you spot a paper on arXiv with the same essential material as yours? I get that I should discuss arXiv papers if they are related to your work.
Now, a paper for a CS conference contains often about 75% theory + 25% experimental section. The experimental section takes a lot of time - so I wonder (and fear)  if there is a trend to upload just the bare minimum to arXiv in order to get credit for the idea.
Is this a problem? Maybe similar to patent-trolls, just uploading vague ideas in the hope to get citations?
Edit: For clarification: I am working in the field of data-mining, where it is common to have experiments to show that your idea does not only work in theory. This question/concern came up as we discussed the pro and cons of uploading our work to arXiv, since we have never done this before, but it seems to become more common in our field.
Edit 2: It seems that more people are concerned with this problem, especially in machine learning:
Yoav Goldberg:

This post is also an ideological action w.r.t arxiv publishing: while
I agree that short publication cycles on arxiv can be better than the
lengthy peer-review process we now have, there is also a rising trend
of people using arxiv for flag-planting, and to circumvent the
peer-review process. This is especially true for work coming from
“strong” groups. Currently, there is practically no downside of
posting your (often very preliminary, often incomplete) work to arxiv,
only potential benefits.

Yoav Goldberg:

I do not mind posting papers quickly on arxiv. I recognize the obvious
benefits of arxiv publishing and fast turnarounds. But one should also
acknowledge its shortcomings. In particular, I am concerned about the
conflation of science and PR that arxiv facilitates; the
rich-get-richer effects and abuse of power; and some of the current
arxiv publishing dynamics in the DL community. It is OK to post early
on arxiv.
It is NOT OK to misrepresent and over-claim what you did.
Sloppy papers with broad titles such as “Adversarial Generation of
Natural Language” are harmful. It is exactly the difference between
the patent system (which is overall a reasonable idea) and patent
trolling (which is a harmful abuse).

[...]

Most people don’t read the papers in depth but only the title and
sometimes the abstract and sometimes the intro. And when the papers
come from established groups, people tend to trust the claims without
verification. “Serious researchers” might not fall for this, but the
general population sure does get mislead. And by the general
population I mean people who are not actively working in this exact
sub-field. This includes practitioners in industry, colleagues,
prospective students, prospective reviewers of papers and grants. In
the short time since this paper came out, I already heard, on several
occasions, “oh, you are interested in generation? have you tried using
GANs? I saw this recent paper in which they get cool results with
adversarial learning for NLG”. This will be extremely harmful and
annoying for NLG researchers who apply for grants in the coming year
(remember, many grants are reviewed by a panel of capable but
non-specialized experts), as they will have to either waste precious
space and effort in dealing with this paper and with Hu et al and
explaining why they are irrelevant, or be dismissed as working on this
“already solved problem”, despite the fact that neither the paper in
question nor Hu et al actually did very much, and despite the fact
that both papers have terrible evaluations.

And the follow-up discussion on reddit


texts: Poor academic performance - should/can I apply to a PhD program?

texts:
I was always a distracted kid growing up. I found it difficult to pay attention to anything for more than fifteen minutes. Growing up in Asia, teachers at the school and college levels always put it down to me being a “bad student” and made sure I knew that I would never amount to much.

After moving to the US for my master’s degree in computer science over ten years ago, my distractions and poor academic performance started haunting me again. I was put on academic probation and faced expulsion if I did not bring my GPA up (from 2.5x to 3+). During one of my lectures, the professor noticed my fidgeting and asked me to meet her after class. She told me I exhibited the classic symptoms of ADHD (which I had never heard of before) and asked me to meet the university counselor. The counselor confirmed the diagnosis and referred me to a psychiatrist for medication.

This was probably the biggest turning point in my life as it was only then that I realized that there was something that caused me to behave the way I did. Knowing and understanding what the cause of my distractions made me able to address it and focus my energy and concentration properly. I transferred to a different university (lesser ranked than the first one, but well known for its notoriously rigorous curriculum) and was able to maintain a 3.5+ GPA throughout, in addition to being invited to PhD level research groups and being admitted to highly selective research internships in Europe. I enrolled in classes that were restricted to PhD students after I petitioned the school dean, and ended up topping 2 out of the 3 courses.

In my mid-30’s now, I currently work as a scientist in a reputed firm. I’ve been granted a patent in machine learning and one of my papers has been shortlisted for publication in a top tier conference (I won’t know for sure till next month). I came across a PhD program that pretty much aligns perfectly with my grad school research and social cause and I’m extremely interested in applying for it. The application process involves the regular requirements of GRE/recommendations/statements of purpose and transcripts from ALL universities attended.

My grad advisors and I have maintained good relationships over the years and they have encouraged me on several occasions to apply to a PhD program. However, I’m worried that my academic performance at the first university I attended for my master’s will come back to bite me. While I can just apply and hope for the best, I don’t want to have to ask my professors to invest the time and effort to write recommendation letters for me, only for my application to be thrown into the trash.

On a scale of 1 to 3 stars, (3 requiring the most effort), here are the requirements for the application:

Personal Statement (**)
Transcripts from all institutions attended (*** - insanely difficult and time consuming to get bachelor degree transcripts from university)
3 letters of recommendation (** - easy enough, but I feel bad about getting my professors to do this for me if there’s no change of getting it)
GRE (**)

The PhD program is in a field I'm very passionate about and has world class researchers on the faculty. At a recent graduate open house, I met the director of the program who said they had an 11 percent admit rate over te past few years.

All this said, would it make sense to apply to the program anyway or will the fact that I was nearly expelled due to my academic performance make the risk not worth the effort?

EDIT: I wanted to thank everyone for their thoughtful and supportive responses. I've decided to apply for the PhD but for next year's intake. As an update, the paper that was shortlisted to the conference I mentioned ended up being accepted, so that's sure to build up my profile a little more.


texts: Can postdocs get a funded position by direct contact?

texts:
Every month, I receive several emails from India or similar countries for a postdoc position in my group.

I am an assistant professor in a small university. I wonder how many applications/emails receive famous professors at top universities?

When a PI has funding for a postdoc position, he post the position, and will receive tens (if not hundreds) of applications.

Receiving these emails made me wonder, maybe this method is working that many people are regularly using it.

Does a PI offer a postdoc position by such emails? Normally these candidates are not very strong, as they have already applied for posted positions.


texts: Using parts of previous work in dissertation

texts:
I'm currently getting towards the end of my Master's year, and so I am working on my dissertation.

I completed a couple of projects for a module (assessed by report) in my third year that are relevant to my Dissertation, which include the geological/geophysical background to the region, and also the background theory of the methodology. These, however, are not published pieces; they are written coursework reports.

So these sections for my Dissertation are essentially written in different reports.
My question is whether it's acceptable to assimilate this information in my Master's write-up? (Mainly the methodology, there aren't many ways to concisely convey the information and theory, c1000 words.)

This probably matters, and my dissertation supervisor is the same person who marked the other pieces of work.

Thanks for your help.


texts: Are free publishing services, such as Globe Edit, worthwhile?

texts:
A free book publisher, Globe Edit, contacted me.

They offered to consider creating a book from my MSc thesis. They said that I wouldn’t have to pay for anything. After reading their website, it appears that they are trying to contact many if not all thesis writers (and other writers, too).

They want me to transfer exclusive rights to publishing my thesis as a book.

Here is their website, if you want to read the details: Globe Edit.

Are free publishers like this usually worthwhile?  I don’t care about making money; I’m wondering whether this free publishing service is at all prestigious or just a waste of time (i.e., neutral or perhaps negative).


texts: Can I write a paper on software that I published a year ago?

texts:
I am a bachelor-level (software engineering) student. I made a GitHub repository more than a year ago, where I use machine learning and deep learning to identify movements in accelerometer signals.

As of now, the GitHub repository has a thousand stars. There is already research being made derived from my work. As a practical example, here I collaborated with someone to write a paper.

I wonder: Should I write and publish a paper on the first project, even though it's a year old? What are my options, if any?


texts: Should an engineering product research at a university be always released in a journal?

texts:
For example, a research team (we name it A) of a university makes an engineering product that they claim is capable of doing X, Y, and Z. Initially the product was not intended to be commercialized, only for research purposes, but eventually the product was commercialized. Then, the person at the same university, but not included in the research team said, "wow your product is amazing, but I'm a little doubtful of your claim, can I see the journal of the product?"
The question:

Must research team A release a journal of the commercialized product that the team has produced?
Is research team A wrong if they don't give the journal to that person?


texts: Does McGraw Hill Connect improve student learning outcomes?

texts:
I am debating if I should adopt the McGraw-Hill Connect system for my course next semester. On one hand, I am worried about the students' backslash because of the cost. On the other hand, after the pandemic teaching experience this fall semester, I want to utilize every opportunity to improve the students' grasp of the material.
The course in question is a quantitative one, taught to business students. It requires a lot of practice with problems, but in the current situation I cannot simply give a problem and circulate among the desks, helping to those who struggle. Another important feature: I have three sections for this course, each having about 50 students, so individual approach is problematic.
I have already coded quite a few "instant feedback" assignments in Blackboard LMS, but I feel that's not enough. Besides, even just importing and aligning them in LMS takes more time than I would spend lecturing in the classroom. Also, Connect allows me to monitor if the students actually read the textbook, and I expect that it would encourage them to actually read it. There is also an automatic text-to-speech narration, which is bad, but better than nothing -- they can listen to it while commuting, hopefully something sticks.
I will highly appreciate if someone shares their experience with me. Does Connect really improve student performance? If it does, how do you communicate to them that the hefty price is worth it?
Update:
I saw some commenters concerned about the ethics of making the students pay for it, so I have changed the thread name to make my question more clear. More context: I work in a private US university, where the tuition is about $50,000 per year. Hence, the students are paying roughly $5000 to take this class. The publisher price for one semester access to Connect is over $100, which is outrageous, but if this allows the students to make the most of their tuition, I believe the right thing for me to do will be to adopt the system.
Of course, there are long-term consequences of this decision. A significant part of that ever-increasing tuition is what the universities have to pay to LMS and database providers: once their product gets adopted, they keep raising the prices, because switching to another textbook/system is very costly for the university. But I believe my responsibility is to do what is best for my students.


texts: Is it acceptable to add a result to a paper when a journal asks for revisions?

texts:
A while back, I submitted a paper to a mathematics journal. Since then, I have managed to prove an additional result that I think would improve the paper. If the paper gets rejected, I plan to incorporate the result into the paper and submit again elsewhere. If the journal accepts the paper and asks for revisions, my question is whether it would be acceptable to add the new result when I submit a revised version. The other option is to write up the new result as a separate paper, which may or may not be significant enough for publication.

The reason I ask is that I want to avoid wasting time now. It would be a shame to spend time and effort on incorporating the result into the paper now if I need to remove those changes in the case the paper is accepted. On the other hand, if I can include the result in the current paper, then I don't want to spend time now writing an entirely new paper for this one result.


texts: Are there any downsides to receiving BSc, MSc, and PhD all from the same university?

texts:
Like the title says, are there any downsides to receiving BSc, MSc, and PhD all from the same university?

My university is not very well known outside my home country. I did not enter the PhD program yet. If I would stay here, I would already have many good contacts (~10 professors/academics). Also, because I perform quite well, I assume I could get to do exactly what I want. On the other hand... I think I could get into Europe's top-ten universities.


texts: For a postdoctoral/Ph.D. position in Mathematics in Europe, can I make this somewhat irregular request?

texts:
I am not sure whether this question is suitable for academia, if not it would be great to know the site where I should ask this. I am a finishing Ph.D. student in Mathematics at a decent school in the US, and my postdoctoral job applications so far have gone in vein, although I do have published paper in recognized journal. Also, I had to switch my advisor and subject in the middle of my Ph.D., so I think I would have been better off with more experience in the field I am working on or a related field. That would mean even if I get a postdoc, I would feel a little bit inferior to other postdocs or might seek a little more help from my mentor.

I noticed the postings by some European Universities for postdocs where they mention that they are looking for postdocs and Ph.D. students both. Although I will be applying for postdocs in these universities, I was thinking of having your opinion on the following, somewhat irregular backup plan:

Say University U in Europe has a postdoc position P for salary x for 2 years, and Ph.D. position D for salary y for 4 years, where x>y. If I can get P, great, but if not, can I also talk to and try to come to an agreement with the university (e-mail them with explanation etc.) for a visiting position where I will be learning some more stuffs and will be researching as well, but may be with less salary than P but the same (or little more) salary as/than D? In other words, I feel like I need to gain more knowledge in my area, so if I don't get P, I will be happy with almost the same salary y as D, but will try to bend the rule from 4 years to just 1 year? So it will be like a visiting position with less salary, of less time period, but I will like to be treated like a Ph.D. student (that means less independent research, more learning compared to a postdoc). Will that be a ridiculous thing to try? So, I will be somewhat like an advanced Ph.D. student but not expert like a postdoc and so I am willing to negotiate with the salary, I won't need another Ph.D. since I will have had one(if they give another, fantastic!) Do you know whether it might work or create complications enough so that the hiring committee will be offended? Should I try to send an e-mail explaining this situation and see whether they will negotiate with me on this?

Thank you very much in advance!


texts:
I am a PhD student from central Europe and I am teaching an introductory class on programming at my university.

I know that in the US, humour or a joke is often used at the beginning of a presentation. My first 2-3 sentences are right to the point, but I would like to include also a small joke or humour at the beginning.

But what would be a good joke in this situation? A friend of mine suggested to start with "welcome to bird watching 101", just some ridiculous wrong title, or starting with a fun fact about myself.

Any suggestions on how to start with humour?

Background info: Last semester my class received a nice award as among the top 5 classes of my rather big university. To some part it was due to the tips I got at stackexchange.com :-) But I would like to constantly improve my teaching.


texts: First time being asked to review a conference paper

texts:
I am a first year PhD student, and my adviser from undergrad asked me if I would like to review a paper for a conference. I was quite taken aback, as I have no publications, and feel somewhat unqualified. Granted, the topic of the paper is on something I have studied with this adviser in the past.

Is this something I can put on my CV? Given the anonymity of the reviewing process, will there even be a record of me having done this?
Isn't it strange for an unpublished student to review a paper?
What could I possibly gain from this? I suppose reading a paper critically is good experience, but I am already anxious about not having any publications yet, and it feels strange to be a reviewer without having any publications myself. I suppose this would put me in my old adviser's good graces, as I am interested in working with him again.


texts: Is it fair to punish absent students with a one-question exam?

texts:
I recently came across a post (that I won't disclose because it contains the professor's last name):

Attendance in this course was regularly low, so the professor used a one-question exam to punish students who weren't attending a class. Those who weren't in class would have obviously failed this exam, and those who were in class (presumably) would have all gotten A's. The final remark on the note on the door was "maybe we'll do this again some time".

Let's assume a few factors about the course and this one-question exam, since we don't actually know how they're implemented:

The course has an attendance policy (3 days max missed before your grade starts dropping, for example)
This one-question exam has an impact equivalent to a homework assignment (could drop your overall grade by 1% if you get a 0).
By the language of the original post, this is not something the students would have expected to happen; this means that the policy would not be outlined in the syllabus.

What if the course didn't have an attendance policy and the professor is simply annoyed that students aren't attending the class? What if this one-question exam was only worth a point or two instead of a whole homework grade?

Is it fair (ethical, if you will) to use this kind of tactic to impose additional punishment on students who don't attend lecture?

Clarification: Students who are absent (if intentional, extraneous circumstances aside) deserve to lose the points for the work they missed. However, this tactic is being used to additionally punish students solely for being absent; this is also why I posed different assumptions about attendance policy.


texts: I am so tired and un-focused in my postdoc. Is quitting my position a good choice?

texts:
About 6 months ago I finished my PhD and started a new postdoc at a prestigious lab at a prestigious university. I was very burned out as I completed my PhD, but I hoped starting fresh I'd find renewed enthusiasm.

However, things started bad and have just gotten worse. I like the university and city and would prefer to keep on for at least a full year, but I'm having a very difficult time concentrating on my work.

My poor performance stresses me almost more than anything else - after 6 months with little to show for myself, I'm afraid of leaving a bad track record. I feel that my postdoctoral advisers just think I'm confused or stupid, but in truth I'm having a terrible time making myself work.

I have trouble keeping my focus on journal articles and it takes me hours to write short to-do lists just because I keep getting distracted. During research related discussions I tend to "zone-out" and start questioning why I'm even there, totally losing the thread of the conversation.

I know that I am actually a capable mathematician and researcher. I'm not sure what's happened to me, but I know things can't continue like this.


texts: Does interdisciplinary research usually require reading/reviewing more literature?

texts:
This may be quite a difficult question to answer in general, but I suspect that the answer is "yes" as less-well-defined discipline boundaries mean having to read more to cover all bases.

Can anyone with experience of both within- and across-discipline research weigh in on the matter?


texts: Is it a good idea for a part-time post-grad to start an Academic CV?

texts:
As someone who returned (part-time) to academic pursuit in a different area a number of years ago, in which time I have completed my BA and now am in my first year of a MLitt, I am wondering is it a good idea to start to compile an academic CV? I am unsure as to if their would be any benefit of it for me, as a part time student, and at what point I should start to compile it.

At the moment in my own head the advantages are;

It may be of use in applying for funding.
I may need it if I wish to go on to future study
It would be good for myself to keep track of what I have achieved.

I have read a number of question on the site about what to put in a CV and realise that at the moment mine would be pretty sparse, as I have no publications, but my advisor has mentioned about me presenting at a conference and I have just applied for my first funding.

In general is it a case of everyone should keep an academic CV or do you just compile and tailor one when and if it is needed?


texts: What is the difference between two universities if students from either can take classes at the other?

texts: I was at a college meeting the other day and I learned that Harvard and MIT have agreements that students of both institutions can take classes at the other for credit towards their degrees. Besides the type of students you'll encounter more and things like housing and dining, what would be some more differences between attending Harvard and MIT?


texts: I was recently asked to review for an MDPI open access journal. Is this a reputable publishing company? Their website suggests that they are 15 years old, and only do open-access publishing. The journal has a 3-year impact factor of around 2, which is not unreasonable for my field.


texts: Do GRE verbal scores matter for graduate admissions in mathematics?

texts:
For the next 6 months or so, I plan to study hard for GRE. Since I don't have much time, I plan to ONLY study for the mathematics portion of the test as I would like to score at least in the 90th+ percentile for the Mathematics Subject Test. But in order to have the capability to achieve such a task within my time frame, I plan to spend no more than 3-4 days to study for the analytic writing and verbal reasoning portion of the general test.

So my question is: Do graduate schools focus or take into consideration the (possibly low score for the) analytic writing and verbal reasoning portion of the test if you were to score high on the mathematics part? Advice from those who are familiar with how selection committee of graduate schools (in Mathematics) pick applicants would be great!

Some clarification: I feel as if I was not too clear with my question. By "studying hard" I don't mean to sit down and just study "specifically" for the GRE test but rather to enhance my knowledge in Real Analysis, Abstract Algebra, Topology, and Differential Equations among other topics such as Set Theory and Logic. GRE Mathematics Subject Test will be something that I will be preparing for along the way. My reason to spend ~6 months has nothing to do with scoring high on GRE. I will perhaps spend no more than 1-2 weeks reviewing the Princeton Review. I just don't know if I will have much time to work on my writing skills if I'm deep-neck into learning Mathematics.


texts: How to structure of a Ph.D. sandwich thesis?

texts:
I would like to know the main structure of this kind of thesis.

Although some guidelines can be taken from this post, additional details would be appreciated.

When building the introduction, I feel quite collapsed trying to join and describe all the aspects of the 3 published articles I have. This will be also the same for the final discussion. In fact, it makes me feel that I'm repeating myself what I've already written in the papers. I like DRY principle.

Thanks! Here is a preliminary outline:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED
SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
HYPOTHESIS AND OBJECTIVES
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
Paper1
Paper2
Paper3
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES
ANNEXES


texts: Getting help from friend for literature search

texts:
Suppose person A has a research project where they need to find a few articles on a particular topic, and write a review of these papers.

Being busy with other coursework, and feeling overwhelmed by the task of searching papers, person A decides to ask person B for help to find a list of articles on the topic. Person B is not a student in the course, but is willing to help person A.

Person A then reads the articles B found and writes their paper on their own.

Has there been plagiarism or other ethical violation committed?

EDIT: An additional concern is whether person A needs to credit person B's work. The goal of the paper would be to develop understanding of the field that the course is about, not specifically train for literature search. The submission will be graded.


texts: Falsely accused of providing project code to others in a class

texts:
I am an undergraduate student studying computer science. A student that I know told me tonight that in a class she is taking this semester, she was reported by the autograder that code she and her partner submitted was very similar to the code our group submitted when we took the course last semester. The professor has forwarded her case to the organization in the school for investigation, and he also passed the information to our professor who taught the course when we took it. So my teammates and I are expecting to hear from our professor, and I suspect we will also be reported for investigation into the case.

I am in total shock right now because I never gave our code to her and I never posted the code online, neither did my teammates (we talked after learning about this). So it is very confusing to me why our code would be so similar that would be flagged by the autograder. Even though I know we are innocent, I think it would be a very difficult situation for my teammates and I because: 1) it is already hard to believe the similarity is pure coincidence; 2) what is worse, all of us knows this person who is accused of copying our code, which makes it look even more suspicious; 3) if we are indeed reported and under investigation, apart from saying that we did not provide the code, we do not have any ways to show that we are innocent (in fact now I think the procedure is very unfair to people like us).

The student accused of copying our code told us that she was provided with both our codes for comparison, and she think they look similar in logic, and some shorter functions are almost the same. I do not want to think that she somehow managed to "steal" our code. I do feel that a possible reason could be that the course is quite difficult and every group would seek help from TA so in the end most groups have similar approach to the design of the code.

I still find the whole thing very bizarre. I am very aware of the college policy on academic integrity, and I have been always very careful not to let anyone see my code in a course (I have been asked by classmates to show my code before, but I never did that). I cannot understand why this could happen to me. This would the first time I have been falsely accused of anything. I imagine it would be very hard to believe for anyone else too. Could you help by offering some advice on how to deal with the situation? Thank you very much!


texts: Is it ethical to apply different criteria for graduate admissions based on country of undergraduate study?

texts:
We have undertaken a small statistical study of M.S. students in our department, including their application information and their eventual performance in our program. The goal is to develop criteria for making admissions decisions for new applicants based on their likelihood of success in our program (as predicted by the performance of recent, similar students). I won't get into the details of the methodology.

One outcome of this study was that different attributes predict success for students with undergrad degrees from different countries. For example, for applicants to the program from schools in country X, but not schools in country Y, undergrad GPA is correlated with the  students' GPA in our program; for schools in country Y, but not X, GRE scores are correlated with the student's GPA in our program. (I'm simplifying a lot here.) A "toy" example I just completely made up to illustrate is shown below:

(of course, for real applicants the criteria and the relationships are more complicated)

There are many possible reasons for this: for example, we could think that the grading system is more consistent in X so undergrad GPA is a better predictor there, and in X students study "for the exam" so the GRE becomes virtually meaningless as a measure of knowledge. I could speculate, but I don't think it would be helpful. The bottom line is, we find that different factors predict student success among different populations.

Therefore, if we wanted to admit students based on their likelihood of achieving a certain GPA in our program, we would apply an undergrad GPA cutoff for students from X, and a GRE threshold for students from Y. (Again, this is vastly simplified from the criteria our study actually suggested.)

Is it fair to apply different criteria to students with undergrad degrees from different countries in admissions decisions?

Does the answer change if this would significantly skew the admissions decisions in favor of a particular country of undergrad study (because statistically, applicants to our program whose undergrad degrees are from X have done much better than those with undergrad degrees from Y).

My concern is that we're effectively saying, "Students with undergrad degrees from Y with a GRE score < T will be rejected, but students with undergrad degrees from X  with GRE < T may still be considered for admission (pending other criteria)."

On the other hand, if we ignore these statistics and reject students with undergrad degrees from X with low GRE scores, we are rejecting applicants even though we have no valid reason to believe that they won't do well in our program.

To those who doubt the results of the study:

When I say the study is "small" I don't mean it isn't statistically significant - just that it was not designed to be generalizable beyond our applicant pool. (This is the same reason why I won't give too many details about the study - I don't want anybody to read it and try to generalize from our results.)
As we know, the sample size is not the only factor that determines whether a given effect is significant. We found that the results are significant, given the sample size.
The results also seem "sane" (which of course is subjective). It's not unexpected that undergraduate grading standards (and the standard-ness of grading standards) differ by country; or that different educational systems and cultures prepare students differently for standardized exams like the GRE and TOEFL; etc. The specifics of the results (i.e., which criteria are good predictors for which undergrad country) are consistent with what students who studied in those countries have told us about grading standards, student culture, and exam prep. So, we really have no reason to doubt them.


texts: Citing "p. x" to mean page ten of a book looks confusing since "x" isn't clearly a Roman Numeral

texts: By theory, I should cite page x (page ten) like [Krusche1999, p. x]. If it were on page iii or page xi, it would look better, such as [Krusche1999, p. iii] or [Krusche1999, p. xi]. However, it is on page x, so we end up with p. x. At least to me, I won't understand, what p. x means at first sight. What do you think? Any good ideas?


texts: Alongside my book proposal, I included by mistake a chapter with some typos (just a few, but major).

texts:
Should I email the editor and resubmit the corrected version of the chapter?

I have been trying to meet a deadline so I worked very hard on my book proposal. It was polished and ready to be submitted. In the last minute, I decided to write a new introduction for one of the chapters that I submitted together with the proposal. I did not print the chapter again, so I did not see the typos, and some of the extra words left hanging in the text. Those typos are only on the first three pages of the chapter--the rest had already been edited.

Should I email the editor and let him know? He told me he already submitted the materials to the reviewers.


texts: Why do some journals ask if there is someone who you do not wish to use as a referee?

texts:
I have noticed that sometimes when you submit an article to a journal it will ask if there is someone in particular who you do not want to referee the paper.

I was wondering what the reason for this option was.  Is it simply to avoid a conflict of interest or if you really do not get on with the person to the point where you do not wish them to review something you have written?  If you put someone down as someone you do not want to be a referee, will the journal think you are scared of that person's critical appraisal of the document and actually send it to that person or will they genuinely avoid sending it to that person for review?


texts: Grad applications: mediocre grades from an ivy league (top 10) and outstanding grades from a smaller school; what should I do?

texts:
I began my undergrad at an ivy league university but decided to transfer after one year.  It wasn't that the classes were too hard; I went through a bit of a mental health crisis w/ depression, which contributed to a mediocre average (81, if I recall correctly). It doesn't help that I also slept through one exam, earning me a 60 in a course in which I would have otherwise received a high-80.  I began to see a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist; the former prescribed me antidepressants and the latter recommended I switch universities.  The city in which I was studying did not suit my temperament whatever, and my therapist (rightly) thought that my condition would be ameliorated should I switch schools.

I took their advice, and now, two years down the road, after extensive CBT and adjustments to my medications, I am in excellent mental condition.  My grades have improved dramatically (CGPA: 92, and the CGPA of accepted students at the Grad programs I am applying to range from 83-87).   Additionally, I have been doing extensive research, I have been published in some undergrad journals (and am waiting to hear back from a more prestigious open access journal), have attended a few professional conferences, and am currently working on a thesis project with a professor, part of which includes (a) designing a course to be offered next term, and (b) assisting with lectures and workshops in that course (basically I'll be splitting the teaching workload with a full time prof for a second year course).

Soon, I will be applying to grad school.  I am worried that my application will be thrown out because it looks like I failed at a hard school and so I decided to go to an 'easier one.'  I only received 4.0(/20) credits from the first school, but still, I worry this will be a disqualifying factor.  So what should I do?  On the one hand, I would like to somehow indicate that my mental health was a significant contributor to my lacklustre grades and my choice to switch universities.  On the other hand, I do not want to give the impression that I am trying to cover up my own blunders with some sob story.  (Somewhat sadistically, part of me welcomes the possibility of not being accepted because of my earlier mediocre grades; part of me feels as if the fact that I'm the kind of person that CAN be so detrimentally impacted by depression is enough to prove that I'm not cut out for grad school).  Ideally, I would love for the application departments to only consider my current transcript.  That way I don't have to mention mental health nor do I have to worry about my application being thrown out for the reasons above cited.  Is this a possibility? More importantly, is this ethical??  I have my reservations.  Anyway I know mental health services at the undergrad level have dramatically improved in the last few years to the point that if you have a documented mental illness, some poor grades may be stricken from your record.  Is there a similar process for grad applications?

Thanks for reading this.  I haven't yet spoken to anyone about this particular worry, though it's been on my mind for the past few months.  I am happy to have written it down, even if there is no satisfactory solution.  I should mention this: even though grad school is a fundamental goal of mine (often I'll daydream about working on difficult problems at the graduate level), I am OK with the possibility that I just wont get into any grad program whatever.  It's a strange thing to think about, but where I am now, I like my life.  I did not like my life two years ago. Frankly, if I were offered a choice between (a) attending grad school but doing four years at my past university and (b) not attending grad school but getting to be where I am today, I'm pretty sure I'd choose (b).  At any rate, the choice would at least be very, very difficult.


texts: Isn't the PhD supervisor required to teach the student the research subject and prerequisites, in order to save time?

texts:
My friend is completing her PhD comprehensive test and is going to start research.

Her supervisor is emphasising the importance of self-learning. He is saying that "I will provide the necessary resources, books, etc., I am not going to teach you anything, it is your responsibility to complete prerequisites. There are several resources over the internet to accomplish all your required tasks".

My doubt is that why can't the supervisor teach at least the prerequisites and the subject of research to some extent?

Anyway, the literature survey and the publishing will be done by the student only. In this context, my doubt is to know whether the supervisor is bound to teach or not?


texts:
I am an Engineering undergraduate student at a Canadian University and have had trouble in a course with regards to time to complete online quizzes. The course syllabus says there are 4 quizzes worth 4% each throughout the semester and gives the weeks that they will be conducted on, but does not give the date or time of the quiz. The quizzes are online using our university teaching website that all courses use.

The first issue arose after the very first lecture. During the first lecture nothing was mentioned about the first quiz. The Saturday following the lecture the professor emailed us and said that the first quiz would open Monday morning at 8am and be due at midnight. He also said all further communication would be through the teaching website we all use. (The syllabus also says all communication should be through the website). I planned to do the quiz (it's only a 10 minute 5 question quiz) Monday after my other classes in the evening around 9pm. I go to do the quiz only to realize it is closed. I check my email and apparently the professor emailed Sunday evening at around 7:30pm saying that the quiz will be closed at 8pm on Monday. I don't check my email every single day as it has never been a form of important communication for any class I have ever taken. I do, however, check the class website daily and there was not a single notification about the quiz. Every other course I have taken has given notifications on the website. I felt like this was unfair as the professor has said clearly on the syllabus and in his earlier email that all communication would be through the website. He then proceeded to change the quiz time (which is not on the syllabus) the day before on a Sunday evening through an email. I emailed showing him the discrepancy in a very professional manner and he simply replied with "check your email, things may change".

I found this last minute change to be very unprofessional and was upset at losing 4% of my mark. I have never missed a single assignment or test in all my 4 years of university and I attend every single lecture.

I would have taken my complaint further but in class the professor said that since some students were not enrolled in the class yet since it was only the first lecture that the lowest marked quiz would have its mark replaced with the average of the other three. Although not a direct remedy to my problem and not exactly fair I let it slide since it was good enough and I don't like complaining.

Now 4 weeks into the course the same thing happened. I check my email Tuesday morning to find that the professor emailed again on a Sunday (two days prior) saying quiz 2 is now open until Monday at midnight. I missed the quiz again. I checked the class website all throughout the weekend and Monday, no notifications were given. This is the second quiz I have now missed because I don't check my email every day and there is no remedy in place for missing it, it will be a zero. I have not yet contacted the professor or anyone else yet as I don't really know what to do except maybe talk to the department chair.

I feel like these last minute quizzes are not professional and should be announced in the lectures ahead of time or at least have their dates and times on the syllabus and if things change a notification on the class website is the bare minimum that should be done to communicate this.

Am I wrong to suggest that the professor is being unreasonable with the way he is communicating the quiz times? Should they not be set ahead of time or at least communicated in class and on the class website as opposed to email one day before? Do I have a case if I talk to the department chair?


texts: How to talk to other UG researchers and/or PG researchers?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate at a research-intensive university and I have received funding with other students to do research. The other students involved in the project are all undergraduates. I'd really like to talk to people outside of the project who do research - not necessarily to 'network' in a formal sense, but to share resources, discuss the progress we've made, etc. We have a supervisor, but I want something more like a peer. The thing is that I don't know how to find people to talk to. I don't know any undergraduates outside of the project who are doing research. The university has many postgraduates, but I feel like an intruder in postgraduate and academic spaces (e.g. research discussion groups, conferences).

It isn't about age; I started my degree as a 'mature student' and I am old enough to be a postgraduate, but there's obviously a hierarchy at universities in terms of how far you are in your education or academic career, and there are some physical barriers between me and postgraduates, too (e.g. they have their own spaces that only postgraduates can access). What should I do? I'm aware of the existence of undergraduate conferences, but it frustrates me that I'm at a university that is very oriented towards research yet I don't feel able to talk to people about it!


texts: Can I work as a software engineer and be a PhD student?

texts:
I'm a master student, my master's background is about IT, signal processing, and Telecommunications. It's a "research master", which means that we're trained more to do research than be an IT engineers/specialists.

I've made my choice because I want to do research, but It is also important for me to work after my masters graduation, some of my professors always say that it's very difficult, even impossible to do those two things together. So I'd like some more advice. Here are my questions:

Is it practically possible to do research and work?
Is it a good idea to work for a year or two after my masters, and start a PhD after that?
What kind of internships can I do, and how long should they be, so I can apply to IT companies?

PS: I've some background ans skills in Java technologies, software design, web development, and basic knowledge in networks.


texts: How can I refer to multiple equations with "Eq. (i)" style?

texts:
Assume the manuscript format for referencing the equations is as "Eq. (i)". How can I properly refer to multiple equations at once? For example which of the followings is more acceptable?

In Eq. (1), Eq. (2), Eq. (3), and Eq. (4)
In Eq. (1,2,3,4) or Eq. (1-4)
In Eqs. (1,2,3,4)
Any better idea?


texts: Indicating work was performed as a student for alumni

texts:
I have graduated with a master's and have maintained collaboration with my advisor to publish papers. I have a paper accepted in a rank A+ conference of my field.

My university e-mail address is still active but my advisor recommended I use my gmail address. I should be starting a PhD next year at the same institution so the address is likely to stay active. I put this university as affiliation since I did the work there.

Assuming I use the gmail address, should I add a footnote to my name saying "Work completed while an MSc student at institution" to explain the affiliation?

In acknowledgements, authors acknowledge grants for funding their work. Is it a place where an alumni can say he did the work as a student at the institution?

I've seen this done for papers published by students about work done during internships at companies while providing a university affiliation, such as "This work was completed while name was at company" but never have I seen this for alumni. Is it because it doesn't happen often, or would a footnote be perceived as pompous?

Edit: A comment suggested this question possibly duplicates What affiliation to put on an academic paper for alumni authors? . This is not the case, I said in the question "I put this university as affiliation since I did the work there." . My question is about adding a footnote, or an acknowledgement, indicating I was a student there when I did the work. Question edited for clarity.


texts: Should a sessional instructor applicant submit a teaching statement?

texts: I'm currently a grad student and I was wondering if it is common (or good practice) for applicants to sessional instructor positions to submit teaching statements. The positions I'm looking to apply for do not specifically ask for one (instead asking for a letter of application, listing courses of interest), and it might seem like a good opportunity to also develop a teaching statement, but only if it necessary as I haven't yet taught a course and I'm not entirely sure what I would write about (I do have considerable TA experience).


texts: Supervisor doesn't give me a chance to contribute more and gives himself first authorship, how to approach this?

texts:
My supervisor proposed a test, just a concept and I designed the experiment and executed the lab work all by myself.

After the experiment was done and I presented the data (in nice figures and tables) to my supervisor, this supervisor asked me to only write down how I did the experiment but not anything related to the other parts of a manuscript. Yes, it's clear that my supervisor told me not to touch the results and discussion, etc. I thought this might be the way my supervisor does things, I mean this professor might want to do things step by step, so I didn't comment on this.

Two days later my supervisor showed me a whole manuscript, a manuscript almost ready for submission, this professor wrote the whole manuscript without any discussion with me!

The professor told me that he/she would like to be the first author because I don't have intellectual input into the manuscript... I think this is ridiculous, isn't the experimental design a kind of intellectual contribution? And I have this question to my supervisor in my mind... how can I add my thinking into a scientific publication if you don't even allow me to participate in writing the manuscript? I'm not sure whether I did the right thing but I didn't really make a comment on his remarks. I was shocked when I was in this professor's office.

What is the best way of approaching this problem?

We only have a few students in this lab now, we are new so I cannot guarantee nothing like this happened in the past though. Any suggestions?


texts: How can I introduce a fourth reason after having stated that there are three main reasons?

texts:
In an academic paper, I have written "There are three main arguments for why X is not Z."

I have then discussed them like this:

  "First, .... (of medium length)
  The second argument is that ... (a bit long)
  The third and most important argument is that ... (longer)" **

** I did not simply use "First,... Second,... Third..." because there is some distance between the arguments. For example, the second argument is two pages long. I think writing "The third and most important argument ..." reminds the reader what these arguments are for.

Now I have realized that I have to make one more argument. And I want to start with "A fourth argument is that ..." after the third one.

Is it a problem that I stated in the beginning that I will give "three main arguments", but I give four? I don't want to say "four main arguments".

The three main arguments are widely discussed by experts in the field. The fourth argument is something that has only been pointed out (in two lines) by one author. The Thing is, my supervisor likes this fourth argument and thinks I should include it in my paper. That is why I want to mention it. I don't want to say that it is trivial because it can become important sometime in the future - just that it is not a main argument (or widely discussed) for why X is not Z.

What is the best way to introduce the fourth argument after the third while maintaining that the first three are the main arguments?


texts: Literature review help, 3D reconstruction of human organs (non-bio nature) using CAD and 3D printers

texts:
My dissertation is on 3D reconstruction of a human kidney (non-biological nature) using CAD software and 3D printers. The main objectives set in brief are:

-know how 3d printers work and identify different 3d printing technologies
-learn how to use CAD software to design or segment human organs then print out using 3D printers.

Now I've never actually done a literature review before and am struggling to see how to structure it so can achieve 1st objective but still write it in a lit review format. Thought about writing about history, current and developing tech, future developments. then going to try to print healthy kidney and unhealthy kidney for comparison. lots of benefits to both clinicians and patients. I'd be grateful for any pointers.


texts: Can I do an MS in CS in USA after a 5-year integrated MSc degree in CS?

texts:
I'm currently pursuing a 5 year integrated MSc. course in Theoretical CS in India. In my search online, a little under half of the 'top' universities in the US explicitly state that they won't take students who already have a Masters degree in CS or related fields into their Master's program. But my degree is structured in such a way that we have only 4 years of course work and two 6-month internships/research interns. ( like a Bachelors degree + 1 yr of work experience )

Will my degree make me inelligible for those programs even though my course is just a glorified undergraduate degree?
If I apply to the universities which don't have that rule (explicitly stated on their website) will I stand a chance for admission or is it also highly unlikely?


texts: Professor wants to include a specific (maybe unnecessary) issue and focus less on other necessary ones in LoR. Please share your perspective

texts:
I am applying to a PhD program in humanities/social sciences. I asked a professor  I know (we are outside the US) to write a strong letter of recommendation for me and he said he would be glad. However, the possible content of the letter (we have only talked about it together) gave rise to two questions for me:
Firstly, he wants to include a line to the effect that he plans to work with me in different ways in future research. At first glance, it feels like a very positive note but I am not sure if the admissions committee may see something implied here that may become problematic (e.g., the student may be too distracted or he may be too busy to focus on his PhD). What do you think?
Secondly, when I asked for some other issues he seemed a bit reluctant. For example, I asked him to write more than one page if possible but he insists on one page being enough. Or, when I asked him to illustrate his praise with specific examples so as to make it credible, he agreed but kept saying that no more than two or three examples are needed and a minimal approach will be more successful. Again, this could be true but I just don't want to rely on my own judgement in this regard. So, I appreciate your take on this issue.


texts: "Withdrawn" grade from an undergraduate class vital to my Master's application

texts:
I am applying for a Master's in Computer Science for the program of artificial intelligence. I already took a class in A.I. but I got a "W" on it. I wasn't doing very well and wanted to drop the class, I was also taking 20 credits at the time and didn't had the time to put the extra effort.

How will this be evaluated during my application for a Masters? Should I mention it or defend it anywhere in my application?

Some more background:
I am not really into excuses, but if it helps to better understand why I dropped it. About half the class, dropped the class because the professor was not very good. His grading was unfair, and also for me it felt he had a personal nemesis, because he was also my academic advisor and very often I would disagree in a respectful manner as to what I want to pursue in my degree. I didn't want my GPA to be affected by a C or even F. Also he was not a very effective teacher, but he seems to be very respected in the academia (he has some of his research cited 800+ times). Which I am sure he deserves.

EDIT: I already graduated and recently been working and had to use AI.


texts: As a referee, is it okay to ask for references to be removed?

texts:
Say I received a paper for review. Afterwards I discover that there are cited references that are not related to the discussed subject, or there are elements in the bibliography that are not referenced in the manuscript.

As a referee, is it ok to ask for the removal of such references?

I ask because I have never heard of someone suggesting the removal of references, but on the contrary, I have many times heard of researchers self citing or citing friends just to enhance their numbers.


texts: What are the Pros and Cons of working before doing a PhD (in Machine Learning)?

texts: In terms of success as a PhD-level researcher either in academia or industry, what are the pros and cons of doing a PhD after 2 years or more in industry following undergrad.


texts: How necessary is buying a domain when I'm just a graduated student?

texts: I'm a graduated student and about to make a poster for my institution's conference. I would like to have a website so that I can have more space to present in the poster while still have a data to show if necessary. If I choose to have a free domain, I will have an URL contain the host name, e.g. myname.wordpress.com. If I buy a domain and use free host like Wordpress, I can quickly build my website up but the price is not cheap. If I buy a domain and a host, the price may cheaper but I have to build it by myself. I want my website to look professional (and impressive) on the poster so that using a free domain may not a good choice, but I also consider in the economic prospect. In my country, $10 is not a big deal, but also not a thing that people is willing to spent easily.


texts: Master thesis is reaching a dead-end and supervisor doesn't seem to understand?

texts:
I'm halfway (3 months out of 6) through my masters thesis and the problem involves using a few open source software libraries to the analyse data. But essentially the problem is that after the data has been analysed, which is basically fitting data into a function, and the performance is good, I was basically done. There was no original work and anyone could have done that. So my supervisor then wanted me to explain why it performed so well, but the problem is that the algorithm is basically a statistical model and well-documented, with no relation to the data, so I would be just regurgitating summaries and superficial explanation of how the algorithm works, and the source-code basically does what it says. I explain this to him, that this would be a dead-end because the algorithm works with any data, and it was like explaining why a camera took better photos of my car than my drawing, which is down to the camera itself not the car, and my supervisor wants to why the car performs so well with the camera.

I am just stuck and worried on how I was going to write a thesis on this. I have done nothing new and my supervisor still wants me to go deeper to find a link, even though there may not be one. Should I ask an academic supervisor for advice? Should I just stick it out and develop a weak link between those two? Should I swap projects to something more experimental where at least the results are original since it was self-measured?


texts: Undergraduate Interviewing for Research Assistant Jobs- Tips?

texts:
So, after having an interest in pursuing a full time position in research to live and breathe research without class commitments in hopes of building a strong skillset, I decided to pursue job opportunities at research facilities and research heavy academic institutions. After initially getting rejected by HR for open positions, I started "cold e-mailing" PIs at various locations around my general location who advertised open slots on their lab websites. I got a reply from a big shot PI who was interested in my resume and conducts research at a top 10 university...which was ridiculously unexpected. He wanted an interview the day he comes back from a conference.

I've always thought a strong suit of mine was eloquently illustrating passion, and I do believe that was the bulk of my application's success (he mentioned this in his reply, which was a response like 1 hour after I e-mailed him). I'm not lacking confidence in myself, but I am slightly confused and personally believe my background does not warrant a top 10 reply (my university is not even in the top 100, lack of publications, no in depth experience, 1.5 years of research at my uni and 2 REUs at his alma matar for his MS and PhD, and I'm about to only receive an undergraduate degree). That being said, I'm both nervous and excited- this is a dream position. I've never been in this position, and I wanted to ask for advice on what to do during an interview.

How do I not ruin this job? What do most PIs look for? What "studying" should I do in my free time between now and the interview (~1 month)? Any tips?


texts: Submitting very quickly a revised version of a paper

texts:
After a first round of revision, I have a paper whose status on Elsevier is "Accept, after minor Revision". Indeed, referees pointed out some revisions (very minor ones) which are relatively easy to be fulfilled. I made the necessary modifications in one day.
My question, is really a bad signal to resubmit very quickly a paper? What can be pros and cons of that?


texts: Why do major international universities still have courses in languages other than English?

texts:
As an example ETH Zurich, which is arguably one of the best universities in Europe, still educates Bachelor's students in German:

  Please note: the Bachelor’s degree programmes begin in German. In the second and third years of the programmes, some of the courses may take place in English.

This doesn't make sense to me as it's obvious that the vast majority of technical literature and textbooks are published in English. And pretty much every major scientific journal only accepts works in the English language. This also decreases the amount of competition between the applicants as German speakers hold an advantage over others (not to say native English speakers don't hold the same advantage back at home, but English is by far more common).

So why didn't every single major university switch to English already?

EDIT: I am mainly referring to programs in the STEM field, such as engineering


texts: Viewing MathJobs Applications as Living Documents?

texts:
I am in the process of applying for tenure-track positions. I have been told that getting your file submitted early is useful, so I am eager to apply.

I have a final draft of my application materials, but I am potentially still getting feedback from mentors. Is it appropriate to start to submit applications now, with the potential of editing these documents mildly as time progresses and I get feedback? Also, most of my recommenders have not uploaded their letters, so I am curious if I should wait for a certain number to finish.


texts: Is it appropriate to ask a prospective PhD advisor whether working for them would be good for my career?

texts:
Summary Between my Ph.D. offers, I narrowed down my choices to two. Right now, my decision is mostly dependent on a few factors I didn't discuss with either advisor. I want to ask about these issues directly, but am worried about alienating either or both advisors.

My two options

Option 1:

Advisor is a veteran of the field and some of his recent graduates have landed excellent postdoc positions
Institute is well-established in the field and widely recognized as one of the bests in the world

Option 2:

Advisor is much younger, though so far very successful. His first advisees will graduate this year (so can't yet gauge their success).
Institute is very young and its PhD program has had too few alumni so far to give a good image of how successful they are in landing jobs in academia. That being said, institute X has been able to attract excellent faculties and postdocs from top universities (top 10 of the world) and some of their more experienced faculties left tenured positions at those top universities to join X. They also invite world-class faculties and postdocs from the best institutions from all around the world for their weekly colloquium. They're not still as successful in attracting PhD applicants though (perhaps because, as I saw during their interview event, those other offerees that also hold offers from more prestigious universities have the same concern as I do).
Good program structure and flexibility
Good resources and opportunities
Tempting financial offer.

My concern: I like option 2, but I want a job in academia. If I choose option 2, the name of the institute I'll have done my PhD at may not carry enough weight to help me get into excellent postdoc positions and eventually land a tenure-track job in a decent university.

Question: Is it inappropriate to share this concern very frankly with the advisor at institute 2 (who himself has graduated from an incredibly prestigious university)? Could asking that question upset the advisor and negatively influence my chances for later becoming a postdoc in their group? I was thinking of describing the situation as I described above (with a little more details) and ask for Prof. Q's opinion fully honestly. If that's inappropriate, is there a more appropriate way of doing that?


texts: Listing industry related honors and awards on a CV

texts:
I'm in the process of getting my PhD as part of a transition from industry to academia. During my time in industry I received a number of awards that I've typically listed in one form or another on my résumé. What is the protocol for listing these on the academic CV? Should they just be put in a generic "Honors and Awards" section, or broken out by industry, academic, etc?

Since it may be relevant, the awards loosely breakdown as follows:

Awarded within the department
Nominated by department, awarded by higher level management
Annual award from the highest level of a multi-national organization

These were also a combination of individual and team awards as well.


texts: Rationale behind lack of transparency regarding thesis defence committee

texts:
At my department, a thesis defence committee consists of 3-4 professors (including the advisor(s)), one of whom does not belong to the department (so could be pretty much anyone related to the field).
It is common for a grad student to know who his thesis defence committee members are going to be quite ahead of the defence date (usually the student will know before copies of his thesis are sent to the members for review).

In rare cases, the student can even assemble his committee together with his advisor -- this makes sense for example in the case where the student wishes to pursue a certain research direction after graduating, and he would like a potential advisor or reference who is an expert in the subfield to take a part in his evaluation.

However, the general policy of the university (and of some faculty members) is that a student is not supposed to have the information on who is included in the committee until the defence.

While I understand some potential reasons for it, such as avoiding bribery in any form, those precautions seem quite far fetched at a small department where everybody would probably know if any foul play was going on. Also, if it really were an issue, there should have been anonymity in other examination-related situation during one's studies. From a different perspective, I personally would rather not discover that Euler is on my thesis defence committee when I walk into the examination room (and not because of the startling discovery of the existence of zombies).

What reasons, from your experience, lead to such no-transparency policies?

(I am not facing such a situation, the question arises from a case involving a colleague.)


texts: How to conduct IT based research in developing countries where we don't even have enough datasets for reference and analysis?

texts:
Today in developed countries technology and innovation  has reached its optimum level. But in least developed countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, etc, the scenario for research is different. Here the education syatem is also in learning phase. Few university exists and barely research oriented activities goes through academic.
We neither have any research grants to follow or enough datasets and technologies for analysis and comparision. Even the governmemt is still functioning on paper. So in such absurd situation what kinds of researches are suggested and how to do it?


texts: What should a tenured professor do to move to a more research oriented school?

texts: Much is written about how to get a job, but I've seen very little about how a professor with tenure (typically an associate or full professor) goes about changing schools.  If a professor wants to move to a school with a higher emphasis on research, obviously his or her research, publication, and grant records will be very important.  But what else will be important?  Particularly, which aspects will be much more important than they would be for an assistant professor looking to get a job at the same school?


texts: Difference between Related work and Background section?

texts:
I am writing my first Computer Science conference paper. The thing I don't understand is the difference between "related work" vs "background", could someone explain this?
I have read some related papers, some of them have long "background" section with short "related work" section, while other papers just simply have a long "related work" section.
I am confused about what to put for the related work and background section, I thought those two parts may have many overlappings since both sections will describe how previous work approach the problem. If I would like to have both sections, then I need to describe how previous work approach the problem in both sections?


texts: Should I take an S/NS grade during COVID19 if I want to go to grad school?

texts:
I am currently a graduating senior. The course in question is within my department, but will count as an elective (since I have already met the requirements, I just took this class for the experience). This class ended up being way harder than I anticipated, and online learning turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected. My current overall gpa is a 3.8, and my departmental gpa is a 3.96. I anticipate getting a B in the class, a C+ at the lowest. However, a B or C+ would prevent me from getting cum laude (which I would get otherwise), and would tank my departmental gpa. My question is, will taking this class S/NS be a disaster for PhD program admissions, especially since it is within my department, or will exceptions be made for Spring 2020 given current events? I am weighing the benefits of graduating with cum laude and a high gpa against the damage of having an S/NS grade.

More details as requested:

I have to register for S/NS now but can switch back to a letter grade later if I wish. I have access to all my scores so if I end up doing much better than I anticipated I could take the letter grade.
The class is only made up of 3 test scores (which are hard and difficult to gauge my performance before getting graded) so my fear is that one of them will tank my average.
S/NS means satisfactory / not satisfactory.


texts: Is regional accreditation important for a masters degree?

texts:
My understanding is that a regionally accredited school is important for getting into other schools, such as when applying for a masters program. But considering a masters program is typically the end of the road, is the type of accreditation important when looking at schools for a masters degree?

If choosing between two schools:

A. Regionally accredited, but less desired degree
B. Nationally
accredited, but more desired degree

(desired = more desired degree type by the industry)

For example:

A. Regionally accredited; MS in Game Design and Development
B. Nationally accredited; MS in Computer Science with heavy emphasis on Game design and development

To gain entry into the game industry as a programmer, a computer science degree probably goes further than a game design and development degree. Both schools would provide the networking.

Do employers care about accreditation type?


texts: I am applying to many universities, how should I ask my professors to re-write recommendation letters?

texts: I applied for PhD  but  I have not been accepted, and now I want to apply for another university and I want to request  recommendation-letter from the same professors,  what should I write in  my email to the professors to request recommendation again!


texts: Is publishing runnable code instead of pseudo code shunned?

texts:
In Computer Science is it preferable to describe algorithms using pseudo code rather than real code? If so, why?

I've talked to a few academics who think so but I can't understand why. Some of the arguments I've heard:

"Pseudo code is shorter."  Given a modern language like Clojure or Python, the real code is often not much longer. Even if it is, (electronic) paper is cheap.
"Not everyone can code in Python."  True, but well-written Python code isn't harder to read than pseudo code. Plus, Python is standardized - someone's personal pseudo code isn't.
"In CS, we focus on algorithms - not implementations."  True, but also showing implementations doesn't take away from that focus.
"It's favoring one language over another."  True, but that is a right I as an author have, isn't it?
"It looks amateurish."  That's subjective.

The main advantage with real code is that you can run it and see for yourself if it works or not. You don't have to wonder whether you have made a mistake in implementing the pseudo code.

So what are the arguments for pseudo code?

To make it clear what I mean by real and runnable code, see the code in the following articles:

An Effective Implementation of the Lin-Kernighan Traveling Salesman Heuristic
Fast Minimum Storage Ray/Triangle Intersection
Watertight Ray/Triangle Intersection

The first and second contains C code. Helsgaun claims it is "c-style pseudocode" but it is to my eyes almost indistinguishable from real C code. The difference I can see is that it uses α, β and ∞ as variable names. The third contains C++ code.


texts: Should I add the Poster or the article published in the proceedings to my CV?

texts:
I presented a poster 3 years ago in a small conference and added the poster to my CV and ResearchGate profile. At the request of the conference organisers, I also wrote a short article describing the poster that was published in the conference proceedings one year ago.
I guess it would be unethical to add both the poster and the article to my CV and ResearchGate profile, but which one should I use? Is it better to use the article in the proceedings? And in that case, should I consider it as a poster, an article or a conference paper?
Thank you!


texts: The meaning of "paper" in the context of undergraduate students

texts:
The word "paper" on this site seems to be extensively used to refer to serious scientific publications/articles by PhD students and other researchers.

Now I am coming across its use by students completing a diploma in legal executive studies — which is not even bachelor's degree level. Here are real examples:

I live in ... and will be continuing on with my Legal Exec papers from home, having completed two papers last year.
I have finished 3 papers and I hope to complete 3 papers this year.
Only 2 more papers towards completion!
I am hoping to complete my two final papers this semester (Business and  Estate Law).

Never having been a student in an English-speaking country before, I am now struggling to perceive what exactly those "papers" are. Can someone please explain? The examples above are from New Zealand.


texts: Is publishing papers before the evaluation of thesis a good idea?

texts:
Is publishing papers before the evaluation of thesis is a good idea?
Isn't there a risk of making the idea public?


texts: I got a report on one of my papers recently, in which the referee claimed my results were "natural". This was one of their primary reasons for rejecting my paper. I agree the proofs are not exceptionally difficult, but on the other hand I feel my results significantly advance our understanding of certain mathematical objects, and may be crucial in answering some open questions in the field. Is the rejection simply a consequence of my not adequately "selling" my results, or is insufficient novelty a good enough reason for rejecting a paper?  In time, I feel that I will be able to use the results to answer these big questions, but of course there is no guarantee of this. Should I simply aim for a lesser journal now, or is the referee's comment likely to be echoed by other reviewers, in which case I should "hold my fire" until (if?) I draft a more substantial paper?


texts: Is there typically a pre-screening process for doctoral admissions in the US?

texts:
I am applying to doctoral programs in the US and I am wondering: is it common for applications to be filtered before they reach the hiring committee?

In the typical selection and admissions procedure for doctoral students, what happens after the deadline for applications has passed?


texts: Differences between cover letter and research plan?

texts:
I want to apply for a PhD positions and it says to include the following:

a cover letter
Research plan – this should be a personal statement motivating why you are applying for this position

I usually put in the cover letter the statement of why I am applying, but in this case how should I separate both of them?


texts: How to address any professor in formal letter

texts:
When we write to any professor, we write Dear Professor X. If we write only Professor X, is it weird?

Professor X,

Best Regards,


texts: Is this journal a scam: Requires payment, invited to submit via email, no comments from reviewers, journal not listed on scimagojr rankings

texts:
After having presented a paper of mine at a conference last summer, I received an email from someone claiming to be part of an editorial team of a journal, to whom my paper was recommended. I sent my work to them, and received an unconditional acceptance after four weeks. But there have been some things that made me doubtful on whether it is actually a good idea to go on and publish there.

I received no comments from reviewers. The journal claims on the website that it is "peer-reviewed" (says nothing on the blindness). When I inquired about comments, the assistant to the editor told me that the editor's comments could be forwarded to me, but that that would take some time. I am currently waiting for this (for about three weeks).

The contact I have with them, exclusively with the editor's assistant, has been interesting. I receive emails at times when people in the US (it is an American journal) are unlikely to work. The person has an Indian-sounding name, and the hours of activity are more likely to be Indian working hours than American.

I could not find anything on the assistant to the editor online. She has referred to me multiple times as "Dr.", even though I am not yet, never used that prefix, and wrote to her after the first time that that is the wrong title. In general, the mails are unresponsive, and only answer one question out of three I asked them, etc.

On the journal website, they cite their h-index for the year 2010, and compare it to those of other journals in 2010. The journal does not appear in the ranking at https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=JOURNAL+NAME. In turn, I do not know how reputable that website is, but it looks quite complete.

I can not find a list of articles that appeared in this journal on their website. I would like such a list to compare my article to others, and to see who the other authors are, how often their articles were subsequently cited, etc. As the journal's name is consisting of quite generic words, it is difficult to find articles from it on Google scholar - or they are not even indexed on Google scholar, although they claim to be on their website.

I also sent emails to academics that are listed on the Journals website as editors. They were not listed with institutional affiliations, but I googled their names, found academics with the same name and active in overall the same academic field, and wrote them emails, asking about their affiliation with the journal and whether it is legit. I received no replies.

In case of acceptance, I have to pay 320$ to publish, this includes the subscription to the journal for one year.

I am now wondering whether, given all of the above, it is a good journal to publish in, or whether there even is such a thing as a scam in this area of academia that I need to be aware of. Other journals also require a publication fee or even a submission fee, but in their cases, it is more clear to the authors what they gain in return. If it is not a financial scam, could it be a sort of academic scam - an attempt to steal results? But what good are stolen results with no data?

Should I mention the publisher and the journal name in this question?


texts: Would a question that requires an amount of text to explain be good to send?

texts:
From Is it appropriate (as a PhD student) to email other researchers asking about some details in their papers?, I get that generally you will get answer if you ask question on their work. But what if your question is tangent to their work, and requires some space to elaborate?
The draft is below:

Dear Prof X
To introduce myself, my name is Y, from country Z. I have read some pages in your book about the connection between [concept A in field 1] and [concept B in field 2]. I wonder what do you think about the connection between [concept C in field 1] and [concept D in field 2]?
[16 lines and 184 words to elaborate the connection. I don't consider this as a wall of text]
I also have a blog article explaining all my observations about the connection between field 1 and field 2. It may take only 5 minutes to read.
Thank you for your reading. Hope you enjoy it.

Some notes:

I haven't read his book enough to say that I know a large portion of it (just skimming it), but I can say that I understand A, B, C, D at least in introductory level.
I don't have any institute, but I think my culture is relevant to field 1, so perhaps it can be a kind of expertise/institute?
I may apply to his school in the future

Related: How do researchers send unsolicited emails asking for feedback on their works?


texts: How do traveller academics get reimbursed for accommodation shared with families?

texts:
I will travel to a conference at which I will present my work. My funder usually reimburses me for fees of conference registration, travel, and accommodation.

However, since my wife and kids will accompany me, I will book separate travel tickets for them, and a family room, which is usually more expensive than a single one.

I will ask the funder whether/how they would reimburse me for the accommodation.

I guess many other academics around the world travel for work with their partners, friends, or families, and I am wondering how they usually/ideally get fair reimbursement for accommodation shared with other non-funded travellers.


texts:
An Australian bioinformatics job ad talks about writing "scientific reports" in the selection criteria.

Wikipedia has an article on Technical reports, which it says are also called scientific reports, but that definition, of basically grey literature, doesn't seem plausible.

Does it have any other meanings, such as a hypernym of scientific papers, conference talks, and conference posters?


texts: Received a less-than-great grade due to bad instructions. Should I appeal?

texts:
Last week, I did a computer lab for a class. At the end of the instructions was a script that would verify that everything in the lab was done correctly. At the end of the lab, I knew I had done everything correctly; however, the verification script wouldn't show that everything was done correctly.

The instructor didn't mention that some additional changes would have to be made to all the lab files for the verification script to pass. I found that out by going to the TAs. I have proof that the professor took notice of this error last week only after I had brought it up, and that I submitted the lab on the same day he did so - albeit a few hours later.

However, I forgot to make the necessary change for one of the lab files, for which I was docked 3 points (out of 20).

The professor has thus far refused to give me those points back.
Assuming the evidence I have of the professor's oversight and of my same-day submission of the lab satisfies the standard of evidence at the department/university level for a grade dispute/appeal, should I appeal the grade or just let it go?


texts:
I'm a 28 year old Ph.D. student in CS (databases), in my first year of study - I have completed a research-based Master's program and published a couple of papers as well.

I love research, and my current school + supervisor. However, I'm under severe financial pressures, and the stipend isn't cutting it (I'm unable to take up part-time work, since I'm on a visa). I have standing offers from great companies. The logical step is for me to take up a job at one of these places, since my plan was to work in industry after a Ph.D. anyway.

However, I wish to return to academia (as a professor) at some point, perhaps in my 40s. My choices are:

Continue in my current program (very stressful personally)
Re-apply (after I'm financially settled) to a Ph.D. program, in my mid-late thirties.
Try and publish from industry (collaborate with my current advisor) and apply for a position in academia later on (as a researcher/tenure-track professor).

Questions for you guys:

General advice on any other options I don't know about?
Is (2) worthwhile, will I get into a good program (mainly concerned by the age factor)
Is (3) even possible? If so, how rare is it that academic positions are offered to non-Ph.D.'s? My field is closely tied to industry, so there will be chances for me to work and publish research, but I'm not sure how pedantic academia is as far as requiring the terminal Ph.D. degree.


texts: What do PhD researchers generally do when someone else solves their problem?

texts:
Suppose, someone is at the 3rd year of his PhD program. I.e. he has passed more than half of his time in his degree program.

Then suddenly, he comes to know that someone else already solved this problem and published a research paper in a journal last week.

What do researchers generally do in such cases?


texts: Does an engineering paper have to improve on the state of the art quantitatively in order to be publishable?

texts:
In most engineering papers, I see that the authors justify their research by displaying how well it performs against the state-of-the-art methods or algorithms, in a quantitative sense. To put it loosely, this is usually stated along the lines of "Our method is faster/better/cheaper than existing methods, and here are the charts and graphs to prove it".

However, what about papers that are putting forward a more visionary approach that would take time to justify using quantitative means? For example, it is conceivable that there is an idea that performs moderately well, but needs work by the entire community in order to reach its potential. It is also conceivable that this idea is a more fruitful one than existing lines of research.

Does a piece of research have to beat others in a measurable way in order to be publishable, or is there also a qualitative, holistic way that papers are evaluated?


texts: When is the ideal time to contact potential PhD advisors?

texts:
I'm a rising senior studying Psychology, and will be applying to PhD and Master's programs in the Fall. I have already shortlisted the advisors from the schools I would like to work with and whose research I find fascinating.

Would sending them a quick email now (late May) asking whether they are taking graduate students and expressing an interest in being a part of their lab in 2019 be too early? Should I wait until the term starts in September/October to reach out to them?


texts: When am I supposed to get an acknowledgement for a paper submitted via e-mail (CS conference)?

texts: I have submitted a paper to a CS conference. Am I supposed to get an acknowledgement email, so I know it hasn't ended up in the spam folder by accident, and that it will be considered for the conference? If so, how long after submission? Is it OK to contact the conference organizers and ask if my submission has been received?


texts: Can I publish multiple papers with same methodology but different topics?

texts:
I'm investigating differences in esophageal cancer incidence and mortality rates between my home state and the rest of the United States. There already exists a paper that performs this type of analysis for colo-rectal cancer using data from a pre-existing database (SEER).

If I used that original author's methodology (citing him of course) and gathered data from that same database, but adapted it towards investigating pontine cancer instead, would it be publishable, assuming my content is otherwise unique and competent?

If the former holds true, it there anything that could/would stop me from creating an indefinite number of research papers that are permutations of my original except with other cancers like lung, breast, skin, etc? Or even different states?

I don't want to do anything unprofessional or unethical here so I would like to know sooner rather than later. Please advice and thank you.


texts: How much of a maths background is necessary for a PhD in Software Engineering?

texts:
I am a third year undergraduate majoring in Software Engineering ,and hope to continue studies until a PhD.
I am from Sri Lanka.I intend to go for USA or New Zealand to do my masters and eventually my PhD

My High school subjects were Computer Science, Accounts and Economics.I didn't select Maths since I didn't like the subject at that time(although now I regret it everyday)

While doing undergraduate studies I did a maths course and scored poorly and didn't actually learn since they teach a lot of concepts in maths in a very limited time.
When I watch MIT opencourseware videos on Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence,I realized that the maths they use are Greek to me.I knew I had to do maths if I ever am going to have a career in academia after this.
Is it a smart move to take a semester break from undergraduate studies to study maths or is it possible to continue studies till a PhD without actually taking maths?


texts: Is it common to study mathematics without any computer programming? Why would this be considered acceptable?

texts:
MATLAB vs. Python in industry at Operations Research SE contains the following statement:

I am a beginning PhD student in math, and I would like to focus on optimization. I am learning programming for the first time [...]

How common is this situation?
When I got my degrees in mathematics, computer programming courses were compulsory, and many math courses assumed that we already knew how to program. For example, in graph theory, we wrote programs to solve shortest-path problems; in optimization, we wrote programs to solve linear programming problems; in statistics we used APL.
That was as an undergrad student, 45 years ago, using multi-million dollar computers. So I don't understand how people today, when computers are so ubiquitous, can make it to PhD level mathematics without ever being exposed to programming.
What happened?


texts: Short papers at computer science conferences

texts:
What is the purpose of short papers at computer science conferences?

I’m a first year PhD student. I spent a few months working with my supervisor on a long paper that we submitted to a conference. I then spent two weeks working on a short paper for the same conference. My supervisor said that it is fine to submit.

Would it have been better working on four or five short papers instead of one long paper? Or are short papers not well regarded at all—should I not consider working on them in the future?