texts: Is getting a good grade enough to ask for a letter of recommendation for a grad school application?

texts:
I'm about to start a 5th year Master's program in CS at my university (one extra year after B.S. for a M.S.). I've also been looking at applying to grad schools for a PhD program, and the main thing that I've been worried about is recommendation letters.

I know one professor somewhat well (took two classes with her, one of which was a project class where I presented to her) and I think she would be willing to write a rec letter. However, she's fairly well known in her field and I don't know if that makes it harder to get a rec from her.

But, most of the colleges I'm looking at for grad school need three letters. I've had good grades throughout my undergrad, mostly 3.9 and 4.0s. Because I was fairly comfortable with my classes, I rarely went to office hours. As a result, I don't think any of the professors who've taught me know anything about me other than that I was in their class and that I did well.

I'm totally unsure now about how to proceed. Is it normal for professors to be asked for rec letters by students they only maybe recognize? Do they usually say yes or no? What are my options?


texts: Why would a professor (say in pure math) want to take PhD students?

texts:
Why would a professor doing pure math/ theoretical computer science want to take PhD students?

I understand that in computational and experimental sciences taking students is at least beneficial to them. However, in subjects like pure math, it is not obvious to me that there are any significant advantages to take some PhD students. It is probably expected from the department that you will take some students, and it is nice to have someone who can type things up for you. But other than that, I don't see any reasons.

So, why would they want to do that? What are they expecting from their (prospective) students?


texts: Which term is correct for a work submitted for a master's degree: paper, thesis or dissertation?

texts: What is the difference among the terms paper, thesis and dissertation?  Which one should I use, for instance if I am completing a master's degree? Are they interchangeable ?


texts: Graduating this year and not sure what type of grad school to pursue?

texts:
How did you all decide that graduate school, and specifically the field you're studying in graduate school, was the right choice?
I'm a senior at an excellent university studying Bioengineering. I think I'm a pretty odd case, as my passions have always been reading and creative writing, but I chose to study a flexible hard science as it would provide at least a little more use for the degree, and bioengineering was the most broad. As a result, though, I've always been open to a lot of career paths and have had a lot of trouble figuring out what I want to do. Going into my last year I've done really well in classes (3.95+ GPA), but I never found the subject to be something I was super passionate about: I was more just decently interested. My GPA, in combination with my research experience and volunteer work, has made me at least a viable candidate for law schools, med schools, and Bioengineering graduate programs (probably just a masters), and these three choices are quite different and career-defining.
My rationale for considering these programs and not just heading into the work-force is that going to top programs for any of these (especially law and med school) would allow me to rise significantly higher professionally and perhaps find more fulfilling work. A masters in bioengineering would allow me to specialize in the field (the BE field itself has options in which to specialize) more which would definitely improve my job prospects as well. Just thinking about deciding between all of this is seriously anxiety-inducing, and has always been for me since I entered college. They all seem somewhat appealing, and they all come with the con of "What if I made the wrong choice and would have been better in that other field?" While I know you can always switch afterwards or do multiple, practically and financially speaking that's far from ideal.
Given all this information, I ask you academics, who in my experience are some of the most focused, committed, and driven people in the world, how did you decide on what you wanted to do and make that commitment?


texts: Is there a resource that gives the number of citations per scientist in various countries?

texts: The motivation for this question is attempting to quantify the quality of science in a country.  Getting at quality is difficult, but the number of citations is one way of trying to do so.  Is there any available resource that has computed the number of citations per scientist in various countries?


texts: What does it take to get a worthwhile recommendation letter

texts: I am now looking for people to write recommendation letters for me so as to prepare for graduate school application by the end of this year. I found I still need one more person(I want to have 3 letters, as is required by almost all US graduate schools), but I don't know what does it take to get a recommendation letter that is worthwhile? I mean, is it OK to ask a professor write a recommendation letter for you only based on your behavior in his/her class? or you must do research with a professor for some time so that the letter can contain something really meaningful? (The problem I have with the second choice is that I am already participating research with a professor, and I guess it is not a good idea to distract myself to another professor's field at this time.)


texts: "Duke University Press" vs "Duke University Press Books"

texts:
Which of these bibliography citations is preferred?:

  Weld, Kirsten. Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014.

  Weld, Kirsten. Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala. Durham: Duke University Press Books, 2014.

Google shows both forms are in use for this particular book (and many like it).
 In total, Google yields 442,000 results for "Durham: Duke University Press" and 14,200 results for "Durham: Duke University Press Books." Why are there two competing forms?


texts: What references must be acknowledged in a paper?

texts:
This question came up from a discussion on meta.MSE.

My question is:

  Do we need to search MSE (or blogs, math forums, ...) to make sure someone hasn't already proven a result when writing a paper?

  What if we are already aware of a them (so no need for searching)?

  Is not citing such a post in these two cases considered plagiarism?

As I understand, the common practice is to check standard reviewed reputable publication venues (journals, conferences, maybe arXiv) and also with experts in the area to make sure a result is not already published nor a well-known folklore result. No one is going to search all over the internet and check every post that Google returns and citing other resources is very uncommon. I think checking MatheOverflow can be considered similar to the later (checking with experts) (also see this discussion on MO but that doesn't seem to apply to a site like MSE. I am not going to cite a discussion with some random person on the street (not a professional mathematician) who claimed to have a solution or an idea for a solution for a problem (which is not passed peer-review process and I might not want even want to spend time understanding or checking the correctness of the solution).

  What are the accepted practice for checking originality of a result?

  What is expected from authors regarding this before making a paper submission?

Some clarification since there seems to be a misinterpretation of the question about being academic honesty. The question is not about posts that

you are aware of,
contain a complete rigorousness solution (not just ideas), and
you are confident the solution is correct.


texts: Do authors appreciate the work of peer reviewers?

texts: It’s International Peer Review Week, and this year’s theme is “Recognition for Review.” This makes me wonder whether authors feel a sense of appreciation for their reviewers. As an author, I have always felt intimidated or depressed by peer review. But on some reflection, I feel that reviewers have actually helped me improve my papers. Have you ever felt a sense of appreciation and gratitude for your reviewers? If you had the opportunity to write a note of thanks to your reviewers today, what would you write?


texts: How to answer a professor when you ask for an opportunity to do your Ph.D. and the first contact is positive

texts:
Well, I sent a message to a professor asking for an opportunity in its research group aiming to start my Ph.D. (in a major university, top 25 in the world).  I sent as attached files my résumé, my research papers as usual on this kind of messages (but I sent the mail with no hope to be answered). Nonetheless, in four hours (in a Saturday if this information helps to the analysis), I have received a response stimulating me to apply (and saying that they are always looking for good students to do research there) and copying this answer to de Ph.D. coordinator program. However, as I sent this message just to know about my chances (before, I have read his papers and résumé of course) I was planning to apply to the Ph.D. only at the end of 2018 (but that answer really surprised me). So the questions are:

1) Is that answer usual? I mean, answering me and "ccing" the Ph.D. coordinator is a good sign or not? Or is this a polite way to answer me? Usually, if your résumé is really good, the professors schedule a call by phone or skype (or is this not a standard?)

2) How to inform them that I would like to apply to de Ph.D. only at the end of next year (because I don't have all the documents and the deadline to apply is December 15th), without prejudice about our conversations?

3) What are the next steps? (any suggestion will be kindly appreciated). I confess I'm quite lost how to proceed.


texts:
In ISI Web of Knowledge Journal Citation Report, we can find any journal Impact Factor (IF) and 5-Years Impact Factor (IF5), which is, as far as I get it, the Impact Factor over the last 5 years (well, the name is quite self-descriptive...).

What interests me is the difference between both indexes. I was wondering how to analyse this difference. If IF > IF5, does it means the journal IF is globally increasing?

And which one is more accurate while evaluating a journal?


texts:
It is common that people add their LinkedIn profile in their resumes. On the other hand, they add profiles (like ResearcherID) counting publications, citations, and showing factors such as h-index.

ResearchGate is something in-between, but I have not seen if anyone add his/her ResearchGate profile link in resume. Is it because ResearchGate is young and not popular, or it is not technically convenient?


texts: What is the work load of a journal reviewing editor?

texts:
I was wandering what was the work load of a journal reviewing editor? More precisely, if someone would like to apply for such a position, how much time is required to do the job correctly?

I am of course aware that it might highly depend on the type of journal and/or field of research, but I would like to have some general feedback / experiences / advices.

Thanks to all!


texts: How to make data management plans machine readable?

texts:
More and more research projects are now required to have a data management plan, sometimes already upon submission of the proposal, sometimes early into the then funded project.

These plans lay out the kinds and amounts of data to be generated by the project, as well as information about their storage, archiving, accessibility and related questions. There are also software management plans or more generic project management plans, which serve similar purposes.

A big issue with these plans — which so far are usually just text documents, and often not even public ones — is monitoring compliance, i.e. if statements made in the plan have been followed up by appropriate action.

I think this problem could be eased substantially if these plans were both public and machine readable, which would also allow them to be used for things other than monitoring compliance, e.g. as a discovery tool — imagine you could subscribe to the feed of all data of kind X acquired from sources of kind Y.

What I mean by machine readability is expressed quite well in the introductory part of the Wikipedia article "Machine-readable data":

  "Machine-readable data is data (or metadata) which is in a format that
  can be understood by a computer. There are two types; human-readable
  data that is marked up so that it can also be read by machines
  (examples; microformats, RDFa) or data file formats intended
  principally for processing by machines (RDF, XML, JSON).

  Machine readable is not synonymous with digitally accessible. A
  digitally accessible document may be online, making it easier for a
  human to access it via a computer, but unless the relevant data is
  available in a machine readable format, it will be much harder to use
  the computer to extract, transform and process that data."

Any advice on how best to go about achieving machine readability for data management plans?

I am aware of https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk/ and https://dmp.cdlib.org/ but as far as I can tell, their machine readability is limited to non-existant.


texts: Publishing an almost trivial paper to arxiv

texts:
My question is simple:

Should I publish a paper on arxiv if the result is almost trivial or just an analysis of the known results with a new question in mind? Other than the main question I am answering (which could lead to some extensions) there does not seem to be an interesting idea.


texts:
I analysed admission requirements for Master course in the US university and found that one of them is GPA from an undergraduate course.

I am studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom where the final grade is composed of the second and the third-year grades.

In more detail, the first year does not count towards the final grade, the second year makes 25% of the final grade and the third year contributes to the 75% of the final grade. Each year contains 120 credits split between modules and marks for each module are given in percentage.

Could you please tell how my GPA, scaled from 0 to 4, would be calculated in this situation?


texts:
What is "teaser image"? It is asked by a journal in a revision request. The only info that I was able to find is at this link:

  Please identify a teaser image from your manuscript that may be used in the abstract book as part of the OnlinePlus program and send this information via email to the publication's administrator.  Note that failure to include this information will cause delay in posting/processing your manuscript for publication.

P.S. My manuscript is theoretical.


texts: How much are taxes for a postdoc in the United States?

texts:
I'm being offered a postdoc position at Penn State University.

The recent rise in salary sounds good (about 4000$/month), but I wonder taxes may be not included. Any help?


texts: Should I mail my advisor concerning his attitude towards me, and possible re-use of my ideas by a colleague?

texts:
I have been doing some research for my masterthesis. I had a supervisor for this task, who was (to my opinion) quite harsh and unhelpful in his feedback. I pursued it nevertheless, and continued on the work that I had been doing; but got somewhat annoyed.
Some time ago, he sent me a (edit: yet unpublished) paper by one of his colleagues (with whom he had previously been working with) on a topic that somewhat overlaps with the topic I had been working in. 3 out of the 5 concepts that I used in my paper are also presented in this paper (with a somewhat different name, but the construct on its' own is the same); although the actual question, and other concepts were also added to it - so it's not quite a copy-paste, but I had a sense that this (not yet published paper) was in some ways inspired by my work. The most troubling aspect I found was how my supervisor treated my ideas as 'unoriginal' and also did not give me much support throughout my work while he then send me something that I felt was actually originally coming from me.
I have contacted already a third person about this (edit: an ombuds-person, who is also a professor at my faculty), and am thinking about sending to my supervisor regarding my disappointments and questions about this issue later on, once I finished my exams and obtained my master.
But I don't expect much helpful answers back (I am slightly resentful of that moment, and I am wondering how I can do this at the same time politely and honestly).
I was wondering whether anyone had some similar experience, and could help me figure out what I should do? Should I let it go, later on? Do I also have any say in this?
It is not only my own personal situation that worries me, it's also about all future students who might have him as a supervisor who might go through something like this - which is everything but a nice way to finish a degree.
So if anyone has any experience, I'd love to hear about it.
Update
I send an email to my promotor, in which I somewhat mentioned my problems. He replied to me back that he was sorry that he was not more present to help me, that I should tell something to my advisor and that he will be there to support me if there is any conflict; that definitely something needs to be fixed here and that he is willing to repair the wrongs. So to anyone feeling stuck in a similar situation, I guess my best advice would be: talk about it, and with as many persons as you can - you might not have the answer directly from one person at one moment, but it also just helps figuring what the problem is in the first place. Thanks for everyone having replied in the comments, that was really nice & helpful! :)


texts: Who owns the copyright of the acquisition of an object or sample owned by a third party?

texts:
Our lab performed 3D scans of materials (e.g. metals, rocks etc.) produced by other institutions and universities. But I am also interested in other analyses.
I was wondering who has the copyright on the data, the one who acquired the data (the person who performed the analyses, collecting the actual data and metadata, in this case, me), the person/institution who created the materials that were scanned, or the one who provided the materials?
I waited for more than one year, now I would like to make the data public, and I would like to understand if I own the copyright of the worked that I carried out.


texts: Appendix subsections: Group by content or topic

texts:
In my Master's thesis I have a lot of figures, tables, and code which is referenced in the text and should go into the appendix. Apart from that, I don't really know how to structure the appendix.

Should I create sections based on content (i.e. all figures into one section) or topic (based on table of contents)? Or is the choice up to me?


texts: What do I do about an unfixable F when I am applying for a graduate program?

texts:
I studied three years as a History major, and I received many bad grades. So I transferred out to a different school in its computer science program.

I have completed up to third year (and a little bit more) of my CS degree in the last two years. I recently looked up the available course listing from my previous school and, once again, they are not offering the course that I received an F in.

It is a third year elective course in philosophy and they haven't offered it in the last two years. The school does not offer any course that is similar, and no one (including many advisers I spoke to at both schools) can really say that there is an alternative course that is equivalent to that course.

Basically, I can't fix it. I've retaken some courses that I did poorly in from my previous school, and gotten back positive results. My current GPA (exclusively from my current school) is close to 3.9.

But that F is really freaking me out. I'm not even hopeful that I can get into a top graduate school, but I would at least like to get into a decent one.

What can I do about this?


texts: Are Polish PhD compatible with Germany and UK?

texts:
I have two questions in this regard:

If someone completes a PhD in Poland, would it be considered on par with a German or British PhD?
Can a Polish-PhD holder enter academia in Germany or UK?


texts: Can a college or university withhold your degree for non payment and change your degree?

texts: Just to explain my question a little bit. I know that if you owe the school money they are allowed to withhold your diploma and  transcripts. My real question is if this is the situation and the college happens to change requirements for the degree before you fulfill your debt can they revoke the degree to make you take the classes needed?


texts: Why are papers without code but with results accepted?

texts:
I just started reading some papers (Computer Science, specifically Computer Vision) and thought "now let's look at the source code" and was quite astonished that most of the papers don't have any source code implementing the described methods to look at, while claiming some performance or being better than other papers.

How do these papers get accepted in journals / conferences? Do people have to submit their source code privately to the reviewers at least, so that they can reproduce the experiment if possible.

Do most journals / conferences just "trust" that people who submit the paper really implemented the theory and got those exact results?

I always had this idea that any experiment should be reproducible by others else it's not scientific justified. Been wondering about this the last few days.


texts: Invalidating a method because its "Dated"

texts:
I was recently arguing with a college about a concept in economics and was told that my approach is invalid because it based on theory/method developed from the 1980 and that current methods don't approach the problem the same way.

I cited my sources from a credible source which was published (NBER to be specific) however to him it was a good enough of a counter argument to invalidate my point. He did cite contemporary research which approaches the problem differently however he didn't address the sources I brought.

This isn't the first time I've heard the argument from my peers and I'm wondering if the "in with the new out with the old approach" is a general approach taken in academia.

Is the fact that a certain paper or theory is old or dated enough to invalidate it?


texts: How to deal with corresponding authors not sharing submission steps? (E.g. Peer reviews & Decisions)

texts:
I am a 3rd-timer postdoc, and I often run into this issue. Over my career I have greatly benefitted personally of responsible peer review and participating in the elaboration of 'Response to Reviews'. Moreover I am very wary of publishing ethics, and open discussion of papers after publication.

This is often what happens: the 1st author of a paper where I am a co-author assigns a PI as last corresponding author. This PI is usually older and actually less invested in the project, but wishes to handle the submission. This person will however not share any correspondence with editors or submission files with authors other than the first (and I suspect even then not in full). I am thus left in the dark about discussions over papers where quite often I made a major part of the writing and experiments, and the only specialist about core topics being discussed.

I have tried asking for the details of peer review and was ignored, every time this happened. On a most recent case I received editorial notification of submission of same paper from two different journals within the time span of just 5 days, and now I fear somebody pulled a duplicate submission! This kind of attitude has made me reluctant of handing the position as corresponding authors to others, particularly to PIs, which is politically not good.

Thus I ask: How do others deal with such a situation?

UPDATE 1 (24.01.2018): I have just sent an email to the PI politely asking again for the peer reviews stating I will follow up with the journals if there is no reply.

UPDATE 2 (25.01.2018): First author responded informally providing the dates of all submission and general reasons for two rejections. The details didn't really add up, but given a casual tone perhaps it wasn't precise (e.g. I suspect this person is not aware of the difference of editor x reviewer). I still asked again for the Reviewers reports, and was left with the impression the 1st author did not (care to) see them either. She said she'll ask the PI.

In case I get no response I am not sure on how to proceed (e.g. if I want to see peer review from a previous journal).


texts: Travelling for an academic seminar with a 36*48 inch poster board on a flight

texts: I need to attend a competition\seminar with my teenage son. He needs to create a project for this competition on a 36"*48" trifold poster board. Now the dimensions of this trifold poster board do not make it eligible for taking it as a carry on luggage and its not safe to send it in Checked in luggage for risk of damaging the project that he has done. What are the options for carrying this poster board as a carry on luggage ?


texts: How to avoid the "need" to learn more before conducting research?

texts:
I am starting a PhD this Fall, and I'm absolutely terrified that I'm nowhere close enough to the "frontier of knowledge" to enable me to do quality research.

For background purposes, I have a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a BSc in Pure and Applied Mathematics. I finished both of these simultaneously in a 4 year span, as my philosophy was always that I need to be as efficient in my learning as possible and race to that mythical place where the edge of knowledge resides. The issue, however, is that it's now all too clear to me that I'll never be quite where I initially envisioned I would be before starting my PhD.

It is also clear that I have a lot to learn before being able to contribute significantly to the project I'm being placed on, and I worry that I'll spend too much time taking classes and learning what's already known, and not enough time exploring what is not known. This is all made worse by the fact that my PhD will be mostly theoretical in nature, so I feel that the lag time between when I am done "training" and when I can start publishing papers is significant. I did a lot of experimental research in my undergrad, and it was clear to me there that this problem does not exist in as dire a form as the path I chose to go down (and that I am actually excited to go down).

To be clear I am not expecting to make monumental revelations in my PhD, and I don't think anyone is really expecting me to do that either. I am just wondering how someone that carries out theoretically/computationally focused research decides when "enough is enough" and stops taking classes. In sorting out my class schedule for this Fall, I am worried that my addiction from undergrad of taking as many courses as possible will interfere with my research, and at the same time I am not confident that I know enough to conduct research of any sort at the moment.

So if your PhD was largely theoretical and computational in nature, I guess I'm wondering how you were able to balance learning and researching? Anything you wish you did differently? Is it normal to spend a couple years accruing knowledge and not publishing much? Do you have any books/resources you recommend that deal with this sort of dilemma?


texts: How should I spend my time as a pre-doctoral fellow?

texts:
I have written to my potential PhD supervisor and he has replied that he would be happy to supervise me on a project. I have not applied to the university yet and I think the process will take several months. During this process I would like to take some time and use it to develop skills and my résumé before getting into grad school (I call this "pre-doctoral fellow").

Professor X has with the "Équipe" Y all that is ideally situated for my needs.

What would be the academic position that I should apply for some months in Y with professor X to develop important skills for the success of my future phd program? A pre-doctoral fellow? How much time is the minimum/maximum I can apply for? In general, how would be the letter to professor X soliciting it go? Does this project is founding? Advice and comments are really welcome!


texts: Pay for a Doctorate by working at institution?

texts: A friend of mine was working on a doctorate at a local university, and they offered to hire him as an adjunct so he wouldn't have to pay for the doctorate.  Is there an easier way for me to search which universities might offer this opportunity besides Google?


texts: How to make a mathematical text more concise?

texts:
My PhD thesis has 175 pages A4 and I shall provide also a compilation that will summarize the main results on 20 pages A5. My thesis contains algorithms and theorems examining their properties.

After ignoring figures, proofs, illustrative examples, chapter-motivation-paragraph, and major part of introduction and conclusion I have still 48 pages.

Any idea or guidance how to present the results on a very limited space? How to balance the readability (towards marketing) and the scientific strength of the content (towards technical documentation)?


texts: Currently with a research group for my Master's degree, but am receiving no directions. Is this normal?

texts:
I have recently become a Master's student that is in a research group on theoretical elementary particle physics. The program lasts for 2 years and I am expected to have a Master's thesis written up by the end of it. However, I have been told that the research has to be done completely on my own and have received pretty much no instructions or guidelines as to what is expected of me throughout my Master's degree. At the same time, I feel like there are unwritten and untold expectations of what I should be doing, with the peer pressure suggesting that I should figure it out on my own instead of ask someone else.

Despite this, I have asked some of my peers and also my professor, but my peers have told me that everyone goes through the same process, and my professor just tells me that I have to do my own research by myself. As such, I am at an impasse as I feel like I do not know enough about the field right now to embark on any original research. I do have an idea of how broad it is and the sort of prerequisites that I have to study, but there just seems to be too much ground to cover in 2 years, not to mention that I do not have a concrete idea of what are of high energy physics I would like to do my Master's thesis in.

Is this a normal situation I am finding myself in? If so, then is the only solution to just "deal with it"?

Any advice will be deeply appreciated as I find myself feeling extremely lost right now.

P.S. I am in the same institution and research group as I was when I was doing my Bachelor's degree, and had the experience of writing up an original research Bachelor's thesis in the span of 2 months whilst being supervised by a Post Doc in my research group. However, I do not feel like I had a complete grasp of what I did, and though it is quite specialised within the field (String Phenomenology), I do not think I have enough knowledge to even do research surrounding the topic I researched for my Bachelor's thesis.


texts:
I am reading through the application requirements for this programme. However, as far as I see it, there are some ambiguities

Motivation
A clear and relevant essay in English (1,000 – 1,500 words)

I contacted an experienced prof. working for admissions committees and she emphasized that a letter of motivation should not exceed 1.5 pages. Also, words "clear and relevant" makes me feel that 5 page "sheet of text" is way too much. On the other hand, there is "essay" in the quote above, which maybe makes the word count relevant. I currently have a concentrated letter of motivation with about 350 words in it (1 page) that includes all the points that must be covered.
In my opinion, 1000 - 1500 words feel bloated. I am interpreting the numbers given as the maximum top boundaries for the essay / letter. Or am I missing something here?


texts:
How many students are there at Columbia’s French studies department ?
The university’s website doesn’t give that information, neither does Google.
The point of my question is that most people in Russia think that Moscow State University of Foreign Affairs (MGIMO) has the largest French department (1500 students) But I find it a bit dubious so I would like to check.
Thank you for your help.


texts: Advisor is Moving -- Should I Quit Grad School?

texts:
I am currently just finishing up my 2nd year as a PhD student in the life sciences. I was informed about 10 months ago that my advisor and our entire lab will be moving to another University this summer. I agreed to join my advisor (I will remain enrolled at a student at my current university and would earn my PhD from here) and would finish my remaining research at the new university.

Over the past month and a half I have been feeling increasingly depressed and anxious about moving and just thinking of all I need to do in order to complete my degree over the next 2-3 years has my head spinning (I am told it is normal to feel this way while in grad school, but with the added stress of moving I am not so sure I can handle it all). Additionally, I am unsure of whether or not I can handle working with my advisor over the next several years as he has become increasingly irritable during the moving process and is often very micromanaging and demeaning to me and other lab members during meetings.

At this point I am working on a manuscript for one project I started working on a year and a half ago but still have a lot of planning to do for my next projects. I have been contemplating moving to another lab simply because I am not sure if I have the self-esteem to continue working in the lab I am currently in. My advisor has a track record of producing very successful students, but at this point I question whether or not I will even be able to make it through.

I love science (if I left the program with a master's I would want to work in industry), and sometimes my anxiety and depressed feelings go away when I have a really cool or interesting idea for a project, but my enthusiasm for science is slowly waning. I suppose my question is if these feelings or thoughts are normal to have midway during a PhD and are just exacerbated by the stress of moving, or are they signs that research is not for me?


texts: Should the first letter of the axis label be uppercase?

texts:
Suppose you have a diagram in a bachelor's thesis (which is written in English) with one axis

"mean stroke count"

and the other

"standard deviation"

Should the first letter of "mean" and "standard" be uppercase?


texts: Why isn't it common for papers in pure and applied math (and other related fields) to be modified/corrected after it has been published?

texts:
As research grows even more intricate in fields such as pure and applied math (and other technical areas), very few reviewers now have a complete picture of any single field. Thus it should be common for more mistakes to be published (in a journal or in a conference).
This said, it is very uncommon for anyone to (at least successfully) edit an article after it has been published.
Some reasons for editing may include:

a (reasonably minor) error has been spotted, e.g., a negative sign is missing, typos that are not simply grammatical mistakes.
an important reference that was missed.
a result which has been proven wrong because of a very technical edge case that everyone has missed, but was not essential to the proof.
simulation was off by a tiny factor
some other minor, and not detrimental issue to the paper, such as a misplaced figure, mis-referenced equation (cannot tell you how many published papers have [?] in them)

Nor are there really any mechanism in place to promote authors to fix errors after publication. Yet plenty options for authors to repeat upload till "final version".
I am very curious as to why this is the case.


texts: Does pure math have an application in communications engineering?

texts: I am a communications engineering undergraduate, and I was thinking of studying pure math courses will this help me later on in graduate school, and if it will help what courses of pure math will be related to my major?


texts: Journal for publishing COVID-19 research

texts:
I got some really good results, put papers on medrXiv and code on github, it's getting attention. The solution is prediction of COVID-19 vs Common Pneumonia vs Control from chest CT scans using instance segmentation model. What I would like to know is the suggestion for which journal to publish (I've never done it before). It should be:

quite high-ranking, maybe a special edition on COVID-19,
accept COVID-19 papers covering Computer Vision and Deep Learning,
not take too long to accept it (pref.<1month),
do not have double-blind requirement, as obviously papers on medrxiv, so no way around it


texts: Overlapping sentences in methodology descriptions in separate journal articles - plagiarism?

texts:
Disclaimer - I'm neither in favor of, nor endorsing plagiarism with the following question. I'm only hitting on the fact that sometimes, the interpretation of self-plagiarism can be quite stupid.

Given the well-deserved emphasis on controlling the menace of plagiarism these days, various journals and even academic institutions have insisted on various cross-check measures. Mostly, this amounts to necessitating a clean chit from some anti-plagiarism software, which (I imagine) works by comparing string lengths of some x-words in the article, with its existing database. So, if some dumb guy didn't rephrase himself, there would be common sentences, which earns him disrepute and he gets tagged as a self-plagiarist.

Now, as a ''responsible'' author, I would try to minimize such overlaps, ideally to zero. But sometimes, you can't help it. Take this context for example. (Sidenote - I'm basically a Physics.SE user.) We have used one model in two different contexts, so there is no question of overlapping content between two articles. But, since it is the same model, when I describe it, in one place I write -

  The free parameters of the wawa model, p1, p2 and p3 are fitted to baryon masses and vacuum characteristics in the wawa limit.

(''wawa'' = whatever)

Now, I don't see any self-plagiarism in repeating this one sentence in the second article, but if I don't, maybe I'm being the ''dumb guy'' in the previous paragraph. So, I'll try to work around this, finding synonyms, trying alternative descriptions, but even with all my maneuvering, that sentence was the best way to describe it.

My opinion is that, even though I'm not plagiarizing anywhere in the above context, this process is turning out to be a nuisance for me. Am I supposed to sit down and waste so much time rephrasing my sentences, when I have some meaningful information to communicate to the scientific world? (Worst still, I could've been investigating some hot problem in my discipline, where urgently communicating is invaluable.)

Also, as @mhwombat hit on in a comment, am I not compromising on the best way of putting it across, when I deliberately rephrase it, just because there is a ''plagiarism'' checker in place? That's surely not what the purpose of plagiarism check was?


texts: How to specify Russian (foreign) authors in the bibliography of an article in English?

texts:
I am writing an article for publication in English. It is necessary to include references to articles written by Russian authors in Russian language. Do I have to translate their names and titles of their articles to English or I can leave their names and titles of the articles in original language (Russian)?

In the Russian-language articles, I see that foreign authors (their names and titles of the articles) are not translated into Russian and left in the original language (English). However, I have not seen articles in English, where Russian/foreign authors and articles were referenced in the original language (i.e. Russian).

For now, I am following IEEE citation style.


texts: Doing two summer research internships at the same time?

texts:
I have recently got into a weird situation, that I didn't think I would be in. First of all, I had applied for a paid research internship abroad (at a foreign university) some time ago. Due to covid restrictions, that has been converted into a remote/virtual intership. I have accepted their offer so that's all well and good.
However, one of my professors at my own university has now offered me a paid internship for the summer. That will also have to be done remotely I guess, judging by the current state of the world.
Now, as I have accepted the offer from the foreign university, I cannot cancel that, and I have to go through it. On the other hand, I don't know how to reject my professor's offer poiltely. I want to stay on good terms with her, because I have to stay in this university for two more years. And she is researching in the field where I want to go, so there is a chance that I will have to apply for her supervision for a PhD in future.
I am an undergrad studying chemistry in the UK in case anyone is wondering.
What should I do? I can probably accept both internships, but I don't know if I can really work on both of them, even if it's remotely. How common is it for people to do two internships in one summer? What is the perception of such a thing in the academic world?


texts: Attending conferences as a first-year undergrad

texts:
I'm a first-year undergraduate student in physics. Since starting my studies I've tried to get involved in research as much as possible. Recently, the team I work with encouraged me to submit an abstract about my current project (which is the first serious one that I've taken on) for an upcoming conference. I did and I got accepted with a poster.

Now my question is: How should I approach this to benefit the most? Or maybe there isn't even a point in me going at all?

I'm under the impression that most of the typical advantages of attending a conference such as networking, or keeping up-to-date with recent advances aren't really applicable to me as I simply lack the necessary knowledge. So far I've only taken a basic mechanics course and I have some working knowledge that I've acquired while working at the lab but nothing beyond that.

Additional information: the conference is obviously not a high-tier one. Judging by previous editions, about 150 attendees are expected, around 1/3-1/2 of that international (this is all in Europe by the way). Travel funding is provided by our department [active participation, in form of a poster, was part of the requirements to get that funding].


texts: Can I use a section of my thesis to "soap-box" about a meta-issue regarding research?

texts:
I'm a big believer in FOSS (Free Open Source Software), and a physics graduate student. I believe a lot of current researchers are not aware of free solutions to problems that are usually encountered in a lab, and since money is often tight in academia I think it's important.

I also feel like my thesis is the only bit of work I'll do in academia that's truly mine; there's no journal with strict criteria on what I can include.

So do you think it's appropriate to include a section at the end of my thesis, essentially completely separate from the rest of it, containing my views about the state of software in science and solutions to problems? I'm worried that it might seem a bit preachy, but I think that's a problem that can be solved with tone/phrasing.


texts: Do any schools maintain records of when instructors arrive and depart the classroom?

texts: Recently, my college began placing staff around the school to record when instructors arrive. The record is to the second. A school announcement also warned against arriving late and ending lessons early by even fraction of a minute. I am somewhat surprised to find this in a tertiary institution. How common is this?


texts: Could writing a survey of the state-of-the-art in my field compensate for my lack of publications?

texts:
I am applying to graduate school for a Ph.D. program in the field of business and management. The professor I want to work with endorsed my application, but warned that getting admitted might be difficult because
the Ph.D. program is rigorous and I have no publications in the field. Would it help if I showed my basic research knowledge and skills by reviewing literature and/or writing a summary of his research projects? Would this strengthen my application for the Ph.D. program?


texts: What is the usual/acceptable ratio of accepted/declined review invitations?

texts:
I am asking because I feel I might be declining more reviews than my fair share.

On the other hand, for every single one of those papers, I felt I was not in a place to judge them, because reading the abstract I saw that they were not closely related to my field of expertise.

I think that in the last year I reviewed slightly less than half of the papers sent my way, declining the rest.

Is this normal? Or am I being seen as lazy by the editors?
If it is relevant, it is from an important journal where I once submitted a paper, but it did not get published there in the end.


texts:
My paper was published 6 months ago. A few days ago, while reading it I discovered that one of the equations had the wrong power: instead of x it should have x². After checking my old notes it turns out that they had x², so its just a typing error. I should point out that this doesn't change the end result and the equation before and after it are both correct.

What should I do? Should I tell the journal about this mistake?


texts: Making sure I'm in good terms with peer researchers and not making enemies

texts:
I'm a student that started doing CS research not too long ago, and I'd like some advice on making sure I'm in good terms with my peers. I've been helping another student's project (in my field, the first author is usually the author. I was to be the second author because it wasn't my project, but I'm also very interested in this research direction), but I feel that my contributions are not appreciated, and I'm often blamed for bad results. Just as an illustration, one such situation is, when I come up with an idea (e.g. finding algorithms, relevant papers that we can use in our research), the other student would pretend as if they knew about it already and tries to explain it to me as if I've never heard of it before, and takes credit. Then when I implement that idea as we discussed,  s/he seems happy with it, but later when it turns out to be not exactly what we wanted (either another slightly different method performed better or his/her advisor didn't like it), I'm blamed for introducing that problem.

And I also feel that, while I'm interested in solving the same problem, I want to approach in a different way (s/he wouldn't accept it in our current project for reasons like, there are other more important things we should be working on, and so on. and I can't argue much because it's not my project). I understand that I shouldn't simply victimize myself, and it could be a different story from someone else's perspective, but regardless, I think I started seeing how there are politics in academia and how researchers can act petty and selfish, and I want to avoid that as much as possible and focus on having fun doing research and growing my career.

If I wanted to leave a project and do similar research in my own ways, is there a wise way to do this without accidentally taking credit for anything I didn't do or giving the impression that I'm trying to steal the research? I would simply cite the work we did together if there was a paper, but there is no publication yet because we couldn't finish on time, and I don't really see it being completed this way. In addition, we found out recently that there are other papers that solve this problem or part of this problem in a very similar way. I could take a significantly different direction for solving a different problem under different assumptions, but I can also see that backfiring and giving the wrong impression.
What are some potential source of unwanted politics/conflicts that beginning researchers should be aware of in general?
If you've observed students that ended up not being able to collaborate well, what was your perspective, and what did they seem to be forgetting?
If you've had conflicts or ended up not being in good terms with another researcher, how did it affect your career, if it had a long term effect?


texts: Are there introductory graduate courses for non-American PhD programs in mathematics?

texts: For instance, on the course page for the DPhil in Mathematics at Oxford (http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/dphil-mathematics), they mention the requirement of taking "100 hours of broadening courses before confirmation of status" in the third year of the program. Are these "broadening courses" essentially the same as introductory graduate courses in the US? They involve "submission of written work," so they do not seem like colloquia or seminars.


texts: Section for "main results" and use of "conclusion" in a math article

texts:
I am planning to submit an article to a mathematically-oriented journal (namely: Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis).

I have quite a lot of results so I wrote a section "Main Results".

Question 1 In this section, the results are given as theorems, and each proof is given in another section. However, there is one simple theorem whose proof is only a few lines long. Can I provide the proof in the "Main Results" section, or is it not customary to include any proofs there?

Question 2 I am used to adding conclusions to my articles, but all the articles I read in this journal do not have any. Should I do the same and not add any conclusion (note that nothing is mentionned about this in the guidelines)?


texts: If you have two bachelor's degree in related fields, can you mention in your CV only the latest of the two?

texts: I obtained my bachelor's degree from a third tier school before completing my second bachelor's degree and a master's degree at more reputable schools. I was wondering if it is acceptable to omit my first bachelor's degree from my CV.


texts: What is the procedure for citing a source with incomplete information?

texts:
If it matters, I am specifically asking about the IEEE referencing style, but I'm happy to learn about other styles as well.

One of the more frustrating parts of referencing is that every book publisher and journal has their own standards for what information they give you. I've come across some books that don't have a city of publication, for example, and some journal articles where the specific volume is not clear.  When citing web pages this is a particular challenge, since sometimes it is not possible to find, say, when the web page itself was published.

In cases where information is simply not available, how do you cite a source correctly?  Is there a way to indicate that the information was not available?


texts: Do international students have a lower chance of getting accepted in STEM-fields PhD programs at US universities?

texts:
The reason that lead me to ask about this is the following paragraph I found on this page (some guidance written by a STEM-field professor at CMU for applying to grad school), he says,

I'm not a U.S. citizen -- how does that affect my chances?
Unfortunately, if you are not a U.S. citizen and you don't hold a green card, your chances for admission are very significantly reduced. One simple reason is that we get an overwhelming number of applications from overseas. The extra work and time we spend on cultural acclimation and language skills for these students means that we can only accept a few of them, and of course this is a very few out of a huge application pool. If you already have a degree from a U.S. institution, that helps considerably with this issue. Also, it is more difficult to obtain funding for non-U.S. students, and so further increases the effort required to bring them here. Historically about half of our department's graduate students are non-U.S., although that proportion tends to be closer to one quarter in my research group.

The bold italics are mine. I personally find the "cultural acclimation" argument utter nonsense, and the "language skills" seems even more nonsensical, since almost all programs require quite good TOEFL/GRE test scores. So I suppose my question has two components really, and it concerns PhD programs specifically:

Did you experience difficulties funding a student in your department (STEM field) solely because he was a non-US citizen? If so, does this influence your decision of admitting non-US citizens?

Does your department has a specific quota of non-US citizens to be admitted?

Edit: In light of the new statistic I found, it seems absurd to say international students (i.e. non-US citizens) have a hard time getting accepted, especially in ECE. I think the professor's remark above doesn't reflect the bigger trend (he is with the ECE department at CMU), and his research group (where the proportion of international students is about 25%) is more of an exception to the "rule".


texts:
I just received my diploma from my university. I'm very happy and my results aren't that bad either. Now, as the result is already known, I would like to thank my professor and my supervisor for their support.

Would it be acceptable, if I make them a gift to express my thankfulness?
I was thinking of a bottle of a good liquor for both of them.


texts: How useful are professional society memberships?

texts:
En route to academia, are professional society memberships useful? So far, I feel like I have been paying ~$100/year for a few societies (with student discounts), just to receive copies of their monthly magazines that I only end up skimming over once. I get tons of emails that are vaguely aimed towards keeping people up to date with current research, but one can do that by reading papers anyways. So I don't really see a point to being a member.

Does anybody else feel this way? Are there actual benefits to being a member for societies like these?


texts: Can a maths undergraduate apply for a physics PhD?

texts: Can a maths undergraduate apply for a physics PhD without going into masters program? Given that during his undergraduate course he published a couple of papers on physics in respectable physics journals


texts:
I am a PhD student who works in theory. I have been patient but nowadays I am losing my temper, patience, etc. Many publications have been rejected as well as my proposals for grants. I have submitted one research paper which was also recently rejected.

I am working very hard but also feeling disheartened about the way academia works. As a student it is very hard to be patient. I worry each time my proposals get rejected or even if I have a failure in my research. I am trying my best to be patient but I don't know how to keep it.

Question:  How much patience is needed while working on a PhD? (in terms of number of years for a publication) Is there any way to not worry about the failures we have in academia?


texts: Can I get admitted to Master in mathematics program if I only have a medical degree?

texts:
I will complete my medical school (in Indonesia) very shortly.
I'm planning to pursue a master degree in mathematics at a university in the USA or UK.  I do not have a mathematics bachelor's degree. During my years as a med school student I studied math independently from textbooks and sites such as Coursera and MIT OCW.

Can a student with only a medical degree get admitted to a graduate program in Mathematics?


texts: Is it fine to post a paper to arxiv and later change the title and add authors?

texts:
I have paper with very new contributions but it needs at least one month to finish perfectly. I am afraid that someone eat my launch and publish on the area. My advisor suggests adding the paper to Arxiv. but the title may change later. is it okay?

Also, I have just checked that changing authors when replacing a paper is technically enabled. Is it okay to add authors later?


texts: Contributing to a software project vs double blind review

texts:
We have added a new experimental feature to an existing software project (e.g. on GitHub), and we would like to publish a paper about it. However, we want to publish it in a venue which uses double-blind review. What is the correct method of anonymization in this case?
I see several ways which all seem to have major issues:

cite the project, clearly state which part is our contribution,
include it as a supplementary material anonymizing our contribution
-> the issue here is that the reviewers will either already know the software project (and then likely know that such a feature has been
added), or they will not know about it, look at it, and likely find out
that this feature has been added, breaking anonymity. This seems to
be the best solution to me, however, since the rules for anonymity
tend to be quite strict, we are not sure whether this would be
acceptable.

anonymize the whole project -> this is basically
(self)-plagiarism (especially if there are  already papers published
about the original project).

do not include the implementation, only the results -> this
makes it less reproducible, and more difficult for the referees to
review. Also it might be still good to cite the original project, with the drawbacks of (1).

This would not be a problem for a normal peer review (not double blind), or if the project is completely original (there are several questions on this site about this case).


texts: Do journals allow me to modify contents of a paper?

texts:
Suppose I sent a research paper to a well reputed journal. I try to prove a novel theorem in my paper using some lemmas. What if the reviewers find that the theorem is correct but some part of the proof or few lemmas I wrote in the paper are erroneous or not up to the mark? I mean cases where the error is not significant, but exist because I am a beginner to the field.

My question is will they ask me for a correction and wait till I send it to them or will they identify where I went wrong and help me in publishing? Will they simply reject the paper because the proof is amateur ?


texts: How do you handle a double barrel name in citations/publishing?

texts:
For example, let's say I am an early stage researcher named Sasha Baron Cohen (1. A fake double barrel name. 2. No hyphen between the surnames). I'm finding that people are citing my work as 'Sasha Cohen' or 'S Cohen et al'.
An issue is that I don't identify as a 'Cohen', I identify as a 'Baron Cohen'.
Is there a correct way to handle this to ensure that I can cut this practice off before I become recognized as just Cohen? How do I ensure that I won't be cited as just 'Cohen'?


texts:
I am having a hard time figuring out the difference between excellent,good,average and bad journals.

I checked this link http://mjl.clarivate.com/ from where I figured out about ESCI,SCI,SCIE journals in my field of Mathematics.

I read  ESCI Journals vs SCI/SCIE Journals and What is the difference between SCI and SCIE?.

But still cant figure out how does a journal categorise as being excellent,good,average and bad journals.

Can we make some sort of algorithms which helps us to answer this question?

Is there any  relation between them like ESCI is less than SCIE and SCIE is less than SCI?

Are all SCIE indexed journals of higher value than any ESCI journals?

I have noticed that there are many ESCI journals which have many leading mathematicians as their Editor-In-Chief and many SCIE journals whose editor in chiefs are not so well known.
Will still a SCIE indexed journal score more than a ESCI?

Kindly shed some light.


texts: How do I justify dropping out of a Ph.D. program in my personal statement?

texts: I am in a Ph.D. program for the past year and a half and I am very disappointed by the level of work, the agenda, and the graduate school. I want to apply for a new Ph.D. and have told to my professor that I will drop out in May, so that he has time to replace me. My question is how can I justify my dropping out correctly to the professors I want to contact to start a Ph.D. with, or in the personal statement of the applications.


texts: Are there any drawbacks in adding hyperlinks in PhD application email?

texts:
I'm writing an application email to a professor for a PhD program. One dilemma that I have is whether I should add hyperlinks and if there are any problems in doing that. Consider the imaginary paragraph below:

  ... and I currently work under supervision of professor
  Foobar in laboratory of blabla at
  University of ...

Is this a bad practice? Is there any chance that they neglect the convenience of a single click because of a the visual incoherency of the text?

P.S. Are still any email client that shows the actual url instead of hyperlink text?


texts: Have sponsor, need supervisor for PhD application: how to get email response?

texts:
I have a sponsor to do my PhD but the problem with supervisors. I keep sending emails to them and no one replies to my email.

Could you let me know how can I encourage them to look at my email? for example what title is appropriate for my email in this case? and what should I include in my email?


texts: Can an article include "A Comparative Study" in its title if its main purpose is not comparison?

texts: If the main purpose of an article is to present/introduce a new method, can it still be entitled "A Comparative Study"? Or does it depend on how much of the article is devoted to the comparison of related methods? I am asking from the perspective of a reviewer.


texts: I will be graduating this Fall with my undergrad (GPA: 3.66) and am planning to go to grad school in math.  Given my early history of poor grades (2 Ds, 1 F), I am planning on only applying to the masters programs.  Ideally, I would like to get admitted to my current university's masters program (top 15 US school in math).  To help boost my application, I have taken some first-year grad math courses. Additionally, I have been doing research under fairly famous applied math professor (h-index above 50.  Though I have heard that h-index is not an objective factor).  While I have read that in some grad courses they hand out all A's, is there a way to prove to the admission's committee that I actually deserved the A's?  Lastly, what do masters admission's committees look for in applicants?


texts: What is the perception of students who take a gap year between their graduation and starting graduate school?

texts:
I am an undergraduate mathematics major, entering my fourth year. I plan on applying to graduate school, but I have not yet taken the GRE exams, and there a few key courses (Topology and Algebra in particular) that I have not taken yet, so I am hesitant to take the Advanced Math GRE too soon. (If you're wondering why I haven't taken Topology and Algebra yet, it's because I was trying to secure a CS degree, which sidetracked my mathematical studies last year. It was a healthy branching out experience, and one that helped me realize my true academic passion.)

My main question: what is the perception of students who take a gap year between their graduation and starting graduate school?

I think I will take the GRE tests this fall, a) for practice and b) if I score high, then I might as well apply sooner rather than later. However, I ask this question to gauge how much energy I should put into preparing for the tests this fall. If I hear, "You should really do your best to avoid any gap in your education," then I will work my butt off in preparation for the tests. But if I hear, "It's totally okay take a gap year before going into graduate school," then I would give myself more freedom in terms of my non-standardized-exam studies, extracurriculars, and in general social activities. I figure the answer to this question won't be as cut-and-dry as I hope, but any advice would be appreciated!

Just to clarify, my gap year would not consist of me sitting at my desk taking practice GRE exams all day... That would be a pitiful use of my time. I definitely plan working either as an intern or a research assistant at a successful organization. It seems like the general consensus is that taking time off is okay, and potentially beneficial, assuming you actually do something in that gap.


texts: Where can I look for post-doctoral positions in Europe?

texts: I am about to submit my PhD thesis and I will be starting to apply for post-doctoral positions, and I was wondering if you can advise me on where to look all the opportunities available in Europe. I know how to find them in the UK


texts: What happens to the reviews that people write for journal articles after they're sent back to the author?

texts: Are they almost always kept confidential? Or is there protocol for sharing them?


texts: Does PhD GPA matter after grad school regarding academic funding?

texts: There are many similar questions regarding whether PhD GPA matters after grad school, but this question is specific to obtaining academic funding as a professor. When applying for funding, do funding agencies look at the professors previous GPA and take that into consideration?


texts: Masters programs that require publication (with extra requirements)

texts:
My university requires me to publish* in order to defend my master thesis and receive my diploma. It took me four years to complete this requirement, instead of the usual two in my country. Because all deadlines have already expired, I have to request exceptional approval to defend my thesis. I would like to know about the situation in other universities in order to build my argumentation.

Is the requirement to publish during a masters degree common? What about the list of requirements below? If uncommon, what other universities/regions have similar requirements?

*: The full list of requirements for the publication in my program is:

Has to have acceptance letter (submission is not sufficient, but waiting for actual publication is not required).
Limited to a government-issued list of "good" journals and events. The list is admittedly large, but still incomplete, infrequently updated, and contains mistakes. During my masters there was no event of my area in my country, for example, but some predatory journals were included. This list was not created to evaluate students, and is being "reused" by the program.
The student must be the first author (to avoid just adding names to a submission).
The advisor must be a co-author.
The thesis content must be related to the publication.


texts: What are the differences between these levels of study?

texts:
I'm Brazilian and am currently trying to apply to this scholarship in New Zealand. However, when asked which "level of study" I will apply for, I see the following list:

PhD
Masters course
Masters thesis
Post-Graduate Diploma
Post-Graduate Certificate

I only understand what a PhD is. To me, both masters sound like the same thing (in Brazil we have a masters course that you conclude when you present the thesis), and I haven't the faintest idea of what is the difference between a post-graduate diploma and a certificate.

So what's the difference between these four categories and are they known as such throughout every English speaking country or are they specific terms used only in NZ?

(also I'm not sure which tags to use here, so correct me if necessary)


texts: Should I include independently derived but not novel results in my thesis?

texts:
I'm writing up my physics PhD thesis, and am wondering whether to include the derivation of a formula that I worked out myself. I've recently found that this work isn't actually a novel contribution to the field, as the formula (though not a detailed derivation) appears in the appendix of a 10 year old paper.

Is there any sense in including it? And, if so, how would one describe the contribution?


texts: Are conference "proceedings" always first given as verbal presentations at the conference?

texts:
...Or are some of them just papers that were submitted?

I always thought the "proceedings" of a conference were a reflection of the talks at the conference, not merely submitted articles.

Please help me clear this up.  Thank you.


texts: Participation of multiple researchers in our project

texts:
We have set up with colleagues in two other institutions a project that creates software prototypes for our discipline. We are creating the software prototypes so that we use them as stepping stones to a larger funding application. The prototype is online and can be accessed via a web browser.

One of the software prototypes is around collaboration. We think we have a good mechanism for collaboration with the potential for larger impact in the industry, but we would need to test it at scale. We think we should invite other researchers to test our prototype, and via testing, we would gain knowledge of its shortcomings and benefits.

I have looked at other disciplines that organise large collaborative projects and papers with co-authors in large numbers. I and my collaborators are wondering on how to set up the invite to the collaboration. Should we promise potential collaborators a stint in the forthcoming paper? From our perspective, this is the right thing to do, however, our discipline normally does not have mega-collaborations. Still, our prototype has the potential to involve a lot of people. On the other hand, would including them as part of an advisory group be enough?
Do you have any other insights on how and with which mechanisms to invite large groups of researchers to test and (in)validate your prototypes? What kind of intellectual recognition should those researchers receive?


texts: What is the proper protocol for applying to a postdoc sponsored by an one's undergraduate adviser?

texts:
I am finishing up a PhD in Statistics in the United States and am currently applying to postdocs. My undergraduate studies were done in a top 5 institution in Statistics; my grad school is top ~25. I saw that my undergraduate thesis adviser is looking for a postdoc, and it seems like a great fit with my research interests.

What is the proper protocol to apply for a postdoctoral position with a professor with whom you already have a working relationship? Would it be appropriate to send them an email to indicate my interest in the position (along with say a cover letter and CV)? Wording this email has been a little difficult, as I'm trying to avoid sounding like I'm leveraging my connections with them to get this position. Is applying to a postdoc sponsored by a former adviser something that one should avoid doing? What else should one take into account in such situations?

For more context, I have been keeping up with this professor, but not extremely closely (we send each other a few emails a year just to catch up). This person supervised my undergraduate honors thesis and supported my application to graduate school.


texts: What happens if a reviewer finds a fatal flaw in a proof in one's mathematical PhD thesis?

texts:
This question stems just from curiosity, as my work is not concerned with mathematics.

  What happens if a student doing a PhD in mathematics submits a thesis
  with a proof of some theorem and the reviewer finds fatal flaws in the
  proof?

I don't mean small typos but flaws of greater caliber, whose fixing leads to the conclusion that the conjecture one was convinced of proving is completely wrong, or, if gaping contradictions in the proof are found. Can one obtain a PhD with such a flawed thesis?

I assume that in other areas of research even if some results are proven wrong, the PhD can still be awarded on the basis of other results that are present in one's work.

Note, this question differs from this one as here we assume that the thesis has already been submitted and is under review.


texts: Where is the best places to find faculty job postings in physics?

texts:
I'm currently a postdoc interested in finding a tenure track faculty position. What are the best places to find job postings for such positions?

Seeing as this might be a very context/field dependent question, I am specifically looking for appointments in physics departments (preferably in the US).


texts: When did US undergraduate education become so expensive?

texts:
As far as I know, in the majority of  countries in the world, especially in Europe, undergraduate education, even at the top universities, is almost always significantly less expensive than at prestigous US universities.

For example, for the 2018-2019 academic year, the standard cost of tuition and fees at MIT was $51,520. Add in room and board and other fees, and the price tag reaches $70,240 annually. The average cost after aid was around $ 22,549.

At Cornell, the cost after aid was $30,498 and at NYU $37,362.

This is representative of most of the Ivy League schools as well as many liberal arts schools which are less well known internationally.

The average tuition cost at my school in France is a mere 2000 euros per year whilst other French schools have tuition ranging from 300 euros per year to 15,000 in one extreme case. In several European countries, tuition is either free or students are payed to study.

The student debt crisis in the US is a recent phenomenon, but how recent? I suspect that that students at Ivy League schools in the 1930's weren't paying anything close to their present counterparts, adjusting for inflation.

So when exactly did top tier American schools start raising  tuition and board fees to the astronomical levels we see now?

I will leave out the question if whether this is sustainable or what the consequences will be, as this is speculative and opinion-based.


texts:
This is a question that has been in my mind for a month now. I am a final year M.Sc student in mathematics and applying for graduate school this year. But for applying to graduate schools, let's say in Europe, it is recommended that you should study the papers of Professors to whom you are applying. My question is how to go about reading the papers? Let's say I am interested in doing research on a particular topic (let's say X) and I have only taken a basic course on that topic X. I should have done my M.Sc thesis in X but in my university, nobody is working on X. Also, I didn't know I am interested in X until the last year otherwise I would have done some internships on this topic. With this background, there is no way I could understand the papers of a Professor who is working on the subject X for years. This is certainly not a problem in the US as you don't have to apply to a Professor, but in Europe, I think in most of the cases, you have to directly apply to a Professor. So, what to do in this case?

Thanks in advance!
Sorry for my bad English.


texts: How to screen out candidates for faculty jobs who don't know the subject

texts:
I teach physics at a community college and have been on a number of hiring committees for tenure-track jobs. Usually we interview about 6 people for such a position, and of those, usually something like 3 of them show a lack of knowledge of the subject in the interview. When I say a lack of knowledge, I mean that they can't do easy freshman stuff. We will ask them a question that is posed as a request for them to pretend we're a class of students and give a short explanation of something, so it's nominally a test of their ability to teach it, but in reality we find candidates who simply don't know it. These are people who have a PhD from an accredited school. (We hardly ever interview people who only have a master's.)

[EDIT] (To clarify, I'm talking about very basic knowledge, such as understanding what Newton's laws mean. We're not asking candidates to recall obscure trivia. Personally, I don't really care whether they know which is Newton's 1st law, 2nd, or 3rd. I'm talking about candidates who actually demonstrate elementary misunderstandings of Newton's laws. Since a lot of academia.SE users are in math, I think a good analogy would be if someone applied to teach math, and that person didn't know the chain rule -- which I have heard from colleagues in math departments at community colleges is also common. Continuing this analogy, the issue is not that they fail to remember the term "chain rule." The issue is that if they're asked to differentiate sin cos x, they can't do it. They do silly things like attempting to use the product rule, as if the sine was multiplied by the cosine. Or they throw up their hands and won't try, even if the committee tries to help them out.)

Are there good strategies for screening these people out at an earlier stage, without needlessly losing too many good candidates from our pool?
Here's what we're already doing:

We require applicants to submit undergraduate transcripts, and we are less likely to interview people who have poor undergraduate grades (such as Ds and Fs in math and physics).
We prefer applicants who have graduate degrees from more prestigious schools.
We prefer a candidate who has taught a wide variety of courses to one who has only, e.g., taught mechanics.

Undergraduate grades do seem to correlate with what we see in the interview, but it's also possible that someone started out their undergraduate education with a weak high school background and then overcame that disadvantage. There is also the difficulty of comparing different countries' grading standards. We require graduate transcripts, but I find those hard to extract useful information from.

We are currently only asking them to give the names of references, but not to supply letters of reference along with their applications. Would it help to make them send letters?

You would think that someone with really weak competence would never get into a good graduate program, and therefore we could just not interview people who have degrees from low-prestige programs. However, our pool doesn't usually include a ton of people who have degrees from the best graduate programs, and we have also seen people in the past with degrees from renowned universities who nevertheless displayed major gaps in their knowledge, as well as highly competent people who got their degrees from no-name schools.


texts: Should I admit that I was a first-year PhD student in future interviews?

texts: As you may know, I was a first-year student and forced to leave and it was a long story, I have posted here. My question is: since I pledged myself to be honest and tell the truth, the interviewers when they hear that they are negatively affected. Recently, I have applied for a position and I was shortlisted to 4, and then when they heard my case they told me we want someone who can commit, I told them my story positively and never mentioned any negativity. I have received an email from ex-PI who forced me to leave asking that he received an email from the interviewer and I saw the email that he is extremely interested, and the ex-PI asked me what I have told them about the lab so that he can be consistent with my words, honestly, I didn't have a good intention from his email, I have been always honest and candid, but the ex-PI used to lie based on multiple situations. I have been rejected. I am struggling as I was blamed and honestly, the reason for leaving is that I am an independent researcher and ex-PI didn't like that. However, I look through interview embarrassed sometimes and a nervous little bit because of their reaction like have a taboo. I don't want to lose any future interviews, I have noticed that students apply elsewhere and don't mention they are a current student in a specific program, however, my situation is awkward as I spent one year and my name is still indexed in their website although my webpage is removed. Please, suggestion, should I hide it, but I tell myself it isn't ethical.


texts: How to handle an obsession about being 100% academically honest

texts:
I’m an undergraduate student, and I find that multiple times (each week), I have an obsessive need to make sure something I’m doing is allowed/accepted.  I do this by asking the TA/Professor for my course in question.
It’s usually situations where it’s almost certain that something I’m doing is ethical, but I feel the need to ask for each instance if the professor did not explicitly state the rules.
Some examples:

A little while back I asked my professor if thesauruses were allowed, and if I had to cite them.  Based on common sense, I was over 95% sure it was fine – even on the university library website, links were given to a few online thesauruses.  When I asked my prof, he said that it was absolutely fine, and that thesauruses did not have to be cited.
My professor for another course mentioned that certain calculators were not allowed on tests (the kind of calculator I currently have).  I wondered if I could still use my calculator on assignments, and I assumed I probably could since he only mentioned tests.  I asked the TA about it, and he said I could.
I was wondering if I could use my course notes while doing an assignment.  I was always allowed to do this in high school, and I was 99 % certain it would be okay.  I asked the TA about it, and he replied that it’s completely okay.

I want to earn a degree that was done in perfect ethical standing.  I feel that if I don’t ensure every single thing I’m doing is completely ethical, then inevitably a few of my actions will be unethical over the four years.

I don’t want to have to keep pestering my professors about every single detail, as it wears on me and also (I’m sure) will wear on them.  At the same time, I have the problem I discussed above.  Should I just accept that it's pretty much impossible for anyone to finish a degree with a 100% ethical standing?  Any advice/experience would be greatly appreciated.


texts: Putting "List of Figures, Tables, Conference Talks, etc." in thesis (Chemistry)

texts:
I would like to know what people think about putting lists of figures, schemes, and tables in PhD theses. Do you think it is necessary or just seems like "page filler".

I would also like people's thoughts on putting a list of conference talks. In some fields (e.g., computer science) this is very important, however, in chemistry (my subject) publications are more important. However, giving conference talks can be considered a good thing so I am thinking about putting it into my thesis.

To note, my university has no guidelines on these so it is probably flexible.


texts: What are the necessary and recommended practices to cite a published picture of experimental result?

texts:
I want to make a direct comparison between my simulation result and a published picture of other people's experimental result.

There are a lot of morphological features of similarity, which are difficult to describe by words only, and it should be better to simultaneously put the two results in my paper instead of suggesting readers to find that cited picture themselves, so I want to make the comparison by putting their picture and my numerical result side-by-side.

Specifically,

The picture of their experimental result was an optical photograph in black and white, while my simulation result was colorized;
My target journal is different from that of the cited paper.

I did find a similar example for my reference and thus I kind of doubt that this is not a usual practice in paper writing. Could anybody suggest me what should do before I prepare such a figure and submit my paper? Thank you!


texts: I’ve been MS student and completed all my courses in years 2012-2014, but instead of taking my master’s exam in 2014 (which is requirement for graduation) I took a break. I have defended my master’s thesis and passed the master’s exam this year. During this break out period I wasn’t student, so I am unsure how should I state this on my resume and make it look as good as possible.


texts: What is the promotion rate of professors in United States?

texts: I'm writing an essay, and want to know the promotion rate and average duration from assistant professor to associate professor and associate professor to professor in recent years. Sadly I don't know the data for the US. Could anyone tell me?


texts: Is there a standard template for a long list of acknowledgement section for master's thesis?

texts:
There are a lot of people/websites/organizations that I want to include in the acknowledgement section of my master thesis.
I think it does not look good if I name all of them in sequence with a brief explanation.

Would a numbered or bullet list or even a table be acceptable for this purpose? Do you know some useful template?


texts: Why does a copy editor count the number of characters on a line?

texts:
I got my paper back with remarks of the copy editor. One annotation counts the number of characters in a line. I have been told to ignore it, but I am still interested to know what it is for.

On the bottom of the page, the copy editor wrote: "73 × 39 × 27 → 25p.". 73 is the number of characters, 27 is the number of pages of my manuscript. 39 is the number of lines per page minus 1. It seems to be a calculation for the final number of pages (judging from the "p.") but I don't see how that figure would be calculated by multiplying these values.

I am using a template provided by the journal.


texts: Asking for a change in rules to get a MS rather than end the program with no degree

texts: I am in a weird spot. I have been a PhD student for 1.5 years and in May 2018 it will be 2 full years. I already have an MS in the same subject from another school. I was told recently that I will be asked to leave the program at the end of this semester due to lack of research funding. I asked if I can be given a MS instead since I fulfilled all the requirements for that but that cannot be done as I already have a MS from in the same subject from a different place. I will try really hard to see if I can plead some leniency but I just wanted to ask if you people know of cases where students were able to plead successfully. I am really scared because if I am terminated from this program, I will be forced to leave USA because I won't have any status and I will have nothing to show for these 2 years.


texts: Personal qualities required for a career in academia?

texts:
I am looking to apply for research programmes after I complete my undergraduate degree. While I thoroughly enjoy research, I'm worried about whether this is the best field for me to pursue.

What qualities would one say are necessary to become a researcher - which of these are innate and which can be learned?

What are the things one should know about a career in academia?


texts: Vacation Days of Assistant Professor in Canada

texts: I may apply for an Assistant Professor (AP) position at York University in Toronto, Canada. Since I live in Europe, I would like to know how many vacation days are available in this position. For example, what does an AP do in those weeks where no classes take place? Does the AP have to go to the office or can he stay home? Thanks for your answers!


texts:
I have won fully funded Ph.D. positions one in the UK and the other one is in Spain.
UK job position offers me a job as a teaching assistant in addition to Ph.D., however, I would have a fellowship (research assistant) in Spain?

Ph.D. is itself is a big commitment and requires focus and hard work. I want to choose something with which I can focus on my studies as much as I can. Yet, on the other hand, I want to have professional experience in academia for further career development.

I have to choose one now and I am not sure which one would be better in the long run?

Suggestions would be appreciated!
Thank you!


texts: Is a research thesis (report) with zero contribution to human knowledge acceptable?

texts:
An alternate title could be "Do we award a PhD for what the student became or for what he produced?". More precisely, if a research thesis report does not advance human knowledge, yet still shows that the student acquired the right skills of investigation, should the title of Philosophy Doctor be awarded?

I kind of always assumed that a thesis (PhD thesis in particular) should have some positive results (where positive means "advancing the state of human knowledge"), and that part of the art of finding a good topic of research was the art of asking the right kind of question, which would yield some positive result independently of the answer. Similar views are expressed in this other stackexchange question and the corresponding answers:

  It is an expectation that the PhD would make an original contribution and/or advance knowledge in a given field. I understand this is a universal assumption for this level of study across all universities. (...) usually a PhD is measured on its contribution to expand knowledge.

Nevertheless, Justin Zobel defends convincingly the opposite view in "Writing for Computer Science", p.154 of the Second Edition:

  even if good results are not achieved, the thesis should pass if you have shown the ability to undertake high-quality research. (...)
  A thesis with negative results can, if appropriately written, demonstrate the ability of the candidate just as well a a thesis with positive results. (...)
  it is you, not the research, that is the primary object of scrutiny

Is there an agreement across disciplines about this question?

I am not directly concerned (I reported positive results in my PhD thesis long ago, have many positive results to report in my "Habilitation" thesis, and I certainly aim for my students to report positive results in theirs), but I am curious about the real objective of the thesis:
- as an advisor, I could suggest a more risky topic if it had the potential to teach more to the student without risking the whole graduating thing; and
- as a referee or member of an evaluation committee, I have to judge students and/or their thesis...

Extreme Fictional Example

A student and advisor do the entire research work following the most rigorous scientific process for several years, only to find their efforts ruined near the end of the process either by a budget cut, the disappearance of the species they were studying, or the discovery that the problem is the consequence of an obscure results from year ago in another research community.

The student has followed and learned the scientific process, but did not contribute to human knowledge (apart from maybe improving the index of its bibliography).  If the student has showed the qualities required from a good researcher, should(n't) he/she be awarded the title of "Doctor in Philosophy", independently of the contribution made to human knowledge?

This is truly a rhetorical question, and I doubt this kind of situation happens often. Yet the idea is new to me and I kind of like it, albeit I doubt the whole community would agree...

Opposite Extreme Example

Imagine that a student, stroke by luck, makes an amazing scientific discovery which deeply impact human knowledge, and can be understood by all even though the student  poorly redacts it. It seems clear to me that the society would not benefit from awarding a PhD to such a student, who has not learned how to do research even though contributing to human knowledge.

On the other hand, setting two conditions for the awarding of a PhD, having learned how to do proper research AND having advanced human knowledge by using it, introduces trade-offs and compromises (which again do not serve society).


texts: How to handle reference requests for a concurrent postdoc application that may seem unnecessary?

texts:
I recently applied for several postdoc positions. Two of them ("A" and "B") are closely related to my doctoral dissertation topic, and these applications were quite strongly welcomed. I am already in the process of negotiations regarding one of them. However, the salaries are on the low side, and I don't have an official job offer yet.

On the other hand, one of the postdoc positions ("C") I applied for is in a different field of study, but the pay is more than twice as high compared to the other two, and it would probably be considered more prestigious. The principal investigator (PI) immediately contacted me after I applied and asked me to have my references submit their reference letters.

The issue is that my main reference -- my dissertation advisor -- is sceptical about the application for position C: he says that it is likely to have a large number of competing applicants, and the interest in my application may be low or non-existent. Also, he shares the opinion that it is awkward to pursue another application when I am practically hired in my field (where everyone knows each other as well). He suggested me to wait and see if there the PI associated with position C will follow up and show more interest.

I would definitely be interested in seeing what happens with the application for position C. My question is, would it be indeed a good strategy to wait to see if the PI of position C is going to follow up, or could I perhaps ask him to continue with my application without the reference letters for now (in order to not insist that my dissertation advisor goes ahead and writes a reference letter)?


texts:
I am a third-year PhD student in Germany, and I have some issues with my supervisor.

To make a long story short, he does not read my research drafts but instead, he asks us to review papers he takes from conferences as a reviewer, and then he submits them with his name to make a reputation.

He also bans me from writing my thesis. Other students in the past including master students have had similar problems regarding their master thesis. And recently a PhD student quit after 3 years of working in his group and a few other cases in the past.

Anyways, the main reason I am writing this is that about two years ago he asked me to work on a remote project (with another group remotely) to have a joint research paper. After doing all the things that he and the remote professor ask me to do, my so-called supervisor now does not allow me to write my paper based on the result of this research, and I found that he (and the remote guy) are replacing me with another student on this project and are ignoring all of my works. I have been working on a private repository in GitHub, but I do not have a master user.

What are the possible solutions in this case? How can I defend my rights? Is there any way to collect evidence from the repository or emails? Can I bring these people to court?

I have tried to talk to my supervisor many times, and it doesn't work. Also, the head of our department does not want to involve himself in these jobs.

This is an update to the answers and comments below:

Thank you guys! I need to write this long response to Buffy and other people comments:
 Indeed I am looking for a proper advisor. However, for now, I want to get my paper published (the remote project). Even though I must change my supervisor, still I devoted 2 years of my life on this work. So, I think it's my right to have this paper in my CV even if they write the paper separately.

It was a kind of deal between my so-called supervisor and me and his friend (the remote professor) to have a paper in the end.

How can I collect proofs regarding all the ideas and technical works I have been putting in this project? (for example, has Github any option in these situations? )
Can I write an abstract about this project with some details and upload it somewhere like Arxiv or Researchgate. Does it force them to put my name at least as a co-author for the paper?
Having some screenshots or recorded screen from the history of the repository can be helpful? (in case they kick me out of the git repository )
Is there any international, Europian or American student association or similar things to help people like me?