texts: Is it appropriate to summarise and paraphrase complex reviewer comments before providing my answer?

texts:
I received a review of my journal manuscript that is not organised in a way to facilitate the author reply. Its main problems are:

Sometimes one long paragraph discusses many related points. Quoting each sentence separately does not separate the ideas but produces rough ideas, and on the other hand, it is difficult to provide an organized answer directly without dividing the reviewer comment into distinct points using my own words. So, is it appropriate to do so? And can I e.g., start my answer with: This comment raised several points which are......, Below, my answer to each of them separately.
Sometimes, the same points are repeated many times in non-contiguous parts, e.g., a summary of a critique at the beginning of the review and some details in another comment and a suggestion concerning the same critique in another part. By following the typical way of answering the reviewer comments, I have to quote each part of the review and provide an answer. By doing so, the result will be: one answer repeated many times with separate, noncontiguous comments. So, is it appropriate to quote the noncontiguous parts that discuss the same idea together, summarise what the reviewer wrote, and then provide my answer?


texts: Is it ethical for a professor to get a graduate student to complete a manuscript peer review that the professor has been assigned?

texts:
Is it ethical to a professor to accept a manuscript for review, and then have a graduate student referee it? What about assisting as a referee?

I understand that graduate students can be involved in the review process- this isn't my question. As far as the journal/editors are aware, the professor is the referee, but in actuality, the student is performing the review.

If an assigned referee would like a student to participate, how could this be done properly?


texts: What is the usual dress code for academic workshops?

texts:
I'm attending my first academic/industry workshop next week and was wondering what is the convention with regards to the dress code. It's a three-day affair where each participant is required to present a 3 minute introduction to their PhD. Other than that the event consists mostly of talks by other people.

Normally, I'd go with formal business wear if I were presenting as a named part of the programme. If I was just attending I'd go for 'academia-casual'. That being said, I've never been to a workshop so I probably don't know what I'm talking about, especially with the inclusion of the 3 minute 'introduce yourself' presentation.

The workshop takes place in the United Kingdom and the field is engineering/computer science.


texts:
I am researcher (Assistant professor ) in computer science. I work on topics which takes more than one year to publish a single paper. Due to my interest I work in these kind of topics. There is one problem which I am facing due to my interest which is as follows. I will not able to advise lots of students due as the field in which I work is not hot and publication takes longer time. I came to academia with a mindset that I will advise as many students as possible. I feel motivated when my graduate students discuss research problems with me and other kind of discussions also. Due to my field in which I am currently working I can only advise one graduate student. The one solution which comes to my mind is to pick a hot topic and start working on that topic and then many students will approach me but I may not be that much interested in these kind of topics.
Question : How to guide more number of graduate students?
Note that the meaning of 'more number' is to advise roughly like 13-15 students in the entire career. I am also interested in producing quality students instead of just quantity.


texts: I know that there is a preselected candidate for a position to be filled at my department. What should I do?

texts:
There is a rather attractive position to be filled at my department. The heads of department are already quite sure about who should fill this position. Jobs being filled with preselected candidates are not exactly legal, but common practice in my country. Thus, there legally has to be a job announcement, as everybody has to be given the chance to apply for the job. There further is an equal opportunities office that ensures that all candidates are being judged by the same categories and no one gets preferential treatment.

I never found this practice of preselecting candidates particularly fair or ethical, but let's just say that up until now I had to deal with other challenges. Then I recently stumbled across the list of applicants for that position by accident (was still lying in the printer) and saw that I know one of the applicants who apparently will have no chance against the preselected candidate. It's not that I desperately want this acquaintance ("friend" is too much) to fill the job, but knowing a name on the "you're never gonna get the job"-list made the unfair treatment so much more real. I don't find it acceptable.

Things that speak for me to do nothing:

Most importantly: My contract will be finished soon and I was, am and will be dependent on my boss's willingness to  give me a contract or rather (because there is no funding) her cooperation on further projects.
The head of department is my direct boss and (in my opinion) a very likeable person.
I highly appreciate her concern for her staff, she nevertheless needs to make strategic decisions at some points, which comes with the job and is only professional - I understand.
Furthermore, as much as I know the preselected candidate seems to be a very good, high impact candidate who will fit in the department.

Things that speak for me to do something

Most importantly: It's a unfair/ unethical system and I don't want to stand by and watch
There is no funding for a future contract anyway (although my boss tried)
There may be many other candidates just as good or better than the preselected one

What should I do? I'm not gonna lie: talking to my boss (head of department) scares me quite a bit. But then again I don't want to go to higher levels, be the whistleblower and ruin parts of my boss's career...

[Update]
Based on your answers I did/will do the following:

I talked to a colleague, turns out she had the same impression and wanted to talk to me about it as well. So concerning the question "do you have proof?": at least I have another witness now. But then again, as Anonymous Physicist wrote: up until now, no rule was broken. However, we decided to closely follow the application process in hope that our concerns were exaggerated (which I highly doubt)
"maybe it was just a statement about the quality of the candidate?" It very much exceeded this, as my boss was talking about how important it is that they get the participant through the application process and what possible pitfalls could be. Nevertheless I'll talk to her in order to find out, what her behavior would look like if "someone better" shows up and if that'd be a case of nepotism (see answer of xLeitix).


texts: Difference between research gap and research question

texts:
While writing a research proposal, I am confused about the difference between research gap and research question. What I understand is you can first identify the research gap and then move find research question in that gap. Is it correct?

Also, What are the central research question and sub-questions?


texts: What happens when a instructor really goofs up a course?

texts:
Given how many college courses are taught every academic semester in the world (or even just in the U.S.), it simply must be the case that some portion of the instructors badly goof up their courses, to the point where it is not really able to be recovered from--in essence, the course is ruined. This could be things like:

Provably unfair or wildly too strict (or too lenient?) grading.
Losing exam scores (this has to be particularly common) for some or all of the students/exams.
Missing a large number of class sessions, or somehow leaving mid-course.
Etc.

I taught for a while and luckily never had such a catastrophe, nor did I know of any from my colleagues. But what typically happens when this sort of thing does occur?


texts: How to "cultivate" a postdoc position during PhD program?

texts:
Imagine you're a PhD student, and you found a research group, in another university, that you'd like to join for a PostDoc period.

You want to join that group because you really like their subjects, and their projects, and/or for other reasons. You just dediced you would like to join them.

Now, what could you do during your PhD to augment the probabilities to reach this objective?

You might say: just relax, make an awesome work, and then, when you're ending your doctoral period, contact that group PI and ask to be hired (we already discussed how to cope with this phase).

Okay, but, is there something you could do during your PhD before that moment?

What could you do?

Keep up-to-date on their scientific papers?

Email them? About what?
Visit their lab?

Thanks a lot


texts: Transitioning from pure mathematics to artificial intelligence

texts: I am studying for a Master's degree in pure mathematics, but still have one year to go with my studies. However, I'm interested in specialising in artificial intelligence and pursuing a PhD. I would also like to work for a start-up that deals with education or robotics. How can I gain the necessary skills to succeed in transitioning from mathematics to AI?


texts: Someone else's grad student not interested in following up on a project

texts:
Some months ago, in the context of a workshop, two graduate students (from other PhD advisors) and myself found a technique to solve a certain problem that could give a nice research publication.

I am trying to push the project, mostly because this can be beneficial for both students in the last period of their PhD studies. However, the problem I encounter is the following: one of the students does not want to make the work/is not interested anymore in it. I have written her a couple of times saying that would be good that we go through the project but she never replied. So it seems to me that she does not have any interest on the project (while the second student does).

If it were the case of a PhD student of mine, in a very similar situation, I would talk with him/her seriously but due to the situation that she is not an student of mine I do not know which is the best way to act.

How should I proceed?


texts: I wasted six years of my life getting a PhD degree. What should I do, and how will I survive?

texts:
I struggled with low self confidence throughout my bachelors, masters and PhD in chemical engineering. After spending two years in Masters and six years in getting a PhD degree, I am lost at what I can do with my life.

Initially, my plan was to be in academia. Though I love doing research, I don't see that as a possibility anymore.

I did not do well in my PhD. I have only two first-author journal publications in ~2.5 impact factor journals. I did not acquire significant skills. I am bad at programming, and I have a 3.7 GPA. I did not learn to drive or learn any foreign language. I did not improve my health or developed a new hobby. I even did not spend time on having a relationship. In short, I have done nothing over the past six years.

My PhD supervisor has given me a postdoc position. And I feel extremely inadequate. I feel that I won't be able to do anything after my postdoc year, and I will just be a burden and disappointment to my parents.

I am an international student living in the US.

I don't know what I should do. What should I do?


texts: How can I politely tell a student that I already support him several times and that is enough?

texts:
I have a student who sends me emails twice a week showing me his updated dissertation. At first I supported him a lot. But he literally does what I say word by word and never goes beyond what I tell him in doing further research. I have been clear to him that his limits are the sky. But when he adds a small detail he sends me an email again asking me if that was okay or not.
I think he assumes that he will take a very high mark if I did not tell him exactly what he needs to do for his dissertation. I am a bit worried about how to reply to this student. As I am trying to be polite and nice and I do not want him to fail, but at the same time I need to be genuine.
Please give me advice on how to reply to such kind of students so that I do not offend them. I want to convey that I encourage them to do further research and it is okay to say something I disagree with as long as they support it with proofs and evidence.


texts: Is it unethical to take ideas from a pre-print to write your own research paper (though the author of the pre-print is acknowledged)?

texts:
One of my friends is in a very curious position. He has been researching on a number theoretic problem for months but couldn’t solve it until recently after he has seen a pre-print in arXiv which attempts to prove the problem. But though he has taken ideas from the pre-print, his own article differs considerably from that of the pre-print. According to him, following are the chief points of difference,

My friend actually proved a stronger version of the problem.
He gave an outline to the proof of a conjecture that the author of the pre-print stated in the concluding section of his/her paper.

My friend has decided to mention precisely how much he had been benefited from the paper in the Acknowledgements section. Will there be any problem if he sends his article to a journal for publication?


texts: Can I negotiate a research assistant position if my PI moves to a new univerisity?

texts:
I am currently in the second year of my post-doctoral fellowship. My PI will be moving to a new university in ~9 months.

As the story of the potential move developed, I was honest with my PI during discussions and told him that it was likely that I would go with him if he left, but it was never discussed in detail.

Now that more specifics are known, it is time to talk details. I would like to negotiate for an upward move to a research associate position. I believe this would be fair considering I'm sure I will "lose" some amount of research time while the new lab is getting set-up. However, I'm worried about negotiations because a) this is not a "new" job, just a continuation of my fellowship at a new location with the same boss, b) I've already indicated that I would like to move to the new location, and c) my resume has not yet reached a point that I am able to strike out on my own for any other upward job move (though, I can probably make a lateral move to another post-doc, that is not ideal).

My questions are:

Is it reasonable to ask for a title promotion in this situation? Or do I have no room for negotiation?

What else should I add to the negotiations in order to help my career progress to the best of its ability during a transition to a new university in another state?


texts: How to export Google Scholar keyword search results to Excel?

texts:
I am looking for a reputable free tool to export results of a keyword search on Google Scholar to Microsoft Word or Excel.

I am in the process of assembling a reading list for systematic literature review. In Google Scholar, I get 276 results for my keyword search. I need to perform and record two culls firstly on title, then on abstract reading, leaving myself with a potential reading list.

I would like to do this in Excel or Word, if possible. I found an article in the Search Engine Journal, recommending "SEO PowerSuite", but the article is from 2009 and my antivirus software is recommending not running the downloaded executable.

I am very new to research, so could you point me in the right direction of discovering and using reputable free tools that would allow me to export my Google Scholar keyword search results?


texts: Career prospects in theoretical physics after nightmare PhD

texts:
I will try to keep this as short and concise as possible.

I am a 3rd year PhD student in theoretical physics (condensed matter theory) in a US university. I worked for a certain professor for a year and things seemed to be going well, until he announced one day that he could not continue working with me because his grant application fell through. So I was forced to look for another advisor after I had already started my third year. Nobody else in the condensed matter group wanted to take me because they all claimed not to have funding (this turned out to be a lie, as I later found out). I was finally forced to work for a professor who is 76 years old and does not do research anymore. He has an incomplete project he hasn't worked on for 20 years and I am trying to complete it. I do NOT mind working on an old project. The problem is that whenever I ask him a question or ask for feedback, he ignores me. He does not have any ideas and when I ask for feedback and suggestions on my own ideas and work, he says he doesn't know and I can do whatever I want. I have tried approaching other professors in the department for help, but they refuse to meet/talk to me, saying that they are busy. I am worried that I will never be able to come up with a decent thesis without any sort of guidance, and will almost certainly not have any publications.

My question is: Is there any way I can minimize the damage to my career that this is causing? Is it possible to get a post-doc in theoretical physics without a publication/ with a sub-standard thesis? I am an international student and there are no physics jobs in my country, so any kind of advice on how to proceed would be welcome.

If anyone wants more detailed information, I am happy to provide it.


texts: Found mistake in my professors book: Tell her or publish? If so, how?

texts:
I just came across quite a big problem for an interpretation my professor puts forward in her recently published book (a book containing original research in the humanities, not a textbook). I am not 100% sure, but I am pretty sure that I am right.

The error is not a factual error, but an error that concerns the logic of her argument. If somebody interprets a text, and I find very strong inconsistencies in this interpretation or a logical error even, this might not be objectively wrong per se, but it can come close to it in certain cases.

How am I to approach this? Shall I send her an email, explaining everything, or shall I try to publish it as a paper (assuming I am right about the severity of the problem)? I am worried that if I tell her, she might publish a paper herself or will tell me it's not so severe. I am bit paranoid here, I know.

I am also concerned with how to tell her - if I do. Shall I be confident and explain that I think I have found a problem for her interpretation or is this too bold? Or shall I formulate it more like a question? In the latter case, I am worried that she will not realise that I did really see the mistake and am only being polite. I don't want her to think that I pointed to something by asking a question, but that then she really came up with it. I have the feeling it would make more of an impression, if I would point straight to the problem as a problem. Of course, there is then also the possibility of her not liking me for this.

By the way, I am a Master student in the humanities. I will not do my PhD with this professor (or even at the same uni).


texts: How to say “thank you” to a professor who has written a recommendation letter for me?

texts: I recently asked two of my professors to write me recommendation letters and they promptly and kindly accepted to do that. It is now two weeks since then. I want to send “thank you” notes to them. Is it enough to send e-mails? I have heard that it is more polite to send a written letter by US post, but it is a little bit weird when we are all in the same building! Isn’t it? Can I send them some kind of gift on a special occasion?


texts: Can I use a publication's accompanying source code in a commercial software?

texts:
Said source code has no explicit license.
I know I could reimplement the method described in the paper, but it would be more convenient to just use the code directly.
What is the convention in these situations? Since methods aren't copyrightable, but source code is usually copyrighted by default.
P.S.: There's no patent on the method.


texts: Should I speak to my supervisor about changing my undergrad project topic?

texts:
I am going into my third year at university of my Math degree and have decided to undertake an independent project under the supervision of a lecturer who is, primarily, a number theorist. One of the main reasons I wanted to do this project (which includes producing a presentation and report) was for the experience.

At first discussion with my supervisor I had no clue what I wanted the project to be about so he threw out some possibilities. We ended up agreeing on the topic  "solving polynomials by radicals": charting the historical and logical development of formulae similar to the quadratic formula for cubic and quartic equations, and a why no such formula can exist for degree 5 and higher.

However, recently I came across a numberphile video with regards to the Collatz conjecture and it seemed quite interesting. I know that as a third year student I definitely do not possess the capabilities of making any sort of impact on the conjecture and that my project would have to focus on its origin and the work done on it so far but the little research I have done has piqued my curiosity.

Would it be worth it to speak to my supervisor about changing the topic? I dont want to irritate him unnecessarily.


texts: Thesis or a practicum at Masters Level - Computer Science

texts: I am about to reach a stage in my masters where I'll have to make a choice of doing either a regular thesis or a practicum. A practicum is simply an alternative to thesis in which a student has to submit a practical project employing the concepts developed throughout the graduate program and concludes with a paper and presentation of the crafted project.Since I am planning to apply for a PhD soon after graduation will it affect my application if I opt for the practicum instead of the thesis considering the fact that I already have published a technical paper ?


texts: SpringerPlus asked me to review a paper already published

texts:
I have gathered online that SpringerPlus is legit. thing and not some scam. But they emailed me (a  PhD student) and called me a Professor and asked me to review an article which was accepted in some other journal.

I feel like i should do the review because it's good for one's career, but this seems very strange. What to do?


texts: Are datasets really random for Bioinformatics tools

texts:
For my masters thesis, I needed a to run a tool to filter out RNA sequences and then research on the filtered data. I researched online reading papers to find an appropriate tool and I found one that really fitted my needs. The tool was published by a renowned group in a good journal (IF around 7). The tool claimed to have been run on a 30 random datasets and claimed to have around 90% specificity and sensitivity. I was very happy.

When I ran it on my dataset, the tool produced so many false positives and false negetives. Its accuracy was less than 10%. I ran on other datasets too and never got an accuracy of more than 20% in any one of them. To my surprise, the tool only worked well on the dataset that was published with the tool, with a good accuracy and no other input. I cannot believe that the dataset was randomly chosen.

I spoke to my PI about this and he said that he understands. He allowed me to choose another topic for my thesis and helped me a lot to complete. In the end I could successfully defend my thesis.

My questions are:

Is this common for groups (esp in Bioinformatics) to select a biased dataset as input and claim it to be random?
Does reviewers really run the tools (or read the source code) that are accompanied by the paper in order to test it and see whether it really does what it claims or they only read the paper?
Can an end user later write to the editor and let him know that the tool published in their journal isn't what it was suppose to be?


texts: Cite related work from same year as defense?

texts:
Suppose I do the research for my thesis from 2013 to 2016, and do the write-up of the dissertation in 2016.

If during write-up in 2016 I discover new related work (published during 2016), is it eligible to put it into the related work section of my thesis? Or should this related work have already existed in the beginning of the thesis to be part of its related work?


texts: How do I not get impatient when other people ask me to describe my research?

texts:
I mean, I really should be glad when they ask me this question. But inevitably, different people will ask me the same question many different times (over many different interviews), understandably so, and response fatigue does start to set in. I just wonder how other people can manage to be so patient when I ask them the same exact question (that they've probably answered hundreds of times by now).

I guess one of the things that has always driven me (despite an initially subpar educational background) was that I was always extremely averse to any form of redundant stimuli or repetitiveness. This helped carry me from a crappy middle school into UChicago/Brown. But I do need to get used to it a bit more as my role changes.


texts:
I am applying for a US PhD program. One of my recommendation letters arrived 1 month late.

Should I

1) contact the department

or

2) contact potential supervisors to kindly ask them to consider it, given that the delay was out of my control?

or

3) do nothing?


texts: How was funding handled in the medieval university?

texts: How was funding of research done in the medieval universities?


texts: I had a rough first year in undergrad— what now?

texts:
I think I'm off to a poor start to my undergraduate career.

Some context: my major is Materials Science and Nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego. I'm on the BS/MS track for 2020. My GPA for my first year is a 3.2, which I think is quite bad in regards to my prospects of getting into a good PhD programme. My research advisor even told me that I need a 3.5 to have any hope at all of getting into a top tier PhD programme for my area of discipline. I need to know how I can make myself as competitive as possible for top PhD programmes in materials science.

In regards to clubs and activities, I'm involved in three places. I do research in the bioengineering department, where I focus on fabricating biosensors to read genetic errors. I am a candidate for three project teams' leadership positions in AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) and NETS (Nano Engineering and Technology Society), for the solar energy, piezo energy, and wave energy teams. And lastly, I am a central member of the UCSD Wushu Team, which I do entirely for physical and mental health (it's done wonders for both anxiety and depression).

I will take my first upper division classes this September, where I've that they are both harder and easier than lower divs to get good grades (B+ and up). I've gotten to know most of my professors via AIChE and NETS. I tend to stay in touch with every professor I talk to, either personally, or via email/LinkedIn.

Have I put myself in a bad situation? Am I overreacting? Where do I go from here to optimise myself for a strong PhD programme? I need all the advice I can get.


texts: UG Research Advisor Not Willing to Write LOR to support my transfer application. How to proceed?

texts:
This post is related to my situation Dropping Out And Applying Somewhere Else
. After explaining to my undergraduate research advisor that I withdrew from my PhD program (1 month in) and that I decided to apply to Thesis-master's program Which better fit my career goals, he told me he is not writing me a letter. I am not sure if this deems all my research work in undergrad useless. I have the work documented as a credit course on my transcript with a grade of pass and one grade of -A. So I am not sure if I should mention my work with him or just focus on work I have done in my courses.


texts: Must publicly funded research in the EU be published as open access by law?

texts:
I remember reading a while ago that there was a proposal going around in the European Parliament. If I remember correctly, it said that all publicly funded research should be publicly accessible.

Did the proposal pass? Is it in effect? What are the exact requirements? (e.g. "green" vs "gold" open access)


texts: I wonder if my PhD from Turkey is recognized in Germany or not?

texts: I have got my PhD on Production management and marketing from Marmara University in Istanbul. How can I check if my PhD is recognized in Germany? Please help me by introducing an organization in Berlin that I can go and ask directly.


texts: PhD in Education - How competitive is it and what are admissions committees looking for?

texts:
I currently have applications into several top tier education programs.  I am a bit worried about my chances.  I have about 7 years working in education, a unrelated masters and a masters in education.  My GPA in undergraduate was a 3.8 and in graduate school a 3.9 from a top 25 university.  I did well on the GRE verbal but poorly on GRE math.

Does anyone have any insight as to what they are looking for and what my chances are?  I read in another post to look for brutal honesty, so bring it on.


texts: How to structure the personal statement?

texts:
Note: personal statement is a different to SOP/research statement. Some universities require this, while the others don't.

Unlike the research statement (SOP), the personal statement fragments into a lot of stories. For example, the structure of the SOP simply has four important points that your need to present well: what I have done, why I'm doing now, what I want to do in the future, and how the department suits me (JeffE, 2012). And at each point you only have one story to tell (at least for someone like me). But I don't know how to structure the personal statement. There are a lot of suggestions to brainstorm the ideas for it, such as:

How you have overcome barriers to access higher education
How you have come to understand the barriers faced by others
Evidence of your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education
Evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality
Evidence of your leadership among such groups
And more importantly, how your personal background and experiences inform your decision to pursue a graduate degree.

Q: I have stories for those. The point is, I don't know how to structure them in an unified completed statement. They are just different sides of mine, and the connections between them are weak. I think that numbering them is even better than just splitting them in paragraph. I don't know if it's OK or not.

Also, as this statement is used for knowing me as much as possible, should I just tell them all the stories I have? And is there any different between this statement and the SOP for undergraduate applications?


texts: Editor said I may apply reviewer's suggestions and resubmit "if I wish", what are the consequences if I don't?

texts:
Few months back I communicated a paper. I got the reviewer's report in a positive direction. But he asked us to add some results if we wish and in the end he wrote:

"I leave it to the decision of the editor for further process."

Now I got a mail regarding this from the editor:

If you wish you may send a revised version according to the suggestion of the referee.

My question is will they reject our manuscript if we are not interested in updating our work as it will long time to finish. I am in dilemma. As the editor started his words with "if you wish". What could be the possible consequences if we are not interested in sending revised work.


texts:
How to properly label graphs that can be dimensionless?

One of reviewers of my document strongly emphasised on labelling plots with which I generally strongly agree. On this occasion, however, I was explaining a general mathematical model on generated time series and by time series I mean an observation (value of a variable) that changes. Non of the variables I'm plotting has any units and the only reason why I added label Time [s] on x axis so that reader doesn't have to think too much what is there. Reviewer suggested adding units to all other labels, such as dimensionless amplitude, amplitude square and inverse of amplitude square. It seems that adding Density [1/|1|^2] or making up a unit might be considered a bit offensive.

Here are examples, where I am supposed to label axes. None of used variables requires a unit.

Density of dimensionless variable.

Time series


texts: How to work effectively with unengaging labmates as a graduate student?

texts:
This might seem like a small problem, but one I've been thinking about lately, and was hoping for some insights. I joined a new lab around a year ago, and while things have mostly been going great, my lab colleagues are really not the brightest group. They are wonderful people to work with (and friends in a non-work sense), but just not engaging when it comes to the science. They basically fall into two categories: 1) average students. Average at everything basically. Not bad in any way, but just... not great either. Cannot have an intellectual conversation with them. 2) Very smart, but not hard-working. Takes short-cuts etc. Essentially someone who is very good at talking the talk, but not really walking the walk. Again, very smart people, but overtime I'm just losing respect for them as scientists.

I guess I was just used to (and took for granted) working with great people who are engaging, and who you can have a real "science" conversation with. People I respect and have learnt so much from. To be honest I've been a little down lately because I just miss being surrounded by great colleagues. I know it's a downside to joining a new lab, and that it'll likely get better as our lab grows, but I'm still regretting the growth opportunities I'm missing out on. My advisor is basically the only person in our group I can have a real conversation with. Even our lab manager is just a few years older than me, and I can tell she sees this as nothing more than a job that pays the bills. All of our conversations I walk away from feeling indifferent and having gained nothing. This probably seems like a silly problem, but I was just wondering if anyone has had similar experiences or have advice.


texts: Is it harder to transition from Industry Research to Prof than PostDoc to Prof?

texts:
Assuming someone just received their PhD (in say, Computer Science) and chooses to step into Industry RnD rather than taking up a post doc, a year or two later, he/she realizes that Academia is where he/she truly wishes to be.

Is it tougher to transition from an Industry RnD job to a professorship as compared to a parallel universe in which he would have chosen a PostDoc instead?

Can an Industry RnD job double up as PostDoc?

(Assuming that one keeps publishing and works on important problems)


texts: Have some universities already tried to temporarily disable their journal subscriptions

texts:
Many universities pay a yearly subscription to journals so that their researchers (usually identified by IP address) can transparently access scientific papers from these journals. However, more and more papers are made available online in open access nowadays, so some universities have been tempted to cancel some of their subscriptions.

While some universities took the plunge, others have been hesitant. I can understand this to some extent: the university doesn't want to cancel, and then discover that their researchers are up in arms because they cannot access some papers, and the university has to come back to the table of negotiations with the publisher and subscribe again while being in a bad bargaining position. (This is important, because the subscription prices are often heavily negotiated and opaque.)

I was thinking that a tempting solution for a university could be to do a kind of experiment: while they are subscribed, temporarily "disable" their subscription for some set duration, and see whether their researchers are having any problems or not. This could be technically achieved, e.g., by routing their Internet traffic via some IP that is not subscribed, or something of the sort. And one could imagine it could give valuable insight to the university, without requiring any renegotiation with the publishers.

Do we know of any universities that made experiments of this kind? and of what the outcome was?


texts: Value of my prior publications when changing fields

texts:
I am finishing my PhD and strongly considering changing my field (Artificial intelligence in computer games) to a very weakly related field (Bioinformatics). The nice part is that I got a very interesting job offer at a Bioinformatics lab, starting next spring, and I will very likely take it. So my question is a bit different than those "How difficult/common it is to change fields". Since I have no publications in the new field, I will - for quite a while - have to fill my CV with publications from the old field. I would like to know how much do those older publications count in the new field, specifically:

How valuable are publications in a different field when asking for grants (especially EU H2020 and similar)?
Should I be forced to look for a different job after spending a while in the new field, how valuable are the older publications in my job application?

The thing is that I need to optimize the effort I give to my thesis and related publications in the forthcoming months versus preparing (reading literature...) for the new field.

I am speaking about 2-3 very good conference articles, 1-2 reasonably good journal articles and a book chapter (work in progress research included). So far very few citations, but all of the good stuff has been published in the last year or still in progress, so I hope to get some non-negligible citation counts.

I am in Europe (and do not expect to move).


texts: As a male student, did I say something wrong to this female professor?

texts:
A professor and I spoke recently (I'm a grad student), and she told me about her upcoming sabbatical, and I wished her well and was genuinely excited for her and her travel plans.  But the reaction that I got from her was one of caution and displeasure, with no reciprocation of good vibes.  I mostly said stuff like "that sounds amazing that you're going to Country X for Y number of months!  I hope you enjoy your time there, I love Country X!"

I'm a male student.  Have I possibly said something condescending or disrespectful to a female professor, by showing my excitement about her travel plans?

When I analyzed it a bit, I came to the conclusion that I would have had the same reactions if a male professor told me of his sabbatical, travel plans.  So, I don't think that I've said anything sexist.  But I am not 100% sure.


texts: Statement of purpose for applying to graduate school in a different field of study than high school

texts:
I have to write a statement of purpose for a computer science graduate program. In high school I was in a different field of study (aeronautics), then I switched to computer science for my undergraduate course after attending a computer science course which I liked.

Now I can't lie about this, also because this university also asked me about which high school I attended. But is this a negative thing to write on a statement of purpose? Maybe I should just write it on the fly without giving it much attention. Or instead I should say it clearly and justify my choice?

I ask this because I see that many people on the statement of purpose say that they always liked their field of study, from when they were children. So I don't know if the admission examiners would consider it negatively or not.


texts: How to encourage students to answer their peers' questions

texts:
We have a forum in which students can ask questions about the course material, homework exercises, etc. Usually I answer all the questions. I want to encourage students to answer some questions too.

One option is to give some bonus points in the final exam to students who answer a substantial number of questions. Another option is to create a reputation scheme like in stackexchange, and give bonus points to the three students with the highest reputation at the end of the term.

The problem is that these two schemes are manipulable: two students can conspire to have student A ask questions and student B immediately answer them, and vice versa.

Is there a better way to encourage students to answer their peers' questions?


texts: What is the correct manner to make it clear that your passage is paraphrasing a reference, that itself is refering to another reference?

texts:
I'm sure that this must come up a lot when writing papers.

Reference A1 gives a lit review of a field. A passage talks about paper B1, and I summerise B1 also. How do you make it clear in your writing that reference B1 was found through reference A1 (after all does A1 not deserve credit for bringing this to your attention??)

And furthermore that if you are paraphrasing A1, who has made reference to B1, you ensure that the paraphrasing is made crystal clear. (For the record lets assume that one has read reference B1 as every good academic should! And that you agree with A1's summary of the work.)


texts: Making additional changes to manuscript after the refereeing process is completed

texts:
After doing some revision to my paper to include changes suggested by the referee (who will not see the paper again, having recommended the paper for publication), is it OK for me to make a minor change of my own, in the manuscript (before I send it to the editor)? Should I declare this in the list of changes or should I wait till the paper is officially accepted for publication by the journal? Would it then be up to the editor to check the validity of the slightly changed statement?

(I've noticed something minor in the manuscript, which needs to be fixed - and amounts to changing a couple of words in the comments section).


texts: Strategy for teaching in a room that is laid out "wrong"

texts: I teach a mixed undergrad/grad course that has lecture (300 people) and seminar (15 people) components. Thankfully for me, only the grad students get seminars. I have 2 TAs that assist with the seminars allowing us to break into 3 five-student 1-instructor discussion groups. The problem is that thanks to the miracle of central time tabling this year I have been given a tiered lecture hall that seats 25 people for the seminars. How do you run discussion groups in a cramped lecture hall?


texts: Postgraduate certification/diploma in software engineering

texts:
I have just done my Bachelor in computer science and got an offer to a software engineering position. Some people told me that a master degree is very beneficial for my long-term career development. Unfortunately I do not think I can get into any good master program because of my terrible undergrad gpa + no academic references. A postgraduate certificate program requires nothing.

My question is, what is your point of view on postgraduate certificate in software engineering? Is it just a joke comparing to master degrees? What about starting salary?


texts: sharing ideas for collaboration or working on them individually?

texts:
I'm in the middle of my PhD and published 2 conference papers only with my supervisor, But i always want to have collaborations with other academic people in the field. Unfortunately i am a bit confused there!

I met people in conferences who were working on similar problems in the area, but i do not know how to initiate/request for collaboration? especially with a professor or a high level researcher.
Sometime when i read a paper related to my work, an idea for improvement of the proposed approach comes to my mind. But i put it somewhere in the shelf to get back to it later. But i'm not sure if it is a good idea to share it with the author or keep it to myself and work on it alone? In case of the first, should i contact the student author or the professor?
BTW, my field is computer science and i deal with machine learning and data analysis! so the most probable scenario which comes to my mind is getting some specific data from someone and working on that, but then it wouldn't be considered collaboration!


texts: Do faculty members get additional compensation such as bonuses in industry?

texts: Do faculty members get bonuses similar to industry such as cash bonus, stock bonus, profit sharing, commission sharing, and tips? Or only for teaching more courses?


texts: How much tweaking of figure design (not content) can I postpone until the final figures are requested?

texts:
I have finished all of my manuscript revisions except for some minor details in the figure.

As I understand it, once the manuscript is accepted, a final draft of high resolution figures will be requested. In the past, I have also had requests to relabel and rearrange subplots.

Does this mean that I can wait until the final draft figures are requested to make minor tweaks, like aligning and sizing fonts and graphical elements? The content will be the same, but I still want to finalize elements such as the font sizes, line widths, title placement and legends.

In the interest of speeding up the process, is it acceptable for to submit revisions with the figures still in draft form?


texts: Should interviews be arranged by less-preferred schools first?

texts: I read that some candidates will arrange their interviews by not placing the preferred ones at the beginning. How that is possible? Do they wait for few weeks to know all their interviews and then decide?


texts: is a 6 years Biology Degree comparable to a Master's Degree?

texts:
I live in Argentina and we don't have the Bachelor/Master's division. I've studied 6 years of a Biology Degree. Most of my subjects had Lab practices besides the theory/calculus part so my total amount of college was big (a normal subject would have 12 hours/week with a total of 23 subjects). Within the 23 subjects, we have 13 "general to all Biologists" and there are 9 which are "specialization" subjects. Then, if you're going for "neuroscience and behavior" you have to attend "Neuroscience 101" and you can't go for "Plant Vascular System 4".
Also, in order to graduate I have to have research experience and present a written "thesis" (and give an oral presentation) which is consider your last subject. I've worked for two years in a Lab doing this research.
Because I want to do my PhD abroad I'm wondering if there's a way to explain this or have some kind of equivalence. Since there are lots of automatic systems that are ready for you to complete Bachelor + Master I find a lot of trouble to deal with this. I feel that it's too difficult to get to talk to a real person and when you actually do, the person gives you the "go to the website and..."
Any experience will help (specially if you had the same problem and you found the way to deal with it).


texts: Is It a Common Practice to Contact the Reviewers?

texts: I am about to submit my article in a peer reviewed journal which requires the contacts of three potential reviewers of my work. I can think of a few names whose works I have cited in the paper (who, I think will be the best judge). Is it polite to contact them via email to check their availability (of course everybody is under time constraints) before I put their names in the journal website? I am concerned that it can be regarded as a conflict of interest or an attempt to bias their opinions. What should I do?


texts: How to find out the corresponding author of a paper?

texts:
I am interested to know how to find out the corresponding author of the following paper (which is just an example for the discussion here):
https://epubs.siam.org/doi/abs/10.1137/19M1242859
It may require an access to read the full paper. Due to the copyright I prefer not to say take screen shot of the paper, but inside I find nothing indicating who the corresponding author is.
Let me elaborate more about my concern. Suppose I am the corresponding author of the paper above, and I intend to use it in a funding application. The funding provider may then check whether I am really the corresponding author. Would they contact the publisher to verify it? If so, would the publisher disclose the details? If it happens so, why don't the publisher simply list out who the corresponding author? Or the publisher would tell that in this journal we don't take the significance of the corresponding author?


texts: Freshman applying to REUs, only know one professor well

texts:
I've just finished my first semester and I'm planning to apply to physics/math REUs. I know my math professor well and he agreed to write me a reference, but I do not know any other professors at that level. A possibility is another mathematics/CS professor who I have approached multiple times to ask questions beyond class material, but it's a large class so I wouldn't count on him knowing my name.

Being a freshman, would REU admissions look at my lack of one recommendation (most require two) as mitigated by my freshman status, or would I be laughed out of the applicant pool?

Aside from this issue I have good credentials (above average but not insane). I won't have a Putnam score until after most application deadlines.

I would also appreciate some guidance on how to proceed with applications given my situation: should I shoot for the moon or focus on other things besides REU for this summer?


texts: How to cite an aside article in a bible MLA format

texts:
I have an a NIV Arcaeological Study Bible and am taking an Old Testament studies course.  This bible has a lot of articles about archaeology and history alongside scripture.  None of the articles have the author listed.  There is a list of contributors, but there is no way to determine which author wrote which article.

So if I wanted to cite a specific article in this bible using MLA how would I do it?  Would it be like citing an encyclopedia?

If the article is titled "The Bible and Pseudepigraphical Literature", is this correct?

  "The Bible and Pseudepigraphical Literature." NIV Archaeological Study Bible. 2006. Print.

Or would it be done like a collection with the editors?

  Kaiser, Walter and Duane Garrett, eds. "The Bible and Pseudepigraphical Literature." NIV Archaeological Study Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006. 2041. Print.

Or some other way?

I've been looking here for help: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/06/


texts: Applying to History & Philosophy of Science (HPS) PhD programs?

texts:
History & Philosophy of Science (HPS) is a relatively small field with a handful of PhD programs in the U.S.

Are their any resources on applying to HPS PhD programs and pursing a career in HPS?


texts: Is it reasonable to take hobby classes during a doctorate?

texts:
I'm starting a doctorate focusing on artificial intelligence and network security, and have all of my technical classes paid for and organized. The schedule is currently forecasted at 60-ish hours a week of classes, grading, research, and other required activities. I feel this is reasonable.

However, I'd also like to take advantage of the expertise on campus and take piano lessons offered as credited classes by my school. These classes would be taught by the institute as graded classes but would not contribute in any way to my doctorate requirements or employment. They would be fully paid for by my scholarships, along with any other classes I'm taking.

On the plus side, I feel like learning something outside of my doctorate will make me a better rounded student, and music has always given me a safe, healthy outlet for stress and anxiety. And it seems like such a waste to pass up on free lessons from a professional when I'd be paying upwards of $1000 for lessons from a non-professional anyway.

However, I'm worried about attempting this for a couple reasons:

First, I'm worried that my adviser would see these extra hours as a signal that I'm not working to my maximum potential on his project. It's one thing to have hobbies and outlets, it's another to take extraneous classes that could be replaced with required ones.

Secondly, this could be an easy official scapegoat if anything goes wrong with my research. If I get a B in my required classes, it would be easy to say that the five hours a week in this class could have been used to study.

Finally, while the scholarship contract specifically says "all classes" are paid for, I'm worried it would be seen as unethical to ask the computer science department to pay for a class that has nothing to do with my doctorate.


texts: Creating a research questionnaire with repeating sections

texts:
I am preparing the questionnaire for my Doctor of Business Administration research; for the purposes of this question (on Academia SE), I am investigating techniques used in customising cars. It is conceivable that a respondent has used several techniques, so I envisage repeating the same questions, each time for a a different car or technique.

I imagine that the same repeating structure would be needed in a medical exam, where the respondent can give data about several complaints.

Is there a name for this technique? Does it have a canonical source?

I appreciate that this question might not be within the scope of this site.


texts: What to write in a 300 character personal statement?

texts:
I am applying to an undergraduate programme at my school, for which the following basic description is given:

  As you earn your degree you will develop the skills you need to thrive
  in a science-based career, taking part in research activities and
  participating in specialised lectures and seminars.

  Entry to the programme is competitive and we are
  interested in both your potential for academic success and your
  engagement with activities outside the classroom.

As part of the application process, I am required to write a 300 character personal statement. Of course, I initially misread it and wrote a 300 word statement detailing my passion for science, my research interests, and education and career goals.

I'm now confused as to how a personal statement could be so short. I'm interested to know:

What should I talk about, and in what order?
What style of writing should I use? Are brief sentences with omitted words acceptable?
I also want to mention my personal circumstances, which are quite different to most applicants. Do I do this in the main letter? Leave a note at the end? Email them separately?


texts: Can a professor not pay a student who will be working on a funded research grant project?

texts:
I am a starting PhD student and my advisor got a research grant funded, and I am supposed to do the project. I have been supported by my family in the hope to find funding. well, the professor said that all the money from the research grant went to the department and so I am not getting any. Could that scenario happen?
P.S. My adviser is a new assistant professor and she is getting another student in the fall.

Thanks


texts: I might not get any PhD offers this year. I would like to apply again , what can I do to maximize chances

texts:
I am a mathematics undergraduate. I would like to get into a top 10 PhD school and might not do so this year. I would like to apply again and want to do what whatever is necessary to maximize my chances.

I have always heard that a masters in math is terminal and it might be too late to apply for one this year anyway(please correct me if I am wrong here).

What are my options?

Edit: I am currently in India, finishing my bachelors from one of the top schools here. I applied to places like UCB, Columbia, Chicago, Michigan-Ann Arbour and Wisconsin - in the area of algebraic number theory. I now realize that it was a little out of reach as of right now.

I have slightly low grades overall and good but not great math GPA(8.5 and 9.3/10 - 10/10 in graduate courses) and Subject scores(88%). I also do not really have research but from what I understand, undergraduate research is rare.


texts: Asking for possible collaboration if unknown and early-stage researcher

texts:
I wonder if anyone can help with the following question.

I'm doing research after a different professional experience, so I'm presently in an early stage of my new career - although I'm in my middle age. I would like to establish some sort of connection - possibly collaboration - with a researcher I admire, but who doesn't know me.

How should I address this person in the best way in order to hopefully obtain a positive response? Unfortunately, there are no chances for me to get to know her directly through some kind of congress or conference for the moment.
I hope I shouldn't simply give up the idea...

Any suggestion is welcome!


texts: Is it ok to write back when no response has been received from a postdoc application?

texts:
This may be a very general and subjective question, I know. But, I have applied to some postdoc positions, and after 3 weeks I haven't received any response yet. I suppose this is normal, because many people should have applied to those positions, too. However, I don't know if it would be ok to write back to the professors or PI to know if they have already a response for my dossier.

Does anyone could tell me if it is fine to do so? should I just be more patient and wait more time? after how much time should I consider my application as rejected?.

I would be very glad to read your suggestions, and experiences.

Update: In my experience I think that writing back is fine (there is nothing wrong about it), but it is likely no response will be received anyways. In general, they reply in two situations: 1) they are interested in your profile, 2) they have funding.


texts: Why are there limits on scholarship amounts for graduate students?

texts:
I'll be starting my MSc next year, and just got informed that I won a Merit-based scholarship that covers tuition (although the school is in Israel, where tuition is heavily subsidized anyway), and also a generous monthly allowance.

I already have an advisor, (for whom I worked for the past year on a research project), and she told me she can fund an additional scholarship for me, on top of the first one. However it turns out that the amount I'll get in the first scholarship reaches the maximal amount the university allows MSc students, and exceptions need special permission.

I'm not greedy, but after 4 years of school I'm not in great financial shape, and that extra monthly sum would really help. But before I meet with whomever to get that special permission, I wanted to know what reason the university has to impose the restriction in the first place? It makes no sense to me.


texts: Will MCS be worth it for a Computer Science graduate?

texts:
I have completed my BSc in Computer Science from a local university in my home country. Universities in my home country are not that great! For example, the university ranked first locally was ranked recently in the 801-1000 range by QS and the degrees offered are not ABET-accredited.
I finished my degree with a 3.0+ GPA. The only thing that went wrong during my undergraduate studies, is that I got very bad grades (lack of studying) in all the subjects of an area that, I'm currently, after 8 years of experience as a Software Engineer, very interested to do research in.
However, following graduation, I was able to get a job with an American firm and I've been working with them for the past 8 years on cutting-edge technologies as a Senior Full Stack Developer. After a couple of years in the industry, I got highly interested in ML and Artificial Intelligence.
Please keep in mind that my long term objective is to go into academia (not now ofc). Recently I was admitted to a very respected university in the US to study MCS part-time (not MSCS). I heard that PhD admissions usually look at your undergraduate course work and you research capabilities. So what I'm planning to do is to take this MCS as a chance to strengthen my understanding and grades in AI, ML & NLP and then pursue another MSCS (with research from a local university). Would this make me a good candidate for a PhD program later on? Would MCS be worth the two years of my time? Or should I just join an MSCS right away, even if it was from a lower ranked university?
For the difference between MCS and MSCS, please refer to: https://mcs.ics.uci.edu/about/mcs-vs-mscs/
(Thanks go to @user2768 for the link)
Thanks!


texts: How can I get useful feedback when collaborating on research proposals?

texts:
I'm pleased to be working on grant applications and ethics applications with my supervisors. I willingly contribute however I can - either they assign me bits to work on, or I suggest how I can help. I'm getting good insights into the process.

However, I get a bit demoralised when I spend a day or more working on a section of the proposal, send it through for them to look at, and then find that not much (none?) of it has made  the cut. In one instance, I spent a couple of weeks working on an ethics application but then it was simply rewritten from scratch over a weekend. I realise that there are deadlines, and that I'm new to this, I don't really get the grant application writing game yet, and it could be that my contributions are mostly garbage. But I'd really rather hear that - and know why it's not useful, to be able to learn for next time, than just have it disappear... which is really rather demotivating. Any tips on how I can gently steer my supervisors to either provide me clearer guidelines upfront or take the time to give me feedback on my contributions? Ideally without coming across as difficult / high maintenance.

[I feel like this probably applies to other collaborative writing endeavours, too...]

Background: I'm in the final year of a 3 yr PhD. My supervisors seem happy with my output and contributions to the lab, we generally have a good relationship and they are keen to make a postdoc happen for me here. I'm happy to broach this subject with my supervisors, but am unsure how to do so - partly because I'm not sure whether this is a common issue in academia (I spent 15 years working in corporate environments, generally found that bosses would give me feedback but expect me to implement changes... so this is weird).


texts:
Does anyone know of a program that can detect plagiarism for data sets? I am mainly thinking of detecting "already existing" numbers.

Do existing plagiarism software also detect for number plagiarism?


texts: Is it unethical for a professor to misrepresent the format of an exam?

texts:
If a professor at a university explicitly states an exam will contain "multiple choice questions and true/false questions" and then administers an exam with several short answer and essay questions, is that worth filing a complaint to the department about?

I'm a very dedicated student and don't mind essay questions at all, in fact, I prefer them...when I've been given proper notice and can prepare accordingly. There's a much different way to approach material when you need to draft responses from memory. If it WASN'T clearly stated what the format of the exam would be, that would be different. If it were one or two questions that deviated from the format, that wouldn't be a big deal. But to clearly state it would be multiple choice and true/false and then to have about 20% of the exam not follow that format seems unprofessional and poor practice.

I've already reached out to the professor about it and have not yet received a response. However, I'm considering also contacting the department. Am I overreacting? Or is this reasonable?


texts: Should I recommend rejection for a paper I referee if the authors don't make changes that they could have made?

texts:
Earlier this year, I received a paper to referee for the top journal in my field of research.  I know both of the authors.  The first recently completed a Ph.D. working with a friend of mine.  My faculty friend is the best-known person working in our area; he is an extremely careful and conscientious researcher, and working under him, the student produced some very good work. The other author of the manuscript I'm refereeing is the new post-doctoral supervisor of that recent Ph.D. grad.  He is a very senior but not terribly distinguished scientist, and I think that some of his work is rather slipshod.

The first manuscript draft I got from this pair of authors had a glaring problem.  There may have been a fundamental error in how they interpreted their results.  There are two different ways that the system they are studying could behave, and they assume that it goes one way, apparently without even noticing the other.  They might well be right about how the system behaves, but I sent back a report saying that the work would be publishable if they either explained why they only considered one of the two possibilities or expanded their analysis to cover both.  The final conclusion is likely to unchanged whichever way the system behaves, but it is important to verify this; moreover, it is interesting in its own right to know which way things go.

After a rather brief period, I got a revised manuscript back from the journal.  The authors had made a number of other minor corrections that I asked for, but they basically ignored my main point.  At this point, I'm not sure what to do.  I still feel like the paper contains a significant amount of interesting material, and it could be fixed without that much effort.  However, I am upset that the authors made not effort to fix the actual problem I pointed out.  They don't even really acknowledge the problem in their resubmission letter.

I was the only referee who turned in a report on the first draft, so what I say will almost certainly determine whether the paper is published.  Should I send it back one more time, insisting that the changes I called for actually be made this time?  Or should I recommend rejection, since the authors are apparently unwilling to make reasonable adjustments.


texts: How would someone transition from the business sector to academic research?

texts:
I am a junior undergraduate at an accredited college in the United States majoring in a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science program. Currently, I work at a for-profit business to gain some programming experience. In the future, I would like to enroll in a good Master of Science in Computer Science program. After that, I would like to work as a researcher studying computer science theory to improve human understanding of computation.

Is there a general way to transition to research after undergraduate study and, if so, are there any particular mental tools that I should acquire that would be in my best interest for research? For example, mental tools would be something like a methodology to writing papers, and another could be a framework to acquiring research grants from the government.


texts:
I am from a small country where we do not have many eminent professors, but I did work hard and published over 30 papers which were cited more than 400 times. I am applying for research jobs internationally, and a key factor is references.

It does matter who has written the recommendation letter. In addition to my unknown colleagues, I tried to find some eminent professors as professional references. I contacted several ones who have even cited my papers, but they simply replied "they cannot be my reference as they do not know me", meaning that why they bother to recommend someone they do not know.

This gave me a bad impression that no matter how hard or good you work, career success depends where you are and how many people know/care about you.


texts: Is it acceptable to extend deadlines for coursework delayed due to student activism?

texts:
This article from the Brown University Daily Herald describes a number of student activists who claim to have suffered due to excess levels of student activism. Some excerpts from the article are included:

“There are people breaking down, dropping out of classes and failing classes because of the activism work they are taking on,” said David, an undergraduate whose name has been changed to preserve anonymity. Throughout the year, he has worked to confront issues of racism and diversity on campus.

[...]

Sampedro worked alongside the group that presented the demands for the diversity and inclusion action plan’s revision. It was a Thursday, she recalled, and she had a research presentation that needed to be completed that week. “I remember emailing the professor and begging her to put things off another week,” she said. The professor denied her request.
“I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t slept. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally,” she said. After hours of work to compile and present the demands, she forced herself to stay up to complete the project anyway.

[...] (emphasis mine)

Deans’ notes helped Gaines to complete academic work while staying involved in student activism.
In writing such notes, deans acknowledge the difficulties faced by a student on campus and demonstrate their support for the student’s requests, said Ashley Ferranti, assistant dean of student support services.
Though it is ultimately up to a faculty member to accept a dean’s note, Ferranti estimated that notes are accepted over 90 percent of the time. Students who take issue with the rejection of a note can discuss the incident with a dean, Ferranti added.

I was under the impression from my personal experience that extension of deadlines are generally only awarded for reasons such as personal illness or family issues such as divorce, death, or serious illness.
As professors, is it generally considered acceptable to provide deadline extensions or other accommodations to students who have fallen behind on their coursework due to their involvement with activism?


texts: Is any of today's applied mathematics research in academia still done primarily on pencil and paper?

texts:
Does there exist applied mathematics research that involves primarily pencil-to-paper work, without the use of computers?  Or, are computers quickly replacing everything that an applied mathematician can once do by hand / traditionally does by hand?

Anything in academia in applied math research that computers can't do?

For instance, do PDE theorists use computers or strictly pencil and paper / chalk and chalkboard -- and leave the numerics of PDEs to numerical analysts instead?  Is there such a distinction, or is there instead always some sort of collaboration between the two types of applied mathematicians?

Another example that I can think of is the work of probability theorists.

Any insight to my very naive question would be greatly appreciated :)

Thanks,


texts: How to make your paper's materials available online? (personal webpages, Institutional server, etc?)

texts:
I would like to distribute some of the materials related to my paper (such as source code) available online. I have the option of uploading them to my personal website or to a server in my institution, (or any better ways you suggest?)

I am concerned that if I upload it on the institution personal space, after graduating I won't have access to the server anymore or my page might be closed.
and I don't want to disappoint my readers by providing a link which may expire in a few years.

Personal website seems a good option so I fully have control over the materials.

I would like to know if there is any better option or online services recognized especially for hosting academic materials (here my code) which I can link them in my paper?


texts:
I have just started my first job in a company as an engineer, I was asked to write a brief description of myself which will be sent to all the staffs.
Could you please provide some template? how we can write an interesting autobiography?

edited: Having said that some humor or random facts can be included in this bio.


texts: How to mask present unemployment when asking for recommendation

texts:
I voluntarily quit my job 6 months ago. I need to get a letter of recommendation from a professor I know for grad school, and I want to include my resume in the email I send this professor.

What is the best way to mask or downplay the fact that I've been (voluntarily) unemployed for 6 months?

Is it too bad if I remove employment history altogether from my resume?


texts: Junior faculty position - course development

texts:
I would appreciate clarification on the following aspect of joining academia as a junior faculty member. I have seen a number of advertised positions for junior faculty, which often involve a teaching component. However, a particular timing aspect is not clear enough to me: if, for example, a position advertisement mentions "vacancy, starting August 2015", does it imply:

A) that a candidate by that time is expected to have a portfolio of developed courses, expected to be taught in that position, or, at least, similar courses that could be easily customized; OR

B) that August 2015 is just a position's start time, but a candidate will be given adequate time to develop corresponding required courses, including necessary materials, after the start date?


texts: Is it appropriate to use an Independent Study as a mechanism to get projects built?

texts: Our research group has a set of projects that we would like to have implemented, but lacks the necessary funds to complete all of them. Instead of prioritizing/shelving projects, is it appropriate to advertise them as "for-credit" independent study courses for graduate students. The alternative would be paying for the same graduate students as research/course assistants.


texts: Is an X-Series Certificate from edx useful for graduate school?

texts:
I saw a similar question posted on the website, but in my opinion this one is different enough to deserve its own space.

Currently, I'm working on a self-paced online course on edX called ANUx: The Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe. The course seems to be a great introduction to aspiring astrophysicists, and does a great job of explaining and testing the core concepts.

I've read many articles that talk about the relevance of these courses on a CV/Résumé, and most come to the conclusion that it is "better than nothing", or it is simply "coursework on a CV/Résumé.

My question is, would completing a sequence of online courses related to the same material be more appropriate to be included in a CV? For example, Australian National University is offering 4 core courses on Astrophysics (The Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe, Exoplanets, The Violent Universe, and Cosmology). For those interested, you might find this useful:
https://courses.edx.org/c4x/ANUx/ANU-ASTRO1x/asset/Combined_Syllabus.pdf

These four courses together form a single certification in Astrophysics.
Anyone can complete a single course and list them on their CV. But, completing 4 courses in the same subject shows a dedication towards learning, and also self-motivation. Also, the one who completes these doesn't risk résumé padding because the 4 courses would form one point on a CV, not two.


texts: Benefit of a 1-year MSc in Comp Sci in the UK

texts:
I hope this is the appropriate stacksite to ask this question.

I have a BSc in Computer Software Development and would very much like to study another year for an MSc in Computer Science. I had the choice of an MEng but decided to take the separate MSc.

I've heard mixed opinions on the subject but considering the climate I personally think it would be a good idea to gain a post-graduate degree. I've heard from Master students who were able to open many more opportunities from gaining an MSc - such as successfully entering the Game Industry which I know is very competitive. Although I'm not one for Game related modules, I chose more software engineering, database, and programming modules instead of rendering and games design modules throughout my BSc.

I will be getting into a considerable amount of additional debt to fund this year, but I feel like I'd be much more employable so the debt wouldn't really be a problem.

What do you think? Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated. I am 23 and an Englishman, just to put things into perspective.


texts: Sharing a proof on ResearchGate? Inappropriate?

texts: Is it inappropriate to share a proof of a manuscript online, such as ResearchGate? The manuscript is part of a large special session in a journal that currently has no publication date yet..


texts: Does securing a supervisor basically guarantee acceptance?

texts: I received an email from a prospective supervisor telling me he'd like me to join his lab and that he'll forward my name to the grad office. Assuming my entire application is strong, does this mean an official acceptance is very likely? Or is there a chance I could still get rejected by the admissions committee? This is for a funded PhD program.


texts: How much do figures need to differ to avoid copyright claims?

texts:
It sometimes arise that I need to use, for an article, a book chapter or any other written work, figures that I have already published (not figures published by others). These are usually schematic figures explaining what a chemical or physical system look like, how an algorithm works, etc. Thus, instead of reusing the exact same figure, I can easily create another one, conveying the same message with (more or less subtle) differences in presentation.

However, I have no idea how to answer the following question: how different need two figures be to avoid the second one infringing on the copyright of the first? What is a good rule of thumb to be used? Is it enough to change one of the following:

color scheme
viewpoint of a 3D visualization
moving around blocks in a 2D diagram (or mind map)
changing axis properties (labels, tick mark positions, etc.) in a graph


texts: I am curious about applying my coursework from Masters program towards Doctoral in Economics in the US

texts:
I earned a Master's degree in Analytics (one of the newer and popular graduate school majors) and am considering going back to school for Ph.D. in Economics. I am curious if Universities in the US with doctoral programs in Economics accept coursework from Master's degree to be applied towards Ph.D. program? It probably varies by universities as they set their own policies, so if anyone with experience can share specific cases that would be helpful.

I am planning on applying to the top tier as well other schools with Econ program in the United States and maybe Oxford or LSE in the U.K.

There's some overlap with the courses, especially the stats courses and time series, econometrics which is the focus that I intend to pursue my Ph.D.


texts: Where can I borrow books that my own university's library doesn't have?

texts: I need a book for my teaching and/or research, but my university's library doesn't have this book.  I don't think I'll use it enough to justify spending money out of my own pocket to own it.  What other ways should I try?  I searched Internet, there is no "free" (in whatever sense) PDF of it either.


texts: Getting paid for work and research overlap in masters thesis collaboration

texts:
I'm a master student in Computer Science and currently writing my master's thesis in collaboration with a company. In our original agreement regarding compensation, the organisation and I agreed that the aspects of the work that was closely linked to my research would be free, whereas the work that had little to do with research would be compensated for. In the original agreement, however, we never agreed on what this compensation would be nor how big it would be (I know, this was silly of me) but there is documentation of this agreement.

The issue now is that the company hasn't really given me any data nor resources so I've had to do everything from scratch. In addition, they are quite demanding and also adamant to put the code that I produce in production once I have finished and I'm certain that they'll be able to achieve substantial growth using the module that I'm developing. All these factors have made me inclined to approach them and try to negotiate a deal now, before it gets too late and messier.

How should I go about this so that both I and the company are left happy?

Note: Where I am from all the IP rights relating to research is by law granted to the student, which means that I own all the code that I am producing whilst writing my thesis.


texts: Advice on writing a letter of motivation while applying for an internship

texts:
I am applying for an internship in a research institute. The internship is for undergrads and masters students who are currently in the prefinal year of their programs. The application form asked me to name three laboratories in chronological order (choice 1, choice 2...) in which I wish to work. Now, in my letter of motivation, should I mention the name of laboratory choice 1 and expand on that? Or should I mention all three laboratories and write something about each.
PS. The letter should not exceed 500 words.


texts:
Which kind of article could be "more suitable for a journal than for a conference"?

I just received a very curious rejection from a conference in Computer Science, where the second referee argues that:

  I remain not convinced that it is very suitable for a conference.  (...)
  I still believe it is solid work, suitable for a journal, but probably too specialized and too technical for a conference such as (...).

Beyond my own judgment (this article builds upon results published in general journals publishing the same types of results than this conference), the statement that the article is "too specialized and too technical" seems contradicted by the comments from the two other referees (who both judged the paper to be relevant to the conference):

Referee 1 find everything "certainly understandable" and "clearly written", which does not sound "specialized" nor "technical":

  The work, while not spectacular, is very solid and worthy of presentation at STACS. The problems are certainly understandable to all, and the methods are interesting.
  The paper is clearly written and I have very few editorial comments.

Referee 3 finds the results "clearly described" to the point of potentially "incremental" (but still acceptable):

  The paper is well organized, some algorithms are clearly described, and some proofs are given.
  I am far from an expert, but the result seems interesting. Maybe they could be considered incremental, but that is to be expected for such an longly studied topic.

I have seen many papers presented at conferences without ever passing the threshold to be published in a journal, and I read on Glencora Borradaile's blog (here) how she found easier sometimes to submit directly to a journal (which we will do for these results), but I had never heard of results deemed more appropriate for a journal than for a conference.


texts: Should I be concerned about the rank of the journal/conference when asked to be a reviewer?

texts:
I was asked to review a conference proceedings which topics I'm not entirely interested or knowledgeable (there is an overlapping topic I'm qualified to review though). Since I'm new to the field, I searched the ranking and I found it's close to the bottom tier. The colleague who asked me for reviewing it says it might help gaining experiences since I'm new to the field.
Would it be helpful for gaining an experience, or would it be a waste of my time if I'm not interested in publishing in the journal/conference anyway?


texts:
I finished some experiments on classification and I am now preparing for a presentation.

The experiment yields data which will then be manually verified to determine if the data is correct or incorrect. The experiment is run a total of 10 times and the output for each run is the amount of hits ("Yes") or misses ("No"). In the end, I have this complex table:

What is the best way to present this kind of complex tables?
If applicable (as in my example), should I present normalized data?
If applicable (as in my example), should I present average values?


texts:
For a little background- I'm a 3rd year engineering student, planning to do masters in pure mathematics. I've been studying abstract group theory and real analysis, although I'm extremely interested about these kind of thinking and reasoning what worries me is that during my high school days there were a lot of problems where we didn't have to do a lot of reasoning rather we had to come up with clever tricks to reach a solution. Honestly I wasn't good at this and thought mathematics isn't much fun.

So my question stems from this worry that how much of pure mathematics research is about learning abstract topics and do reasoning with them? Or is it mostly coming up with clever tricks from scratch?

In a way I want to ask what kind of skills are absolutely necessary for professional pure mathematicians?

I know perhaps it has to do with the problem one is working on but if it's possible to answer generally, please do.


texts: writing letter of support for H1-B visa applicant

texts:
I can't find a suitable tag for my question. I hope I'm posting to the right place. I apologize if not.

I'm a prof in CS in US. I have been asked to write a letter of support for a graduate (BSc), call him X, who is applying for H1-B visa. The graduate is non-US and hence need the visa.

I myself have gone through the process several times many years ago. In all my experience, the hiring company has a manager who documents my performance and the letter is written by the manager with the support of the CTO, etc. As a software engineer (in a previous life), I of course totally understand the importance of CS education. But I also know that CS education alone without work experience is insufficient. That's why in all immigration lawyer websites I have seen, they always mention the letter of support should address the applicant's ability to actually perform their tasks. In all my H1-B visa application, my PhD advisor was never asked to write letters to support my H1-B visa application, whether it was for post-doc research, teaching or software engineering.

X has included in his email a webpage that say something to the effect that "Task A can best be done by someone with a CS degree" and wants me to use that too. As an educator, I cannot possibly vouch for whether X can perform his job or not. I believe I can only say something about his grades. Furthermore for all my students in the past 10 years, none of the surveys I have filled in ever ask "Can applicant do his job?". The questions are mostly about his skill level in comparison to others such as "Rank applicant 1-5 in terms of his programming skills." This is the same for all phone calls for reference checks. Also, X has not taken many classes with me.

Can anyone comment on this? This is a supporting letter for H1-B visa application, not for a job application. Thanks in advance.


texts: How to communicate achievements on the StackExchange network in an academic CV or job interview?

texts:
I think contributions to StackExchange constitute a valuable thing for an academic to do. In many cases such contributions are directly related to the aims of an academic department: community engagement, building new knowledge, etc.
This is particularly clear for sites that directly align with a particular academic discipline (e.g.,  mathematics, statistics, psychology).

However, many people in academia have not heard of StackExchange. They often won't have heard about the reputation system. They may not be aware of the high quality content that often appears.

Thus, as an academic, how should you share your achievements on the StackExchange network in contexts where how your performance is evaluated has material consequences? (e.g., a CV, job interview, grant application context, promotion context)


texts: Extremely mild punishments for academic misconduct

texts:
After looking at My professor is rigging data and plagiarizing. What can I do?, I read through some of the case reports of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and I noticed that punishments seem to be very light. When COPE receives a case, sometimes an attempt is made to contact the institution, and then the institution does nothing: perhaps the wrongdoer is too politically powerful, or the institution doesn't have any will to act. Sometimes the investigation simply fizzles out after nobody bothers to look at the lab journals, even though the lab journals presumably exist. Sometimes the journal is told how to avoid such problems in the future, but no punishments are forthcoming for the existing case.

This is very different from what I believed before - that if someone did decide to falsify/steal data, their employment would be terminated, and nobody would ever want to associate with them again.

So my question is: where is the discrepancy between how I perceive the consequences of academic misconduct, and what COPE reports as actual cases? Is it perhaps because most of the misconduct cases are from no-name departments and journals that do not care about their reputation? Or are my impressions of the consequences of misconduct incorrect?

In fact, I have experienced this on my own: one non-mathematics professor at my school took my mathematics manuscript, added his graduate students as coauthors despite their having no relation to the work, and tried to submit it to a journal. I don't care about this specific publication, as it is so worthless that I prefer it to be rejected as to not be associated with me. The professor thinks it is significant only because he knows nothing of mathematics. But it does make me question the kind of integrity I assumed of academics. He is a chair professor at a top10 university, and his (non-mathematics, science) department is very well-respected, so brand name is not the cause here.


texts: How to respond to reviewer's comment that "magnitude of effect too small"?

texts:
We received a decision letter of major revision recently. One of the four reviewers raised many comments like "Fig. XX, magnitude of effect too small." or "Fig. XX, scale condensed, magnitude of effect is very small", etc.

I have to say that the P-values are highly significant (P < 0.001 in many cases) and our statistical analyses are solid as recognized by another reviewer in his or her comment. Although the absolute differences of measurement between two groups are quite small. The variation in each group is also very small. Therefore, if we quantify the magnitude of effect with effect size (a stanardized version of magnitude of effect), the effect size for the observed differences is medium of large based on the criteria here.

The reviewer has no specific comment about what we should do. How to respond to such comment properly?


texts: How to prepare effectively for teaching a graduate course?

texts:
Next year, I will be teaching a graduate-level course about an advanced topic for the first time (in a West European university, in science). I'm a lecturer and this is the first time I will teach such an advanced topic. This will also be the first time that I will teach something completely alone (usually there are teaching assistants, or colleagues who teach the same course at the same time, etc).

How do I prepare effectively for such a thing? The level of the students is usually excellent and I don't want to disappoint. The course is rather intensive, over a few weeks, so there is not much room for error.


texts: Can i post my article in arxiv for comments from other mathematicians?

texts: I have recently written a paper on Quantum Polynomial Algebra. But I am not studying anywhere, so I havenot got anyone to comment. Even I have mailed a few math professors but they may be to busy to answer. That is why I was asking whether can I post my paper in arxiv to know whether the result that I have obtained is good enough to publish or not? Idonot want to send my paper in reputed journals and get rejected after 2 or 3 months.


texts: Can committees see the list of all recipients when I send them my GRE score?

texts: When I send out my GRE record to universities, can they see the list of all recipients? I generated a PDF version of my GRE record by clicking the print button, it actually shows the recipient list. Can all the recipients see that? I think that information is supposed to be private.


texts: What makes a good physics/engineering poster?

texts:
A more general form of this question has been answered here for example, but I want to know what makes a good poster presentation in physics and/or engineering conferences.

Obviously the poster must be visually appealing as discussed in various posts here, but I have seen cases where the most stunning posters (looks really good and well-written) did not win poster prizes when judged by professors at the conferences. Can you give reasons as to why this happens? Are there some special conditions or requirements in physics/engineering for such presentations?


texts: Is it ethical for an author to cite their own work with themselves as first author when they are not first author?

texts: I was reading through a journal article by an author. Let's call him Author X. The author while referring to some of his own journal articles cite them as Author X et al., even though Author X is not the first author in the cited article. Is this allowed or should it be treated as academic dishonesty?


texts: Publication fee will not be paid at deadline – what will happen and how should I proceed?

texts:
My team's article was published online 2018, with me as the lead author and corresponding author. The print publication followed in early 2019. Shortly thereafter I received the bill for the publication fees. These should be paid by the institution where the working group is located (I am now working elsewhere). This was assured to me by my supervisor. I forwarded the mail with the invoice to him and was again promised that he would take care of the payment. As I learned a few weeks later, the head of the institution refused to pay, as there were currently no funds available. Last week I learned that such bills are not being paid at the moment, as the budget of the institution has not yet been released. The bill is due next week.

What does usually happen if such a bill is not paid on time?
Is my publication in danger?
Should I contact the publisher and inform them about the situation and ask for a respite?


texts: Is it possible to do a self funded Ph.D. without masters in Germany?

texts: Is it possible to do a self-funded Ph.D. without masters in Germany? Is it ok if someone writes to professors asking for a Ph.D. position in his lab? Will they take students if its self-funded?


texts: As a reviewer, should I act when the second reviewer did not seem to review the manuscript carefully?

texts: I reviewed a manuscript and suggested a major revision, which was done in meantime. Now that I receive the revised manuscript again, I see that the 2nd reviewer wrote only one sentence in his review to the first draft of the manuscript, although there were major issues at the theoretical, methodological, and linguistic levels. Should I tell the editor that I consider such a review insufficient?


texts: Ask an advisor (co-author) to contribute to manuscript other than just critiquing

texts:
I'm nearing the end on a manuscript and will be submitting it to my advisor any-day for her feedback. She is a co-author. My question: Is it OK to ask my advisor to contribute more to the paper (other than just critiquing)? If so, how does one go about doing this without insulting their mentor/boss?

To be clear, the paper is in overall good shape. There are a few paragraphs that need some attention. But instead of her just critiquing the paper ("this paragraph needs more interpretation") or ("add more examples from the literature") (<- I'm paraphrasing ;), is it ok to ask her to contribute actual sentences and interpretation?


texts: I spent 5 years doing my PhD research (4 years experiments, and one year writing the manuscript, making the figures and getting it revised and submitted by the supervisor. We submitted the paper (I was the first author) which is rejected with a recommendation for one more experiment, and resubmission. Three colleagues did it, as my scholarship was ended and as I was busy writing the thesis. I was shocked that the supervisor (PI) put one colleague instead of me as a first author, who just carried out this last experiment with help of two other colleagues (were added as co-authors). That colleague was busy doing her own project and did not do that much to my project except for that last experiment and revising the manuscript and giving some comments for correction. I refused the new order, though the paper was sent to the journal. How could I get my first authorship?


texts: Google Scholar not recognizing replaced ArXiv article

texts:
I submitted a paper to arXiv last year and recently (within two weeks) I submitted a replacement to my article (I changed the title to match the content better and some other minor changes like citing some more papers) however Google scholar still has the older title and the citation is not updated(when I click on the title it goes to ArXiv page, where shows all the versions of the article).
I am wondering as to how long would it take for Google scholar to be updated?
I can manually change the title in Google scholar however what about the citation.
I have seen other similar posts here like
Google scholar citation and title issues
Updated title of arxiv not recognised by Google Scholar?
However, none of them are talking about the citations. What would happen if people cite the second version but the title is not present in Google scholar.