texts: How to decline a postdoc offer a few days after accepting it?

texts:
I recently received two postdoc offers on the same day.  I accepted one (verbally, in saying "I would like to accept this job offer", but I have signed nothing), but then some additional information came to light that I would not be happy in that role and the other was probably a better fit for me after all.
It is undoubtedly the case that I failed to adequately understand the pros and cons of each role before accepting one of the roles.  I accept this, but it's also my first job,  and frankly I have no idea what I am doing.  If I had a better idea what I was doing then I would have been able to extract this information before accepting one of the roles.  I accept that I have been fairly useless in this decision-making process and I am quite ashamed and horrified by it all (I'm not really sleeping and I've even had nightmares, as ridiculous as that may sound). Frankly, I just want it to end, but I want to make the right decision as it will have a profound impact on my life.  And the right decision for me is to decline the offer that I had previously accepted and go forwards with this alternative one.  At most as it stands I'll have cost them about 2-3 days of time.  It's not as if I've kept them hanging for several weeks or months before finally backing out.  I can already tell my would-be supervisor in the role I wish to decline  is a very decent and kind person and I want to cause them them the absolute minimum undue difficulties and upset.
How unethical is it to decline an offer after accepting it (but without having signed anything)?  How can I go ahead with now going back on my decision and let them know in the best possible way?  Thanks for your help.


texts:
Quite too many times I have read in a research article claiming that the source code will be made available, and, when I look for it, it turns out that the source code still hasn't been released.

Are there any journals or conferences that take into account the availability of the source code when selecting the papers to publish? By availability I mean present availability, not some vague promise of code release sometime in the future somewhere on Internet.

Now code availability is one thing, clarity is another. I have seen a lot of emphasis on the papers' clarity in the paper selection criteria, do some publication venues pay attention to code clarity during the paper selection process?

Obviously, I have the same issue with datasets, so I am wondering the same for them, i.e. are there any journals or conferences that take into account the availability of the dataset(s) when selecting the papers to publish?


texts: Postdoc recommendation letters: The European-American gap and how to overcome it

texts:
I heard from several sources that European recommendation letters for postdoc positions tend to be minimalist and understated, while the American ones are way more enthusiastic. I have two questions about this phenomenon:

Is this cultural difference taken into account by members of postdoctoral search committees in high-ranked American universities?

The second question is more personal:

I'm a European grad student aiming at a postdoc position in an American university. I'm currently gathering my recommendation letters, and I'm supposed to get one from one of the leading figures in my field. He knows my work well, and I believe he has a good opinion of me. On the other hand, being familiar with his style of expression, he will never write one of those "omg he is the best researcher ever" letters that top American universities expect to see (he won't write it even for someone who is actually the best researcher ever). So the question is: Should I use his letter in my application or am I risking that the search committee will translate the adjective "good" (which is a very significant compliment considering the letter writer) to "horrible"?

ps. For whatever it's worth, I work in pure mathematics.


texts: Unproductive in dissertation research (mathematics/statistics)

texts:
For my dissertation research, I feel like I was unproductive a lot of times because I didn’t have a good intuition about approaches to even try. I felt as if a whole year was wasted trying ideas that went nowhere. I think the reason for this is because there weren’t many related papers on my dissertation topic so when I’d read papers, I only had a few potential approaches I could think of.

Has anyone else had this problem? I also wish I had another easier/more tractable problem to work on, but my advisor wanted me to focus on this one (generalization bounds based on optimal transport theory).

Now I have some progress, but even now I’m stuck trying to make sense of a function that comes up in my generalization bound. And even that, I’m having a tough time making sense of that even for simple cases. Sometimes I think I’m being unproductive but it’s more because I lack enough relevant ideas than it is sheer laziness. And I also talked about my problem to other professors/researchers but most didn’t have much insight.


texts: Pursuing a Masters, trying to figure out the potential effects of my undergraduate transcript on PhD admissions

texts:
Long story short, my transcript is quite the spectacle: I started off getting really good grades, but due to a lot of personal issues ended up graduating with a respectable, but lackluster GPA.  Unfortunately, I have a downward trend.  While my final GPA is slightly below 3.5, I have failed quite a few courses.  I'm getting a MSE in computer science, coming from an applied math background.  My undergraduate computer science GPA is really high, but my GPA in everything else is pretty low.  I'm confident that I will do exceptionally well in the CS MSE, but I have a few questions:

Are undergraduate courses unrelated to one's discipline factored into the PhD admissions decision making process?
Despite doing poorly in some math classes in my undergrad, will taking graduate level math courses and doing well in them essentially negate the fact that I did poorly in some classes as an undergraduate (did well in most of them)?

For reference:
I'm currently conducting research and should have good to outstanding recommendations.

I understand that for PhD programs, a common order of applicant evaluation is:

Recommendations
Research
Transcript

and that I have valid reasons for my poor performance, nonetheless, I'm scared that they're going to look at my undergraduate transcript and just get scared off.  Any insight or advice would be greatly appreciated.


texts: Should I publish my software independently or publish it along with a case study in higher journal?

texts:
I have built a software that handles protein clustering data in specific format. It is able to draw several plots on that basis along with many other analyses. It has more options than its existing competitor. Should I just try to get it published as a software/technical issue, or try some
case study data (research work on a logical data) produced by the software
+
the software,
   in a better journal?


texts:
At one time I tried to be able to remember obscure journal abbreviations and the like, but recently I started favouring more bulky bibliography entries.

So I started wondering if it might be useful to include series and volume number of a book, e.g. Graduate Texts in Mathematics (GTM). Sometimes library shelves, book stores, publisher's sites, etc. are ordered by book series and often it helps to know the series and number to track down a book. Traditionally, the bibliography information for a book would be

  Takeuti, G. & Zaring, W.M., Introduction to Axiomatic Set Theory, Berlin: Springer, 1981.

with the title of the book in italics. But then journal names are also in italics, which could mean that book series should be as well (after all, some book series even have ISSN numbers, so how different are they really?). But then there is not really enough contrast between the book title and the series...

  Takeuti, G. & Zaring, W.M., Introduction to Axiomatic Set Theory, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, 1, Berlin: Springer, 1981.

My questions are

Would it be good to include book series in a bibliography? If yes:
How should I style the book title and the book series?

(As apparent from the example book, my field is mathematics.)


texts: What should a good theoretical physics PhD progress look like at the beginning of 3rd year?

texts:
Obviously I am asking this because I am worried!

I am a theoretical physics grad student at one of the top places in the US. The following is a brief history of my last 2 years and I would like to know of opinions and suggestions regarding the path ahead.

I did the most advanced courses (relevant to my interests) during my first year and worked on some project ideas through very high-profile external collaborations (but the projects didn't work out and I had to can the drafts) During my second year I tried working with some other profs but the projects were never really interesting.

[..though I have a (single author) paper on arxiv from my 2nd year work and may be I will get one more...]

Towards the end of second year I started meeting with a very brilliant scientist who will be joining my institute as a faculty in January 2014. With him the projects are very exciting - but interactions are difficult since he is still mostly not in campus.

Of course this unstable path happened since I had to join a grad school which didn't have people in my subject of interest. But over the last 2-3 months things have been looking up as this new person came in...


texts: Should I wait for my professor to reply my request for recommendation letter?

texts:
I am going to apply to graduate programs in the US, so I contacted my professor who advised my master's thesis. He is the most important referee because I did research with him, so I think he understands me well. Moreover, he is a well-known scientist in a very prestigious university in France (top 20 of the world in my field).

At the time, I left France to my home country, he told me that he would help me further my academic career. He actually gave me two recommendation letters afterwards for 2 PhD positions. Sadly, I failed both of them.

Ten days ago, I emailed him if he could give me recommendation letters. He didn't reply for one week, so I wrote a follow-up email. However, I haven't got any responses from him until now. I am so confused because the deadline is December 15th.

Does it mean that my professor has declined my request? Should I wait for him or ask other professors?

NEWS: I just got his acceptance. He was traveling this week so he didn't got my email. Thank you all for your advices.


texts: Applying for research assistant (What can I speak about?)

texts:
I will be applying for a research assistant position under a professor at my college (master's program). I have an interview with her on phone (competition will be stiff, many students have applied). What should I be talking about? How do I put forward to her that I can manage my time well between studying responsibilities and research? More importantly, how do I show my eagerness for working under her and towards the research work at hand?

This will be my first time - giving an interview for a research position and I don't know what I will be questioned about or how do I impress my interviewer.


texts: Is it appropriate/accepted for a PhD student to organize/coordinate a special session at a conference?

texts:
I have the possibility to organize a special track/session at a small computer science conference, however at the moment I'm in the last year of my PhD study.

The special session includes an introduction presentation (related to an editorial) by the organizer (me in this case), some accepted papers presentations, and an "Open Discussion and Closing Remarks" chaired by me as well.

Although I believe to have enough expertise/general knowledge on the topic of the session, do you think it'd be appropriate for me as a PhD student to do this? Or is everyone expecting a doctorate or a professor to organize such sessions?


texts: how should I be positive about financial support?

texts:
I am accepted for the January intake.I am a fully funded student.
I received the acceptance letter from university but the university has not sent me any financial support letter.
My supervisor just sent me a letter of financial support.
A financial support at $22K per  year from which $15K comes from Supervisor's grant money
and the rest from internal funding available to the graduate students in our faculty in form of research and
teaching assistantships.

Is it enough to have a financial letter from the supervisor? or Should I send the university an email and ask them to send a letter of the financial letter?

because on my personal university portal there is not any section for funding.
what should I do before starting my study? since it is really important to finance my study form very beginning. what should I write to the university and what should I ask?

Thanks in advance!


texts: How Does Funding for Graduate Students in U.S. differ from Undergraduate Scholarships?

texts:
I am interested in furthering my understanding of the process of applying for grants (funding) for graduate students and pursuing Engineering (STEM) Career. I am located in the United States and I am a U.S. Citizen.

My understanding of the process: funding opportunities for graduate students are more 'project' based (to pursue a certain line of thought or experiment) while undergraduate scholarships are more based on student achievement and designated major.

I received a few scholarships while an undergraduate, and my question is, what are the significant differences between funding for graduates and scholarships for undergraduates?


texts: Can we present a same study to a different conferences?

texts: I was wondering if it is ok to present the same paper (may be already published in journals or unpublished) in different conferences? Assuring that the conference will not publish the whole research work but only abstracts in the proceedings.


texts: Distinguish starting journals from predatory ones

texts:
As you know, there are journals -predatory journals- which are just publishing scams, without actual peer review, etc. but look like genuine ones, and it is a problem for the honest researcher to avoid them.

Until recently there was a free blacklist, Jerry Beall's (which had flaws), and now there is Cabell's list, which apart from being behind a paywall, may not distinguish predatory journals from new ones (see this review).

As the number of publications seems ever-increasing, I feel new, legitimate journals will play an important role in next years. I would be willing to publish in one of them sometime, but I don't know how to identify them. For the moment being, each time I receive an email promoting a starting journal (as some may in good faith do), I just dismiss it as being a predatory one.

So the question is: Are there good ways of knowing that a new journal is legitimate? Perhaps is there some kind of white list?


texts:
I was wondering if there was a rule regarding the use of acronyms at the start of the sentence in Journal Papers.

If so, is there a difference between the state of use of that acronym (i.e., whether it is being referred to as a noun or verb st the start of the sentence).

According to my understand and research, it seems that it is not advisable to start the sentence with Acronyms, however, there is no set reference for it.

Note: the use of that acronym is deemed necessary as it repeats over 10-15 times in the entire manuscript.


texts: Similarities detector for IEEE conference papers like crosscheck

texts:
IEEE conferences managed thru EDAS system are usually interfaced with Crosscheck service which automatically highlight to reviewers the percentage of detected similarity for the paper to be reviewed with existing papers.

Unfortunately, this service can only be accessed thru the conference admin console.
I checked with IEEE support who confirmed that such service cannot be accessed by an end-user but only activated as a paid service for a conference.

Also, I think, I remember that another API called ithenticate is sometimes used.

My question is:
As an author, not as a reviewer,
How would I know what is the computed resemblance percentage of my paper to existing works prior submission?


texts: "Challenging" Teaching Experiences for Math Grad Students?

texts:
I am currently a graduate student, who will (hopefully!) graduate in the next year (or two . . .).  I have slowly come to realize that I enjoy teaching, and consequently want to do more of it!  My main reasons are:

to gain experience
to bolster my CV
to learn to be a better teacher

That last point is particularly important to me, because I feel I have received insufficient training in how to teach mathematics well.

Now, I have done the usual TA thing.  For the past year, I have also been an adjunct instructor at a local four-year college, so I pretty much know what it's like to be "fully responsible" for a course.  What I am looking for are challenging opportunities which allow me to do some–or all–of the following:

teach fairly sophisticated math to bright high school students / undergraduates
engage them in innovative thinking/research
be consistently mentored/evaluated throughout the duration of this experience

Again, the last point is rather important to me.  So my question is:

  Do such programs exist?

I am sure they do, but when Googling, I invariably come up with graduate summer schools, or "local" opportunities. (By "local" here, I mean those which are only eligible to students in that particular school's graduate program.) So I am hoping someone (or several people) here know more about it than Google does.

I know that most opportunities for this summer have probably already expired, but I want to stress I am not only focused on summer sessions.  In particular, I would gladly forego my usual TA appointment for a semester, to be a part of a more difficult and rewarding experience somewhere else.

Thanks in advance.

PS - This is my first question here, so feel free to edit my tags appropriately.


texts: Should I leave my undergraduate research project?

texts:
I’ve been working on a project for about 4 months simulating optics in a beamline for ANL. I’m the only person on the project developing the simulation. The software being used is brand new, open source and clunky. The documentation is poor (at best) with no real tutorial or users manual. There are consistent occurrences of bugs.

Anyway, I’ve been putting in 10-15 hr weeks and most of it has been spent learning the software and building summary PowerPoints (that have ultimately been deemed useless) based on examples in tutorial. That was the first 3 months. The pay period has since ended but I’ve elected to assist because I was led to believe the project would end shortly after and I’d be able to co-author a paper.

Now, it seems I have about 30(optimistic)-70(pessimistic) hours until I’m done based on what’s left. My advisor is bad and typically rejects any questions I have and says I simply have not been putting in effort. There’s little to no guidance in the project and my advisor always says how he could just do it himself much faster.

I have another project starting in a few days that will require 40+ hours a week that’s paid.

The combination of lack of respect for my advisor, other time commitments, and overall distaste for the project leads me to believe I should respectfully tell him I can’t continue working on the project.

Should I end it? If so, how should I go about it?


texts: Getting published: writing a book chapter in linguistics

texts:
I am an assistant professor of linguistics. In order to get promoted to the associate professorship one of the things I need to do is write a book or a book chapter. I was wondering how I could write a chapter in a book to be published. Where should I start? Who do I get in touch with?

Many thanks!


texts: My examination centre made a big mistake, what should I do?

texts:
I live in the U.K. and I'm taking my A-Levels (the qualifications before university).
Yesterday I sat my Computer Science exam. This is the first of two papers, and is completed on the computer.
Once we enter the examination room, we are subject to examination conditions - no talking, no looking around and all unauthorised materials (notes, books, phones) are banned from the room.
We were assigned examination logins to the network which had the files we needed for the exam and nothing else. The computers were already logged in (as per the instructions issued by the exam board).
They had also locked down the computers, for example to disable the calculator and other unnecessary programs.
Slightly unusually, however, the Upload Centre for Windows 10 was running. This is a program on Windows 10 use to manage file conflicts when syncing with One Drive. I thought this was a little odd, and opened it to satisfy my curiosity. As expected there were no files pending. I didn't notice at that time, but there was no error message saying that it could not connect to the internet. I closed this program.
Before the exam started, we were instructed to open the PDF, containing some instructions. As is the default on Windows 10, this opened in Edge - the web browser. I was a little surprised - I assumed they would have disabled Edge as it wouldn't be needed, but they hadn't. Again - I'm curious. I opened a new tab, pressed the 'H' key, and hit return. To my surprise - and concern - Bing proceeded to search for 'H'.
I raised my hands and spoke to the invigilators. They were surprised and simply informed us to not use the internet. They didn't seem to realise how serious this was - they informed us that they "didn't want to see us playing any games". I am confident I could have accessed Stack Overflow without them noticing.
To start the exam, a computer science teacher has to confirm everything is ready, resolve any issues, and give the invigilators the go ahead.
Throughout the exam, I did not manually access the internet. However, I know that Windows 10 certainly will have been forming connections for various programs (for example, one drive, windows monitoring tools, and any connections that Edge makes when it is opened).
After the exam, I had a maths exam in the afternoon, so I ignored the issue. When I was traveling home on the bus, I composed this email and sent it to my computer science teacher. It was sent after their work day finished, and I have not heard back from them over the weekend:

Before the exam started (at 9:15) I did 2 Bing searches, and discovered the internet was enabled. Of course, I did not access the internet again, but I would still like to confirm that even though my exam account accessed Bing there will be no issues? My account was No. 22 I think - candidate number 1499.
As an aside, apart from this being a bad idea (neither invigilator would know I was using the internet as neither were especially technically savvy - it would not have been difficult to search for answers), I was also rather concerned that I would accidentally click a link - for example in the Delphi Help, or when searching Cortana for a program and it provides web links.
I hope IT have turned off the internet connection for the exam accounts now. If not, I'm happy to tell them how I accessed it so they can prevent that.

Having submitted this question, I apologise for how long it is. You're welcome to edit out any details that are not necessary.

A summary:
In a horrendous breach of national exam regulations, I was able to access the internet during an exam. I did not access the internet during the exam, although background tasks on my computer likely did. The senior computer science teacher who was in charge of the exam was informed: around 5 minutes before the exam started. He instructed us not to use the internet.
What should I do about this?


texts: Should I, as an amateur, get my result published based on a well known professor's opinion?

texts:
I don't have any formal education in mathematics that the large part of mathematicians have but fortunately I have the ability to use intuition to obtain results in higher mathematics that many professional mathematicians find interesting.

So recently I happened to send this famous professor (whom I've been corresponding with for some time) one of my results and he responded by saying that "indeed he thinks the result is new"

So what's the next step? Should I try to get the result published?


texts: Is it advisable to submit multiple teaching letters for tenure-track teaching-focused jobs?

texts:
When applying for academic jobs in the US, one is often asked for at least one recommendation letter from someone who can attest to your teaching abilities.

If applying for a tenure-track teaching focused job, should one aim to have multiple teaching letters?

I am personally in mathematics. I am assuming the answers will not be too field-dependent (please correct me if I am mistaken).


texts: Unusual funding issue -- what are my good next steps?

texts:
So I got some strange news last week, and I'm hoping someone knows what a good next move in my situation is. I'm an MSci CS student in the U.K., about to graduate.

A while back I got an offer to continue my masters studies in a PhD programme I applied to, at my current university. More recently, I heard that some friends who had also applied had heard back about funding many weeks ago. I did some asking around and found that my funding application never got considered -- due to an administrative error, my funding application was never processed, though I did submit it within the deadline. All funding has now been distributed, but I never had a shot at funding from the school's DTC as a result of this error.

...I have a potential fallback. A company is interested in sponsoring my research -- they'll put 50% toward the fees and living expenses, and the college pays the other 50%. I'm yet to hear back about this from the college's end, but the company has already committed. Note that this funding's coming from the college of science and engineering, of which the CS school is a part -- so the funding can come from two places.

Obviously, I want to maximise my chances of getting out of this scenario with funding. Less obvious is how to go about getting that best shot! With the issue I'm facing regarding DTC funding being kind of unique, I'm not sure that anyone knows what the protocol is. That means I don't know what it'll be possible to make happen. Some suggestions I've had:

There's always the college funding and the industrial application I've got right now.
Using this situation as leverage to try to get the school, rather than the college, to fund the other 50% of the industrial application. This is my prospective supervisor's bet.
As a new tax year brings a new budget, there's potentially a new pool of funding for the DTC for the coming year. I wonder whether I can be considered now for funding from this new pool. Not sure whether that would then affect my start date.
Defer my entry until October 2018 and apply again to the DTC in the coming year. This was the suggested course of action from the admin assistant who made the error -- its also my lowest preference.

Does anyone have an idea as to whether the school is obligated to consider me at all, if I've applied for funding with my admission application? And what might I be able to do to improve my chances? Does anyone have advice on which if the above might be avenues worth exploring?

Thanks!


texts: How to cite uproot and awkward arrays (by Jim Pivarski)?

texts:
Normally a python library has a paper or user manual by the same name.
Jim Pivarski's uproot doesn't appear to, the closest thing I can find is https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.06307
Should I cite that paper or cite the github repo? (https://github.com/scikit-hep/uproot)


texts: Further questions/information on letters of recommendation

texts:
In virtually every letter of recommendation I've seen, the final line is something to the effect of "Please feel free to contact me if you have any other questions".

But how often is it to actually get contacted? I've never actually received any follow up before, but virtually all the students I write letters for have gotten into the programs of their choice.

Granted, I only tend to write letters for undergraduates applying for scholarships and graduate school (no graduate program for my department) so maybe the likelihood increases for, say, letters written for master's students applying for PhD programs, but I'm curious if this is just happenstance that I've not been contacted or more par the course. (I know we do contact letter writers once we have a short(er) list for job candidates, but I'm thinking here specifically letters written for students who will continue to be students.)


texts: Etiquette Question - Professor asked if I could meet after X time on Y day. I emailed to confirm a specific time but he has not responded

texts:
I have been looking to get started in undergraduate research (CS) and finally got a bite on a cold email. This professor said he read my resume and "liked my profile" and asked if I could meet him after X on day Y. I responded asking if a specific time in that time frame worked for him. However, it's been a day and a half and he has yet to respond. (the day is tomorrow)

If he does not respond today, would it be rude to knock on his door during the time frame he specified? Or does the lack of response suggest he has rethought the offer?


texts: How to utilise university resources when doing an independent research masters?

texts:
I'm planning on undertaking a research masters in Earth Science or Geography within the UK.

During my undergraduate, there were many lectures, exams, courseworks/reports and workshops. I utilised my lecturers to ask questions about all of these things. Yet, my dissertation was very independent with minimal guidance or advice from lecturers (they mostly just nodded along).

My research masters will only have a single thesis/dissertation to hand in (no exams, lectures or reports). How should I use my university to help me in this? The obvious answer is lab equipment, but my thesis is most likely to be a desktop based study. Another answer is guidance from supervisors, but as I am required to come up with a thesis proposal before applying I will probably already have figured out much of what I need to do.

Summary

If you're applying for a research masters in which there is only one piece of assessed work (your independent thesis), there is unlikely to be lab work (no need for uni equipment) and I must pre-decide a thesis proposal before applying (staff not available for guidance), how do I utilise the university to best help me?


texts: English Bachelor of Computer Science - Germany

texts:
I've googled so much for English Bachelor of Computer Science in Germany and I just found Jacobs University which teaches Computer Science in English. Though Germany is a place I would like to study, I am open minded for other places.

I checked Bachelor's portal, and setting Germany as a country and English as language, it gives me a full list of universities, but unfortunately when visiting the course site it's always set as taught language: German or 50% German and 50% English.

Other than Bachelor's Portal, is there anywhere else I could search for? Any good links I could be making use of?


texts: How do I tell my private teacher I want to stop learning subject with him/her

texts: I would like to tell it politely, because there is a chance I will hire the teacher in the future. Now I just want to stop working with the teacher.


texts: Exam design: give maximum score per question or not?

texts:
When designing an exam, would you mention the maximum score per question or not? Is it common practice?

In my view this promotes cherry-picking. This could be seen as a way to  prioritize or to satisfice  (leaving questions open since "they are not worth it").

Is there any scientific proof/pedagogical insight this is a "must", "nice for students " or "making it easier for students"?

Any thoughts on this (from professors and students)?


texts: Should I mention in an email to a professor that they are referred by another one?

texts:
I emails professor A about a chance to study with him, and he answers that he's on leave next academic year so not accepting new students, and I might want to check professor B. Should I mention to B that A refers her to me?

More specifically, I think that A is best suited for me. Should I be honest in saying that I have email A first? I think being honest upfront will set a better expectation from him, thus saving time for both.

Below is my intended draft:

  Dear Prof. B,

  To introduce myself, my name is X, from country Z. I'm writing this letter to ask you if you are planning to accept new students this year. I have asked prof A about studying with him, but he has kindly refer you to me since he's on leave next year.

  From reading your profile, I can see that our interests align in many aspects. My interests can be divided into two main categories, which mirror yours:

  The cognitivism in Daoism and Buddhism's epistemology
  The physicalism in Daoism and Buddhism's metaphysics/cosmology

  In case you are interested, here is a proposal I crafted for your reference.

  Do you think the program could be a good fit for me? Would there be an opportunity for me to work with you as a grad student?

  Best wishes and regards,

Both A and B are in the same school in Canada.


texts: Want to pursue a PhD in Philosophy, but my Master degree is in Fine Arts (Painting). I want to know how likely will I be considered for the program? I have art history and Aesthetics, as my theory in Bfa and Ma.


texts: Why isn't there a doctoral degree that does not involve a major project?

texts:
I am trying to find a doctoral program without a capstone, project, or a dissertation, because I do not find a value in doing a project.

But why isn't there a doctoral degree that does not involve a major project?


texts: Do people who work at research institutes consider themselves "academics"?

texts: My long-term goal is to work at a research institute.  While discussing my career plans with different mentors, I find that there is some confusion about whether a position at a government-funded research institute is still considered "academic." Although my question is mostly semantic in nature, I imagine there are some implications with how to market myself (i.e., what to include in a CV or how to describe myself on LinkedIn).  Since many people with posts at research institutes either come from universities or go on to become professors, I think this question is relevant for this forum.


texts: Is specifying a minimum word count beneficial for academic writing?

texts:
As we all know, during our higher-education careers there have been many professors who have assigned academic papers that require a minimum word or page count in some shape or form.

Personally, I feel this simply forces students to create “fluff” in their papers. I can understand creating a maximum word count (this makes students sift out what they feel is relevant to answering the prompt of the paper) whereas a minimum word count encourages one to think more broadly about how to go about the prompt. In some situations this is good – perhaps the instructor expects evidence or more critical thinking – but in most situations this will only lead students to find more evidence to reaffirm their claim (which is not very useful if you can prove your claim with less evidence) or create “fluff” in their paper in order to meet the requirement.

I found a blog post about word counts for people writing stories/articles but this is in the professional world (not academic) and doesn’t actually have statistics, but it does give some interesting perspective.

I want to know if there are any statistics or studies that prove specifying a minimum word-count is beneficial or hurtful in academic paper writing? Does it vary based on subject? Perhaps instructors can give their experience and/or thoughts on this?

So far there have been answers of people’s experiences which is extremely beneficial and I encourage more of them. Inevitably though, I am hoping to accept an answer that has a case study or any research relevant to this topic.


texts: How do I politely decline student requests to meet during my "research time?"

texts:
I'm a young (female) professor in a (U.S.) department with a small graduate program and a research expectation.  I usually teach Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and try to save Tuesday and Thursday for research (where possible).  On MWF, I'm quite good about meeting with students, even if they stop by outside of office hours (or on any day during exam weeks).  My week or more homework assignments are generally due on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday (there's no good place for students to drop them off outside of class and I like discussing them as they turn them in) so I get requests by students who have put off their homework to meet on Tuesday or Thursday, even when I mention this preference in advance.  I've yet to come up with a nice response that I'm satisfied both:

Reminds students I'm busy with other work (despite the fact that
their tuition pays part of my salary).
that still encourages them to keep reaching out for help and encourages them to think of me as the approachable professor I try to be (at least on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

Suggestions for a nice email response?


texts: What is the preferable way to share data?

texts:
Suppose there is data that you as an author of a journal article wants to share with the readership of the article (e.g. raw experimental data, code, gold standard / ground truth data).

What would be the best way to do this? Possibilities include:

Add a footnote that data is available upon request by e-mail.
Make the data available for download on an institutional webpage.
Make the data available for download on your personal webpage.
Make the data available through the article's publisher.
Something else...


texts: I'm going to start my PhD in an English-speaking country. I would like to improve my English for research (fro writing and speaking). Could you let me know any good ways to do that?


texts: What does “query to referee” in the tracking system of Physical Review Letters imply?

texts:
After the report was sent in, the status of my manuscript in the tracking system of Physical Review Letters indicated a query to referee.
What does this mean?

The editor explained further information is needed from the referee.
This is basically what query to referee means.
But I am wondering what it implies. Is the report good or bad?
Does anyone has any experience on this issue, and what is the outcome?


texts: Funding for PhD students in the UK for EU student

texts:
If I wanted to do my PhD in the UK at a renowned university in the natural sciences, how likely is it that one gets access to a fully funded PhD program?( living costs + fees).
The reason why I am asking this is, that I see a lot of scholarships on the websites of the universities but I have never heard of an actual percentage of PhD student(coming from the EU) who got such a scholarship. Does anybody know? It does not have to be an actual number, but maybe you know something about this.


texts: Is it legal in the US for a professor to publicly reveal a student's performance in PhD comprehensive exams?

texts: Is it legal (for a faculty member) to publicly reveal a student's performance in PhD comprehensive exams? In the US, isn't this in violation of FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974?


texts: Minor revision- Editor implied to do the experiment, however a rebut would clarify the issue

texts:
We recently received comments from the reviewers after revision. Comments were positive, one reviewer asked us to do an experiment. EES status says its minor revision, editor's email do not say it's a minor revision and he insists we do this experiments. Ending the email, he writes we would be glad to reconsider the revised ms. Though the reason given by the reviewer to do the experiment can be rebutted, it's more of clarification issue.

Should we rebut or do the experiment; Also, does the minor revision mean it's a in principle acceptance?


texts: Is it reasonable to collaborate with a professor when you are employed by a different professor?

texts:
How wise is it to collaborate with another professor while working as a staff under one professor? Is there a ethical conflict in doing so even if the other professor is from a slightly different area?

Also, how should one develop his/her own expertise while working as a postdoc under one professor? Is it wise to also work with other professor with slightly different research interest?


texts: Why is a PhD course studied by consultation? And how is the study by consultation done?

texts:
I have been accepted to do a PhD in Czech Republic. I will be arriving to the University at the end of November 2020.
The supervisor told me to take about three courses and we agreed on which courses I'll take. I then emailed a professor that is responsible of one of the courses and he told me that the course is not organized as a  regular one consisting of a series of lectures. Instead it is supported by a group or individual consultations devoted to specific topics.
So my question is how is the study by consultation done (in detail please)?
Also Why is a PhD course studied by consultation rather than a series of lectures?
Thank you


texts: Confused about bibliography in old books

texts:
I’ve been looking at the bibliography of an old book called History Of Burma by G. E. Harvey and am quite confused.
There are abbreviations introduced first like this:

  B Bodleian Library
  BM British Museum
  IO India Office Library

An example for an actual citation is:

  John Stevens, The Portuguese Asia, three vols 1695.

  B 55.b.59-61.
  BM 582.e.6, 8.
  IO 300.A.76.H.10-12

I can see the abbreviations refer to respective libraries, but what about the numbers? Are they referring to the book’s location in the library, or pages within the book itself?


texts:
I have been working extensively on a project for which I have written a couple of papers which still haven't been submitted for publication. I am also preparing a website where I want these materials to be freely available. I would like to avoid having to rewrite everything again for the website, so I was wondering what is the best solution to be able to reuse literal sentences from the papers (once they're published).

As far as I know, Open Access solutions sometimes allow the author to retain copyright, but I'm not sure if always. What kind of publishing licenses would allow me to copy-paste literal material from my paper onto my website?

Overall, is this a good idea or should I strive to rephrase content even if not legally bound to do so?


texts: How can a masters student arrange to do a thesis in collaboration with industry?

texts:
I have started a MS program in Computer Engineering. This is my first year and it is a 2 year program. I want to do a master thesis about Machine Learning (I have an artificial intelligence and genetic algorithms background from my MS but I can work on different topics within Machine Learning).

I am interested in doing a thesis in collaboration with a company in industry. I'm hoping that working through a MS with them will increase the chance they consider me for a job after the end of the program.

Do companies ever publicize masters thesis proposals for students to work on with them?


texts: Chances of academically publishing a book without professional degree

texts:
I have been considering publishing the book I am writing with Springer; specifically under the series Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics (or any related series). I believe the contents of the book would be a great addition to the related content published by Springer and I also believe it would be popular amongst both mathematicians and physicists. The issue [I believe I face] is that I lack a degree. The contents of the book do not necessarily warrant a degree, for the book is mostly on special functions and their employment. I should also mention that the book is about 90% complete (perhaps this increases my chances of publication?).
This page is what I am most concerned about. I fail to be able to fill out the "Affiliation" and "Personal website" sections, for I have neither; i.e., I lack a degree and a website. Now for the question:
Will lacking a degree in mathematics or physics prevent my book from being published?
And a follow up:
Would "hobbyist" be an appropriate title for the section labeled "Title"?
I am asking such questions to gauge whether or not I should even submit my proposal. Thank you!


texts: Can professors have romantic relationships with post-docs?

texts:
Can professors have romantic relationships with post-docs (in the same department)?

I feel like this point is a bit more subtle than, say, professors hooking up with students, since post-docs and professors are considered peers / colleagues.


texts: Whether to share at thesis defense where I have submitted pertaining papers to

texts:
I have submitted journal articles that come from my thesis.

When defending the thesis, is it a good idea to give the names of the journals to which those pertaining papers were submitted to?


texts: How to list on cv an article honored as national conference theme?

texts:
Apologies for the unwieldy question title.
Essentially, a journal article I just published in the flagship journal of the national disciplinary association was very well received by its members. The article's ideas are now being made the organizing themes of the following year's annual conference.
Does anyone have any suggestions for how/where I might list this on my CV?
Thanks in advance.
Edit: Yes, I've gotten confirmation from the organizers that this is the case. I'm also not asking about whether or not to list this, but how the best way to do so might be without incurring confusion. Thanks.


texts: I'd like to use a figure from a paper; what's the best way to do this?

texts:
So, I've seen a really nice figure in a paper; what's the best way to 'get a copy'?

Will it be on the publisher's website?
Do I need to draw my own version?
Email the author?

And, finally, how does the answer vary for (a) those wishing to republish the figure in their own work, (b) those not wishing to publish the figure e.g. for student coursework.


texts: What exactly would count as copyright infringement in a replication paper?

texts:
I have been following the review process of a replication journal

In particular, it has an open review which can be seen.

On a particular submission they are having a debate about whether copying equations and their explanation in a paper counts as copyright infringement.

I would like to ask this question here, since the answer seems non-obvious.

Equations, by themselves, since they are ideas, should be free from copyright infringement. But to have equations, explanations, replica of figures, and discussion, would basically be a copy of the paper, and I imagine that would be copyright infringement. Where exactly can a line be drawn?

Note: There are questions on stack exchange which ask similar questions, but often in context of building up on previous research. Since the point of such a journal is just to replicate, it would seems that the aim is to build a freely available copy of the existing (perhaps paywalled, copyrighted) material, that can be freely accessed, and this is different intent than regular articles.

Also, answers regarding plagiarism aren't much help in this case as the point is to do "explicit plagiarism" with proper attribution.

Crossposted to law.SE


texts: Should the same source be cited repeatedly in a chapter?

texts:
I am currently writing my bachelor thesis on IT-Forensics. One of my first chapters is the explanation of of the basics of IT-Forensics, the procedures and its goals.

To do that, I am primarily referencing the forensics class I had in the previous semester, as well as a technical report on IT-Forensics from a different university.

Should I cite every claim with the same source repeatedly, or should I cite my sources in the beginning or end of the chapter once?


texts: How to ask summer research advisor for publication?

texts: I'm an undergraduate currently doing summer research with an REU program. I feel that the research we've done this summer is publishable (although what do I know), and I'd like to do that, especially with grad school applications coming up. Is there a polite, yet direct way (or is it uncouth) to ask my advisor if we are going to publish this paper?


texts: Does writing a book improve your chance for getting scholarship for applying PhD abroad?

texts:
As you know there are many candidates competing for winning the scholarship for their PhD program, specially the ones who are applying abroad. So, having better skills likely spell to overcome the other candidates.
I have two SCI papers in my field. So I don't have a very bad research background as a graduated student of electrical Engineering for M.SC. degree. But, recently, I've started to write a book in English. The content of book is very general and simple but still can be fitted in my field. The book title is going to be 'Technical use of English language in electrical engineering'. This book is one of the courses of Electrical Engineering for undergraduate program in our countries.

So, since the books are not usually peer-reviewed, I was wonder to ask:

How much does writing  a general and simple book in your field help
you to get a good scholarship for PhD program?
Is the effect of writing a book more than a namely SCI research paper?
Is the affects of having a book variy in different countries? If
yes, please tell me about Australia, US and Canada for precise.
Is it okay if I self-publish the book or I need a good publisher?
does it compensate my bad GPA by any chance?
finally, what are the advantages of having a book as a graduated
master student?


texts: I applied to a lot of places (about 80) and only got 1 offer. It makes me worried that when it's time to apply for jobs again I won't get any offers. I would like to know if such a circumstance is typical. A postdoc colleague of mine told me, "At least you have a postdoc." We both had a tough time in the current job market.


texts: How to search for graduate schools that have Masters in Complexity Science/Complex Systems?

texts:
I'm an undergrad student who is interested in pursuing a Masters degree in complexity science/complex systems in the U.S. I know some schools put this program under physics, math or computer science departments.

I'd like to know which schools that provide such a program. Unlike physics, maths or cs programs, it is not straight-forward to find out such a list. Any recommendations on how to get a complete list of schools that provide a masters degree in complexity science/complex systems?


texts: Is it bad to publish a scientific paper with wrong results?

texts:
I was working during the last year on developing an approach that determines human age class (young or old), but after I got exciting results I've discovered that I made a mistake when implementing some lines of code. I think that the mistake is a bit critical because I was comparing my approach and literature's ones. The mistake I made was during the classification task, where the data was entered in the right way but the experience was badly managed.

What should I do? Do I have to stay quiet or do I have to fix it? Note that the paper is not yet published nor peer reviewed.


texts: Should we do literature search in Incognito mode?

texts:
I found a claim that literature search (in Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, etc) should be performed in Incognito/Private Browsing mode.

According to the claim, search results may be influenced by browser cookies (presumably those about previous literature searches), and if a user account is used, they may be influenced by the scholar's information (interests, etc.) as recorded by the search engine.

If that is correct, authors of systematic reviews may need to report how they access literature databases and search engines.

Is there any evidence to support that claim?


texts:
Should the translation of a name or title be italicized? In quotes? Roman type?

Some examples:

We encoded the list of the National Classification of Occupations (Clasificación Nacional de Ocupaciones, CNO).

They coordinate with the Comunidades Autonomas.

One of these events was the Spanish-American War (La Guerra de Cuba).


texts: I couldn't negotiate my postdoc salary during HR meeting, should I try days later? (I haven't received the formal offer yet)

texts:
I had a meeting with HR last week. During the meeting, the recruitment officer talked about a lot of things very quickly in the first 5 meetings: "you will receive a formal offer in the next few days, since you don't have much experience you will salary will be 30k (lowest spine point for postdocs in the UK), and for the visa...."
So, I just focused about the visa because it was most important to me. Next, I received an email reiterating these points and I just said "I'm excited for the position", I couldn't bring the topic to the PI and I don't even know if I should..
But now, days later, I don't know how I feel about the salary. It's my first postdoc after my PhD (computer science), yes I don't have experience in the industry, but I have a lot of experience for a full-time phd student (for my home country) in teaching and supervising students. For my department, I assisted professors in teaching activities in 3 classes/semesters, supersized around 10 students and I was a jury member of many graduation projection presentations. I was even hired as a fixed-term lecturer at a another university for 2 semesters (where I design my course, supervised even more students and everything). I also reviewed papers in conferences and I was a member of the organizing committee of many and many conferences.. On tap of that, noticed that it's below the average salary in Glassdoor (34k)
I really feel that I deserve more, but I am afraid it's too late and the PI might have a bad impression about me.. Should I bring this up to the HR? if so how can I approach the situation?


texts: Attending a conference in a field of interest outside PhD field?

texts:
I really want to attend an international conference which is relevant to the field of research of our group, but more specifically related to projects of other group members than my own project. However, the conference (and projects of other group members) are far more in my areas of interest than my current project.

Do you still think it is appropriate to attend this conference? I don't want to step on the toes of other group members who will want to network with the researchers in their specific field, but I also want to try and transition more into their area of research as it is a new field which was not an option for me to enter when I started my PhD.


texts: prospective English doctoral candidate: advice regarding weird relationship with potential advisor

texts:
I recently got my BA in English from a top 10 university and am planning on re-applying to the same school's doctoral program this fall. (For personal reasons, I'm constrained to programs within a certain geographical area, so my application is rather nonnegotiable.)

I didn't do incredibly well during my first two years, and only started taking myself very seriously in the fall of my junior year. In my junior fall, I enrolled in a large lecture that I hardly (if ever) spoke in. I attended office hours only once, and I remember being really socially awkward/naive, but it's hard to judge the validity of my own memory in retrospect. It's likely that the professor doesn't remember the incident. He only graded one of my papers (the others were graded by the TA), which he returned with incredibly enthusiastic comments. I put an unbelievable amount of effort into it (likely significantly more than anyone else in the class), and my work was excellent.

The issue is this: because I had been a bit of a basket case during my first two years, I didn't really have anyone who could write me a good rec letter. In a horrible lapse of judgment, I emailed this professor that winter break, asking for a last minute rec letter for a summer program I had just found out about. I sounded kind of crazy/manic in the email, which went into unnecessary detail about the reasons why I was entreating this man I barely know to recommend me, and how eager I am to continue to do this work seriously. He sent a quick reply agreeing to write the letter, and I sent a quick "thank you."

Another mistake: I was so anxious about/humiliated by my behavior that I just...never followed up with him. I didn't send him a more formal thank you. I didn't update him on the status of the program (I didn't get in). I have literally never spoken to him since then.

Now, two years later, it turns out that my research interests have defined themselves such that, if I were to be accepted into this program, he would almost certainly be my advisor. He'll definitely be reading my application.

So the question is: how much of a problem do you anticipate this being? I truly have no idea. And do you think there's any way to rectify it? I'm an entirely different, more mature, levelheaded, reliable person now, and hopefully my application demonstrates this. But frankly, I was rude, oblivious, and crazy-sounding, and that impression of me is not at all the kind of person a department wants to trust with 5 years of funding. I feel like emailing some sort of short apology would also look crazy, because 1) what if he's forgotten about it? and 2) who thinks about this stuff two years later? On a less speculative level: should I mention him as someone I intend to work with in my letter, or should I avoid doing so? Thoughts of any kind would be much appreciated. It's largely silly and minute, but it's really eating at me and I do have to make some practical decisions about the content of my application.

If it helps: I believe the rest of my application is competitive for a top program (4.0 last two years, near perfect GRE verbal, rich cv)


texts: Does my education before master matter for phD?

texts:
I am intended to apply to phD in USA (math).

The problem is that I have specialist degree in engineering (it's russian kind of  degree) and now I am applying to master program (still in Russia) in mathematics. The question is following: can I apply to phD after my first grade as a master? Does it matter where I had graduated from, before getting master degree? I am a little ashamed of place I studied in and of my assessments there. If it was possible I would prefer applying to phD to not provide any information about my specialist degree and provide information only about the place I am currently studying (courses I've passed in first year, courses I am taking for second year, when I will have got diploma and so on).

I would appreciate any explanation.


texts: Will a conference paper submission have greater credibility if a teacher is a co-author?

texts:
My lecturer is encouraging us to submit papers for a famous conference. He wants us to write the paper, show it to our teacher/him, bring it to a publishable condition, mention the teacher/him as the co-author and then submit it. I've seen some of my senior's papers published in journals with the teacher mentioned as the co-author.

I've seen earlier questions about ethics and authorship when mentioning co-authors, but the basic question is whether a paper submitted to a conference would have greater credibility and a greater chance of being accepted, if a teacher or a renowned researcher is mentioned as a co-author?

Assume the student is writing a paper for the first time, but does some diligent searching to figure out best practices for paper publications, prepares good test cases for experiments, and presents some findings very well in the research paper. Will the research be able to stand on its own merit and get accepted even if it is this one novice author? Does it really need an experienced co-author?

ps: This document says "Acting alone is a risky strategy, especially for those just out of graduate school. With seasoned coauthors, the probability of acceptance will likely more than double"

UPDATE: IEEE is clear on authorship:
IEEE considers individuals who meet all of the following criteria to be authors:
1. Made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or experimental design, prototype development, and/or the analysis and interpretation of data associated with the work contained in the article;
2. Contributed to drafting the article or reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content;
3. Approved the final version of the article as accepted for publication, including references.

Contributors who do not meet all of the above criteria may be included in the Acknowledgment section of the article. Omitting an author who contributed to your article or including a person who did not fulfill all of the above requirements is considered a breach of publishing ethics.


texts: How to deal with journal requirements to share data when data comes from industry and industry partner would not permit sharing?

texts:
Many authors, especially in manufacturing, use data from real manufacturing companies (not from a lab experiment) for their research. They are asked to report only the results from their analysis on those datasets in journal papers without publishing the underlying data due to confidentiality agreements with the companies. However, I see that the journals are increasingly asking the authors to deposit the raw data so that the research is reproducible. On the other hand, the companies are not ready to make their internal data go public but they are ok with publishing the summary statistics on the datasets. As a result, authors face difficulty in publishing their research results in journal papers.

Any strategies to handle this situation effectively and convince editors about the non-availability of the datasets to other researchers?


texts: How should I approach a professor whose class I'm taking for advice regarding a project I'm working on?

texts:
I'm currently working on a machine learning research project. I'm also taking a geometry class in the mathematics department because I believe it would help me out.

The most interaction I've had with this professor is an email asking him about his textbook, and also seeing each other on the first day of class. Would it be okay to ask him if it's alright to ask for advice regarding the project?

I guess the reason that I'm asking this is because 1) he's not my supervisor and we hardly know each other, 2) I have an impression that the office hours are for issues related to the class that I'm taking.

If it's alright how should I approach it? Should I leave him an email briefly describing the situation and whether or not he'll be okay with it? Thanks.


texts:
from Wikipedia:

  Software engineering (SE) is the application of a systematic, disciplined,
  quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance
  of software, and the study of these approaches.

I was wondering if there is something similar for research, something that we could call Research engineering. I imagine it to be a research field on its own, with students "researching on how to do research". I believe software development has benefited a lot from research in SE. Maybe research could also benefit from Research engineering.

The questions are:

is there some institute or some university department in the world where they work on Research Engineering?
in which faculty you would position such department/institute?

Edited: After getting a couple of good answers, I am still not completely satisfied, so I would like to clarify my question. What I am really interested in is indeed a "software engineering" approach. I am not interested in philosophical or sociological research. In fact, the question I had originally in mind was whether it's possible or not to apply actual software development methodologies to research. In more concrete terms, I am wondering  whether anyone has studied the application in research of models similar to the waterfall, or the spiral model, or things like extreme programming, Scrum, etc... (Note: these are just examples, please don't comment to each of them one by one).


texts: How to deal with my PhD supervisors rudely critiquing all my draft papers?

texts:
I'm a PhD candidate in biology about three semesters in. I am co-advised by two young married principal investigators (PIs), who are just about to get tenure. Things were going great initially, as I completed a medium-sized project and got publishable data very early on. However, now that it has come to writing papers, I’m finding my PIs to be rude, unpleasant, and excessively hands-on.

First of all, almost every time I send something, they respond with something like: "don't send us manuscripts with errors, next time they'll be sent back to you", or: "don't waste people's time with unpolished manuscripts." Of course I do check over them obsessively before sending, but I'm only three semesters in so I'm not perfect. They also will give me comments like, "you didn't explain how you mixed this solution," so I will write, "I mixed the solution by adding XXg of XX to XX." Then they have the nerve to tell me, "you're not doing a good job, you add useless details about adding XXg of XX to XX." Really?! They also make jokes about my writing, like "impossible [to test mice immediately upon birth] unless you're a mouse midwife." I know, it's not even clever. There's also random comments like, "what are you doing here [in reference to a statement]?," "stop doing XX," "don't do that," and "wrong, read it again." They also rewrite almost everything I write. None of my writing ever makes it to the final cut.

If I'm just being a baby, totally feel free to tell me just to suck it up. I'll submit a manuscript, and a certain section gets no comments. Then, I submit the manuscript again and the previously fine section is now crap! Why was it ok before, but now it's not? They're nice to everyone's face, but they have been very rude (i.e., actual severe harassment) to at least one other person over email that I know of.

I'm middle-aged with a spouse and kids – I don't need to take crap from PIs my own age. I've had two-dozen jobs, and I've rarely been treated so rudely. Switching labs is out, because our department is super tiny. I don't want to leave because I don't have much else going for me job-wise. I don't want to confront them, because past experience has taught me that it makes them even more aggressive and rude.

Is this type of behavior normal and acceptable in a lab? Should I just grin and bear it? How do you cope with rude and demeaning PIs?


texts: Responding to papers which reinvent ideas without citing them

texts:
A few months ago a very well-known (and controversial) authority in my field published a theoretical model of a phenomenon that one of my collaborators addressed many years ago. Interestingly, the paper does not reference my collaborator's work at all, even though the authors of this new paper are well aware of it, and have carefully cited "around" it.

My initial response was not to respond, but then I noticed striking similarities between specific paragraphs in the paper and my collaborator's work. The authors reach the same conclusions as my collaborator, but using a model they have developed. Though it doesn't qualify as plagiarism, it annoys me when "new" ideas are proposed without crediting those who originally proposed them. Of course this happens all the time, but I have never been in a position to respond.

My question is how should I respond to this paper, and whether I should respond at all. My collaborator has ceased publishing in this field, and was not interested in responding (but wouldn't mind if I did). Otherwise I have had mixed responses from colleagues, everything from "it happens all the time", to suggesting that I write to the authors or the editor of the journal. Another point to consider is that the senior author is on the advisory board of the prestigious journal the paper was published in.


texts: My online instructor is not teaching, I don't know what to do

texts:
I am currently enrolled at a University, and chose the online courses as my learning medium. I am in the IT program and though that this school would have an interactive enviroment (lectures, videos, tutorials, links), but nothing of the sort exists. My instructor gives assignments that we have to research online willy-nilly, told to read a chapter and do random assignments that are not covered in the textbook, and does not respond to emails or instructor forums for weeks. The entire student body in our class is contacting other students for help because none of us are learning anything and we collectively feel like we are sent on wild goose chases each week. Can anyone advise where I may find Jython tutorials? I am not looking for free cheat codes, but the information on how to succeed in a class where the instructor refuses to teach.

Thank you in advance!!


texts: U.S. Government Shutdown -- potential effects for the upcoming Spring 2019 semester

texts:
The U.S. government shutdown has continued through three weeks now; what would the effects be for the upcoming Spring 2019 college semester for graduate students who depend on federal student loans to pay their tuition, health insurance and fees, room and board, and costs of living?

Will such students not be in attendance for the semester, if the government shutdown is not resolved?


texts: If a journal requirements for patient's photograph say "Patient Photographic Authorization and Release form (when appropriate)", does this mean I must include patient's acceptance for publication of their photograph? If not, what does "when appropriate" really mean in their statement?


texts: How to address email to a professor who prefers informality?

texts: How should I address an email to a professor who hates being called "Professor ___" or "Dr. ____?" He has made it very clear to students that he prefers to be referred to by his first name in person, but I have been told time and time again that one should be more formal when writing emails. Is this always true, or should I simply follow how he prefers to be addressed in person?


texts: Citation policies: original papers or recent monographs?

texts:
When referencing previous results, should one cite the original
  paper(s) or a recent comprehensive monograph?

Specifically, in my area of interest (a relatively recent branch of mathematics), in the last ten years, several monographs have been published (by different authors) which cover (virtually) all "classical" results and most of contemporary developements organizing them, putting them in their context, and offering extensive references to the original papers.

To clarify my position: for the sake of "culture", I've read a few of the original papers in which the results I use most often appear for the first time; however, for the benefit of the reader, I'd rather cite only the most recent (and most comprehensive) source (and possibly point the reader to the additional references therein); in my department, there are researchers following either policies.


texts: Can I put the proofs to my lemmas/theorems/corollaries in my appendix?

texts: I have proofs that run on for up to 10 pages. To aid in readability, I would like to discuss my theorem, and the lemmas that support it, without the noise of these lengthy proofs. Can I move the proofs to my lemmas, theorem, etc., into an appendix? Or somewhere else more appropriate?


texts:
I am in the unfortunate situation where I am being forced to leave a PhD program with a master of art in an engineering discipline. Advisor left while I was on leave (health reasons), couldn't find a new advisor in the same field (had to do it while off campus, which made it so much harder) so the university told me to pack up.

What is the difference between an MA and an MS and is one better than the other? Also would it be worth joining a new university as a masters/PhD student even with an MA?

I assume I have no recourse here and my only option is to packup, but if anyone has been through this or has any advice I would appreciate it.


texts:
Like this one link.

It seems nobody describes it in detail.


texts: Will excellence in professional career be considered for admission or financial aid

texts:
If I have strong professional IT skills but average educational background, will a university consider me for admission or financial aid?
I have looked through Stanford's site, including application procedures, admissions requirements, and GRE/TOEFL testing, but I cannot find a mention of anything other than TOEFL/GRE scores required.


texts: How is it possible to switch careers from undergraduate to graduate level in the US?

texts:
I have read about many astounding career paths of scientists in the US. E.g. someone had a BSc in education and switched to physics in graduate school.
How are such switches possible?

In Europe I guess it's mostly so that such diverse careers can't be pursued without having had a reasonable exposure to the subject in college. One would have too many courses that are missing without prior knowledge so that they can't be put all in a Master's curriculum; thus, having had a specific subject is necessary as a major or minor in college...at least in Switzerland.

How come that in the US such switches are possible?
Or is it just that all necessary courses are put into the graduate(+PhD) program lasting in total almost a decade, in which case I wouldn't wonder that it's possible?


texts: Do professors starting at a school in the US in the future have any say/influence on the decision process for that particular round of admissions?

texts:
I'm a master's student applying to PhD programs this round, and a few schools will be bringing in new professors in my field of interest starting from 2021. When I sent in my applications and checked off faculty of interest, I chose "Other" and wrote their names down.
I'm just curious if these professors have any say in the admissions process? Does the school grant access to the information for those professors even if they're not yet officially affiliated with the institution?


texts: Include Disability in Statement of Purpose

texts:
Should my disability be included in my Statement of Purpose?

Background:

I've recently received my masters degree in mathematics and I'm looking to transfer for my PhD.

I had an undiagnosed neurological disorder for most of my undergraduate career. It wasn't managed until partially into graduate school. It would manifest itself through frequent migraines and even occasional blindness. Consequentially, I would have semesters with low attendance and there would even be the occasional test that I wouldn't attend or that I would attend but be effectively useless.

When it was diagnosed I had it documented with the school's disability services, but I never requested accommodation.

My advisers think I have a shot at some decent schools without knowing about this.

Thoughts:

I don't want to be treated differently at a new school. Especially since it's well managed now and I don't need any accommodations. I also don't want my current advisers to think of me differently. However, it also seems absurd to avoid talking about something that has had such a strong impact on my academic career.

I've seen this question: Graduate school and students with learning disabilities . I didn't feel like it applied to me because I am not requesting accommodations and my disorder is no longer as serious of a problem to me.


texts: Does observational data need further proof?

texts:
Within fields like animal behavior, data is often collected through observation of the subjects, either in the wild or captivity.

Can a paper be published purely based on observational data, with no evidence in video or audio to support it?
If so, could one (in theory) generate an entirely fictional dataset of observations as basis for a publication? Or do other mechanisms exist to prevent this kind of fraude from happening?
Are there examples of publications, in animal behavior or other fields, being exposed for generating completely fictional datasets? If so, which?


texts: Outcome of LaTeX template differs from published papers – should I worry about this?

texts:
I am in the process of submitting my first paper to a journal for publication and I would like the style to be flawless. I have used the AEA LaTeX template to prepare my manuscript, but I notice some differences in style between my compiled PDF and the papers noted in the AEJ Best Papers series, for example Li 2017.

Here are some of the differences I notice:

The first letter is enlarged.
Cross superscript on the title.
No hanging indent on the abstract.
JEL codes are non-italic, there is no colon after JEL, and there are parenthesis.
Keywords are not visible.
Running header is filled out.

All of these features except 6 appear to be different compared to the format built-in to the AEA LaTeX template. 6 is different simply because I don't know what to put in the running header before submission.

I'm hoping that these differences are normal, and that after I submit for review the editors simply apply a different LaTeX style set or something like that. Can anyone confirm, or am I missing something? Would these differences be grounds for rejection? I'm currently holding off on submitting because I'm not sure.


texts: What is a research assistant in the Australian system?

texts:
I've noticed postings for positions with the title “research assistant” from Australian universities. They require a PhD and are often (or exclusively) one-year contracts. Are these positions akin to anything in the US system? Are they more of a trainee position (like a postdoc)? Or is it more of a senior position within an established lab (like a research assistant professor)? Is it something else?

The one-year contracts suggest that they might be soft money positions. Are they typically renewed or transformed into more permanent positions?


texts: Is the middle of May very late for graduate admissions in the same year?

texts:
Let me explain my situation a little bit, then I will try to make it more general for others to benefit.

I am graduating in a month and getting my bachelor degree in computer science. I did apply to graduate programs of US universities, and it did not end up as I expected. Right now, I am still looking for chances, graduate programs, to get in. I guess all the programs in US made their decisions already, and this is true for most of EU universities. But, still I want to check if I am missing anything.

More generally, consider an international student who wants to apply for graduate programs of computer science in EU/US. It is mid of May. Does this student still have chances to get in a graduate program with scholarship?


texts: Does a youtube channel with my lectures add to my portfolio in graduate applications if the response is good?

texts: Will teaching physics on a youtube channel and receiving a good response on it help me with my grad school applications in the subject?


texts: My former PhD supervisor has published conclusions from my thesis without citing my thesis. Is this ok?

texts:
My former PhD supervisor has just published a paper on a scientific subject investigated by me in my thesis.  The subject (or question posed), was an idea that I came up solely during my PhD and which I chose to investigate as a sub topic - my conclusions were published in my thesis in 2015 and I assume (from a legal statement in the thesis), that I own the copyright.

The paper just published has taken my hypothesis and explored it in more depth.  Some of my studies have been repeated by other people in the lab.  Moreover, some of the key conclusions made by me in my thesis have been made again.  I have not been credited in any way.

Is this plagiarism and should I pursue this?  I’ve left academia so no longer publish anyway.


texts:
I am a Ph.D. student in theoretical computer science. I have recently come across one problem on which somebody has already done work, but in that work I figured out one problem which may be small (I don’t how significant it is). I asked my colleagues about this, and some of them suggested me to pick a new problem for your first Ph.D. problem. I am in confusion what to do.

My question is: Is it okay to work on a problem which is incremental as your first Ph.D problem? Incremental in my context simply means designing a faster algorithm.


texts: What to tell students who want to know how to succeed in your class

texts:
Setting is math in the US.

It's quite common for a student who is not doing super well or is worried that they might not be to approach me and ask how they should be studying/what they should be doing do succeed in the class.

I never know what to say. I just don't see it as part of my job to give "study skills" advice and probably won't be able to say anything particularly apposite (especially because I was educated in a completely different system in Europe, so I have no first-hand experience of taking the kinds of classes they are taking). Also, I think developing your own study skills that work for you it literally part of the challenge of being an undergraduate.

But they still feel like, as the professor for the class, I ought to be able to tell them something extra and useful about studying.

What is a good way to deal with these sorts of requests for advice?


texts: Not including student who contributed very little as coauthor of paper

texts:
I am a researcher in condensed-matter physics, and I recently started a research project with another professor, for which I hired a student for a six-month undergraduate internship. The student was under my supervision. During the internship she showed good motivation, but did not make any actual contribution to the progress of the project.

Finally, she started a Ph.D. with someone else. I personally took over the project, taking care of both technical and conceptual parts, which requires a lot of time and work.

I kindly invited her multiple times to double check some of my work, but she had not done anything on the project since the end of the internship.

In the past few months she started having an attitude that I find disturbing. She replies to emails once in a while, proposing new conceptual points to explore, as if I were the student and she was the supervisor. On top of that, she ignores the invitations to double check my calculations, which would require actual work on her side.

Given that she did not make any actual contribution to the project, I am inclined to not include her as an author of any eventual publication. I think that it would be definitely fair to include her in the acknowledgments, but unfair to include her as an author.

What do you think about this? How would you inform her of this decision?


texts: If most universities in the U.S are non-profit, why are they so expensive?

texts:
Tuition can easily get in the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars for a 4-year degree. This is unarguably many times over what the university needs to cover the costs of offering their services. Why is this the case if they are usually run under a non-profit architecture?

Where is all this money going?


texts: Necessity of tenure for lifetime academic research

texts:
For context, I've been a postdoc in computer science for about 3 years.  I recently wrote a grant and was awarded a fellowship for 2 years.

I've heard from multiple sources that if I don't get a tenure-track position in the next two years it will become very difficult for me to have an academic research career.  But I don't need the kind of job security that allows me to get paid if I stop working—I just need some kind of agreement that I can keep my job while I'm productive.  This is pretty common in other jobs, so why in this case am I being told that it's basically tenure or nothing?


texts: Is it normal for adverts for US jobs to give much less information than European ones?

texts:
At the moment I'm looking for my next position (most likely postdoc level, potentially one step up from there).

When looking at advertised positions in Europe I generally expect to see a brief summary of what the job is about on the advert, and then have the ability to click through to see one or more multipage documents detailing the responsibilities of the post, the exact qualifications that are required and desirable, and so forth. Typically these detailed specifications will be used in the selection process - and so an applicant will use them to inform their application, making sure to address each point.

When looking at a couple of positions in the US, there has been the initial brief summary... and then nothing else. The entire job advert seems to consist of one paragraph giving an overview, plus some boilerplate about equal opportunities.

Is this normal? If so, what are the reasons? Since the selection criteria aren't being disclosed, how can an applicant go about identifying what attributes they need to highlight in their application?


texts: What's the net income of a W1/W2 german professor?

texts:
I've seen a job announcement where the salary was said to be comparable to the assistant/associate professor level W1/W2 in the German system, and I was wondering how much it would exactly make in terms of net income (i.e. after ALL taxes).
I found this link that states that for Western provinces, it was in 2007 between 3400 and 3900 euros gross per month. This other link states that in Hessen (which is where the position is based), the gross monthly salary is
5386 for W2 and 3901 for W1. Then, according to this calculator, a 3900 gross salary means 2167 euros net, after all taxes. So my questions are:

Do these numbers make sense?
Are there intermediary ranks between W1 and W2?
How negotiable is the starting rank in general?
Are there bonuses to take into account when you're single with no child?
Is the tax system identical for german and non-german?


texts: What are risks or disadvantages in uploading to figshare or related services?

texts:
Figshare lets researches publish figures and data for long-term archival and public access. I just found out about it and find the idea sympathetic. See for example their F.A.Q..

What risks are involved with publishing my data and figures at figshare? What are the disadvantages? Did anyone actively decide against doing so, and if so, why?


texts: Discovering mistakes in thesis after submission and printing

texts:
So here is my issue - I submitted my thesis 2 years ago and it was accepted and i was granted the M.S. degree (I am in the US, BTW).
Now, when I opened it to read some portions, I found some missing references to data tables, and otherwise some typos.
I am starting to freak out about this, because of the consequences. My question is this - can the university somehow "re-evaluate" my thesis and find it unacceptable? I am not sure about how it works in academia, any help would be appreciated.
Edit: My question is bit different than the others, as it is asking whether the university has the power to "re-evaluate" my thesis based on typos and omissions.


texts: How many "Cambridge"s in one line? (Citing a book from C.U.P.)

texts:
I just got the page proofs of an article I wrote that is to appear.  In it I cited a book, like this:

  Author, Title in Italics, Cambridge University Press, 1891.

In the page proof it looks like this:

  Author, Title in Italics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1891.

Obviously that's wrong and I will so notify them.

But I wonder: Does the renown of this particular publisher justify omitting to identify the city after the publisher's name when the city's name is actually a part of the publisher's name and everybody knows which "Cambridge" it is?  (This came from a "production company" that contracts with the journal, so maybe "everybody" doesn't include "production companies").  If the city must be named separately I'd be tempted to write

  Author, Title in Italics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1891.

which still relies on "everybody" to know this.

"MA" is an abbreviation promulgated by the United States Postal Service.  I had the impression that in England, postal addresses typically put the name of the county after the name of the city, separated by a comma, but that that probably wouldn't be done with Cambridge. If I did that, then "Cambridge" would appear three times in one line.  An alternative would be what I would do if I were sending a letter the old-fashioned way from America to someone in Cambridge and put "England" or "United Kingdom" after the comma (although for a letter I'd probably put the postal code after the city's name on the same line and "England" would be on the next line). (Somehow I feel more comfortable with "England" than "United Kingdom" since it's not only an entity created by politicians but also a geographic name that will persist even if the UK becomes defunct.  Or as someone once said "There'll always be an England." But maybe that's just personal taste.)  I suppose "England" would be harmless and probably no one would notice, but I would feel silly thinking someone would have to be told that's where Cambridge is.

What do people normally do when citing stuff from this particular renowned publisher?


texts: Should I suggest a time when professor want to schedule an interview, or just say I always available ?

texts:
I applied to a lab and a professor want to set up an interview (for the first time). In the reply email, he said that:

  "Please let me know when you are available. I am available on
  Monday-Friday, after XX:XX."

I would say when I am available:

  "I would available everyday from XX to XX".

Should I also suggest a timeblock or not ?

  "I would suggest that we meet on Friday at XX:XX."


texts: Students and postdocs not asking questions

texts:
During and after the talks and seminars in our dept. (~80 people, ~10 groups, ~40 postdocs+PhD+Master students), it is extremely rare to see postdocs or students asking questions. 90-95% of the questions are asked by senior people (mainly PIs or experienced permanent researchers).

This probably reflects an old culture of distance between the young and the senior, I believe it is a national (if not European) issue which is much less seen in the Anglo Saxon culture. Breaking this distance will surely increase the quality of our work globally.

The ambiance is generally relaxed in the entire lab, and nobody is blamed for stupid questions. Still, their silence is striking. And worse, it brings down the few (mainly international) students who sometime do ask questions: after a while they feel this "negative peer pressure" and stop asking.

We want to find a way out of it. One possibility under discussion is to force, right at the end of the talk, the first couple of questions from them. But it's not accepted yet. Do you think this could be a good idea?

Do you have suggestions about other strategies, both for the short (getting them to ask more questions) and long term (how can we remove this cultural barrier?)


texts: What does "engineering experience" entail

texts:
I'm a rising senior in high school and i applied for this engineering exposure program over the summer. My application didn't include any practical experience in the field, which I thought was fine because, as advertised, it was an EXPOSURE program. Anyway, I got accepted. So it should have been fine.

But the organizers made us do a conference call before camp began, and now I'm getting the impression that I actually needed experience (they had us fill out a form that asked us stuff like if we knew how to use a 3d printer, [insert program I don't know how to use], coding, etc.

I technically took classes on C++ and Java, but my teachers were subpar, so I'm not really sure if that would be helpful. I was under the impression that I was accepted because of my experience with the sciences (I took AP Bio, Chem, and both Physics C's), but it doesn't really seem like I'll be using those skills.

Right now I'm guessing I should pour all my time into coding better before camp starts? What should I do?

I'm asking here because I feel like people here would know how much weight qualifications and exerience actually hold. and honestly the engineering forum looked kind of intimidating.


texts: How do professors choose their summer salary?

texts: In the United States, most professors are paid by the university on a 9 month basis for teaching (Sep - May). During the summer months a professor is typically paid from their grants and other revenue sources. How is the summer salary chosen? E.g. if a professor is paid 10kUSD/month, can (s)he choose to be paid 20kUSD/month during the summer?


texts: How to explain to a student that it is common to include a supervisor as a co-author?

texts:
In my field of research, it is common to include a supervisor as a co-author of a student's PhD research related papers. A supervisor mainly contributes by helping to improve the writing of a paper, such as emphasising its contribution or clarifying the content, etc. Which means that a supervisor does not contribute anything directly related to the research carried out in a paper, for instance, a supervisor may not even understand a method used in a paper.

Based on all the answers of this question, it is clear this custom is not applied to all fields, and I am not trying to argue if it is correct to do so or not.

I want to know how a supervisor explains to a new PhD student that he/she should include a supervisor's name in his/her papers. What happens if a student refuses to follow a custom?

PS: when I started my PhD, I already knew about this custom, so my supervisor did not need to explain it to me. But how about those that don't know or know differently?


texts:
I, along with two fellow doctoral students, am about to publish a paper supervised by our professor. Our professor is listed as the last author, which of course is fair as he supervised the project.

One of us, student A, is listed as the first author, which there is not disagreement on. Student B is listed afterwards, and I am the third listed author.

The ordering of student B and I is alphabetical, nothing more. This is also reasonable, as we all believe that our contribution has been the same.

However, it is not listed in the paper that our contributions are the same. Should I insist on this before submitting the paper?


texts: Ideality of collaborating with professor against backdrop of commitments

texts:
Soon, I'll be meeting a professor_A base at a University in my home country to discuss about my plans and projects that may be of interest to me(us) during my time back home.

Ideally, I am looking to be involved in industry for 12 months to 18 months before returning to my alma mater for an honours program with a prominent professor_B who has extended this offer to me despite me not meeting the formal prerequisite for this program but which is predicated on a strong statement of purpose to clear the bureaucratic hurdle.

During this time, I am looking to be actively committed with professor_A outside of standard industry hours to which I will be upholding strictly.

I have two questions:

1) In this context, is the practice of collaboration(unpaid) in the field of academia outside of industry office hours ever frowned upon? The research field is applied math so much of the work revolves around "pen and paper".
Given that professor_A is aware of my plans yet extends an in-person meeting may suggests he is at least open to negotiations.

2) How long should a collaboration be?
Would 12 to 18 months be a healthy period? I'm looking to develop mathematical insights/ modelling and computational technique while gaining research experiences.


texts: How do I address a colleague in an 3-way email with a student?

texts:
In my department, professors go by their first names with students and each other. My colleagues in some other departments go by their title and last name. To convey their preference, when referring to such a colleague in conversation with a student, I will use the professor's name and title (e.g., "You should ask Prof. Walker.").

If I am on a 3-way email involving such a professor and a student we are jointly advising, do I address the professor by their first name, title, or not at all?


texts:
I need to cite different pages for the same source in Harvard style so here's an example of what I am doing (a hypothetical example):

  John (2010, p. 10) notes that marketing should not be confused with just the idea of selling people goods and services as it's misleading. The same author claims that marketing is really about value (p. 11) so he coined the term 'relationship marketing' (p. 12).

Is this an acceptable format? I need to find a way to cite specific pages (to pinpoint specific information) instead of simply mentioning all pages as in 'John (2010, pp. 10-12)' at the beginning.