texts:
I ("interviewer") am a mathematician and plan to publish an interview with another (very famous, much more senior) mathematician ("interviewee") in a periodical of a local mathematical organization.
I already recorded a rather informal interview/conversation (a few years back, actually) and we are now turning this into an interview-style text.
Two questions:

This text certainly does not adhere to any journalistic standards (which I am sure to exist) required of an interview. We now freely change order and contents of questions and answers to make the text clearer and hopefully more interesting; the interviewee can of course object to include anything of what was said and even add stuff that they forgot to mention in the original conversation etc. I do not desire to meet any journalistic standard but would like to avoid giving a wrong impression by calling the text "interview". Is there a standard disclaimer for such a conversation? Is it enough to just mention "this text is based on a conversation recorded in ... and edited in ..."? (I want to call it "interview" and not "conversation" or whatever.)

Who is the "author" of such a thing? The interviewer (who asks the question and types and edits it)? This seems to be the case in a "proper newspaper interview" (which this text is not). Or the interviewee (who provides the relevant part, the answers?) Or is it a joint work?


texts: Why is Scottish BSc (Hons) 4 years while English BSc (Hons) is 3 years?

texts: Why BSc (Hons) in Scotland (in Computer Science but in other subjects probably too) is 4 years long and in England BSc (Hons) is 3 years long? Does it cover more material? Does it mean that MSc in Scotland is shorter than in England? In general, how long is MSc in these countries? Is it 1 years or 2 years?


texts: Can I publish an article or thesis about my research without supervisor?

texts:
I am a bachelor student majoring on computer engineering and working on robotics. Last year as a part of my research, I worked together with a student and one teacher as a supervisor, so we published our article for conference together. But later we finished our research and all of us left the team. Now I am working on other research problem by myself and got some results and want to publish it. But this time I am alone, I have no supervisor on that research problem or any student partner. So I'd like to ask can I submit a paper for conference/journal by myself?
P.S. My current research project has no relationship with old one.


texts: Is Bsc from Netherlands in Computer Science eligible for M S from USA

texts: Hi My son will be joining Bsc in computer science from TU Delft Netherlands after completing 12 years of school education from India. Will he be eligible for MS after his graduation from. US universities?


texts: If co-instructors gave different syllabi with different grading schemes, is this generally considered a valid reason to challenge grade?

texts:
Summary: I am a STEM graduate student taking a soon-ending class that was divided into 3 parts each under different professors, Alice, Bob and Carol.

There is a conflict in the grading schemes set forth by the different professors' syllabuses (plural).  Omitting most of the details as being too specific, the result is that one syllabus will grade more harshly than the other, and that is the syllabus that they are proposing to use for the final grades.

Given my current grade, I will pass the course either way. That said, I believe I can make a case that the professors should follow the more generous grading scheme, which would benefit me significantly. Is conflicting grading schemes across different syllabi generally considered a valid reason to challenge a grade?


texts: Etiquette of introducing yourself to a professor

texts:
I am writing my master thesis at a university in Germany. I am looking into universities and institutes where I could carry out a PhD. One of the possibilities I have been looking into is a group at an university from Switzerland.

This group’s head will be tomorrow at my university, acting as a second examiner at a thesis defense. I think this is a good opportunity to introduce myself personally and maybe ask about the outlook of doing a PhD at his group.

What is the ettiquete in such situations? I think it is not uncommon to find yourself in an academic event with someone you are interested to work under.


texts: What should a student do immedately after he or she is accepted into a graduate program

texts:
Can someone provide advise as to what a student should do immediately after being accepted into a graduate program and has identified with a professor?

Usually students are accepted in the middle of their final year of undergrad. A window of time opens between now and when the first semester begins.

I wonder what should a student optimally do during this time to smoothly transit into the designated graduate program.

Some thoughts:

Build up relationships with other graduate students, professors
Start reading papers on the topic of focus
Start preparing course work for first year of graduate school
Start identifying specific research area and pin point thesis topic and open questions
Get to know the locale

But ultimately this question is directed at people who have went through this process. What can a student do now in the little time that he or she has to smoothly enter the graduate program?


texts: How does calibrating syllabus based on the requirements of the industry happen?

texts:
Often the industry finds that students graduating from a particular department do not possess the skill-set required to perform well in their company. While research can at least afford to be outside of the interests of the industry, academic syllabus taught to students for their bachelor's or master's has to cater to the demands of the industry.

What steps are taken by a university to ensure that its students are employable and industry-fit?
Does this recalibration happen at all, and if yes, how often?
Not every requirement of the industry could be met in an academic syllabus. For example, programming languages cannot be taught in class simply because the industry needs them. What points should academicians keep in mind when addressing industry's expectations from a university?


texts: How PhD projects are acquired in pure mathematics

texts: In pure mathematics (please only answer for this field, as other areas are different), what is the ratio of PhD students finding a project on their own, versus working closely with their supervisor to find a project versus the supervisor giving their student a project?


texts: Can a student seek redress for the administration neglecting their paperwork?

texts:
(Breakdown of a larger issue - full story here)

Following the (delayed) approval of my thesis paperwork by my professor, the review staff of my small (~20 grad students?) department took weeks to give me each round of revisions. After the second revision, having already had my thesis for nearly the entire semester, the reviewer admitted to "forgetting" about my paperwork for over a month. She followed that up by telling me she was shelving my paperwork to "focus on other students who still have a chance of graduation this semester." Even though I should have graduated the semester previous, and had been waiting months for her to finish the review so I could get my thesis bound (required by the graduation process).

The reviewer was fired shortly after the end of that semester, the new reviewer and I got it finished up in just over a week, and the dean of the college wrote a letter to the graduate school requesting my graduation be back-dated. This was refused with only blanket statements about 'policy'. Obviously I should have escalated the issue much sooner, but I wasn't world-weary enough to realize that "the people in charge" were being so negligent and unprofessional, or to realize that I could do anything about it. I think students in general are often too intimidated by the people in the 'ivory tower' to speak out and ask for better treatment.

How can students know when they are being treated unfairly? How can they get their complaints taken seriously and appropriately escalate issues through their department/college without being ignored? Is there any recourse for them - a way to get the school to correct the issue?


texts: Preprint Best Practices in Computer Science

texts:
I truly believe in the benefits of pre-print distribution, however I'm not sure how to exactly proceed. Here are some questions I have in mind:

When should I make them available? Before peer-review? After camera-ready?
Where should I publish them? ResearchGate keeps asking for my pre-prints, although most of the ones I read come from Arxiv. And there's always my personal website at the University.
How do I handle versioning, or how many versions should I keep? Would that disperse any potential citations?
What happens to the pre-print after the paper is published? Should the pre-print make a reference to the publication DOI?

I would specially like to know what's the "state of the practice" in Computer Science.


texts: Am I breaking any law by digitalizing a curve from a plot on a scientific Journal if I cite the source and I mention the tool I used?

texts:
Am I breaking any law or etiquette/guideline by:

digitalizing a curve from a plot published on a scientific Journal
using the data (the curve) on a paper I am submitting to another journal. I to compare the curve to my curve in my plot, I make sure I cite it and I say the tool I used to extract the data.

EDIT: I am speaking about using a digitizer (like a program that given a published figure with a curve and the coordinate axis it gets you the data).
It is a general question, since many journals are international, publisher might be  from UK, author from USA and I (the one trying to digitize the data) could be from New Zealand.


texts: What is the proper email etiquette when contacting potential supervisors on short notice?

texts: I am currently an MSc student in the UK and am hoping to apply for PhD at the same institution. I have found some potential supervisors but was wondering what is the correct way of wording my email given that I have only about 3 weeks till the application deadline and it's currently the holiday season (end of term). Some things to note: 1) my current field of study is immunology and I'm hoping to apply for a PhD in Medical Sciences, 2) it won't be possible to meet the supervisors in person since I'm back in the States for the holidays.


texts: How to work on a joint math paper effectively?

texts:
Now, I am working on a joint paper with some collaborators. The research is about mathematics.
This is my first experience of working in collaboration.

Another author has sent a manuscript about our work. The manuscript is about 40 pages. When I checked some part of the manuscript, it takes a lot of time to read the content and unfortunately, there are a lot of gaps and mathematical mistakes in it.
In addition, there are also many typos buried inside the manuscript.

Although, I can fix some part and adding some details and proof, I still do not understand about 50% of the manuscript.
I have to mention that we can communicate via email only.

The following are my questions:

How do you manage to work collaboratively in research?
How do you detect the mistake and fixing it quickly?
When should we keep trying to understand and fixing the argument or rather asking the explanation directly to the collaborators? Is 4 days-checking without asking question too short?
How to judge``grey part", like simpler proof, simplified definition, notation, sentences, etc?

Thank you for your advice.


texts: How to get a postdoc without publications in "top" venues?

texts:
I am a Ph.D. student in computer vision at a North American university. I have a very hard and limited problem in my thesis and I could not publish in top conferences such as CVPR, ICCV, PAMI,... I published 3 IEEE conferences and I submitted 1 journal (under revision) in PRL. I was very autonomous (99%).

I am looking for a postdoc in north America, Japan or Singapore. I remark that all positions demand that the candidate should have published in top conferences or top journals.

So, can I have a postdoc opportunity or I have to forget it and  look for an industrial post?


texts: How to develop your own argument in a literature review?

texts: In a literature review, we look at recent publications and put what other researchers have said in this context. However, how can I develop my own argument? Should I write it with my own words or should the argument be based in what others have said?


texts:
I am in the process of writing a literature review as part of an application for a master's course and would like to cite Facebook as being the world's most active/ popular social media (or 2nd or 3rd happy with it so long as it is accurate).
Googling 'worlds most active social network' brings back multiple results from a variety of websites but no official press release of numbers from Facebook, or what I can see quotable articles. When faced with a problem like this:

Is there an advised, reliable way to find and cite the data? Only from a certain list of websites?
Is this fact so universal that it need not be cited?

Thanks in advance


texts: Are US universities generally reluctant to admit PhD students who already hold a PhD?

texts:
I am planning to do a Ph.D. in Math Education from one of the prominent universities in western Europe, and then do a Ph.D. in EEE/CSE.
The reason being, I have a STEM background but due to clinical depression and weak math background, I decided to drop out of the MSc in CS program. My age is running out and I feel that getting a Ph.D. in Education is a safer option, as Education is based on social science, and it is relatively less risky than getting involved in Ph.D. in CSE as science research regularly fails, and there is also a risk that some other guy may be already working on what I am getting started with. However, I am feeling a deep obsession with studying CSE and getting a Ph.D. in CSE.
My plan is to start a Ph.D. in math Education and repair my math and CS background simultaneously.
Are US universities reluctant in admitting Ph.D. students who already hold a Ph.D.?
If Yes, why and how to bypass that?


texts: Abstract was selected for 'oral abstracts' competition, in a shortlist of 5 presenters. I was announced winner at the end of the competition. Following the event I have been emailed to pass on my bank details as the beneficiary of the £1500 prize. My co-authors are all seniors/co-supervisors. What should I do? Should I email them all to discuss splitting up the share? Or should I not raise the matter at all, to avoid embarrassment. From reading responses to a similar post before, I get the impression that since the award is for best Oral Presentation, and I am the only 'student' it should probably just go to me. At the same time, I don't want to just keep it without mentioning it to anybody.


texts: How to quickly understand the main idea when reading a paper?

texts:
I have problems in reading papers, specifically papers where the subject is not so new to me and I am familiar with the problem which the writer wants to solve.

How to find the those parts which talk about the main idea?

When I go to their suggested work to understand the main idea, I have to have first read their previous sections, because they define some notations and definition which they use them on their suggested work. When I go to read those parts to understand the notation. I am not sure if my reading method is good. because after reading the notations and definitions , I have to start their suggested method section. This one has its own challenges too.

My advisor said you should understand the main idea of a paper in one hour, or at maximum in two hours. But I need at least 5 hours.

(Maybe help: I am reading a paper in the field of computer networks.)


texts: Where can one find jobs where companies hire mathematicians where they can do (not necessarily mainstream) research?

texts: Several companies (google, IBM etc.) are known to hire mathematicians with advanced degrees (Ph.D. and so) to work in different sectors. Many such jobs are also research jobs, if not all. But I almost never find any such job advertisements in the standard mathjob sites I know of, including mathjobs.org, euro-math-soc.eu/jobs, nordic math jobs etc. Where can I find these type of job advertisements?


texts: Co-authorship for not very involved supervisor

texts:
I have now completed my PhD by research.

I received support from my supervisor in the form of advice on my chapters (for which I am indebted to him; we have a very good working relationship).

The advice mostly related to clarity of arguments. My supervisor was not actively involved in my research and he did not amend or add to any chapters. He just provided broad advice on the contents of each chapter so that I can fulfil the requirements of my degree.

In this case, should I credit him as a joint author in any paper I may publish from my dissertation? I cannot see a case for joint copyright of my work!


texts: Number formatting: use of digit separators in manuscripts

texts:
I am reading through a manuscript that I am co-authoring with a colleague and I noticed that it used digit separators/marks for all the numbers (i.e. 2,500 instead of 2500). Maybe it's just me but I think this style started after my colleague started doing a post-doc in the U.S.

I have checked the author guidelines of a couple of journals that are likely submission targets in our field and they don't seem to include anything about decimal/digit separators. I also checked my previously published articles and noticed that numeric values were not edited (by press editors that is) to include digit separators.

Thus my question, is there a general rule-of-thumb regarding number formatting, especially considering digit separators?


texts: Does publishing a paper with a non-edu email influence the review process?

texts:
I saw many good papers on good journals (by Springer, Elsevier, IEEE, etc.) with a Gmail as a corresponding email.

I'm about to submit a paper and since I don't have (yet) an academic email, I would like to know how bad is it to publish a paper with a Gmail account. Does it have influence on the author's reputation or the reviewing process?


texts: Is it good to take a project even if the topic is not what I'm interested?

texts:
One of my university professors offered me a research assistant position which would require me to study for a master degree.

I really wanted to take it but there are few problems for me.

I don't know that professor.
I don't know what career I could take after finishing a master degree.
I feel like other people are able to make more money early. (Even if I don't care about money).
Money problem mostly because I still need find a job to support myself.

Even though it got a full fee waiver, I couldn't change the research topic for the whole master degree.

So I guess my question is should I really take it even though I'm not really interested in that particular project and worried about my future career.


texts: Is is necessary to include computer code into thesis?

texts:
During my research, I have developed some computer codes to optimize the coefficients of theoretical equations against the experimental data. The computer codes was developed to make things easier through automation which I would otherwise need to do it manually (rather painstakingly).

Do I need to include the codes that I have developed in my thesis, or it is just sufficient to provide an executable (.exe) in a disc?


texts: What does UTC-12 timezone mean for a submission deadline?

texts:
I look at this website: https://time.is/UTC-12

and it tells me that there's a 6 hour time difference between UTC-12 and ET.

I know about an AoE timezone that as long as it's xPM in any part of the world you are still within the deadline. Is this the same? I would really appreciate a quick response for this short question.


texts: I am writing a PhD thesis in literature. I have covered all areas in about 120 pages. Does the length of a PhD thesis matter even if it has covered all the areas mentioned in the synopsis?


texts: Is non-degree studies a viable path to a master's degree?

texts:
I had a very rocky undergraduate math career that ended with me having around a B- average due to undiagnosed/untreated anxiety issues. This means my final GPA is around a 2.8.
Would non-degree studies be of benefit for admission to a master's degree program if I do comparatively better in my studies and develop a working relationship with professors whose work interests me? I am leaning towards an economics or a mathematics master's program at the moment.
Also, will my diagnosis hold me back during the admissions process should I decide to pursue an advanced degree after satisfactorily completing non-degree studies at the graduate level?


texts: How does Lecturer in UK compare to other systems?

texts:
I have never lived in UK, I did my graduate studies in the US. I was a postdoc in Europe, but the situation there seemed grim, I applied for a few positions only, one of them was this junior prof job in Germany (in theory, an assist prof equivalent of US ) though I figured out despite it being an assistant professorship, it is somewhere near the lecturer position of USA and a bit post-doc? So definitely not as an assistant prof equivalent of a US system in practice. Perhaps a research leader junior prof position could work better in that sense. But how does it work in UK? Currently I am in my country of origin, to be fair, the work is good, practically Tenured (what I need to do is very minimal to complete the track), there are some opportunities for research that I need to apply to (I am certain some grants would be easy with my background meaning a PhD abroad, if not the more challenging), but the university / department and students lack research vigor in every way And research is all I want to do to be honest, it is not a top notch school, I simply wasn't able to attend to some interviews while I was living abroad for top tier private unis and now positions are canceled, and the top tier state schools require just too much paperwork which might take years. I am happy with the job in certain ways, but it is not fulfilling for me in research and standing.
Now, I see this great fit in UK, at a top university, I know the professors there, it is so fitting to my research line etc. Though I don't know anything about the system and how much job safety there is. It is for about one year only, but with a chance to extend the contract. Now that I have an actual job to lose, and a pandemic, I feel like I could use some more information on

where the lecturers stand,  what is the usual timeline,  are people
offered tenure track positions afterwards?  how long it takes?  what
it requires?  How much research is involved? (it implies both
coursework and grad students/research opportunity) etc in the ad.

Also, I have never been confident in just asking for a job, so I saw this ad online (I always only apply through listed ads), but I know many people put ads only after they have their strong candidate. Although I know the prof there I don't want to ask, at the same time I feel a bit uneasy applying if they already have a candidate. How does it usually work? Also, not sure whether they would prefer someone living abroad during a pandemic.


texts: BSc in CPSC or CIS: How will this affect Grad School applications (Stanford, UBC)?

texts:
I am trying to decide whether or not I should pursue an undergrad in Computer Science (link to curriculum)
or an undergrad in Computer Information Systems (link to curriculum).

Specifically, I'd be curious to know if picking one over the other could be problematic later, when applying to a masters program in computer science (the CIS degree is much less theory heavy). I am interested in Standford's MS program, but if I go with the CIS program, I am concerned I will be filtered out in the selection process because I don't hold a brick-and-mortar CS degree with a heavy theoretical focus.

As a mature adult, I have financial obligations that constrain my ability take on studies full time, so I am leaning towards the CIS degree because it is offered through distance education (the CPSC degree is not), and subsequently applying to Stanford's Masters program which is also offered through distance education.

FWIW, I currently work as a developer full-time, and in my younger years I worked on a lot of random jobs, mostly non-applicable to my computer science interests.


texts: Is there evidence of effects of votes of no confidence on enrollment?

texts: Is there any evidence that a successful vote of no confidence on the president of a small college will have a negative impact on enrollment?  This warning is being used by the administration of my college to encourage faculty not to vote no confidence.


texts:
So I'm a Physics undergrad about to apply for my master's. I'm currently making my CV and I was listing out the reading projects that I've done and was confused if I should:
List out all the books I used for the project
OR
Link in a website which has the books + all the resources (i.e. lectures and notes) I made for the project
Which is preferable and why?
Clarifications

What is a reading project? A project in which I undertake guided reading under a faculty. After reading certain sections we discuss the contents after which I'll be asked to deliver a short talk about it. I may or may not make notes dependent on time constraints.
Where am I applying? I'm applying to universities in Germany for an MSc degree in Physics
What resources am I trying to list? I'm trying to list the books/papers I used to study it. At the max, it has 4 entries.


texts: Is it a violation of copyright if I draw and publish a figure very similar to another person's published figure?

texts:
I am pursuing a PhD (computer science) from one of the reputed Indian universities. I have prepared some white papers for publication in coming journals. I prepared these papers by myself. I referred various links and study guides, books etc.

After getting these papers published, I received one notice from the editorial staff of publication that I have violated the contents/copyright law. They provided me some contents and images (they said violated areas).
I am surprised because I prepared all the things by myself. I have already mentioned the referred links, books etc. in the publication.

How can I avoid content violation in my own written material?


texts: Should I (assistant professor) call undergraduates by first name or Mr/Ms

texts:
There are lots of questions about how undergrads should address professors, but this is about the opposite. Context is North American research university.

My instinct and personal preference is to ask undergraduates to address me as Professor Lastname or Dr. Lastname until I let them know otherwise. And I have no problem with explicitly saying this in my syllabus for a class.

But then sometimes I think "actually why aren't I addressing students as Mr./Ms./Mx/(or some honorofic) Lastname".

Should I do so? Do you do so?


texts: Is it acceptable, or advisable, to include self-assessed ratings of your skills on your CV

texts:
I am in the process of updating my CV. Since I often get labeled as "the bioinformatician" I get to play with many different languages and technologies, and similarly what people expect from a bioinformatician varies from person to person. So I figured it would be a good idea to indicate how much I feel I know in respective fields/languages.

Inspired by this question, I came to wonder whether or not its acceptable to have self-assessed ratings of your technical skills, such as: proficiency programming languages, familiarity with relevant software etc.

My own feeling is that such ratings are useful to indicate what you feel most confident or comfortable with. It would also be useful to show any potential future employer the level of competence you have in different fields. If you think about it a bit, it is common to have some type of rating for the languages one speaks, so I think an analogue to programming language proficiency should not be that alienating.

On the other hand there is the risk of rendering your CV like, as a friend of mine put it, a role-playing game character sheet.

Is it common to have such ratings on skills? Are there any potential problems with it?

Edit: What I was thinking is a small listing something like:


texts: Would lackluster grades in Applied math hurt an application for Pure Math PhD programs?

texts: The question is pretty much the title. To start off, I'm not really worried about my record in pure mathematics classes/research. However, solely for the purpose of having a career backup I've also picked up a second major in applied math and several CS courses. I generally have little passion for these classes and ended up with a fair share of B's. My overall GPA is still fairly high but I was wondering if these grades would hurt my application to pure math programs and if I should address this in my personal statement.


texts: Do the editors of journals really know about expertise of reviewers?

texts:
Recently my supervisor received review request from very reputed journal of Elsevier and he passed it to me because he is not much  familiar with the field in which  paper was written, but as I was independently doing work in that field so I think he was right passing it to me for review.

So on what basis the editor of journal could have decided to send review request to my supervisor who is not expert in that field ?


texts: What information to put in Bibliography for a Online Course

texts:
In preparation for my honours thesis, I recently completed a (free) Online Course on the broader field, presented by a world class expert.
I would like to (am ethically required to?) put this in my bibliography,
though I will not cite it directly, instead citing papers that it referred to.
What information should I put in my bibliography?
I'm not interested in the exact formatting, I'm using software to generate that.
I'm interested in what information I should put.

What category of material is it? It isn't a lecture as it contained 16 lectures and a bunch of assignments etc. Is it a Internet Document? A Unpublished Work?

Should the teaching assistants be listed as Co-authors? They wrote the assignments.

Should I not be putting it in the bibliography at all, but instead acknowledging it more informally?


texts:
I knew from some newspapers that Taiwanese education system prefers rote memorization over creativity. This culture was imported from Japan. This problem is also present in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea.

Although late, China seems to be the only country which is reforming its rote learning culture.

How can rote learning, in the universities of those countries, affect someone who is not used to with rote learning?
How do they maintain their quality of higher education with rote learning (apparently, a lot of universities from South East Asian countries are sitting in the top 50 positions)?

Note. I am talking about computer science.


texts: What would I do if an editor didn't publish my manuscript?

texts: My paper was accepted to be published as a chapter in a SPRINGER book after it was presented at an IEEE-sponsored conference and gaining a high score form their peer-reviewers. The editor of the book series (also the chairman of the conference) invited me to submit an extended version of the paper (at least 30% of new ideas) so, I emailed the final manuscript but didn't get any feed-back until I figured out that the book is now available online but the title of my article doesn't appear in its table of contents! I asked the book editor about this issue but still haven't gotten an answer.


texts:
I have submitted a paper in a journal 19 months ago and the manuscript is still under review. Up to present, I have contacted the editorial manager several times but the results have not changed. They always reply "your manuscript is still under review." What should I do in this case?
Thank you for your comments.


texts: Should I restate acronyms in each section?

texts:
I'm writing my masters thesis and have the following formatting problem: should I restate acronyms once for each new large section?

When I for example introduce the term "evolutionary psychology" (which has the acronym EP) in the introduction, I state the acronym so the sentence reads like:

  ...has roused significant interest in the emerging field of evolutionary psychology (EP).

In the following sections, should the EP acronym also be stated in the same manner upon first mention, or can I rely on the reader to have read the introduction and know that it means evolutionary psychology?


texts: Whom to cite when describing an argument in another paper that builds upon yet another paper?

texts:
There is a research Paper Y which presents some experimental result. The author has cited Paper X to justify and explain the reason of that result. I am writing a review paper and included the result of Paper Y.

Can I cite Paper X in the review paper to give the justification of the result by Paper Y as already done by the Paper Y itself? Or will it be somehow called mindless copying from Paper Y? And should I cite Paper Y also (along with X) while including the correlation between result (Y) and the reason (X) as the author of Y was the first to correlate the two?


texts: Is having a specialised PhD topic a pitfall when applying to be a lecturer of STEM education, even with relevant practical experience?

texts:
This is in a similar vein as What are the potential pitfalls of having a PhD, but where that was specifically targeted as entering industry, this is targeted at becoming a lecturer of STEM education (effectively a 'teacher-trainer').

Is having a specialised PhD topic a pitfall when applying to be a lecturer of STEM education?

To give an actual example*, I have completed a PhD in atmospheric physics (with a bit of programming thrown in) and 14 year high school teaching experience, I have applied to be a STEM Education lecturer - will that PhD be considered too specialised?

**note: this is just a real life example, not a self help question.*


texts: Perils of making a PhD application merely to get funding

texts:
I know many undergraduate students who are often confused whether to make an MS or PhD application when applying to US universities. They often have the credentials required in a PhD application - good grades, UG-level research, good SOP, etc.

In general, whenever there is a conflict of MS versus PhD, reasonably good students deem it safer to apply for a PhD. While there are lesser positions for PhD, an admit ensures funding and tuition waiver. Later many of those students quit PhD midway and graduate with a master's degree.

What are the risks involved when bachelor's students apply to PhD for purely monetary reasons? Will the tuition waiver cancelled and the students be required to pay the entire fees when they quit? Or do universities bear this loss due to admission decisions that did not work out? Are there any other penalties involved?


texts: How to read and take notes on research papers

texts:
In each research paper, there are a lot of things that I want to highlight for later use such as definitions, explanations and concepts... While most of them focus on the topic of the paper, there are some relating to a different or broader topics, e.g. a paper about investigating performance of a specific system may introduce different benchmarks and metrics for performance evaluation and explain why those approaches are applicable for this specific situation.

Normally, I just highlight all of them, put some notes directly into the paper or using Evernote. However, when I want to look for all highlights and notes about one specific topic, I find it difficult as they scatter in different papers and documents. So, are there any tools or techniques to affectively highlighting important points and group them by topic while reading research paper?


texts: Are 16 schools too many for a professor to provide recommendation letters to?

texts:
I plan to apply to approximately 16 schools and am wondering whether that's too many for my recommendation letter providers.

It's happened before that a professor of my friend refused to provide all letters for him because they're too many. They refused to send all the LoR and cut it from 10+ to about five finally. It would be a disaster if the LoR provider changes his/her mind in the end. Also, I don't want to bother my professor that much.

I believe my professors are nicer than him, but still don't know what's a suitable amount of required schools.

I'm applying for master programs and the 16 selections are range from dream to match to safe, with about five in each category. I failed last year and thus I chose a safer (and might be a bit unnecessary) plan.


texts: Submitting a paper without your supervisor knowing, ask for help

texts:
I am stuck and I need your experience, ideas, and help.

Background story. I have a supervisor who is giving me critics and always lowers my confidence. For example, when last year I wrote a paper for a workshop by myself, he told me I suggest you not to submit because you will burn your name and this is horrible works, etc. He then said if you insist on sending it don't put my name!!! He also didn't allow me to apply for a doctoral symposium (the most prestigious one, he said you won't benefit).
After a year, I was really disappointed in my own work, he was on holiday, and I thought my work is valueless. He also criticizes me for not publishing anything.

My issue:
He was on sick leave, there was a conference, and I had some work that if not for this conference, it would be useless for anywhere else. The conference is a C level(computer science) but the only conference in this area of work and all important people in the community are there. I wrote a paper, and because I was really disappointed I submitted it to get some feedbacks. I mentioned my intention of sending the paper to him in an email, probably he didn't see anyway. As a result, he wasn't there and I submitted the paper, now it got a conditional acceptance. This is my first time writing a paper and I was new to the submission. The conference was double blind, and that was why I submitted it anyway. I didn't know where I should put his name or how to submit, I did it anyway.

Problem:
Now I am scared to tell him about the conditional acceptance. Should I tell him or just refuse from doing the revisions and acceptance? How can I include his name(I thought initially it would be in the camera ready version, but the email says it is just me as the author)? What should I do?
Instead of being happy for my first paper,  I am worried and close to nervous breakdown. What should I do? Please help me.


texts: I caught several of my students plagiarizing. Could it be my fault as a teacher?

texts:
I have been teaching for three years now. This year, for the first time, I caught multiple students in a class (out of 50) either handing in the task of a colleague or copying the majority of someones work.

Now I've started to question myself whether this could be on me in any way. Could I have caused this behaviour by something I said? Am I getting paranoid, or was this just a coincidence or the usual abnormal behaviour of some students?

For more context: All students in this class are going to be teachers. In the first lecture I mention some e-learning resources including the online library of all master's thesis of the faculty.

Additional information to answer some comments (some comments are now in chat): This is a course at university level. In this University cheating is -- on paper -- taken as a serious offense. Meaning, if you get caught cheating it will be noted in your examination record and you have to repeat the whole class. Apparently, not all students know this.

I mention the online library in this course because we are discussing electronic materials in this course. One topic of the course is using "digital tools" for teaching. For me this includes using existing resources for preparing classes.

I checked my slides from the introduction. I did not have a "do not plagiarise note in them". Although, I believe that this should be not necessary.

I have to admit that I might invite them since I do not change the tasks between semesters. The reason for this is that I quite like them and that I have the feeling that the output of the tasks will be useful for them in the future.


texts: Why is there such variation in PhD length internationally?

texts:
I'm an undergrad in Australia, and at this stage I want to go on to do further study in maths (or maybe physics/CS, still have a few years till then).

Should I do so, I imagine that I will want to complete a PhD overseas. Possibly at a university in the US or maybe Oxbridge in the UK.

In Australia, PhDs typically take 3 or 4 years, and I would be eligible to go straight into a PhD upon completion of my undergraduate degree (it is research focused and includes an honours year, see here).

But, much of what I have found for overseas institutions has been in the range of 5-7 years, or maybe a 3-4 year PhD with a few years doing a master's degree beforehand.

Does this indicate that the level of rigour and amount of work produced is significantly different for various PhD programs, or is it the case that some programs are more relaxed and simply spread the same amount of work over a longer period of time?


texts: what do you do if your PhD advisor publishes a solo paper on your topic?

texts:
I was working with my advisor on a research topic for six months and we had some results. The important idea was his, but the initial idea was mine and we worked on it together. Now my advisor has published the results without my name in the authors. The paper is in an important conference.

What do I do ? Is this normal ? Should I talk to my advisor about how I get my name in a paper ? How do I approach that topic ?

I'm his only PhD student and he has joined the department recently.

Edit : The paper was written by my advisor but we derived the results together, although his contribution was more important. He included my name in acknowledgements. Should I risk upsetting my relationship with my advisor over this ?


texts:
My viva is coming up in a few days and I'm a bit worried. I'm in a UK institution.

I want to know how technical will the questions be? I won't be able to remember complicated proofs even though I wrote them, and even though I am going through my thesis. It's a painful process re-reading everything.

Surprisingly, there is no information online about math PhD vivas in the UK. So I have no idea what to expect.


texts: How relevant is it, if updates to a journal paper are not reflected on third party websites?

texts: My friend published a paper. After few months he found some error present. He asked the journal editor for a correction, made the changes and replaced the old version with the new one. The old journal paper is still present in websites other than the journal. Will these websites replace the old with the corrected new paper? If not, will it be a problem?


texts: What foreign carriers can I use under the open skies agreement?

texts:
I'm currently trying to book an academic international flight that I'm planning to get reimbursed by a US government-funded institution. The minimal rate with a US carrier is almost $1000, whereas the rate with certain foreign companies is about $600.

I looked at this link and it has a provision that flight on foreign carriers is allowed if either there are no domestic options available (which is not the case for me) or (clause b) if it is allowed under the "open skies agreement", which seems to be a mess of conditions and exceptions which I don't completely understand.

Is there a clear way or a clear heuristic to decide whether a given itinerary is allowed for reimbursed travel?


texts: How I can subscribe to conference/seminar/workshop alerts?

texts: Can anybody please provide me link from where I can subscribe to alerts for international conferences, seminar,  workshop etc or postdoc positions ? This could be very useful for me as I generally miss important conferences/seminars/workshops.


texts: How to cite an authorless report in JabRef/Bibtex

texts:
I am learning to use bibtex/jabref in the context of a literature review and would like to cite the following report:

https://www.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/379567.pdf

The report is compiled by the USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers) and does not have an explicit author. In the summary report it is mentioned that this report was a result of "workshops" with a "panel" of experts. It includes the expert's names however no indication whether they actually contributed to writing the report itself.

The way I'm logging this into JabRef is as follows:

@TechReport{USACE2015,
  author      = {{US Army Corps of Engineers}},
  title       = {North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive: resilient adaptation to increasing risk physical depth damage function summary report},
  institution = {US Army Corps of Engineers},
  year        = {2015},
  file        = {:10A_PhysicalDepthDmgFxSummary_26Jan2015.pdf:PDF},
}

However, I'm a bit annoyed that I have to mention USACE in two distinct required fields, namely the author and the institution. Is there a more correct way to cite "authorless" technical reports using bibtex/jabref? Perhaps this is not a technical report at all?

Thanks in advance for your help


texts: Publication ethics - rights of a co-author to access full data

texts:
Institute II is setting up a benchmark project under the lead of main-author MM. 20 other developers participate, run their methods without having access to ground truth data and also MM contributes with his methods results.

A paper is written by MM. Is it the right of one or all of the other 20 developers (results have been submitted to MM already, so there is no reason that tuning/overfitting can happen) that he gets access to GT data to check if the analyses of the results are reasonable?

The best source for publication ethics known to me is Cope, the Committee on publication Ethics. They have a document for author guidlines (PDF), where it is recommended that an author submits "A declaration that that person takes responsibility for the integrity of the paper".

This is like always in Ethics only a recommendation, the journal obviously has to do here the final decision.

In my opinion I can try to get access to the GT by writing MM a mail, nevertheless if not granted, I cannot personally assure the integrity of the paper and have to retract my authorship. Or I get in contact with the editor of the journal if MM is not cooperative and let him decide.

Am i right about my conclusions? Are there other strong widely followed ethical guidelines about this issue?

Thanks for further recommondations.


texts:
Most papers do not specify a separate license for the source code, so presumably it would be licensed under the same terms as the rest of the paper. Typically, this means that the copyright lies with the publisher. Then,

As a reader, do I need permission from the publisher to use source code contained in journal articles?
Would using the source code be considered fair use in the US? What about countries that do not have comparable laws?
As an author, what should I do if I want the code I publish to be freely usable by others?


texts: Should I explain the type of a graph in my Masters thesis?

texts:
I've conducted a survey for my masters thesis and would like to show the results as a box plot:

(The x-axis lists different skill / familarity levels, ranging from "none" to "expert")

Should I mention that this graph is a box plot (in the caption or the surrounding text) so that people unfamiliar with it can look up how to interpret this type of diagram, or is it unnecessary information and I can assume everybody will understand the type of graph just by looking at it?

Context is a computer science masters thesis in German at a German university.


texts: In computer science, is omission of negative experimental evaluation results research misconduct?

texts:
In computer science, a large portion of people develop algorithms, and demonstrate their effectiveness by running experiments to compare with other existing approaches in their research papers. In these experiments, as far as I know, there are two possible ways to purposely hide data:

Ashley has developed algorithm X and decided to experimentally compare it with algorithm Y. She compared them on benchmark set A, B and C. She found that on benchmark C, algorithm Y outperformed X, so she decided to not report on C. In the paper, she also only claims algorithm X outperformed on A and B.
Bill has developed algorithm P. He compared P with other algorithms Q, R and S on some benchmark instances. He found that P outperformed Q and R, but not S on these benchmark instances. He decided to not report the comparison between P and S. In the paper, he also only claims algorithm P outperformed Q and R.

Are Ashley and Bill’s actions considered research misconduct?


texts: Is it fair to blame authors for exorbitant book costs?

texts:
Summary (TL;DR): The following's biased; so are there any counterarguments? Please beware that this question concerns only authors who are professors and who also write textbooks.
Are authors truly helping students as much as possible? For example, are textbooks edited and revised every two years out of greed? Certain subjects tied to real-life reforms (like law) may require such turnover, but what of Economics (as below) or Calculus?

[Supplementary Context] [Source:] Ray Lopez December 16, 2014 at 12:22 pm
LOL from the comments section of the npr post:

Mankiw is the worst sort of economist. He’s a blatant liar. Why does his book cost $320? Because that’s how much the publisher, Cengage, has determined the market will bear. Why does he not advocate reducing the price of the book to make it affordable to more students around the world? Because he wants to make as much money for himself as possible. (This is also why pharmaceutical companies often price their newest drugs at outrageously high prices; to maximise profits in the short term, rather than to deliver the greatest public health good.) Mankiw does not care about the impact of his ridiculously priced book on the purchasers of his product, and he papers over any twinge of guilt he might otherwise experience by convincing himself that his personal brilliance is worth the extra money. Congratulations, professor, for playing your little part in the grand national pastime of burying America’s college students in debt.

(no sympathy from me as he dissed outrageously priced on-patent drugs, but it’s telling how people think education is a public good. Nothing can be further from the truth. If you can’t afford an Ivy League education you have no business applying to Harvard…)


texts: Applying again for PhD abroad vs. staying at my home institution?

texts:
I'm a MS student who recently (unsuccessfully) applied to PhD programs in the US (I'm from an Asian country but was raised there). I'm in a situation where I have the option to apply again this round, or to just stay at my home institution where I received my bachelor's and will receive my master's.
Pros of applying again would be that I wouldn't have any "regrets" and in the hypothetical situation that I'm successful I'd be able to be open to more (hypothetical) experiences/networks/opportunities. Pros of staying would be that my current lab pays well, my friends and family are here, the quality of research isn't too terrible (my lab isn't one of those labs that produces 10+ publications a year, but we still do a decent job), my and my PI's overall a nice person. Not to mention that I'd probably be able to finish my degree faster and either go for a postdoc or internship/job abroad. The PhD at my home institution is pretty much a guarantee to get in, since my advisor is very keen on my staying and the school's admissions process if extremely faculty-based.
I suppose the main factor that's holding me back from applying again is the feeling that it'd be a gamble. The only things I can do to improve my application would be to get a good quality publication out and raise the quality of my letters. My undergrad GPA is bad (barely above 3.0/4.0) but there's nothing I can do about that. I'm not sure if I'd be able to get better quality letters in that time, as in my home country working with other professors/labs is usually frowned upon. Even this round I had to ask a postdoc for one of my letters.
I'm also concerned, albeit to a lesser degree, about this concept of "academic incest" where you attend the same school for your undergrad and PhD. I don't think this would be that big of an issue, but I guess I wouldn't really know better.
I guess the point of this question/post would be to seek some advice on how more seasoned people would view my situation and what they would do. Please flag if inappropriate. Thanks!


texts: To become a professor of actuarial science, should I pursue graduate school immediately after B.S. or get some professional experience first?

texts:
I graduated with a B.S. in statistics earlier this year and have been working as an actuary for the past two months. In all honesty, I'm not very happy with the job position in the little amount of time I've been working at it. I am very close to becoming a credentialed actuary (ASA for those of you who have heard of it) and anticipate making a decision on whether or not I should leave later this year.

My dream is to become an actuarial science professor. I am really wondering whether I should pursue graduate school in statistics or just stick it out until I get a decade or so of experience (as every other actuarial professor I've seen has done).

I do realize that the Actuarial Outpost exists, but typically, actuaries tend to discourage people who want to pursue Ph.D. degrees.


texts: What is a source for Richard Riley's famous quote about preparing students for the future?

texts:
A famous quote by Richard Riley, former US Secretary of Education, is as follows:

  We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.

I have seen this quoted in hundreds of places, but never a full reference. I'd like to use this quote in an article that must adhere to APA referencing - does anyone know of the first place this quote appears?


texts: Determining common knowledge in an unfamiliar field

texts:
What is the best strategy to determine common knowledge in an unfamiliar field? I have provided an example below, but I am not looking for an answer specific to that example.

We have an answered question that addresses whether and how common knowledge should be cited. A more difficult problem is determining what is common knowledge in an unfamiliar field. In my answer to the question linked, I provide one strategy, examining introductory textbooks in that field. However, as was mentioned in the comments, not all fields have introductory texts.

As an example, I am working on an institutional grant proposal. The proposed activities have to do with increasing retention rates of freshmen students, particularly in the sciences. We are looking at targeting pedagogical reform in introductory classes and increasing engagement through more and better co-curricular experiences.

My background is in chemistry. I do not know what is common knowledge in the worlds of pedagogy and student engagement/retention. I have been reading books and articles on the subjects, and citation practices have been inconsistent. Some authors provide citations for everything, including broad generalizations and common sense, like:

  There are many reasons why an undergraduate student may choose to leave college.

And then others provide very few citations, including for statements that seem like they should have been based on a study:

  More than half of all students who withdraw from college are freshmen.
  Less than half of the students who declare science majors will graduate with a degree in a science field.

I realize that the former case may be from overzealous paranoia about plagiarism, and the latter case may be an example of poor scholarship, but this is difficult to assess as an outsider.

EDIT: For clarification, I am asking about determining when something requires a citation if I am writing in a field that I do not normally participate in. I know that I should always cite things that are new, obscure, or counter to prevailing thought. I wouldn't necessarily need to cite things that are "well-established" or "agreed-upon". After a certain point, if enough studies have reaffirmed the same result, or if the result has been so widely cited that it becomes well-known, it is pointless to cite it. It is currently silly to provide a citation for "The structure of DNA is a double helix formed by two complimentary strands held together by hydrogen-bonding between the base pairs." At one point, however, it was not silly, because this idea was new.

How can I quickly determine where a finding is on the continuum between new/obscure and well established?


texts: Travel grant request letter, should I request maximum travel amount?

texts:
I was awarded travel grant from the conference. I need to write letter that includes:

amount of travel reimbursement requested
address for the check to be sent to

I have few questions about amount of money I can or should request:

Do I request maximum reimbursement amount (say conference travel grant offers up to $1000, do I request $1000 or less)?
And related, can I request partial reimbursement of hotel stay. For
example: Conference registration is $800 and hotel stay during
conference is $800, I want to as for $1000 reimbursement.


texts: At a conference, should I visit other people's posters during my poster session?

texts:
Usually, conferences give you between 1-2 hours to present your poster. My dilemma is that sometimes I am interested in learning about other posters during that time period. But I also have to keep next to my poster in case a referee or a potential collaborator of the conference comes and wants to learn about my topic.

So my question is what should I do? Should I stay next to my poster and try to talk to the other poster attendees afterward or should I visit their poster and risk missing out on potential important visitors to my poster?


texts: phd advisor hasn't kept a promise (and may not care) - do I address this directly? if so, how best to do that?

texts:
My doctoral advisor did something that seems odd to me. I did a bunch of unpaid work for him, with an explicit promise from him (but not in writing because I trusted he would keep the promise) that in exchange he would do one of two mentoring-type things for me, and he has now reneged on his promise.

I want to think he is just unaware of how much time I put in, or has forgotten his promise, or is extremely busy with other commitments, or that maybe my work wasn't up to snuff and his earlier very positive evaluation of the work didn't match what he in fact thought. It may also be the case that the mentoring-type things I want from him would take more commitment from him than he realized he was prepared to offer. I fear that it is a little of some of those things, but also that he is being covertly aggressive (because I feel fairly sure he's been covertly aggressive toward me before).

What would the professors on this site suggest I do? What I want to do is send him an email politely reminding him of our deal and specifying what work I've done to gently nudge him to do his part. (And also to say, hey, if there's some unnamed conflict we need to address, and that's why you're reneging, let's.) Then again, I need him to be on my side so that I can graduate, I don't need him to do what he promised to graduate (although it would really help my scholarly development, hence the unpaid work I did), and I fear this action from me will prompt aggression from him. For example, I'm afraid he'll just say, 'Sure, I'll do what I promised,' and then will hurt me in the process again (since they involve him mentoring, which would involve more work from me and from him). I guess my question is, do I 1) send a polite email,  2) try to set up a friendly phone call, or 3) forget about it and eat a crap-ton of nachos, because that's the only satisfaction I'll really get? I can't switch advisors. Thanks!


texts: Recently I received notification that my application for tenure and promotion to associate professor was approved. However, I have not yet received a letter indicating what this actually means as far as any potential changes in salary. Is it unusual not to find out what those changes would be when you are promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor? Or do you typically not find out until the beginning of the next semester?


texts: How to improve my capacity to follow my advisor's instructions during research?

texts:
I am a Computer Science undergraduate doing a research project in Bioinformatics. I know my weaknesses, especially that I am not good at speaking, listening, and interacting with people in all social context. Until now, this wasn't a problem, I hardly paid attention in class, studied by myself directly from books, and got excellent grades. But in my current position, I have come to understand that I have to improve some social skills if I want to advance. Right now, it's plainly difficult to me to follow the rationale among two or more phrases if I don't see them on paper and this characteristic is causing problems because my advisor's instruction are mostly oral.

Although my professor praises my ability to do math and program, he complains about how I easily lose track of the instructions. This is a true problem, specially when processing biological data (one thing is that the program works, the other is that it makes biological sense and I am not yet conversant in biological background). This situation is starting to raise problems with my advisor and I have to find a solution before everything gets worst.

Note: I take notes. This is the most logical, straightforward solution, but I never developed the ability to take good notes as I didn't like attending classes. I'm working to improve this skill, but I the problem of connecting orally communicated ideas effectively remains.

As a summary, I have to figure out how to follow the incredible amount of oral information passed to me, even if I have never built this ability.


texts: Contacting an academic researcher by an outsider

texts:
If a person is working in the industry and wants to ask a few questions to an academic researcher (based on a paper published by them), what is the correct protocol to follow?

Should they disclose their affiliations right away? Should the academic ask for it right away?
Should they say 'I don't want to tell you why I'm asking this for, but can you please tell me so and so'? Should the academic insist on knowing?
Any other consideration?


texts: Asking a journal for extended payment period

texts:
I am in this situation where I have submitted an article to a journal and it is likely that, after the minor revision that they asked me to do, the paper will be accepted for publication (I hope so...). The situation that concerns me is that it is also likely that the email arrives in the middle of institutional vacation, (Clarification: I am a PhD student at the university, and the university pays the publication fee for the article), which means that my institution will not be able to pay at the time of the request. There is no personnel in the corresponding department.

To clarify the timings: I expect that the "acceptance" email will arrive in the middle of August, and my institution is on vacation for all of August. We are most likely not able to pay until September. In case that this email arrives during August, how can I convey, politely and gently that we cannot send the payment due to institutional vacation period? Also, I would like to highlight the importance of the publication of the paper in the journal. As it has one of the highest impact factors on the field of engineering, concretely on Internet of Things and it is the last merit milestone to finish my thesis.

I would write something like...

"Dear Ms. ,

Our institution  is on institutional vacation period during August. Unfortunately, we will not able to emit the payment before the date you request. The department in charge is on institutional vacation too. Publishing this article in  is of utmost importance for us given the  is a renowned journal in the field of the Internet of Things and my current situation as a PhD Student. We would like to ask you for a payment extension until September. Meanwhile, I will be pleased to apply any suggestion of the editor.

Yours sincerely,

 on behalf of the authors of the manuscript.
"

It is the first time I am doing something like this, and I would be glad if you can provide some help.


texts: How to approach undergraduate research without official program?

texts:
I am a second year mathematics and physics student. My primary goal is to enter a post-graduate program in mathematics and hopefully progress further, should I possess the capability. I attend a South African university and have thus far taken the equivalent Calculus I, Precalculus, Numerical Analysis, and Differential Equations I courses. In the new semester I will begin Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Analysis before commencing in the subsequent semester with secondary Analysis and Differential Equations courses, alongside Group Theory.

For the past six months or so I have been attempting to make headway on a few questions relating to sums of consecutive prime numbers, typing my (mostly trivial) results in LaTex. I would like to commence undergraduate research of some sort this year, even if it amounts to a professor assigning me problems appropriate for my experience level throughout the year when they can spare the time. Optimally, I would also like to garner the opportunity at some point in the year to discuss some of the questions that I have relating to the prime sums – what topics, textbooks, or papers I could read to progress further, and so on.

Unfortunately, however, my University does not have an official undergraduate research programme (like the URP for example), nor do I believe research-related requests from undergraduate students to be all too common (unlike the University of this poster, from my understanding). What is more is that there are only two Professors in my Department who have research interests in or related to Number Theory (one seems fairly open and is primarily focuses on Partition Theory), and neither of them have been or will be my lecturers going forward.

My main concern is coming across as disrespectful, entitled, or arrogant by reaching out to one of these professors for a potential research opportunity or mentorship.

What would be the generally acceptable way of seeking a research opportunity for a student studying at a University with no formal undergraduate research programme? Should I avoid emails all together, and if not would it be acceptable to mention offhandedly the minor research that I have conducted?

EDIT: I have also found this related post quite useful.


texts: When is it beneficial (or politically correct?) to mention somebody's race/culture in an anecdote?

texts:
Today, I heard a friend mention an exciting conversation he had with somebody of a different race. He mentioned this woman's race several times in order to paint a more detailed picture of what his experience with this woman was like. He basically tapped a racial/cultural stereotype to run the following pseudo-script in my head:

#!/usr/bin/env python

from stereotype import appearance, mannerisms, speech

And honestly, it had its intended effect on me. I have known a few people from this particular race who fit the stereotype he was describing, along with the other (non-stereotypical) descriptions he gave of the situation, and the fact that he mentioned her race actually enriched my understanding of what he experienced.

I've been trying to make myself more sensitive to issues of race and identity. Stereotypes of all kinds have done a lot of damage in the past. Racism is still a huge problem in most (all?) places in the world. Because of this, his reference to this woman's race made me a little uncomfortable, even though there was nothing negative about what he said about her.

Was it necessary to mention the woman's race? No.

Was it helpful to mention the woman's race? Yes.

It made me wonder when it is okay to do that in more professional settings, which for me is academia. One of my friends says it's never appropriate to mention somebody's race for any reason, but that seems overly restrictive.

In academic/professional settings, when is it constructive/beneficial/okay/acceptable to reference somebody's race/gender/cultural background in an anecdote (e.g. between colleagues)?

Notes:

I recognize that this is a very sensitive issue. I am trying to be the best colleague/supporter/ally I can be for everyone. I've been burned badly by participating in sensitive conversations in the past, but I'm only trying to learn to be better. I ask that you be respectful to all (me, my friend, other readers, etc.) in your comments and/or answers to this question.
This question is somewhat subjective, but I'm not sure how to make it less so. Please edit it if you can make it better-suited for this site.
I'm including the gender tag because this question applies just as well to gender, even though my situation was about race.


texts: Life after graduation; should I update my academic reference on my career progression?

texts:
In my undergraduate years, I have forged a rather close relationship with some of my professors including the head of school – they were supportive as I did struggled with mental-health issues and were also open to interesting academic discussion as equals.

Before I returned to my home country, they have offered to be my reference for both academic and industry prospects – including for reasons related to graduate admissions.
After seven weeks of searching, I have now found a research role in the area of air-traffic modelling for UAVs at a new research institute within a globally ranked top-fifteen university while working alongside with another professor at another university.

While I am unsure whether they were rang up, I would, however, like to continue keeping in touch with them as I do visit the country of my alma mater every few weeks while also being aware of my plans to pursue postgraduate studies at my alma mater.
Do professors empirically appreciate their former students keeping them in the loop of their career progress? Or would I only come across as being “just another student” unless I have produced stellar research work?


texts: Change of Affiliation before Publication

texts:
I was a student at a community college and did research as an undergrad at a small university. After finishing up my summer research, I continued to do poster presentations, all three of which I indicated my community college as my affiliation, as the research was funded through them. In addition, I was still at the community college.

Currently, I am not at a larger university and we are about to have our manuscript published. Do I need to change my affiliation to something else, or should I keep it as it is with my Community College.


texts: How to ask a professor to supervise my undergraduate thesis research?

texts: I am second year CompSci student in Europe and in a short while I'll have to start my undergraduate thesis research. The domain I want to research is cloud computing. One of my lecture professors suggested that I contact a master's professor regarding my undergraduate research, saying that he'll be alright with supervising my thesis research. My only problem is, how do I ask a professor I do not know to supervise my undergraduate thesis research?


texts: Job Market paper: what are the criteria?

texts:
I am going to apply for a Post-Doc position, in Business Economics. One of the required application documents is a "job market paper". I have searched about what a job market paper is and specially there is a good post here Clarification needed: Job Market Paper.

However, I could not find any answer or hint to resolve my current problem. Concisely, I have written 3 papers for my PhD thesis, and these papers are closely-related to each other, such that the second one is based on the first, and the third is based on the first and second. Now, I don't know how to choose one among them.
While the first paper is for broader audience than the second one, the latter has higher quality and more significant contribution to the field, in my opinion. However, this second paper, which has higher quality, is very difficult to be understood for broad audience. On the other hand, the first paper is a good showcase -show off indeed!- of my quantitative skills and interdisciplinary knowledge of economics and machine-learning.

May someone please help me to choose between these two? Shall I consider the broader audience and less contribution, or high contribution on a very niche sub-field?

P.S: None of the papers has been published yet.


texts: Do I need to cite the source of a famous quote in my thesis?

texts:
I'm writing part of my Computer Science PhD and I'd like to know whether it is generally acceptable to have a reference to a famous quotation by a famous person without citing a source. For example,

  "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence!" - Edsger W. Dijkstra


texts: What is more important for the admission of masters program?

texts:
For the admission in Masters Program, what is more important, ranking/reputation* of the University or the strength of the research group in the field (say, Machine Learning) you wish to apply ?

I have been told that the advisor and the research group is the most important criteria for PhD admission . So, I researched about research groups in various Universities. I found out that, sometimes a less prestigious university had a great research group in a particular field and a few times reputed university had a weak research group.  So, I am confused whether the prestige of a university matter more than a strong research group in

Industry (Job after masters )
Research (Apply for a PhD after the masters

For example, UT Austin has a strong reputation in computer science. However, it seems to me that their machine learning groupis small.  So, in situations like this what should a master's applicant do ? Go for UT Austin because of its reputation or decline the offer because of lack of strong research group in ML.

*The ranking/reputation here is the US news Grad Schools ranking in the field of computer science.


texts: Is it plagiarism if only a short phrase or construct is the same?

texts: Suppose we have some text in a scientific journal article A. It is a verbatim copy of some text published in a related article B which is referenced by A, and this phrase is used to explain the same topic in both articles. However, the phrase itself is short, not a complete sentence and not very relevant (it could have been written in many different ways) but it seems the author of A has taken it from the original (B). Is this text plagiarism? I would rephrase it because it looks like a copy (it's unlikely it happened by chance given that the paragraphs in the two publications are related and the reference to B appears in a nearby paragraph) and that's not elegant according to my style and taste, but is there a general rule?


texts: If the class average is too low, do profs usually curve or adjust the grading scale?

texts:
My prof for my first year anthropology class is new, and I'm having trouble understanding her marking scheme.

Here is the distribution of our class grades:

Exam 1: Median 62%, Top 75% got above 47%, while 25% got above 69%
Exam 2: Median 58%, Top 75% got above 44%, while 25% got above 70%.

We haven't gotten our final exam marks back yet, but I was wondering if this is normal for a first year anthropology course?


texts: When the title of an article is printed differently in the front/back matter versus the first page, which should be used for citing the article?

texts:
I wish to cite a research paper by B. L. van der Waerden from 1928 that is titled (very) slightly differently in the front/back matter of the journal versus the first page of the article: in the front/back matter the title is given as "Beweis einer Baudetschen Vermutung" and on the first page of the article it is given with an apostrophe as "Beweis einer Baudet'schen Vermutung".
My guess (since my German is very rudimentary) is that the apostrophe is a typo because the German language apparently does not use the possessive apostrophe. But, even if the title of a paper contains a typo I would prefer to cite it along with the typo as per the advice in this related post: How to refer to a source with typos in the title?.
However, in this case, I am not even sure which one is the official title of the article since there is a (slightly) different title in the front/back matter. What is the preferred method of citing the article in this scenario?
Admittedly, the difference is not so great that it will cause trouble for anyone looking up this article using either title, but I am interested also in the general case where the difference in the title between the first page and the front/back matter is more drastic than a deviant apostrophe.
Is there a standard practice regarding which one to consider as the "official" title to quote in a citation? If not, what is the preferred method to deal with articles having different titles in this manner?


texts: At what point is someone considered too old (in terms of experience) for an Assistant Professor position?

texts:
I competed for an Assist. Prof. in Greece with someone with 12+ years experience since PhD. Suffice it to say that it did not turn out well for me (4 years of experience) or other interviewees for that matter, even though many of us had the better* research output in terms of quality, ranked venues, and achievements (3rd party grants and so on), but clearly not as many citations as we do not exist long enough in the field.
It also did not help that the committee favorite had their BSc, MSc, and PhD in that same university, and 12+ of postdoc in a partner lab in the vicinity.
But, anyway, I asked the committee the following question, which I also pose here: At which point (if there is such a point) is someone considered too old (in terms of experience) for an Assist. Prof. position?
They told me that the favorite had a higher citation count, so even if they were 60 years in the field they would still rank them first because of that. In my opinion, even though that might well be legal, it does not seem very ethical to me.
I am under the impression that an Assist. Prof. position is an entry level position where you are supposed to form your own lab, attract early-career grants to help you with that (which have experience-age restrictions), and work towards becoming a professor.
*As an example, I will simply say that the position was on AI with a focus on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and the committee favorite had 0 articles in IJCAI, AAAI, KR, AIJ, or JAIR, whereas I had 6.


texts: Ethics of/rules regarding submitting multiple presubmission inquiries

texts:
It is well-established (and typically spelled-out in journals' instructions to authors) that is unacceptable to submit a single manuscript to multiple journals for peer review simultaneously. However, the rules for presubmission inquiries (which are essentially cover letters asking whether the journal would be interested in reviewing a given paper) are not clear to me; a presubmission inquiry does not constitute a formal submission.

Is it permissible to submit a presubmission inquiry regarding a single manuscript to more than one scientific journal?

Is it unethical to do so?

Further details on what presubmission inquiries are:

Presubmission inquiries are relatively common in genetics and biology. From the Nature website:

  Presubmission enquiries are provided purely as a service to authors
  (for example, to see if a manuscript is likely to be of interest to
  the journal) and are not compulsory... Presubmission enquiries are not
  required for Articles or Letters, and can be difficult to assess
  reliably; Nature editors cannot make an absolute commitment to have a
  contribution refereed before seeing the entire paper. Entire papers
  should not be sent as presubmission enquiries, but should be formally
  submitted through our online submission system.


texts:
I recently handed in my master's thesis (CS), and I did what you should not do for your own peace of mind's sake: I skimmed it again afterwards. I realized that I had not updated some statements to reflect the omission of some definitions that had existed in an earlier version, an error that I didn't catch despite proof-reading - I assume because I was in the mindset and knew what the statements were about, so I missed that some symbols were not defined in the relevant context during proof-reading.

I also recently came across this speech by Leslie Lamport on how to write clearly structured proofs, and the structure he suggests should lend itself very well to organizing mathematical publications in such a way that everything is easier to cross-reference as well as check for syntactical and semantic problems.

Has anyone else had the problem that only after they finished working on something, they realized that it had undefined symbols/statements that made sense in an earlier version, but need updating to the current one? If so, how to track those issues? An off-the-cuff way would be to have a dependency graph in the background, but I'm not sure something like that is available.


texts: Should I cite a book that I read to prepare for a talk but did not directly use it?

texts:
I have used a few books and articles to prepare for a talk, but I only used some of them directly in my slides. The slides also include parts that are made based my knowledge (background knowledge plus what I learned from reading those sources) but are not new information and could be found in those sources.

Should I cite all of those sources in my references slide? If yes, do I need to reference each piece of material on the slide, or just citing the sources at the end would be enough if I didn't use them directly?

NOTE My question is not a duplication this because that question is asking about referencing for presentation in general, but my question is not about referencing the sources I used directly, but those I read to build up my knowledge for the presentation but did not use directly.


texts:
I'm a second-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science and I feel extremely burned-out because:

I work fulltime as a software engineer

I work for financial reasons because TAship pay is negligible or basically equal to one-third of my rent.
I asked to be part-time and I have been continuously denied because my managers think me working part-time would not be enough to get things done

I have to be a TA as part of my Ph.D. program so I teach one section algorithm & data-structure
work on my thesis
taking a graduate-level class which is extremely time-consuming

The semester is almost done and I'm exhausted I hate losing and dropping out is basically losing but I also enjoy school and learning.

What are effective ways to deal with burn-out while working full-time during a PhD program?


texts: How to avoid plagiarism when reciting a list of technical terms word-for-word from another article?

texts:
I'm working on a term paper that will directly lead into my Master's thesis, so I'm concerned about whether I'm committing plagiarism here. There are two issues: (1) Reproducing a list of technical terms, and (2) reproducing an equation with explanations of the different terms.
(1) I want to include a list of technical terms that were already enumerated in a research article. Here is how that article is written:

However, at the very beginning of the manure life
cycle, the fresh animal waste can be characterized with
its primary components, the feces and urine. Fecal
material contains a wide spectrum of organic compounds such as undigested litter, living microorganisms, carbohydrates, proteins, fatty acids, celluloses,
hemicelluloses and lignin (Clark et al. 2005; ASAE
American Society of Agricultural Engineers 2003).

Source: Li, C., Salas, W., Zhang, R., Krauter, C., Rotz, A., & Mitloehner, F. (2012). Manure-DNDC: A biogeochemical process model for quantifying greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions from livestock manure systems. Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, 93(2), 163–200. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-012-9507-z

To what extent do I need to paraphrase this list in order to include it in my thesis? Would changing the order of the list items be enough to constitute a paraphrase?
(2) I want to include an equation from another source, which also explained each of the terms in that equation. Here is how that article is written:

dC/dt = CNR * μ * (S * kl + (1-S) * kr) * [C]        [Eq. 3]

Where [C] is organic C content (kg C/ha), t is time (day), S is labile fraction of organic
C compounds in the pool, (1-S) is resistant fraction of organic C compounds, kl is
specific decomposition rate (SDR) of labile fraction (1/day), kr is SDR of the resistant
fraction (1/day), μ is temperature and moisture factor, CNR is C/N ratio reduction
factor, SDR is 0.074, 0.074, 0.02, 0.33, 0.04, 0.16 and 0.006 (1/day) for very labile
litter, labile litter, resistant litter, labile microbes, resistant microbes, labile humads,
and resistant humads, respectively.

Source: Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space. (2017). DNDC Scientific Basis and Processes (Version 9.5). University of New Hampshire.

How should I go about paraphrasing the equation and "Where..." statements?
The reason I am confused about this is because MIT's anti-plagiarism resource does not seem to cover these topics:
MIT Academic Integrity Handbook: Paraphrasing


texts: Can a paper get rejected in the copyediting phase (after peer review acceptance)?

texts: A journal with high impact accepted my paper after peer review.  In the copy-editing phase I noticed some errors -- mostly mixed up references.  Can the paper now be rejected due to these errors?  What about if I want to update some references?


texts: How negative to go in a statement of purpose?

texts:
Okay yes I know another 'I'm a bad candidate help me' post sorry.

I was in grad school years ago but I quit because the program wasn't good for me. The exact program doesn't matter. It was a small one on the USA west coast though, and for MS not PhD.

The problem was the people in the program didn't like my concentration field (lie groups). All the profs thought their own fields were more interesting, wanted me to focus on those instead (like discrete geometry). No other students were really interested in my concentration so important classes got canceled, "low enrollment" they said.

Now I want to apply to a new school that I think does not have this problem. I want to know though, how can I talk about this in my statement of purpose? I have to address the reason I left a previous program but I do not want to sound whiny or vengeful or make the admissions committee think the problem was my fault.

Note I made up some of the details here because in case some admissions person at my future school reads this forum. But the general point is still right. Thanks!


texts: In a conference, when will the decision of best paper (or other award) be made?

texts:
I am just curious, do they make the decision before the conference?

Or do they watch the presentation of potential candidates first and then make the decision?


texts: How to categorize/name survey expenses in funding proposal budget section?

texts:
I am writing a funding proposal. I am finding it difficult to fit the following expense into a suitable category. Can I title it as 'Survey Expense'? (note that there are no specific categories, but of course, I have to mention one for any expense I make). However, I suspect that this may put off the funding committee because they may argue that why don't I just have the survey form filled for free using my students' help, etc.
My proposed research will involve taking surveys from several people. For this reason, I would use paid services from websites such as SurveyMonkey and other resources. I also plan to give some 10 odd gift vouchers of $25 to survey participants to encourage them to take the survey.
Any guidance will be appreciated


texts:
Is there a way to search all openly published theses online?

Maybe there is a way for Google Scholar to ignore other types of articles?

I am aware of SCOPUS and Web of Knowledge, but unfortunately I do not have access to these services.

Edit: I talked to my librarian and we found a service called EThOS and additionally a service called openthesis.  Openthesis requires people to upload submissions, which would cover nowhere near as many as Google has indexed.  EthOS is for the UK only.


texts: Prioritizing subject matter of future PhD versus university and professor

texts:
In your opinion, which is more important when deciding where to do a PhD?

Choosing a top-tier university with a brilliant professor who is an excellent mentor or choosing a decidedly average university with a professor who you do not know the quality of their mentorship, but the subject matter is naturally more interesting to you?


texts: Formulating research interests — context/motivation or not?

texts:
How do I formulate research interests in my CV?  When talking about my field, I like to include some context, such as:

  The climate of planet Earth is a complex system. Detailed observations are needed for improving our understanding of individual components and their interaction. Additionally, long-term, large-scale monitoring is required to study the climate system in its entirety. Observations from space are important for both kinds of observations. I am particularly interested in applying space-based observations the atmosphere, for example, for the hydrological cycle. Additionally, I think foo is important because of bar, and would like to research foo deeper.

But on a CV, space and attention are scarce.  An alternative would be:

  Space-based observations of the atmosphere
  Foo

But this appears a bit bald to me.  I think the context, the motivation, should be relevant: why are my research interests as they are?

What is a better alternative for describing research interests on a CV?


texts: My current PI is telling me that I am a very shy person and he is really pissed off, what I should do?

texts:
Today in the lab we had a birthday, I had participated, but not so much as I feel anxious in crowded areas. I felt very shy and that's true, so I withdrew from the party after 15 minutes and wished everyone well.

Later, my PI informed me that he is extremely pissed off and did not like the fact that I am a very shy person. I am supposed to select a potential supervisor; the one whose work I am interested in also has also a shy person. The PI (head of the lab) informed me that he cannot assign two shy people to work together (me and the prospective supervisor) as he thought we are going to fail to make significant work.

The ugly truth is that I am an indeed shy girl for many years and I lose many social opportunities, likely marriage opportunities because I don't interact so much as other girls. However, I look very confident in voluntary works, teaching and giving talks.

I know it sounds controversial, however, I began to lose my self-confidence and esteem although I had a strong character.

The question: How I should react towards this?


texts: How to show extreme gratitude in an email?

texts:
When contacting universities, in many cases, I find the replies to my emails extremely well detailed and helpful, therefore in such cases I find a simple "Thank you" to be just insufficient.

For example, when you have already applied to a program, and then you email the department to ask a simple question about supplementary documents, but they put SO MUCH effort in their response and even analyze your application before the application process has even started and they tell you that they are very certain that you will be accepted. How would you react? Is it rude to say something like: "I'm very glad to hear that."

In such situations, I do not really know how to best answer the person to show them that I really appreciate their email very much.


texts: Acceptance to online publication – Why is everybody I know faster than average?

texts:
I recently attended an editiorial panel at a conference where editors of several journals in my field advertised their journals and to this purpose listed, amongst others, the time difference between editorial acceptance and online publication.

While the averages they gave were about one month, I cannot recall any paper of mine or my colleagues in this field for which this took longer than two weeks. We get the proofs within a week, send our corrections within one or two days and the paper is published a few days later. Add two days for the rare case that another round of proofs is required.

I can guess several reasons for this discrepancy myself such as:

authors not returning the proofs in time
bad figures that require reworking
bad English that requires a lot of copy editing
a strongly skewed distribution of acceptance-to-publication times (but then journals would probably use the median and not the average for this statistics)

However, I am interested in something more substantiated than a guess and thus in any statistics or hands-on experiences from a copy editor or similar as to what usually makes up for the time between acceptance and online publication, which in turn could explain these discrepancies.


texts: What do departments/universities do about unethical behavior by faculty?

texts:
I see questions on this site that describe  extremely unethical behavior by professors (e.g., not giving a student authorship when it is obviously warranted). I've also seen some  behavior of this kind firsthand (not by my own advisor, thankfully), and realize that many of the perpetrators are "repeat offenders."

Often the object of the unethical behavior is a student/advisee, for whom it may  not be personally beneficial to lodge a formal complaint. (The student, understandably, does not want to do anything that will jeopardize graduation, reference letters, etc.)

Given that many students won't go on the record about unethical behavior by a professor or advisor, how do academic departments and universities find out about these incidents? (Do they?) What do they do to prevent the offenders from doing it again?

I am not asking about actual university regulations, since I am specifically interested in cases where no formal complaint is made. Rather, I am asking what practical action one could take (e.g.as a faculty member of the same department, a dept chair, a dean of some kind) to

Become aware of the incidents (dept gossip is the only way I know about, is there a better way?)
Officially or unofficially try to stop it from happening again

For example, I know that in my own department, I will warn prospective students of an unethical advisor. I am a student though; I imagine this would be  inappropriate for a faculty member.


texts: At what point in the writing process should one contact an academic book publisher?

texts: Is it better to contact a publisher early in the writing process so that the editor can be involved in shaping the project, or is it better to submit a full academic book manuscript? In my case, this would be for a first academic book. If this is something that is dependent on particular academic fields my field is digital humanities.


texts: Is there a dataset, database or API as large as WorldCat that allows for search by library of congress call number?

texts:
Is there a raw dataset, database or API as large as WorldCat that allows for search by library of congress call number?
As far as possible I need to query all the works in the world. At least every book or monograph, or title that has been given an LOC call number. As for journals, congresses, journal articles, fresh research etc., I can exclude them. I don't need 100% everything, but something as large Worldcat. Hence, a single university library, as large as it may be, may not be sufficient.
I need to input some call number eg. Q179, and get all the titles under that call number. Is there such a thing? Preferably free also, but if really no choice, I am ok with subscription needed or need to purchase


texts:
I am currently looking for alternatives / provisional solutions to traditional journal subscriptions. The research institute (200+ researchers) I am working at has contracts with all the big players but they do not move in the currently ongoing negotiations. We consider cancelling one big subscription completely but the scientists would go berserk on us. So, we need an interim solution to supply them quickly with the articles they want and DeepDyve is one possibility. Unfortunately, I got no reply to the inquiries I sent via their online form.

Has anyone experience with DeepDyve group plans? What are the costs and is the access reliable?


texts: What tense to use when referring to self publication in a monograph chapter?

texts:
I have a question regarding what tense form should I use to refer to an earlier self publication in a monograph chapter.
For example, if I want to say (in the chapter), "most of the results were published in [1]", is that OK? Or should I use the present perfect tense?


texts: Peer-review -- Can I ask to cite my already published paper that is relevant?

texts:
I have to review a paper for a journal that is on some work related to a paper I published 2-3 years ago.
The authors do not cite and compare our work although they try to solve the same problem.
In particular they use a similar fairly innovative way for the field to treat the input data, as we and another publication did, but they cite neither of these 2 papers.
Is it an issue of conflict of interest if I ask at least for a citation of these two papers that are preexisting (and one of which is mine), and ask also for a performance comparison with at least one of the competing methods?