texts: Is it appropriate to follow up on a faculty application?

texts:
I am currently applying to faculty positions, primarily teaching positions at 4 year colleges and universities. I am told many of these jobs have more than 100-200 applicants. Some of the jobs ads themselves say they get hundreds of applicants, and go on to say something to the effect 'you probably aren't going to hear anything from us', which says to me - 'don't bother us'. I have 3 questions, which overlap:

If I don't hear back from them at all, is it appropriate to contact the department?
If I hear back that they got my application and materials, is it appropriate to contact the department?
People that I know from the business world encourage me to be more aggressive by calling the departments to check in, and even asking if I can come visit the department. I am concerned that this sort of attitude can have a backlash effect. Is this sort of aggressive approach accepted in academia?


texts: How to phrase potential contributions in thesis proposal?

texts:
I am pursuing PhD in Computer Science. I am working on writing my PhD dissertation proposal.

My main contribution in my work is going to be about data classification and prediction model.

How should I phrase my potential contributions / tasks in which technical contribution is about clustering/classification and prediction?

I am also planning to propose potential performance improvement in clustering / classification techniques that currently exist in my domain. What all should I plan to achieve? How can I go about phrasing it in the proposal?

I know most answers cannot be specific to my question but any pointer towards direction that I should take...where to look for answer etc. regarding this is much appreciated...


texts: How important are citations when applying for jobs or promotions?

texts:
How important is citation count for fresh doctorates? Is this number more important for joining the academia than the industry?
What is the importance of citations for someone seeking tenure? Does this depend on the field, as papers in an esoteric area can be expected to have few citations?


texts: Can an editor make substantial edits and publish them without the author's permission?

texts: Can an editor make substantial edits to an author's book or paper and publish them without the author's permission?


texts: Writing to a professor who contributed to my research paper

texts:
I was working along with a professor on a research paper during my masters in 2014. I graduated in that year but we still worked on the paper for next year.
After that I moved to another city for my job. I could not follow up with the professor regarding the paper and had no contact with him after leaving. Now after 3 years, I received an email from a journal that the manuscript has been submitted by my professor.
I felt really embarrassed that I could not provide inputs for finalizing and submitting the paper.
How should I write an email to my professor to tell him that I am embarrassed for not being able to follow up and would like to contribute in any future modifications for that paper?


texts:
This may be a naive question but it would greatly assist me in preparing my first paper for a peer-reviewed journal.

I can identify at least 4 papers that I can extract from my recently completed PhD dissertation in the social sciences.

What do reviewers look for in order to assess that a paper is suitable for publication in their peer reviewed journal?


texts: How true is the stereotype that PhD graduates are overqualified?

texts:
I am a Masters student, and I think this is the only place in the whole internet that do not hold stereotyped negative attitude towards PhD recipients. From time to time,however, these sort of quotes scare me:

  Having a Ph.D can close some doors for you. The general attitude and stereotypes about Ph.D holders are that they're uber academics/nerds who can't really function in the real world--this is an especially pertinent attitude to pay attention to in technical fields like engineering and science. So it closes some doors. You've also got less jobs to choose from, since you're vastly overqualified for many and you probably won't be able to find any good entry level positions because people will just assume you'll get bored and leave as soon as you find something better, so there is a cost to having everyone think you're a genius. Quora

Well I study for fun and advancing my knowledge -- and the last thing I want is these sort of stereotypes. I know if I pursue for a PhD I will have little to no experience about working for a corporation, so how worried should I be? Can I have the same level of experience compared to my peer who might have chosen industry instead of pursuing PhD?


texts: How do you write a letter of recommendation for someone who got an A in your class, but who you've never talked to outside of class?

texts:
I taught a large class last summer, and one of my students asked me to write a letter of recommendation.  I said yes, and at this point I think it is too late in the application process to change my mind.

The student got an A in the class, but never came to my office hours or talked to me at all before she asked me for a letter of recommendation.  She also hasn't done anything specific to distinguish herself.  At this point I'm really not sure what to write about her, although she did give me a "brag sheet" with information about her interests and previous projects.

How should I go about writing the letter?


texts: How do I approach a professor for research

texts: I'm in a PhD program and want to approach a professor that I'm interested in working with. I've already sent him a couple of emails describing my background and asking for a meeting but he hasn't responded yet (it's been a couple of weeks). I've heard that he is very busy but always looks for new students. I also couldn't find his office hours(he probably doesn't have any). Is it rude if I dropped by his office? If I do, should I ask to schedule a meeting or just start talking about my interests?


texts: Is there such a thing like "18-months/half-time syndrome"?

texts:
I am about 1, 5-2 years in my Ph.D. studies in the no-man's-land between bioinformatics, systems biology and proteomics. (If you are not sure what those terms are, read: "biomedical research")

Coming from a more mathematical/technical background I was thrilled to work in this field, and my M.Sc thesis was pretty successful. Now diving deeper and deeper into the field I feel much less motivated to go on. What frustrates me most, is how little we really understand of complex biological systems, and all our efforts in the field are essentially just waddling in the darkness, trying to find the "holy grail" that may or may not exist. I personally feel that there is an undeniable lack of rigor even amongst the most respectable of scientists out there:

most biologist really have no clue beyond pipetting liquids left and right, as soon as it comes to data analysis they expect something along the lines of: "computer says yes/no" (see: little Britain's famous sketch)
computer scientists/mathematicians can't really cope with the uncertainties in the data
statisticians are essentially the con-artists of the field, rambling on undecipherable monologues. Sorry if I offend someone but it feels like one can prove/disprove anything with some creative use/interpretation of statistics.

Putting my rants aside, I went up and talked to one of the younger group leaders in our dept. I feel close enough to the person to give my honest opinion and respect his thoughts on the matter. The first thing he asked me after I was done rambling on, however, was how long it has been since I started. When I told him it's been about a year and a half, he smiled and said: "well, it was about time". According to him, it's common for a Ph.D. candidate to become jaded with his/her work somewhere between 18-months to 2 years in. He claimed that one simply gets deep enough into the field to see all the potential problems/pitfalls in research, and feel negative about it all.

Which brings me to my question(s); is there such a thing as 18-months syndrome, in your experience? Could it be a discipline-dependent phenomenon or applicable to other disciplines? How can one avoid getting stuck in a tailspin (negative spiral)?

PS: I wanted to tag this question as "research-psychology" but don't have the rep to create a new tag. If someone with more rep agrees with me on the tag, I would appreciate the help :)


texts:
One of my favorite books about academia is Indiscrete Thoughts by Gian-Carlo Rota. I am looking for similar books that can be from different fields. (Since this book is heavily about academic figures and academic life, I think that it is on-topic here.)
Requirements for books that are similar:

The author is an active participant in the academic department and writes about their experience.
The author talks about personal interactions, biographies and impressions of notable figures in the field.
Preferably entertaining.

It can be from any time period, and could be about any academic field.


texts: For interview questions about innovative or engaging teaching, is it OK to say I give lectures in the standard way?

texts:
If asked a teaching question in a interview for a math professor position about how you engage students or innovate your teaching, would it look bad if I say I'm just a traditional lecturer, teaching either using the board or slides or both?

This is in fact how most people lecture in my experience, it works fine, and the interviewers probably know this. And students like it, but somehow it feels almost shameful to admit it.

"I engage students by giving clear and insightful explanations of concepts [include some examples], using a standard lecture format with the board or slides."


texts: What are the benefits of PhD students working on projects where they won't be first-author?

texts: Given that only papers where you are the first-author will contribute to your dissertation, isn't it a poor use of time to be contributing to the projects of other researchers?


texts:
I am in a situation where my PhD funding runs out in 5 months and I need to have secured a job regardless of whether I have submitted due to having a family.

Although I think I may be close to submitting by then, it may take longer. Is it worth applying for postdoc positions or would universities not consider you until you have completed the PhD? I assume that the pass rates of PhDs are very high if the candidate has got to the submission stage.

Edit: This question is aimed at the people that are are the submission stage but haven't yet defended their thesis. It is not a question asking if I can get a post-doc without a PhD.


texts: Can I apply for a faculty position after 14 years of postdcoc?

texts:
I did my pHD in 2007. After that I worked on several univeristies as post doc and postdoctoral associates. I mentored students, did TA, wrote proposals, and worked with industrial collaboration projects.
What is my possibility to become a tenure faculty ?


texts: What to write in the followup email to a professor for a graduate teaching assistantship

texts:
I will be pursuing masters from UT Austin this fall.I have mailed professors for the position of  a teaching assistant. Some of them replied and some did not.
What should I write in the followup email to the professors who did not respond.

Thanks!


texts: Professor/supervisor switches from writing emails in his native and local language to English - how to react?

texts: A professor of mine, who's native language is German and who is teaching a class in English in a German speaking country, suddenly answered an e-mail which I wrote in German (I'm a native German speaker too), in English. I'm wondering why he does that? What the proper way for me to react is, i.e., should I use English when sending him e-mails from now on?


texts: Are professors allowed to participate in political activities?

texts:
In the US, politics is probably the most talked-about subject at the moment, and I have strong opinions.

I would very much like to volunteer for a specific party, but I am concerned that I am in a position of power, and thus if I were to be out campaigning for a particular candidate, this could affect my students' freedom to vote, should I run into them while I am volunteering.

Are there any rules in the university that forbids professors from participating in political activities? How much is acceptable? Can I help out with phoning people to get them to register to vote? Can I knock on doors in person? Could I run for office eventually?


texts: Can I learn the course material for the first time while I'm teaching it?

texts:
If I'm going to give students the course X in next semester. Should I have full understanding of the subject before I teach them or can I learn about the topics before I go to the class and then teach them?

The idea that I want to reach is it good to study the subject in the same semester or should I study before?


texts: Some questions about the time for a PhD program in the USA?

texts:
I'm an undergrad who plans on applying to PhD programs in an EECS area very soon. I have some questions about the time it takes for a PhD. 5-6 years seems like a very long time to do a PhD. My question is: why does it take that long? I thought that you just needed to publish a sufficient amount of new research.

In that case, why would it be very hard to finish in about 3 years? I've known a chunk of undergrads applying to grad school with 1-3 publications in good journals acquired by working several months over the summer or doing part time work in a lab (me included co first authoring from a summer research), so I don't understand why finishing in 3 years is so rare (according to what is said online). Also, since GPA doesn't matter at all for grad school, I would think a PhD student could put in minimal effort for some C's and pass the class, and if they have a stipend, they wouldn't need to teach.

I looked at a PhD thesis from a good university, and it only has about three papers in it. Furthermore, the PhD candidate himself wasn't sole author so I can assume he had plenty of help.

Also, I'm just curious, if you happen by luck to stumble on something groundbreaking during your first month there, is it possible to finish your PhD in less than a year?


texts: Research after the bachelor's degree has ended but before applying to Master's program

texts:
Background: I'm planning to attend graduate school for CS at a school (UT Austin) where state residents pay significantly less tuition. Therefore, I will move to the city where the university is 16 months in advance of applying. I am planning on first applying to a Master's program to gain research experience and boost my credentials.

I want to do research with a certain professor at this university before applying to the Master's program.

Question: What can a non-enrolled student with only a bachelor's degree do to improve his/her chances of being able to do research with a professor to boost the student's resume for graduate admissions?

I.e., replicate his important research, try to publish in his area of research, use my university email so it's less likely to be treated as spam, have a professor I'm doing research with beforehand reach out (while continuing research with this professor), etc?

Edit: Well, I've been trying to get undergrad research as a distance learning student right now and I haven't gotten any response back yet. I wonder if it'll be even harder after I graduate.


texts: In-press article, what happens if I don't pay the fee

texts:
My manuscript has got accepted and published online as "in press" in an Elsevier journal.
I noticed that it is an open access journal late after its acceptance.
I have not signed any forms yet, but the "in press" manuscript is online.
I cannot afford the cost and asked for a waiver. They declined my request.
Can anybody recommend me what to do?
What happens if I don't pay the fee? Will it affect my chances of future publications in other journals of the same publisher?
Please let me have your thoughts.
Thanks


texts: Should I keep all my .bib files in a single folder, or one with each .tex file?

texts:
Self-explanatory. I would be most interested to hear from researchers who have published a fair amount, decided one way or the other wasn't working for them, so switched — and why.

Related advice / observations welcome: e.g. "why the hell would you need more than one .bib file?"


texts:
Is there any point to making a complaint against my PhD supervisors?

I was never going to ask my supervisors for references but was wondering about other repercussions.

I was planning to complain informally to the graduate office and say I had terrible supervision that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

My complaint will be made on the basis of persistent misleading advice and a total lack of advocacy in terms of university administration. I can support my case with emails and written feedback.

Post-script:

Here is one example of an administrative problem I experienced.

Supervisor put forward a request to terminate my candidature in the first year of study after I informed them that I was medically unable at that point to work for a few months. I was not informed by them that they were doing this until I received an email from the Graduate office telling me I was out. I rectified this immediately, on my own, while I was incapacitated. I did not even get asked if I wanted sick leave so the time I took to heal was a part of my candidature.


texts: Is it acceptable for a student to connect with a professor on LinkedIn?

texts:
Earlier in the semester, I was informed by both an advisor/academic counselor and a professor at my university that it is a good idea to connect with professors on LinkedIn if they have interests in the same area as me.

I sent a connect request to one of the professors I had last semester (along with some other profs, most of whom accepted) and he just wrote back to me saying it is extremely unprofessional to be trying to connect on LinkedIn for a student/prof relationship. I am confused - how is this unprofessional and how can this be handled better in the future?


texts: Is "get passing grades and follow voraciously your curiosity on the side" a good strategy for graduate school?

texts:
I will be starting my PhD in Math this fall. I have diverse interests including philosophy, history and economics, but I concluded that a PhD in Math would be most useful in the real world. I wanted to hear people's thoughts on Nassim Taleb's strategy for graduate school, which can be summarized as follows: "get passing grades and follow voraciously your curiosity on the side." Here is the full quote:

From Antifragile:

  My idea was to be rigorous in the open market. This made me focus on what an intelligent antistudent needed to be: an autodidact—or a person of knowledge compared to the students called “swallowers” in Lebanese dialect, those who “swallow school material” and whose knowledge is only derived from the curriculum. The edge, I realized, isn’t in the package of what was on the official program of the baccalaureate, which everyone knew with small variations multiplying into large discrepancies in grades, but exactly what lay outside it…

  Again, I wasn’t exactly an autodidact, since I did get degrees; I was rather a barbell autodidact as I studied the exact minimum necessary to pass any exam, overshooting accidentally once in a while, and only getting in trouble a few times by undershooting. But I read voraciously, wholesale, initially in the humanities, later in mathematics and science, and now in history—outside a curriculum, away from the gym machine so to speak. I figured out that whatever I selected myself I could read with more depth and more breadth—there was a match to my curiosity. And I could take advantage of what people later pathologized as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) by using natural stimulation as a main driver to scholarship. The enterprise needed to be totally effortless in order to be worthwhile. The minute I was bored with a book or a subject I moved to another one, instead of giving up on reading altogether—when you are limited to the school material and you get bored, you have a tendency to give up and do nothing or play hooky out of discouragement. The trick is to be bored with a specific book, rather than with the act of reading. So the number of pages absorbed could grow faster than otherwise. And you find gold, so to speak, effortlessly, just as in rational but undirected trial-and-error-based research. It is exactly like options, trial and error, not getting stuck, bifurcating when necessary but keeping a sense of broad freedom and opportunism. Trial and error is freedom.

  (I confess I still use that method at the time of this writing. Avoidance of boredom is the only worthy mode of action. Life otherwise is not worth living.)


texts: What makes a transcript official vs. unofficial?

texts:
What really determines whether a transcript is official or unofficial? (I am wondering mainly in the context of US high schools and colleges.)

Is it entirely about the process by which it is delivered, i.e.
directly from an institution to a the receiver such that there can be
no tampering?
If an issuing institution (such as a high school) does not print the
transcript on special security paper, but sends directly to the
receiver in the mail on regular paper, would this still be considered
official?
Are there cases where an official institution would consider a
transcript to be official but an receiving institution would not consider it to be official?


texts: Conditional acceptance then rejection – worthy of appeal?

texts:
We submited a manuscript to an Elsevier journal eight months ago – we basically got a clear straight-forward rejection:

  Although the reviewers commented favourably on your manuscript, there were significant criticisms that preclude publications. These comments indicated that your manuscript has some serious weakness. We would be willing to reconsider the manuscript after it has undergone a major revision that takes into account the criticisms of the reviewers, with no assurance of acceptance

We spent about seven months, performing more experiments and answering all concerns raised and we resubmitted. We thought we received a conditional acceptance. Two reviewers replied that we addressed all their concerns, third reviewer however commented that the work cannot be possible (simply based on his/her belief) and went on to ask a few things that is not really relevant and suggested that we discuss a big bunch of stuff unrelated to our study in the discussion (i.e., add a lot of speculations).

  The reviewers commented favorably on your manuscript, but had some worthwhile suggestions. I am pleased to accept your manuscript, based on your revising it according to the recommendations of the reviewers"

So we followed the third reviewer’s suggestions and amended accordingly. We did a couple more experiments, all supporting that our initital conclusions were correct. Then 2.5 weeks later, we got a rejection:

  I regret to relate that your manuscript cannot be accepted for publications. In addition to the comments of the outside reviewer’s, the editors have considered whether merely editorial or technical corrections would result in a priority score sufficient for acceptance, by comparison to other manuscripts we currently receive.

No new reviewer comments were included. Prior to sending us the decision, the editor did contact us about declaring whether a western blot was cropped.

We were expecting that the journal would accept it, as it stated: “I am pleased to accept your MS”. I felt like that we received a conditional acceptance but now a rejection. So did I get a rejection because our western blot is cropped? If they really don’t like that, we can always re-run the gel and present non-cropped images (these images are not presented in the manuscript, but on the response to reviewers only). Is this the reason why our manuscript was rejected?

It is worthwhile to appeal? Or would I be wasting time? If we didn’t receive a high priority score, why did they indicated conditional acceptance in the second decision letter?

I would really like to hear some honest opinions, cause my own ones are likely to be biased influenced by my frustration and disappointment.


texts: Should I include code in my research paper?

texts: My paper is about a specific application of blockchain. I've developed a basic prototype for it and so far, I've described it in detail, and put screencaps of the interface for it. Should I also include actual code of relating to different parts of the application?


texts: Is there a trollish/novelty/esoteric citation style?

texts:
In programming, there are these so-called "esoteric  programming languages" like "LOLCODE" or "Shakespeare," which really have pretty much zero usefulness. They are just kind of a novelty, or if a computer science professor is feeling like being particularly obnoxious he can choose it as the language for one of his assignments.

I was wondering if there is anything similar for citation styles. Citation styles are a "language" of sorts, and in principle you could have the analog of "LOLCODE" for making citations. I have never heard of such a thing, and I was considering inventing one---you know, something for a Humanities professor to require if they are feeling like being particularly obnoxious---but I wanted to make sure that such a thing didn't already exist.


texts: Famous professor at relatively unknown university for post-doc

texts:
I am about to finish my Ph.D. soon. It was in the field of computational sciences and was done from a well-known European research lab. In my own assessment, it has been a mediocre Ph.D. for me (2 paper in top tier conference, 2 in average ones, no journal yet).

I am looking for post-doc as the next step. I already have a couple of offers for post-doc, and one of them is from a famous professor in my field. However, he happens to have setup his lab at a relatively unknown university in a small city in central Europe.

I was obviously aware of this while applying, and I honestly thought this wouldn't bother me at all. However, now that things have moved forward and the time has come to finalize a decision, I do find myself a bit bothered with the stature of the university. I have tried to seek advice on this matter from my current Ph.D. adviser. However, she knows my prospective post-doc supervisor in person and has been offering highly diplomatic suggestions about the matter.

So I thought it might be a good idea to ask this question over here. Please share your opinion on this. How much does the stature of the university matter in a post-doctoral position, given that the particular lab I am going to be associated with is headed by a famous name and the job description seems to suit my research interests quite well? I have other post-doc offers from relatively younger/less-famous professors from better universities. Given that the area of research is more or less similar in all the cases, what is more advisable for a career in research?


texts: Can I ask for a faster reply from graduate school?

texts:
I am currently a MSc student and I have applied to the same school for a PhD. I have some connections in the department, but nobody from the admissions committee.
On the admissions page, the standard procedure states that applicants shall receive an answer within 1 to 3 months from the deadline. So far, just over a month has passed.
The problem is that I have an interesting offer from a company, and is unreasonable to ask them to wait 2 more months for me to decide. Would a polite email to the official email of the admissions committee explaining this situation be perceived negatively? Is there any chance it could help speeding up a reply?


texts:
I've just come across some academic positions in Ireland described as Lecturer above (/below) the bar. What should this be understood as equivalent to in other naming schemes?

(A basic search didn't produce a reliable answer.)


texts: Does "being ghosted" mean "rejection" after PhD interview?

texts: I had a PhD interview (Computer Science) 3 weeks ago with a German institute. The interview went well and they said they will make their final decision in a week (the latest) and let the candidates know. However, it's been 3 weeks and no response. I emailed them a week ago asking if they have decided yet. Still no response. Before the interview, they were extremely responsive. E.g. I emailed and asked many questions about how I should prepare for the presentation etc. They would typically respond in like 5 mins. But after the interview, they seem to be ghosting me. Does this mean I should forget about this position?


texts: How to find only the papers that cite a particular article in an important way?

texts:
I'm having the following problem: There is some interesting paper (in machine learning) which is cited by 180 other papers (according to Google Scholar). From these 180, I want to find the papers that build up heavily on the original paper. I mean, not the ones that just mention the original paper briefly and are not REALLY related to it, but the ones in which the original paper is one of the, let's say three, main references.

Now, obviously I cannot read 180 abstracts/papers now. Any clever and experienced ideas? I'm a PhD student.

Thanks!


texts: One of my professors made a rape joke. What should I do?

texts:
I'm at a community college in the US.

Early on in the semester, one of my professors made a rape joke. I was too stunned, tired, and sick (I have a moderate physical health condition) to get involved at the time. Now we are in finals. I have spoken to other students and at least one person interpreted it the same way.

What should we do? What should I have done immediately?


texts: What is a suitable job title for someone responsible for creating large data sets?

texts: I write and record hundreds of sentences and format them in a way so they're ready to be fed into an AI model used in a chat bot. What job title would you consider this to be?


texts: Do more people earn BAs or BSs in Linguistics?

texts: I'm interested in the proportion of BAs vs BSs awarded in linguistics in the United States, but it would be interesting to see these numbers for any field really. I haven't been able to find such stats, so even just a link to where these numbers might be found would be very appreciated.


texts: Helping spouse adjust when relocating for an academic position?

texts:
I am moving to a new place to take a new academic position.  Now that we have committed to it, what can I do to help my spouse adjust to or enjoy the new location?  We are both academics.

Edit: Several considerations were made in wording the question.  1.  Questions that are specific to a particular situation are discouraged here.  2.  I am past the negotiation stage so I do not want negotiation advice. (Yes, my spouse had many chances to change our plans.)  3.  Presumably this situation will occur to dual-career couples at most career stages.  Therefore I am thinking beyond my current situation in anticipation of the next one.  Answers from people who have been in this situation are appreciated.


texts: Do universities in the UK start making PhD admission decisions before the application period is closed?

texts:
Suppose a university in the UK is advertising multiple funded PhD positions. For example, suppose a given department is offering ten different projects. Do the admission committees ever make a formal offer before the application period has closed? How about an informal one? It may be further assumed (if needed) that the candidate has been already interviewed via email, phone, or in person.

I am interested in this because there are some universities that have application periods closing much after other schools (e.g. one month) in the same discipline, which is a sub-optimal strategy for hiring best talent (other schools get to choose first).

The candidate would obviously have to be very competent, the recommendation letters good, etc.


texts: How often is "too often" for emailing journal editors?

texts:
Context: I submitted a paper for initial review May 2018, and not long after received a "revise and resubmit" response. I never got a confirmation regarding my resubmission, and the email I sent requesting that wasn't answered. A few months later, I checked in again, and finally was told they never received it. I resubmitted it (it's now January 2019, by the way.) Since then, I have reached out a few times to check in. Once in May - the associate editor said they were still waiting on the evaluations. I wrote again in August, only because I saw that the associate editor had changed, and I correctly assumed that the new one didn't know anything about my submission. When they did look into it, they said it was still in review. Against my better judgement, I checked in again in October (I didn't want to be annoying, but...in my defense, my previous submission had been lost, and this most recent submission had been sent way back in January.) However, I got no response. And here we are in December, shortly approaching the 1 year mark, and still no update.

Finally the question: would it be inappropriate to send another email some time soon? On the one hand, I completely empathize that people are busy and volunteering their time when serving on an editorial board, and I don't want to annoy them over things that are maybe out of their control. However, they don't have the best track record (I also consulted with another colleague who similarly had a frustrating experience with this journal) and keeping my paper in review for almost a year seems excessive (in my field the turnaround for a review is usually about 4 months). If sending another email is in order, any suggestions on how to inquire and point out the delays and unresponsiveness without sounding annoying or like a jerk?


texts: Issues with publishing dissertation on an interest/advocacy group's website

texts:
I am wondering if it would hurt me (professional creditability etc.) if I publish my dissertation on an interest / advocacy group's website.

My dissertation is in one of the areas that this group has been advocating for a long time. Obviously, there are many other contrary views to the views of this interest group. The interest group is known nationally and, in essence, functions as a political lobby.

I am employed in the same industry, so chose to study in this area from a well respected university. It was easy to identify this gap in knowledge and to address it with robust research.

There has been no issues to date but now that the dissertation is approved, I am thinking of making it more widely available, hence the above option.


texts: What's the convention for describing the location of a quote on a page, without line numbers?

texts:
Assume that: 1. the original text lacks line numbers

and  counting the line numbers (for each citation) is too inefficient, for both you and the reader.

Is it conventional to write the beneath?

  This quotation is from p. 10 ( [one of:] Top, Middle, Bottom).


texts: Discovered that my research was not so original after it was complete. Is there a policy I should follow here?

texts:
I'm a student researcher in high school.  Over the summer, I did some research on a rather obscure math topic, so there was not much research done on it.  I found some decent results on the topic, and through all my searching for articles or other sources, I did not find similar results, so I decided to write a paper on it so I could eventually submit it to some research competition.

About an hour ago, after googling my topic under some unthinkable term, I discovered that someone, in a forum post, found all my results years ago, and the work done never received much attention.  Our derivations/methods differ slightly, but overall, they are really similar.

This is really frustrating.  I thought I finally came up with something new, and yet on some obscure part of the internet, someone did it already.  I was convinced I was exhaustive in my literature review, since that forum post just never seemed to come up.  I don't think there's any time left to extend my research.

Should I submit my paper anyway?  Is it ok to submit original work that isn't original?


texts: How are mathematicians paid to do research?

texts: How are (pure) mathematicians paid to do research? Let's say my interests lie in the foundations of mathematics and I want to do research in that area. How am I going to get paid for that in the traditional context of academia?


texts: How should PhD student show importance of research proposal in cover letter requesting access to important dataset?

texts:
I am a PhD student,  and I am applying to be part of a cohort of graduate student researchers who will be using data from a national survey (that everyone in my field wants to get to) to answer policy questions. The dataset  will most likely be a part of my dissertation.

The application requires a cover letter that needs me to explain certain parts of my research.

Here is what i wrote:

  My current research interest is concerned with the interactions
  between families, students, teachers and staff in Head Start programs;
  specifically families who frequently encounter structural barriers due
  to their race, ethnicity and/or limited English proficiency. This work
  is important because of many reasons, but to name a few: the current
  climate of uncertainty experienced by families from diverse
  cultures/ethnicity/nationalities and how it pervades the education of
  their children, the forecasted minority/majority shift our population
  is going under and the overall right to equal access afforded to every
  child in the United States. I believe my work will contribute to a
  better understanding of the barriers these families confront on a
  daily basis and to a dialogue about practical solutions in the form of
  policy changes in order to ameliorate said barriers

I asked my adviser for feedback, and she said

  You have said why the work is important and how you will contribute.
  But from what you have written, I do not know what it is that you are
  doing that will contribute to the field. What is your research,
  exactly? Why is your study, specifically, important?

I am really not getting it. I have been grappling a lot but i end up writing things like my methods. Any way you can illuminate will be appreciated.


texts:
I am curious to know how the tenure granting process works in the US. How much weight is given to research, teaching, and service. I have heard that a lot depends on your relationship with your peers - department colleagues. If they feel you are a good fit, you can be granted tenure even though you have less than a stellar record.

Is there a minimum requirement for number of publications. Do publications before joining the institution count? I would appreciate your inputs.


texts: Dealing with competition from inside the lab

texts: I invited a coworker with shared expertise to collaborate on/coauthor a paper (both postdocs). The result was ultimately much better due to this input. He also had an idea for an alternative approach to 'my problem', and published a second paper with me as coauthor. While this is beneficial in the sense that it increases the quality and volume of both our output, I find the situation highly stressful. I am not aggressively competitive by nature and feel that his behaviour is arrogant and offensive. I understand that once you have published a result, any generalization thereof it is ‘up for grabs’. However, people with access to your unpublished work have an ‘unfair’ head start. Is there an unwritten understanding with respect to crossing the borders between the territory of your coworkers? How can I avoid this type of conflict/coworker in the future? Am I being overly sensitive and need to develop thicker skin/not cut out for this type of business?


texts: How to decide between submitting to a conference and a Journal?

texts:
I have a work ready to publish with good results and proper mathematical arguments to justify it. I liked to try top conferences like ICML, IJCAI, CVPR, ICCV ... which are related to my field (machine learning and vision), but their deadlines are already passed or not reachable.

My supervisor has the idea of sending extended version of the paper (with extra mathematical proofs and experiments) to a top journal like JMLR or such.

But i'm not sure if it is a good idea, because it may take 6-8 months until i get the review and revise it and maybe 1 year until it gets published if they accept it, and my PhD will be finished before that!!

What if i send the paper (small version) to a medium conference which has a deadline in a month from now and also sending the extended version to a top JR? But i'm afraid by doing that i may undersell my work to medium quality expectations.

1- Is it allowed?

2- Is it a good plan?


texts: Rebuttal is limited to 500 words, but the reviewers asked almost 20 questions

texts: I have got a rebuttal for the conference and require to respond the questions reviewers asked. However, the response section says "Your response must contain at most 500 words." How can I answer almost 20 reviewers questions in 500 words? Any suggestions?


texts: National vs Regional vs Institutional conference

texts:
I'm a PhD student currently writing a scholarship application, and there is a section in which I can include any non-refereed contributions, which includes conference presentations.  For such presentations, I am to indicate whether the conference is, in their words, "institutional, regional, provincial, national or international."

Some of the conferences I've presented at are very obviously international and national.  However, I'm having some difficulty classifying some of the smaller, graduate conferences I've spoken at.

I suppose my question is: what is an institutional conference?  At what point is a conference considered regional?  Provincial?

It seems a bit silly to just go from the title of the conference.  For example, if conference X has the name of a city in the title, it would be regional, but conference Y has the name of a province in it and is therefore provincial, even though conference X had greater attendance and was considered to be higher profile because of an established history.  As such, this is probably the wrong way to go about it.  What is the right way?


texts: Should I contact the editor-in-chief about a senior editor's lack of communication?

texts:
I submitted a paper to the top journal in my field. The journal's home page sets 120 days for a decision as a goal. Recent stats suggest 60 days to initial decision is more typical.

It has now been seven months, with no word. (The paper sat in the queue marked "Awaiting AE assignment" for two months, and has since been marked "Under review".)

Colleagues have varied in their recommendations about approaching the SE [Senior Editor] with a polite query as to when the review might be complete. Some advised strongly against it, due to some bad experiences with quick rejections following such a query. Others, typically more senior (and tenured) people, advocate a "wait and see" approach. Recently, I was able to speak with the former EIC [Editor-in-Chief] of a peer journal (a different journal, also at the top of my field), who very candidly advised me to contact the SE immediately about a decision. On his advice, I did so.

It has been two weeks without any sort of response with the SE.

I have chatted with other editors at this journal (AEs [Associate Editors] and SEs), and concluded this is likely a continuing issue with this particular SE. He is purportedly exceptional in his reviews, advice, and decisions, but not so much with timeliness.

As a very junior person, the status of this paper is very important for job prospects. My mentor (and co-author) takes something of a "throw me into the deep end" approach, and invites me to solve the issue without his intervention.

So, my questions are these: How long should I wait before contacting the SE again? Is there a point that I should contact the EIC or managing editor? (For context, as I understand it, the managing editor is a very junior person, effectively an administrative assistant to the EIC.)

May be similar to Is it wise to contact the editor of a journals with my concerns regarding the length of the acceptance process?, and perhaps How to let a journal know that its submission process is very painful?, as well as some others, but different in seeking advice for escalation beyond SE.

Edited to clarify EIC [Editor-in-Chief], SE [Senior Editor], AE [Associate Editor]. As I understand, SE is assigned by managing editor, based on content and submission letter. SE assigns a blind [?] AE. AE assigns/recruits blind reviewers.


texts: How essential is your GPA for admissions to PhD programs to US universities in Theoretical Physics?

texts: I am a Physics undergrad aspiring to pursue mathematical physics(string theory etc) as a future career. How much importance is given to your GPA by grad schools in the US or Europe for admitting students to PhD programs. A comprehensive account of the importance given by universities of different tiers would be appreciated. Example what are the guidelines followed by unis like harvard, princeton in comparision to something like texas, rochester, UCLA, etc. Also, what GPA is considered 'good' by a uni like princeton compared to the lower tier universities.


texts: Ask professor for reference and at the same time propose to do phd with him? (UK)

texts:
I need a reference from my former professor, for my PhD application, but I would also like to work with him for my PhD. He would be my top choice, but I will of course need to apply to other universities too. How do I do this? I feel like it's a bit much too ask, and I feel unsure about how to phrase these things.

Also, if I apply to do a PhD with him, can he also write the reference for this application too or would i need to find a different academic?

edit: I am in the UK, and I hold a MA, so I would be applying straight for PhDs (no Master included etc.)


texts: I’m teaching a few classes next semester and feel scattered. Can you recommend some software to help me plan out a course so on each day I can see what topic I’m teaching, activities planned, homework to assign etc? Would be great to have a nice overview though I could just use excel too if need be. Thanks!


texts:
If you were to write a scientific paper which must include a section on 'Basic definitions', would you put this section after the Abstract and the Introduction, or before the Introduction?

What do you think about this layout?

Abstract
Introduction
Basic Definitions
Some chapters on the work / Methods used
Review of the literature
Results
Conclusion


texts: First impressions: CV or research statement?

texts:
When hiring PhD students, what document is used most frequently for a 'first impression': the CV or the research statement/statement of purpose?

Context: I am currently in the process of applying to several PhD positions. A constant factor seems to be the necessity to submit both a CV and a research statement-like letter. As I can imagine professors who get a lot of submissions cannot read all submitted documents entirely, I was wondering which document would be used more as a first impression, and which one as a more detailed insight into the candidate?


texts: Student responsibility for synchronous online assessments

texts:
Here are constraints for my course (which will be delivered remotely):

The class size is huge (250+ students).
Lecture contents will be delivered asynchronously (with pre-recorded videos and live Q&A sessions).
Synchronous (scheduled weekly for 20 minutes), frequent, small assessments will be used to test lecture contents.
Each assessment is web-based and can be automatically graded (say manual grading is not possible, given the TA hours, for this large class).

Given that it's an online course, is it fair to assume the responsibility of stable internet connection (so that each assessment can be started and submitted in time) on students?
If such an assumption is not fair, then does it mean any student claiming a network-related problem can be accommodated unconditionally for extra time or another test?


texts:
I am at a difficult position. I work in a major software/telecommunications company, and pursue a doctoral degree at the same time. The company has strict policies against competing behavior. I have implemented a lot of core Internet component code at my free time, but the company would consider releasing those under an open source license as competing behavior. I won't consider changing the employer, as the salary is acceptable, the job is extremely interesting and I frequently get good extra payments for all of the inventions I have made.

However, I have managed to obtain publication permission for several articles given that main algorithms are only explained as pseudocode. Because my core Internet component is over 20 000 lines of code, I of course cannot explain all as pseudocode.

I would like to submit articles related to this to major IEEE computer society and communications society journals. I would like the reviewers have ability to assess that all experiments have been performed correctly, and thus see the source code for the experiments made in the articles. But I cannot according to the company policy publish the source code to all readers.

Now, what I would like to have is review-only supplemental material. Supplemental material that only the reviewers can assess, and that the journal can store for their private use (e.g. for verification of results if there's a suspicion of scientific misconduct), but not available publicly for all readers.

Is this kind of review-only supplemental material in general possible? I wouldn't be surprised to find if the answer was "no", as it makes it impossible for regular readers to work as unsolicited reviewers, publishing their own commentary on the results in the process.

Of course the answer can depend on the circumstances and the journal, so perhaps asking the editor would be a good option. But I believe this question may have more general value, and thus, I am asking it here as well.


texts: Is it okay to typeset someone’s to-be-graded assignment for them?

texts:
I have a friend who’s an undergraduate at university. I believe myself to be fairly proficient in TeX/LaTeX; I’ve seen some of the assignments that he’s received back, and we both agree they could look more professional.

Is it ethical for me to typeset his work to look more like a paper before it's submitted for grading? I would not be adding any new information to the assignment and I would not correct any mistakes that I think I see, but it still seems to me that perhaps it could be against the rules.


texts:
My side project got accepted to a conference and my advisor is not involved in the project. How can I find travel funding?

My advisor has kind of discouraged me from having side projects (but doesn't forbid me), and doesn't have a lot of money in general, so I would be afraid to ask him.

The main person I am working with on the side project is no longer at the university (he is now at a different university).


texts:
Is it okay to apply to a PhD without knowing precisely what you want to achieve? I heard advisors have projects, so would it be okay to state that you are interested in one of those projects without necessarily being an expert in it?

If so, how much knowledge do you need anyway? and in the statement of purpose letter, how do you state your interest in a specific project efficaciously giving that you are not fully aware of it?

Now you may ask, why would someone be interested in working on a project if he is not fully aware of it, right? But the thing is, some research topics are claimed to be HOT, at least that's the word on the web, some claim that certain topics have great potential in the foreseeable future. So, who does not want to work on something desirable with a future!


texts: Some specifics about research and teaching statements

texts:
Thanks to Internet and this site, in particular, I have a pretty good overall idea about contents and style, expected from research and teaching statements. As a potential postdoc or junior faculty member, who has recently defended dissertation, currently I'm updating my research and teaching statements to clarify my approach to teaching (so far I have teaching experience only in a form of informal tutoring (various disciplines) and corporate learning) as well as my research agenda.

With that in mind, I'm curious about what people on the Academia site think about advantages and disadvantages of the inclusion into the documents a small number of the following components (I've seen a number of examples of doing that):

(research statement) visual elements (hopefully, tasteful - light matching colors and LaTeX), such as a lightweight framework or simply a diagram, depicting current and future research areas of interest, their potential interaction as well as types of expected research outcomes;
(research statement) references to the appropriate literature (very brief review);
(teaching statement) appropriate quotes from general and scientific literature.


texts: How to survive the remaining 5 months of my postdoc in toxic environment?

texts:
I am international postdoc and 7 months into my 1 year postdoc. My PI is very young and the lab is relatively new. I chose this lab because after the interview I was convinced that the PI and I had similar research interests. I had also made sure the work would be experimental in nature since that is what I am an expert in.

The research direction proposed seemed interesting and I have enjoyed working on the project. But there is a major mismatch between our attitudes. I do appreciate him taking the time out to listen to my research plan and goals but I just cannot bear the abusive nature of the PI. In my 6 months time he has humiliated me in front of the whole group twice (both for journal clubs), saying my presentations should be much better than what it is. The theoretical aspect of my work is not of my interest and he expects me to know each and everything about it even though it's a new topic for me. There is zero tolerance for any mistake or unanswered question.

Long story short, I feel under-confident and bullied I am convinced that I need to look for a new position and have already started contacting some potential advisers (no luck yet).

My questions are the following:

How do I survive the remaining 5 months of my postdoc with an
abusive mentor who has unreasonably high standards?
I have been so stressed since the past month that I feel unfit for
any position. How do I regain my confidence?
How do I find a position without a reference letter from the current
adviser?


texts: How do you build a healthy and productive relationship with your supervisor?

texts:
Some graduate students and post-docs have reported serious problems with their advisors and supervisors. Some of the problems are severe enough to be career ending. Not all problems can be avoided but it is possible that some can be if the student or post-doc takes some actions, especially in their first days of the new position. The goal is to build a solid and positive relationship with the advisor from the beginning so that small problems later don't escalate.

What can a student or post-doc do, starting in their first days and weeks, to help assure a strong and positive relationship with a supervisor?

There is no assumption here that it is all up to the student, but what can a person do in a new environment to maximize their chances of having a good and lasting relationship?

Students who have done this successfully and faculty members who can help students fit in are invited to give advice.

Note that I'm not looking to collect horror stories here in which things went terribly wrong. What can the student do so that the horror scenario is unlikely to ever become an issue.


texts: What should I do if I don't know the answer to a question posed by a student?

texts: If I am the TA for a class, what should I do if a student asks me a question which I can't answer? While "tell the truth and say you don't know" is one approach, are there other options?


texts: When listing refereed papers in a CV, should I highlight my name in authors lists?

texts:
I am experimental physics grad student updating my CV / publications/talks list in preparation for applying to postdoctoral positions.

In my refereed publications list, while a few of the most recent papers have me as the first author, the majority do not. So my question is as follows: Should I highlight my name in the lists somehow? If so, italics, boldface, or something else?


texts: How to salvage a rejected paper when you don't have time to correct it?

texts:
I just submitted a paper to a conference.  The reviewers gave me their responses only two days before the deadline to resubmit the paper.  They seemed to indicate that my paper was on topic, and had good preliminary results, but they seemed to indicate that it was lacking more results.  I understand it, and I think they're probably right, but I really don't have the time to invest much more time into this particular paper.  My advisor thinks that I should invest my time in other research endeavors, but I don't really want to abandon a paper that i've already invested a lot of time in.

What should you do when you want to salvage a paper but don't have time to correct it?


texts: What to do if the data in a paper you are reviewing is copied from another paper of the same authors which is supposed to be a different device?

texts:
I got a paper to review and the authors of this paper already published a conference proceedings on the same topic but supposedly a different device. When comparing the figures of the conference proceedings and the submitted paper it becomes apparent that the data is exactly the same. This should not be possible as even the noise patterns are agreeing and the device structure is different enough to show different results.
What are my options?


texts: What is the importance of postdoctoral teaching experience for US tenure-track jobs?

texts:
I'm a math Ph.D student in the US who has just accepted a four year postdoc--NSF postdoc at a US school interrupted by a year in Europe. For better or for worse, I am only slated to teach for two semesters in those four years--likely during the second semester of my 3rd year and 1st semester of my 4th.

I am planning to apply for tenure track positions in the US afterwards and am wondering whether the relative lack of teaching as a postdoc will adversely affect my application.

Should I be looking for volunteer teaching opportunities?

If it matters as a graduate student I had fairly extensive teaching experience, serving as sole instructor for courses in various levels of calculus, multi-variable calculus, and linear algebra for four years in addition to mentoring REU students and grading/TA-ing graduate and advanced undergraduate courses.


texts: The effect of a bad master's thesis on my future phd

texts:
Can I do a master's thesis with exploratory work without any results? It's like assume some hypotheses about certain data and testing them. If yes, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Can such a work support me as a good Ph.D. student?

If I didn't publish anything in my master's level, and I graduated with such a thesis, would that support me or pointing a red flag against my research skills? Add to this, working as a research assistant during my master's studies. Would anyone appreciate my failed attempts and hard work yet not productive? I'm really a hard worker and I'm doing non-traditional approaches (because traditional techniques don't advance/"revolutionize" the field) in my research but I don't have any output. My advisor agrees that we need to do non-traditional approaches to advance our field, but he is pointing out that we need results and to do some baby steps based on a published research. Unfortunately, It's too late now to publish anything. I also feel that this RA job is something against me when I want to apply for a phd program (maybe in a much better school). Would a person who read my application make a statement like this; "2 years as an RA with a good advisor and no a single publication? furthermore a bad thesis? your application is in the trash dear..". I also feel that my advisor feels I'm not really a good RA, and if the time came back, he wouldn't have hired me. Which means that he won't give me a good recommendation letter and most importantly, I let him down. He was very generous to me and provided me a full scholarship and this RA job because he thought I'm really good, but now he thinks the opposite. For me personally, I do believe that I'm not productive, however, I'm learning a lot and I'm a hard worker.

What is the effect of such a situation on me when I want to apply for a Ph.D. program in one of the very good schools (one of the top 200 schools in the world maybe?)


texts: Importance of order of authors in published paper when applying for PhD positions

texts: In some subfields of Computer Science, usually the order of authors in papers indicate the importance of contributions of authors to a paper. I am currently contemplating the possibility of pursuing a PhD degree. Accordingly, my question is, when applying for PhD positions, do admission committees consider (and if so, how do they evaluate) the order of authors in papers that I have published. Is the number of papers in which I have been the first author an important factor for admission committees?


texts: Is it possible for reviewers to ignore papers?

texts:
Sometimes, when I get the comments of the reviewers of a submitted paper (mine or some else paper), I feel like the reviewers just ignore the paper. More precisely, I feel that reviewers did not read the whole paper. Even more, I feel like they do not even complete reading the abstract (it is a conclusion from their comments of course).

Is it possible that reviewers ignore papers? Maybe because the authors are not known or maybe they did not write the paper well?

My only argument is that authors believe that their paper is a breakthrough paper and it has a very good contribution. Imagine reviewers start reading a paper in a high journal rank and they found (just examples, do not take them as serious ones): "This paper shows that 1+1=3" or "This paper demonstrates that if the determinant of a matrix is 0, the matrix still has an inverse."

Although, I do not think that in a high quality journals, reviewers can do some kind of ignorance. How can one be sure that their paper is well treated? How to write papers that make the reviewers do not throw the paper away.


texts: Pay for open access publication from private money

texts:
I am working on a paper together with people from another university. In one of our meetings, after I have mentioned that I do not have any funding from the university for open access, they suggested that we can pay the publication fee from private money.
This puzzled me, as I have never heard that somebody is doing this.
Is it common to pay a publication fee in an open access journal from private money?


texts: Declining an offer to present a poster instead of a paper

texts:
I have submitted a paper to a conference which defined several submission categories: papers, posters, etc. I submitted my abstract in the paper category, but was asked to present a poster instead.

I would do it if it was practical in my situation. But the conference is in another country, and the travel expenses are somewhat consequent. I'm not sure my research lab would accept to cover the expenses, because we're already on a tight budget. Even so, I don't want to be stuck later on if my paper gets accepted somewhere else and I can't go there because I already spent too much of the lab's money on this poster. I'm not even certain I could present the exact same research in another setting without it being perceived as a duplicate.

I hence want to decline the offer (hoping this isn't a mistake!). Do the arguments I gave above sound reasonable, from the point of view of a conference committee? Is there something I could add or remove to make this better?


texts: How to offer a reviewer to be co-author?

texts:
I currently have a paper submitted to PNAS. We had two rounds of revisions, and following detailed suggestions from one reviewer, we have improved our proposed algorithm a lot: its complexity is now significantly lower, and the idea he suggested makes the overall method more robust in handling noisy signal.

I feel that this reviewer's contribution extend far beyond his original role, so much that I feel it would be ethically honest to have him as a co-author. To be crystal-clear: if he was not a reviewer, but a colleague with whom I had discussed this before submitting the paper, he would clearly be entitled to authorship, no question.

But… he is a reviewer, so I am wondering how (if at all) we should ask him to join as co-author. Right now, I am ready to submit the twice-revised manuscript, and I have no doubt that it will be accepted (second review was “minor revisions”). The options I can see are:

In my cover letter for the revised manuscript, explain the situation to the editor and ask him if he could (with the reviewer's agreement) lift anonymity and allow the authors' list change.
Wait for the manuscript to be formally approved, and only then write to the editor asking for the same thing.
Do nothing, for example because it is frowned upon. This would pain me greatly, because the reviewer really contributed very significantly to the algorithm, and I believe he should be able to claim authorship for this contribution (if he sees it fit).

So, what are accepted practices? How should I handle this matter?


texts: Is it true that foreign students have very limited academic prospects in Germany?

texts:
My question is about this apparently well-received answer on Quora:

  Q: Which PhD programs in Germany would you recommend?

  A: NONE...The German Ph.D. system is feudal and archaic. At the top is the professor, who, unlike his Anglo Saxon counterparts, can take as many Ph.D. students as he wants. 20 to 30 is very common. They are used to do the grunt work. If you are a foreign student, the professor will do nothing to help you stay on, network, or find a job in Germany....

  In Germany, [it is very difficult to find an academic job]. In practice, unless your Professor pushes you, and he will only push a bunch of favorites who are German, you won't get a job. Why do you think there are so few foreign faculty in German universities? And surprise! Those who are there have PhDs from the Ivy League...If you take a PhD and then try to move to industry, you need to have a job that requires a PhD, and...it will be an immigration officer who decides that....

Is this really the case? I have known few non-German people with German PhDs and none of them mentioned these issues. I especially find it unlikely that anyone can have 20–30 PhD students worth of grunt work in fields like mathematics. Many of the other issues also seem to be present in other countries. On the other hand, there is also this article, which largely agrees.

To narrow the question, let's ask specifically about foreign graduate students in mathematics who seek academic careers.


texts: Is it possible to be admitted to CS PhD programs (in the US) with scholarship at age 18?

texts:
I have a son (currently 16) who is a junior in computer science at a well-known university. We are Canadian. He is very passionate about AI research and has published several first-authored papers in highly ranked journals and conferences (top 1-5% in Scopus).

Given the competition in graduate applications in AI, does he stand a chance to be funded in CS Ph.D. programs at 18 (I cannot afford his graduate study)? Will his age be a problem to be admitted to top programs? Should he apply for Master programs first? He has a perfect GPA and GRE.


texts:
Seeing Forgot to answer exam question and thinking back to my exam that I wrote a day ago, I think it might be me who forgot!

I recall the last few exam questions but not answering them!

Should I speak to the professor to see if anything can be done or should I leave it be?

(all the details match me... A+ so far and also submitted a draft earlier...)


texts: Future prospects at the moment seem bleak after PhD. What steps can I take now to make best use of the next 1 year?

texts:
Suppose, I want to add machine learning proficiency to my current skillsets. What should my strategy be like? I already have done two machine learning courses on Coursera, but without doing actual projects, I have nothing to show to my future employers. That should be one of my targets during my next 1 year.

What other things I should do? Basically, I  have now come to my senses about the reality of the world and I have realized that I could have prepared well for it. But I don't want to live in regret and be in same position after a year too.

I understand that the question is vague. But specifically, I want advice of improving my profile for (1) an academia future  (2) A fallback option of industry.


texts: How to become a better researcher in a shorter amount of time?

texts:
This question could also be read as :
As a professional researcher, you wish you would have done some things differently than you did when starting your research career. Things that would have benefit you more in being a successful researcher. By successful, I mean having the most impactful contributions in your field.

I am not concerned about others being better than me but rather want to know how to become a better researcher and make better decisions that will contribute to that end. What are the things that you as a professional researcher would tell the younger you to do differently to be a better researcher.


texts:
How do faculty search committees evaluate candidates  for faculty or post-doc positions?

I am a PhD student
I found that there is no fixed algorithm to judge a journal.
But candidates publish in various journals in their PhD.

How will a researcher know where to publish his PhD so that he can get a Post-Doc or faculty position?

If a candidate does not understand which journal is good/average/bad,how will one decide where to publish?

This question is somewhat related to How are journals evaluated?

NOTE:I am in search of a journal for my first ever manuscript.So I am asking a lot of questions,sorry for that


texts: Editor asked me why to change the corresponding author

texts:
I have one accepted manuscript waiting to be published. During the proof, I changed the corresponding author from me to my postdoc adivsor. Editor now asked why I made such a change.

What happened was that when I submitted my manuscript, I am the corresponding author by default. I failed to find any option to change it. So I planed to change it later on.

What shall I respond in order not to be rejected during this stage?

I am major in the theoretical relativity physics.

Update:

After nearly one week, my request finally is approved. I do not even have to fill out a form.


texts: When to use academic titles in presentations in Europe?

texts:
I have M.Sc. (tech.) in physics. I am doing second degree in MD. I normally just present my work without academic titles in MD studies.
I am thinking the benefits of using academic titles in different fields.
Some of my friends use MD in medical stuff, while M.Sc. (tech.) in technical stuff.

However, many times, I have to deal with epidemiology and statistics where I use tools in Physics.
In these cases, I am thinking if I should use the academic title because my work is so different than anyone else in the group.
Same goes for the reports which I write.

In Finnish culture, we do not want to emphasize what you have achieved, which is the reason I am not using the academic title.
However, I am not sure about it.

Other titles which I can use EUR ING soon.
I think it is extraneous in such presentations.
Not sure which are the rules when to use this one, for example.
I think it is enough to leave the latter in CV.


texts: Access to databases stopped in Slovakia – how to deal with it

texts:
Starting from January 1st this year, access to all scientific databases and publications have been stopped for Slovak universities and Slovak Academy of Sciences. The reason is simple, the authorities have not paid the bill even for the access in year 2016. Of course, we can ask friends or authors for sending us requested publications, but this is a step back, and we don’t want to bother other people.

What could you advise for researchers in Slovakia, what can they do in this situation?


texts:
I'm confused about the existence of vanity journals. My impression is that they often charge significant sums of money yet provide no peer review, editing, etc.

If I want to claim I published something to stoke my ego, why wouldn't I just create my own "Journal of articles that were totally peer-reviewed" and "publish" there? In the days when things were published in print I can understand the difficulty in doing this yourself, but now surely creating a "Journal" is no harder than throwing up a quick website?


texts: Making a short summary before a set of paragraphs?

texts:
Of late I noticed that recent books or long articles tend to make a short summary before every set of paragraphs. For example, we might have:

1. Introduction

We so and so ...

Therefore, so and so ....

What is so and so: Let us consider ...

Properties of so and so: We notice that ...

where every boldfaced phrases is followed by a set of paragraphs. For a real example:
http://modular.math.washington.edu/edu/2011/581g/misc/Darmon-Diamond-Taylor-Fermats_Last_Theorem.pdf

My questions are:

1) Is this style of writing really a trend?

2) Is it still a good idea if we are writing an article of moderate length such as a statement of purpose or a short report?

In my opinion, such style seems much more intelligible.


texts: Is Mx. the default title for Male non-phd holders?

texts:
A journal drop-down menu for selecting a person's title has four options but none of them are Mr.

(I definitely scrolled down enough.)
As a male, non-PhD holder should I select Mx., or is this a mistake by the journal?


texts: How should I state my peer review experience in the CV?

texts:
I've been invited to review manuscripts for two journals in my field frequently. I noticed in the first couple of cases my supervisor was the associate editor which has selected me in the process, but for rest of them, I was assigned to the papers by other editors (not from our network).

So, I assumed that my name should be there somewhere in a list, such that the editors may choose me when they see a paper matches my keywords or my previous review results, etc.

Now, I want to state that in my CV and in a list separate from my ad-hoc review experiences, but I do not know what suitable key phrase I should use.

For instance, can I use the following?

  Member of the review board for Journals X and Y

By the way, I work in the field of computer science.


texts: Supervised master students not following instructions: how common and how to deal with them?

texts:
I started as a postdoc at the end of last year, and my background is computer science if this helps. My current PI asked me to supervise two students, both went really bad (details below).

Student 1

This is a research-based master student (not sure if this is unique in UK universities), who needed to focus on a single research project for approx. 8 months (including writing up). This student only did what he had been told to without thinking about why and what to do next. Even if he was given rather clear instruction, he did not follow all of them. His data collection and experiments were also rather messed up with lots of errors. Even the PI herself found this student very difficult to deal with, so initially I believed it was not my fault that he did not make much progress.

Student 2

This is a MSc student who needed to do a mini project, which lasted approx. 1.5 months (including writing up). The problem here is this student did not follow my advice at all. The student refused to use the algorithms suggested in the beginning, but chose to compare a few algorithms with the given dataset. I pointed out to compare performances, a single dataset was not enough. But she said she had no time to do more experiments. I also explained the importance of model selection several times and send her several references on this topic, spending almost two weeks persuading her to do some model selection. But in the end, I found her code was completely wrong. I pointed this out and shared an online example, what she needed to do was just to copy and paste the code and change the parameters. She copied the example, but in an incorrect way, and she said she had no time to do this again. Maybe I am too critical, but re-running the experiments really wouldn't take more than one/two hours.

Question

My bad experience with these two students makes me to re-think whether I am indeed the problematic person. From my experience during PhD, I thought students themselves needed to make sure their implementation is correct. But both students had errors in their code and I won't be able to discover them without looking at their code carefully. This also seems an expectation from my PI (to check their code line by line), which was never required by my PhD supervisors. Additionally, my current PI did not help much on supervising both students.

I wonder if this is a common issue for PhD/postdocs that when supervising students, 1) the students usually don't follow the advice; 2) PhD/postdocs are responsible to check their code and 3) supervisors contribute very little.


texts: Associate Professor to Assistant Professor

texts: Is it possible that an associate professor in one university be designated as assistant professor after a year in the same university? What could be the consequences of it?


texts: Group members barely doing any work but studying a lot for exams

texts:
As a university student, how should I deal with students in our group who barely do any work, albeit they study a lot to get good grades in their exams?

We've talked to them, but they are convinced they are actually doing stuff (but most times, when we do face-to-face work, all they do is to sit there awaiting for the project to be completed).
When we're not doing face-to-face work, they simply slack.

Should I let the professor know? Quit the group by my own whilst handling my own version of the project? Or what should I do?


texts: Changing research interests as an undergrad?

texts:
I knew I that I wanted to get involved in research since my second year as an undergrad.

I contacted a few of the staff whose work I thought was interesting at my institution and managed to acquire experience with two groups at my institution (through summer work), based on what I was interested in at the time.

However, now in my final year I have settled on a topic that is quite different and will have to go somewhere else to undertake a PhD. This topic is experiments with ultra cold atoms in optical lattices. It sort of combines a few different areas of interesting physics.

Is this a viable option to go for? Is it ethical for me to now just go somewhere else, after staff have been kind enough to let me work for them over the summer? Also this topic is quite different to my dissertation topic? Does this mean its not advisable I choose projects of this kind? I think I am for sure interested in this, but I am a little ignorant about this topic.


texts: How large is the effect of one's appearance on the recognition among scientific peers?

texts:
I just found the paper by Halford and Hsu, that describes the effect that the appearance of companies' CEOs have on the stock value of said company after public appearances of the CEO. They were able to confirm the correlation and gave sufficient evidence to suggest causation.

Even though the scientific community tends to think it soars above the normal, human things that people do or concern themselves with, being human beings comes with its set of deficiencies. I have tried to find articles that try to analyse the impact of conference talks with respect to the appearance of the person giving the talk, but my searches came up empty.

I cannot believe that we are able to fully dissociate content and appearance (this goes for written communication as well) from each other to come to a neutral, unbiased judgement about the content.

I am interested if there are known cases of bias of the scientific community in general, and possibly your discipline in particular, which value the contributions by their peers differently, depending on how they look.

Basically, since the question in the title is rather broad, it boils down to this: Is there correlation between beauty and citation count? If someone can dig up a paper that describes and checks this, I would be grateful.


texts: At what stage of research career one can write a 'tutorial article'?

texts: I learned from this thread that review articles are often written by experienced scholars, but I wonder if a graduate student can publish a tutorial as his/her first publication? For instance, Tutorial on Variational Autoencoders.


texts: Would my sister, who studies in England on a visa, suffer retaliation if she discloses Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

texts:
My sister studies at a university in England on a Tier 4 Visa, and her physician diagnosed her with Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) that is severely stigmatized and often judged a fake illness. Her CFS worsens when she lives alone in England - even after sleeping for 9 hours, by mid-afternoon, she becomes easily fatigued before she starts to study, after going to classes, cooking her own meals (she's vegan), and washing dishes.

1) She is considering disclosing her CFS to her university, but worries that the university would terminate her studies or expel her, because they may judge her too fatigued or weak to succeed in her studies from CFS.

2) Even if her university doesn't expel her, if they inform the UK Home Office of her CFS, then the Home Office may be the one to judge her as too fatigued to succeed, and terminate her visa and stop her from studying in England.

3) Moreover, the Home Office and the university would be sly enough not to state CFS as the reason because this may be illegal, but would invent some other reason to stop her studies.


texts: What should I write when I send a CV by email?

texts: Sometimes for different purpose like taking new courses or job they tell to send a CV through email. But what should I write in body when I attach my CV?


texts: How to refer to a Research Training Scheme Place for PhD study as an achievement

texts:
In Australia, students pursuing higher studies (typically a PhD) can complete it on a Research Training Scheme (RTS) place. The RTS is funded by the federal government (see here) but it is up to each university to select candidates who meet eligibility and other requirements. This is a substantial (financial) award that is based on merit and in my view one way of highlighting one's achievements. To the best of my knowledge, some universities have a competitive application process to select which candidate is awarded an RTS place (as the number of students may exceed the number of places available).

Question: How should this award be referred to in a letter or a CV?


texts: How to react to strongly erroneous and irrelevant citation of my article?

texts:
In an paper, an author cites my article in which he states that I said "something" and that it is wrong. Not only have I never said "something", but the article he cites is about a completely different topic (there is no ambiguity about that).

Obviously the reviewers have not done their job appropriately, but that it too late. Worth mentioning I suspect this is due to my non-responding to his solicitations, but that is not the point here (see edit).

How should I react (ethically) to that?

Clarifications

This question was marked as a duplicate but I will add a few clarifications out of respect for the commenters/answerers: I did not expand too much on the solicitations because I did not find it very relevant. What happened is that I was approach by a researcher who wanted to extend his research topic to mine (or more generally to that of the company I'm working for). He invited me to contribute to some funding project, which I did, then asked me some technical questions, to which I answered, up to a point where I got annoyed by him not reading the references I suggested. He basically wanted me to spoonfeed him everything. He then cited my article in a negative manner, including a completely false statement (that I said in my article that a solver had property X when the cited article does not even mention anything related to a solver -- and it's not just citing the wrong article: I never wrote anything related to this wrong statement).


texts: How to obtain funding for independent research after graduating from undergrad?

texts:
I just graduated with BS from undergrad and am employed as a research associate staff by a research team at the university.

I would like to ask for suggestions about how to obtain research funding for my independent project. Most of the funding opportunities are only available for registered students. I am not a U.S. citizen eligible for national grants.

I am working in the field of social science and human-robot interaction and have 2-3 advisors from undergrad research and courses who encourage me to carry on my undergraduate projects and are willing to provide advising. However, they did not specifically offer me guidance of how to resolve the need for funding. It seems like I need to take the initiative to present this research opportunity to them.


texts: The university does not want me to include my advisor's name on my PhD dissertation

texts:
My advisor is leaving academia and I will graduating and writing a dissertation on the work that I have done in his lab under his supervision. I have no problem to include him on my dissertation but the university is not allowing me to do that.

Will it be misconduct if I did not list him as a contributor in my dissertation?


texts: How do you deal with many many authors for many sections and equally many subsections in a collection?

texts:
I have found one source which is a collection which contains several hundreds of subsections with easily 100 authors I presume. It's a textbook on synthetic material.

The bean counter I am, I initially tried to incorporate every single author of every (sub)(sub)section of the book because unfortunately Springer, the publisher, only listed the authors for each chapter. The DOI import does not work on any level below. Just to make it clear for everyone's sanity: I only cited the collection so far and do not intend to work in the other authors by hand.

If you were to take on the task to simply enter any info of every author for his/hers contribution into your literature database (not your paper/essay's or thesis' bibliography), how would you do that? Note it all down by hand in your favorite literature management software or do you have some tricks?


texts: What kinds of reference letters sound best to letter readers?

texts:
Since I'm only starting my mathematical career, I've only ever requested letters from my advisers. So I was wondering what kinds of letters sound good to people reading reference letters? How does a neutral but good reference from a famous researcher compare against a strong letter from someone not-as-well-known?

This is admittedly very situation dependent and subjective. But I thought I'd solicit opinions anyway, since they're always interesting to read.

Edit: I'd appreciate it if you could share your personal experience too. When you were on a faculty hiring committee, PhD/postdoc admissions committee or anything else, what sort of letters had the most effect on you?


texts: Is it a common practice to do all the work for PhD supervisor?

texts:
My PhD supervisor claims being first author of all the work I do. I also write research proposals for his grants and the rest of our group, he just redirects their emails to me and pretends that he's writing it.

He refuses to start my PhD programme - no idea for a possible subject.

I'm depressed, because I do not get ANY training or advice from him, just "write something fast with a big impact". I haven't even got a specific subject to work on. We basically meet each other during conferences or holidays. He does not correct any mistakes and barely knows what I'm actually doing. I'm about to quit my PhD completely... or leave academia just afterwards.

For obvious reasons I can't compare this situation with other universities, so that I'd be grateful for your opinion.


texts:
Answers to my previous question made me believe that doing research almost exclusively in collaboration is (also) fine.

But how do I find collaborators. It is easy to find researchers active in a particular field. Given that I am a first year graduate student how do I persuade them to work with me?

Update.
There was a very similar question already. There are two parts in this question (the same as in mine): how to find and how to attract.

With the first part the answer is more or less clear.

As for the second part, the suggested answer assumes that the seeker has some "idea". This seems to be somewhat opposite to conclusions reached
in this discussion: it is hard to have an original idea while being a beginner.


texts: An already poor career profile turned worse this year. Any hope left for an academic career?

texts:
31 years old, with a PhD in mechanical engineering. Graduated last December, I did not get any decent postdoc position due to my poor publication record during my 5.5 years duration PhD (1 first author and two co-author papers).
Early this year I published 2 more papers from my PhD thesis and was working on the third when covid struck. In March, I was waiting for my work permit to join my PhD supervisor as a postdoc. I was supposed to get a contract of 1 year and planned to publish multiple papers during the period.
My work permit got delayed, I am still waiting for it, though under implied status, I was able to officially start working from June. However the uncertainty and wait severely affected my productivity and mental peace.
I have till now worked on three different topics, but they are at least two months away from being written into a journal paper.
Also, I am still working on the last paper from my PhD thesis, which should have been submitted till now.
Due to covid, I am restricted to job search in my current country of residence. I don't have a valid work permit, so I am hesitating in applying for other positions and I am also aware that my profile has not improved in any significant way from the last year. So, even if I do apply, I won't get anything.
With my age and the time spent in unproductivity, I don't know if I have any prospective academic career left. I have a prior Master's degree and 5.5 years long PhD degree.
Do I have any propects of a academic career left? I wanted give it a shot before going for industry. However, at the moment, industry seems unattainable too considering my lack of internship and professional experience.
Any advice or suggestions?


texts: How to differentiate "imposter syndrome" from actual lack of suitability for grad. school/academia?

texts:
A lot of graduate students/applicants, it seems, suffer from "imposter syndrome." Typically, these are bright, high-achieving students, who nonetheless doubt their ability, and this most likely stems from the competitive and selective nature of grad. school and academia. However, how can one tell if they're suffering from "imposter syndrome" or if they're really not cut out for graduate school/academia?
The difference that I see (between myself and these students) is that their professors believe in them, wrote them letters of recommendation, plus they have good research skills (even if they don't see it in themselves, others do). Despite doing well in my coursework (which doesn't even indicate much given rampant grade inflation), I could tell that most of my professors lacked confidence in me (at least I think). For example, when I initially applied to my alma mater last year (before everything happened with the professor), one of my other professors wrote me a letter of recommendation that seemed almost sarcastic in its praise. For example, he described a paper I wrote as being among the "top 10 papers he's ever seen from a student in his 20 years of teaching." The paper, however, was only around 10 pages (that was the requirement), plus I used some dubious sources (i.e. newspaper and online articles etc.) because I was in a rush. (There were no requirements on sources, and I received an A on the paper, but once one gets to upper division classes, they should know to only use scholarly sources.) Thus, this couldn't have been one of the top ten papers he's ever read. (Or he's taught some pretty weak students!) (And he didn't even qualify it with "top 10 undergraduate papers," which also confirms that he was probably being sarcastic.)
This is only one example, but I can tell that others don't believe in me. So I wanted to ask if I could be suffering from imposter syndrome or if I'm one who really isn't cut out for academia? That might be too much of an individualistic question, so I'll instead ask how can one tell if they're suffering from imposter syndrome or if they really are an "imposter?"
Edit- Re: the above mentioned paper, the requirements were to use 2-3 sources. I did have a couple of scholarly articles but wanting to far exceed the requirements,and given a short amount of time, I turned to weaker/less credible sources. In retrospect, I would have been better off using fewer but higher quality sources.
Edit- Even if no one believes in me (including the professor I admired), I'm still going to pursue graduate school. However, it's disheartening to see others receive support/encouragement whereas everyone seems to doubt me. I feel that I received high grades due to grade inflation but these professors, who can recognize aptitude in others, don't see it in me. I don't know if that's a product of my anxiety or if I'm really just not "smart" enough for graduate school, but I'm going to give it my best shot.
For what it's worth, some of my research ideas have been received positively (i.e my proposal being accepted to the conference, feedback from the new potential advisor etc.). So maybe there's some hope for me, but it's still nerve-wracking seeing how much more competitive others seem, and I wanted to know if this was imposter syndrome or if I'm an "imposter?"


texts:
My professor gave me a project and I have completed it successfully. Now he has told me that he will get funding for my project.

I am so excited about that. How can I write a thank you letter?


texts: How can I write a research paper as 'original contribution'?

texts:
I have been told by the editor that the paper does not have original contribution to literature development.
However the framework is derived from the past literature with complete citations and acknowledgements. There is no plagiarism.
The context of study, place and framework is new.
I am unable to understand how to write the literature convincingly that it's a original contribution.

P.S.: I don't know anyone who would like to see the paper and provide suggestions for improvement.


texts:
As a native English speaker, when I review papers I sometimes carefully go through the English and list my proposed changes, which adds a fair amount of time to the review process.

The most extreme case of this was for a good paper I reviewed for a top computer-science journal, but with fairly poor English.  I went through everything in detail, marking proposed changes on a hard copy, then sent back a scan with my review.  This kind of review typically adds hours, possibly even days.

It makes me wonder if it's at all appreciated.  Perhaps the authors groan when they see such reviews, thinking there's a lot of tedious legwork to do.  Or, as I hope, they actually learn something meaningful from this effort.  I don't really know.

Question: Do non-native English speakers appreciate it when I carefully correct their English in peer reviews?


texts: Is it advisable to continue with a research project if I'm not learning much from it?

texts:
I’m an undergrad involved in a research project with a professor that has potential to lead to a publication in a good journal. The field concerned is a relatively new field of biology and this project is completely voluntary. My work till now has been brunt work- monotonous, painstaking work. There’s more in the future just like that. My concern is that I don’t seem to be learning much. I don’t understand everything that’s going on. My advisor doesn’t seem too concerned to acquaint me completely. His attitude is this: This stuff is something beyond the scope of my understanding right now, so I shouldn’t be very worried.

On one hand that seems reasonable- I’m only an undergrad who obviously cannot understand everything that’s going on simply because I don’t have the background for it. But I’m not too eager to quit either because I know that a good publication in the undergrad level will have a huge impact on my chances of getting into grad school. On the other hand, if I don’t understand everything going on, what does a publication mean? It will be pointless I think to continue with this project just because it will boost my chances of getting into grad school (but I don’t know yet how easy or difficult it is to land a project and if I can just throw this away so easily).So the question is whether I should be continuing the project (since this is voluntary, I can quit anytime if I feel the need to).