texts: Is there a correlation between GRE scores and family income?

texts: I've heard a claim recently that GRE scores correlate more strongly with family income levels rather than academic success. Is there any validity to this claim?  Does anyone know of any study correlating GRE scores with this factor?


texts: What latex template to use when you do not know the journal you are going to submit

texts: Usually distinct journals have their own templates for latex, some of them  require you to use specific format for pictures etc. However sometimes you write an article and you do not know what journal will be your target for submission. What temples do you use in such scenario? Do you have any custom ones or do you prefer one provided by some journal?


texts:
I've been gearing up to apply to grad school for some time now. Switching fields, working full time and other considerations mean that I keep pushing back my goal of applying. I have been strengthening my qualifications (small publication, open source work, git hub), but I still haven't applied.

I just ran across an interesting program that has the deadline date of March 15th. I'm tempted to just try and to get everything together in a month. I'm worried about being sloppy, or there not being any room in the program at this late date.

Is there any disadvantage to applying this late? Would it be more prudent to wait for fall, continue to work through the spring on improving and apply then?


texts:
Suppose I write an introductory article to a subject into a journal and I use ideas from a textbook in another language. The paper is not a translation of the book chapter but clearly relies on it. I cite that book.

What does count as plagiarism and what doesn't? What are the limits here?

Following the exposition does?


texts:
This question is similar to Rules for affiliation for student doing unpaid research in his/her free time?  and Is it acceptable to publish a paper using an affiliation with a former employer? except that I am a retiree.

I intend to submit a paper to a journal without mentioning any affiliation because I am no longer employeed. I have been thinking about a footnote in the paper indicating I am a retiree from my former employer for two reasons: I am receiving pension from the company pension fund and it is a well-known company in U.S. Using their name may make me look good. On the other hand, I feel like it's cheating because I am not their employee anymore.


texts: I am about to submit a paper in which I present a new algorithm. There are many algorithms that are named after the author in my field, but I am not sure whether the authors themselves named those after themselves, or whether others named those algorithms after the authors post-pbulication (so in other papers). Is it appropriate to name the algorithm after myself?


texts: Presenting Review article at an International Conference

texts: Can I present my already published review article at an international conference?


texts: How to cope with life changes and burnout after PhD thesis submission?

texts:
The last year has been ridiculously difficult. I can easily say it has been 90h weeks 12 months in a row, with the hours taken of rest being vastly overshadowed by intense guilt (over not using that time to work) and inadequacy. I produced a lot of research, published 5 new papers, and produced a thesis which is now submitted for evaluation. On the day I submitted it (about a month ago), I couldn't even read a single sentence and maintain focus - that's how severe my burnout was. My sense of not being good enough permeated every aspect of my being.

I'm finding myself now getting better, slowly and surely. But the brain fog is ridiculously severe. I don't think I have lost intelligence, but the lack of care I feel for my current position as a research assistant eclipses all output I know I'm otherwise capable of producing (or used to be, anyway). On top of that, I feel more tired than usual. I easily need 1-2 more sleep in a day. Normally, I'd be exceptionally motivated to work out, and now I really could not care less. I adopted this "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." attitude, in hopes to be kinder and gentler to myself as opposed to the whoo-tshh (whipping sounds) dictator I had employed to stay on track in my madness PhD.

I cannot fathom a job in this field anymore, I cannot stand the endless thinking up of made-up projects to pursue research grants. I want out of academia, and this both excites and terrifies me. I feel largely inadequate as a computer scientist joining industry post-PhD because I just spent 3 years of my life not getting industry experience.

I feel lost. Like there's a daily existential crisis. I don't know what to do with my life, and what's worse, I don't even know if I'll recover from this. I mean, what even is this? PTSD? Burnout? Needing a break after excruciating intense labour and emotional distress?

How can I deal with the life changes and the drop in motivation after having submitted my PhD? How do I deal with the remaining burnout?


texts:
I am a computer science student. I have done some work on algorithms and I have got one result. The result is small, 6-7 pages long (entire paper). I want to publish it and my adviser is also motivating me to publish.

Question: Is it worthwhile to publish short paper as graduate student? Will it enhance the significance of my research work?


texts: How to approach student in lab with very bad English?

texts:
Short version
I am a senior postdoc in a research lab mentoring a first-year graduate student from another country, and he has very poor English:

Would it be rude or unethical or just silly to suggest he improve his English?
If it is appropriate, what should I suggest he do, and how can I do that without coming off rude or racist?

Longer version
Person X is bad enough with English that it is holding back our ability to do science. It is very hard to understand what he is saying, and he has trouble understanding very basic (e.g., first grade) level sentences spoken fairly slowly. It is so frustrating at this point that I basically try to communicate via email, which is sort of unfair to him. I am his main source of scientific guidance in the lab, as the PI is not usually around.

If it matters, he is from China and in his 20s (I only bring that up because maybe there are cultural or language issues here I should be sensitive to, but also he isn't a teenager so maybe he will have trouble improving).

I should add that most students, by this time in their tenure as grad students, have improved dramatically in their English (we have a lot of international students). His case is unusual in that he has really not improved at all. My guess is that this is because he speaks his native tongue at home (I have noticed this) and doesn't speak English much outside of lab.

Communication is crucial in science, and this person cannot communicate well (in English). OTOH, I worry about violating all sorts of professional or personal ethical boundaries, and offending him, if I bring the topic up.

Another option is that it is pretty much useless. That is, he is in his 20s, and isn't going to improve significantly, so maybe I should just look for advice on how to make the best of the situation. I'm not saying this is true, just throwing it out there as a possibility.

There has been a related question about students in classrooms. This is different, as I work with this person almost every day in a laboratory setting (
Should we tell students they need to improve their English?).


texts: How does being in academia help researchers

texts:
I have read about many great researchers in various fields who were not involved in academia throughout their lives. Some were involved in academia only part of their life, but almost invariably, their greatest work came after a period of solitude and isolation from others. In fact, most great mathematicians, for example, were rather isolated figures. Bernhard Riemann and Isaac Newton come to mind, but others like James Clerk Maxwell were also isolated during their periods of research. More recently, Andrew Wiles isolated himself for around 7 years and didn't speak about his work to anyone while he was busy solving Fermat's Last Theorem. (I have mentioned only mathematicians because those are the ones I have read about the most.)

Hence, I am failing to see how being in academia/a university position aids one as a researcher, practically speaking. It seems as though the greatest research must come from within the individual due to an intense and personal love and desire for the subject, rather than due to collaborating with others or being given a better position or whatever. In fact, such things seem to be the opposite: detrimental. They would make the person focus not on the subject but on paltry things like gaining more and more money or a better reputation.

My question is simply: How does being in university position (e.g. professor) aid the researchers who are at the highest level in their field? I do not mean being involved in academia, because one can be involved (eg attending seminars and lectures) without having a position (please correct me if I am wrong, as I myself am not actually in academia).


texts: Making time to catch up with people at a conference

texts:
I am attending a number of short (two and three day) conferences this fall. In the past I have scheduled meetings (e.g., time to chat and catch up over meals and coffee breaks) with people prior to the conference in an attempt to maximize my ability to catch up with colleagues/friends. This approach, however, doesn't work for me. To often meetings get cancelled and if I fill in my schedule too much it is hard to reschedule. Other times I have taken the play it by ear approach and catch up with who I catch up with.

Is there a good strategy for catching up with colleagues whom you already know well (I am not asking about strategies for meeting new people)?


texts: Invited to interview for several postdoc positions - how to proceed?

texts:
I'm currently in the process of applying for postdoc positions. So far I've applied for four, and to my surprise I've been invited to interview for three of them (1 phone, 1 Skype, 1 face to face) so far (the fourth hasn't got back to me yet).

This is obviously a good position to be in, but it raises some questions for me about my next steps. Until now I've gone with a fairly scattershot approach, on the presumption that the majority would outright turn me down. Now I'm wondering if I should start being more selective in which positions I apply for?

To be clear, I would definitely be happy to take any of the jobs I've applied to so far. But what if 'the perfect job' comes up later, and I'm potentially already committed to making a decision on another job offer? (Note, I would not accept an offer then renege on it).

Is it still worth applying for many positions, for the interview experience, and potential to get a preferred option?

Also, would it be reasonable for me to be offered a position and then turn it down, or should I try to avoid that situation?


texts: Does my lab head need to be a co-author on my manuscript?

texts:
I am a biology student working in a laboratory. I am planning to submit a solo author paper to a journal/book.  I conceived the work, drafted and revised it.

My question is if I need to include my laboratory head as a co-author. He was not involved in conceiving the work, drafting the paper and revising it. However, I did generate the data in his laboratory. Am I obliged to add him as a co-author because I work in his laboratory?

I have previously submitted solo author papers for books. But, I don't want to run into any troubles, so I am wondering what the right thing to do is.

Eager to hear your thoughts.


texts: Is paper refering on pop science books less value?

texts:
I have a paper in linguistic which was written when I was in high school. I would like to mention it in my SOP. When I ask if I should mention it, xLeitix has raise this question:

  What is the hypothesis that you proposed?

The hypothesis I proposed is in sociology, which I had when reading the book The Human Zoo. The problem is, it is a pop science book, and the hypothesis only bases on this reference (number of total references is 7). However, since the author is reputable (he is listed as a notable English-language popularizers of science by Wiki), I think I have cited a reliable source. More importantly, if the PhD committees are interested in the ability of research, does this paper satiate them because I made it when I was in high school without any guidance? Does citing on pop science books make my paper less value in the eyes of:

linguists?
biologists?
other scientists?


texts: Repeating oneself verbatim: from a word document to a presentation

texts: Is this discouraged? Say I wrote an essay of 20 pages and I'd like to present it in a power point show. Can I simply copy paste what I already wrote in the essay (with shortening it, of course) without the need to re-paraphrase again?


texts: Easier to obtain permanent position in Europe after being faculty in US?

texts:
I am currently considering junior faculty positions in the US and Europe—my partner is European, and for a variety of reasons (family, etc.) we would like to end up there in the long term.  Being from the US, however, it is unclear to me which is a better strategy for obtaining a permanent position:

get tenure (or at least, "be successful") at a good North American department and use that leverage to negotiate a position in Europe, or
spend that same time / energy making personal connections in Europe.

The reason that the answer is not clear to me is that 1. the country in question has a relatively small number of permanent positions, and 2. my impression is that in many European systems, personal contacts still have a rather significant effect (even among candidates with excellent qualifications).

I am interested in both quantiative data (e.g., what percent of hires are domestic vs. foreign in various countries/systems) as well as personal experience.

Thanks!


texts: Low-quality paper or no paper - which is better for an undergraduate in PhD admission?

texts:
As everybody knows, research experience helps in one undergraduate's admission to a PhD program. It would be even better, if the undergraduate has a publication out of his or her research experience.

However, for a full-time undergraduate, it is quite difficult to devote too much time to research since one still has the school work to deal with. (Maintaining a high GPA is also important, isn't it?) Given the time limitation by this or other reasons, the undergraduate may face the following dilemma.

The quality of work is low, but the undergraduate has no time to improve it.

Should the undergraduate publish it to a random and low-tier conference to at least have a publication?

OR

Should he or she just make it a technical report instead of publishing it?

In other words, during the PhD admission, how do the admission committees or professors view a low-quality conference paper? Do they take it as an advantage in the sense that most of the undergraduates have none. Or do they start suspecting the student's research potentials? Does a low-quality "1" win a "0" in this case?

FYI, the field of interest is EECS, but any generic comments are also very much appreciated!


texts: Can I pursue a new Master's in another country, while I'm pursuing one?

texts:
I am a first year Master's degree student of computer science in Northern Europe. I am paying for my living expenses and do not have any kind of assistantship or funding. I have a full funding admission for the same subject in Canada. I would like to know if it is a good idea to accept the offer and start my studies there and also continue my current degree remotely (Since the second year is about completing the thesis, and I can do it while I'm in another place) or drop my studies completely here (since I would like to move to Canada or USA later and have money issues to continue my current studies).
If I do have two MSc degrees in the same subject, would is have any negative or positive effect on applying for a phd degree later?

Thanks in advance


texts: how much benefit is there of working as a predoctoral research assistant

texts:
I would like to do a PhD in a machine learning related topic and want to enhance my resume. I am considering looking for roles as volunteer research assistant and was wondering whether the experience would be beneficial if I do manage to find one. From what I've read online a lot of what predoctoral research assistants do involve menial tasks (cleaning up data) and wasn't sure if this would strengthen my application.
I'd hope to look for a research role in an area directly related to my interest. But an alternative I was considering was to just work at a job which may not have a direct connection to my interests but is slightly more financially beneficial.
I was hoping to get some advice on what would be better


texts: How much do Springer-Verlag authors make per book sold?


texts: What to mention as funding source as a graduate student funded by the school?

texts: I am a PhD student in mathematics, and I will be submitting my first paper soon. Part of the guideline is to denote whether I’m being funded (“supported”) and by whom. I know that papers acknowledge NSF grants and fellowships and such, but in my case I do not personally have a grant or fellowship. I’m simply being funded by the school, and I guess that money comes from my advisor’s research grant. In this case, do I acknowledge the support from my advisor’s grant, or do I not need to mention it since I am not the primary recipient of the grant?


texts: Asking for a recommendation from a professor who I did bad in his courses

texts:
I am applying for a PhD and I am asked for 3 recommendation letters. I have 2 which I think are good letters. I am looking for someone to provide the third. I had 4 courses with a certain professor in my undergrad. I scored B+ (3.25/4) in two courses and an A (3.75/4) in the other two. Long story short, I know and the professor knows that I deserve a much higher grade in the two courses which I scored B+ in. I am thinking of asking him for his reference letter as I think they might help in making the effect of these two B+s less sever. I think I have gained a lot of respect from him in last year or two which made me think that his recommendation might be positive, but I am not sure about what he will write.

Is it logical to ask him or should I ask someone else ? I don't have many other option; The other professors only taught me one or two courses and I am not sure if I can get good recommendations from them. Additionally, that professor was at the committee for my final project presentation in my undergrad. I scored very high in that too.

I am little confused on which is better, a recommendation from this professor, or from a professor who taught me one course and I scored an A+, or from a professional referee since my other two referees are academics.


texts: Can I use a graph or figures of a paywalled paper under fair use?

texts:
I am writing a blog post citing several paywalled papers. Could I also put graphs, diagrams or photos from these papers in my blog post under fair use?

My field is medical object detection and I would like to show examples from the papers where the authors show in which cases their algorithms fail.


texts: Do I still need a PhD to do research if I have double honours in CS and Pure Math?

texts:
I'm planning to get double honours in CS and Pure Math. I'm confused what's the biggest benefit of Ph.D. will be for me? People say you learn to do research, but I can do research(as I have the appropriate background, CS and Math) sitting at home or in industry. Then what's the biggest benefit of Ph.D.? Why should I do Ph.D.?

EDIT1: The only thing that is stopping me from getting a PhD is time.

EDIT2: Link to my new post.


texts: How do I deal with an old reference letter from an advisor for job applications?

texts:
I wrote my graduate advisor asking him to updated his reference letters for me, but he has yet to respond. I e-mailed him again, but he and I did not have the best relationship, and I am worried that now that I have graduated, he may not do this for me. I was curious about I should do in the situation that he refuses to update it.

I have been told it raises questions when a letter is not included in applications.

His old letter is stored on mathjobs.org, and the last date was probably April of this year. I was curious that, if I have to, would it look bad if I use the old letter?

If anything, since I have deadlines coming up, can I use the old letter as a placement? I was told I can mention that a letter should be updated soon in my cover letter.


texts: What action can be taken if hostel allotments are not out just after admissions are done?

texts: I just joined a university for my post graduation studies, but as I'm from a different country, I don't have a place to stay. Therefore, I asked the hostel prefect if I can stay in a room as a paying guest until the hostel allotment are out. He said yes. After two weeks however, the DEAN OF STUDENTS WELFARE asked me to leave the place the same day. He took our names and now I got a letter for disciplinary action. What should I do now?


texts: Should I offer to give a presentation in a postdoc interview if not requested in the invitation?

texts:
I was invited to a 30 minute interview for a postdoc position. The only details given about the interview was to learn about my interests and background as well as learn about the lab I am interviewing.
Even though not requested, should I prepare a 10 minute or less presentation summarizing my research background and ask if they would like me to present during the interview? My field is computer science, and the interview will be via video chat (e.g., Zoom).


texts: Open Access Crowd Based Publications (StackExchange like)

texts:
I am a PhD student in computer science and sometime in the (more or less) near future I have to publish my results. Yet, I am rather sceptic about the current state of publishing, aka peer-reviewed journals, especially when they are not open access. I have published before on Elsevier and honestly I am not sure whether I should do this again. I have political concerns as well as concerns about the quality of the peer-review process.

I wonder what "new ways" are out there for publications?
I am a big fan of StackExchange (especially StackOverflow :-) ), so I am asking if there exists a very similar forum for scientific publications?

Accordingly, a publication happens in form of forum post like this one. Instead of anonymous peer-review, every member of the forum can comment and rate the publication. Is there something like this out there? Thanks a lot!

Edit: Great that someone had the idea a year ago :-) (Towards a Stackexchange-like comment/reputation system for research papers)

Have been there any attempts to create such a system since then?


texts: Submit a Paper in a Journal with Email Address

texts:
I want to submit a paper in the following springer journal

Applicable Algebra in Engineering, Communication and Computing

In its page, I could not find its editorial manager to submit my paper. Just there is the following email adress aaecc@lix.polytechnique.fr.
When I search the mentioned email address in google, the results of google results that there is no this email address.

My question: How to submit may paper in this springer journal and what is the standard way and expressions to email to that email address.

I greatly appreciate your assistance on my question.


texts: Asking current advisor whether they have funds for remainder of my degree

texts:
So in my first year of my PhD I was strongly encouraged to apply for fellowships. I submitted fellowship applications happily, but at some points was concerned about how urgent it seemed to my advisor for me to win a fellowship. Examples of this behavior would be saying its very advisable for me to apply to certain fellowships that frankly wouldn’t be worth the effort it takes to apply. This and some other comments leave me wondering about how secure my RA position will be for the rest of my degree. Maybe its just the quarantine making me crazy.

What is the best way to ask an advisor about the funding situation, and would such a question be inappropriate.

For context, I’m in a usually well funded field, where it is common for advisors to be able to fully fund their students, often without them having to TA every semester.


texts: Methods for Assessing The Performance of an Exam

texts:
What are some common methods for assessing how well a exam works, once you have the results back? This is something of a generalization of How to measure entropy of exam results.

I've seen professors regress scores against some potentially interesting covariates (majors vs. non-majors, gender, etc.) and look at which questions were predictive of your overall grade, but I'd be interested to see if there's a particular battery of tests one should look at to see if an exam is "well written".


texts: Disiplinary offense whilst a grad student, will university employers ask for it

texts:
I am starting to think about graduating from a PhD and a few years back I got a disciplinary offence.

Basically, without full details, I was giving some advice to students on Facebook, another student in the class complained that I was giving certain students an unfair advantage and the University charged me with misconduct as I could have potentially damaged the University's reputation if gave bad advice.

My initial punishment was that this offence would be automatically included on my reference letter. However, I appealed and my punishment was reduced to "it will only be included if the future employer asks for it".

Would a University specifically ask if I was involved in any disciplinary offences?

To be more clear about the advice I was giving:

This was a facebook setup by that students on a masters programme and each year the students enrolled onto the course and were added to the facebook page. I had studied the masters a year earlier and alumni stay in the group. This was not an official University group.


texts: A reference that is old, has no bibtex entry, and probably not well-known throughout the readership. How to cite this?

texts:
I am writing an article for an audience that mostly consists of computer scientists. A specific part of the subject is motivated by Kirchhoff's laws. I intend to mention this fact and reference the rules. But that is easier said then done. Apparently, Kirchhoff predates referencing.

How to reference a source that is so old, it has no bibtex entry, but is also probably not well-known  throughout the readership?

edit: I want to clarify, that I can also imagine to not reference it at all, but I find it difficult to draw a line here. Can I assume that every reader is familiar with a term? For instance, can I omit a citation to Damas/Hindley/Milner when introducing ML to modeling engineers? How about Newton's method for computer scientists?


texts: How do I speak with my professor about my mental health?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate in my junior year, and I've been having an especially bad month when it comes to my mental health and academic performance. Two weeks ago, I discovered that I had two midterms, one major project, and an 6-8 page essay due on the same day. I explained my workload to the professor who assigned the essay, and he was kind enough to give me an indefinite extension on the essay (as in, I could "turn it in whenever it was ready", although I assumed that 1-2 weeks was what he would prefer). Since I was granted that extension, I've completely flunked the major project and received C's on the two midterms, all of which I prepared extensively for once I didn't have to worry about the essay. The professor has started hinting that he'd like essays he gave extensions on (he gave extensions to about half the class, since a good 2/3 of our university got the flu around then) to be turned in soon, since he's expecting to receive more essays from another class he's teaching, and doesn't want to be overwhelmed by grading.

It's been two weeks since he gave me the extension. I've spent nearly all of those two weeks attempting to write the essay and then completely breaking down. I start thinking about how kind he was to give me an extension in the first place, and how, by not turning it in by now I'm taking advantage of his kindness, and how my reputation among my department's professors will be ruined. I think about how this essay has to be perfect, since I've completely failed my assignments for every other class, and I have to get this one thing right. I wrote 4 pages of the essay and then deleted them all. I wrote 3 pages of the same paragraph with slightly different wording each time in an attempt to get it perfect. My outline (for this 6-8 page paper!) is 7 pages long. But I have no paper, and I have other major midterms coming up that really just compound my panic over this.

So my question is: how do I talk about this issue with the professor? I want him to know that I'm not trying to take advantage of him or slack off, and that I do actually know the material (as my ridiculously detailed outline shows), but I feel like walking into his office hours and telling him about how my nightly panic attacks are keeping me from writing this essay is...inappropriate? Should I mention my mental health issues at all, or will that seem like some sort of weak excuse?


texts: can I publish (alone) papers which are a continuation of my PhD research (without my supervisior's name as a co-author)?

texts:
During my PhD, my supervisor wasn't very helpful. Now I have finished my PhD but I still have plenty of ideas (improvements) about my PhD topic that I can transform to papers and be published.
these ideas are not included in my PhD thesis (just personal notes I took during my study), but their topic is very similar to the topic of my PhD (which was proposed by my supervisor!).
Now, my new papers (completely written by me) are based on my previous work (I would use theoretical frameworks, results, ...), can I publish them alone (me being the only author without my supervisor's name as a co-author)? should I involve my supervisor in my paper since my research is a continuation of my previous work with him?
I will give credit to our previous work together in the paper, I will acknowledge the financial support of my PhD university, but I believe that should be all.


texts: Is the "Journal of Advances in Mathematics" a real journal?

texts:
While looking for a journal to publish my paper I noticed that one of the people I follow on ResearchGate has published his paper in

  Journal of Advances in Mathematics

I never heard of this journal before yet it has impact factor of 1.244 or at least that is what it says on the journal website.

Is this a real mathematics journal or fraud? Thanks.


texts: I submitted manuscript to a special issue of a Springer journal. The review date has passed. What should I do now?

texts:
The date of the 1st round review was 1st November, but they have extended the date to 1 December. Now, it is almost 19 days overdue. What should I do? Should I send an email to editor or guest editor for that special issue?

Is it too early or not? If you suggest to send an email, please help me with an example.


texts: Does a few years work in-between study hurt Physics PhD application to a top 20 US school?

texts:
All things being equal how would a good US graduate physics admissions weigh these paths.

Scenario 1: 4 year Bachelor of Science. And then direct application to graduate school.

Scenario 2: 4 year Bachelor of Science. 2-3 years work at a government department doing mathematics (not research). And then application to graduate school.

Scenario 3: 4 year Bachelor of Science. 2-3 years work at a government department doing mathematics (not research), whilst doing a part-time 1 year Masters spread over 2 years. And then application to graduate school.

Assume scenario 1 & 2 have same number of published papers, and scenario 3 adds one more paper of higher quality.


texts: Where does one add a Springer LNCS publication in their CV?

texts:
I was wondering where people add Springer LNCS or LNAI publications in their CV or list of publications, if they were to specify conference, journal or monograph separately.

Whereas Springer itself says it is not a journal, the wiki page says it is a collection of books whereas Scimago Journal and country rank treats it as a journal. I was always of the opinion earlier that it is kind of similar to a conference proceedings and could be listed under such if one were to categorize. Now I am not too certain.

Can someone clarify?


texts: Is there a structured meritocracy outside of academia?

texts:
I am an engineering PhD student in the "academic bubble". I have no personal connections to the industry and have little to no clue as to how it operates. One of the things that appeals to me most about academia is that it is largely meritocratic (at least as far as an institution this large can be) and linear - publish enough good work and you'll eventually move your way up the "ranks" to the top job - professorship.

I've heard off-hand that this is not the case in the industry - that a glass ceiling keeps the "top jobs"  virtually out of reach unless well connected (usually nepotistically) and that there is a great deal of frustration with regards to the "job ladder" in general.

This seems overly cynical to me but as aforementioned I have no experience with the industry. So my interconnected questions are as follows:

What are the practical differences between promotions in academia and promotions in the industry? Are there differences in how much of a role "luck" or "connections" make? Are the paths to the "top jobs" as clearly defined as they are in academia? Will anybody motivated and competent enough make it to the top as often as they would in an academic setting?


texts: Is it appropriate to mention lack of expertise in certain area as limitation for master's thesis?

texts:
I'm currently finalizing my master's thesis and am working on the discussion and limitations part.

I did some relatively standard statistical tests on my data, which gave promising results. My supervisor suggested trying some machine learning to create a predictive model. While I did take a basic machine learning course during my master's, I am by no means an expert in this area.

Now, my machine learning model performed pretty okay. But, since I only know some basic machine learning, I'm sure better results might be achieved with other machine learning methods I have not tried due to lack of expertise. Is it appropriate to mention this lack of expertise as a reason why I did not try to further improve these models?

Note: I tried 2 different ML methods/algorithms, which were suggested by another member of staff.


texts: I understand that depending on the department and the school the duration of the TA funding for a Phd student can vary. However, I’m interested in learning whether it’s common for departments in STEM field to have less than two semesters of TA funding for the same student in US.


texts:
How to cite NumPy in BibTex?
The Scipy citing page recommends:

Travis E, Oliphant. A guide to NumPy, USA: Trelgol Publishing, (2006).

Is it correct to use:
@Misc{numpy,
  author =    {Travis Oliphant},
  title =     {{NumPy}: A guide to {NumPy}},
  year =      {2006--},
  howpublished = {USA: Trelgol Publishing},
  url = "http://www.numpy.org/",
  note = {[Online; accessed <today>]}
 }

Or should I cite just SciPy?
Research Gate
On Research Gate, the citation suggested is:
@book{book,
author = {Oliphant, Travis},
year = {2006},
month = {01},
pages = {},
title = {Guide to NumPy}
}

Or cite as a book?


texts: Should I include my (unofficial) class rank in my SOP?

texts:
I'm applying to a top program, and one thing I'm not super confident about is my GPA. It's good (it satisfies the course's requirement) but not stellar. Even my referees probably won't say amazing things about how I ranked in their classes (I got A's in all of them while some classmates of mine got A+'s).

However, because all of my class participates in an exchange program, at the beginning of second year (I am studying in Europe, so our bachelors take three years) a ranking is released including a score (GPA + number of credits) and the university where we'll go on our exchange. I ranked pretty high on that one (top 6%), so I think that including it somewhere in the SOP couldn't hurt.

However, it's not an official class rank (my university doesn't do those), and I'm afraid it would come across as a little desperate (which I absolutely am). What do you think?


texts: What is a legal and allowed method of getting a picture from Internet to be used in the cover of my thesis?

texts: I need a picture from the Internet of micro bacterium which I want to use on my Thesis cover. Now just coping the picture and using it will be like stealing someone else's property. Hence I want to know if there is any proper and legal method by which I can get the picture. This is the picture that I need, I wrote them a mail too but no reply yet.


texts: In the AI field, is it worth it to publish a paper that gains the same results as another but with a different method?

texts:
So over the last few months, I've been working on an AI model that could classify a skin lesion as cancerous or not using only an image of the lesion. At first, I thought there's no way that I could achieve anything more than 70% accuracy but after tweaking with my program for a long while, I was able to reach an accuracy of over 95% which is definitely an improvement compared to my first tries.

The other day, I was talking to a professor at my local university whom I've written a paper with and showed him my classifier. He told me that I could write a paper on it which had never come to my mind because I believe an accuracy of 95% is not nearly good enough and the methods that I used weren't new, cutting edge methods that could have a huge impact in the AI industry.

Fast forward a couple days, I found all the papers related to classifying skin lesions using ML and DL and I actually found quite a few but they all are vastly different from my model(different hyperparameters, the different architectures, different models, etc) but the accuracy in all of them are pretty close to mine(they were all very close to 95%).

My question is, do you think it's worth it to even try and write a paper about my work or is it pointless and won't help me in the future?

P.S: I've already read a similar question but that was about research in math which is VERY different. In math, the solution is sometimes more important than the finding but I'm not sure if that's the case with AI.

By the way, I'm 14, so I'm not sure whether I can do this independently or not.

Thank you so, so much!


texts: What happens if a department runs out of space?

texts:
I'm curious what happens if a department runs out of space - e.g. they are expanding, but they don't have enough rooms for their faculty, postdocs, visitors, etc. It's presumably possible to squeeze a bit, put many PhD students into the same room for example, but this would be a short-term solution.

The obvious thing to do seems like to petition the dean to allocate more space to the department, but this seems very nontrivial. For example say three departments currently occupy 3 floors each in a 9-floor building. If one department needs more room, the clearest way to do it is to give them another floor, but that would force the other two departments to contract and/or shift some of their personnel to a different building, which might negatively impact their performance.

Similar things must surely have happened multiple times in the past. What usually happens?


texts: Is there any way to do good research without people noticing or follow up on my work?

texts:
My research, which in my opinion, is quite important, has unfortunately been getting noticed by people who has previously ignored them and systematically avoided to cite them.
This is not ideal for me! Because I want to remain as virtually anonymous for as long as possible so I don't get scooped. I really hate the feeling that the moment I publish my next paper there will be a flurry of paper that follow my work, leaving me with nothing to work on!
Is there anyway I can still remain anonymous and secretly working on my breakthroughs?
Help!


texts:
How damaging are writing errors like typos in faculty application documents?
Do search committees usually tolerate a couple of small errors in cover letter, sample publications, etc?


texts: How to welcome new PhD students/postdocs to the group during lockdown?

texts:
These days several countries (including Germany, where I am situated) are heading towards some kind of lockdown due to the Corona pandemic. Nonetheless, new group members arrive and I have the feeling that I do not have enough good ideas for the question:
How to welcome new PhD students or postdocs to the group during a lockdown?
Many things are not available like meeting in the halls, getting coffee together, going to lunch together… Of course, virtual group meetings work, to some extent, but apart from that?
For the sake of clarity you may consider the following circumstances:

Office spaces may still be used, but only one person per office is allowed.
Many people work from home, some are using offices in a shared fashion to avoid meeting in person.
The new PhD students may have just moved to the city from someplace else.


texts: How to calibrate the time constraint of an exam for a new course?

texts:
I am preparing an exam for a course I'm running. It's an engineering course; the exam problems require students to apply conceptual knowledge and quantitative skills taught in lectures and labs.

It's the first time the class has been offered, so I don't have a frame of reference from previous years. There haven't been any in-class quizzes or other opportunities for me to find out directly how long students would take to solve problems similar to the ones on the exam. I also haven't found any similar exams from other universities to serve as a reference.

Obviously, I am much more experienced in the material than my students, so I can't really generalize from how long it takes me to solve these kinds of problems.

This question is for the more experienced educators out there: in a scenario like this, are there any methods or general rules for determining how long you can make the exam, given the time allotted?

I don't want time to be a major issue on this exam; I want most students who are reasonably well prepared to be able to complete the exam in the given time.


texts: Is having a good yearly GPA (over 3.0) for 2 years useful for Masters even if my overall GPA is low (under 3.0)

texts:
I am going to graduate in 6 years from a 4 year major (Applied Mathematics) due to health reasons (diabetes, depression etc.)

I passed 70 credits so far, with 79 more to go. Average of my 70 credits is 2.45 (22 CC/2.0 and 16 DC/1.5 due to low performance) and to achieve something over 3.0, rest should be 3.5 on average and maximum GPA I can reach is 3.25 if all 79 credits are 4.0 on average.

Not impossible now that I am all better and more organized, it just stress me out to think it is all over if I don't do perfect, and I really want to do Masters especially abroad (I am in Turkey)

I am in a good school, have a good relation with teachers and do well when I apply myself to classes.

Problem is all I hear is "3.0 or nothing" for Masters in a good place.

If it is essential I can try to increase my GPA even more by taking classes next years first semester (I will likely pass all first semester classes this year but second semester will be left) for classes I passed with lower grades (1.5-2.0)


texts: What to do if you do not understand a lot coming up with a research interest? PhD admission

texts:
I know it is strongly advisable to read up on your prospective PhD supervisors' work. However, I find that most of the things are too esoteric and I would need a substantial period to absorb them. I do understand perfectly the overview of the area that they are working. I have some questions:

In writing my research interest/statement for getting into a PhD, how detailed should it be?
Is it okay to mention that you would like to work on a general field (e.g. CFD in multiphase) and not propose an specific direction?


texts: If I use results from a source I don't have access to, should I include it in references?

texts:
Let's say, I am writing a paper. I am reading paper A that cites results in Paper/Book B. I do not have access to Paper/Book B.

In the list of references, do I include only A? A and B?


texts: Can an editor examine a PhD student whose manuscript is under review in their journal?

texts:
Do conflict of interest arises when a journal editor, who is handling a paper under review, acts as an examiner of the author's PhD thesis?

Does it depend of the review stage? Will the answer change if the review is already finished before the editor is nominated as an examiner?


texts: Writing a thesis: Is it a good practice to use personalized lists?

texts:
I am writing a master's thesis using Latex. I am attracted by pifont package that allows to use personalized lists as the ones this picture shows:
My question: is it a good or bad practice to use such symbols as personalized lists ?


texts: How to cite a paper that gives background and context about another paper

texts:
I'm starting work on writing my Master thesis in computer science (after doing a lot of experimentation last semester.) I want to give some background on neural networks relevant to my work. By reading various papers I have found there are several foundational papers (say paper A) in the field that I would like to cite and include. I understand that I should read and cite the primary source regardless of where I found it. However, some of the papers (say paper B) that reference it give background/context on the paper (and even authors) I would also like to include. Should I cite paper B for points like the relevance of the paper, the backgrounds of the authors, and comparison to future work / other papers?
Thanks!


texts: Resarch Paper on Conceptual Design of a Physical System

texts:
Is a paper acceptable if it is based on a concept design of a physical system backed by some mathematical models and simulations? No practical development and experimentation is present.
In other words, "Is an argument based on just mathematical models and matlab simulations acceptable as a research article?"
If YES, then would it be worthy of an impact factor journal or just a low level conference?


texts: How should one organize a Physics paper focused on an iterative design project?

texts:
If I am writing a paper on a design project rather than to measure something or to test a hypothesis, how should I arrange it?
I have seen that the preferred format is {Introduction, Theory, Methods, Results, Discussion, Citations}. Is it better to attempt to follow this format and remain in the convention, or is this just one of many academically acceptable styles?
How best can I present an iterative design process in a formal physics paper?


texts: If a postdoc is interested to apply for a future professorship in his/her current institution. What should she/he do in the postdoc research period?

texts:
Based on the discussion in a previous question
Apply for assistant/associate professor at same institution as postdoc?
If someone is interested to apply for a future assistant/associate professorship in the same institution where one is currently working as a postdoc/research scientist. What one should do in his early stages of postdoc research to build independent scientific contribution so that the institution of interest would like to include him/her in its faculty members?


texts: How will an online MBA be perceived in applications for a faculty position in economics and accounting?

texts:
I recently retired and want to get back into pursuing higher education.

I am happily married and live in Los Angeles.  So, I am somewhat geographically constrained concerning my choice of MBA programs to attend.

I have now seriously considered online MBA programs, but I'm worried about the quality and perception and other potential risks of online degrees.

Another obstacle I face is that my employer will likely say that I was not a "team player" or a "good leader" for their organization.  Since MBA programs require so much teamwork and group projects and leadership skills, I don't think I am a good fit for traditional programs, hence the online programs would be better suited for me.

Can anyone provide some general comments about going the online MBA route?
I wish to become an Assistant Professor of Economics and Accounting.  So, I want to know how an online MBA will impact future employment in academia.


texts: Why are textbook authors often not the most famous/cited researchers?

texts:
I am not sure if this is generalizable to all subjects. What I have noticed in some of the sciences, for example biology, ecology, and environmental sciences, is that the authors of the most used textbooks are not very highly cited scientists. Perhaps they have a book which is well cited but not used as a primary textbook, however it is not always the case, as it depends on the level of the book. Of course, books written for undergraduates are not necessarily cited in research papers. Regardless of the writing skills, which are of course important, I would prefer a textbook to be written by the most expert of a field and not just by the best educator or writer, who might lack in depth knowledge. Of course, a combination of both would be ideal.

I would expect that the maximum experts of a topic would also write a book which is heavily used in class or in research, but it does not seem to be the case.

Is it because researchers with a lot of citations (i.e. experts) are mostly dedicated to writing papers rather than books? Or is it because they work at  the edge of knowledge and are not interested or capable of writing books for rookies?


texts: Why are some good math journals not indexed by Thomson Reuters?

texts: I observed some very good math journals are not indexed by Thomson Reuters. The basis of my evaluation is the composition of the editorial board, the university or press that house the journals and the authors that publish with them. My question is what is likely the reason for this non-indexing?


texts: Is it worth to provide additional transcript with low GPA in extracurriculum courses?

texts:
I am going to apply to PhD programs in pure mathematics (target programs are mostly in U.S. and Canada). My GPA from state accredited universities is 3,5 for bachelor's and 3,3 for master's. These GPAs are not very good, but above cut-offs for almost all programs.

In my country (Russian Federation) also exists practice when strong worldwide known research centers (like Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Steklov Mathematical Institute, Independent University of Moscow, etc.) provide free additional classes for senior students. I took 13 such courses and have certifying transcript, but the total GPA for them is about 2,92 out of 4,0.

I am in doubt, is it worth to mention such experience and provide transcript? 13 extra classes in addition to official BSc and MSc degrees are seem to be a good proof of my interest and motivation (I know that in U.S. most students took less 13 math courses in their bachelor studies). On the other hand, I am afraid that a low GPA in these non mandatory activities may affect my application as well.


texts: If a PhD student is bad in interpersonal communications, would he find trouble doing his PhD?

texts:
As far as I know, some research involves group-work.

If a PhD student is either introverted, bad at interpersonal communications or both.

What difficulties might they encounter?


texts: Which university's diploma certificate is the most aesthetically pleasing?

texts:
I read this quote from a user forum that says "The nicest-looking diplomas usually come from diploma mills"

Hence this question: which university issues diplomas that could typically be considered beautiful or aesthetically pleasing, due to a combination of intricate calligraphy, ornaments, typography or colour schemes?

Some point out that the diploma issued by the US Military Academy is ornate.

Are there any that look equal or better?


texts: How to get recognition of research as an independent autodidact?

texts:
I have done my own research independently from any academic institution.  The theses are mainly biochemical, and aquaculture.  I would like to have the work peer reviewed.

I tried to use researchgate.net but they have created a barrier to entry for autodidacts, and non-institutional researchers.  The question answer format for stackexchage is also unsuitable.

Are there other web-portals specifically for independent, non-institutional, autodidact researchers?


texts:
Occasionally, in an otherwise-anonymous paper review, the reviewer will voluntarily sign their name, revealing their identity to the author.

Should reviewers do this, and under which circumstances?

(For the purposes of this question, assume that the reviewer knows the author's name - that is, the review process is not double-blinded.)


texts: Is it appropriate to reject a manuscript based on language (minor) issues after first review?

texts: After 2nd round of review (R1) for almost 2 months, I received a sharp rejection letter for my manuscript (in biology) submitted in a certain journal for language-use concerns and formatting issues. Nearly 80% of the comments raised by reviewer #1 and the editor (I think they are one person in this case) are mainly the use of British-English and formatting, but the journal has no clear policy of the English-use as long as style and punctuation is consistent throughout. English is my second-language but we use it in universities and communications, however, I believe the language concern is not an issue as my co-author (my supervisor) is a native English speaker and we proofread the paper many times before resubmission. Our personal assessment based on experience with other journals, this concern should at least be major or minor revisions.


texts: Publishing a paper in a low impact journal when I already have higher impact publications

texts:
I am a student who will be applying to PhD programs next year. In my field it is relatively uncommon but not unheard of for students to have publications before applying for their PhD.

At this point, I have three solo publications. The journals I published in are all reputable, and range in impact from low to medium-high, with increasing quality over time (meaning that my last publication is in a higher ranked journal than the previous one, etc.). I can reasonably expect to have another medium-high tier publication by the time I apply (though of course nothing is guaranteed).

(I use the terms ‘impact’ and ‘tier’ to loosely refer to ranking and how these journals are viewed by researchers in the field).

I have an old manuscript which has undergone review in several medium-impact journals. Reviewers’ and editors’ comments are generally the same: the paper is fine (in terms of writing, methodology, and results), but it has limitations in terms of scope, which preclude it from getting published in these journals. The findings are still valuable and do offer a minor contribution to the field, but it’s simply not competitive enough to warrant publishing in these venues.

At this point, I can either forget about the manuscript, or try to publish it in a low impact venue. This would either be a low impact journal (though of course, nothing predatory), or a ‘working papers’ style journal (which is peer reviewed). ‘Saving’ this study and expanding on it in future works is not a viable option for me.

There is a similar question on this (For undergraduates, is publishing "weak" research better than not publishing?), but the difference in this case is that there I already have a relatively good publication record for my stage, and I'm worried that this publication would weaken rather than strengthen my research potential in the eyes of the admissions committee.

My question is: from the perspective of grad admissions (and possibly future career), would I be better off not publishing this paper?

Also if I do decide to try and publish it, will it look better to publish it in a low impact journal or in a ‘working papers’ journal?


texts: Google Scholar - how to make English profile name show same citations as Cyrillic alphabet search results?

texts:
I am helping an academic client from Russia with his publications in English language and have created a profile for him in Google Scholar. He already has pages and pages of citations when you look for his name in Russian. I would like the citations to be the same for searches in both Russian (Cyrillic) and English spelling of his name.

I've created Google Profile in English and manually added some of his Russian articles there, two weeks later nothing changed. He now has existing profile on Google Scholar - Oleg Matveychev, but the results for English spelling name are the same as a month ago, no matter what I do. Russian spelling results change all the time, as he is cited often. Any advice?


texts:
The answer to this question seems to indicate that an affiliate professor is effectively just a member of the department for administrative purposes. If that is the case, why is George H. Miley both an affiliate professor and a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign? Presumably his status as a professor would already grant everything that is granted to an affiliate professor.
(The above links to an old webpage, but the current one seems to say something similar, he is both an affiliate & an emeritus professor.)


texts: How should I split my code and data between an open repository and the article's supplementary files?

texts:
I am working on a paper that involves some data and a piece of code to analyse the data.

I want the results of the analysis to be reproducible and the code to be open. This concept of "reproducible research" is essentially non-existent in my field, and potential journals have no guidelines regarding code. Also, I have no requirements as to how to publish my data and code by an institution or a funding agency.

The question is, how should I split the data and code between an open repository and and the article's supplementary files? What I currently have in mind is this:

The R code itself (i.e. the functions) will be posted in an online repository, such as figshare or github.
The data and its analysis will be posted, possibly using knitr, as a supplementary to the article.

What are the pros and cons of this approach? Is there something I should modify?


texts: A professor is happy to supervise me. Does that mean my formal application will be accepted?

texts: I am worried since, in fact, I do not meet the minimum grade requirements for a PhD admission of the school. But the supervisor says they are happy to offer me a funded PhD. Note : this is in the UK.


texts:
I am a researcher in computer science. I am used to publish papers on computer science problem resolution (machine learning, optimization, disabilities, pattern recognition...).

In recent work, we needed to create a specialized software incorporating many complex technologies. This software is used to conduct other researches on which we already publish.

We are wondering if we can publish on how the software helps to solve our problem and on how we designed it with multiples technologies. A careful debate on the possibilities, choices and architecture would be incorporated.
The problem is this is the first time we would publish such article and we don't know where to publish. We are seeking good scientific journals (if possible with an impact factor) accepting such papers. If you know one, can you tell me?


texts: Is it a good idea to apply to the same professor again after having been rejected the year before?

texts:
Is there some kind of academic norm that says "when I reject an applicant, I don't want anything to do with him?"

edit: If a professor is reading this, personal experience from himself and colleagues will be really helpful!


texts: How to organize content of slides for a conference presentation?

texts:
I am going to attend my first IEEE conference on Electronic Design/Verification and am feeling quite nervous about my first oral presentation.

I want to make sure to "sell" my point and ensure all questions are being tackled, and so I am looking for advice related to the organization of my slides. For example,

How can the slide material  complement my speaking?
How do I ensure that the end-product is not dry/heavy?
If my work is on for example, SRAM or Post-silicon technologies,is it recommended to begin my presentation with a foil on a collage of the latest news snippets about these topics? This could probably draw their attention rather than picking up some lines from my camera-ready's introduction section.
Also, how many slides should I ideally allocate for each section of my paper?

I am forced to ask such "trivial" questions as my Professor is on a sabbatical currently and has little/no access to mail for the next few weeks.
I have searched the Internet and found some generic advice, like "How to give a bad talk" by David Patterson.

There are some related questions on this site that do not seem to directly address how to organize the content of the slides. How to do a flawless and natural presentation? asks about becoming a more effective orator. Inspiration for great presentations asks about effective design elements (not content organization) for slides.


texts: Letting professors know who else is writing my letters of recommendation

texts:
Should I let each of my recommenders for grad school know who else is writing letters for me? I often see it suggested on checklists of what information to provide the writers.

Would this help the writer in any way? The only way I can see it being helpful is avoiding potential overlap between letters.


texts: Planning to start a Bachelor's degree during my PhD: what to say to my advisor?

texts:
I am a PhD student on my second year. My advisor is one of the most understanding professors I have ever had the pleasure to work with: he is also one of the, if not the, most important researchers in his subfield, which is a really "academic" subfield, meaning everyone who studies this subject ends up in Academia, or with a really unrelated, low-paying job.

Now, I am really unhappy with my PhD: my research is, in my eyes, very weak (I know, I know, impostors' syndrome and so on, I am in fact looking for psychiatric counseling but, one must be realistic: from all PhD students, statistically, some are bound to underperform) and, overall, I am just not happy with what I do... Somewhere along the road I lost the little interest I might have had for research.

The thing is, I used to enjoy research, at least a little, and Academia offers very comfortable careers in my country, and other countries as well: I don't want to leave, study a new subject and find that, not only I am not suitable anymore for Academia, but also I hate whatever I started studying; and I hope that, maybe, with the right counseling, I might again enjoy what I do. Furthermore, I have a scholarship, and if I left with my PhD unfinished I would be heavily financially penalized...

So, the idea I had was to start a Bachelor's degree in a field that has better prospects outside of Academia, all while continuing my PhD: I will underperform even more in my research, but that is a price I think I am willing to pay. The problem is, how do I break the news to my advisor?

As I said, he is a very understanding person, but it will be clear to him that my intention is to, very possibly, leave Academia, since our field is so "academic" and the one I will start this new degree on is not. He will also be very unsatisfied with the obvious new drop in performance and, in my opinion, there are no good reasons to maintain under his supervision a PhD student, in a very academic field, that is not willing to stay on the field.

So, how can I tell my advisor of my intentions? Should I not (which, from a legal standpoint, seems possible, but I would feel extremely guilty)? What kind of arguments should I present to him, in order for him to keep me under his supervision? Would it be more fitting to just drop the PhD instead? I know this question could, perhaps, fit better in the Interpersonal Skills Stack, but the intrinsic topic is so very dependent on academic matters that I think it is a better fit here.


texts: Will quitting PhD after six months affect my ability to get another?

texts:
I've been at my current PhD for six months but in that time have only had 3 meetings with my supervisor, the last of which was over 2 months ago. Worse than that, I've tried enquiring about our next meeting but he's stopped responding to my emails. Now, I never expected to be coddled in my PhD, but what I do know is PhDs are difficult and with the complete dearth of oversight I'm receiving at the moment I am unsure if I will be able to complete my PhD effectively on my own.

Given this, I've decided that it may be time for me to start looking elsewhere for other PhD opportunities. What I worry, though, is how it will look in future applications when they see I already started a PhD and dropped out or if I even mention it at all and leave a blank on my CV for that period? Further, if I do mention it or an enquiry is made in an interview, what could I say or how could I spin it?

Will quitting a PhD after six months look bad for future PhD applications?


texts: Is it ethical to answer questions about homework for colleagues taking courses I've already completed?

texts:
I receive many questions from colleagues about homework in a certain course which I took a while back. I try to answer them and help them solve homework which are very similar to the ones I did when I was taking the course. There is no TA for that course, so they come to me with their questions.

I am not sure if what I am doing is ethical. The professor doesn't know that I am doing this. Should I stop and tell him about this and see what he says?


texts:
What time of year do STEM professors typically work on grant proposals?

Is it always between semesters, e.g. the summer months?


texts: Should I meet my professors at a celebration party?

texts:
I finished my exams, the results came in, and I scored well but not in top 10. There is a celebration that all my professors will be at. I am in doubt whether I should go, because I fear my professors, who expected me to finish among the top 10, will be disappointed. Should I still go?

It's like a victory celebration organized by our institution as students have done well in the competitive exam which I also gave but could not go upto top 10.

what I feel bad that I didn't come in top 10 which my professors hoped that I would come that makes me feared and creates a dilemma. I wanted them to be very happy because of my result but I don't think they would be that happy meeting me . What should I say to them? Even though some professors won't tell but their facial expression may convey their sadness I think.

Even the students from top 10 would be there so I would feel little shy , what should I do ?
All in all here are my doubts :

  should I go ?
  How will I talk to my professors ? (I feel bad of not meeting their hopes)
  I feel shy in front of the toppers and I don't have courage to talk to them , How shall I talk to them ? ( once they were my friends but no I feel little sad of being behind )


texts: Is it okay to focus the PhD Research Proposal in more than one topic?

texts:
Some context here: I'm a physics student from Argentina about to get my MSc. I'm applying to a PhD in many universities of Europe and some of them (Oxford and Imperial College London, for example) ask for a Research Proposal.

I find it weird that I must commit to one specific topic before I even know anything about the area (I know some stuff, obviously, but I'd like to learn more before I choose one specific topic). This is different in the US Universities (where I've applied too) where you just apply for the PhD Position and then have one year to take courses and choose your group and research project.

Because of this, I thought that maybe it would be better if I write about two or three possible research topics within the area of the research proposal. Is this okay? To give further information: I want to apply to the Information Theory group of the Physics Department of Oxford and I'd like to write a proposal about Quantum Thermodynamics but also about information theory applications to fermionic systems and out-of-equilibibrium quantum dynamics. This three topics have nothing to do with one another but the group I'm applying to is working on them.


texts: Tracking reading progress of documentations or ebooks

texts:
Challenge: I need to read a lot of documentations and websites, but often in random order. I need to track which articles of a website, or which pages of a documentation I already read. I want to mark pages as complete after reading, and read nothing twice.
So far I found no efficient tracking method. Copy-pasting urls to a text editor works for small sites, but with deep hierarchies it gets messy. For example, reading all github docs would be hard to track because of it's deep hierarchy.
I highly appreciate any hints for Apps, Browser extensions or creative solutions.


texts: Evidence of adequate funds for U.S. university

texts:
I am  an international applying for graduate studies to some US universities. As part of the application process I need to show evidence that I, or a sponsor, have enough money to cover the cost of living and tuition fees.

However, I need to provide the university with this evidence before they even consider my application.

My question is, is there any way I can apply for a loan and access the money only if I get an offer?

I want to avoid taking out a loan then not getting into any University and having to pay that loan back.

Any other solution is welcome.
Thank you.


texts: How does a prospective applicant fail to qualify for RAship, but fit the bill for TAship?

texts:
I wish to know how the Graduate Admissions Committees for top Universities in the USA decide about awarding Teaching Assistantship to a prospective student. If one had preferred both 'RAship' and 'TAship' in his/her application, does that mean he/she must first be eliminated from the RAship race and then awarded TAship as a consolation?

Also, if being a Research Assistant requires a stellar undergraduate research record, publications and so on, what are the factors which would have been considered for awarding the Teaching Assistantship?

To be very specific, if the student is from a country like India or China, would his English-speaking skills and academic competence be re-reviewed?

If so, please help me understand how these two factors transform from mere selection criteria to those for awarding Financial Assistance.

The Universities, I received assistant-ship from are among the best in my field of interest in Computer Science. Also, their CS departments are known to be well-funded and generously award their students with assistant-ships and scholarships every year.


texts: How to narrow down a research topic in mathematics?

texts:
I would like to work on a research project in my particular field of mathematics. While I'm familiar with the area in general, I'm having a bit of trouble choosing an inquiry narrow enough to be productive. There are lists of open questions, but open questions are generally open for a reason, and I don't have the luxury of spending a decade on a single narrow problem. (This is also the sort of thing one normally picks up in grad school, but my advisor handed me a list of problems he found in a paper somewhere and insisted that I choose among them. Also, I don't have access to any sort of mentor or other useful figure to steer me in a useful direction.)

How do I go from "I want to learn about X" or "It seems like there's a useful connection between X and Y" to some specific, publishable result?

I would like to avoid--- to the extent that one can with something as unpredictable as research--- going down an alley that turns out to be trivial or intractable.


texts: How to convert from one grading scheme to another?

texts:
I'm trying to figure out the equivalence between grade schemes in different countries.

According to some Google results:

If you are a U.S. citizen, you need a GPA of 3.2+ (it varies, some say 3.2 and some others say 3.6, etc) to apply for a position in the UK (job or university) where the prerequisite is to have a minimum grade of 2:1.
In UK 2:1 is earned if you have a 60-69% of the points. I've read that 2:1 is the same as 67%.
In Spain we use a grading scheme of 10 points. So according to (2), for have a UK 2:1 you need to have 6-6.9 points.
If you are Spanish and have 6.7, when converting it to GPA the result is 1.5.

However, if you take the above points and treat them as a math equation, the final result will be GPA 1.5 = GPA 3.2, which doesn't make any sense.

GPA 3.2 = UK 2:1
UK 2:1 = Spain 6.7
Spain 6.7 = GPA 1.5

Replacing now...

UK 2:1 = GPA 1.5
GPA 3.2 = GPA 1.5

My question is if someone has a better explanation on converting grades obtained in different countries.


texts: Meet with another professor in our university to discuss a paper that I wrote and her student is co-author with me

texts:
Recently, I wrote a draft paper based on the results, which I prepared for final project of one my courses (I'm a PhD student). In fact, I had a project partner in that course and I thought I should put her name in the paper as well.

I know it was just a short project and I did not mean to submit it to a really high impact journal (I mean I want to submit it to Computational Materials Science journal, impact factor: 2.530). Also, my PhD adviser was one of the instructor in that course.

Today, I just sent the draft to my partner and said please read it and let me know if you want to add or modify something, but she responded back that her adviser wants to meet me and discuss the work that we did. In fact, she said her adviser does not want to be on the paper as co-author but she wants to be sure that there is nothing in the paper which may have bad impact on her.

The question is: I'm not sure it is an appropriate thing to do (meeting with another professor)  without consulting with my adviser?

I said I should consult with my adviser before meeting and know his opinion. Should I talk about this with my adviser or just give it up at all? Because I don't want to make everything complicated about who should be co-author, etc just for a small side project. Any idea or suggestion is appreciated.


texts: What is the right approach to research when goal is not to publish in top conferences?

texts:
I am theoretical computer scientist. I am currently working in a local university in south  asian country. I have tried my best in the past to publish the research in good venue but have been failed. Now I am okay or fine with publishing in low tier conferences.
I have one doubt about my approach. I read top conference papers like STOC,FOCS,SODA and understand them if they seems interesting to me. Then I try to rephrase a research mentioned in the paper. After working on that question results in a paper.
The problem with approach is it takes quite a time to read and understand papers from top conferences as they are lengthy and nontrivial. This some time takes 4-5 months and total time for one paper is around 6-7 months. Many times it seems after reading these papers that there is no scope of improvement. In that case to me it appears that I should have read a paper of a conference which is not top tier. Lets say paper X is published in tier 2 conference then in most of the cases the reason it has been published in tier 2 is incomplete solution (partial solution to a problem).
Now the question is How to research if my goal is to publish and not to bother about ranking of the conference in efficient manner (time and energy)


texts: Is it possible to do a literature review in the IMRaD format?

texts: The IMRaD format (Introduction, Method, Results and Discussion) seems to be the gold standard in publishable scholarly articles in certain fields. I am wondering if I could get my literature review published if I modified it to fit this format. It’s not a systematic review and uses a lot of grey literature (unpublished project reports and presentations, newspaper articles, working papers) as it is on a topic which has very little research.


texts:
Background:
I work in a public university as a staff member, and also a part-time lecturer, allowed to teach only 1 class (per Union).
Last year, I applied and received multiple grants/awards for my teaching position. I already completed the work and received payments. The grants did not require any approvals from department/dean.

Recent development: Now, our dean approached me with the following conversation:

“You need to send me info prior to your grant submission..
You are only a lecturer…
We hired you just to teach 1 course…
You have a limit for a course teaching… you have a limit (per Union)...
You need to consult with the dean and the department chair about any grant’s proposal and share your idea with us…
 I know that you are not required to submit for internal review to the dean, but since I knew nothing about it, I was in a dark, moving forward you must inform me about your plans… You need to work with a tenured faculty on grants…”

My question:
What do I suppose to do in this situation? I obviously do not believe dean’s well wishes, and would like to apply grants in the future without “dean’s blessings”. I also feel that the dean would go behind my back and ask for denial of my proposal. I do not wish to share my ideas for free.


texts: Who Owns the Publishing Rights of my Ph.D. Thesis?

texts: I wrote my Ph.D. thesis without copy/pasting any of my prior published articles. Now that the university library got hold of my Ph.D. thesis; I'm wondering who owns the entire publishing rights of my Ph.D. thesis?


texts: Is it common to review papers assigned to your supervisor?

texts: Is it common to supervisors to email their students papers to review (which were apparently assigned to the supervisor, and not to the student). The field is Computer Science, but I  would also like to hear from the other fields.


texts: How to see how many times a document has been cited?

texts: I'm working on my thesis and I'd like to see if some documents that I'll use have been used before to see if the topic and focus I'm working on has been done before. At the moment it seems it hasn't, I looked for citations in Google scholar and it has only 1 citation, Academia.edu has around 2000, but I must have Academia Premium to see it. Is there any other way to look for citations? Is it worth to have Academia Premium?


texts: What to say when I contact my future advisor?

texts:
I haven't officially been accepted to the program yet, but I needed to secure an advisor prior to applying. I was accepted by an advisor and she has been great with helping me fill out the application. However, I have yet to be accepted by the school. The school said they were waiting to hear the results of my funding, which I found out that I got. However, my person of interest then left to go away on a research expedition (and has little access to internet). I suspect she MAY be the reason my application is not moving forward right now. I have to select courses in less than a month. She suggested that we talk over the phone about courses when she comes back in a couple days.

I would like to send her an email the day she gets back, but what should I say in the email? Also, how should I bring up the fact that my application hasn't moved forward without complaining (or blaming her)?


texts: How do you evaluate the potential for getting funding of post doc applicants?

texts: This answer of mine, in which I advocate listing internal funding of your PhD studies on your CV, is not well liked. When evaluating potential post docs for my lab, I am interested in if the applicant is going to be competitive for external funding. I take self funding a PhD as being an indication that the applicant was unable to obtain external funding. I give applicants who were funded internally by a department or someone else's grant a big pass since the need for external funding was absent. Is the no funding/internal funding distinction important for a potential post doc supervisor to know? If not why?


texts: Is a PhD useful if you are interested in a career as a staff researcher, not leader of your own research lab?

texts:
How useful is a PhD if my final career goals don't involve leading my own research lab?  In a perfect world I would like to end up as a bioinformatics programmer/analyst in a lab or a core facility to help other people with their projects rather than work on my own. (This is what I'm already doing, actually, but I fell into it somewhat by accident, and I'm not sure if I will be able to find similar jobs in the future without a PhD, if I need to leave my current lab. Thus this question.)

Is a PhD going to be a significant advantage for this kind of position, compared to a BS plus equivalent time working in a staff bioinformatics job in academia?  Or are PhDs mostly only useful for people who want to end up as professors or managing research projects in industry?


texts: Age limit for research position or postdoc in pure mathematics?

texts:
I have read the questions in this website regarding age and PhD. But I couldn't find on age limit for specifically for pure mathematics and for an academic career (research position / postdoc / ...).

My questions is that I am 35 now and I am going to finish PhD in age 39-40; even if I would have good published papers by age 40, wouldn't that age be too old for research position or postdoc? I stress on the word pure mathematics because employers (universities, ...) are looking for young minds in hope of better research (and high creativity).

Thanks a lot in advance for your help.


texts: What happens if your handling editor leaves the editorial board?

texts: I submitted a paper to a journal and after more than one year I got a positive report. I revised the paper as requested by the referee but when I tried to submit the revised version I discovered that my handling editor is not in the editorial board anymore. What happens normally in a case like this? Should I submit the revised version to a different editor?


texts: How to evaluate undergrad CS programs when eventually aiming for PhD?

texts:
My daughter has a strong interest in theoretical computer science, and she has just been  admitted to several different universities as a freshman.  She is just a bright student, not a genius, with a bit of research experience in cryptography and randomness stuff, and a semifinalist in a couple of national competitions.   She intends to continue graduate study in theoretical CS, or a closely related subfield, after finishing her undergraduate degree.

Given her strong interest in eventual graduate study, what criteria should we take into account in choosing where to enroll as an undergraduate?  How can we tell which undergrad programs best prepare their students for graduate school?


texts: What productive academic work can you do with minimal attention in a small (<30 minutes) block of time?

texts:
Ok, here is a major issue I have with much of my work (which is experimental/computational research): I am a graduate student, and spend much of my day doing 5, 10, 20 and 30 minute experiments (both biological and computational), which require set up and monitoring, but result in small to medium size hunks of time when I'm really not doing much (essentially just checking every 1-2 minutes to make sure everything is still working). During these periods of time I either a) attempt to do other work or b) procrastinate. Both are not great, since either a) I'm constantly shifting my focus from the latter project and end up making mistakes in it or b) I'm procrastinate (usually by reading articles, twitter, etc.)

Does anyone have advice for how to deal with these small, awkward period of times (< 30 minutes) - is there something which you find useful to do that you can also shift your focus from incessantly?

As an example: http://xkcd.com/303/


texts: When mentioning the author of a journal I am using in my Literature Review, should I mention author's credentials?

texts:
In my Literature Review, I mention the authors of the published papers I use and the results found in their study. My question is whether I should reference the author's credentials alongside the field in which they belong to or is this unnecessary?

Ex.1 (With)
"Joakim Ruist, a researcher in the department of economics at Gothenburg University, studied the effects of refugees on public finance, finding similar results."

Ex.1 (Without)
"Joakim Ruist studied the effects of refugees on public finances, finding similar results."

Ex. 2 (With)
"In contrast to the conclusions drawn by Ruist, Alden and Hammarstedt, and Storesletten, Bo Rothstein, Professor in Political Science at University of Gothenburg, argues the sustainability of the Swedish welfare state is not under threat by refuge migration."

Ex. 2 (Without)
"In contrast to the conclusions drawn by Ruist, Alden and Hammarstedt, and Storesletten, Bo Rothstein argues the sustainability of the Swedish welfare state is not under threat by refuge migration."


texts: What percentage of admitted PhD students comes from waiting lists

texts:
I was wondering if there is a rule of thumb for the following.

What percentage of students that are accepted for a PhD position were initially put on a waiting list, and were only admitted after high-scoring applicants did not enroll?


texts: Should I resend the emails if professor do not reply to my email?

texts:
So I'm sending emails to professors right now (during summer break) to get letters. However, some just didn't reply at all, some replied to my previous saying "I don't know if my major is related to your field but you are welcome to ask me other questions" (Is this a no?)

So, what should I do next? Should I wait for them to reply to me? Should I resend? Should I draft another email?


texts: Is it socially acceptable to consider myself a chemist, if I have a degree in chemistry but no research or professional experience?

texts:
I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry, and feel like I have definitely learned enough to deserve it. However, I have only done laboratory chemistry outside of my courses for a few months my junior year. I have not had any internships or professional chemistry positions. Next year I will be entering pharmacy school, so it might never be employed as a "chemist".

When discussing science online, is it misleading to tell people I am a chemist? Is there a difference between someone trained in chemistry, and a chemist? I.e., is being a chemist more than an occupation, but a lifestyle or state of mind?


texts: Should I add the names or skip them altogether?

texts:
I am making a presentation on the topic Coral Reefs and their Conservation. I have included much of the information with reference to National Geographic channel's blog reports and United Foundations' reports. I have referred four websites, all of which were inter-related in some way (apart from the topic, of  course). They included the research work of a certain someone named Dr. Emma Camp and Associate Professor  David Sugget. These two were the leaders/mentors of the program which included many other PhD students and a few MSc students as well.
I have mentioned about two recent significant programs carried out for the recovery of coral reefs, Coral Nurture Program and Future Reefs Program. Both of the two programs have these two people in common along with a few others. So I was thinking of including a brief summary of both of them. But then I thought that wouldn't be just, because there were many other students and researchers as well.
Hence my question, should I include their summaries in my presentations or should I mention everyone's name as per this site or should I avoid this notion altogether?


texts: "Statement of purpose" vs "Research proposal" in the context of graduate studies?

texts:
After consulting google, what I am able to understand is that a statement of purpose is a document that is used when applying for graduate studies and it mentions the aptitude and motivation for research in a particular field
Is my understanding correct? If yes, then what is a research proposal?


texts: Is informing your advisor about a community cause considered unprofessional?

texts:
Background: I'm a PhD stident in Russia with an advisor coming from the US.

There are several community causes that are related or slightly related to academia; two that come to mind are Academics against the immigration executive order and Battle for the the net neutrality. Whenever I learn of a similar community cause, I'm inclined to send a personal email to my advisor, because

I feel it is important to know about these causes,
My advisor can take action and support them.

However, there are concerns that discourage me:

Academics are busy
My advisor might already be aware of the cause, in which case, I'm wasting his time
Emails that seek to support a cause may seem unprofessional, if not downright spam.

Is there a community consensus on how appropriate such messages are?


texts: What is the point of being the head of the department?

texts:
What is the point of being the head of the department ?

I'm an undergraduate Physics & Mathematics student and I want to stay in academia, do research and also teach. I'm assuming professors also want this. Hence,

Why do they become the head of the department and deal with lots of administrative stuff?
Isn't that boring for a person who presumably wants to work on his/her field rather than deal with lots of nonsense?

Note: I want to restrict this question to departments in STEM fields only.


texts: How much actual funding does a Marie Curie fellowship entail?

texts:
The EU has a research fellowship program named after Physicist Marie Skłodowska-Curie. The website lacks a bunch of information, but I'm specifically interested in understanding what kind of funding it actually provides in the Individual Fellowship (IF) track. The linked-to-page says:

  The grant provides an allowance to cover living, travel and family costs. In addition, the EU contributes to the training, networking and research costs of the fellow, as well as to the management and indirect costs of the project.

If you've received such a grant, participated in fund allocation, or saw the "books" at a hosting institution, I'd like to know more about what amounts of money they're talking about.

Specific points you could elaborate on:

Is the funding a lump sum? Per-year? Per-month?
Is the host institute's part figured as a percentage of the overall funding? Independently of it?
Do the applicants (individual + institution) ask for certain amounts, or does the program set them?
If it's the latter, what are the fixed amounts? Or the criteria for setting them?
Can you give a specific/typical example (no personal identifying information please) of the amount of funds some researcher, and their hosting institute, have gotten?

Obviously - no need to address all of the points.


texts: How can reviewers validate work that does not include source code or raw experiment data?

texts:
FYI, I am in CS and EE field. Relevant journals and conferences are organized by IEEE, ACM, USENIX and so on.

I've noticed that many paper submission system don't require neither source code nor experiment data.

In this situation, how reviewers tell if a paper under review is forged or not?

I can imagine that a cunning person proposes a novel-looking idea, but their performance  and evaluation is not that good as he/she proposed. Then, I think he/she can forge his/her work slightly so that it cannot be suspected of being forged by reviewers.

Such papers/work make followers have hard time to identify if the work is forged or not.


texts: Is it common to offer a position to someone before the position is advertised?

texts:
I have been offered and have accepted a position at a university. The position is not advertised yet, but they will advertise it because they are required to. Is this something common in academia? To be more clear on what happened, prior to the offer I sent my CV as a respond to another similar position which they advertised, but it was to be filled immediately and so I was ruled out. I guess after looking at my CV and having further conversations with me they were keen for me to join them and so they offered me this new position. But because they are required to, they have to go through another round of formalities.

I did ask the head of department how he could be sure that I would be the most suitable person for the job and told him that others might be better candidates, to which he said something to the effect that he saw me as suited for the group. But since I have not signed any contracts yet, how can I guarantee that I will eventually get the job? From the time I accepted the offer, I have stopped looking for other jobs, and have withdrawn my other applications, but since there are no contracts signed yet, I am a bit worried.

Perhaps another question I should ask is why are universities required to put up advertisements and to go trough all the formalities if they already decided on someone?


texts: Citing an URL using the Waybackmachine (web.archive.org)

texts:
I would like to quote the following quotation correctly:

  Information is the oil of the 21st century and analytics is the internal combustion engine.

In other papers I found out that this quote was said by Peter Sondergaard in 2011 and as source a weblink to a Gartner press release is given: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1824919. This link is no longer available. So I cannot use it to cite the quote.

But there is the web service "waybackmachine". It's an internet archive, so I can see here the state of the website from 2017, where this article is still available: https://web.archive.org/web/20170612085034/http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1824919

Is it okay then to use the archive link as the source for the quote? I would use it in bibtex in the following way:

@misc{gartner,
  title = {Gartner Says Worldwide Enterprise IT Spending to Reach \$2.7 Trillion in 2012},
  author = {Pettey, Christy},
  howpublished = {\url{https://web.archive.org/web/20170612085034/http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1824919}},
  note = {Accessed: 2020-04-29},
  year = {2011}
}


texts: How much research experience do US grad schools really expect from an undergraduate CS student?

texts:
I'm in my third year at college, currently pursuing CS. I've developed quite an interest in social network analysis and machine learning and have, thus, been working on research papers that lie within these two categories. However, while I am certain that I enjoy the research experience and can communicate this effectively in my Statement of Purpose, I am worried about the quality as well as low number of publications that I expect to have by the time I apply for an MS/MS-PhD program.

I say quality because I have not published in any of the top-notch CS journals. Two of my papers have been published in conference proceedings (Publisher: Springer). The third paper is actually a book chapter published in IGI-Global. However, two of these papers have only two authors with me as first author and my mentor as second author.

Apart from this, my grades are pretty high. Overall, 9.5/10.0 gpa as of now and I expect to keep this constant by the time I graduate. (If it matters, I scored a 10.0/10.0 one semester and so ranked first in the Uni for that sem.) Taking all this into consideration, is it reasonable for me to target the top 20-50 universities even with my 3 "okay" papers? I was hoping that my grades may offset this. Note: I am targeting an RA/TA position as I definitely require full financial aid as I am an international student.


texts: What are the criteria that determine if a research group/professor is actively pursuing research?

texts:
While searching for research groups pertaining to my area, I came across one that matched my interests well. But in the publications page, the most recent paper was written in the year of 2015, which was also the last paper by the professor. There are no indications that the group has been discontinued. As for the professor, he seems fairly active until last year (but no papers), according to his bio. I tried to get in contact with the university regarding the activities of the group but I didn't get any response yet.

As for the students in the group, there isn't much information about their recent work. The university is pretty well ranked and my research interests align with the group so I'm hesitant to let this university slide but since papers are good indicators of how active a group is, does it mean it's better to move on? I haven't contacted the professor personally regarding this since I wasn't sure how to go about it. (I came across this and am considering sending him a mail.)

In general, are publications the ultimate measures of performance or is there a useful rule of thumb for choosing or not choosing of a research group/professor for PhD (apart from the publication list)? I'm not very knowledgeable about the process yet so any help on this is appreciated.


texts: Leave quotations in original (bad) English or edit?

texts: I am editing a thesis and the writer has quoted from many interviews with non-native English speakers. I'm wondering whether it is correct practice to leave the quotations as is, or perhaps use (sic), or to edit them in correct English? Thanks in advance.