texts: What practicable alternative do I have to not fly around the globe to present a poster/pollute environment?

texts:
Popularizing your research and results is an important part of a non-tenured researcher, which alreday and often starts after graduating with a bachelor and proceeds up to being a postdoc for many years. While I don't question organization of conferences at all, observing that sometimes several researcher from one group fly to a conference, many only to present a poster sometimes, made me think, if there are alternatives to personally choose and practice as I'm also interested in the Azimuth project. I also remember from mail contacts with other researchers some of their signatures asking the recipient kindly "to not print out this mail" and increase its ecological footprint, as digitalization sadly increases paper consumption (tragic "fun" fact).

So my question is, what practicable best option/alternative do I have:

asking colleague of my group with talk to hang up my poster/present it/point to mail/phone for interested viewers
directly mail-spam attendees of the conference (looking up program) I know from papers in my field before conference with a PDF version of my poster, not paying conference fee (which look to me often also rather like a business model also among important and renonwed conferences fostering so many predatory conferences I get notice in my spam folder, likely being financed in very costly conference venues by many "poster-boys")
not care about my ecological footprint because researchers are no role-models and just a very small number of the international air traffic. As said, I don't question talks and invited talks held in front of several dozen peers.
only present posters for few years to make my community aware of myself or only at nearby locations.
engage in online conferences (which seem totally unpopular, not in practice in my field of condensed matter physics, being no niche and staging dozens of conferences even in single subfields like magnetism, materials...)
...

I know, there will be some disadvantages. Actually, the last idea originating from a discussion at a poster on the other side of the globe made me writing a granted research proposal which will finance my post-doc position and a PhD-student. But I think it would have been just a matter of more time and didn't need a flight around the world.

EDIT: I'm really looking for practicable tips one can apply now instead of waiting until the organization of conferences will hypothetically significantly change like in this related question. It's highest voted answer is funny, but has been disproven for decades as the environmental pollution steadily increases and unfortunately human kind and environment have a "time limit" :-)


texts: Do all universities have a minimum required GPA for graduate school application?

texts:
I am a senior undergraduate (electrical) engineering student, exceedingly interested in physics. 4 years ago when entering university, for some reasons (better: illusions) I chose engineering as my major, while I was interested (and also really knowledgeable) in physics . Soon after the first semester I realized that I've decided wrong, and I must have chosen physics.

Since our university is a technical institute and does not have a strong physics department I decided to study physics on my own, without changing my major.But I took and passed the basic graduate physics courses (advanced quantum mechanics, advanced statistical mechanics, electrodynamics I & II), have done a few research projects and had a paper published (maybe 1 more in the future). I have explored lots of research areas in physics and I think I have a good potential for doing research.

While concentrating on physics, I was inattentive to EE courses. Today, while searching for graduate programs, I saw that some schools require a minimum GPA, usually 3. I just calculated my GPA and found out that it is 2.95!

Do all universities have a GPA threshold?
Since I'm changing my major and also have a good GPA in graduate physics courses, is there any way I can compensate for my (very) low electrical engineering GPA? (like by taking subject GRE, etc.)
If I first (somehow) get a masters degree in physics and then apply for a PhD, can I throw away this electrical engineering GPA in my PhD application ?

Any other suggestion is warmly appreciated.


texts: What are the general rules for faculty attendance?

texts: Other than attending classes and meetings, faculty differ in their daily attendance. Some faculty may show up only during days they have classes, others are in their offices daily from 8-5, others arrive around noon and stay late. Are their any rules or it is up to each department or faculty?


texts:
I'm preparing my paper for submission to an IEEE conference. The style guide is here (zip file).
Under equations, the conference style guide says:
"you may use the solidus (/), the exp function, or appropriate exponents. Italicize Roman symbols for quantities and variables, but not Greek symbols." Then proceeds to give an example with \gamma which is a Greek letter. Does anyone know if Greek letters are allowed or not?


texts: Missed entry to foreign grad school; what are my options?

texts:
I want to specify that this is actually for a friend, I personally am not an academic but he is and is in this situation and asked me to write here to ask for suggestions as he is abstaining from the internet.

My friend over the past year got his hopes up to go to graduate school in Brazil, and after finally passing the Portuguese proficiency exam he found that he had missed the window by a few weeks. Currently, he is unsure how to proceed.

He would very much like to still go to Brazil, but he cannot apply again until 2020, and he worries that as a fresh graduate that a lack of academic history between 2018 and 2020 may be harmful for his chances to get in. Financial burdens are also pressuring him to accept alternative choices for graduate school, but he is frankly bummed out at the prospect of anything but what he had in mind.

He currently does work as a paid lab worker in an Entomology lab (his field of study along with Philosophy), so he does have a few years of paid lab experience; I posed that he continue along this track and wait for the opportunity to appear again, but he is growing increasingly tired of his work setting and wants to jump back into academia.

As someone who was denied from their dream grad school (not on merit, but by deadline), what are his options on continuing work in academia without forgoing his dream?

Note also that he refuses to work outside of something supporting academia which limits his financial options.

I feel that this is not a duplicate of similar questions because, having looked at them, they mostly advise reapplying or talking to the advisor. Due to the foreign nature, it is not possible for him to apply before the next window (as I understand, feel free to correct me!).


texts: Is it possible to submit paper to peer-reviewed journal without affiliation?

texts: I have conducted an evaluation on effectiveness of training interventions on elderly clients in a non-government organization. I would like to share the results by submitting paper to peer-reviewed journal. However, owing to policy of the organization, i was told to submit the paper on personal capacity. I would like to know if peer-reviewed journal accept paper from investigator without affiliation?


texts: Should I emphasize certain traits in my CV for master's application?

texts: Should I modify my CV to emphasize certain traits before including it in my application for a master's degree or just include my usual professional CV?


texts: What to do if my paper is incorrectly cited in a journal?

texts: Recently I got a cite in a research paper where the author cited my work as [first name] et al, where it should have been [last name] et al. Is there any problem for indexing purpose? should I contact the journal editor about this incident and ask for correction?


texts: Is it possible to automatically obtain cited-by lists?

texts:
In google scholar, it is easily possible to obtain a list of articles that cite a specific article. Web of science and scopus also offer this feature, if you manually enter the article identifiers (e.g. doi or database identifier).

However, to automatically (api-wise) obtain a list of articles that cite a certain reference (cited-by) seems to be very hard. I'm able to query metadata via the respective APIs of web of science and scopus, but the cited-by features seem to be fenced. For crossref, my credentials are not sufficient as well.

As far as i can see, only pubmed offers this option, but my field is not related to (bio)medical applications.

The point is, organisations giving you access to do this by hand apparently do not like you to do it automatically. This is information that is not behind some paywall so I do not understand.

Q: Has anyone bumped into this as well, an explanation for it, and suggestions to get access to a list of citing articles in a programmatic way?


texts: Change of research field from physics to biology

texts:
I would like to know if disciplines such as cell biology and genetics or research areas such as cancer need physicists. I am getting a PhD in biophysics, however, it did not involve biology directly. It involved spectroscopic methods on biological samples without regard to their biology.

I know those areas are broad and it also depends on my CV and publication records, however, I would like to know how likely and possible it is for a physicist to get a postdoc in biology.

While I am able to do mathematical modeling, I would like to do wet lab experiments rather than just doing math and using computer. What concerns me is that because the positions are competitive and I do not have prior experience in biology experiments I either will not have be able to enter this field or I have to enter it to do mathematical modeling.

I would like mainly to know about personal experience or the point of view of a principle investigator.


texts: BA in the humanities - doing MA in Computer Science?

texts:
I have a BA degree in sociology, but during my studies I got interested in programming and development. I would like to continue and do my MA thesis in a Computer Science University, and maybe, try to incorporate sociology and CS in my final thesis.

If I do it the other way around, going to sociology MA but try to get some computer science subjects along the way, I don't think will teach me much.

I would like to know if it's possible to continue and do a Masters thesis in CS, having already finished a BA in social sciences / humanities?


texts: I am writing a paper (in German) for a philosophy seminar using MLA citation style. For my work I use three english sources and I am going to translate all of my quotes for a better textflow. At the frist quote, I would like to mark that all of the following quotes will be translated by me. How do I do that in MLA?


texts: Anyone here experimented Elsevier's new "Data in Brief' and 'MethodsX' journals?

texts:
Since recently I have adopted the practice of depositing and publishing raw data and background information (e.g. original images, chromatograms, R scripts, etc) regarding my published papers. I am still learning the best ways of doing this.

I am wondering what was the experience of colleagues with using the new options offered by Elsevier journals towards sharing raw data and supplementary information below:

https://www.journals.elsevier.com/methodsx/

https://www.journals.elsevier.com/data-in-brief/

I have just tried my first attempt with submitting a paper linking to parallel supplementary data submission to Data in Brief, and received somewhat negative reactions from my Reviewers.
(In short they did not understand how it works, and why would anyone do it.)

Has anyone here tried such new data-sharing options yet? Opinions, please?

UPDATE 25/04/2018

I have just published a short manuscript with Data in Brief presenting data and images supplementary to another Elsevier paper. From my experience, I would not recommend others to publish with Data in Brief. (i) It is expensive for what it is; (ii) there was actually no peer review; (iii) the supplementary manuscript is pushed towards publication as soon as the linked main manuscript is accepted without opportunities to make significant changes; (iv) proof correction system is slow and mediated by confusing secretary editors; (v) it doesn't seem to add significantly more visibility than external, free data repositories. Feels like a money-making stunt by Elsevier. Hopefully it may prove more worthwhile over time.


texts: How to disagree about author order when my advisor has been dismissive of such concerns in the past?

texts:
I'm being asked by my advisor to perform a specific scientific experiment that she conceived from start to finish  on our apparatus over the next two months (which could easily become 3-4 months or even longer).  There is a senior graduate student, but he is writing his dissertation.  The advisor has asked me to run the lab 45 hours per week to take data on this experiment.  The advisor has told me that the senior graduate student will provide some guidance and we will work together on a conceptual level, but that I will do all of the day-to-day setup and data taking.  So far, the senior graduate student has only acted as a buffer of communication between the advisor and myself, and he has simply passed on parameters for me to test that were suggested by the advisor.

The advisor has indicated that she wants the senior graduate student be the first author.  I believe that this is only because the senior graduate student has not published a satisfactory number of papers and must graduate this semester (he is a 7th year graduate student).

In the past when I've questioned the ethics of authorship on papers, particularly pertaining to this exact scenario, my questions have been brushed off and I've been told that this is how it has been done in the past in our research group: a junior graduate student will take a lot of experimental data for the senior graduate student.  To call myself a junior graduate student may be misleading, I am in the fifth year my PhD program and I have not yet started my independent research in the lab because I have been taking data for the previous graduate student for several years now.  I fully have the expertise to run this new experiment without any input from the senior graduate student.

It seems to me that, simply questioning my advisor's ethics with regard to how she assigns responsibility and authorship in the lab, has run into a brick wall.  It has made things awkward and has not changed anything.

I want to consult other professors but I fear that their conception of authorship is just as corrupt.  I would also like to speak to our dean but I fear that word will get out and it could come  back to hurt me a later point in time.

How have people dealt with this in past?  It seems that there are no definite guides for how to determine authorship in such specific cases, and I feel that my advisor is abusing the undefinitive nature of authorship ethics!


texts: Lectures are way ahead of the planned schedule for the course. What should be done?

texts:
In my university, we submit a lecture plan at the academic semester starts. The lecture plan is a kind of semi-official documentation on the schedule of lectures or topics (Ref: Planning a course: lecture-by-lecture or topic-by-topic?). The lecture plan looks like the following that also includes the plan for quizzes, tests, projects.

--------------------------------------------
Week    Topic      Subtopics     Expectation
--------------------------------------------
W01     Topic1     St1, St2      To achieve.
W02     Topic1     St3, St4      ---
...some weeks of such lecturing...
Quiz1 ...
W07     Topic7     St1, St2      ---
W08     Topic8     St1, St2      ---
...and some more...
Mid-way Test
...Again lecturing...
Project
Final test
---------------------------------------------

Now I am in a problem. The mid-way test has been scheduled in next 3 weeks. But, I have completed all the stuff required for the mid-way test. I don't have any more things to lecture and I don't want to.

Should I complete the course well before time? But, again my dean might not be happy with this.

Or, what should one lecturer do in such a scenario?

Suggestion with some experiences would be really appreciated.

P.S. This is undergrad course if at all it matters.


texts:
Many Coursera online courses have an exam component.  This raises the question:
How is a Coursera exam typically conducted?

It seems non-obvious to me how one would conduct an exam involving students who might be on different continents.


texts: Trouble finding good letter writers for math grad school due to switching programs

texts:
I'm planning to apply to top US grad schools in the fall, and out of all the required documents, I would say that my weakest link would be in the quality of my recommendation letters.
I'm currently planning to ask the following people:

Professor X: I'm doing research with this person in the summer, and we already have a significant result that we are planning to turn into a joint paper. (Subject: discrete math)
Professor Y: I received an A+ in this person's undergraduate analysis course last year, and he offered to write a letter of recommendation to those who received an A+ in his course.

Then, the rest I'm not sure about, I have the following to choose from:

Professor Z: I did a research project with this professor in number theory, but it was more like a reading course. I don't think I left a significant impression on him, since the topic I was reading was fairly elementary in the field.
Manager A: I did an internship under this person at a Big 4 Tech company last summer, and he had high reviews of me, and gave me a returning offer at the end, which I declined.
Postdoc B: I did a research internship with this person in applied computer science (not math heavy) two summers ago, and it culminated in a joint conference publication.

The problem with Manager A and Postdoc B are that they are not professors, and I did not do any pure mathematics with them, which I heard should not be a part of my application package.
I was briefly in engineering. I switched into my current math and computer science program about 1.5 years into my undergraduate degree. I started becoming serious about going to math grad school last summer, after testing the waters with industry.
My GPA is probably among the top 1%, and I have taken most of the upper level undergraduate math courses. I will be taking some graduate level math courses at the same time as my applying to graduate schools in the fall.
I've also been learning more graduate number theory material with a mentor on the side, and will be writing some expository pieces. But again, a graduate mentor cannot write me letters of recommendations.
Of course, if I choose Professor X,Y,Z, then I will have 3 letters, but only one of them will be strong. Should I explain this in my statement of purpose? Can I still fix this situation by working on a more meaningful research project in the fall?


texts: How can I apply a Computer Science degree towards a career in a research-related position of another field?

texts:
I'm not interested in becoming an academic.  Rather, I'm interested in opportunities for a Computer Science (or related) major to work in research, either in industry, but also particularly in academia, and particularly in fields where CS skills/knowledge could be applied to social sciences (or cognitive science). This includes anywhere from simply being a programmer that happens to work in a research setting to doing actual dirty work with computational modeling that may even require some domain knowledge of the topic at hand.

My problem is that I don't really know what sorts of opportunities exist out there and how to get to those opportunities.  I'm not opposed to getting a graduate (master's) degree in a specific field, getting research experience, and developing broad expertise around a subject area.  In fact, that could be great.

However, I get the impression that in academia, you center your research around highly specific areas and that becomes your life.  To be honest, there is not one highly specific area of interest that I have (at least not yet) where I would be passionate enough to dedicate and invest such a huge portion of my life towards studying and researching, not to mention I don't want to tie myself down to any specific subject nor the poor job market of academia (sucks, I know).

I'm more interested in breadth and the ability to work on interesting projects.  Part of the reason I went into Computer Science was because of how applicable it was to many fields.  While I find Computer Science and programming to be incredibly engaging, my heart truly lies in the study of people, and it would be a dream to merge the two worlds together.  In some sense, you could say I would love to work in academia without becoming a full-out-academic, by leveraging my background into another field.  But I would like to make it a viable career path.

A random list of subjects/areas/words to capture my interests: cognitive science, computational models of narratives/belief/reasoning, agent-based modeling, complex systems, social network analysis, human computer interaction.

I know a field like bioinformatics or computational biology is pretty huge, and I've often read about ways to enter those fields (e.g. be a CS person who enters from the outside and picks up the biology knowledge as they go along, or someone who has done biology research their whole career and is now learning and picking up CS/programming skills to assist their research).  I'm interested in opportunities to be more of the former, for the reasons I have outlined above.  Though I would say, the more I can wet my feet into the domain area, the more preferable.

What paths can I take?  What are some emerging fields?  What jobs exist and in what numbers?  How can I get there?


texts: I want to quit PhD after 4 months. Should I?

texts:
I am a first year PhD student. I am doing it from an institute in a remote part of the world where the temperature is -10 degrees most time of the year. I took this opportunity after doing my Masters in Europe and I was really happy with the time I spent during my masters thesis research and really liked my research and came up with good results and very good grades. Now, I have taken this scholarship position but I am already in dark. As said, this institute is in a very small town. I can't speak the language of local people. I can't go out for a walk because its too cold.

I don't think that the project is difficult. In fact it is easier for me. But my daily life is not perfect because to read a research paper or write an article I need a fresh and happy mind, which in this city and cold temperature is not possible. I have money just for food and living and no more for even traveling to another city.

Can someone please tell me if I should leave this program?


texts: Free, open-source substitutes for Mendeley?

texts:
Mendeley is (mainly) a proprietary social network to share basic citation data and research papers. see also

Are there any free and open source substitutes for this service?

A technical possibility: users could collect BibTeX data and a hash and share this information.
It would be very useful to have such a free service because every journal provides the citation data in a different format. That includes false field entries, broken files and hidden download buttons on the website.


texts: Choosing title for a section in the curriculum vitae

texts: I am now applying for lecturer jobs after my masters. And so have made a decent CV. Now I have a confusion on giving the research interests in my CV. I wanted to make 2 sections in CV indicating my basic subject areas and future research interests. What are the suitable titles for these sections in the CV?


texts: The fate of an accepted paper not being presented

texts:
If no author of an accepted paper registers for the conference, the paper is simply dumped from the conference.

If, however, the authors duly register but fail to present it at the conference, what is the fate of the paper? I have an accepted paper at a European conference (IEEE), but due to lack of travel funds, our team has decided that we will not be travelling to present the work (I am not based at Europe).

I wrote to the General Chair of the conference, and he writes to me that if the paper is not presented, it will not be indexed in the IEEE Xplore library.

What I wish to know is, will the paper still be published in the 'Conference Proceedings' booklet or CD? My guess is Yes, since these must be printed before authors arrive for the conference. The General Chair has not responded with an answer on this.

Question two, which happens to be my real inquiry- does such a thing count as a valid 'publication' for me? Will my work get indexed somewhere (wherever it might be) or not, would it be searchable via the Internet or not?


texts: Should I update my arXiv submission after it's been reviewed and published OA in a Springer journal?

texts:
I recently had a paper accepted in a Springer journal, which allows "Open Choice", meaning that the article can be made Open Access. My institution covers the charges, so I agreed to do it and now it's in process of publication.

My question is: when I first submitted the manuscript, I also put a version on the arXiv and on my webpage. Now in the accepted version there are a couple of updates coming from referee revisions. I already put the new version in my webpage, since I know I can do that.

But what about the arXiv? When using non-Open Access, there is a 12 month embargo period. But it's not clear for me from
https://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/authors-rights/self-archiving-policy/2124
whether I can update the version with the accepted version in the arXiv. I don't care for the journal typesetting; I'm happy with just putting the revisions in my own LaTeX file.

Can I do it without issue?


texts: Publish work extending on PhD with supervisor

texts:
I recently completed my PhD and have started a position at a different institution. I am writing a paper which extends a model I introduced in my PhD. It wasn't a significant part of my PhD, more of an aside (about 2 pages). The idea of how to extend it came out of a discussion with the external examiner during my PhD defense (my supervisor was not present). I have a good relationship with my PhD supervisor and I know they would be interested in the project.

I would like to publish this as the sole author. Should my PhD supervisor be a co-author? They have not been involved in (or aware of) the work to extend the model. How do I let them know without potentially affecting our relationship?

Note, I have no reason to believe they would be upset about such things and may be overthinking this...


texts: Are there published mathematics research papers that contribute a new approach for understanding a known result, rather than new theorems?

texts:
Are there research papers which are written on understanding (rather than deriving  new facts and theorems) of topics of Mathematics in some new and unique approach not used before?

For example, a paper that would give a new type of proof of a known result and things like this.

If the answer to this question is 'Yes', then how much weightage is given to such a research paper in terms of its acceptance and publication in a reputed journal?


texts: Considerations for transitioning from a teaching to a pure research position

texts:
Understandably, there would be some adjustment needed, particularly if the academic had been in the predominantly teaching role for a long time (or it is the only academic role they've had).

What practical considerations are there that would help an academic currently fulfilling a primarily teaching position to seamlessly and effectively transition to being in an all-research position (any job that is all research, no teaching)?


texts:
How can one know if a paper award decision was made with the award committee not having access to the author names?

I am mostly interested in machine learning / natural language processing paper awards.


texts: In what order should I list bibliography entries by the same author?

texts:
Suppose that a bibliography contains two entries by the same author, published in the same year (and for the sake of simplicity, with no coauthors). Which order should they be listed in? At least three possibilities come to mind, and as this link shows at least two are considered in practice:

(Alphabetical) In alphabetical order, depending on the titles of the papers.
(Historical) In order of appearence, taking into account months and days of publication.
(Logical) In the order which makes the most logical sense, so that if paper B uses results from paper A then A appears before B.

Which of these is the most widely accepted / the most formally correct?

One instance where this question often comes up for me in practice is when writting a CV. Is there a difference between a publication list of a single person and a bibliography that happens to include two or more papers by the same author?


texts: How can I throw other ideas from my mind while doing PhD?

texts:
I have started doing PhD 3 months ago and I still don't have that much progress. What I found is that I spend more time on learning about web development, which I can choose not to do,  and this will make me focus more on my PhD and I'm sure I will do better. However, the problem is that web development is like an addiction for me.

Web development is not like doing something else (it requires learning stuff so my mind will do a lot of hard work) and when I do that and come to do my research work in PhD I feel bored.

Now I decided to stop doing web development and focusing on PhD but how can I guarantee not to come back to that in 2 or 3 days?  I tried that one month ago and I found myself coming back to web development and not focusing that much on PhD.

Any ideas or suggestion on getting rid of this habit?


texts:
I want to cite polyfit function described in : https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/polyfit.html

How can I cite it? Specially in bibtex format?

I don't know if I should point to the URL or use MATLAB trademark and the software version...


texts: Does recording video of a scientific presentation violate the privacy of a PhD student?

texts:
The answers to this popular question were somewhat controversial, but many including @dan-romik whose answer was highly upvoted mentioned that recording a video is a violation of personal privacy and in the US, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

I neither can speak for the OP of that question nor approve his/approach, but the strong stance regarding personal privacy puzzled me. The mentioned question says

  We have a youtube channel in which students regularly explain their
  achievements.

Point 1: Can the reports of a PhD student recorded in video format?

A PhD student normally delivers reports of progress to the
supervisor. This report can be in verbal or written form.
I do not see any problem (including privacy) if the supervisor asks
the PhD student to deliver his/her report in video format.
Alternatively, the supervisor may ask the PhD student to deliver a
public lecture in the department. Since it is a public lecture,
anyone can record the presentation unless otherwise strictly stated
by the organiser.
Similarly, the progress could be presented at a conference. Many
conferences record the presentations.

Point 2: Can a supervisor share the presentations of a PhD student?

A research report is not intended for the supervisor's eyes only. An
educator cannot share the exam sheet of a student (according to
FERP), but the story is completely different for a research report.
The supervisor can/will directly use that report to report to the
funding agency who funded the PhD project in the first place.
The progress report is not only the progress of PhD student but the
work done in the supervisor's group. Therefore, it is not odd for the
supervisor to post the report publicly (e.g., the university website,
researchgate, etc).

Conclusion: Is video different from writing?

For centuries, academics presented their works in both oral and writing formats. Thanks to Johannes Gutenberg, writings are well recorded for centuries. However, video recording of the presentations is new, a few decades of recording, and one decade of sharing.

As a straightforward question, can someone refuse to appear in any recording because of personal privacy? This can apply to the PhD defence meeting too, as some universities record its video to be stored along with the written dissertation.


texts: Current state of French mathematics school

texts: France has a very strong reputation historicaly in mathematics, and many famous mathematicians studied in their top universities. But is it still the case? I am particularely interested in the current state of their top graduate programs. How do they compare to top programs in the US/UK? In your opinion, is France an atractive and competitive option for graduate math school? I have read very mixed opinions about this and rankings are very inconsistent with French universities. For example in Shangai ranking in mathematics, Marie Curie is in top 3, while in other ones using a different methodology it is not in the top 40.


texts: A paper is published in a book, conference and its proceedings, should I cite it as book, conference or conference proceeding paper?

texts:
I use Mendeley reference manager and sometimes import articles from browser to my Mendeley Library using browser extension. Import is totally fine but I am having two confusions after importing:

Some conference papers are published in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) and many other related Lecture Notes series of Springer. When I add it to Mendeley, it categorizes that paper as "Book" although it was originally published in a conference. So should I cite this paper as

an article in a book titled LNCS or
Conference in which it was published or
Conference proceedings in which it was published?

Please refer to following image as an example of this. First screenshot is from Springer site and second is from Mendeley Desktop paper details section.

If I have to cite it as a Conference proceeding, then what should be name of the Conference Proceeding,

the name written as "Proceedings of International Conference on XYZ" or
the actual title of proceeding as "XYZ"?

Taking the above picture as an example: Here, the title of conference is "International Conference on Human Centered Computing" and Proceeding name is "Human Center Computing". Should I refer title as "Proceedings of International Conference on Human Centered Computing" or just "Human Centered Computing"?

If that paper is Workshop paper of that conference, in this case, what would be citation style, workshop title, Conference title or proceedings title?

Please help me understand this. Thanks in anticipation.
PS Pardon me if all three of the above should be posted as separate questions but I think these all all related to one another like an IF/ELSE condition and may help in reaching a conclusion.


texts: What happens to unproductive professors?

texts:
I notice that past a certain age (sometimes as early as 50), some professors tend to be significantly less productive, to the point that they essentially do not publish or have graduate students and only teach classes (as that is really the only 'required' activity of a professor).

I've also noticed in some rarer cases of professor 'dropping off the grid' right after they get tenure. And this is reflected in them being an associate professor indefinitely.

Are there any consequences to this? Is their pay reduced if they are clearly not doing any research? Or are these professors effectively retired but still receiving all the monetary and social benefits of their job without having to conduct any of the required work?


texts: Should I require a student to acknowledge or change a color scheme from a common paper?

texts:
When I wrote my first paper, I experimented a bit with different colour styles until I found one that was both clear and aesthetically pleasing. I’ve since used it for all papers where I was first author. One of these submissions has been with a master’s student, who is now writing up his thesis.

He used the colour definitions from the paper for the figures in his thesis, which slightly irks me. Partly it is because this makes it harder to see which figures are cited from the paper and which are his own, partly because I put some effort into it. Is this so minor I should just let it go?

Update: As Wrzlprmft pointed out, using a consistent color scheme within a thesis is important for readability. Since recommending to use something and then requiring acknowledgement would be weird, I let it go.


texts: My professor wants to know if his recommendation is helpful

texts:
Several weeks after I received the recommendation from Professor M, he sent an email to me and asked me about the result of my application to a graduate school.  He wants to know whether his recommendation is helpful and my application is accepted or not.

Although I have submitted my application and supporting documents to the graduate admissions, the deadline for the program I have applied for is on the 18th April.

The only message I received from the graduate school was that they had received my application. I have no idea whether my application is successful or not, but the email from professor M made me nervous.

I can see that there are a lot of professors here. I guessed that some of you had written recommendation letters for your students. I would love to know this:

  What were your reactions when you heard of your students telling you that their applications failed or your recommendation letters useless?

I feel scared when thinking of this situation.


texts: Withdrawing from present studies in order to be allowed to apply for another one? Asking for clarification of a clause in my admission letter

texts:
I'm a second-year PhD student studying in a foreign country on a student visa, and I've been admitted to another PhD program in another foreign country (so I'm planning to leave the current program unfinished and started the new one). My official offer has this clause and I have to accept it in order to get the confirmation letter that allows me to apply for a student visa for the new country: "I confirm that I am not bound to enrolment at another education institution that would require a release." Does this mean that I will have to withdraw from my studies at where I am now, in order to start the visa application? This would be very impractical, though: taking a student visa in the new country takes at least 5 months or so, but upon withdrawing from my studies at the present institution, my current student visa will be canceled (not to mention that I'll lose the funds that I'd need to live on in the next few months that I'll be waiting for the visa) and I will have to leave the present county (presumably to home) long before my new student visa is ready. (Also, my passport isn't strong enough to keep me around on its own.)
Please tell me that I've misunderstood the clause! If not, do you know any way out of this?
PS 1: My initial thought is that this clause can't mean what I've taken it to mean, as it's very customary to apply for grad schools, get admitted, and start applying for visas while you're in your last year/semester. It's just that for me the starting date is before fall, and my present studies won't end before my new studies start.
PS 2: I can provide you with country specifics, etc., if needed.
PS 3: I've asked this question here as well, but I thought this forum is more relevant.


texts: I asked for a graduate student position from a professor. He replied "welcome". What does that mean?

texts:
I emailed a professor, saying I'm looking for a position. I introduced myself and wrote about experiences that I thought would be relevant to his work. I read on his website that he was recruiting students in a few research fields, and I cited the two in which I was interested, and said I would like to know more about them.
After 20 minutes I received this: "welcome". What does that even mean? Should I take it as a simple "no"? How do I reply to this?
I'm interested in his work, but there are also other professors in this school with similar areas of research. Should I move on to them without replying to this professor?

EDIT: I did ask for clarification. I asked if I could look forward to a position in his group, and he replied with "yes, you can". However, I find it kind of strange because he didn't ask for any additional information or give any instruction. I don't know what I can make of this. Any suggestions on how I can proceed?


texts: Benefits to serving on an IEEE Standards Association?

texts:
What are the benefits of being a member of IEEE Standards working group?

From my limited knowledge:

you get another badge on your cv
you get to have a say in outlining a specific IEEE Standard
you are contributing to the scientific community

Are there other benefits? For example, would an employer look at a candidate favourably if the candidate was on a IEEE Standards working group etc? What kind of employers or job-positions would specifically look for candidates with such experience?


texts: How should a teacher approach a student with distractingly strong perfume?

texts:
How might a professor approach a student who comes to class and/or office hours wearing perfume or cologne that is distractingly or overwhelmingly powerful?

Certainly, different people have different thresholds for this sort of thing. Lets say that in this case it is unclear the extent to which this is distracting other students in class but it is clear to the teacher that it is strong enough to distract the teacher. Of course, it might be affecting other students as well.


texts: Should you publish a rejected conference paper on arXiv?

texts:
Imagine you have a paper that got rejected from a top tier conference. You think it is of high quality.

Do you submit the paper to arXiv, or keep pushing for a conference later on?


texts: How to go about contacting an author regarding questions on their research?

texts: There is a scientist I am interested in contacting with expertise in peptidomics. I would like to email them to ask if they had ever explored findings from a related area of research. How do I politely contact them for their input?


texts: Publishing a paper that cites my previous work

texts: How should one cite previous work of his own? If one paper relies on previous work that author already did I suppose that paper should be cited. Given that one paper is a continuation of the one before should the papers that are cited there as previous work be cited as-well?


texts: How important is the thesis document for judges on the day of the thesis defense?

texts:
I want to defend my thesis in the computer networking field on master degree . all things are done. And now I want to write my thesis document. Is this document important for judges in the defend day or not to evaluate my thesis.

I ask this question because I think they just pay attention to your suggested method and result and presentation.

Is the document are so important for them? because if they do not pay a lot attention to that I do not like take a lot of effort on that maybe you say that I can put that on the internet for any citation By our language is not English.

If the answer is yes. I mean they pay attention to the document in case of evaluating my thesis. What parameter are important for them. Or better to say, I should bold which part or how to write my thesis in order to the judges pay attention to that? and they say themselves this student try hard and I should give him good score ( D: )


texts: Is Self-plagiarism allowed in two submitted articles by one author?

texts: Is it allowed that someone use the same paragraph in two submitted articles for two different journals? Note: both of these articles are unpublished still so it's not possible to cite one in another one. Also, those articles are submitted concurrently. If it is considered self-plagiarism, it should be really avoided or not? Because when someone works on a topic rigorously may introduction or even materials and method section will be relatively the same as his/her previous works. Any idea or suggestion is appreciated.


texts: I would like to know what the difference is between a DOI number and an activated DOI number. Additionally, I have a DOI number for an article of mine to be published in a TUBITAK journal in Turkey. After the actual publication, how long does it take the DOI number to be activated in the system?


texts: Average time to get a postdoc after finishing PhD?

texts:
I am starting my final year of my PhD and am starting to look into postdocs. I am interested in how much of a lag I should expect between getting my PhD and starting a postdoc. For context, I'm in the United States in biology. I would ideally like to defend my PhD and move for a new postdoc position within a month but I'm not sure how realistic that is.

The reason I'm asking is that my landlord is expecting me to make a lease commitment and I'm not sure how long to commit to living here. The shorter the lease, the more expensive per month but too long and I have to break my lease early (expensive fines).

For those who have gotten postdocs recently (especially in the US) how long would you recommend expecting it to take if I'm starting looking now (12 month before defending)? Any good rules of thumb?


texts: What to do when you spend several months working on an idea that fails in a masters thesis?

texts:
How shall a masters student deal with the complete failure to meet the expected results when working on a master's thesis?

For example, in the field of machine learning a masters student might spend 4-5 months  developing a method that turns out not be useful, not even being comparable to benchmark datasets.

Should the student quit it?
Should you at least take a break from academia to avoid harming your career ?
Or should you work on a different idea and risk another few months which is also not guaranteed? Given the fact that the advisor is simply asking you to try new things


texts: Should historical data be considered ambigious if not proven as fact?

texts: Simple question, if there is few data points that allow concrete hypothesis (ancient history has many), should the information always be accompanied by some sort of disclaimer? A example would be you often hear descriptions of early nomadic tribes based upon generalizations given by a conquering foe only, very little if any from the nomads themselves.


texts: Convert Spanish grades to English scale?

texts:
I'm a English citizen which has been living in Spain for the past 7 years (I'm currently 15 years old in case you're wondering) and I plan to move back to England at the end of this school year.
Can anyone tell me what's classified as a C in percentage? And a B? A 50%? A 60%? In Spain the grade scale's from 1-10, 5 is classified as the minimum pass and 10 is classified as excellent. Thank you guys for helping me.


texts: What should I do, as a reviewer, if I see another reviewer suggesting the authors to cite papers not relevant to the manuscript?

texts: I have just submitted my review of a manuscript to a journal, which allowed me to see other reviewers' comments once I submitted mine. I have points of disagreement with this other reviewer, but I am sure this is normal. What alarmed me was that, his/her review comments ended with a suggestion for the authors to cite additional references which, in my opinion, are not directly relevant to the manuscript, but were suggested on the pretense that they were published in the same journal, which is weird. These references have something in common in them: they are authored by the same group of people. Although I cannot be sure that this reviewer is one of them, I have the feeling that h/she may be, and that this practice may be common. In the past, when I was the author, a reviewer also suggested me to include additional references, but these references were not authored by the same people, and anyway I ended up not including them as I thought they were not directly relevant. But as a reviewer, what should I do in this case?


texts:
I have been examining a novel machine-learning framework for a seminar at uni.
After some people asked me whether I would publish the results in a paper so they could see them as well, I thought I might as well put some more effort into it and make a publication out of it.

However:

I am not sure whether this adds any research value since I did not really do something new, I just summarized the key concepts of the framework and took example use-cases to compare their implementation with and without the framework (implementations without the comparison have been done in blog posts).
I have recently been told that publications in a non-high-ranking journal can actually hurt your career. I do not want this to negatively affect my PhD application later this year.

My question is thus: Is it worth publishing a paper that is only an examination of a framework and a comparison with not using it?

Some technical background: the framework in question is Google's TensorFlow and I am comparing plain Python implementations of machine learning algorithms with the implementation utilizing the framework.
I wanted to also briefly summarize the framework and compare it with other machine learning frameworks already out there - this is only half a page regarding performance, capability etc though, no code is compared here.
Ultimately, the paper aims at people currently using Python who are not sure whether they should switch.


texts: How to formulate my resume, if a PhD defense exam fails with mark “Dissertation passed, Oral failed”

texts:
My PhD examination consists of two parts namely the dissertation note and the oral note. Unfortunately, it was fails with “Dissertation passed, Oral failed”.
What could be the best way to form it in my resume?
Could I write: finished PhD study only with Dissertation, in short “PhD Dissertation”?


texts: I used external help for my masters thesis coding work

texts: Hi I wrote my masters thesis and it got A grade. I wrote 20,000 words on my own but I took help for the coding portion. Ideas were mine but he helped me putting them into action - discussing solutiouns,  helped in debugging , helped in finding code from internet etc .Have I plagirised in any form ?


texts: How to find out which math departments have a research group in mathematical logic?

texts:
I'm thinking to apply to PhD programs in math. I want to study mathematical logic. So I need programs that have mathematicians who do research in this area. I've searched the internet, the results were not satisfactory. The only list I've found find is this one

But this list contains only 9 schools (which are very difficult to get into!). I was wondering if anybody can guide me to some longer lists of schools and PhD programs that have expert(s) in mathematical logic?


texts: PhD in machine learning in my life? I'm 37; graduating with BA in math (online degree) this summer

texts:
Title is a pretty good TLDR.

I would like to get a PhD sometime in my life.

I have a stable job where I can work from home frequently. Unless something catastrophic happens, I should be receiving my BA in mathematics this summer.

I would like to continue my education. I know of many data science and machine learning online master's degree programs that I would like to apply for.

I would love to be able to study some particular aspect of machine learning and become an actual expert in it one day. Automated machine learning comes to mind, but many other aspects fascinate me.

I'm perfectly fine being an older student at any college but there are some issues that are getting in the way of my long-term goal.

Right now I'm the main source of income for myself and my girlfriend. So I will have to wait until I am more financially stable before I could apply for a PhD program. From what I understand, most programs do not offer much income. It's going to take a couple of years of planning and sacrifices to be able to financially handle a lower income.

In the meantime, I feel that getting an online master's degree would be helpful. The problem is that almost all online degrees DO NOT OFFER A THESIS OPTION. This concerns me, since that would be the most enjoyable aspect of grad school. However, if that is my only option, I am okay with that.

Would it make sense to go to an online grad school and, when I'm financially stable, cross my fingers that a PhD program will accept a student who has only attended online classes for the past 3-5 years? From what I understand, most PhD programs want to see some research experience. Or at least have some professors that you can connect with. Going to school online prevents me from making a connection with professors, so I have doubts that I could get strong recommendation letters that way.

Questions:

What can I do with the next 3-5 years of my life to help my goals?
How can I connect with professors who I only interact with online?
Is it even possible to do quality research while working full time?
Should I wait until I'm financially stable and then apply to a physical campus for a master's program?
Are online degrees even worth it, if my ultimate goal is a PhD?


texts: What can be done about a professor who leaves lectures too early?

texts:
If a professor is scheduled to teach two hours, only one day a week, but instead he only teaches one hour, one day a week - in an extremely rushed manner - and tells his students he has to leave, is there anything that students can do about this behavior, if the professor continues in this way?

Let's assume this professor also doesn't post any supplementary notes at all, doesn't require a textbook, doesn't assign suggested background reading, but assigns a few hard homework problems per week.

Let's also assume that he is tenured.


texts: A poster for the project I worked on was accepted at a conference. I am listed as a coauthor on the poster. I did not attend the conference, present the poster or actually help in making the poster as I had already left the lab/school when the abstract was submitted. Since I am officially listed on the submission I want to include this on my CV. I I think I should not write this under "Conference Presentations" as I did not present the work myself. How should I list this in my CV?


texts: Faculty member brought sick (feverish) child to class - is this unethical?

texts:
A faculty member recently brought their young child to a graduate seminar. The child had a fever -- and therefore was deemed not healthy enough to be at school. The faculty member did not ask the students if this would be okay, but merely stated the situation.

Is this a breach of ethical or professional conduct? The general expectation for students at the university is that if you are running a fever, you should not come to class. It seemed highly inappropriate to expose students to potential illness versus 1) arranging childcare, or 2) cancelling class. How should such a situation be handled? Is this a legitimate offense worth reporting?


texts: What to do when other professors place unfair demands on my students?

texts:
A recent question asked how students should deal with professors who "think their class is extra special". Putting aside the question of how good students are at judging what an appropriate workload is: how should other professors handle this?

For instance, I've had students whose previous class routinely ran late, causing them to be late for mine.  I once taught a class where several students had a professor immediately before me who decided, in clear violation of university policy, that their midterm exam would take place during a double length class period, which meant that would miss my entire class (which was in fact also my midterm).  (This is slightly less crazy than it sounds, because it was a summer course.)

Let's stick to the case where the other professor is actually violating university policy.  Students are usually very reluctant to try to enforce such policies on their professors, and I don't think I could in good faith encourage them to: even when there are written policies about these things, it's often unclear how a student would go about enforcing them, it's not clear that the relevant chair, dean, or provost actually would enforce them, and there's real potential for negative repercussions to the student.

I could be inflexible, but this seems unfair to the students, who are then stuck between two inflexible authority figures.  Even if I'm right and the other is wrong, students shouldn't bear the brunt of that.

Finally, I could seek to enforce the policy on the other professor, but as mentioned, it's not clear how one does that, especially if the other professor is in a different department.  (And since it's often relatively senior professors doing this sort of thing, at that point I worry about negative repercussions.)


texts: Mentioning advisor qualifications in statement of purpose

texts:
I am doing my master's in a relatively unknown institution, but with an excellent faculty. Most of them are graduates from top universities (TOP 10) and my advisor is one of them.

Is it OK to mention this in the statement of purpose for PhD applications? I want to show that I have been under good instruction even if the university is relatively unknown. Basically what I am thinking of writing is "I had the prevliage to have taken courses under the instruction of alumni of [That university with big name] and worked under the supervision of Prof. X who has long professional experience in [Relevant industry]".


texts: Citing contemporaneous (interlaced?) preprints

texts:
In my area of research distributing preprints of results is very common. Consider the following seqence of events:

Group A finishes paper P, distributes it as a preprint and submits to a journal
Group B posts related preprint Q
Group A receives referee reports for paper P. Referee requests discussion/citation of Q.
Group A responds that Q came later and was not used in writing P, therefore no detailed discussion/citation necessary.
Referee insists on discussion of Q in paper P

Who is in the right?


texts: Should unreadability or sloppiness of students' work be reflected in their evaluation?

texts:
When evaluating and grading students' work in technical fields (like computer science or mathematics), I often face ones that are really messy, sometimes even unreadable (I mean structure, not - handwriting). It's not clear at all what part belongs to what or what is the final result. Instead of spending a lot of time trying to figure out if there is a good result buried somewhere in the mess, I'm tempted to just fail such a work as unreadable.

While these (I'd say) formal aspect don't reflect the ability of the student to solve the problem, it strongly reflects his/her ability to present the solution. And in their future professions, it won't be much good that they can solve problems, if they're not able to present the solution to someone else. Or for example grant agencies simply reject proposals that fail even slightly given formal criteria.

My questions are:

Should the evaluation include evaluation of readability, proper structure etc. for example in a textual form (without impacting the final grade perhaps), something like "The solution is completely unreadable." or for a larger work "The solution lacks a proper structure - there is no introduction or conclusion of what have been accomplished." etc.?
Should such deficiencies be also reflected in the grade? If so, how much? Would it be acceptable to even fail a work just because it's completely unreadable?


texts: What to do if my undergrad hasn't prepared me well for grad school?

texts:
I will soon graduate with a data science MSc and am specializing in AI/machine learning, in which I would like to do research. I can read, understand and apply research papers pretty well, but I don't feel like I have the background to actually do research. When an author derives something, I sometimes need a few minutes to make sure that the math is sound. This comes from the fact that my undergrad school is only really good at teaching software development, and most of the courses I could take ended up being linked to that, neglecting the mathematical side of things.

The most worrying thing is that I don't feel completely sure about my choice of fields, since I have not been exposed to serious courses in most subjects that interest me. My bad results in math years ago were not from lack of interest, and I would have liked to take some serious courses in math and related areas, and give myself some time to decide what to do. This will probably become harder when I enter the job market. I may also have good PhD opportunities in machine learning through my job, which makes it even riskier to leave and start another degree without being sure I will like the field and do well in it.

I have started working through textbooks in various areas (linear and abstract algebra, statistics, machine learning), but without a clear plan, it's hard to prioritize self-study and focus effectively. There are too many interesting areas and not enough time and energy to learn all of them. Finally, I can't be sure that I am learning well or just getting the illusion of progress, since a set of textbooks can't replace a structured degree program.

How can I make sure that I'm ready and in the right field when I start applying for grad school? I'm not afraid of "losing" a few years to get another degree, if that's part of the answer.


texts: What can a non-researcher/academic do to promote open access?

texts:
When presenting the academic publishing system to people who don't have a job related to academia or research, they sometimes ask me what they can do to promote open access.

What can a non-researcher/academic do to promote open access to research papers?

The "how to promote open access" lists (example 1, example 2) tend to focus on researchers/librarians/funding agencies/policy makers/students/University administrators.


texts: Can I mention multiple faculty members in my SOP?

texts:
I'm applying for PhD and thesis masters programs in Electrical and Computer Engineering. In one of the schools, there is a specific faculty member I'm extremely interested in working with. However, admission into her lab is really competitive. Realistically, my odds of getting in are mediocre at best.

At the same university, there is another faculty member who I share some interests with. I have also done research in his lab as an undergrad, and I know for a fact that he has millions in funding and more or less accepts any grad student who applies because he can afford to. He's definitely not ideal, but I'd be okay with doing my masters with him and then finding somewhere better for my PhD.

Finally, there's a third faculty member whose work is also pretty interesting. His research interests align fairly well with mine, but admission into his lab is also extremely competitive.

If I mention all three professors in my SOP, does it affect my chances of getting into the competitive labs? Obviously, if I only mention one name, it makes it look like I'm a lot more passionate about her work specifically. I was hoping for a way to maximize my chances of getting into the first prof's lab while still retaining the second and third prof as a back up. I was hoping for some advice on how I can phrase my SOP to accomplish this.


texts: Will the January 2018 government shut down affect the NSF postdoc awards?

texts:
I very recently learned that I will be awarded an NSF postdoc!
And then the US government shut-down.

Should I expect the NSF postdoc to work out once the government starts running again?

Note: The email I received from the NSF is not an official award notice. From the NSF website is says that during this shut-down period “no new grants or cooperative agreements will be awarded”. It does not say anything about whether grants that have been scheduled will be awarded once operations resume. Perhaps I am overthinking it, but I am worried that the NSF postdoc might fall through and it will be to late for me to make alternate arrangements.


texts: How to set bibliographic entry to display author only when applicable?

texts:
I'm writing my bachelor's thesis with OpenOffice Writer. Most of my sources are websites, and the author or publication year is often absent.

With Writer's bibliography system, you can specify whether to display author, publication year etc. for a certain type of entry, eg. WWW document, but the same settings will be used for every WWW document (whereas I would like to have the author displayed when and only when applicable).

I know there are "user-defined" entries, but this system seems a bit clumsy, as you can't rename them from "User-Defined1" and so on.

I think MS Office Word has a better system, but I've heard that the open-source alternatives are just as good, so why buy it? I've also tried Zotero and Mendeley, but it seems they can't display inline citations in the [1][2] style, which I would prefer.

Would rather avoid using LaTeX/BibTeX, since they seem like overkill.


texts: Discussing Related Work: Use of the phrase 'the authors'

texts:
I just got feedback on my thesis. When discussing related work, I tend to often use the phrase the authors do this and that.
For instance:

In [1] a system is described which approaches problem x by doing y. The authors perform a scalability evaluation showing that their approach outperforms z.

Obviously, my advisor does not like it when I use the authors, because he underlined each occurence.
My question hence is: How can I prevent the use of the authors in the above example?
I talked to my advisor and he said that I should just mention the authors by their names. But I think this is not feasible in my case, because I already talked several paragraphs about the specific related work paper and it would be weird to suddenly start mentioning their names in the third paragraph of discussing it.
It would look like this:

First paragraph about related work.
Second paragraph about same related work.
NameA et al. perform a scalability evaluation showing that their approach outperforms z.

EDIT:
somewhat related: Referring to previous work “by the authors”


texts: How can I carefully find out if a professor's work is well-respected within the department?

texts:
I am a first-year PhD student interested in working with a professor at my university. I have had two nice meetings with him and liked the project ideas we discussed.

But a student told me that he thought the professor's work was derivative and mostly hyped. I asked my academic advisor (a professor who suggests courses to take, answers questions, etc.), who agreed. The thing that stood out from his answer was: "Yeah. Professors talk about other professors, and ..." Which suggested to me that this was not a solitary opinion. The advisor's point was, without being primed, essentially the same as the other student's: the work often seemed like a rebranding and slight modification of other people's work. FWIW, my academic advisor is the research advisor of the student who first warned me. I didn't tell them what they each said, but I can assume they have talked.

Anyway, now I am wary. How can I better judge for myself, given that I am too junior to honestly know if the work is derivative. The professor is quite young but has been publishing in the top journals/conferences in the field.


texts: What's the best way to deal with questions that I don't understand because of accent during/after a talk?

texts:
You can prepare a talk from a to z, know exactly what you are going to say and how (and this is even more important when English is not your first language and your skills are not top-notch) - but what can you do when you are asked a question with a thick accent that you just don't understand?
You can ask the asker to repeat the question, but this is only possible once, and if you still don't understand, you're in a jam.
This can lead to some seriously awkward moments...

What would be the best way to deal with such a situation?


texts: How do I improve my rewriting and editing skills?

texts:
When writing academic papers, I am really bad at improving what I have already written. I have heard that most of the time writing should be allotted to revisions. I know a few academics who are really good at keeping on revising until they are happy, but I simply can't do it. Knowing that a sentence/paragraph/section can be improved but not being able to do so is very frustrating.

My partial self-diagnosis:

I refuse to make big changes, probably since it is a lot of work. (This sounds like I'm just procrastinating.)
If write with collaborators (almost always), I do not want to change what they wrote or revised, unless it is obviously wrong. (This sounds like I lack confidence in my writing skills. Or I just don't want to upset my coauthors?)
Before rewriting, I can't even re-read properly. I don't want to re-read the paper carefully and create a current copy of it in my head. I tend to skip parts. Even after I have re-read the manuscript, it is not always clear what the current state of the paper is.

I am sure I have many weaknesses that I am failing to verbalize in this question, but I'd like to hear what others did to train their rewriting skills. Also, I want to hear how you rewrite.

FYI, I am not a native speaker of English but I have seriously written only in English. My field is science and engineering.


texts: Could trying to prove myself after being accused of academic dishonesty cause me to get a more severe penalty if I don't do well?

texts:
I have been accused of cheating on my math final. I did not cheat. There was no "trial" and the only evidence is that (1) my hands were out of the frame, and (2) my work "looked like a machine did it." The professor gave me a zero on the final, which gave me a D in the course.
Now she is offering me the chance to let her watch as I work through (previously unseen) problems. I guess I can "prove" I didn't cheat by getting the questions right and formatting my work in the same way as I did on the test. My concern is that, even though I am innocent, I could still "fail" this exercise in her judgment. If this were to happen, is it likely that I could receive a more severe penalty than I have now? Like if I don't "pass the test" in front of the department head, will I still have a D and 0 on the final? Or will something worse happen?
More details....
Here is a timeline of the events:

I got an email from my professor saying because my hands were not in the frame (it was a remote test), I violated the testing environment and am getting a 0 on the final. Additionally, it appeared my answers were copied from a "commonly used math website" so she is failing me in the course.
I emailed her back and asked to meet. Because that is the process at my school.
I met with her, she didn't say what evidence she had against me, said she already filed the report and that I will be getting a letter from the office of student conduct.
She also said I can talk to the department head. She decided not to fail me because she found that I haven't ever cheated in her class before but the issue was with the supporting work so I had to take the 0 on the final.
I got the letter, they said they won't file any sanctions against me and that it will say on the report "For Information Only" but I can get an academic penalty. I did. Which I can appeal.
Met with the department head, again didn't really provide any evidence other than that it looked like a "machine" did my work for me.
The department head offered this opportunity to work through a set of random problems and "prove" I didn't cheat. I am trying to decide whether to accept this offer.
If I "fail" to prove I didn't cheat, I do not plan to pursue it further (not that I would have many options left in any case).

Update: I took the "test" with the department head. She is recommending that my grade not be changed :/
I appreciate everyone's comments and concerns!


texts: Cite paper under review on a paper that is going to double-blind review?

texts: I wrote a paper to a journal, which is still under review. Now I need to cite it in another paper that is double-blinded. Is this a problem?


texts: General advice for A-level students wanting to pursue quantum physics

texts:
I am a student and I will hopefully start preparation for my A-level examinations this June. Unlike most students in Bangladesh, I plan to build my future based on Quantum Physics and thus have not received sufficient advise on what to do.

Edexcel offers many subjects for A-levels but I am unsure which ones do I need.
 So far I am sure that I need:

Chemistry (All 5 units)
Physics (All 5 units)
Core Mathematics (All 4 papers)
Further Pure Mathematics (All 3 papers)
Mechanics (All 3 papers)

Generally students take 4 subjects and ignore some units or papers but to have a good preparation for what is coming ahead, I have planned to take 5 subjects and not miss out on any unit or paper. However I am unsure whether I need statistics or not. I have understood it plays an important part in Quantum Physics (Feynman diagrams for one) but am unsure if it is really that important or not (3 more papers).

Recently, my grandfather's school friend came to visit. Despite being a geologist, he had sound knowledge of Quantum Physics (But not of the education system). He advised me to not drop Biology for my O-levels as it will play an important part in the 'Theory of Everything'. I did decide to appear for Biology in my O-levels but should I also take it for my A-level examinations? (5 more units)

P.S. Each unit requires one paper so I may have to give 28 papers (generally people give 11 papers). If you want to learn more about A-levels click here.

This may seem like personal advice but it will actually help many more students out in the world who plan to make a career out of Quantum Physics. Any help would be appreciated!


texts: Reproducing experimental data from published work

texts:
I am doing theoretical study of a material and in my recent work I have compared my calculated results with experimental results from another published work. During review, the reviewer has mentioned

In any case, the experimental data should certainly be reproduced and presented in the figures together with the calculation results

What does that mean? How should I proceed?


texts: Citing a 'co-student's Bachelor's thesis

texts: I am currently in the process of writing my bachelor's thesis. Another student is working on largely the same subject as I am, with a slightly different focus. Is it acceptable for me to reference his thesis in mine? If so, wat would be the proper form for this.


texts: Convincing professors to help with the founding of new university

texts:
Background

I'm doing some work for a new online-only university that is being founded, based in the US and offering degrees up to doctorate in courses like history, philosophy and literature. It's heavily research-based and doesn't allow credit transfer.

One of the great things about this university is that it will offer scholarships to people in developing countries allowing them to complete a degree at a US university for as little as $100. The university is not designed to make money, but only to keep itself going. (This does not mean it is non-profit; in fact most non-profits are designed to make as much money as possible, they just don't have shareholders.)

We need academics/professors to volunteer to advise and help us get started, especially during the current period where the application for a new university is being considered. We expect them to help by:

associating with the university for the sake of the application, even if only in name;
marking theses, when students reach that stage (though no teaching will be required).

The questions

I've tried emailing professors asking for their help, but it seems no one is interested. I get the impression that online universities don't have much respect from these people and that no one wants to risk their reputation by being involved with something new and different.

What is the best approach to convince established professors to contribute to this project? Would they expect to be paid in return? (A stipend is possible, as well as a title, but no salary.)


texts: Is using a similar experimental procedure and analysis structure to test something different considered plagiarism?

texts:
Here is the situation:

I am currently writing a thesis which uses a behavioral experiment to answer the main research question. Its main aim is to test how a certain welfare scheme would affect taxpayer behaviour, and thus relates to a very broad strain of literature on taxpayer behaviour. I have found a paper which uses (in my opinion) a very clever experimental procedure to test how behaviour is affected by the way taxes are used. Therefore I decided to use this experimental procedure and adapt it to the specific welfare scheme I am interested in so I can use it to answer my research question.

Currently I am in the progress of writing my thesis and was wondering where the line ends from building on previous work and plagiarism. Because the experimental procedure is similar in it's structure, the model used for the formulation of my hypothesis is also an adapted version of the model in the original paper. Consequently, the data I have also takes a similar form, which will result in taking similar steps for a correct analysis of this data.

So, would it be considered plagiarism if I have adapted an already existing experimental procedure, adapted the (mathematical) model previously used to formulate hypothesis, and use a similar structure of hypothesis testing (that is: first using statistical test A, then B, then C, etc on my own data)?

I have obviously referenced a great deal to this original paper, and even explained why I think the experimental procedure is so good and fitting for answering my question. Obviously, I am using my own wording and data, but was wondering if something like this can be seen as 'structure plagiarism' or is something desirable as it can be used for direct comparison of the papers.


texts: Should I report two minor mistakes found in an academic paper to the journal editor or authors of the paper?

texts:
I found some minor mistakes in a paper published in a top journal. The mistakes do not affect the results of the paper but may confuse some readers as I was confused at first. I think it is better and more ethical to email the authors and inform them. I have two questions:

Should I inform the authors or the journal editor?

I need to contact the authors to ask some questions about the paper and request them to provide me the codes of their work if possible. Could informing the authors make them unhappy and prevent them from contributing me? As a whole, could informing the mistake have a negative impact on our future collaboration?


texts: Does a glossary make sense in a computer science masters' thesis

texts:
This question was first asked on writing, a user pointed me at this site.
I am currently writing my master thesis in computer science, more specifically on voice activity detection, a sub-area of automatic speech recognition using neural networks. I asked my supervisor if I needed a glossary and he told me that was up to me. I looked at other computer science works, some have a glossary, some don't. Now I'm unsure on what to do. Here are my thoughts:
On the one hand, a glossary is useful especially in printed documents to quickly find the best explanation for important terms. It provides a proper place for definitions. And to me it provides a feeling of "scientificity".
On the other hand, almost all readers will use my work in pdf form. Thus they can easily search for appearances and definitions on a given phrase. Given my work is only of use to computer scientists I'd consider them aware of these functionalities. Thus a glossary feels a bit anachronistic.
I hope this qualifies as a proper question and isn't too opinion based, I figured rules here might be a little less strict considering the "proper" way of writing something is often influenced by personal preference.


texts: Will the preprint published to the figshare be available on Google scholar?

texts:
I have published a preprint of my research paper on figshare. Will it be indexed on Google scholar (like a published research)?
And if it does, then how many days will it require?


texts: How to reference to a whole section of other paper that my paper is heavily based on

texts:
I have a bit of a dilemma. I am writing a master thesis about a topic that I originally thought was original. It turns out that someone else has done the exact same thing, which forced me to take another perspective on the same topic. Their code and research are old, over 10 years. What I ended up doing is migrating their code to the newest version of the framework used and then evaluating the method in a real-world environment.

Now I am in a situation where I have to start writing the method section of the thesis report where I describe the method and how the original problem was solved, but I have no real theoretical background/models except for the ones that the authors of the previous articles wrote. How should I reference these things? I still want to show the logical evidence and models that they use without plagiarizing their work. Can I use the same/similar pictures/models/evidences in this section of my report and just refer these things to the original authors and their report? Should I mention it in the beginning of the section that all of the models are from the original authors?


texts: Is relocation assistance offered to postdocs?

texts: Do universities offer relocation assistance to a newly employed postdoc who comes from another country? Is it appropriate for the postdoc to ask for relocation assistance if it is not already offered?


texts: How to translate "profesor auxiliar" from Spanish to English?

texts:
I am currently teaching computer-science courses in a Spanish-speaking country and I’m having trouble translating my academic rank into English.

Here in my country the position is called profesor auxiliar (auxiliary professor in a word-by-word translation) and it has this responsibilities:

You’re expected to have at least a master’s degree.
It is a part-time position. Several auxiliary professors teach one or two courses, and have also jobs in the industry.
There are no research responsibilities. The main job is to give lectures.

Initially I thought the best translation was simply professor, but I’ve been warned that the word implies much more on USA (like a PhD requirement and research duties). Is there an equivalent for this position in USA?


texts: How much do math professors get paid in the United States?

texts:
I have been researching professorship (full tenure) and I have been wondering what these full time professors make?

I am not talking about professors are Harvard, but middle-good universities?

In the United States.


texts: If I have dropped out of a Masters can I then go on to do a PhD?

texts:
I attended a masters program in IT and completed everything except for my capstone. Its been almost 7 years since I started and 5 years since I moved out of college.

I now want to apply for a Ph.D.

In these 5yrs I have had one really good research paper published, one patent filled, and worked for two fortune 500 companies. I am presently working as a manager in the same discipline as my masters in a top 5 tech company.

What are my chances to get into Ph.D program?
Also can I use coursework from the masters for a Ph.D?


texts: Is there anything you can do when a professor discusses some of your personal concerns with other professors potentially mockingly?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student. Recently, my interest about a particular (difficult) field – somewhere between physics and maths – arose, a field that is only briefly mentioned in some lectures. For that reason I decided to ask the only professor (Professor A) who could know more about it. Professor A also happens to be a professor that is, in polite words, student-unfriendly. I simply asked if he could suggest some books or topics I could read in order to get prepared for a book that had the whole theory of that difficult field I was looking for.

His first reaction was laughter. He said that even he himself has not “touched” this particular field and that no one else in the whole university could. In the meantime, he used several provocative phrases to describe how poorly educated in maths students are for such purposes. It is also known that Professor A generally talks with many students in a bad manner and generally misbehaves. Still, he is a good researcher, and other professors respect him for that (and only that – they know about the misbehaviour).

Anyway, the next thing that happened is that many other professors know about this situation and their behaviour towards me is strange. One of them is a professor I would like to work with (Professor B).
I strongly believe that Professor A said something wrong/different about our conversation.
Right on the day I talked to Professor A, Professor B cancelled (not postponed) a meeting: I went to the meeting and he had already left the building. I sent an e-mail saying I came but did not find him. I also included maybe we could meet another time. The reply contained: “I am sorry, but I heard from other professors that you have already discussed the topics you wanted to discuss with me.”

Well, something’s not right.

I definitely can’t ask Professor B directly: “what did Professor A say to you?”. Is there anything I could do? Before contacting anyone else, can I do anything to verify what they had talked about? Or what else could I do?


texts:
In my field (biology), the end of the introduction in a research article generally ends with a list of hypotheses that the researchers tested. A common structure of this part of a research paper is:

 'We tested (1) hypothesis X (2) hypothesis Y and (3) hypothesis Z'.

The research papers I read often test between two and four hypotheses. I'm interested in how the researchers generally arrive at this list of two and four hypotheses. Do they start with a list of 10+ hypotheses, and tick off the ones that they fail to say anything useful about? Or do they stick with the same two to four hypotheses throughout a research project? Or do researchers not begin with any hypotheses, and fit some suitable hypotheses after checking their results?


texts: Is having my essays proofread inappropriate?

texts:
English is not my first language. My pronunciation and grammar are not perfect. I tried to write an essay in my own words. After that I asked for help from my friend to proofread the essay.

She told me I’m cheating to have someone help in this way, because when I submit the essay, the words and grammar will be different than what I wrote (the first version of the essay has too much incorrect grammar). That’s why she will report me.

I don’t think I am wrong because the tutorials in every school are still using proofreaders to help students.
The instructor just said that we should be using sources from class to do the essay, and to cite any other sources. The policies don’t say that I can’t use proofreading.
So what do I have to do? Will the report affect me in the future?


texts: Can a related paper cover the non-thesis master disadvantages for applying for a PhD?

texts:
I am a MS student in computer science. I have the opportunity to work on the area A than I don't enjoy so much and the adviser is not helpful, but I guess that I will publish good papers if I work on that.

On the other hand, these days I spoke with a prof. Not in our university to suggest me a problem to work as independent research in the field B that I love so much. I guess that I am able to publish good papers in this new field too.

So I don't know if it is good to change my M.Sc. to non-thesis and pursue the independent research?

I should mention that regardless of my choice about my MS thesis I want to apply in the the field B for the universities in US.

Edit: Maybe it is good to mention that my bachelor record is good enough that if I had a little research on B in my bachelor It was possible for me to apply for direct PhD in B.

Edit2(clarification):
I am not inside US.I am from Asia actually.


texts: Can I use my university email to contact professors in other university?

texts: Shall I use my university address to contact professors in other universities who are specialized in the field of my dissertation?


texts: Completing a Microbiology PhD in a hospital research institute rather than university

texts: I'm considering doing my PhD work in a research institute of a hospital which is associated with my university (joint appointments). What are some advantages and disadvantages to this? Is it wise to just join a lab on campus?


texts: Why do most science classrooms use similar black-covered desks?

texts:
Why is it that most science classroom desks seem to be built out of wood, but have the desk area covered in some black material? I'm talking about desks like this:

http://st.hzcdn.com/simgs/ab3174c201c9cc49_4-9532/midcentury-desks-and-hutches.jpg

To "prove" its pervasiveness, I Googled "science classroom desk", and the image results have quite a few of these types of desks:

Without knowing an answer to the basic question, it's hard to flesh out my other questions, but here's a basic list:

Is that black material inert in some way, so as to not react to any of the chemicals a student might use in class? Is it just easy to clean?
Why the standardization? I've seen these desks in public and private schools in a number of different states in the US
Is this US-specific? Do other countries have their own standard desks?

(Note: I'm not sure that this is the correct StackExchange website to post this on, so I'm open to suggestions. It seemed to be the closest fit to education/school. There are some sites for specific scientific disciplines, but I thought someone in academia in general might know an answer)


texts: Is there any standard to represent Matrix / vectors symbols like using bold fonts, bar, underline or arrow notation?


texts: Citing articles in a Language I don't understand

texts:
I'm writing the thesis for my master degree, some of the very very old articles I have to cite are in a foreign language I don't understand (usually German and French). Most of them have been translated in my native language and/or English, but in some cases I didn't find a translation.

Even if I'm asking it for the thesis I think it does apply in more serious cases of research too.

An example would be for example if I write that the Friedman Lemaitre Robertson Walker metric in general relativity was first derived by Lemaitre in 1922. If I cite his original article in French at this point, would I be doing something wrong since I don't understand French and I can't understand what's written there? This is just an example, I'm pretty sure an English version of Lemaitre article exists, I just didn't check.

I mean I assume that when someone cites an article he' read and understood it.

My opinion is that I shouldn't cite the original article at all but cite someone else who cites it, knowing what was written in the original article.

Am I overthinking it and I should just simply cite these articles or is there a better procedure?

I don't know if it can be relevant but these articles appears mainly in the very beginning of the work, which is just an introduction to the topic of the work


texts: How to address new information (compared to the submitted application) during an interview?

texts:
My question has some similarities to Should I omit some of my qualifications in my application materials to “surprise” with during an interview?. However, in my case, the additional "surprising" information came after the application was submitted, so there was no chance for me to include it from the beginning.
Let's say (for a teaching-heavy job) that I received an amazing teaching evaluation after submitting my application, or I came up with a teaching plan that addresses the department's recently updated course curriculum.
I guess that I can in any case mention this information, but I thought about giving it a bit more focus, since that information might be really useful for landing the job. Therefore I wonder: Would it be appropriate to prepare some materials that I would show live during the interview?


texts: Can I quote books and articles I found online in my Master's thesis?

texts: During lockdown I found some books/articles online for my thesis. Am I allowed to quote them or is it unprofessional? Should I find a paper edition and quote that instead?


texts: I have had bad luck in the past, but things are turning around... I am applying for internships for my current Masters program. Do I put my GPA under all previous schools attended? Do I need to list all schools attended? My undergraduate GPA was strong. I did a post-bac program, which turned out to be a scam, and the school was shut down. My GPA there was not good. I then attended a professional school where I was injured by a professor, so I left the school. My GPA there was decent. What do you recommend? My current GPA for my Masters is really strong.


texts: Are wordcount limits only for first submission, or also for revised submissions? I know that I could ask every individual journal, but is there any general understanding? My discipline is philosophy.


texts: Contacting university for potential PhD collaboration without the presence of my supervisor

texts:
The question might be misleading, so I will explain in more details:
The company in which I am employed offered me to do a PhD. The subject and everything else has been already approved and funded, the only thing missing is the university to make the collaboration with.

My supervisor already has some contacts and there seems to be a good feedback, my concern however is that, given the fact that in the company itself there is nobody with knowledge on the subject, I believe to be very important to have a strong academic support in order to have a reference if I stumble upon some issue.

Without going too much into details I found the main academic centers advanced in the subject, so I was thinking to contact them in order to see if they are interested in a collaboration. The problem is that my supervisor and the chief of the group are both on holidays, they are unreachable and they will be back in a month; waiting for both of them to come back would mean losing a month in which I could have arranged a communication with the potential academic partners and furthermore the objective is to set an agreement in september in order to begin the PhD in December at most.

I already spoke with my supervisor about this, and he said that eventually I could have looked for something independently, but this was a couple of months ago and before he found some of his contacts; my concern is that even though he is a really cool and relaxed guy I feel like overstepping him and making him seem that I do not trust him on this.

The question is therefore: should I contact the universities and see if they are interested without waiting for my supervisor to return in order to gain some time, or should I just let him take care about all this and eventually look for something together with him later?


texts: Mention a specific potential adviser and project in the PhD statement of purpose

texts:
I am writing my statement of purpose for my Ph.D. and I want to work in a specific field with a specific professor in the department that I am going to apply for and I have a very good experience in this field. I sent an email for that professor asking if he/she is accepting Ph.D. students and he/she did not respond. I built my whole statement of purpose based on my previous achievements and future plan for that specific area. I also mentioned that I am willing to work with that professor. My statement of purpose tells that I am very passionate about this field and I am only willing to work with that professor (if there were more than one professor working on the same area, I would mention all of them). if that professor doesn't accept new Ph.D. students, will I risk my admission to that school?

Will the committee response be something like this:  "the applicant really knows what he/she is going to do and there is a specific future plan and he/she also got a good experience in this field, but he/she sounds very strict to his plan and doesn't show any flexibility...REJECTED"?


texts:
I have a very simple question. I read a paper and need to take a look on one of the references. Say

R. Mansouri and S.U. Sexl. Gen. Rel. Grav. 8, 497 (1977).

Well, it was easy to search it if there were any title. How can I find the paper? I mean, its title or the journal it was published in. Thanks.


texts: Ask clarifications to a professor of another university

texts:
I am working at my thesis and I have some doubts about the application of a method explained in one of the books I read to learn about the topic.

Shall I write an email to the author (which is a university professor in another country) to ask for clarifications?

I already talked about my doubts to my advisor but he could not help me because he never work on this kind of topics.


texts: How to prepare and what is discussed with professors at a PhD interview session? US application

texts:
I was told that at an interview session for PhD admission I will be meeting each professor I am interested in for about half hour. I was wondering what generally is been discussed. I imagine it would be mostly how my interests are related to the professor's research and why I am interested in his work.

What would be the best way to prepare for these interviews? Should I read two or three publications for each professor?

On what am I being judged?