texts: During my undergraduate years I was interested in condensed matter theory and string theory and I was debating which topic to choose for my grad school application. I finally decided to go to string theory but during grad school application this year I got rejected from every single grad school I applied to. For the next cycle I am wondering if I should go to condensed matter theory. I plan to apply to the same schools (along with some new ones). Will the old schools frown upon the fact that I changed subfields for practical reasons? After all I do like condensed matter theory, just my other liking didn't work well.


texts: Can I write to a (prestigious) conference that I am interested in chairing a session?

texts: I have a paper selected in a very prestigious conference in our field. Is it appropriate if I ask the contact person that I am interested in chairing any conference session? Note that I am a Ph.D. student as of now and not a faculty member or qualified Ph.D. doctor.


texts: How do Graduate Admissions Committees view an applicant from Industry?

texts:
At the time of writing this, I have been working for Raytheon Missile Systems (RMS) for about 2.5 years since graduating college.

Prior to graduation, I was on track to go a more academic route due to graduate work and independent study projects I was involved in related to computational mathematics. I ended up choosing to try out industry first, however, since I had no experience with it and wanted to know if this path would be preferable for me long term.

While I have been successful at RMS and used my computational math background to achieve a lot there, I don't think industry is where I want to stay and so I am now working on applications so I can pursue a PhD and more academic career.

Given my industry background, are there any common beliefs in academia, whether good or bad, about individuals from industry I should be aware of for the sake of my application? Is there anything I should strive to highlight or avoid in my application that would help me fare better in the application process?

EDIT:
My experience pre-RMS was largely in numerical analysis, optimization, and simulation, with emphasis in nonlinear systems of hyperbolic partial differential equations. One sample project, for example, was implementing a Space-Time Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element code to tackle a system of Hyperbolic PDEs and doing validation and convergence studies to validate the theory. I also gained decent experience via independent studies and working at NASA JPL in computer vision. Other skills gained were in parallel computing using OpenMP and MPI.

At RMS, I have worked on clusters and have primarily developed and built codes in areas like numerical optimization, adaptive sampling of unknown functions, supervised machine learning, controls, bayesian estimation algorithms, and simulations.

In terms of research, I am planning to apply to computational math or computer science programs and hope to get involved in machine learning with emphasis in Reinforcement Learning for partially-observable Markov decision problems in continuous state and action spaces.


texts: Can I get hired as a psychology professor if I get a PhD in educational psychology in an education department?

texts:
I'm interested in educational psychology and learning sciences. However, most educational psychology graduate programs are within the education department, not psychology.

What's the difference between having a PhD in education as opposed to psychology? are there different job prospects? Can I still apply/get hired as a psychology professor if I have an education degree?

I understand answers may vary depending on institutions, but I just want to get an idea.


texts: How to list a paper in your CV when having 1000 co-authors?

texts:
This is a follow up to the question What is the point of listing 1000 authors for a single scientific paper?, I'm just curious.

Supposed I were the 900th co-author in a paper with 1000 authors. How should I list this paper in my CV? Obviously, I don't want to use 3 pages of my CV just to list the details of a single paper.


texts: How important are poster sessions in conferences?

texts:
Many times I've attended and will attend international conferences presenting a poster in my life.
I used to think that this poster works have been considered less important than scientific papers or oral communications, but important anyway for scientific divulgation.

So, when presenting a poster, I've always been thinking: "Okay, it's not as important as a oral communication, but, if they accepted it, this means they found it interesting".

Then I read the "Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation" article by Thomas C. Erren and Philip E. Bourne, and I was pretty disappointed after reading point 4:

  Rule 4: Poster Acceptance Means Nothing

  Do not take the acceptance of a poster as an endorsement of your work.
  Conferences  need attendees to be financially viable. Many attendees
  who are there on grants cannot justify attending a conference unless
  they present. There are a small number of speaking slots compared with
  attendees. How to solve the dilemma? Enter posters; this way everyone
  can present. In other words, your poster has not been endorsed, just
  accepted. To get endorsement from your peers, do good science and
  present it well on the poster.

Do you agree with this statement?

What is the overall importance of a poster session during an international conference?

Is is just a way to collect subscriptions and money, or is it an important occasion for science divulgation?

Thanks

Edit: I'm speaking about poster session vs. oral session, I do know that a poster with presence is better than nothing. As Woody Allen once said: "The 80% of success is just showing up" ;-)


texts: How to write a brief research statement for a postdoc application?

texts: Please give an idea about the ideal length of a brief research statement and its format. Should I write about the research that I have done in my Ph.D. or should i propose a new research idea for post-doc research?


texts: Cost of living in China as an international student

texts:
I've just been offered PhD admission in SUStech located in Shenzhen, China. The tuition fee is 10,000rmb per year and the accommodation is 1,300rmb per year.

As an international student, is 80,000-100,000rmb per annum as a stipend be enough to cover all my expenses considering the location and have savings?


texts: To continue or quit my PhD in physics after 4yrs？

texts:
I am from China, currently a 4th year physics PhD student in Boston. This is a small department with ~10 professors. I am working for one assistant professor now. But I am thinking about leaving this group/school if I have a better choice.

I have a colleague who is also from China and we joined the lab about the same time. At this beginning, we have some advanced experiment instrument to build with the help from the instrument company engineer. My advisor asked us to take a video of the building process so that we can refer to it later if needed. The other guy took the job since he has a video recorder. When the instrument was ready to use, my advisor asked me to write an operation manual and so I needed the videos. The other guy said yes at first, but refused to let me copy any of these or just viewing from his recorder unless I take him to a restaurant!

I was completely shocked by his behavior. My advisor was also there and tried to figure out how to deal with this and asked me if I can do that. I agreed to give that guy a treat nearby but then that guy said it must be a fancy downtown one. That I cannot endure anymore and just said no. Then he attacked my personality and not being grateful to him. My advisor stopped him by saying sometimes you have to work with different people. This is the first time I am in a quarrel with that person. But I still trusted my advisor.

Then similar events like that happens again and again. My advisor failed me every time. When I mentioned this stuff,  he just said he doesn't care and he wasn't there to see what really happened.

When I was working on my project and made some progress, my advisor promised that guy he can use my data to write another paper. My advisor mainly talked to the other guy about data analysis because I had a busy work schedule. One time I need to use the data analysis code they have used, and the other person sent me code with problems. I had to figure out how to write it by myself.

Stuff like that makes me decide to work independently. So I told my advisor I would like to have only me working on my project and wouldn't work on his at all. My advisor agreed, but started assigning all funded projects to that guy. For the entire past year, I have only two months project time working on some random samples.

My advisor rarely comments on my work compared to the other person's work. The rest of time, well, I was mostly following my advisor's guide, doing bunch of data fitting. While he only looked at my result for a minute and asked me to fit again. When finally it was finished, he decided it will not be used in my second paper.

During such time, I was almost driven mad and got into a bad relationship with my advisor. He will also be triggered by some small mistakes of mine and so am I at his. He promised me that I can graduate in 2yrs if I worked really hard but I just lost faith in him.

I had planned to be a pioneer in physics. But after this, I only want to get a decent job in industry and have a chance to stay in US in the future. But I only have limited experience in programming besides my experimental experience. What can I do at this point?


texts: Can GRE scores be sent to different universities at different times?

texts:
Apologies if this has been asked before, but I could not find reference to it either on this site or on the GRE/ETS website.

I am a UK maths undergrad currently applying for a PhD in pure mathematics. I am going to apply to UC Berkeley in the States and my application - along with my GRE scores - is nearly ready to send. I want to get it sent off soon so that I have time to research and work on my other applications, both for UK universities and potentially another US university.

However, I haven't decided which other US institution to apply to yet so I was thinking of sending Berkeley my application along with my GRE scores and then sending them again later to whichever other place I decide on.

However the GRE website doesn't make it clear whether you can send scores on different occasions to different schools or if everything needs to be sent off at the same time. Do I need to decide on all my American institutions before I send the scores, or can I do it one university at a time?


texts: Correct abbreviation for current PhD student

texts:
Several questions address the PhD. student/candidate issue. However, I stumbled upon the question of the correct abbreviation for a PhD. student. Indeed, one of my co-authors (technically an MSc., she is in the 1st year of her PhD.) asks to be listed as "PhD. student" on my paper. So is there an accepted way of doing that, or should I state "student" in full?

Other ideas would be "PhD. Stud.", "PhD. Stdt.", or something of that sort...


texts: Getting a masters in WildLife Biology after receiving a PhD in math advice

texts:
I am currently working on getting my PhD in theoretical math. My dream has always been to work with animals and help preserve our wildlife. I would like to become a wildlife biologist. I checked some graduate programs in wildlife biology and they do not require for me to have a bachelors in the related field (although of coarse, that helps). I plan on taking some undergraduate (and eventually graduate courses) while in graduate school in order to get the background necessary to be a good candidate for a graduate program in wildlife biology.

I would like to be involved in the graduate program my school has right now, but as a graduate student in a different program I am not sure how to do so. Should I email someone and ask if I can attend their colloquium talks and such?

Is the approach I am taking doable, or am I unlikely to be accepted into a program without a bachelors in biology (or something more related)

Finally, I was planning on taking the undergraduate classes pass/fail. Should I take them for a grade instead?

Any advice/comments?

Thanks!


texts: How to deal with multiple affiliations as an author?

texts:
From the upcoming autumn on, I will be a tenured full-time professor at a regional university. In addition, I will have a 10% side job at an extramural research institution. And on top of that, I'll be an adjunct professor (only title and right to teach and act as thesis supervisor, no contract nor money) at another university.

My question is: What is the correct way to deal with these affiliations on potential publications?

The options I see are the following:

On each and every publication, I list all three affiliations. I am not completely comfortable with that, though, as the main draw of being a professor is independence - and in the 10% side job, I am of course not independent. Also, it's possibly questionable whether the other university should receive credit for having me as unpaid adjunct lecturer.
I always list my main affiliation (i.e. the university which pays my main salary), and add the other affiliations when this really applies (i.e. if a work is clearly the result of being affiliated with the respective organization).

Is there other options? Or anything in between? For my academic image, the combination of all three affiliations is certainly not a bad thing, but I feel putting something on my homepage, in my CV or in a public bio is probably different to assigning work outputs to organizations that pay or don't pay salaries.


texts: Why does the status "under peer review" change to "Awaiting Reviewer selection" after 2 months?

texts: I submitted my manuscript 3 months back. After a few days, the status changed to "under peer review". It was so for two months. Now the status is changed to "awaiting reviewer selection". It is totally confusing. what does this really mean? what is happening to my manuscript?


texts:
Suppose that an author [or team] writes a paper making heavy yet very questionable use of some particular statistics, without a convincing argument, demonstration, or test that the statistics are appropriate for how (and on what data) they are being used.

The argument in support of their use relies primarily on citations to previously published work in the same venue (generally regarded as a high-quality venue) where the new work is being submitted.  While statistics are often important in that field, the reviewers are not necessarily statistics experts and may not have given those previous papers any detailed statistical review.

What impact, if any, should these prior publications have on the review of the new work?


texts:
I was asked to give a talk at a workshop. I plan to tell a short story, 5 - 7 minutes, about how my collaborator and I came up with the idea presented in the talk. This story would:

Give the motivation: I have this problem, and my collaborator had a solution for a (seemingly) unrelated problem.
Explain the contribution: I did this and he did that.
Explain the intuition of the solution: he said this and we recognized that etc

I think the story would be interesting, and as it involves two people, I wonder if I should use two rage faces representing my collaborator and I (yes, I often visit 9gag).

On one hand, I think it would be funny. On the other hand, I'm afraid people may think I am not polite/unprofessional, in particular old people. The workshop is co-located with a top tier conference, and I don't want to leave any bad impression.

Update: Thanks everyone for the answers. At first, I intended to use the avatars on our homepages, but I think it's very award to keep showing my face from slide to slide. That's why I think about rage faces, the reason is that they are very simple, but emphasize the emotions very well: struggle, then confused, then surprised...

But I understand not many people like it, so I will think of other way.


texts:
I am writing a math paper which has an electronic supplementary document. In the supplement, I want to put a proof of a lemma. This proof is copied and pasted from my previous paper and I have changed some symbols (eg. H becomes X) to put it in context.  Is this allowed? I have written on it:

Proof (proof modified from Proof of Theorem 1 in [paper]).
Blah blah...

Is this plagiarism or not? It is only in the supplementary document (which is published online) and I have cited.


texts: How to cite a subsection of a book for IEEE

texts: For example, we use pp. 4-7 for pages from 4 to 7 and ch. 2 for chapter 2, but how should we cite a subsection of a book when a chapter is divided into multiple subsections, e.g. 2.1, 2.2, ... in a way that's compatible with IEEE writing style?


texts: How to get rid of excessive 'silly' mistakes?

texts:
While taking a test a student is bound to make some mistakes but I make excessive errors. It's not that I get a question conceptually wrong. I'll make a mistake in reading it or in simple arithmetic calculations.

This issue is not a new occurrence it's been haunting me since middle school. I've seeked advice from my teachers/parents/classmates they are always along the lines of:

Try to stay calm during the exam.
Practice more questions.
Read the questions properly.

I've done all of that. I try my level best not to make any mistakes but they just happen and it frustrates me to no end.

I distinctively remember my middle school math teacher  telling me that if I don't take care of my silly mistakes I'll pay the price later.

As a cocky preteen I brushed away her warning after all silly mistakes are just silly mistakes but she was correct. I did pay the price. I messed up an exam recently  and now  I won't be getting a  tier A university.

How do I stop making silly mistakes?


texts: How would I reference a Linux man page in Harvard style?

texts:
I'd like to reference a linux man page, in particular the man bash page. This is accessed through linux command line by typing 'man bash'.

Any ideas on how I would do that..?

Here is my try:

In text: Free Software Foundation, Inc. (2018)

In references: Free Software Foundation, Inc. (2018) man bash. Available at: General Command Manual


texts: Bachelor thesis without a research question

texts:
I have been asked to provide feedback regarding a paper a friend of mine has written. I sometimes read scientific research in my free time and I am yet to come across anything similar to what that friend has produced. I don't think I can provide any meaningful feedback as I am not sure how to approach this thesis.

This thesis has no defining research question that it is trying to answer. The aforementioned friend of mine wrote his bachelors thesis to merely inform the reader about the subject. As such, no meaningful conclusions were made. The conclusion section of the paper only contains a short summary of previous chapters. That friend of mine studies in Finland. The subject of this paper is Cyber Security.

Is that friend of mine doing something wrong? If not, could you perhaps point me into the direction of similar research so that I can use that as a baseline to provide feedback?


texts: Benefit of publishing large articles/papers instead of books

texts:
After reading this question, and specifically this answer, I find myself wondering why someone would publish an extremely long paper, for example 200 pages, instead of publishing as a book.

I was always under the impression that publishing a book was more prestigious than publishing articles so why would someone write something with the quantity to be a book and prefer to publish it as a journal article? Are there hidden benefits of publishing as an article over publishing as a book?


texts: "Editor Assigned" for 12 days after acceptance. Is this normal? If so, how long can this step take? When can I expect the proofs?

texts: A manuscript of mine was accepted by a Springer journal on January 2020 provided that I executed some corrections indicated by one of the reviewers in the second round of reviews. No further reviews or responses were requested by the reviewers. They told me that the manuscript was going to be passed to Production after that. I submitted my final version on February. The next day, the status changed to "Editor Assigned" and has remained unchanged for the last 12 days. Is this normal? If so, how long can this step take? When can I expect to receive the proofs?


texts: What if I found some machine learning datasets are not trustable?

texts:
I'm doing research on object detection for aerial images (drone capture from above).
And many datasets I think their ground truth is not perfect (but also buggy), some object obviously but be ignored by annotator while some objects took long time to recognized with guesses is labelled ?
But for some reasons (they love publishing), the datasets got a lot of citations and results on boarding blah blah from variety of methods.
In that case, should I do something ? (I'm newbie to academia world and I know nothing much)
Get higher metrics and claim SOTA on something not good is quite confusing in my opinion. And from that, lead to a question that those question is really workable or just a trick only work for those bend ruler ?


texts: How to get into a top mathematics PhD program?

texts:
I'm a first year student undergraduate at a top US university, and I'm going to major in math. Of course, I still don't really know what I want to do with my life, but I'm really excited about going on to a PhD in math. What does one have to do to get into a top PhD program in mathematics? When I say top, I mean absolute top - like Princeton or MIT. Please understand that I'm not being presumptuous in asking this: I don't know whether I'll ever be good enough to do a PhD at an institution such as these, but I'm just asking for reference - and out of curiosity.

I've read a lot of threads about similar topics, but answers there are fairly vague ("good letters of recommendation", "advanced coursework", etc). What exactly do these terms mean, and what should I - as a first year student - already start doing to at least stand a chance sometime in the future to even dream of being in a program such as the ones I mentioned?


texts: Thesis: does the first page of Chapter 1 need to be in odd page?

texts: After reading some PhD theses, I realize that the first pages of Chapter 1 are always in odd pages. I wonder if this is just a coincident or it is an unwritten rule? Thanks.


texts:
I am a PhD student works in theory. I have good relationship with my advisor. I am currently after my mid stage. I come to know that my research supervisor does not help means ( in research problem finding etc) much. It is his way of supervising which is not uncommon in academia, but I have seen many supervisors who help their students a lot(type 2), due to that they have early publication and also more number of publications. In my case, I have the advantage of becoming more independent researcher. I am worried about my future as there are many many research coming from type 2 supervisors. I always try to work hard, but I can not beat people who works in a team.

Question: Will working with a less involved supervisor hurt a student's career?


texts: Advisor unresponsive after agreeing to introduce me - What to do?

texts: I asked a question over here about the best way to go about meeting a prospective PhD advisor (Prof X). It was mostly agreed that I should ask my current advisor (who knows Prof X) to introduce me. I did ask him, and he responded by saying that he is happy to introduce me, so all well and good. However about eight days or so have passed since then and I haven't heard from him despite a couple of spaced out follow up emails. No answer to my calls either. What can or should I do at this point? Should I go back to my original plan of directly trying to contact Professor X? This is a bit frustrating, since in the meantime other grad schools are finalizing and mailing out their decisions and this school is my top choice. Thanks for any suggestions.


texts: Difficulty being admitted to good PhD programs in the UK

texts:
Since last September I have been working hard on my applications, applied to multiple good CS departments yet none of them even wait-listed me, all rejected me, I have also got rejected informally by supervisors I approached.

Now I know I am not an established researcher in this field, I did not publish anything yet nor I have a concise experience with a certain topic but I know that I am not far off and I can pull my weight to reach the desired level by a number of the departments I applied to. The issue is that I almost all the time get unfriendly, cold treatment from professors, none of them is willing to take 5 minutes to discuss anything.

I am told that professors will always accept me even if I had average or below average marks because I am bringing my own fund for this degree yet this whole notion seems false.

My master's transcript does not look good, I have failed 2 courses and recovered but that 'F' will always look like a stain on my transcript. My bachelor's transcript is average (upper-second in UK scale).

How can I improve my chances to get into a PhD field that is not far off what I did in my master's?


texts: I'm very concerned about the mental health of my co-worker: how can I help them?

texts:
So I was working with someone from a different University on a project and I have started to become very concerned about their mental and physical well-being.
The messages which they sent me a day before came across as paranoid, saying that he believed that one of his colleagues had hacked his laptop and was following all his activities, just for the purpose of knowing whether they had secretly been getting guidance from someone else to help him write his papers in order to bully him and harass him.
Today he stated that he was no longer able to continue working with me on the project because of this harassment from colleagues.  Again, the messages were quite concerning: for example, talk of not having been able to sleep for 36 hours and fear of dying in 'terrible suffering', but furthermore that one of his colleagues is poisoning his food so that he is unable to sleep and that he is really scared of dying because of not being able to sleep.
My first thought was to write to his graduate school where he works as a postdoc and state that I am concerned about his mental health and make a suggestion that his workload be lightened and that he be given the opportunity to speak with a mental health professional.  Also, that perhaps there could be some words had about the culture of 'banter' and 'jokes', since he obviously takes these jokes very badly although perhaps they are not intended to be harmful (to be clear, I am a student and have no power in enforcing this, it's just a suggestion I want to make).
However, I am not sure how best to phrase this email (or even exactly what I should say) without 'getting them into trouble' or making it look like 'I am telling on them' or giving away confidential information.  Also, who should the email be sent to?  Again, I don't want to make things worse, but I feel like this is genuinely concerning and that someone should say something to prevent the situation escalating.


texts: Can the lack of credit based coursework be compensated by published works for faculty applications?

texts:
Due to lack of foresight, I did not take any graduate level advanced mathematics or numerical analysis course. Nor do I have good grades on the subjects during my undergraduate studies.

However, I have 3 publications in Q1 interdisciplinary journals (not mathematical or numerical analysis journals) which required the application of the mathematical and numerical analysis concepts. Though, I mostly used commercial software in my research, I self studied, relearned all the required fundamentals from different sources (books, online courses, documentations).

Can the lack of credit based graduate coursework be a huge bottleneck in my future faculty applications? Can it be compensated by published works?

Is there something I can do in the next 1-1.5 years (before I start applying to places), that can put me in a better position?


texts: Should you choose your committee members or should your advisor?

texts:
The question of how to choose PhD committee members has already been asked and answered in general terms, but I have the following more specific questions regarding the choice:

Is it more important that your advisor already know your committee members or that you do (e.g., your advisor knows them but you've never met them before vs. you know the member but your advisor doesn't have a strong or pre-existing relationship with them).
Is it better to get someone in your discipline or someone doing more related work (e.g., if you're getting a computer science degree, you ask computer science faculty vs. you're getting a computer science degree but everyone except for your advisor is from the English department)?
Should you pick people who are already invested/interested in you succeeding or is the dissertation process supposed to be a chance for you to win people over to your side?


texts: Is it allowed to re-format a post-print version of a published paper?

texts:
I am finishing up my thesis which will include, among other things, a published paper. I am allowed by the journal to use a post-print version, which (if I understand correctly) is the accepted version of the paper without the journal's formatting and typesetting.

Am I allowed to redo the typesetting of this version?

The last version submitted to the journal includes line numbers and a different font to the rest of my chapters. I would like things to look consistent throughout the book. These are the instructions from the journal:

Regarding your own version of the refereed post-print only, you are free to:

post it on your personal or institutional web site and load it onto
an institutional or not-for-profit repository once accepted for
publication (access to the full text on a repository will be
embargoed for 12 months from first publication of the published
version);
use it in printed compilations of your work subsequent to
publication; and
expand it into book-length form, and/or otherwise re-use portions in
other works.


texts: Do I approach the journal editor before submitting my manuscript?

texts: So, of course I do my homework trying to figure out which journal is appropriate for which kind of manuscript I've completed. And of course I read sample articles from that journal. After that, though, do I just submit the manuscript? Or do I check with the editor at the email address the journal site provides for questions? And if so, how do I approach the editor? What is a good/appropriate way of "checking in"?


texts: Should I try to re-invent the wheel while doing research?

texts:
I’m a beginning PhD student in theoretical physics specializing in string theory. Unfortunately, my advisor doesn't have a good understanding of this subject; therefore, he provides me with very little guidance. The problem is that I have a very little understanding of how should I do research in string theory.

My style is that I try to work thing out from the first principles. For instance, when I try to understand the fundamentals of this subject (by which I mean graduate textbook material), I start with blank papers, write down a question I would like to understand, then try to find an answer mostly by reading parts of the textbook or by searching for research papers that deal with this question. Furthermore, I try to work things out on my own. Somehow, this feels somewhat unnatural to me (and it leads to very slow progress). Another approach would be to read the standard textbook thoroughly, then start reading papers more linearly.

I always feel that I’m trying to re-invent the wheel. I think that researchers take assumptions and conclusions from previous work and then build on it. On the other hand, I always try to start from scratch and to derive everything on my own. For instance, physics student learn quantum mechanics by starting with some axioms, then try to understand their consequences.  On the other hand, I try to deduce or rather, “find” these axioms by pure thought, which led me to spend a lot of time researching the original papers on quantum mechanics.

Am I doing it right? I think that part of my problem is that I’m trying to imitate top physicists such as, Richard Feynman. Do top physicists (or mathematicians) really do this?


texts: How do I quickly describe the timeframe a topic became relevant?

texts:
In a single sentence in a homework for a historical overview I mention that:

  Video games [in academia] became relevant only after the new milennium. Before that, topics concerning video games mentioned them mostly as an application of computer graphics, but did not as a major part of research, maybe with a few minor exceptions.

I don’t want to linger on this topic at all but I am making myself crazy about how I can prove the correctness of the broad scope of that assumption without performing a whole study on when what paper handled what topic in what timeframe. How do I do that?


texts: No reply from the professor after the follow up email

texts:
There is a PhD position at a university. I have sent an email and also a follow-up email (after one week from my first email) to the corresponding professor and I haven't got any reply yet (it has been 4 days from the follow up email!).

somewhere at the personal webpage of the professor it is stated that to apply or if you are interested to postdoc please first email your CV to Prof. X. On the other hand, the "Apply online" button in the open position list is active. What should I do now? send another email to the professor?


texts: Can you be a postdoc with funding from a private organization (vs. government funding)?

texts: Can you be a post-doc if you secured funding from a private organization to do research at a university in the social sciences/humanities, or do you have to have governmental funding to do a postdoc?


texts:
I'm wondering what experiences people had who took up positions at satellite campuses, in particular of well-known and well-renowned universities. From what I see, satellite campuses are often the result of a merger with a small college and somewhat retain a focus on teaching and not so much research.

I'm particularly interested in to what extent positions at satellite campuses provide the benefits of working at the main campus in terms of working environment and research collaborations. Is the experience more like working at a completely separate institution, or merely in a different building at the same institution?

To give a concrete example: Often the satellite campuses don't have a graduate programme. Are the opportunities to (co-)supervise students at the main campus?

I'm looking mostly for experiences with faculty positions, but postdoc/graduate student experiences are also of interest.


texts: Why does an "external member" of a thesis defense committee come to your defense?

texts:
I am curious why would some professor from another university come to my university (in Turkey) merely for my defense.

What benefit does this professor have in it?

Do universities pay professors for being an "external member" of any student's thesis defense?


texts: Internship university asks to give up all intellectual property

texts:
I am a graduate student of university A, and I'm going to do an internship in a lab in university B.

I used an internship contract from my originating university A, which stipulates that university B can make a contract on a case-by-case basis to later exploit my work made during my internship. However, university B asks me to change this clause to transfer all intellectual property rights to university B exclusively, meaning that I won't be able to use it aftewards without approval from university B. Note that I am not paid by university B, nor having any other compensation for the whole duration of my internship there from university B, and I'm not hosted on-campus either, but I will get academic credits from university A.

Is this a common practice for lab internships? Can I do something about it? (I don't mind giving all the rights to exploit my work, but I would also like to be able to use it myself, particularly softwares I will develop).

/Final update: Thank you all for your great feedback. The issue was resolved quite simply by agreeing with my supervisor to put the developped softwares under an opensource licence. The contract thus won't have any impact whatsoever.


texts: Why does the APA/MLA format suggest the use of double-spacing?

texts:
For someone used to reading the typical single-spaced double-column ACM-styled papers, this format seems odd.
At first, I thought it's maybe because some people read better with it. However, I haven't found any evidence that suggests so.

In fact, afaict, the benefits in doing otherwise are;
less paper to print, thus saving trees.
less paper to shuffle around.
less time spent flipping pages to and fro to see math definitions because, for instance, some linear program took half a page.
faster identification of paragraphs (since double-spaces would be used only to demarcate paragraphs).

One might say that it promotes consistency. Even though I would disagree to that notion, I still don't get why they would even choose such an unwieldy format in the first place. Is this just one of those rules people don't question because "it's the way it's always been done" or am I missing something here?


texts: Retaking GRE during gap year from PhD to improve pre-doctoral fellowship award chances

texts: I am taking a year off from my PhD program. I was funded for two years but because my academic standing is no longer 'good' due to substandard performance I have been terminated from my funding mechanism until I return and get back in good standing. When I return I will reapply for the same funding and there is a good chance that it will be awarded again. However, I've used up one of the two years of funding and will have to repeat the first year of the PhD when I return. Thus, I will need to apply for NSRA and NSF pre-doctoral fellowships when I return to my studies in fall of 2016 to fund the second year of classes. I don't know if GRE scores play a significant role in NIIH F31 grant applications, and I am now wondering if it is worth retaking the GRE during this time off to get a more competitive score that will help my application? Any thoughts of how best to proceed.


texts: Can I tactfully change my mind after agreeing to do an independent study with a professor?

texts:
I recently asked two professors by email if I could do an independent study with them. Both of them responded, saying that they can sponsor me for the study. As soon as I received the first professor's response, I replied, saying that I wanted to work with him and scheduling a face-to-face meeting.

Now that both professors have responded, though, I think I would enjoy working with the second professor more. Would it be appropriate for me to tell the first professor that I changed my mind, or would it be wrong to take back the commitment I already gave him? If it would be appropriate to change my mind, how can I handle the situation tactfully?

Although I would prefer to work with the second professor, I know that I would enjoy working with either of them, so I'll be fine if it's too late to change my mind.

Edit: Here is some more information about my specific situation.

I am planning on doing the same project with either professor. I am currently writing the music for a video game, and I would be working with the professors to produce the music and create a graded portfolio. I haven't worked out any specific details with either professor.

Both professors are music professors who have specific knowledge about music technology. The reason I would prefer working with the second professor is because I know he has expert knowledge of the software I'm using to produce the music. In addition, he is skilled with the genres of music I'm producing as well as writing film scores. I'm not sure how much the first professor knows about these specific topics.


texts:
I want to cite a webinar in the Harvard citation style.

I have found many websites talk about website referencing but could not find anything about webinars!

How do you do that?


texts:
When you introduce yourself to an international audience and come from an non-US system, there always is an awkward moment of translating your job title into a form recognizable by the people you introduce yourself to. Here are the options I see:

using the title in your native language: completely honest, but probably not understandable by anyone who does not know the system
replacing it by the closest US title: complete localization, completely understandable, but some nuance in the function might be lost
translating in a literal way: something in-between

I'll give a specific example here (from my own system, the French one). CNRS is a research-performing organization, in which permanent researchers hold the title of chargé de recherche (junior staff) or directeur de recherche (senior staff). I usually see these titles translated into “research scientist” and “research director”, but I those terms aren’t really self-explanatory. In particular, I don't think it's clear from “research scientist” that this is a permanent position, because that term could also be used in other places for post-docs.


texts: Professor sleeps in class and makes cheating easy

texts:
I’m a senior in my final year of a B.S. degree in Engineering in the United States. One of my professors is in a geriatric state (he is not tenured). His class is largely themed around student presentations which form the core curriculum and all material tested on exams.

Unfortunately, the professor often falls asleep during these presentations which he should be grading as they are delivered. He does very little to facilitate discussion in class. When he generates the exam, he often just reviews the slides and picks out extraneous details for questions. To make matters worse, there is a small group of students who have taken advantage of the said professor’s poor proctoring skills and have used their phones to view the slides hence giving them a magnificent advantage over even the best students in the class.

I have already notified our department head, who is peripherally aware of the situation, and his superior, the college division head. However, they seemed concerned but have  not taken means to solve or even observe any of the issue for themselves.

What else can I do to address such an issue?


texts: US PhD to Developing Country Professorship

texts:
So I was listening to this story on The Moth about a woman who earned a degree in Egypt and then an advanced degree in England and then went back to Zimbabwe to be a professor at local university: http://themoth.org/posts/stories/grandma-mahembes-farm

Would it be possible for a US citizen to do something similar and, after earning a PhD in the US, then pursue a professorship in a developing country? Is there any stigma against this as well? Should US citizens be expected to leave such opportunities the peoples of those countries? I know that the NSF has some bridge programs to bring people from developing countries to he US, but are there programs that do the reverse: that is, programs targeted at sending US PhDs to developing countries?


texts: Doing PhD in math/physics after obtaining a bachelor degree in an unrelated field

texts:
I want to do a PhD in mathematics (Specializing in algebraic topology or algebraic geometry ) or mathematical physics (String theory). I have a bachelor degree in a totally different field (medicine).
Here's my situation :

I have independently studied mathematics and physics. I have spent a lot of time with hatcher's textbook in algebraic topology and lang's complex analysis among with other topics in math and physics. These are proof-heavy textbooks and I usually do the exercises.

Now , after having studied analysis ,differential topology ,geometry, abstract algebra , quantum mechanics and QFT .

Is this a good preparation for a PhD in math/physics ?

Please note that I have studied from standard textbooks and solved a lot of exercises.

How do I convince PhD committee to accept my application ?

If I apply now , Apart from formal qualifications,my application will be missing one crucial component which is the letters of recommendations. I'm not sure where do I get them ? I don't know any physics or math professors who can evaluate my knowledge.


texts: What criteria are used to rank graduate programs?

texts:
I'm only asking this out of curiosity since I've seen posts/discussions about getting into "top" graduate programs etc. This mentally (wanting to get into a "top" ranked program) makes sense (depending on one's priorities) for undergraduate study, since the selectivity is what gives the degree its "prestige."  This may also hold true for law or medical school programs where rankings may reflect the level of training one receives and/or directly affect internship/residency opportunities etc. However, I'm not sure how this would apply to a research degree.
For example, in masters or PhD research programs, you're applying to conduct research under the auspices of a specific advisor. Thus, it seems that alignment of research interests and personal compatibility should be prioritized over "rank" of the program. Obviously one still has to meet certain admissions criteria regardless of the program they're applying to, but it doesn't make sense (to me anyway) to rank/judge research oriented graduate programs the way one would an undergraduate or "professional" program (i.e medical or law school etc).
Also, will the quality of one's graduate education or future academic career opportunities be affected by the rank of the program? Personally, my main priorities are location combined with compatibility of an advisor. However, I was curious as to what criteria are used to rank graduate programs and why would one prioritize rank of program over other factors.


texts: Asking senior scientists for a subreview

texts:
I am a junior postdoc (1st year) part of a program committee in an international conference. As a member I have been assigned with several papers that I would like to delegate to subreviewers.

I have in my network researchers who are also postdocs but, they could be regarded as senior. Is it rude, or weird, to ask them to subreview a paper? If so, should I try to find PhD students or other postdocs in my range? If not, to what extended may I ask for a subreview?


texts: I have recently recieved the reponse from the editor of the submitted journal. At the beginning, the editor wrote "The manuscript requires revision and probably an additional review before a decision can be made on its suitability for publication." . I'd like to know "an additional review" means the editor will find another reviewer? Or just after recieving the revision, he won't make a decision himself but send the revision to the present reviewers? Thanks a lot.


texts: No response from Journal even after 3 Months of submission

texts:
I had submitted a manuscript to an Elsevier Journal in February 9, 2016. Usually it takes time of around 1 week to get the manuscript number assigned something like XXXX-D-16-XXX and status changes from "Submitted to Journal" to something else like "With Editor".

However, after waiting for 1.5 months, it didn't change and no number is assigned. Hence, I mailed to the Elsevier support. They replied with as usual "we forwarded your query to journal manager...". I waited for 15 more days. I mailed again. No reply from journal side. The mailing happened 3-4 times with follow-ups and remainders, but, it was only from my side. Still no response from Journal.

I also sent mail to chief editors very politely and waited for status to come from their side. But, after 10 more days of waiting no response came.

I sent final mail stating that "We are withdrawing our manuscript."

Is this type of behavior expected from reputed publisher like Elsevier. One research student can't waste 3 months of time biting nail to get the manuscript number or a response.

Please do help with your suggestions? What should I do? Should I submit to another journal? Please note that I have not yet obtained the confirmation of my manuscript withdrawn from the journal.

This is not a duplicate question. I searched thoroughly academia.SE before posting question.


texts: Can a response paper agree with the initial paper, or must it disagree?

texts:
A paper describes a computational method for solving a problem, and we made a significant improvement to the method and applied it to a new case study. Is it appropriate to publish a response paper?

Most response papers I've seen dispute the findings or methods of the paper they are responding to. Is it reasonable to write a response paper which agrees with the initial paper?

EDIT: It wasn't very clear when I first posted this, but the "response paper" I refer to is a specific mechanism that journals have for responding to an existing paper published in their journal. This is often called a comment or discussion paper. At Nature, they're called "brief communications arising". I might be the only one that calls it a "response paper," actually...


texts: Why do some conferences have a variable amount of reviewers for each submitted paper?

texts:
Why do some conferences have a variable number of reviewers for each submitted paper?

For example, I read on https://redd.it/9nomv1 that the AAAI 2019 conference has between 3 and 5 reviewers for each paper submission. Why isn't the number of reviewers the same for all submitted papers? Is that to make up for non-experienced or outside-the-area reviewers, or for reviewers who do not turn in reviews?


texts: Wildly Varying Scores on GMAT and GRE - Should I Send Both?

texts:
I am applying now to PhD programs in various management related fields (quantitative marketing and finance) and took both the GMAT and GRE back in October.

My score, specifically in the quantitative section, wildly varied between the GRE and GMAT. Basically, this was the breakdown of my scores:

GRE:

Verbal
159 (81%)

Quant
160 (78%)

Analytical
4.5 (80%)

And on the other side...

GMAT:

Verbal
40 (91%)

Quant
41 (49%)

Total
660 (80%)

Analytical
5.5 (81%)

Integrated Reasoning
8 (92%) [Perfect Score]

None of the schools I'm applying to exclusively accept the GMAT, but many do state that they prefer it. I'm wondering if I should just simply hide my GMAT or if my GRE in combination with my GMAT make the quantitative section there look like a random fluke.


texts: Social etiquette for interacting with PhD peers who complain *a lot*

texts:
People in my program complain a lot and usually not in good humor. How can I handle this socially and professionally?

Some of these people are my friends and some are no more than peers. In general I want to be respectful but not allow them to harangue me with complaints. Generally, much of this advice does not help.

For now, I try to avoid social gatherings with a high concentration of people from my program. When they get together, the complaints take over conversation. At the department, I can spot someone (or a group) having a stress crisis from a distance, and I keep my distance.

I certainly hope that this climate does not continue into faculty life.

[Migrated from other question here. There were some useful pieces of advice, so I hope that respondents will move their points]


texts: Can I, as a reviewer, tell authors to get a native English speaker to proofread their paper?

texts:
I am reviewing a paper for possible publication in a respected journal. The English in the paper is very poor. The authors are clearly not native English speakers. I want to write something to the effect of the following in my review.

I advise the authors to find a native English speaker to proofread the manuscript.

My question: Is this appropriate in a review?

On one hand, I think it is good, constructive advice. The paper would be significantly clearer if someone spent a few hours helping them fix it up. I can try to help them through reviewer comments, but it would be much easier if someone could help them in person. The authors are located in a western English-speaking country, so they should be able to find someone.

On the other hand, I don't want to be "the mean reviewer." I understand that English can be difficult to master for immigrants. Perhaps there is a more diplomatic way of saying this.


texts: If you get stuck in research, at what point in time should you ask for help?

texts:
It's always worthwhile to take some time to try to figure it out by yourself. But eventually there's a point where you're unsure how much more time it would take to figure it out by yourself (which could take far longer than you originally think), and when asking for help could be more helpful.

So for analytical or computational research, what are some guidelines for when you should ask for help (from either your adviser, other grad students, or other researchers) when you get stuck?


texts: Is it acceptable asking to join a researcher in co-organizing their conference session?

texts:
I have a friend at another university that I met at a conference a couple years ago. Since then, we usually make an effort to attend each other's sessions, grab coffee, etc. Last year he organized a session at our flagship conference, and I think he's organized a similar session several times before. I think it would be fun to co-organize a session together, but I would assume he's doing his usual session. Would it be rude for me to ask if he would like help organizing the session (i.e., adding me as a co-organizer)? Or is this the academic equivalent of asking, "Can I invite myself over to your house to play video games since I don't have a N64?"

For context, we are both at universities in the USA. He is an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen, and I am an American. He is a few years senior to me; he is in a semi-permanent research position, and I am a 4th PhD student. For the record, I don't think he would view this as rude because he is a genuinely friendly guy, and I think he could easily tell me "no." But I am more curious about the general etiquette of these things.


texts: When conducting a follow-up review for a paper you already made comments on, how detailed should the review be?

texts: I think the title stands on its own, but I am not sure how detailed to make follow-up reviewer comments for a paper.  My sense is that I don't need to re-review the paper, but just comment on whether or not I am satisfied with the changes the authors made.  This leaves a rather skimpy review the second time around.


texts: What is the importance of a very tangentially related minor in grad school applications?

texts:
In an effort to keep this question generalizable, I'll try to be as vague as possible.

I'm majoring in a softer science (getting a BA), while doing research in a much harder science which could be considered a super-field to my major. This year, I did a year-long field project in my major field which counts toward a certain sociology minor that's at least somewhat related to my major. I'm interested in said minor and my planning said I could complete it, so I declared it.

However, certain circumstances mean that I wasn't able to complete minor-satisfying courses in a timely manner. If I want to get the minor, I have to stick around an extra quarter. I'm not sure that expense is really worth it to me just for the minor.

I intend to apply to grad school in the harder field, a field in which I have a paper or two and a presentation at a major conference.

How important is an unrelated minor in applying to grad school? Unlike something like music or a language, there's probably not much I could do with it, even in my personal life.

I read this question, but it's about minoring in a related field, not a distant field.

I've tagged this both United States and United Kingdom because I'm from the States but looking at a couple programs that would send me to the UK.


texts: Could I insert a figure in related work section?

texts: In computer science conference papers, can figures appear in related work sections?


texts:
Last semester, I took class A and loved the material. It was a subject I excelled in and professor A' was someone I understood well.

I thought it was perfect to take the course 2A and make A' my thesis advisor, but this entire semester, he missed many classes (due to sickness and/or being the Chair of our department), was only available for 'pop in' office visits, rather than scheduled ones or scheduled office hours, and we rarely had homework we could do, because our class was riddled with confusing theory and no examples.

For a grade, he asked us to learn and present material in class. I'm a student who needs to bounce ideas off others in order to really understand material really well.

Since no one (fellow grad student wise) could help and he was always unavailable, I stuck to books and mathstackexchange.

I got turned around many times, and when I had to present, he constantly interrupted me to tell me "what [I] meant to say". After 40 minutes, I got so worked up I started to tear up.

I felt like the time I spent trying to work through material by myself was worthless, and anything else I could say wouldn't be "up to snuff" in his eyes, but I pressed on through hiccups and tears. I know he was trying to make me a better student, but I'm not sure I can take a year of trying to do something right on my own, rarely meeting up with my thesis advisor, and falling flat during my thesis defense.

Questions: do I find another thesis advisor? Is this just a personal problem, and I should consider counselling?


texts: Is it unethical to acknowledge a researcher without contacting him

texts:
I'm a masters student in mathematics and I gave a seminar talk about my main result. A professor in the audience gave a one sentence comment during my talk. It is an important comment about my work, which I didn't think of myself, and I added it to my paper (but did not yet send it for publication), including an acknowledgement to the aforementioned professor, specifying that this is "his" comment.

Is it unethical if I don't contact him to tell him I acknowledge him in the paper? For personal reasons, I would not like to be in any contact with this specific professor (because of his highly inappropriate behavior towards me in previous interactions, on which I did not take action because I have no proof.).


texts: If you are asked to participate in review, is your submission likely to be accepted?

texts:
If you are asked to participate in review of a conference paper to which you have yourself submitted a paper, what is likelihood that your paper has been accepted?

Or is it possible that they would ask an author of the rejected work to participate in the review of remaining submissions?


texts:
The current research climate favors the proliferation of many early-career-stage researchers (PhD students, postdocs) who have not enough places to go if they want to stay in academic research (recent Nature article on the issue). The amount of research-based positions in industry is arguably even more limited.

The limited amount of overall positions available make competition fierce and, even when successful, often one needs to be flexible to relocate, including moving to a new country. This all gets increasingly difficult as one becomes older and family, mortgage, etc. start to be parameters in the equations.

Doing a PhD + (one, two, three...) postdoc(s) usually makes you highly specialized in a field/discipline, but also gives you skills that can potentially be very valuable in the general job market: dedication, technical writing, analytical skills, ability to quickly learn new things, possibly proficiency with computers including coding... to name a few. I am however a bit skeptical of how much these abilities are appreciated by the average employer, and there is also the issue of how to adapt to (i.e. how to feel motivated at) a "boring" "normal" job after spending several years in the exciting and challenging world of research.

While I would ideally like to keep doing research, all the points above make me fear that at some point I will just need to seek a job outside academia, and I want to be prepared. My question is for those who have made the transition out of academia or are in senior positions and have witnessed people (un)successfully making it out. How does one pave his way out of academia? What skills are useful to develop in order to have good chances to make a successful transition? What strategies to follow and which behaviors should be avoided?

I work in condensed-matter physics, so answers specifically pertaining to STEM disciplines are particularly welcome.


texts: Is it okay to judge projects on the basis of how long it took to develop them

texts: I was showing my presentation on a project which I made in java/javafx to this evaluator(i'm a college student). And before I could start explaining the usage he asked me how much time did I spend on this project and I told him i did it in 20 days(which i think is a lot) . He then told me that I need to atleast spend 6 months on a project [reason being that we have 12 months to study a language which was a lie we had 9 months actually ]  and asked me to leave. He didn't even let me finish the presentation or saw what I did. So, what i'd like to know is this fair to judge a project like this or the evaluator was being unfair?


texts: Does it make sense for the professor to write a recommendation letter that is directly readable by the student?

texts:
It seems that US universities usually provide a link to the professor of the applicant, and let him/her directly upload the recommendation letter to that link, meaning that the student would have no access to it. However, when applying to Masters programs offered by German universities, I am surprised to see that they all ask the student to upload the recommendation letter in PDF format/to a text area directly, by his/her own, which seems to make little sense to me.

I'm afraid that some professors will just outright reject writing a letter which is to be handed to and viewed by the student. Or are such worries unnecessary? Is this a cultural difference between continental European and British/American system (My current university mostly follows the British/American system)? What should I do in this case. Should I ask the professors to write and hand me recommendation letters directly, or should I try to communicate with the university and let the professors email them the letter/give me a physical letter sealed within an envelop, which I will send to the university by mail later on?


texts: Is it acceptable to list unpublished papers in a PhD application for computer science?

texts: I have a couple of papers that are works in progress or in the submission process. Can I list under my publications list (and clarify they are not yet published but on the road to it)?


texts: Is there any risk in mentioning a new faculty as a potential advisor in you SoP?

texts:
I am applying for a program and I know that there is a new professor in the department. He is a tenured faculty and had been for many years at another university before he moves to his new position.

I like his work and had been following his publications for a while, and he just moved to this department. I was wondering if it's a common practice for the departments (in the US) to avoid assigning new students to new faculty or anything that would make the admission committee wary of admitting an applicant that wants to work with them. Is there any risk in mentioning a faculty so new to the department as a person of interest in my PhD application statement? On the other hand, is there any possible upside to that?


texts: How do Universities deal with poor teaching?

texts:
At one school I worked at the strategy for dealing with poor teaching was to get feedback from students around midterms. If the students criticism was strong enough the teacher was pulled from the class and replaced by someone else in the middle of the semester.

Naturally this led to administrative and departmental chaos when, at times, a handful of teachers would be shuffled in the middle of a semester.

I would like to know if this is common practice at other schools and if not, what mechanics do other schools have to support teachers struggling to perform well and ensure the quality of the courses assigned to them?


texts: How competitive will my profile be for Grad School

texts:
I'm new to this site and this will be my first question. I am currently a Sophomore at Northern Kentucky University, I'm holding a 3.92 GPA (with no intention of it lowering,) I won the undergraduate research award this year at the University and in the process of getting one of my research papers published (History Major.) Prior to attending NKU, I was active duty Coast Guard for six years. I believe my time in the Coast Guard will help "round out" my academic profile (and can be spun as such). Given my GPA, which will hold above 3.9, my background, and published research papers (assuming I publish two for the sake of this question,) recieve good LOR's mixed with a solid SOP, what History Graduate Program rank/range should I apply for? Also for the sake of this post let's assume my GRE scores match my practice/simulation score of (V 163, Q 157 AWA 5.5)

I know this can be difficult to answer as numerous factors play into this. I'm not attempting to know if I can get into a specific University, but rather should I be applying for a top 100 Grad Pro., Top 50, Top 25 etc. Any advice or recommendations would be truly helpful. Also I can retake the GRE multiple times if any one has a target score for me.

Very Respectfully


texts: How to spot problematic pictures in a publication?

texts:
A few professors from the National Taiwan University were caught manipulating experimental data in their publications on several prestigious journals this year. They were accused of using the same image in different experiments, and the papers were either retracted by the authors, or removed by the journals.

This kind of plagiarism is not very rare in biology. What are some key points to spot plagiarized scientific pictures?


texts: When should I send a reminder email for recommendation letter?

texts:
I am asking this professor about whether  he can write me a recommendation letter for PhD application.  I sent the email on Wednesday morning. Should I wait more or should I send him a reminder email now?
The problem is that he is my number one option and I spent almost all of my time during my master trying to get his attention. I think that if he rejects me I will not be able to find another person that can write me a letter. Hence I am just afraid that if I write a reminder email too soon there is a chance that he gets angry because this professor always takes like 2 weeks to answer an email (if he does answer at all)


texts: Do all authors contribute to a reviewer response or only the main authors?

texts: I would like to know if all authors contribute to the reviewer response document for first revision, or do only the main authors contribute?


texts: Incorporating results of supervised student theses in own thesis

texts:
During my PhD thesis, I supervised the creation of Bachelor's and Master's theses. The official supervisor was always my own PhD supervisor (since I am officially not yet allowed to do university-level teaching on my own), but in practice I did almost all of the supervision. Topic and technical approach were usually my ideas (and related to my own thesis topic) and I coached students closely during implementation, analysis and writing. These were research-level theses, so the students simply lacked prior knowledge and experience to come up with really useful conceptual contributions.

I am now in the process of writing up my own thesis. What is the correct way to incorporate these results - which have already been written about in student theses but not yet published - in my own thesis? Essentially, all of the relevant technical details were proposed by me, so I really don't feel like it would be fraudulent to include these in my thesis. However, I must, of course, give credit to the students. Would it be fine if I simply add an acknowledgement in the corresponding section of my thesis and cite the student's thesis? I for sure don't want to be accused of plagiarism in the future for doing this.

I'm in an engineering field at a German university, if that matters.


texts: Are Masters' degrees in Sweden and Denmark free?

texts:
Information on the internet is not clear, hence my question.

I have read that masters in Denmark and Sweden are free for Europeans. I am from Spain, so I could potentially apply.

My questions:

is there any contract where the student has to live/work in the country for a certain period before/after studying/applying for the masters?
If I don’t finish the master, do I have to pay for it?
It sounds too good to be true… if that’s the case, how come all Europeans don’t go to study to Denmark/Sweden? Why would any British, Italian, etc study outside Denmark/Sweden?


texts: After successfully publishing papers during my Post-Doc, why am I now having trouble publishing as a tenure track academic?

texts:
I have had my PhD in mathematics for four and a half years now, completed two postdocs and found a tenure track job at a mostly teaching university. While I provide substantial background information below, my real, general question is:

  How can I identify the causes of a decline in acceptance rate of my papers?

Background

I had a fairly good research program in geometry and topology, with 5 papers in relatively good journals and an undergraduate research paper published over the course of two postdocs.

I then took a tenure track job with 33 teaching credits a year. While I have little time for new research, I had several papers ready for submission.

These new papers are better than previous papers of mine published in the same journals; not only do I (subjectively) consider them better, but they have received citations in preprint form, and I was invited to a give a talk based on a stranger reading one of them, neither of which happened with my earlier papers.

Possible reasons

I can think of a few possible reasons why these papers are not being published:

They are just not up to shape, because I don't have the time to focus on polishing them.
The referees hate me. This may seem silly, but I am in a very specialized field, with only 3-4 people who have published more than one paper on the subject. One of these people have retired, and another openly said that he had been my referee before on more than one occasion, had rejected my largest paper, and said that he didn't like the direction I was going with the research.

Also, I had a toxic relationship with my postdoc advisor, to the point where it came down to personal insults. They said that they were furious at my past letter of reference writer for recommending me, knowing I was a 'bad egg'. Though we have since made up, I have heard reports from others about this advisor talking about me in a negative way. Also, none of the jobs I applied to with their letter of recommendation wrote me back, while 30-50% of the applications without his letter were replied to favorably, including my current job.

Chance. The reviewers of the first papers happened to be interested in those topics, and the reviewers of the current papers have not been interested.

Conclusion

How do I tell what is really the issue? A few notes:

It's very hard to do research with 33 credits of teaching, but all the work was done before I accepted this job.
The main paper (that was rejected by that referee) went through 5 revisions with the aid of an advisor before submission. I have revised and submitted to 3 or 4 other journals, one after another, incorporating each journals feedback into the new version and trying a weaker journal each time.

My goal is to just get these papers published; at my current institution, the publication of these two papers alone would be enough to satisfy all of the research requirement for tenure.


texts: Working as a Lecturer / Assistant Professor in UK vs Canada

texts:
I'm a research fellow based in the UK. All my academic experience (bachelors, masters, PhD, postdocs) have been in UK (English) universities. For the next stage, I'm considering the benefits of continuing in the UK compared with getting a position overseas. My field is biomedicine / epidemiology / public health.
Specifically I would like to consider the pros and cons of working as a lecturer in a British university compared with working as an assistant professor in a Canadian university.
Does anyone have experience of both systems and is able to make comparisons? It would be informative to have insights on:

Salary and benefits (e.g. days of holiday)
Pensions (boring but important!)
Working styles
Teaching responsibilities
Funding provided by universities or research councils
Work life balance

As Canada has a federal system, I'm aware there can be differences between states. Any answers with knowledge of universities in Quebec would be particularly helpful.
As a benchmark, I would characterise the UK system as follows:

Salary for a lecturer in the region of £40,000 per year, which is low relative to the cost of living in London and the South East, but high in North East or North West England. Holidays are fairly generous (30 days per year)
USS pension is generous as it is a final salary scheme, but takes 10% of gross salary (and may be unsustainable in the future)
High administrative burden. Often competitive working environments.
High teaching load for early stage lecturers
Not much support for funding from universities, but (in my field) several external funders (Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Gates Foundation).
Hard to generalise, but work life balance often compromised by long commutes and high cost of living (more so in London/ Southern England)


texts: What does count as "something new" in the field for PhD?

texts:
I am doing PhD in AI field mainly in NLP
my supervisor told that I have to contribute something new to the field.
OK, I started doing some trails in improving one case in the field of NLP AI
I found a way that can improve that case in 80% of the times.
I don't want to go into the details of the method that I found, as it is mainly technical.
Anyway, I told my supervisor about what I found and he wasn't impressed.
The things he mentioned that this method is not provable, which means it is proved only by trying the cases without mathimatical prove.
is this enough for PhD or shall I prove it mathematically?


texts: How do I communicate my research with a general audience more effectively?

texts:
I really enjoyed my research but it happens that whenever I tell somebody about it, I have the impression I'm making it sound boring, unimportant and not exciting.

Americans have a way of telling a story, I know this kind of "performance" does not suit my habit. I'm more the continental European, a bit reserved, a bit technical. Not everything I did immediately is about curing cancer, I admit it.

I started by adapting a kind of top-down approach, first I say "Simulations", usually people feel they can relate to that. And if they wish to know more, then I can start going into some details.

I think this approach makes sense, but still, I find others can induce interest by the other person immediately from the start of their explanations.

Question: How can I communicate my research to a general audience in a way that is more exciting and interesting?


texts: Advice needed : Reaching out to your past PhD advisor for a post doc opportunity

texts: I graduated with a Ph.D. in a STEM field from a good university in the US a few months ago. Thinking that I will benefit from a diverse experience, I did not continue under my professor for a postdoc position. I was jobless for the last few months, since much fewer job openings are currently available in my field. To add to the troubles, my employment authorization card (I am an international student) arrived very late due to the pandemic situation, which rendered me helpless. Now that reality has dawned on me, I was thinking of reaching out to my professor for support for the next few months while I keep searching for a job. A disclosure: my performance while working under him wasn't up to his expectation. But, he is a very nice guy and may show some mercy on me. Call it anxiety or fear of rejection, I have not taken any steps towards that yet. I Will greatly appreciate some insights on how I should approach this situation.


texts:
I have a paper with revise and resubmit in a journal of Elsevier. In one part of the mail, the editor wrote me this:

  If you choose to revise your manuscript it will be due into the
  Editorial Office by the Aug 30, 2018.

  The deadline is given only because we want you to give a high priority
  to revision of this submission. We assure you that a revision will be
  reviewed normally even if it is submitted after the deadline.

I do not understand this deadline. If the paper is reviewed normally even if it is submitted after the deadline, why do they put a deadline?

So is it possible to submit the revised version after the deadline?


texts: Asking research committee about on-campus interview

texts: I had an on-campus interview for a tenure track position last week in the US. The department chair told me that the results should be available within week. By today, a week is passed away. Is it ok to contact the department chair to ask her about the interview results and If I was selected to get a job offer or not?


texts: How to proceed when advisor asks you to resign?

texts:
This happened with a friend of mine and I am asking this question on his behalf.

My friend was recruited for a sponsored research project in the university and offered a part-time PhD along with that. He is currently completing his coursework (2nd semester) which is pretty exhaustive. He has been working pretty rigorously and one of his poster presentation was accepted in a reputed conference within 6 months of work.

Since the coursework in this semester was tough, he wasn't able to give any tangible output in terms of publications or concrete results. Now, suddenly he has been asked by his advisor to resign. This has come to him as a surprise since he was expecting some scolding as his guide is known for being arrogant (and he is very reputed researcher in the field).

He is unsure whether to leave PhD or how to proceed and convince his advisor.

I believe he is pretty new (1 year of coursework) to the domain and since the project is pure research, he does deserve a chance. But I am unsure of how one should proceed in such cases.

EDIT (based on queries in comment)

Part Time PhD: He was recruited as an employee for the project by the university. And also offered a PhD. The stipend comes from the project cost(funding agency) and not from university funds (as is the case for direct PhD recruits in my university).

Advisor being Arrogant: He is very knowledgeable and reputed but known for scolding students frequently.(Some faculty members also agree to this including my own advisor)


texts:
I was announced as a recipient of a scholarship from an organization outside of the university, and the organization doesn't seem to be honoring the scholarship.

The announcement was made months ago (October, when the scholarship was supposed to be awarded for the fall semester in the first place), and the recipients have still not been issued checks or university account credits.

Without being thankless, what are a recipients options in this situation? I am not sure if there is an implied legal contract by award of scholarship funds or not, but given that it is coming time to pay tuition for the Spring semester and that the scholarship is significant in relation to tuition charges, what are a student's options?


texts: Do grad schools need an official transcript from universities where I was an exchange student for only one semester?

texts:
I am a European non-EU student that went on an Erasmus exchange for one semester in the UK during my third year. Now, two and a half years later, I am applying to grad schools in the US, and the official transcript in my home university lists the courses taken in my exchange.

However, I was wondering if I need an official transcript from the Erasmus university as well. Getting this would be a big problem, since they only give them in person, and I have no way of getting one. Is it enough that the courses I took on my exchange are listed on my home university transcript, or will I have to do the impossible and get one from the Erasmus university too?


texts: Does the native language capability (for a foreigner) help in applying for a faculty position?

texts:
Consider an international scholar X, fluent in English, who currently holds a postdoctoral position in science (say, in particular, the fundamental science: physics, chemistry, math or biology) in the US.

If X wants to apply for a tenure-tracked (junior or senior) faculty job in a country A outside the US, does acquiring fluency in the language of country A help in applying for a faculty position in the top ranking universities/institutions in that country?

I am mostly, but not exclusively interested in the situation in Europe.

The key point to ask is that suppose X is a highly qualified candidate in all aspects academically, would X be ruled out from the candidate short list due to the lack of fluency in the language of country A?


texts: Does working while you are studying affect your GPA?

texts:
I am studying computer science and I have money to pay for my university study, but I do not have money to spend on entertainment such as going to cinema with my friends in the weekend or upgrading my laptop. I have applied for a job at McDonald's. My shift is 4 days per week with 7 hours per day.

I am scared this would affect my grades. How can I balance my studies with the part-time work I must do in order to improve my living standards or afford a social life?


texts: Funded PhD at low ranked school(s) vs one year funded TA at a top 5 school

texts:
I'm in a peculiar situation.

My interest area is human augmentation, biosensing, assistive robotics and human robot interaction. I have offers from 3 different schools in US -

PhD in the School of biology at a top 5 school (R1) - This comes with a one year fixed TA. After that, I will 'hopefully find a lab which can fund me'.
PhD in Bioengineering at a low ranked commuter R1 school - This comes with full funding. The professor is a leader in his field, and most of his students work in academia/research jobs for the government.
PhD with Robotics focus at a low ranked private university (its ranking in Robotics is top 20, but it's still R2, the students end up as postdocs at top 5 schools and work in a cluster of Robotics companies surrounding the school) - This comes with full funding. The assistant professor is new, but very energetic and has secured prestigious grants and industry collaborations.

I am confused af.

While I do want the perks of being in a top 5, I don't want to deal with fears about funding running out in my late 20s (dealt with it during my masters). I am an international student from India, coming from a humble background, currently working on my OPT - and really want to do a PhD because I've realized that I thrive in a research environment. My master's was from a top 5 (actually from the first school that I stated). I'm open to both academia and research based industry jobs after the completion of my PhD program.

I have a very good feeling about the third option, since the professor is new, understands the plight of being a PhD candidate, will work with me on securing internships and basically help me build my career. Since he's an assistant professor, I'll be involved with a lot of projects, patents and publications.

The professor at the mid-level R-1 is a stud. He has a well established lab, and is happy with his internal and external collaborators. I'm not sure if he'll work very actively on career development.

The professor/department at the top university recently had a big grant pulled from them. Even during the interviews, the professors said that they'd love to hire me, but funding is a major issue.


texts: Should I make a fuss about small typos I found in a reference book?

texts:
I'm currently taking up a bachelor's degree in history at a distance-learning college. Since history is not a popular degree in that school, they don't revise their history books/ modules regularly. In fact, most of the modules they gave me were published about twenty years ago and contain few typos and outdated information. Should I make a fuss about this, or should I just correct the errors myself?

By the way, in general, the old references are still informative and useful.


texts:
I was recently appointed to the editorial board of an academic math journal. I'm excited about this position, and I want to do the best job I can. I have no experience with the role however, other than my interactions with journal editors as an author and reviewer.

What makes a good editor? Those of you who are academic journal editors, what do you wish you knew when you were just starting out?


texts: Can I do PhD from different country after getting one PhD from one country?

texts: I am currently pursuing doctoral research in Chemical engineering department at IIT Kharagpur, India. I am about to complete my Ph.D. within 2 years. I am thinking of doing another Ph.D. possibly from outside India. But I would love to do a Ph.D. in the same area.


texts: CV for PhD application: should I list a job I am yet to start?

texts:
This is the position I am currently in: I finished a Master's a couple of months ago and I plan to start a PhD in a year's time. In the meantime I have applied for jobs and got a very decent and fixed-term one as a research assistant (so, perfect).

Before I start working I will have had to submit at least one PhD application which asks for a CV. My question is: should I mention this job at all in my CV (clearly stating that I haven't started yet), or just omit it?

This question is slightly similar to this, except that for a job instead of an internship, and the answers were quite mixed.

The way I see it, listing it would mean that (i) a good institution has accepted me to work in a good post, and (ii) unless things go very wrong, I will have gained valuable experience before I start the PhD. The possible drawbacks of listing it are (i) it's not really experience I have in the moment, so I can't be favourably judged on something I don't have, (ii) potentially not looking humble enough.


texts: Does one need a bachelor's in Math, if not a master's, before taking a PhD in Math in the US?

texts:
This is actually just a revision of this question in relation to this answer.
I ask "Does one need a master's in math before taking a PhD in pure math?" (And then applied to the US for this question)
Chris C's answer suggests that in the US, I may just go straight from a bachelor's in mathematics to a PhD in mathematics, but I don't quite have a bachelor's in mathematics. My bachelor's is in mathematical finance.
Edit: Sorry. I forgot to emphasize something. My bachelor's didn't have a thesis. I had a thesis in master's, but it was in mathematical finance. Will this be a problem? I was thinking math PhD programs in the US think students have some background in mathematical research.

A variety of areas throughout mathematics. And that answer of mine that you link was written for an audience completely unfamiliar with mathematical research - someone ready to pursue a PhD should already know what it says. –  Nate Eldredge Apr 2 at 13:33


texts: Is a good idea to inform potential PhD Advisor that I sent my application for joining his lab?

texts:
I sent an email to a potential PhD advisor few months ago where I expressed my interest to join his lab, he replied to me the next day mentioning to me that he would be happy to apply to the program through he is currently recruiting.

Yesterday I sent my application.

Is a good idea to inform him that I sent my application? because I didn't apply directly to him but to the program of the institute he is working and I am a bit nervous.

Thanks in advance!


texts: Do students and faculty comprise any State University in the US?

texts:
Oxford University as a corporation grants membership to the matriculated students who are currently pursuing a degree. However, in the US there seems to be a tendency for University legal business to be handled by a corporation of University Trustees which is a legal entity separate from the University as such.

Sometimes the Trustees are said by statute to be "included" in the "body corporate" of a University, which seems to make two different bodies corporate, one being the Trustees acting in their special name, and the second being the University. However, it isn't made clear who else might be included in the University besides Trustees or for that matter whether  the term "University" can also refer to the buildings or district under jurisdiction of the Trustees.

I would be interested to know if there is any State University which makes its students or faculty members of the University. Please cite the relevant laws.


texts:
As an undergrad I posted an undergrad research paper on the arXiv. It was not very interesting at all and I did not try to get it published (I essentially only used it for grad school applications).

Since entering grad school I have completely changed my research area and I am now ready to publish a paper in my new field (that will be interesting to some experts). I have also changed how my first name is spelled (and I'm affiliated to a completely different university).

But I'm not sure how best to proceed here:

I can make a new arXiv account and post the paper under my new name, without linking to my past account at all. The only problem with that is if people search for me using the older spelling of my name, they might see the older account
I can post this under the older account, updating my name and affiliation there. The older paper will be there and frankly I am slightly embarrassed by it. I also haven't worked in that area in many years so it doesn't make sense to have it listed together with the new paper.

I was wondering if the people here would know what's best. My field is pure math if that's important. Thanks!


texts: Do I have to mention that a dataset I use is present in another paper?

texts: There are huge data sets available online, for example from KEEL. I read a paper in my field that used about 14 data sets from the KEEL repository. I used two of these datasets taken from the KEEL website. I am working on a related topic, but it is different. Must I mention that these two datasets were studied in another paper?


texts: Is it a bad idea to point out flaws/weaknesses of your model in your paper?

texts:
In a modeling paper I am writing, I know that there are some limitations.

Is it a bad idea to point out the limitations? Am I just giving the reviewers more straw for them to reject my paper?


texts: Is it possible for an undergrad to publish in a journal without conducting experiments (using existing data)?

texts:
Would it be possible to publish in a decent journal (not ArXiv) without conducting experiments? I was thinking of conducting some correlational research based on existing data (Ex. statistics collected by the government available to the public).

What are my chances of publishing as an undergrad based on existing data? Will journals accept this kind of publication? I am open to suggestions on how to go about doing this and whether it is a worthwhile undertaking?


texts: What to do if my professor is plagarizing

texts:
I was in the middle of doing my homework for a class (its a worksheet for a word document) and I noticed that the author of the word document is not my professor.

I looked it up, and it turns out that the person who wrote the document teaches a related class at a different university.

I checked the rest of the document, and nowhere (other than the word metadata) says that it comes from this other person.

Should I do anything with this information, and if so, what?


texts: 'Introduction to Subject X' & Guide books : How do they influence the academic reputation?

texts:
Many professors publish introductory books on their subjects, for undergraduates or sometimes books for a non-academic audience. something like "Introduction to Art History" or a 'guide book' to 'Thinker X' etc.

How do these affect your academic reputation? Or are they primarily making them money? I don't quite understand, because many of these books are really quite basic and expository in nautre.


texts: What's involved in reviewing an article?

texts:
I've just been invited, for the first time, to review an article. The request was somewhat of a surprise to me, as I'm still a PhD student and I'd always thought that reviewers were generally PhD graduates. Judging by the article's abstract, I am moderately familiar with the subject area, as my master's thesis was on a similar topic. The article would appear in an online journal and would be relatively short (6-8 pages). I assume that my review would be anonymous.

I'm unsure whether to accept the invitation as I'm quite busy with my research.

If I agree to review the paper, what will be expected of me? How much time can I expect this to take?


texts: How to detect cheating when students take online quizzes or exams from home?

texts:
I am currently teaching a basic R programming course with about 80 students.
Under normal circumstances,
a core course assessment component is a programming exam,
which is done in the computer lab using the lab computers.
I will arrange for the Internet to be cut off,
and we will have exam invigilators who are patrolling the exam venue
to detect or dissuade students from cheating.
At the end of the exam, the Internet is restored,
and students submit an R script (basically programming code)
using the course learning management system.

This semester, due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19),
the university where I work has replaced all on-campus teaching activities with online teaching for the entire semester!

With regards to teaching,
the faculty have been asked to teach our classes online using Zoom,
which gives students the freedom to take classes wherever they like.
With regards to exams,
the faculty have been asked to administer their course exams online,
with students completing the exams online from home. (What??!!)

I am very concerned about students taking exams online from home,
because I am worried that some or many of the students may use this as an opportunity to cheat on the exam —
whether it is collaborating with their classmates,
or even asking another student to take the exam in their place.

My questions:

Is there any way to detect if students are cheating (e.g., sharing answers),
when students are doing an online quiz or exam at home?
Is there a way to dissuade students from cheating?

Response to comments:

How much help do you have for these 80 students?

I do have one PhD student who is a grader.
She is supposed to spend about 6 hours a week to help with the course.


texts: How are publications outside Unit of Assessment assessed for REF?

texts:
My understanding of the purpose of REF Units of Assessment (UoA) is that they determine what sort of subject specialist evaluates a REF return. Please correct me if wrong on this point.

One corollary of this is that Journal Impact Factors for publications are naturally assessed in context of their field, because the subject specialist understands how their field works.  For example, there are low-JIF fields such as History (mean IF=0.416 in table 3 of this 2004 paper) and high-JIF fields such as Molecular Biology (4.763), so a paper published in a journal with JIF = 3 might be seen as a great history paper but a lousy molecular biology one.

Obviously research outputs should be assessed on their own merits, but realistically, JIF of the publication plays a part in this.

Suppose a researcher does a lot of work outside their UoA - for example a computer scientist collaborating with researchers from several other disciplines to produce outputs in other fields than CS.

Are they able to submit these publications for their CS department's REF return? And how are the publications assessed if JIF norms are different for the fields where they have been collaborating?


texts: How to proceed when you are coordinating a project among several research groups and they do not contribute to the progress of the project

texts: I am principal investigator in some project that involves other research groups from other countries. When I was writing the proposal, I asked them if they would like to joint the project, and they agreed. I wrote everything, all paperwork, etc. Now, 6 months after the project has been officially started, they are not contributing in any way to the project, only attending project meetings where they talk about their universities, but nothing about the project. I am really annoyed because the situation. From my point of view they should get involved, as my group does. Before asking them directly for the last time in probably in an unpolite way if they will do their assigned part, how would you proceed here?


texts: What is the difference between Abstract, conclusion and summary?

texts:
The above question is self explanatory, still I would like to break it into two parts.

Q1. What is the difference between abstract and summary/conclusion?

Q2. What is the difference between summary and conclusion ?

Thanks