texts: Are translators of mathematical texts into English in demand?

texts: Are translators of mathematical texts (books or articles or whatever) from a foreign language into English in demand today? Specifically, I'm interested in German and Russian. If they are, then what kind of organizations (or what specific organizations) are interested in such translators? Do people working for those organizations usually combine the translation job with a teaching and/or research job?


texts: Is it impolite to not to respond to professors' replying email asap?

texts:
I emailed to a professor about a research question. In most cases I reply to them asap. In some scenarios I think I cannot do this asap because:

He asked me a very difficult question that takes a long time to get an answer.
I don't have any further questions for now. But I might have them in the future.
He does not show any interests on me. He's response is professional yet short (little interests). He does not ask me any questions. I don't have too much to say.

From what I read on this site, people seem to suggest that, since a professor reads thousands of emails, I should not bother to send another email unless it includes a considerable amount of new information.
However, my advisor told the contrary: to show respects, I should almost always send the last email: professors can ignore me but I cannot ignore them. For example, in case 1 I can say that "I will spend more time on this problem", in case 2&3 I can say that “Thank you for your answers. May I email you again if I have other questions later?". My advisor said something like: although everyone is equal, there is still a hidden "hierarchy" thing: lower people are expected to show more respects and do more works to maintain the relationships. I think he is trying to be honest here.
What is the standard etiquette in USA?


texts: Does it look better on graduate school applications if I'm getting a M.S.?

texts:
I am going to be a rising junior (undergrad), and I plan on applying to graduate school in mathematics. Our school offers the opportunity to get a B.S./M.S. in math, or simply a math B.S. To get a B.S./M.S., I'd have to sacrifice some courses outside of math (like english, history, etc.) in order to take more graduate math classes (need 8 total). I'd still plan on taking graduate courses even with the B.S., but it would probably be around 5-7 instead of the 8 needed.
In terms of graduate school admissions, would this matter at all? It seems to me that there's probably not too much of a difference given that they would see the coursework anyways. But who knows, maybe given the fact that there's so little time spent on each application, that having a M.S. would be just enough to stand out and have a name remembered.
EDIT: United States - sorry about that!


texts: Article with unspecified-but-present authorship ("consensus document")

texts:
I'd like to properly refrence an article whose author is mentioned as A Consensus Document (it has some 25 authors).

I have never seen this kind of authorship before; the citation entry generated by the website does not contain an "Author" field (which is problematic for BibTeX and somewhat intriguing on a personal level).

I don't know what would be appropriate to remedy this situation. Would adding an author such as Consensus Document make sense?

Otherwise, could I just add the first author in alphabetical order1, or would this misrepresent the authorship?

Another possible alternative is that, since one of the authors (not the first one in alphabetical order) wrote a foreword to the paper, maybe he could be considered as the first author instead?

1 The authors are only presented in alphabetical order.


texts: I'm an undergrad and have been looking at my professors' CVs. While some of them went straight from earning their undergraduate degree to earning their PhD (which is what I was thinking of doing since it seems more direct), I noticed several of them first earned a master's degree in pure math after finishing undergrad, then went to another institution to earn their PhD. I was wondering if there are any overall benefits/drawbacks to earning a master's degree at one school and then entering a PhD program at another, versus jumping straight into a PhD program?


texts: I received an allegation of academic misconduct from my university. What should I do?

texts:
I wrote an exam a couple of months ago and I recently received an email accusing me of academic misconduct. I had just finished my first year of university and this is the first time that I am receiving a letter of this kind.
One of the long answers that I had written matched an answer that was posted online on a homework solutions website.
Now due to Covid-19, this exam was an online open-book exam, I had interpreted the open book exam to mean that we could have our notes and our lecture slides with us. The weeks leading to the exam, I had searched up practice questions online and had written and solved them out on paper to have with me during the exam just in case a similar question came up.
Sure enough one of the practice questions that I had was very similar to the one on the exam. Thus, I had an easy time answering it and pretty much reused what I had written on my notes. I don't think that's cheating if I only looked at my notes on an open book exam. Also, the exam had a lot of math calculations and conclusion statements to go with it. Most questions like this have similar steps/conclusions.
I had contacted a student advocate to help me with my case and I'm supposed to write an opening statement to present to a meeting with the dean of the department.
The evidence against me seems very strong. If I am found guilty, I would get an F on the class and be suspended from taking courses for the months of May-August. But, I am already in the process of finishing 4-5 classes this summer. I am distressed that all of my money and hard work would all be wasted.
Is my evidence sufficient? What other evidence could I use to prove that I didn't commit academic misconduct? What should I write on my opening statement?
Clarifications:

I sifted through his emails regarding the final, and this was what he had written: "Open-Book final exam. Despite the final exam being open-book you still need to be well prepared otherwise- you will not have enough time to finish the exam if you spend a lot of time looking through your notes." No other explanations were provided. Perhaps it was my fault that I didn't ask for clarifications and just assumed.
My notes and the solutions were very similar, but the conclusion was different. I had tried to solve the problem on my own, but referenced the solution when I got stuck.


texts: How to effectively e-mail a professor I met briefly about collaborative work?

texts:
Recently in a conference, I met a professor from an esteemed university and head of a research group I have been following. I told him about my research and he gave me his email address (though I could easily find it over the web, he personally wrote it down for me). He told me to write to him and he will direct me to his post-doc and see how we can collaborate. His research group has some testing facilities I would love to work with.

The following is the email I am aiming to write to him. Any corrections and/or suggestions will be highly appreciated.

  Dear Professor XYZ,

  Hope you are doing fine. We met at ABC conference, in TTT a couple of
  days ago. I introduced myself as the PHD student at 123 University and
  expressed my willingness to work on a collaborative project with your
  research group (utilizing your practical testbed for DDD project).

  First of all, I appreciate the time you spent with me, and the opportunity
  to introduce myself, my research, and my interest in utilizing your
  testing facilities. Second, I would like your advice on how I can further proceed to initiate a collaboration between your research facilities and our RRR research group.

  I will wait for your reply.

  Thanks again,

  Kashan


texts: Can I present a conference paper if I am not a researcher?

texts: My graduate program is a non-research based. However, I am interested in writing and presenting a conference paper. Is it possible for me to do this even as I am not into research work?


texts: How are copyright transfers for a journal article done?

texts:
Almost a year back, I have submitted a manuscript for a Journal as a research article, and after almost 11 months and after undergoing two rounds of peer review and referee suggested revisions, I finally got an acceptance letter. After getting acceptance, I thought I would receive a letter to sign a copyright agreement and asking my permission to transfer the rights for publication, but to my surprise I did not get any such letter. I then read the copyright document on the Journal's website (under instructions for authors segment, one is supposed to read even before submitting a manuscript) and found that as per the document the copyrights laws are automatically transferred once the manuscript gets accepted, and come into force from the day of getting the acceptance letter. Is this quite a common thing with Journals. The Journal is although not a top journal but fairly reasonable and from a fairly known publisher and I am sure its not a fake or predatory. There are no charges for authors whats so ever.

Question : Can the copyrights be transferred without the author explicitly signing (electronically or otherwise) any document to that effect?


texts:
I'm a third-year PhD student. First year, due to my ill health and lack of command over the subject research progress was slow. My second year, I picked up well but still no clarity over the research problem.

After secnd year, on a monthly basis my supervisor asked if I am interested or not, and said things like "You have improved but within three months if I don't see immense progress I'll give you a master's and get rid of you."

I'm interested and trying really hard to keep up to them. These questions demotivate me regularly even though I'm still confident. With this state of mind, working has become difficult.

If I get masters, it'll be of no use since I'm already a Post-graduate. How do I make this situation better?


texts: What to put in "affiliation" field when submitting paper without affiliation?

texts:
Recently my paper is reviewed (by a professor from independent third party) and accepted by a journal. But, my employer allows me to publish this paper only without its name there.

Publishing house is expecting affiliation for each author, i.e. I can not leave affiliation as blank.

What should I write as the affiliation?


texts: One First author paper, what are my prospects in academia?

texts: I completed my PhD about a year ago and I'm currently one year into my post-doc. I had a first author in a mid-level journal and have only one citation to date. I also published a chapter in a textbook but I don't know how much weight that holds. While there are prospects of getting some data published at the end of my post-doc, it is probable that these would still be in press at the time or may not even get published at all. I'm pretty worried about the low citation index of my paper. I know I'm not ready to apply for a fellowship yet but what are my chances of nailing another post-doc.


texts: Reviewer of PhD thesis doesn't allow me to write in the first person singular

texts:
In my PhD thesis, I often used the first person singular during the description of the problem and the discussion of the results. One comment from the reviewer states that because I did not use the third person, the entire thesis must be revised accordingly.

I understand that in a journal article one should use the third person to describe the problem and discuss the findings. However, I always supposed that one can use the first person in a PhD thesis because I saw many researchers doing so. Could anybody give me a suggestion about how to deal with the reviewer who doesn't accept my choice to write in the first person?


texts: Can you get hired where you received your phd?

texts: I really like the institution where I'm working on my PhD, and I enjoy the city that I live in. I have shown that I am a strong research, and I am really starting to make a name for myself. I was wondering if people ever really get recruited for a tenure position at the institution where the received their PhD. (I don't go to one of the top 5 universities where they kind of have no choice but to recruit from within.)


texts: Is it normal for a PhD program to retract or delay financial offer for international student?

texts:
I am an international student and about a week ago emailed my top-choice PI about the current status of my PhD application (top-50 university in USA). He said, that he is going to offer me a position with full funding via "graduate student researcher" assistantship.

Next day I have received a letter of acceptance. The email says "we are unable to guarantee you financial support at this time", blah - blah, please contact your department. I have contacted dept and PI, they say everything is OK, my program offers funding for everyone, I will get stipend and GSRship with full funding. Ok, I have accepted this offer officially.

But until now they refuse to tell me my exact salary and now i do not have any financial certificate, I do not know my GSR appointment, I do not know anything. I asked them to give me any financial document because I need one to apply for my visa, but instead they tell "you will get about 1,5-2k$ stipend, everything will be ok".

Ok, now I have to apply for I-20 and I can not do this because I do not have financial certificate for my first year in the program. The grad coordinator does not answer my email.

So, is it normal? What should I do? I am just waiting like an idiot because I even can't find housing (because I do not know anything about my funding)? I have rejected another offer (with official TA contract, which was attached to the acceptance letter). As I believe, they can just tell me something like "oops, we don't have funding offer for you" and I will search for another job outside academia.


texts: Does anyone monitor/support public-sector scientists?

texts:
The government science sector is relatively small, but when you add up all the state and national departments and related organisations, it's a lot of people doing a lot of science.

Despite the strategic importance of public sector science, as far as I know there is no group responsible for the sector as a whole. It is no one’s job to support, connect or speak out for the highly diverse, often committed but sometimes isolated workforce within the government science sector. It is no one’s job to keep track of the sector, to share knowledge and work towards practical resolution of shared issues. This stands in contrast to the relatively well-organised, represented and funded science in academia. (Note that public sector jobs can be well paid and secure)

I would like to know if there are any organisations, initiatives or resources aimed at a) monitoring or b) supporting government (public sector) scientists, in any country.

One excellent example is the UK's Government Science and
Engineering profession. Well worth a look.
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/civil-service-government-science-engineering

What do I mean by government / public sector scientist?

is not employed by a university or college (what I think of as academia)
employed within executive arm of government, often a department e.g. Dept of Environment, Dept of Health, Dept of Agriculture
spends subtantial amount of job conducting research
generally not rewarded by academic measures of success and so in some sense decoupled from academic career structures (not saying this is good or bad)

What do I mean by monitoring?

Keeping statistics and recording trends in number employed, discipline, funding, salaries, career paths, impact on public good or economy etc (while not perfect, there seems to be many reports and organisations tasked with tracking these kinds of things in academia and private sector R&D)

What do I mean by support?

The kind of work done by national academies of science (e.g. AAAS in the US, the Australian Academy of Science, the Royal Society in the UK) and disciplinary societies, professional bodies and the like. Note that their work may or may not be relevant to government scientists, but it is generally not targeted at them. Can anyone share an example of work by a body like this that is specifically targeted to government scientists?
Initiatives, policies, resources aimed at supporting career development and tackling issues. For example just about every university/college and many departments and institutes within them will have their own set of policies, initiatives and resources targeted to early career researchers, whether it's developing writing and publication skills, grant application training, outreach skills, building a career plan, finding a mentor etc.
An issue is that university and college resources, and the staff within them, are often active in the public domain. There are probably a lot of resources out there but government scientists may not be encouraged/authorised to have a public presence and their departments may not prioritise sharing what may be seen as internal resources with the general public.


texts: What fraction of theoretical computer science researchers work on quantum computation?

texts: I know that the theoretical computer science aspect of quantum computation was a very niche subject until the 1994 discovery of Shor's algorithm, which lead to a huge increase of interest in the topic. Very roughly, what fraction of theoretical computer science researchers in a typical CS department have published any research on quantum computation or quantum complexity theory? Is it a big part of the field of TCS today, or is still considered a rather niche subject?


texts: Why does NIH study section website robot.txt disallow search?

texts:
NIH posts their study section members who review grants online (e.g. Aging Systems and Geriatrics Study Section (ASG)'s roster is provided here). I was trying to search the study sections to find whether a particular reviewer served as a study section member. However, this is not easy, because their website does not provide a search function that does this (as far as I can tell), and the website NIH study section rosters that contain grant reviewer names disallow search engines from crawling and indexing them via robots.txt.

http://internet.csr.nih.gov/robots.txt

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Clearly, I can do a manual search by going to each page and finding if any of the study section contains the name I'm looking for, or manually make a database for personal use.

What are the possible rationales for disallowing search engine indexing reviewers?


texts: Failed to achieve intended project outcome, what to put on design fair poster?

texts:
I have been working on an ultrasonic transducer technology for a while now. This project involves a very novel components that has not yet been established to work. Because of the novelty of this project, there were a lot of difficulty, and with the schools' design fair looming, our team have encountered a very delicate issue with power consumption which will require some time to find a solution.

So what the team has done is to apply a common, industry standard approach you can find anyone on the Internet. In essence, the novelty of this project is gone and has became something anyone could do.

We are a little unsure as to what we should demonstrate for the design fair. On the one hand we can show the technology working, but our poster has to reflect that it is nothing novel (in fact has been done in the year prior) and all components are off of the shelve. On the other hand we can show an incomplete project with the intended novel technique on the poster, but without anything to show for.

What should we do in this case?


texts: How to answer your boss's question about your impression on the progress of a project that you took part in as a newcomer appropriately?

texts:
I work in Germany. After a group meeting of 5 about a project that I took part in, my professor asked me how do I think about the project progress. I had the impression that we might not meet the deadline, but I think that as a newcomer, it is not appropriate for me to say so. So I just told him what I am going to do for the project.
Would there be any cultural differences in dealing with this (e.g. Asian country vs. Germany)? (Would the answer be different if I am in a non-academic field?)


texts:
I am interested in taking up a postdoctoral position in a UK institution. The appointment details write:

  Appointment will be on a Fixed Term Contract for 3 years and with a
  starting salary in the range of £29,517 to £42,187 p.a. inclusive
  dependent on postdoctoral experience.  It is anticipated that the
  starting salary will be in the range from £29,517 to £33,740 p.a.
  inclusive.

I just started a family and I will need ~£36,000 p.a. to break even when calculating living costs in UK (London).
Is it reasonable to negotiate for a ~£36,000 p.a. salary? (I know it is somewhat on the high side but not insane by UK standards.)
It is reasonable to apply in such a position and explain that I will expect an substantial increase (~10%) in my salary within my first year of employment if I start around the £32-33,000 mark?

I do not want to waste my time or theirs on this matter but clearly my cover letter is not a place to put this concern forward. I also think ill of the idea of e-mailing a potential hiring manager/team lead with queries about a salary raise right off the bat.

The USA-based post-doctoral appointment I currently hold pays ~£40,000 p.a. I do not mean to sound like a money-grubber; I am genuinely interested in the position and I think I will be a great fit for that team but I do not want to endure a ~20% pay-cut.


texts: How should multiple Harvard references with same first author but different coauthors be made?

texts:
This question was written by a friend of mine. I'm helping them by posting it here, with permission.
How should I use the name-year referencing system (loosely speaking, the Harvard system) in such cases where there are multiple works that have the same first author but a different set of coauthors?
In such cases where the maximum number of authors among all articles sharing the same first author is not more than three, or perhaps four, the solution is very simple. Just mention them all inline and use the reference list as usual. E.g. the following:

"... the complex formation was observed by Miller and Nelson (1991)"
"... cf. Miller, Nelson and Byrne (1993)"

However, if there are more authors in any of the articles, this gets quite tricky, since listing a huge number of authors inline is definitely not an option to me. I'd rather change to number references.
Now, making the references unambiguous is not a problem. For instance, the following references could be addressed to inline as "Barton et al." without in any way losing the one-to-one relation between inline citations and reference list entries. That is, the articles are differentiated, as the other is "Barton et al. (1980)" and the other "Barton et al. (1985)".

Barton, D. H. R.; Crich, D.; Potier, P. (1985). "On the mechanism of the decarboxylative rearrangement of thiohydroxamic esters". Tetrahedron Lett. 26, 5943.
Barton, D. H. R.; Dowlatshahi, H. A.; Motherwell, W. B.; Villemin, D. V. (1980). "A New Radical Decarboxylation Reaction for the Conversion of Carboxylic Acids into Hydrocarbons". J. Chem. Soc. Chem. Commun., p. 732.

What really is the problem is the alphabetical order in which the references should be sorted in the reference list. If the articles listed above are referred to just as "Barton et al.", the reader does not know the exact position in the reference list where to find the articles.
One solution might be just ignoring this slight complication.
Other solution is to use "et al" in the reference list, too, if absolutely necessary. Thus, in the example above, the first article would be referred to as "Barton, Crich and Potier (1985)" inline, and the latter as "Barton et al. (1980)".
In the reference list, they would be expressed and arranged according to the inline cites:

Barton, D. H. R.; Crich, D.; Potier, P. (1985). "On the mechanism of the decarboxylative rearrangement of thiohydroxamic esters". Tetrahedron Lett. 26, 5943.
Barton, D. H. R. et al. (1980). "A New Radical Decarboxylation Reaction for the Conversion of Carboxylic Acids into Hydrocarbons". J. Chem. Soc. Chem. Commun., p. 732.

Any other recommendations?
Please don't suggest Google, since I did not find an answer after 30 minutes of search. There are perhaps hundreds of "Harvard citation guides" available, but I found none that addressed this problem.


texts: What to do if predatory journal won't withdraw paper after acceptance?

texts:
Last year, I’ve started an independent research in hopes to be published one day.
Fast forwarding a year (a couple of weeks ago in fact), I have finished my manuscript in which I was planning to submit it to an open access journal called Journal of Emerging Infectious Disease with OMICS. At the time, I did not know that OMICS was a predatory journal (after seeing Beall's list) and I’m at the final stages before it get published.

To clarify, my manuscript has been accepted for publishing BUT during that time, I found out that it was a predatory journal and requested that I retract my manuscript from this journal.  I did not sign anything or pay anything to OMICS. What happened was that they sent me the acceptance letter saying my manuscript got accepted for publishing. They gave me 48 hours to request any changes to the final project of the manuscript before publishing. In that 48 hours, I found out that they were a predatory journal and messaged them accordingly. At this point, I did not sign anything entailing that I sent copyrights to them or payed any fees and it's not published yet.

They advised me that they have made the DOI and it is impossible for them to retract. At this point, I did advise them that I will not approve anything going forward and that they appreciate my request to retract from the journal.

Given the story that was mentioned above, I was wondering if you have any advise on going forward and if possible, see if there is a possibility that my manuscript will not be published in this predatory journal? I was extremely shocked that these type of practices by journals existed and extremely glad I caught this before accepting anything to be published. I greatly appreciate any advise you will give and hope to hear from you soon.


texts: Is it legal and ethical to post my notes of a conference I am attending on my website?

texts: I'm due to attend a conference soon, and plan to take notes on the talks I attend. My note-taking software of choice (org-mode) can easily export to HTML. Is it legal to post my notes on my website? Is it ethical?


texts: Is a “professional journal” a “scholary journal”?

texts:
Can someone please explain to me the difference between a professional journal and a scholarly journal?

I have done some research, and from what I gather, a professional journal is a type of scholarly journal (a subset, if you will).
I lost marks in my essay for using a professional journal, and not a scholarly journal.
The database I used to find the journal (provided by the university) indicated that I was using an article filed under scholarly journal.

Can someone please shed some light on this situation, simply because I do not want to make the same mistake again. I do not care if I am wrong, I genuinely want to just find out the answer.


texts: first round submission VS second round submission in academic conferences

texts:
I submitted a paper for an academic conference, and I have been accepted but the reviewer asked for modifications. But I am confused on when I should send the final paper (it's not specified on the notification of acceptance)

Here's what it's written in the conference website:

2nd Round Submissions:

Paper Submission: 30 August 2018

Decision Notification: 15 September 2018

Author Registration & Final Paper: 25 September 2018

1st Round Submissions:

Paper Submission: 10 July 2018

Decision Notification: 10 August 2018

Author Registration & Final Paper: 10 September 2018

So, do I send the final paper 10 September 2018 or 30 august 2018? Thank you!


texts: What will be the research methodology if you are developing a generic software

texts:
I'm developing a generic software for the unorganised retail sector. The design is completely based on the literature review that has been conducted. The only problem is that since I'm not doing any interviews or surveys, what research methodology should I follow ? It can't be qualitative or quantitative. The end result is just the developed software.
The aim is to study why the unorganised retail is behind than the organised one. And the solution is to present a software for them to use to help in decision making. It's completely based on literature and no surveys or interviews were conducted.


texts: Dealing with intern supervisor who underestimates my abilities

texts:
I am an undergraduate student who got into a voluntary internship for a year in my department.

Without going into much detail, I'm a trainee in the lab where programming lessons are held with lots of computers available for the students(Teaching Lab).

The main problem of concern is that my supervisor, who also happens to be the administrator of the lab, does not seem to believe in my abilities and underestimates my intelligence, which I can't understand why.

When I signed up for the internship I submitted my resume, followed by a short interview from the university. I can say I got the job easily mainly due to my background.

I was hoping that I was going to work on something productive, like a research project. On the contrary, my supervisor seems to be very lazy and constantly assigns chores to me (cleaning, being his personal mailman on the university etc).

At the start since he found out I was bored he suggested to study some basic HTML (Fact is, I worked as a professional web developer some time ago!). If I reply that the tasks he sets for me are easy, he gets mad and tries to get me wrong so that he can show that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Professors who knew me before and visited the lab asked my supervisor to offer me some motivation for extended bibliography and some more productive learning. He answered that if I have the right foundations then we can negotiate for something more productive! (Yet, he only has one paper, published 20 years ago).

What are your opinions on this? I was about to withdraw due to boredom but I only have some months left. Should I talk to a professor about this topic? Am I expecting too much or am overqualified?


texts: Tenure-track application: how important is the area of preference?

texts:
I'm applying for tenure-track positions in mathematics in the US, and I'm seeing some ads with a specified area of preference, which says "preference will be given to the candidates in area XXX".

Is it worth it to apply even if I'm not in these areas? Do the applications even get looked at? I would like to hear from people who have served on hiring committees.


texts: Extra question for specific students on test/quiz

texts:
While this may seem unfair intuitively, I want to know whether if it is fair for a professor to have an extra question for specific students in the class.

A little background: In a calculus class, 3 out of a 16 ish students have taken calculus before at their high school, but the university requires them to take a similar class as per the university's rules. The professor knew that they had calculus, and so, during a quiz, he assigned them an extra question, and everyone else didn't have that question on their paper.

Now, it wasn't an extra credit problem, yet, it was graded as a normal problem.

So my question is, can the professor exclude those specific group of students and assign them an extra problem on a test or a quiz?


texts: Is it normal for an advisor to expect >80 hour workweeks from PhD students, and threaten them with dismissal?

texts:
My advisor always keeps pointing out that I should have publications and I should keep working and stuff like that. Recently he's been saying that not all student will finish Ph.D. and you should be careful not to be kicked out. He has this notion that Ph.D. students should work more than 80 hours per week on regular basis and near deadlines even they should cut off from their sleep time. I get the idea that he wants to encourage me and I also know that as a Ph.D student I need to have publications.

Is this type of behavior common among most advisors? Is it common for Ph.D. students to be expected to not have a life and just work? And finally do all advisors keep threatening their students like this?

I'm currently a second year computer science student. I've been accepted by the department, not a specific faculty member. Also my funding is coming from TAship not his grant.  I'm not sure if I should start looking for another advisor, because I'm not sure whether the behavior I have described is normal.


texts: How to diagnose problems in a paper rejected in pre-review?

texts:
Two weeks after sending my manuscript to a journal, it was rejected in the pre-review stage and hence, there were no comments from reviewers about problems with the paper.

Can poor scientific writing be the reason for this fast rejection?
What do editors do in the pre-review stage?
How can I diagnose problems with a rejected paper?

  Thank you for submitting your article to AIDS.

  Unfortunately, your paper did not receive a high enough priority
  rating, and the Editors have decided that it should not be accepted
  for publication in AIDS.

  Decisions regarding acceptance of papers in AIDS are made in reference
  to the Editors pre-review and also in relation to the standard of
  other papers submitted. Our rejection rate is more than 70% and to
  save time the Editors of the Journal collectively evaluate submissions
  and consider whether a panel of other reviewers should review the
  article by determining if it would be of high enough interest to be
  selected for publication. On this occasion the Editors assessed your
  article without asking for formal reviews. There are therefore no
  reviewers' comments.

  Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your work. We
  regret that we cannot publish your paper at this time, but we hope
  that you will consider submitting future papers to AIDS.


texts: Where should a question mark be placed in a short citation?

texts:
According to Modern Language Association (MLA) norms we should use punctuation marks after the page number, within parentheses, that follows the closing quotation mark. For example:

  According to Foulkes's study, dreams may express "profound aspects of
  personality" (184).

But what if a question mark is inherent to the quotation? Example:

  “[t]o what extent do translation theorists engage with the experience
  of translators and how are their theories shaped by what happens in
  practice?” (16)

How should this be cited? Possibilities I can see:

  “[t]o what extent do translation theorists engage with the experience
  of translators and how are their theories shaped by what happens in
  practice” (16)?

Or

  “[t]o what extent do translation theorists engage with the experience
  of translators and how are their theories shaped by what happens in
  practice?” (16).

Which one is correct?


texts:
I am planning to start running a group seminar, with talks scheduled regularly, at my institute.

The seminars might be of interest for people in neighbouring areas, too, so I would like to have an "archive" website with all the abstracts and a calendar of the upcoming seminars, and of course I'd like to send out e-mail notifications (and optionally also a RSS feed/calendar widget for the more tech-savvy users).

Is there any software or service that can help me automate some of this setup? I thought of opening a blog-type site on some hosting site, probably either Wordpress or github/Jekyll.

Do you have experience working with similar tools? Do you think they would really save me some time? Or maybe is it better if I just add a page to my academic website, send the mails manually and forget about the other fancy addons?


texts: What is the role of a thesis supervisor at the MSc level

texts: I am a first year masters student just entering the first phase of my thesis research. I am the first student that my supervisor will be taking on so it is quite a new experience for both of us. Given the context of the relationship, I am curious to what extent a thesis supervisor ought to play in the development of the student and in contrast what are some tangible things I could be doing to contribute to this relationship as well to aid in my own development? My objective is to not have my hand held (too much) because I really want to strive for research autonomy eventually and produce quality research. I am however worried that maybe i'll spend too much time on learning something relevant, but not as crucial, to the research and not fully recognize that


texts: How can I tell if software solutions to my labs are posted online?

texts:
I just had a student inform me that software solutions to my labs (I teach a course in microcontrollers using the ATmega328P) is available on Chegg. She was uncomfortable giving me any further details. She's a very trustworthy student and I don't have any reason to doubt the veracity of the information that she gave me.

I did a lot of searching and was unable to find anything relating to my labs. I searched for my class number, my last name, the name of the course, the name of the college, and didn't find anything. I even tried searching for strings of text that contain the problem statement for a couple (but not all) of the lab questions.

How can I confirm this?


texts: How to minimize cheating while running a computer-based quiz?

texts:
I will be teaching a course that has a significant programming component.
I would like to evaluate students' programming skills
using a computer-based quiz/exam,
because it seems to me that this is a better way
to evaluate students' programming skills than a paper-based quiz/exam,
given that in the real world,
people write code on a computer, not on paper.

Unfortunately, I have never attended a quiz/exam
where programming was done on a computer,
and the computer was connected to the Internet.
(I think I did take a computer-based SAT or GRE exam many years ago,
but I don't think the computer was connected to the Internet.)
I am worried that in a computer-based setting,
students may be tempted to cheat
using e-mail or Internet messaging software.
Is there a reasonable setup that I could use
that allows students to work on the computer,
and submit their work online,
while limiting the ability of the students to use Internet communication?


texts: How to expedite? Compensation? University still hasn't provided alternative formats after 9 months

texts:
Facts
My visually impaired brother attends university ("UNI") in England. In Jul 2017, he requested Alternative Formats. As of Apr 11 2018, UNI's Library still hasn't contacted the publishers, but avowed that they probably can by May 1. They haven't explained this 8-month stonewall. Still without PDFs, he deferred exams to Aug 2018.
The Chief Librarian emailed that he must wait patiently for the publishers to email the Library the PDFs, which can take weeks and will delay him further.
We filed a formal complaint, but UNI denied wrongdoing and any financial compensation. The Student Union uselessly couldn't help.
Questions

How can he convince the university to expedite?

How ought he seek compensation? We worry that litigation may offend them and make them victimize my brother. But haven't they infringed Consumer Rights Act 2015 s 52?

(2) In that case the contract is to be treated as including a term that the trader must perform the service within a reasonable time.
(3) What is a reasonable time is a question of fact.


texts: What to write in first mail to a role-model researcher for PhD position?

texts: I have been following a researcher since last three years and have read all most all of his research papers (whichever is freely available). At the same time, I have been continuously upgrading my skills as per his research profile. I have got only one chance to prove my worth. What should I write in the e-mail, should I express my self or proceed as per normal formal applicant?


texts: Can a bad job as referee influence submissions to the same journal?

texts:
Having done a bad/inaccurate/sloppy referee report or being a bad referee for a high-ranking journal can influence the acceptance of a paper submitted to the same journal?

In other words, when submitting a paper, do editors take into account the past reviews of the paper's authors to decide whether the paper is publishable or not?


texts: Telling PhD supervisor I published a paper about my thesis without telling them or listing them as authors?

texts:
I am in my 3rd year of PhD. In my program, it is a requirement for PhD students to graduate with a paper that is published in a Scopus Index journal.

Before I entered, and during my PhD, I had already published a few papers to a Scopus index peer reviewed journal (for topics not based on my thesis). At the moment, I am trying to publish a paper as a part of my thesis (with my supervisors' names), but my supervisors keep criticizing the paper and making me rewrite it again and again. This has been going on for two years.

However, I did submit another paper (a part of my thesis) under my own name and without my supervisors' knowledge, and it was accepted. This paper was done without any intellectual contributions from my supervisors - no writing or reviewing. When I told my supervisors about the paper (but not its acceptance,) they were angry that I hadn't included their names, and they asked me to include their names in it. Unfortunately, the editor said I couldn't as I had submitted it initially as one author only.

I am aware that it is my fault that I didn't ask them beforehand, but I know in my heart that if I had included them, it would have taken months or years to even get their approval. In all honesty, they would have ended up demotivating me. I am now really scared to tell them that it has already been published and I cannot add their names.

Can you give me any advice how to handle this situation?


texts: I got a paper to review from a journal that had rejected my earlier works, how to respond?

texts:
Recently, I got a paper to review for a journal (Elsevier) which is very reputed. The fact is that this journal had rejected two of my earlier works after keeping it under review for more than a year approximately.

I understand that in science, it is good to forget the past; however, it still keeps me haunted when I think that my works became obsolete because of unnecessary delay in the review process that resulted in no satisfactory comment on rejection.

Is it weird that the journal is now thinking that I am capable of reviewing a manuscript?

Anyway, past apart, how should I respond? Should I accept the review invitation? Or, should I just say that I can't do the review, which will be like Tit-For-Tat. I don't know, I am confused.


texts: Is it ethical for schools to offer merit scholarships, when these are more difficult for students from some socioeconomic backgrounds to get?

texts:
To illustrate - students with low income perform worse relative to their more privileged peers, and when a low income student is trying to get an education, she has to foot a far larger bill (she doesn't earn the merit scholarships).

If you just look at the amount of rich kids that get full rides because they're good at school, it undermines the merit argument. The current model seems to work again to the idea of social mobility, which we take for granted, by burdening poor people with more student debt.

Is this assessment correct and if so, is it a justifiable educational model?


texts: Can I correct a typo in my published paper if it doesn't affect content?

texts:
I discovered a minor error (essentially a typo) in one of my recent publications. It would not be noticed by most readers. It does not affect the content of the article and does not require an erratum or corrigendum. According to the editor, it is no longer possible to correct the error. Although many people would ignore the error, I think that there must be a better way to solve the problem.

My preliminary idea is to use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC (or equivalent software) to correct the error and upload it to a professional website or cloud storage service. I could either correct the error outright (which would not draw attention to the change I’ve made) or use the strikeout text tool to correct the error (which would make it obvious what I have changed). On my CV, I would include a hyperlink to the corrected article that I have uploaded. The link could be accompanied by some text indicating that I’m linking to a corrected version of the article, or not.

Finally, because this is an open-access article, I don’t anticipate any copyright issues associated with uploading the article or linking to it on my CV.

What is the best course of action here?


texts: what is the best software for drawing mechanical mechanism?

texts:
I want a software which I can use to draw mechanisms like this picture:

Update:
the author told me that : "the figure was made in Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator by tracing the hand-drawn kinematic diagrams."


texts: USA (or worldwide) Equivalent of H2020-ITN program

texts:
I am involved in the preparation of a project proposal. If you are from Europe and you do research the chances are high that you have heard of the Horizon 2020 (H2020) programme. For the ones who are not from Europe or don't know,  H2020 is the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020), more info here.

This programme, like many others,  is divided into different sections and specific calls. One of them is the Innovative Training Network (ITN) call.

The Innovative Training Networks (ITN) aim to train a new generation of creative, entrepreneurial and innovative early-stage researchers, able to face current and future challenges and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit.

Basically, if the project proposal gets accepted you can have funding for several PhD students located at different universities or industries in Europe and you can do research on a common macro-topic (e.g., Automotive, Medical Robotics, Skin Cancer). There will be exchanges between research laboratories and workshops/trainings activities.

My question is: by reading the description above, do you know about any program like that in USA or anywhere else outside of Europe?

So far, I found only this programme (based in USA).

Thanks in advance.


texts: Taking undergraduate course by a graduate student, officially?

texts:
I am supposed to start my graduate studies (M.A.Sc.) at a university in Ontario, Canada, soon. My potential research theme (as I've talked about it with my supervisor) does need to some background in chaos dynamics & fractal geometry... I've tracked the host university and could not find any related course, planned by either of the departments... So, I just tried to check the other universities, in the neighborhood, for finding any related course to be take it, as a guest student, based on the policies.

One fully-related course has been found, presented in the other university, named "Chaos & Fractals"... But it is an undergraduate course...!

All this said, Does any body know whether I will be authorized to take an undergraduate course as a graduate student (to be counted among my required credits, of course) or not?!

Thanks in advance


texts: Cost/Benefit of transfering from Masters to PhD mid-program

texts:
I am about 8 months into a Masters program. My advisor just asked me to consider transferring into a PhD program with him. If accepted, the work I have done towards my Masters would count towards the PhD. Also he said that if I struggle in the PhD it would still be possible to revert back to the Masters, so there seems to be very little risk.

My end goal was always to work towards a PhD and often felt overwhelmed by the length of time and resources it would take. So this opportunity seems too good to be true? I get to skip 2 years of work and fast track towards my goal of PhD? Is it common to skip the Masters, or is this opportunity actually quiet valuable? I want to have a proper view of the costs and the benefits before making any decisions, so I am looking for views I am not considering.

As an example of a perceived cost, I don't consider the institution I am at to be particularly well known/quality and assumed my choice of institution for my PhD would be much more important and I would go for more prestige. Is this a valid concern?


texts: How to inform the editor that they sent me the wrong PDF attachment?

texts:
I received an email before three weeks which informs me that my paper is accepted for publication but some changes must be made.
(The changes are some spacing issues, or  "put more references" etc.)

In editorial management system they uploaded a PDF attachment in which I was supposed to find all the details.

The problem is, the PDF contains corrections concerning an article which is not mine!

At the beginning, I uploaded a revised version of the paper with comments referring to the problem, but the editors's response was:

  "Your most recent revision failed to address some of the comments on
  the marked up version of the document I sent you.  These minor items
  should be fixed..."

  "For example, some of the things that appeared in the previous
  revision and were not changed include :page 1;line 7; ..."

  "I don't want to repeat the work that I did previously.  You still
  have access to the file.  Upon submission of a revised manuscript,
  please include the LaTeX source..."

Which means that the editor did not even see my comments.
The next day I sent another mail  explaining the problem but I did not receive an answer.
After 5 days I sent another mail to the editor's personal account.
(But, no response again)
My revision is due by 2016.08.12.
What should I do?


texts: How to efficiently plan holidays in academia?

texts:
It is holiday season, so I thought of re-considering my ways of holiday planning.

As a student, holidays in academia are somewhat shaped by the semester breaks and the lecture-free period. Working in academia things are slightly different. One still has to be available during the lecture times, also account for the deadlines and additional tasks.

Each time I want to plan some holiday, I remember my yearly tasks, and then I see that I don't have time to relax. Work seems to never end, I have to stay there in the office and prepare the exercises, work on the project, write paper etc. etc.

There is clearly something wrong with this, and I want to change it. But, I don't know how to distribute my holidays throughout the year, because I've been used to working all time. How often should I take holidays?

I know this question is somewhere between workplace and academia. And I know it also may provoke many opinion-based answers. But, I would like to know the different approaches from the more experienced people.


texts: Is it bad to apply for a job immediately after it was posted?

texts:
I am applying for jobs on mathjobs.org, and I regularly refresh the new postings page.

Sometimes I see jobs that I want to apply for right away, but I am not sure if it looks bad.  I am worried about coming across as desperate or I am trying for the shotgun effect.

Does it look bad to apply for a job soon after it was posted?

What I mean by "soon" is the day it was posted or a few days after.


texts: Can refusing to attend mandatory Title IX training be grounds for suspending a tenured faculty member?

texts:
In the US all the universities that receive federal funding must ensure (or so I heard) that all their employees and students take one class about the Title IX law, concerning sexual harassment and related subjects. Can refusing to attend these classes be a motive for firing or suspending a tenured member of faculty? Is there precedent of tenured faculty being fired for this?

[I ask the question not for myself, but because at my university (Brandeis), the administration has decided on its own to add to include in the title IX course a new "racial awareness" training that I find highly objectionable. Before encouraging others to boycott these trainings, I would like to know what I expose them to.]


texts: Separate books from papers in bibliography of a paper

texts:
Is there some automatic way to single out the books in bibliography of a paper in IEEE format?

For example, write some program or use some functionality of some editors to find out the books mentioned in this paper with 303 references in its bibliography?


texts: Can I work on open-source projects while being a part of an academic institution?

texts:
I'm working on a software framework with the goal of creating something that is open-source, so that the scientific community can use, understand and improve it freely.

However, a little birdie told me that universities have rights to all the work we do as researchers.

How can I develop and distribute the software on a collaboration site and at the same time make sure that the university does not have rights (making it proprietary)?

Optional question -
What about the projects that are owned by other institutions, and I modify it (by making some changes to their source code) and push it to the main repository. Will my university insist on partial rights to this software if I worked on it?


texts: Should I make 2 applications to the same university

texts:
I apply for a PhD position, with my own research proposal, at one university and receive an offer already. However, as I cannot fund myself, I have to wait for the scholarship whose result will be announced at the end of April. In the mean time, a university is advertising an industrial funded PhD project whose deadline is the end of March. My background matches the requirements for the project which is quite interesting to me as well. I wonder if I should apply for a project as if I am accepted and receive a scholarship from the first offer, I have to choose one of them.

Update: I'm asking this question as I'm worried if making 2 applications to 2 supervisors from the same research group may impact the outcome of both applications, i.e. whether I receive scholarship from the first application and/or be accepted into the 2nd project. Since, I believe both supervisors are not very happy if they know about it.


texts: How to handle the plagiarism on references?

texts:
Recently I received a plagiarism report on my accepted manuscript. It is highlighted that total 25% text appeared in other sources though they are cited properly.

When I checked the report, I found ~20% text appears in references only and another ~3% text is due to the use of a long phrase "The tropical cyclone wind speed climatology". This phrase was actually very frequently used in one of my another paper. The rest ~2% text appears in introduction and methods. In methods, I had used some well known mathematical equations and related descriptions e.g. which variable denotes what.

So how to deal with this situation? How can I convince to the editor?


texts: Should PTAs be allowed to mark exam scripts?

texts:
PTA - Postgraduate Teaching Assistant

Because I love information (I'm at university, right?), I was looking through some manifestos of my department, and came across a proposal to allow PTAs to mark exam scripts. I can't remember the resulting vote (but if anyone wishes, I can look it up), but I got me thinking along the lines of "should they really be allowed"? At my university, every exam paper is written by whichever lecturer teaches us that module/part of the module, so it is down to their bias of what questions they want to put in there (which is then of course checked by some staff), and they are the ones who will know exactly what is the right and wrong answer.

However, having PTAs mark exam scripts could lead to some inconsistencies when marking scripts (even more apparent with group assignments), as they may be more lenient than the exam setter (lecturer), and some can be more harsh, even with the mark scheme provided. It may well be the case that the lecturer verifies every single exam script to see that they marked it correctly, but even then they may miss some markings here and there, and may just be too busy to even verify them.

What are the pros and cons behind this scheme? Is it unfair for the students?


texts: Is scanning a chapter from a library book illegal?

texts:
I love to visit the library and read a lot of books. However I am not particularly wealthy and consciously try to limit the number of books I buy for grad school. Besides the cost, there is a chance that the books may become obsolete to my area of work in a few years. Add to that, the space they occupy and the inconvenience caused during relocation.

I generally make notes of whatever I study and like from particular books. Sometimes though, I take a scan or photocopy of some chapters that are interesting or important from exam perspective. However suddenly it occurred to me that I may be inadvertently committing a mistake here. Is it not such scans that make it to websites that make available books for illegal download? Don't universities have explicit policies that prohibit such scans or photocopying of books?

Should I be more careful from now on with such photocopying? Is the info on whether a book can be photocopied available usually inside the book? Should I look into the university policy on this and the subsequent penalty for violators?


texts: Do you include your thesis on a "publication list"?

texts:
I am currently on the job market in an academic field (mathematics). Several of the jobs I am applying to ask for a "publication list," distinct from the CV. My CV of course lists publications, and lists my PhD thesis separately, in the "education" section, under my degree. (Per this question: Can dissertation be included in publication part in CV)

Is a separate "publication list" also supposed to include the thesis?


texts: Research before surveying the literature - is it ever a good idea?

texts:
The dominant narrative on how research "should be" done is to begin with a literature survey and then make your own contribution.

But I get the impression that it often happens the other way around - at least in fields such as CS where the cost of knocking some lines of code together is low (compared to, say, a 3 year medical testing programme).  Creativity knows no rules.

The obvious risk of this approach is that the research is subsequently found to be old hat, or better versions of the same thing exist already, or it commits an error already widely known in the field.
The reward, on the other hand, is that such creation might never have happened if the requirement of surveying the literature first was always met.  (Indeed some grad students have been known to quit before finishing the lit review their supervisor asked for - maybe they'd have done better if allowed to exercise their creative nature first?).

So I would conclude that it's an acceptable strategy when the individual is happy with that risk/reward balance (provided they already know enough about what they're doing to have some inspiration in the first place, that is).

Are there other arguments/perspectives I've missed here?

UPDATE

There are a lot of very good answers here and there is no one right answer.  I'm not quite sure how to handle that.  In my experience this is the kind of thing that tends to lead to questions being closed as "not constructive" on SE sites.  I'm glad nobody has done so yet because I think the full range of opinions expressed below is a very worthwhile thing to read through.  Thanks all for your contributions.


texts: Collaborating (online) with researchers from other institutes/countries

texts: I am a first year graduate student in a completely theoretical field. How does one go about collaborating online or otherwise with researchers from other institutes/universities? In particular, if I am interested in a problem or an area which is not very well represented at my current institution, how do I approach researchers from other institutes to start a collaboration assuming I have the basic background to start research? Should I have a very particular problem/idea in mind while contacting a potential collaborator, or is it unusual if I approach a researcher just because I am interested in his work and would like to learn more and work on it with no particular problem in mind?


texts: Should one credit the paper that referred him to primary sources?

texts:
Let's assume that I stumble upon a paper by author X where he cites ideas of A, B and C. Now I know about the rules of secondary sources and how I should cite them in case I haven't taken a look at the primary sources. But if I do track down the primary sources by myself and cite them instead, should I, somehow, credit author X for referring me to those ideas?

Usually when doing a review of literature, I open like 10 studies, 'harvest' a few ideas and primary sources from each and track them down. Is this a good practice? I'd still cite, if required, the 10 studies for their own information (e.g. empirical results).

EDIT: the part which may be unique is: Assume there are 20 citations in a paper. Should one feel unethical for 'harvesting' like 5-8 citations and tracking their original source without citing the intermediary source? It just feels like 'copying' since the intermediary paper 'led' one to these 5-8 citations.


texts: Math Adjunct Professor positions and salary in a big city

texts: From searching online, I see that the salaries for math adjunct professors are about 36k. That's insanely low for New York City standards. An undergraduate business school student that graduates from a decent program will make 3x more money in his first year of work than a Math Phd Adjunct Prof. My question is: What else do these adjunct professors do to make ends meet? Do they typically take on another job?  A summer job?  Work night shifts at a bar?


texts: How to navigate convincing professor to submit a letter of recommendation without falsehood

texts:
My professor has submitted a letter of recommendation for me for graduate program admissions, and has listed that I did X and Y (specific activities) under him, when I was only involved in doing X. He shared the letter with me after he submitted it, that's how I know.

I emailed him saying that I only did X and gave him info on how to submit a new letter, and his response was that if the admission committee ever calls him to check, he will clarify.

I really worry about this because 1) committees seldom check, 2) it's a falsehood that I did Y under him, 3) I think he is forgetful, and may just not remember to correct himself if they ever check, and 4) if I don't convince him to change this it would be like I am complicit in the falsehood.

He's a chill, old dude, my professor, and I don't want to rub him the wrong way by saying "We would be lying, please submit a new letter".

What's a gentle, tactful way to convince him to submit a new letter of recommendation with the correct information? Or is it okay if he clarifies if they ever call him to check?


texts: Controlled publication of an efficient factoring algorithm?

texts:
Is there a procedure in place to cover the possibility that someone might find an efficient algorithm to factor large numbers and thereby break RSA encryption? This is just an instance of the more general problem where someone wants to publish a result that breaks an encryption standard. It seems like there are two main possibilities (I welcome the consideration of others):

Full publication, say, to a widely-read web site, newsgroup, etc. Likely outcome: chaos on a large scale as criminals break into the private spaces of innocent individuals.
Limited dissemination, perhaps to a few mathematicians or a government agency. Likely outcome: the government grabs control of the algorithm (and potentially its discoverer) and does the unpleasant things governments do with such things.

Of course, possibility 2 could easily devolve into possibility 1 if the algorithm becomes public.

Is there a consensus in the academic world about what to do with this problem?


texts:
Posting for a friend, but in first person for simplicity.

I am a research master student in linguistics of a particular language. In my bachelor thesis and some coursework I specialised on a very specific topic. There is enough to explore in this topic to also write a master thesis on it and continue to do a PhD on a slightly broader topic. I will write my master thesis from February onwards and am now preparing for it with an extensive literature review.

My advisor suggests that it is better to not specialise too early in my career, to avoid having trouble getting grants for other work in the future because all my work so far would have been so specific. Thus he wants me to do a much broader literature review, which would allow me to approach my specific questions from a larger perspective.

I see her points and agree. However, I have trouble reading texts of which most is only sideways related to the specific questions I have in mind. So it feels my reading is very inefficient, because I read relatively little that I can use directly and doubt that much of the other things I read will persist in memory. I find the texts interesting but they do not stick (perhaps because I cannot relate them to enough concrete other memories).

What are some techniques I can use to get more out of my general background reading?


texts: What if my research does not give the expected results?

texts:
I'm working on my Computer Science thesis. I have a two solution proposals until this moment, and I've been wondering about the following:

Sometimes you know that if you implement it correctly, it will work (eg. when building a website or a desktop app for some trivial purpose, etc), but some other times you try to solve your problem with some specific solution proposal. A few examples:

I will do some preprocessing, I'll represent the documents that way and use this metric, and then I'll apply this clustering algorithm. Theoretically, it should work.
I will use this computer vision technique for breaking the captchas, and then... In theory, it should work.

but when you implement it, you don't get the expected results (eg. bad text classification in the corpus you're using, low-rate successfuly captchas solved, etc.)

In those cases, is it a valid work? I mean, is it good to publish your work, saying that your solution proposal doesn't seem to be good when solving some specific problem?


texts: How to respond to receiving a duplicate list of corrections

texts: Two weeks ago I have done and I have submitted the corrections that a journal had asked me to do, but today thay asked me to do the same corrections. I am looking for a good letter cover to let them know.


texts: Should I refer to the line numbers in the PDF generated by the submission system?

texts: When you refer to your revisions in your revision submission, should you refer to line numbers in your manuscript document or the line numbers in the PDF generated by the submission system?


texts:
Numerous posts on this site address anonymous or pseudonymous publication, but not anonymous or pseudonymous fieldwork.

There plausibly exist situations in which a researcher undertaking fieldwork would have to conceal their own identity from non-researchers they encounter in the field, in order to protect themselves or the research project. Here are some possible scenarios:

Previous research has shown that the community under study deviates from its normal behaviour when it knows a researcher is present.
The researcher would be in danger if their profession or identity were known to people in the field.
The researcher plans to publish anonymously or pseudonymously, and would otherwise risk being "outed" by people encountered in the field.

What are some good sources on research ethics that discuss protocols for handling such cases?

Can you provide any published examples describing such fieldwork?


texts: What should I do when a paper is published similar to my PhD thesis without citation?

texts:
As part of my PhD thesis I extended an existing method to a new problem. I finished my PhD thesis about 5 years ago and graduated afterwards. After graduation I started working in industry. I never published my thesis (or parts thereof) as a paper, since I was mainly focused on working at the beginning and after several years just was not motivated enough, since I was not pursuing an academic career.

Using a simple google search about the topic you would be able to find my PhD thesis even though the content cannot be accessed online, but surely could be accessed by contacting my previous school or the library.

I recently found a published paper that pretty much does the same things that I did for my thesis. It makes the same modifications to the existing method and comes to the same conclusions. My thesis is however not mentioned or cited in the paper. I am not implying any sort of plagiarism. Once you think about the problem, those modifications are very natural. It's just that I came up with them earlier.

As said above, I was never really interested in publishing my thesis, but now that I saw the paper I was thinking: Hey, I was the first! They should have at least cited my thesis!

I am now wondering, what my options would be and came up with the following two possibilities:

Well, tough luck! I never published my results and so it just seems fair that somebody else did (assuming that they came up with them independently).
Write the editor of the journal and inform them that the main message from the paper was already covered in my thesis and thus is not novel research.

So I was wondering, whether number 1 above applies or whether I should go with number 2. Or what would be other possibilities?


texts: How to deal with a coauthor who introduces errors

texts:
This situation has arisen a couple of times for me and I don't know how to deal with it:

I'm writing a paper that contains formal mathematical statements and proofs. I am very careful about ensuring that my statements are precise and that the proofs are correct. Usually my coauthors are equally careful, but sometimes I have a coauthor who isn't.

The coauthor will edit my careful statements and proofs, presumably with the goal of improving the exposition. But they end up inserting errors, such as dropping necessary assumptions from theorems or incorrectly simplifying something in the proof.

If this happens once or twice, I don't care - it's an honest mistake and they are improving the paper overall - but some people make a habit of it, sometimes to the point where they are more of a hindrance than a help. It really annoys me, as I need to fix their errors and I end up not "trusting" my coauthor - i.e. whenever they make edits I'll go through and check what they've done.

Here's an example: Essentially, the proof of our main theorem involved defining a function, proving several properties of that function, and then using those properties to bound the integral of the function. My coauthor "simplified" the proof by redefining the function to be the integral of the function I had defined. This meant that the function was now a constant and the rest of the proof made no sense. He obviously had good intentions, but didn't understand the proof he was editing. This error made it into the arxiv version of the paper. It was not a big deal and nobody said anything, but it was annoying, as I had correctly written that proof.

I keep my displeasure in this situation to myself, as I don't want to offend my coauthor or appear unreasonable, but I want to tell my coauthor to be more careful. It's also good for them to improve their work habits. Usually I'll leave a comment for my coauthors in the manuscript explaining why things have to be done this way, but that doesn't seem to get the message across.

Is there some way I can encourage my coauthors to drop this bad habit without offending them?

EDIT: To be clear, I'm talking about coauthors at approximately the same seniority level as myself.

EDIT: In the example, it wasn't just the two of us. There were other more senior authors. So I didn't feel like it was my responsibility to address this issue. I didn't talk to the other authors about it, but one of them did also express irritation.


texts: How to signal sole affiliation is honorary?

texts:
(My field is pure mathematics)

EDIT: I asked this question as a form of thinking out loud. I've realised with the help of the commenters below that my inclinations were a bit stupid, but others in similar positions might find the discussion useful.

I have an honorary, 'visiting' affiliation with the university (in my city where I live) where I once had an academic position. I do not have a paid research position there, and the adjunct teaching positions I have had of late in the mathematics department there appear to have run out. I have library and building access, and am for most intents and purposes counted as staff, minus the actual job. I have continued steadily publishing papers in this position.

I am wondering what people would advise about listing my affiliation on papers. I have no complaints with the department, and they have been happy to renew my status, which is very nice. However, I would like to signal in some way that I am not in fact employed to do this research. The only way I can think of this is to stop listing myself as being 'at' the university in question, but this seems to me as ungrateful, or risking losing this affiliation.

I am also aware that the department gains from my producing research and listing it as having taken place there, without the actual full cost of employing me. This may lead to certain negative incentives, but this is pure supposition.


texts: How can I get feedback for my work in math if I'm not in academia?

texts:
I will soon finish my undergraduate degree in math, and I want to study mathematics as a hobby after I graduate.

Online, I see a general trend of people saying

  You can't learn real math without collaboration and feedback. Go to graduate school!

But I don't want to go to graduate school, and I have found that I learn better through self-study than by taking notes in class. That being said, it always does help to get my questions answered by professors, and collaboration with other students is sometimes helpful as well.

Question:  Is it possible to have this kind of mathematical community without actually being in academia?

What I fear is studying for years by myself obsessively on a subject only to find that I had a horrible misconception the whole time that could have been avoided if only a professor had looked at my work.


texts: Group Project Dynamics— how to present advanced ideas without offending others?

texts:
For my research masters, one graded activity is to undertake a piece of research and present findings.

We collected data and the analysis part was self-assigned to one member and myself. The analysis and results ultimately presented by the team member was very basic, and included nothing more than a sum, count and percentage of responses presented in an excel graph.

The supervisor responded that he was unable to follow findings and suggested advanced analysis.

I then undertook this work, redid the analysis in R, and presented the findings in an advanced/visual form, using regression analysis and correlation matrices and suggested the group explore data/findings and suggest additional hypotheses to test.

The member who originally did the analysis feels let down and asked meaningless, trivial and baseless questions when I presented findings, in an effort to discredit my work. She felt I was trying to better her.

The supervisor is yet to comment on the validity/usefulness of my analysis work.

In my earlier degree, I gained a good understanding of research methods and statistics. However, this person, from what I’ve seen, does not seem familiar with fundamental research concepts or statistical methods.

How do I handle this situation?

How important is it to regress to ideas that everyone is comfortable with to avoid challenges like these?


texts: Can I count on "future works" ideas in a paper to work?

texts:
Can I count on paper future work or not? in order to work on that for my master thesis. I have a paper and its implementation. and I work on that for some months.

This paper belong to 2013 and the author work on another fields on 2014. I track his publications and I am not sure he goes back to his 2013's paper future work.

I want to know and make sure if the idea will work or not? How can I make sure if it will work or not?


texts: Why is research at highly productive research institutions better than those at not-so-highly productive research institutions?

texts:
As of time of writing, the University of Oxford is top of the Times Higher Education world university ranking list, while the University of Southampton is 118th. (Nothing special about the THE, Oxford, or the University of Southampton - I'm just picking examples.)

Because a university's research is usually a major factor in these rankings, an immediate implication of this is that as a whole, Oxford's research is "better" than Southampton's. Why is it better? I can think of some explanations:

Professors at Oxford are smarter than those at Southampton. Obviously the smarter you are, the better your research.
Professors at Oxford are more motivated than those at Southampton. Maybe they work 24/7 while those at Southampton work 9-to-5.
Professors at Oxford have more resources than those at Southampton. For example perhaps they have more + bigger grants they can apply for, and with more money, they can hire more students + conduct experiments using equipment their counterparts at Southampton don't have.
Professors at Oxford are luckier than those at Southampton. They "just happened" to pick topics that later led to massive advances and Nobel prizes, which made them academic superstars. Oxford then gave them very attractive job offers to lure them there. Now it's a rich-get-richer situation - once you are famous, other people read + cite you more too.

Are any of these explanations accurate? Are there other factors I've not thought of?


texts: Is it OK to use the content of my own paper which is not yet submitted, in my other paper?

texts: I have finished writing one paper, but have not submitted it yet to a journal. I am working on a related but not identical subject, though many of the definitions and theorems are same (but they are true in a very different context compared to the first paper). Now, is it okay to use the same figures that I had used for illustrations in my first paper? What about the theorems and definitions? I feel like changing the theorem statements is not worth spending time on, but is this correct?


texts: What sets "top" universities apart from "mediocre" universities in continental europe?

texts:
Every year rankings are published that list Oxford, Stanford and the like at the top, while many(most?) universities in continental europe share ranks well beyond 100. I myself am a Phd student at a technical university in Austria that is ranked somewhere beyond 300 and I don't quite understand what makes the difference.

Some things that occupy my mind:

Like my own many european universities are free to enroll, which means a lot of candidates and also unfortunately many drop-outs (especially in STEM), which affects the score negatively as I understand. I assume that top-universities, that rely heavily on expensive enrollment fees, take more action to keep their students. Am I correct in this assumption?
Do top universites have simply more money to make better research?
Are the people there actually much smarter? Is there a different mindset that leads to more/better research? A fellow student of mine who spent some time in the USA told me that the people there are not "more knowledgeable" than us here in our bad university but I don't know which university it was.

We do have a lot of satisfied business partners here so I don't think our research is "bad". On the other hand my kinsmen always say "those rankings are arbitrary bullshit anyway", and Austrians like to sugarcoat reality a lot. We often hear some self-praise about how our institutions are well regarded but then there are those rankings, wich makes me very doubtful.
I've only ever seen this small academic world of mine as I never had the chance to study abroad because of my family so I am hoping that someone who knows both sides can shed some light. Am I missing a chance to become so much more than I currently am because I'm at the wrong university?


texts: Should I give more work out to a student who is not behaving?

texts: Today my student was not paying attention to my lesson. He just slacked off and gave a fit. I can't call the administration (It's a private College School). I have asked him nicely several times to comply with what we are doing. But he won't listen and/or do the work. Yet his parents bribe some of his Professors to give him an A. And some Professors actually agree. What should i Do? Give him more work to do? a signature from parents?


texts: When you get paid to do research, but you're not a graduate student/PI, is it mandatory to put in extra time?

texts:
When I was an undergraduate student volunteering in laboratories, I recall times where I would come in on weekends to work on plating cells, running experiments, etc. This was something I did on my own accord because I was getting professional development. I notice the same phenomena exists among graduate students as their whole existence in graduate school revolves around the acquisition of knowledge, and primarily, the completion of research.

However, what about a tech? Is a hired research technician obligated to stay more than the 40 hours a week their paycheck warrants? I am a newly hired tech and I was surprised/understanding to see my peers drop everything at 5 PM to resume the next day. Obviously this is not taken literally, but once stuff wraps around at maybe 5:10, 5:15...they're out the door. No one is staying until 7 PM, etc. like in college to make sure this assay runs well, etc.


texts: Doubt regarding uploading Tables and Figures for the accepted manuscript

texts:
The instructions of the engineering journal I submitted to (IEEE transactions on wireless communications) says this regarding the final submission of figures and tables

  Please upload the Originals (masters) of the tables and figures (in separate files, one
  figure per file). All graphics material submitted for publication must
  be original drawn figures in .eps format, with each figure submitted
  as a separate file. Figures exported from other formats (e.g., PDF,
  PowerPoint) will not reproduce well in print. Appropriate fonts
  include: Symbol, Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman.

What do they mean by "originals (masters) of the tables"? Does it mean that I should submit each table also as a separate file? If so, in which format?


texts: Is it acceptable to graphically illustrate the steps of a research proposal?

texts: I am currently preparing a research proposal with limited number of pages. As a picture is worth a thousand words; I was wondering if a graphic illustration could be provided that could highlight the different steps involved in the project. Would providing such an illustration enhance the proposal? I never came across such illustrations. Any directions for the same?


texts: When and why did conferences pick up the habit of giving out conference bags to attendees?

texts: I wonder when and why conferences picked up the habit of giving out conference bags to attendees.


texts: What should I put in the introduction chapter of my thesis?

texts:
I have to start writing my thesis. My topic for research is work life balance in IT sector - a comparative analysis of male & female IT professionals in Pune.

I need help in writing the first introduction chapter. what all should be included in this chapter & what should not?


texts: What are the common productivity measures of a scientist, like h-index?

texts: I am aware of h-index. I was wondering what other types of scores are both widely and rarely used to measure the impact of a scientist?


texts: What should I include as "evidence of effective teaching methods?"

texts:
I'm in literature and applying for a tenure-track position.
One of my job applications is asking for "evidence of effective teaching methods" as one of the documents I am to submit.

Does anyone have any idea of what this should be?

Research to date has given me very little. My usual go-to sources for job application information and help have not had anything to address this sort of thing.

Sure, there are teaching philosophies and teaching statements, both of which I've written in the past.

Evidence of teaching ability, in my field at least, includes your teaching evaluations and letters, your teaching philosophy, and a few syllabi relevant to the job search at hand. But, there is no clear-cut answer to that one either. And it varies a lot, depending on who you ask.

As for my own pedagogical experience, I would imagine this could include some sample assignments? Perhaps a narrative of what innovative teaching methods I've used in the past, perhaps some student comments from evaluations that speak to methodology in particular?

But, I'm really guessing here, and I was hoping someone who has dealt with this particular item in job applications would have some idea of what this might be.

Thanks for the suggestions on how to clarify the question.


texts:
I have been dragged into an argument with someone who can't understand why millions are being raised to fund ALS research (that's the "ice bucket challenge", love it or hate it). He doesn't get why research costs so much money because - and I genuinely quote - "it only takes time and effort".

My first instinct was to say "Are you being serious or just trying to wind me up?". But then I realized that maybe from an outsider's perspective, this might actually be difficult to understand.

So I am asking for points to make when explaining the cost of research to lay people, and how to articulate these points in a way they can identify with them.


texts: How problematic is going by a preferred name while publishing with my full name?

texts:
I grew up with a nickname, and I prefer to be called as that. It is quite different from my first name. When I introduce myself I usually just use the nickname.

I plan to use my full name in publication, and I have published papers using the full name already.

My question is, how problematic is this choice? Should I try to change it? I would imagine someone not relating me to my papers/ not able to find me from the nickname.


texts: How can I stop a "citation cartel" still active?

texts:
How can I fight against a "citation cartel" (still active)?
They are manipulating citations (mostly through "coercive citation") from at least two journals. Two journal are used as "platforms" and two journals are receiving biased citations.

Clearly, they are trying to boost one journal and also boost "selected" papers from researchers close to the editors of one the journals.
Awful!


texts: Chances of getting accepted into a conference with conflicting reviews

texts:
I submitted my paper for publication in a very good computer science conference. When I got feedback for rebuttal:

I had one review that said my work wasn't relavant to computer networking in any way, and that they couldn't understand some abbreviations in the abstract like RIPE.

Then I had another who said that my work is very useful to the research community and even asked for a copy of the library I wrote.

Last, I had a reviewer that just told me to make my images larger and to include a better literature review.

I tried to rebut as best as I could, especially against the first review, but knowing that this is a high profile conference, what are my chances of being accepted? It really didn't seem like the first reviwer understood much of my work.


texts:
I am about to finish my first postdoc (2 yrs) and the positions and grants that I am applying to frequently require me to specify and explain any career breaks. I feel somewhat uneasy about this since I was out of work for a year and a half after finishing my PhD, due to the fact that I could not find a postdoc position.

During this time I was not able to do any science as I was not affiliated with an institution. I also submitted nearly 90 applications, almost all of which were tailor made. This required a lot of time and effort.

The 1.5 yr gap is the only stain on my otherwise good CV and academic track record. Any suggestions on how to approach this issue would be much appreciated.


texts: Why is it required for Test Administrators and Proctors to constantly walk around the room during testing?

texts: I ask this because from my experience, a TA and/or a Proctor moving around the testing room looking over my shoulder is distracting and breaks my concentration. I have been in both positions, TA and Proctor and I try to only move when a student needs something,  such as a pencil or paper. My administrator seemed to get angry today because I was standing in one place too long. I also noticed that I have a better view of testers when I can see them all from a fixed point not turning my back on part of them throughout the test. Does anyone else see moving around  the room as distracting to testers?


texts: Where to put state of research in thesis when it needs to be referenced in introduction?

texts:
For writing scientific texts like bachelor or master thesis I have learned and used the following basic structure:

Introduction
Background
State of research
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusions

I am currently writing my master thesis in computer science where I am developing an algorithm/workflow for a specific validation use case. For similar but more general use cases there already exist methods to do this validation. But for my specific use case those methods can not be used because they do not consider various needed regulations to achieve a reasonable result.

Basically this is my argumentation in my current introduction after talking about the more general background and where the underlying problem derives. I give a very brief overview of state of research (i.e. the already available methods and why they can not be used). After this argumentation as a reason I propose my research question and main research goals.

Now to the actual question: One of my supervisors does not like me mentioning things related to the state of research and (in my opinion) obvious technical terms in the introduction. Instead he wants me to do a more general introduction (without explaining the problem in details) and use a structure like the following for my introduction:

Basic problem
State of research (shall be discussed with focus on missing applicability for my use case)
Research question and goals (as a result of 2.)

This really irritates me because I always discussed the state of research later on after giving basic theoretical backgrounds needed for understanding (this would not be possible when mentioning state of research in the introduction). I also do not think that generalizing the problem so much that it is not needed to use basic technical terms when defining the research question is useful at all.

I am really confused how to structure my thesis so that I can write an non "babble" introduction but also satisfy my supervisor. Can anyone help?


texts: Is there a correlation between where I finish my PhD and where can I secure a Postdoc position

texts: I am currently pursuing my PhD in computer science at a mid-rank US institution (ranked 50 in US-news graduate computer science ranking). Assuming I have a decent publication record and good references. Would I have better chances of securing a postdoc position if I applied to openings in the US or would I have better chances if I applied to openings in other countries such as Canada, UK, Australia?


texts: Submitting open LORs as "Supportive Documents" scans?

texts:
In addition to the 3 LORs for my Ph.D. application, I have requested extra LORs from professors that I scanned & uploaded under the additional "Supportive Documents" of my application.

Obviously, the professors of these additional LORs are fully supportive and aware of their letters being open to me to upload as UNOFFICIAL & supporting docs...

Q:  Since it's customary for applicants to "waive their rights" to LORs, will these extra LORs negatively impact my application since I know their contents???  What is your take on this?  Thanks in advance :)


texts: Are there any data repositories commonly used in conjunction with arXiv?

texts: I will soon be posting an article to arXiv, and I have supplementary data that is approximately 800MB in size, which I would like to make available somewhere. Are there any data repositories that are commonly used in conjunction with arXiv?


texts: Faculty positions: What to say in a statement on diversity?

texts: Some job ads of US schools require a "statement on diversity". I am not based in the US, and have never written one before. What should one say in a statement on diversity anyway? Am I supposed to state how I would increase the (ethical, scientific, or with regards to other aspects) diversity of the faculty? Would something like "Since I come from Africa, I would make a big contribution to your diversity since currently all faculty members at your department are white" usually be expected?


texts: Failing students when it might cause them economic ruin

texts:
The issue has crept up on me slowly over the last several years. I am increasingly aware of the massive debt that many of my students are taking on, debt which is far beyond the sort of debt that I incurred as an undergraduate in the 1980s. Because of this, in recent semesters I have found it somewhat difficult to fail students. Instead of simply asking myself "does this student deserve to fail this class?", I find myself asking "does this student deserve to have their life ruined?" In many cases (e.g. students who are already on academic probation) this is not much of an exaggeration. It is a very bad situation to find yourself in your early 20s with no college degree but $30,000 in debt. In some cases, I am aware that a decision of mine might be a contributing cause of a student ending up in just such a situation. I can no longer regard a failing grade as a relatively minor matter (like a speeding ticket).

How do professors reconcile their de jure role as guardians of academic integrity with their de facto role of being (at least in part) responsible for their students' economic future?


texts: Is it OK to send email to conference chairs asking for resubmission of the manuscript?

texts:
I have submitted a messy manuscript to a conference due to the urgent deadline.
After a period of revision, I corrected some mistakes and tidied the manuscript.
Is it okay to send an email to the conference chair or somebody else asking to resubmit the manuscript? Or are there any other ways to resubmit?


texts: Are there open-access, free, non-topical academic data and research archives?

texts: I am looking for an archive where anyone can deposit both data and research papers, which does not require creators or users to pay, does not require registration for users to access materials (hence not academia.edu), and which is not restricted to specific fields such as math or computer science (though the content could be limited to academic stuff as opposed to recipes). If that's not enough, the web site should provide "adequate amounts of space", which I know is field dependent, but let's start with 250 GB per user as a baseline. I presume that creators of content to be posted on such a site would have to register. As far as I can tell there is no such archive, but I may have missed something.


texts: Delaying grad school vs. going to lower-ranked school

texts:
I'm currently a senior who wants to get a PhD in physics. However, I may only have the chance to go to a school which has a strong professor in a certain area, but the school itself is not highly ranked.

My other option is, one of the professors I'm working with at my current institution is favorably disposed towards me, and could support me for another year while I do more research. If I did this, I will push out publications (including at least one first author) before I apply.

Another professor I know has told me that he thinks I should not waste my time, and get started on the PhD, especially since I might be able to hit the ground running there. However, I am aware that getting a degree from a non-top 10 school will hurt my prospects for future positions. I'm also keeping in mind that I could also head to this school next year as well if everything goes sour again.

What do the members of the community think? I would really appreciate more viewpoints on this matter. Thanks for your time!

Edit: I understand that questions asked here should be of a general nature, and not just apply to an individual's unique situation. However, I don't think this situation is all too uncommon, and this question may be useful to those who are looking for information in the future.