texts: When asking for an extension to submit revisions, should I mention that I am no longer in academia?

texts:
I submitted a paper to a journal 6 months ago.
I finally heard back from them now,
and they would like revisions in 6 weeks;
for another round of review.

Since submitting that paper, I've submitted my phd thesis (which is now being examined) and am working full time in industry.

I plan to ask for an extension, for several reasons.
Including that it is the holiday season and my coauthors (supervisors) are all going on leave, as am I.

I am wondering if I should also mention that since I am in industry now, I have fairly limitted time in which I am able to work on revising my own papers.

On the one hand is is utterly true, on the other hand perhaps it is irelveant.

In general it seems like asking for an extention is probably not a big deal, since having been in review for 6 months, it doesn't seem like it would make much difference it it is finally published in 2 months vs 3 or 4 months.
Since plenty of people in academia also have limitted time to work on revising old papers (be it for teaching or for new projects).


texts: How to proceed when PhD advisor leaves academia or moves to a new university midway?

texts:
How can a PhD student proceed when his/her advisor quits midway?

What should be the student's considerations when the professor offers him a choice to move along with him? Should it be the comparative rankings of the universities? Or the relationship enjoyed with the professor thus far? Or the progress of the work?
Do universities offer to waiver coursework and ensure faster-than-usual graduation for students accompanying new professors? Can papers published in the older university be considered a part of the thesis that will be written for the newer department?
What should a student do if such an option is not available to the professor and also there are not other professors in the department who could or are willing to guide the student? Will the university offer a compensation for him?


texts: May I use my former-yet-active email address of an institute as a contact channel in my current CV?

texts:
Since I was a master student in (the North American) X university, my email roboticist@x.edu has been still active, even though it is a couple of years that I have left that university. Now, I'm about to finish my Ph.D. in (the European) Y university, and Y will be immediately closing my current roboticist@y.edu upon my graduation. I have heard that writing an unprofessional email address, e.g., roboticist@gmail.com, in the contact information section of an academic CV does not make a good impression on readers. So, I am wondering whether I may use the still-active email of mine corresponding to X in my CV for that purpose. My main concern is two fold: whether or not I am allowed to do that in view of X, and whether or not it is ethically a sound decision because it can mislead readers thinking that I am currently affiliated with X.
PS. My question relatively resembles what are discussed here and here, but the difference is that those questions' contexts are paper affiliation and contacting professors, respectively. However, mine is about the contact information section of a CV.


texts:
I am interested about getting a certificate in data mining. I found three so far, and these are the following:

MIT - Data and Models in Engineering, Science, and Business
Stanford - Data Mining and Applications Graduate Certificate
UCSD - Data Mining Certificate

Has anyone taken any of these courses, and are they worth it? Would I benefit in terms of career opportunities with one of such certificates?  I already have a background in data mining, however nothing is on paper, so I thought it might be good idea to get a certificate.


texts:
Is there an accepted order in which "List of"s should appear in a thesis?

For example, I have a section dedicated to "List of (Code) Listings", another for "List of Figures", and another for "List of Symbols". Is there a preferred order in which these should appear in the document?


texts: Compressing a huge paper for a double blind review process

texts:
Continuing How to cite a technical report for a double blind review process?, how would you proceed if your paper is acutally 53 pages long, most of it occupied by mathematical proofs, but you have to compress it into 10 pages (including all the appendices, and allowing for two additional pages for the bibliography) for an A*-level conference with a double-blind review process, a rebuttal and an explicit ban on relying on supplemental material? The time between the submission and the 2-day-long rebuttal is 2.5 months, which is then followed by a month till notification.

Here is a part of the guidelines:

  Do not rely on supplementary material (your web site, your github repository, a youTube channel, a companion technical report or thesis) in the paper or in the rebuttal submitted during the clarification period. Supplementary information might result in revealing author identities.

Or would you consider not submitting to that particular conference, since it involves too much work which does not improve any of your results?

Several technical options are available, but I'm unsure about their acceptance in the community:

Use the PDF file with the main paper text as a container for the anonymized proofs as an embedded file, or
Upload the anonymized proofs to a  (megaupload-like) file-storage service and provide the reader with a URL, or
Any of 1. and 2., with password-protected supplemental material, where the password is exposed with/after the rebuttal.

Are such solutions accepted by the community?


texts: Professor stopped replying about internship

texts: I emailed a professor about a research internship to which he replied saying that I could work under him,  but without any payment. He had earlier mentioned that he would be more interested if I was doing a PhD program instead of an internship. I then sent him two mails in which I conveyed that I wanted to do the internship and would fund it myself,  and enquire if it would be possible to obtain accommodation on campus itself. He hasnt replied to those mails and it's been ten days. Should I mail him again or is it a no? I'm confused,  and if I have to reply to him, what should I say?


texts: Does writing code for an assignment after seeing similar code online count as plagiarism?

texts:
In my compilers class assignment, we were asked to write some MIPS code. One of the problem involved implementing fact() function as a sub-problem. I wanted to implement the standard recursive version

int fact ( int n )
{
     if ( n == 0 || n == 1 )    return 1;
     return n * fact(n-1);
}

As I am new to MIPS, I looked up here on how to implement recursive routines. Unfortunately, the link explained recursion using fact() function itself. As I didn't want to "copy" code, I just understood the concept of recursion and wrote the fact myself.

But my fact code seems very similar to the one I looked up to learn recursion in MIPS. Is it for the fact that I glanced at the code already or the fact that factorial is really a very simple function with hardly 10 lines in it? Am I guilty of plagiarism here?

Here is my code

fact:   addi $sp, $sp, -8       # decrement SP to make room for pushing input var and ret addr
        sw $ra, 4($sp)          # save $ra
        sw $a0, 0($sp)          # save input on stack

        li   $v0, 1             # Set v0 to 1 initially.
        beq  $a0, 0, fact_ret   # if ( n == 0 )    return 1;
        beq  $a0, 1, fact_ret   # if (n == 1) return 1;

        addi $a0, $a0, -1
        jal fact                # Recursive call fact(n-1)
        lw  $a0, 0($sp)
        mult $v0, $a0           # n * fact(n-1)
        mflo $v0                # Save answer in v0
fact_ret:
        lw $ra, 4($sp)          # restore $ra
        addi $sp, $sp, 8        # restore $sp
        jr $ra                  # return from function


texts: How to submit a paper without being backed up by my employer

texts:
By day I am employed (as a research engineer) at CEA, LIST in France (near Paris) working (in 2020) on Bismon (funded by CHARIOT, about cybersecurity). My work contract is under French law (legally some contrat de travail à durée indeterminée) and I am a French citizen.
On my spare time, at home only and with my personal computer equipment, I am developing with others the RefPerSys open source artificial intelligence system.
We would like to submit some paper about it to ICAAINN 2021 (a conference in Paris, France).
The conference submission website requires mentioning some institution.
I don't want to mention my employer for something I am not paid for doing.
If the paper was accepted I have both enough money and enough vacation to go presenting it.
What institution should I put in the web form for something done at home (and improving my old PhD ideas)?


texts: Waiting time/silence after a postdoc interview

texts: I had an informal interview for a postdoc position that was followed by a formal one. Both went really well (at least in my opinion) and the formal interview exceeded its specified time because of the interest they showed in the work I presented. Upon asking, I was told that the process may take up to 2-3 weeks, speaking of which, there is no official/unofficial word about the outcome of the interview and more than two weeks have already passed. Should I wait a bit longer so that I don't come across as too desperate?


texts: I'm from an English speaking country where my education was predominately in English. I'm currently in the process of applying for studies abroad and they have requested me to provide a document of proficiency in English. I have no idea what kind of document this should be. Can someone enlighten me as to what this should be?


texts: Is it reasonable for an institution to ask for families total income in application form?

texts:
The online application form for a post graduation course of an engineering institute in India asks for students to compulsorily enter the total annual income of their entire family. I had a chat online with their representative who offered no explanation about it other than "Sir it is compulsory to fill the details".

I assume they need these details either to figure out whether a student deserves scholarship or not, but in that case the question could have been asked in a different way.

Is it reasonable for them to ask such a question and is it sensible for me to fill in the actual annual income of my family? What if I fill in a random amount or enter zero?


texts: Alleviating Dunning-Kruger effect without running into impostor syndrome

texts:
This is a question generally in decision making.

Is a balance between the Dunning-Kruger effect and the impostor syndrome possible for students? As a student one is generally graded on a regular basis, the marks may vary however, depending on the professor (at least where I come from). Is there a strategy to avoid the aforementioned two extremes or is academic life a balance act between both - occasionally hitting one or the other.

I'll give an example specific to my case: I have to decide whether to take a M.Sc. thesis in theoretical physics which will require me to do a lot of mathematics. It's interesting and I have passed math exams geared to physicists with (very) good marks, same for the lecture in physics which would be vital in this case.
Alas! Due to the (perceived) variation in the level of the exams I am not sure whether my knowledge is actually sufficiently deep to try. Especially as the real math (mathematics for mathematicians) results are not so good.

Simply: evaluations suggest "yes" while my gut tells me "meh I think you may be overestimating yourself a bit." (though my mind then responds "f*ck it all, do it just to prove you can!")


texts: How to politely point out a basic mistake in a published top tier journal when working on some extension of the paper

texts: I have found a basic mistake in one of the published paper in a top tier Applied Mathematics journal. I have told my research supervisor about it and he also agrees with me. I found the issue when I was working on one open problem mentioned in the paper. Please suggest what to do.


texts: What is the difference between a Teaching Philosophy and a Teaching Statement?

texts:
Context: I am a PhD student in mathematics currently applying for tenure-track positions at small colleges throughout the US.

In general, most openings I've seen are asking for what they've termed a "Teaching Statement," while the remainder ask for a "Teaching Philosophy."  Is there a difference between these two documents?  If so, what is it?

I've posed this question to a wide variety of people (colleagues, panels, etc.), and they can't seem to arrive at a consensus.  Some say that there is no difference whatsoever, whereas others say that a statement is supposed to be much more concrete and give more specifics than a philosophy.

I realize that this question was already addressed in some of the answers to this question, but I'd like to hear a little bit more detail, if possible.


texts: Should I contact the universites that have not given me a decision yet after I have taken a offer?

texts:
I am a student who just finished applying for a Ph.D. in Physics this year. I have not only received and but also accepted the offer from my dream school. However, there are three other universities that have not given me a decision yet. Should I contact them to let them know that I will turn down their offers anyway?

If the answer is yes, how should I word it so it doesn't sound weird?


texts: Co-author contributed almost nothing and is blocking publication

texts:
Alice and Bob have co-authored a paper together. The contribution (data collection, analysis, writing) was 100% Alice and 0% Bob, except that the original idea was initiated during a conversation between Alice and Bob. Bob acknowledged several times in private that he did not contribute to the project, but he claimed co-authorship for the idea and Alice did not object to that. Alice spent almost an entire year working on the project. Bob spent less than a couple of hours in total. A manuscript with both names has already been circulated, submitted and rejected from one journal.

Bob is now trying to block the publication of the paper due to a personal conflict with Alice. In the meantime, Bob became envious of Alice's early successes and decided to do everything to slow down her career, even at the expense of his own publication record. Bob is already tenured and has no pressure to publish. Alice, by contrast, needs more publications for her forthcoming tenure review. Of course, Bob never explicitly refused to submit the paper. But instead of sending it to a prestigious outlet (where the paper would have a good shot) he insists that they send the manuscript to a non peer-reviewed and unknown journal, which would not help Alice's tenure case. Of course he makes no effort in trying to find an agreement, as he would be happy not to submit the paper at all. Clearly, his decisions are driven by spite and malevolence only and he takes great care into not writing anything incriminating for him.

Is there anything that Alice can do in that situation? Does she have to resign herself to never publishing the paper? What are the risks for her if she removes Bob's name without his agreement and submits the manuscript on her own?

PS: as a response to Captain Emacs' comment, Bob's only contribution was to say "why don't we study the causal effect of X on Y?" in an informal conversation. Alice did absolutely all the rest (literature review, design of the protocol, data collection, analysis, conference presentations, etc.). But there is no evidence of this, other than the fact that Bob would be unable to answer any question that goes into the detail of the paper.


texts: I have no personal projects, should I mention school projects in my cover letter?

texts:
In my current studies I have been tasked with so many projects that I cannot find the time to work on personal projects.

Should I mention my school projects in my cover letter / resume ?


texts: Professor announced that he would send me a project before master’s but didn’t

texts:
I am looking for a master’s position. I emailed a professor and we arranged a meeting on Skype, where he said that he would send me a project on which I should work for two months. I agreed and afterwards I sent him an email and thanking him and asking for the project.

One week later I emailed him to read my mail which I had sent him about six days ago, but he did not answer me.

How should I write an email to him now to ask for the project that I was supposed to do? I want to tell him: “Please consider my request, my future depends on this.”


texts: How to address my multiple undergrad transfers in graduate admissions?

texts:
I'm kind of embarrassed to talk about this, but I've attended quite a large number of schools throughout my undergraduate career. 6 schools, in fact. Most of these schools I attended for 12 or fewer credits- I was dealing with an undiagnosed chronic physical illness, which I've now totally overcome, but which was disabling at the time.

I didn't know what I was dealing with then so I kept trying to push through school and having to withdraw from classes/schools and re-enroll somewhere else. I'm doing much better now, have brought my total GPA up to 3.52 (with a strong upward trend), and have a 4.0 GPA in my major (psychology). I'm studying hard for the GRE's and I trust that my recommenders will be able to provide strong recommendations for me. I know that my GPA could be better, but what I'm mostly worried about is the large amount of transfers on my transcript.

How should I deal with this? Should I mention in my personal statement that I was dealing with chronic illness and have overcome it? I'm worried that admissions committees will think I'm oversharing, but I feel that something as weird as 6 undergraduate institutions requires an explanation. I'm hoping this won't disqualify me from PhD programs, since I really love research in psychology and would do anything to pursue it further.

From comment: One of the schools was just somewhere I took a single course at while in high school. I left two of the schools because I lost the merit aid I needed to afford attendance due to withdrawing, and one because it was an online school and I was unhappy with the quality of the education I was getting there. I then went back to my local community college and started over, and transferred to my state university from there. I have research experience, and am planning on getting some more after undergrad. I'm hoping I can overcome this but I'm really scared.


texts: Uncommon requests during job interview negotiations

texts:
I'm curious about how common it is to negotiate for requests/demands that are not necessarily directly related to salary, research, or teaching load during the job hiring process in academia.

Some potential examples that come to mind:

Coverage of school athletic facility fees
Parking pass / daily commute costs (e.g., bus fare)
Financial assistance for relocating for job
Specific holidays (e.g., lesser-known religious days)
Keys to restricted areas not pertinent to job (e.g., access to music rooms for the professor that used to be an active musician)
Coverage for continued learning in unrelated field (e.g., philosophy or theology courses offered elsewhere in the college).
Others...

Further, is it advantageous to even negotiate for these requests? Has anyone in the SE community had success with similar requests?


texts: Can I rearrange the given names of authors in Pubmed for importing to EndNote?

texts:
When viewing a Pubmed citation, author names are listed in the format Surname Initial Initial.  This means that when I am inputting a citation into EndNote I have to either type the names in manually or copy and paste then edit the order of the names into the Initial Initial Surname format that EndNote accepts.
E.g. the Pubmed author list:

Frayling TM, Timpson NJ, Weedon MN

Would need to be rearranged to

TM Frayling
NJ Timpson
MN Weedon

by hand in EndNote.
Is there a way that I can do this more efficiently?  Perhaps by

Using a preference on PubMed to have authors displayed in the second way
Modifying a preference in EndNote to have it accept the first way
Using a more efficient way to record new items to the EndNote database


texts: Is consistency in citation style important?

texts:
I have a habit of using two styles of in-text citation: with and without author name(s). The two examples below describe what I mean: (# here represents a bibliography index)

"...which is in agreement with simulations presented in Lastname et al. [#]."

and just

"...the X method [#] was here used to model..."

(in the latter case, reference # might contain an in-depth description of the X method).

I mix these styles freely, depending on what I deem to be appropriate in each individual case. Am I correct to do this or would you consider it to be bad style?


texts: Would it be unwise to ask about the prospects of a publication for an undergraduate research position?

texts:
If I am interviewed for a summer research program, would it be a bad idea for me to bring up the topic of publications? I've noticed recently that professors usually aren't comfortable talking about this, so would asking about this make me look bad?

I'm an undergraduate looking to pursue a Ph.D., so I'd like to make myself more competitive for graduate admissions.


texts: Why does Google Scholar provide a different number of references when sorting by relevance versus date?

texts:
I've noticed that sorting by date, and relevance has different numbers of results.  Why is this?

Edit: Here is a reproducible example:

Here is "foo" sorted by date (15,000 references)

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?scisbd=2&q=foo&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

Here is "foo" sorted by relevance (300,000 references)

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=foo


texts: Informal vs. formal journal acceptance letter

texts: I got a letter from a journal editor telling me that they 'would be happy to accept my paper'; the editor asked me to take care of some minor citation issues (I carelessly misspelled one author's last name and I misplaced the publication year of a cited work.) and then upload the final version of the manuscript to the submission system. Although this letter sounds very certain/positive to me. I am still a bit wary and anxious (after all, this is still not a formal acceptance letter). I quickly resubmitted the final version of the paper to the submission system in the same day. It has been two weeks since I heard from the editor and resubmitted the final file. I know that it's impossible to expect a speedy response. But, in my scenario, how long should I wait to write back to the editor and ask for a formal acceptance letter (or is it even okay/appropriate to do this?) At this stage, should I be worried (about any possible hiccups that may stand on the way of getting the paper published)? Thanks very much for your insights and experience sharing.


texts: How to explain to college that religious observance precludes me from living on campus, as required?

texts:
I am planning to attend a college that requires students to live on campus, in a coed setting. As an observant Muslim, I cannot do that.

The college asked me to write a letter explaining why I cannot live on campus. I also have to explain why I can't eat the cafeteria food.

I'm asking how I should start the letter, and what I should say in the letter.


texts: Does an unpublished document you upload to ResearchGate count as prior publication when submitting to a journal?

texts:
On ResearchGate, if you upload something like a thesis, and then it says publish resources, does this mean the thesis becomes properly published in the sense of the usual requirements of journals that there be no prior publication of the submitted work?

I ask because I’m drafting thesis chapters into journal articles and did not choose to publish the thesis as a whole work in order to do so, so I want to make sure that by clicking publish resources I am not actually publishing the copy I’ve uploaded, I’m just making it publicly available? Does this mean it becomes published despite it not technically being a published work? (If so, I’ll just remove the copy I uploaded).


texts: How do I get records proving that I was an Erasmus exchange student?

texts:
I was an Eramus interchange student in the UK for my final year project 20 years ago.

Whilst I have that in my CV, and even have in the Internet my final report in an old site of mine, I do not have a single proof in writing I was ever there. Even while there, I never had a proper student card, but just a provisory piece of paper.

Come to think of it, the most tangible documents I have ever with me even at the time where the check with the grant money and the programme evaluation form.

My tutor is probably retired. I recently emailed my project supervisor with this doubt, he did not answer.

Note that I myself work in Academia nowadays, and although it is in a different city and unrelated University, I might also pose them this doubt.

The document would come in handy someday, for instance to help me getting the nationality of my wife. What would be the best course of action for getting it after all this time?


texts: It's been one month since the graduate advisor (also the POI) said will get back to me regarding my grad application, should I send a follow up email?

texts: It's been one month since the graduate advisor (also the POI) said will get back to me regarding my grad application, should I send a follow up email or should I just wait? He said in the last email that he is checking something for me and will get back to me as soon as possible, but it's towards the end of March, I am little nervous and worried. I don't want to sound too pushy and impatient since he already said he'll get back to me asap...should I still follow up? if yes, any advice to ask him about the status very politely?


texts: What is the maximum age to get into academia, as a recent PhD / recent post-doc, in the US?

texts:
At what age does breaking into academia as a professor, e.g. recent PhD / recent post-doc, in the United States become effectively impossible?

Is it at the age of 30 or 40?

I keep hearing about this from people who are at the very elite institutions, e.g. Harvard and Princeton.

I'm asking the question specifically for STEM subfields and for universities in the United States.

I am not only interested in what typically happens at the very top schools - I'm also interested in hiring at the less prestigious schools.


texts: How to quit/put on hold a PhD program due to personality clash with advisor?

texts:
I've been trying to cope with a very abusive and mentally unstable advisor. In a recent clash she has been spewing lies and threats. It has become clearer and clearer that despite the four years of manipulations, borderline extortion, and five publications that I've survived through, I will never receive a degree from this advisor. I have decided to accept a job offer and I want to just close things up at the school in the best possible way. If possible, I'll leave a door open by taking a leave of absence for a year to come back to a different advisor.

How should I go about my next steps? Do I email the Department Chair directly asking for a meeting? I have been warned such an email would probably reach my advisor first. Do I just walk into the student affairs department with a leave of absence form? If I should email someone, who should it be, and what should I write there?

I'm funded by an NSF grant, so should I write them now in conjunction or after I finalize my leave at school?


texts: A theorem exists in a book but not in a journal - is this considered as a publication?

texts:
When I was undergraduate I proved something which was non trivial (but I have to be honest, it was not something very important) in mathematics and i presented it to a professor at the university. He found it correct and he included the theorem in his new book (it was new - this happened in 2008) with my name along the theorem. Now you can find this theorem in another book published from Springer.

I was wondering if this is considered as one of my own publications.
If I submit it to a journal, should I mention the situation with the books?


texts: Has anyone had any experience with Editsprings?

texts:
I received the following email from a company called Editsprings:

Dear Prof./Dr. XXX,
It is our great honor to write you this email. Here is an invitation about working as a part-time editor from EditSprings. This is a remunerated position. Your responsibility is to help non-native English speaking scholars to improve their English writing and the overall quality of their manuscripts.
Our company, EditSprings, is an academic service provider established in China, and we hold offices in Wuhan China and Boston US. Our aim is to help Chinese researchers to publish their academic research papers in SCI, EI and SSCI journals by providing services such as translation, English language editing, academic editing, peer review and journal recommendation. More than 500 editors/reviewers, working as doctors, engineers, scientists or university instructors for reputable institutions across the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and so on, are collaborating with us to help a continuously increasing number of researchers to overcome their English language barrier. Meanwhile, our company has helped more than 10,000 Chinese researchers to publish their papers in diverse English academic journals.
Programs for your choice
You can work on one or more programs listed below.
Language editing: revise the manuscript for language-related aspects only, such as grammar, vocabulary usage, spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, etc.
Academic editing: revise the manuscript regarding academic logicality, content organization, result analysis and language; make sure the manuscript meets publication standards
Peer Review: assess the overall manuscript and provide opinions/suggestions to each section; evaluate the manuscript’s suitability to the author’s intended journal and recommend three journals most suited to the manuscript if possible
Journal recommendation: assess the overall manuscript based on criteria like research significance, novelty, preciseness and language quality; recommend three journals most suited to the manuscript
If you are interested in this position, please fill up the following registration form and send us your CV. Also, please specify which program interests you the most.
If you want to learn more about our company, please feel free to consult this website, and here is the link: https://www.editsprings.com/en/
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. We are looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Thank you very much.
Best regards,

As the email says, this company is retributing researchers for providing some help with manuscripts for their customers. Honestly, I wouldn't mind getting paid for reviewing papers/helping to improve the quality of papers, since I review papers for free all the time. However, I don't know if this company is legit/reliable. Has anyone had any experience with them?


texts:
Intro: R is a open-source software tool for statistical analyses and graphics, which is heavily used in different science disciplines and which is becoming more and more popular (although it is already quite popular in many areas). In addition to the base version, people from all over the place develop so-called packages, upload them, for example, to CRAN, where they can be freely downloaded to use.

Q: I am writing a manuscript for a peer-reviewed psychology journal and used a lot of R packages in my work. Of course, I want to and will cite R itself and the packages that I relied on heavily (e.g., to simulate or analyze data). However, I have also some packages, of which I used only a single, little function. For example, I used the odd function from the gtools package to determine whether an integer is odd or even. As far as I can see, the function is only a single line long, and I could have written it myself (but I didn't!). On the one hand, I want to give credit to these developers, on the other hand I don't want to blow up my reference list and confuse readers. So the question is, should I cite every single R package I used?

BTW: Note that R has the nice function citation("some package") to access citation information provided by the package authors; see also citation() to cite R itself.


texts: Submitting to a journal that requires a French abstract as a non-French-speaker: how important is the French abstract?

texts:
I'm a non-French-speaking mathematician submitting an English paper to a French journal that requires a French abstract (but publishes papers in English).  I don't think I know anyone I'd be comfortable asking for help.

I took at stab at a translation using a combination of Google Translate and phrases found actual French papers.  I think my attempt is probably not so far from the mark, but would be no doubt cringe-inducing for an actual Frenchman.

Should I submit with no abstract and hope for the best, submit with the bad one, or is it important to find somebody to help me with a proper translation?


texts: If I got 1.0 for Master thesis in Germany, can it be summa cum laude in my CV?

texts:
I graduated and got an M.Sc. degree from a German university.
I got a grade of 1.0 after my master-thesis defense.
In this case, can I use "summa cum laude" on my CV?


texts: Should a dissertation cite the chapter within the dissertation or the published manuscript?

texts: I'm in the process putting together a dissertation by publication and one of the manuscripts builds upon previously published work. As a result, the manuscript as a chapter in the dissertation has citations that can currently refer to the publications. This presents a quandary for the dissertation though. Should the chapter continue to cite the publications, or simply refer back to the chapter in the dissertation?


texts: Administration threatening expulsion over absences in audited class

texts:
I just received an email from my school's administration (Pima medical if that means anything) that due to having an average of over 15% absence from class, I have to meet with someone from student services and administration where I may be expelled from the school.

For context, I'm retaking two of this semester's classes, and auditing a third as a reference before the end of program certification exam. The audited class is where most of the absences are, largely due to unexpected sickness or severely spraining my ankle. At the beginning of the semester, I was under the impression that the audited class would not be counted for grading or attendance, as that's how most other schools seem to handle it, but only recently realized that they don't see it that way.

I have the meeting with admin Monday after my classes, what would the best course of action be in the meeting, and is there anything I could/do beforehand or after for damage control and to make it go as smoothly as possible.


texts: How do you advise an early career researcher who has an unrealistic opinion of their prospects?

texts:
One often reads stories along the lines of "I was told I wasn't suited to a career in academia; now I'm a professor at < Big Name University >". At the same time, given the structure of the academic job market, many people who desire an academic job will never get one. I am sure many of us can think of individuals who made big sacrifices in an unsuccessful pursuit of an academic career, despite never really being a competitive candidate. Equally, we can probably also think of people who succeeded, against our prior expectations.

Given all the above, what should an advisor do/say when confronted with an early career researcher (graduating PhD student/junior postdoc) whose career goals appear incompatible with their current trajectory? How do you support and encourage your advisee, while also being realistic?


texts: Remote PhD Using My MSc University's Lab

texts:
I am currently pursuing my MSc in Applied Engineering, concentrating in Mechatronics and conducting research in cloud-based heterogeneous robotics. My current university does not have a PhD program for engineering.

Are there universities that would allow me to remotely enroll in their PhD program and conduct my research using my current university's equipment?


texts: How should one formulate a Statement of Intent for an interdisciplinary degree?

texts:
I am having trouble articulating a statement of intent because of a few things. But to keep on point for Stack Exchange I'll focus only on one: interdisciplinary coursework.

I have spoken to a Fine Arts Department at my top choice and they not only permit but promote taking interdisciplinary courses. My intention is to take as many courses as I can in Psychology while doing the MFA, as well as any required training to use the Eye-Tracking facilities.

Should I specify professors from both departments?
Should I mention that after I complete the first degree (MFA in my case) I plan to pursue a PhD in the other field (Visual Cognition in my case)
Should I state research goals in both fields or keep it to only the school I am initially applying to? (In my case: In the immediate I want to research neurotypical perception through visual design for clearly communicating complex ideas. Eventually though (as in during the PhD if not Post Doctorate) I want to research atypical perception and how to design visual communications that can be easily understood by people with disabilities. I am not sure which disability but mostly Autism Spectrum Disorders, however I also think there could be a strong use for this research in assisting those with Alzheimer's.)

How much of this cross disciplinary information should a person state in their Purpose Statement / Letter of Intent? My concern is that I don't want it to sound like I only want the Psychology Department and leave the committee wondering why I am going for the MFA in Design first.


texts: Accepted to PhD program but declined, but now want to return 3 years later

texts:
I got accepted to a PhD program at a university 3 years ago, sent an offer and everything but declined. Now I have secided I want to return. Is there any possibility of being admitted again without reapplying if I went and spoke with members of the department and graduate division?

Has anyone done this before? 3 years is a long time for sure but im curious if anyone was readdmitted without a defferal of admissions after 1 year.

Going back through old correspondance the faculty in the department were fond of me and hoped I would attend.

Any thoughts or insight appreciated thanks!


texts: How to be efficient as a graduate student juggling classes, TA and research?

texts:
I am a first year PhD student, and it's the fourth week of school. I am taking two classes, doing one grad class TA and doing a lab rotation. I am in Electrical Engineering (Controls and DSP).

I start my day thinking- "I'll go to class from 10 am to 12 pm, solve 5 homework problems from 1 pm- 3 pm, do some TA work from 4 pm to 6 pm, and read a bunch of papers from 7 pm to 9 pm, then cook and sleep. How optimistic.

In reality, when I start the homework problems at 1 pm, I end up having to read a bunch of textbooks to understand stuff in it (I'm doing Convex Analysis), and by the time 3 pm rolls around, I have finished only one problem. Feeling discouraged, I keep at this homework, vowing to stop only when I'm done with my quota of 5. My efficiency starts to drop severely after a few hours, but since I'm in school with my laptop and stuff, I can't go anywhere to 'relax', so I just keep sitting and start redditing or something. And then my concentration further drops when I try to resume real work. This goes on, I miss dinner, I sleep late, and the efficiency just plummets through the week.

My past couple of weeks have been so inefficient, I want to do something about it before it's too late.

In short, my question is, when your work is way too difficult to achieve your goal of the day in your allotted time, do you switch work, or do you keep going? I have always believed that output is more important than input, that is, putting in two hours for each task without achieving much in anything is not as good as putting in, say, eight hours for just one and finishing something in it nicely. However, this strategy of mine is failing me for the first time in my life, because even if I put in eight hours, I am not able to finish anything. The work is so difficult. I'm not complaining, just really need guidance.


texts: How are simultaneous discoveries handled in biomedical publishing?

texts:
So my situation goes like this : I happened to land upon a significant discovery in my lab In a very field very hot right now. My  bosses are awesome and we send our findings to a ~20 impact factor journal as a rapid communication. Journal review comes back 3 weeks back, reviews are favorable. 2 of 3 reviewers just commended work and did not  ask anything  and third one asked to show extra proof.  I do some extra experiments for revision of article and we send it back this week. I think we satisfactory answered all reviewers questions.

The day we send it back we hear of  a similar paper published in a  different but very famous  journal by a well known scientist of that field. While his work is much deeper  than our rapid communication in one cancer , ours is more broad and applicable to more cancers than his work (that’s why rapid communication as we had hoped we could build upon the work) We also show a very different mechanism that his lab  didn’t. It’s a question of two different labs landing upon a similar  discovery simultaneously. Now my paper is still under review by that top journal. How will his publication this week affect my chances of getting accepted by this journal?
Time line is this:

my article submission: Feb 20 2018
My revision submission : Mar20 2018

Similar paper submitted : October 2017
Similar paper gets accepted : Feb 18 2018
Similar paper gets published: Mar 20 2018

I am pretty sure if he hadn’t published,  our paper would have very likely got accepted because it’s a big discovery. But now that he has, I am feeling all the jitters, nightmares etc. it’s literally  two years of my day and night hard work that has gone in this work. Just super concerned.
I am not a PhD, just an  MD. So I am unaware of how these situations are handled in biomedical scientific publishing.


texts: What does it mean when someone says a discussion section is not "well-developed"?

texts:
A reviewer of my paper told me that the discussion section is not well developed.

What does this mean? What should I work on to improve my discussion section?


texts: Using native language for research discussion in an English-speaking country

texts:
My university is in an English-speaking country, hence most of people use English for communication. However, it is possible to have a supervisor and her student that are from the same country, which is not an English-speaking country.

When that happens, is it acceptable if they use their native language in discussion regarding the PhD research while at school?


texts: Can I have two system models in the same paper, for the same research?

texts:
I am writing a paper in the field of telecommunication. I would distribute my paper into two parts. In the first (more general) part, the system performance for all mobile-phone towers is considered. Results derived from this part are used to study one particular mobile-phone tower. For the first part, I use probability over the entire region. For the second part, I only consider a single tower and revolve my study around it.

Question: Can I have two system models in the research paper with the explanation that I have given above?


texts: What makes a good engineering PhD topic and is this one?

texts:
(I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but it's the best I could think of)
I am soon to graduate from my MEng and I am contemplating doing a part time PhD in the future.
PhDs always seem very 'research' focussed, while research is certainly something I do, it has always been a secondary thing behind the doing (designing making etc.), the engineering.
How does one do a PhD where the goal is to make something? (and can one do a PhD where the goal is to make something?)

Now the more specific question about my current idea.
A C++/Rust like language with a parallelism checker that natively compiles to run segments of code on a GPU (and possibly other ASICs).
Rust's borrow checker runs anaylsis to check memory safety, a parallelism checker would run analysis to  check code is as parallel as it can be, warning when code is not and how it may be best made so (via multi-threading and/or gpgpu), even in very complex scenario. From a more mathematical perspective could a perfect algorithm/model be devised and proven that would never miss when parallelism can be implemented?
In the simplest example, giving a warning for something like:
int a[100000]={1,2,...,100000};
int b[100000]={1,2,...,100000};
int c[100000];
for(int i=0;i<100000;++i) {
    c[i]=a[i]+b[i]
}


texts: Special status of some physicists in France

texts:
This is a question specific to France.

Permanent positions at the university typically are either research only or research and teaching. For the latter, positions are "maître de conférences" (assistant professor) and "professeur des universités" (full professor). In both cases, you are affiliated to one (or two) disciplinar "sections" listed here. Several are related to physics : 28, 29, 30, 60...

However, there exists other permanent positions called "physicien" (physicist), which belong to a different, separate "corps", see here.

How is that so and what is the difference ?


texts: Is it worth serving on a program committee if you are going into industry?

texts:
I got invited to be on the poster track program committee for a CS conference.  Is it worth accepting the invitation if I am going to become a software engineer when I graduate?

Also, if I review the posters, should I put it on my resume?  (I reviewed posters last year and didn't put it on my resume, but maybe I should.)


texts:
Please let me know if there is a better place to post this.

From the document, http://www.marshallscholarship.org/applications/2020_rules_2_year_updated, I have,

"In addition if a candidate puts Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial College, King’s College London, LSE or UCL as their first choice institution none of these universities can be listed as second choice institutions."

I'm not sure how to read that. It seems from only that sentence, that it is somehow more difficult to get a Marshall at one of those institutions, and it would benefit you to choose an institution not listed there so the cohorts for each year are spread around...? But then looking at previous years this is simply not the case, http://www.marshallscholarship.org/scholars/winners_2018

Is there any benefit to applying to say Durham/Edinburgh/Southampton over Oxford/Cambridge?

Thanks in advance!


texts: How to understand the broader goals of profs' research projects?

texts:
Firstly, I should note that this is a cross-post from Reddit r/AskAcademia, and the link to the question is: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/knw86c/how_to_understand_the_broader_goals_of_profs/
I really hope to improve my situation, thus, I would love to get more perspectives on this problem!

Hi there! I'm a first-year undergrad student looking for my first ever research position. I have a hard time understanding the big picture/question/goal the professor is trying to solve/work towards when reading about their projects. I am often overwhelmed with the technical details that are way beyond my current scope of knowledge, and this has made their research appear a lot more tedious to me
I'm seeking ways to improve this situation, particularly things I could do to aid me in understanding the broader goal of the project.
Thanks in advance for any help!


texts: What is the difference between a school and a department?

texts:
Some universities have a School of Something and some a Department of Something. Are they identical and just two common terms for the same thing, or they are different in the university structure?

My impression is that a School is generally larger than a Department. Probably, school is an academic unit between department and faculty. Maybe, a faculty has a few schools, and each school hosts some departments.


texts: Do all authors have the right to access LaTeX source code of the PDF manuscript uploaded to a journal's portal by the corresponding author?

texts:
I am a PhD student about to graduate (finished defense/Viva, pending final thesis corrections and final upload before conferral of degree).

I am a co-author on a manuscript for a journal article. There are 5 other authors on this manuscript. I wrote some chunks of text and created a few figures of the manuscript.

Our initial manuscript submission to a journal (Elsevier is the publisher) came back after peer review requiring us to do major corrections. The first named author on the manuscript and my two supervisors undertook the majority of this task. For the manuscript writing aspect, I also contributed a revised figure and couple of paragraphs of text for the pending resubmission (I also did other tasks to address peer-review comments such as doing long-running simulations with different parameters etc).

Right from the beginning, the manuscript was written in LaTeX. I had also written some of the LaTeX code (for a couple of sections of the initial manuscript submission which came back after peer-review requiring major corrections). In fact, the first named author and myself were using git and a shared github private repo for pulling/pushing our TeX source code as we were working on the draft of the manuscript. However, post peer-review, the first named author took upon the manuscript re-writing task for resubmission entirely to themselves, and stopped pulling/pushing TeX code on our shared github repo.

Today, the corresponding author sent me the PDF of the revised manuscript for my comments and approval before resubmission. I requested the LaTeX source code of the revised PDF for my personal archival purposes. However the other authors who worked hard for the re-submission are reluctant to do this. They reasoned to me that a PDF version is sufficient for me to review and offer my comments. My personal thoughts on their behaviour is that they might have strong ownership feelings about the  revised manuscript since the rewriting was quite demanding in effort with large changes/rewrites necessary to address peer-reviewers comments.

My question therefore is: "are all authors on a journal manuscript automatically entitled to see all artefacts submitted by the corresponding author to the journal's portal (such as the LaTeX source code, covering letter and other relevant submission materials)?"


texts: Is there a credit hours requirement for applying to a masters course?

texts:
I am currently taking an undergraduate degree, and by completion, I would have 112 credit hours accumulated.
This is fine and all if I don't plan to continue my studies or apply to a local university, but I heard some of my seniors getting rejected applying for a master at universities abroad because the credit hours they accumulated were not sufficient, and thus their degree is only acknowledged as a diploma equivalent.

Edit: I am especially interested in universities in US, UK, and Japan, but I am looking for a rather general answer, as in, is it common for universities to reject an application because of credit hours, even though the degree came from an accredited university?

Edit 2: my main concern is, whether I should take extra credits to ensure I won't run into a road block because of difference in the credit hours standard between universities (instead of say, my performance/cgpa/accomplishments).


texts: Professor to whom I broke my promise is now a collaborator. What to say?

texts:
7 years ago, I got a PhD offer from professor X. Thinking that I would have no chance with other applications, I accepted it. I signed the offer, and the HR was helping me with the enrollment process.

But then I unexpectedly got another offer, and I broke my promise. I apologized in the most sincere way my poor English could express. X briefly said he understood. This is morally wrong, but not what I want to ask.

One of my collaborator just joined the department of X. He wants to involve X in our on going work. I have no problem with that, X is nice, and he can make a good contribution. But what should I say to X to break the ice?

Should I start by apologizing again?
Should I just pretend that I don't remember about him? This is good if he already forget about me. But if he still remembers about me because I caused him so much trouble, then I will appear as a horrible person to him.

What should I do?


texts: How to grow as a researcher outside of research?

texts:
I am a Ph.D. student (after mid stage) working in theory. I do as much hard work as I can, but there is something I think I am missing. My experience so far is many people don't know what I do and many people don't want to know what I am currently doing. Many of my fellow researchers (Ph.D. students) are very good at organizing various events that happen in the department. I've also tried but have not been as successful. I mean to say: non-research activities also seem to be very important for a researcher and also as an academician.

To be frank, I don't like non-research events very much but still try to give my best. Many professors also know that I am not that good at organizing and managing events, but they always support me. I don't know how much this is going to hurt my career as a researcher and as an academician. I am an introverted kind of person and not that good at talking to other people (especially ones who I meet for the first time).

Question: How to grow in these ways as a researcher? After my Ph.D. I will be looking for postdoc or another job specific to research.


texts: Should one add a "research statement" in their CV

texts:
Background: CS Undergrad applying to CS PhD (USA)
My CV is 2 pages long. The second page is only half filled.
Question: Should I add two short sentences regarding my research interests? (at the end)
*Note: I already have an online website which has the same explained in more detail.


texts: Should I agree to submit a paper with my name as coauthor although I did not read and understand the whole paper?

texts:
I finished my PhD in natural sciences in 2015. At some point during my PhD studies I did some measurements for some other scientists.

Now they are about to submit a paper containing my data, and I am listed as a coauthor.

I barely remember the experiments. I did not read the paper (yet).

Do I have to read that paper? Do I have to read it often enough to fully understand it? Should I disagree being listed as a coauthor?


texts: Is publishing in your university journal considered a conflict of interest?

texts:
Many journals are published by universities and research institutions. For example, Oxford University, Johns Hopkins University, Cambridge University, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory all have their own journals.

Since having reviewers from the same institution is often considered a conflict of interest (SE answer), is publishing in a journal that is published by your research institute also considered a conflict of interest, since the editor is often from the same institution? Is it considered any different from publishing elsewhere?

Additionally, are there any guidelines by universities or their respective publishing boards that touch on these issues?


texts: How should LinkedIn summary look like for a person seeking PhD positions?

texts:
There are many intros, how-to's and guides about writing professional summaries for LinkedIn accounts over the net; however I can not find a good guide to write a summary for academics.

I also tried to write one for myself but I think that this is so vague. Because in the profile we list most of our previous activities such information about our education, career experience, skills, voluntary activities, etc.

If we have detailed information and our CV listed in the profile, what information should explicitly be written in the summary part? Should we summarize the profile in a format like "I have a huge number of publications and thousands of years work experience!"? How brief this part should be? Or is it a bad idea to leave it blank?

What's the purpose of a summary part in a LinkedIn profile for an academic person?

Also, should we mention that we are looking for a PhD position or not? Something like the objectives part in the normal CVs?


texts: Correct practice for representing units in figure and text?

texts:
What is best practice (if any exist) for representing units of a quantity in figures and text for publications.

I have seen use of both () and [] for representing units, eg. in a plot if y axis represents velocity then v(m/s) and v[m/s].

I would like to know what correct: parentheses OR square bracket Or something else?


texts: Is it obligatory to participate in conference if accepted?

texts:
I submitted my article to a Scopus-indexed conference. A month later, they informed me that my paper was accepted and that all that was left to do was paying registration fees and present the paper in order to get it published. However, when I discussed this with my supervisor, he told me that I should have looked for Thomson-indexed journals/conferences.
Can I cancel this? Are there any consequences if I do?
Thank you.


texts:
In my dissertation, I have felt the need to illustrate some ideas with the help of figures and illustrations which I have found available in existing literature. I have borrowed a number of them and I give proper citations and everything. My question is:

Will it be considered a negative point to have multiple borrowed figures from existing publications?

Also, in two cases, I found it hard to rephrase the captions for the images and I just quoted the captions(the proper way).
Does that look like I am being lazy?


texts: what is RARE organisation in the context of hypertext systems?

texts:
I am digging "dead bodies" meaning that i analyse alternatives to the web system which were popular in early 90s and seems to be found the relevant report.

The problem is author is constantly refers to some unknown organisation called RARE which i found no information about. It existed 20 years ago and was mentioned in numerous examples such as the following with other famous institutuons:

"It is noted that the rapid growth of WWW may in the future lead to problems through the implementation of multiple , uncoordinated and mutually incompatible add-on features. To guard against this trend , it may be appropriate for RARE, in cooedination with CERN and other interested parties such as NCSA, to encourage the formation of a consortium to coordinate WWW technical development. "

So who are these RARE was it institution? I was around 3 when berners lee and all these fellas developed the web so i am out of the context.

Link: www.apps.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1614.html

Appologise for typos: posting from phone.


texts: Two authors with same name – multiple author citations

texts:
I'm formatting a paper right now and there are two authors with the surname "Moran". I know that the usual way of going about that is to add the initial to each citation (J. Moran 2015; D. Moran 2014). But what is the standard way of doing that if one of the authors is also part of a three-author citation (e.g. Peters, (D.) Moran and Seegers)? Does the initial of the Moran that is referred to here also need to be included? Or is it unnecessary since it is clear from the two other names which work is referenced?
I'm using Chicago author-date style (16th edition).


texts: Willingness to share ideas that could turn into a paper

texts: Is there any research/study/survey that looked at researchers' willingness to publicly share ideas that could potentially turn into a paper?


texts: Informative article about physics and quote on "physicists don't care about precise numbers, they care about trends"

texts:
I am writing an informative article about physics for the general public, and I was wondering if there is any quote by some famous physicist on the concept that usually physicist care about understanding trends more than predicting precise numbers.
In particular, I would like to convey the message that for a physicist developing a general model which explains the trend of multiple physical phenomenas is much more rewarding than developing a very specific model which explains very well one single physical phenomena but is limited to it.

I found Fermi's quote "Better be Approximately Right than Precisely Wrong", but I would prefer something containing the word "trend" (e.g. once I heard a physics professor saying "I don't care about numbers, I care about trends", this would be perfect for my scope, but it would look much better if this was said by some illustrious physicist).

P.S. I am not sure this is the best platform to post this question, any suggestion for more suitable place to ask this is more than Wellcome.


texts: Taking an applied internship postponing the end of the PhD

texts:
I'm a PhD student in Europe, currently in my 3rd year of pure mathematics. It was supposed to be the final year of my studies before finding a position either in industry or in academy. However, the initial question my poisonous advisor has given me appeared to be a bit too hard (or as he formulated it "I appeared to be too weak") so he asked me to extend the duration of my studies for another year. As the university is very unhappy with people doing so, they force me to take 200 hours of teaching in this year (instead of barely 60). However, the university also offers people in their graduate studies to take a gap year in which for 6 months they work in machine learning startups without getting paid, and then 6 months in a startup in USA or Europe. I have quite solid programming background from my BSc and high school and I like equally pure mathematics and AI-related domains. Needless to say that after this year I am expected to finish the thesis, taking the teaching-penalty year.
My advisor and the graduate school said they agree for me to take this gap year "due to low number of positions in academy" and also a professor of applied mathematics told me it can open me opportunities for a job in industry and also for a post-doctoral position in computer science suppose one of my works gets published.
However I'm a bit hesitant and I wonder whether it wouldn't be better to finish my studies next year and only then to start looking for a job (probably in industry but things can change) fully paid. Also, my advisor is the current head of the graduate school and he told me "nobody would cry if you don't come back, suppose you're offered a good job" which might open problems with him after this year. What would you do? Can you share your experiences from similar situations?


texts: Does IEEE provide an ISSN or ISBN list for searching on a specific journal?

texts:
Does IEEE provide an ISSN or ISBN list for searching a specific journal?
There is this link from here but it is not active anymore.


texts:
I am applying to a Masters Program at a top university. I already have a Bachelors and a Masters degree, in addition to work experience. I have strong letters of recommendation and my Masters degree grades (both quant and social sciences) are excellent (all A's). Unfortunately,  during my bachelors degree I had some serious personal issues with a parents health, which resulted in me not being able to handle the course load for a couple of semesters, resulting in some poor grades (few Cs and a D).  My overall GPA still ended being well above average and majority of my grades were still A's.

Should I explain this in my application or simply focus on the strengths of my application? I will not be including this in my personal statement but there is an option to provide additional info. On the one hand, I feel like these poor grades are a blot on my record (some poor grades sprinkled among As) and not a good reflection of my potential. I basically went through a tough time where my life was so uncertain that I couldn't properly plan my course load or withdraw from courses on time. These courses were quantitative, which is relevant to the program I am applying to. At the same time, I feel like adding this info in my application might draw attention to the negatives or make it seem like I'm shirking responsibility.


texts: In an international collaboration, what can be used for a shared meetings log or electronic labbook?

texts:
I started to have more and more international collaborations recently resulting in more and more (video conference) meetings. While in some meetings, there is one guys summing up the result of the meeting and send it around to everybody via email, I do not think this is the optimal way as sometimes people share references or results and then they send it again via email to everybody.

My questions now is if you have any recommendations on what to use for a shared meetings log or a shared electronic notebook, where everybody can contribute to? Requirements would be

ability to type formulas
insert images
insert link
accessible for editing by everybody (maybe after some kind of registration)


texts: positioning yourself for research positions after graduating from a PhD in a different country

texts:
I asked this on  Reddit also but didn't get any responses so I am trying here.

I am a first year PhD student thinking about how I can start to better position myself to get a research position after completing my PhD. I am doing this because after graduation I will be moving back to my home country (Australia) which is different to where I am currently doing my PhD, and want to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Because of this, I feel I should consider how I can start preparing myself so that when I graduate I can more easily move into a research position. My first thoughts were to find professors in my area (cyber security) and email them about doing some type of collaboration or joint research, this way I can start networking and get used to the different expectations there may be between labs.

I have emailed a few professors but they haven't replied, I will follow up again to see if they just missed the email but can anyone recommend any other methods/ideas that I can use to start preparing or setting myself up to be able to obtain a research position after graduating when it in a different country to where your obtaining your PhD?


texts: OpenOffice Vs. LibreOffice Vs. MSOffice for academic writing

texts:
What office package is good for academic writing purpose? These three are the most popular for a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) style rich text editor.

PS: Avoid LateX reference please. This question is for lazy writers like me who wants to write rapidly and with ease!


texts: Why do companies fund academic research?

texts:
I noticed that a lot of big companies are actively funding research at universities. I was wondering why they do this, as opposed to say funding in-house research as the knowledge ends up in the public domain.

Do they get actual patents out of it?
Do they just want to keep in the loop of the research (and if so why not just read the papers)?
Maybe they want to influence the direction of research?


texts: Difference between "referee" and "reviewer" in the context of journal manuscript review?

texts: I've seen the terms "referee" and "reviewer" both used to describe a person who gives feedback to a paper in a journal submission. Are there differences between the two terms? Is one used in some situations where the other isn't?


texts: Counter strategy against group that repeatedly does strategic self-citations and ignores other relevant research

texts:
There is a group in our small field that almost exclusively cites themselves. Their latest paper has 35% self-citations, which is 80% of the citations within the field. They only reference their own work in talks, presenting it (e.g. to industry) as if they are the only group doing research in this field. When they refer to the work of other groups they do it with a handwave, e.g. in a little corner of their slide with misspelled names.

Their name is attached to a well-known university and they had influential and excellent papers in the field, so most people cite them in their papers, but it increasingly feels as if we are helping a career-boosting strategy here. I have witnessed that they were already criticised in review rounds for ignoring other people's work and not giving credit, but they continued the self-citing in new publications, either seeing nothing wrong with it or following a strategy. They often seem to get away with it. About two years ago they had a publication where the main result was already published by another group in our field years ago, and they did not cite them.

Is there a counter strategy against this behaviour?


texts: Is it appropriate to give university lecturers Christmas cards?

texts:
Are there any issues or concerns a with student giving lecturers Christmas cards? I am apprehensive that the religious connotations of Christmas might offend some card recipient(s). However, if the card is appropriate and professional I can't imagine why it would raise concerns. I wanted to gather the opinions of others in the same position as my possible card recipient(s).

Is it appropriate for students to give university lecturers Christmas cards?


texts: Legality of downloading books from websites such as Library Genesis

texts:
I am an international student who will be joining a graduate program at a US university starting Fall '18. In my home country, I have used such websites as Library Genesis and BookFi to download textbooks, from such publishers as Springer etc., which are otherwise either not available or available at exorbitantly high prices in my home country.

Is it legal or illegal for graduate students to download books from such websites? Would I get into any trouble if I download textbooks from such websites either from my personal computer or from a university-owned computer?


texts: What favour is suitable in return for running a costly software?

texts: My work relies on using a software that is quite costly. It is painful to pay for a yearly license considering that I use it only a fraction of the time. Using an open-source software is an alternative, but the best available is not quite as good. So I was thinking of asking the favour of researchers in other institutions who have the license, to run the software. But what kind of favour would be suitable in return? A joint publication is an option, but running a software perhaps is not sufficient to warrant authorship. Also, sometimes the nature of the work precludes too deep involvement of other parties.


texts:
I am looking to one job opening for a Lecturer position in a university (mostly dedicated to teaching but expanding its research capabilities), which asks me to submit a "proposal of academic plan". The application is actually in Spanish, and the above is a literal translation of "propuesta de plan academico". The job opening has no further information on what the latter means, as if it were self explanatory. I could well contact them, but first I want to see if this is something very obvious to you.

What do I think it would be? Not sure. A bit of research agenda perhaps, combined with prospect teaching courses, and perhaps personal development as academic, e.g. training, network building, etc.

Any ideas?


texts: how much input from someone else can a student have in an essay without it being collusion?

texts: From the very first assignment an undergraduate student has been submitting work which has been heavily and repeatedly revised by her father (who is an A level teacher of the subject of her degree).  Is that collusion? If so, how can it be proven?


texts: Asking for recommendation letter to a Prof on New Year, deadline in a week

texts:
I am applying for graduate school. The deadline is in one week.

I need to ask for one more recommendation letter to a professor who I have not spoken to in a year.

The problem is that today is December Twenty-Eighth! I thought about asking her over Christmas but I chickened out because I knew for sure that she would be busy. Now we are only three days away from new year and the deadline follows shortly after. For sure, it would be impolite to delay this any further. The thought of having her spending the new years day writing a letter for me really doesn't sit very well!

I am afraid that giving such a sudden short notice over such a busy period would be received very poorly by the professor.

Should I do it? How do I do it politely? I really hope the prof do not react to this negatively.


texts: Should I mention my blog in a postdoc application?

texts:
I am a PhD candidate in Physics, and I am applying to some interdisciplinary postdocs that deal with economics/climate science/etc. I have a pretty good academic publishing record, but also own a moderately successful blog that deals with economics, politics, science, etc. from a Left perspective.

Would it be sensible to include my blog in my CV or research statement to show that I am interested in that sort of interdisciplinary work and that I have good communication skills?

Some of the posts have a couple of thousands reads etc,  which implies I have an audience.  My issue is that, because it is a partisan blog it has obviously some strongly worded opinions, so I am not sure if it would be professional to mention it. The reason why I want to include my blog is that my PhD is in pure  physics, and I want to show I can "work" in other environments as well.


texts: Regarding hiding depression during application

texts:
I had dropped out of a masters program because of depression in 2015. I free-lanced for a few years, co-founded a tech. startup and my depression diminished, but then I met with an accident in 2017 which gave me chronic back pain. Bed-ridden for months, I converted my full-time work to part-time, and also started working on my Masters thesis. I defended it successfully a few months back (i.e., in 2019). My back pain also has now decreased significantly. As an aside, my back pain was found to have a correlation with my mental health. It started alleviating after I stopped all medication and started living a normal life, with regular exercise routine.

Now, I wish to go back to academia and am applying for Masters/PhD programs. In my Statement-of-purpose, I would have to mention some reason for dropping out of my previous masters program, because it would be glaringly visible.

My question is: How ethical would it be to not mention my depression at all, and instead substitute it with my accident which caused the back pain? That is, if I mention that I met with the accident in 2015 instead of 2017, which caused me to drop out, would it be "right"?

I am thinking of this because as per this, this and this Academia.SE posts, sharing your depression (to your prospective supervisors) is usually not a good idea. And in my case, while the depression lingers beneath and raises its head once in a while, it is usually not present. So, if I am free of depression (but, definitely still "prone"), then should the history be mentioned?


texts: How to handle a common misconception when writing a Master's thesis?

texts:
I'm writing my Master's thesis in a field where there exists a common misconception regarding the properties of a material, stemming from some papers published in the 80's and 90's and disproved in a more thorough study published in the 00's. While most of the serious publications in this field cite this newer paper, the misconception still thrives and is sometimes even used in the papers citing the article that disproved it. The properties of this material are of great importance for the field.

The only reasonable thing is of course to use the new data in my thesis, which I will do, but since the misconception is so common I wonder if I should mention it in the report.  I can think of three different ways to handle this:

Don't mention the misconception at all.
Mention it, but in a general way and not providing sources. For example "A common misconception is ... "
Mention it, and provide sources. "A common misconception, seen for example in [references]... "

Usually, it is a bad habit to make statements without backing them up with facts, which makes me doubt option 2. But on the other hand, option 3 seems a bit too aggressive.

(This is my first post on StackExchange, I hope I didn't mess things up to much.)


texts: Professor doesn't reply email even after I talked to him?

texts: So basically a professor pitched his project that needs research assistants at an event in my department on Monday. I talked to him after the event about 5 five mins, telling him my background and that I am really interested. I sent him my CV after the event on Monday evening. Now that Tuesday has passed. I still didn't get any reply from the professor. What should I do now? Email him again or go to his office directly (now it is the exam period so he probably doesn't have office hours anymore)?


texts: Questions regarding post-PhD research jobs (specifically mathematics)

texts:
I am currently a year or two away from a PhD in differential geometry.  I love doing research, and I would like to make my career doing research in some form (preferably mathematical), but I have no idea the jobs that are out there for pure mathematicians, or what skills are required in order to obtain them.  For what it is worth, I don't care about the money - as long as my family is not starving, I'm fine with a lack of significant disposable income.

So, I ask:

1) What are some areas (broad or narrow) of industry in which I should consider looking for employment?  Specific company recommendations are fine also; right now I have very limited knowledge of what's out there.

2) How should I tailor my skillset to be competitive for industrial jobs in math?  Right now I have a fairly diverse mathematical education, and rudimentary knowledge of a few programming languages, but not much else that might be useful to an employer.  What do you recommend I learn (either through courses or on my own) while I'm still in school?

Note:  I have avoided asking about professorial positions because, while I'm not a bad teacher, and a position at a research institution would be great, I lack the prestige that comes with graduating from a top-tier school and I want to remain realistic about my job prospects.

Thanks for your time,

EDIT:  Recommended reading suggestions are also appreciated.


texts: Paper has been rejected for being published in conference proceedings, but accepted for oral presentation. What does this mean?

texts:
I am a senior undergrad. My paper has been accepted in a conference for presentation but rejected from being published in conference proceedings.
I had a few questions regarding this:

What does this imply?
Can I put this on my resume, and if yes, how do I mention it?
Is it a good look when I apply for grad schools?
Should I withdraw the paper and publish it elsewhere?


texts:
I'm a final year undergraduate student and I'm considering studying further. The main issue is well, money. I wanted to ask about the existing public funds - silly questions but what are they exactly? I would like to continue study in the UK but I'm from Bulgaria - does it mean I need to check the public funds from both the UK and my home country?

I know that i.e. there are now loans for masters, but no (not yet) for PhD. I know there are scholarships given from charities and various organisations but already allocated - are they counted as public funds as well?

I found this certain scholarship that I may qualify but only if I'm not eligible for public funds so I want to check all of them before I fill the application.

I'm totally new to this so I really appreciate your help!


texts: Good online resources for teaching students how to write a research paper

texts:
What is a good online resource for a student who doesn't know how to write a research paper?  Content I would like to see included in such a resource: how to use library databases, what a thesis statement is, how to distinguish reliable online sources from unreliable ones, how to write a bibliography, how to cite sources in the body of the paper, etc.

The target audience would be first-year undergraduates, although to be honest something written for K-12 students (particularly middle school and high school) would probably be very useful, too.

Edited to clarify:  I do not mean "research paper" in the sense of "original research", but rather "Find sources about topic X in the library or online and write about them." This is a fairly common type of assignment for undergraduates (and, for that matter, high school students) in the United States in, for example, the social sciences and the humanities.


texts: How can I find images to use in my thesis that are free/unrestricted by copyright?

texts:
I need to add some  images to my thesis. I would strongly prefer that these are free (no cost) and not restricted by copyright.  I have used Google Image to find images, I don't know how to determine what the copyright restrictions are, or what license types apply. I will not use them in any published paper, just for my unpublished thesis.

Thanks

P.S. Here are the search options for Google Image:


texts: Making an unrequested change at revision stage to a journal paper

texts: I had submitted a paper in a journal, and had got a request for major revision. The changes are mostly related to the experiments, and some language issues. However, while trying to fix those, I stumbled a much better (theoretical) solution to the same problem. Should I include this improved solution in the revised version? Or is it better to write this improved solution as an additional note, and let this paper go as is?


texts: Cons of putting accepted paper on arXiv?

texts: If I have a paper accepted for publication in a journal, putting a version of it (that does not conflict with the agreement with the publisher) on arXiv will help make it more easily accessible. On the other hand, are there good reasons not to put it on arXiv, supposing the paper is on topic for arXiv?


texts: How to respond to PhD offer emails politely

texts:
So it is the season where PhD offers are doled out (for US universities anyway). I am lucky enough to have received a number of offers via email. These typically comprise of a polite email from a member of faculty, normally the director of postgraduate study (or similar), along with an offer letter attached.

My question is, are replies to these emails expected? I felt compelled to respond with a quick thank you - I wish I could have asked some insightful question about the program but I couldn't reliably find something to ask.

How should one respond to these offers? What about schools that I will not likely attend as I was offered a school I prefer - should I decline at this stage?


texts: Should you ask for recommendation letter from the professor of a class you didn't get an A in?

texts:
It seems like the norm of American universities is that all the letters of recommendation are always positive stuff, and they are normally evaluated on the level of specificity they have, and if they have something extraordinarily positive about the student, rather than some usual positive language. Given that they never write a negative letter, would it help my application if I ask for a letter from the professor of a class that I didn't get an A in, if the professor is a really big name in the field?
(I got an A-, so not so terrible, but the grades were curved and I still got an A-.)

I was also wondering if the answer to that question would be different for applying to European universities, given that their expectations from a recommendation letter seem to be different, and they don't necessarily expect a personal description of the students' abilities.

(The professor is a really really big name. He is one of the 3 most famous people in the field in the entire world.)


texts: How to Cite Online .pdf Publication in Article?

texts:
An entry in References which does not look good, here the url

where I am unsure about

having second name as "A." there; I would not necessary have it at all but the problem is that you do not necessarily know if it is the second name
URL: ... does not look good
having URL as red does not look good

Sure

year missing, so should be 2015

I remember that you do not need to provide url sometimes at all, but not sure.


texts: Should I tutor a student who I know has cheated on their homework?

texts:
I am a Ph.D. student and I do private tutoring on the side for extra income. Recently a new student contacted me for help with a class, and I met them for one session, which went well overall. They told me they liked my tutoring and want to meet again. This student admitted that they are behind on the course material and are trying to catch up before the final (which is just about two weeks away). However, I recently realized that this same student is in another class which I am TA'ing, and I was grading the homework today and realized they copied the solutions for the last assignment. I had suspected they may have copied solutions to the previous assignment as well but was unsure. This time the copying is blatant, word for word from the solutions from a past year. At this point I have no choice but to bring this to the course instructor (who is also my advisor), who I know will report this student for plagiarism. My question is, should I still meet this student and tutor them in other classes?

A few thoughts that come to mind:

I now know this student is in the course I am TA'ing. I feel tutoring them for this course would be a conflict of interest, and I would have to clear it with my advisor. Is it also a conflict of interest to tutor them for a different course, knowing I will be grading their exam/homework for this one?
I enjoy tutoring because I enjoy helping students learn, and I do like to help people succeed. In our previous session this student seemed interested in actually learning, but clearly has shown that they are willing to blatantly plagiarise homework solutions. While I do rely on my extra tutoring income, it feels unethical to tutor someone who cheats. At the same time, I would like them to be able to understand what they are doing so they don't feel any need to cheat. But this student also said they have not attended class in recent weeks (for what reason I do not know).
If I meet this student again, I will have to tell them that I have reported them for academic dishonesty. This isn't exactly an issue though, they can decide what they want to do from there.


texts: Withdrawing a paper after acceptance due to error

texts:
I had a paper accepted at a conference in theoretical computer science. However while revising the final version I found an error in the proof of an important lemma. Although I believe the error is fixable, It will require some effort. I will not be able to fix the error before the deadline for the final version.

1) Should I withdraw the paper?

2) Should I leave the lemma without proof, and add the corrected proof at the final version.

What would be the best thing to do? Would I be able to resubmit the paper to some other conference? What would be the damage for my reputation?


texts: Is there something special about "City Universities" and do the municipalities somehow govern them?

texts:
There are several universities with the title "City University". Is there something special about them, is it some kind of special model of founding, governing and developing the university by the local municipality/city/greater-city?

I am participating in the political party/movement and I see the need for some kind of focused higher education institution in our city for some demographics that is neglected by the central government and so - I have feeling that we can propose to establish our own city university to boost education in this special demographics. But are there "role models" for universities that are founded by the cities in the recent half-century?


texts: Do journals hold rejections against authors?

texts:
I am BSc student. When I was in the fourth semester (end of the second year), I did my course project and submitted it to my professor. His efforts in order to publish it really shocked me. It was just a course project and I already had a conference paper out of it. I know the article was so foolish and  basic but he is insisting on publishing it. After two rejections he is submitting it to another journal.
Does this journal count this rejections as negative points for the authors? If I am going to submit any paper to this journal in the future do they count this rejections?


texts: What is the average number of articles written per author in a year and has it increased recently?

texts: Did anyone research the data about scientific productivity? I.e. what is the average number of articles written by author in a year in a specific field? I am  referring to average, since this is maybe easiest to calculate, but it would be interesting to see the distribution data too. This of course depends on how many journals we want to scope, but I would be interested to see any data on say most popular fields like physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, etc (order is of no importance).


texts: Do Universities make fully-remote contracts?

texts:
I have been working in the UK for 8+ years, partially in academia and partially in industry, with satisfying results in both cases. I have been working fully-remote (from the UK) for the last year and I find this situation ideal for me. I am now thinking of moving back to my home country, Italy.
I know that working fully-remote from the same country of your employer is one thing, working fully-remote "from everywhere" is another, and they require different types of contract.
I can easily find jobs as a fully-remote employee from my country if I am looking for industry jobs. However, I would really like to keep working in academia, and I have not been able to find any University ad that talks about the possibility of a fully-remote position "from everywhere" (or even just a "fully-remote" position from the same country as the University).
Does it mean that Academia will NOT make these types of fully-remote contracts? Or it's possible that this arrangement will be discussed separately once the first contact is made?
Notice that I am not limiting myself to UK Universities. Anything is fine. My field is Machine Learning research so I need nothing more than my laptop (the heavy work is often done on remote servers).
EDIT: Please consider that when I am talking about "working in academia" I am referring to "pure" research job, with little to none educational obligation. If this seems crazy to you, consider that it's what I have been doing for the past year.


texts: Where to find grad school acceptance rates?

texts:
I've been searching (without luck) for the kind of information that was very easy to find when I was applying to undergrad; namely, information such as acceptance rates and median GRE scores of accepted applicants. I'm planning on applying to pure math grad school. Is there some online resource for finding this information?

Update: I found one resource for this information, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. After clicking on the colleges it had acceptance rates for most of them; search filters are on the left. http://www.petersons.com/graduate-schools/SearchResults.aspx?id=MTRkODRkYWEtODEwZC00OWU3LTk3NDUtYjliNDdhZTYxZDk5


texts: Conflict with conference Program Committee

texts:
I was reviewing a paper for a conference. As I wrote in the review, it was IMO a completely average paper (boring problem, boring techniques, average write-up). I gave a scoring of "0" (ranging from -3 to +3) noting that it could, potentially, deserve publication if there is any space.

After submitting my review, I received a message from the program chair saying roughly the following:

  as you can check there are some rather different reviews regarding this submission. Please feel free to comment on it or change your score in case you think it is appropriate.

There were 2 other reviews: The 1st liked the paper and gave a +2. The 2nd however had virtually the same review as mine but felt probably slightly more generous and gave a score of +1.

1st minor Question: Is it normal PC members to ask you change the review score when the review does not vary significantly from the others? I never heard such a thing, even in personal cases where was a large deviation between reviewers.

I was trying to understand the logic behind the PC message. My Theory:

  I think the PC members wanted to accept the paper but because they did not have an overwhelming argument and because the average review score was lower than the acceptance threshold they were unable to justify the acceptance. Instead of altering my score at their own will, they asked me gently if I am willing to do that.

Is my theory plausible?

2nd minor Question: Since my review was virtually the same to the one of the 3rd reviewer, wouldn't it be more fair if all other parties were involved in that exchange? Maybe the 3rd reviewer would have change the score to "0" after reading my response. Why this process should involve only me?

I responded by noting the above and by standing by my initial decision and score because I really felt it did not deserve anything more than "0".

3rd Minor Question: Do you think my response was appropriate, given the circumstances? Was there any other way that I could have handled the issue?

Now, this is my final (conditional) main question:

  Given the fact that my "theory" is correct and given the particular circumstances (slight variation on reviewer opinion), is it common to ask the reviewer to do their (the PC's) job of accepting/rejecting manuscripts when the reviewer's job is to provide an honest opinion? If yes, shouldn't all reviewers be aware (in case there is not some terrible misunderstanding/mistake in any of the reviews, just a matter of opinion).

Note: I was told after the event, that I was the only one that received that message. My guess is that the paper was close to acceptance but my score prevented it from being a clear accept (so they felt I was somewhat "harsh"). I guess that also explains why they did not contacted the +1 reviewer B (also to avoid situations that I change to +1 and B change to 0 after reading my justification, and we are at square 1). Any thoughts on that? Is this common?


texts: What is the principal investigator’s responsibility regarding data authenticity?

texts:
Every now and then, you hear stories of data being fabricated by a graduate student (or post-doc) who felt the pressure to publish groundbreaking results was too much. This unethical behavior makes me wonder: What can a PhD advisor (or group leader, or project principal investigator) actually do to avoid that in her own group? What are her ethical duties in ensuring that all published data is genuine?

Please note: I'm not singling out graduate students or post-docs because I think they are statistically responsible for more ethical misconducts than others… only because it gives a good case of when the PI would have only indirect access to the data (meaning: she didn't actually do the experiments herself, but was only presented the data by others in her group).


texts: START v2 (Softconf): what markup is allowed in reviews?

texts:
Softconf's START Conference Manager v2 is a web-based conference management system that is widely used, at least in the field of computational linguistics. Academics using the site enter plain-text reviews, but the site appears to support a limited range of plain-text markup that gets rendered in HTML upon review submission.
For example, *emphasis* is rendered as emphasis and * item on a new line is rendered as:

item

This feature is undocumented, but knowledge of the feature could help reviewers write more engaging and legible reviews.
I tried to guess the markup for other formatting styles, but without success. The two patterns above look like Markdown or reStructuredText, but **bold** does not work, nor does `monospace`, so it appears to be some custom solution. Does anybody know what other formatting styles are supported?
In the absence of official documentation about the feature, the answer to this question can make the information more discoverable for future reviewers.


texts: My paper was presented as part of a Keynote speech written by my advisor. What do I mention in my CV?

texts: I have written a paper jointly with my supervisor. He will be presenting our research as a part of a keynote lecture on an international conference. The lecture is in his name, but a part of that lecture has to do with my research. In fact, he will mention my name on one of the slide as an acknowledgement of my contribution. I am in need of items on my CV for upcoming funding applications and I am wondering if I should include this lecture on my CV? If yes, how can I list this item on my CV?