texts: Using my email and webpage screenshots in my thesis

texts:
My research is about data-driven marketing methods and applying those methods in education. In my PhD thesis, I use some screenshots of commercial emails in my email box from companies such as Amazon, Les Mills, etc. An example:
I also used some screenshots from part of a webpage from companies such as Mailchimp. An example:
I have a copyright question: Do I need to seek permission for using these images?
P.S. I study at the University of South Australia


texts: Standard Word templates, fonts, etcetera. for non/semi-technical Springer journals?

texts:
Is there a standard typeface and/or word template that people use when submitting to non/semi-technical Springer journals? Previously I have always used Latex, which typically meant a conference or similar template was used. I have obviously searched but could not find anything, so I am wondering what the unofficial, if one exists, standard is?

I ask because I think it does give a better impression if the standard formatting that reviewers are used to is used.


texts: Can you cite other master's theses when writing your own?

texts:
I am completing a master's by research (in Humanities), and thus shall be writing a thesis with no class work. I am using both a mixture of primary and secondary source but one item that has me a bit unsure is the use of other master's theses. Is there an expectation at the master's level that you would only consult documents at a higher level (PhD and up)? I know the simple answer would be to ask your advisor, which I intend to do, but I wondering it their any accepted academic practice or principle on the issue?

Should or can I refer to (and cite) other master's thesis as source material or should I be only using material that would be considered above the master's level, such as PhD theses?


texts: How to apply for teaching jobs with no formal teaching experience?

texts:
I'd like to make a career change and go into teaching; for financial reasons (I had to care for my elderly parents, etc.) I've been in marketing for 15 years but my true talents lie in writing and teaching.

I've taught several seminars and worked as a college tutor and teaching assistant, run many volunteer writing workshops, and have many publications in literary journals, and a new book coming out this June by a reputable publisher.  I received my MFA in honors and all of my seminar reviews are extremely positive.

I'm just not sure how to apply when every teaching job posting I find lists "at least two years" of college teaching experience as a prerequisite.  At this point I'd even teach a semester free of charge if someone would give me a chance!


texts: I have some medical device ideas and I want some basic bibliographic research to assess feasibility and novelty. Is there a free or affordable service that can do this?


texts: Can a Ph.D. student, in the USA, work more than 20 hours per week?

texts: I am a Ph.D. student in the USA. I have a contract with the university to work 20 hours a week. However, I have an idea and want to propose it to a company. Then, I sign a contract with them to do that programming project for them. Is this allowed or not?


texts: I want to reference the constitution of Montenegro in an essay. I have set it in the text as (ME Const. 2§4) etc., but how do I reference it fully, at the end of my essay, in a bibliography?


texts: Should I quit my PhD - workload, self-esteem and social life

texts:
I don't really want a degree.  I just want to get married, and have weekends and evenings off, and chill out and play board games, and have nice conversations with friends, and have time to exercise and eat good food, and partake in hobbies, and read books and play computer games and watch movies and write a novel or two.  Stuff I used to do as a kid, that I can't do as a grad student.

I like my research, and I like my advisor, but I feel like I work a lot harder than my friends in industry, and I'll be putting my life on hold for at least the next two years, while I'm finishing classes and qualifying exams.  Frankly I don't feel like I can survive the next year, and just the thought of staying here for the next few months makes me depressed.

The problem is if I wasn't a PhD student, I'd just be another fat ugly loser with no social status, and nobody would love me or think I was valuable.  I wouldn't be taken as seriously when it came time to apply for jobs, and people would think I was stupid or at least not any better than someone with a bachelor's degree.  At least now I can apply for internships and get interviews.  And because I am a PhD student at a top school, people assume I'm smart, which also helps me find dates, even though I'm obese, wear glasses, and dress poorly.  It puts me in a different "league" and if I quit I'd have to go back to dating losers who only want me because they can't find any other girlfriends.

Also if I quit my PhD, I would never be able to come back, and what if my new job ended up sucking, or I couldn't even get a job?  I do like my work, and I'm glad I get to do such interesting stuff, I just wish there was less of it.


texts:
I have been considering returning to university to continue my education and further my knowledge. I have a strong interest in finance, but before I dive in to a second degree/diploma at this stage in life, I want to take one or two courses to see if I can get back in to real coursework.

Having been out of university for many years, my initial thought was to take one or more courses through continuing education as a place to start. I remembered that you can audit courses (typically at half the cost of registering in a course directly). I was reading through the Audit Regulations and I was surprised to see that participation in classroom discussion is not allowed.

  The auditing student shall not participate in class discussions, assignments, examinations or in laboratory or like parts of the course.

I understand that that as you are not registered in the course, you would not be able to participate in exams for credit and/or receive graded assignment etc... however the inability to participate in class discussion was a little disappointing.

Based on the Business classes I took while in university, the classroom discussions are the core of most courses. What is the rationale for not allowing auditing students to participate in class discussions?


texts: What to do if you are on the reserve list of one grad program and get accepted to another?

texts:
I applied to a graduate program in mathematics at university A. I went to their oral interview, and could not give some proofs that they asked for. As far as I know, university A has two lists: main and reserve. I am not declined, so I think that they put me on their reserve list because there were people who did better than me in the interview. I also applied to university B that I would like to study math at, and did great at their interview.

I'd prefer to choose university A. So, should I pick university A on whose reserve list I am, or university B which put me on their main list?


texts:
An undergrad who's worked with me for just over a year (for course credit or for pay, depending on his preference in any given semester) presented a poster on his work with me at an event hosted by my lab. Afterwards, the student told me that he spoke to Professor B at the poster session, and Professor B suggested a project that he'd like the student to work on with him.

He had a meeting with Professor B to talk about the specifics, after which Professor B emailed me and asked whether I would recommend the student. I indicated in my response that the student is very capable and I would rather not lose him, to which Professor B responded, "He's planning on working with me for course credit next semester."

Was Professor B's behavior in this case OK?

More generally,

Under what conditions is it OK to hire another lab's student?

By "OK," I mean "not considered inappropriate behavior by the professor."

Hiring another lab's student is of course a continuum:

On the one hand: Student from Professor A's lab appears in Professor B's office, says "I've heard about your research and would really like to work with you." Professor B says, "Sure, I'd like that a lot."
On the other hand: Professor B attends event (open house, workshop, etc.) hosted by Professor A, where Professor A's student gives a talk about his ongoing research with Professor A. Professor B chats with the student after the talk, then says "You should work with me next semester."

Is either or both of these considered OK/not OK?

Does the type of student (PhD, MS, undergrad, high school student doing summer research) make a difference to your answer?

Do the terms of the student's position in either lab (earning course credit, getting paid, just getting supervision) make a difference?

Does it matter how long the student has been working with Professor A?

Should Professor B ask how Professor A feels about it before offering Professor A's student a job?

This is not an active, ongoing situation - I am not looking for advice on how to respond to Professor B, or whether I should say something to the student. (The student chose to continue his work with my lab and not to work with Professor B.) I just want to know whether Professor B's behavior was appropriate.


texts: How do I handle academic references for US PhD program, when I have been out of academia for a (very) long time?

texts:
I live in the US and have been working as an engineer in industry for over 10 years. I graduated from a top UK University, with outstanding grades in a Masters degree and several university-level prizes.

I have decided that I want to pursue a PhD, as I have a strong desire to be doing more advanced and challenging work. So, I am planning to apply to the PhD program of the best university that is in my area (which happens to be a top-tier US institution). My family and I are fairly settled in the area and we have no desire to relocate.

The institution has an admissions requirement that I have to provide three recommendation letters, two of which should be academic. Therefore, it seems that I have little option but to reach out to some of the professors that I worked and studied under during my undergrad course 10+ years ago. I am planning to provide one industrial reference and two academic; however, I am concerned that my undergraduate course was so long ago that the professors will struggle to remember me, given the hundreds of undergrad students they interact with each year. So, at best, even if they do generously agree to write a letter, it will probably be fairly generic and unspecific. And of course, it won't be in any way a good reflection of the more experienced and mature person I am now.

At worst, they might simply refuse, given the amount of time that has passed. I wouldn't blame them, and in a way I feel bad asking, after all this time.

So, what should I do in this situation, given the amount of time that has passed? Is there another way I can approach this?

The irony is that, given my industrial experience and personal development over the past 10 years, I think I am almost certainly a stronger candidate for a PhD program now than I would have been straight after I finished my undergraduate degree; however, given the amount of time I have been out of academia, obtaining strong recommendation letters is going to be much more challenging.


texts: What does it mean when it says on a grad school application to choose recommender "familiar with the candidate's scholarly abilities"?

texts: I'm applying to graduate programs in Biomedical Engineering. The University of Pennsylvania application says the author of one letter of recommendation must be a faculty member who is familiar with the candidate's scholarly abilities. In layman's terms, does this mean they want a letter from a faculty member who has served as my research advisor?


texts: Research Design Help: Measuring the effects of plagiarism intervention

texts:
(Background: I am a full-time EFL instructor at a university in S. Korea. I want to do independent research, as most faculty would not be interested to collaborate with someone who only has an MA.)

Korea is known as the plagiarism capital of the world. Since I work with student writers there, I am very interested in the subject. I am trying to devise a research project which can measure the efficacy of plagiarism intervention strategies, namely teaching paraphrasing, summarization, and citation skills. I have done a small literature review and have ideas for getting student perspectives on plagiarism using already validated surveys. However, since I want to focus on effect, I was wondering if anyone had suggestion on how to actually measure this?

I was thinking some kind of pre-test/post-test, but would really love some more ideas.

Edit: to expand on the pre-test/post-test idea, I had thought about giving them a number of short paragraphs which they would need to paraphrase and cite correctly (assuming paraphrasing is a vital referencing skill) pre-intervention and then post.


texts: Can I put into Acknowledgments someone who is no longer living?

texts:
I am finishing a paper which was created thanks to my inspiration of Erik Erikson's work on psychological developement. The paper is, however, in the field of thermodynamics and complexity-science. I, therefore, feel grateful that such a great theory was created many years ago, and now is capable to push exact sciences step forward. I named two terms following Erikson's theory. I would like to note this somewhere, or state in general that I was inspired by the theory.

Do you think that it is OK to do this? Maybe I should hold back for some time, I can always state the "thank you" in the subsequent papers?


texts: Should I submit my paper to a journal that accepts papers quickly?

texts:
Should I submit my paper to a journal that accepts quickly?

One of my batch-mate got accepted in a journal within 1 month. The journal was also listed on predatory journal's list.

Please advise.


texts: Should an editor ask his own graduate (PhD) students to review papers in his journal?

texts:
If a professor is an editor of a journal, then should he ask his graduate students (PhD) to review articles? What do you think, good or bad on what points?

Different from "Is it common to review papers assigned to your supervisor?", where the professor is a reviewer and not the editor.


texts: Criminal record and work on federally funded project

texts:
I have recently interviewed for a position with a project with a major university. It is funded by federal grant (mainly NSF). It is not an academic position per se, but is led by a few principal investigators who are full professors. This is my first encounter with academia since completing my undergrad degree (I have worked entirely in private sector since then) so it's fair to say I'm pretty ignorant of many of academia's inner workings.

I think the interview went fairly well, and I like what I know of the job very much, but I have a concern: I was convicted of selling drugs (a felony) about 4 years ago. The position I interviewed for is software related and has absolutely nothing to do with pharmaceuticals.

While my layman's impression is that universities are fairly tolerant of such background in general (Bill Ayers and Timothy Leary come to mind. I'm sure there are better examples) I know that charges like this have bearing on eligibility for FAFSA student loans. Therefore I am concerned that there may be similar restrictions for projects that are the recipient of federal funding. The team may have liked me for the position, but they certainly don't like me several million dollars worth!

For what its worth, it is a private school. This is in the United States.

Any insights into any potential for conflict with federal rules? Any other potential roadblocks, or comments on the culture/conventions concerning these kind of issues?

My apologies for an anonymous question, but I think you can see why. If this question indicates lack of research I apologize as well, but I am outside of my realm of knowledge here and had little success with googling the topic.


texts: How to determine which college textbooks are most widespread?

texts:
I've come to realize that there's a specific pretty basic topic at the level of college algebra/precalculus which is given competing, contradictory definitions in different textbooks (link). And this topic also shows up at the high school level. I'd like to follow up on this and determine the proportion of students exposed to each type of definition, and ideally a breakdown by geographic location (say, nationality) if possible.

What's the best way to go about determining which college textbooks are most common/ biggest sellers/ used in more classes/ have more students exposed to them (or any related metric)? Or even better: any way to determine what proportion of students are given one of a few different, competing definitions for a topic?


texts: What's a realistic workload per blackboard hour for teachers during the semester?

texts:
There is this excellent thread about teaching workloads across the world on Academia SE: Is 100 hours per year of teaching a heavy load for a lecturer?

I would now like to continue this discussion with respect to the actual workload teaching staff face. I know that teaching is not only blackboard/classroom hours, but of hours of preparation, grading, examinations etc. Since exams and grading usually happen during the semester break at universities, I am more interested in the workload teaching staff face during the semester. Of course, creating a new class from scratch consumes an enormous amount of work, so this is not what I would like to use as baseline. I'd much rather go for your typical class of well-established contents, maybe undergrad stuff, for which only occasionally a minor update of materials is required - and not a complete makeover every year. To formulate the question precisely: What is your actual workload during the semester per blackboard hour in classes that belong to your established portfolio?


texts: How do grad schools design courses for potential students?

texts:
For graduate schools in STEM which take students with a Bachelor's degree (BS/BE/BTech etc.) and graduate them with an MS and/or PhD, what do they assume about the student's prerequisite knowledge when designing courses, their difficulty and overall dynamics?

My question is pointed towards knowledge and not what is on the student's transcripts. For instance, a student might have "Linear Algebra" on his transcripts but might not remember Singular Value Decomposition very well.

Do they:

assume that student knows all the courses he has taken very well and build from there? (What happens to people who had a BS in allied fields? For instance a student may have a BS in Pure Math but enrol for a MS/PhD in Computational Math with little idea about a "compiler".)
assume he knows nothing and take him to proficiency?
anything in between?


texts:
I'm from Brazil and the metric system for grades here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_systems_by_country#Brazil) is different from UK.
So, I'm an undergraduate student who wants to apply to a Master Degree in Physics - DAMTP.
But, I don't know what exactly is the "overall grades" which they are requiring here https://www.graduate.study.cam.ac.uk/international-qualifications
I mean, I must to have 9/10 in each of the subjects or just the "final grade of all the course subjects" (given by some sort of process like weighted average)?


texts: Resources on how to overcome writer's block, especially for non-native English speakers?

texts:
One of the issues we have at my English-language institute is the problem of getting our doctoral students to write papers in English. For some, writing isn't a big challenge. For others, however, the process is about as pleasurable as pulling teeth or a lobotomy (without the benefit of anesthesia).

What we've found is that there are a few problems that tend to creep up:

Students don't know how to commit their ideas into paper
Students are afraid of writing poorly, so they don't write at all

What I'm wondering is if there are any resources available that can help—particularly international students—with overcoming the "academic" version of writer's block.


texts: Pros and Cons of being an editor for an edited book volume

texts:
I am early in my tenure track position. I have just completed my post-doc and PhD two years ago. In collaboration with colleagues, we have recently circulated call-for-papers for an edited book.
What are the potential pros and cons of being a co-editor of an edited book given my career stage?
The propsed edited volume is broadly based on social science and related disciplines.


texts: Which foreign academic job markets most favor (monolingual) American PhDs?

texts:
I am pursuing a PhD in one of the physical sciences. I attend a university that is top 10 or so in my field and has a recognizable name (Ivy league). My adviser’s past students have had somewhat good luck finding professorships, but even so several have left the field for jobs in computer science. Since I enjoy traveling, to increase my chances of finding a permanent academic position I plan to also apply abroad. Unfortunately, I only speak English.
Do you have any suggestions of where a monolingual American PhD can find an academic job abroad? If I need to complete a postdoc first like in America, would it be better to do it in America or said foreign country?


texts: Is it harmful to list too specific research interest in personal statement?

texts:
I'm undergraduate who are applying US research program. I have one interest field in which I have read 1 survey and 3 other papers (I know it is not enough). I only have some vague and primitive idea so that I am not sure I will do research in the field in graduate program.

I'm afraid if I write my research interest too specific and there are no professor who has knowledge about or is interested in such field, the admission committee would think my goals do not coincide with their department research interests.

Is it a disadvantage to write research interests too specific?

It is also possible that what I believe is too specific may be not specific enough for some professor.


texts: How to get a "teaching letter" when I don't want my department to know I'm looking for a job?

texts: I am currently a tenure track faculty in a college and I plan to look for a position somewhere else. A problem is that, I can not get a teaching letter from my department (in fact I would like to keep my search confidential). Teaching letters are required in my field and I am wondering what should I do in this case? Thank you for your suggestions in advance.


texts: Write a computer science thesis in native language or English?

texts:
I'm a computer science student, currently at the Bachelor level. I'm also not a native English speaker. My native language is Dutch. This year, I have to write a thesis.
I've always been told at my university that whilst being a Bachelor-student all courses, assignments, etc should be available to us in Dutch, but we've had lectures in English before after an agreement with the professor.
Personally, I find it easier to write in my mother tongue (naturally), but maybe it's worth to go the extra mile and write my thesis in English. Also, all the research I've done so far, has been in English. So it's not really a problem for me.

Question:
Should a (computer science) thesis be written in English or in the writer's native language? What are possible pros/cons? Can it pay off to go the extra mile?


texts:
A constant struggle for most graduate students is how to clearly lay out research ideas in a coherent manner. We are constantly in the "weeds" reading papers, move data around, running models, and researching tiny little details. When we decide to come up for air and begin to talk about our ideas they are unorganized and unclear. We assume people know what we are talking about and so we talk right past them.

So my question is, how do you clearly and coherently lay out research ideas?

Are there books to help with this, or other resources? Are there ways to overcome this challenge as a researcher?


texts: Google Scholar: How to search by author's email?

texts:
I want to search for paper come from Google, Airbnb and Bytedance etc. (to learn about their machine learning application).

If I search for Airbnb.com, the result would look like this

Some are what I want, but some just mention airbnb.com in title or in content.

How can I restrcit airbnb to email address from authors?

Thanks!


texts: Is it worth trying to get into a decent PhD programme with subpar BSc grades? (UK)

texts:
I am currently a final-year student on a BSc Mathematics programme in the UK. For the first two years of my degree I've mostly adopted a '2:1 will do' approach and didn't focus on my studies all too much, sometimes even cramming in an entire course the night before the exam. As a result, my grade distribution is extremely uneven: for example, last semester, my lowest grade was 40% and the highest was 89%. I'm not sure about other degrees, but from my experience people tend to score fairly consistently in maths. Overall, I currently have a 60% average.

Last semester, however, I took an introductory logic class and was really intrigued by the subject. The 89% referred to earlier was for that logic course, which was otherwise considered fairly demanding. It may sound somewhat cliche, but I believe I've found my academic 'passion', however niche it may be. Over the summer I've worked my way through a couple of mathematical logic books, and am currently in the process of writing my bachelors thesis which is on a fairly advanced topic in model theory. With that my attendance has improved and I've found other maths classes more enjoyable, too. I'm rambling here, but the point is that my interest in this particular area is pretty serious.

Now, to my question: with this in mind, I've started thinking of possibly going on to do a PhD in the future. Problem is, I'm afraid the first two years of my Bachelors will drag me down to the point of not being able to gain acceptance into a decent programme. I will most likely end up getting a First Class degree in the end, and the university I go to is in the Top-100 across all major rankings, but then again I know people who have close to a 95% average. Would you say it's still worth trying, or should I just take the safe route and re-orientate my studies towards something more practical?


texts: Introducing myself to researchers from my dream school

texts:
I am applying to a PhD program in a few weeks, and I am also going to give a presentation at an upcoming international academic conference. I heard that a group of researchers from my dream school is also going to present their work at the conference, and at least one of the researchers might be a member of the admissions panel. I would like to introduce myself to them, but I don't want them to think that I am trying to win their favor just to increase my chances of getting accepted.

I recently had an informal Skype meeting with a potential PhD advisor, and she agreed to supervise my research if I get officially accepted. She does not belong to the research group and she is probably not attending the conference.

Could you give me some advice on how to talk to them in an ethical and appropriate way? Would it be fine to let them know that one professor is already willing to accept me to their program? (The conference will take place before the deadline of the application.)

[EDIT]
Thank you @ReinstateMonica for your answer. As (s)he pointed out, there was inconsistency in what I wrote. My potential advisor is willing to take me in, but she is not the one who will make the final admission decision. (My understanding is that my application will be assessed by her and one or more other professors.)


texts: Did the professor "give" me this project?

texts:
Some time ago a professor gave me a small mathematics problem for independent research. While doing reading for this problem I found a substantially different but not unrelated problem mentioned in one of the professor's papers. I did this problem instead.

I would have thought that this means that I picked the problem myself from a paper suggested by the professor, but the professor says that s/he "gave" the problem to me because that's how people see it in Mathematics. This sounds strange to me, and if that's what the professor wants, fine. But I'm wondering if this really is normal in Mathematics.


texts: How much more work should I put to my master's thesis?

texts:
I have been doing my master's thesis for a year now. I was quite productive during the past months, so I already managed to publish one paper on the topic.
Now, the productivity seems to have drawbacks too - I have already fulfilled every requirement there is for a thesis, and even more, but I haven't described even half of the work I did during the past year.

So, I am now left wondering should I return the thesis tomorrow for evaluation, or use two or three more months writing (I'm a terribly slow writer). I would probably like to apply for a PhD position, so I guess I should make the decision from that point of view. If I have a very comprehensive master's thesis, does it add any value for application? Having the one paper would already opens all doors in my home country, but I don't know about the others.


texts: How to handle unprofessional negative reviews from a journal?

texts:
My problem is similar to this this and this question, but still slightly different.

I am facing the problem that my paper was rejected form a journal (with the option to resubmit to the same journal again), where two reviews were provided.

The first review was well written, constructive and shows that the main parts of the paper were read and understood. Nevertheless, the first reviewer suggests to "Review Again After Major Changes".

The second review (who rejected the paper) on the other hand shows clearly that he neither read the paper nor the references listed in the related works section or any background material on that subject (as referenced in the paper or readily available online). Moreover, the review is filled with spelling mistakes, wrong references/citations and wrong claims. In essence, it gives the impression that it was written in a hurry without proper review of paper. But most importantly, the reviewer expects comparisons to concepts with are completely out of date and partly do not fit the discussed scenario.

I am currently preparing a resubmission to the same journal, which will most probably be handled by the same editor and reviewers. My questions is concerning the handling of the second review in the response letter in general and whether it is appropriate to contact the editor right now (few days after the receiving the rejection), shortly before or after the resubmission or not all regarding the review provided by the second reviewer.


texts: How to decide when it's worth investing the time to learn something new

texts:
Background

I am 3 months into a 3 year theoretical physics PhD in the UK. Since I am fairly early on in my research career, there are many new ideas and techniques for me to learn, as well as the need for me to work directly on my research questions.

Either through reading papers or attending seminars, I often come across new ideas which seem interesting and conceivably applicable to my research. However, I find it difficult to decide whether to further study those ideas to more deeply understand them.

On the one hand, my impression is that it is important to deeply understand ideas to be able to apply them to one's own research. On the other, attaining good understanding usually requires a significant investment of time, and this is time taken away from working more directly on the details of my current research. In some sense, this could be seen as balancing short- vs long-term investments of time and mental energy.

My question is about how one should decide whether to invest the time learning new ideas now, or wait until they come up more directly in later research. Of course, the difficulty with research is that one is often not sure if or when a new idea will come in handy.

Question

What thought process do you go through to decide whether to spend time now in learning a new idea?


texts:
When I was in my PhD program I started working with an Assistant Prof. X in the department. I collected a large and valuable data set and at some point X "borrowed" me two RAs to clean and to organize the data. X didn't provide any further help, I oversaw the data collection, managed the RAs and did the final checks on the data. After the data was collected, we agreed that we would share authorship in 2 papers involving the data. Then, if I wanted to use the data for any other projects I could use it without including X as a coauthor. X emphasised on several occasions that I didn't need to include X as a co-author in other papers that I started.

The 2 original papers got stuck, partially because X somehow stopped working on academic research and started taking other engagements (e.g. consulting, etc.). Due to this, X's tenure-track position is on the line as X could not make enough publications. I understand that this situation is bad and somehow X has grown "desperate" trying to pull the strings from here and there.

X came to know that I was using the data for a project that is in advanced rounds in a major journal. X started to emotionally blackmail me and other coauthor to include X on the paper. At the beginning we didn't give in, but finally one of the co-authors gave in and included X in the paper, although he hasn't contributed on anything in this project. Meanwhile, he kept telling others that I did wrong, etc. which isn't true given our initial agreement.

I don't feel good about this, as I believe one should provide meaningful contribution to deserve authorship. Now X has gone into a non-response mode for months and would not respond to any e-mails, messages, or any other form of communication. The original 2 papers were main parts of my dissertation and are still stuck as there is a lot of heavy lifting such as rewriting, revisions, etc. that I need to do alone. I am working on them, but I do not feel comfortable anymore about having someone in the paper who doesn't even reply.

At this point, I am not sure on what to do. The very straightforward answer will be to drop X from the papers, but is that correct? or should I just leave the 2 papers and move on into new things?, which may also mean to "loose" the data.

Added:
Thank you for your answers. I agree that gifting authorships is a wrong practice, although it is often difficult to convey to a group of authors who have very close friendship ties among them (that's what happened with the co-author who finally included X in the project). The main question now is whether I stop working in the existing 2 papers and put them in the drawer. They are interesting projects but given that they need significant work and X is gone (X and I knew this and that's why we decided to work together to "share" the load), it seems more practical and rational for me to move into something new (not using that data) with different people who are motivated to work.

On the more subjective side, X has gone around saying not very nice things about me, and this has somehow affected the professional and personal relationships that I had with others. Given that, I feel even less motivated to work on these 2 projects and "give free work" to X. Is it worth to give up the 2 projects? At this point I am still confused and this has generated a lot of stress both personally and professionally.


texts: Second master's degree in another field without bachelors

texts:
Question: Can I study master's degree in another field (or adjacent field) if I have a master's degree already without a bachelor degree?

Explanation: At the moment I am studying master's degree in computer science while skipping bachelor degree based on work experience. And I was wondering if is is possible to study for example Math's or Physic's master (probably direction a bit more connected with CS) directly ? Maybe some extra courses would be needed as well?


texts: How can I evaluate the strength of a chemical physics program?

texts: I can only find evaluations/rankings for departments such as chemistry or physics, but I am not sure how to evaluate a combined program of chemical physics.


texts: Double major in creative writing/computer science (career in game development)

texts:
I've learned that computer science is a good gateway into video game development which I've had a dying passion for in all its elements such as programming game engines, level design, script structure and story telling. I also have hundreds of pages of short stories/scripts I'd like to bring to life into a working high quality game. This explains my double major curiosity within creative writing and computer science yet I'm also willing accept the reality that I have to either have my cake or eat it.
However it isn't apparent that my writing and gave development interest are optimal for those majors and perhaps I'd be better off looking into different educational fields and methods entering this game development industry. What do you guys think? Have you done something similar or have  any critism for these educational routes?
P.S
I'll  continue honing my Calculus 3 and AP physics until I decide to accelerate myself within STEM and pursue a masters on the computer science of things.


texts: Can I use images from an arxiv paper (and some others) in my undergrad thesis?

texts:
I want to use images (in their unaltered form) from some arXiv papers (and some other venues) in my undergraduate thesis.

For instance, here are the papers from which I'm considering using images:

From Arxiv

Dropout
Resnets
"Why does deep learning works so well?"
"Visualizing and understanding Convolutional Networks"
Image Denoising with Kernels Based on Natural Image Relations

Not from Arxiv

ImageNet Classification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

I am citing the papers from which I am taking the images, but I'm not sure if citing these images is sufficient, is bad practice, etc.


texts: Is it better to NOT have an RA, and instead be doing a TA for the first couple of years of PhD?

texts:
I am a first year PhD student intending to work in convex optimization and its applications. I don't have an advisor yet, so I am still TA-ing. I had a long talk with a very helpful senior grad student in this field at my university today, and he recommended that I focus on taking lots of classes and learning a lot of mathematics for the first couple of years while working on small class projects and reading lots of papers in different areas, as opposed to trying to find an RA. He said having an RA means one is forced to work on  one problem, and that doesn't let you explore on your own.

This is a totally new perspective to me. Until now I felt very ashamed of not having an RA, as I thought it reflected professors' lack of confidence in my capability as a researcher. Now maybe I am starting to see this as an opportunity to explore. However, I want to know other people's thoughts on this too; is it wise to spend the first two years just studying? He said that this would make life very easy for me about three years down the line when I am actually attacking problems. But I am just scared that this would be too late.

Do people in theoretical fields typically do this? Or do they learn on the fly? I don't want to be left behind and have regrets after two years at having taken things too slow now.


texts: Mandatory army service in the middle of PhD, will it be possible to finish PhD under these conditions?

texts:
I started attending a university while in highschool, currently finishing my masters and have started working on my phd with the same (very very nice) advisors (who are aware of the following situation).

In less than a year from now, I will be recruited for a service of 5 years in the army (army service is mandatory in my country). As things look like right now, for at least the first 6-12 months I will not be allowed to study but afterwards I will be given the weekends and another half a day or a full day (probably later) every week to study/research.

Do you think it will still be possible to finish my phd during my time in the army? How would you react as a possible collaborator knowing that if you will work with someone the research is "doomed" to take much longer as the other person will not be available most of the time?

(Also, are there any suggestions for things I should do on the year left for me before the army to help my situation later?)


texts: Submit my R-package to CRAN or Bioconductor?

texts:
I have a new academics R-package for bioinformatics and I would like to submit my package online.

Where I should submit? If I submit to Bioconductor, they have a 6 months release cycle. What about CRAN? Will they release my package once it's reviewed?
I don't think the users care where they get the package from; CRAN or Bioconductor. What's the advantage of submitting to Bioconductor? Why not just to CRAN? Why all the bioinformatics packages get submitted to Bioconductor? I don't see they actively promote the packages. Why not to CRAN?
Can I submit to CRAN, then later change to Bioconductor?
I have a very detailed user guide in DOC/PDF format. However, the Bioconductor requires a running vignette. I think they mean a markup document that all the examples can be run automatically by the build process. What should I do? Should I convert the 100 pages guide into the markup format? Should I just submit to CRAN because I don't think (but I'm not 100% sure) they require a vignette.
Does a static DOC/PDF document sufficient as a vignette?


texts: Approaching Another Lab With A Project Proposal Based On My Thesis Chapter

texts:
During my PhD I was stuck on a metabolic engineering problem which I figured out while writing up. I found plenty of evidence for the cause of the problem and devised a complementary system to allow for the desired pathway to function as intended.

I have had a turbulent but often functional working relationship with my primary supervisor, however, I am quite unpopular with the wider group. After my viva, I had a chat with my supervisor and he wanted to know exactly how the plan worked and how long would it take. Then he suggested I return in a month to explain the idea to a colleague of his who could assess its merit. Now he wont return my emails as I am trying to finalise the meeting.

Is there an ethics/legal problem with taking the idea to another professor to see if they are interested in having another student complete the work, or does the original university own the rights to the data that the idea was based on?

I suspect some foul play on the part of my advisor, who may want to complete the project without me as an expression of resentment stemming from previous fall outs. I feel like he is trying to plagiarise my work, either that or deliberately trying to prevent it from getting finished out of spite after teasing me with the possibility. Is what I am trying to do plagiarism of his work? Some of the project is based on my second supervisors idea but he got this idea from a paper and just transferred it into another platform. My second supervisor wont accept that my fix is viable, I did first suggest it in my 2nd year of research, but I lacked the evidence. Now I have plenty of evidence to support my idea, it seems watertight and I want to finish it.


texts: Do I have to inform a graduate program that just admitted me about my attendance to a different program?

texts: I have received acceptance from a graduate program physician assistant. I have already been attending this semester a different program. I want to withdraw and attend the other program. Do i have to inform the 2nd program that i have been attending the current program or its not needed since i have already been accepted 3 weeks ago.


texts: Using grants to make donations to institutions for using their resources/products?

texts:
In my academic area I constantly use free software/products such as Linux, Python, SageMath, Octave, Wikipedia, etc.

I know that one can include software costs such as Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, Adobe stuff, Mac software, etc. But for free software/products I have not heard of anyone doing that. It feels wrong that if I use Matlab/Mathematica/Macs in my research, I can get public funding to pay MathWorks/wolfram/Apple thousands of dollars, but if I use Octave/SageMath/Linux they do not receive anything.

In other academic areas something similar can happen. I assume the same happens with "open" databases that operate with donations vs private databases that mostly operate as for-profit. Other examples could be Wikipedia, OEIS, LibreOffice, Gimp, etc.

I think that since a lot of research depends on that free software/product, they should receive funding (at least if you heavily use it). I know they receive funding elsewhere, but it is minimal compared to the money proprietary-software companies get (a lot from grants, by the way).

Do you know of cases where donations costs were included in grants?
Do you think it is the ethical thing to do?


texts: I am going to start my PhD in the next few months. How you would you recommend that I start networking?

texts: I am an Indian and I will be starting as a Chemical Engineering Ph.D. student in the US this fall semester and I am looking for some tips regarding how I should start networking before I start my graduate studies.


texts: Difference between inclusion and exclusion criteria

texts:
Authors frequently report criteria of selecting subjects in studies in two separate categories, inclusion and exclusion criteria, e.g.:

Inclusion criteria:

age between 18-60

has the disease x

Exclusion criteria:

smoker

has disease y

Alternatively, one can simply put these criteria under one category:

Inclusion (or selection) criteria:

age between 18-60

has disease x

is not smoker

does not have the disease y

Is there a real distinction between the two terms? Or are they used just as a matter of convention?


texts: Sharing research-related codes and datasets: Split them, or share them together on a single platform?

texts:
I want to share both (1) programming codes and (2) datasets related to a research project.
While I know some suitable platforms superficially, I cannot gauge their pros and cons in too much depth because I lack experience. (In addition, many of their "About Us"-pages are not overly informative.) This is what I am aware of:
First, as regards codes, it seems that the best platform would be GitHub. They have a large audience of coders and they inhere a version control system to ensure transparent collaboration.
Second, as regards science-related datasets, it seems that Open Science Framework (OSF), Zenodo, Dryad, and Figshare are among the best options. They assign DOIs, automatically link your profile to ORCID, adhere to highly trusted Open Science principles (e.g. C0PE), and are non-profit community-driven platforms. (I would oppose them to, say, Mendeley Data which belongs to a large commercial publisher.)
Now I wonder the following:
If I want to publish a paper and share both its codes and datasets, what would be the best approach?
(a) Should I split them by sharing the code on GitHub and sharing the datasets on, say, OSF?
(b) Should I share both codes and datasets on one single platform? If so, which criteria could I use before choosing the right platform?


texts: Can I improve the idea of the paper on arxiv and publish it again?

texts:
I have an idea, and I did experiments and then wrote a paper. But the conference I want to submit does not start until a month later. I want to upload it to arxiv first. But I found a description of the shortcomings of arxiv on Google. Others may scoop papers by improving the papers uploaded to arxiv.
If others see my results. Then immediately embark on the same experiment. Then change the description method (note that the ideas in some papers are very new, but once thought of it, it is easy to reproduce). Or they use the same idea to do some other evaluations (such as changing the background). If this is the case, won't my efforts be wasted?

Authors are not barred from uploading their papers to arxiv and
similar sites. But please note that such ef- forts may compromise the
double-blind review process, so please exercise care when discussing
your submission in public forums. On a related note, unrefereed
on-line pre-prints are not assumed to constitute “prior work” – in
other words, reviewers cannot penalize an HPCA submission because it
does not cite a pre-print with lim- ited visibility.

This is a passage from the conference where I want to contribute. It can be seen that he is not opposed to uploading the paper to arxiv.
But what does the last paragraph of it mean?

On a related note, unrefereed on-line pre-prints are not assumed to
constitute “prior work” – in other words, reviewers cannot penalize an
HPCA submission because it does not cite a pre-print with limited
visibility.

Does this sentence mean that it doesn't matter if you plagiarize a paper on arxiv. Because they don’t think arxiv is “prior work”.


texts: I have graduated with a BS in Computer science degree with 3.6 GPA from  university of X. Then after graduation, I continued taking classes in different program (Biology) but didn't do well and my GPA went down to cGPA of 3.4.  So, the gpa on last page of my transcript (cgpa) is 3.4, but also on the transcript it mentions that I have earned a BS degree in computer science with 3.6 gpa. My question is that if I want to apply to a graduate school in computer science program which GPA I should be reporting? Would it be 3.4 or 3.6?


texts: Do US professors/group leaders only get a salary, but no group budget?

texts:
I was reading an interview with MIT Professor and physics Nobel laureate Wolfgang Ketterle in which he explained that he gets no budget, has to acquire funding even for his secretary, and this is one major difference to Germany (where he was offered to be director of a Max Planck institute). In Germany, a professor has a budget depending on negotiations before he was hired and negotiations when other universities try to entice him. A small average group has around 500k €, a professor around 100k €, employees around 200k €, investments around 200k €. This can vary, but roughly the right order of magnitude for experimental sciences.

Now I also heard professors at Ivy League universities often get a multiple times the salary of German professors, even in top universities like TU Munich. I expect they see this also only as their salary.

Is the case of Prof. Ketterle at MIT representative, and what does this mean when comparing PhD or postdocs in both countries? Are PhD students in graduate schools rather financed by the institute? Or does the number of PhD students in group already depend on the funding success of the professor?

It’s interesting to me to know, because it implies in my opinion a very different necessity of activity and career planning when being a PhD student or postdoc in Germany vs. the US to keep yourself financed. The brain drain and comeback of German academics from the US is a neverending story in German academia.


texts: Should listed citations in a historical overview be ordered numerically or chronologically?

texts:
I'm writing an article and in one portion I give a brief historical overview of previous work on the problem I am studying.
(In case this matters, it's a pure math article,
specifically topology.)
I include references to the articles where the prior work I describe first appeared. But I am trying to be brief, so in many instances I cite several articles in a list. For example: blah blah blah [A, B, C], except that my bibliography is numerical (as is conventional for where I'm submitting it).

Now, I could order my citations so that this [A, B, C] becomes [1, 2, 3], but I like the idea of preserving the chronology of the development in the citation. For example, let's say my bibliography is like this.

[1] Mike, 1980.

[2] Sally, 1968.

[3] Tamara, 1985.

And let's say I write "A sequence of articles developed the concept...," and I want put in the citation for the articles I'm referring to. I like the idea of indicating the order of the development, but am not sure if it looks too weird. So is it better to put

"A sequence of articles [2, 1, 3] developed the concept..."

or

"A sequence of articles [1, 2, 3] developed the concept...?"


texts: Can I write my whole SOP about machine learning for graduate school admissions?

texts:
I am a computer science engineer and I am starting to write my SOP's for grad school admissions.

I am very interested in machine learning but most of the schools I apply to offer ML as a track like something to major in. Can I write my whole SOP about ML ? I have few achievements in CSE and few in ML.


texts: Someone misrepresented my work in a published paper

texts:
Its a conference paper that broadly says:

"There is X, Y, Z, Biguri et al, articles out there, but here is a table with each of the works and their limitations, and why ours is better"

And then lists a bunch of things on my published article (about a software tool) claiming it does not contain several features. The problem is, the tool has and always had most of the features they say it hasn't. They are published and clearly demoed and showcased in the webpage.

Their paper has some credit, it is still good work and its not invalid because of their mistakes. But it is seriously misrepresenting my work.

What should one do in this case?

I was thinking on politely emailing them to let them know about their mistakes, I assume its not a malicious mistake, but more the fact that they did not take the time to properly do research. Is there anything else I can/should do?


texts: Can one article be published in two different language journals?

texts:
Is it possible to publish the same article in multiple journals published in different languages? For instance, I have a published SCI journal article, but I want to publish the same article in a domestic journal for a local research community as well and vice versa.

Will it be consider self-plagiarism?

How do I deal with the copyright issue, considering the publishers of the journals are different?


texts: How to email the heads of a department asking about whether they accept applications from undergraduates from a different discipline?

texts:
I'm an electronics engineering sophomore at an Indian university, particularly interested in quantum computing, quantum information theory and quantum engineering. However, the problem I'm facing is that we do not have the possibility to take up extra theory courses in computer science (e.g. complexity theory, analysis of algorithms) or mathematics (topology, differential geometry, discrete mathematics, etc). I feel these theory courses are extremely important to understand quantum computing properly (more so, with stuff like topological quantum computing and relativistic quantum information, coming up). By the end of the 4 years of my undergraduate course while I'll likely be having sufficient background for further study in the area of quantum "engineering", I feel I'll be lacking in the theoretical aspects. For the record, I do have some experience with research in the area of quantum computing (I'm currently pursuing a undergraduate research project at a nearby university in my city). Also, I've been trying to learn some of the mathematics and computer science topics on my own, using various online resources.

For that reason I was thought if it would be possible for me to apply for a masters degree in computer science/mathematics, after my undergrad, before directly applying for a PhD in quantum computing. I feel that such a masters degree focused on the theory would make my PhD application stronger. A course like the one offered by Oxford: MSc in Mathematics and Foundations of Computer Science would probably be perfect for me (at least that's what it seems from a reading of the course contents). But, I'm a bit worried because the acceptance rate in such courses is already very low (for example Oxford has only 17 places available in this course while on average 115 people apply for it per year).

So, in short my question is: Is it okay if I mail the head of the Math/Computer Science department head, asking whether they accept applications from electronics engineering students and what I can possibly do as an undergraduate, to improve my odds of getting accepted to such a course? (For example, the heads of activity of the Oxford's Quantum Group are listed here). Also, if yes, how should I frame my email? Suggestions are appreciated. Thank you.


texts: Benefits of taking postgraduate/PhD-level courses during Master's

texts: During my master's studies, so far, I have taken quite many postgraduate-level courses (i.e. courses that are accepted as a PhD-level course for a PhD student at my university). Some of these courses were a part of my degree requirement, so I was obliged to take them, but few of them were my personal choices to take them. I am now wondering if this can be a positive point in the future in my CV, e.g. when looking for a job. In the transcript of records, it is not indicated anyhow that those particular courses were postgraduate level, except for a "P" in front of their names and that's about it, so even if I send my transcript to someone they probably won't realize those courses are PhD level courses. So was it really worth the trouble to take such courses which mostly took me twice as much time to complete? I am not talking about things I have learned from these courses, but merely talking about their benefit in the future when applying for a job or PhD program?


texts: Would I be facing any kind of trouble in the future for leaving my degrees incomplete?

texts:
I have dropped out of 2 MSc in CSE programs because of my health issues and lack of proper math background.
You can check the full story from my previous question.

What should I do now to go ahead and restart my aspirations to become an appropriate candidate for a Ph.D. program?

Now, I am facing a new decision dilemma.
One of the professors from the Faculty of Life Science of a university in eastern Europe just hired me to work with him on a project. The project I would be working on is related to data science and algorithm development. He is also interested in taking me as a Ph.D. student under him. I can start a Ph.D. under him in 2022 if I agree.
Suppose, I enroll and complete my Ph.D. under him. Would I be facing any kind of trouble in the future for leaving my 2 previous MScs incomplete? I have been having a lifelong ambition in working in academia in the USA. Would any problem arise in the future regarding these 2 incomplete MScs?
Another question is, how would it look like if I want to work as a teacher in the Faculty of Engineering in the USA, but have a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Life Science?


texts: Is it important to be a co-author when PI takes first authorship on your work?

texts:
I have been in biomedical research for a long time without any good number of publications.

Recently, my work is now being published by my PI. My PI asked someone else to do another part of work. I was then asked to email the methods and results but did not provide me any chance to write a paper. Now I am placed as a second author on this paper and 6 other persons out of 9 are guest authors. I can see that this paper has at least 60% contribution from my work. It is emotionally hurting and extremely disturbing to see this unfair authorship practice, which I am asked to silently accept. It is even more hurting to see the names of all guest authors who I only know by name but never contributed a dime of work to this paper.

Should I accept this issue silently?
I'm aware that the universities favor their faculty members, no matter how many nice words are posted on their webpages on authorship misconduct.

Would it be wise to withdraw myself completely from this article?

Any other options?

I was advised by another faculty member that some very senior PIs still work in old-fashioned way of authorship, where they always want to take first as well as corresponding authorship, pushing postdocs on second spot. Besides, accepting this unfair practice would still not be so harmful for future employments as prospective employers can still figure out based on the names of authors that first person is a PI and the next one is actual person who did the most work.

Is it true?


texts: paper on arXiv but not on Google scholar

texts:
My paper has been put on the arXiv very recently (approx. a week ago) and to the journal, and currently is under refereeing process.

I would like to ask how long it takes for Google Scholar to recognise the paper and associate it to my account. The paper does not even appear yet on Google scholar.


texts: What's the difference between "research grant" and "fellowship" ? (what to choose for a postdoc?)

texts:
I was wondering what's the difference between a research grant and a fellowship ?

I am currently finishing my PhD and I am looking for funding for my postdoc. I came across a call for proposal of a fundation and it gives details of Regulations about "research grants" and Regulations about "fellowships".
Should I ask for a "research grant" or a "fellowship"?

Thank you.


texts: Should I preserve anonymity or strictly follow a journal's instructions?

texts:
I'm submitting a manuscript to a journal using LaTeX for the first time. This journal is a little unique in that it features open source software packages, and you must provide a link to a public repository upon submission. It has a .tex template that I've filled in, but I'm a little confused about how to preserve anonymity for the sake of blind review. A reviewer could easily identify me based on

My GitHub profile info
My name embedded in the .tex file (obviously)
Info in the acknowledgements section

It would be easy for a journal to programmatically remove sections with identifying information from this .tex template (such as author name, acknowledgements section, etc.), but I doubt this is done. Also, I have to submit a .pdf (rendered from the .tex file) along with the .tex file of my actual document. I'm a little confused about preserving anonymity vs. following the instructions of journal, as these seem clear that the template should be filled in exactly as is with no deviations. Is is just understood that that all potentially identifying information should be removed from a first submission, even if it means breaking (what seems to be) a journal's clear instructions? Or am I misunderstanding how this all works?

To provide extra context from a past experience (not directly related to the case mentioned above):

I've only submitted one other manuscript to a journal, and the initial process involved heavy assistance from my advisor (subsequent steps were taken on my own). The editor of the journal requested that I revise and resubmit, following an attached style guide. It was a 60+ page document with pretty arcane instructions containing a lot of counter-intuitive information. For example, it stated that the authors' names must be included as a footnote on every page (which would break anonymity), an acknowledgements section should be embedded inside the document (which could reveal identifying information such as location), etc. I asked the editor about this, and he was very helpful. He provided some specific instructions and stated that anonymity should be persevered throughout the document -- I think he was more concerned with reference formatting. However, this was a really confusing process as his instructions seemed to go against the "Instructions for Authors" guide and the style sheet he attached. To make things worse, the actual submission page conflicted with the "Instructions for Authors" guide and the style sheet. I did what the editor said.

My sample size is small (n = 2), but given the two manuscript submissions I've been through, it seems like either (a) I'm making a big deal out of nothing or (b) I'm really misunderstanding things.


texts: How do I include a non-technical critique or line of thought in a technical doctoral thesis without being off topic?

texts:
Here is more context:

I understand that I have to stick to the point and so on, but I'm not asking if you think it's a good idea or not, so I beg you to spare me the lecture. I would like your advice to do it in the best way possible.
My research domain is software engineering.
The reason for wanting to include a non-technical passage is that  I want to point to other fields in which nature-based design (i.e. biomimicry) has led researchers astray such as architecture for example. Another subject I want to approach is patent law, so I would ask the same question for that.

Of course, the main thrust of my thesis is technical, but I firmly believe that some information about the surroundings of the subject is important, because the subject of my thesis is about the use of improper methodology in a subfield of computational sciences, so it does fall under the category of meta-methodology.
Thank you all for your input. It is much appreciated.


texts: During copyediting, journal disagrees about spelling of paper's main topic

texts:
Let's suppose my paper is about icebergs.  The paper is accepted to a quite well known journal on a broader topic.  The copy editor has changed the word "iceberg" to "ice-berg" everywhere in the paper.  I have requested twice that the hyphen be removed, and the copyeditor has disagreed.

A clear majority of scientists in my field use the spelling "iceberg" but there is a minority which uses "ice-berg" in their published papers.  It is easy to produce several lines of evidence that this is true.

How should I respond to this situation?  My primary concern is that I want my paper to be easy to find.  I do not think people are searching for papers using the term "ice-berg."

Update:  As suggested by the answers below, I tried to contact the editor.  After waiting a while and getting no response, I tried again.  And I waited, and tried a third time.  Subsequently and without explanation, the copy editor made the requested changes.  Overall, I had to check five proofs.  In summary, I was successful but I am not sure why.


texts: What to do about an unprofessional instructor?

texts:
I'm a Chinese freshman majoring in statistics. It's not me, but my classmates who are suffering from poor teaching in their Python course. They have no prior programming experience, so they aren't aware of their instructor's mistakes, but I think this must be stopped.

Let me show you this instructor's unprofessionalism:

She teaches the students Python by playing videos to them, which show her giving lessons to the seniors. Actually, she didn't say more than several sentences during a four-hour class. If one can learn Python simply by watching videos, why should one bother to come to the classroom? Students need face-to-face teaching! Also, I guess her video tutorial can't be the best one among all those online resources.
The students don't have time to practice in class, because their precious class time is used to watch pre-recorded videos.
Here is some of her code:

s=input("s:")
patten="0123456789"
for x in s:
    if x not in patten:
        print('非全数字')

While it's merely an incomplete code snippet, I suppose the misspelling of "pattern", the existence of "0123456789" instead of string.digits, and the mix using of ' and " is enough to demonstrate her ignorance of good coding.

s=[11,22,33,44,55,26,47,88,12,19]
a=[]
for i in s:
    if i%2 != 0:
        a.append(i)
    else:
        continue
print(a)

Yes, this works, but it's definitely not pythonic, and my classmates are learning Python, not "C/C++/Java programming in Python". If I were the instructor, I would teach them list comprehension.

In fact, she is the chief editor of the textbook being used, and that textbook is also unprofessional in my opinion. For example, it opens a file using f=open(...), rather than with open(...) as f:.
She never ends the class on time. The class is scheduled to end at 11:30AM, but usually the "hardworking" instructor ends the class at around 12:00pm. Probably this is because her videos can't convey much information in 3.5 hours.

My question is: what can I do to help the students? I think Python programming skills are very important to statistics students, and my classmates deserve a better instructor. I didn't take that class, so I don't mind it if I do something that may anger their instructor, because she can't give me a failing grade.

My fellow students think this instructor is "not that bad", presumably due to their lack of programming experience, and thus are reluctant to make a change.


texts: What are some examples of research that does not solve a existing problem (maybe the problem is not obvious yet) but present a unique discovery?

texts: Do you need a problem to find a new discovery? Are there any publications that solely exist to classify parts of existing theories without targeting a real-world problem?


texts: How do conferences / journals select reviewers?

texts:
When you submit a paper / manuscript to a peer-reviewed venue, the organizers usually forward your work to 2-3 other "experts in your field" to assess your work.

I'm curious how this process of selection works, i.e. how is this pool of reviewers put together? and how are the best people from this pool chosen once there is a paper to review?

Is there an official list that each venue maintains and to which people can sign on if they want to be reviewers? (If so, I've never seen any "calls for reviewers" so how do they get people?)

Do organizers cold-call people/professors and ask them if they were willing to review a paper? If so, how are these people selected? [I realize that this might differ considerably, so I'm happy with anecdotal evidence, too]


texts:
I am a PhD Student works in computer science. I am currently in the middle stage of my PhD. I am facing a serious problem right now. It is about reading a research paper at a faster rate. I usually takes 2 weeks to read a paper nowadays, but my supervisor wants me to read a research paper in 4-5 days with greater detail. It involves mathematics and it takes time to get used to it. I have tried to explain him the problem that it is not possible at this time for me to read a paper in 4-5 days but keep pushing me to do so.

Question : How to read a research paper at faster rate?


texts: Is it ok to have paragraphs that have only one sentence in a formal paper?

texts:
Or, is it a good practice?

I found most papers that I read are "block by block": they have paragraphs that are not so long, and not so short. Is it a convention? Should I mimic that?


texts: Should repeated course grades be included in GPA calculations for reporting to institutions in the U.S.?

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I'm from Iran and planning to apply for a master in CS in USA.  I'm trying to figure out how should I report my GPA, but I'm confused about courses that I have failed and repeated.  Should I include both failing and repeated grades when calculating my GPA or just my last grade in that course?

The Iranian grading system is based on a 20-point grading scale, the passing grade is 10 (for undergrads) and both failing and repeated grades are included in GPA calculation.  As it is mentioned in Wikipedia link, Iranian GPA is not directly converted to USA grading system: instead each course grade is converted individually and then GPA is recalculated for converted grades.

But as far as I have researched online and offline I have found different answers about repeated grades when converting.


texts: CS graduate admissions for masters level

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For people applying from unknown schools where one's senior has never hit that department before, what is the evaluation metric for graduate admissions ? Probably all schools are not equal, but what if the applicant's school is unknown or a newly established one without a reputed faculty who are unknown to the researchers in the field.

How do you judge if the candidate is good enough ? What is the value of GRE Subject Test especially in these situations ? How does top 10 programs approach such candiates, do they spot reject them ?

My question is about MS level admissions, please answer considering that fact.


texts: Hired as a research assistant and told to track working hours for payment, is this normal?

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I have been given a great opportunity to work as a research assistant. I will be working under this researcher (and her team) for about 5 months. I was only suppose to start in mid-January. But she said she would like to hire me as a research assistant for the next few weeks (full-time). She said she will be paying me (and the rate /hr is surprisingly high). Come mid-January (when I was suppose to start) I will not be allowed to be payed for my work (school rules).

Anyways, this work can be done anywhere (I do not need to be in a specific location to do it). Thus, she told me to track all of my hours and then send her a bill in January. I guess, sort of like what contractors do. I have never had a paid job before, let alone a research position. I am wondering, is this usual?

I could potentially earn 2 000 dollars over the next couple weeks. However, I feel like this is too much money. I feel as though I should understate the hours I worked. However, at the same time if I did that she would know I didn't work "full-time". This is all new to me so it would be great if someone with experience can make sense of this for me.


texts: How often should an editor ask for reviews from the same referee?

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There is a journal editor who keeps sending me review requests. He sends a new one shortly (a couple of weeks) after I return the previous one. I tend to accept because they align quite well with my expertise and I want to stay in good terms with this editor, who is a prominent figure in the field. I am a slow reviewer, but tend to give quite detailed and comprehensive reviews (compared with what I usually get for my own papers), and I guess the editor is happy with the quality of my reports, otherwise he wouldn't keep asking. However, I wouldn't mind if he asked less often. After all, this is only one journal and I also get review requests from other journals.
I have no experience as editor, and I am wondering if there are any best practices from that side. Is it common for an editor to keep "milking" that reliable reviewer? For those of you who have editorial duties, do you have any limit on how often to ask? Once a month, once every two months?
My intuition tells me there's a risk the reviewer gets tired of getting so many review requests from the same editor and the editor may end up losing that valuable resource.


texts: Self-Publishing or Academic Publishing (on Springer) for Mathematics books?

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Book Publication Dilemma
I am looking to publish a book on mathematics this year. It is around 250 pages and the material in it is on differential forms, and very applicable to hobbyists. Choosing a publisher has been somewhat of a headache for me. I have done a fair amount of research on some of the larger publishers like Springer but am unsure if it is even worth publishing academically. In my research I have often seen that the self publication route, on Amazon, has been worthwhile under the stipulation that the publisher knows how to advertise the book; advertisement should not be an issue; the problem I have seen with Springer and the other academic publishers is that they tend to charge more per book than Amazon where you are allowed to edit the price of your work. I am not so worried about how much I make from it, but rather-so how many people read it; with a larger price point, I feel less people would read the book.
Here is a question similar to this one; it addresses the same topic but does not speak on specific publishers like Springer.
Thank you!


texts: Is it normal to be suspicious of a really interesting finding but in an obscure journal and/or by authors from unknown universities

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EDIT Since there are some misunderstandings regarding my question I'll try to rephrase, and also avoid posting questions late at night when I am really tired :)

A typical part of my work as a bioinformatician/data analyst is to check the relevance of my results, when I am drafting my articles, by doing a series of literature searches to see how my results relate to the field in general. This typically takes me beyond my own competencies, and into fields like histology, oncology, tumor biology etc..

Quite often I run into very interesting results presented in articles that were published in obscure journals with pretty low IF (say for example 1.0-1.5). Sometimes the authors turn out to be from a rather unknown university from a unexpected country. I realize that this is a bit controversial, and I really don't mean to be looking down on anyone's creativity or work ethics but biomedical research is usually expensive, with all the lab consumables, customised reagents/antibodies/proteins/peptides etc..

One such example was an article I found yesterday where the authors claim prognostic potential for a particular protein which also happens to be significantly regulated in my dataset. Naturally I was excited at first but then two questions arose:

Could these people have really done what they claim they have done?
If the work is legit, then why it ended up going to a journal that's so obscure, considering that the findings might be very relevant for patient care. Cancer and biomarkers are two "hot" fields and there are literally lots of well known avenues for publication, before you come to think of this one, or this one. If the results are as interesting as I think they are then they should have surely been published in a venue where they'd get more attention.

Am I being too harsh to be suspicious?


texts: How to deal with grammatically incorrect suggestions from my advisor on master's thesis?

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I'm writing my thesis in English. English is neither my or my advisor's mother tongue. I'm now doing some corrections that were suggested. Some of them refer to the content of my  thesis and some of them refer to the language.

How should I deal with the suggestions that are obviously wrong? For example suggesting I put a comma before if or use a future tense after once. I don't want to intentionally make any grammatical errors in my thesis.

I agree with most of what is pointed out. There are only few amendments that I take issue with.

Should I just ignore his wrong suggestions? But then he may notice that I haven't changed what I was supposed to when he reads my thesis again.

Should I explain to him why I haven't changed what he suggested? I could quote some websites (when I disagree with what he proposes, I always look it up). Wouldn't that be rude?


texts: Why can't applicants ask for letters of recommendation on potential employers/bosses?

texts: Employers/bosses need reference letters from previous employers to assess applicants. Why can this not happen the other way round? It should've been a 2 way peer review stream. Applicants should have legitimate reasons to ask for reference letters written about the employers/bosses, shouldn't they?


texts: Copyright and ownership for rejected papers that are edited based on peer review

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I submitted a paper to a journal and I got extensive reviews, and the paper was rejected, but they encouraged resubmission if I successfully did a bit more science and made other drastic revisions. Note this is not the same as being conditionally accepted; I had to resubmit the paper. Well I did this and the paper was accepted the second go around with minor revisions.

The Journal has the policy that you may post a copy of the preprint, the draft prior to review, on your personal website with a link to the final article which is behind a paywall.

My question is, since they rejected the first draft of the paper, can I ethically call the second draft, the one with major revisions and extra science, the pre-peer review paper. It was the raw draft submitted prior to the second set of reviews after which they accepted the paper. Or because that paper did benefit from the first set of peer reviews, I should post the original first draft? My guess is that I am allowed to post the second draft; what do you think?


texts: How to properly describe experience in exchange program in Statement of Purpose in Master Application?

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I went to the international exchange program in a top CS university in Hong Kong, during 2020 spring, when the world was suffering from the pandemic. The Covid-19 affected the exchange program and made it much less exciting - most of the time the courses were taught online and I didn't have any research experience with the professor. But I indeed learned a lot from the coursework and the touch with foreign friends I met in campus.
I am currently drafting the SoP of CS Master program, where I would like to mention the exchange experience in Hong Kong. How should I describe it in an appropriately? Although Covid-19 is something unavoidable in description of the experience, how can I adjust my narration so that the exchange program appears to be still valuable and rewarding?


texts: I want to do MS in USA, My GPA 2.74. will I be eligible? did anyone had same GPA?. your response is really helpful. Thank you


texts: When is the best time to send an email to a professor about a masters position?

texts: Recently, I am looking for a master position so that I had to send emails to professors.I was wondering if you tell me when is the best time to send an email? morning or afternoon? could we send mail on weekends Saturday and Sunday?


texts: What email to use for corresponding author on publications when institution is not permanent?

texts: What is the best email to use as corresponding author when publishing academic papers as a graduate student, postdoc, pre-tenured faculty or other potentially non-permanent position where your email address may change in the next few years? I know many academic institutions will let you turn your email address into a forwarding address, but in cases where this is not possible and your email address will cease to exist when/if you leave, what is the solution? Using something like a gmail address seems practical but rather unprofessional--or is it?


texts: How to ask for a co-supervisor? (master's program etiquette)

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I'm finishing up the first year of my master's program, heading into the second starting September. I had proposed a topic to my (then potential, since confirmed) supervisor in October and we agreed to work together. I changed this topic a month ago for various reasons (mostly lack of available data).  My supervisor was supportive of my topic change and throughout this process has been really helpful, responsive, and critical. But he is not really knowledgeable about the topic or the theoretical framework I am using - his helpfulness has come more from his knowledge of the discipline I'm working in (to which I am new) and his commentary on how I present and support my ideas. I feel that a co-supervisor would help focus my ideas and point out possible gaps, flaws, or inconsistencies in my analysis of the data based on their knowledge of the topic.

Is it too late to ask for a co-supervisor at the end of first year? I have a professor in mind who I'd like to ask, and he is someone I already know, but since it's quite late in the year I am wondering if it is appropriate to even ask. (And I'd definitely consult my current supervisor first. He'd probably be ok with it).


texts:
There are several laws that many people know verbatim and could quote off of the top of their heads. Take Gay Lussac's (The Pressure) Law for instance:

  The pressure of a gas of fixed mass and fixed volume,is directly proportional to the gas's absolute temperature.

Which is the wording that is used in many textbooks and on Wikipedia. However, in many instances, this included, it can be difficult to locate the original paper where the law was defined due to the passage of time. A similar example of this could be Pythagoras' Theorum:

  The square of the hypoteneuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

So my question is thus, how should one go about citing these definitions? Should we just assume that everyone is aware of their provenance due to them being universally understood laws in academic circles and thus they can stand on their own axiomically?

If it's relevant, my university conforms to their own variant of Harvard referencing.


texts: Two of my potential PhD referees are married to each other – is that a problem?

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Note: By Referees, I mean individuals who can support and validate my application for a PhD; for example, former lecturers or supervisors who have worked with me in the past and would be able to say whether I am suited for a research role.

I have been taught by a former associate professor of my university in one module for my undergrad degree, and his spouse taught two of my master's degree modules and co-supervised my master's degree dissertation. I am thinking of naming the both of them in their separate capacities as academic referees for my PhD application.

They are were not involved in teaching me at a joint capacity at any point in time and neither of them had to review the other's work with me.

However, I'm worried that an external reviewer of my application might think that they would influence each other outside of work, and that if one of them thinks favorably of me, so will the other. I don't think that is the case, as they are people of integrity with a strong moral code, but someone whose job is to review my application with trained skepticism might not see it that way.

I could adopt an 'if they don't ask, don't tell' policy, but that wouldn't be very honest, and even if it did work initially, having it resurface at some point in the future might land me in a lot of trouble if this behavior is considered questionable at best.

Can I ask them to be my referees, and will an external reviewer treat them as a single referee? Obviously the best outcome for me would be if:

They are treat as separate referees, as I think they should be.
I am not obliged to disclose their relationship anyways.


texts:
Question:

Are there any guidelines, sources, or examples of good practices for maintaining theorist's research notebook?

Motivation and context:

Maintaining a lab notebook is a much advised (if not a vital) tool for doing research. Many do that nowadays also in electronic form. While the methods for writing and maintaining a labbook might differ in details, in "dirty-hands" (no offense!) experimental, or field disciplines, the basics are relatively straightforward and clear. The advice tends to boil down to keep a labbook per single topic one works on and then record all the experiments and thoughts related to those experiments into the notebook. Simplifying a lot, in the end, the researcher (team) would compile a paper from the notes in the notebook.

Now situation of a researcher in a more theoretical discipline is strikingly different. Usually one engages in research on several topics at the same time. The problems a researcher works on are often intertwined and one's view on them changes over time, often merging originally separate streams of thought into a single one, or vice-versa. The work revolves not around experiments which would have a clear objective, but rather around currently prepared papers and then "a cloud of ideas". In summary, theorist's workstyle tends to be very non-linear. Maintaining some kind of a notebook is still a good thing, if for nothing else, then for not forgetting about stuff. My question is about how to go about doing it.

I am after a practical tool helping me to archive my thought process for long-term, as well as efficiently manage and keep an overview of the evolution of the several interacting topics I engage in.


texts: Is it okay to explore other grad school options while deferring admission due to COVID-19?

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I’m from the West Coast, and I accepted my admissions offer into a master's program on the East Coast before COVID-19.

I would like to defer my admissions, but still apply to local universities just in case the current situation gets worse.

Note: I'm not getting scholarships. Also, I don't have family or friends living in the East Coast, so moving there right now sounds crazy to me.


texts: Is it possible to have a healthy work-life balance as a professor?

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I am an MSc student and one future direction I have been thinking about is the potential of pursuing a professorship after I do a PhD. Why do I want to be a professor? I enjoy the back and forth of doing research - while at times it's frustrating to figure things out, I think it's a good proxy for workplace freedom (by my standards) and I know that I would enjoy teaching.

Where I don't think that I would entirely fit the mold of a professorship is that I am not so concerned with having the top publications or cranking out as many papers as I can, but that's not to say I anticipate producing one paper a year and then putting my feet up on my desk. Relative to others who are more concerned about having top publications or many papers, I would probably be the 'less preferred' candidate for the job - which is okay. I am in no hunt for accolades, awards, or praise.

But I think that approaching a professorship from a balanced and holistic approach where I can work on research, teach, and maintain a healthy work-life balance would be something that I could grow to love. However, my perspective and approach to a professorship might be naive, which would also be horrifying to find out when it's too late.

So do you think that it is possible to have a healthy work-life balance as a professor or is that approach to a professorship, at least early on, not realistic for the modern market place of academia?


texts: Cover letter and feelings - use or avoid

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A couple of cover letter use:

I believe that I could ..
I am confident
I am very interested

What do you think about them? Should they be mentioned with evidences or avoid since they are feelings and may indicate uncertainty?


texts: Suitability of top UK graduate programs, compared to US ones

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As I check forums to compare top UK schools (specifically: Oxbridge and Imperial College) v.s. top US schools (MIT, Stanford, Caltech, etc.), most of people have mentioned the subjects, just like stuffs below, to consider higher priority for electing US schools:

The UK academic system is archaic, as the yearly system of examination has a very important role in the students' studies.
Students must choose their major, at first, and continue to the end.
...

But, all of these cases are about the undergraduate studies.

In the case of graduate studies, one often consider all top ten schools in the same level, roughly, where the most important factor could be the coherency between the graduate student and her supervisor.

If we confirm above argument, there is no real difference for an international student, in view of the academic system. Actually, the remained factors would be the whether, funding and stuffs like that?

Is there any important factor (except supervisor) for an international graduate student, to opt between potential offers the top universities in US and GB?


texts: Etiquette question: is there such a thing as accepting an offer 'too early'?

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TLDR: Got a PhD offer at top choice, all details checked out, and I want to accept now (much earlier than the April 15th deadline).

A colleague (at the professor level) I mentioned this to said I should wait as it could look 'too earnest' accepting roughly 10 days after notification.

Is there any truth to this claim? I.e. does it 'look bad' (i.e. desperate) if I accept now? I'm just genuinely excited and am ready to lock it in.

Additional details (from comments):

This offer is a 'hard' offer such that it is from the department, many cc'd people, and is in writing
I have other 'hard' offers from other universities and have yet to hear back from a few more

Other relevant questions:

Responding to a prof's email about acceptance in a PhD program

Update:

Thank you all SO much for your input. I went ahead and accepted the offer and got feedback saying they appreciated the rapid response and the PI was eager to arrange a talk for next steps. While this is likely the standard positive response, I have marked Buffy's answer as correct. The first two sentences made the most sense: 'Actually, it is simple courtesy to accept as soon as you know you will do so. This helps the institution deal with its obligations to you and others.' I then let the other universities know immediately after and I hope this helps their search process.


texts: I feel like I got screwed over by my PI? No name on publication

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I am an undergraduate student working under a PI in a research laboratory. My PI pushed out a paper very recently, and I was not mentioned as an author. My PI did not even notify me that he was going to publish this paper. I can comfortably say, without inflating, that I did roughly 1/6 - 1/5 of the work. 3 out of the 8 figures (quantitative figures, not just bar charts slapped in Excel) in the paper were created by me for past posters at conferences, including code I have written to do some analysis that was used as a tertiary argument/talking point in the discussions section. My PI is not very quantitative, and being a qualitative field of study, I felt like a gem asset as someone who is heavy into maths and code.

When I approached my PI, he said he felt like my work was minimal (!!!) and he would put me on the next paper, seemingly brushing me off in the process....

I understand as an undergraduate I should be appreciative of this opportunity to be in a lab in the first place, but I think it's more than fair to get credit for substance that went directly into a paper.

What can I do?

I will be applying to graduate school soon and I don't want to jump labs as looking inconsistent. This is a topic I'm interested in. I feel like I'm stuck, though.


texts: Importance of teaching as a PhD student to go into academia

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How important is teaching as a graduate student if I want to then pursue a career in academia. A top program I have been admitted to does not require teaching and I will be fully funded by being a graduate research assistant. Will it hurt my prospects of getting a tenure-track position if I have little to no teaching experience?

I am aware that to get a tenure-track position at a top program, a postdoc is almost always necessary.

--edit-- To address some of the points below, this is for graduate school in the US, with the desire to stay in the US if I were to pursue a tenure-track position.


texts: It is possible to withdraw paper after conference is held but paper still not published in ieee xplore.


texts: Is there such a thing as fraud in mathematics?

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Can you commit fraud in a mathematics publication? Or is this a privilege of empirical sciences?

If a mathematician jumps from one bit of information to another that does not follow logically, from more basic principles, then, that's not fraud, but a logical fallacy, akin to saying 1+1=3.

If an empirical scientist gets a results of 3.3341, but claims it was 3.7341 that's fraud.


texts:
I am pursuing my PhD and am in the first year of my program in Automotive Engineering. I completed my Masters in the same field, at the same school. I am having a tough time with my adviser and go into depression all time. I cannot take it any more. He threatens to take away my funding each day something I cannot afford. I am an international student and if I let go I will have to go back to my country and will be left with nothing. I wanted to know whether I will be able to transfer to a masters program from a PhD program. We have a Mechanical Engg. Dept in our college and the courses are common. They have a no thesis option and I can pursue my CPT and OPT. I don't know whom to pursue or call in the college regarding this. Hence I came here.

Any help is highly appreciated.


texts: Why some universities don't require GRE AWA section?

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I've been rereading the admission requirements of the universities I've chosen and stumbled upon the fact that only Verbal Section and Quantitative section have certain threshold that has to be reached, however, nothing is said about the Analytical Writing Assessment, also known as AWA.

Is the AWA score is merged with the Verbal score or is it irrelevant to some universities (since nothing is said about that particular section)?


texts: Can I get into grad school with a low GPA?

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So here's my situation: I'm a senior electrical-engineering major student in a decent-ranked university (60-80), and I've been working in a lab in our department and published 2 papers as the second author (conference paper, IEEE) and currently I'm in charge of two projects so I may publish more before I graduate. The thing is: I have a low GPA (2.9), but there is a reason: I've been an athlete of the fencing team in our university, and for two years I've been the vice captain of it. I have to go to practice every night, Monday to Thursday, so I don't have a lot of time to study. My boss, who got her PHD degree from CalTech, trusts me a lot so I will have a kickass recommendation. She refers me as a student who's "not very good at theoretical learning, but always creative and can solve practical problems very well." She also granted me the fellowship.
I want to go to those well-ranked engineering schools, like UIUC or Berkeley, and pursue a master's degree (and even a PHD, if possible). Although I do have a good research background, I'm worrying about my gpa. Most schools do have a gpa threshold, but is it possible for me to get into these schools? Thank you.


texts: What is the difference between "prepare to submit" and "working paper"?

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I am preparing my CV to apply for academic position.

I currently have several papers that are able to submit to journals. I wonder if I put these papers on my CV, how should I label them? Should I call them "prepare to submit" or "in preparation for submission" or "working paper"? Specifically, what is the difference between a "working paper" and the paper that is ready to submit?

I have another paper, that requires language checking and proofread before submission, should I call this paper "working paper"?

Thanks for any suggestions