texts: Uncited general claims followed by cited specific claims – is this an accepted writing style?

texts:
I’m currently reviewing a paper and thought it may be good to consult more people on this issue. I’m wondering where exactly should we include citations in article main text (in a science/psychology paper).

The paper starts with two paragraphs of intro with zero references in them with quite general claims. The logic behind it should be that later text will validate the claims. The same trick is used for literature-review paragraphs, where the first sentences make general claims/generalizations and the remaining paragraph seeks to validate them.

This system seems to me to be inconvenient for the reader as the remaining data given is more specific than the claims, and it needs work to see whether they actually cite enough studies to justify the earlier generalizations. Sometimes it seems they don’t but the style itself makes it difficult to immediately perceive.

I am used to the style that citations should be introduced whenever you introduce information (especially general claims). I am wondering if anyone can confirm that the other way works and is common also in practice, where the general claims are followed by more specific validation.

It seems appropriate for me that the sentences could really be left uncited if they are common knowledge and for introductory purposes. But not if they make claims to be built upon. The authors do think that these are claims, they just present the summary before the facts.

For example (made up of course, and to be read by someone who doesn’t know tea):

  Tea leaves are generally green. They look green to most people and animals. For example they have been found to be green in sunlight (Authors 2012), and particularly the leaves of carnelia sinensis has been found to be very green (Other Authors 2011). [A few more specific cases …]

I’m sure academia is full of different styles of writing. I’d be happy to hear of different ways to approach presentation. Any style guides proposing this that you could point me to?


texts: European BS - American PhD (Graduate Admission)

texts:
I posted something similar a while back and it was closed, but I believe this post will be more suited for discussion.

I'm heading to Europe from the U.S. to complete my BS in physics. I intend on returning to the U.S. to complete a PhD (ie. no masters degree in-between). I'm aware that the European system has a three year BS program, as compared to the four years that are done in the U.S.

The central question is: Does having a three year BS affect admission into a competitive American graduate program?

From where I sit, I can't help but feel PhD programs will raise an eyebrow at applying with only two years of experience. All of the graduate application deadlines available online (Princeton, Cornell, Columbia) have a deadline of the 15th of December, which correlates to a little over two years of undergraduate education.

I've been lucky enough to have a huge head-start on the material (few formal credits, however), which means I could start research within my first year of study.


texts: I am having trouble with my advisor. Can someone help?

texts:
I am a 4th year Ph.D. student from India. I don't get any help from my advisor. He has always been demotivating me. In my entire 4 years, I have never got any moral support from him. I don't get any work-related him too. I am on my own.

AT the end of the 1st year, he told us he will not help us, he won't give us any recommendations, he wants a minimum of 4 journal from each of all and said we can leave if we want. But none of us could, since we knew, if we did, he will create a problem for us.

Infact, now situations have turned really bad. He calls me up asking me to write a small review of my 4th work. I send it to him. After 2 days he again calls me up saying he did not ask for it. Since he communicates visa phone, I have no way to prove he is being dishonest. Thinking he may have forgotten, I tried to remind him to which he asked me not to argue with him.

My paper recently got rejected. He calls me up to say that he has given me independence regarding work. On my first year, he called his students into his office and told them that he will not help with their work, will not give any recommendation, and he will not interfere in our work dynamics. We were on our own from the beginning, yet now he changed this situation into such as if he gave us the liberty to work alone, which in the real scenarios is basically the fact that he is incapable of giving any contribution to anyone's work. The worst part is he talks to all his students without respect, calling them at odd hours, telling them they are not working. But no one is ready to say anything to him since their PhDs depend on him and we know if we revolt, he won't give us our PhDs even if we have worked hard.

I am going through a lot of depression right now. There is no provision to complain to a higher authority regarding his behavior. One girl tried to complain to the HOD, she was denied PhD from my institution and her phd had to be obtained from another university with extra 3 years (6+3=9 years).  Please tell me if there is any way to solve this problem other than leaving Ph.D. under him and starting fresh under someone else? Or should I just keep working for my papers suffering in silence? My question is, to what limit should I tolerate?


texts: What are possible next steps after the completion of a less-than-stellar PhD?

texts:
I recently graduated with a Ph.D. in a STEM field from a reputed university in the US. I took more time than what it normally takes to finish the Ph.D.(over 6 years), partly due to some personal, familial issues I was coping with. For the same reason, my GPA during my doctoral studies remained around 3.4. Neither I had any internships during the Ph.D. Recently, I sent my first paper to a journal and I am expecting to work on a few more in the coming months. Clearly, my academic credentials are far from being stellar.
Before starting my Ph.D., I was hoping for continuing with a postdoctoral job after Ph.D. studies, followed by a career in academia in my native place.
I see the following options right now:

Ask my advisor for a position to work on some more papers
Apply for postdoctoral positions elsewhere (hindrance: lack of published papers)
Apply for industry jobs (hindrance: GPA is not good enough)

Here I am asking you all to offer me a reality check on whether options (2) and (3) are really realistic in a case similar to mine. I will also appreciate your valuable guidance on how I should build my credentials hereafter (I know, I am already late) that will help me get into good academic positions.


texts: Writing two papers on the same topic with the same data

texts:
I am a PhD student in computer science. Together with my advisor we are collaborating with some external centers, specialized in biology research;

the idea is that I build an algorithm, we use this algorithm on their data and then we publish the results.

Now, we have found some pretty interesting results on a set of their data and we are planning to write a paper; however the target of the paper will be mainly a biology review, not a cs conference.

Even if we are going to publish the results on a prestigious review, I would like also to write a paper more focused on the algorithm, maybe for a conference of applied computer science, using the same data; consider that a paper with only the algorithm and the relative details has already be submitted.

Does it make sense? Will a publication on a top review for a different field be considered in any way when I will apply for future post doc positions, or is it better to write a second paper, more focused on my field?


texts: How do you come to terms with the fact that you might never be among the best in your research community?

texts:
I am currently a PhD student advised by a new (and awesome, in my opinion) theoretical computer scientist in the field of optimization. This was my dream ever since I took a class on convex optimization a few years ago during my MS.

However, I don’t have a math or CS background. My master’s and industry experience have both been in applied signal processing. When I recently looked at the kind of grad students who work in my current choice of research area, I realized the level of competition I am up against.

These are all from amazing institutes around the world and had been the brightest kids in their colleges, the ones with medals in olympiads, top Putnam scores, etc. I am from a mid-tier college in my country and never won an award for excelling in math/algorithms.

How do you come to terms with the fact that you might be doing research in what you love with an amazing mentor, but you’ll just never be the best in even your research community? How's that not discouraging?


texts: help needed for contacting a supervisor for PhD

texts:
I have done my Masters research in Microbial ecology. I am interested in stem cell research but I belong to a developing country where we don't have cutting edge research opportunities to gain hand-on experience. I have a good academic background but no research experience except undergraduate and postgraduate research. I am really willing to learn new techniques and want to change my research field to stem cell research. I am not good at convincing and presenting my point to convince a potential supervisor and show my motivation and interest.

Do I have to explain all this to the supervisor I am about to contact to make a point or straight away show my interest? I have obtained a scholarship just need acceptance and secure admission.


texts: Should I tell hiring committee about my interview opportunity at another institution?

texts:
My situation might be slightly different from the question Should I tell other interviewers where else I've interviewed?.

I have received an offer from my home institution (institution A), and the deadline for a response is fast approaching. I also received an interview request for a similar position from institution B, whose hiring decision may not be available before the deadline of the offer from A. Personally, I am more attracted to the position at institution B. Should I tell the hiring committee at my home institution about this interview at institution B to get an extended deadline for the offer from A?

One potential complication is that one of the committee members at my home institution provided a recommendation letter for me. My inclination would be to be upfront and honest, but my family have different opinions.


texts: How important are teaching portfolios in obtaining an academic position?

texts:
I have been recently introduced to the idea of teaching portfolios, that is a collection of teaching experiences and references made by peer educators. Their supposed purpose is to go along a researcher CV when applying for a position in academia, i.e. assistant/associate professor.

Any first hand experience?


texts: How should I facilitate a panel discussion?

texts:
I've been asked to facilitate a panel discussion at a conference I'm presenting a paper at in a few weeks, and I'm thrilled at the idea, but I really have no idea what to do. I've never facilitated a panel discussion before, and I'm wondering:

What is it like?
Is this something I can (or should) put on my CV?
Are there any benefits to me for doing so besides exposure (which I'm assuming is already a big plus)?


texts:
Which month to cite, the month of acceptance or the month on which the paper was published online?

I am using bibtex and a custom bibliographic style where specifying month is not required. However, to update my bibliographic database and to know specifically what is the norm, this question has been asked.


texts:
I teach at a school where the department has a strong expectation that a graduate or undergraduate course should require 45 hours of work per credit hour. For example, a 3-hour course should take 135 hours; say, 45 hours of lecture and the rest for readings and assignments. (The formal requirement is that 75% of students should be able to complete the work in that amount of time.)

At another school, the expectation for a class was 60 hours of work per credit hour. Furthermore, some professors took that requirement very seriously (including a time budget in the syllabus), whereas others took quite a cavalier attitude (“Do you want to be in graduate school or don't you?”). Of course, some classes take less than the allotted time.

At another school, I don't think I ever heard about a particular expectation, except perhaps an estimate of two hours of homework for one hour of lecture.

Given the range of variation, I wondered if there was any consistency of expectations across universities (say, in the United States, at the graduate and undergraduate level). Alternately, is there any pedagogical research that would inform either an instructor's or a department's policy about such matters?


texts: Is it ethical to invite a student to apply for a job through my spouse?

texts:
In my field, computer science, employers offer referral bonuses of a few thousand dollars to employees who refer successful job candidates who go on to work at that company. My spouse works at a company that an alumnus would like to apply to. So do several alumnae and a former professor who has taught that student. I used to work there too.

Is it ethical for me to tell the student (truthfully) that, if he applies through my spouse and gets hired, we will donate the bonus to the college? I would also tell him (truthfully) that I would submit an equally enthusiastic recommendation letter and help him prepare for interviews no matter who he chooses to refer him.

My ethical concern is that the student might feel pressured by my implying I would like him to apply through my husband and fear that I would not help him as much if he did not. I could partly alleviate that concern by writing the recommendation letter first and giving it to the former professor at the company to submit after anyone has referred the candidate. Is that enough?

Update

I asked an alumna at the company (rather than my husband) to refer the student and donate any referral bonus. She cheerfully agreed and coached him on interviewing. The candidate had no problem with being referred by an alumna (or by my spouse) and appreciated the coaching, although he ended up working for another company.

I think going through someone other than my spouse reduced the appearance of a conflict of interest all around (including to the company, to which I would have submitted a letter of reference).


texts: How to return to academia after "don't walk, run"?

texts:
It seems the phrase "don't walk, run!" is somewhat of a meme on this site. It roughly means "leave your current advisor/university/PI/whatever and don't look back".

While this at times may be good advice, although most often controversial, I'm wondering how one should handle the running if one remains willing to work in academia. (Just somewhere else) I mean, the suggestion sounds a lot like 'burning bridges' (with only one person at best, but with an entire department at the worst). Burning bridges is commonly understood to be a quick way to kill your career.

So, I'd like to have a well-thought answer to the question:

How (if it even can be done!) can I run from an abusive professional relation or otherwise unmaintainable position without ruining my career?

Perhaps this is already explained in some post given the "don't walk, run!" advice, but I think it is worthwhile to have answers to this particular question. Advice from academics who have in fact 'ran away' and proceeded within academia is very much appreciated. (this would at least answer whether it can be done)

Finally, to prevent any confusion: I'm currently not in an abusive professional relation or otherwise unmaintainable position. I'm merely interested in how one should act, for future readers in that situation. (Who knows, I could even be unfortunate enough to end up in such a situation one day!)

To clarify, this is a question asking for general advice for after leaving. To be clear, the 'running part' refers to 'not leaving in a nice and orderly manner' (Imagine a grad student literally running away from the campus, leaving a trail of thesis papers behind, if that helps). Most answers to the question suggested as duplicate essentially tell to 'walk', but here I have assumed to have already 'run' (whether that is a good idea is besides the point) and with that given, want to know what the best course of action is and the advice on the other question is too late.


texts: What constitutes "excellent" undergraduate research

texts: I am a junior right now and I plan on doing research over the summer and senior year. I was wondering what PhD admissions committees defined as good research experience from undergraduates in computer science?


texts: My supervisor avoiding me -- what to do?

texts:
I'm doing a masters. My thesis supervisor made our relationship a bit more personal and friendly: added me on Facebook, invited me for couple of dinners and we used to hangout sometimes and talk on articles at bars. Now he's for some reason avoiding me, answers emails/messages after couple of days (he used to do it in less than a day tops) and very cold and short. A very big problem is that I'm taking a lot of credits with him this semester (individual research work) and not only I have this fear that he might give me bad grades (he can do that simply by calling my work low quality; there's no objective criteria for the kind of individual course that I'm taking), he might end up not writing me a reference letter for my PhD, which is bad because first, a lot of credits under the name of individual work will remain unexplained, and second, I suppose it's awful that the one that I have worked with a my supervisor doesn't write me a letter.

What should I do?

PS: He's not physically accessible until the end of summer, except that for a 2 days conference that we'll be meeting in a week.

=======================

UPDATE:
I messaged him just like @aparente001 had advised me, but shorter (with the question that @cag51 suggested to ask face-to-face). He answered me in a minute a sat up a meeting time for that day's tomorrow (we were supposed to have a meeting before, which didn't happen). Then I realized that he has been only super busy and there's nothing else that plays any role (at least that's what he said). So, asking him worked even before a face-to-face talk. Thank you for your help!


texts: How does one address a tenure-track offer that is below expectations

texts:
I'm about to receive a tenure-track offer and was already informed about the offered salary. Unfortunately, the salary is barely an increase over my current postdoc salary. (In fact, taking into account the tax differences at my current location vs the location of the tenure-track institution, it's going to be a net pay cut.)
Also, the salary is below the range that the department head indicated during my visit. I was very excited about the prospect of joining the institution, but now I'm wondering whether all the hard work during several years (which were very successful research-wise) of being a postdoc was in vain.

I do have another offer (but for a non-research based industry job) and a couple more interviews (for tenure-track jobs) scheduled.

  How do I best approach the situation without giving the impression as being someone who's overly demanding or gaming the system?


texts: Is it normal for PIs to change projects to unrelated research

texts:
As I asked in a previous question, I ended up with a project that is not nearly close to my interests or research expertise, and my PI is pushing me so I publish something in that topic.

But that made me wonder. Is it usual for this to happen in Academia? I'm not talking "Topic was A and ended up with slightly related topic B", No, I'm talking a topic about a whole different field (even) than topic A, let say Topic Omega (Different Journals, Conferences, etc)

I reviewed my CV and the Job posting of almost 2 years ago, and it clearly said the job was on building algorithms for Brain Machine interfaces using Machine Learning.

However I ended up building electrodes (heavily balanced toward doing electrode characterization) for Brain Signal Capturing, and the paper he wants me to publish is in this topic, that is not nearly related to Machine Learning. Also, nowhere in my CV I even stated that I had nor the expertise nor the experience to deal with these particular field. And at the end of the day, had he advertised it as a heavily experimental postdoc I would not have applied at all.

We are talking Postdoc level here, not a grad student who suddenly switched topics. I just want to know if this is normal, or just a bad situation.

Knowing that this is normal might reduce my level of frustration, but if it is not, at least I can speak up in the exit interview.


texts: Is it advisable to do a short (2-3months) visit to a different lab at a different university while doing a PhD? I would think that it would be good for setting up collaborations, but would a PhD supervisor be against this due to the time that would be lost doing so?


texts: Nervous about my thesis results -how to decode my supervisor's email?

texts:
I have been waiting for my PhD thesis results for a long time now. Last week, I sent an email to the university, asking for the results.

Few hours ago, my supervisor has sent me an email saying that she got a notifications that the examiner reports were ready, and once I get the official email, I should contact her on how to respond to them. When I asked her if the results were "OK or not"? She replied that she cannot disclose anything, but what she can say is that

  "the two examiners saw things very differently....."

Now, those 'dots' at the end and the different views from examiners made me very stressed; Especially, since there is no one at the university to answer phones, because of the COVID-19! I have faced many problems during my PhD, such as my supervisors having problems with each other, my main supervisor resigning from the university, etc! And I just want this nightmare to be finished!

Does someone here knows if my supervisor's reply means there is a major problem with the thesis or not?

Thanks in advance!

PS: The reason I am shocked, is that despite almost not receiving any major feedback from my supervisors, I managed to publish a 'best paper' in a relatively good conference, based on my thesis. So, I was confident that it will not come back with very bad reviews!
Now, I am starting to read the sentence as 'both reviewers saw things differently from me and my supervisor'! Going crazy here! :))


texts: Is it possible to study an MBA as a Bachelor in Computer Science?

texts:
I am finishing my degree this year and I am interested in an MBA. However I have some questions.

First:

  Will I need to retake courses in order to be able to study an MBA as a Computer Scientist?

Second:

  Do I need work experience to begin studying an MBA? And if yes, should the work experience be business-oriented rather than software engineering for example?

Thanks in advance.


texts: Discovered a serious error in a reviewed paper after submitting the review, what to do?

texts:
I have been reviewing a paper where the authors apply a computational method from an earlier paper they published to a specific system of general relevance. The paper seemed ok, and I recommended major revision in the review.

After submitting the review, I've been working with this computational method myself and discovered that the way the authors applied the method is seriously flawed, so that it makes in general no sense to interpret the result in any way without further tests. If I had noted this problem earlier, I would probably have recommended rejection in my review.

What's the recommended course of action in this situation? Should I notify the editor of this additional discovery, so that the authors can directly take care of it in their (presumably ongoing) revision, or is it better to just wait for a request to review the revised version?

I haven't heard any decision from the journal so far, but I don't think that the paper will be accepted without revisions.


texts: How to deal with violence in the classroom (UK)?

texts:
After the recent death of 61 year old Spanish teacher Anne Maguire in Leeds today, what is the best way to deal with violence in schools in the UK as it happens?

Most schools in the UK do not have a lockdown / violence procedure as it is very rare.

However can we deal with this as it happens effectively in the UK?


texts: Why is the prospect of external funding driving hiring?

texts:
I'm curious about today's focus on external funding versus that of the past.

In Mathematics anyway, it seems that the quality of a researcher is increasingly being measured in dollars of external funding rather than by some other, more idealistic measure. That means that pure mathematics, for instance, seems to be much less valued than "fundable" mathematics.

Do any veterans have any perspective on what seems like a changing climate? Are things really different today than they were 20 years ago with regard to the importance of obtaining funding for ones research?


texts: Is 15 sections too many for a journal article?

texts:
I am planning to write a journal article about real-world algorithms solving a practical problem for an IEEE Computer Society transactions journal. The section outline currently is as follows:

Introduction
Related work
Problem definition
Simple algorithm for a simpler problem that cannot be scaled up to the real problem but is very interesting from mathematical viewpoint
Several mathematical observations from the simple algorithm
Simple algorithm that can be scaled up
Good, slow algorithm, as used in literature
Implementation details of our version of the good, slow algorithm
Another good algorithm from the literature and some improvements to it
Even more improved version of the Section 9 algorithm
How to deploy Section 6 algorithm for worldwide use
How to deploy Section 9/10 algorithm for worldwide use
Results and discussion
Discussion about one important point that could be claimed to invalidate the results but in reality doesn't
Conclusions

So, there are 15 sections. In IEEE double column style, the text is now 7 pages + references + biographies, but I expect it to grow to 10 pages + references + biographies because some of the sections are empty currently, their text not being written yet.

Now, my question is: do I have too many sections? I have intentionally kept the sections concise, not being too wordy. So they explain things just once and expect the reader to understand. So, the paper is not overly long.

The paper is quite conclusive because it explores 4 different algorithms and manages to optimize one of them to be fast enough to be used in practice. I don't want to remove any content because it would make the paper less conclusive. The results are important as well: the best algorithm as optimized by me runs over 60 000 times faster than equivalent prior art algorithm in the Section 3 problem.

I don't see any simple yet good reorganization into subsections: for example, Section 5 really has to be immediately after Section 4 so that the reader doesn't forget the important things from Section 4 when reading Section 5. So I can't combine Sections 4-10 into subsections of an algorithm section, because in the middle there would be a mathematical observation section unrelated to algorithms. In theory, Sections 11-12 could be combined to be subsections of a deployment section, but that would save just one section number. Another way to save one section number would be to do this:

Results and discussion

13.1. Results
13.2. Discussion
13.3. Discussion about one important point that could be claimed to invalidate the results but in reality doesn't

After really hard work, I came up with the following barely acceptable outline having less sections:

Introduction
Related work
Problem definition
Simple algorithm for a simpler problem that cannot be scaled up to the real problem but is very interesting from mathematical viewpoint
Several mathematical observations from the simple algorithm
Scalable algorithms

6.1. Simple algorithm that can be scaled up
6.2. Good, slow algorithm, as used in literature
6.3. Implementation details of our version of the good, slow algorithm
6.4. Another good algorithm from the literature and some improvements to it
6.5. Even more improved version of the Section 6.4 algorithm

Deployment

7.1. How to deploy Section 6.1 algorithm for worldwide use
7.2. How to deploy Section 6.4/6.5 algorithm for worldwide use

Results and discussion

8.1. Results
8.2. Discussion
8.3. Discussion about one important point that could be claimed to invalidate the results but in reality doesn't

Conclusions

Is this 9 section outline better?


texts: Is referencing a technical report in an improper format plagiarism?

texts:
Suppose someone uses a report such as technical report in an article or school work, but in the references at the end of document they just reference it like:

  Author A, Author B, title, year

I.e., they write what google scholar provides and forget to put the institution and mentioning that it is technical report.

Is this plagiarism?
The point is that student already submitted the paper and changing it entails lots of emails and an official process, just want to ensure it is not educational misconduct.


texts: What is the name of the text that might exist after the chapter heading and before the first section?

texts:
In manuscripts, a text between the chapter heading and before the first section might exist. Does this have a name?
This seems to be a good community to know the answer.
Thanks in advance.


texts:
I'm attending a summer school for graduate students, where I'm required to prepare a scientific poster about the research I'm conducting. However, the project is far from being finished, I only have some preliminary results.

How should I indicate on the poster that it's an ongoing work, and the presented results are not final yet?


texts: Why do journals ask authors to classify their submissions using taxonomy or a list of topics?

texts: I am submitting a paper and the submission requires a taxonomy or topics . I am not sure about this requirement. Taxonomy with respect to a research paper


texts: Is a partial PhD a liability in a job search?

texts:
I am considering dropping out of my mechanical engineering PhD program (only a year in) to return to a career in software engineering. During my job search I feel I have had a mediocre response from potential employers for jobs where I should have been a knock-out, home run candidate.

On my resume I have listed that I am currently a PhD student. Is it possible the in-work PhD is hurting my response? If so, what should I do to better sell myself to potential employers? Furthermore, is the fact that my PhD and career choice are in different fields hurting?


texts: When should one start looking for a postdoc?

texts:
I'm doing my PhD in physics (experimental physics/materials science with a lot of programming) with more than one year to go. I'm not 100% sure if I want to stay in academia, but if so I would like to do multidisciplinary research, working mainly on the computational part. I changed research field multiple times and I'm not too scared to do that again.

When do you think I should start to look for a postdoc?


texts: How to politely request to magazine editor for the following issue?

texts:
I have one article accepted in the magazine and the editorial team has send me the proof-read version. I have a little issue that I need to change the name of the article as the requirement of my thesis. The article was accepted with the name "Future trends in Personal indoor communication". I want to change it to "Future trends in indoor communication". I will really appreciate if the seniors can comment on my following response.

Dear Mr. Editor,
Thank you for accepting the article titled, “Future
trends in Personal Indoor Communication” for publication in IEEE
Potentials. As part of the proof-read stage, I would request a minor
change in the title. Since my modified PhD thesis title includes
“Indoor Communication”, instead of “Personal Indoor Communication”, I
will really appreciate if the editor allows me to reflect this change
in the mentioned article. This is important to maintain the coherency
between my published work and the PhD thesis.
The modification in the
title will subsequently require minor (editorial) changes in the text
as well. For example, Personal Indoor Communication (or PIC) should be
replaced by Indoor Communication (or IC) in the text. Likewise, Fig. 2
should be modified to reflect this change. For this purpose, I have
attached the new figure as the supplementary material.
Please do let me know if this is possible. I apologize for the
inconvenience it may cause to the publishing team.
Shan Jaffry
On behalf of the Authors


texts: What is the key difference between literature review and related work?

texts:
I really can not find a justifiable answer to this question. Are they used interchangeably?
One answer that's i found to be true is that we use the term literature review in writing thesis and related work in the writing research paper. but i am not sure if it is correct or not?


texts: Professor not replying to my email. Why?

texts:
I wrote an email to my professor yesterday to ask makeup exam. But he doesn't reply until now.

Test was taken a week ago. But, I can't take it because of family emergency(my grandfather passed away) and sudden move into new room (my hostfamily kicked me out without prior notice.I think the reason is outbreak of covid-19, and I'm Asian). Those are my nightmare!

In your opinion, can he admit my makeup test? and why doesn't he reply my email...?


texts: Is citing in an abstract required to avoid plagiarism?

texts: Is it considered plagiarism if in the abstract, only key authors of frameworks used were cited and other peripheral concepts mentioned in the abstract were not cited but were cited in the body of the study?


texts: Can a professor take a full-time 12 months industry job (get fully paid) while on one-year sabbatical?

texts:
Assuming the home university only pays 1/2 of 9-months salary in the period of one-year sabbatical.

Can it be legally allowed? or does it violate any rules in general? What would be the worst consequence if doing so?

Thanks.


texts: "Garbage in, garbage out" - Is it rude to call others' works as 'garbage' compared to ours?

texts:
I'm working on a data model which, I think, produces more accurate and valid results than some of previous works by others, including my supervisor, who by the way supports my work. But so far, the relevant community in general hasn't paid enough attention to the need for such more accurate results in this field.

When presenting my work (verbal/poster/paper), I need to emphasise the importance of the problem and the need to using better models, and that if we used less valid models (such as some of the existing ones) we should expect less accurate results.

Is it rude to use the computer science axiom "garbage in, garbage out" (or similar phrases) when referring to others' works in this context?

Edit: I missed important details. In my case, by 'garbage' I specifically mean the low-quality data usually used to solve the problem, which makes other models less valid. Even though, I would never use it as it might be misinterpreted as evaluation of the works per se, rather than the resources used!

But I was surprised and not comfortable to read the analogy in a published comment which criticised another author's results for using unreliable data!


texts: Are there any recognized math certificates I can take to show self learned math knowledge for an application?

texts: That's it. Any exam I could just sit and prove I know math beyond the courses I took so I can show an education institution my level is higher than what you could get from my CV?


texts: What is the difference between AP A and AP B?

texts:
I am a British person, currently studying a book designed for the American market.
It is for students studying the AP B course.
I know that AP stands for Advanced Placement, which is similar to the UK A-Level courses we study at 17-18 years of age.
However, I do not know what the difference is between the A and B part. For example, AP Physics A in comparison to AP Physics B?


texts: Department member writing reference letter for job applicant for a position in that dept

texts: The applicant has asked me for a reference letter for a position in my department. (I can give a positive recommendation.) The applicant is not related to me. Would it be appropriate for me to do so? If another applicant were to ask me for such for the same position after I've sent one for the first applicant, should I decline the 2nd person's request? (That would otherwise be a positive recommendation as well.)


texts: Why does a university course become defunct?

texts:
What are some reasons that lead to a university course being no longer offered?

I am thinking in particular about the course "Computational sustainability" or CPSC 530M offered in University of British Columbia.

I am guessing the following could be the reasons, but I'm not sure:

Not enough students are interested in the course
The course spends too much money and earns too little
The subject matter is obsolete (e.g. Eugenics theory)


texts: Report ancient harassment to the university?

texts:
During the pursuit of my degree, which I received in '92, I took a class where motifs in folksongs were routinely discussed.

I don't remember the exact wording now but I noticed a few songs with wording about a couple going to bed and the man putting the woman "toward the wall". I couldn't figure out what this motif might mean, so I asked about it in class. My male professor looked me dead in the eye, and answered "for leverage". The delivery was not lighthearted, and it was not followed by anything to lighten the mood. I read it as a kind of attack in the form of sexual innuendo. Why? Partly because of the aggressiveness of his eye contact, and partly because of the flatness of his tone of voice.

My reaction was no doubt colored by the fact that a friend had previously told me she approached this professor during office hours for a different class and he'd asked her out for coffee. She declined, and he retaliated in class.

My interaction with him quelled my in-class participation and made sure I never approached him after class unless there were plenty of other people there. Nonetheless, I got a good grade in the class and it had no lasting impact on me. I dismissed it from my mind and didn't think about it again until the rise of #metoo.

At the age of 20, he seemed... old to me, and it never occurred to me  that he would still be professionally active - until I heard him on the radio yesterday talking about a new book. As it turns out he is still at that same university, and I'm concerned that he's still "teaching" young women.

It has been nearly 30 years and the "harassment" seems nebulous at best. Should I report this, and if so, how? I started drafting an email to the department chair, but while the incident certainly had an impact on me at the time, it seems so... thin? weak? questionable when I write it out (even here).

So... now what?

For the record, this is not about me. I pretty much got over this a long time ago. My concern is for young women in his classes today.


texts: What to do with my ideas as an undergraduate

texts:
Long time lurker first time poster (to this specific Stack Exchange that is). I think its best to start with some context:
I am currently an undergraduate student at a fairly decent computer science school in the US. Over the past few years, I have been extremely fascinated with certain subfields of CS and have been self-studying on my own as well as reading new research papers (just keeping up with the literature in the field I guess you can say). Over the months, I sometimes get some ideas that I think can offer either a. improvement over some result or b. an entirely new, novel approach (more of the latter). To be more specific, at my level of knowledge in the subject, any idea that I have is usually 'applied' (i.e. using computational techniques to solve a problem in another field). I have a bunch of ideas. I am well aware that most are probably not good at all, but I reckon that some have potential (I would also like to clarify that I am not - not even close - claiming that I've found some magical solution to a well known problem like the P NP problem).
So here is the concern I am addressing:
With the pandemic, it is has been quite difficult to collaborate and form connections (especially at the undergrad level for research). I also don't think I have enough theoretical rigor to formally write about a paper, run the code, and publish by myself. I also dislike the feeling of waiting a few years until I gain some more skills and knowledge for two reasons: a. the longer I am removed from my original thought, the less likely it is that I will recall what exactly I meant at the time and b. the (admittedly probably not that high) risk of someone else publishing something similar before me.
In sum, I have thought of a couple of methods for addressing this concern that include emailing around to get some more senior collaborators (I am assume this is the recommended approach) and also this:
What if I post my initial results and/or raw ideas on something like a blog? More specifically, what sort of intellectual property can I claim? Would such material be citable in actual papers? Or would doing this effectively just give away my thoughts for free and allow someone else to take on the initiative without ackowledging my work? If some writeups are longer, serious, and paper-like, can such things be linked on Google Scholar, DOI, etc.? I have come across several posts of similar nature that include things like Bibtex citations at the end (examples: here, here, and here).
So... what advice would you give? Again, I am very young in terms of the academic world, but I don't want that to be a hindrance—I just feel a little weary not actively pursuing my ideas.


texts: How do you assess programming related topics and avoid student cheating?

texts:
I am teaching some programming topics to university students (some 300+) including python, sql etc. I would welcome some tips on what's the best way to assess the students and also avoid giving them the chance to copy each other.

So far the major piece of assignment, e.g., in SQL, is to give them a scenario describing an information system, explaining what are users, types of data, relations etc. And they are asked to use sql to implement a database, populate some data, and perform some queries.

The problem with this is that the correct solution is quite standard, so it is often the case that students submit same or very similar solutions. This itself may not be the problem, but combined with the factor that the large majority of the cohort gets very high grades (>70%), I fear that they are copying, but I cannot think of an easy way to find out, or address this.

Does anyone teach similar technical subjects and if so, how would you suggest to fix this?

Many thanks!


texts:
I wrote a paper. In the last sentence of its abstract, I wrote: Finally, we propose....

Now, one of the reviewer's said that

"Last sentence of abstract: « we propose » without saying for what use makes the sentence weird."

I can not understand what is the problem of using the phrase  « we propose ».

Thanks for any suggestions


texts: Can I publish my Master's thesis while my supervisor is marking it

texts:
My supervisor has not finished marking my master's thesis.
Am I allowed to publish it in a journal before he finishes marking it? I asked him the question  twice, but he never replied to me.


texts: Is IEEE author's version the same as the accepted version which can be put on arXiv?

texts:
When a paper is accepted to be published in an IEEE journal, the publishing system sends by email a PDF file of the author's version
(for an example of what PDF file I'm referring to, see https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1710/1710.01077.pdf).

(1) Is this PDF file the 'Accepted' version which can be uploaded to arXiv?

(2) Since in this case the authors do not have the source files of this PDF file, it is OK to bypass arXiv LaTeX detection?


texts: How to phrase follow-up email to professor to find out whether funding has come through regarding potential graduate school project?

texts:
I am attempting to find a researcher to work with for graduate school. Fortunately I found one with very similar interests to mine. I have been in contact with him since August, where I spoke with him over the phone. He said, unfortunately, he does not have a project that I could work on (that is in my interest) at the moment, but he is waiting to hear back from a funding comittee. He told me to email him to check in again in October. I did and we exchanged a few emails, where he said that he had still not heard back and for me to check in again mid-November. I am about to email him again.

My question is: how should I phrase what I say in the email so as to not sound "greedy"?

(i.e., I do not want to say something that sounds like "hey did you find out about the research project yet?"). I know I have emailed him about this before, but I feel like my email came off as that the first time. Plus, I do not want to copy and paste what I sent him last time.


texts: What is the gender distribution of those who perform potentially hazardous scientific experiments?

texts:
It comes as known that some experimenters have died or suffered other ill effects because of consequences of their experiments, such as Marie Curie.  What is the distribution by gender/sex of those who perform potentially hazardous experiments in academia?  How does their compensation for their work in terms of salaries or other benefits compare to other academics who have less physically hazardous jobs?

I'd like research with supporting citations if available.


texts: Explaining bad grades in application: SOP or separate letter

texts:
Question

Should issues about past academic performance be addressed in the Statement of Purpose or a separate letter to the admissions committee.

Background

I had originally posted about my situation here: Should a dismissal from PhD in graduate application be listed as academic misconduct?

One of the answers to that question suggested that instead of using my statement of purpose to address academic concerns, I write a separate letter addressing the issue. However, others have suggested that colleges are unlikely to read such materials with the application. I have written a short (500 word) explaining the circumstances under which I received my bad grades and what I have done so this doesn't happen in the future. I have also written a short (500 word) statement of purpose that does not address my academic performance at all. Should I rework my SOP to incorporate the academic issue, and skip the additional letter?


texts: How to modify a final draft to reflect that a conjecture in its preprint was refuted?

texts:
I am currently in the process of trying to publish a mathematics paper. A draft of this paper had been posted on arxiv, which contained an interesting conjecture.

In the intervening time, this conjecture has been refuted by another group of authors. I am not sure how I should edit my paper to reflect this.

One option that is out of the question is to simply delete the conjecture from the paper. The problem with this is that the latter paper has cited this conjecture as its motivation. If I removed the conjecture, I would be pulling the legs out from the subsequent paper.

What I am leaning toward is to state something along the lines of "In an earlier draft, we had made the following conjecture:" and then include some discussion and citations about how the conjecture has subsequently been refuted.

Note that most of my paper is unaffected by this refutation, and in fact I still believe that the conjecture could hold for the special case I need

Is there a better way of handling this situation?


texts: Knowing when the code is good enough, for research

texts:
My question is in a similar vein to this one.

My research requires code. I can write code and I know some things about writing good code. Both for readability, (e.g. standardised doc string, descriptive variable names, comments that describe the intention) and safety (assertions in the code, unit tests, sensible error messages). Adding these things takes me more time than omitting them.

At present I will typically do a bare minimum on my first attempt. So I will put a one line doc string in; use descriptive, but occasionally inconstant, variable names; and few comments. If the code doesn’t work first time I will go back and add unit tests and generally improve it's quality until it is functional.

If at a later stage part of the code needs altering significantly, (perhaps I realise I need it in parallel), then lots of the "polish" will need redoing. This does not make it enticing to polish more earlier on. Occasionally I will chase my tail over a fault that turns out to be originating in an older section of code, that I might have caught if I have been more thorough first time.

The code I write is almost always only used by myself.

Clearly there is a trade-off between doing things by the book and producing results fast. What would you look at to decide if you had found a good balance between these things?


texts: What does it mean to co-sign a letter of recommendation?

texts:
To provide some background, I'm an MS student (CS - machine learning) looking to apply for PhD programs. I was looking for letter writers, and struggled to find the third.
I have the option of asking a postdoc that I've worked with or a professor who has explicitly stated that he "doesn't know me well enough to write me a detailed and strong letter, but if you have no one else I'd be glad to write one."
My question is, what does it mean to "co-sign" a letter? Many people have advised me that if a postdoc writes my letter then it would be a good idea to have our advisor co-sign it. As far as I know, universities send out requests to submit letters electronically and writers submit the letters online. My dad is also a professor (albeit not CS) and has said he hasn't heard about this ever since letters went online. What would this mean in today's context? Do some fields still request mail-in letters?


texts: Do some universities not give paper diplomas to their PhD graduates?

texts:
In this forum, there is the following question: How can I find out if someone really holds a doctoral degree?

This question is about verifying someone's degree. In the comments to the question, in chat, there is a comment by one Jeff$\varepsilon$ saying

  Why don't you request the PHD title from the candidate — What's a "PhD title"? The only way I can prove to you that I have a PhD is by telling Berkeley to send you proof.

The idea that a university does not give out any form of certificate when someone earns a degree seems rather strange to me (but there are many things different cultures do that are strange to me, so I ask here).

Are there really universities in the world (nowadays) that do not hand out certificates for degrees?
If yes, is then contacting the university really the only way to check the validy of the degree?

Edit: I see this question was poorly received. Could the downvoter please explain why so I can improve the question? I honestly don't see what is wrong. Just to clarify: I do not plan to forge any documents (if this is the downvoter's point).


texts: Are there any good statistics on students who are second generation in higher education?

texts:
We do a lot of statistical analysis on students who are first-generation HE; the first generation in their family to attend University.

But are there any similar studies on students who are second-generation HE - ie, whose parents were first-generation?


texts: How to get free programmatic access to citations counts for a given paper?

texts:
What databases allow free, programmatic access to cited-by counts for papers?

Google Scholar doesn't have an API, and they block crawling attempts.
SCOPUS only seems to allows you to retrieve a branded, watermarked image of the number.


texts: Why should I format a citation manually without bibliographic software?

texts:
During a lecture (and a separate presentation) my instructor told us about bibliographic software, how it composes references automatically and is able to correctly cite articles in many formats. The software is freely available to everyone.

However, many others did not use it and were penalized on incorrect formatting when the assignment was due. Why would one not use software to compose references and citations? Is there advantage in learning how to cite articles manually?


texts: How to get started with PhD dissertation? (Management & Humanities)

texts:
I got accepted to a university as PhD Candidate. My research proposal is sent & accepted, and I found a supervisor.
Though we plan to meet at least 1 time/month, I feel a bit confused about the way I should get started with my research. Of course, I plan to complete the literature review I started when I wrote my research proposal before engaging with fieldwork, and then with data analysis and dissertation writing. However, how do concretely those different steps go on? I mean :

When do I know I am over with the literature review and conceptual framework? I feel like I always find more papers and books to read every time I read a new paper. Continuing this way may mean always postponing fieldwork, which I know is not a good way to go...
When should I start writing some serious stuff concerning that literature review/conceptual framework? Before or after engaging with fieldwork?
When should I contemplate writing down a first contribution (i.e. scientific communication for a conference or article)? I feel discussing my theoretical perspectives with other PhD candidates/researchers may be fruitful to confirm/modify the way I tackle my topic. However, I don't know if working on a theoretical paper before engaging with fieldwork is relevant as it may change through time ...


texts: Returning to academia after 6 years in industry

texts:
I graduated with a Masters in 2009 in US. Since then, I have been working as a Software Engineer. I am mostly intellectually bored in professional life and feel I am not learning. The idea of going back to school fascinates me. I don't have it in me to do a Phd but I am very keen to do another 2 years of focused study. I am keen to understand about courses where I can intersect with folks in the similar walk of life.

Any suggestions?

Update: Are there any popular 1-2 year programs in Economics/Finance?


texts: When Does "Adapting" An Image Go Too Far?

texts:
I am interested in using a particular figure from the literature, but I do not want to go through the hassle of paying to use a figure. What I am wondering is if I made a similar figure, how easy is it to get in trouble for copyright infringement? If I were to essentially redo the image, it would not be verbatim the same, but very similar depictions would be pulled from the image. As an example, I provided two illustrative examples where the bottom image is an "adapted" version:

The second one is in a published paper as well from a reputable journal, so I am guessing that it should be okay to go about making a similar diagram myself, but again, I wouldn't mind other opinions as too when I might start to tow the line on copyright infringement.


texts: How much to say about a conditionally accepted paper on a resume?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student who does research with a professor at my University. Recently we submitted a paper (which I am second author of) to a conference, and it was accepted with shepherding.

I'm obviously proud of my work, and would mention it even if there was no formal paper associated with it. But I also think mentioning that I helped write this paper would strengthen my resumé.

How can I responsibly present this on my resume? Can I say the title of the paper? (I feel like that's reasonable) It's submission status? (I feel like this is a no-no) I'm unfamiliar with the academic guidelines here.

Edit: I'm looking for an industry internship, if that's relevant to the question


texts:
Inspired by the question Does the term “science” encompass humanities and the social sciences?, I would like to ask a question that has been in my mind for decades.

Does "Science" include Mathematics? Or, put in another way, is Mathematics part of Science?

What I understand about Math are: Math is not humanities.  Math is not natural science. Math is not social science. If Math is part of science, what kind of science is it?

When people say STEM, do they mean Math is separate from Science? Or they just say it for the sake of convenience?


texts: Arxiv paper with lots of revisions and changes made to subject matter; shouldn't Arxiv clean this up?

texts:
In the domain of "Computer Science > Programming Languages" American Computer Scientist Carl Hewitt has put up a paper that changes completely from the first revision to the current one:

From

v1, July 2009: ActorScript(TM): Industrial strength integration of local and nonlocal concurrency for Client-cloud Computing

to

v46, February 2015: Inconsistency Robustness in Foundations: Mathematics self proves its own Consistency and Other Matters

... which seems to be outside the subject of "Computer Science > Programming Languages".

The entry also goes through several revisions along the way, notably:

v35, July 2010: ActorScript(TM): discretionary concurrency for privacy-friendly, client-cloud Computing
v37, August 2010: iScript(TM) extension of Objective C(R): discretionary concurrency for privacy-friendly, client-cloud computing
v40, September 2010: A 0-sized withdrawn entry superseded by another paper entirely: ActorScript(TM) extension of C sharp (TM), Java(TM), and Objective C(TM): iAdaptive(TM) concurrency for antiCloud(TM) privacy and security which itself has 60 versions.

I will not discuss the merits of v46, as I am interested in the contents of v1, which is also meant to be found when going through links in other web-based publications discussing Actor approaches to concurrent computing.

But it is confusing and looks irregular. Shouldn't arxIv clean this up?


texts: Independent researcher reaching out to academia for help

texts: I am an independent researcher and have spent the past year writing a fairly extensive (60+ pages) research paper on a topic in probability/statistics. The paper is almost complete but there are a couple minor loose ends that I am having issues with proving. Furthermore, given the length of the paper I am not sure of the appropriate journal to submit for publication and thus am considering contacting relevant professors in academia for help/guidance. My plan was to offer co-authorship in exchange for help addressing these loose ends and guidance with the publication process.  That said, my impression is that research faculty are inundated with these sorts of requests and so I was not sure if this approach was likely to get a response. Is this practice frowned upon in academia? If not, are there general best practices for reaching out with these sorts of requests?


texts: If you know a family member who is much more qualified and capable in mathematics than you are, should find another field of specialisation?

texts: Imposter Syndrome and depression: I feel pretty depressed that I am not as "qualified" as a close family member. In particular, this family member has undergraduate and graduate (PhD) degrees from Ivy League schools in mathematics. Whenever I try to solve a problem, this family member does it in half the time. Does this mean that I should try and find another field to specialize in?


texts: Do I need a conference paper to vouch for a tool I built in my undergrad when applying for a PhD?

texts: So basically, as an undergrad it's quite expensive to attend conferences. My paper got accepted to a more specialized IEEE conference. I had previously built simulation tools from scratch for computational EM (a more graduate-oriented topic), however I hadn't quite discovered anything new. I am also quite confused if having a conference paper to vouch for these tools will provide any additional benefit when applying for PhD as opposed to just showing that they indeed do work. If yes, then is it worth spending the money to present my work?


texts: Use of external resources as teaching aids

texts:
I am teaching a course in calculus.  Things are generally going quite well, but since this is the first course I've ever taught I'm certainly not doing a perfect job.  As a result, I sometimes come across lecture topics that don't go so well, either because:

I didn't do a good job of explaining in lecture, typically because I made a mistake or glossed over something or
The concept itself is just difficult, and requires a lot more time to understand than I can devote in lecture.

In these situations, I make sure that I communicate to the class that there was an issue, and I often look for or create resources like video lectures or supplementary documents that clarify things.

If I want to be 100% sure that the message I deliver is in agreement with how I'm teaching the course, I make the material myself.   For instance, if there are multiple, conflicting definitions of the same term, I tend to make my own material and post it for the class in order to ensure that my definitions are consistent throughout my entire course.  I've done this several times and my resources are well received.

However, there are resources out there that are just clearly better than anything I can whip up, at least in the time I have.  Khan Academy is particularly fantastic and has great videos, activities, etc.  Rather than re-invent the wheel, I will provide links to these resources when the topic is either not critical or where the resource aligns very well with how I've taught the concept in class.  I always make sure to properly give credit and do not take credit myself for things I did not create.

I'm not sure why, but somehow this feels like "cheating". I'm also concerned that it will be perceived as laziness on my part by the students.  So the questions:

Is this cheating? Should I be making my own material, in order to 100% guarantee that what my students see is consistent with how I'm teaching it?
If not, is there anything I should be doing to ensure that students understand that these resources are just one part of the course, and shouldn't be exclusively relied on?


texts: Publishing PhD thesis at another university due to not being able to afford high publishing costs?

texts: Would it ever occur, historically, that a PhD student could not obtain his degree from a university due to the high costs of publishing his thesis, such that he would have to publish it at another university and get his degree there instead?


texts: As a non-academic, how do I find papers that reference a certain article?

texts:
I have recently read an interesting article on number theory, published in a well-known mathematics journal. As a keen amateur mathematician, I have tried to develop some of the ideas presented in the paper. Surprisingly, I have come to a remarkable conclusion that might be worth publishing. Naturally, I first wanted to make sure that this has not been published before, so I tried to find papers that referenced the original article.

The issue is that websites that index or catalog scholarly material are off-limits to non-academics. In particular, in order to find references to certain papers or authors, one must first log in with an institution's credentials, which obviously I do not possess. What are my options? Do I:

write up my research anyway and try to publish it, with the risk of wasting everybody's time if a similar publication has already been made,
waste the original author's time by asking him to send me a list of references to his article (with a high probability of having my request immediately discarded), or
pay a high subscription fee to these cataloging websites in order to find what I'm looking for?

Is there another way for me to go about this?


texts: Is it okay if a professor friends a student on social media sites?

texts: If a professor is teaching a student currently, is it okay if he/she friends the student on social media sites such as Facebook or Google Plus?


texts: Being artist and scientist at the same time

texts:
Although I do research in science as my day job, I spend most of my free time for my life-long hobby, drawing cartoon. But I keep this fact in secret to my research co-workers since the culture of scientific community and that of comics artists are quite different, and I'm tired of looking like a person with an exotic hobby. But recently my 'career' as an artist became more successful than I expected (made a contract with a publisher, etc.), I started to worry about my future choices. Would it be wise to pursue two very different careers in my life, researcher and artist?

Many famous comics (e.g. PHD comics, xkcd) from ex-scientists are mostly for the people who are already in the culture of science and maybe it would be OK to be that kind of artist and you could still be accepted in researcher community. However my art style is pretty different from that of other many famous scientist-comics artists. When I draw comics, I try to be like other usual professional artists so that I can draw more attention from the general audience. As a result, my works may contain stimulating elements that would be considered absurd or obscene when read out of context. I'm not saying that my works are particularly unhealthy; comics in general are for fun, and my works are just one of them. It's just that my works are not very educational. Another concern is time and effort; drawing absorbs lots of time and energy when your art style is not simplistic.

Because of these reasons, I ask for advices from researchers who also have large passion for their asrtistic desire; how do you manage to do both of them? Would being a commercial artist give you disadvantage as a researcher in academia?


texts: Why does a degree take several years to complete?

texts:
The length of a bachelor's degree is often 4 years, a Master's about 2 years, and a PhD 4--forever years. This is pretty consistent across countries and disciplines give or take a year.

My question is: what is the rationale behind how long it takes to complete a degree? When or how was the current recommended length in years developed?


texts: Writing about complex ideas without getting stuck

texts:
I'm an experienced researcher and find it relatively straightforward to write technical papers. However, I also sometimes want to write papers that present a complex idea, such as a novel synthesis of existing work, or a question that hasn't been clearly formulated in my field. In writing papers of this kind I often start to feel "boxed in" by my own writing and unable to express the idea I really want to convey. It seems like this should be a relatively common experience, and I am wondering if there are known techniques to avoid or overcome it.

What tends to happen is this: I start out with a 'big idea' that I want to write about, and start working on an outline, but I quickly get bogged down. The questions behind the idea need to be motivated, and the idea needs to be placed in the context of existing work. In writing about these things I find myself getting drawn along tangents, writing about side points that I didn't want to write about in depth (but which now seem necessary in order to motivate the work) or feeling like I need to review whole other fields of study that I'm not an expert on. Often I end up giving up on the draft, because it doesn't seem possible to clearly make the point I was aiming for.

There are essay papers I admire that don't seem to fall into this trap. They are written in a way that always seems to push toward their central thesis, even if they have to make a lot of side-points in order to get there. I even manage to pull this off myself sometimes - I just don't seem able to do it repeatably.

I'm confident that the ideas themselves are well enough developed to be worth publishing. I've developed them over years and can easily express them verbally or in slide presentations. But writing papers driven by complex ideas is a difficult craft in which I have no formal training.

I feel that the issues I'm hitting must be known and avoidable: What techniques are available to address them?


texts: Do PhD students have to be in a certain age range to receive a scholarship?

texts: I am going to pursue my Ph.D. in Australia or New Zealand, I don't know if my age can affect my application regarding getting a scholarship. I definitely need a scholarship and stipend to help me to cover my expenses. I am a university lecturer and hold a master's degree in the field of industrial engineering. I am working in the field of mathematical modeling and machine learning.


texts: Reviewers decision: Summary rejects typically do not receive technical feedback

texts: I would like to know what does this imply "Summary rejects typically do not receive technical feedback". Is that mean that work has a flaw?


texts: Can offers to international students be rescinded if grades received following the application slightly lower their GPA?

texts:
I am an international student who has been accepted into mathematics department at UCLA.

In my application for the last semester I gave my grade point average as 9.5/10. I was taking two courses and was hoping that I would get a 10 and a 9, making the average 9.5.

But unfortunately the grades in both the courses slipped up to a 9 and a 8 , making the average 8.5/10.

I haven't informed them of this, and I was hoping that it wouldn't matter. I am going to get my visa next week, and I am really paranoid that my admission may get rescinded.

What do you guys think ?


texts: Requesting All Student's Grades From Professor

texts:
For the last few months I have been tutoring a student in a university math course and they just received their finally course grade which numerically was a 78, but to my surprise the letter grade they received was a D. The letter grade they received was due to a grading policy along the lines of the top 15% of students get an A,next 35% B's, then 35% C's, and the bottom 15% receive a D/F.

While a D is technically considered passing the student I am working with needs at least a C- for the course to count towards their program. Is it unreasonable for the student to request a list of all other students grades from the prof to verify that they were actually in the bottom 15%?

Normally for a student to verify their grade they can simply check their grades against the letter grade requirement in the course syllabus but that is not the case here.


texts:
I sent my application to the University of Zurich for my masters studies. However, I just realized that I made a really big mistake in the motivation letter. In the first line of the letter I wrote something like, "With this letter, I would like to express my interest in studying Masters of Science in Physics at the University of Geneva starting from fall 2017."
Does this hampers the chance of getting an admission?


texts: What is the norm in PhD internships in terms of their duration, tasks, and location.

texts:
Context:

I am on my third year doing a PhD in Engineering in a North American University. The norm in my institution is that a PhD is 5-6 years long. I was funded through the past period of time through a scholarship. The "understanding" is that the advisor funds students after the initial three years but nothing is formal.

Situation:

My advisor found an internship opportunity for me and "strongly" suggested that I take it. In this case, the company pays me while I am there.  During that time, he gets matching funding from the government. The idea is that he would use the matching funding to pay me after the internship ends. He basically takes the money and gives to me back later. I trust that he will do that. I am not sure if this is considered normal or not in acadima but that is not my question.

The problem:

The problem is that some aspects of this specific internship seem abnormal to me and I want to get feedback from the community about these aspects.

Questions:

1- The internship is for 9 Months. It is full-time internship and I will not have time to work on my PhD. This means that my PhD is extended by 9 Months (5-6 Years + 9 Months). Is this a normal period of time for a PhD internship? I have seem people go on a 3-4 Months internships and even 6 in one case but never 9.

2- The tasks of this internship seems to be a long the lines of a Full-time engineering job. There does not seem to be any research involved. My thinking was that a PhD internship would help me develop my research skills and this seems to be an internship for a masters student or an undergrad. Is it normal for an PhD internship to be a full-time job in disguise?

3- The internship is located in another city. I have to move there for 9 months. This would require me to completely change my living situation twice in 9 months. Is this considered normal?

I am considering passing on this opportunity and finding a more suitable one myself. I just wanted to get feedback from experienced people before doing so. I would appreciate any input.


texts: How to propose alteration of study subjects in college?

texts:
I've been studying and working with Game Development for quite a while and I can't help to notice that I'm not using anything that was presented to me in college.

My college is focused in gaming programming, BUT all that is taught is basic programming like basic loops, conditions or object oriented programming. Most of the teachers don't even know how to build a game or what a game engine is.

I believe it's taught this way because there's no teacher with experience in the area and the topics are very wide, like "programming class" without specifying a programming language and what's going to be learned.

Is there a way I could propose a change of the subjects we study in class? Or even bring attention to the matter, so that someone could take action?


texts: Submitting to a venue when you are a member of the program committee

texts:
My question is about submitting a paper to a venue (journal or conference) when some of the authors of the paper are also members of the program committee (PC) of the venue (i.e., they will review papers for the journal or conference). I call this a PC paper.

In any modern conference or journal management system that I have seen, PC papers don't seem to pose any particular issue: when logged in as a PC member, you do not see pending submissions of which you are an author, and of course you are never given one of your own papers to review. I have never participated to a PC board meeting (to decide on which papers to accept or reject), but I assume that PC members would be excluded from discussions about their own papers (as is routinely done for conflicts of interest). In conferences where the accept/reject decision is taken by a PC chair or editor, of course they are not allowed to submit papers, and this of course I can understand.

However, in my field (theoretical computer science), I have heard that submitting a PC paper is generally frowned upon. Further, there appears to be a tradition that, on borderline papers, papers by PC members will be rejected in priority.

Hence my question: Is there indeed a bias against PC papers in academia? If yes, is there any ethical or practical justification for this?


texts:
I am a Marie Curie early stage researcher in a H2020 funded project (early training network, for those aware of the terminology), that's spread between several universities in Europe (including where I am now, London /snark). I'm approaching the end of my contract.

This project is, according to the published figures, rather lavishly funded (€4 mil in total). Just in the "Research, Networking and Training Costs" there's approx €200k for three researchers for three years (that comes to 1800/mo per researcher!). This excludes salary costs, management costs, etc.

This project has been plagued from the beginning by a serious lack of transparency and mismanagement, which has been slowly revealed throughout the duration of the project.

Some examples:

We, as researchers, were not consulted as to what training we need, and were "forced" to go to courses & workshops organised by the consortium partners, which half of the time were useless (completely off topic).
Even if we didn't attend said workshops (out of desperation to get work done, in my case), the host university would still pay the organising partner a set "participation" fee.
I was told there's no budget to go to conferences, even if I had a paper in. Some of us had to pay up front for our secondment related travel costs (at our industry partners).
We were told secondments were mandatory 8 months, whereas actually they were maximum 8 months.
My host university slotted me in at the wrong pay grade for two years (was being underpaid - this issue is sorted, but just goes to show). They're still using the wrong conversion rate, instead of the ECB rate (£0.7 for €1), but apparently that's going to get sorted at the end of the contract.

My conundrum is simple: I've just been told that my host university has overspent, and there's no more money for me to go to an important industry board meeting where I was invited due to the research I've been doing so far, and supposed to talk about it in front of a couple of important industry actors in my field.

I'm a bit fed up. I have never seen a single excel sheet of sorts on what the money has been spent so far, by whom and on what. It has been consistently denied to us. From my own book-keeping, I've spent, so far, somewhere in the range of 1/5th of my total budget.

I'm afraid to push too hard on my supervisors for details, as I  still need to (write and) submit a dissertation with them, and maybe get a PhD degree - and they might easily get offended.

I also believe this should be "sorted out" at one point or the other. I've been previously working in practice (Architecture & Engineering) for 4 years where such behaviour would have spelled instant trouble and litigations. How would one report/flag serious concern/blow a whistle on such a project, in the rather sensitive British cultural context?

Disclaimer: I do realise I am in a very lucky position, and life can be much worse in academia & research than I'm having it... it's just that I might have a too developed sense of justice or need for clarity for my own good.


texts: Lack of congruence in mathematical abilities versus writing abilities in faculty

texts:
Because of my background in mathematics and statistics, I have been called upon by my department (the Math/Stat Department) to assist faculty members from the humanities and linguistics departments in performing routine statistical analyses for a few of their publications. While the actual statistical analysis is very low level (basic undergraduate statistics), I am of course more than happy to do the simple work and be given co-authorship on a paper.

However, in the course of performing these statistical tasks, I have found that some of these professors do not even know how to perform elementary tasks such as finding the average of a set of numbers, adding fractions with single digit denominators, or calculating 45 cubed ("There's no button for that on the calculator!"). These are all tasks that I literally knew how to do when I was in elementary school. It did not take a PhD in math to know how to do these things (or even a high school diploma).

Because of this, I have begun to wonder why we seem to be completely fine with supposedly  "well-educated" (is that too harsh?) people being entirely incompetent at mathematics. Some of these people that I am asked to help have what I would deem to be 2nd or 3rd grade math skills. What if I, as a math researcher, only wrote on a 2nd or 3rd grade level and had to call upon the English department to write my papers for me?  Or what if I could not even identify who painted the Mona Lisa (or that such a painting even existed)?

Should I suggest that my university begin encouraging 'non-math' faculty to become more competent in core mathematics?

I am not saying that these professors are charlatans and do not deserve their faculty positions. They are very knowledgeable on the specifics of their topic. And I am not trying to berate people for whom math is not their strongest subject. However, I wonder if there are steps that the academic community could begin to implement that would enforce a higher standard of competence in basic mathematics among "non-math" faculty.


texts: Is it tough to apply for a CS PHD degree after several years in industry?

texts:
Advantage:
Family support. My parents believed I should and are willing to offer some financial support. Actually they urged me.
I am currently in a big company doing relevant work and I did great.
I want to.
Disadvantage:
GPA is not good for me, 2.6 is pretty low for applying to a PhD. From what I know about my friends, those who applied for a PhD program right after undergraduate often had a much higher GPA(3.7+) than what I have.
Financial support from family may not be that much due to many reason.
I only have one published result in an irrelevant domain as third writer.
Details of my background:
I lived in China and want to apply for a PhD abroad.
Academic years
I was graduated from one of the best university in my country with a bachelor degree at 2015. I spent my academic years in my teacher's lab and competition.
I have ACM/ICPC regional bronze,  Meritorious Winner of ICM(Interdisciplinary Contest In Modeling) and National 2rd prize of MCM(Mathematical Contest In Modeling).
I cooperated with my teacher and senior, finished a paper about A* algorithm as third writer.
I would say putting efforts in competitions had some side effects to my GPA but I know excuse is pale and useless.
Industry Career
After 2017 I worked in a big company as a NLP engineer, later in 2018 I took lead of NLP team. My job allows me to follow most new discovery of academia. During the process of applying those state-of-the-art result to real world I earned much experience with huge dataset in many ways.
Goal:
I want to apply for CS PhD in NLP related domain.
In short:
I want to have apply for PhD and I'm worrying about my weak background.
Any advice/experience is appreciated


texts: Applying for PhD admission with a master's thesis written in Spanish

texts:
I'm finishing my MS in a Spanish speaking country and my MS thesis is written in Spanish. If I apply for being admitted in a PhD program in a non-Spanish speaking country, should I expect them to accept my MS thesis as it's currently written (i.e. in Spanish)? Also, I could translate it into English in a week or two but, then, that version of the thesis would not be any more the official one(i.e. the approved by the evaluating committee). Would they accept this translated version of the thesis for the application instead of the original one?

(When I said 'accept it' I meant 'consider the possibility of reviewing it and conclude something about my performance or the depth of my MS work'.)

I'm particularly interested in European countries and the US, but I know that there may be cultural or idiosyncratic differences, even between different institutions within the same country. For example, I expect greater chances for my Spanish written thesis to be accepted in Portugal than in Poland. So what I want to know is if there is some general pattern that I should expect from them, like, rejecting it with a high probability... or accepting it with a high probability, given that Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world and popular in Occident, unlike Chinese.


texts: Ways of encouraging companies to participate in survey for my doctoral reseach

texts:
I am a doctoral candidate in Business Administration, researching the use of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) programs in companies. When I have explained my research to system administrators, the usual response is that it is an interesting subject. Despite the use of social media such as LinkedIn, a user group forum and direct mailing system administrators, very few companies have consented to participate in the research.

The research will be implemented via user questionnaires. In my opinion, very little time is actually required to complete the questionnaire (obviously I'm biased) and point out in the covering letter about the research that completing the questionnaire requires only about ten minutes. Of those companies who bothered to reply, almost all have stated that participating would require too much time.

Does anyone have any suggestions how I might encourage companies to participate? I know that basically I am asking them for something and not giving anything back in return.


texts: How much will dropping out of a Master's program hurt job prospects?

texts:
I am extremely dissatisfied with the Master's program I just began and plan on dropping out ASAP. I currently have no interest in finding another graduate program and instead wish to pursue a job outside of academia. As I see it my two choices are to either stick it out for the rest of the semester and just try to maintain C's, or to simply walk away from it and accept the F's because the drop deadline has passed.

The main question I have is how much more damaging is the option of just walking away mid-semester?

I realize that certain employers will view the situation differently, but I am just seeking opinions here. I have no idea of what industry I would want to work in or how that might affect your answers. Or if anyone has advised students in similar situations, I would greatly appreciate similar advice.

As for my records before this program, I got my BS in applied math and graduated with honors. I am hoping that I can bank on this earlier performance and explain the reasoning behind dropping out to potential employers.


texts: Correct latex format for standard IEEE Computer Society Press proceedings style guide

texts:
I'm planning to submit a paper to an IEEE conference. On their website they mention that the paper should be "formatted according to the standard IEEE Computer Society Press proceedings style guide". Which latex header should be used in this case?

\documentclass[conference,compsoc]{IEEEtran}

or

\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}


texts: What does MS in Pure or applied Math look in top PhD statistics application

texts:
I know there is a thread related to this topic but I just want to know how does an MS in Pure Math or Applied Math look in a PhD Statistics application in top school (Ivy League, Stanford). I'm currently at the top 50-60 school in Math and I would like to know what a committee member of top PhD school look at me. Also, do you need to have research experience during master year since a lot of master program is intensively learning graduate courses in your first year. Thus, once you apply in the fall of second year in the Master program you might not have research experience or publication yet.
I also have research experience during my undergrad year, with a perfect GPA in math major. Not sure how the master will turn out but I just want to ask how would people view my PhD application if I apply (assuming I would do decent or pretty well during my first Master year)


texts: Is there a risk my Statement of Purpose will be plagiarized if I post it online?

texts: I am currently looking to send my Statement of Purpose to an English TA for editing. The problem is that I am afraid my Statement of Purpose might get plagiarized. However, since my statement is highly personalized, is my worry unnecessary?


texts: How should I control my nervousness, so as not to disturb my presentation on the day of a conference?

texts:
My paper is successfully accepted in a very prestigious and reputable conference, to be presented orally in one of the presentation sessions. This is my first time that I am going to give such a talk in a large academic conference. My previous experiences are my presentations for my class projects and my bachelor's and master's thesis presentations. In my previous talks, I had reviewed my presentation slides more than five or six times before the presentation and had a bottle of water beside my laptop, but still I was too nervous.

I am a little nervous about giving a presentation talk in front of a large number of students and professors. I am sure that in the day of the presentation, I will be in trouble and my hands will start shaking and my voice will be vibrating when I am going to talk, because of my stress.

How should I decrease my stress on the day of my paper presentation and better control my nervousness in my presentation? My research paper is perfectly done; I don't want my nervousness ruin my first academic presentation in a conference and the huge research my co-authors and I have done in the research paper.


texts: How to write horizontally across the blackboard while keeping handwriting as horizontal as possible?

texts:
Does anyone have tips on good ways of writing horizontally across the blackboard?

I notice whenever I write across the blackboard, the line will have a slightly downward slope of 15 degrees and it is quite visible from afar. It sort of looks like the bottom left half blackboard of this picture.

Does anyone have any tips of writing across the board as horizontally as possible? My board is about 10 meters wide divided in two halves.


texts: How to write PIs asking for PhD position?

texts:
I have read here that the best way is to keep it simple, be short and ask for meetings, which is a bit generic way to ask for a job. I agree more with the discussion posted here by a student in a similar situation as mine (I still haven't started emailing people but I've already have a long unfinished list).

Speaking with some PhDs and postodcs I know, they told me that the best way is to know somebody in and maybe write them first in order to introduce you to the PI before you send your email. Another advantage of this is that you will know if there is a position available or if it's not a good idea to work there (the people who actually work there might have the best advice about that). Finally, they might also be "more reachable" than the PI who gets thousands of mails. On the other hand, I don't know the people who work where I want to go so it would feel as impersonal as this question feels to you.

Given the fact that I may have to write several (around 20) of these mails I want to have a good strategy. I know it's a debate that mostly depends on the area. My area of research is Neurobiology of Memory and Learning but I might also be interested to change a little bit, maybe to Addiction (Always within neurobiology).

I would also like to add that in order to write a detailed email about the PI's research history and future path one must be able to have the time for:

Read the publications = A large amount of time
Actually come out with an idea that meets with the PI's expectations AND research interest/approach/knowledge AND more important technique capacity

Of course, being a PhD student means that you have to suceed in both of them but not for every research we would be happy to do (if we were accepted) in advance.


texts:
I am a CS student in Italy, about to get my bachelor degree. In the past few months I've been looking for some masters in my field (Computer Science with orientation towards Data Science) and have found some really interesting programs in top universities (some are Ivy) in the US.
I would really like to apply. I think I have the right stuff to get in, of course I'm aware of the low acceptance rates but I'm willing to try and give my best.
The only problem is my financial situation. I'll be considered as an international students and I didn't see many available scholarships; I'll just have very few possibilities to get private loans. My parents don't want me to apply because of the fact that if anything happens (health wise, for example) and I'm not able to complete my master I will be in debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars and with no equivalently repaying job.
Given my situation, should I pursue this dream of mine or try for a less expensive university in Europe?

EDIT: The real question would be: Is it worth it to apply? Will it be worth it to be in debt of a huge amount of dollars to be in one of the best schools in the world? Considering that college applications are pretty stressful and obviously require time investment, I don't want to pursue a process like this and back down at the end (in case I get in). Is this a once in a lifetime chance or would I get a similar excellence in education in good European universities?


texts: Manage communication with students (as advisor)

texts:
I feel a little unproductive in managing students as their advisor. I have both undergrads and graduate students, and especially with undergrads, it's hard to make them respect scheduled updates.

Right now, I am using online tools to track their progress (on GitHub), but communication is lacking. I hate using email for these regular updates, since many of them even take two days to a week (sometimes more!) to check their email account (using University's address), moreover, it would be probably cluttering my inbox.

  What tools or communication services can I use to manage several students, communicating with them in a timely manner?

Thanks for any suggestions.


texts: Is the English-version of a paper previously published in a different language considered an "original contribution"?

texts:
I am an academic in a Portuguese-speaking country, so there is some incentive for me to write in Portuguese. However, much of the literature I deal with is in English, so I would like to publish in journals from anglophone countries.
Given this state of affairs, and given that no matter how many translations are made of a work, the research leading up to it remains one research, I had the idea of maximising my audience by publishing in both in English (abroad) and Portuguese (in my country). That is, I'd like to publish a paper first in a Portuguese-language journal, and then later submit it to an English-language journal, or vice-versa.
However, as we know, originality is typically a requirement in academic journals. But are translations of papers previously published in foreign languages considered "original work"?
At face value, I think the answer might be "no": the work, as a research, has been published elsewhere, so it isn't quite "original". But that would mean that no research published in Portuguese can ever find itself as a translation in an English-language journal, which also sounds a bit exaggerated. If that is the case, what is the appropriate venue for translations?
I'm aware some journals have a policy giving editors discretion to consider exceptions to the originality rule on a case-by-case basis (see e.g. [1]). Still, I was unable to find information on how situations like this are typically treated. Obviously, as a matter of ethics, the original work would be properly referenced in the translation, which would be flagged as such.
So, paraphrasing: is the (original) translation of an academic article previously published in a foreign language considered "original work" for the purposes of publication?
P.S.: I imagine this may differ from field to field. I do research in the fields of law, Social science, and philosophy.


texts: A question for UK academics and students: How will UK universities respond to a professor showing controversial religious images to class?

texts:
Over a month ago, a group of Muslim parents protested for several days at Batley grammar school, in West Yorkshire, England, after a teacher at that school showed in a Religion Education class the 2015 caricature of the Prophet Muhammad by Charlie Hebdo. The teacher apparently showed that picture to his students, who were between 13 to 14 years old, to educate them about islamophobia. Nevertheless, even before an independent inquiry into the incident started, the head teacher's response was to issue an "unequivocal" apology for the teacher's actions and suspend the teacher. (To know more about this incident, please click here.)
If a university professor/researcher in the UK showed the same image in, say, history or moral philosophy class, to stimulate an intellectual discussion between mature students, would the university tolerate it? And, has this (or at least something similar to this) ever happened in a UK university class? How did it go?
I ask these questions because I'm planning to do my PhD in the UK, and my proposed research topic touches on the said issue.


texts: How to format code in a thesis (Word document)?

texts: I have a couple of code snippets, included in my thesis. What is the most convenient way to format code in a Word document, particularly, in regard to keeping the syntax highlighting, etc.? And the guidelines say that text should use double space. Does this apply to the embedded code as well?


texts: Editor says "the paper will not be acceptable within a reasonable number of revisions": is it worth appealing the rejection?

texts:
Given the editor's comments reported below, is it worth appealing this rejection or one should submit to another journal?

  At the rate of improvement that has occurred over the last revision,
  the paper will not be acceptable within a reasonable number of
  revisions. Consequently, your paper is being declined. The reviewer
  comments are very helpful and should assist you to prepare the paper
  for consideration in another journal. Reviewers' comments on your work
  have now been received. You will see that they are advising against
  publication of your work. Therefore I must reject it. For your
  guidance, I append the reviewers' comments below. Thank you for giving
  us the opportunity to consider your work.