texts: What can be done to bridge the gap between amateur and professional mathematicians?

texts:
I am an amateur mathematician. I have trained myself on math-related websites and other resources. However, the lack of technical knowledge, methods, and sociological culture usually shared by professional mathematicians has prevented me from going further and publishing rigorous and interesting results.

Many amateurs, often outside areas where universities are easy to reach, face the same hurdles. I know a lot of them are cranks but not all of them are: some have extremely good computational skills, an extremely original vision of maths and sometimes a lot of time on their hands.

What can be done to bridge this gap between amateurs and professionals? How can we give amateurs the codes and techniques needed to enrich the corpus of mathematical results with new, fresh and interesting contributions?

For example, could retired professions create a free resource that links universities and labs to amateurs? In this way, the retired professionals could act as "pre-referees," teaching the amateurs how to write a paper, and collaborating on the research itself? There could even be a magazine in which publications resulting from this are published.


texts: The title of a book is different in the catalogue and on the cover. How do I cite it?

texts:
I would like to cite a chapter from a book which is listed in the catalogue as Attosecond and XUV Spectroscopy: Ultrafast Dynamics and Spectroscopy (Wiley, 2014, edited by Thomas Schultz and Marc Vrakking), found here at the Wiley site and here on Amazon. I'm somewhat confused about how exactly to cite this book, since if you look at the cover...

... the title is different. To add to the confusion,

the book is listed under the catalogue title (Spectroscopy) in multiple library catalogues and most google search results,
but not everywhere, including WorldCat and several Wiley pages;
the citing articles on Google Scholar are split about 50/50 on both (with Google Scholar correctly recognizing both forms as citations to the same resource!),
some of them even switching sides;
the title page has the same title as the cover; and
each book chapter has a footer with the cover title (Physics).

My question is: how do I cite this book? Given that pretty much every rule of libraryness seems to have melted down, do I just choose whatever I find sexier and forget about it all?


texts: Teaching a student (as a TA) when there is flirting, etc. and mutual interest

texts: I am  a graduate student with an assistantship. I met an undergraduate and we hit it off (talking about sex, but not sex with each other). But now I assist a class with her (and I'm not good at hiding my feelings) and she is very flirty. She also put her hand on my arm outside of class (which was welcome). I am performing my job, but I am worried that if things go bad with us she'll claim sexual harrassment. What should I do?


texts: Whether to use numbers or abbreviated names as a citation style?

texts: Many papers use numbered references (e.g.: [1], [2]). Is this considered a good style or even a rule or would it be acceptable to use abbreviated names of the authors and year of publication (e.g. [Smith09] for J. Smith, 2009)? I find the abbreviated name reference style a lot more informative as after a while of reading papers on a given topic it’s usually easy to identify the cited publication without the need to look at the full bibliography.  I have seen this style used in books and some editorials but it is not common.


texts: What to do if my GRE is too low but application deadline close?

texts:
I have a GRE score on hand but it is too low for the universities I am applying to and the deadlines are very near.

I am thinking of sending the application now with the current low score and I booked a slot to retake the GRE.  Can I send an email to the university again to consider my new scores?


texts: Mathematical creativity: better a high profile or a "laid back" department?

texts:
It seems that high profile universities are not the most enjoyable work environment to be in.
Even though big institutions attract big names and grant money, it seems to me that the pressure to perform leaves everybody, from the undergraduates to the professors, overworked.  On the other hand, the idea of less prestigious university is attracting me for the, perhaps overly romantic idea, that as passionate people could be working in these institutions.

I am thinking: perhaps moving out of a big institution to a smaller one could increase quality of academic life, as well as creativity. But surely quality of science need not be inversely proportional to department enjoyability?

-Is this a realistic expectation?

-Does this depend on the research interest?

-Does achieving a PhD in an impressive institution open many doors that would otherwise remain close (for example, being able to be an independent researcher)?

Additonal info:

I have graduated from a MSci in Theoretical Physics in a big London university, and I am currently doing a MSc in Applied Mathematics there. Interests were fairly broad and decided to prolong my taught education to "taste" more subjects.
   I love Physics and Maths almost as much as air, but I am a bit concerned with the dullness of my current environment. I haven't been to other universities, or know many passionate people from other universities, so I have not had the chance to ask these questions to many people.


texts: Article waiting for AE assignment for too long?

texts:
I have submitted two articles to a journal. One of them got accepted within 10 days, but the status for the other one has been "Awaiting AE assignment" for 15 days now. The journal says on average they take 30 days to make a decision on a paper. Should I contact the journal about the status and why it's not changing? Is it possible that they forgot my article? And would sending a reminder have a negative impact on the decision of the journal?
Thanks.


texts: How to address the recruiting committee in a cover letter in case the recepient is not an individual to the best of your knowledge?

texts:
Specializing the question
Who to address on the cover letter?,
let's assume that you apply for a tenure-track position in the US in computer science, that the job announcement has no particular individual listed, and that Google/Bing/Yahoo led you to, say, "recruiting committee" (as opposed to "search team"). Then, which opening would be proper:

To Whom It May Concern

or

Dear Recruiting Committee

or

To the Recruiting Committee

or

Dear Representative of the Recruiting Committee

or

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen

?
How about the punctuation after the opening? No punctuation, a comma, or a colon? I.e.:

〈Whatever opening〉
〈Whatever opening〉,
〈Whatever opening〉:

All are o.k. according to the broad English grammar, but, in academia things might be more special.


texts: What information should contain a (A4-sized, landscape-oriented) poster announcing a PhD defence? What idioms, jargon or style is usually used? Could you provide some models or examples?


texts: I'm a Computer Science graduate and gonna apply for Masters this year. I was thinking about my research proposal (or rather a problem statement) to submit during the application process and I had a rather different problem in mind than the ones I see on internet. My topic is not based on a real life problem but rather about my musings of a fictional world (lets just say its an anime). So my question is, is it okay to submit a research proposal that doesn't address a real problem but rather entertains the musings of a nerdy fan, and how we can use machine learning / AI for that?


texts: Using "Smith et al" when another Smith is also referenced

texts:
My name is John Smith and I'm writing a paper. In the discussion of the existing literature, I cite quite a few papers from another team, including many whose first author was a David Smith. I usually write this using heavily the “et al” style:

  Einstein et al. first established in 1976 a possible plan for eradicating world hunger by massive beet culture in Antartica,1 but it took 20 years before Wiles et al. clearly delineated the challenges of such a prospect.2 The earlier analyses, by Smith et al.,3–7 held the narrow view that climate3–5 and transportation issues6–7 would be the limiting factors, forgetting to address the marketing aspects and negative implications on consumer image of the brand. In this paper, we present …

(the journal style calls for superscript numbers for citations)

Now, it seems somewhat likely that the reader may think the Smith from “Smith et al.” may actually be me. How should I help avoid this?

Not worrying about it.
Use first name or initial, “David Smith et al.” or “D. Smith et al.”
Choosing another author, like the last author, as in “Professor et al.”?
Some other formulation?


texts: What is/are the most important thing(s) you wish that you have known/done before considering to apply to a PhD

texts: I wonder what your thoughts are on the above subject


texts: What could my postdoctoral advisor do, now that he knows that I started looking for positions in industry?

texts:
I'm a non-EU postdoctoral researcher in Europe who recently started looking for company jobs. I just informed my advisor that. He asked me where, and I said the name of the same city we are in, because that's my most preferred choice. Now, my postdoc is till the end of the year (if not renewed), and I know that I've the right to leave at any time I like with probably a one month's notice.

I initially intended to tell him only after getting an offer, but I felt he should know it in any case, because if I leave abruptly in a month, that'd be a sudden blow on him.

He didn't say much, except asking when I'm looking to join. I said I didn't get any offer yet, and plan to finish what I started, if the company allows that. My only fear is: can my postdoctoral advisor try to sack me because of this? Did I just make a mistake? Our relation is okay (not superb), and I report regularly to him.

What would you do if you were a postdoctoral advisor in this situation? Thanks a lot!

EDIT: Okay he had a small chat with me just now. He told me that if I find a job soon, he's okay if I start immediately, he'd not have anything against it. The reason being that he thinks the project might take longer than a year, and he himself isn't sure about the funding status for the next year yet.

So it seems not to be a bad sign yet.


texts: Subject selection for PhD in Mathematics

texts:
I had taken up courses related to PDE like Advanced Functional Analysis and I am facing difficulty with it and hence I am confused and I am not able to understand which subject to take up for PhD.
Can anyone give a Ranking of Topics in Mathematics in order of difficulty ( could range from Algebra , Analysis ,Geometry, Combinatorics anything) and how much saturated they are in terms of research problems?
Thank you very much in advance.


texts: Alternatives to Google Scholar, dblp to measure scientific impact of a research article?

texts:
Are there any cross-platform websites to measure scientific impact of any research article? I am aware of dblp, Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search. Recently, ResearchGate is quite popular. However, all these are not optimal in several aspects.

For example, Google Scholar is a good platform for citation index, particularly h-index of any author; dblp is intended for most authentic, however lacks in the timely updating. ResearchGate seems to be updated mostly by individual scholars. I know that it is not possible to find a comprehensive database with authentic information contained. Thus, the criteria may be as follows: timely manner, self citation exclusion, information entered by authors or robot cross-checked by any person, and most importantly free access to scholars. (Scopus is not free.)


texts: Citations needed when using textbooks to write lecture notes/slides?

texts:
so basically I have recently started to teach my own course for the first time. In the past, I mainly taught professors in the department that were on leave etc and they normally supplied me with their teaching materials, so this is the first time I am completely writing my own notes/lecture slides.

Now, I am teaching a history survey course and when writing lecture notes/slides, I have mainly relied on the course textbook and a few secondary sources. The question now is whether I need to provide references at all if I use the work of others in this context? I do not copy anything verbatim of course and also dont claim anywhere that what is on the slides is my original work. However, while I normally rely on several sources for my lecture slides, at times several slides in a row more or less summarise a few pages from the textbook/another source. Would I be expected to give a reference for this? [I should add that I do provide references if I borrow a whole chart etc. from a book].

I have to say that at least in the humanities and in my own career as a student and teacher, I have never seen such references. In fact, a criticism of students about some of my former professors was that they basically just go through the textbook in lectures. So, unless I am missing something, my guess is that I dont have to provide references [I dont mean what would be ethically "perfect" but rather what is accepted practice in academia]. However, now that I am doing it myself, I thought I could ask here just to make sure.


texts: Elsevier Journal waiting time after review process

texts: I have submitted a revised manuscript that has been "under review" again for the past 7 months. After a long wait, I have written a polite email to editor inquiring about a long delay in the revised review once I got positive reviews and minor corrections. It has been almost 3 weeks the Editor did not even replied to my email and still the status is the same. Any suggestions How long I should wait? or is it normal a practice by PHYSICA A journal of Elsevier?


texts: In a thesis, is it appropriate to allude to results obtained later on?

texts:
I am writing a math thesis.

I want to provide a result in chapter 2, but formally prove this result in chapter 8. This is because I am introducing a bunch of definitions in between these chapters and they cannot be moved in front of or within chapter 2.

Can I say something like, "as we will see in chapter 8, this result in chapter 2 is true"? In other words, can you allude to the proof of a result that will be given only later in the thesis?

I don't feel like it is good practice because it sorts of destroys the "surprise factor", and it also makes the reader jump 100 pages to see the result. How should I handle this?


texts: Submitting a crude working paper in a Ph.D. application

texts:
I'm applying to math Ph.D. programs which usually give the option of uploading a sample of some original work. Very recently I have produced some of my first serious results but I haven't yet had the time to write them up anywhere near the standards of publication (and doing so isn't an option since I only have a few days before the big Dec. 15 deadline). For example I'm missing proofs of lemmas, there is no explanatory text in between the math, etc.

My question is whether I have anything to gain by submitting something like a very rough working paper. I'm not sure if it's essential because my statement of purpose contains a brief account of the results and techniques. Also I expect the professor who advised it will validate that it is good work in his recommendation.


texts: Should I cite myself in my PhD proposal?

texts:
I am writing a research proposal for a PhD, and I am referring to my earlier research, which is published in a scientific journal. Should I cite myself? It feels a little preposterous, but I can imagine it could be good to provide the full reference. I do provide it in my CV as well.
An additional reason I thought it would be good to cite my paper is because I am making the claim that it built on the work of a professor from the department I am applying to, and I figured providing a reference - with DOI - to my paper would be the best way to back that claim up.

Thank you in advance for the advice, I really appreciate it.


texts: How to express dissension as a grad TA while maintaining professionalism

texts:
I have a problem with the courses I'm TAing.  I am a math PhD student at a large (supposedly good) state university where the lower-division math classes are taught in the "discussion section" format (i.e. students go to a big lecture with clickers three days a week, and attend 30ish person sized recitation with a TA once a week).  I teach three of these recitations.

When I first came here several years ago, I was shocked by the low quality of the courses I was assigned to. This was supposed to be a good school, yet the students are treated without respect, held to no standards, and come out knowing virtually nothing.  Furthermore, there are strict limitations imposed on TAs, to the point where I feel that I am being actively prevented from teaching anything to my students.  A breaking point came for me recently when my course coordinator made it mandatory for us to assign online quizzes through a third party "online instructional application," instead of administering handwritten quizzes in class.  I have very strong objections to this, for multiple reasons that I could elaborate on, but they are not the point of this post.

The point is, I feel gross. I'm being forced to teach in a way that I find unethical and unreasonable, and every attempt that I have made to bring up an issue in the past has been met with complete inflexibility. It seems to be the culture of the department to dismiss the opinions of its graduate students.

I don't know how else to state my objections. I know I'm not in charge, and I don't want to be unprofessional, but I want to be heard.  I have given serious thought to resigning with a public letter.  However, even with that sacrifice, I'm not sure anyone would listen.

Is there anything I can do?  How should I handle this situation?


texts: Effect of bland cover letter for journal submission in biology

texts:
I'm not used to writing covering letters for journal submissions, and I believe this is pretty standard in maths. However, I got into a conversation with a friend in biology, who said they expect to write about a page explaining why the paper is so great.

To me this seems an unhelpful practice: a paper should be judged by the quality of the paper, not by the quality of some other document.

We came round to the question:

  How would an editor of a biology journal react to a paper submitted with a covering letter that amounted to 'here it is'?


texts: My current appointment will be over in about 1.5 months, and I have been approached by a faculty member asking wether I would be interested in working (paid) on a different project for a couple of months more. After sending them my CV and relevant material, how long should I wait before asking if the opportunity exists or not? I need to arrange the practical details (housing, ...)


texts: Will it be a bad move for Master's to do summer internship in industry when trying to pursue a PhD program?

texts:
Currently, I am in second semester of Master's program in Computer Science and Engineering. Even though I am yet undecided, I lean a little bit more towards pursuing PhD program rather than getting into industry.

Many people tell me that research experience is the only factor in getting accepted to PhD. The problem is that I have a summer internship offer from an established industry, and I do not have any professors that will accept me as a summer research intern at this time.

Personally, I do want to try out the internship to see what it is like, possibly helping me decide whether to definitely pursue PhD or look for more industry options. However, as of now, I feel that it will be a bad move in terms of applying for PhD next semester, where I will probably lack research experience that other candidates might have. Meanwhile, I am trying to build research experience through course projects and directed research within academic semesters.

How much adverse impact will it have in PhD application if I were to choose summer internship at the industry?


texts: The route for a 2nd year physics PhD student to have a career as a data scientist

texts:
I am a 2nd year PhD student in physics. Tenure-track positions are highly competitive and I do not love research enough to pursue it as a life career. Since I like programming and playing with data, I want to have a job as a data scientist after finishing my degree. I read some success stories of people who got degrees in Physics but works as data scientists but the people are from top universities like UC Berkely, Stanford, etc...
So my question is how doable it is for someone who only gets Physics degree from the low-rank university to find a job as a data scientist. What is the plan for the next years when I am still in my PhD program? What should I learn? How should I have real projects and internships to work on? Will working unpaid in a research lab about data analysis in my current university help?


texts: Asking for a reference years in advance?

texts:
I am currently an undergrad and while I am attracted by research and a career in academia, I am on scholarship with a government body in my country and am contractually obligated to complete a 6 year bond in the civil service. I am allowed to complete a Masters degree before then, but not a PhD.

While I have accepted the fact that I won't be able to take the time-tested Bachelors-Masters-PhD route, I still think that there might be a chance that I might want to apply for a PhD program 6 years later, long after I graduate from university.

However, I'm worried about my ability to produce strong academic references by then, especially since my professors would probably have forgotten about me. Would it be appropriate for me to ask my professors to write a reference for me now, while my abilities are still fresh in their minds, so that when I do decide to apply they would only need to make minor adjustments? (And if I do this, should I request to keep the letters myself, or should they be the ones safekeeping them for me?)

It seems a little weird to ask for a reference so far in advance, especially since I don't know for sure if I would be returning to academia. Would I be better off asking them for a references only when I do decide to apply, possibly years down the road? I might perhaps try to keep in contact with them over the years so they don't forget me, though I'm not too sure how this might be done.


texts: Inquiring about PhD status and mentioning standing offers

texts:
I have a PhD few admission offers from some universities. My first choice school didn't make its decision yet, or maybe didn't post it online yet.

Is it OK to send an email asking about application status and explaining that I have other standing offers which I have to make decisions about quickly?

Would this have any negative impact on my application?


texts: Are there universities that consider it academic misconduct for students to publish material created by faculty?

texts:
Please read the bold text before answering.

A colleague has shown me that one of his students has posted exam questions with answers , and prior assignments with answers to a commercial web site intended to communicate such material to other students.  Sadly, I am the chair of the university's Honor Council and the question of whether these actions rise to the level of academic misconduct has landed in my lap.

Also sadly, I am ill-equipped to have an opinion.  Almost every assignment I've given in the last ten years is available on the public web and I return assignments with critiques.  I give pen-and-paper tests and return them to the students, then go over the questions and give the correct answers in class.  There are thousands of copies of my old exams around, many of them with answers that were either correct to begin with or corrected post facto.  I am sure there are fat binders in fraternity and sorority houses with that material.

I can get all legalistic and ask, "Well... did you tell him not to do that?"  In fact, I am in the process of finding that out.  I am pretty sure that widespread commercial distribution of questions with answers is bad.  My concern is whether contributing this information to such a web site rises to the level of academic misconduct.

So, here is a question that has an answer rather than leading to discussion: Are there universities that prohibit students from contributing material created by the faculty, such as exams or assignments, to commercial web sites the purpose of which is supplying that material to other students?  If so, how is that prohibition worded and how is it enforced?

September 10: This has been edited by several people, and several people have added tags.  I've just edited it myself to remove the word "cheaters" from the description of the commercial web sites involved in this case, and which are in general the subject of the question.  I've also deleted most of the tags, leaving only "ethics" and "policy."

November 15: Thanks for the responses.  After a certain amount of back and forth, my institution has adopted the following (voluntary) syllabus language: "Some lecture slides, notes, or exercises used in this course may be the property of the textbook publisher or other third parties. All other course material, including but not limited to slides developed by the instructor(s), the syllabus, assignments, course notes, course recordings (whether audio or video) and examinations or quizzes are the property of the University or of the individual instructor who developed them. Students are free to use this material for study and learning, and for discussion with others, including those who may not be in this class, unless the instructor imposes more stringent requirements. Republishing or redistributing this material, including uploading it to web sites or linking to it through services like iTunes, violates the rights of the copyright holder and is prohibited. There are civil and criminal penalties for copyright violation. Publishing or redistributing this material in a way that might give others an unfair advantage in this or future courses may subject you to penalties for academic misconduct." [emphasis in the original]

December 8, 2017: I just received a request from someone at another institution to use the language above.  Although it was adopted by my institution, I wrote it, and I now contribute it to the public domain.  Use it as-is or modified, with no need to attribute it or otherwise give credit.


texts: How to acknowledge a translator on a letter of recommendation?

texts:
I have written a letter of recommendation for a student who is applying to study abroad (we are in the USA, she is applying to study in Spain). The institution she is applying to requested that letters be submitted in Spanish; since I do not speak or write Spanish fluently, I asked a close friend (a native speaker of Spanish) to translate the letter for me.

My question is how to indicate this properly on the letter. My current plan is to add, just below my signature, the phrase "Traducido por ___________" and then the translator's name.  Is that the right way to handle this, or is there something else I should be doing?


texts: How can I make the introduction of a paper more "scientific" and less "popular"?

texts:
I am a master's student about to start writing my thesis. After I wrote my research proposal, my advisor said that when I write my thesis, I should make it less "popular" (I believe he referred mainly to the introduction, where I presented the field and the subject in a rather detailed manner and broke it down in a way that average people could understand why I am proposing to do this research) and more "dry" and "scientific".

So I'm assuming he means that I should strive to direct the text to experts (as scientific publications usually are), and not begin from the very beginning of the subject and not "build up" the introduction too slowly.

The problem is that I always feel that I DO need to explain the background when starting to write a new piece, as each text stands on its own and should be complete in itself. I need to find some way to set the stage on one hand, but not too tediously on the other hand. I guess this is part of the art of writing, which develops through experience, but I was hoping someone here could offer some helpful ideas to achieve this.

I found this question and its answers related to my question and interesting to read, but that doesn't answer my question.


texts: Can one's primary motivation be learning, instead of research, if he is applying for a masters program (instead of a PhD program)?

texts:
I am applying for masters in computer science programs in North America. In my statement of purpose, I am planning to talk about broadening my knowledge about the field and applying this knowledge to other specific academic fields, as well as learning how to do research in computer science.

But I am not sure if this is a good idea for writing a statement of purpose. Had this been a PhD application, I am sure that this would be a bad idea, since PhD is all about research and in the statement of purpose for a PhD application, you should talk about your potential for valuable research by showing your previous research experiences, etc.

However, I am applying for masters and I don't have any proper previous research experience. Hence, I cannot talk about my potential to do research by showing my previous research experiences (since I don't have any). Hence, I am planning to talk about my ambition to broaden my knowledge about the field and apply this knowledge to other specific fields in academia.

Would this be a good idea to put in a statement of purpose that will stand out? Or should I better talk more about doing research?


texts: How to get reviewed (undergraduate student's work/research)

texts:
I am an undergraduate student (final year, Computer Science). I am interested in research. I have worked and progressed (I believe) on a specific problem, namely graph isomorphism. Instructors in my department are not interested in that topic. I have contacted them a couple of times, and they did not reject my work nor confirm it.  How can I proceed now, i.e., how can I get reviewed to  confirm or verify my work?

Edit 1: The answer below by pjs36 seems to be"personal" (pointing my poor writing skill), but the answer should be general. I may have this problem, others might not have. So, what one can do to get reviewed  by others?


texts: The University I joined as a new grad student treats grad students as both students and employees. So I am confused whether I should behave as a professional colleague or a fellow student with other grad students? I have noticed informal atmosphere within the department(people even use curses in  general while talking to professors) but again, sometimes they become very formal and rather act stiff. I am confused.


texts: Can I apply for a masters degree in Canada with a three years bachelors degree from India?

texts:
I have a three years bachelors degree from a university in India(Top 10 by NIRF ranking). I want to do my masters in Canada but I have heard that a 4 years bachelor's degree is required.
The thing is, my 3 years bachelor's degree has the same amount of credit compared to a 4 years bachelor's degree. So in this case, am I eligible or not?


texts: How should an educational institute woo good faculty?

texts:
What steps must an educational institution wanting to recruit good faculty take? There is a cycle in the academia:

Good doctorates from top universities invariably join other top universities as faculty members.
Good students aspire to study in top universities under excellent faculty members.

Suppose a new educational institution or department springs up and desires to set up a top-quality group, how does it break into this cycle? I suppose this could take some years, but is money-power the only thing that could be wielded by the institute to achieve its end?


texts: Can a department disallow a student-advisor pairing in order to distribute PhD students evenly among faculty?

texts:
When a department enrolls x number of students based on the capacity of the department and its professors, the ideal desire is fair distribution of PhD students among faculty members. However, students are attracted to attractive professors (by different factors such as fame, personality, etc), and there should be less or no request for some faculty members.

Assuming a student and advisor mutually agree that they would like to work together, but the department would rather have the student work with another faculty member who is short on PhD students. Can the department limit the number of students that may work with each faculty member, so that new PhD students will be distributed among faculty?

In a hypothetical situation, there are 10 PhD students, and 10 faculty members. Can the department set the limit of one PhD student per faculty to ideally distribute the students among faculty members?

Note: This question is not about the cases in which a candidate specifically apply for working under supervision of a specific professor (due to the admission system or funding source).


texts: How not to lose confidence in front of supervisor?

texts:
I have been working on my doctoral thesis with a very well known professor in the field. I am going to finish 1 year of my study with him. As usual, we have been meeting every week at least once on the problem.

Problem: No matter how much I do prepare about the possible discussion on any topic, I have been losing confidence in front of him almost in every discussion. This is probably has something to do with me thinking that I am not capable of working with him. My standard is not that much. I don't know whether is this normal? How do I get over this problem? Sometimes, I can't even speak properly when he sends me to the whiteboard for any explanation. This is weird. I feel really bad after that. I keep messing up discussions. However, he gives me time. Can I get a few suggestion on this?

Note: English, which is not my native language, is the language of communication during these discussions.


texts: How long it takes for GRE score to be delivered to graduate school?

texts: I would like to know how long it takes for a General computer based GRE score to be delivered to graduate school in US. Some graduate schools mention do not take GRE later than specific date so I am wondering does it really take long time to send the score online?


texts: What is the etiquette for repeatedly emailing questions to an author whose work I'm building on?

texts:
I am doing my master thesis on wireless networking. I am working on the source code, which the writer of one of the articles provided to me.
Initially, I sent him an email and I asked him to send me his C++ source code . So he did. But the problem is, there was no documentation for his code and he is the only one that knows anything about this codebase. As a result, I totally depend on him. Last night I sent him an email and I asked him a question about his code and he replied to me very quickly, only three hours later. Probably, I will need his help again.

Before my last night's email and after spending one month working on his code, I saw  minor progress to my work. But after  yesterday's mail and his guidance, my work was significantly accelerated. I will probably need his help again maybe another two or three emails in a week. But I am afraid he will become angry with me for sending him a lot of emails.

So what should I do? Assume you are the source code programmer. Do you think he will become angry about my emails? Or he will be willing to help (since I will cite his article)?


texts: What is the academic approach when the supervisor attacks student's religion?

texts:
What is the academic approach when your supervisor goes off-topic?  In other words, what is the academic reaction for a PhD student when his supervisor starts attacking the student's religion?

I must say the fact that I'm an international student coming from a different culture. I looked over his publications/current students and everything seemed to be fine. He even interviewed me for admission and everything went fine.
When I started my degree and first met him, I thought we would discuss research oriented projects but surprisingly the meeting took another direction when he started discussing with me my religion beliefs and how do I view the world!

Discuting this was the start. In several subsequent occasions, he started to tell me what he sees good to me and why my culture is a bad one .

Right after the interview, I was thinking about withdrawing from the program and finding another supervisor in another school (Yes I answered him in an honest and polite way what I belief).

I have nothing against him and he is a very kind professor but I feel I'm not comfortable in his environment. Now, I'm planning to go somewhere else. If it counts, I pay my tuition fees and he pays me nothing.

The question is:  What to do when your supervisor goes off-topic and discuss your personal issues? Not only this but also send you several emails about it.


texts: Do professors work through all the homework problems they assign to students?

texts:
I'm wondering if this is case especially for time-consuming work like programming problems in computer science spanning several thousand lines of code.

Or when a professor teaches a new course they are not intimately familiar with e.g. did not take it during undergrad.

For professors that don't do this, how (if at all possible) do they address homework concerns during office hours? Is it recommended for professors to know the ins and outs of all problems they assign?


texts: If a PhD student is working slowly on a project, is it bad form to give the project to another student?

texts:
I think my advisor may have done this to me.  Initially he hired a master's student to "help me" with the project and he told me I would be supervising him.  But now he wants the master's student to work on core parts of the project, and he says that since I will be busy this summer, the master's student might be the primary person working on the project.

I am thinking of quitting the project because it looks like I am being replaced.  Am I overreacting here?


texts: Find articles that have certain keywords in supplementary material

texts: I currently use Scopus or ISI Web of Science when looking for articles containing certain keywords in title or abstract, etc. But now I need to find articles that have certain keywords in the supplemetary material, any ideas about it?


texts:
Since I've finished my PhD I've been asked to perform some teaching duties. These duties correspond roughly to the three cases I describe below briefly.

1) So in this one course I was responsible for preparing the contents for classes which were mostly theory on the course subject. I would hand out problem assignments each week,I would discuss them with the students in class but not solve them. In the department I was the only one responsible for teaching this course.

2) On this other course I was responsible for solving problems in class for students. There were other professors teaching the course. Namely, theory.

3) Finally, on this other course I had to supervise students while they conducted some experiments in lab.

For each of these cases which is the designation that best describes my role in class? For example, in 3) I would say that the best designation that describes my role in class is "lab instructor".


texts: Why do some individuals who are productive PhD students at leading Western institutions, then publish infrequently as faculty in their home country?

texts:
I am a computer science student from Turkey. While I was checking the websites and publications of various CS Professors in Turkey for my future studies, I noticed a strange trend. (Excluding minor exceptions)

Usually, these professors hold a Ph.D from leading western institutions, and during their Ph.D they have published papers at extremely competitive top venues, like ICCV, ICDM, ICML and other places depending on their research interests. But, after returning back to Turkey and starting in an academic position, they can't even get their papers published in second tier venues.

So, what might be the reason for this ? If these people can publish during their Ph.D then why can't they do now ? Also, CS is not a field where extremely expensive lab equipment is required. So why are these people unsuccesful at publishing in top conferences/journals ?


texts: Submission changed to a different status, but with the same explanation as the previous status

texts:
(this line is added later ) : The length of the paper is only 3 pages.
Soon After Submission

Article Status:  Reviewing
Your paper is being reviewed by the journal’s editors and you will be contacted as soon as we have news.

After a month changed to

Article Status:  Under Review
Your paper is being reviewed by the journal’s editors and you will be contacted as soon as we have news.


texts:
This is a follow-up question to Open versus Blind reviewing process, and is somehow related to What happens to the reviews that people write for journal articles after they're sent back to the author?

However, my question does not concern the reviews I receive for the papers I submit, but concerns the reviews I write for papers I have been assigned. Since the whole process is done under confidentiality, it is not clear who owns the copyright on a review I wrote, and what does the review include.

For instance, let us assume that X is member of a PC of a conference Y, and assigns to me a review of a paper Z, written by A and B (assuming it's not a double-blind). Can I publish on my blog: "Here is my review for Y, asked by X, on the paper Z, written by A and B"?

I think that there are two points here:

Is it legal? (for instance, publishing the camera-ready version of a paper might be illegal due to the copyright transfer, would it be also the care here?).
Is it ethical? (who should I ask in order to do so? X? Y? A and B? everybody?).

EDIT: There is been several comments/answer wondering why I would like to publish a review I wrote. To give a bit of background of this question, I believe that the current reviewing system, created when the academic community was small and there was no Internet (i.e. no easy access to information), might not be the best, although clearly working. This is for me a very interesting debate, but somehow out of the scope the Q&A format of Academia SE, which is why I tried to focus on my question on whether it was possible to do so, not if it was the best thing to do in the current system (and just to be clear, I don't plan to do it, but I just like to know what are my options). Anyway, thanks for the answers bringing a different light on this debate.

EDIT 2: After seeing the update in Jeff's answer, I just realised that I didn't make it explicit that I was talking about reviews after the reviewing process. Jeff says that it's ok if the paper is accepted, and although I clearly understand the argument of why I shouldn't publish a review of a rejected paper, the question still holds: by publishing a review of a rejected paper, I publish the information that these authors submitted this paper to this conf/journal, which is supposed to be confidential between the authors and the editors. Would I break any rule by doing so?


texts: I am lost with my career path. I am questioning my ability to be in research field, academia or otherwise. What to do?

texts:
I am 31 soon to be 32, I don't know what I am doing with my life. I have a PhD in computational chemistry from a top 50 world ranking university. But, it did not turn out well and took too long to complete(6years), mostly my fault. I published few papers in applied journals, but my knowledge is just mediocre. My grades in the graduate courses were abysmal and many were irrelevant, so had to do a lot of self study. I believe I am just not smart enough for academia or research.
Everyone in my research group and my friend circle were always high achieving as students, they have in-depth knowledge about their subjects. They also struggle during their PhD and Postdoc, but they are smart and knowledgeable in their fields unlike me. I have been a mediocre student throughout. In undergrad my GPA was 3.4, 3.75 in master's and PhD degree. I even flunked three subjects in my undergrad. I had to repeat them. I shouldn't have gone beyond my undergrad degree.
I just got lucky with my master's degree and PhD completion. I would have been thrown out for not being upto the mark in any other university. I think my advisor and my committee members took pity on me.
I have no industrial experience or internship experience. I am not confident about my career path. I like doing research and working in my research field, but I am no good. I just don't have the knowledge and intelligence to do work of any significance. No, it's not imposter syndrome.
I am just making myself unemployable as time passes. I am suffering mentally and current situation is not helping. I am going to be stuck alone and poor in this world.
Currently I am a postdoc with my advisor as she probably took pity on me. I have a year contract to be expiring next year in April.
Any advice?


texts: Supervisor does not give a research project

texts:
I am a graduate student in pure Mathematics. My supervisor gave me an idea to work on, and in 6-9 months I found enough stuff to write 3 papers. After I did that, I was eager to work on some new idea, but my advisor only gave me learning projects, so that I just read many papers without doing any sort of research. After 6 months, I would like to start a research project, but all this reading didn't really help me in finding one (of course I thought about questions on my own, but since the area is quite old and competitive, I was not able to find a reasonable question that was not already answered). My advisor still does not give me anything concrete to work on, but merely suggests to read this or that paper. All of this is very weird, because his other students are treated very differently, they all have projects that started from ideas of the supervisor, and some of them even publish with him!

I am quite desperate, because I get really anxious about wasting my limited time, and I would like to know what you think about this.


texts: Why are some research papers scanned with OCR instead of actual PDF?

texts:
I have some research papers in PDF format that are actually scanned (and then OCRed) instead of being the original PDF. Some are so badly created that text cannot be properly searched inside.

For example this paper published in 1994 is all about advanced computer technology and there is no proper digital copy. This extended report related to the above paper is even more horribly digitized.

edit: I am unable to access the actual horribly scanned paper. That extended report also had issues in copying.

Why is that? Why are some computer-science publications, which are not even so old, not available in a proper digital format?


texts: At good American PhD programs in the STEM fields, are there not enough American applicants, or are the international applicants simply better?

texts:
This question is specifically about funded PhD programs, not self-funded PhD / masters programs.

In funded PhD programs in the STEM areas where there is a big international student body, e.g. students from China, India, Russia, is it because these international students are just objectively better, or is it due to a consistent lack of American applicants (because perhaps they choose business schools, medical / law schools, industry over academia)?

Any data would be helpful, too.

Thanks,


texts: Contacted the head of a group I want to join, but she didn't reply. What to do now?

texts:
An institution in New Mexico is offering a scholarship to people that want to join the institution, and I think I may be a good candidate. I contacted the head of the group I would like to join, with a long mail introducing myself, my work, and my passions, and what I could bring to the group. On her page in the Institution webpage is clearly stated that she is the person to contact for who wants to join the group.

Now 6 days have passed and she hasn't come back to me yet. What do you suggest me to do? I can find on the internet other people that work in the same group under her supervision. Should I contact them? Should I wait more? Should I write again?

I doubt she just found my professional figure uninteresting, as it really matches what they are looking for. Maybe my mail was too long, she put it aside, and forgot to reply? Should I write her again?

Is it maybe uncommon to contact directly the head of the group you want to join through a scholarship?

Thank you.


texts: Emailing a professor for points on an exam when you want a recommendation from the professor

texts:
I recently took an exam in my master's program where I missed just enough points to change my grade from A+ to A (in my country, these show up differently on a transcript). I intend on applying to some extremely competitive PhD programs (otherwise I would not be concerned with this grade difference), and given my undergraduate background, this is a course where I am probably expected to get an A+. Furthermore, I am essentially depending on a letter of recommendation from the professor of this course.

After having already looked at the exam with my professor, and hearing him explain the grade justification, I believe I did not yet make a well thought-out argument as to why I should have been given certain points.

My question

Should I bother emailing this professor with my legitimate argument, or simply let it go? I will probably get a rec letter from him either way and while I want an A+ and genuinely think my work on the exam deserved it, I don't want to annoy my professor and make his opinion of me depreciate.

Edit: In this scenario, I feel that an error was made on the part of the test-writer where a question could've been reasonably interpreted in two distinct ways. I was told that because I was the only person to make this particular interpretation, that it was an unreasonable interpretation. I don't agree with this logic.


texts: How is sexism unknowingly perpetrated in academia?

texts:
Some sexism is obvious, blatant, and/or deliberate. Fortunately, my understanding is that this kind of sexism is mostly a thing of the past.

However, female colleagues have told me that more "benign", but still harmful, sexism is still very prevalent in academia. In particular, I've heard that implicit assumptions that women are less capable, or more inclined to be teachers than researchers, are distressingly common. As a mathematician, the results are distressingly obvious: most math departments are overwhelmingly male.

What are some ways in which sexism is unknowingly perpetrated by well-meaning people, in academia in particular? And how can those of us who are well-meaning make sure to avoid doing so?


texts: How to include showcased work at a conference in a resume?

texts:
I am working on adding to my fledgling academic resume and I'm not sure about how to cite one of the work.

My team designed an educational game that was showcased at a conference. There was no presentation per se. People could come take a look and try it but that is all. Is this even worth including in an academic resume? If so, how would I go about including this in APA? I don't want to make it look like I did a presentation when I did not.


texts: What are the legal obligations of "Editorial Board Membership Agreement"?

texts:
Basically, I have two questions.

First question: Anyone knows EnPress publisher is just a scam/predatory publisher or not? Cause they sent an email to me to invite me to join editorial board of a journal, which is related to my field. But I'm wondering is this a predatory journal, which is called OA-Coating Journal, cause their website looks unprofessional to me besides that there is no any published article in their journal!

Second question: They (EnPress publisher) sent an "Editorial Board Membership Agreement" to me and somewhere in this document they mentioned: "By this agreement, you acknowledge and agree that all ideas and improvements conceived by you in performance of your service shall be the property of the publisher". I don't understand what they're pointing to exactly! Can any describe what's the meaning of this sentence? Which service that would be provided by me will be their property?

Any idea or suggestion is appreciated.


texts: Failed PhD qualifying exam, must it be mentioned it in SOP? can I ask my advisor not to mentions in recommendation letter?

texts:
I failed my written PhD qualifying exam twice in Computer Science from a middle-ranked university. Instead of kicking me out, I can get a terminal master's degree. Please note that this will be my second master's degree.

Now I am planning to re-apply to PhD programs at other Universities. My questions are:

Since I am getting a master's degree, is it okay not to mention about failing in the PhD qualifying exam in statement of purpose (SOP)? Please note that the Graduate committee informed that it will not be reflected in the transcript.
If the answer is yes for the previous question, then my advisor is ready to give a strong recommendation, so can I ask him not to mention about failing in the PhD qualifying exam in his recommendation letter?

Please note that the written qualifying exam is about getting good grades in 4 subject areas of Computer Science, it has nothing to do with research. This is one of the main reasons I do not want to mention in SOP, I wanted to highlight my research potential saying that I submitted a 10-page research paper in a top tier conference in one year. I have industry experience of more than 5 years.

Please help, since my goal is to get into academics, help students and do independent research. I want to pursue my dream irrespective of this setback.


texts: Changing links in Google Scholar Profile

texts:
I'm sorry if this has a very obvious answer, but I've looked around and haven't been able to find one.

I set up my GoogleScholar Profile and added my publications to it without a problem. So far, so good.

However, most of them are linking to publisher websites that people won't be able to access. Is there any way to change this so that the links point to, for instance, my institutional repository instead?

Clarification: The links are definitely there under the different "versions," but I'd like to have them be the FIRST link.


texts: Relational Reference Management Software?

texts:
I'm looking for a reference management program to do three things:

(1) Manage references. There are plenty of solutions for this.

(2) Manage quotations. Similar to this question, whose suggestions were surprisingly lacking.

(3) Map relationships among references. Somewhat similar to the problem posed by this question. When doing research, I often (naturally) find new sources via reference from a current source. It would be extremely useful if my reference manager could look at all sources referenced by all of my current sources to reveal data gold mines like which sources in my library are referenced by other sources in my library, or (even better) what sources are referenced most frequently by all of the sources in my library.

For instance, if my library/collection contains sources A, B, C, D, E, then I want to see that A references B & E, B references D & E, and C references E. This information would also lend itself to useful descriptive statistics like "E is referenced by 3 sources in your library {A,B,C}" and even visual mapping of references.

With the vast array of reference management software available, I am amazed that I haven't found anything even close to this. Does anything like this currently exist?


texts:
I am a PhD student in mathematics in the US. I got a 3 year postdoc position at a R1 university in USA and I was extremely happy about that as the department is pretty strong in my research area and my postdoc mentor, say Prof., is a top researcher in my area and also works on similar things as me. But Prof. informed me that he has accepted a position in Austria (he is Austrian) but he can offer me a postdoc there for 3 years and it will also include teaching (which I prefer).

I am now really confused about making a decision as to where to go. Since I am from Mauritius, staying in US or going to Austria are bot fine with me. One of the main reasons for accepting the US offer was that I was excited about working with Prof. I am hesitating a bit about moving to Austria because 1) I have heard that the North American job market for tenure track is a bit harder for candidates from Europe and 2) my partner is in the US. I asked my advisor and he suggested that I stay in the US. Below are my questions:

1) How common is it for math postdocs to work without a "mentor"? If I end up staying in the US, then even though the department has a good research group in my area but they work on different type of problems and there won't be anyone "officially" assigned to me as a mentor and I am a bit scared that I might feel to lonely there in terms of research.

2) Will it be considered ok, if I ask the department in the university in the US to maybe defer my position for a year, during which I go to Austria and (hopefully) start a collaboration with Prof. and then come back to the US? Is this something which is common with postdocs? Are universities in US, generally ok with such an arrangement (I haven't consulted the university yet)?Comments from people who had similar experience (either as a postdoc themselves or as a faculty who have seen this happen) will be greatly appreciated? Thanks.


texts: How can I develop leadership skills in graduate school?

texts:
I am currently in my second year of a PhD program. I have not yet decided on academia, industry, or entrepreneurship for a career, but in all these cases my success will be strongly influenced by my ability to lead and manage a team of students/postdocs, research engineers/technicians, or co-founders/employees.

I have found that graduate school offers no opportunity for practicing the kinds of interpersonal skills most relevant to leadership (delegating tasks, maintaining motivation, creating an inclusive atmosphere, resolving conflicts, etc.). Note that I distinguish leadership from teaching and mentoring. The closest thing I can think of would be to mentor an undergrad in research. The situation will likely be similar if I do a postdoc.

How can I practice or develop these skills while still in graduate school? Or what would be some important surrogate skills I should focus on instead?


texts: Should I remind my potential PhD advisor to know his feedback regarding my solutions to a problem set given by him?

texts:
About a month ago, I emailed a potential PhD advisor in the field of theoretical physics expressing my interest in a PhD position he had advertised. He replied back by saying that he normally gives a problem set for PhD applicants to solve within 2 days. A week later, while sending me the questions, he added that he wanted to understand how reliable I am with calculations. The problem set included questions of increasing difficulty. I solved the problem set in the specified deadline and sent back the solutions but he hasn't replied since then.

Should I send him a reminder email to know the status of my application process?


texts:
So, I have a sentence in a paper I'm writing that looks like this:

  This result was first discovered by Person X (PaperX 1915).

The issue is, the paper I cite, let's call it Paper X, written by Person X, is in German, and I have not read it. I know that the result is there, because another paper, let's say Paper Y, also cited Paper X and stated that this result was there.

Do I need to cite Paper Y as well as Paper X, since it is where I found the citation and the result? Or is this not necessary, as the information which I am repeating from Paper Y is information that they themselves repeat from Paper X, which I cite?


texts: PhD applications: ethics of not informing other universities after accepting an offer

texts:
I have accepted a PhD offer from university A. I have informed a not so prestigious university D that they should dismiss my application (they invited me for an interview, offered me to pay the flight, etc.). I am still waiting to hear from very prestigious universities B and C (which, as A, are top 10 in most rankings). Is it ethically acceptable for me to wait for the decisions of B and C and inform them about my choice of A afterwards? I am curious whether they would have taken me. Informing B and C late means wasting their time, but I paid application fees for B and C.

To clarify: I do not intend to attend either of B or C.


texts:
I'm currently in my junior year, doing CS and math double major. For the next year, I have the choice of spending a semester abroad at a top 20 CS program. I have completed nearly all of my required courses, except one.

The thing is that, if I cannot take an equivalent of that course in the semester abroad, I won't be able to graduate at the end of four years, I will need an extra semester just to take that.

On the positive side, in the semester abroad, since I do not have much course requirements, I will be able to spend time doing research (the school I will be going has undergrad research program).

So, my question is, how much one extra semester (probably with only one course in it) would affect my chances in graduate school admissions (for US)?

Note: I know that the extra semester would cost me a whole year due to the admission cycles. In that semester, I can stay at my current home instution (maybe again working with a professor), because double major students are allowed/expected to complete in 5 years.


texts: Is there a general way to find or get notified of relevant conferences and meetings in your field?

texts:
Here's the problem: I don't know what are the relevant conferences and meetings for me to potentially attend/present in. Every conference I've been so far has been passed down to me by a much older professor who knows it by experience.

I feel like this is an important topic, and yet all the tools I tried to use to find conferences (such as allconferences and conferecealerts) fail to find me relevant things.

Is there a method to reliably find relevant for you conferences worldwide?
Ideally it would be good to get notified when a new relevant conference is announced.

I know there are some websites (such as arxiv-sanity and google Scholar) that suggest papers for you to read based on previously loaded papers, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some similar tool where you put some conferences with a few keywords and it spits out suggestions.

Cheers


texts: If I am simply an undergraduate of an institution, am I affiliated with it? I do not want to lie about my affiliation but also do not want to permissibly lie by putting "Independent Researcher" if I should in fact list my university.


texts: What are the trade-offs of working in the office versus elsewhere (as a professor)?

texts:
I find that when I'm working on research in the office, at least with the door open, I often get interrupted and am generally less productive.  On the other hand, I often have students ask to meet with me outside of office hours on days when I don't plan to be in my office, and they're unhappy when I mention that I won't be available that day.  I suspect this hurts my student evaluation scores (which are the primary basis for the evaluation of our teaching in our tenure process).

Additionally, as junior faculty, I'm aware that getting tenure is partly about "fitting in" with your department.  In mine, many (most?) folks are in their offices for something closer to 9-5 five days a week, perhaps leaving early on Friday.  When I am in the office, I make a point to stop in and say hi to colleagues, but I'm sure that I'm less visible around the department than many others.

So rather than a specific answer, I guess I'm looking for guidelines in how you approach this type of decision.


texts: How should I list multiple pick-ups of the same published media interviews on a CV?

texts:
I am updating a physician's CV where there are many instances where a printed or online interview he did was picked up and published by several different (unrelated) publications. I am unable to find the best way to show these as consolidated listings, rather than repeating them as individual listings. Is there an approved MLA or another gold-standard format that I can use? Thanks for your help.
Randi Pincus


texts: I'm applying for a faculty position; should I mention that my research interests align with those of the department's faculty (stating their names)?

texts: I am applying for a faculty position. I am very familiar with the works of two professors in that department and we share similar research interests; Also, I have them cited in my articles. As I'm writing the supporting statement, do you think is it okay to mention how my interests align with those of these professors (mentioning their names)? stating something along the line of : my research interests are in alignment with those of Professor A and B.


texts: If my papers are always accepted, should I submit future papers to journals more diffficult to get published in?

texts:
I have written several papers, all of them got accepted (by different journals) with only minor (or even very minor) revisions.  Naturally, I am happy about having my research published, especially since I am only in the first half of my PhD.
But I recently read a comment (to an unrelated question) that said:

The other half of the advice: If your papers are always accepted the first place you sent them, then you are aiming too low.

That made me wonder: If my papers are not only always accepted, but even accepted with only very minor requests for change, should I try to submit future papers to other journals with higher impact factors/ better reputation/ higher rejection rate?
As an added note: I work on a pretty interdisciplinary side-branch of engineering, and thus, there is quite a wide variety of journals that I could submit my articles to. The journals I have submitted my previous articles to have an ok impact factor/reputation, but are not at the top. The choice to submit there was made by a combination of: previous submissions from our working group, suggestions from my supervisor, research into what journals might be a good fit as well as where articles covering similar topics have been published previously.


texts: How common are interviews for Computer Science PhD programs?

texts: I am applying for admission to several CS PhD programs (in the US), and I am just wondering how common it is for schools to request interviews with the candidates. I will be out of the country for much of January which seems like a prime time for interviews to take place, so I am wondering if I should start making alternate plans. Thank you!


texts: How much course preparation, grading, and student question handling can be reasonably expected of a graduate TA?

texts:
I am creating all homeworks, quizzes (two per week), exams (2x75 questions), review questions (2x75), projects, 20-page lecture notes (two per week), and answering all student e-mails, along with grading, every week for a large class.
The professor is new to this course and only has the lecture slides ready by Friday night so I am expected to prepare everything for the week within a few days. The professor has created no content for this course at all, and I put in at least 40 hours a week.
For context, I am a biotechnology graduate student at a large R1 US university. My contract says that I am paid $15/hr and set at 20 hours a week.
Is the professor allowed to have me doing this much work?


texts: Existing hypothesis, same country, but different years and setting – is it plagiarism?

texts: I am working on a master-thesis research paper. Recently, I have chosen a research topic and found a related survey dataset to work with. However, just now, I have found out that other authors did the same work for the same country, but used a different survey and for years earlier. Now, I am confused about what to do. If I would carry on the research, would it be considered as a plagiarism, even though I will use another survey for later years, and work in a different setting?


texts: Does publishing a manuscript in a respectable journal increase chances of getting a scholarship?

texts: I am a second year physics undergraduate in a not so famous University. However, I have constantly received top marks in my class and I have just published a paper of mine in one of the highest ranking journals in my field, with reviewers expressing extreme interest in my work and I am working on a second paper. My question is will this help me get a masters scholarship in a western university?


texts: How to "dress up" a CV that has a PhD but no peer reviewed publication record?

texts: I have a glaring omission in my CV because I do not have any scholarly (peer reviewed) publications to my credit. However, I have good industry-based experience (more than 10 years when I have written a number of manuals and submissions), and have recently completed a Social Science PhD from a reputable university. I am after some guidance on ways in which a person in my position would address this glaring omission in a CV so as to better highlight/present his credentials for academic purposes (e.g. to apply to join a university etc).


texts: Usages of "sic" when citing old spelling

texts: I am citing a Dutch work from the late 19th century. Not surprisingly, the spelling differs from the contemporary spelling. In APA, how would I use [sic] in such cases of old spelling? In the guidelines it is advised to "insert the term sic in italics directly after the mistake". It seems dull to me, though, to insert [sic] after each word that is spelt differently.


texts: How can I cite a previously given, unavailable talk without self-plagiarism

texts:
In University, I was part of a philosophy reading group where people would occasionally give talks about their on-going research. Several years ago I gave one such talk, and presented original and new ideas that were never published or presented in a more formal setting, although the ideas were also presented in a term paper I wrote that same year. There is no public record of the contents of the talk, or even that that talk happened.

Now I am in a situation where I wish to reference that same idea in a research paper. It is outside the scope of the current paper paper to present those ideas as a new thing, but it would be something that would be appropriate to reference as existing.

How would I do that? I could get a DOI for the talk and reference it using that, but I would feel weird about referencing an unavailable talk that I gave, as it would feel like citation padding. This is doubly true since it is early in my career. I could write up a summary of the talk and put it on a publicly available repository, but I’m not sure if that’s a thing that is done. Are there other options?


texts: What if clinical leadership refuses to protect research time?

texts:
I'm a physician-scientist currently on year 4 of a K23 (early career grant for physician scientists in the US), recently awarded first R01 (multi-year major research grant for biomedical science in the US) with 20% effort.  Problem is that despite the 'protected' time from these awards, my division/section chief refuses to commit, and as the only non-full time clinician in the section I seem to to be the first one asked to cover the clinical scut work (calls, service, etc.).  My division chief specifically said, "No one really holds to the protected time", so it doesn't matter if I get three more grants, it's not clear they'll ever actually protect my time.

It seems like the only option (other than leave) is to sacrifice myself by reporting to NIH, in which case I'd probably just lose the grants.  Has anyone ever successfully managed this situation without leaving?  Anyway brought in ombudsman, or other independent institutional resources?

Obviously, I'm posting this anonymously...


texts: What typically happens when a research field becomes "dead"?

texts:
I'm interested in knowing what typically happens when a research field is largely regarded as being "dead".

Do professors in the field treat this dead period as a permanent effect and look to build new skills to do research in another field?

For instance, I recently had a conversation with a well-known topologist; he mentioned how topology had become dead ever since the Poincaré conjecture was solved by Perelman.  And now, he looks outside of mathematics, to physics, because he feels many questions in physics can be formulated as questions of topology.  Is this the typical thing to do when one's own research area becomes dead?


texts: Graduate Program - Re-application etiquette?

texts:
I'm re-applying to several of my top choice graduate programs (comp. lit. programs in the U.S., specifically) after being rejected last year. I'm making some substantial improvements to my application materials (writing samples, personal statements, etc.) and applying with a somewhat different and more clearly articulated focus.
From other posts I've gathered that re-applying to a program doesn't necessarily lower chances of admission. However, how advisable/appropriate is it to acknowledge the prior rejection while re-applying? What about contacting the department as to what the weakness were in the prior application - is that advisable, or even possible?
Does anyone have general advice for the re-application process?


texts: Would it be allowable (or prudent) to resubmit a book proposal to a press where it was once rejected, provided it was revised afterwards? If so, what elements should be different or included in the new proposal, besides an updated writing portfolio/CV (i.e. a note on how and where it was edited)?


texts: Unexpected long delay with paper review and no answer from editors

texts:
We've submitted a paper to a well known journal, but it's been more than one year without a reply, despite multiple e-mails sent to the editors. We got a reply once, just pointing to another editor which did not answer our requests.

Just to clarify:

aug/2014: paper submission;
mar/2015: first e-mail sent to editor (no reply);
may/2015: second e-mail sent to editor, which answered pointing to another sub-editor and saying that the delay might be caused by a late reviewer;
jun/2015: e-mail sent to sub-editor asking for clarifications about the delay (no reply);
aug/2015: e-mail sent to editor and sub-editor asking for news about our paper (no reply);
oct/2015: again, another e-mail for both editors (no reply), and we even asked to confirm the receipt, without reply either.

What is the next thing we should do? I guess that withdraw our submission is the logical step, but we don't want to lose all this time of reviewing without any feedback and knowing that our paper was probably reviewed by one or two reviewers, and it could be near completion.


texts:
How can one find journals paying authors or reviewers?
I've read about some old examples (probably about a relatively small university I can't recall) but I'm wondering if is there a directory or shared keyword or do they just go by word of mouth?
Can I write on topics I don't have a PhD about but I'm otherwise competent on?

Thank you


texts: How much experience is required to apply to be on the editorial board of a journal

texts:
Background: I am a pretty early career academic (a couple years out of post-doc) and am junior faculty at a research intensive school. My CV is not bad, but is also not overly impressive. I'm a quantitative researcher in a science field and have around 20 publications, many of them in good journals but most of them not as first author, and a small amount of success in acquiring funding (have 1 small NIH grant as PI). I can say with confidence that I do NOT have a "national reputation" at this point.

Like many people in my career stage, I am on the mailing list of many journals I've submitted to, etc., and have some experience as a reviewer. One slightly-above-average journal has made an open call for statistical editors and has solicited applications. This interests me but I've always imagined editors as the super-experienced researchers who have had long illustrious careers, which I most certainly have not.

My question: when open calls are made for editorial positions, what is the general requirement for those who apply? Would an early-career researcher who has the proper expertise, but not necessarily the name recognition/reputation, be considered? I.e. the issue is not about "how much experience do you need to perform the duties of an editor"--it's about what kind of credentials do you need to have your application taken seriously. To be clear, these are volunteer positions.


texts: Starting a PhD without wanting an academic career afterwards: should I tell my advisor?

texts:
I'm about to start a PhD in Europe. I'm seeing the PhD as a "normal job" that I'll do for a few years, because I'm interested in the job and I find it stimulating and interesting, and I want to do research in this field. I'm 100% committed to finishing the PhD and do as best as I can to produce good and consistent research, but I must admit that I'm not doing this with the goal of climbing the academic ladder later in mind, quite the opposite.
From what I can gather, getting a permanent academic position involves moving a lot and having a lot of uncertainty until you finally land a position (if ever). I seriously doubt I will want such an uncertain life beyond my PhD, I've accepted to move for it because of the reasons above and because I'm young, but in fact I intend to go back to my home country afterwards, whether or not I find an academic position there. What I'll do, I'll see later.
I have not discussed this with my future advisor, but I don't think I've deceived him either, we did not talk at all about my future plans for after the PhD. On the other hand, I fear that he might just have assumed it - who does a PhD without wanting to be a researcher?
Should I talk about this to my advisor?
On the one hand, my future beyond the PhD is mine to decide, and if he wanted to know about my future plans, he would have asked. Also, it seems too late now to bring this up, there's not much either of us can do about it and I fear it would just spoil our relationship before the PhD even starts.
On the other hand, I feel that I'm almost being dishonest by omission. If the default goal for a PhD student is to pursue an academic career, by omitting my unconventional plans I'm (unintentionally) deceiving my advisor into believing I fit into the default. What should I do?


texts: Are you limited to the interests of the professors or your advisor during graduate research?

texts:
I am applying to school for a degree in food science and am looking at potential schools and advisers. I've stumbled upon a particular subset of food science that I really want to get into, but only seems to be currently pursued by a couple professors at a certain University.

If, for some reason I am not admitted to this University, or the professors conducting research in this field do not accept me in their labs is there still the possibility of gearing my studies towards this type of work? If my graduate studies advisor had similar research focus, just not exactly the same, would this increase my chances of getting to work in this area? Is it worth it to mention your interest in this field while contacting potential advisors, even if it does not relate to the reason you consider the professor a good match?


texts: Is it ethical if I do paid tutoring in a subject taught by my department?

texts:
I was asked by a student to help him/her with a subject (probably for money). I previously taught a similar subject at a different university (that is where the student got my contact info from) but now I am at the exact department whose subject the student is attending, though I am not teaching or in any ways affiliated with that subject.

Does this situation constitute an ethical problem?


texts: My master’s thesis’ results will be published without my consent. What should I do?

texts:
Last year I finished my master’s. I spent the whole year working on experiments for my master's thesis. Part of the results I obtained were published in my master’s thesis, which was submited via an online tool to my university; so there is proof that that work is mine, I guess.

Then I was offered to stay in that research group and do a PhD, but I refused. They went as far as to threaten me with publishing my data without crediting me. I still refused.

Now it has come to my attention that my data has been used to write a paper that will soon be sent for publishing. Besides that threat from months ago, no one has asked for my consent or permission to use my data, and I don’t even know if my name will be among the authors. Even if it does, I won’t be first author, because they will be assigning that to the person who wrote it.
(I’m not sure how much they have written themselves, as I already had written nearly everything myself for when I had to hand it in for it to be graded for my master.)

My questions are: if I am actually asked for permission before they send it to a journal for publishing and they say they will include my name but not as first author, is it worth accepting or should I refuse? In the case they don’t ask me for permission, what should I do? Mail the journal once the paper is published along with my master's thesis and the raw data (all I have are excel files) to prove the data is stolen?

I understand the confusion in some answers, as my case is very chaotic.
As far as I'm concerned, my thesis is not available to the public. Only my advisor and the director of the master have access to it (maybe more people at the university, but it's definitely not available to the public).
I also know from a case of a person who did his master's thesis in this same research group and then left, and he was asked for permission before the paper using his data was written. He was also credited as an author.
Sadly, the fact that the boss holds a grudge against me for not wanting to stay and her having a favorite (the one who will be credited as first author) also plays a major role in this.
In my field, being a first (or last) author means you are who worked the most in that paper. It's usually the boss/advisor and the person who obtained most of the data by working in the lab.


texts: Asking the primary professor of your target grad school to review your statement of purpose

texts:
I'm applying for a PhD in the US (I'm from Italy).

I was thinking that maybe I could ask the primary professor of the school I'm applying for to review and give me his opinion about the statement of purpose I'm writing.

I'm afraid though, that in the US academic environment, this could be seen like ethically not fine. In Italy this would not be a problem, but I want to avoid to hit a cultural difference.

Is it something appropriate?


texts: Is copying paragraph structure plagarism?

texts:
While helping a friend with a research assignment (basically find some studies on a topic, compare them, and then evaluate the work as a whole), I noticed that the professor had provided a sample paper.

They had one paragraph for every study, and they were all in the same exact format. For example:

  [Authors] conducted a [type of study] to investigate [phenomena]. The
  study was conducted at [institution] and involved [N] [types of
  people]. The strengths of this study were [...] etc.

Is it plagiarism to copy this exact format? Or is the structure of paragraphs not something to worry about?


texts:
I was offered a post doc position in a top level university about 2 months ago, which I have already accepted.

However, I was recently called for an interview in another equally prestigious university for another postdoc position which I applied to before getting the previous position offered.

The second position is, in my view, much better than the first one in many senses (I like the country more, a substantially higher salary, closer to my home town), however I am worried that if I decline the first offer (which I already accepted) now, the supervisor from the first university will get annoyed and that will carry repercussions in my future career and my image to the scientific community.

I have heard that many people do these things (declining offers already accepted) for academic positions, but that this is seen as much worse for postdocs positions. However, I think that everyone would agree that the second offer is a substantially better option, even the supervisor from the first university.

Should I give up the position I already accepted in order to pursue the better option?


texts: Term for a document between an article and a monograph?

texts: I'm looking for a term for describing this writeup of mine which is too long and detailed to constitute a paper, but seems to short to merit being called a monograph. Is there such a term?


texts: Unsure of Convention for In-Text Citations

texts: I'm writing a longer paper for a course as part of a final project. The paper is on a topic we didn't cover in class and is obviously intended as a way to let me teach myself something we didn't have time for. As such, I'm using other people's ideas for my paper nearly every single sentence. I'm unsure of the convention for determining exactly what bits I need to cite and how often I should cite it, but I'm pretty sure it's not that I need to cite something every sentence. Is there some sort of convention for this sort of thing?


texts: How to find new advisor after being let go

texts:
I'm a PhD student in US. I've been tipped by my advisor that I would be let go if I do not get results by a deadline. I am working on my options:

Switch advisors: I have seen people switching advisors and finishing their program, but I'm not sure how that works. Why would someone take another faculty member's (seemingly red-flagged) student, who is in middle of the program? How to approach with a red flag like this?

Apply elsewhere: How can I apply for another PhD position without my (potentially masters) advisor's recommendation? I want to email faculty members at other universities (as a master student, which is the potential case), but if I state that I have research experience and have submitted abstracts, that would lead to wanting to know more from my advisor. How can I represent myself as a good prospective and raise minimum question?


texts: How to encourage self-archiving of preprints in science?

texts: As the background, I am a graduate student in high energy physics, mainly theoretical physics. Recently, I have sen that there are a few scholars who don't put the preprint versions of the paper in the preprint servers such as arxiv. I must add the fact that for many of the journals the self-archiving of the preprint is allowed, and I see no point for not putting the preprint version submitted to peer review on arxiv. I have seen that there are some old researchers and also some not so old ones who don't put the preprint versions of the paper on arxiv and sometimes make it difficult for some papers to be read. Hence, the question would be on how to promote open access and convince people to be opened within this direction.


texts: Do I owe potential collaborators an explanation for late follow-up?

texts: I had a meeting with a potential collaborator month ago, and at the meeting I had agreed to email them within a week. However, shortly after I began going through a stressful divorce. I am worried that the potential collaborator may judge me for failing to reach out in a timely manner. Should I give them some form of minimal explanation for the delay?


texts:
I know that similar questions have been asked regarding PhD's, but I was hoping for specific guidance on my plans for an Ed.D.

I am 38 and I am a career changer; I went from being in the Army, to working for a distribution center. Now, I'm a third year elementary teacher overseas in Hanoi, Vietnam.

I love my new career and I just finished an MSED in Elementary Reading and Literacy. I've been accepted into the Liberty University Ed.S. program in Curriculum and Instruction. In the beginning, I planned on finishing my education there. But, I realized that going for an Ed.D. would require only an additional 30 credit hours. So, I have really been considering it.

I would love to continue teaching while I chip away at the Ed.D and I would continue to teach until I have 10 years experience (making me 45 years old).

My question is: would I be too old to get a job teaching at a university at this age? I would love to continue teaching overseas, but would return to the US for the right job. In addition to being a career changer, I'm new married with two young babies. So, I want to make sure that I set us up for a good future.

Thanks in advance for your help.


texts: Is it acceptable to cite a textbook for basic background in a master's thesis?

texts:
There's one theoretical concept I feel I need to explain briefly in the literature review portion of my MA thesis, but it's very slightly tangential and I don't want to spend more than a paragraph on it. A textbook provides the most all-encompassing, thumbnail sketch of this concept, which would allow me to explain it while citing a single source rather than three or four journal articles.

Would it be déclassé to use a textbook as a reference in a MA thesis for this purpose?


texts: How should one deal with fellow students constantly asking for notes?

texts:
I'm an undergraduate student in the Netherlands, and as the title states, I'm encountering an annoying situation. How should one deal with the situation of constantly being asked for the notes of a lecture, summaries of book chapters, flash cards, etc by other, fellow-students?

I do not mind to share my stuff with my study-group, because everyone is working hard in the group, and we all benefit from each other, however what I do mind, is strangers (from my course) approaching me for my work; it even went as far as people offering me money for summaries, and other work of mine.
Also, I don't mind when someone approaches me asking for an explanation to something; I like to explain material to other people; since I benefit from that as well. I, and others, however feel that it would be unfair to give away the work, on which we worked on very hard, to someone who didn't do anything.

I know it would be easy to just give in, and thus having dealt with the problem. I just fear that:

The students will come back for more
They will give me the guilt if they can't study with my notes and don't receive the grade they wanted
It will go around and more and more people will come to ask

So, how can one politely deal in such a situation? I do not want to appear as hubristic or miserly.


texts: Is there such a thing as an interdisciplinary PhD, where the student chooses the fields, courses, etc.? If so, which U.S. universities offer such a thing?


texts: Contacting a potential advisor: Where should I go from here?

texts:
About two and a half weeks ago, I contacted five potential advisors at a school that I am planning to do my master’s at. Three of them got back to me and said they are not expecting any graduate students next year, but seemed interested in me (they said they would consider me for the future). Two others got back to me, very interested, and I scheduled phone calls with them. I have one phone call next week.

However, I had a phone call with a potential advisor nearly two weeks ago. It was really casual and he seemed very interested. He suggested an area that I could do a project in. We exchanged a few emails after the phone call where we discussed what I could potentially research. He sent me a link that I checked out. He said that he had some students gathering data in the area that I said I was interested in; so we could use some of that data. I responded with “that sounds compelling, I would be interested in doing research in that area”.

That was the end of our email exchanges. I am not really sure where to go from here. He never confirmed that I will be a graduate student, but also seems like he is very interested. Should I expect him to make the next contact or should I contact him? I am not really sure what I would say since I threw the ball over to him in my last email. I have to apply for a scholarship by the end of January though (which includes a research proposal) and he knows this...


texts: Factors determining a feasible research field

texts:
It was discussed in prospect of PhD research proposal previously, but this question is for all ages of researchers.

What factors should one take into consideration before selecting a research field?


texts: Finding papers that report results on a dataset

texts:
I am doing a literature study, and I would like to identify published research papers that report results on Reuters dataset RCV1-v2 (as comprehensively as could possibly be expected). The results should preferably be comparable (i.e. use the exact same subset of this dataset, e.g., some tend to use only a smaller subset)

How should one approach this problem?

So far, this is what I did:

The dataset was introduced in this paper: Rcv1: A new benchmark collection for text categorization research.

I went to scholar.google.com, found the paper, clicked on "citations", then marked "search within citation", and used keywords such as "results", "comparison", "evaluation". Is there a better way?

There are 1651 citations (according to Google scholar...), at what point should one feel reasonable comfortable that one has (comprehensively) identified the papers which have reported (comparable) results on this dataset?

The goal of the literature study is to motivate my choice of method (I want to inform myself of what methods have been applied, and how they compare to each other).


texts: Keyword tagging across scientific papers making it searchable

texts:
One year into the research project I have now a nearly exhaustive list of keywords / themes characterising my topic. There are about 100 words, though some of them are so closely related that probably this can be a little bit reduced. However there are nuances, so for what it is worth I would like to keep it for now.

The plan is now to be able to go through all the literature again and tag the keywords when they or a close synonym is mentioned in the text.

I have most of the literature in PDF, though some items are old school books. Now what I would like is eventually to have a search function where I can then search for a keyword and it finds all the text items where I tagged it.

The keyword system of Citavi is close, but not quite. OneNote is great for searching, but pulling in 300 PDF research papers into OneNote is simply no option. What would be best is an annotation Program for PDF, that saves notes in a database format, e.g. saving 'Note Bla bla bla,Keywords abc, file X, page 7, line 20'

Whilst that is wishful thinking, thousands of people have come before me and tried to figure out this personal knowledgebase research thing, so I am a bit surprised there is no software for this, and all the discussions either peddle reference tools (Mendeley, Zotero) or Mindmapping (Xmind, …) which are really addressing different concerns.

I also want to keep the original paper and my notes separate.

Any thoughts / suggestions ?


texts:
I just had a conversation with an adviser who mentioned that there is little value in a PhD in informatics (specifically biomedical), when compared to a pure CS PhD. I have a background in computer science now, and am looking to stay in this field. However, my adviser makes the argument that to truly bring about innovation in this field (or really any interdisciplinary one) one needs to be grounded well in the basics of one of the pertaining fields. What is the truth to this, and would I be able to get this with a PhD in informatics?

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to include the location. I'm from the United States.


texts: Is it acceptable for a researcher PhD or PostDoc to pay a freelancer to re-implement a Benchmark

texts: I have heard of PhD students struggling to re-implement a Benchmark paper. Many of those I know struggle hard to do this on their own which could take up to 2 semesters or more, in some cases. Others pay programmers to re-implement their benchmark paper for reasons of insufficient skill, time, etc. For the latter, is this acceptable especially when the student is not paying the programmer to implement his PhD contribution?


texts: Asking Professor for teaching assistantship

texts:
I am an undergraduate student and have taken a course which interests me a lot details won't matter I guess).

The course is split into lectures and lab sessions. The lab prof had a graduate student as a teaching assistant, who simply sat next to the professor doing nothing for the whole semester the course was held (for free it looks like).

Being very interested in the course, I read many textbooks, constantly asked prof questions, answer fellow classmates' questions on the course's forum(which amazed my professor). Finally, I met her in the campus after the course grades were released. She revealed that my coursework was the best in the class and showed my enthusiasm for the subject (150 pages long with complete bibliography list and references).

Being highly interested in the subject, I am interested in helping my professor during the lab hours, during the final year of my studies.

I have helped other students when I was taking the course, excelled in it, and my professor acknowledged my dedication.

As with any requests made to professors, I am highly worried how to express my will for being a teaching assistant to the course (having in mind that I am an undergrad) without seeming like the arrogant student trying to "replace" the teacher as a result of (falsely showing) she was not doing her work right.

(Stuff that come to mind I'd have to do during the course are - preparation of lab lecture notes, helping students - software problems during lab sessions, help/guidance on the forum, coursework grading, and extra lab sessions.)