texts: Multiple references to the same author but without a date

texts:
In a thesis using the “(Author, Year)” citation style a problem arises when the date is missing. Then Citavi for Word just writes “(Author)”. Now in case that there are several undated sources from the same company, all of them become “(Company)”, which is ambigious. If there was a year one could simply do “(Company, 2019a)” and “(Company 2019b)” to resolve this.

What shall one do when there is a missing date and there are multiple sources? Shall one just use “0000a” and “0000b” for the date?


texts:
Suppose you are an instructor and you have given a (midterm or final) exam. This is a substantial portion of the grade; a student who misses it has little chance of passing the class. (I have in mind a college course, but maybe this a question in high school as well.)

Suppose that a few students don't show up for the exam. Of course, if the students were ill or had personal emergencies, you would like to give them a chance to make up the exam. You send them an email after the exam, but hear nothing back for a few days.

After those few days, you grade the rest of the exams, and would like to return them to the class and post solutions online so that your students can learn from their mistakes

However, if any of the students who missed the exam will later ask for a makeup, then they will have the advantage of seeing the solutions. While you certainly wouldn't give them an identical exam, it seems like this would still be a substantial advantage.

What is the fair thing for you to do here?

EDIT:

I thank Peter K. for commenting. However, the referenced question is about a quite different situation; it has nothing to do with discussing or posting solutions for the rest of the class.


texts: No reply from potential supervisor of my dreams: is it OK to try meeting them in person?

texts:
After much research at many universities, I have found a supervisor whose research perfectly matches my research interests. I believe that I have truly found a good match...and believe that I would also be a great addition to the research team given my background and goals etc.

I have not heard back from said professor...it has only been a few days, and I intend to send follow up emails in the future. However, I am wondering, should I never hear back (because this has happened with other potential supervisors), do you think it would be OK to try and meet with this person physically? Said supervisor is at a university I have never been to, and in the UK (I live in the US), and I can't really find their office hours online nor classes they may be teaching. Any advice on how to get in touch with them in person, if I am willing to travel and go that extra mile? I would normally drop it, but I am so set on this one.


texts: Is it OK for graduate students to draft the research proposal for their advisor’s funding application (like NIH’s or NSF’s grant application)?

texts:
Is it appropriate (I type 'common' in the original post)for graduate students to draft the research proposal for their advisor’s funding application (like NIH’s or NSF’s grant application) ?

in the field of Biomedical research.
major grant proposal, like NIH's or NSF's)
Is this behavior allowed? Although it is OK and somewhat common for graduate students to draft grant proposal in our country, I'm not sure the situation in US or Canada. I do not know if I should write this thing in the personal statement for PhD application.


texts: Should my withdrawals be included on my transcripts for graduate admissions?

texts:
When I first started college out of high school I attended a university for a few months before withdrawing. I received all W's on the transcript from that school. I am now about to graduate from a different university and am applying to different graduate schools.

Do I need to send the transcripts from this first school where I received the W's or do I only send transcripts from schools where I earned credit?


texts: Dealing with suspects of sabotaging experiments

texts:
In a group, postdoc A believes postdoc B sabotaged her experiments. A shares her frustration with the PI (without proof) in a "half-jokingly, half-serious" sense. Since then, strange things appear to be happening in the lab -- specifically, B's experiments are behaving strangely. There has been a serious decline in trust between A and B.

How should the two postdocs proceed? Should they meet? Should the PI mediate between the two? Should the PI talk to them separately? Or together?

Ultimately, how should the PI address the problem, knowing that an investigation is in practice impossible and with the goal of reestablishing a minimum level of mutual trust?

EDIT: Pushed by the PI, the 3 actors openly talked about these issues, agreeing that sabotage is extremely serious, but without pointing the finger to anyone. That seems to have released quite a lot of pressure and helped to normalized the situation. Hopefully it will last.


texts: Applying to Ph.D. programs in history when my degree is in a science field

texts: I would like to apply for Ph.D. programs in history, but I am a graduate of a science program. Do I need another degree in order to apply to history Ph.D. programs?


texts: How does the lockdown affect the application and admission processes in the Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the US?

texts:
I am about to submit my PhD thesis and thus my studentship will terminate. Along with my studentship, naturally, my scholarship and my stipend also will be gone.
I have some savings, but I doubt I can manage more than 3-4 months.
I need to apply to postdoc positions, and unless it is a low profile university, I cannot find any positions in the country I finish my doctoral studies, and even neighboring countries. It is kind of a unwritten policy in the Central Europe.
My viable options are western Europe, Scandinavia, and the US.
How are the application and admission processes in those places? Will new positions be available in a short time? If so, will foreign applicants be able to travel there?
Comments based on experiences are highly appreciated!


texts: Is a description of product development work suitable for a journal paper?

texts:
I have worked on a project to develop a machine which is a end-of-arm-tooling type. I am thinking about bringing this work to a journal paper.

It means the content might include product design information, hardware & software and testing data

Is this type of work suitable for a journal paper? So far, in my field of computer vision and robotics control, I rarely see such direction of publication. I am not sure it is popular in elsewhere branch

There's also a wondering I have is that the review section of this journal mostly will have to mention available similar industry products instead of mentioning other journal papers (I haven't been able to find journals talking about product designs somewhere). And it's clear that citing company products is a weak citation I personally think because the source is the company's website which is providing advertising information


texts: I just finished my postdoc in Bimolecular engineering and I am hunting for a job, or a position.But my concern is that out of almost 80 jobs that I applied over the last two months, I have not received any feedback yet. I am not sure what the problem is, but there is even no notice of rejection! Could it be normal?


texts:
I am a phd student in computer science, starting in september my last year.

The next week I will join a conference not far from my home university, where I am not presenting any paper. The main area of the conference is pretty close to my phd topic, and there will be there most of the top professors of the area.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk with them, present them my work and share a couples of ideas, but I have some doubts on how to engage them and on what to share with them, in particular:

Even if I have read some of their papers, I have no specific questions on them, and I don't know if it makes sense to read a bunch of paper in this days just to find a viable reason to talk with them.
A possibility would be to write them saying that they are important for my phd and I would like to share with them my research, but I don't know if this is going to interest them.
Last I have some unpublished ideas that I am planning to work on the next year. Is it risky to share these ideas with them?

Needless to say, the main purpose to meet them for me are:

Find possible coauthors
Find possible post-doc locations


texts: Results published by others first in parallel. Is my work still publishable?

texts:
I am a college student who worked on a small problem in applied mathematics for two years. I recently get together some results that could be sent to publish. However when I am finishing  my draft I find a work published in a decent journal six days ago solving almost the same problem.

What can I do? The math problem is very specific so I cannot change the problem a little bit to make my work unique.

Explanation for the "almost": The abstraction/essence of the problem is exactly the same. However, since this applied math problem has been applied to many fields of science, our story and approach are completely different. I said "almost" because the core problem is the same. However, the main problem is associated with some peripheral problems that are not that important. We have done different extensions.


texts: Is it Appropriate to Include Personal Correspondence in the Appendix of a Thesis?

texts:
While conducting research for my dissertation, my collaborator and I discovered a mathematical error in published work and this error was confirmed by the author through personal correspondence. On the surface, it appears as a minor error, however it effects certain mathematical statements. The author of the work unfortunately has not published the correction in the errata for the work. It has been over a year now since our last correspondence.
The area of research I'm conducting is not widely studied so there isn't a large community of academics who are familiar with subject matter so this is unlikely to be something that will be checked by the wider community.
In the manuscript, I have written that we discovered an error and corrected it and that the correction was also confirmed by the author, and the only proof I have is email correspondence from the author. After I graduate, my email account will be shut down after a year. Therefore, would it be alright to include the correspondence I have as an appendix in the thesis in order to verify the statement I made about discovering the error and having our correction verified? The language in the email is formal and professional.


texts:
I applied to a professional program that I had been striving for in my undergrad, at a top school, but I've since felt overwhelmed with how to pay for it and incurring so much debt. I think I should wait a year so get into a better place financially. I've become so anxious, thinking I've ruined my opportunity with this school if I don't go.

I am considering withdrawing my application, but I'm very worried about how it might hurt me in the future when I reapply. Or I may wait but need to decline if I am accepted, and reapply the following year. I feel like both will hurt my chances in the future. How will admissions consider me the second time?


texts: Does repeated retakes of a test with average score of all attempts allow manipulation?

texts:
I am working with a computerized Course Management System which provides many options for scoring a test or activity - one of them is "Average of All Attempts". I thought that was: 1) a bad idea, 2) would not be able to be manipulated. But I just saw a student repeatedly get just one question wrong (whether intentionally or not) before finally getting all correct, and it migrated the average upward from the first poor attempt. So, students can "adjust" their own results with this method. Not sure if they know it or not, but I would bet they are smarter than I am! (Or less naive.)

Has anyone else seen this? I think it would be mitigated by allowing only two attempts. Why would a Course Management System allow unlimited (or many) repeat attempts and an Average Score grading method? Maybe students should be designing the CMS, it would be more fair - perhaps more ruthless!


texts: My adviser will be out of the town during the semester when I'm planning to defend

texts:
Originally I was planning to defend my thesis during spring semester, however my adviser suggested me to delay my defense to the summer semester. He motivated this by the fact that my thesis writing need more work, even though my research results are good and ready.

After I declined Spring graduation, he told me that during the Summer semester he won't be at the University, which I didn't like, because, first of all, he didn't warn me about this in advance (even, as I know, he knew that he is going to another state during summer before delaying my thesis defense), and also this means that my professor doesn't care much about me and my defense, and that I have to delay my defense again to the Winter Semester, which I don't like either, since I think I'm ready to defend in Summer.

Because my adviser is a thesis committee chair, I can't defend without him, even if other committee members will be able to attend my defense. At the same time I don't think that changing my adviser is a good idea, because we were working together for the past two years, he knows me and my research very well, and also there is no other professors at the department that have similar research interests.

So, I see another delaying of my graduation as the only option, which is very frustrating for me. I would appreciate any advice on this situation, and in particular, how to speed up my defense.


texts: How to provide price comparision of commercial products

texts:
I'm in the middle of finalizing my thesis. The goal of it was to develop a system that perfroms certain set of tasks.
There are already commerical products that exist as hardware and/or software solutions.
As a part of my thesis, I want to do a pro/cons comparisions including the cost of the commercial solution. I can get specs from producers* and compare them easily. The problems comes to the price of the product.
The only way I can obtain prices is to cross-check distributors/retailers' websites that are selling those products.

How can I reliably provide price comparision of a product if there are no papers discussing the cost of the system?

Is referencing website(s) enough?
Prices are often omitted in catalogues and thus can't be used as a reference.

I've tried to research the problem on my own but the closest one does not answer my question fully:

How to cite prices in academia?

*I'm aware that some of them might be colorouzied as part of marketing. I've already secured that part via relevant references.


texts:
I am writing a paper that relies heavily upon some important work done some 10  years ago. The paper was well received gathering well over a 100 citations and is a must mention within my niche field. I would like to reference the paper as seminal as in "so and so, et. al., in a seminal paper..." but am not sure that would be appropriate. I recognize 100 citations isn't a lot in the scheme of things but at the same time this paper was very important within my niche field.

Under what circumstances can one decide a paper is seminal? Must the person citing it be well renowned? Must the author of the considered paper be well renowned? Is there a citation # that should be exceeded (I really don't like that one, it seems too inflexible)?

Neither I nor my professor are especially well established in the field we are publishing in (this will be my first publication and my professor mainly publishes in another field). Are we qualified to refer to a publication in this field as "seminal"?


texts: What is expected in a 5-minute presentation for a Phd interview?

texts: I was called for an interview for a Ph.D. program. They asked me to prepare a 5minute presentation to give my view on how I would work as a researcher in their institution and how I would approach the research project. I am not sure what kind of infromation should be included in my presentation.


texts: Removing one whole chapter of my thesis is suggested (required)

texts:
This is a bit of a long story. I am a graduate student working on mathematics and the topic I have been working on is not directly within my advisor's expertise (pretty closely related to though). My thesis basically consists of two parts which deal with two related but independent problems. At the beginning when I chose these two problems to work on, I was kind of discouraged by my advisor as he thought these problems despite interesting did not seem reachable. But actually, when I decided to work on these problems, I already had some rough ideas on tackling the problems.
Anyway, the first part was basically done in last summer/fall which I also presented my proof orally to him. For the second part, he was once kind of skeptical of my proofs, however, his confusions and doubts seemed to be resolved through our conversations, email exchanges and my improvement of the exposition. I sent him my first draft in April (I was supposed to submit my thesis in June). In late June, when I had to submit my thesis, he said he had not really finished reading my thesis.
After my thesis was submitted, he told me that my thesis was very badly written which made him not even able to follow my work. But wait, he had two months to take a look at my thesis but he had not said a word about that every time we met. Anyway, my thesis defense was thus delayed for two months and in these two months I was constantly asked to make changes big or small on the thesis. At certain point, my advisor seemed to  feel my thesis was in good shape and I should arrange for the defense.
Alright, I did the defense in August and it went well. But recently I received my thesis feedback report in which my advisor suggested that I should remove the whole second part from my thesis because he thinks that my proofs/arguments presented there are not solid enough. I always appreciated when he could point out specific mistakes/confusions I made in my thesis. But it seems that after all of these have been resolved, he is still not convinced that there is no gap in my proofs. I really do not know what to do now.
Should I argue with my advisor or should I simply follow his request to remove that chapter and get my degree safely?


texts: Extracurricular activities in cover letter

texts:
I am a science PhD student applying for a workshop on documentaries and video art forms, organised for liberal arts students. In the past few years I worked part time as a reporter; in your opinion, what is the best way to describe my background?

What I have now is

  I am a PhD student in bla bla with [a passion for]/[experience in] journalism and multimedia storytelling

But I am not very happy of any of the solutions. Let me know if you have any tips on how to improve the phrase!


texts: Fear of overbooking during job interview season. How is cancelling an interview to take another interview viewed?

texts:
I know someone who is finishing a postdoc in mathematics and is in the thick of the tenure-track job search.  He had something like 15 interviews at the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) last week.  At the moment he has four invitations for on-campus interviews.  Of these, exactly one is one of his very top choices.  He sent me a list of seven institutions at which he had JMM interviews, has not yet received campus interviews, but would prefer them to some of the places for which he has received but not yet accepted interviews.  He is getting worried that he could book too many interviews at these less desirable places and then be boxed out of later interviews to come.  By the way, I think he is excellent and unusually broadly appealing, and I absolutely expect him to get more on-campus interviews than he now has.  I don't think I have heard of people who have actually booked so many interviews that they have no slots left, and I am tempted to tell him not to worry so much about that -- the calendar is full of days -- but I suppose it could happen in his case.  What do you think he should do, e.g. how should he respond to two on-campus invitations that are less desirable than many of the JMMs he's waiting on?

Here is what I said so far:

1) Contact all seven desirable places, let them know the situation, and see if he can shake loose interviews from them or at least information about timing of the interviews.

2) Countenance the possibility of cancelling a job interview if he really does get booked solid.

I am not really sure about 2).  Clearly you should cancel all interviews once you've accepted a job, and cancelling interviews when you already have an offer in hand makes just as much sense.  I'm not sure about the ethics of cancelling an interview to take another interview instead.  Is this commonly done?  Would it annoy people or look shady to some?  If this is going to be viewed as dishonorable behavior even by some, I think he would really like to know that: he is as "fully honorable" as anyone I've known.


texts: Including many pages of serialization code and generated source code in Master's thesis?

texts:
I'm working on my Master's thesis in Computer Science. Shortly, I am "drawing" a diagram, which is then serialized and from the serialization I generate some source code. So, my question is not about the code of my application, but about the code generated by it. I think we can call it the result of my app.

I want to include an example of what output (source code, although I will also include the intermediary serialization) has my app for a certain input (a diagram). I mention that this would mean many pages, maybe a total of 7-10. Should I include this in the part related to the results or maybe in an appendix? Or is there a more suitable place? Or should I not include anything at all?


texts: Is it impolite to ask a professor who was not my master's thesis advisor (but with similar research field) to help me to work on a research topic?

texts:
I have finished my master's thesis and graduated from the university in which I used to study for my masters degree. Now I have two or three months free time and I am searching for a PhD position; in this period of time I want to work on research topic, I see two professors at that university, whose research fields are really interesting to me. Their research field is really near to that of my master's thesis advisor.

Is it considered impoliteness to my master's thesis advisor if I ask another professor in his department (with similar research field to him) to help me work on a research topic?


texts: How to deal with student putting their (home)work on github

texts:
While using github for source code is generally something I love to encourage, if a student puts their (computer science) homework there, it's generally easy for others to find and copy - which creates a temptation to use it as a "baseline" for their own (identical in most cases) homework - while I understand the benefits of using github (versioning, transitioning across machines easily, teamwork-capabilities), and the individual student who is using it has verified that it is indeed their account and can explain the code well, I still feel uncomfortable with it.

Has anyone else dealt with this issue? how did you handle it? does the university have some sort of policy around publishing student-created work openly? (even if it is part of an assignment)?

As a side-note, my general policy regarding "very similar" assignments is that whomever submitted it first gets the points, and the other submissions do not receive any points, however I tend to ask the students to explain their code and how it works, why they chose X over Y, etc. in such cases first.

edit: I have been informed that there does exist a free version of github that students can use to host private repositories, and this is likely the course of action I will go with for the near future, however, there are several drawbacks:

The student will be unable to showcase their work (i.e. a link to their github on their resume)
The student will not be a student forever, and thus the repository won't be able to be private for free indefinitely
I have very little control (and interest in policing it) once the class is over, so the student could decide to make the repository public once the class is over.


texts: A senior faculty hates me -- should I prepare to leave?

texts: I am a pre-tenured faculty.  A senior faculty in my department hates me.  She has been  very strange to me.  For example, she sent out a dinner invitation for all people in my department.  I accepted it -- she personally approached me and said like you should not come.  Recently I learned that she has been talking about me very negatively like making stories I've never said or did.  Also it is not just her now - a small group of senior faculties do together.  I am in a female-dominant colleage - however, I am very dumb a kind of in female-relationships; all of my best friends and collaborators are male; so I simply do not know what to do.  Anyway now I am ignoring all and focusing on my works.  However, I am very worrying about my evaluation -- is it possible that I can fail in my evaluation/re-appointment for this situation.  Should I just apply for different schools now to leave?


texts:
This problem comes up a lot when I write text that describes other's work.

  to enable personalized Web searches was first proposed in [32], however in [9] it was showed to be computationally inefficient. [33] iterated upon the method and made it suitable for real-time use....

My question is if this is poor style? I've written such paragraphs myself but I have also seen them in real, published research. Hence the question.


texts: I didn't ask permission before including figures in my thesis - now what?

texts: I used a number of figures from journal articles in my master's thesis. I cited the sources in all cases, but didn't ask permission (I didn't know at the time that I was supposed to). Many posts on this site recommend asking permission to be "better safe than sorry". In my case, the thesis is already published - should I ask for permission now, even after the thesis is published and for each of the figures?


texts:
I am looking for statistics for the acceptance of email endings in the academic community. I was informed that "Best regards" and "regards" are among the best ones. Is this true?

For example, this is a good source for the appropriateness of email salutation:
https://thermaltoy.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/dr-who-or-professor-who-on-academic-email-etiquette/

From this source, about half of US professors prefer "Dr.", while the other half prefer "Prof.". How about "Prof. Dr." so we won't miss anything?

I also notice that a lot of members here recommend the email-writers to mention the connection between the writer and the professor. Is this always very important? Is it cost-efficient to go to conferences to meet with potential PhD advisors (I meant time-cost. $ is out of considerations.)?

Some related good stuffs
How much detail to include in first email to potential PhD supervisor?


texts: Can one of your letters of recommendation come from a professor in a department unrelated to your field of study?

texts:
I took a research writing course at my university (which is required of most students) and did extremely well in the course, winning a writing award for the work I did in that class and having it published in the school's textbook for their introductory English courses. I went on to be a TA for that professor for two semesters afterward and did extremely well, and I think his recommendation would be nothing but glowing.

However, I am an Electrical Engineering major applying for an MS in Computer Science, and while his recommendation shows my ability to write and teach, the work I did was entirely non-technical. Would it still be worthwhile to ask for a recommendation from him, or should I focus on getting more letters from my EE/CS professors instead? I currently have one excellent letter from my employer (a small company that I worked for a little over a year during school, was able to lead development on a few projects and teach some people, mostly industry), but sadly don't have a good enough relationship with enough of my other professors beyond "got an A / did well on some projects".


texts: Is it okay to let body text follow immediately after intermediate level headings?

texts:
Let's say we have a thesis/scientific paper with a sectioning depth of three [chapter, section, subsection]. I already often wondered:

Is it okay to have text outside of the lowest level, i. e. subsections?

For instance giving the introduction to / overview of a chapter is that done right after the chapters headline (or sections headline) or in the first subsection appearing in the same chapter?


texts: Does tenure protection extend to professors saying that evolution is false in class?

texts:
So I'm dealing with a very weird case here. I'm a PhD student and my wife is currently taking a history course at a different university. Apparently this instructor says he has tenure so no one can do anything about his rambling.

He spends a sizable chunk of the course ranting about how evolution is false because there's no proof of it, that Neanderthals didn't exist, and how humans aren't apes. He also claimed the Earth isn't 4 billion years old and people lived with dinosaurs.

This is obviously very obnoxious and disturbing to sit through. But is it true that his rambling is protected by tenure? If we were to complain could anything be done? Thanks.


texts: How much feedback should you get from a Supervisor?

texts:
My dissertation is due next month and I’m extremely stressed about it.
I meet with my supervisor nearly every week but apart from being given papers to read I don’t feel like I’ve been supported enough regarding feedback.
Whenever I sent drafts of my work they never gave any written feedback and just told me at the next meeting “I didn’t read it in detail but I thought it was good” - this has happened two or three times already.
I submitted my most recent draft and after cancelling our meeting they said they would give me an email of written feedback and it never arrived.
When I gave a draft of my work to another lecturer earlier in the year they gave a large and precise list of things that could be improved. Their level of feedback made me think if that’s what I should be receiving more often.
I don’t know if I’m expecting too much from a supervisor or if this one is the norm.


texts: How do I judge the novelty of my paper in the area of algorithms and system design?

texts: I have been working on a research project and have submitted the paper to two different venues(not simultaneously), and both times I have gotten reviews which criticize the paper for a lack of novelty. What exactly makes an algorithm or system design novel? How can I judge the novelty of my solution?


texts: Are political/ideological reasons for career moves acceptable in academia?

texts:
Suppose one is happy at one's institution until something happens that makes it impossible to stay given one's strong ideological beliefs. Is it a good idea to mention these beliefs if they are the main reason for wanting to move?

For example:

"Why do you want to study at this university?" Because this university is in Russia and I approve of Putin's actions as President.
"You've worked at this institution for 10 years. Why do you want to leave now?" Because it's in the UK and after the Brexit referendum, I no longer feel welcome here.

Nothing special about these examples; one could equally have "I want to leave Russia because I disapprove of Putin's actions as President" etc.

I tag this with "academic life" because it could apply to any decision to move.


texts: Strategies to avoid burn out due to systemic lack of time

texts:
When I was an undergrad student I used to procrastinate a lot. I managed to get things done in the nick of time by staying up all night before exams, and so on. Not very different from what Tim Urban talks about here. That's why I know this is not my problem any more. During my PhD I managed to stop procrastinating by virtue of having no other option: it was impossible to finish up everything I had do to on time unless I worked on it steadily (including until late at night and sometimes on the weekends).

During my short career in academia (I'm now into my 4th year of postdoc) I have always expected my work load to start decreasing at some point. Reality speaks a different truth: my work load has steadily increased from day 1 of my PhD until today.

Now I have to work on my own research, supervise students' research, write grants, do peer review, prepare conferences and seminars, and some teaching. With the added weight of lack of job security (even in the short term).

Even though I work long hours, I just literally don't have enough time to do everything I need to do. I always find myself working on a priority basis: try to get whatever has its deadline approaching nearest done first. Just by looking around I can see this is a systemic problem, some of my colleagues have it even worse than me.

I find myself on the brink of burnout. What are effective strategies to both avoid burnout and optimize time management in academia, having as a premise that it is literally impossible to wholly fulfill all of one's commitments?


texts: I have chemistry as my majors but I recently failed my phd qualifying exam

texts: I have always been an academically well performing student with good grades but i recently failed my phd qualifying exam and going to get terminal masters with thesis. I have no high paying job prospects like people from engineering background do have after masters. Please advise. Due to the surplus of PhD students from chemistry, industries tend to prefer them for jobs over masters students. I want to reapply to a phd program but do not know what prospects i hold. kindly help


texts: Importance of Variety for PhD Recommendation Letters

texts:
I am a senior getting ready to apply to PhD programs in Applied Physics (I currently am located in and plan to attend grad school in the US). I am currently working a co-op at a large company in a small, very research-oriented and very academic group doing research that is directly applicable to what I want to study in grad school. The group lead and another researcher (both hold PhDs) have agreed to write letters of recommendation for me, and the third will be from a professor at my university.

Today I was told that it could be more beneficial to have only one letter be from the place I work now (Company A), as having two letters from the same place (but different people) could be seen as redundant. I do have a former employer from "Company B" I could ask (who does have a PhD), and the main work at Company B is tangentially related to what I want to focus on in grad school, but I feel that while the letter will be strong and positive regardless of who it comes from out of these, it could be more beneficial to have a second letter come from Company A. I say this because I have been here longer (15 months vs. 6 months at the previous company) and have therefore taken a larger role, everyone I work with now publishes regularly unlike at Company B where the work was more focused on R&D for product development, and both letter writers at Company A are well-connected in the field and more specifically this particular research topic. Additionally, I feel that the writers at Company A could comment more specifically on my research inclination, while at Company B it would be more focused on technical ability and hard work. Finally, I haven't been in touch with my employer from Company B, and while it would be straightforward to reestablish contact (and I'm sure they would respond positively), this could be considered a disadvantage.

My question is: Despite the fact that a second letter from the company I work for now could be slightly stronger compared to a letter from a previous employer, could having variety in my letters outweigh this?


texts: What can a undergraduate do to get the strongest recommendation letter possible?

texts:
This is basically a follow up question from Tom Church's answer to this question: How much does a student's ranking in their cohort matter for PhD applications?.

What can a undergraduate do say in his 2nd or 3rd year to get the strongest recommendation letter possible?  There are the usual answers like talk to your professors etc, but Tom's answer seem to imply there are skills to be learnt in this case.


texts: Can I tell my PhD supervisor honestly why I want to leave him

texts:
I spent more than half a year with a PhD supervisor, and am not happy with both aspects: relationship and academically. With time, it becomes obvious that our field of research doesn't match. He reassured me that he had sufficient knowledge on my topic, but it turns out that he doesn't. I'd say it's the fault on both sides (I should've checked his publications more).

The biggest problem is that he doesn't want to admit it, and either only gives me a very general advice, or blames my draft as not academic enough and tell me to revise the structure before he agrees to read it, and then he'd again give a general advice. He also prefers to meet only once every two or three months. I see no career prospect here, as he'll retire in three years, and then his department will close (I couldn't have known that before).

I consulted another professor that I met in a conference, who also specializes in my topic, and he said that my research is solid (plus, he gave me valuable inputs that I have never received from my own supervisor). Finally, learning about my problems, the second professor offered to supervise me, and said all I need to do is to apply at his university (in another state). By the way, I have neither working nor funding contract with my current university.

I know it sounds not very ethical, but I said nothing to my supervisor until I'm officially accepted by the new university. He's old, proud, and quirky, often taking the slightest mistake (by anyone) as a conspiracy against him. He never admits he doesn't master my topic, so he'll blow a fuse if I tell him that when I announce about my leaving him. I simply don't know what to answer if he asks me why (and he will certainly do). Any suggestion how to handle this well? Thank you.


texts: Etiquette and guidelines for asking someone if they might be doing work potentially similar to yours?

texts:
So, say, if I want to start on a new research project but want to be sure that someone else isn't doing the same thing that I'm doing, how should I phrase an email to them, if at all?

Oftentimes, this could lead to a collaboration between the two. But in a few cases, this could also be a case where someone might be competing with you for the same research finding, and where they might want to "take the glory" so to speak.


texts: Can I make a citation only in the beginning of a chapter?

texts:
I asked a question related to my current thesis on mathoverflow.com and got there a really helpful answer by Iosif Pinelis. Obviously I want to cite his answer. Is it enough to put something like the following sentence in the beginning of he proof's chapter:

  The following proof based on ideas given by Iosif Pinelis in a proof on mathoverflow.com [1]

([1] points to the reference of Pinelis' answer in the bibliography of my thesis)

Do I need to cite Pinelis' answer whenever I use a notation/an idea of his post (it might be hard to tell afterwards, which are my original ideas and which ideas comes from his post)?

Thanks in advance for your answers!


texts: Difference in length of study between Europe and the states?

texts:
It seems like in most European countries a student has to take a 3 years B.Sc, 2 years M.Sc and then 5 years phd program while in the U.S the M.Sc is skipped but the length of the phd stays the same...

(Specifically talking about CS, but may relate also to other fields)

Is that correct, and if so, why is that?


texts: Dataset of commercial binaries: release possible?

texts:
For my final thesis in university, I have created a dataset of third-party applications for macOS. For each version of each app, the dataset contains the original executable, the original Info.plist file containing app-specific metadata and a couple of other files summarising the app's contents (file sizes, file names, ...). Almost all apps are commercial software.

I am looking for ways to release or make available (parts) of this dataset to the public. Due to copyright law, I probably cannot just release all data. What are my options?

Here is what I've been thinking:

I suspect I could release the dataset after all binaries have been removed. However, this reduces the usefulness of the data drastically. Would I also have to strip the Info.plist files as they are copied verbatim from the application bundle? Would I be allowed to include limited parts / metadata of binaries such as linked libraries, imported symbols, functions names, strings and the like?

Another option would be to invite researchers to contact me to get access to the full dataset. Would that be appropriate?

Am I allowed to create a service à la shodan.io, that offers an API for others to work with the dataset, without providing direct access to the binaries?


texts: What are the most credible rankings of US computer science departments?

texts:
I am wondering what are the most well-regarded rankings of computer science departments in the US. Preferably, this would be broken down into rankings by research output and rankings by student labor market outcomes.

Surely, one can find a myriad of such rankings by google searching, but I am wondering whether there are some common rankings that are referred to as standards by academics and practitioners. Thank you kindly.

EDIT:

Let me clarify. Most answers below answered the question "are academic rankings useful/unbiased/etc." but this is not at all what I was asking. I know that such measures are noisy and subjective. This is well-known. But in every profession there are some rankings that are well-regarded among other researchers in that profession.

Please, I know it's hard, but try to stop yourself from answering why rankings suck, even if you feel very strongly about it.


texts: How do you respectfully give a teacher feedback about their teaching?

texts: My teacher's teaching style isn't working for me, and he asked for feedback about the class and how he could teach it better.  He teaches with powerpoint and gives quizzes that are all about rote memorization of the slides.  Most of the class finds these quizzes to be of little help in understanding the information, but nobody knows what to say to the teacher about it.


texts: Is it advisable to underline some key points in a statement of purpose?

texts:
I am an undergraduate student applying to grad schools this year.

I was recently told by my friend (who is already in a PhD program now) that I should consider underlining some key sentences in my SoP, and put them in bold font, since the admission committee most likely won't have the time to read every whole statement, and this would be a good way to catch their eyes on the key points I want to express. It can also expedite the reviewing process so in this sense it is also helpful to the admission committee.

I think this makes sense, but I am still a bit hesitant since I'm not sure if this would be viewed as a poor writing style. Would this be welcomed from the viewpoint of an admission committee?


texts:
Very recently, I have submmited my paper to a journal published by Springer.
As required by the  policy of the journal, the manuscript must not contain the author's name and the corresponding contact information. However, I published the paper to arXiv as a preprint.
My question is What will happen next? My manuscript can be sent to reviewers?
Thank you for your supports.


texts: Worried about Ws (withdrawals) on transcript and letters of reccomendation for a masters program

texts:
Disclaimer: W stands for withdrawal, it’s when a student withdrawals from a course regardless of grades after a certain deadline for course changes.
I graduated from a Big10 Engineering school with a 3.6 GPA and now work for a fortune 50 company.
I currently am looking at masters programs in engineering (these are non thesis/course work classes) and I am certain I can do very well on the GRE. I am looking at M. Eng degrees and professional masters programs, not MS research based ones.
The concern I have is I have some Ws scattered throughout my transcript(2 were for classes I took and realised slightly after the deadline that I didn’t fit into the topic nor was I interested, they were not relevant to my career) and 3 were because of financial distress and health issues that arose.
My letters of recommendation from industry are from supervisors that have PhDs and prestigious careers, although as for an academic ones I currently am trying to obtain very good ones. It’s been difficult as I only developed a close relationship with 2 and the one I want I did my senior project with. The downside is the project didn’t go as well as it should’ve but I earned an A and a B+ in both semesters of the project, the professor is also very difficult to get in touch with.
Am I in jeopardy for applying to masters programs? These are not super competitive ones like MIT, Berkeley, U Mich. etc. They’re for working professionals and they’re M. Eng degrees with schools like RPI, UConn and UMass. I’m just worried about those W’s. The courses that are relevant to what I want to study in grad school had entirely As and B+‘s, especially upper level math and engineering courses despite one C.


texts: Date of publication vs. date of current version

texts: Date of publication and date of current version printed on the journal papers are usually different. What's the difference between the date of publication and date of current version printed on the journal papers?


texts: Have to give a talk soon but I no longer believe in my research

texts:
Basically, my supervisor wanted to measure variable X. X is very important to him due to some other projects we are working on. So he wanted me to give a talk on measuring X at an upcoming conference.

I was skeptical -- I thought that maybe X wasn't a real variable, but just a mathematical effect that would cancel out if we did our measurements right. My supervisor gave me some compelling arguments and convinced me that X was real and we should measure it, so I submitted an abstract to the conference and got accepted.

Now, having done the work and taken the data, I am once more convinced of my old idea that X isn't a real physical thing. The talk is coming up soon and despite the enthusiasm that appears in my abstract the best I can honestly say is that we took some measurements and got no results. I know my supervisor would be upset if I give a talk to the effect of "X doesn't matter" because that reflects negatively on his other projects. Should I cancel the talk, change the content so it's drastically different than the abstract, or something else?


texts: Ok here's the issue. Normally the Chinese postdocs have to be under 35 years of age plus under 3 years from PhD. However, I am slightly over 3 years from PhD. However, I already will have a one year postdoc experience (currently pursuing) prior to starting a (second) postdoc in China. My age would be around 37 by that time though. So, aren't there any age relaxations for people already having some postdoc experience? By the way, I also have a 2.5 years of University (teaching+research) experience prior to starting my (first) postdoc. This is really an ugly rule if it still doesn't allow any age relaxations provided all the University experience plus a postdoc.


texts: Can I report the same study twice but with different authors?

texts: I successfully defended my dissertation in November. Through the process, my chair (member A) was a terrific cheerleader. My second committee member (member B) was encouraging in a more specific,academic manner. At times, only because of Member B's feedback, I advanced in the dissertation process. Committee Member B broached the notion about co-authoring my study. Two days later, Member A called to discuss possible authorship opportunities. I have not given a firm answer. Is it possible to write two articles in separate journals with two different authors using the same study(not the same article)? How does one handle this issue?


texts: Creating a book based on an article (copyright issues)

texts:
I've asked this question at math.stackexchange.com, but a comment proposed me to ask this question at  academia.stackexchange.com instead.

Here is my question:

Elsevier explicitly permits me to make a book based on my article published with Elsevier.

What's about other publishers? May these forbid me to make a book based on my earlier article?


texts: What are some effective ways for someone without a graduate degree to increase their chances of getting hired as a lecturer?

texts:
Context

I am graduating from a Bachelor's degree (Computer Science) at the end of the year from a fairly large Australian university (top50 world). I am keen for a lecturing role (only teaching) at the university I am graduating from, specifically in the introductory computing subject (equivalent of Computing 101).

I am aiming for a lecturer (employment position), not lectureship (academic position, e.g. associate professor/professor). I assume that it will most likely be on a casual basis.

I have a great deal of previous teaching experience in computing areas. I have two years of experience as a course tutor for the same subject I plan to lecture for. This involves two hours of lecturing to a class of 20 students, plus four hours of lab assistance a week.

Things I am aware of

Lecturers normally get picked from the researchers. I imagine this is to save the costs of hiring a dedicated lecturer (correct me if I am wrong).
Lecturers normally are PhDs. My faculty has had several exceptions, notably in the COMP101 subject and the Programming Competitions subject. (bachelor's lecturer and undergrad lecturer respectively).
Even if I am successful, my job security will be nonexistent. I am okay with this.
My faculty is on a fairly tight budget.

Things I am doing

Trying to get a recommendation from existing lecturers I know. This may be difficult, because they are risking their reputation on a somewhat dodgy applicant.
Asking existing non-researcher lecturers how they got hired
Actively undertaking volunteer work in educational groups

Questions I am often asked

Why don't you teach for high school instead? Because I would be teaching on a much smaller scale (i.e. class of ~10 people) and making little impact. Because Australia's technology curriculum is miserable.
Why don't you do a PhD? I wish to avoid research. I believe I can be a good lecturer, and that I can make the course more interesting, and I think I can do that without a PhD. Sorry if I offended anyone.
Aren't you unqualified for the job? Are my academic qualifications substandard? Yes. Am I unlikely to get the job? Yes. Would I be a worse lecturer? Absolutely not. For an introductory subject, enthusiasm, empathy and communication are far more important than a postgraduate qualification.

So, my concluding question is:

What can I do to improve my chances of being hired?

_

Thanks to your great answers, I am considering:

Focusing on a casual instructor-type lecturer rather than a full-time academic position
Getting more industry experience (I have had only two previous software jobs).
Master's in CS or Education (preferably overseas)
Working (possibly for free) for an education company (coursera, openlearning, etc.)
Education startup


texts: Should I submit my paper to a different journal after not receiving any acknowledgment for five months?

texts: I submitted a paper to a low to mid-tier online-only journal in my field last January. I did not receive any acknowledgment from the editors that they received my paper and the journal has already published papers that were submitted after I submitted mine. Having been busy since January I forgot to ask the editors for an update. I was only able to send an email a week ago, and I still did not receive a reply. Should I submit my paper to a different journal or should I wait a bit more for a reply?


texts: How to make improvements to an already-published paper?

texts: I have written a paper for an IEEE Transactions journal. But now I have several improvements to the original paper. Can I publish the paper again with a slightly different approach? The introduction, etc., would be almost the same and hence I may retain and refer to the already published paper. But the implementation is different. How shall I proceed?


texts: Should I disclose to the editor that I am reviewing a similar paper by different authors for a different journal?

texts:
About a year ago I received a request to review a paper from author X in journal A. The paper uses a hype tool T to solve a common problem, which is good, but due to some shortcomings in the implementation I recommended to revise the manuscript. The editor followed my recommendation.

About a month ago I was contacted by an editor in journal B asking me to review a manuscript from unrelated authors Y. They use the same hype tool T to solve the same problem. I accepted to review it, and mentioned that I had reviewed a similar paper for a different journal (without naming it). It is now due in a couple of days.

Now to my surprise I just received a request to review a revised manuscript of author X from journal A (I thought X had given up on it since more than a year passed). I would like to accept but won't be able to deliver the review before 3-4 weeks.

This is a "winner gets it all" kind of situation. The paper that gets  published first wins, and I think would be ground to drop and reject the second paper as not really novel any longer. (No plagiarism here, and nothing unethical done by the authors; just an obvious answer to an old question with hype tool T. I had myself thought of it before hearing from A, and discarded it only due to lack of time.) How should I deal with that?

Should I disclose to the respective editors that I am reviewing similar papers? I suspect that would be a breach of the confidentiality. Should I have refrained to mention to editor of journal B that I had reviewed a similar paper in the past?

Would it be a conflict of interest to review the revised manuscript from X? Should I decline the review?

Also, should I inform the editor of the other journal once the first paper gets published? If so, how can I politely ask to be informed when the manuscript gets published without giving away that there is a similar manuscript out there?


texts: How do I handle plagiarism professionally and emotionally?

texts:
So I have been trying to get an article accepted since 2016. It is an article dedicated to a machine learning based prediction of a biological dataset. It was rejected 4 times. Today, on searching, I found that another paper has been published in Bioinformatics journal (Oxford) on 2018 April. This articles aim is exactly the same as mine. The feature set used is a superset of mine, only the classifier used is different than my current work. My work was rejected several times, so I have changed many things for every new submission. I also noticed that the issues that my previous reviewers had with my work, those same issues are still there in the Bioinformatics manuscript. This work in Bioinformatics has been done by 12 people while I am doing this work alone, with my advisor. Had it been accepted, it would have been the first paper with that aim. Now I feel terrible and I do not know how to deal with this professionally as well as emotionally. I suspect plagiarism by one of these many reviewers that this paper went through. I have been toiling for the last 2 years to get that work accepted. My advisor does not want to go for challenging plagiarism. What should I do?

On reading the manuscript I have found several flaws in it. The major flaw is its execution time is way more than my work. Now even if I try to get my work published, would anybody accept it since their work is already in a good journal like Bioinformatics?

I have tried to explain to myself that I have more work to publish, but it seems that I cannot. I am going through a lot of emotional turmoil. I have been crying incessantly for the past 24 hours... I am unable to understand how to get my positive attitude back. Please help...


texts: The effect of a PhD on a student's interest in pursuing a career in academia

texts:
Is there any research/study that looked at the effect of a PhD on students' interest in pursuing a career in academia?

E.g. it could survey students before entering the PhD program and survey the same students on their last year of their PhD program to analyze how interest in pursuing a career in academia has changed.

I am mostly interested in the field of computer science (machine learning / natural language processing), in the United States, but I am curious about other countries and other fields as well.


texts: License to tie to an extended version of an accepted paper while submitting to ArXiv?

texts:
We recently submitted a paper to an IEEE conference, where it was presented and appears in the proceedings. We now wish to submit an extended version of the same work onto ArXiv.

In addition to acknowledging that a short version has appeared in the IEEE conference, are there any restrictions on the kind of license that we can tie to the extended version?


texts: Transparency about candidates selection for a post-doc position

texts:
I recently applied to some post-doc positions at well-ranked universities whose number of candidates is usually not so large (ca. 15, at most 50). Usually, the recruitment process consists of a formal interview, and sometimes, a pre-informal one where candidates are first "filtered".
I'm not aware about the main procedure after such interviews conducted with candidates. I got only 1 feedback from a university being totally transparent on this procedure; i.e. you get a document showing (1) the candidates selected and those non-selected, (2) their ranking in the selection, and (3) comments about the selections made. This makes me think, is it authorized in general as an unsuccessful applicant to request feedback on the outcome of my application? I wish decisions taken were more transparent so that unsuccessful candidates could at least situate themselves in the pool.


texts: COVID-19 impact on university tuition fee

texts: If US universities switch to online education during the Coronavirus crisis, what will the impact it will have on tuition fees?


texts:
I am an international student who has recently been officially admitted to a prestigious school in USA as a PhD candidate. I have sent them my transcript except my last year, which I was passing my courses by the application time. I am now in the second semester of that year. I haven't failed any of my courses in the first semester of that year, but I have failed the semester. The failure grade for a course is 10 from 20 and the failure semester GPA is 12 from 20 and my semester GPA is less than 12. The truth is I had too much work, TOEFL, GRE, IELTS, national entrance exam and also I was hospitalized and lost one of my courses in medical drop and other exams as a matter of fact to being ill! Please also do note that I will be matriculated in time and without any problems! In my admission form there is a sentence where it is said:

This admission is offered subject to your maintaining your present level of academic achievement. If you have not already done so, you must provide proof of satisfactory completion of any studies in progress.
In the conditions of admission part: --verification of all your previous post-secondary degree(s) earned outside of the United States is required. You must satisfy this condition of admission by engaging the International Education Research Foundation or World Education Services to verify your credentials.

I wonder what this sentence means. Does it mean that in my case, which I have had a rough semester, I should be worried about my admission and they will reject me because of my first semester bad GPA? Does a bad semester in the last year of B.S mean that you will lose your admission? Or is it just saying that you should finish your B.S and attend your new university in time? I should say that I have received my I-20 form and official admission!
Will they consider my case or will they just reject me even if I bring evidence of this fact? I am asking this because I have other admissions and it is best to know where to put the eggs. My question is how much should I be worried. It is also useful to say that this happened before my admission came and it is not because of having a good time.


texts: Are these responses from top journals just boiler plate? or anything atleast miniscule to salvage from them?

texts:
thanks for submitting your paper to XXXXX Journal. It is an explicit
and interesting analysis of a natural problem. However, in my
opinion, it does not reach the level of XXXXX Journal. I therefore
have decided not to pursue the evaluation process in order not to
delay the publication of your paper elsewhere.
Please don’t take it too bad, XXXXX Journal receive a lot of very very
strong submissions in every aspect of mathematics and we publish only
700 pages per year, so we have to make some hard choices.
Best regards, XXXXX (Editor-in-chief)

Dear Professor XXXXX,
The XXXXX Journal of XXXXX recently received a very large number of
submissions.  We are also attempting to reduce our publication
backlog. Consequently, the editors are unable to consider every
manuscript for further review.  So we regret to inform you that we
will not be able to publish your manuscript.
We hope that you will submit your paper to a more specialized journal
where your work may be more fully appreciated.
Sincerely,
The Editors XXXXX Journal of XXXXX

Are both of these are just boiler plate or anything to salvage from them. I must say both are really top journals in mathematics.


texts: Lukewarm grade in proposed area of study?

texts:
I'm applying for study in a particular area of math.

To keep matters short , I was an undergraduate that took the graduate version of a particular class and ended up with a B+ . I had never taken any class on the topic before this.

The department received several complaints about the professor in the course and other professors in the department even acknowledged that the distribution of the grades was quite terrible , not expected for a graduate course.

Since the grade is in a class that is in my proposed area of study , should I mention it at all in PhD admissions? My supervisor and other professors in the department said they would mention that the class in question was terrible but I'm not sure if I should  talk about it myself.

I feel kind of strange not addressing the fact that my proposed area is the only course which I didn't do great in. For some context every other grade I've ever received are great so there is no pattern of doing bad or anything.


texts: Who reads the NSF postdoc fellowship applications? (mathematics)

texts:
I am applying for the NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships, and I noticed the guidelines say the following:

  The Project Description should be written with both specialists and non-specialists in mind.

I am not sure what exactly "specialist" and "non-specialist" refer to. Suppose that in my application, my proposed research objective is to solve the Navier-Stokes equation. (This is just an example!) Will all the reviewers be experts in PDEs? Or at least in analysis? Or is the most I can assume that they are mathematicians (possibly working in areas like algebra or topology)?


texts: How are the personal assistants for professors usually funded?

texts: As examples, the lab executive assistant at http://www.klab.caltech.edu/people.shtml or the lab administrative assistant over at http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~tapio/people.html#admins


texts:
So I am a bit confused as to how the standard scholarship application works (North America, mainly Canada). When applying to a masters program, most schools ask me if I have applied to any scholarships and to list them. However, when looking to apply to any scholarships, one of the prerequisites for most is to have already been accepted to an academic program.

This is confusing to me, should I apply to scholarships before applying to my masters, should I apply after receiving a positive reply from at least one institution?

I understand that specific scholarships will have their own details, but this is a general question. How do I approach not starving if I get accepted to a masters?


texts: Should I list conference session chairmanship in CV?

texts: I currently have on my CV a list of conferences I organized, or co-organized, a list of invited talks, a full list of talks, etc. Recently I have been asked to chair a session in a prestigious conference. I am very honored, and thus wondered: is this something I can feature on my CV? If so, would somewhere along with the conferences organized be "standard"?


texts: Is ever answering "No Basis for Judgement" on a reference request a red-flag

texts:
I am filling out a reference form for a student I supervised on a medium sized project who is applying for graduate studies.
The student is great, of all that I have supervised in this way they are significantly the best on a number of metrics.
They are also the only student who has ever applied for graduate studies.
It has a bunch of questions where i am ask to rate them on there e.g. analytical ability.
One of the questions on the form is:
"Rank relative to others you have recommended for PhD studies"
with options like To 1%, top 10% etc.
The last option is "No Basis for Judgement".
Since they are the only person I have recommended for a PhD program, that seems like the correct answer.
Since I don't have anyone else to compare them to who I have recommended.
But I am wondering if I am I am interpretting it too literally.
and I should actually be answering this question with my total assessment of them (though there is another field for that); or with comparison to people who could have but didn't ask me for a reference; or to the set of people i expect would exist.
Especially I worry that saying "No Basis For Judgement" might be taken as a red-flag by the program administrator.


texts:
I have to write a cover letter for a PhD application (in theoretical physics).

I didn't find any useful sample about this. Does anyone have any suggestion?

Moreover, I have to write a research statement. I don't know how I can write them in different ways.


texts:
We are writing a paper about an algorithm that takes a group of solutions and sorts them by their likelihood of being equal to the one and only 'good solution'.

Internally, we refer to this 'good solution' as meromero, which is a Mexican street slang for 'the most important' or the precisely for 'the one and only'.

I like the word because it allows naming an important concept with a funky and short sound. Also, it forces you to draw your eyes towards it, creating some kind of highlight about the ideas related to this 'one and only good solution'.

However, I'm not sure of using it, precisely because it is a slang word and I don't remember ever reading a paper using slang words.

Therefore, my question is:

Is using a slang word to name a concept bad taste in a scientific paper?

Notice that this is merely a personal curiosity, we have already choosen not to use the word.


texts:
I'm a philosophy major. I sometimes wonder how some professors and PhD candidates know as much as they know about subjects outside of their discipline. For instance, I read one philosophy paper by an author who proficiently used methods from other disciplines {agent-based modelling, computer programming, game theory, advanced set-theory} to argue his claim .

I know that a big part of earning a PhD is learning how to learn; the author of that paper evidently learned how to do that. When I imagined myself doing the same, I imagined being able to learn the concepts independently, but feeling unsure about how well I had learned them. So I wondered whether completing, or challenging, classes would be a viable strategy for learning about matters relevant, but not pertinent, to my graduate studies.

Are undergraduate classes ever used as a means to learning what a PhD candidate needs to learn to earn his PhD?


texts: Is it advisable to do a postdoc in statistical genetics after a statistics PhD in machine learning/deep learning?

texts:
Is it advisable to do a postdoc in statistical genetics or other similar medical disciplines (e.g. medical neuroimaging) if I have a statistics PhD in machine learning/deep learning? I really wanted to be involved in applying statistics in medical disciplines, but my life just didn't pan out this way.
My concern is that I have no previous training in Computational Biology/Bioinformatics/Genetics.
I think the problem I have is:

Either these are too big of a transition and I won't be able to get much out of the postdoctoral fellowship with the limited time period (not getting much published), or
Perhaps it will be too hard for me to get a postdoc in those fields since I don't have the adequate biology background.

Thank you,


texts: If I order GRE score reports before my Subject GRE score is available, will schools receive it?

texts: I am planning to send both General and Subject GRE scores to some universities using the "order additional score reports" option. My subject GRE score is not available yet. It would take twenty more days. After selecting both of my GRE scores, it shows that one test score is being sent. I want to know if my subject GRE score will also be sent once it becomes available or do I have to spend $27 again just to send the subject GRE score to those universities?


texts: How do I go about making a program suggestion to my department chair as a graduate student?

texts:
For context, I am a graduate student in my academic department — agricultural economics. I wanted to bring up the idea to the Department Chair that introducing some applications like JupyterLab, GitHub, and R to our future graduate students could be a great move to not only support the move to online learning, but allow students in our department to get additional skills that are widely used in industry and currently not offered by our courses, but for which I know a number of our professors use routinely.

As a graduate student, I don't have the authority to suggest how the department should conduct itself and I do not want to come across this way either. So I am curious how I could go about offering this idea as a suggestion while still being respectful of my place within the hierarchy of my department. I have a good personal relationship with the department chair as well, but I still want to be cautious of how I approach this.

I should also say that i'm done my course work, so it does not impact me at all if the Department chooses to follow through or not on the suggestion. I am however thinking about the development of future students which is the only reason I am actually considering making the suggestion.


texts: When should I start applying for a PhD program in the UK?

texts:
I am starting my MSc. this September (UK), and am strongly planning ahead and setting myself goals. Simply, when would be the appropriate time to submit my applications?

My MSc is 12 months long and will go from Sept 2018 to Sept 2019. I was thinking of applying 6-8 months into my MSc.

What do you think? When is the most logical time to submit my applications?


texts: Taking courses beyond requirements in a Ph.D. program

texts: As I'm starting to look to put together my plan of study, a question popped into my mind: are there, generally speaking, rules against taking additional courses beyond what is required for a Ph.D., or is it simply frowned up by most advisers (in the interest of creating more time for research endeavors)? I ask because I've found several graduate certificates offered at my university that seem relevant to my interests (in teaching), and I'd like to take an additional 2 or 3 courses to fulfill their requirements.  I've heard from other grad students in my lab, however, that there is frequently push back from our adviser on such matters.


texts: Recommendation letter from an Emeritus Professor

texts: I am applying to a PhD programme and am planning to take recommendation letter from an Emeritus professor who has known me for past 5 years. However, the professor does not use college id any longer and has asked me to provide his gmail account for electronic submission of recommendation letter. Will using such id harm my prospects as a PhD candidate? Should I use some active professor instead?


texts: Accepted a job with a year-long deferral to do a prestigious postdoc. Now a better job came along

texts:
Last year I got one tenure-track job offer and accepted it, even though I wasn't thrilled about the position. The institution allowed me to defer my start date by a year, so that I can complete a postdoc. I fully intended to start the job when I signed the offer.

Now, several months later, I received a tenure-track offer from a top institution with resources and benefits that can never be matched by the institution that is currently waiting on me.

I understand it is unethical for me to bail on Institution 1. At the same time, I only have one life and one career and don't want to sacrifice my prospect for loyalty to an institution where I haven't even started working.

What would you do?

EDIT: What are the range of professional consequences I can expect if I switch to the new institution?


texts: What happens when a journal changes its editor-in-chief in the middle of a review?

texts: I submitted a paper revision (1st revision) to an Elsevier journal 3 months ago. The problem is that last week they apparently changed the journal's editor-in-chief. My paper status was previously "With editor: 50 days", and now it has been reset to "With editor: 2 days". What happened to the revision process? Does it mean that the 3-month wait was in vain?


texts: Should I mention collaborators in the job talk abstract?

texts:
I will be giving a job talk and I need to submit an abstract for the research job talk. I was wondering if I should mention my collaborators and their affiliations in the abstract? The only thought that's discouraging me is that the talk is on my PhD work which may go against me because I have 3 years of postdoc experience. So ideally they may expect me to present my most recent work.

Note: it is not research focussed school. It is a teaching and undergrad research focussed state school.


texts: International Math conference rejected paper without any comments!

texts:
We had submitted a research paper (graph theory related), which included a set of theorems, lemma, and proofs, to an international Mathematics conference around 2 months back.

The decision on our manuscript has come just a couple of days back. The decision is 'rejected'. However, we do not understand why there were no comments associated with the decision.

We are not worried about the rejection, rather, we are worried about what are the possible comments for the decision so that we can probably improve our work to fit in next venue (journal or conference).

We have emailed a few times to the conference chair about the comments; however, not heard anything great.

Does anyone here with this type of experiences? Is it really possible that they rejected the manuscript without peer-review?


texts: Including publications on CV if none are peer-reviewed

texts:
I'm updating my CV and need advice regarding publications.  I am formerly a Professor of Human Services and Counselor Education.  I am not currently in academia, but am a licensed counselor in private practice... just updating the CV to be prepared for possible future opportunities.

I have written articles for publication in magazines, newspapers, and online resources (blogs, etc.) for 13 years or more.  I've also been quoted as an "expert" in numerous articles that other folks have written... some are national publications for our profession.

I do not have any peer reviewed journal articles at all.

Should I list the articles for newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc. that I have written on my CV?  Assuming APA style if so. Under what heading shall I list them so it is not confused with academic publications?
How do I list articles in which I have been quoted by another author?  Under what heading shall I list them? I've not had any luck with my research on this one.


texts: Contacting potential postdoc advisor in open announcements

texts:
I am intending to apply for postdoc at an institution. I already am acquainted with the potential adviser (we know each other). I already have contacted him expressing my interest in joining his group. However, the institution calls for regular open announcements for postdoc positions and I am particularly interested to pursue under his supervision only. So he advised in his reply to check for the open announcement. Now the applications are called for and a research proposal is needed to apply. I have made a proposal that is in sync with his area of interest (in which I am interested too).

I am really confused whether it would be wise or even need to email a copy of my research proposal to him, as the institution hires postdoc candidates through a common application procedure. Or is it enough that I just apply via institutional procedures and then send an email informing him that I did ?


texts: When I should submit previous published version(s)?

texts:
I'm going to send manuscript for publication in IEEE Transactions. Some parts of this manuscript were published earlier in little-known journals (in Russian). But in general manuscript is significantly different from previous papers. Should I upload previous papers as a ‘Previous Published Version(s)’, and upload summary of differences?

UPD:
I found the following in ScholarOne Manuscripts (IEEE Transactions manuscript submission site): "Has any portion of your paper been published elsewhere? If yes, please include your original paper and a brief summary of your changes. New material must be added before submitting the manuscript to this journal.". So, I should upload previous published versions?


texts: As someone with low grades how can I prepare myself to study MSc in CS in USA?

texts:
I have completed Bachelor in IT from a third world country in 2008. I have achieved 49% marks.
I am 30 and working in a bank.
Now I want to study MSc in CS in the USA and eventually PhD.
I believe that this world is not all out for me.

How can I prepare myself so that I can improve my chance of admission in post graduate level?
Money/GRE/TOEFL/IELTS/Vendor Certification....what should I need?
how can I show that I have potential research capability?


texts: Should you include your main supervisor as a co-author?

texts:
I'm currently close to finishing my first paper in a PhD degree (applied maths). I have a supervisory team of 4 academics, 1 of which is the designated main supervisor.

My problem is that in reality, all of my work for this paper has been in collaboration with only one of the supervisors (not the main) who works in a different department. As well as this, they also gave the advice for the direction of the PhD and is also the only person I have meetings with. It seems to be a culture within my environment that all the supervisors are included as co-authors. I'm not comfortable with the idea of other people getting credit for something I have worked hard on or the ethics of it; but at the same time of course I don't want to ostracise myself from the group or harm my future prospects. They did after all get the funding for my position and I have no problem with working with just one supervisor.

Unfortunately I didn't have any conversations about co-authorship before I started the program. Any advise?


texts: Will my Professor tolerate this medical excuse again?

texts:
A week ago In one of my classes I e-mail the professor and asked to reschedule one of my quizzes due to illness generated from sleep deprivation, she accepted and was highly considerate of my situation.

Now, due to my intense anxiety & stress of exams (to perform excellently) and lack of sleep for the last couple of days as well, my body is failing me and now I woke up to dizziness (fainting/falling sensation), fluctuating irregular heartbeat, and confusing feeling I can't focus on my work at all...

I'm going to the clinic as soon as it opens in a few hours and the exam is also in a few hours, I feel as if the professor will not believe me but as I visit the clinic to be sure this is not serious, I will ask for a medical note. Will my professor tolerate this again? In our syllabus an exam can be re-scheduled for medical emergencies. I believe this is a medical concern.

I maxed out my body for school too much, trying to do well and sleeping less (creating "more time").

Bear with the writing, I'm not in a perfect mental state...


texts: Is it appropriate to use active and passive voice together in abstract?

texts:
I am writing an abstract for my manuscript (with my mentor), and the abstract includes active and passive voices together, as below:

  In the present paper, we have proved [...] by using [...]. Some new results have also been obtained.

Is it a mistake to use passive and active voice together in the abstract?


texts: Is it considered embarassing if adding a dedication to the family on the second page and giving credit in the acknowledgement section in the end for the support during hardships in an undergraduate thesis? What's too much and of disadvantage? Or is an undergraduate thesis quite forgiving and the question of 'too much' isn't an issue here?


texts: It seems that researchgate is gaining some popularity in recent years. However, there is some criticism on their habit of sending requests and unsolicited spam emails?. What is your experience of using researchgate? Does it help promote your research and get some readership?


texts: Applying to grad school - Need to indicate history in previous not so good school?

texts:
I'm applying for grad school. The application asks to list out all schools attended previously.

However, long time ago I attended a not so good school and I even felt the degree was not accredited, so I quit (with graded transcript). Later on, I completed my undergrad in another school.

Do you think I should indicate this bad school in my application? If I do need to indicate, what I'm afraid is that it would be hard for my future grad school to verify my status in this bad school. I'm not afraid of grade or whatever, but just feel like it's not worth it to be indicated. If I don't, would there be any issue later on?


texts: Working relationship with master thesis professor

texts:
First of all let me explain my situation a little bit.

I am writing my masters thesis in theoretical quantum field theory and have a very bad contact with my promoter. I see him once every few weeks and he doesn't have any concrete feedback. (40 written pages have been lying on his desk for months without any feedback on them) There is a PhD student that is helping me but our ideas are not in line and all he does is give negative feedback up to the point where I cannot value it anymore (it feels personal instead of professional)

This situation is becoming rather desperate since I was hoping for a PhD in physics but I have no recommendation letters from my promoter which ruins much of my chances...

I have talked to another professor at the faculty and they tell me that that they know him and that it doesn't really surprise him, but this does not help me. That same professor might be willing to get me started in a PhD but I am afraid that he'll ask my current promoter how I work, and whatever he says, it will not be representative of how hard I work.

Last but not least, the deadline for my thesis is in a couple of months and I am yet to get some feedback on a crucial, very unorthodox step that I made. I motivated the step and anybody asking me will see that I thought about it for a very long time but still, it might be wrong. Can I get a total fail for my thesis if this is the case? And how does this influence my further career ?

I felt really confident at first for a PhD; I am very motivated and work a lot, but this whole situation is really taking away my academical drive.

Any tips and advice ?


texts: Professor proposes a question she would be extremely happy to get solved and I solved do I have to write a paper solo or with her?

texts:
My professor once came to my office and she proposed to me a well-posed research question: it was a theorem to prove that she was extremely happy to see and that would be a nice research question. After some months I went to her office claiming I solved it. She read it and highlighted some points that were not clear to her. I made the proof clean and neat, even generalizing it more than what she wanted. At the very end, she said: "well, I see you solve it. Nice!" and all ended up like this.
My question is: I basically did everything on that problem and my advisor "just" (even if I am grateful for this) made me aware of the research topic and basically read the first draft pointing out some things to explain a bit more. Now she seems not to be interested in publishing the paper, while it is for sure worth of publication since this is what she told me at the beginning. Hence, I am willing to do the job on my own. The question is: should I write it as a solo author, just with some thanks in the intro page or is it more polite to put her as co-author (even if, honestly, she did no more than what I told above)?


texts: Advice for early grad student: how to professionally present tentative research idea(s) before one has chosen a topic

texts:
I'm a 2nd-year grad student in a US PhD program in one of the social sciences. Coursework has forced me throw out the initial ideas I had about research, which I proposed in my application nearly two years ago. Now I'm actively hunting for the "right" topic.

People ask me all the time, "what's your research on?" and I'm not sure how to answer.

This is not about "how to pick a research topic" as much as how to professionally present one's very tentative research idea(s) before one has a topic.

Should I:
1) Preface any response to the question with "I'm still early in my program and haven't written my dissertation prospectus yet, but I'll probably focus on ..."
2) Should I be honest about having multiple ideas or just pick one in order to better focus the conversation?

Any advice probably differs across contexts -- i.e. talking with peer, talking with senior scholar. All tips are appreciated!

I know this question is subjective, but I think about the situation every day, and I feel like I need some advice.


texts: Should I write a recommendation letter for a student at a previous job/institution?

texts:
I receive requests for recommendation many times, but I have received one from a student belonging at a previous affiliation of mine, asking for a favourable letter in view of their achievements.

I am aware of the fact that if I comment on the performance of the student, it could be used against me, since it is good practice to "erase" all the material, marks, personal information of the students and staff relationship at a previous job. So I am hesitant to go in that direction. On the other hand, I could comment only very generally on the skills of the student, which could backfire their application to a new job

Differently from this question I am not looking for a recommendation, but giving one...


texts: Postdoc Proposal: Can I quote from viva examiners' report?

texts: Can I quote from a viva examiner's report some positive feedback in a postdoc application? If yes, how do I cite the report?


texts: How do I decline a PhD offer by my master's thesis supervisor?

texts:
So I'm currently finishing up my master's thesis and my supervisor seems to be happy with my work. The subject of PhD came up a couple of times during meetings and while I did say that I think it would be nice to do a PhD, I also said that I'm still thinking about it and considering other career options (not necessarily in academia). Then the last meeting she suddenly announced that the PhD registrations are now open and that I'm able to register. This caught me off-guard so for the next meeting I want to talk about that. In the meantime, I made up my mind and decided not to do a PhD after all, at least not for a year as I'm having another project running outside of academia.

How do I tell this to my supervisor? I'm afraid that she will be disappointed and that the remaining months of my master's thesis won't be as enjoyable. I have no reason to think this as she has always been friendly and praising my work. But you never know if she just was nice to get me to do a PhD. Probably overthinking this last part though.


texts: Is it a good idea to include "research interests" section in CV for PhD admissions? If so, what to include in it?

texts:
I plan to apply for a PhD position in Engineering. I am working on the CV and while going through google looking for examples I found references to a section Research Interests. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to include it or leave it altogether.

If included, it is pretty obvious to tailor it to the PhD position one is applying to. But the question then would be to whether keep it limited to the position in question or include your other interests. Given that, nowadays, having multidisciplinary research interests is a desirable trait, I tend to think the latter. However, I need opinions from other people. Before answering the second part, please state as to why including Research Interest is a good idea in the first place.


texts: Is it even useful to report cheating anymore?

texts:
I'm taking my 8th course since the Covid-19 shutdown of universities has forced everyone to come home. When looking up stuff, I have inevitably come across almost all the questions from psets, quizzes, tests, etc posted to Chegg, where I presume other students are cheating. I am 100% sure these are from the current term's class questions, as the questions are usually rewritten every term by the profs in my department and are posted as a picture, so sometimes one can even see the header for the current term (not to mention the picture is directly of the question paper). I think at this point it is a fair assumption to make that there is cheating going on.
In my first 7 courses, I reported this, to varying degrees of success. All the professors tried to address this, but some basically told me even they couldn't do much about it. Even after the "mass cleansing" that happened after each of these reports, almost every question I searched about could be found on Chegg.
My 8th course just started and I'm already seeing questions on Chegg. I understand the professor's predicament of them not being able to do anything and don't want to become the student constantly pointing out flaws in their enforcement of academic misconduct (as doing this would probably cause the prof to grow to resent me through misattribution of arousal). However, it's extremely frustrating to slog out a class and be working 16 hour days when others are cheating their way through a course (not to mention destroying the curve, making it even harder for me).
At this point, does it even make sense to report this to the prof?
I phrased the question title as such because I suspect many others are going through the same problem during Covid-19


texts: Is there evidence that suggests students should take notes?

texts:
I hear a lot about good note-taking strategies vs bad note-taking strategies, and I have seen a lot of research papers on different styles of note-taking. What I haven't seen though is any study that has asked if we should even be taking notes in the first place.

Specifically I would like to know the long-term effects of taking notes vs not taking notes. It is clear to me that if someone has taken notes their entire academic career, then immediately stops, their performance will probably plummet, but how do students who have never taken notes compare to students who have always taken notes?

I would guess certain learning styles would benefit from note-taking while other learning styles are hindered by note-taking, but I would like to see some actual data on this if anyone knows anything about it. A cursory Google search didn't return anything, so I hope there is someone on here that may be able to shed some light on this.

Edit: A lot of people have taken this question to solely be asking for research on this topic. While I would most like to see actual data, I did not intend this to solely be a literature search, and people can post their anecdotal evidence, as long as it is pointed at the long-term difference in note-taking vs not taking notes.


texts: PhD interview question when you don't know the answer

texts:
How should you handle a question in an interview for a PhD program when you don't know the answer ?

Should you try to just say something even if this is wrong or just tell the interviewer that you don't know the answer?


texts: Reviewers’ comments are not sufficient to reject my paper, what to do?

texts:
Recently I received a rejection letter from a journal editor (including some comments). However, when I checked the reviewers comments (from two reviewers), I found that their comments do not seem to be sufficient to reject the paper. Given these comments, I would have expected the decision to be "minor revisions." Specifically, some of the comments are very simple like: I mentioned table 1 in text, while I used table 5.1 in table headings. I got total of ten comments, two of them are just related to formatting and acronym, two are repeated from both reviewers, ending up with only six significant comments. What can I do in this case?
Here are two related questions I found on this site:

Do editors allow authors to respond to reviewers when a paper has been essentailly rejected?
How to react to unfair reviewer comments?


texts: What do I need to do as a potential mature student in the UK?

texts:
Please bear with me in this question despite its length. I'm only putting so much detail in it because I want to be thorough, as this is an important subject to me.

I'll explain my situation first as to provide some context for my dilemma - I'm 19 years old, soon to be 20 in a few months, and I decided last year that I wasn't ready for university for a number of reasons. The most prominent of these were a fear of falling into debt, not being able to support myself while there and also not being sure of what career path I wanted to pursue. In light of that, I decided to apply for an apprenticeship at a fairly prestigious but small software design company in the field of Business Intelligence. I got the job (and am on the way to completing the level 4 diploma in "Information Technology, Programming and Networking) and will be employed until 21, when my contract ends. Over that period of time I'll be able to save up a fairly substantial amount of money (for me),

I'm convinced now that I want to apply to a few of the top universities in the UK for Computer Science once my contract is over, but my A-level results aren't quite up to scratch for these. For reference, I have an A, B and a C in Computer Science/Psychology/Music Technology, respectively. What I needed was three A's. The universities I have in mind are Birmingham, Bath, the Imperial College of London, and Oxford and Cambridge - just on the off-chance I somehow get in or attain the necessary qualifications. The exact course that I've looked at is a five-year long MSci in Computer Science with a year of industry work/study abroad.

As a mature student though, I understand that I'll be subject to different entry requirements. One of these is an access to higher education course, but there aren't any within 50 miles of me that I can do a relevant course in via distance learning or even just evening classes, which means I'd need to do such a course after I finish my work contract in November 2016, further extending the amount of time before I can begin a degree.

If anyone has any experience in applying to a highly ranked university - especially in the field of computer science - as a mature student, is there any advise that you can give me?

As an extra note, I have emailed the universities in question to ask them for their advice and what would be expected of me when it comes to applying as a mature student. I haven't heard back yet, but I only sent an email last week.


texts: I couldn't complete the PhD at the end of third year because of unsatisfactory progress. That was three years ago. Now I am again thinking of applying for a PhD. The application requires an up to date CV. I am wondering how to mention about the previous PhD study and whether it is worthwhile at all to make such an attempt. I would be grateful for your valuable suggestions.


texts: Stating that my research hold less value compared to another topic. A good idea?

texts:
In a couple of days I have to present my master's thesis, which is on a topic of Information System (IS) implementation in a small organisation.

I conduct a study of critical success factors, but during my research I found that the organisation has deeper problems like readiness, culture and knowledge gaps. Therefore, I think that a study on these aspects would give them more value.

Do you think that I should mention this during my research presentation?

Thanks for your time.


texts: What is the likelihood of getting tenure?

texts:
What fraction of new assistant professors end up receiving tenure at the institution that they started at? This of course varies by field and rank, so please include the area and range of ranks you are thinking of when you answer. (i.e. "Computer Science, top 25 but not top 10", etc.)

It seems hard to find hard statistics on this question. When you get official statistics for how many people come up for tenure and are denied, you get an overly rosy picture, because people who are not going to get tenure often leave before they come up for it.