texts:
I'm a math undergraduate student on his third year, and I'm very interested in mathematical logic, so I've been looking for a master's degree on that topic.
I've found two of them I really like:
· Master of Logic (mathematics track, of course) offered by the ILLC at UvA.
· Master's in Mathematical Logic and Foundations of Computer Science offered by the Université de Paris.
The two of them have many courses in common, so I'm not sure which one I would choose in the optimal case I got accepted in both. I'd like your opinion on their programs, and specially on their differences.
Maybe it would help knowing a little more about my interests, so here it goes: I really enjoy abstract problems and reasoning; I'm pretty interested in some philosophical branches such as metaphysics, philosophy of language, and of course logic (I began as a philosophy undergrad before I discovered my love for math), but I don't enjoy that much the topics related to sociology or history; and lastly, as an undergrad, I'm enjoying algebra and a little bit of topology (particularly when studying abstract structures), but not so much when it comes to computers, and definitely not when it comes to statistics.
Any advice on how to proceed will be appreciated. Thanks!


texts: Am I allowed to use personal conversation as a source?

texts: I am writing a research proposal in art history. I had a studio visit to the local artist and had a chance to ask her some questions. Unfortunately, I have not recorded it because, well, I was not even planning to interview her this time. However, in my research proposal, I want to state her personal opinion. Am I even allowed to refer to our personal conversation? Of course, for the research itself, I consider conducting a conventional interview with her once again. But for now, can this be considered as an okay source?


texts: What is the ideal age to go to university for a degree?

texts:
as the title suggests, I am looking for any advice, thoughts, or opinions on what is an ideal age to be going to university. It would be for a degree first, then after however, a masters, then (hopefully), a phd.

I am looking to study mathematics, though, I am 16 soon to be 17,  currently homeschooled, but I self teach. I was hoping that I could use 4 years to deeply self study mathematics before going to university, In order to learn everything that I would need for first entering a mathematics degree.

4 years would leave me at around 20 or 21 years old. To me, that feels a bit old? And so I ask what would be the most ideal age for entering. I would guess most answers to be 18 or 19, however I don’t think I could cover all content needed for entering a mathematics degree by that age.

As well, would I have a lower chance of admittance being slightly older than the average student entering at, say 18 or 19 years old? I would be looking to enter into university(particularly queens), on mathematical knowledge alone.

If it is of any help, I am in the UK.

Sorry if this is not a well structured question, I am new to Academia stack exchange.

Thanks.


texts: What gets included for Continuing Professional Development?

texts:
When you are asked to list what continual professional development (CPD) you have completed in the previous 12 months, where do you draw the line on what gets included?

I would think attending a seminar on teaching skills should be included.
A new degree, diploma, certificate, etc. would certainly be included
I would think that participating on this or any other website (Academia.se) would not be included.
I would think that discussions, no matter how long or involved, would not be included.
How about reading books?
How about watching a video series specific to the position?
How about audio books?
How about reading articles?
How about research for writing articles on the subject of teaching (if you are a teacher)?

I would also think as a general rule that things done to improve a teacher's teaching or subject knowledge would count.


texts: How to access microfilm data at a university library in another country?

texts:
I am writing a research paper and need to access some data that was collected by someone long deceased. The university library that has this data is in another country, and has the data on microfilm. The data contained in the microfilm is a manuscript (not sure if that’s helpful).

How would something like this normally be handled for researchers who cannot visit the country in which the microfilm is held?
Is this a common issue for researchers?
Can microfilm be duplicated and sent over somehow, perhaps to another library?


texts: How to respond to questions about my own progress in my PhD

texts:
I'm a PhD student and sometimes it happens that my advisor will ask me how I think my PhD is going. I'm not sure how to come up with a good objective answer to this question. Mostly because I don't know if things are going to slow or fast etc.

How can I provide a good answer to this question? I guess I can point out if things are going as planned, but this doesn't really answer the question.


texts: Journal papers starting with a famous quotation

texts:
I was reading a paper in which a famous quotation appears just after the author name. The paper is: Willems, Jan C. "Paradigms and puzzles in the theory of dynamical systems." Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on 36.3 (1991): 259-294 [link], and the quotation (in german) is taken from Wittgenstein's "Tractatus".

I found it quite surprising, since it was actually the first time that I saw a famous quotation at the beginning of a technical journal paper.

Out of curiosity, I would like to know if starting with a famous quotation is a reasonably accepted practice in scientific publications. In particular, I'm interested in papers published in technical/mathematical journals.


texts: Faculty or industry applications without phd advisor's letter

texts: How is an application for an academic position seen if there is no reference letter from the graduate advisor? Are any of the potential issues for academic positions the same for industry positions? Do industry positions request letters of reference from phd advisors? I'm concerned I will not get a glowing letter from my phd advisor. Is a mediocre letter better than no letter?


texts:
What is the usual expectation of a student by an alma mater? Usually students quit after becoming a part of the alumni association. The contacts are by and large severed a few months after leaving a school.

What are some ways in which one can give something back to alma mater? Is monetary support the best way? One can also be a point of contact to current students. Are there other ways of giving back to our teachers and institutions?


texts: How to contribute to friend's mathematics paper without overshadowing?

texts:
My friend has an early draft of a math result he would like to publish.

In telling me about his results, I made an observation that significantly simplified a portion of the proof. He wanted to list me on the final publication (not as a co-author, but more of a shout out for contributing), which I was happy with. I don't plan on going into academia so publications aren't essential to my career.

However, as I've thought more about the results, I've seen more and more places where the proof could be simplified using alternate methods, to the point where the proof can be reduced to a fraction of its original size and bears little resemblance to the original.

My friend doesn't know about the new results yet and I worry it would seem like all the work he had done before was unnecessary. But his work was certainly influential as it was easier to make the observations given that I knew what the result should be.

I certainly wouldn't want to withhold my findings, so I suppose my question boils down to how should I handle telling him?


texts: How do you motivate collaborators to meet deadlines, when there is no financial incentives involved in their work?

texts:
I'm becoming frustrated with an international collaborator that has been involved in the project since early this year. He has been responsible for translating the survey into another language and we aim to use his connections (via his University) to launch the project in their area.

He has been valuable and is important to the project. I admire his insights and suggestions. However, he takes FOREVER to get anything done, often suggesting more and more unnecessary changes to our survey and delaying delivery dates indefinitely.

As final deadlines are closely approaching, I have started setting deadlines for him to meet, asking him to identify why such delays, and encouraging energy into his end to get it launched. However, the same pattern emerges - more delays, extremely long turn arounds on work, and ambiguous excuses. I'm frustrated, but I believe he will deliver eventually.

I want him to launch the survey in his area. So, the question is - How do you motivate someone who is prone to delays when there are no financial incentives involved?

I believe I need to talk frankly to him and address these concerns over the phone (we work through Skype). How do you create a conversation that is frank, but fair? When is it time to let him go?


texts: Can you export a bibtex file from zotero with links?

texts:
I have most of the papers I use often in Zotero. Before I learnt about it, I would always format my manually typed citations with \href and company such that you could click on the reference and go to the original link I got the paper from. I would disable formatting so the document looked like there were no links, but it helped me and others navigate the references more easily.
I am wondering if there is a way to configure Zotero such that when it exports a bibtex file, it also adds a reference to the stored URL.
Also, sorry if this is off topic, I am not sure where to ask, since it's not a programming, super user or latex question per se.


texts: Are results that are derived simply by using more computational power publishable?

texts:
Let's say Alice has written a paper that attacks a well-known problem in a clever new way. Her paper ends with "these methods work up to N = 10; for larger N, the calculations are prohibitively expensive".

Bob reads the paper and successfully duplicates Alice's results, but where Alice only had access to a 4-core desktop, Bob has a 4000-core supercomputer. Therefore he can calculate what Alice found prohibitively expensive, and get results up to N = 20.

Are Bob's results publishable? He didn't actually do anything special, he just had more computational power. On the other hand, the results are definitely new, and interesting (for whatever reason N = 20 is the point where interesting effects are predicted).

If they are publishable, what would Bob actually write in such a paper? Everything sans the result could effectively be communicated in one sentence ("Read Alice's paper"). If they are not publishable, how is Bob to communicate his results to the wider world?

I suspect something like this has happened in the past, in which case I'd appreciate a link to such a paper.


texts: Diverging coauthor opinions - publish anonymously or don't publish at all?

texts:
This question is a splinter of an earlier question, posted separately upon advice from commenters.

The background is:

(1) I audited a course at an institute I don't belong to. As part of the course, an essay is being written by two of us.

(2) There is a chance that this essay would be published either internally or externally (not necessarily peer-reviewed).

The problem:

My co-author and I differ (significantly) on certain areas we write about. In a sense, we represent opposite ends of the spectrum. My partner is keen to publish; I am ambivalent.

I'm bothered by questions of academic integrity, namely:

(1) Do I withdraw entirely, allowing a one-sided, uncontested opinion to be expressed? This is the easiest option.

(2) Do we submit normally, with our names and affiliations, knowing that some opinions expressed are contrary to my  own views, and may negatively impact my academic work at a later stage? While uncomfortable, this does seem fair.

(3) Do I remain anonymous, with the partner being the first author? This way we can address the divergence and bring out a contrast in perspectives, without me having to worry about long-term consequences. But I don't know if it is an accepted practice. I have come across questions on anonymity here and here, but these primarily discuss single-author work.


texts:
Currently, I am a part-time research assistant in the field of physics. My supervisor is brilliant and very nice. He always encourages me and says that I have done a great job so far. I don't know why I feel like I did not do a good job and I am very bad at research. I got stuck on something for almost three months with no progress at all, which made me start to dislike doing research.

I was dreaming about doing an MSc. and a Ph.D., and because of those feelings, I am having doubts if I enjoy doing research. Is it that I did not learn well how to do research, or that it is not meant for me? Is it possible to like doing it again with time? I want help in answering these questions to know if a Ph.D. is the right path for me...


texts: How good are "For Dummies" books in Academic Study?

texts:
I am often faced with questions in areas which cross my boundaries of knowledge. For instance, as an engineer, sometimes I am needed to study the basics of Anatomy or something like that.

This might be a temporary interest or might be permanent (There is no way of telling beforehand)

During such times, there is an option:

Go for the "proper" textbooks used by the students in that field. (Say this one :: 960 pages) and study them well.
Get a Schaum's series, Demystified or For Dummies sort of book and get over with it. (Say this one :: 450 pages). Alternately, use this as an entry point for the "better" books.

My professors have always suggested against such books because they provide no motivation for the development of a certain concept but I see that as a valid point only it is your primary field of interest. If an engineer wants to know Statistics or Anatomy, I am slightly skeptical whether such grinding is necessary.

Are such books a good resource/entry point for a new subject?

Note: All of this is under the assumption that the student is within the confines of academia.


texts: Discouraged from giving A's, but students are doing excellent work, what can a professor do?

texts:
I know somebody who works in a department that discourages giving students A's. Basically, a few years ago, there was a professor giving everybody A's. The department was labeled as a "vacation spot" at the university. This led to a hardline stand on giving A's that is in effect to this day. If a teacher gives too many A's they have to first explain themselves to the Dean. If this continues next they talk to the VP of Academics

The problem is that there are students doing excellent work. However, my friend is worried that if too many students earn an A he will not be able to convince the department of the students' merit. Yet there is an ethical concern of artificially forcing down the grades and giving some poor chap a B+ due to political pressure.

Any suggestions?


texts: Grant applications with overlapping deadlines: listing other grants one has applied for?

texts:
Often, when applying for grants, one is asked to mention other grants one has received, one has applied for, and one is going to apply for. Whereas the first point is simple, how should one handle the second and third point (other grants one has applied for, and is planning to apply for)?

My case is that there are two big grants I would like to apply for, both offering enough money to keep me going for a number of years. For both grants one has to apply in spring, and the decision is made and announced towards the end of the year. The grant would be for research and salary starting from next year.

Both grants ask the applicant to list which other grants they have applied/are going to apply for. What is the effect of listing the other big grant, if both grants can cover 100% of the costs? Does it decrease the chance to be accepted, does it affect the money that is paid out (in case of variable grants)? In general, is there a benefit of listing the other grant, or is there a risk in doing so? Are there retributions when not listing other grants one has applied for, or even applying despite not saying so during another grant application?


texts: Is it possible to do a Master's in Mathematics after a Bachelor's in Economics?

texts:
I'm currently an Economics student in my second year (only just begun).I've come to realise that I'd like to study mathematics further (pure or applied) since I'm missing the subject ever since school ended. The maths in undergraduate Economics isn't too challenging so I'm not enjoying it too much.

There isn't too much flexibility in my university (I live in India and the education system is rigid) so I do not have an option to double major in Economics and Maths. Also, I will have two allied courses of Linear Algebra and Calculus as an add-on.

I've been a fairly good student in maths so far and I've already started to take on some of the undergraduate maths courses on my own. Would a good maths GRE score be sufficient to apply to a good university in the US? Could I also apply for an M.S. in Statistics?


texts: What are the important questions to ask during an interview for an adjunct lecturer position?

texts:
Preface: I apologize if this is a duplicate question; I've searched for it and I believe my situation is distinct, since the answers I found were for post-doc or tenure-track interviews.

I'm preparing for an interview with the Dean of Instruction for an adjunct lecturer position. I've already had an informal interview with the co-chair of the department and that went really well. I prepared and asked a lot of questions in that meeting (about the student population, class size, departmental teaching philosophy, etc.) but now that they've been answered I'm not sure how to best use this formal interview. What information is useful to know about the institution, that the Dean of instruction might be able to answer? Right now my ideas are:

What skills and qualities make an adjunct successful at [institution]?
What common challenges do new adjuncts face?
What do you enjoy about working at [institution]?

Are these appropriate questions? Are there other things that it would be good for me to know/ask about, that I might be missing?


texts: Requested *contact information of two references* in application for a PhD

texts:
I just find an interesting call for a PhD position. In order to apply one has to submit, among all the standard thing as cv and transcript of records, also contact information of two references. I don't know what does this mean. Does it mean that I have to attach in the email also the contacts of two of my professors?
Regards


texts: Is it safe to show my old advisor my new paper?

texts:
I've already graduated.  I wrote a paper related to my Master's thesis.  I am planning on sending it to my adviser to ask if I should ethically include his name as an author.  He seems to be ethical as far as I can tell, but in general is something like this dangerous to do?

Edit: I am wondering if showing your paper to other people before it is published is dangerous, I am worried about things like theft, even though he seems to be reputable, now that I am no longer connected to him academically.


texts: Good practices for skipping chapters when reading

texts:
Assuming I am reading a textbook/paper or any kind of rich material and then there is a point where I feel that the chapter I am reading is unnecessary or insignificant (I can get back to it later if I am wrong) or at times unmotivated or boring, what are good practices to skip such chapters?

(Assume Math/Engineering books)

How do you make sure that the content you skipped doesn't get in the way of the subsequent chapters? (i.e. Skipping does not carry any drawbacks)


texts: Do I have to implement published algorithms in the same manner as the original source?

texts: If you want to optimize a technique used in a given publication, is it considered necessary to use the same programming language and data sets?


texts: Universities recommandations and choices

texts:
I'm a tunisian student, i have a dream to persuit masters educations in a better university in Europe, USA, UK or Canada. I have a Bachelor degree (Licentiate, BAC+3) in computer science and multimedia field and i speak and write three languages fluently(Arabic-Frensh-English).
I would like to know if a have enough chance to reach it and what to do?
Any recommandations will be helpfull.
Thank's


texts: What is the best alternative to plotting a figure with colors in an article?

texts: I would like to add this plot to my article but it has lots of colors which I'm not in favor of. This figure represents a continuous value as a function of the number of sources that has been calculated for two different categorical parameters (prior knowledge and number of voxels). I appreciate your ideas on how to modify and enhance this figure.


texts: How should I ask my advisor on help with something I should know how to do?

texts:
I am creating a mathematical model in R (programming language) as part of my thesis. I created the first part of the model no problem and sent it to my advisor. She said I did a fantastic job on it. For the second part, I need to look over some class notes as we did it in class last year. This part is very challenging and I even remember in class that I didn't fully understand it. I have been working for 3 days trying to create this model, but I am not even close. I just can't figure out the code to use. I am trying to use the same code as we did in class, but my model is quite a bit different than the class examples so I can't figure it out. I tried looking online as well, but this type of model analysis is not very common so there are not many resources available.

I need to get going on the project so it may be better to meet with my advisor so she can show me how to do it. But I am afraid to ask as this is something I should know how to do. I would like your help with drafting up an email to ask her for help.


texts: What to expect from or discuss in a Skype call about the possibility of a research position?

texts:
I'm going to have a skype call with a University Professor (Computer Science) to discuss the possibilities of working in his lab as a postdoc.

He already told me (via email) that he can not produce an open position easily. So, he wants to know me better and to discuss the possibilities and research perspectives. Honestly, I do not understand what he means by his first sentence about the difficulty of "producing an open position". Does he mean "the chances are low, but let's have a talk"?

Also, I like to discuss and find common grounds for doing prospective research. But what would be a happy ending for such a discussion? For instance, he/I suggesting to work on a proposal? or finding a research project/topic to discuss later in more detail? To be honest, I'm not sure how to lead such an (somehow) informal meeting to a more serious opportunity.


texts: High impact journals GIS and Remote Sensing

texts: I am searching for Journals in the area of GIS and Remote Sensing in agriculture and water management, with a high impact factor. It is important that these journals pay authors for their articles ... thanks in advance if you can share even one journal's link.


texts: How to find the right balance between a challenging and an enjoyable mathematics exercise session?

texts:
Next semester, I will be leading exercise sessions in a first year course of mathematics. More precisely, the course is Linear Algebra and the audience consists of young, first year undergraduate mathematics-students. The course is taught at a university in continental Europe. Judging from my personal experience, I know that most first year students of mathematics have plenty of troubles with the new, abstract material that is taught at a university. Hence, it would be good to make the student's experience in my exercise sessions as "easy" and enjoyable as possible.

However, I am not a fan of just doing simple, easy and short exercises. My opinion is that you do not make things easier for the students, if you omitt doing the hard exercises and just do the easy ones. Of course, this does not mean that everything I want to do is hard, but every now and then, something difficult will have to be discussed in the exercise sessions. Often, the hardest exercises are the most enlightening ones.

Moreover, my experience tells me that most students have wrong expectations of an exercise class: they expect to understand everything without (only a tiny bit) personal contribution and blame the instructor (which would be me in that case), if they do not understand everything. This has happened more than once to me and if I tell them that they have to work, I am considered to be the 'strict teacher', whose subject is the most important one and who does not understand that the new material is hard. I would be totally fine with that image, but this demotivates students and let them feel safe because they have someone to blame (Once, I heard the sentence "I would have understood the new material, but the exercise class was too bad and on a too high level" - in my opinion, I discussed everything in detail and pointed out which things are the most important ones and focussing on these).

In short, I find myself in the following vicious circle (it seems like you can achieve two of the three things below at a time, but not all three together):

Maximizing the students' enjoyment level (i.e., they should understand as much as possible and just have a good time during my exercise class)
Doing an exercise class which is on a reasonable (not too high, but also not too low) level
Keep the students motivated and tell them quite clearly, that they have to work to understand the new material

Or - in very short - the question is: Which aspects constitute a good exercise class (in mathematics) and which of these aspects are the most important ones?


texts: Are best-paper awards for conferences rigged/pre-decided?

texts:
Recently I had an acceptance from a very good conference in our field. Three out of four reviewers gave excellent comments, while one gave a poor comment.
I was telling my friend that if I had had one more good/excellent review, I could be considered for the best-paper award.

He told me that usually best-paper awards are already fixed and given to the person of the organizer's choice i.e. if the organizers want to invite a distinguished professor, they award their paper etc. etc. So even if I had  had an excellent review from the 4th reviewer, there was no chance of getting the award.

What is the backdoor working of best-paper awards - how are they selected?


texts: Ethical implications of withdrawing a paper during the rebuttal phase and submitting it somewhere else

texts:
I have submitted a paper at a certain conference that has a rebuttal phase (authors are presented with initial reviews and can write a rebuttal, which will be used for the final decision). Based on the reviews, it seems that the chances for the paper being accepted are zero. The submission system of the conference has a "Withdraw" button, which makes it easy to withdraw the paper and submit it to another conference. I intend to make use of that option, after using the available reviews to significantly improve the paper.

To my surprise, a senior colleague explained to me that doing so might be considered unethical. The explanation was one could see it as a wasteful use of reviewer time, comparable to a double submission.

This explanation did not really get clear to me: Assuming that I use the reviewer comments to improve the paper, I have used the reviewer time in the intended way. The situation would be exactly the same as if the paper had been rejected right away, and I had proceeded to submit to another conference.

Am I missing something? What are the ethical implications here?


texts: When to tell current employer that I want to quit and switch to a different PhD

texts:
I am currently employed as a scientific employee at a research institute, which means I get a salary but am not currently working on a PhD. Originally I planned to begin my PhD at this institute within the first year of my employment (beginning right away was not possible).

However, since I began this position I realized more and more that I did not enjoy the work and therefore I do not want to start do my PhD at this institute and instead look for different PhD positions in a related field at the same university.

However, I do not want to quit on the spot and look for a new position because

Finding a new PhD position might take a long time because there aren't a lot of open positions and it is not easy (for me at least) to even be considered and I am not sure if I can find a position at all. This means if I quit on the spot I would have to live without a salary for 2-6 months (after this time I would most likely just cave in and look for a job in industry which I assume will be a lot easier).
The people at my current job have been nothing but nice to me and I don't want to upset them by quitting before I can at least finish some of my open projects and give them some time to find somebody to replace me.

Another alternative would be to not quit on the spot but instead to look for a new position "secretly". I am not sure how I feel about this option because it feels very insincere and I would be afraid that someone could find out about it (since I am looking for positions at the same university)

For these reasons, I assumed that telling my current supervisor about me wanting to quit at some point in the future but offering to stay for the intermediate period is in both our best interests.

The problem I have is that I have a feeling that in the period after telling them, the work environment will be very awkward because they will be aware that I do not like the job and am just doing it for the salary.
Also, I am currently assuming that I wouldn't immediately be "fired" after telling them that I am looking for something else. If this assumption isn't true then not telling them would be the much smarter move.

Is there anyone who could give advice and confirm my suspicion that telling them openly that I will look for new positions is indeed the best move or tell me why it isn't?


texts: Appropriate chemical journal for the synthesis and biological activities of only one (novel) compound with promising antioxidant activities

texts:
I have designed and prepared one compound by organic synthesis (one reaction - routine synthesis). The compound was prepared as a "model" compound to prepare more derivatives or use it as a ligand if the preliminary biological tests proved to be promising.
Indeed, the compound was proved to have very interesting biological activities as antioxidant and also interacted interestingly with DNA.
The problem is that I have abandonded this project at least for now. I am not planning to synthesize more and there is no availability to perform biological tests if I would prepare any more.
Given that in medicinal chemistry journals it is required that you have a structure activity relationships study with a series of products, in biological chemistry journals it is required that more advanced tests have been done and that the synthesis in nothing special, my question is:
Can you propose specific journal(s) that I could publish the (very good-but preliminary) results of this one (novel) compound?
To make it easier, I would say that with these results, if the compound was a metal complex with X-ray analysis, I think it could be published easily in Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry. (as an example)
I was thinking of an interdisciplinary journal with low-to-medium IF, like ChemistrySelect, but I'm not sure. Any suggestions?


texts: What should I do to make the most of a stopgap postdoc position offered by my PhD supervisor?

texts:
I am a PhD in computational materials science, and I have been offered a stop gap postdoc position (at the moment for 6 months) by my PhD supervisor which I will be starting a month after my defense. Now, I have many manuscripts pending for submission and getting them out will be the highest priority for the next couple of months. But apart from that and searching for new opportunities, what should be my prime focus during this duration? My advisor is a handsoff person and will give me full freedom to pursue my interests. I want to stay in academia.

My plan:
I want to upgrade my python programming skills and experience (I will be actively participating in kaggle competitions), and also want to work in incorporating machine learning in my field of research (something that is being done in my field). I also have to work on my technical knowledge and improve my experience with the numerical method I have used in my PhD research.

Keeping all this in mind,

Summarizing:

  Will it be a good move for my academic career to explore new topics
  during this short postdoc position, try to publish something in an
  area I would like to work in the near future? Focus on get my pending
  papers out and learn new skills along the way?

I am really serious about this and I am confident that I can put my 100% effort in the work. My question is, as an experienced academic, what is your opinion on my plan?


texts: What is appropriate compensation for faculty mentors in an REU program?

texts: With colleagues, I'm applying for an NSF-funded mathematics REU site at my institute.  In putting together the budget, it's easy to see how much is an appropriate stipend for student participants, because student stipends are published on the recruiting sites for other REUs.  However, I wondered if other faculty on this site who have been involved in an REU could provide a ballpark as to what is a usual rate of compensation for faculty mentors (over the course of a 10-week program, pairs of faculty mentors in complementary disciplines would guide teams of 4 students).  I don't want to undercompensate faculty mentors, but at the same time, the main portion of the budget is meant to support student participants, so there must be some sweet spot in there.  Any input based on recent experience would be much appreciated!  Thank you!


texts: Can I use someone’s answer from a StackExchange site in my publication (journal paper)?

texts:
I think the answer is no but I want to know more details about this.

Suppose, I asked a very complicated question on one of the Stackexchange sites (e.g, Mathematics) which relates to my research and I got a good answer from someone. I modified that answer or reframed the answer in my own words, but the idea is not from me. I now want this part of my research get published in a journal.

Should I contact the person who answered my question and get agreement or whatelse should I do? I think I cannot directly submit this work to a journal with the idea for the answer on Stack Exchange, right? So if I want the result get published, what I should do?


texts: What are the chances for an H4 international masters student to get a teaching job at a US community college?

texts:
I have a B.E Civil Engineering and M.tech Environmental Engineering degree from India. Also I have 2 years of teaching experience in an Engineering college in India. Currently I am residing in US. Is it possible for me to get a teaching job in community colleges? How should I prepare myself to get a teaching job here?

To clarify: I have an H4 visa.


texts: Is it common to ask students to help the teacher in the teacher's normal duties?

texts:
It seems quite common for other teachers at my university (in Asia) to have students help with what are the normal duties of a teacher. Examples range from asking a student to help carry one of many stacks of books (because the teacher cannot carry all of them) to asking students to carry very small things (which the teacher could easily carry but the teacher would prefer not to carry anything at all and let the student do it) to having students complete marking sheets for graded assignments (where the teacher has already decided what the marks should be but prefers to have a student do the typing and printing).

It's very strange for me because I've never seen it in my own culture (which doesn't mean it doesn't happen), but I'm not Asian so perhaps I'm just not yet adjusted to the local culture.

Do most universities allow a teacher to put some of the teacher's regular duties on the shoulders of some students?

Note: This has nothing to do with teaching assistants, I'm just talking about regular students who appear willing to help (either to learn/understand more, to get in good graces with the teacher, or perhaps for other reasons I cannot see at this time).

[EDIT] I've modified the questions slightly away from ethics towards being common due to concerns from other users feeling it was too much of a discussion / opinion question.


texts:
When writing a thesis or a research paper in general, is it advisable to include "time-specific measures" like

  [...] over the course of the last five years [...]

or

  Two years ago, it was discovered [...]

?

After all, if it is a working paper which gets published in a journal a few years after completion, the reader might get a wrong idea about when certain events happened in the past.

I wonder whether it is acceptable to include them nonetheless.


texts:
Crelle's Journal is a nickname of a Mathematics Journal, and it's full name is "Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik". It's commonly called Crelle since it is founded in 1826 by August Leopold Crelle.

Now I want to cite a paper in Crelle, but I realize that in the official page they also include (Crelle Journal) in the citation information, for an example see here. On the other hand, some mathematicians once told me that it is "pretty weird" to see the nickname being used.

So my question is, is it common to include (Crelle) in the citation? Or, how official is the name Crelle's journal?


texts: How to remove citations from Google Scholar profile?

texts:
As the number of citations to some of my articles recently increased, I took a look to see who cites me among the articles listed on Google Scholar. To my surprise I found that I was cited in a document describing talks in a conference and in a curriculum vitae. These two citations are not "real" so I would like to remove them.

Do you know how can we remove some of the citations from the Google Scholar profile?


texts: Is it better to do an MBA with some work experience?

texts: I wish to pursue my MBA in a premier business school. Is it better to go straight from my graduation (B.Tech in CS) or get some work experience and then go on with MBA?


texts: Publish own work online, ethics and platform

texts: My question is similar to this. If someone wants to publish his work in the medical field, for free but without a review process, how is this seen by the academic world? Are there any online services or platforms that provide this service? Is this usually seen as a problem by the institution in which one may work?


texts: My work was published before me. What should I do?

texts:
Some time ago I switched departments within the same institution. Before leaving I had an idea of a paper and started to work on it. I shared my thoughts on it with my then-coworkers and they praised it. So now, after I settled things in a new department, I continued to work on that paper and completed it. Before submitting anywhere, I decided to look for a new papers relevant to my work.

To my surprise, I have found a paper with my idea (implemented in a somewhat narrower sense) by several of my previous coworkers, with whom I have discussed it. Without my name on the paper of course. The paper was published a few month after I left, so they probably started to work on it immediately after I left.

Most (if not all) conversations were done verbally, so I don't have any proof that I am the original author, and I also don't know any authority that I can go to and explain the issue.

What bothers me is if I publish the paper now (even in a broadened version of it) it would look suspicious to an external observer, as if we (together with ex-coworkers) are trying to overuse and multiply a single result or even worse that I'm plagiarizing over their work. As we are in the same institution and had previously coauthored some works, nobody will believe similar papers are a coincidence or a an independent inventions. (And they would be right. It's not.) I think that in the worst case it can destroy my reputation and career, or maybe it's a non-issue and I'm worrying too much.

I can see several possible extensions and further research paths to the paper. But if I'll try to develop these ideas and publish an advanced version of the paper, there is no guarantee that they aren't doing the same. They could even had already submitted them somewhere. And if I submit my version, the reviewers may reject it because of its similarity to theirs. This again can be devastating to me.

What options I have, as I see it:

Pretend I don't know about their work, and publish mine as fully original, without citing them. Even if it's still a more general view on the subject and I know I'm the original author, it doesn't seem ethical to me. And we're still in the same institution, what make things worse.
Do more research, make more advanced paper and cite them accordingly. But they may even have submitted an advanced version somewhere. I can't be sure if I'm overlapping with them or not.
Change the field of study completely to not overlap with them in the future. Seems to be an overreaction.
Change the institution and then publish. Will it help? I'd still be their co-author-in-the-past. Seems not to be a solution at all.
Mention them in the acknowledgements. Thank them for praising my work, and cite them through a footnote. After all, what acknowledgements are for if not to thank your colleagues? But I doubt any editor will let it pass.

TL;DR Several of my ex-coworkers rushed to publish my ideas as their own while I was working on these ideas. I worry that my future publications on the theme would overlap with theirs and be considered a plagiarism.

So what should I do? Am I right that my wrong actions could possibly damage my reputation and career?

UPD. Thank you for your answers, I see that I have to cite the paper by the old department researchers (still not sure how: through a regular citation or a footnote in the acknowledgements), but I'm not really convinced and just want to be sure that I would not get into any (more) trouble if I'll continue to do research on the topic (especially in the case when editor/reviewers will get similar papers from different people with the same affiliation). Maybe someone has had such an experience as a reviewer?


texts: Should the fullstop go inside or outside the brackets for Harvard in-line citations?

texts:
I was always taught to put the fullstop inside the brackets, but a couple of Harvard in-line citations I'm seeing put the fullstop outside, e.g.

  (Hyvönen, 2007; Joshi, 2001; Kaplan, 1984).

Is this correct, or should it be:

  (Hyvönen, 2007; Joshi, 2001; Kaplan, 1984.)


texts: ResearchGate: removing wrong uploaded article without affecting no. reads/citations

texts:
I recently noticed that the wrong article was uploaded to ResearchGate by a co-author several years ago (the title describes the article from a conference proceedings, but the uploaded paper was a journal article). It has a number of citations and reads.

I want to remove the wrongly uploaded journal article and upload the correct conference article, but I am not sure if removing the journal article will remove the no. of reads and citations that the paper has received over the years. Does removing the article also remove the no. of reads and citations?


texts: UK Transferable skills programs, where has this scourge originated and how to complain about it?

texts:
If you are part of academia in the UK, either as a teacher, postdoc or PhD student, you might have had to fulfill some departmental requirement for transferable skills.

For those who have never came into contact with such a scheme, it singles out a set of skills that one does or should gain while in academia and can be ported. Here's a fairly tipical list from Cambridge.

While commendable in theory, for what I have witnessed in my university this programs are mostly useless (I still have to find a single colleague saying otherwise), which in turn means that they represent a huge waste of resources. Non trivial amount of money are spent to pay "teachers" and admin to make these courses run. Indirectly, time that could be devoted to research is instead spent to do something else, up to the  ridiculous extreme  of people being administered Myers Briggs personality test (this being an example of the activities in courses where you learn teamwork ).

Where does the provision for such programs stem from? Is it a law, a document by some ministry suggesting to adopt this programs, is it just some buzzword that made its way into academia and survives thanks to the money it funnels into the pocket of those who take part in it?

Secondly, as there is no feedback to be given on the program as a whole (I have no trouble imagining why) which would be the typical person or office to bring complaints? I know this is a lost battle, as these programs are carefully designed to appear useful that have to implement them (but don't experience them first hand) , but just out of curiosity.


texts: Will a publication in one subfield of my discipline help me get into graduate school in a different subfield?

texts:
I am a psychology undergrad student. I am currently working on a project that will be submitted for publication later this year. However, the project I am working on is in the sub-field of psychology that is not of my interest (environmental psychology). I am planning to apply for PhD programs in social/personality psych. (Sadly I didn't get a chance to conduct a research project in that field.)

Although my publication could be a strong evidence for my research potential, my concern is that this publication is irrelevant to my research of interest. Thus, how can I convince the grad school that I am a good candidate for the social/personality field?


texts: Was it a mistake to act more interested in a potential advisor's work than I actually am

texts:
I am a prospective PhD student who is applying to several schools.

A couple months ago I spoke with an advisor from a school I was somewhat interested in.  We talked for quite a while, and he seemed really interested in taking me on as a student, to the point where I'm pretty confident about it.

The thing is, especially after researching his background, I'm really only interested in his older work; the project he's working on now doesn't excite me nearly as much as I acted like it did.  I the excitement of speaking to a professor from a prestigious university made me so enthusiastic.

I like much of this Professor's other work, but he seems really passionate about this project and I'm unfortunately not.  I'd be willing to work on it a little, but I couldn't imagine dedicating myself to it.

I guess I really have two questions:

If I did get into this University, how likely would I be to have to work on this project?  Either by getting a different advisor or by working with this professor on something else.  Obviously this depends on the situation, but maybe there's some general advice that applies?
How do I go forward?  I don't want to pretend to be interested in something I'm not, but I definitely don't want to ruin my chances.

Thanks for any advice.


texts: Should I switch groups if my postdoc group leader is guaranteed coauthorship regardless of contribution?

texts:
I started to work as a PostDoc two years ago (2 more years of funding left) and our group leader is guaranteed a coauthorship of nearly every publication in the group, even if she does nothing. I am aware of answers here saying that such a thing is unethical, however the situation will not change in the group as the PI enforces this behavior as a rule. She is aiming at a tenure, he is helping her out. Note that I have addressed this directly.

This is starting to annoy me because for every result I publish, I have to declare the colleague as a coauthor even though she does nothing to help me. I have worked in the industry long enough to know how complaining about this to higher instances will reflect on my carreer - both the PI and the colleague are well connected in the industry.

I really love academic research, trying out really new things, conferences, battling the reviews and all that, but I am starting to think that academia is not the option for me. Should I switch groups, take on another PostDoc position and hope I dont land in another nepotistic situation?


texts: "Competing interests" not disclosed? retraction?

texts:
I have recently come across this paper in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17419-7
From the authors’ affiliations and corresponding email it seems like all authors are employees of Babylon (a health technology company) but the authors state in the “Competing interests” section that “The authors declare no competing interests.” even though they are evaluating their own product and give themselves an outstandingly good evaluation.
The journals “competing interests” policy states:
“Funding
Research support to the author or their institution (including salaries, equipment, supplies and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through this publication. A specific role for the funder in the conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript, should be disclosed.
Employment
Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment
by any organization that may gain or lose financially through this publication.”
https://www.nature.com/documents/nr-competing-interests.pdf
I wonder how it is academically legal to still state “The authors declare no competing interests.”? Is this not the mother of all competing interests? Especially in a respected journal like Nature Communications?
EDIT:
I found this here:
"Editors should consider retracting a publication if:
[...]
The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a. conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers."
https://publicationethics.org/node/19896
Should I contact the editor? Is this really a reason to retract this paper?


texts: How does the testing method and possibility of cheating in an entirely online degree affect the value of the degree?

texts:
Although my question can't be answered absolutely, I'll try to state it in a way that's as close as possible.

I'm considering earning an entirely online Software Engineering bachelors degree from a school which also has an on-campus equivalent. But, most importantly: my exams will be all closed book.

It's very easy to cheat with closed book tests, I expect; even if they try to prevent it, just use a second PC or a virtual machine.

Because of how easy it is to cheat with this method of testing, is it a strong indicator that potential employers will place little value on my degree?


texts: General education requirements across U.S. universities

texts:
Is there any study / database / etc, that documents what commonalities there are amongst different American universities?

A department at my university is trying to remove my department's courses from the general education requirements, which besides being absurd in today's society, would make us unique for public schools in the state.  I was curious if there was a go-to place to look this up nationally without needing to do an expansive survey of random universities, so that we could see to what extent the requirement is (or isn't) across the country, or our peer institutions at the least (we're a regional university).


texts: Is it safe to post my CV online (with my physical address included)?  Should I be worried about identity theft in doing so?


texts: Any particular date when Postdoc decisions are announced in European universities?

texts:
I am applying for postdoc jobs, in particular, I am interested in jobs out of the U.S.

I have a few questions:

Is there any particular date when Postdoc decisions are announced in European universities?
I heard that many universities will make offers after the AMS deadline (on Feb. 3rd), and suggest we email universities asking about the status.
Do the European Universities also follow the AMS coordinated deadline?
Do you suggest we email Universities right now, or is it better to wait until after the deadline?
What do you say when you email universities? Just asking about status, or saying that we are still interested in their jobs? Or what?


texts: Main argumentation in introductory chapter of Phd thesis?

texts:
I am in my last year of my PhD and start focusing on writing my thesis. In the course of my PhD I had to apply twice for external funding, in which I - thanks God - succeeded.

I believe that part of that success was - aside of the "hot" topic - the way I presented my research. I wrote roughly 10 pages in style of a paper, where I had an abstract (5-6 phrases about my research answering the 5 common w-questions) for those who had just 1 minute to spare. However, instead of presenting my text of 8 pages right away, I added first a text of about 1,5 pages in which I wrote about my research in categories like motivation, research gap, my approach and contribution, research questions, method, time and work schedule in greater detail for those who had about 4 minutes to spare.

Is it good practice, a good idea to do the same for my PhD thesis, presenting the major argumentative path in the first chapter "Introduction" on perhaps max. 5 pages? My idea is that the reader (supervisors) do not need to read the entire dissertation to understand/identify the major arguments (but obviously need to, for him/her to challenge my entire work) and to not get tempted to only read the conclusions of each chapter to prevent that they get a sided idea (just in case).

My idea is basically to allow the reader to follow my entire argumentation easier, not to help them skip pages or save them time (like in the case of the funding application).


texts: Why is the phrase "including but not limited to" used in conference announcements?

texts:
There are so many conference announcements that use the phrase

  the topics of interests include but are not limited to

I honestly cannot understand why such phrase is used. The announcment already lists more than 20 topics and then declares that the topics are not limited to the listed ones.
I have two questions related to this issue:

Why lot of topics are listed if they do not limit the topics of submissions?
Does listing these topics mean that the submissions about listed topics are given higher priority?


texts: Theoretical paper without implementation and results

texts:
I got an idea for a research paper in the field of Computer Science, the topic related was about computer networks. At the beginning, I was working with a colleague who had a lot of background in programming networks protocols, but the problem was that due to some other tasks of him he had to left the project.

Now the problem is that I do not have anybody with the programming networks skills enough to continue with this research, so I decided to turn it into a theoretical paper; like the ones that are presented in other fields like math.

I would like to know, in a bird's eye, what should I include so that my research would be considered and not rejected because it is missing the experimental part. I have based my article in theoretical parts of CS such as graph theory and so on.

Any advice?


texts:
A similar question exists here however I don't feel that answers my specific question. Other questions on this topic seem to explain why "we" is primarily used in academic writing, which I understand.

However, one part of my thesis is reviewing work I studied during the first half of my master's year, not the research I did. In this context I feel I should use "I did this..." or "I read..." etc. Not we, like I use in the research part.

So should I be using "I" when reviewing the subjects/topics I studied? As opposed to introducing the research I did in which case I use "We"


texts:
I am currently finishing my MSc degree in Mathematics (Applied Stochastics) and looking into the different opportunities I have for doing a PhD in Biostatistics (or Statistics) abroad. The USA is one of the countries I am looking into. However, I am not entirely sure what to expect from trying to get into the USA for a PhD, and actually doing a PhD there.

While in a number of EU countries, the PhD candidate is treated as an employee and gets paid a salary and enjoys certain benefits, the financial context of a PhD study in the USA is not entirely clear to me. I know I would need to look for funding (which I don't know how and where either yet), but what can I realistically expect? So far I am still debt-free and would continue to be so if I were to go to a country where PhD students are paid a salary, but is hoping to have a (relatively) debt-free PhD study in the USA realistic? Would I need a loan if I were to get into for example Berkeley? Overall, looking for funding seems a stressful part of doing a PhD in the USA, or does it turn out to be easier than I seem to think?


texts: For most journals, do peer reviewers expect common notions such as arithmetic mean to be formally defined?

texts: If making use of standard statistical notions such as arithmetic mean, do peer reviewers still expect to see a formal definition such as μ = ( Σ Xi ) / N, or is the notion so common that it'd be redundant to define it this way?


texts: Grad school in science that takes non-scientific applicants?

texts:
If you are going for a humanities grad degree, either scientific or humanities undergrad could get in as long as they get good GRE score (I think.)

Not the case for scientific graduate studies, as the applicant would most likely need to be experienced in lab work and have solid scientific understanding, proven by their undergrad coursework.

Would graduate programs in scientific fields consider a person with no scientific background for even a conditional admission?


texts: What is the impact of gaps on CV in academic job search?

texts:
I have recently been offered an industry position in the US (we live on another continent).  My wife is a an academic, with a position roughly equivalent to tenure-track asst professor in the US system. If we move to the US, she would likely take 1-2 years off (she's too busy right now to go on the job market this round).  She has a decent, but not amazing publication record: Google counts 16 publications, 310 citations and an H-index of 9 - this is in applied mathematics.  The publications she has are of fairly high quality, but because of various pressures related to childcare and starting her academic position, she hasn't published much in the last 2-3 years.  Her PhD was at a high quality institution (think, Harvard-like but non-US) with a highly regarded supervisor, she did a postdoc at Harvard.  She also has very good student evaluations.

So my question is - what would the impact of a 2 year gap be on an application to an academic institution, and how should it be addressed?  In answering, I'm most interested in the opinion of people who have been on hiring committees, and I'd like to know whether you're coming from a research institution or a liberal arts college (or something else altogether).


texts:
More generally, what "workflow" do people suggest when dealing with web articles in research?

I used to always save useful articles as PDFs to my Documents folder, and maybe copy and paste useful information I found to a word processor document. I have realized this is inefficient for a number of reasons, and found simply bookmarking useful articles and organizing those bookmarks in a nested file system (in Safari) to be a more elegant, clean work process.
Is there any similar minimalist process for annotating those web articles? I know Evernote and others have a web annotator, but I'm hesitant to deal with external software... a feature integrated into Safari would be ideal.

Can anyone recommend how they deal with web articles when researching?


texts: Are there any (online) communities for independent researchers?

texts:
Perhaps a bit of background on myself is useful in this case. I've obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in pure mathematics and applied mathematics, respectively. Although I would like to do a PhD on a topic that is somewhat related to these fields, I suspect I will not be able to obtain a position due to my GPA (7.0 out of 10) and limited amount of contacts in academia (I've graduated almost two years ago).

Despite of the limited perspectives for an academic career, I still have loads of ideas for research, and I'm eager to publish articles as an independent researcher in my spare time. More often than not, however, the research ideas only partially pertain to my area of expertise. Usually, I would like to apply some statistical methods to do research in some social science. For instance, I'd like to do a statistical comparison on the holocaust victims of different countries, or on the methods through which the media can influence governments.

While I may be quite good at formulating research questions and doing statistical analyses, I often lack the relevant domain expertise to substantiate the article with relevant information, and relate it to prior research in the area. Therefore, I would like to work together with people who are more knowledgeable in these fields, and write papers together.

Being outside academia, however, often makes it difficult to find people who'd like to collaborate with me. Thus, I wonder whether there is some international community of independent scholars. Preferably, this community would be backed by some website through which I can find like-minded researchers who'd like to work with me. Ideally, the website would have some kind of SE-like interface, through which on can propose ideas for articles. Then, others can respond to the idea, and "matches" between researchers can be made.

Having a background in mathematics, I know of the so-called Polymath Project for massively collaborative mathematical projects. This is related to, but not exactly, what I'm looking for. For one, it is restricted to mathematics. Moreover, it is not especially geared towards independent researchers, and the concept is not to have some kind of match-making system for researchers and their ideas.

Questions

Do you know whether an international community of independent researchers exists?
Is it backed by the website I've just described?
Are there any projects like this currently under development, or have they existed in the past?
If it doesn't exist (yet), do you think it's a good idea to create such a community and website, and do you have suggestions to make it a thriving, long-term community?


texts: How to make academic life bearable under stressing circumstances?

texts:
I have been teaching a humanities course at a higher education institution for about more than three years now. I am expected to get full tenure this year. Perhaps it is the only chair dedicated to my field in my country; it is certainly the only one in the subfield I teach. In other words, yes, I am the only professor who teaches that subject in the whole country, and the only professor totally dedicated to teaching and researching in the broader field of study. However, before I took the position, I was not specialized in the subfield I teach now. At the moment, my research and publications in field A are split between subfields A1 (in which I pursued research for my MA and PhD) and A2 (my new teaching position). To complicate things, I am in a multidisciplinary department in another field.

There is no available teaching position in my whole field (A) in the whole country in the foreseeable future (say, 10-15 years, unless a miracle happens). I could teach in related fields, and that is what I am doing (and plan to do in better conditions in the not-so-distant future).

The conditions under which I work might be described as both appalling and depressive. I know there are worse conditions in my country; and I know that I earn just as much as anyone else, but that is not the issue. The issue is having no perspective of future research; virtually no intellectual life; almost no contact with other faculty. There is only one room for more than 18 professors in the department; in it there are some 5 computers, 3 of which do not function. The library does not have the books I need for my basic, mandatory course -- in fact, it only has one textbook I use in class! I have to make do with articles and books from the Internet, when and if available. Grants and funding are virtually non-existent. I am in debt because of a conference in which a paper of mine was accepted. After that, I could not attend 3 international conferences because there was no funding.

So, in the end, my question is this: is there any way (attitudes, habits) to make academic life more bearable under these circumstances? Should I give up research and focus on teaching basic subjects, at the risk of fading into oblivion for not publishing?

A note:
I cannot just "run away", because, as I said before, there is no way I can find a similar job anywhere. I have been trying to busy my mind with other part-time activities, so as not to worry or stress too much, but that also leaves the feeling that my "real" job is useless, or worse: a fake.


texts: Concerned about REU eligibility given new graduation plans

texts:
My school recently developed a 1-year, intensive Masters program in Mathematics following the typical undergraduate B.A. In an effort to get more experience with more advanced math, I've decided to participate in the program. However, I've been told several times that I should apply for and (if accepted) participate in a summer REU. Yet, in order to work on my Masters, I must officially graduate from undergrad, which (I think) renders me ineligible for many (if not all) REUs.

Without an REU, I am concerned how my overall profile for graduate school admissions will be negatively effected. I have some modest research experience and possibly will have a paper published with a professor (though that is TBD). Between the summer of my junior and senior year then, what can I do to stay productive in math? How can I continue to better myself as a candidate for graduate school? Am I correct in assuming that I am now completely ineligible for REUs?

Thank you for your time.


texts: Should one update a manuscript to current state-of-art when re-submitting?

texts:
Publishing in a journal is a long process that might take a lot of time (> 1 year), and is possibly involved of several phases (submit, re-submit, re-re-submit...)

As the time passes, things change. Specifically, new results appear.

What should one do with the new stuff that happens between resubmissions?

Do one needs to cite / refer to papers that first appeared after the original date submission?
Do one needs to update citations to papers that on the date of the original submission appeared only on arXiv, but now appear in a journal (those possibly slightly different than the original work cited in the original submission)?

EDIT:
 maybe one should wait for acceptance, and only then do the updates?


texts: Undergraduate thesis quality in research field

texts:
I'm a graduated student who is trying to continue his education with a Master or possibly a PhD. Surfing the net, I noticed that to enroll for some PhDs an example of writing is required. I successfully completed my bachelor degree (as required) with a thesis about a proposed topic. I wrote it entirely in English, which is pretty uncommon for many colleagues from my country, but my work didn't show promising results. Long story short, my algorithms aren't really good.

Is that something common or it's a sign of demerit? Doing research for an undergraduate thesis and ending with bad results, is this something that you should avoid speaking about when asked about previous research experiences?


texts: What to do (years later) with otherwise good student who has accidentally plagiarised part of PhD thesis?

texts:
Here's a not so hypothetical situation. International student x is very talented but comes from a background where technical writing is not taught or understood very well. She writes a great thesis with a good literature review and nice results. However, the results are based on two key papers from previous students in the group. She decides to give credit to the papers in a special chapter, which she starts by saying "I need to give credit to this and that paper" and proceeds with copying paragraphs wholesale to describe what those other students did.

This was a few years back; X is now faculty at a good school and she contacts me (past advisor) in teary-terrified voice to let me know that she plagiarized in her thesis. I am now in a panic as well. How could I miss those? And how could she do that?? We both risk losing our jobs, and she is at risk of losing her degree as well (which, by the way, was a very strong thesis with a good number of top journal publications).

As far as I know there's no process for revising a thesis after it's been submitted and I don't know what else to do short of turning ourselves in - which I feel morally obligated to do.

Please advise.

Edit
Thanks all for weighing in on this. I spent the night going through the thesis and there appear to be three more sources that are suspect of being plagiarized, all in the same wretched chapter; one is a thesis of a colleague, the other is a textbook and the third is a book I wrote a while back. So this is more serious than I thought.

She has unfortunately not used quotes for the material, i.e., instead of saying "[paper i] says ," she just went on with "[paper i] says this and that."

She has not been accused of plagiarism by anybody. I am guessing that she has finally come to grips with good writing standards and upon looking through her thesis she realized that her "summary" was actually plagiarism. I have every reason to believe that she did what she did in good faith (she has proven her honesty on many occasions).


texts: What research explains political attitudes of academics?

texts:
According to the Times of Higher Education, there are more liberals* than conservatives in the social sciences. The ratio of Democrats to Republicans in economics is 5:1, in law it is 9:1, in psychology 17:1, in journalism 20:1, and in history a whopping 33:1.

From my experience, this trend extends outside the social sciences, i.e. to the humanities and the natural sciences, although it may be strongest in the former. I don't have data handy to back this up.

Is there any serious empirical research into why professionals in academia are more likely to vote democratic than the average of the population? If so, what are the main explanations? (Candidates could be self-selection, socialization, or confounding variables like income and education.)

  Moderator’s notice: As per this meta discussion, all answers to this question must provide external references. Please avoid any discussion about politics (rule of thumb: it should not be possible to deduce your political opinion from your writing). Answers and comments not adhering to this will be deleted without warning.


texts: Whether to indicate "job sharing" option in application

texts:
I am applying for a job that in the call mentions that the university supports "job sharing and advancement of dual-career couples".  My partner and I are applying both to that position (we have similar qualifications).  Should we indicate in our respective application letters that we are interested in the job sharing option in any way?  Or is that something that will come up later in the process?
What if one of us gets invited for a job interview but not the other?  If one of us is a stronger candidate, might it hurt the other if we indicate the job sharing option?  (We also have coauthored papers together, so reviewers should find out pretty quickly that we're related in some way.)
Any input would be much appreciated.


texts: Postdocs (Bioinformatics/NGS data science) from university of Toronto get Salary or stipend

texts:
I am bit puzzled, regarding the payment made to postdocs in Canada. I am a PhD and in my first postdoc (Europe). For my next assignment, I am in my final stages of negotiating a position of postdoc at University of Toronto. I looked over some advertisements for the position that said the salary will range from 60k to 80k.

My first question is:

In general the postdocs associated with UHN are awarded salary or stipend?
How much salary can I expect as this is my second postdoc (I need to run a family of 4, in Toronto)?

I know from my past experience that salaries can be negotiated, depending upon the need of hiring PI and your eagerness to join the team.

Could anyone provide me with inputs.

Many thank's in advance.


texts: Adding a citation after paper is accepted

texts:
I am a junior researcher in mathematics.
I worked simultaneously on proving Theorem A and Theorem B. They both generalize Theorem X in two different directions. Theorem X was proved several years ago (not by me). The proofs of Theorem A and Theorem B use very different techniques, and so I decided ahead of time to write one paper for each.

I finished proving Theorem A before I finished proving Theorem B. Then, I submitted Paper A to a journal (and the arXiv) proving Theorem A. Paper A includes a survey of related problems in the introduction. After a short while, I managed to prove Theorem B, and two months after the submission of Paper A, I submitted Paper B (to a different journal, and also to the arXiv). Now, six months after the submission of Paper A, it is accepted with requests for minor corrections. There is no response yet regarding Paper B.

  In this situation, is it a reasonable/common to add one/two sentences to the survey in introduction of Paper A, explaining and citing the arXiv prepreint of Paper B, in addition to the minor corrections the referees asked for? (and letting the editor and referees know that I did that in my answer to their reports which comes along with the corrected manuscript).

Note that I am not asking if it is ok to cite a preprint. This is something I do, and so do other people, at least in math. My question is about making a change, after acceptance, which was not asked by the referees and the editor.


texts: Changing methods/ methodologies mid-project

texts:
Is changing research methods/ methodologies in the middle of running a research project a good thing? Are there any best practices for doing so?
Links to projects that document a methodological shift mid-project would be much appreciated.


texts: What's the difference of personal statement for funding and for admission?

texts: I am applying for a Ph.D. position in the UK. However,after I submitted my admission application, I found that the funding application requires another personal statement. What's the difference? Could I just submit the same one? Or I could write one based on my admission personal statement?


texts: Is it bad style if a section has exactly one subsection?

texts:
In a discussion on why subsubsections are evil, egreg comments:

  If you have subsubsections, you must have at least two of them in a subsection; you must have at least two subsections and, of course, at least two sections. Draw the tree and you'll understand.

When I'm writing long texts, such as for my thesis, I might have sections that contain only one subsection.  For example:

5.3 Topic X

... bla intro bla ...

5.3.1 Special Case in Topic X

... bla detail bla ...

Is it considered bad style to have 5.3.1, but no 5.3.2?  Should I rather put the bla intro bla in a 5.3.1 Introduction and have the special case in 5.3.2?  What are the general approaches here, what is considered good or bad style, and why?


texts: Teaching Citation: Are there any Journals which Fully Apply APA, MLA or Chicago Citation Rules

texts:
I'm interested in doing a little casual survey.  As many of us have been through undergraduate training where citation rules are expected to be applied exactly, and sometimes even marked as if they were mathematical equations, I'm wondering if all that learning is even worth it.  Does anybody know of any major or middle-level journals which actually demand any of the major citation systems to be applied, or do all such journals have in-house systems?

If most journals do demand strict adherence to any of the style manuals then it follows that there is good reason to teach such systems, but if none or few do, then these systems should not be taught as they are but adapted to what is actually practiced.


texts: How good is the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics? (http://www.ijpam.eu/)

texts:
I had recently submitted my paper to this journal on the advise of my guide and quite fortunately, I received an email a few days back saying that the paper had been accepted for publication. So before I pay the requisite fee of $165 (what is your opinion? is this too much?) I just wanted to know how good the journal was (the website says it has an impact factor of 2.13) and how much value such a publication will have. Would be really nice if someone could guide me on this. (This would be my first publication and I'm an undergraduate student)
This is the journal's website link: https://ijpam.eu/


texts:
We need to hire a computer scientist with a very particular specialty as a consultant for a long term industrial research project.  We've read the relevant papers and so know who does good work in it.  But we don't know the first thing about hiring a professor as a consultant.

Do I just email them and say "Hi, Dr. So and so, I've read your paper about X and want to discuss hiring you as a consultant"? Or do I need some type of introduction?  Specifically, if I'm coming from a small business (with the funds to hire them, mind you, but a small business nonetheless), will they take it seriously?
How can I evaluate their abilities to be a good consultant? I know they have the brains and the know-how, but I need more than that: I need someone who will work on the problems we have, giving us a reasonable assessment of their likelihood to solve them, keeping us up to date, and clearing communicating their results.
Once hired, how do we effectively manage them towards our goals?
Currently, we have funding to hire them only for the initial stages. With good results, we have investors to approach, and we'd like to say "We're working on this problem; we have Prof. X on it, who's done this so far; with another $1M, we could get here." Will academics be supportive of such an arrangement?
How do we protect our intellectual property? Our plan is to leverage existing research towards new technological applications.  What's to stop our consultants from taking our ideas on their own? This is especially a concern in the initial evaluation stages, where we don't have a business relationship, but need to discuss our applications in some detail nonetheless.

Finally: Are there any resources on how to do this? Books, articles, services? We'd really like to benefit from someone's experience on this.


texts: Is there a time limit after which you should cite a working paper as an unpublished paper?

texts:
I am citing a paper with the latest version being 2005. I checked some recent studies that cite this paper and some reference it as a "working paper" while others reference it as an "unpublished paper".

Is there a time limit or rule of thumb after which a working paper should be cited as an unpublished paper?


texts: Scholarships and the PhD thesis in the Scandinavian system?

texts:
I'm totally confused about how you have to write your desired thesis in the Scandinavian higher education system when you've got their scholarship. By reading the articles about how it works I feel that I have become more disoriented.

When you read promotions about hiring new Ph.D. students in the universities' websites or places such as Scholarshipdb.net it's often said that you have to do research on a particular field. Is this research counts as your dissertation or you have to do your own thesis aside from that?


texts: On the verge of being "fired" from post-doc position, how to act towards supervisor?

texts:
I am in month 5 of an extremely unfulfilling post doc position in France. My sole responsibility is debugging 10k+ lines of spaghetti C++ code. I am a mechanical engineer and although I did my PhD with a focus on numerical simulations, debugging isn't what I envisioned myself doing.

My current supervisor has been "controlling my life" by controlling when I leave from work by strategically placing meetings at such times. He has also suggested on numerous times, quite explicitly that I must not leave work until he does; and he is a workaholic - works 12 hours a day. This has continued for the last 4 months and this has severely affected my health. I am now depressed, balding and have lost 15 pounds of body mass.

Today I had a conversation with the director of my research lab and he hinted that since things aren't working out, "I may be given enough time to find employment" and leave.

I am confused, hurt and extremely displeased to say the least.

Losing my job would be very problematic for me, as I am an Indian citizen and it would affect my ongoing H1B processing for a faculty position in the US starting next fall.

My current contract doesn't state what the "rules of being let go" are. All it says is that I am required to work 35 hours a week. I have consulted a lawyer "friend" and he tells me that most contracts are at will anyway and for foreign nationals, once your contract AND work status are revoked, you may not be able to fight the system.

Considering that I will be given a few weeks to a month or so perhaps, how do I behave towards my supervisor. Should I show up for work or just say screw it?


texts: Collaborative software recommendation for a 4 year research project with several partners and < 10 researchers

texts:
I will be a project manager of research project with 3 university partners, 3 Postdocs and 5 PhD students for 4 years.

Currently we use software tools for single researchers in my group like mendeley, github, moinmoinwiki (intranet on all workgroup PC's).

For this new project this will not cover all demands:

sharing of data files, best case also everyone can comment data, everyone should be able to upload/download data (not more than 10 GB needed as mainly PDF or rawd data is shared) to a secured space over internet (industry research and patent relevant data), so no intranet possible
should be future proof (data security), no software without updates for the next 4-5 years which rules out many open source wiki software to my knowledge
data security (I know slack for instance, but can I really trust this software, it not being hacked or is it not better to use your own server (or university space) and some wiki with only password access.
no steep learning curve, should motivate to use it, no special syntax to learn, rather WYSIWYG like moinmoinwiki/Word editor.
no high price
file sharing, www blog entries, user access/login area technically necessary

What is currently common for funded research projects. Unfortunately this long list is not showing what is popular for research/academia and I don't think a general industry collaborative software matches the same needs as described above.

What would you recommend or is there a singe solution? Tiki Wiki looks interesting but complex, maybe wordpress and old school FTP is better?!


texts: Is it acceptable to cite people without putting the appropriate diacritics in their names?

texts:
I've begun preparing my thesis and several key papers in my field are written by people with foreign accents in their names. While I have found a way to include this in my thesis with BibTeX. However it has come to my attention that many citations exported from online journals (as .rif, .enl, or .bib) or my previous EndNote library may not include accents in non-English names.

While I would like to attribute these appropriately it is clearly a laborious task to check for the sheer number of references included in a thesis unless strictly necessary. Therefore I have two related questions:

Is it acceptable academic conduct to cite authors without correct accents when citing them in an English language thesis (or publication)?
Is it common practice for reference managers or online export tools to support accents or author names (i.e., can I take it for granted that my existing library has included these characters correctly or will be necessary to check references previously imported by online databases)?

To clarify, this query concerns accents such as those found in names originating in French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, German, Scandinavian and Te Reo Māori languages. Such as the symbols:

ó, ò, ő, õ, ø, ö, and ō


texts: Is writing a grant proposal at the end of Ph.D. a good idea?

texts:
I will be getting my Ph.D. in computer science in several months, from a US university.

Over the course of my research I have stumbled on a number of interesting directions that I didn't have time to pursue.

Now that my Ph.D. is coming to an end, and I will be leaving (hopefully for a postdoc), I was wondering if it's a good idea to put some of these research directions into a grant proposal with my advisors?

My questions are:

Is this a good idea, especially given the fact that I will not be affiliated with my current institution anymore?
Is this a good career move, at this point, or should I postpone this to another time?


texts: How to politely say in a paper that most of the published research on a topic is by the same person?

texts:
My field is cardiovascular epidemiology, and my current research question relates to some risk factor which is supposed to strongly elevate cardiovascular risk in a defined subgroup. However, my data do not indicate any such association, and power analysis shows that I have about 0.85 power to detect an effect of the size previously published. I see my findings as evidence for the null hypothesis.

Most of the available work on this risk factor in this subgroup comes from papers that all share one author. He is the leader regarding this question. He also holds a patent for assessment of this risk factor and possesses shares of a company that develops and plans to sell diagnostic tests to assess this risk factor.

I would like to make a statement in my paper that politely mentions these facts. This other author has published virtually everything there is that reports this positive association, and would profit enormously if it were true. However, I'm only a PhD student and they are top tier.

So how would I best go about this in my paper?


texts: How important is the grade for a course I took, if I want to pursue graduate studies in that field?

texts:
I recently made the decision to pursue graduate studies and apply for an MS in computer science program during next year's application process. More specifically, the field that I want to study is machine learning. However, there is something that's been concerning me a lot for the past few days.

I'm actually taking a machine learning course this semester, and I don't believe I did too well. I think I'll end up with either a C+ or at best a B or - if the professor feels very generous - a B+. If I were to give an excuse for the result, I'm not too familiar with many of the tools we used in class (Python, Sci-kit Learn, etc.) and the professor, TA's, and fellow students all gave me the same answer of "it's your job to learn on your own" when I would ask questions (which is true to an extent). It was a disheartening semester, to say the least. But excuses aren't important, and the result is that I didn't perform well.

Now the actual question is: Would this affect my graduate studies application? My GRE scores are satisfactory (163V/169Q/5.5AW) and my TOEFL scores are also good (118/120). Upon graduation I will have around a 3.2-3.4/4.0 GPA.

I've heard stories of professors rejecting applicants because they performed poorly for relevant courses despite showing positive traits in other ways, and I guess that's been concerning me.


texts: Are speeches by Heads of States academic sources?

texts: I'm uncertain whether speeches by Heads of State or other governmental figures are academic sources? Can someone please clarify?


texts: Is it possible for a scientific article to lose citations?

texts:
I have just noticed something very weird, some months ago, I was looking in google scholar an article of Irving Langmuir called "The Vapor Pressure of Metallic Tungsten", it had 761 citations, some time passed
and I searched the same article again and now it has 744 citations. I don't know if maybe I didn't see the correct number of citations the first time, but that make me question myself, is it even possible for a scientific article to lose cites? does that make sense?


texts: After a PhD internship, I've been offered to finish the PhD at the company. Should I accept?

texts:
I'm asking for an opinion here as I don't know many people that can help me with this decision. Any feedback is very much appreciated, sorry in advance for the long post.
I'm a 2nd year PhD student in Computer Science (more in detail I do research on a particular branch of Deep Learning) from a university which is top tier in my country, but is not top tier worldwide (this is just to put some perspective for later on). Also I would like to mention that I do not know yet if in the future I would like to work in academia or in industry,.
I was offered a research internship in a big company (it's not FAANG, but almost). The internship was in a different branch of Deep Learning, that is not directly connected to my previous research, and this made me quite undecided. In the end I accepted as I thought that coming from a university that is not top tier I couldn't afford turning this down (in fact it was the only company that gave me an interview out of 10+ internships to which I applied).
The supervisor at the company didn't give me much freedom, so I mostly had to execute his projects, but I did have my say in them, and I am still very proud of the work done. On a personal relationship level, I didn't quite connect with the supervisor and I didn't like his approach to research, but I always acted professionally and did my job. Now that I'm at the end of the internship, the supervisor has given me the opportunity to finish my PhD while staying at the company. I am very undecided and I would like to have some opinions from more experienced persons. I've made this list of pros (+) and cons (-):
Pros/Cons of finishing the PhD at university:
(+) Relationship with supervisor: I have a very good relationship with my uni supervisor, not only at a professional level, but also on a personal one.
(+) Freedom: I would be able to continue working on my original PhD topic, and I would have total freedom on the projects. While I didn't dislike the topic done at the company, I find it less interesting, and I'm afraid my company supervisor would not give me too much freedom.
(+/-) Possibility to have other external opportunities: I would be happy to perform another internship in another company, or to visit a lab in a different university. Of course I don't have any guarantees this will happen, but I believe that at least for the second case there would be good chances of making it happen.
(-) Less collaboration opportunities: at my university I have very little opportunities to collaborate with other researchers. While it didn't happen that much during the internship, I could probably have more chance of doing collaborations at the company.
Pros/Cons of finishing the PhD at the company:
(+) Resources: at the company I have access to much more computational resources than at university. I was able to do some experiments that at uni would have taken me double of even more of the time.
(+) More networking opportunities: the company has many really great researchers that would be much easier to get in touch with if I'm working there.
(+) Money: while I am very lucky to not have to worry too much about money, there is no doubt that the company would allow me to have more financial independence.
(+) Permanent position: there would be high chances of me getting offered a permanent position after my Phd.
(-) More Stress: during my internship I felt much more pressured to bring results than at university, and this has been quite stressful for me.
(-) Relationship with supervisor: I did not connect very well on a personal level with the supervisor at the company, and this caused my some very stressful moments.


texts: How to affiliate papers that I worked on both as a PhD student and as a postdoc?

texts:
I have submitted my dissertation recently (in mathematics), and I have a position for a postdoc which I will start around October.

In the meantime, one of my friends and I have been working on some projects (some of which we began nearly a year ago), and prepare to write some papers. At least one of them we expect to finish over the summer, and that's fine, there's no hard choices how to affiliate myself there: I'm still considered a student.

But the second paper we have been working on is probably going to take longer than that before we are ready to publish it. So both of us will be moving on from our current university.

How do we decide which affiliation to use when we finally make the paper public? Do we take it as the affiliation at the time, or the one under which we worked the most?

(To clarify, none of our papers are directly related to either of our dissertations.)


texts: Which one of these is more appropriate for academic email

texts:
I have a membership from an organization e.g. ieee.org and I have some options for my email ID which I want to use in academy and professional work. I'm not a native English and I'm not familiar with the culture involved. I have these three options:

(consider my name as Serim Doe, which Serim is my first name and pretty rare, I didn't want make example of John Doe which is very common name).

Serim@ieee.org

Doe@ieee.org

S.Doe@ieee.org

I personally prefer Serim@ieee.org since it is more concise and shorter, but I want to know if making ID of only the first name is appropriate or not.


texts: Listing Scholar-Athlete Awards in Grad School Application

texts:
I am a student athlete (Full scholarship) and I have received Scholar Athlete award from NCAA and my conference throughout my career. To receive these awards, your GPA should be 3.5 or more. Now I am applying for MS in Computer Science and they have a section:

  Summary of Honors, Scholarships, Fellowships, and Awards Received
  During Your Academic Studies

Should I include the scholar athlete awards in this section and if it will hurt or better my chances? Can i also write that I received full scholarship for playing sports?


texts: Are we losing quality research because of money and political stunts?

texts:
Now-a-days, I see a lot of friends, who went abroad to study for masters and PHD, are under financial pressure and worried about the immigration policies of the country.

Therefore, I see that a lot of them always run after internships and high paying jobs, and the job has to do nothing with the research or education they pursued during their masters or PHD.

Also, because of immigration policies of the country, a lot of folks have to decide which country to go into to pursue education instead of focussing on where they would get the best education.

And because of this, don't you think that the focus is getting shifted from doing quality research to get a good job?

And if this is the case, what initiatives are taken by the school authorities and professors or how should this problem be addressed ?


texts: What affiliation(s) to list in an oral presentation at a conference?

texts:
I'm a doctoral candidate at a big university and am teaching as an adjunct at a smaller university. I'll be graduating with my PhD in a few months and I'm hoping to get a tenure-track job at the smaller institution I'm teaching at in the next 1–3 years (skipping postdoc).

I'll be giving an oral presentation at an upcoming conference and am wondering how I should list my affiliation. My primary affiliation, the one in which I did the research I'll be presenting, is the bigger university where I am a student. My research is funded through this university. However, I do work for the second university and have already done some work for my project since being hired by them.

Should I add the smaller university, the one at which I am teaching, as a secondary affiliation?


texts: How to turn something negative to positive in SOP?

texts: I did not pass my PhD candidacy twice and planning to apply at other institutes to pursue my PhD dream. In that case, should I mention my failure in candidacy to my SOP? If yes, how can I convert that to something positive to make my application impactful. Please suggest. Thank you


texts: How to find Elsevier journal-specific average publishing time

texts: Through this link, https://www.elsevier.com/physical-sciences-and-engineering/mathematics/journals/fast-publication, one sees the publishing times for selected Elsevier journals, given by Elsevier itself. My question is whether there are averaging times listed for more/all of Elsevier journals, and if so, where to find them. (for example, the Journal of Number Theory)