texts: Advising students taking part in a competition: how to provide direction, but not to contribute?

texts:
I was asked to supervise a team of undergrad students
who are taking part in a case competition.

I decided to look through the competition website
to find out more about what is expected of a faculty advisor.
The website writes:

  The primary role of the faculty advisor is to provide direction, advice and guidance to the student team.
  The faculty advisor should not contribute to the content of the presentation, nor should they provide or facilitate the assistance from other parties that contribute to the content of presentation.

How do I walk the fine line between
"providing direction, advice and guidance",
and yet "not contributing to the content of the presentation"?

(This is my first time helping a student team with a competition,
so I would appreciate the advice of other faculty who have done this before.)


texts: Is it possible for a student in first year of Ph.D to secure funding for attending conferences?

texts:
Note: I'm primarily interested in answers relevant to Computer Science (Theory), but answers in different areas in CS / totally other disciplines are equally welcome.

In most (if not all) PhD programs, incoming grad students are supposed to take relevant courses and fulfill their TA-ship duties (I'm assuming not everyone gets a RA from the 1st semester itself). During that time, they are also expected (and highly encouraged) to keep reading on their chosen research field, to have a concrete idea of where all the focus in that field is at that moment.

In my opinion, I would consider that attending important conferences and interacting with leading researchers in their field would play a very important role in the development of a young researcher, as he/she would have the chance to get motivated by the best brains in the business! But, it is unlikely that he/she would have publishable results at such venues within such a short time, and if he/she doesn't have a fellowship/travel scholarship, it is unlikely that he'd be able to afford the registration/travel/accommodation expenses from his own stipend.

So, what are the options in front of such a student to make attending such events possible:

Do advisers cover the expenses for their incoming grad students, for
attending such talks/conferences, or is there a provision for such
funds from the department ?
How much does the answer to the above question vary between different colleges - I've heard (unconfirmed) reports that
higher-ranked institutions have more funds to burn, and as such
students in such departments can afford to attend talks without
publishing in them (at least for the first 2 semesters) ?
Are there specific scholarships/fellowships that exist to primarily cater to conference related expenses for students? If so,
it would be great to get some leads on where to look, and what are
the primary qualifications (>90% of fellowships in US require the
applicant to be an US citizen, making it extremely difficult for
international students to get one!) ?


texts: A free tool that is capable of selecting questions from a pool and shuffle them randomly?

texts:
I will be conducting exams, and I need a tool that can let me shuffle and select random , small questions from a pre-defined question pool. My questions are typically matched and complete.

It would be ideal if I can export to word after that. Any idea or suggestion is appreciated.


texts:
I'm trying to submit a latex document to a SAGE journal using ScholarOne.

I'm having a hard time.

The (poor) documentation says that it accepts tex files, but the pdf it produces says that it cannot turn my tex into a pdf.

  Note: The following files were submitted by the author for peer
  review, but cannot be converted to PDF. You must view these files (e.g. movies) online.

  response.tex

Is this just what it does with tex files? Should it compile them? I don't know. If it is not compiling, how do I get the error message?


texts: The Importance of First Impression in PhD Applications

texts:
I have worked in the industry for the past few years, but am now applying for PhD. I do not have any significant research papers, but can get a few good ones published this year. I have shortlisted a few prospective professors, under whom I would like to work.

Should I apply this year itself? With a mediocre research resume, it is probable that they reject my application. This may leave a bad impression on them for my future application, when I apply again.

Or, should I wait for a year and work hard towards publishing a few papers, and then apply to these professors, next year?

To put the question in a different form: "Will a mediocre resume implant a permanent bad impression?"

Or, to put it even more generically : "How much does the first impression weigh in academia?"


texts: Which quantitative metrics are there of the quality and prestige of journals, and how do they compare?

texts: I have seen several different metrics that are applied for ranking journals: Impact Factor, SJR, and H-index.  Which of these is the most useful and robust for comparisons with respect to the quality and prestige of journals?


texts: Should postdoc be listed under Employment and or Education on CV?

texts:
From what I have seen, most people list postdocs under Employment/Experience on their CV. But recently I saw one that listed a postdoc under Employment and Education.

Is this typical/appropriate?

NOTE: According to comments on this relevant question and its answers, postdocs are kind of regarded as students, in some cases.


texts:
I am little confused about the goal of PhD in the middle of my PhD. I used to think that PhD is equal to Research but in the middle of my PhD I find out that it is much more than only research. It involves TA work plus some other academic work and research also. Before joining the PhD my goal was to publish something revolutionary during my PhD but I believe that PhD is a process in which you do three things ( according to my seniors )

Work on some problem you find interesting
Write and submit to some conference
If rejected again submit after modification

This is a typical PhD process. The above three steps will help me to get me a PhD, but it does not let me make a significant contribution which will help in finding job after PhD (postdoc, etc.).

Question:  What is the "goal" of the PhD? Is it more than the above three mentioned steps? How to ensure that at the end of PhD I will have something significant research contribution? Do I only need to worry about this or my research supervisor also?


texts: How to find a new PhD advisor by my research interest?

texts: Currently I do not have advisor because of some problems and I can not get my PhD degree with out advisor. So I am looking for a new advisor. How can I find another advisor without the influence of my former advisor. Do you think my former advisor can have a power not to accept me by another advisor? What am I going to do in order to not to make happen this interruption? I totally do not agree with the opinion of my former advisor.


texts: My potential advisor is suggesting a project that I don't think I have the knowledge to take on?

texts: My potential Masters advisor seems very interested in taking me on as a student since my first email to him was 5 days ago and he is already discussing which project to do with me. He said he aims to work on a project with his grad students that will help them with their future goals. He mentioned one direction I could go with a project. However, it requires a lot of math and statistics. I actually enjoy statistics and what he's proposing sounds very interesting, however, I am worried I don't have the knowledge to take on this project. I took 2 stats courses in undergrad and he has my transcript. I will also be taking 2-3 more stats courses in my masters. These courses will be more applicable to this field. It would be much easier to find a project for me to do if I go with the way that he's proposing. How do I raise my concerns to him? What should I say?


texts: I am worried that errors in the style of my Statement of Purpose (SOP) will count negatively toward me.  By "errors" I mean choosing the wrong font, font size etc. My question: are there general styling guides and possibly word templates for SOP?


texts: Calling a professor regarding an advertised postdoc position

texts: I have sent an email to a professor regarding a postdoc position that I saw advertised in the careers web page of her university. The email was very polite and extensively detailed. However, it has been one week now and I still did not receive any reply from the Professor who advertised the position. Is it acceptable if I call her by phone, since she is making her phone number public on her page, or is it rude to do so? I have no problem waiting longer for her reply, but the position will close in less than one month and I would like to know what documents should I submit with the application as this is not specified in the advertisement.


texts: Is it frowned upon to request solutions manuals from the author?

texts:
Maybe the answer to this is probably as vague as "it depends." I'm a graduate student trying to pick up some extra math skills. I'm reading a couple of texts and attempting the exercises but the difficulty/specificity of some exercises is such that I fear somewhat frequently asking for guidance would be burdensome to whoever I ask for help (peers, professors, my advisor, etc.). My preferred system would be to try my hand at a collection of problems for a few days, and check my thinking against a solutions manual (consulting others if I encounter something I really don't understand).

Some authors encourage instructors to contact them for solutions manuals if they are planning on teaching with their book. As a self-studier, should I generally expect a similar offer extends to me, or would it be frowned upon to ask for a solutions manual?

Thanks in advance for any help!


texts: How to deal with lots of information as a Computer Science student?

texts:
As a Computer Science student, I have to deal with a lot of new information every day. While learning new concepts, we also have to learn multiple programming languages at the same time, learning mathematics and a lot of other stuff. I am a very committed student, and i invest almost all my time into university, so my Grades are really good.

The problem that i encounter all the time, is that i am overloaded with information, that i can't process as i would like to.

Five days a week, for about 8 hours a day, we get presented a lot of material. At my university, it is common practice to present about 50 to 100 slides per class each week. So at the end of each week, 300 or often more new slide are given to us students.

Me, as a writing and communicative type of learner, I try to summarize all the content, that we study every week.

But with the semester going on, the stack of unprocessed slide (and taken notes) grows bigger and bigger. And it really freaks me out. (And from experience I know, that at the end of the semester, the pile of notes is put into a folder and never looked at again...)

I feel more stressed each week, i can't really focus on all the assignments, that are also given to us every week, because i know, i have to summarize all the information for the upcoming exams at the end of the semester. I often have the feeling, that, if i don't sum up the content and make a lots of notes, i will forget the things i´ve learned in class.

I have tried a lot of things, to minimize the efford of summarizing: I tried using Tools like Evernote or OneNote, creating Documents for each topic, I even created my own InDesign-Summaries (which looked admittedly really nice ;D). But at the end of the day, the problem seems not to be the way, i summarize information, but the way i process and consume the information.

For programming, as a computer science student you need not that much knowledge of the languages, you can just google it. But for the rest of it, there's a lot of stuff to know.

Question:  What could I do to reduce stress from my studies and become a more effective learner?


texts: Where to Apply for International Relations?

texts: I'm having some trouble figuring out what schools to apply to for a Masters in International Relations. There are a number of lists I've seen but many of the schools are very focused on the practical side for mid-career people. I'm interested in eventually getting a PhD and being an academic. Also most lists are only of the top 5 or 10 schools so it's hard to tell how good other schools are. My application is a little mixed, some strong parts some weak parts, so I was thinking of applying to a wide range of schools but I could really use some advice in what schools to look at. My undergrad GPA isn't good, 3.14 (3.5 in the major), but my GRE scores are good, 170V 168Q 4.5. I've been living in China for the past 5 years, but only speak a tiny bit of Chinese. I'd love some advice about where to apply or any rankings to look at. Thanks.


texts: Difference between faculty position at a public university and state university

texts:
Is there a difference between faculty position at a State university and between public university in terms of employment conditions, salaries, research funding and politics (e.g. faculty position at Alabama State University versus University of Alabama; Arizona State University versus University of Arizona)?. All universities that I am interested in are research universities.
Thanks.


texts: When can a professor refuse to sign off on a committee-approved thesis?

texts:
(Breakdown of a larger issue - full story here)

I did a masters research project as part of a grant project my professor received. Her project was to redo a standard, widely design using a new technology as a feasibility comparison, to see if the technology should be adapted as an accepted (possibly standard) design. My thesis project was to redesign key part of the original design in order to provide her with design parameters; we then iterated over each design twice more to finalize on common parameters.

It took a couple months to get clear criteria from the sponsor, and we finished a couple months behind schedule, but ultimately our work was a success. Our work was combined in a single dual report to serve as both my thesis and her official report.

Following my successful defense, with no changes from my committee, she bluntly refused to sign off on my graduation paperwork until she had official acceptance of the report from the entity funding the grant. She admitted this was an entirely separate issue but "wanted something to hold over my head in case they ask for changes". This delayed my graduation significantly, which has had serious consequences for my professional career. As far as I can tell, the was done solely for her benefit to secure full grant payment (to her) and not as any part of the school's needs or my graduation requirements.

If all the requirements of a prescribed study program are met, are there any situations when it would be appropriate for a professor to deliberately delay a student's graduation?


texts: Is there any risk of having my research scooped after posting my manuscript onto bioRxiv?

texts:
I want to post my manuscript to bioRxiv before submitting onto formal journals, but I still have several concerns:

Can I claim I am the first for the discovery by posting my findings on bioRxiv ?
Similarly, is it a feasible way to prevent others from publishing ealier than me on the same topic ?
Are there any risks of having my research scooped after posting my manuscript on bioRxiv ?

Thanks and Best regards,

Michael


texts:
I applied for a PhD position and I was invited to give a talk about my Master thesis, but I didn't get the position, because:

Maybe my talk wasn't as good at it could be- I wasn't ready with my thesis then and I made some mistakes. I guess I could work on that.
My current thesis advisor probably didn't give me good references, although I'm not sure about that. There is nothing I can do about that- try to explain the disagreements I had with him to the committee? No one asked me about that, so I won't get that chance in the future. But I could ask someone else to write a reference letter for me.

My question is:

  Should I apply to the institution again (in few months or 1-2 years) when they have another open position? How will it be perceived?

My main concern is that the application will be reviewed by the same people I talked to, the people who took part in my seminar. Will I be allowed to give another talk on the same topic?

Also, the person who wrote to me, didn't suggest that I apply there in the future.

I'm not going to get more experience in research, because I work in a company, but I can have some publicaitons.

Note:

This is not a duplicate of this question, because I didn't withdraw my application- I was rejected.
This is not a duplicate of this question, because I was invited to the university, I had a talk with the group members and I gave a talk there. My experience isn't a problem, its the general impression, my knowledge (?).
This is not a duplicate of this question - see my explanation for the second question.


texts: What does "university ranking" mean for a graduate admissions committee?

texts:
Many questions on this website ask how university rankings affect the future career in research and graduate admissions. But it is not clear for me what is actually meant by ranking. There are various rankings of universities and many of them are contradictory.

Thus, in the context of graduate admissions what ranking does the admission committee have in their mind? How does the committee decide which is a high-ranked school and which is a low-ranked school?


texts: Is there a unified platform that lists conference/journal deadlines?

texts:
Is there any unified platform that would list the deadlines (especially the submission deadlines) for conferences/journals? Ideally I would like to select a few conferences/journals I am interested in publishing to, and the website would give me the list of upcoming deadlines.

Right now I have to check out each individual conference/journal website, which is pretty tedious and error-prone (all the more so as it is pretty common for deadline to be extended).

I am mostly interested in the field of computer science > machine learning, and English-speaking venues.


texts: What should I do as a teaching assistant when I find cheating behavior from actual grading?

texts:
Update:

I found 8 students cheating in today's quiz despite stern warning and personal threatening to kick them out of the classroom if I notice cheating behavior again. 4 of them also likely cheated last time. The main reason is I left 5 minutes to fetch old quiz from last time.

I have reported this to the instructor and the two chairs of the department as well as sending the quiz sheets. I am very upset even though it "is not my fault". I have asked the professors explicitly that I do not to see these students in classroom again.

I work as a probability&statistics TA. During actual grading of the quiz papers submitted by students, I suspect some students are involved in cheating. The question is what I should do. I should note that my relationship with students is not the best judged from past experience.

The evidence that support my claim students were cheating in the quiz was follows:

During the quiz, I noticed students A, B, C, D, E, F, etc sitting very close to each other. I pulled their chairs apart and minutes later their chairs were close again. While I did not suspect cheating, I felt this is quite strange. In the end I have to pull their chairs apart three times. I also noticed they talking to each other, but I am not sure if they were borrowing the calculator or something. I simply did not suspect cheating.
During the actual grading I found the students A, B, C, D, E, F, etc all submitted work of very low quality and they made identical elementary mistakes like 1+1=3 on their exam sheets. This elementary mistake was carried through to the second part of the exam, such that a few of them did not bother to give any derivation to the wrong results in the test paper.

I have reported this to the professor, who avoided my email on any discussion with this topic. My questions are as follows:

If I want to report cheating, how do I make sure students A, B, C, D, E, F, etc all cheated? Of course there is a small chance that they all made the "stupid mistake" due to some random misunderstanding. For example, maybe students E, F did not cheat; they simply misunderstood the problem or their Casio calculator malfunctioned. Who knows?

For example, when I was an undergraduate, I was wrongly accused for cheating, and I knew such accusations makes people psychologically very uncomfortable even if turned out false in the end. While I am quite confident with what I found, I do not want to be the mean professor who treated me that way. I checked the university honor code and it says "the instructor should communicate with the students regarding the nature of the charge and the evidence...". I simply do not know what to say in this case. Should I simply say "I am suspecting you of cheating behavior, please explain yourself", or something?

More importantly, what I should do for the future to the class to prevent cheating? I put "cheating behavior means -10 points and an invitation to visit the Dean" in every exam sheet. But I could not prevent this situation from happening again in future. I felt very uncomfortable that I am preparing lecture for students who paid negative amount of input to the class material. To me a student walking out of the classroom and believe my lecture was tedious is okay; one do not need to take the class if one already knew the material.

But cheating behavior is far worse; it makes the normal Q&A process break down, and I simply do not know what feedback should I give to the students who cheated. It also makes life very unfair for students who made an huge effort but did not do as well as cheaters. I find it very difficult to prepare the lecture in the same mood again and pretend that this have not happened.

In the extreme case, if the professor took no action at all, what should I do next? Should I waste many hours coming back and forth on this "trivial" issue and facing various committees, or should I simply turn a deaf ear on it because this is first time offense? To me, this seems a black and white situation. But I am still quite confused.


texts: Is it right to ignore publications coming from non-top publishers?

texts:
When I look into a specific problem over Google Scholar and simple Google Search, I find many related publications from publishers other than IEEE, ACM, Elsevier, Springer etc.

Usually the authors come from Indian, Chinese, Arabic institutions. My initial instinct is to ignore them, however I always feel as if there might be something important.

What is the right thing to do in such cases?


texts: Using industry productivity tools and techniques for managing student projects

texts:
I'm heading a group of engineering students (from different fields) which need to build a robot (which performs tasks autonomously) as part of their courses.

There are 10 students in this group and they are divided in three or four subgroups which work on different engineering aspects. As the time frame is pretty short (2.5 months) and the students have a lot of other things to tend to, I wanted to optimize their work a bit by using some tools for project management and communication.

As I have recently been around a lot of IT people, I got to know about some of the methods and tools they use in the organization of small to medium-ish  sized(startup) companies. So my question boils down to:

Is it advisable to manage short term - medium/high workload student projects using productivity and management tools(e.g. Slack?) and techniques, or could this actually be of little use to the project(especially if the supervisor has no experience using them)?


texts: How to inform an emotionally abusive advisor I don't want to work with him?

texts:
I am an incoming PhD student.  Before I applied, I chose a particular school because it had a specific PI.  (Of course, this is not a good idea, but I did not know better at the time.)  The PI is very famous in my field and was extremely excited about having me in his lab, going above and beyond to get me to work in his lab (e.g. private tours, etc.).  I believe he was partially responsible for getting me into this school, but I can never be certain.

I had to take a year off for medical reasons, but for the last year and a half, we have been in monthly discussions about what I will work on and what I will do, and he has been giving me lots of work to do before I arrive.  Up until just recently, it was obvious to both of us that when I came to the school I would be in his lab.  He expects me to skip my lab rotations and join his lab immediately.

However, I recently learned from a conversation with one of his postdocs that he has being emotionally abusive to one of his graduate students (e.g. comments along the lines of "you know everybody hates you").  I also learned that he has been completely ignoring one of his postdocs (as a result of which the postdoc hasn't published in the last year and a half), and that he gave away the project of his other graduate student to someone not in the lab, and then lied about it.

So obviously I'm not joining this lab.  What is the best way to break off this relationship?  I am concerned about him retaliating, as he has a lot of power in the department.  I also cannot share my true reasons for leaving with him, because then he would retaliate against the postdoc who told me.

Is this something that should be done via email?  Skype?  I saw him recently when I visited the school (and learned this information) so I did not bring it up then.  There are many other labs in the department so I'm not concerned about that.  But I am concerned about what the consequences might be for leaving his lab.  Also, what kind of excuse should I use?  My present excuse is "I am questioning my interest in sub-sub-subfield X and want to do rotations before I start working with you."


texts: Is it generally accepted to take months off (unpaid) during a PhD?

texts:
Currently I am finishing my masters degree program in Life Sciences / Biotechnology by doing an industrial internship. After having obtained my degree, I would definitely like to do a PhD if I can find an interesting project in a location where I would also see myself living for a couple of years.

Another, non-career related ambition of mine is to go travelling for a couple of months. Now most would say that the time in between obtaining your degree and starting a PhD would be perfect for this, however, at the moment I lack the money to be able to make such a travel.

One option that came to mind would be to start a paid PhD program, which would me allow to save up some money to start a travel. Now the question is: would it be possible to take months off from my PhD work in the middle of the program? Note, I am not looking to spare up free days and use them all on this travel period, I would intend to take a real period off (and not be paid as a consequence).

I do realise that if this is possible at all it will be very specific and varying between different programs/supervisors/institutes, but I am looking for the general view in academia on this topic.

Edit: the geographical location where the PhD program would be done, is most probably Europe.


texts: Hypothesis for an Engineering Oriented Research Thesis

texts:
Question: What to write in a hypothesis that can't claim statistical results of any kind -- only those of engineering nature.

Explanation:
In thesis writing, hypothesis is claimed to be one of the most important aspects. I'm not arguing with that but in some cases, it seems a little over-priced. I am currently writing a thesis that deals with enhancing an existing security model. I can't give out the exact idea obviously but please let me explain with the help of an example.

Let's say, I have a security problem that the existing "role-based access control" of MS-Windows does not solve some problems -- so, I come up with time-based constraints for the model used and incorporate them in a new "enhanced" model. In the thesis explaining this contribution, what do I write in the thesis? I can't claim an "N%" increase in security or any other statistic that I can think of.

So, what's the hypothesis in this case?


texts: Are there formal studies analyzing available test time versus performance?

texts:
Are there any studies showing that there is a direct connection (or a lack of a connection) between extending the time given for students to complete a written exam and their performance on the exam?

I think there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that would suggest that the more relaxed time constraints are helpful, but I would like to be able to point to "field studies" if possible, as that would make for a more convincing position with my colleagues.


texts: Do editors need all reviewers to be unanimous in their decision before acceptance?

texts:
Assume an editor has sent out a manuscript to reviewers.  Let's say the manuscript has potential but with mixed reviews; some reviewers say accept whilst others recommend revision/reject.  The editor recommends re-submission.  So the manuscript goes through the usual revision-resubmission-revision-... process.

As an editor, does he/she need to all reviewers to be thoroughly happy before accepting the manuscript? Can he/she accept/reject the manuscript based on the majority rule?

Note, some journals have a limit on the maximum number of re-submissions, meaning the re-submission process cannot continue forever.


texts: Can I enroll to graduate school (PhD) in Germany?

texts:
I'm finishing Masters degree in Computer Engineering at university of Russia in this year. GPA of my Master diploma is 4.9-4.0 from 5. I have 3 publications in russian scientific journals. However, my bachelor's GPA is 3.5 from 5 and I think it is main problem for enrolling to PhD. My past low level of Bachelor's degree correlated with the lack of interest in Science. At the moment my interest in Science growing more and more, than more I understand in the research. I'm studying some courses on educational platforms such as Coursera and edX for to correct my past mistakes and for increase my scientific outlook.

Do I have any chances for enrolling to PhD in Germany? I don't pretend to top universities.


texts: How will academic misconduct as a first year undergraduate affect graduate studies admission?

texts:
I am a 1st year undergraduate student and I just put myself in trouble this week by cheating in a midterm exam.

This is my first offence, so I still have a 2nd chance and, trust me, I will learn from this stupid mistake. However, I am very worried as to whether I still stand a chance to be admitted to graduate studies in the future with this permanent notation in my record.

I plan to apply for the MA in about 5 years, so I still have time to take my redemption and do well in school and get some field experience, but I don't know if they will consider my efforts.

Will they even consider my application?


texts: Are there any automated ways of getting PDF annotations into Word or LaTeX source code?

texts: With my previous two submissions to Elsevier journals, I have received reviews from 5 and 4 reviewers respectively. This results in a large number of comments that needs to be addressed. Some of the reviewers provide a PDF document with annotations that contain their comments and questions. Are there any automated or systematic ways of transferring these comments into my source code (LaTeX in my case but this question is just as applicable to MS Word) so that I can have a single view of all the comments?


texts:
Many of us often talk about Bachelor's and Master's students, PhD students, researchers, professors, and postdocs.

But, do we know what we actually intend when we say "Post-Doc"?

We all know that a Post-Doc is a person who, after finishing his/her PhD, works for one or two years as a scientist in a scientific research group. Beyond this simple definition, I would like to know what you think about Post-Doc roles inside a laboratory and a group.

What is actually a Postdoc fellow?

Is he a debutant researcher? Or is he just a ultra-super-student? Or is he half a super-student, and half a researcher?

What is a Postdoctoral fellow supposed to do?

What do you expect from a Postdoctoral fellow?


texts: Dangers of allowing students to resubmit assignments

texts:
There are two closely related questions here:

If a student submits their assignment and is unhappy with their mark, are there any dangers (which I might not be seeing) in allowing the students to do so? If I would offer for one, I would offer for all, but should I be offering it in the first place?
If resubmits are unavailable, some students ask me to 'pre-read' or 'pre-mark' their assignment. The end result is that when they submit officially, that may actually be the second submission. Clearly doing any 'pre-marking' or the like takes time and energy and, so far, very few students have taken advantage of this until right before the submission deadline (at which point I stop because I don't have THAT much time to offer them). Are there dangers in 'pre-marking' assignments?

Note: These assignments constitute either 50% or 100% of their total mark.

One of my concerns is that the student would have lower motivation to maximize the quality of their original work and just correct what was marked as a problem area - like a production worker depending on a Quality Control Inspector and not paying as much attention to the quality of their work the first time around. Are there other issues as well?

EDIT: I should add that these are business management subjects so student answers are not easily right or wrong but more about how they justify their analysis. Therefore, there is not an issue of "giving the right answer."


texts: Is it acceptable to include a paper in the reference list but not cite it in text?

texts:
A paper (quite) related to some work my coauthors and I have recently appeared as a preprint. This paper cites ours; however, it does not do so in the body of the paper (intro, proofs, etc.), but only in the references: with the LaTeX command \nocite, I assume.

Doing so seems strange to me, as it does not discuss relevance, nor compare, nor even state what the cited paper does. It's a citation without context.

  Am I overreacting? More importantly, am I wrong: are there situations where this type of citation makes sense, and, if so, which ones?

Edit: by "makes sense," I mean "is justified for academic-related/citation etiquette reasons."


texts: The Professor-Postdoc Relationship in Research Supervision

texts:
I am in the second year of my Postdoc working with a successful professor. I joined his team just after I obtained my PhD. During my PhD, my advisor (as all advisors)  used to proofread my manuscripts and giving me feedback. I felt that I gained experience which led to a good PhD thesis, where no reviewer has requested to change anything before final publication.

With my current supervisor, I feel that I am still a master student, where his feedback is always too much. After several rounds of internal revision (based on his feedback) of a proposal abstract, he sent me back the PDF file completely yellow (highlighted with his comments).

Most of these comments are about the writing style such as "do not use sentence A when you can use sentence B". I don't know whether this is typical supervision, he is exaggerating or I am too bad.


texts: How often do publishers change/tweak articles to achieve visually appealing results?

texts:
When reading this question it seems the theoretical answer is that LaTeX is not perfect and manual/human intervention is required. In the TeX Book Knuth says:

  But the problem of page make-up is considerably more difficult than
  the problem of line breaking that we considered in the previous
  chapter, because pages often have much less flexibility than lines do.
  If the vertical glue on a page has little or no ability to stretch or
  to shrink, TeX usually has no choice about where to start a new
  page; conversely, if there is too much variability in the glue, the
  result will look bad because different pages will be too irregular.
  Therefore if you are fussy about the appearance of pages, you can
  expect to do some rewriting of the manuscript until you achieve an
  appropriate balance, or you might need to fiddle with the
  looseness as described in Chapter 14; no automated system will be
  able to do this as well as you.

In the LaTeX Companion Mittelbach writes:

  For this and other reasons, getting the final layout of the book was fairly labor intensive and even required minor rewriting (on maybe 10% of the pages) in order to avoid bad line breaks or page breaks.

Ignoring the fact that LaTeX is not the only software that publishers use, I am curious if the theoretical answer is actually the practical answer. Specifically, I am interested in:

How often do journals make manual tweaks to their templates/layouts
when typesetting articles?
How often wording of the text is changed to increase the visual
    appeal of the article?


texts:
I am working in a sub-field of computer science (deep learning), more specifically a particular application of LSTMs to learn simple functions. My work is building on the work of another researcher to an extent that I am using the same model, parameters and problem definition. I am writing a research paper based on my findings.

My work is different in the sense that I am introducing some different concepts from another area and trying to make a generalisation about the very nature of ANNs (using his work as an intermediary). And since his work is the only such publication till now, I am taking some things directly in my work eg. Problem Definition or Model.

So the question is whether it will count as plagiarism? If yes then how can I circumvent it as I have to write many things as it is, there's no other way to get around that as I am using them as it is.


texts: Is publishing as an undergraduate a thing that really happens?

texts:
Sometimes, there are questions on here about undergraduate students publishing research (see here, here, and here). The answers don't seem particularly surprised that this is happening or try to dissuade the asker, they treat it like a normal question.

In my entire life, I've never heard of undergraduates publishing results apart from a handful of examples from famous science prodigies.

Furthermore, my experience of undergraduate was not conducive at all to publishing. I graduated from a mediocre UK university, and there was no original research done at all. Undergraduate is for getting you up to speed on the foundations of a field, preparing you for postgraduate where you study one sub-field, then a PhD where you push the boundaries of a sub-sub-field.

The questions linked above give advice like, "Discuss it with your supervisor". But as far as I'm aware undergraduates don't have supervisors.

Is this really as common as it would seem from questions on here? Is it a regional thing? Something that happens only at top universities?


texts: Using .tex files from arXiv as a template for new papers

texts:
It is well known that anyone can download the LaTeX source code of the papers on arXiv. My question is regarding the use of that source code.
Say you are working on a paper that is a follow-up to an existing one. You like the format of that paper (both structurally and graphically), and you want to keep the notation used.
Would it be reasonable/legitimate to download the source of the original paper, keep the preamble (i. e., everything before \begin{document}), and then write your own paper? Or is it downright unethical, and akin to plagiarism? Could this be softened by giving credit to the authors of the original paper in the source code (assuming that the new paper is also to be submitted to arXiv)? I am assuming that all of the content of the new paper is original. It is just part of the (not rendered) LaTeX source that is reused with minimal (or no) editing.


texts: How should I cite the beta version of a book used for a talk?

texts: I'm using the beta version of a book that was given to us as the course material by the author (the instructor of the course), for a presentation. How should I reference it? There are older versions of it already published, does it make sense to cite those and mention that I used the beta version of the soon-to-be-published edition?


texts: Should I contact professors in Europe to enquire about PhD positions given the ongoing pandemic?

texts:
I am a 2nd year masters student in Mathematics in an Asian University and my masters will be completed this month.

I wrote to professors in December and January asking about open positions in their working group for PhD in number theory but could find only 2 offers, and 1 without funding.

So, I am thinking of writing to some more professors in Hungary and Sweden.

  My question is, is it the right decision to mail my CV and ask them about open positions when COVID-19 is affecting the whole of Europe?

Universities in Italy are taking PhD applications, but still I want to ask opinions of users here and also due to the reason that the admission process in my country are completely stopped due to the pandemic.

Any advice will be really appreciated.


texts: (Paper submission) Institution vs affiliation

texts:
I'm about to submit a paper to a scientific journal. among the info required there are 1) "institution" which is mandatory and 2) " affiliation".
My question is: what's the difference?
I'm an Adjunct Professor now, so I think in my case that for the institution it refers to the place where I got my PhD while for the affiliation it refers to the place where I'm actually working. However, I want to stress that my role in academia is reserved for teaching activities.
What do you think?


texts: A quick question. If someone start his/her Ph.D at the age of 44 and finish it by 50, what are the chances of joining academic world as a tenured lecturer in US


texts: Job Market in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

texts:
The question: Firstly, do I need to have a background in computing to be a research in human-computer interaction (HCI). Secondly, I need help with getting relevant work experiences which seem to be difficult because I live in a developing country (Nigeria) where there is basically no research in this area.

The story: I have a BSc in Mass Communication and MA in Communication and Media. I discovered this field while on my masters program and have since developed an interest in it. I'm more interested in human-technology (mobile) relationship than designing. I have tried to define my research plan to fall within this area. I intend to research on mobile phone and rural development in Sub-Saharan African countries. I would love to be a researcher and also lecture within this area.

Considering I took some  Microsoft professional courses (MCSA & MCSE), I can say that I have some networking/Computing qualification.

I'm wondering if getting a masters (something like a MRES) in HCI will give me added advantage or if what I have is okay because for most job opportunities I see usually request for some one with a computing/HCI background which I don't have. I won't mind interning to get the needed experience because it seems like all the
vacancies are requesting experienced people.

My Career Goal: To be a research/lecturer. I hope to be flexible enough to be able to indulge in other business such as running an NGO that is youth and women development inclined.

My Background I am a 26 years old lady with no experience in this field. My education was split between my country (which is developing by the way) and UK. I really hope to do a PhD in a more advanced country and at the same time get some relevant work experience.


texts: Would an international student A in the US helping another international student B in Europe cheating be punished by US university?

texts:
I have a quick question about a hypothetical situation:
An international student A in the US helped another international student B in the Europe finish the entire several homework assignments and an entire final exam. And now, the A has every evidence and chat files, and he wants to report the non-compliance of code of integrity to the European university of student B.
Would student A be punished since he helped student B finish the homework and exam? In this case, student A did not violate any discipline of his university in the US and the laws of the United States. Would student A still be punished by his university or by the law of US?


texts: Should I accept invitation to be an external examiner for a PhD?

texts:
I have been invited to be an external examiner for a Ph.D. in electronic engineering at a UK University.

I work in the Electronics industry in a research role, regularly competing for external research funding with academics and sometimes collaborating with them too (including 2 or 3 of the academics in the department from which I have received the invitation).

I have not studied for a Ph.D., but feel I keep up to date with research on the topics in question.  I review papers for IEEE journals and have some professional recognition.

The Ph.D. has been sponsored by my employer and I believe that a colleague has been the industrial supervisor.  I have not met the candidate.  I don't feel that any of this creates a conflict of interest.

Am I qualified to take this role?  How much work will it involve?


texts: What is the perception of doing a conference presentation at your own institution as opposed to another one?

texts:
This is a hypothetical question so no hard facts about conferences etc.

Say for example there is a conference at your own university that you get to present a paper at but you also get accepted at another university's conference to present a paper at as well.

For this example we will say that both conferences/universities are of the same standing and there is no disadvantage to attend the other one such as cost etc.

Would both look equally good on a CV or would there be a view that the presentation at your own institution would not carry as much weight when viewed by, for example, by a hiring committee?


texts: strange potential plagiarism case(missed the acknowledgement page)

texts: Forgot to mention supervisor's name in the thesis(due to pressure) and submitted it and got an A for it. Can I be accused of plagiarism at a later date, if this professor wishes to push it forward? This professor was my thesis advisor or guide.There were some portions of the thesis which we both worked on it and some portion was mine. I missed the acknowledgment section


texts: White Paper & MS in Mechanical Engineering?

texts:
I am a Mechanical Engineering student & want to pursue Master of Science with specialization in Design/CAD. Recently I have come across white papers on website of some companies about their products. My friend told me that publishing a white paper would be beneficial for my MS applications. So I wanted to know:
1. What exactly is the scope of a white paper?
2. What sort of topic/information must one put in the paper?
3. How to publish a white paper (I mean is there a Journal for white papers or any other standard)?
4. How much effect does it have in showing my research aptitude compared to a scientific publication/ research paper?


texts: Should postdocs give fewer (or otherwise different) status updates than PhD students?

texts:
This question is a bit weird to ask because generally speaking, a normal answer will be "the same way you used to work as a PhD student" but I am not sure if I picked a "bad" habit from my previous experience.
Context:
As a first task as a postdoc, I have received a short abstract with an expected research outcome (a detailed technical report) and some sub steps to achieve the research outcome. These sub-steps are important tasks on their own and will need some research and time, I understand that. So, here is what I did, I read articles in the first week and I prepared a small draft (one page) highlighting key ideas that will help me achieve the first sub-task. The issue, is that I needed some further clarification about the abstract as this will help me decide which direction I should follow next, but at the same time, I wanted to send something to the PI in the first week and not "disappear" after receiving the research abstract, but I haven't received a response in 3 days and I don't know if I created a good impression.
Now I am wondering, how does a postdoc work in the first place (research methodology)? am I expected to have big results every-time I reach out to the PI? When I was a phd student, I used to send weekly (sometimes 2 weeks) updates to my supervisors. These updates were either progress status or problems I was stuck at! Is this approach acceptable for a postdoc?


texts: Do most major math journals not care about a piece of research unless it proves an established result or problem?

texts:
And by established, I mean something that of course already exists be it in a textbook or another research text. I ask because I am developing/researching a what could be said to be quite original concept on my personal time but I feel that it is too idiosyncratic to be even given a thought, and the fact is perhaps offer no value most major journals will not accept it due to its concepts not being attached much to something already existing. Of course, there are other papers I am referencing and citing in the paper but the concept overall is not something I think is of much interest. If it helps, the concept is developing vector spaces over the field of surreal numbers to provide a basis for studying algebro-geometric concepts in a surreal analytic framework. The journals I considered are Compositio Mathematica and AMS.

Based on the papers I've read submitted to the aforesaid journals, they seem to prove fairly substantial results dealing with well established existing concepts. This doesn't seem to come near what I am doing since my concept is infant.

Also, I am still in high school and am afraid of publishing. Will being a high schooler be put against me? Since I always hear if you are a high schooler your concepts be it whatever have no relevance. I am not trying to prove a major result or anything; just get my concepts out there. I've considered arXiv as an initial step to getting whatever research I have noticed but it requires sponsorship which I don't think will make its way to me.


texts: I recently was accepted into a Ph.D. program to begin in the Fall---I receive my Bachelor's degree this weekend. I wanted to know when would it be considered acceptable to start calling myself a graduate student? For example, when is it appropriate to change my LinkedIn and ResearchGate profiles (and my CV) to read "Graduate Student" at the institution in question? I asked my program director, but all he said was that I "was definitely accepted into the program." I want to update my status on my resume and online profiles to reflect this new position, but I don't want to be rude. What should I do?


texts: How should I decline an offer from grad school

texts:
I know such type of questions has been asked lots of times, but I do believe people's conditions vary and there is not necessarily someone who has an identical condition to mine, so please allow me to ask such question again with some details.

I was applying for master's degree in computer science, and got accepted by the one that I've accepted and the other one that I have to turn down now. It was the professor who contacted me first, and one month after I received my offer, I went to the city and visited the school and met professor in person. We talked about a number of things including the research, her supervision style and such. However, I don't think I ever speak like I will for sure go to that university, as I pretty much kept myself conservative. Now I've made up my mind to attend the first school already, so I want to know:

Should I send an email to the professor, besides one to the admission office, that I am about the decline the offer?
If yes, what content should be included in the email? How long should that be? Should I explain carefully my reasoning of picking school?

I well understand that it needs to be extremely polite, but other than that, I am not very sure what to mention.

Also, it would be nice if you can share some experience you have in general when you turn down your offers.

If it helps, I applied to schools in Canada, but I also welcome experiences in the US.


texts: What exactly does a citation alert from Google scholar mean?

texts:
I have a Google Scholar profile and this morning, I got the following email (anonymised):

  Scholar Alert: New articles in my profile

  [CITATION] Here is the paper title
  [My Name] – The Proceedings are here …, 2015

So first I thought that someone has cited the paper mentioned in the email, but when I had a look, there were still zero citations. Then I thought, that maybe this article was added to my list of articles, but then I realised that it was already there before. So what exactly does this email tell me?


texts: Is it possible to find a PhD without being in the lab all the year in Europe?

texts:
I am just finishing my master in computer science in France.
but the problem that I have a hard situation, I must go to my country many times and staying for a bit long time so I cannot stay all the year in Europe. I can stay three months in Europe and three months in my country and so on.. and to make the situation harder I cannot have a contribution between a university from my country and a university in Europe because the sanctions on my country. So I am searching for advice to do a PhD while I can go and return between my country and Europe. Because as I know in France it is not possible in the rules that I could be outside the lab for three months.


texts: Never Heard Back on PhD Application but enrolled in MS program

texts:
Applied to a private university for admission to an MS program thinking I had no chance being admitted to the PhD program because of my transcript.
Planned on trying to get into the PhD program after the first semester of the masters program. At a welcoming seminar for new grad students a faculty member told me to apply to the PhD program anyway. So I did, back in November for Spring admission. Still have not received a formal decision on the PhD application and it’s the end of the Spring semester. Tried reaching out to faculty multiple times inquiring whether I should reapply etc. have not heard back regarding the PhD application but have on other things like maybe an independent research study over the summer. One of my professors straight up told me sometimes the admission committee purposely does not make a decision on certain applicants because they’re not sure about them yet. Which is fine and understandable in a way. But it’s pretty ridiculous at this point, like I’m enrolled in the MS program, have corresponded with multiple faculty regarding research projects etc. but no decision on my PhD application? What should I do?
I’ve respectfully inquired a couple of times but after sending 1-2 follow up emails I don’t feel comfortable continuing to try because I don’t want to come off as rude but this is very important to my future. The chair even got back to me but only addressed half my email and said nothing of the PhD application. I’m not dumb, I know this could be code for declined, but why not give me a formal response?? If anyone wants to know any other details before giving input just ask. Thanks.


texts: (Psychology) Mismatch with Advisor's Research Interests

texts: A complicated story so I’ll try to keep it short. Basically, I was fairly young applying to PhD programs (in psychology) and got into a program where I thought I’d be a great fit. My advisor’s research interests seemed to match up with mine, but the more I started working in the lab I realized how much they....don’t. I’m realizing that we have really conflicting theoretical orientations, and I’m not in any way shape or form thrilled about the current research being conducted in the lab. I’ve been skirting by on the outer rim of their research interests, but I ultimately know for the sake of my future I should be working with someone who has more expertise in what I specifically want to work in. All that said, I can tell my advisor wants me to pursue my own interests and is trying to support my ideas (but it’s clear they are working outside their expertise). I actually have a great relationship with my current advisor and interpersonally get along fantastically with my lab. I feel lost as to what to do (switch labs and work with someone more related to what I want to do-not sure if that would damage any current relationships with my present lab, continue with someone who is very supportive but not in the area I want to be in, something else....). I would feel more comfortable working outside said advisors expertise; however, they are new faculty and I’m not confident they can support me very well in that domain. Honestly just looking for advice/thoughts.... I’ve subtly brought this up in our individual meetings but haven’t done anything drastic.


texts: What are some side jobs with which a mathematician in a postdoc or non-tenure-track position can make ends meet?

texts:
Like many others, I did not get a tenure-track position right out of grad school. I have been moving from university to university across the US for the past few years, sometimes in the capacity of a postdoc, and sometimes in a junior (non-tenure-track) faculty position. (Many of these universities have top math departments, at varying levels; some in the top 10.)

Alas, as I move from one university to the next, my spouse is finding it harder and harder to get a full-time position each time we move. I am currently earning well, but not enough to support a spouse and kids. We're seeing our savings not-so-slowly disappear.

My question is -- what sort of "odd jobs" can someone in my position do to earn money on the side, while my spouse finds his or her bearings (yet again!) in the new location? Note that it is important that these be jobs that are sufficiently flexible that I would be able to do them while still functioning in my current university. I have excellent research (though not sufficient to have gotten a tenure-track position by now), and excellent teaching skills. While I do research in abstract Mathematics, I am also reasonably proficient in statistics and programming.

Are there natural answers to this questions that I have not thought about? Ones that are specific to people in our community? How should one go about getting these odd jobs?


texts: Doing Ph.D in another country and Master in Italy at the same time, is it possible? I am already Ph.D student in Armenia and I want to apply for one of Erasmus Mundus Master programs in University of Bologna. Is that possible?


texts: How should a university non-academic employee's affiliation be like?

texts:
A friend is in a situation where they obtained a PhD in one field in a different country, but now is working at a university in an unrelated field in a non-faculty, non-research position. However, they have got invited to a conference to present on matters relating to their PhD field. How should they list their affiliation? They use their current university's library facilities, etc, for their own private after-hours research, so they want to list their current university employer, but I feel that this is unethical, and "Independent Researcher" or similar would be better.

I've seen a number of similar questions here relating to how students or researchers should handle this, but I think this situation is sufficiently different to merit a new question.


texts: Position in mathematics after Ph.D. with publications but without recommendation letters and teaching experience

texts:
Let's say that some person has a Ph.D. in mathematics and several publications in peer-reviewed journals. After that he worked several years in another field (not directly related to mathematics). Now he is thinking about returning to mathematics. The downside is that:

he doesn't have any teaching experience, and
he can't arrange for any recommendation letters (I am not going to explain why, let's just consider it as a given for the purpose of this question).

All mathematics postdoc position announcements that I've seen so far require recommendation letters, and the vast majority of them require teaching experience. Do you know of any postdoc positions in mathematics that would make an exception?

Also, are there any other positions (in the private sector) related to mathematics that you would suggest to look for in this situation?


texts: Can I continue my previously developed idea in my new work place?

texts:
I had developed a research idea with my colleagues in my previous work place. However, recently I have left the job and joined in a new work place. I also know that none of the colleagues in my previous institute are willing to continue this research idea. So I am wondering whether can I continue the same research idea in my new work place? One thing I can do is I should ask the permission from my previous team or collaborate with them.

I am an atmospheric researcher, previously worked in a research institute and presently working in another research institute.

Looking forward for some suggestions in this regard.


texts: As an undergrad student, what should I do after taking 2nd-year grad-level math courses?

texts: I'm an international undergraduate junior at an university in the U.S. whose math PhD program is ranked about 20th in the nation. By the end of my next semester, I will have taken 16 math graduate courses, most of which are for second year graduate students (e.g. Shimura variety, advanced algebraic geometry, and some special topics courses). Thus, in my senior year there will be not many courses new for me. Also, I have to pay $40k/year. Therefore, I'm considering to graduate a year earlier. However, applying directly to the PhD programs of my choice, such as Princeton, is not a good idea, since I don't have as much research experience as the successful applicants of those programs. Therefore, it is preferable if I can concentrate on research without paying too much. One solution is to go to a less competitive PhD program, including the one of my current institution and then to apply to programs of my interest a year later. Is my idea bad? What other opportunities do I have?


texts: Asking the institute about the status of the application

texts:
I have asked the person who was responsible for the application twice about the status of my application.

First time, he didn't read my email. After a week, I sent another email and this time he answered my email and told me they will send me an email shortly!

For two weeks, I didn't get any answer. I sent another email yesterday and wrote that I am "sacrificing" all other PhD positions for this position (this was really the case). It has taken over two and a half months after deadline.

Today, I have received an email from another person who is a secretary and he wrote me that my application is rejected, because of a close competition.

Do you think the fact that I have asked them several times and that in the last email I wrote "I am sacrificing ..." could have a bad effect on their decision?


texts: Being "good enough" to do research with a professor? ( cse, undergrad )

texts:
I'm a computer science student at Stony Brook University. As the undergrad final project next semester, I am to do a research project under the supervision of a professor, whom I have to find this semester.

I have not yet taken any classes with professors whose research I am interested in, How can I show that I'm "competent enough" for them to spend time on me? It feels like standards for computer science are different than say, biology. I also currently don't know a lot about the area I'm interested in (data systems/mining), though I will be taking the database course this semester. Would this be a major negative factor?


texts: Being overqualified as a barrier for getting a job

texts: I have a PhD and whenever I apply for a librarian job I am told that I am overqualified for this position. How can I overcome this barrier?


texts: How many postdocs should one usually do before it is realistically possible to get a faculty position?

texts: I am interested in the amount of postdocs one usually has to do before one gets a "good" faculty position while considering the apparent differences in various academic disciplines.


texts: A major journal in my field is published by Elsevier. How can we move the field to a less objectionable, more open publisher?

texts:
Many people complain about Elsevier and over eight thousand are boycotting it, but actual solutions seem hard to find for certain fields- I'm thinking of research areas for which an Elsevier journal is very important and funds are not available to subsidize an open-access journal.

How can we move an Elsevier-dependent research community to a less objectionable, more open publisher?

I'll post a partial possible answer myself; I'm asking because I think we need more/better answers than mine.


texts:
I am a postdoc in a biology department. I am friends with a professor in the philosophy department who is the editor of a Nature journal which publishes book reviews. A 150-page popular science book on biology has just come out and he has asked me to write a 3-page review for it. I would have 6 months to read the book and write the review.

What are the pros and cons of doing this?

An obvious con is that it takes away time from me doing research. There are no obvious pros to me, although it does not seem like much work and it might be 'fun'.

(Wasn't sure what tags to use, if someone has suggestions then please edit.)


texts:
In Europe it is somewhat common to apply directly to professors for a PhD project at any time of the year. Specially in chemical engineering, bioprocessing, process engineering, material science and similar areas.

Assuming you are currently writing your master thesis (usually takes 1 semester), how early should you start applying for PhD's?

I found this related question Apply for PhD before finishing my Master's degree , however it deals with applying to US PhDs while doing a EU Master.

My doubt is about applying to EU PhDs while finishing a EU master.


texts:
In the US universities, many positions are endowed by donors. Is it possible/common for individual academics to directly contact possible donors with some plans? If so, how one can find possible donors?

For instance, an academic can propose a plan to university officials for establishing an innovative research center. University officials check if they can raise fund for the plan or not. In parallel, the person can individually find donors to raise the necessary funds.


texts: Should I self-impose a word limit for a journal article abstract

texts: The author guidelines for the Journal of Computational Physics do not specify a word limit for the abstract, saying only that it should be 'brief'.  But should I impose a word limit myself?  I have heard that some indexing services can truncate overly-long abstracts, though I've not come across evidence that this is this case.


texts: What is the etymology of "Assistant Professor"?

texts:
In the US, "Assistant Professor" is a junior rank among permanent university faculty. Generally, Assistant Professors are independent researchers with more or less the same job responsibilities as more senior faculty (Associate Professors or Full Professors), but without the perks of tenure. That is, they teach classes, advise graduate students, apply for grants, and have administrative responsibilities. (In other countries, the term may have a slightly different meaning. It is roughly equivalent to a Lecturer in the UK system.)

As far as I know, Assistant Professors are not assistants to anyone. So why the name?

Usually an Assistant X is someone who works under the supervision of X and helps X carry out their duties, but that is not the case here. In contrast, other university titles containing "Assistant", such as "Research Assistant" or "Teaching Assistant", do fit the more conventional definition of the word.

After a bit of searching, I have not been able to find any information about the origin of the term. Although it has apparently been in use since 1827. Does anyone know more about the history of the term?

Perhaps the job has evolved from a true assistant position into what it is today while the title has remained the same. Alternatively, it may be a (mis)translation or the meaning of "Assistant" has changed. If someone can find a source documenting a history like that, I would happily accept that as an answer.


texts: I was wondering if ECTS Credits are based on performance. For example, I know a course is say 5 ects credits, are those 5 credits awarded to a passing grade or is it based on performance and only a part of those credits are awarded depending on your grades?


texts: Can you get a tenure-track position in philosophy with a J.D.?

texts: As stated in the title, I'm wondering if someone could shed some light on whether it is possible to land a tenure-track position in philosophy with a J.D. By way of background, I double majored in philosophy and psychology, and I am heading into my 3rd year of law school. A life as an academic sounds more appealing than it did a few years ago when I chose law school over a Phd., and I'm curious if a J.D. could suffice. Any helpful insight on this topic would be greatly appreciated!


texts: Giving students a complete set of study resources

texts:
This is a hypothetical question, as I am not currently in a teaching position :)

I am currently making flash cards for Japanese on Quizlet, a flash card service (website & app). The flash cards are for vocabulary, grammar, and additional notes that I have made for edge cases that would be expounded upon in later courses.

Personally, if an instructor had given me the material I am currently working on at the start of the semester, I would have used it to my advantage throughout the course, and it would have saved me about 8 hours of preparing the material myself. Yet, I have a feeling that it could be detrimental to some students, especially in particular subjects. That said, I see no problem in the case of foreign language courses, where the most important thing is active application of what was learned - you have to study vocabulary and grammar before you can use it in class, thus giving students a set of flash cards for such topics would not influence their application of the language.

I am wondering: were I in the position of instructor for the course, would it be pedagogically detrimental, or even inappropriate, for me to make such resources and give them to students? Would it depend on the time of the semester when I gave them the resources (e.g. would it be best to give them what I prepared only after all the material has been covered)? Would it depend on the subject?


texts: Differences in the capitalization of my name

texts:
In my passport, my name is "SABBIR HASAN" because there was no option to write  in smaller letters.
I registered on the GRE with my name as "Sabbir Hasan", and I am also writing it this way on the online graduate application form.

Will the difference create any problem?


texts: Should authors omit statements / citations of well known results in response to referee requests?

texts:
I am asking this question to get further perspective on an issue that has come up with a student (undergraduate, mathematics) I am mentoring.  At last summer's REU he wrote (in particular!) a solo paper.  I was not directly involved with the research, but I gave him some feedback on the writing before he submitted it for publication a few months ago.  He has now received a referee report, which is very positive and is of the sort that I would recognize as being 99% likely to lead to acceptance.  The referee requests revisions, many of which I agree with.

However, one of the referee's suggestions is for the student to not explicitly state two well-known theorems that he is making use of.  (In case it helps to know, these are Dirichlet's Theorem on primes in arithmetic progressions and Minkowski's Convex Body Theorem.)  The referee follows up by saying that even if he does want to state them, he should not give citations to them, since they are so well known and google searches easily turn up references.

My questions:

(1) How would you respond to this referee request if you were the author?
(2) How would you advise a young student to respond to this request?


texts: Face-saving way of asking whether audience is familiar with specific topic

texts:
Sometimes I give a talk for a limited number of persons (typically well below 15). Here, the audience consists of persons from different subfields of the same fields. Consequently, I am often not familiar with the background of all persons in the audience. In the past, I sometimes was unsure whether all the attending persons are familiar with a specific topic that is considered basic in my subfield but might not in theirs. I then asked directly, whether they are familiar with the specific topic. The answer was almost always "yes" although later it turned out that the topic was not so clear to everybody.

How can I rephrase this question in order to get an honest answer?


texts: If boss is my PhD supervisor, is a wage negotiation inadequate?

texts:
I got the offer to do a PhD at an university while being employed at a company. In that scenario, my boss is also my supervisor.

Is it inadequate to start negotiations about my wage I get from the company?

I am asking since I come from Germany, where there is a standard wage for scientific staff. So, I cannot change what I get from uni, but that does not hold for my job within the company. Eventually my boss expects me to accept the standard wage for the company job too, but I generally have good arguments to get more money, e.g. work experience, talent and good motivation. However, I want to avoid that he cancels the offer due to inadequate behavior from my side.

Thanks in advance for ideas!

P.S.: Comments about if the constellation boss=supervisor is problematic are also welcome!


texts: Will flat earth society membership affect my graduate school application?

texts:
Just to be clear: no, I don't believe in the flat earth theory.

However, a few years ago, I thought that the flat earth society forum is a good place to practice my debating skills and to have fun. Therefore, I joined it and made an online id that's close to my real name to debate on the forum. It just made me feel accomplished when I see people having trouble disproving my obviously faulty "theory". I posted a lot there in the past year.

I plan to apply to a master program in physics and I worry that people will find out my membership, think that I believe in pseudoscience, and reject my applications. Is this an issue I should address on SOP?


texts: Is it ok to use "and/or" in my dissertation?

texts: I'm elaborating a small scorecard for a comparison between two technologies, I was wondering if it would be formally acceptable to use "and/or" in my bullet points, e.g., "Not automated and/or involves excessive configuration."


texts:
I am writing my thesis in computer science and I am looking to include some references. I need to include though the researchers who first wrote about a specific subject and not others who expanded the original ideas.

I use Google Scholar for searches but there isn't an option to search for this criteria.

How can I find the first researcher who wrote about a specific subject?


texts: What is the key difference between the term "Research Gaps" and the terms "Literature Survey" or "Literature Review"?

texts: The difference between the terms "Literature Survey" and "Literature Review" is covered in this question and answers. But how do they differ from "Research Gaps" in the context of a research proposal?


texts: What can I do about newspaper with poor referencing?

texts:
Newspapers often like to report on new scientific advancements.
They often do a terrible job.
They may sensationalise the story.
Or confuse a project proposal/preliminary study with a result.

We can perhaps forgive them, and take the blame on ourselves for not making papers clear enough for them to understand.
Or not. This question is not about inaccuracies in reporting however.
This question is about poor referencing of the scientific article they are talking about -- making it hard to track down the original source.

Because of the often low quality of the newspaper reporting, it is important to be able to find and read the original scientific article.

When you tell a fellow about a new paper that came out,
you are bare minimum include the title, and the names of the authors,
and generally the year, and publication venue too.

Recently I have seen major newspapers failing to do this.

For example
The news paper article:

John Ross, "Anxiety epidemic hits the rich and the young", The Australian, 6 june 2016

Is talking about:

Olivia Remes, Carol Brayne, Rianne van der Linde and Louise Lafortune, "A systematic review of reviews on the prevalence of anxiety disorders in adult populations", Brain and Behavior 2016

But all it mentions is the name and affiliation of the first author, and the name of the journal -- an even these are hidden in the text, rather than in a nice block.

We can compare this against a specialized scientific news source:

unknown author, "Women and people under the age of 35 at greatest risk of anxiety", Science Bulletin, 6 June 2016

Which gives full detail, including a DOI, in a nice source block at the end.
I've also seen this sometimes in newspapers, but it is not ubiquitous.
Sadly, the newspaper I mention above (The Australian) is probably the most reputable mainstream newspapers in my country (if you know a better one I'm interested).

What can I, as a concerned (read: busybody) academic, with no affilation to the article being written about, do to work towards countering the poor practices of these newspapers?

Right now, what I am doing is everytime someone links to a news report on social media I hunt down the original paper, and link them to it by commenting on there post.
This solves the problem for one person, and for people who follow them.

But can I be countering it overall?
Is it worth writing to the newspaper, providing a request that the clean up there act?
Should I perhaps contact the authors of the paper, informing them of the (petty)  injustice the paper is doing to their work, by not referencing it correctly?


texts: Can I be admitted to a master's in the USA after a 3-year European bachelor's program?

texts: I am an Indian citizen and I'm planning to go for my bachelors to Germany. Since schooling in Germany is 13 years in length, I'll study 1 year in India before going there. I wanted to ask that after completing my Bachelor's in Germany, will I be eligible to apply for Masters in USA straightaway right after my BS (I plan to pursue a BS in Computer Science). I had this doubt in my mind as BS in Germany would be 3 years compared to that in USA which is 4 years.


texts: I am writing a research paper. A small but important idea for the paper was found on MathOverflow. I know the real name of the user. I tried contacting him and offered him co-authorship, but I got no reply. How do I acknowledge him now ? Do journals encourage citations under pseudonyms?


texts: What is the preferred GRE Writing score for MS/CS student?

texts:
I am planing to apply to study in graduate school, major in computer science/engineering. I just took a GRE test, this is my 1st time, and the result is pretty...not so good :(

Most schools, the science or engineering related program, reveals the average or preferred GRE scores for quantitative and verbal sections for admitted students. But it seems they don't care about the score of Analytic Writing section. Really?

To be honest, my writing score really bumped this time. I want to know if there's a preferred score range for this section.


texts: Is it reasonable to suggest a PhD thesis topic in an interdisciplinary area in which none of the faculty members specialize?

texts:
I think a similar question was answered in PhD Research under guide/advisor of a different department by JeffE. I'm asking a slightly different question. Yet if you find it identical to the above one, you can report it to be 'duplicate.'

I'm interested in both pure math and machine learning, and I chose to apply to math PhD exclusively due to my background. However, recently I've been into (1) developing an algorithm related to proof verification and others for application to mathematics using the state-of-the-art deep learning techniques and (2) deep learning proper without much of sophisticated math involved. I'm certain most or all professors in math department I'm applying to (or anywhere else) aren't working in such an approach as (1), since that's more of a job of professors in CS department.

Though the answer may be case-by-case, is a topic as (1) appropriate for my PhD thesis? I understand that I can have a co-adviser from CS dept., but is this topic likely to get accepted from math department?
If so, by any chance if my interest totally shifts to (2) and has not much to do with mathematics at later stage of my PhD, do I still have to work on something related to math like (1)? (I assume the answer is Yes.)
In fact, one of the programs I got accepted to is quite lenient in letting a math PhD student into its ML PhD program. Is going to this program the only reasonable path for the case that my interest totally shifts to (2)?


texts: I noticed a particular conference had a deadline in January, whereas a workshop collocated at the conference had a deadline in May. Does this mean the workshop is merely using the location of the workshop, but is a distinct event? Example. I noticed the workshops proceedings are considered "non-archival meaning contributors are free to publish their work in archival journals or conferences" Is this the case with all workshops?


texts: Why is ASU asking for my wife's high school transcripts when she is already in college?

texts:
I know I graduated from the university many moons ago, but my wife has been attending community college for awhile and wants to transfer to an online program with Arizona State University (ASU).

My understanding is when you transfer from one institution of higher learning to another you transfer your transcripts. I am not sure how did conversation asking my wife for her high school transcripts from her country of origin, where she has to get them notarized and translated and what not ended up as part of the conversation.

It's a given she did this once already as that is how you get into a US accredited local community college already.

So can anyone help me out here because otherwise I am thinking they are hearing an accent and asking her what they shouldn't and just going down a road of treating her like she is some international student who is trying to apply to school here.


texts: How can a professor who has signed The "Cost of Knowledge" pledge review papers without having to recant?

texts:
A large majority of researchers in my field publish in Elsevier journals. However, a professor who is widely regarded as an authority in my field has, some years ago, signed The Cost of Knowledge pledge to neither publish nor review for Elsevier. I think this is sad, since someone who is highly qualified to review these papers will no longer review them and improve their quality.

This professor has published in other journals, but it does not seem that others are following suit, since these Elsevier journals seem to be highly prized. What can he do to be able to review papers that would have otherwise come to his perusal without having to recant?


texts: Does it make sense to apply for assistant professorship positions before Ph.D. graduation?

texts:
In the course of browsing a couple of positions for brand-new (STEM-related) assistant professorships (in North America), I am wondering whether it does make sense if one applies for such positions before her Ph.D. graduation. For example, an advertisement asserts that

These positions require a Ph.D. or equivalent in engineering or a
closely related discipline at date of hire

The job announcement has only supplied a period for application submissions, say, Nov. 2020 until May 2021. My Ph.D. defense is around early 2021, but I think if I wait till that time, the positions may have already been occupied without any chance of competition for me. But if I act before graduation, will my potential application be considered when I have not yet sealed my Ph.D.?


texts: Recent publication versus old, crappy letters of recommendation?

texts:
I honestly didn't do to well in university. The classes that interested me I did well in, everything else not so much. Needless to say my GPA isn't the best.

Recently however I've found a field that really interests me. I've been trying to learn as much as I can, and I've been contributing to open source projects as well. These projects have led to at least one publication (a second is up in the air) as well as an online portfolio.

Since these are open source, remote projects I haven't had a real chance to form close relationships with anyone. Since I'm now considering going back to school, this puts me in a bit of a bind when it comes to letters of recommendation since I doubt in going to get really great letters from anyone from university.

It's been about five years since I graduated, so I'm not sure the impact of poor letters versus more recent work. I'm also not sure how to fix it. Any advice would be nice


texts: When will the GRE Subject Test resume after COVID-19?

texts:
A far as my research can find, ETS has waived rescheduling fees for taking the GRE and has canceled all test dates for all tests through September 2020. They also have an at home option for the general test. However, I am unable to find any information regarding what the future of the subject tests will be. I need to take the mathematics subject test pretty soon to make certain application deadlines, and cannot find information anywhere I have looked regarding when it will be available again.

My questions are these. When will we be able to register for the subject tests again? If this is unknown, is anything known regarding the future of the test?


texts: How can a researcher improve his contribution to society?

texts:
As an academic researcher in a theoretical field at a public institution, I am sensitive to the social value of my work (my own contribution to society). I do some teaching, whose contribution to society is easy to identify, but not much. Try to increase that aspect of my job, I have listed some things I can do (some of which I already do, some of which I don’t):

Engage in collaborations with industrial partners (favoring transfer of knowledge to practical applications).
Orientate one’s research goals to match an area of societal importance (green gas reduction, nuclear waste storage, you name it).
Communicate science to a wide public, whether it is my own research or the knowledge of my field in general (popular science). This includes writing articles in magazines, writing a blog, developing educational software, …
Get involved in education science: contribute to my national society of physics and chemistry teachers, for example. Offer some software for high-school and university teachers to demonstrate concepts.
Register as an expert with the nearest court of law.

What other suggestions do you have to improve one’s social value? (Or should I stop worrying and love the bomb?) I mean, in the short term. I know that I (and my colleagues) contribute to the advancement of mankind in the very long term, but sometimes it doesn't help feel useful.


texts: Could I change my research direction after graduated master?

texts: For example, if I finished a topic on the computer science field and graduated as a master degree, could I change to a topic within the psychology or any other field. Just because I'm more interested in doing research in psychology.


texts: How do deal with low self-confidence after a failed research rotation?

texts:
In short, my third rotation research supervisor withdrew support on a Friday afternoon before my scheduled qualifying exam the following Wednesday. I had been rotating in the lab for about three months. He said that I did not have the cognitive ("critical thinking") or emotional abilities to be a PhD student. Apparently I was getting too much input from my postdoc mentor and the other graduate students, so he did not feel comfortable having me take the exam to possibly join the lab. (Even I were to pass, he would still "fail" me.) Because the lab is large, I was mainly supervised and received feedback from the postdoc. He maintained that I did good work throughout the rotation and was asking questions at an appropriate level for my experience. A staff scientist enjoyed working me as well and felt I was making appropriate progress.

When it came time to present the written report to the PI before the qualifying exam (which already had been approved by the postdoc) he was not pleased and could not believe that my postdoc mentor had approved it. He maintained that I would be absolutely picked apart by the committee for various errors. I needed to apologize and say how stupid it was to appease him. I asked other graduate students about his behavior, and they agreed he can be very condescending. I still felt uneasy though about the discrepancy in expectations between the PI and my postdoc mentor.

While the PI was not supervising my daily activities, he knew of my personal struggles during my rotation. My medication for anxiety had been changed at the beginning of the rotation, and I was experiencing enough symptoms that he caught me crying during a meeting. I explained my diagnosis, and he was very kind and supportive and told me to let him know how I was doing. I kept him updated throughout the rotation, and maybe shared more details than I should have, but I felt I was safe because his wife is a mental health professional. I never shared to get sympathy. I just wanted to make sure he knew that I was trying my best, and I could sense my work was not up to my usual standards. I felt it was the responsible thing to do. Because I was not up to par for a few weeks, he asked for my rotational time to extend beyond the qualifying exam to make sure that we could work together. The uncertainty was hard to deal with, but older students in the lab assured me that he had never let someone go who had rotated that long.

In the week before the qualifying exam, I moved and got diagnosed with an infection. The move provoked my anxiety, and the infection of course did not help, so I let him know what was going on because my draft edits were going to be late. That Friday afternoon, all of my problems that week, along with my mental health history in general, were used to substantiate that I was not emotionally ready for a PhD.

Because my first rotation mentor was a poor fit, and my second rotation mentor lacked funding, the department gave me a fourth rotation. The lab I am in now aligns well with my goals. However, I cannot escape the feeling that I am not catching on soon enough and I'm making mistakes on topics I "should" know. I am very worried that this PI will kick me out as well when he finds out what I actually know. The negative thought is always creeping in that I am not good enough, and maybe the third rotation PI was right. Realistically, my previous two mentors did not sense any problems, and my undergrad mentor maintains I will be a good grad student.

I'd appreciate any thoughts or advice. Thanks.


texts: Course Requirements for Mathematics and Applied Mathematics Phd admission

texts:
I am a student from Sri Lanka, and I have just finished my degree. Because of the rules of my University ( My program was a direct intake for Mathematical Finance specialization, and despite this I have followed mathematics subjects the most) I was not allowed to take any abstract algebra courses. I have completed the other courses which Pure Mathematics Special students undertake such as in Analysis and have good results. I will be undertaking a reading course for Algebra with the senior lecturer at the University at whilst he said he will give a letter as evidence as possibly at best a letter from the faculty it won't be officially recognized in the transcript

So my main question is that would such a letter be recognized, even if it is signed by the dean of the faculty when apply for a phd? I hope I will be able to cover the usual algebra syllabus and maybe even more.


texts: How to acquire 3 recommendation letters to apply for jobs when working with 1 advisor?

texts:
We all know that usually when applying for a post phd academic position students need at least three recommendation letters. But what can we do if we have only worked with our advisor and we have no other close professors in the department to ask. This refers to the case when the student took classes, had a little teaching experience, but never got to the point to know some professor well, or collaborate with researchers from another place.

Some sub-questions:
1) how well does the writer need to know the student to write a decent recommendation?
2) how research recommendations are looked at when applying for purely teaching job?
3) how non-research recommendations are looked at when applying for research job?
4) what else can we do in a short period of time to acquire those recommendations?
5) is there a way to avoid submitting recommendations, at least in the first stage of the application process?


texts: Maintaining Credibility with Data Obtained by Hand

texts: Recently, I was doing a project in computer science (involving modes of computation) that had a very specific time limit. Unfortunately, due to software problems, I was forced to obtain my data by hand. I went to substantial lengths to ensure the correctness of this data, but am worried that my credibility and the credibility of the data will be significantly decreased. What should I do to maintain credibility?


texts: How to disseminate a methodology proposal to those who may be interested?

texts:
I am currently doing research in the field of non-linear narrative design.
As it is still quite a small field, few sources and set jargon is currently available that hasn't bled in from paternal fields.
As such, I have written a proposal regarding the documentation of non-linear narrative structures.
The problem comes that not only is there no real viable place to publish this, but most tangential journals won't look at it twice as it is an unsourced inductive reasoning piece.

I feel like I'm effectively starting a subfield with this publication, so I want to do it right.

What would be the ideal way to get this paper out to those who it may interest the most?

I currently do not have an academic position, but am pursuing research on my own time.


texts: Why does an admissions committee need to look at the whole transcript?

texts: Admissions committees look at a student's entire transcript to get an understanding of their academic abilities. Why is it not sufficient to judge a student's academics based on GPA alone?


texts: Do teachers/professors refer to each other by their titles?

texts:
I just began shadowing a high school classroom as part of a requirement to earn teaching credentials. The teacher I'm shadowing has a PhD and is referred to as "Doctor Smith" (generic name) by his students. I am not his student and it is the first experience I have in a classroom setting where the teacher is my peer; but, it still feels uncomfortable to call him by his first name.

Do I call him "Doctor Smith?"

If he doesn't have a PhD, should I call him "Mr. Smith?"

When is it appropriate to call someone by their first name?


texts: How to ensure proper peer-review for a self-published book?

texts: In this day and age, with more and more people going the self-publishing route, I'd be interested in experiences from/opinions about how to go about having your self-published book properly peer-reviewed.


texts: MPhils or Masters by Research in Germany in a mathematical subject

texts: I was wondering whether there are Masters by Research or MPhils in Germany in a mathematical subject? I have been advised to look at the 3 Berlin universities (TU, HU, FU) but have only found PhD's and MSc's. What is the equivalent of a research masters in Germany? Thanks!


texts:
I co-wrote an original short paper with a senior colleague on the history of science. It was submitted some months ago, and was reviewed and rebutted several times before it was finally accepted and is now in print. Its topic is somewhat controversial. During the review process we had to battle to be allowed to 'air' our opinion about one particular issue.
To our surprise, a few weeks ago the same editor (with whom we had engaged at length during the review process) then published a short article in the same journal, one quarter of which ALSO mentioned the original topic we had drawn attention to and had indeed battled over.   No mention at all of our original published work was made - even though we had published only a few weeks before, and we had had to negotiate in detail in terms of what we said about specific topics.  Is this an academic discourtesy? It feels somewhat dishonourable - especially since our work put forward an original, highly-relevant viewpoint and is very recent.


texts: What should be included as part of a comment paper?

texts:
I intend to submit a comment paper. In the base paper the "basic assumption" made for justifying the result is wrong. I intend to cite some reference books which support my argument about incorrectness of basic assumption.

My question is whether I should just list the facts with proper citation OR also justify that by some experimentation? I have an alternative justification which could explain the results. Should I perform experiments and prove correctness of justification that I propose?