texts: How to cite Nature's "Supplementary Information" papers?

texts: In one of my works I cite several times this kind of publications, but I don't know the recommended procedure to refer to them at the end. For articles I usually take bibtex code from Google Scholar or a similar site, but these papers do not figure there. I'm not sure even whether the best writing practice is to cite them or just to cite the main article, when referring to some specific information that is not published in this main article.


texts: I sent an email to a journal's editorial office via Scholar One's Manuscript Central. I had clicked on the EO's link , which led to a popup and then sent the mail by clicking on "Save and Send". My Question now is, where can I find the record of this email? I cannot find it in my email ID's sent folder nor does ScholarOne have one for this.


texts: Do arxiv papers matter at all while applying for a doctoral program in Physics?

texts:
Consider an applicant in a Master's program with a fairly good application in terms of LORs, GPA, research background, and standard tests. If this applicant, who is applying to a doctoral program in Physics in the US, also has a collection of writings in arxiv would this add any more value to the application?
In other words, can arxiv papers boost an application's value in any way since they might show the self-study activities of a student?


texts: Using the title of famous books as titles in presentations

texts: I want to give a presentation in which I want to use the title of famous books as some of the titles of my slides to add some taste to it. Am I allowed to use for example (Great Expectations) in the title of a slide regarding the copyright?


texts: Elsevier's article class for submission vs. the published version

texts:
I'm submitting a paper to the journal Elsevier journal "Nonlinear Analysis: Theory, Methods & Applications" (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0362546X).

They told me to use the elsearticle document to prepare my submission. The problem is the margins are huge and the line spacing is huge, so my document has doubled in size under this class. So I thought: ok, I need to cut down on my calculations etc. But then I looked at some published articles under that journal, and they do not resemble the elsearticle class at all! The margins are much smaller and the line spacing is much nicer, so much more text fits in.

What is the point of them telling us to use that awful style file? Why should I spend hours reducing my paper when it won't be published in that style and so the changes I make may be entirely unnecessary!


texts: Do articles published in newspapers count as publications?

texts:
I have some analytical articles published in reputed national newspapers,local magazines relevant to my subjects. Do those count as publications?

I have to fill a form (graduate school) and bit confused about it (bit worried how it would be perceived).

Some of articles were quite long and extensive (based on local surveys) so rather than leaving “publication” section of form blank, I thought may be I can put those to show some publication experience (all as summary – not one by one in detail). After all, many say something is better than nothing.


texts: How do I know if I am a competitive applicant for a top/second-tier grad school?

texts:
I am contemplating on applying grad school, both MS and PhD, in Computational Social Science, such as Computational Analytics and Public Policy at University of Chicago.

But I am not sure what kind of applicant I am. How competitive or desirable I am as an applicant for a grad school. I am worried if I target wrong schools, too high or too low. Of course, I know that ranking is not everything, but at the same time, I don't want to make any mistake, such as failing to evaluate myself.

I think my profile is quite unique and interesting, but not sure if it would attract attention of admission committees. I have been always passionate about working for abused children. But how? Firstly, I was interested in Corporate Social Responsibility, then in Child Psychology, in Social Work, and now in approaching social issues by using computational methods—Computational Social Science.

I did my bachelors in Business Administration(GPA 3.4/4.0) in Korea and partially in France, and did my master of social work(GPA3.9/4.0, full-tuition scholarship) in Australia. All are highly ranked schools.

My GRE score is V:151, Q: 170, AWA: 4.5. I have a range of research experiences in psychology, Social Work, and Information Technology(total 6 labs, from 3months to 1 year). I will have 1-2 papers published by the time of submitting my application. The research will be about improving the lives of international students in my department. I have earned bursary($2,000) for this pilot project, which will be implemented in our department from next year.

I dropped out of middle school in Korea and went to the US by myself when I was 15. I wanted to see the bigger world. Then I came back to Korea and taught myself to get into a Uni. After completing my BA. I worked two years as a Sales Channel manager at Samsung Electronics managing $6 million per year. But I soon realised that doing CSR in Korea is too unrealistic. Then, I quit and gave all my savings to my parents (you know, there is high expectation on children by their parents in Asian culture), and went to Canada to find a way to work for children. After participating in several studies in Toronto, I decided to study social work and went to Australia to do MSW.

I also have a long list of volunteer work, mostly working for children and their family. And I have been making my living working in restaurants since I quit my lucrative Sales manager position at Samsung.

I wonder if my profile would make sense to grad program admission committee, and would like to know how I can make it more attractive. I have been thinking about paying some money ($300/h) to do a consultation for admission. Do you think it is worth it? I want to know how competitive applicant I am.


texts: Do you acknowledge someone mentioned in your paper/presentation that is in the audience?

texts:
Say for example you are giving a paper at a conference and someone you name in your paper is in the audience. Is there any expectation that you make reference to this persons presence when giving your presentation?

For example say the text in your paper is;

  Professor X, in his paper on Human mutation...

would you change it to something like;

  Professor X, who is with us today, in his paper on Human mutation...


texts: Is it pointless to bring up poor supervision during PhD viva?

texts:
I should defend my PhD in the UK near the end of the year.

Unfortunately I fell into the class of horribly supervised PhD students - with an ill-defined research project and an absent supervisor who steered me into so many different topics of my field that I'm convinced my results chapters lack depth and analysis.

For that specific reason I seriously doubt the originality and the importance of my research work, which will be thoroughly assessed during the viva.

Can the internal and external reviewers be receptive about objective arguments related to poor supervision during the 3-4 years of research? Or are they bound to discuss only the contents of the thesis?

PS - This is not an opinion-based or a stress-induced question where I expect "don't worry" answers. I'm well aware a PhD is a self journey and one should cope with difficult supervision. The question pertains to the viva only.


texts: Supervisor and GRA roles in submitting a grant

texts:
I am required to complete 300 practicum hours to fulfill my requirements in a Masters program.  I decided to fulfill these hours by creating a practicum experience with my GRA (graduate research assistant) supervisor.  This experience was designed for me to develop skills in tasks that I would not normally do in my GRA.  We decided to work on a few different projects- I was to submit an letter of intent after taking a course on grant writing, help develop a couple of publications in the works, and work on a presentation for our group.

I took the grant writing course, developed some general ideas with my supervisor on paths that we might pursue, and we submitted the grant.  I was told that I would take the lead on this grant as part of my experience.  And I have for the most part.  We did a lot of editing together, we met with the grant coordinator of our school, and I did most of the research for the grant.  It was a continuation of an earlier project, but the application was novel and it was something that I created and took ownership over.  I was excited as this was my first grant and I worked very hard on it.  I wanted this to happen.

Months go by and we are working on the other parts of the practicum, mostly working on some publication work.  But it felt like I was being excluded from the main discussion and I was not receiving much support.  It is an area that is not in my background, but I wanted to get experience in this area.  It felt like I was wasting hours sitting there with no support, so I did not count my hours towards the practicum.  I would try to get her to help, but it always seemed like I was bothering her or she didn't have time or was frustrated.  When I told her that I have not counted my hours recently, that I was just doing GRA hours, she seemed frustrated and told me that I need to get this over with.  I didn't think I was getting enough out of the experience.  At this point I started regretting doing my practicum experience here because I would have had a chance to develop real skills elsewhere.  Then, I thought that I probably should have been given more tasks in my GRA hours.  I was horribly underworked to begin with, and my practicum was an attempt to gain more meaningful experiences out of this group.

Recently, we get the word back that the letter of intent was accepted and there was a very good chance that we would get the grant.  I reply back to the grant coordinator like I had done before, since I was taking the lead on this grant, and instead, my supervisor gets in and starts coordinating things.  I keep trying to set up meetings and figure out the next step, but she took over the project.  No discussion, no email at all.  Now there is a lot of work going on with this grant and I feel excluded.  She has not assigned me a task to work on for this and I have not heard anything.  I feel like I am left in the dark.  I know she has a lot more experience and skill with these things, but this feels like it would be a big opportunity for me.  To be honest, I would like some recognition from department.  I feel like I helped the department score funds with a practicum and grant idea that was mine.  I feel pushed away on both the grants and the publications.

Can you think of a way to approach this?  I really do like her and I don't want to cause any issues.  I just think she is a poor leader and supervisor.  I viewed it as a team effort to begin with and I was hoping to continue this way, but it does not feel like it is going this direction.


texts: Is there a minimum amount of methodological modifications for extending previous work from other authors?

texts:
Given a published paper, as a Computer Scientist, I see an opportunity to extend the work and methodology of previous authors.

By modifying the presented work, introducing some concepts and a different approach for input parameters (for example) my "new" work can achieve better results than the results presented by the original authors.

In some cases, the modifications I suggest are not extensive or radically divergent, but even this way the results are better than the current state of the art.

Is there considered to be a minimum change from the methodology in the original paper, to publish an extension of that earlier paper from other authors?

EDIT: By extending I mean: writing a paper emphasizing the modifications that produce improved/better results, instead of copying significant passages from the original work results.


texts: Should I send low GRE mathematics score to universities?

texts:
My GRE score is only 790 (77 percentile). I am an international student applying for PhD in applied mathematics at Tier 1 schools in the U.S. I am from the top university in my country and have a strong academic record and good recommendations. I have communicated with some faculty at some of these universities and they have expressed interest in my profile.

I am worried that my application would get filtered out just because of the GRE score. So I was wondering if I should send this score at all?


texts:
I am not a genius but I am a good test taker and a very practical person. I went through undergraduate school without studying much (skipping classes, doing homework, reading the books and doing some exercises the day before the test) with a 3.6 GPA in Computer Engineering from a decent school (CWRU).

I know I might get angry answers from people saying that it simply cannot be done. I am interested to hear from the people in the other side of the spectrum. Can it be done? Have you done it?

I want to become a college professor so a PhD is a requirement I need to fulfil.

slack off = not put much effort and work in, like when you didn't bother to google that word!


texts: Listing (peer reviewed) software article on CV

texts:
I am a contributor to an R package, and we are preparing a submission to the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS). Submissions are peer reviewed (guidelines available here), and articles are typically ~5 pages in length.

However, I am a social scientist, and the JOSS peer review process is vastly different from that of journals in my field. Peer review is conducted publicly on GitHub via an issue thread, and the journal does not outright reject submissions as stated in their review criteria:

  We ask that reviewers grade submissions in one of three categories: 1) Accept 2) Minor Revisions 3) Major Revisions. Unlike some journals we do not reject outright submissions requiring major revisions - we’re more than happy to give the author as long as they need to make these modifications/improvements.

Given these differences, I am hesitant to include a JOSS article in the peer reviewed publications section of my CV if this article eventually ends up being published by JOSS. These are the options I've considered so far:

Include a link as part of the entry for the package in the software section of my CV
As an entry in the non-peer reviewed publications section of my CV
Don't include it in my CV at all

What is the best practice here?


texts: How to deal with GPA-related questions in standardized job application forms, if you have no GPA for graduate studies

texts:
I recently finished my PhD and am currently applying for several positions both within academia and in industry. Some companies I'm looking at have standardized job portal where you can leave your info and do a "general application" (e.g. IBM).

In the education section they ask for GPA for each entry, including PhD which appears to be a mandatory field. Here's the problem none of our grad courses are graded, you pass or fail. Thus no GPA. I tried to write N/A, but that wasn't accepted by the system.

Anyone with experience on how to deal with this situation?


texts: Gamified course: how to deal with the massive amount of grading needed without using specific software?

texts:
I've been trying to give gamification a go for a while, but I'm struggling on how exactly to implement it.

I teach an introduction to programming course, and as I'm part of a team including a couple other teachers and we have too many students, our course is usually divided in two parts: one teacher explains the concepts and then I help students solve problems and exercises. That is 2 classes a week. When the semester is about to end, we have an exam (actually, 3, as the students have 3 chances to pass the exam). No additional activities, no projects, etc., as we usually have about 50 students to grade each semester.

I'm already trying a flipped classroom approach by providing videos they can watch at home before they come and try to solve exercises during my class, but still would like to add some gamification. However, I'm struggling on how to propose this to the rest of the teaching staff.

I've read a couple of books on gamification, watched videos and read about other teacher's experiences online, and I pretty much have an idea of what I'd like to do, and one of those things is replace grades with "experience points" and levels. The more XP points you get, the more levels you gain. Students that reach a certain level will pass the course.

The problem is: how are XP points awarded? In most cases I've read about, every activity is awarded XP, be it exercises the students solve, youtube videos they have to watch, projects they make, quizzes, etc. The thing is: how do you grade (or award XP) all of that? If every activity has to be reviewed by the teacher it would add a huge burden on the staff. Also, when students do their regular exercises, as they are so many, it would be impossible to give them individual feedback on each exercise, so those would not earn them any XP.

Maybe some online quizzes could help, but with programming there's a limitation there, it's not as simple as throwing multiple choice questions (at some point they will need to be coding). I know there are a couple sites that offer programming challenges with automated tests, but then there's the thing of knowing which student actually attempted to solve them, and which ones succeeded (I should add that I really need to keep my gamification proposal at $0 budget, as I know there is no way the administration will pay for software licenses or any equipment other than what we already have).

I thought of a scenario where the teacher would be some kind of "game master" and the students are trying to level up their characters by defeating "monsters" (exercises) and maybe working in guilds (peer reviewing their work). I pretty much even have a story created and some other details I'd like to add. But I can't do any of that unless we increase a good deal our work time so we get to grade students on many more activities other than just the 3 exams we already have.

So how does everyone else deal with this amount of grading?


texts: Letter of recommendation from online classes

texts:
I am living overseas for work for the next two years and finished my masters 15 years ago.

Now I am taking graduate courses at Oregon State U online to prepare for applying to a Phd program.

I will have to get LORs from these professors but am unsure of the best strategy.

The country I am living in is not English speaking so I cannot take classes locally.


texts: Will Potential Publishers View an MA Dissertation as Plagiarized?

texts:
I recently completed my MA, and I was hoping to upload my dissertation to Academia.edu, and then perhaps submit it to some publishers later on. Although I made some changes to my paper after graduating, it is about 95% identical to the dissertation I had initially submitted to my university. So I was wondering if this would be a problem for me? For instance, say a publisher saw my paper on Academia.edu, or a site similar to it, and then ran it through Turnitin and found that it matched another paper (my original dissertation) almost completely; would this be an issue? Would they think that it is plagiarized? Should I indicate somewhere in the paper that it is a slightly edited version of my MA dissertation?

Thanks in advance for any help. As you can tell, I’m a novice when it comes to getting something published.


texts: Is it self-plagiarism to summarise a topic in the introduction of two of your papers using similar references and examples?

texts:
I have written two papers, let's say X and Y, about a concept, let's say A.

X is about other overview of concept A and how it can be improved in general.
Then I have another paper i.e. Y discusses about relationship of A with reference to one particular topic.

As both papers are literature driven papers (can be called as literature reviews) and the focuses are different. However there are some sections which are overlapping with each other. Therefore I have given similar examples and used many common references.

My question is, is it a case of plagiarism ? I have written both papers separately and not copied text of one into other, rather sometimes the sense is same. I would appreciate your thinking and advices in this regards whether it can be counted as a case of plagiarism ?

Thanks in advance.


texts: What exactly defines an invited speaker?

texts:
Simple question: how do you know that you are an invited speaker for a conference?

For example, receiving an email "For your information, this is our next conference" is obviously not an invitation. What about "I would like to invite you to contribute"? Is there an strict definition of Invited Speaker?


texts: Why does U.S. Veterans Affairs only pay for classes which are required for the degree?

texts: American military veterans funded under the GI Bill (and possibly under other VA administrated programs) can only receive funding for classes which are required for the degree.  I can find lots of university websites that mention this requirement (here's a good example), but I was unable to determine where this rule comes from or why it is there.  In particular, is it required by the legislation itself or just VA rules?  When was the rule imposed and is there any information on why?


texts: Prestige of publishing in special vs regular journal issue

texts:
Some journals bundle relevant papers on a currently hot topic into special issues. As far as I know, potential manuscripts must be specifically submitted for inclusion in special issues rather than the journal itself (or get selected from conference proceedings).

In my field, special issues tend to have shorter review periods which makes them interesting venues. I have heard that special issues tend to have lower impact than regular journal issues, though I am not sure if this is factual. Do special issues usually meet the same standards as regular issues?

Is there any difference in prestige in publishing in special issues vis-à-vis publishing in regular issues? Do hiring committees make meaningful distinctions between both types?


texts: What do top Ph.D. program admissions in Computer Science think of students who worked after undergraduate?

texts:
I'm sure if I work in industry for a couple of years and then apply for grad school, I would not be disadvantaged compared to straight applying to grad school from undergrad.

What if instead I go work in industry for 5-10 years?

Specifically top Ph.D. programs in CS, like CMU, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, etc.


texts: Which letter of reference would be better: from a teacher who knows me well or from one in the same institution I am applying for who doesn't know me?

texts:
I am applying for a second masters degree at the same institution I am currently at.
I have requested my current course teacher to write me an LoR (letter of reference). However, I am facing the problem that he may not know me that well. I didn't have many interactions with him during the online lectures or seminars this year because of the covid situation. The only way he learnt about me was through a mock exam which I got a score slightly above distinction (I am in the UK). So I think he may only be able to write a very general letter.
I also asked teachers from my bachelor's degree. I built a very strong relationship with them and did extremely well in their courses. So I am pretty sure that their letters will be filled with details.
I previously thought that my current teacher would not be willing to provide me with a letter because he didn't get back to me for more than two weeks. But now I am in a dilemma. On one hand, his endorsement would be more reliable and powerful in the sense that he is in the same institution. On the other, his letter will be quite general. So should I still ask him?
Thanks in advance for any solid advice!


texts:
Due to my country's education (we finish high school later than other countries), a year off, doing master's degree, I am finding myself in my first year of PhD in States   being 26 years old, possibly graduating when I am 30. I have recently become very anxious about my age, since scientific career has been always my goal, I feel like I am too old and behind everyone else. In Europe, where I am from, I have been told that age does not matter as much, and what matters is papers/scientific output, especially since the end of PhD, in support of me pursuing the doctoral degree in USA, where it takes longer. I am doing my PhD at one of the top tier schools in a very prolific group, where I am surrounded by people that got their PhD when they were 25...
In addition I know from experience of me and others that in my field (physics) women are heavily biased against at all stages. Also, my field requires completion of usually 2 post-docs before applying for positions, which would take around 5 years.

I am looking for some input on this and how realistic  my chances of staying in academia are, how much age matters when hiring for post-docs/faculty positions (in Europe) and how to cope with age related anxiety in academia.


texts: Spending on AI vs theoretical physics in academia

texts:
I hope this question may fit this site:

My friends and I were having an argument based loosely on these two opposing views. One side claims that there is too much spending and financial backing by governments on research in non-applied areas. By "non-applied" I mean that given that we answer the question originally proposed there is no practical real-world application forthcoming from it. The example used most often was high-energy physics and the standard model.

The opposing view claims that the funding (by governments, but subtract defence costs for instance) for theoretical research is already comparatively low, taken against research in engineering or applied sciences.

Question:

How can we compare these claims? The closest source I found online is from the OECD:

https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ONRD_COST

These charts however do not break expenditure on natural sciences into subfields.

Also, please share opinions backed by some stats, please!


texts: Publishing results that were trimmed from another paper

texts:
I submitted a paper for publication. The editor accepted it but asked that I remove some results to make the paper shorter. He suggested that I put the full paper with the full results in arXiv, and refer to it from the published paper.
My question: if I do this, can I later send the trimmed results to a different (lower level) journal? I.e, are they considered "published" since they appear in a preprint that is referred from a published article, or "unpublished" since they do not appear in the published article itself?

EDIT: in my field, in general, it is allowed to upload preprints and then submit them for journal publication, so the preprint itself is not an issue; the issue is that the preprint is referred to from a published paper, so it might be considered an "appendix" of that paper.


texts: I want to change my thesis topic (to the extent that the ethos is still in tact) but my advisor does not agree. What can I do?

texts:
I am doing a phd where my aim is to solve a problem A which is very interesting. My supervisor has got a lot of connections in a technology B and he claims to be an expert in B. I came to this group because of these accomplishments. But soon I realized that B is not really a great technology for A.

So in my phd proposal I proposed a method which encompasses B but is more general (say R). Now I realize that I do not want to use B at all because my preliminary results are not encouraging. In fact, I am inclined to use E as a base technique which does not have any impact on R.  But my supervisor, who is interested in only publishing in B  and frowns upon everything else (it was a nightmare to convince him to let me work on R) is dead against it. He says that he is an expert in B and his vision of the group is not inclined with me trying other things.

There are other professors in my university who have worked in E and could collaborate but my supervisor won't collaborate with people from outside his kingdom. I also know professors from outside my university who could help me if needed. I could knock the doors of school committee in order to  help me but that would create a lot of problems as my supervisor wields a lot of power and influence everywhere.

Another query is, is it ethical to collaborate with people outside the university (of course after letting my supervisor know) for my PhD work. My Masters supervisor would be happy to help me out.

Edit: After looking at comments, I am thinking that after all, it is MY PhD. Yes, I have spent 1.5 years, but 1.5 years is left. Why should I spend any moment of my life on something I find to be not exciting, particularly less exciting because it is forced on me. And in those 1.5 years I learnt to write well and also learnt 'A' which is important. Its not total waste. My supervisor has his agenda, and why should I give up mine to make him happy? His vision is fine, but he does not have the right to force his vision on me.


texts: How many professors should I contact before applying to Graduate School?

texts: I'm in the process of developing my academic profile and am starting to create a shortlist of programs to apply for. I plan on applying to 8 Grad schools (although I do not know which they will be yet.) From what I've read so far many of you recommend undergrads seeking to attend post graduate programs first contact a professor to see if they are taking on any new students. Now I obviously won't go with the buckshot approach and submit an email to everyone. However, I've also read most professors do not apply. If I plan on applying to 8 programs, and most professors don't reply,or are not available to take on students. How many professors should I contact? Like I said I won't just randomly send emails,  I will get to know them and their work first,  to see if I would be a good fit. I'm currently down to 40 possible programs of which I'm certain I can find at least 20-30 individual professors who would fit well with me. Would it be wise to find, assess,  and contact as many as 30, in the hopes that maybe 10 or so reply? Thank you.


texts: Any suggestions for a rapid publish journal in material science?

texts:
I am looking for a rapid publish journal in material science, environmental science or electrochemical science, open access journals are OK.

This is so weired that my defense committee requires me 3~4 papers to pass the oral defense. Though I've already had one medium and one high impact factor papers.

There's no requirements for the journal. I have 2 low quality papers, I thought I could work with others to improve their quality for better publication after I graduate, followed my supervisors' advice .

However, I need to graduate ASAP since my scholarship had already been ended.

Just looking for a rapid and easy journal in material science, environmental science or electrochemical science to publish my paper ASAP, no specific requirement is needed, I can pay that money.

Thanks.


texts:
In some works, as
What the Tortoise said to Achilles,
GEB or Invariant Risk Minimization, some ideas are conveyed by a dialogue. I find this both informative and entertaining.

I would like to use a dialogue to introduce the main ideas of my Master's dissertation, however I am unsure how this would be received in the academic community. I know that jokes should be avoided and I'm not sure whether this would be treated as such.

  Can I use a dialogue in Master's thesis introduction to sketch the main ideas?


texts: Do all accepted students in top-tier engineering programs get invited to interview before getting admitted?

texts:
I'm an (international) electrical engineering applicant applied to some top-10 graduate programs in US (say, MIT, Caltech, UCB, etc.). As I check the entries of "thegradcafe.com" every day associated with the programs I've applied to, there are many entries which declare interviews with some POIs. So far, I have received no interview requests from any target school. Thus, I'm a little bit both curious about the importance of interview and anxious about the interpretation of such a lack of interviews in my case. To be specific, are all admitted students to top-tier engineering programs invited to interview before getting admitted? In other words, should I expect to be rejected if no one invites me to any sort of interview?

PS. If it helps to clear the situation, I'm currently an M.A.Sc student at a well-known Canadian university. So, both my university and my supervisor are pretty famous to the research community of my field.


texts: Advisor asking me to use my grant to cover his orders

texts:
I am now working as a postdoctoral researcher in Japan. I came to work at this institute when it received a big grant from government more than 2 years ago. My research budget is paid from a small part of that grant. I am affiliated with a lab run by my current advisor, but I do my own research topics and build my own experimental setup without support from the advisor.

This year I applied for my own funding and was lucky enough to get a small grant for young researchers. My advisor applied to the same grant (more senior category) but failed, and later I learned that he has not succeeded to get any grant up to now. Last week he asked me to use my budget for his projects, because "in this lab, we share the budget together", as he said.

I feel awkward because I don't want to share my budget with him, but if I deny the request, our relationship will be damaged.
Has any of you experienced the same problem? Is my advisor a bad one? How should I deal with this?


texts: Does announcing the submission of a paper on social networks violate the double-blind review?

texts:
I sometimes see researchers who announce the submission of a paper to a conference on social networks, often tagging the post with the conference name and year, and from time to time mentioning the format and the topic of the paper. Does that violate the double-blind review, as through these networks reviewers can see the names of some submitting authors?

Example:


texts: What is the difference between a 'materials and methods' section and an 'experimental procedure' section?

texts:
What is the difference between 'material and methods' section and 'experimental procedure' section in a scientific article or report or assignment? Does they differ at all?

Elaboration :

If I'm told to write a scientific article or assignment whose outline contains a 'materials and methods' section and 'experimental procedure' section; should I write 2 separate sections for them? Or should I use a single section (any one of the 2) Because i perceive like introducing both section would make much of the part of assignment redundant because I perceive like 'method' and 'procedure' as very much same thing (don't know if I'm wrong).


texts:
I have a BS in computer science and an MFA in Fine Art.

I am planning a move to Germany (and am in the process of learning German).  Is it possible to find work teaching at art colleges in Germany with an MFA?  I currently teach computer science and design/media at a college here in the US.

(I'm assuming I need to be fluent in German, but that might not always be the case because of the increase in international programs?)

If someone could point me to a good informational site that would be great.

Thanks.


texts: Are there no footnotes in Vancouver referencing?

texts: I just wanted to check if Vancouver referencing does not use footnotes. I saw online that the citations are just numbered and then the reference list is put at the end of the essay instead of footnotes throughout. Is this correct?


texts: How can a would-be researcher overcome slow comprehension, obsession and poor communication skills?

texts:
I m a current master coursework student in engineering major and I’m planning to do a PhD after graduating from this course. I want to know how to become a qualified researcher. There are several shortcomings that I think may stop me making it:

I understand things very slowly. When I read or listen to others, I can’t get the idea very quickly. Sometimes there is even an unexpected blank or distraction in my mind when I’m getting some information and I have to get it again.
I like delving in solving a certain question I’m interested in, but I often get stuck there for a long time until I solve it, which really have a severe negative effect on exams. In addition, this kind of obsession is a short-term effect, rather than perminant one. That’s to say it’s hard for me to stick to one thing for a long period of time as I’m easy to get obsessed in another thing once it appeals to me.
I’m not good at explaining or illustrating my idea to others. They often don’t understand what's my point and I need to explain it several times. The situation is worse in speaking. I often get a blank mind and forget the next point to connect to my current point when I express my idea orally. It’s very hard to organize my idea well when speaking.

Since I have no experience of being a researcher, I want to know if those problems are likely to be a barrier to becoming a qualified researcher? How can I overcome these problems?


texts:
Mathematics.
Not novel research ~ merely an analysis / reformulation of an existing, proved theorem
Not a thesis, but was a major (50%) component of a senior course.
Never published.
The math isn't even advanced - it's actually quite basic - but it's fun!

(a) Should I even mention this on a CV?

(b) If I should, how would I go about doing so? How to site it? Host and provide link?


texts: Teaching load in New Zealand research universities

texts: What is the average teaching load in research universities in New Zealand? I mean how many courses per academic year does a research active faculty member have to teach? Say, in Math or Science disciplines?


texts:
I have received an invitation to interview for a PhD position and have been asked to present past/current research in a 10 minute presentation. I am currently doing a masters but am more comfortable talking about a past research project - I was wondering if the committee would expect or ask me why I have chosen to not present my current masters research work?
Additionally, I am confused about the amount of raw data to include in my presentation. Do they want to see the big picture rather than the nitty gritty raw data? I don't think it would be possible to include all the data I have collected in 10minutes, would it be acceptable to say "we did X and saw Y, but I haven't shown the data here for the sake of time"?
Additionally, some of the experiments have some design flaws in them, should I acknowledge and explain the flaws and point out what could have been done to get better data or not show these figures and change focus/skim over them?
Thank you!


texts: How to work with an article in a foreign language?

texts:
After some digging, I found this article from 1969 which was referenced by an earlier publication I was interested in. Unfortunately, it is in Russian, is 13 pages long, and I know of no translation.

This is the first time I have had this problem. In general, if I want to find a way to read the article I am interested in, what should I do? Is it common to ask colleagues to help translate? Are there services which are commonly used? Websites, forums, etc.?


texts: Convention regarding inclusion of both an abstract and introduction in a mathematical paper

texts:
Good afternoon,

I am a high school junior in the process of preparing a real analysis paper for submission to a mathematics journal. I have written my proof and conducted an exhaustive literature review and now I would like to take the next step towards finishing my paper but I am unclear as to the convention with regards to including in my paper both an abstract and introduction or just an introduction.

I have read published papers such as this one by Erdos which include both an abstract and introduction but I have read many others such as this short proof of the prime number theorem which includes just an introduction. Then there are some like this one that have what appears to be an abstract without an explicit heading.

I have also read guides regarding how to write mathematical papers. There is this one which includes an introduction but no abstract. Then there are other guides like this one which make mention of both an abstract and an introduction.

My question is, is there a convention regarding the inclusion of an abstract in a math paper? If so, what is it? I understand that scientific papers traditionally employ both but I do not see a trend when it comes to math papers.

Thank you in advance.


texts: Is there a network map of subjects and how they connect with each other?

texts:
The problem

When doing a literature review at the start of a process of addressing a specific problem, it's easy to miss related material, if I don't know that it is related.

The example

Let's say I'm looking at a particular electricity-generation  problem relating to pollution costs (in a very broad sense), of combustion and cooling: there might be relevant papers about,  say, biodiversity and temperature in river water, that I don't know about, and haven't made the connection to, and it appears in a journal well outside the field of electricity generation.

However, within the literature, there will be authors whose papers span those fields: work on valuing biodiversity (so that loss of biodiversity represents a quantifiable cost), and the effect on biodiversity of changing river temperatures (so that using river-cooling in electricity generation, has a deleterious effect on river biodiversity).

The proposition

It should be possible, by doing an analysis of keywords, of co-authorship, and of journals, to automate the building of a network of subjects and of authors, to map out interconnections between specific narrow subject areas, and find the people that work in those interconnecting areas.

The question

Is there such a network map of subjects and authors, anywhere? Not just for this specific example, but one that spans a very wide range of literature (e.g. Engineering, Science, Technology, Economics). Ideally, one that gets updated frequently, based on ongoing publications?

As I hope the example above illustrates, it has to be:

easy to interrogate it;
very detailed on subject linkages; and
provide links between people as well as subjects.


texts:
For the last 5 years (delayed partly by teaching, a parent's death and caregiving for another parent), I've been writing a textbook that examines a famous 18th-century political work. The proposal was accepted and a year later, I got very positive feedback on the first half of the manuscript.

I finally submitted the entire manuscript in early December 2018 and felt quite confident about it--despite the fact that my Ph.D. is in English literature and not history or poli sci.  I wrote to the editor back in late January to see if he'd gotten any word; he replied that he hadn't heard anything and to wait until late February. I've been writing to him once a week since then--and twice last week, but with no luck. It's strange because when I was corresponding with him back in August-December, he always answered very promptly.

I've tried writing to the editor who approved the book proposal (he's since moved onto another department) and another who was a supervising editor. No response. I am really stumped: what can I do since I cannot seem to reach anyone at all? I realize there's not much action I can take and that there are any number of scenarios (maybe none of the reviewers liked it and they are sending to others?), but it is really driving me up a wall. I've looked up the "Contact us" section in the publisher's website, but there is no information on the editor of the textbook for the series that I am editing. There are no phone numbers either.  Any advice?


texts: Choosing the right selection about previously submitted a paper in a journal

texts:
I have submitted my paper in a journal a week ago. After one week the administrator returned  my paper and requested all the authors to associate their ORCID with their accounts and asked us to resubmit the paper.
During the resubmission, a question asked "Was this paper previously submitted to this journal?" and I chose "No" as I thought this not a revision or a final version.
Now I see that it got an entirely new ID and is awaiting again for a new ADM to be assigned. I'm not sure if I had chosen "Yes", the previous ID with a .R1 (probably) would have been assigned with the same ADM so probably I haven't needed to wait again for a new ADM assignment; however, it's not a revision.

Overall, did I choose the correct option? If no, what should I do now? I'm not sure if it's the right action to contact the journal regarding that.


texts: What is the meaning of 'six-week course'?

texts:
Edit: I found the answer. In the preface to the english edition it says

This book is a translation from the orginal Chinese text of notes based
on a six-week course on algebraic curves and Riemann surfaces taught at
Beijing University in 1982.

However, in the English Translation of the Preface to the Chinese Edition it says

In the summer of 1982,1 had the honor of teaching a course on algebraic
curves at Beijing University. The course met six hours a week for a period
of six weeks. This book is a thoroughly edited version of the notes taken
during this course.

So this is like 3 hours a week for a period of 12 weeks so about 1 semester then.
I accidentally checked the english translation to the preface to the chinese edition around based on user111388's question 'Are those numbers from Chinese university terms?' Thank you, user111388.

I'm planning to self-study Phillip A. Griffiths - Introduction to algebraic curves and am wondering about how long it would take to finish. I can reasonably estimate how long this book would take to finish if said book was used in some university and is expected to be completed in a semester.
In the preface of this book, it says:

based on a six-week course on algebraic curves and Riemann surfaces taught at
Beijing University in 1982.

I understand a regular semester to take about 16 weeks and a summer semester to be about 6 weeks, but I'm not sure if the above quote refers to 3/8-ths of a regular semester or a full summer semester.
Context: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3724134/ordinarily-how-long-does-it-take-to-complete-phillip-a-griffiths-introductio


texts: How to deal with the tenure case of a colleague who has avoided teaching the classes they were hired to teach?

texts:
I have a colleague who is coming up for tenure review shortly, and there is a problem with his teaching history.  He was hired to teach classes specifically in area X, although his research is in a slightly different area (Y).  I was on the committee that hired him, and the teaching was a major part of what we were looking for.

However, this person has not taught any classes in area X, at all.  I know from persona knowledge that he requested not to teach X in his first semester, and I have heard from others that he continued to not want to teach in that area.  (I have no reason to doubt the veracity of this hearsay, and his teaching assignment requests can be documented for the tenure and promotion committee.)  This has not turned out to be a serious problem in terms of covering classes.  Somebody else, also from area Y, started teaching some classes in area X, and we later hired a full time person working in Y.

Yet I am still concerned that the assistant professor coming up for tenure has flouted the requirements of the position for which he was hired (which were clearly set forth in his offer letter from the dean).  His research is fine, although not outstanding, and his teaching in other areas would normally be considered adequate.  He also does fine in other considerations (service, collegiality) as well.  However, I am not sure whether it is appropriate to vote in favor of his tenure case, and I was wondering whether what others might think to be appropriate in such a situation.


texts: Is it acceptable to email the authors of a paper for the slides they used while presenting it in the conference?

texts:
I've noticed that while there's no alternative to going through the actual paper in detail, it often helps if I've gone through the presentation based on the paper, which the authors had used while publishing their papers. (Mostly because, the few presentations on TCS papers that I've seen have good geometric examples/illustrations which may have been instrumental in getting the intuition in the first place, but the brevity required by CS conferences mean very few of them make it to the published paper!)

While a few authors graciously maintain the links of such slides on their web-pages, most do not - and I haven't even seen a single CS conference maintaining such documents on their web-page!

So, I've the following questions:

Since I'm ultimately interested in understanding their work (and extending it if possible), is it considered OK to email the authors for the slides (if they still have it)?
If it is, do I have to justify/explain why I want the slides, or would just a polite request do (with minimal explanations on my part to keep the mail short!)?
Would making such a request more than once make the author feel offended, and/or make them think that someone who can't read papers at the highest level without "assistance" isn't exactly someone worth helping out?
If there are 2 authors listed, without any implications about who is the corresponding author, should I mail both of them at the same time (which may lead to both of thinking the other would be responding), or separately (which may lead to duplication of efforts!)?

I'm not sure what to tag this query with - feel free to re-tag/add more tags as you see fit!


texts: Should I include a short summary of my MS research in the Statement of Purpose for PhD position?

texts:
I am writing a Statement of Purpose (SOP) for a Ph.D. position and confused if I should add a summary of my MS research work. My MS research work is very much related to the advertised Ph.D. project.

I googled it and found that in some SOPs people have written a short summary of their previous work but in others, they have not.


texts: Salary chart interpretation: "M.A" vs "60 Units includes MA" vs "M.A. plus 35 Grad Units"

texts:
For the record, I'm a college dropout myself... ;-)

During the late 90's, my wife completed both a B.A and M.A.  in Psychology in the Cal State system.   She also completed during the Master program two years of interning to concurrently obtain her required Certificate as an Educational Psychology.   She then essentially worked for the same employer for about 18 years.   However, she is ready to move on.

While assembling a comparison chart of salaries across districts, I was stumbling on one of them.  It features three separate charts, with the following labels which I am putting here verbatim:

I: "M.A."

II: "B.A. + 75 Graduate Units Includes M.A  -OR- M.A. + 35 Graduate Units"

III: "60 Semester Graduate Units Includes M.A."

These have different significantly pay scales, with I: the lowest and III: the highest.

(There is an seperate addenum noting an additional stipend for a earned doctorate).

I guess I'm not clear on why so many charts?  What is meant by "60 Semester Graduate Units Includes M.A".    Why would this merit a higher salary?  Surely this doesn't mean 60 units AFTER completing an M.A.?  And why "B.A + 75 Includes M.A:?"   Clearly, I am not understanding the terminology.  (Again, dropout here).

This is just an academic exercise (groan, bad pun), since this is not a district she is likely to apply to, but we are trying to put together a comparison chart to see where each stands based on her years of service.


texts:
Are there standard criteria to determine the peer institutions?

My institution is an american private liberal art university that follows the semester system, for which I can think of the following criteria:

Liberal art university
Private university
Semester-based university
Endowment of the university
Number of faculty in the department
Number of graduates with BS every 3 years say
Number of graduates with MS every 3 years say

Will that be OK? anything else?


texts: Is it safe to post one's research on web sites like Math Overflow for "peer review" before submitting to a journal?

texts: Suppose in mathematics, someone finds a completely new elementary proof of a famous theorem and wants his work ''peer reviewed'' on a site like MathOverflow or MathStackExchange before submitting to a formal journal. How safe would this be ?


texts: A stack of psychology exam essays has just landed on my desk for marking. It was a 3 hour exam with 3 essay questions. This is a final year essay so I do not have to provide written feedback. How long should I be spending marking an essay?


texts: Should you list undergraduate work on your CV?

texts:
Specifically, I'm worried about my first few publications listed on my CV being undergraduate work because: A) It might not be of my own inspiration, and I'm just tagging along with someone else's research. B) It might not be good. C) I want to start off my publication history with a bang.

I understand the huge benefit of getting research experience as an undergraduate, but I'm worried about starting off my research history on a less than optimal note.


texts: How does one go about finding out who the good instructors are?

texts:
I am an incoming freshman. I'd like the first set of courses I pick to be with great professors. By great I mean someone that's encouraging, honest, and patient, and that makes the subject interesting.

My question is: How should I go about finding who these professors are?


texts: How can the summaries and statements linked to particular references be identified?

texts:
Although there are plenty of search engines which allow you to identify citation links - paper Y cites paper X - are there any which identify what statements and summaries are attributed to paper X? You type in the DOI for paper X, and in addition to a list of which papers cite X, the list of particular sentences in each of these papers which refer to X are also received, e.g.

"The world is round" [paper 1]
"The curvature of the world has long been debated" [paper 2]
"Both Flat Earth alternate theories have been proposed as to the shape of the world" [paper 3]
"It is widely assumed that the world is round" [paper 4]
etc etc.

If a citation search tool like this exists, can it also be used to link from declarative statements, to references cited in support in that statement?

For example, Statement == "The world is round" - 215 hits, of which:

139 unsupported by citations
24 supported by reference X
12 supported by reference Y

and so on.

Do any academic search engines with these capabilities already exist?


texts: PhD Advisor not responding to emails for letters of recommendation

texts:
I am an immigrant in US and graduated in 2018 from a good public university on the east coast. I had a cordial relationship with my advisor during my PhD.
Currently, I am working on my immigration application that requires letter of recommendation from the advisor. He replied to my initial few emails saying that he will get the letter over the weekend/soon and after that have gone completely missing-in-action.
I have been chasing after him for almost a year now. His email is definitely working and he is super active on Twitter. I also dropped him a couple of texts on his cellphone just to be sure.
What are my options? Shouldn't the advisor have ethical/moral responsibilities? especially considering the dire immigration circumstances, and the effect this application can have on my and my family's future in the US.
PS: He is also an immigrant from the same country as mine.
Edit1: I wish it was easy to just meet him in-person. Not only are we on opposite coasts, but he is also not coming to the lab/office these days due to COVID.
Edit2: Should I raise this matter with Department Head? (My advisor is a senior professor who helped department head become department head)


texts: Presenting collaborative work in progress

texts: I am collaborating with multiple people on a project. I just found out that one of my collaborators is presenting the work (which is still in progress) on a major conference in my field. I feel like this should have been discussed first (and I would have also liked to be the one to present). Is it usual that this is done without discussion? Is it just the first one that organizes a talk that gets to give it? (We also were still somewhat secretive about discussion the ongoing project since we believe they will be quite a breakthrough so it comes as an additional surprise.) I guess I should have started the discussion on how we will present our work earlier.


texts: Research publications in string theory/QFT by undergrads

texts:
Possible Duplicate:
  Importance of Undergraduate Research

I am a physics undergrad interested in pursuing research in string theory/ Quantum field theory for my PhD. I am feeling pressurized by the notion, that you NEED to publish a paper to get admission to a good grad school. I was wondering how common is it for a undergrad to write a research paper in these areas? Do most of the students selected for PhD admission in these areas at top universities already have research publications? Also how much is an undergrad aspiring to pursue these areas know before entering grad school.


texts: Should I still submit if my final results are not good?

texts:
Firstly, I am aware of this question, but: 1) there is no accepted answer there and 2) my situation is not as good as the OP's in that question.
Being new to research, I have always thought it is about the new knowledge you create. Many times, you follow a theory to find out that it doesn't work. I had thought it is OK to publish such findings and to provide a constructive criticism thereof, but recently I got a second rejection which made me revisit myself.
From your practical experience, is it worthy submitting in such cases? if not, how is this situation best dealt with provided that much time and effort are usually invested therein?
I assume it makes sense to submit in principle but I am wondering whether the academic reality agrees with such an assumption.


texts: Online classes - student says his learning style is different so he doesn't attend

texts:
My university has opted for online classes this semester, and I think it is great to be honest for the nature of the course topic, so a 3 hour course has a live section, reading assignments section and practical follow ups. I think it is a far better methodology than the in person classes for this specific class.
A student has emailed me saying his learning style is different so he doesn't attend the live courses because he has difficulty focusing. To be honest, I think he has a point. I was that student but I attended classes out of ..I don't know..respect? because I was not confident (or arrogant?) not to attend? I hoped I would learn from the lecturer? But if the class was boring I would just fall asleep, or study for another class or just keep occupied with something else. It didn't help with the 'respect' as I would sit in the front in hopes of keeping awake but fall asleep anyway, when I tried my best but just couldn't focus. I also figured out while listening educational material online I can keep better on track if I increase the speed. For the courses that really caught my attention -I believe purely thanks to the lecturer I wouldn't have any of these problems.
However, my university still applies pre-covid rules which means the students are expected to follow live courses and it means 'class presence', in pre-covid world a lack of class presence leads to non completion of the course, which again I don't think is ideal, but at the same time I wouldn't be able to keep a list with a missing person's name. What really bothers me is that I receive this email by the first -real- lecture, so the student didn't even try and he wrote that is what he does for all courses. Okay, the pandemic period gives them to opportunity to follow up (recorded courses), but they are supposed to do the assignments in the 3 hour block of the course (not graded). and I really don't want to get a list of names because some might have difficulty with logging in, they might be working (although again this would be an irrelevant excuse in precovid days) and I told them to reach me if they won't be able to attend on a regular basis, and this student contacted me. He didn't mention a history of conditions such as ADD or anything. So as much as he might have a point 1) I am expected to follow up rules 2) It comes off as arrogant. So I conflict my ideals. And two points: The other students express how much they enjoyed my classes, and students in earlier classes even signed up for it after our first week as the students just seem to enjoy it. Even for my electives (which I don't think I am doing my best job), the students have been signing up like crazy (I was told I would get maybe 10 students and I ended up with 54 on an elective course for example). So this bothers me some students won't even try. What would you do in a situation like this? I can't really process because my ideals say he has a point, but on the other hand I don't see the student backing up his claims like following the material later (I can see the numbers of downloads).


texts: appropriate Word for transfering student from one university to another university

texts:
I am searching an appropriate word for transferring student from one University to another University
There might be such a word which helps me to search for related topics of transferring student from one university to another one.


texts: What percentage of the code should be yours in a final year computer science project?

texts: I have a final year project in Artificial intelligence and I need to make a facial recognition project. I'm confused how to start this project and how plagiarism works in terms of coding? No one would make a project from scratch but the thing is my coding ability in python is very limited and the code that I have seen for facial recognition using the K nearest algorithm is like 70 lines. If I change that code with my variable names and create functions and add that code into those functions would that be a problem ? what do I do ?  I would obviously cite where I got this code from and say that my code is inspired from this. But if i just change the variables and make a few functions and add their code clearly I have done very little work in terms of coding aspect.


texts: I am a current chemical engineering student with a 2.8 GPA and two years research experience and one paper in the works of being published. Is being admitted into a chemical engineering or bio-engineering masters program an unattainable goal?


texts:
This remains an old concern of mine, and something I have never been able to wrap my head around. For instance, I have never understood why using your own sentences that you have crafted without citing yourself counts as plagiarism.
That being said- I am currently working on a paper and describing the data section, and the dataset is common enough that I see myself using it in the future for another paper. The efficient thing to do here would be to use the same description for both papers. This would, however, be considered as plagiarism. How can one reasonably be accused of plagiarism here? The data section is ancillary to both papers, is not based on a 'novel' idea, but is purely descriptive. To describe the data again using different words just for the sake of not plagiarizing from myself seems to be waste of time. Now imagine this happening to thousands of researchers over many years. It seems to me that productive hours that are wasted for such a strange, and honestly, unnecessary formality. Am I missing something here?


texts: Why official transcripts should be directly posted to the employer?

texts:
Official transcripts are only those that arrive directly from the registrar's office. What is the concern about making sure transcripts are official? Fake or tampered transcripts can be sent by post too.

What are the security guarantees of a directly shipped transcript?


texts: GRE scores per section and their importance for PhD admissions in CS/E.Engineering

texts:
What scores are generally expected per section (AW/quantitative/verbal) to get my applications evaluated in top/good grad schools?
Also, would achieving even better scores be a "plus" or it won't matter at all/that much?


texts:
Some publications mention the phone of the corresponding author, e.g. https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocw168

Why do some publications mention the phone of the corresponding author? Do readers sometimes directly call the author?


texts: Is it inappropriate to give one faculty member a larger thank you gift than another?

texts:
I'm a student at a large university, and, after a recent family emergency, received a lot of help from two faculty members in my department. My department adviser, after hearing about my family emergency, offered to contact all of my professors and request assignment extensions for me (because asking for extensions myself would require me explaining my situation to multiple people, and would probably result in some embarrassing crying jags). One of my professors went above and beyond, and gave me an "indefinite extension" on all of my assignments for his class; my entire class grade is made up of three essays, and I've turned in none of them so far, which I realize is probably a big inconvenience for him. He's also helped me personally, as he's been the only person comfortable asking me straightforward questions about my situation at home (which is a topic that most people are very uncomfortable talking about).

I'd like to get both of these faculty members thank you cards, but I'm also considering getting the professor, who's really gone out of his way to make things easier for me, and who I've spoken more extensively with about my situation, a small additional gift (a travel mug from the campus coffee shop that he frequents, a paperweight, etc.). I'd also like to get the professor a gift because I might not see him or take any of his classes again, but I speak with my adviser pretty frequently and have more opportunities to thank her.

Knowing all of this, would it be inappropriate to give the professor this kind of extra gift while my adviser is only getting a thank you card? The two faculty members' offices are fairly close to one another, and I assume that they speak regularly. I don't want my adviser to find out and feel that I somehow didn't appreciate her efforts as much, especially since I rely on her for recommendation letters and the like. Any advice?


texts: Qualitative approach to evaluation of academic production

texts:
In Brazil, a government agency, named CAPES, takes care of evaluation of the postgraduate courses. Among other things, they receive criticism, because such evaluation is based on bibliometric approach. Explaining briefly, the main problem of following this approach is that it becomes counterproductive, because the academy spends time on increasing the number of publications, instead of focusing on quality research (it is considered more valuable to increment the postgraduate course classification).

A logical advice would be that the organization needs switch to a qualitative approach (here is a report, where four international guests shared this observation). My questions are the following.

Are there today any countries that can be models in regard to their system of the academic production evaluation? How such transition can be initiated, focusing on a qualitative approach?


texts: How do you pick a major when you're interested in pursuing advanced study in an interdisciplinary field?

texts:
I have a keen interest in some interdisciplinary fields such as neurophilosophy, neuroethics, and neuroaesthethics. In the end, I have chosen to study biology, but I am not entirely sure if it is the best possible choice, and maybe philosophy would have been a better choice.

What advice would you give to people in general who desire to be involved in interdisciplinary research? Do multiple bachelor's or master's degrees? Maybe even different PhD in the fields of interest?


texts: Is it fine to ask this kind of question to the corresponding author of a paper?

texts:
First some context: I'm a Ph.D. student in Physics. I have been discussing with my supervisor the objectives for the Ph.D. project and we have been looking at some papers from the field.

In that case, recently I've come across a quite interesting paper, one of the authors being a very renowned researcher in the field. The paper raised a conjecture and pointed out that one what was necessary to follow that line of investigation in order to prove or disprove the conjecture. I got quite interested in pursuing this objective and my supervisor considered it to be a good idea for the project.

It so happens that a few days after, I have found a paper by another author, which is also a quite renowned researcher, briefly disputing the claims made in the first paper.

Given my current knowledge, I would consider that the authors of the first paper are correct, but of course I might be wrong.

Now, the first paper is three years old and the authors didn't revisit the issue in another publication.

I considered the possibility of contacting the corresponding author and asking about the comments made in that response paper. In particular I would like to ask if they changed their view on the problem after all or if I'm correct in my conclusions and they still believe in their first proposition.

Also I considered asking if he still views that as a line of investigation worth pursuing.

Are that kind of questions considered ok or are they viewed as unethical? My worries are: (1) if I can indeed ask for his views on that brief response and if it made then revisit their positions and (2) if it is ok to ask if he considers a good idea to pursue this objective.


texts: Should a math paper use non-alphabetical ordering of authors' names for unequal contributions?

texts:
Using alphabetical ordering for authors' names is a long established tradition in mathematics.
In the situations of extremely unequal contributions, is it reasonable to break from this tradition?  Has there been any examples?  If it is common, what is the threshold for breaking from alphabetical ordering?


texts: So, I am a first year master student in one of the best universities in my area and I have the possibility of doing a research project in the next semester. I am torn between choosing a topic that is more related to my supervisor's research (and would get much more impact if published; publishing is also likely to happen) and another one that is more related to what I want to do in my master thesis (but would get much lower impact if published). I wouldn't mind doing the first one (I also find it quite interesting and would do both if I could) but if I want to have a chance of getting a position at this university, would it be more likely if I chose the one related to my master thesis?


texts: How to contact author whose work I built off of?

texts: I'm working on a manuscript for a scientific paper that alters/adds onto what another study found over 20 years ago. This old study is highly cited and the graphs are reproduced in a lot of textbooks, but my study says that the old data isn't the whole story. In part of my manuscript I compare my data to that in the old study and I'd like to include a graphical comparison. How do I contact the authors of the old study and ask for permission to reproduce their graph? Do I tell them about my study? Do I let them read my manuscript?


texts: Is it fine to submit a paper with acknowledgements in it?

texts: My friend who is a senior lecturer says it is wrong to submit a paper with acknowledgements and you should add them once the paper is accepted, not to interfere with the review process. Is this correct?


texts: What sort of research experience does a college or university expect a professor to provide an undergraduate?

texts: A lot of universities nowadays expect professors to be able to provide research experience to their undergraduates. i.e. in job applications for new hires. What do they actually expect- Publications? Senior projects? Funding opportunities for undergraduates? While I agree research 'experience' is a great thing for undergraduates in principal, realistically the vast majority of undergrads aren't going to be able to make progress on real problems - so how will this reflect on a new professor?


texts: How important is mathematics in engineering research?

texts:
In EE/EC/CS departments, there are certain fields that are theory-based (like the algo or complexity groups), ones that lean towards systems implementation (OS, programming languages, etc) and others have a component of both (like networking).

In such a field like networking, there are professors who work on hard-core math modelling (example) and people who work on implementation and protocol design (example). From what I glean from my own paper-reading experience, the natures of these papers are as different as chalk and cheese: the math papers seem to look for ways to cast the problem in a mathematical framework and try to derive their results from such a set-up, while the implementation-oriented papers conceive of some algorithm and a protocol (based solely on logical argument rather than any rigorous mathematical premise) and present the results of their software simulations.

While on paper people argue there is no divide between theory and practice, at least to me the approach towards research differs widely between faculty members in the same field and department. Now to my questions:

How important is math emphasis in an applied field like networking? Industry work is almost always simulation-based from whatever I have seen. After all, networks are there to be implemented and deployed, so why bother about probabilistic modelling?
When there are two modes of research in a particular field, will the PhD student's approach play a role in faculty recruitment?
Is there a widespread notion of one being superior to another? I know of professors and students who widely emphasise math and pooh-pooh "S-BAA: simulation based on arbitrary algorithm" type of papers.


texts: Master's degree in science is generally not free in US, CANADA, UK, OZ, NZ? (Tuition)

texts: I had the impression that in general, PhD programs are the only really "free" ones in higher education in those typically high cost English-speaking countries that they charge no tuition, pay you to do research, teach, do scut work etc., give stipend, maybe free housing.  On the other hand, masters degree program would charge big tuition, less assistantship opportunities, likely no stipend? Even in Science. Is that right?


texts: I completed my master's three months back. Currently, I am writing scientific articles with collobrations in which I use the previous educational affiliation. Is this correct or should I use my current address as affiliation? Please do help me in this regard.


texts: Quitting PhD program during a probationary period and applying for other programs

texts:
After finishing my master's degree, I contacted a principal investigator at another university, who seemed to publish interesting high-quality research. I met with the person, and the interview went well. We agreed a 3-month probationary period, during which I should apply for funding and see what it is like to work with him.

Now, having started, everything seems quite awful. The supervisor came to the office during the first day after I had been there for approximately 5 hours, and did not bother to chat for longer than 10 minutes. Now it seems I am actively discouraged to use the skills I just spent five years learning, and revert to using approaches I know will not perform so well. We have talked for perhaps 30 minutes during the first whole month. I have tried to comply with the group's practices as well as possible, and be as open-minded as possible.

After reading all the group's and their competitors recent publications, and suggested some ideas for  further work, I have only got comments indicating that they are worth nothing (but they are, since the ideas come partially from suggestions in published work).

It seems the position is not a good match. I was very sad for the first three weeks but thought to see whether it just the emotions related to stress of changing the university, working style, topic, etc.

I would like to know what to do about the situation. Would it be a bad idea to apply to other programs without stating where I currently am (I have been here only 5 weeks now). I don't think I should ask recommendations from here, since the people at my previous university have known me for years and the people at the new lab for just some weeks.

I kind of fear that my supervisor will know if I apply to other programs, since they would be at the same or neighboring universities. I lost a good deal of money when relocating for this one, so I would like to continue until I find another place. I guess the best thing is to remain working as hard as before. I have to give a 14 day notice before leaving, which further complicates things.

How should I approach this situation? What should I do? I think time is critical here, since if I get stuck for too long then what I do here starts to carry more weight, and complicates leaving the program. I am in a country located in the western Europe if it matters.


texts: How to politely encourage academic integrity in non-academics?

texts:
To give context for the question I have volunteered to do some work for a local charity. The work they do is literally lifesaving and almost certainly something the government should be responsible for, but the reality is that various charities are filling the breech.

What I will do for them is data processing, they have messy data and they want some estimates for things they didn't record at the time. They will use the results to apply for funding for further work.

In one of our meeting the topic of negative findings came up, for instance, what if their work isn't cost efficient compared to charity Y? The immediate response was a sort of joking "Oh we will bury it!".

I was too uncomfortable to say something at the time, but I absolutely do not want to bury any findings. I understand that other charities may be burying bad findings, and refusing to do so may put this charity at a competitive disadvantage. Having read about what this has lead to in the pharmaceutical industry I know that this is probably more serious than anyone in the charity realises. In the long term it could completely undermine the causes they work for.

Unlike scientists in the pharmaceutical industry this work is not my primary research topic, and I'm not being paid for it. My continued employment at my university is not threatened anything this charity do. So I could just read the them riot act, however I suspect if I do that they will say "Oh sure" and then ignore it later. I need to be diplomatic and convincing. They care about the work they do, but they also care about their own organisation, and asking them to do this is good for the work but bad for the organisation.

How can I best approach this?


texts: In journal submission guidelines, what is meant by "interventions in contemporary debates"?

texts:
In their submission guidelines, the editors of the philosophy journal Philosopher's Imprint write:

  Submissions to the Imprint are refereed anonymously and selected for publication on the basis of their estimated long-term significance. The Imprint publishes articles that engage directly with a philosophical issue or historical figure. We do not publish "interventions" in contemporary debates or commentaries on contemporary figures. (my emphasis, Source)

I want to get a better understanding of what this means, and in particular what definition of "intervention" is used here.

Surely, a paper like "in debate D, there is an error E in the paper P, and my paper does nothing else than comment on E." falls under "intervention". But is that the only kind of paper?

What the editors of the Imprint can't be meaning is that they wont publish any contribution to a currently ongoing debate. For example, here's an excerpt from last year:

  [...] Several philosophers (e.g. Elga 2010, Titelbaum 2015) have argued that some epistemic rules are indefeasible. I will argue that all epistemic rules are defeasible. [...] (Source)

So, when will a contribution to an ongoing debate be considered an "intervention"? Could it be understood in terms of "not being original research"?


texts: Should students have access to past exams or an exam bank?

texts:
Something I never understood is how in so many undergrad classes North America, the students are allowed to have past exams that they are allowed to study over.

It never made sense to me because it is apparent that this practice could cause so many problems, especially as exams accumulate over the years, e.g. leading to inflated grades. I do not exclude myself from this practice.

As an example, in one of the classes, I knew only a small number of students had access to an exam around that was given around 5 years ago (literally gotten through one of the student's relatives who took the exams years before), and one of the question from that past exam was very similar to another one that was given in the actual exam. This doesn't seem very fair to me.

Finally, I always felt that my work was delegitimized with access to these resources, and over the year sort of adopted a pessimistic view on learning and knowledge, seeing that so many of my peers became arrogant and prideful despite having had access to these external resources. It was not until I did grad school much later on (where past exams are virtually non-existent) did I "let go" of those feelings and regain a bit of confidence in my own capabilities.

Should students have access to past exams or an exam bank that they can study? Why does it not constitute as cheating? My background is in STEM.


texts: Is there any way to pressure textbook publishers to reduce price?

texts:
I am an instructor in a medium-sized state school in the USA. The price for the textbook to the introductory math course that I teach just increased. Again. A new, paperback copy costs 170 USD. I want to put pressure on the publishers to reduce their price, but I am not sure what the best strategy is.

Has anyone had any success in such an endeavour? Any ideas? A strongly worded letter, signed by the faculty?


texts: Master's Degree Admission with a different Bachelor's specialization

texts:
I currently hold a bachelor's degree at Biomedical Engineering and I want to do a Master's Degree in Computer Science at California.

Would that be a problem?

Since I don't have a high GPA and the proper specialization, should I pursue a certificate of Computer Science first, increase my GPA and then apply for the Master's?


texts: What can I do to get academic credit/recognition from my hobby project?

texts: I've created an improved textual parsing algorithm, as a part of my hobby project. In comparison to existing ones, it provides better performance and memory efficiency. I haven't published my project yet. The question is, is there any way I can convert this research to a PhD? Or anything else I can do to improve my scientific karma? (I'm not a professional scientist, just a programmer with bachelor's degree). How much bureaucracy does this involve?


texts:
I'm a high schooler (rising senior) writing a research paper on astronomy for the Siemens and Regeneron STS competitions coming up in the fall. My research advisor at my high school wants me to start my introduction very generally (basically almost wants me to write a review of modern astronomy) before diving specifically into my research, whereas every single other research paper I've seen (competition submission or one in my field) starts broad in the first sentence and gets specific immediately.

I'm not sure whose advice to follow. Besides their websites, I can't find much guidance or past successful papers for these competitions (only have found 2 total papers and an outdated ScienceBuddies blog post), so I'm reaching out to you guys. Should I start very general and slowly hone into my topic or should I focus on my specific the entire way through?
Thanks!


texts: Honesty of advisor when determining an adequate research project for thesis

texts:
Questions

What duty does an advisor have to advise a student on a reasonable workload for a thesis?

Background

When I started my masters degree in Biology, my advisor quickly assigned me to three separate projects and told me that all three needed to be in my thesis. The plan had been that I would submit one of the three projects as a paper. The other two projects would be contributions to other papers.

I trusted his judgement, and worked on all three.

However, in my last semester, my advisor told me that I only needed one of the three projects for my thesis. He also expected me to continue working for him - unpaid - after my graduation for another year before he was OK with me submitting the paper.

I had accepted a different job and was not able to dedicate anymore time in the lab. He reassigned the project to another student and a paper was submitted 2 years later. The paper contains essentially everything I did, and my advisor justified the change in authors by saying it would be good for the other students career.

I feel upset, because if I had been allowed to only focus on one of the projects, I probably would have been able to publish before I graduated.

At best, I feel that he was trying to nudge me towards staying in the lab for a PhD and was loading me down with projects in preparation. At worst, I feel that he was trying to get as much work out of me as he could, including unpaid work after graduation.


texts:
Can someone let me know whether IJCA (http://www.ijcaonline.org/) is a valid open access journal to publish our research work?

BR,
Tharindu from Sri Lanka


texts: What counts as an academic affiliation for arXiv?

texts: Is it just being enrolled at a university with a recognized school email address?


texts: What is a bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and Master of Engineering

texts:
Context: I am high school student in Australia and currently applying for university 2021. I am interested in engineering and I came across this "bachelor OF Engineering (Honours) and Master of Engineering" program provided by University of Queensland.
I always thought that you need a bachelor's degree to get a master’s degree? It seems to me that this program integrates Master's coursework with bachelor's? Does that mean that if I successfully completed this program in 5 years, I will graduate with a bachelor and a master degree?
UQ program link - https://future-students.uq.edu.au/study/programs/bachelor-engineering-honours-and-master-engineering-2350


texts:
I prepared a doctoral fellowship application package two months ago but I missed the deadline by a week because I confused the deadline for actual application with the deadline for recommendation letters. My advisors have sent the letters but I missed the application deadline. So I have made a huge mistake and I feel horrible! I am not an irresponsible person so I am in shock and have no idea how to handle the situation.It's the first time I am making a mistake like this and I feel so humiliated. I want to avoid my advisors for a while because I know they've put a lot of work into writing letters for me. What would you recommend? Should I call the research institution and ask if they could make an exception? Or should I just email the package and wait for their response? What should I tell to my professors(If they find out, I will feel humiliated!)?

Thanks a lot!


texts: Releasing crawled data: Potential legal challenge?

texts:
In many occasions in computer science I saw papers that analyze social network data also released these data, such as

http://socialnetworks.mpi-sws.org/data-imc2007.html

http://socialcomputing.asu.edu/datasets/BlogCatalog3

without explicit license granting. My question is: Will practices like these face potential legal challenges? For example, YouTube terms state that:

  You agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Service itself, the Embeddable Player, or other explicitly authorized means YouTube may designate.

where Content is defined as:

  “Content” includes the text, software, scripts, graphics, photos, sounds, music, videos, audiovisual combinations, interactive features and other materials you may view on, access through, or contribute to the Service.


texts: Why does a UK university need to know my sexual orientation and religion?

texts:
I want to apply to a postdoc position at a UK based University.

They want me to fill a "Equal Opportunities Data" form with questions about my marital status, sexual orientation, religion and race. Why do they need that? Will there be any consequences from not specifying these?

Will the employing professor have access to the data?


texts: When should researchers who take part in the composition and editing of a manuscript be co-authors

texts:
I sometimes work as a ghostwriter/editor for other researchers alongside my own research, and it occurred to me that there isn't a clear framework for crediting this work. I have sometimes appeared in the acknowledgements for writing the first draft or completely rewriting the manuscript, or been a co-author on manuscripts I only commented on or did a tiny bit of data analysis for.

On the one hand, if the editor is employed to edit the language of the manuscript only, I don't think that they should be co-authors. But should they appear in the acknowledgements? Does this depend on whether they were paid specifically for the project or are a departmental editor?

On the other hand, if the editor contributes scientifically to the manuscript, perhaps they should be co-authors. However, does this depend on whether the manuscript is basic research or (for instance) an opinion paper? In this case, how do they differ from a reviewer who comments on the substantive aspects of the paper?


texts: How to fill a "Relevant Knowledge/Training Skills" section in an application form for a Master Degree

texts:
I am applying for a Master in Law (distance learning) in a top-ranked UK university.
To do that, I need to fill in a form with several details and then upload some specific documents. One of the questions of the form is "Relevant Knowledge/Skills" with a word cap of 500 words.

In my past applications (jobs/academia), aside from my Personal Statement, I usually have sent a copy of my CV. Filling out a box with 500 words about my knowledge and/or skills is a new thing for me.

What do you recommend to handle this requirement successfully? What approach should I use for drafting an appealing section for my application? (e.g., not only put a bullet list with specific knowledge or technical skills)


texts: Why use version control systems for writing a paper?

texts:
I am following the advice of @Piotr Migdal in Is there an internet Git-like repository for collaboration on a paper?, and I want to ask about version controls: how beneficial are they (specially under LaTeX settings) for writing papers compared to Dropbox and SugarSync?

I have been using SugarSync for almost a year with no pain.
Usually, I create the paper folder and invite other authors to join, so we can see and edit the last version of the paper.


texts: Should I bring up minor writing errors that I noticed after submitting revised version?

texts: I have received a decision letter on my paper from editor "I am prepared to accept this manuscript for publication provided that the authors perform some editing to improve the grammar throughout the paper" After submitting revised version, I have noticed a couple of minor corrections that need to be made with regard to writing errors after revision (One sentence was written twice and some punctuation mistakes). Should I bring these up now or just wait for the copy editing phase?


texts: How to cite in APA format for an author who uses only a first name?

texts: How do I cite in APA format for an author who uses only a first name?


texts: Advisor tries to reproduce my results to ensure my honesty. Is it the norm?

texts:
I am a M.Sc. student in Machine Learning, about to finish my thesis this month. My advisor wants me to meet him in person to reproduce my results under his control. It is obvious that the main reason for this action is to be confident that I didn't manipulate the diagrams, etc.

I didn't do any cheating and I have no problem with that. But it is a little annoying for me that my advisor doesn't trust me. I want to know whether this is the norm in academia or is my adviser just a little skeptical of me?

I should mention that I am the lone M.Sc. student in the lab and I am nearly sure that the advisor doesn't do that with PhD students in the lab.


texts: Soliciting pre-submission manuscript comments from people who could later be peer reviewers

texts:
Before submitting a manuscript to a journal, it is fairly common at least in my field (psychology) to circulate the manuscript in a limited way to a small number of people who are experts in the area and/or who would be willing and able to provide useful comments, for the purpose of soliciting their feedback and suggestions for improving the manuscript before submitting it for formal peer review.

However it seems that this could lead to a tricky situation if the editor of the journal ends up asking some of those same people who provided feedback to serve as reviewers for the paper, since they will have already read the paper and in a sense "reviewed" it one time already.

So I have two questions about this:

From the perspective of a person who has been asked by the authors to provide comments, and then later asked by a journal editor to review that same paper for publication: what is your policy, or your perception of the common policy, for what do to here? Do you decline to review the paper because you've already seen it? Do you agree to review the paper, but perhaps provide many of the same comments verbatim as before (at least for the parts of the paper that were not changed), and perhaps let the editor know that you've read it before? Or do you see your prior reading of the paper as totally irrelevant and just approach the review fresh and as normal?
From the strategic perspective of the authors of the paper, is it better to ask for comments from people who you know are likely to be asked later to review the paper? Or is it better to avoid sending the paper to these people, and instead send it to people who are not as likely to be asked to review the paper but could still provide useful feedback?


texts: How to convince a Doctoral Committee to accept me as a PhD student when I already have a PhD in a similar field?

texts:
I have completed my Ph.D dissertation in Pure Mathematics this year  from a relatively lesser known University.
I have been through these questions like Considering a second PhD, this time in statistics. Will any professors be interested in working with me? and Is doing two PhDs a good path?.
However I am interested in pursuing a PhD again in another branch of Mathematics  from a graduate school which is a very well known University.
The University where I want to apply  does not have any age limit for pursuing a PhD.
I want to shift from my current research field to another field as I have become interested in it recently.
I also believe that getting a PhD from top-tier institution will increase my chances for getting a tenure track position.
My questions are:

How do I convince the interview committee that I want to complete another PhD in mathematics/Theoretical computer science as I am genuinely interested.

Also I enjoy remaining a student as long as I can. I enjoy taking courses and writing papers.
Will that be also a valid reason to tell the interview committee.

My advisor feels that my chances of getting another PhD in Maths/TCS are slim since I already have a PhD and the interview committee would consider this as a waste of time and resource to hire me as PhD student again.

The problem is I don't like the fact that I will no longer be a grad student anymore.
I like this whole concept of doing research and getting paid(though meagerly but it still suits me).
If someone could help me with my queries, I will be grateful.