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[ "Two weeks prior to PhD viva, what should I do?", "update: I passed my viva this week, thank you so much for your kind support!\nThank you so much for your encouraging comments in my previous post regarding PhD thesis submission (What should I do the day before submitting my PhD thesis?). Now 1.5 months have passed by and my viva will take place in two weeks. I took a short break after submission and have recently started looking at my thesis again. I am wondering if you have any tips for PhD viva? P.S. I am a PhD student in social science in the UK and my viva will take place via zoom. Thanks so much!" ]

[ "phd", "defense" ]

[ "Grant from private company - conflict of interest", "If a private company provides a grant for some research to be carried out but is hoping for a particular outcome from the research in order to take certain business decisions, should this be described as a conflict of interest?" ]

[ "research-process", "paper-submission", "conflict-of-interest" ]

[ "No reply from my thesis adviser", "I am currently doing my master thesis on Greenhouse gas emission from solid waste management. I already finished my data collection and now analysing them. But some of the results are not as I expected. So I find the different ways and proposed to my adviser. But my adviser doesn't give any comments about that. And that part is not very important part of my thesis. It is just a small one that I can even leave it if it is on my own. Is that possible to cut some part of my thesis? I have been stucking in this stage about three months. At first, I thought I could publish my thesis and I am hopeless now. And publication also takes time. Please suggest me if there is anything that can help me to move from this stage. Your kind suggestions will be very much appreciated." ]

[ "thesis" ]

[ "How does PhD admissions committee look at my old gre score after starting my Masters", "I am currently an international Masters student studying at a US university and I'm in the process of applying to several computer science PhD programs in North America. I didn't have the chance to retake the GRE exam to increase my score. I'm wondering how the PhD admissions committee takes into consideration my 3-year-old GRE score... will they give it less weight given that I've already started my Masters, or will they treat it exactly as if I have just took the GRE exam?" ]

[ "phd", "graduate-admissions", "graduate-school", "computer-science", "gre" ]

[ "Changing PhD/ collab PhD with a different department", "I've started a phd in fluid dynamics. I always wanted one in general relativity or quantum field theory really, I got interviews for that (many really) but none where successful, I got into fluid dynamics straight away so after waiting around I thought I should crack on and maybe it's meant to be. I do not hate my PhD, but I do not love it either. Whereas if it was general relativity or quantum field theory I think I would really really enjoy it. I am now around 8 months in. I enquired about a phd in cosmology/gravity theories a while back, more out of curiosity, and I received this advice back from the professor at a different university. I had not thought of this idea probably cause I thought the other departments would not be interested in the slightest. I am currently in the engineering department. Does his feedback seem infeasible or is it worth a shot? (I am not sure right now if I will apply for cosmology/gravitational phd in a month or so, when application time begins to peak, if I see the right project..part of me still really wants to, part of me thinks I may as well stick to what I've invested time and work into)\nFEEDBACK:\nI can’t really suggest what’s best, except to discuss your current situation and your ambitions with\nyour supervisory team. XXX YOUR UNI XXX has some world-class activity in computational cosmology, and it may\nbe possible for some sort of collaborative project to be worked out. If you’re 4 months in (and what an extraordinary 4 months)\nthen there is still plenty of time for things to develop\n(ofc i am now 8 months in not 4)\nRe. my current funding:\nhave two assigned supervisors. the scholarship is from the engineering department, not the maths or physics, so I doubt that would be able to directly switched over. However the main supervisor had full control over this scholarship (he was awarded it when he arrived at the university ), so if he agreed on a intersection with a supervisor within the maths/physics department it may be possible. But I also dont want to pee off my current supervisors, if they would not like to grant permission for such a thing, in particular say." ]

[ "phd", "graduate-admissions", "research-process", "advisor", "research-topic" ]

[ "How to get information about new citations in Google Scholar without making profile public", "Once per week I check my Google Scholar profile and I can see my citations count is increased. I would like to know, to which papers/works my increase in the number of citations is related to. How can I know this without making my profile public?" ]

[ "google-scholar" ]

[ "How do I plan for my PhD now that I have graduated with a Masters degree without thesis?", "A bit of background: I am an Indian citizen with an undergraduate degree in Electronics from India and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science (Funny, it is called a minor, given that 60% of my credits are from Computer Science Dept.).\n\nI am currently working as a software developer with a company in Boston, MA. I was involved in some research work during my grad school, but however, nothing materialized and I decided to graduate with a coursework only option (with many projects as a part of coursework). Needless to say, I burnt a lot of bridges along the way which eliminated even the minutest chance for a strong letter of recommendation. \n\nI wish to, however, apply for a PhD in Machine Learning and/or Algorithms, at least 2 to 3 years from now. The job I am at currently is not a research oriented job. I am doing a bit of research by myself with the data sets available online. \n\nGiven that all of the PhD applications in the US, most in Europe need strong letters of recommendations, if not publications, how can I now set things straight in the coming years. What should be an ideal line of action and is a PhD with a good adviser, possible, at all? \n\nNote: I am currently working on some Machine Learning related open problems on large data sets, but I am not sure how much can I get done, while working full time in a non academic environment. Also, I do not have any reputable papers as yet." ]

[ "phd", "graduate-school", "graduate-admissions", "professors", "masters" ]

[ "Are en-route masters in physics viewed differently from terminal masters in physics in the Canadian job market?", "A little bit of context behind this question: I was asked, during a student presentation, whether an en-route masters (usually awarded upon passage of quals in a direct PhD plan) really was worth the same as a terminal masters (with thesis), knowing the latter is the norm in Canada.\n\nThat physics undergraduate said that she'd rather earn a terminal thesis masters than an en-route one (although I feel that this particular undergraduate could be offered a direct PhD plan), because a terminal masters would signal that one is capable of completing a research project, while an en-route masters usually involves a failed, unfinished or downsized research project, since a person in position to take quals usually spent upwards of a year in a research project in the direct PhD plans I know about.\n\nSo are terminal research masters in physics regarded differently from en-route masters in physics on the job market?\n\nP.S.: Perhaps the answer varies from a field to another, so what's applicable to physics may not be applicable to, say, chemistry or history." ]

[ "masters", "job-search", "canada" ]

[ "Can more than one person share PhD thesis?", "I have a PhD research proposal and I came up with this proposal idea while discussing machine learning with my brother who is in the same field as me and has same degrees as me.\n\nmy question is can we (my brother and I) submit this proposal for the university so we both share the research?\n\ndo we have to provide 2 seperate research thesis?" ]

[ "phd", "thesis" ]

[ "Semester units versus credit hours", "This graduate policy handbook states \n\n\n \"A master’s student may transfer up to 4 semester units or 6 quarter\n units of course work completed as a graduate student at another\n institution.\"\n\n\nIn this context, does \"4 semester units\" refer to 4 credit hours or 4 graduate courses?" ]

[ "graduate-admissions" ]

[ "Publications and career trajectory in the 'About me' section of a job talk", "I am preparing for an upcoming job talk for a tenure track assistant professor position. I am strongly encouraged by the hiring committee to have an 'About me' section mentioning my career trajectory (like here) and to show a glimpse of my publications.\nI am wondering what is the best way to do this in a manner that won't come across as aggressive or showing-off or shamelessly being proud of myself. Showing a list of publications as a slide looks like an uncomfortable thing to do as the audience will just get an idea of the volume of work I have done, without being aware of the quality of the content in the papers. What can possibly be the best way to do this?\nAlso about the career trajectory, I am trying to see what can be the natural way to 'fit' this information in the talk so that it is not abrupt. Of course, there is a way to tell the audience which universities I have been a part of while I am talking about my work. However, this needs to be done separately in the 'About me' section.\nAny thoughts or ideas on this will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!" ]

[ "job-search", "faculty-application", "presentation" ]

[ "In the Harvard referencing style, is it wrong to put references in footnotes?", "I have a discussion with my mate about how to reference with the Harvard referencing style.\n\n\n\nI would say it is wrong to do the referencing like in the picture below. \n\nMy suggestion was that the footnotes was to explantion of synonyms or something like that and all references should be in the end of the paper work, so the reader have all the references in one or two pages, so it's easier to get an overview of all references.\n\nAm I totally wrong?" ]

[ "citations", "citation-style" ]

[ "What are the financial offer or opportunities for international PhD students in US and UK?", "I'm an undergraduate student in Physics and Mathematics, who plans to do a PhD in Physics or Mathematics. I know when you are doing a PhD, you can be a TA or RA if it is provided, so that you can handle financial issues or you could be accepted into the PhD program with funding or scholarship (I don't remember the correct term) but what about loans or any other financial support for international PhD students in US and UK?\n\nBy the way, if it any helps, wherever I go for PhD, I will take their citizenship, at least apply, since I have no intention going back to Turkey.\n\nA side question: Apart from the loans, what is the general procedure for financial offer from the universities? I mean how does it work?\n\nNote: I'm from Turkey." ]

[ "phd", "graduate-admissions", "mathematics", "physics" ]

[ "If a journal requires \"Article Processing fee\" does that make it a predatory journal?", "If a journal take article processing fee then does that mean the journal is predatory? or there are some other criteria to tell a journal as predatory?" ]

[ "publications", "disreputable-publishers" ]

[ "What do you use for curriculum mapping?", "I need something like MIT project called Crosslinks: http://crosslinks.mit.edu/\nBut since it doesn't work properly neither out of the box on my laptop nor on their own site, I need somethings like that to cross subjects in curriculum and represent them in format of graph to show relations and the path from beginning to the end through topics to the students.\n\n\nDo you know anything like that in order to visualize both the prerequisites and what needs to be done during the course?\nThank you!" ]

[ "mathematics", "syllabus", "curriculum", "learning-management-system" ]

[ "Can I have both original experimental research and systematic review in one paper?", "serious question because I can't find the answer. I am currently doing an animal study, and I am preparing a manuscript about this. However, I am thinking of adding a second part to this paper by doing a systematic review also. Thus, to make it an article that has both original research and systematic review. The reason to do this is that there are some limitations of this animal study, and I think a systematic review can further back up the conclusion drew by the animal study. In another way, the systematic review has its limitation as well, and the conclusion drew from my animal study can back up the statement from the review. Kinda reciprocal relationship between these two and I feel it can make the quality of this paper better. So my question is if this is acceptable? I haven't seen a study that has part one about original experimental research and part two about a systematic review." ]

[ "publications", "journals", "medicine" ]

[ "What can be listed as \"invited talks\" on your CV?", "I've come to learn (the hard way) that grant referees value significantly the number of invited talks given by an applicant. I'm talking about funding instruments such as the ERC Starting Grant, where the profile of the PI is one of the main criteria to evaluate.\n\nFor junior academics who are not \"superstars\" it's difficult to get invited to give invited talks at conferences. I know have the impression that, at least in my field, most junior academics who deliver invited talks at conferences are doing so either on behalf of or referred by their supervisor/advisor. As a matter of fact, my only invited talk at a conference happened this way, and having recently organized a workshop I've seen this play out in practice.\n\nHowever, I do get \"invited\" quite often to give seminars at institutions where I am visiting a collaborator. These seminars can be on the topic of the collaboration or something else: I usually (so far always) have freedom to choose.\n\nI was wondering two things. 1) Would I be misleading people by listing these \"invited seminars\" as \"invited talks\" on my CV? 2) Are these \"invited seminars\" generally valued by the community, especially by those senior academics who are likely to review my next funding application?" ]

[ "funding", "cv", "seminars" ]

[ "What should a student look for in an undergraduate thesis topic/supervisor?", "I am an undergraduate student (in maths) looking for a topic and supervisor for my thesis.\n\nWhat criteria should I use to judge whether a project/supervisor combination will make for a good thesis and productive experience? Especially in the context of preparing for graduate school. (I thought about asking separate questions for projects and supervisors, but they seem to be so closely linked that it makes more sense to have them together)\n\nConversely, what are red flags/pitfalls I should look out for and how do I avoid them?" ]

[ "thesis", "mathematics", "advisor", "research-undergraduate" ]

[ "Will there be consequences for not participating in ShutDownSTEM?", "I am a tenure-track researcher in STEM fields. On June 9th, I was told that all meetings scheduled next day were cancelled so that we can be a part of #ShutDownSTEM. I was not aware of it, and I actually thought it was a joke1 (I purposely isolated myself from real-world news).\nSo I kept all the meetings. On June 10th, it was business as usual for my group. Other people certainly knew we were working on that day.\nWill our disobedience lead to trouble later?\nUpdate: Okay, it is actually slightly worse than how I initially described it. Originally I did not know about ShutDownSTEM. On the 10th, however, some graduate students did stop by our lab and explain to us that we should use that day to reflect on ...... someting. My postdoc and I, both being people of color, were somewhat annoyed by such intrusion. So we explain to them we support their cause, but we not are going to spend a day watching netflix, and send them on their way. We certainly tried to be as polite as possible. But I suppose it wouldn't be unfair to say we dismissed their demand.\n\n\nIn my defense, if the president of the university tells me to take a day off so that we can BurnDownUniversity, I'd certainly think it is a joke." ]

[ "united-states", "tenure-track", "stem", "politics" ]

[ "Should I include publications where I am a \"team member\" in my CV", "Related to but different from Should I include a publication where I'm only acknowledged (and not one of the authors) in my CV?\n\nI'm a part of some publications which officially are written by author A and B and then the Team Members. Should these publications be on my CV? I contributed to the project (hence the team co-authorship) but don't want to seem like I'm trying to pad my CV.\n\nCurrently I have my publication list broken up by sections: Journal, Talks, Technical Reports, and then Other, and I have the Team Member publications listed under Other. \n\nIs this appropriated and/or reasonable, or should I remove them?" ]

[ "publications", "cv", "authorship" ]

[ "Accessing previous versions of papers in EasyChair", "EasyChair allows authors and chairs to \"replace\" previous versions of a submission. Is it possible to access previous versions?\n\n(Context: I'm interested in the extent to which EasyChair supports a review process where papers are revised in the light of reviewers' comments, and reviewers/editors need access to prior versions of papers to check that particular issues have been dealt with.)" ]

[ "peer-review", "tools", "workflow", "automation" ]

[ "Post-master’s education opportunities?", "I am about to finish a master’s degree in data science/analytics. (Yes, I realize these are all the rage now, but let’s leave that alone for now.)\n\nI have enjoyed the program and have learned quite a bit. However, I feel that overall the program is a survey of analytics/ML/AI techniques and there was little opportunity to truly dig deep into any of the topics that were covered.\n\nI would like to find a way to continue my formal education and perhaps do some research, or at the least do a much deeper dive, into a more narrow field of study. However, I don't believe that a PhD program is right for me. I'm a father, a husband and a full-time employee. I'm not willing to give all of that up to pursue a PhD. (In retrospect, perhaps a thesis option in the masters program would have been appropriate, but it's too late for that.)\n\nIs there something out there that's between a master's degree and a PhD?" ]

[ "research-process", "masters", "degree" ]

[ "Do you necessarily need to wait one year before attending a PhD in the US?", "I see many LinkedIn profiles from Ivy League graduates that start a Ph.D. program only a few months after they get their Bachelor's (assuming that they graduate early in the summer). Given that graduate applications are usually open from October through December and programms start in August-September of the following year, how is that possible?" ]

[ "phd", "graduate-admissions", "united-states", "deadlines" ]

[ "What is the difference between \"not recommended\" and \"rejected\" as outcome of a graduate program application?", "I was recently told I wasnt \"recommended\" into a graduate program and was given a referral to another program. \n\nWhat exactly would it means to not get \"recommended\" as apposed to being rejected? And is being referred to another program a common practice?" ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "graduate-school", "united-states", "university" ]

[ "publishing a conference paper in a journal", "some years ago (2007) I have published a paper in a conference as a poster paper. Now I want to send it to a journal and change the affiliation, or maybe some minor changes. I didn't see any policy about a previous published paper in a conference, however there is a policy as the following:\n\n\n The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before\n another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided\n in Comments to the Editor).\n\n\nCould I send my paper to this journal? \n\nIs it a normal thing to first publish a paper in a conference and then trying to send it to a journal?" ]

[ "publications", "journals", "conference" ]

[ "Send link to a document/draft instead of attaching it to mail", "When sending a mail to a professor/ academic, is it OK to send link of a document/draft/preprint instead of attaching it to the mail? What is the convention?\n\nThe reason is, if you attach it, it takes some space in the mailbox of recipient. Thus, the recipient might delete it to save space, after some time." ]

[ "etiquette", "professors", "email", "independent-researcher" ]

[ "Articles about different types of colleges and universities, from math faculty perspective", "I'm looking for an article, web site, book chapter, whatever, that I can share with some math graduate students so that they can read and learn a little about some of the different types of colleges and universities, from the perspective of a math professor. More specifically, a math grad student who is considering an option of becoming a math professor, but might not yet have a set idea on whether they want to emphasize research, teaching, undergraduate or graduate mentoring, or whatever, and might not have a good sense of the range of possibilities.\nSome grad students are not familiar with any kind of university other than an R1, and just assume that with a math Ph.D., that's their career path. Or they might not know about differences between large and small schools, state schools and liberal arts schools, etc.\nI don't need an article that would rank colleges (or types of college). I would love to have one that explains some of the different types of academic settings where a professor might find themselves, especially a math professor.\nI am especially interested in the U.S., but I'm open to texts with a broader perspective (global, European, whatever). I'm especially interested in the perspective of mathematics, but I'm open to texts from the perspective of "generic" faculty or faculty in other areas. I'm not really interested in articles that help students pick which type of college they would like to go to (those are very easy to find, almost spammy)." ]

[ "career-path", "university", "academic-life", "liberal-arts-colleges" ]

[ "Should I report a graduate student who \"hires\" other people to do their coursework?", "Should I report a graduate student who \"hires\" other people to do their coursework? Is this a proper course of action to take? I understand the repercussions will be outstanding for the individual.\n\n\n\nThank you for the input. I've talked to some old professors as well as people in the industry and they all agreed that I should bring it to the attention of the dean and other professors because it is unfair to the people who have worked hard to get into the program, the people he has been scamming, and also people who were denied entry into the program because he was deemed the better candidate. As far as evidence goes, I have substantial evidence both from him and an upset developer who contacted me through his friends list on Facebook." ]

[ "graduate-school", "ethics", "cheating" ]

[ "Write a paper based on forthcoming chapter in a book", "I have a forthcoming book on a given topic. I would like to extend a section that deals with a significant topic per se into a full (though not very long) paper. Would the paper be desk-rejected?\n\nThe chapter includes the following on that subject:\n- background\n- methodology\n- applications\n\nThe paper would provide a background and methodology (similar, obviously), but I underline that this paper brings new relative to the forthcoming chapter:\n- further applications\n- a more detailed presentation of the methodology. \n\nIs it a long shot? It is worth expanding into a paper? \n\nIn the worst case scenario, I can just leave it as a working paper and present it as part of the book at some conferences, I guess." ]

[ "publications", "books" ]

[ "Mathematics research status in India", "I am an Indian student. I am not related to any kind of mathematics research. So I do not have proper idea about it. I may join in as a PhD after a few months. I want to get a picture of the research status in India.\n\nIndia has several mathematics research centres, institutions and universities. I want to know the status of mathematics research in India. How many and which of them are of international standard? What about the impact factor of their mathematics publication? What is the status of computer science, which is almost neglected by Indian Mathematicians. Is my idea true? I know that none of our institutions and universities in top 200 of the world ranking. Please give me some idea on it and sufficient resource so that I can convince myself.\n\nSuppose I have completed a PhD in India. Will it be accepted internationally. When? Why and Why not?" ]

[ "phd", "research-process", "mathematics", "reputation", "india" ]

[ "Which authority establishes the equivalence of degrees from different European countries?", "I hold a degree from a European country, and at that time we didn't have a system similar to the common \"Bachelor + Master\". My degree has been considered as equivalent to a Master by the University of another European country, and in this other University I obtained a Doctorate.\n\nNow, I have been offered a teaching position in Russia, and they want a statement of my undergraduate University, saying that that degree is equivalent to a Master. But this University (where I graduated) tells me that they can't make a statement of equivalence, they can only certify that I have that degree.\nSo, who should be the authority that officially takes care of confirming the equivalence?\n\nTo complicate things, I graduated before the Bologna Process came into effect." ]

[ "masters", "degree", "europe", "bachelor", "russia" ]

[ "Why is a tenure defense talk necessary?", "Once a tenure-track professor finishes their initial 6 year evaluatory period, I imagine their publication/teaching/grant record should pretty much speak for itself to a tenure committee. Apparently, as I have recently found out, some departments additionally require a tenure defense talk at the end of this period. It seems to me that this talk is something akin to a dissertation defense, only on a grander scale of all the research I've done over the initial 6 year period. \n\nBut my question is: \n\nWhy is it even necessary? \n\nWhat could be expected from such a talk that wouldn't be readily and easily obtainable from the submitted tenure package? Is it just a formality or does it really hold an important weight in the tenure committee's final evaluation to keep me? \n\nShould I just rehash and summarize what is already in my tenure submission package? Is there something more to it that I should emphasize in my tenure defense talk?" ]

[ "tenure-track", "defense" ]

[ "How do so many people here on Academia.SE, and in general, afford lavish higher education programs?", "I graduated last year with a BS in Computer Science. I do not come from a particularly wealthy family, (very low middle class), and was only able to afford my education via school loans/scholarships and working low-wage jobs, with no support from my family or anyone else. I realize some scholarship/loan programs extend into grad school. But I don't think those cover all costs.\n\nNow I'm lucky enough to have a decent-paying salary in industry, along with benefits and living on my own, and I'm thinking one day (sooner rather than later) I'd like to try my hand at research or continue my degree, but these things cost money, in addition to my regular living expenses.\n\nI read posts here often about academic people being in positions of choosing between these crazy research grad programs, some in Japan, or Ireland (while they currently live in the U.S./U.K.) then moving around between countries/universities often for their SO's education or to pursue a new research interest. I'd love to live somewhere else for a while and do research.\n\nI'm becoming increasingly jealous of the people with these opportunities - assuming I were to even get into one, how can I afford these programs, especially given the fact that people working in/during Academia generally don't make as much as those in Industry?\n\nIs it simply a matter of having a wealthy family/connection or saving up? Am I missing something here?" ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "graduate-school", "funding", "united-states" ]

[ "My (ex-)advisor is holding our paper hostage", "I left a PhD program in statistics last August after nearly four years in the program. The department graciously allowed me to finish out my Masters, so I graduated in December and have since started a new job in a related but unusual field for my degree. One of my reasons for leaving the program was my relationship with my advisor, which was causing me daily stress that I decided was no longer worth enduring.\nAbout a month before I decided to leave the program, I submitted what was to be the first paper of my dissertation to a well-regarded journal in our subfield. I was first author and my advisor was listed as second author. In December (right as I was about to graduate with a Masters), the paper returned as an acceptance with minor revisions. There were only a half dozen or so reviewer comments, mostly minor.\nI got to work addressing the reviewers' concerns, which didn't take long. My advisor, however, raised a major concern. He insisted that one part of the algorithm described in our paper was incorrect and that I should fix it. I asked him why he thought it was wrong and his reply essentially boiled down to "I'm convinced it is wrong". I stubbornly refused to do the additional work of another proof until he could identify where the original error was. This led to a very contentious Zoom call where my advisor told me that we should re-check essentially every part of the algorithm - because if one part was wrong, then perhaps everything was.\nI eventually did the proof he had asked for and showed that I had been right all along. I sent the proof to my advisor and asked him to read it so that we could submit the paper. He said he would, but now almost two months have gone by and I have not heard from him. My previous experience with him leads me to believe that this radio silence is intentional and that he has not just forgotten about the whole project.\nMy options are:\nA) Do nothing and (presumably) let the paper go unpublished. Given my career trajectory, it is not hugely important to me that the paper be published, although it would be nice to see my name as first author.\nB) Nudge my advisor for a response, potentially provoking a demand for more work that I consider superfluous. Dealing with my advisor any further will almost certainly cause me a great deal of stress (or relationship is very strained).\nIf you think I should take option B, how can I be clear that I do not wish to put much additional work into the project and believe it should be submitted now that I have answered every reviewer comment? Should I make an ultimatum, or try to offer some sort of compromise?" ]

[ "thesis", "advisor", "paper-submission" ]

[ "Is it worth registering for an innovations in medicine conference, being a CE student?", "I'm attending an \"Innovations in medicine\" conference but the registration fee is a bit high, I am a computer engineering student and the conference will have various technological topics.\n\nDo you think that having the attendance certificate from the conference will be of any value in my CV, considering the fact that there are some chances I might work in medical technology in the future?" ]

[ "conference", "computer-science", "cv", "medicine" ]

[ "Should the captions in a figure list include their references?", "The \"list of figures\" page in my Masters thesis lists many figure captions. Some of these figure captions have references. Should I remove or keep the reference in the list of figures? Definitely the references are always keeping in main text of the report, I just do not know how to handle them in the list of figures." ]

[ "thesis", "writing", "writing-style" ]

[ "How can I get an idea on relevance of my data?", "I have a lot of data from my PhD, which I believe confuses my supervisor quite a lot. Therefore, he is hesitant to publish them for now. How can I get good academic feedback on this data without submitting it as a paper?" ]

[ "publications", "peer-review", "data" ]

[ "How many and which references to own publications should be included in a research statement for post doc position?", "I am composing my research statement for post doc applications in astrophysics/cosmology. I found that if I cite all the work associated with my work, then the references itself are taking around 2.5 pages. Some of the job applications have a restriction on the length of the research statement including the references. In such cases, do I not cite all the references? How do I pick which reference to keep and which one to ignore?" ]

[ "citations", "application" ]

[ "Do you list journals you have reviewed for on your CV?", "Is it acceptable to list the journals you have reviewed papers for on your CV? Is it common? Do you think it’s recommended?\n\nOn the one hand, it shows that you are engaged in this necessary part of scientific research that is peer-review. On the other hand, it sounds a bit useless, because everyone actually reviews papers for journals, and it is actually an unverifiable information (reviewers are confidential)." ]

[ "journals", "peer-review", "cv" ]

[ "Does a Conference Issue of a journal count the same as a journal paper in economics?", "I had a working paper accepted for the Royal Economic Society which entitles people who are accepted to submit their paper for consideration for a special \"Conference Issue\" of the Economic Journal. On the website of the Economic Journal it states:\n\n\n Papers accepted and presented at the RES Annual Conference are\n eligible for consideration for publication in the Conference Issue of\n the Journal.\n \n The volume is edited by the main Editorial Board, ensuring that\n publication standards are the same as for regular issues.\n \n Papers accepted for this year's conference volume will be published in\n May the following year. Turn-around times are very swift. Papers are \n submitted in April and final decisions are made between September and\n December.\n\n\nGiven the quick turn-aroud times and the prestige of the Economic Journal it would seem to be a good thing to submit it to their special Conference Issue. However, I do not know if it counts for less because it is a special Conference Issue? In which it might be better to submit to a different journal as a \"general paper\" (I'm thinking World Development, e.g.)?" ]

[ "publications", "journals", "conference", "economics" ]

[ "Exactly How Important Is The Quality Of My Degree (Grades, GPA)?", "I don't want to bore anyone so long story, very, very short:\n\n\nThis is for the Computer Science / Software Engineering industry.\nI am combating laziness and extreme procrastination due to depression.\nNot doing very well in my studies as a result.\n\n\nBased on the two above I wonder if a degree with some tainting in the first year of my units would still be enough to get me a good job (in the industry).\n\nIs experience worth more than my grades alone? \n\nI say this because I often find that I do better by doing than just by reading the course material for Discrete Structures or Databases etc....\n\nShould I not worry about my (past) bad grades and make the best of the situation and just develop a good portfolio?\n\nI want to fix what I have gotten myself into, and I hope someone in the industry or with some kind of related experience can give me some insight." ]

[ "job", "undergraduate", "grades" ]

[ "If an assumption proves to be false, is the research then meaningless?", "Last year, I did research (while in high school). My research was relatively successful and I was able to get a lot of amazing opportunities out of it. \n\nHowever, looking back at it now, I realize that it is possible that one of my research assumptions was incorrect (not definitely incorrect, but possibly). This was my first research project, so I was not really accustomed to making assumptions. Now, though, this is really causing me an extreme amount of anxiety and I am not fully sure why. I was proud of my research, but I feel like that one assumption makes the research worthless.\n\nIs all of one's research meaningless if an assumption proves to be false?" ]

[ "research-process" ]

[ "Paper stuck in “ASAP” status: what does it indicate?", "I am looking at a paper by some colleagues, that has been in ASAP status for 4 months now. In that particular journal, “ASAP” indicates accepted papers after the authors have corrected the proofs: i.e., they are just like the final paper, except they have not been attributed an issue and page number yet (and have thus not yet appeared in print).\n\nMost papers in that particular journal only stay 2 or 3 weeks in ASAP status, before being assigned an to an issue. This paper stands out, being the only one so old on the website. Yet, no indication additional information is given on the publisher's website.\n\nWhat can cause a paper to be stuck so long in ASAP queue? Would it be impolite to ask the corresponding author what's going on? (I admit it would only be to satisfy my own curiosity…)" ]

[ "publications" ]

[ "How to properly cite (and write a paragraph) that a paper is based upon another paper but proposes different contribution?", "I have a paper A which is already published. Now I want to write paper B which will use data from the same expirement conducted in A but with results which were not mentioned in paper A.\nBasically, paper A focused on "which interaction technique is better" and paper B will focus on the effects those techniques had on the user.\nWhile A was a long journal paper, B is planned to be a short poster.\nMy question is: How can I properly tell the reviewers that this paper uses data from an expirement conducted during another paper? The submission has to be anonymous.\nI would write "This work provides additional insights to the interaction techniques in [citation removed due to anonomity]" but I have a feeling that this sounds lame and reviewers will feel like "meh..this doesnt sound very sophisticated..."\nAlso I plan to reuse some images I used in paper A, is this allowed?" ]

[ "publications", "citations", "writing" ]

[ "How to manage the web presence of a research group", "Given the importance of web presence how does one manage the web presence of a research group? The simplest approach seems to be to use links to the personal webpages of the group members to supply content. Is it worth creating content specifically for the group and if so should it reflect the interests of the current group membership or the interests of the PI, which will need updating less frequently?" ]

[ "website" ]

[ "how should I write my first email to co-supervisor?", "My supervisor introduced me to a professor who has (already) accepted to be my co-supervisor, and wanted me to contact him and make an appointment. I want to write an email, but I do not know exactly what to write. My supervisor raved about his knowledge.\nHow can I explain my purpose of contacting?\nIs the following a good email?\n\nDear xx\nMy name is ++++ , and I am a master student and my supervisor is\nDr.+++++.\nFirst of all, I would like to thank you for agreeing to be my\nco-supervisor.\nI have read and heard a lot about your achievements and your extensive\nresearch experience in the field of artificial intelligence systems.\nso, I would like to discuss with you on topics such as AI, Machine\nlearning which will help me get started in the right direction.\nWould it be possible to meet with you to further discuss?\nI am available Days and Times.\nKind Regards,\n++++++\nXX" ]

[ "advisor", "etiquette", "professors", "email", "projects" ]

[ "Tenure-track application - Number of recommendation letters", "This question is mostly aimed at mathematicians, since I am currently in the job market for tenure-track positions in pure mathematics. \n\nUsually most of the job adverts say \"three letters of recommendation\" or \"four letters of recommendation, one of which should address teaching\", or variants of that. My concerns are:\n\n1) is it ok to submit more than the number requested? Let's say they ask for 3 research letters; is it ok to submit 4? \n2) same question for teaching letters: usually only one is required for research positions. I have two available at my disposal, since I had two employers that wrote me one. Should I submit both, or just the one that I think will be more beneficial? \n\nThanks!" ]

[ "mathematics", "recommendation-letter", "faculty-application", "tenure-track" ]

[ "Can I re-submit a rejected manuscript to same Journal after 2 years", "I had submitted a manuscript to a Journal in December 2012, which got rejected in February 2013 with some comments and advising to re-submit as a new manuscript along with reply to the comments. But I neither modified the manuscript nor submitted to same/other Journal. This is because, the work was not related to my original work. Truly speaking, I got this result accidentally in November 2012 and wrote a manuscript.\n\nThis August 2015 reminds me about this manuscript and I modified it as per the reviewers' comments. Now I can't decide whether to re-submit the manuscript in the same Journal? Or to submit in a new Journal? It is already 2 years and half. Can anybody kindly suggest me in this regard." ]

[ "journals", "paper-submission", "rejection" ]

[ "Creating paper on software tool", "In my master thesis I developed a software tool that improves a common workflow used in a certain industry. Currently, no such tool exists, and this workflow is conducted manually all around the globe. I am currently in the finalization phase of my thesis and my supervisor told me to write a paper on the tool and the worflow improvement. \n\nNow here is my Problem:\n\n\nI have the tool and I can show that the workflow is performed better with it (our industry partner puts almost no limits on use cases, interviews, etc)\nI have no idea how properly package this into a paper (also, what to objectively measure to \"proof\" the improvement)\n\n\nCould someone please point out a few \"good\" papers, where a software tool was created for a problem domain (where no such tool existed before) and evaluated so that I can learn from it's structure, the approach and the proper \"packaging\" of the entire paper?" ]

[ "writing", "computer-science" ]

[ "Does having much knowledge in other branches help one's research in mathematics in one's own field?", "I am wondering if having much knowledge in other (seemingly not directly related) branches of mathematics is helpful to a mathematician in his own research. Say there are two algebraic topologists A and B. A also has some knowledge in PDE (say he knows the basics of graduate level PDE well and can even teach a graduate course on PDE) and B does not even know the very basics of ODE. Does this make any difference in their ability in doing research in algebraic topology?\n\nI know that some fields are somehow related; for example, it will help a group theorist if he knows algebraic topology or number theory; but how about other fields that are not apparently related, such as the example that I have quoted?" ]

[ "research-process", "mathematics" ]

[ "Very obscure job posting for faculty position. Pass onward, or keep to myself?", "I am a contract-limited faculty member in the United States. My subfield is small, but known for its warmth and intimacy.\n\nA friend of mine in a different country recently sent me a job posting advertised by another institution in the United States. I have absolutely no idea where he found it. I didn't even know that this school had a department in my field, frankly. The deadline is in three weeks, but the job posting has not made its way to the central repository of job ads in my field, nor hit any of the major mailing lists. Yet it's a coveted tenure-track position that seems legitimate, described in a Word document hosted on the webpage of the department in question (though not directly linked to from it, as far as I can tell). I've never seen a job more poorly publicized. I suspect that this department is hiring someone in my subfield for the first time ever, so I can understand not knowing about the appropriate mailing lists, but beyond that it seems awfully odd.\n\nAnyway, my question is about ethics and competition. The first thing I wanted to do was to send the job posting around to a circle of colleagues who, like me, are looking for long-term academic employment. Of course that brings with it the risk that the job could be given to someone who wouldn't have heard of it otherwise, but I just can't get comfortable with the idea of sneakily keeping it to myself. Not when the support of my colleagues is one of the major reasons I was able to get to this level. I'll probably apply for the job, of course; but if I don't get it, I want people I like to be in the running!\n\nOr is that utterly foolish and naive?\n\nI guess I'm trying to figure out where the line is between being helpful and being so generous that I'm shooting myself in the foot. In this case, I can't find it by intuition alone. Would appreciate input. Thank you!" ]

[ "ethics", "job-search", "early-career" ]

[ "Using \"standard\" literature in local language instead of English literature", "I'm currently working on a paper where I want to compare UML with a \"leaner\" approach of modelling software architecture. UML already has some coverage by writers (besides the open specification), and therefore some books that can be considered as \"standard literature\", e.g. UML Distilled or The Unified Modeling Language User Guide. In Germany, there is also a German UML-related book that can be considered standard literature (UML 2 glasklar).\nI'm now struggling a bit - I'm writing the paper in English, however currently it's easier for me to get access to the German literature (digital access to German books vs. physical English books in the library, which is closed due to COVID-19 lock-down).\n\nCan I use the German book as reference and work with it, without impact to \"credibility\"? Or should I wait and try to get my grip on the English standard literature, as the German one will not be considered a good reference?" ]

[ "computer-science", "language", "literature" ]

[ "How much right does the PhD student have to choose his own advisor?", "I discontinued my PhD two years ago due to the reasons that I was not getting along with my supervisor. I had completed all my course works and comprehensive exam plus the committee had approved my proposal. The committee then assigned me an advisor who I felt was not so interested in me (the professor had given me a really bad mark in one of his classes which I took as a coursework). I too was not really interested in him. He did not have a strong publication, in fact he did not have any. I honestly could not find any except one paper dated 10 years ago. I am still curious of how the system works and I wondered how he became a a full professor in the department with such a poor publication. A friend of mine informed me that it is because of the length of time a professor serves within the university that he may receive full professorship. However this is another topic. So, going back to my situation, after the committee assigned him as my advisor, I tried to work with him. However, after a couple of meetings with him, I realized that this was not going to work. \n\nOne day, after a long – little heated - discussion between the two of us, feeling my frustration, he advised me to request the to Head of Department and the committee that I be appointed a new advisor. I sensed that his advice was not sincere, however, that was what I exactly did. I met the Head of Department in his office with my advisor. We had a lengthy discussion. To make a long story short, the Head of Department turned down my request, saying repeatedly that (quote): “you can only change an advisor if you have a 'cause’”. I thought to myself that don’t I have the right to at least choose or request an advisor. \n\nDuring the holidays, when I return to my country, at the end of the holidays, I did not go back to the university. I emailed them that I will have to discontinue my studies. I eventually resigned from the program as I saw the Department could not accommodate my needs.\n\nAs I look back, of course I feel a sense of misery that I wasted two years of my life in this PhD program. Just to add, I was living in a foreign country far away form my family (wife and kid) which I could only visit once a year during the summer holidays. The program was a fully funded scholarship program with a very basic monthly subsistence stipend. \n\nSo my questions are:\n\n\nHow much right does the PhD student have to choose his own advisor? I understand that there are universities in certain countries that assign the advisors to the students which was the case for my situation. Since I was on scholarship from the university, does this mean that the university has the full right to assign the advisor and that I would have to fully comply to their requests?\nHow much would this ruin my reputation and credibility to be granted another PhD scholarship from a different institution?" ]

[ "phd", "advisor", "supervision" ]

[ "Applying for scholarships for PhD before I know where (and which country) I'll be accepted", "I am applying for multiple economics PhD programs in the US (Harvard, Princeton, etc), and for MPhil (research master) programs in the UK (Oxford, Cambridge, LSE). for the academic year starting Sep-2017\n\nI want to apply for scholarships as much as possible, but I'm slightly confused by how this works. I've read some stuff online, but I'd want to do a sanity check here at Stack Exchange to make sure I've got it right.\n\n\nFirst of all, is it normal for US Graduate Schools to pay the complete tuition fee for PhD students? The Harvard website says: \"Economic students receive full tuition and stipend support while they are enrolled and making satisfactory progress toward the Ph.D. degree.\" I almost can't believe this, since the US has a reputation here in Europe to have very high tuition fees. Do I understand correctly from this statement that Harvard Economics PhD students don't have to pay any kind of fee to the university for the full 5 years, or am I missing something?\nIf the above is true, does it even make sense (and is it acceptable/normal) to still apply for extra-university-scholarships for those universities?\nThird question: Since I'm applying to roughly 10 universities (in 3 countries), I don't know yet where I will be studying. Is it advisable (and acceptable/normal) to already apply for as many scholarships as possible, even though I don't even know yet where I'll be studying?\nIs it true that the optimal strategy for obtaining a scholarship is to go through websites like scholarships.com, internationalscholarships.com, and apply for all scholarships for which you are eligible? Or would I be missing something?" ]

[ "phd", "graduate-admissions", "funding" ]

[ "What could count toward financial requirements for UK student visa applications?", "Most people who apply for grad studies outside their country of residence are relying on scholarships for their tuition and funding for their cost of living through being research or teaching assistants at the universities to which they are applying.\n\n\nDo scholarships count toward the financial requirements of UK student visa applications?\nDo expected salaries from research or teaching assistantships count?\n\n\nIf expected salaries from assistantships don't count in the UK, how else might potential students be funded?\n\nThe only things that come to mind are:\n\n\nStaying with relatives in the country\nBeing that rich (through parents' money?)\nLoans for the first year\n\n\nWhich of those could count toward the financial requirements?" ]

[ "funding", "application", "united-kingdom", "teaching-assistant", "visa" ]

[ "Is writing to prospective PIs during admissions season a good idea?", "I have already submitted all my PhD applications (to US universities) and I did not write to professors before applying. Turns out this was not a good idea as in case of a couple of schools, I found out later that one of the professors I mentioned in my SoP have left the school. (I understand this makes me look careless and out of touch but their webpages were still up on the older schools' website and updated to list very recent publications)\n\nFirstly, I was thinking of writing to the other professors in the schools who's work I am interested in but didn't mention in the statement in order to avoid crowding it with names. Will this help mitigate the damage caused?\n\nSecondly, I was also thinking of writing to professors at other universities I applied to to ask whether they are accepting any students? I did not do this previously because some schools discourage writing to professors directly and the professors, who are very busy don't always reply (understandably)\n\nThirdly, since I'm thinking of doing this in mid-january, the professors will possibly be even busier with admissions work in addition to their research and teaching duties. Would writing this late be annoying? I don't want this to have any negative effect on my application." ]

[ "graduate-admissions" ]

[ "My advisor wants me to include a name of someone who has no contribution to the paper", "My first advisor wants me to include my second advisor's name in a paper that I worked on before she (2nd advisor) came along. \n\nShould I include her name even though she didn't do anything in that paper? I don't think she even read it." ]

[ "publications", "advisor", "authorship" ]

[ "Fear of someone having the same idea and doing the research before you do", "I am a young researcher, and recently, I find that the drive to publish and advance my career has created an unhealthy mindset. In particular, I find that when I have a good idea, I am worried that someone will have the same idea, carry out the analysis, and publish before I do. While this worry has greatly speeded up my research, sometimes I feel it is unhealthy, in that my work becomes more sloppy, my analysis is less careful, I check for errors less, and as a result I'm more prone to making mistakes. I think this is an undesirable outcome, because it can potentially reduce the quality of my research results.\n\nHowever, the tradeoff is real - the more time one spends vetting one's results for accuracy and making improvements large or small, the later one publishes, and the risk of getting preempted is higher. Even if one is still able to publish, not being the first will reduce the impact of your publication.\n\nI am interested in hearing what others think about this, and approaches to dealing with and think about this issue, to have a healthy mindset and research environment." ]

[ "research-process" ]

[ "Is attending a more expensive and prestigious foreign university a good financial investment?", "Here's the question: is university a sound investment? I'll be clear, since I know that this situation and this questions are experienced by many people. I'm going to face very soon the choice of where to go attending my Msc courses and obviously, after having decided which universities suit my tendencies better, financial considerations come on the way. I don't want to hear considerations like \"yeah,it's all about your dreams, if you really want to go there then it's a worthy investment\" because let's face it, even with your dream job life with 1000£ a month isn't easy. I'm not even complaining about how this world can be elitarist due to the high fees and life costs, I'm just pondering the best opportunities.\nThe choice is between staying here in my country where costs are way lower or trying for the upgrade in the best (and expensive) foreign university (namely I'm now considering Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and Eth). I was wondering then if the 20000\\50000£ investment is justified by a better salary and effective enhanced working chances? And in case of the decision to pursue an academic career, is it amortised in a reasonable amount of time?\n\nHas someone experienced this path or similar one and can tell me something about it?\n\nJust to give some feedback: I'm from one of the good italian universities and with grades making possible a decent (hopefully) prospect of career even here, either in or outside the academic world.\n\nEDIT since it might be useful, I'm studying mathematics and planning to have my master in applied mathematics. The options are to get a specialization in financial mathematics or a general applied mathematics Msc that could yield to further academic continuance or to job in industry." ]

[ "graduate-school", "united-kingdom", "salary", "fees" ]

[ "Failing students: Avoidable or not?", "One college lecturer often does not care about failing his students, another does. Say we are talking about a Calculus I class.\n\nA. One fails students because they simply do not achieve the minimum grade set by him and/or the university.\n\nB. One fails students because they cheat or break rules or something.\n\nHowever, for point A, there are reasons that can be talked about.\n\n\nHe might not be a good teacher. For this, either he improves his teaching, which more often than not means he needs more experience as he has minimum capability of teaching (he is not a school teacher any way), or the faculty just need to find replacement as this lecturer cannot deliver.\nThe materials are just too much for some students. How do we handle this?\n\n\na. Should the materials be reduced, which then it will not make this class a Calculus class, since some materials are omitted?\n\nb. Should the faculty accept the fact that these students fail? What if for ALL students, this Calculus class is too hard?\n\nc. These students passed the admission tests for the university entry, and they came to learn. Should they blame or change the admission process to get a better group of students? This can be done in the future, but what if this fail of students is happening now?\n\nd. Should the lecturer raise the average grade of the class so that some, if not all, students pass the course? Or, just by lowering the minimum grade at the end of the semester? Won't this affect them in future subjects?\n\ne. Should he just let them learn as much as they can without setting any expectation or minimum requirements and grade them based on how much they have improved?\n\nf. In conclusion, in which part does he adjust? The materials (future), teaching method (future), grading system (future), the minimum grade, or just let them fail as there is nothing he can do without changing the grades, even after giving them second chance exam and still fail, even after also giving them more tutorial classes?\n\nEDIT: To add more consideration, let's say the class attendance is really good. Practice quizzes are given more than once. In my department however, almost all lecturers agree that our students are just weak compared to other universities, since the good ones are usually going to those universities. I wish not to agree with this, since I believe there is something a lecturer can do to help improving his students. However, students rarely come to a given tutorial class. Also, based on the admission data, accepted students were based on ranked list, not passing grade. I have tried making more detailed syllabus. Some students (very few) succeed, but others pass courses with very low grades, and this happens to every lecturer including me. I'm relatively new to this department and it looks like other lecturers just raise grades eventually (it would be bad for the department otherwise) and mind their own business later, such as doing research etc, without even giving tutorial classes. I am refusing to follow it but it looks like it'll be easier for me to follow this culture..but nah!" ]

[ "teaching", "students", "exams", "grades", "lecturer" ]

[ "Can a penetration test write-up be used as a bachelor thesis?", "I'm doing a Computer Science degree in university. While the program provided by the uni is not focused, I'm personally focusing on studying security, aiming to become a Penetration Tester/Red Teamer. I'd like to do a penetration test (on a real system with permission or a simulated system) and make the write-up my thesis. \n\nI've emailed the main professor in Computer Security of my university but haven't yet received a reply. I'd like answers besides \"just ask your professor\" and \"wait for a reply\".\n\nI'd like opinions from other university professors: Can a pentest write-up be used as a bachelor thesis?" ]

[ "thesis", "bachelor" ]

[ "Sending manuscript to a journal that rejected an earlier paper", "As a beginner researcher, several years ago, I sent some (2-3) papers to a quality journal (with ISI IF). The papers were rejected.\nNow I am preparing a manuscript, which is in my opinion much more mature.\nIn the meantime I had some papers published in other journals.\nNow I am considering the same journal again, because of the topic.\nIs it a good idea ? Or is there going to be some bias because of earlier rejections ?\nJust to clarify: this is a completely new manuscript." ]

[ "research-process", "publications", "journals", "peer-review", "rejection" ]

[ "In IEEE citation style how do I cite different sections of a book", "This is not a specific LaTeX question, hence why I post it here.\n\nI am typing a report for a project. I use multiple sections of a handbook (say, page 113-116, a bit later 389-390, etc.). What is the proper way to deal with this? Should I include a separate citation for each? I've looked at the IEEE editorial standard but they don't mention this.\n\nLaTeX thing: If yes, is there a way to do it with bibtex without copy-pasting the entire thing in my .bib file and just changing page number?" ]

[ "publications", "citation-style", "ieee" ]

[ "Paper in high impact journal duplicates work done a decade prior, how should I respond?", "This paper was published in a high impact journal for physics, Physical Review Letters, in 2010, and basically duplicates work done in 2000 by another author in the field, here.\n\nWhat is strange to me is that, in our subfield of optical polarization theory and measurement, the author of the second, older paper, is well known. There is no way that an adequate reviewer couldn't have known about the second author's work in 2010. The 2010 paper doesn't cite this former work.\n\nWhat is the protocol for this situation?\n\nThe first, newer paper, has a more elegant and easily understandable derivation, but it still duplicates the older paper, and isn't original, just more concise. However, the 2010 paper, disingenuously states that \"non-quantum entanglement\" is used to resolve an issue (the issue solved in 2000). This needs to be called out, because mathematically all we have is a 2 element vector with elements that are not linearly dependent, and this is what they are denoting the \"non-quantum entanglement.\"\n\nIn my opinion, this lack of citation of the original work by the authors of the first paper above (newer), likely where they got the idea in the first place, is potentially unethical.\n\nEdit:\n\nNow that I've been in academia for awhile, I find myself often disappointed and disheartened by the following problems, most of which are primarily political : \n\n\nThe unfortunate view that retractions are so unpleasant that they almost never occur. Everyone is wrong occasionally, the literature shouldn't be polluted with incorrect results.\nEveryone always being afraid to be wrong, and subsequently afraid to fail. Failure is essential to developing new frontiers.\nThe lack of risk taking in mainstream science.\nThe focus on positive results, especially in experimental sciences. I'm sure we would all love to know when not to spend years going down a fruitless path.\nEthical issues being addressed as just ignore it.\n\n\nRetractions (for ethically sound reasons, like mistakes, etc.) really shouldn't be so unpalatable that we end up with incorrect results proliferating in the literature.\n\nEthical problems like the above, failing to cite likely known prior work shouldn't be swept under the rug and just ignored for political reasons." ]

[ "publications", "ethics", "etiquette" ]

[ "Loss of novelty while under review", "Asking this question for a friend (also motivated by this PhD thesis: novelty at the time of proposal but not submission). Field: Neuroscience.\nInitially, when the paper was written up, there was no other paper that showed that XYZ could happen. It got rejected by the first journal (edited suggested submitting to more specialized journal). Now, at the second journal, the paper has been under review for a while (~7 months). All in all about a year or so has passed between when the work was done and the current peer review process.\nNow that the reviews have come, I see that the reviewers say that there is no novelty in the paper because a recent paper (published two months ago) has shown the exact same thing. The editor has marked it as major revision and said that we should address the novelty issue.\nMy question is: is there anyway to argue that the novelty is supposedly missing because the journal took forever and that its not the authors fault? In general, is there anything to be done in case of getting scooped except for swallow your pride, do more work, submit to pre-print server next time, and hope for the best?" ]

[ "publications", "peer-review", "publishability", "neuroscience" ]

[ "Does a preprint include revisions made in response to peer review?", "This is related to but not answered in this question about the difference between various stages of a manuscript in the publication process.\n\nAfter an author has submitted a manuscript to a journal for peer-review, very often the journal asks the author to revise (and resubmit) the manuscript as a precondition for its publication. I am wondering whether the term preprint refers to the manuscript before or after its authors made these revisions.\n\nIf a preprint includes revisions made in response to peer review, then there is only a slight difference, mostly regarding layout and style, between the preprint and the article that is published in the journal. From a reader’s perspective, there would be no point in paying for access to the article, since they can simply download the preprint free of charge. A publisher would probably want to prevent their authors (by publication agreements etc.) from publishing preprints that differ from the respective journal article only in form.\n\nAs a side question, what kind of preprints do publishers tolerate, as a rule?" ]

[ "publications", "copyright", "publishers", "terminology", "preprint" ]

[ "What tools do you use in academia to jointly review a thesis?", "I am giving a thesis for review by several supervisors, who will comment and request changes. It's written in LaTeX, but I don't want to bother the people involved with having to compile that themselves. Instead, I would send a PDF as it'll represent the final product most accurately.\n\nMy question is, what can I use / do you use for the review process?\n\nI know they can just comment inside the PDF, but maybe there is a tool that allows everyone to see everybody's comments?\n\nIf supervisor A and supervisor B disagree on something or don't want to have to correct the same mistakes, then it'll be easier for them to see the other persons comments. Kind of like a shared Dropbox file, but something that's a bit smarter about keeping the history of all comments.\n\nHave you used anything like this or do I just have to rely on built-in PDF highlights / notes?" ]

[ "thesis", "peer-review", "tools" ]

[ "How do the completion of online courses impact a Master's application?", "I see places like Coursera, Udacity and EdX offer certificates upon successful completion of course work. Also most of the people doing recorded teaching at these places are famous and well known professors.\n\nSo if someone mentions those kind of course certificates in CV or application material for grad school, does it have a significant value for the applicant? \n\nDo you consider these kind of certificates at the same level with a grade on an academic transcript?" ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "online-learning", "mooc" ]

[ "What can I do if my advisor threatens to take away authorship of my undergraduate research work?", "My mentor professor has threatened to take authorship of my work away from me because of a disagreement. Can she do this? Is this plagiarism on her part for not including me as an author? I wrote the original paper, before editing. She never provided a syllabus and kept tacking on more and more things for me to do. I told her she was taking advantage of me and was told to go to the head of the department. She now says that I can no longer get a grade above a D, even though I am an A student and won an award for my work at a symposium. I have no idea what to do about this situation." ]

[ "advisor", "authorship", "research-undergraduate" ]

[ "Unclear referee's message", "I receive a message from a referee, but I didn't understand what was required of me exactly. The message is:\n\n\n please check again the typeset text of these lines\n\n\nWhat kind of error do they refer to?" ]

[ "peer-review" ]

[ "Should a CV have footnotes containing links to proof of achievements?", "I'm writing my resume for an internship and I was wondering if footnotes that cite proof of my achievements are necessary? For instance, I was a finalist in a programming competition last year and the results are posted online. Should I post a footnotes linking it to the site? Or will the review not care enough to read it?" ]

[ "cv" ]

[ "I asked for a recommendation, then decided I wouldn't, but I've changed my mind again. Will the professor feel annoyed?", "I was planning to apply for a Ph.D. program and I asked a Prof to write me a letter of recommendation. The prof already agreed. After that, I didn't feel confident about applying and informed the professor to not write LOR for me. \n\nDeep inside, I still want to apply but I haven't made up my mind yet.\nWill the professor feel annoyed if I ask for a LOR again? Should I tell the professor that I haven't decided yet but in any case, can they still submit their LOR.\n\nI know professors are busy and I don't want to bother them too much." ]

[ "phd", "recommendation-letter", "professors" ]

[ "Follow up email if you have not heard back after tenure track facutly interview", "I had an academic job interview for a tenure-track faculty position in January but have not heard anything yet (March now). Should I send an email asking for the status of the application? Can anyone please tell me what a proper email could be?\n\nThanks very much for the help." ]

[ "faculty-application", "tenure-track" ]

[ "Pre-print servers: Authors using wrong parametrisation to avoid reproducibility before publishing?", "I am physicist and my research is on Physical/Computational Biology. As most of my colleagues, I am used to visit ArXiv daily to check new articles on my field. Some weeks a go I found a really interesting article with a new method that I would like to implement together with a model I am working with. \n\nAt first glance I noted that the parameters used in the article were something strange, but I thought it could be due to the different spatial discretisation employed. However, I changed all my parameters to fit with their method and concluded that they are completely non-sense. Even the most simple case proposed in the article is impossible to achieve using their parametrisation (I was able to reproduce using another set of parameters). \n\nMy question is: Have you faced something similar with papers in pre-print servers? Is this something people are used to do in order to avoid other researchers to reproduce their work and advance before the article is published in a journal?" ]

[ "arxiv", "preprint" ]

[ "My coauthor's university address has a typo in our published paper. What should I do?", "I recently got a paper published. One of the affiliations (for the 4th author, more precisely) is right but it has a misspelling in the address of his university. The right address is "University X, Street y, no.1780" but we published as "University X, Street y, no.1879". Is it problematic enough to ask for a corrigendum if the other data about the affiliation (without the number) is right?" ]

[ "affiliation", "mistakes" ]

[ "Listing a Stack Overflow user as co-author for having provided substantial programming support", "I received a lot of help from an active Stack Overflow user in my undergrad summer research project, which was based on statistical physics. Now, I'm writing a paper on it under my professor's supervision. The professor knows about the help I received and asked me to mention it in the \"acknowledgements\" section (and the Stack Overflow user is OK with me mentioning them in the acknowledgements). But, I feel that the amount of programming help I received from the user deserves a little more gratitude from my side, and if possible I'd like to add the user as a co-author of the paper (obviously, after asking for consent). But, given this is my first research paper, I'm not sure what the process would entail. \n\nWould I face any ethical problems in case I send the paper for publication (since the SO user was obviously not \"physically\" present with us while I was working on the paper)? \n\nAlso, do most journals ask for \"email consent\" from each and every co-author, before publication?" ]

[ "authorship" ]

[ "Do graduate schools read your undergraduate application?", "If you apply to a university to be enrolled as an undergraduate, and are rejected, and then apply to the same university's graduate program, will they look at and/or take into consideration your undergraduate application? Or is it considered irrelevant?" ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "application" ]

[ "When is it appropriate to request more effort from a co-author on a funded project?", "Suppose that my team received funding for a project to \"deliver X in time Y\". It is implied that each researcher will contribute, more or less, equally. \n\nWhen is it appropriate to make this explicit? In other words, in this scenario, what is a commonly accepted threshold to confront an author about their lack of participation (when their contribution is half of what is implicitly expected, a tenth, etc.)?" ]

[ "research-process" ]

[ "No response from recommenders after they agreed to write recommendation letter", "I am planning to apply for green card for which I need recommendation letters from well known researchers/professors. In February 2019, I had contacted one professor and one industry based researcher to write the letters for me. Both these people know me through my research and have frequently cited my paper. At first I did not get any reply from them. A week later I reminded them while copying my PhD advisor in the mail. My advisor knows both of them. I got immediate reply from them that they would be happy to write the letter if I could given them an initial draft. I think it is OK to copy your PhD advisor while asking for recommendation letter from independent people who don't know you personally but only through research and papers. \n\nAnyways, A month later i.e. in last week of March, I gave them the draft. Since then, I have sent 3 reminders to them but have not heard back from them. I am getting anxious and don't know what to do.\nDoes no response after 3 reminders and 2 months mean they backed out? Is it ethical?\n\nI have all the documents ready for filing my application and I am just waiting for them to give me the letter. Since there is no deadline to apply for green card application, I can't even provide them a deadline. But I have tried to convey my feelings about the delay using mild language." ]

[ "professors", "recommendation-letter" ]

[ "Bibliographical treatment of ebooks", "Does Google scholar pick up references to self published ebooks?" ]

[ "publications" ]

[ "Translating a foreign degree's name?", "I plan on obtaining a bachelor's degree at a Norwegian university in what is called \"dataingeniør\". In the future I'd like to continue my studies in a different country, so I'm going to need to know what to write in my CV. \n\nA direct translation of \"dataingeniør\" would be \"computer engineer\", but my understanding is that that usually refers to hardware engineers in the English speaking world. The program I'm planning on taking is however strictly software as far as I can tell.\n\nIs there anything wrong with simply calling it \"computer science\"? The program covers typical CS stuff like OS, algorithms, databases and programming, so I feel like they are equivalent." ]

[ "undergraduate", "translations" ]

[ "What is some pre-requisite information one should know before applying to a CS grad school in the US?", "I am a junior who is going to apply to a CS grad school(hoping to specialize in programming language theory) next fall.\n\nI had some generic questions about the admissions process that is not so easy to get the answer to - \n\n\nDo all European PhD programs require a masters degree for admission?\nOr are there programs where like the US if you have a 4 year\nbachelor's degree, you can apply to the PhD program?\nSince in the US, one applies to the program and not\nthe professor, one might end up wanting to/end up working with\nanyway with another professor from the same department after they get accepted and spend some time in the program - so should I\neven contact them pre-acceptance?\nDo all (at least tier 2) CS PhD programs in the US come with\nfunding? If not, how do I figure out if the program comes with\nfunding?\nIs it a wise idea to mail the admissions committee of the\nUniversities to ask if the application fee might be waived\nconsidering I come from a 3rd world country?" ]

[ "phd", "graduate-admissions", "graduate-school", "application", "computer-science" ]

[ "Vocational vs. Academic Emphasis in CS Curriculum", "I have been recently thinking about the role of a university curriculum in CS. Computer science degrees immediately offer their graduates a lucrative position in industry; this is obviously making them highly attractive to prospective students who want to get in on the action, and as a result they often care less about their foundational education (say, computational complexity, Turing machines, logic, calculus, proper algorithmic analysis), and more about getting hands-on experience. \n\nI am leaning very strongly against this trend - I believe that at its foundation, our purpose as a faculty is to train computer scientists, not programmers. If they end up being proficient software engineers as a result, this is a bonus, not the main goal. This line of thinking has some very real implications on how courses are taught, what courses are taught and what opportunities we offer our students. \n\nFor example, we are at current flooded with requests from other faculties to offer 'low-level' courses to non-CS majors so that their students get the basic training they need in order to code in ML/AI environments. These requests can't merely be ignored.\n\nMy question is this: are other CS departments under similar pressure to produce programmers rather than computer scientists? What will be some of the long-term effects of this trend?" ]

[ "computer-science", "curriculum" ]

[ "Are open access papers read by a larger readership than paywalled papers?", "One of the potential upsides of open access papers is that they can be accessed by anyone for free, including people who don't live or work in a university. As a result, one might think that non-\"professional\" researchers may access open access papers more than paywalled papers.\n\nIs there any research/study/survey that tried to quantify to what extent open access papers are read by a larger readership than paywalled papers?" ]

[ "reference-request", "open-access" ]

[ "Is it possible to do a PhD in pure mathematics after studying aerospace engineering?", "I am currently a high school student, and I am considering taking a BSc in Aerospace Engineering (in Delft), hopefully leading into a masters.\n\nI am also very interested in pure mathematics (I am aiming for the Top Scholar award in Mathematics within New Zealand), and want to do a PhD in maths.\n\nIs there any way to continue my studies in Mathematics beyond high school as well as taking aerospace engineering, and while keeping options open for a PhD in maths?" ]

[ "phd", "mathematics", "changing-fields" ]

[ "What is the best way to propose one remote collaboration of this kind?", "This question is a followup to this previous question of mine. Let me quickly summarize. I'm a Physics PhD student interested in one particular subfield which appears to be very active and promising. I have studied some key papers about the subject and I do understand them, but I really don't know how to start doing research on the topic. I asked if I could remotely propose some kind of remote collaboration with some postdoc working in the subject to learn and gain experience and by the answer I get that it is indeed OK to do it.\nThis question is about how to do it so to maximize the chance of success. I know about one postdoc that has several important papers published in the subject. I watched one talk he gave online and he seems very approachable. Moreover in his talk he showed very clearly that there are lots of things to be done in the field.\nThat said, I would like to send him a message and ask if I could collaborate with him remotely. What I want is to get involved in the research in this fied, help and gain experience.\nA first point is that he doesn't know me, nor do I know anyone who knows him. To be honest I don't know anyone who knows people working in the field.\nIn that scenario, what is the best way to propose such collaboration and how much information should I send with my message?" ]

[ "research-process", "postdocs", "collaboration", "physics" ]

[ "Translate the laws abbreviation of non-english speaking country in English written paper?", "I'm working on paper discussing protection of National Park in Tatra Mts., splitted between Slovak republic and Poland: TANAP (Slovakia) and TPN (Poland). \nI want to include the indication of laws declaring protected sites - however, those are the abbreviations in Slovak or Polish, respectivelly. Thus, for to say that TANAP has been declared by law SNR č. `11/1948 Zb . (in Slovak) \nmeaning is:\n\n\n\n\nS - Slovenska = Slovak \nN - Narodna = National \nR - Rada = Council \nc.- number \nZb. - Zbierky Zakonov = Collection of laws\n\n\n\n\nthus SNR č. `11/1948 Zb == SNC n 11/1948 Cl ?\n\nIf I will not translate law abbreviation, everyone can easily find a specific law. If I translate it, it would be (maybe) more comprehensible to reader, but really hard to find a law if needed. \n\nThus, in english written paper, should I translate law abbreviations/annotations in origin in non-english or not? What is the common practice? \n\nThank you a lot, I really appreciate your help." ]

[ "writing", "translations" ]

[ "Paid publication fee and now no contact from journal: what should I do?", "My situation is the following: I submitted an article to a journal which appeared in Scimago, the article got accepted, and they charged a fee for publication costs. I have now paid this fee from personal money using PayPal.\n\nThe problem is that it has been nearly two weeks since I made the payment and I have not received any email about it. I have checked my account and the payment has been made, wrote an email to the editor in charge within a lapse of two days, and have received no answer at all.\n\nI am pretty worried about this situation, but how can I deal with it? I have tried to call their contact number and also gotten no answer at all. Should I continue sending emails to the other editors of this journal or just wait until they give me an answer? I would not like to sound like I am anxious, but I believe it is pretty bad that at least they do not give an answer if they receive the money or not." ]

[ "publications", "journals", "fees" ]

[ "Sharing information between two mutually uninvolved collaborators", "Let's say I am working on two, similar projects, on two separate grants with collaborator A and collaborator B. In the process of working with collaborator A, I came up with an idea for a new project which I am now working on based on ideas from collaboration A. Collaborator A will be a coauthor on the first manuscript on this new, tangential project, which will also acknowledge their grant. \n\nHowever, I believe collaborator B would be much better suited to carry out this project in the future. Furthermore, I do not believe collaborator A is interested or competent in continuing my project. When and to what extent am I able to share the preliminary results carried out in my project with collaborator B? Should I wait until the manuscript is published? Am I breaking an implicit information embargo? (I came up with the idea for the project and carried out all the theoretical work. Collaborators A and B are experimental scientists.)" ]

[ "ethics", "etiquette", "collaboration", "projects" ]

[ "Legal matters: making non-open access content available publicly (mathematics/software context)", "I would like to understand if it is legal to make publicly available results/substantial parts of the content of a journal article/book that is not available in the public domain in the context of certain specific use cases that are described via examples below:\n\n\nI use an algorithm that was recently published in a (non-open access) journal article in my software and provide the description of the algorithm in the documentation (expressed in my own words). The algorithm is not patented in any way and there is no software associated with the publication of the algorithm. I release the software under one of the open-source licenses, thus making the algorithm and its description publicly available, perhaps for the first time. Would I be doing something illegal?\nThere exists software that can be used to formalize mathematics. Examples include Isabelle, Coq, Agda. In general, such software can be used to translate mathematical argot to a (human readable) formal language. Suppose, I use one of these software packages to formalize a (non-open access) book, almost as it is written. I guess, this process could be seen as a translation of a book from one language to another. However, keep in mind that the original work is not a work of fiction, but mathematics. What would be the legal perspective on the matter of making such \"formal proof document\" available in the public domain?" ]

[ "copyright", "legal-issues", "software-papers" ]

[ "Business cards for a postdoc: what affiliation?", "My wife just started a postdoc at an R1 university and needs business cards for a conference and her future job hunt. She asked me to design them for her. \n\nNormally, I'd put her current (postdoc) institution, but because the temporary nature of the postdoc position (1 year), and because she'll be presenting her dissertation work at the upcoming conference, it seems like the cards should perhaps brand her individually rather than as part of her institution. \n\nIf possible, I'd like to avoid creating some business cards now and then creating new ones again in a year or so. This would mean I would want a more general business card — one less tied to her current institution -- but I want even more for her business cards to be professional (following current best practices), and to not cause any confusion. \n\nI see these options:\n\n\nInclude both her grad school and postdoc institutions.\nInclude only her postdoc institution. \nInclude no institution, but instead use the card to describe her and her research. Use these business cards for a longer while. \n\n\nIs there a common practice for postdocs?" ]

[ "conference", "job-search", "postdocs" ]

[ "Seeking publishing advice for an academic textbook", "I have written a new academic mathematics textbook that I think can become popular, perhaps even very popular, as far as math books are concerned (which I recognize in the broader scheme, alas, is unfortunately not so very popular). What is the best way for me to proceed? \n\nI can of course follow the traditional route and pursue the usual academic publishers, such as MIT press or OUP and so on. But I think that royalties are often somewhat low and prices rather high, so I'm not sure this is the best way. Meanwhile, I have some experience with newer publishing arrangements, such as Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, which pays an astonishing 70% royalty rate for electronic books (but they limit the book cost to $10). That style of publishing appeals to me and per book, that amount is probably higher per sale than what one might get from a old-fashioned publisher. \n\nMy question is, is it a bad idea to put my textbook first on KDP, which would be very easy for me to do myself, before I find a serious academic publisher? Does it help or hurt my negotiation status with them? I think I can remove my book from KDP at any time. I have thought that having a proven sales record on KDP might help my negotiation, by proving my worth, but perhaps this is wrong, and that the big publishers will simply reject me for already having electronic sales in which they are not partaking. Which is the correct way for me to think about it?\n\nAny advice is appreciated." ]

[ "books", "publishers" ]

[ "How to react to the retraction of a conference acceptance?", "One of my papers was accepted at a regional conference. The conference organizers wanted the presenters to register to the conference much more in advance than common. I wrote the organization chair and repeatedly expressed my sincerest intention to attend the conference. But with the conference being so far away and the registration being actually quite hefty, I asked the organizer about the cancellation policy, since there was none listed on their website. I also have a family situation that makes it hard for me to plan so far in advance, but for my career it would be important to present at conferences like this one.\nAs a response, I received an email in which the conference organization chair basically retracted my conference acceptance. I am a little bit shocked, since I really wanted to attend the conference and thought I had made that clear in my email.\n\nWhat would be the professional way to react? Do I just accept the conference chair's decision to retract my acceptance and walk away? Or do I email the chair, explain that I really want to attend and submit my registration fee?" ]

[ "conference", "withdraw" ]

[ "Are lower case sub-headings a common formatting convention?", "I recently presented a poster at an undergraduate research conference, and they are now soliciting write-ups for the conference proceedings. I was surprised at their formatting guidelines, specifically the requirement that all sub-headings be lower case. Ex.:\n\n1. Main Heading\n 1.1 this is a secondary heading\n 1.1.2 this is a tertiary heading \n\n\nI have never seen this convention. I've always thought the preferred style for sub-headings is to either use the same capitalization format as for main headings, or capitalize the first letter of the first word.\n\nI find this all-lower case format to be unprofessional-looking, and was wondering: is this a common convention, and if so, what is the underlying rationale?" ]

[ "paper-submission", "writing-style", "formatting" ]

[ "Who is the copyright holder of a PhD thesis published in ProQuest?", "I have a Ph.D thesis obtained from ProQuest. I would like to reuse some of the figures from it in my own work.\nEvery page of the PDF contains this message on the bottom:\n\n\n Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.\n\n\nHow can I find out who is the copyright owner? It is not listed anywhere in the PDF, and I can find nothing useful on ProQuest's website.\n\nThe thesis is from the 70s, and the author has not been academically active since then. Tracking him down seems unlikely." ]

[ "copyright" ]

[ "How to tell my mentor to be careful when discussing my work in progress around people I do not trust?", "I had a very bad experience with a colleague and just do not like/trust him. (Eavesdropping, lying, ...) I am working on a project with my mentor, and know they shared information with the colleague I do not trust. How can I politely point that out to them?" ]

[ "collaboration", "interpersonal-issues", "mentoring" ]

[ "Academic freedom and unpopular or offensive views", "Academia values academic freedom. However, there may be some practical limitations on academic freedom. What repercussions might an academic face for voicing unpopular or offensive views in the name of academic freedom?\n\nFor example, how might a professor's academic reputation be impacted by publicly expressing views that support dictatorships (and other type of politicians) and their established crimes and violation of human rights?" ]

[ "professors", "academic-freedom" ]

[ "Academic Conferences: Are \"program committee\" members always present at the actual conference?", "For example, this conference (https://www.monash.edu/tenor2019/committees) is being held in Melbourne, Australia; but the Program Committee consists of over 40 members from interstate and overseas. Would it be expected for all of these committee members to be present at the conference, or could their roles be carried out without actually attending?" ]

[ "conference", "program-committee" ]

[ "Copied Letter of Recommendation?", "I asked one of my professors whom I've known for 2 years to write a recommendation for me now that I'm planning for graduate school— about 3 years later after he left to another university. He asked for my full name, and just copied a letter from the web and sent it to me via email. I expected to get an accurate letter that highlights my strong points and improve my chances of getting to a good school; instead, I got a banal letter that doesn't set me apart from your average student, and which its copy can easily be found online.\n\nI'm reluctant to add his name on the list of Referees in my application now, but I can't find a third professor other than him who is willing to write a letter for me. \n\n\nWould his letter hurt my chances of getting accepted to a good school? Even if one of the other 2 letters was relatively stronger(slightly better) compared to this one?\nCan I get a letter from a professor who didn't teach me? Or a professor from another university(a family friend)?" ]

[ "graduate-admissions", "recommendation-letter" ]

[ "Should one research multiple independent topics while pursuing a PhD?", "While pursuing a PhD in an experimental field, one usually researches a given topic and conducts experiments that are rather closely related to this topic and one another. I imagine this specialization can be beneficial as one attains expertise in the research field and can work in a timely and focused manner.\n\nHowever, I can also imagine that this specialization may make changing your area of research more difficult when applying for positions as a post-doc. Therefore, I am wondering about the advantages and disadvantages of researching scientific questions one is interested in, but that are irrelevant to ones PhD thesis on the side." ]

[ "phd", "research-process", "postdocs", "career-path" ]