How can I convey my concerns about a University graduate program to the director without sounding like a know-it-all? I'm in a graduate specialization program. It's expedited and it's a year long. There is an equivalent two-year Master's program for which I didn't apply. The classes are held twice a week in the evening. They are four to five hours long. There are Powerpoint presentations which the lecturers email the students a few days after the lectures.

(I was surprised the lecturers didn't provide us with their contact information (email) and so I had to contact the secretary of the program and ask her to email me their info).

Situation:

You'd think that some students would save some of their questions either for after the lecture or for a private communication via email.
There are a few students - usually the same ones - who constantly interrupt the lecturers to ask a question or to share an experience from their workplace. Most of the students work or have some sort of experience in the field of study.

I understand this is normal and expected to some extent. However, these questions lead to more questions, comments, chatting, arguing, even talking about politics with the lecturers, to the point that the lecturers can't finish on time. So far, none of the lecturers have complained about this. It seems that they want to accommodate us by finishing earlier and taking shorter breaks.

One of the lecturers had this to say:

  if you guys had not been working in [field of study] and were just undergrads, you
  wouldn't have all these questions...blah blah....I'm
  just going to answer this last question and no more for tonight
  though, so we can move on with the lecture...blah blah...

Yeah, right. It turns out that the guy who asked that last question happened to ask another question later on, and the lecturer kept answering questions the entire time.

Long story short, the classroom feels more like a chat room, or a cafe and the lectures feel like listening to a bunch of people talking about their negative experiences, bitterness and problems they are facing in the field, even politics (unfortunately it's relevant).

(I'm not saying this has not been valuable to a degree. I have found out interesting things.)

However, my goal is to either email the director of the program or meet with him and talk to him about my concerns without telling him or the lecturers how to do their job even though it may seem that way.

I'd like to be able to suggest (if it's a good idea) that the lecturers:

either accepted questions towards the end,
or ask those same students, who ask multiple questions to save the rest of their questions for either after the lecture or for an email.

Perhaps it's me and perhaps this is how graduate level classes are but most of the time I leave the classroom having a headache because of the constant asking-answering (I also find it hard to concentrate).

Question:

How can I convey my concerns to the director of the program, without sounding like a know-it-all? Is it even my place to make suggestions? I also want to be polite.

Clarification:

I don't want to approach the students or openly complain about it during the lecture.
The director of the program, who has given one of the lectures, had a very casual style himself and spent most of the time answering questions and/or giving us professional insight about really controversial topics which may or may not have been relevant to the specific field of study. (He's supposed to give more scientifically relevant lectures later on).

Kudos to you for trying to improve the lecture! I was in comparable situations myself, but I'm a coward and didn't take steps. So this answer deals with how I would go about it, if I had to - I didn't test it in practice.

  However, these questions lead to more questions, comments, chatting, arguing, even talking about politics with the lecturers, to the point that the lecturers can't finish on time.

This is the important point and what you should focus on - the clearly detrimental effects (discussions/arguing, not being able to finish on time).

For sure, the usual etiquette applies

Be polite and friendly
Be to the point
Be concise
Keep it well-arranged

This applies to both, talking and email, e. g. in the latter case I try to write them in such a way, that what I want becomes clear already by glancing at the email. No unnecessary fluff.

I guess I would take the following steps

Praise the lecture (if you mean it, but you'll surely find something positive to point out) and especially the possibility to ask questions.
Describe how the way questions are handled interrupts the lecture, but not in an accusatory way. Say that it negatively effects you also.
Add suggestions on how to improve the lecture, e. g. by answering the questions directly only (and to cut discussions short) and your suggestions.

Explanation:

Gives them a good start and also makes clear, that you are neither just whining/complaining nor question the usefulness of asking/answering questions itself. After all, this is one of the advantages of attending lectures.
Explaining the problem situation and the effects it has on you, without blaming them directly, gives them valuable feedback. It's possible that they are already on your side, but if no one complains... Also, it is hard to not agree with you and the effects it has on you cannot be denied. How and that the learning experience suffers should be of great importance to them.
Suggestions are always helpful, and in this case you further emphasize, that you have no problem with questions themselves and are therefore not advocating something bad or having unrealistic expectations.

For sure, it strongly depends on them, how they react to your suggestions. It's possible that they don't do anything at all, or they may welcome them as an incentive to act. In the end, you are there to learn, and interrupting the lectures is detrimental to the whole purpose of such lectures, so it's good that you voice your opinion on that matter. Just avoid making it sound as if you were accusing them personally, rather that there is a problem and you needed their help to solve it.

I have good experience with constructive and polite feedback and my lecturers always seemed willing to listen to suggestions (usually by others, not by me) and actively encouraged feedback. The feedback was not always helpful (e. g. I noticed that, when the (anonymous) comments were discussed), but whenever it was, the lecturers were open to it, or at least explained why it wouldn't work.


Does giving compliments to the fellowship help? The fellowship (I'll call it XYZ) I'm applying to requires me to write a personal statement (note that this is not a research statement). This is their definition:

  The Personal Statement includes information about the  applicant’s background, practical experience, special interests, and career goals, with some attention to  plans  after  degree  completion.

After satisfying all the needed information, and trying not to be bombastic, I intend to compliment them a little bit, like this:

  I have been in regular contact with the XYZ team via email and I am pleased to say that they respond promptly and quickly.

Do compliments help? Will they feel that I'm fawning over them, so I make a bad impression? Will it be not good but not bad, and just a waste of space (which I don't have) and a waste of their time to read such a useless thing (which it may be)? If it does help, how much?

I think we should have an Impression tag

Leave it out.  I think it definitely comes across as fawning.  It's clearly irrelevant to your qualifications and plans, which is what the personal statement is supposed to be about, so it shouldn't be included.

If the fellowship's administrative staff have been particularly helpful, you could send a separate email or letter saying thanks.  But this shouldn't be part of the application.


Copyright issues of using free clipart I'm a master student in psychology. A year ago, I downloaded a lot of free clipart online to create my study stimuli. For example, some clipart are from this website: http://clipart-library.com.
I basically created my study stimuli using clipart from multiple sources. I finished writing up my thesis and plan to publish it soon. However, it occurs to me that if I publish my study with a few figures of experimental stimuli, it may incur copy right issues. I'm wondering what would be the best option for me at this moment? Should I not include any figures in my publications?

The terms of use page of the site in your link says "All images on our site are for Non-Commercial Use," which should include academic use.  If you include any of their figures, give appropriate credit.  For material from other sites, read their terms of service and give the required credit.

In any case, be sparing in using clip-art in a thesis.


How to write an academic paper for the first time? While writing an answer to that question, I realized I don't really have a good list of resources that could be useful to first-time authors, like MSc or PhD students who write their first paper. I often direct my own students to these two papers:

G. M. Whitesides, “Whiteside's group: writing a paper”, Adv. Mater. 2004, 16, 1375–1377 (PDF).
P. E. Bourne, “Ten simple rules for getting published”, PLOS Computational Biology 2005, 1, 0341.

I also make sure that they read the journal's editorial policy and authors guidelines.

What are other sources of good information for students and first-time academic authors?

A book or paper on writing is a good introduction but can usually not solve everything. Reading a book does not mean you can reproduce what it teaches, particularly with writing since it is something that needs lots of practise. One problem is that writing is a question of both knowing how to structure the science but also a question of building and formulating the text, the latter being a language issue. So it is usually relatively easy to teach students how the technical side works and provide explanations for why. Teaching students how to be concise and precise is another question and without lots of practise it is quite difficult to get anywhere. During a thesis much of the language issues are ironed out by constant revisions sugested by the advisor. I also point out to all my students that writing is a life-long learning process and thatit is never to late to develop and change your writing.
However, I have some sources I fall back to:

Katz, M.J. From research to manuscript. A guide to scientific writing. Springer
Day, R.A. and Gastel, B., How to write and publish a scientific paper. Cambridge

The Purdue Online Writing Laboratory OWL is also very useful.
For language (English) I have (aside of Strunk & White) found

Glasman-Deal, H. Science research writing for non-native speakers of English

of use.
There are of course lots of books around but all are definitely not good.
A final gem is a short paper on abstracts

Landes, K., A scrutiny of the abstract. Bulletin Of The American Association Of Petroleum Geologists. 50 (9), 1992-1999.

Which provides an excellent description of the abstract.


Where to continue my research-oriented studies after Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science? I have a bachelor's degree in computer science. I am looking for an appropriate master program. I am interested in algorithms.

My question is not about where I should continue my education. My question is about how exactly should I search for the place to study for my master's degree. I simply don't know where should I start. I don't know what my first step should be. I don't have any experience living abroad.

Right now in order to choose the place I consider just few parameters.

I am interested in algorithms, almost every university that offers master degree in computer science would be an appropriate choice.
Fee. It's really a problem. I didn't find universities in Europe that offer master's degree study for free, few of them offer applying for scholarship. But I am not sure I have a good chance to get one, and obviously it doesn't cover all fee. I don't have citizenship in a European country so I assume it's going to be harder to apply.

What's your experience? Did you try to apply to scholarship? What's your opinion? Can I start doing research and hope for funds.

In Canada there are few places without fee, therefore it should be very competitive, but at least there is a chance. Usually they ask for GRE in mathematics and computer science; sometimes for IELTS. What's your opinion? I assume you should be really perfect in your field in order to get applied.

In China, very interesting option, without fee or with minimal fee plus one year to get a new language. It looks very attractive, especially with approach of Chinese government to education, as I know there are many programs for free. The only problem is to get the minimal communication in Chinese which may take up to a year according to experience of others.

Addendum:

According to responses I decided to update my post.

I earned my bachelor degree 3 years ago, I have a good job, and I work as a programmer. Throughout the last year I am taking courses of master degree in my domestic university. I have one day off in week for studies. Three years is a long break but I feel the power is back. In my place it's not common that employer will pay for studies, of course I have some savings but this is not going to cover fee, and all spendings for at least two years.

I would like to go to research master. Right now I am not ready to get good grade at GRE, but I am working on it. I am not fluent in English, but in my opinion more important to be good in my field of study.

The reason why you're not seeing scholarships for study at the master's level in Europe is that the master's degree is not viewed as the prerequisite for PhD study, but instead as the direct continuation of the bachelor's degree. As a result, you're expected to move on to the master's program, and usually at the same location you did your bachelor's degree. That means there really isn't a call for a lot of scholarship to fund master's study. However, it is possible to finance one's stay in a European university, as many schools offer part-time positions for master's students working in a research group for some number of hours per week.

However, in the US and several other countries, gaining admission to a PhD program is a good way to get your master's studies funded, as the funding is normally provided for the entirety of your graduate tenure, rather than just the PhD portion.

To get in to most programs in English-speaking countries, you will need to show evidence of a good scholastic record as well as good English skills, as evidenced by the IELTS or TOEFL. If those aren't in place, it's going to be very difficult for you to be competitive, and almost impossible to be competitive for a scholarship or fellowship.


What is the difference between "request for proposals" and "call for proposals" in the context of applying for funding? Funders use different terms to publicize opportunities, sometimes issuing a "request for proposals" and sometimes a "call for proposals."

What is the difference between "request for proposals" and "call for proposal" in the context of applying for funding?

Different funding agencies use different language for essentially the same thing---and also the same language for very different processes!

In the United States, at least, every different agency has a different process, customized to its mission and to the community that it is trying to interact with.  Moreover, even within agencies there are often radically different processes behind the same names.  For example:

With NSF, applying through the Program Solicitation for "Expeditions in Computing" is an entirely different (and much lengthier) process than for a standard NSF small/medium/large like the CCF core programs.
With DARPA, every Broad Agency Announcement has its own individual customized process, which is typically explained at the associated "proposer's day" meeting.

You really need to get to know the particular agencies that you are interested in.  A good way to do this is to meet program manager or listen to the talks that they give: program managers often attend major conferences in the fields that they fund, and in particularly organized fields, they will sometimes have a workshop at the conference in which program managers give "how to get funding from me" talks.  Another good way is to talk with colleagues who have worked with the agency before and know the ropes, or to become a partner in a collaboration with them.


Bachelors in computer science and wanting a masters? I graduated with a 2.98gpa in computer science with a minor in math. I am currently employed as a software engineer and I am wanting to go back to school for a masters degree. I would really like to Perdue a professional engineering masters and take the PE(professional engineering exam) after I graduate.
 Is it even possible to go from a computer science bachelors degree to a masters program in systems engineering or computer engineering?  I am currently looking at the university of Alabama in Huntsville. I want a masters degree, but I don't specifically care to stick with computer science. I am wanting to broaden my horizons and prepare myself for a role in management in the future.

It's going to be up to the school.  Contact the institution(s) you are interested in and ask.  Some schools will have stronger or weaker requirements, some may require you to take additional classes, some wont.


Doing two summer research internships at the same time? I have recently got into a weird situation, that I didn't think I would be in. First of all, I had applied for a paid research internship abroad (at a foreign university) some time ago. Due to covid restrictions, that has been converted into a remote/virtual intership. I have accepted their offer so that's all well and good.
However, one of my professors at my own university has now offered me a paid internship for the summer. That will also have to be done remotely I guess, judging by the current state of the world.
Now, as I have accepted the offer from the foreign university, I cannot cancel that, and I have to go through it. On the other hand, I don't know how to reject my professor's offer poiltely. I want to stay on good terms with her, because I have to stay in this university for two more years. And she is researching in the field where I want to go, so there is a chance that I will have to apply for her supervision for a PhD in future.
I am an undergrad studying chemistry in the UK in case anyone is wondering.
What should I do? I can probably accept both internships, but I don't know if I can really work on both of them, even if it's remotely. How common is it for people to do two internships in one summer? What is the perception of such a thing in the academic world?

Based on my experience in math in the U.S., you should probably give up one of them. The point is not "can you do the work?", but that such internships have a broader point that is not just some task. The people would want you to really engage, more fully than the allocated hours and salary might indicate, with their projects. That is, it's almost surely not just about getting some task completed, but about a mutually beneficial experience, where you'd get more than just salary, and they'd cultivate a future collaborator. "Dividing by two" is not palatable here.
(For example, if someone told me they wanted to work on a PhD with me, while also doing something else full time (!?!?!), I'd almost surely refuse, on the grounds that it'd just be a source of infinite frustration for me... And, in particular, a very bad investment of my mental energy.)
So, no, don't try to do both.


Should an engineering product research at a university be always released in a journal? For example, a research team (we name it A) of a university makes an engineering product that they claim is capable of doing X, Y, and Z. Initially the product was not intended to be commercialized, only for research purposes, but eventually the product was commercialized. Then, the person at the same university, but not included in the research team said, "wow your product is amazing, but I'm a little doubtful of your claim, can I see the journal of the product?"
The question:

Must research team A release a journal of the commercialized product that the team has produced?
Is research team A wrong if they don't give the journal to that person?

Unless you have an established relationship with the developers and are willing to, perhaps, sign a non-disclosure agreement, I doubt that a request would be honored.
Sometimes the "work product" is a bit embarrassing ("mistakes were made") and sometimes it contains proprietary information and trade secrets. There may be things in it that lead to future developments and the team wants to keep those to themselves.
If the work is patented then you can read the patents themselves as they are intended to be public.


Dealing with adversarial grant committee members in interviews I'm applying for a grant to research topic foo using bar as my working hypothesis (and it's not really something controversial: a lot of things are easier to deal with if you assume that bar is true). Now, one of the people sitting in the grant committee has published a couple of articles arguing that bar is horribly, irredeemably wrong, and we all should assume quz instead. This person is likely to raise this issue at the interview stage.

This doesn't worry me from a purely academic perspective: there are many ways of showing that this person's arguments don't hold water, and I can literally spend the rest of the day talking about them. However, it does worry me from a "I want that grant money" perspective: if I get that question, I'm going to have just a couple of minutes to state my case and get the rest of the committee (experts in my general field, but not in this particular narrow topic) to side with me. What would be an appropriate way of framing my reply?

Update --- The interview happened, the committee member in question raised this issue (just as I anticipated), and I replied along the lines that Sydney E. Everhart suggests below. The rest of the committee looked satisfied with this answer (as did some colleagues I had rehearsed the interview with a few days in advance), so in that sense, thank you, Sydney. Unfortunately, the committee member in question wasn't so impressed and gave a very negative evaluation of my proposal. I guess you can't convince someone that doesn't want to be convinced.

I am not in your field of work, however, as one of the comments to your question pointed out, this type of scenario can happen in other fields and situations.  The best first step is to acknowledge the debate and the limitations of your own study.  However, frame your response such that regardless of the debate, you will still learn something new.  For example, my response might be something like:

"Clearly there are two schools of thought as to whether quz or bar is the correct assumption, however, that question cannot be answered in a single study alone. By funding this proposal to do work under the assumption of bar, we can answer questions X, Y, and Z.  An additional outcome is that we will be providing more information about phenomena surrounding bar, thus providing more information that may ultimately help to answer the question of quz versus bar."


Where to define a symbol that also has an abbreviation I have a symbol μ, which is the linear attenuation coefficient for a material (X-ray tomography). I've already defined that symbol in my document's list of symbols, but the problem is that I also refer to it by its abbreviation, LAC, in my text (LAC is well known in the field, hence I prefer keeping it, only using μ in equations).

Should I add that abbreviation to the list of abbreviations, resulting in their being two entries for linear attenuation coefficient, one in the list of symbols and one in the list of abbreviations, or should I just leave it in the list of symbols?

If you actually have significant explanation beyond just expanding the abbreviation, I recommend putting that in the list of abbreviations and using a cross-reference from the list of symbols.  Just like an index can have "attenuation coefficient, linear -- see linear attenuation coefficient", your lists of abbreviations and symbols could have, respectively,

LAC, linear attenuation coefficient, symbol \mu.  The linear attenuation coefficient applies to materials where absorbance dominates scattering as an attenuation mechanism, and total transmission energy follows Lambert's Law.
\mu, symbol for linear attenuation coefficient.  See also \hyperlink{LAC}

If there's no additional explanation, then both entries can be complete and short and a hyperlink would be pointless.

LAC, linear attenuation coefficient, symbol \mu
\mu, linear attenuation coefficient, abbreviated LAC


Using fragments of online images in a paper I am preparing a paper and want to include some images from historical maps. There are several online examples and I want to snip a fragment (no more than 10% of the total image area), maybe clean it up a little, and use it in my paper. The fact that I'm only using a small part of the image and it's undergoing some transformative process seem like very reasonable grounds for claiming this is covered by 'fair use' but IANAL. However, suitable journals where I'd send my paper (of course) want all image rights/copyrights cleared in advance with my submission.

The online digital images almost invariably come from vendor sites who would like to sell me a print of the map for £££ and they are not going to give permission, even for non-commercial use. Although I could buy copies of the prints and scan them myself I'd prefer any more cost-effective suggestions.

This is different from How to use copyrighted images in an article? (they wanted to use the whole images) and Academic fair use and using publication images in your thesis (the images had already been published in books/papers and there was a publisher to approach)

As @jakebeal stated in his comment, the copyright for old maps from before 1900 should be expired. I can only comment on base of German Copyright Law:

70 years after the death of the creator, the copyright has expired.
A picture of a 2D object (for example a photograph of the Mona Lisa, a facsimile print of an original Luther's bible, a photocopy of an old map) is not protected by copyright since the threshold of originality is not reached. The aim is to reproduce the original as exactly as possible, hence there is no novelty and no input of ones own creativity. It seems, US law is similar here.

Conclusion: if your map is older than 100 years and copyright has expired, you would not have to ask the company for permission.
In case the map is not as old and copyright still applies, you would not be allowed to modify (also not to crop parts of it) the original without the consent of  the copyright owner.

Any way, you have to cite the source (the original creator of the map, not the company providing the copy).


Math paper with no "Conclusions" Is it acceptable for a math paper to have no concluding section? The structure is currently as follows:

Introduction (known results + the paper's main results as 3 theorems)
Preliminaries (proper definitions of all the things and recalling of results used in the proofs)
Proofs (actually, several lemmas and proofs of them, and of the theorems)
Open problems

It's quite a short paper. I thought that since the Introduction is actually containing all the important stuff, making a Conclusions section would be only repeating the same stuff again. However, I'm not sure if this is considered a poor style in maths.

The majority of papers in pure math have no concluding section.  In fact, such papers most commonly end with the last line of the proof of the last main result (or the last lemma needed for the last main result) of the paper.

I think that I have never seen a pure math paper that has a concluding section in the sense of other academic papers, i.e., whose sole purpose is to summarize what has already happened.  Some math papers have a final section which is more forward-looking.  Your current structure has as a final section "Open Problems".  That is as close to a concluding section as I've ever seen.

In fact though even this much is often not really appreciated or desired (by editors and referees anyway): many of my earlier papers contained a substantial "open problems / further work" section.  Once I got the complaint that it seemed that I was trying to stake out territory (and there was some truth to that, I suppose).  More than once I've been told that including too much speculation can be "embarrassing" when the truth comes to light.  (In one case, I recorded computations that suggested a surprising conjecture.  The referee said that I could keep that in if I wanted, but strongly implied that if I were more experienced I would know not to do this.  I left it in, and a few years later my first student proved a theorem confirming these calculations.)  In general if you include too much material in a math paper which is not directly used to prove the theorems of the paper, then referees start to wonder whether there is enough content in the paper to justify taking up all that valuable journal space: they could after all publish another theorem and proof instead.  (And let's be fair: "they" have a point.)

If you're relatively young and inexperienced and hoping for best results on the rapid publication of your work in strong journals, I would stick pretty mercilessly to the format: (i) strong introduction motivating your work and explaining clearly the value added both in the results themselves and the techniques of proof and (ii) the rest of the paper contains careful proofs of all the results, in a very clear, linear, easy to follow fashion, e.g. "Section A.B: Proof of Lemma C".


An invitation from a not-so-famous journal called "world biomedical frontiers" to feature my paper on their website I received an email from world biomedical frontiers journal:

  Your recent paper “XXXXXX” (published in “YYYYYY”) has been selected to be featured in our next issue of World Biomedical Frontiers, because of its innovation and potential for significant impact.
  Research results with significant potential to improve health – or to treat or prevent disease – often deserve an immediate leap onto the “front page”. However, scientific breakthroughs don't always make the front page – and some don't make any page! We are the platform for you to stand out from among ~100,000 papers published each month, in order to attract more attention from the public and potential investors.
  World Biomedical Frontiers [ISSN: 2328-0166] focuses on cutting-edge biomedical research from around the globe. Our website receives more than 8,000 visits per month from an international audience of academic and industrial researchers and developers, providing greater opportunity for your results to be recognized and appreciated.
  If you accept our invitation to feature your paper on our website, a $38 processing fee will be charged. We will then post the abstract/summary of your paper in the latest section of Stem cells , with additional information from you highly recommended to further explain your novel findings and concepts in plain language; photos and/or figures are welcomed. Here are two examples (1 and 2 ).
  In order to report breaking publications in a timely fashion, please contact us within two weeks if you wish your paper to be featured in our next issue.
  Sincerely,

  Editor

  World Biomedical Frontiers,

  New York, USA

  Phone: 1-(917) 426-1571

  E-mails: editors@biomedfrontiers.org

  Website: http://biomedfrontiers.org/

Should I trust them?

I read this question and also this one, but I wanted to know about this specific case and what to do about it.

No; this isn't how reputable venues approach authors. This will have at best zero value (possibly negative value if someone notices, which is unlikely given how little visibility they apparently have), and will cost you $38.

(Its funny that they advertise that they get 8000 website hits per month. This strikes me as an exceedingly low count, given that they probably get a hit from many people they send this spam email to)


Why patents are not cited in papers as that of journal papers? I couldn't find papers that cite patents. Is it OK to cite patents? If yes, what are the reasons for scarce patent citations?

There are certainly papers citing patents, mostly in engineering fields. So, yes it is certainly OK to cite a patent.

Now patents have an entirely different purpose than scientific articles. They usually contain detailed descriptions of methods and devices and (sometimes wild) speculations about practical applications of these. Useful to protect potential commercial use, but not really to scientists wanting to build on existing knowledge.

More specifically, what they typically don't contain are original experimental data, or other means of scientifically evaluating the described methods or devices.

Very often, if the development of the patented method or device has led to scientific discoveries, these have been published separately as articles (or conference proceedings for the fields where that applies). Those will be much more scientifically informative, and hence more likely to be cited in academic articles.


How to find publications from a particular institution in a journal? Suppose now I am interested in University A and a Journal B. I want to know how many people from University A published a paper in Journal B, and what are these papers. How to do this?

Unfortunately, affiliations are a mess. People in bibliometrics usually say that you have to know the institution and its various names, acronyms, institutes, and laboratories very well, to capture all publications from the institution. If you have this knowledge, set up a corresponding search query (advanced search) for Web of Science (you need to have access to this database via your institution) and add the journal as additional condition.

Another approach is to check whether the institution you look at has a publications database and you can search for specific journals in there.


Professor announced that he would send me a project before master’s but didn’t I am looking for a master’s position. I emailed a professor and we arranged a meeting on Skype, where he said that he would send me a project on which I should work for two months. I agreed and afterwards I sent him an email and thanking him and asking for the project.

One week later I emailed him to read my mail which I had sent him about six days ago, but he did not answer me.

How should I write an email to him now to ask for the project that I was supposed to do? I want to tell him: “Please consider my request, my future depends on this.”

First, about the email:

Do you have a deadline coming up, for applying for a master’s? If so, then you should probably send him a polite reminder, something along the lines of:

  Dear Dr. X, I was wondering if you had given any more consideration to the projects you'd mentioned earlier.

Do not say something like “my future depends on this.” Firstly, your future does not. If this particular master’s opportunity doesn’t work out, it is by no means the end of your career. Secondly, it will come across as rude: The Professor is aware that master’s applications are important to your career.
Don’t expect professors to respond terribly soon. They receive a large amount of email, and are often extremely busy balancing research, administration, supervising, and teaching. If you have an impending deadline, or it has been long enough that you believe you have been forgotten, you can send a polite reminder. But pestering will only annoy the professor.

Secondly, about the projects:

Is he asking you to do projects for him, unpaid, before you have been accepted as a master’s student? This is highly unconventional, and seems like it might possibly be a scam, to get you to work on projects without paying you or giving you credit towards an academic degree.

What country is this master’s in? Usually, professors do not directly choose who is admitted to a master’s program. So your professor may not be able to guarantee your admission, even if you do good work for them on this project.

In any case, it’s not normal to be given months of homework to “prove yourself” before starting a master’s. Usually your bachelor’s grades and projects, along with reference letters, are what you are judged on.

So I would be very wary of this situation, unless I am misunderstanding what is actually happening.


Would this be right to respond to all the reviewers queries simultaneously in single files along with their queries? I have prepared all answers to all the queries raised by reviewers in major revision. Would it be ok if I respond to both reviewers in single pdf file in following format:

Reviewer #1:
Query 1: Reviewer's first query.
Author response: This is my explanation.
Query 2: Reviewer's second query.
Author response: This is my explanation.

and so on....

Reviewer #2:
Query 1: Reviewer's first query.
Author response: This is my explanation.
Query 2: Reviewer's second query.
Author response: This is my explanation.

In this way both reviewers can see queries of each other. Is this right way of response to reviewers ?

As a reviewer I have no problem with all the responses in one document. In practice I will quickly scroll down to my comments, but I may glance at responses on comments I find interesting.


How to quote a non-English quotation in dissertation? I am writing my math PhD in Berlin (Germany) in the English language.

I would like to cite a German quotation from a famous mathematician as a start of my first chapter.

Should I quote it in the original language and make a footnote of what it means in English, or should I freely translate it into English without a footnote? Or is there simply no standard for this kind of fancy quotations?

The quotation is really more for fun than for substance, so you've got a lot of leeway, and even more so because this is in a Ph.D. thesis.  So really, it's up to you whether you translate it at all.

That said, I would suggest approaching it based on the degree to which you like the prosody and meter of the quotation.  If the sound of the words themselves is a significant part of what makes you enjoy the quote, then by all means keep it in the original language, where it will be well appreciated by some readers and challenge the rest.  If the substance is more important than the sound, then it may be better to translate.

For example, I don't know much of German quotations, but if I were using a French quotation, then I would not translate "Ceci n'est pas une pipe," but I would definitely translate "Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications."


How often is transfer of Copyright to University required to submit PhD Thesis? My university apparently requires Ph.D. students to transfer copyright of their thesis completely to the university. The copyright agreement, as written, seems to prevent them from publishing the work elsewhere after the work is submitted, as it only permits the author to reproduce sections of the thesis for "personal use."

I want to prepare an argument for my university that copyright to a Ph.D. thesis should stay with author, (but that the university should be granted unlimited permission to reprint or distribute the thesis, etc., as may be the norm in international universities.)

In most US and Canadian universities, how common is it for a university to require Ph.D. Students to transfer the copyright of their thesis to the University? Can anyone give me a partial list of any universities with this policy.

Without the copyright agreement in question, it's hard to be specific to your situation. Nevertheless, this sounds quite odd - while it could be the case, I think you've either misinterpreted it or left out a vital piece of information. In particular, the following, if correct, is extremely disconcerting:

  The copyright agreement, as written, seems to prevent them from publishing the work elsewhere after the work is submitted

This could potentially limit your ability to publish your thesis as academic journal articles after you've assigned the copyright (On the other hand, since these are rarely word-for-word from the thesis, you may still be OK. Ask a copyright lawyer.)

Typically, there is some transfer of rights from the student to the university, for a few reasons:

So that the university can keep a copy in the library, allow people to consult it, provide to other institutions via interlibrary lending systems
So that the university can provide a copy online, via their institutional digital repository
So that the university can provide the thesis, or details thereof, to external indexing systems and repositories (e.g. EThOS)

Typically, the student/supervisor can request temporary or permanent embargo of these rights if there's an appropriate justification. Some (non-exhaustive) examples:

To allow time for the preparation of journal articles/monographs from the work contained in the thesis
Releasing the thesis would violate third party copyright on material that is integral to the thesis
Releasing the thesis would create some risk to the supervisor, student, institution or a third party
Releasing the thesis violates confidentiality/non-disclosure agreements with a third party (e.g. an industrial research sponsor or interview subjects)

Finally, there may be specific restrictions on an individual's project (this is sort of covered by the last point above). Most commonly, these would be industrial/third party sponsors who own the IP generated in the project and don't want it republished for all the world to see.

I am wondering if you are confusing some other, specific, restriction for a general policy? For instance, if you have an industrial sponsor, you may have assigned the IP arising from your project to them. Although such an agreement would usually exclude the copyright on the thesis per se, it would include a confidentiality clause for the thesis because the other IP in the thesis (potential trade secrets or patentable IP) would belong to them.

Typically, you would expect to assign your university non-exclusive royalty-free rights to your thesis.


Professor Lost Assignment Grade, But So Did I I am a first year undergraduate student (direct entry engineering) and today something happened that I have dreaded for a long time.

I received an email from my professor saying that he lost all marks from his computer, the midterm exam marks could be recovered but the assignments could not. Normally this would not be an issue, I keep all assignments in a filing cabinet plus I input all grades into a spreadsheet. But in an effort to clean up for an upcoming move, I seem to have misplaced the folder of math assignments I had.

The assignments are worth 5 percent each and I misplaced two of them. This wouldn't be the biggest deal typically as I get fairly high marks, but I had done well on these assignments and my midterm mark wasn't as high as I wanted. With a 0 on both these assignments I would need close to a perfect score on my final to get an A. I would like to keep a 4.0 GPA as I want to get into electrical engineering which is quite competitive.

With all that being said, I have already emailed the professor briefly explaining the situation along with the third assignment I still had. Technically, I don't need to keep assignments and the professor's computer problems are completely out of my control. So if he concludes that I should get a 0 on both assignments, can I appeal? I know my assignment marks so under my university's honesty declaration I must be honest about my grades, so anything I report to the professor must be true.

What should my course of action be in the event of him giving me two 0's on the assignments?

What you should do, in the unlikely event he does that is just go see him and work it out. There are easy ways to compensate, but your next step should not be an escalation or claim unfairness. Just go to the office and have a talk.

The easiest way to compensate is just to assume that those grades are about the same as the typical grades you get otherwise in the course and compute averages or totals or whatever on that basis. If that satisfies both of you, then there is no issue.

But if either expects something different, you just need to discuss it. Perhaps he asked a few questions about what you did on the assignment.

Or, in case that you have the recorded grades, but not the assignments, just take the printed spreadsheet to show how you record things. He will accept it or not. And if you remember anything from feedback written on the assignment, say what it was, to refresh his memory.

But if all the grades, not just yours, are lost, then he needs a general solution that isn't punitive.


Should I send follow-up email one week after post-doc interview if interviewer said they will make decision in "week or two"? I had an interview with an UK Institute for my postdoc application last week. At the end of the interview, the PI told me that they will make the decision in a week or two. However, I googled online and I found articles which state that UK Institutes usually make their decisions in two or three days. If you don't hear anything beyond a couple of days, it basically means you are rejected.

I am nervous now. I understand the PI said they will make the decision in a week or two and until today, a week's only past. However, would it hurt my application if I send an email to follow up the decision process? For example, could I send an email to the secretary to ask about the decision process?

No. Do not do that. You will receive an e-mail one way or another when the PI makes the decision.


When to change a research focus Some say that a person should change the work field every 5 to 7 years in order to stay productive and avoid stagnation. How does this apply to academia, for example, changing a research focus?

For example, some universities advise to take a sabbatical every 5 years or so.

Edited as suggested: What are the indicators to show that it is time or an opportunity to change the research area? Perhaps, there is a good answer based on your experience?

I know of no university that advises you to take a sabbatical. Lucky people have departments that allow them to take a sabbatical every once in a while. Sabbaticals don't generally result in a change in research focus.

I think there are three indicators about when it is time to change research focus.

You are bored and want to change
You can no longer publish in your area and receive rejections along the lines of "This is no longer a relevant area"
You can no longer get funding in you area and receive rejections along the lines of "This is no longer a relevant area"


Seeking undergrad research position at another university: is it OK to email PI and copy lab member? What if there's no response? I am an undergraduate research assistant in a laboratory at my school. Starting last year's fall semester through the summer and up to now, I have been working in the same laboratory, and I am hoping to gain additional knowledge, skills, and exposure by working in another research lab this summer. I have been looking for opportunities in different schools, but it appears that they encourage me to contact the labs directly.

I am thinking about emailing the lab's PI and copying one of the lab members on the email. Is this an appropriate action as an undergraduate student seeking internship? Also, if I do not receive a response within a reasonable amount of time, is it okay to contact another member in the lab?

I suggest you contact the PI directly; I do not believe it is good to cc others on such emails unless you know someone already at this lab and you have told this person you will send an email.  The PI will eventually be in the loop and will presumably have to approve the position so emailing one and cc-ing another is in most cases tantamount just generating one extra email to delete.  (It may well be that the PI will pass it to someone else but that's internal and none of your business.)

If you don't get an answer, do not be insistent.  Senior researchers get 10s of such emails per week and there is no way they can answer all of them.  It's nothing personal, it's just a question of time management.

To improve your chances of your email being noticed, use for instance the subject line to refer to a recent paper by that lab and indicating in the email that your have read this paper and are interested in the topic etc.  This does not guarantee a reply but it will show you have done your homework to find what they do and it will increase the likelihood that your email will be read in full; avoid generic emails as people rarely read beyond the first two lines of emails explaining how honored you would be to work in group under such fantastic leadership.


Travel reimbursement and "bonus programs" I use a "bonus program" for train tickets, which (allows me to buy tickets with lower fares and) provides for each ticket some "points" which are worth around 2% of the ticket value. I make use of this also when I travel for academic purposes (otherwise the funders would need to reimburse a higher amount). However, for each reimbursement I feel the moral obligation to explain that in some sense I actually paid less for the ticket than what is on the receipt.

How should I deal with this situation? Is there a common practice regarding this? (I guess some institutions may have official policies regarding such situations because many people who are traveling often take part in such programs.)

Unless the funder has a specific policy (which they should tell you about), common practice is that "reward points" (including frequent flyer miles, etc) are yours to keep, and don't deduct from your reimbursement.

You're right that there is something a little shady about this, but basically, nobody has figured out a better way to handle it, and travelers are used to keeping their points and would get mad if they weren't allowed to.


Would it be ethical of a student for him/her to act as a proofreader/editor for other students' essays and homework? I'll be simple and direct, since the situation I'm asking after is pretty general, and hardly requires an anecdotal context.

Would it be ethical of a student for him/her to act as a proofreader/editor for other students' essays and works?

For example, students unfamiliar with English seek out this student for proofreading - this student corrects all the grammar and spelling errors in their papers, and fixes cases of terrible vocabulary (e.g. using "mail" instead of "male," or replacing instances of "spinning plane" with "helicopter" when it is clearly meant to be so).

And to further push the boundaries, this student gives critiques and advice of sorts. If Paragraph A doesn't make sense, they will advise them to rewrite it. If Paragraph B fits better as a conclusion, they will advise them to move it. If the essay suddenly dives into ill-fitting rambling for a page or two or goes off-topic, they will advise them to cut it.

Is this ethical?

As an student instructor, I would consider it ethical if certain conditions are met:

The proofreader isn't taking unfair advantage of the student, especially when paid for his services.  There are plenty who call themselves 'tutors' who will use dishonest tactics; for instance, deliberately being unclear as to his editing methods in order to encourage continuing dependence on his services, making false criticisms of edits the student's friend made for free, or emotionally manipulating students who are from abroad.
The student isn't taking unfair advantage of the instructor.  It's important that the student respects classroom policy on external assistance and observes the relevant boundaries when working with his editor.
The editor isn't taking unfair advantage of the instructor.  It's not clear from your question whether the editor is in the same course as the writer, or merely at the same school.  If the editor is enrolled in the same course, I'd consider it unethical for him to read through other students' work before his own is handed in.
The instructor isn't taking unfair advantage of the editor.  There should be reasonable office hours to work with students, because that work is the responsibility of the instructor, not the classmates.


Is it standard that universities in some countries don't give affiliated students/faculty email addresses? All my experience in academia in western countries is that if you're an enrolled student or affiliated faculty, you get an email address from that university. Are there countries where this is not common practice? And if so, is there a good reason for not providing one?

Many universities, especially private universities, in  India do not provide an email address to its students. This is due to the cost of maintaining email server, ensuring confidentiality etc. Even in top universities in India such as the IITs, where everyone is provided with an email address, the email server is suspect and fails.
While I was teaching a graduate class, I circulated a sheet in which they were supposed to write down their email address. I would then make a group and circulate any class related notes or ideas. I noticed that 90% of the students gave gmail or yahoo address and not the institute email address. When I inquired further, I was told they never had an institutional email address at their undergraduate university and are not accustomed to it.
Many faculty in Indian universities also do not use official email address due to reliability problems. You can notice this from noticing their publications. The address of the corresponding author refers to an university while the email address is generally yahoo/gmail.


Can my supervisor use my code in his paper without acknowledging me? A student performed a thorough review of the available algorithms in the literature and constructed several coding implementations that were shown to be far more effective than previous implementations known to the supervisor for the last decade. The fundamentals of these implementations, which already existed in the literature, were complemented with a major adaptation.

The supervisor used these implementations to perform a simulation that formed one piece of key evidence for the validity of his paper. The student was not in the author list, not in the acknowledgments section and his works are not cited. In fact, the vanilla algorithm presented in the draft was insufficient to perform the required calculations.

For the sake of posing a question, let's take these claims as true and ask:
- How should the student approach this matter?

A lot of questions here are left unanswered.

Are you a student?  A staff programmer?  Do you have a work-for-hire agreement with the university?  Is it just your implementation, or is it your original synthesis of several algorithms?  Is the synthesis something that is novel & not obvious and do you think it constitutes a significant intellectual contribution?  Have you previously published about this synthesis and if so is that cited?  How core is the use of these algorithms to the main results of the paper?

It might be reasonable to point out to your advisor how it would be helpful to your career (ability to get a great job after leaving, etc.) if your contributions are recognized in the papers that use them, at least in the acknowledgements section.  It may be that for whatever reason the supervisor hasn't thought of this (or doesn't remember when writing it up close to the deadline) but may be very willing to do so.

If you are a student and the supervisor is your academic advisor, you may also ask questions/have a conversation about what authorship means in your field and what the expectations are for what contributions warrant authorship in your collaborations.  Part of an academic advisor's role is to teach their students about these sorts of things.

If you don't feel comfortable with a direct conversation or with the results of one, go to your program director and see what their perspective might be.


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

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

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

Whether newspaper articles count as a publication depends on the context.

In the general academic context, newspaper articles don't count as an academic publication.

Generally, the main works that count as academic publications are:

peer reviewed academic journal articles
academic books and book chapters, and
full-text peer reviewed academic conference articles.

Academic context - newspaper articles are not academic publications: So in general, if you are asked how many publications you have in an academic context, it will generally just be the above that gets counted. In other cases, you might only be being asked about a count of peer reviewed journal articles.
This kind of context often applies to job applications, grant applications, promotions and so on.

Showing how newspaper articles contribute to track-record: That said, in most academic contexts where your track-record is being judged, there is scope to communicate external engagement. Publishing in newspapers is one of many possible examples of external engagement. And in some cases there may be merit in listing the specific instances of external engagement (e.g., particular newspaper articles and so on).

Furthermore, the value assigned to writing newspaper articles varies substantially between fields, universities, and departments. For example, I briefly worked in a business school and they placed a lot of value on academics engaging with the media, and particularly the popular business press. I imagine this was related to the branding benefits associated with their academics being read by the business people who complete their courses. In contrast, in more pure-science disciplines, engagement with the media was really an optional extra.


Claiming sole credit for an academic outreach program - not a written paper. Is there a moral right? I conceived and co-developed (including the program itself and training protocols for participants)/piloted the program locally/managed three national pilots, and assessed the effectiveness of the program including formulating the written proposal to public and private funding agencies that laid out the essential elements of the program and writing reports. Years later, one of my co-developers claims sole responsibility on line (at a University web site) and at a non-profit spinoff's web site for this and another program I conceived and co-developed and has wiped me from the record. He does not credit our co-developers, upon whose ground breaking research much of this work rests. If one (say a member of a selection committee) were to take a tour of the Internet using the usual search engines, it would appear that my CV and resume are one big lie after another. I inquired of Legal at the University where I did the work, and they said they have no control over what a department head puts on line and that it is if anything a compliance issue. What does this mean? And also, do I have a moral right and what kind of recourse might there be? Basically 15 years of my life is now invisible.

First off, you should decide what exactly you feel is wrong, and how you want it to be.  You were involved in the early stages of this program, but others took the helm later.  They continued to put work into the program, and they deserve credit. Arguably visitors to the program website want to know about who's managing it now, not its history.  Do you want to be cited as a co-creator or founder or first director?  Do you want a section dedicated to "early work on this project" where you play a greater role?  Is this really that important, since in academia publications are the currency of value, not websites.

Second, once you've decided what your objection is, you should take this objection to the co-developer in question.  Perhaps this is just an honest misunderstanding and he/she will rectify amicably.

Third, if you get no resolution, then you need to decide whether you want to pursue this further.  Read your co-developer's response carefully and objectively.  Do you think they have a reasonable case?  If so, you are unlikely to achieve anything positive by pursuing this (in fact, going to the legal department may have been a mistake).  You will (further) sour your relationship with the co-developer, and have the potential for getting a bad reputation.

Lastly, if you are absolutely certain that your co-developer's position has no merit, and you really want to pursue this further, you can try to apply pressure to your co-developer.  The legal department is the wrong avenue, as their job is to protect the university, not police it.  Try the dean, or otherwise the supervisor, of the co-developer.  If you can prove that the situation has cost you financially (farfetched) you might consider a lawsuit.


How to correspond with academics as a young researcher in high school? I just started my freshman year of high school, and one of the electives I'm taking is a year long research project where we can choose any topic, do an experiment, and write a paper about it. I chose to do a research project with mathematics, specifically a really cool subject called class field theory.

I understand the topic, most of the current papers and literature I've read on it, and I have done an experiment on a certain cause/effect. The problem now is to analyze the data I've gotten and write a paper. It looks really promising, but I will occasionally have questions on certain topics that are really hard to research online. For this, I usually try to contact a researcher who is knowledgeable in the subject I'm researching and just ask if they would be interested in giving some of their time to answer some of my questions.

For example, the way I structured my last email (that spurred this question):

  Hello Dr. *****,

  My name is *****. I'm 14, and I live in South Carolina. Recently, we were assigned a year-long research project, which I chose to do on Hilbert class fields of global function fields. In one area of my research, I encountered a problem with [short, general topic of problem].

  I see that you have taught a lecture on class field theory (including Hilbert and ray class fields). I have studied the lecture notes and it has given me a lot of clarification, but I still have a few questions that I feel most of the resources out there do not address.

  I've also read some of your work and it seems right up my alley.
  I appreciate your concise yet poignant and very understandable way of explaining things. I was wondering if perhaps we could start a short correspondence to help me understand what I'm writing about, and to gain more knowledge of class field theory.

  With gratitude, ****

The response I got to this, and unfortunately to the majority of responses I get to similar emails, is condescending in tone and treated me as a child. Of course, I understand this, as I am a child, but in this specific area I would not like to be treated as one. I tried to just not tell my age, and I got much more enthusiastic reactions, but what was suggested to me was to "talk to my advisor" or cited other resources that are not available to me as a highschool student.

Is there something I'm doing wrong in my emails? I've never been part of the whole "academia culture", so this is just me trying my best to sound professional. In any case, what can I include in my correspondence or generally do to be respected as a young researcher?

Researchers tend to be very busy advising their own students, and often don't have much free time to commit to supervising others. Recognize that you are asking someone who is very busy to spend some of their limited time on something that (1) may or may not be interesting to them, (2) is not part of their "official" professional responsibilities, and (3) is likely to take time away from their "official" professional responsibilities. (That is why "talk to your advisor" is a common response; they aren't brushing you off, so much as they are redirecting you to someone who is personally responsible for helping you, and has committed to investing that time in you.)

For this reason, emails to researchers asking questions that they don't feel personally responsible for answering, often go unanswered.

You also wrote that you believe the answers to your questions are not going to be immediately obvious, even to an expert:

  I have frequent contact with a professor at my local university, who has taught a class on this subject but has not published any papers or done any research in this area. He and I worked on a few of my questions and were able to solve them, but he couldn't figure out any of my other ones. Although that doesn't preclude "common knowledge to any expert", I am pretty sure it isn't.

which suggests that you are asking for a fairly substantial time investment.

And you are asking for an open-ended commitment in your email:

  I was wondering if perhaps we could start a short correspondence to help me understand what I'm writing about, and to gain more knowledge of class field theory.

I would be extremely reluctant to say "Yes" to this without any clue of how advanced you are in the topic, what you are expecting from me, and whether it would be an interesting or useful correspondence for me.

It would, however, be appropriate to send a short, actionable email, on a question that is directly related to the researcher's published papers. For example:

  Hello Dr. *****,

  My name is *****. I'm 14, and I live in South Carolina. I am working on a research project related to Hilbert class fields of global function fields.

  I was wondering if you could answer a question about your paper, [name of paper]. [Specific question that you are looking for an answer to.]

  With gratitude, ****

  P.S. Would it be OK if I asked some further follow-up questions on this subject?

See

When asking research-based questions, what are some good practices to maximize the rates at which people reply to emails?
Increase chance of reply when e-mailing an eminent researcher?

for additional suggestions

For questions that are not related to a specific paper, but are more general questions about the field or your own work (that you and your advisor are unable to answer), I suggest Mathematics Stack Exchange.  People are more likely to invest time in answering a stranger's questions for no professional benefit on a platform where that's what they do.


What is the meaning of "...the cost of a 5 year R01..."? I assume this is something  related to the US and  NIH Research Project Grant Program (R01), but I don't understand how one put value on a "single  word"
Is there anyone who understands this sentence and care to elaborate what was implied by that?

According to the yearly NIH report, in 2018, a total of 625 NIH Research Project grants (R01) were awarded, and the total cost for NIH (funding + other costs) of these grants was $347,466,328. This averages to $347,466,328/625, or about $556,000 of funding per year in one grant, or $2,780,000 in total for a 5-year grant

The Specific Aims application document is considered to be (one of) the most important part(s) of the application. The example document on that website has 601 words. The tweet in your question exaggerates the importance of the Specific Aims document, and implies that the document is "worth" the whole $2,780,000 of the grant. The cost of each word would then be $2,780,000/600, or approximately $4633 per word.


Identifying students' purposes and institutions' purposes I don't necessarily consider it a hardship to teach calculus or the like to students whose preparation in prerequisites is weak, but but I am offended by the practice of making it a personal policy to treat learning the material ONLY as a price paid to get a grade to put on one's resume, rather than as the thing they're there for.

I'm wondering how to identify instances of such behavior quickly when they occur.
How can one identify institutions that tolerate or encourage my position as outlined in my first paragraph above, and those that are hostile toward it?  I think the latter---where that hostility may exist---often include respectable institutions in which lots of students want to get degrees in law or business or the like.

I understand that you are offended by students who do not take your subject as seriously as you do but that is just the way some students are.

There are students who are really interested and there are those who are not. In the case of calculus, if a student is required to take it for their non-math major then you will certainly have students who just want the grade. One way around this is to only teach elective classes but that will not work for everyone (I'm not sure it would work for any teacher).

Still, your questions are clear. How do you find the students who don't really care? I find that they usually bubble to the surface quite quickly. I tend to be quite interactive with my students, asking lots of questions. I also give them additional 'required' reading. Even the required reading doesn't get read by the students who just want to pass and be done with it. So, those students who actually read the material and can answer it meaningfully in class are the students you are looking for.

Now, as for identifying institutions I will say that I have read a lot and talked to a lot of teachers and one thing EVERY serious teacher wants is to teach a class of highly motivated students who care deeply for their studies. This is simply unrealistic and I have never heard of a teacher who actually achieves that.

I think the better question to ask is: How can I motivate a deep love of my subject in my students? By stimulating their desires, you will naturally end up with what you want. However, this is not easy and it takes a lot of time and effort. However, you seem like a serious teacher, so perhaps you can make the investment. Certainly the results, if you succeed, would likely be very rewarding for you.

My perspective is that a great teacher has no bad students. By this, I mean that a great teacher is able to motivate their students to want to learn the material. By this measure I am not a great teacher, but I keep trying.


Is it possible to finish my PhD at a different institute? I got into a delicate situation with my supervisor (and the director of the institute -- they are very close friends) and I will not have a chance to get my Ph.D. at the institute, at least not under conditions that I find acceptable.

My thesis will be finished soon; I wouldn't like to lose years of work because of this toxic person. Is it possible to defend my work at some other institute and with another supervisor(s)? Where to look and what to look for?

Institute is not so big and it is placed in Eastern Europe. There is no "postgraduates officer / director or student union or department or college head" or option to change my supervisor at the institute, and this director is the top director at the institute... I would appreciate any suggestions and experiences.

My writing of the thesis will be finished soon...Is it possible to defend my work at some other institute and with another supervisor(s)?

Do you have a supervisor in mind? If there is a particular professor who supports you, they may be able to help you navigate this and waive some of the usual requirements.

If not, there are many issues:

Residency requirements. You generally have to be "in residence" at an institution for 1-2 years before that institution can award you a degree. So, this would put you behind schedule.
Admission. You would effectively be a transfer student, and would have to apply for transfer admission like everyone else. This could be non-trivial: admission committees are not going to be excited about admitting a student who is already ABD somewhere else, left under less-than-good circumstances, and is eager to graduate as soon as possible.
Letters. You've spent enough time at this institution that you will be expected to have at least one or two letters of recommendation; their absence will be suspicious.

So: you're probably better off trying to patch things up at your current institution. If that's truly impossible, I would at least try to get a master's degree (if you don't already have one), a few good publications, and a letter of recommendation from someone at your current school before transferring somewhere else.


Do you keep your study notes publicly available? I am considering to create a wiki/blog for most of my study notes that I have made or taken digitally.

Also, for the handwritten and rough ones I am thinking about storing them in my GitHub repository.

Is this a good idea? How do professionals in academia and PhD students organise their notes?

Also, should I keep my notes publicly available?

Edit: The main purpose of keeping my notes public is to have them readily available and searchable of myself and my immediate peers in college. If that benefits someone else, I will be more than glad to have helped.

Update regarding having a blog/wiki: I was thinking about having stuff regarding my take on a certain topic or similar rather than just straightaway putting mugged up lecture notes. (as I mentioned in a comment)

So basically, as I go along a certain topic whatever interesting I find, I post
it. Also I will put in links to papers, books and other interesting literature on the topic that might be helpful while studying the topic. This seems easier to deal with and also serves as a way to track my current interests and/or workflow.

Is this a good idea? How do professionals in academia and PhD students organise their notes?

Personally, I think this is a great idea. More routes for the sharing of knowledge do good for society as a whole. Often, notes taken by students become the definitive resource for other students.
Academics who have extensive material typed up in notes tend to present it in a low-tech way. In lieu of elaborate web design or a flashy interface, there's usually just a list of PDF files written in LaTeX, often on a site made from bare HTML. Here are some physics examples for inspiration:

Ian Lim has graduate Cambridge physics notes
Jeff Dror has particle physics notes
Flip Tanedo also has particle physics notes
my personal site has general physics notes

And for math:

Dexter Chua has general Cambridge math notes
Qiaochu Yuan has general math notes
Arun Debray has general math notes
Evan Chen has general math notes

All of these notes were taken as undergrad or grad students.

Also, should I keep my notes publicly available?

I don't see why not. There are occasionally people who express fears that, if it becomes known that they made a single typo while an undergrad, their scientific career will be over. This is ridiculous!
Most people who see your notes won't read them, most of those who read them won't do so in enough detail to spot typos, most of those who spot typos won't be evaluating your career, and in the absurdly tiny chance that a professor thought it was worth their time to comb your personal notes for mistakes, any they found would be completely understandable.

Edit: I feel like I should address some of the objections posted.
The first is the notion that a student will just be adding "noise" unless their lecture notes are better than all others available. This is an impossible standard to meet, and not a useful one. More takes on a given subject can be useful, because they'll be pitched at different levels and from different perspectives. To see how unrealistic this standard is, note that you could apply the exact same reasoning to professors: why should they be permitted to teach anything at all, when better, publicly available notes, lecture videos, and books by other professors certainly already exist?
The second is that public notes could reveal secret information of military value, such as on "rocket navigation". While it's certainly true that secret information exists, it obviously isn't going to be taught in university classes!
The third is, in full, "Who are you?" I don't understand the content of this objection. Who are you?
The fourth is that taking notes could be stealing intellectual property. Of course, this could be a real possibility depending on the context, but in the fields I'm familiar with, it would be implausible. For example, suppose you learned Einstein's "train" thought experiment from a professor, establishing the relativity of simultaneity. There is no reasonable way one can call this the "property" of the professor. It's a simple and beautiful argument that has been passed down by oral tradition essentially unchanged since Einstein gave it. Again, one can see how ridiculous this argument is by repeating it: if you're stealing from the professor by learning and repeating the argument, then the professor is stealing from whoever taught them in undergrad! The only person one could plausibly say "owns" Einstein's thought experiment is Einstein himself, and we do acknowledge that ownership, because we refer to it by his name.
In fact, usually a professor's own lecture notes will themselves be "stolen" from a variety of sources. For example, they could use notes from previous versions of the course as a base. Very often, they will follow an existing textbook and only slightly tweak the presentation. This is fine: if everybody lecturing on relativity had to create their own novel explanations from scratch, universities would grind to a halt -- and the explanations would be much worse, too.
Admittedly, the concept of intellectual property could apply to specific novel things. For example, the professor may draw a diagram in a particular way, so perhaps a lawyer could say the professor "owns" the reproductions the students make. I've never seen a case where legal force has been applied this way. Feynman didn't copyright his diagrams, he showed their utility by demonstration. He gained in reputation by people learning and using his methods, not by suing anybody who tried.


Enquiry emails for grad school I will be applying for grad school soon and have drafted a few informal enquiry emails. When would be the best time to send out informal enquiry emails to potential supervisors? Would it be advisable to send them out as soon as the programme starts to accept applications or even earlier than that? I'm asking  particularly for US universities.
Thank you!
EDIT: Since a lot of people have said this is field related, I thought I'd mention which field I'm applying for - I'm applying for microbiology/immunology programmes

Most professors that I know in the US (in computer science) do not want to receive such emails and will ignore them. Many have a note on their website saying so. The expectation is that students should submit an application and only after they are admitted should they talk to faculty. If you are interested in a particular faculty member, you should note this in your application.
That said, norms vary greatly. In the UK, the expectation is the opposite in my experience -- you should only apply after contacting a potential supervisor.
You should look at the websites of faculty that you are interested in working with and see what they say about contacting them. If they do invite such inquiries, then you should contact them. In terms of timing, earlier is generally better, as long as you are at the stage of having reasonably concrete plans.


Can I share our AIAA journal article on ResearchGate? This website contains information about sharing but it’s not clear for ResearchGate.
Can I share our publication which is published on AIAA journal and costs money for reading?
I understand I can’t share published article but I wonder accepted manuscript.

According to the guidelines you linked to, you are allowed to have your manuscript published on your "personal website". I would interpret that term in such an extensive way that I would include your ResearchGate profile, for it serves the same function as a "personal website". That is, it serves to showcase your research.
In addition, Sherpa/Romeo (a platform that collects data about journals' Open Access policy) seems to be equally liberal in interpreting the AIAA approach. Pick your specific AIAA journal here and read the guidelines. From what I understand, AIAA journals allow for a Green Open Access policy without any embargo, meaning that you can publish your manuscript (not the final, accepted one) on your private homepage (including your RG profile) immediately after publication.


Should I cite my own research demonstration paper? I am a researcher in the computer science / interactions field. One year ago, I published a demonstration paper at a conference presenting and using quite briefly an algorithm A.

This year, I'm submitting a journal paper to the same conference and my work uses this algorithm. I wonder whether the demo is considered as a real publication and if I should just cite this demo paper or should I re-explain in detail the algorithm (I would then go more into details).

Research demonstrations at a conference is something very specific to my field I guess.

You should always cite your own previous work on a subject just the same as if it were written by someone else. Failure to do so is Self Plagiarism, which is a real thing, oddly enough.

However, you can also, as you suggest go in to more detail on the algorithm if it will help support the new work.

The general rule is that when something has been published, using it should have a citation.

The reason for the rule is that the original paper may include context that a reader in the future may want to see but can't find without the citation.


How to add data availability statement in Physical Review Letters? We have submitted our recent findings to PRL. As the second round of revision came through, we are almost confident that we will get published in PRL.

Now we wanted to provide our algorithm as a matlab GUI so that the readers can reproduce our results in a single click. The idea is to motivate readers from other fields to have a quick feel of what we do.

Most journals like nature have a Data availability where they allow to provide links to available data. Is there a way in PRL to do such thing. We would like to add a link to our webpage which has the software created by us.

For example,

  Data availability: Interested readers can reproduce our results by using our algorithm. The software can be found at [URL].

Is such a statement allowed in PRL? If so where does it go, before acknowledgments or after that or in the supplemental?

I don't have experience with PRL, only with an APS journal(Physical Review x, where x=A-E[not all of them, only an undisclosed letter]). First of all, I would like to congratulate you, having a paper in PRL it is really something to be appreciated. For PRL, you can add supplemental material to the paper, which can be downloaded when the user downloads the original paper attached to it. As for the program which is based on a Matlab GUI, you can add a link in the body of the paper. I have seen that some authors also add links in the Acknowledgements section of the paper, where they also state that any data is available on e-mail also upon request. Also, if you used Matlab, please provide all the necessary files and the Matlab version to be used. Please use a public open access repository which will not change it's DNS in time. Moreover, don't forget that you might need to cite also Matlab as a bibtex, it might be a necessity when using this software product (see the copyright files when you installed this software on your computer).


Describing speculative challenges for a new method in a paper When presenting a new method in a paper and you don't have any/sufficient empirical evidence of the limitations, what is the best way to introduce speculative challenges and potential mitigations?

I'm looking for the title of the section: is this part of the limitations section? my understanding was the limitations had to have empirical evidence.

What wording would be used for introducing them?

Update: the field is interdisciplinary: a mixture of Business Administration and Computer Science.  The method is for Business Administration but relies on some Computer Science techniques and theory.

What about potential limitations?

I guess that you have at least some intuition or some loose arguments as to why you suspect that the things you are going to describe are indeed (possible) limitations. If not, you should not list them. If yes, add these to the section. Also you could discuss, what would be needed to overcome the limitations.


Amusing remarks in papers I have had to read so many papers, and papers on writing papers, that I noticed how engaging and more pleasant to read a publication is when the author inserts the occasional funny remark.

I'm also writing so many project papers lately (mathematics bachelor) that I am actually developing an enjoyment for writing and attempting to come up with my own style. It's something I'd like to improve and I'd love to write more in the future and as I further my studies.

And so I wondered. How appropriate is it for a student to sometimes be funny in his or her reports? I have stumbled on so many half-assedly written assignments that it makes me think that many students simply don't care about nice writing at all, so I don't have any example to base an opinion on. Thoughts?

Whatever you decide, humor in academic writing is always better understated rather than overstated. See here:


How can a person switch from Arts to STEM? A person (30-35 y/o) has an MA in History and works in a Starbucks shop in Canada or drives Uber. Now, he wants to study MSc in CS/CSE in Canada for better employment.
What/how would be the pathway to accomplish that in the shortest time period in North America?

I admire the enthusiasm, that's for sure. The practicality of the situation, well that's different, but have a go! If the goal is to work in IT, which it sounds like it is, I'd skip the MSc altogether and focus on, for example, software development, system administration, IaaS via AWS or Azure, network administration, whatever. The shortest path, as you ask for, requires laser focus at this point. Best of luck to all involved!
Added
There are numerous avenues in IT. Two roles that might not be obvious, but perhaps worth consideration for someone with a nontechnical background, are business analyst and scrum master. These tend to require broader skills, maybe with more emphasis on interpersonal skills, than others.


How can I put my publications into Scopus? I've got many papers which are not on Scopus, but are picked up by Google Scholar. How do I include all those other papers into Scopus?

Scopus uses its own sources for publications in the form of publisher provided content. Their selection procedure is explained here: https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus/content/content-policy-and-selection

There is no procedure to add individual documents to Scopus that I could find on their help pages. You should also be aware that it can take several weeks for a published paper to end up in Scopus. Some publishers (smaller publishers typically or new open-access publishers), conferences, technical reports might never make it to Scopus though.

On a related note, the citation count will probably lag behind Google Scholar.


Do reputable journals ever conduct peer review entirely by email? In the comments to one of the answers to this question, the asker points out that he is asked to submit his review of a manuscript for publication via email and that there is no formal online system with checkboxes or text boxes. This struck me as strange, as having reviewed papers for several biology and math journals I have never been asked to submit my review via email to the editor. Even for very small journals published independently, I have always been asked to use an online system, where all contact is viewable by the editor-in-chief and other parties at the journal.

Do reputable journals ever ask reviewers to submit their reviews via email, or is such a request a red flag that you are being asked to review for a scam journal? Do all reputable journals have online reviewer systems?

I have interacted with several reputable math/TCS journals, both as author and as reviewer, entirely via email without the involvement of an online submission. I have even witnessed senior members of the community expressing the sentiment that they never agree to the semi-automated referee requests sent by online submission systems, but only to referee requests sent "by hand".

Summary: Yes, there exist reputable journals conducting peer review entirely by email.

Now whether or not a journal soliciting peer review without an online submission system is more likely to be disreputable than one that does, I do not know. I see no particular reason to assume either way.


Is it bad practice to submit the entire manuscript for an initial book proposal to a publisher? In a previous book I wrote, I submitted the entire manuscript along with a couple page proposal to a few different publishers. Both editors never responded to me.

In my current book, I sent the entire manuscript with a short description to an editor at Springer, and it has been two weeks, and I have heard nothing, not even an acknowledgement of receipt.

Am I doing something against proper procedure?

Update: I emailed the editor again asking her if she received the manuscript, and she said she did. She was just on vacation. (I guess Europeans take longer ones than those in the U.S. are used to…)

Did you follow the book proposal guidelines for Springer? It does not include sending the entire manuscript but does include items like:

Author
Author CV
Any other contributors (include CVs)?
Who's the audience including undergraduate or graduate
What book do you see as the main competitor?
3-4 paragraphs describing the contents of the book
Unique Selling Points (why should someone buy this book)
etc.

Note: I'm not sure that I've linked to the book proposal guidelines for your area, but they surely exist.

Second Note: Geremia provided a link to the book series webpage. Poking around on the page and tracing links, I did find a general manuscript preparation page, but nothing on what the proposal should look like. I maintain that unless they tell you explicitly to send the entire manuscript, you should send a brief proposal or even a query ("are there guidelines I should follow?") to the editor first.

Based on blogs and articles that I've read by fiction editors and agents, not following published guidelines for a submission is one of the top pet peeves and a quick way for your submission to get deleted or tossed in the recycle bin.


How should an administrative assistant reply to student addressing them as "Professor" or "Doctor"? As an administrative assistant at a major university, I regularly field questions from prospective applicants and students. Occasionally, in response to my reply the author will address me as "Professor" or "Doctor".

What is a concise yet polite way to reply with regard to this (in my case) misattribution? I am flattered to be sure, but my flattery is exceeded by my concern for honesty in advertising – I'm neither a PhD/ScD/MD, nor a professor. On the one hand, if I just ignore it I feel I'm tacitly accepting the misattributed title, on the other hand if I reply with a correction, I fear that I misrepresent the values of our community as being overly obsessed with titles and protocol. Any suggestions for a tactful and honest way of addressing this kind of misattribution is appreciated!

In the U.S., I think just don't bother to directly respond.

Your email signature probably accurately indicates your position, and if people don't understand the hierarchy of universities, it doesn't really matter. Their respectful form of address is just recognizing that you can give authoritative opinions on things... whatever your precise title/degree...


A high quality contribution but an annoying error is present in my published article I have recently published a journal article in the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (IEEE TGRS). I can confirm that my contribution in the journal article is really of high quality and has promising results. Even my (very reputable) university congratulated me for my contribution during my PhD defense last year.

A few days ago, I discovered an error in my article. This error is really very annoying to me. In my article, I wrote:

  The database contains 200 images. We removed "23 images of type X", "32 images of type Y" and "12 images of type Z", and so as a result, we use 128 images.

And I mentioned "128" all the time in all my experiments.

That fact is that all my results are really based on the number "128". But if you look back, the total should be 200 - 67  = 133  not 128. So I missed to say in the journal that we have also removed "5 images of type A". In this case the total will really be 128 as I mentioned in all my experiments.

All my results are correct and are really based on the number 128. But any reader can say "the total number of images must be 200 - 67 = 133 not 128, so how the author got 128!".

This is really awkward for me because I did this work in a very reputable university and I really wanted that everything to be perfect. I am really sad and I feel the failure and a bit like "Perhaps I don't deserve to be at this university".  What do you suggest me? should I contact the editor? Is it better to publish the correction online via ArXiv or HAL?

It is probably best to do all of that. Contact the editor and ask if a correction can be published (letters to editor, ...). Put out a corrected version somewhere visible.

But also, don't obsess over it. Perfection is rarely attainable in an imperfect world with imperfect humans.

The sort of error you mention is very common, actually. Once you write something it is difficult for you to read it as incorrect. Often your mind "reads" what you think is supposed to be on the page rather than what is actually there. It is notoriously difficult for people to proofread their own work.

Ideally, the review process should have caught the inconsistency, but since it wasn't caught, others glossed over it also as immaterial to what your arguments are.


Reporting error in publication after copyright transfer Last year my paper got accepted in a Mathematics journal. This year the online first version of the article came out. I put the online version on research gate and a lot of people read the article. Then a fellow reader pointed out a big mistake in last part of the paper.
I mailed and informed the journal regarding the error.I told them the error does not seem to be fixable at the moment and requested them if they could update the paper by removing the erroneous part.  After a week I noticed that the journal has taken down the online first version from their website. But till now I haven’t received a reply to my mail. It has been a month now.
Can anyone tell what I should do now? I mailed the journal secretary yesterday, but no response.
I should also mention that I had submitted the copyright transfer form , after proof reading i.e Just before the online first version came out.
Also the journal is a decent one with .50 MCQ on mathscinet.
Well I expect a response from them because then I would know what their plan is with my paper, so that without loosing time I can publish it somewhere else if required.

This is a question (or series of questions) for the editor. You can ask what they intend to do beyond taking down the online version. Ask if you can provide a correction (assuming that is possible). Ask if there is anything else you can do.
And an email "yesterday" won't get a response for a while.
But look for some mutually acceptable outcome.
I don't think the copyright transfer has any bearing on this, actually, other than that they have the responsibility now.