How to share responsibility for part of my advisor's project, which I did not create and I am insecure about? I am a first semester PhD student, working in the planning of an experiment that is on a funded project from my advisor. I am not paid by this project, the professor has not spent grant money on me. I did not participate in the writing of the project proposal, but I read it before applying. I wrote my research plan aligned, in general terms, with the project's topic, which interests me. The project, as planned, was supposed to be carried out by a team. The experiment was supposed to be ongoing when I arrived.

I have seen myself in the position of becoming the main responsible for this experiment in the past few weeks. I have many operational tasks, like buying material to build it, making drawings and specs, actually doing some of the manual work of building things, etc. This is taking anywhere between a third and two-thirds of my time, for a given week. I have expressed to an experienced co-worker who is kind of a lieutenant to my advisor that I feel like I am not making progress as fast as I should.

I see some positive sides to this situation:

This can be a sign of trust in me.
Being new here, I want to help the group and establish good relations.
My advisor is an important researcher in his field, I trust his judgement on finding interesting research topics, and I feel the experiment may actually lead to something good.

However, I have some concerns:

The experiment was very vaguely specified in the proposal. I thought they would have advanced when I arrived, and I would only help and learn, but I'm having to compensate this.
This is costing more money than they had anticipated. I found out that equipment that was supposed to be available is not. As the cost goes up, this thing becomes "too big to fail" and the immobilized capital makes it harder to just stop it.
I feel like it may be using me as free labor just to get something the research group needs done.
I currently don't have enough time to actually improve my research plan or even study properly, with all this "operational" work.
I have a hunch that the experiment's goal could be achieved with a much cheaper, quicker "numerical experiment" or "model blind test", but this idea came a little late in the process and I don't have time to formulate it better.
I don't want to say it like the plan was a half-baked idea.
Most importantly, I don´t want to become a slave to this experiment, being the main or sole responsible for treating the results, dealing with the possible shortcomings of it´s conceptualization, etc.

What strategies and etiquette would you recommend to share responsibility and keep the option of "going rogue" or pursuing something else and becoming detached from this experiment later on?

I have thought of the following:

Asking for more time and make this experiment more "mine", by developing some sketches and ideas that I have for it.
Asking if we can involve a Master's student to help me.

One question additional question I've got, you state you're not funded under the funded proposal. Does that mean you came to your advisors group with your own funding or are you being paid by the department to TA or something related?

I ask this because the above two funding situations for a PhD student means the advisor is free to spend what would otherwise have been your salary on materials, equipment, or other personnel. But your efforts can still be attributed to the project. So unless your source of funding is conditional on publishing, I wouldn't worry about how the various things you're working on are funded.

That said, if you find your current efforts interesting and exciting, stick with it and try to align your research plan with it. As a first year PhD student, you have the time to spend developing an apparatus(you've got 3 or so years extra over postdocs or masters students). And if you do get the apparatus setup and working, that sets you up as the person in charge of the equipment, paving the way for collaborations.

Though I would advise you to do your best and layout a timeline for your advisor, and make him aware of your timeline. If he wants faster results you can always suggest the intermediate steps such as your hunch(nothing beats experimental results), or ask for assistance from the more senior members in your group.


Number of potential PhD advisors at a school Past advice suggests that potential PhD students should be wary of attending schools with only one professor in their subfield. If you have problems with your advisor and want to switch, having that option would be invaluable.

But what if your subfield is not represented that well in the vast majority of departments? Almost all schools I'm considering applying for only have one professor in my intended research area. I'm a MS student at the moment and I'm sure what general subfield I'd like to do my PhD research in.

Should I just accept that this is how things are and try to check whether a professor and I would be good matches before accepting? Or should this make the few schools with more than one professor in this subfield more attractive? To be clear, every school I will apply to will have top researchers in this subfield. The comparison is more between a school with one top researcher and one newer researcher and another school with one top researcher and no one else in the subfield. The majority of schools are in the latter group.

I'm tempted to think that hiring committees avoid hiring additional faculty in my subfield if they already have one professor doing research in the area. They have their token professor and that's enough for them. Never mind that the professor's personality, perspective, and research methods matter!

It sounds like this subarea might be somewhat marginalized in the larger area the department represents, and this is consistent across universities. Why is that ? is the subarea not particularly popular, or interesting, or does it lack the ability to get funding ? In all these case, you do have to ask yourself whether the risk of getting into such an area is worth it.

But on the more direct question of whether you should favor the few schools that have more than one professor, the right question is: what are you planning to do after a Ph.D ? And in what way can this professor (or professors) help with that goal ? If you want to go into academia (say), are these professors the dominant players in the area ? and so on.


Citing paragraphs with multiple references I am using MLA. I have two paragraphs which are paraphrases of 5 different papers over tillage. Each fact and statement in the two paragraphs are somehow (pretty directly) stated in each of those papers. All my references are used in those two paragraphs as everything else is a proposed solution that hasn't been test and all other information is cogni scienti. Do I just stick the citations at the end of the two paragraphs? I want to use all these references to show consensus in the agricultural science community.

If all five papers contain the same factual information, then you could do the following:

  Smith says there are eight planets (13). Doe concurs (57), as do Johnson (910), Azikiwe (219) and Kim (43).

If you there are multiple small facts spread throughout their papers, you can probably get away without page numbers for all but the first:

  Smith says there are eight planets (13). She also indicates that Mercury is the closest, but not the hottest — that's Venus (19). Furthermore, she states that the asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter (22). This information is generally agreed upon by the astronomical community, and is repeated in articles by Doe, Johnson, Azikiwe, and Kim.

If any of those authors have multiple works in your works cited (remember, all of them should be in your works cited with the relevant article/chapter pages included), then for those authors you would put the name of the particular one you're referencing either in parentheses or explicitly referenced:

  Smith says there are eight planets (13). She also indicates that Mercury is the closest, but not the hottest — that's Venus (19). Furthermore, she states that the asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter (22). This information is generally agreed upon by the astronomical community, and is repeated by Doe, Johnson, Azikiwe (Our Solar System), and Kim's "A Summary of Planetary Statistics".

(You wouldn't want to mix both of the reference styles and you'd probably prefer by [an author] and in [something by the author] , but the last example is more for illustration than pretty wording.)


Is it reasonable to do a second master's degree just for the letters of recommendation? I have a master's degree in theoretical physics. I want to do a PhD and start a career in research.
The problem is my letters of recommendation. I had a horrible relationship with my master's supervisor, who was also my undergraduate supervisor. I ended up graduating, but with no publications and no thesis. He will not provide a letter. I've already asked other professors: some said no; a few did agree, but they don't really know me. My field is very theoretical, so getting a job and asking my boss for a letter does not seem like it would be helpful.
The only thing I can think of is to do a second master's degree with the specific goal of forming relationships with professors who can write me letters of recommendation. Does this seem like a reasonable thing to do? I'm scared about getting too old or failing again at the thesis.

I can share my experience. I completed my graduate program online so I only had one recommendation from my masters program. I then had two recommendations from my work experiences. I was accepted at my 'goal' university and awarded a fellowship that covers tuition and provides a stipend for  living expenses. When I spoke to the chair of my department about how/why I was awarded the fellowship, he said that the most important admissions requirements were GRE score and GPA. He said that recommendation letters are often not even read. They become of interest if there is a debate about accepting a student. He also said that recommendation letters have lessened in importance because no one trusts them anymore (due to lawsuits and everyone's fear of writing something that could be questioned.) They DO read your writing. So any essays or proposals that you are asked to write are important.
I do not know if this is accurate for all universities. I did serve on an admissions committee at a private school for many years, and I would agree with his assessment. We dealt with such large numbers of admission candidates that we only read recommendation letters for a few cases.
You could always apply to both PhD and masters programs, but I definitely wouldn't let recommendation letters prevent you from applying immediately to PhD programs.


How to evaluate an implementation Master's Thesis in Evaluation chapter? I am writing a Master's Thesis where I developed an application. The application was developed after the study of another similar application. My application does things differently but the principle is the same for both of the application. Now I need to write an Evaluation chapter for my thesis.
So how do I evaluate my application in the Evaluation section? Is it by comparison or mention my own results?

Since you mentioned that the application is similar to another previously developed application, your evaluation ideally should compare how yours stacks up to the one it is derived from. Mention what differences there are in terms of implementation, as well as what it does better, and also whatever pitfalls exist as opposed to the other application.
You want to show what you did and learned throughout the whole process, as well as what potential improvements you might make to the application in the future. Best of luck.


Avoid plagiarism when copying (paraphrasing) paragraphs for the background section of Masters Thesis In my background section, I have a subsection which explains ideas from research papers that my supervisor has previously published.

Basically in my thesis, I build upon these ideas and so I have a few pages in the background section which goes into the detail about the previous work.

At the start of the subsection I wrote "The following section provides a recap of the ideas that are presented in (citation)."

A lot of it I paraphrased, but some things including definitions and equations I want to copy word for word.

Is this allowed and if it what is the right way of going about it?

It is a good idea to cite the paper at the beginning of the subsection once or would I need to cite it multiple times?

If you are paraphrasing everything then a single citation is enough, but provide a hint, at least, about where that section ends.

If you want to use direct quotes make it obvious that you are quoting using some textual hints (quote marks are only one way). It might be necessary to note that your quotes of definitions, etc, come from the original work.

It isn't hard to make sure that everything is correctly cited. What is hard is not making it look messy. If you can use foot/end notes then you can make citations less obvious, hiding the details in those notes.


How do you know if a PhD is for you? After starting my PhD a few months ago I'm now not sure if research is the thing for me. I'm uncertain on whether I should continue in the PhD program and try to make myself like research more, or if I should just stop and drop out of the program.

How can I know if research is for me or not?

I think this question is vague, but I think vague questions are the ones that provide the most general answers and thus the most useful. Thus, I'll try to answer.

Why is it vague?

Research is not "one thing", there is nothing like the "one true research". There are many different aspects of research that can influence this decision and the experience of doing research. Among others I can think off the top of my head about: The area, whether it is applied or theoretical, formal or empirical, the people in the lab, if you work alone or in a team, the supervisor(s), the project(s) or grants that provide the funding.

And then you have to consider that all that collides with your personality, assets and skills, or the lack of. Some people have natural skills for writing and communicating, some other people for rigor and analytic thinking, etc. So even if two people are doing the same "amount" of writing and analytic thinking, for the former writing may take 80% of the time and for the latter it may be the other way around.

If you think you like some research but you don't like your research it may simply be that you don't like that research.

This is why the answer cannot really be answered. But as I said, those are the best answers, what we should do in these cases is lifting up the level of abstraction and providing some guidelines so that anyone can find their own answers. I'll do my best.

First thing to do is find out what do you want. Do you want to do some research or not, even if it is some Utopian idea of research that does not really exist anywhere. Then try to find some place where this research is being done. Then try to see if you can access this place. Then you will have to find a compromise solution between what you want, what is available and what is available and accessible for you. If this compromise solution seems to be satisfying for you, then go for it, if it is not then leave it for some other life.

The hardest part is trying to know if a place that seems to fit your interests is really that way or that's only a delusion, the best approach is try to speak with the PhD students there, find out how do they feel about that, if they are similar or different from you, etc. You can also check the statistics like how long does it take for them to finish, number of publications, etc. that will give you expected values.

Remember the difference between expectations and reality, wishful thinking is a hazard. There are quite a few pictures with a skeptic/pessimistic meme about expectations and reality to help you.

Back to some specific details of your question, you should compare this Utopian place with your current place, and possible alternative PhD programs you could start. That way you have an additional option:

Not doing a PhD.
Doing a PhD in a place that suits you, even if it is a compromise solution (life's hard)
Doing a PhD where you are, it's again a compromise solution maybe less optimal than #2, but you save a year with this option, this may pay off or not, that's something for you to consider.

In the end nobody knows, life is about choices with partial information, choose wisely and work hard, no matter the path you choose, this train doesn't move without your effort. If you choose rationally, considering all the information that you have, you may make mistakes, but since they will be caused by information that you don't have, you should not regret them, that's life. Basically, if you do your best, you should not regret the consequences.

Good luck.


How to request that collaborators add my supervisor's name to a manuscript I am collaborating with a foreign author. As I am still pursuing my degree, I have to add my supervisor's name in that paper, even though my supervisor has  not contributed to the preparation of this manuscript.

How should I ask my collaborator (foreign author) to include my supervisor's name as a third author? I need some help in this.

Edited: As my supervisor has told me to add his name, I am obliged to add. I have no other options left. I am asking how should I write and request to my collaborator to include my supervisor name in the manuscript. Also, I am afraid whether my collaborator will feel odd or bad if I request him to do that.

Please help me: what should I say to my collaborator so that he may give third authorship to my supervisor?

While conventions vary greatly from field to field, if your supervisor has made literally no contribution, he or she should not be listed as an author. There is been plenty of discussion here of this issue; see e.g.

Co-authorship for not very involved supervisor
When should a supervisor be an author?
What are the minimum contributions required for co-authorship


How does a committee select received manuscripts for poster presentation? What are the differences between papers that are chosen for presentation vs those which are accepted for poster presentation? Is one less reputable than the other one? How does a committee select received manuscripts for these two categories?

It might be useful to look at it from the conference organizers' perspective:

Accepted full papers usually require the author to give an oral presentation at the conference. But the number of time slots for those presentations is usually limited by the size of the venue (number of conference rooms), and extending it either costs the organizers additional money or is not possible at all. So there is a strong motivation to limit the number of accepted full papers, and to choose only those that represent the largest impact/progress to the research field.
Accepted posters on the other hand are usually presented at a short (~1-2h) poster session, where many posters are presented at the same time in a rather small area. Each conference room booked for the oral presentations can probably be used to present 50-100 posters in a single session, and scheduling a second poster session can cheaply double that. So there is no real motivation to limit the number of accepted posters, beyond making sure that they make sense and represent at least a minor step forward.

These perspectives also match my experience on acceptance and gained reputation in the field of computer science: You can get pretty much anything accepted as a conference poster, while getting a paper accepted is much harder. For that reason, accepted posters are largely irrelevant scientifically, and - in my experience - are usually not even actually published in the conference proceedings (sometimes the proceedings at least contain the extended abstract that was submitted for poster acceptance, sometimes not even that).


"The file is not eligible for Reference Checking and was not processed" While submitting a paper to a journal of a famous publisher, the submission system added the following link in the top of my PDF file: "Click here to view linked References". When I clicked the link, I got to a page that says  "The file '[my-file].pdf' is not eligible for Reference Checking and was not processed."

How can I make my PDF file eligible for reference checking?

The applied references within your document might be faulty. This case is something common regarding the MS Word documents. But one could confront with such stuff even within working with LaTeX, where the references to some entry (tables, equations, bibliography etc) are not valid.

Hence, one could assert that you better check the document referencing.

More elaborated illustrations could be found here.


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

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

If you had chosen "yes", then presumably the editorial management system would give you some options that eventually return your submission to the original editor who was handling it, who would see that they'd asked you to indicate ORCID IDs and you've done so. If you chose "no", this wouldn't happen and they would treat it as a fresh submission, which might mean your submission reaches a different editor. So the answer is no, you did not choose the right option.

That said, it's not a big problem. Your submission could very well reach the original editor anyway (because their specialty matches yours the best). Even if it doesn't, modern editorial management systems are capable of flagging duplicate submissions, which should catch your paper. The journal staff would then fix any problems for you.

Accordingly I suggest doing nothing. If you're concerned, you could also email the journal (use the desk editor's email, not the editor-in-chief's), and they should handle it for you if they didn't already notice it.


What are the advantages and downsides of a broad PhD thesis? A previous version of this question focused too much on my personal situation. The current one aims at being more generic.
The main question boils down to what are the advantages and disadvantages of having a broader PhD thesis?
In the context of a PhD student possibly working in a interdisciplinary field, what are the consequences of working on two (or more) projects, both related to the overall field but each project not directly related to each other? This is assuming there are no major concerns about graduating, the thesis committee accepting or being able to produce quality research.
More in particular, what are the (academic) career consequences of that? I would imagine it can make it easier to find a postdoc position, since the range topics you've worked with is larger, but how is it perceived?
I assume one of the major downsides is possibly the lack of focus. If it is still possible to achieve good research results in both areas (but clearly having fewer papers published in each subfield), are there other problems? Is it usually frowned upon?

There are dissertations of either kind: Those which are clearly focused on one topic, and those which cover a wide range of different topic under some rather loose "umbrella title".
Clearly, the traditional approach is the former. But the latter is rather common these days.
Whether the latter is acceptable depends on your committee, and thus to a large extent on the advisor who writes the report and sits on the committee.  If that person/those persons agree, there should be no problem. Overall, as far as I can tell the latter should be no problem these days, as long as the overall scientific output is on par.
On the other hand, you should take into account that looking in too many directions at the same time might be detrimental to your PhD in a different way, if its consequence is that you explore many directions but complete none.  In that sense, staying more focused is a "safer" option.  On the other hand, a PhD is a good time to exlore different directions, if you make sure that you don't use this as an excuse not to get projects finished.


About eligibility for the Cambridge International Scholarship Scheme On the website of the University of Cambridge, they state the eligibility criteria for the Cambridge international scholarship scheme (CISS). One of them is:

"Have a high upper-second-class undergraduate honours degree from a UK Higher Education Institution, or an equivalent from an Overseas Institution".

I don't understand it. Can someone explain to me what is precisely meant by that?

Given that that's the same as the requirement for applying to Cambridge, have a look at the international qualifications page to see how degrees in your country map to Cambridge degrees.


Is it worth going to a conference [IEEE UEMCON] to get my undergraduate thesis published? I'm weighing the costs/benefits of going to a conference in New York despite living in Seattle.

My main motivation is that I want the undergraduate thesis I finished earlier this year to be published. In the future I may decide to apply to graduate school and search out opportunities to do research in a different topic.

If I just showed Universities/future job prospects that I was accepted at a conference would it carry as much weight as being a published conference paper?

My reasons for not going basically boil down to:
-Its a big hassle and investment time/money
-The conference could be rather dry
-I want to go but how do I know that I won't just change my mind about it later after already committing?

If you see yourself in an academic setting in the future, this could help you. It's no guarantee, but it is very likely. This is a merit in the academic world. If you are coming from computer science and going into industry right away, and are done with academia, the published paper will not matter. CS people get jobs anyway without much trouble.

You'd need to try and see this as an investment into your future career IF you want to work in academia. Otherwise it's a cool item on ones resumé, but it won't nessecarily add much after you've gained some work experience which I'd like to guess will carry heavier weight than the paper.


University-wide use of cracked OS and software – how to fix this? My university is using cracked OS and software throughout. The school is very huge at 70 hectares and there are buildings everywhere. All of the computers in the computer labs and offices are full of cracked Windows and software¹. In our computer labs, we use a cracked OS and software to program and design circuits. Also, the school is credited as a Center of Development which is a world-wide acknowledgement.

The cracked software tends to crash and produces a lot of errors leading to lots of data loss. Especially when it crashes without warning, and data sometimes can get corrupted.

My question is: How did the school get away with this, and is there a way to report this to authorities? I don’t even think my country cares about software pirating anyway (Philippines). Is there a way to report this so that the software in every computer in the university can be replaced and upgraded?

¹ Everytime we turn on the computers, the first message we see is "Activate Windows Now", and when we open the programs we use, the first thing you see is the splash screen displaying "Cracked by PerTician Cracker".

If you suspect pirated software is being used, you can report it either directly to the software publishers themselves, e.g., to Microsoft, or you can file a confidential report online with one of the various software industry trade groups, e.g., the BSA Software Alliance or The Software & Information Industry Association.  (SIIA offers rewards.)

Realistically, it's the publishers' responsibility¹ to protect their intellectual property, not yours.  So once you've made a report, I'd let the matter drop.  The publishers' attorneys will take it from there.  They know how to fix blatant cases like the one you describe.  Typically what they do is offer a carrot and a stick, the carrot being a very attractive "get well" price to replace all the pirated software with legitimate copies, and the stick being the threat of a lawsuit.  The objective isn't always so much about getting paid for software previously pirated as it is about turning pirates into paying customers, changing their practices to ensure they always buy legitimate copies in the future.

¹ “It is the responsibility of the rights' holders to register, protect, and enforce their rights.”


Is it OK to mention a two-body problem during a tenure-track interview, if getting the job would actually resolve the problem? I'm having an upcoming phone interview for a tenure-track position and I expect that I will be asked the usual "Why would you want to work here?" question. Apart from reasons relating to the research competency and culture of the university, a major reason for me would be that moving to that institution would essentially resolve an ongoing two body problem - not entirely, as my spouse is not working at said institution, but at a place close to it.

  Is it fine to mention this during the interview?

Currently I reside in Europe, whereas the institution is in the US. My reasoning is that telling them should make it clear that I would indeed be serious to move there.

There are really two ways people can take this:

"If we extend this person an offer, he will actually accept." This is what you are hoping for. This can be good, especially if you are "too good" for the place you are applying to, where people might wonder why exactly someone with better prospects would choose to apply at a lower rate institution. Then again, it can backfire - if the institution assumes you would accept their offer for unrelated reasons, they might be less generous in the package they offer (pay & perks).
"So... he only applies here because of his spouse?" This would be bad, or at least suboptimal. People might wonder whether you are really committed to working there. If choosing between two candidates whose portfolios both match what the institution is looking for, people might lean more towards someone who doesn't "need" his spouse working close by to apply.

I subjectively believe people will more often have reaction 1 than 2. So this argues for disclosing your motivation. Then again, note how this can reduce your possibilities in negotiation.

To be honest, I'd try to wow people with your experience, portfolio and all-around wonderfulness and keep this aspect below wraps. Unless people ask point-blank: "Would you really relocate from Europe to the US?" But that would likely come up later in the application process than in the initial remote interview.

I looked through Workplace but didn't find anything related. You may want to think about flagging your question for migration there - after all, similar considerations would also pop up for non-academic job seekers.


When does the co-authorship line end for a PI's data As I understand it, in the engineering field, the person who has research money and/or a project that leads to the collection of data, is put on research papers that directly use that data.  I guess the most common of this is for PHD students whose advisors funding or project is the reason they have data.

I am curious about when this ends in regards to collaboration.  If one person gets a project and funding and collaborates with a different lab/department/professor/researcher and through this, gives a portion of the funding to that person or place, what is the convention for authorship?  Does the PI of the project go on all papers that use the data, or only papers they directly do with their own staff/students?

The German research foundation (DFG) has some guidelines on authorship for research publications (including an English translation towards the end) which put specific criteria for being named as an author. Among others, it says that those "who have made significant contributions to the conception of studies or experiments" should be listed as authors.

In my understanding, getting funding for a project requires describing the conception of the data collection in quite some detail, so anybody who contributed to that part of the proposal should be included as an author of the resulting publication. Importantly, the criterium is not having brought in the money, but having contributed (significantly) to the conception of the study.

The only exception to that rule would be if the paper under discussion does not "publish" the data, but "uses" it in some other way and can include a citation to the original publication of the data.


Publication of review's comments on scientific papers? Personally I believe publication process is not optimized at all and is too wasteful. There are numerous problems associated with it, however, here I just point out one of those.
Due to formal presentation of papers, usually reading a scientific paper especially in field of science and engineering is time consuming. There are some points in the paper that only a specialist of that very field would notice. This is why the journal editors assign reviewers to judge the paper quality. Usually these expert reviewers would see insightful points on the paper, which would take a newbie months to notice.
Having said that

I wonder why the publication does not provide review comments alongside the paper? does it harm anything?
Would be OK if we ask the editor for the comments of an specific paper? if yes, how?

I think it would be a good idea for publishers to publish reviewer comments of papers as well, they can even make more money and reading and understanding papers would be easier.

It would probably harm the reviewing process itself as it stands at the moment. Many reviewers only agree to review, because they can be anonymous and their comments are confidential. I therefore do not believe, that any editor of a traditional journal would give you access to the reviewer comments on a paper, however you ask.

Having said that, there are some recent developments in some journals, which I appreciate a lot, and which go in that direction:

Copernicus Publications is promoting an open review process. All manuscripts are published in a discussions version (pre-review), and reviewer comments are published and archived together with the article (and can always be referred to from the finally published paper).
Frontiers is promoting non-anaonymous reviews. The reviewers are mentioned by name on the title page of each article. In my opinion, this increases the quality and objectivity of reviews a lot.
There is always the possibility to publish additional reviews after publication on post-publication peer review sites, like PubPeer. Those can help you to find errors in already published articles, which may have evaded the original manuscript reviewers.


Are non-mandatory sensitivity trainings mandatory? This is probably a very USA-specific question:  My university is implementing a new sensitivity training framework.  This is so new that no information about it can be found in faculty handbook, school website, or anywhere I tried. This framework appears to be completely independent from colleges or the senate. I am one of the lucky few to be "invited" to join the training.
The invitation letter stated that such trainings are not mandatory, but in light of a recent "incidents" such trainings will of great value to me. My chair and dean all said these are optional yet they strongly implied that I should just go with it ("There's no reason to cause trouble").
I don't yet have tenure. So for me, in the current climate, is not mandatory a code phrase for mandatory?

I just read a couple of your posts about how you interact with your students. Sensitivity training isn't optional. The people who will be voting on your tenure think you have a problem. Frankly, I agree with them.


Generating a connection of researchers graph out of DBLP I'd like to know the connection of researchers. Similar to the connection of LinkedIn. In the field of computer science, the DBLP database seems to be useful. Does anyone know a tool to generate a FoaF graph out of DBLP data and a FoaF (Friend of a Friend) graph rendering tool?

Microsoft Academic Research can do something similar for you, you just need to have Sliverlight plugin installed in your browser. Search for the first author, click on it's name (orange background), click "Geanology Graph", Click "Co-author Graph", enter the name of the other person on the right and press enter.


Application form for lecturer position provides a template for an academic resume, should I follow that? I am trying to apply for a Lecturer job in another country; I noticed that they're asking for an academic resume and they provided a template as well. Here is what they said:

You should provide attachments, including your academic CV and details of research, publications and grants if not already covered (an Academic CV template is available here).

Here is the issue: the template has sections of stuff I didn't do or don't have. Since I completed my PhD in another country, we have different "evaluation metrics". For instance, in my country (3rd world country), it's pretty hard to find funding for your research, and most students do a PhD with no funding (my case). I do however have experience in preparing project proposals to get funding, but I never got funding. So, I don't know what to write in the "Research grants and contracts" section.
So my question is: is it a good idea to use my own template? The template they're providing is pretty detailed and they're asking for specific sections, such as contribution to the department, contribution to the faculty, contribution to the university and to enterprise. A resume is not an official document, meaning that the candidate makes his own resume and not some institution, am I right?
Update:
I want to thank all those who took the time to comment and answer my question.
I emailed the university and they said I can use my own template.
I want to clarify that the resume I have now (and I am using to apply for other opportunities) is not a representation of my lack of interest! I did re-format my resume a lot of times, in fact I used to prepare tailored resumes each time I apply (my field is cyber security and IA, so I did target vacancies that want a profile that unites the two fields, but I also applied for jobs that seeks individual skills). Before I apply, I always ask for external input from a professor in our lab about the resume I used. But I truly believe that it won't change a lot if another candidate has +5 years experience more than me and uses a generic format.
Even my supervisor noticed that and asked me to only use one, because according to her is "what's more important is the content of the resume and not how it looks". So, I prepared one standard resume that took me +3 hours!

There is nothing in the statement ``(an Academic CV template is available here)'' indicating this is a required format.  I would assume that most applicants would not use the template.
I suspect the template is there to help applicants.  Does it have a place for hobbies?  If not, probably you want to not list hobbies.  It does have a place for ``contributions to the university'' so be sure it is clear on your CV if you ever sat on a campus-wide committee or some such thing. Different cultures put in different things in a CV, but in this case you have a guide.
The fact that the template has separate sections for different types of service makes me suspect this is a generic format used for scholars at many ranks and many departments. There may be many sections any specific person would have blank.


Is just after your PhD a good time to switch your research area? I am finishing my PhD soon. The area in which I pursued my PhD is very challenging as I was only able to publish couple of papers even after spending many years. I want to switch into other research are due these reasons

to attract more students
to be comfortable to do research (along with teaching, I should be able to do research)

Even though I like the research I am doing right now, I seem to be isolated in my university. If ten students join my university for a PhD, hardly one student takes this area. My research area is not like machine learning or deep learning etc, so researchers of my domain are also not that much interested in my work.

The thing is I can work different research area but: Is this the right time? I am heading to a post-doc and learning a new area will probably take several months. Although my switch is not 180 degree, I am still worried.

This decision requires a fair amount of courage and planning. In short, yes, it is very much possible to switch your research area. Whether or not such a switch is successful depends on how well you plan it, and on the supportive nature of your future employers. You should be upfront with your postdoc advisor about your intention to switch. Because of the learning curve associated with the new area, expect a reasonable amount time (6 months or 1 year) before you can hope to produce research output in the new area. They should know this in case they are hiring you with the intention of fulfilling some funding obligations/deliverables in short time frames. My suggestion is to see if you could try to find a link betwee your current and intended area. If so, you could use this link as a bridge to move towards your new area, instead of all at once (which can be very overwhelming).


Should I worry that my bachelor's degree will be revoked because I only completed half my internship hours? This happened in 2016. In my college where I got my bachellor degree (no thesis required), one of the requirements to get that degree is to have 600 trainee hours at a company. The company send a letter to the college which states that I only worked for 300 hours as a trainee (which is correct).

However, Now I've just remembered that the college considerated the 300 hours as 600 hours. Should I worry that they will find out their mistake and revoke my bachelor degree?

I remember that I told the secretary that they were making a mistake but she didnt care and told me to go away.

You shouldn't worry about it. The general principal is that the dean of the college that signed your diploma felt you had met the requirements. It would be unusual to second guess that decision years after the fact without a compelling reason (like new evidence of fraud).

We've had a lot of questions about degree revocation recently. Everyone agrees that this is extremely rare, and almost non-existent when the student acted in good faith and the university deliberately issued the degree. It is difficult to imagine a mechanism where the university would even notice the discrepancy, much less care enough to pursue the matter.

By the way, I recently gave the opposite advice to a similar question. But the situations are a little different--in the other case, there was a question about whether the degree had been awarded, and why it was awarded. Your degree was issued according to the normal process.


Are there any fields that merges health and space science? Currently, I am an undergraduate majoring in biophysics and minoring in astrophysics. I've always had a deep passion for learning about the universe (especially the field of astrobiology) and I also have strong interests in "applied" biophysics.

Initially, I wanted to pursue higher education to do research in either astrophysics or astrobiology. After spending time in both physics and biology research, however, I realized that research was not what I am most passionate to pursue and I could not find a calling in that career, although I enjoy the subjects very much.

However, through my experience in research, I was introduced to and developed an interest in the field of medicine because of many reasons, but especially because it provides me an opportunity to apply my biophysics passion to work on "practical" things such as creating new medical technology.

My problem is that pursuing further studies towards medicine by going to medical school would almost completely isolate my passion for space. So, currently I am at a crossroad and do not know where to pursue my higher education.

I can't find much information on how I could possibly continue to pursue both passions, which is why I am writing to ask if anyone has any ideas if there are any fields or directions that would still allow me merge my two interests (medicine and astrobiology)?

Neither of these fields is my area, so I'll mention an orthogonal path: you could become an expert in something else (e.g., statistics, game theory, programming -- right now the hot thing is machine learning / deep learning, but who know where we'll be in 10+ years), then you can apply that toolkit to both space programs and biomedical programs (whether through a university or through scientific consulting). Of course, it's an uncertain path, particularly if there is no "something else" that you are also passionate about.


How to make CS conference standards clear to academics in other fields There have been a multitude of questions about the fact that in computer science and a couple adjacent fields, the standards conferences are held to is quite different than in most fields. CS conference papers in general are peer reviewed and count just as much as journal papers, the most prestigious venues in Theoretical CS are conferences, and it seems that CS poster presentations are assigned a higher credence than in most fields. These statements are very different than what you'd find in many other fields (political science, philosophy, physics, biology).

I work in an interdisciplinary field in industry adjacent to computer science, and some of my work is submitted to CS people and CS venues and other work is not. I don’t expect everyone reading my resume to know the differing standards, and it seems misleading to list, e.g., computer science and political science conferences next to each other.

I was thinking that on a CV/resume I might draw a distinction between “Peer Reviewed Conference Papers” and “Conference Papers,” but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions about how to best disambiguate this in contexts like writing a CV or grant application or whatever where you might not be able to just explain the difference and it matters that people understand.

Having been on a couple hiring panels for people like you - and indeed being in the same situation (for a long time my statement was that my two most prestigious publications were each recognized as a thing by exactly half of the people reading my CV), a couple suggestions:

Cover letters. It might be appropriate, in a cover letter, to call attention to conferences that are particularly prestigious and state that.
Reference letters. If you have authors on the CS side of things, ask them to push that expressly. Talk about how impressive your work is and what a big deal those conferences are. This is what I asked my letter writers to do. Regardless of field expectations, it's important to have your letter writers put your work in context.
If possible, try and find out who is reading things, and see if you need to do this kind of advocacy. For example, for an interdisciplinary hiring panel we had, we expressly included someone from each discipline so that they could provide context - because even though I know CS uses conferences as their major venue, I still can't distinguish between a great, good, and just okay conference.

I think it's appropriate to make the distinction in your CV as well - like the difference between submitted and invited talks, they are somewhat different animals.


What Math Courses are required for pursuing Economics Phd in US? I have completed the following mathematically inclined courses offered at LSE:

1) Mathematical Methods (Which includes Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus)

2) Elementary Statistical Theory

3) Principle of Econometrics

I am planning to apply for a Phd program to universities in the United States and I've read on some forums that taking challenging math courses might improve one's chances of getting in highly selective schools. So I was wondering if these courses along with usual Econ courses demonstrate would enough rigour to the admissions committee. I am asking this because I have a chance to specialize in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics in my final year and so if I'm missing some math courses, I might be able to cover them up by choosing this specialisation.

To answer the general question of how to find graduate admissions required or recommended coursework, you can typically visit target program admissions pages.

If there are official requirements, they will be listed in the prospective applicants section, providing you course types and expected credits/periods of knowledge. If they are recommendations, this gives you a guideline for what you should aim to complete.

For example, UMD asks for:

  In general, our admitted students have GPA's well above a "B" average, particularly in economics and mathematics; very high GRE's (particularly quantitative); math preparation that includes at a minimum three semesters of calculus, a semester of linear algebra, and a semester of differential equations;

I would assume that alternative similar classes, or classes above this level, are also accepted (verify with admissions department, as always).

If this list is not available online or you need help, calling the admissions department is a great way to get info as well. You can provide your list of current and potential mathematics courses and see if you're missing anything.


Is it possible for a research article to be informative and ground breaking without referencing any other work? This is a hypothetical question, but I am assuming that if there is a research field out there that has not been discovered, it will, in theory, be possible for an article to be written without containing any references.

The reason I ask this question is because I see that a good number of published articles seem to cite other works just to cite them and less often is it the case that the cited works add anything to the paper.

I know of exactly one peer-reviewed research paper with no references at all.

  Mark H. Overmars and Emo Welzl. The complexity of cutting paper.  Proceedings of the [First Annual] Symposium on Computational Geometry, 316–321, 1985.

Here is a screenshot of the references section:

According to Google Scholar, this paper has been cited 29 times.

So yes, it is possible, for the right value of "ground-breaking", but extremely rare.


I am starting an assistant professor job this fall. What do you recommend me to do during this summer before a tenure-clock starts? The school I will be working at is a low-ranked R1 university.

Some people said, "just enjoy and have fun right now. It would be the last time you would ever have such enough free time".

But others said, "You should do research as much as you can before the school starts because you would not have enough time to do research for the first year because you would be busy with teaching for the first time as an instructor. You should start thinking about writing grant proposals or turning your dissertation into peer-reviewed publications."

Both seem to sound right to me, but are actually very opposite suggestions.

What did you do before you started your tenure-track assistant professor job and after you graduated your PhD? What do you recommend me to do for this summer?

Take some time for you. If your dissertation is solid and ready to go...no time like the present to get started and get it published in a journal! As far as beginning a new research project - I think it depends on your area and your expectations for research (see below).

Since you are teaching, take a look at fall semesters teaching responsibilities. I found it important to take the summer to update my syllabus, review new textbooks, update my learning management system (e.g. canvas, blackboard), and even prepare some presentations and lesson plans. Then I took a look at my semester and blocked out a day or half a day every week to write, read, & research. I put deadlines for research conferences on the calendar and would back up however much time I needed to make sure the work was getting done. If you're mentoring undergraduate/graduate student research plan a weekly meeting with them and get it on the calendar. Then when the semester starts and the meeting requests start coming in, you already have your calendar ready to go.

I have a majority teaching appointment, so I spend a lot of time on teaching. We have a large graduate program so most of my research is co-published.

Once you get to campus, take advantage of meeting people in other programs and departments. Find others on campus who you might be able to collaborate with on a research project or grant. Find a mentor in your program! Even if it is not a formal mentor, just someone who you can visit with and talk to about what you are doing is a great help in getting settled. Meet with your department head and find out what your expectations for teaching and research are...for example at my institution, with my % of research, they recommend two research articles a year and grant applications. With my teaching % they want to see consistently "similar" or "high" student evaluations, teaching innovations, and improvements to courses based on student feedback.

I actually found my first year somewhat exciting. I was getting to teach courses that I enjoyed. I met people who had similar research interests and developed great collaborative projects and I found the best mentor around to help me navigate those first few years.

Best of luck!!


Are colored in-text citations against APA6? For my thesis I am required to follow the APA citation and reference style. I personally quite like having colored citations (typically blue; some journals do this) because they allow the reader to identify citations more easily and highlight the fact that they are linked to the reference list (clickable).

To give an example:

Is this against APA rules? I have not been able to find any information on this online at all. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I think this is answered in the APA style blog

  In short, since there's no rule governing the use of hyperlinks, take your audience and delivery method into account when deciding whether URLs should become active hyperlinks in your paper.

The blog deals with the traditional underlined blue text used by MS Word for hyperlinks. It suggests the formatting can be distracting, especially when printed on a black and white printer, and therefore advises against using formatted hyperlinks for documents that will be printed. The blog, however, does not rule out the possibility of formatted hyperlinks in documents to be printed and seems to endorse formatted hyperlinks for documents that will be read electronically.


Suggesting connection to one's own paper in a referee report When acting as a referee, I frequently find that some of my papers could be relevant to the paper I'm reviewing (let's say, in a tangential manner). Is it reasonable to suggest the author take a look at my paper, or should I avoid this at all costs due to the risk of revealing my identity and sounding that I'm shopping for a citation?

It happens quite often that as an expert asked to review a paper, your own work is relevant.  But you are right to be concerned that it might seem gratuitous.  So just like it is often the case that papers authored by any member of the Technical Program Committee (TPC) are held to a slightly higher bar at a conference than other papers, to try to avoid the appearance of nepotism, I try to recommend my own papers only if I'm really sure they deserve to be mentioned. Avoiding them at all costs would do a disservice to the publication because important work might be missed.

As an aside, I recently served on a TPC where I contemplated mentioning one of my papers and decided not to.  A different reviewer went to great lengths to point out why my work was relevant, and I'm 95% sure the authors would conclude incorrectly that I was the reviewer in question.  Meaning: just because you suggest a paper doesn't actually mean someone can be sure you're the one suggesting it!

You show a reasonable sense of caution in posing this question.  That is certainly all that is required.


Undergrad thesis supervisor rejected request for LOR - how will this look on grad apps? I haven't worked with my supervisor for long (~3 months now, 4 when apps are due), and she is well known in her field. I understand she has a reputation to uphold is honest in her letters from what I hear, so she really needs to get to know you before something like this.

I will be giving a lab talk on Nov 15 and submitting a research proposal and lit review on Nov 19, but sadly apps are due earliest by Dec 1. So, again, understandably, she told me she didn't feel prepared to judge me in a span of about 10 days (between when I submit and when apps are due), and that I should seek another prof.

Luckily, I'm working on another independent project and I've asked that supervisor (fingers crossed!); my other references are from (1) a 1.5-year work supervisor from when I was a research assistant and (2) a prof I worked with for a summer independent project.

How will it reflect on my Master's applications if I don't have a reference from my thesis supervisor? Is there anywhere I can explain the situation? Or, is there a possibility to request a delay in submission anywhere - and if this is the case, should I mention it to my prof or should I not persist?

It's generally a good idea to have at least one reference from a research supervisor. It's sounds like you have one, possibly two, such references, so that is no issue. Given that you've only worked with your current supervisor for a few months (and haven't even submitted your proposal yet), I don't think the lack of a letter from her will be suspicious.

In terms of the options you list:

As far as I know, getting extensions on grad school apps is not really done.
You could wait until the next cycle, but that seems extreme.
Rather, I would just proceed with your application as-is, clearly indicating that your primary research mentor was [the person who wrote your letter] and that you only recently started working with [the person who didn't].


What is "Oberwolfach style"? I've read the following in a description of a workshop:

  We have about 15 participants and seek an “Oberwolfach style” with a relatively low density of talks.

I couldn't find anything about this style in Internet. But I found out that there is The Mathematical Research Institute of Oberwolfach, and according to Wikipedia

  It organizes weekly workshops on diverse topics where mathematicians and scientists from all over the world come to do collaborative research.

But the sense of this “Oberwolfach style” is still vague to me.

This is indeed a reference to the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach (Oberwolfach Mathematics Research Institute), a conference center in the small German town of Oberwolfach.

The Institute has developed a rather idiosyncratic style of meetings.  The most common events are weeklong workshops on specific topics, whose participants are invited by the organizers.  Speakers are chosen from among the participants on just one or two days' notice.  The talks are indeed relatively "low density", perhaps 4 or 5 x 45-minute talks per day, so not all participants will give talks.  Long periods are left unscheduled to encourage informal discussion and collaboration.

The conference center is isolated and so most people don't leave the campus during the week.  Participants are housed and fed onsite and meals are communal.  As Aru says, there are also measures to "encourage" a more social atmosphere: seating is assigned and changes from meal to meal, and Internet access is not available in the guest rooms until 10pm or so (edit: Najib Idrissi's comment below suggests that this policy has changed).


How to move forward to PhD with failures in masters? I had BSc + MSc in IT without thesis from my native country "A".
I had an ambition to do PhD in CS.

So,

First, I got enrolled in MSc in CS program in a university "X" in a country "B". I left the program as it was math-intensive.

Second, I got enrolled in MEng in CSE program in a university "Y" in the same country "B". I left the program because I failed in consecutive semesters.

As it stands, I am weak in math, stats, and some other core CS subjects.

I am now planning to get enrolled in BSc in CS.

Would that be a wise decision?

What other options do I have?

Many people succeed after setbacks. But your current base from which to move forward isn't strong. Let me suggest two options.

The first is that you reevaluate your "need" to get a doctorate. What else do you enjoy doing for which your preparation is better and the path to success shorter. I don't suggest that is best for you, but worth thinking about.

But the other option is to take a long view. Figure out where you are weak - math, stats, and some core CS subjects. Figure out how to get the required knowledge in (most of) those and work on that, delaying but not abandoning a doctorate. Proving yourself there will help you move along, but it will also help you figure out if it is really right for you. If you wind up hating the study of the basics it will be hard to move to higher levels.

But a doctorate is about more than just those sorts of topics. It involves research and you don't indicate whether you have any experience there, so it is hard to guess whether your desire is realistic. That is, do you have a realistic picture of what a PhD graduate actually does to succeed. If you don't have a good picture of that, you need to get one before you spend a lot of time and effort trying to reach something you may not enjoy in the end.

(a) consider options, or (b) long path - long view.


Is it worth it for me to try at this point? Basically, I came into this university on a scholarship, doing their most prestigious undergraduate degree. For a variety of reasons including but not limited to depression and anxiety, I basically failed half my courses in my first year. Last semester, I took a 6 month break.

Right now, I have been kicked from that degree and have lost my scholarship, but I am really enjoying my schoolwork again. A lot of the problems that were plaguing me the past 1.5 years have been largely resolved. I have missed struggling with a difficult problem and/or the feeling I get when I finally understand something. Originally my passion was space and wanted to do something in that area (such as astrophysics). It was (maybe still is) a dream of mine to go into this field at a higher level after undergrad. When I came to university, I was ambitious and wanted to get into some Ivy League school for graduate school, or some top school for whichever field I chose.

I had lost that dream, but now I have found it again. I was wondering if it was worth pursuing and putting all my effort into it, or is it too late for me already with my terrible background?

I think this is a simple answer.

Stop thinking and start doing.

If you want a graduate degree at an Ivy League school and a successful academic career (perhaps even in the field of astrophysics), then pull your socks up, set definite, measurable and realistic goals and start achieving them. The path will not be easy but always remember that you are not the first and neither will you be the last.

Note that a graduate degree at an Ivy League school and a successful academic career are not necessarily mutually inclusive. To do one does not mean that you will do the other and neither does it mean that there is a causal relationship between the two.

Personal anecdote:

I had a rather forgettable start to my academic career as well. I recovered enough to get myself admitted to an "Ivy League" graduate program. I am still on my journey and I dare say the destination is years away. Not everyone is a rising star. Some folks are late bloomers.

I reiterate again. To achieve your dreams, just keep trying sincerely and honestly. It will happen in due time.


Lack of exposure to research I am a senior computer science student and I am working on my senior graduation project. My supervisor said that I should implement a job search web portal as a graduation project. But I want to make some research oriented project rather than raw coding. My supervisor insists on this because he won't have to spend time with me.

So I have decided to get involved in research myself without his help because he is not helping me. I had to register for his project class because other slots were full. He does not want to deal with students but due to school constraints he had to open this class.

I have never done research or I don't know what exactly it means. How do I start this myself ?

Firstly, note that, from my experience, your senior advisor isn't by any means a research advisor. What you're looking for, admirable as it may be, is a good deal more than he's signed up to provide to students. I wouldn't be too hard on him.

If you want to simple familiarize yourself with "what research entails", I recommend simply talking to people. Ask any graduate student if you can meet them for coffee and just ask them what they do all day (other than surf the web and drink coffee). Search through the faculty profiles on your department's website, find someone who looks interesting, and send an email asking to meet with them for 15-30 minutes to talk about research as a career.

If you're more interested in actually doing research, all of the above still apply, but there are two more steps. First, talk to the undergraduate coordinator for your department and try to set up a research internship over the next semester/summer. Secondly, when you're talking to faculty whose research interests you, ask whether they'd be willing to take undergraduate researchers in their lab. Doing research with them, even if just for a few hours a week, will give you the exposure you need to really understand what research entails.


Registering systematic review in Prospero I have recently submitted a systematic review (SR) to a journal. One of the reviewers pointed out, that my SR was not registered in Prospero, an international prospective register of systematic reviews. While I agree it would have been of good practice to register my SR, my current understanding is that registration of SR is not yet mandatory¹.

How can I address this reviewer’s remark?

¹Booth A, Clarke M, Dooley G, et al. The nuts and bolts of PROSPERO: an international prospective register of systematic reviews. Systematic Reviews. 2012;1:2

First of all, If you don't think it's mandatory, and you don't want to do it, just say it's intentionnal.

Since, as you said in comments, this database is apparently used when you plan to undertake a SR, it would have no value for you to register in it, since you are already in SR.

But you may ask the reviewer why he got the urge for saying that , and if he thinks it would be interesting for you to register on it anyway.


How to handle being removed from a paper for (perhaps) unethical reasons? I was recently replaced in my role of analyzing data in a project by another person on the project. It's not clear that the person has the authority to do this. He is a resident in neurosurgery with no formal training in research.

This removal came nearly immediately after I communicated to him unequivocal null results that a colleague of mine confirmed. When I asked, he offered no explanation for this removal. He will replace me with a statistician who works for the device whose efficacy we were testing.

If I learn that he publishes observation on the current data set that completely contradict my findings, do I have an ethical duty to make this known?

This was a side project for me. My removal from it has no adverse professional impact for me. Nor do I think that speaking up will have an adverse impact for me, it may even not for him.

The story you tell certainly leaves off a certain fragrance. The key question seems to be whether or not you have been replaced in order to get more "friendly" results. It is clear that it is possible to have an opinion about how data should be analysed and that opinions may deviate. It is also possible to interpret results differently. But, all within reason. If your analysis is sound and provides a certain outcome while a new analysis provides the basis for a different there can be either a matter of academic disagreement or that one or the other is flawed. I cannot judge this of course.

Depending on which case you are facing the necessary, or possible, action would be to write a letter to the editor providing your analysis and view of the results to be published in the same journal, or to write the editor pointing at the error on the publication. In the latter, worse case, you of course need to be able to show without question that your view is correct and that the other is flawed (beyond just opinion). If the results are seriously flawed and may cause serious harm, the paper may even be retracted (see e.g. policy from Elsevier and examples from the New England Journal of Medicine).

So in short, the way forward depends on the seriousness of the flaw. An alternative option is of course to simply walk away and find better collaborators and more interesting vistas. But, if there are serious ethical problems you need to take action. Where you draw the line is not clear but usually a person with questionable behaviour has a history so you may be able to assess the over-all seriousness of the problem.


Why do reviews of articles often start with a summary of the article? In my field, peer reviewers often start their review with:

  This article reports on a study that did X, using Y, in the area of Z. It found ...

This seems like a waste of time and effort to me (and I never do it). Why is it done? To prove the reviewer has read the paper?

Reviews are communications to the editor, and an effective review tells the editor what the article is about (in that reviewer's opinion), using significantly fewer words than authors typically use. If an editor has to process a couple hundred submissions per year, it's not possible for him/her to carefully read every paper, so the editor will especially care if the reviewers agree on what the paper purports to show and whether the paper actually shows it.


Second revision, one of the reviewers said I should completely rewrite paper with new ideas and methods, because it is not innovative I have revised my initial manuscript with a major revision after the first decision. After long months of waiting, I received reviewing results with another major revision.
Two reviewers were completely satisfied with my revision and recommended acceptance.
One, possibly, new reviewer suggested some improvements but didn't question the novelty of this manuscript.
And one reviewer from the previous round said that this manuscript lacks novelty and should be completely revised with new ideas, questions and methods. I don't understand how it's even possible to do that without a completely new, written from scratch, manuscript. Also, we have a comparative literature review and listing what is the novelty in the Introduction and we have comparative numerical experiments in the Simulation section. I don't know if this reviewer advised rejecting because major revision looks impossible.
Please, advise on how best to deal with this situation

Based on your comment, I understand that the reviewer doubts the novelty of your work, without specifying details (previous works achieving the same or something very similar as your work).

This kind of feedback is essentially worthless, and should not influence the decision on your paper (if it's a sane editor).

I recommend the following strategy: Systematically address all other reviewer feedback and, based on your revisions, write a strong author response letter. Regarding the criticism of novelty, include a response among the following lines in your response letter:

  To our knowledge, our work is the first to achieve X. We discuss the novelty of our work in comparison to related work in section Y of the paper. We would appreciate any pointers to additional works which should be considered in our discussion.


Do graduate schools increase assistantship stipends if the student is accompanied by a spouse or dependent? Usually a TA stipend is only given to cover the expenses of a single student. I have received a stipend of about $19000 for 2 semesters (9 months) and a summer fellowship ($4000). Is it appropriate to ask for an increase even before I go to graduate school as I have to fund my spouse (I am an international student)? Or is it better to work for a semester or two, perform well, build a case and then ask for an increase?

No, the stipends are set according to uniform rules for the department.  You will not get extra if you have to support a family, although there are probably other, non-financial, supports that the university will offer your dependents (such as married student housing).  Moreover, TA pay is not typically subject to merit-based raises either.  You will not get a raise by asking for one; your stipend may go up slightly when you reach a major milestone (such as qualifying for the Ph.D. program), but mostly it will rise at the same rate as all the other TA's.


What do AHRS, EHRS, QHRS mean on a transcript? What do the abbreviations AHRS, EHRS, and QHRS mean on a transcript?

My guess would be:

AHRS = "all hours"
EHRS = "earned hours"
QHRS = "quality(?) hours"

What are the differences between these things?

Attempted Hours
Earned Hours
Quality Hours

Source


How best to present long equations in two-column papers? How best to present long equations in two-column papers?

I've tried splitting them in two or more lines along operators, but that still looks a bit weird to me, especially when parentheses have to be carried along across the lines. Also, I've considered stretching them across both columns, but that seems only an acceptable solution if the equation is of outstanding importance, e.g. the final result and not some middle section of a proof.

When I have had occasion to deal with obnoxiously large equations, I find that there are four strategies that do well for me.  In order of readability, they are:

Shrink the font: if you are allowed (any many venues do allow this), you can usually shrink the font on an equation a few points without affecting readability.
Map separable terms of the equation to new variables, which can be given their own independent definition lines.  This can really help readability in a complex equation as well.

--- The line of desperation ---

Break the equation across two lines: this works up to about 1.6 lines worth of smaller-font equation.  When combined with adjusting font size, you can often adjust where the break occurs to make it look reasonable.
Move the equations to a full-width figure, where you can play all of the same games.


Journals with fast response? Are there any other impact factor journals for electrical, electronics, communication engineering (or multi-disciplinary) with a very fast response like mdpi journals? I know it is not wise to ask for a fast response as it is normal for the process to take some time. However, I am in a situation where it is very important for me to get a publication in the next 1-2 months.

You can look at https://scirev.org/ , where people can submit there experience with different journals. Quite a few are missing (in my field) but a lot are there.

A nice feature is that you can look by field / subfield and have all the things summarized in a table.
If you look at electrical engineering there is a surprising number of them with fast turnover and considered as "good" by the people who submitted there.


Will I get a negative LOR from my professor I have recently asked my professor to write a LOR for my taught master program application. We are not so familiar with each other, but at least I have attended one course of him (got A grade) while my final year project literature review was also supervised by him (luckily A grade also). Originally it went quite well, the prof said yes to be my referee. But then it turned out like the application system is super weird, the LOR submission can be done by the applicant itself (simply uploading the signed LOR) or the referee can email the LOR directly to the uni. When I told my prof, he replied me like

'I have never given students LOR and I don't believe in any application handed in by applicants, so I will email the letter directly to the uni'

I am now so scared of getting him angry. Will I give him a bad image,turning out write me a negative LOR. Shld I find another referee in case somethings goes wrong at last?

I don't think that there should be any issue. Your professor is right - most LORs are submitted directly by the referee to the university (to avoid the risk of falsified references). I would thank the professor again, say something like "yes, I thought that it's kinda weird that the system asked me to submit the reference. It makes much more sense that you do it" (putting you and the professor on the same page, while placing the blame on the system rather than on yourself).

Generally speaking, it would be good to have a few referees to rely on, but I don't think that this incident "burned" one of your referees.

Good luck!


Is it normal for a PhD advisor not to read a student's thesis? I am scheduled to defend my thesis in February.  I've been sending my advisor bits and pieces of my thesis, but he hasn't been replying to my emails.  Is this normal, and can I still graduate even if he doesn't read my thesis?

All of the papers in the thesis have already been written, so he knows what's in the main body, and I've just been sending him parts of the introduction/literature review.

"All of the papers in the thesis have already been written, so he knows what's in the main body, and I've just been sending him parts of the introduction/literature review."

If this is the case, then indeed it is reasonable (and possibly normal) not to read evolving drafts of the "thesis". Since the thesis is basically done, and now you simply wrap the papers up to have a "thesis".

I don't think it is essential for scholars to read carefully introductory parts of their students' dissertations, assuming they already read the papers on which the thesis is based. The papers are much more important than a "thesis", which is mostly an internal document nowadays (this is subject specific though, and I'm sure some commenters here would find my answer blasphemous. But I stand behind my position: a thesis is not something important once the papers were written and published or checked).


Timely review process by reviewers As a guest editor of an international journal, I was supposed to handle the review process of submitted articles. Two of the reviewers do not respond even after sending couple of reminders. I had clearly mentioned about their availability and timely review process at the beginning. I aware that the reviewers are often very busy with their academic overload. Thus, it is very common about the delay. However, from editor's point of view, it has to be make sure about timely review process. So, it is ethically right to ignore the reviewers and search/assign new set of reviewers?

I have also found that some reviewers do not respond after the 2nd time submissions for a paper suggested for resubmission. Thus I have faced the similar issues with different prospect.

I disagree slightly with Peter Jansson's answer, which says that you should only search for new reviewers if the ones that you have assigned fail to produce.  In my experience, there is a decent chance that at least one of your reviewers will fail to produce a review in a timely fashion, so it is better to plan in advance.

As such, I strongly recommend recruiting slightly more reviewers than are needed for a paper to receive proper review.  For example, if a journal requires three reviewers, then you can recruit four.  Invite even more than that initially, since it is virtually certain some of the reviewers you initially invite will decline or fail to respond.  If, by some chance, all of the reviewers return in a timely fashion, then it's generally not a problem for the authors to get some extra feedback.

Further, never tell a reviewer that you don't need their services until you've got enough reviews to make a decision on a paper.  I've had the experience where a newly recruited reviewer fails while a long-delayed reviewer eventually actually turns up with a review.  If you dismiss the "presumed failed" reviewer before you've got sufficient reviews in hand, you cut off the possibility of such nice surprises.


Citing a research article coming from a journal you suspect to be predatory I'm working on a review of literature for a research proposal.  What's one good way of vetting journal articles given that there are predatory journals about?  Is the existence of a DOI enough to rule out the possibility a research article was published in a predatory journal?

No, a DOI is not enough. DOIs are cheap, and many journals of questionable quality have them, or at least pretend to have them.

There used to be a somewhat reliable index of predatory journals (Beall's list), but it has been shut down. Nowadays, the best way to determine whether a journal is real or not is through experienced colleagues. Talk to your advisor or another person with substantial experience in the field of research, and ask them if they know this journal and its publisher, and whether they are trustworthy. If they have never heard of the journal or the publisher, you can safely assume that you don't want to submit. However, beware - some questionable publishers have taken to generating journals with names that are (presumably intentionally) very similar to well-known reputable conferences and journals. So make sure that you are indeed talking about the same journal, not just one that happens to have (almost) the same title.

Some red flags that allow you to identify predatory publishers:

You either can't find previous issues of the journal, or the papers previously published there are largely of very bad quality.
You submitted to the journal, and quickly receive an accept without any reviews (in this case withdraw immediately).

Some yellow flags that are also very common, but not necessarily surefire ways to identify predatory publishers:

The website of the journal is hard to find and visually extremely unprofessional.
The journal prominently advertises quick review.
The journal prominently advertises "being indexed in Google Scholar", or there are vague formulations such as "will be submitted to ACM DL" rather than a clear commitment where the paper will ultimately be listed.
You have been invited to submit to this journal, although the topic of the journal is comically outside of your expertise.
You have been invited to submit an "extension" of some previous paper of yours to this journal, with no clear indication why.
You have never heard of the members of the editorial board of the journal, or the editorial board contains some prominent members which don't indicate on their own website being involved with this journal.


Is it ethical to request additional money for non-research related work in a research lab as a grad student? I work in a computational research lab as a graduate research assistant. We're all funded under various grants to do research in our field and we are also working on a thesis, which may or may not be directly related to the funding source (it is if we are lucky!)

Our lab is also licensing the software we write to outside companies for their own in-house use. As a result, there are many "niceties" that should be added to the code to make it more user-friendly, but these have no bearing on our research, either the sponsor-funded or thesis-related.

Is it okay that we are expected to implement these things in addition to our funded/thesis related work? Is it acceptable to ask for additional money (assuming work done on this is in addition to funded/thesis work)?

Our advisor is considering hiring an outside company to come in and put in these features, but we would be expected to help them through the process of learning and understanding our code so it would be nice to cut out the middle man since we certainly won't get any extra money from advising the consultants.

From one perspective, adding these niceties to the software increases the likelihood that the software will be used and thereby increases the impact of your research. So although these niceties are not research per se, they help achieve the goals of doing research (at least from a funding agency's perspective), namely making an impact. Such tasks are often a necessary part of the research process (and someone has to do them).

Whether or not it is ethical to ask for additional money to hire people to do this very much depends on the rules of the funding agency and how well your advisor is at selling and justifying the idea to the agency.


How to identify studies that should be replicated? In psychology voting on which studies should be replicated is established on a website. The ReplicationWiki (that I founded) offers a voting option for studies in economics and related fields, but it is not yet used much. I already saw a couple of questions on specific papers here in the academia stack, in the cross validated stack (c1, c2, c3), and in the quantitative finance stack, and added the studies to the wiki and a link to questions here (1, 2, 3, c1, c2, c3, quant).

There are many other places where such questions on replication of specific studies can be found, e.g., in the forums for specialized software (d). To get further suggestions I would like to know if you have already replicated studies yourself or with your students. What would you think would be a mechanism that motivates to share such experience and help to identify the studies that should be replicated? And the replications that are already available somewhere but not yet listed in the wiki? Where would be the right place to ask?

If I was going to look into replicating a study, I would look for one that satisfies some mixture of these two ideas:

Is there something to gain from the replication? Do I find the original study/results important? Would a replication add to the field? Have I ever wished someone would replicate this?
Is there reason to believe something would be different? Do I think their conclusions are wrong? Or could I generalize the original result by changing something?

For example, there is a paper that I heavily cite in my work but it is getting relatively old (software engineering does change with time, I think!) so I have wished someone would replicate it. It isn't possible for me to replicate it completely but regardless of the result, I think it would help the research community.

Note: This is coming my from perspective in a field that doesn't particularly value replications (unlike medicine and psychology).


Masters in computer science vs masters in cyber security I recently graduated with a degree in computer science and really enjoyed it. However in my last semester I took a cyber security elective class and found it very interesting, especially with the things going on in the world in reference to cyber security. I'm currently working full time and am strongly considering going back to school in the fall (I'd only be out of school one semester between undergrad and grad school) I would continue to work because they have a great tuition reimbursement program.

My question is, I really enjoy and find cyber security interesting, but I feel it's somewhat limiting myself to the cyber security field if I get a master's in that. I know I could still work in other computing areas and use what I learn in those areas, but I would kind of feel like I wasted my time if I'm not using my knowledge on a regular basis.

On the other hand, the university I'd be applying to has a cyber security concentration in the computer science master's program, but it's only about 1/3rd as many classes as the cyber security program. This way I'd have a competency in cyber security, but the program would allow me to have other roles and jobs, and I'd feel like I was still using what I learned.

I'm not planning on going for a PhD (not any time in the next decade or two at least) and have no real experience in security except for the class I took my last semester.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

I've been working in the field of software security for over 4 years and had multiple interactions with security analysts working in cyber security labs. From their collective opinion, a computer science degree is just as effective as a more "specialist" cyber security degree. This is because they both have roughly the same CS foundation and the few extra security-oriented classes won't make a huge difference after 1-2 years of industry experience. In fact, I have encountered multiple CS graduates who are more successfull in the security industry than the cyber security graduates. This is of course, anecdotal.


How to cite large projects Related to my work is a large project, with many publication. There is not a single recent publication that is particularly related to my work, and most of the publications have a particular focus on some aspect of that project that is less related.

What is the best way to reference that project’s work in general?

As my advisor advised against citing something too old, my current approach is to pick the latest entry on their publication list that roughly covers the project as a whole. In this case, it is the invited talk at a large conference, so I am not sure if it is the best choice.

If you care about the details: The field is computer science, and I want to reference the CompCert project (publication list).

pick the latest entry on their publication list that roughly covers
  the project as a whole

This sounds like the best you can do in this situation. You should clarify that you are referring to the project as a whole, e.g., by writing:

  ... as found by the CompCert project (e.g., Foo & Bar, 2012; see also http://compcert.inria.fr)...

The "e.g." clarifies that this is an example publication. I like xLeitix' suggestion of citing the project website.

In this particular instance, I notice that there are no publications after 2012, so it seems like the project is finished, is it? In such cases, people might have a capstone publication "The CompCert project: overview, lessons learned and the way forward" that you could cite - which of course won't help you if the project is still ongoing.

Finally, you could of course contact the project's principal investigators and ask them how they would like the project to be cited. It would be a good idea to put such a piece of information somewhere prominent on the project website.


Can I submit the same article, which is written in two different languages, to two different journals simultaneously? I have written an article in Persian and then translated it into English. Is it possible to send them to two different journals (one in Iran and the other one in Belgium)?

Yes, this is a problem. You should not submit the same work to more than one journal at a time. This applies regardless of language - merely being in a different language does not make the actual work unique.

Further, consider some practical considerations - a simultaneous submission means that you'll have to go through peer-review for both papers and (assuming you don't get caught and summarily rejected) presumably have to make some changes. What if the changes don't align? Now you don't have two translations of the same paper, but two subtly different papers in two languages.

If you're genuinely interested in making your paper more accessible, either post a translation online, or wait until one paper is accepted and then approach a journal in the other language about posting a translation.


Best word/phrase for peer-reviewing service I am a PC member and reviewer for a few conferences. I would like to list these services on my CV. However, I am not sure what would be a good title word for it?

Community Service??

Academic Service??

Just plain Service sound incomplete

Please suggest.

At my institution, the standard term is professional service, i.e. service to your profession.

"Community service" would be something like volunteering your skills for a local charity, so that doesn't fit.  "Academic service" seems reasonable but I haven't heard it before.


How to list the second edition of a book If an author has published a second edition of a book and he is in his earlier career stage as a mathematician, how do you recommend to include this second edition into the list of publications appearing e.g. in the CV? For example, should it be mentioned at all? Should it replace the first edition? Should both editions be listed, in particular when the second edition is a massive revision and 20 pages longer?

Normally you would just give the bibliographic information for the most recent edition.  If you feel it's important to say when you first wrote it, you could add a parenthetical like (First edition published in 1987).

If the book was originally written by someone else, and you joined as a co-author on a later edition, then include a note like (Co-author for editions 5 and later).

This would be the same regardless of what stage of your career you are at, and as far as I know it would be the same in any field.


How to validate scientific ideas outside the academia? Long story short, I have some ideas regarding the field of psychology and I looking into ways to validate them with people with experience.

Options I see:

Submit a paper and wait feedback from a journal. I understand the hurdles that come with this option. I'm wondering if this is totally unrealistic for non statistics based psychology.
Contact people in the academia. I'm not sure If anyone would even listen. Moreover, I am not very familiar with the jargon and I can't quite communicate my ideas in a casual conversation.
Write a book. This is definitely a non-scientific approach but may be more feasible considering how revolutionizing was Eric Ries and Lean Startup in the field of management.

I appreciate deeply any insights, personal experiences or comments.

First, I am not from the field of psychology, but I assume that the research rules are equally applied to all fields.

A general comment: any idea you think that it is new -in any research area-, it is more likely to collide with the fact that it has already been explored and patented -if you have a small experience in the field of course-.

Validating your idea does not necessitate a direct involvement in academia. However, it is important to know the academic process, that consists of:

Reviewing the state-of-the-art sufficiently. This means, reading the recently published papers (mainly from reputed journals and proceedings) and books by using specific search engines (e.g. google scholar) and references/cited-by of the publications you know. Please be aware that key-words might be different across different communities.
If you are not directly involved in research, you may contact researchers interested in your topic and idea. Btw. your assumption that they wouldn't even listen is wrong. Researchers and academics (regardless of their research area) are always open to new ideas. We (a CS research group) do this all the time, where we discuss with companies and individuals about new ideas and collaborations.
If you don't prefer contacting research groups and labs or you don't get an answer for any reason (which I don't it would happen), you can write the paper by yourself following what you have learnt in reviewing similar works (you can also check tutorial how to write a good paper). You will need to follow the journal or conference instructions (e.g. number of pages, etc). You then submit the paper and wait a couple of months to get the first decision.

Now regarding your assumption:

  Write a book. This is definitely a non-scientific approach ....

It is incorrect if you aim to publish a scientific book. Generally, good publishers won't easily publish the work of unknown authors unless they publish it in a series which requires the acceptation of its editor. Here also, the work has to be proved by the editor to has the chance to be published.


What is the best way to archive all references in phd? As a phd student, I am in phase 0 of my research and I download many papers everyday. I have archived the names and the specifications of the papers in a spreadsheet, but that does not really help.

How can have I an efficient interactive archive/database of all the papers I download every day?

Absolutely begin using a reference management software.  If you're planning on writing in LaTeX (which you will if you're in many sciences and engineering fields), something that manages Bibtex files is essential.  I tried several more sophisticated programs like Papers (which is made to work like iTunes) and Mendeley, but I now use a very simple program called Jabref.  Now when I get a new paper, I go to Google scholar, copy-paste their Bibtex entry (they have one for pretty much every published paper) into my master Bibtex file.  Then when I'm working a separate project, I start a smaller Bibtex and copy references over when needed.  Personally, I didn't like programs that tried to offer an "all-in-one" experience with built-in PDF reader, file management, etc.

My other tip is to name your files in a logical manner to make local search easier.  I use "First few words of title First Author Year"  E.g. "Stochastic Relaxation Gibbs Distributions Geman 1984"