Aside from working on a manuscript, what activities can help improve scientific writing skills? I have been out of school for 5 years.  My previous writing experience was nearly 10 years ago as I completed a  BA in  18th century literature of a foreign language, and  a BA in cultural anthropology.  I've changed field for my masters degree and I am currently working on a PhD  in a biomedical/population health science.  This year I have struggled through most of the program because of the writing. One issue I've had is that qualities I once considered as strengths are bringing on my demise. The  eloquent communication, pungent analysis and metaphorical language are no longer strengths and succinctness is not part of my style ( I actually don't know how to be brief).  My mother tongue is a romance language, which may to some degree  speak to my style of communication (but this is only an excuse). An honest self-assessment has shown me that when making a point I always resort to using an allegory to build suspense or just provide clear contextual knowledge to my audience.

My issues is this,  in scientific writing manuscripts are often limited to 3500 words and providing long thought-provoking expository narratives translates into a ramble or in the worse  case, it appears that I am just spilling out information to it's legitimize myself in the eyes of the audience.

Short of taking a technical writing course, I am trying to work on these issues on my own over the summer. My plan so far is to write  a 500-words weekly blog post (NYTimes editorial style) on an issue in my field  and to conduct as many critical appraisals of articles  I review in preparation of  a literature review I am working on as a way to familiarize myself with technical writing  style for scientific publications.

I don't know if this is the best route, and would like to hear your suggestions on how to proceed. What type of activities and deliverables do you think would help me work on honing technical writing skills, aside from working on a manuscript? What reference books/websites have you used in the past to help you improve technical scientific writing for academia?

First, don't be too hard on yourself. There are many scientists who struggle to write clearly and concisely. Additionally, some of your writing skills may be hidden strengths. For instance, being able to communicate complex scientific ideas to your readers through allegories can be very valuable.

Still, there are certain activities and resources that can be helpful. The following are standard texts in my graduate program for improving writing skills:

Gopen, G. D. (2004). The sense of structure: writing from the
reader's perspective. Longman.
Gopen, G. D. (2004). Expectations: Teaching writing from a reader's
perspective. Pearson Longman.
Gopen, G. D., & Swan, J. A. (1990). The science of scientific
writing. American Scientist,78(6), 550-558.
Silvia, P. J. (2007). How to write a lot: A practical guide to
productive academic writing. American Psychological Association.
Zeiger, M. (2000). Essentials of writing biomedical research papers -
2nd Edition. McGraw-Hill.

I attended one of Gopen's writing seminars on my campus several years ago and found it to be very helpful. It made me radically re-think how I organize my writing and has helped me streamline my papers. His "The sense of structure" is an excellent starting text, while "Expectations" provides more supplemental information. Gopen & Swan (1990) will give you a nice overview of his technique. Silvia's book is given to all students when they enter the program. It's short, well-written, and covers not only writing well, but writing efficiently. Zeiger's book, like Gopen's, is more about the mechanics of writing and will help you clarify and shorten your writing.

In addition to these texts, I've found three techniques that have improved my writing.

"Kill your darlings"

Start by writing your initial draft of a paper in whatever style seems most fluid for you. Don't worry about reducing your length or verbosity at this point; that will probably hinder your flow of thought and slow the writing process. Once you've written the first draft you can worry about cutting for length and clarity. Next, take that first, raw, overly-expository draft of your paper and cut it by 20% of its length. I prefer to do this by word count, but you can do it by page length. Let it sit for a day or two, then cut the second draft by 20% of its current length. You can continue this exercise until you hit a roadblock and feel you can cut no more, but I usually go through at least three cycles. At this point, if you are able, give the paper to a close friend or classmate and ask them to cut 20%. Often, they aren't as married to certain phrasings and they are able to do this readily! Granted, 20% is an arbitrary number, but the point is to learn how to reduce the volume of your writing gradually. Overtime you'll be surprised how much more natural this will become. A quick google search can provide you with examples of common words and phrases that are generally unnecessary in writing, providing you with a starting point for this task.

Keep a "Look Book" of well-written articles

I have a folder on my computer where I keep articles or pieces of writing that are particularly well-written. These are often instances where complex ideas were explained clearly and succinctly. I especially earmark any examples that pertain directly to my area of study. When I feel stuck writing a particular section or paragraph, I look back at these examples for inspiration.

Write using active voice

This suggestion is a bit contentious. Traditionally, scientific students have been encouraged to write in the passive voice, and some faculty and journals still require this convention. In recent years, the scientific community has begun to acknowledge the benefits of writing in an active voice (Hudson, 2013). Active voice is generally clearer and is often more concise. If your program will allow it, this can be an effective way to reduce the complexity of your writing while maintaining your meaning.

Additional Citations

Hudson, R. (2013). The Struggle with Voice in Scientific Writing.
Journal of Chemical Education, 90(12), 1580-1580.
Wickman, Forrest. (2013). Who really said you should "kill your
darlings"? Retrieved from:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/10/18/_kill_your_darlings_writing_advice_what_writer_really_said_to_murder_your.html


Personal repercussions for those who actively ignore review requests? A colleague recently submitted an article to a reputable journal. The article went to 6 reviewers, one of which completed the review and the other 5 of which completely ignored the request. The ignored requests were not declined, they were ignored such that 3 weeks passed and the requests finally timed out in the system before new review requests were sent out by the editor.

To me, it seems unethical to ignore a request rather than to decline to review. Under a decline, the article can immediately go to new reviewers. Under an ignore, it must time out.

I realize that it is possible that all 5 ignores were passive ignores, where the ignoring person never even saw the request for whatever reason. However, let's assume that the requests were actively ignored. That is, each person saw the request and chose to ignore it.

This anecdote brings up the following hypothetical questions:

Putting aside the important fact that peer review is what keeps the scientific community running, are there any short term repercussions for those that ignore requests? For instance, if one of the reviewers who ignored my colleague's request were to submit an article today to the same journal and it were put on the same editor's desk, would there typically be any bias against it? Should there be?
If there are repercussions, will they depend on how well established the ignoring person is in their field?
What fraction of ignores are active ignores?

It seems this editor has a problem with their workflow of inviting reviewers, a very common problem:

The editor is recruiting reviewers via "opt-out" when "opt-in" would be more appropriate.

If the reviewers were asked to indicate willingness to perform a review prior to actually doing the review, then the editor could detect "ignores" of both types and find willing reviewers much more quickly.  Consequences for agreeing to perform a review and then not submitting a timely report would be appropriate.

But there is nothing unethical about ignoring a review request.  The potential reviewer is under no obligation to take any action at the behest of the editor -- it is fully reasonable to treat unsolicited requests as spam.  And it would be unethical for the editor to take any negative action against the unresponsive potential reviewer who has never accepted the task in the first place.

Of course, the story is different for reviewers who have agreed in advance to performing a certain number of reviews.  But the workflow should still be based on positive acknowledgement that the materials for review are received.  The only difference is the editor's action subsequent to not hearing back -- in case the reviewer has previously committed to accepting a certain number of review tasks per year, then the editor can try a different contact method instead of assigning a different reviewer.

The bottom line is that opt-out sucks.


Would it be better for Ph.D. graduate school admissions to compress my undergraduate years for a Master's Degree? I would like to go to a strong graduate school. Currently I have a somewhat high GPA at about 3.8. However, there is a program at my university where we can spend an extra year to obtain a Master's Degree.

I initially intended on spreading my workload and graduate on time by taking about 3 classes per semester. Would it better for me to take 4 classes per semester and graduate about half a semester late with a Master's degree? Currently, the workload is very hard, so I know my GPA will drop a lot, maybe 0.3 points or more if I take 4 classes.

I would like to attend a strong graduate school in Electrical engineering, so which choice would be more suitable?

There is no rush.

Admissions won't give you bonus points for finishing early, so you're having to compete with people who took more time on the same amount of classes.

From my personal experience, I rushed and completed my undergrad a year early and my masters a semester early, but it didn't gain me much. In fact, my GPA took a beating.

Also, I wouldn't call it late if you're completing the masters in one additional semester, that would still be one semester early since it sounds like a 5 year program (4 + 1).

If you want the best chances of getting into a top school: take your time. Either graduate with your bachelors or spend the two additional semesters getting your masters while attempting to get good letters, some research experience, and maybe even a publication. Trying to rush it further isn't going to help and gives you less time to do the important stuff for admissions (e.g., research and letters).


Is it appropriate to buy a "thank you" gift for a PhD supervisor? I am nearing the end of my PhD and I would quite like to buy a "thank you" gift for my supervisor (although, she's the socially awkward type who I'm sure will be greatly embarrassed to receive one).

I'm just wondering whether a gift is the done thing? And if so, what sort of gift seems appropriate? I suppose a bottle of wine would be a safe choice?

After your defense, and final submission to the university; you can give the gift, with a thank you note. Right before your defense is a big no, in my opinion.


Another PhD student is going to present my research I'm doing a PhD with a professor with serious funding problems. He invited me to prepare a presentation for a conference, making it clear that he wouldn't pay for my travel expenses. I, in turn, replied that I didn't have the money to travel to that conference. He offered that another student go present my research because that student, unlike me, is ready to pay for the travel expenses.

My professor claims it to be common practice, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that a student who didn't contribute the slightest bit to my research will be presenting my results. Is it really common practice? What do you think about that offer?

In my experience, it is very common for one person to present someone else's conference talk.  I know this happens because at about 5% of talks speaker announces they are doing it at the beginning of the talk.  The reason for this occurring is not usually given.  I would guess the most common reason is that the original speaker changed jobs or graduated, and is no longer able to attend.  I suspect that some speakers wish to give more talks (usually there is a limit of one or two per speaker), so they ask their students who are not able to attend to submit talks for them, and then change the speaker at the last minute.

Personally, I have given talks for colleagues twice.  The first time, the colleague was having a baby (it's mysterious why he didn't know this until a month before the conference) and I gave his talk.  In the second case, the colleague quit science altogether well before the conference.  We asked the conference to remove his abstract and put a new one, with a new author list, in its place.  I made the talk from scratch, with limited content about his work.

I think your professor's proposal is reasonable, but that it would also be reasonable to refuse or to specify how you would like to be credited.  But in my field, conference talks have near zero prestige.  Computer scientists see things differently.


PhD in a science with a professional MS degree In the future I am hoping to pursue an PhD in computer science, however I am still very early in my career and want to get a master's degree and work a while before I pursue a PhD. I am strongly considering cyber security for my master's.

The only issue I have with this is that cyber security is a professional degree, I should also mention that I have a BS in computer science so I do have some knowledge of the subject.

Would getting a professional master's degree (cyber security), rather than a research oriented degree (computer science) hinder my chances, or make me look less favorably to someone who has a MS in a research heavy field? Would doing a master's thesis as a part of a master's degree improve ones chances of being accepted into a PhD program by demonstrating some research?

Thanks.

The way you word your question "hinder me from one day" makes it sound like you're going to apply later in the future. I have known people who have a BS in Theater and a MFA and was accepted to a PhD program in business after spending years in the business world. So it definitely is possible - just depends on your experience and the candidates that you're competing against. There is no "yes" or "no" to your question unfortunately.


What to do when a co-author submitted corrected proofs without the first author's knowledge? I finished my PhD studies about a year ago, and am no longer working at the university. My supervisor, and co-author of three papers, urged me to work with him on the fourth paper in order to get it published. In fact, his contribution to the paper was very small. He should act as corresponding author and deal with the submission, which -- I thought -- would be a relieve. However, this did not work out. First, he made changes to the revised version of our manuscript before submitting it, which resulted in a revised paper among other things missing a figure.

The paper was accepted anyway, and we received the uncorrected proofs. I cannot say exactly why, but although I told him I am working on it (which he said did not notice), my co-author just submitted the corrected proofs without my knowledge. Now, among other errors, a whole paragraph is missing, and I fear this version of the paper is published online very soon.

I am really disappointed and angry. I make a lot of mistakes myself, and I do not expect my co-author to agree in everything I write, but does team work not imply that you inform your team before submitting the final work?

Of course, I tried to submit a revised version of the corrected proofs and convince the journal to use these, but I assume this is pointless. Once the proofs are uploaded there is usually nothing that can be done.

Maybe, there is no real question here, besides: What can I do now?

Of course, I tried to submit a revised version of the corrected proofs and convince the journal to use these, but I assume this is pointless.

It isn't! This happens very frequently. But do talk to some human contact person (at least via email) to make sure this is accepted.

  Team work

It seems like there hasn't been much team work. Talk to your former advisor, directly, on the phone; tell him you want to coordinate the proof work with him, and mention that in the currently submitted versions there are problems X, Y and Z. This should piss him off.

Don't leave this to email - either face-to-face or voice call, for a stronger impression and sense of urgency.


Is it acceptable to use the word "trivial" in lecture? Suppose you are introducing a new concept, and you start with (what you think is) a toy example.  Is it okay to refer to your example as a "trivial problem?"

Does this depend on the field and/or level of the class you are teaching?

"Trivial" often means "too simple to be a real problem". For example, in an class on optimisation methods years ago, the lecturer said "for our first example, we're going to study the problem of maximising the number of ones in a binary string of length n". My thought for most of the class was "well, that's bloody obvious—you just write n ones in a row—why are we looking at this". I eventually realised that it was being used because it made it easy to describe how the algorithms worked, not because it was a challenging problem in any way.

I think that's a good example of where the word "trivial" is good shorthand—the problem isn't of any importance, but it is being used to illustrate a point. This is similar to how trivial is used in a lot of pure mathematics, where it often means "the simplest example that satisfies the definition" (like "the trivial group"). As with all such jargon, though, it is worth explaining to students what you are going to be meaning by the word "trivial" and why trivial examples are worth looking at at all.


I was published in a journal on Beall's list - how bad is my mistake? Please pardon my somewhat peculiar case, I hope this is still a question useful to others.

After school I became an undergrad but paused studying after a few semesters of university to work full time. During the several years I was employed, I also became co-author of three papers, two of which were were with a "potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publisher".

At the time I was not aware journals like that even existed, and as a professor and two doctors were also authors, I would never have imagined this could be an issue. As I am now a university student again and learned about this, I obviously regret my decision to participate. I am not sure how my mistake will be judged by others, and how far-reaching the consequences are, this is why I am asking here.

To be honest, I think it, while bad, was no terrible blunder, as I was "only" an employee at the time (though an undergrad before that). Also, I suspect most future employers would probably not even recognize my mistake.

Clearly it is different if I were to pursue an academic career. Are past flaws of this kind forgivable - and if so, should I (actively) point out that I made a mistake and will avoid it in the future?

Annotation: Many people claimed (elsewhere) that the journal in question did no peer-review. This was not the case for me, as we always had a list of (content) issues to address, usually by 4 to 6 reviewers.

While publishing in a predatory journal doesn't help your CV, I don't see this as anything near a fatal mistake even if you are pursuing a career in academia. The main cost is just the wasted time and effort and the fact that you could have gotten credit for these papers if published elsewhere.

Given that you were at such an early career stage when you wrote these papers, it seems that you can readily be forgiven for falling victim to a predator publisher. Tricking people in this way is, after all, often a component of their business model. When I see a professor publishing repeatedly in these journals, that suggests he or she is trying to pull something over on someone. When I see an undergrad or someone straight out of undergrad doing so, I feel badly for the student and angry at the publisher.

I would simply list these papers on your CV and move on. They're part of your publication record, so you can't really omit them in good faith -- but nor do you need to beat yourself up over it. If someone asks, be forthcoming both about the fact that this journal is questionable and about the way that you ended up publishing there.

You haven't done anything terrible. You've been exploited, and maybe if someone is a harsh judge he will think this makes you look a little silly. But in your situation I don't think most people would hold that against you.


How do search committees use feedback from one-on-one faculty meetings during an academic interview? I am wondering how the search committees take into account feedback that is provided by faculty members who meet one-on-one with a candidate. I am curious about both the process as well as how the committee considers the feedback when making their decision.

So, for example, does the faculty member who meets with the candidate email the committee as soon as the discussion is done to write about how the meeting went? Are they evaluating the candidate on "culture fit", technical prowess, teaching/research, etc.? Do they have veto power over a candidate? Do they meet with the search committee and discuss candidates after everyone's met with each one? Is it the same faculty who meet one-on-one with the candidates, or does it depend on who's available that day?

I'm rather interested in the process of how it works, for those who have been on search committees, and that is why I ask this question. I am most interested in responses for research interviews for institutions in the United States but experiences from other locations would be valuable as I am sure that the process is not identical even within one country (or even one department).

This question is highly related, but isn't specifically addressing what I am wondering.

I am in a US R1 institution in a department of computer science.

All departments have their own style. Ours is something like this:

Each candidate is "governed" by a search committee (we often have multiple searches in different areas) consisting of 4-5 faculty.
Each candidate is "hosted" by one specific person on the committee: the host's job is to be the candidate liaison to the process, as well as managing the interview schedule, and making everything run smoothly from the department's point of view
Immediately after the interview, the host sends out mail to the faculty requesting formal feedback via email. The host will also typically buttonhole people in the hallway to get informal "vibes" as well.
after the formal feedback is collected (and anonymized depending on how things go), and after all candidates have been interviewed, the search committee sits down to assess the pool.

At this stage, faculty feedback plays the following role (the committee has already discussed the technical merits and strengths/weaknesses of the candidates):

  Is there a clear consensus in favor of a candidate ?
  Are there candidates that are drawing strong (and well-founded) opposition from the faculty ?
  If the committee decides to choose one particular candidate to put forward to the faculty at large, will there be significant opposition,
  and why ?
  what is the overall sense that the faculty appears to have about the candidates in general ?

After this is done, the committee might choose to:

present a candidate as a consensus choice
present two candidates as co-consensus choices that the faculty at large can vote on
decide that no candidate has crossed the bar for a faculty-wide vote.

To answer your specific questions that aren't covered above:

no one person (not even the chair!) has a veto over hiring someone, but obviously people closer technically to the candidate will have a "weightier" opinion. The way our structure works, it's possible (though unlikely to happen) that the committee will nix someone that the faculty all like, which is a sort of collective veto
faculty are assembled to meet the candidate based primarily on possible match of interest, and occasionally also for tactical reasons :). The host will make sure that people who are stakeholders in the hire meet as many candidates as possible. But there's of course an element of "who's available that day".


Can I informally ask the special session organizers about the paper's decision? I have sent a paper to a special session of a conference, and the notifications will be given in one week.

But I have to send my publication list for a postdoc position this week. Do you think it'd be a good idea to send an informal email to the organizers asking if the decisions have already been taken?

Yes, you can certainly ask, but you may not get an answer, especially in the time frame you need. So, when you ask, say why you need the information.

But even if you don't get an answer, you can list the paper in your CV as "submitted, awaiting decision", so that you get some "credit" for it. But, since decisions about the postdoc won't be made for a while, anyway, you can probably update your cv when you learn more.


Administration possibly forcing student out In my (mathematics) PhD program, the administration has started to crack down on students who are not making their way through the program in a timely manner. This has only started in the last year, and is being aimed mostly at the lower years students who have not passed their qualification exams yet.

The problem is, there is a third year student who has not passed all of their qualifying exams, but is doing good research, and has a published paper, has an advisor, and so on.

They might pass their quals now (we offer them at the beginning and the end of the year), but if they does not, the executive officer of our has made it clear that they will be kicked out (they are one of the six, out of twelve, third years under such threat). This seems ridiculous to several of us, since they are working much harder and making more progress than many of the older students.

Several of us have decided that this outcome is not acceptable, given the circumstances. How should we proceed, if they do not pass the two quals they need to? At this point we are planning to draft a joint email. Should their advisor cosign this, or would a separate approach be better? There are several other faculty who would cosign as well, if that is relevant. Are there other actions we could take?

Many institutions put requirements for progress for doctoral students. This has been going on forever and isn't special to your institution. It is only unfair if the people have inadequate notice after a rule change.

The problem, for the institution, is that such students use resources that might be better applied elsewhere. It is a judgement call. Some places have very strict rules and if you don't meet them, you must move on.

State sponsored universities, in particular have this problem as many of the funds are from public sources. A private university (by the US definition) can have a bit more freedom.

There is probably little pressure you can apply as a student, unless you can convince a large part of the faculty to oppose such a rule. You are making a judgement, of course. It may be valid or not, but others have their own judgements to make as well.

Sad to say, if a person isn't making progress it may be that they should do something else, instead. My preference is to let them see the issue and make their own decision rather than having it imposed on them, but the people who need to balance budgets may have a different view.

I once had to make a difficult academic decision and wound up moving to a different institution that turned out to be better for me in every way. It isn't the end of the world.


Reference manager with note-taking/quote-storing capabilities I'm looking for a reference manager with note-taking/quote-storing capabilities. I don't need a full knowledge management suite, but I want to find a program where I can store and search long notes/lots of quotes, attached to entries in my bibliography.

So far I've used:

Bib(La)TeX + pen and paper
Zotero
Mendeley
Paperpile
(Not sure about Endnote, but at least I haven't seen it used for what I need.)

Pen and paper obviously isn't searchable, and funnily enough, neither are the notes in Zotero. All of these programs treat notes as negligible, focusing on PDF metadata import and annotations, PubMed or Google Scholar search and whatnot. Which is all fine but not what I'm looking for. Since I work in the Arts & Humanities I still have my fair share of books accompanying the PDF articles in my work routine. For those I don't need any online specialties but rather a way to attach lots of quotes, notes, summaries and so on.

From what I've heard, Citavi can do some things like that, but I'm nowhere near a Windows computer to try it out. Ideally I'm looking for Linux programs, I could try Mac, and give bonus points for a web interface.

I use BibTeX / BibLaTeX with Jabref.
I make use of the Annotation Field.
See this TeX.SE answer for some details on how to enable the annotation tab on all entry types.

In JabRef, the search bar allows you to search all fields, so that gives you searching. I particularly like getting search results from my annotations and from the abstracts.
And you can store by each of the fields -- including the timestamp of when you added it.
It also lets you easily link to the PDF and/or URL/DOI. I suggest if you can link to the URL/DOI in preference, since that will work on any computer if you transfer the entry.

To add things to Jabref is just a matter of pasting the BibTeX entry code -- or it has a number of other options.

Jabref just fronts the BibTex file, which is really nice if you need Bibtex to use latex referencing -- but I guess for most fields of humanities this is not so significant.

BibTeX is also really nice because it is just plaintext field, so you can version control it cleanly.
See this Tex.SE question
Even if in humanities, version controlling your referencing is a great idea, since it makes it centrally available (if you use hosting), and gives you backup, and merging.


Related follow-up paper I have published a paper earlier in a journal and would like to submit a continuation of research paper to build on the earlier paper's results. I was wondering how is the second paper identified as a follow up of the original.

Also, I have changed my name since (same co-authors), do I have to indicate this?

Details

The first paper contained a series of experimental and modelling results for a pure system, and the new paper will contain experimental and modelling results of non-pure versions of the original system.

I assume you would cite your earlier paper somewhere in the introduction of the new paper.  You could write something like this:

Recently, we (Author1, Author2, & Author3, 2016) presented a series of experimental and modelling results for a pure system.  With the current paper, we would like to extend ...

Alternatively, a footnote may be appropiate to indicate that the first authors are the same.

Also, see this publication on the topic of name changes in academia: The Ripple Effect of Women's Name Changes


What is the proper way to ask for ideas for a research topic to a professor on a different institution that I have no connection with? I am planning to start a new project on a certain topic, which nobody in my institution is an expert in. I have spent several weeks on literature research on this topic (by superficially reading papers without studying them), however it is very hard and inefficient to find a well-defined problem all by myself.

So I need help from an expert, currently my knowledge on this specific topic is very superficial. I plan to properly get my self ready while doing the research after I find a well-defined problem, because without a well-defined problem it is very hard to make a structured well-defined path, I would end up wasting time by jumping from one paper to another blindly (I have been there).

I have prepared several questions related to this topic that may lead to a research problem, however it is very likely that those questions are very ignorant.

I have sent emails to several people, after the first email they usually respond but when I send those long questions I don't hear from them anymore.

So I would like to learn what is the proper way to ask a an expert that I haven't met before, for a help direction guidance to find a well-defined problem?

The thing is, I really need this problem on that specific topic, because of several reasons, I tried to find by myself, but without proper experience in that field, it is hard and extremely inefficient. Also, I know it is something pretty unusual but I must find this problem, and I know for an expert it would be pretty straightforward. Any advice would be great!

edit:
I need this specific topic because, I have finished the first year of my 3 year PhD, and so far it was jumping from one project to another randomly with the direction my advisor, and it was mostly a dead end. Thus I need a well-defined project that puts me on a track and helps to have a good understanding of my current field. Currently, what I do is not efficient, I am not learning the important first principles of the field it is just random drafting. I need a systematic, structured path. It is hard to explain without telling the specifics. But that certain topic I want is not that a narrow topic it is quite broad. and if someone spends a year on a project involving that topic, he would really have a very good understanding of the overall field that I am working on. I mean that topic, would really teach most of the very important fundamentals, also would be really beneficial.

To explain this more, what I am doing now is like watching a tv series starting from episode 150, so it makes some sense but always something is missing, in order to get the overall picture in order to have a bottom-up approach I have to start from episode 1. And that specific topic would provide that. There are a lot of papers coming out on that topic I know there are accessible problems for a PhD student without a deep background on that topic. The matter is, this is getting out of scope but, I know I can have a very good productive PhD. But as things going now it is not going well. I am certain if I keep doing what I am doing at the end I will be one of the failed PhD's. So I think I have to take the wheel and make good plan respect to my aims. And I think a project on that rigorous topic that will teach most of the fundamentals of my field, also which will give a deep insight and the first principles would be really what I need. Otherwise, this PhD and my career, my potential(?) are just fading away. I mean PhD is knowing something very well, but currently for me, it was just having superficial ideas on a lot of different stuff. So I have to turn things around. Focus on this important topic, which will help me to be very good on one thing.

While it would be nice to imagine that we all do research for the betterment of mankind, the reality is that it is often transactional. This is because you’re asking for some stranger’s time and efforts, and they don’t see why they should give it to you.

If you manage to show them that you are able to come up with non trivial results by yourself, or offer them some indication that they’ll get something out of it (a publication hopefully), you might get a chance.

The reason that this is the way things are is because professors get approached with these requests all the time, and they have to prioritize them. First dibs go to their own inner circle of collaborators. Guess what circle random strangers are on?

If professors responded seriously to each such request they’ll end up with no time, and because most of these requests end up as dead ends, they tend to be wary of allocating their efforts to high risk collaborations such as the one you’re offering.

Good luck!

EDIT: if you really want to impress a professor, take their class and shine! Alternatively, open a literature review, and start doing the hard work of familiarizing yourself with the field. You’ll need to anyway if there’s gonna be a paper coming out of it. Also, write down your thoughts. Start a draft paper and write down your initial ideas. What is the problem? Why is it important? What is your proposed solution? Even if it’s a draft or rough or stupid to you, just write. Then you can send this to professors! This tells them two things: you’re serious about this and that you can formally write out your thoughts. It’ll also help you crystallize what exactly is it that you want to do.


What are the criteria for effective academic journal websites? I'm looking for information on the criteria that could be employed in the development of a social sciences (including economics) academic journal open access website.  What visible (front-end) functions do academics prefer to use when looking up research content on an academic journal website?

For example:

Listings by year, author, publication type.
Search that allows you to modify the variables ("advanced search"), vs. search that lets you narrow down the results after a basic search ("faceted search").
What criteria do you usually (or would like to) use to narrow down search results?
Any examples of research content (academic journal) websites that work well?
Any functions that you wish were available to make searching for research content easier?

Background:  I'm a communications officer with a research institute that publishes its own research via its own website.  The website was redeveloped two years ago, with the aim of making the content more relevant, but lost some functions more relevant to academics in the process.  In an effort to redress this I would like to establish some criteria for evaluating functions that are needed in an academic journal website.

I would also not worry about search functionality (as you probably can't beat other engines in the long run), but I one more point:

Besides making the access to the pdf easy you should also

make access to a correct and complete bibtex entry easy.


MS degree after a PhD in physics I got my PhD in quantum gravity 2 years ago, not from a top university, publishing only 1 paper, no conferences. Couldn't get a post doc, and it has been 2 years struggling in the job market, teaching part time here and there.

I am thinking seriously about getting an MS degree in something that can open job chances for me because all jobs outside academia I looked at required certain skills I do not have, or knowledge never needed during my PhD, all my work was very formal.

My questions are:

Would graduate schools/ master committees accept me being with a PhD? (I expect to pay my own tuition for that MS of course.) Do I have any chance?
Of course I am not planning to do MS in physics. How about geophysics MS programs? engineering MS programs? Scientific writing MS programs? MBA programs?

I am still evaluating my options for what career path I should pursue, but I just want to know if it is acceptable to do an MS after PhD or I will be rejected right away. (I would hate and regret my PhD if I will be rejected because of it.)

I'd recommend looking at the job market and seeing what jobs sound appealing to you. Next go to Coursera, Youtube, etc. and see if you like the subject by watching a few online classes. If you think you can adequately self learn the subject then that is the best option. Employers might look at the PhD -> MS like you are a professional student that lacks direction (plus it's a boatload of money). You want your resume to say, I have a PhD in physics which means I'm smart and I self taught myself all this stuff you require for this job because I am self motivated. It shows independence; if you need to learn something new on the job, they know you can do it, because you have done it before. Don't waste time getting an MS.

There are two exceptions to this, and it may apply here. (1) If in your new field of study you can't adequately learn the vast majority of the material without the infrastructure provided by University lab facilities containing tons of expensive equipment, then it would be reasonable to pursue the masters. (2) An MBA program that is all about networking, pretty much requires face to face interactions, although an MBA is usually thought to be best pursued after having some industry work experience.

The answer to your question, however, is yes, you can definitely get into the Masters programs. For most private schools masters programs are cash cows that fund the university. They let in all students they think are good enough to succeed in their program. The bigger question is whether it's a good idea for you to make this career move.


How can I get academic writing samples for PhD admissions after having been away from academia? I am very interested in a particular PhD program that I feel is in line with my professional background.  Specifically,  I am thinking of doing a PhD in Communication Rhetoric and Digital Media.

However, I haven't been in academia for over 18-19 years. I was told by one of the program directors that I would need to have "academic" writing samples and if I didn't then it would be very difficult to compete for the program.

How and where could I write?

You don't need anyone's permission to write, but you do need a subject and a milestone. Narrowing in on your subject is deeply connected to performing your literature review (see questions on LR). Reading published work will attune you to the concerns and norms that matter in your field. As you read, keep a list of open questions.

Developing writing skill takes time, so don't assume that you can rush through it. Outlines are crucial, because without them, you won't know what you are writing. Always seek feedback: peers or friends can reveal both important problems and new angles of attack.

The ultimate test of accomplishment in academic writing is publishing journal articles (see questions on publications). While you might not need this achievement in hand to enter that PhD program, insofar as publishing is a main goal of academic endeavor, you can expect to work on it later on. Therefore, your proximate goal could be to produce writing similar in tone, finish, and advancement to what you see in your field's main journals.


What is an FTE and what are its variations? What is an FTE, how is it used, and what are the varieties of FTE calculation that you might see in academia?

An FTE stands for Full-Time Equivalent and is the unit of calculation for counting faculty positions or student enrollment at a university.

For faculty positions

A 1.0 FTE position is nominally a full-time position for one faculty member. If a department has 4 FTE, then you can expect that it has four full-time faculty at minimum (see adjunct FTEs below).

Split FTEs

Someone may have a split FTE such that for example, half of their FTE belongs to one department and half belongs to another -- e.g., Prof. Alice could be 0.5 Math and 0.5 Computer Science.

The ratio can vary so that Prof. Bob could be 0.25 Physics and 0.75 Geology.

Some spousal hires are structured so that Profs. Alice and Bob are both 0.5 in the same department (or even separate units).

Zero FTEs

Some universities have "zero FTE" positions. This is often used to indicate affiliate faculty. For example, Prof. Alice could be 0.5 FTE in Math, 0.5 FTE in CompSci, but also have a 0.0 FTE slot in Physics.

Adjunct FTE

Adjuncts are occasionally included in FTE but the exact calculation of an adjunct to a regular FTE varies considerably by university.

Other Variations

Bifurcated FTE Ranks: Some universities have separate "senior faculty (tenured)" FTE and "junior faculty (untenured)" FTE calculations, so that a 4 unit program may have 2 senior FTE and 2 junior FTE.

More than 1.0 FTE: Some universities also allow for someone to have more than 1.0 FTE. Since 1.0 FTE is calculated on a 9 month term (in the United States), one could conceivably have up to a 1.33 FTE by working through the summer. The NSF and others often restrict summer salary to .25 so the max under those grants is 1.25 FTE.

For student enrollment

Student enrollment can also be measured in FTE. "FTE enrollment" is computed as the sum of credits carried by all enrolled students, divided by the number of credits in a full-time load at that institution, school, or department.

For example, at the University of Colorado, a full-time undergraduate load is 30 credits a year, and a full-time graduate load is 24 credits per year, therefore

  Student Full-Time Equivalent Enrollment (SFTE) = total undergraduate student credit hours in a fiscal year divided by 30 plus total graduate student credit hours in a fiscal year divided by 24

This measure may be used for budgeting, resource allocation between departments or within a department, facilities planning, faculty hiring, and other similar considerations.


Attributing Second-order Citations Imagine that a paper by [Author A] has pulled together some literature on the misuse of a technology in context X. I now want to talk about misuse of the same technology but in context Y. When creating a different narrative and putting together different arguments, much of what I say uses the references of [Author A] with a similar or the same opinion.

Take the following made-up quote from (Author A):

  Technologies have values embedded in their design (Author B).

I think it would be wrong to only directly cite [Author B] and make a similar statement without acknowledging [Author A] since the idea really comes from the way that the latter uses the former. Also, it would just feel wrong since someone else has done a lot of the work in finding the references.

This occurs many times and so it would also be obvious how I found the sources (of course, I will state in the background section that I did a backward search to find sources). At the same time, my analysis is different and hence I cannot just say "read [Author A] for a literature review]" - I need to connect it all to my topic (and also other areas not covered by [Author A].

What is the correct and, if allowed, most elegant way to handle second-order citations? Particularly when I need to do it many times. Is there an alternative to using second-order citations?

N.b., this isn't a meta-survey like you would find in medical science or similar.

There are two simple ways to deal with this, and you can choose the one you prefer.

Describe in the introduction how you found the two papers and cite them both. Choose the one you prefer and mention that you will be citing this paper only. Which one you prefer is up to you: maybe you choose one because of its better writing style, because it is the first one, or because it is the second one and it refers to the first one, allowing readers to find both. Then cite the single paper.
Describe in the introduction how you found the two papers and cite them both. Cite both papers every time (why not?). For example: "Technologies have values embedded in their design [1, 2]."

There are no rules about what is the best way, but you should always consider the point of view of the reader of your paper: what would you like to see when you read the paper? Personally, I have a slight preference for (2) because  it will allow me to quickly find both papers, even if I decide to read, say, only the results section of your paper.

Finally, you can avoid citing the paper "many times" by re-structuring the text in your article: it should normally not be necessary to cite the same paper more than once in the same section, so you will have to cite them only 3-4 times (introduction, methods, discussion).


Should I cater to student interests? I am a tenured full professor in the humanities, teaching at an elite liberal arts institution. Currently our department is struggling to attract majors and student scholars in our particular humanities field, for a number of reasons - the academic work is perceived as exotic, irrelevant vis a vis the more valuable STEM fields, and considered intellectually "useless" for those whose primary goal is "getting jobs" after graduation. I would still like to teach courses in my area, because I consider this to be valuable. My institution permits me to teach whatever I wish, but our students have requested courses that are more general and more suited for non-majors and non-scholars. Does it make more sense to offer courses for those few students who desire deep study in narrow topics, or should I cater to student demands for general classes that appeal to non-humanities undergraduates? I do not wish for my courses to be seen as irrelevant, but I resist "trends" and the constantly shifting and sometimes fickle interests of the students in popular subject matter.

I'm not sure what your discipline is, but I understand the situation you're describing.  Does your school have a general education-type program in which you could offer some tantalizing courses?  We've had a lot of success with a course on "banned books," "Shakespeare on Film," or "The Vampire Tradition."  Such courses, if interesting enough, might bring more students into your major.  I taught a "Fundamentals of Lit" class that was intended for non-majors, and I had Engineering and Computer Science students who told me it was the first time they'd read a story in college and they really enjoyed the class.

The other point you raise somewhat indirectly -- the value of the study of humanities.  This is one of those "don't get me started" kinds of topics, because I believe the value of it is tremendous in a number of ways, but most important to other majors is the increased ability to communicate effectively.  Business majors may get what seems to be a "good-paying job" upon graduation, but without the communication and critical thinking skills they would learn in the Humanities, they're not going to progress very far.


Why do academics frequently write very short email replies? Why do many academics write short replies to emails?

For example, I write Professor MK some polite email with salutation, etc., just polite and decent email.  MK then responds like this:

  OK, MK

Is MK so busy that they have no time to write, for example, this:

  Hello,

  It is fine. This is the correct approach.

  Best regards,MK

I do not understand this.

Beyond a certain point in their careers, academics (in particular tenured professors) are essentially a subspecies of managers.

And managers literally receive hundreds of emails per day. Some of these indeed require a more formal response, or a lot of work before you can even compose an answer. If you get 20 emails that each require half an hour of work, 50 more that only require a yes/no answer, and another 100 that are just FYI, you don't spend a lot of time on crafting replies to the yes/no mails... because the first category alone already is more than you can handle in a normal day, given all your other responsibilities.


Should a dissertation cite the chapter within the dissertation or the published manuscript? I'm in the process putting together a dissertation by publication and one of the manuscripts builds upon previously published work. As a result, the manuscript as a chapter in the dissertation has citations that can currently refer to the publications. This presents a quandary for the dissertation though. Should the chapter continue to cite the publications, or simply refer back to the chapter in the dissertation?

If you have a dissertation with structure

Chapter m = Paper n
Chapter m+1 = Paper n+1

where Paper n+1 builds on and cites Paper n, then the best course of action seems to have Chapter m+1 cite both Chapter m and Paper n. That way you provide both the convenience for the reader to find the relevant material by just looking at another page in the current document, and the proper original source.

The same idea applies to other expository documents too, like review articles and textbooks.


From an undergrad school of Math to a grad school of Computing just to learn Computable Analysis — What are the consequences? I am Park Shinhwan (박신환) from Korea University. I am a senior undergraduate student.

First, I have to mention that the topic of the undergrad school I'm in is not exactly Mathematics. It was Mathematics (수학과) until 2017, but just after I entered the school, its name changed to Data Computational Science (데이터계산과학전공). Though I don't think there had been much of a difference. It was just some lectures that heavily relies on programming languages such as C, Python, SAS, MATLAB, and Java were added.

Second, I have to mention that I am on a double major curriculums. The secondary major is Electronic & Informational Engineering (전자및정보공학과).

As the title suggests, I have been interested in Computable Analysis since some months ago. Though I had wanted to enter a grad school of Mathematics, I concerned that most grad schools of Mathematics wouldn't teach about Computable Analysis.

But there was a gleam. Apparantly KAIST's grad school of Computing has a lab about Complexity and Computation of real numbers, and their professor researches about Computable Analysis! That means I definitely should enter this grad school.

Still, I have a concern. It looks like the topic of the lab has a gap from the mainstream topics of the grad school itself, and a grad student of the lab agreed so.

So what would be the consequences after I enter the grad school? I definitely will be dedicated to the lab, but should I take the lectures about mainstream topics anyway?

You can see the lectures of the undergrad school I'm in here, the lectures of the secondary major here, and the lectures of the grad school here.

Computable Analysis as a subject sits on the border of mathematics and computer science, and correspondingly, you can find researchers from this area in either kind of department. There is not much correlation between whether a given researcher works on the more CS or on the more math aspects of computable analysis and what department they are found in. Either kind of grad school will have courses which are helpful in becoming an expert in computable analysis, and others that aren't. As such I would not put much weight on whether a department is CS or math in figuring out whether it is the right place for you to pursue computable analysis as a subject.

As computable analysis is a rather niche subject, you'll only find it in select places. In Korea, KAIST is indeed the place to go for it. If you do want to do computable analysis at a math department, you could eg go to Japan instead. A source for who is active in this area, you can consult
http://cca-net.de/members.php
although this list is not that terribly up-to-date.


What are the Pros and Cons of working before doing a PhD (in Machine Learning)? In terms of success as a PhD-level researcher either in academia or industry, what are the pros and cons of doing a PhD after 2 years or more in industry following undergrad.

I worked in industry for 3.5 years before starting my PhD. I believe I've been more successful because of this experience. However, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Pros:

You will be more mature and have a better idea of what you want in life (which may not include a PhD).
Better understanding of the needs of industry which can influence your research choices
Connections and business soft skills (being able to sell your research effectively is very important for example)
Often a better work ethic (ie. used to working regular hours, etc)

Cons:

It can be difficult to go back to being a student after making a real salary
Rusty study/exam writing skills
You will be older than your colleagues
If your goal is to remain in academia you may end up getting on the tenure track later with potential consequences for stability, starting a family, etc.
If your goal is to return to industry, the 5+ years of work experience you will miss out on is often worth more financially/promotion wise than a PhD (but this can be field dependent)
You will need to maintain connections with suitable academic references. As time goes forward they may not remember you very well. Strong references are important for getting accepted to top schools.

Many of these things will depend on what you do while in industry and what you want to get out of doing a PhD.

My biggest piece of advice for time spent in industry: take care of the people part - make connections, work on networking, learn to be effective in meetings, learn to sell ideas/products, how to deliver for clients. Watch and learn from senior people (directors, CEOs, etc). These things will help you be successful in academia and business. Don't just sit at a desk coding.


How should I cite a website URL? I am currently writing a report and I have been compiling a list of references (from IEEE mostly) and I also have a number of websites.

  My question is, what is the best way to note a website URL? Would it be to reference and cite a URL, would it be adding a footnote? An example would be a reference to google.com. Would it be the correct to just create a footnote?

I've started to just add a footnote each time a website is mentioned (using LaTeX) so for example if a javascript plugin is mentioned then a footnote would be added to the website URL. How would be best to do this as it would not suffice as a reference as it is just noting a website for further reading. I do not have time to waste be writing the whole report to then have to go back through and edit the document hence my question.

Echoing the comments and other answers, citing a website is no different to citing any other resource, such as a book, or a paper. Depending on your favorite text editor and reference manager, you would like to produce bibliographic entries, such as

  ... for the implementation of the prototype, we used the Ruby programming language [23] and ...
  ...
  ...
  Bibliography
  ...
  23. Matsumoto, Yukihiro. Ruby Programming Language. http://www.ruby-lang.org/, 2009.

In BibTeX, there's @misc entry for that. You would use it as follows:

@misc{links/Java,
        author = {{Sun Microsystems Inc.}},
        title = {{J}ava{\texttrademark} {P}latform, {S}tandard {E}dition 6},
        howpublished={\url{http://java.sun.com/}},
        month{jun},
        year = {2006}
}

 @misc{links/xml,
        author = {{W3C}},
        title = {{Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0}},
        howpublished = {\url{http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/}},
        publisher = {World Wide Web Consortium},
        year = {2008},
        month = {November}
}

Since websites are a dynamic resource, you should always include the date (year/month) of the last retrieval.

For the url, the code above would assume \usepackage{url}.

Another technical issue with this is whether your chosen bibliography style would include the URL in the reference, or not. You might want to consult this questions at tex.SE


A university's odd rule that inevitably affects students' final grades My university had a quite strange rule that set an upper limit 78 on the average grades for each course. To be more specific, even if you're the number one student in your school, your GPA will still be lower than many other applicants who are applying for grad schools.
My question is "Should I address this problem in my Statement of Purpose?"
P.S. the official transcript does mention this rule, but I'm afraid that admission offices will overlook these tiny tiny texts.

I am assuming this is US. I want to suggest an alternative. Kindly ask your references to add the situation in their recommendations. I don't think Bill Nace's suggestion is exactly the right one, simple because of this answer. From questions regarding SOPs and from some personal experience I understand that at least some admission bodies in US universities do:

only glance over SoPs
Eliminate a significant (sometimes even more than half) of the applicants based on numbers (gpa, gre etc.) without even looking at anything in the application.

Now, nothing you can do right now that can help you in the second part except for scoring really high on your standardized tests. Even that won't be that useful as anonymous physicist points out in the comments. I heard people joking about getting someone to read your application as being the hardest part of an application (in US). You will need to somehow manage that. Probably good portion of your applications will end before a pair of eyes can lay on it. When, if, you get over that stage, 1 applies. They will read your recommendations more carefully than your SoP almost always.
Also, I would strongly suggest looking into graduate programs in other countries. I had much better experiences with European ones. They were always free and much easier to apply (in my case). Instead of dumping another 100 hours to a menial test, I reckon you can find and apply to 20-30 suitable master's programs in Europe.


Letter of Recommendation Without Contact from the Student On my web page, I ask students who want a letter of recommendation to talk with me about it.  I also ask for specific information, such as what classes they took, how they distinguished themselves, etc.  The purpose, of course, is to write strong letters for the good students and to encourage others to ask someone else.

Today I received an automated letter of recommendation request (from the institution to which he applied) for a student who graduated years ago from a different institution.  I know from my own records how he did in my classes, but I have no other information available.  I have no contact information for the student.

I can write a semi-strong letter based on grades alone, I can ask the institution to which he applied for contact information, or I can continue to try to track him down some other way.  (I've already tried the usual methods of Google, Facebook, etc.)

Should I write the semi-strong letter, contact the institution to which he applied, or do some third thing?

I would do the "third thing" of nothing. You're not under any obligation to write letters of recommendation, and to me, the student's signing you up to do this is similar in principle to your department head signing you up for an extra committee assignment, or someone signing you up to volunteer for a public lecture, without discussing it with you first. I write this as someone who puts considerable time and effort into recommendation letters -- two that I care considerably about in the past 24 hours, for example.

Of course, it may well be the case that the student has no idea that writing a recommendation actually takes work, and it would be nice to contact him/her, but you've already tried the simple routes to this. I would devote my time to other tasks.


How should I refer to PIs in a statement of purpose (US)? I am applying for PhD programs at graduate schools in the US and I am wondering how I should refer to researchers that I name in my statement of purpose? In particular, I am wondering whether to refer to people that have titles of 'Assistant Professor' or 'Associate Professor' as Prof. or Dr.? I have heard that the prefix 'Prof.' tends to be reserved for full, tenured Professors - is that true?

(note, that I have edited the question due to its similarity to this one, to focus specifically on the context of a statement of purpose for US grad schools)

tl;dr. In a formal situation, be formal, otherwise...

The US is pretty informal about titles (unless the professor is from a German university). So either should do in general (see below). Even an assistant professor can be referred to as "professor". It is even possible, if rare, that an Associate Professor won't actually hold a doctorate. But no one is likely to be offended.

You might, however, after a first usage, be told that some other thing is more appropriate. Then you should just do that.

My own doctoral advisor did have a Germainc type doctorate and additional beyond doctorate degrees. But he was happy enough in the US to be referred to with any reasonable designation. I also had a colleague who was at least an Associate Professor but held no doctorate. He did, however, participate in very important theoretical research - with Edsger Dijkstra, actually.

But this is how you refer to a person in person or in email and such. For a more formal designation, such as in a paper, you may need to refer to an actual title. "Associate Professor Smythe" or such. The context you give, suggests a formal title is called for - an application.


How difficult is it to get a paid PhD studentship in physics in Germany? I would like to ask about the possibility of getting a paid PhD position in Germany.
 I am going to defend my thesis in Physics after a few days and I am thinking of applying for a PhD.
My specialization is in nano-science and surface physics.
The average of my Master's degree will be at most 2.7, which is between good and satisfactory.
Does the average play a pivotal rule ? Is it difficult to get a paid PhD position?

Is it difficult to get a paid PhD position?

In Germany, most PhD positions are paid. In physics, you would typically get a half to three quarters full-time equivalent position as a university employee. I don't think it's particularly difficult to get such a position, if you have the right qualification for it. This will also depend on the place where you got your Master's degree.

  Does the average play a pivotal rule?

A lot of professors that I know do care for good grades. And many university regulations ask for at least a good degree for admission as a PhD student (in my place, that translates to 2.5 or better, though there's a tolerance for students from abroad to take care of differences in the grading systems).

My suggestion would be to look for position being announced through for example in:

http://www.academics.de
http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/
http://www.drarbeit.de

and apply or get in contact with the person there to see how far you can get.

Also try to use your personal network: Ask your supervisors whether they know good labs to apply to, or whether they could even throw in a word for you.


Someone cited my paper in an irrelevant manner I checking my google scholar page, when I noticed that one of my papers, of which I am a co-author, had been cited by an unknown academic. I read the article, which was on gene regulatory networks, and my paper is in computational neuroscience. The reference wording doesn't make any sense though. The only connection is the concept of an attractor network.

If I met this person at a conference, and he went about relating my paper to his work, I would call nonsense. This must happen to more well known academics all the time, so is it best just to let these things slide? I suppose if I was really famous and getting 200 citations a week it would be too hard to track every bad reference down, but I only have a few.

Well, what can you do? Not much. I can confirm that it does indeed happen… sometime people even cite a paper of yours to justify a conclusion that you have not reached in the paper, and even one that you strongly disagree with.

One option is to let it slide. You are not responsible for the content of papers that refer to yours, or the accuracy of their citations for that matter. The paper author is responsible, and to some extent, the journal’s referees. (I tend to spend quite some time checking citations  when I review papers, but that might just be me being overly sensitive to this particular issue.)

Another option is to contact the paper’s corresponding author, and ask him point blank. You have read his paper, and you are unclear as to the extent of the connection between his writing and yours. See what it gives.

Finally, in the current way academic research works, you do not really have any mean to call out their behaviour publicly. I do not believe you should, either.


How would co-authoring a paper whose main subject isn't about what I'll do in the future help me? So in the Summer, I was offered to work on a paper with a doctor at my local university. The main goal of the paper is to try and predict the amount of displacement when pressure is applied to a 3D-printed ball of titanium using machine learning. The thing is that the main focus of the paper is about 3D printing with titanium but machine learning is used to achieve some of the results that couldn't be simulated easily.

Fast forward a couple of months, my work ended and I did what I was supposed to do. The other day, the doctor I was working with called me and told me I did a good job and offered me to work on it during the school year as well. The thing is, I have to put quite a few hours into it and I go to school so I don't want to do it if it won't help me that much in the future. So my question is, how would working on this paper, which is mainly about something I won't do in the future, help me later?

By the way, I'm a freshman in high school.

Thank you so much in advance!

I'm a freshman in high school

And you’re already sure about what you’ll do in the future? I’m impressed. In any case, you shouldn’t worry too much about what your future research topic would be. I was sure I’d be a chef and ended up with a PhD in math. People’s interests vary wildly over time.

What does matter is that you have the capacity to do research at a very young age, which is impressive to anyone reading your CV when considering you for undergraduate programs or hiring you for a job. If this is a legit opportunity I’d take it even if it’s not 100% within my field of interest.


My advisor wants me to include a name of someone who has no contribution to the paper My first advisor wants me to include my second advisor's name in a paper that I worked on before she (2nd advisor) came along.

Should I include her name even though she didn't do anything in that paper? I don't think she even read it.

The behaviour of adding non-contributing authors is not considered good practise; quite the opposite. The Vancouver protocol specifies what is needed to be included as (co-)author. See descriptions at ICMJE and BMJ.

The basic points are as follows:

  Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;

AND

  Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

AND

  Final approval of the version to be published;

AND

  Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Note the "AND".

There are also several posts on the tag authorship here on Academia that can be of use.

For someone to stand up against one's advisers is of course difficult and it is easy to state that one must do so. It is necessary to assess the situation and read up on the recommendations provided by learned societies such as BMJ and use that as part of your case. I strongly recommend this paper for students from APA Science Student Council.


Good examples for methods section in math or computer science A methods section is very common in areas such as medicine. However, in math
or computer science papers I rarely find such a section if no experiments or
observational studies were conducted. Nevertheless, it is a requirement for
the computer science journal I submitted to. While nearly none of the papers
published by the journal provides one, I still have to fulfill this requirement.

While some general guidelines can be found, for example in this question,
it would be very helpful to have some good examples for such a section in existing math or computer science literature.

Edit: As clarification: I already submitted and got a revision request that did not mention a missing methods second. I then submitted a revision and after a few hours I got a second revision request asking for a methods section (and a few other formal requests). I know that I could discuss this with the editor if I really need one, but maybe it would actually improve the paper.

Since "none of the papers published by the journal provides [a methods section]," despite the journal's requirement for such a section, you needn't fulfil this requirement.* (It is perhaps a generic requirement that most of the publisher's journals demand, but isn't required by the journal you're submitting to.)

*You can confirm with the editor, to be absolutely sure.


How to politely decline a postdoc after the interview, when another postdoc is maybe still in game (same institution) I applied to two postdoc positions to two different groups at the same institution.

I've got to the interview stage for the first position. After the interview, they want my opinion, if I still want the job. I am aware that the topic is interesting and important but I am not so excited about the topic (and I do not need the job immediately).

How should I respond to them when I don't know the fate of the second application? I would prefer the seconds position, because it is more exciting for me. And I do not want to cause any offence to the first group. It is a research institute and I am sure these group talk to each other regularly.

You should be honest, or at least mostly honest, with them.

Let them know you are also waiting to hear back on your application to another position at the same institution. It's up to you whether or not you say you would favor that position, but I think that is not necessary (hence the "mostly honest") - you can simply approach it as wanting to know all the options available to you before making a decision. This type of request is quite reasonable.

However, there may also be time limits: the group currently offering you a position may want to offer it to another candidate, or at least continue with more interviews. In stating that you would like to delay making a decision, you should also ask about any time limits on acceptance. If they give you some limit, you will then have to decide whether to take the job once that time is expired.


Citing terse works, or wordy comprehensible works? I am in a position where I am writing both more professional articles, and
supplementary articles to undergraduates. The supplementary works is meant to prepare the students for the graduate courses. This is in mathematics, and analysis in particular. I want the notes to be self contained, and therefore I cite, or refer to proofs and further discussions on the lemmas and corollaries that are used. This should also be used for further references, "if you want to know more about metric spaces, please look at Kreyszig [4]".

I have a wide variety of books I can cite, I can pick any of the big books used in Calculus. Calculus by Adams etc Calculus: Early Transcendentals by James Stewart. On the other hand I could refer to the more classical works by Apostol or Rudin (Principles of mathematical analysis)

Choosing the more classical works is good for preping the stundents, but for a first touch these can be a bit terse. Also the proofs in for an example Rudin are a bit on the short side, whilst Adams is very wordy
Would citing both, for every lemma and theorem, make the citations too daunting?

Long story short:

When should one cite the terse material, and when to choose the lengthier comprehensible works. How does one choose the appropriate level to cite from when writing an article, paper or notes ?

I'd give both, explaining briefly what is to be expected of which reference, something along the lines:

  A brief introduction can be found in [1] while [2] gives a terse summary and [3] develops proof 42 in detail.

(substitute whatever citation style you use for [1] etc.)


Asking authors to send figures from a paper in as separate pdf files In my seminar I have to present a paper which has many nice figures. I use LaTeX and would like to insert some of these figures into my presentation and handout. Ideally, I want these figures to be nice (not screenshots), so I am thinking of writing to authors and ask them to send me the figures they used in pdf format. Is it appropriate request?

The question is difficult to answer in the way it is phrased. I would find it hard to believe that there was a seminar activity asking you to find other people's figures and present them. There are lots of immediate copyright issues from doing that.

There is a certain amount you can do based around the fair use rules for academic use and giving acknowledgement to authors. The norm there would just be the screenshot, with the acknowledgement (the latter of which should cover the fact that image will not be of the highest quality).

But it may be that the request for high quality figures is really asking you to create your own, whether this means coming up with something novel, or generating your own (cited) version of the original figure.

In any case, I don't think that contacting the authors is appropriate here.


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

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

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

The paper alone isn't worthy of your CV. It's not a peer-reviewed publication, which is about the closest place it would fit. You could list the senior project under your education section to provide an idea of your area of focus, but the paper alone doesn't carry any weight. I had a senior capstone project in my undergraduate curriculum, and I have listed the project as sort of my undergraduate "thesis", but not referring to any text.


Potential rotation advisor reaches out -- with her entire academic record! I am an incoming PhD student (for the fall). I recently received a message from a faculty member saying she was impressed with my application and asking if I wanted to talk about rotations. Ordinarily this would be awesome, but the rest of the message listed every grant and award won by this faculty member since 2009 (there were a lot of them), and it really seemed like overkill. Should this be considered a red flag, or is it just a practical way to demonstrate that the lab group is thriving? This is in the US.

I think you may be overthinking this
slightly. It’s neither a red flag nor necessarily a practical way to demonstrate anything (although it might actually demonstrate something useful, I have no idea).

People are quirky and sometimes do things that don’t make complete sense to other people, or even to themselves the next day. This is true of everyone - including, I’d bet, you. I’m sure you wouldn’t want other people characterizing every slightly unusual or eccentric thing you do as a red flag.

Since “ordinarily this would be awesome”, I suggest that you be happy a faculty member (who has won many grants and awards since 2009!) is taking an interest in you, and talk to her to evaluate the rotation option as you would talk to anyone else in a similar situation.


Project websites - Increasing visibility or wasting time? I'm from an empirical social science background and observe that several research projects build project websites, similar to job market websites of academics. Those that I am aware of are often related to data collection projects (see for example Ester Duflo's indian data), but I guess this phenomenon exists in other [sub-]disciplines as well.

Such websites tend to do little more than give a short introduction and list the papers that were/are written in and around the project. So what is the purpose of these, if they are not to make the data publicly available? In particular:

Are they  an effective means to increase visibility of projects?
Under which circumstances does it make sense to set up such a website?
What makes such a website a good website?

Cheers.

This answer is from computer science rather than the social sciences. However, I am not sure whether the difference matters much in this context.

Generally, project web sites are done for the following reasons:

Provide a central entry point for a given research endeavour that one can point interested people to (e.g., at conferences). Many projects lead to dozens and dozens of small and large publications distributed over many project partners, so the website of the project collects and often summarizes the main outcomes in a way that is easier to digest.
Advertise the project. It is hard for a project to be successful if nobody knows that the project exists. A website is an easy means to give a "face" to an otherwise pretty amorphous construct.
In some cases, websites have an internal, password-protected area, which the project partners use to exchange documents, discuss in forums, etc. So the website if also a sort of collaboration tool for project partners.
Last but unfortunately not least, project website are often simply a deliverable that the funding agencies expect / require, so they need to be done no matter if it having one serves any concrete goal outside of its mere existence.

That being said, there are of course plenty of websites that are simply useless. The thing is, it is hard to say in advance whether a website will actually be useful for a specific project or not. You may often think in the beginning of the project that you will need a website e.g., as a discussion and dissemination platform, but then nobody ends up using it and it slides into general uselessness.

To answer your questions:

  Are they an effective means to increase visibility of projects?

Maybe, but only if they are very well done and linked in a highly visible way. I would say most websites are not particularly effective in terms of visibility, even though this is typically one of the main goals.

  Under which circumstances does it make sense to set up such a website?

I will always set up at least a rudimentary website. Doing a simple website is close to no effort, and having one (even a simple one) is usually better than having none at all.

  What makes such a website a good website?

This is hard to answer without knowing what specifically the website should do for a project. I assume you mean primarily as a dissemination tool - in that context, what you really need is high-quality content (which is targeted at whatever your audience is), fresh content (try to have a regular schedule, e.g., a monthly research blog), personal touch (photos from meetings, opinion pieces, ...), highly visible linking (the way how Google and other search engines work is that they assume that website linked from important websites are also important, so you need to get your website linked from other highly ranked sites, so as to improve your page rank), and pleasing visuals (make sure that your website is technically up to date).


A bad feeling about first published papers I was taking a look at my first published papers, which are published in (peer-reviewed) A*/A/B level proceedings. Thanks to these papers, I finished my PhD a few years ago.

I was surprised by the quality of the papers and I felt ashamed that I wrote these papers -Of course, this was not my feeling a few years ago-. I found that my assumptions were naive and the conclusions can be valid only for the used dataset (there is a high chance that they are not valid for other datasets). I found also that I lacked some fundamental knowledge and I could explain my approach differently.

Overall, if I receive these papers now as a reviewer, I would definitely recommend to reject them.

I don't know whether this feeling is just because 1) I gained knowledge over the past years, 2) the domain (CS) has evolved significantly or 3) the papers were indeed bad and they shouldn't be published.

In the case of (3), I am wondering what I should do.

You should do nothing other than continue growing and learning. The most common reason would be #1. I can't say the most likely reason is #1, not having seen the papers.

But a lot of authors, even poets, look back on their early work with a sense of wonder about how they could have been so naive. It is a sign of growth.

Yes, #2 is probably also a factor to some extent as CS has been a fast moving field overall, not being much over 60 years old, compared to, say math and such.

And you haven't said that the papers are actually wrong, just a bit naive. Hopefully we all learn some things as we grow older. It normally happens because we are actively thinking about things.

Others at the time (reviewers, editors, advisors) thought that the papers were fine for the time. They were fine.


How should I display my MPhys degree on my CV? I am creating my CV for PhD applications in astroparticle physics. In my education section I decided to include only my university education, so my MPhys Physics degree.

Should I split it in 2 sections where I state my first 3-year marks and then in a 4th year mark or just leave it as MPhys Physics and my total average till now?

Also should I include all my experiments (which involved several sessions of labs and a long report)?

Lastly, what would be the best option if I have no previous experience of a job?

Should I split it in 2 sections where I state my first 3-year marks
  and then in a 4th year mark or just leave it as MPhys Physics and my
  total average till now?

This is not a good idea for two reasons: one, the MPhys is an integrated degree; you don't get BSc + MSc, so you shouldn't try to display it this way on your CV. Put your final classification and mark if you have them, or a predicted classification if you don't (i.e. predicted 1st, 2:1, 2:2 etc).

Secondly, most (if not all) of the institutions you apply to will ask for an official grade transcript provided by your university. This means that there is really no need to go into detail about individual marks on your CV, as they will all be displayed on the transcript.

  Also should I include all my experiments (which involved several
  sessions of labs and a long report)?

Probably not. Listing every experiment you did as an undergrad will make your CV very cumbersome. Also, every physics undergrad I know did several sessions of labs and wrote long reports. Including this will not make your CV stand out. Pick one important experiment or project that you did well on and talk about that in your personal statement, if it is one of the factors that has motivated you to apply for a PhD.

  Lastly, what would be the best option if I have no previous experience of a job?

If you don't have it, you can't write about it, but work experience in non-academic jobs is generally irrelevant for an academic CV anyway.

I'd advise you ask your personal tutor to read through your application materials, including your CV, before submitting. They will likely have some useful pointers, and it may help them too, if they are writing a reference for you.


I have read research paper of the professor to whom i want to apply for internship but cannot understand it fully I am currently an undergraduate student, in the 3rd year of my 4-year computer science degree and I want to email a professor to do a research internship with them. I went to some of their research papers, I liked the topics to which they are related as well as I enjoyed reading most part of it but there are some portions which I cannot understand fully.
While applying what is the best way to describe that I read their research paper and I am interested to work with them in this case?
Important note : I am from Theoretical Computer Science background

Professors are, or at least tend to be, busy people. So my primary advice is to keep it short and to the point. Tell them which year you are in, that you are looking for a research internship, add a very high level topic you are interested in (the more specialized a topic you insist on, the less likely a match can be found), and that you went through their papers (add names if it’s not too many), and that you enjoyed reading them. They will write back to get into any details if interested, or maybe even refer you after talking to you if they aren’t.
I do not agree with what was said here too that understanding every step of a paper is needed or even helpful. You are an undergrad seeking to learn from them by working with them, not a peer-level collaborator. Obsessing about getting every word when some will be standard tricks or conventions obvious to researchers in the field but not outside is both frustrating and wasting time you could have used more productively. What you ideally need is a good grasp of the paper’s intuition and internal logic. The professor should realize in a follow-up discussion if they feel you are prepared enough.


Invitation for a Manuscript Review I have been invited to review a manuscript for a peer-reviewed journal. Actually, this is my first invitation and I am a bit confused whether I should accept or decline. The subject is in the field of experimental physics which is quite different from my research field which is computational physics. In addition, the subject is also different from my background. I really appreciate any advice on this matter and if anyone can guide me whether I should accept or not and why. Thanks a lot for your help and for your prompt reply.

When I am asked to review a manuscript I ask myself three questions:

Do I have the time at the moment to do this?

Normally the invitation to review comes with a time limit. In my field this is typically months in the future but can be limited to weeks. If I have a big deadline or other personal commitment coming up I might pass over the review.
Am I qualified to do the review?

When you are asked to review a paper you are often shown the title and maybe abstract too. The job of a reviewer can be broadly thought of as trying to improve a paper. Even if you are inexperienced you might have other expertise which would add something. If the paper is too far away from your field it may take a very long time for you to read and understand which isn't good for you or the authors.
Am I interested in the paper?

Reviewing should be a two way street. In effect you are giving your time away for free! Normally there is an implicit understanding the others will give their time for free to read your work in the future so it all plays out fair. Having said that if you are giving your time away you might want to get more out of the task than simply paying your service. I normally interpret this question in a quite friendly way and have never turned down a review for this reason.

If you have answered yes to all three there is no harm in accepting. Your review is a recommendation that the editor may or may not listen too when making a final judgement. There will also be other reviewers. Reviewing isn't something you should take too seriously and should hopefully something you enjoy doing!


Asking for Editor comments even before submitting to the journal, Is it ethical? I had written a manuscript and had got it verified by a Professor (as it was closely related to some of his work) who said it was correct. I later came to know that he is also an editor of a reputed journal. So I Wrote to him (the Editor of a journal (math)), asking to comment about suitability of the manuscript for that journal, even before submitting to the journal, is it ethical? and not something frowned upon?

PS : I have not submitted to that Journal.

I don't believe there is anything unethical in asking. You are just getting an opinion, if anything. Of course, the editor may decline as it may raise ethical issues on that end, but not on yours. You aren't asking for an advantage over others, but just advice on suitability. That is the editor's function, though they may prefer, and have rules, to only comment on proper submissions.

He has seen the paper already, of course. Some editors would actually encourage you to submit it without even being asked. It will be judged by reviewers other than the editor, of course.


How should a social scientist deal with envy of disciplines that are more quantitatively rigorous? I am a student in social science who got into quantitative research at the start of my graduate school. Since then, I have had the valuable opportunity to take many Statistics classes and become aware of this world I had not known before. However, with it comes the curse of envy, as I cannot help but feel that my discipline, albeit using quantitative methods, is not as sophisticated (i.e. using a method without understanding the assumption and the derivation, basically relying on canned statistical package that others recommend). Outside of academia, the industry job market has also spoken that these quant researchers are more valuable than I am.

With this attitude of mine, I've become increasingly cynical about my discipline. I don't feel that the work that we do is "scientific" and "accumulating knowledge." I don't think that my industry job market can be competitive. This obviously has harmful effect on both my mental health and my research. I just want to learn more stats, write more code, instead of doing the research of my field.

On rare moments of clarity, I suppose this envious feeling is turtle all the way down perhaps. I'm envious of the statisticians, but maybe the statisticians are envious of the mathematicians, etc. This is why I decide to ask Academia Stackexchange for perspective.

From my occasional conversations, I get a sense that some of my fellow students may have the same feelings. However, given the toxic nature of my thoughts, I can't really discuss them widely with friends, not to mention with my professors.

How to deal with these thoughts?

PS: The relevant xkcd that will inevitable show up in the comments :-)

PPS: Given the gravity and scope of this question, I don't feel entitled to picking a "correct" answer. Thus I will just let the community upvotes decide the visibility of the answers. I hope that the answerers don't mind -- thank you for your insights.

Speaking as one outside of the social sciences whose work has been strongly influenced by readings from social science, I think it may be clearer if you tease apart three concepts that are often conflated: rigor, funding, and importance:

The mathematical or analytical rigor of a subject makes it more difficult for outsiders to understand or hold an opinion on, and inaccessibility can make things seem more important, but all it really shows is that it is hard to understand.
The amount of money thrown at a subject is another easy proxy for importance, but all that really shows is either popularity or market structure.

Social sciences actually deal with a lot of the really hard problems of society, the things that we all struggle with and don't know how to deal with well, like injustice and politics and social conflict.  We in the hard sciences and engineering like to pretend that we can solve these problems by the injection of new technologies, but all we can really do is create disruptions that destabilize the current order, following which society may become either more inclusive (e.g., the creation of the internet) or more exploitative (e.g., the creation of QoS protocols, leading to the current battle over net neutrality).

Social sciences are further challenged by problems of instrumentation (most of what they care about is really hard or inappropriate to measure), replicability (many phenomena are large enough or long enough duration that we've only got one or a few data points), and experimental controls (many interesting experiments cannot be performed because they would be horrifyingly unethical, e.g., isolating populations from the rest of society).

And yet... and yet I think the social sciences produce some of the most important work for us as humanity, because the work done therein is part of the reason that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.

So I think it's OK for a social scientist to envy the accessibility of data for people who only need to build a multi-billion dollar machine in order to do their research.  But don't envy them their field: your problems are just as important as theirs.


Is it appropriate to show that a conference paper is prestigious by comparing the conference rejection rate to that of Science and Nature? I have a paper accepted as an oral presentation at a conference that has an acceptance rate of 3.5 %. My field is computer vision and the conference is CVPR, the largest and most important international conference. In my field, conferences, rather than journals, are the main publication medium.

In a cover letter I am writing, I want to reinforce how prestigious it is to have such a paper accepted, especially to a non-expert audience. Now, I know that Science / Nature have acceptance rates of around 7%, so I was thinking of writing something like the following:

"I recently had a paper accepted as an oral presentation at CVPR, at an acceptance rate of 3.5 %, which is half that of the Science and Nature journals."

Does this read well? Or does it sound arrogant? And is putting this in context with Science and Nature necessary, or is the acceptance rate itself ok on its own?

Thanks!

I am a CS researcher and I know the reputation of CVPR conference.

Please see the following situations:

People submit to Science/Nature journals when they see that their work is highly qualitative and could give a high level of contribution to the scientific world. It is not like someone does a small thing and submits. So, if 1000 papers are submitted to journals like this and only 450 gets accepted then, the acceptance rate is far high.
However, similar case as above does not happen in conferences. Anyone can submit anything, even if it is a small contribution.

Please remember, it is NOT WISE to compare conference with such journals. Journals are far better than conferences given the amount of contribution you may find in the published works.