How to translate foreign-language theses into English? i found many papers and thesis written in different languages than English, mainly Portuguese and Chinese. is there an efficient way to benefit from these papers and thesis instead of translating them using Google translate.

If you have access to the digital copies, then dump the entire thing into Google translate so you can skim read it. Having done that, it would be a good idea to find a native speaker and get them to check the translation of specific sections that seem relevant on the basis of the automated translations. I wouldn't suggest asking a native speaker to translate the whole thing, or even read the automatically generated translation of the entire thing.

Another thing you could do is see if you can find other papers that cite the papers that you're looking at. One of them may contain a summary that'll tell you if you need to bother pursuing that particular paper. This will be pot luck though, and it will be a lot easier to just use Google translate.

Of course, don't use Google's translations in your work; get a native speaker to help you when it comes to that.


Finishing a PhD while working at a community college I'm a PhD student that just finished my first year in graduate school. The University I am at will only fund me if I work as a TA.

There is a community college in the area which I have a long working relationship with. The full time instructors are paid more than I am. They also get 6 credit hours per semester of paid graduate tuition at the university.

I am considering going back to work at the college after I get my masters degree to have some more control over my life while continuing to work on my PhD.

My question is whether anyone on this site knows someone who has done this or has done this themselves? If so what were the worst and best aspects of the situation?

Teaching at a community college while in grad school is certainly an option and I know people who have done it.

My major concern would be workload.  I'd expect a community college job to be drastically more work, greater responsibility and stress, and less likely to accommodate your coursework and research time.  It can be very difficult in grad school to balance your time and energy among your responsibilities, and it's easy for  the short-term demands of teaching to push the longer-term demands of research to the back burner, ultimately sabotaging your chances of finishing your degree.    I certainly wouldn't suggest a full-time community college appointment; even part-time seems like it would be hard to manage.  But it sounds like you've actually taught at this college before, and have also TA'ed, so you'll be in the best position to make that judgment.

At the university, you'll probably get to TA a variety of courses, including more advanced courses in your discipline.  This can be a great learning experience for you, and fill in gaps in your education that you didn't know you had.  It can also be an asset on the job market.  At the community college, I presume you'd teach introductory or remedial courses exclusively; that's a learning experience too, but not in the same way.

At the university, you're more likely to find fellow students and faculty mentors with whom you can discuss aspects of teaching, and being a TA can be a great social / bonding / networking experience.  If you stay in academia, you'll be able to get letters from well-known professors attesting to your teaching ability.  At the community college, you'll probably be more on your own, and a letter from the department head there may not carry so much weight.

Overall, it might be better to plan on teaching community college during occasional summers (when TA'ing may not be available), or perhaps near the end of your PhD (and especially if your departmental funding runs out).  It seems overly ambitious to plan to do it throughout.


Asking about the results of interview I had an interview for a position in a math department. At the end of interview, is it necessary to ask them about the approximate time of releasing result?

It's not necessary to ask this question, but it's a perfectly normal to do so. I don't see any negative repercussions from asking. The information is useful if you are having another interview or waiting to hear the outcome of another application, as it can help you work out when you will have to make a decision on which to accept (if you get another offer). The interviewers may even ask you if you have any such deadlines.
I also find it helpful to ask this type of question because it helps me manage the stress of waiting for a result: if I know I won't find out for two weeks, then I won't be checking my emails daily expecting to hear. You may find the information helpful in the same way.


Letter of recommendation from non-native speaker I am currently a PhD student in theoretical computer science applying for postdoc positions in Europe and the US that will start next year. Apart from my advisor's, I will also include a letter of recommendation (LOR) from a professor with whom I have published several articles. The problem is that while he is an accomplished researcher in his field and let me know that he thinks highly of me, his command of the English language outside the scientific realm shows some major flaws and I have reason to expect that this will also reflect in an LOR. Now I am worried that this will affect any impression the LOR will make towards the negative.

Is this justified? How likely is it that an otherwise excellent LOR will be viewed negatively by a selection committee because of bad grammar/clumsy expressions?

Edit: A good answer for the US has been given, but I am also curious how it differs from Europe.

USA Grad Schools Answer:

Spelling and grammatical errors are ignored - especially if we know the letter writer is not a native speaker. The letters are letters, not published, peer-reviewed journal articles.

What is usually more problematic with academics who didn't come out of American systems (or who haven't been here long) is that they don't fit the genre form of American letters of recommendation - which is excessively flourished praise over several pages with minutiae of biographic details and research insights.

I have read many letters from colleagues at foreign universities that are just three sentences long. This won't work. One of my American colleagues at my previous workplace regularly wrote letters that were 5-6 pages long. I think that's excessive. Somewhere in between is the sweet spot.

If your professor has been here long enough and gone through grad admissions at an American school, they will know what it takes to get in. I wouldn't worry about the grammar and spelling, though. As long as it comes in on letterhead and/or through the portal, we assume it's genuine. And if it's too opaque, we're known to actually phone letter writers to verify the authenticity or clarify the contents of a recommendation.


What are "all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto"? It is common language in graduation ceremonies, at least in the United States, to hear a degree conferred with "all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto." How would one discover what the rights and privileges pertaining to a MA or PhD degree actually are?

Each of my diplomas says my degree is awarded "with all of its privileges and obligations" or something close to that.  I know of neither an official codification nor a learned treatment of the privileges and obligations involved.

But, along with Thomas Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, and Mr. Spock, as opposed to David Hume and Cmdr. Data, I hold that values are logical.  So I deduce that:

The "privileges" include putting the degree on your curriculum vitae so you can get jobs requiring a degree;
The obligations include honesty about the subject matter in which you are supposed to have some expertise.


Is blogging experience (on medium) relevant on the CV for PhD CS Admissions? (US) Background: Undergrad applying to PhD CS Programs in the US
I had done a blogging internship in my sophomore year and I had written 10 blogs during the tenure. All the articles are relevant to my domain and are balanced between technicality and general information on the domain.
Why I want to put it in my CV:

The blogs were supervised by someone who has been a "linkedin" top speaker and I have his recommendation as well on my page.
The blogs were generally well received (but nothing extra-ordinary).
I exactly have space for one more "small" component in the "experience" section of my resume.
The other option I have is working part of a start up for a month but I have nothing to show for that as I am not allowed to.

Short CV Background:

2 pages
First page: only undergrad uni details and "experience (research internships)
Second page: Projects, External collaborations, Awards, Skills.
It's complete and organized with only that small portion of space remaining.

Actual Questions:

Will it help showcase any part of my expertise? (Communication, writing, English in general)
Is it relevant to the Admission panel? (or would I be wasting their time by adding this?)

I don't plan on mentioning it anywhere else like SOP, LOR, SOH (Personal History statement).

Almost any experience is useful on a CV, provided that you can link it to the job you are applying for in a sensible way (this is nearly always possible). It is likely that all candidates have similar diplomas, so the "extra" things you did besides your degree are very valuable. Being able to demonstrate that you are a skilled technical writer and science communicator will almost certainly help.
Mentioning "medium" by name has no value (see also below), but the fact that you have written well received articles on a weblog will improve your CV.
There is a good chance that the hiring committee does not know "medium", and if they do, they probably know that a lot of very bad articles are published on medium (as well as some good ones). If you get through a first screening the hiring committee could be interested in reading your articles to see if they are any good: it would help to provide them with a link to the list of articles.


Are there any implications about review paper acceptance if the proposal has been accepted? So I recently submitted a proposal to a prestigious review journal. To my excitement, the proposal was accepted, and the journal has invited us to write a full review. Now the official policy of the journal is that acceptance of the proposal doesn't guarantee acceptance of the manuscript.

My question, I suppose, is mostly regarding how happy I should be about my proposal being accepted. How often do review papers get rejected if the proposal to write them was accepted? Is there still a good chance that our review paper could be rejected? Or does that typically only happen when authors of accepted proposals deviate a lot from the paper that they proposed to write?

Thanks in advance

My experience is that review articles undergo peer review like any other article. So if you write a review on underwater basket weaving, it'll be sent to experts in underwater basket weaving, who might say things like "X group did a lot of work on the materials that give the best results, and you didn't mention their work at all". If the editors decide based on the reviews that you don't actually understand underwater basket weaving enough to be able to write a review, then it might lead to a rejection.

If you make a good-faith attempt to cover the field + address review comments though though, the chances of acceptance should be pretty good. After all, they did accept the proposal, which means they think a review article is appropriate + you're qualified to write a review.


Is it appropriate to call a research professor by phone or to email one of his postdoctoral assistants if he doesn't reply to emails? I've just completed the first year of a biological sciences PhD program and I still haven't chosen a lab for my doctoral studies since 3 of the labs I rotated in were not good fits and another had insufficient funding. I recently reached out to another professor and on May 13th we had a Zoom meeting wherein he seemed very interested in me and said he would gladly let me rotate in his lab this summer and I would be welcome to do my doctoral studies if it turned out to be a good fit. Before we wrapped up our conversation, he said he would email me some scientific papers related to his research for the coming weekend and reach out to one of his postdoctoral assistants whom I would be working with to arrange a meeting time, presumably the following week.
However, a week has passed since our Zoom meeting and I haven't yet heard anything from him or the lab assistant he said he would contact. On the 16th I emailed him a friendly reminder about the papers he said he would send to me and on the 18th I asked if he had reached out to the lab assistant to arrange a meeting time. But as of this writing on the 21st, he still hasn't replied to me. If he doesn't respond by the 24th, I plan on sending another friendly email reminder. I'm very and anxious and unsure what to make of the professor's lack of response.
It's important to mention that this professor is the PI of a lab and head of a University department so I know he must be an extremely busy person with a lot of responsibilities. I should also note that before our Zoom meeting, he often required email reminders and one time did not respond at all to an email. In fact, he even forgot about the Zoom meeting we had on the 13th at first and had to reschedule for the following hour before we spoke.
If he doesn't reply to the reminder that I plan to send him on the 24th, I was wondering if it would be appropriate to try calling his office phone. I'm also considering emailing the postdoctoral lab assistant. During the Zoom meeting I asked if he wanted me to reach out to this assistant but he told me that he would do it himself because the assistant doesn't yet know me. I'm concerned that calling his office phone might come across as stalking or that reaching out to his lab assistant may violate the preference he expressed to contact him himself at the Zoom meeting. Would doing these things become appropriate after two weeks have passed since our last contact?
I'm generally a very anxious person by nature but this situation is significantly exacerbating it since my standing in the PhD program depends on me finding a lab by Fall. My ultimate fear is that his lack of replies in the past week means that he's no longer interested in having me in his lab but I don't know if this fear is well-founded or if I'm just being overly anxious. So, in summary, what do you think I should make of his lack of response in the past week and should I reach out to his assistant or call his office phone if he doesn't respond by next week?
Thank you so much!

3 of the labs I rotated in were not good fits and another had insufficient funding

Definitely be in contact with your department about this. They need to be aware you're having trouble finding a lab; doing 4 rotations without a home is a concerning circumstance, though I've known people in that same situation that found a lab and did quite well.

a week has passed

A week is almost nothing in academic time, especially for a busy professor and especially around this time of year when for many universities the semester has just ended and people are either finishing up with end-of-semester business (grades, graduations) or perhaps taking some time off after their semester responsibilities have ended.


My supervisor and head of center is doing unethical things and I am in the middle Slowly but surely my supervisor's behaviour has escalated. It started from unreasonable, to downright unethical.

My university complies to the Vancouver autrhorship protocol, yet my supervisor/HoC has made his own guidebook regarding who is author and when. Something along the lines of "Student, Actual Contributor, Cosupervisor, Supervisor, Head of Center". Which implies that he is on every single paper. In my papers and in my work in general, though I always inform him and invite his contribution, he never really does anything more than "give comments" which are surprisingly all clustering in introduction and conclusion. When I am finished with my PhD, I need to submit a form for every paper I've published and state which of the coauthors have contributed in which way. This is a direct clash with the University rules.

He also overrules the PhD school, even when he simply cannot. My Mid-PhD evaluation report is now 3 months late, but "who cares, they are super rigid anyway".

There are many examples of how his way of doing things does not comply to actual rules of the institution, and it is putting me in very bad situations both with other authors but more importantly it is impending my progress in my PhD project.

How do I raise these issues with him without being the black sheep that has a problem with the way he does things? It's my impression that the university's rules were put in place for some reason. I've informed the vice-dean of these things and it is being looked into, but in the mean time there are deadlines that I cannot afford to miss - a PhD is a time-constraining thing. Is there any way possible to bring to the table my honest concerns without implying that what he's doing is immoral and incorrect?

After all, I'm a lowly PhD student whose credibility is worth nothing compared to the HoC. I don't want to become a target.

Sorry for making an answer, but still without enough reputation to comment.

That is a very tricky situation, I can imagine, even more because you have colleagues that simply don't care. I see that the question is already one month old, but I just wanted to point out, in addition to the other comments, that sometimes universities or departments have some sort of complaint and review procedures, rather than just send an email to the dean.

I would just like to also add that I hope you don't give up on trying to make academia a "better place". Academia is full of people that are "untouchable", and if no one complains, it will stay like that forever. I wish you good luck and if you found some procedure or detail that might be useful to others in the same situation, it would be great if you can write them down here.


How to approach a student with bad hygiene? I teach engineering at a community college in the US. I currently have a student with very poor hygiene. He stinks pretty badly, has obviously greasy hair, doesn’t change his clothes frequently, and I usually seat him in the back of the room (during exams and labs, when I have power over seating arrangements) so I don’t have to smell his (relatively strong) body odor.

This student has also spoken with a colleague of mine about his low self-esteem. He’s worried that he isn’t making friends, and doesn’t know if the people he hangs out with are hanging out with him because they want something from him (help with classwork) or because they are truly friends.

In my opinion, this student follows me around like a puppy, and he tries too hard to impress people (students and faculty alike). I am a young-ish female faculty member and I try to create very large boundaries, especially with my male students. As an example, he frequently finds the need to explain to me (in way too much detail) why he gets questions wrong on exams (I don’t care, and I don’t need to know, which I’ve told him several times with no success).

So, I would like to mention to this student that his hygiene is off-putting and isn’t helping him out in the friends department. However, because he already follows me around like a puppy dog, I don’t want to encourage any more interaction from him. Additionally, it frankly embarrasses me to have to bring up hygiene issues with somebody in their late teens / early twenties. How can I bring this issue up while still maintaining my boundary as a female faculty member who doesn’t want her male students following her around and asking her for advice all the time?

I was hoping that I would be finished up with this student by now, but I am the only professor who teaches Electrical Engineering courses, so I can’t recommend that he take classes with someone else, or ask another colleague to discuss this with him. He will be taking another of my courses next semester and I don’t personally know any of his other intended professors for next semester to ask them to bring it up.

I think honesty is the best policy.

We had a pupil at school who also had a really bad hygiene issue, his body odor was horrendous. As an example, once another pupil squirted yogurt at him and it got in his hair, it was still there days later!

It turned out he had no sense of smell. A teacher noticed the problem and told him directly 'I think you have a bit of a body odor problem, most people shower every other day' Or words to those effect.

It turned out that he was actually grateful (after the initial embarrassment of course) and to this day his friend will gently remind him if he is a bit smelly.

If you feel a bit uncomfortable saying it directly maybe you could try to find out more about his home life. Surely his parents would tell him to shower more?

There could be a benefit on both sides if you tell him directly, it may make it clearer that you are his teacher and he is the pupil, it will probably reinstate some boundaries and reduce/stop the unwanted interaction.

Obviously I don't recommend saying it in front of anyone and I can see a problem with you calling him into your office alone, but there is bound to be a time when you happen to be alone together such as after class or something. Or you could wait until he brings up the subject about having low self-esteem, you could also have this conversation with your colleague who has previously spoke to him and maybe they could broach the subject with him. But as said above by having the conversation yourself you may eliminate any romantic feelings and reinstate the teacher-pupil relationship.

Also you have to remember that your role as a teacher is to make sure you give every pupil all you can for them to succeed. His poor hygiene is in no doubt holding him back and will do so in the future; can you imagine if he turned up to a interview like this? If he was struggling in class or under-performing on his projects you would pull him to one side and have a word with him, so pulling him to one side and having a word about his hygiene/odor is really no different when you get over the initial embarrassment.


How do I explain to a prof who is not happy with my actions which were simply a mistake due to miscommunication? I had emailed a professor for a summer internship opportunity. He had accepted me and aksed me write a proposal for applying through a fellowship.

I replied back putting down some points for my proposal. I got no reply from his side. I emailed him again after 2 days and continued to do so for the next 3 weeks. Afterwards, due to no response, I believed he was not interested in me due to no email response and stopped mailing.

But now, after the deadline is over, I found out from another source that he was not happy with my behaviour for not applying for the fellowship.

How do I convince him that this was a honest mistake and I did not intend to be rude and am still interested in working under his guidance?

Agree with Dave, as supervisor/student relationship is like a marriage, communication is essential for it to remain healthy.

However also note that, since you have emailed him quite a number of times and he never responded with any feedback, he did not want to help you, and hence he might not be the kind of person you want to work with. There is nothing worse than a bad supervisor in academia.


What weight does a visiting assistant professorship in a different field carry in tenure track faculty applications? I am finishing my PhD next month in Philosophy. I've been offered a Visiting Assistant Professorship (VAP) in Mathematics at a very good (nationally recognized) Small Liberal Arts College (SLAC).

I have alternative options, and I have a handle on the money situation.

I'm looking further down the road. Suppose I take the VAP. Suppose I'm applying next year for Tenure Track jobs in Philosophy.

The question: In your experience, what weight does a VAP from a different field carry when evaluating an application?

It would be positive, in my experience, but my department (linguistics) went to extremes to be interdisciplinary. Decades ago,  they were more disciplinary and a question could arise if a candidate held a position in e.g. psychology. But even then, raised questions are usually answered by looking at a candidates CV and publications. In the current climate, I think it would be either neutral or positive, depending on whether there were a need to forge relations between math and philosophy.


How do I locate the rockstars at my university, so as to establish a relationship and get references from them? I'm an undergrad with hopes of entering academia. My transcript isn't stellar, and the general sense I get is that I can make up for this with good references. How do I find which professors have the best reputation, so I can try to establish a relationship and hopefully get references from them?

If the subject is relevant, my area is mathematics.

Every university instructor is a potential rockstar in terms of their ability to help you in your studies, and in terms of their ability to influence an admissions committee.

So, how do you find your personal academic rockstars?

Consider the instructor of every single class you take as a potential rockstar.  Visit office hours.  You don't know whether the instructor will give you extra help, or whether the extra help will be targeted to your needs, until you try.
When choosing courses, look for courses where other students say the instructor is highly effective.  Here are some ways of collecting opinions: visit the drop-in homework help room.  There you should be able to find students who are a bit farther along than you, who can talk freely about who are the best instructors in the department.
Try all the tutoring options at your school.  Some are better than others, so don't get too frustrated if your first attempts don't work out very well.  Try any and all options.
Don't be afraid to look at ratemyprofessor.com -- but do take what you read there with a grain of salt.
Sit in on a potential class or instructor one semester ahead.  This will help you in your choice of classes for the following semester.
Make an appointment with your undergraduate dean or advisor.  Ask for recommendations of courses and instructors.

The suggestion made in a comment by @lemon is good too.

I like your attitude.  Everybody has their own rate of development.  Late bloomers are welcome in academia too.

Do make sure you are solid on your foundational math skills.


Why do some US universities ban first-year graduate student from working outside TA/RA? I read an email from UCSD (CSE department) stating:

  M.S. Graduate students are not permitted to work at all during their first year (CPT or any employment) due to CSE polices instated by the faculty committee for our graduate students. Graduate students are eligible to apply for UCSD campus graduate student TAships or research positions.

Why do some US universities / departments ban first-year graduate students from working outside TA/RA?

It seems obvious that they want students to focus on their studies for the first year.

I don't know why they feel this way, but as a state funded education that is putting public resources into a student's education, they don't want those resources "wasted" or used ineffectively.

If a student proves him/herself the prohibition ends. I would hope that the last part is reinforcing this. TA fine. Research fine. Because we can have some control over how much effort is spent there.

I would object to such policies if they excluded financially needy students. I don't know how they manage that issue.

But even institutions that run graduate schools but are not publicly funded still subsidize student education to some extent. As high as tuition can be at some places it is often matched by other sources. I'm assuming the institutions are non-profit. Not all are, and that has its own problems, but those are very unlikely to have such rules.


Postdoctoral references asked to provide recommendation letters - does it indicate the candidate passed a screening? I recently applied for a postdoctoral position at a university, and provided a list of three references. Today the university asked them to write a recommendation letter for me. Would this typically indicate that the candidate passed some screening?
I'm asking because this is the first university that replies and it would suggest that my cover letter is not terrible.

While every university has its own processes it is likely that you passed at least some initial screening. But it might not be terribly significant. It might be nothing more than that the university wants to communicate directly with your references rather than some other way to obtain the letters.
If you get invited to an interview then it is much more likely that they find you "interesting". But at the moment, it probably just means that they put your application in a pile of folks not to be immediately rejected for reasons of obvious ill-fit. Good luck, but don't read too much in to it yet.


Why are some research papers scanned with OCR instead of actual PDF? I have some research papers in PDF format that are actually scanned (and then OCRed) instead of being the original PDF. Some are so badly created that text cannot be properly searched inside.

For example this paper published in 1994 is all about advanced computer technology and there is no proper digital copy. This extended report related to the above paper is even more horribly digitized.

edit: I am unable to access the actual horribly scanned paper. That extended report also had issues in copying.

Why is that? Why are some computer-science publications, which are not even so old, not available in a proper digital format?

In many cases, even through the early 2000's, publishers produced print journals using older type setting systems and did not produce PDFs of the papers for online publication.  Once the papers were type set for printing, the publisher might have discarded all of the files associated with the papers or they might have just kept a file containing a print-ready image of the paper.

Many journals had old material of this sort dating back decades.  Since it would take a huge effort to type-set all of those older papers again, journal publishers have settled for simply scanning the earlier papers (or retrieving saved images of the papers) and then publishing the images of the papers online.

Using optical character recognition (OCR) is one way to extract the text from these images.  However, OCR isn't 100% accurate, and in any case it can't preserve all of the formatting of the paper.  Thus OCR text from a scanned image of a published paper may be somewhat useful for indexing, but it really isn't equivalent to having the original document as a text PDF.

A different issue is that you may have received a copy of a paper from someone other than the publisher.  For example, if you made an inter library loan request to get a copy of a paper, it's possible that someone at another university library scanned a printed copy of the paper and sent that scan to you.


Graduate program focusing on DevOps I was asked the following question by someone who was interested in pursuing a career in devops, but wanted to learn things in a more formal environment such as a masters degree. Is there / Can anyone recommend any graduate program in the US that would help prepare said person for a career in DevOps? He already has a Bachelor in Computer Science in India.

Schools in the US operate on a department basis. Almost all big research institutions will offer research work in the subject field. If your friend doesn't know anything about where the subject he is trying to study is thought, I think he is wasting his time on a graduate degree. Graduate study is research intensive work that requires more commitment on the student's side then it does on the professor's or school's side.


What should I do if a professor's grading makes me feel bad? I have a professor who grades all his exams by himself (homework, midterm and probably the final). For whatever reason he seems to be a likeable guy during the lecture but he absolutely "wrecks" the homeworks, etc. when he grades.

For example, if you make a little error he will put a huge X across the page or over the entire question. Absolutely massive. And sometimes he will circle a solution or step he does not understand and write ??????????? in red. Finally, this didn't happen to me but happened to a class mate of mine, he wrote "fail" on a question that had some problems with the solution. Now I remember he put "big problem" on one of my answers, taking out all marks, without further comment.

Also he sometimes do not thoroughly read through a question but just marks it wrong, then he changes the marking a few moments later i.e. he will write a huge X over the entire question and put a minus whatever the total points and then scratch out his reading mistake but leaves the huge X there. His marking is also uneven, sometimes he will put -5 for a question and then for whatever reason scratchs it out with a red pen and put -10.

(picture this, but imagine that the X is over your entire answer)

Honestly, I find that not just homeworks, but also emails. I think he has a way of overreacting to any little thing he doesn't see fit. For example, I asked him a simple question I had regarding some reference I found online which disagreed with his lecture. He said I need to review basic "insert course name here" because everything I said to him is totally wrong. Then I emailed him back telling him that the claim was contained in the link, by another professor. He just replied I should write my emails more clearly next time...what a guy.

By the way he never clarified that issue I emailed him about, which I think he believes is trivial and only tangetial to the course (he tends to cover only portions of his sum total lectures), but a question is a question even if it is not on the exam, isn't it?

Is his behavior reasonable? It just feels like he is on this power trip whenever he grades stuff. I am scared to approach him because I feel like he marked one of my question wrong after he wrote a huge X and probably discontinued to read my solution which was written on the back of the exam. What should I do?

I would recommend approaching this by thinking about the following question: what is your goal in receiving grades?

Some things that we commonly do with the grades that we receive are:

Use them as feedback on our strengths and weaknesses in understanding material
Certify our degree of education, thereby obtaining further opportunities
Obtain personal validation from good grades

It sounds to me like you're focusing primarily on the personal validation that you can receive from the professor.  Otherwise, it would be the marks you receive that matter, rather than the size of the X used to mark them.  I would suggest that you instead focus on the more concrete gains that you can obtain from the class, whether intellectual (point #1) or material (point #2).

In that light, the style of markings does not matter, but the precision of his grading does.  When you are concerned that he has not graded you correctly, go to office hours and seek understanding of the reason for a grade.  Perhaps he is being sloppy, or perhaps not---but if you approach him with an entitled attitude such as you are showing in your question here, you are unlikely to obtain the information that you desire.


What is a good research experience What kind of research experience is a good or satisfactory research experience for grad school admissions ? There are tons of venues even IEEE has some easy to get conferences which has its name attached to.

So when someone says he has research experience it is very subjective and differs from reading a few papers about ones field to publishing in national level to mediocre international level conferences.

Also there are places where a professor at a respected institution may get his paper rejected.

So I am totally confused which research experience is really a research experience ? How do you set the thresold ?

What happens if I have easy to get >5 IEEE conference papers which are may be unheard or new ones such as 2nd IEEE conf on X ? Will I get an edge over other people with no publications or who does not want to publish at such places ? Should I lean towards this approach ?

Good letters from MIT will be a good indicator but what if you have no such recommender or he is tottaly unknown ?

What kind of research experience is a good or satisfactory research experience for grad school admissions?
How do you set the threshold?

There is no threshold.  Instead, graduate admissions committees judge research experience on a continuum.  At one end are things that hardly count at all (e.g., independent textbook study described as research).  At the other end are extremely impressive publications.  Most undergraduate research is somewhere in the middle, and how meaningful it is can be difficult to judge.  To help the committee, you need to explain what you did, why it is interesting, what your contributions were, and perhaps what you learned from it or got out of it (especially if it didn't lead to a publication in a high-quality journal or conference).  It's also important to have a letter of recommendation that addresses this research, to evaluate your contributions.  If you just mention a paper on your CV, without giving this sort of background information about it, then it probably won't help your application much.

Will I get an edge over other people with no publications or who does not want to publish at such places?

It's hard to predict.  Nobody's going to be counting papers or setting thresholds for impact factor.  Instead, the committee will be looking for two key things:

Have you demonstrated the ability to do research?  (Some people get wonderful grades but do not succeed at research.)

Do you have enough experience to know what you are getting into in graduate school?  (Some people think they want to do research, but when they discover what research really involves they change their minds.)

Instead of worrying about thresholds and quantities, I'd suggest focusing on making sure your application satisfies these criteria.


Going from Associates to Masters? I have a Criminal Justice AA degree & ten years of law enforcement experience. I'm considering going back for something like a Master's in Law Enforcement Administration or Criminology, however financially I would need to be in a master's program because of the funding tier that opens up.

Can one enter a master's program with an associate's degree instead of a bachelor's degree? Is this an something that anyone has seen done before?

I did a little research, and something like this may be possible.  A number of institutions offer combined bachelors/masters degree programs in criminology, criminal justice, and other related fields.  (For example, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of CUNY in New York, has a such a program.)  I presume that these programs are largely intended for people, like yourself, who already have career experience in law enforcement and related fields.  Googling for "combined bachelors masters programs criminal justice" should turn up a few more similar programs.

It's hard to say whether a particular program like this would work for you.  For example, I don't know whether your funding sources would be satisfied with you being enrolled in a joint bachelors/masters program.  The John Jay program I linked to also has additional reqirements for transfer students, which might be problematic.

However, since many gradate programs in these fields cater specifically toward people who have already spent time working in law enforcement, many more places may have policies in place for addressing the needs of people like you.  If there are specific institutions that you are interested (local to you, for example), I would suggest contacting them (possibly in person) to see whether they have programs to help you.  You are probably going have to earn a bachelors degree on the way to your masters, but they may be able to classify you as a masters student for the full duration of your program.


Why does a post-doc fellowship application ask where else do I apply? I'm applying for a post-doc fellowship, and one thing that confused me is that they ask for:

  Names of other fellowships for which you are now applying

I have no problem with including them, but I wonder how is this information relevant to this particular application and whether it increases or decreases my chances if I mention I apply for other places or not. (I'm not going to lie of course though!)

Any ideas are appreciated.

It's hard to say about any specific fellowship (especially without knowing which one), but I've served on graduate admissions committees where we've asked applicants a similar question.  I don't recall any case in which I thought someone's answer changed whether they would be accepted, so I don't think you should worry much about this.  I see three ways in which the information is relevant.  I'll phrase everything in terms of my experience with graduate admissions, but the same reasoning probably applies for fellowships.

Sometimes we learn a little more about the applicant from where they decided to apply, since we learn which sorts of departments interest them the most.  The main case in which this could signal weakness is "reach schools": if you apply to a top department and tell them the only other schools you are applying to are much lower-ranked, then it amounts to saying you don't expect to be admitted.  I'd be wary of answering in that case, but I wouldn't worry about it otherwise.
Knowing where else a student has applied can help in recruiting, since it means we can take into account other offers or deadlines they may face and can make a pitch based on what we expect their other options might be.  (One way this plays out in practice is it helps us guess who might benefit from extra encouragement since they may have received an offer from Department X this week.)
Departments are interested in this sort of information for statistical reasons, so they can keep track of which other departments applicants consider similar to or competitive with them.  This reason has nothing to do with evaluating applications or recruiting students, and it could be satisfied with an anonymous questionnaire, but that's more work to administer than simply adding a question to the application (and it might get a lower response rate).


What's a Professor of Practice do? Are they tenured / on tenure track?

Are they more like clinical teaching professors?

Do they perform research?

I recently saw this job with lots of teaching duties but no research listed.

This answer will be a little different from that of JoshuaZ.

Yes, such a position is intended for people wanting to build a career as teachers/educators, rather than theoretical researchers. But there are caveats.

First, the job may not come with a tenure track leading to eventual traditional tenure. Instead, as at Duke, after a probationary period the holders get long term (say ten year) contracts that are renewable. The ones I am familiar with also come with various ranks. You don't get a lifetime employment commitment, but you do get security. I know people who have held these positions over a long period. (I actually don't know of a situation in which traditional tenure is offered.)

But it isn't quite correct to say that there are no research expectations. The professors of the practice are expected to contribute to the profession and, normally, to publish and have a presence at conferences and such. But the research is more likely to be in pedagogy than theory. This is the situation in computer science at several very good universities. The people are very active professionally and may be text book authors.

These positions exist when a good university has both a commitment to research in a field, but also to high quality undergraduate education. Holders of these positions relieve the top theoreticians of teaching lower level courses, especially to large classes, but still provide high quality instructors for the undergraduates. Of course, such people are also able to interact with the more traditional research focused faculty.


How to be efficient as a graduate student juggling classes, TA and research? I am a first year PhD student, and it's the fourth week of school. I am taking two classes, doing one grad class TA and doing a lab rotation. I am in Electrical Engineering (Controls and DSP).

I start my day thinking- "I'll go to class from 10 am to 12 pm, solve 5 homework problems from 1 pm- 3 pm, do some TA work from 4 pm to 6 pm, and read a bunch of papers from 7 pm to 9 pm, then cook and sleep. How optimistic.

In reality, when I start the homework problems at 1 pm, I end up having to read a bunch of textbooks to understand stuff in it (I'm doing Convex Analysis), and by the time 3 pm rolls around, I have finished only one problem. Feeling discouraged, I keep at this homework, vowing to stop only when I'm done with my quota of 5. My efficiency starts to drop severely after a few hours, but since I'm in school with my laptop and stuff, I can't go anywhere to 'relax', so I just keep sitting and start redditing or something. And then my concentration further drops when I try to resume real work. This goes on, I miss dinner, I sleep late, and the efficiency just plummets through the week.

My past couple of weeks have been so inefficient, I want to do something about it before it's too late.

In short, my question is, when your work is way too difficult to achieve your goal of the day in your allotted time, do you switch work, or do you keep going? I have always believed that output is more important than input, that is, putting in two hours for each task without achieving much in anything is not as good as putting in, say, eight hours for just one and finishing something in it nicely. However, this strategy of mine is failing me for the first time in my life, because even if I put in eight hours, I am not able to finish anything. The work is so difficult. I'm not complaining, just really need guidance.

When your work is way too difficult to achieve your goal of the day in your allotted time

... get used to it. If you are an interesting person doing interesting things, there is never going to be enough time for all the things you want to do. And as soon as the work you're doing now starts to get easier for you, you'll get new, more challenging responsibilities :)

You won't be able to manage your time more effectively until you get a little better at estimating how long things will take, so start there. It's pretty common to underestimate how long things will take - try quadrupling your initial estimate, and see where that gets you.

When you can judge more accurately how long things will take, you will be in a better position to manage your commitments. Once you realize that your homework takes you 8 hours, not 2, you will be able to plan your week accordingly, without feeling guilty when you invariably have to drop something else in order to do your homework properly.

In the meantime,

  Keep forgiving yourself and keep working

That's from this answer by Piotr Migdal, which I highly recommend you read.

  I miss dinner, I sleep late, and the efficiency just plummets through the week.

You don't need me to tell you the answer to this one. Take care of yourself. For more details, see How to prevent physical/psychological health side effects of workaholism in academia and research?.

  do you switch work, or do you keep going?

It helps to have tasks you can work on when you are low on intellectual energy, but that are still more productive than staring at reddit. Here's a list of ways to procrastinate productively.

Ultimately, though, if you need to take a break to recharge, just do it - then you'll get back to work and be much more effective.


Is MSc the same as MSc (Eng)? I have a master's degree in the UK, titled MSc Advanced Materials Engineering.

I would like to know if it would be correct to put MSc (Eng) as a post-nominal?

There is no clear guidance. By using just MSc in a post-nominal it is of course not implicit that the qualification is in an engineering subject. I would like to make that distinction if it is permitted to do so.

You hold an MSc, not an MSc (Eng), so use the former.

If you want the reader to know you have an engineering degree, then write MSc Advanced Materials Engineering, perhaps even MSc, Engineering dept., Uni X for something shorter.

Note that MEng also exists, so MSc (Eng) may baffle some.


Are relationships allowed between students and faculty? What sorts of restrictions do universities place on romantic or sexual relationships between faculty and graduate students, and what are the underlying issues that motivate these restrictions?

For example, suppose the student has previously taken a class from the professor but has no plans for further academic contact.  What other factors could help determine whether a relationship would be allowed or considered appropriate?

To give one data point on how this issue is actually framed and enforced by universities (or at least public universities in the US), let me quote from my university's Campus Administrative Manual:

  An individual may not initiate or participate in institutional
  decisions involving a direct benefit or penalty to someone with whom
  that individual has had a sexual relationship.

  Relationships such as those between supervisors and their subordinate
  employees are inherently asymmetric. Current or past sexual
  relationships can adversely affect decisions, distort judgments, and
  undermine morale. Any university employee who participates in academic
  supervisory or administrative decisions concerning another employee
  with whom he or she has or has had a sexual relationship has a
  conflict of interest in these situations.

  Accordingly, no individual shall initiate or participate in
  institutional decisions involving a direct benefit or penalty
  (employment, retention, promotion, tenure, salary, leave of absence,
  etc.) to a person with whom that individual has or has had a sexual
  relationship. He or she must take specific actions to remove himself
  or herself from all decisions and actions that may influence the
  career or status of the other employee.

[...]

  In cases where a conflict [of interest] is identified, the UEO [Unit Executive Officer] must develop a
  Supervisory Relationship Management Plan that redirects
  decision-making and bypasses involved parties. Such procedures must be
  agreed to in writing and approved through all administrative levels.
  For changes in existing positions that might create a supervisory
  relationship in the same unit, review and approval is also required.

[...]

  The appropriate human resources office will conduct periodic
  compliance reviews. Failure to abide by this policy constitutes
  misconduct, subject to discipline under applicable University
  procedures.

tl;dr: Sexual relationships between students and faculty are not per se forbidden, but the conflicts of interest they create — either real or perceived — must be carefully and explicitly managed by multiple layers of campus administration.

It is worth emphasizing that these policies are invoked not only for sexual relationships that are generally considered inappropriate, such as undergraduates and their instructors, or graduate students and their advisors, but also with married (and formerly married) couples.


Should I choose a postdoc with greater potential for collaboration over a higher ranked institution? I'm in the market for math postdocs and was just offered some positions. Essentially my situation is as follows. I have two offers from AMS Group I universities. One has higher "ranking" and is in the top 15, and the other in the 30s. However, the lower ranked university has a great group and there is a greater potential for collaboration.

I'm concerned that if I go to a lower ranked place, faculty positions at a good institution will not be easy to find. How important is it to go to a famous university for you postdoc? I'd also like to hear about the experiences of mathematicians who didn't go to a top 10 university for the their postdoc, but worked their way up.

I would suggest going where you think you'll be happiest and do the most productive and visible research, taking into account whatever factors of these places are relevant to you.    Ultimately your chances at a faculty position will depend on the strength of your results and on your letters.

The advantages of going to a more prestigious place is that, in general, such places have a higher concentration of good mentors and collaborators.  Such factors make it easier for most people to get good results and high visibility.  But in your specific field, for your specific needs, a lower ranked department might be the better fit.

If you were saying you were considering department #100 over #5 (via some standard ranking), I might suggest you consider such a choice very carefully.  However, a "30s" department might easily be a better choice than a "top 15".


“Reject & resubmit” when all reviewers accepted manuscript Recently I sent a manuscript to a high-level IEEE journal (Transaction on Cybernetic, IF=3.45). After my first submission, I received “reject & resubmit” as a response. I resubmitted my manuscript. This time, all reviewer’s answer were “accepted with minor revision”, but the editor decided “reject & resubmit” again.

I want to ask:

Is this situation normal?
How much is my chance for being accepted in a new resubmission?
With a new submission, is it possible that the editor does not send the manuscript to the reviewers but decides by him/herself?

Depending on the editorial system, it could very well be that reject & resubmit comprises all cases where the paper was neither accepted as it is nor finally rejected. So, in your case, it could just mean that the paper was rejected in its present form (because you need to make the minor revisions requested by the reviewers).

Of course, if the editorial system offers finer-grained status messages, it can also mean that the editor sees more need for revision than the individual reviewers do or estimates the revisions requested by the reviewers to be more substantial than the reviewers did. The editor’s letter may give you more information on this.

Either way, I would not worry too much about it, improve the manuscript as much as you can, and resubmit it. This way has almost certainly the lowest expected waiting time to a final publication.

  With a new submission, is it possible that the editor does not send the manuscript to the reviewers but decides by him/herself?

Yes. If you replied to the reviewer’s comments in a satisfactory manner and did not insert a lot of new material, it may very well be that the editor expects that a new round of review will not yield any further input and accept the paper. Of course, the editor could also reject your paper without further review if they think that you did not even attempt to address the reviewer’s comment or similar.


An author of a paper included a blank supplementary file. Is it possible to make the journal correct this? The authors of a paper explicitly wrote that they included their code as a supplementary file, and the file is actually available, however, it only includes the header and no code whatsoever. Is it possible to make the journal take notice and correct this issue?

If a file is missing or appears to be missing, then the editor in charge of the paper should obviously be notified, since he or she is the person responsible for managing communications between the authors and the reviewers. (I have done this before when there was an obvious missing document.)


Most common departmental structure for degrees in EE, CE, and ECE The acronyms are Computer Engineering (CE), Electrical Engineering (EE), and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Currently, my Department is ECE, and we offer two degrees within the same departmental structure.

As a result of some political issues, I have been asked to find out what is "best practice", i.e., what "most" Universities do. After googling around, I was able to find several departments that pursue each of the possibilities:

separate departments (CE and EE) offering separate degrees,
single departments (ECE) offering degrees in both CE and EE, and
single departments offering one degree that encompasses both fields.

My question is if there is any survey, overview, or summary that would shed light on how common these various options are (preferably in a quantitative way).

CE program has actually been formed to address the digital-electronic-driven technologies, considerably, related to the computer technology, such as computer architecture, parallel processing, VLSI, CAD, etc.

EE program points to the electrical-driven stuffs like power engineering, analog electronics and semi-conductors, telecommunications and so on.

ECE program would often be considered as a mixture of the above cases. As a matter of fact, some minor interdisciplinary programs like robotics, neural engineering and bio-medical engineering could be covered under the aegis of such program.

Above clarifications might be fuzzy and even interchangeable in many cases. One could contend that the applicant must opt among the aforeaid programs, solely, based on the faculty members' research, are who affiliated with the responsible department of each program, are which mostly-aligned with his/her interests.


Naming a library or program partially after a school I have seen several programs and libraries partially named after a school, e.g.:

Berkeley Entity Resolution System
MIT Information Extraction
Stanford CoreNLP

To name a library or program partially after a school, what authorization(s) does one need, if any?

I am mostly interested in the United States but curious about other countries as well.

Berkeley and Stanford are places, not - institutes. So I guess no permission is needed (unless from the respective mayors). (However, my guess might be wildly wrong for the US law.)

See also https://perso.uclouvain.be/vincent.blondel/research/louvain.html:

  is now known as the "Louvain method" because [...] the method was devised when they all were at the Université catholique de Louvain.

When one wants to use an institute's name (e.g. "MIT", as in one of your examples) - at least an informal consent may be needed. (But in some places rules may be much stricter - and it is impossible to make a general answer.)


Is it necessary to ask permission before including someone in the acknowledgements of a research paper? I had the impression that obtaining written permission before including someone in acknowledgements was required. Therefore, I just wrote to someone asking for written permission to include him in the acknowledgements of a paper, and he said he didn't think it was necessary. I don't recall where I got this notion from - perhaps the rules of a specific journal? So, I was wondering if there are any general rules about this or not, or are they perhaps journal specific?

When you list someone in the acknowledgments, you're just thanking them, as opposed to speaking on their behalf or assigning them responsibility (the way authorship does), so I don't see why permission should be required.  I've never asked for permission or been asked myself, so it's certainly not standard in mathematics.  I haven't heard of it in other fields, but of course I can't say from personal experience.

Of course it depends on what you say.  "I am grateful to Alice for her steadfast support of my research" suggests Alice endorses your research, and you should certainly ask for permission before saying something like that.  "The determinant calculation in Section 2 was supplied by Bob" suggests Bob is responsible if it's wrong or clumsy, so you should make sure he is OK with being thanked (but in this case you presumably already discussed with him your plans to include his calculation in your paper and attribute it to him without making him a coauthor).  And of course if your topic is really controversial, then you should be extra careful about everything.  However, if you had helpful background discussions with Carl and write "We thank Carl for helpful discussions about functional analysis", I don't think you need to ask his permission.


Missing optional resume in graduate application The department I am applying to doesn't explicitly require a resume (and doesn't even recommend it), but there is an item named "resume" in the "supplemental material" dropdown menu which I have overlooked. I realized that I didn't upload the resume only after the application has been submitted. I have contacted the admission office, but the auto-response says "We cannot update submitted applications with new SOP or CV or other information."

There is some information in my resume which isn't mentioned in the SOP, e.g. my experience as a teaching assistant. While I have requested a professor from my home university to include the TA experience in his recommendation (because I am his TA), it is said that most institutions in the U.S. don't read letters from Chinese professors. Besides, I suppose a resume serves a nice overview of my previous preparation, so I feel like the absence of a resume is going to hurt the probability I get admitted. On the other hand, there must be some reasons why the resume is made optional, unlike most institutions.

Should I be concerned? Is there anything I can do at this point?

It seems as if you have done all you could. If they won't accept supplementary material, then they won't. I'm not sure about the comment on not reading letters, though. It seems like it would be a flaw in the system as long as the letters are in (readable) English.

If you get past initial screening you can raise such thing in interviews or in future correspondence, of course.

And, take more care in the future, of course, though it doesn't help at this moment.


What are the advantages of serving as an examiner for a MSc or PhD thesis? As an early career researcher, I am curious to know the advantages of being an external or internal examiner for a thesis. How does it help you in your career? Since you are not being paid for the time you put into the task, I believe there has to be some other good reasons why you should do it. Does it count as service (to the research community) when you apply for tenure?
Or, is it a selfless job?

Many things academics do do not help them for their career. Many academics believe in expanding knowledge -- examining a thesis is arguably a way to do so.

For other academics, the reason may be that they are asked by their close collegues and it would damage their relationsship to say no (the collegues could decline collaboration or decline to examing the thesis of your students).

Or another reason to do this is that probably the academics had some thesis examiner themselves and they do this to pay forward.

One advantage I could think of: Depending on the involved universities, you might get invited to examine the thesis defense and thus get to stay and collaborate with their institution.


How to address reviewer's suggestion for new experiments, the results of which have been communicated elsewhere? I received review comments on a manuscript submitted about 6 months back. One of the reviewers suggested performing a few new experiments. But the same experiments were performed recently and the results have already been communicated elsewhere for possible consideration. How should I address the comment?

I think you should ask the editor. They may  decide to go ahead and publish your paper, or want to wait for the results of the new experiments to appear. In either case you should revise the paper to discuss the new experiments.


Does writing matter a lot in research? I am a PhD student (mid stage) and my work includes the use of mathematics. I try to learn as much as possible. I am facing a problem: I spent enough time on the mathematics required for my research, and according to my research supervisor I am good at understanding proofs, theorems, etc. at an intuitive level, but in writing I still have some work to do. Many times I try to write things and, although I think I am not that so bad, there is still a problem to be resolved.

Question: Is writing in research so very important? I have seen some research papers of some star people whose writing does seems to be very impressive to me (although I may be wrong).

Edit: Please note that I don't consider myself a star: that's why I am asking this question. I am trying my best to improve my writing skills and it has improved to some extent, but to me it appears that I may not get that much better at writing. Let me tell you a story: once during my PhD I worked with a professor other than my supervisor, and then we got some result so he ask me to write a paper. I took 4-5 days write a paper 8-9 pages long, then he told me that I wrote in a cryptic manner. (This happened in my first year.)

Writing matters a lot, and a lot of the time probably most PhDs (and even postdocs) face a steep learning curve. This curve is particularly bad in a field where writing is your tool, such as Philosophy. Even when analysis takes the form of symbols, in mathematics and logic, it is essential to convey your ideas clearly. Clarity is particularly problematic for young researchers, because of our tendency to hide behind pretension. Pretension, confusion, clunkiness must be removed for your ideas to come through.

Overcoming these issues is not essential to get an inexperienced researcher to approve of your work, but any researcher worth their salt will know when what you say is bullshit, or when what you say might have value but is unclear. I say this as an experienced, but not necessarily a good, writer. My writing has often been criticised and quite rightly too. I wish I had learned to write better earlier, is my point and the advice I give.

Because writing is important, there is a second question. How to focus on improving it?

Read good writing.
Read a book on good writing, I recommend Joshua Schimel's Writing Science.
Once you have written, wait, and then go back and read it. And then edit it. You will read it from the perspective of another person and hence realise why writing is so important and partly what you need to do to improve.


How do you organize your academic papers? I have nearly 1750 papers in PDF on one folder, all pertaining to medical research. What's the best way to organize them? I have thought about creating one folder for every subject/sub-category, but I want to know if there's anything more efficient that many academics use.

I highly recommend a software to manage this like Endnote, Zotero, or Mendeley. The last two are free if your library is small enough (depends on the size of the PDFs). That will make things much easier by cleaning up the metadata and helping you use search tools to find the right papers.

In each of these software, you can also sort the papers around. The key is that within these software, you can put a paper into multiple folders/categories/groups/whatever else they call it. I use this liberally. Note that the software will keep the reference as one reference with multiple links, and so if you do things like annotate or add notes to the file they will be visible at all locations where you can find the paper.

Before doing anything make sure the metadata is all correct. You can always last resort with using the search bar if it is.
First put each paper into a field. So I would make a folder like breast cancer, and then have a subcategory like metastasis if I have a bunch of papers specifically on that subtopic. Finding odd papers reduces to remembering what subtopic it's from, and finding that subtopic folder within the right topic.
If a paper works in multiple different places, I put it in each place.
Then add the papers to project folders. I make a master folder for each project, and subfolders for different parts of the project, put the appropriate references. The software can now automatically generate a file with all of the references for the paper which helps with citing.

Using this method, you can always dive down into a folder/subfolder that makes sense, either by project or by field, then sort by title/author/year/etc (and easily switch between these), or use the search in the subfolder, and always quickly find what you need.

But... you will need to take a day or two to set this up. That's a long and tedious task, but definitely worth it. Then I usually just do a minor fix up for new additions every few months to keep it tidy.


How to go about obtaining large amounts of obscure data? I apologize if this is the wrong stack forum.

I want to obtain a large amount of surveillance data for a computer vision project I am working on but I am having a difficult time doing so. I specifically am creating a project that would more so work with a governmental surveillance system that monitors public places (like people walking along the sidewalk, cars driving by, etc.) so I'm thinking like the CCTV type of footage.

Youtube has failed me, and my professors aren't sure either. I was wondering how someone might go about this, and more broadly, how other people have coped with obtaining a large amount of obscure data for their own projects.

I do not think that there is a general strategy to obtain obscure data other than:

Think about who might have such data (legally and ethically).
See whether they provide this data for free.
Ask them.

You may have luck in crowdsourcing steps 1 and 2 of this process on Open Data Stackexchange, half of whose questions are data requests. However, given the nature of your specific enquiry, I doubt that you will be successful there, as such data is very unlikely to be open.


Find articles that share datasets and code I am working on some project, in which I would like to find articles where they use some computer code to treat data, and the used datasets and code is totally available (github, personal website, etc). So I go to Scopus, Google Scholar, ISI Web of Science, etc, but I do not find a good strategy for this purpose. I try to add keywords to the search like "code available" or "github", but it does not always yield accurate results. I also know that some journals force papers to give datasets and code, but do not know how to find these exact journals in my domain. So, what is the best strategy for finding articles that share code and datasets?

paperswithcode.com.
It contains publications and the corresponding code.

Most top computer science conferences ask for relevant supplementary material, which includes code. Many papers (atleast in Computer Vision/Machine Learning) which are published in top venues contain links to the code as well.

Many professors also maintain public git repos, which contains the code for their publications. You can search on Github or go to the homepage of the professor to find the link.


Who gets corresponding authorship in the biological sciences and what does it mean? Let's imagine several levels.

(1) Graduate student.
(2) Post-doctoral student.
(3) Assistant professor.

[Cultural context]
(I don't know if this has any impact on the question, providing the information just in case)
In Japan, assistant professor(s) don't usually have their own independent lab. They work in the same lab "under" an associate or full professor. Their level of independency highly depends on the professor above them. Some of them may have a small team within the big team. Lab management and teaching grad students how to do experiments usually rely heavily on the assistant professor(s). In big labs, there may be several assistant professors.

In which cases can (1) and (2) expect to take corresponding authorship?
Should (2) or (3) be granted corresponding authorship if they made the research with grant money they managed to get in their name?
What is/are the benefit(s) of having corresponding authorship? Is it a requirement to be considered for some higher level grants?
Should the corresponding author always be the last author? Or is it OK for any other author to be corresponding author?

The corresponding author serves as the point of access for readers to inquire about a paper. This does not imply it should be any particular author, though particularly common choices seem to be first or last author.

The corresponding author should be the author that is least likely to change institutions. Changing institutions generally implies losing your contact details where you left (including email). The corresponding author should be the one that is most likely to remain a consistent point of communication.

This is often the last author because that is the common spot for the supervising PI (typically tenured). This is not always true, for example some domains like maths and theoretical computer science organise authors alphabetically.


Finding it extremely difficult to get through with my Masters thesis. Stuck with a mediocre thesis I am very close to finishing my masters and am finding it extremely difficult to get through with my thesis. Although my topic is relevant and interesting, nobody, including my supervisor is able to guide me well. All my thesis reviews until now have gone really bad because they think I am not doing anything fancy.
I have discussed this with my guide and am not receiving any help. I feel my guide is not much experienced in this area of research. I am currently in the middle of my thesis where I cannot change my topic. I feel stuck and demotivated. I feel all the effort that I am putting in is going down the drain.
I feel sad and miserable all the time. All those students who didn't perform well earlier are putting up their best work now and are appreciated while I am stuck here with my unappealing work. I really want to take some time off this work but cant due to the  tight schedule of my reviews. I already had serious anxiety issues and this is making it worse.
I really want to know if any of you faced similar issues and how you overcame it. Any suggestions on how to recover are welcome.

First, I suggest that you talk to a professional counselor about your frustration and how to cope with it. If you don't do that you could wind up in worse shape than you are.
However, "mediocre thesis" is probably a misstatement. You are stuck and you aren't getting the feedback that will help you advance. Your advisor isn't providing it and may not be able to. However, there might be other faculty that you can speak with that will have some ideas.
Many students at about your position find themselves in a bit of a burnout situation, having worked hard for a long time without a break. I went through that and also once worked with an unhelpful advisor. I had to change institutions to break the cycle, but, had I been braver, I could have shortened my process by insisting on a change of advisors. Later I found that things like regular (aerobic) exercise helped me maintain a more sensible work flow.
For the thesis work itself, you need someone, probably a faculty member who can get you through whatever technical block you are facing. You say the topic is relevant and interesting. But you may be missing some important insight. Doing the same things over and over may not lead you to that. It may be a small thing or not, but try to get some assistance. If you can't change advisors, and they can't help, look elsewhere.
But first, deal with the emotional/personal issues.


Strategies to overcome "academic-apathy" in the final stages of the PhD? Background - I am doing my PhD in atmospheric physics/photobiology.

Here is a scenario:

The experiments are complete - the results are far better than expected
Successfully got the computer program to work properly and have developed another
Papers are published
Much of the thesis is drafted

The light at the end of the tunnel is most definitely no longer an oncoming train.

But, at this stage, you just don't feel like working on the thesis, you do other things like cleaning, reading, watching movies - procrastination gets worse, and worse despite the submission deadline coming closer.

The procrastination resulting in more apathy towards the project, despite being fully aware of how much work has been put into the project, how much has been achieved and how little, comparatively, needs to be done.

What strategies are there to overcome this academic-apathy, particularly in this late stage of the thesis?

Here is what kept me motivated and got me through the last year of my PhD:

A comment from a professor that the best dissertation is the one that is written.
My advisor kept pushing me to get her chapters.  I'm not sure where you stand with your advisor, but if he/she (and your committee as a whole) wants you to finish up, that can be motivating.  If you want to push this angle, send out an email to your advisor and committee with your plan to finish -- that will help keep you working!
I had set a deadline for myself (as mentioned in point 2), and backed all my planning up to make sure I met the deadline.  It sounds like you've gotten to the point where it is just the writing you have left, and I suggest setting up a schedule of when you will complete each chapter.
My deadline revolved around the job market -- I knew I needed to be ready to start at a job in August, so I knew I needed to be completely done by then.
I took breaks when I needed to.  I treated myself to a day off when I got a chapter completed and sent to my advisor, and I had one weekly TV program that I watched religiously.  Finishing a PhD is a lot of work, but it doesn't need to be soul-crushing (and soul-crushing work is bad for you, anyway!).
I really wanted to see the finished product -- I thought it was cool to have this giant, polished document, and that kept me tinkering on it.

Good luck!


Getting PhD in an adjacent field I plan to pursue I recently completed a mathematics BA and have started 4 year ROTC commitment in the US military. The military has offered to let me get my PhD in Operation Research(OR) while being on Active Duty(full pay and benefits) starting in August. I had planned on becoming an academic after the military and my research interests are in Theory of Computation and Logic. Originally my career plan was getting a PhD in Math(logic or theory of computation), CS(theory of computation) or even Philosophy(logic), but getting in a PhD program right now fully paid for is very tempting. I am interested in OR, but I will eventually focus on Logic or Theory of Computation. If I do not purse an OR graduate degree I will be doing mostly managerial functions for the next four years. I think getting the PhD in OR and doing technical work might be a more efficient use of my 20's, than doing a traditional military leadership. I have noticed some very well respect Professors do not have their PhD in the exact field they are currently doing research.

To my questions:

Would getting a PhD in operational research immediately preclude me from tenure track position in Math, CS and Philosophy Departments? Even if I have a solid amount of publications?

If so, would already having a PhD hurt me if I applied for admission to a PhD program in Math, CS or philosophy?

Would getting a PhD in operational research immediately preclude me from tenure track position in Math, CS and Philosophy Departments? Even if I have a solid amount of publications?

It would not preclude you from applying, but your success would depend on whether your research profile matches the position as you would be competing with many candidates who might be a better match. The number of publications is important but it's not the most important criterion.

  If so, would already having a PhD hurt me if I applied for admission to a PhD program in Math, CS or philosophy?

I can't see any reason why already having a PhD in OR would decrease your chances to get admitted for another PhD program later. But will you still be motivated for that after getting your first PhD?

An alternative option would be to progressively switch topics after the PhD through one or two postdoc contracts.


Chances of getting into PhD without any technical paper? I am a bachelor pass out of 2018. Electrical background. Currently i am working in R&D in an automobile company for the past year. PhD is something I have always wanted to pursue (mainly because I want to be a professor). But the PhD scenario here in my country makes me really uneasy towards it. So pursuing it in Europe seems like the best option (lesser tuition fees than USA).

Now the main issue is that I don't have any technical publications. This is maybe just an excuse but during college i was mostly reinventing the wheel. So I never felt like I could write one. Although I have worked on so many different kind of projects that no matter the field, i have worked on it (at least as a beginner). I am working on some patents at my current job. But it'll be a while before i can apply for the patent.

So my question is, is there any chance I can get into doctorate program of any European college with no technical paper and just a bachelor's degree. And if not then is there a chance of getting into MS?

I looked at entry criteria into universities, but they generally don't mention anything about technical papers. Educational criteria are easier to find.

Europe consists of several countries with different educational systems.
Typically you should have a master's degree before applying for a PhD degree. I would suggest searching for opportunities to get a master's degree first. But there probably are exceptions: see point 1.
Not having publications is fine in the disciples I know of. If you have publications before a PhD, that makes you a very strong candidate. If not, then you are just like everyone else on that matter.


Is gift authorship for PhD advisors rampant in academia? I have had an issue with my PhD advisor where they were essentially attempting to coerce me into inappropriately adding them as a co-author on a paper that they had no part in. They agreed that they should not be an author according to ethical standards, but essentially threatened me that there would be "problems with my graduation" if I did not add their name to the paper. They have refused to collaborate with me on this paper as well as any future paper because they "are too busy" and "no professors really do research".

This appeared to be a very serious ethical breach to me, so I immediately went to the department chair to describe the situation, and started looking for a new PhD advisor. However, some of the reactions I got to the situation disturbed me. The chair of my department openly stated that all of my research is "owned" by my advisor (whatever that means) and implied that I was a bad student for not adding my advisor to the paper. He even went so far to suggest that I add my new advisor's name to the (finished) paper in order to start off on good terms! Another professor trivialized the problem, stating that compared to what many PhD students have to deal with gift authorship is "not that bad". A third professor stated that it was clearly unethical, but that it was unfortunately the norm.

It seems to me based on this small sample size (as well as hearing other PhD student's experiences) that gifting authorship to uninvolved PhD advisors is rampant. This is obviously a terrible practice. Is this behavior really rampant in academia? And if so, what happens to PhD students who refuse to participate in this practice?

A further point about my situation: I am in a theoretical scientific field where there is no lab, etc., so there is no complications arising from that sort of thing. Although even if I were working on a grant and using lab equipment gift authorship would be unethical.

This situation is not uncommon but not rampant, and depends very strongly on the culture of the institution, the department and the field of research, or even the individual thesis director.

There is some weak argument to be made that thesis directors provide resources (intellectual or otherwise) so they should be more or less automatically co-authors of work done by students.  If they are not then the resources going to the lab/research group through grants or other competitions might be jeopardized.   In other words, the resources you can access now are in part due to the past record of the supervisor so she/he needs to keep this up else these resources will not benefit the next generation of students.

There is also the argument that big names function as imprimatur in the sense that they will provide visibility to the work beyond what the junior authors could hope to provide.

Overall, I have always found both arguments not completely satisfactory.  While certainly a thesis director should help a student as much as possible, there are clearly situations where it is not necessary for a thesis director to co-sign a paper.  Likewise, it is entirely possible to highlight in a positive manner - in a grant application or otherwise - the fact that a student publish without his/her thesis director.


How is a student perceived if he took more time to graduate? Suppose, a student completed his MSc in 4 years, instead of 2 years, but has a CGPA of A.

Would he have any disadvantage as a Ph.D. applicant?

Edit:
I can think of two possible reasons:
 1. financial difficulty.
 2. took some time to develop the necessary knowledge to cope with some courses. For instance, he has to complete a course X (e.g. Stochastic Process) but found that he doesn't have the necessary background knowledge (e.g. Probability and Statistics) to obtain a good score. So, he took some time studied at home and then came back, and he scored an A or A+.

Would he have any disadvantage as a PhD applicant?

Yes of course. But how big this disadvantage is, or if it is even relevant at all, depends on many factors:

country
field
courses taken (that might actually be an advantage!)
reason for the long time
was that long time used properly (e.g. to produce a really good Master Thesis)
other applicants
how common an A-Master is in your field/country/at your university
...

I would personally say that the disadvantage is not that big, but that is only my personal opinion, and chances are low that I will sit in your PhD admission committee...
I don't see how you would be able to get a general answer even when providing all these answers and I would suggest asking someone who knows your situation (e.g. your advisor, if you already have one).


Is having your hand in your pocket during a presentation bad? Someone I know has given a presentation at a American University.  He supposedly had his hand in his pocket while giving the presentation.  A foreign student attacked him for this.  The person supposedly said "how would you like it if I gave a presentation with my hand in my pocket."  At the end of the presentation, more people started ridiculing him

I am not sure if he was attacked for the content of the presentation, because unfortunately, I have heard this through the grapevine.

What is the proper way to give a presentation?  Did the students act appropriately?

If you want a short and binary answer, it is likely yes — keeping a hand in a pocket during the presentation is not the best habit, because:

You lose yourself a chance to use that hand for communicating with the audience via gestures.
Your body language and posture is more likely to be perceived as you can't be bothered with what you are doing.

Having said that, there may be examples of excellent use of almost anything which is normally not recommended in a presentation, if you plan for it and do it consciously. For example, if you ask your students the famous Bilbo's question: "What have I got in my pocket?" — and put your hand in your pocket, your gesture is playing nicely with your explicit voice communication to create an interesting and intriguing setting.

A binary answer to your second question is likely no — students acted inappropriately by interrupting the presenter and commenting on the presentation style, rather than topic of the presentation. Unless, of course, the whole aim of the exercise was to receive comments about the presentation skills and strategies. From your question, we cannot tell.


Academic Journal Article Peer-Review Feedback Tips I've always been dissapointed in the feedback I receive when submitting articles for publication. Even when my work is accepted the suggest given are often vague and unclear.

I know that most journals have some sort of form that reviewers complete but it seems that the form is not followed very carefully.

Therefore,  I was wondering what kinds of expectations others have in regards to peer-review feedback for an academic article.

Submit your work to high-quality journals.  Those journals (usually) make sure to get high-quality reviews for submitted papers.  In my own experience, the quality of the reviews is strongly correlated with the quality of the journal.


Leave of absence to leaving PhD program I am in the unfortunate situation where I am being forced to leave a PhD program with a master of art in an engineering discipline. Advisor left while I was on leave (health reasons), couldn't find a new advisor in the same field (had to do it while off campus, which made it so much harder) so the university told me to pack up.

What is the difference between an MA and an MS and is one better than the other? Also would it be worth joining a new university as a masters/PhD student even with an MA?

I assume I have no recourse here and my only option is to packup, but if anyone has been through this or has any advice I would appreciate it.

In terms of whether it is worth it to continue to pursue a PhD, that's up to you and your own life and career goals. Based on your reasons for leaving the program, though, you may have a better chance of continuing in another program than students who leave for other reasons (such as failure to complete qualifying exams, conflicts with a supervisor, etc). You will probably need to explain your leave of absence, at least in vague terms.

Although US programs often admit students for direct PhDs, at least in engineering disciplines it is not that uncommon for students to be admitted with Masters degrees. At my institution, I just checked a couple of engineering programs and they allow at least some credits from a prior masters program to count towards the course requirements of the PhD, and they expect students with a masters degree to progress through the program more quickly. It's still more efficient by about 1 year to start as a fresh PhD student and skip a separate masters, but the masters degree is not "wasted" (whereas in some other disciplines there may be no transfer at all). Of course all of this will vary by institution.

There is little distinction between MA and MS; MA in engineering is more unusual but may occur when engineering programs build out of departments more commonly housed in the arts. Since your institution offers both, then that distinction matters more than the letters. Probably the thesis-based masters is better, but I suspect that it will matter little compared to a course-based masters plus the work you've done towards a thesis (especially if this includes publications).

If you decide to continue towards a PhD, I would suggest you begin contacting professors at other institutions that have research programs you are interested in, and simultaneously checking the posted policies for the programs at those institutions. You can also apply directly to programs you are interested in (hopefully those that have more than one professor in your chosen field; the narrower your focus the more likely you need to have an advisor in mind ahead of time). Pretty much the same process as a new student. Your former advisor may be a good resource for suggestions as far as who to contact if you are still on good terms with them (I don't see anything in your question that implies you are not).

Letters of recommendation from your former advisor and possibly others at your current institution that can explain the situation will also be helpful.


How report of reviewer travel through editorial system? When a reviewer submit review report through editorial system, does this report goes straight to author by mail or review report is first scrutinize by editor and then goes to author ?

The report goes to the editor.  Once the editor has all the referee reports (if more than one reviewer is involved), the editor makes a decision about acceptance.  Then the editor sends the decision and the referee reports (which are occasionally redacted by the editor) to the author.


Harvard referencing and in-text referencing for Chapters Say in the reference list you have referenced a book: can you reference a chapter in that book in-text as such: (Doe 2011, Chapter 3)?

I don't necessarily want to go with the option of referencing each chapter in the reference list.

Yes, inline citations can cite subsets of texts like sections, chapters, or (more commonly) pages (e.g. when sourcing a direct quote).   Different styles might have different rules on abbreviation (e.g. "Chapter" vs. "chapter" vs. "Ch." vs. "ch.")


Should a undergraduate rely on PhD students to publish papers or do it individually? I am a undergraduate student who is trying to publish something so as to facilitate my PhD applications in the future.

I have a few seniors who help out in the lab and have been included as non-1st authors in some publications. Basically, what they do is helping the PhD's do some implementations. Thus, actually there is not much real research involved. But at least in the end, they are the authors, although not 1st authors, of some publications. It is quite nice for undergraduates to have such publications.

As for me, I am currently working on an individual project under a supervisor, who is extremely busy every day. Instead of being a helper, I am actually initiating the research all the way. I am also working towards publishing a paper to present the work.

Nice as it may sound, I am facing a lot of difficulties. As a undergraduate, my knowledge is so limited, and meanwhile I have to attend lectures. My time is also very limited. So I am really afraid I can publish nothing at the end of the research.

Since I have already started the research, no matter the decision to initiate one project my self is wise or not, I have to fight to the very end.

Could anybody help give some suggestions to make my work get published more likely?

One alternate strategy that could help is to see about trying to present a poster of your work at a conference. Even if that doesn't have quite the same prestige as a paper in a journal or an accepted paper at a conference (if you're in CS), it still is a sign of doing significant amounts of research. An especially good sign would be if you could win a "best student poster" or "best student talk"-type award.

However, the important thing for you will be to be able to discuss what you have done with authority in your statement of purpose to graduate schools, and to get a good letter of recommendation from your advisor that clearly outlines your contributions to your project. Having a publication is nice, but it's not an essential component for graduate school admissions.


Do people feel free to review a Festschrift as any other book? In different fields, renowned academics are sometimes honoured with a Festschrift on the occasion of their birthday or in memory of their life. (The Festschrift contains articles by scholars close to them who typically engage with a topic the honoured academic is interested in.)

I could imagine that if someone were to write a review of such a book as a whole, she wouldn't want to be overly critical because it's not nice for the editors and the honoured academic (if still alive). Of course a bad review is never "nice", but since a Festschrift is a present one may want to be more careful.

Then, can we trust book reviews of Festschriften? Is the difference with a normal book review negligible?

A festschrift is there to celebrate the person in an academic way, so they are typically treated as such.


PostDoc relocation Expenses I have recently accepted a postdoctoral position at a reputed institute in the UK. I am an oversees applicant, who will soon be moving to the UK to take on this role. During the interview, I did not enquire about relocation expenses, assuming there would be support for that, but I have now been told that postdocs in this institute don't get a relocation support. On top of this, new regulations on the UK visa mean that I am now having to pay almost 1200 GBP just to get a visa and permission to be in the UK.

The town I am moving to is quite expensive (almost London rates) and I am now having trouble raising money for the airfare and paying initial rent and deposit, let alone having money for food and miscellaneous expenses. I am in a very tight spot and don't know how to take the next steps. This role has come after a lot of difficulty, and this situation is making it very difficult. Any advice on what I could do ?

You have been told (by HR I assume) that postdocs can not claim their relocation expenses from the University. However, there is a chance you can claim (some) reimbursement from the School/Department or from your PI's grant. It is a bit late to negotiate this already, but it probably does not hurt to ask.

However, if the answer appears to be negative, unfortunately, there is not much to be done. Welcome to the dark side of academia.