I want to do an independent dissertation type research project, not being part of a uni, how can I find out if my Question has already been answered? I wish to live with an indigenous tribe or 3 months, to study their culture and answer an almost independent dissertation question, under said cultural Anthropology. I would like to know the best way to find out if my research question has been answered, how can I do that without an advisor from a university? Is there a database, or what routes could I go down to find out/which is best.

Thanks for your time to answer.

To directly answer your core question, "how can I make sure my research question hasn't already been addressed/answered by previous researchers", the only real answer is a thorough literature review and an associated deep understanding of your research area. This is universally true of all research disciplines; knowing what others have done and learned before is a fundamental part of conducting research that advances human knowledge. If you just want to investigate something for your own personal interest, then this is not completely necessary, of course. But rediscovering something already known within a field may mean your research is not of interest or able to be academically published.

There are other dangers of not knowing background before you start, of course. The simplest is that you go about things wrong, and previous researchers have established that your approach is fundamentally flawed, dangerous, harmful, or otherwise inappropriate. It may be that others have done almost exactly what you intend to do, and you may simply be setting about to replicate a previous study. Replication is fine, but replicating something already found out to be flawed or insufficient to answer the key research questions may just be an exercise in futility.

As mentioned in the comments, there are major ethical issues if your proposed research involves human participants, such as doing sociological/anthropological work. This includes activities such as asking questions, giving surveys, and reporting on naturalistic observations. At best, not observing certain precautions and methods can mean no legitimate academic publisher will touch your work, and others in the field will reject it entirely as unreliable or unethical. At worst, you can do real harm to others and get yourself into serious trouble. Understanding and applying principles like informed consent, protection of privacy, respect of autonomy, etc, are important no matter what your goals are. Working with "at risk populations" (which can include indigenous tribes) requires an extra level of care, and may even have legal requirements of registration and authorization to be acquired in advance to avoid criminal proceedings, fines, or more.

But back to the core question, there is no simple, fast, or easy way to see if a question has been asked and/or answered before. It simply requires intimate familiarity with your field and line of research, preferably assisted by speaking with a network of fellow experts familiar in the field, and a lot of searching and reading through work on your own to determine what is and is not an open, interesting, and potentially answerable question. If your field has "survey papers" that explicitly call out a certain area as an "open area of inquiry" or an important question for future research, that's certainly a great place to start! But how exactly to conduct a good literature review is beyond the scope of this forum, and requires intimate knowledge of your particular field. You can start with Google Scholar and some clever search terms, but even knowing what terms to use is often a highly field-dependent issue. It is not insurmountable, but you should at very least be aware that this stage of research is both very important, very time consuming, and will require a great deal of work if you are not already deeply well versed in your field of inquiry.


Where to upload a reprint (post-print) of my publication? I used to self-archive papers on my homepage in the institute where I was doing phd. I just noticed that my homepage and the reprints were removed -- that's normal, I'm not working in that institute anymore.

I can legally self-archive these papers. For example, J. Appl. Cryst. allows authors to post reprints

  on their own personal website, on their employer's website/repository
  and on free public servers in their subject area.

What are the best "free public servers" to upload electronic reprints?
(IIUC arXiv is for pre-prints rather than post-prints).

arXiv is not only for preprints (actually, updating after publication is highly encouraged). So if you can self-archive*) and you have an intersection with an arXiv discipline, it is the best place to place it.

*) The only objection to post-publication is in case where you are not allowed to self-archive and don't wan't to mess with it.

For other disciplines, see Preprint services other than arXiv (for other fields).

Or (maybe even better) just - putting them on GitHub repository. It is a stable service + makes it easy to upload work with source code (tex + figures) (much alike arXiv, but on GitHub it is more convenient). Just make sure to link the pdf file in the README.md and reference it properly (i.e. the full citation, the best with a DOI link) so to have its status clear.


Will my accepted paper appear in conference proceeding without presentation? Will generally accepted papers appear in conferences proceeding without presentation? In particular my paper is accepted for this conference. In the conference web site they pointed out: "Accepted and presented papers will be included in the IEEE CPS Proceedings." In its registration page they have told:

  Please register your papers before 20 July 2014. It is strictly
  enforced. If we do not receive your registration by that date, your
  papers will be moved from the proceedings. Thank you very much.

Does this mean the registered papers definitively will be appeared in the proceeding? Unfortunately there is no contact info on the web site and they do not response emails. I could not attend the conference and I wonder should I pay regitration fee or not?

The IEEE policy on non-presented papers is as follows:

  Authors are expected to attend the conference in person to present their papers and share their ideas.

  To encourage attendance, IEEE recommends that conferences exclude or limit the distribution of any paper that was not presented at the conference. This policy is not mandatory and only applies to conference proceedings where IEEE is the copyright holder.

  If authors are unable to attend the conference and present their papers, they should contact the program chair as soon as possible so that substitute arrangements can be made.

That is, it is at the conference organizer's discretion. Some IEEE conferences do pull a paper from the published proceedings if it isn't presented at the conference: for example, the IEEE Signal Processing Society has the policy that papers not presented will not be distributed on IEEEXplore.

The only way to be sure your paper will appear in the conference proceedings is to confirm with the conference organizer.


Should I pursue physics or computer science? I am currently a student at a German high school in my senior year. (In case you don't know the German education system: Students get to choose two subjects which they focus on. In my case those two subjects are math and computer science.)
I've always been fairly certain that I wanted to study physics. This was/is due to my deep love and admiration for the subject. To see whether I would actually like to pursue a degree in the subject, I decided to watch two lecture series which mostly covered classical physics (They were from TU Wien, by professor Wagner). I was immediately hooked and especially enjoyed the mathematical rigour.
However, during the last 2 1/2 years, I started to take computer science. This led to me developing a great interest in the subject. And as I did with physics, I started to watch some lecture series on the subject. (MIT 6.034 Artificial Intelligence, Fall 2010; MIT 6.S191: Introduction to Deep Learning) The thing which stood out to me was that unlike physics, computer science appeared to be a lot more applied and a lot less mathematical. None the less, I still appreciate computer science for its power as a tool and merit as a research subject.
As to my general aspirations, I eventually want to pursue a PhD in either CS or Physics and hope to end up working in R&D/academia.
So my question is which of the two degrees I should pursue. (As far as I know, it's quite hard to get a masters in a subject which you didn't get your bachelors in. This at least seems to be the case here in Germany.) On the one hand, I want to learn all about physics and enjoy the rigorous formal education that comes with it. On the other hand, CS seems to be a far more interesting field research-wise, developing far quicker than physics and showing more promise for emerging technologies.
All in all, I don't dislike physics research (topics), but it often seems either super high level or extremely narrow and inconsequential, to me. Contrary to this CS seems like a far more manageable field, which progresses quite quickly and also seems to offer quite a lot more open positions.
Lastly, I also don't know about my career opportunities. But it seems to me, that a degree/education in CS is more economically sensible.
(I hope I don't give you the impression, that I love physics and hate CS, it's really not that black and white to me, I just seem to have a slight preference for the physics curriculum. Nevertheless, I still greatly enjoy learning and doing pretty much every area of CS, which I have encountered so far.)
I greatly appreciate any of your input and am looking forward to it. However, I do recognize the vagueness of my question and know that there isn't a clear-cut answer to it, still, I'm eager to hear your perspective/tips on the matter and hope that you will inform me about any possible misconceptions I might have.
(I've also considered a degree in math, but seem to lack the enthusiasm for the subject.
In case some further elaboration is necessary: I'm afraid that I might be missing out on my chance to acquire a thorough understanding of physics. But also worry that, by choosing physics, I might hinder myself from getting into tech/CS-research later on and worsen my future career/job prospects.
P.s. The university I'm looking to study at is the TUM)
Best regards,
Justus
:)

We cannot tell you what to do with your life, that's for you to decide.
However, note that there are mixed degrees and many programs for either Physics or Computer Science will require you to choose a minor subject, which then would be easy picking for you. I'd recommend to start either with a mixed variant or with one as the major and the other as the minor. If your university has both as fully fledged degrees, it should be easy to switch if you notice during your studies you like the minor more.
In addition, in most Physics degrees you get some basic programming exposure as well. It is typically not thaaat hard to switch and do the master in the other topic. I know quite a few Physicists that now work as software engineers. The other way around seems a bit more rare, but also possible (there is less automatic exposure however).
If you are really ambitious you can also try to study both, given that there is some overlap, that can arguably be easier than say computer science and History.
German examples for mixed degrees (from a quick-search, you would need to check what TUM specifically has to offer in that fashion):

https://www.zbh.uni-hamburg.de/studium/informationen-fuer-schueler/was-ist-physinf.html
https://www.merkur.de/leben/karriere/neuer-bachelor-kombiniert-informatik-mathe-und-physik-zr-12539261.html


Research Topic Suggestions I am applying for Postgraduate degree research but for that I need to submit a Research Proposal with the application and it is very confusing for me because I never did any kind of research before.

I have been a small business owner for the last 7-8 years and I want to do research in the same field (Entrepreneurship or small- or family-business related), but I just don't know how to narrow down and select a specific topic.

Can you suggest some guidelines to select a topic?

I have been a small business owner for the last 7-8 years

Have you run into issues/problems in those 7-8 years? Are those problems specific to your own business? Could other business owners have the same or similar problems?

Can you generalize those problems so that you can conduct research on possible solutions to those problems in academic approach?

Can you find the causes of those problems from academic perspective? How would you propose to do so? Should the government play a role or not? How could the society as a whole participate? Etc. Etc. There are hundreds of topics out there. Take your pick. Good luck!


Publication ethics - rights of a co-author to access full data Institute II is setting up a benchmark project under the lead of main-author MM. 20 other developers participate, run their methods without having access to ground truth data and also MM contributes with his methods results.

A paper is written by MM. Is it the right of one or all of the other 20 developers (results have been submitted to MM already, so there is no reason that tuning/overfitting can happen) that he gets access to GT data to check if the analyses of the results are reasonable?

The best source for publication ethics known to me is Cope, the Committee on publication Ethics. They have a document for author guidlines (PDF), where it is recommended that an author submits "A declaration that that person takes responsibility for the integrity of the paper".

This is like always in Ethics only a recommendation, the journal obviously has to do here the final decision.

In my opinion I can try to get access to the GT by writing MM a mail, nevertheless if not granted, I cannot personally assure the integrity of the paper and have to retract my authorship. Or I get in contact with the editor of the journal if MM is not cooperative and let him decide.

Am i right about my conclusions? Are there other strong widely followed ethical guidelines about this issue?

Thanks for further recommondations.

In order for the benchmarking exercise to be convincing to readers, it will ultimately be desirable to release all of the data (and presumably code) so that the comparison can be replicated.

There's no reason that the ground truth data couldn't be revealed to all participating researchers after they've done their analysis and the results have been frozen but before the submission of the paper.


Academic Honesty for Teaching Staffs (Case Study) I want to share a case study with you.

Peter received a Bachelor's Degree from ABC University.

Later, he wanted to pursue a higher degree (e.g. MPhil degree) and found a potential supervisor in the field of topic that he felt interested in ABC University.  Let's call her Susan.

Peter read some papers suggested by his potential supervisor (Susan) and worked with her to draft a research proposal in the topic relating to "A" for his MPhil degree application.

At the same time, she was preparing a draft conference paper in the topic relating to "B" with her research group members and some researchers from other university for paper publishing.

For some reasons, she told Peter to use this draft as his research proposal for his MPhil degree application, so he could be admitted easily, and explained that the research topic could be changed once he got admitted.

Later, Peter followed her instructions, got admitted but worked on the topic relating to "C" (not "A" or "B") and the paper relating to "B" was published successfully.

Although the paper relating to "B" was unpublished when a certain portion of its draft was used as the research proposal for Peter, the paper was published some months later.

Other authors for this paper may not know she used this draft as the research proposal for Peter.

Was it just an ethical issue?

Was it related to academic dishonesty?

You can search in the web and find any universities in any countries.

Their web sites will give some guidelines or information for Academic Honesty for students only.

Can I assume all teaching staff understood these guidelines when they were students?

I will assume that Peter's research proposal was used internally only.

It seems Susan did some slightly fancy juggling.  Unless Peter's university policies say otherwise, I don't think anyone would get in trouble for this.  Peter's options (not all mutually exclusive), as I see them:

He could let it be water under the bridge, reasoning that research proposals often undergo substantial changes before a project is completed and published
He could choose to avoid working with Susan long term
He could continue to work with Susan, but plan to be on the lookout in case Susan tries to cut any corners in future in projects he is involved with
He could have a frank, respectful conversation with Susan, share his concerns, and listen to her point of view
He could meet with the director of graduate studies in his department, share his proposal and the published paper, and ask if there is a problem

I have no personal opinion about what option(s) Peter should choose.

Now, your question:

  Most of the guidelines for Academic Honesty are for students only.  Can I assume all teaching staff understood these guidelines when they were students?

This question is really not clear to me at all.  Assume that all teaching staff understood which guidelines when they were students?

Please edit the post to make the question part clearer.

(I'm posting this as an answer rather than a comment because I needed more space for my bulleted list of options.  Even though you didn't ask what Peter's options are, I guessed that this list might be helpful for you.)


Well-acquainted professor does not respond when I share my work? I'm a master student in statistics. I took this professor's class, in which I've done very well. I have discussed with him about my research project a few times while taking the class, although he is not my thesis supervisor. It's been 2,3 months since my last time meeting him. I shared my paper draft (written over this summer) with him recently via email since he seemed genuinely interested in my progress and even suggested I should keep him posted. I'd also like to ask him for a reference in the fall for PhD application. The draft was quite lengthy although I think the content is at least original and interesting for a researcher in my field. So my guess is that he doesn't have time to go over it and does not care enough to meet me for a discussion. There is a possibility that he might  have missed the email. There is another complication that he suggested one time if I wanted him to supervise my research but I have already chosen another professor as my supervisor at that point. So he could have felt uninterested after knowing that, although we had one more discussion after that incident.

Question:
How and when should I follow up with another email? I really want  his reference but do not want to appear like a burden (that's why I did not reach out to him for the whole summer until now). I may be able to go to his office uninvited but I'm not sure that'd be a good strategy.

Thank you!

If you want a reference then you should send an email specifically asking for a reference.  Send it now, there is no point in waiting.

This doesn't really have anything to do with his response or non-response to your previous email, but if you like you could include a postscript: "By the way, I was wondering if you had a chance to look at the paper draft I sent recently?  If you have any comments I would be glad to hear them."

Two emails in a summer is certainly not a "burden", so forget about that.

Visiting the professor's office would also be fine, except that since it is summer he is not so likely to be there.


Is it ever appropriate to correct a non-native teacher's English? Four of my Japanese teachers are, as you would expect, Japanese, and they all speak English fluently. But now and then, there will of course be slip ups: I often see small grammatical errors in one sensei's handouts. They don't affect the quality of the communication, but is it appropriate to point out these errors to the sensei?

I know that if I were in Japan, I would always want for native speakers to correct me if I made a mistake; more so in the written form. However, this particular sensei has been at my uni for something like 20 years, and her English is perfect in all other regards; I wonder if it wouldn't be a little insulting to point out otherwise negligible written/spoken errors. Nonetheless, I'd like to know what some teachers think.

EDIT: When I say my sensei's English is perfect, I mean that she is able to communicate effectively, not that her speech or writing are free from grammatical errors. Like any non-native speaker who hasn't learned from a very young age, she will sometimes say or write things that sound jarring in English grammar.

It depends on how much interest she has expressed in being corrected or trying to improve and how close your relationship with her is.  Any corrections should be generally mentioned to her respectfully and in some form of one-on-one conversation.

If she has asked in class for mistakes to be pointed out, then I would not hesitate to offer the occasional correction.  Frequent corrections are probably not welcome.

If she has not expressed interest in being corrected, I would only mention corrections if the mistake could potentially lead to misunderstandings either in message tone or content.

A gray area might be if the mistake is in formal communication (e.g. grant applications) and you work closely with her.  In that case, use your own judgement.


Encouraging team-work while discouraging free-riding I teach several courses for computer science undergrads, including algorithms, programming and game development. In all my courses there are weekly homework assignments. I encourage my students to do the assignments in teams of 2 or 3, both to practice team-work and to learn from each other's ideas. Most of them indeed submit in teams.  I have learned from my students that, in many teams, there are "dummy members" - team members that just write their name on the page without spending any work. The other team members are OK witih it, since it does not cost them anything - they do the assignment anyway, so they do not mind helping a friend. Additionally, these "dummy members" sometimes help them out in other courses.
I thought of several ways to prevent this "free riding". One is to require students to present their homework in front of the class. The "dummy members" will probably fail this presentation. The problem is that, in a large class, it takes a lot of time and it is logistically complicated. It also puts some students into too much mental stress.
Now I have thought of a new idea. In every weekly assignment, there will be 7-8 different questions to choose from; each team of n students will have to choose and solve n+1 questions. So a lone student will have to solve 2 questions, a pair will have to solve 3 questions, etc.
On one hand, the number of questions per student decreases with n. Therefore, if all team members share the work equally, they have an incentive to form large teams.
On the other hand, the total number of questions increases with n. Therefore, a dummy member is no longer a "free" rider - he/she costs the team by adding to their work load, so they have no incentive to let him/her write the name without working.
What do you think of this scheme? What other ways are there to encourage teamwork while discouraging freeriding?
The number of registered students is about 40-60 per class, though only about 20-30 come to class - the rest prefer to learn from home.
CONCLUSION: I have just finished teaching a course in game development based on the n+1 scheme. To further discourage free-riding, I also gave a bonus for students presenting their homework in front of the class. I explicitly said that the bonus is given only to the presenter and not to his/her partners. My idea was that, if only one partner works, then this partner will present and get the bonus points. To my surprise, almost all presenting students explicitly asked me to share the bonus points equally with their partners! For me, it is a strong evidence that there was little free-riding. It is highly unlikely that a student who did all the work alone will agree to give away the hard-earned points to a free-rider.

I assume that your goal is not just to catch and fail the free riders but to see to it that they actually do the work that will result in learning.

However, I'll note that having a goal of "sharing the work equally" is unattainable except over time and/or averaged over many different interactions.

The most radical suggestion here is to flip the classroom so that people do the active work of learning under your observation. Rather then passively "consuming" information in a group and then working to solidify it outside your view, the opposite occurs. Now, you can watch how people are contributing and you can encourage a true exchange of ideas and sharing of skills.

Note that for large groups flipping is much harder, requiring space and possibly help. But working in groups is easier to monitor than individual work in a flipped classroom, no matter the scale. People help one another and so there is less burden on the instructor and any TAs

But another idea that is less radical is to have students simply do peer evaluations of all group experiences. Students are reluctant to bad-mouth their friends, of course, so you need to use a scheme that they will consider "safe" in their social interactions. In pairs, you can ask two questions. First, what was your partner's chief contribution. Second, what was your own chief contribution. These are done separately. Note that both questions are positive and are less subject to simple opinion.

In larger groups, say five, I would ask to name the three most important members of the group and to also say why for each of them. The question about your own contribution is also needed. Note that a student who is never given praise is probably contributing less. But I didn't try to reduce these comments to numeric scores.

Knowing that others will have something to say about your contributions encourages them, I think.

To make this work you need to have a hand in forming groups so that the same people don't always work together. Different tasks can use different ways of forming groups, but some of them need to be under your control, even if it is just random assignment.

I would have students answer these questions on index cards so they can be sorted. Now you can look at a set of comments about each student and make judgements as needed, but you also get an idea about who needs coaching.

My own experience with this is positive. In one case, as student who was not standing out in the classroom was said by his peers to be an outstanding contributor to their project. I wouldn't have noticed it but for these comments and thought he was a bit of a slacker. In this case the work was done outside my view and so would have missed the interactions.

Note that both of these suggestions are for group work. One of my chief goals for groups was that team members could help each other learn. Not everything a student learned needed to come from me.


What are the Pros and Cons of Pursuing a PhD after 5+ years in the Industry? I am sure this is a quite subjective topic, but I haven't been able to find clear advice or info about this particular situation. Also, I'm going to give some context; therefore, you could understand my dilemma.
I've been in the IT industry for a considerable amount of time, but I have always wanted to get a Ph.D. since this is a life goal.
For the last 4+ years (in Europe), I've been working in a technology company between a software engineer and a kind of IT consultant where I have developed software, introduced new technologies, good practices, and techniques that allowed me to promote a couple of times, but that feeling of getting a Ph.D. in a new country (kind of requirement, preferably Western Europe) is still there alive, I still would like to go beyond.
When I started to work I was more open to any Ph.D. since I was finishing my master, but 3+ years have passed and I have seen so many changes in IT from web development, desktop development to Robotic Process Automation and Machine Learning and many more (DARQ) that are coming that create thousands of doubts of this decision since I have no friends or relatives with a similar story who I can talk about it.
Also, most of the advice is connected to early studies, not after working for a considerable amount of time.
Pros & Cons of a Ph.D. in Computer Science
Furthermore, I need to add an important point, I want to come back to the industry since I really enjoy it, but I'd like to read your opinions about this situation. What Pros and Cons do you see? Have you ever experienced something like this? Or maybe you know someone?
As Scott suggested about my personal goals (excellent reminder since we need goals in our lives):

To relocate to a new destination.
To establish my own business.
To develop new technologies.
To build a successful network of contacts.
To improve the lives of my fellows in Latin America.

I could have more goals that I'm working on them (I'm not waiting for them to happen, I take regular actions). Also, I would like highlight one point, I'm aware that for my goals, I don't need a Ph.D., I could go higher in my company without a Ph.D. since it's not a requirement in almost any organization, the only place that I have seen where they ask you for a Ph.D. is in the Academia that as I said I don't see myself as a lecturer, perhaps, per hour.
Thanks for any advice that you have.

As with most people asking such questions, your approach is exactly backwards.  You shouldn't be thinking about the pros and cons of going for a PhD -- you should be thinking about what your career goals and long term goals are, and whether you need a PhD to reach them or not.

Once you understand the answer to that, all your other questions will then be in context.  For example, If you long term goals are to retire at age 55 with $2M US in a retirement account, now you can actually do the math based on current salaries, starting salaries in a new position, living on a stipend, ....

Without us knowing your goals, because you haven't told them to us, there is zero context for answering this question.  Unless YOU know these goals, you can ask about pros and cons all you like, and not really understand the answers you get.


Do repositories of translated papers exist? I've recently been told to read an article for my research, but do not speak the language it is written in ("Drei Vorträge über Diffusion, Brownsche Molekularbewegung und Koagulation von Kolloidteilchen", Smoluchowski).

It's fairly heavily cited, so I imagine that someone somewhere will have translated it.
Has anyone heard of/found online repositories of translated academic documents?
Failing that- I don't suppose anyone reading this happens to have a translation?
(P.S. the original author is long dead, hence I will not be asking him for a copy)

I am not aware of any online repository for translations or even citations to translations, though those certainly are good ideas. The closest existing option would be a translation index, which I discuss below in #4.

For my recent research I've relied on a fair amount of papers written in languages unfamiliar to me (mainly Russian and German), and the following procedure is roughly what I do when I identify a foreign language paper I want to find an English translation of. I figured this out primarily through trial and error because there were many Russian articles I really wanted to read. You may be able to use similar procedures to identify translations to a language other than English as well, though I have not.

Try searching Google Scholar for the author and a rough translation of the article title. Sometimes you can find either a direct link to a translation online or citation information for a translation in print. (This covers a number of databases with a lot of translations too, like the NASA technical reports search and DTIC.)
Check if a regular (cover-to-cover or partial) translation of the journal exists. By now I'm very familiar with the regularly translated journals in my field, so I don't need to identify these any longer. Here are some ideas about how to identify these journals:

Try a Google search for the foreign journal name. This often returns a publisher's website for the journal and/or Wikipedia, either of which often mention a translation journal.
Try checking the catalog of the Library of Congress for the foreign journal, which often mentions the existence of a translation journal. Searching WorldCat for the foreign journal name often can return a translation journal. Also, it's worth looking for collected works of an author on WorldCat, as they'll often include translated articles. And as user1310503 mentions, frequently you won't know the collected works book contains the article you want until you look at the book.

Try searching WorldCat and NTRL for the author and/or approximate translated title of the paper you are looking for. NTRL is produced by the US Department of Commerce, and it lists many translations produced by the US government. It's worth trying variations of the title and/or author's name, especially if the original was not written in the Latin alphabet as transliteration schemes can vary. If you can find the item on WorldCat or NTRL then ask a librarian about obtaining the document (or, if you're familiar with services your library offers, ask the ILL folks or whoever directly). Often you can only get citation information this way, but that still can be helpful.
Citation information for translations produced is often compiled in indices. Typically you look up a journal to see a list of articles translated from that journal. Most translation indices cover translations produced in a certain time period (note the difference with when the original article was written; I can think of an article that was translated about 25 years after the original). Some other translation indices are comprehensive up through a certain date. Below are several which come to mind immediately. Your local library may have one of these or a different series. There is much overlap between these indices, but not enough that you should only check one.

Consolidated index of translations into English. This is typically the first index I check as it is fairly comprehensive. However, it only has translations up through the 1960s in volume 1 and 1980s in volume 2. (In the case of the Smoluchowski paper the original poster mentioned, it's not listed in volume 1. Volume 2 lists translation number 69-16866-07D. As for how to obtain that, your guess is about as good as mine. I asked the British Library and they don't have it.)
World index of scientific translations.
Technical translations. Available online.
Consolidated translation survey. Available online.
Asking the British Library also can be helpful. They seem quite adept at searching through these indices (including their own, e.g., the NLL translations bulletin) and they have a large translation collection themselves. I have emailed them before asking about translations of papers I've had no luck identifying translations for, and been very pleasantly surprised by the results. They have many translations which do not appear to have been indexed publicly, including ones not indexed in their NLL translations bulletin. Obtaining copies of these translations can be rather difficult, though, as they are not always willing to send them via interlibrary loan.
The CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room is a surprisingly good source for citations to translations and also English language abstracts for articles published in the 1940s to 1960s. The CIA seems to have scanned some sort of internal card catalog which had citations for a large amount of scientific journal articles not written in English. Often these citations include information about available translations and English abstracts. Unfortunately the card catalog is often illegible due to the poor quality of the scans. And the search has fairly limited capabilities. Still, I find this is one of the most valuable sources I've checked for translations of articles in the relevant time period simply because it often lists things which no other index has. (Not to mention the translations the CIA made themselves, some of which you can find on the website as is. I also filed a FOIA request for one CIA translation last year and am still waiting for them to finish the request.)
There are also many many other translation indices available. The above was just what comes to mind immediately. Check out some of the links I give at the bottom for more. Additionally, you can often find indices for particular series, and it's not uncommon that these series are not included in the consolidated indices I mention above.

Searching Google Books or HathiTrust can be useful to find citations of translations. Often you'll find the translation indices mentioned above, but not always as for some of the indices, the information provided is rather terse, not including even an author name or title (just the page range, journal year, journal vol., and journal issue!). Try searching for variations of the first author's last name (try different transliterations if necessary), the journal name, the year, and the first page number for the original article. Adding an English translation of the article title may also help. Try both putting the titles translation in quotes and not in quotes.
Some journals specialize in translating selected articles from foreign journals. Presumably these translations are made by request, though I am not certain. One example from my field is Fluid mechanics: Soviet research. The journal appears to now be called the
International Journal of Fluid Mechanics Research
. I've browsed the previous title in the stacks before to look for interesting foreign research, and you might find doing the same for a similar journal in your field to be worthwhile.
Checking articles which cite the article you are interested in. Some of them might mention a translation. Also worth checking are bibliographies for your field. I can think of one translation of a very highly cited article in my field that I was entirely unaware of until I checked a bibliography for my field. (Incidentally, I have never seen any paper cite this translation, or any of the other two translations I identified for this article. On that note, you might find some redundancy in translations.)

Word of mouth can help too. I would not have heard about an entire series of translations had I not emailed some retired researchers about obtaining a copy of a particular foreign paper. To the best of my knowledge this series never appeared in any translation index, and while there is an index of them, it's not obvious how to obtain them. Thankfully one of the researchers I contacted had many of them in a storage unit and he sent them to a university library archive.

If the above fails, you can try checking abstract journals, both in your native language and foreign languages. These depend on your field. Due to the shorter length, it's often fairly trivial to translate a foreign language abstract of an article via Google Translate (few sentences vs. frequently 10+ pages). Frequently foreign abstract journals are translated or partially translated as well, sometimes under a similar name as the original journal, but other times published in an English language journal. For example, old (50s-60s) editions of Applied Mechanics Reviews sometimes have English translations of selected abstracts from different editions of Referativny Zhurnal. For a while the mechanics edition of that Russian review journal was translated as Soviet Abstracts: Mechanics, too.

Another method I've found useful to get some information about a foreign paper is to compile a list of quotes about the paper from articles that cite it. This will often summarize the most important aspects of the paper in a language you understand. Unfortunately, there are some disadvantages. One is that a paper may be commonly cited for one topic, when it actually discusses several topics which are of interest to you. You may never learn of the topics not mentioned in the citations this way. It's also not uncommon for an author to cite a paper without reading it, so some of what is said will be merely rehashing of what others said. The "telephone game"/"Chinese whispers" aspect can come into play as well; I can recall one particularly hard to find paper I tracked down which said nothing at all about a certain subject on which it's commonly cited for. So this may not be entirely reliable.

What can you do if you've identified a citation for a translation but can't find a copy of the actual document anywhere? If you're unfamiliar with obtaining documents from other libraries, ask a librarian as they can help you. You can also search for the translation series on WorldCat and see if you can identify libraries with that series. Often it's possible to buy a translation listed on NTRL (though not always). Sometimes visiting a library with large translation collections can help too. The Library of Congress's technical reports section has proved very helpful to me in this case. Unfortunately, you will not always be successful even if you find clear citation information. It's not uncommon to find out that a translation existed at one point but is now unavailable or inaccessible. Reasons a translation could now be unavailable include it being thrown away, it being misplaced, it being destroyed in a fire, etc. Some libraries do not participate in interlibrary loan, so you may not be able to get copies of anything from those places. A translation could also seem unavailable if few libraries which have translations from a particular series have the one you are interested in. You might have to contact many libraries before finding one with the particular document you want.

After that point, if you really want a translation of the article but have not found one, you could try paying a translator or using Google Translate. I've translated several articles into English via Google Translate now, and while it is tedious and the result often is not ideal, I do find it to be worthwhile for certain articles. As an example, here's a series of three 1938 articles which I translated from Russian and posted to my university's repository.

I am less knowledgeable about finding translations of books. I check WorldCat for the authors of a book I'm interested and sometimes am successful. Sometimes you may find translations of isolated chapters listed in the translation indices. For translations of books to English, contacting the British Library may also be useful as I recall they had a special program for this at one point.

This is a rather large topic, actually, and I certainly have missed a lot, so feel free to ask any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

Other guides with additional information about obtaining translations:

"How to obtain a translation" by Betty B. Brociner (1977) (Dated, but has a lot of information about how to find translations and also how to request a translation from a translator.)
"Translations of scientific and technical literature: a guide to their location" by Kathleen Wright (1987) (Newer but still dated.)
Caltech
Cornell, another at Cornell
Linda Hall Library


My conference paper is not published in IEEE Xplore because we didn't fill the copyright form in time We sent a paper to a conference and it was accepted.
We presented it and everything was fine.
Yesterday I accidentally see that the conference is indexed in IEEE Xplore, But our paper is not among the papers.
I emailed the conference and they said it is because we didn't reply to the IEEE email.
There wasn't any email from IEEE in my inbox, it was sent to my friend who was the first author. And he missed that email.
Now, what can we do? We filled the process today, Is there anything we could do to make our paper appear in IEEE Xplore?

The first author should have been checking their email.
They may be able to publish it during the next cycle, you will have to discuss it with them but by not replying to their email you did not give them many options.


Same literature survey in first and final reports, Is it ok? Is it considered bad to copy literature survey from 1st/initial report of the dissertation to the final report?

Does it count as self plagiarism?

Generally speaking one should include more recent researches, if any, related to the topic in the final report but what if there is only a 2-3 months period between two reports that happens for masters students in some countries (and in my case too).

In some institutions, one of the goals of the provisional report is to get the student to write something that will eventually be included in their dissertation/thesis. In this way the student feels that he or she has already made a start on the (dreaded) writing up process and therefore feels confident that - in further small, incremental steps - the rest of the document can be created.

In such cases, it would be unreasonable to consider the re-use of the literature review appearing in the provisional report in the final work as being plagiarism.

Matters may be a little different if the initial report was published in some manner, and released outside of the institution. As per one of the comments to your question so far, get your advisor's input.


Are not published workshop papers considered in similarity check for an extended journal paper? I am going to submit my journal paper in 2 weeks. Besides, there is a workshop whose deadline is in a couple of days. I am going to submit a brief version of my potential journal paper (12 pages) in this workshop (4 pages).

In the workshop website it's mentioned that "Please note the papers will not be published in a proceedings but will be made available via this website."

Now I'm concerned about one thing. As the workshop papers will be made available via this website, I assume they will be considered in the similarity check for my extended journal paper submission.

Will not that cause my journal paper to be considered as plagiarism (or self-plagiarism)?

Just water it down for the conference.  Basically do a version of your slides.  Also all they (likely) need now for the meeting is your abstract.  Send that in and figure out paper later.


PhD student lost fellowship 1 week before school starts, what should I do? I am a rising 2nd year PhD student in a US public school.

I was promised 4 years of funding by my department. Last year, I received a fellowship which covered tuition and stipend. I believe most people get 2 years of funding, so I was expecting it to be renewed. Over the summer, I kept asking about the status of my renewal application and only until yesterday (1 week before next school year) did they inform me my renewal was rejected. The secretary who communicates with me still has not told me why.

The next school year starts in <1 week, and all my classes will be dropped tomorrow if my tuition is not paid. To make matters worse, I am an international student, and if in ~3 weeks my tuition still isn't paid, then my visa will be invalidated and I fear I may be deported.

I will talk to my advisor tomorrow, but much advice is appreciated. In particular, I wish to know whether there is any standard procedure for this kind of situation and whether I should pay my own tuition first in case of any visa problem.

I wish to know whether there is any standard procedure for this kind of situation

You already have the right answer.  Talk to your advisor.

PhD students should never pay tuition.


Can I release my drawings with creative common licence before using them in non-open access journal or proceedings? I spend quite a lot of time drawing images for my research projects, I really don't like that when the editor publish these images I lose the rights on them. So usually I release them on the web under creative commons licence CC-BY before submitting the manuscripts where I used them.
I was wondering if this procedure safeguards my intellectual property on the images and the possibility to be reused.

As long as you still have copyright you can put them under any legal license that you choose. You can later give a different (non-exclusive) license to a journal, if necessary. Editors may not like it that they don't have exclusive rights, but they might swallow it if the overall work is good. As long as they aren't excluded from doing things they feel they need to do you should be fine.

For example, if you use a CC "no-commercial use" license, then the journal may want and need a less restrictive one. But CC-BY alone should be acceptable, and if not, you should wonder why.

But at the end of the day, what they publish is up to them, and what you do with your own copyrights is up to you. Just be sure that they understand that they aren't getting full copyright transfer and that a license is already in place.

It would be on you, not the publisher, if you try to give an exclusive license to work that already has a less restrictive license available to everyone. Anyone taking advantage of your license, who the publisher went after, would put you in the cross-hairs. I think the law (many places) will judge that you can't withdraw a license once given. That is, you can't unilaterally break a contract. "


Staying at my undergrad for my PhD I'm in a situation that I'd love to hear some second opinions on. I am a second semester senior at a well known engineering university. I was never interested in going to grad school during my first three years of undergrad. After an internship, I realized that I might want to go to grad school but didn't apply to any by the deadlines because I was hoping to get a job in industry. When no opportunities panned out, I approached a professor to do undergrad research in his group this semester in the hopes of getting a recommendation letter for future applications. Once we talked, he mentioned that he had a PhD position available and asked me if I would be interested. Once I learned the details (the funding was coming from an external company that I would have a good chance of getting a fellowship from), I was extremely interested and said that I would join his group to pursue my PhD.

Now that I have accepted the offer, I am starting to have reservations. I believe that I would love the research and the coursework, but I'm not sure that I want to stay at my undergrad university for that long. Would it be beneficial to go somewhere else? If so, how should I go about considering other universities? How should I let my potential advisor know about the doubts I am having? Any insight more experienced people could provide would be extremely helpful!

I am in a very similar situation. I'm at my undergrad school for PhD. I would say that it's more important to be in a place where you feel you are going to be happy and productive. There's no point going to a new place if you're not convinced you'll be able to get a good PhD out of it. If you are productive and publish good research it won't matter where you did your undergrad. I would also suggest looking for internships in industry or applying for travel grants to visit collaborators in other institutions to get some diversity on your CV. Hope that helps!


Co-organizing a workshop, does diversity matter? I am planning on organizing a workshop as a part of a scientific conference (neuroscience). I have observed that some workshops are organized by a single person, and others are organized by multiple people. When it is organized by multiple people, they were associated with different institutes, and were not from a common academic family.

My question: is it preferable to have people from different institutes as organizers? Does it look "bad" if people from the same institute/lab organize a workshop together?

I am planning to invite around 10 people as speakers, and the organizers will have at most 1 talk altogether (except introductory/organizing short speeches).

EDIT: To add after an edit focussed the question:

The convener line-up will be important to attract people to the workshop so getting good names is not a bad idea as a starting point. Having conveners from several institutes may be beneficial since it shows prospective participants that the workshop has wider support. It may also mean that the advertisement can be improved, particularly if conveners come from different continents. Such signals should not be udnerestimated but will highly depend on the field and where research is carried out (geographically). There is of course nothing wrong with having conveners from only one institute. In the end it will be other factors such as convenience and interest that will determine the line-up of conveners.

Answer to the original question as it was interpreted:

The first question you should ask yourself is what is the goal or purpose of the workshop. I am used to workshops focussing on specific questions, perhaps leading up to common paper or document detailing  a problem formulation or providing recommendations for the future. In any case, the persons to invite would be the most suited to provide input to the goal. I have run very small workshops where I could only accept one person from any department/research group due to limited physical space. In other words, getting representation was more important than getting certain names in.

So depending on the goals you have you will probably see how you distribute invitations. If you have the space and time then it may be open but that may not be the most efficient way and invitation only may be the way out. That requires careful thinking so that you can achieve the set goal(s).


Who owns the intellectual property for work you do on weekends? I am an academic at a UK university and have been asked to do some consultancy work for a company who wants to own all the IP for that work. I would only do this work on the weekends.  Would my university have some claim over this IP? My university's written rules only say that the ownership of all inventions will be determined by Section 39 of the Patents Act 1977. This,  on the face of it, seems to suggest they wouldn't have any rights over the IP.

I am reluctant to ask my university until I am clear what the right answer is as their initial reaction to all enquiries is just to say no.

Section 39 Patents Act 1977

  (1)  Notwithstanding anything in any rule of law, an invention made by
  an employee shall, as between him and his employer, be taken to belong
  to his employer for the purposes of this Act and all other purposes
  if—

  (a)  it was made in the course of the normal duties of the employee or
  in the course of duties falling outside his normal duties, but
  specifically assigned to him, and the circumstances in either case
  were such that an invention might reasonably be expected to result
  from the carrying out of his duties; or

  (b)  the invention was made in the course of the duties of the employee
  and, at the time of making the invention, because of the nature of his
  duties and the particular responsibilities arising from the nature of
  his duties he had a special obligation to further the interests of the
  employer’s undertaking.

  (2)  Any other invention made by an employee shall, as between him and
  his employer, be taken for those purposes to belong to the employee.

  (3)  Where by virtue of this section an invention belongs, as
  between him and his employer, to an employee, nothing done—

  (a)  by or on behalf of the employee or any person claiming under him
  for the purposes of pursuing an application for a patent, or

  (b)  by any person for the purpose of performing or working the
  invention,

  shall be taken to infringe any copyright or design right to which, as
  between him and his employer, his employer is entitled in any model or
  document relating to the invention.

To broaden Bill Barth's answer a bit: you definitely need to get an lawyer involved.  You also should make certain that there is date-stamped written communication ensuring that your university's legal/IP staff are aware as well.  This may seem like a pain and may make it harder to get started on anything, but it's much better to get any possible conflicts identified and sorted out now, rather than to find yourself in the middle of a complex and lengthy lawsuit later.

I don't know about the UK, but suspect it to be similarly heterogeneous to the US, where there is an exceedingly large range of differences in the IP rights given in employment agreements at research institutions, both within academia and outside of it.  Some places are very liberal and basically claim nothing that's not "in the direct line of your duties."  Others claim even your dreams and the photos you take at your kids' birthday party (not exaggerating!).  In all cases, however, there is often a wide grey area between de jure and de facto policy, and it's important to get an agreement and understanding written down before you give IP to any second organization.


Should I cite all the open source python packages I used like numpy in my paper? I used many open-source packages in my research, such as matplotlib, numpy, pandas, scipy, etc. And I found this on the website of SciPy: Citing packages in the SciPy ecosystem. Should I cite every one of them in my paper? (I'd like to cite them but there are so many of them which will make my paper even half or one page longer)

Presumably your research uses your software, which in turn uses and acknowledges open-source packages. Your papers need only cite the software used directly, which is perhaps just your software. You could also mention your software is built from open-source packages, but I don't think that's strictly necessary, since acknowledgements appear in your software.


Can we have a citation in the Works Cited and not use it in an essay? I have a citation of an online article that I used in my research for an essay, yet I haven't referenced this citation anywhere in the essay. Should I keep the citation, or delete it because nothing refers to it?

A Works Cited by definition includes only the...works that you cited. So any extraneous entries should be removed.

In contrast, a bibliography can include all related work, even if you don't specifically refer to it. The goal of a bibliography is not only to cite the author's sources, but also to provide recommended reading for the reader.

In scientific journals, my experience is with the former. If you think a particular article has value, you can refer to it in the text, even obliquely (e.g., "X is widely discussed in the literature [1-15]. In this work, ...")


statement of purpose I am currently finishing my MS in Economics and Finances and I intend to apply for a PhD in statistics. There are many reasons why I did not make an undergrad and grad in statistics but in economics, first of all the fact that in my previous university there was no statistics department.

I'm searching for some advice regarding my statement of purpose since my previous experience is not necessary connected with Statistics. Should I make more emphasis on my quantitative background, on my motivation, on the reasons why I want to apply for this particular program, even though my background might not be entirely relevant?

Is there some advice you can give a student making this sort of "field-shift"?

Your CV should explain well what you have done in the past. Your SOP should be more future directed while also attempting to bridge the past and future. But don't think you just need to explain what is in your CV and neglect what you see as your future. Think about what you want to do and what you have already done that puts you on the path to achieving your future plans. So, yes, say something about your quantitative abilities and such.

People will understand that others may want to change fields for a variety of reasons. You aren't unique in that so don't dwell too much on it. Say where you want to go, what you've done to get there already, and how this program will help you even more. But put the focus on the future, and not just the program you are applying for, but beyond that.


Quit a PhD for another PhD During the last month, I applied for PhD programs in some of the top US Universities in my scientific field. At the same time, I applied also for a PhD position in a very good European University. About one month after I submitted my application to this European University, I was offered a full-time, funded PhD position, in which I was supposed to begin as soon as possible.

Admissions for the US Universities are announced in the spring. So, I currently have an offer from Europe and a very short deadline for accepting or rejecting this offer. My ultimate career goal, however, is to study and work in the US, and there are some serious reasons for this. If I reject this offer from Europe and if I won't be admitted in the US, I will have lost every chance for a PhD, since a long educational gap will have been accumulated, putting my career at risk.

So, I'm thinking to accept this offer from Europe, until next academic year, and if I have a positive answer from the US, then quit my PhD studies in Europe and begin a new PhD in the US. I would like some insight about people in Academia. I acknowledge that such a scenario might affect the whole PhD project because of my possible withdrawal. Would this considered to be immoral? Could I have any consequences? Could this choice of mine - quit a PhD for another one, in a new country - seem bad to prospective supervisors in the US?

I already know that pursuing a PhD is a serious career choice, and I have no intention to take silly decisions for no reason. I just want the best for my career. To my eyes, this would be no different from quitting a job for a better one, for a better "company", in a "market" with greater opportunities. I would appreciate every advice from you people, since I have no experience related to Academia other than my undergraduate studies.

Quitting a PhD because you realise afterwards that it's not the right path for you is fine. A fellow student during my PhD did so (due to homesickness, primarily), and immediately started a PhD at a university in his home country. The supervisor/group leader/etc were disappointed but didn't hold it against him.

Quitting because you only accepted the position as an insurance policy is a very different matter. If it's not for personal reasons, such as those above, leaving mid-course for another university will be seen as a very selfish act. Even more so if anybody finds out that you were hoping to do it before you even started. From your description it sounds like your field is relatively small. That means people tend to know each other, which means this could very easily hurt your reputation far more than attending MIT (or whichever other prestigious institute) would help it.

In short: you shouldn't accept a position unless you intend to stick with it. You have an offer on the table, you can either accept it or reject it. If you accept it, the right thing to do is to withdraw any other applications which haven't yet responded. If you aren't willing to commit to it, the right thing to do is to reject the offer. There is a third option, too: you can ask the European university if they'd be willing to grant you an extension to the decision deadline. How likely this request is to be accepted strongly depends on many things, including national and institutional cultures and the length of deferral you're asking for.


What are the main differences between Graduate school in the UK vs US? I graduated from a university in Canada, and I have been focusing on applying to North American universities even though my GPA isnt the highest.
I recently started searching for MSc programs in the UK, and I noticed that entry requirements are much easier. For example, for the course-based , we don't need to secure a supervisor yet students still work on a research project. Whereas when I tried applying to McGill university in Canada, I was told that not having a supervisor will not allow me admission to the program.

Why is admission to graduate school much lenient in the UK compared to the US/Canada? are schools in North America known to have the best reputation in research? why aren't many people going to study in the UK if things were that easy?

I'm interested in knowing the main differences between the UK and North American universities.

I don't think your measure of 'easiness' is really correct. Finding a supervisor isn't a measure of how strong a student you are, it's a measure of how the course works and so in what circumstances a supervisor will take you on.

You haven't said what you mean by 'graduate school' in North America. Usually you would compare doctoral programmes, and there you'll find the UK 'harder' on average, because a US programme begins with taught courses that don't form part of the UK programme (as much).

A taught MSc in the UK is only just above undergraduate. You essentially do a typical undergraduate year of taught courses (which may be very very similar to ones taken by undergraduates) and then spend the summer doing a 3 month research project. You therefore don't need to start with a supervisor, as you have 8 months to find one, and you will always be allocated someone. Just below this are a selection of 'undergraduate masters' courses, where undergraduates study for a fourth year, beyond the normal degree programme. They basically do the same as the MSc except for missing the final project (or doing one instead of one of the taught modules).

If you looked at an MSc by research, I doubt you could get on to that without a supervisor. That is closer to doctoral study. Slightly up from that is an MPhil, which is roughly the first part of a PhD, and actually is in some subjects.


How to know when you should change what is taught during a lab classes I teach a lab class that is only constrained by some broad learning objectives. I have been using the same project now for 5 years. It now runs very smoothly and I know what difficulties the students are likely to have. I think that is an advantage, but teaching the class is beginning to feel stale and I am worried that hurts the students. Given I could easily chose a brand new project and still deliver the learning objectives, how do I know when it is the right time to change topics.

The interesting question is, does the project feel stale for you or for the students? The students are, after all, only doing the project once, so there is in principle no harm in using the same project year after year.

Of course, there is the possibility that the project that was cutting-edge when you defined it is now an old relic, using methods and technologies that nobody actually cares about anymore. In this case, you should of course move on, but if this is not the case, I see no inherent value in changing the project (especially since any change also means that the first iteration of the new project will be a bit rough around the edges).


Kicked out of PhD program, I have been delayed two years until find a new one It maybe sounds emotional, but I am struggling because I have been delayed two years until I found a new program that could accept me. I was kicked out because of a racist supervisor. It hurts me as in the new year everyone asks did you finish your Ph.D., I panic as I did not let anyone know. What hurts me I was a top student and get master with excellence. there are certain events in my life that derailed me, now I am approaching 29 and I didn't even make a progress in my personal life and this delay in my professional caused me self-confidence. I escape from any gathering with people know me when you finish as they did not what happens and I don't want anyone, but the result I am struggling with these thoughts and I am living alone. I don't know if anyone could face that, what you should do when you used to be successful and all of a sudden you get derailed when you approach 30.

I was kicked out because of a racist supervisor.

That is quite an accusation. I'd suggest that you consult an attorney, if you have any evidence that you were discriminated because of your ethnicity. There is a chance that you might resume the programme. Of course, provided that the expelling took place based on some sort of discrimination.


How to ask a, probably angry, PhD supervisor for a letter of recommendation after graduation from uni? I was on good terms with my PhD supervisor throughout my studies. After graduation, I gave a talk at a symposium and my PhD supervisor was in the audience. I was planning to add a few sentences of appreciation to my supervisor during my talk, but decided not to (in order to prevent potential awkwardness). After ruminating about the talk, I also noticed that I perhaps took too much credit ("I developed this assay in the past" etc.) and never credited my supervisor once throughout the talk (must have been subconscious, because I don't know why I didn't in hindsight). All of that is true: I developed the experiments on my own and performed them on my own. However, my supervisor has been indispensable when it comes to "meta-knowledge," general guidance and feedback. Overall he seems like one of the nicest professors in our department, so I felt bad. After my talk, he just left the symposium without saying anything to me. Maybe he was in a rush, but I remember he had done it another time in the past, where he was unsatisfied with my performance on a previous talk. Right after the talk, I sent him an appreciation email with candour, but I didn't receive a reply. Over my entire studies, I can only recall a single email of mine that he had ignored. My friend tells me that he was likely busy with travels, but I think it's very likely that he is disappointed for the aforementioned reasons (or another reason I'm not aware of).

I now need a letter of recommendation from him for my next position. I'm confused on what mode of communication I should opt for (email, phone, in-person) and what content should be communicated. Although in-person seems like the best option, I don't think he is rarely in his office and I live far away now. We are both somewhat socially awkward and averse to awkward tension, so I also feel like a phone conversation might not the right approach. Regarding the content: If I'm apologetic, he might not respond out of awkwardness. There's also the small chance that I'm imagining his anger. If it's just a canned or standard request email, and he is indeed angry at me, he may ignore it or, in the worst - admittedly unlikely - case sabotage the letter of recommendation.

What mode and content is likely to lead to the best outcome in this situation?

If you were my student, I would fully expect you to take full credit for your work. If I helped you it is good for both of us, but a lot of other people helped your development before we ever met.

As to the letter of recommendation issue, I would do this in two separate parts, separated by a bit of time. First, make contact and thank him for past help and bring him up to date on your current life/research/whatever. If at all possible, do this in person. I don't know what you mean by a "long way" but a visit back to the university to meet old professors (and thank them) is always fun and worthwhile. If I'm the professor, I will be very happy to see you and hear about your current successes both academic and IRL.

This meeting should give you feedback on his feelings about you, though if you are both a bit awkward, it may be difficult to judge.

But a bit later, it needn't be long, ask for the letter of recommendation. Your earlier meeting will give you an idea of how formal you need to make the request. Or, if you are completely comfortable in the first meeting, you could do it then, but don't force it.

As to the answer of aeismail, the video suggestion will work with some people, but not all. If he is a frequent user already then it should be fine. But that, or even a phone call, won't work with everyone (me, for example). In person is best. The more formal the person is, the more important to meet face-to-face, I think. For a generally informal person, first name basis, less formal communication is possible.


Referring to previous literature review How valid is to refer to previous literature reviews in other papers to 'create' a thorough review?

The thing is that I am working in a new methodology, which I will compare with the current state-of-the-art (published in 2017). In there, the authors have done some literature review, which is not thorough. Hence, I want to focus only on the work that they didnt cover. In addition, there is older work what has been reviewed by others. Putting my literature review contribution, together with the paper from 2017, and together with the two oldest papers, then we have a 'thorough' review. Is this a valid approach?

I would suggest that you include the work you have read, as well as the works that the other papers mention. The purpose of the literature review in a paper is to describe related pieces of work, and showcase how your work complements, surpasses and stands out. This strengthens the narrative of your research and helps the reader understand what makes your paper valuable, compared to other approaches. In order to achieve that and build a more complete image, you need to include as many related papers as you can find and study in the literature review part.


Is it a good practice for teaching assistants to sit in the lectures? Has anyone tried this technique and how has it worked out for you?

Essentially, there are several problems with doing teaching assistant work (TA),

You might not even be from the institution where you are doing the TA, you are unfamiliar with the course structure and the textbook, but you have learned some equivalent courses before.
Courses can have several lecturers, each going at a slightly different pace. You don't know what your students know and get blank stares from them during tutorial hours.
You want to enhance your teaching material by identifying spots where students might be more easily confused, where in the lecture might question for exams be drawn from, the emphasis of the lecture versus textbook, and so on.

I think an easy way to overcome these problems is by sitting in the lectures with the students. I have never done this because it sounds too time-consuming, also it might look "strange" to the professor AND to the students.

Has anyone tried doing this and how has it worked out for you?

For lecturers/professors: do you think it is a good idea for your TA to sit in your lectures?

I have seen TAs do this, but generally don't ask my own TAs to do it. As you say, it's a (very) time-consuming way to solve the coordination problem. I personally prefer to just sit with the TAs for a few minutes (< 30 minutes) every so often to coordinate, which in my experience has been completely adequate. Of course this means that I have to invest a little of my own time, but I find it completely appropriate to invest a few minutes of my own time every so often to save my TAs quite a lot of time - but of course your milage may vary with other professors. I certainly wouldn't find it strange if a TA sat in the lecture, I just don't find it necessary.

However, I do strongly suggest that the TAs take some time to go over the teaching material, so that they get a sense for what I am covering in the lecture, and how far I have gotten by the time their tutorial or supervision session rolls around.

Finally, we have also used a joint Slack channel where TAs can ask questions and expect a fairly immediate response. This has been useful for me to communicate if I, for instance, needed to skip a section due to time reasons, or if I felt through in-class exercises (or blank stares) that a certain topic needs deeper exploration in the supervision sessions.


Does it look good to have a paper without your PhD advisor as an author? I am a senior PhD student in computer science. I have published several papers with my PhD advisor already.

Someone told me that, when applying for faculty positions, it looks good to have a peer-reviewed paper without your advisor listed as an author. I guess it implies that you can complete a solid project without someone holding your hand. Is this true?

The comments here seem to cover the ground pretty well. Having publications of any sort is a plus. Having lots of collaborations is a big plus and well serve you well in your future work, not just in applications.

But in some fields it is more or less necessary to have your advisor, and maybe others, on publications that arise from your dissertation work. In other fields that would be unusual.

However, don't obsess over this issue. Do the best work you can and publish the work as best you can with appropriate authorship for the work and for the field. After you finish the degree and become more independent of your advisor, you will probably write sole author papers. But if you have the opportunity for a sole author publication as a student, don't pass it up.

But don't neglect the synergistic power of collaboration in what you do.


Asking Professor for teaching assistantship I am an undergraduate student and have taken a course which interests me a lot details won't matter I guess).

The course is split into lectures and lab sessions. The lab prof had a graduate student as a teaching assistant, who simply sat next to the professor doing nothing for the whole semester the course was held (for free it looks like).

Being very interested in the course, I read many textbooks, constantly asked prof questions, answer fellow classmates' questions on the course's forum(which amazed my professor). Finally, I met her in the campus after the course grades were released. She revealed that my coursework was the best in the class and showed my enthusiasm for the subject (150 pages long with complete bibliography list and references).

Being highly interested in the subject, I am interested in helping my professor during the lab hours, during the final year of my studies.

I have helped other students when I was taking the course, excelled in it, and my professor acknowledged my dedication.

As with any requests made to professors, I am highly worried how to express my will for being a teaching assistant to the course (having in mind that I am an undergrad) without seeming like the arrogant student trying to "replace" the teacher as a result of (falsely showing) she was not doing her work right.

(Stuff that come to mind I'd have to do during the course are - preparation of lab lecture notes, helping students - software problems during lab sessions, help/guidance on the forum, coursework grading, and extra lab sessions.)

There is no reason not to ask. This is all upside for you. You'll show enthusiasm, get a great letter, make an ally. You may not get it, though, for 2 reasons.

First, as mentioned in the comments, TAships are regarded as part of the graduate training process, and so are awarded to grad students first, often as part of their stipend requirements. It also offers grad students important training in classroom maintenance and teaching.

Second, from the university's perspective, having an undergraduate take responsibility for a class with undergraduates is a risk, even though you probably are worthy.  Paying students would probably feel slighted to have a peer weigh in on their grade, but that's all speculation. In any case, you are obviously a strong candidate for graduate school. Go for it!


Chance of getting into engineering PhD if I have good references and research experience but don't satisfy 3.0 GPA requirement? I graduated with 2.7 undergrad, and currently pursuing a masters degree and will graduate with 3.3. I plan to apply for PhD programs in engineering for 2017 Fall.

Here is my question: Many schools state that they require 3.0 GPA or so, but how do I know that whether they intend undergrad GPA?

Do you think should I apply to such school that states that

  Minimum GPA: The MS and PhD program has a minimum GPA requirement of
  3.0 on a 4.0 scale.

?

Is it waste of my time if I have stellar letters of references and cool research experiences?

My undergraduate GPA was much lower than yours. My MSc GPA was also lower than yours. I got admitted to a top 40 US school (engineering and fully funded). I had good recommendation letters and few journal publications. This was five years ago. I know there are few guys here who have similar GPA, etc as your. So, It's very possible!


Should the listings be included in the contents page I have a thesis template that does not put the List of Figures, List of Tables etc. in the contents page.

What is the normal practice and what is the normal order for the front matter?

Currently it is:

table of contents
list of figures
list of tables
list of listings
list of symbols

I don't know that there is a "normal" order over different fields (or even within a field). My only suggestion is that if you need to symbols to understand the listing, then maybe symbols should come first.

Otherwise, what you have should be fine. But for a thesis, let your advisor give you the best advice.


Computer Science - final year project of undergraduate degree (individual vs teamwork) I'm in the final year of my undergraduate degree in Artificial Intelligence. Thus, I have to choose between individual project or teamwork. In both cases, I believe that I can do well.

However, I'm going to apply to MPhil in Advanced Computer Science at the University of Cambridge later. So, my questions are:

Which choice gives a complete thought of my abilities?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of each choice in this case?

This answer will be just one sided. If you don't have experience working with a team, do that, and do it well. Modern software systems are built by teams and experience in working cooperatively is extremely important as well as valuable.

But make sure that the team works as a team, not just dividing up requirements into individual tasks. Take a leadership role if you have to in order to assure this. If you haven't investigated Agile Software Development in the past, nor applied it appropriately, then I suggest you take a look at it. It supports a tightly integrated team in which all members have knowledge of all parts of the system. In an industrial environment this means that the firm isn't at risk of knowledge disappearing if a team member leaves. But in an educational environment it can also mean that the team members (students) become educational resources for one another.

If you have a lot of such experience with effective teams already, then it is a bit of a tossup. Otherwise, it is an experience that can serve you well.

If the project is primarily building software, then I'll make a further recommendation. I generally suggest that new teams use XP Extreme Programming for their first agile project, not because it is necessarily better, but because it gives you a lot of advice on what to do day-to-day while you get used to the philosophy. It requires certain practices that need to be done faithfully. Otherwise it will fail like any other methodology.


Asking same professor for rec letters for 2 different grad programs? I'm an undergrad applying for graduate programs next year. Is it a bad idea to ask the same professor to do two different letters for two different programs (Philosophy programs, and Law school)? My gut says no, since this would require the professor to kind of "lie" to each grad program about how dedicated I am to each. However, I do know this professor very well as I did research for him and the programs are somewhat related. Thanks!

Not at all.  We realize that students typically apply to more than one program.  I encourage my undergraduate advisees to apply to five or six graduate programs.

Given that reality, I don't mind writing a letter of recommendation and submitting it (with few changes) to a half dozen graduate programs.


Can you upload an appendix externally for referencing? I am submitting an article to an IEEE transactions journal with a strict page limit. We have already scrapped heaps of text, but can't shorten the appendix (or do without) since this would prevent reproducibility.

We have tried uploading the appendix as supplementary material, but this was not approved. Is there a way to upload the material externally for referencing? Or is this not done in academia?

Kind regards,

Ties

I routinely use the Open Science platform (see https://osf.io/) for things like model code, simulation results, data dictionaries, supplementary figures and all the other extraneous materials that are needed for reproducing results. I haven't submitted to IEEE but I have had no problem with any of the journals I do submit to.

The way it works is that you upload the material and create a registration (a snapshot or archive) which is public and cannot be changed. I typically leave the project open until the final draft and then create the registration. That registration will have a URL which I then include in the edits.

There are many such repositories, some field specific. Nature has a list of places for archiving data at https://www.nature.com/sdata/policies/repositories with comments about what can be stored there.


Possible internship topics for a second year undergraduate student interested in astrophysics My question is about a specific field.

I am currently studying as a second year undergraduate in BSc program and I am genuinely curious about the field of theoretical astrophysics. I accept, at this level I do not know how research in this field is going to be, but since later I would be taking most of the courses related to the same, I am asking the following question.

What can be few possible research fields(preferably theoretical) to work in summer(as an intern) so as to get exposure to the field of astrophysics?
Given that I have completed courses in the following topics-
Special relativity, Linear algebra, Electrodynamics, Optics, Mechanics, Thermal physics, Probability, Biophysics.

Yay, astrophysics! That's my field, too. ^_^

I would focus less on what topics you could work on and more who you could work with.

For a research position, I'd suggest asking your physics and/or astronomy faculty if they have any research you can assist them with. This is a fantastic place to start, and it's where the vast majority of astrophysics people get their first research experience. In my experience, these positions are usually paid, but I know of situations where undergrads informally volunteer (and work fewer hours) in order to get the experience and extra advising. If your institution doesn't have any options, see if there's a college or university nearby that does.

You can also volunteer with your college or university at astronomy and physics outreach events. You can also see if there's an observatory or astronomical association near where you live, and see if you can't get involved there. You may find some paid part-time positions through the connections you make there.

For an internship, you can look for astrophysics-like businesses near you and see if they have any openings. There aren't many businesses that specialize in astrophysics, but there are many aerospace businesses. If you're open to looking at any of these, you may find luck.


Is there deliberate gender preferential treatment in hiring or admission in STEM fields? By "gender preferential treatment" I mean: Person A is selected ahead of Person B partly because of gender. In other words, Person B would have been selected ahead of Person A had gender not been taken into account.

By "deliberate" I mean: as a matter of policy at the department  or university or state or national level, or at the discretion of the committee that makes the decision. This does not include unintentional bias, which might occur as part of human nature.

By "STEM fields" I mean: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

I'm interested in four stages.

Graduate school admission
Postdoc hiring
Professor hiring
Tenure or promotion decision

Answers can be about any country. But please keep in mind that the question is not about why deliberate gender preferential treatment is a good or a bad idea. It is about what happens in reality.

Answers should be supported by either references to publicly available policies, research, or firsthand personal experience (e.g. on hiring committees).

It's rather subtle trying to decide what counts as gender preferential treatment.  For example, suppose the hiring committee decides to interview Bob, Carl, and Dave.  As a sanity check, someone goes through the applications from women to see whether anyone was overlooked, and they are impressed by Alice's application.  There's some debate about whether she looks quite as strong on paper as the other three, but the department decides to interview her as well.  Alice is extraordinarily impressive in person, and once all the interviews are complete and the department has learned more about her work, she is the unanimous first choice.  Does this count as preferential treatment?  A male applicant might not have been rescued from being overlooked the way Alice was, but he might have been less likely to be overlooked in the first place, so it's difficult to give an objective answer (it depends on which counterfactual scenario you imagine).  Gender was not relevant for the decision once all the information was gathered, but deliberate steps were taken based on gender to minimize the potential for bias in the process.

In my experience with mathematics in the U.S., these sorts of steps are pretty common.  In the committees I've served on (for both admissions and hiring), people have often gone out of their way to try to identify diverse sorts of candidates and make sure they are not overlooked or disadvantaged.  Not everyone participates eagerly in this, but some do it out of conviction that it's intrinsically worthwhile, while others play along to keep the administration from complaining.  On the other hand, I've never seen this process extend to advantages in the final decision.  In particular, I haven't seen a case in which Alice was hired or admitted instead of Bob just because she was female, although the committee was more impressed by Bob than Alice otherwise.

Tie breakers are the closest I've seen to an explicit preference.  In graduate admissions many decisions are easy, but there's always a (small) group of comparable candidates right near the borderline for admission, where nobody can give a compelling argument for why one is superior to another.  Within that group, being female could prove an advantage: if Alice and Bob are equally strong candidates in other ways, but Alice would help bring gender balance to the department and Bob would not, then that's a good reason to admit Alice.  This doesn't generally arise in hiring, since few enough people are hired that there are many strong opinions and the hiring committee is unlikely to decide two candidates are truly tied.  However, it can happen in admissions, which is a lower-stakes process carried out on a larger scale and with less information.  I'm mainly mentioning it for completeness, since few applicants are actually close enough to the cut-off for this to matter.


How to find professional references? I am from a small country where we do not have many eminent professors, but I did work hard and published over 30 papers which were cited more than 400 times. I am applying for research jobs internationally, and a key factor is references.

It does matter who has written the recommendation letter. In addition to my unknown colleagues, I tried to find some eminent professors as professional references. I contacted several ones who have even cited my papers, but they simply replied "they cannot be my reference as they do not know me", meaning that why they bother to recommend someone they do not know.

This gave me a bad impression that no matter how hard or good you work, career success depends where you are and how many people know/care about you.

I contacted several ones who have even cited my papers, but they simply replied "they cannot be my reference as they do not know me", meaning that why they bother to recommend someone they do not know.

This is to be expected. The purpose of letters of reference is to provide a personal perspective on a candidate from an eminent figure who knows the candidate well and is able to compare her/him with peers. The simple fact that they cited you means close to nothing. I have probably cited hundreds of researchers, maybe thousands, some of which I don't even remember the name. There is also the question what these references are actually supposed to write in their letters if they don't know you personally - "Mia wrote this pretty good paper in 2012, but I have never met her or talked to her outside of when she asked me for this reference." isn't a great letter of reference.

  This gave me a bad impression that no matter how hard or good you work, career success depends where you are and how many people know/care about you.

It is a bit of a depressing way of putting it, but at the end you are not incorrect. "Knowing people", or more correctly, "making people know you" is indeed very important for a researcher who wants to progress her/his career.

  How to find professional references?

This depends a lot on your level. As a student, you typically want your professors to act as references. As a more advanced researcher, which you seem to be, it is very important that you:

Find and occupy a niche (that is, if people think about subsubfield A in area B, yours should be the first or one of the first names that pop into people's mind). This works only if you repeatedly annoy people about a subject in papers, keynotes, lectures, and tutorials.
Go to conferences, write joint papers, and work on joint proposals related to said niche
Visit other universities, or invite researchers from other universities working in your or a related niche
In this way build a substantial network of collaborators and co-authors
Follow-up on on your network, make sure that people that you once knew are still aware of your recent work
Maintain reasonable standing with the important players in your larger area

If you end up with a reasonable network, which clearly takes time and dedication, you typically want to select the most eminent members of it suitable for a given application to act as references.


Can I join two different research labs as a Ph.D. student? I'm a PhD student and there are two labs that work in very similar fields, but different departments. Both look great, but I'm not sure which will benefit my research more (resources, collaboration, job opportunities, etc.).
Would you recommend I join both labs at first and then decide 1-2 years later? And, if both are really great down the road, is it okay to stick with both at the same time?
Note: I'm in social sciences. One lab in CS department and the other in Arts/Humanities department.

Generally speaking, these sorts of relationships are encouraged. People like to see collaboration, not only from a scientific perspective, but from a networking and professional development standpoint.
Usually, nothing is needed to join a lab, other than a willingness on your part to participate. If you want a mentor-mentee relationship with an advisor who is not in your department (i.e. the department you were admitted to), that is something you will have to negotiate with them. As I mentioned in the comments, students in the advisor's own department are their first priority for mentorship and time.
You say in the comments:

I would have to verify this, but my primary advisor may officially be in my dept, but I would be working more closely with prof. outside my dept.

While possible, I just want to warn you that this is probably not the most likely outcome, although it's possible standards in your fields may be more permissible.
You should also keep in mind obligations to your home department. If you are funded on an RAship (or an internal fellowship, likely), then you are expected to devote 20 hours/week to your funder's lab, not leaving you much time to work for the other advisor. Of course, the other advisor may fund you, but again, it is probably hard to devote a line of funding to a student outside of the department. Your primary advisor may make your duties including working for the other professor, but I can't tell you how likely that is.
If you are on an external fellowship, your time is much more flexible.
Tl;dr: Having a primary mentor outside of your home department is probably not likely, but a good mentor would help you arrange something to the best of their ability, as long as you are a good communicator with all three parties.