How to efficiently organize my PhD data, papers and notes? I will start soon my PhD in natural sciences, and I would like to get some advice regarding project organization in general. I wouldn’t say I am particularly disorganized, but I could certainly make some improvement. For instance, sometimes I find it difficult to understand what exactly I was doing or thinking when I acquired or analyzed some data months or years ago, even when it’s dated. I often underestimate the quantity and/or relevance of the data I got when some time has passed and I start forgetting details. So, I would like to know:

What’s your filing system for raw data, analysis, programs,
graphing/drawing, figures and papers files when you work with many
different techniques over time? How do you name your files (in the computer)?
How do you organize and/or separate your handwritten notes, ideas,
calculations, and laboratory procedures and results?
How do you keep a clear connection between your ideas, files, papers
and tasks, especially when they were done some time ago?

I know there isn’t an ideal answer to it. I just want to define a good system to get started with.

I'll take on a rather technical side and talk from my experience.

Folder hierarchy

I start a folder for each "project", which is either a separate talk, an idea, a paper, etc. (Funnily, I store code elsewhere. Same with large research data.)

Previously, I put literature from the related literature research in a subfolder of a "project", nowadays I just push papers in a magically-syncing-around folder. I am sure, there are better solutions though. Zotero? Papers? That's a separate question, actually. But same software would also manage the citation database for you.

In the same "project" folder the template files for the paper land: publishers often prescribe the looks and style of a paper. Typically in the root of a "project", paper sources lie, under version control. Nowadays this spells git. I've been checking images into git, too. There are better ways now, with git lfs or git annex, but that's again too specific. (By the way, revisions of a paper for a resubmission elsewhere become branches in git.)

The key thing: at some point I had a further "project", the thesis. I made subfolders for each chapter (that roughly corresponded to the papers). I already had text to put there. These subfolders had further subfolders for images, which I hardlinked from their respective projects.

Large data

Zenodo is wonderful for storage of the final large data.

For development, we had an FTP server and OwnCloud to share data in the research group and to allow for upload by partners and subcontractors.

I found git annex to be both useful and a huge pain in the ass for this. So test it beforehand, and your milage may vary.

Definitely invest in a backup solution. Nothing is more irritating than loosing research data. That's again a separate question, but both proper storage (RAID or something) and proper backuping (RAID won't help, if a thunderbold grills your PC) are important.

Byline

Typically a research group has some kind of data sharing and collaboration platform running. Go with it. If not: it's rather a software / eGroupware question.

Always do a fresh backup.


Is it appropriate to address a PhD holder as "doctor" (without name)? In the US and Canada, I addressed my lecturers and instructors as "Professor X", "Dr. X", "Mr. X", or "Ms. X" (depending on their formal education and academic position). I am currently at a university in Southeast Asia where students rarely (almost never) address university staff by name. They will say (always in English), "thank you professor", "thank you doctor", "good morning sir", "good morning miss", etc. There is nothing wrong with this; it's just the academic custom here.
My question is about US and Canadian academia: is it appropriate to address a PhD holder as "doctor" without name? For example, is it appropriate to say "thank you doctor" instead of "thank you Dr. X"? I recall hearing "thank you professor" (without name), but I can't recall hearing "thank you doctor" (without name).

In North American English, "doctor" without a name usually means a medical doctor.  To address a PhD or university instructor in that manner is neither appropriate nor inappropriate, but it is unusual.  "Professor Lastname" is a safe choice, but customs vary.


Citing a funding application in a student thesis I gave an application for a funded project to a student as reference material for his Masters thesis. He wants to put a reference to this text into his bibliography. What is the necessary "bibliographic" information to include in this case, and what would be the recommended way to format such a reference?

The rule with citation of “unusual” references is always something like that:

Make sure you really want to cite it. (In your case, it sounds okay, but most cases of students trying to cite “unusual” stuff end up with me telling them not to cite it)
Include just enough information that the cited item is uniquely identifiable.
If the item is not publicly available, include additional information that hints at its content (such as the title).

For example:

  John Aristotle (341 BC). Exploring the impact of introducing a fifth element in Empedocles’s classification of principles [Grant X1FH25 proposal to the Macedonian Science Fundation, Agency for Philosophical Research].


Is it possible to publish a research paper as an independent undergraduate author? I am interested in a new fast moving field in which none of the professors at my university have an interest. I have even started to work on some areas that show promise in the current scenario.

As I am working independently, and this will be my first paper, do I have a reasonable chance of getting it published (assuming it turns out well)?

What mistakes should I absolutely avoid while working on this paper? (to maximize chances of publishing later on)

Your question contains three questions. Is it possible? yes. Do you have a reasonable chance? Probably less than any other researcher because you lack the training but not zero. What mistakes to avoid? Well, that is what research education partly is about.

Writing a paper involves many aspects, providing the proper background, explaining the research, putting the research in perspective and reaching proper conclusions. There are many mistakes that can be made: you do not show you know the field, you do not describe the methods/theory/experiments well enough, your discussion does not hold and your conclusions are not well founded. All of this can come from poor understanding or from not writing well. So as long as you can tick the boxes from the subject specific to the methodological including writing skills then you would stand as reasonable a chance as any. In the end there is likely only one way to find out, try.

You state that you work independently and that is all fine. But, in science we all benefit from having others read and comment on our work to improve it so your chances of success can increase dramatically if your writing can be read and commented on by peers (with at least a PhD would be recommended) to weed out problems and any lack of clarity.


How to apply for Habilitation positions in Germany - Physics/Chemistry I'm a postdoctoral researcher in physics in the USA right now (my Ph.D. is in physical chemistry). I want to move to Germany and eventually become a research professor. I am aware that one route I could take is by applying for Junior Professor positions, but my understanding is that a Habilitation is a bit more collaborative with your advisor. As I am planning to move to an entirely new system, I think it would be good for me to have a few years working closely with someone who already knows the system so I will be in a better place to help my students navigate it. Anyway, I can find Jr. Prof. positions on the job boards, but I have no idea how to find Habilitation positions. Can any of you help me with this?
Many thanks!

The following is about habilitation and junior professorships in general, not particularly about physical chemistry.
A few things about junior professorships first:

Depending on the field, a habilitation is no longer a strict necessity. Having done a successful junior professorship is formally sufficient for a professor position as well. You of course don't know in advance if the hiring committee for the position you will be interested in at some point isn't preferring candidates with a habilitation, though.
There are nowadays also tenure-track junior professorships. They ensure that if you do good work, you get a permanent professorship afterwards, without the need to have a habilitation. Once you showed that you can do a good job on a permanent professorship, the habilitation should then cease to be important if you apply elsewhere later.

But more importantly:

There are no designated "habilitation positions" in Germany. Rather, there are positions as "wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter" (scientific employee) that you can hold while working towards your habilitation. The possibility to write a habilitation thesis while holding the position may be mentioned in the job advertisement, but is also often not. If you see a position that may be suitable offered somewhere, you will have to ask (the respective professor) if he/she thinks if you should apply as someone interested in working towards a habilitation.
The important part for writing a habilitation thesis is that you have a position with a perspective to stay for a longer period of time, as necessary for this purpose. A position in a newly started EU starting/consolidator/advanced grant would be suitable, for instance. A "Landesstelle" (not directly attached to a third-party funded project) is suitable, too - but you will have to convince the professor having such a position that giving it to you is a wise investment for him/her.
Sometimes you see a position for an "Akademischer Rat", which is a permanent somewhat glorified postdoc position and should be suitable for writing a habilitation thesis. These are very rare, though.

Note that positions suitable for habilitation are not always publicly announced, and it's not uncommon to have your current professor/advisor phone up a few colleagues in the area you want to move to in order to check if there are any suitable not yet announced free positions upcoming in their research groups.


Should I wait to upskill myself or contact professor about the PhD opening asap? I'm completing my Masters in Artificial intelligence. My thesis is about the social robotics and cognitive sciences. However, During my Masters, I've self-studied a little about big data and machine learning and I want to do my PhD in that area. Currently, I'll be done with my thesis writing in a week and after that I'll be working on machine learning and big data.

Meanwhile, during my search of phd position, I have found one opening whose deadline is November'15.

I have two options now:

I finish my thesis writing and get some machine learning concepts for around 1-2 months and then talk to the relevant supervisor.
I contact the professor now, showing my interest and keep in touch with him or ask him for guidance before joining the PhD with him?

I need your guidance in choosing the best option among two. In two months i think i'll have some basic concepts about the big data and data mining but i have to wait for two months and the position may not be available by that time.

On the other hand, I have no prior work experience in the proposed Phd field, will the professor appreciate my interest and will help me to cover basics after finding me interested?

Thanks.

I don't think you stand to gain much by waiting. Especially if, as you state in your question, the position might no longer be available within two months.

Either the supervisor is open to working with you and you'll have the opportunity to get to know him a bit and to demonstrate your ability to find your way in his field of research, or he's looking for a PhD student with a prior skillset you're unlikely to acquire in 1-2 months time anyway.

If he's up for it, I'd say it's always a good idea to have a general talk with him to get to know your prospective field better, show your interest and to get targeted feedback on whether your Masters might simply be good enough in the first place. That doesn't exempt you from reading up a bit about his current research and it's background though.


Should I remove a coauthor if he did something detrimental to the project? I am corresponding a paper and the status of the paper is under review after first revision.

Recently, I realized that one of my coauthors had done some bad acts against the project (related to the paper) in the past and now I want to delete his name from the author list.

Meanwhile it should be noted that his contribution to the study had never been scientific and I wrote with negligence his name. However, my big concern is now that removing his name might be unethical.

How can I deal with this important issue?

This is a tricky one but you might just have to bite the bullet and keep his name on the paper, making a mental note both not to work with him again and being careful about who you name as co-author.

  one of my coauthors had done some bad acts against the project
  (related to the paper) in the past and now I want to delete his name
  from the author list.

But have these acts impacted on the quality of the paper? It sounds like they have affected the project but not specifically the paper. This is a similar criticism to people complaining against the internal bickering and politics of e.g. software development which affects how software is made, yes, but doesn't necessarily affect the quality or accuracy of the overall output product.

  Meanwhile it should be noted that his collaboration with study had
  never been scientific and I wrote with negligence his name.

So he did make some contribution? What was this contribution? Conceptual? Literary in some way? I would doubt that you included his name with negligence at the time you did so, but now it seems negligent in the light of new information.

  However, my big concern is now that removing his name might be
  un-ethic!!

I think it would certainly raise some questions that might be difficult to answer without possible repercussions on yourself. I would grit your teeth and let the paper go through further revisions, it sounds like it's too far down the line to remove a co-author's name, but be careful who you include - and why - in the future. Academia is a learning process in more than one way.


Can publisher alter or invent writing and attribute that to the author without consultation? Is it legal to publish a document under an authors name without the author seeing the manuscript?

What if the author's manuscript is radically altered to the extent of say the opposite of the original and is published without authors seeing the manuscript - would that be legal?

The question of course is not if it is unethical but rather not legal.

What does "moral rights" cover?

A publisher will typically require authors to sign a contract. That contract dictates what the publisher can do.

Contracts typically stipulate that the publisher can make editorial, formatting, stylistic, ... changes. Thus, a publisher can alter or invent writing. Whether the publisher can do so without consulting the author depends on the contract.

A contract might permit the publisher to derive promotional materials bearing the author's name, without further consultation with the author (i.e., contracts might grant such rights), hence, it might be legal to publish a document under an author's name without consultation.

Since the publisher is typically granted permission to make changes, it is possible that those changes lead to publication of a manuscript that is radically altered to the extent of say the opposite of the original.

Although I have reasoned that it is possible, it really depends upon the contract that was signed.


Erratum for scientific articles I suspect that I have found a mistake in a scientific article (within the field of mathematics). Before bothering my colleagues with questions regarding the legitimacy of the content, I would like to know if anyone has corrected the (potential) error before me.

So the question is: Is there anywhere online, where I can find an erratum or similar for articles? Do I have to use specific keywords when searching for such content in databases? Or is it simply not possible to find easily?

If it's published in a journal you will usually get a hint right at the page of the paper that there is an erratum.


Is it possible to be a paid RA in a math or computer science lab in order to be immersed in the academic research context? I'm currently a research assistant in a neuroscience lab at MIT and I'm considering pursuing a PhD in math or theoretical computer science. The RAs in my lab who want to eventually become neuroscientists are in a perfect place - a large, collaborative environment where they get paid to work closely with neuroscientists and learn hands on what the entire research process is like in that field before committing to a 5 year grad program.

I want an environment as close to this as possible in math or theoretical computer science to solidify my belief that I would be happy pursuing research in these areas. Is this kind of opportunity available in these fields? What is the closest I can get? I did an REU program in undergrad and loved it, but want more if it's out there.

Thank you so much for your advice, this is a great community.

Opportunities to work in specific labs are abundant, but you need to start up a conversation with the professors who run individual labs or research groups to see what is available at your school.  Whether or not you can get funding for a position will vary per lab/RG.  It is generally more difficult to get a funded position in a math or theoretical computer science research lab because without experience, there isn't much you can do to justify getting paid (whereas in an experimental lab you can at least help out with the menial work that is inherent to experimental labs).

My suggestion: make appointments to see professors or lab directors in the labs or groups you might like to work in.  Plan on working for free for at least a year, in order to prove your worth.  If that means taking a second job elsewhere, so be it.  Be prepared to discuss why you think you will make a valuable team member to include a discussion of your long-term goals.  This should be more than "I might want to work in theoretical computer science."  Do some pre-reading of recent papers that have come out of the lab, and know something about the professor's background.

Unfortunately, jumping into a theoretical research group probably isn't the best way to test the waters for a particular field (esp. without a good background already), so you may get more worth out of continuing to take courses in those disciplines you find interesting, and doing a good deal of reading on your own.


What to do if one of my recommenders has commited a plagiarism violation that has been publicized online? I plan to obtain a recommendation letter for PhD from a recommender with whom I have worked a lot during the course of my bachelor's. However when I accidentally typed her name in Google, a copyright violation notice by IEEE in her name shows up (sample). It identifies the paper that included the copied text, says something like

  After careful and considered review of the content and authorship of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE's Publication Principles.

  This paper contains portions of text from the paper(s) cited below. A credit notice is used, but due to the absence of quotation marks or offset text, copied material is not clearly referenced or specifically identified.

and specifies the original source of the copied text. This violation has nothing to do with my work with her.

I am afraid this shall reduce the credibility of my work. Besides, I am loath to approaching other professors because I have worked much less with them and do not know them as well as this recommender. What should I do? Go ahead with her recommendation despite, or seek another recommender?

I assume that because you write "for PhD" that you are currently an undergraduate applying for graduate school.

In that case, I think there is relatively little guilt by association. Some people reading the recommender's letter might discount it because the person is discredited, but I don't think anyone will blame you in particular because we assume undergraduates don't often have a choice of which lab they work in, or any knowledge of the shenanigans their advisors might be engaging in.

Her letter might not be as strong as if she didn't have this cloud hanging over her, but I assume that in it she spoke to the quality and diligence of your work and your suitability for graduate studies.

Things might be different if you were a doctoral student in the lab and applying for postdocs or jobs. In that case, there might be stronger guilt by association, especially if you had authored papers together. But you're just an undergraduate so I wouldn't be worried.

Anecdote: As an undergraduate psych major at a R1, I worked in the lab of a psychologist who worked on ESP - that's extra-sensory perception. He only hired undergraduates because he knew of the taint that would be associated with this work for grad students. I was quite happy with the money, it was fun work coding people's free-associations due to supposed psionic powers, and it didn't hurt my graduate career in any way.


PhD Project proposal with plagiarism Two days back, I got a favorable reply from a professor who is happy to be my supervisor for a PhD program. The university is one of the famous universities in Australia. Unfortunately, the deadline for submitting the application is today. Even though I had only two days to prepare all the documents, I sorted out all of them except the project proposal. Currently I am almost done with the project proposal too, but I did not check it for plagiarism since I have copied some parts from the internet.

If I submit the proposal with the application as it is (with the parts I have copied from the internet), and if I am rejected, will it affect me when I apply for the same program next year? Will they keep that record and draw it back when they evaluate my application for the second time?

Without any indication of university, I have to assume that yes, they will keep records of all the things you do. Furthermore, you can assume that your next application will go through the same persons, as they are probably the only ones working on your particular type of application, so even if they don't have records, they will likely remember it.

Plagiarism is extremely reprehensible in the research/academic world, hence you should never ever do it if you want to be considered worth doing research. Here (France), students can be banned up to 5 years from taking any examinations for these kind of faults.

If this is only a problem of time, have you considered asking for an extension for the submission? If you weren't aware of what had to be done for the submission, you might be able to get away with it by proving you only got the request 2 days ago. Otherwise, they might deny it because you could have prepared it without knowing the answer.

It's august, so university will probably be on holidays now they probably won't mind the delay. Bottom word: I can not answer for your university, but doing wrong things will impact your career, so you'd better refrain from doing it.


How do I convince my department that not all research needs to be profit-oriented? I have gotten a job in a sort of university of Applied Sciences; this work place wants to start a small research group, but one issue that I started to notice is the orientation they want to give it. I mean, they want that all research to give a profit. For that reason, I was wondering how to convince the persons in charge of the Faculty, that not all research will give immediate profitable results.

The faculty is information technology oriented, which has a big influence on Computer Science topics. For what I saw in other institutions, not all research is profit-oriented, but oriented to expand the knowledge about some fields.

Any advice?

I have gotten a job in a sort of university of Applied Sciences; this work place wants to start a small research group, but one issue that I started to notice is the orientation they want to give it. I mean, they want that all research to give a profit.

Well, that's a direction that many research centres around the world go. Fundamentally, IBM does not maintain IBM Research to contribute to human knowledge, but so that IBM Proper can get an innovation advantage (and patents - lots and lots of patents).

A University of Applied Sciences is usually not a research university in the traditional sense. They are not funded to do research, and, by and large, it is not their job. It seems perfectly reasonable that they expect their upcoming research group to fund itself or even be a cash cow. There is no obligation that a research centre needs to also do unprofitable things.

To make this perfectly clear: building up a for-profit research centre is a perfectly valid strategy. Clearly, it is not the kind of research you want to be doing (which is perfectly fine, even very understandable for me), but you cannot expect them to change their global strategy to fit your idea of research, especially if you just joined them.

  should all research be profit oriented?

No, of course not.


Should I email or text the professor as a apology if it seems that he is ignoring my email There is a professor that I work with in remote. We are in touch primarily via email about research collaboration. Recently, I'm trying to brainstorm a research idea for my master thesis. I'm new to research and I need a little bit hand-holding on finding a good idea. Over the summer, I mostly work on my own to fill in the background knowledge and try to keep the professor informed about my progress.

The professor usually replies email quite quick during the academic time. But, in the summer, the speed of response can be 10 - 12 days. I totally understand because it is a summer time. Last time when I ask for some inputs on what references I should take a look. He replied with a pointer to some research group. I'm pretty excited to get the response. One of the reasons is that I have read some papers from the research group pointed out inside the email. I replied immediately later that night of the same day. This is the last contact we had so far. Around a week later, I sent out another email looking for doing some research work in some other project as a stepping stone. No reply for this as well.

Now, I notice he has updated his website in the past two days. I'm figuring he is back to work. But, I still haven't got any reply. Now, I'm in this hanging position and not know what to do next. Maybe because of my emails I send out earlier? What I should do in this case.

Thanks much!

I think you should apologize only if you have done something wrong. That doesn't seem too be the case here. He is likely just busy. It would be good not to flood him with things for a bit, but likely he is catching up on a backlog of work.

It is even possible that he thinks you are working fine for the moment and don't need an intervention.

Stay calm and carry on. If he is unhappy in any way you will likely hear.


Is it too early to switch advisors if I just finished my first semester as a master's student? I'm aware that questions regarding changing advisors have been asked frequently on this community, and I've also asked a few of my own previously. However, after doing some thinking on the answers that I've received and read I felt that I needed some opinions or feedback regarding my situation.

I just finished my first semester as a computer science master's student but have been having doubts about staying in this lab for quite a while. The main reasons that I'm having feelings of doubt are:

Different research interests. When I first interviewed with the professor the research that he said I'd be doing was different from what I'm doing now.
Differences in approaches to research. My professor is more "business-oriented" (for lack of a better word) and only cares about the results (more specifically, I'm doing research in deep learning), while I want supervision on how to analyze those results in-depth.
Differences in values and principles (I'm not sure if this is an accurate way to put it). This is somewhat related to #2, but I've noticed that most of the people in the lab share an attitude along the lines of results-first. This attitude is somewhat understandable, but again it's not exactly how I want to approach my research. I've been ridiculed when people saw I was taking classes in the mathematics department, saying that "you don't need those classes for deep learning."
Lack of supervision in general. My advisor's always attending meetings and doesn't do any research of his own. The most advisory that students receive is either during our lab seminar or right before we're about to submit papers to conferences/journals.

Some of the things that are holding me back from making up my mind are:

Perhaps I'm just having feelings of frustration and don't know particularly well what I really want to do yet, and should give it some more time. My parents (who are both professors themselves) have said that it might not be a bad idea to take another semester to think on my doubts, and whether switching advisors would solve any of those problems.
Money. The lab that I'm at now is the largest in our department (even school maybe), and the professor does do a good job of bringing in government or company-funded projects. The students including myself usually get paid on a monthly basis, and we use this money to pay for our tuition with a bit extra. I'm aware that this isn't typical for our school, and the lab I'm at is privileged in that sense.
Fear of starting over. I'm not sure if there is any objective reason for me to feel this way, as it has only been one semester. I suppose the reason why I feel this way is because I want to get results out within the next two years so that I can apply for PhD programs elsewhere, and switching advisors gives me this massive feeling of anxiety that I'd be throwing away everything I've been involved in until now.

What would your advise be to someone who's just started graduate school and is already having these feelings? Would they be justifiable or perhaps I'm just acting like a child? Switching advisors isn't a trivial issue either, so any second opinions that I may receive are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Is it too early to switch advisors?

If there is evidence the advisor is not the right person for you, it's never too early.  It's clear from your question that you should switch.

  Is it too late to switch advisors?

It depends on the rules of your university, but in the first semester it is probably not too late.  Don't wait until it's too late.


Translating Portuguese text to English that presents a quotation in English I'm translating a Portuguese text into English and in the end there is a quotation in English, from a speech. I would like to know how to continue? Is it conventional to put the quotation in italics?

Quote it as you would quote any other part of speech, whatever the language, according to the style required by the publisher: usually quotations are indented and, sometimes, in italics, but check the specific style guide.

Then, you can add a note specifying that the text was originally in English, if you think that this piece of information is important for the reader or in the context.

The Chicago manual of style [1, §13.71] recommends:

  Typographic style of foreign quotations. Quotations in a foreign language that are incorporated into an English text are normally treated like quotations in English, set in roman type and run in or set off as block quotations according to their length. [...]

So, at least one style guide recommends to not change the quotation style, whatever the original language. As I suggested above, I'd simply add a note stating that the original text was in English.

But given that that translation is part of your evaluation of a Translation course you're taking, if you are still in doubt, ask the instructor.

[1] The Chicago manual of style, 16th edition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2010.


Course requiring students to use Examity I am an undergrad student and one of my professors is saying that we will be using Examity for the final exam.

I am concerned with downloading this software on my computer for various reasons, including security (a simple look at their privacy policy is enough to warrant extreme suspicion) and privacy (although a weaker argument, it doesn't feel ok for someone to demand that they be able to watch me in my home). I also only have one computer with some files that are quite sensitive and risking this by being forced to download Examity is difficult for me to swallow.

In fact, my college (along with various others within our university) has emailed all the faculty (to the best of my knowledge) discouraging the use of Examity and other proctoring tools like this. Yet it has been 2 days since this email has gone out and my professor has not retracted the statement on the course website that we will be using Examity.

While I realize that the professor may have forgotten to take this notice down, I cannot seem to find the right words to ask her this while not seeming rude.

What actions can I take to confirm that she does not intend to use Examity? If she still intends to use it, what can I do?

UPDATE: I followed the below advice and emailed the prof detailing my concerns. A couple days after that, the professor withdrew the Examity requirements.

Yet it has been 2 days since this email has gone out and my professor has not retracted the statement on the course website that we will be using Examity.

I think your concerns are reasonable.  But I think you should give your professor a few more days to react.  Keep in mind that professors may get thousands of emails.
You could write at a later date:

Dear Prof.,
I appreciate your efforts to promote exam integrity, but I prefer not to use Examity because I am concerned this company might take my private data.  Dean Whatsit said using Examity is discouraged.  May I take the exam without this software?
Sincerely,


How to book a flight for faculty interview with no knowledge of available budget? I read that universities invite candidates and ask them to book a flight. If universities don't specify the amount available, can candidates select any airfare? Should the candidates ask or just book any? 100$ or 1000$, would that matter? And do booking the cheapest flight be a positive sign?

When you're invited for an interview, the university should offer some guidance on how to book travel and what they will reimburse.  If for some reason they don't, it's reasonable to ask how you should handle it.  By default you should book a reasonably priced economy-class ticket (i.e., given several options don't take one that stands out as much more expensive).  It's wise to save a few screenshots of price comparisons in case anyone suggests you should have gotten a much better deal.  If all the available flights seem remarkably expensive, for example if you are invited to interview with relatively little notice, then you can always check to make sure they are OK with the expense (but they will presumably say yes if the expense could not reasonably be avoided).


Resusing my own poster abstract for another conference I have to write an (poster-) abstract for a conference in April. Back in November I already wrote an abstract for a similar conference. Since I have not gained many new results on the same research topic, I made some minor changes to the 'old' abstract and was thinking about submitting this 'reused' abstract for the conference in April.

Is that professional? Or is this even plagiarism, since I copied work that is already published (I am first-author of the 'old' and 'reused' abstract)?

I am not lazy, but the abstract that I wrote last year seems to be very good and I don't see the point in rephrasing it.

Assuming you're talking about a one or two paragraph abstract, the question here is not really about the abstract per se but the contents of the poster.  In my opinion, you don't need to worry about self-plagiarism per se from a brief poster abstract because it's not a real publication in the first place (if it were a 1+ page extended abstract, that would be a different matter).

Instead, the important question is whether your research community will find it acceptable to have you presenting essentially the same material in two different conferences.  In many communities, this is OK, taking the view that it is essentially raising visibility of a result with different groups of people; in others communities, however, it may not be viewed as acceptable.  Consult with your supervisor to see what the standard is for your community.


Human-Computer Interaction PhD in Computer Science vs Information Systems: Does the department title matter? I've been offered a PhD position in Human-Computer Interaction, but it bothers me that it's within the Business/Economics department, so it would yield me an Information Systems degree instead of a Computer Science degree. I'm afraid that this would close some doors of HCI jobs that list CS degrees as requirements. I will be doing CS work, and I believe it would be important to get such recognition.

Do you guys the title of my PhD in this case is something important, or I shouldn't be worried about it?

Thanks!

If you are referring to high-tech industry job (vs academic jobs) I can only tell you that for me, if I'm looking for R&D, design, development roles I would hire someone with a CS degree over IS degree without even looking into qualifications. It is unlikely I will look at you resume farther than the part that mentions your degree.  Unless of course I am unable to find people and am rather desperate.

Think about it this way:  this is degree from Business/Economics department which translates into a non (engineering/technology) degree which is not what a job with CS requirement would be looking for.

But again, it depends on kind of a job you are thinking about and can't claim  that this is the view of everyone although I can comfortably say it would cut your chances a good deal for the kind of jobs I mentioned above.

Sorry if I sound harsh.


How to complete homework more efficiently? I spend way too much time on homework. I find that I eventually get the material, but this goes after perhaps 7-8 hours wasted daily. I tend to get bogged down by the details of readings, etc.

What is a way to stay consistently on track, moving quickly, and finishing homework ruthlessly and efficiently?

I know some people simply do not do homework that is not graded, and I don't see how it is possible to do well in a course if you don't keep up with the concepts presented in class and reinforced by the homework. Therefore, not doing it is not an option for me.

Any suggestions?

I have to disagree the first couple comments, "7-8 hours wasted daily" certainly does not sound normal. The amount of time is not necessarily an issue, but it is far longer than I ever spent on homework and if you feel that you are being inefficient you're most likely correct. It sounds to me like you are indeed getting bogged down in unnecessary things or (perhaps more likely) just struggling to piece all the little things together into the big picture.

A big part of higher education is learning how to learn efficiently. In your career and in life, this will most likely be much more useful than the actual material you cover in your courses.

I think there are a few things you can do that might help:

When reading a textbook focus on items that are formatted in a way that stands out. Textbook authors format material to emphasize critical and major points. A good lecturer will also make an effort to highlight the big picture topics and build up the details around them.
You might try studying or reviewing notes with a classmate before starting homework assignments. Ask for their insights on what the most important things are and try to formulate your own judgments as well.
Visit office hours. Ask conceptual questions about the topic at hand. You might also consider explaining to the TA or professor that you're having a hard time picking out the crucial material from the details and ask if they can help you focus in on the key topics.

It has been my experience that many students get bogged down in peripheral details when learning new topics, not seeing the forest for the trees. It has always helped me to ask myself what the most critical concepts are and then be sure to understand the details as they support these concepts. Hopefully, with practice, you will soon improve at picking out the key concepts and building a mental framework around them rather than getting bogged down in all the details from the start.


How to find / understand research in other languages when you don't know that language? I'm starting to do some research in Asia, however, I don't know the local language. I do have some contacts, all of whom speak English, but I'm worried about finding earlier research which was published in the local language. For example, if I don't speak Thai and I am doing research in Thailand, how can I find existing research which was published in Thai (with the intent of contacting the researcher or finding a translator to translate it into English)?

This might be a futile exercise, and I might need to remove the question but in case anyone out there has a creative idea, I would love to hear it.

I would ask a colleague which does speak Thai, and ask him if there are any relevant Thai publications you need to be aware of. Ofcourse this colleague needs to be in the same field you are interested in. If he or she does not know of any relevant literature, this might indicate that you are not missing any relevant research.

In addition, when you are looking for papers yourself, I would Google translate the titles of the papers, and if they seem interesting I would ask a native speaking colleague to translate the abstract. If it still is interesting then you ask your colleague to read the paper together with you.


How to mention that we are applying as a couple? My wife and I are applying to US universities for master's and PhD programmes. We both have a electrical engg. degree and are applying to the same department. However we would like to get into the same university.
Is it possible to mention this in the application? Do universities take this into consideration when making admission decisions?

Different universities will have different rules. At some you will be strictly considered as individuals. At others some accommodation might be made, but only at the margins. You can just state in your cover material that you are seeking positions together for personal reasons.
But it is worth mentioning, so that the admissions committee is aware that you have some constraints. But if you are both marginally qualified, by their rules, it would be more a reason to reject both than to admit both.
But is is unlikely that one would be admitted if unqualified even if the other is highly qualified. Being married is probably better than just being "together".
Another possibility for you, however, if you are willing to live in a large city, is to make applications to several universities in some city, like NYC or San Francisco. Then it would be feasible to attend different universities, though such places tend to be expensive to live in.
And the application would be for the doctorate. It is unnecessary to mention a masters in such an application. A masters is normally earned "along the way" to the doctorate, sometimes just by asking and sometimes with some fairly minor additional requirement.


Several questions about getting a master degree in mathematics in US Currently I am a junior at UCLA. I have taken some math classes and they seem really interesting. However, I am not sure whether I should pursue a PhD in mathematics. So instead I'm thinking about getting a master degree. However there's very few information about master in mathematics online.

Question 1: How rare is it for people to go to industry first and then go back to academia (after 2 years, for example)? How should they deal with the recommendation letter part?

Question 2: Some of my friends have been taking honour classes since they were freshman. However I used to be a math/economics major so I've been taking regular courses. How would that impact my application? (suppose I'm NOT talking about master in computational finance or financial engineering. I took a class in option pricing and interest rate model, worst "math" class ever)

Question 3: Is there any "rule of thumb" of determining whether someone should pursue an advanced degree (master and PhD) in mathematics? I remember once one of my TA told me that "if you cannot get six A's, then probably this is not the right path for you". Now, my major GPA is 3.8. Got 3 A's in upper (analysis and linear algebra), bunch of A- (complex analysis, differential geometry, probability), and B+ for abstrac algebra.

Any advice/insight is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Q1. Not rare at all; especially for Masters programs. They probably deal with it as everyone else: contact a professor that they did well in their class and that class relates to what they want to study afterwards and ask politely for a reference letter. There are some cases (eg. you are more than 5-6 years after your graduation) that you may not need an academic reference but these are edge cases and do not apply to your case.

Q2. Depends what you want to study. If you are thinking of doing something with conjunction with Mathematical Finance or Econometrics/Economics this might be viewed as a positive thing. For Ring Theory? Probably not so positive.

EDIT (based on your edit) As you clarify now you are not thinking of something associated with Finance and/or Applied Maths generally.  If that is the case, most probably not having honours class will be detrimental. Having said that, if you apply for MSc it should not have a significant impact. After all you are apply for a MSc so you can do classes like that.

Q3. The only rule of thumb I can think of about pursing a PhD is liking your subject a lot. And even that is a rule of thumb. Sorry to say but your friend's advice about "six A's requirement" etc. is ungrounded advice. Sure enough if you are not good at something you should not have illusions of grandeur either though. :)

EDIT (based on the comments)
According to the interesting discussion in the comments: Take into account that you risk not having a house mortgage at 27 as well as one day waking up and realizing nobody will pay you to do Approximation Theory. (Actually, I think you should consider this as extremely likely. Don't worry though, even if this happens chances are you 'll survive it.)


How to prepare for a (PhD or PostDoc) admission procedure? "Luck favors the prepared mind"
( Louis Pasteur )

During the MS degree program or PhD program, it's advisable for a good student to get used to take a look on scientific activities of research groups he want to join, after graduation.
So, if the student decides somehow that he wants to try to join X, Y, Z groups, how should he prepare himself the best for the admission procedure?
What should he do before actually applying for that position in that group?
What should he do before the (formal centralized or informal) admission procedure starts?
Some of my own answers:
Task #0: he must read all the recent papers of the group he would like to join, and know very well those related to his research field.
Task #1: prepare all the admission material (we've already discussed about this)
Task #2...#N... what else?
What would you suggest to anyone to prepare himself to an admission procedure?
Thanks a lot

I'll start with some steps prior to yours in the interest of making the answer more generalizable:

Determine which universities to apply to. This will involve weighing factors such as ranking, faculty members, student opinions (from online discussion sources like this one or face-to-face discussions), sub-field specialties, and location, among others. You can prepare for this by looking all this stuff up:

US News & World Reports rankings for graduate programs is a good ranking system; there may be better ones I'm not familiar with.
Check the department's faculty page (example) for each university to see broadly-defined research interests for faculty members. Some people will explicitly list whether they're taking on new graduate students or not.
If you know anyone in the field, talk to them to see which universities/professors/labs would be good to check out.

Determine which lab to apply to. This will involve a lot of the above, but specifically it will involve talking to graduate students. This question covers that topic in pretty good depth.
Read up on the fundamentals of the topic you're interested in. I would suggest you be familiar with the field enough to ask a basic question about it. In my field, review papers would be a great resource for this, although I will admit that it may be hard for you to find a good one. Speak with one of the subject matter librarians in your university (i.e., if engineering, talk to the librarians in the engineering library) and ask them to help you find recent review papers on your topic.

I'll concede this is a difficult task, but being able to ask even simple questions about the field shows familiarity, and will make you look better during the interview. I recall some of my graduate school interviews where I just sat there, almost completely unfamiliar with the lab's research topic, and I felt very foolish indeed.
All the stuff in the question you linked to above.

At this point, most of your work is already set in stone; your undergraduate grades are set, your summer internships are complete, you finished the GRE, and it isn't likely you can do anything for your professors at this point to improve your recommendation letters. Just focus on the labs themselves and learn as much as you can before making decisions.


What to do if assignment is against student's religion? What is the proper course of action if while teaching an undergraduate or even secondary school course an assignment violates the religious beliefs of a student?
For a more concrete example of where this might happen, let us consider an art class with a Muslim student (Disclamer: I am not an adherent to, or scholar of, Islam; please forgive me for any misunderstandings this post might contain):
Within Islam it is considered haram (forbidden by God) [1] to produce images of non-plant living creatures (including humans), this is called tasweer.[2]
Now if I were to assign a portrait of a person to the class as an assignment, what would be the most ethical option, should a student raise a concern to me about this? Would it be appropriate to assign an alternate assignment?

[1]: Similar to a christian sin, but with a stronger connotation from what I can tell; literally: taboo.
[2]: I believe this is from a hadith, but one that is deemed to be the most accurate/reliable.

If you can make an accommodation that allows the student to participate

without violating his religious observance, and
without compromising the educational goals of the class, and
without requiring an extreme amount of effort on your part,

then it is reasonable to make the accommodation.

I regularly miss classes and exams due to religious observance. My school has a very clear policy on the matter:

If students have to miss a class session, exam, or are otherwise unable to participate in a course requirement due to religious observance, they must notify the professor and a certain dean in a timely manner (the definition of "a timely manner" is further specified in the policy)
If said student follows the above requirement, they cannot be penalized for their religious observance and the professor must offer a fair alternative (e.g., makeup exam or assignment)

If your university has no policy on the matter, feel free to adopt mine, and specify it in your syllabus at the beginning of the semester.

However, I would not take a class where I know the main requirement of a class would violate my religious observance. Indeed, I know people who have refrained from pursuing a career because a non-negotiable required class for that field would require something that violates their religious observance. *

So, if the course is Figure Drawing and someone registers knowing that he cannot draw the human figure... I don't think you are required to let him pass the class by doing still lives instead. If the course is Introduction to Art for Non-Majors, it may be possible to offer an alternative to the portrait assignment.

This applies more generally as well. If a student in good faith (i.e., not to get out of doing work) considers an assignment

illegal,
unethical,
compromising to his health/safety,
etc.

it seems reasonable to offer an alternative assignment if it does not compromise the educational goals of the course.

* See: Can a Kohen become a doctor?


Does having an article retracted due to professor's ethical misconduct mean my career is over? When I was in my first year of M.Sc. a professor told me to work on a project for which the main data belonged to him. He had sent me an early draft and told me to translate it into English, so I did along with recalculations and adding some stuff to the paper. We sent the article to a journal and got published there. But a year later the journal contacted me because of a duplication based on a conference proceeding with the professor's name and another student which was from 3 years before this.

As of this moment the journal retracted the article, they didn't charge me guilty at all in my university but they fired the prof because he had multiple other misconducts before that.

Is this the end of my academic career? I am trying to apply for a PhD, does this mean no one will ever accept me?
What should I do when I was not even guilty but yet there has been a retraction based on this issue?

I might really be overthinking this, but I am really scared that nowhere accepts me for future studies.

UPDATE:
Thank you all for answering my question.

Unfortunately, I live in a dictatorial country in the middle east.
I have told the department head of our faculty but he doesn't AT ALL.
I have told my supervisor he said I am sorry but nothing we can do in this situation. I have talked to an attorney he said in a country such as ours that copyright is not a thing these cases don't matter.

I have applied for multiple PhD job positions in European countries but I got rejected from most of them.

If I understand your description, there is no finding of academic misconduct against you.  You have co-authorship of a retracted article, where the problem appears to have been caused by the misconduct of your co-author, and unbeknownst to you.  The incident occurred when you were only a masters student acting under the direction of a professor.  If this description is accurate, I do not see why this matter would affect your future research career.  I cannot imagine this being held against you by a selection panel for PhD candidature, or later in your career.

To ensure you have evidence confirming your account of events, I would strongly recommend asking the university to give you a formal written finding describing the matter and confirming that you did not commit academic misconduct.  You should also ask them for a letter of reference that gives an account of your abilities, with an apology to you for misconduct of this professor.  Bear in mind that the university employed the professor that instructed you in this matter, so they bear some responsibility to you here, and you have some good leverage to get them to give you a formal exoneration.  If you have trouble getting them to give you this, I would recommend speaking to a solicitor to look at your options.  By taking you on as a student the university had a responsibility to you, and it is responsible if its employee harms your research work through his misconduct.

The academic journal has no corresponding obligation to you, so what I would recommend here is to get your formal exoneration letter from the university and then send it to the journal.  Ask them to append a description to their retraction (the online version) noting that you were not responsible for any misconduct in this matter.


Solliciting letter of recommendation from student for tenure paquet A colleague of mine in a US institution included letters from some of his (undergraduate) research assistants in his tenure packet.
I was wondering

If such practice was common,
What should the letter contains,
When was the optimal time to ask for it (e.g., as soon as the collaboration terminates, as close to the submission of said packet as possible).

This site has numerous (good) questions about student asking professor, but I couldn't find any about professor asking student.

If a university highly values teaching then such letters can be helpful and can be solicited ethically as long as there are certain considerations met.
A former student, with whom you no longer have any supervisory (or grading) relationship is fine. Such letters should be sent independently and their sender's identity and content not revealed to you. Both conditions should be met.
Alternatively, simply announcing that you are up for tenure and any student who wants to comment can send a letter to the committee is welcome to would be fine, as long as student anonymity is maintained.
A student who has graduated and with whom you will no longer have any possibility of a supervisory relationship is fine, even if not anonymous.
But everyone needs to be assured that there was (and can be) no pressure applied, nor any bribery possible.
And, yes, I think it is common enough in teaching colleges and some others. Probably more common is for a candidate to supply a list of names of students that the committee can contact independently.
However, if you contemplate doing this, I suggest that you discuss it with the department head and/or the dean before you act to assure that it is acceptable at your place as well as any additional restrictions. In particular, including letters that you have actually seen might not be allowed, or even proper.


Instead of an old work, can I cite a new work that shares an author and cites it? In my research field (operations research), several works have been published in the last couple of years by different authors that cover most of the recent developments in the field.
I’m writing a review paper and even though I read and used a couple of papers dated as far back as the 90s (mainly for my introduction and review), I want all references to be from 2010 or later.

I would like to write something like:

  Ref. 3 discussed branch & bound and dynamic programming approaches for KP, MKP and some of its variants.

Reference 3 is Kellerer, Pferschy, and Pisinger (2004).
Another paper, namely Puchinger, Raidl, and Pferschy (2010) shares one of its authors with Reference 3 and also cites it.

My question is: Instead of citing Reference 3 as it is, can I cite Puchinger, Raidl, and Pferschy (2010) because it is more recent?

I would recommend against this as it seems artificial. The year you give isn't some magic number and citing only recent work doesn't give you any advantage.

But there is a deeper reason in this case, I think. Just because a new paper cites an older one doesn't mean that the newer one advances the older one in every relevant direction. Another way to think of it is that the ideas in the new paper don't actually "contain" all of the ideas in the older one. Someone wanting a good overview of the field - the purpose of a review article - will probably need to go see what those additional ideas are, but if you don't point to them their only pointer is indirect through the paper you do cite. This makes the serious reader's job harder.

You seem to be giving an annotated bibliography, I see no reason to truncate it. The annotations, if well done, will help a reader decide whether to go to any given paper you include.


Accepted letter for Ph.D. in February, but now they say they don't have funding! Is that possible? My husband received an acceptance letter in February to get his Ph.D. in History. We are in the US. When he e-mailed to the funding department asking what else he needed, the funding department said they had everything.

Now in April he e-mailed to the Department where he supposedly is going to do his Ph.D. to ask about registration, start day, etc., and the president of the department answered saying he is not hopeful about securing his fellowship line at the moment, and the funding they have now will cover the currently enrolled students and if he has something left, he will not know until august.  But classes start in August and we have to move 700 miles away!

Is there something we can do after my husband has been accepted but with no funding?

If they did not say they had funding at the time of the offer, then it is quite likely they do not have funding now. This is especially true in the humanities. Cases where the offer include a statement about funding generally mean the department has funding, but it is not unheard of for things to happen. Generally statements about funding include lots of conditional clauses protecting the department in case things fall through. In the humanities funding for a PhD is much harder to get. It is worth asking about the possibility of teaching.


Charging graduate students for printing My university is starting a policy where graduate students need to pay for printing (10 cents per page) while It was free before. As a student coming from another university, I see it very weird policy. Actually, I am not aware of any university charges its PhD students for printing. I heard faculty members will be charged as well but at lower rate.

is freely printing a fundamental right for PhD students? If Yes, how to raise it?

is this common in other universities across the world (charging PhD students for printing)?

is freely printing a fundamental right for PhD students?

A fundamental right? No. But charging for printing borders on the ridiculous. – Printing is a necessity, not a right.

Think of it in economic terms. A PhD is a job (there are a few peculiarities, and it’s also part of a student’s education, but nevertheless you ultimately are doing a job, which consists of doing research). If preventing you from printing makes your job harder, the institute has a financial interest in removing that obstacle.

What company charges employees for office supplies? The concept is ludicrous. Why not charge them rent for their cubicles as well? Printing publications, drafts and reports for reading is simply a fundamental part of doing research – unless your institute sponsors ebook readers; and even then your PhD will probably involve filling out forms for HR etc.

If your institute suspects that printing is predominantly used for non job related purposes then that may be a problem that needs addressing (and the same goes if the institute suspects that printing could be reduced without impacting performance – lots of companies have tried paper-free offices but so far I haven’t heard of any resounding success, at least not in science). But charging students for printing is still unacceptable since it obstructs them from doing their jobs.


Should I WX(drop) a class if the highest grade I can get is a B+? How badly would this hurt my PhD application? I'm an undergraduate right now and in my junior year. I was overloading courses and fell behind one course, leaving me with a B+ as the highest possible grade for the course. Should I retake it next year if I know I can get an A in the class?

Also: it is a core class and I can technically get an A- but thats with a 100 on everything...

I agree with Dave Rose that the most important aspects of your application will be your thesis and advisor recommendation, but I want to take a slightly more nuanced angle on whether you should drop your course.

You say that a B+ is the highest grade you can receive. Is it the likely grade? You should not be basing your estimates of what you are going to get in the class on statements like "if I get perfect scores on the remaining exams I can get . . .". If, in fact, you are more likely to get a C+, and the course is a "core" course, then an argument can be made for you to drop until the next time it is offered.


Number of Papers for Doctor of Science (DSc) I am a young scientist working in India after finishing Masters in Physics. In last three years of employment, I have co-authored around 12 papers so far. I am interested in going for D.Sc. I have seen some universities award DSc after Masters also, But I am not sure how many minimum number of  papers will be required to get D.Sc. Do you all have any idea ?. I may also apply from a abroad university.

Any help would be appreciated.

Since not all papers are created equal, I don't think that there is any minimum number other than one. It might also depend a lot on your contributions to co-authored papers. It also depends on field and Physics isn't mine. Finally, it depends a lot on where you are. In the US it would likely be very different from UK or India, for example.

Note that some fields/places tend to award a doctorate over an accumulation of work over several years/papers/projects. Others, it is primarily awarded on a specific dissertation and little else but qualifying examinations.

But the way to know if you qualify or are able to move quickly to your goal, you will need to ask someone at a particular university in a particular place.


Breaking off a collaboration/project in science I discussed with two fellow PhD students about working together. I have been working on my project for about 8 months, and we started working together around 3 weeks ago. In the beginning we agreed I would be the first author, since I have been doing most of the work and the project is mostly done. After starting the work, however, one of the PhD students has been continuously promoting his work in the project as having more contribution (e.g. he always mentions his work first and mentions mine in a side sentence), even though I have been working on the project for a lot longer than he has.

Recently, we had a visitor that could potentially help with our project. So we decided to give our work in three separate presentations. I said that I could give the introduction for our larger project and we agreed on that (after some very small unspoken disagreement on the mentioned person's part). During the actual presentation, however, my fellow student friend announced that he'll give the introduction (to which I agreed since we were in front of an audience).

So, after this I have a bad taste in the collaboration and would like to break it off without causing trouble. My supervisor and a lot of other people know we are supposed to work together now.

Any suggestions on what I could do? They did some initial work so I am ok with putting their names on my paper if it comes down to it, but I do not want to continue with the collaboration.

I assume that the two other students were not "forced" on your project by some higher authority, so the call on whether or not to collaborate is yours to make.

If that is the case, you should as soon as possible sit down with the other two students and tell them that you are not going to work with them any longer. The major point here is be civil and professional. If their contribution is large enough, you can put them as co-authors or in the acknowledgements section. I say as soon as possible, because 3 weeks is not that much of time for them to get too seriously involved. For the purpose of other people, all three of you should assume a neutral stand point, i.e. something along the lines of "things didn't work out" without going into extensive details. Although, you should definitely bring your adviser up-to-date the real reasons for stopping the collaboration. It is never good to wash your dirty laundry in public, so badmouthing on either side just hurts all the involved parties (one reason more to keep the adviser in the loop).

Be adamant about your decision, as I guess that your colleagues and the adviser will try to smooth things out one way or the other (asking you to reconsider, for some more time, increasing their contribution, etc).


How to download a database of bibliographic information for all published scientific papers? I would like to download a database containing all scientific papers published. This is obviously too broad and ambitious. To be realistic, say I want all the papers searchable on google scholar (although other databases are fine, say SemanticScholar, etc.), or an approximation of that. What databases out there allow you to download this data?

I don't want to download the papers themselves (that wouldn't fit on my storage), just a record containing title, authors, journal (if it is not a book), year, and perhaps abstract.

Is this possible? How can I download a database like this, that I can browse and search offline?

Probably the closest you can get is the Open Academic Graph, a graph-based database of about 321 million papers (I don't think the actual papers are stored, but all the information you want is there). You can download all the 143 GB of data from the above link, but do note that because it's a merge of two existing graph-based paper databases (Microsoft Academic Search and AMiner) there are going to be a lot of duplicates.


Can nice pictures be a deciding factor? Let's say Paper A was recently accepted by a fairly prestigious journal (the top in my subfield).  Now, there is a new Paper B, half of which gives a more detailed description of an object in Paper A for pedagogical reasons. This half of Paper B  may not technically be new, but there are lots of pretty pictures in it (not merely pretty, of course, they accurately illustrate the particular object of interest). Much effort went into creating the illustrations, and this will probably be apparent to the reviewer.

What are the odds that the same journal would accept Paper B, if the first half of Paper B would not be accepted on its own merits?  To what extent can an editor's or referee's judgement be affected by nice colorful images?

Good illustrations can have disproportionate impact; this is true. Reviewers often seem to be swayed (I'm uncomfortable with 'fooled' here) by new or interesting looking images. This is generally true, and papers like this often are frequently cited, so that is good for the journal. Effort invested in this area is likely to be rewarded, though it may not substitute for substance.

However, as to your specific question about the same journal accepting it, that may be very difficult to judge. It depends on what the other half of paper B is. If the same explanation is applied to some problem, I should think it will be well accepted. If it's a restatement of a previous paper, unless it contains a contrary viewpoint, I think it's unlikely to pass muster. This is assuming, of course, that the reviewer/editor connect it to the previous paper. If they don't, then it's a fresh paper to them.


How is a MSc thesis evaluated in an application to a PhD program? I am planning to apply to a PhD program in applied mathematics next year, and by that time my MSc thesis (which is in pure mathematics) should be finished.

In case my research results are not significant enough to be published in a journal, how will my thesis be evaluated for the sake of the admission process? Will someone from the committee actually read parts of it (note that a potential advisor will probably not be very familiar with my MSc field)? Will my research potential be judged solely based on my references' recommendation letters referring to my thesis/research? (In which case, is it even worth putting effort in how the thesis is written, assuming my grad school is happy enough with it to award me a degree?)

Given the fact that is extremely rare to have a decent publication out of a Master thesis in pure maths, the content and quality of your thesis will be reflected on the recommendation letters.

This, together with your grades and other activities you may have would be the ticket to your admission.

Note that nobody will read your thesis. For the admission committee should be enough if it is apparent from the letters that you did a decent work in your thesis. Your application should show that you have potential of doing research but nobody has the time (or the will) to go through a thesis document.


PhD Student reapplying to other PhD program, what to indicate in CV? My advisor decided to move to Industry and it is likely that he might not come back. I do not have an option of continuing with my current PhD program or finding a co-supervisor as suggested. I am in my second year at the moment, and I think it is best to reapply to other PhD programs.

I was enrolled as a full time PhD student and our department does not offer a Masters+PhD program, so officially I was enrolled just as a 'PhD student' and not as a 'MS/PhD Student'. I might likely be given a Masters, give that I have completed the course requirements.

However, for writing Statements of Purpose and CV for my applications, I am stuck with the following:

How should I describe my 'education' section? I did have a PhD topic assigned with a pending publication on the same. Should my current status be of a 'Masters' or a 'PhD' student?
Does it make sense to explain my situation in my CV or Statement of Purpose to describe what exactly made me reapply to PhD programs?
My advisor is less responsive these days and I am unsure if it is a good idea to give his name as my potential recommender. A fallback option is to ask my course instructors at Graduate school which would probably not guarantee a strong recommendation as compared to recommendations from people I have actually worked with during my undergraduate. If I do not have any recommenders from my current program, will that go against me?

Since every country/state/university has its own regulations on Ph.D. programs, my answer might carry little value to your concrete situation.

I dropped my first Ph.D. program last year due to some financial difficulties. It was the 4th year of my Ph.D. life. I am currently enrolled into another PhD program after a prolonged period of struggling. I think I can totally understand your situation.

Put your current PhD program into your CV, mark yourself as "Ph.D. student" because you are. And this actually helps since you already know (more or less) how academia works and how to proceed with your research. You are not a Masters student, don't put "Master" there.
Like in any CV or application letter, honesty is always appreciated. Explaining your situation would help them to understand you and your goal (which I assume is to continue with your research).
It's really subjective. Recommendation letters don't matter THAT much for Ph.D. students compared to Master or Bachelor students. What you really need is a quality list of publications and/or projects in which you have participated.


What are the benefits of participating in workshops related to good conferences? I just received the acceptance notification of my paper in one of the workshops related to ECML/PKDD conference which is among good conferences in computer science.

However, my paper is accepted as a poster and its chances of being selected for the printed proceeding may be low, which means it could be useless for my CV. But I have to pay 400 euros for the registration plus travel costs. Although I use my travel grant, I do not like to just waste the budget.

So I was wondering how worthwhile is for me to present my work there.

At a certain point in your career it might be very valuable to attend. In some CS fields workshops are a great place to extend your learning. They are also a great place to make professional contacts that will serve you well as you grow into the profession. I don't work in Machine Learning, however, and can't speak specifically for workshops at this conference.

In some conference, "workshop" actually means getting help in improving your work or at least getting feedback on it from a wider audience than you normally have. This, again, is valuable for a new scholar.

If you haven't attended a lot of good conferences, attendance itself for a student can be very valuable for the same reasons stated above. Senior faculty will often wander around in the poster area just to meet people, encourage them and look for potential future junior faculty.

Like anything, you may need to balance the funds against other opportunities, but it could, depending on circumstances, be well spent here. If you haven't been to the conference in the past, your advisor or other faculty can give you an idea about what goes on.


Is it appropriate to suggest to a professor how to communicate more clearly? I've recently began working as a research assistant (in the humanities), mainly helping a professor with a book she is editing and with lecture notes for a future course.

The problem is that it is sometimes very unclear to me what she wants me to do. For example, when communicating by mail (which we do often), instead of saying "Please do X" (which I realize only after asking for further clarifications), she might say "We will do X" or "There is some importance to doing X"...

It is quite obvious that she has very little experience in this kind of work relations. I, on the other hand, have some experience in managing people (i.e. in telling people what to do), and I think she could use a few pointers.

The question is, is it appropriate (and if so, how) that I give her some specific suggestions (such as the above) in order to communicate with me more clearly?

I'm on good terms with her and she will possibly be my advisor quite soon, and I don't want to ruin this.

For now, I would suggest with responding to statements such as "We will do X" or "It is important to do X" with something along the lines of "Agreed. Shall I start working on that now?" Perhaps she'll take the hint and start communicating more clearly, in which case the problem is solved. In any case, over time, you'll probably get better at understanding which of these statements are general statements about the future and which are implicit requests for action.

If asking for more clarity doesn't work, have a chat with her and explain that you find it hard to tell when she's asking you to do something and when she isn't and asking her to be a bit clearer. I'm sure she won't be offended and, if she is, that's a huge sign that you need to find another advisor!


Master's Research Thesis vs. PhD Thesis What are some differences between a Masters' Research Thesis versus a PhD Thesis for STEM fields? From program websites, I learned that a Masters thesis is not as "rigorous, broad, deep" as a PhD thesis, so I get the general idea that a Masters Research Thesis is "easier" than a PhD one. However, I find the description vague. In what specific ways are they different? How are the expectations different? Does a PhD thesis have to be "ground breaking", while a Masters one does not have to be? Can anyone who has written both types share their observations on the differences?

German perspective:
Master theses are short (duration-wise), PhD theses are long. How short and how long depends on details, but the relative difference is there regardless.
Master theses consist of one problem, while in STEM, PhD theses are often a collection of works which are not necessarily very closely related.
Both should contain original results. A 6-12 month master thesis which does not contain any original results has significant shortcomings.
From a supervisor's perspective: A master thesis which leads to one paper in a reputable journal is a good (top 1/3 or so) master thesis. A PhD thesis which only gives rise to one paper is a below average (lower 1/3) PhD thesis.


Should I apply to PhDs in the US (theoretical physics)? I am a Cambridge Mathematics undergraduate (third year) and I want to be a theoretical physicist (I am taking the relevant courses, research experience, etc). I am confident I can get into Part III, but not sure if I could get accepted into an Oxbridge PhD. I would start my PhD in October 2021, so if I want to go to the States I should start thinking about GREs soon.

Should I consider applying to US top schools?
The application process would we quite time-consuming, but I am not sure I would end up going to the US over other European universities. Some points I am considering about grad school in the States are:

Longer (5-6 yrs) PhDs compared to Europe (3-4 yrs), it seems better to save 2 years. (Although I am young, so it may be good to have some stability before postdocs)
Coursework required may overlap with my Part III
Expensive (?)
If I do not get into an Oxbridge PhD, then I probably would not get into a top US school either. In that case, I think I would prefer a second-class European university than a second-class US university. And if get into Oxbridge, I would be more than happy to stay. Hence, with this reasoning, either way, I should not bother about applying to the US.

I think it is relevant to note that I would be 21 at the start of the PhD.

EDIT:
To clarify, my main question is not what are my chances of getting in, rather if it is worth doing a (longer) PhD in the US instead of somewhere in Europe (probably not Oxbridge).

I think that the only issue here is that you intend to change fields. You will need to show a US institution that you have adequate background in needed physics topics to begin advanced study. But you may be fine there also, depending on your course of study.

The reason that the US degree takes longer is that it makes fewer assumptions about the candidate's background on entry. A doctoral program (here) normally requires some advanced coursework leading to comprehensive (qualifying) examinations. So, there is some opportunity to make up for missed subjects, provided that you can convince a department to take you. Letters of recommendation might be essential, especially if they can speak to your readiness to switch fields.

And, you might be able to get into a top program (depending), since the entrance requirements are a bit less than for Oxbridge, which has a different educational system. In particular, an undergraduate degree in UK is normally more specialized than one in US, whereas most students here can enter doctoral programs with only that less specialized undergraduate degree.

Following your edits, I can only add that the decision about whether it is "worth it" is personal and can only be answered given your own preferences. Weigh the plus and minus aspects of each decision as you would for any important one. You are unlikely to suffer any major setback to your career no matter which way you jump.


How can I prepare myself to advise students for jobs outside of academia? The consensus on academic jobs seems to be that we are sending far too many students to graduate school to train for jobs that will not be there when they graduate.  Despite this, most of my undergraduate students have aspirations for graduate school. In part I believe that this is due to a saturation of exclusively academic role models during their time in college.

Since virtually all of my experience is in academia and I have basically succeeded in getting a tenure track position, I feel ill equipped to advise these students in making decisions about their future and showing them alternative role models.

Where can I get the experience and resources to show students that would potentially benefit from considering alternatives to an academic career that high quality alternatives exist?

(NOTE: I am in the natural sciences so answers specific to science would be great but if a cross-discipline answer exists, that would be ideal)

In our university, we have good experiences with inviting alumni who are now in industry to give career-oriented talks. The students know that the person giving the talk was in the same study program as they are now, and I guess just this alone helps them to see possible role models in the persons giving talks. The best talks are when alumni not only report about the technical points of the project they are working on, but also give a more personal account of their development towards their current job.

These talks are organized by the alumni organisation of the study program, which certainly helps getting the contacts to potential speakers. But I can also imaging getting these contacts in other ways.


Does an internal report count as a publication? I worked in an academic laboratory for several months for an undergraduate research experience. The results of my project were not novel enough to be published in a journal. However, I wrote a 50-page report that detailed my project (technical details of the experimental apparatus, design considerations, important calculations, etc).

The report is meant to be a reference for future members of the lab.

Does this count as a "publication" that I could put on my graduate school applications? It is not peer-reviewed except for having been read over by the lab PI and other lab members.
Is this type of document commonly considered a 'technical report', 'internal report', 'scientific report', or by some other name?
I authored the report by myself but other members of the lab helped extensively with the project. If I list it under "publications", should I put only my name or the names of all those who contributed to the project?

I am planning to upload the report to my public web page, but it is not otherwise hosted online.

Does this count as a "publication" that I could put on my graduate school applications? It is not peer-reviewed except for having been read over by the lab PI and other lab members.

Normally CVs have areas for journal articles, conferences, and "unrefereed publications".  I would think the same would be true of an application.  Certainly worth listing.

  Is this type of document commonly considered a 'technical report', 'internal report', 'scientific report', or by some other name?

Usually this depends on the institution.  If you called it a technical report, it's a technical report.  If you didn't call it anything, I'd say "internal report, XYZ lab" sounds about right.

  I authored the report by myself but other members of the lab helped extensively with the project. If I list it under "publications", should I put only my name or the names of all those who contributed to the project?

If you were the sole author listed in the report, you should list yourself as the sole author when putting it on the CV/application.  Perhaps you should have included coauthors; if so, if it's not too late, maybe you can amend & reissue it appropriately.


What do I do if my part-time master's program is changed to full-time? I am stuck in an unusual situation. I was admitted to a part-time master's program. The classes were supposed to be held in the evening and the expected degree duration was 6 years.

After only one year, the graduate school decided to change its policies, and abolished the part-time master's which meant that all classes were now held in the morning. Needless to say this, this made it very difficult for people like me who were doing a full-time job in the morning, to continue their master's. It became really difficult to adjust classes in such a way to cause the least interference with my work shifts, and I could not afford to leave my job.

Four years forward, i have managed to pass almost half of my courses, but my grades have suffered heavily due to unattended classes and missed assignments.

I am also quite dissatisfied with the quality of teaching and the general environment of our department. The teachers seem disinterested, there is general mismanagement and very little scope for research, not to mention almost no research funding.

My questions are:

1.) How common is it for gradate schools to change policies like this? What can a student do in such a situation?

2.) If I decide to drop out from this current program and decide to apply to a more accomplished program abroad (now that I have some savings), how could I explain the unfinished master's and the bad grades in my application? Would the previous unsuccessful stint in Master's hurt my chances of being admitted to a reputable graduate program?

1) I have no answer for this one.

2) Pretty much the same way you explained it to us. Your seem to have legitimate reasons for lower grades and/or dropping out. If you decide to apply for graduate programs abroad make sure to explain this in your statement of purpose. Take your time to word it perfectly. It can make all the difference. The fact that you committed to a six year graduate program while working a full-time job shows passion and dedication. You want to make sure that comes through in your statement.


Finding number of publications in a subject I have often seen in review papers in which the author mentions that there are more than # number of publications in the subject, to highlight the importance of the subject.

How are such numbers determined? While searching for certain keywords in websites such as Scopus or ScienceDirect may be useful, it does not necessarily give an accurate number, as some publications may mention the keywords but not actually deal with the subject, while others may use synonyms of the keywords.

First, I would argue that a precise number would be virtually impossible to obtain. This is because there is a large grey-zone between work published in established journals and work "published" in more "questionable" sources. Obviously the way to obtain a number would be to use search services such as Web of Science, Scopus etc. or reference data bases. But, for example, Web of Science only covers works published in ISI listed journals or papers referenced by ISI listed papers and on top of that only back in time for as long as journals have submitted reference information. This means such searches will be incomplete. Hence to arrive at a number may require quite a bit of work unless one would state the limitations imposed on a search sich as limting it to Web of science.

The choice of key word(s) will also be important and it is not certain keywords are systematically applied between sources or over time.

A claim to have found "all" literature is very questionable and I would argue that when one makes such a claim one must provide a picture of the limitations of the search because there will certainly always be such limitations.


How should one formulate a Statement of Intent for an interdisciplinary degree? I am having trouble articulating a statement of intent because of a few things. But to keep on point for Stack Exchange I'll focus only on one: interdisciplinary coursework.

I have spoken to a Fine Arts Department at my top choice and they not only permit but promote taking interdisciplinary courses. My intention is to take as many courses as I can in Psychology while doing the MFA, as well as any required training to use the Eye-Tracking facilities.

Should I specify professors from both departments?
Should I mention that after I complete the first degree (MFA in my case) I plan to pursue a PhD in the other field (Visual Cognition in my case)
Should I state research goals in both fields or keep it to only the school I am initially applying to? (In my case: In the immediate I want to research neurotypical perception through visual design for clearly communicating complex ideas. Eventually though (as in during the PhD if not Post Doctorate) I want to research atypical perception and how to design visual communications that can be easily understood by people with disabilities. I am not sure which disability but mostly Autism Spectrum Disorders, however I also think there could be a strong use for this research in assisting those with Alzheimer's.)

How much of this cross disciplinary information should a person state in their Purpose Statement / Letter of Intent? My concern is that I don't want it to sound like I only want the Psychology Department and leave the committee wondering why I am going for the MFA in Design first.

In general, the more concrete your essay is—and the more it shows that you've thought through your plans and potential options at the school to which you are applying—the more strongly it will be considered.

Moreover, if you're pursuing an unconventional path, such as applying for psychology but also going for an MFA in design, then you'll probably want to make that clear from the very outset. Otherwise you run the risk of the faculty—which normally makes admissions decisions at the graduate level—thinking you've hoodwinked them somehow. When that happens, that can make your life very uncomfortable.

So you should mention your full degree plans including, if possible, professors from both departments.

However, when it comes to writing the essay for admission, that depends a lot on the specific program you're applying to. If you are applying only for a master's program in psychology, then you should talk primarily about psychology-related topics. Your proposed work in design should amplify your psychology work, but not dominate it. On the other hand, if you're applying directly to the PhD program, and the MFA is an integral part of your plans, then you need to explain that at the outset, and should indicate what goals you'll achieve in the MFA that will help you with your PhD.


How should I present data written in another language? I'm writing a research paper in English but the topic is about a different country and the data is written in a different language, Arabic.

Should I translate the data into English?
If yes, should I include a version of the excerpt in the original language?
If yes, how?

Apart from using excerpts of data, I sometimes have to mention certain words of the original language such names of participants and research fields, but I do not know whether I should use transliteration, translation or both.

Thank you

It would depend how much your translation of the story makes a difference to your thesis. If it doesn't particularly matter with respect to the finer details, it would be sufficient to provide the entire story in Arabic and then give a synopsis in English. If it's more critical that the audience knows what each line means, then give each sentence with its English gloss.

If you wanted to go to the extreme, you would have an interlinear gloss, which means that each word, or even morpheme, is glossed individually, and then a free translation given at the end. Here's a Hungarian example (from the Leipzig glossing rules):

Gila abur-u-n      ferma  hamišaluǧ  güǧüna  amuq’-da-č.
now  they-OBL-GEN  farm   forever    behind  stay-FUT-NEG
‘Now their farm will not stay behind forever.’

In linguistics we use these literally hundreds of times in a thesis, because this is where our data really is. It's probably more depth than you'd be willing to go into, and I would advise against it unless the Arabic syntactic and morphological features are absolutely critical to your thesis. The conventions that most linguists use (and tweak to their own subject language) with respect to the names of various grammatical features (OBL and GEN, for example) can be found in the Leipzig Glossing Rules.

I think you'd be fine to select from either giving the entire story followed by a synopsis of whatever detail you'd prefer, or a line-by-line transliteration.


How to make sure that something hasn't been done in the literature and can be studied by me Before starting a new research project/paper, one needs to make sure that this project is new and nobody has done it. I'm still not confident about whether sth really hasn't been done in the literature by doing the following search: 1.google scholar, 2.researchgate, 3.related papers, their reference lists and what papers cited them. Is there a foolproof approach?

Ideally, your advisor would know well beforehand if something is novel or not. In practice, this is not always the case.

The best thing to do if you want to develop new stuff if to build upon new stuff as well. If anyone could have done what you are doing 20 years ago, then you'd need to check 20 years of literature to be sure, but if you are extending the results of a known paper which was innovative in itself and published on a respected journal 3 years ago, then you can basically just check the references quoting it.

Also, try to have some preliminary work published on an international conference rather than a journal. This will give you the opportunity to present your work to an audience of both students and established researchers in your field, see their works and to talk to these people over coffee breaks and social events. Someone is likely to point to you if you are missing something important and known in the literature. They'll likely give you new terms and names which you should look for, I've seen a few topics which don't really have consistent nomenclature throughout publications.

Then again, if some result which is relevant to you actually appeared in some obscure publication (which maybe is not even in english), that nobody knows or quoted, then for the purpose of your question, why does it matter?


Emailing professor for PhD supervision When you email a professor to inquire about an available PhD position is it a good idea to ask if they have any available projects?

You should do basic research on the topics the professors is researching himself. Afterwards, you may either see whether there is a project around where you could supply your workpower, or you have an idea on a concrete project where he could extend research. (Keep in mind, he might need to get a funding for that).

If you do have an own project with independent funding, it might be easier - however, it should fit in the reseach area of the professor.

If you just come around, most professors I know simply will skip your application, as the normally have sufficient requests and work to do.