How to review a paper for originality? Originality with timeliness is among the most important criteria for a paper to get published.

Many a times when we are reviewing a paper, we are faced with dilemma as to how much of it is original, how much of it is based on another paper, and how much of it is just repetition in a slightly different context. Also, at times papers cater to interdisciplinary and cross-area and it may seem that the idea is original.

What preparation does the reviewer need to have in order to review a paper justly?
How do you judge the originality of a paper?

I've reviewed more than 50 papers, and my preparation to review them has varied widely.  At least a few of them have drawn heavily on papers I've written.  Generally, these are extending my results.  Typically, I ask myself: What does this paper add? Is it something I would have thought of easily or not?  If yes, why didn't I include it in my paper?

In contrast, I've also reviewed some papers that I was not well prepared for.  They were in my general field, but in a subarea that I hadn't worked in.  These papers took a lot more work. (Up to 10x as long for me to review as a paper in an area where I'm very familiar.)  For papers in an area that's new to me, I often have to look up (and skim) at least a few of the references from the introduction to judge whether the paper is original.  Originality has at least two very different levels.  The easier one to achieve is: (1) this result is new, and doesn't follow simply from anything previous.  The much harder one is, (2) this technique is fundamentally new and produces interesting results.  If the results are interesting, most journals are happy to publish articles of type (1).  Articles of type (2) are much rarer, and can potentially open entire new fields.

tl;dnr:

Preparation: you need to either know the subarea well or be willing to read a lot to learn about it.
Originality: What papers does it draw on? How likely is it that a reader of those would be able to write this paper?  Answering this question may require you to read a lot of background.


What are the factors one needs to take into account in order to choose an appropriate mathematical journal? Several months ago I submitted a paper to a journal. The area covered by the journal is the same as the one covered in the paper. However, I waited several months and finally the paper was rejected by the journal, and they explained to me that it was not of sufficient interest for them. What can I do to avoid having to go through this again if I submit my paper to another journal?

There is no easy solution to this problem.

I recently went through a situation where a paper was rejected from a journal without review; the same paper, with only minor edits to the abstract and the introduction, was accepted "as is" for publication in another journal of similar quality and impact factor.

The main issue for getting your work accepted may not be that it isn't of sufficient interest—it may be that the way you have presented it does not convince the editors and referees that the work is suitable. Have you hit on the "hot-button areas" that tend to come up again and again in the journal? Have you made it clear from your abstract and your leadoff paragraphs why this article will be of interest to the target audience of the journal?

Small differences—these changes don't require much work—can make a huge difference in the acceptance of a paper.


How should one choose the research interest as an international student at current university? I am currently a sophomore engineering international student at a relatively well-regarded university in Asia. I am planning to do an undergraduate research with a professor whose research area aligns with my interest. However, I was having quite a hard time deciding which research group I might go about. The following is my thought, in sequential order, after thinking about many factors:

So I noticed that a lot of EE research groups I'm interested in (most are in traditional EE fields) have no international students in the lab. Even some lab websites do not have an English page, and for other labs, I'm afraid the environment wouldn't be friendly and that I wouldn't be learning a lot. (Yes, I've surveyed some of those labs. And I also agree that we should be able to conduct the research independently, but learning from professor and colleagues is one thing to consider.) So the final goal would be to study Master degree at other university, not here.
The best plan now would be to graduate from here and apply Master degree somewhere else, probably in Europe/U.S. where the environment is more international. But I'm aware that my record is not outstanding to get accepted by a well-regarded (or maybe second tier) university in Europe/U.S., as I have two B+'s and one B0 in EE courses, quite a few B's in humanity courses (we are required to take ~8), and the rest are mixed of A's.
So this means that I have to do something to compensate for my bad-looking transcript, and I would go about doing research.
As most EE labs I'm interested in have no international students, I try to look for other EE labs that I'm less interested (or even neutral), but have internationals and more-supportive professors. Usually these are fields in modern EE, data analytics, robotics, and machine learning, and professors tend to completed his degree from top universities from U.S., and was told to be supportive to international students.
In short term, if I choose this modern EE field, I might be able to do research in a supportive environment and might finally get a good letter of recommendation to apply for Master degree at a university in U.S. This is not the field that I was aiming at first, it is just a way that I might escape, knowing that if I were to continue Master degree here, in the field that I'm originally interested, I would be suffering through a bad time. In long term, I'm not sure for this path, as machine learning, data analytics and robotics haven't been my interest in the past. Just it is a field that a lot of EE students are now moving into and there are supportive professors.
So I'm in the midst of choosing research area, weighting between the field that I'm interested but no international community and kind of inactive (I could be wrong) at my current university, and the field that I have less (or neutral) interest but has more international community and supportive professors which may finally give me a chance to pursue Master degree somewhere else.

Summary: How would one go about choosing research lab (as an international student) at a current university, if there is a conflict between your interest and other factors? The field you are interested in but lack of supportive environment, such as no international students in the lab or not very welcome, and the field that you are less interested but has more supportive environment for international students? What other factors would you consider?

You are not forced to stay in your undergraduate research area forever. It is quite common to change directions when entering the master's, and again when starting a PhD. So don't worry too much about picking for the long-term.

If you are a strong self-directed student who doesn't really need an advisor anyway, you could pick solely for the topic. I have known people like this, they knew what they wanted to work on exactly, so they picked a random topically proximal prof as a signature-generating machine and then they shut themselves up at home or went on an extended holiday, showing up with a completed project and thesis at the end.

But as it sounds from your description you care quite a lot about having a supportive environment and interacting with others in your group. As someone who is also more of that type, picking primarily for a good relationship with the advisor was a more successful strategy for me. Of course, you should at least be somewhat competent in the area and not completely disinterested in the topic either.


Can I disclose a conflict of interest with some professors from a particular university in responding to comments? I have been given comments for a major revision from a respected journal. But suddenly, I guessed with a high probability that a person who is a long time adversary of my supervisor may be behind this comments and he won't be satisfied no matter what I do.

What should I do? Can I disclose a conflict of interest with one or two professors from a particular university not to be a referee? What may happen?

I'd advise against such a move, which can be seen as a way to avoid a complex revision.

Usually, at the time of submission, journals allow the authors to specify non-preferred potential reviewers, either directly through the submission management system or through the cover letter. If you think that someone can be strongly biased against your work due to a conflict of interest, that's the time to voice your concern, not after the review.


Is it plagiarism to use other paper's section and subsection titles without modification? For example, I saw a paper having following a section title and its subsection titles. The titles are appropriate for my study, so I want to write them without modificaition. But I am not sure whether it is plagiarism.

Empirical study

Objects of analysis
Variables and measures

Independent variables
Dependent variables

Study operation
Threats to validity
Results and analysis

It is plagiarism if you copy someone else's "creative contribution". For example, if the section headings are

How does the method identify errant patterns in spider webs?
An analysis of one million images of spider webs
Results of our analysis and an attempt at tying web patterns to genetic disorders in arachnids

then copying these section headings is likely plagiarism unless you specifically reference that you are following the same structure as previously used by the founder of the field, A. Rachnidova, in her seminal paper "On the patterns of spider webs", Arachnophobia, vol. 13, 1962.

On the other hand, if you section headings are

Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion

then there is no creative contribution in this -- everyone uses these sections headings, because they are descriptive of what these sections are. Consequently, you can also be "one of everyone" and use this without attribution.


I would like to know if a Research paper is possible for making a change in Open Source software tool I have been using this open-source network flow generator and after doing some research i was able to add a network classification engine based on ML into it, put it in other words i added a new feature into it.

So i would like to know if a research paper is possible for such work?

Impossible to know without further details. It might be, it might not. You might want to have a look at the Machine Learning Open Source Software track of the Journal of Machine Learning Research, accessible here: http://www.jmlr.org/mloss/


Can teaching help one's studies? Most of the questions about teaching assistantship portray TA'ing as a waste of time that only damages research. Although I am not TA'ing this year I consider applying for a TA position next year, because I feel I kind of missing it and it actually helps me to focus on my research.

Are there any clear benefits of TA'ing for one's studies and research?

Of course, it depends on how much teaching you would be doing, and how many hours a week it would take you, but generally, I would consider the following pros/cons points:

Pros:

Teaching might allow you to meet other people than those you are doing research with, and interaction with different people can be useful in terms of research (for instance, you can find a nice collaboration idea with a prof or another TA).
Teaching brings more immediate rewards (positive and negative) than research. When I was doing my PhD, I was also teaching (about 60 hours per year), and sometimes, when I was stuck with some research problems, it was a nice feeling to interact with students and to feel "productive".
Teaching is a good training to clearly explain ideas and concepts, which an important skill to write good papers.
Teaching provides you a different activity aside from research, and can help you focus (as you said yourself).
Teaching is good on a CV, and if you consider applying at some point to a lectureship/professorship position, then having done some teaching during your PhD can allow you to do some more research-oriented postdocs after (and thus get potentially more papers), so it's somehow a good time investment to do it when you're not expected to produce a huge amount of papers.

Cons:

Teaching takes some time, especially if you are teaching in a field where you are not an expert.
The downside of the immediate rewards is that sometimes, you can get frustrated because of the teaching, and that can have an impact on your research production.

In conclusion, I would say that being a TA has really clear and acknowledged benefits, as long as it does not take too much time on the research activity (I would say no more than a day per week during the official periods of teaching).


Mention impact factor or conference acceptance rate in CV Some people, in their CV or publication list, add bibliometric information to each entry. I've typically seen:

mention the impact factor of each journal
number of citations of each paper
mention the acceptance rate of each conference

I'm not sure it is very helpful: people from your field will surely know the journals/conferences, while people from outside your field might be more interested in a “macro” view and not go into the minute details of your publications.

Moreover, I'm not sure I like the tone it conveys: it feels like bragging (this is typically done by people who are proud of these indicators), and a bit over-the-top to me. Finally, it's well accepted by now that things like the journal impact factor are a poor measure of individual papers' merits.

So: is it accepted practice to do it? does it improve the CV? or does it risk alienating the reader?

You should not put journal impact factors in your CV.  Here's why:

By doing so, you imply that the IF is a useful indicator of the value of individual article(s) you have published in a journal.  However, the IF is not a useful indicator in this regard, and was never intended to be.

You also give the impression that your research does not stand on its own merits -- that it is worthwhile only because it was stamped by a high IF journal.  If your research really is important, use the grant application to explain why.

As other comments have stated, anyone in the field already knows the good journals -- and they're often not the ones with the highest impact factors.  IF is poorly correlated with expert opinion.

You may still disagree, so I will appeal to your self-interest.  Including the IF will leave a poor impression with evaluators who understand the limitations of the IF.  They may even be signers of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which states among other things:

...the Journal Impact Factor has a number of well-documented deficiencies as a tool for research assessment. These limitations include: A) citation distributions within journals are highly skewed [1–3]; B) the properties of the Journal Impact Factor are field-specific: it is a composite of multiple, highly diverse article types, including primary research papers and reviews [1, 4]; C) Journal Impact Factors can be manipulated (or "gamed") by editorial policy [5]; and D) data used to calculate the Journal Impact Factors are neither transparent nor openly available to the public [4, 6, 7].
General Recommendation: Do not use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist's contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.

In short, by trying to use the IF to establish value of your research, you're only broadcasting your ignorance, as even Wikipedia can tell you:

It is important to note that impact factor is a journal metric and should not be used to assess individual researchers or institutions.


Results published by others first in parallel. Is my work still publishable? I am a college student who worked on a small problem in applied mathematics for two years. I recently get together some results that could be sent to publish. However when I am finishing  my draft I find a work published in a decent journal six days ago solving almost the same problem.

What can I do? The math problem is very specific so I cannot change the problem a little bit to make my work unique.

Explanation for the "almost": The abstraction/essence of the problem is exactly the same. However, since this applied math problem has been applied to many fields of science, our story and approach are completely different. I said "almost" because the core problem is the same. However, the main problem is associated with some peripheral problems that are not that important. We have done different extensions.

Get personalized advice from a professor at your college. It sounds like your current problem is not publishable anymore since you've been preempted. Still, there could be a way to spin it so that it's still publishable (the fact that you're using it in a different field is a good sign), and if so a professor at your college who can examine the problem and the proof firsthand is the best-positioned person to help.


How to complete part of PhD in foreign lab but still get PhD from home insitution? I am doing my PhD work in India, but for my research work I wish to work in foreign lab conditions. So I wish to work in any of the foreign research institutes without quitting my current PhD work. What I mean exactly is I want a foreign guide as my co-investigator, whilst also getting a degree from my current institution.

Some scholarships will pay for you to attend a foreign university for a short period of time as part of your PhD, which will give you the chance to work with a foreign researcher in their lab. For example, if you'd like to attend a university in the US, you could try for the Fulbright-Nehru Scholarship, which will allow you to spend 6-9 months at a U.S. host institute.


Troubles in Doctoral Studies Currently I am on the second year of my PhD. I started more than a year back and I doing phd in basic science and I am not from basic science.
My problems are:

I don't cope with the ideology people have in my work station. So, I ended up having issues with them.
I lack quiet a bit of knowledge on the subject area.
I lack communication with my supervisor.
Now, I supervisor wants me to quit but I don't. I still want to try even if it's just getting harder and stressful.
I am an open person and have strong personality. I like to make changes about me and on my surroundings.

I don't really know what to do, since if I loose the position now I will be into more trouble. Since I don't have any safety net.

I also will not be able to prolong my residence permit in Europe also if loose the position, which is also a reason that I don't want to quit now.

I am passionate about everything that I do. I have enough will power as well, but being with my supervisor is getting too hard. My study mentor have suggested me to sick for another supervisor but to keep the position I have to find someone from the department. Hopefully there is a possibility there.

Unfortunately, my supervisor is highly known scientist and he told me that he will write everything on my reference letter, which means it will be much harder to find something later.

Please let me know what you all think about it.

While @user18244 suggested a viable option, I would argue that switching fields may not be worth the effort, as the poster may run into similar issues regardless of which field s/he studies.

Problems that I can glean from the post:

1. Amateur with lack of direction wasting an expert's time: OP is coming at a PhD level into an unfamiliar subject area. I can see how this might seem annoying to a highly known scientist who is serious about his work and his students, expecting them to be as focused and dedicated to the field as he is. This may contribute to the resentment i.e., "Why don't you quit, that way you would stop wasting my time and yours?"

2. Staying in the country as the main and only reason for pursuing PhD: Despite being "passionate about everything", lack of coherent reason for pursuing advanced study in this particular area, except for unrelated practical reasons such as visa status and desire to remain in a particular geographic area. This alone does not usually cut it as valid rationale for pursuing advanced study for most academics.

3. Personality/cultural issues: As OP suggests, "I...have strong personality. I like to make changes about me and on my surroundings." As a student, you are naturally in an inferior position in relation to the faculty. A student's first and foremost role is to be a humble, dedicated, agreeable, adaptable and quick learner who causes minimum problems for the faculty (read: takes the least amount of time to advise and direct, and in return performs the highest quality work s/he is capable of). When a student's assertive personality causes them to fail to meet this expectation, this may earn the student a 'reputation' for being a "loose cannon" who is out of control and creates more problems than s/he solves. This is not a position you want to find yourself in.

Given the above assumptions, I would recommend the following strategy:

1. Carefully consider how your personality may be causing some of the issues you are describing. Try to find the problem with yourself first, and only then turn to others (better yet, stop with yourself, for now). If you feel that you could possibly express your strong personality a little less strongly when this does not seem helpful in your interactions, try to think objectively about such situations and see how you can change your attitudes, responses, opinions, etc. in ways that would eliminate this as a possible cause of disagreement and discomfort on the part of your supervisor.

2. Fix the communication. Focus on developing the following qualities: humility, respect, patience, and politeness. This will go far with communication with any professional colleagues, and academic faculty are no exception. This is difficult, but one place to start may be to have a conversation with your advisor with the main goal of asking questions and listening, not talking. Be honest and say that you are struggling, but are passionate about this field and give specific examples of topics or theories that interest you (hint: there should be some alignment there with your professor's interests!). Ask for feedback on what strategies you could apply to be more successful in your studies. Ask for guidance, direction, and advice on how to communicate better, study better, and work better so that you could succeed and catch up to your peers. Do NOT argue with anything you hear, but thank the advisor for their time and effort in giving you their feedback. If they say "I think your best strategy is not to waste my time and quit your studies ASAP", ask "I appreciate this, but IF there was just 1% or 5% chance that I could succeed against the odds, what do you think I should start doing immediately to make this happen?" You want to turn the conversation from a diagnosis of current situation to a prescription for how to remedy the situation toward a better future state. Good Luck!

3. Prioritize your studies above all else. This is difficult, but necessary if you truly want to catch up to your peers and "grow" in the eyes of your professor. Study hard and study all the time. A favorite show on TV? Nope, you have a paper to write or book to read. Great weather outside for a picnic? Walk for 30 min, then go back to your homework. A friend's birthday party? Show up for 1 hr, then head to computer lab to do more data analysis or whatever you need do there for your professor. During the first 3 years of grad school I have often sat in the office late (very late!) getting home after midnight, only to return back to work next morning at 8am. My reward was a reputation of a very hard working and reliable member of the research team, who could finish the tasks that were given to him with quality and on time. Achieve THIS, and it is 100% guarantee that your advisor's opinion of you will change for the positive. Good luck!


Accused of cheating by proctor due to information on scrap sheet Sorry if this is a bit long. I took a final for an intro elective (I'm a college senior), a pretty easy A- GPA booster class (average before this final was 90+).

I have learning disorders so I get to take the exam in a private room. Shortly into the exam, I asked to take a bathroom break and grabbed tissue from the washroom. Then I went back into the exam room and continued, got carried away and started doodling on one of the tissue papers. I believe I wrote about three words on the sheet before the proctor came by and asked why I had unauthorized "notes". I explained that these weren't notes and just me doodling. He asked why I didn't doodle on my scrap and I said I was using my one scrap sheet for actual calculations and didn't want to run out of space on it. He said ok but that we would need to go to the head proctor and report it just in case, and if she was fine with it I could keep writing. He gave me back the papers and we got up to head out to her office.

Once out of the exam rooms, he said on a second thought to give him the papers instead and he wanted to hand them to her. I said no, sorry, I can't do that, we are already heading there, whats the big deal with me holding them? He said something about protocol, but I told him I didn't feel comfortable with handing him my papers.

He then tried to grab them from me, which was when I ran into the bathroom because I felt like he was trying to attack me (been raped before - guess I got triggered). He goes into the bathroom with me still trying to grab my papers. I ran out telling him to get another proctor because I am feeling harassed and uncomfortable, so I went into the next washroom and he followed me in there. I had a panic attack, and ran out again trying to get as far away from him as possible, that was when he called a female proctor who sat with me the entire time in the hallways till they brought a counselor. Now he claims that I cheated with unauthorized notes and I have to go to a meeting with the dean.

Also they are bringing as evidence my scrap sheet because I had previously been given the same exam but couldn't complete it due to being sick (I memorized a keyword from each question wanting to see (also kind of hoping)  if they would administer the exact same exam and matched the old questions to the new ones). I don't see how that has anything to do with the three words I wrote on the other sheet.

I'm sorry, but it looks like it will be impossible to prove your innocence under these conditions.  You refused to follow the instructions of the proctor because you "didn't feel comfortable with handing him [your] papers" (which is not a sufficient explanation), and later failed to control your emotions and ran into the washroom as if you were trying to get rid of some evidence.


Apply too many schools? Prof tired of sending out recommendation letter? For grad school application (US univerisity), we need recommendation from prof. I guess the process is that system send out recommendation letter request to prof's email.

Do you guys know how long does it take to submit these recomendation letter? Does it need to fill extra form while submitting these letter?

I ask because I want to know how time consuming it is. Should I limit the # of school I apply because it might be too much work for the prof?

My experience is that once the letter is written, it takes about 5-10 minutes to submit it to each institution.  Usually there is a short form that has to be filled out with basic information (name, contact information, etc) and sometimes also a list of questions asking the professor to rate the candidate in a variety of ways.

So you probably don't want to apply to a huge number of schools (for many reasons besides just that).  It's hard to be precise, but I feel like less than 10 is no problem, and 20 is probably too many.


Experience transfer and promotion If a non tenure assistant professor moves to a different University inside the United States, would his two years of experience count or would it be as if he just started in terms of promotion to associate

I can only speak to common practice in the US. Other places may differ.

That is something to be negotiated as part of the process of accepting the new position. I doubt that many universities have fixed rules, other than being open to considering it.

For some people it is an advantage to get "credit", shortening the probationary period. This would be someone with a strong record; research and/or teaching as appropriate to the position.

For some people it would be a disadvantage. It might be useful to have a longer probationary period if your record is relatively weak and you need the time to build up that record of accomplishment.

I was once able to get a 2 year probationary period as I was moving into a senior position. Yes, even a Full Professor might need a probationary period and a tenure decision. Obtaining tenure-at-hire can happen, but I doubt that it is the norm.


Is it necessary to obtain permissions for copying figures from published articles in your proposal/dissertation? I am currently writing a proposal for my research topic and I want to copy figures from published articles into my proposal document. To put it in perspective, almost all the copied figures are to go in the “Literature review” section of the document.

Is it necessary to send an email to each and every author requesting permissions to copy the figures, even though complete citations and references are included? I referred to the following link:
MITLibraries: Reuse of content in thesis.
From what it says, copying images in thesis (with correct citations) seems to be valid under US copyright law.

For figures from your own papers, it would depend on the copyright transfer agreement you (or the corresponding author) signed upon publication. However, all copyright agreements I know explicitly authorize reuse of content for academic theses.

As an example: the American Chemical Society, which does not leave the authors too many rights, includes this wording:

  Authors may reuse all or part of the Submitted, Accepted or Published Work in a thesis or dissertation that the Author writes and is required to submit to satisfy the criteria of degree-granting institutions. Such reuse is permitted subject to the ACS’ “Ethical Guidelines to Publication of Chemical Research"

For figures from others’ papers, a thesis is not very different from any other publication (see the related question about blogging). Unless your institution has a specific agreement with publishers (as MIT seems to have), you have to either:

ask for permission; these days, it's all done online and once you have located the appropriate form for a publisher, you can make your requests and get all the answers the next day
rely on fair use in the US, or similar law in other countries; around me, most people actually do that, either knowingly or just out of ignorance :)


Advisor likes MS Word, I like LaTeX I have an issue with my supervisor: he likes to write papers in MS Word and I like to write in LaTeX. We have had issues with editing and formatting, since it is difficult to do it, while working on different platforms.

Does anyone have any advice on how to resolve this situation?

In the end, once the paper is published, nobody will worry about what software was used to generate it. The software is just a means to an end.

So, if your advisor has a strong preference for Microsoft Word then - regardless how you feel about that preference - if you can't easily convince your advisor to use LaTeX you should switch to Word. There are much more important things to worry about, and there is no reason to make life difficult for your advisor for something so unimportant.

Converting your paper from LaTeX to Word is not likely to produce ideal results, as you have noticed. By the time you go through and fix things, you might as well simply work in Word from the beginning. In other words, the "efficient" way to do this is to convert the content in your head as you are writing it in Word, rather than trying to convert the content to Word after it is written.


Is there a bias against mentioning your name on presentation slides? Is there some sort of unwritten rule in academia that you shouldn't mention your own name explicitly on presentation slides? I have seen this time and time again, if you cite work in the middle of the talk and it happens to be your own work, people abbreviate their names. For example, they only write their first name. 'Miller' is abbreviated to 'M.', but all other names are spelled out in full.

There is nothing wrong with mentioning your own name in full in citations on your own slides, and nobody would think anything of it if you did. However, there are a number of reasons why people do this.

Replacing your own name with initials is a subtle way of emphasizing that it is your work that is being cited. You can think of it as a “humblebrag”.
Since you are usually talking about your own work, you end up citing yourself a lot. Replacing your name with initials simply saves space, especially if you have a long name.


Is it okay to mention family background in SOP? I'm applying for MS in Mathematics. My grandfather was Math professor and my uncle is also Math professor. Such family background was one of my reasons to  study Mathematics and I was wondering if I can mention my family background briefly at introduction in SOP?

Can you? Sure, it's not wildly inappropriate.

Do I recommend it? No! This is a 1-2 page document where you state what your purpose is (hence the name). It's not a time to talk about your childhood, why you were inspired to study math, or what your favorite type of helicopter is. It's where you talk about what you've done so far and what you want to do next.

You may have to talk about your personal situation -- usually to explain a bad semester, etc. And it's fine to state a few interesting details about yourself (especially if you have significant achievements outside of math, or a non-traditional background, etc.). But listing the professions of your family members is neither necessary nor interesting.


What are suggestions for effective mixed-mode teaching? (i.e., teaching both online and face-to-face students simultaneously) Since the start of the semester in September,
my university has been offering only online-only teaching,
due to COVID-19 restrictions.
As the COVID-19 situation in our local region has been improving,
the university is now switching to mixed-mode teaching,
i.e., some students will continue to attend classes online,
while students can apply to attend classes in person.
Teaching classes in person is something I am used to —
I would walk around,
ask students to answer questions,
etc.
I have also gotten the hang of teaching classes online —
I would show my slides by sharing my screen,
I would read the chat,
check if students have raised their hands and have questions,
give students online poll questions,
etc.
I feel quite confused about how to teach efficiently using mixed-mode teaching,
because half of the students could be online,
while the other half are in class.

If I were to walk around and talk to the students in class
using a microphone and amplifier,
the microphone on my computer could pick up what I am saying,
but the webcam will not be able to track me.
Right now I am considering just being present in the classroom,
and teaching online as if there were no face-to-face students in class,
while asking the face-to-face students to watch me on their phones or computers.
Maybe I could interact with the face-to-face students during the lecture breaks?

What are your suggestions for effective mixed-mode teaching?

Have you considered using a Swivl, we have used them on our ITE programme to support teacher observations. The camera follows your movement around the classroom while you wear a mic on a lanyard which is connected via Bluetooth. This would support the online learners you have in feeling more engaged? You could also prepare some flipped resources on a pallet or something similar so the group f2f and online could collaborate.


Is it acceptable to use personal experience when opening in presentation of my thesis? Is it acceptable to use personal experience when opening in presentation of my thesis as long as it is relevant and contribute to the presentation of the literature, justification or methodology of thesis?

I do not intend to reference or cite any of my experiences as a source, but rather, I am seeking to use my experiences to begin with the research story.

For instance,

"...I experienced event X and I observed event Y, which may potentially be manifestations of the phenomenon described in the thesis theory, with event A being a possible example of B and event C being an example of D.".

Something to this extent.

I've witnessed various thesis defenses and seen many presentations on Youtube. They gave me an idea of adding a "personal touch" to the presentation.

Please note that I'm referring to my thesis defense rather than the thesis itself which focuses strictly on the hypothesis, methodology and findings in third persons.

English is not my mother tongue. Please forgive any misspelling and inconsistencies.

Thank you.

I would say that it could be acceptable. It really depends on the context. If you are using it to explain why you became interested in the topic of your thesis, then it could add to the context and depth of the thesis. However, if you use it to support your thesis, I think you should avoid it. It will weaken your argument and could be off putting to your committee.


Should I "offer" something when asking for a letter of recommendation? I'm an undergraduate and currently applying to summer research programs that ask for letters of recommendation. Last summer, I did research at a university with a professor who I'm planning on asking for a letter. He mentioned how he would like more people who are studying computer science to apply to his summer program, so I was thinking of telling him after the request for the letter that as a token of my appreciation, I would be happy to encourage people in the computer science department to apply to the program.

Another professor who I was considering asking is thinking of teaching a course in the fall that I want to take. I was also thinking of asking him following the request for the letter of recommendation about whether he is still planning to teach the course and that I would like to take that course with him in the fall.

My intention is to give something to get something even if both professors would most likely write me a letter regardless of whether or not I "offered" them something in return. Are these things that most professors would appreciate, or do they sound too business-like and Machiavellian (in that they are part of an email asking for a letter of recommendation)? Should I just straight up ask for the letters?

Just straight up ask for the letter.  There is no need to "pay back" with some favor.  Writing letters of recommendation is part of a supervisor's job.  However, it would be wise to include in your email:

Position description so they can describe the most applicable aspects of your prior work in their letter
Ask if they would be willing to write a "positive letter of recommendation" because if it is not positive, they should not write it
Information about: where to send the letter, to whom it should be addressed, and the date when the letter is due
Ask if they would like you to send a reminder email 2 weeks and also 2 days prior to the letter of recommendation due date

Additionally, if it has been some time since you spoke to this person or you do not know if they remember you, include your latest CV or Resume with your email. You should never have to draft your own letter of recommendation.  I highly look down on this practice, though you may encounter it.


How to present projects that will soon be published on CV? I have several projects that will be published soon. I am the 1st author in two of them and co-author in 3 of them. How to present this in my CV?

It should be immediately obvious to the reader of a CV which papers have been published, which ones are accepted, and which ones are under review.

For published papers, use the default citation style in your field (if there is such a thing).
For papers under review, I used "Submitted to Journal" when I was a more junior scientist. I have enough of a citation record that this is no longer very helpful.
For papers that have been accepted but are not yet published, I use "In press" to indicate its status. I have also seen "To appear" and "To be published" used for this purpose.


Leave quotations in original (bad) English or edit? I am editing a thesis and the writer has quoted from many interviews with non-native English speakers. I'm wondering whether it is correct practice to leave the quotations as is, or perhaps use (sic), or to edit them in correct English? Thanks in advance.

Quotes should be included verbatim, so don't edit. Instead, insert or alter words using square brackets. E.g., "I'm wondering whether it is [okay] to leave the quotations as is..." Alternatively, replace direct quotes with a summary of what was said. Finally, use "[sic]" sparingly: Using sic "may be defensive, but its overuse is offensive" and "[in] truly minor matters it's usually better [to quietly] correct the original" (source: The Columbia Guide to Standard American English).


What if PhD application date is closed? I sent an e-mail to a professor along with my CV explaining my research background and expressing an interest in joining his research group as he has asked to send CVs if anyone is interested in joining his group. After a few hours, I got a reply from him saying that my research background is quite relevant to his. He has also encouraged me to apply to the college and take the English tests.

When I checked the college website, it seems that the interview date for the possible candidates has already passed and they have stopped taking further applications.

I haven't yet taken the English exams as well. What should I do? Shall I send an application anyway? Is there a chance for me to get the scholarship?

If someone has told you they are interested and to do it, where is the doubt? I say do it.

You can always send the professor an email saying that you have seen that the application deadline is over, and ask if they think you should still apply.

A lot of PhD offers have no academic deadline other than the funding deadline, very often you can just start whenever.


Choosing a PhD field, based on short term or long term decision? I saw already questions regarding field choice, but they do not explicitly answer this question :

Choosing a PhD by following short term interest or following the long term vague idea of what one would like to do or be in the future ?

To explain what I mean, usually choosing a PhD field is restricting, it is harder to keep interdisciplinarity or swap of field if they are not seen as "close". One can be highly motivated by a subject A now but do not see a clear future, contrary to a second subject B a bit less motivating but where future is more predictable.

To take example in my case, I am considering two subfields of Computational Engineering : Physics-based animation in Computer Graphics and FSI in Computational Mechanics as PhD fields. Since one usually considers these two fields quite appart, I do not think I will be able to switch area after the PhD. I am motivated by the former but it is hard to catch a glimpse of future possibilities contrary to the latter because engineering seems more of a "safe" choice considering employment.

By and large, I would recommend you to go with what is more interesting to you right now. As you say yourself, nobody can predict the future, and a vague sense that your specific chosen subfield may go out of style at some point does not seem like a good enough reason to settle for your "second choice" (especially since nobody can guarantee you that the "second choice" will stay relevant).

Further, I think you are overestimating to what extend the topic of your PhD will lock you into a specific field. I have personally switched topics somewhat after my PhD (from distributed systems closer to software engineering), and plenty of other people have done similar switches.

Finally, in cases where a specific topic of research becomes outdated (not uncommon in Computer Science, a buzzword driven field after all), there is usually some sort of "natural progression" for the researchers involved with the topic. That is, professors that used to do a lot of grid computing research 10 years ago now publish on cloud computing, etc.


Does it look bad if none of my recommendation letters for grad school are from past professors? I want two of my letters to come from individuals I did research with (at different times) but neither has taught me or has a full professor title - one is adjunct and the other is a scientist at a university-affiliated lab. I think my academic advisor (the schoolwide kind not the department-specific kind) would write the best third letter and it might provide a different perspective from the other two.

Is it better to forego one of these recommendations from people who know me really well in favor of a professor who doesn't know me as well?

Letters from "lower-status" people but who've really seen you doing the thing (rather than taking classes in "the thing") are infinitely better than (routine) letters from routine-coursework instructors, regardless of their status.


Are books peer-reviewed? I am unsure for books but I know for certain that selected journal articles are peer-reviewed.  (This just shows I am not in academia!)

Do books go through a peer-review process? If so, how does this happen?

If one is approached by a small publisher, does it matter if this publisher does not have a peer-review service (if there is one for books).

Typically, after an author presents a book proposal to a publisher, the publisher will circulate the proposal to some selected reviewers to vet the content. This is not like peer review in the usual sense: the reviewers only get to see the outline and maybe a chapter or two.

Once the publisher decides to go ahead with the book and it goes through the editing process, it might undergo further review, but nothing like a journal review.


Can I still publish a paper on peer reviewed journals several years after publishing it on ArXiv? I have done some discoveries concerning signal processing from about 6 years which I think are quiet important advances but I never have time to finish the works. As example I know that the main application are new on my field but I am not sure the theory does not exists on other fields. The links with other theories are not fully established yet, so I do not know exactly what is new and what is not. I do not want for now to be judged by peer reviewers which risk to only examine what is bad on the paper but I found it a pitty to not share those discoveries so I am thinking by submitting as preprint, and after some years and maybe some advices/correction from some readers, submitting it on a peer reviewed journal.

If I do that, and someone publish the same ideas after (particularly if they do not cite me, because they do imagine those ideas come from them or are obvious), will I still be able to publish it since reviewers can oppose me that those ideas are not new anymore ? Journals could not see the interrest of publishing works which are already known by the community on the only aim to help me to claim my anteriority.

So to sum up, if a reviewer reject a paper because the ideas already exist from other works but those works are posterior to the preprint, can I ask to editor to not take this opposition into account?

Is there examples of important papers published years after their preprints? In that case should it be adapted to explain what others have done of your works ?

You speak of ideas, yet ideas are worth close to nothing without results, at least in the academic understanding. Sure, they are the beginning, but are not intellectually protected by themselves. Anyone can have an idea, but it takes work to develop that idea into a solid contribution to science.

So, if you have real "discoveries" and "important advances", you shouldn't be afraid to submit them for peer-review, as that is the only way to scientifically validate your work. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if someone develops on your idea and doesn't cite you. Similarly, it doesn't matter where you put those ideas, it could be arxiv, your personal website, facebook, etc.

As stated in the comments, you can submit a preprint and also submit to a journal, the preprint puts a timestamp onto your work so you have time to publish it (even if it gets rejected and you retry). However, this holds only for work that has the chance to get accepted for publication, i.e. has some real contribution.


How to ask for a letter of recommendation on a tight deadline, from professors I haven't spoken to in years? I am currently applying to Ph.D. programs at several universities. Since I was a transfer student in my undergraduate years, and I have great relationships with my professors at community college, I asked them to be my letter writers for letter of recommendations.

Today I received an email from one of the schools I am applying to asking for a LOR from a professor from the school that I got my bachelor's degree (or else they are likely to reject my application). They give me time until mid January to turn that in.

My problems now are:
1. I graduated five years ago and have not contacted my professors there
2. I contacted their departments today to find out their office hours but they are gone for winter breaks already.

It seems like that my only option is to just email them. And my thoughts are that the worse case scenario is just a "no" from them. And as long as I am being polite, I would not be blacklisted (please correct me if I am wrong on this).

If that is the case,should I be straight forward in my email explaining my situation honestly and ask them if they could write me a LOR or since I have until mid January, just ask them for a LOR as I would normally do it?

I drafted the two versions. Any comments or feedback will be helpful and greatly appreciated. Or if none of my solutions is a good one, I would really appreciate any other ideas.

Thank you very much!

First version:

  Dear Dr. Smith,

  This is Mary, I took your XYZ class back in 2010. I apologize for my presumptuous email. I was on campus today but found out there is no class this week. I was hoping to ask you in person to see if you would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation.

  I was majoring in ABC and I am currently applying to CDF. (and I plan to give some more background info)

  You are the best person to write me a letter because not only did I gotten an A+ in your XYZ class and you made great comments about my group project on WHATEVER, your class was also the class that raised my awareness in XXX. I have my statement of purpose, transcripts, curriculum vita ready, which I will be able to provide.

2nd version:

  Dear Dr. Smith,

  This is Mary, I took your XYZ class back in 2010. I apologize for my presumptuous email. I was on campus today but found out there is no class this week. I was hoping to ask you in person to see if you would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation.

  I was majoring in ABC and I am currently applying to CDF programs. I have submitted my application to University of 123. They said they need a letter of recommendation from my University 321 professor. If not they will likely to reject my application. They gave me a deadline to turn in this letter of recommendation by January 10th, 2015. Would you be willing to write me a letter of recommendation? I have my statement of purpose, transcripts, curriculum vita ready that I will be able to provide.

  You are the best person to write me a letter because not only did I gotten an A+ in your XYZ class and you made great comments about my group project on WHATEVER, your class was also the class that raised my awareness in XXX. I have my statement of purpose, transcripts, curriculum vita ready, which I will be able to provide.

This is totally fine, don't worry about it. I wouldn't "apologize for your presumptuous e-mail". You might apologize for the fact that you are asking them to write on short notice; I'd simply explain that you had solicited references from people who had interacted with you more recently, and schools to which you had applied had requested a reference from your undergraduate institution.

Also I think it's fine to ask by e-mail instead of in person.

I'm unclear about what your relationship is to your recommenders -- you say that you finished a bachelor's degree earlier; are you a student or an instructor at this community college? In any case, you want to get letters from the people who can attest to your ability to do demanding academic work in your chosen discipline. It sounds like you might have chosen your recommenders poorly (i.e., you have chosen people who will say in generic terms that you are a "good person and a hard worker", or perhaps you taught you easier classes than you took as an undergrad). I speculate that your file is very positive but lacks credible evidence that you will succeed in a graduate program. If this is the case, then the school that contacted you is doing you a big favor (they could have simply rejected you).

You should ask someone who, in addition to thinking highly of you, will know what it takes to succeed in a Ph.D. program and will be able to communicate this in his or her letter.


Are there known cases of leaks in academia? There are many situations in academia where an entity is entrusted with confidential data belonging to a researcher. A very obvious one is the publication process: the journals are required to keep submitted papers confidential until they are published. But there are also other situations. For example, biologists can submit newly discovered nucleotide sequences to the EMBL database, and they have the option to request the new sequences to be kept confidential until publication. I guess that other disciplines can have similar arrangements.

In these cases, the entity has the responsibility of keeping the data confidential, and a leak can have highly negative consequences for the scientist who entrusted them with their not-yet-published results.

My question is: are there known cases of such leaks? I don't mean just a reviewer mentioning to his colleagues "I have a very interesting paper by X, if the results are confirmed, we may be looking at a cure for [type of cancer]" without further details. I mean high-profile cases where an institution or its employee is more or less "officially" accused of either willful wrongdoing, or of insufficient protection of the information so that e.g. a database was hacked and the information read out.

If there are such cases, what happened? How were they discovered, and what were the consequences for the scientist whose data was made public, and for the institution which should have kept it secret?

Academic publications are sometimes subject to an embargo, in which information about the publication is shared with the media, but they are restricted from publishing a news article using this information before a certain date.

In this context, leaks are not uncommon. Sometimes the author of the paper is responsible for the leak; on other occasions, the publisher or a news agency may be responsible.

Here are two examples in which the Associated Press broke an embargo:

AP technical glitch unintentionally breaks JAMA Avastin study embargo
AP breaks abortion data embargo

In both of these cases, there were no serious consequences for anybody involved.

In a case that did involve consequences, a researcher published a paper using data that was made available through the NIH, but was subject to a data embargo. The paper was retracted (see the story on RetractionWatch), and the researcher's access to the shared data was suspended:

  Upon learning of the violation, the investigator’s access to dbGaP [database of Genotypes and Phenotypes] was immediately suspended pending an investigation by the NIH Data Access Committee with responsibility for the dataset involved and a review by the GWAS Senior Oversight Committee (SOC). Information pertaining to the incident was requested from the investigator’s home institution through the Institutional Signing Official that approved the investigator’s original request to the NIH. After a thorough review of the circumstances pertaining to the violation, the SOC revoked access to all dbGaP data for a period of six months.

  All work with data downloaded before the date of the access suspension was expected to cease during the ban. This ban included the Primary Investigator as well as those individuals working with the individual-level GWAS data under his Data Access Request, because they also agreed to abide by the terms and conditions for data use within the Data Use Certification agreement. The period of the ban passed on March 4, 2010, and Dr. Zhang may now submit new requests for access to dbGaP data.

Another data leak scenario was mentioned by Stephan Kolassa in a comment: when a researcher uses private data that is leaked. Here is an example of a case where

  the world's largest futures exchange has accused the top U.S. derivatives regulator of illegally sharing sensitive market data with outside researchers who then used the information to publish academic papers about high-frequency trading

Possibly the most high-profile case of data leakage in the very recent past is Climategate, but that turned out to be more of a "hack" than a leak by someone who had legitimate access to the data. In 2009, a server at the University of East Anglia (UEA) was compromised, and material was leaked including more than 1,000 emails, 2,000 documents, and source code, pertaining to climate change research. Many of the emails concerned technical aspects of climate research, such as data analysis. In this case, climate change skeptics argued that the leaked materials showed that scientists engaged in a conspiracy to manipulate climate data. However, various investigative committees reported no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct on the part of the scientists.

The individuals responsible for the breach were not identified. Police said said, however, that despite rumors to the contrary, the attack had been carried out "remotely via the internet" and that there was "no evidence to suggest that anyone working at or associated with the University of East Anglia was involved in the crime."


How common is it to write out a script for a talk? What are the benefits? I have never written a verbatim script for a talk. I have at times written notes or outlines, but I never read from them when presenting (and rarely when  practicing). With enough (weeks) of practice, I can give a pretty good talk. With less practice, I sometimes digress and sometimes omit an important detail. But what I am most interested in is improving my presentation by removing awkward pauses (e.g. while I remember what to say about a slide) and by using appropriate intonation, phrasing, and cadence.

Recently, a friend of mine who is a writing studies doctoral candidate suggested that the first step toward accomplishing these goals is to write out a script for each slide. This is a difficult task, but one that I plan to experiment with. I do not plan to actually read the script during the talk, but to memorize it while practicing.

My questions are:

How common is it to write a script for a talk?
How does having a script help?
How early in the preparation should I have a "final" version?

I think a script is actually more harmful than good. It tends to produce very rigid talks, and it often forces you to concentrate on the script instead of the content and audience. Usually, you know what you are talking about well enough to not need a script, and just pointers. Below are the tricks I use for different kinds of talks.
Research talks
For technical talks on my research or guest lectures on topics I am intimately familiar with (these two have been the overwhelming majority of my talks), I do not make scripts or notes and just concentrate on making good slides. In the process of making slides, I produce an outline which I use to mentally check my timing. The day of the talk, I look through my slides carefully (hunting for typos and other minor mistakes), this reminds me of the exact details I was going to discuss. Since I tend to repeat similar talks, I have become very proficient at estimating my timing.
For some big conferences, I practice talks in my lab before heading to the conference. This greatly improves the talk, especially timing issues and comfort.
I find that this is easy to do because you are usually intimately familiar with your own research and unlikely to forget something. It also allows a relatively fluid and natural talk, and lets you answer questions during the talk without fear of losing your pace.
Usually, I have my final version the day before unless I rehearse in the lab.
Teaching talks
I have done a number of talks as reviews for large bodies of students (50 to 300) to prep them for exams, and smaller groups (20 to 30) during weekly tutorial sections. Here I was talking not about my research, but course material that I had taken years ago. The topics were physics/math and my style was one of interactive problem solving at the board of hand-picked problems that illustrated key concepts. To prepare I had to invest time to carefully come up with good questions and I quickly checked that I could solve the questions as I generated them.
I write down the questions one per page with a few bullet points of the main concept/technique I want to show in the question. However, I do not write down solutions and solve the questions on the spot at the board. This puts a certain amount of stress on me (especially if you are teaching first year engineers) but I find it produces much better pacing for the students (since I naturally slow down a little at the harder parts) and actually solving the questions as you present them instead of copying a solution from your notes to the board keeps you in the zone and actually reduces errors. Not having notes in your hand (except to write down the problem statement) also lets you worry about just two things: the board and the students.
The caveat is that you have to very comfortable with the material (but why are you teaching it if you are not?!) and you need to have the confidence to laugh at yourself and recover from occasional mistakes.
Usually, I have the final questions and plan a few days ahead of time. However, there is no 'final version' of the actual talk, since it depends completely on the audience.
Popular talks
My only opportunity to give a popular talk was at TEDx McGill 2009. This was incredibly different from other talks I am used to. Thankfully, all of the speakers were coached by the organizing committee ahead of time (including a full dry run through). The key message was to treat this not as a presentation, but as a performance. I did not prepare a script (and were were advised against preparing one), but I did make notes on cue-cards that I held during the performance. Except for the very beginning (where I was unusually nervous) I never looked at the cue cards, and mostly held them for comfort.
I had my final version about a week before the talk and my ready-for-dry-run version about two weeks before.


How does one denote that a cell value is not available / doesn't make sense in a table? I have a table that compares the performance of different systems according to different error measures:

System   | Error 1 | change | Error 2 | ...
--------------------------------------| ...
Baseline | 0.6     | -      | ...
A        | 0.1     | -0.5   | ...
B        | 0.3     | -0.3   | ...
C        | 0.7     |  0.1   | ...
D        | 0.6     |  0.0   | ...

I currently chose - to denote that the value does not make sense. Of course, I can subtract the error of the baseline system from itself and get 0. But I don't think that makes sense.

Should I put - in that cell? Or -- or --- (I write the document with LaTeX) or eventually something different like N/A? Or make the cell black?

If it is self-evident (remember to look at your table from the perspective of a reader) I would just leave the cell empty. Less clutter is better. When not, I would tend towards --. More importantly I would add a footnote to the table explaining what -- means. I think the footnote is in that case more important than the difference between -, --, and ---.


The variance of peer-review types across research disciplines While I clearly encounter the fact that the preferred type/types of peer-review varies/vary across research disciplines, like pointed out in this question, I wonder which disciplines prefer which type/types and maybe even the underlying reasons.

Is there any kind of a peer-review map showing which disciplines prefer which type/types of peer-review and maybe even why?

Community answer:

Single blind

In single blind reviews, the authors are not given the identity of the reviewers, but the reviewers are given the identity of the authors. The editors handling the submission know the identities of everyone involved in the process, and the authors may or may not be given the identity of the editor handling their submission.

Pure Math
Physics (single blind is natural given the lively preprint culture)
Some parts of Computer Science:

Algorithms
Logic
Verification

Atmospheric Science / Meteorology (typically Open Single Blind, i.e. reviewer reports and author responses are openly available)
Library and information science

(if your discipline primarily uses single blind reviews, add your discipline here)

Double blind

In double blind reviews the authors are not given the identity of the reviewers, and the reviewers are not given the identities of the authors. The editors handling the submission know the identities of everyone involved in the process, and the authors may or may not be given the identity of the editor handling their submission.

Some parts of Computer Science:

Cryptography
Natural Language Processing

Economics (although preprints common in practice)
Public Policy/Administration

(if your discipline primarily uses double blind reviews, add your discipline here)

Triple blind

This is a system where the authors are not given the identity of reviewers, the reviewers are not given the identity of the authors, and the editors do not know the identity of the author and only find out if/when a paper is accepted (partial after-decision unblinding).

Philosophy (example here and here)

(if your discipline primarily uses triple blind reviews, add your discipline here)

Hybrid

Some disciplines use a hybrid system that is not easily classified as one of the above. If your discipline fits this description, note it below with a short explanation.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) - examples: CHI and UIST

2-3 "outside" reviewers review a submission double-blind. 1-2 reviews are single-blind reviews or meta-reviews by the equivalent of editors (members of a program committee), which both summarize the previously obtained external reviews and include the reviewers own judgement and discretion in assigning scores of their own. A light anonymization process is used, so blindness at any stage varies by submission. Final decisions are made collectively by a larger program committee, based heavily on the judgements of the editors as informed by external reviews, often using a score-cutoff (submissions receiving less than a certain score will not be discussed by the committee and are rejected automatically).

(if your discipline primarily uses such a hybrid system, add your discipline here)

Note that in all fields, how strict the blindness of submissions must be varies. Sometimes the submission must be scrubbed of any hint of who the authors might be, up to and including censoring citations that might suggest identity, rewording phrasing to speak of work in the third person, etc. Some venues within fields may even check to ensure that a search for the title of the submission does not return identifying results from previous talks or pre-print copies. Others take a light approach, and allow authors a great deal of discretion in choosing how heavily to censor their submission. Blindness does not mean that one party absolutely cannot figure out or determine who the authors might be, only that the identity of a party is not made intentionally explicit.

Shepherding

The Patterns Community in CS and other fields (including Poetry, actually) assign a shepherd to each paper. The shepherd works with the authors through several versions of the paper, seeking improvements. The shepherd reads a version and make suggestions. The authors produce a new version in light of the advice. Usually after about three rounds, the shepherd gives a recommendation to the conference committee.

If the paper is accepted by its shepherd and the committee then the resulting version of the paper will go to the conference, and be workshopped by peers of the authors in a session in which the authors take notes but, in the classic version, don't participate. A workshop isn't a presentation by the authors. The authors then write a final version of the paper that will appear in the proceedings.

Rejected papers might need to go through the process again.

There has been some evolution of the concept, but it is still used. If you read a paper in the proceedings of a patterns conference or in many books by community members it has gone through this process.

AFAIK, this process was first developed in the poets community where I assume it is still used.


Publishing academic research in more than one field I have an important question, so please try to answer it precisely and carefully as possible.

If I want a career in one field in academia, would it be inadvisable to publish some other academic researches in other fields.

I have seen an article in a blog that suggest against it. But on the other hand I think that ability to publish research and practise this process is important for academic persons.

Nevertheless, lately I browsed Shanghai ranking and they have a rule that divides the researcher contribution by the number of departments they published in.

To expand my point,for many fields it is necessary to combine expertise from different disciplines in order to sythesis some new approaches. So frankly, I really do not understand the logics behind such an archaic approach.

So the question is, will it help publishing in more than one discipline or will it really make everything more difficult?

Interdisciplinary research is both an advantage and a disadvantage.

Interdisciplinary research is advantageous because the interaction between fields is often extremely productive in creating new knowledge and breakthroughs.  Lots of extremely important things start out as interdisciplinary research, and it's where entire new fields tend to emerge.  In my opinion, most of the most exciting research you'll encounter is interdisciplinary in nature.

The disadvantage is that until the new area starts to be recognized as important, interdisciplinary work isn't well "claimed" by any discipline.  This means it's harder to get published, harder to get funded, and generally harder to get respect from colleagues working in "core" areas.  There are often very few people who fully understand the content of an interdisciplinary project, and the importance of an interaction is often only recognized in retrospect.

This tension is, I believe, the reason that you often see articles calling for more interdisciplinary research.  Many people recognize its importance, but if it was well-supported by existing community dynamics, they wouldn't need to write these articles.


As a session chair, how to familiarise oneself with the pronunciation of speakers' names? The organisers of a conference have informed the session chairs what is expected from them.  On the list of duties listed is for chairs to familiarise themselves in advance with the pronunciation of the speakers' names.

In practice, how do I do this?  Speakers come from all the countries in the world.  It's not practical to contact the speakers in advance.  Is there any way to try this systematically?

When I am chairing a session, I always check a few minutes beforehand to ensure that all of the speakers are there.  That's also a good time to check on  pronunciation of names.  Just say something like:

  Can you please say your name for me? I'd like to pronounce it right when I introduce you.

Then it will be fresh in your mind, there'll be a decent chance of getting it right, and the speaker will know that you cared to consult them and try, even if you do end up screwing it up.


How to reject an advisor for master's thessis? (I could not find the same question. If this has been asked before please let me know.)
I wrote an e-mail to a professor to be his student and he responded with his area of interests. Then I wrote for further information but he did not respond for couple of days. So I contacted another advisor and we agreed to work together.
Few hours later the first advisor replied saying he could give me something to work.
How can I let him know that I agreed to work with another professor? Did I do a mistake by not waiting more for his response and contacting other advisor?
Thank you.

A simple note of thanks, but that you have made another arrangement, is enough. Only the future will tell whether you made a mistake or not.
Don't worry about it. The professor will be fine. There is nothing insulting or unusual about what you've done.


Interview for postdoc position via Skype I was wondering what type of questions an applicant should expect from a Skype interview for a postdoc position (in theoretical physics). I understand they must depend on the interviewers. But I am looking for a generic answer. Here are some specific questions that I have in mind.

How long will it be?
Will it be a Q&A session? In that case, what type of questions are usually asked?
How to react if the position is offered directly and the applicant wants some more time to decide?

There are no defined "rules" for what a Skype interview will look like. However, to give you some pointers:

  How long will it be?

You should ask the interviewer. I have had Skype interviews between 15 minutes and a little over one hour. If the interview would go significantly longer than that, I would assume you would have been told.

  Will it be a Q&A session? In that case, what type of questions are usually asked?

Presumably there would be Q&A, yes. Questions could be any kind of typical interview questions, i.e., they could relate to your research, your teaching, how you advise students, what grants you are interested in applying for, or anything else really.

  How to react if the position is offered directly and the applicant wants some more time to decide?

"I am very happy about that. However, I will need to get back to you within [X timeframe] as I need to discuss this decision first with my wife."

(no, no reasonable PI should expect an answer from you right now; even though they may indeed offer you the position immediately, you are under no pressure to accept immediately)


Is it recommended to invest in stocks as a typical broke graduate students? I openly admit that I am financial illiterate and for most of my life neither know about nor cared about investing. I am currently doing research in a field that is tangentially, but not exactly related to financial mathematics (say physics: a lot of Brownian motions and what not going on).

What has gotten me interested is over time is that I've met many people (who are much younger than me, like 19 years old right out of highschool) who are investing in stocks WHILE doing research. In fact, they appear to know a lot more than I do, which makes me feel a bit self-conscious and inadequate.

What has prevented me from doing the same:

Basically no family member or close connections who can guide me. Not born with a silver spoon.
Research is a lot of work and requires dedicated focus. Can't imagine rushing a deadline while managing my assets.
I literally have not taken a single course in finance, and assumed it would be easy given my extensive graduate school level math background. But I have no idea where to get started.
No money. This is one of the key reason. I am your typical 20s something scholarship-living graduate student in North America. If I am investing anything it is my TA stipend or my scholarship itself (which I will need to pay back at the end of the semester). I literally do not have any other income source and cannot even take a hit of a few hundred dollars.

1, 2, 3 I can fix, but I am worried about 4.

Is there any advice on stock investments during your grad school for people who have tried their hands, especially if you were living as a low-paid graduate student like me?

Is it possible to achieve a balance between research, life and managing your finances?

Don't even think about investing until you've saved an emergency fund enough to cover at least 3 to 6 months (and perhaps a year) of living expenses.

Due to exponential growth, investing earlier does have huge advantages, but for PhDs in many fields you make more than enough after PhD that you will be able to invest enough to retire comfortably even if you save nothing before you get your PhD, so there's no reason to be stressed about this until you graduate.  And you may need your emergency fund for the time between graduation and your first job.  Once you have your first job out of graduate school and have saved an emergency fund then you can think about this.


How do I prepare to Skype discussion for PhD admission? I applied for a PhD position in stellar astrophysics in Belgium, and I was offered an interview this coming Friday and they said this in the confirmation email:

In response to our call, we have received an impressive number of
high-quality applications and we have the pleasure to inform you that
you have been selected on our short list. To make our final choice
amongst the few remaining applicants, we now invite you to an online
discussion in the next days. You will be able to make a short
presentation (10 min maximum) of your current research.

Any clues what I should expect and how I should prepare for the presentation?
Is this formal interview with a bunch of staff or informal discussion with the supervisors?
I am so nervous because it is my first interview for PhD program and any suggestion will help.
Thank you!

There is really no way to predict who will attend unless you ask. But I would suggest that you think of it the same way you should think of a Statement of Purpose document. Focus more on what you expect to accomplish in future rather than what you have already done. Use the past only to support a trajectory into the future.
What questions are you looking at? Are you close to resolution? What do you see farther out? How will this place help you achieve the goals?
Ten minutes is no time at all. Don't spend time clearing your throat.
But be yourself.


What is the difference between Article File and Related Manuscript File in Nature? They ask to submit those both files.
What is the difference between the two?

The text in Nature states

  Submission to Nature [...] is taken to imply that there is no significant overlap between the submitted manuscript and any other papers from the same authors under consideration or in press elsewhere. (Abstracts or unrefereed web preprints do not compromise novelty). The authors must include copies of all related manuscripts with any overlap in authorship that are under consideration or in press elsewhere. If a related manuscript is submitted elsewhere while the manuscript is under consideration at Nature Communications, a copy of the related manuscript must be sent to the editor.

In other words, related manuscript files means any other manuscript that overlaps with the one submitted to Nature and hence runs the risk of duplicating the Nature paper in some sense. Nature assesses such papers to see where and how the overlap occurs and, probably, rejects the submitted manuscript is the overlap is deemed significant to that it may be considered duplication. This is likely to safeguard the uniqueness of the Nature paper when (and if) it becomes published.


speed of problem solving in grad school in mathematics I wonder if anyone in graduate school in mathematics had managed to improve considerably his/her speed of problem solving.
I had failed to get my PhD pass and obtained only Master Pass on my qualifiers.  I have been trying to increase speed of solving problems but alas, achieved only slight improvement.  I know that most problems on these exams are manageable and may be few are hard. Problems of similar level of difficulty would take me days or even weeks of solving. Any suggestions and especially real life examples of improving problem solving speed would be highly appreciated.

Success in well-designed qualifying exams in mathematics will depend very little on "problem-solving" speed or talent, but, rather, will depend on whether you've already done problems nearly identical to the problems which appear.

That is, as you observe, it would be prohibitively slow to "solve" many of those problems "in real time". Thus, that is not the expectation. Rather, the "test" is whether examinees have studied sufficiently broadly so as to have seen examples resembling the instances occurring in the given exam.

And, no, it's not about "memorization", either, which tends to be insufficiently flexible to allow easy adaptation to slightly changed situations.

So, really, it's not about "speeding up in problem-solving", but to be able to merely "remember" instead of "solving".


Filing discrimination claim against my department I am a graduate student and I believe I was discriminated against by my department. I am pretty hurt by it, but I do not want to give further details to protect my identity. I spoke to a lawyer and he said I have a convincing case and I would likely get a settlement.

I am curious about the non-legal consequences of doing so. I believe my department was legally and morally wrong. However, the people involved may have believed they were doing the right thing. I want to take action to claim my financial damages and to ensure this doesn't happen again, but I don't want to be blacklisted or see any sort of retaliation.

Has anyone here filed a discrimination complaint against their university? Should I expect retaliation? How can I protect myself?

You might consider meeting with your university's ombudsman, if there is one. His/her job is to listen to concerns brought by any member of the university and to keep them confidential.

In particular, you could explain the details of the lawsuit you are considering, and ask what the possible non-legal consequences might be. This is likely to depend on the specifics of your situation, and h/she would be bound not to disclose these specifics to others.

The ombuds might also be able to suggest an alternative to a lawsuit. This would presumably not involve compensation, but the administration might be willing to take steps to prevent similar discimination from occurring in the future. Depending on your priorities, this is something you might consider.


Graduate school applications with papers in the peer review process I am currently applying for graduate school and I have research papers that are currently in the peer-review process. What is the best way to send the schools these papers, since in the application forms, there does not seem to be a section to highlight the journals where I submitted my papers? They do not allow submissions like arXiv.

There must be space to highlight why are you interested in this school? or briefly describe your research interests.

In any of the above space. you can highlight your submitted papers something like:
I have submitted this work to this journal which is now in under review.

You can also append the abstracts along with co-authors and Journal of each submitted papers to your CV at the end.


Including travel grants on CV In the UK, a number of scientific associations like the Royal Society of Biology or the Institute of Physics offer competitive travel grants to PhD students and early-career researchers. They are typically small in value, around £500. Nevertheless, it is funding that I have independently obtained, and I would like to include such travel grants on my CV for postdoc applications.
What is a good way to include such funding on a CV? I'm not sure if putting them under "grants" is the best approach because that's usually for research funding. Also, should I list all such small awards separately or, if I have several of them, just state that I obtained a number of travel grants totalling £XXX from organisations YYY and ZZZ?

I suggest placing travel funding under the "Awards" heading, because they are funding for your travel expenses and not your research.  Funding for research I would call "Grants."
However, there are many reasonable ways to do it.  People are not much interested in small amounts of travel funding.


Online venues that promote networking among scholars -- alternatives to Academia.edu and ResearchGate Are there alternatives to Academia.edu and ResearchGate if one is searching for a venue that promotes "informal" (*) cooperation and networking among scholars (specifically, in mathematics and science)?

(*)  As far as I know, the aim of two sites mentioned above is mostly sharing papers rather than opinions, insights, and interesting material of various sorts related to research. I would like this alternative site to be more informal: a scholarly social network rather a mere preprints repository.

Have you tried linkedIn? They have tons of mathematics groups on there you just have to use the search bar. Or have you tried joining a meetup group? You can go to www.meetup.com and find groups of you interest that are near you area. It is not solely online but it is a great way to meet different people who have the same interests as you.


What are best practices for reviewing peer research lab colleagues' work for a supervisor? Since over a year, I've been involved in almost everything my supervisor does and seem to have gained her trust, which is very gratifying.

There have been instances where I was asked to review and directly comment on other research lab colleagues' work who are involved in writing/research tasks. In many cases, I often felt like there was some kind of implicit resistance after a while (e.g. not meeting deadlines, not addressing my comments even if my supervisor wants them addressed, etc.).

On paper, my colleagues often have a stronger research background than I (e.g. coming from research-oriented field or PhD student) while I'm MA level and coming from an arts background, which I feel might influence the situation. However, at any moment, if the supervisor does not agree with my comments, she can step in, as we usually work on shared files online.

What could we do to ensure things go smoother and decrease the resistance?

If possible (given your knowledge of the subject, the regulations at your university, etc.), it might help if you get officially announced as these students (second-)advisor for their paper/thesis/... So the supervisor states that you are responsible for it, you are the one to contact with questions and (important!) your opinion will be important when deciding grades.
Right now, there is no reason for the others to listen to you, as you have no influence on their work/grades/... If the supervisor wants something, she will eventually say so and then they might do it, so why should they listen to you?
By making it clear that you are the one responsible for that and that the supervisor should only be contacted in case of severe problems, they will have motivation to listen to you, as you will be the one the professor asks in the end: "Well, I didn't read every last one of these 200 pages of the thesis and I hadn't as much contact with the student as you did, so what grade would you suggest?"

You don't even need to change anything in your working process, as you already said that the advisor reads your comments and only steps in if she disagrees, so you seem to already be responsible, you just don't have the power (over grades, etc.) yet to make them respect you.


How should I respond to full text requests from other researchers I don't know? I am an early/mid-career academic in a science field and have enough publications where I sometimes get random other academics asking me for electronic copies of papers (published in non-open-access journals) where I am the corresponding author. These papers were done under the purview of NIH grants, which means full text becomes available after a one year embargo.

In the case where the request comes less than one year after publication, how should I respond to such requests? My impulse is just to send the paper without hesitation, but I am unsure if this is "bad form" with regard to the journal. I am seeking the advice of more experienced academics.

Thanks for any advice.

Journals have "author rights" policies on what you can do with your paper. (e.g.: https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/copyright#Author-rights)
Most I have seen allow exactly this sort of sharing - at least of the pre-publication draft, if not the final formatted version.

You should look them up for the journal in question. Even if the policy doesn't allow it, send it anyway. Nuts to journals who try to prohibit one of the fundamental aspects of science.

(The reason to look it up is to never ever again submit to a journal who has this policy.)


How do professors get positions in multiple departments? I will be applying to PhD programs in statistics this upcoming fall and I have noticed that at many institutions, the professors in the statistics department also hold positions in other departments such as CS or EE. I know that professors do interdisciplinary research, so they get experience in other fields, but how does a professor get this appointment? Do they apply or does the university award them after conducting research in the other field.

I am interested in doing research in statistical machine learning in graduate school and have extensive CS background on top on a math background. So I would love one day to be able to be a professor in say stats/CS department.

So I would love one day to be able to be a professor in say stats/CS department.

I don’t think you can really plan for this, other than by acquiring the skills and reputation that would make you an attractive hire for people in both disciplines. If the time comes and you see a position of this sort listed, go ahead and apply of course, but this is quite a rare event. Alternatively, once you secure a position in one department (already a hard enough thing to do in most people’s estimation), you can bring up the possibility of a joint appointment, either when you are offered the position or at any future time after you are hired, and see if the people involved are open to that idea. If you are very sought after and have multiple job offers on the table, that will give you useful negotiating leverage and increase your chances, but still be prepared for the answer to be “no”, or “not right now” - university politics is such that joint hires are not easy to arrange, and not always favored by all parties who need to sign off on them.

Finally, keep in mind that even if you can make it happen, it’s not necessarily the dream job you are thinking it is. As a joint member of two departments you will be paying a rather large (in my observation) “tax” of doing lots of things twice - getting to know and be on friendly terms with two large sets of colleagues; going to faculty meeting of two departments; being evaluated for promotion by two groups of people, each of which speaks a unique scientific dialect you’ll need to speak to convince them the work you are doing is good (and who will often look down on, or misunderstand, anything that you’re working on having to do with the other discipline); having two offices in two buildings that are halfway across campus from each other and needing to keep track of which one of them you left that textbook in that you really need right now; etc. - generally speaking there are a good number of inefficiencies of this sort. I’m not saying it has to be bad, and I’m sure there can be nice things about it, just be aware of these and other complications that you may not be taking into account. Good luck!


What does "scientific report" mean? An Australian bioinformatics job ad talks about writing "scientific reports" in the selection criteria.

Wikipedia has an article on Technical reports, which it says are also called scientific reports, but that definition, of basically grey literature, doesn't seem plausible.

Does it have any other meanings, such as a hypernym of scientific papers, conference talks, and conference posters?

I would construe "scientific report" here to encompass all forms of scientific publication and communication, including peer-reviewed papers as well as possibly internal technical reports. Remember that a technical report is just something that hasn't gone through peer review.

The exception would be if this were for a corporate position, where publication may be more difficult. In such cases, one would expect "grey literature" to be the primary "publication" mode.


Math PhD after graduating with average grades I am currently an MSc student in math in Europe (I'm doing mainly analysis and applied math). During my Bachelor's I've had mainly average grades (I'm not sure what the exact GPA equivalent is, but it would be around 2.5, I guess). Now, in Master's, I've been getting only good grades and I am looking forward to finishing with distinction/honors.

My first PhD option would be at the university I have been studying in the last few years, which is good and well-known, but below the ones in the US or the top unis in the UK. Some of the programs are funded, depending on the advisor. How important are my Bachelor's grades? Am I overestimating myself if I go and talk to a possible PhD advisor and, moreover, ask him if I can enroll on a paid PhD program?

This is the sort of thing you won't know until you apply and someone with authority to decide evaluates your background. However, in general, your most recent work will weigh more heavily in a decision for most people who think about it for more than a minute.

However, you are in competition with others who don't have your "disadvantage" so you need to have some way to explain it. If your recent work overwhelms the past then you are more likely to be successful.

A doctoral advisor will be more interested in your potential for the future than in your past and will be looking for both deep knowledge and enthusiasm. Most likely the issue of getting funding or not depends on how much confidence he/she has in you rather then your past. But there will be competition, even there.

But if you don't ask, you don't get an answer.


MLA style: n. pag. in parenthetical reference? Is it a rule in MLA style to have the addition "n.pag." also in parenthetical reference to a source that has no pagination? Or is the addition only required in the works cited?

source: Miller, Arthur. "All the Small Things." New York: 1980, n. pag.

  In the 1980 essay "All the Small Things" Miller goes on to say that "all things are small" (n. pag.). This is interesting because ...

This is what I came up with but I'm still having problems so it would be great if anyone could help.

The MLA Handbook states under 6.4.1. to put the author's name in parenthesis with an unpaginated work. But this does only make sense for examples with direct quotes if the author isnt mentioned in the sentence.

  The British "were most avid about it" (McCoy).

What do I do with an example like?

  McCoy states that the British "were most avid about it."

It makes no sense to put the author's name again at the end of the sentence in parenthesis.

Any ideas?


Is it harder to transition from Industry Research to Prof than PostDoc to Prof? Assuming someone just received their PhD (in say, Computer Science) and chooses to step into Industry RnD rather than taking up a post doc, a year or two later, he/she realizes that Academia is where he/she truly wishes to be.

Is it tougher to transition from an Industry RnD job to a professorship as compared to a parallel universe in which he would have chosen a PostDoc instead?

Can an Industry RnD job double up as PostDoc?

(Assuming that one keeps publishing and works on important problems)

The "assuming one keeps publishing and works on important problems" bit is the hard part.  If you are working at a serious industrial research lab doing academic-style research, then moving to academia is doable.  If you are in a more typical R&D job but doing cutting-edge work and actively publishing, then it's still possible (but you may face more resistance, depending on your subfield).  On the other hand, the vast majority of industrial R&D positions in CS do not put one in a good position to apply for faculty jobs.

It's easy to be overly optimistic about this.  I've seen a number of students take industrial jobs and declare "I'm going to keep my options open by continuing to publish, even though it's not a job requirement."  This rarely works out.  It's far from impossible, but maintaining an active research program when it's not your primary job is difficult.