How can I tell if a journal is reputable? In a lot of research you have to site sources from a "reputable" journal. I've seen journals that have opened simply to post that bigfoot exists and won't take anything other than more or less garbage papers. Not to mention the problem with people "fixing" data to make their paper look legitimate when it's not.

How can I tell if the journal (and subsequent articles) I'm looking at is reputable?

If you know your field, it is easy to know how reputable some journal is. You find papers in it by the best people in your field publishing the most important results there you are already familiar with.

On the other hand if you do not know your field yet, I would advise you to get to know it at the glance at least first. Familiarise yourself with the most important and fundamental results and findings and the most influential authors. You should identify these authors quickly by seeing them in many various papers cited again and again by different researchers. Then look where these authors published the papers to find out what journals are likely to be more reliable than others.

Moreover, if you know your field, you should be able to discern a value and validity of a paper quickly from the abstract.


contact of the editor I sent an article it's been almost 4 months, but still my article is in the same status "submissions being processed", that I have to do is what I contact the editor or I wait for their response, since I have heard when we send an e-mail to the editor, he sends the refusal directly, I wait for your suggestions, thank you in advance

Contact the editor. It happened to me once that the referees were divided, so the editor sent the paper to more referees, hence prolonging the process. He just forgot to notify me. Moving to another journal is a bad decision, since you haven't been rejected yet. What if then you are liaising with two journals and both accept it? Not good.

Also, check the average processing time of the journal. Some do take long time, even up to six months!


How do I ask my professor to recommend me to a few specific industry positions? I am working in the US for a professor as a contracted research staff, and my contract will soon end. The professor holds daily meetings with the bosses of several companies, over a project we collaborate on. These companies have several public job listings that I consider myself a good fit for. Unfortunately, the scope of my job doesn't allow me much interaction with the staff from these companies.
However, I can see on LinkedIn that at least 500 people are applying to each of these positions every week. I am worried that if I file my application the conventional way, then it will get lost in the sea of HR paperwork, or even not get past the automatic filter. These companies also have a preference for PhDs, which I do not have at the moment.
Is it appropriate for me to persuade the professor to speak to the bosses directly about these jobs on my behalf? Are there any potential downsides?

It is appropriate for you to ask for a recommendation. However, the professor may not feel it is appropriate for him to ask them directly. But it is part of their responsibility to at least write you a letter of recommendation. And they may be willing to do more.
But the "way" to ask, is just to ask. Ask for a recommendation, preferably a letter and something more personal. It is up to them how to proceed after that.
I'd guess that even a letter would be pretty effective given the relationships.


What did Grothendieck mean by "the capacity to be alone" in the context of mathematical research? I'm confused about a statement Alexander Grothendieck made in his book Récoltes et semailles.

In fact, most of these comrades whom I gauged to be more brilliant
than me have gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still
from the perspective or thirty or thirty five years, I can state that
their imprint upon the mathematics of our time has not been very
profound. They’ve all done things, often beautiful things, in a
context that was already set out before them, which they had no
inclination to disturb. Without being aware of it, they’ve remained
prisoners of those invisible and despotic circles which delimit the
universe of a certain milieu in a given era. To have broken these
bounds they would have to rediscover in themselves that capability
which was their birthright, as it was mine: The capacity to be alone.

Why did Grothendieck say “the capacity to be alone,” and how does this phrase apply to researchers?

As this is a translation, the words "capacity to be alone" may not be the best way to phrase it. Perhaps this is a more literal translation, but from context I might write it as "independence".
He is saying that other people who he perceived as more capable individuals ("more brilliant than" he) as researchers were successful, and yet were constrained by doing work similar to others. Perhaps they worked on incremental solutions to problems within a general framework in the research community.
He implies that the status quo ("invisible and despotic circles which delimit the universe of a certain milieu") is a constraint on creative work.
He is suggesting that his own impact has been more profound or more revolutionary because he has been able to be more independent from others, to make his own path either in the problems he approached or in the solutions he found, and that he thinks the other people he talks about would have had similarly profound impacts if they had been less focused on the work or opinions of others.
Who knows whether he is correct that this is how researchers should think, it's just one opinion. I think it's somewhat dangerous to assume that because an approach worked for someone that you should take their advice that it would work for everyone. There is a lot of survivorship bias in that those who go their own path but are not successful are seldom heard from - who would read their book?
I'm not a mathematician and am not familiar with Grothendieck's work. Just from his Wikipedia page it seems he became a bit reclusive and didn't engage with the broader community later in his career. From Wikipedia which talks about the work that you quote from:

In the 1,000-page autobiographical manuscript Récoltes et semailles (1986) Grothendieck describes his approach to mathematics and his experiences in the mathematical community, a community that initially accepted him in an open and welcoming manner but which he progressively perceived to be governed by competition and status

It could be that he misjudges the ways in which his earlier work that became so influential benefitted from that of others around him, and misjudges the profundity or impactfulness of the work that he later pursued in solitude. Just because someone has a genius in mathematics or any other field does not necessarily mean they are good at assessing the reasons behind their own success; self-reflection is an entirely separate skill set.
For what it's worth in contrast, another famous mathematician wrote, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants", which seems to be a bit of a different philosophy (though I may be treating Grothendieck uncharitably, as it seems his quarrel is less with the work of others and more with the academic establishment, but it still speaks to the value or lack thereof of independence/solitude in academic work). Google Scholar uses the motto "Stand on the shoulders of giants" in recognition and tribute to this sentiment.


Conflict of interests and the assignment of referee for a very narrow field Consider a very small scientific field with three major contributors and a total of 15 authors, all of them had coauthored with everyone else.

In this field how could the editor choose referee for new papers, if he must adhere to the conflict of interests policies?

I know that some editors handle coauthor/students' paper or assign the paper to the previous coauthor of the author. Is that a common practice for a small field?

The small field was naturally extended from some important results back to 50s -70s, some of those researchers are still alive, but inactive. The importance cannot be doubt by the larger field, also because of those important results historically.

Even if the field is small, one can usually find referees in cognate fields with no conflicts: presumably papers by these groups have a bibliography that extends beyond these groups, else the interest is overly narrow and the paper can be rejected as such.

(Aside: the handling editor is not necessarily a “he”.)


Is this tenured professor plagiarizing his lectures? A tenured professor at my university has hand-copied an out of print textbook in his field. His lectures consist of reading his hand-written notes from the text to his students. He does not deviate from his notes. He does not reveal the source of his notes. He often refers in class to "my notes" and "my lectures." His lectures are the same, year after year. Students do not have to go to class if they get good notes from others who took the course in previous years. Is this plagiarism?

While there are a number of issues with this teaching style, there is no plagiarism because there is no expectation of originality in teaching. He could teach better, probably, but it's not like you can report him for plagiarizing his lecture notes.


How do I effectively solicit a strong letter of recommendation from a professor? I have been asked to write many letters of recommendation over many years.  In some cases, the requesters have made this task easy and enjoyable, and others, less so. I'd like to offer some guidelines that work for me, and solicit others.

Start Early

Most of the people you're asking for recommendations are busy.  They are usually happy to do this for you, but they appreciate every effort you can make to help them work this task into their calendars.  Sixty days is NOT unreasonable, but three weeks is what I consider the very lowest time frame before considering the requester to be discourteous.

Ask the appropriate people

We enjoy moving our students on, and do what we can to help them.  On the other hand, we understand that writing recommendations that look like form letters is not going to be helpful.

Make sure that the people you are asking for a recommendation are the right people.  If you got a "B" in a class of sixty students, and never had a real conversation with the professor, that person may not be the right person to ask.  If it's the best you can do, so be it, but some planning in earlier years might have led to a better recommendation.  That said, that prof who gave you a B in a course where you got an A on a term paper that you're proud of might be the perfect person to ask -- for example, if English is not your first language and your ability to effectively communicate might be called into question by an admissions committee, a letter focusing on this might resolve the issue.

Before it comes up, yes, your academic adviser is usually good for a recommendation if you don't have more appropriate letter writers, and to some extent that person will feel responsible to write you as strong a letter as possible.

Ask for an appointment to discuss the letter

This sort of thing should not be arranged in passing, especially if you intend to get the best letter you possibly can.  It also shows that you're serious about the request, and not taking it for granted that this person owes you a recommendation.  As part of that meeting, you might consider giving the prof an overview of your application package, and asking the prof if they see any ways to improve it.

At that meeting ASK if that person is in a situation where they feel that they can write you a STRONG letter

Frankly, there is sometimes a disconnect between the student's view of a faculty member's opinion of them, and the actual opinion.  Make sure you are not in this situation.  Often, people will be very frank about this, and let you know that they can't write a very strong letter for you.  Sometimes you don't even need a strong letter, and just need the writer to make a point that you're otherwise having trouble making in your application package.  If the person says "I can't write a strong letter," you can say "Can you write a letter that helps me make this point?" and see what the answer is. If you're getting desperate, you might even ask something like "would you be able to say I'm in the top half of students you instructed?"  If the prof says yes, and indicates that this is the strongest recommendation that can be written in this situation, at least you know where you stand and what the letter will say.

Explain why you are asking that particular person for a recommendation, and what you would like that letter to say

Consider the example above about communication skills.  Again, if you feel a certain prof is in a position to help you make a point, ask if they can help you in this way.  Maybe you're a member of a large student group that has had a very successful project, and now you're asking the group adviser to write a letter saying that it was an important project, why it was important, and that you were a part of it.  LET THE PROF KNOW that this is what you'd like the letter to say.

Prepare your package

Make it easy for the prof to write your letter, and give the prof all the background material that will help.  This can include (but is not limited to):

Your resume
Your transcript (if appropriate)
Your grades and performance summary for the courses you've been
involved with the recommender for
ANY PERSONAL STATEMENT THAT YOU'VE WRITTEN FOR YOUR APPLICATIONS (this is a big help to me, and I always ask for it.
A complete list of all the places that will need the letter, and
their deadlines
Any special circumstances (e.g., rolling admissions that require
some rushing).
Any language that you'd like included.  It seems silly, but as your careers develop you'll be in many situations where people ask you to give them the letter that you'd like them to put on letterhead and sign.  Doing this for a letter of recommendation is a bit presumptuous, but if you're trying to make a very specific point with the letter, you might offer a few sentences of recommended language.

Follow up

As a last step, tell the person what your process will be.  Let the person know when you will be completing your application, and when they should start seeing the requests from schools.  When you do apply, it is a good idea to send off an email that says "I've just finished these applications, with the following deadlines for letters.  Please let me know if you don't receive requests."

Establish a nagging plan with the profs.  If you tell me the deadline is Apr 1, and I acknowledge that, please don't keep sending emails saying "its not there yet" right up until April 1.  That said, at the meeting you'll hold with me in advance, say "I'll send you reminders of all  the schools with upcoming deadlines in mid-March", I actually appreciate it.  Personally, I have some anxiety where other people are key in my loop, so I can understand it if somebody says "I know the deadline is Apr 1, but I'd feel much less anxious if you could have this in by Mar 26" -- just let me know about it.  Otherwise, the deadline is the date certain for me.  Normally, I try to get these things submitted earlier, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

Don't drag this out.  We literally get dozens of emails a day.  Try to complete all your applications in chunks, so we can take all the request messages, slam them into a directory where we can find them when we need them, and not have to go searching at the last minute.  It challenges my organizational abilities when 15 recommendation requests for one student dribble in over the course of a month, especially when I've signed on to write letters for a half dozen students or more.

Confidentiality

We expect to be writing confidential letters.  If you don't intend to waive your right to inspect, please let us know in advance, so we can tell you if that's acceptable to us.  Trust us -- we write the best letters we can.  If you have the frank discussions I've recommended above, you know just where you stand (and maybe we can even nudge things up just a hair).

Results

As a courtesy, let us know how things worked out.  We love to know about our students successes, and it can even help us tweak out our future letters.

Last Points

When someone agrees to do something that directly impacts your future, that person owes you the respect of appropriately placing that action on their priority list.  If it's important to you, and they agree to help, it should be important to them.

If someone hems and haws about providing a recommendation, its probably because they don't feel that they can write a helpful one.  If you keep trying to schedule that meeting and it keeps getting put off, you might be dealing with someone who just is unwilling to give you the straight answer that you need to hear.  I try to be as straight with my students as I can, but it can get VERY awkward in certain cases, particularly if they're currently in your class that requires constant interaction.  Having these conversations is not easy from either side, and some people choose to avoid them.

Keep in mind that when we write letters of recommendation, we are aligning our reputation with your value as a student.  We can not write tremendously positive recommendations for students that don't merit such treatment for too long before admissions committees simply dismiss our letters.  Anecdotally, every now and again I write a letter of recommendation to our own Medical School.  Once, at a purely social event, I had a conversation with my Dean of Admissions to the Med School about a special applicant who I thought might not have looked as valuable as she was in her application package.  I asked the Dean if he would welcome the conversation I was trying to have with him, or whether it would be out of line.  He indicated that he really appreciates such discussions, and he was able to mention by name a good number of applicants who were admitted with a letter from me in their package.  People DO PAY ATTENTION TO THIS STUFF.

NEVER place someone on a recommendation list for an application or a job without their prior knowledge and their OK.  AT the very least, it's annoying to be blindsided.  At worst, you're shooting yourself in the foot.


Drop accents in submission forms A title of my paper includes an accented character ě. I'm submitting it to a conference and arXiv. Unfortunately, arXiv does not support the accented character and turns it into \v{e}. It renders correctly in arXive, but such titles look weird when searched from Google (eg. Random Čech Complexes). The title is encoded correctly in the conference's submission form.

Several solutions come to mind:

Leave it as it is and accept the fact, that arXive will mess up the title.
Drop the accented character in the arXive form, leave all the rest, including the title in PDF.
Drop the accented character in the arXive and conference forms, but leave it in the title in PDF.
Drop the accented character everywhere.

I would like to avoid 1, as lots of other citation services (researchgate, semanticscholar, ...) are based on arXive and will thus mess up the encoding as well. Similarly, I would like to avoid 4, as it is the name of the newly introduced project. I'm leaning towards 3. as it seems to be the most elegant solution, but I don't know whether it is fine to have different form title and in-PDF rendered title.

It is still a week before the deadline, so I can still make changes.

Unfortunately, arXiv's internal search is not smart enough to consider search queries with and without diacritic equivalent.

Searching for "Čech complex" on arXiv's paper titles provides 11 results, all with the diacritical on the PDF.

Searching for "Cech complex" (without the diacritical) provides 7 results, all of which do have the diacritical on the PDF.

A similar search for "Cramér Rao" (51 results, almost all with diacritical on PDF) and "Cramer Rao" (48 results, more than half have the diacritical on the PDF) shows a similar trend.

It seems like it is not a problem at all to have a diacritic appear on the PDF but not on the submission form (your options 2 and 3). It also seems like there is a slight majority of people that choose to include the diacritic everywhere (option 1), which is also what I would do if this is a name I have chosen for my newly introduced method. After all, you do not want most people to get this new name wrong.


How to Scale or Curve the Grades for an Examination? I am the teaching assistant for a course in economics, and one of my responsibilities is marking examinations.

I had just finished marking the midterm, and the grades were very poor. The details are (approximately):

Mean: 23%
Standard Deviation: 5%
Min: 4%
Max: 68%
Number of Students: 84

Upon consultation of the professor, I was told to scale the grades. The method he had given me  was to add a fixed amount to each student's grade such that the mean would be 72%.

To me, this seems to be an inadequate way to correct the distribution of grades and would be unfair to the students who did score much higher than the class mean.

My question is, what is the best way to rescale the grades for an examination such that the it is fair to all the students in the class?

First, let's acknowledge that this was a horrible test.  You have almost no power to discriminate between the different abilities of the students with a mean of 23% and a standard deviation of 5%.

Then you have to decide what to do.  Personally, I'd decrease the weight of this test in acknowledgement that it was a poor test (or allow students the option of letting something else count for more).  But if you just want to solve it numerically, there are the following constraints:

You can't have a top score of more than 100%
The mean is required to be 72%
You want all differences to still mean something

If you add 49% to the grades, you get a mean of 72% but your top score is now 117%.  You could cap it at 90-95% or so, but the top students would be indistinguishable.  So you'd have to scale back by squashing the grades also, e.g. by multiplying the difference from 23% by (28/45) to get it back in range.  This will make the students distinguishable but not meaningfully so.

Really the best option is to change the grading scheme so that you have a higher mean and more distinction between different scores (to the extent that this is possible).  For example, you can give a number of points for attempting a problem at all, a number of points for writing down anything which has a bearing on the right answer, etc..

You can just directly transform your old scores into new scores with the mean and deviation you like, however.  Let icdfG(p) be the value at which the probability of getting a lower percentile score p from a Normal distribution with mean 0 and standard deviation is 1.  Then you can just calculate percentiles and map

new score = 72 + icdfG(percentile)*10

or something to get a mean of 72 and a standard deviation of 10.  (Your top student in a class of 84 would have a percentile of 83.5/84 if you did it this way.)  Your top student would have a score of 97 under this scheme (and the second to top a score of 93)

Otherwise, you're probably best off using a nonlinear transform; arctan is a nice function for that since it will squash down the tails; and you probably want a SD of at least 10 not 5, so you could do something like

new score = 72 + 50/Pi * arctan((score - 23)/10)

which would give a max score if 93.5, a min score of 54.7, and one standard deviation up and down would give 79.4 and 64.6 respectively.

But again, the better options are to devalue the test as a bad test, and to change the grading scheme (an awful lot of work, but it will give fairer results).


How necessary it is to have PhD students? If a person has a tenure/ tenure track position on a math department, how obligatory it is to have PhD students? While some people like to have students, there are people who do not like that.

I am particularly interested about the situation in American universities.

It certainly depends on the department you're in. Some departments have small PhD programs and largely focused on undergraduate and master's programs. In that case, you may get away with just not having PhD students. On the other hand, at most Research-1 universities, math departments have 1.5-2 PhD students per tenure-track faculty. Of course, faculty do not evenly assume mentorship roles for them, but there is an expectation that one does, in fact, supervise some. It is not uncommon to have an expectation that, for example, one has to have graduated one PhD student before promotion to full professor.

In general, the way to see this most productively is probably to remember that a university is an institution of higher education. If a department has a PhD program as an important component, then it is a reasonably expectation that every tenure-track faculty participates in it by (i) teaching graduate courses, and (ii) advising PhD students. If you actively try to get out of one or both of these parts of your job, you're not doing your job. The situation is no different than teaching and service: it's part of your job, and whether you do or do not like this part makes no difference in the expectations that are put on you.


Which arXiv license to use for archiving an ACM CSUR journal? I would like to submit the preprint version of my ACM CSURjournal (used acmsmall format of acmart latex) to arXiv. As of now, the work is peer-reviewed twice ( passed one major and currently in its minor revision), thus, has not been accepted.

Can anyone suggest an appropriate arXiv license that does not conflict with ACM 2017 authors' policy?

Unless you pay for author-pays Open Access, the only license that does not conflict with the ACM authors agreement is the nonexclusive distribution license. Depending on when you signed your copyright forms, submitting to ArXiv may not be allowed at all - it was only allowed starting with the revision in January, 2016.

Assuming you have the new version of the author rights, you will need to add a special text block into the paper that contains a set phrase and the DOI of the full, published article. You can get this version by adding the authorversion flag in LaTeX (\documentclass[acmsmall,authorversion]{acmart}) and adding the DOI to the relevant field of the LaTeX document. If you do not yet have a DOI, the situation is a bit more dicey, and I don't think there is a generally accepted way to upload this to ArXiv - either wait for the DOI, or just upload without it (ACM is not in the habit of suing authors, as far as I know).

Edit: I was just reminded that the paper is not yet accepted. In that case, the situation is both more and less complicated. Since you have not signed anything yet, you can, on principle, upload the paper under whatever license you choose. However, once you do sign the copyright transfer statement, the license compatibility issues above apply, so your best choice is to either budget now for the more than $2000 you usually pay for author-pays open access and submit under a creative commons license, or choose the limited license mentioned above.

The DOI issue does not apply, you can simply upload it as a preprint, with a note that it is under submission. Once the paper is accepted, you can update the preprint with the final version of the paper (the version you submit to ACM for the digital library that incorporates all feedback from the reviewers) and the DOI, as described above. Note that you are not allowed to just download the version from the ACM digital library and upload that PDF, you need to generate the ArXiv version yourself - but since ArXiv prefers it if you upload your LaTeX sources in any case (and will even enforce this as a strong requirement if it can tell that the PDF was generated by LaTeX), this should not be a problem.


Paid publication fee and now no contact from journal: what should I do? My situation is the following: I submitted an article to a journal which appeared in Scimago, the article got accepted, and they charged a fee for publication costs. I have now paid this fee from personal money using PayPal.

The problem is that it has been nearly two weeks since I made the payment and I have not received any email about it. I have checked my account and the payment has been made, wrote an email to the editor in charge within a lapse of two days, and have received no answer at all.

I am pretty worried about this situation, but how can I deal with it? I have tried to call their contact number and also gotten no answer at all.  Should I continue sending emails to the other editors of this journal or just wait until they give me an answer? I would not like to sound like I am anxious, but I believe it is pretty bad that at least they do not give an answer if they receive the money or not.

Based on the time of year, if the journal is based in the US or Europe, it might be that the editor and staff are on vacation. You have confirmed with your bank that they have received funds, so I wouldn't worry too much. Give them a week or two, and then follow up more strenuously.


Is it OK to ask your supervisor for a recommendation for attending an academic event if the PhD just started? I just began my PhD this week.
There is a very important event that will take place next month and there are some stipends for attending PhD students, but the deadline to apply for such stipends is in one week.
As usual, it is required that the supervisor writes a short "support letter" to the program chair.

The thing is that I just started my PhD something like five days ago, and this is my first time working with my supervisor. I have experience with the topics that will be covered in the event and I consider it is important for me to attend.

  With this in mind, should I ask my supervisor for a letter?

I was thinking in asking him for his opinion rather than the letter, would this be better?

Thanks in advance!

Rather than just ask for the support letter, it may be a good step to simply ask if your supervisor thinks that the event is appropriate for you to participate in, given your knowledge of the topic and ability to prepare for the event (if applicable, I'm not sure if the event is something you would have to prepare for, like a conference). Your supervisor may be happy that you are demonstrating such enthusiasm and effort early in your program of study!

Since the deadline is short, I would offer to draft the letter for him. This will help with the timing, plus it will help since you have not worked together very long. This will ease the burden of the task, which he will also appreciate. Good luck!


Explaining switch of research interests in Statement of Purpose For most of my Masters studies, I worked in the area of Quantum computation and wrote my thesis on that. But following that, I lost my interest and switched to Computer Vision and worked as an intern for a few months. Now I plan to pursue a PhD in the field of Computer Vision even though my Masters thesis was on a different topic. How should I convince the admission committee about this switch ?

I had published 2 papers while working on Quantum computations (one from my Thesis and another one as a student job) and 1 in Computer Vision from my internship. But I was not interested in Quantum computations because it consisted mostly coding and there was no hardware to work on (at least in my university). Whereas computer vision is a branch I am very comfortable with since I directly get to see the impact of the changes in algorithm visually. I also have very good grades in the area related to computer vision. But I cannot really frame a convincing story as "visual feedback" is not enough concrete to convince a potential guide.

Please give me your inputs. Thank you.

You don't have to convince the admission committee about the switch.

You do have to convince the admission committee that you are able to complete a PhD in Computer Vision.

Work out what skills will be needed, and present your evidence that you have those skills.

Work out what knowledge will be needed as a prerequisite, and present your evidence that you have that knowledge.

Work out what the other pre-requisities are (funding, contributing to the internal life of the department, whatever), and present the evidence for that too.


Are the Master Program & Certificates I am about to embark on relevant to my career & academic plan? I have a bachelor degree in Civil Engineering, I'm 27 and I currently work for a leading world organization. However my heart is somewhere else. I aspire to be a scientist, so a masters and a PhD are the plan. I can't seem to narrow down my future research interests, but it's likely to fall somewhere between Mathematical Modeling-Computational Math/Physics-Theoretical Physics-Pure Mathematics.

For that purpose, and until I do apply to a PhD program, I intend to take on a Masters in Computational Mathematics (received acceptance), a certificate in Data Science (3 months long - I was advised to do so by a scientist I know) and a certificate in Theoretical Physics (2 weeks long - equivalent to the last semester of an undergrad physics program).

Do these programs fall well with my interests and plan ? Your advice is appreciated.

Did the scientist know that you were thinking about doing a PhD or did he or she think you were staying in industry?

The certificates may be good ways to see if you're interested in the field, but I think they'll be almost worthless in PhD admissions. The exception might be if the certificate is given by a well-known, reputable university and the program itself has an excellent reputation. In addition, it might need to be known by one or more faculty members at the universities that you're applying to.

Do some searching here for related questions like this one: PhD in pure mathematics for a student in computer science

And a more general question: Undergraduate research field different from PhD field


Are there hacks or smaller scientific search engines offering you context-sensitive/semantic search? The many upvots on Gerrit's answer show how the majority of researches currently does search, filter, read scientific journals and books, as the best way, a context-sensitive search(X Algorithm near to Y algorithm near to Z database) is not available in scientific search engines to my knowledge? A lot of time has to be wasted for filtering out uninteresting content.

An google WEB search example would be:

etching AROUND(4) redeposition

Search hits will only show sites where etching is separated from redeposition by not more than 4 other words between those two. While many research papers often contain many keywords in intro and abstract of a paper (for retelling recent history in a field), which makes finding papers in a special context impossible (measuring effect X with method Y on material Z), in principle the AROUND(x) operator gives you this power back.

The problem is, google SCHOLAR hasn't implemented the AROUND operator, therefore I currently use it sometimes in google WEB search when searching papers (unfortunately only titles and abstracts are indexed by Google, but main body content isn't searchable) in a very specific context.

I'm really wondering if there are secret hacks for free (google scholar, scirus...) and commercial (ISI, scopus) search engines giving you the power of context-sensitive search, as it would make a lot of reading, searching, filtering, rating, sharing unnecessary.

My current way to solve this is downloading many highly-cited papers (withoud reading) as gerrit's answer shows and indexing it with my own desktop search engine (Copernic desktop search software) which has a similar operator. It really ticks me off, that a search technology that is available for years is not brought to the place where it would be most useful?! Maybe we should similar to thecostofknowledge just start to build our own search engines? There are some business reasons (traffic, downloads,..) that make the non-implementation of this operator in commercial search engines very reasonable to me...

So, am I missing some secret hacks or search engines that are near to context-sensitive/semantic search?

I know it's disappointing, but here goes: I am not aware of features allowing context-sensitive search in scientific search engines, with two exceptions:

Web of Science has a SAME operator, which matches “records where the terms separated by the operator appear in the same sentence”. Given that Web of Science supports a whooping number of 4 search operators (AND, OR, NOT and SAME), it is pretty safe to say this is sadly the full extent of its context-sensitive search features.
SciFinder attributes some meaning to prepositions, which have a role in restricting results to “closely associated” matches of operands. This basically means “same sentence” (details in the linked page).

Yes, these features are poor and we should hope for better search capabilities. At the same time, it's a start and it can be useful.


Why do sites that host papers not have a comments section for each paper? Why do sites that host papers such as IEEE's not have a comments section for each paper? Sometimes there is something that needs to be added, corrected or clarified by the community but as far as I know there is no such a thing... or is there?

There are a few third-party sites where you can do this. For instance, https://paperhive.org/ and https://scirate.com/. None of them has a large user base, at the moment. There used to be more (http://www.arxaliv.org/, https://selectedpapers.net/) but they seem to be down.

(Disclaimer: I am a friend and a former colleague of one of the founders of Paperhive.)


Is punctuation necessary for displayed formulas in academia writing? If a formula appears in the main body of the text, there seems no doubt that punctuation should be given to that formula when necessary. But when a formula appears displayed (i.e. solely taking up a line), there seems no consensus on whether punctuation is needed for it. I wonder if there will be any potential ambiguities if punctuation is (or not) included in this case.

This is essentially a question about functions of punctuation for displayed formulas. I don't want an answer about rules from certain style guide...

In mathematics there is a near universal consensus that displayed mathematics should not be treated differently from inline mathematics with regards to punctuation. By this I mean that the vast majority of papers on the arXiv follow this convention, most journals will add punctuation according to this principle if it's not already there, and so on.

Thus whenever you're unsure whether or not to include punctuation at the end of a displayed equation, try to replace \[ ... \] with $ ... $ - whatever punctuation mark looks natural when it's inlined should be included also at the end of the displayed equation.

I don't think that texts without punctuation after displayed equations are necessarily ambiguous, but then again, a text without punctuation after inlined equations would probably not be ambiguous either. The main purpose of punctuation is after all not to reduce ambiguity but to increase readability and "flow" of the text.


Is there any information about the trend of journals preferences regarding Word over LaTeX? Is there any information about the trend of journals' preferences regarding LaTeX and MS Word?

My main concern is computer engineering and linguistics fields of study.

Both ACM and IEEE accept LaTeX publication format, which represents computer engineering to a large extent.1

Based on this list which categorizes publications in various fields by their 'friendliness' to LaTeX (primarily linguistics-related), many linguistics publications accept LaTeX (especially those related to computational linguistics / natural language processing).2

1 Cf. http://acm.org/publications/latex_style/ and http://ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/publishing/templates.html.

2 The list was last updated in January 2010.


Should I include a recommendation letter in my MS applications if it is not required? I am considering my options for further Master-level studies in Europe (the goal being to improve my PhD application down the line). To summarize, my current transcript is weak, but I may be able to get good recommendations from one or two professors or researchers. This could remove some doubts about my academic abilities, and confirm some past circumstances that explain why I didn't perform better, so I see it as quite crucial in my applications.

One university I am considering states that admissions are based on "past grades, and relevant experience (including work, research, or anything related to the field)" (paraphrasing). Unless I missed some hidden meaning, this excludes recommendation letters.

I imagine that I will be able to provide supporting documents later in the process. Should I then ask for recommendation letters and provide them anyway?

I will of course contact the university directly about this, but I would like to know if there is a more general etiquette for this situation. Do admission officers generally see a good recommendation as positive even if not specifically asked for? Can they on the contrary see it as an attempt to hide other weak points in the application?

Generally speaking, any material that is not asked for will not be considered in an application for a postgraduate degree. Admissions procedures attempt to create a level playing field for applicants as well as minimise the amount of time it takes to evaluate an application, and extras that aren't asked for are tossed in the bin. Some places may treat that material differently, but you asked for general.

Now speaking specifically, I would be surprised if you were not asked for recommendations during the admissions process. The line you posted does not preclude recommendations, rather it might reveal what elements of a recommendation letter they will pay attention to. You need to either start the admission process online and see what documents you are asked for or call the admissions office for clarification.


How to convince my supervisor that he is wrong? I do not have any particular situation at hand but I am about to start in a new short-term (research assistant) position. The thing is, I will be working on a topic that is very controversial. There are papers (appearing in top journals) explaining how my supervisors and their colleagues got it all wrong. On the other hand, there are reviews (in top journals also), summarizing how many important insights have been learned, and how things are progressing very nicely. It appears to be a kind of battlefield.

I have not yet started in the position, but I have been reading several articles about the research topic. I already know that I will disagree with my supervisor about many things. There will probably be difficult conversations. If we get everything right, maybe we could resolve some of the major issues, by discussing both perspectives thoroughly.

I think I will need very good negotiation skills. If we have exact opposite views with my supervisor, I must do what he wants, but I also want to do what I want. I want us to succeed. How do I prepare for this? How does one convince her supervisor that he is wrong about something? Of course, I will be wrong many times as well. So I should also think how to quickly realize that I am wrong about something.

The whole point of scientific debate is to refine our knowledge. Go into the discussion with a mentality to learn, not to win. Keeping this in mind will help you keep the discussion not adversarial and not emotional. On unresolved disagreements, try to find a way to falsify either hypothesis. If it is not possible, consider that which option is correct is probably not that important.

Listen to what they have to say about the criticisms, maybe they disagree with them, maybe they agree (and maybe even that is why the brought new people in). Probably, it is somewhere in the middle.

If (or when) your relationship is good, and you have a good understanding of their position, you can even propose playing devil's advocate.

Of course, I am assuming that they are decent people and not tyrannic professors. You should assume the same until proven otherwise (and if so, consider if you want to shut up and obey, or walk away).


Is it unwise to repeat portions of a successful grant proposal? Three years ago, I applied for and received a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation in pure mathematics. Now I need to prepare a follow-up proposal for continued funding.

There is, of course much that I have to say that is new. However, I am interested in the same family of research problems, and it seems to make sense to repeat some of the text from my previous proposal, since I thought very carefully about how to describe the background and motivate my work.

Will it make a poor impression if I reuse some parts of my previous proposal verbatim?

Ask the program officer (PO), because he/she will be able to back you up if the permission comes from him/her, should the reviewers criticize so.

However, slightly recast your question. For instance, ask if the proposal will be reviewed with your previous proposal side by side or by the same reviewers. Tell the PO that you ask because you intended to frame the background with some similar information you presented in the last version, but worried that it would create redundancy. And emphasize that you will be more than happy to transfer the background to the continual application if that would make the application process smoother.

In the mean time, evaluate the magnitude of the intended cutting and pasting and what information is being transferred. Historical findings are unlikely to change and can understandably be worded similarly; but if what you want to paste were things that you would set off to explain/learn, and after three years the unknowns remain, then it probably will not go too well. Also, critically review the literature. If the parts to be cut and pasted are more contemporary literature review, it's hard to believe nothing can be added in three years. Anyway, don't use them just because you don't have time to revise the background and the last one seems still pretty good.


Should I ask for generic reference letter? I was given advice to apply for multiple PhD programs because it is difficult to get in.

Some programs require reference letter from professors or supervisors.
I don’t believe that professors have time and will to give me multiple reference letters for each school I apply to.

I have considered asking them for a generic reference letter.

How would a generic reference letter be received by a graduate school committee?

Faculty members will not write "brand new" letters for every school and program you want to apply for. However, once the basic letter has been written, addressing it to the intended recipient is not very challenging. So it is OK to ask your advisors to write a letter for you, and to send it to multiple places. (If you're applying to schools in the US, the faculty member will be responsible for uploading it herself in any event.)


How to talk to other UG researchers and/or PG researchers? I'm an undergraduate at a research-intensive university and I have received funding with other students to do research. The other students involved in the project are all undergraduates. I'd really like to talk to people outside of the project who do research - not necessarily to 'network' in a formal sense, but to share resources, discuss the progress we've made, etc. We have a supervisor, but I want something more like a peer. The thing is that I don't know how to find people to talk to. I don't know any undergraduates outside of the project who are doing research. The university has many postgraduates, but I feel like an intruder in postgraduate and academic spaces (e.g. research discussion groups, conferences).

It isn't about age; I started my degree as a 'mature student' and I am old enough to be a postgraduate, but there's obviously a hierarchy at universities in terms of how far you are in your education or academic career, and there are some physical barriers between me and postgraduates, too (e.g. they have their own spaces that only postgraduates can access). What should I do? I'm aware of the existence of undergraduate conferences, but it frustrates me that I'm at a university that is very oriented towards research yet I don't feel able to talk to people about it!

In my experience, researchers who are genuinely interested in the same topics as you will be happy to discuss them regardless of whether you're at the same stage of education. Push yourself to attend events that challenge and inspire you, whether they're mainly attended by graduate students or by undergrads, and don't tell yourself that you're an intruder there. Most people won't be thinking about whether you're an undergrad or a postdoc; they'll just be listening to the ideas you exchange. As a graduate student myself, I love working with undergrads who are motivated and excited about research. Of course there will always be some people who think they're above you simply because they have more credentials, but that's their problem, not yours.

Asking people about their own  research can be a great entry point since everyone likes to feel that what they're doing is appreciated. Check out a poster session on campus and find a few posters that you're interested in. Eventually you'll start a great conversation with someone. Be patient and don't give up!


How does copyright work on screen captures? I am writing an article comparing three pieces of software. I have taken screen shots of all of them and would like to use them in a non-open access article. Given the intended journal, there is a reasonable chance of the images being on the cover. What are the copyright issues associated with screen shots?

Specifically, one of the pieces of software is free and open source (GPL v2), and two are free as in beer, but closed source with unknown licenses and no EULAs. To further complicate matters one of the closed sourced pieces of software looks and functions very much like a proprietary piece of hardware produced by a massive company. Three years ago I contacted the developer of the software and asked about using a screen shot and he said it was fine. The software is still widely available, but the direct download from the developers site now has text indicating that the massive company has "requested" that it be taken down. I own the physical hardware and am not aware of any crazy licensing restrictions. I could use a photo of the physical hardware if that is better.

You need legal advice. Talk to an attorney.

Perhaps your institution has one that you can take advantage of. Everything from here on out is rank speculation, and even your attorney's advice may not protect your from suit.

If you can, get permission from each source you want to take a screen capture of. There may be copyright protectable elements in those screen shots. There may also be trademarked elements.

If you cannot get permission for whatever reason, you may have to rely on fair use. Fair use is a defense to an infringement suit not a get out of jail free card. By using a copyright or trademark protected work without a license, you run the risk of lawsuit. Your institution may not be willing to rely on a fair use defense. Also, your publisher may not be willing to rely on a fair use defense (since they will be the lawsuit target).

I personally think your use is without question a classic and canonical example of fair use, but that doesn't mean that you will prevail in publishing without permission. Many venues require that your sign a form saying that you have the copyright or permission to use all your images, so be careful.


Responding in postdoc interview In a postdoc interview, I was asked about something that I didn't know, and I said I don't have a professional experience into that however I am willing to know more about it. Although, this was not something I needed to know and not mentioned in my CV. So I am not sure I reacted well enough. How should I deal with such kind of questions in the future?

Thanks

It sounds like you reacted fairly well.  I've been in many interviews, and been asked all sorts of questions that I don't know.
If it is on the job description, you should have researched it ahead of time.  It is ok to state that is an area of interest and drew you to this job (if that is true).  State that you have experience in learning new things.

If it is a specific product or buzzword, state that you don't know that product name; ask what type of thing it is, and then answer with your experience in that type of thing.

There are also "unanswerable" interview questions just to see how the interviewee responds.

I know recruiters who aim for people to be an 80-90% match, not 100% as they already know everything and will not be challenged and thus leave fairly soon.

The most important things are to stay calm, rational, and willing to research and learn whatever it is.


Research Summary Article Published. Can I Submit the Full Research Paper Elsewhere? Last year, I submitted an original research paper (approx 3000 words) to a public health journal (USA). The editors advised me that they were unable to assign it sufficient priority to allow publication as a full research paper, however, they invited me to resubmit it as a research summary article (approx 700 words) which was published 6 months ago. My question is as follows: Would it be feasible for me to resubmit the full research paper somewhere else?

Almost certainly, but you need to take a couple of precautions.
It is likely that you gave up copyright to the summary article so you need to assure that you don't infringe that copyright. The easy way for that is to let the editor of the original know that you intend to submit and get assurance that they don't object. Perhaps they will issue you a specific license. If you didn't give up copyright then this is not an issue. It is also possible that you already have a sufficient license from the publisher even if you did sign over most of the rights.
But the other issue is that your full article needs to avoid any hint of self plagiarism. I think in this case the easy way is to put in a notice, even a footnote that a summary was previously published of the same material, along with a citation. Then it is clear to a reader what is going on and that (some of) the ideas had been previously published. This note also informs the new publisher of the older work, which is necessary in any case.
The main reason for avoiding self plagiarism in this case is just to provide complete context for a reader. This is especially necessary if there are some things in the summary that aren't in the full paper. But, over citation is a safe way to assure that there is no misunderstanding of intent.


Acquiring a bound copy of someone else's thesis I am in Canada and wanted to get a bound copy of someone's doctoral thesis in Sweden. The thesis is fully available online in PDF form for free from the library/publisher, but since there is a copyright on it printing services won't print and bind it for me without proof of printing permissions. The library does not seem to offer a service and does not seem to understand what it is I want since they keep directing me to the online PDF, while the author doesn't seem to be responding (probably ended up in his junk mail).

Does anyone know how one would go about this?

Print the paper yourself, three-hole-punch (or buy pre-punched paper), and use a three-ring binder. For 200 pages, it might be easier to do this at an office/print shop (search "print shop" or "printing" on Google Maps or something to find one near you). Sometimes these shops will do this sort of thing for you, and often they have self-service machines which can get you around wariness that employees may be trained in as far as printing work they are not confident they are allowed to print. As a comment mentioned, these shops can also sometimes do coil binding, which would hold together better on a shelf. Nicer binders would do okay on a shelf, though they would be best held page-side-down in a file drawer or horizontal rather than vertical.

It's not normal to bind someone else's work in a proper book, and theses are not typically printed as books for resale. Printing a PDF of a copyrighted work that you have digital access to for personal use is typically completely legal, and practically never going to be an issue even in some odd context where it isn't.

@cbeleitessupportsMonica also suggests a "springback binder" which I have never used personally but it looks like they might be ideal for this purpose.


How to know if my research problem is interesting or not? I have completed my masters in mathematics. I want to pursue PhD in mathematics. I want to frame a research question and write papers in my field.

But some  questions are bothering me:

How does one know that a research problem is interesting and after solving it, one will be able to publish in a good journal?
I know the famous journals in my field. But after reading them, how will I decide myself which problem will be beneficial to solve?
Also I have seen there are lots of unsolved problems given at the end of a paper in a journal.
If I don't understand or find any interesting problem should I try to solve the problems given at the end of a paper?
Does it mean the problems stated at the end of a paper are interesting that's why they are stated as problems?

These questions are best answered by a more experienced person than yourself, in particular your advisor. It is why you have an advisor in the first place. But let me be a bit more specific to your (many) questions.

First, you don't know what you will learn when starting research. That is why it is research and not just writing stuff down. A problem may turn out to be difficult or easy. It may turn out to have an interesting solution or just a run-of-the-mill grind-out-the-result solution. But you don't know until you do it. I think that is true in any field, but is so in mathematics, certainly.

For the second bullet, all problems are valuable to solve. Even if the solution is just to conclude the answer is trivial. You learn from solving them, and that is one of the main benefits of doing math in the first place.

Usually, if a problem is listed as unsolved in a recent paper it is probably worth pursuing. But such questions generate interest, so look, also, for more recent results. That doesn't mean that it isn't also valuable to solve the problems yourself, as suggested in the previous paragraph.

If a paper has been published in a reputable journal, it has been reviewed by other mathematicians. Presumably they agree that the problems stated at the end have at least some interest. But, solving them also increases your skill.

In general all mathematical questions, unless trivial, are interesting to at least some mathematicians. It can be a very small number, of course as some of the silos in math research are very narrow and deep. But if they are interesting to you, especially as a student, they are interesting by definition.

But get a doctoral advisor and explore some of these things with him or her.


If one wants to generate several papers from a single research project, what is a reasonable way to do so? As a follow-up to "Whether to publish one big paper or many smaller papers for a given research project?":

Suppose one wants to generate a number of publications from a single research idea or project, because other things being equal, more publications is better. What is a reasonable way to do so; one that does not dilute or compromise the quality of ones papers?

There is one trend that I see around me, which is in some cases to split a piece of work in two pieces: a high-impact letter, and follow-up full paper with all the details.

There are many reasons why this might be a good idea. Increase in number of publication is one of them, but there are others:

If you work in a rapidly developing and highly competitive field (i.e. you risk being scooped if you wait 3 more months to publish your idea), this allows you a fast publication of the idea and first results (proof of concept, if you will). Also, letters tend to be reviewed more rapidly, which also decreases publication time. Then, you will publish all the details, influence of method parameters, etc.
If your work would be interesting to a wider community, it allows you to deliver two different messages (or at least, the same message at two different levels) to two communities. This increases the overall impact of your research.


How to handle citing duplicate publications? I am writing a review article and have come across a number of references which were published verbatim in their entirety in more than one place (same author(s) and the same content; Duplicate Publications). All of the publications in question are before 1970 and may be divided into two classes: those that have an instance with a statement that the content has been published or presented elsewhere (which references the duplicate) and those lacking such a statement.

For those with a statement, I am inclined to cite the earliest instance and omit the later. However, the approach is unclear for those where precedence is not apparent.

I am looking for any recommendations (best practices, examples) on how citing duplicate publications should be handled in general. I have not come across an example in my literature review and have been unable to find any guidance (most search results are related to preventing duplicate publications rather than coping with their aftermath decades later).

Options I see at the moment (some of which are more palatable than others):

Don't explicitly acknowledge the duplication, but cite both variants in the text and bibliography (i.e., a parenthetical or textual citation with both instances each and every time I want to reference its/their content).
Pick one (randomly if precedence cannot be determined) and ignore the other.
Pick one (randomly if precedence cannot be determined) and include a footnote at the first use indicating that another instance exists (the alternative instance would be cited there with the full citation included in the cited references section).
Pick one (randomly if precedence cannot be determined) and modify the full citation in the cited references section to indicate that another instance exists and provide the full citation of the alternative.

Some additional, possibly relevant information:

Subsequent publications are inconsistent in which instance is cited (i.e., both are cited and precedence is often ignored).
The field is environmental biotechnology.

Edit: To clarify in response to BioGeo's answer, I cannot determine absolute precedence for instances lacking a statement because the submission dates are not included (apparently the practice was not yet common, at least in this field). Unless there is a "standard approach" of which I am unaware, the published date cannot be relied on as a general solution either, given the differing precision in reported dates. For example, consider a duplicate publication where one instance is a book chapter published in 1943 and another instance is an article in the June issue of a journal published the same year. Which came first?

The purpose of references is for readers to look up the sources of the information you present in your article. If these publications are exactly the same, word for word, then I would not worry too much about it and I would cite the most easily accessible source or the one with a DOI and only cite it once, so that it will be easier for readers to find the source without having to access some articles that are published in less accessible journals.


Is it worthless to cite a paper as X et al. when X is not first author but performed the work? This question is perhaps a particular case of this one. I still feel it deserves to live standalone.

I am sure that a published paper with 4 authors--A, B, C, and X--was almost entirely produced by X. X designed the study, gathered the data, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. A helped X a little bit (sort of supervised X). B and C are listed there because of typical dishonest authorship mafia. At that time, X was a student. X could do very little to oppose adding  those authors in her/his very first paper.

Now, I am writing a paper that references this one. While A et al. paper is correctly displayed in the References, I was thinking to purposely cite the paper as X et al. (year) in the text.

That would be a subtle way to entail that I know what was going on there. I would cite the paper in the way that was supposed to be. Maybe B and C will also get it. That's a sort of nerdish academic subversive behavior, I guess.

Would that be meaningless? In particular, would that damage X citation counts? I do not think so, because the paper is correctly listed in the References. However, I am not sure because of this question.

References have one major purpose: to be able to trace the information provided in that source. This is why the first (named) author is always given in "et al." references. The problem you encounter is that references are also used to cast merit in the academic system but that is actually a secondary task. So if you decide to use another authors name, you make it more difficult for others to locate the paper n question. So I would strongly advise against the action your propose since it violates the purpose of the referencing system. So even though one can trace papers with for example, doi-numbers breaking the systematic representation of cited sources is not good.

There are other ways to state the source of the work in the text by stating that "the work by X (A et al. yyyy)..." or something similar. But, I would not recommend doing this for just reasons that are beyond anyone's means to control and the risk is that you will not be perceived positively or at least a bit odd. I am sure that the circumstances, if based on unethical behaviour or the like, will become common knowledge in the field.


I unknowingly submitted plagiarised work I have received an email saying that my essay is under consideration for the ethics committee for suspected plagiarism. My lecturer had told us that we could work on our essays together as we were all using the same data. My friend handed in her essay in semester 1 and I handed in mine in semester 2. We used her essay as a guideline because she received such a good grade in hers. I have a meeting with the ethics committee and I want to be prepared. What should I say and what should I avoid saying?

When the instructor said you could work "together", they meant together with a student that hadn't previously completed the assignment. They expect both students (when working together) to contribute equally towards writing an essay from scratch.

Basing your essay on another student's essay (that you did not work together on) is plagiarism.

The best you can say for yourself is that you didn't realize that what you did constituted plagiarism. The ethics committee might be lenient, however, they might also consider that you should have known what the rules were. To be frank, anybody should understand that you can't work based off material previously prepared by somebody else and pretend it's your own work -- that is the very definition of plagiarism.


How to make tutorials more interesting As a student, and as a tutor, I have found that tutorials for liberal arts subjects (in university) can be a bore. As a student, in large courses you mightn't know anyone in your class, you mightn't want to answer questions in order to avoid looking like a know-all, or you mightn't answer questions because you haven't done the reading; and all-in-all it's a painful process of the tutor attempting to inveigle responses from a very quiet audience.

This also doesn't make tutorials very useful, and seeing that time is being put aside to this end (by both students and staff) it often feels a real waste.

For anyone unfamiliar with such tutorials, they tend to be for 1 hour each fortnight; designed to discuss subjects that have been lectured on with a view to informing students in relation to a continual assessment deliverable (e.g. an essay).

I'm now in the position where I can dictate tutorial structure of a subject (though I'm not actually a tutor). While I don't want to make any massive revolutionary changes in relation to tutorials, I'm curious what changes to the subject as a whole could produce an environment more conducive to interesting and productive tutorials. What alterations could help tutors and students make the most of these sessions?

I think that it is a mistake and a waste to approach a tutorial like a lecture.

In my own experience both in leading tutorials (in a more STEM environment, but still one with some open-ended discussions) and in being a student in them (both STEM and liberal arts), the instructor needs to actively cultivate an culture of participation by the class.  Once such a culture is established, you can much better use the uniquely interactive format of a tutorial to really follow the students interests and needs in exploring the material.

Some tactics that can help in doing this:

Begin each tutorial by asking the students to set an agenda of things they would like to discuss.  Bring a few of your own that you can use to seed the list.
Along the same lines: be confident enough in your knowledge and the material to let the students see your process as you work through your thoughts on their harder questions. They will generally get more out of understanding how to engage with the material than out of the specific answer to a specific question.
Giving enough quiet space for students to feel comfortable to speak takes longer than you may think. You will often need to silence stretch long enough to be uncomfortable.
Avoid conversation being dominated by a couple of active students by occasionally saying things like, "I'd like to hear from somebody who hasn't spoken much today." This asks the active students to step back while avoiding the down-sides of calling on individuals to speak.
Set clear expectations about culture at the beginning of the class, and explicitly revisit your commitment to them from to time as necessary.


Can I get an admission for a mathematics masters program with only an acceptable GRE subject score and an unrelated bachelors degree? I have a degree in Civil Engineering and I want to continue my studies in the field of mathematics. I think the only option that I have to enhance my application is to take the GRE mathematics subject test. If I can get a good score, will I have a chance to get an admission in a top university?
Thanks.

I'm going to guess that it will be difficult, depending on what you mean by a "top university". Your CE background has some math, it is true, but you are probably missing quite a few of the courses that math graduates will have had.

The math subject test itself is very difficult and tries to cover many topics. Even a math graduate will have had no courses at all that cover many of those topics and even they won't be able to answer them. I did quite well on the test (with a very strong math major) but still felt terrible on finishing the exam.

The only way to be certain, of course, is to make application to a few places. But I think you might need more math background than would be typical in any engineering degree. An applied math program might be within reach, though.

There is a lot of competition and most of it coming from people with a full math curriculum behind them.

I'd suggest, however, that you find a way to talk to (or even visit) a potential institution and discuss it with an admissions person. They might have specific advice about what you need and how you could get it. A pretty steep climb overall, I'd think, unless your background is unusual.


Typographical emphasis on text is ambiguous I am writing a paper and part of my thesis, and I need some advice to improve the readability of my manuscript(s).

Working in computer science and machine learning, there is a lot of technical stuff going on: I have to write definitions and set the terminology of my work. So, for instance, I have to explain the reader that a training set is a set of example on which my system learns to model some phenomenon.

Now, please, focus on the previous paragraph. As you can see, I used the italics to stress the new piece of terminology, namely the expression “training set”, and to emphasize some other words, namely the word “learn”.

So, having the same style for these two things, with a different semantics, sounds a little confusing to me (and to my supervisors). And there is a lot of this stuff in my paper/thesis.

How can I improve readability in this respect?

--
EDIT. The focus of my question is not if the word "learn" should be emphasized with respect to what it means or not. It is just an example. Idem for the "training set" with respect to the expected background knowledge of the reader. In abstract terms, my question can be generalized to: how to emphasize both the terminology that I am introducing and words that need proper emphasis? A more fitting example could be the following:

We call training set the set of examples on which a Neural Network learns to model some phenomenon. (omissis) At each timestep, our network has to decide if the symbol will be chosen from the first or the second list. In both cases, it has to decide also which symbol will be chosen.

Perhaps you don't need to italicise the word learn: you could just say "a training set is used to train the system to model the particular phenomenon".

This means that the italics are reserved for the words or phrases that you are setting the precise meaning of.


What to do if I am on a hiring committee and I am aware that a candidate has exhibited unethical behavior in his previous position? After a series of unethical incidents that affected me directly in my previous academic institution, I managed to move to a higher ranked department in my field about seven years ago. I am now in the hiring committee in my current institution and one of the candidates who is being considered is from my former institution.

There are two unethical practices that the candidate performed that I am aware of. One is that he managed to squeeze in as a third author on a finished paper and he thus made no contribution. I did most of the work for the paper and the paper was finished when my co-author added this person's name and submitted it. The second incident is that the candidate has announced in the past how he has changed his research results before submission to please the editor of a top journal in my field. He did this in the early years of his career. There are others in my former institution who know about it but they find this to be no big deal.

I am considering doing one of the following:

Discuss this with my current dept.
Keep quiet and stay in the committee.
Keep quiet but step down from the committee

For your information, I am a foreigner whose work is appreciated by everyone. However, I feel that I will not get much support if I open up. I had tried this in my previous institution and I realized that only a couple of people supported me. What should I do?

If you're on the hiring committee, then your job is to evaluate the candidates.  I see no need to back away from that (and by the way, I can't see what your being a "foreigner" could possibly have to do with any of this).

One has to exercise some restraint in repeating "hearsay" in official matters: unless you can find evidence about the changed research, I would hesitate to bring it up because it's hard for everyone else to independently evaluate.  On the other hand, if you are a coauthor of a paper with the candidate in question, then your colleagues should be very interested to hear your take on that.  I think you should certainly describe the candidate's contributions -- or lack thereof -- honestly to your colleagues.  I might avoid putting the banner of "unethical behavior" on it: the ethics of it are really for your colleagues to evaluate as well, right?  In general I think that in these kinds of matters it is more collegial and also more convincing to provide information which is factual rather than subjective or purely evaluative.

There is also the issue of why you, as the first author of a paper, allowed a coauthor whom you feel did absolutely nothing.  Isn't that at least arguably unethical behavior on your part?  I think it's better not to open that can of worms, but rather say that in fact the candidate's contribution to the joint work was minimal and that you do not feel like he should get much credit for it.


Conference paper published in journal I want to know that's it is written on some conference website that paper will be published at Scopus indexed journal. What that means. Is that paper is considered a conference paper or journal paper after publishing.?
Thanks

I'll give a specific example of a fairly high-ranking robotics journal (no affiliation). Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) is a recently-started journal of the Robotics and Automation Society, which is coupled with flagship robotics conferences (IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), the IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), and the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)).
Since it has only started in 2016, the impact factor (JCR Impact Factor of 3.6 for 2019) is so-so amongst established journals, but in my opinion really high for a relatively young journal.
Publication in RA-L when coupled with the above three conferences (IROS, ICRA, CASE) works like this:

When submitting to a conference, you have an option to submit the paper for RA-L special issue in addition
RA-L special issue deadline tends to be 2-3 weeks prior the conference submission deadline
Technically, the journal submission could be rejected while the paper is still accepted for conference presentation and publication in conference proceedings (but I haven't heard of that actually happening)
If accepted to RA-L, the paper will still be presented in conference sessions, but will be indexed as part of RA-L special issue associated to that conference.


How to mention your work in a peer-review? I am a coauthor of a critical paper published in Nature. We showed that a common calculation is not reliable without considering new factors. Obviously, this applied to the majority of research on this specific topic. The paper attracted sudden attention in the literature but no wonder that some authors have not yet heard about it.

I receive numerous peer-review request and in many cases the authors are not aware of the new considerations. They appreciated this suggestion during revision.

I have no intention to promote our paper but my concern is that the editor may consider this as a flaw in my peer-review service by mentioning my own paper again and again. I tried to explain it in the confidential report to the editor but felt it is not appropriate too.

If your paper is a relevant factor, then by all means mention it in peer review. I understand your concern about appropriateness, but in the situation you describe it seems unambiguous to me that you should recommend your own paper.

If you are worried about it, there is typically a "confidential comments to editor" section where you could note that you're recommending your own paper but it's for a good reason. I wouldn't bother doing so unless, say, you've made four reviews in a row for the same journal and every one of them has the same recommendation.


Do we mention the work that we did ourselves while giving a research proposal? A university has asked for a research proposal of around 200-250 words in length.

I have done some work on it myself and hence I want to propose that same project for research. Should I mention about the work that I did or should I just present an abstract?

Including preliminary results that indicates the strength of the proposed research is never wrong. If your work has just started and your results are just inconclusive then you may consider not including them, simply because they do not contribute much to indicate the potential success of the proposed project. Mentioning that you have started work could still be useful to mention since it indicates you have thought through the process very carefully but then you should probably also consider adding something that makes it clear you cannot complete the research without additional resources. Otherwise, someone might get the idea you do not need any support and that you will complete the work anyway.


Why is my Google Scholar profile not in English language when I search my name in Google? I read all comments for fixing my problems regarding my Google Scholar profile. When I search my name in Google, my Google Scholar profile appears in the Indonesian Language. I fixed the cookies, I changed the language to English from this link (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_settings?hl=en#1 ), I manually changed the URL, but as soon as I leave my Google Scholar profile and search for it on Google, the same problem still exists. It seems I never changed the language in my profile. I checked my account languages to make sure that there is no Indonesian language there.

There is no language associated with a profile. Anyone who searches for your profile from Google Scholar when logged in will see it in the language they have specified in their own settings. This only changes the language of the UI, and does not affect the content (publications, etc.) in your profile.
In addition to this, Google's search results are personalized. For some reason, Google's search algorithm seems to have decided that the Indonesian version of your profile is the most relevant to your account and location. This need not be the same version that appears in the search results when someone else, using a different account at a different location, searches for it, and there is no way for you to influence this.
So, there is no problem here that needs to be fixed, and changing how the search results appear to you, even if possible, would not have any effect on how it appears to others.


Letter of recommendation from a professor who barely knows me I  am having a situation. I am applying to America at the end of the year. Now I have 3 LoR from my department, 1 of which is not so strong (the professor barely knows me).

Anyway, this is why I want another LoR. Days ago I contacted a professor from one of the universities I am going to apply, sending him my thesis and asking to work under him in some project he may assign. He turned me down, but wanted me to contact him when I apply (could be a good sign).

Obviously he did, since he barely knows me and I am even not sure to accept the admission from his university (if I luckily get accepted). The fact that he turned me down makes me think. Should I contact more professors? I mean if he accepts me, gives me some project and ultimately I do not go to his university, would it make him angry? And is the chance of I having a LoR from a famous professor in this way high?

This leads me to another option. I can go to my current university and strengthen my research with a professor there to get a stronger LoR. One drawback is that he is not as good as professors I may contact via email and he works in a different area, so basically I have to learn from scratch (my area and his are both algebra, though).

The most important question I want to ask in this post is that: what should I choose between two options?

I hope you guys can read all and answer to all the questions here, I would really appreciate it

Days ago I contacted a professor from one of the universities I am going to apply, sending him my thesis and asking to work under him in some project he may assign. He turned me down, [...]

I'm not surprised.  It's rare for a professor to assign or supervise a project for a student who's not already enrolled at the professor's university.  They already have plenty of other work to do, and working with outside students isn't part of their expected duties, so there's no real incentive for them to take on such a task.

  Should I contact more professors?

It's unlikely to be successful, for the reasons I just mentioned.  So I don't think this is a good approach.

  I mean if he accepts me, gives me some project and ultimately I do not go to his university, would it make him angry?

This isn't the issue.  First, it's unlikely that any professor would accept an outside student for a project in the first place.  But if they did, they realize that students have many factors affecting their choice of graduate institution, and are not likely to be angry if they go somewhere else.

  And is the chance of I having a LoR from a famous professor in this way high?

No, it is not.  This is not an effective way to get a letter of recommendation.

  This leads me to another option. I can go to my current university and strengthen my research with a professor there to get a stronger LoR. One drawback is that he is not as good as professors I may contact via email and he works in a different area, so basically I have to learn from scratch (my area and his are both algebra, though).

This is a much better approach.


Reporting data dredging in a study During a statistical analysis of a study, I found an interesting relationship between two variables that was not part of the original hypothesis. It is, however, clinically interesting and I want to report it in the study.

I've never seen a medical study in which authors admitted to data dredging although I do know it's prevalent. I'm confident enough in my study and methods that I'm willing to admit to it.

What would be the best way to do so in a manuscript? Would I include all the information of the dredged variable such as p-values and confidence intervals, but put a note that this hypothesis is based on the data?

Yes. I would have a separate section of your paper entitled something like "Further exploratory analysis", report what you did and what you found, and note that until a study has been design to specifically test your hypothesis, it remains a hypothesis, but suggest that it might be an attractive target for further study.


Is it ethical to keep authorized readings after course is over? I was the TA for a course a few years ago.
As part of the course, I was able to obtain a set of business case studies.
At the bottom of each page, it is written something to the effect of:

  This document is authorized for use by [my name], from [start date] to [end date], in the course [name of course] at [name of school]. Any unauthorized use or reproduction of this document is strictly prohibited.

Is it ethical for me to keep these readings after the course is over,
and to read them some time in the future?

Conclusion

I appreciate the opinions of all who answered and commented.

I had asked this question because the licensing agreement
sounds too bad to be true.
The students had to pay more than $100 for all the readings for this course.
If the students were to purchase a textbook,
at least they are allowed to keep it and read it in the future.
I suspect that the publishers wishes they had the technology available
to make the case studies like the
"Mission Impossible" style self-destruct messages
which would explode once it is past the license end date.
This seems acceptable to me for software,
but strange for something like readings.

At the end of the day, I have to make my own decision
about what is the right thing to do in this instance.

Technically, it may not be ethical to keep a case or data set past its license period. Most dataset licenses also specifically state that the holder should not hold material of both physical or digital form (or even preprocessed form) of the licensed matter past its license term. It also stated that the backup of all forms should be deleted.

Having stated above, it is still a widely practised taboo to use cases and datasets past their license periods. You may attain knowledge from it but will only get into trouble if you were to publish any material that relates to the dataset/case that you currently possess beyond its license. This also depends on how strictly the license owner enforces the license.


Does considering someone's work regarding a piece of literature constitute plagiarism if you knowingly derive/spark ideas from it and don't cite it? Is reviewing with/considering someone's summary/analysis of the events of a piece of literature plagiarism if you write a piece that has ideas which may have sparked from considering that piece?

Put less abstractly, for example, if some scholar (call him: John) were to be writing a piece on Catcher in the Rye, and made a web-search for "sad moments" in the book Catcher in the Rye and came across what some author expressed as sad moments (call it: Sad CITR Moments) in the same book would it be(?) plagiarism if:

A. John reads Sad CITR Moments and it reminds them of something he too recalls being sad, and then goes on to write about it without citing the paper.
B. Same as A, but John forgot one detail which makes it more/less sad, hence he goes on to write more/less strongly about its emotionality.
C. John didn't consider something before, but the argument put forth in Sad CITR Moments on the matter convinces/de-convinces him and he then goes on to write about it in the affirmative/negative position.

I'm sure one could think up more cases (and do share if you do) but I'd hope the basic idea to be clear at this point.

Why not cite things clearly if you know where your own idea 'derives/sparks from'? Laziness? Shyness?

Citing somebody else's work won't diminish the quality or significance of your own contribution, on the contrary.

And readers will be able to understand your foundations and line of thought better as a result.

And ultimately it saves you a lot of headaches, as you don't have to worry if you should - have - cite(d) other people's work that stimulated your thought.


Citing own work within a paper and being anonymous I am reading a paper in which the author cites his paper in a very explicit form. The reformulation of one of his sentence in the paper was in this form:

  I have already made this point in a few papers, within a general
  framework in (Some Name) (1996) and in a related
  framework in (Some Name) (1999).

This paper is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. With this sentence, the author gives an explicit information about his identity and becomes non-anonymous to referees. By the way, he is a well-known guy in his literature.

Is it an acceptable situation ?

ps. I edited the question in order to avoid a confusion. I am just reading the paper and I wanted to know, by curiosity, how a such situation is considered in academia.

If this is in the context of double-blind reviewing, the correct response to this situation is to alert the handling editor or PC chair to this situation. Different venues are differently strict about double blind reviews, so the response to the situation may vary between "well, we don't care if the authors wants to reveal himself" to a reject and resubmit (without the incriminating statement and a new set of reviewers). However, which of those it is is not your decision as a reviewer.

If this is not in the context of double-blind reviewing, you are aware of the identity of the authors anyway, and this statement gives you no additional information.

If you are just reading the paper (and not reviewing), as implied by the wording of your question, then I don't understand the issue. Published papers generally have publicly visible authors, and it is not clear that the incriminating wording was already visible during review. For instance, in many software engineering venues that nowadays use double-blind reviewing, it is customary to "blank" self-citations and to slightly change the phrasing for the review version to make sure that identities are not, or at least not obviously, revealed. This can then be changed back for the camera-ready version.


Co-Author from Industry collabrator I have one question: if i did some contribution to experiment setup design /software /process model development but it I did substantial contribution to other criteria  (Drafting -Logistics- Industry support financiallyand technically , reviewing and modifying paper....)  which raise the paper to be accepted by the journal and also follow up and provide advice as from industry to direct the research , do i still not be qualified as a co-author at least the last one? then what my credit in this work, just an acknowledgment ?

You have made a scientific contribution, which (generally) merits co-authorship (unless it was a particularly small contribution).


Is there a website that will tell you what class number on one campus is equivalent to what other class number but on a different campus? The Problem: I'm trying to finish up my teaching credential this semester, but one of the last classes I need isn't offered by my campus.  But they say if I can find an online version of the class offered by another CSU (California State University) campus, that I can take that.

But all the CSU Campuses have their own internal course numbers, so to find out which class is equivalent to the one I need, I've been checking the catalogs, looking at the requirements, finding the course that looks close and checking the course description for a similar one to the original.

But this takes an amazing amount of time.  Maybe this is wishful thinking, but it seems like there has to be a website with a table or lookup of equivalent courses on other campuses.

Something like Physics 4A at campus A is equivalent to Physical Science 200 at Campus B.

Does this exist?  If so where might I look?

In case someone has some very specific information I'm looking for the equivalent of CI 161 from Fresno State being offered online on a different CSU Campus.

Additional

My advisor was able to find a teaching science middle school class, class that will be equivalent enough for the teaching high school science class.  I still think a website that gave equivalent classes would be so very useful to students.  I wonder if it's out there somewhere already.

My department has a transfer credit evaluation committee whose job is to decide which of our requirements are satisfied by classes taken elsewhere (usually other universities, not just other campuses).  On that basis, I guess that your department has a similar committee. If you had not bothered to check  for equivalent courses but had just taken one and thought it would be equivalent (not a recommended course of action) and had then come back to your home campus and announced "I've fulfilled all the requirements; give me my diploma," then there would be some person or committee whose job is to say "Whoa; who says that this course satisfies our requirement? That's for us to decide, not you." I suggest that you ask enough questions (of your department chair, or dean, or secretaries) to find that person or committee and then ask them what courses would satisfy the requirement. In other words, get an authoritative answer from someone who has the real authority to approve (or disapprove) using a course from elsewhre to fulfill your requirement.


Unemployed after 1st postdoc, what should my affiliation be when introduced during campus visit & job talk? I finished my postdoc last year end of Aug. and have been unemployed ever since (not completely, I've been doing freelance work to support myself, but not research-related). The rest of time I've spent (1) applying to academic positions (mostly R1, some R2), (2) finishing writing manuscripts leftover from my postdoc (although I haven't submitted yet, except 1 which I'm only co-authored that's already published) (3) reviewing journal papers (apparently I'm still being asked), and (4) studying to get a professional certification (which IS related to my research, although  getting the certification itself is not ever required for people doing research in my field, but the process of getting the certification contributes to my research).

So I have been getting several interviews from R1 institutions and been invited for campus visit and job talk. When I applied, it's clear on my CV that I stopped having academic affiliations since the end of my postdoc (I didn't try to hide it or fudge it). And at no point did anyone asked me what I'm doing since my postdoc ended during the initial interviews.

But now that I have to go on campus visits and give job talks, and they are asking me to give them brief bio so they can introduce me before the presentation and advertise my talk in the department. What should I tell them? Or rather, how should I phrase my current situation, so it won't sound pathetic and put me in a dejected mindset (which for sure will wreck my presentation and self-confidence). What affiliation should go on their posters and on my slides?

I'd like to think I'm not being asked/interviewed for "fake searches". In fact, in most cases, I actually applied after the stated "deadlines" (they are those "open until filled" positions). so I'd like to think no fake searches would last months (and almost the entire academic year). So I don't think they would invite me just to ridicule me or make me the obvious inferior candidate (although I guess this is possible). In any case, I'd just like some advice on how I should handle this. BTW, the end of this year would be 4th year since I got my PhD. And I didn't take anytime off (or ever been unemployed or have a gap on my CV).

How about "I've done my PhD at [PhD university] with [PhD supervisor], working on [PhD subject]. For my postdoc, I went to [postdoc university] to work with [postdoc supervisor] on [postdoc subject]." If you want, you could also say "I did my postdoc at ...," from which a good reader can infer that your postdoc has ended.

I don't think you need to stress your temporary freelance status any more than that. It's clear enough in your CV and you got an invitation for a campus visit + job talk, so apparently the interviewers do not think it's a big deal. Of course, you should have a good explanation for that gap during on-site interviews.

Finally, try not to worry too much whether you're being invited for fake interviews/to be ridiculed/as a filler candidate. I think mostly you are a bit uncomfortable about your current situation and that's putting some doubt in your mind that (I'm guessing) does not have a basis in reality. Simply concentrate on giving a good talk and having fun chats about the research you'd love to do.