When should you move on from a postdoc position? Suppose that in your sub-field there are half a dozen research groups on your continent that are acknowledged to be "world class". You have had the good fortune to do your MSc research in one, and your PhD in another. You are now a postdoc in a third. Your current group is large and well-funded, and your position there is secure for the foreseeable future. You realistically hope to get a faculty position in a good research university within the next 3-5 years.

One day, you are offered a postdoc position in a second-tier research group. Should you consider taking it, in order to broaden your academic horizons? Does the answer change depending on how long you've spent in your current postdoc? Are there other relevant considerations? Assume that you cannot expect to get a better offer within the next year.

Bonus discussion points:
What if you're instead offered

a faculty position at the second-tier institution?
a postdoc position at one of the first-tier institutions you've already had an association with?
a postdoc position at a first-tier institution that you haven't already had an association with?

I have some views on these questions that I'm happy to share, but I'd like to see what other people think first.

"Discussion" isn't really how SE is supposed to work. However, I think the answer to your questions are relatively clear-cut (at least to me):

  you are offered a postdoc position in a second-tier research group. Should you consider taking it, in order to broaden your academic horizons?

Why? You have a broad horizon, you have seen three top institutions before even becoming a faculty member. Go if the new position offers you something you are currently missing (such as a nicer place to live), but I would certainly not move just for the sake of it.

  [you are offered a ] a faculty position at the second-tier institution?

If I like the place, I'll take this offer without a second thought. Expecting to become faculty directly at one of the five top institutions seems too much to ask for.

  a postdoc position at one of the first-tier institutions you've already had an association with?

Did you like it there better than in your current job? If yes, take the offer. If no, stay.

  a postdoc position at a first-tier institution that you haven't already had an association with?

More or less same answer as for the first bullet. You have seen a lot of places already, you do not need to change jobs just for the sake of it. If there is something you think the new institution will do better, then go for it. If not, stay. There is no life achievement for visiting each top institution in your field.


Recommendation letter from a research supervisor who was not satisfied with my work Is it beneficial/harmful to get a letter from a research supervisor who was not satisfied with my work? (I wasn't interested in that topic, but I kept working in the lab for the money).

Or forget about that and instead focus on people who were satisfied with my research experience only?

Talk with your advisor about this. Depending on your relationship with your advisor, you may still be able to get a decent letter. Use the following formula:

  Decent letter > No letter > Bad letter

If your advisor cannot write you a decent letter you will have to find someone else who is. Do note that not having a letter from your advisor will be a huge red flag; you will have to come to any interview with a ready explanation as to why your advisor did not feel comfortable recommending you.


Can I do an MS in CS in USA after a 5-year integrated MSc degree in CS? I'm currently pursuing a 5 year integrated MSc. course in Theoretical CS in India. In my search online, a little under half of the 'top' universities in the US explicitly state that they won't take students who already have a Masters degree in CS or related fields into their Master's program. But my degree is structured in such a way that we have only 4 years of course work and two 6-month internships/research interns. ( like a Bachelors degree + 1 yr of work experience )

Will my degree make me inelligible for those programs even though my course is just a glorified undergraduate degree?
If I apply to the universities which don't have that rule (explicitly stated on their website) will I stand a chance for admission or is it also highly unlikely?

The rules are theirs, not mine, but I would interpret what you say as indicating you would be ineligible. Your current university doesn't consider your degree to be a "glorified undergraduate degree", of course, nor will a university that you apply to.
There is some resistance generally for accepting people who already hold an "equivalent" degree even if there are no firm rules. This is to allow others the opportunity to advance when there are limited slots available. The question that would be asked, even if only in the minds of some, is "Why do they want to do this?" and you would need a compelling reason to overcome that sense.
One possibility for a compelling reason is that the MSc part of your degree seems to be practical, not theoretical. Applying to a highly theoretical MS in the US might seem like something new to readers of your application. Maybe enough to overcome any reluctance.

And, for the record, you are almost certainly qualified to apply to a doctoral program in the US. This would probably come with a paid position as a TA (or similar). Likely also no costs for tuition if you are a TA.


Should I use ‘adapted from’ in an illustration of conclusions based on the results of others Suppose, you cite some particular ideas, analyze them, and come up with a few conclusions, which you illustrate in a figure that is totally yours.  The labels or conclusions represented in the illustration are neither other people’s work nor my own primary empirical findings. They are somewhere between: my own conclusions, yet based on the data of others. In the caption of the figure, should you write adapted from to show that the figure was ‘sourced’ from other studies (i.e., the conclusions and analysis were built on other resources)?

For example, assume that Study X claims:

  Helping people leads to profitability.

Based on that, I conclude that companies should adopt the notion of social responsibility. Among other conclusions, I represent social responsibility in a schematic. Should I write adapted from Study X to say that the conclusion of social responsibility was built on the material from Study X?

Disclaimer: As the answer to your question could be field-specific, my answer is from an (electrical) engineering point-of-view.

I think the general consensus in my field is that "adapted from" in a figure caption is to be taken very literally: it is to indicate to the reader that a figure from a previous publication has been adapted for use in the new figure1.

Since you are not adapting a previously published figure for use in your manuscript, it seems, then, that the situation you describe does not warrant the "adapted from" disclaimer in the figure caption.

Instead, you should use the main body text to stitch the various references together [with appropriate citations] to support your position, call out the figure in question in the text, and [depending on how much additional detail your figure caption needs relative to the development of the idea(s) in the main body text] an appropriate figure caption.

1An example of using "adapted from" in a figure caption in my field might be the following:

Your competitor's paper A incorporates top-level circuit schematic B in figure C. Your follow-on paper D utilizes circuit B, but you redraw the schematic to highlight the points more relevant to your paper D in new figure E. In this case, the caption of figure E would indicate that the figure was adapted from paper A.


Should I do my Ph.D. with a supervisor who rarely responds to my emails? I have recently been offered a place on a Ph.D. program at a certain university abroad. However, before, during, and after my application, my potential supervisor has generally been unresponsive to my emails. For example, when he expressed his interest in supervising me, it took him about four months to give me the go-signal to submit my application to the program. His excuse for his late reply was that he had been on leave for personal reasons. After I submitted my application, I sent him several emails about the Ph.D. program and my research proposal, but he has yet to respond to any. When I received an offer of admission from the University, two months after I submitted my application, I informed him about this offer through email. I also sent him another email asking him if he wanted to meet with me online regarding my research proposal. Again, he has not responded to my new emails. I do not know what to do next, because we have not had any formal meetings yet.
My question is: Is it advisable to pursue my Ph.D. study at this university with him as my supervisor?

This depends on you and how you prefer to work and how able you are to carry on alone. Some people thrive on that. Others find it impossible.
Of course, the delays might just be explained by the fact that there has been on commitment yet on either side. They may respond differently once you get a formal relationship.
In some cases it is possible to correspond with other graduate students working under this professor to see if you could expect anything different from what you've seen so far. Do that if you can find a channel to do so. A former student might give you a more accurate assessment, actually.
But there are some warning signs. Don't ignore them unless you are capable of carrying on alone.


Can I contact a professor who works on my same work During my PhD I worked on a specific topic. My thesis is published at my university website. This has been done one year ago. Today, I found that one professor (not my supervisor and not from the same institute. I do not know them personally) give a presentation on a conference about the same idea as mine. Even their future work are the same a my other PhD chapter. They expressed their idea as a novel one. Do I need to contact them? If so, what should I tell them?
I do not know if they know about my thesis or not. Also, my work was built up on existing work. They even do not cite any existing works. I do not know why, but may be they do not know about these works. So I do not suggest any bad thing about them. Just would like to know what should do for this situation.
I respect the professor so much. So again no bad suggestion about her or any one of her group. She may at the beginning of the research and did not update her literature review yet.

You do not "need" to contact them. The fact that your work was on a university website does not mean that anyone has seen it.
Unless there are subtler clues that they just copied your work, you should treat that work as completely independent of yours.
If you email them, do not express any doubts about their honesty, etc. This would in-any-case terminally alienate them. Rather, say that you have similar interests, as visible in your thesis, which actually obtains some similar results.
Do NOT make any remarks about how your thesis was on-line for a year, and "should have been cited", etc. Things don't really work that way.
Again, most often it's not that people are cheating, but that they have similar ideas, due to similar contexts...


No-paper-year in one's career and getting faculty position I have heard that while recruiting in faculty member positions people look at the career of the applicants very critically and if someone has a year without a paper might face difficulties in getting permanent positions. I was wondering how important the issue really is in the context of securing permanent teaching/research positions.

Edit : I am asking this as a theoretical high energy physics postdoc.

With respect to getting an initial faculty position, I'm not sure that there really is a penalty associated with having "no papers" in a given year, especially with the vagaries of the publishing system. Is a person with one paper in two successive years a stronger candidate than a person with no papers one year, and then three or four the next? Or was it just that one paper took too long in review for one candidate but not the other?

I think one has to look at the overall record to make a fair determination. Besides, the relative significance of the articles will also play a role. One paper in a top journal in your field is probably worth more than two papers in a random low-impact journal.

Spend less time worrying about things that aren't in your control, and focus on what is: doing solid, publishable research and writing a strong application.


Applying to Canadian universities for PhD without a thesis based MS I am applying to some Canadian schools for PhD in Computer Science. I am currently enrolled in a master's in CS program in a school in USA. I work as a research assistant but I will not be presenting a final thesis before degree completion. I saw that most PhD in CS programs in Canada require a thesis based MS. I wanted to know if they make some exceptions to that rule. Will a research assistantship be ample proof of the ability to conduct research?

Here are the unis I am interested in:

Uni of Saskatchewan

Carleton Uni

Uni of Calgary

Thanks!

In my experience this really depends on what the supervisor is looking for in terms of what projects they have in mind. But I have seen people begin a PhD program with no masters degree or undergraduate thesis. It would be particularly beneficial if the research assistantship involved working on research that was a focus of a prospective supervisor. Experience as a research assistant could provide more relevant experience than a masters thesis, particularly if the topic was appropriate.

I would suggest you make contact with prospective supervisors who focus on what you are interested in. Be prepared to let them know why you want to do research and why they should take you on as a student. But don't discredit yourself, it sounds like you have some valuable skills to offer. Enthusiasm to develop and learn goes a long way.


Are there any standard regulations for oral exams for universities in Bologna process? As described in Wikipedia article,

  The Bologna Process is a series of ministerial meetings and agreements
  between European countries to ensure comparability in the standards
  and quality of higher-education qualifications.

Universities usually go through a series of supervisions to obtain the certificate that demonstrates the above mentioned quality of education.

These supervisions are, but not limited to, number of classrooms, regulations for exams, lab facilities, etc.

I am particularly interested in oral exam regulations. For instance, my former university had a strict rule:

  There must be at least three lecturers/professors during the oral
  exam, and full voice recording is mandatory.

I wonder if such rule applies for all universities in the Bologna process, or my former university was being over cautious.

I don't believe there are any Bologna-wide regulations regarding the conduct of oral exams.

In general, the Bologna process is designed to set up the means of making education "portable," not strictly uniform. Individual countries and schools are given wide latitude for how they internally implement the processes: for instance, just look at the wide of grading systems used throughout the EU.

As a counterexample to your question, I worked as a faculty member in Germany, and the rules varied between faculties, let alone universities. For instance, one or two professors could conduct the oral exam, notes were taken by a recorder, and the exam was rarely, if ever, recorded. The only situation where things got more complicated is if a person could fail out of the program by failing the oral exam, in which case having two professors, one of whom did not teach the subject, was required.


What are the non-academic job prospects for a PhD in probability? So I am a Master of Science, majored in math, as of now. I am going to a reasonably good US university as an international student to get my PhD, which will likely be in probability, my main field of interest. I have heard a lot about how probability has applications in non-academic jobs and was wondering what would be my job prospects (in research and development) with such a PhD? I am not interested in purely academic research job.

I would like to add that I will be taking CS courses (lots of modelling courses especially), so I can bridge the gap between my knowledge of the purer side of math and its more applied side.

The main industry job for anyone involved with probabilities nowadays is called

  Data Scientist

(also called applied statistician which, in turn, is basically applied probabilities).


Student and advisor applying to same job - conflict of interest with recommendation letter I'm currently a Ph.D. student. I'm applying for a post-Ph.D. faculty job, and so is one of my two Ph.D. co-advisors. I think we have a good relationship, and I am thrilled they are applying, and truly hope they get the job. I think this is mutual.

They recently decided to apply. Prior to their decision, they agreed to review my application and be listed as a reference.

Now that we are both applying, they have agreed to review my application, but only after they have finished with theirs, to keep them independent. Furthermore, they suggested they should not be a letter writer, but then said they would remain as a reference if I want, since I don't have that many others to choose from (being somewhat earlier in my career, having collaborated with others a bit less).

I've asked the Search Committee head if they are OK with me listing them as a reference. If my advisor and I agree to do it, does the committee have a problem with it? Their reply will guide my answer.

But I seek advice here too. Is it OK to keep the advisor as the reference? I trust them to write a good letter, even in the unlikely event that we are both selected, or I alone am selected. Is this unwise?

It is helpful that you and your advisor have been in contact and have honest communication about this subject. It's commendable, and doesn't happen nearly often enough.

That said,, for this particular job, if you want to have any realistic chance of getting this particular job, you really need to have someone else replace this particular co-advisor. Otherwise, a rather confused hiring panel may take a look at both applications, wonder what the heck is going on, and throw out both applications.

However, for any job in which you're not in direct conflict, I think it would probably be OK to have your co-advisor as a letter of reference.


How to react when professor wrongly corrects you in public? I recently defended my master thesis.
One thing only went wrong: I said a certain method was rather new (which it was!) and the most senior professor in the room (my supervisor was not there, he had an unexpected meeting) contradicted me, telling me that it was old and had been done in the lab for ages.
Honestly, I just gave in. He seemed so sure and I did not dare contradict him.
However I was sure before and of course I have since checked, the method is indeed new, the professor was just plain wrong.
What should I have done in the situation?

Did you pass your thesis defense? If so, it's all water under the bridge.

If it is eating you up inside, you could send a polite note to the senior professor (cc:ing your advisor) thanking them for the question and that now that you've had a chance to re-check things, that you are ever more certain that your method is different from the suggested prior method because of x, y, and z; but perhaps you misunderstood his question and there was another earlier method he was referring to, and if so -- could he please send the reference? (tip of the hat to @gnometorule)

If you go this route, I would frame it as a letter of thanks, appreciation, scholarly inquiry, and to keep the tone as non-accusatory as possible. As @guifa notes, some jerks professors view thesis defenses as a type of hazing -- a no-holds-barred opportunity to test your mettle; and what happens in defense should stay in defense. You do not want to drag this out. It can easily blow back in your face or the face of your advisor if the senior faculty member has a thin skin (which unfortunately many academics seem to have).

Again, if you have your Masters, then I would just be happy with that and just make rude gestures towards that senior faculty member from the safety and privacy of your own home. And don't ever do this when you become that person in a position of power.

You changed the question slightly from the initial posting from [what to do after the fact] to [what you should have done at the moment]. As note above, all questions at thesis defenses are fair -- even ones that are built on false  or falsified premises. It is, after all, a "defense" and as a scientist you should be able to defend yourself from both truthful and false/falsified statements without having to resort to ad hominem counter-attacks. You respond based on your training and experience what you believe to be correct. And obviously given that you passed the defense, the examiners thought that you gave satisfactory responses on the whole. As Queen Elsa teaches us, let it go.


Prior thesis examiners as potential future journal article referees? I'm in the process of preparing a manuscript submission for consideration with a particular journal.

The article is an adaption of a portion of one of my thesis chapters. My thesis has not been formerly published in any manner in accordance with my country's copyright/publication practices with doctoral theses. While I've rewritten the majority of this article to fit the theme of the journal and become 'self-contained,' the hard data and some of the analysis is the same.

For this particular article and journal, a former thesis examiner of mine would be an ideal reviewer to list on the cover letter as having specialised expertise in the topic area. It is quite a 'niched' but also interdisciplinary topic which makes it difficult to locate potential reviewers, and this particular reviewer covers all of the interdisciplinary topics with their expertise. They have also written previous articles on this topic for this same journal, and I do draw on their work heavily throughout, so an editor might think to send this out to them regardless of whether I put their name down, or might think I don't know who the experts are in the field if I don't put their name down and this could hinder my chances.

My question(s) (knowing that editors don't always go with recommended reviewers):

1. Can I/Should I still list this person as a potential reviewer even though they have previously examined something very similar in my thesis? They will undoubtedly know that it is my work they are reviewing which means it will not be a blind review.

2. Should I list them as not reviewing my work, not because they are not capable, but because they examined something similar in my thesis and it will therefore not be a blind review?

3. Should I not list them and hope for the best?

4. If 2 is preferable, what would be the appropriate way to state this? Would something like the below be appropriate:

  Blockquote *I acknowledge that ________would be an ideal reviewer, having an expertise in the intersectionality and main focus of this piece. However,________was one of my doctoral thesis examiners (of which this piece is adapted from) and would recognise the data and some of the analysis as being my work.

Any help or input would be appreciated!

Is seems to me that what you are caught on is one of the key tensions in reviewing:

The more knowledgeable the reviewer, the more likely they are to have some sort of conflict of interest regarding a manuscript.
The more independent a reviewer, the less qualified they are likely to be for a deep review of a manuscript.

Different journals and different editors have different places where they draw the line on the range of acceptable tradeoffs between knowledge and conflict of interest.

As such, I would recommend simply providing the information to the editor in your list of recommended referees, along the lines of what you have suggested but with less assumptions regarding the appropriate course of action:

  X would be a good reviewer, but was one of the reviewers of my thesis.

The editor will then be able to make the call as best they judge (which they will do in any case), and will not be likely to feel that you are pushing them to either use or not use the person as a reviewer.


Supervisor who does not answer My advisor has not replied to my email for 4 days. I'm in a hurry, this is a piece of paper that he should sign for me before December 18 what to do? any exemple of emails ? please help!!!

Finally, I sent him an email with the subject "urgent" and it worked, he replied almost instantly.

Go see him. Failing that, go see the department office. They can intercede for you if he isn't responding. Actually four days isn't so much time in a busy season. And he may not realize your urgency.

Email is not your friend here. Especially if your advisor is a generation or two older than you.


Research on technology enhanced learning? The discourse about teaching seems to be dominated recently by the idea of technology enhanced learning. I have been talking a lot with colleagues about that and there seems to be some kind of consensus that the usage of technology is most of the times beneficial.

It also seems that many take this route in order to make their lectures interesting and load the with interesting "stuff" (animations, videos, etc).

I am very sceptical about this and I am kind of worried that making lectures "too interesting" can be a problem. I tend to think that students need to pace themselves and if you drag them along your lecture they end up remembering nothing.

Is there any serious research done on this? Do we understand the effects that fast-paced interesting lectures have on learning? Is there any research-based list of good and bad practices?

Yes, of course there is serious research on this and I invite you to search it out. But I will speak only from my long (45 years) of experience.

Flash will catch their interest and might make them cheer, but it won't teach them much of anything. What the instructor does in the classroom is far less important than what the student does on her/his own and in collaboration with other students.

It is practice and feedback that teaches you. There is an interesting book, The Art of Changing the Brain that explains why this is. In order to learn, it is necessary to actually re-wire the brain: changing the synaptic connections between neurons - physical changes. That doesn't happen instantaneously (practice) and learning can go wrong if we reinforce the wrong things (feedback).

I've had the following experience and so have many others. I give a lecture and walk out feeling terrible. I made a mistake. I stumbled over something that should have been simple. I struggled to find my way back to a better place and finally ended with something sensible. A failed lecture.

But then the students I meet in the hallway tell me what a great lecture it was. In fact, I showed them the struggle we must go through to come to something like the truth.

I've also had the opposite experience. In teaching statistics I wanted students to have a clear idea about sampling and how means of samples relate to the overall mean of the population. I created the absolutely perfect lecture. It was logically flawless and exceedingly interesting. It used a special trick so that students weren't likely to confuse the two uses of the word "mean" in sampling. I was damn brilliant.

But, of course, the universal response from the students was "Huh?".

Be aware that as a teacher, your students are unlike you. The exception would be if you are teaching doctoral students. They are likely to be a lot like you, but the others are not. Everyone learns differently, but few - vanishingly few - learn from seeing something once, no matter how brilliant.

The different "learning modalities" are quite distinct and not shared by many. You need different ways to approach the material you are teaching so that different people can relate to it. Some will do with reading, others seeing, others hearing, etc.

But all need reinforcement and feedback. Students need practice and reflection on that practice.

My mantra as a teacher was "It doesn't matter what I, the teacher, do. It only matters what you, the student, do." Maybe not absolutely accurate, of course, but a good philosophy for students to have.

If they don't work as hard at learning as a skilled athlete does at their sport, they aren't going to excel.


Can I refuse a stipend during a PhD program? I was admitted to a US PhD program (in computer science, if that matters) with fellowship + stipend.

I am getting a separate stipend from my government (which is higher than the university stipend), but they forbid me from getting an additional stipend from the university.

Is it OK to ask the university to just pay for my tuition (with the fellowship), and refuse the stipend?

Yes. The university will generally be happy to work with you to make sure your tuition is covered and call the money whatever they need to. As you are saving the department money, you may also ask the department to provide some additional travel or research funds instead of the stipend.


How do I know what schools are within my reach for graduate school in math? When applying for undergraduate schools it was relatively easy to look up average ACT/SAT scores and GPAs of admittance to know if I would be a competitive applicant. As of right now I want to pursue a PhD in math and I'm struggling to know if a program is within my reach or not. Last year my grades tanked and I went from a 4.0 math GPA to now a 3.2 with a 3.5 overall. I'm working now to hopefully get that up and I'm planning on taking a year off after where I may stay in my undergraduate town to continue to take more classes to raise my GPA but either way I'll have a C and a BC on my transcript so I don't know which schools are within my reach if I get enough research experience/letters of recommendation and which I shouldn't even bother with.

If you can show real research potential (papers in one of the journals for undergraduate research, participation in research as an undergraduate) that will probably weigh more than raw GPA. A dip in grades is certainly worrisome, as it hints at losing interest. You'll have to have an explanation.


How do I put industry research in an academic context? I am an industry based researcher. I research and write policies mostly relating to workplace issues such as codes and manuals. I have just completed my PhD in a related field.

On my CV, I can include about 10 years of industry research (plus my qualification as above). As far as I know, industry research is not considered in the same light as peer-reviewed articles.

Question: How do I make industry research a selling point in my CV (in the academic world)?

Note: I have no peer-reviewed articles to my credit and there is no possibility of publishing my industry based research outcomes in the wider sense.

Emphasize strengths that mirror what would be expected for a 10-year Academic career:

No peer-reviewed publications? List instead all the internal white papers you've written.
Mention any academic collaborations when describing roles. (No collaborations? List internal cross-departmental collaborations.)
List trainees/interns you've mentored.
List any important talks/presentations you've given related to your research. It won't be the same, as the level of discourse when talking to other researchers is different than when talking to senior managers, but it does demonstrate presentation experience.
Get very strong letters of recommendation attesting to your strength as a researcher, communicator, and mentor.


What is the right way to patent an idea under PhD studies? Let us assume that a phd student has discovered a brilliant idea during his/her phd studies and that the idea has not been published or presented yet.
How can that student protect the idea under a patent? What are the right steps to follow and wrong steps to avoid?

You should ask yourself why do you want a patent. You should only do if your goal is to commercialize the idea. Because patent is very expensive to file, and also expensive to maintain.

If money is not a problem, filing a patent is extremely simple. Here are some absurd patents. You only need a vague idea, no need implementation, evaluation etc. You don't need to be better than the state-of-the-art, you only need to be "different".

I'm a mediocre researcher who had never published more than 3 papers a year. More than 6 months in my current company, I already submitted 4 patents. Believe me, this is not what I want.

I said it is extremely simple because at my company, there is a team of lawyers that prepare the documents, and they also hire lawyers from another company. All I need to do is to present some slides. However, if I have to prepare these documents myself, I would not be able to do it.


Do graduate schools care about published solutions of contest problems in Mathematical magazines? The math club at my university spends its time solving problems from mathematical magazines (e.g. Mathematics Magazine). Let's assume I, as an undergraduate student, submit a solution to a challenge problem from such a magazine, and my solution is published. Is there any advantage to having one or more published solutions like this when applying to graduate school?

For reference, assume this is graduate school in math.

Sure, that would certainly be viewed favorably.  How favorably would depend on the rest of the application and the institution (though I can't think of any situation in which it would play a decisive role), but if the question is having done it whether to list it, then the answer is a clear yes.

If on the other hand you haven't done the problem-solving yet but are wondering whether you should engage in this activity for the value it has in your future grad school application: I don't recommend that, but I can think of plenty worse ways to spend your time.


Does use of computer translation as an aide when writing a paper require a citation or disclosure? Related (not duplicates):

Is it appropriate to cite a paper in a language I don't understand?
Would it be ethical to hire a proofreader for theses and academic articles?

One of the things that I have found extremely helpful when writing in a non-native language is to use tools such as Google Translate, where I will first write what I want to say in my native language, put it into the translator, and then revise the translated output based on my actual knowledge of the language. Specifically, I am often able to recognize the correctness of a passage in that language (e.g. word usage, false friends, correct verb tenses, spelling errors, appropriate levels of politeness, etc.) better than I can write fluently from scratch.

When doing such a thing in an academic paper, is it generally necessary to either:

Disclose that an automated translation tool was used to assist in the composition of the paper?
Formally cite the translation tool (e.g. Google Translate)?

I'm not asking about any specific situation (contact your instructor or editor), but about best practices and general understandings.
I'm not asking whether it's acceptable to copypaste directly from the output of an online translator straight into a manuscript, thesis, or course essay (that would be crazy), but whether the fact that one has used a translator in a non-trivial way can be considered unethical. Would the answer differ based on context? For example, my instinct tells me that this would probably not be ok for coursework in which mastery of the target language is a main focus (e.g. you are taking Advanced English as a Second Language and are assigned to write a short story), but would be more acceptable in a context (coursework or journal submission) in which mastery of the target language is not the focus (but rather the medium of demonstrating mastery over or research findings regarding some other thing), such as writing a paper on astrophysics for a journal that requires that all papers be in English (the journal is really focused on your astrophysics findings, and the language is just a standardized medium of information exchange, i.e. a tool to do so).

It's already well-accepted that using general language reference tools such as dictionaries, thesauri, grammars, and style guides are not unethical, but it's not clear if automated translation tools are truly analogous to them.

In a nutshell, the process I'm speaking of is as follows:

Write my original composition, findings, thoughts, analyses, etc. in my native language, without doing anything remotely resembling plagiarism.
Send what I wrote through a translator.
Use the output of the translator as a framework or draft, going through it and making appropriate corrections (conjugations, false friends, incorrect synonym chosen (e.g. translating "hot" as in temperature as "spicy" or "sexy"), awkward phraseology, archaic language, inappropriate diction, blatant translation errors, etc.), but without recomposing the entire paper from scratch in the target language.

My opinion (note: opinion) is that you don't need to do a citation here as the words are yours originally and the meaning/essence isn't intended to be modified in any way.

However, my opinion, also, is that it might be useful to note that auto translation was done. This is just so that a reader fluent in the translated language might be forewarned that any anomalies of language might be explained by the use of the translator.

I think that the workflow in such a case is to tweak the translation in any case as such things are still far from perfect. In this case, especially, it is clear that the translator is just a tool. You state, in fact, that this is your workflow, of course.


How to effectively locate older studies and papers? Finding studies referenced in books can be nearly impossible.

I was struggling very much to find the original paper by Liebmann (1927) on the, well, Liebmann effect.

Is there a better method to look things up? My usual way is to Google, for example, "Liebmann effect, 1927" or something of the sort.

Although many journals have done a good job of putting their archives online, it does indeed get pretty difficult to find an electronic copy of any but the most prominent publications if you go back earlier than around the 1970s.

Fortunately, there are still people who know how to deal with this, and whose job it is to help with issues like this: university librarians.  When I've faced problems of this sort, working with librarians has been the way to solve it. They often are able to locate a physical copy within their own collection or, if they cannot, often also have relationships with other institutions' libraries who can loan or scan materials from their own collections.

I would also suggest, however, that you may also wish to consider whether you really need to go back this far.  Go back the better part of a century, and you will often find that notations and vocabulary have changed to the point where it becomes difficult to understand the paper. Moreover, if the phenomenon has not been entirely neglected, there will often be later reviews or textbooks that present it much better and more comprehensively. Unless you are specifically interested in the historical circumstances of the original work or the perspective of the particular investigator, such later references may turn out to serve your needs much better.


Is it a good idea to connect data points on a plot to increase readability in slides? I have a graph of points from a set of experiments,
that I want to present on a slide.
The important information in the graph is both the values of the points,
and more significantly, that the green points are above the blue points.

It is quick and easy to get my plotting framework (matplotlib)
to connect each point to the next:

It should be fairly clear to anyone that the relationship between points is not expected to be linear.
I thought I could want to put the line in to make it clear that one is below the other. It can be hard to see the point markers on the projector screen.
Is this a good idea?
Does showing plots this way enhance the visibility of the them for presenting, or does the fact the that lines themselves are fairly meaningless distract too much?
Audience  concerns:
The whole presentation is for graduating engineering students and must be simple. While they would normally have the capacity to deal with complicated plots, the content of the presentation is complicated enough that I don’t want to distract them with anything that might waste thought time. I have already rejected the box-and-whiskers plot as too complicated; this is a plot of the mean values of that data.

Drawing the lines implies a continuous relationship between the parameters. So if you can expect continuity, then connecting the points is fine. A second point to make is to avoid colours that are as similar as the green and blue you have chosen. One reason the difference is hard to see in the first scatter plot is due to colour. Try to experiment with colours that contrast better and your problem may be solved by just altering colours for one or both of the data sets.


Unsolicited request for a scientific collaboration I have a research problem in an area of Mathematics. There is mathematician whose domain of expertise is very near to the subject of my problem.

I read frequently his works, he probably doesn't know me. But it is possible that he has seen some of my works. He is a senior mathematician. I am junior.

Anyway we don't know each other and because of geographical and other considerations, I don't think we have the occasion to meet each other in a conference or workshop in new future. I am scientifically isolated in my country as nobody works in my area, finding funds for participating in conferences and workshops is also very difficult. So the only possibility of a collaboration that I envisage is doing by email.

I am very optimistic that my problem interests him and if we collaborate, the result would be very fruitful. I have had some experiences to do scientific collaboration with some people that I knew by email. But the story with this mathematician is different because we don't know each other personally.

I feel that sending an email saying that  my name is X and I am interested in the question Y, I would be glad if you are interested to work on this problem  is not perhaps the best approach.

What is the best strategy to maximize the chance of starting a scientific collaboration with him?  How I can formulate my request of doing a scientific collaboration with him? Is it wise to 'reveal' my problem while I don't know if there is a chance of collaboration?

Be specific and brief, with a clear action item.

bad:

My name is X and I'm interested in Y, and I'm hoping you'd be interested in working with me.

slightly better:

My name is X, and I'm interested in Y. I read your recent papers on Foo1, foo2, and foo3, and I was wondering whether you thought Theorem eleventy-seven in your paper on foo2 could apply to the problem of Y''.

much better:

My name is X, and I'm interested in Y. I read your recent papers on Foo1, foo2, and foo3. I had an idea about how to apply theorem eleventy-seven in your foo2 paper to Y'', by inserting the well known lemma Bar1, and Bar2. I was wondering if you were aware of approaches that have tried this? I looked at refs 1–157 and didn't see anything relevant.
I'd love to chat more about this if you're interested.

Again, your mileage may vary. There are cultural variations, personal variations and so on. But I’ve had success with emails of this kind.


Dealing with a coauthor whose contribution was not used in the paper I recently completed a course project with some other students in my department. In this project, we discovered a few novel results that might be of interest to others in the field. I would like to revise and submit this project for publication (with the consent of my coauthors, of course).

The problem lies with one of the coauthors. The portion of the project that they wrote and sent to the rest of us was nonsensical. When reading their draft, it seemed as though they had not even read the reference material our project is based on. As a result, I and the remaining coauthors had to rewrite that portion from scratch, and the final report contains nothing written by that particular coauthor. (We left their name on the report since it was too late to change groups by the deadline.)

What should I do if we choose to publish these results? I worry that excluding the one coauthor might offend them if they saw the published paper. At worst, it might be considered academic dishonesty.

Based on what you write they did not contribute to the manuscript or the results described therein either due to lack of ability or due to laziness. I also assume they did not contribute any useful ideas. Thus, they are not a coauthor. It's as simple as that. The ICMJE criteria are useful for assessing if someone is an author.

In principle, this is independent of any considerations regarding their conduct in the course project. However, you should have reported their lack of useful contribution to the teacher since they would probably benefit from repeating the course. The problem now is that they could claim to be a coauthor since you put their name on your report and didn't tell the teacher. If the teacher sees the publication they could indeed assume academic dishonesty. Thus, I see two options:

Include this person as a coauthor and ask them to make a meaningful contribution since you probably have to rewrite most of your project paper to make it suitable for publication.
Explain the situation to your teacher, so you can move forward without getting in trouble with your school.

They chose to not make a valid contribution. Not being a coauthor is a consequence of that choice. Why do you care if that offends them?


The best wording to politely nudge the editor? Any tips on polite yet resolute phrasing for an e-mail to the managing editor of a journal when your article is under review for far too long and it would be nice to give the process a nudge?

Thanks in advance; specific advice for math journals appreciated.

First, always be polite to the editor. Often academic editors are volunteers. Even if they are not, being polite is always more helpful than being not polite.

Second, journals often have trouble getting enough reviewers. I have emailed journals and asked if they need more reviewer suggestions. This nudges the journal to think about your submission. And, can sometime help them address the delay in review.


Do I have any potential in the academic field? I live in a third-world country. Although I have a second-class degree in IT, I work in the general banking section in a private banking organization. This is possible because, in our country, private banks recruit engineering students (among others) as Management Trainees. They are rotated among various sections in the bank and are trained up for two years. After two years, they are promoted as Executives.

After joining the organization I found that there is huge amount of study involved to get confirmation and to get promotion. Moreover, I don't know Accounting.

Now I am thinking, since I have to study anyway, why not take the GRE and TOEFL, then study apply for a MSc in IT or computer science and then a PhD degree from USA.

I have already been away from academia for almost four years. And, since I am doing a full-time job, I think it will take 2 years more to prepare myself applying for higher education in the USA. At that point I will be 32 years old.

Is a PhD degree from USA enough to find a job at that age?

since I have to study anyway, why not go for GRE+TOEFL, MS in IT or Computer Science and then a PhD degree from USA

Maybe you're aware of this, but "studying" has little to do with getting a Ph.D. It might suffice for an MS, but a good MS involves more than just "studying" as well.

In other words, if (as stated) your idea is that instead of "study" to get a promotion, you want to study to get an advanced degree, you're in for some disappointment. A graduate degree (especially a Ph.D) involves a lot more "doing" and independent creative thinking.


Writing to a professor who contributed to my research paper I was working along with a professor on a research paper during my masters in 2014. I graduated in that year but we still worked on the paper for next year.
After that I moved to another city for my job. I could not follow up with the professor regarding the paper and had no contact with him after leaving. Now after 3 years, I received an email from a journal that the manuscript has been submitted by my professor.
I felt really embarrassed that I could not provide inputs for finalizing and submitting the paper.
How should I write an email to my professor to tell him that I am embarrassed for not being able to follow up and would like to contribute in any future modifications for that paper?

Just say it as you have here, I think. It seems perfectly reasonable. It also seems like a good idea to reconnect for future projects.

But you don't say why you were contacted. Either you were listed as a co-author or were given an acknowledgement. Some journals get permission for all acknowledgements from all parties. It would be good to know beforehand which case it is, and what your feelings are about how the professor included you.

But you gain nothing, now or in the future, by staying silent.


Why would a conference ask for a title page if the submitted paper has been submitted somewhere else? I am in the process of submitting a paper to a conference. In the submission page I read:

  Title Page (Mandatory if multiple submissions, submitted to a
  pre-print archive, or substantial overlap with prior publications)

Why would a conference ask for a title page if the submitted paper has been submitted somewhere else?

I'm hardly an expert on this topic, but I have coordinated the online content for professional conferences (as opposed to academic conferences), and based on how this requirement is worded...

I believe it implies that they ask for the title page so that any existing instance of the work online can easily be identified as your work specifically, and not any indication of plagiarism. I also would think it protects against an attendee later writing something that plagiarizes a paper which was presented at the conference, without proper attribution.

I'm not sure if there's yet another layer, of how they would cite a paper they first heard about at a conference, in regard to the container within a container format of citations. But it could be yet another reason they would make such a request, just to cover bases.


Taking a year off from Master program due to severe injury and doing online courses as I am not fit for work.(Future Prospects) Since I have taken a year off from my Master's program due to a severe accident, all I am doing now are online courses as I am not fit to do any work. But will this in a way affect my future prospects in employment after I graduate? I feel really depressed as am not able to move due to spinal injury and heel fractures. Being an international student, I have to extend my student VISA as well. Moreover, a letter of support has been provided by my professor(he is the head of the Master's program) for the extension of VISA. Also, I had to withdraw from courses with academic penalty(but with refund of course fees) that will affect my academic standing which has indirect affect on VISA. How will it affect my future prospects of employability?

Your future is impossible to predict. But online courses, under the given circumstances seem to be a positive thing, indicating that you are keeping engaged with your studies. But use them well. Remember that just seeing lectures isn't the same as learning. Good online courses will provide ways for you to reinforce the learning (exercises). The best will find a way to give you individual feedback on your work, just as would occur in a face-to-face course.

But, I think your primary current responsibility is to regain your health, which will make all things possible.

The people for which gaps are a problem are those who have no reason for it other than lack of focus and commitment. You don't have any issues like that. Good luck and good health.


Should I add my business experience in my application of master program in math? I'm going to apply for the master program in math in France next year. I plan to do pure math (real and functional analysis, probability, computing, PDE, etc) in the 1st year to equip myself enough technical background, then do applied math (stochastic processes and probability) in the 2nd year. It's optional for candidates to add their experience in their applications.

My background is:

I got my bachelor degree in Statistics last year.
At the moment, I'm studying 3rd year in pure math.
I co-founded an IT startup and have run it for 2 years (at the moment I involve very little in the business as I have to spend most time on studying).

Should I add this experience in my application? Does adding this give me any signifincant advantage? Personally, I find this business experience very irrelevant to a very academic program like math.

[Context: I am a CS lecturer in the target country] I really see no reason to hide an achievement of this nature, even if it is not tightly related to your application field. It shows that you are capable of committing to a long-term project with responsibilities. Perhaps it will not give you a significant edge over other candidates at this stade (application in master 1), but in the future, researchers interested in choosing you for an internship will certainly find this information useful.

It does not harm to mention this experience, and it might be useful now or later. Also, if you don't mention it and someone finds out, they will wonder why you wanted to conceal it. Really, I can't see a valid reason to do so (except maybe if what you founded was an escort agency or some other adult business, and you wanted to keep that for yourself).


Are there any citable Github repositories not published in journals, that receive a lot of citations? I wish to know whether there is some way, or maybe even some standard, for making a GitHub repository citable in a way that is recognized by academics. Many options have been suggested here, e.g., FigShare and Zenodo, but it seems to me that these routes are not actually established or taken seriously by academics.

For example, I made a Figshare DOI for my GitHub program in 2013 and it turned out to get zero citations, despite the paper related to the code getting many citations. People simply found citing something from Figshare to be awkward so the GitHub repository did not get citations the way an article would.

My question is this: Is there any practical evidence that some way of making a GitHub repository citable is somewhat accepted? For example, can anyone please point me to any GitHub repositories that have actually been cited many times as recognized by Google Scholar?

The Keras repository has an entry in Google Scholar with 1254 citations.

I'm not aware of the author having done anything special to make it "citable" though, other than giving an example in the FAQ of how to cite it.

  For example, I made a Figshare DOI for my GitHub program in 2013 and it turned out to get zero citations, despite the paper related to the code getting many citations.

Personally, whenever I wish to "cite a repository", the first thing I do is check the repository's homepage / documentation / FAQ / etc. to see if the author(s) wrote any instructions on how to cite it. If there are any such instructions, I use those since I assume that that is how the author(s) prefer to be cited.

If there are no such instructions, my next step is to see if there is any (peer-reviewed) paper published by the author(s) of the repository that describes / uses / links to the repository, and cite that if there exists such a thing.

Only if there is no such paper do I consider directly citing the github link itself. The implicit assumption is that, unless there are explicit instructions stating otherwise, it is preferable to cite (peer-reviewed) papers over repositories.


What belongs in the "Work Experience" section of graduate applications - is undergraduate research experience included? Nearly every graduate school application has this section for Work Experience. Are things such as REUs (Research Experience for Undergraduates) considered work? Or is this meant for work that isn't directly research experience?

Work experience normally refers to internships or part-time jobs you've done with companies besides your university, or actual employment positions in your university such as working in the library or grading papers. Research experience is related to academics, so it should be treated as such. I know you get paid for it, but it's used to augment your undergraduate experience and thus adds value to your degree.


Can my work on manufacturing, designing & fabrication of an electric solar vehicle be considered as an original research & can it be published My classmates and I are pursuing B.Tech in Mechanical engineering and we have formed a team to manufacture, design, fabricate, and develop an electric solar vehicle which would operate under safe speed. We are designing it in a way to reduce weight and make it much lighter. We are also trying to minimise the cost of production &  making sure that it works both at day and night.

We have designed it using Solidworks and have taken into account all types of loads and stresses that will be generated. Apart from these goals, we are also working upon various other parameters which include efficiency and other considerations. We have fabricated the solar cells on our own.

We expect to complete our work in a couple of months. I want to know if our work can be claimed as an original research and if we can publish it. If so, how many people can be authors on the research paper ?

The simple answers to your questions are that, yes, you can claim your work to be original research and you can have as many authors as you like.  That said, the fact you think your work is original and of publication quality does not guarantee that any journal will agree.  Your best bet is to discuss the specifics of your project with your advisor (I assume you have one?) and follow his/her advice.


Beall's List of Potential Predatory Publishers on Weebly shutdown? Most academics would be familiar with Beall's list of Potential Predatory Publishers.  His project was shutdown some years ago, with the publicised reason being a "personal decision" (see link above), but it is widely acknowledged this was due to targeted harassment and pressure from publishers on the list and potential lawsuits.

However, many academics continue to rely on lists like his to help differentiate between legitimate and predatory journals, publishers, and even conferences.  As a result, Beall's original list was preserved on other websites and extended to add new entities as they were created.

One such website was "BEALLSLIST.NET" (http://beallslist.weebly.com/) which contained Bea'lls original list and extended version.  I regularly used this site when asked to review articles in journals I am not familiar with.  However, recently (sometime since Oct 2019 by my estimate), this site also appears to have been shutdown.

Why (and when) was this site taken down? Was this due to targeted harassment from publishers too? Are there any other good alternative sources that contain Beall's original list and extended lists?

I think I found the answer.  There is a lengthy discussion about archived versions of Beall's list on ResearchGate.  It seems that the original list that was archived at https://beallslist.weebly.com/ is in the process of moving to a new website: https://beallslist.net/.

One user on ResearchGate quoted the new web host: "We are in the process of migrating from Weebly to an independent server. Contact form is currently disabled but will be working soon."

So the situation is not dire - they are migrating, not being shutdown. Phew!  It is good that other alternatives exist as well.


What are some good practices for applying to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program? Is it possible if I could get 4 letters of recommendation?
How far in advance should I notify those who are writing my letters?
Does activity on sites like Quora, Stack Exchange, and Reddit's AskScience
(as well as a personal webpage/blog of one's research) count as
public outreach?

I think it's helpful to understand how NSF graduate research fellowship applications are reviewed.  [Caveat lector: This answer was written in 2012; the application requirements and the evaluation procedure have both changed significantly since then.  I strongly recommending consulting someone who has been on the review panel more recently.]

Each application consists of the following components: a 2-page personal statement; a 2-page description of past research; a 2-page description of proposed future research, transcripts, and exactly three recommendation letters.  If you attempt to send four, NSF simply refuses the fourth letter; on the other hand, if only two letters arrive by the deadline, your application is rejected without review.

All 10000+ applications are reviewed in a single three-day physical meeting.  Applications are split into 30+ subject areas, each considered by a separate review panel.  Each panel has 20-30 members and reviews 300-400 proposals.  (All these figures are ballparky; panels vary in size depending on the number of applications.)

Before review, applications are divided into levels based on the applicants' time in graduate school: None (30%), less than a semester (30%), less than 12 months (30%), and more than 12 months (10%).  All level-1 applications are reviewed together, then all level-2 applications, and so on.  Expectations are significantly higher for more experienced applicants.  The precise expectations obviously vary by discipline, but in computer science, pre-students need a credible research plan, early students need publishable results, and older students usually need multiple publications.  The "more than 12 months" level is only for people with extenuating circumstances, like a significant change of field.

The 12-month limit counts time that applicants have actually been registered, not time since entering their first graduate program.  So a student who started a PhD program in August 2011 and does not register for classes this summer will still be eligible in September 2012.  If you want to apply in your second year, do not take classes your first summer.

Each review consists of a "letter grade" (excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor) and a narrative evaluation of "Intellectual Merit"; a letter grade and a narrative evaluation of "Broader Impact"; and an overall numerical score.  The panelists use the numerical scores to cluster the applications into four categories: Yes (10%), Maybe (25%), Honorable Mention (5%), and No (60%).  NSF uses the narrative evaluations to decide which Maybes get fellowships and which get honorable mentions.

Every proposal is reviewed twice, the proposals in the No pile are retired, and each of the remaining proposals is reviewed a third time.  Thus, each reviewer reviews roughly 35-40 proposals.  On average, each reviewer spends 20-30 minutes on each proposal.  That's just enough time to read each of the documents once, make a snap judgement, and then assemble a narrative review from a pile of boilerplate sentences.  It's brutal, especially because most applications are strong.

So anything you can do to make your reviewers' life easier will work to your advantage.  Every component of your application should directly address each of the two main review criteria.  In particular, all three statements and all three recommendation letters should include a paragraph describing intellectual merit, starting with the phrase Intellectual Merit in boldface type, and another paragraph describing broader impact, starting with the phrase Broader Impact in boldface type.  Both paragraphs should say something specific, substantial, and credible.

For security/privacy reasons, the review panel does not have internet access; reviewers are not even permitted to use their own laptops.  So if you use your StackExchange participation as an example of broader impact, be specific about how you participate; the panelists can't look up your answers or your reputation.

Another point to keep in mind is that reviewers are probably not experts in the applicant's chosen subdiscipline.  An application by an aspiring astrophysicist studying planetary climatology (to make up a random example) might be reviewed by a high-energy astrophysicist, an expert in planetary formation, and a string theorist.  Yes, your statements must include enough field-specific technical detail in your statements to be credible, but the overall goals and merits of your proposed research should be clear to a broader audience.

For fine details, it's always best to talk with faculty in your field who have experience with NSF fellowship winners, either as an advisor, a reference, or a panelist.  (The most useful letters read "I have written reference letters for x NSF fellowship applicants, of which y were successful; I would rank this student among the top z of those fellowship winners.")  It's also a good idea to talk with past fellowship winners in your (target) department; ask to read their applications and their reviews.

See also NSF's advice.


Attending Conferences as an unaffiliated listener I will be graduating soon with my PhD in mathematics, but do not intend to pursue an academic career.  I do, however want to continue to dabble and toy with the ideas I have invested so much to immerse myself in.  I love the idea that I may come up with a result or two in my lifetime.  But I just don't jive well with research pressures.

It is a faux pas to attend a conference independently, and just pay the registration fee myself?

It would seem that registration is open to anyone technically, but I have never enjoyed making a fool out of myself.  I appreciate the clarification.

Go for it ... probably.

There are no doubt aspects of conferences that are specific to individual fields, so my answer based on experience in Computer Science may not apply to Mathematics.  But I'm guessing the answer to this is somewhat general, in that some conferences are small (and may be largely limited to people who are actively participating/presenting) while others are larger.  If you pick a large enough conference, with many more attendees than presenters, no one will think twice of who you are or why you're there.


How to choose a post-doc offer I was offered a post-doc position at 2 institutions where I was invited for an interview by a PI.
I am also invited for 2 more interviews the next couple of weeks at different institutions.
Both institutions who sent the offer letter are expecting an answer and I think they assume that I will accept the offer. This is what I got from the conversation.
I am really confused because I do not want to ruin my reputation if they get upset when I do not accept their offer. All what I did is that I showed interest during the interview. Is there any advice on how to professionally decline an offer without offending the PI. Also what is the best advice on how to choose between the 2 offers? Should I go to the 2 scheduled interviews or would I be confusing myself even more?

(1) It is perfectly normal to reject offers. The other side (professors, universities) rejects application every time they make an offer, and they know that, often, applicants apply to more than one position. You might want to be open about this, i.e. that you are considering another offer at a different institute as well.

(2) How to choose which offer is best depends on many factors, a lot of which are personal. Where do you want to work in terms of location, which institute fits your personality and ideal workplace, which group is bigger/smaller/more successful/gives more room for personal contribution? What about salary/teaching obligations/availability of lab space/equipment and research participants (if you need some)...

Ask some questions during the interviews to see which place suits you best. Maybe even walk around in the city, if this is of importance for you.

(3) As pointed to in (2), go to both interviews and then ask for information that will help you make your decision.


Wrong email id on letter of recommendation My professor has entered the wrong email id into my letter of recommendation, gmail.com rather than yahoo.com and signed it. Can it be corrected using white ink? My college is very far away from my home and a reprinting would be extremely difficult. Would corrections on letter of recommendation hurt my application?

Never ever manipulate a letter written by a third person.

Explain the discrepancy, yes. You have to hope they accept the explanation.

However, if you manipulate, you are committing fraud, breach of trust, and you will be blacklisted where this is possible. You may also lose your recommender for the future if he gets to hear about that (e.g. if they manage to check with him). In some countries (such as Germany), manipulating official documents is explicitly a crime and can be punished with years in prison.


Publishing a non-invalidating comment to a recent paper- should I contact the original authors if I know them? This question is similar to this one: Publishing a comment or contacting the authors privately?
but has a few differences.

A colleague of mine has recently published a letter responding to another author's paper.  The letter agrees with the general points of the original paper (paper A), but offers specific additions that would improve the general idea from paper A.  After reading this letter (let's call it paper B), I think the additions have merit but should also take into account some new ideas which will build on both paper A and B. My comment would not invalidate paper B but it would argue that their suggestions should also take into account my own.  I know the authors of paper B personally and am in good relations with them.  I am acquaintances with the authors of paper A.

My goal is to provide comments that improve this general idea (by introducing new ideas) and reference both papers A and B directly.  I have two questions. Question 1 is, should I:

I) Write my idea without contacting the authors of the other papers
and submit it to the journal
II) Contact the authors of paper B,which my comment would most directly address, discuss my ideas, and suggest a collaborative paper on which I am first author
III)
Contact the authors of paper B, discuss my ideas and let them know I
intend to publish a comment (not to bring them in on the paper but to
let them know a comment will be submitted)
IV) Take another course of
action

Question 2 is,  if I bring the authors from paper B on my letter, will it hurt the chance of it getting published as a comment to paper B if the authors of paper B are also on my letter?

I think the authors will probably agree with my suggestions.  At the moment I am leaning towards option II as I think option I is unprofessional, but I have never been in this situation before so I do not know what is professionally appropriate.

My comment would not invalidate paper B

So you are in a very different situation than the post you quote.

In your case you can manage so that your comment is not harmfull to the authors of B.

You clearly seem interested into getting a reward by publishing your idea (I do not say this in a negative way), so I would do something like III. I do not think it makes sense to add more authors on an 'opinion' paper.

Do you need some input from the authors of B or are you just trying to be polite? In the last case I would only contact them after having a first draft or at the same time you submit comment. You can turn your email into a 'thanks publisfor this inspiring paper' note. The authors should be happy that you are building upon their idea!


Do I have to sit again for TOEFL? I want to apply for (top) US PhD programs until this December for being potentially admitted in September 2019.

This personal information is relevant to my question:

Bachelors in non English-speaking country (Sept 2013-June 2016)
TOEFL exams (Sept 2015 - Overall score: 106)
Masters in UK (Sept 2016 - August 2017)
Working in UK (Oct 2017 - present)

Do I have to sit again for TOEFL to apply for US Phd programs this year even though I sat successfully for TOEFL in September 2015 and even though since September 2016 I am living, studying and working in UK?

P.S.
If yes then this does not make any sense....haha....

TOEFL is only good for 2 years, your current 106 has already expired in 2017 September.

When you apply, ask the admission office what are the criteria for a TOEFL waiver. Ask if a 106 in 2015 (not a bad score itself) and a Master degree in UK can fulfill that requirement.


I feel I may have misspoken about Donald Trump in our Dept. Should I risk drawing attention to the issue by apologizing for it? Some administrators and professors and I were talking about all the recent events going on, and I feel I may have participated a bit much in the dialogue and now feel I may have gotten on some people's bad side.  If I email one or more of these profs. / admins, I risk drawing attention to a non-issue - there's no proof that any of them were even bothered by the dialogue, yet I feel uneasy about the current events being discussed so openly inside of a school building.

What do you recommend that I do?  Be proactive and send an email and apologize in the event that I may have misspoken about something -- or keep my mouth shut and don't draw any more attention to that conversation?

They say three topics are banned from polite after-dinner conversation: religion, politics and sport. There are good reasons for that.

It can be said that the same holds for workplace. Academia is, in this sense, a slightly different animal in that at times it is a place where people vigorously express their opinion, and proudly so. This does not prevent occasional ganging-ups of opinion groups against people which are not seen to conform to the currently prevalent sentiment or simple are considered an out group.

Unless you must fear that the latter is the case (and with highly professional people, such as senior academic staff, I would start from the assumption that the threshold is relatively high for that), consider what's done is done. Let it go.

Remember Churchill's dictum: a fanatic is someone who won't change his opinion and can't change the topic.


Where in academia are HEA fellowships valued? https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/fellowship#categories

Apparently these fellowships are popular in the UK?  What sorts of universities care about them?  And why?

(Nearly) all UK universities want to signal that they take teaching seriously, both for student recruitment and for the TEF, for the obvious financial reasons.

For this reason new faculty are typically required to undergo training to reach a qualification that either leads to an HEA fellowship or is equivalent to it. Thus HEA fellowships are the national standard for teaching. Typically new faculty are exempt from these training courses if they have an HEA fellowship.

Anecdotally various people within my own institution have said that the push to get more faculty accredited with HEA fellowships was important for an improvement in our TEF ranking. There continues to be a big push to get more existing faculty to do the paperwork for HEA fellowship, although I do not believe it is a requirement (or even mentioned as desirable) for job applications for the majority of posts.


Should I ask for a recommendation letter from a professor who has a bad non-academic reputation? I am an undergraduate interested in applying for graduate school in a physical sciences program. I have a good relationship with a few of my professors (it's a very small department). I would like to ask if they would be willing to write a letter of recommendation for my application.

There is one professor who I respect greatly and who has told me in the past that he would be willing to write a glowing letter. He has a great academic reputation; he publishes the most out of all the professors in the small department and in (what I have heard) are top journals in his field.

The trouble is that he has a poor non-academic reputation. For instance, a quick Google of his name will yield a page full of news articles regarding his troubles with the law. These are the top results from the search.

Would a poor public reputation like this have a negative impact on the effectiveness of the reference? In theory, I know it shouldn't. Yet I am aware that real life hardly ever works as 'in theory'.

EDIT: the "troubles with the law" involve an impaired driving conviction. For context, this is in North America.

To me, the key question seems to be whether the type of misbehavior is something that is likely to be seen as impinging on their judgement as an academic.

For example, if the person was known to have been prosecuted for fraud in a company they ran, that would be quite likely to affect perception of their honesty and judgement in recommendation letters.  In the example you give, however, I think that an impaired driving conviction is likely to be viewed as a form of misbehavior largely orthogonal to conduct and judgement as an academic, and therefore not likely to be any problem for you.


Is it appropriate to put master's and bachelor's theses into ORCID web page as dissertations? I recently registered to ORCID and put information of all my journal articles there. I started to think whether it's appropriate to put my master's and bachelor's theses there as well. ORCID doesn't have a category named "thesis", but there is a category named "dissertation".

Is it appropriate to put my master's and bachelor's theses to my ORCID web page using the category named "dissertation"? I have understood that the term "dissertation" usually refers to doctoral theses.

I think the bachelor's thesis might have some value there, as my university doesn't allow people to download bachelor's theses from the university web page, and people may not be aware of an alternative link to the file. Apparently they in the university think that all bachelor's theses are low-quality, but in my opinion my bachelor's and master's theses are very high-quality and have lots of merit. So I certainly am not planning to hide them!

Related question: What is the difference between a thesis and a dissertation?

Yes, this is certainly appropriate and acceptable - but probably good to make clear the level of the document to avoid confusion. (I have my MSc thesis linked from my ORCID.)

The Wikipedia article on "thesis" gives a good overview of the difference in terminology - in short, "thesis" or "dissertation" can mean either an undergraduate work or a doctoral work, depending on the context and the location, and there is no single cast-iron rule. I wouldn't read too much into ORCID's choice of terms...


Is a post doc advisor who makes superficial contribution entitled to authorship? I am a postdoc with two advisors (not something I would recommend for everyone). I would describe the involvement of my two advisors in the project I undertook as quite superficial. I met and discussed a lot with them, they gave me some useful ideas, but they didn’t contribute much to the core of the project.  I didn’t even feel they put genuine effort to understand what I was doing.  Most of their feedback was related to ideas that didn’t work or was not implemented. If the right for authorship is defined by a significant intellectual contribution, then I wouldn’t really describe their role as such.

Is it ethical to include them as coauthors in the article summarizing this project, with an author contribution statement that describes each one’s role?

In this case their role will be something like giving useful tips, analyzing the results, ..etc.

The reality is that standards for authorship are not universal across disciplines.  In some disciplines, your advisors should be considered authors.  In other disciplines, you advisors should not be considered authors.


Should I be stressed about asking for an Academic Reference? I need a academic reference for application of a PhD program.
I believe this is the same as what is called a Letter of Recommendation, at other institutions.

I am getting one from my potential supervisor, and I need one other.
I thought through all the lecturers I had, and came up with a priorities list of people to approach. Taking into account (in rough order of priority): How likely they are to remember me, How relevant their units/expertise are to my intended course of study,  How well I did in their Unit/s, and How research/project focused the Unit/s I did under them were.

The person I found most suitable is currently lecturing me, and has done serveral times before.

I figured I would basically send him an email saying:

  "Looking at continuing my studies on X, that I mentioned to you
  before, with a PhD. For this I need a academic reference. I thought
  you might be suitable because of (reasons outlines above). Could we
  meet to discuss this some time in the next few weeks? I am free on
  Monday mornings, Tuesday afternoons ..."

I thought, fairly casual, not really a big deal kinda thing.
But then I got looking around the internet, and it seems like maybe it is a big deal.
There seems like there is lots of advice and template letters out there.

So is it actually worth worrying too much about?
Should I spend say a hour or so checking over my request email,
to make sure I am giving all the right information and that it is formatted nicely and perfectly grammatical?

Or is it more of a casual thing, the email serves its purpose to give the key points of information and to arrange a meeting. It will be a throw away communication.

Is it different because he is currently lecturing me, so it is not so much of a cold call?

If it is cultural depended I am in Australia. I am applying to the same institution I am currently doing my undergraduate/honours at.

If the person who you're asking for a letter of reference knows you well enough to write a good letter of recommendation, you don't really need to be worried about the formality of the request. You should be able to ask: "I would like to talk to you about writing a letter of recommendation for me. Could we set an appointment?" or something similar to that, and it should be fine.

Remember: writing letters of recommendation is one of the responsibilities of faculty members (and other instructors)!


Submitting to a journal that requires a French abstract as a non-French-speaker: how important is the French abstract? I'm a non-French-speaking mathematician submitting an English paper to a French journal that requires a French abstract (but publishes papers in English).  I don't think I know anyone I'd be comfortable asking for help.

I took at stab at a translation using a combination of Google Translate and phrases found actual French papers.  I think my attempt is probably not so far from the mark, but would be no doubt cringe-inducing for an actual Frenchman.

Should I submit with no abstract and hope for the best, submit with the bad one, or is it important to find somebody to help me with a proper translation?

I would not use Google Translate for this. I recently moved to France and I needed to do this a few times, and when I did a Google Translate (even a 'nice' one*) it still sounded bad to the native French people around.  In that particular experience, a French person editing my 3 page document took about 1.5 hours. GT leaves much to be desired. Even when things are technically correct, it will be obviously non-French, which can have a bad effect on the initial reception of the document.

One would think this isn't relevant to the scientific content, but in France, things like this are considered to be culturally important (which is why an English language journal requires a French abstract - PhD theses have the same requirement). I think your paper would have a better reception with a linguistically correct abstract, both from the people considering the submission and the people eventually reading and citing it.

There are services online which offer translations for a small sum of money. I'm not sure if I can link to some without it being considered spam, but they're easy to find. So based on my experience, this is what I recommend. They charge per-word so an abstract should be fairly inexpensive.

Like the commenter guifa suggested, speaking with your foreign language department would be another way to accomplish this without having to pay a translator.

*If you HAVE to use Google Translate (which I don't recommend), I would translate the result back into English to make sure that words haven't been misinterpreted. I would also check with a good online French-English dictionary. My chosen one is Linguee. This is the most effective if you write your sentences very simplistically and concisely.


Degree program changed before attending graduate school I studied Bioinformatics at the undergraduate level but since I was short of one of the degree requirements and I had already been accepted to a graduate program, my university decided to re-name my degree to General Studies. The transcript obviously shows work done towards a Bioinformatics degree as does my research experience but the degree certificate would say Bachelor of General Studies.

Would a graduate school take issue with this even though I have been admitted?

It's possible that a grad school would have an issue with this.

In my experience, admission to a graduate program is always contingent on successful completion of the undergraduate degree.  The grad program will require a final undergraduate transcript and reserves the right to rescind admission if they're not satisfied with it.  Presumably your application stated that you were working on a bioinformatics degree, and your admission was based on the assumption that you would complete it.

So it would be a good idea to contact the grad program and explain the situation.  You probably don't want them to first learn about it when they get your transcript, and have them trying to guess what happened.

Some relevant questions:

What was the requirement in question?  Is it some critical course that they might reasonably have expected every bioinformatics student to have?
Why didn't you complete it?  Was a course not offered at a time when you could take it?  Or did you fail a required course?
If (as your question seems to say) this was a new requirement, imposed after you started your degree, how recently was it imposed?  Could you reasonably have fulfilled it?
What does your undergraduate advisor say about all this?


How to review a paper that is not related to my field, when my advisor has asked me to review it for him and I can't refuse? I am an M.Sc. student in computer science, working on machine learning.

Recently my supervisor assigned me a paper on biomedical signals field to review. The review task is assigned to my advisor who is a referee of a journal and he assigned it to me to do it for him (I am sure he will not check my review and will submit it directly).

However, the paper is weakly (if not at all) related to my field; I don't even have an idea about its title. What should be my approach? Particularly in judging if the paper has properly covered background works and if it's novelty when I am not familiar with the field at all?

The best option is to decline but I have not that opportunity. That is a "must" to do work for me if I don't want to ruin my relation with my advisor.

I should mention that this is the first time I was assigned to review a paper.

I agree with all of @Nate Eldredge's comments.  If you have a good relationship with your advisor, you should be able to say "This paper lies outside of my field of expertise.  I don't feel qualified to review it; in fact, even to understand it at a basic level would require me to spend substantial time familiarizing myself with the terminology of a different academic field."

According to your comments, you do not feel comfortable saying this to your advisor.  So here is what I would suggest instead: do the reviewing together with your advisor, in person.  So for instance you could begin by saying "I started reading the paper you assigned me, and I have some questions I'd like to discuss with you.  When can we meet to talk about it?"  Then when you meet you can begin to engage with all the unfamiliar stuff and see for yourself how far away it really is from your interests and those of your advisor.  If it turns out that your advisor doesn't understand the paper either, I would try to subtly lead him to the conclusion that neither of you should be reviewing it.  If he tries to shove it onto you, reiterate that you are doing it but that you want to get his input.  If necessary, ask a question of the form "How would you handle this review job if you were in my place?" The point being that the advisor is in your place since he is the one who has been asked to do the reviewing.  To pull this off properly may require some verbal aikido.

The worst case scenario is that after all this your advisor makes clear to you that he doesn't care that neither of your have the expertise to review this paper; he wants you to do it anyway.  At that point he is asking you to commit academic dishonesty, and you will be in a tough spot: you will have to decide whether turning in a noncommittal review of a paper that you don't understand is the least evil.


Why am I worrying when I read a paper? I'm beginner in research and I'm doing my PhD. I would like to know why when I read a paper I worry as if I have exam tomorrow and I have to prepare for it. How can I ignore that feeling and increase my productivity?

Perhaps one little "therapy" often relevant is to try to remind yourself that you are the authority in reading papers critically, and the goals are about progress, not evaluation of you by some third party.

It is understandable that "school" has left one with an excessively paranoid concern about being attacked, being "checked-on", being examined, being doubted, and so on. Indeed, "school" often includes exaggerated measures that express very clearly an antagonistic, adversarial attitude of "teachers" toward "students". Naturally, many negligent students are able to ignore this pressure, while students who were already doing the right thing are the ones who feel that somehow they're not doing enough. A similar dynamic exists in many human enterprises.

So, again, the thing to repeat to yourself over and over is that now you are to function as an authority, you are to assess these papers. The point is not so much any more someone else's assessment of your "performance" (often on meaningless, contrived, artificial tasks).

In particular, the common "teaching-examining" devices of "trick questions" should be forgotten. When encountering a new idea, don't immediately be worrying how someone could use the idea to trip you up, but, instead, what constructive use you could make of it. In particular, if it does not (at least for the moment) seem useful to you, then don't spend a lot of time on it just for the sake of self-defense against trick questions! Nevertheless, one should often keep a "pointer" to seemingly useless ideas, because their utility may be discovered only later.

But don't study things whose utility seems null. Move on, just keeping a "bookmark", so if/when something percolates into your head later, you can go back and look a second time.


Why are researchers at some think tanks titled professor? Within my own discipline one of the best examples of this may be at the Santa Fe Institute, but I've seen this other places as well. Quite simply, why are researchers at some think tanks titled "professor" when they don't have a university affiliation?

The word "professor" is most often used by universities, but the content of the word more generally refers to a person whose job is some mixture of higher-level education and research.

Thus, while it is unusual for a place like the Santa Fe Institute to call some of their employees professors, I would judge it to be a reasonable description of their work given that the institute is well-respected in the academic world as both an educational and research institution.

Most other industry or "think tank" organizations do not have a similar mission and it would thus be less appropriate for them to give such a title to their staff.


Can co-authors disagree in their own paper? Co-authors are increasingly required to report their individual contributions to a research paper. But can they report their (internal) disagreement?

Co-authors may disagree on parts of a final draft. Each may have own interpretation of (parts of) the results or view of their implications.

The different views can be of course expressed in the publication without attribution, e.g.:

  Our results may mean x, but they may also mean y.

But some co-authors may find others' interpretations/views controversial, or they may wish to get "exclusive" credit for their own ideas.

In such cases, is it appropriate for co-authors to explicitly attribute certain interpretations/views in a paper to their owners? Should they do that?

  Co-author A thinks results mean x, whereas co-author B thinks they mean y but not x.

It is rather unusual, but it has occurred before. In the paper

  Piccione, Michele, and Ariel Rubinstein. "Equilibrium in the Jungle." The Economic Journal 117.522 (2007): 883-896.

each of the authors has their own conclusions, marked "4.1. Concluding Comments by MP" and "4.2. Concluding Comments by AR." It should be noted though that the writing in economics tends to be less structured (no such thing as a "method section") and this is a somewhat unconventional paper to begin with.


How is an experimental particle physicist evaluated? As an undergraduate student majoring in physics, I intend to apply for a Ph.D. in experimental particle physics. I have known that working as physicists in this field is kind of different, as they are always affiliated to a collaboration (like CMS in LHC) and may appear as authors in loads of related papers, resulting in high citations. Therefore it seems traditional evaluations of a researcher (focusing on the citations or h-index) do not work when assessing an excellent and famous experimental particle physicist.

Thus I am asking:

How are particle researchers assessed in reality, in the case when a Ph.D. applier is searching for and comparing professors in the similar field, or when a researcher is going to find a position as an assistant professor? Does the specific role of a scientist in the collaboration (say, the group leader) matter in this evaluation procedure?
How does university ranking play into this? What are the probable differences between professors in particle physics who work at a higher-ranked institution (ranked by physics major) and those who work at a lower-ranked one – given that they are both affiliated to some big collaboration. This question comes to me since it seems one cannot distinguish a famous particle physicist by the conventional method which is performed by university ranking.

I happened to be a member of my college's executive committee when an experimental particle physicist was being considered for promotion to tenure. She was, indeed, a member of a huge collaboration, so a typical paper of hers had perhaps 100 co-authors. The papers provided no information about what, specifically, she had contributed (and we know better than to pay much attention to citation counts and impact factors). The information we needed, about the quality and quantity of her work, was provided by numerous letters from external reviewers. ("External" means not in our university.) Ordinarily, the college requires that most external letters come from senior researchers who are not co-authors of the candidate's papers, but an exception is allowed in areas, like experimental particle physics, where only co-authors really know about the candidate's work.  My recollection (about 15 years old and therefore somewhat vague) is that the letters gave us very detailed information, not only about what the candidate had contributed but also about how efficiently she had done her part of the work.


Should I warn a professor about his bad internet security practice? A relatively old professor from another institute "forwarded" to me, using his work email, a work-related message he had received on his Gmail account.

However, he actually saved the entire Gmail webpage and attached it. A saved Gmail webpage may contain personal information and should not be shared with others.

He is based in a distant city and I didn't meet him in person (yet), but we work remotely on the same project.

Should I care and tell him about this bad security practice? How?

If this was a one-time thing and you don't know this person very well, I would avoid bringing it up.

Once you know this person fairly well or communicate with them on a semi-regular basis, then sure, in your next email to the person just put as a note at the end of the email that they might be cautious about including the entire webpage.

The concern is that it might be off-putting to someone if they don't know you well and perhaps this professor actually verified that no personal info was included.