No answer from Editor I submitted a paper to an editor of well-known journal via email. It has been almost a month I did not hear anything, even not an acknowledgement from the editor, though I sent them 2 follow up emails.

What should I do?

Before doing anything else, I would recommend doing the following:

Check that the answers haven't accidentally made their way into your spam folder (if your email client has one).
Check that you sent the emails to the correct address. (If you get the domain name wrong, you might not get a response back at all!)

If neither of these are the cause of the problem, then I would recommend that you contact the publisher, rather than the editor—something has clearly gone amiss. At the very least, you should have received an email acknowledging that the submission is complete.

If, on the other hand, you are waiting for the reviews to be returned, that can certainly take much longer than a month, and a little patience is in order.


Citing a 'co-student's Bachelor's thesis I am currently in the process of writing my bachelor's thesis. Another student is working on largely the same subject as I am, with a slightly different focus. Is it acceptable for me to reference his thesis in mine? If so, wat would be the proper form for this.

Of course it is acceptable as long as you know what you are referencing.
So as long as you have read her thesis (or the part you are referring to) and you think it belongs in the literature review of your thesis: Do it.

However, if you want to use a result derived by her, I would advice against it, as you can not be sure if it really is correct. If it is not possible to avoid using it you should talk to your supervisor about it.

For the proper form:
@masterthesis (as @Wrzlprmft already pointed out), @thesis (with type = {Bachelor's thesis}  or @unpublished could be an option for you.


What's the difference between German TV-L and TVöD pay scales? We've had a number of questions that ask about the details of German TV-L payment scales, which are common for PhD students.

I've noticed that some institutes use the TVöD payment scales for their employees. After looking things up a bit, to me TVöD seems to be very much like TV-L.

So my question is: What's the core difference between TV-L and TVöD?

This is one of the wrinkles of the federal structure of the German education (and research) system. Since the universities are run by the federal states, they are covered by the TV-L (Tarifvertrag für den öffentlichen Dienst der Länder, payment agreement for the public sector of the states), while institutes run directly by the federal government (e.g., the Max-Planck institutes) are covered by the TVöD (Tarifvertrag öffentlicher Dienst, payment agreement of the public sector). (Before 2006, this was the umbrella agreement for (almost) every public sector position, but then the states split off from the negotations; after the TVöD was successfully negotiated, they did not (could not?) rejoin and negotiated their own version based on the TVöD agreement.)

The differences are minor to the point where they should not be relevant in practice; in particular, the difference in pay scales within the TV-L for the different states is larger than the difference to those within the TVöD. The only possible point is that they are different agreements and therefore negotiated independently (with the same union, though), so a new round of negotiations might be completed earlier for one than the other.


Does it look bad to cite a single review paper repeatedly for many different things? I am limited to a set number of pages for a research paper I am writing. One trick that I thought of was to find large 'review' papers that talk about a lot of things.

For instance:

Bubble sort [1] is a great tool for sorting.
So is merge sort [1] and also quick sort [1].
Make sure to understand the type of data you
have, because certain algorithms can take
advantage of that [1].

[1] Comparing different sorting algorithms - Peter

This is a bit of an exaggeration but - would my paper be negatively reviewed if I cited a single paper too many times? Again, I am really pressed for space.

Note: I am new to writing btw

First of all you should cite original sources. The review paper can be cited for whatever conclusions or original work stem from it, not for whatever sources it, in turn cites. In your example, citing the same sources over and over again in a single paragraph is unnecessary. You are better of starting the paragraphs stating that the information is sourced from [1] in some way.

In general, citing a single source can be reasonable if it is a really original work and the only possible source for much information. This is, however, rarely the case and so my thought is that regardless of the situation, most will see it as somewhat suspicious. It all depends on whether the paper really is the only source for the information.

So, general advice is: avoid doing what you outline, unless it is the only possible way (from the point of view that no other sources exist.

Despite having constraints on length, you should be able to fit a reasonable number of references in. I am sure that you may have to really think twice about your text. I have certainly been in situations where I have has to ask myself if each end every sentence written is () necessary and (b) concise enough.


Is there a website that lists for a set of at least 1000 journals OpenAccess fees for publishing an article? Many journals now are open access only and every article published (authors) must pay a fee.

Sometimes, this info can be hard to find. The journals does not put it visibly on the front page (next to impact factor).

If I want to compare 80 journals in the medical field and their charges - it is not easy.

Is there a site that would 'monitor' this and have data on many journals. (any list with 50+ journals and prices listed will be a good answer) (even if domain specific) (medicine domain is preferred)

There is no comprehensive list.

Some partial lists are listed below: (please update when new are found)

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/scholarlycommunication/oa_fees.html


What are strategies for handling multiple students visiting office hours? Context: I am an assistant professor of mathematics at a small liberal arts college in the US.

I hold a scheduled office hour every weekday, plus additional hours near exams.  Office hours are a significant part of my institution's culture, and they are regularly used by our students.  As such, it is not uncommon for multiple students with entirely different questions to visit at the same time.

I am somewhat unsure about how I should handle this.  If they all have the same question, I can easily work with a small group simultaneously on the white board in my office.  Otherwise, I can only think of the following options:

Work with students on a first-come, first-serve basis.  Move to the second student once finished with the first, then to the third after the second, etc.
Work with students on a first-come, first-serve basis, but only give each student 10-15 minutes before I move to the next one.
Rotate between students, answering a few minutes worth of questions before going to the next student, and eventually circling back.
Tell students that if they want to meet for more than 15 minutes they must make an appointment outside office hours.

Our department has several tables in the hallway, so I usually go with option 3.  That said, this method seems inefficient for the students and can be exhausting for me, so I am wondering if I can do any better.  Most of my own undergraduate professors used option 1, but I really disliked how a single student could consume nearly all of their time.

I would suggest an alternative: rotate after each question, not after each student. So solve a question from one student, then allow a different student to ask a different question. If multiple classes are present, you can go by class rather than by student.

This has several advantages:

Everyone will prioritize their questions: no one feels rushed by the people behind them, nor like they wasted a trip because of someone in front of them
Students (in the same class) may not all have the same questions, but they'll benefit from seeing how you approach each problem.
Students in different classes can digest your previous answers and try to apply those concepts to new questions while they wait for you to circle back
This should be helpful for the majority of students -- if there are any special cases (e.g., students with individual issues that aren't useful to the rest of the group), they'll see what's going on and will appreciate your invitation to schedule an appointment
You get to keep your position at the whiteboard, which is less exhausting for you


Typo errors in a submitted paper I have submitted a paper 3 weeks ago for a good journal + conference and I just figured out that there are small typo mistakes. It is very disappointing as I have made a great effort (who does not) to have a crystal-clear, well-written paper.
One mistake is in a Figure (I have forgotten to define an element. It is defined later on so it is not really a problem, but still). Another one is in a sentence, where one word disappeared. And this word is important: it helps to directly understand a point in the paper, without having to backtrack in the paper. None of these mistakes impact the methodology or results of course.
When I am reviewing a paper for a conference, I like to read something that is neat. I don't mind English mistakes or even small typo errors as English is not my main language (except when it is very hard to understand ofc). I will not reject a paper because it has some typo mistakes in it.

However, is it possible to get rejected for such stupid mistakes? To what extent such mistakes can impact the opinion of a reviewer? Does it have a potential influence on the overall paper review process?

Thanks for your answers.

... is it possible to get rejected for such stupid mistakes?

It is possible, but very unlikely.

  To what extent such [minor] mistakes can impact the opinion of a reviewer?

Very little. (More significant or more numerous mistakes can lead to rejection.)

  Does it have a potential influence on the overall paper review process?

Very little.

My answers are all subjective.


Ethical considerations in publishing raw data Apart from taking measures to maintain confidentiality, do I need my ethical approval to specify permission to publish raw data along with my study? I'm trying to facilitate reproducibility in my research. It is a retrospective, cross-sectional study of medical records. The information is sensitive.

I know that there are other questions out there that touch on the subject, but they do not quite cover what I want to know.

If you're in the US, make sure the data set complies to HIPAA. Double check to make sure you don't have any information that would allow identification.

Another one measure that HIPAA may not touch on is the rarity of the medical outcome(s) in your data set. Participants in a flu data set are a lot harder to identify that participants in, say, an anthrax poisoning data set. You'd need to check on the definition of what constitutes a rare outcome.

Ultimately, you should seek advices and support from these following agencies: 1) your own institutional review board (IRB), 2) the funding agency that supports your work, and 3) the original owner of the medical records who allowed you to extract the retrospective data. If all these three are okay, it's very likely to be fine. If anything hits the fan, showing evidence that they had granted you support and you have done your due diligence in safeguarding the privacy of the data would do you a lot of good on legal ground.

Additionally, even for reproducibility, you don't necessarily have to make the data set available to everyone. With some work on your side you can set up a data user agreement mechanism, so that at least you can have some track records on who borrowed the data and for what reason. If you explain to the journal that any of the three agencies above prohibits free access, the editor will usually understand and agree with the data user agreement routine.


How to deal with fellow grad students who want to copy assignments? How to deal with fellow students who put little effort on their part while solving assignments, and sometimes ask you to spoon-feed them solutions. Lot of times these students end up scoring more on the assignments on average, because I don't generally feel inclined to get any sort of help on assignments, and am content with submitting my best solutions.

It is very difficult to avoid these students entirely cause grad classes are typically small and you don't want to end up alienating them.

Sometimes, as in your case, you want to protect your best interests without burning any bridges. That's understandable, as I assume some regions have a much higher culture of cheating than others. For example, I know of one nation where people used to hire proxies to take their exams. In this case, I assume you've already participated at some point, so the long-term goal is to protect yourself and wash your hands.

Make an excuse about how you haven't completed your assignment yet. You can easily extend this to the due date and claim you were working on it all night the day it is due. Any other excuses like not starting, and so on, while you have, to hide the fact that you've done so.

This also protects you from being further involved in academic dishonesty without making you look bad to your classmates. Your end goal should be to cover yourself, and lying about not being able to share your work is a significantly better endgame than being caught in a cheating ring.

As to reporting the academic dishonesty, I hate to say it, but I probably would not do so at this point. You're implicated, and if it's a small class, it'd be easy to track back to you.


Include as an author someone who contributed to financial support only? I am co-authoring a physics manuscript with some students and colleagues. The results in this has been obtained by means of a grant to which multiple people have participated.Because the main research project reported in the grant proved to be too hard, we switched to a backup project, which is the subject of the paper.

One of the authors just asked me to include as an author one of the persons who contributed to the grant writing, even though this person made no scientific contribution to the paper, because of the subject switch above.

Is it fair and honest to include this person?

I am asking because if I feel like this is not fair, but if I refuse, this would put me in a difficult situation with the colleague who asked, potentially ruining our future collaborations with him. What should I do?

I think (hope) that most people in academia would consider it improper to include, as an "author", anyone who didn't contribute to the content of the paper. There are some exceptional cases that are questionable, but this one seems pretty clear.

But the paper might properly include an acknowledgement section naming the person and thanking them for their help in obtaining funding for the project.

But I recommend not degrading the meaning of authorship by naming others.

Note that some of the exceptions, such as including a PI as an author, are justified, at least in part, because the PI, in addition to funding and running a lab/project also contributes general guidance and conceptual background to the work that goes on there. They have a continuous presence that impacts all the work in the lab. And some consider this to be improper, also. But it is highly variable by field.


Contacting potential advisor for PhD Over the past few months I’ve contacted around 10 potential advisors at various schools of interest, and the only professor who has gotten back to me told me to wait until I was accepted if I wanted to work with him. My email strategy has been reading over papers from a professor and crafting personalized emails explaining who I was, why I was interested in their research, and asking if they had time to discuss what they are working on. Since many professors instruct to not even contact them until after a student is accepted, and many others don’t respond to prospective students, is it even worth trying to reach out? Is it still too late to keep trying to get in touch? It’s difficult to justify spending the time to look into a professor who doesn’t respond, but I keep hearing that it’s important to contact professors of interest before applying.

What might be very impressive is if you would be willing to apply as a special student.

This might be a good “backdoor” way to get into a top 10 university.

I worked in the office of graduate admissions at Harvard university:

Most do not realize that applying as a special student is just as competitive as applying as a degree seeking student, but in many cases you do not have to take the GRE

Here is the answer I gave to another person on this forum:

https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/61120/123306


What to do when expecting a negative recommendation letter? I'm a postdoc having a difficult relationship with my adviser. Rather unexpectedly, he started literally bombarding me with all sorts of mostly unjustified accusations, including that I'm not productive enough and all sorts of personality-related complaints. I'm in the process of applying to a new postdoc. Will have the first interview in 1.5 days. Given the present situation, I don't expect a good recommendation letter from my adviser. However, I have already listed him among my recommendations.

What should I do?

A. Not say anything about the relationship with my present adviser during the interview.
B. Be upfront and mention that I have a poor relationship with my adviser and can provide more details if needed.

I'm quite confident I'm treated unfairly and can explain the situation to my advantage.

I talked to two professors whom I trust, and both of them suggested I should not say anything about this in the first interview. One of them thinks that I might get a good LOR after all; this is his justification. I would prefer not to rely on this. Thus, I don't know what is the best option. I will get another, strong recommendation letter from a very reputable professor who helped me in the past.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. This is a follow-up to my previous question.

A bad review from your present advisor will probably hurt you significantly. However, I think you will do more damage if you try to discredit your advisor's reference ahead of time: you risk sounding like a poor employee, particularly if your advisor is respected in your field.

Instead, I would prepare evidence to counter a possible negative recommendation. If you expect your advisor may critique your productivity, emphasize work you have completed in your interview. Unfortunately, if you have failed to publish your work in your current position, that may be difficult to prove, and the responsibility for that is not only on your advisor but on you as well.

If you anticipate critiques of your work ethic, how well you play with others, etc, and your other reference has not yet submitted a letter, you could ask them to specifically highlight those qualities. If they already submitted a letter, hopefully they already addressed these issues.

I would be careful about how you describe your relationship with your current advisor in the interview: keep the high ground, and don't make judgments of value. If you produced one good publication where your current advisor expected two, don't say "Bob had ridiculous expectations for my productivity" - instead, try something closer to "I worked on two projects with Bob - we were able to publish project 1 after ___ months but ran into setbacks on project 2."


How to decline a postdoc offer a few days after accepting it? I recently received two postdoc offers on the same day.  I accepted one (verbally, in saying "I would like to accept this job offer", but I have signed nothing), but then some additional information came to light that I would not be happy in that role and the other was probably a better fit for me after all.
It is undoubtedly the case that I failed to adequately understand the pros and cons of each role before accepting one of the roles.  I accept this, but it's also my first job,  and frankly I have no idea what I am doing.  If I had a better idea what I was doing then I would have been able to extract this information before accepting one of the roles.  I accept that I have been fairly useless in this decision-making process and I am quite ashamed and horrified by it all (I'm not really sleeping and I've even had nightmares, as ridiculous as that may sound). Frankly, I just want it to end, but I want to make the right decision as it will have a profound impact on my life.  And the right decision for me is to decline the offer that I had previously accepted and go forwards with this alternative one.  At most as it stands I'll have cost them about 2-3 days of time.  It's not as if I've kept them hanging for several weeks or months before finally backing out.  I can already tell my would-be supervisor in the role I wish to decline  is a very decent and kind person and I want to cause them them the absolute minimum undue difficulties and upset.
How unethical is it to decline an offer after accepting it (but without having signed anything)?  How can I go ahead with now going back on my decision and let them know in the best possible way?  Thanks for your help.

Being on the receiving end is very unpleasant, and it will have probably cost them more than just 2-3 days; the bureaucratic arrangement, possibly losing other postdoc candidates, having to go readvertising etc. is a very serious hassle, let's not pretend it isn't. Being there, done that.
Nonetheless, you need to take a decision and inform them as quickly as possible. There is no point for you taking a postdoc that you (and ultimately them) will regret. Decide and inform. This is an unpleasantry that is part of life. Yours and theirs.
To contain the damage as much as possible, you need to face it upfront. Good luck!


Apply to the same University after a rejection I applied for a faculty position last year and did a video interview, but got rejected (for some unknown reason because they asked some routine questions). However, they did not hire anyone eventually and have opened the position with a bit difference and description this year.
Do you think that I should apply again given that they reviewed my case last year and did not give me a virtual campus interview (the campus interview, based on what I heard, was conducted virtually due to COVID-19)?
Or, do you think that I should approach the search committee chair and ask if they recommend me to apply again? What I am saying is that it will be a waste of time on both sides if their concern about my application was serious last year.
P.S. One of my friends applied to the same place twice, got an interview twice, and got rejected twice!

I would suggest that it would be worth re-applying only if something substantial and important has changed. The change could be with you, or it could be with the university.
You say that the job description is not the same as previously. That is a change, but I can't say that it is a sufficient change. Presumably the place has pretty high standards and a lot of applications.
It could also be that the recent emphasis in online education has made you a better fit. Or a possible drop in the number of likely applicants for the new position relative to the previous announcement.
But the change could also be with you. Have you improved your CV since the previous application? Have you gotten an important new advocate to write letters for you?
Maybe both things have changed enough for you to be a better fit now. But if not, it is unlikely to be any more successful in this cycle.


Is it wrong to cite your own definition of a concept in thesis viva-voce presentation Recently, I defended my PhD thesis in the final viva-voce session. Post the presentation, one of the panel members questioned that I should not have stated my own definition of a particular concept. The panel member suggested that I should have rather given a industry-standard definition for that particular concept.
This makes me think and wonder that Why I should not suggest my own definition of the concept. After all the definition was published by an high impact journal and has been cited many times.  By the way, I understand what they meant. And my PhD supervisor too did not raise this as a concern when I sent them the presentation for checking.
My contention here is, I have worked in this area for several years and I do not get the right to cite my definition for my own viva.

In other countries, the viva-voce is called "defense" for a reason. The onus is on you to defend your use of the definition, in particular, if it deviates from the industry standard.


General guidelines for those who do not have college degree and are not students but they could publish an article? I am amateur mathematician with some formal training but am not a student and did not get some college degree, but, much of the time (really really too much) I think about mathematics and mathematical tasks and problems and I expand my knowledge of and about mathematics.

Sometimes I am solving some (mostly) undergraduate exercises, and sometimes I even do try to settle some unsolved problems.

Of course, if I dwell onto and into some mathematical theory, I try to understand basics and then the more general results.

Now, there are some ideas and a few results on the papers next to me, but I am extremely non-motivated to do the research in the future because of lack of support.

I can expect that even if I prove something of major interest, or if I prove something known by some other methods, that my work will hardly be published, because of lack of support.

So, if really I have written some results which could be published in some journal, or if I prove in the future something worthy of publishing, what are your general guidelines of what to do?

Sorry to have to say it, but the first step is to assure yourself that you aren't a crank. You don't sound like someone trying to "square the circle", so the first comment was just for completeness. But if you aren't sure about the validity of your research then getting some feedback on it from a pro would be helpful. Perhaps you are close enough to some university to make contacts and talk about what value your ideas might have.

But in the final analysis, you publish in a journal by submitting your work to the journal. If you get desk-rejected by an editor you have some information that your work isn't up to the required standard. But otherwise your work will be given to experienced reviewers for comment.

You don't need any credential or affiliation to publish. Just quality work.

Longer term, however, forming some circle of collaboration can help get you in the game. It can help you up your game as well.

You don't say what you mean by "lack of support". If you edit the question to add more, I might have more to say as well.


How to indicate when quotation marks are not used to quote someone in APA? I am careful about placing attribution to quotes in assignments. Occasionally, in assignments, I must use quote marks for purposes other than quoting, but my instructor misinterprets this as a "quote missing a citation".

In the Wikipedia article on Quotation Marks, one can find a list of examples of other uses of quotation marks. Suppose I need to use quotation marks to "signal unusual usage" ("Quotation Marks", 2014) or show some "distinction" in "usage" ("Quotation Marks", 2014) or even scare quotes. Is there any way in which I can indicate this, in APA style?

APA does not provide a distinction. It is assumed that all thinks enclosed in quotation makes are either quotes, and therefore attributed, or something "special". The hope is that your text clarifies the reason for the quotation mark. In most well written papers, the reason for the quotation marks is pretty obvious. Therefore APA style does not mandate a difference in usage.

As to why your instructor is flagging them up, it is possible your instructor is using some sort of automated system to find the missing citations or that your usage of quotation marks is excessive or improper. It is probably best to talk to the instructor to figure out what is going on.


Publishing a paper with questionable statistics I've submitted a paper to a reasonably good journal in my field. One of the reviewers questioned the statistical methods and recommended major revisions. Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the analysis, I sought help from a statistics expert and whilst they said that my analysis wasn't strictly "wrong" they suggested that I correct my p-values for multiple comparisons in order to pacify the reviewers. The issue is, when I applied the correction none of my findings came out to be significant. I am fine with that, for most of the paper we're describing general trends anyway, so I think that removing mention of significance isn't a huge deal, and everyone talks about the need to publish negative findings, so why would this be so bad?
My advisor however disagrees, they think that the adjustment is too stringent and we're penalizing the findings unnecessarily (I am using false-discovery rate, so the most lenient you could get). They also think that if we remove the mentions of significance the paper is likely to be rejected because then we don't have much to back up the trends we're presenting. My advisor wants me to go ahead and resubmit the paper by making slight adjustments. This would be the first paper I've published as first author, and I am struggling to get onboard with blatantly ignoring a the statistical error I would be committing for the sake of publishing it. My advisor has agreed for the correction of the p-values to be applied and discussed in my thesis.
My dilemma lies in whether I try to fight my advisor on this (I don't think I will win), or do as they ask and hope the paper gets rejected, or maybe I'm blowing this out of proportion and my advisor is right. I am concerned that I will regret publishing something I know to be questionable for the sake of publishing.

Well, if you're having second thoughts is because deep down you have a solid reason for it.
And, you do, as you said in your text, the statistical data is lacking additional background support. If possible add more data to the existing data, and make changes to the text accordingly.
Is frequently found on research papers, some shortcuts when presenting experimental data that is lacking some explanation/support. For instance, changing the axis scales, present data in a normalized axis scale, among many others. These data presentation techniques will force the reviewers to spend more time analyzing your data looking for clues on lack of validity. In such cases, even if it gets published, later on, it will be reflected on the number of citations (for instance). To simply put, I don't recommend doing it nowadays.


Recent publication versus old, crappy letters of recommendation? I honestly didn't do to well in university. The classes that interested me I did well in, everything else not so much. Needless to say my GPA isn't the best.

Recently however I've found a field that really interests me. I've been trying to learn as much as I can, and I've been contributing to open source projects as well. These projects have led to at least one publication (a second is up in the air) as well as an online portfolio.

Since these are open source, remote projects I haven't had a real chance to form close relationships with anyone. Since I'm now considering going back to school, this puts me in a bit of a bind when it comes to letters of recommendation since I doubt in going to get really great letters from anyone from university.

It's been about five years since I graduated, so I'm not sure the impact of poor letters versus more recent work. I'm also not sure how to fix it. Any advice would be nice

If you have done valuable work on open source projects, a recommendation from one of the lead developers would certainly count highly in my book, if you are applying to a related field (or software related in general). That you have never even met face to face should make no difference.

You say you did well at some classes you liked, presumably some of the people who taught you (preferably later courses) will write you "face to face based" letters, I wouldn't forego such totally.

For the record, I had some students around here (OK, still have) that do extremely well in non-directly study related stuff, and do so-so or directly terrible in their regular classes. I would recommend some of them highly, even if their grades aren't stellar. But probably with some warning about "careful, if work isn't interesting to them they might just drop it".


Which section of a research paper is best to state that results also depend on equipment used? I have written a paper with some interesting results. However, I would like to add one or two sentences that draw the attention of the reader to the fact that the results also depend on the instruments used for the experiment. I would like to point out, that if the equipment were more advanced, the results may be different. Do I add this information at the end of the results section, the discussion or do I add it to the conclusion? Which section is best suited for this kind of information?

I think it depends. In my opinion, it makes most sense to address equipment limitations (e.g. instrument resolution, reachable temperatures, etc.) in the method(ology) section, as was suggested by astronat. Limitations on your results, however, are more naturally addressed in the discussion (e.g. since we are resolution limited, we cannot definitively rule out alternative interpretations X, or Y, but our results are consistent with prevailing theory Z). If it is a particularly important qualifier that's central to your work, it can make sense to repeat it in the conclusion and possibly elsewhere.


How to score class participation, correcting for natural outspokenness? When my students ask questions and participate in discussion, class is more thoughtful, more fun, and more effective. I encourage their participation by checking in with them regularly, and making sure that they have time to speak and that they get a respectful hearing. Still, perhaps half of them never say a word. It seems like being in our mutual interest to get them to speak in class.

Because of these positive effects, like other teachers I have tried to encourage participation by making it part of the grading rubric. Some measures assess students' class presence within a particular timeframe, but this is hard to distinguish from attendance. More subtle is to give credit for speech, by filtering and counting contributions, whether online or in person. The speech measure is confounded by the fact that some students are happy to talk all the time while some never even want to. Without rewarding loudmouths or penalizing shy international students, what are best practices in scoring class participation?

Is "speaking in class" or "communicating about the topic in groups" part of your learning goals for your students? If yes, then you should first communicate this to your students and then think about how to include participation in the grading rubric based on the learning goals you set.

However, if you only want students to participate in the lecture to make your own teaching experience better, I think it is unreasonable to include their participation in their grade.

Put differently: I think that the grading should reflect how well the students achieved the learning goals of the course and nothing else. (This may be different in school, but for a undergraduate and graduate courses, I think this is reasonable.)


Risking declining a postdoc offer for a potentially better one I have an offer of a good postdoc that I have until the end of tomorrow to accept or decline. It's a 2 year post at a decent UK institution, working on interesting applied interdisciplinary work. I know some people involved -- the PI and people they've worked with, and the previous research fellow who had the job is a friend (and I'd be working a % with them).

On the other hand, I have applied for another postdoc at a more exciting EU institution, doing more exciting theoretical work that is a very natural extension of my PhD. The PI there has commended my work, added an article of mine to the project's pre-launch bibliography, and said in a phonecall that I could be optimistic of my chances, based on my application. They also asked me not to accept the other one(!). The deadline for this is end October, so interviews would only take place in November. I also don't have any personal connections with the PI or other researchers (although I know the literature of course). The project starts next year, so the group is being built from scratch.

My dilemma is this: do I take the safe, good option, which is guaranteed but which involves an overlap with the PhD timeline, or do I risk "reaching for the stars" with the more exciting option which, because of its high profile, is likely to attract applications that may in the end be better than mine? If I decline the first one, but the applications for the second are stellar, I might end up with nothing.

My gut tells me to reach for the stars. But my wallet, in the months since my scholarship ended, says otherwise. I'm really torn!

Edit: some more detail -- the UK position is in a generic English midlands city that I am not inspired by at all, while the EU position is in a capital (indeed, the capital), and has a lot of draw because of that. I can't deny that the location is a big factor for me, not least because of Brexit.

Outcome: In the end I declined it to go with my gut instinct, which is to try for the other one. Time will tell if that was the right choice -- I may come out with neither, but for whatever reason that prospect doesn't frighten me (I will find something ultimately).

Outcome v2: I was offered the more exciting postdoc and will start there in 2019, so my instinct was correct

Accept the "good postdoc" position, get paid whilst you finish your PhD (during evenings/at weekends) and benefit from the position. Apply for the "reaching for the stars" postdoc. Should you be successful, quit the "good postdoc," optionally after negotiating a delayed start date to allow more time in that position.

The OP has declined their other, so this answer is for other readers.


Are there any guidelines for how to distribute images in a (bachelor) thesis? I am preparing my Bachelor thesis (it has to be around 20-25 pages long in case it makes a difference) in Biophysics and I want to put some images at the very beginning as a way of introducing and making clear the physical processes and systems that I'm going to consider through the whole thesis.

I am writing my thesis using LaTeX and a one column style and I don't really know where and how to put the figures. For the figures that contain results of simulations and similar things it is easier because I can almost always put two of them together so they cover the whole width of the text, but if I put a schematic drawing of some process I feel that there is a lot of blank space around.

What I have done so far is to change the style to two columns in that part of the thesis and use one for the image and the other one for text. Is this acceptable? What is usually done to avoid having a lot of blank space around the figures?

Also most of my figures are interspersed thorough the text (I am using LaTeX automatic positioning so far) because I feel that it is easier to understand the process if the schematic figure that I'm referring to is next to the text. Should I continue doing it or should I put all of them at the end of the section or of the whole thesis?

The basic guideline for this should be your institute's guideline on how to layout bachelor or master thesis.
From a typographic standpoint you should never mix one column with two column layouts. LaTeX offers packages which you can use to wrap text around figures to reduce white spaces.
Like you said and did, I also would put the figures around the spots where they are mentioned in the text. LaTeX arranges them automatically (you can however specify some positions in your figure environment). But from my experiences, it does a very good job at finding the right positions.


Do textbook publishers really offer ethically questionable inducements to professors to adopt or retain their book? I teach at a community college, and my experience with textbook reps is that they're very friendly and persistent, but ultimately all they've really done is to give me a copy of their book and try to convince me to adopt it. There are certainly many unethical things about textbook publishing, but as far as I could see, they were decisions made by executives in New York (e.g., bringing out new editions to kill off the used market, or shrinkwrapping the book with useless trinkets so that it couldn't be returned). In online discussions, I've often heard people who seem to be students make claims that professors were "bribed" to use a particular publisher's book. I never believed these claims, and when I asked these people to supply evidence, they never had any.

But recently I was talking to a colleague in another department, and he told me that his department would never change their book for a particular course, because his colleagues got ethically questionable inducements from the publisher. When I asked him what they were, he said that the publisher would, e.g., repeatedly invite faculty who were using the book to "meet-the-author" events in Florida. He said that these faculty had grown to expect this as a perk that they were regularly offered as an unspoken quid pro quo for continuing to use the book. I didn't ask him for hard evidence of his claim, and I don't know what form of evidence he would have available.

Is there really any hard evidence that publishers do this sort of thing, or is this an urban folktale?

There is some hard evidence that textbook publishers do occasionally offer inducements to professors for adopting their texts. The abstract of this paper in the Journal of Marketing Education reports that

  With respect to publisher incentives, 32 respondents reported that they had been offered and 18 reportedly received an inducement from a publisher related to textbook adoption...

Ricki Lewis, author of Freebies and Other Inducements found that "monetary enticement to adopt a book, although not rampant, does happen, and not just in economics. In science, these extras are encountered in large introductory biology and chemistry courses--but less so in physics and geology classes, which tend to attract fewer students."


Using the title of famous books as titles in presentations I want to give a presentation in which I want to use the title of famous books as some of the titles of my slides to add some taste to it. Am I allowed to use for example (Great Expectations) in the title of a slide regarding the copyright?

It sounds like you want to use these titles to help build sort of a humorous narrative.  From a legal and ethical perspective, this is totally fine: you're using only a few words and in a manner that is clearly referencing the original in a transformative manner.

From a practical perspective, however, I would generally advise against this sort of humor in presentations.  The reason is twofold:

This sort of "cute" idea is often distracting from the main narrative.
Different people have different senses of humor, and this is especially true with the extremely diverse cultural range that you are likely to encounter in academia.  Thus, jokes are likely to fall flat with some parts of your audience.

Still, some people can make it work, and if you're a student giving a relatively low-stakes presentation, you should feel free to experiment.


Is it necessary to send a corrigendum? Does it make my paper look ugly? I have a paper which is accepted without any minor or major revisions in a good journal (lucky me). It is fully published. Since I had no chance to revise it, many small mistakes slipped into the proof. During proofreading I tried my best to catch any mistake and correct it. But these were two problems: 1) There were too many small mistakes so at least one of them slided my attention. 2) I couldn't ask the copy-editor to remove a whole "sentence".

If I had the chance to revise it, I would easily fix that up. But now the erroneous sentence is there in my beloved paper. It is now fully published (as online and hard copy). I am tempted to send a corrigendum on that paper, saying that the line is incorrect and should not be there. But on the other hand am afraid that it would make my paper look not-perfect or even ugly.

Do you suggest me sending a corrigendum? Or should I wait until someone notices that and writes a letter to the editor and then I answer in a reply to that letter, saying that "yes you are right, that sentence should not be there in the first place"? And if no one noticed that, I leave that error alone.

Which other ideas do you have about this?

Thanks a lot.

Given your clarifications 1, 2, and 3, I would suggest leaving it alone.

The modern trend is for the corrigenda and the errata to be used more for "serious" stuff, and less so for "cosmetic" changes. The guideline, for example, given by the American Physiological Society is:

  if the author determines that it is scientifically necessary

While Nature uses the following definition for a corrigendum:

  Corrigendum. Notification of an important error made by the author(s) that affects the publication record or the scientific integrity of the paper, or the reputation of the authors or the journal.

Unless the venue in which you published your work states otherwise in their publication guidelines, a stray sentence that is not factually false, does not invalidate your claims, and does not impinge on the efforts of other researchers to reproduce your work is likely not "scientifically necessary."

Even if you insist on perfection, you should also be aware how corrigenda are viewed by other researchers in your field. If in your field the prevailing view is that corrigenda are used for "scientifically necessary" changes to your article, then you need to be prepared to answer questions about your correction in the future (usually of the form, "Why is there a corrigendum issued for your paper? Are you sure it doesn't change your conclusions?")

Lastly, a minor point is that if you published in a journal which charges publication fees, quite often your corrigendum will come with a not-so-small price-tag also.


How to handle Supplementary Instruction of Subject-Deficient Students with language difficulties I work as a supplemental instructor for students that come out of high school with subject deficiencies. They are admitted as conditional students, and they are required to meet certain benchmarks in order to proceed. These subject deficient students are required to take supplemental courses alongside their first lecture in whatever subject they might be deficient in. The instructors for these supplemental courses, or enhanced labs, are all undergraduate students. We work alongside the professor of the lecture to develop lesson plans that coincide with one another. For example, in a Statistics lecture, the professor will only teach statistics, but in the lab, I work to teach algebra components they missed (or forgot in the case of non-traditional students) alongside reviewing the statistics covered before tests.

Typically, the number one problem is that these conditionally admitted students are on completely different levels from one another. This has its own solution that has always worked well.

That being said, another problem has arisen. I have a student in my lab that speaks very little English. Due to this, he has been struggling severely but hasn't dropped the course due to an incredible perseverance. The issue at hand is that I have absolutely no idea how to support him as an instructor and the professor I'm working with is also at a loss. When consulting with the Academic Support team, they're also at a loss, because we don't have a lot of support for languages from his region.

How should I go about handling this student? At this rate, he will assuredly fail, and I don't want to just leave him to drown. Collegiate statistics can be hard enough for students as it is.

assuming that this student met the English proficiency requirements of your school it is still common for esl students to fail courses due to language issues. this is due to the fact that they have to acquire the language of the course in addition to everyday English.

if you are willing you can try to accommodate this student through providing additional teaching and or additional time for assignments and assessments.

from personal experience for a hard working esl student the second time through id always a charm. as their language skills improve the chances of repeating are drastically reduced.


Is there any dedicated, academic channel i could use to establish contact with other universities on an international scale? I'm a doctoral student at the fine arts faculty of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain (European Union), in the Art and Technology department, and i have a question about the elaboration of my thesis that you might be able to help me with.

To acquire a sizable part of the information needed to conduct my research, i need to establish contact with forty two universities spread across the globe, mostly to conduct interviews in text, audio and video formats about culture, art, and technology.

I already asked both my thesis directors and faculty administrators about what the best way to contact this universities would be, but they have been unable to offer me a proper answer so far. I could contact them with my personal university email, but i still think that it would be more appropriate to do so trough a dedicated channel, but i wonder about the existence of a dedicated, international channel that i could use to do so in a more formal way.

To recap, my question would be as follows:

As a doctoral student and citizen of the European Union, is there any dedicated, preferably free of charge, academic channel i could use to establish contact with other universities on an international scale?

Thanks a lot for your time.

Martin

Summarizing the comments: the primary form of communication and dissemination of information among academics is e-mail, for better or worse.  But perhaps more towards what your end goal might be, a Slack channel might be appropriate.  You will still need to solicit participants via e-mail and advertising on ResearchGate or listservs dedicated to your research field.  But once you get a core group, you can put everyone on Slack and give them admin permissions to add additional participants as the group grows.


How to format code in a thesis (Word document)? I have a couple of code snippets, included in my thesis. What is the most convenient way to format code in a Word document, particularly, in regard to keeping the syntax highlighting, etc.? And the guidelines say that text should use double space. Does this apply to the embedded code as well?

You should create a paragraph style with the appropriate settings—a monospaced font for one thing, probably some indentation—and use that.

When using Microsoft Word you should resist the temptation to change any properties of the font at all manually. (Ideally remove the font bar from the ribbon altogether.) Instead you should create paragraph and character styles and apply them as you go along. Then they can easily be edited globally later.

If you really need syntax highlighting, the "best" way would probably be to write a macro that tagged the different parts of the code with a different character style for each code element, and then adjust the colours in the character style editor later. Then run the macro on each code block. I suspect such a macro probably exists somewhere.

The "quick" way would be to copy and paste from another program where the text is already coloured.


Should I mention being enrolled in distance course currently as a backup option in application form? I am currently enrolled in a distance masters's course in my country as a backup. I will be only applying to some really very competitive schools. If I don't make it through those schools I will apply next year or year after that and continue to do so till I make it in. I am very very passionate about these schools and the research going on in there.

Class for this distance course will begin by the end of this month and I will quit as soon as I get an admit in any school of my choice. Should I mention joining the course in my application forms?

Some of these schools want me to upload transcripts of any course I have attended after school. Considering the fact that the course has not yet begun there is no way I could get a transcript from them.

The basic rule of thumb is this: if you're actively involved in something at the time of application, then you should mention it. If you're tentatively enrolled (for example, you've been offered admission, but have not yet officially registered), then it doesn't actually count, and you need not mention it.


Should I include a publication where I'm only acknowledged (and not one of the authors) in my CV? Suppose that I've helped other researchers with the statistical analyses for an epidemiological study and therefore I am acknowledged for that in the "Acknowledgments" section of the paper (something like "We thank andrea for his statistical support").

Obviously, this doesn't count as a publication for me, as I am not one of the authors. But if I include it in my CV, how much "weight" would a professor (or someone within the academia) give to that? I also have other publications where I am either the first author or one of the co-authors.

I am not thinking of a particular situation here (like applying for a grant or for a PhD position). I am just curious to know if it could be useful to put it into my CV or if it would just be irrelevant.

I've never seen anything like this on a CV.

If you have other publications, I certainly wouldn't include this. It would look like you are trying too hard to find something to put on your CV, which could do more harm than good. Let your publications stand for themselves.

One thing you could do when describing the various jobs you've had, is to include the statistical analysis work in the description of the activities you performed in that job. You could also mention it in the cover letter, if it is relevant for the job. Finally, do bring it up in the interview as an example of how you work in a collaboration.


Why might professors in an online masters program give fewer assignments and less feedback than those in an in-person program? When I was a graduate business student some 20 years ago in a major state university in south central US, my general impression was that almost all professors, with very few exception, were spending lots of time with the students' learning, in that they were behaving the same way as if they were teaching undergraduate students.

Now I am taking a second master degree in math with another state university, but this time around I am taking it online. My general impression here is the exact opposite of my past experience. Almost all teachers are spending less time with teaching, meaning that they passed out only class notes, rarely (if at all) gave assignments, and much less returned them with feedback.

For your info, my school is a non flag-ship school in the state university system, almost all students are HS math teachers whose only goal is getting master degree in math for job purpose, and I suspect lots of them do not even have enough math prerequisite. I am also a HS teacher but I think I am the only one who have middle name in math. I am not venting here but here is my question:

  Is there any hardship or predicament on the professors' side that the public are not aware of, that cause them to behave the way they did?

Thank you for your time and effort.

As someone who has taught both the answer is actually pretty simple.  When you're in class you can't help but make a physical connection to students.  Online, you have to make an effort to do that.  Some teachers  do, but many don't.


Why can't applicants ask for letters of recommendation on potential employers/bosses? Employers/bosses need reference letters from previous employers to assess applicants. Why can this not happen the other way round? It should've been a 2 way peer review stream. Applicants should have legitimate reasons to ask for reference letters written about the employers/bosses, shouldn't they?

Short answer: supply and demand. Established universities are comfortable that they can get qualified applicants even with requiring letters; candidates would have a very difficult time finding a job if they required their employers to submit letters of recommendation to them.

The early stage (making a short list) is asymmetrical for sure, but it's sort of apples and orange.

There are only so many departments that work in a particular subfield, so the applicant is likely already familiar with the department and potentially even with the faculty members in that department. Thus, letters wouldn't provide much new information. (Possible exception for small R&D companies rather than universities, but such jobs rarely require letters).
Conversely, there are many applicants for any particular slot, and the hirers will know very few of them. Thus, without letters, there are few practical, effective ways to know which candidates should interview.

In later phases, the process does become more symmetrical. Both sides tend to make their own judgments at this phase rather than relying on reputation or letters.

These interviews should be both ways -- I would be surprised if any hirer would hesitate to discuss their interests, backgrounds, expectations, and style with a candidate they are seriously considering hiring.
You are also likely to have a chance to meet with the supervisor's group, colleagues, and employees at some point. If not, no reason you couldn't request such a meeting, or just set one up directly.


Advice on getting a Ph.D with scholarship in Australia (Neuroscience) I intend to write to potential supervisors soon and I had a few questions.

I am currently in my second year of Masters of Neuroscience (In France, I'm Indian) and won’t finish until June 2018. I see some positions open that I really want and I don’t want to miss out on them but I also don’t want to write to them too soon.

When is the right time to write to them? What should the first email contain? I guess one should attach a CV but should I also send letters of recommendation?

Any tips on the scholarships and funding and what that requires?

Any other tips?

Usually, there is no specific timeline for applying for a PhD in Australia, unless you are thinking about particular advertised PhD positions or scholarships which of course have deadlines. After all, because you are an international student, you'd better find a good way to pay your tuition fees unless you are able to finance your project independently.

Approaching a potential supervisor, you will be asked to provide a research proposal and your CV. You can also include your referees' names and contacts in your CV.  I suggest you introduce yourself and talk briefly about your academic background. Then you can talk about your proposed project and how the professor is suitable for it. Finally, you invite him/her to consider your attached CV and proposal.

You can use below template for emailing potential supervisors:

Dear Professor XX,

I have graduated (or I will be graduated) from XX with an M.A. degree in XX.

I am interested in carrying out a project, title of your project,

Based on your research focus on XXX, I am keen to join your research team as a Ph.D. student.

Please find attached proposal concerning the proposed project and my CV for your perusal.

I look forward to your reply,

With Kind regards,

XXXX


Is it worth going to an academic conference if I'm just attending? There's a maths conference coming up and the whole thing amounts to about $1K, which is not the problem. I'm not going to be presenting, and I'm just going to be attending. I am planning to go next year to present a project I've currently started. Is it worth going this year?

Thanks!

Academic conferences are pretty good to make networking between the participants. If you are looking for some collaboration into your project, maybe it could be a great idea to attend.


Is it okay for the author field to contain names of research labs? I find most articles through EBSCO and similar search tools, then export the BibTeX details to my own bibliography.bib file. Recently, I found some BibTeX files with a strange author field, containing not just the name of a person, but also of a research lab or a college. E.g.:

  Author = {White, R. R. and West College Child Development Laboratory}

When compiled in APA format, it looks very odd:

  White, R. R. and Laboratory, W. C. C. D.

Are there situations in which it is correct to place such lab or school details directly in the author field? If not, where do I need to relocate this information to?

I have seen labs signing papers in cases of very big collaborations. If that is how it is cited in the journal, you should adjust your bib file like so (thanks to Federico Poloni for the fix):

Author = "White, R. R. and {West College Child Development Laboratory}"


How much of a maths background is necessary for a PhD in Software Engineering? I am a third year undergraduate majoring in Software Engineering ,and hope to continue studies until a PhD.
I am from Sri Lanka.I intend to go for USA or New Zealand to do my masters and eventually my PhD

My High school subjects were Computer Science, Accounts and Economics.I didn't select Maths since I didn't like the subject at that time(although now I regret it everyday)

While doing undergraduate studies I did a maths course and scored poorly and didn't actually learn since they teach a lot of concepts in maths in a very limited time.
When I watch MIT opencourseware videos on Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence,I realized that the maths they use are Greek to me.I knew I had to do maths if I ever am going to have a career in academia after this.
Is it a smart move to take a semester break from undergraduate studies to study maths or is it possible to continue studies till a PhD without actually taking maths?

It is a bit hard to say, because whilst you say you don't "know" math, you must know - some - from your Sofware Engineering undergrad and Comp. Sci. pre-university education. My background is AI, a very wide field that can involve all kinds of mathematical formalisms - from Tarskian Semantics to Calculus and most researchers aren't an expert in all of the areas AI makes use of, some are completely unknown to some researchers (in my experience). So your question, "do I need to know maths", depends on what you want to do - you don't need to know ALL of our current mathematics (no-one knows that anymore in any case).

So my first suggestion is to read some Software Engineering papers and see how much mathematics they use and what kind. If you want to do quantitative research you will need to know statistics. If you want to develop formalisms to support Software Engineers you will need to know some logic and basic ways to prove theorems, and so on.

My second suggestion is to think carefully about the Masters you do in order to encompass the areas you want to learn about. But, it is perfectly possible to learn much of this on your own - at first it'll seem difficult, of course.

To try and give you some encouragement, maths is often Greek to people, because of all the Greek letters, but in my view it is also possible to pick up the necessary parts. I taught (during my PhD) students coming from a wide range of backgrounds some elementary formal logic and Artificial Intelligence techniques, most of them picked it up fine and I think from there they would have been able to pursue a PhD in AI - I have also met people coming from non AI, Comp. Sci. or similar backgrounds that have pursued a PhD in AI.


What are the general ethical procedures to restart abandoned research? Please note: this is a hypothetical situation

Sometimes, for whatever reason, research is started by another academic (not necessarily known to you) and abandoned part way through (more often than not, the reason is tragic).  This will potentially leave research incomplete.

In a general sense, what are the practical and ethical considerations and procedures to restart and complete the research that has been abandoned by another academic?

It seems to me that the ethics here really relate to the foundation upon which you will build. Conducting additional research and writing additional papers is not problematic in itself, but if you must use materials, data, and ideas from informal conversations then you have ethical and/or practical considerations. If you have never met the other researchers and have just read some papers, found it interesting, and then they stopped publishing, I don't see how you would have any obligation to those researchers. This is academic life- we build on the work of others. In fact, you might say we have an ethical obligation to advance the field.

Coming from this perspective, what is acceptable with respect to the foundational elements would be governed by the normal rules. So here are some examples:

Data: If you need actual (generally unpublished) data from the other researcher(s) then you will have to ask for the data and have their permission to publish that data. You should acknowledge the source of that data in any related publications.
Materials: If you need code or study materials, you will have to ask for it as well and you will be bound by any relevant licensing restrictions. Again, this should be acknowledged.
Ideas: If you are building on informal conversations with previous researchers, then you should seek their permission and acknowledge that as well. This is about not losing friends, unless you are under NDA, in which case it may be a legal matter as well.

There may also be cases in which your reputation and friendships may be at stake, for example if you publish research that competes with that of your old advisor. This should not generally be a big concern with projects that are abandoned. If in doubt, you should probably communicate your intentions and seek their blessings.

In many cases, particularly if others have given advice, it may be a good idea to ask if they want to be involved as a coauthor. A researcher who has had to stop doing their research, perhaps due to lost funding or changes in their employment, may be excited at the opportunity to help advance the field while improving their own CV, by just providing some past data and helping with some writing.

The most important thing is to be sure to always give credit where it is due.


What does a promise of possible funding "based on availability of departmental funding" actually mean? I'm finishing up my third year of a PhD program this Spring. Until recently, I had assumed that I would have four years of funding as many of the PhD students do. However, after asking the department chair, I was told that "the department resources are stretched (as usual) and we made our recruitment plans based on those cycling off funding, including you. There is always a possibility that our recruitment efforts do not go as planned, but it is unlikely that we will be able to offer a fourth year of funding."

My award letter states that I have three years, with the "possibility of a fourth year based on availability of departmental funding." What does "based on availability of departmental funding" actually mean, legally? Does it mean that the department can continue to recruit new students instead of keeping on current ones?

I'm at a public university. Is there any way to find out whether the departmental funding is actually unavailable? Is it enough to ask HR, or might there be any other resources I should search out?

Your institution has definitely met the terms laid out in your award letter, which states that there is "possibility of a fourth year based on availability of departmental funding." This does not mean that you are necessarily guaranteed a fourth year of funding. Even if most students get the fourth year, assuming you will is risky. They promised you three years of funding, and said that they might be able to give you a fourth. They gave you three years of funding, and decided that they can't afford to give you a fourth. As raised by @einpoklum there may or may not be other factors that influence your contract, legally, but any analysis of that would require much more information than what is provided and should be provided by a lawyer, not a random academic on the internet.

Regardless of the precise legality of the decision, I would advise that you spend your time looking into alternative sources of funding rather than try to dispute this decision. Trying to contest will damage your reputation within your institution, make you look foolish (especially if you have a weak case / are perceived by others as having a weak case), and use up precious time you could have spent looking for alternative sources of funding. Speak to your adviser first and foremost, as they have the best understanding of the university and what resources might be available to you (RA or teaching positions, most likely). Your government almost certainty has agencies that award grants that you may be eligible for. There are also non-profits that award academic grants that you may be eligible for, especially if you're an underrepresented minority.


Is it a good idea to link your LinkedIn profile in the CV section of your dissertation? I've passed the disputation and am now preparing the document for the printing press and final submission. We're required to have a CV in the back matter of the dissertation, and I was wondering if it is a good idea to link to my LinkedIn profile in addition (perhaps with a QR code) because it'll be far more up to date than the CV in my dissertation.

Do you think this is a good idea? Are there any things I should consider when doing this?

Your question indicates that you want to use a link to your LinkedIn profile in your CV because "it'll be far more up to date than the CV in my dissertation." Are you suggesting that (a) you are going to include a CV that is not up to date, or that (b) your LinkedIn profile will be updated over time and that you won't be able to go back and edit your dissertation?

If you mean (a), then no, you need to keep your CV up to date and a link to an online profile will not work. Your academic CV should always be kept as up to date as possible and it should absolutely be updated before you submit it in an application or include it in a dissertation. If you are doing your CV correctly, it will include different information than a LinkedIn profile and there is a strong expectation that every academic will have one.

If you mean (b) and are just worried that an archival copy of your CV will be out of date, sure, add a link to LinkedIn or similar. My CV links prominently to my academic homepage on at a permanent (i.e., non-university) URL, which is kept up to date, and which includes a link to the latest version of my CV at all point. I include a date in the footer of my CV although folks will have a date in your dissertation. Personally, I think this is better than relying on a for-profit company and its URLs for posterity.

In terms of the QR code, I'd skip it. These days, almost everybody who reads the dissertation will read a soft copy. A hyperlink will be much more useful. I suspect that a QR code will just end up make the document look dated at some point in the rather near future.


Responding to a query for a grant to attend conference I applied for a grant to attend a conference last month and received the following query:

  We are currently in the middle of assessing the Conference Attendance
  applications and the assessors would like to ask you for a further
  explanation on how XXX research is related to
  and brings benefits to, the Internet? Is it expected that XXX will
  bring connectivity to an isolated individual?

Now, I am thinking about how to respond to them. My concerns are,

(i) Should I respond them back simply in the form of email (the way I received their query) or should I make a .pdf document for it?

(ii) Should my answer be very detailed or just to the point (in which case, it may be one short paragraph only)?

(iii) Any other do's and dont's !

Thanks

Should I respond them back simply in the form of email?

Yes, it is far easier to process.

  Should my answer be very detailed or just to the point?

Either, but if it is detailed, then structure is key: Reply in a manner that the reader can stop reading as soon as they are satisfied. This likely requires you to open with a single paragraph summary (possibly concluding with "Further details are provided below, should you be interested" or similar).

  Any other do's and dont's !

If XXX will bring connectivity to an isolated individual, then the application of your research is seemingly narrower than the organisers would like. Otherwise, make sure to explain how XXX brings connectivity to more than an isolated individual.


Advisor has stopped giving me research projects I’m a fourth-year PhD student. For a while my advisor has been complaining that I don’t take enough ownership of my projects and I just do what he tells me to do, and that I don’t have any critical thinking skills.  He told me that if he left me in a room for six months by myself, I would not be able to produce a paper.

After our last project finished, he just never gave me a new project, and I haven’t had a research project for several months now.

I asked him why he did not give me a new project, and he said that he shouldn’t have to give me projects, because I am the graduate student and I should be coming up with my own projects.  This is very different from all of our previous projects where he came up with the whole idea and I mostly just followed instructions.

Is this a polite way of firing me?

Your advisor is right: a PhD student needs to take more and more ownership as the PhD progresses, as one of the main goals of attaining a PhD degree is to become an independent researcher. Taking ownership includes that a PhD student should develop the ability to formulate research hypotheses and a matching research plan (main milestones, methodology of investigation, time plan) on his/her own, and your supervisor should merely provide feedback on your plan, but not have to write it in main parts anymore. For a "normal" PhD project I would expect that after about half to two-thirds of the allocated time the student has shown strong signs of taking ownership.

As Captain Emacs said in one of the comments, it is indeed high time for you to do your own stocktake of your PhD project and develop your precise research questions / main hypotheses for the remaining PhD, including a draft of the research plan (as above: main steps / milestones, indicative time budget, being clear on the research question addressed in each step, and defining a methodology that can indeed answer the research question, make an analysis of the risks involved [do you have all the equipment / data / source code / ... you need]). Ask your supervisor for feedback, but do not ask for his/her "approval". You are the lead on your PhD project and have all the responsibility for it, and you merely ask your supervisor for expert advice, not for any decisions or his/her blessing.

And if you still find that you do not get a handle on taking ownership, and if you were my PhD student, I would ask you to seriously consider the question whether a PhD is the right thing for you and whether other options (e.g. exiting with a master degree) would make sense.


When should I appropriately use adjectives and adverbs? I heard using adjectives and adverbs should be avoided; which scenarios should I use adjectives and adverbs?

This advice, taken literally, is absurd. Adjectives and adverbs are perfectly reasonable parts of speech, and there is no inherent reason to avoid them. If you pick up any piece of academic writing, it should be clear that nearly every sentence includes them, and could not reasonably be expressed without them.

I count four in your question itself: "academic", "another", "specific", "proper". I can't imagine how you would express your question without any.

It is generally good advice in academic writing to write concisely and avoid unnecessary words. And it is a little easier to add unnecessary adjectives and adverbs to a sentence than some other parts of speech, so they may deserve some extra scrutiny. But avoiding them altogether? Nonsense.


Ethics of Using Victim's Name in Research? What are the ethical considerations of using a victim of a violent crime's name in my research?

I understand confidentiality is not an issue as the individual is deceased. Moreover, their death was a high-profile legal case, so it's already a public issue. So while I may be "allowed" to use their name - I am more concerned about what is most respectful of their family/friends. (I think contacting them to ask would be inappropriate).

Would it be better to simply say "the deceased" or "the victim"? What if the details of the case study make it abundantly clear to whom I am referring?

EDIT 1:

To clarify, the case is high profile enough to have a Wikipedia page and have been reported in all major news outlets. None of my data is not already in the public domain.

Journalists I have spoken to have emphasized the importance of communicating in private, with ample lead time prior to publication, with multiple people with relevant personal and professional experience. For instance, if it was a suicide, you might want to run a question like this by both professionals in areas related to suicide, and families of people who have committed suicide.

Maybe this is an approach your IRB is already taking, but I see no harm in doing some investigation of your own. If nothing else, it might inform your communication with your IRB.

No "rule of thumb" will cover all situations, and the number of overlapping considerations can make it pretty complex. Communicate with people who have experience and expertise that will make them likely to think of things you might miss.


Coping with "survivors guilt" in Academia I managed to get a tenure-track academic job in the last month. While I'm thrilled and relieved to have secured employment, I feel somewhat guilty about it. The current employment situation is dire, due to the Covid-19 pandemic (it wasn't great before...). Many of my friends and colleagues are extremely worried about their career prospects, facing unemployment, or being forced to leave academia. I don't think I'm necessarily more deserving of a job than any of them. I can see that my experience fits well with the department I was hired by and was fortunate that they were pressing ahead with hiring.
Perhaps calling it "survivor's guilt" is too extreme. I certainly don't intend to minimise the experience of those suffering due to much more severe circumstances. But I don't think Impostor Syndrome quite describes it. I suspect this feeling may be common in academia, in particular at the moment.
How can I support my struggling colleagues/friends and mentally handle the guilt that comes with surviving in academia (at least so far!) when so many others are facing an unprecedented crisis?

Congrats on your new job! One way you might be able to turn these feelings into something positive is to use whatever influence your position affords to help the students or non-tenure track faculty in your department. You can't fix the limited availability of positions, or competition for them, but maybe you can play a role in making your department as supportive as possible for those experiencing stress from this situation.


In a class with both graduate and undergraduate students, is it normal for a single grading curve to be applied for both groups? I took a class with graduate students as an undergraduate student. The grading was on a curve and combined (as in graduate students were graded along with undergraduate students).

Is this normal in US universities as well? Won't the undergraduate students have a disadvantage competing against graduate students (pursuing 2nd year of Masters/PhD) for a good grade.

What ended up was:

1 A Grade

12 B Grades (7 of which went to graduate Students and 5 to undergraduate students)

20 C Grades

10 D Grades

3 E Grades

For a class of 25 graduate students and 21 undergraduate students.

In the past, I've graded the pool together, and have also graded grads and undergrads separately. Ultimately this is a decision made by the instructor, who probably spelt this out in their syllabus before the class started.


Should I talk about my PhD acceptance in follow up email to potential advisor in different school I got accepted in one of the top-tier school in US for PhD program in Engineering however my dream is to go to different graduate school. I am planning to send a follow up email to one my potential advisor. Can you please tell me how to start and should I mention that I got in to PhD program in one the top-tier school? Should I start with as we talked before or as I mentioned in previous email?

No.  You will appear to be threatening to go elsewhere if they do not act on your application soon.  People may react to such (perceived) threats by saying, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

If the other institution has a deadline by which you must accept their offer, tell your chosen school, "I really want to come to [chosen school] but other factors require me to make a decision by [week before deadline date.]  Is it possible you could help with that?"


How to find h-index in microsoft academic? I am wondering how do we find h-index here:
http://academic.research.microsoft.com/

The h-index was removed from Microsoft Academic Search in January 2013, according to the features update list (which, not surprisingly, is the first Google result for “h-index Microsoft Academic Search”).


Misunderstood exam question with consequences for incorrect answer I suspect a student misread an exam question worth 10 points (exam out of 120). Aside from this one student, the rest all understood the question and the average grade was 8.2/10 for this question. One student did something entirely different and got 0.

After staring at their answer for a while, I realize he / she had confused "map generalization" and "general purpose map". I suspect English is this student’s second language. Now, this question awards 3 or 4 times the points of a typical multiple choice question as it is of a higher level.

I do not like the thought of giving this student a zero on this question when it may be a language nuance issue. They are very close terms, the one I used and the one they misunderstood if for. This student has had issues all semester though with handing work in, attending class, completing assignments, etc., (hence, why this is important as it may have implications for their grade, major, graduation).

The student is on an important grade boundary and it could make a difference to their final grade even a difference to if they have to take the class again / can graduate on time / or even stay in the major.

My thoughts are one of:

Give them another stab at it with more language context, ASAP.
Give them some consolation points.
Stick with the 0 for this question.
Grade the question they answered and not the question asked.
Give him / her the lowest grade anyone else got (or 1 lower) for
this question.

The semester is over but I have a few days before grades are due.

What to do?

UPDATE

The Department Chair recommends removing this one question from this one student's exam and the Associate (sub) Dean applying the "rest of the exam average" to this one question. This is two ways of saying the same thing really as the outcome is identical. Either way you do it applies this one student's average grade for all the other questions to this one question. The Chair and Dean (both whom I highly regard) have no more information than this board aside from the student's name. So if the student averaged 70% on the other questions this would be identical to giving them a 7 out of 10 on this question (this 7 is close to what would happen).  Hmmmm. This has not come up in all the answers or comments below.

What to do?

At my institution the default way to handle this is (3 Stick with the 0 for this question). Essentially, every student is required to handle the teaching language well enough to be able to work on the test. In practice, many teachers will fall back to (2 Give them some consolation points) if giving 0 points seems too harsh. If (1 Give them another stab at it with more language context) is an actual option, that seems like a senseful way, too (e.g., in a short verbal exam). However, in practice this is often not possible in my courses, either because it would be very impractical or because the course regulations do not allow it.

Both, (4 Grade the question they answered and not the question asked) and (5 Give him / her the lowest grade anyone else got for this question), seem like relatively weird ways to handle this situation. With (5), you are essentially decoupling the grades for the student from what (s)he has actually written on the test. (4) breaks a fundamental exam concept, i.e., that the instructor chooses the question that the student should be answering, and not vice versa.

As for this:

  The student is on an important grade boundary and it could make a difference to their final grade even a difference to if they have to take the class again / can graduate on time / or even stay in the major.

As bad as you may feel if "your" grade is the tip of the iceberg that leads to bad consequences for the student, you should be aware that it is the sum of bad performances that has gotten the student into troubles. Your grade is just the last in a series, and your grade is as much "at fault" as any other bad grade the student received. Hence, I feel you are not required to take the larger picture into account.


Does unpublished paper matter for U.S. graduate school application? How different are papers that are "in draft", "in review", and "pending publication" for graduate school application?

I have a research paper that's already drafted, but my PI is aiming for a high-profile journal, so he wants me to address all foreseeable questions about the method I'm about to propose, which means I need to do some supplementary experiments. But this way my paper can't be submitted at the time of my application, and I will have no objective proof about the significance of the work.

Or alternatively, I could submit my draft and wait for the reviewer's opinion, so I can put mark the paper as "in review". This will serve as a proof that my work is mature enough to be seen by others. But is it worth it?

By the way, I'm an senior undergraduate, and I got another paper in draft, but definitely won't be submitted before January. And both drafts are at the stage where they're fit to be reviewed by the admission committee. Besides my supervisors for both projects are listed as my recommenders, and should be able to vouch for me if contacted.

Thank you!

How different are papers that are "in draft", "in review", and
  "pending publication" for graduate school application?

They all have value, although it is hard to quantify. In draft papers show you have initiative and signal (but not reliably) some level of creativity and experience. In review papers suggests the same things to a stronger extent as it implies that the work is more mature (a draft could be at any stage of completion). Obviously, a paper pending publication is a very strong signal of ability.

  Or alternatively, I could submit my draft and wait for the reviewer's
  opinion, so I can put mark the paper as "in review". This will serve
  as a proof that my work is mature enough to be seen by others. But is
  it worth it?

Without knowing much about the details, I think it would be worth doing if you are not going to lose out in someway. I know of people who got academic positions partially on the basis of papers in review (although usually at advance stages, so second or third round). In contrast, I don't know of anyone gaining much advantage from claiming they had a draft paper.


Should titles in the references be in title case? I wonder whether titles in the reference section be in title case, given that the publication venue's style files and publication instructions do not specify.

For example, which of the following should I use?

  [Collobert2011] Ronan Collobert. 2011. Deep learning for efficient discriminative parsing. In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, number EPFL-CONF-192374.

or

  [Collobert2011] Ronan Collobert. 2011. Deep Learning for Efficient Discriminative Parsing. In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics, number EPFL-CONF-192374.

If the venue doesn't specify, then you should pick a style and stick with it. The venues I publish in tend to specify, so I just use the BiBTeX style associated with the venue (e.g., IEEE).


Changing fields between Msc and Phd I got my Bachelors of science degree in Computers and Systems Engineering from a top university in my country 2 years ago. I am now having a fully funded opportunity (as a research assistant) for a Masters in computing science (Thesis option) at one of the top 50 worldwide computing schools, located in Canada. My work will mainly be in the area of industrial automation as a cloud service. This topic is related to my capabilities and interests. However, I am more passionate with the field of robotics in general and specially the autonomous vehicles field (which still lays in the area of computer science). My main goal is to have a Phd in this field from a university like MIT, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon after having my masters degree.

My main question is; is it O.K. to make such a change in the research topic after having my Masters? Or Should my masters research work be in the same specific area?

The most important detail that you need to check is if those Universities that you want for your PhD will accept an IT MSc as entrance for an Engineering PhD. As long as they do, you can continue your research now, get the MSc then move on. If they don’t however, then you’d have a lot more thinking to do about your direction. It's excellent that now you actually do know what you are indeed passionate about. Research interests change all the time and be assured that it's completely natural.

Source: My fiancé has an MSc in Mechanical Engineering but now is keen on doing his PhD in Theoretical Physics and has also approached potential supervisors  and so far the response has been positive.

Good Luck!


Professor does not care about cheating, what should TA do? I am a PhD student, working as a Homework marking TA in a school where cheating is extremely blatant. The university has an extremely strict policy against cheating. Hundreds of students in math courses alone are reported each year, and suspensions are given to severe/repeat offenders. I have personally reported cheating many times.

Based on this environment, most courses have shifted away from Homework grades, and more toward Quiz/Test grades.

My course is a low-bar mid-level math course, very likely to be the last math course ever taken by the students who enrolled in the course.

The marking distribution of my course is done in a way where the homework mark weight is so absurdly high that cheating on homework would almost guarantee a pass.

I had realized this at the beginning of September, and discussed with (confronted) the instructor.
The short summary of the response is that the instructor doesn't care about cheating.

The professor doesn't want to put in the effort to deal with cheaters.
The professor thinks the students cheating would not be overly unfair to other students who don't cheat.
The professor also does not want me to try to catch cheaters.

I have made clear that cheating on homework almost guarantees a pass, and he/she agrees, and is ok with this.

The homework are all questions from the textbook, and a solution manual is readily available on google.

In this week's homework, I have found more than 100 students who have copied from the solution manual, where at least 50 students copied word for word (if reported, the cheating done can be easily proved by the school.)

I suspect I only caught a portion of all cheaters, as buying solutions at this university is too blatant.

I would like to ask the community of my next steps.

If I were to report the cheating to him/her:
Would I anger the professor, since this is against his/her wishes?
Would I build a tense relationship with him following this? (There is still a whole semester ahead, and possibly years in the same university.)
What would be done in the end? What if he ignores the report, what should my next steps be?

If I were to report to the undergrad chair:
Would it be inappropriate to skip reporting to instructor first?
Would I also build a tense relationship with the instructor by this move?
I am almost positive that there would be action by the undergrad chair on the cheating behavior.

I could also report to both simultaneously.
I could also do nothing at all, in which case the cheating would without a doubt continue for the whole term, with the vast majority of students taking part.

I personally disagree with the professor, as I believe that it is unfair for the minority of students who don't cheat.
Due to the high homework marks, a mark curve is highly unlikely, so the students who don't cheat are truly getting lower marks because of the cheaters.

The instructor is in the beginning of his/her career, and not retiring. The university is in North America, very large (more than 50,000 undergrad)

Edit3:
As I continue to grade, I have found more and more cheaters, in the hundreds, approaching 50% of the class.

Thanks for all the suggestions asking me to "let it go".
After much consideration, I can not take such advice.

Thanks for all the suggestions of asking me to "not skip the chain of command".
I have since realized this may have severe consequences, and have decided against it.

I have contacted only the instructor with minimal details of the situation.
Thanks for all the support and best wishes from the community, I sincerely appreciate it.

I realize that the following advice may be very unsatisfying. But you may need to hear it, just to save yourself from grief. I hope it helps.

It may be that you have done all that you can do without harming your own future. You need to judge that, of course, but getting between a new professor and the administration can be uncomfortable at best and career ending at worst.

But you can, of course, vow to be a better actor than this professor when it comes your turn to be in the driver's seat.

There are a lot of possible "reasons" for the situation you are in, none of them especially valid, but still possibly determinant.

Perhaps the department doesn't care a lot about these students or this course, as it doesn't sound like they are in the major.

Perhaps the professor is so tied up in research that he just doesn't care about (or have time for) teaching. This is true, in fact, for some untenured professors.

Perhaps the professor is seen as a future superstar who is immune from all criticism.

If you weren't alone, and had other TAs with similar concerns then you would be in a better position to bring the situation to the attention of higher-ups. If you are friendly with another professor who sees the problem and also objects to it, you could work through him/her.

If your duties included more than grading, such as leading small breakout sections, you could, perhaps, work with your smaller group to get some local change. But, if it is the professor's job to teach them and he refuses to do it effectively then there isn't a lot you can do.

But as a sole TA with only grading responsibilities you don't have a lot of options that won't come back to your own disadvantage.

Certainly you can bring it to the attention of the undergrad coordinator, with evidence. Whether to do it without the knowledge of the prof or not is a (risky) judgement call. But if a solution is to be found, you probably won't be part of creating it. It would be a faculty committee that would have authority and be able to effect change. But you would likely be in the center of any controversy that was generated. As a doctoral student, it feels pretty unsafe to me.

Look to the future, and learn from the past. Do your best but don't put yourself at risk unnecessarily.