How to cite this booklet/manual? I am not sure how should I cite this concrete thing -
https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/news-and-expertise/articles/2016/07/global-investor-2-15-en.pdf

I am using bibtex, but could not figure out type nor fields in it.

Thank you for your help

Why not use the standard article entry type?

  An article from a journal or magazine. Required fields: author, title, journal, year. Optional fields: volume, number, pages, month, note.

Seems like a magazine with articles from different authors to me. If you would want to cite from one of the articles in the magazine, e.g. the first one, it could simply be:

@article{Farronato2015,
 author = {Farronato, C. and Levin, J.},
 journal = {Global Investor},
 number = {2},
 pages = {06--13},
 title = {{The rise of peer-to-peer businesses}},
 volume = {15},
 year = {2015}
}

Please make sure the citation info is correct before using it though. Quick googling seems to report more than one magazine called 'Global Investor'. Please note that I am also not familiar with this field at all.


How to do a literature review on practical research (thesis)? Some background, for my bachelor of science degree I have to do a practical research (thesis) for a company that develops software.

At the end of my Introduction chapter I arived at the following central question:

  Which testing strategy should company X implement to decrease the
  time and cost that goes into testing software Y?

After finishing my introduction chapter, I'm stuck with the literature review/theorthical framework. In my mind I already have the practical solution to the problem and find it easy to write the steps it would take to solve this problem but I'm not sure in what direction to approach this theortically and what type of literature I would need to use.

-update-

Perhaps I'm focussing to much on the testing strategy part of the central question? Should I rather focus on decreasing time and cost that goes into testing? And write down the possible solutions to accomplish this?

So for example a theoritical perspective could be:

Test automation?

In general, the literature review means discussing the ways that other people have tried to solve similar problems in the past, and then giving some comparison/contrast between what has been done previously and what you are about to. i.e. put your work in context of existing work.  You might see it worded something like this:

"Historically, two main strategies have been used by companies to reduce testing time and cost.  Strategy 1 was first described in Article #1 and consists of using trained monkeys to do the testing.  Strategy 2 is discussed in several articles including article #2 and article #3 and involves just assuming everything works fine and going out to lunch early without doing any actual testing.  Strategy 1 works well, but does not scale to large projects due to a shortage of properly trained monkeys, as described in book #4.  Strategy 2 scales very well, but can often miss subtle errors, as mentioned by author #5.  In this thesis, we will present a new strategy, which is more scalable than strategy 1, but does not suffer from the quality problems of strategy 2."

Depending on the length of your thesis, you might go into a lot of detail here.  E.g. for a Ph. D. disseration you might have a couple of pages on strategy #1, a couple of pages on strategy #2, etc.  But for a short article a sentence or two is usually enough.


What is a username exactly used for in arXiv? This is a fairly simple question, which any arXiv author could answer: the username set while registering in arXiv is not the authorial name users see when they read a paper you've published, right? The arXiv username set during registration is merely so that the author can log into arXiv?

Yes, that's correct. Here is my most recent paper, and you can't find my arXiv username anywhere on the page.

There is a separate notion of "author ID", which is specifically for the purpose of collecting all your papers on one page, but you have to set that up separately afterwards. It's not the same as the username.


A PhD student without an adviser I joined "X" university (US) for my PhD to work with a specific adviser (Y). For 3 years, I prepared my background to work in Y's area (through education and research exp.). But now Y says that, "I am not sure if we can work together. I am not saying no but I can not say yes too."

During my admission process, Y told me that we can work together. And I made my decision based on this promise. Since everything worked out well, I did not feel the need to approach other faculty members from the department. But as a result, now, I am without an adviser. And Currently, my department is trying to patch me up in areas that are completely new to me.

This situation has forced me to start thinking about my options and I came across following queries,

a) should I graduate with a 2nd masters degree?

b) since I want to gain my PhD, do I need to explain my 2nd masters in my statement of purpose?

c) is 2nd masters going to raise red flags while being considered for the PhD admission in new university?

Any advice on (a), (b) & (c) will be really helpful. Thanks in advance.

if Y had not intention of working with me then why did they accept me?

There are many ways to unpack this:

maybe Y did want to work with you, and then things didn't work out: funding, or mutual incompatibility, or interest changes. Stuff happens
Y could recommend you for admission as a competent student without feeling there was an implied guarantee that you'd work together. Maybe there are others in the department with similar interests.

As has been said on this forum many times, an advisor-advisee relationship is more two-way than one might think. There has to be a mutual fit otherwise even two perfectly reasonable people with mutual interests might not click.


What does it mean when a paper is rejected but encourages resubmission without a suggestion of new experiments? My paper has been rejected but encouraged re-submission. The reviewers were overall positive said it was well written and that all the analyses were correct. The problems pointed out were changes to the introduction and conclusion to change the scope of how the experiments are framed, not to any of the experiments themselves. There were no mentions of lack of novelty or other common reasons for rejection. There was also no mention that anything I wrote was overstated or incorrect.

I am unsure of whether to  re-submit when it has been rejected for this reason because I don't understand how a manuscript could be rejected if the experiments were correct and found to be novel?
If the problem is that I need to modify my introduction and conclusion than why not accept the manuscript, since re-writing the introduction/conclusion would not be very difficult. I would consider doing so would be a minor revision.

I am wondering whether anyone has had this type of rejection before and if they decided to re-submit or submit elsewhere?

Many journals are now encouraged to publish the data on the "efficiency" of the review process, e.g. the average time before initial submission and publication. Expected time to publication may be an important consideration for authors, along with the journals impact factor.

So, imagine that you run a journal, where a paper on average goes through 2.5 rounds of review and each round takes 3-6 months. If you sum it together, 12+ months from submission to publication would not look too attractive. But you only need to sum up if you invite revisions. If you "reject and resubmit", then technically you look at a completely new submission, and it counts as a new paper in your statistics. So, your processing rate gets shorter (which authors like), and your acceptance rate gets lower (which makes your journal sort of a prestigious one, tough to get into).

This is the main reason (in my personal opinion), why so many journals now rebrand "major revision" decision (and often "minor revision" as well) as "reject and resubmit".


PhD Supervisor Issues I am currently near the end of the first year of my 3 year PhD. Unfortunately my experience has been very very disappointing. Well when I started the program, I was full of passion and enthusiasm for learning. However, my supervisor provides zero guidance, he gives contradictory information and he has no clarity about what he wants to do (it was his project). He does not even have a research question. Whenever I talk to him he says we are going to do this, we are going to do that, just a collection of methods and techniques with no clarity of what is it exactly that we are trying to do. I expected I was going to be guided in a systematic and step by step manner at least in my first year but due to these reasons I lost all motivation, now one year down the line, one year has been wasted and I have no idea what to do. There are many other problems which I have facing in relation to this but I have highlighted the main ones. How I can possible complete this PhD in two years. Can someone please help me or advise me?

Your PhD supervisor sounds like my PhD supervisor.  And my PhD worked out well (though it was intended to take 5 years).  Professors typically are subject matter experts, not mentoring or management experts.  It's good he knows the methods and unsurprising he does not set clear goals for you.  I recommend you take this as an exciting opportunity to decide for yourself what the goals (which might relate to funding, publication, employment, scientific results...) and priorities are.  Some of the things you have been assuming are your supervisor's responsibility might be better viewed as your own privilege.


What points should be included in SOP if the target program is industry focused and not researched focused? I'm applying for MS in US, and for every university I'm making a tailored made SOP. I was applying for a program, which is industry focused and not research focused. And I am not sure what should be included in the SOP regarding that, as for research focused program we can include our research experience, and we can also check if the program fits our research interests, but what should we include for industry focused program?

Here are some stuffs, could which be deserving to be taken into account:

Explain about the expected contribution of this program to pave your
way for the future professional career.
Elaborate on any related working experience to the concept of the
program.
Illustrate the intriguing points, corresponding to the program, have which stimulated you to pursue it.
Pinpoint any presentation within the technical workshops around the     program's subject or any research-based experience, to depict your
related coherent background.
Mention your potential ideas to commence a business, based on the
acquired technical and professional skills, stemming from the
program.
...


Indicate Journal name for "under review" and "accepted/in press" publications on CV there are similar questions on how to list on CV publications that have not passed the accepted or in press stage when applying to junior research positions ( PhD/postdoc).

I am not clear if such publications should include the journal name or not, and what would be the reason for either choice.

Everyone I know feels that "accepted / in press" is just as good as appeared: the delay between acceptance and publication has nothing (or anyway, too little) to do with you.  You should certainly list them on your CV, no matter who you are.  I don't even list these as in a different category as the ones which have already been published: the only difference is that (roughly speaking; electronic publication and DOIs complicates this somewhat) I can't tell you the bibliographic information if it hasn't appeared.  I think it is very important not to list a paper as accepted without listing the journal, because therein lies the route to verifiability that your paper has been accepted.

In my opinion, you should list submitted articles on your CV no matter who you are.  (I would be interested to hear why @aeismail feels differently about this.)  This advice comes from someone who works in a field (mathematics) for which recently submitted articles ought to be freely available: if you want to get credit for having submitted an article, then whoever you are trying to get credit from ought to be able to see the article.  Ideally they don't have to ask for it specifically (because maybe they won't), so you should include a weblink to submitted papers on your CV.  (This last part is more for people who are in a potential-hire situation...which is not restricted to grad students and postdocs.  Nowadays, lots of academics are in a potential-hire situation or would like to be.)

In mathematics, each paper takes a long time: the period between when you say "Aha, I can prove the theorem" -- and e.g. start to give talks about it -- and the period which it gets accepted is probably over a year in many cases, and closer to two for serious, important work in many cases.  Who is reading this part of your CV and isn't  interested in what you've been working hard on for the last year or two?!?

Whether to list the journal submitted to is a well known question mark.  I do not put this information on "external" documents -- i.e., the CV and the publication list which are on my professional website.  I do usually list it on "internal" documents -- annual reviews, grant applications, job applications (well, it's been a little while).  There are a lot of nuances here: one is that it is really hard to know how much credit to give someone for submitting a paper to journal X.  After all, anyone can submit a paper to the most prestigious journal in their discipline, and in many cases they will spend a nontrivial amount of time before rejecting you.  So you want to be careful about this.  Nevertheless, where you submitted a paper is an important piece of information about how you feel about the paper, which is worth including in various cases (e.g. grant applications, where the panel will be suitably skeptical).  Another issue is that one commonly submits to more than one journal (not at the same time, but in sequence) so the information about where you submitted a paper is likely go out of date, so is less suitable for a sporadically updated CV and more suitable for a CV guaranteed to be complete up to such-and-such a date.

Note also that in my discipline, many people -- especially young people but not always -- also include papers which are "in preparation" on their CVs.  This is, frankly, a little shaky: I have papers on my own CV which have been "in preparation" for getting on a decade.  But the above philosophy still applies: if you've been working on something for five years and you're 75% done, then shouldn't you say something about it?

One last piece of advice: it behooves you to make absolutely clear the distinction between all these categories.  I get annoyed as a hirer when people use categories that don't fit easily into any of these boxes: e.g. some job candidates list papers as provisionally accepted, conditionally accepted, or accepted pending revision.  What a hiring committee litmus test that becomes: their proponents will insist that these be counted as actual publications, their detractors will insist that they don't count as any more than submitted, and people in between will get a headache.

(I don't mean to imply that it's necessarily the candidate's fault.  Sometimes the journal tells me that my paper has been provisionally accepted, and when I need to create a CV for a grant application that gives me the very same headache: please give me a paper status that has a clear, unambiguous meaning!  They do enjoy their little games, the journals...)


Plagiarism and credible sources Plagiarism is the reuse of other's materials without proper credit and acknowledgement [1]
Credible sources are vaguely defined, but it can be attributed to verifiable facts in the literature [2]
I want to ask that, in a situation, when an academician found an "inspiring" idea (not necessarily well-defined) on the non-academic part of the Internet, such as some blogs, or discussion on the social networks, a Youtube video, or some crude Python scripts, etc, and work out on their own to shape up an explicit scientific study or, for example, write up a sophisticated numerical package, then two there are two things here: (1) the source does not provide a scientific study, nor in an academic form, thus it cannot be considered as "credible source", so usually it cannot be cited, (2) but it provides a crude idea that one formulates a scientific problem based on it, so not citing it should be considered as plagiarism.
What is the way to deal with it? Whether to cite or not to cite? For a casual discussion on the Internet to inspire research might be rare in reality, at least it is me who hasn't seen a case, but what if this situation came into reality?

I'm not sure where you heard that you should only cite "credible" sources. Credibility is a judgement call, best avoided. You should always cite things that you have found and used, even if they were ill formed when found. The ideas are those of others that you have developed further. But the idea didn't originate with you, so you are open to charges of plagiarism if you don't cite. The likelihood of a formal charge may be slim, but other academics might doubt you if you cut corners.
That doesn't, however, mean that you have to accept the veracity of the things you cite. In fact, you can, and in some cases should, discuss the doubts you have or the ill state in which you found a resource that you use.
I'll note that in mathematics, we sometimes have to cite papers that contain serious errors so that we can correct those errors. But our work is still based on the work of the earlier mathematicians, even if we correct it.


Shifting a review process from one journal to another journal I have two articles under review. In first round of review both got decision of "minor revision" within 3-4 months. I submitted the revised version 5 months ago but since then the status of both articles is "Under Review". I sent follow up emails but always I got response from Journal Manager that the article is under review and he sent an email to Associate Editor to prompt the review process.
During the course of time I submitted another two articles in IEEE journals; both were accepted and came online within 5-6 months of time. I am thinking to withdraw both under review articles form Springier and Elsevier and submit them to IEEE Journals.
Is it possible to shift review history of those articles to IEEE?
Will it be helpful for further accelerating the review process in IEEE if I submit both articles as new submission and provide review reports as a supporting documents?

At this point, it will not be fair to the reviewers that are currently refereeing your paper to receive a notification that the paper has been withdrawn.

Although you might think they are not doing their job properly, reviewers are busy persons and a lot of things can happen in the between. Given that 5 months is not that much time even fr a revision (at least depends on the fields. I my field of applied math/TCS it's OK) I would suggest to wait a little bit more but also bring the issue to the handling editor (which you already did).

On the other hand, even if you decide to withdraw, which is your right, I think that supplementing the current reviews to another journal is way off and I would strongly recommend against that. For start, the new journal would have no idea who is behind that reviews, not to mention the ethical levels of such action.


Can I ask for a manuscript status after I submitted a revised version? I submitted a major revision of my manuscript on March 12th and the manuscript's status changed to "Editor Assigned" on March 19th. The journal does not allow a second "major revision," so I'm awaiting a final accept or reject decision, which I've been advised will be provided from the editor as soon as possible.

Can I ask for the decision now?

I really really need an answer for a grant application

You can always ask but from my experience you will just a get a copy&paste answer with the status from the journal website.

Putting too much pressure (many emails) on the editor might also have negative effects on the outcome of the decision (if the manuscript is a borderline case).

Concerning your specific situtation with the grant application: You can put the paper as "in revision" into the grant application.

@ "Can I ask for the manuscript's status before I'm sent the answer?" - You will just get an answer with the official status. I doubt that they will give away their decision via email before the official decision.


arXiv submission with PDF and data, preferred submission strategy? arXiv does not allow PDF and other file types on the same submission. My (many)coauthors are not tex savvy, and want the paper describing the database to be in PDF format so that their (also not tex savvy) community can access it. The database is 4 files, csv & json, and small, within arXiv size limits.  The coauthors want their preferred word letterhead, which would be a long process to recreate in tex of any flavor.

I see three paths forward:

1) put the paper describing the database into tex format without their letterhead, or reducing it to an image. Be done. Incur an unknown level of coauthor confusion and wrath (they are oddly worked up about this).  I would value easy (converters that work?) solutions in this vein.

2) Have two arXiv submissions: a) the pdf of the paper b) the csv data dictionaries (2) and json databases (2). Reference b in a.

3) Write the arXiv folks asking for an exception. I'm not sure they do this.

What is my preferred submission strategy? Any other path forward? Educating my coauthors sounds slow and hard, so yes, I know it is an option, but I'd rather not.

I see a fourth way forward. You could upload the database to a separate repository and cite that in the paper. (E.g. Zenodo allows multiple files, but putting them in an archive file might be beneficial.) Then submit the PDF version of the paper to arXiv.

  1) put the paper describing the database into tex format without their letterhead, or reducing it to an image. Be done. Incur an unknown level of coauthor confusion and wrath (they are oddly worked up about this). I would value easy (converters that work?) solutions in this vein.

Well, don't do that unless you can get your coauthors onboard. If you can convince them, you can try Word -> TeX converters. Some possiblities can be found here. The letterhead might have to be handled separately, possibly as graphics that you then auto-vectorize in Inkscape or similar tools.

  2) Have two arXiv submissions: a) the pdf of the paper b) the csv data dictionaries (2) and json databases (2). Reference b in a.

I don't think arXiv allows a separate submission for only the data. Hence suggestion #4 above.

  3) Write the arXiv folks asking for an exception. I'm not sure they do this.

I have never heard of them making an exception, but I have also not heard about anyone asking for one. However, even if exceptions could be made, that rarely translate to "a quick process".


Ask an advisor (co-author) to contribute to manuscript other than just critiquing I'm nearing the end on a manuscript and will be submitting it to my advisor any-day for her feedback. She is a co-author. My question: Is it OK to ask my advisor to contribute more to the paper (other than just critiquing)? If so, how does one go about doing this without insulting their mentor/boss?

To be clear, the paper is in overall good shape. There are a few paragraphs that need some attention. But instead of her just critiquing the paper ("this paragraph needs more interpretation") or ("add more examples from the literature") (<- I'm paraphrasing ;), is it ok to ask her to contribute actual sentences and interpretation?

Is it OK to ask my advisor to contribute more to the paper (other than just critiquing)?

Yes, I think so.

  If so, how does one go about doing this without insulting their mentor/boss?

When I was in similar situations in the past, I asked my advisor specific questions about what it was that I needed help on, but I did not necessarily try to sugarcoat the request or anything like that. For instance, if a paragraph needed rewording, I would email my advisor something like "Paragraph Y seems a little wonky to me. While I work on Section X some more, can you come up with a better explanation for Paragraph Y?"

I found that the success rate of the above varied depending on how busy my advisor was. My advisor seemed to "get better" (from my perspective :) ) the more times I asked for specific help. Also, I wasn't afraid to speak up when my advisor offered general tips rather than the specific help/contribution I was after: I would reply and ask again. If on multiple iterations I did not get what I was looking for, I would piece together what they did give me and work with that. That's life.

As a side note, I personally found that trying to word emails etc. just so to avoid coming off as "insulting" etc. required too much effort on my part for little/no gain (you don't even really know if your "properly" worded emails come off the wrong way, so what's the point?). In the end, I came to the conclusion that my advisor and I were two adults working on a research project together. I like to think that our advisor/advisee relationship could be described as direct and respectful, and I think that should be the goal.


What percent of assistant professors generally receive tenure, and how does this percent vary depending on both school and field? Are new assistant professors more likely to receive tenure in an expanding field, like biology? And are they less likely (percentage-wise) to receive tenure at elite schools?

This is actually quite a difficult question to answer specifically. Here is a brief paper reviewing some of the reasons why good data is unavailable on even very basic questions, together with some references to what is available. In the U.S. case, everyone agrees that, in general, the higher-ranked one's university, the more difficult it is to get tenure. Departments at some elite schools are notorious for their unwillingness or inability to grant tenure to their junior faculty over a very long period—in some cases, decades. (Just last year in my own field, for example, one of the leading departments tenured one of its junior faculty for the first time in more than twenty years. This is an extreme example, but you get the point.)

Beyond the well-known general patterns and the (sometimes widely-reported) particular horror stories, though, many very interesting questions remain difficult to address systematically—including your one about expanding versus stable fields. The question is complicated by the fact that the institution of tenure itself is changing, as is its role within the university. As Wikipedia notes, in the United States "The period since 1972 has seen a steady decline in the percentage of college and university teaching positions in the US that are either tenured or tenure-track. United States Department of Education statistics put the combined tenured/tenure-track rate at 56% for 1975, 46.8% for 1989, and 31.9% for 2005. That is to say, by the year 2005, 68.1% of US college teachers were neither tenured nor eligible for tenure; a full 48% of teachers that year were part-time employees.


Is it acceptable to have a figure caption running to the next page? I have a large figure with a long caption of 300 words, and they really don't fit into one A4 page. Can I enlarge the figure to fit in the first page and let the caption run to the next page?

300 words will be about 30-50% of the page. Such a large chunk of text seems substantial, so it's better to place it in the body of the paper.

In such situations, in the caption I usually just state what's in the figure, followed by "see text for details". And then I don't care if the text spills to another page.


I got a way worse grade than my classmates for equal performance. What should I do? The professor for this course was, according to every one of my classmates (only 7 of us total so I could get all the opinions) a nightmare. To illustrate, in the last week of class, after we present a final assignment (no instructions other than the title of the assignment in the syllabus), he asks us if we'd been getting any of his emails for the whole semester. We said no. That last class was a sizable part of the grade but obviously no one had instructions or any knowledge of the percentage of the assignment relative to our grade.

Each week people in our course were confused about material and procedure and we all thought we were fools that should have known better. But we all had realized, in this last class meeting, that there was a reason for the disconnect: the instructions were not going through to us via email.

There was a discrepancy in my grade vs the other classmates grades, even though there is no discernible performance gap. I got the lower grade. The classmates I spoke with were surprised, for the same reason I am - namely they did not perceive a noticeable performance gap. My skin is crawling at the thought of asking the professor what the reason for this low grade was, but should I do it? Or can I go elsewhere (i.e. a Dean or something) first? I know for a fact other students are willing to attest to this professors disorganization and other bad qualities (some already have). I also suspect this professor has had complaints lodged against him in the past for similar reasons.

Easy answer:  Go talk to your professor at office hours.  You should escalate to your department chair or the dean only after you've tried in good faith and failed to resolve the problem directly with your instructor.  Don't escalate unless it's genuinely serious.

Try to be open-minded toward the possibility that there were deficiencies in your work that you may not have spotted that explain why your grade was lower than you think it should be.  Your fellow students' opinions are not reliable indicators of anything nor is it helpful to cite their complaints or opinions as justification for yours.  Go with the expectation you will learn something, not with the sole goal of getting more points.


Flying with a poster tube as a hand luggage I am flying to a conference, in which I am presenting a poster.

In principle there might be a problem, as the poster tube:

is a second piece of hand luggage,
it is longer than the limit allows.

However, it seems that it works (once I tried with no problem, my colleagues usually have no problem).

Does it happen that one is not allowed to take a poster tube in the hand luggage?

If so, how to avoid this problem? (Advice, tips and tricks are welcome.)

If the question is place-specific, I'm interested mostly in EU.

There are a couple solutions to the "transporting a poster tube on a plane" problem:

Most flights allow a second piece of hand-luggage, so that bit is fine. And while it is larger in the length dimension than is usually allowed, I've never had this be a problem. In not-very-full flights, it can be stored on top or behind other bags. On fuller flights, I usually just ask a flight attendant for help. So far the tubes have ended up behind the seats in the last row against the bulk head, and in the coat closet usually reserved for first class. Generally, I find they give you "credit" for trying not to be a problem.
As has been mentioned, you can get your poster printed or shipped to the conference location.
Cloth posters. These are becoming more easily accessible. While more expensive than paper posters, if carrying a poster on forces you to check a bag, and your airline charges fees for those, the cost difference vanishes swiftly. These can be folded and stored flat in a shipping envelop or bag. Just make sure to take them out and iron them on a very low setting to get the creases out before you hang them.


I am willing to apply for advertised PhD position in Sweden. Whom should I address my cover letter? I am willing to apply for advertised PHD position in Sweden. In the instructions to apply they have mentioned about the required documents which include CV, cover letter, transcripts. I have two questions regarding this

They have not asked for a separate statement of purpose (SOP). So, should i include my motivation and research interest in the cover letter?
Whom should i address my cover letter? to the professor who have given this advertisement or to the department or admission office?

Officially, in Sweden, it's normally the department that hires students. In practice, it's likely going to be the professor that acquired the funding who is going to evaluate candidates and make a decision. Even more in practice, your average Swedish professor won't care the least bit who you address in the letter.
If you feel you need to put in a name, put in the name of the hiring professor. If you get it wrong, it likely won't matter in the least.


In places outside the US and Europe, how do I know if the standard is that one applies to a PhD program with a specific PhD advisor already in mind? Suppose I want to apply to PhD programs at a university outside of the US and Europe.

How do I know if most universities there follow what the US is doing or what Europe is doing?

Elaboration: How do I know if most schools in the country/state want students to first apply to schools before choosing an doctoral advisor (like in the US) or to first contact the faculty members of a particular schools looking for a doctoral advisor before applying to said schools (like in Europe)?

Example: The UK mostly follows Europe. I heard Hong Kong and Japan follow the US.

1) Find a school you want to apply to.

2) Email the graduate admissions contact person in the department.

3) In that email, ask politely.

4) Say thank you.


How to convert a PhD Thesis written on published articles into a book? Is it a good idea to convert Thesis (computer science field) written on the basis of my own published research articles into a book?
Taking care of text recycling and copyright plus wider knowledge achieved in the subject, is it worth to go for publishing book?
If yes, how it could be done?

I won't speak to the question of "how?" but will address "why?".
Writing a book is a long hard job, even when you are "only" concatenating published papers. Finding a publisher is as hard. So you should think about writing a book (now, or at any stage of your career) when you think you have something book-length to say that people will really want to read in that form.
That suggests (to me) probably not for you now.


How can one disclaim? How can an innocent person disclaim a plagiarized publication which he did not give consent for publication?
The paper has has been published without my consent and my name was included as a co-author but i want to disassociate myself from this paper?

If this is a published with some legitimate publisher, then contacting the publisher and pointing out that you never consented to being named as an author on that paper should suffice. The publication record should be amended, and the paper probably be withdrawn.

If this is not published with a legitimate publisher, the strategy above might fail. You can try to threaten to sue them, but ultimately the most you can reliably do is to put a disclaimer on your homepage.

This could take a form like "It has come to my attention that the publication XXX lists me as a coauthor. I have not been involved in this project / not consented to the final form (pick as appropriate). The publisher YYY has been informed of this on DATE and is yet to take action. (you should probably give the publisher a few weeks to react before putting this up).


Number of months a year that faculty get paid in UK and Australia? I've heard that faculty usually gets paid for 9 months in the US and you need to use your own funding to pay for the missing 3 months.

Is this situation different in the UK and Australia?

In the UK, you get paid 12 months a year. I'm not actually aware of any other country that uses the US 9-month system.


Value of listing OEIS contributions on an academic CV The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) is a large online database of number sequences.  It's popular among professional and amateur mathematicians, and its entries are widely cited.  Like Wikipedia, most of its content is authored and edited by the community; no particular qualifications are required to participate, though in my experience most active editors are working mathematicians or scientists.

I've occasionally seen academic CVs which list OEIS contributions among the publications (usually in a separate subsection).  I've also seen CVs of known contributors which make no mention whatsoever of their OEIS contributions.

I was wondering, then, whether listing OEIS contributions is generally a good idea when applying for academic jobs such as post-docs and professorships.  How much weight, if any, do recruiting committees in math and computer science place on OEIS contributions?  Are they viewed as minor professional publications, as non-academic community service, or as unwanted and annoying CV padding?

Related question: Value of contributions to Wikipedia when applying for academic jobs

Important: separate section.  So no one thinks you are trying to sneak them in as equal to publications.

Probably it will have no weight for recruiting.  I suppose having the list there may cause someone on the committee to say "I've heard of this guy."

But CVs have uses other than job searches.  So go ahead and include them if you want to.


A researcher that I know organizes a symposium within a strange conference and has asked me to go. What is the appropriate etiquette for declining? I have been invited to a symposium related with my research field within a conference devoted to a broad area in Mathematics, not really associated with my field. This symposium is organized by a researcher that I met in previous, well-established and respectable conferences.

The problem is that I have never heard before about that conference to any colleague in my field, if we exclude the emails sent by the conference organizers asking researchers to attend or to organize a symposium within the conference (I have received myself a lot of them in my email spam folder). Indeed, I am really confused about the reputability of the conference itself, and I tried to find it out without too much success in this closed question.

I have decided not to attend the conference given the information that I have at hand, since as a young researcher I want to stay as far as I can from potential predatory conferences. Also the funding money for attending conferences is limited and I think I will get a better value for it on another conference.

Now, my question is regarding the way and etiquette for rejecting the invitation. My initial idea was to be honest and tell the symposium organizer about my reason to not accept the invitation (not feeling confortable in that conference), without making up any excuse such as problem in the dates or whatever. But maybe in that way I will hurt his/her feelings, something that obviously I do not want.

What will be a honest and polite way of rejecting this invitation?

You basically said it best yourself:

  the funding money for attending conferences is limited and I think I will get a better value for it on another conference.

This seems to me like a perfectly acceptable reason which needs to be enough for any reasonable person. You can't go to every conference where somebody you know asked you to go, and this one isn't high enough on your priorities list.

(personally, I would not lecture the other person about what you perceive as a spam conference that (s)he is involved with - just say friendly and truthfully that this specific conference is not of great interest to you, and that should be it)


What are some good tips for people who wants to start a workshop from scratch? I, and a group of my colleagues want to start a workshop which covers a topic which generally draws interest but usually categorized as "other topics" in well-known workshops.
We want to start a workshop for such a topic. We are well aware that initial impression of an organization is very important. Thus, we want to avoid some blatant blunders.
What are the best practices for a group of 4-5 people who intend to start a workshop? What kind of advice "save lives" in this context?

In Computer Science, many successful workshops are attached to major conferences, taking place on the days around the main conference. So (1) attend those workshops and see how they run, what you like or dislike, etc. (2) Submit a workshop proposal to the most relevant conference and trying to get included in the workshop schedule. This makes recruiting participants and the audience much easier --- they are already at the conference anyway.
To host a new workshop not attached to a conference, never having done it before, I'd really recommend adding some organizers with lots of experience -- and it doesn't hurt if their well-known names will entice people to come. (Sorry, that's how it works.)
Other than that, I would frankly say there's nothing tricky about it. I don't think I've ever been to a bad workshop -- not surprising, since I generally sign up because I like the topic! Some tentative suggestions:

Get at least 1-2 good, well-known invited speakers to give talks (45min plus questions is my suggestion).
Solicit submissions broadly and select some to give short talks (20-30min including questions is my suggestion). Focus on talks you think will be interesting to the audience, not necessarily the best/strongest work.
Make one of your goals diversity of your set of speakers.
A poster session and/or social time can be good. You can accept anything you rejected above as a poster.
Build in enough breaks and discussion/Q&A, be careful not to overstuff the schedule.
Speaking of schedule, it's probably good to have a webpage with the schedule and overview. Most of the schedule, like identities of the talks, can stay TBA for a while, it's ok.

There's probably an additional list of tips for a virtual modality....


Where to submit an article of applied maths for physics Working in physics, I recently discovered a mathematical identity useful to solve a partial differential equation. I have generalized the idea and found several other identities but I do not know yet whether they apply or not to other PDEs. These identities have, though, a physical interpretation and feature interesting symmetries. As it is not my research topic, I did not spend too much time on this work but still think it deserves to be published. I have tried to submit it (to J. Phys. A and J. Math. Phys.) and it was rejected by the editors without review. I have no more idea where it could be submitted and I would appreciate any suggestion. A previous version of the paper is accessible at http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.3140.

Remember that J. Phys. A and J. Math. Phys. are quite top journals and they reject lots of reasonable papers not because they would be off-topic but because they are "not good enough for them" (whatever that means).

IMHO, if you feel that your identities are something completely new to the world of maths, you should find a reasonably good math journal, because they are likely interesting to math people as well. On the other hand, if you feel that the results are interesting only to (theoretical/mathematical) physicists, go for a journal in this branch.

I don't know any mathematical physics journals personally.

For math journals about identities/symmetries in PDEs, you can check the list of publications in MSC class 35B06. For the mathematical physics journals, I suggest trying to find the proper MSC class in the MSC catalog, there you can see which journals would be suitable.


Dive into a paper using a reading course I hope this question is appropriate for this site. Maybe community wiki might be a good option.
I was the TA in a course for undergraduates last term. I student approached me after the course ended and wanted to know how he could dive deeper into the subject of the course. I suggested him that we could launch a reading course, in which we would work through a research paper. I know the topic of the paper a bit, but want to use this reading course to learn about that specific subject myself.
Question: Do you have experience with such a format and can provide best practice?
What interests me in particular is: When I study a new topic on my own, that happens somehow in a non-linear manner. Together with another student, I guess it's necessary to give the whole thing quite a bit more structure and assign e.g. weekly reading assignments and specific tasks?

My experience was primarily as a (math) student many years ago but the course didn't focus on a single paper, but on a topic of which the paper was only an example. Maybe this is something you could use.
The basic meta concept is that reading isn't enough to learn and that students need to be more active if what they read/see/hear is to actually be learned.
So, if you organize a group around a topic and select, not one, but several papers that refer to that topic. Each student (or perhaps each pair of students) is responsible for creation of a presentation on that to the others, giving key concepts and any insights they manage to develop. But, all students are responsible for reading the paper.
A session, with everyone present, has two parts. First is the presentation of one of the follows by an open discussion at which questions can be asked and further ideas developed.
If the group meets once per week, then you "cover" one paper per week.
After the presentation and the discussion, the student could be asked to then develop a write-up.
This idea can be adapted to chapters of a book, also.
Note, however, that undergraduates can be expected to be awkward at this, so you need to be pretty understanding if it is a graded/marked activity. It is a useful skill to have, but one in which they have little or no experience.  And not every suggestion here need be incorporated. There can be many variations.

Edited to add:
Suppose, however that you have a large and long single paper. Such is difficult to divide up, since understanding early parts may be essential for reading later parts.
In such a case, the paper can be read in "sections" by everyone. One student (or a pair) is designated to lead the discussion of the "next" section and develop a set of initial questions. When the group meets that student leads the discussion. Alternatively, each student must turn in a written question or two on the section of the week. Or perhaps an insight along with a question. But, again, but the emphasis on student activities beyond reading and just making up questions on the fly. Insist on some actual preparation.

Over the horizon. Bonus points.
The following is probably too much to expect from undergraduates but you might offer bonus points (in any grading scheme) for any student or group of students who can come up with a research question that might arise from the paper. You could suggest what might lead there such as "changing some initial condition" or "generalizing" or "specializing" or whatever seems appropriate for the readings at hand. It might even happen, even if unlikely.


Is it acceptable for a student to hire a tutor to explain and fix homework mistakes? In a course we have a lot of hard homework. We are allowed to share solutions etc, as long as each student's doesn't just copy but understands what he/she writes.

Is this acceptable to hire a tutor help me solve the homework I can't solve?

We are allowed to share solutions etc, as long as each student's
  doesn't just copy but understands what he/she writes.

This is the only information we have about your instructor's policies, so this is the only answer we can give to your question. It's OK to hire a tutor for help with the homework, as long as you don't just copy but understand what you write.

It's also possible that your instructor intends different rules for paid tutors than for cooperation with your fellow students. However, we would have no way of knowing that from the information provided in your question.

There are also general expectations about plagiarism and originality, and these are ethical norms that you're responsible for understanding and following, regardless of your instructor's policies. Your description of your working relationship with your tutor isn't specific enough to make it clear whether you have a problem here or not. As JeffE has pointed out, "fixing" your mistakes might entail plagiarism, if it means that what goes on your paper isn't actually what you wrote yourself.


How to reply to an email from a student who wants a reply instantly? I have a student who wants me to reply to his emails as soon as he sends them! For example:

I already provided you with .... form in our first meeting. Can you fill the necessary boxes and sign .... to confirm my project? ... It has already been a day, and you have not replied.

My reply:

Thank you for sharing this information. Please find attached the document.
However, it is important to note that even if you already provided me with the documents. You should give me at least 3 to 4 working days to reply to your email. It is important that you understand that there are other issues an academic has to deal with, and patience would be really appreciated.

Is there anything wrong with this response? If so, could you please help me understand how to reply to such emails?

Two words: "Office hours."
I say to students that, if they need immediate feedback, then they should come to my office hours, everything else will be processed as its turn arises.
[During the pandemic, of course, the office hours would be virtual]


Applying to a new position after a few months? Last summer, my current funding ended and I had to look for a new position. I managed to find a lectureship at a university. Unfortunately it is one which is more focused on undergratuates rather than on research. At the time, it was either that position or face potential unemployment.

I recently became aware of a position that would be the ideal one, however it really is a long shot. I recently published a paper in a world-leading conference in my field (and on the domain of the lectureship) which I believe improved my academic profile considerably, if compared to when I was looking for jobs last summer. The problem is that I'd have to ask my previous referees to send another letter and I guess that wouldn't reflect too nicely on me, especially considering the possibility that I could not even be shortlisted.

Considering the situation, should I seize the opportunity and think about the consequences later? What would you think as a referee if someone who was hired somewhere asked you for another reference some months later? I normally wouldn't do this but I believe that it's not in my best interests to stay in a university which is not research oriented for too long.

The solution to your predicament lies, as I see it, completely in how you approach your reference writers.

I would approach them from the point of view that a great opportunity has presented itself to you in a very untimely fashion given that, "I already asked you to write a reference for me a short time ago. I hate to ask you to do this yet again, and I'll completely understand if you decline." That sort of thing.

Hopefully you saved a copy of their prior recommendations so they can use them as an easy guide. Offer to help them if they are pressed for time.

A great opportunity should not be ignored simply because someone might have to do a little bit of work for someone they've believed in very recently.

This just happened to me recently. A friend asked me to be a reference for him. He got hired. Two months later, another, better opportunity came up. He asked me again to be a reference. I didn't hesitate to say "yes".

A reference is nothing more than asking someone to attest to whether or not somebody can do a job adequately. There is nothing unethical about someone wanting to move to a better position. Good opportunities don't grow on trees.


Are professors allowed to participate in political activities? In the US, politics is probably the most talked-about subject at the moment, and I have strong opinions.

I would very much like to volunteer for a specific party, but I am concerned that I am in a position of power, and thus if I were to be out campaigning for a particular candidate, this could affect my students' freedom to vote, should I run into them while I am volunteering.

Are there any rules in the university that forbids professors from participating in political activities? How much is acceptable? Can I help out with phoning people to get them to register to vote? Can I knock on doors in person? Could I run for office eventually?

Since you are concerned, it must be a good idea to look into the rules, as @Penguin_Knight suggests.  But it would be absolutely shocking if you were not allowed to volunteer for a particular candidate or party: by restricting you from doing that, the university would be infringing upon your own political freedom.

  I am concerned that I am in a position of power, and thus if I were to be out campaigning for a particular candidate, this could affect my students' freedom to vote, should I run into them while I am volunteering.

I'm honestly not sure what problematic activities you're envisioning here.  A university professor is allowed to be a real boy or girl.  Students may run into you while you're outside doing real person stuff, and they have no right to being "protected from you" any more than anyone else they might encounter.  How does running into a student affect that student's "freedom to vote"?

  Are there any rules in the university that forbids professors from participating in political activities? How much is acceptable? Can I help out with phoning people to get them to register to vote? Can I knock on doors in person? Could I run for office eventually?

Again, the answer to the first question is that if you want to know the rules of your university, you should not ask us, because you know which university is yours and we do not.  (Added: As Tom Church points out, there is a small but positive number of US universities for which the answer will be very different from the general case!)  The answer to the last three questions is that I would certainly expect you to be able to do all three of those things (again, you're a real person; you have the same right to knock on people's doors as anyone else!). If you successfully attain office, then this might interfere with your academic schedule and commitments, but it would be up to you to resolve that: e.g. if you live in a small town and get elected to a town council that only meets on Thursday mornings...probably okay.

If you feel strongly that (i) you want to be openly political and (ii) that you do not want your job to be even slightly at risk, here is some advice for that: I suggest you keep a clear separation of your political and educational activities.  When you bring up politics in the context of a course or student supervisory relationship, it should be in the service of an intellectual/academic point you are trying to make, not your own political activity.  When political ideas come up naturally in coursework, you should make an effort not to signal or imply that your own political beliefs are "the right answer".  You should certainly not try to politically proselytize with your own students or suggest that their grades will suffer if their political views do not align with yours.


Citation of a website: How to determine the year? If there is a web article (or even a website) without a date of publication, is there a chance to determine a year of publication for a complete reference of it? Or should it omitted in the reference?

The Publication Date may be in the webpage's meta data or source

There may be date information contained in the meta tags in the page source. If you are not using a tool (see below) to extract this information, you can view the page source and attempt to interpret it. There are many different ways publication date information may be stored in meta tags. The most common ones will begin with <meta. The number of ways in which an appropriate date may be stored in in these tags is just too numerous to cover in a single post. If you are not familiar with what these might look like, a tool (see below) to extract the data will be quite helpful.

Extracting the date from meta tags, and picking the correct date (there may be several), can be complex. How, exactly, to do so varies from website to website. In addition, each site may change their format from time to time. If you are going to be referencing more than one or two webpages a well maintained tool to extract the reference information will be very helpful.

As an example, this page (randomly selected for testing some time ago), which does not display a date if you have JavaScript turned off (dates are displayed if JavaScript is turned on), contains appropriate publication dates in the following tags (there are more tags that contain dates that are not appropriate):

<meta name="parsely-pub-date" content="2014-10-14T23:45:00.011Z" data-ephemeral="true">
<meta name="date" content="2014-10-14T23:45:00.011Z" data-ephemeral="true">
<meta name="iso-8601-publish-date" content="2014-10-14T23:45:00.011Z" data-ephemeral="true">
<time class="published-at time-based" datetime="2014-10-14T23:45:00.011Z" itemprop="datePublished">
<time class="updated-at__time" datetime="2014-10-15T05:07:37.564Z">
<meta name="pubdate" content="Tue Oct 14 2014 19:45:00 GMT-0400" data-ephemeral="true">

That page also contains the publication and update dates located in multiple


Is your peer-reviewing service ever important for career advancement? Recently, there have been a couple of active questions on Publons (e.g., Publons - is it a serious thing? and Is it worth creating a profile with Publons?).  One of the supposed selling points is that it allows people evaluating you to verify the peer review work you've done.  At least one user says your peer-reviewing is one criterion used for promotion.

I am in pure math at a public research university in the US, somewhat senior, and I don't recall ever having seen any real discussion of a job/tenure/promotion candidate's peer-reviewing activities in the evaluation process.  It is a given that you do some refereeing, and it counts as part of your service to the community, but unless you state that you do an exceptional amount of refereeing or consistently referee for the very top journals, I probably won't even notice your reviewing activities.  If I do notice, I will quickly forget.  (I don't list the journals I review for or how many reviews I do on my CV, and I believe this is reasonably common in math.  So I wouldn't even know if someone I'm evaluating isn't doing any reviewing.)

However, the nature and expectations for peer review for pure math seems to be quite a bit different from other fields.

Question: Are there departments that, say for hiring, tenure or promition, use candidate's peer-reviewing activities in a signficant way in the evaluation process?  If so, what kind of departments use this and how?

(While "significant" may be somewhat hard to pin down, two examples are: peer reviewing regularly gets discussed when evaluating candidates, or if there is some formula for numerically scoring faculty which incorporates peer-reviewing activities.)

I do not believe simple refereeing activities have an impact on hiring or tenure, but it may have an positive effect in an annual report, to get “progress through the ranks” salary increases or bonuses, and other recognition at this level.

It could have an impact in exceptional circumstances, such as receiving a referee-of-the-year- type recognition, but it would be truly rare for a junior person to get such recognition and thus have weight in a hiring decision.  For a more senior person repeatedly getting such recogniztion might be useful in a promotion file.

Doing a good job at peer-review is usually a stepping stone to getting an associate editorship or a senior referee position in journals, and these are often considered in tenure/promotion decision as evidence of oustanding reputation beyond the institution.

Note that outside public recognition of work done as referee or on an editorial board, rather than the anonymous work usually done as a regular referee, is usually what is prized.

I do not have a Publon account: I am tenured and consider it part of my job to contribute to my field by refereeing the work of others, just like I expect others to review my work.  I do get the occasional accolade, which I will gladly take, but  I don’t do referee work (papers or grants) for recognition any more than I give to charity for recognition.


Petitioning to leave PhD program with terminal masters due to illness in family - how should I expect my request to be handled? I'm currently debating whether or not to stay in a PhD program. My mother  was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer last week. While I'm waiting to hear back from further analysis/prognosis, has anyone had any experience with this type of situation.

I'm currently in my second year and would very much like to leave with my masters. In my department, you have to "petition" to the department to receive it and its pretty much up to the sole discretion of the faculty members. Are they likely to give my masters, considering I have been in the department for 2 years? What type of information can they ask me for? Can they ask for certification of my mothers illness? When should I tell them?

Thanks.

I would do the following:

Talk to supervisor: First of all, you need to talk to your supervisor about this, and see how much leave you can get. Very unfortunately, I see this every year many students have the similar situation.
Aim for 6 months leave first: You shouldn't just drop the whole thing. I would suggest you to take a leave for 6 month, and then extend it if necessary.
Don't Lose Touch: I know it is a hard time, but do not just drop the whole thing completely. You can still read about the subject you are working on. Through university's VPN, you can still read research publications and be up to date.

Little Note on Big Picture: We all go through these sort of issues somewhere in our life time. We shouldn't make career suicide, or get into hard medication through drugs because one of our family members is passing away. We need to be strong, somewhere in our life time our parents pass away; and even though it is sad and hearth breaking we need to carry on and keep fighting.


Apply for PhD before finishing my Master's degree I am now in the middle of my master's degree and I plan to graduate in August 2015. I currently study in Germany and for most engineering students here it is common to finish the five-year program (3 or 3.5 years for the bachelor's degree and 1.5 to 2 years for the master's). I'm thinking about applying for robotics PhD programs at different US universities but I noticed that most of them have a deadline in December for programs starting 9 months later. I don't have any publications in any international journals because in Germany this is mostly done by PhD students. But I have worked a lot during my studies (1 year internship, part-time research in university).

I don't want to lose one year waiting to start my PhD but in the same time I think that my master thesis will be a great asset while applying for such a program, especially when I will be willing to continue my research and PhD thesis in the same field as my master thesis. Do you think I should take the GRE and apply for next December or wait until getting my master's degree? And how this would influence the selection process.

It's not a big deal for you not to have publications—remember, many of your peers also will not have published anything, either!

Moreover, it's important to note that in the US, most of the applicants for graduate school do so in the fall of their fourth year of studies—which would, contentwise, typically line up with the third year (or sometimes even second year!) of study in a German program. So, in many ways, you're already much more experienced than your counterparts.

If you're interested in doing this, I would recommend that you just go ahead and apply. The worst that can possibly happen is that you're not accepted, in which case you find another means of achieving your goals.


issues regarding student research work in an undergraduate level In the program of CS, in which I am currently working, we have a group of students that for ending their Honour´s degree they should submit and present a research in the field; limited to their undergraduate knowledge. The process is that they get an adviser, read some papers, ending up with an article that describe their experiments and discuss their results. After that, they should make a small dissertation about their research findings. Before going to this stage, their research work is revised by two lecturers to give their insights about this work. Regarding this procedure I have found, that in some occasions, the following occur:

The adviser of the student agrees that the current research work is adequate to the educational level, that is an undergraduate level. It is not a master´s or a PhD.
One of the reviewers asks for modifications in the research made by the student, that in the majority of the cases, would imply to make deep modifications in the research work that would take more effort and, of course, time allotted for the student.

In some cases, and this usually occurs in the dissertation, the questions asked from some of the other lecturers are very biased to their expert field. Making the student to feel discouraged of their work.

I mean how to deal with these situations, in this cases the adviser feel bad for the student also, but there are so many details that in my personal opinion is hard for the student to cope at this level. For example, imagine that a student X has chosen the topic of using neural networks for predicting diabetes treatment outcome. The student has made a literature review, obtained some datasets and perform some tests with the build model. Then, according to the adviser the paper is fine, and in the dissertation this happens:

Lecturer X suggest to use GA for feature selection instead of PCA. If this observation is not raised the student can pass, but with a minimum grade.
Lecturer Y, to test the knowledge of the student, starts to ask specific details of the architecture of the neural network. Lets suppose that Y is a mathematician, then he will start asking about what is the reason of the vanishing gradient issue and how to solve it. So this was a detail that the student has not considered, and according to this lecturer the student should fail.

So, what can we do to ameliorate this situation? Because at the end is bringing discomfort to either students, advisers and lecturers.

Thanks

I think you have built a counterproductive structure into the course and you should probably change it, perhaps radically.

But there are some lesser things that you could, perhaps, do to make the problem go away. Maybe this isn't possible, but your staff should discuss these and all other options.

First, is that you can decouple the "advice" given by the reviewers from the grading/marking of the work. The actual marking and assigning of grades should be someone with an overall perspective on the course and its students, not the parochial views of some specialist, no matter how skilled.

The second thing is to have a session before the work goes out to the reviewers in which you are clear to the students about the marking (if you can get it changed) but also that they are likely to get weird, even hostile reviews. The students should be clear that while they need to be respectful and to consider any proposed changes or extensions that such things won't affect their marks. But of course, if project revision is part of the exercise the students will need to show that they have considered suggestions even when they must be rejected.

Another thing you might be able to do is to give the reviewers some training. Perhaps they don't understand the requirements at the level the students are at - undergraduate. Perhaps they don't understand their role - helping, not abusing, students. You can probably do this with written material given to potential advisors at the time of selection. A face to face meeting of all reviewers would be preferable if possible. That way you get feedback on the attitudes of the individuals. If you can fiddle with the grading scheme, you can make it clear to the reviewers that while their reviews will be considered in grading, they won't be definitive.

Finally, you may need to do a better job of matching students and reviewers as well as rejecting reviewers who have behaved badly in the past.


Does publishing in a journal and getting cited constitute a "contribution to knowledge"? If I publish my research in a respected journal and I get cited a few times in less than a year (cited as part of the literature review and background of my field), does this mean my work is a "contribution to knowledge"?

What journal?

In principle, regardless of citations, anything accepted to be published in a journal should be a contribution of knowledge. There are some exceptions to this, like survey papers, but for the most part publications should have a novel contribution.

The citations help measure the impact of the contribution i.e. how relevant or useful it is in the field. But an uncited, published paper should still contribute knowledge.

And, of course, if it was published in a predatory journal, it may not contain a knowledge contribution. Citations make this less likely, unless the citing papers themselves are also in predato journals.


How to use Microsoft Word for formatting references according to ACM (and others) guidelines It is commonly known that using LaTeX is the best option for formatting a scientific paper (including references). I know.

But recent versions of Microsoft Word use a quite interesting reference management system (see this video for a demo). However this system only include few formatting styles, e.g. APA, IEEE, ISO, etc...

Is there a way to "install" a new style, to get reference formatted as required by ACM journals (and, possibly, as required by any other scientific association, journal or conference guidelines)?

At this link there is an interesting tutorial that explains how to use Microsoft Word for formatting references in any style.

Below I summarize the salient parts.

First of all, we need to download some additional formatting styles, and we can found some of them at this link. Here, we will find a .zip file containing several .xsl files, which represent the formatting styles used by MS Word.

What we need to do is to copy those .xsl (all of them or just the ones we want to use) in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\Bibliography\Style. Actually this directory can vary according to the MS Office version or the system architecture (32-bit or 64-bit). However if you look at the main Office directory, the Style directory should be easy to find.

Then you just need to close MS Word and reopen it. And you will find all this additional formatting styles available in the dropdown box, under the Reference tab.

EDIT: For some Office version (I had this issue with Microsoft Office 2013, installed on Windows 8.1), you will probably need to copy the citation style (.xsl files) in
C:\Users\<YourUserName>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Bibliography\Styles, as explained in this website.


In writing a job posting/ad, better to be specific or broad? In writing a job posting/ad for a tenure-track faculty position, is it better to (A) specify subfields the department is most interested in hiring in or (B) make the posting as broad as possible (even if there are some specific subfields the department prefers).

Obviously, better is subjective here. Here are some more specific subquestions. I am open to making this community wiki if it's still not specific enough.

Does (A) or (B) result in stronger candidates for the specific subfields?

Does (B) actually discourage some strong candidates from applying?

Does (A) end up producing a weaker sequence of hires in the long term?

I'm interested in this in terms of benefit to the department doing the hiring, not benefit for the candidates.

Anecdotal evidence based on substantial experience is fine. Even better is research on the subject.

There is no straightforward answer to this. I would say it should depend on how important it is that the candidate fit the desired specialism(s). If you are willing to consider an outstanding candidate who does not fit the desired specialism(s), you should tend towards making the advert relatively open. If not, you should be more specific. In all cases, you advert should be open enough not to discourage serious contenders but specific enough not to waste the time of candidates who stand absolutely no chance. When advertising, it is also useful to clarify:

the history and modus operandi of any particular initiative/project/grant to which the position is connected (each institution and department has its own character and traditions, which may be obvious to an insider but may seem bizarre/confusing to an outsider); and
whether the purpose of the position being advertised is to

deepen an existing departmental strength or research cluster, or
broaden your department to extend coverage beyond its existing specialism(s).

Issues to consider with option (A)

it has the advantage of encouraging candidates with the corresponding specialism(s), who may otherwise not apply because they do not realise you are after those specialism(s) (because applying for jobs is very time-consuming);
it may discourage candidates whose profile is not a perfect fit (because they will assume that there must be someone who is a better fit in terms of specialism(s));
too specific, and people may assume that the vacancy is "fake" because you have already decided whom you intend to hire and are advertising to hide the nepotism (and thus not bother applying).

[but not all very specific adverts are stitch-ups: my current position had a very specific advert, but that was because it was to fill a post for which project-specific funding was already obtained; despite not knowing any of the people in any of the departments involved, I got the job, but I suspect I may have been the only applicant (the timing of the advert was unusual)]

Issues to consider with option (B)

you will probably get a lot more applications (no comment on whether this is a good or a bad thing); but
many/most of these applications will not fit your desired specialism(s); and
some candidates who would be a perfect fit, not being aware of the fact, may not bother applying;
people may assume that the vacancy is "fake" because you do not really intend to hire anyone, but are just "testing the waters".


If you want to be a computer scientist, can competitive programming be helpful early on in your career? Competitive programming is a craze among many computer science and engineering students. Is competitive programming important to be a good computer scientist? Thank you.

All types of practice are valuable, and if competition pleases you, go for it. However, programming quickly and under pressure is more akin to industry than to academia, and may leave little time for theory. Therefore I'd not call competition "important" for formation in CS, rather it's one of a number of forms of structured programming practice.


What is a European Doctorate Programme? I am currently a PhD student in a EU country and recently I was advised to pursue a European Doctorate Programme.

I thought that, being "European", it was some kind of regulated, inter-country program with specific rules, but I cannot find any "official" documentation from any European institution. The only things I can find by searching on google are doctorate programs from various universities that claim to be "European".

I am aware that some EU students are encouraged to do 3-6 months of their PhD (or more) abroad, but I don't know if by doing this their PhD qualifies to be a European Doctorate.

So, what is a European Doctorate Program? Is there any regulation for it by a European institution? How does it relate with doctorate programs where students decide to spend some months abroad?

I am curious to understand if there is a tangible difference between a national degree (of an EU country) and the European degree.

As for the rules for qualifying for the European degree, I found these rules to apply:

The doctorate must, in part, have been prepared during a research internship period of at least three months in another European country.
Oral thesis presentation authorisation is granted on the basis of reports submitted by at least three professors comprising at least two from higher education institutions from two European countries other than the country in which the oral thesis presentation is to be held. The host laboratory representative cannot submit this report.
At least one member of the jury should belong to a European higher education institution from a different country to that in which the oral thesis presentation is held.
Part of the oral thesis presentation should be conducted in an official language of the European Community which is not the language of the country in which the presentation is held.

Edit (because I still cannot leave comments):

Some universities might require a 4 month stay abroad for acquiring this title.
As for the difference in the value between the two degrees, there seems to be none. The European Doctorate seems to be a label added to the normal doctoral degree of an EU academic institution as a proof that the abovementioned requirements are accomplished. This seems to be a way to promote cooperation among EU universities from different countries, PhD student mobility and the writing of the dissertations in English, as in many EU countries they can still be written in the official language of the country.


Going into academia if the research is interdisciplinary If one is doing a PhD in an area that is on the borderline of a few areas (see the specifics below), would it be harder for them to find a job in academia after graduating?

To be more specific, the fields of linguistics (formal semantics), math (natural logic), and philosophy of language are closely connected. There is even a Dutch term which stands for the joint study of the three (which I cannot remember). Assume that one's PhD dissertation would be in that area(s), and the PhD itself would be a "dual" (double major) PhD in math and linguistics.

On the one hand, such a background suggests that more academic positions may be available (in applied math departments, or in linguistics departments, or in philosophy departments). On the other hand, being between the fields may be a disadvantage because the person doesn't actually belong to one specific field.

And a related question: what should that person do to make the process of finding postdoc positions easier?

We can't really make general statements about one focus of research being better than another. Maybe in this hiring season there are 6 jobs out there perfectly suited to someone doing X, while there are 7 that specifically want (or just prefer) someone doing X+Y. And another year the ranking of numbers might switch.

Certainly "interdisciplinary research" has a strong positive connotation. My guess is that is because it most commonly entails the combination of a traditional (perhaps stagnant) old field with some sexy new field. The idea is that you are progressing toward "the future" where the field will be evolving in these new directions. While the old pigeonholing of research into particular categories becomes increasingly outdated.

On the other hand if you just combine a couple overcrowded fields that have been around forever you may not gain anything.

One possible drawback I can think of would be in teaching. Even when the hiring committee looks for someone with a lot of breadth, they still may require a lot of depth in their main field. They don't want to be stuck as the only one who can teach that boring old core required course forever.


Impact of holding non-TT positions on potential for a TT position Is there any (negative) effect of prior holding of one or more non-tenure-track (TT) positions on the potential of being hired (and promoted) at a TT position at a university (mostly interested in US)?

In many academic fields it has become the norm for new PhDs to work in post-doc, visiting assistant professor, or other temporary non tenure-track positions before moving into a faculty position.  This is normal and expected. It should be obvious how a research post-doc will help you to gain experience in research.  For new PhDs with limited teaching experience, a good visiting assistant professor position can help with gaining teaching experience.

However, there's a difference between a research oriented post-doc and a long term full time (or worse part time) non tenure track position as a lecturer.  In the latter case, you will have little opportunity to continue working on research and may be put to work teaching very low level courses.  It can be very hard to work up from such a position into a tenure track position, and the longer you do it, the worse it will look on your resume.

Even with good research post-docs and visiting assistant professor positions, there's a limit to how many years you can do this work before you'll be seen as having failed in your academic career.  Too many years of post-doc experience is worse than having too little experience.


What are the disadvantages of opening the source of your own science tools I am currently finishing my PhD thesis and, as a great deal of the job was to create tools and protocoles, I am considering putting the different scripts I wrote on open source directories (such as SourceForge or GitHub).

The advantage I see for opening them is:

They will be available for everyone and can be reused by the scientific
community
They could be improved (and corrected) by others
It ensure my authorship for the different scripts (I can prove I put them there)

  However, I was wondering if there is any drawback of doing so (for
  future publication, version maintenance, and so on).

I have to precise that not all the work was published yet. My field is biological science.

Some disadvantages could be:

People may expect you to maintain the code. If you don't maintain it, the code may be rendered useless at some point.
You might feel forced to document the code. This is actually an advantage, but many people would not realise that ;)
You might have to work on cleaning up the code. Exactly the same point as above applies, if you ever want to re-use your code this is actually an advantage.
If people start using your code (this is not impossible), they could e-mail you and start asking questions. This takes your time. On the other hand, it also provides you the opportunity to be co-author (so hey! don't document, so people are forced to ask your help ;-)

More points are raised in the very similar question that was asked at Programmers.SE less than a month ago:

Why don't research papers that mention custom software release the source code?


Why do journals require authors to provide funding information? Recently I have communicated a manuscript to Springer journal. In editorial system I was required to furnish funding information. If the funding information is available then does that mean that I have to publish my work through open access by paying fee from funds that have been sanctioned  to me?

Although the journal is not open access journal but I am afraid if they ask for article processing fee after acceptance of manuscript. My sanctioned funds does not cover article processing charges

Funding information is often required even when a journal has no open source option to it. The source of funding is a major potential conflict of interest, and as such is a key piece of information in evaluating a paper.

That being said, it may also be used to determine things like whether or not they should give a break on open access fees, whether it needs to be deposited in Pubmed Central, etc.


Names in my language used in publications are inconsistant. Should I worry about it? In my language, name structure are different to Western names, and they have a lot of diacritics. To make it less confusing and easier to use for international work, we usually "transliterate" it to a non-diacritics version and reorder the position of components. The problem is, for different people, they will choose different way to change. For example, in my language, the name Nguyễn Ví Dụ will have these kinds of transliterate (I'm not going to list all "combinations"):

Du Nguyen
Nguyen VD
NV Du
Du NV
or keep using Nguyễn Ví Dụ

Since the complexity of how a name is formed in the language is large, I can't really say which kind of "transliteration" is better than the others (it may even depend on the policy of the journals). And honestly, I don't think this is a problem to the authors if they decide to use a particular "transliteration". I know that I should keep those names as they are when citing the authors because that's how they get the credits.

Question: However, when I list some authors (say in my CV), one will easily notice the differences between how the names represented. If the reader doesn't really care about that, that's fine, but if they do, I don't know if they will have bad impression? For worse, three professors who wrote LORs for me referred my name in three different ways, same as how they write their names. And I myself have decided to just write my name as it is, which will make my application has four representations of my name. Should I worry about this?

It's only part of the solution, but you could look at ORCID, which gives you a unique ID to link together all of your publications etc. regardless of the exact form of your name you use. Use isn't widespread yet, but more and more publishers are starting to adopt it, as are increasing numbers of research institutions (at least in the UK).


Should I respond to emails (resembling spams) asking for my papers? I started to get emails like this:

  From: Firstname Middlename Lastname <someotherfirstname0000@hotmail>~

  Title of paper.

  I need the article to study.

  thank you!

  Firstname Middlename Lastname

Title of paper identifying one of my papers.

Is this the beginning of academic spam or phishing? Do you get such stuff regularly?

The first reaction I had was to answer with an ironic version of how I'd like such an email to look and how I'd have answered it.

On a second thought I decided that the email was so rude that I won't  answer it.

After a few hours I got the very same email a second time. I noticed that the sender name is not the one of the names in the "signature". Also, the sender is rather unknown to the more relevant part of the internet (including pubmed).

I don't even think this is for harvesting papers. My guess: it is to validate email addresses so that actual spam campaigns can achieve a better return on investment.


Page limit for IEEE JBHI (including reference or not) On the page of IEEE JBHI (https://www.embs.org/jbhi/prepare-and-submit-your-manuscript/), it says:

PAGE CHARGES. Review papers that exceed ten (10) pages incur mandatory page charges. Regular papers that exceed eight (8) pages will incur mandatory overlength page charges. For papers that are 8 pages or fewer: only voluntary page charges ($110/page); 9–10 pages: mandatory page charges ($250/page for pages 9 and 10); 11 pages and beyond: $350/page.
PAGE LIMIT. The page limit is 12 pages for regular paper and 14 pages for review papers including supplementary material. The page limit must be implemented in both original submissions and revised papers.
MANDATORY PAGE CHARGES. The author(s) or his/her/their company or institution will be billed for all pages according to the Page Charge policy. For regular papers, the rate for pages 9 and 10 is $250 per page, and the rate for page 11 and beyond is $350 per page. Payment of these charges is not negotiable or voluntary. Further, submission by the author of his/her manuscript to this publication signifies acceptance of the requirement to pay mandatory pages charges. The Publisher holds the right to withhold publication of the current submission or any future submissions from the author(s) if this charge is not honored. To avoid incurring mandatory page charges, the author(s) are strongly advised to practice economy in the original manuscript submission and restraint in preparation of the final manuscript following peer review.

So, what is the page limit for a paper without any additional fee? I presume it's 8 pages, but is it with or without the reference or supplementary material section?

From the editor office,

Is the 8-page limit with or without the references and biography section?
The page limit includes the references. The biography section is not required.
Is it possible to include supplementary materials in the paper? If yes, will it be considered in the page limit?
It is possible. However supplementary material is added at the end of your manuscript (after the references section) and is included in the page limit.


Doubting my PhD ability Writing this from a temporary account. I am enrolled in a PhD program in math, and more and more often I am doubting my abilities in doing the program.

I work, so it happens, de facto under two scientific advisors. I continue my work which was quite successful at undergrad level, but feel stuck into a dead end. Furthermore, all I obtain after hard work seems to be easily generalised by other people who spend much less time thinking on my problems, rendering my effort obsolete. This PhD is very important for me, allowing me to get satisfaction from teaching younger students, talking to scientists, earn money and receive grants, but I find myself undeserving of all that and actually suspect myself to be an impostor masterfully imitating mathematical research. It is exacerbated by the fact that these unsurety problems seem to disappear when I move, as an amateur, to a completely unrelated discipline; I’ve already published articles and suspect that, were I able to supplement vigour with formal training, I could have been a monograph-level of researcher right now. However, as I mentioned, changing PhD to such an unrelated field is not even an option.

It is vital for me to complete my PhD. So I’m looking for some advice from this remarkable community how to drag myself out of this learned helplessness; some possible options would include:

Change topic and do some unconnected math research? I feel that would put itself as a silent rebellion against my scientific advisor, as well as contravening my PhD, to say nothing of the fact I’m unsure in the very ability to produce a fast result from any branch already;
Slightly alter the direction? Similar;
Force myself and push until I produce something meaningful for my topic? As one can see, I’m hesitant about it.

In fact, I’m currently abandoning my “world level, Fields medalist” hopes and would be satisfied with getting any king of PhD to be allowed to teach undergrads in peace. No other career but academic is imaginable; and yet I find myself with inability to progress in mine.

Another option everyone will introduce at once is “why don’t I talk with advisor frankly”. I’ve tried that but found myself too timid to be completely frank, and I am wary about latter due to PhD importance. It is necessary to maintain some cordiality with advisor. Hopefully there is some way out of this self-made problem. Especially invited are opinions of those people who had rocky PhDs back then and persevered.

I was also enrolled in a Math PhD (Numerical Optimization), with difficulties due to lack of time (I was working as a Math teacher simultaneously); when I finished my PhD courses my advisor proposed a research topic... One year at a half later, I also was at a dead end, unable to find any good result and doubting myself.

When I told my advisor at last that I'd decided to move to another program in another university, he propose another topic, assuring me success. He was sure I would get it (as we know, advisors spend time with their doctoral students, and a student failure is also a fiasco for them) because he knew the subject well (the first topic was more unknown to him, and therefore more challenging, but it was also possible that there was no solution!).

He was right: In the new topic, I quickly got results, tutored for my advisor, I was able to present partial results in congresses, got some articles accepted in journals, and at last, two years later, I finally got my PhD. I lost almost two years, but seen from afar (ten years have passed since then) everything is OK.

By the way, recently I saw (in www.researchgate.net) that somebody has the answer to the first problem that I wasn't able to solve ... so it was solvable, and my advisor was right in proposing it to me!

Well, that was my experience, I think similar to yours. Hope this is helpful.


Advisor suggested me to typeset my thesis with a software that I don't know I am writing my dissertation and my supervisor recommended me this LaTeX template.

https://bitbucket.org/amiede/classicthesis/wiki/Home

However, I have been using MS-Word all along and don't know LaTeX. What are some approaches I can consider given this situation?

Learn how to use LaTeX.

LaTeX is not hard. If you have any experience programming you'll probably find LaTeX extremely elementary. You can conceivably have issues rendering certain characters or equations, but Google is likely to easily find solutions to that. TeX is also quite powerful as a word processing tool, allowing you to write obscure symbols (for example, \cdot) easily. This doesn't mean LaTeX is better than Word; certainly some things are easier done in Word than TeX. But knowing both means you have an additional weapon in your arsenal, and you'll have a better idea which weapon to deploy given what you intend to write in your dissertation.


Should I mention that I was an athlete in a curriculum for a PhD application? I am going to apply for a PhD in mathematics in north Europe. During my high school and undergraduate years, I was also a semi-professional athlete, and I retired when I was a graduate student to focus on my studies. I think being an athlete at a high level tells many things about a PhD student. A high level former athlete has probably developed a strong attitude for work, knows how to focus and how to manage their time; moreover, high level sport teaches you also how to manage stress and failures. However, I am afraid that a potential PhD adviser might get the wrong idea: I don't know any former athletes doing a PhD in my field, but I know at least one professor who thinks being an athlete could be a distraction. Unfortunately, in my country there is not a strong sports culture, and hence the academic and sport worlds are completely disjoint. Do you think I should mention my former career as an athlete in a curriculum for a PhD application?

I would put it in your CV. I see several reasons for this: first it completes your CV and you are 'honest' with anyone you apply to. I don't know the sports you are in but if someone googles your name, s/he might end up finding you which in my opinion raises questions (if you did not mention it).

The second reason is that of traits and skills a semi-professional career as athlete gives you: persistance, discipline and so on. Yes, it may distract you, but this is why you have chosen to focus on one path. Be prepared to answer questions about this when you are interviewed. Focus on the positive aspects that this occupation has given you.

Third: I think it highly depends on your sport. Is it athletics, football, or something else (popular) it is perhaps ok. Something like Mixed Martial Arts raises other questions and might put you into a unwanted light (agressive, conflict orientated). Sports like e-sports are also still a problem. Many do not recognise them as sports at all, although they might indicate team and communication skills as well as reflexes.

So I guess you should reflect upon the positive and negative aspects of your sport and why it has formed your character into the person you are know. If you can answer questions about this relation in an interview setting, you are pretty well off I think.