Being a Dishonest Cheat. How do I live with this? First things first. I am not a good person - I have never pretended to be. But I tried to make my parents (more importantly my dad) proud. Today I screwed up. I sat for an exam that I don't understand the work for, despite trying my best. I got desperate (this module is a prerequisite for everything next year), and I cheated. I had all the tutorials on my phone (I study using my phone, not my laptop, I didn't plan to cheat) and I tried to scrape together some answers. I was caught. Whatever happens I will not make credits this year (if I'm not expelled - which I deserve). I am so disgusted with myself. I have already taken full responsibility for my actions. No point in lying. I have struggled with engineering ever since I started (I've already taken 3 years to do 2 years worth of work). My question is, how do I handle myself going forward? What is the point of trying anymore?

It seems that you already know what to do. You said it yourself, you've struggled with engineering since you started and you had to cheat on an exam that is a pre-req for your future courses. Classes aren't going to get easier and you would be wasting your time and money pursuing this degree. Is there a reason why you're still in engineering? Is there anything personal keeping you in this curriculum? Re-evaluate where you want your life to head.


How to structure of a Ph.D. sandwich thesis? I would like to know the main structure of this kind of thesis.

Although some guidelines can be taken from this post, additional details would be appreciated.

When building the introduction, I feel quite collapsed trying to join and describe all the aspects of the 3 published articles I have. This will be also the same for the final discussion. In fact, it makes me feel that I'm repeating myself what I've already written in the papers. I like DRY principle.

Thanks! Here is a preliminary outline:

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS USED
SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
HYPOTHESIS AND OBJECTIVES
MATERIALS AND METHODS
RESULTS
Paper1
Paper2
Paper3
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES
ANNEXES

This is the structure that worked for me and number of my friends throughout western European universities:

Title: A title that reflects your contributions/publications.

Table of contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABBREVIATIONS

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Note on Introduction: Most important of all is to highlight what you want to answer in your research. Also the problem/motivation should be discussed here.

Paper1 ... PaperN

Note On Paper-Based Chapters: The order of them are very important. Order them based on the content not the year of the publication.

Evaluation: In this chapter put both the discussion and results. Try to figure out the benefits and shortcomings of your research.

CONCLUSIONS and Future Work: conclude based on your contribution and highlight the future work.

REFERENCES

Note: Not so many students take time on organizing their references' style. Most of them just copy/paste the Bibtex code and don't look if all their references obey the same style rules.

ANNEXES


How to choose participants for a study? I want to know how can I get some participants for an empirical research study I would be conducting. Does universities have systems in place to call/recruit participants or do I have to find them myself?

You will almost certainly have to recruit study participants yourself. As others have suggested, speak with your advisor to out whether there are any participant pools he's used in the past. If you find others that he hasn't used before it's a good idea to make sure he's OK with the pool before you dive in, so to speak.

Note that, in some fields, the pool of participants can be a significant limiting factor to the generalizability of the study results. Think very carefully about exclusionary criterion before settling on something. Note also that your IRB may require you to provide justification for exclusion/inclusion of certain populations (i.e., children, pregnant women, drug users). Try to make sure your population sample is as inclusive as possible.


Working for one professor, want to write paper with another party I am a PhD student working for a professor as a research assistant and being paid with stipends. One of my friends in the same department asks me if I can collaborate on a project branched off his PhD research. That project is a completely different field than my current research, despite of that some of the background ideas can be used in my part.

He has done all of the theory work, and just needs someone to implement using computer programs. To me the task is not really hard at all, since he has streamlined the theories. I expect to finish the programming part without spending too much of my effort, and there is no (hard) time limit.

Now he has generously offered me a chance to be in the authors list (I believe only us two, and he's the first), as the credit of my work. I understand that working for somebody else while getting paid for my own job is not good, but the publication is really luring to me. I talked to him about the chance of my name being included only in the acknowledgement, but what a bad idea of that.

My question is what should I do? Should I ever talk to my professor? My friend is like hard to refuse since the work isn't really a burden to me.

While I wish to keep anonymous, I truly thank you all for any idea, suggestion, or criticism.

EDIT: As I mentioned before, our work isn't really very related. But it happens that at present I need to improve my own research methodology, and the techniques to be used in his project exactly fit my need. (I think this is a good lesson to me; never be "too" focused in my own research, and learn from other fields) Is it okay to talk to my advisor in this way, that while I'm helping him, I also make my own stuff better?

Ask your professor if it is okay with him.

During my PhD it was never a problem to work with other PhD's, it was actually well received and encouraged. Even collaborations that go beyond the professor's own group. Of course your own work should have priority, but spending some of your time on other projects has not been problematic.


Can one get a faculty position by posting CV on job websites? As I see faculty positions in Europe and North America is always based on applications. Is it common that a department head suggest a faculty position to a possible candidate?

I do not mean based on personal connection. Job websites (consider those devoted to academic jobs) encourage job seekers to upload their CVs.

Is it common that a department head search CVs uploaded on academic job websites and suggest a faculty possible to a job seeker?

Is there any success story? Does this system work in practice?

For entry-level junior faculty, the likelihood is almost none unless you are already a superstar.

People get invited to apply based on their prominence/brilliance in the field or through personal connections.

While it doesn't hurt to have your CV uploaded to a job website, the likelihood that a hiring department will use it to pick you up is not very high.

The reason is that for most job postings in this economic / intellectual climate is that any single job posting will get over a hundred applicants, if not more.

Even small schools can get over 200+ applicants for junior faculty postings.  They have no need to solicit additional applicants.

[Note this is the case for the humanities / social sciences in the United States based on my experience. Your mileage may vary.]


What is the role of a PhD advisor after a student has graduated? It seems from answers to certain questions (such as Should a mid-career faculty application include a letter from the former PhD advisor?) that the role of an advisor may continue after a student has graduated.

In general, what is the professional role of a PhD advisor after a student has graduated? Are they simply possible collaborators and sources of recommendation letters, or is there more?

I've seen this question: What is exactly the role of a phd advisor? which is related, but focuses on the role of an advisor during graduate school.

When should you stop asking your PhD advisor to do advisor like things? is related, but my question is what are the advisor-like things a PhD advisor might/should do after a student has graduated.

Here are some other related (but not duplicates as far as I can tell) questions:

How to handle not having my PhD advisor as a reference?

Once a person have graduated, there is not generally any remaining formal role for the Ph.D. advisor.  In theory, a Ph.D. qualifies them as generally capable of independent scientific research, and they have no requirement to depend on their academic "parent" any more.

In practice, however, no person is an island.  Most researchers do much better as part of a network of like-minded colleagues who can serve as friends and allies.  The Ph.D. advisor is a natural starting point for building such a network, both as someone likely to be a like-minded ally and also by helping build connections based on their own existing network. As the more junior colleague in the relationship, the benefits of interaction are likely to flow more more from the advisor to the former student, but the relationship is likely to grow more peer-like over time.

Just as with a biological parent, even after formal independence, this connection is likely to last a lifetime (but may not if the relationship is not good).  Also like biological parents, however, Ph.D. advisors (and others) often have a hard time adjusting their perspective and seeing their former students as fully "grown up."  This is part of why it's important not only to maintain a connection with one's advisor, but also to clearly establish a separate research identity.


Is it possible to be admitted to graduate programs in subjects one minored in in undergraduate? I'm currently studying electrical engineering and considering on getting both a physics and math minor. I'm wondering though, is it possible to get a Ph.D. or a Master's degree in Physics or Math when I only have the minor and not a real degree?

Is it likely at all to be admitted into a graduate study with only a minor? I'm wondering because I don't know whether or not the minor is actually worth it if I won't be able to pursue a graduate degree later on with my credentials.

For reference, a math minor at my school typically means 3 extra upper-level math courses (300-400 level), and only 2 more physics courses (one in waves + light + thermodynamics; the other which samples different fields of modern physics, all required for the degree program)

In the U.S., for graduate work in mathematics, even a minimal major in mathematics is not really adequate preparation for a good graduate program in mathematics. Not enough coursework, which means insufficient exposure to higher-level ideas (assuming, as is apparently mostly the case, there's not much interaction with mathematics outside coursework). Even though various engineering programs require quite a bit of mathematics, in my observation the topics exactly do not get to fourth-year mathematics, so that exactly rigorous analysis, abstract algebra, point-set topology are not seen. The latter are a very minimal preparation for graduate work in mathematics of almost any sort. Still, if there's room for those courses in a "minor", then some minimum thresh-hold would be reached for appearing to be prepared for math grad school.


After how many years since its first issue, does a journal get its impact factor After how many years since its first issue, does a journal from a good publication get its impact factor?

Getting an impact factor is not something that depends on the duration the journal has been published. To get an impact factor the hard part is getting indexed by Web of Science. After you are indexed, then getting an impact factor is something that will happen automatically. But getting indexed is not trivial; in fact it's one of the biggest challenges facing a new journal. Simply publishing issues will not do it; you need to do other things like publish in English, have peer review policies, and most importantly, generate citations from articles that are published in already-indexed journals. See the criteria here.


In US universities, how much academic information does a professor have about graduate students enrolled in his classes? Does he know immediately (from some internet / intranet access) which students in his classes are undergraduates, masters students, PhD students, non-degree students?  Does he typically have access to his students' transcripts, thesis work (dates submitted / approved / topic), and knowledge of his students' academic / research advisors?

At my R1 state university in the U.S., I do have info on whether students in my classes are undergrads or grads or non-degree, which are auditing and which taking it for a grade.

I have no information on their transcripts, nor thesis work nor status, nor academic or research advisors.

For students that are my advisees, yes, I have such information. In fact, for PhD students or MS students whose committees I'm or have been on (that are still active...), I do also have such information. But not for any other students.


How to update comments in arXiv? I have submitted a preprint to arXiv. Since the paper has been accepted in a conference, I will like to mention this in the "Comments" section (where the author makes some comments about the paper) that appears in arXiv. How to do this?
Note that the paper remains the same. Only comments need to be updated.

Comments can only be updated by submitting a new version, even if the content of the paper itself has not changed. A new version can be submitted by selecting the "Replace" option against your paper. Further details can be found here.
Comments are a part of the metadata of the paper, and the idea is that the comments should reflect the situation on the date the article was submitted on arXiv. It is possible to update journal reference and DOI without creating a new version. However, as the help page mentions, these fields are appropriate only when you have the complete bibliographic information of the conference proceedings (if any) available.
Reference from arXiv (emphasis mine):

...
Why? To allow authors to make changes to the comments and other metadata fields of publicly announced articles without generating a new version, and hence date stamp, would effectively mean that all changes would be backdated to the time the last version was submitted. This is open to abuse and thus not allowed.
The exceptions to this rule are the addition of journal reference and DOI information. The journal reference field may contain only full publication information for the article; the DOI field may contain only a DOI.


How should I manage my relationship with a sneaky academic? I feel let down and (right now) rather upset about how I've been treated by an academic at another institution. Any tips for how I manage my (unavoidable) working relationship with him going forward?

I'm a PhD Student in a small subdiscipline (only 2-4 of us in this country). He is a (moderately) established researcher and for him this is just one string to the fiddle. We've met a couple of times at conferences and organised a symposium together last year. I invited some of my non-academic network who are wonderful collaborators.

After the symposium we discussed further work together. He asked if I would assist with chairing a (broad discipline) conference, and I was excited about us working together, thinking how great it was to have a good relationship with someone who was more focused on our subdiscipline than my supervisors are, and looking forward to post-PhD collaborations. I felt he was 'taking me under his wing' and that my expertise would be highly useful to him.

Since then, the role we had discussed for conference organisation went to someone else, without him informing me.

And I've found out he has been putting together a project proposal with my wonderful collaborators, without mentioning it to me. Naively, it never even occurred to me that someone would do this. It seems particularly weird because geographically I'm located right next to these collaborators, and there are plenty of similar organisations in his area that he could have reached out to.

Right now I'm feeling pretty raw about this. (But perhaps this is on me? Was I simply too trusting?) But we are organising another symposium together. Undoubtedly we will cross paths again in the future, and will be reviewing each other's work.

Any tips on how to manage this relationship going forward? Or other tales of betrayal to help me put this in perspective?

Until you know a bit more, I'd start with a generous interpretation. Academics can be forgetful. They (we) can lose things like contact information. This interpretation may not be warranted, of course, but it is usually worth starting as if it is. It may be that what you were thinking of as fairly firm commitments, he was just musing about. It doesn't reflect well on him, of course, but your best way forward is to assume it is benign (for now).
Send him an email reminding him of past conversations and suggest that you are interested in collaboration. Send whatever support information you think useful. Go visit in person if that is feasible. Remind him of those conversations and your memory of them, but without being accusatory.
You will learn a lot from the response. In particular, you should learn if the generous interpretation is the valid one. I don't know that you have a lot of recourse, however, if he is a bad actor. But if not, you may be able to get the ball rolling on this or a similar project.
If he is a bad actor, you should probably have a conversation with your collaborators about how he treats them and try to figure out if you are treated differently. You and your collaborators can, perhaps, come to some understanding and even create a support group.

On Forgetfulness
One of my mentors, great person, great teacher, used to know when he was "working hard enough" when he would lose his car. You would find him wandering through the university parking lots looking for it when it was time to go home. Not a bad actor, but not always dependable.


How can I find the original article of an often-plagiarised work? I am currently trying to read an article on a particular topic. I really want to read and reference the proper original article, and attribute the work to the ones who deserve it; however, I'm finding it hard to determine just who that is.

I have found articles, all of which seem to be ripped off from the same source. It could be that one of them is the original, or none of them are. (Some of them are obviously fake.)

I'm inclined to believe a particular one is legitimate. It's the one with the earliest date, which admittedly can be faked, but it's also in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library, which I trust.

However, I'm not even sure how much I can trust any digital source now, because one of the other articles turns up in search results from my own institute's digital library! It seems they're indexing a particular journal that is not trustworthy.

So how do I determine the original authors of the work, or who can I trust to tell me?

As an example of what I'm talking about, here's what I'm witnessing:

IBC Secured Key Partition for A Peer-To-Peer
Network in Delivery of Message
Implementing a Secure Key Issuing Scheme for Communication in P2P Networks
IBC Secured Key Partition for A Peer-To-Peer Network
SKIP: A Secure Key Issuing Scheme for Peer-to-Peer Networks

The third article is the one that is returned by my library's journal index. The last one is the one I believe to be original.

Unfortunately, there's no completely reliable way to determine whether a paper is plagiarized, but I think you're right in this case.

The 2012 IJWMN paper and 2014 IJLTET paper are pretty clearly plagiarized.  Of course I can't prove anything, and one of them could in principle be the original, but it would take quite a story to explain how the same text was stolen and published by someone else three to five years earlier.  A one-year delay might be due to refereeing or a conference rejection, but three to five years is a very long delay for CS.

The 2013 AJER paper is a strange case.  It does copy some text without attribution, both from the 2009 paper and from the Wikipedia article on software design, but it has worse problems than that: the paper seems to have virtually no content beyond mock ups of what the user interface might look like, with messages such as "Your Secret Key is: 1004".  Even aside from the plagiarism, it's safe to ignore this article as having essentially no research content.

The 2009 ICNS paper looks to me like the original.  There are several tests one can do to try to gauge this:

You can do web searches for sentence fragments, such as "vulnerable to a large spectrum of attacks" or "introducing IBC into P2P".  If you do a reasonable job of guessing distinctive phrases, you'll find a short list of potential word-for-word plagiarized papers.  (Annoyingly, search engines will sometimes miss matches due to not parsing PDF files well, so there's a random element to this.)  In this case, searches show that the 2009 paper took some wording from a 2008 paper by other authors, such as the bit about vulnerability, but seems not to have copied the whole paper.  The borrowed wording is objectionable, but it doesn't invalidate any originality in content.
You can investigate the prestige of the journal/conference.  Plagiarists are less likely to get away with publishing in high-prestige venues, because their theft is more likely to be noticed.  I don't think ICNS is particularly prestigious, though, so this criterion doesn't help.  The papers from 2009 are archived by the IEEE, but the IEEE archives a lot of junk on behalf of other conference organizers, so the IEEE archiving shouldn't be viewed as indicating high quality.  It's very different from journals or conferences run by the IEEE.
You can see whether there are a lot of citations.  That wouldn't prove anything, but it would suggest that people citing the paper weren't aware of plagiarism allegations.  In this case, Google Scholar finds only four citations, so we don't learn much.

So in summary, it looks likely that the 2009 paper is the original (although I've only looked briefly, so it would be worth doing a few more searches).  That's a remarkable collection of plagiarism you've uncovered, and I can see how it would be unsettling, but I think this is an unusual case.


Defining employment on grad school applications I'm not sure whether/how to include specific things on a graduate school application (biophysics) in the employment section

a) Unpaid lab work. I worked as a research assistant in a lab as an undergraduate, participated in field work, presented a poster at a conference and will be an author on a lab paper. While I will definitely include this in my application, is it misleading to not write that it was unpaid?

b) The application specifically says to include part time jobs and I wonder whether my lack of them will raise flags. Should I include the fact that I received a special stipend freshman year which had several requirements - one of which was that I not hold a job freshman year?

Some context: I was lucky enough to receive a full (need-based) scholarship all four years of university. This allowed me to focus on my academics. I began doing unpaid lab work and then stopped for a time to do paid work in a lab that ended up not being a good fit. I returned to the unpaid work which was more interesting and provided more opportunities for growth (the lab funded the fieldwork experience and conference travel/fees).

Yes, your lab work qualifies and should be listed, especially as you do not have anything else to list.  But you should indicate that it was a volunteer position.


Self citation and plagiarism This remains an old concern of mine, and something I have never been able to wrap my head around. For instance, I have never understood why using your own sentences that you have crafted without citing yourself counts as plagiarism.
That being said- I am currently working on a paper and describing the data section, and the dataset is common enough that I see myself using it in the future for another paper. The efficient thing to do here would be to use the same description for both papers. This would, however, be considered as plagiarism. How can one reasonably be accused of plagiarism here? The data section is ancillary to both papers, is not based on a 'novel' idea, but is purely descriptive. To describe the data again using different words just for the sake of not plagiarizing from myself seems to be waste of time. Now imagine this happening to thousands of researchers over many years. It seems to me that productive hours that are wasted for such a strange, and honestly, unnecessary formality. Am I missing something here?

Well, the pedantic legal answer to the question of why an academic re-using blocks of text they themselves have written in a previous publication would be plagiarism is that said academic has (almost certainly) assigned the full copyright of the work to the previous journal publisher. Given this is a forced part of academic publishing I would argue that the above is ethically something of a grey area, but legally chances are our hypothetical author no longer owns the text they want to reproduce.
However, I would say you are missing something here! The most efficient thing to do in the case you describe would be to cite the publication containing the data set and original description. Perhaps providing a brief summary in the new paper would be appropriate depending on the specifics of what you're writing about.
A similar example of the above from my own research was experimental equipment descriptions. I realized fairly swiftly that I was often reproducing text describing a particular spectroscopy setup. This can easily be condensed down to: "Technique X was performed as previously described.[REF]" and those who are interested in the exact details can read the referenced paper.


Authorship disagreement I'm in physics where the order of authors is meaningful. The first author is the lead author and the last author is the principal investigator. I am an undergraduate who has collaborated on a topic with two post docs and a professor. We are nearly ready to submit the paper to a top journal (Nature physics).

I proposed the topic after I discovered a huge idea in the field. I proved a variety of theorems and generated the supporting data independently. I used post doc 1s previous work in the paper - but it has already been published. Post doc 2 made a very small contribution, the other has contributed significantly more. I wrote the "main results", "applications" and "technical discussion" section. Post doc 1 wrote the intro, conclusion, abstract and a minor background section. The appendix is very long and I wrote 90% of it. The proof techniques and methods are my own creation with no input from any one else. Post doc 1 has helped greatly in improving my presentation since he has far more experience than me in writing papers (I have never written one). Post doc 1 made a lot of edits and helped restructure some arguments for clarity of presentation.

The paper has just been posted online to Arxiv. I am second to last author. Post doc 1 made himself first author. I have read a number of articles on the topic and since I contributed the most I believe I should be first author. What is the best way for me to approach the situation? I really feel like I am being ripped off. 3rd author could be given to any undergrad and I imagine the difference for grad school/future career could be substantial.
Thanks!

You should openly discuss your concern with the co-authors. As a matter of fact, all co-authors have to agree on the author order before submission. Nature Physics requires a statement of authors's contributions and this the ground you can use to initiate the conversation. According to what you wrote, you deserve to be the first author and the postdoc should be the corresponding author, which is often regarded as equally important as the first author. Your PI should be the one who makes the final decision. Also, he does not neccessarily have to be the last author, if he did not make substantial contributions to the project. For your situation, the reasonable author order that would make everyone happy is: you, everyone else, the postdoc. There might be political game involved. In that case, be prepared to fight for your rights.


How is publishing under a random pseudonym authorized? Who decides if someone can author/co-author an academic article under a pseudonym, when you want to do so to hide your identity on Google but still want credit for it for your academic advancement?

Is it the PI, department, university, publisher, or something else, who decides if you could do this? Also is it illegal in any country?

And from looking at previous threads here, seems that you cannot pick a completely random name as a pseudonym; it usually has to be somehow tied to you in real life - your maiden name, adding your middle name, abbreviating John Smith into JSmith... things like that. Not much change.

So you can't use names like "spongebob"? How about "JS" or "J" for John Smith?

Someone mentioned you could get your professor to write that you used a fake name in their letter of recommendation. Would they be willing to write "this person published a paper titled so-and-so under a pen name called "[insert a randomly made-up name here]"."

Editor ultimately decides whether your pseudonym is acceptable or whether any pseudonym is acceptable for the journal. But you have to be practical about the decision to use pseudonym. If some professor, even respectable and famous one, writes you a letter saying

  "this person published a paper titled so-and-so under a pen name
  called ""."

would this really be convincing to everyone? Would this letter be written in ink on paper? What would you do with the paper letter in the XXI century? Scan and send .jpg's? Or attach it to a CV .pdf, which probably has 2-3 page limit? If it was in a digital form it must come from the professor's academic e-mail to have any credibility. Would he be willing to do that every time you need to prove it is you who wrote the paper? 10, 20, 30 years from now?


How to politely point out an issue with a cited paper? I am writing a paper that illustrates a technique that is superior to a technique presented in a separate paper that I am citing as part of my work. The technique in the prior paper is not wrong, but it has several major drawbacks that my results address.

My question is, what is a polite way to point out the problems in the initial results, and then demonstrate why my results address these problems without coming across as insulting to the original authors? I would prefer an explanation of how to actually point out their drawbacks, rather than one that avoids it altogether, because I think it allows me to give a more clear and cohesive explanation of my findings. For example, I would prefer not to resort to just saying, "My technique is , which has ,  and  advantages", because I think that pointing out drawbacks of earlier techniques will highlight and clarify the advantages of this new technique.

I would fully expect (and hope) that someone in the future would come along and point out the drawbacks of my approach, and how they improved upon it. It just seems to me that if I don't point out the drawbacks in the previous approach, I'm being both intellectually dishonest, and unfair to the reader who would have gained a deeper understanding of my paper had they had the full context.

I think, the principle

Show, don't tell.

applies and suffices. You don't need to point out flaws and drawbacks, you just show the points where you made improvements. State facts, back them up, avoid opinionated statements and you should be fine. This way "being polite" is not necessary, since you will not come near some "impolite" statement.


Do universities notify failed candidates? After interviewing for faculty positions, would universities (in the US, or in general) notify me if they chose to proceed with other candidates or to close the search?

Generally, yes, they will let you know, but only after someone else has been chosen and they cannot proceed with your application any further.  But you won't be told that you are low on the list of people, nor likely to be told if you are just a "backup" candidate.

In the case in which the search is closed with no candidate at all, they may not notify everyone, but I think that varies.

There are exceptions, of course. And some places will have pretty strict rules and regulations about what is proper here.

If you think you are in the running and wonder whether you have been rejected, you can ask for an update on the state of the search. I, personally, wouldn't ask specifically about my own chances, but a general update will probably give you information you need to make other decisions.

There is a caveat here, I guess. If you are in the running for a position, but have other options and let them know that, they may give you more information. But the information is likely to be self serving. Something like: "You are high on our list of candidates, so don't lose heart."


Including a joke in an otherwise correct exam answer as the student I just read Ethics of awarding points for hilariously bad answers, and it reminded me of my Senior History exam in high school. I was confident in my knowledge and noticed that I had a lot of time left for the second half of the exam (the part where we were allowed to use our historical atlas), so during this second half, I often included a short joke comment between parentheses after the otherwise correct answer. For example, one of the questions I remember asked something about one of the European invasions of WW2, and after the answer itself, I joked about how it wasn't the first time they were conquered and listed a couple of other times they were conquered, like by the Greek, the Romans and a couple other groups I can't quite remember. I think I gave about half a dozen or a dozen jokes like that after relevant, for no other reason or justification other than because I felt like it.
My teacher afterwards told me she found it quite funny to grade my exam, though I cannot really remember anymore whether she adjusted my grades because of them. I don't think she detracted any points and while I can't remember for sure, I think she added a couple percentage points because I showed knowledge of the subject matter beyond what was required. Again, I just did it because I felt like it, though I'm uncertain whether I was influenced by remarks from a substitute teacher that they liked to laugh at absurdly bad exam answers in the teacher's lounge (again, high school, and in a special education school at that).
Now, obviously I didn't do this with the intent of getting a better score or something like that. I just did it because I felt like it, autistic brains are weird like that. But I'm wondering: Assuming an answer that's correct as far as you know, could it be a problem as a student to add a relevant joke to an otherwise correct answer? Could it impact the immediate and/or long term evolution of my grades, education and professional/academic life beyond just this exam, whether negatively or positively?

As I understand, your main question is:
Could it impact the immediate and/or long term evolution of my grades, education and professional/academic life beyond just this exam, whether negatively or positively?
Immediate grade: Obviously. People might have different rules on how they grade. Graders are usually humans who are impacted conciously and subconsiously by their students' actions (and how they speak, look etc.) One teacher might like you more for making jokes, one might be angry that you wasted their time, one might not find the correct answer because you wrote too much irrelevant things etc. One might not care. In grading, almost everything is possible.
Long term evolution of grades, life: Most likely not. If you have one teacher in different courses who likes you or doesn't like you because of jokes, this might play into other exams. However, usually, after a course is over, if at all, people care about the grade you got and not why you got it. It's unlikely that anyone will see the exam after the end of the course.
If you get extremly famous, it might be a nice episode about you that you made jokes on exams. Or not.


The Real "Cost" of Open Educational Resources Open Educational Resources (OER's) are seeing a rise in popularity in institutions of higher ed, as both colleges and state-and-local governments strive to address textbook affordability and other costs associated with education.

These resources are advertised with positive aspects, including:

OER's are free to students.
Instructors can edit OER's and share them (Creative Commons license type depending) freely.

Criticisms include:

Because many OER's are created without any funding structure, they don't receive periodic upkeep/revisions as commercial texts do. Hence, they may be unreliable as a resource.
OER's undercut commercial products and therefore hurt job opportunities for people in publishing industry (authors, editors, etc.). Hence, there is a financial cost to adopting OER's, paid by those who lose job prospects.
Pressure to use OER's (from colleges and local governments) creates tension inside academic departments because it restricts academic freedom. Therefore, instructors may be told to use a textbook because it's free, and not necessarily because it's good.
OER's stigmatize authors in academia from creating materials and taking them to market. Hence, authors may no longer feel that selling their own texts/materials is appropriate, receiving shame for not offering to give away their work.

So...I want to know  the real costs of OER's.

First, is the above list of criticisms correct, and do you know about any evidence to support them?

Are OER's damaging publishing markets? If so, do we know any particulars (numbers, examples)?
Have any institutions adopted an OER text, only to have it become unusable because of a lack of editing attention?
Are any faculty forced to use bad OER's in order to cut costs? Are they receiving pressure or stigma for wanting to use for-pay, commercial texts?

And...are there other costs associated with OER's not mentioned above? Please note that I am not positing as true any of the above positives or criticisms -- rather, these are things I have heard in conversation with other instructors.

Thank you in advance for your help here.

I will refer to your criticism by number, hoping that any updates to the list will be additive...

Criticism 1 (maintenance) is, in a theoretical sense, true, but open materials are often addressing it in their own way: with collaborative tools like github/gitlab and bug trackers that make reporting of errors and improvements easy. Meanwhile, publishers aren't always great at quality control, particularly when it would require them to reprint their books often (see, e.g., Hefferon's gitlab). For example, Serge Lang's Algebra is famous for its amount of mistakes and lack of polish, despite having seen three editions. My impression is that printed books are rarely revised to improve quality; instead re-editions often include new chapters, permute existing chapters, and try to dumb down some material so that it can fit more courses. Anecdotally, this is being done in order to make the old editions incompatible and thus scorch the used-book market; of course, intent is hard to prove in this question.
Criticism 2 (job killing) can be (and is) levied at pretty much any innovation. But this is how the world is supposed to move forward, by making formerly hard and costly things trivial and automatic! (And history, so far, has always shown that those who want to work will never run out of things to do. Getting paid for them is a different story... But medieval stasis cannot be the answer.)
Criticism 3 (pressure) is not happening anywhere around me (and I'm generally gravitating towards OA-friendly places). I have been using open texts whenever I could, but I don't see anyone pressuring me into doing that. (Students have occasionally thanked me for it, though I've more often been critiqued for not assigning a text that could be consistently read. Needless to say, with a subject properly covered by open-access texts, you can get the best of both worlds.) I suspect that intercollegiate pressure is much more a function of the climate at one's institution than of whatever is happening in publishing.
Criticism 4 (stigma) is probably a real effect. Once again, however, shifting standards are a consequence of any sort of improvement! LED lights have been stigmatizing old-fashioned lightbulb makers in just the same way. In many ways, book writing has already taken a large reputational hit before the Internet came along, and general advice in the academic community seems to be that the main purpose of writing a book is "so you can show your grandpa" (meaning that even the generation currently in their 40-50s will not see it as a particular milestone). The main reason seems to be the proliferation of books and the ease of publishing one (even with the established presses), not the advent of open access sources.

As you are asking for further criticisms, let me throw a couple in the air, although (being an OA advocate myself) I do not view them as heavily important:

Criticism 5: The free might drive out the good. I.e., if the best openly available materials are inferior to some printed books, some teachers will nevertheless pick the former for their free availability. I suspect this is a real issue occasionally, but mostly a temporary one. At least on the undergraduate level of my disciplines (algebra and combinatorics), there are usually freely available sources of the highest quality I know (when it comes to linear algebra, I even consider them superior). Finding good free texts gets harder the more advanced (and rarely taught) the class is, but most teachers don't assign bad texts just because they are free.
Criticism 6: Free resources might enable monocultures. If every lecturer has a choice between (say) 10 popular linear algebra texts of roughly equal quality, then you might expect each of these texts to have a popularity of roughly 10%. If someone writes a free text of comparable quality, you will suddenly see lots of lecturers adopting that free text purely because it is free. Subjects that are not covered in that text will disappear from classes; people's viewpoints will differ less (which is not a good thing for academia, whether or not students accept it). Note, however, that the same thing happens whenever a really good textbook comes out (say "analysis" and you will hear "Rudin"; say "differential geometry" and you will hear "Spivak"). In such cases, open access may actually disrupt that equilibrium even as publishers may lack the courage to do so.


Urgent Help: Company asked me for my research proposal One of the companies I requested permission to recruit participants for my study is asking me to provide my research proposal. My question is, should I send the actual proposal (about 100 pages) or a summary? Is it ethical? Am I allowed to do that?
I cannot contact anyone from my school to ask these questions but until Monday. I really would like to reply to the company right away because I need the participants.
If I have to send a summary only, do you know if there is a format for that?

Your prompt assistance is appreciated!

CS

This is a sufficiently common request that I'm actually surprised that you didn't get it ahead of time. Breaking down your question:

  My question is, should I send the actual proposal (about 100 pages) or a summary?

The actual proposal, with a summary in the front for the TL;DR crowd.

  Is it ethical?

Unless there is identifiable information about your subjects, proprietary information about the other company, etc. in there, is there any reason why it would be unethical to send a research proposal? Just asking "Is this ethical" isn't terribly useful - you should have a specific concern. In that case, you could leave out that information with a note as to why it has been omitted. But a research proposal usually doesn't contain information like that.

  Am I allowed to do that?

No one can answer that but your advisor, but I'd be surprised if the answer was "No".

  I cannot contact anyone from my school to ask these questions but until Monday. I really would like to reply to the company right away because I need the participants.

If it would make you more comfortable, you could prep everything and then check early Monday morning - it's doubtful a delay over the weekend is going to change the company's response in a meaningful way.


How do non-LaTeX users handle citations? There are plenty of questions asking about how exactly to cite certain things in certain citation styles. I tend to find these puzzling, as for me this is not something the author needs to care of, but something to be done automatically by BibTeX.

Now I am vaguely aware that some disciplines are not using LaTeX for their writing. I also know that there are citation tools outside LaTeX, but not quite how much these automate. This question however is about actual practise, not about what is possible.
Are these tools as widely used as BibTeX in the TeX community or are the tools more a niche thing and people actually cite "by hand" on a regular basis?
Is there a de facto standard?

It isn't exactly hard to do references by hand, in any word processing system, just boring and a bit fiddly at times. However, given the number of questions here on references it isn't like the citation managers aren't fiddly as well.

Having in the deep dark past written citation handling/numbering preprocessers/code for nroff, spinoff, and straight TeX (since LaTeX was too foofy for real scientists), those aren't that hard to do either with a modicum of programming skill. After the pain of writing the system in the first place, it is all gravy from there.

Even 30 years ago programs such as EndNote made it pretty easy to get a citation manager that integrated well with Word (plus or minus various perversions caused by Word itself). Nowadays there are more options, and it mostly comes down to finding a word processing system and citation manager that work together and that you will stick with for long enough to make it worthwhile.

That last part is key - after investing the time and energy to build up and learn a system that works for you, it is a pain to change. All of a sudden you move from grad school to a post-doc, and your advisor doesn't use the same tool set -- what now? Do you switch from LaTeX to Word (and the citation manager as well)? Or do you do all editing/revisions on paper? Once you have switched (for whatever reason) a few times, one might decide that doing it all by hand really isn't so bad.


Do US universities validate your degree before making an offer? I have received a verbal offer for a faculty position in the US. This was 3 weeks ago when the chair of the search committee called me to tell me the good news in addition to offered salary, etc.

As of today I'm still waiting to receive anything in writing and, upon asking, I was told that they cannot send me the written offer until they have validated my degree, which they said might take an unknown amount of time. (Note that I've obtained my doctorate from a French University that has been around for 500 years and is accredited on all continents.)

I noticed on the department's website that there are still seminars being scheduled that may or may not be talks by faculty candidates. Meanwhile I have turned down another offer and I'm beginning to get a little stressed about the uncertainty.

Thus my questions:

1. Is the above the normal process for hiring people with non-US degrees?

2. Is there anything I can do to reduce the uncertainty?

Some universities do, some don't. For those that do, it is not because of suspicion on the part of the search committee that you don't really hold a degree. The academic world is small enough that we rely on mutual trust for many things: presumably the committee members know some of the people who wrote your letters of recommendation. However, especially for public institutions, there are often various rules and regulations that must be followed, paperwork to be filled, and other details to process. The fact that you have a degree from a foreign university is probably slowing things down, as the admin staff may not be used to dealing with it. On se débrouille.
If you really like, you can email the search chair, asking if there have been any updates, as you are anxious to get a firm offer in hand. Also, remember, a verbal offer is worth the paper it is written on. Until you have signed a contract, you are still on the job market and you should be acting as such (e.g. applying for jobs, attending interviews, etc). However, as you've said, there's a lot of uncertainty. So... Relax. Take a walk. Write that paper you've been procrastinating on. Enjoy the long French evenings.


If a person stops contributing to a project do they deserve authorship? I'm involved in a long collaborative software development project. The project required continuous effort because the goal is very ambitious and the project started from scratch.
However, some early collaborators contributed to the projects very little, one was an undergraduate who didn't have the skills to contribute significantly to the project and the other was a post-doc who caused more harm before ultimately leaving the group.
My question is do these early collaborators deserve authorship on any publication that may arise from this project? If no, at what point would someones contribution constitute authorship?
Here are some thoughts:
Pro: They did technically contribute to an early prototype, and I wouldn't want to be left out of a paper that I contributed to, but couldn't ultimately see the end of because of other circumstances.
Con: The project has substantially changed since they contributed to the point and it's debatable it's even the same project anymore, as practically all the software has changed. More importantly to me, it dilutes the effort of the authors who contributed significantly more, and this can be discouraging.

That's always an awkward situation. The bar to "deserve" authorship is generally considered to be pretty low: If you intellectually contributed to the project, you should be a co-author. At the same time, people generally have the expectations that all co-authors continue to contribute to the paper in some form or other till the end, for example through the writing and proof-reading process.
So if someone helped develop an algorithm or worked on produce the data for the paper, they probably should be a co-author. But it is not unheard of to write an email to them and say

As an author, there is also an expectation that you continue to work with us on writing the paper; I recognize that you have moved on in your career, and if you feel like you don't want to be on the paper because you don't have the time to work on it, that's ok with us as well."

That's an awkward email to write, but sometimes it's necessary to either get a person to contribute more, or remove themselves from the paper.


Is it okay to share work submitted for undergraduate assessment online? I'm an undergraduate theoretical physics student in the UK nearing the end of my degree. Over the course of my studies, I've produced a lot of computational code and written reports that I think would add a lot to my portfolio. For this reason, I'd like to publish them on my personal website.

All the work was performed solo, but I usually followed a lab script. These were just a series of tasks to complete and a few useful hints, so there wasn't much to copy other than standard physical equations, but there may be an issue with the similarity between what I've done and what I was asked to do.

I'm also concerned about academic misconduct: It's likely that similar assignments are set every year, and I'm concerned that publishing my work will lead to accusations that I'm helping students in lower years cheat. Since I'm interested in an academic career, I don't want academic misconduct on my record and I don't want to get on the university's bad side.

Are there precedents of people getting in trouble for saying "Hey, look what I made at uni" online?

Although your intent is benign, you ought to consult this with your department, specifically the course instructor and the department head regarding this matter.  With their permission sought out, this would make a pretty good impact on your visibility.


Am I supposed to know Machine Learning before I start my PhD in Machine Learning in Materials Science I will be starting with my PhD in Materials Science and Engineering, in Fall 2020.
My Background
I have done M.Sc. in Chemistry (focusing more on Inorganic).
I have worked at a Material Chemistry Lab before and have a paper focusing on optoelectronics.
Also, I don’t know if it gives any insight, I did C++ in school for 2 years. So I understand the basic approach towards a coding problem.
Present Situation
I started with Python and have even tried solving LeetCode questions, could do easy ones with pretty good rating.
I have done courses on ML and Data Science.
So I understand the basics of ML, but all theoretical.
I do not have any practical experience on it, though I understand the libraries and their commands (Scipy, sklearn, NumPy, Pandas). I understand Regression, Classification and Clustering (again, very basic).
I have read the review article and few of the papers published by the professor of my interest.
Questions

How much ML am I supposed to know before I start with my PhD, or before mailing the professor so that I leave a good impression.
Is DFT an important part of this field? Since I see this coming up a lot in the papers.
How much Math background should I have?
Am I supposed to know Quantum Chemistry as well?

Thanks

Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: PhD in multidisciplinary topic expect that you know at least one discipline well. Then you get training in second discipline before applying the knowledge and ideas from both disciplines in order to fulfill PhD requirements.
My personal experience PhD. in biomedical informatics - I graduated in informatics, but nobody expects I have previous knowledge of medicine. (Of course - interest is expected or some courses is a plus). I did  some courses to gain the missing knowledge about medicine after (not full medical curicullum, but some physiology, patophysiology, basic anatomy, biochemistry ...). Thus, I think the same applies to your intention to pursue ML in Material Science - you can get courses of what you miss, supervisor may help you to direct what you need.


Who can participate in international math conferences? Who can participate in international conferences in mathematics?
Does one have to be a mathematician or affiliated as a researcher in a university to participate?
How about Independent researchers (with an undergrad diploma)?

Pay the registration fee and go. Conferences are generally open to all paying customers. In order to give a talk, you will have to submit a paper, extended abstract, or abstract based on the instructions in the call for papers (or participation) and have it reviewed and accepted. But neither kind of participation requires a credential, typically.


Is it appropriate to include declined post doc offers on your CV? I have recently got several postdoc offers and two of those were really nice. I have accepted one of them and I am thinking whether I can make some use of the second one that I have turned down.

I traveled quite a long distance to give a job talk, that was pretty successful, and a famous professor in my field made me an offer. Maybe the fact that this famous professor was ready to hire me would make my CV look better (I plan to apply for permanent positions in Academia in Europe/America(s) in future).

So, the question is: would it be helpful and generally acceptable to add to my CV words like "job offer from "Professor_Name" lab, refused in favor of anther offer"? Or it would look like an act of excessive inappropriate boasting?

In general my CV is quite OK even without that so these words would not make a crucial difference anyway, but still.

UPD. My field is applied mathematics/computational neuroscience.

I've seen a few cases of people in my field (linguistics) turning down competitive funding offers and listing them in CVs with "(declined)". Some of these happen to be tied to postdoctoral positions, especially ones offered by governments and/or prestigious granting agencies.

And depending on field/location, it might be possible to list job talks as 'invited talks' for particular departments.

Beyond that, I think referring to job offers you have refused is inappropriate and likely to look only like showing off.


What can professors do to encourage properly written email messages from students? (Motivated by https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55082/hey-i-was-wondering-of-your-students-write-like-this)

The writing style probably [stems] from the electronic age of text
messaging. In any case, an email between an a student and professor is
a professional communication (not a social text message).
[Example:] "hey. i was wondering if your students write like this when they send you emails or ask for your help in an email and weather or not your willing to respond when such little effort is put forth when writing."

What can professors do to encourage properly written email messages from students?
(Other than being a positive role model.)

hey. i was wondering of your students write like this

Alas, yes, they do (however, I'm a non-native English speaker who teaches international students whose level of English is extremely varied, and there's not much I can do about grammar).

Anyway, during the first lesson I give the following pieces of advice (which are frequently ignored, though):

Sender address: please, use your institutional email address and avoid personal fancy addresses like "dirtydeedsdonedirtcheap@hardrock.com". But if you really want to use such an email address, at least configure the email client to show your real name and surname.
Subject: write a meaningful subject: if you don't put a subject and respect point 1, I'll surely delete your email without even reading it, thinking that it is spam.
Course information: please specify which course you are attending or have attended: I teach several courses and if you don't specify this I may not be able to answer (this piece of information is the most frequently missed).
Express your issues clearly: if you have long questions or complicated issues, just ask for an appointment instead.


Professor asking me about my financial condition For masters degree, I have contacted one of the professor of university of Tokyo. He told me in his 1st email reply that he would not like to have students only for 2 years. He wanted a student for 5 years(MS+Phd). Then I emailed him saying that I am ready to study for longer time. He replied for the 2nd time writing that, he is very happy to hear it, that I want to pursue both MS+Phd. But next he asked me if I have a concrete plan for my financial support as there is no salary paid by the PI or University.
In my first email, I didn't mention about any scholarship.
What should I write to him now? How should I ask him for University recommend MEXT scholarship?

Dear Professor X,

  Thanks for your email.  Regarding your question about financial support, I am planning to apply for a MEXT scholarship.  If I receive this scholarship, it will provide me with [explain the terms of the scholarship].  Would you be willing to support my application for this scholarship?  If so, I would need [explain what you would need from him].

  If I do not receive the MEXT scholarship, I would plan to finance my graduate education by [explain your backup plan].

  If you are aware of other funding opportunities, I would be glad to hear about them.

  Sincerely,

  [your name]


Do grad schools google their students before acceptance? If I have an internet presence where I am published on some websites, would that affect my chances of getting into grad school? More specifically, do grad schools google their applicants before getting accepted for a PhD program? For example, if someone posted some defamatory things about me on some websites, would grad schools google me to find these things beforehand? And if they do find these defamatory things, how much does it affect my chances of getting in?

I have no doubt that some grad schools google applicants.  I'm pretty sure that defamatory things others say about you will have close to no effect on your admission.  It's the things you say yourself that might give you trouble.  If you're openly pro-nazi on your facebook page, that'll be a problem.

And, unfortunately, if you take a bold public stand on one side of some issue (say the Palestinian state) and someone one the committee feels strongly the other way, it could still be a problem.  But don't worry about others' comments.  Everyone knows about trolls.


Do conferences accept entry of those who didn't register before the deadline? A relatively big conference will take place in my neighborhood, but I haven't noticed of it until now. I'd like to attend some lectures done by young researchers who recently made a breakthrough.

Unfortunately, the deadline of registration is over. Thus, I have this question: do conferences accept entry of those who didn't register before the deadline?

Most large scientific conferences will allow you to register at any time, even while the conference is running.  In this case the "deadline" is instead one or more deadlines for getting reduced rate registrations: they charge you more, the later that you register in order to get most to register early and have a good estimate of attendee numbers.

Some conferences, however, have size limits or require advance planning of other sorts, and so actually do have a strict deadline.  This is more often the case with small meetings than large ones, but the only way to know for certain for a particular conference is to check their website and, if it doesn't have information, contact the organizers.


Find article link by bibtex citation key I have a list of citation keys (entry names in bib file) but I don't have the name of article. How can I find the article link?

For example, according to bib file of this article, the citation key is JagadeeshChandraBose2010. Suppose I only have JagadeeshChandraBose2010 and I need to find the link to article. How can I do it?

I tried Google and all search engines listed here, but I didn't find a solution.

The citation key in bibtex can be anything you want. What you call JagadeeshChandraBose2010, I can call 1234567 or abcdefg, as long as I call it the same thing in the tex file as in the bib file.

Since that key can be any string you want, there is obviously no way to map between that arbitrary string and the article.

Now, if the string follows a particular format - like JagadeeshChandraBose2010, which seems to be a name or names, followed by a year - then you can search for that article using that information. For example: Google Scholar search finds two papers authored by Jagadeesh Chandra Bose in 2010.


The advantage of EPS over PDF? And why so many journals ask for EPS alone? I have been curious about why so many journals only accept EPS for vector graphs rather than PDF.

It is indeed weird because these journals have to convert EPS figures to PDF anyway. Adobe also suggests to use PDF instead of EPS.

For me, EPS is much hard to view and process than PDF. Does EPS makes a journal editor's life easier? Why?

In addition, as far as I understand, PDF is an open standard format that is free to anyone (relative sure), while EPS is copyrighted by Adobe (not very sure).

The eps format used to be the only possibility for including graphics in (La)TeX. Now the more modern alternative is using pdflatex, which also supports other more common graphic formats natively (such as pdf).

Most journals have outdated LaTeX processing pipelines, so they are still using eps. (And, frankly, they have little incentive to get more modern, since they are in a strong oligopoly position.)


How to finish PhD and get through the academic job market as a new mother and primary caregiver? I am a female graduate student in a competitive phd program.  I recently had a baby.  Although this is a planned pregnancy, and I thought I had thought through the complications having a baby would bring, I am still very overwhelmed by how much different my life is now.

I don't have any time besides taking care of a newborn, and I am very sleep-deprived.  Baby's dad works full-time to support the family.  Even though it brings me a lot of joy, I just can't help but wonder whether I would ever have time for my research again.  I initially planned to go back to school in September, when baby will be about 3 months old.  But I am not sure whether I would be able to do anything next semester.  Or even the semester after next.  I initially planned to graduate next fall, but now I feel that might be a stretch.  The application starts next semester, and I should be going around giving talks and preparing for my applications.  But that feels impossible now.

And there is the financial stress.  I want to put my child in daycare at some point (like around 7,8 months), so I can have some time to do work.  But it's very expensive, and I don't know if we can afford this with our current income.  Sometimes I thought about finding an industry job after graduate school, so things would be easier.  But I don't want to give up research.

What is an effective way to deal with the stresses of being a new mother while on the job market? Specifically, how can I complete my research and apply to jobs in a situation where I am sleep deprived and child care is expensive?

This is a different question than Having children while at graduate school because I believe a female student's experience is different than a male student's experience.  Especially at infant stage, mother's role cannot be placed by others due to constant feedings.  The author in the other post also has his girlfriend/wife staying at home with the baby, so there will be much less work for him.  In my case, I would be the one taking care of the baby since my husband works full-time.  Another thing is I am already at the stage that I am about to graduate as opposed to the other post is debating whether to start the program, so I am more concerned about the graduation timeline.

Thanks for asking this important question! I will address three aspects of surviving your next year as a job market candidate and primary caregiver: changes in research style, finances, and emotional balance/accepting help with childcare.

Before launching into it though, I do want to emphasize that things get easier. Eventually, baby learns to sleep.

Research/work style: As someone who is juggling caregiving and research, you need to be find a way to use small chunks of time. It will be much harder to get long uninterrupted stretches of time, so train yourself to do without that. Break your work up into as small of chunks as possible, make a list of those chunks, and try to get to them one at a time. This may be more difficult if you are in a lab science and the only place you can work is from the lab. However, you may be able to write at home. To write, I would suggest starting by writing an outline. Then write the topic sentence of each paragraph. Each time you have 10 minutes to concentrate, write one of the paragraphs.

Finances: The best piece of advice I got as a new mother/academic was: throw money at problems. This is not the time to be frugal or save for a rainy day. This is the rainy day. Your career path will look very different depending on whether you finish this PhD, so you should throw resources into finishing. If you can borrow money from family, do it. If you can call in favors, do that too. You should focus your spending on things that buy either sleep or time - i.e. good childcare.

Childcare: If you plan on staying in academia, I think it is best for you to learn to embrace the positives of childcare. There are great childcare options out there, and I found that some childcare providers were just as good with my baby as I was (some probably better because they actually had more experience!). Take the time and use whatever money you have to find someone good, either for in home and daycare. This is where you want to spend because it is valuable to have peace of mind. Honestly, as a mom who has seen development up to age 2, I would say that my child cares if I am around a lot more now (at age 2) than they did at the beginning.

Furthermore, when you are home, embrace the "electronic babysitter" (the TV). Sure, it feels bad, but at least some quality research shows (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2006/02/the_benefits_of_bozo.html) that TV doesn't harm kids. Now most programs really don't help them either, but you can get a couple of 30 minute work sessions a day using the TV without guilt. My daughter loved Fantasia (lots of fun colors and classical music!) as a baby. Now she loves Daniel Tiger, and that program has been shown to increase preschool readiness (http://www.pbs.org/parents/expert-tips-advice/2016/07/daniel-tiger-helps-teach-social-skills-preschoolers/).

Finally, if you absolutely can't use a babysitter, embrace the two-parent household you have. As soon as your partner gets home, you leave for lab. At least one day per weekend, you are in lab. Reserve maybe one-half weekend day for family time. Yes, it will suck. You won't get time with your partner while you are in this stage. But you will get more work done, and that may lower your stress.

P.S. The best thing I ever did to get my daughter and me sleep was moving her to another room. She was sleeping in my room and we woke each other up all night. (She snores, my husband snores.) She slept for twice as long at a time once she was in the other room.


Is there an issue with splitting up papers already posted on ArXiV? A co-author and I completed a paper and posted it on ArXiV. Since then, the paper has been rejected many times. The paper has a few good ideas in it, but they were not put in context nor executed well. We have decided it is not worth submitting in its current form, and my co-author has repeatedly made clear they do not want to work on the paper any longer.
However, I would like to re-do the paper nearly from scratch and take it in a totally different direction that I believe is much more interesting. The parts of the paper I am interesting in bringing to the new paper are parts I did alone in the original paper, and my co-author agrees they did not contribute to these parts. But if the old paper remains on ArXiV as a separate paper, the new paper will have too many similarities.
So my question is: In this situation, could I replace the old arxiv paper with the new one and remove my co-author as an author (they are fine with this)? Is this something that people would find strange? It will be clear that the papers are very different.

No, you shouldn't replace the old paper with the new one.  Replacements are supposed to be revisions, not "very different" papers.  The replacement that you propose would not only revise your contributions; it also looks like an attempt to erase your coauthors' contributions.  The change in authors would almost certainly raise a red flag with the moderators (through arXiv's auto-moderation software), and I expect most moderators would reject the replacement.
Submitting a new paper whose text significantly overlaps an existing arXiv preprint will also raise a red flag with the moderators, but as Dan Ramras suggests in a comment, explicitly acknowledging the overlap will convince most moderators to accept it anyway.
(I was an arXiv moderator for over a decade.)


How do you know when your independent findings are paper-worthy? I learn math on my own. And I sometimes end up generalizing theorems. I do not claim that these generalizations are ground-breaking. However, I feel these generalizations are not entirely obvious at first-sight.

Could I publish a paper on such a generalization?

Making this more relevant to the community at large, how do you know when your "new" ideas are paper-worthy? Should one pursue research directed only by external trends? As in, if I were to publish a paper, should I only look for current areas of research in order to conduct research that would be relevant to academia today?

This is a very hard question in general, and is defined by a combination of absolute standards and community opinions. It's very hard to answer your specific question ("can I publish these results") and I don't think this community is the right forum to even ask that question.

But your second question is a good one. There are some things to keep in mind:

make sure your ideas are indeed new. It's easy when working independently to be aware of the published literature, but not be aware of the large cloud of "folklore" knowledge that floats in the air of a community. You'll get a paper rejected because something is "well known", even though you can't find a specific reference and no one provides one. To figure this out, it would help to approach an expert in the field, or at least someone you trust.
What kind of research you pursue is a complex combination of external trends and your interests. If you go too much towards external trends you might not find much pleasure in it. If you go too much towards personal interests (unless you have impeccable taste) you might find yourself isolated. It's all about balance. Similarly, while looking at current areas of research will tell you what's likely to be publishable, that's not the same thing as what's interesting or useful. Again, having some contact with people in the community might help a bit.


What can cause a delay of several weeks between an editor receiving reviews and you receiving a response from the editor? I had submitted research paper to a journal two and half months ago. It was under review for two months and now the status is showing that the paper is with editor from last ten days. If the paper has got reviewed why I am not getting any response from the editor.

There are a number of possibilities. Off the top of my head:

The editor is traveling or otherwise occupied. In my experience, this is particularly likely if you are dealing with a journal that employs professional editors rather than relying upon academic editors.
The reviews are mixed and the editor has decided to careful assess the manuscript himself or herself--which may take as long as writing a review would take.
The reviews are mixed and the editor has decided to seek additional reviews, but this is not yet reflected in the manuscript management system.
The editor wishes to speak in person to one of the referees to clarify something that the referee wrote, but has not yet been able to reach the referee.

You could go on and on and imagine any number of other possible scenarios. I agree it is not optimal for this to happen, but nor is it unusual. As an editor, I try very hard to return a decision within 2 or 3 days of receiving all reviews, but as an author I have found that waits of a week or two are not unusual.


Exposing my writing in a public git repository after publication? I use private git repositories to manage the code I use for projects. After I publish a paper, I like to make the code available by making the repository public. My field is Geography/GIScience, and uploading code is typically not required for article submissions. I mostly refer friends/colleagues to this code and link the repositories from my website.

I also version control my manuscripts (typically an Emacs' .org file, .md, or a .tex file) within the same repository I use for the project. I find that its convenient to have the code and writing in the same repo since I code, write, and jot ideas simultaneously during a project.

Are there any potential negative consequences of exposing my writing in these repositories too? Would it be seen as unprofessional? Are licensing issues with this? Is it a bad idea to include things like reviewers' comments and responses to reviewers in here?

Is there a better approach for this? Would it be a good idea to use a submodule for writing that remains private even after I make the root repository public? I feel that this may be the way to go, but I also feel that submodules introduce some (unnecessary) complexity and I don't understand them well.

If you're like most people, you probably include comments in your tex files that may not be meant for public consumption: mistakes that you commented out, ideas for future projects that you don't want someone else to do before you, or general remarks that are a little too candid.

Some embarrassing examples are at https://twitter.com/overheardonaph, taken from tex source files submitted to arXiv.


Scientific poster by an industry researcher: What do I put as contact information? I am working at a consulting firm as a Data Scientist. I applied and was accepted to talk at a scientific conference. I am going to talk about a topic I worked on mostly during office hours and which has also been presented to customers by me.

At the conference there is going to be a poster session. I plan to put my company in the acknowledgments. What contact information should I put into "contact information" regarding a) my email address, b) the telephone number, and c) the address? My private, my company's? I lean towards private email and phone number and company's address. What do you think and why?

If your work was supported by your employer, then you should use your company address to acknowledge the affiliation. If it's work done in your spare time that is not sponsored by your employer, use your personal details.

Don't bother with the phone number – in academia, it's generally considered bad etiquette to call someone unexpectedly (unless it's an emergency).

Use whichever email address you wish – if it's a "professional" address like firstname.lastname@domain.com, it doesn't matter. You might lose access to your email address if you change employer, so it's also important that you use an address you'll have access to for the foreseeable future.


First author researcher on a manuscript left job without publishing A grant-funded researcher wrote a manuscript that they were first author on. All co-authors were awarded time to make edits. Before getting departmental approval for submitting to publication, the grant-funded researcher started a new job. Considerable time passed before departmental approval was awarded.
The original first author has expressed concern that they will not have time to work on the old manuscript because they started a new job. However, the PI for the grant (and co-author on the paper) wishes to publish the manuscript. The PI has stated if minimal to no edits are required, the authorship order would remain the same. If the slightly outdated paper comes back from review with a decent amount of edits to be made, potentially new portions of analysis, while the first author states that they do not have time to work on the old manuscript, can one of the co-authors potentially take over as first author? Does the original first author have to give consent? Keep in mind that the manuscript is already written up.
In the field which the manuscript is written, it is generally accepted that authorship order is determined by amount of effort involved for each author.

If the slightly outdated paper comes back from review with a decent amount of edits to be made, potentially new portions of analysis, while the first author states that they do not have time to work on the old manuscript, can one of the co-authors potentially take over as first author?

Potentially, yes. Far from a guarantee. Probably the old first author would become second or co-first, depending on norms in your field.

Does the original first author have to give consent?

Yes. In fact, everyone has to agree to the new order, even if their relative position is unchanged.


How do I cite a paper by a person plus a company? There are some papers by consulting firms etc. where the authors are listed under the copyright section like:

(C) 2009 by A. A. Person and The Company Inc.

When referencing this paper do I include the person only, the company only or reference both?

In APA a combination would look like:

  Person, A. A., & The Company Inc. (2009). Title of Paper. Place:
  Publisher.

Does that look correct?

In deciding who to list as the author of the paper, I wouldn't pay any attention to the copyright line.  Academic standards are not concerned with who owns the paper legally, but who actually made it.

For a recent paper I co-wrote, we signed over the copyright to the publisher.  So if you look at its copyright line, you'll see "American Mathematical Society".  That doesn't mean you should cite the paper as having been authored by the American Mathematical Society.

What name(s) appear on the article's title page, right under the title itself?  That's who you should credit as the author of the paper.


Is it important to be a co-author when PI takes first authorship on your work? I have been in biomedical research for a long time without any good number of publications.

Recently, my work is now being published by my PI. My PI asked someone else to do another part of work. I was then asked to email the methods and results but did not provide me any chance to write a paper. Now I am placed as a second author on this paper and 6 other persons out of 9 are guest authors. I can see that this paper has at least 60% contribution from my work. It is emotionally hurting and extremely disturbing to see this unfair authorship practice, which I am asked to silently accept. It is even more hurting to see the names of all guest authors who I only know by name but never contributed a dime of work to this paper.

Should I accept this issue silently?
I'm aware that the universities favor their faculty members, no matter how many nice words are posted on their webpages on authorship misconduct.

Would it be wise to withdraw myself completely from this article?

Any other options?

I was advised by another faculty member that some very senior PIs still work in old-fashioned way of authorship, where they always want to take first as well as corresponding authorship, pushing postdocs on second spot. Besides, accepting this unfair practice would still not be so harmful for future employments as prospective employers can still figure out based on the names of authors that first person is a PI and the next one is actual person who did the most work.

Is it true?

I don't see any logical reason why you should withdraw your name from the authorship list. This only hurts you in the long run. You should want to have credit for your work.

You might politely ask your advisor why the "guest authors" have been included, and what contribution they have made (since you said 60 percent was your work, what about the other 40 percent), and then discuss it further if you don't like or aren't satisfied with your advisor's answer.


How to stop spam from ConfDriver of TU Wien? This year I submitted a paper to a conference that used ConfDriver of TU Wien. From the time of submission, I started receiving a lot of CFPs from conferences that also use ConfDriver.

All the conferences seem solid, and the emails are from researchers of well-known institutions. However, I find it really annoying, because they are completely unrelated to my research area, and sometime unrelated to Computer Science.

There is no option to "unsubscribe" to these kinds of CFPs, and there is nothing in common to make a filter in email client.

By the way, I find ConfDriver much worse than EasyChair, and it even doesn't notify the co-authors when making (or updating) a submission.

UPDATE

I understand that some people from TU Wien may be upset with this question. But what this ConfDriver is doing is really spam, and it is really annoying. Unlike spams from junk conferences, this kind of spam is much more difficult to block, since the emails are from well-known institutions, e.g. MIT etc.

The "Dexa Conference" was set up at the TU Wien using ConfDriver. The website notes that "In case of difficulties please contact confdriver@ifs.tuwien.ac.at". Maybe you should give that a try.

BTW, ironically one of the workshops was about "Defence against Spam in Electronic Communication".


What is the name of the office in an institution where graduates and alumni are helped with employment? When I went to college, I remember there was an office that would help students, graduates and alumni get their first job.  What is that office called?

P.S. If you feel the English Stack Exchange more appropriate for this question, please move it there instead of down voting it.

In US universities, this office is commonly called Career Services or some variation on that, such as "career center", "career development", etc.


Is there any online server to upload recommendation letters and share the link with the universities Usually we need a few recommendation letters when we apply for a job or academic positions. Im wondering if there is any online server to make it easier on my referees so that they only write once their letters and later I only share the link with the companies or who asks for a recommendation.
Any suggestion is welcome.

In mathematics there is, and it is used by most research-oriented departments for hiring: MathJobs. Hiring departments pay (i.e., not candidates) and candidates indeed cannot view the recommendation letters.

It is extremely efficient, and in my opinion this system deserves to be more widely imitated. Note however that this is used at the option of the hiring department, and not the job candidate. So in particular you can't use this system, except for positions advertised via this site.

In your situation you might be able to use Interfolio, but I'd check with prospective employers (or your advisor) before using this.


Can you do paid external work under a PhD contract in France? If someone has a PhD contract in France and wants to work during summer for instance, is it fine if that person receives any external support during that time, outside the PhD contract support?

It depends on the work you plan to do (see here, paragraph IX).

You are NOT allowed to do extra activities of the kind that could be part of your PhD contract (teaching, diffusing scientific information, expertise...). If you want to do this kind of work, it needs to be under your PhD contract.
For the other cases, you need to obtain an authorization from your employer. If your employer is the university, they will ask your advisor's opinion and evaluate whether the extra work risks compromizing your PhD before making a decision. I don't know if such authorizations are commonplace.


What strategies can bring technology resistant faculty on-board? Faculty tend to fall into these groups:

early adopters
hesitant but willing
refusing to adopt b/c no time
refusing to adopt b/c not technically inclined

I would like to know what strategies I can use to bring the 3rd & 4th group on-board.
Context
A new learning management system has been adopted where instructors are encouraged to post their slides/lecture materials online.

The question has a hidden assumption: that the technology has no problems and it's merely the faculty that need to be convinced. Having used a few different learning management systems (Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, homegrown stuff), I can tell you that this is rarely true.

The people resistant to change are probably resisting because they've seen different incarnations of this technology come and go, and find it annoying to have to keep learning a new system that doesn't present any significant advantages over what they're doing. The significant part is important. There's a cost to making a change, so the new system can't just be as good.

So I'll add to Chris's excellent suggestions as follows:

make it seamless not just to import, but to export easily. In the world of online software, it's important not to have things be gated. I want assurances that if your new system goes away tomorrow, to be replaced by the next new system, that I can easily transfer material from the old system to the new with a few clicks.
demonstrate why this new system isn't going away in a year to be replaced by something else. How you do that is up to you and depends on the system you're pushing.

Bottom line: the perceived attitude in the question is that the faculty are at fault for not adopting new technology, but the truth is that most new tech is crappy and short-lived, and it's natural to want to wait things out. So you have convince people that the new approach is not crappy and will last.


Finishing with only 2 papers (both co-authorship) So, I am about to gain my PhD degree in Biochemistry (Cancer biochemistry) in december.
But I'll have finished it only with 2 papers (3rd one, which is the one totally about my thesis project is due but i don't know when it will be published exactly, not before couple of months for sure. But neither in this paper I'm the first author)

The reason for that, I've been doing my PhD in a foreign european country (english is not really well-spoken here, neither by my thesis advisor nor laboratory colleagues, i even had to learn their language to be able to communicate the people better during my years here) and I had started with a professor who had offered me a fellowship grant & scholarship. But since it was his last year prior to obligatory retirement due to his age, he was unfortunately too busy with extending his period in the department, and therefore in the first year we had no positive results with his not well-studied project.

For the second year he sent me to one of his collaborator's laboratory from another department of our university, new project was really good and I obtained good results, I highly contributed to the upcoming paper, but the problem is in that laboratory they had already started to that project and the first authorships were already assigned to 2 researchers, the post-doc and another phd student from that lab. So obviously (unfortunately) they didn't even consider giving me the 3rd first authorship of the paper, because they kind of acted as I was even blessed to be included in the project and that was enough. I was the only foreigner phd in that lab as well, as I know they never had one before neither. It has even been quite sad that being the only foreigner researcher in the lab with the best english language level, i couldn't even get a first author title because of "political" reasons.

So the thing is, I know that I'm capable and learned lots of techniques through my phd and had a good phd thesis, but unfortunately when you don't have a first authorship title, in academia it is almost impossible to find a post-doctoral position..

What would you suggest me for such situation? I'm so keen on continuing in academia, I don't want that unlucky situation -which was out of my control- to steal my future. Do you think it's a good idea if I apply for post-doc positions abroad (this time for sure US, i want only an English-spoken country) in any case and mention about the reasons why I couldn't get a first-author paper? Or it won't be even taken into consideration?

I will highly appreciate any kind of suggestion, thanks in advance.

One suggestion I can provide is to try and make it to a, related to what you're interested in doing for a post-doc, conference and network. Hopefully present some good work and meet PI's you might be interested in working with, you're far more likely to get an interview or offer if they have a face to put with the application.

If it's too late for a conference, you could and should try to leverage your advisors connections. A good letter of recommendation / Introduction can go a lot further than an lengthy CV, especially if your advisor is known and respected in the field.

I personally used the first method when applying to a postdoc. Having met my eventual post-doc advisor at conferences. When I was applying I had 3 not first author papers and two in preparation first authors (which languished on my PhD advisors desk 2-3 years after I graduated).


About withdrawing manuscript I submitted my short manuscript four months ago to a math journal. I sent a tracking email about the status of my paper and I was informed that the editor has a problem with finding appropriate reviewer and asked me to send him the name of potential reviewers. Can I withdraw my paper, because it seems to me it takes a very long time and I need it too much to publish soon.

You can withdraw your paper at any stage before it's published, although the longer you wait the more annoyed the journal might get (you are using up their reviewer resources after all). After it's published, you'll have to retract as opposed to withdraw it.


Should I mention the title of my published paper in a personal statement even though this paper is not in a top level? The personal statement is for a scholarship. I want to write about my achievements to prove I am a qualified candidate. But only one of my papers is related to the research area I am applying.

  I have published several academic papers. One of them, ABC, is published in EFG conference.

Neither my paper nor the conference is top level. The conference is just a local conference. I believe most people in selection committee won't hear about them. Should I list their name on my PS given that they are already on my CV?

If I only say "I have published several academic papers.". Most of them are even not related to the research area I am applying for. I think this word would prove nothing.

How to structure the word in this situation?

Your tags suggest that this is part of your application for a scholarship to go to graduate school. Thus i'm assuming that you are not already at graduate school but are applying for a scholarship to be able to go?

If this is the case, no one is expecting you to have papers in top venues before you go. I'm my experience any papers at all pre-grad school is going to be a plus for you (assuming you played a leading role in the paper and are not just buried in the middle for ten minutes work you did as a summer placement student).

However, while when I look at graduate applications I am not looking for an extensive publication record, I am looking for signs of commitment/genuine interest to my field. You should use your paper in that way. I would way something like:

  I have published several academic papers. My publication ABC, presented at EFG, demonstrates a long standing interest in X.


What do I do if I really only figured out what I want to research just after applying I recently finished a round of PhD applications.

I always knew I wanted to do research, but when I applied I didn't know what sub-field of Computer Science I wanted to do my research in.  I was already out of school a year when I decided that I may never figure it out just by sitting around, so I just bit the bullet and applied to a PhD program with what I knew.

Naturally, a month or two after I applied, I realized that what I really wanted to go into was robotics, which I have very little experience in at the moment and which I didn't mention in my personal statement.

I'm pretty good at teaching myself things.  Give me another few months and I'll probably be able to learn quite a bit about the subject, and I'd bet anything I could put together some decent projects that could make me impressive enough to get into a good robotics research track, but I've already applied to a bunch of schools and it's at the point where if I'm getting in, I'm not getting in for anything robotics related.

So, here are the options I see in front of me:

Turn down the offers I get, try again next year when I can be more focused and well-researched on which programs/professors I want.  This feels like giving up, and I'm always nervous about putting things off, especially for a year.
One of the schools I got into happens to have a good program for robotics, but I doubt my application was on any of those professor's radar.  I could contact professors from that school and ask if they'd want to work with me, but I don't know what I'd say with so little robotics knowledge.  Another school I applied to but haven't heard back from has an even better program for it, so if I am emailing professors, there's still time to email professors from that school as well.
Go to a school I got into, and just hope I'll be able to switch programs.

I know I ultimately have to decide for myself what to do, but any advice is greatly appreciated.

I saw this sort of thinking/discussion all the time. Something like, I'm a second year Ph.D. student but I want to start another one, because X is big and I'm excited about it. This is a bad way of thinking about a Ph.D. program.

Here is the thing:

One of the main pitfall of PhD students is that they can't get their mind into one problem.

Here is another fact:

During Ph.D. you learn how to think and read/write as a researcher, regardless what you are working on.

Advice: I say choose one among all the offers you get. Drop all, unless you have a pretty good damn reason for it (e.g., got a job at NASA).

Answering 'what I want to do for research' always changes! Thats the nature of research. You can not keep up with all trends during Ph.D. First, you need to think, read, and write as a researcher; and you learn them during a Ph.D. Then, you can follow the trends as a postdoc or an academic.