Does careful selection of graph colors in a manuscript have any positive impact on reviewers? I have just completed an article in which results are interpreted by means of 3D-plots; there are almost 15 plots in my article. Since plots could have a major impact on the reviewers’ decision, I am little worried about the colors used, which are actually very bright. Do the colors used in my plots really matter? If so, what type of colors should one should use in graphs?

Some people will tell you that colors shouldn't matter because only data should matter.  Those people are wrong.

All human readers (including reviewers) find some graphical presentations easier to digest and comprehend than others, and the choices that matter include color.  Of particular note, it is often important to consider color-blind readers, who are up to 10% of males, depending on population, (though many fewer females).

Color sets that work well for color-blind readers often work well for non-color-blind readers as well.  You can find a number of good resources online to help you decide what colors to use, such as this "Color Universal Design" site, among many others.


Is it a red flag if the justification for my research (why it is likely to matter) is popularly sourced? I want to write a paper on a certain specific topic (it's not terribly important what it is, this is intended to be a generic question). I can find sufficient peer-reviewed sources to provide a foundation for much of what I want to synthesize, but I'm coming up short when it comes to establishing a justification for my paper - that is, why it matters now, why someone would care to read it or use what I hope to find. What I can, find, however, are popular writings - newspaper articles, blog posts, random mentions in chat rooms, etc. saying something like "oh, I wish we could accomplish Specific Goal X under Conditions Y! Here's how it would help me/us/Bill/those guys down the street/etc.". I'm not seeing that in the literature - papers about X don't seem to cover using it under Y, and papers about Y don't seem to consider how it would affect X.

Is it reasonable to set up the justification for a paper by citing primarily popular (non-peer-reviewed) works (as long as I have a proper peer-reviewed foundation for how X and Y work), or is this more likely a red flag, indicating that I lack a sufficient foundation to study this right now (i.e. either I would have been able to find sources specifically about the theoretical utility of future research into X under Y, or the very fact that there are no sources indicates that there is actually little or no likelihood that X under Y would mean much)?

Research need not be completely inward looking: a snake eating its own tail. All applied research, in fact, is rooted in real world concerns. The fact that the questions have been little studied in the past is not a reason to avoid them in the future.

In fact, "its interesting" is enough of a justification for a lot of research, whether theoretical or applied.

And having a potential application immediately may make it more interesting, actually.


I am studying at a university where only one faculty member speaks the same language as me. How can I get 3 recommendation letters? For my Masters degree I am studying at an Armenian university. There is only one professor at the department who speaks English, who I do my Masters by research under. None of the other professors speak English and I have not learned Armenian.

If I want to continue my studies in Canada/US I need two or three recommendation letters to get admission for a PhD program. How can I acquire 3 recommendation letters when only my advisor knows me well enough to write a letter?

References should be from people who know you professionally. This includes not only people from your current University. Consider asking a reference from the following groups of people:

Your collaborators or coauthors in English-speaking world.
Your professors' colleagues who know your work. Even if they don't speak English, but know what your are doing, you can get their reference and translate it to English using a recognised translation service.
The referees for your PhD work are ideal candidates to write your references. They will have to know your work and they may know English well or good enough to compose a letter, perhaps with some help from you or a translator.
People you met in conferences and discussed some aspects of your work in relation to theirs, even when it did not result in joint publications, can write you a recommendation. This is a bit unusual, but still better than nothing. I used this option once when I had no better ones.

I also think, that it is very likely that the situation is not as dire as you describe: there may be professors or lecturers with good command of English near to you and there is still enough time to make them aware of your work. The problem is mostly with the lack of networking, but this is possible to fix. Join the local English-speaking club. Check if your University has a seminar series you can present at. Check if other Universities in your area or nearby run seminars where you can go and present. Check if there is a local conference or scientific event where you can go and talk.

When you are on such events, join conference dinners, lunches and similar social events. Don't hesitate to ask people for help or start conversation in English. Many people in post-Soviet countries study some English in school and they are usually happy when an opportunity comes to finally use it. They may not speak perfect English, but all you need is to introduce yourself, share one interesting topic of discussion, and get their name, which leads you to their email address. Do not hesitate to drop an email: even of their spoken English is not excellent, people usually do much better reading an email, particularly with help of online dictionaries or automatic translation services. Stay positive, keep trying, use simple and straightforward language and you will hopefully find that communication barrier is not that high.

Good luck.


How to publish an [La]TeXified version of an old typewritten book in mathematics? I am considering to [La]TeXify an old typewritten book in mathematics. The book contains a lot of mathematical formulae and figures, but it was typed just before the [La]TeX age: its content is very interesting but it is very painful to read, very unfortunately.
Grossly I am thinking of hacking an OCR output to get a LaTeX version of the book: it would be a kind of update of the typing and/or a repackaging of the content. I am wondering whether there is any Journal or something where such work can be accepted.
Any hint is welcome.

This material is almost certainly under copyright, so the appropriate thing to do is to get in touch with the publisher and propose this project.  They may, in fact, be receptive and willing to work with you to make this an official new edition.  If they are not interested, then they may at least be willing to give you an official permission for your "remake."

If, on the other hand, the publisher is non-responsive or for some other reason cannot be contacted, then it would be reasonable to assume it's OK to go ahead with the remake and post it informally, e.g., on your personal website.  Because of the copyright issue, no third party is likely to want to publish it, and if the copyright holder eventually decides to take notice and that they don't like what you have done, you may have to take it down (there is, of course, a chance that they may sue instead, but that is relatively unlikely for such a document).  In the meantime, though, it would be a reasonable public service to provide for an apparently abandoned property.


Are wordcount limits only for first submission, or also for revised submissions? Are wordcount limits only for first submission, or also for revised submissions? I know that I could ask every individual journal, but is there any general understanding? My discipline is philosophy.

Ok, there seems to be a consensus that it applies to both.


What qualifies a paper/dissertation to received the status 'published' This is for a master's level, if a department decides to publish students' dissertations, does that qualify to be named as a published paper? or does it have to be a journal with certain impact factor?

Edit: if online publications are considered ok, can they be added to a resume in 'publication' sections?

The exact meaning of the word "publication" is dependent on context.  In some contexts, it might be understood to include only articles accepted in peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings.  (Impact factor is not usually a consideration here.)  In other contexts, it might also include books, dissertations, lecture notes, arXiv preprints, and other documents that have been made publicly available.

So whether a dissertation should be "named as a published paper" depends on your audience.

For academic CVs, people often create two sections: one that lists peer-reviewed publications, and another that lists non-peer-reviewed writings.  This removes any ambiguity.  A master's dissertation would go in the non-peer-reviewed section.

If you are writing a resume for the business world, standards might be different.  http://workplace.stackexchange.com might be a better place to ask about that situation.


Are there avenues/options to pursue a medical degree (with funding) after a Ph.D.? I have a Ph.D. in Engineering and I figure a medical degree will be highly valuable to gain a better understanding in my research area (biomedical/neuroscience). However, unlike science/engineering graduate schools, medical schools do not pay your tuition and financial assistance is primarily need based, rather than merit based.

Are there avenues for an interested candidate to pursue a medical degree in the US (perhaps part-time, while working as a post-doc in a relevant field) without taking on significant amounts of debt?

Speaking as a graduate of an MD/PhD program:

You will not learn what you seek in medical school.

Medical school is largely worthless unless you pursue residency. Very little basic science is taught in medical school. The education is closer to word association that builds the foundation for the pattern recognition that is diagnosis. I found nearly no overlap between my medical school training and graduate training (PhD in electrophysiology, lots of electrical engineering, software development, and surgery on large and small animals). The most notable overlap was that I knew how to tie sutures for my surgery rotation.
If you pursue residency, most academic places will require you to practice medicine and do research. There are only 24 hours in the day. Seeing patients brings in more money more reliably than most research. A background in engineering suggests a surgical subspecialty. There is a reason most neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons consult or participate in a research group rather than run it.
Medical school is a full-time job. It is not like law school where you can attend night classes.
Attending physicians will not have an equal conversation with medical students Medicine is hierarchical. If you mark yourself as a student, you may find it difficult to have substantive scientific conversations with those above you in the medical ladder until you finish residency (at best 10 years after you start).


What should I do the day before submitting my PhD thesis? I am submitting my PhD thesis in less than two days. I have checked all the tables, figures, appendices, references, and also checked spelling and any potential typos (which I believe there might be more!). I would like to ask, in addition to all of this, for those of you who have submitted PhD theses before, what would you recommend doing the day before submission? Anything that I should check again? I am planning the read through the thesis again to spot more spelling issues, I would like to hear your thoughts.

Update two days later. I successfully submitted my thesis this morning, WOHOOO! Due to COVID-19 restrictions, however, all the submissions in my university are online now (no pic of holding the printed thesis in front of the library unfortunately etc :/)
I ended up spending the last day checking the format (my ToC crashed for no reason when I was formatting yesterday!), making sure no page numbers are missing (it turned out that the page numbers are missing in some horizontal layout pages, glad that I checked!), and finally reading through the lit review chapter (which I had first drafted three years ago, though I had revised it since then) and making sure citations are correct.  Thank you everyone for your great suggestions

I would suggest reading through it one more time for pleasure. Savor the writing you labored so hard on, marvel at just how much work has gone into this, and reflect on where you are now compared to where you were when you started this labor.
To abuse the poetry of Genesis:

And the student saw every thing that they had made, and, behold, it was very good.
Thus the thesis was finished, and all the host of its data. And on the seventh day the student ended their work which they had made.


Work history on college application The college application for the University of Phoenix asks for an employment history and phrases it this way: "Please enter your most recent employers from the last three years, starting with your current employer"

The question isn't directly asking for all employers of my last three years, right? Can I just include the last couple employers of the last two years? I would like to avoid adding an employer from three years back.

They are asking for the employers, based on recent to oldest...

Depending how the dates go, you may get away with leaving out the last one, but they may work it out especially if they ask for start and end dates...

I would not advise falsifying or mis-representing the situation - may come back to bite you...


Why do some documents have more than one DOI? I was looking for the DOI of a paper (namely Evaluation of Antibacterial Activity of Asparagus racemosus Willd. Root) on http://search.crossref.org/, and found two DOIs associated to it:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-1573(200003)14:2<118::aid-ptr493>3.3.co;2-g
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-1573(200003)14:2<118::aid-ptr493>3.0.co;2-p

Both DOIs point to the same document (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1573(200003)14:2%3C118::AID-PTR493%3E3.0.CO;2-P/abstract).

How comes?

For the specific articles you gave as an example, the first DOI has an error in the article title in its metadata. The second has the correct title.

The DOI 10.1002/(sici)1099-1573(200003)14:2<118::aid-ptr493>3.0.co;2-p was issued first. In the metadata for that DOI, the title is given as Evaluation of antibacterial activity ofAsparagus racemosus Willd. root (missing a space between "of" and "Asparagus").
The DOI 10.1002/(sici)1099-1573(200003)14:2<118::aid-ptr493>3.3.co;2-g was issued a few days later, and in the metadata, the title is corrected to Evaluation of antibacterial activity of Asparagus racemosus Willd. root.


Is it fine to ask this kind of question to the corresponding author of a paper? First some context: I'm a Ph.D. student in Physics. I have been discussing with my supervisor the objectives for the Ph.D. project and we have been looking at some papers from the field.

In that case, recently I've come across a quite interesting paper, one of the authors being a very renowned researcher in the field. The paper raised a conjecture and pointed out that one what was necessary to follow that line of investigation in order to prove or disprove the conjecture. I got quite interested in pursuing this objective and my supervisor considered it to be a good idea for the project.

It so happens that a few days after, I have found a paper by another author, which is also a quite renowned researcher, briefly disputing the claims made in the first paper.

Given my current knowledge, I would consider that the authors of the first paper are correct, but of course I might be wrong.

Now, the first paper is three years old and the authors didn't revisit the issue in another publication.

I considered the possibility of contacting the corresponding author and asking about the comments made in that response paper. In particular I would like to ask if they changed their view on the problem after all or if I'm correct in my conclusions and they still believe in their first proposition.

Also I considered asking if he still views that as a line of investigation worth pursuing.

Are that kind of questions considered ok or are they viewed as unethical? My worries are: (1) if I can indeed ask for his views on that brief response and if it made then revisit their positions and (2) if it is ok to ask if he considers a good idea to pursue this objective.

Your advisor will give the best advice, of course, especially if he knows any of the people involved. But in general there is no ethical reason you can't ask such questions of an author.

But I might phrase it differently. I'd probably ask if there is any current work on the topic that will shed more light on the questions. And your suggestion of asking if they think it is a good line to pursue is good also, I think. Express your interest in the topic and that you are considering it as a research topic.

But I wouldn't couch the question in terms of responding directly to a (partial) rebuttal if that's how you judge the new work. It doesn't sound like that is the case, though, so just asking about what they can tell you about current thinking and research is fine.

And, if they are working on the topic it might save you from the problem of going along on a parallel track and getting scooped by more experienced researchers.


How can a software engineer become competitive for a PhD position in computer science? I'm looking to apply to grad school once my wife finishes her PhD next year. She has a post-doc lined up in Canada and I'm thinking during that time would be a great time for me to finally start mine (PhD).
My issue is that I do not have any research experience and I'm about 4 years into industry as a practicing software engineer. I have a bachelors and masters in computer science and I'm currently about to publish a paper with my wife that is a mix of CS/Biology. Given that she is going to Canada, I'm wanting to try to get into University of Toronto, which seems highly ranked. What things can I do starting today to get into this school given my experience?

You may want to reach out to a professor ahead of time and inquire if they’re going to be accepting students during the period you wish to apply. It’s by no means a sure fire way to get in, because you could be beaten out by competition, but it’s a good start. Apart from that, you’d be best to get all of the documents together on time and submit it before the deadline. Maybe try to exploit your network, work on getting solid recommendation letters from past professors or people who can speak to your ability to do research.


Graduate or Undergraduate? Is someone who is currently pursuing his Integrated Master's course/ Dual Degree course (or any other 5-year degree course) considered to be a graduate student or an undergraduate student?

In terms of the literal meaning of the word, you're an undergraduate until you graduate. Then you are called a post-graduate student (British English) or graduate student (American English) if you continue studying for a higher degree, or simply a graduate if you are no longer a student.

However, your university may use these words differently or use different words altogether, and their meaning and usage also varies across countries and cultures.


Does "submitted to Thomson Reuters" mean that a publication will actually be indexed? I have seen a few conferences that state on the call for submissions that the conference will be "submitted for indexing in Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index (ISI Web of Science)."

Does submission mean they will 'apply' and could be rejected, or are all submissions accepted?

It does sound like rather tentative wording.

Thomson Reuters cannot, would not, and should not accept all and any submissions of anything for indexing - it would swamp the system with spam.

So to me, it sounds like the conference has applied to be indexed, but it is certainly not absolutely guaranteed that they will be included in the Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index.


Must I decline to review a former colleague's work? I have been asked to review a paper that I know to have been authored by a friend and former colleague.  Is it my responsibility to inform the editor and decline to review the paper?

Assuming you reviewing the paper would not violate any guidelines of the journal or conference in question, the primary issue is objectivity: can you review the paper on its own merits, or will your association with the author in question "color" your opinions?

Personally, I would never review a paper written by a former co-author or personal friend. However, I may accept the review of someone whom I know professionally but have not worked with in any formal capacity, provided that I am not working on a similar project.

In this particular example, you claim that the person is "a friend." If that is the case, then I would recommend leaning against accepting the review.

The issue of informing the journal editor is a separate matter. You may explain that the reason is you know the author, but you are not necessarily obligated to do so. If you want, you could simply say "I don't have the time right now," and that would be just as valid a reason as "it's a conflict of interest." But I don't think there's anything lost by informing the editor of why you don't feel comfortable providing the review.


Citing a previously unpublished master’s thesis, can I simply use part of my thesis to apply to a conference? I wrote my master’s thesis which looked at something through two different lenses using two different datasets.
I want to use one of those angles to submit a paper to a conference, and potentially the other in the future. So my questions are:

Is this okay to do?
Do I need to cite my master’s thesis, even if it is unpublished?
Can I just copy parts that would apply, or do I need to paraphrase and cite different parts of the paper? For example, the analysis section of the paper, I give the background of the interviews I conducted. Can I just use this same language for the paper I want to submit to the conference?

It sounds like you're rewriting your previous research into a publishable form. That's completely above board and very common. You wouldn't have to cite your masters thesis because the thesis is effectively an earlier draft of this paper.

See this related question, except the OP wants to turn a published paper into a thesis.

See also this related question, where I asked about self-plagiarism in conference talks.


intellectual property during paid research I was working on a project as a researcher. The whole project was financed by an external grant from a private foundation (nonprofit organization) and my salary was paid through this grant during my work as a researcher.
During the project, I faced a problem that I had to solve it numerically. I had my own license and I paid for the software, the software that I used to solve the problem, I have not asked the principal investigator (PI) of the project to refund my license payment.

I solved all the numerical problems, I sent the results and outputs to the PI and we wrote the manuscript out of our findings.
Now at the end of my contract, the PI of the project asked me to send him all the data that I have produced during my work and I said I will send all the data except that I cannot send him the input file of the numerical solutions using my software; I mean the method that I used to solve the problems. He said I have to send them as I was paid to work on project. I said I sent you the results, but the method of solving the problems is my intellectual property and I have paid for the software by myself, but he insisted that does not give me any right to keep them.

Who is right? Are these my intellectual properties?

I have to mention that in the contract that I had signed there was nothing about the copyrights and intellectual property.
The solutions are not a big deal, but the point is, there is a possibility that they use them in their future research without mentioning my name.

I am not sure what discipline you are in, but I have been working on software development with a team of health, social, and computer science researchers and from what I have learned, maybe this can help.

Basically, since the grant paid for your salary it is the institution that has the most stake in for the intellectual property, which covers the PI. For instance, I helped develop and test the software I mentioned at University A, but since then have transferred to University B. I still work with the same team from University A, but any work we do with the software at University B (even when collaborating with the same team from University A), I have to pay University A a licensing fee for use of the software. They do not charge me a lot, granted, but they still require it, because they view it as theirs. Even though, I was a major contributor to the software.

By extension, the PI should have the right to any materials associated with the project. When you mentioned that you used your own software for the calculations, were you asked by the PI to purchase this or did you go out and get it on your own? If the latter, I suggest that in the future, when materials are needed for a project, simply explain to the PI that resources are needed for the work. You shouldn't pay for them out-of-pocket. If you still have questions about ownership of the work, the institution has lawyers that deal with intellectual property that can help you figure out what is who's. I have had to work with them for our software project to make sure that we are in the clear for doing work outside of University A with our product. Hope this helps!


How do you address unknown peers in email? This is one bit of academic etiquette I'm not sure about. When I write to another researcher, a peer (we're both professors). I've never exchanged with before and never met him but I know of him (and he probably knows of me).

Erring on the side of formality, I write to him “Dear professor Mortimer”. I sign with my first name, because that's how I've always signed my emails (there's a formal signature block below, with full name and contact details) and I think it indicates a willingness to be called by my first name (which I prefer, but I don't want to force people one way or the other).

Is that going to be well received? Will people take the hint? Or should I just start using first names from the start? (it does sound weird to write “dear Philipp” to someone you don't know)

It is of course never wrong to use the title of the person to whom you write. In general I think it is fine to use Dr. since that is the degree most have. This may not work so well in cultures where titles are more of an obsession or where hierarchy is still well established. If the person writing is a professor, then you are of course writing from the top position and so you will either direct letters to someone at the same level or lower. This simplifies things compared to if you, yourself were not at the professor level.

As an editor of a journal I often use the term Colleague instead of Dr. this or Professor that. This is because the tile may not be completely obvious from the manuscript and I do not permit myself time to Google every author to find out. Since I am also a professor, it feels relatively safe to call everyone a colleague.

To sign off I often use my first name except if the mail has some formal aspect where, if it was a letter, I would have used my full name. In all my e-mail correspondence, I have found almost without exception, that once I sign with my first name, the mail reply will inevitably greet me by first name and be signed by a first name. I try to be a little sensitive about it but not overly so; I have "my" culture, the person I correspond with his or hers and none is above the other in my view. So In any correspondence I will open the first mail with Dear Colleague or Dear Dr. So-and-so. If the response is signed by first name then: titles away. Otherwise I will countersign correspondence with first name to break the ice.

It seems e-mail is often more forgiving than regular letters or traditional contacts. I think internet has an informal context which implicitly signals to everyone that it is less formal. I have not seen research on this but I can see, for example how students can ask quite blunt questions over e-mail while almost trembling and excusing themselves when standing at my office door (not that I am in any way trying to be intimidating).


Bragging about previous funded PhD position to acquire another? I am in the process of leaving a funded PhD position and apply elsewhere. There was a lot of competition for the position, and the benefits were good (being employed by the university), but things didn't work out (mainly I want to pursue research that is not being done in my first university).

Could it be useful to brag about how I got a competetive PhD position in my application to other places? My first university is not famous, but I did come in the top 5% of over hundred applicants.

This is just an opinion:

You will need to be very clear why you left, and you cannot leave room for the suggestion that it was just because things got a bit uninteresting. The way you have described it in your question leaves me with that presumption, and on that basis I would feel uncomfortable with working with you on a fixed term (or fixed goal) project such as a PhD.

i.e., the obvious question in the mind of the reader of your CV will be, "How do I know you won't disappear on me as soon as things get a bit boring or difficult?"

Frankly, I think you have more to lose than you have to gain by discussing it.


Add Everything to my Annotated Bibliography A book I have been reading1, has two (complimentary) recommendations for PhD students:

Add everything you read/encounter to your reference management system
Keep a annoteded bibliography of everything you read.

They argue that (as I read it):

If you looked at a resource and found it was bad, then having a note about how useless (and why) it was will save you looking at it again, if you encount it later.
If you look at something and find it is good, then you will want it later, and want to know why it is good.
If you look at something and find it off-topic, then later you might realise a highly novel crossover between the topics.
The pain/effort of ever trying to find something you've lost because you though you didn't note its full reference down apparently haunts the authors to this day. Indeed the authors describe a article they've been looking for for decades and suggest that if a reader finds it, they would appreciate the contact.

Right now my Annotaed bibliography contrained 16 references (I've been keeping it for a week.)

13 to various papers in my topic area, or for the foundations that lead to it
1 PhD thesis in my topic area, which as well as being good work is also a example of a thesis, that i could use for considering structure
1 Article from another area that is explaining the need for manythings, including my topic, for their area
1 blog post that while I might never cite, explains a concept from my area that I was having difficulties with better than anything else I have read.

My Anotations vary from:

1 sentence summary of the papers topic
1 sentence comparason to another paper
several paragraphs explaining the content
notes saying that I don't quiet get what the paper is saying.
note saying that "This paper looks like it would explain paper X's technique but does not. Don't look here for answers on X."
A see also note
Or a combination of the above.

Is this how Annotated Bibliography's work?

It seems for several papers putting more detail would be a waste of time (Particularly the ones I am annotating with "Don't read this for X"

1 Petre, M., & Rugg, G. (2010). The unwritten rules of PhD research. McGraw-Hill International.

I think it is somewhat misrepresenting the concept to call it an "annotated bibliography". That term suggests something formal, organized according to a specific, prescribed structure, but really all you're doing is organizing the resources you've encountered along with any thoughts you may have on them. The resulting compilation of information is for your use only, and so you should organize it in whatever way you find most effective. I do suggest using a reference manager, since it takes a lot of the tedious work out of organizing your information, but if you honestly find a Bibtex file or note cards or stacks of paper on your desk to be better for you, by all means, go for it.

Whatever organization you use, it should have a few key features:

Starting from your notes on a paper (or other source), you should be able to easily retrieve the information needed to cite that paper.
And the other way around: starting from a paper's citation, you should be able to easily retrieve any notes you may have for that paper.
Notes should be searchable, meaning that if you remember making a note about some topic or idea, but you don't remember which reference it was attached to, you should be able to find it (the reference) without too much trouble. This probably limits you to some sort of digital database, unless you have a pretty good memory.
You should be able to access the full text of a paper that you've read, given the citation information. If your citation information is complete, this is satisfied by the ability to go on the internet and download the paper.

A bonus feature, not really essential, is the ability to share your notes on a paper with others. Some social reference managers enable doing this over the internet, or try to (assuming your collaborators also use the service), but it's more frequently accomplished by conversations in the hallway.


Differences in opinion when teaching a course jointly with another instructor I am working as a university lecturer in a local university in my country. I am sharing one course with another lecturer who has been teaching that course for approximately 3 years for now. A problem began when some of my students complained that they were not able to cope with the material. The dean was not willing to lose those students (as they pay a monthly tuition here); so he decided that myself and the other lecturer should switch groups.

Actually this situation has transformed in something worse. The other lecturer wants me to strictly follow the problems and solutions that he has on-line. I particularly do not agree with that situation mainly because I have a higher educational background, apart from research in my field of expertise.

I have written a complaint to the academic coordinator, explaining my situation. I feel the students here are treated like some kind of stocks in a bursary market. The university loses money if they leave. What would be a good thing to do?

There are some things which are unclear in your question. However, I'm going to make a few guesses and if any are wrong then you might want to disregard this answer altogether.

It sounds like you have more education but less teaching experience than the other instructor. If you are new to teaching, one very common issue that new teachers often overestimate students' abilities. If the other instructor has more teaching experience then you might be better off 'going with the flow' for this first semester.

Another reason to go with the flow is, as Chris Gregg pointed out in his comment above, students once given a syllabus should not have it changed on them mid-stream. It's bad enough (for them) to have to deal with a change in instructor, they should not also have the syllabus changed on them as well. Consider what you could learn from the way the other instructor designed the course - we can learn things from those with less education than us.

I don't know what you mean by treated like some kind of stocks in a bursary market but, of course, without students there is no point of teaching so, yes, they are important. Nobody wants a large group of students to leave.

So, my suggestion is to try one semester following the other teacher's guidance and next semester consider taking everything you know, and everything you learned, and improve things.


What title do you hold after you've defended but before you graduate? Two friends successfully defended their dissertations yesterday, and many people have congratulated them, calling them Doctor so-and-so. I explained to my wife that they actually don't have that title until the graduation ceremony, that it's similar to a President-elect, who isn't called the President until they are sworn in. So, what title does a doctoral candidate take after they've defended but before they graduate?

There isn't a formal, universally accepted title here. The general standard has been to call them "Doctor" since everything else is in principle a formality.

The only other note that I'd make is that it's not commencement that makes the student in question a doctor, but rather conferral of the degree by the university. Some universities may confer degrees multiple times per year, but only have one commencement ceremony.

So, I would not include "Ph.D." next to my name, but in the education of my CV, I'd write "Ph.D. (to be conferred Month Year)," as that is entirely accurate representation of the state of affairs.


Will the graduate school that I've been accepted to reconsider my admissions offer? I was accepted into a graduate school and intend on going, but I got a B- in a chemistry course and now I'm worried about this. I don't think that the rest of my grades will be this low. My GPA > 3.5 currently. The last time I made a B- was over two years ago. The requirements for matriculation are getting a BS/BA and finishing with good standing.

Almost certainly not. Every program/department/country is a little different, but in general I'd say a single lower-than-average grade at the last minute isn't a signal that someone isn't ready for graduate school. Especially in situations where the acceptance was based on far more than grades: statements of purpose, letters of recommendation, fit with the department, etc. If you failed a bunch of courses in your final semester, that might be seen as a red flag, but a single B- isn't likely to faze anyone in the slightest. You'd need a lot more than that to threaten your good standing (which in my experience is taken to mean 'not in any kind of trouble academically or otherwise').


Soft money tenured profs in schools of medicine I am a PhD student focusing in psychiatric genetics, hoping to become a professor someday. It is my understanding that a lot of the PhDs in my field end up working in schools of medicine in positions that are 80-100% soft money (even though they are tenure-track).

That sounds... terrifying. You're not a clinician so you can't make up salary with patient care, you're in a school of medicine so there isn't much opportunity to cover part of your salary with teaching... it sounds like you would have to spend your entire career living in fear of a grant dry spell, even once you had tenure (no grants = no salary).

Am I misunderstanding how this works, or is it really that bad? How do people survive in that situation?

For soft money position, especially NIH funded one, there are a number of things working in your favor. You might be PI on 2 or 3 grants and CI on another 1 or 2 which means that no grant has more than 30 percent of your salary. Since NIH grants are generally 5 years long, it means you write a new grant every year.

The amount of time between getting an NIH grant and starting it can be 12 months. This means you have lead time before you run out of money. The NIH also allows you to get a no cost extension, which allows you to stretch what money you have.

Universities also will often allow you to either front pay or back pay your salary while you wait for a grant that has been awarded to start. This again allows you to cover gaps.


Msc Thesis: Drowning in knowledge and ideas, whilst my supervisor is not answering my emails I am a student at Cybersecurity master's degree program in a Greek University and I choose as my topic on "Multiparty chat privacy protection mechanisms" my idea behind this was that I wanted to implement on a post-master's time a system so a Bibliographic Research on that topic would provide me this knowledge.

So I started doing that and I found myself bombarded with new ideas and approaches for the Msc Thesis while I became more knowledgeable about the technologies on this topic. Therefore I discussed my approaches with my supervisor and came up with one approach. I followed that one but suddenly I became stuck and I see time slowly ticking towards to the end (It is far away but I do not want  my work to become last-breath patchwork).

Therefore I contacted with my supervisor via email and to make up with time started to work on a second approach. And here's the problem:

I sent 3 emails towards him and still no response. (I sent 1 email every 3 days in order not to fill it with spam and being way too pushy/impolite.)
I find myself drowned and with an unmanageable heap of ideas.
I do not feel confident I can manage in time at least one of the 2 approaches.

In other words I feel drowned with knowledge, stuck on an unmanageable heap of ideas and alone whilst I work on my MSc Thesis. How do you suggest to manage that?

Ps. On of the 3 emails I sent towards him is a physical face-to-face request and I have no other means of contacting him.

An approach to fix that is to ask for external help/counseling regarding this issue. But would that be offensive/rude towards him. Also my first email is at 29th of October and the last one 1 day before posting this question.

You don't have to arrange a face-to-face meeting to meet your advisor face-to-face. Just go to his office when he's in and knock. Start with "Are you free?" If he says yes, you're gold. If he says no, ask him when you can come back.

It might sound pushy, but if you're not making progress at all, you're wasting time. Your time may not be as precious as his time, but it's still precious. Don't rely on email; arrange a meeting.


How can I get the key to my professor's lab? I am a undergraduate student working with an awesome lab director from whom I've learnt a LOT. He is a very knowledgeable and energetic person, and is generally available for help. The lab atmosphere is full of helpful grad and PhD students.

Even though I have been working for over three years with him, he is unwilling to give me the key. Says that I should contact the other senior lab members, and ask for them to open the door.

An issue that came up today that made me vent off some steam on the Academia StackExchange. Instead of going home, I stayed after my morning class so that I could go to the lab and get some research done. However, no one was in the lab. I called my lab mates, but they either had work, had their key taken from them, wasn't answering, had gone on a trip... You get the idea. I ended up investigating the lab equipment of an adjacent lab.

This isn't the first time either. One time I had arranged with two people to come the next day: neither came nor informed me. This is especially inconvenient when the lab is on a remote section of the campus.

I have explained the situation to him, more than one. Once, he said that he would give me the key, but only if I came to the lab more often. I explained that as a human I do get tired and need rest: as much as I love research, I don't want burnout either. I'll add that several times I wanted to go to university, but since no one answered the phone, I headed off to another university to study. In the evening, I was able to contact him, but he called me lazy and only doing stuff that wanted.

How can I approach my professor about this? And more importantly, what is it that I am doing wrong? I don't need the key per se, but I do want to perform research. And for that, the lab needs to be open. While the lab mates are helpful, I do understand that they have a life. I cannot force them to come at 7 in the morning only to open the door for me, can I?

I'll add that my work has led to two conference proceedings and both me and my professor are optimistic that it will lead to a high-impact article. This wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for my professor's help and guidance.

Couldn't your problems be solved -- or at least, manifestly made your lab director's responsibility -- just with some planning in advance?

You wrote:

  An issue that came up today that made me vent off some steam on the Academia StackExchange. Instead of going home, I stayed after my morning class so that I could go to the lab and get some research done. However, no one was in the lab. I called my lab mates, but they either had work, had their key taken from them, wasn't answering, had gone on a trip... You get the idea. I ended up investigating the lab equipment of an adjacent lab.

(By the way, you had a morning class and then couldn't get into the lab on a Saturday?  That makes me wonder where in the world this question takes place.)

You make it sound like your decision to "get some research done" was made more or less on the spur of the moment.

  This isn't the first time either. One time I had arranged with two people to come the next day: neither came nor informed me. This is especially inconvenient when the lab is on a remote section of the campus.

This time you planned it one day in advance.

  Once, he said that he would give me the key, but only if I came to the lab more often. I explained that as a human I do get tired and need rest: as much as I love research, I don't want burnout either.

All of these things add up to the following conclusion: you and your advisor don't have a clear understanding of when and how often you'll be working.  So you drop by sometimes, find out that no one's there, and maybe that's your fault because somehow you've implicitly agreed to show up as much as you can but at random times.  That's not professional behavior!

I see a rather easy fix: first, agree with your advisor how much time per week you'll be spending in his lab.  If you hear a "As much as possible if you don't want me to think you're lazy" response, you'll have to move the conversation past that.  You can promise in advance to devote XX hours per week -- i.e., you have to figure out in advance how many hours -- to the lab.  (If you and your advisor can't agree on how much time you'll be spending the lab: sorry, but you don't have a wonderful working relationship, you have an entirely dysfunctional one.  But since you have mostly positive feelings about your advisor, I am optimistic that he will listen to reason here.)  Then you need to make a schedule with your advisor about exactly when you'll be in the lab.  If he doesn't want to give you a key -- okay, but then it's his problem when you get locked out of the lab, not yours.  Every time that happens, you don't call up every other member of the lab, you leave, and then the next day you approach him and say that unfortunately you couldn't get into the lab at the time you had agreed upon, so is there some aspect of the agreement he'd like to adjust?

Bottom line: if you model the behavior of a professional rather than someone who drops by when he's interested, you'll implicitly challenge your advisor to be professional to you in return.  It seems unlikely that someone who cannot rise to the standards of professionalism set by a conscientious undergraduate could be a successful lab director, so I am rather optimistic that this strategy will work for you.


Special student Harvard in Mathematics I am a master student in Mathematics. I got a scholarship that would pay me a 1-year stay (including housing etc.) at Harvard University. All I need to do, is to apply for admission as a Special student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (and be admitted of course).

Searching through the internet, some people indicated that admission as a special student is a: if you pay, you are in-system. Is this true? Or is admission as competitive as the one for regular students in the PhD programms?

You need to check on the rules at Harvard, but in general, "special student" generally means that a student is allowed to take courses but not to get a degree from the university.  The phrase "non-degree seeking student" is also sometimes used for this status.

It can be easier to be admitted as a special student than as a regular student, but it's also typically hard (as hard as getting admitted as a regular student) to switch from "special" status to regular degree seeking status.


How to represent and cite a patent using BibTeX? I need to cite some patents for a paper in BibTeX format. Google Patents provide me a BibTeX like this one:
@misc{spangler1988method,
  title={Method and system for measurement of road profile},
  author={Spangler, Elson B.},
  url={http://www.google.it/patents/US4741207},
  year={1988},
  month=may # "~3",
  publisher={Google Patents},
  note={US Patent 4,741,207}
}

I do want to cite Google as the publisher. Rather the patent is from the US Patent and Trademark Office.
What is the correct way to do this?
Note that this patent, e.g., is expiate due to failure to pay maintenance fee.
NOTE
I have found this instructions on IEEE:

Patents
Basic Format:
[1] J. K. Author, “Title of patent,” U.S. Patent x xxx xxx, Abbrev. Month, day, year.
Example:
[1] J. P. Wilkinson, “Nonlinear resonant circuit devices,” U.S. Patent 3 624 125, July 16, 1990.
NOTE: Use “issued date” if several dates are given.

Firstly, BibTeX is more or less a data structure. You can populate its fields however you want, as long as it captures the essential information.

Now, there is an @patent{...} type which, while not standard, is supported by many styles. Check the documentation for the citation style you are using for details. As you would be using either the @misc or @patent types, you should try to populate your fields or configure your styles in a way that the compiled output from BibTeX matches the expected style of the document that you are trying to prepare.

For example, IEEEtran's BibTeX package supports that @patent type and you can read their documentation on what fields should be populated and how. In particular, they support the number field which you should populate with 4741207 and the nationality field which you should populate with United States, instead of the Google output which put those information in the note field. The publisher field is actually ignored in the IEEEtrans style, so you don't need to do anything about it, and the url you can just drop, since given the United States patent number it is relatively easy to find it on the USPTO website.

If your publication follows the Chicago manuals, here's how they prefer it to look. Note in particular it does not show any "publisher" or "url" information.

If you use biblatex, this TeX.SE q/a gives a pretty good sample of acceptable use.

In short, like most questions about "how to cite blah", the answer is:

  The point of a citation is to give an unambiguous reference to previously published material. Many publishers and societies have established conventions and styles and the practical suggestion is to follow their guidance in how to style your bibliographic information. Absent that, use your own best judgment about how much information is sufficient to identify the reference.


How secure is a post doc job offer in an email from the department chair prior to receiving the official written letter? I'm in/from the US. I'm finishing my PhD this semester. I've been offered a research postdoc, via email, by the dept. chair at one of my top choices, but outside the US (would rather not give too many details). I replied to say I'm accepting the position. Everyone seems very happy: me, the chair, the professor I intend to work with. But I have nothing in writing.

In the meantime I have an offer for a teaching job at another place much closer, which I would definitely take if I were not getting the above postdoc. I don't feel comfortable turning this down until the other setup is official.

I emailed the postdoc place asking for an official letter. They said they would send it out by mail, but ignored my request for a scanned emailed copy, and I need to give a yes or no answer to the second place before their alleged letter would arrive. I emailed them again about the scanned copy and no response though it has only been a couple days.

How confident should I be that this postdoc is really happening? How common is it for informal agreements like that to be backed out of? Are scanned emailed letters less customary outside the US? It would be terrible of I turned down the teaching job and then the postdoc fell through.

Also, what should I say to the other place if I am still unsure about the postdoc by the deadline for my yes/no?

Update: I got the requested scan of the official letter today. I ran it by my adviser and he says this seals the deal and I can cancel any other interviews. Whew!!!

Don't count on an offer until you have it officially, in writing.  A verbal offer is not an offer.  An email or call saying you will get the offer is not an offer.

You say you "emailed the postdoc place".  Who did you email?  If it is an administrator they may not understand the urgency of the situation.  I would email the professor you will be working for and (politely) make it completely clear that you have a non-negotiable deadline for replying to another offer.  You should also state that if you don't have at least a scanned copy of an official offer from him/her before then, you will have no choice but to accept the teaching position, even though the postdoc is your first choice.  If they really want you, they will take the 5 minutes to scan a copy of the letter.  If they don't, maybe it's best to turn down that offer anyway.

In the meantime, I would also negotiate with the second place for an extension of the deadline.


Are reviewers allowed to discuss their review with each other? Suppose you find out that someone you know well or work with is reviewing the same journal paper you are reviewing (i.e., finding out this information on your own, and not via the journal or editor, assuming a blind process).

Can you discuss the paper? Can you discuss your reviews?

If it's a blind process, you're not meant to find out. As various people have pointed out in the comments already, discussing your review with them is therefore a big no.

One of the main principles of reviewing by several people is that you get independent opinions, so that if a particular (maybe well-known and well-respected) person doesn't like the research, they can't just make it disappear by convincing everybody else that it's bad.

For some conferences (and maybe journals?), you are able to discuss your review with the other reviewers after the initial submission. But in this case the facilities for doing this are provided by the submission system. There are two important differences to the situtation you've described though. First, your initial review will not be influenced by the discussion and second, there is a record of the conversations and changes made.


Can we get a PhD in mathematics without publishing? Do many universities allow students to get a PhD in mathematics without publishing a paper?

It is typical in the U.S. that mathematics Ph.D. students do not publish anything at all prior to earning a Ph.D., I think even at the elite places. Publication per se is not such a high priority, nor over-literal gauge of accomplishment, as it seems to be in some CompSci and Engineering disciplines (at least in the minds of some people).

That is, to be clear, especially for people who've thought, or been indoctrinated to think, that the measure of the value of something is the prestige of the conference or journal or ... in which it was published, the idea in mathematics still does seem to be that the thesis advisor and thesis committee decide whether the candidate has done sufficient work to earn the degree.

Seems a sane system to me, especially given the acceleration of freneticism elsewhere.


Besides salary, is there any difference between "classes" of faculty in France? While learning about the different faculty jobs in France, I discovered that the two different ranks of faculty are subdivided in classes: maitre de conférence are sorted in "normal class" and "outstanding class", while professors are sorted in "second class", "first class", "exceptional class". You start in the lowest class and if you're good you can be promoted.

From an outsider perspective I could not find any difference other than salary. However reading the history of these ranks they used to correspond to, I think:

maitre-assistant -> new maitre de conférence
old maitre de conférence -> professor "second class"
non-titular professor -> professor "first class"
professor titular of a chair -> professor "exceptional class"

Today, other than salary, does the class change anything? Does a higher class faculty have more weight with the university or something? More responsibility? Or is it purely financial?

Generally speaking, it is financial. The responsibility difference is between HDR-holders and non HDR-holders (HDR = Habilitation à diriger les recherches).

Maîtres de conférences are not always allowed to supervise research alone (for example: you cannot supervise a PHD student alone).

To do so you need to hold an HDR: it is a university diploma, something like a smaller PhD thesis that proves that you can supervise others. It's similar to Habilitation in many European countries, like Germany for example.

All "Professeurs" have an HDR : it is a condition (but not the only one) to get promoted. Some "Maitre de Conférences" have an HDR, some do not.

Please note there are two fields in French universities where the "Maître de Conférences/Professeur" distinction is different, for historic reasons : Law and Economics. You become a "Professeur" by completing a competitive examination: "l'agrégation". HDR is this case is not necessary.


How to gain skills in project management? So far, my master thesis had an initial plan, and I would keep in contact with the PI as I need. However, now that the academic course comes to an end, all the students in the lab (3) we have to finish our projects. He is also applying to grants that have tight deadlines and supervising 1 PhD thesis that will be presented in a month, together with addressing the reviewers of two papers and supervising a new one (with part of my work :). This is a lot of work (I am sure other people are more stressed though) and sometimes I feel I am not given all the advice I could due to poor project management of the lab and projects (yes, I tried more frequent meetings but they keep being postponed).

I would like to start a PhD soon, and later to have my own research team; what project management skills should I learn for a successful PhD/career?
Some skills I thought as important are:

Time management

I found useful answers here at the tag time-management
Multiple (parallel) projects management

My current project started as to analyze some data and ended up analyzing data and developing, testing and prove a new method. (That's another reason why I consider my project was poorly thought out.)
People management
?

And more importantly, how can I learn them through the master thesis and PhD?

Time management: I recommend to everyone the book Getting things done by David Allen. It is briefly summarized in different YouTube videos and is about personal organization and stressfree productivity.

Project management: For project management and a good visualization of your process (e.g. of publishing a paper) you might want to look into IT Kanban and use a real Kanban board or a software like Trello. If you work in a team on that project, look into Scrum. Also, shared calendars are helpful (e.g. Google calendar).

People management: For teams, it could make sense to use a team collaboration tool like Slack (or Mattermost).


A citations generator needed I am having a hard time creating citations for new literature.
I get a new work (either electronic or printed) and I want to incorporate its citation to my library by means of a citation file  (no matter if .bib, .ris, or whatever). And then I spend a lot of time in Internet looking for an appropriate citation file.

Could you tell me a website or a method to get a complete citation file for any work?
Thanks!

My known options are following (I tried to rank them based on completeness of entries):

WorldCat
SemanticScholar
GoogleScholar

Sadly, at those websites, I find quite incomplete citations, for example, ISBN, DOI, and publisher are often missing.

Web of Science allows you to extract (and even bulk-download) bibliographic metadata of scholarly works. (Select the papers, click on "Export...", choose "Other File Formats" and use "BibTeX" as File Format).

Another option is JabRef, a reference manager which uses BibTeX and whose official browser extension "automatically identifies and extracts bibliographic information on websites and sends them to JabRef with one click."

I also find ZoteroBib useful. It worked well for me, and it is quick to use in browser.

Fur further options see Are there any tools to automatically search and download literature in a given .bib file?.


PowerPoint presentations including Latex both under Windows and Mac OS Possible Duplicate:
  How to make a presentation that includes math symbols?

I have been using TeX4PPT for PowerPoint under Windows for a few years to include matematical formulas in PP presentations. Recently, I got a Mac notebook and I would like to use my PP presentations both under Windows as well as under Mac OS X. However, I cannot find a program that would allow me to use LaTeX generating formulas in PP under both operating systems (so I could use my  presentations freely on both OS). Any ideas?

On Mac Os only, you can use Keynote and Latexit, as explained in this question: How to make a presentation that includes math symbols? I've been using this technique recently, and it's very nice!
However, as far as I know, you cannot show Keynote presentation on Windows. A possible solution could be to export them as PPT, but I've just tried, and it's not very nice, especially for the included formulas. You can also export them as PDF, in which case it's graphically nice, but you lose any animated transition.

Another solution could be to use Latexit to generate PDF, and to include the PDF directly in Powerpoint. If you use a white background, that can do the trick, since formulas will be exported with a white background (but maybe it's possible to set it up, I've never tried with Powerpoint to be honest, so maybe you can import SVG format directly in Powerpoint).


Authorship issues in numerical mathematics I have been working on a draft in the area of numerical mathematics for several months.

My PhD advisor recently discussed this draft with me. He wants to be mentioned as an author for (i) some discussions (ii) financing the research.

However, I am not sure about the authorship guidelines in my discipline. Numerical mathematics sits between pure mathematics, computer science, and the sciences, and it is comparatively young. So what is the appropriate norm on (i) choice and (ii) order of authors?

Authorship

Being a researcher in numerical mathematics myself, I think that just "financing the research" is not a sufficient argument to include your advisor as co-author. The notion of "some discussion" is very imprecise and may mean that the problem, the idea of the solution and the composition of the work belong to your supervisor, and your work is purely technical; oryour supervisor checked your manuscript briefly just once and made a couple of comments regarding your English. Without knowing the level of involvement, it is impossible to judge whether or not you should include your supervisor as co-author.
To answer this question, you may wish to read your journal's policy regarding the authorship. For example, the Elsevier's definition of authorship reads:

  Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

Order of authors

From my shoes, it seems that many researchers in the numerical mathematics prefer to list the authors alphabetically, i.e. the order of authors does not reflect their contribution. However, when I personally publish together with researchers in applied areas (like Chemistry and Physics) in journals like Phys Rev B, we prefer to follow their convention, where the first author is the "main" author, and the last one is the one who "finance" the research. This leads to a certain amount of confusion, when all these papers appear together on your CV. Arguably, a good decision is to describe the contribution of all co-authors in a special section at the end of your paper.


In computer science, what does winning a Sloan research fellowship say about an advisor? Some background: I'll be starting my PhD in computer science this fall and just noticed that my prospective advisor won one of the 2015 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowships.

Obviously the standard caveats apply: a good researcher can be a terrible advisor, and my success in a PhD and beyond will depend mostly on me.

But, even though it feels a bit petty: I know advisor reputation and network matters both during and after the PhD. Can I talk this as a positive sign for both, and how positive? More practically, how well might a Sloan fellowship track with making tenure? Having my primary advisor not make tenure would be dicey.

Thanks!

The Sloan research fellowships are distinguished awards for early career faculty.  This means that your prospective advisor is considered a very talented young researcher.  However, it also means that your prospective advisor is not very far along in their career.  There are some cons to working with a young assistant professor as an advisor, including the risk that your advisor might leave the institution or not get tenure (not terribly likely for someone talented enough to get a Sloan fellowship but more of a risk in the generic case of working with a new tenure track faculty member.)  I think that most people would recommend picking a more experienced and well known advisor.


What is the best way to appeal an unfair qualifier exam decision? Recently, I took the PhD qualifier exams for my department. In my dept. there are 3 exams, each covering a subfield (say subfield A, B, and C). First you are given an hour to work through several problems, and then you have another hour to present to several professors, who critique your answers and ask supplemental questions.

I was well prepared for all of my exams, and did excellently on exams B and C. Exam A did not go as well. During the oral part of the exam, I was asked a question using term Z'. I stated that I am unfamiliar with this term and asked for clarification on its meaning. I was given a vague and unhelpful explanation, along with some chastisement about how this term was "fundamental" knowledge. This wasted perhaps 5 minutes or so of the exam and make the remainder of the oral part fairly awkward. Though I believe I solved the problems correctly, I left with a bad feeling about the terminology issue.

After the exam, I looked term Z' up on Google. Seems it's a very uncommon term for Z. The textbook I was being tested on used Z, as did all 3 of the courses I've had on subfield A.

A few days later I got the results of the exams. I failed exam A, but will be allowed to retake it in the future.

For the sake of identifying what I did wrong, I spoke with one of the professors who administered my exam. I asked what I should focus on for the next time. He said "the fundamentals." I asked whether the terminology issue was the deciding factor and it apparently was not. Instead, he thinks I don't understand absolutely fundamental concept Y. Oddly, he also complained that I used a more general form of Y. (So, which is it? Do I understand Y really well or not at all?) The most I can make of this is that the terminology issue made him and the other committee member think I'm an idiot, and then they were much less fair to me from that point on.

He then asked me to solve a problem which he made up on the fly. I used one version of Y to solve this problem, and he complained that (though correct) how I did this demonstrates that I don't know what I'm doing. The annoying thing about this is that I'm a TA for undergrad class A right now and the way I solved this problem is exactly the way the book the dept. uses does. It seems that he'll complain regardless of how I do things.

I now believe this exam was not fair, and this professor likely will be on my exam committee next time. I doubt I'll be able to pass if he continues being so unfairly critical of me.

At this point, what are my options? I am considering appealing to the dept. head, but I don't want to make things worse than they are right now. I could make enemies in the dept. if I appeal, and I'm not sure if there are other options I should consider.

It is hard to know the exact issues for an oral exam we were not present for and for which we are hearing only the candidate's version.  Based on your own description it sounds like you feel very strongly that you know the material flawlessly and were treated unfairly.  I'm sorry about that.  However your description did not convince me that that's what actually happened: rather it sounds like the committee had some issues with your performance that you don't yet fully understand.  Since you are allowed to retake the exam, you should find out as precisely as you can what went wrong and what they want you to do better.

  I was well prepared for all of my exams

Isn't that for the committee to decide?

  and did excellently on exams B and C.

May I ask: is that the feedback you got on exams B and C: that you did excellently?  Or was it just that you passed?  It matters: if in two out of three exams that committee really felt that you did "excellently", then they think you are an excellent student and there will be a lot of support for you to stay in the program.  Also, do you have the same examiners for all three exams?

  During the oral part of the exam...The textbook I was being tested on used Z, as did all 3 of the courses I've had on subfield A.... I asked whether the terminology issue was the deciding factor and it apparently was not.

You gave a very long description of something that took "five minutes" of a one hour exam and was explicitly said not to be a cause of your failure.  You are focusing very strongly on whether it was reasonable for you to know the terminology.  But then afterwards you just looked it up on the internet and decided that it was not something you need to know without talking to anyone else about it.  That's a problem.  Another observation is that -- and this is something that happens to lots of students - you let your entire performance get derailed by an inessential minor point.

  For the sake of identifying what I did wrong, I spoke with one of the professors who administered my exam.

You should speak to every professor who administered the exam.  Exams are not failed because one of the committee members didn't like your performance: at the very least the majority felt that way, and much more commonly they all did.

  The most I can make of this is that the terminology issue made him and the other committee member think I'm an idiot, and then they were much less fair to me from that point on.

I wasn't there, but I think this is not a very good guess.   Since there seems to be a lack of clarity about the result even after speaking to one of the examiners, I would consider asking for a written evaluation of your performance.  It would be a good idea to discuss this with your adviser first and make sure that this will be properly viewed.  I think it is a very reasonable request: you passed two out of three exams and will take the third one again.  You really want to know clearly -- and spend time thinking about and taking into account -- the reasons for the failure.

  . I used one version of Y to solve this problem, and he complained that (though correct) how I did this demonstrates that I don't know what I'm doing.

I don't understand what that means.  As you've told it, it certainly sounds annoying.  But he must mean something by it.  Your conclusion

  It seems that he'll complain regardless of how I do things.

is the most negative and unhelpful possible one.  Does this faculty member have a reputation in the department for being so unreasonable?

You mention that your adviser was there for the deliberations [but I guess not for the exam itself?].  That should be extremely useful: you can get your adviser to explain their decision to you.  If he does not understand why you failed despite being at the deliberation, then you do have a problem.  If that is the case, definitely bring up the prospect of getting a written decision that you can then go over with him.

  They did suggest that I might have been rude, but I don't think I was.

Whoa.  Your advisor thinks that you may have been rude to the exam members, but you have just brushed that off because the one exam member you spoke to didn't specifically mention it?

I'll give you the honesty of a lifelong academic who is a complete stranger to you: to me, you do sound a bit rude and disrespectful.  You look for confirmation on the internet that you are getting asked silly questions.  You say "In this case, the one professor I've spoken to is definitely wrong."  And you write

  There is nothing to study. The professor I spoke with's claims about my knowledge are contradicted by their own statements as well as my performance on another of the exams (which builds upon knowledge of field A).

To hear a student who has failed an exam say that there is nothing to study the next time around is a huge red flag.  Maybe you know the material well according to your own standards and previous experience.  But if you know it perfectly: you are in the wrong place.  No one who has nothing to study belongs in academia: you already know everything, so you have nothing to learn.  Also you happen to know that your examiners are wrong, do not understand the material as generally and intuitively as you, and cannot even make logically non-contradictory statements in explaining themselves.  Well, look: either you're right or wrong about this.  But if you truly feel this way, then either way, at the very least this PhD program is not for you.


In a camera ready paper (has been accepted), how to cite my own paper that is still under blind review? Please Note I am asking how to cite a paper under blind-reviewed in an accepted paper, NOT a new paper to be submitted.

Chronologically,

First, I submitted paper A that requires double-blind review.
Then, I cite it in another paper B. (In paper B, I explained that paper A is not available since it is under a double-blind review process)
Paper B is accepted while paper A is still under review.
Now I have to submit the camera ready version of Paper B before the notification of Paper A.

Solution I

Put my blind review article into a pre-print archive (e.g. arXiv) so that it can be available for citing. But, would it "spoil" the blind review process?

Solution II

place an anonymized version of paper A in a dropbox folder and cite it with a link to that dropbox file in the reference.
(Inspired by dsfgsho's answer to Double-blind review: submit a follow-up paper in a very short time)

What's the better solution? Is there any other solutions?

Related Questions:

Citing an article under a double-blind review process (for a new paper)
Is it legal to upload a paper to arXiv when it is under double blind review for one of the IEEE journals?

While something is under review, it's in an indeterminate state and might not survive the review process. Once something is published, all of its critical supporting references need to be available.

Thus, I believe that the correct approach here depends on whether paper B actually depends on paper A, or if it's just a "related work" (e.g., "In Paper A, we solved a different problem from the same family of problems."):

If Paper B depends on Paper A, then I think you have no choice: put a preprint of Paper A into arXiv (or similar), and hope it doesn't hurt the blind review process---and in most cases it probably won't.
If citation of Paper A is only a "nice to have" for related work, then I would instead suggest simply dropping the citation, since the related work has not yet come into being. When I had much the same thing happen to me, I ended up following the second route, which was the right thing to do.

Nothing, however, can protect you entirely from the vagaries of the scientific publication process: in my own case, the first version of my Paper A was rejected partly because the reviewers took so long that they ended up complaining that I didn't cite my Paper B in it!


What should I state for "expected salary" in a tenure-track job application? I am applying to a tenure-track assistant professor job in an applied math department,
for which the job posting states

  Applicants should state their current and expected salary in the application.

Questions:

Why does the department ask for "expected salary"?
Is it because they are trying to exploit my naiveté?
What number should I state in my application?
If I state a number that is on the low side,
will they use that to offer me a lower salary?

At the moment, I am thinking of just stating my estimate of the mean salary
for new assistant professors at math departments,
which according to a Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty Salaries Survey
is $71,412.

I feel it's kind of obnoxious to ask for an expected salary, and it does raise issues of whether the answer could be used to lower the initial offer (or decrease the applicant's negotiating power).  I don't see anything wrong with giving a vague answer or just saying you are flexible.  If you specify a number, you should try to choose one that's representative of the type of school you are applying to, as Danny W. suggests.

As for why they do it, one reason is that salaries vary enormously.  A regional liberal arts college may pay less than half as much as a leading research university.  Some U.S. states scandalously underfund their state universities, so there can be dramatic salary differences between what you'd think are comparable institutions.  The net effect is that schools that aren't able to pay a lot worry about attracting candidates who have no idea how little they pay.  They don't want to waste time trying to hire someone who will never accept any amount they could plausibly offer.  One way to get around that is to announce a salary range.  However, some departments are hesitant to do that, perhaps because they don't want to publicly emphasize how little money they get (and thereby humiliate themselves or discourage applicants).  Instead, they ask for an expected salary and filter out anyone who names a figure far out of their range.  I don't like it, but it seems to work well enough that departments keep doing it.


Edit a manuscript after submit and approve it I submitted my manuscript to a Springer journal and after viewing the submission, I approved it. But now I need to edit one of my references, but the Edit button is not available after approving the submission. How can I edit it? Should I submit a new manuscript?

I think that submitting a new manuscript will just confuse them. The version you submitted will be checked and reviewed. You will get back a report and, hopefully, a request to update and resubmit changes. Make your changes then.

If that isn't enough to satisfy you, then contact the editor of the journal and ask for advice on how to proceed. But what you have discovered is pretty common.

The journal needs, for now, a stable version that can be sent to reviewers. You are just at the beginning of the process and will have time to fix things.


How should a new professor speak to prospective PhD Students? I am a new professor, now interviewing PhD students. I lack many of the things they expect: other PhD students to talk to, a clear narrative about my lab's work (as funding is still in flux), and an academic backstory beyond graduate school. How should I help good students to take a chance on me as an advisor?

It would probably serve you well to find a local experienced mentor to work with and learn from. They can help you with what to say, but they can also help you get the skills you now know you lack. They might even serve as a sort of backup for you in working with students over time. Having a more experienced and well-established member on a student's committee from the start can be a big help to everyone.

If the work of the lab permits, it is also probably best to start small. Not too many students and work hard to promote their work so that they will promote you in the future.

But for a more direct answer to the question, I assume that you have established an idea driven research trajectory that you believe has a future. Talk to them about that. Hopefully you are enthusiastic about it, but also have already had some success, if only during your doctoral studies. Try to express your own enthusiasm and what you see as the goals and that you have some ideas about how to achieve them.

They are taking a risk, of course, if you don't have a track record. You need to work, over time so that any risk of failure is mitigated.


How could I calculate my GPA? I have my GPA in the 100 point system,
how could I calculate it in 4.0 point system?
I searched, and I didn't find a good answer,

Unless it is specifically requested, do not do it. Some school even urge you not to do it. It is highly probable, that they know your scale and understand what level means you are smart and hard working. Be sure to include thing like cum laude, merit scholarships, ranking within the cohort, ... These things are easier for them to understand and help them to compare you to the other students.

Miscalculating your GPA may result in unintentional deception or undermining your actual achievements. Be careful.


In-text citation: what is the correct way of using both last name (i.e., \citeauthor ) and typical citation (i.e., \cite) I am using plain citation style with biblatex and was wondering about the convention of using \citeauthor (and probably \citeyear) along with \cite

While writing sometimes I do the following:

  \citeauthor{johnTKDE} (\citeyear{johnTKDE}) proposed a method for
  ...etc

should I also use \cite at the end of the sentence when using \citeauthor ? what is the convention of using all these together? (Computer Science if the field matters).

I don't think there is something like a general convention for this, aside from the usual rule of being consistent. So follow your personal/conference/journal/university/whatever style.

If that style dictates to use numbered references such as [1], always include this. Even if, like in your example, you start one of your sentences with the author name (and year). Note that (as @Ian_Fin mentions in the comments) the year is usually omitted when using an author name with number styled references.


Is it possible to submit a thesis to a univeristy without having been enrolled while writing it? My partner wrote a thesis at a university which closed his faculty. Is it possible to submit this thesis through another university? Can you suggest a university which may be open to this? It is 50,000 words relating to angloshere involvement in the Indochina war, particularly Laos. Two chapters were cut out to turn it into an MPhil in an attempt to satisfy another university. Thanks for any suggestions.

Probably not without meeting some minimum requirements.  At my university a student must be enrolled for a min of two years full time.  There are exceptions but require an extensive justification to be put forth that is then review by a committee.  Also any parts already submitted for the award of any degree cannot be reused.


Should you place accents on letters in academic writing in English? Is there a standard practice in academic writing regarding the use of accented letters when the underlying language is English? I'm specifically thinking of the word naive, which often has a dieresis above the i, but I suppose this is applicable to other words.

I would prefer to not use them since it's simpler and seems somehow less pretentious to me.

Also, is there is a difference between dissertations and journal articles?

Do you like reading papers with misspelled words, grammar errors, uncertain syntax, badly formatted equations, unreadable graphs and unclear pictures? Probably not.

Modern typesetting systems and careful proofreading allow writers to avoid, as much as possible, the above unpleasantnesses and, moreover, allow them to typeset all sort of characters. Furthermore, macros and shortcuts can be defined for quickly repeating difficult words. Thus, with modern typesetting systems there's really no excuse for not using diacritical marks, regardless of practices which date back to an epoch when typesetting systems were not as flexible as modern ones.

Academic papers and books are not only read by native English speakers, but by people from all over the world, where a missing accent can be cause of confusion or, in case of many missing accents, considered a sign of sloppiness (which typically does not put the reader in a favourable mood), especially if the accent is missing from a proper name.


Is it possible to get an ISSN number for an online journal from an other country? We are a group of international graduates in the process of launching an open access e-journal and we are now facing the different technical steps. Our based country has an ISSN national center, however we wonder if it is possible to get an ISSN from an other country (european or north american) even without being physically based there.

Thanks in advance for your answers

Check the website/contact info with the specific agency, since I think this varies a lot. If I'm not mistaken, we got a Brazilian ISSN for a publication of papers resulting from the undegrad research program in my uni and it was all done by mail...

You can find the info for the agencies here http://www.issn.org/services/requesting-an-issn/


Should a professor give students a take-home exam when the answers might be available online? A professor at a top USA university recently assigned a take-home exam for a masters-level computer science course. One of the questions was extremely difficult, but the answer was available online. However, the exam clearly stated, "Do not look online".

Most of the students know enough to discern whether the online answer is correct. It will be practically impossible for the professor to detect any cheating, assuming there is basically only one way to answer the question.

While writing the exam, most students will assume that the answer is available online, as many answers are, and that some students will inevitably cheat. They will know that the cheaters will have an unfair advantage, and thus may obtain the highest grades. So there is pressure on all of the students to cheat, to eliminate the unfair advantage.

However, there is an extremely remote chance of getting caught, and being penalized for academic misconduct. Moreover, the honest students naturally want to be honest, because they have integrity.

I have four questions:

Is it ethical for a professor to give such a take-home exam, which tends to reward and encourage cheating?
If the professor becomes aware that one answer was available online, should he discard all answers to the extremely difficult question?
Should the Dean intervene to ensure fairness and to stop such take-home exams?
How can an honest student report that the answer was available online, without risking retaliation? (The student has no evidence that the professor or Dean care.)

To answer in order:

I don't see why it's unethical for the professor to give a take-home exam. I don't dispute your (implied) assertion that this may benefit those who are willing to ignore the professor's explicit directions -- but that's unethical of them, not the professor, in my opinion.
This is entirely up to the professor. It would likely be within their right to do so, but my guess is that most professors would shrug their shoulders and make a note to themselves not to ask that question on a take-home exam again. You'll argue that this is unfair to students who follow the professor's instructions -- and you're right. Unfortunately, however, the world is not fair. That doesn't mean I -- or the professor -- condone cheating, but the professor likely knows that this risk exists with a take-home exam, and has judged it an acceptable risk.
What is the dean going to do in this situation? Force everyone to retake the exam? This may not be feasible -- for example, at my university, some classes have online sections off students who aren't physically present on the main campus. This precludes in-person exams oftentimes.
My advice would be to use a throw-away email account if you're so inclined. Keep it anonymous, but alert the professor. Understand though that they may choose not to act on the information -- and there likely isn't much you can do.

I don't mean to this be harsh -- just realistic. A better solution for the professor might be to explicitly allow online resources, but then structure the exam such that those resources don't help students any more than memorizing the material would. The easiest ways I can think of doing this are (1) opinion-based questions and (2) time limits that make accessing such resources a costly waste of the available time.


What if a student cannot pay the APC of a journal I am submitting my article to IEEE Access to get its rapid response (degree deadline time problem). I'm hopeful of their fee waiver/discount because I am student/unemployed as well as physically impaired. However, I am not sure if I would be definitely given the fee waiver/discount.
What if I get acceptance of my paper from IEEE Access and find myself unable to pay the APC? Can the journal take any legal action against me?

Note: Application for fee waiver/discount to the journal cannot be lodged before submission/acceptance.

No, they won't/can't take legal action. The worst that could occur is that they won't accept the paper. Nothing to worry about beyond that.

But if you are a student, explore with your university whether they have funds to pay the fees. Some will be able to do this and others not. If you are working with a professor perhaps s/he has grant money that will pay such fees also. It is worth asking.

Not all journals will have liberal forgiveness policies, but some do. Just ask and be prepared to state your case.


Why do academics drink so much coffee? A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems -- Alfréd Rényi

All the universities whose staff lounges I've been to have had coffee machines with free coffee. I've seen groups name their meetings after coffee much more than other beverages (e.g. from Google, "AstroCoffee" exists in OSU, IfA Hawaii and Goethe University; a corresponding search for "AstroTea" turns up nothing). I've also witnessed one academic telling another "I'm stuck, don't know what to do next" and the other say, quite seriously, "have some coffee! If you're still stuck, have even more coffee!"

What is it about coffee that makes it so ubiquitous in academic culture?

Academics sure do drink a lot of coffee---but do they drink any more coffee than other professionals?

According to Wikipedia, 150 million Americans adults drink coffee daily (out of about 240 million total), a rate of more than 60%.  So if most adults drink coffee in America, it's entirely unsurprising that academics are like most other adults and that departments might happily supply this cheap perk---just like many, many other offices do.  Similarly high rates of consumption appear to pertain in most other developed Western countries, which are also where the majority of high-impact scientific research is still conducted.

In short: many academics appear to drink a lot of coffee simply because they are typical adults in societies where most people drink a lot of coffee.


What is 'academic identity'? I've heard the term 'academic identity' used a fair amount. Although initially it seemed like a simple concept, there are many papers on the subject and no-one seems to have a concrete definition.

Is there a concrete definition of 'academic identity'? If not, what are the key points of an 'academic identity' (if there are any)?

Links to some academic identity papers:

Academic Identity: A Modern Perspective
The imagined and the real: identifying the tensions for academic identity
Academic identity and autonomy in a changing policy environment
Younger academics’ constructions of ‘authenticity’, ‘success’ and professional identity

Have you read those papers?

The first paper says in the intro:

  The aim of this paper is to raise questions for discussion and debate
  on academic identity rather than to offer definitive answers or
  specific conclusions. In particular, the paper addresses the following
  three questions:
  1. What is academic identity?
  2. What is it to be an academic in modern times?
  3. What are the pressures that academics work under?

Then, at the beginning of the section on what is academic identity:

  Academic identity is a phrase that is discussed in the Higher
  Education sector as if it is a fixed and known thing. Academic
  identity lacks precision in terms of description and cannot therefore
  be summed up in a few sentences.

This indicates that there is no (at least agreed-upon) definition.  I didn't read the paper, but it seems that this section indicates what are the key commonalities in various situations of "academic identity."  (I've never heard the term myself.)


How shall I report an error in a given paper? I am currently at my last MSc year in Chemical and Process Engineering (Italy), and our last course on Industrial Chemistry has a mandatory pre-exam exercise which reads:

  Find an existing, published research paper in the field of Chemical Engineering and try to autonomously replicate its results (plots, data, equations et similia).

My chosen paper X was published in the Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research journal, and I suppose it passed peer-review. X shows the application of a new algorithm to a chemical reactor with a given physical model.

However, after my revision and replication trial, I found that using their same model, I do not obtain the paper results. There is no presence of replication error by me, since I checked every passage with the TA.

The same TA pointed out flaws (of fundamental nature, for example F = mv instead of F = ma) in the model, and once corrected allowed me to obtain the results shown in the paper.

I do not think it was a overlook error, since the same reactor model was used in X and two cited sources of X. I want to inform of this error, but I do not know what to do now.

The same TA pointed out flaws (of fundamental nature, for example F = mv instead of F = ma) in the model, and once corrected allowed me to obtain the results shown in the paper.

The fact that after correcting the model you can actually reproduce the reported results seems to suggest that the authors did implement their model correctly, but made a mistake when writing the paper.

I think that it is best to first contact the authors, politely explain what you found, and give them the chance to take an appropriate action, e.g. publish an errata in the journal where they published their article (or on their website, if the mistake was really minor).

If they do not react at all, you might contact the journal directly. The editor will typically take care that an errata is published.

When nobody is responsive (I do not expect that in this case, but with a conference article or a fishy journal that might happen), and you consider it important that the scientific community is aware of the mistakes, you could decide to publish your correction somewhere (journal, conference, website, ...).


How to decide whether to publish masters project in computer science alone or with supervisor? I am working on my Master CS project. I would like to have this published as article before my Master ends.

Now I see 2 options:

I try to get it accepted and published at my own (not a affiliated with my university/supervisor, more as a independent scholar). I will use a ghostwriter (Master CS, native English) to get the English correctly. In this way I will be the only writer.
I will try to get my supervisor on board (eg. for advice/editing). This will result in a paper with at least 2 writers.

What are the pro/cons of each choice? Is it worth to get it accepted alone? Does it happen more frequently that students try to get its work accepted prior to finalizing the master program?

If you try to get your supervisor as second writer, does this not looks like 'student did research but supervisor wrote the article?'.

As a master student, or even Ph.D. student, there is nothing wrong on writing a paper with your supervisor(s). In fact, it shows your group work ethics. You should be delighted an experienced academic put his/her name next to yours on a publication. It adds value to the publication, because your supervisor is more well known than you and others will discover your publication faster.

You should think about being an independent researcher; at the later stages of the research (e.g., as a postdoc or an academic).