Advice to manage a Facebook group for PhD students In my institute, there was no online (or otherwise) platform exclusively available for the current and graduated PhD students. So I created a Facebook group with a vision that the group will allow sharing and dissemination of:

Useful information such as conference calls, seminars, webinars, colloquia, etc.

Inter/intra department equipment related information (such as availability of an instrument, technical advice, etc).

Queries or information related to drafting manuscripts, graphing tools, and software.

Information on post-doc and other career related opportunities.

Provide a platform for networking with students of other departments with a scope for inter-disciplinary collaborations, etc.

Any other information useful to the institute research community.

This is my first experience as a group admin and I'm quite anxious. Is there something I could add to the scope of the group? In general, I am seeking some advice on how can I make this group more valuable to the members.
Thanks!

Do not use Facebook.  Academics view it as unprofessional.
Events should be managed using a calendar application.
Most other functions you want to achieve are traditionally achieved with email lists.
When setting up a platform, you do not want it to do as many things as possible.  You want your platform to do one thing and do it well.  That is the Unix Philosophy, and it works.


How to approach potential supervisors who have already expressed an interest in supervising me after submitting my grad application? I am interested in a grad program at a Canadian university and alike US grad schools, this department requires me to submit a formal application first to be reviewed by the Grad Committee, get accepted first by them AND also secure the supervisor before I could get an offer letter.

I have got a response from the Graduate Coordinator that they would like to admit into their program and have provided me with the names of two professors interested in supervising me. I would like to work with one whose work interests me, but how do I approach him? Do I simply say something that goes like, "thank you for showing an interest in supervising me, please share your current research projects" or something like, "I have read some papers from your lab group, and I have been impressed by Tom's (Consider him as a superstar graduate student in his lab) work and I consider myself an ideal fit for your lab." I am SUPER nervous & confused! Please input your thoughts about how would you handle it.

Also, should I reach out to another professor who is also interested in supervising me? If yes, how should I politely decline him?

I don't think the rules require that you decline the other professor formally. I probably wouldn't do that. Reaching out to both could get tricky as you will need to choose at some point anyway.

For the introductory letter to the one you prefer, introduce yourself and say something about your own interests and background (very short). You don't need to praise the professor. Saying that you have read a bit of their work and if some particular part of it is interesting to you then say which.

I assume that you will get an invitation to meet since he/she has already expressed an interest. You don't need to praise yourself either. The prof will have an idea that you fit the requirements. It isn't a selling job, but an introduction and statement of interest.

It is too early to make decisions. Wait until you meet to jointly figure out how you would fit in. But that would come after acceptance.


Proper name for a new method We developed a new method to calculate a characteristic value from measurement data. In my thesis I call the existing method 'Original Method'. However, I am not sure how to name our new method. 'Current Method'? 'Present Method'?

Is there an established standard for this?

The following terms may help.

Proposed method
Suggested method
Our technique
Algorithm devised
Intended design
New procedure

It's not an exhaustive list, but are considered acceptable.


Reasonable Tutoring Rate I am a graduate student considering tutoring another student in a challenging graduate level statistics course.  What is a reasonable hourly rate to charge?  This is a public university in the United States.
Thanks.

Any rate you can get the student you're tutoring to agree to is a fair hourly rate.  I've charged up to $80/hr for tutoring students in the US in the past (usually that rate paid for by a small group).  I've also tutored friends for just dinner or some beers.  Just make sure both parties agree, probably best over email or something with a paper trail.


Am I less likely to get into a masters in finance or economics with a bachelors in business administration than I would with a bachelors in finance? I had always thought I have going for a bachelors in finance, but it turns out I am getting a bachelors in business administration with concentrations in finance & applied analytics. I plan on going to grad school for a masters in finance or economics and even a possible doctorate if I go the research/econ route. Will this hurt my chances of getting into grad school with a more common and not as prestigious degree? Are my employment aspects lessened?

BBAs are probably the most common business undergraduate degrees in the US. Nobody will care that it doesn't say Bach. Finance. You should do your best to highlight that your concentration was in finance when you apply for your graduate work.


As a master's student, will a GRA or GTA position provide a greater benefit for PhD applications? I am a Master's student with goals to pursue a PhD. I am currently a graduate research assistant (GRA), but have been offered a GTA (graduate teaching assistant) position in Machine Learning. The course in question is challenging and is probably considered more competitive/desirable than most other GTA positions.
Which is better in terms of PhD applications? Also, is it considered better to have both GTA and GRA experience? I am asking for a generalization. How would you view this on an applicants resume? Let's assume average performance in both positions.

If you're planning to go into Academia, you might want to do a GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistantship) to get teaching experience. Because a GTA means approximately 20 hours per week on teaching duties, you may find it harder to work on your thesis or dissertation as much as you want.
A GRA (Graduate Research Assistantship) will focus on research instead but you may not be working directly on your thesis research but instead on another project for which a professor has funding.
At my university (25 years ago), a GTA paid less than a GRA so that's also something to check.


Is it common for a published paper to have some small mistakes? I submitted a paper for publication several days ago. This was a resubmission after I had responded to the critique from the reviewers for my first draft. However, while I was looking at my data again, I saw that there was a section where my data points increased between phases, but I had written that they decreased. What's more, I had qualified why it made sense for the values to decrease, according to literature, so it's possible that the data I acquired was flawed. The reviewers had not marked this, and I had missed it upon reading through everything.
Apart from this, there is a missing comma and a missing word at another spot in the paper.
What I'm wondering is, is this a common occurence? And would it harm my credibility as an author/chances of getting published?

I can tell you with absolute certainty that almost every published paper contains at least one minor mistake. At the very least, I know that every single one of my papers has at least one typo that survived several rounds of reviews and revisions, and I can always find an error or two in every paper that I read carefully.
If the error is not a substantial one, i.e. one that significantly impacts the validity of the main results, then you shouldn't worry about it too much.
If you realize that your methodology is broken, your data is wrong, your theoretical analysis has logical flaws, your conclusions contradict known results or something of the sort, then it is worth considering taking some immediate action. The ethical thing to do would be to contact the journal's editor before the paper is published and have it retracted (as painful as that may be), and resubmit it if/when you manage to fix the problem.
For fixable mistakes found after the fact, some journals publish errata - appendices to the published paper that resolve issues found post publication.
If it's just a typo (missing comma/missing word/use of antonym) then don't stress too much. If you feel like the decrease/increase typo is in a key sentence describing your results (say, the intro/abstract, or in the sentence describing the key findings), it may be worthwhile to contact the editor and ask to resubmit a correction.


Status of submitted article changes the date but status remain from 'With Editor' to 'With Editor' I Submitted a paper 2 months ago, the current status is "With Editor" and the status date of the manuscript (from With Editor to With Editor!) has been changed twice. What does it mean ?

I would not deduce anything from this. Most likely the system changes the date whenever the editor accesses the article (or the editor does not use the system in the way it was intended).

Also it happens that the state is not accurate (e.g., in reality the paper is already with the reviewers), but there is no way to know that.

Anyway, many journal have a processing time span that is much longer than two months. If after some time the state is still "with editor", you might politely contact the editor to inquire about the process.


How should I choose which graduate programs to apply to for the PhD? This fall I will be an senior mathematics major at a small public liberal arts university. I'm trying to finalize the list of schools to which I will apply (to PhD programs in pure math), but I am finding it somewhat difficult. I know that I am not a candidate for admission at top-tier universities. My school is relatively unknown outside of its state, and the professors who will write my recommendation letters aren't very well-known either (although they do publish somewhat frequently in their respective fields). I have taken two semesters of abstract algebra, one semester of real analysis, and two semesters of topology, and received an A in all. By the time I graduate I'll have taken another semester in real analysis and a course in complex analysis, plus several other applied and discrete math classes. I haven't taken any graduate courses since my school doesn't offer them, but I have completed a research project with one of my professors in the area of math which I hope to study in grad school. My GPA is around 3.85.

I think (and please correct me if I am wrong) that I should focus on applying to "mid-tier" programs, but I find it very difficult to determine which programs are at this level. I know that one student from my school was accepted at a program ranked in the 40's by the U.S. News math grad school rankings.

Essentially, my question is this: Do the U.S. News rankings accurately reflect the selectivity of programs, and if so, is there some point in the rankings at which schools become "mid-tier" or at which I would be competitive for admission?

Yes, the rankings (roughly) reflect the selectivity of the program, as far as I know.  Your choice to focus on mid-tier programs makes sense.  (I think defining mid-tier as starting in the 40s is plausible, though I suspect you'll get conflicting answers from different people.) However

Don't confuse the quality of the program overall with the quality of their specialty that you hope to study.  Their specialty program could be much better or worse than the program overall.  In math departments (as opposed to, say, some computer science departments), students are typically admitted to the department, rather than to a professor's research group or a specialty area.  Taking advantage of this could get you into a specialty program that's rated higher than you "deserve".
Don't exclude a school just because it's too highly rated.  It's good to apply to a wide range of schools, some "reach" schools that you think it unlikely you'll be admitted to, and some "safety" schools that you would be quite surprised not to be admitted to.  All sorts of factors influence how likely it is you'll be admitted to a given school in a given year, many of them completely unknowable to you.  For example, maybe a new faculty member will be coming and looking for students (or maybe one will be leaving).  Maybe the program has all their TA positions tied up with current students who haven't finished yet, or maybe not.  Maybe a dean wants to grow the program, etc.  Many of these things you just can't know.  Most likely, you won't get into MIT, Harvard, Princeton, or Stanford.  But once you get into the 20s, 30s and below, the outlook is less clear.
Focus on fit, rather than solely on ranking.  Think about where the school is located.  If you plan to live there for 5 or 6 years, you don't want to hate the place.  This can include proximity to your family or friends, climate, scenery, nightlife, etc.  If you know what specialty you want to study, the school should have at least 1, but hopefully 2 or 3 folks that you would potentially like as an adviser.
Focus on aspects of your application that you can still change.  With a transcript no stronger than yours, I got into a top-25 school.  The cool part is that for the specialty I chose, they were top-10.  At this point, most of your transcript (and much of your application in total) is fixed.  But you didn't mention your GRE scores.  (The surprising thing about the GRE is that you can do pretty well if you're just really good at Calculus (through multivariable), Dif. Eq., and Linear Algebra.)  I think my subject test was something like 65th percentile.  That's not terribly good, but I think it was enough to convince the admissions committee that even though I was coming from a small LAC that no one had heard of, I did know something.  The other thing I did, which I highly recommend you try, is get a letter of recommendation from a faculty member at that school (where I was admitted).  I wrote code for him for 3 or 4 weeks (about 30 hours/week, I think) during Christmas break of my senior year.  In exchange, he wrote a recommendation for me.  I'm sure it didn't say that I was a math wunderkind, but whatever it said added just enough to my application to get me in.


Breaking figure order by referencing a figure in a later section I am submitting an SPIE journal article. In between references to figure 5 and figure 6, I reference figure 14 (which appears in a much further section) as an example of something specific. One of my reviewers has complained that it breaks the ordering of the figures. I could, of course, insert figure 14 after this first reference, and then back-reference it in the corresponding section, but I think that would be even more confusing for the reader.

Is there some standard preference for this kind of references? Or maybe should I avoid the early reference altogether?

Certainly, there are vastly different personal preferences among readers and authors alike. Unless you can establish a pattern that matches the preferences of the reviewers1, you will have to go with what you (and your co-authors, and others who you ask for advice) think makes most sense in the concrete case.

If you conclude that Figure 14 is best left where it is (between Figures 13 and 15), because e.g. Figure 14 is descussed in depth in a later section while the mention between Figures 5 and 6 is only a side note, it sounds correct to me to leave Figure 14 as Figure 14, even though it is mentioned earlier. (More concretely, it would sound extremely cumbersome to show Figure 14 early in the paper between Figures 5 and 6, and then, later on, where the figure is discussed in depth, force readers to constantly switch between pages while reading the text.)

In that case (if only to appease reviewers who think otherwise), it could be adviseable to explicitly acknowledge the side note character of the early mention of Figure 14:

  This can also be seen in Figure 14, presented/discussed below in Section ... .

1: Note that I consider it at least somewhat ethically questionable to deviate from what might be most conductive to the readability/comprehensibility of the paper just to please a specific small set of reviewers (who might not think in terms of what supports the reader's mental model in the concrete case, but rather based upon "general formal criteria" such as "Are figures ordered by the order of their first mention?"). So, it is up to you whether to actually follow such a pattern.


Does building an app or software system count as computer science research? I understand that this topic is a bit vague, but if someone could give me a pointer in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it.

I'm currently an American undergraduate taking part in an internship at a Japanese engineering university in a professor's research lab for the summer. I have no prior experience with computer science research, and my understanding of it is pretty fuzzy, but I assumed it would involve a decent amount of theory and less software engineering practice.

However, many of the graduate students in my lab are working on projects that I would only think of as software engineering. For example, one is developing a system to effectively generalize how various sensors could interact with a common server. Another developed an iOS app and a server backend that basically gathers data from the app into the server for analysis (and the analysis isn't anything particularly special or innovative from what I understand).

The professor's main research project is developing a web app that uses a special algorithm to analyze discussions on a forum. The algorithm part is what I would think of as research, but from the papers I've read regarding it, they seem to focus on the app as a whole and less on the algorithm.

Do all of these things count as computer science research? Would they perhaps fall more under computer engineering research with less emphasis on computer science theory? And (at least in America, where I plan to attend graduate school) is this a common kind of research for graduate students and/or professors? It just seems strange to me that what I view as basically building a useful app counts as academic research. It seems more like engineering to me and less like research.

What counts as research is a matter of opinion, and ultimately, up to the community of researchers who do research in that area.  It will depend on the novelty of the work, what we learn from it, and what has previously been done.  Generally, just building software usually isn't considered research if no new generalizable knowledge is created; but it can be considered research if it is aimed at developing new knowledge (e.g., evaluating a new technique for solving some problem we previously didn't know how to solve).

You are right: just building a useful app isn't normally considered research.  However, this can be tricky to tell from the outside, because developing a new technique to solve some problem can be research, and if you have a new idea that you think might solve some problem, often the way you to evaluate that idea is to implement it and see whether it does indeed lead to the claimed improvements -- which from the outside can look like you're "just" building a useful app.

So, telling research apart from engineering can sometimes be a bit tricky, especially for someone new to research.  Also, understand that this is somewhat subjective.  One person's research can be another person's "mere engineering"; the community doesn't always agree on what ought to be publishable.  Ultimately, this comes down to a judgement call, one that has to be informed by deep knowledge of the area and also by a sense of "taste" that is developed through experience.  We're unlikely to be able to answer whether a specific project of yours counts as research, because we lack that deep domain knowledge of the area, and because the description in the question is too shallow to tell.  If you're new to research, you might also have a hard time judging this.

If you're new to research, this is why you work with an advisor who is experienced in research.  Identifying useful problems to work on that are research-oriented and likely to lead to publishable results is one of the primary roles of your advisor/mentor.

Of course, if you don't know whether you can trust your advisor, and you don't know how to make those judgements yourself (because you are new to research and not an expert in that area), then you have a more basic problem.
Therefore, let me suggest a useful proxy.  Is the professor's work getting published in reputable peer-reviewed forums?  If it is, then at least that research community considers it research, which is good enough.  If it isn't, then you have reason to be wary.  Thus, with this idea, you can look at the publication record from that group over the past 3 years or so and see what their track record is.

You might also find it interesting to read a few of their past papers.  Often, published research papers try to identify what their novel research contribution is (either explicitly in the introduction, or implicitly when they discuss related work and compare to it).


What to do if undergraduate research has stalled for a long time? So I'm pretty much working on my own project with guidance from two supervisors. Since it's my own project (and it's exploratory research), the two supervisors don't need to pressure me to get results. So - I got into a lot of dead ends in my current undergrad research project, and while I've definitely learned a lot in my current research, I highly doubt it can lead to a publication by now, especially since my supervisors are unfamiliar with the technical details of my model, and the objective of the research is such that there aren't many people in the nation I can contact who are familiar with what my supervisors want to do. I've already contacted a number of people who might be familiar with it, but most of my emails have gone without reply.

At this point, I only have a month left before I leave for graduate school, and I'm not sure how I should conclude my research with my supervisors. I've already written up a report (which could perhaps be analogized to a senior thesis, and which could be helpful for the future) - I've shown the report to one of my supervisors. At this point, what should I do? Should I show them what I've done? Should I feel guilty? I've actually been out of contact with one of my supervisors for several months.

You say you have learnt a lot, so you need not feel guilty. You do not think your work is publication-worthy yourself, and you also are leaving for grad school - so the only solution is to move on.

Make a neat report explaining your work. Even if it is not publishable, you could include it in your resume as a "technical report." From the tone of your question, this seems to be the only way out.


Is there any degree for "intelligence studies" in Germany? Intelligence studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that concerns intelligence assessment.

I have tried to find the relevant program in Germany, but i did not find anything.

Based on WikiPedia, every country might have its own standard for this field.

  In British universities, intelligence studies developed within
  international history departments, while in US institutions it became
  the preserve of political science, and even then the subject was
  approached in terms of public policy and decision-making rather than
  IR. Recently attempts to connect intelligence studies with
  international relations theory have emerged, such as Andrew Rathmell's
  work on a postmodern theory of intelligence.

The question is:

How is IS (intelligence study) in Germany?
Can you specify some links to the programms?

It seems like this field hasn't established itsself in Germany yet, and is mostly common in the anglophone world. However, the German Intelligence offers courses at the Hochschule des Bundes
Fachbereich Nachrichtendienste (Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences).

  [...] [T]hey focus on undergraduate education for
  generalists in intermediate-level posts.29 To some degree, the existence of this
  program also precludes the necessity of similarly-structured undergraduate
  programs at regular public universities. In the graduate and postgraduate sec-
  tors, no similar program exists. (source, p. 86)

Contents of the answer and further information from: source


Citation policies: original papers or recent monographs? When referencing previous results, should one cite the original
  paper(s) or a recent comprehensive monograph?

Specifically, in my area of interest (a relatively recent branch of mathematics), in the last ten years, several monographs have been published (by different authors) which cover (virtually) all "classical" results and most of contemporary developements organizing them, putting them in their context, and offering extensive references to the original papers.

To clarify my position: for the sake of "culture", I've read a few of the original papers in which the results I use most often appear for the first time; however, for the benefit of the reader, I'd rather cite only the most recent (and most comprehensive) source (and possibly point the reader to the additional references therein); in my department, there are researchers following either policies.

Why not cite both?

  The following theorem is due to Doe [37]; see also [28] for a modern exposition and further background.

Here [37] might be Doe's original paper, and [28] the recent monograph.

Math journals rarely have page limits, so there's no disadvantage to including more citations.  This way you credit the original author and also point the reader to the resource you think will be most helpful.


Number of accepted papers at conferences Is the number of accepted papers normally determined before papers are submitted? Or is it determined based on the quality of the papers?

I'm primarily interested in CS conferences.

In my experience the Program Committee often has a target rate or a target number. Conferences occur on a fixed number of days, and given the length of the talks you'd like to have and the number of parallel sessions or rooms available, you can back your way into the number of papers you can accept.


Found mistake in my professors book: Tell her or publish? If so, how? I just came across quite a big problem for an interpretation my professor puts forward in her recently published book (a book containing original research in the humanities, not a textbook). I am not 100% sure, but I am pretty sure that I am right.

The error is not a factual error, but an error that concerns the logic of her argument. If somebody interprets a text, and I find very strong inconsistencies in this interpretation or a logical error even, this might not be objectively wrong per se, but it can come close to it in certain cases.

How am I to approach this? Shall I send her an email, explaining everything, or shall I try to publish it as a paper (assuming I am right about the severity of the problem)? I am worried that if I tell her, she might publish a paper herself or will tell me it's not so severe. I am bit paranoid here, I know.

I am also concerned with how to tell her - if I do. Shall I be confident and explain that I think I have found a problem for her interpretation or is this too bold? Or shall I formulate it more like a question? In the latter case, I am worried that she will not realise that I did really see the mistake and am only being polite. I don't want her to think that I pointed to something by asking a question, but that then she really came up with it. I have the feeling it would make more of an impression, if I would point straight to the problem as a problem. Of course, there is then also the possibility of her not liking me for this.

By the way, I am a Master student in the humanities. I will not do my PhD with this professor (or even at the same uni).

First: Slow down.

In the academic world, books are simply collections of known things presented in a unified fashion. In fact, in some disciplines, it's almost unheard of for someone to release something novel in book form. Additionally, while book chapters are reviewed by editors and (occasionally) peers, it's not the same peer-review setting as we have in journals. To that extent, people don't typically write papers rebutting an interpretation put forth in a book; they write papers rebutting the article(s) upon which the book chapter is founded. If a book chapter does indeed contain an error, then it'll just have to be fixed in the next revision, if there is one. As such, your concern about publication is probably far overstated.

Secondly: Are you sure you have found an error? Has anyone else reviewed your work to validate what you've seen? Are you sure that you fully understand the topic? If I was a betting man, I'd place my money on the professor who's been studying the field for years and has (presumably) thoroughly reviewed the literature, so much so that they just wrote a book on it, over first- or second-year graduate student, as a simple matter of statistics.

Thirdly: You should definitely just go talk to your professor and ask her, respectfully, to clarify what she wrote. If anything, she'll probably be appreciative that you're going through it in such detail. If you have found a real issue, you'll make her aware of it, and if you're lacking some background she can explain it.


Google scholar change main version of paper? I have an article on google scholar that was published with an open source journal and also put on arxiv, however google merged these two and sees the arxiv version as the main one and therefore messes up the citation.

Is this something that can be changed?

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Investigations+into+the+origin+of+Einstein%E2%80%99s+Sink&btnG=&oq=Investigations+into+the+origin+of+Einstein%27s+Sink

Congratulations on publishing with the open access journal Studium, the journal looks very nice.

I believe you can unmerge the bibliographic records for this item at Google Scholar.

Go to your Google Scholar profile and make sure you're logged-in
Click on the paper title in question which should be in blue e.g. "Investigations into the origin of Einstein's Sink" once clicked it'll bring up a new sub-window
At the top right-hand corner of this sub-window you'll see two buttons. One is to edit the record, the other is to delete the record. Click the edit button
Choose the very bottom option to unmerge the record. (screenshot below is the final screen you should see which offers the unmerge option)


How to tell my advisor I stopped sending him weekly reports on my results because he was not answering my emails? I have been working on my PhD from home for several months now because my mom is sick, which was fine with my supervisor up until a few weeks ago. Before starting to work from home (in a different country than my supervisor is), we agreed that we would communicate every two weeks and that I would send reports about my progress.

As I did so over the last months, I would rarely receive a response from my supervisor, who is a big name in our domain and is very, very busy.
After a few unanswered emails, I had the impression that I should just contact him in urgent cases, so I stopped contacting him every two weeks.

Now he is asking me to come back to work at the office because he thinks that I have not been communicating enough in the last weeks.

I am aware that I should not have supposed that he only wanted urgent information and thus I should have continued sending him my weekly reports, but how can I tell him that it is because I never got any answer from his side?

My wish is to find a good equilibrium in our communication style so that I can continue working from home!

I would say that, like others, you should tell him honestly.
Something to the effect of:

"My apologies for the lack of communication in the past few weeks. I was under the false impression that you only desired my reports in urgent cases, as there were several that you did not reply to. It was my mistake to make that supposition without explicitly asking you. In the future, I very much would like to continue working from home but I also would like to find the best way for both of us to communicate. We can certainly continue a report every two weeks but, in that case, it would be very helpful to me if you would be able to offer me a little bit of feedback for the report. I understand how busy your schedule is but I would truly appreciate it. Please let me know your thoughts.
Thanks,
[Your name]"


Past vs. Present Tense in APA Format when discussing other's work? When I am discussing previous work, according to APA formatting, it is clear I should use past "Alicke (2000) described....". However, what tense do I use to explain their results? Aka "The model postulated..." vs. "The model postulates..." where "the model" is part of Alicke's findings. Past or present?

While the past tense is perfectly sensible for discussing published work (which was necessarily undertaken and published in the past) it is also acceptable to discuss these in the present tense -- e.g., "Alicke (2000) models the conditions that cultivate or mitigate blame".  In academic work it is legitimate to treat each cited paper as if it were akin to a person who is here with us making an argument, so that the academic literature is like a dinner party, with argumentative guests.

In view of this, it is acceptable to talk about a paper in the present tense, even if it is very old.  You can make it sound like Aristotle is right here with us, arguing with Kant.  You can even make it sound like papers by the same author are independent dinner-party guests, arguing against each other -- e.g., "Johnson (2010) argues that capitalist production methods were a net benefit to rural economies, notwithstanding outward migration of workers to cities; Johnson (2011) demurs on this issue, and Johnson (2013) seems to completely disagree".

Some things to note:

APA style allows either past or present tense for discussing the literature, so long as you are consistent.
Style guides are all well and good, but they have sometimes been described as "anti-style" guides.  Excessive adherence to their conventions can have the negative effect of sucking the style out of your writing.  (In fairness, this is something that the style guides themselves acknowledge, in their discussions of smoothness of expressions.)  What is more important than strict adherence to style guides is consistency, clarity, smoothness and readability of your writing.  Make your writing clear to your reader, pleasurable to read, and be consistent in your use of tense.
When considering appropriate tense, be sure to correctly identify the subject of each sentence.  In the example you give in your post, the subject of the latter sentence is "the model", not the original paper or its author.  Since a model is an eternally lasting description of reality, it is standard to speak of what the model does in the present tense, even if you are referring to the paper that introduced it in the past tense.
There is often some freedom to maneuver, but make sure you are consistent with tense for subjects of the same type.  So if you say "The model postulates..." in one place, don't say "The model predicted..." in another place.  If you start talking about another model, treat it using the same tense convention.  If you start talking about another type of subject (e.g., a paper, or an author) you may use a different tense if it is still clear and readable.


PhD with limited research activity For a number of reason reasons I find myself in PhD position that involves very little real research activity and I'm having hard time to fully understand my situation.
To give some context, I started a PhD on a thematic scholarship on a project that I've not even touched since the start of the program and was eventually canceled.
Instead, since the start, I am working as developer for an experiment that require the production of specialized hardware.
My job could be described as "embedded hardware engineer", and my tasks range from designing very simple PCB boards to writing C code for embedded devices.
Given the scale of the project and the limited number of (human and practical) resources in this group, this endeavor was enough to keep me occupied full time.
In no part of this job I had to apply or develop any innovative algorithm or find a solution to a problem that was worthy of a publication. It's a very technical job and now I am facing the problem of how to push out a thesis on this.
I had some discussions with my advisers over this, but between political problems (e.g lack of people working on this experiment) and personal problems (conflict of interest and some people just being difficult to deal with) I've not found a satisfying solution; the idea is that I should write a thesis on the scientific context of the experiment (of witch I have a very limited understanding. I know how the instrument works very well, but nothing about the science they want to do with it).

Is my situation in some way "normal" or is there good reason to be concerned?
While the suggestion of my advisers seem reasonable and well justified, I don't think it's normal or fair to spend a PhD doing grunt work and then ask me to "arrange" a thesis on a topic I don't really understand (or care about to be honest).

Is it convenient to quit from this program if I want a "career change"?
I am not acquiring any meaningful skills that I couldn't get anywhere else. I feel like I am wasting my time and don't really want to lose another year(s) in this situation.
I would like to quit and build a more interesting career in industry (let's say, robotics or other embedded stuff). But many people heavily discouraged me from this, saying that a PhD is relevant title even in the industry and quitting is going to look bad on my CV. At the same time, I think that to continue means losing more precious time, that I could use to gain new skills and experience, only to get a (potentially irrelevant) title.

Situations like yours happen, unfortunately. Development gets delayed, experiments get postponed and suddenly a supposedly nice scientific project becomes a thesis of half-baked tests and questionable results, which you can't be proud of. I'm very sorry it happened to you.
If you are sure you won't stay in academia, perhaps it's a good idea to start branching out now. In my home country it's possible to work and have a PhD position at the same time. Additionally, the experience is valued there more than a title. Based on that a possible course of action would be to start looking for a job and discuss with a prospective employer whether they are interested in you finishing the PhD programme. If so, you could perhaps arrange how much time you spend at work and at the institution so that you start to gain the experience and get the title, as well.


Style of inline citations (numeric) In the paper that I am writing using LaTeX, I have several sentences like:

However, in \cite{aa2014} only a small uncertainty has been introduced ...

Or,

According to \cite{ab2014}, ...

Because I am forced to using numerical references, the result is respectively:

  However, in⁴ only a small uncertainty has been introduced ...

  According to⁸, ...

I don't like this style of citations so I am looking for improvements. I have been able to rewrite some of the sentences so that I can put the citation at the end of the sentence, but this does not always seems to be a good idea. Are there better options?

I agree that sentences like

  According to⁸

are horrible to read, although I recall seeing them a couple of times. A possible solution is to add author names:

  According to Alice and Bob⁸

  However, in Alice et al.⁴ only a small uncertainty has been introduced ...


Mimic lecturing on blackboard, facing audience I teach mathematics at MSc and PhD levels. My preferred method of teaching is old-fashioned: talking and writing on the blackboard at the same time.

Why? Because it has many advantages:

Handwriting: imposes few restrictions on notation and illustration. (Complicated figures I could project from my laptop, but I have no need for this in my courses.)
Flexibility: whenever this is useful, it is easy to 'deviate from the script'.
Natural speed: it imposes a natural speed on the speaker. Preparing slides using LaTeX or PowerPoint and just clicking through them, I find myself proceeding way too fast.
Parallel displays: having several boards available for writing makes it easy to keep some text/examples on display on one board, while writing on another.
Dynamics: referring to information on the different boards allows me to move through the room, adding a more dynamic aspect to the lecture.
Ease: it is a low-tech way of achieving all these things simultaneously with easily available means.

The main disadvantage of this method is that I spend a significant amount of time of each lecture with my back to the audience.

Question: What would you recommend as a means of communication that combines the six features above (most importantly, the handwriting and parallel displays), but facing the audience?

Obviously, a low-budget solution would be appreciated, but my institute is usually pretty generous in investing in technology that improves teaching, so don't let that restrict you!

What I tried: Many things, including writing by hand on tablets (iPads, Digital Paper, reMarkable, etc.) and projecting this in the classroom. Perhaps I haven't found the optimal device for this yet, but it often comes out pixellated, delayed, and less readable than my usual handwriting on paper or the blackboard. Using a document camera to project my handwriting on paper works well, but can project only about half an A4 paper at a time to keep it readable for people in the back of the room and, like other approaches, has the disadvantage of not having parallel displays: it's hugely important to be able to keep definitions, examples, theorems from earlier on for easy reference.

Do not assume that facing the audience is actually better.  It depends on the type of content.  For example, if you are explaining a diagram (detailed hydraulic system for instance), you want the audience to concentrate on that, not the presenter.  The audience is still getting plenty of stimulation by having a live human voice along with visual content.  You actually don't want the presenter to distract the eyeballs from the intricate content.  (I see this wrong often with recorded talks where the video operator concentrates on the podium versus the charts, or shows both but with inadequate scale to see the slide charts.)  If you are doing math (as opposed to history or literature), the content is more intricate and you should have the audience concentrating on the formulas, not the speaker.
Take some occasional time to address the class when that is appropriate.  Examples are a "sea story" about test performance or industrial application of the math.  But these will be a minor amount of time within a math lecture.
I mean, if you really wanted to, you could write backwards in grease pencil on plexiglass like in an old Navy combat information center.  But really what is the point.  People concentrate on the status (content), not the writer anyways.  The one advantage is that you don't have a body blocking part of the board.  I believe there are now electronic versions that would flip this around for you (or you can use an OHP).  But still I think you lose a lot from having a lot less screen space than board space (especially with sliding boards).  So, the small advantage of facing is at the loss of huge amounts of content physical space.


Are there ethical guidelines prohibiting penalties against potential research subjects who have not yet provided consent? Are there any ethical guidelines that would prohibit the use of penalties against individuals who sign up for a research study but have not yet provided consent and are therefore not yet officially subjects?

Please provide references.

Background

In the psychology department, we have an online recruitment system, whereby every time a student signs up for a research study for extra (course) credit they occupy a 'seat' out of a limited number of seats. This limitation exists due to the fact that research credits are distributed fairly among researchers to ensure that everyone is able to recruit in proportion to their needs.

Online studies pose a particular challenge for the recruiter because the participant is afforded the opportunity to complete the study by the end of the semester and there is no guarantee that they will follow through. The problem is that many students do not have the courtesy to cancel before the deadline if they decide they no longer wish to participate, and in doing so they are preventing other students from participating. Not only is this behavior not fair to other students, but it also means a loss of potential subjects for the recruiter. Although this scenario applies to online studies, there are certainly other scenarios where careless behavior results in major inconveniences to the recruiter, for example people not showing up for appointments (i.e., in-person studies, experiments).

If those signed up for a study have not yet provided consent (i.e. are not yet officially subjects), what are they protected against? Specifically,

1) Is it admissible to issue penalties, such as, for instance, a loss of research credits?

2) Is it admissible to communicate a general warning to all individuals using the system that a failure to cancel their seat or to show up for appointments could involve unspecified penalties? (In this case, there would be no penalties but the warning would serve as a deterrent.)

From the US Code of Federal Regulations (45 CFR 46), in the section on seeking consent:

  An investigator shall seek such consent only under circumstances that provide the prospective subject or the representative sufficient opportunity to consider whether or not to participate and that minimize the possibility of coercion or undue influence.

Note the use of the phrase "prospective subject" - this clause refers to the investigator's conduct towards potential subjects who have not yet given consent. Presumably a penalty or threat of a penalty would constitute "coercion or undue influence."

Specifically regarding research participation for credit, the APA Code of Conduct Section 8.04 (a different section of which was mentioned by Stephan Kolassa in his answer) says

  (a) When psychologists conduct research with clients/patients, students or subordinates as participants, psychologists take steps to protect the prospective participants from adverse consequences of declining or withdrawing from participation.

  (b) When research participation is a course requirement or an opportunity for extra credit, the prospective participant is given the choice of equitable alternative activities.


Question asked in phd application form - How you intend to fund your studies I am a masters student in mathematics in an Asian country and I am applying for Phd position in Europe.
While looking at website of one university in UK I came across this question which need to be answered by phd candidate

An outline of How you intend to fund your studies

If university doesn't gives me funding then I am ready to do some part time jobs during weekends( eg  working in some restaurant or anything like that)
Also, my parents say that they could arrange for possibility of education loan and as my parents are government employee , there would not be much problem in that.

Considering that I am really enthusiastic to do research in the field I like, I have no problem in doing some jobs  during weekends or going for the option of loan if my parents agree.
But the problem is what exactly should I write as an answer to this question in the application form ? and what should I  not write.

For PhD studies in the UK, funding and admission to the program are usually separate steps. Funding opportunities will generally marked explicitly as such, and many of them are only available to UK/EU citizens resident in the country. If you are just applying for admission to a PhD program, there is an expectation that funding is taken care of separately.

The "ideal" answer for such the question regarding the funding source in a UK PhD application takes the form "I have been awarded the following competetive scholarship which will cover all my funding requirements". Other good typical cases are "My employer (company or government agency) really wants me to do a PhD and will foot the bill". These answers strengthen the application, because they show that someone else is sufficiently convinced of the whole PhD thingie to put a significant amount of money behind it.

"Neutral" answers are "I/my parents are rich and we can just afford this" or "I'm getting student loan from XY". Be prepared to provide evidence of claims like this! These answers mean that funding is taken care of, but don't add to the application beyond that.

"I'll get a part-time job" is NOT a good answer. University regulations typically restrict how much work PhD students are allowed to do, and with that number of hours it is probably not even feasible to cover cost of living, not to mention university fees. Anyone who needs a student visa to come to the UK is subject to even stricter regulation, which will actually be enforced. For the universities, the rationale is that PhD students who spend a lot of time working for a living, and a lot of energy worrying about how to make ends meet are far more likely to underperform or even fail than PhD students focused on research.


Should I explain about low undergraduate grades in my graduation application if I subsequently have had research and professional experience? I am currently applying for a Master Degree in Mathematical Physics. In my bachelor degree in Mathematics, my grades were low. Since then, I have worked with a professor on a research paper as a first author (for about one year now) and I have worked in a company in my field for two years now.
My question is: should I explain in my motivational letter why my grades are low during my bachelor degree? Is it considered an excuse if I do so? Or, should I focus on my research and professional experience without mentioning my grades?

My advice here is to use written application materials to focus on your success and your likelihood of future success, not your shortcomings in the past. If you are asked about grades at some point, then talk about it honestly, but don't "waste" valuable space dealing with things you have overcome.
There is normally at least an informal tendency by people evaluating candidates to weigh recent things more heavily than past things. This acknowledges that people can grow.
In particular, any SoP should be forward looking, not backward. At most, a single phrase in a cover letter about how you have overcome past shortcomings is enough. And try to assure that the letters you get from advisors also express a similar theme: This is a good candidate who has learned to excel.


Referee suggests to split the paper into two. How is it done? I recently submitted a paper to a journal. It came back with a "revise and resubmit" recommendation and two referee reports. Both of them were quite positive. One of them suggested that I remove from the paper a certain topic and publish it separately in order to give it more visibility. The other referee and the editor did not say anything about splitting.

The referee's suggestion seems reasonable, but I am not sure how it should be done technically:

Should I submit the two sub-papers into the "resubmit" form? (but what if the other referee does not agree to the split?)
Does the other paper have to go again through the entire review process, including finding new reviewers?
How much additional work does this split entail for the editorial board, the reviewer and the authors (in addition to the obvious work of writing a new paper)?

Should I submit the two sub-papers into the "resubmit" form? (but what if the other referee does not agree to the split?)

No

  Does the other paper have to go again through the entire review process, including finding new reviewers?

Yes

  How much additional work does this split entail for the editorial board, the reviewer and the authors (in addition to the obvious work of writing a new paper)?

As much as any two submitted papers.

Keep in mind: you don't have to follow a reviewers suggestions. Splitting a paper may sound reasonable, but writing the second paper can be a lot more work than you may think - you cannot just copy the first paper's introduction and add different results. Especially when the editor doesn't ask you to do so (or asks you to remove part of your results). Also, the "smaller half" resulting from such a split may not be enough to get published on its own.

The way to go would be to remove part of the results (those that would make up paper#2), as well as the other bits that are focussed on results#2 only (introduction, methods, discussion, references, ...). That revised/shortened paper would be what you submit as revision (paper#1). You can start writing paper#2 (make sure not to copy from paper#1) and submit as a new manuscript.

You could submit paper#2 to the same journal/editor, explain where it came from, and ask to send it to the same reviewers - but there is no guarantee (a) the editor will like what you did and think it's sufficient for a paper in the journal, (b) the editor will send it to the same reviewers, and (c) the reviewers will accept to review it.


Is there a standard of professionalism in academia requiring me to hide self-harm scars if I'm otherwise comfortable leaving them exposed? I'm a student intending to stay in academia, and I'm reaching the stage where I've begun to TA classes. If all goes well I'll be teaching courses for the rest of my career, so I want to make sure I'm doing it right.

I have a series of scars across my arm that anyone with experience or awareness of the issue will immediately realize were self-inflicted. I have not added to them in enough months that they are old and a little faded, but they are still very visible. Personally, I've grown comfortable with leaving them exposed – a stare from a stranger now and again won't hurt me.

But in a classroom environment I'm uncertain – is it possible that the emotional vulnerability implied by the scars would compromise my relationship with my students as a teacher, that they might lose respect or trust in my competence? Should I perhaps cover them because they may bother students who have been affected by the issue?

I understand that a great deal of this is based on the individual: whether they're comfortable, the way they wish to present themselves to their students, how private they wish to be, and so forth. Setting this aside, is there simply a standard of appropriateness with respect to how much I should implicitly reveal? Obviously it would not be appropriate to launch into a ramble of my mental health history while holding office hours, but would the existence of the long story implied by my scars be something I should take measures to keep from my students? And are there guidelines that would generally apply to people in similar situations (for example, if a recovering addict had obvious needle marks)?

I should add that I'm a Canadian studying in the United States and that I have seen one instance of a graduate student in the same situation as I am – she did not choose to cover her scars.

You should do what you are comfortable with. If you want to keep them hidden, that is fine. If you want to sometimes wear clothes that reveal them, go ahead, assuming the clothes are otherwise appropriate. Your colleagues will probably not care, and if they do, they need to - and will - get over it.

I would caution that letting students know your history could be problematic, in that it could increase the likelihood that they come to you about personal issues. No matter how supportive you are, no one wants more students dropping by to talk about personal problems.


What makes you keep on reading articles in your non-English native language, while the same information might be published in English? As a future French PhD student (in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning) that legally HAS TO write his thesis in French, I am a bit concerned about the fact that less people would be able to read it and it got me thinking: why do you keep reading articles in your native language, when some ideas you find might also be published in English?

To those who are not English native speakers, do you read articles in your native language?
If so, what is it that you find in these articles compared to English-written ones? Are you just looking for useful information for your own research or are you motivated by something else?
How would you cite these articles in your own English-written paper?

I understand that using one's own native language can be justified for some fields such as social sciences, but here I am asking about "exact" and computer sciences.

Your three-part question is quickly answered:

Yes I read articles in my native language
Almost never because very few exist except older ones (ca. 1960s and older) and possibly bachelor or masters theses.
I would definitely cite them if they contained anything useful

Your concern is valid, regardless of preferences, using a common language ensures better spreading of the science. This does not mean non-English science is in any way uninteresting but will obviosuly be harder to find and read. It will be up to scientists in that language to bring the research to general attention. A possibility with thesis work is always to publish it or parts of it in journals and then translated. In such cases nothing is lost (except time for the complete re-writing)

EDIT: This answer was written for the original question which subsequently has been changed, also in terms of focus.


Dissertation: How to properly reference earlier versions of working papers in the German academic system? I recently became the co-author of a working paper an older version of which is online (at which stage I was not a co-author yet).

We added and changed most of the content, however some applications remained virtually unchanged. How do I need to cite/reference the earlier version of this paper to avoid plagiarism concerns? We already added "An earlier version of this paper circulated as old paper name".

I do my PhD in Germany. How do I need to cite/reference the old working paper to avoid any plagiarism concerns?

Based on the comments:

The earlier version of the paper was not pubslished in a book/journal, but posted online on SSRN.
I am not worried about how journals perceive an evantual submission, but merely about the (german) academic regulation(s) regarding plagiarism.

What I typically did in such a case was either a footnote at the title in the gist of

  A previous version of this paper appeared at XYZ Conference in 1201.

or a mention in the introduction with the citation

  This paper is based on our previous work [ABCD+ '01].

Two side notes:

If this is a paper and you submit double-blindly, you'd need to revise the statements accordingly. You might even want to remove them for review and/or inform the editor.
The information on previous versions and an explanation "what's new" belongs into the cover letter of a journal submission.


Why are faculty positions in Management Information System (MIS) going down? A few years ago, for every fresh PhD graduate in Management Information System (MIS), there were three open faculty positions. Then the ratio of graduates to positions dwindled to 1:2, then to 1:1.5, later to 4:1. Finally, MIS departments all over started shutting down or being merged into Management, Operations or other departments and today hardly any schools offer a PhD in MIS.

It is possible that there are still many fields where for every PhD graduate there are two, three or more open faculty positions. Are there any areas with faculty shortages these days? Animal Sciences? Genetics? Psychology? Sociology? Wildlife Sciences? Mechanical Engineering? Computer Science? Statistics? Any field at all?

At least for central Europe, the number of faculty positions is definitely going down, but instead there is more money for project-based PhD positions. Unfortunetly these are usually just for three years, a timespan in which, at least in my field, most students are not able to finish. So PhD students employed in a project often become project hoppers or are unemployed towards the end of their PhD.

In general, this development from faculty positions to project-based positions is not all bad, since it requires the PIs and professors to constantly improve. The downside is the time lost for writing grant proposals and the uncertainty if a position will be funded or not.


Can I ask a DST INSPIRE faculty for a recommendation letter? I will be applying for PhD in USA this year, so I will be needing recommendation letters. Can I ask a DST INSPIRE faculty who used to work in same lab as me (apart from my principal investigator)? Will US universities consider this reference because I don't know if they are aware of what is a DST INSPIRE faculty. Will it pose a problem because DST INSPIRE faculty have a tenure of 5 years and I don't know if will they become permanent after that. Also, they are not given the designation of an "assistant professor" and are call "DST INSPIRE faculty" so I had this question?

DST INSPIRE faculty: It is a scheme by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to offer an opportunity to young talents in India through contractual and tenure track positions for 5 years in both basic and applied sciences area. And INSPIRE means Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research.

In general, any mentor with good scientific or academic qualifications can be a good recommender.  It's always better to have somebody who can speak strongly about you, even if they're in a "non-standard" academic position.

That said, it's important that your letter-writer make it clear who they are and why their opinion should be taken seriously, especially when writing to an international recipient who may not know their system.  That might include explaining what a "DST INSPIRE" faculty position is, or it might just mean pointing at the letter-writer's own CV of scientific accomplishments.


How to answer a professor when you ask for an opportunity to do your Ph.D. and the first contact is positive Well, I sent a message to a professor asking for an opportunity in its research group aiming to start my Ph.D. (in a major university, top 25 in the world).  I sent as attached files my résumé, my research papers as usual on this kind of messages (but I sent the mail with no hope to be answered). Nonetheless, in four hours (in a Saturday if this information helps to the analysis), I have received a response stimulating me to apply (and saying that they are always looking for good students to do research there) and copying this answer to de Ph.D. coordinator program. However, as I sent this message just to know about my chances (before, I have read his papers and résumé of course) I was planning to apply to the Ph.D. only at the end of 2018 (but that answer really surprised me). So the questions are:

1) Is that answer usual? I mean, answering me and "ccing" the Ph.D. coordinator is a good sign or not? Or is this a polite way to answer me? Usually, if your résumé is really good, the professors schedule a call by phone or skype (or is this not a standard?)

2) How to inform them that I would like to apply to de Ph.D. only at the end of next year (because I don't have all the documents and the deadline to apply is December 15th), without prejudice about our conversations?

3) What are the next steps? (any suggestion will be kindly appreciated). I confess I'm quite lost how to proceed.

You can tell them

I would like to apply to de Ph.D. only at the end of next year. I don't have all the documents and the deadline to apply is December 15th.
What are the next steps?

The way you said it in your question to us was adequately polite :)


Having Trouble Finding a Faculty Member for Math Undergraduate Research I am an undergraduate pursuing mathematics and computer science in the research university at U.S.  Inspired from the applications of algebra to math and statistics, I have been trying to find a suitable project in the mathematics with supervision from a faculty member, or a reading course in some topics of the pure mathematics.  I have been sending emails to professors at the math department for either a reading course or a project (regardless of the difficulty) I can pursue, but they are either not interested or ignoring my emails and corresponding followup reminders.  When I visited one of faculties during her office hour, she told me that she have been ignoring my emails since she is not interested in my proposal of research idea (I felt sad for a while as I hope she just informed me she is not available).

The general outline is that I approach professors doing research similar to my interest, and ask them if they have any available project.  If they do not have projects, then I ask them if they are interested in hearing about my own ideas.

I am started to feel anxious about it as I really like to work with professors in the mathematics (my interests are not really in the domain of CS, but more or less the pure mathematics and its applications in theories of CS); I am interested in their research, but they are not interested. I understand the busy schedules of professors, so I am curious if there us any way to approach them to acquire the opportunities of project or reading course. So far, none of the professors at the department is interested or available...

I'm going to suggest that you take a different approach, for now.

When you visit or email a researcher, start by reading some of his or her writing.  The start the conversation by speaking about the article you read.  Mention something you found interesting or well explained.  Ask a question about something you didn't understand.  If necessary ask for some recommended background papers.  Ask a question about future directions.  Then ask the researcher what s/he is working on currently.  Be a good listener.
Keep a notebook of project ideas.  Put your current project in this notebook.
Ask each professor you visit if s/he has any projects to offer for summer.  Listen carefully to the project description.


Can a professor accuse a student of cheating on an exam without witnessing it firsthand? Can a professor accuse someone of cheating after checking his or her test? How is that possible, if the professor has not caught the student cheating red-handed?

Generally speaking, the answer to your question is "Yes."

If there is a strong similarity in answers that is highly unlikely if the students worked independently, it can raise suspicions of cheating.

For example, in Reilly v. Daly,

  At the conclusion of the exam period, the professors held the exam papers of Reilly and the neighboring student in order to determine whether their answers matched. A comparison of the exams revealed that the first seven pages, which included twenty-seven multiple choice and matching questions, were identical.

  ...

  Taking the conservative approach of comparing only wrong answers on only the multiple choice questions, the professors were advised by a statistician that there was a one in 200,000 probability that such a match of wrong answers on the multiple choice questions would occur by chance.

  ...

  Reilly also presented her own statistical analysis of the exam and brought to the professors' attention the possibility of "lure" questions on the exam which would heighten the probability of the match occurring by chance. The professors thereafter obtained a new statistical analysis taking into account "lure" questions on the exam. This analysis demonstrated a one in 500 to one in 5000 probability of the match occurring by chance.

Whether this kind of evidence is enough to initiate disciplinary proceedings, and what the consequences could be, depends entirely on the detailed specifics of the scenario and the university policy.

For example, in Papelino v. Albany College of Pharmacy vs Union University, while similar statistical evidence raised suspicions, it was not considered sufficient to conclude that the students had cheated.


Etiquette: senior and junior professors co-advising I'd like to ask two professors who work at my university to be the co-advisors of my Masters thesis (mathematics).

They work in the same research group on (almost) the same topic (which is well-aligned to my interests), although they actually never published together, and get along well.

The first one (A) is an Emeritus professor who has been for over 40 years one of the world leaders in my research area and is still very active; the second one (B) is younger (mid-forties) tenured professor  but has already established a very good research reputation; also, he is A's former student.

In my opinion they complement each other very well and working with the two of them will be an extremely instructive experience.

  Who should I contact first to talk about my research proposal to avoid being disrespectful to either of them?

The emeritus professor might not be allowed to advise any students officially because of his retired or semi-retired status, so talk to the Prof B first and discuss with him that you'd like Prof A to be involved. You can work with him to figure out how to approach A and in what role he can "legally" act under your university's regulations.


Should I prepare new homework exercises each year, 20% of the final grade is homework? This year I prepare a new course (in programming, but it could be any other course). I spend a lot of effort in creating homework exercises. This is fun, but also very time-consuming.

I wonder if I can use the same exercises next year, when I teach this course again. The main problem is that, once the solutions are out, surely some students next year will be able to get them and copy them. It may be possible to use some automatic plagiarism detection tools, but it is quite difficult and not very reliable.

I believe the copiers will not gain much from copying, since the homework grade is only 20% of the final grade. On the contrary, they will lose since they will be less prepared for the exam, which is 80% of the final grade. My fear is that the temptation to copy will harm these students. So maybe I should create new exercises to avoid the temptation to copy.

On the other hand, the students are grown-ups, if they choose to copy, it is their problem and they should bear the consequences of not knowing the material well enough. Should I work so hard each year, only to protect the copiers from their own faults?

The main dilemma is that the homework is part of the grades, therefore you should prepare a new one each semester.

I solved this for my programming course in a radical way (after struggling with a similar issue for a few years): I made all homework optional, and only the exams count. I make it very clear that the students will fail if they don't do the exercises (and some prove me right each year which is motivating for the others). Students are getting feedback on their submissions and they can even submit revisions. I'm using the homework results (anonymously) for the course where I'm discussing common errors and best practices.

What I did instead is to build dependencies in our course management website (in our case Moodle based): The students only get access to the next chapters if they at least submit the mandatory (minimum) exercises. Yes, they can submit crap, but it's hard to evaluate each submission in very little time so I'm willing to accept this loophole, and at least up until now, students haven't used this option.

The second thing I do is have three live programming sessions where the students have to solve little tasks (in general quite simple exercises) without an internet connection. You have to pass all three of them. Since this happens during the semester, they recieve a feedback about their progress quite early. Each test can be repeated once during the semester.

The combination of thoses measures results in high participation rates and people have no more motivation to copy solutions since they don't have any benefit from it.


Topics for on-site interview lunch and dinner time I want to seek some ideas about what kind of topics I can talk about during the dinner or lunch time during my upcoming on-site faculty interview. I will have a dinner with the searching committee, department head, and other faculty members in the department. What typical topics I can pick up to avoid silencing the time.

Actually, this advice is quite different from that of Wetenschaap, though I don't disagree with that suggestion.

Instead of talking about yourself, spend the time asking about them. Ask about the students. How motivated are they? Ask whether there are unique aspects of the educational program. Ask about their future goals. Ask about trends, both positive and disturbing that they see on the horizon. Ask about collaboration. Ask about the research of others. Ask about what research seminars are available.

And these are things you want to know before accepting an offer.

Or ask about the local environment. Are there good places to, say, ride a bike or hike. If you have a partner, ask about opportunities for them locally.

Lots of things. But don't make it too focused on yourself or you might seem narcissistic.


My new supervisor wanted to collaborate with my ex-supervisor who bullied and destroyed me I was in a lab since two years ago for a PhD and I wasnot lucky since I had faced bullying and all the bad things you could imagine. I left one year and for the bad luck I thought that this would be end, however, I got hired for a new PhD and for irony that wanted to use a software where I had learned since I was there and my ex-supervisor is also well known in our field.

I had another PhD student who literally makes things out of the thin air, he make up things and since I know the topic very well, I know he is a sketchy understanding, but my new supervisor is not really expert in that point in particular. This student brought the idea of collaborating with the guy and tried to make contact with my ex-supervisor.

I felt I am destroyed.I told my new supervisor that the relationship of my ex-supervisor wasnot got to me, and he was quite okay with that, however, after two weeks this PhD student persist on including my ex-supervisor although I am aware of the topic,  this student ignore all what I said for suggestions and is so welcomed by my new supervisor which baffles me. Next week they will have a meeting and this so much pressure to me.

I dont know what to do again! I felt the most unluckiest person on this planet, moreover I am a girl from underrepresented community.

I think this the last shot, my academic aspiration is doomed, I am tired. I dont know what I can do again?

What will happen depends a lot (too much) on the good will of your new supervisor. But you have to avoid getting trapped again even if you aren't in a good will situation.

You will need to insist to your new supervisor that you cannot work with the old one based on past interactions that you found destructive. Also inform the supervisor that you find the actions and attitudes of the other student to be very unhelpful and that pressuring you isn't going to resolve anything.

Sadly, I can't predict that the outcome will be positive, since I don't know anyone involved here. But, you might also have to consider that you need to find a new situation altogether if the new supervisor turns out to be unsupportive.

But don't make a point of discussing your view of the competence of the other student. That is for others to judge and raising it won't help your case.

You need positive supervisor support and you need to not have to deal with social pressure. The pressure of research should be plenty.


When writing multiple papers from the same dataset, how do you handle the methods section? I am planning on publishing two distinct papers based on the same dataset – one is looking at policy implications and the other is a more traditional academic article. The methods sections for both papers are largely the same (minus the statistical analyses, which are different) but the survey design, implementation, etc. are, of course, the same.

Can I use the exact same language for the methods section in both papers or does that fall under self-plagiarism and/or copyright issues? It seems crazy to figure out a completely different way of wording something when obviously it’s the same study, but I’m not actually sure what to do.

There is a divide in how to approach this question based on the type of methods section, as there are two almost entirely distinct forms of methods sections in scientific publications.

"Prose" methods: This type of methods description is part of the main flow of text, and presents the methods in an explanatory fashion.  Such a methods description is expected to be either unique or else credited as being reproduced/adapted from another publication.  An example of such a paper (in particular Section VI A, B).
"Cookbook" methods: This type of methods section comes at the end of a paper, after its discussion and conclusions, and is effectively a compressed "appendix" with no narrative exposition, just an extremely terse summation of particulars.  Such a methods section is not generally subject to concerns regarding self-plagiarism (and arguable not even copyrightable!) because they are essentially just recipes: there are only so many ways to say "Cells were cultured in LB medium at 37C." An example paper with such a methods section.

For your particular case, then, if you expect both papers to be under review at the same time, then you should already be making sure that the reviewers know this is the case. The papers should likely be referencing one another as "under review", the cover letter should make the existence of the other paper clear, and you should likely submit it as review-only supplementary information.  If you are creating "cookbook" methods, that's enough to deal with self-plagiarism.  If you are creating "prose" methods, then you should explicitly note at the beginning of the section that it is shared between the two papers, thereby making an explicit declaration of shared/adapted text and defusing concerns of self-plagiarism.

Finally, if one paper ends up significantly preceding the other, such that they are not effectively co-published, then you can simply remove its references to the other publication and change the references in the second to refer to prior rather than simultaneous publication.


Homework is to be submitted according to a guideline that is nowhere to be found I am a new transfer student from a much, much smaller university to a semi-prestigious one. The first set of homework has been assigned (due in three weeks) and says it should be “submitted according to the TA’s guidelines”.

However, I do not see any guidelines on the university’s site, nor on the TA’s site. I also have not met the TA yet, and office hours have not been posted.

Whom and how should I ask for clarification?

Should I email the professor directly?
Should I email one of the three TAs (I don’t know which one will be marking)?
Something else?

If it is relevant, the subject is mathematics and homework is graded.

If you don't need to submit anything for 3 weeks and it's so early in the term that you don't even know who your TA is, I would wait until you do.  You can't be the only one who has no idea what your TA wants if you don't even know who it is.

There's a pretty good chance you'll get a short orientation in your section where the expectations will be explained and you can ask questions.


If and how long a thesis parked on a restricted server will be indexed by Google? My thesis has been archived on the repository of my university with restricted access three weeks ago. By "archived" I mean that it has been assigned an identifier online.

So far, however, I found that the item cannot be detected by Google Scholar. When I try to add it in my Google Scholar profile automatically my thesis cannot be found by Google, and when I add it manually in the profile there is no field for me to add the link of the identifier.

I understand that normally it will take from a few days to several weeks to find a new paper and include it in Google. My question is: in my case (thesis archived on the restricted server) if I could find it later until Google indexes my thesis? If yes, how long I should wait for? If not, how can I show an identifier for the thesis item in my Scholar profile?

Thank you very much!

There are several reasons for not showing up in your Scholar profile. Depending on the configuration of your university repository, maybe Google can not access and index the document, just as Ian pointed out. However, even if it is online and available for anyone to see, Google can be blocked (robots.txt) or still have not index those pages.

So, all you can do is wait for Google to index (without any defined time to do so), or add your thesis to other repository or even to a personal website (if your university allows you to do so).


Would it be ethical to hire a proofreader for theses and academic articles? Proofreading documents for orthography is a pain. I consider that I am decent at writing in my native language (on the grammar and orthography side), but proofreading for typos and whatnots is a time-consuming pain. I’d much prefer to have someone else do it for me, but it's a pain to bother other people with it. Also, when I read students’ work, in some cases it requires two iterations (because it's hard to focus on the science when the spelling is… suboptimal).

So, given that a professional proofreader would be much more efficient at this job than me, leaving me more time to review the scientific content or otherwise actually do research, the logical conclusion is that I should hire one. This would work either for my own writing or for

I know some people actually do that (and also buy more extensive services) for grant writing. However, I wonder: is it ethical to hire a proofreader for theses and academic articles?

Short answer

Yes, it is ethical

Long answer

The three options are:

Proof-reading it yourself
Asking a co-author (for academic article) or a 3rd person (for theses) to proof-read it
Pay for a commercial proofreading service.

As I see it:

Option (1) is inefficient. You've written the text, read it many times over, and your brain will simply fool you in not seeing the typo's.
Option (2) is done quite often in practice. In my opinion, it's most suitable for journal articles; some articles have quite a lot of co-authors, and one could give a section to each co-author and distribute the work. That's what I usually do (my thesis will be quite small, because it's just a summary for a sandwich thesis).
As for option (3), I don't see any ethical problems with paying for a proofreading service. I know a number of people (they are not native speakers) who do this systematically for theses and academic articles. They buy commercial services who check and correct the quality of their English writing. This improves the quality of the text and therefore reduces the chance to annoy the reviewers.


I find my masters topic extremely hard what should I do? I'm writing this because I'm in a real trouble and I need to hear from experienced people.

I'm new here so please excuse me if I get anything wrong.
I'm doing my masters in Deep Learning and I'm having toughest time ever.

I have a research paper very similar to what I wish to make, with the codes in Python which is working fine and is giving results. The problem is I can't understand that  code it's beyond my knowledge.

I read books looking at codes but couldn't achieve that level of being able to understand the code or the paper.

The paper is about Recurrent Nueral Networks and motion prediction.

Unfortunately I'm not good at Python or Deep Learning and feel like I'm really stuck.

My supervisor didn't know much about Deep Learning but he approved my proposal. Now I don't know what to do.
Should I stick to the topic and take courses in Deep Learning like the one in Coursera even if It means to take extensions beyond the deadline?

Or should I change the topic completely?

I asked my supervisor and he was against changing the topic he suggested to simplify the topic and choose something simpler than Deep Learning like interpolation. He said that submitting a proposal will take time and it's not guaranteed that your new topic will be easier than your current topic.

I tried to find some codes about interpolation motion data to begin with but can't find anything related to my topic.

I'm not lazy at all, I love researching and I have hundreds of codes in my machine but still can't understand the code I have about RNNs.

I contacted the authors of that paper but they weren't cooperative.

I feel like I ran out of energy and very confused.

If you were in the same situation what would you do?

It's a bit hard to bring this all together to give good advice but let me make a few suggestions.

With regard to the Python code you are looking at, it is possible that it is just terrible code that no one could understand easily. That may not be the case also, but it happens. On the other hand, if it is a sensible program, then it is probably based on some underlying model that doesn't itself depend on the code. If that is the case, you could find that model and understand it first, then attack the code. The paper you have found probably has some bibliographic references that may help you understand everything.

Furthermore, you could try to find someone locally who is a Python guru and have them look at the code and give you advice about it - perhaps with the model in hand.

But your advisor seems to be giving good advice. He or she is the one who will need to approve your result in the end, so it is good to take the advice offered. If doing a bit less is acceptable to them, then it is acceptable, and probably easier. Doing a simpler project should also give you more experience and better enable you to take on harder work later. As a Master's level student it may be a mistake to go beyond the understanding of your professor. Doctoral students normally need to do that, but they have a lot more experience by then.

Running out of energy (burn out) is a serious academic issue. One way to avoid it is to make a plan, in conjunction with your advisor, that you can execute properly. Once you have a plan it won't feel like you are just thrashing around, as long as you follow the plan.


Team work at Masters level Ok so first off a bit of background. I've been working professionally three years in a software engineer position after my BSc. in Mathematics and Physics. At some point I realized I missed doing true research so I enrolled in Masters in Financial Mathematics, which seemed to me the ideal trade off between maths, programming and well finance which is quite interesting.

So now, here I am, first year, with full time lectures. My first reaction was to be disappointed by the amount of team work, since in my BSc days all homeworks were individually graded. For some mathematics courses it's fine, since there's a single good answer. However, there are some instances where it's definitely more research-like, almost like a lab report actually.

What however is unnerving is that I'm stuck with teammates with whom I don't exactly share the same work ethic. For instance, I had to insist on writing formal proofs. Anyway, I just feel that if it wasn't for me we'd keep to the bare minimum. AFAIK this is quite different from the industry where, if a team screws up, then either someone is going to get fired or at least the team is going to be split by the management. Here, the prof just won't care and will assign a global grade and go on to the next team.

So I'm not sure what's the right path. On one side, I really want to make sure our team performs well, this is quite a big move I made here, but on the other side, I just don't want be bossy with them, yet here I am writing emails where I detail clearly what I'm awaiting from each of us. Also, well, I haven't talked openly with them about this issue, I'm not certain how I can bring it.

As scaaahu commented: This happens ALL the time in industry (one could say it is the rule, not the exception). We do not always get to pick our teams and it is common for high-performers to be stuck with those who do not really care about the quality of their work. Will someone get fired in industry? Maybe...maybe not (complex issue).

The thing you must understand is the difference between management, where someone has formal authority based on their position in the organization, and leadership, where someone's authority basically comes from the followers.

If your team is fill with under-performers you need to figure out if you can use some leadership skills to motivate them to do better. This is the same when studying and when working. If you cannot motivate them then you must decide if someone else can (perhaps you need to encourage someone else to act as the leader). If it seems the team simply cannot be motivated, then you should do your best to find another team.

A team can only be successful if the team feels like a team and that means, in part, that everyone believes in the same goal and are willing to sacrifice to achieve that goal.

The solution is to develop some leadership skills and have a direct talk with the team about what they hope to achieve.


Does timing of PhD application submission matter? Is there any benefit of applying in October as opposed to late December right up against the deadline? Do committees just meet after the deadline once all reviews are in? This is what I thought, but I have heard from a few professors that they sometimes look at applications as they roll in, and so it may be advantageous to apply early because they could remember yours.

Edit: One thing that I would have to weigh applying early against is the fact that I work at a research org, so waiting an extra 8 weeks or so could allow a new publication to come out and add that to my CV, or I could get on a new project in that period which would be relevant and look good to the programs I'm applying to.

I doubt that it matters in a formal sense at very many institutions unless the school used "rolling admissions". However, it is possible that if you apply early and there is some flaw or lack in your application that someone, even a clerk, will catch it and give you a chance to correct it.

Sometimes a department head will try to shepherd early applications since it is his/her responsibility to make sure that there are enough applications to build a new cohort. That is separate from formal acceptance, however.

It is also possible that an especially "juicy" application will be passed to a professor who might be looking for a certain kind of background. But again, that is separate from acceptance.

In rolling admissions, students are accepted or not as the applications come in. The deadline may mean only that the process stops at that date.


How to appropriately email a researcher to ask for details about their paper? Often when I am reading a newly published article, I will encounter some points that are difficult to understand. For example, some details of the methodology that I think the authors did not explain in enough detail.
I'm not sure how to write an appropriate email to ask for clarification, especially on how to phrase, so as to be polite. For example, should I write "Ask for details on methodology" or "Inquiry on details on methodology" or ...?

Showing interest is nice, accusing people is not. So, show interest, something like "I saw your article XXX in YYY and I am working on something similar. I was wondering how exactly you dealt with ZZZ."


How do you manage to study and have a balance in your life at the same time? Over the last couple of years, math and programming have become a big part of my life; I know I’ll pursue a career involving CS and math (most probably machine learning) and usually, my days revolve around these two. Now, I do not have a problem with doing either of those things; in fact, I love doing math and programming. I literally can’t tell you how much I enjoy opening my number theory book and tackle difficult problems for hours, or create a neural network that plays a video game. My main issue is the things I miss - since I go to school, I only have so much free time and most of that time is spent doing math or programming so I don’t get to do anything else. No more exercising, reading books, hanging out with friends, etc. On a normal day, I do around 4 hours of math and programming and the rest of it is taking a shower, eating, just basic things, with no time to do fun stuff. So every now and then, I try reducing that 4 hours but I feel like if I study for less than 4 hours a day at least, I won’t be able to be a top tier data scientist or mathematician.

My question is, how do you manage to study and have a balance in your life at the same time? Is that even possible or do you have to sacrifice one in order to achieve the other?

A couple of things to note:

If it matters, I’m in grade 9.
One of the reasons I feel like I have to study at least 4 hours a day is because there are so many things I’m currently studying - for olympiad: number theory, geometry, and algebra; grade 10 math; competitive programming; and machine learning. I don’t study all of these in one day - I usually only do 3 of these a day but even then, if I spend 80 minutes, that’ll take up 4 hours. So maybe stopping doing one of these things is a good option?

Yes, it matters that you are in grade 9. It is probably a good thing that you are able to do what you like to do (math and computing), but it seems too early to focus yourself quite so much on narrow interests. The problem that might arise is that you get burned out before you are 20 years old with no backup plan for your life and also poor health and no relationships with people. That would be sad.

It is good to work intensely at something, but not quite as good to do so to the exclusion of other things. There is a lot to learn, and you are recognizing that now, at least a bit. In fact, making time for those other things, such as exercise (aerobic especially) and relaxation (reading, talking, ...) can actually make the intense study that you do more effective. At least this is true for most people, though there are exception. But, for most, continuing to push hard against an intellectual problem, say in math, can just waste time and lead to a deeper block, than taking a break. It turns out that, again, for most people, the brain/mind will continue to work on putting connections together when you are engaged in other activities, even sleeping.

But, for someone as young as yourself, I'd suggest that you think about the following priorities. First, your health, both mental and physical. Next, your relationships, both family and friends. Next, getting a lot of experience of different kinds, studying lots of things with deep study of a few of them. You seem to have the deep study part mastered, but may be missing out on the wide experience that can make the deep study more meaningful and also give you options to change direction as you grow older.

It is good to have some direction in your life, but not, yet, a good idea to exclude all other potential paths that you might follow.

As for time management, you can do it formally, or informally. If you joint a sports team or other directed activity, then your schedule will be set for you. But you can also just decide that you will ride your bike for an hour every day - preferably with a few friends. Or you can just decide, even more informally, that when you get stuck on a math problem that you take a walk in the woods for half an hour, or read a chapter in a book. Something to provide a bit of variety.

At a later stage in your life you will be forced by circumstances to specialize in something. It is good if you put that off for a while so that you have the opportunity to make the decision about where to specialize with more background knowledge and experience than you now have.


Why are authors not made anonymous during the review process? During the review process of an article, the reviewers are (almost always) anonymous by default for obvious reasons.

Why are not authors also made anonymous?

It could help remove the weight that established authors carry in certain fields (which can tilt the scale in their favor), as well as the stigma associated to research coming from non-developed countries.

Are there any good reasons why this is not done? I can not think of any.

Sometimes they are. That's called double blind refereeing. It is becoming more common.

From https://www.maa.org/press/periodicals/guide-for-referees

  The Board of Governors of the Mathematical Association of America has
  mandated that our journals use a double‐blind review system.

This blog post and comments discuss the history, pros and cons of double blind refereeing in  parts of mathematics and computer science.


Handling editor sent me a review invitation From your experience, is it some kind of sign when handling editor of your manuscript (which is under review) sends you a review invitation for other manuscript?

Yes, it's a sign that they don't think you're a complete crank. That may not sound like progress, but it is a good thing nevertheless. It doesn't mean anything else about the handling of your own paper.

And remember, part of the art of getting published is keeping on the good side of editors.