Some economists seem to have a second PhD from a U.S. institution, conferred one year after their European PhD. How is this possible? Some Economics professors (e.g. here and here) obtained a PhD in Economics in Europe and then obtained a PhD in economics in the U.S. in just one year. I would like to do the same as I am finishing a PhD in Economics in Europe and I would like to get a PhD from the U.S. for obvious reasons (e.g., higher prestige, better job prospects).

How is it possible that they did the PhD in the U.S. in just one year? Is it possible that it was some kind of joint PhD? Or maybe they only did the preliminary examinations? I would appreciate any advice that would be useful regarding obtaining a second PhD (from the U.S.).

Note that both professors have their European degree from Bocconi. Double degrees appear to be a Bocconi (and some other universities') special. For the MSc level, it's explicitly mentioned on their web page as a highly selective option; see, e.g., here. But you also find an economics PhD program in which you spend a year abroad participating in a partner university's course work and studies, the AEEP. It is not explicitly mentioned that you'll get two PhDs - and you probably won't on a general basis -, but if you get close to a professor abroad during your year, and start your research with them, it doesn't seem a stretch to think you can negotiate two.

Note that one of the current partner institutions is Northwestern, as in one of the examples you linked, while the other (Berkeley) is not mentioned. This might be due to changes in times, or simply to the professors linked not having been part of this particular program. But as Bocconi is apparently very active in these international cooperations, it seems highly likely that both were part of one of them.

The bottom line is that, in my opinion, it will be very unlikely that you'll find a U.S. institution at which you can get a second PhD in only one year if you haven't been part of such a program, where the second degree is a natural and fairly minor extension of your work predominantly in Europe.


Is it acceptable to write a scientific paper on an algorithm if better algorithms already exist? Long story short, I designed a compression algorithm that performs well compared to some other compression algorithms.

I was wondering if it's acceptable to write a scientific paper on this algorithm even though there exist other algorithms which are faster and provide better compression ratios compared to mine.

Note: I've never written a scientific paper and am no longer in academia.

Yes. You can't tell before performing the research if the algorithm will be better than old ones. Now that you've done it and found the answer is "no", that's still a result. It won't be the most interesting of results so you won't be able to publish it in top journals, but it's still something.

As an example, see the iterated prisoner's dilemma. There's a simple, robust strategy discovered early on: tit-for-tat. However, people continued to study other strategies - a close parallel to your situation.


Can I Publish a Book Based on my Ph.D. Thesis and Other Practical Findings I Found After My Ph.D? I have a followup question after getting the answer on the following question: Who Owns the Publishing Rights of my Ph.D. Thesis?.

After my Ph.D. I did work both in industry and in academic, and I think I have a reference book in me based on the theory side of my Ph.D. thesis and the practical knowledge I gained developed those theories (using main stream programming languages in my case); and the teaching experience on that matter.

So, is it possible to write a reference book based on theory contributions of my Ph.D. and practical findings based on those theories?

There's several issues here.  One is the copyright of existing work, for instance your thesis, work you did for a company that now belongs to them, papers published in journals where you assigned the copyright.  That covers the specific words, figures, code and data you used in those places.  You may or may not have rights to those, depending on the terms of the agreements you made.

Another is confidentiality, for example obligations to your employer, trade secrets, upcoming patent applications, state secrets, etc.  You don't want to reveal things you aren't allowed to reveal, by either contractual obligations or law.
Law may also cover libel, hate-speech and other restrictions on freedom of speech.

Beside that, what's in your head belongs to you.  So if you sit down with an empty piece of paper and just write, all that belongs to you.  And if you want to publish that, nobody can stop you.


Is a tree/graph visualization of methods literature a useful addition to lit review? My PhD proposal includes a short lit review (3-4 pages).
Some of the finest Proposal lit review examples I have been given have made good use of tables and plots to summarize the development of methods in the area over time.
I can not produce a plot showing how various methods clearly improve on the last, as each new method in my subfield used as different evaluation method or is for a slightly different task (Though If I really wanted, most do evaluate old methods on their new task).
I already have a large table, describing the methods, which paper they are from and what their evaluation method was.
I was thinking I could construct a Tree for which methods spawned which other methods. Technically a graph, since some methods
Something along the lines of:

This could be enhanced with numbered references to the papers in my reference list wich define the models, and which line up with the table giving more detail. It could also perhaps have years added if I wanted to show how the field developed overtime. (and could be made more complete)
I'm not certain how useful showing this relationship between methods is though.
Just looking at that chart which I put together in 5 minutes to ask this question does fill me with some satisfaction. That chart (were it correct, and enhanced with paper links) basically shows the development of my field up to its roots.
Is something like this worth having in a lit review?
It would take <1/2 page.  and fixing it up in TIKZ would prob take a few hours.
My research is about proposing new methods,
thus when complete it would fit somewhere in the tree. (Near the bottom since it would be building on a lot of work).
So I think it would be valuable.
However I have never seen a chart like this anywhere before.

I'm a little bit cautious about diagrams like this. The reason is that often the relationship between different pieces of work is much more messy and partial than is readily captured by such a diagram, and systematizing onto a diagram can cause one to unintentionally leave out or "neaten up" some of the most interesting pieces of hybrid work.

That said, sometimes diagrams are appropriate---consider, for example, some of the wonderful diagrams for relationships between computational complexity classes.  In this case, a diagram is a wonderful aid to comprehension, and as such, if the work in your field really does organize so nicely, I think that using a diagram is a good use of space, particularly in a document like a thesis or thesis proposal where you are not facing tight space constraints.


How hard is it to get admitted to a PhD programm in UK/Ireland having specialist's degree from a mediocre Russian university? I am going to study "Bioengineering and bioinformatics" for the next 5 years and plan to pursue a scientific career afterwards. My family does not have much money to support me studying in cities like Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, so I chose a university with the best cost/prestige ratio(Mordovia State University). I am worried that the type of my diploma (specialist) and mediocrity of the university will decrease my chances of getting admitted so much that hard work won't be able to offset that (grades and research experience won't be an issue, I invest all my time in studying). I know that 5 years is a lot of time and I haven't even started to study, but I don't want to find out one day that my degree is useless and I won't be able to achieve my life goals.

So the main questions are:
How is the specialist's degree in such a field perceived in UK/Ireland?
How much will mediocrity of my university affect chances of getting admitted to a PhD program in a more or less good university?
What is more important in the admission process anyway, prestige of a university or hard work and passion that a candidate has?

tl;dr: Don't do this.

Long version: Studying in a second-class university for a 5-year long program will significantly reduce your chances to get admitted to a MSc/PhD program in UK, Europe and US. In particular:

The "specialist" programs are not known in western world. While a specialist diploma from MSU could be recognised by some Universities as a MSc degree and allow admittance to a PhD program, a similar diploma from unknown universities will be only recognised as an evidence of BSc-level education or not recognised at all.
The educational program in Mordova University is likely to be outdated and the assessment standards are likely to be low. It will be very difficult for you to keep yourself motivated through all 5 years. Inevitably, people get sidetracked from such programs into self-education and tend to become IT specialists or self-learnt coders rather than scientists.
Your current level of English is decent; it is likely that a second-class University program will not help you to improve you language skills above your current level.
It is very likely that lecturers in Mordova University are not really involved  in international research. You will not obtain essential understanding of how the research is done in the western world, and this could significantly limit the scope and success of your applications.

Suggestion: Try to get yourself a stipend/scholarship/loan and get yourself to a decent program in Moscow / St. Petesburgh. Alternatively, search for any BSc program which admits you in any EU country.

Remember, 5 years of your life is a huge commodity. If you are going to spend them on education, make sure this time is not wasted. Good luck.


After PhD - Need advice I completed my PhD about 2 years ago. During the PhD period I left lots of bad things that affected my life. I divorced, moved to another city, lost motivation because of some big political situations which were directly related with us in my country etc. After all those bad things I finished my dissertation and graduated. Now I'm working as an assistant professor in a university. Everything looks better than before, absolutely. But I want to move to another country. Some problems are still going on and this seems to be the only way to get rid of them.

I don't have too many publications. In fact, I have just my thesis and a paper which I wrote from my thesis to show my expertise. The other ones are generally related with different subjects, stemmed from the many courses I took during the PhD period.

I'm trying to find the best way for me to go abroad. I have 2 options. First one is postdoc. I'll find a project or fund and try to find a permanent job. The other one is long period graduate certificate programmes. I will take a year-long advanced certificate about my area, and after completing the university based course, I'll apply for academic or non-academic jobs. However, I'm unsure if taking an advanced certificate course as a PhD person is possible in the US, Canada, and Australia?

I'm not sure which one is the best option for me. I hope I can consult someone who has similar experience, as I really need to find the best option for me.

Thank you in advance.

With best.

There is another option for you, of course, which is a regular position in a non-research oriented institution. In the US, most undergraduate colleges require some research but with lower intensity than at research institutions. Teaching is highly valued and helping undergraduates get started in research, even if not  publishable is also important.

There are, in fact, many fine such colleges and they do send students to graduate school as well as into industry. You might spend some of your effort in exploring such opportunities.

But, in general, institutions don't depend on narrow criteria in hiring. There are a lot of things that can influence a decision. Your current experience as an assistant professor can be a help if it is successful. Depending on your field and the level at which you enter employment, your past publication record may have more or less impact.


Which recommender should I go for getting a LOR for graduate school admission? Before I state my query, you should know two things about me:

I'm an EE graduate
I'm working in field of VLSI for past one year.

I'm applying for Masters in VLSI for fall-2014 and I'm in a dilemma here.

I've approached my head of department and a lecturer from my department for getting  letter of recommendation. I only need one though. These are the reasons as to why I'm conflicted in deciding between the two.

My head of department has a PhD in VLSI while my lecturer is just a postgraduate.
My lecturer has guided me for my thesis project in my final year of my undergraduate course. My final year thesis project is NOT on VLSI.It is on power systems.
My lecturer has taken classes for me while my Head of department has not taken any class for me . So she doesn't have any benchmark to judge my academic capability. She knows me as a student body member who has organised technical events though.(Which is why she agreed to give me recommendation, that and the fact that I had a discussion with her on my current job responsibilities)

My other two recommenders are my technical manager from my workplace and a teacher who took Integrated circuits during undergrad level- (again not a PhD)

Whom should I choose? I am confused because My head of department has that PhD tag( none of my other recommenders are PhDs) . So I'm in doubt as to whether I should go for her credentials or take one from my senior lecturer( in which case none of my recommenders will have that PhD tag)

In general, if you are applying for a research degree, then you are better off getting letters of recommendation from people who can comment on your ability as a researcher. Even if the person is a well-known expert in the field, that won't do them a whole lot of good if they can't comment on your abilities in the field.

Your department head has neither observed your work in classes nor supervised research for you. How much detail she can provide on your capabilities is therefore greatly in doubt. You have taken classes and performed research with the lecturer. Therefore, your lecturer can evaluate you more thoroughly and provide evidence supporting those claims.

So, unless you have some additional absolutely compelling reason to obtain the letter from the department head, I would go with the instructor who actually knows your work.


How do I cite — in APA style — a Creative Commons licensed image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons? Suppose I wish to use this image in my paper: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_white_tiger.jpg
+--------------+
|              |
|  IMAGE HERE  |
|              |
+--------------+

Figure 1: A white tiger in captivity (Morin, 2018).

How do I properly cite the image in the references section?
My attempt:
Format:John, D. (Year). Official description. Publisher. Retrieved on Month Date, Year. https://www.example.com/image-source.jpg. License.

Morin, B. (2018). Standing white tiger (Bengal tiger species ) with open mouth, at Singapore Zoo. Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved October 8, 2020. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_white_tiger.jpg. CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Suppose the English description does not exist; only the French description exists. How should the citation look like when there is only an official description in French? My attempt:

Morin, B. (2018). Tigre blanc (espèce Tigre du Bengale ), la gueule ouverte, au zoo de Singapour [Standing white tiger (Bengal tiger species ) with open mouth, at Singapore Zoo]. Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved October 8, 2020. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_white_tiger.jpg. CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Are my citations of Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons licensed images correct in APA style?

Section 12.18 of APA 7 states:

To write a copyright attribution,

state whether the material was reprinted or adapted (use "From" for reprintings and "Adapted from" for adaptations);
provide the title, author, year of publication, and source of the material;
indicate the material's copyright status...; and
provide the permission statement as requested by the copyright holder if permission was sought and obtained.

Place the copyright attribution as follows:

For a reprinted or adapted ... image ..., place the copyright attribution at the end of the general note for the table or figure ...

(American Psychological Association, 2020, p. 389)

In other words, the copyright attribution goes into the general note for the figure, not in the references section.
As an aside, APA 7 has some differences from APA 6, one of which is that you no longer use "Retrieved from" unless the source is likely to change often (as in a Wiki page).
For the references section, visual works are covered in section 10.14. I would do something like this (with hanging indent):
Morin, B. (2018). Standing white tiger [Photograph]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standing_white_tiger.jpg


What is the optimal way for poster presentation in conference? I am presenting (PPT) my regular research paper in a computer science conference. Additionally, the conference has a poster session of 2 hr. What I find difficult in poster session is that the process of redundantly speaking the same things again and again.

E.g. If 1 person comes, I need to start. He may leave in half way. Then, next 2-3 person come, I have to restart.

What is the best way to deal with this problem?

One solution I think is: Wait for few minutes, let a bunch of people present and then start presentation.

I strongly suggest that you don't treat it as a sequence of presentations, but more as an opportunity to meet people, exchange business cards, listen to their questions and comments and just interact with them in a normal way.

Usually the venue is a bit chaotic so you aren't likely to be very successful with a presentation. Have several copies of your paper, or at least an abstract. Make sure you include contact information. Have an actual poster that gives a bit of an outline of what you do, but not too dense.

Some of the people wandering by will be truly interested, others not as much. Some will be students looking for ideas and some will be professors looking for future employees if you are a student yourself.

Keep it informal. Make a good personal impression. Let the formal presentation and the paper stand on its own. You don't really need to sell it. Of course, a few questions might be detailed and you can deal with that.

I've been to a lot of these, both as a "presenter" and a viewer. What I want as a visitor is a quick overview from the poster and the opportunity to ask a question.


Two researchers want to work on the same extension to my paper. Who to help? I recently presented a paper in a top-tier conference in a computer engineering field. I did that work as a research assistant under a Professor but now I am working in the industry. Two different researchers, let's call them John and Sam, wish to work on an extension to this work. But both need help from me since they feel I will be able to solve their problem quickly based on my experience. John is a PhD student with whom I had worked with and was the second author of the paper. Sam is a PhD student, in another university, who I met at the conference. Since both have a request for help and both are working on the identical extension of the work, who should I help out?

Background:
I originally planned to work on my paper alone along with my advisor. After I was done with about 80% of the work, I met John (who is a Phd student under my advisor) and decided to collaborate with him because he too was working on a similar problem (he at that time was working on the extension itself). John didn't contribute directly with the work (I was sole author of all code and did all analysis with help my the advisor) but he helped me with conference selection and writing of the paper. As John was sponsored by a company, having his name as an author meant that now all the ownership of the work laid with the company, at least that was what I was told by John and the advisor. This meant they had all the rights to the code (though I never signed away my rights explicitly). My advisor is particular about legal issues and hence don't want me to make the code open-source. But since the company was not interested in using the code and I didn't want my work to go to waste, I have made the code open-source, unknown to my advisor or John.

Question: I wish to maximize the use of my work (since it is my first research work). So should I continue to help both John and Sam who are both working on the same topic? My concern is that one of them will have wasted their time if the other is successful in publishing a paper first.

I am more confident about Sam's skills (based on his past papers and John doesn't have much experience in this field) but John has indicated to me from the start that he was more interested in the extension than the work that I did in the paper.

My other option is to reveal to both of them about each other so that they can possibly collaborate. But since I have told Sam that my code is open source, Sam can possibly tell John this information which might irritate my former advisor. I would like to avoid this because I might require future favors such as a letter of recommendation should I choose to pursue PhD.

Edit: I have open-sourced the code via GitHub (changed the repository from private to public). I still haven't added any license (so legally by default it is not open-source as in free to use but anyone can browse through it) so I still retain all rights. Basically, I used the wrong terminology, the code is public (instead of open-source).
I haven't talked with any representative from the company, only my advisor and John have been in contact with them. From what John tells me, the company is no longer interested in the project and I think John's funding is also stopping because of this.

Based on the answers, I am going to ask Sam and John to work together (at least tell both of them about each other) and ask Sam not to reveal about the public code. I am still not convinced about making the code private again because this being a computer engineering field (applied field), just based on paper, it will be hard for anyone to replicate the work (the evidence is that both John and Sam need my help).

Work with both John and Sam on the same paper. You all have something to offer, so pool your efforts and work together.


A question about authors listed as having "contributed equally" There are few collaborating authors on the following list:

Tom Cruise*, Will Smith*, Jackie Chan, Robert John Downey Jr., etc.

*: These authors contributed equally.

Tom Cruise is corresponding author

Will Smith worked for Tom Cruise.

The paper was written by Will Smith and so was data analysis; however, all study design and original data was received from Tom Cruise.

How can Will Smith proclaim this research contribution officially?

And... will the paper be helpful for Will Smith in applying to graduate school in the future?

This is going to very a lot from field to field. Some fields try to have extremely sophisticated order of authorship rules while others do not. For example, in pure math there's pretty much no emphasis on author contribution order. In contrast, astronomy and biology often have first, second and third author at least, and sometimes later authors listed alphabetically (until one gets to the very last author who may be someone who runs the lab but didn't do much directly).

In your hypothetical, all of them will list it on their CVs. They can signal to people that they did more in part by giving talks about the research or mentioning explicitly what they did in research statements or the like. But that will often be a more natural thing to talk about in interview contexts.

And regardless of field, regardless of how much Smith contributed, it will definitely help Smith in terms of graduate school. How much so will depend on the field. For example, I have a friend who is in astronomy. As an undergrad he was on a paper with about 40 authors. They listed five people in order and then listed the remaining alphabetically. My friend was listed third. I strongly suspect that when he applied to graduate school, they noticed exactly where he was on that list. But even if he had been listed in the long alphabetical section, it would still have helped.


What does a research proposal for PhD applications consist of? Am presently trying to get PhD admission in somewhat reputed universities in India. However most of their application ask for a research proposal about which I have no idea. What does that mean and how should I write one in about 500 words?

Any guidance will be very helpful! Thanks in advance!

Propose a research topic, maybe using a hypothesis (it depends on you subject area): clearly identify what you want to find out.
Show why this a relevant piece of research for the rest of us.
Explain how you would attack the topic, what is your intended approach.
Show related research where others, if possible well known researchers, have done their research.

During your research, all these elements could change, however, if you lack of an idea before, it will be hard.


What is the point of a non-confidential reference letter? In this question, it seems that most people think it is acceptable for candidates to see their references. I find this very strange, as in the vast majority of case I have come across it is expected or required that all references are confidential.

What is the point of having a reference that the candidate is able to see?

The person reading such a reference has no way of telling whether any praise is genuine or simply included to please the candidate. Likewise, the chances of negative points being included are minimal, even if they are very important. Thus the reference becomes little more than a vague sign of support. I understand that in business that is generally sufficient, but in my experience academic references are relied on much more heavily to discriminate between candidates.

From the perspective of UK higher education, the 'point' of a non-confidential reference letter is that there is no such thing as a confidential one; any data held on that student (such as references) can be disclosed by the institution holding it.

How does the old saying go? Dance like no-one's watching, writing an email like it's being read aloud in a deposition.

References are a tricky grey area, and I do preach caution in case a student ends up seeing what you have written - which can be embarrassing, or even libelous if you can't prove statements that purport to be truth.

I do not think that this undermines the referencing process, however; if you can make true statements about a candidate, including your opinions about them, then, in my opinion, you are within your right to do so.  After all, your student has asked you to do this.


Turning a conference proceedings into a book chapter. Is it self plagiarism? I've recently sent some of my research to a local conference entitled "XIX Simpósio Brasileiro de Sensoriamento Remoto". After the conference, I started getting contacted by some publishers asking me to publish the work I sent to the conference in the form of a book chapters and another one even invited me to publish as a paper itself in a journal. None of them required me to edit the work in any way.

I'm aware that academics get scammed this way (I managed to identify some myself), but this particular invitation seemed okay. The editor was very honest about the publisher status ("We're not big", "We aim to achieve this and that in X months", etc...) and I have colleagues that have published with them and nothing went wrong (meaning publication really happened, the e-book is available for download and all).

Then, I received an e-mail by the conference staff alerting all participants to the risks of plagiarism if one is to accept these publishers' offers. They argumented that the conference proceedings are open access, they have a ISBN and used this as to validate their statements. Additionally, they said they would be taking legal measures. Honestly it seemed more like a power play than anything.

Normally, I would agree with the e-mail, face this as self plagiarism and don't even consider this as an option, but a fellow colleague pointed out that conference proceedings doesn't count as a publication because it has no DOI nor ISSN (both entries are used on my country to score for PhDs and funding, but not ISBN). In his mind, as far as academy goes, my work is still "new" and there would be nothing wrong in publishing it, especially considering nobody cites conference proceedings.

I understand that it is normal to use the conference proceedings as a type of feedback while you're developing your research, but I published a substancial amount of my results on this paper and I don't really know if I could only cite it on this book chapter invitation I received, otherwise it would be nothing left to talk about.

So, what I want to understand is: what are the rules to consider something properly published, and therefore, accountable for self plagiarism? Is there a way to publish this book chapter in a unethical way? For example, including that this chapter is a reissue of conference yadda yadda would do?

You have a few misconceptions. Having an ISBN is no guarantee of legitimacy, honesty, or quality as anyone can purchase such. In bulk they are very cheap. I currently have several unassigned ISBNs myself, intended for future work.

Second, if your paper has been submitted to a conference and appears in the proceedings then it is "published" and so subsequent uses are not original.

However, self plagiarism only occurs if you reuse some work without citing it. If you still hold copyright, as is likely, you can reuse the thoughts and many of the actual words as long as you are careful. Cite the original conference work as appropriate and formally quote from it as necessary. Perhaps you gave up copyright already, but I think that is unlikely in this case and you would know anyway if you had signed a transfer. And it isn't the ISBN on the original that makes it self plagiarism. It is copying without citing.

Cite your own work the way you would that of another author.

The main purpose of avoiding self plagiarism is to permit a future reader to trace the full context of the ideas in the new work by examining the old with its full context, including all references you cited there. Future researchers want a full record. Ordinary plagiarism includes this as well as other concerns, of course.

But some of what the publishers seem to be saying seems a bit of a scam. I can't say without more information, but it has that feel. Legitimate publishers also have "page charges". Try to assess the legitimacy of the publisher using other information before you agree.


Can you use brand names in a research survey I a currently designing a research survey and would like to use company brand names such as 'Apple' for participants to rate their preferred organisational attributes against. Is this ethical?

Yes, you can use brand names and trademarks as long as you mark them as such.

You should also, probably include a disclaimer that you have no ties to any of the companies you are researching.

But be aware that some companies are paranoid about their public image, so make sure that anything you say is supported by facts, not your opinions.

The brand names are public, by intention. You can use them. Notice that the popular press mentions brand names and trademarks constantly.


How should a graduate student email a professor from another country in order to get feedback on their work? I'm trying to contact with a professor from another country to ask him to see my work and send me a feedback. But I don't know what is better to say that, someone told me that I must "sell myself" and tell that Prof. how   awesome I'm and someone told me that just be abbreviated and be direct to the subject. I don't know which one of them is correct, I think about that and  I'm getting confused; for the first opinion, I think that professor meets many people who are more awesome than me, and he is done of looking for awesome people, instead he is looking on awesome work. And for the second opinion, I think I will make that professor feels in a negative way.

As  academics what do you think is the best way for a fresh graduate(Bachelor holder) to contact with a professor who I don't know personally?

Most professors, particularly well-known ones, get tons of such requests. And silently drop them into their recycle bin. They are busy people, with too much on their plates already, to go reviewing stuff that doesn't do them any good (reviewing a paper for a conference/journal, or a thesis, is part of their work, and not to be avoided; this is just work for nothing).

Get somebody in your environment to check over your work, they will tell you if it is any good, help you polish it and present it to where it will be looked at.


Which access-date should be used for cited websites As the title says I am wondering which access date I should use for citing a website.

Let's say the assignment is due in one week and I have cited and accessed the website one month ago. Now I am revisiting the website to look for changes/new information only to find that nothing changed since my last visit. Which date should I choose as access date?

I think it would be nice to use the most recent date to show that the information is recent/still valid, however I think more recent dates could be frowned upon as it looks like I just recently started working on the assignment altogether.

If it matters: The field is Computer Science

There is very little that could have changed between your first access and your most recent one. Access dates are used for material that is likely to have changed rapidly. In this case I would use your first access date, i.e. the oldest one, unless you are using material that you know wasn't there on the older date. If you do that, use the date you found that material.


PhD programme without teaching I know other PhD students (at a different university) who have minimal duties like preparing exercise sheets.

I am going to enter a PhD programme which does not involve any teaching components,
but throughout the years before, I have frequently worked as a tutor, leading exercise classes.

I wonder whether the lack of teaching in my PhD will negatively affect my future employment chances in academia (or whether my teaching experience until now will positively affect my chances). What do you know?

Definitely yes: if in the future you're looking for a teaching (or part-time teaching) position, having less experience than other candidates will be a really bad experience.

Yes to some extent: even for non-teaching research-only positions, teaching experience can be seen as a positive for the applicant. Some of the qualities required for teaching are necessary for other aspects of the job (handling a team, tutoring interns or PhD students, communication with non-scientists, etc.).

So, I would advise you to continue having some teaching duties during your PhD, even if you have to take those outside of your own institution or do some of it pro bono (or for not-so-great pay).


In APA style, what is the appropriate way to differentiate between two organization divisions that both have the word "and" in their names? I am writing a paper in APA style.  I am attempting to list two organization divisions of a library:

Information Technology and Technical Services
Academic Outreach and Services

How do I write and/or style these in a sentence to clearly define the separation of terms without looking like a poorly written sentence?  I'm not entirely convinced using quotes or italics is correct, but I'm leaning towards italics vs. anything else.

  The two major divisions, “Information Technology and Technical Services” and “Academic Outreach and Services,” ...

vs

  The two major divisions, Information Technology and Technical Services and Academic Outreach and Services, ...

Normally I wouldn't quote the two, but I'm not sure how else to write it.  Italics would work as well, but I don't know if that's appropriate or not, as the APA style guide doesn't appear to have suggestions for anything corporate/organization-related (4.08, 4.21).  4.21 suggests using italics for clarifying words, so that seems somewhat more appropriate than quotes, but the given example doesn't give me much confidence (the example given is "the small group [meaning a designation, not group size]").

If following APA style you should not use quotation marks or italics for names of organisations.

You could use an in-line list to make it clear.

To apply this to your example:

  There are two major divisions: (a)  Information Technology and Technical Services and (b) Academic Outreach and Services.


How to write a list of citations I am applying for a job and I have to submit (among other) the list of all my citations (excluding autocitations of course). I wonder how the list should look like. Should it look like references at the end of any scientific paper? I guess not since then you could not tell which papers of yours were cited?! Is there any standard way how to do this?

The aim of the document is to have a verifiable version of your citation count, which is commonly used for filtering out some applicants in an application process. It should provide a list of your papers together with their citation counts, and it needs to back this up by data (such that it is verifiable). This means listing for each of your papers which other paper cites it.

There seems to be only one reasonable way to structure such a document, to  first list all of your papers with the citation counts, and to then use seperate sections for each of your papers with the biliography entries for the papers citing your paper. In this way, you give the information that is mainly useful for verifying your citation count later in the document, while giving the important information first.

I doubt that there is any "official" information on how to format such a document. After all, scientists know that citation counts are a bad way to evaluate a researcher's output. So there is no urge to stress the importance of these documents by providing additional formatting requirements.


Is it possible to pass a PHD without full understanding of ones own thesis? This is likely to be a rather strange question.

I have been working in physics in an attempt to obtain a PHD.
My initial plan was entirely experimental, however I have not obtained enough data by itself.
This is due to a combination of difficult experiments, and temperamental equipment and its repeated failures; I was and am simply not capable of repairing the systems without any replacement components by myself.

This is ok I had thought, I can attempt to slightly extend a pre-existing theoretical framework to explain the few results that I do have.
However this is not my supervisor, or even departments expertise, so I have for the last year and half attempted this myself.
After much effort I have been able to replicate the prior theoretical calculations of the model.

However despite having the best grasp of the model out of anyone I have spoken to in my department, there are significant parts where I just do not have a clue.

I have reached a point where I have 2 months left to submit, and I do not yet have a sufficient understanding of the theory to be able to tell if it is actually valid for what I am trying to use it for.

Is it acceptable to just shut up and apply it anyway, and be deliberately vague and sparse in describing it and the necessary mathematics so that I do not include things I do not understand?

Or do I just throw in the towel and save myself another 2 months of absolute torment?

Many thanks.

Edit in response to comments:
it's rather that I do not understand some of the mathematics necessary.

There is a set of 6 eigenfunction equations, where they all have the same eigenvalues.
All the authors in the literature only care about the eigenvalues, where I need the eigenfunctions.
I had assumed that they were all the same, like the eigenvalues, but upon attempting to write a thesis chapter on them I now realise that they are not.
This is a problem as my calculations are based upon the eigenfunctions.

There is only one of the eigenfunction equations in the literature.
I am able to, with initial difficulty, solve it and obtain the same eigenvalues as the literature.
I then do some stuff with the eigenfunction that was not done, and obtain another different eigenvalue equation based upon an operator corresponding to the measuremrnt data I do have.
But I cannot derive the original equation in the literature, and I cannot derive the other, not stated in the literature, 5 equations.

Noone has worked on it for decades, and the original authors, and those who initially extended their work, are all dead.

Hence why I state that I do not understand it.
I can state what I have done, that I cannot derive the equations, and that I know it is wrong without the other 5 solutions.
I am 90% certain I can solve the other 5 equations if only I could understand how they are obtained.

Unfortunately I just get bogged down in attempting to follow the derivation, 1.5 years of attempting to follow it and I still just do not follow it.

Of course, it would be good if someone around you can help you see what needs to be done to legitimize your use of "the other 5 equations". If you post to MathStackExchange, someone might be able to help, for example, if no one physically nearby can.

In any case, honesty and at least a nominal "dispassion" about things is the best approach, I think. Say what you assume, say what you can verify, say what previous sources say, etc. It's ok, I think, if your results are "relative" (=relative to assuming that certain sources are ok, plus assuming that certain extensions, which you've tried but failed (so far) to validate yourself first-hand, are ok...), as long as you are very clear on what your results are relative to.

Don't bluff... :)


Is it possible to get research experience between undergrad and grad school? I will be graduating from my undergraduate with a B.S. in Computer Science & Applied Mathematics with a ~3.25-3.30 in less than 2 weeks from now.  I'm taking at least gap year and a half after I graduate and am planning on applying to PhD programs in CS in the near future.  I have a semesters worth at my institution as well as an REU from this past summer, though I wouldn't say they are terribly related to what I may want to study towards grad school.  Aside this, though, I've looked at a couple other professors more towards my area of interest that I was considering trying to do research with (NLP/ML/Performance Analysis), but didn't, partly due to me taking three graduate-level courses this semester while finishing up my studies.

I have debated working in industry vs. trying to bolster my application profile for when I apply, and want to be able to do research in the time between undergrad and graduate school.  I've seen this is common in fields like Bio/Neuro, but haven't seen too much for CS aside from a couple of positions in national laboratories, has anyone gone through getting post-bacc research in CS?

I spent a year as as a "research student" in Japan doing just that; for me it was between my Master's and Ph.D, but you can also do it after your undergrad.

Basically you need to find a school that offers such positions (here is where I did it), find a faculty member in that school whom you'd be willing to work under, and send them a friendly e-mail to ask whether they can host you.


Getting into grad school for one field by doing research in another? I want to go to grad school for computer engineering. I am in a non-STEM major. My GPA could be better. However, a lot of my prior undergrad research has been in interdisciplinary work ( mixing Computer Science with ethnography or sociology ). All together, I have about 4 research experiences in my undergrad career in either pure Computer Science or Computer Science mixed with ethno/soc.  How will this affect my chances of being admitted into grad school for directly into a PhD?
Also if I just decide to do a Masters, how much does prior undergrad research correlate to funding for a Master's?

Your research in computer science is "somewhat close" to computer engineering. Plus the fact that you've demonstrated your "research" capabilities. That should help your grad school application.

The big question mark would be your abilities in engineering. The way to remove these doubts is to take, and do well in engineering courses.

Getting into a PhD program, while doable, might be a bit of a stretch. It's possible to make a "lateral" transfer into a Master's program, however. That's where you should take engineering courses to prove your abilities in this area.


Wondering Wether to tell the Truth to another PhD program that I have resigned from the first one As you may know, I have resigned from a PhD program after spending year although working hard and I have discussed that before here in the platform. Now, all the positions I had applied for was rejected once they know I Have resigned from another group which is fairly known in our field. Now, I am now in short contract in isolated country in Europe and having contract month by month and today I get a very low salary, they take exploited my situation I had which they already know, and they try to make benefit of me to do all the work they want.

Now, I have another opportunity and I am afraid, to tell the truth, that I was a PhD student, I can tell them that I was a research graduate student, is that ethical. Really I do think that telling the truth no one will believe me and I think it leaves a bad impression or a suspicion although I am trying to be positive and mentioning we didn't have the same research interest, this doesn't work in all interviews although they are interested, but afraid from my previous experience. My question: How I should answer about my experience at ex-group and how I can call it in a way that didn't leave a bad impression?.

How I should answer about my experience at ex-group and how I can call it in a way that didn't leave a bad impression?.

In these situations the more neutral you are the better. However, you should never lie on these matters. As you said, the group is well known, and the world can be very little sometime. On top of that, it is not very ethical.

I do not know what happened with your previous group, but try not to blame them too much. Again try to be neutral without going too much into details. I would put something like "My team and I did not make a perfect match" or "The topic I choose was not a good match for me". Keep in mind that they may contact your previous group to ask their opinion on you. Moreover, every person is different, maybe for some people it is ok that PhD students do not always end up with the perfect mentor for them, for other people this is not acceptable. For this reason, there is no perfect way to answer them, but for sure, I would avoid omitting important information.


Should I recommend rejection for a paper I referee if the authors don't make changes that they could have made? Earlier this year, I received a paper to referee for the top journal in my field of research.  I know both of the authors.  The first recently completed a Ph.D. working with a friend of mine.  My faculty friend is the best-known person working in our area; he is an extremely careful and conscientious researcher, and working under him, the student produced some very good work. The other author of the manuscript I'm refereeing is the new post-doctoral supervisor of that recent Ph.D. grad.  He is a very senior but not terribly distinguished scientist, and I think that some of his work is rather slipshod.

The first manuscript draft I got from this pair of authors had a glaring problem.  There may have been a fundamental error in how they interpreted their results.  There are two different ways that the system they are studying could behave, and they assume that it goes one way, apparently without even noticing the other.  They might well be right about how the system behaves, but I sent back a report saying that the work would be publishable if they either explained why they only considered one of the two possibilities or expanded their analysis to cover both.  The final conclusion is likely to unchanged whichever way the system behaves, but it is important to verify this; moreover, it is interesting in its own right to know which way things go.

After a rather brief period, I got a revised manuscript back from the journal.  The authors had made a number of other minor corrections that I asked for, but they basically ignored my main point.  At this point, I'm not sure what to do.  I still feel like the paper contains a significant amount of interesting material, and it could be fixed without that much effort.  However, I am upset that the authors made not effort to fix the actual problem I pointed out.  They don't even really acknowledge the problem in their resubmission letter.

I was the only referee who turned in a report on the first draft, so what I say will almost certainly determine whether the paper is published.  Should I send it back one more time, insisting that the changes I called for actually be made this time?  Or should I recommend rejection, since the authors are apparently unwilling to make reasonable adjustments.

It's totally reasonable to be upset that the authors ignored your comments, but for the purposes of reviewing the paper, I think you should set that aside.  I would let the editor make the decision as to whether the authors are "unwilling to make reasonable adjustments".  Send him/her a note saying something like:

  I mentioned in my initial report that it was essential for the revisions to address the issue of XXXX, but this has not been done, nor mentioned in the authors' comments.  This paper has many good qualities, but I do not think the paper is suitable for publication if this issue is not addressed.  If you feel it is worth the time to ask the authors for a further revision addressing this issue, I would be happy to read it and give my opinion.

I think it's up to the editor to judge between "this is a paper I really want in my journal, so I'm willing to put up with a little bit of crap" or "the authors are wasting our time, to hell with them".


Where to get help when we can't understand something done in a paper? I often face the following situation:

I am reading a technical paper, and I can't figure out a calculation shown in the paper, whose details are not given. There is no reference in the paper about the exact calculations. It is not possible to get an answer from the author(s), either they are dead or they don't answer even if I did (even if they did, it takes a lot of time for them to respond). I can't write to my advisor; for him to help, he also needs to read the paper and practically this is neither ideal nor realizable in a short amount of time. I can't write to my friend because I don't have any friend who works in the same field as I do. I won't ask the question in one of the stack exchange websites, because it is often the question is too field-specific and technical that I don't receive any helpful answer in a considerably short amount of time (assuming that I will get a helpful answer, which is not the case most of the time).

So, in the end, I try and try to understand what the heck author did in that part of the article that I couldn't understand, and it takes a considerable amount of time for me to figure that out (if I can).

Question:
Assuming that I am not the only one who faces such problems, where can we get help in such situations?

Note: I am working in a field of Physics.

Assuming that you've exhausted a reasonable degree of effort to try and understand what the author is doing, you can always just contact the author directly. There is usually contact information on the paper for the corresponding author.

There have been a number of papers that I have read and needed to reach out to the authors for to get a better understanding of what is going on in their paper. Professors are people too. As long as you have demonstrated a reasonable degree of effort prior to reaching out, asking for some clarification from them is a reasonable thing to do.

In the case of an author having passed away... then you will want to communicate this to your supervisor and explain why you need help to understand the paper. If you cannot figure it out for yourself, do not have any peers you can talk to, or are unable to contact the original author, then you have your supervisor as a work colleague.

If that all fails, then you will just have to try and drudge through understanding the computation. While I understand you want the answer quickly, all things worth while do not come quickly, and you'll need to cultivate and demonstrate resilience in the face of that struggle.


Is physics (and engineering) at university more like high school physics or high school math? I am in high school and I find myself enjoying math a lot more than physics, probably because of the more focused teaching approach found in physics, which looks at specific cases and experiments and then goes on to explain these mathematically, where as in maths it seems to me a broader stance is taken; only after a foundation is laid one goes into specific examples. Still I would rather like to study physics or engineering at university, as I am more interested in the subject of physics itself than that of theoretical mathematics.
So how does university teaching compare to that found in high school in physics and mathematics, and where do I place engineering in this comparison?
PS: I am from Austria and plan to go to uni in Germany, in case that helps with answering the question.
PPS: I know this question is open ended and opinion based so feel free to flag.
Edit: I`m thinking of this, this or that.

When studying physics at a German university, you will take three kinds of core modules:

Experimental Physics
Theoretical Physics
Math

Of these, experimental physics is somewhat similar to physics in school. You have a discussion of concrete phenomena, how you can measure them, probably quite a bit of lab time, too.
Theoretical physics is similar to math in school. You learn some more overarching theories about how to model things mathematically (like Newtonian gravity, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and so on). A lot of what you do is calculations (compute an integral, solve a differential equation). If you want to learn how to do complex calculations with pen and paper, theoretical physics is where you do it.
Math at university level is a very different beast from anything most pupils encounter at school (at least in Germany). You'll encounter some familiar concepts (differentation, vectors), but in a far more rigorous way. You will not just be told that stuff is true, but you'll see the proofs (and be asked to prove simple statements yourself [at least if your math courses are shared with mathematicians, if you have dedicated "math for physicists" courses this might not be the case]).


Can you start using your married name on publications prior to getting married, but when the marriage is soon? Next year I am getting married and plan on changing my surname. Now I am starting to think about publishing my research can I publish under my future married name or shall I keep my maiden name for a year and switch? I don't want to deceive anyone but the appeal is that in the future someone can follow the development of my work without losing the first couple of papers.

In general, there is no formal regulation about just what name you are allowed to use in your professional life.  As such, any reasonable interpretation of your current, past, or future name is acceptable.

I have, in fact, known at least one other person who did this, and it worked out just fine for her: they had a very solidly established relationship and two decades later they are still married.  Predicting the future is risky, however, and I know another person still using the name of an ex in her professional work.

There are other solutions that may work for some people as well, since your publication name is not required to match your legal name.  For example, you might choose to hyphenate or to keep publishing under your current name, even if you are planning to adopt your spouse's surname legally and socially.

Finally, it may be worth noting that ORCID aims to make these questions obsolete, but has not yet been broadly enough adopted and worked into people's thinking to effect such change.


Is it useful to include my teaching experience in primary school when applying for lecturer position I've just finished my master degree recently, and now looking for job, lecturer, in some university. However, I found that my teaching experience is very limited. Is it a good idea to include my teaching in a basic school in my resume to enhance my application?

I'd say that if it's the (only) teaching experience you have, you should probably mention it. Teaching is teaching. Regardless of the level at which you teach there are some basic skills which are common to most, if not all, scenarios. For example one expects teachers at all levels to be pedagogical. Moreover you'll be telling the selection committee that you are familiar with the job type, albeit at a different level. Indeed you know how to prepare a lesson, you have an idea of how the marking process works, you know how to keep students interested, etc.

Another important point to note is that primary school teaching experience shows that you were deemed competent, and responsible, enough to be allowed to work with kids, which is something I believe can say a lot about you. We all know how protective parents are with their little ones. Allowing you to somewhat shape the initial part of their lives definitely implies trust and recognition.


How to deal with an abusively condescending professor? I am a beginning graduate student in Mathematics. I have a professor who always brings up the fact that my GPA is not great in my undergraduate degree even though my performance is above the norm in the institution I am enrolled at the moment, so far I got straight A's in the graduate courses that I have completed. He always tries to point out at my flaws in my undergraduate years to humiliate me in front of other professors and my colleagues. What would be a wise reply/reaction to such abuse?

I feel bad about it cause I feel like I am harassed and I don't reply.
I am also currently taking a course with that professor.

As I understand you, you are being publicly shamed (in front of fellow grad students) by this professor by dint of your undergrad record.
If you are in the US, this is violating FERPA by revealing your academic record.  Other countries have similar privacy laws.  File a FERPA complaint and wipe that smug smile off his face.

I'm no expert and I suspect each school is different.  But this is a federal law and I think most schools would take such a blatant violation seriously.  I'm pretty sure this prof would get his leash yanked pretty hard.

Note that it could backfire. You could an enemy who will make your graduate experience miserable. But I'm betting against it. There have been a number of times when I just let a jerk be a jerk because I thought my life would go more smoothly, but found out later that if I had stood up for myself, I would have gotten a standing ovation from 99% of the people around me. This prof is a jerk and his colleagues will likely appreciate him being called out.
Also, in the case of harassment and rights violations, the perpetrator is warned against retaliation in any form. And someone will be watching for it. Someone behind those closed doors will tattle. I think you are perfectly safe.

My experience

When I taught small classes, I would write all the test scores on the board, so that students could see where they ranked.  One young lady thought I was violating FERPA with this tattled on me.  I got hauled into the chairs office where he was accompanied with one of those university JD types (the law students who never pass the bar, but get jobs at universities being annoying.)  and the dean.  They were ready to have a field day with me.  They had already talked to other students and had corroboration that I had, in fact, written all the scores on the board.  The JD was salivating.

We talked at cross purposes for a while, then they figured out that I was writing numbers only.  No names.  No personal information was being displayed.  They were so disappointed. An administrator gets to be administrative so rarely and here they had an open-and-shut case go up in smoke.

So the point here is that at this school at this time, FERPA violations were a big deal.  I suspect that in the current safe-room environment, they might be a bigger deal.  Telling the class that that guy right there has a low GPA could traumatize him for life, eh?


How should I refer to a professor as a undergrad TA? I just got hired for a TA role as an undergrad. Normally, I would refer to a professor as Professor LastName if I'm talking to them in a "professor" capacity, or as Dr. LastName if talking to them in any other capacity. However, given the closer role I will have this semester, and that many grad students (all the other TAs) generally call professors by their first name, I'm unsure of what proper etiquette should be.
I know generally asking is the best solution, but there are very few times where the professor stands on their ego enough to say "you must call me by my title", even if they prefer the title to their first name. The prof in question is particularly prone to this sort of behavior (based on hearsay), hence the reluctance to email.
To clarify some comments, I normally stick to calling any professor by their title. However, every other TA is calling the professor by first name (although they are all part of his group). The entire situation of an undergrad being a TA is unusual enough. I don't have the familiarity with the prof that the other TAs have, but it also feels awkward to be the only person calling the professor by their title.

This has a cultural element so it varies. Some places tend to be quite formal and others not so. My perspective is the US.
But as an undergrad you probably shouldn't make assumptions and use a title until told otherwise. Of course, you can also ask.
I normally expected my undergrad and even master's students to be fairly formal as I think a certain separation is helpful to them since it is occasionally necessary to be an authority figure. But I accepted things like "doc" or Dr. B" from those who worked closely with me.
When I was in the PhD program I was the only one who called many of the faculty by their first names (not my advisor, though). My fellow students (also TAs) were all more formal, but I was a special case, joining at an older age with a young faculty. I insisted my own doctoral students called me by my given name. But many of them resisted, wanting to be more formal.
But, if you are working closely with a faculty member it is good to just ask.


Etiquette for undergraduate research and job search I am an undergraduate currently conducting research in a physics research group at my university. I really enjoy the group and am planning to stay with them during my next few years here.

However, as an undergrad, I would like to explore many possible career paths. This summer, I'm looking to apply to a few industry positions that would have me performing very similar research (as an intern).

My question: Is this "proper etiquette" in academia? Is it okay to apply to other similar research positions that are possibly competing with the group, as an undergrad?

I honestly am not sure. I know outside of academia it would be perfectly okay for an undergrad to apply to other jobs, as we are expected to figure out what we want to do for a career. But in research, what's the right thing to do?

Yes, it's okay to seek industry internships while you are conducting undergraduate research.

Discuss this with your supervisor.  They should help you.


How to overcome a mistake you make in your proof and regain motivation? I am an undergraduate student in computer science, and I have been working as an undergraduate researcher in theoretical computer science for 7 months. There was this problem that my supervisor mentioned, and I worked on it for a while. But I only managed to solve a sub-case of the problem, which didn't interest my supervisor at that time. However, he wanted me to write a manuscript about it anyway. I put a lot of effort into writing it, but he didn't bother to read it. And we have moved on to other things.

A week ago, my supervisor called me, and he said that he found an interpretation of the sub-case of I've solved, that economists are interested in. And he said that we can publish it in a journal. So, I was really hyped. We met the next day, to review my proof. But when I arrived, I learned that a friend of my supervisor found an implicit assumption at the beginning of my proof which was clearly wrong.

As you can imagine, I was devastated. I've tried to find a workaround, and fix my solution, but I've just found another thing that I've overlooked. So I've lost my enthusiasm and self-confidence.

However, my supervisor claims he found a completely different idea to solve the problem. He explained it to me, however it has some parts to be completed. So he wants me to write a manuscript about it and fill the gaps. However, I cannot find any motivation to do so. I am overwhelmed by the feelings of failure and anger.

I know that I should be working on my supervisor's idea, but I'm so distracted with the mistake I've made. How can I overcome my mistake, and start to work again?

UPDATE: A month later, we solved the problem :)

As an early-career mathematician, I have had this experience, more or less exactly, several times. I think I've solved a problem (or made good progress toward doing so) and I become proud and emotionally invested, only to show it to a mentor (first my PhD advisor, then my postdoc supervisor) who quickly points out a fatal flaw in my reasoning. Sometimes, he will propose a different and much better method. I completely get how demotivating this can be. After all, I would think, why am I even working on this project if my mentor could do it himself more quickly?

But you have to overcome these feelings. Here are some points of view that helped me do so:

Trying things and failing is how we learn. There's a mathematical lesson here about why my techniques failed and my mentor's succeeded. There's also a lesson about how to do research: how to do sanity checks, how to avoid "premature optimization," etc.
My mentor is a professional researcher with decades of experience. Of course he can solve things more quickly than me. Even if it feels like my role is to work out the details of his ideas, I'm learning a lot by doing that. And these "brilliant ideas" are usually adapted from previously existing techniques anyway--it's more an experience gap than an intelligence gap.
Experiences like this keep me humble, which comes in very handy when teaching people who understand less than I do.

I would encourage you to try to power through these feelings of inadequacy. Part of being a mature researcher is not being afraid of being wrong.

Having said all that, a good way to avoid situations like this is to keep the person you're working under more in the loop while you're doing the work, so that they can steer you away from dead ends. In your case, it wasn't necessarily your fault that your supervisor didn't devote much time to your project, but in the future you should try to get high-level feedback earlier in the process.


How to automatically retrieve journal ranking and quartile from article list For a grant application I need to generate a list of my supervisor's publications (hundreds of articles) sorted by date, and for each publication they want impact factor, ranking, and quartile ranking of the journal in the year of publication. If I have to look up this manually it will take me a week. I only have the list of the publications in a CV, not even in a citation manager.

Can anybody help? How can this be done semi-automatically?

The typical place to obtain journal IF and ranking data in a searchable and sorted format is your institution's library. They usually subscribe to commercial ranking services that provide spreadsheets (typically Excel).

If you are a member of the institution (researcher, student) this should be made available to you. Depending on the type of subscription, the library might be reluctant to just share the file via email (in my experience, they are usually allowed to do so). In this case, ask if you can use one of the library's computers to extract the information you need.

Once you have the list of journals sorted, it'll be a bit of legwork to match articles to their respective journals, but a hundred should be doable in a few hours


How to ask for a recommendation letter if no professor knows me in person? I suffer from the following mental disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, avoidant personality disorder and body dysmorphic disorder and at times I had depression and because of that I was unable to communicate and a lot of times attend the lectures so no professor knows me and they don't even answer my emails. I am very interested in having a master in mathematics and I need recommendation letters to apply, what should I do to get those?

I somehow consider it rude to ask for it, especially when the professors don't know me, but I attempted to communicate with them through emails because I had no other choise, and never got an answer. If it was up to me, I would never ask for anything, but it is necessary.

Asking for a recommendation letter from a person who does not know you makes sense neither for you nor for a potential referee. The purpose of a reference letter is to let others know about your work habits, your motivation, your skills etc. A person who does not know you can not judge any of these things, thus even if you can convince a professor to write a letter about you it might not necessarily have a benefit for an application when it simply states that you have attended some courses.
You could try to contact a professor in a field you feel motivation for and whose work you are interested in and ask about potential student projects, irrespective of courses or credits. This can:

Help get to know a professor personally
Help you figure out if you enjoy working in an academic environment
Get you a personal recommendation letter


Open data and copyrights for a thesis In  my thesis, I am using other people's open data, and I cut and paste the description of it and reference its source and its copyright (if it is identifiable in the source).

My question is if that's the correct way to handle open data. Is cutting and pasting the description of the data (from its source) OK as long as I reference it, or should I interpret it myself?

The citations should come directly from the source, and the details will depend on how they've licensed it.  There's a lot more to open-source licensing, but when you're just doing the citing proper attribution is the main thing you need to concern yourself with.

Here's one example from the St. Louis Fed database, on their data series for GDP:

  Suggested Citation:

  US. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Real Gross Domestic Product
  [A191RL1Q225SBEA], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St.
  Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A191RL1Q225SBEA, October 24,
  2016.

Here's another from ICPSR (https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/32241?classification=ICPSR.I.A.3.):

  Citation

  United States Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census,
  United States Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and
  United States Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service.
  Current Population Survey, December 2010: Food Security Supplement.
  ICPSR32241-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for
  Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-12-16.
  http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR32241.v1

In my experience most data series have a citation right on the page now days.  If it doesn't, try looking in the site's FAQ, or elsewhere on their site for how they wish to be cited.


Handling several acceptance letters from different schools If an institution tells you, look here is an admission offer, and you should let’s know if you accept it or reject it by the day after tomorrow. Meanwhile, you are still waiting for a word from other places that you applied to.

So, what is the most diplomatic and tactful way to communicate “Hey, I can not  accept/reject the current offer right now. That's because i am waiting to hear back from other schools, and I need time to decide upon that”? At the same time, I do not want to sound like careless about the offer.

It would be polite to let them know that you "won't be ready to make a decision before some date". Asking them to hold the offer open for a bit and requesting a reply.

If they really insist, then you have to make a decision about acceptance, but they might not, unless they have an overabundance of candidates. But, going past their due date implies risk that the acceptance will be withdrawn. So, be prepared to make a decision on short notice.

Letting the date pass without notifying them is probably your worst option, however.


What to do when there is 'full-text request' in ResearchGate.net I am a member of ResearchGate.net and I sometimes receive this 'full-text request' for some of my publications. Thus far, I generally provide them an access to my publication. However, I am not sure if this is good since the profile of the person who made the request is not always visible. Perhaps, some people are taking advantage of this somehow. Also, could this lead to any issues with the publishing organisation? Any ideas and recommendations?

Work out if you can post pre-prints Many journals allow you to share some form of pre-print online. In some cases there is ambiguity as to whether posting pre-prints to ResearchGate is allowed by an agreement. For example, some publisher agreements limit sharing to personal websites, institutional repositories, etc.  Nonetheless, most take-down requests that I've heard about on researchgate pertain to posting the publisher's formatted, full-text, version. Sherpa ROMEO provides general guidance about publisher policies.

Post your pre-prints in a range of forums.  So, it makes sense that where possible you should provide the pre-print in a range of forums in order to facilitate the distribution of your work to those who do not have institutional access.  There are many discipline specific repositories where you can post pre-prints.

Post the pre-print to ResearchGate. If you are on ResearchGate, then you have indicated a desire to use the system. So you should consider adding full-text pre-prints where you feel comfortable. That way, you wont get these requests because the full-text is already available.


My Professor changed my multiple choice answers. What should I do? My prof changed some of my multiple choice answers on a test to give me a better grade. I noticed because I remember putting different answers for the questions and the way they were circled was not like how I write. I would have passed the test anyway, so I am not sure why they would have done this. I feel guilty because I want my grades to be based on my own merits. But this test was not a case where the prof raises a student mark because they deserved it based on effort. They deliberately changed my incorrect answers to give me a better mark on a test that I already did okay on. What should I do if anything?

This is really tough to approach. On the one hand, it’s incredibly hard to prove this (also since there’s no clear incentive for the professor to do this). On the other hand, you stand to lose a lot if you’re wrong.

That said, paraphrasing Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

Your professor might have mixed up something, or accidentally erased your answers (and then wanted to err on your side). You can simply approach them and nicely ask about question 17, that you distinctly remember putting another answer, but you could be wrong etc.


How much is too much when it comes to diagrams in a research article? This is actually specific to mathematics. In particular, in the sub field of category theory, differential geometry, algebraic geometry.
Question is as mentioned above.

How much is too much when it comes to diagrams in a research article?
Do more diagrams annoy a reader?

I did not expect this question to create so much confusion. May be some one who has experience (don’t ask how much) in reading research articles in mathematics (pure mathematics, if that makes some difference) can say something relevant as it differs from one field to another field.
By diagram, I do not mean graphs. I want to explain the setup in diagrams. I do not know if it reach correctly but,  I want to add diagram of heart and not graph of case study how many times it beats in different persons of different age or something like that.

That entirely depends on the article itself. In some cases diagrams aid an explanation and make it clearer. In others they offer little insight. If an article depends on having many diagrams of the former kind, then I don't see that "too many" is an issue. But even a few of the latter kind may just get in the way of understanding.

Words and pictures can be complementary. It is a judgement call by the authors as to which is best in a given case. They may err a bit, but that is human nature.

In general, think about whether words or pictures/figures better convey your meaning and act accordingly. Sometimes both are needed. Examples illustrating (note the word) a concept are often best presented in figures. Imagine a Calculus textbook without figures. Now imagine one without formulae. Would either work?


What can be done about a professor who leaves lectures too early? If a professor is scheduled to teach two hours, only one day a week, but instead he only teaches one hour, one day a week - in an extremely rushed manner - and tells his students he has to leave, is there anything that students can do about this behavior, if the professor continues in this way?

Let's assume this professor also doesn't post any supplementary notes at all, doesn't require a textbook, doesn't assign suggested background reading, but assigns a few hard homework problems per week.

Let's also assume that he is tenured.

As @Nate Eldredge this, how this is received is going to vary widely based on academic culture.

Let me assume that this is a course at a US university, and that it is an "official" course: that is, one that students register for, receive a grade for at the end, and the instructor gets some credit for teaching.  In this context, the practice would probably not be acceptable to many key people in the university.  At most US universities there is a notion of credit hours: there is a positive number of "credits" a student gets for a course (most frequently 1-4) and also a number of hours per week that the course meets.  Now (by widely agreed upon convention rather than cosmic truth, of course) there is a fixed conversion factor for this: at my university, 50 minutes of class time per week = 1 credit.

An instructor who only meets for one hour out of a scheduled two hours is risking the disapproval of the registrar, other departmental faculty including the head, and the students of the course. The registrar is probably going to be unhappy because it looks like the course is trying to cheat the system: if everyone decided to claim twice the number of credit hours that they actually met, it would cause absolute chaos for (especially undergraduate) programs. The departmental faculty are also going to be unhappy (to say the least) about this, on the one hand because the number of credit hours usually figures into the teaching load -- the standard departmental teaching load basically amounts to faculty teaching so-and-so many hours per week (on average; loads can vary from one semester to the next).  Claiming twice as much as you're doing is certainly not okay.  And of course, most faculty want courses to be taught well, and it is hard for me to think of clearer evidence that my colleague is not doing a good job with his teaching than that he is only meeting for half the scheduled time.  Finally, it is likely that the students are going to feel shortchanged ("halfchanged"?), and in light of all the stuff above, I don't see a satisfactory rejoinder to a student who feels that way: on the contrary, I think they're right.

So what to do?  I would suggest beginning by bringing it up to a departmental faculty member.  Good places to start are: (i) the instructor of the course, if you feel comfortable, (ii) the department head, (iii) whichever faculty member you feel closest to in the department (e.g. your academic advisor).  For such conversations, it is important to stay calm and factual.  Be willing to proceed in several steps.  Definitely indicate an awareness that there seems to be some kind of real mismatch here, and if necessary you might want to mention that university administrators like the registrar might be concerned about it as well.  (Again, I honestly think they would, and departmental faculty should know that they would.  So this is more like a reality check than a threat of escalation.)

Another idea: can you ask some other faculty member (or person in a position of authority) to visit the course?  Anyone who shows up is certainly going to notice a two hour course ending after only one hour.  On the other hand, they may well talk to the instructor before they show up, which might result in the instructor's taking the full class time.  Which is what you want, of course.  If that happens once and then he goes back to halftime, then it gives you an easy opening to speak to him about what's going on.

I want to end by saying that this really is cultural.  What you're describing sounds like quite an extreme case, but there is variation between US universities and personnel at those universities on the practice of ending early.  It is not unheard of for instructors and students to feel that they have done all they need to do in a certain course meeting and thus end early: they may even feel great about doing so.  For me personally, over the course of almost two decades of instruction at US universities, I have moved steadily in the direction of thinking that for a three credit course, the very least I owe the students is 150 minutes a week of me in the classroom. I remember though that I taught one undergraduate course at my institution, pretty soon after I got there, and for various reasons I decided to cancel three of the 50 minute class meetings, including the last one (excluding the final exam and review sessions for the final), because I was interested in presentations given by graduate students in a different course that met at the same time.  The present me finds the past me's behavior slightly outrageous...So indeed, some variation on how this is perceived exists!


How to prevent students from having an unfair advantage on exams, when they are held on different days? I teach a writing course to different sections, across different days of the week. From the schedule, some students will take their mid-term exam early in the week, while others will take it later in the week. Recently, I found one student who was “just checking to see what the exam was like”, but was planning to go to another session to actually take the test. I realized there might be a variety of ways that students taking the exams on Friday would have an advantage over those taking it on a Monday.

I've taken the following steps in an attempt to address this problem:

I build multiple tests, e.g. "A", "B", "C", etc., which are of similar difficulty, have the same types of problems, but different subjects. "A" is given to one section, "B" to another, etc.
Provided a sample test that students can print and practice with and discuss with me in class.

Note that, there are several challenges to administering this:

The classes are large, and the school offers me no assistance in managing the exams.
Many students regularly attend my lectures during sections that they did not register for, so I will not easily recognize who belongs in which time.

Are there any additional steps I should consider to make sure the test is administered fairly?

There are various ways of preventing students from showing up on the wrong day or showing up more than once. The first step would just be to tell them straightforwardly that it's not allowed. You could also assign seats for the exam. Assigning seats has the added benefit of reducing opportunities for copying from a neighbor's paper; they can't just choose to sit next to a friend or sit next to someone they know is doing much better in the class.

  I teach a writing course [...] The classes are large, and the school offers me no assistance in managing the exams.

The enrollment of writing classes taught by a single instructor is usually limited because it's not practical for the instructor to grade large amounts of written work from a large number of students. At some schools, writing classes are large, but there are TAs who read papers. If you're a single instructor teaching a writing class to a large number of students, then that's a problem in and of itself; these issues with exam arrangements would then be a symptom of the more general problem.


How/should I modify my ethics review proposal when asking questions not stated in the original application? We submitted an application to our HREC (Human Research Ethics Committee) and received their approval to conduct the study. In our application, we submitted a base questionnaire with some of the questions we were interested in asking. However, we want to conduct a study with semi-structured interviews following a grounded theory approach. That is, as we interview participants, we want to adapt our questions to explore emerging topics. For context, we are in Europe. However, I'd be surprised to find that there's much deviation across the globe.

How does the ethical approval work in semi/un-structured studies in which you don't know about all the questions you might ask in advance?
How much freedom do we have to deviate from the original questionnaire?
Should we constantly keep the HREC in the loop after each interview? SOLVED

UPDATE1: Question 3 answered (for this case, at least). Our HREC is currently asking us to share with them any changes to our questionnaire. It is unclear yet whether we have to report ALL questions that we asked that were not originally part of it.

The simple answer here is that if you go outside the scope of what was approved in your ethics clearance, then you are doing something for which you do not have ethics clearance.  Thus, the answer to your question depends on the specifics of what you have described in the application that was approved.  If your approved application represented that you would use the specific base questionnaire that you submitted, as written, then you will need to amend your application if you now wish to deviate from this.  If your approved application merely represented that you would ask questions within a certain field, with the questionnaire serving only as an example of the type of question, then you probably have scope to deviate a bit while remaining within the scope of what you described.

For this reason, it is a good idea when you draft an ethics application to anticipate possible adaptations you may wish to make as you progress your research, and describe your proposed activity in a way that is broad enough to allow you some "wiggle room" within the scope of the approved research application.  This is a balancing act --- if you give too little detail then it will be too vague to be approved, but if you are too specific then you are imposing constraints on your research that you may wish to change later.  In my own field, of statistics, it is common for an ethics application to give some information about the proposed model/method for analysis of data.  In this case you need to make sure you frame this broadly, to allow yourself the discretion to adapt your method of analysis to the features of the data when it comes in.


Why do people sometimes put authors with equal contribution in non-alphabetical order? I've seen papers (e.g., in Science) where the first two authors are listed in non-alphabetical order, and yet there are asterisks behind their names to say that they contributed equally.

It seems strange to me, because if the two authors are in alphabetical order, then it could be that the first author contributed more or the two contributed equally, and this can be made clear with asterisks in the paper if it's the latter case. When they're in non-alphabetical order, however, if someone only sees the author list without seeing the paper, he/she will likely assume that the first author contributed most.

So my question is: Are there particular reasons why people do that? (This question is related, but I don't think the answers there get to my question.)

There are some requirements for funding¹², a degree³, tenure and similar for which literal first authorship counts. If one of the equally contributing authors gains an advantage from being the first author due to this while the other one doesn’t or has a smaller advantage, it can make sense to have the order deviate from the alphabetic one.

Another conceivable scenario would be that the first authors is well-known in the respective field and was made first author to attract a little bit more attention to the paper.

¹ For example several faculties in Germany have schemes for evaluation and publication-based funding that assign special value to first-author publications. Some of those do not mention joined first authorships and do not make sense with multiple first authors, which indicates that first authorship is meant literal (example in German, search for Erstautor).

² This journal, e.g., lists a handful of funding organisations that will pay the publication costs, if the first author is funded by the respective organisation. Joined first authorship is not mentioned. Even if this may be dealt with on a per-case basis, just flipping the first authors may be easier.

³ For example, for a publication-based PhD thesis, it may required that the included publications be first-author publications (example, again in German) without the case of joined first authors being considered. While the latter may be allowed on a per-case basis, flipping the authors may be much easier and avoid a lot of bureaucracy.


Chances of Acceptance after Institutional Action During my undergraduate career I was found guilty of academic dishonesty and suspended for 1 semester. Because of this, I was obviously distressed and reevaluated my position as a student. After much thinking, I enrolled abroad in a non-US medical university (using my high school and pre-medicine credentials) and graduated with the US equivalent of a 3.4 GPA and a medical degree. I then returned to my undergraduate university and finished my Bachelor's (BSc) degree with a 3.6 GPA.

I have extensive research experience throughout both my undergraduate career and medical school career abroad without publications. This research experience during my undergrad includes being accepted into a competitive summer research fellowship (before the institutional action took place). I also have worked in 2 different countries (including 1 developing country) as a physician for around a year before finishing off my Bachelor's in the US as mentioned above. The short practice time is only due to my aspirations of pursuing a PhD.

I have always wanted to pursue an MD/PhD before the institutional action took place. I enjoy research and aspire to combine my research interests with my practice on a global scale through an organization I helped found during my undergrad career. It was only due to the ridiculous choice I made that ended in my suspension that caused me to deviate from this dream and pursue only PhD.

Assuming I score above average on the GRE with excellent LoRs, what are my chances of being accepted into any sort of PhD or graduate program? At this point, I am not being selective of any university I wish to attend. I also understand this may be an extraordinary case and would require much thought with respect to my chances of being admitted. This is an especially tough and stressful time for me and I am thankful for your advice.

EDIT: I am interested in biological science or biomedical science as possible routes for my PhD (specifically, cancer biology).

The crucial question is whether your academic transcript will indicate the expulsion/suspension. If not, then I don't think it should matter to your graduate applications at all.

If the transcript does indicate this, then you are going to have to address the issue in your cover letter. You are going to have to say how sorry you are and how much you've learned your lesson. I, personally, wouldn't hold an undergrad mistake against you, as long as I saw that you weren't likely to do it again. Others might feel differently, however you can still try.


Can a reference (not self) be over-cited? I am proof-reading a student's PhD thesis and I find that the student repeatedly cites one reference, up to 40 times in one single chapter alone.
I suspect that this reference is an influential work and provides a lot of material but I feel this is too much. Apart form the obvious advise (don't cite as much), what effective strategies can one use to reduce the number of citations e.g. comment at the start of the chapter that "this chapter builds on the foundational work \cite{ref} done by Prof X..."

Can a reference be over-cited?

Assuming you are using in-text citation, it is necessary to cite the reference in-text every time you use information from it.  So, there is no upper limit on the number of times a reference should be cited.  Increase the number of citations until there is no ambiguity, and then stop.  40 times is not that many.
In most styles each reference is only listed once in the reference list.


Should a Kickstarter funding be in an academic CV? In humanities, would a successful kickstarter project which supported relevant professional work belong in an academic CV? I think a "grants and fundraisers" category can have crowdfunding, but my friend thinks not. This is in the context of faculty job application in the US.

Since we're talking about the humanities, let me answer with a Simpsons quote:

Ned Flanders: I don't understand. Is God punishing me?
Reverend Lovejoy: Short answer, "yes" with an "if"; long answer, "no," with a "but"

I believe that academic CVs should be tailored to the requirements of the situation. If you're applying for a faculty position in the Department of Film and Media Studies, a Kickstarter campaign in which you raised money for an independent movie is appropriate. Otherwise, adding this information is about as useful as saying that you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.

PS. If you were Zack Danger Brown, I'd hire you right away if I was head of Social Psychology or Cultural Studies.
PPS. Thank god, I'm not head of an academic department.