My MRes will be unclassified - will this make applications outside academia less competitive? I have just graduated 2.1 in a bioscience subject and have been offered an MRes / MSc(Res) (masters by way of research). I really want to do the MRes because I want to test my aptitude for research, publishing and continuing to a Ph.D.

It's a well-worn trope, but I had also hoped to build upon my 2.1 by earning a distinction to make potential applications (in/outside academia) more competitive. I believe I would be capable of that given my performance on a final year lab research module.

However, during my application I learned that the MRes as offered in my department is “unclassified” - it is only pass/fail. It does not attract the classic masters classifications of pass/merit/distinction.

I am in my mid-thirties. I am split 50/50 between my heart (using the MRes to continue to a Ph.D) and the pragmatic (exiting academia and applying for a bioscience-based postgraduate scheme or job so I can start earning while I learn). My aptitude for staying in academia is something I intend to get a feel for while doing the MRes.

Will the fact the MRes is unclassified mean that I am not appreciably increasing competitiveness of my application for positions outside of academia?

To take one example, the NHS Scientist Training Programme has a minimum entry standard of 2.1. However, someone on the admissions committee tells me that 2.1’s are screened out in favour of 1st class degrees. In that scenario, a masters with distinction could patch that up.

If you has a 2.2 or for some other reason did not meet the requirements for a position you are interested in, then having a classified MSc would be very helpful. Vary rarely do positions require a 1st. Automated culling of applications based on a 1st or 2.1 generally doesn't happen. Someone will still look at your application if you have a 2.1 and an unclassified MSc. If they see good research, the 2.1 will not matter anymore.

That said, a student with a 1st is looked at differently then someone with a 2.1. If at the start of the course, you were given the option for a classified or unclassified degree it would make sense for you to choose the classified degree. If you are choosing between equally ranked courses that will both offer you identical learning and research opportunies and one is classified and the other is not, the classified one has the potential to help you more. The benefit, however, is tiny and differences in opportunities, subjects, and/or personal preferences, will offset any benefit between a 2.1 and a 1st.


Asking the faculty for PhD research proposal tips I am going to apply to Italian universities for PhD vacancies in Statistics, which is not exactly the field that I studied during my BSc and MSc. I count to acquire the instruments for doing actual research during the first years of the program but I am asked to submit a short research proposal during the application process.
I already have in mind some topics to research but I am not really deep into them so that it would be very time consuming even to arrange summaries and provide short bibliographies about the matters. I could probably end up spending (let's say) one month reading about one of the topics I have in mind only to understand I should actually apply with another one as research proposal because of my understanding of the subject (which would probably be tested during interviews).
Would it be appropriate to approach the faculty before the application and ask which topic it would be better to present as research proposal? Also in light of having better chances to be accepted.
I want to add that right now I am employed, otherwise of course I would enjoy reading everything I could.

Why ask? You can infer this yourself by simply looking into their prior research. Researchers don't change trajectories if they want to become experts in their domains.


How long do PhD students typically take to come up with their research proposal? Especially if you are someone who is entering a PhD with very broad interests and little depth of knowledge in your field.

If you are talking about the writing of a formal proposal document, the rules vary from department to department. If you are talking about the idea for a project, then that needs to be developed very early on—the tentative idea should already be in place by the time work starts.

In my department, for instance, students had roughly one year from the completion of the qualifying examination to submit the research proposal. This was a fairly substantial document (25-30 pages). Other schools I considered required the submission as late as the third or fourth year (in what was nominally a five- to six-year program); in that case, the research proposal was almost a first draft of the thesis, as it was typically anywhere from 50 to 100 pages in length!

In my current department, students receive fellowships to work on projects with their advisors. In such cases, the advisor typically plans the basic outline of the project, and the start of the work plan. Later years are left for the student to devise.


For graduate admission, would 3-year bachelor’s program without thesis suffice in chemistry field? I am a Thai graduate from a university in New Zealand with a 3-year Bachelor of Science (Chemistry) without having completed a thesis. Although I could have done my fourth year doing a thesis which is called “Bachelor Honours Degree” in New Zealand, my scholarship sponsor did not allow me.

I am now a research assistant at the research center in Thailand. I really wish to continue my career further in academia abroad since I feel more comfortable when studying or working in English. However, I found it difficult to apply for the international scholarship and admission for master’s or PhD program as the general requirement would be either having completed bachelor’s degree with practical components (I assumed this could be a thesis) or graduated with 2:1 honours degree equivalence such as in UK.

I tried to apply for master’s degree at one of the Northern Irish universities but got rejected since my academic qualification wasn’t enough and they required me to complete my fourth year with thesis.

I am wondering if there are any countries/universities that thesis would not be generally required for a graduate admission?

My employer suggested me to keep sending emails to many potential professors to see if I can be exempted from the requirement. Would that be possible?

Thank you so much for your time.

If you were eligible for a

  Bachelor Honours Degree (Chemistry)

at a New Zealand university, then you would probably also be eligible for the the same degree at most Australian universities.  Unlike the UK, "Honours" is a degree sort of like a masters.

New Zealand degrees are not widely known outside Australia and New Zealand.


Does name of university matter for internships? I have been recently applying for summer internship positions in the engineering discipline. I am a senior undergraduate at UCLA university. My GPA is above 3.7 and I have both desired and minimum qualification for the internships, but I keep receiving rejection email from different companies. I was told by my friends that since students from Stanford, Berkeley, MIT and other more prestigious schools than UCLA are applying, therefore they get the internship first and if there is any opening hiring managers will consider people like me.

I would like to know: is this really true and does the name of such universities compared to UCLA make a huge difference?

Some companies specifically recruit preferentially from top schools, some don't. All of them know that a 3.7 at one school isn't the same thing as a 3.7 from another and will make what they think are appropriate adjustments.

But it isn't just about grades, and the only thing that will guarantee you don't get the internship is if you don't apply. Trying costs you nothing but a bit of time, and UCLA is a respectable school. Go for it; at worst it's good practice!


Is it good practice/advisable to sum up passages from a reference into a few sentences in my own paper? Of course, I would retain the for me important points, but omit the details.

To the question in the title, I would like to add: If it is, how would it be best to point to that paper?
Should I reference this as a "regular" citation or is it better to include some explanation, like "From [5] it is clear that ..."?

I know people who restate whole proofs of mathematical theorems, either because the proof itself is interesting, or simply because the original presentation of the proof is poor in their opinion.

It is completely fine to summarize works of other people in your work, you just have to make it completely clear that it is not your work. But you can quote even whole paragraphs IMHO, without much problem (surely in math/natural science, I'm not sure how's it in philosophy and such).


Research proposal for PhD application - should I talk about my background? This is for a PhD application at the department of computing in a UK university. It says I need a research proposal with the following

  Your research statement should incorporate a brief description of the
  general research areas and topics that interest you, as this may be
  used to select suitable academics to whom your application will be
  circulated.

  Your research statement should also discuss:

  1) motivation for the
  research (i.e. why the topic is important and potential applications
  for which your research could be useful)

  2) research issues you intend
  to address during your PhD and

  3) your initial ideas on the research
  methodology (e.g. what sort of simulation or experimental techniques)
  you intend to pursue to address the research issues.

Nowhere does it ask for a discussion on why I am suitable, my background etc.? Should I then omit these and write the research proposal in a way where I'm simply pointing out an interesting problem and some approaches to solve it?

While it may be institution/field/country-specific, from the description I assume that you are applying to the program and do not have a prospective advisor who has already agreed to supervise you, nor a project onto which you will be allocated. In this case, that seems similar to the American "statement of purpose" (SOP).

The first guideline is: follow the guidelines. They tell you exactly what they want to see in your statement. You should absolutely touch on all of those points.

In fact, many statements add nothing to the profile exactly because the applicants fail to understand its purpose. The only way that you will have the reader's attention is if you talk research. The statement should not be the place where you state everything that they could have read (in a more appropriate format) in the CV. Your background is, of course, relevant, and you should absolutely include it, but only as evidence of your motivation and involvement with the field and the tools that you wish to learn or use during your PhD. The key to a good statement is to seamlessly merge your interests, background, experience, fit and the necessary tools to accomplish your goal. You should leave a strong impression that you have a solid (not necessarily deep) understanding of the field you are getting into.

So, for instance, don't write this (parentheses are my comments):

  I have always liked to be boring and make people uncomfortable. Since
  I was a child, my parents would roll their eyes every time they read
  one of my essays. Rarely they would be able to finish. As I grey up, I
  felt the need to contaminate my friends with my excitement, and made
  them listen to incredibly long and meaningless talks. (Sorry to be
  blunt, but nobody cares about your childhood.) I graduate in May from
  Boring University and so far I have maintained a perfect GPA. In fact,
  I took several courses in how to be boring, such as Being Boring I and
  I have published a paper where we explored the mechanics of
  self-expression in boring situations, along with Dr. Cheeky Jokes. (I
  have your CV and your transcripts, I can see that.) Now, I want to
  further specialize in making people annoyed, and Awkward University's
  program in Social Engineering is certainly the best in the world (I
  know, why do you think I work here?) and will give me a strong
  background to make people uncomfortable while simultaneously being
  boring (nice, but what do you bring to the table?).

Rather, maybe you should word your essay like this (note how I touch on all three topics while simultaneously referencing the background and fit):

  The strong background that I acquired in boredom from Boring
  University has motivated me to further specialize in awkwardness.
  Working directly with Prof. Cheeky Jokes on the mechanics of
  self-expression in boring situations, I noticed that awkwardness
  emerges directly from personal interactions under these conditions.
  Under the supervision of Boring University's Ethical Review Board
  (ERB), we designed an empty room where we put people who knew each
  other but hadn't talked in several years. Upon examining the data, we
  found that they not only were extremely bored, but also engaged in
  very awkward conversations about their past and how their kids had
  grown up. This very exciting finding was later published in the
  Journal of Awkward Situations. Now, during my PhD and motivated by my
  previous research experience, I want to continue exploring the effect
  of boring situations in the emergence of awkwardness. During my
  research, I became interested in Prof. Clumsy's research on how to
  maximize awkwardness in daily situations. In fact, I believe that
  providing experimental validation for her recent work on finding the
  optimal number of people who will maximize awkwardness in a highschool
  reunion, which she modeled computationally, can be a major
  breakthrough in the field. While Prof. Clumsy has already disclosed
  that she is already working on that, I believe my experience with
  experimental social engineering can be a solid addition to her group,
  especially given that I have had thorough contact with ERBs.

Note, however, that in many cases the SOP is not heavily weighted in admissions, but that's probably field-dependent. And I am not in CS nor in the UK, so take my advice with a grain of salt.


Dataset of grad admission acceptance rate based on undergrad school I am looking for datasets that would list the acceptance rates of graduate school applicants based on their undergrad schools. I.e. X % of students from undergraduate school Y applying to graduate school Z are admitted. Ideally, the dataset should also indicate the number of applicants.

I am mostly interested in graduate schools based in the United States, and computer science departments.

The specific dataset you seek is likely unavailable because of concerns about personal identifying information and the confidentiality of the process.  The number of applicants from small colleges or to small CS programs in any given year is in many cases too low for effective anonymity.

Many good undergrad programs will tell you about where their graduates went in terms that they are comfortable with, e.g. "x% went to grad school;" some will even list exactly which graduates went where - usually with the permission of both the graduate and the department head.  I don't think anybody's gathered this into a single dataset.

However, certain aspects of your curiosity may be satisfied by graphs and compiled data from a step later down the line, about which universities hire grads from which other universities for their CS faculty.  That kind of information can be found here (compiled by Jeff Huang and his students at Brown University, analyzed by Jürgen Pfeffer at Carnegie Mellon):

(source: pfeffer.at)


As someone outside academia, how can I get my math paper peer reviewed? I have written a math paper and I think/hope it is ready for peer review. I am 40+ years removed from academia and have no access to 'publications' but I have learned from my many re-writes and I have tried to follow the format of a sample "Journal.tex" from the Journal of the American Mathematical Society for my abstract, subject classification, and bibliography.
I would like to have peer review of my work. How do I begin?

Figure out what journal is appropriate. To do this, there are two aspects. One is essentially "readers interested in the articles published there are likely to also be interested in your work", the other similar level of how ground-breaking the results are. Without a subscription, you should still be able to see the abstracts of the recently published papers, and quite often you'll be able to access the content somehow (preprint on the arXiv, author's website, scihub,...).
Once you have identified the one journal you want to submit to, just look for their "instructions to authors" or similar, and follow them. This will typically be very straight-forward. They might ask you for your affiliation, but you can just respond with "Independent Researcher" there. Then patiently wait for the referee reports (expect something between 3 months and 1 year).
If you've chosen in an inappropriate journal, or if your draft appears to be very off (eg almost no references), the editor of the journal could forgo sending it out to review, and directly reject it ("desk reject"). So make sure that your draft is sufficiently polished, and that you've picked a reasonable journal. On the upside, a desk reject will typically happen much faster.


What type of gift could I give to my PhD advisor? I will be defending my dissertation in this Summer and I'm planning to give a gift to my advisor. I'm not quite sure what would be the best and meaningful gift for a professor receiving from his/her student. Main reason I'm asking this questions is that I'm an international student and not sure what would be most suitable. It's usually a general understanding in my homeland that we give some gifts to the professors that stays for long time. In other words, we avoid giving Champagne, Wine, or something to eat rather a shirt, pen set, etc. Any idea from the american life perspective will be appreciated.

As far as I'm aware, giving gifts to your PhD adviser upon completion in the US is not an obligatory ritual, as compared to Christmas gift exchange in families, or Mother's Day cards and flowers, which are obligatory rituals.

Before you decide to give a gift and choose one, you should consider your adviser's personality, value system, relationship style, and cultural background. Does this adviser frequently give and receive gifts from other faculty members?  From other students?  Does he/she display many gifts or honors in the office?  If so, examine the symbolic nature of these gifts.  Are they personal to him/her?  Are they status oriented?  Do they reflect or signify certain values or identity?  Following this line of inquiry is fruitful on two levels.  First, what ever you give him will certainly show that your knowledge and appreciation of him/her as a unique person.  Everyone likes to be valued for their unique, special qualities and "quirks".  Second, you will be giving something that has significance in the context of your relationship with him/her, not something that is generic.

My personal opinion is that the best gift a PhD student can give their adviser is to be a great student, to be someone who is easy to advise, to be someone who heeds the advice, to be someone who stimulates the adviser intellectually, and, above all, finishes the PhD program on time (or at least expeditiously).  You can also express in words what your adviser means to you in your acknowledgements section of your dissertation.  You can also offer public thanks at the dissertation defense.

If you think a gift is warranted above and beyond this, then I'd lean toward something that has low economic value but very high symbolic value in the  context of the adviser as a unique person and your unique relationship with him/her.


How to reject a PhD Scholarship offer after accepting it? I have accepted a scholarship at a certain university, after exchanging many emails with the supervisor. I was interviewed by him and he personally took trouble to secure funding for me. And he also helped me a lot throughout the process. But now I have received a better offer from a better university, which has a better research group.

Now I am not sure how to email my supervisor rejecting the offer, after accepting it months back. It seems a really unethical thing to do. But considering all the other aspects, the second university seems to be the ideal choice for me.

How should I reject the first offer without offending my supervisor?

You can't have it both. Even a professional supervisor will be angry after finding out that you dumped them months after getting your ok (especially as you say they secured funding for you; who knows how many hoops they had to jump through).

But it's your PhD and your life. If the other offer is really better, go for it.

You can be very polite about that, and the best thing you can hope for is that they will be momentarily displeased and forget about it with time. Don't bring it up again in future if you happen to meet them again.

A formulation that expresses how sorry you are to put them through all the trouble you had to reconsider the very generous offer and that you ended up not being able to take it would be a possible route of formulation.


Can I develop software that solves a problem as a Master's thesis? I have designed and developed software that solves a problem (In healthcare if it matters) for my master's degree, and I'm having some doubts about whether it could be considered an actual research to write a thesis about or not, especially that I'm going to do PhD afterwards.

Methodology, models and algorithms

Usually in such research the majority of the work spent will be on the software, but the majority of written thesis will be about the problem analysis, literature review of similar problems in the field, methodology, models and algorithms used, and the evaluation of the proposed solution to the problem.

Yes, there's some software engineering involved, but that's generally not research; however, there are research questions related to that software - the actual tool demonstrates the feasibility of your proposed method (that your solution can be implemented) and the applicability of your proposed method (that your solution is useful for achieving the targeted goal), but it itself will often be "just" an appendix to the research work. In particular, there's a big impact on novelty. Building software that essentially reimplements an existing tool can be commercially useful, but doesn't constitute novel research no matter how much work it takes, while doing an adjustment to an existing open-source system that takes just a small bit of programming but implements a substantially different (and better in some aspect) method is novel research. I mean, there are algorithms that differ from existing ones by just a line or two of code but have a substantial impact on how they behave, and you could definitely build a thesis on such an improvement.

It's like the "method and apparatus" in patent applications - developing the method and apparatus is novel research; actually building it often will be helpful, but isn't strictly necessary and (by itself) wouldn't constitute novel research.


Is it acceptable to post a brief and speculative paper on ArXiv? I wrote a speculative paper, outlining an approach to make data analysis more efficient. I am a physicist and the idea is described in words and with a few schemes. I don't have the programming skills to show that the idea works.

In terms of etiquette, would it be OK to publish the paper on arXiv?

In general when is "I have a general interesting idea for solving problem X but don't have tools Y to determine if it really works" worth publishing? It depends on how important the advance would be, how big a step your paper takes relative to the part remaining, and how easy it would be for the remaining work to be done. I agree with Captain Emacs that you should not be using readers as your beta testers. Let me propose three categories:

A) Not worth publishing: Is (a+b)^2 = a^2+b^2? Simple question, which could be resolved by actually doing the algebra.

B) Probably not worth publishing without extra work/collaboration: Our mathematical model predicts cancer correlates with gene X. Potentially important result, but this is something a bioinformatics person would know or be able to find out easily - so why are you spending so much time writing this up without asking someone to check first?

C) Worth publishing: "The Taniyama-Shimura conjecture, if true, implies Fermat's Last Theorem" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribet%27s_theorem). Linking two unsolved problems, or providing a potentially new attack on an old problem, can be a useful contribution even if it doesn't solve everything.

I think you are probably in case B, because if the issue is just that you don't have many programming skills, you can either learn enough to implement your ideas or find someone to collaborate with. If you can't, this means your question is probably not well-posed enough to interest the broader audience of arXiv. I suspect this is the case, because your question is not too detailed "Data analysis" is a huge field -- you could be trying to speed up an algorithm for a known process (something where you could have a theoretical result -- but it shouldn't be too hard to implement to show you are right), or find a better way of extracting some detail from data (need to test on real-world data to make sure you are not fooling yourself), etc. Your question doesn't sound like you need super-specialized skills, or a giant investment of time to fill in the later details -- so you should try to do this before publishing. Otherwise, you run the risk of spending weeks writing up a draft to wait a month for someone to test your idea to find out that, if you asked the right person, they could have found out in ten minutes that it didn't work.


In academic papers, is it always necessary to show the full mathematical description of well-accepted norms? For example, let's say you use a well-excepted data normalization method like z-normalization. To avoid clutter and help the flow of the paper, can you simply cite a source for z-normalization and move on, or will reviewers generally want to see everything formally defined in the paper itself? This assumes there is only one possible version of the technique being mentioned (if there were multiple, I would see why a full description would be needed).

It depends entirely on the specific journal you publish in, as well as the topic of your paper. The paper is meant to be read by other experts in your field: hence if something is well known, it doesn't need to be defined. For the average reader of your paper, will they already know what z-normalization is? If so, you don't need to define it.


Why do some professors not post their long list of publications? I notice that some professors -- some are now professor emeritus and aren't active in research anymore -- have an essentially blank faculty webpage, only listing their phone number and school address and office location.  What would be typical reasons for professors to leave their webpage blank instead of listing their publications?

Is it a desire for privacy?  An indication that one is no longer active in research?  Disgruntled feelings about academia?

Your question contain several implicit assumptions that make the question difficult to make a generalised answer.

Firstly, the use of web pages for university faculty varies from country to country and institution to institution. There is no generalised understanding of what a university or faculty members web page should contain, and this is often influenced by cultural norms. Further, this can vary from discipline to discipline. Some academic areas value public lists more than others - academia is such a broad church.

Secondly, you seem to be assuming that professors may have any control over the content of their web pages or published academic profiles. In some places they do, and they may be free to edit them themselves. In some places these are centrally controlled and populated from some form of content management system database. In some places these are managed by a marketing department as part of the institutions advertising and public relations; further some places might use an external public relations agent to populate the pages.

Thirdly, you underestimate the amount of internal politicking and petty squabbles that go on inside large institutions like universities. Professors, particularly senior ones, go in and out of favour like pop chart hits. It is not beyond the bounds of pettiness for someones entries to be deleted out of spite and recognition of their unfavoured status. Their existence cannot be expunged, but their bibliography can be.

Fourthly, you assume that universities have a degree of capability or competence. In my experience there are plenty of incidents university staff (support or academic) being incapable of rendering edits to obviously incorrect profiles.

Fifthly, you assume that perhaps everyone there actually cares about it. Perhaps the professor or the support staff don't really care about this particular part of the profile and have no plans to change it.

Sixthly, you assume the professor or the faculty actually know that the list of publications is missing. In a large institution with many many faculty; even in a caring place, it is possible for errors to slip through unnoticed. Not every faculty member would be egotistical enough  to regularly read their own personal profile.

There may be more reasons, but that list should do for starters.


Does my work in industry carry any weight in academia? I have no academic (peer-reviewed) publications to my credit but close to 6 years of industry-based experience. I have just completed a PhD in sociology.

Does my work in industry carry any weight in academia?

My work in industry included activities such as developing codes and operational manuals in a particular field to be used by operators in that field (e.g., a health and safety manual).

Weight in academia is carried mostly by peer-reviewed research publications, published in academically reputable venues such as research journals, conferences, books with reputable publishers, reputable preprint servers, ... If you get these publications from industry research, you get academic weight. A famous example for prominent research in electrical engineering done in industry are the Bell laboratories.

Codes and operational manuals are not academic publications, and typically carry little weight. In order to get that, you have to publish academic papers about the codes and manuals, or publish papers about research results obtained with them.


APA style for program used in a study APA Format: When writing the name of a program I used in a study (MyFriendQuest) do I need to italicise the name or add a trademark sign? I am not sure how to stylise the name of the program or if I even need to.

According to Section 7.08 (page 210) of the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the APA,

  Do not italicize the names of software, programs, or languages.

Furthermore,

  Reference entries are not necessary for standard software and programming languages, such as Microsoft Word or Excel, Java, Adobe Photoshop, and even SAS and SPSS.  In text, give the proper name of the software, along with the version number.  Do provide reference entries for specialized software or computer programs with limited distribution.

An example of a reference entry:

  Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (Version 2) [Computer software]. Englewood, NJ: Biostat.


How to deal with a piece of text and materials that you do not consider essential? How do you normally indicate a subsection, or a part of the text that it is not so important for the rest of text. Let me give an example:

  [...] This method uses ABC as a coefficient.

  Subsection: how to measure ABC

  [some text and a plot, making up for roughly one column]

The subsection can be skipped, but is probably too short to appear as an appendix at the end.

It depends a bit on your field of research.

In fields that have a somewhat strong relationship to mathematics, it is common that lemmas, theorems, examples, etc. are typeset in special environments. You can also typeset a note or a remark in such an environment, which allows the reader to easily skip over the part, and at the same time makes clear that reading this part of the paper is somewhat optional.

As an example, the publisher Springer provides a style file for the document typesetting system LaTeX for publications in their "Lecture Notes in Computer Science" series here. The documentation states in Section 8a that "note" and "remark" environments are available.

Here is how using a "note" in a paper looks like:

Note that there is no rule that prevents you from referencing to a figure in a note.


My PhD research has a negative outcome -- how can I still graduate with it? A former PhD student at our lab had this idea for an algorithm for solving an engineering problem that has many well known solutions. The student developed preliminary results but ended up applying the algorithm to some other simpler engineering problems instead and graduating. I 'inherited' the project and it has always been a project my advisor has had high ambitions for. My advisor actually ended up changing my research project to this one after 6 month even though I heavily objected. The project is not funded. I TA to pay the bills.

At this point I have already advanced to candidacy and I'm in what I was planning to be my final 6 month. My research has basically consisted of building other algorithms based on the one the other student came up with. All are for an application in a measurement system. I have derived all of the mathematical solutions that will be at the heart of my algorithm and I am in the process of validating them with new experimental data. The previous data I worked with was all provided by the first student to work on the project.

I have recently discovered there are some issues with the original algorithm that create errors in the solution. The errors are larger than those  of the previous (well-established) methods. This does not happen in all conditions, however, the experimental data I was left with all happened to be cases where this error does not show up (I'm not entirely sure this was by coincidence).

How can I salvage this project and graduate without delaying my graduation much. I have family obligations that require me to graduate soon and I'm devastated that I've discovered this so late. This is partly my fault for trusting the research from the previous student too much (it was easy to do since my advisor can't stop praising him).

I personally have always been of the opinion that research projects do not need to have positive outcomes and PhD students should be assured that things will be fine for them even if there research has bad outcomes. I feel that doing research to show that something has a bad outcome is still equally valuable. I also feel that because of pressure to have good outcomes a lot of researchers exaggerate their results out of fear of possible consequences and it ends up doing more bad than good when people try to use their publications.

Do you think I have a good case of being able to graduate given my situation? And how would you approach convincing my advisor?

Conditions Under-which Fancy Algorithm Has Inflated Error Properties by A. Student. Journal of Science and The Doing Of It. 2017.

This would be a perfectly acceptable paper, and one which should appear in the literature. If you can, correcting said algorithm so it does not do so would be a bonus, but not necessary. Also, it's slightly late for you, but one should always ask when embarking on a thesis/dissertation project "What happens if the answer is "No"?"


How to prevent having prospective students use me for free help, and then ghost me to go to another university In many countries there are funding sources that enable students or postdocs go study or work at a university of their choice, usually abroad. Usually for these applications, the applicant has to get in touch with a potential supervisor to get a letter of invitation and approve their research statement. More often than not, the potential supervisor is expected to discuss the ideas in detail, and also help improving the cover letter and research statement, since the award of the fellowship depends on it.

I have noticed the following situation recently: students from abroad approach me with interest to do research in my lab, and ask for help in checking their application and aligning ideas to my research. We have a call or two, we discuss the details, we come up with a strong application (that looks much better than the one they initially approached me with). As the application deadline approaches I don't hear back from them anymore nor they respond to emails.
Soon I learn that in parallel they approach a more famous lab with a much better application (thanks to me). Since the cover letter and research statement are now of high quality (for someone at that stage in their career), they are accepted easily, and get funding (sometimes directly from the lab).

This is new to me, and in just a short period of time I had three similar cases. I spent at least a day on each (calls, emails and checking the application), so it is a waste of time, and frustrating.

Is this a new trend? What is the best way to avoid this, while not discouraging genuine applicants?

A student contacts you and expresses an interest to work with you on your research. The student has funding contingent on your letter of acceptance and your approval of their research statement.

Ask the student to prepare a research statement. Tell him/her that you will provide all the necessary resources but that you will not write the statement for them or pre-grade it before it is to be submitted. Point them to the resources about your research, including Web pages, journal articles, and presentation abstracts. Provide them with a template research statement for a research project entirely unrelated to your field yet fully complete to be accepted in the other field. For example, when you are in a biology department doing research on gene expression, have a colleague in the physics department draft a statement on quantum dot fluorescence that he/she would accept as a suitable application. Alternatively, prepare a well-written application to a ballet theater group that expresses an interest to be Juliet in the upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet.

After that, let it be.

After all, do you really want/need to employ PhD students or postdocs who cannot initiate efforts on their own to prepare a coherent statement of their interest in your research?


Can i use the same Method Section for two different papers? I did a survey on the demand for complementary medicine among patients of the gynaecologcial department here in Munich. We collected a couple of hundred questionnaires and I am currently writing two different papers: one dealing with our findings concerning the cancer patients and another about the results from our patients in pregnancy and after birth. I finished the first one and I am currently sitting on the second one. I am wondering now: obviously, the introduction and discussion sections are completely different, but my method section is more or less the same. Can I simply use my method section verbatim also for the other paper? The papers will be submitted to two different journals in the end.

Copying entire sections verbatim between two papers is generally considered self-plagiarism and/or dual-publication. It's frowned upon academically, and may trigger additional unwanted review by plagiarism-detection software.

However, some disciplines- particularly those in the medical sciences- have come to accept that duplication of text between Methods sections of different papers such as in your situation is inevitable. Check with your adviser to be sure this is OK in your discipline (and potentially the editors of the journals you are submitting to), but copying the core of the methods section should not be objectionable.

Note that there are some good practices to follow when doing so. At a minimum you should provide a citation in the methods section to each companion paper explaining that this survey had multiple objectives when it was designed. You should also be able to provide some text describing why the described methodology is suitable for addressing the central question of this particular paper, and why the results from each of the companion papers don't affect the results of this particular paper.

Please note that duplication of text across other sections, especially results and data sections, is always considered a major academic offense.


Do I need to cite a chemical formula? I want to include the chemical change that occurs when calcium carbonate is heated within the background section of the thesis I'm writing. I've seen it included in other's work on the topic, but I don't see any formal citations of the formula. Do I need to cite it or is it more akin to general knowledge? If I do need to cite it, where would be a good place to do that from?

This reaction was discovered at the dawn of the modern chemical age (by Joseph Black, in the late 18th century), and is frequently documented in basic chemistry textbooks. This puts it into the realm of general knowledge; you don't need to cite it.


What to do if a student claims to have turned in the homework but I could not find it? I am teaching a course in a college and assignment homework on a regular basis. Usually I collect all homework in the class and later my student secretary grades all the homework and return them to the students through the mail room. If a student did not turn in the homework at all, a zero will be given.

There is a student who claims to have turned in two homework but got zero for both. I am checking with my secretary and is awaiting for his reply. Likely he will tell me that he does remember anything about her homework. Also I have asked the student to check her mailbox, and it is quite likely that she could not find her homework there.

Another piece of information: I suspect the student is dishonest as sometimes her quiz answer is identical to the student sitting next to her. But since I never caught her red-handed, this should not be used as an evidence.

Now assuming that no evidence can be found regarding whether she turned the homework or not, there are at least three opinions for me:

Give her full marks for the homework, assuming that it is I or my secretary who misplaced them.
Give her zeros, ignoring her claims.
As a happy medium, change her homework status as "excused" so these two particular homework will not be counted toward her grade.

I have done Option 1 in the past, but only to find out later that the student who made the claim turns out to be a very dishonest student and likely she lied to me and benefited from lying. What would you suggest me to do in this situation?

Since you have no way to show that the student didn't submit the homework, it's simply your word against the word of the student.  Furthermore, there were lots of homework assignments from various students, so it would presumably be easier for you to forget receiving the homework than it would be for the student to mistakenly remember submitting the homework.

If an unbiased third party considered this and assumed honesty from both sides, I think that they would conclude that it was more likely that you had lost/forgotten the paper than that the student had remembered submitting a paper when she, in fact, had not done so.

If this happened with a student taking a class from a TA or faculty member under my supervision, I'd tell the TA or faculty member to "excuse the grade" and adopt a system for homework submission (e.g. use a learning management system) that provides independent confirmation that the homework was submitted.


Is it normal that an advisor does not read the final version of the PhD proposal of his student before submission? Recently, I submitted my PhD proposal. In my opinion, something really strange happened to me and that was: my adviser did not read the final version of proposal at all before submission!

I started to write my PhD proposal approximately 3 months ago and the written document went back and forth between me and my advisor for four times but despite I spent a whole day to correct his final suggestions before submission he did not read it at all.

I could certainly say he did not read it because we use a system to upload or store files which could track users, who view the the files or even download it, and this system shows that he did not view or download the last version at all and this last version is not available anywhere so the possibility of accessing it somewhere else is zero!

It looks really strange to me because I'm supposedly his first PhD student ever because he is a new faculty in our department which came to our university just 1 year before I got admission and I think if more experienced professors don't care really about their student's proposals that could be justified probably that they're old or they don't care at all (Don't be picky on me I'm not saying all experienced professors behave this way, I'm just saying some of them!) but I'm his (my advisor!) first PhD student and I thought it would be handled better than this way.

Is it a sign that maybe he is angry with me or something is wrong? Because, the day after I sent him the last version he responded back to me that I will read it tomorrow but he didn't read it even until now that I'm writing this. I'm just feeling really strange because doing a PhD is kinda like the most important event in my life but... I don't know... any idea or suggestion?

Well, if I would pingpong a proposal between me and a PhD student four times, and I feel like my last remarks were mainly fine tuning, then I would not mind accepting whatever the PhD student makes out of it.

This is a very personal answer, but since we can not read the mind of your supervisor, this still might help.


Is school work in the public domain? I am working on a project for school and would like to know if it would be in the public domain.

If your country is a signatory to the Berne Convention, then you automatically own the copyright to anything you write, from the moment you write it, with some exceptions:

If you're being paid to write it, the work may qualify as "work for hire", in which case the copyright may be owned by whoever is paying you.  Ask a lawyer (but not your employer's lawyer).
Some universities (for example, MIT) claim ownership of "Intellectual Property" developed using university resources (for example, the campus wifi network).  Whether this claim applies to schoolwork is unclear.  Ask a lawyer (but not the university's lawyer).

In any case, unless you (and/or your employer and/or the university, if they claim ownership) release it into the public domain, it isn't in the public domain.


what are good ways to find team-mates on research and writing papers? im a AI researcher and mostly interested in a field that is less attended in our university. i have some ideas to work on but i blieve it can have better results by working with exprienced people. is there any network that you can find interested people that want to work in special type of fields?

Attend conferences on that topic and network, read papers on the topic and contact the authors with questions, suggestions etc.


Does it count as academic dishonesty if I use the references of someone's assignment? I'm currently working on an essay topic that a mate of mine happened to have done before on another course. He gave me his reference list on some ideas that coincide with my topic and stance, but I'm afraid that if I use them it might count as academic dishonesty. Am I in the clear?

For purposes of homework it would be good to acknowledge the source to clear up any claim of misrepresentation.
I hope you actually read the referenced articles, however. Otherwise, I'd worry about the honesty of it. If you just copied the references without further exploration you are on very shaky ground. And if you didn't go beyond those references in a search then you haven't learned anything from the assignment. The professor would be justified in marking you down, of course.
Assignments aren't about producing results. They are about learning. If you bypass the learning step you are defeating yourself in the long run.
Moreover, if you are using the other person's work, generally, without citation, you are engaged in plagiarism.


Weird volume and issue number for an IEEE publication I recently got a paper published in IEEE, but on IEEE Xplore it is listed to be in volume pp, issue 99.
What does that mean?

That is what they temporarily use for "Early online" papers that have not yet been assigned to an issue.


How to respond to peer review - a step by step guide to my first response? I'm in the process of responding to my first peer review (major revisions).  There seems to be a lot of advice out there, (even some stuff here: How to write good Response Letters for the reviewers) but there are still a few etiquette and structural things I'm not sure about.

How do you structure your response? Do I respond to the comments chronologically in the order they appear in the paper, or do I create two separate sections for each reviewer?  Maybe a "general" section, followed by separate comments for each reviewer?
Do I write a cover letter thanking the reviewers for their helpful comments?
How casual/formal should I be?  Should I use contractions and a conversational (yet professional) style, or keep it as formal as the article itself?
Any dos/don'ts that would be helpful for me to know?

Variations are possible, but I have found that the following seems to be a fairly typically form of a response to reviewers:

Begin with a letter to the handling editor and reviewers, in which you thank the reviewers for their useful feedback (even if it wasn't) and say you believe you've addressed all comments.  If you've made any really major changes, a sentence or two here is a good to address them.
Quote the reviews as sent and address each comment inline, either saying how you've done what they wanted or explaining why you haven't.  I always organize by reviewer and address in the order of their comments (rather than the structure of the paper) because the goal is to clearly show that you have addressed all comments.

I recommend adopting a polite and semi-formal style.  You can be a bit more informal than the paper, but I still don't use contractions.

Do not get argumentative with the reviewers, and do not blow off their criticisms.  Even an apparently crazy criticism should be treated politely, and as a matter of confusion rather than as a personal attack.


Should I tell a colleague that he's serving as an editor for a predatory journal? A colleague of mine, who I regard scientifically, just invited me to submit an article to a special issue of a journal which I consider predatory.
I consider this journal predatory because its publisher released several journals that are considered predatory in my scientific community (bioinformatics), and also for some details like the super-fast review and acceptance process.
The last article this journal published, for example, has the following review and acceptance times listed:

Submission: 12th September 2020
Revision: 23th October 2020
Acceptance: 28th October 2020
Publication online: 29th October 2020

This aspect is very suspicious to me.
What should I do now?
Should I tell him that I think the journal is predatory?
In this case, he might get offended, and this situation might compromise our future relationship. Like, he might not want to collaborate with me anymore in the future.
But if I say nothing, the scam could go on...

First, you need to have very solid reasons for considering the journal to be "predatory". I bring this up because the only concrete reason you gave in your question is a rather poor one: rapid peer review cycle is not necessarily evidence of being a predatory journal, even if it might be unusual in your field (as it is in mine). My point is not to dispute your assessment (I have no idea of what journal you are even talking about); my point is that if you would consider discussing it with your colleague, then you should certainly focus on explicitly disreputable behaviour. In particular, the publisher's journals should clearly be listed on at least one website that tracks disreputable journals. That way, it is not just your assessment; you would have others who would support your concerns.
That said, a publisher with some disreputable journals might have some very genuine journals in its portfolio. This is a very important point: you cannot automatically denigrate one journal just because of other journals from the same publisher. And I repeat, a rapid review cycle is rather weak evidence. Stronger evidence would be actual access to review reports that you can examine and judge to be of unusually poor quality.
So, this brings me to your direct question of whether you should share your concern with your colleague. If you are afraid that she might get offended, then it seems that your relationship with her is not sufficiently close that she would trust that your concerns are personal concern for her. In that case, it would be especially important that you have strong evidence of disreputable behaviour before accusing the journal she is involved with of being predatory. If you do not have such strong evidence, then it is best not to mention anything but to politely decline the invitation with a truthful but evasive answer (e.g. "I am unable to commit the time to such a submission"--this would be truthful since you are unable to waste your effort and time on predatory journals). But then, even if you do have sufficiently strong evidence to accuse the journal of being predatory, you would need to determine how comfortable you are with this colleague. Only you know that, so ultimately it would be up to you to decide whether she might be offended by your presentation of evidence.


Can I become a tenure-track prof in one dept (biology) and teach in a different dept (math) with only one PhD? I recently defended my PhD in Neuroscience and am starting a postdoc soon. Like a lot of people who take this track, I hope to one day have my own research lab at a university. I would also like to teach, but here's the thing — I don't want to teach neuroscience or biology. I taught lower-division math at my undergrad university as an adjunct before leaving for my PhD (when I had just a BS in Bio, Math) and I loved it. I would ideally like to have a research career in neuroscience and teach lower-division math courses.
My question is: is it possible to span fields like this if you can demonstrate capability or have subject-specific teaching on your CV even without PhD-level training in both fields? I don't have math-specific training beyond my BS. Many adjunct/lower-division math professors have a Master's in Math and no PhD in any field. Do I also need a Master's if I have a PhD in a different field (neuroscience is more quantitative than other life sciences, but it's not math)?

Can I become a tenure-track prof in one dept (biology) and teach in a different dept (math) with only one PhD?

TL;DR: no.
Long answer:
I was for several years the chair of a mathematics department and during that time oversaw teaching assignments for the 200-odd courses offered yearly by my department. I can recall only one case in which my department allowed a faculty member from a biology-related department who did not have an advanced degree in math or a closely related area (eg physics) to teach a math class (I believe it was calculus for biology students). Even this arrangement raised some eyebrows — mine, and possibly other people’s — but the circumstances were a bit unusual so it was allowed to happen, for reasons I won’t go into.
With this background, I can say with reasonable confidence that what you are proposing is impossible. Perhaps you can reasonably expect to be allowed to teach a math class once or twice in your career if that’s something you have your mind set on doing, but as a regular part of your job, at a normal university? No way.
Even setting aside your lack of qualifications to teach math (an objection which one can imagine you overcoming under some hypothetical, if rare, circumstances), the fact remains that departments hire faculty among other important reasons to fulfill their own teaching needs. If you are in department X, you will be teaching the classes that department X offers - that’s why they are hiring you; so it simply doesn’t make sense for a neuroscience department to allow you to regularly teach classes of another department, except under some extremely rare and unusual circumstances.
Now, if you get a second PhD in math, or publish several years’ worth of postdoctoral research work in neuroscience that can be plausibly described as serious applied math so that you can credibly start calling yourself a mathematician, then your plan might start making a bit more sense. In that case you would probably want to look for positions that involve a joint appointment between a neuroscience department and a mathematics department — such things are not common, but they exist. Your teaching load will then be split between the two departments, likely in roughly the same proportion as the proportions of your position that are assigned to each of the departments. It’s still not likely that you will be allowed to teach only math classes, but it may be not too far from what you have in mind.
Edit: you also wrote:

I would ideally like to have a research career in neuroscience and teach lower-division math courses.

Another thought that occurs to me is that your expectation that you will only teach lower-division classes is also unreasonable, independently of the discipline. Professors are expected to teach at all levels: lower division, upper division, and (where applicable) graduate; again, that’s sort of why you’re hired in the first place, and that’s what sets you apart from an adjunct or lecturer. You seem to want to do the high-level parts of a professor’s job - doing research, running a lab etc - when it comes to research, but only the most low-level parts of the job - teaching the sort of beginning math classes that your former university allowed you to teach with only a BS degree - when it comes to teaching. That’s simply not how it works: no university will waste a professor’s position on job duties that can be performed by someone with much lower qualifications than a professor. That would very obviously not be an efficient arrangement for the university, either economically or pedagogically.
If you don’t want to teach anything more challenging than the least challenging thing that there is to teach, you may want to ask yourself if you actually want to be a professor at all.


Is it unethical for someone to proofread/edit your cover letter or CV? Is it unethical for someone to proofread/edit your cover letter?

Because then it's not fully your work anymore. It could be helpful, but I am asking if it is ethical towards the hiring professional? You wouldn't state that someone improved your work, but you are acting as if it is all yours.

I see no ethical problems with this whatsoever.

One has to understand most academic ethical principles through the lens of academic society.  In particular the belief that academic writing should be solely that of the author unless otherwise scrupulously documented is not an absolute ethical principle but a belief and expectation of practicing academics throughout the world.  It applies to certain kinds of writing and not others (and there are edge cases that cause disagreement, as seen on this site).

I don't know any academics who view a CV as a piece of academic writing in the sense that issues of originality and plagiarism apply.  If you like the format of someone else's CV, you can copy it for yourself.  In fact, it is more efficient if you just ask them for the word / latex / whatever file they used to make their CV and adapt it directly.  I imagine most academic CVs are adapted in this way.

Cover letters are viewed differently by different parts of academia.  In my circles (mathematics, research university, US) cover letters are usually quite
perfunctory: within recent memory my colleagues and I discussed whether we even wanted to make a cover letter an official part of the job application.  In my field there is something called an "AMS Cover Sheet," which is a sort of form that you fill out that has the information of a cover letter, and some departments would happily accept this in lieu of a conventional cover letter.  Using an AMS Cover Sheet as a cover letter is the equivalent of adapting someone else's CV.  However, it is my understanding that in some other parts of US academia -- especially in liberal arts colleges and/or the humanities -- the cover letter is extremely important (I have heard someone say it is the most important part of the application).  If what you say to convince a hiring committee that you are a good fit for their institution is lifted from someone else's cover letter, then indeed that might be viewed as problematic.

The above covers the situation of literally cutting and pasting CVs and cover letters.  When it comes to proofreading: it is my understanding and view that unless specifically prohibited, getting your academic documents proofread is not only acceptable but usually highly encouraged.  When it comes to editing, some amount is probably okay but some amount is probably too much.  It also depends on who is doing the editing.  My PhD advisor gave me more extensive feedback on my employment materials than on any other single thing.  I took the implication that these materials are extremely important, and I have tried to "pay forward" his help by giving similar extensive help to students (including, but not limited to, my thesis advisees) on their employment materials, webpages and so forth.  I would not hesitate to circle a sentence and scrawl a suggested alternative in the margins of their draft.  I do hesitate (and never have, I believe) retyped any of my students' theses or employment materials: thus I am suggesting changes -- sometimes very specific changes, and sometimes with the clear intent that my suggestion will be implemented directly -- but I am not making the changes myself.

In general I have a hard time envisioning a proofreading or editing of a cover letter or CV that would be ethically problematic.  I think students and young academics should be much more concerned with having these and other application materials flawlessly literate and highly polished and should seek to err on the side of getting the help that they need to do so.  If such a person has a reason to think that some particular aid they are getting may cross the line, they should ask their advisor.


Put good GRE scores on resume submitted with grad app? If you have good GRE scores, is it a good idea to put them on the resume that you submit with your grad school application?

You typically have ETS send the school your official GRE scores anyway so this information is going to be redundant.

It shouldn't bother most people if it is on there but I don't see it helping you really either. I would only do it if I have some space needing to be filled on my resume and my scores were really high.


How to remove the word "we" when discussing results in an academic paper? I was given feedback by a reviewer that the article I had submitted shouldn't contain we-type sentences, as they made the article sound less scholarly (yes; I know; it’s a peculiarity of my field).

I want your advice on how to rewrite the following phrases to be more “scholarly” sounding:

  From Table 1 we can infer that …

  In Table 1 we can see that …

I had the same struggles. The general solution would be to start using the passive.

It can be inferred ...
It is Apparent from Fig/Table ...
The results depicted in X would be always true ...

I actually dislike this style (since it is more boring; even though it is assumed the correct style to write academic reports, paper, thesis, dissertations etc. in Germany)


Where should I place my figure if it will break essay layout? I've been struggling with the placement of a figure in my essay (using APA style if that helps). Basically, I reference it in a paragraph that is fairly close to the bottom of the page, but probably has about 5 more lines until the bottom. The problem is, I want to put the figure below the paragraph, but it would be too small to fit in the five lines, but if I move it to the next page then the gap looks too big!
Is there a correct way to go about this? Should I put it after the next paragraph so there is no space? Should I put it above the paragraph where I first reference it?
Thanks! Here is a screenshot of what I have at the moment:

Because this is a question about style and layout, it could be opinion based, but from what I have read:

It is generally considered better to place a figure before the text that refers to it. This allows the reader to find the figure more easily. Because you state "figure 1 below" (well done!) this is not a problem in your case.

Professional editors sometimes shorten/rephrase prior sentences to solve the problem you are describing. Obviously there is no point to do this before the text is in its final form.

Your observation that a reader may want to see the figure and paragraph referring to it on the same page is correct, but the best way to solve the problem depends on the details of your manuscript. Typesetting and getting a perfect layout can be really hard. There is no "one size fits all" solution to your problem, and there are no strict rules about what is best.

Finally, and most importantly: don't worry too much. Perfectionism is a good trait (especially for a scientist), but most people will judge the content, not the layout.


PhD supervisor (who I use as a reference) is the department director for position I am applying for. Should this bias be avoided? I am applying for a position at a University. The director of the department at the University I am applying to was my PhD supervisor.
Is it still proper to ask them to provide a letter of recommendation? Or is this a bias (conflict of interest) I should try and avoid?
EDIT: The director IS involved with both the interviewing and hiring process; however, they said to still use them as a reference.

I suggest that you ask the person whether they believe it is proper for them to write you a letter. They know the institution to which you are applying and its procedures. If they indicate that it should be fine, then it is fine. Otherwise, look elsewhere for a letter.
But it is good to avoid assumptions in a case like this. The director may be involved or not. A letter from them might be considered proper or not. Don't assume. Don't guess. Ask.
You can indicate in your note that you don't know the proper rules and, while you would value a letter, you will understand if they think it improper. Hopefully you know them well enough that such a note won't seem out of order to them.


Can I keep my full-time job while I pursue a PhD in Psychology, and if so, for how long? I have read this question posed a lot for math and science doctoral degree, but my question pertains to pursuing a social sciences doctoral degree. I'm currently working as a Management Analyst in local government. I've decided to pursue a PhD in Psychology at a nearby university. Being accepted is a big "if", but if I were accepted, my goal would be to retain my position in government as long as possible and find ways to connect my research to social behaviors pertaining to civic engagement and public health. I'm also in my early 30s, which means I'll be doing this during the decade where most people are settling into their careers. The eventual goal is to pivot to academia, and pursue a career in lecturing and research.

My hope is that the overlap would ease the tension between holding down a relatively demanding, full time job and would benefit my research. With that said, I'm wondering if I need a reality check here? Has anyone else endeavored anything like this? How difficult is it to balance both?

I don't want to repeat the points made in other good answers.

If you want some work-life-balance, keeping the full-time job and doing a PhD at the same time is impossible. In most cases, having a consistent work-life-balance while doing a PhD alone is very hard.


On the possibility and legality of bulk downloading papers from IEEE Xplore Is it possible to download all available literature from IEEE Xplore? Is it allowed?
I was thinking that now, while I still have access due to being in academia, I might download everything I could possibly need.
Bonus question: If it is allowed, how do I do it?

No, it's not allowed.
IEEE Xplore terms of use (emphasis mine):

Authorized users are not permitted to:

Allow anyone other than an authorized user to use or access IEEE Xplore;
Display or otherwise make any information from IEEE Xplore available to anyone other than an authorized user;
Transmit electronically, via email or any other file transfer protocols, any portion of IEEE Xplore;
Download or attempt to download an entire issue or issues of a publication contained in IEEE Xplore;
Create a searchable archive of any portion of IEEE Xplore;
Use robots or intelligent agents to access, search, and/or systematically download any portion of IEEE Xplore;
Use any portion of IEEE Xplore for document delivery, fee-for-service use, or bulk reproduction or commercial distribution of materials in any form;
Alter or modify any portion of IEEE Xplore;
Delete or remove in any form or format, including on a printed article, any copyright information or notice contained in IEEE Xplore;
Reproduce or redistribute any portion of IEEE Xplore.


Interested in pursuing a PhD but I graduate in December. Do I have to wait an extra year to apply? I'm interested in pursuing a PhD program but will not complete my undergraduate degree until December. Most PhD programs require their application to be completed in December. Does that mean I have to wait an extra year to apply (since it could take a few weeks past their deadline to receive my final transcripts)?

Certainly not. Most students graduate in the spring, but apply to graduate school several months before graduation. It is not expected that you will have your final transcript in hand when you apply. However, it is expected that you will have the transcript prior to the actual start of your graduate school studies.


How do I refuse to work on military-focused contracts? I'm applying to programs in Computer Science and Robotics and would feel very uncomfortable working on defense-focused or funded projects.
Is it unrealistic (in terms of funding opportunities) to refuse to work on such projects?
If not, at what point in application/admission does it make sense to make this expectation clear?

This answer is for the US, based on my experience with US admissions.

I would say that this is generally not an applications/admissions question, only because it's unlikely to be meaningful to admissions committees. Many graduate departments in computer science work on a cohort-admissions model, where a group of students are admitted each year and then are expected to find a faculty adviser once accepted. In this model it is up to you to find a research program that personally motivates you and then to persuade an adviser to take you on. It is at this stage that you would (and should) make it clear to a potential adviser that you're not willing to work on defense related projects. However, at this point it's probably moot because you're going to be talking to potential advisers based on your perceived compatibility.

What might be a better thing to do during the application process is to ask whether a candidate department conducts any defense related research. Then you can just not apply to defense-related organizations rather than make it a point of contention with programs that you're interested in. Additionally, most CS research is not defense related, and most all broad-based research departments will have plenty of research opportunities that are not defense projects. Consider that about 60% of US PhD students in Computer Science are foreign nationals and ineligible for this kind of work anyway. You will have no problem finding non-military projects to work on.

Some places are well-known as defense-related institutions- for example the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory, or the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. It is usually obvious from these organization's websites that this is a focus of theirs, and you can just avoid them. However, if you wanted to apply to a place such as this I would definitely discuss your personal ethics eariler rather than later, and your ethics definitely don't disqualify you. These labs do a lot of research that is "defense-related" in the sense that it provides for the common defense of the country, not because it's a military project. They work on everything from actual weapons systems to civil defense projects like weather satellites, making the energy grid more robust, and information security.


How can a grad student get funding without doing research? I am a 1st-year graduate student at University of Oregon, and I am trying to find funding for my education.

The problem I am running into is finding funds that don't require research. My career path doesn't involve deep research projects and it seems the requirement for a majority of scholarships require students doing research.

Any tips?

Teaching assistantships (TA-ships) should be your savior. I am on the doctoral committee of a graduate student in our department who wants to teach at liberal arts colleges post degree and therefore wants to gain as much teaching experience as possible.

She is still doing research and getting published in top conferences - just not at the scale at which other students (who want to focus primarily on research) are.

Another lesser seen but useful mode of funding is through what most schools call graduate assistantships (GAs). Here, you will be assisting in academic administration or other managerial responsibilities closely associated with research activities but not actual research itself.

I encourage you to explore those options. Departments usually have a limited number of these options.


Coming back to a tough subject after long break I'm returning to college next semester after about 5 years of a break from school. I took Calculus AB about 6-7 years ago in high school and will be taking BC next semester, which I need to transfer for Computer science.

In this case, I don't feel that retaking AB would be particularly helpful because I'm rusty on that content as well, and if I'm being honest here, it just doesn't fit with my transfer timeline.

My question is - how can I effectively come back to a difficult subject after a long break of not working with the materials?

I was in exactly your situation once.  I brushed up on Calculus I, which was basically about differentiation, on my own a bit, and signed up for Calculus II, which was basically about sequences, series and integration.  The Calculus II teacher helped me and it worked out fine.

Returning students often have several important things going for them: motivation, focus, self-awareness, impatience with some of the *$5%! that younger people will take lying down.

However, I don't know if the route I took would work for everyone.  Why don't you try some review of the material in your high school course, and see how you feel?  Do not hesitate to visit any math tutoring center within reach.  No one will check your credentials at the door.

Basic calculus courses are often offered in winter terms and summer sessions.  So you might not need to feel too constrained by your planned transfer timeline.


Is it good idea to use arXiv for improving my paper? I have some rejections to my paper due to wrong selection of journals and the small mistakes done by me. The mistakes are so small for me but crucial to paper and can be fixed very quickly (less than a minute) by me. I want to improve paper by myself by taking a long time because no rejection yet happened due to some serious flaw that I cannot manage.

Since I am a beginner, can I use arXiv to improve my paper through feedbacks or by taking time to improve paper instead of sending to journals and getting rejections for small mistakes? Are there any drawbacks to put my paper in arXiv?

Points favor to me :

1) No time limit.

2) Feedbacks and suggestions may come.

3) Fewer chances for rejection if I publish it to a sensible journal after using arXiv.

arXiv is not a good choice for obtaining feedback or informal reviews of papers.

arXiv is typically used for publishing pre-prints. It allows authors to disseminate a paper as well as enabling the paper to be cited in advance of traditional publishing. As such, it also allows authors to establish some claim of precedence on their work. Such papers are often published on arXiv with a note such as "Submitted for publication in < journal >" or "Accepted for publication in < journal >" since the publishing cycle can range from months to years in some fields.

I would venture that most readers will be other people working in the field, to see what work is currently being done. They are likely to have neither the time nor inclination to review and provide feedback on unpublished papers. It may vary depending on the field but I would expect that papers without an accompanying "Submitted ..." or "Accepted ..." note would have fewer reads, let alone feedback or responses.


Research "employment" options for students graduating midyear? Some students, particularly in the US, face the dilemma of graduating at the end of a fall semester or quarter, but then have the prospect of not having a PhD position start until the following fall. For students for whom working would be an important means of trying to support themselves, what options are available? Companies are typically reluctant to hire someone for a few months (not enough return on investment in such a short period of time), and there aren't a lot of academic programs available. What's a prospective PhD candidate to do in such a case—particularly with reference to students entering science and engineering fields?

My experience is limited to anecdotes. What I have generally seen is that students usually attempt to get either a paid industrial internship or an paid/unpaid research internship with a particular research group.

In fact, I have been mentoring an undergraduate who is graduating in the middle of the semester and is preparing to spend the next 6 months working as a research assistant (paid ~$15/hour) for a research group in our university before joining a prestigious PhD program in another university.


Are “DIY projects” valuable or publishable? I’m 17 and will be joining a UG physics program soon. I’ve done a lot of DIY projects over the years, ranging from electric arc speakers to air-quality and climate-control systems. Most of my projects involved Arduinos.

I’ve been thinking of conducting a five-year study on air quality and climate change using ten sensors (gas, dust, temperature, and humidity) and an Arduino. I will collect data for five years and then conclude my findings.

Can I publish such research anywhere?
Do these type of projects have any value or are they a waste of time?

You are asking whether you will be able to publish these data and use it as an edge. It all depends, as user2768's answer mentions, on the value that your work has. Specifically, you have to come up with a valid and important research question that you work will answer. For example,

the 5-year or even 10-year array of data for a number of sensors staying in your basement are useless
the online tool to monitor the dust quantity in the air in your neighbourhood is useful as a community project, is likely to be useful to your neighbours / town administration, and can be commercialized, but is unlikely to turn into a scientific article. I know of such a service in my city, and you can take some inspiration from it: Tion CityAir.
monitoring gas release and dust particle concentration next to a nearby industry plant or landfill is useful. It can become particularly useful if the administration of the plant / landfill is about to introduce some environmental safety measures and is seeking to quantify their efficiency. In this case, your research will be answering a well-defined question: "Are enter new safety measures here improving the air quality?". This is valuable and publishable. In this case, 5-year arrays of data are not required; most important is to monitor the air quality some time before the planned safety upgrade and some time after; I'd suggest at least three months before and after.

Bottom line: starting a 5-year data flow is easy. Coming up with a valid design of experiment is harder.

Specific points to account when planning an air quality monitoring experiment:

Are your gas sensors able to monitor the exact gases you are interested in? If you are targeting plant monitoring, ammonia and sulfur oxides come to mind, but there might be so much more.
What particular dust particles you are able to quantify? For the environmental safety applications, PM2.5 particles are often the most risk-inducing.


How to put in acknowledgments a research department of a university or an internship? How can I put in the acknowledgments section of a research paper to a research department of a university or an internship awarded? If there is an example paper, please show me.
regards,
Alex

You can simply write

this work has been conducted while Alex was visiting XXXXXX


Should I tell my tertiary education provider about my autism and ADHD diagnosis? I have high functioning autism / aspergers syndrome comorbid with ADHD.

During highschool I went undiagnosed, but always suspected I was autistic. I had a few Dr's comment but I didn't really agree with them at that time.

Fast forward now, I got my psychiatric diagnosis, and also found out that I had ADHD. I don't care about being autistic, but finding out I had ADHD and treating it is what really impacted my life the most.

I can conduct myself well socially but have significant difficulties in particular social situations in specific contexts -- ones that I do not have any experience. In addition, I learn in very specific ways and methods.

I'm hesitant to inform my school about this because I don't really consider it a disability. I don't really care that I'm socially clueless (I prefer to be alone most of the time anyway) and my ADHD is being treated and working well so far. I have a few sensory issues and routines but they are under control. My emotional regulation is fine. I'm very "anal" at particular things.

My degree somewhat aligns with my special interests, and I've learnt to better manage doing things I don't like (which was legitimately impossible without my ADHD medication).

Country: Australia, but will appreciate other perspectives

Age: 19, M

If you are in the U.S., and if you are referring to post-high-school education, there is a sort of bifurcation, by law and custom: there's no point in mentioning any sort of trouble unless you have registered with "disability services" (or equivalent), who will negotiate on your behalf with various departments for reasonable/purposeful "accommodation" (about extra time for exams, or quiet rooms for exams, etc)

In that context (again, in current U.S. college or university) individual instructors are explicitly not to make any judgements about disability issues, about accommodations, etc. After all, they/we are not experts in understanding such things.

Similarly, (other) chronic medical conditions (since the previous is biochemistry, presumably) are not within the purview of instructors. E.g., the side effects of anorexia or bulimia can be occasionally debilitating. Despite being able to make inferences, I do not want to intrude in peoples' private lives, so I do not ask for any sort of detailed explanation for anything. "Medical issue" (as reason for absence or "incomplete") is more than enough.

It is unfortunately true that the "immediacy" of most classroom/exam situations (such as demands for "class participation") are biased against shy or nervous or ... people. The typical rationalization for this is that it is often unhelpful "out in the world" to be shy or nervous or ... so to operate in a way that penalizes that is merely a presagement of what is to come? (Um, wait, don't people pay tuition, not to be filtered only, but to be educated and assisted in that education? Nevermind.)

You might make a more informal remark, as pseudo-apology-in-advance, explaining possibly unusual behavior or reactions as due to ... whatever you'd care to say... rather than a negative-critical reaction to whatever's happening in class. But something more on the order of "I have some personal issues that may cause me to behave quirkily at some points, and I don't want you (the instructor) to think that it's at all a reaction against what's going on, it's just me". Or to your taste. No reason to give more details to any reasonably sophisticated college/university instructor in the U.S. (Of course, some are not sophisticated, and further, often themselves having issues that make such sophistication difficult, sadly-ironically.)

A bit ambiguous answer, but reflecting the legalities and intentions of current U.S. stuff, I think.


Which is the best way to present speed benchmarking along with speedups? Which is the best way to present benchmarking results? I have to choose between tables and line plots. In my opinion tables require less space, but the speed-up is less clear and hence I should even put a speed-up column. On the other hand, line plots are more intuitive, but I even have to add a legend and in my opinion they occupy more space and do not provide the precise results for the benchmakrs (even if I think that the order of magnitude of the different results is more relevant).

I agree that tables seem to be more effective in conveying the information you have. In order to make the speedup clear, you can add a column to indicate the relative speed:

Method         Runtime [s]       Relative runtime
-------------------------------------------------
classic        134               7.9
fancy 1        23                1.4
fancy 2        17                1

You could scale to the fastest or slowest depending in which direction you want to put your argument in the text, and you could use logarithmic scaling if the benchmarking results are orders of magnitudes apart.

Hans Mittelmann's simplex LP benchmarks have something like this across the top row of the result table.


Footnote vs reference for API documentation As a computer scientist, I'm not sure whether I should be using footnotes or references (as in, those that go in "thebibliography" at the end) when referring to Javadocs. I think there is some valuable research even in the documentation of the Java standard library but I'm sure many will either gloss over these references or those who don't will probably already know about them. What is the appropriate style, in LNCS format?

The Springer instructions for authors for conference proceedings (including LNCS) don't give any guidance on what information should be put in footnotes, so you appear to be free to choose. I would suggest that if you are referring to a document then the easiest thing is to include it in the references as you would with any other document to which you refer.

Including it as a reference also means:

it will be visible on the article webpage even to people who aren't logged in or don't have access to the full paper, and
it will be linked to Crossref, which may benefit people who mine citation data.

If you're using BibTeX, you can use the @manual reference type, but see also this answer on referencing software documentation for options.


Is it alright to cover some information in the defense but not the written thesis? I will soon finish my thesis and I researched a lot in this technological area. Basically I want to say: “I have these n methods that all didn’t work out; that’s why I’ve decided to pursue this final method.” However I’m lacking time for extensively testing all these misleading alternatives, thus I could only state that I barely had empirically tested these hypotheses (which is a bad style to write down in my opinion).

Since part of the thesis is giving a presentation of it, I could imagine to mention all the dead-ends I went in before and describing the difficulties that occurred. But then again I'm not sure if its alright to present data in the presentation that the document never covered.

Hence, would it be acceptable to present the methods I didn’t dare to write down (because of the missing tests) as some kind of introduction to my final choice, or is it a total no-go?

n+1 methods were trialed; Method X [the one you ended up using] was the most promising [say in what sense], so it was chosen for further study.

I would not plan to cover something verbally without documenting it in your written thesis.  However, if someone asks you about something that's not in your written thesis, you may go ahead and answer to the best of your ability, even if the thesis doesn't have the answer in writing.


How to write source information for tables if I'm using data from multiple sources? I am using data from 3-4 different sources in my table. How to cite the source information in MLA format? As far as I know, Source information is written below tables in the MLA style. But is it okay to mention multiple sources below the table? Won't it look cluttered?

The MLA Style Center now provides an answer to this very question:

Indicate the sources of your data in a note beneath the table or figure. If that is too cumbersome, give the sources in an endnote placed in the text that introduces the table or figure.


Are pay announcements worth their price to hire people? Recently in my university research group (scientific fields: computer science and bioinformatics) we had some open positions for PhD students and PostDoc.
For the hiring phase, we decided to insert some announcements on many free websites.
We avoided pay websites, such as IEEE Job Site or others.

Now, the hiring phase has just ended up. We've found some good applicants, but not so good as we expected.
So I am wondering what would have happened if we had chosen the pay way.

I searched for some prices for a 30 days announcement on some popular job websites, and here are the prices I've found:

Linkedin: 140 €
ACM Careers: 380 €
IEEE Computer Science Society job board: 400 €
IEEE Job Site: 212 €

Do you think that these prices were worth to find better PhD or PostDoc candidates?

Do you think that next time we should pay one of these announcements in order to get better candidates?

Have you experienced before with them?

Many thanks

Yes, it's worth paying for an advertisement if you end up hiring a stronger candidate.  I tend to be fairly frugal, but I think of your situation in terms of one-time cost vs. recurring cost.  When you pay for the ad, you pay just once.  When you hire a weaker candidate, you pay every day in terms of lower productivity and lower quality results.

In the U.S., a typical annual salary for a postdoc in math might be in the range of $40,000-45,000 (33,000-36,500 €); in CS, it would likely be higher.  Even the IEEE price (the highest of those you list) is roughly 1% of that.  So, if you're fairly confident you'll get a better candidate by paying for a few ads, IMHO, you'd be foolish not to do so.


Is it possible to do PhD in Computational Social Science without CS background? As the title states, I don't have Computer Science background (B.A. in Business Administration and Master of Social Work) but would like to do PhD in Computational Social Science (Data analysis or Information sci).

There are master programs, mostly professional programs, admit students from whole range of areas, such as Computational Analytics and Public Policy from U of Chicago or QMSS from Columbia.

But PhD programs don't. Although PhD programs state on their website that they accept students regardless of their backgrounds, it means that they accept students from mathematics, statistics, or linguistics, but not from Social Work.

My interest is solving social issues by using computational approach. I have taken MOOC courses, such as Linear Algebra and Statistics with R, and I learned R and Python(both intermediate). I also have been working as RA in ICT in Bangladesh project.

To me, it becomes clearer that what PhD programs want is those who have solid CS knowledge and the idea of doing PhD seems to be so unrealistic.

Is it really impossible to do PhD in Data Sci or Info Sci without direct/indirect CS knowledge? If it is possible what should I do?

Based on your question and your comments (this and that), I do think you need to take more math and statistics before you apply for PhD. I don't think MOOC courses, such as Linear Algebra and Statistics with R are enough for you to be considered qualified to get into good Computational Social Science programs (You didn't even taken Calculus).

I would suggest you to apply for an MS in computer science first. Once you receive formal and rigorous math and CS trainings, then you apply for  Computational Social Science PhD programs. You will have much better chance to get in first or second tier schools this way.


Do I need to ask permission to use image from a publication I am involved in an EU H2020 project in which we are developping some educational and support material for companies to support them in implementing energy effeciency measures. Factsheets will be made available in the form of Powerpoint or Word documents on a platform that companies who have signed up to the platform will have access to. The documents will be made available under a Creative Commons license, so the companies will be able to adapt the documents (Powerpoint, Word) to their specific needs if they need to (e.g. add their logo, simplify or reformulate some parts).

I would like to know how best to proceed to be able to use images (graphs, diagrams or other) from scientific publications in these factsheets. Can we simply use them in our documents by citing the reference, but without asking permission? Or should we ask permission to the author?, university? or publisher (e.g. Elsevier)?

Depends on who's holding the copyright. Whoever has it is the one who gives permission.

Check the first page, in particular the imprint at the top. If it says (c) the authors, then the copyright is held by the authors; if it says (c) the publisher then you have to ask the publisher.


Difference between the problem a paper is trying to solve and primary research questions it tries to answer? If a paper takes up an approach to solve a problem, isn't that what makes up the primary research questions it is trying to address? I have been assigned to read a paper and answer a couple of questions based on it. One of the questions is to identify the problem the paper is trying to solve, and another question asks about the primary research questions it answers. I am confused as to what's the difference between these two.

Edit:

The paper is from the domain of artificial intelligence. The problem domain it belongs to is concerned with natural language processing. This domain poses a lot of problems, the paper just picked up one of them and I get that that's the "problem" it is trying to solve. How is a primary research question different from this?

As the saying goes,

  There's more than one way to cook an egg.

In the research context, this means that sometimes a problem is presented, but there are numerous ways to approach the larger problem. It's possible - in fact, it's likely - that most large problems are addressed from multiple angles by different papers.

As a concrete example (in computer science), consider the problem of sorting a list of integers. There are many, many different ways of doing this (some of which you probably don't want to use), but the assumptions you make have a major impact on how you solve the problem. So a single problem might lead to many research questions:

How do I sort a list of random integers?
How do I sort a list of integers of unknown size?
How do I sort a list of partially-sorted integers?
How do I sort a list of integers with no worse than O(x) performance, where x is some upper bound?

And so on. Each of these research questions is just a smaller, more digestible piece of a larger problem. But because the problem is so large, you can't answer every question in a single paper -- hence, the discrepancy you pointed out.


How common is redundancy in the British (UK/Australia/NZ/Ireland) system? The British permanent faculty system seems to differ from the US tenured system mainly in that in the former the management can 'fire' one on the basis of redundancy (What is the difference between permanent faculty positions in the UK and tenured faculty positions in the US/Canada?). How common is redundancy in practice in the countries having the British system (UK/Australia/NZ/Ireland)?
Thanks,
John

Redundancies are a standard management tool in UK academia at the moment. A quick Google of the Times Higher Education Supplement suggests that there were about 1,300 academic redundancies in the UK in 2011-12, or an average of about 18 per Higher Education institution in 2011-12. At the moment a number of institutions are making compulsory cuts by closing departments. The University of Surrey is one example, as are Warwick and London Metropolitan. I'm sure there are others. The are also a lot of institutions looking for voluntary redundancies.

This all has to do with economic pressures, managerial/strategic rationalisation and either perceived student demand or disappointing internationalisation experiments.

Academic tenure, such as it was,was phased out in the UK from the mid 1970s onwards.