Colloquial language in research papers I recently read an article suggesting that you should write in the same way that you would talk. I agree with the ideas but I wonder how much it applies to formal venues like journal publications where you would very rarely find colloquial language (I'm not talking about using humour as in this question: How much informal writing should there be in a research article?)

When writing research papers I try to stick to the science and keep it as simple to read/understand as possible. I often use simple sentences in my writing. However, I often come across papers that are overly verbose and use complex compounded sentences that, for me, are difficult to follow. I've come to associate complex sentence structure with "correct" scientific reporting, and anything less complex as too informal/colloquial

I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm just a bad writer and if its just something I need to spend time working on.

How do you figure out the correct balance? Is there room for "writing like you talk" in journal publications?

My worry is that colloquial language would come across as unprofessional, leading either to a rejection (or at least a much lengthier review process), and/or a dent in my reputation as a researcher

I'm in the field of (cognitive) psychology if that makes a difference

I've come to associate complex sentence structure with "correct" scientific reporting, and anything less complex as too informal/colloquial

For science to be correct it has to pass the review process. The reviewers are usually experienced and native to the narrow field that is covered in the paper, so however complex the language, they can handle it and gauge the science behind (unless we are talking about extremely obfuscated writing, of course). From that standpoint, the language complexity doesn't matter.

The degree of colloquialism that is found in papers usually depends on the field. As an example, when computer science began to shift towards personal narrative ("we did...", "our research..." vs. "if x is done...", "one can deduce...") a number of years (or decades) back, the new papers gradually became more colloquial. Compare that to a typical mathematical or physical paper.

You should also consider that there are a lot of non-native English speakers out there, who struggle to express their thought in a foreign language.

Finally, inexperienced scientists and students tend to "overdo" the writing, using complex structures to convey maturity and confidence. Judging importance of information and expressing it eloquently are skills that are acquired well beyond grad school.

  Is there room for "writing like you talk" in journal publications?

Sure there is, as long as it is professional, i.e. avoid jargon, jokes, etc.

  How do you figure out the correct balance?

That comes with experience, every subsequent paper you write will be an improvement. It is important for you to strive to become better. Experience in writing is not the only thing that will benefit you, but experience while reading as well. The more papers you read, the more patterns of good and bad style you will encounter. Reflecting that on your own style will improve it.


How does Stephen Hawking conduct his research? I've recently watched The Theory of Everything and it got me thinking. How does a researcher with a serious physical impediment, such as Stephen Hawking, conduct his research?

Academic life usually involves studying, staying up to date with current literature, attending or giving conferences, teaching some classes, etc. Each of those activities presents serious challenges. For instance, how does he do math? Everything is done in his mind or does he scribble some notes on software? Or maybe in Latex? I'm assuming he has people helping him, too.

I'm not sure if this is on topic here, so I apologize if it's inappropriate.

Have you read his article in the Wikipedia? I believe most of your questions are answered there.

As for students and researchers with disabilities in general: Every disability is different and different things can be done to help, from extra time on homeworks and exams, to special reading / blackboard viewing devices, hearing aids, keyboards that require very little finger strength, to having another person take notes for the disabled student / researcher. I'm sure I forgot lots of other tools.

The most important tool for research is the mind and with a keen mind most obstacles can be overcome.


How to show special respect to a famous PhD advisor? I am about to enter a 3-year PhD. Neither my bachelor’s nor my master’s were research-oriented nor very typical for my field, and I had to find a potential supervisor on my own. Due to my background, I also do not have a good grasp of academia’s unwritten rules.
Last year, I fortuitously met a rock star professor, one of the top 5 most cited scholars in quite a large field. He got interested in my project, gave me huge support for my proposal, and wrote a wonderful LoR. We also got very well along on a personal level and would chat about things loosely related to academia. He is someone with a very casual style but with clear respect for boundaries. I admire him enormously, both as a scholar and as a person.
I was accepted under his supervision by a very laudatory committee. Academia being a very hierarchical world, I feel compelled to show "extra respect" to him, partly because he is famous and partly because my unconventional background sets me at a disadvantage compared to others. It seems likely that high-status academics would tacitly expect their students (i.e. without explicitly asking for it) to go to greater length for them, whether in terms of work output or in overall signs of deference. I know that they are "just human", but they are also around the top of a very special system.
I tried mentioning this to my now-supervisor, but he keeps blushing when I remind him of his academic status. He seemed to think that I was worried about my application "not being good enough" rather than about failing to show adequate deference to him. The obvious thing I could do for him would be to submit a paper before the start of my PhD. I have never written a paper before, as it seems uncommon in my field (but not unheard of) to do one that early. But he said a few times that he does not need me to do that right now, and I do not know if he means "don’t do that" or "I politely say no but would be happy if you did it anyway, and slightly disappointed if you didn’t".
I have a half-done paper addressing a recent debate around my supervisor’s main theoretical contribution, and I am confident that it can be a substantial paper if well-executed. Yet I am exhausted, and my supervisor is unlikely to help me on it before I start my PhD. What should I do?

EDIT: To clarify, this is a question about the "extra" that famous professors may expect from their PhD students. In my case, I went for a writing a paper on a subject of my choice, then submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal and hopefully avoiding desk-rejection. It feels like a huge task, but how to do it is not really the issue at hand. I would happily have presented at a major conference instead, but the conference I was accepted to did not manage to move online. A couple editors from reputable journals encouraged me to submit a paper as a master’s student, so I assumed it was a tough but realistic thing I could as that little "extra" for my supervisor.
For context, I studied in France and my supervisor is in/from Northern Europe. My field is in the social sciences.

I don't know what field you're in, but in mine, writing such a paper would be viewed as unnecessary and perhaps a bit strange. You seem to feel that you don't deserve your place with this supervisor, and so you need to prove your worth, or impress them, by writing a paper. This is unecessary, as you have already impressed them with your project idea and PhD application. They would not have taken you on as a student otherwise. Along these lines, you might want to search the term "impostor syndrome", both on this site and on Google.
"I am exhausted...". The last thing you need to be doing right now is writing an unnecessary paper with no help from anyone. A PhD is a several-year-long marathon, and you will need all your energy and stamina to complete it. Take a break, rest and recharge before you start. This will have a far greater benefit to your PhD, and accordingly to your relationship with your supervisor, than writing a paper.
Once you have started the PhD, show your current paper draft to your supervisor and work on it together. The paper will be much better for it. Again, this is field dependent, but in mine it would be extremely rare for a beginning PhD student to be capable of writing a publishable paper entirely on their own. You may be underestimating the challenge. This is something that your supervisor will help you with.
But for now, have a holiday, and celebrate your success at being accepted for a PhD with a great supervisor!


Chance Of Getting A Research Internship In US/Canada For Non-US Residents? I completed my undergraduate study in computer science outside of the US. I hope to obtain a PhD degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in the US, but I don't feel that I am qualified enough (in terms of research experience). So I am hoping to find a research internship opportunity in US/Canada.

I could probably find relavant projects in my own country, but I feel that trying US/Canada first is more straightforward. After all, it's in US/Canada where I am looking for a PhD degree.

I have a few HCI professors in mind, with whom I would like to work very much. Should I contact them for internship opportunities? What are my chances and more importantly, how can I improve my chances?

Some facts that I think are relavent to the question:

I am not a US resident so I will need a VISA. I don't expect assistantships (it's up to the professor). I have already learnt the basics of HCI and I know the fundamental research methods (through reading and auditing classes). My undergraduate university is not the best, but it's surely one of the best universities in my country.

You should simply send an email to the supervisor you are interested in. Your best help to be accepted to any program is to have the support of a professor. In US/Canada you should just start by, Dear Mr/Mme, X.

Now, to convince the professor that you are a good fit, you need to convince him that you are have research potential. This is what the university will be looking for too.

You could talk to him about your interests, and how they recoup his (assuming they do by OP post). If you have done any research in that field you could mention it.

If you can find and read first a relevant paper he wrote and have questions about it, ask. I you can't because they are too complicated (which may really happen), or behind a paywall to which you don't have access, you could ask for a few classic references to get started.


Academic salary in Belgium I've read that in Belgium academic salaries are based on years since PhD. If this is the case, is this always the case? Are there special cases where someone would be paid more than their "years since" rate? Like, for example, if an early career scholar brings in a very large research grant: still the "years since" rate? It would seem difficult to keep talent with such a system so perhaps I am misunderstanding something.

I work at a major Flemish institution (but am not local). Here there are different salary scales, depending on your rank.

You start as faculty as a "ZAP" (tenure track Assistant Professor). It is true that your salary increases every year. But that is normal I guess. To keep track of inflation I guess.

In order to have a more significant pay rise you need to advance through the ranks, get tenure, become associate, become full professor, etc.


How long should I wait for the receipt acknowledgement? I submitted my paper by e-mail one week ago. How long is it reasonable to wait for the receipt acknowledgement? What to do if they won't acknowledge receipt of the paper?

Most journals work with electronic submission systems but some still work with manual handling. Regardless, both systems require a person to handle the manuscript once it arrives. Since the past week has been the Christmas holiday for many and persons working with journals such as editors are usually not employed to work with the journal but do it aside their regular job, it is not strange that not much will happen during the holiday season.

I am sure you will receive notice of your submission sometime in the next couple of weeks into the new year, once the persons responsible will have a chance to have a look.

As a side note, as an editor, I can see that the number of submissions is slightly increasing before summer (holidays) and Christmas/New Years (holiday season). Authors, naturally, want to get their works away before taking time off, unfortunately, editors and reviewers, naturally reluctant to take on reviews during the holidays, do the same so the increased flux of manuscripts creates something of a traffic jam at these times. From this perspective, submitting a manuscript away from these times of the year will likely result in, at least slightly, faster response and turn-over times.


Common practice for references to articles with different spellings of author's names It quite known that the transliteration of names of non-latin-based languages is quite ambiguous: a known example is Chebyshev (where at least 8 different transliterations are accepted, not counting incorrect spellings).

Now suppose that I want to cite three works by the same author: one published in French in one spelling (call it SP1), another in English in another spelling SP2, and the third was published only in his native language (the correct transliteration of the name, according to the current rules, would be SP3).

What is the common practice in this case?

If I preserve the historical spelling of these articles, then it seems that they were written by three different authors.

If I choose one spelling for all three references (I'm tempted to choose SP3), then it historically inaccurate and could lead to problems with finding the referenced article (not all search engines use flexible enough to take into account different spellings).

Any advice would be welcome.

I suspect there is no single practice, for the simple reason that our society is very bad at dealing with the massive degree of variation found in names.

As a matter of principle, however, I would tend to approach transliterated names in the same way that one approaches name differences within a single language (e.g., complete formal name on a dissertation vs. "preferred name" on articles; post-marriage vs. pre-marriage name; name change following change in gender identity).  Here, I see two general use cases, which fortunately correspond with the two options you identified, and it's just a matter of selecting which is most important for a particular usage.

Name as an identifier for a person: This is the use for references, either in the citations/bibliography or in prose (e.g., "As Chebyshev writes in [5]...").  In this case, you should use the same single name for the person, ignoring different historical versions, because the most important thing to communicate is the shared identity.  Since people generally are allowed to choose their own names, you should typically choose the most current accepted name, as the best reflection of the person's current identity (though there are some exceptions).
Name as a historical record: In this case, the thing to be identified is  the artifact, not the person, and any issues in the rendering of the person's name are secondary (e.g., "Festschrift for Tschebyscheff" would not be modified).

Something that I see as a somewhat problematic boundary case is when there is an "live" artifact named after a person, e.g., Chebyshev's inequality.  Here, I would recommend simply going with a recognizable version of current consensus in the community where the publication is being sent.


Cite paper under review on a paper that is going to double-blind review? I wrote a paper to a journal, which is still under review. Now I need to cite it in another paper that is double-blinded. Is this a problem?

Typically, there are two ways to cite yourself in a double-blind paper:

Cite the paper as though it were written by somebody else
Blank the information in the citation (e.g., "Blinded paper currently in review")

You should use the first whenever possible, since it is more informative and allows the reviewer to consult the reference.  The second case is used when it cannot apply and maintain blinding, like citing the conference version of a paper in an extended version for a journal.  Your case is another good example: the paper is under review and so cannot be read by the reviewers in any case, so blanking the citation is fine.  The article formatting guidelines may even give you a specific preferred method for doing so.


What do you think of the reply and do you think he is interested in me and my application? Recently i have been applying to various Ph.D. programs and i have approached many professors as my potential supervisors and among those, i applied to Harvard and this is what the Director of the Program in one of the Ph.d programs there replied:

" Thank you for your email and your interest in our lab.
To answer some of your questions, I do think that you would be a great fit both for ### and for our lab. Also, we will be taking new graduate students next year.
As you probably know, we do not admit students directly into any one lab, but there is an admissions committee that decides on the students.
 Once you are admitted to ###, then I would be happy to talk about a rotation in our lab, etc. "

So what do you think are my chances of getting accepted and how should i further proceed with the conversation.

It's a completely neutral reply. I write these emails to qualified candidates about once a week myself. It is, in essence saying: "You've contacted the wrong guy. I'm not making the decision about admission. We'll talk again if and once you've been accepted and here."

In other words, I don't think you can draw any kind of inference from the email -- neither positive nor negative.


FERPA and confidentiality of information when university officials contact school I have a reason to think an official from a university I previously applied to is potentially stalking me. His previous actions and attitude had made me uncomfortable. We live in the same town and at a talk I attended recently, he asked if I am a grad student at University X now (the school I chose to attend instead). I did not answer and largely tried to avoid them but I do indeed attend university X. The thing is, I really don’t want them to contact me at my university/lab so I do not want them to know my information related to this school. I asked the office of registrar to make my directory information confidential. It took a few days and I have also been told that FERPA confidentiality has some limitations and it seems release of information to educational institution officials is one of them. As long as a university official contacts the school with an education-related interest (it would be easy to fake one, I think), apparently revealing my information is at the discretion of the school and not governed by FERPA. Is this correct?

If they were to contact my university as an official from a different university / department head, would they be told any of the following information:
- My current address and phone number
- The department and the labs I work in
- My office address and office phone number
- Dates of attendance
- Classes I am currently taking and their schedule
etc?

Some of the information you mention might be considered public information and not "educational" and so not covered by the law. Your courses, and similar are probably covered, but FERPA is more intended to cover your performance. But if you are concerned for your safety, for example, you need legal counsel. The university may be able to provide it via some office dedicated to student services. But for a serious concern you may need to contact a lawyer or even the police. In some situations, a university can bar a person from school facilities, of course.

It may be a crime for someone to use the university systems to harass or stalk you, but if they are willing to risk it, you would be at risk, so you need to take precautions. But for serious interventions, you probably need some evidence or corroboration by others. Some people are just awkward rather than creepy, but only you can really judge that.


Using other college/universities notes for practice? I like to get as much practice as I can before an exam so is it permissable to use other colleges or universities' practice exams or handouts for practice. I am not distributing them to anyone, selling them or profiting. Just want to get as much practice as possible. I was wondering if this is ok?

If they've put it up freely available online, then they have made it available for people like yourself to read. Enjoy!


History MA Thesis: Advisor wants my research sent to her So, in my planning phase of my MA thesis in history, my advisor says I should have my research to her by X date. What does this mean? What does this look like? I asked her and she answered me with three more questions. That is what she does, she expects you to find the answer to most any question you pose.
So, I guess I am asking, what do I give her? Primary and secondary? Everything I have looked at or just the important things? I have like 10 or so pages of primary research that is mostly quotes or paraphrases for reference when I begin writing. Do I give her that?

Unless you have some evidence that the professor engages in improper conduct (stealing the student's work), I suggest that you give her everything she asks for. There is no downside to this if the advisor is honest and helpful. The most likely explanation would be that she is trying hard to keep you on track and wants early warning if you seem to be wandering.
You may not think this is necessary, and it may not be, but some students do wander and lose focus.
So, assuming a good and fair advisor, sharing can shorten your path to success.
But, if you have evidence that she is not a good actor, you should find a way to work with someone who is. Bad actors are rare (I hope) but they do exist.


How should I interpret a book editor not responding to me after accepting my chapter proposal? I had a detailed chapter proposal accepted about five weeks ago for a collection of critical essays in my field, edited by a retired professor who has been prolific in publishing while retired. In the acceptance email, the editor stated that "in the coming days," we'd all receive further information about our specific chapters. I replied to the acceptance email shortly thereafter, saying I appreciated it and was looking forward to receiving the information.
About ten days ago, having heard nothing, I sent a polite, concise follow-up email in which I requested clarification on the timeline/details of the chapter and reaffirmed my interest. No response.
A few days ago, I left him a polite, brief message on his office phone, identifying myself and providing a number of ways to reach me--hoping one might be easier than email. No response to that so far.
So all I have in hand is this initial chapter acceptance. I'm confused, a bit frustrated, and a bit worried. The CFP stated that initial chapter drafts were due in August.
My questions:

What should I do at this point? I need to plan my workload for the summer, and if I'm still a part of this project, I'd need to set aside significant time to complete it. I really want to complete it; I'm passionate about the proposal, and the book looks like it's going to be great.
Is it reasonable for me to assume that I've been booted from the project? Does it ever happen this way, where, after an initial acceptance, someone changes their mind and simply stops returning all communications?
I realize there's a possibility the editor is in fact slow, suffering a health/personal setback, or facing some other obstacle. But in this case, given my previous attempts to contact them, how should I proceed?

Some pertinent points:

The editor of the volume and the press are both well-known and (as far as I know) well-regarded, or at least ubiquitous in the field. They're not cranks or unknowns.
The acceptance email was a mass email, and me and the other accepted authors were all BCCed, so I can't contact one of them to ask if they've heard from the editor.
If I don't hear from the editor within some timeframe over the coming months, would it be reasonable to contact the volume's publisher or the editor's colleagues, asking if they know (a) whether this person is OK (not injured or worse) or (b) a way to get in touch with them?

Thanks for providing advice to a junior scholar here.

Your clock is running faster than their clock. They have a lot of people to coordinate with and a lot of editorial work, I suspect.
This isn't the only publication they are dealing with, most likely. And if everyone is sending them mail every few days it just bogs down the process even further.
It may even be a good thing that it is taking time. A predatory publisher would be after you quite quickly for payments.
Perhaps you should just relax.


Recommenders for grad school applications have not submitted and deadline is imminent The application deadlines for several programs I am applying to are December 1st and two of my recommenders haven't submitted their letters yet. (Admittedly probably should've asked this question before now.) I asked both of them in October, they both said they would be happy to write the recommendation. I sent follow ups which they acknowledged two weeks before the deadline and then an additional follow up 3 days before as well as the request from the application system.
Is there anything I can do to still have a valid application?
Update the professor submitted but two days late. Fingers crossed.

You have done what you can, I think. Most likely it will turn out ok for two reasons.
First is that letters do tend to get written, even by procrastinators. And many professors are, indeed, procrastinators. But if you ping them three days in advance it is about all you can do.
Second is that the recipients also realize that professors are procrastinators and, being professors themselves will make some allowances in most (not all, alas) cases. The final decisions about things won't be made on the deadline dates and the staff will spend some time gathering things together for some future meeting. It is an easy task to add late arrivals.
They might not be so forgiving of the applicant as they are of each other, of course.
Relax for now. If it becomes a problem then the recipients will let you know an you will almost certainly get a chance to explain and correct it.


What are the standard practices for hyphenating/spelling scientific words I would like to know what are standard practices when words are spelled differently across the literature and/or dictionaries (when these words can be found in dictionaries). A few examples of the kind of discrepancies I see:

  flow field vs flow-field vs flowfield
  sub-critical vs subcritical
  mass flow-rate vs mass-flow rate vs mass flowrate
  sub-grid vs subgrid

Is the most important thing for my own work (i.e., PhD thesis) to be consistent? For example, just make sure flow-field is always hyphenated?

This depends upon what's being written. For a university thesis, for instance, you should follow the guidelines of your particular institution: if they recommend a particular style manual, such as the Chicago Manual of Style or the [ACS Style Guide], then you should follow the recommendations contained therein. If you are publishing in another venue, follow the guidelines of the publisher, if they make those available.

Otherwise, you should follow a consistent set of guidelines. Note that this is not the same as saying "always use a hyphen" or "never use a hyphen." For instance, you would write

  "the velocity of the flow field increased"

but

  "the flow-field variables are . . ."

because "flow field" is a noun in the first example, and "flow-field" is an adjective in the second. There the hyphen links the connected words: "flow-field" and "variable" versus "flow" and "field variable."


Can one switch from the declared field of study in his SoP to another after acceptance? The question is fundamentally about technical fields, e.g., EE; however, any other experience related to top-ten schools is welcome, especially MIT.

I've heard that the acceptance to graduate schools in top-ten schools is often committee-based. In particular, applicants declare their research interests in their SoP, but after the acceptance, they will attend the seminars of faculty members to become familiar with their active research. According to these seminars and any possible lab rotations (like what is provided in Caltech), the student may switch his field from what he already declared in SoP to another.

In contrary, here is an experience declared by a person (at UCB) saying:

  What you might not know is that admissions are done by area (at least
  here at Berkeley).  The department can admit N students.  Area 1 gets
  n1 slots, area 2 gets n2 slots, etc, and each area decides which
  students to admit. Since there are some areas with lots of students
  applying, it is very hard to get into those areas.  Some areas have
  very few students applying, and  thus it may be "easier" to get in.
  It really works against you though, if you apply to area 2, thinking
  that it will get you in, and then try to switch to area 1, which is
  more popular.  In the most popular areas, it can be really hard to
  find an adviser, get funding, etc.  That is why they do the admissions
  by area, they actually admit only as many students in each area as
  they feel they can support (both financially and with advisers). A few
  always end up switching, but they do try to keep it balanced.

Is this really the common approach to reviewing SoP (which contradicts the first paragraph especially the philosophy of lab rotation)?!

(I'm a full prof at a top-5 American CS department, with a PhD from Berkeley.)

Yes, this is a common model for admissions in large engineering departments.  Admissions committees will assume that your statement of purpose accurately reflects your research experience, research interests, and professional goals.  Applications that describe interests in more popular areas (for example: machine learning) will face more scrutiny and stiffer competition than applications that describe less popular interests.

In the short term, this is important for funding decisions. Most CS PhD students at Ilinois at Berkeley are admitted with RAships, offered by individual faculty from their grants on specific topics.  We need strong evidence that you have the requisite background and interest in that research topic before offering you a job to work on that research topic.

In the longer run, this is important to make sure that the department will provide incoming students an environment that builds on their strengths.  We don't want to admit students who won't thrive, and we want to make sure that every incoming student can find an advisor, without overwhelming the faculty.

And yes, of course, PhD students can switch areas after they've been admitted, provided they can find an advisor in the new area.  After all, it's the student's degree, and the universe laughs at detailed plans.  That's why actual admissions decisions (in my department, at least) are made by a committee that includes faculty in all areas, rather than by the individual areas or individual faculty acting alone.  It's not enough for me to say that I would be happy to advise and fund a PhD applicant; there has to be strong evidence that the student will thrive even if they switch advisors or areas.

That said, it's a really bad idea to feign interest in a less popular area to get your foot in the door, and then try to switch to a more popular area.  As the Systers post you link to says: Popular areas have popular advisors.  Students who expressed interest in a popular area in their SoP have already been vetted by faculty in that area; students who did have not.  In practice, switching may not be possible.  And then you're stuck in a department that doesn't let you do what you really want to do!

Also, while allocating admissions slots to areas is a common model for admissions, it's not a universal model. Every department approaches admissions differently.  Some departments admit students under a general banner of excellence—under the quite reasonable assumption that most PhD applicants don't know what they want to be when they grow up—and then have everyone go through a common core of classes and group rotations.  A broader admissions model allows departments to take more risks, by admitting promising students who genuinely do not have specific research interests yet, which can lead both to huge payoffs and to more dropouts, but it can also put significant strain on the faculty in more popular areas.


How can one prevent a co-author from publishing without consent? I have been reading about several cases in which a co-author submitted a paper without the consent of another author (for example in  What to do after I was named as co-author on a paper, without my consent?).

Consider a situation where one co-author goes on to publish without my consent when I am the first author.

I know the rule for most publishers would legally prevent a co-author from doing this as the submitting author requires consent from all authors.
However, it seems that in practice many journals have no practical processes in place to prevent this. The co-author would likely submit to an Elsevier journal. It seems that the Elsevier submission system (EES) would allow them to submit and go through the whole process by themselves without informing me if they wanted to.

Moreover, it seems that for Elsevier journals, only the submitting author is informed of advancements through the process, so that the co-author could indeed go through the whole process without other authors knowing.

If I only find out when it is published, it also seems that I have nothing to do about it. It seems that a retraction would only do more damage to my career as the paper will just stay online with my name and also be tagged as retracted. There seems to be no way if disassociating yourself with a published paper.

I am a bit worried to see that in fact there seems to be no real barriers to a co-author doing something like that.
Note again that I am referring to the Elsevier process, though there may be other publishers with a similar process (and potentially the process is not like this for all Elsevier journals).

To summarize, it seems that, at least for certain journals:

A co-author could submit a paper without the consent of other authors and the journal would not inform or ask explicitly for consent from other authors.
The co-author could go through the entire process, even up to publication, without any other author explicitly being asked for confirmation.
Other authors in such a case would not even be informed of the submission or status changes of the paper
If eventually the paper is published, the only option unaware authors have is retraction, which is likely to do even more damage to their career than the fact that the paper has been published prematurely.

Am I correct in my assessment? it seems like if this is true for even some journals, then the publishing process for such journals has been designed quite poorly.

I would like to know how, as an author, I could prevent such a thing from occurring to me. How can I prevent a co-author from publishing without my consent?

I am aware that the best means is having a good relationship and communication with the co-author in the first place and I will do the best I can in this regard. But I would like to know what other practical means I have of preventing this.

Write an email to the editor.

As you said, submission needs formal aproval of all coauthors so if you tell the editor or publisher that this is not the case, the paper will not be published.

Publishers usually assume academics are grown ups and the likelihood of person naming people as co-authors against their will is very low and thus the hassle of sending multiple emails or having everyone involved in the online submission is not worth the trouble. Keep in mind that some articles have up to 1000 authors.


Email to a potential master’s supervisor, initially responded but no reply after I sent my transcript I emailed a professor asking him to be my master's supervisor. He replied saying he is willing to meet me and asked me to send him my transcript. I have sent it and he has not replied yet after a week (he replied to my initial email a day after). I don’t have great grades so does this mean that he's not interested anymore?

Any answer to this question would at best be a guess.

It doesn't necessarily mean that he's not interested in it anymore. Perhaps the professor is just busy. Maybe he read your email, thought he'd get back to it later and then forgot about it as more emails piled on top of it.

It's been a week since your last email. If I were you, I'd email him about this. That's the only way to know. Bite the bullet and send that e-mail now or a couple of days later asking if he is okay with your transcripts and if you could meet him as discussed. The worst that could happen is that he'll reject you. He won't be angered if you send him an email asking for clarification.


How do you judge an Indian CGPA score? Let's start with background: I'm European, don't know much about undergrad educational systems, and especially grading, outside my own area. So, I receive a CV from an Indian undergrad with the following section:

Now, I have no idea whether the scores displayed here are dismal, average, good or excellent. Wikipedia doesn't know what CGPA is, except in Nepal (and the student in case was not educated in Nepal), so I turn to you, Academia Stack Exchange, to help me solve this riddle!

Two factors can be used to get a broad idea about an Indian engineering student - one is the college and the second is the CGPA.

College:

The Indian Institute of Science and Indian institutes of technology are top technical institutions in the country. Of late, multiple IITs have been set up, leading to (arguably) diminishing quality. The original seven IITs boast of excellent faculty in most departments and are understood to be better than the newer ones.

Besides, there are regional colleges like National Institutes of Technology and Anna University and BITS which are also among the top engineering colleges in the country.

Grading System:

Most of the above colleges use the CGPA system for grading. Students are awarded grades ranging from S (=10) to D (=6) in various courses that they enroll over a period of 4 years. In a course, the top performers could expect an S, the students who have scored 80%-90% could score an A and so on. Obviously, the exact grades depend on the instructor and the overall performance. A student that scores S in all his courses  over 4 years ends up with the perfect CGPA of 10.0. A 9-10 CGPA indicates mostly excellent track record and so on.

It should be clear that the CV in the question reflects a mediocre score in a top college.


How to address title-field inconsistency? I have recently defended my thesis in Sweden and started to look for positions, pretty much anywhere. As a part of the process I am currently trying to update and freshen my CV, linked-in profile etc.

I noticed that I am having difficulties in fitting into the existing templates when describing my profile. My work is of a rather interdisciplinary nature, in a research group that is not very close to what the other research groups within the department work with.

So say my research groups is working on Bowling and our department is named Joggling. This rather odd organization of research groups is due to the "common use" of bowling pins. In this rather silly metaphor, my own research would be on Wood wax, relevant for bowling but not so much for circus trickery. So calling myself a "PhD in Joggling" would be extremely misleading when looking for jobs, whereas "PhD in Woodwax" is technically lying.

Given space, I can describe what I do and effectively dodge the bullet by something like "I have a PhD from Department of Joggling, focusing/working on Woodwax". However when the number of characters is limited it becomes rather tricky.

Are there any good ways of handling this?

Your Ph.D. is in the department is says it is in, and there's nothing that you can (or should) do about it.  For example, my Ph.D. is in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, but my thesis didn't really have anything to do with EE.  That's OK: most people understand that the actual names and structures of departments are complex and often historical artifacts.

What will really speak for you in your application is your thesis and publications.  If the titles of those clearly show your area of work, then just make sure that they appear clearly and prominently wherever you present yourself.


Are there any universities in US/Europe which will give PhD in Engineering in 3-4 years? I know that PhD is not like other degrees which ends in a span of 2-4 years.
Also, one cannot control the span of the program which entirely depends on topic and guides.

But I heard from some where that some universities offer PhD within 3-4 years and there is no minimum journal requirements.

I would like to know if such universities really exist and a comment on the university will be highly appreciated.

In Europe a Phd normally last from 2 to 4 years. But to be admitted to it you must have a Master degree.
The American and the European system are pretty different I think.

check this link about education in Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process


Cannot reproduce what I have learned or memorised I am an Accountancy senior level student. My issue is due to lots of information in the books I tend to forget about every specific topic and heading even if I compile notes and memory aids. Reason being that in these professional studies anything can be asked in exams from anywhere. So how do I remember small details at this stage?

Your question reminds me of the old joke "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" To which the response is the same, "Practice, man, practice."

You will be expected to know this stuff when you graduate. When studying any subject, there will be a wide variety of rules and formulae you must learn. Normally, when a teacher is trying to get the students to learn them, the students are given exercises to practice them, or scenarios to apply them.

Learning best works in groups, so if you can find someone with whom to study that should help. You can practice with each other reading your answers to see if you understood correctly.

If you do not have an exercises or scenarios to use, ask your teacher. But in the end, it is all about practice.


Should I argue with the conference chairs in this situation？ I submitted a paper last month. And the result came out yesterday. Two reviewers gave me high scores while the other one said he saw part of my paper three months ago. In fact, three months ago, I drafted part of my paper and submitted it to a workshop because I want to own a paper which could help me apply for Ph.D. Now this reviewer gave me only 1 for originality. But the paper for a workshop should not be the "record of publication" according to the rules of conference. Should I argue with the chairs of the conference? This is a top conference in our field so I really want this paper published.

If you submitted a month ago and already got rejected, was the new venue truly a "conference" or another workshop?  And, as @Pete L. Clark said, was it published before or only submitted and rejected?

If published in a workshop (or accepted for publication), substantial portions can't be reused in another workshop.  Portions can be reused in a conference IMHO, but as @Pete said, you have to disclose and cite.  If not, it's self-plagiarism.

If the new venue is a workshop, then it can't be reused that much unless the earlier one was rejected.  In which case the reviewer shouldn't hold the earlier publication against you, unless they meant to say "I saw this before and it was rejected because it had flaws, and now I'm seeing it again".


Should I include a summary of related literature and comparison of results in Review of Related Literature? One suggestion I received for my thesis is to include a summary of related studies and compare the results with my results.

Should I include the summary in Review of Related Literature? Is it a good idea?

You most definitely need to compare your results to other related results: otherwise, how is the reader to know the significance of your work?
Whether this should be done in a literature review section or in your results section depends on how quantitative a comparison can be made.

If your results cannot be quantitatively compared to the prior work, then the comparison should be in the literature review section and discuss the qualitative relationship between the two pieces of work.  For example, if the previous mechanism handles only fribbles but your system handles both fribbles and tribbles, then you can't quantitatively compare tribble-handling capability, but can state the difference much like I just did in your literature review section.

If you can make a direct, quantitative comparison between results, on the other hand, then it is best to do that right in the section where you are presenting your own quantitative results. For example, if you created an algorithm, you might compare it against other algorithms that do the same thing, running on the same tests as your algorithm, and show that yours is faster, smaller, more reliable, etc.  You should also mention the other algorithms in your literature review section, with a qualitative comparison that will then have the details filled later by your results comparison.


A question for UK academics and students: How will UK universities respond to a professor showing controversial religious images to class? Over a month ago, a group of Muslim parents protested for several days at Batley grammar school, in West Yorkshire, England, after a teacher at that school showed in a Religion Education class the 2015 caricature of the Prophet Muhammad by Charlie Hebdo. The teacher apparently showed that picture to his students, who were between 13 to 14 years old, to educate them about islamophobia. Nevertheless, even before an independent inquiry into the incident started, the head teacher's response was to issue an "unequivocal" apology for the teacher's actions and suspend the teacher. (To know more about this incident, please click here.)
If a university professor/researcher in the UK showed the same image in, say, history or moral philosophy class, to stimulate an intellectual discussion between mature students, would the university tolerate it? And, has this (or at least something similar to this) ever happened in a UK university class? How did it go?
I ask these questions because I'm planning to do my PhD in the UK, and my proposed research topic touches on the said issue.

Generally speaking, Universities in the UK can exercise their own judgement on how to organise their curriculum and how to deal with sensitive matters while encouraging academic debate and educated discussion. There is no single answer which is valid for each and every University in the UK, as customs and approaches differ from one place to another.
Typically, every University will have a quality assurance process for their teaching and research. Within it, they will have Ethical Panels/Officers responsible for deciding whether a proposed research / education module is ethical and safe. If you feel that your research can be controversial and/or cause ethical issues and/or make you or others feel unsafe, you need to contact the designated people and discuss with them whether and how to proceed. Normally, they will assess the risks and suggest appropriate measures to ensure that your program of research is legal, safe and ethical.
If you don't contact the designated Panels/Officers, and proceed with your potentially unsafe/unethical research, the University will not be happy. After all, they put all these systems in place for a reason and expect all academics to make use of them when necessary.
Note that all the above has very little to do with the exact reason why your research may be considered unethical/unsafe/inappropriate. The approach remains the same, whether the potential issues are caused by use of human biological materials, by research requiring access to children, by research involving toxic materials, or by research on social/religious issues. Anything that is potentially unsafe or problematic should be discussed with appropriate people first, before the activity starts. As long as you agree to that, you will likely have no issues doing your research in the UK.


How do I modify the title of a paper I submitted to ArXiv? I submitted a paper to the ArXiv, but after it has already been announced, I realized that there is a typo in the title (nothing catastrophic, but still..)

Do you have any idea how to slightly modify the title?

Short answer: I believe the only way is to submit a revision.

Long answer: As per this page:

It is not possible to make changes without generating a new version

Why? To allow authors to make changes to the comments and other metadata fields of publicly announced articles without generating a new version, and hence date stamp, would effectively mean that all changes would be backdated to the time the last version was submitted. This is open to abuse and thus not allowed.

The exceptions to this rule are the addition of journal reference and DOI information. The journal reference field may contain only full publication information for the article; the DOI field may contain only a DOI.

My suggestion: Although this replacement process would not be time consuming, it would be quite redundant and generate a new version of the paper. Since that would anyway happen whenever you revise your paper (say, after you incorporate the comments of referees), I would suggest -- under the assumption that the typo does not look glaringly bad -- to wait until you have a next version ready.


Authorship of class notes I am taking a graduate class which is based on "notes" written by former students of the course years earlier.

This notes are a bad translation of a published book by a renowned author, and the class consists entirely on expositions from the students based on this notes and the book.

At the beginning of the course, the lecturer suggested that his idea was to collaboratively write some notes of the material covered in class, but so far, he has not given a single lecture, nor any help, insight or even references for the gaps found in the notes, everything has been done by the students. Now he is asking us to write all the expositions of the material we have found to fill the gaps in the notes.

I don't want to contribute to the notes because there is no guarantee that they will be published as a collaborative project instead of as something of the lecturer's authorship, but it might hurt my grades if I refuse to write something.

I am thinking in writing something to be included in the notes but posting it with me as an author in my blog first. Do you have any suggestions?

I guess my suggestion is to think carefully about what you want to achieve in this situation.  It doesn't feel especially righteous to suggest that you do a competent job of working on the notes, try to learn something and don't worry too much about precisely how much credit you will get out of the collective endeavor; however that sure seems to me like the right course of action.  For an original refereed publication, it's worth throwing a few elbows to make sure you get your fair share of credit (and even there it pays to be careful), but it doesn't sound like that's what we're discussing here.

While I don't like saying that, I just can't think of what course of action is likely to actually improve your situation.  if you refuse to participate, you'll get a bad grade and make a poor impression (and such impressions do spread from one faculty member to another); I doubt he will really believe its due to high-minded concerns about authorship credit, as opposed to laziness.  If you make a fuss about getting credit before you've even written the notes, I don't think that will make an especially good impression either.  It wouldn't be right for the lecturer to publish the notes without appropriately crediting the class, but that wouldn't make suing him (or more realistically, making threats about suing) any less stupid. If it makes you feel better to separately post your contribution on a blog as well, knock yourself out.  Hopefully some people will read it and learn something.

I think the productive thing to do is to try to meet the expectations of the class, and if later it seems that the faculty member is doing something shady with the results, you can go to your graduate director or another professor and express concerns about credit.  But complaining preemptively is not likely to achieve much.


Will people judge me negatively for skipping department seminars? I'm a graduate student in the Earth Sciences.  The breadth of my departments runs the gamut from geobiology to geophysics and everything in between.  As a result, a large number of the department seminars that get hosted are on topics that I have little or no background in and do not relate to my research field in any way.

The expectation seems to be that everyone should go to these type of events to stay abreast of major events and gain some breadth of knowledge, but whenever I go to one that is far outside my sphere of knowledge I end up resenting the wasted time.  To me, it seems like a huge waste to sit through a 60 minute talk on something I don't have the background knowledge necessary to understand in even a rudimentary way.  Sometimes this is the fault of the presenter for not preparing a talk for a broad enough audience, but with biology talks I know that the fault is my own.  Don't ask me the difference between a protein and an amino acid; I have no idea!

So lately I've felt a strong temptation to blow off some of these events reasoning that it would be vastly better to get in another experiment that day than go sit through a lecture I'm not equipped to understand.  But I'm worried that other people will think I'm being a slacker as a result.

Do you look down on colleagues who sometimes skip out on talks far outside their expertise?

And, Is skipping an event like this better or worse than showing up but discreetly reclaiming time during bad talks by studying on a smartphone?  Obviously, whipping out a laptop during a lecture would be very rude, but flipping through flashcards on my ipod while sitting in the back of the hall would be a low-key way to reclaim some of that time during talks when I have no idea what they are talking about.

I would say that you should always go to seminar, unless you have some very compelling reason not to go (you are away, you are working on an experiment, you are trying to finish writing your thesis, etc.).

There are four reasons:

Scientific courtesy. To travel somewhere and give a talk to the 10 people who show up (5 of whom you already knew) is really irritating.
Good or bad -- you learn something about presentation. Even if you say "wow, I should never do that in a talk" your hour has been well spent.
You get perspective. You never know when something that someone says will make you see your own work in a different context.
The speaker may someday be interviewing you for a job. It's better to be able to say "I heard your seminar" than "Oh, sorry, I missed your seminar when you visited."


Professor uses academic employees to write proposals I am working at a German university after I obtained my PhD. My professor asked me to write project proposals to get funding. One and a half years ago, I spent all my time during 6~8 months writing a DFG proposal that is supposed to be a joint effort between our university and another institution. No one contributed to the proposal except me. My professor used to give me some general feedback.
When we submitted the proposal, I wanted to submit it under my name but my professor convinced me that it would have higher chances under his name than mine and at the end, it did not change anything. I accepted, and the proposal was submitted under his name and the name of our partner and me as a co-applicant.
During the review process, my professor changed university and asked me to join him. However, due to private reasons, I couldn't join him. Now, the proposal has been accepted and I asked my former professor to keep the project in my university as my contract will end soon and because I wrote the entire proposal.
His answer was "No, I don't want to". I argued with him and he replied “it is normal to write a proposal for me when you are at the beginning of your postdoc”. In this situation, I am not getting any credit and the project will move with him and another person will be hired for it, where I might be unemployed.
Is it ethical that the professor uses his academic employees to write proposals and what to do in similar situations because I find it stealing my effort and credit?
EDIT
Currently, I am hired by the university and affiliated to a research group, so we can work on the project in our institution. Originally, the project was granted to my current institution.
EDIT 2
I think it is getting more into a discussion rather than answering a question. I allow my self to EDIT the question according to the answers and the comments. I didn't get a clear answer, but people were divided into three categories:

It is unethical and the professor did a terrible thing.
It is unethical but the professor has fulfilled his moral responsibility be offering a position in his new institution.
It is ethical and universities/professors can use employees or professional writers to write proposals. (Btw. I did not mention that I wrote the proposal but I also developed the ideas, where my professor did not agree with most of them).

The goal of my question is not to find who is wrong or to prove that I am a victim of my former professor's behaviour but to know if we are working in a healthy atmosphere or not and if it is unethical I would reject to write proposals for my next professor. Otherwise, I need to agree with the fact that this is how it works and continue doing it without feeling bad about my self.
EDIT 3
Consequently, I would vote to close the question as it is likely to be answered with opinions rather than facts and citations.

If I understand correctly, you (as a postdoc) developed a research proposal, your professor submitted it under their name, and the project was funded. Then you were sidelined --- you will not be a PI on this project and you will not even take any role in it. This is a terrible experience and I am sorry to hear it happened to you.
The professor's behaviour is wrong. Even for German academia, notoriously famous for being professor-centred and often exploiting young researchers unfairly, this is probably beyond what can be considered normal.
Now, what can probably happen if you expose the story? Likely, not much. There are two issues here:

It is impossible to verify reliably who was the author of the proposal. Even if you show the time stamped drafts, it only proves that you typeset the material and prepared it for submission. Your former professor may say that they explained you the main idea and asked you to type it. It's very hard to prove authorship.
Even when evidence is quite convincing, most academics and academic administrators won't pursue an established professor for a single case of academic misconduct, if it does not directly hurt the University. Ideas are stolen very often, but such stories rarely made headlines, so most administrators won't bother dealing with them. Of course, there are exceptions, when even a single problem can unexpectedly grow big and eventually cost academic their job (there were several such stories recently related to hot topics in political/social discourse). But as far as I see quite a few professors made their carriers by borrowing ideas of others and making their students and postdocs to do a lot of their own work.

So, what can you take from this story? First, you know that you can develop a winning research proposal. This is a sign of a great researcher! Not many people can do it in their postdoc. This is something you should be proud of, and this skill and dedication is something no-one can steal from you. If you decide to leave this story behind and focus on what's ahead, I hope you will be able to repeat this success and now get the full credit for your hard work and creativity.
Good luck!


Using Others Work - To What Level Is It Okay? From September I will be starting my final year project at a UK university.

I will be developing some software. However the software I wish to create has multiple "modules" to it. Approximately 16 modules for 16 different functions.

A fair few of these modules have been created before by various people and the code is completely open source with no licensing restrictions.

I will be writing a lot of the code myself, but I do not see the point in "re-inventing the wheel" by writing some code which will do the exact same thing as some software already out there.

Is it okay to re-use their code in my project? To what level is it okay to do this? 2/16 modules? 6/16? I do not want to go over the top into the plagiarism world. Obviously all work would be credited etc.

You absolutely must not use the work of others without attribution. If you credit everything you use in an adequate way, there is absolutely no limit on how much stuff from other people you can use. However, for your project to be successful, you will need to have a sufficient amount of your own contributions. To see what counts as sufficient, look at past projects and ask your supervisor.


Ownership of the code My advisor sets the problem. I implement the solution for this particular problem and for the set of similar problems using a programming language.

My question is, can I put the code in the public domain, if I decide to do so. And can I run the code for other people in exchange of co-authorship for their papers?

Again, my advisor did not ask me to write the code, he asked me to solve the problem.

Most of the universities I've worked for have been quite explicit that they consider such material as "work for hire" meaning that they own the rights. In that case you need to find out what the university policy is.

Often you are allowed to open-source the code, but you have to find out.

I'm in the United States.


Mathematicians publishing philosophy papers and essays I have a very brief question: Can a professional mathematician publish philosophy papers, essays, etc.? For example, would a leading philosophy journal, nowadays, consider publishing a paper or an essay about philosophy of mathematics written by a mathematician. If so, does any one have proof of such instances? I am of course aware of the fact that numerous mathematicians were philosophers and vice versa, but the standards have changed, so I seek recent publications (as proof).

Edit: Suppose I wanted to write an article about geometric fallacies and why geometric arguments fail, in general, when we use infinitesimals, limits, etc. or something of this nature. Would this be considered for a publication in a philosophy journal?

Just randomly browsed Philosophia Mathematica and found To Diagram, to Demonstrate: To Do, To See, and To Judge in Greek Geometry written by Montelle, who lists his employment as in the department of mathematics. It's from Feb 2012, so recent.


Does it look bad to have more letters of recommendation from undergrad than masters professors in PhD admissions? I did my undergrad at university A, and my masters at university B. I am now applying to university C which requires 3 letters of recommendation. Naturally, my thesis advisor is one of them. I also contacted my undergrad advisor whom I did a 4th year project with.

Finding the right third referee is the problem. In my masters, I only took one course with each professor; 8 different courses with 8 different professor. So I don't think that they know my that well, although I did score A in all of the courses. I decided to contact another undergrad professor whom I took 2-3 courses with.

How will the admission committee look to an application where there are 2 referees from my undergrad and only one from grad study ? Will that affect my application in a negative way ?

"All other things being equal," you'd rather have more references from graduate than undergraduate professors.

Your situation is such that "all other things aren't equal." Apparently, you didn't get to know any of your masters professors well, and only took one course from each. Whereas you had undergraduate professors that you took two to three courses from, and they know you better, and may be in a better position to assess your research potential.

Taking the inference a step further, you may have done your most interesting/significant research as an undergraduate, while your master's work "topped up" your academic knowledge. If that's the case, you probably ought to "go with what you've got," and get more referrals from the (undergraduate) professors that you did more work for, or at least got to know better.

I would rather have "glowing" recommendations from undergraduate professors than "lukewarm" recommendations from graduate professors.

If all else fails, try to take a second course with one of your graduate professors so the s/he can get to know you better, and give you a recommendation.


What are your criteria for evaluating potential PhD students? A more complete description of the question
As the question suggests, I'm wondering if anyone could share the criteria as well as maybe heuristics or questions they use for deciding whether to take on a doctoral candidate. What really matters? What markers do you look for to tell you whether a person could be successful and a good investment of your time?
Background
I'm a full-time Prof in a University-based Business School in the UK. Our PhD programme attracts a) lots of people in general; and b) lots of "post-experience" candidates (i.e., mid- to senior managers in their 30s and 40s). Although there is a structured way to inquire about PhD opportunities, the faculty are also flooded with random applications e-mailed to them directly from various candidates around the world. As usual with the PhD as a degree, very few people understand what this is all about and what they would be letting themselves in for. We have had a number of stellar graduates, but a lot of people struggle and suffer unnecessarily. The problem is, it's very difficult to estimate in advance which category a particular applicant belongs to (except the obvious cases, of course). So I'm wondering if anyone can share what they do to try and estimate a person's chances for success in a PhD programme - criteria, process, or anything else.

I take a two-phase approach (US, computer science Ph.D program). First, I defer the initial judgement to our admissions committee (unless I have identified a specific prospective student I am trying to recruit).
I then look through the admitted students for potential candidates, and focus on research record, statement, and LORs. I'm looking for evidence of (potential for) critical thought and reflection, not just buzzwords.
Once I've identified a candidate or two, I arrange for an interview.  A few days in advance of the interview, I send them a recent paper either by my group or a group working on related topics to read.  I try to pick one with a low barrier to entry for understanding (feasible in my research area), and then in the interview ask them for (1) a summary of the paper's goals and (2) a question or two it raises for them. At this stage, I am not looking for perfect answers or good research questions, but the first steps of the ability to read something and think about it. I also ask some other things in the interview, such as why they want to do a Ph.D (even if this is in their statement - I want to hear it, and ask questions).
I'm still pretty junior, so I haven't had a lot of time to refine this yet. But so far it seems to be ok, and it lets me see whether we can start to talk about research, and can also surface fundamental incompatibilities in goals or research philosophy (although some of those come up in the LOR too).


CV contents for application for professorship positions in Germany I am in the process of applying for a Junior Professorship (W1) in mathematics in Germany, and according the the job listing, the required application documents include a CV and a list of publications (among other things).

What should I include in the CV? Personal details, such as date/place of birth, martial status? How about invited and contributed talks at workshops and conferences? And research interests, or language / computer skills?

How long should the CV generally be?

In Germany you usually have data/place of birth and martial status on your CV and it is also common to have the number of children there. Also a portrait photo is not uncommon, though not necessary.
You should state your academic career, i.e. where you got your degrees, who has been your supervisor and when you graduated (give BSc, MSc and PhD).
Academic and other employments (where did you do postdocs, internships and such)
A list of grants.
Other scientific activities such as service for the community, public outreach, acting as a referee for journals.
(Invited) talks you gave (may be a selection)
Lectures you gave, possibly your graduate students

That's what I had on my CV when I applied for Junior professorships. Was about five pages without list of publications (which can be included in the CV, by the way).


How does a global organization compare global degrees? Being a US citizen and native, my view of degree progression is

Bachelors, 4 years of study
Masters, 1-2 years of study, thesis or portfolio required
Doctorate, 3-4 years of study, comprehensive exams and dissertation required

How does this compare globally? My current understanding is that European schools invert the Bachelors/Masters terms. How does a global organization's human resources department track this for comparison? How do you ensure you are comparing apples to oranges? What are the names of the systems (if they have them, possibly American, European, or another nomenclature)? I recall looking for a simple presentation of this information before, and not being able to find it, so I hope to solve this once and for all here.

In Finland (and other Nordic countries) the situation is almost the same as what you describe. Here, the degree progression is

Bachelor's degree, 3 years (180 ECTS credits), includes a thesis without original research, e.g. literature review (10 cr)
Master's degree, 2 years (120 cr), includes a thesis with research (30 cr)
Doctorate, 4 years, completed by either writing a monograph or a stapler thesis consisting of a preface and four or more publications, some universities also require 6-12 months of coursework (40-60 cr)

Prerequisite for a bachelor's degree is three years of upper secondary school.

I think this applies for most other European countries as well.


Gaps between PhD and employment? What is the longest gap of unemployment that will likely not affect your chance of getting an academic position (post-doc or faculty)?

For example if you graduate from your PhD in December or January but most post-doctoral/faculty positions in your field don't start until May-Sept, is a partial year's worth of unemployment looked down upon in future job applications? If not, what is the longest gap that won't look so negative while applying to future jobs?

I am not sure how you are using the term unemployed. Clearly someone with a paid academic position (e.g., adjunct teaching or lab tech) would not be considered unemployed. I am not sure if you consider an unpaid lab tech or a paid burger flipper as being employed. To me the real issue is being out of the field.

If you cannot get a relevant paid position and but can afford to be without income for a few months, then a year gap, and probably longer, isn't problematic. In fact many labs will hire unpaid researchers. In this case you could continue to conduct new research, publish, apply for grants, and gain new contacts. You could likely stay in an unpaid position as long as you could afford it without any affects on future job prospects. If you cannot get an unpaid research position then it really depends on how long you can milk publications from your past research and produce new research without any affiliation to a research group.

If you cannot get a relevant paid position and cannot afford to be without income for a few months you can sometimes find paid work in a related field. Working as a paid lab tech (e.g., washing test tubes) or adjunct teaching. These types of jobs won't help you publish more or get grants and in fact take time away from publishing, research, and getting grants. That said they can provide a limited set of new skills and cotnacts so are probably sustainable for a year or so.

In the absence of getting even a peripherally related job taking an unrelated job (e.g., burger flipper) even for a short period (i.e., months) gap can be problematic. Not only will it slow down publishing, research, and grants it may make you less flexible about being able to take up a new related position (e.g., how much notice would you have to give). You are also not building new skills or contacts.

A lot of the impact will depend on how important publication speed is in your field. If a few month delay in publishing will result in you being scooped, any gap is probably bad. Similarly the ability to do research without any resources will help you weather a gap. Similarly, if your field has new instigator grants with a clock that starts ticking upon graduation then gaps are bad.


Publishing dissertation chapters instead of a monograph I am at the end of my second year of a tenure-track position (my institution uses calendar years instead of academic ones) with a heavy load of service. This academic year I was assigned to work on six committees.

I defended my dissertation in 2013. I intended to turn the dissertation into a book but after three years applying to jobs while having temporary positions I barely could find the time to work on it. My mentor suggested to publish the dissertation chapters as journal articles since the book is not required for tenure and it has been the norm in the department.

I have mixed feelings about this but I know that with the teaching and service load it would be extremely hard to work on the book; especially since I will have to translate it – my specialization is Spanish literature and my thesis is in Spanish.

Should I publish the dissertation as articles and then think of a new project for a future book publication?

Would you publish the dissertation as articles and then think of a new project for a future book publication?

Yes, I would. Your mentor is right.


Collaboration with other researchers except supervisors I am wondering if it is ethical and acceptable that a Ph.D. student receiving fund and RA from a university and a Prof collaborates on a topic with other researchers and professors (other universities)?
In this situation, should we inform our supervisors?

Yes, it's totally ethical and acceptable. Research doesn't happen in a vacuum, and collaborations are generally beneficial to all parties. I cannot imagine any funding body or person preventing you from collaborating with others. Talk to your supervisor first, of course, as they may want to be part of the collaboration too.


How can I fix previous name misspelling in publications and how should I avoid them in future? I worked in a research laboratory last summer and some of my work was used in a paper that was published this year at a conference. This is my first paper and I am listed as a co-author, however, my last name was spelled wrong.
I have a capital “i” in the middle of my last name that was mistaken for a lowercase “L”.

Firstly, what steps should I take to correct this? Is it best to contact my supervisor from the lab and ask them to correct it or should I attempt to do so myself?

Secondly, in the future should I change my last name spelling to use a lowercase "i" in the middle to avoid this occurring again? I am an undergraduate student, but I am interested in pursuing a career in research.

For fixing, I think the advice in the linked question is the way to go: contact the publisher and ask them to correct it.  This is what errata are for, and it's perfectly normal.

I think the harder question is what to do about the future.

On the one hand, the non-distinguishability of I and l are just going to keep causing problems (as can be seen from this very sentence!) and you rarely have control of fonts.
On the other hand, it's your personal identity at stake.  Do you really want to change your name for the sake of typography?

This is a problem that I see faced by a large number of researchers who don't have names that perfectly transliterate into English.  One of my French colleagues, for example, is very insistent on getting the accents correct on his name, while others just ignore it and let things fall to the lowest (anglicized) denominator.

You're going to need to make a decision based on your personal relationship with your identity.  If it's important to you, stick to your proper name and just know that you're going to need to be proactive in checking and correcting in every paper you deal with.  Fortunately, there's usually a proof stage for just this type of issue.  If you'd rather not bother, then by all means embrace the simple lower-case solution.
One way or another, though, you should settle on a decision by somewhere in the middle of graduate school.  Don't worry too much about some confusion in the early papers: if you make a career of research, the early papers will fade behind your later work; if you don't, it won't matter.


How do I find research topics that yield profitable patents? How can I find (and execute) profitable, patent-producing research? Specifically, I want to produce financially rewarding patents. Are there any steps to success?

There always seems to be an element of luck, but how do I maximize chances?

Pick something that has just become possible, or which people have only recently realized is possible, and which hasn't been worked to death by others.  Look for untilled soil.  If you're the first to tackle a problem, pretty nearly anything you do will be new and potentially patentable.


Writing a recommendation letter as an employer for a student applying to programs in a different field I have been asked to write a letter of recommendation for a student I formerly supervised at my place of employment (at university, but as a staff member). The graduate programs the student is applying to ask for a letter from an employer and I feel that I can write him a strong letter. However, the student is applying for MPH, a field I know little about. Is it important to directly connect my experience with the student to his intended field, or is it adequate to just state that I think the student can succeed in the field?

In the letter, while you describe his duties, you could explain (and provide specific examples if possible) about skills that the former employee has developed and demonstrated that are transferable across all fields, including:

analytical skills
writing skills
interpersonal/collaborative skills
work ethic
initiative

Also consider if the person has written any published work, have they the potential for innovative research that could be a source of grant funding.


Accessing a "forgotten" Google scholar account I have a Google scholar account A which is linked to my Google account and it all works well. But there is also another copy of me, a Google scholar account B, which says that it has a "verified email" (which is my university email). Apparently, I must have confirmed it some time in the past.

How do I access account B? I cannot access it through my Google account, which just takes me to account A. Is there some way to make it send an email to my university address that will let me access it?

I have found an answer: think hard about whether there are other Google accounts that I might have and through which I could have authorized the Scholar account.

In my case, there is a long forgotten "temporary" Google account which was created for me by Goolge during that period when they decided to merge all of its services under the Goolge+ umbrella.


Is it okay to use the same footnote with exact same words in two different chapters of a thesis? Can I use the same footnote with exact same words in two different chapters? The ibid. is used in case of a repetition of the footnote exact above. But what if I want to use the same footnote in different chapters.

Your question is predicated on the largely false assumption that there are detailed, sentence-level rules about what is and is not accepted in "academic writing".  There are no such rules.  Writing is a creative activity.  Use whatever words, footnotes, and anything else most clearly express your ideas.

If you are writing a thesis, check your institution's rules for theses. But I doubt they will include anything this specific.


Can I adapt to learning Artificial intelligence in MS easily I have to ask you this. I am applying for my Masters in CS in US universities. I am very much interested in Artificial Intelligence, but some of my friends said that it would be very difficult for me to learn AI as I have no overview about the course in my undergraduate degree.

Can anyone tell me if I can easily learn by putting some effort on learning AI. I am very much interested in that course.

I don't know about the US, but in some schools in Canada you can be admitted to a CS Graduate degree without prior background in an interest area. You'd have to take background courses to get yourself up to speed, possibly in excess of the bare-minimum program requirements, but it should be doable.

For AI specifically, ensure that the schools you're applying to have enough background in the topic, and that there are supervisors and supervisory capacity for you. Look for undergraduate courses in topics that interest you, as they may form part of your background studies.


Grad student protecing ideas in a research paper for futher development I am working on a graduate school research paper in finance/accounting. My adviser is really excited about my paper and this professor is a prolific publisher. The paper has progressed enough to hand in for the course. I want to develop this paper further after the course is over. However, after meeting with my adviser, (her student assistance's desk is in the professor's office) three other graduate students are doing their papers on the same subject. How can I turn in the paper but protect the work so I can develop it further on my own time? I put a qualifier (not to use without my permission) on the paper but the professor wants it removed. I explained that I wanted to further develop it but she said it is for others to use.

On the face of it this sounds very serious. Of course there may be information that can explain some of the aspects that are unknown to me and also you. So with that in mind.

If you have come up with the idea on your own, the work you have done is certainly yours. Often the basic idea is given by, for example, the adviser, in which case some (how much can differ widely) of the intellectual input is shared. You will, through your work still have some degree of ownership. If the adviser has given a similar basic idea to several students the situation can become really messy. It is not clear from your post if the other students started their work, once they got wind of your success or if they were given earlier input to start along the same lines. In any case, I would argue that the adviser has a responsibility to also protect your possible ownership but unfortunately what is ethically correct and what happens in real life can deviate significantly.

So what can be done? The first thing to do is to talk to the advisor and say you want to work this up to a publication (I have to assume here that you know or have had indications it can be published). In other fields it is possible to post work online to get a time stamp on your work, what possibilities exist for you I will leave to others who may know such possibilities to comment upon.

The comment that "it is for others to use" seems ridiculous. Unless there is a policy or local rule that states that anything produced within a course belongs to the school or course responsible or does not belong to the student, it appears quite unethical to take such a stance. Laws on immaterial rights or intellectual property are usually quite strong. It may therefore be useful to take the matter up with someone in the department who is either there to handle the graduate studies or some form of counsellor at the university level. You must know what structures are in place for possible grievances. the important point is that you need to figure out where you stand based on the details that are known. This is also why a very black or white answer cannot be given here, the information is too weak. But, based on what you have made known the situation sounds problematic from an ethical point of view.


As a beginning graduate student I am not passionate about my field Question: If I don't feel passionate about a field should I stick with it for at least my first year, or should I leave before putting my time in?

Background:
This fall semester will be my first semester in graduate school. This summer I am doing student research in space physics, which is the field I am pursuing in graduate school. I have also had 2 other summers of research in space physics. Not because I enjoyed the field, but more because they were easy research positions to get at the time.

When I had applied to graduate schools I was desperate to just get in, so I applied to space physics programs only, thinking I had a better shot.

I've heard transferring into a different program in graduate school is really difficult, and you can burn a lot of bridges that way, so I think my only options are to grit my teeth for the next 5-6 years/ try to find some passion in the field/ try reapplying to graduate school from the beginning/ or just get a job.

First, you need to step back and ask yourself why you want to go to graduate school. It's not clear to me that you have a well-defined reason.

An MS+PhD program is not easy for anyone. And it's not just classes that you can grind through. Most of your work will be on doing original research, and that necessarily entails dead ends, setbacks, and overall frustration when things don't work out. Certainly one of the biggest things that keeps successful grad students going is being in love with the subject, so that when things do finally go right it all seems worth it.

There are other motivations too. I've seen everything from making parents proud to challenging oneself to really wanting a degree to boast about.1 Whatever it is, though, you have to ask yourself if, at the end of 5 or 6 (or more!) years of sacrificing some combination of money, social time, and creature comforts, you will like your decision.

On starting over: You'll definitely need to think about the above motivations. Is your heart really set on astrophysics, to the point where you won't have this same doubt even if you get into such a program? This soul searching isn't just to help you make the right decision -- you'll need to explain your thinking to your letter writers and possibly to whatever departments you apply to.

On sticking with it: It's possible you don't have enough information right now. Only you know how much you personally learn to like a subject after studying it intensely, versus how much your first impressions always turn out to be right.2 In this case, you can stick with the program for a year and then decide.3 No one will hold it against you if you drop out. You just have to decide whether that extra information is worth a year of your life.

Be careful, though, if you want to start over with different programs after a year, since the timing of the application season might very well leave you with a gap year. Whatever you do, don't think that you have to be miserable for 5 years.

On getting a job: Ask yourself what kind of career you want, and what you need to do to get there. Are there careers you would enjoy that don't require a degree like this? Remember, any grad school is just a means to an end. There are students who choose grad school in order to delay figuring out what career they really want. Just make sure that's not your motivation.

1Anecdote: I went to an undergrad where the majority of students went on to grad school. This resulted in pressuring a lot of my peers who really didn't have a good motivation to do the same. A large number of them dropped out, and I always wonder how many of them regret the decision to continue schooling in the first place.

2In your particular case, I'm inclined to think your won't find that passion given that you have a nonnegligible amount of experience in the field. Unless you find a project that's considerably different from what you've worked on already and more aligned with your interests (see next footnote), there's not much more information to be had by extra experience. Don't make the mistake of procrastinating on a decision when no new information is headed your way.

3By the way, you are right to recognize that space physics and astrophysics/cosmology are rather disjoint, despite how counterintuitive that is to the uninitiated. That said, there is some overlap, especially on the theoretical side. For example heliophysics is not too distant from stellar structure and astroseismology. Look into what the professors in your department actually research -- you might find something right up your alley.


Is university teaching better than high school teaching experience in applying for teaching-funded PhDs? When applying for graduate assistantships or part-time teaching for grad school scholarships, is university teaching necessarily better than highschool teaching experience? if so, by how much?

Possibly relevant details:

I am graduating soon with a master's degree from a third world university.
My plan is to get a PhD but am considering getting teaching experience to boost my chance's of getting in.
I am considering teaching at my university (or another university in my country) for a year or so.
However, I have something like a dual citizenship in a first world country in the sense that I permitted to work there in addition to an established residence (my mom and sister live there while my dad and brother live with me).
Said FWC is where I would like to get my PhD.
My parents suggested I teach at my sister's highschool (or some highschool in said FWC since I will unlikely get into one of the universities there).
I am fine with either in terms of job requirements (e.g. highschool has more requirements and students tend to snooze off more), but the pay is alarmingly different by a factor of 5.

Another difference is that if I teach in my university long enough, I might be able to teach or assist in teaching advanced stuff like probability, linear algebra, calculus III or financial maths. There's also a tutorial center nearby and there are occasional students who need tutorials in probability, statistics and linear algebra.

If there is an option definitely university teaching is more valuable as it is at the same level as the teaching you will experience while doing your degree. However, you should consider that PhD is a research-based degree and teaching obligation is not primary concern. So you might get the position without having any teaching experience and finally get your PhD being a year or so younger.


Can a graduate from university of applied science In Finland study higher degrees (Masters and PhD ) outside Finland? Can a graduate from university of applied science in Finland study higher degrees (Masters and PhD) outside Finland?
I know you that can do a Masters inside Finland in any university of applied science inside Finland. But I don't know about PhD,
and I also don't know about completing a Masters and PhD outside of Finland. Is it possible?

Yes you can.
You would have to go through the application process of whichever university outside of Finland that you wanted to apply for. The university may have certain minimum requirements, and it would be a competitive process, with you competing with others trying to get into the university.
Depending on which country and university you choose, you may be counted as a EU student or as an international student, which usually has higher fees than domestic.


Should I avoid using footnotes in a statement of purpose? I intend to use some footnotes (in a restricted manner) in my statement of purpose for PhD applications, but I am not sure if doing so is suitable.

Though I cannot see any reason against doing so, for safety I still want to ask here for the advices from more experienced you.

Personally, I am a big believer of footnotes. They enable additional information to be added, without distracting the reader from the main argument. However, others will not share my position. One test I like to apply before adding a footnote is: can I include the footnote text in the main body? If I can do so without hindering the reader, then I tend to do so.


How common are PhD interviews in the U.S.? Q: How common is it for a faculty/school to request/demand the good PhD applicants to come in for an interview?

For someone that lives outside of the U.S. and wants to apply to do a doctorate in the U.S., should that person temporarily relocate to the U.S. (at the correct time and for the correct duration of course) with the expectation that they'll have to interview in order to get in?

Do top schools vary from mid-ranked schools when it comes to interview frequency? Does it vary by faculty?

In my experience, it's typical for a US university to invite PhD applicants for a visit only after they have been accepted for admission. The purpose of this visit is primarily for the school to make a good impression on the student and try to convince the student to accept their offer of admission. An interview is not normally a required part of the application process.

However, one of the best things you can do to increase your chances of admission to a particular graduate school is having a professor there who wants you to work with them, and who will lobby the admissions committee on your behalf. In order to get this kind of connection with a professor, you will need to meet them and establish a rapport well in advance of applying to the university, and it's possible that the professor will want to meet you in person as part of that process.


Is not being paid in an internship common in academia? I'm a to-be third year Phyiscs and Mathematics student, and in the beginning of this summer, I was invited to do internship at the lab of one of the professors in the Physics department by that professor herself, and I accepted directly.

During this last 1 month, i.e since the beginning of my internship, I have basically invalidated the work of 2 master student, 1 Phd student and a undergrad student's joint work as a whole (the methods that they were using to analyse the data methodically insufficient and wrong, and I have shown this), and solved the problems that they couldn't solve, and got consistent results.Further, I have made suggestions for how we can improve our result about the experiment that the lab is conducting.

Now, this is my first internship that I have ever done, and I did (and I think I still do) not have any idea about internship in general, and I did not asked for any allowance for the work that I was going to do, and just interested with the job, and I have learned a lot of (literally a lot) things in this 1 month, and enjoyed with the work I was doing.

The thing is, I cannot take any course credit from an internship (this is a thing in my University), and I did not get paid; it is OK, I have learned a lot of things, but I'm asking just for the future internships, is this kind of situation common in academia in general ? Because, after some time the situation transformed from helping researchers in their research to doing the very work of those researchers that they cannot do properly while they still got paid.

Edit:

I'm in Turkey.

Sadly, yes. It is all too common, though not universal. Not only for internships in labs, but also in businesses. The US Congress, even, doesn't pay its interns, though there is some move to do so in future.

The "justification" of this is that the students are "learning", which can be true or false. But normally they do work for which pay would otherwise be required.

In my opinion, this is just wrong. If people are contributing, they should be paid. If they are not paid then many people who need to support themselves - somehow - will be closed out of these opportunities. I would have a bit less objection to it but for this fact. In economically diverse countries such as the US (and others) it is especially important.

The solution to it is political, however, whether at the university level or the governmental level.

As you say, of course, an internship teaches you things that are hard to learn otherwise. They are valuable for themselves. Your CV can reflect internships you have done.

Well, some internships teach you things. There are also examples in which "interns" become bottle washers, not learning much of anything. This is pure exploitation.

But labs, agencies, and businesses need to include sufficient funding so that students don't get exploited.