Including Patients' Pictures in a Manuscript I am going to include some pictures of patients in my manuscript, which will be submitted to a scientific journal for peer review. In order to keep the subjects’ identity and following the data protection act, I need to hide their faces.

My question is to know whether to put a black rectangle over their faces, especially their eyes or pixelising their faces. I have been told that putting a black rectangle is not recommended for this purpose, but I have never been told the reason.

Could somebody please let me know first that:

Which method is better?
Is that the case that blackening the face is not recommended. If true, why?

The BMJ Publishing Group suggests a very simple reason for the change:

  We no longer publish pictures with black bands across the eyes because bands fail to mask someone’s identity effectively.

  We will need the patient to sign our consent form, which requires the patient to have read the article.

If you can "blacken out" the face, then why not just crop it out altogether?


How to deal with your research results becoming obsolete? My coworkers are pursuing a generalization of one of my (recent) results. Is it wrong of me to frown a little on this? I would prefer it if they had an original idea of their own, or that if that they had to generalize a result, it would either be one of their own or one of someone they do not know.

The way I see it, a paper has a certain lifespan in terms of being read and cited. Once it has been generalized, that lifespan is in most cases over. If someone wanted to understand a theorem, they would probably look for the most general version. Of course, this does not always apply, for example if the work represents a milestone of some kind. One consequence of obsolescence is the stream of citations to my paper is short circuited. This will, in a sense, benefit them at my expense. Of course, I realize that my paper will eventually (hopefully) be generalized and become obsolete (i.e. no longer state-of-the-art). I just rather prefer that it wasn't my coworkers who are working towards that goal (they even started while I was still drafting my paper).

Please note: I do not mean for this to be read as a rant or a complaint. I do understand how science works by expanding on previous knowledge. I just want to know how others feel about the prospect of their research becoming obsolete, and how to approach that from the perspective of someone in the beginning (and at the same time, possibly the end) of their academic career. I imagine that for a professor such a thing would not be a big deal, for a number of different reasons.

While I sympathize with you, I find it hard to answer your question.

On the one hand, as phrased you are asking whether an emotional response is valid.  Well, it is not really for anyone other than you to determine the validity of your emotional responses, and in all of my experience, "That is not a valid emotional response" is rarely a useful piece of advice.  On the other hand, your question is pitched in a certain level of generality, but understanding why you feel the way you do seems to require knowing more particulars of your situation than you have disclosed.

But let me say what I can and what might be helpful:

  The way I see it, a paper has a certain lifespan in terms of being read and cited. Once it has been generalized, that lifespan is in most cases over. If someone wanted to understand a theorem, they would probably look for the most general version. Of course, this does not always apply, for example if the work represents a milestone of some kind. One consequence of obsolescence is the stream of citations to my paper is short circuited. This will, in a sense, benefit them at my expense. Of course, I realize that my paper will eventually (hopefully) be generalized and become obsolete (i.e. no longer state-of-the-art).

Since you speak of "theorems," I gather you are working in mathematics.  (This is corroborated by one of your other questions, where you identify yourself as working in applied mathematics.)  I am also a (pure) mathematician, and the way you describe "obsolescence" is neither the way I think about mathematical results nor how I have heard other mathematicians talking about them.  Maybe it is quite different in applied mathematics, but in pure mathematics there is not any prescribed lifespan on papers being read and cited.  To try to quantify this, I just looked back over my last 10 accepted papers, and for each one identified the earliest cited paper.  Of these ten papers, the latest one was published in 1976.  (Moreover the 1976 paper came from a five page note with only a few citations.)  In other words, in all of my recent papers I have cited papers that are more than 40 years old, and in fact usually older than that.  In my department I have many colleagues who are 10-20 years older than I but who have a similar number of publications to me (publication pressures have risen in recent years).  Most of these colleagues have higher total citation numbers than I do -- I think because their papers from 10, 20, 30...years ago continue to be cited.  My most highly cited works were published in 2013, 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2003, respectively.

[Moreover, in mathematics, citation numbers are not (yet!) the ultimate metric of academic worth.  Papers written on finite graphs tend to get more citations than papers written on admissible representations of p-adic groups because there are more people working on the former and many more people who know what the former are.  I think most mathematicians realize this.]

So I have to wonder about the specific situation you are describing.  In a different question, you mention a colleague of yours who worked on the same problem as you and came up with a result that was in some but not all ways more general, and then you published at least two papers together.  I don't understand why this would "short circuit" your citations.  Now you describe a situation in which your colleagues are working on generalizing one of your results, apparently without any new ideas.  In this latter situation especially, I would expect that if they publish an improvement of your results using ideas essentially due to you, then that should augment your results in every way (including citations), not detract from it.  (You are aware that senior mathematicians do this all the time, and the work of their students is usually viewed as an extension of their own work, I trust?)

Then you say:

  I just rather prefer that it wasn't my coworkers who are working towards that goal (they even started while I was still drafting my paper).

If it gets to the point of an independently published generalization of your work, then I don't see how it makes any difference whatsoever if your coworkers were involved.  However, before that happens the fact that it is your coworkers puts you in a much better situation: namely, in the worst case you have much more advance knowledge of what they are working on and can plan accordingly.  In the best case you can pursue a collaboration with them in whatever way seems best to you.

If I may take a guess -- are you perhaps most upset by the fact that your coworkers have chosen to pursue these generalizations of your work without your involvement, so that they seem to be competing with you right under your nose?  I could understand why that would be upsetting.  If you feel that way, I think you should be much more proactive about collaborating with them.


Should I contact the Editor again? I have submitted my mathematical paper to a journal in November 2018. After that, it has the status "Awaiting Referee Selection" during 4 months. I contacted the Editor-in-Chief for his support, luckily, he is very nice. The result is that the status of the paper has been "under review" in March 2019 and he said that:

  I hope to receive the reports of the referees by mid-April.

However, today (April 24, 2019) I still has not received the first decision.
Should I contact the Editor-in-Chief again or not?
Thank you for your comments.

No.

Mid-april was last week, and his response implied that he couldn't be sure to receive the reports (who could be sure of how long reviewers take?). I suggest you wait at least one week, ideally two before contacting him.


What happens to unproductive professors? I notice that past a certain age (sometimes as early as 50), some professors tend to be significantly less productive, to the point that they essentially do not publish or have graduate students and only teach classes (as that is really the only 'required' activity of a professor).

I've also noticed in some rarer cases of professor 'dropping off the grid' right after they get tenure. And this is reflected in them being an associate professor indefinitely.

Are there any consequences to this? Is their pay reduced if they are clearly not doing any research? Or are these professors effectively retired but still receiving all the monetary and social benefits of their job without having to conduct any of the required work?

This depends on a lot of things, including how you define productive. I think you mean "produces publications", but there are other definitions. In particular, some professor who hasn't done a lot of recent research, but is otherwise well known, might, on the basis of letters of recommendation, send a lot of undergraduates to great doctoral programs. That would be highly valued in some institutions, especially small ones. In some other places, grants received, measured in dollars/euros/krona/yen/..., is the main measure of productivity.

While there are many (many) exceptions to the following, in general, assuming this is the US, an Assistant Professor who isn't productive won't get tenure and will likely not advance in an academic career. A tenured Associate Professor won't be advanced to Full Professor and will receive only minimal raises over the remaining career. S/he might be a bit ostracized by colleagues, but that depends on other aspects of "productivity". A Full Professor will probably only get minimal raises, but might be able to use such things as textbook revenues or consulting to supplement a relatively poor salary.

My experience was mostly in Professional, not R1, universities. Where I worked we had a sensible system in which a Professor (even a Full Professor) was evaluated each year. The professor was allowed to set the terms of the evaluation, within limits. The stated "things of value" were Research, Teaching, and Service. Different universities will value these differently at different times and an individual can also value them differently as their career progresses.

But the process might work like this: The professor writes an annual dossier in which s/he comments on contributions to the main criteria, and others if desired. This dossier is a few pages and lists papers and conference talks, grants, professional contributions (conference chair...). It discusses contributions to teaching, such as courses developed or improved. It also discusses, as appropriate, service to the university, its students, and the general community. The dossier can also include a suggested plan for the coming year mentioning each category.

Then, after the dossier is submitted, someone, such as the Dean, reviews the dossier and comments on it. Some of the comments are laudatory and others point out places where the "contributions" are less valuable as seen by the university at that moment. The reviewer will also suggest a plan for improvement, if necessary, that becomes an expectation for the following year. For a tenured professor, the job itself isn't in jeopardy, but the level of compensation normally is. But the university also sets ranges of possible changes in compensation and the bottom is normally greater than zero. Actual reductions in salary would be rare, and possibly illegal. But inflation catches up pretty quickly if your salary is stagnant.

I consider this to be a reasonable evaluation plan. In an R1 university using such a plan, research would be the category most valued and most weighted by the reviewer who looks at the dossier. In a teaching university or college, Research would be expected, but at a lower level and teaching and service to students (especially) would be more highly valued.

But the beauty of the system is that an individual initiates the evaluation and can establish their own "most valued" contribution and, while it can't ignore the value system of the university, need not adhere to it absolutely. For a university, even an R1 university, it isn't necessary that everyone treat research as the most important thing at every point of the career. There are other things of value and other sorts of valued contributions. Carl Sagan, for example, may not have done a lot of research in later years, but was highly valued by Cornell and others. It is enough, for the university, that all of its goals are met and that overall, there is a good balance (as defined by the university) between the valued elements.

In fact, it is possible that a Dean in trying to optimize something like research contribution at a micro level, actually sub-optimizes it at a macro level, creating an unhappy and unproductive environment.

Of course, some people get lazy as they grow older. But if you have a valued position at any kind of university it is probably true that your personal goals align pretty well with those of the university. You do what you love to do and it is just about what the university wants to see done. So there is a lot of personal drive, even inertia, to keep doing that. If you've been doing research since forever it is likely that you love it and want to continue doing it. For many people, it is harder to get them to stop than it is to get them to do more.


What to do if accused of cheating/misconduct at university? This question is written to serve as a canonical question that is asked repeatedly on Academia.SE (see e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)  The purpose of this question is to act as a repository for general advice that applies in all cases where a student is accused (wrongly or correctly) of cheating, or some other form of misconduct.

What should a student do (and not do) if they are accused (wrongly or correctly) of some kind of wrong-doing or misconduct at a university?

The following is general advice for what to do when you are the subject of an allegation of wrong-doing at university.  This advice is general enough to encompass most allegations, including academic wrong-doing that does not rise to the level of formal "academic misconduct", but also including academic misconduct or sexual misconduct.  For minor matters this advice can be streamlined and the process is less formal, so you should adapt as required depending on the severity of the matter.  I will assume here that the allegation is sufficiently serious that a reasonable degree of formalism and caution is appropriate.  For simplicity, most of my answer will assume that we are talking about a public university in a Western country (e.g., the US, England, Australia, etc.).  Universities have procedures in place that create an orderly process for determining the nature of the allegation, obtaining relevant evidence, hearing the matter and making a determination.  Consequently, the following are some general rules you should follow to deal with the matter.

Rule 1 - Stay calm and don't pre-empt the process
Many questions on Academia.SE concerning accusations of misconduct are written in a tone of panic, asking how the questioner should "prove their innocence" at the outset of an accusation.  Often the questions are posted when an accusation is first made, and often the questioner is not even familiar with the specific details of the allegation.  Notwithstanding this limited information, questioners often wish to take immediate action to "prove their innocence" in relation to what they speculate to be the details of the allegation or the evidence relating to the matter.
All of that is the wrong thing to do.  The first thing to do if you are accused of wrong-doing is to remain calm and remind yourself that there is a process for dealing with misconduct allegations.  Public universities are subject to due process requirements for allegations of wrong-doing, and so they are required to operate under the principle that you are "innocent until proven guilty".  They are also required to give you written details of the complaint against you, specifying exactly what it is you are alleged to have done, and they must also tell you the evidence against you.  (Collecting this evidence may be an ongoing process, so it might not all be present at the start of the allegation anyway.)  At the start of the process, you are under no obligation to prove anything.  There is no sense in speculating on what it is that you are alleged to have done, or what the evidence of the allegation might be, prior to being given this information in the formal process.  Any misconduct process that comports with the requirements of due-process will provide you with a written statement of the allegation against you, and show you the evidence that supports that allegation.

Rule 2 - Read the rules, understand them, and follow the process
When you have been accused of misconduct, you need to read the university rules for the type of misconduct you are accused of, and the procedures for dealing with this.  It is advantageous for you to be as familiar with these rules as you can be, so that you know your rights and obligations under those rules.  Read all the relevant university policies relating to the process you are involved in, and identify the requirement to provide you with the allegation made against you, and the relevant points where you are given the opportunity to respond to allegations.
Universities should all have misconduct procedures that provide due process to the person accused of wrong-doing.  Legal requirements for this differ according to the country and jurisdiction, and whether the university is private or public. (Public universities are generally bound by constitutional rules that are operative on the government.  For example, in US public universities, the defendent is generally entitled to notice of the allegations against them and a description of the evidence for those allegations --- see e.g., Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education 294 F.2d 150.)  The most basic requirements of due process are that you are entitled to know the details of the allegation against you and the evidence of those allegations.  You are not required to respond to an allegation until you have been supplied with this information and have had a reasonable chance to review and digest it.  At some point in the process you will be given an opportunity to submit your own description of events and your own evidence.

Rule 3 - Deal professionally and courteously with the reviewer for the matter
For any kind of formal misconduct matter there will be one or more staff members at the university who act as the reviewer of the matter.  This involves invesetigating the matter, making findings of fact from the evidence, and making a determination.  Depending on the severity of the matter, for cases of alleged academic misconduct this might be one of the academics in your department (e.g., the Head of Department or some other senior person) or it might be an academic you have not met before, or it might be another staff member in one of the administrative parts of the university.  For cases of alleged sexual misconduct the reviewer will usually be one of the administrative staff of the university (e.g., an officer from the "equity" team).
You should deal professionally and courteously with the reviewer and remember that it is their job to investigate the matter and make a determination.  Remember that the allegation is not being made by the reviewer, so unless they are acting in an especially unreasonable or biased manner, there is no cause to be upset with them.  Likewise, while you may be upset and in need of some validation for yourself (if you are wrongly accused of something) the reviewer is not your therapist or support person.  If the reviewer is an academic that you know (e.g., one of your lecturers) then you need to allow them to remain at arms length during the process.  Standard rules of professional conduct apply --- maintain a calm and disciplined manner, even if you are upset.
Due process requirements generally require the reviewer of the matter to be unbiased.  If the reviewer engages with you in an unreasonably hostile way, or shows other signs of bias, you should make a written note of this (including all relevant details) and you may be able to have the matter assigned to another reviewer.  There is little value in getting into an argument with the reviewer --- if you perceive them to be biased then you should document your reasons for this and ask for a new reviewer.

Rule 4 - Do not give your evidence until you are required to do so
A common error when dealing with proceedings for misconduct is for an accused party to rush to head off the allegation by giving information and evidence to the reviewer prior to knowing exactly what they are accused of.  Often this occurs due to panic, and due to the (usually misguided) view that the process can be "nipped in the bud" if only you explain yourself immediately.  As stated above, due process (and university rules) generally entitles you to be given a written statement setting out the details of the allegation against you, and the evidence for that allegation.  In matters that are serious enough for a formal process, always ensure that you do not provide any statement or evidence unless and until you have been provided with this statement.  The statement provided to you should clearly state what you are alleged to have done wrong, and the evidence that supports this allegation.  If you are still unclear on what you are accused of, seek clarification.
It is not uncommon that you may be "invited" to go and speak to the reviewer at the start of the matter (e.g., when an allegation is first raised) before you have been provided with the full details of the complaint.  If you like, this can be used as an opportunity to find out information about the complaint and find out the process for handling the complaint.  However, if you are asked to provide a statement or evidence prior to receiving the written statement of complaint (including just "having a chat" about it) you should decline, and tell the relevant officials that you will respond after you have been provided with the statement of complaint against you.  If you are called in for a meeting or hearing prior to receiving this statement, you should either decline to attend, or if you decide to attend you should focus on eliciting information about the complaint.  If you are asked for your version of events, or your evidence, do not provide any information, and simply state that you will respond after you have had an opportunity to review the written statement of complaint against you. (Also, do not respond contemporaneously in the meeting if they give you this statement; take at least a day or two to review and think about the matter.)
In the event that your university either will not provide you with a written statement of the allegation against you, or expects you to provide pleadings or evidence prior to this, you should generally refuse, and put the university on notice that you expect lawful due-process.  If you have read the university rules then you should also be able to cite sections of the rules that entitle you to this information.

Rule 5 - If you are correctly accused, admit what you did and take your punishment
Once you have been provided with the details of the allegation against you, you will be able to determine if it is correct.  Notwithstanding the importance of due process, I take the view that if you are accused of some wrong-doing that you have in fact done, you should have the honesty and integrity to admit to that wrong-doing and take the resulting penalty, even if it might not have been proven.  This is a good way to develop good character and hold yourself accountable for your actions. Others may take a more legalistic view, but I would recommend this principle.
In some cases the allegation against you will be accurate but there may be some mitigating factors that are not included, and you may wish to draw these to the attention of the reviewer.  For example, you might have broken a rule without realising that what you were doing was against the rules.  Alternatively there might be some other mitigating factors that you wish to raise.  You can make a submission admitting to the wrong-doing you are accused of and also setting out any relevant mitigating factors that you think should be taken account in determining your punishment.

Rule 6 - If you are wrongly accused, use due process protections to protect yourself
If you are accused of something you did not do then you will want to provide a response to the complaint where you set out your own submissions on the issue at hand and your own evidence pertaining to this issue.  The details will depend on the particulars of your case.  While a university disciplinary process is less formal than a legal proceeding, the same general advice applies.  You will want to give a clear and detailed written response, including the strongest evidence you can muster in your favour.  This might include statements from other witnesses, emails or other documentary evidence, etc.  Try to set our your response in a clear and structured way, make your evidence clear, and avoid repitition unless it is necessary to stress important facts.  It is generally a good idea to give your evidence in written form (at least in the first instance), to make sure it is accurate and clear.
University disciplinary processes usually use the "balance of probabilities" or "preponderance of evidence" standard for fact-finding, so although there is some onus of proof on the complainant, it is not usually necessary for the complainant to prove their case "beyond reasonable doubt".  In most cases, the outcome of the matter will hinge on the strength of the evidence for the assertions made by the complainant and the respondent.  In some university disciplinary processes you may also wish to scrutinise the reviewer to ensure that they are acting in an objective and unbiased way.  If you have reason to believe that the reviewer is biased against you, you should ensure that you collect relevant evidence of this and make notes of instances where you were treated with bias.

Rule 7 - Respect the confidentiality of the process (and expect the same from the other parties)
A general rule of disciplinary processes at the university is that there is an expectation of confidentiality, at least until findings are made.  Participants in the complaint process are also usually protected from "retaliation".
While circumstances differ depending on the subject of the complaint and the identity of the parties, it is generally a bad idea to contact the complainant outside of the complaint process, since this can be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate or harass the complainant into withdrawal of their complaint.  (This is especially so for allegations of sexual misconduct or physical violence; in those cases contact with the complainant should be made only with extreme care.)  If you believe you can "clear this up" with the complainant with a simple conversation then you should make this request by email and give them the option of whether or not they wish to meet with you, and the circumstances of your meeting (e.g., do they wish to bring a support person, etc.).  Offers to meet with the complainant can also be made through the university reviewer for the matter, though there is no guarantee they will agree to this.
If the complainant or another party breaches the confidentiality of the complaint (e.g., bad-mouthing you around the university) then you should remind the reviewer of your expectation of confidentiality in the process.  If the complainant publicly defames you with false allegations then this can also give rise to a cause-of-action for defamation; in this latter event you may wish to seek legal advice.


Should I ask for permission from the journal before making available publicly the (anonymised) text of the evaluation I received from peers? The question says it all. To add some relevant information, I must note that

I published some articles in national journals
The level and the process of peer review in some of those national journals was quite low or even nonexistent; yet they claim to be double-blind peer-reviewed and are in the top of their field according to a journal list our Academy of Sciences use when evaluating research performance
I intend to make available publicly the substandard reviews, or, in the case of non-existing external review processes, my correspondences with the handling editor on the internet

Now it seems obvious for me that no permissions will be given to me by the journals if I ask for it, so I'm not sure whether I should ask them anyway. But would that be a bad move; legally speaking?

Unless you signed a very peculiar publication agreement, you are under no obligation to keep the reviews your received confidential.  Moreover, there is probably no issue with copyright infringement either.  Publishing a modest amount of text, for the purpose of critiquing it, almost certainly qualifies as "fair use" of potentially copyrighted material.  (This could, however, vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.)

So I think there is rather little legal risk of doing this.  However, it sounds to me like a very poor idea nonetheless.  In most academic contexts, the dangers of doing something wrong come less from formal legal repercussions than from the damage that may be done to your professional reputation.

Presumably everyone who has published in these journals understands the relatively lax nature of their peer review (having gone through the process themselves).  Unless one or more of the journals has an undeservedly high reputation (which seems doubtful, since you describe them as "national"; prestigious journals typically have international contributors and audiences), publishing accusations of laxity against the journal are not likely to affect the journal at all.  On the other hand, doing something like that can definitely get you a reputation as an obnoxious troublemaker, which can be extremely damaging to your career.


Is there a problem with citing the original source instead of the source where the information was first found? I'm writing a Bachelor's Thesis.

I found a seemingly convenient way of making my research paper successful, but I'm not sure if it counts as plagiarism.

This is mainly concerned with the methods section.

I have gathered many research papers that use the same methodology but discuss different topics (it is not about the literature review). I read the method section and take notes of how the author presented the information, the discussion raised, the sections included.

If it is relevant to my research paper, I follow the same ideas. I take the information cited by the researcher; I mean good information from experts. I do further research on good quotes that are in the research papers I read, use them in my research paper, and cite the original source of the quote, which I also read, but I do not cite the research paper where I was first introduced to the information.

Is this plagiarism?

I don't cite the research paper where I found the quote because it is irrelevant to my topic. It only uses the same methodology. Moreover, I do further research on the information and usually cite the original source or a source on research methodology.

You are correctly citing the original source of the idea/quote (which you looked up and read in context, as you should).

You don't (usually) have to cite the paper that exposed you to that original source. The purpose of a citation is to

give credit to the originator of an idea/quote
tell readers where to look to verify your claims about that idea/quote

In this case, citing the original source satisfies both purposes and is sufficient.

An exception is a review paper, which doesn't add new research, but collects and comments on relevant sources on a subject. In this case, the curation of materials is the novel idea contributed by the review paper. If you then go on to use the collection of sources you found via that paper, it's often appropriate to cite the review paper also.

Similarly, if you use the interpretation of the original source found in the secondary source, you should also cite the secondary source.


Planning nondegree classes I am thinking of registering for nondegree classes at a local university to give an impression to future admission comitee that my GPA does not really reflect me. But I have some concerns. How should I choose which courses to take.

If some internationally known professor gives an introductory course e.g. Introduction to Algorithms and if another internationally unknown one offers advanced graduate course, which one should I choose first ? Consider the future recommendation letters to United States schools I would expect from them.

The reputation of the faculty member helps somewhat, but is nowhere near as useful as the quality of the recommendation letter. A letter from a famous person who doesn't really know you outside of the classroom (or doesn't know you at all) isn't nearly as helpful as an in-depth evaluation from someone you know well, and who knows you well.

However, I find the notion that you would taking an introductory course versus an advanced elective somewhat concerning. In general, if you are looking to buttress a graduate-school application, evidence that you can handle graduate-level work in the field matters far more than having a Big Name write you a weak letter.


What happens when a journal changes its editor-in-chief in the middle of a review? I submitted a paper revision (1st revision) to an Elsevier journal 3 months ago. The problem is that last week they apparently changed the journal's editor-in-chief. My paper status was previously "With editor: 50 days", and now it has been reset to "With editor: 2 days". What happened to the revision process? Does it mean that the 3-month wait was in vain?

Most likely, nothing changed. The previous editor was probably waiting for referees responses and the new editor is probably now waiting for the same referees to respond. Only if the new editor strongly disagrees with the choice of referees (which is very unlikely), he would ask for new ones and you would have lost time. But you are probably safe.


Paper acceptance probability in case of Minor revision after a major revision I submitted a paper in Physics background journal. At the 1st review, the referees' have written positive statement. One of the referee suggested minor revision, while the other suggested major revision. I have revised the paper according to the referees' comments. Recently. I have received minor comments (only a few text corrections) from the referee who suggested major revision at the 1st review. I have revised again the paper according to the referee comments and submitted to the journal about 2 weeks ago. However, I have received any decision letter yet. Does a minor revision after a major revision lead to acceptance ?

Minor revision means most likely your article will be accepted, but it's not a guarantee. I have an experience of getting two minor revisions and finally article was rejected, othe other hand another article was accepted after major revision.  Bottom line, it's all depends how well you respond to reviewer comments and how much reviewer and editor get satisfy with your revised version. Good Luck!


In analysing arguments, what are the differences between claims, support and premises? I've read several books about argument and I have problem in interpretation from English to Bahasa. Is there any difference between claim, support, and premise in argument?

Formally (see, for example, Campbell and Huxman)

A claim is an assertion.
A reason is the justification for making the claim.
Support is the evidence underlying your claim.
An argument consists of a claim + reason + support.

Let me give you an example of my argument about democracy in the Philippines.

Claim: The Philippines' young, vibrant democracy is facing real challenges in the 21st century ...
Reason: ... because the rule of law is threatened by endemic corruption,  extrajudicial killings and an armed secessionist movement in the south.
Support: Statements about the democracy and the need for the respect of the rule of law, the nature of corruption and its effect on democratic institutions, the moral problem of extrajudicial killings, etc.

Formally (see Aristotle's Organon), a premise is a statement from which a conclusion in drawn. This is nicely demonstrated in classic syllogisms:

Premise A: All men are liars.
Premise B: Socrates is a man.
===========================================
Conclusion C: Therefore, Socrates is a liar

In the syllogism above, A and B are premises. From both premises, the conclusion C follows.

Premises, by themselves, are virtually meaningless because they act as unreasoned or unsupported claims. For example, if I made the premise,

"The Philippines' young, vibrant democracy is facing real challenges in the 21st century."

and left it there, you would ask such questions as

what are your reasons for this statement?
what evidence do you have to support this premise?
what are the implications of this claim?


Must I list my committee members as co-authors on a manuscript after being dismissed from grad school? I was a graduate student at a university in the US about two years ago and I was working on a thesis. I was an international student and my advisory committee thought that my writing skills were extremely poor and I was asked to quit the program (though I didn't agree with their decision). I had done some literature review during the program and I recently decided to submit that as a review paper in a fairly decent journal. I just got the decision from the editor saying that the paper could be accepted with minor revision.

Now, I would like your opinion on whether I should contact my advisory committee to see if they would be willing to be the co-authors on the paper. Since I worked on this manuscript while I was a graduate student at that university and did get some help with the corrections on my writing (especially grammar -- I did not use any data from any of my supervisors), do you think I must include them as co-authors on the paper? Do I need to include my previous university as my affiliation? Should I contact them and offer them co-authorship? What do I do if they decline or do not respond?

Since I spent a good amount of time and worked really hard on this manuscript, I would like to get it published. I would really appreciate your opinion on what I should be doing at this point to avoid any infraction of others' intellectual property.

Unless they made scientific contributions, do not list them as co-authors. Proofreading and grammar help is cause for an acknowledgment, not co-authorship. If they contributed scientifically, then you have an ethical obligation to list them. If it is a borderline case, I would err on the side of not including them, given that they basically fired you.

You do need to list that institution as your affiliation. Even though you are no longer there, they funded you while you did this research (presumably) and deserve to have the attribution. Further, your contract may require this.

Edit: there was a (now-deleted) follow-up question about whether it's necessary to seek permission to acknowledge someone. My gut feeling is no, but check out: Is it necessary to ask permission before including someone in the acknowledgements of a research paper?


How I add a co-author to my Google Scholar profile? I have co-authored some publications with an author who has a Google Scholar profile, but I see no way of adding him to my profile as a co-author.

How I add a co-author to my Google Scholar profile?

The recipe is this:

Sign In to Google Scholar.
Click on My Citations.
Type your co-author name in the search box provided (top right).
You will get a list of authors that match the search. Click on the "Add co-author" button on the right of the correct person.

If your author is not found, you will get a failed search.

If you click on the wrong person, you can remove them with the edit button at the top of your co-authors list.


How to prepare for questions about the part of the paper that you didn't write? I'm going to present a paper, in which we propose several algorithms to solve a problem. One of the algorithms is actually developed by co-authors at a different university, who will not attend the conference.

I only understand this algorithm at a very high level, and I have no idea how it is implemented, which parameters was chosen etc. It uses some techniques that I have very little background. It would take me months to understand all the techniques and the implementation. And to be honest, I'm not really interested in this algorithm since we have other alternatives that perform equally well if not much better.

However, if I am asked about this algorithm at the conference, how I should reply. I couldn't say somebody else did it, and I don't know.

couldn't say somebody else did it, and I don't know.

Yes, that is more or less what you should say.
It is completely normal for collaborative works that different co-authors are knowledgeable about different parts of the work.
In particular, works that span several otherwise separate areas, it is not unusual for experts to contribute their respective techniques to create an integrated solution together.
In such a case, the various co-authors basically see the components contributed by others as some kind of a blackbox. They should know what those components do, but they do not necessarily know how they do it.

In such a case, it is reasonable to answer:

  The ... algorithm is a work by my co-author ... who unfortunately cannot be here today. I recommend to direct specific questions on the algorithm to them.

You should be ready to provide some way of contacting the co-author (e.g. e-mail address on the slides).


Got a distinction, but only because of some exceptionally high marks - is this a disadvantage? I got quite a few B's and also a C, but then also very high A's, which then brought my GPA up again so that I ended up graduating with a distinction.

I would now like to apply to PhD programs at top schools, and most of them require their candidates to have a distinction.

Might I be at a disadvantage if compared to candidates who had A's throughout (so instead of A+, B+, = A (my situation) they might have A, A= A, or is it the other way around: does it look good that I was able to score some exceptionally high marks?

I do not know what discipline you are in. However, in the programs I served on with PhD programs (health and social sciences), we would first weed out those who didn't make the minimum criteria (which your distinction seems to put you ahead of). Then, we would look at which candidates make the best fit for our program. For instance, if your high A grades are in areas of focus in the PhD program, that might make you still very competitive. However, if the Bs and C were in coursework related to the PhD program, but the A's were in areas less relevant, that might hurt. The committee would also most likely assess for fit for the writing and research requirements for their program as well as if there is an appropriate advisor for you there. If the programs require writing samples and/or personal statements, this is where you can make up for that. Typically, though, admitting students to a PhD program is often more about just their transcripts. Good luck!


Are comments on application folders accessible to students? If a student applies to a university in the United States, can they legally access all comments written on their application (e.g. as a consequence of the FERPA)?

If a student is admitted to the university and ultimately enrolls then yes, under FERPA they have the right to access any educational records about them that have been retained by the university.  However, this doesn't include confidential recommendations in cases where the student explicitly waived the right to review the document.  It also doesn't include the records of students who were denied admission or who were admitted and didn't enroll (FERPA rights begin when a student enrolls at the university.)

In the last few years it has become common for students to request this information.  There have been articles about this in the campus newspapers at many prominent universities.  In response to this trend some universities have changed their policies on retention of data from the admissions process (e.g. you can destroy any notes at the point when a student is admitted and then there won't be any record for the student to access.)

Keep in mind that the vast majority of students in the US attend institutions where admission is either completely open or is based purely on high school grades, standardized test scores, etc.  In these cases there typically aren't any "comments" on the student's application.

See these articles:

http://www.browndailyherald.com/2015/04/22/ferpa-requests-yield-limited-access-files/

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2015/03/09/first-students-gain-access-to-their-admissions-files-through-ferpa-provision/


How to approach a researcher regarding his latest publication? There is a group that I've been interested in for a while because we share some of the research interests and because of the very ingenious approach used by its PI. Lately, they published a paper in exactly the same field I work in (but with different models objects).

I feel really eager to react, and I have some considerations about their results, parallels with our work, ideas for future research etc. However, I'm not actively applying for a post-doc, nor do I have any specific (that is, supported by funding) propositions for collaboration. However, I would like to get the conversation started, ideally leading to some kind of common project. It's not a typical cold-call, since

the paper in question cites my group's work,
I've met the PI at a conference and had a brief talk, and
I studied alongside two of his postdocs at a practical course.

We are separated by the ocean, so the communication will have to be via e-mails of some such.

So, how should I approach? E-mail, commenting on ResearchGate, writing to those postdocs first (even though they weren't involved in this particular peace of research)? Specifically, how can I formulate the concluding, "so what" part of the letter?

I have some considerations about their results, parallels with our work, ideas for future research etc.

So use this as a starter. Write/ask about their paper and get a discussion going. In my experience this will very often automatically lead to a collaboration of some kind, like a follow up paper or a whole joint project.

As an alternative I would recommend that you talk to your supervisor, what he thinks about the group and if he would think starting a collaboration would be worth a try. Maybe he will then start to initialise the communication.


How do I ensure that a search committee won't contact my current colleagues (that are not references) to ask about me? I once applied to a job (in the US) where the search committee unexpectedly contacted one of my colleagues to ask about my job performance. This individual was not one of my references.

I had never heard of this practice before, and now that I'm considering applying elsewhere (outside of the US), I'm wondering if this is something that I can expect from search committees in Europe.

My question is similar to How do I keep my tenure track job search confidential?, but there's one main addition I'm seeking: how do I ask for confidentiality in the cover letter without sounding as if my colleagues would give them bad news? I worry that asking for confidentiality might give the impression that I'm trying to hide something about my job performance. On the contrary, I know my colleagues would say great things about me; I'm just not ready to let everyone know that I'm applying for jobs outside of the US.

I used the following language, and I think it had the desired effect.

  Because I am hoping to keep this search confidential, I request that
  you contact my references rather than my current colleagues at this
  time. If I were to become a finalist, I would of course expect and
  invite you to speak to my current department.


How can I do better research when the experimental design is lacking? I would like to do first-class research. However, how do I actually accomplish that when my supervisors design not-so-great experiments and I don't have the resources to do more independent work?

In many fields (e.g. psychology, neuroscience), graduate students work in a group (i.e. lab) studying topics that their advisor finds interesting. Each student might have their own thesis topic, but all of the work is focused on the same big question or general research topic.

Typically the data collection is mostly dictated by the senior researchers, as it is very expensive. Once it is collected, the lab might spend several years analyzing it, especially in bigger projects. This means that the potential of a project is mostly determined by the experimental design. If there is something wrong with it, not much can be done afterwards and the results must still be published.

So what can a young researcher do in these fields if the experimental designs (decided on by the advisor or other senior researchers) are lacking? Especially if I have done most of what I think is possible post-hoc (e.g. with the statistics)?

Though I am not familiar with the specific field you are referring to (neuroscience &c.) one big question presents itself:

Did you actually talk to your adviser/other students about the "problems" you perceive in the experimental setup? Are these actually "problems" or maybe (just maybe) an insufficient understanding on your part?

If it is indeed a problem of experimental design I would propose to contact the ones responsible for the design and try to work something out - i.e., additional experiments or (if possible) looking for external data.


Is it worth/okay to write an email to a grad school I'm waiting on in an attempt to strengthen my position as an applicant? hope everyone's well.

To explain my situation, I'm waiting to hear back from Columbia University's MSOR program. It was my #1 choice when I applied, and I'm considering sending an email to restate my strong interest in the program and to strengthen my position as an applicant.

Briefly put, I was a Chemical Engineering major and so wasn't initially intending to apply to an Operations Research program. Thus I had basically zero work experience in the field. However, I've gotten an internship in a consulting firm after applying, and I've been doing data analysis, database management, and web crawler development. I've done a lot more than was initially expected of me as an intern, and I've had a lot of fun in the process.

Would it make sense to send an email about this? The program isn't research-focused, which I think makes this a tad more sketchy, since the only option I can think of is to send an email directly to the admissions office. (i.e. since I have no prospective research advisor)

I'd be grateful for any advice. Thanks for reading, and be safe.

I think David's comment sums it up well:

  Emailing the admissions office will almost certainly do nothing. Emailing a professor you'd like to work with could be useful[.]

Regardless, emailing is a complete shot in the dark -- the more likely possibility is your email is ignored. But it depends on how you write the email, and how impressive the additional internship is.

For best results, I would not phrase it as a way to boost your application, but rather just an email to say "hi" and introduce yourself, and ask about the status of your application. But then you can find a way to throw in the additional qualification somewhere.


Is a scholar whose work contributes substantially to my proposed project a suitable arm's length referee? I am submitting a postdoctoral application that requires an external arm's length referee to write an evaluation of the proposal to be submitted with the application. The referee should be an acknowledged specialist in the proposed area of research. I am thinking of asking a scholar who I have only met once at a conference and have no other connections with. This scholar has contributed substantial theoretical and empirical insights to my topic, and accordingly I draw on their work heavily in my proposal. In particular, I adopt a theoretical framework that they have helped develop in my field and suggest that I am advancing a study conducted by this person.
If this person agrees to serve in this role, could this reliance raise concerns to the multi-disciplinary  selection committee? In particular, I worry that the committee may think that I have biased the referee in my favour by relying strongly on their contributions, and specifically advancing their theoretical and empirical work.
Thanks for your time!

From what you describe there doesn't seem to be a problem, but who can say how others would evaluate the situation. But, consider:
You have no personal relationship to this person. They haven't contributed directly to your work other than through publishing their own work.
In fact, I would consider such a person to be an excellent judge with the necessary skepticism in making any evaluation. They know their own work (hopefully) and are in a good position to evaluate extensions of it.
But, it might be useful if that person also attests to their independence in any communication with the sponsor.


Where should figure captions be placed if the journal asks you to place each of them on a separate page at the end of the article? I want to submit my article to a journal that states

  Tables and figures should have captions and legends. Each of them should appear on a separate page at the end of the article.

Does this mean that every figure (I have 15) should be in jpg with captions below deleted?

I have seen some journals that ask that you put figure captions all together on a single page separate from the figures themselves (an extremely annoying requirement both for reviewers and authors). But I doubt that is what your journal is asking you to do.

More common is just that you put each table and figure on a separate page. So the caption would appear below (or possibly above) the figure. Both the caption and figure would be on the same page. And that page would be at the end of the manuscript. This is standard in, for example, APA style. See this annotated sample manuscript.

So to answer your specific question the image file is commonly embedded in the document, and the image file would not include the caption. The caption would be  standard text from latex, MS Word, etc. and only the figure component would be an image file.


Referencing cited authors This problem comes up a lot when I write text that describes other's work.

  to enable personalized Web searches was first proposed in [32], however in [9] it was showed to be computationally inefficient. [33] iterated upon the method and made it suitable for real-time use....

My question is if this is poor style? I've written such paragraphs myself but I have also seen them in real, published research. Hence the question.

It is a bit easier on the reader if you say, instead:

  to enable personalized Web searches was first proposed by Smith in [32], however in [9] Jones, et al., showed this to be computationally inefficient. And Lindqvist in [33] iterated upon the method and made it suitable for real-time use....

It is easier, I suggest, for the reader to have something like a "picture" associated with a name, rather than just a reference number. And if the same author wrote more than one of the papers it brings them together in the reader's mind.


Applying to a psychology PhD with only neuroscience research experience I am currently unsure whether I want to do my PhD in psychology or neuroscience so I'm applying to both programs. The issue is that all of my previous research experience is exclusively in neuroscience. Within my psychology applications, do I need to explain why I only have neuroscience experience in my statement of purpose? If so, how should I go about doing this? I was a psychology major and I became interested in neuroscience during my second year, so that's why how I chose my first experience. I chose my second experience because they hired me due to my initial experience so I didn't have a lot of leeway with this one. I am still unsure which subject I prefer however.

You ask how you should go about applying. Just do it. The evaluation of whether your background is lacking or not will be made be any a committee at any institution you apply to. We can't judge that here. And, your record is what it is.

But the committee will e looking for indicators of success so make sure that your materials and statements indicate a high likelihood of success, not the possibility of failure. In particular use positive terms in describing your background. Don't say "Sorry, I only studied neuroscience...". Say, "I have a strong research background in neuroscience". That is to say, leave out words like "only".

I don't know the fields at all, but on the face of it I would think that (a) any research experience at all is a plus and (b) neuroscience gives you pretty good insight into some of the problems in psychology.

In some places there is an opportunity in doctoral studies to take additional courswork to fill in any gaps. This would be true in the US, for example.

Keep it positive. Knock 'em dead.


Examples of top academics who weren't prodigies I'm looking for examples of people who are at the very top of their fields who weren't child prodigies, and followed quite a "normal" path in life (high school > college > grad school) before finding their passion in a field and then becoming a top academic at a top institution at it. We come across people like Terry Tao who had some sort of divine gift to do mathematics and was very much a child prodigy (he could do high school mathematics at the age of 8-9 and won an Olympiad gold medal at the age of 13), but I'm looking for people who achieved as much success as Tao (even a little less is fine considering that Tao is often regarded as the "best mathematician in the world", but I'm looking for someone in the same tier) without being child prodigies, or knowing what their passion was right from childhood. Examples?

Thomas Kuhn literally switched fields after completing his PhD in physics and is a modern philosopher well known for his work in the philosophy of science, particularly for his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Karl Pearson, may be another example. Although he initially studied mathematics and then physics, he proceeded onto other things like law before eventually switching back to mathematics and making his big contributions (like establishing mathematical statistics). I have not been able to find anything immediately obvious to indicate he was a child prodigy.

As an ecologist, I'd hazard to guess that most famous ecologists were never child prodigies, but they almost certainly identified their passions early on in life while playing outside as children, which violates the

  before finding their passion in a field

part of your question.


Fixing insignificant errors of an article after publication, only in the preprint version Consider that a paper is published in a journal. It contains some insignificant errors which are not worth asking for an erratum. I was wondering in such a case would it be acceptable to fix those errors in the preprint version (for example on arXiv.org)? Since in this case it will be sort of a “post-print” version of the paper and technically an improvement on the paper, would it create a problem with the journal in a typical situation?
Edit: Let’s assume that the editor agrees that the errors are too minor for an erratum. What I want to know is if there will be any legal issues and more importantly: if it is a good idea scientifically?

There is nothing wrong with updating a paper on the arxiv after it has been accepted or published, from a legal point of view. The paper on the arxiv is not necessarily identical to the published one. (In fact, it is rather the opposite: Changes introduced during the copyediting process are usually something which you are not supposed to include in the journal version.)
Whether this is a smart thing is a different question. As has been pointed out, people might get confused if the published version and the arxiv version differ, especially if they differ in terms of content: If someone cites the arxiv version, it might be that the same result is not contained in the published version, yet the reference might be at some point changed to the published paper. However, this is something which can (at least partly) be remedied by putting a suitable comment on the arxiv.
(Note that there are plenty of papers where the arxiv version differs from the published version, mostly because the authors did not bother updating it. Not that this is recommended, but it is common, so people often are aware that those versions differ.)


What is the more efficient way of self-teaching, when the return is diminishing? What is the more efficient way of self-teaching, when the return is diminishing? Keep on trying? or study more basic stuffs?

I am currently teaching myself a few subjects, but I have noticed that the learning curves are quite tricky now and then. Sometimes, it gets steep at the beginning, then it gets quite sucky later on (especially when I am in lack of some background knowledge. usually, I have to either look it up or make my own assumptions). Some other times, I have a humble beginning, but then it goes like rocket (e.g. for mathematics, when I tried to understand it, instead of memorizing it).

More specifically, I am learning writing in science on coursera. I am quite satisfied by the general tips (e.g. one main idea in each paragraph, and I had not known that at all), but when it comes to how "abstract", "method", "result", etc. The tutor's suggestions sound quite alien to me (I have little experience in research); furthermore, I am also not making good progress. Therefore, I am not sure if it is normal for someone learning something completely new, or simply because my English is too lousy (even as a non-native English speaker; hence, I had better to switch to other basic English writing courses)

So what is the more efficient way of self-teaching, when the return is diminishing? Work harder as no pain no gain? or switch to more fundamental things? While I am looking for a scientific answer (backed-up by researches), I would also love any personal experience or insight as an answer.

I can help you think about math and programming, at least. The key to both is to do a lot of exercises and get a lot of practice. In learning on your own, you need access to someone else who can give you feedback on your results. It is very hard to judge your own work and to draw the correct conclusions from mistakes or to overcome difficulties.

Some online course structures may be fine for getting that feedback, but not all are. You need more than just the correct answers. You need to get a sense of why you went wrong in an exercise and how to avoid whatever that error was in the future.

Reading and watching videos isn't sufficient and it will give you only shallow learning. Then, when you hit the next challenge, you aren't quite ready for it. If you have a good textbook (and there are bad ones as well) try to do every exercise. Try to get feedback.

One way to get feedback, if you are working without a good guide, is to work in a group. You seemed to indicate that this was the case with you. You can each do a few exercises (the same ones for everyone) and then exchange work and discuss what you did and how. But even the feedback of other learners is better than none at all.


How to keep track of deliverables for supervised students when you supervise many students? Background: In my area, academics often supervise a large number of students (e.g., 10, 15, 20 students). Many of these students are doing a small thesis as part of either their fourth year or coursework masters.
I am able to keep all these projects in my head, I do have documentation around each project, and I generally have a good understanding of what needs to be done next on each project. I can also see that one of the skills that a student learns whilst doing a thesis is project management and self-control.

However, I feel like I could develop a better system for recording and managing deadlines and deliverables on student projects. Such deliverables include concrete assessments (e.g., assessed literature reviews; the thesis; project proposals) and informal but required steps (e.g., finalising study materials; ethics applications; literature reviews; preliminary training; etc.). Such a system could let me know when a student has not provided an agreed deliverable by a given date. It would probably also have to accommodate some of the more fluid activities that unfold over time (e.g. data collection; data analysis; write-up; etc.).

A few features that would be good:

It shouldn't be too onerous too maintain
It should notify when deadlines are not met
It should highlight current tasks
It should integrate into the supervision process and make it easy to share deadlines with students
It should accommodate different kinds of deliverables (process; outcomes)

Question

What is a good system for helping a supervisor oversee deliverables and deadlines for a large number of research students?

When teaching undergraduates, before my retirement, I tracked/supervised student research/capstone projects with two methods.

1) I required the student to prepare an Excel document with their timeline for completion and the milestone dates.  After a joint review (and revision(s)), I then had the document which I kept in a binder (later on a shared server) which I could track completions and keeping of suspense dates.

2) The other method which I usually used for team projects was a written ONE-PAGE weekly activity report.  (And even up to 1 year ago, they were to be submitted in hard copy.)  The report included a summary of work done in the last 7 days, what is planned for the next 7 days, what were the next 2 milestones and their due dates.

Additionally, some of my colleagues were in the last few years using a shared Google gdrive folder for a shared calender for each student and project.  I did not do this because I actually wanted a record of how milestones were revised as the project processed.  (Part of good research is being willing to revise the plan in an appropriate manner, keeping all parties informed, and accomplishing the task at hand in the time required)


Second master's degree during doctoral program I currently have both my bachelor's and master's degree, and have accepted admission into a doctoral program starting this September.

Most engineering doctoral programs allow you to get a master's while in the doctoral program. In my case, it only requires taking one extra class and writing a master's thesis.

What are the pros and cons of getting a second master's degree? Would it look silly on a CV to have a master's from two different institutions? If I do not complete my doctoral program, do two master's in the same discipline help with job applications at all?

To answer the first question asked: I can't think of a single pro to having two master's degrees in the same discipline. Even if the prestige of your second school is far greater than the first, this would be strange and I would imagine it would lead anyone reading your CV to wonder exactly what it was that you were doing with your time. Note: I think it would be generally considered unethical to leave one of your master's degrees off of an academic CV. Leaving it off of a resume of some other kind might be a bit different.

A con to getting the second master's is that, as you say, you would have to write a master's thesis. Presumably you have already done this (or something similar), so doing another one could be viewed as a waste of your time.

You may likely have to enter a complete list of your degrees on various applications in your life. The only reasonable [citation needed :)] interpretation of having two identical master's degrees from different schools is that you failed to finish a PhD at the second school (because the second institution would not have admitted you into a terminal master's program for a master's degree that you already had). Not finishing a PhD is not a particularly negative thing in and of itself, but you will probably be asked to talk about why you did not finish it.

On another note, your second university may not allow you to get a second master's in the same field. You do have to fill out paperwork for these things, and the paperwork may very well ask you to list your current degrees. It's possible your application for your second master's would be denied if they realize you already have the same degree.


Is a request to book a business flight ticket for a graduate student an unreasonable one? As a Ph.D. student from a (pretty rich!) European research group, I'm about to attend a conference in New Zealand. The second leg of a potential flight takes 16 hours to reach the destination, and it seems to be the hell of discomfort to spend all that time on an economy seat (I once had a 10-hour-flight experience, and I was in trouble because of my relatively long legs despite time-to-time walks in the plane's aisle). The cost of a business seat is around 4 times the cost of an economy one, something around 3500 Euros. Thus, I'm just wondering how reasonable the request to have such a seat is.

PS. I do know that a first-hand approach is actually asking my supervisor what he thinks about it. But I'd rather not ask such a question if it would sound silly and unreasonable.

Any experiences and thoughts (particularly from those who had already been involved in any side of such a situation) are welcome!

In Canada it is illegal to get anything but economy fare (including trains) and charge this to any one of the national tri-Council grants (there are exceptions if there is no other availability but this is rarely the case.)

The best you can do is buy an upgradable economy fare and hope for the best, or pay for an exit-row seat.

Overall your request will be perceived not only unreasonable but also blatantly unreasonable, unless you have special conditions or a rich sponsor.

I can say more.  Some years ago a candidate for a position where I work insisted on getting a business-class ticket for the interview and he was just removed from the shortlist.

Edit: is this a direct flight?  This wiki list of long flights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_flights does not include European-Asian city pairs.


Can I exclude papers from my CV/Google Scholar when my contribution was marginal? Years ago, when I had no academic experience and no sense of what constituted authorship, I worked as a software developer in a biology lab whose PI was very generous with authorship. If you gave another student some analysis code or met with them a dozen times to get them up to speed on a new project, you were listed as an author on any subsequent paper. For example, a year or two after I left this lab, I got an email notification about an accepted paper from this lab that I was n-th author on. Why? Because I had helped a summer student a handful of times—maybe half a dozen meetings, less than a few hours of work. I didn't speak up because the PI had an outsized impact on my application to graduate school. While I wondered if he was being too generous, I didn't actually know what constituted authorship, and it felt safer to just ignore the issue.
Now I'm nearing the end of a PhD in CS/ML and considering postdoc or research scientist positions. I've developed my own research taste and collaborated with others who are much more rigorous and intentional about what academic authorship means. I've learned a lot. This biology work (1) is not in my field, (2) clutters my CV, and (3) is embarrassing to discuss since my contributions are so marginal. This problem is compounded by the fact that a few of these projects are well-cited. One paper has nearly 2000 citations. My contribution was to help write the documentation (it's bioinformatics software). It has nothing to do with my chosen field; my contribution was non-technical and uninteresting; and yet it dominates my Google Scholar. It's plausible that for the rest of my career, this paper could be at the top of my Google Scholar.
Ethically speaking, can I exclude these papers from my CV? Can I delete them from my Google Scholar? When I was in college, I mowed lawns, but I don't put that on my resume because there's nothing to talk about. I wonder if the same rules apply even to papers that you're officially an author on.

Can you? Yes. You are free to curate your Google Scholar page as you wish, and you can easily re-title the "Publications" section in your CV as "Selected Publications".
Should you? This is probably the more difficult question. I don't think your case is that unusual: I can think of a few people who have publications from 'a previous life' as a scientific software developer or lab technician before they started their PhD. I don't think anyone is misled by their publication lists - there's usually a fairly obvious transition into a more focussed area around the time they started their PhD. This is all the more true in the case of a CV, where (presumably) your pre-PhD employment is already itemized. I think people are far more likely to wonder why you have omitted certain papers than wonder why you kept them in.
I would argue that you should keep everything on Google Scholar. It is fundamentally an interface to a search engine, and users landing on your page may come with a variety of motivations. People can always 'sort by year' if they want to find your recent work. The only people who would seem to be seriously inconvenienced by you keeping everything are those who want to judge you solely based on your citation statistics - and do you really want to make their lives easy?
For a CV, the obvious choice is to explicitly divide your publication list into two sections: pre- and post- PhD commencement (or perhaps "Publications in < main research area >" and "Other publications", if that's a neater division). This would seem to strike a good balance between completeness and offering an acknowledgement that not all your publications are equally relevant to your current career. In circumstances where you need a 'short-form' CV, you might then compress the "Other" section to a brief summary sentence, perhaps with a link to a full listing on your website.


Calculating Cumulative GPA Across Multiple Colleges? When a place asks for a cumulative GPA do you include all coursework taken at all universities (e.g.: do a weighted average of the unique units of coursework you did at Junior College + University), or do you only use coursework at your most recent institution, or do you report two or more cumulative scores where you can and then fallback on a different method when you can't.

If you are asked to self report (seems weird to me) and don't have a way to provide a full explanation then you do what you can. Some type of average weighted by credits. You are likely expected to consider post-secondary education only unless it is for admission to undergraduate programs or scholarships for such.

But, you should retain the details of the computation and how you arrived at the number in case you are ever questioned. This is especially the case if you have attended more than one institution.

But, I doubt that they are looking for only the most recent institution unless they say that. More likely they want a "complete" picture. If that picture isn't very flattering you will need to explain it, but don't leave things out.

If you produce other materials than just what fits on a form, you can, perhaps, include the GPA computation. Then, if there is any question, they can give you better instruction on what is needed.


Are online-only sister journals simply a way to generate revenue? Some journals have "sister" "open" journals which are online only and require article processing charges as opposed to their counterparts by the same name (e.g., JRSM/JRSM Open, BDJ/BDJ Open). Do they tend to have a lower standard for publication just to generate revenue? Or is it actually to promote scientific publishing?

Can it be both?  In the cases I am familiar with, these online-only journals serve primarily to publish marginal papers.  These are papers that are of fairly limited interest, but they still have some value, and it would be a shame if they were not published somewhere.  At the same time, they provide an additional revenue stream for the journal.  The net result is that the journal makes extra money and manages to publish more material, with limited additional costs to themselves.

I have experience with one of these journals, myself.  A co-author (who needed one more paper for tenure) picked the journal, which was advertised as considering only the correctness, not the importance, of work as a criteria for publication.  However, the referees were much harsher than they ought to have been, based on the journal's stated policies.  The referees took whether the work was significant quite seriously, even though, in theory, they should not.  So the result was quite a rigorous review process, which forced us to improve the paper.  The journal got a sum of money, and a worthwhile paper was added to the literature, so both goals were met.


Should I admit that I was a first-year PhD student in future interviews? As you may know, I was a first-year student and forced to leave and it was a long story, I have posted here. My question is: since I pledged myself to be honest and tell the truth, the interviewers when they hear that they are negatively affected. Recently, I have applied for a position and I was shortlisted to 4, and then when they heard my case they told me we want someone who can commit, I told them my story positively and never mentioned any negativity. I have received an email from ex-PI who forced me to leave asking that he received an email from the interviewer and I saw the email that he is extremely interested, and the ex-PI asked me what I have told them about the lab so that he can be consistent with my words, honestly, I didn't have a good intention from his email, I have been always honest and candid, but the ex-PI used to lie based on multiple situations. I have been rejected. I am struggling as I was blamed and honestly, the reason for leaving is that I am an independent researcher and ex-PI didn't like that. However, I look through interview embarrassed sometimes and a nervous little bit because of their reaction like have a taboo. I don't want to lose any future interviews, I have noticed that students apply elsewhere and don't mention they are a current student in a specific program, however, my situation is awkward as I spent one year and my name is still indexed in their website although my webpage is removed. Please, suggestion, should I hide it, but I tell myself it isn't ethical.

It is typical in applying for a job, graduate program, etc, to account for how you've spent your past time. If you are an undergraduate student for some years, then maybe a master's student, and then there is a gap in your resume from when you were a PhD student, it will jump out at anyone reviewing your application.

It doesn't look good that you've left your program, but it looks worse if you have no answer for how you spent that time, and worst of all if it becomes clear you intended to mask your time as a previous grad student.

No matter how you go about this, it looks bad that you did not complete a PhD program. Applicants for a PhD are assessed primarily based on their perceived likelihood to be a successful PhD student. As a past unsuccessful PhD student, that perceived likelihood decreases, especially if your past PI says bad things about you and people believe them.

In the short term, you likely need to gather some new references. You need people who can vouch for your ability and potential as a researcher. Depending on your field, the availability of such positions may be limited, but in my own field I would advise taking up employment in an academic lab as a technician. The barrier to entry is much less than for a PhD position where an institution is dedicating themselves to you over several years. Your PI in that lab will be able to recommend you to programs that you subsequently apply to, and confirm to them that your prior experience was a fluke.

You asked for candid advice, and I am doing my best to give it. If I was reviewing your application, and saw that you left a PhD program after a year, I would not want to take you on as a student. Regardless of whose fault it is, there are many many qualified candidates for most PhD programs. If you got grants and publications, that may help, but you still have clearly had a personal conflict with your past PI and have accused them of many bad things. The last thing I would want would be to take you on as a student, bright as you may be, and then be accused of similar things myself. I wouldn't have any objective information to assess whether you are a victim as you claim or not, unless someone else, whose input I trust, gives me information about the situation.


How to differentiate long paraphrasing and original ideas with APA in-text citations? Let's say I have the following paragraph:

  Smith (2011) contends that blah blah blah.  Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  This allows for one to decide that monkeys are actually fish.

Everything in blahs is paraphrased from Smith (2011), but the conclusion that monkeys are actually fish is my own idea.  How do I mark where Smith's ideas end and my ideas start?

Use a conditional construction to indicate distance from the cited claim.  E.g.,

  Smith (2011) contends that blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. If Smith's contention were true, it would follow that monkeys are actually fish.


PhD in Management Science and a faculty position in CS I would like to know how willing would staff in CS department of reputed universities would be to hire doctorates from relevant non-CS departments, for example, say, management science or operations research students. I see a dilemma for the recruiters here: research-wise the new member may be probably better-equipped to span a newer vista of problems that are currently not tackled in the department, but academically, the faculty may not be trained to teach usual CS courses at undergrad level.

A few specific cases, in either case you can assume the applicant is interested in CS research, but does not have publications in top CS journals:

The applicant is a CS-graduate and a PhD in MS but has no CS teaching experience.
The applicant is NOT a CS-graduate but a PhD in MS who has worked on CS-related problems for his doctorate. Will he be excused for not teaching undergrad? Or will he have the liberty to formulate interdisciplinary courses himself and teach them?

At least three faculty in my department (including our current head) have PhDs in electrical engineering, at least one has a PhD in mathematics, and at least one has a PhD in operations research.  If a faculty candidate is actively publishing good research in computer science conferences and journals, which department gave them their PhD really doesn't matter.  (And if they're not actively publishing good research in computer science conferences and journals computer science research, they won't get hired, period.)

Most junior faculty candidates don't have significant teaching experience anyway, so that aspect really doesn't matter much either.  Sometimes it can be a bit tricky to find courses for new faculty with non-standard backgrounds to teach, but if they're really doing CS research, something always fits.


How to obtain an alpha-numeric endorsement code to give to my potential arXive endorser How to I obtain an alpha-numeric passcode for my potential arxiv endorser

Whether you will need an endorsement code or not depends (among other things) to which category you submit to, which suggests that you will be given an endorsement code during the submission process (if necessary). The help page also mentions "during the submission process".


Should I include non-English textbooks in the course? This is set up in a Russian university with English as a working language, but may apply to any university with a large share of international students.

Suppose I'm listing a set of course materials, including textbooks and educational resources, for a graduate course. Should I include textbooks in Russian / any other language that might be useful to a part of the students cohort, or should I stick to English only?

Pros of providing additional materials in Russian:

some students might benefit from them, and additional materials might make the course content clearer for these students,

Cons of providing additional materials in Russian:

students that don't know Russian might fear they are missing out some course material.

I think you can distinguish between required and optional materials

For required materials (students will be expected to read regularly, have exams on the content, solve exercises from the book, etc), I'd say they should by default be in the "working language" of the university, unless there is a clear educational reason to do otherwise (e.g. the course is studying a foreign language).  In the latter case, students should be advised before signing up for the course that knowledge of the other language is a requirement.

For optional materials, I see no problem with offering materials in a variety of languages, either for the convenience of the students, or simply because it's a good book that happens to be in another language.  Those who know the language can benefit, and those who don't still have everything they need to keep up with the course.


What is the average number of references in a PhD thesis in the humanities? How many references on average are typical for a PhD Thesis?

More specifically, I'm looking for a comparison of the average number of references for an engineering PhD thesis and PhD theses in other fields.

I'm looking for references or data on the subject.

As alluded to in the comments, there is no generic "right" answer: the number will depend strongly on the nature of your thesis, the state of the literature related to it, and your personal scholastic style.  Nevertheless, in the spirit of engineering approximations, I will supply you with some rough guidelines.

As a lower bound, I would be startled if it was possible to place most theses within the context of pre-existing work in less than about 20 references.  In certain contexts such as an obscure corner of pure mathematics perhaps this might be possible, but in most cases work does not take place in a vacuum, and other people will have either used similar techniques or cared about similar problems in the past.
As an upper bound, I would be concerned with a thesis with on the order of 200 or more references that the student hasn't been doing enough work on their own original research and has been investing too much time and energy in building a literature review, rather than a thesis.  Again, there will likely be cases where a thesis with an extremely high number of references would be reasonable, but these are likely to be unusual.

Notice the extremely wide range and suspiciously round numbers in my estimates: really there is no "right" answer for how many there should be in general, but perhaps these will help with some initial first impressions in one's thinking.


how to show links in Bibliography for IOP Journals I am trying to show the link on my citation as shown in the attached photo. I am getting every thing the same but without the blue highlighted.
My packages
\documentclass[12pt]{iopart}

\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{cancel}
\usepackage{ulem}
\usepackage{cite}
\usepackage[colorlinks, citecolor = blue, urlcolor = blue, linkcolor = black]{hyperref}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{subfig}
\expandafter\let\csname equation*\endcsname=\relax % to fix some errors regarding asmath because it is not friendly with iopart publisher
\expandafter\let\csname endequation*\endcsname=\relax
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage[RPvoltages]{circuitikz}
\usetikzlibrary{patterns}
\usepackage{array,booktabs}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{float}
\hbadness=6000
\overfullrule=1pt
\hfuzz=2pt
\pdfoutput=1

\section*{References}
\bibliographystyle{iopart-num}
\bibliography{iopart-num}

My citation
    @article{johansson2017impacts,
  title={Impacts on air pollution and health by changing commuting from car to bicycle},
  author={Johansson, Christer and L{\"o}venheim, Boel and Schantz, Peter and Wahlgren, Lina and Almstr{\"o}m, Peter and Markstedt, Anders and Str{\"o}mgren, Magnus and Forsberg, Bertil and Sommar, Johan Nilsson},
  journal={Science of the total environment},
  volume={584},
  pages={55--63},
  year={2017},
  publisher={Elsevier}
}

Don't worry: the links will be appropriately formatted by the copy editor of IOP. The LaTeX class iopartis a very basic one which does not produce a result close to the final one.


What is the proper way to cite the usage of an API? For a grant I am writing, I need to describe how I mined data from social media sites. I collected data from sites such as Twitter using each site's API and a Python wrapper. In writing my methods, I assume that I should mention which APIs I used, or at least that I used an API.

Do I need to provide a citation if I refer to using, say, the Python wrapper for Twitter's API. If so, how do I do that?

I don't think you'll find any documented correct way to do this. Personally, I would write a sentence saying that I did it, a sentence describing what an API is, and a link to the version-specific API documentation website (i.e., https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/ for the API Version 3 instead of https://developers.google.com/youtube/ the general Youtube API help website).

If you're including code in the submission, consider adding the API code in an appendix.


Is writing short proofs inline bad form? I'm TeXing up a paper right now and I would like to ask for a sanity test about proper form.

In the paper, there are some statements which seem too simple to be called a Proposition or Lemma, let alone a Theorem. I use the word Remark for those. However, roughly speaking, there are three kinds of Remarks:

Ones whose proofs are fairly easy or standard, but not completely trivial, so I put a short argument after, using the standard proof environment.
Ones which I think are completely obvious in context, for example they just summarise some exposition directly above, so I simply put a qed sign at the end (I sometimes do the same with Corollaries).
Ones which have very simple proof, which may not be entirely obvious at a glance, but I believe a minimal (say, one short sentence) explanation is enough. In this case, putting the short explanation in the proof environment seems to be a waste of space and makes the whole thing look too important. Instead, I just put the short explanation in a parenthetical comment, which I append to the body of the remark, and follow that with the qed sign.

This system seems to be logical to me, but I would like some confirmation that this is OK, particularly the last kind.

I would also be interested in alternatives, with their pros and cons (I am unlikely to change the style in this paper unless I'm convinced that there is a big problem, but I may try to do something better in the next one).

Maybe this is "opinion based", but here is what I prefer, and I think it is pretty standard.

I would only use the QED box  at the end of a proof environment (which started with Proof) which is preceded by a numbered Theorem / Proposition  / Lemma / Corollary etc.  That way, there is a clear statement of what is being proved, and the statement is clearly distinguished from the proof.  Subconsciously, I think of Proof and  as matched delimiters.

I don't think "too simple" is the main consideration for whether to use Proposition or Remark.  Rather, I think Remark should be used only for statements or discussions which are a digression from the main argument of the paper.  If you have a statement which is important to the paper, even if the proof is very simple, make it a Proposition or Lemma or Corollary (with a number), and follow it with a Proof.  (You might be able to get away with saying something like "we have the following proposition whose proof is obvious", and then omitting the Proof environment, but this can be annoying.)

In a Remark, if discussing a particular claim, you might include a short proof or sketch or outline.  Generally this would be written into the prose of the paragraph and not set off as a separate proof, and I would not use the QED symbol here.

  Remark. The previous result raises the question of whether every snark is a boojum.  In fact, the answer is yes, and this can be seen by noting that cheese is green and the sky is mauve.  However, it is still not known whether every boojum is a snark.

This would be an alternative to:

  Proposition 6.37. Every snark is a boojum.

  Proof. Cheese is green and the sky is mauve.


Clear colormap for figures when printed? I often produce figures with a surface with quantitative data attached, plotted in a heatmap type style (see figure).

Previously, I've used the default matlab colormap for this but I recently noticed how terrible this is when printed black & white, the high and low colors appear the same.

Is there a better/recommended colormap I should use to improve clarity when printed.

Related: Are there good reasons to avoid using color in research papers?

UPDATE:2

Use perceptually uniform color-maps when possible. I suggest to use this nice toolbox in Matlab (colorBrewer) or to use the new perceptually uniform colormaps from python matplotlib (also available in Matlab).

Matplotlib's new colormaps look like this:

UPDATE:

If you use Matlab, and you have access to Matlab R2014b or newer, use the default colormap: parula. They designed it so it is a good colormap, not only for b&w printing but also for correct data visualization (i.e. it doesn't add features due to the choice of colour, as jet does)

Explanation: http://blogs.mathworks.com/steve/2014/10/20/a-new-colormap-for-matlab-part-2-troubles-with-rainbows/

Parula looks like this:

Original answer

Use the "hot" colormap. If you use Matlab this is one of the built colormaps. I believe than in numpy and other languages you also have this colormap included.

You can see in the image below, how the commonly used "jet" , the "hot" and a "gray" colormap are seen in grayscale. It can be seen that the "hot" colormap is quite good both in colour and grayscale.


Could giving an alternative approach to proving an established result be worthy of publication? (I don't believe this is a duplicate to Can I publish a paper with new proof but the same result?, because not only am I using a different proof, but also an axiomatisation that could perhaps be seen as controversial)
I am a post graduate student of pure mathematics that hasn't published anything yet.
Hypothetically, let's say that there's an established result in mathematics that was stated and proven using a popular axiomatisation.
Let's say that if you state and prove the same result using a different (non-standard) axiomatisation, then the result becomes (perhaps debatably) more elegant.
Is it possible for paper like this to be worthy of publication?
If so, are there any specific journals that you think might be more likely to accept such a paper?
Slightly more detail:
The established result uses ZFC as axiomatisation, my approach uses ZFC + Atoms as axiomatisation. The result that I'm restating and reproving concerns general mathematical structures.

Often enough the proof of a theorem is more important than the statement of it. This is especially true when a new proof gives some insight into a problem that the original proof did not.
I don't know whether your new proof is different enough or interesting enough or gives new insight, but if it is, then it would be an important thing to publish.
An example of such a problem is the Four Color Theorem. When I was in school it was the Four Color Hypothesis and nearly everyone in my age cohort thought about it for a while I suspect. It was originally proved using computers to examine a very large number of special cases. But to a mathematician, this is a very unsatisfactory proof. One would love a short and insightful proof not depending on computation as it would be very likely to give insights into the nature of planar maps.
The reason that such insight is important is that it can often lead to solving additional, unsolved, problems.
So, you can certainly submit such a paper for publication, but it is editors and reviewers that will decide whether it "can" be published. But the feedback you get will be valuable in any case.