What counts as undergraduate research? I've been asking around my department recently for opportunities assisting with research (I'm in electrical engineering). Some of my professors work in labs, but others do largely computer-based work. The computer-based work interests me more.

I understand research experience is very important when applying to grad school. What do graduate admissions committees really consider "research", though? Is it working in a lab? Is it "contributing to some certain extent to a research project?" Is it simply helping out a professor with his research? Is more independent-study type work considered research? Or is it necessary to be actively helping a professor with their research program?

As an undergraduate sophomore, I'm really not in a position to do groundbreaking research. What's considered a good research experience for me?

Is more independent-study type work considered research? Or is it necessary to be actively helping a professor with their research program?

In my experience, it's best to be actively interacting with a professor. But in most cases it's unlikely you'll be actively assisting with their research programs (they have usually have graduate students/postdocs for that).

You could be given either a small project related to their funded work or possibly some crazy idea they're unwilling to let a grad student spend time on. Or anything in between.

  What do graduate admissions committees really consider "research", though?

If you can do any work that results in something published in a journal or conference, or even a poster, will be very valuable for graduate school admissions. It doesn't matter if that work is lab or computer-based. (Better yet if you can prove (with a publication/poster) that you can do both "wet" and "dry" lab work.)

  As an undergraduate sophomore, I'm really not in a position to do groundbreaking research. What's considered a good research experience for me?

When I was a junior I emailed every professor in the department. Two responded and I ended up doing "independent research credits" with one of them. It worked out really well.


Authorship with Past and Nearly Absent Supervisor Inspired by the following question: Co-authorship for not very involved supervisor

I have got to ask a slightly different question:  I have a past supervisor while I did my masters and she wasn't really involved or as active as I would have liked. Also, I received no funding from this professor. I did however receive a scholarship from the university to fund my masters; not sure if these facts change anything.  Naturally, this person would also like to believe she was involved, so had I finished the research while I did my masters there I would have listed this individual as a second author and even the author of correspondence.  But now I am pursuing a PhD and in fact in a  slightly different field at a different university.

While preparing for my qualifiers I came across some fresh new ideas and had a light bulb moment.  Consequently, I have made significant progress in my old project as of late.  I believe by the end of the summer I will have results ready for publication.  On the one hand, I feel I should notify my old professor of these results once they come in... I think it would be wrong or even unethical to let them find out through the grape-vine or just through reading to keep up with the field.  On the other hand, I fear this person will want authorship or even write the editor and demand it; this person is a Reader at a prestigious university while I'm just a little PhD student.  I feel it will be a case of he-said she-said with the Editor which will ultimately result in me losing (even though I completely believe I'm justified and the recent progress was 100% mine).

Maybe I'm over-reacting but I'm not sure what to do.  And I certainly don't want this person to "read over" my paper or attempt to "edit" it, because I think then they would have more grounds to put their name on the paper.  Any ideas?

First, should you include her as a co-author? Customs in this are journal- and field-dependent, so you should check with others in your field (you didn't tell us what it was) and also with the authorship policy of the journal you intend to submit. You may also want to check with the department where you did your Masters what their policy is on authorship and affiliation for students' papers. At the very least, if you're going to have someone be cross at you, know in advance where you stand!

I'll sum up my answer to another question on the site by stating that graduate students oftentimes dismiss too easily an advisor's role in the research. Selecting a problem/project for you to work on, even guiding you in the selection of a problem can be considered a big intellectual contribution to your research. Conception/design of research is an integral part of the research, and usually explicitly calls for authorship in resulting papers.

It's okay to be proud of your work, and to think your contribution in it was crucial, but be sure not to be biased against your supervisor when evaluating her contribution. One person who may help you do that is your current advisor!

Now, that being said, let's suppose you have made the decision not to have her as coauthor. How do you manage that? The guiding principle should be: be upfront and clearly state where you stand.

Including her name in the acknowledgements of the paper, specifically stating her contribution. (“SG thanks Dr. Jane Doe for initially pointing him to this challenging problem.”)
When the paper is published, be sure to send her a preprint, along with a nice email.
If you are worried about her reviewing the paper, list her in the list of potential reviewers to exclude (if the journal submission has space for that). But… having her in the acknowledgments may already be enough for the editor not to pick her.


PhD project ownership conflict after changing university Student starts a PhD at University A, the student is offered a project conceived by University A supervisor. Then student transfers to University B in agreement with University A supervisor that they will keep working on the project together. Student expands and develops the project and after 9 months at University B the external advisor at University A pulls out of the collaboration due to lack of time to properly supervise student. Student wants to keep working on the project independently given the time and money investment (salary from University B) and the interest for the topic but University A supervisor claims the ownership of the project. Student offers maximum flexibility to A supervisor to try to keep the supervisor involved in the project with little time commitment. Student has now developed a sense of ownership to the project.

How should the student handle the situation? Who owns the project? And what happens if the student keeps working on the project even if A supervisor has not given the green light?

For what it's worth, I don't think either university can own the project directly. Anybody can work on anything, pretty much, but there are many caveats. If code or data were produced, that may be owned by UniA. If there was funding, it's definitely going to stay at UniA. So you may have to find some alternative source of funding to work on the project, but if the supervisor at UniB wants to pay you to work in the same area, you almost certainly can. Now, if you can't come to agreement with the supervisor at UniA, you may also have some trouble publishing when it comes to things they wrote. It would be best to get the two supervisors to come to an amicable agreement to work together on it with you at UniB.


Are masters degrees treated equivalently in academia on both sides of the Atlantic? This is just a general question regarding UK (and I suppose Western European) masters degrees vs. US masters degrees.

The reason for asking is that I have heard that US masters are considered at the same academic level as UK Bachelors with Honours degrees. This seems like pure hearsay but I'd like to understand if there is any thing concrete in this assertion.

And does equivalency tend to manifest itself in the same ways in commercial environments too?

The UK and US have fairly substantial differences in their underlying educational philosophies. In my field, in the US Masters degree programs are generally one or two years long and include both course work and research in equal proportions. In the UK, Masters degree programs are a year long and have little to no research requirements. As for the level that the taught components of the programs are taught at, they are pretty similar across the two countries using similar textbooks and covering similar amounts of material in terms of both breadth and depth. The US and UK institutions I worked for accepted students from both countries and while international students often have more difficulties than home students, it is not obvious to me that going UK-US or US-UK is easier.

As for the difference between a US and a UK Bachelors degree. Final year classes taught in both countries again use similar textbooks and cover similar amounts of material in terms of both breadth and depth. In my experience, there does not seem to be a substantial difference between students coming out of US and UK institutions in regards to their preparation for graduate school. That said, there are substantial differences in these students. The US system provides much more breadth of education (e.g., foreign language requirements and general education requirements) that are absent from UK universities. I have never heard an admissions committee member in the sciences argue that student X is is more likely to succeed than student Y because student X is competent in a foreign language.


Nature of pure mathematics research For a little background- I'm a 3rd year engineering student, planning to do masters in pure mathematics. I've been studying abstract group theory and real analysis, although I'm extremely interested about these kind of thinking and reasoning what worries me is that during my high school days there were a lot of problems where we didn't have to do a lot of reasoning rather we had to come up with clever tricks to reach a solution. Honestly I wasn't good at this and thought mathematics isn't much fun.

So my question stems from this worry that how much of pure mathematics research is about learning abstract topics and do reasoning with them? Or is it mostly coming up with clever tricks from scratch?

In a way I want to ask what kind of skills are absolutely necessary for professional pure mathematicians?

I know perhaps it has to do with the problem one is working on but if it's possible to answer generally, please do.

I'm a pure mathematician, and my first impression is that your question seems to be assuming a dichotomy in pure mathematics that isn't really there. The vast majority of pure mathematicians, it seems to me, at times have to deal with abstract structures and do the sort of "thinking and reasoning" with them that you've seen in your analysis and group theory courses. On the other hand, in a comment to another answer you defined tricks as "coming up with clever ways to prove certain things/attain certain results." My assertion is that according to this definition, virtually all research in pure mathematics involves the application of tricks. After all, there's only so much you can do that is of interest to the mathematical community that can be obtained purely by combining known results and definitions in straightforward ways.

Nevertheless, I should point out that pure mathematics does indeed lie on a spectrum when it comes to abstract reasoning versus clever problem solving. The former approach to mathematics is perhaps best epitomized by Alexander Grothendieck, who "avoided clever tricks that proved the theorem but did not develop insight. He likened his approach to softening a walnut in water so that, as he wrote, it can be peeled open 'like a perfectly ripened avocado.'" At the other extreme are mathematicians like Paul Erdos, who largely worked on concrete problems that one could solve using 'clever tricks'. (Although it should be pointed out that, as Federico Poloni noted in a comment, when one uses a trick more than once it becomes a method. Erdos' probabilistic method arose this way.) There is a nice quote about this approach to mathematics in Gowers' essay The Two Cultures of Mathematics:

  At the other end of the spectrum is, for example, graph theory, where
  the basic object, a graph, can be immediately comprehended. One will
  not get anywhere in graph theory by sitting in an armchair and trying
  to understand graphs better. Neither is it particularly necessary to
  read much of the literature before tackling a problem: it is of course
  helpful to be aware of some of the most important techniques, but the
  interesting problems tend to be open precisely because the established
  techniques cannot easily be applied.

Having said all of this, I'll reiterate what I said at the beginning of my answer. This is largely a false dichotomy, and the vast majority of mathematicians have to use both clever tricks and abstract reasoning in their research.


Am I allowed to duplicate results from my own arXiv paper in a journal publication? I had put up a paper on arxiv about 4 months back, which we had planned on submitting to a journal. However, before I submitted, we got some good reviews and ideas from a colleague at my university. All of the original results were correct and accurate, but now I would like to add some additional simulation results, a more detailed analysis, and also give an authorship to the colleague. However, in this time span, my arxiv paper has been cited a couple of times.

My questions are:

I would like to change the title of the paper and do it from fresh, and submit the newer version to the journal. In this case, should I just cite my arxiv article for all the background work, and just present the new contributions (which would be only 1-2 pages); or can I copy over all the content from my original arxiv article?
If the latter is possible, how do I indicate to others that they should cite the newer article and not the original one?

Field of research: At the interface of applied mathematics, engineering and computer sciences. Paper likely to be submitted to a SIAM journal.

Manuscripts in the arXiv are permanent and citable, but do not count as peer-reviewed publication.  Therefore, there is no inherent problem either with using your arXiv work as part (or all) of a manuscript submitted to peer review or with citing your arXiv work as background on a new work that builds upon it.

If you re-use your arXiv material in a manuscript, however, there are two additional steps that you must take:

You must make the source of the material clear, in both the cover letter and the document itself.  I personally like verbiage such as:

  "Note: portions of this manuscript have been adapted from [cite]"

You need to check the policies of the venue where you submit it.  In some fields, such as computer science, most journals do not consider non-peer-reviewed venues such as arXiv prior publication, and so including such material is fine.  In other fields, such as biology, most journals do consider them pre-publication, and will consider it self-plagiarism.  These policies vary journal-by-journal, however, so you do need to check the individual policy.


How to mention an implementation tool in thesis? In my MSc thesis implementation section, I have used two tools: Matlab and Python scripting. How should I introduce and mention them in my implementation chapter?

Thank you,

It somewhat depends of the publication style that you use for your thesis. For example, APA (6th edition) does not recommend to cite standard office software and programming languages.

Therefore, if you would follow the APA guidelines, you'd just mention Python everywhere you need without citing any sources, however, you'd have to cite the MATLAB software. See the "Computer Software/Downloaded Software" section in APA Style Guide on electronic sources for an example of how to format software references. Applying this style, I came up with the following citation (note it's a hybrid of the two approaches, due to my attempt to accommodate the company's geography):

  MATLAB. (2012). MATLAB (Version 8.0) and Statistics Toolbox (Version
  8.1) [Software]. Natick, MA: The MathWorks, Inc. Available from http://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab

Please note that citing MATLAB, following some other publication styles, such as Chicago, is discussed in this blog post. If you use LaTeX to create your thesis, this blog post can help.


How to handle swear words in quote / transcription? In my research, I interview practitioners/real users. One of them, a native english speaker, used a lot a swear words (basically the f-word).

Question: how to deal with curse words in content you need to quote?

Since I use transcripts for a content (and not formal) analysis, I sometime 'smooth' interviewee wordings (like removing "hum", "well", "you know", and other recurring verbal tics). In some case, I could remove the f-word:

  it's just super f*cking slow, and really f *cking annoying

However, in some cases it is less harmless, because it more deeply changes the perceived meaning:

  if you don't want to do things, just don't f*cking do it

  oh f *ck, we'll just go back to do, as we were doing

and in some other, I simply cannot change interviewee's words:

  [...] he really tried and wanted to build up, but he completely f*cked up every single part of every single thing.

Since I am not a native speaker, I don't know how "bad" would using the f-word be perceived (which is why I tried to be careful here.)

In some cases, I could do a cut quote, e.g. "it's just super [...] slow, and really [...] annoying", but it looks like I'm not accurately depicting the wordings.

I've also seen on the internet people using 'f*ck' standing for the f-word. Could this be a solution? (I personally find this solution a bit prudish.)

Otherwise, could I simply quote them? Should I put a warning somewhere?

If you're quoting someone, quote them as they said it. We're all adults. In the literature world, we quote swear words and other potentially offensive things all the time and no one bats an eye. I've no doubt other fields are the same.

Personally, if I saw an asterisk or similar, I would presume you interviewed them via chat or email, and they actually self-censored. If it were a printed text, I'd think it a part of the edition you used.


Can you put awards from a project on your CV, if you had help with the project? I have a somewhat stupid question that has been bothering me for a few weeks. So, in my sophomore year of high school, I had conducted a physics research project that involved electric generators. I dedicated a lot of time to this project (around 100 hours), but I am now having some concerns. Here is what I did on the project:

  In the research investigation, I proposed the experiment, conducted the background research, developed the hypotheses, developed the procedure, constructed the generator (with the help of my father), carried out the experiment, analyzed the data, interpreted the results (with the help of my physics teacher), drew the conclusions, and presented the research.

Here is the help that I received:

  I received assistance from my father with the construction of the generator used in the project. My father helped by providing suggestions (for example, my initial idea was to construct the generator frame out of wood, but my father suggested using LEGOs instead for cost-effectiveness and simplicity; this was in addition to other suggestions regarding the generator construction). My father also helped me with parts of the experiment that were dangerous (i.e. parts that required the use of an X-Acto knife) and parts that used tools that I had no experience with (multimeters), and he supervised the experiment. My physics teacher helped with the interpretation of the results.

I was wondering if this research is my own. My main problem regarding this is that this research allowed me to win a number of science fairs, including a regional one. However, when I place these awards on a resume (for example, a college application), I do not put the "acknowledgements" down with it, so the places that receive my resume expect the research to be my own. Does this meet that requirement? I am sorry for such a ridiculous question, this has just been really bothering me (I have even considered excluding all of those awards from my resume, but that would greatly hurt my resume and it is not as if I did no work at all). Thank you!

I commend you on taking ethical authorship seriously. Authorship requirements are not entirely clear, and customs may vary across academic disciplines and cultures.

I would include the awards on your resume/CV. Based on what you described, I doubt that you will ever have the legitimacy of your claim to authorship questioned, since you developed and executed a majority of the ideas for your project. Also, you are not trying to take credit for others ideas (you are very clear and forthcoming about who thought of/did what), you are just saying you won awards, which you did.

There are many articles in peer-reviewed journals on authorship ethics. For example, this article in Nature.

Nature also published an article on a physics paper with >5,000 authors.


Is it alright to thank my Master's thesis advisor, via e-mail, for getting a good grade? So, I received the grade for my Master's thesis over the weekend. I defended my thesis late September, and received my grade yesterday (due to university rules). I waited about 4 months to receive my grade, and it was well worth the wait.

So I was wondering if it's alright to shoot my professor and advisor a thank you e-mail? I am very happy with my grade, but I was wondering if it's a weird/improper thing to do to thank a professor for a grade they've given. Does anyone have any experience with this? I would greatly appreciate it, thank you.

Instead of thanking her for your grade, I would thank her for the time and energy they spent with you during your thesis, as well as what she has taught you. You earned your grade, she did not hand it to you.


For an industry-sponsored project, should one apply for IRB approval before or after accepting the funding? Is there a standard customary timeline for applying for IRB1 approval with an industry-funded project?

Should you apply for IRB approval first, then accept the funding for the project, or accept the funding for the project and then apply for IRB approval?

It seems the latter could be dangerous if IRB approval is not granted.

1 An IRB (Institutional Review Board), also known as an independent ethics committee or ethical review board, is a group that reviews and monitors research involving human subjects.

First note that it's a question of institutional policy whether human subjects research that is not federally funded requires IRB review.  The common rule requires that federally sponsored research receive IRB approval but does not require institutions to do IRB review for research not funded by the government.  However, many universities require that all research involving human subjects receive IRB approval whether or not it is funded by the federal government.

Assuming that IRB review is required, it is critical that you not begin the actual research until after IRB approval has been obtained- starting without approval is a big no no.

Normally, IRB approval must be obtained before your institution enters into a contract with the funder or the grant is awarded.  For example, at our institution, the restricted funds accounting office won't do the paperwork for a research contract involving human subjects research until the IRB approval has been granted.  We are also not allowed to submit a proposal to a funding agency without (edited to clarify this) submitting the proposal to the IRB for approval.   There's a good chance that your institution has a similar policy.

Even if your institution doesn't have a specific policy about this, you should not try to get your institution to enter into a contract before the IRB approval is granted.  If for whatever reason the IRB approval is denied, then you would have gotten your institution into a contract that it can't fulfill.

If I was asked to take on a research contract involving human subjects and wanted to accept the funding, I would tell the funder, "Yes, I would like to accept this funding.  However, I will have to get IRB approval (as well as other approvals) before the institution will enter into a formal contract."


Is it a bad idea to ask professors questions weeks before the class starts? I am a graduate student, and my fall classes start in a few weeks. I have already began reading the textbook for one class, and I have come across 1 or 2 things that I couldn't figure out. It's not the end of the world if I don't figure these out; for one, I can probably get an answer on math stackexchange. However, I like this professors field and would like to develop a little bit of a relationship with her. I would also like to show her that I am motivated. Would it be a bad idea to send an email with questions about the material before the class actually starts?

Would it be a bad idea to send an email with questions about the material before the class actually starts?

First of all, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but generally it’s a bad idea to be a person who asks disingenuous questions not because they want to know the answers to those questions but “to show [someone] that they are motivated” and because they “would like to develop a bit of a relationship” with the other person. It’s dishonest, and the thing about this type of dishonesty is, the people the dishonesty is directed at are almost always better at detecting it than the dishonest person thinks. So this approach tends to not produce the desired outcome, and can sometimes backfire in unpleasant ways. And more specifically, most professors have had the experience of having a student try to impress them in various ways that come across as insincere. It leaves a bad taste, which does not help a while later when the student conveniently shows up asking for a letter of recommendation.
Setting this aside, if you have questions you genuinely want to know the answers to, there’s nothing inappropriate about emailing the professor. Professors often enjoy discussing course topics with students and answering their questions. If your questions sound sincere and not like something you contrived just to show that you have something to ask, I’m sure the professor won’t be offended by your email, and there’s a good chance that she’ll answer it. Whether she will like you more as a result or not, I don’t think anyone here can predict, so again, if that’s your true motivation then yes, it’s probably a bad idea to send the email.


What makes a research paper low-quality? As a reviewer, what are some obvious signs to you that a paper is low-quality?

Kind of a broad question, but I'll play along.

It is easier to say what makes a paper high quality: I learn something new and interesting by reading it.  A twinge of jealousy -- as in, "Gosh, I wish I had thought of / done this" -- is a good sign there.  The absence of all this makes the quality of the paper not too high.

There are some papers that don't teach me anything new and interesting that I nevertheless feel are of medium (publishable) quality: sometimes I don't really understand the value of a result but can't claim (or can't justify a claim) that the results will not be of value to someone else or someone in the future.  Sometimes the results are known to me in some form but don't appear in the literature.  Sometimes the results are novel when viewed from the knowledge base and comfort zone of one subfield but less so from another (or perhaps from the vantage point of a true expert -- in a field where true expertise is rare), and these can be worth publishing.

Probably what remains is low quality.  I am inclined to object a bit to the framing of the question in terms of "obvious signs": as a referee, I aspire to read a paper carefully enough to be confident in my evaluation of its quality.  Obvious signs may inform my preliminary impression, but I will read further to confirm.  But here are some things that would make me evaluate a paper as of low quality: as I go down the list, the quality decreases:

The results of the paper already exist in the literature. Usually this means the author was not aware of them.
The results of the paper already exist in the literature, in a better form than in the author's paper.  Thus publishing the paper could actually be a step backwards.
Same as the above, but the current paper omits a key technique or perspective that is part of the contemporary understanding of the topic.  For instance, there are some expository papers, and these do not need to contain new results or even the sharpest possible form of the old results it exposes, but the author needs to have at least the level of mastery of the topics being exposed as an advanced student in the area, or the exposition could have a negative effect.
The results are faulty, either in ways that are not easily corrigible, or are easily corrigible but when corrected yield absolutely nothing new.
The results look fishy, but the exposition is so obscure that it is a chore to tell right from wrong from basically-right-but-highly-garbled from totally absent.
The author cannot or will not make a clear distinction between what is attained in the paper and what is desired to be attained.  For me and many others in my field (mathematics), this is certainly the worst.  I saw an especially good example of this recently: a paper posted this month on the arxiv begins (immediately following an abstract which is at turns obscure and vacuous) by stating "Registration contains colored markers:" A red dot stands for "a fact which is not proven at present or an assumption". A yellow dot stands for "the statement which requires additional attention". A green dot stands for "statement which is proved earlier or clearly
undestandable [sic]".  And then immediately following that, still on page 1, there is a "THEOREM",
which is a statement of the Riemann Hypothesis (for those who don't know, this is arguably the single most important unsolved problem in all of mathematics; inarguably solving it will get you $1 million)...marked with a red dot.  Then we have "PROOF", followed by 28 more pages of colored-dotted mathematics, which I spent a minute flipping through out of sheer morbid curiosity.  But if I were a referee then, rather exceptionally, this first page would have been all the sign I needed to be confident of the low quality of the paper.


Difference between Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) doctoral degrees and traditional math, physics, cs, engineering and biology degrees What's the difference between these newer computational science PhD programs and PhD programs in the traditional math, physics, cs, and engineering depts?

From checking out a few of these CSE programs online, it seems that they are programs, and not departments, in general, so that the programs have faculty with different home departments.

The interdisciplinary nature of these programs sounds appealing but I wonder if it's better to land up at a traditional engineering dept or a math dept, etc.?

For example, here's some material from Stanford's CSE program:

  Ask Big Questions.

  Solve Big Problems.

  Doctoral Program We develop innovative computational and mathematical
  approaches for complex engineering and scientific problems, attracting
  talented PhD students from across the globe. Advised in research by
  more than 50 faculty from 20-plus departments, PhD students are
  immersed in a wide variety of fields including statistics and data
  science, machine and deep learning, control, optimization, numerical
  analysis, applied mathematics, high-performance computing, earth
  sciences, flow physics, graphics, bioengineering, genomics, economics
  and financial mathematics, molecular dynamics, and many more. PhD
  graduates find outstanding positions in industry and national
  laboratories as well as in academia.

The last sentence seems that the CSE program is more aimed to prepare their PhD graduates for work in industry, with academic jobs not being the primary goal.

In interdisciplinary research the course works you opt need to be cohesive to help you develop an in depth understanding of the scope and application of the undertaken project.


Where does the title Dr come from for PhD? I have always wondered why a person is given the title of Dr after completing a PhD in a non-medical field. This is especially because of the confusion over the medical title of Dr. Why hasn't a better distinction been formulated by now?

It's actually exactly the opposite: "doctor" is Latin for "teacher" and the title originally had no special connection with medicine.  Instead, a doctor was anyone qualified to teach at a university (in medieval Europe teaching qualifications were typically determined by the church).  The concept of a formal PhD degree came much later, but it continued this earlier terminology.

The confusion in English is irritating, but not problematic enough to make universities give up a 1000+ year old tradition.  It's not clear why this situation arose.  One natural explanation is that if you want to emphasize your medical skills, you can do it by explaining that you are not just a healer, but in fact someone qualified to teach other people the healing arts.  In other words, you're a doctor of medicine in the academic sense of the word "doctor".  Until very recently universities were fairly exotic, and most people didn't talk about academic doctors very much, so the medical usage was much more salient for the general public and for most people it became the standard meaning of "doctor".

Of course this difficulty with this story is that it doesn't explain why, for example, German does not confuse the terms the same way English does.  Maybe it's just chance, or maybe there's some cultural reason.

In any case, though, academia had the title first and is reluctant to change it.


Do I have to mention the name of the answer holder within my program? I have a question worries me a lot, I have read on "https://stackoverflow.com" that members' posts are subject to the "Creative Commons" license.

The question is:When I benefit from the answer of any members, Do I have to mention the name of the answer holder within my program?

For example:If I found one of the answers on this site was how to use the "loop" in Java, Then I used that code in my program,
Do I have to referring to the answer holder within my program? and is the length of my life whenever I use the loop of repetition in my programs must i mention the name of the answer holder?

The other question is, If I change a little bit in the code I got from the answers, should I mention the owner of the answer as well?
Also the question includes books and authors, should I mention the owner of the Book as well?
My questions may be strange, but it really does concern me.

Basically, it depends on "the usual suspects." The less widely known the more you need a cite. The more substantial or original the thing, the more you need a cite.

Anything you could easily get from a simple Google search and that appears on multiple web sites and in multiple introductory textbooks, is probably fair use. "How to use a loop" in a computer language is clearly not something you need to provide a cite for.

If you wind up using a lot of small things from a single source, that also merits at least a "thanks." For example, if you used a lot of things out of a standard "classical" text book on the subject, that might be a good thing to mention. That will reduce questions like "why does all your code look like Knuth's code in his text?"

Things that you need to dig harder for may be more of a grey area. An implementation of a standard search algorithm, for example, might need citation. So if you pulled something from the book series Numerical Recipes you might need to at least put a note in saying where you lifted the source code. It's like quoting a chunk of text from a source in that case.

Less widely known or less standard algorithms might need citation. That may be subject dependent or journal dependent. So if you are publishing something in a journal related to uncertainty analysis, maybe you don't need to explain what a Kalman filter is. It may be standard knowledge for such an audience. If you were publishing in a journal related to AI, maybe they will be less familiar with it and need a cite to a basic explanation. Especially if you are providing an implementation, especially if you borrowed the source code for that implementation.

If you used some research article's result then certainly you need to cite it. For example, if somebody has invented a new way to accomplish some task, and it has some new feature such as being faster or more secure or something, you definitely need to cite it.


What should I do if I have an idea but can't work on it immediately? I am a postdoc working on a research project, which is funded by a grant that runs for 3 years.

After my first year working on the project, I identified a problem which could potentially lead to a new research direction, but it is not directly related to my current project. I am required to work on the problems defined in my current project proposal.

What should I do in this case, given that I may need to wait for another 2 years before I can possibly work on the new problem?

Now you are a postdoc and not a graduate student anymore. As such, you will have many research ideas, that you will not have the time to implement yourself. So, it is time for you to start delegating this work to "less experienced" workforce than you. That means undergraduate, master or PHD students. So, you should discuss it with your advisor that you have a new idea and that you are planning to propose a new undergraduate or MSc thesis. Perhaps he might even propose, working with a graduate student who is a bit stuck at his current stage of his / her PHD, so working in your new idea might be beneficial to both of you.

In any of these cases, co-authorship issues should be discussed early and thorough. For undergraduate, MSc students usually the assumption is that they do most of the work (it is their thesis after all) but you write the paper and you get to be first author. For teaming with PHD students, things are a little bit trickier, so these issues should be discussed in detail, BEFORE the cooperation begins. Also, make sure that your PI is OK not to be included in the subsequent publication (since this is your idea after all). Of course, if you want to include your PI in your "additional" publication then by all means, go ahead (this will also help you bend his objections about the time you will spend on your new project). But if you do not, make sure you discuss it before doing it, so you will not get into hot water.

In this scheme, not only you can multiply the number of your publications more easily and faster but also you help other people, who might be your future collaborators. So, you really have nothing to lose.


If I'm key personnel on an NIH grant . . . can I put that on my CV? I'm a postdoc in the sciences.

My supervisor submitted a grant renewal to the NIH recently and listed me as "key personnel" on it.  The renewal received very high marks and is likely to be approved.

Although I have received fellowships in the past, I've never applied for a grant, and I've never been key personnel on a grant before.

Would it be appropriate for me to list on my CV that I'm key personnel on this grant (if the renewal is officially approved)?  If so, how should this be stated?  Examples from actual CVs would be much appreciated.  (To be specific, I'm not sure whether I should list this alongside my fellowships, in my "Awards" section . . . or start an entirely new section for "Grants" or something like that.)

EDIT: This question is similar in flavor to this one, but I'm looking for a more specific answer than that question received . . . It's possible this should be marked as duplicate.

I think I've found what I'm looking for, but I'm still interested in other answers/feedback.

I think a new section in my CV that looks like this would be appropriate:

  Grants

  National Institutes of Health, AXZ-1394 (2018-2021)

  "Awesome Grant Title"

  Role:   Key Personnel


Can I, as a reviewer, tell authors to get a native English speaker to proofread their paper? I am reviewing a paper for possible publication in a respected journal. The English in the paper is very poor. The authors are clearly not native English speakers. I want to write something to the effect of the following in my review.

I advise the authors to find a native English speaker to proofread the manuscript.

My question: Is this appropriate in a review?

On one hand, I think it is good, constructive advice. The paper would be significantly clearer if someone spent a few hours helping them fix it up. I can try to help them through reviewer comments, but it would be much easier if someone could help them in person. The authors are located in a western English-speaking country, so they should be able to find someone.

On the other hand, I don't want to be "the mean reviewer." I understand that English can be difficult to master for immigrants. Perhaps there is a more diplomatic way of saying this.

It's obviously appropriate and constructive to comment on writing issues that significantly affect the quality of the paper. The only question is how to do it as constructively as possible.

Personally, I prefer to suggest that "the authors get editing help from someone with full professional proficiency in English" rather than asking for "a native English speaker." I see other reviewers write the latter, so it's not uncommon, but I feel like it sounds a little bit like I'm "punishing" the authors for not having been born in an English-speaking country. There are plenty of academics who are not native English speakers, and don't have the same proficiency as native English speakers, but are still perfectly capable of high-quality academic writing.


Is there an equivalent of the journals Science or Nature for engineering? The journals Science and Nature seem like they are basically the flagship journals for most of the hard sciences, such as biology, physics, or chemistry.  Is there an equivalent high-caliber journal for general engineering?  For example, if somebody discovers a new algorithm that revolutionizes robotics (and is so profound that it might be of interest to mechanical engineers or computer engineers as well), is there an appropriate outlet for such a thing?

While Nature and Science have high impact factors and are widely read, I would not call them "flagship" journals. That said, while your list of "hard sciences" are on topic at Nature and Science, so are soft sciences, medicine, and engineering. What make journals like Nature and Science so widely read, is that nearly everything is on topic and within their scope if it is "important" enough.


Is it ethical to cherry-pick reviewers based on their previous reviews of your manuscript? The academic review process is usually supposed to be blind, in that authors are not told the identity of the reviewers. But frequently it is possible to guess who has reviewed your work, or the reviewers themselves may let you know informally.

Say my manuscript is rejected from journal A after one very positive and one more critical review, and I think I know who the reviewers were. After some revisions I submit to journal B, who ask me for a suggested list of reviewers. Is it ethical to list the reviewer whom I suspect gave the positive review the first time, but replace the one I suspect has a negative opinion of my work with another reviewer? What if the positive reviewer is someone whom I did not originally suggest to journal A - is it ethical to suggest him/her to journal B in the light of their previous review?

There are ZERO ethics involved.  First, you suspect, but do not know, who the original reviewers were.  You may be right, you may be wrong.

Next, suggestions for potential reviewers are just that -- suggestions.  It is the responsibility of the editor to pick appropriate reviewers, and your suggestions are just one potential source of information in the process of doing so.

I'd say even if you recommend people who you respect to referee your papers, they'll surprise you regularly with critical reviews (if they're doing their job).

The biggest ethical quandry you can get into in the process of recommending referees is probably some sort of pre-arrangement with those you suggest.  This is to be avoided as less than stellar behavior.


How to gain admissions to graduate school with postgrad diploma, but no degree? At the age of 21 I entered an (UK) M.Sc./Postgraduate Diploma Programme in Software Engineering.

I entered without an Undergraduate degree based upon modules I undertook in a distance learning Masters Programme from a reputable UK University that required no formal entrance requirements (very unusual situation that I took advantage of).

Out of a cohort of 40 students on the new M.Sc. course I was the only one without an Undergraduate degree although I had Postgraduate credits as mentioned. Again this was unusual.

I graduated with a UK Postgraduate Diploma (but not an M.Sc. as I could not fund the remaining twelve week/3 month project), however my marks were excellent.

Here I am twenty years later with no degree. I wish to undertake further study in Software Engineering and am at a loss to effectively know where to start. I am way too late to go back and do the three month research project to get my M.Sc.

[For those outside the UK a Postgraduate Diploma is effectively the taught/exam component of an M.S/M.Sc. and usually compromises 75% of the course. It is an M.Sc. in all but the three month research project. Most students complete the project but some do not, usually due to funding or academic reasons. My reason was purely funding.]

I am not qualified for an Undergraduate Degree in Software Engineering (effectively a waste of time as I'm somewhat beyond that syllabus) as I do not hold School level University entrance qualifications and I'm not qualified for an M.S/M.Sc. ironically (even though I previously were on an M.Sc!) as I have no first/Undergraduate degree.

If I had finished the extra 12 weeks I'd be qualified to enter a Ph.D. programme but the failure to do the twelve weeks (wholly due to the fees at the time which were huge for the Project) makes me qualified for nothing even though I hold a formal Postgraduate level qualification.

What to do?

I can't vouch for the UK, but here on the other side of the puddle, once you've been out in the Real World (TM) for some number of years, your classes start mattering less and what you've done with them starts mattering more. A school's concern, if you're coming back for an advanced degree, is whether you have enough knowledge to cover the prerequisites and enough aptitude to complete the degree in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable grade. (In other words, whether you'll be a student whom they're good for and who makes them look good.)

For PhD there may be some bias toward folks who are already researchers, but "research" comes in many flavors, not all academic.

(I could have gotten into Columbia in NY for a MS simply on the basis of "you can't be an idiot or IBM wouldn't have hired you" -- plus having aced a few of their extension classes. Can't imagine things are very different there.)


How can an undergraduate student conducting mathematical research with a professor expect to contribute? I am currently an undergraduate student majoring in Applied Math. I have been reading recent papers published by two of my professors who I admire and I'm wondering what it would be like to conduct research with them. In what ways can an undergraduate student contribute to mathematical research? In what ways could I prepare myself to conduct mathematical research?

To be more specific, my academic background is in History and Social Sciences which I studied intensely from High School through my first two years in college. I conducted research at University of Arizona my junior year of high school analyzing a large set of longitudinal data on a group of high schools in NYC.
My interest in math, specifically applied math, started when I took a Computer Science class because I was curious. Since then, I've taken calculus courses, applied combinatorics, probability courses, and I'm currently enrolled in a computational geometry course and an operations research course. The reason I'm interested in pursuing undergraduate mathematical research is because I enjoyed the experience a lot when I was studying social sciences. My concern is that I don't have a strong enough background to contribute to the research my professors currently conduct. I get good grades in my classes, but I'm concerned with my lack of background for a Junior in an applied math major. Recent publications from my professors are difficult for me to understand, so I'm questioning whether I'm ready to conduct research with them.
I'm hoping you may be able to offer insight into whether my background is sufficient for conducting research and how I may be able to strengthen my skills. I take my school work seriously and think I have a good understanding of the material I'm taught. Thank you for your time.

It's very reasonable to wonder how you, an absolute novice, could "help" experienced experts. Some people are fond of claiming that somehow "just trying hard" or "being smart" can make this possible in some way, but those are needless (and doubtful) claims that miss the mark about what the real question could be.

That is, many or most faculty are happy to mentor beginners and introduce them to the subject(s) the faculty know and like. It need not be the case that they "need help", and, if they did, sure, recruiting novices is not the best gamble. But that's not the point! The point is that experts may enjoy (and find stimulating) introducing beginners to their subject. So you help them by allowing them to do so.

It's not at all surprising that you have trouble reading their recent papers, and, again, that's essentially irrelevant. (The internet mythology about young people becoming world experts in a few weeks or months is invidious... In particular, no, you should not expect to "read those papers and then go talk to them about them.", contrary to much advice given on-line.)

An astute expert can find interesting "starter" projects for novices. It may happen that such a project produces something interesting to the expert. Or, it may be that the expert can so well foresee the outcome that the element of surprise evaporates. But that doesn't matter. Little kids don't have to immediately play sports (or whatever) with world-class professionals. But they can be coached by such professionals, if both parties are interested. I do think that's the correct analogy, though many other people on these sites are adamant otherwise.


How to find out if a paper is diamond/gold/green access? Recently I learned about open access and that there are many ways in which the publishers implement it. How do I find out if a paper is Diamond/Gold/Green access?
I guess if the paper is listed in a journal but a pre-print is available on the authors' webpage/repository then it is Green access. Is that correct?
Next how do I find out whether a paper appearing on the journal's website is gold access or diamond access? (Basically did the authors pay to make their paper open)
Thanks

if the paper is listed in a journal but a pre-print is available on the authors' webpage/repository then it is Green access. Is that correct?

Not exactly. The paper may be published under a green OA agreement even if the author did not publish it on their webpage, or the author may have shared it illegally. For a more authoritative answer, you should instead look up the journal on Sherpa/Romeo and see if it allows publishing pre/postprints.

Next how do I find out whether a paper appearing on the journal's website is gold access or diamond access? (Basically did the authors pay to make their paper open)

The journal's webpage will usually tell you if there are publication charges, and how much they are. Even if they advertise charges, these may be waived under certain conditions (for instance: agreement with the author's institution; author comes from a developing country). Ultimately, there is no way to pay if two third parties reached an agreement and waived that fee; that is a private contract between them and none of your business. :)
(Anyway, why do you care exactly? Is this to know if you will be charged to publish your future paper in the same venue? Or for a research/statistic?)


Should I keep my achievements to myself? I'm a PhD student and I have published several good papers and achieved some awards and leadership position early in my career. I always celebrate my work but not boastfully since I poured in a lot of effort and hard work to create it.

But what really makes me glad about it is that many students in my University and young professionals become inspired and motivated by my perseverance and are encouraged to publish their own. Sometimes I even offer help and simple advice (e.g., how to deal with reviewers or prepare the manuscript for submission) to my fellows.

But recently, a group of my fellow students and my friends started to call me out, saying that I give them and others pressure to publish and I am inconsiderate about how they feel on their circumstances. They become resentful and there are days discredits my work. I did not mind it at first, but it is becoming frequent and I have become anxious and guilty about myself and my achievements.

So, I was wondering if ever I achieve something should I keep it on myself and only share to few people? Should I be felt guilty of achieving something on my work?

Everybody needs at least a few good personal allies to celebrate with---your advisor is hopefully one of those, and some of your close personal friends are likely to be as well.

Your peers in a graduate program, however, are likely to be in a more complex place emotionally. It's also easy to cross the line between sharing and bragging, and easy to come across as condescending (especially regarding "routine" tasks like preparing a manuscript or responding to reviewers).

Don't feel guilty about success, and don't hide your achievements.  But I would also recommend holding back and waiting for your peers to ask you before sharing your news or offering to help.


Does a research competition with monetary prizes count as commerical use? There are some datasets (bioinformatics, agriculture, weather, etc.) that state that they can only be used for non-commercial purposes. This would mean a corporation cannot take that dataset and use it in some way to make money. However, the phrase "for non-commercial use only" seems to be vague when it comes to monetary prizes (in the thousands of US dollars) from research competitions.
Can datasets that have this "for non-commercial use only" requirement be used in academic research that could possibly win money at a competition?

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this is not a legal advice.
In general, this depends on at least the following factors:

particular text of the formal license under which the dataset is provided
the laws of the country where the parties (licensor and licensee) reside
definitions that are used to determine whether the activity is considered to be commercial or non-commercial if the actual license text is unclear about it
status of the organization where the research is conducted

However, usually, the commercial purpose has the connotation of direct income generated from the goods or services produced with the help of the licensed content. In the case of the research work that happen to win a certain competition, I would argue that would not be considered a direct income. Thus, should constitute non-commercial use.
From the Creative Commons study on non-commercial use, the following definition of the commercial use is very common:

… in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.

I would argue that no academic research has the primary goal of monetary compensation. Winning in the competition for an academic researcher usually is "collateral damage".

To reiterate,

The definition of commercial and non-commercial use is license-specific; therefore, without the text of the license, it is impossible to determine whether a certain way of using the licensed content is legal or not.

If in doubt, consult a lawyer or use the legal services that most educational institutions provide.

The use for academic research that might/did win a competition is very likely to be within the non-commercial use clause of the license.


How much background information should I provide in a paper if it is a follow-up to a previous publication of mine? I have recently published a paper in which I have identified a problem and developed a potential methodology for solving it. In that first paper, I included a fairly extensive literature review of the subject so that I could support my proposed methodology. The primary goal of that review section was to introduce and elaborate on all of the variables that would need to be accounted for in the model.

The paper that I am currently writing is a follow-up to that original publication where I have gathered the data I need to test the methodology. In this paper, do I need to re-write the sections that introduce all of the elements of my model (the literature review in the first paper), or is it acceptable to state that this is a follow-up to a previous publication and refer the reader back to the initial paper?

Of course, I will need to provide enough information in the second paper so that a reader will be able to understand the model. However, if I can simply provide an abbreviated explanation of the background and the elements that make up the model by citing my original paper, that would save me a great deal of work. It also would likely improve the second paper, since I will not have to spend several pages explaining things that I have previously established. However, I wanted to check to see if it would instead be wiser to just re-word the material that is present in the first paper.

I think you need to assume that the reader cannot access your first paper for some reason. If the second contains enough description without it, then that would be acceptable in most fields to refer to the previous work for more details/justification.
However, I would caution against you being the only judge of whether you have enough detail as you are likely too familiar with your own work. If you have a colleague who has not read the first article, that could read a draft for you to give their opinion, I would recommend it.


Someone else's grad student not interested in following up on a project Some months ago, in the context of a workshop, two graduate students (from other PhD advisors) and myself found a technique to solve a certain problem that could give a nice research publication.

I am trying to push the project, mostly because this can be beneficial for both students in the last period of their PhD studies. However, the problem I encounter is the following: one of the students does not want to make the work/is not interested anymore in it. I have written her a couple of times saying that would be good that we go through the project but she never replied. So it seems to me that she does not have any interest on the project (while the second student does).

If it were the case of a PhD student of mine, in a very similar situation, I would talk with him/her seriously but due to the situation that she is not an student of mine I do not know which is the best way to act.

How should I proceed?

This is tricky for a couple of reasons. Adding a person as a co-author of a paper requires, at least, their agreement. Normally it also requires actual contribution to the work, but that idea is compromised in some fields, such as when a PI only contributes funds that make the research possible. Second, even giving an acknowledgement to a person normally requires their permission. This is more important in some fields than others. But if you attribute controversial statements to another you need their permission, generally.

However, there is nothing especially wrong about pushing someone a bit to elicit their permission or participation. This is especially true if you don't have a power (superior-inferior) relationship with them. Forcing subordinates is often done, though usually wrong. But that doesn't seem to be the relationship here.

I would send them each a note that you would like to pursue the topic and publish some results when done. Offer them co-authorship if they will participate effectively, but only acknowledgement of past contributions otherwise. Suggest that they talk it over with their own advisors. Then evaluate what you hear back.

I'm assuming above that all results so far are preliminary and tentative.

If there is nothing to do but the writing or minor clean-up this would be a different situation. In that case, write it up with all of you as co-authors and send it to them for approval or updating. Yes, you would be doing a large part of the work yourself, but that might be worth the effort.

The tricky thing here is that I don't know how much contribution each has made so far. Perhaps they are already due co-authorship of anything you produce. You will need to deal with that collectively.

If they have already contributed substantially, then a joint publication seems warranted (three co-authors). For that, all you need to do is get their permission. If they are unable to help work on the paper (no time, advisor objects, ...) then this might be your best option. Even a generous interpretation of substantially might be warranted.

I assume that, unless the topic is controversial, a publication is more valuable to them than to you, who already have a position.


Can I get a PhD at another Uni? My story begins some years ago. Seven years ago I started my studies and did Physics and Mathematics. At the time i suffered depressions on and off, and the symptoms really told; I could vary between acing my exams and failing miserably depending on which state I was in. I told the head of department about the situation (lets skip the reason why). As a result, it was spread around and today most departments know about it, either from him or having seen it themselves. My studies failed; this culminated in me having to interrupt my Masterstudies in the middle of the project. (The bachelor project in itself went rather well). Some courses were unfinished.

My grades vary but are nowadays mostly good; after a while I learned that while in the slumps there is no use to take the exams and so I took them only when feeling good. As a result I have today, with some few exceptions, what must surely be a honors degree (mostly A- och B-grades and some Cs, one or two Ds). (This after cleaning up some old unifinished courses when I was in a better shape some two or three years later.)

Since two years or so, I have been essentially depression free and my life is good. I function, handle school, the social life and everything well. Within some months I will finish a Masters project in Mathematics and I feel good about it. My supervisor always gives me alot of good critizism/feedback about how I write my work and I get the feeling that the work is converging towards something of a quality that is not bad at all.

However, as most departments have heard, I have had the depressions, and I by chance ran into/overheard when one senior employee passed this information along as I went from one department to another. As a result I have some enemies and no department would take me in for a PhD. I was told by my supervisor that I should forget a PhD at my current Mathematics Department. He was however, optimistic when I mentioned studying abroad. I have not talked too much with other people about studying abroad for a PhD (although now when I am essentially healthy, this is what I want). I think about consulting the other people about LOR for abroad PhD studies.

My questions:

What are my chances of getting a PhD with this back-ground? If my adviser writes me a LOR, will he be forced to mention my depression background? (He is well aware of it). Do you expect general reluctance towards recommending a student like me?
Is it ethical of them to pass this information on? Should I decide that I want to report this, what are common venues to pursue this?

I assume institutions will want some background on your past 7 years. It may be hard to get into higher ranked institutions, but perhaps lower ranked institutions may be more accommodating. I'm not sure what you mean by "abroad' though, and you didn't mention your career goals. There are many great institutions around the world in mathematics and physics, such as in various EU/Nordic countries, USA, Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan, Gulf Countries, Russia, Korea, and Japan. I've heard from a prospective PhD student, although have not verified, that sometimes institutions in various countries will be willing to reduce the application standard for Western applicants.


Someone misrepresented my work in a published paper Its a conference paper that broadly says:

"There is X, Y, Z, Biguri et al, articles out there, but here is a table with each of the works and their limitations, and why ours is better"

And then lists a bunch of things on my published article (about a software tool) claiming it does not contain several features. The problem is, the tool has and always had most of the features they say it hasn't. They are published and clearly demoed and showcased in the webpage.

Their paper has some credit, it is still good work and its not invalid because of their mistakes. But it is seriously misrepresenting my work.

What should one do in this case?

I was thinking on politely emailing them to let them know about their mistakes, I assume its not a malicious mistake, but more the fact that they did not take the time to properly do research. Is there anything else I can/should do?

While nothing much may come of it, I think you should write them pointing out that they have missed some things about your work. Ask them for a correction, though don't expect one to occur. If you want to smooth the waters, congratulate them, also, for the good things they have done in their own work.

But letting it lie without comment serves no one well and might lead to a repeat in the future.

If you want to be a bit more aggressive, copy the conference chair on your email, but think hard about the consequences of that.

I'll assume that the errors were unintentional, in which case you should expect a good result.


Co-Author is asking me to remove abstract submission of paper Background:

I am a master's student working with a professor and PhD student. They provided me with an initial research direction, to solve problem A. To achieve that research goal, I identified a problem B that would prevent me to do problem A efficiently. I hence solved problem B independently first instead because it only makes sense. And that is what I wanted to publish first.

So for most of the work (ideas, writing and coding/results) I have been the main contributor (80% me and 20% a 4th co-author not part of any of this drama). PhD student and Professor have only been meeting and discussing with me on average 2 times a month. Those meetings were mostly about presenting the progress. Professor also did a significant amount of revising as compared to everyone else. Most of the writing and results were done independently by me, and as part of a collaboration scheme. I don't get paid, I don't get course credit or anything material in return.

Problem

PhD student has been unresponsive weeks leading up to the abstract deadline over multiple attempts to clarify logistics of a submission. Since it's only abstract I submit (I know horrible mistake) to not lose the chance for a full paper submission and PhD student goes livid and starts threatening me, to kick me out of the school, kick me out of the lab, sue me etc.

From further conversation what I understand he had in his mind that he wanted to be the first author and claimed he would "Think about giving us co-authorship". Which to me co-authorship order was obvious since everyone's contribution was obvious, let alone acknowledgement. And doesn't make sense because he doesn't even fully understand the paper or work.

Professor wants me to continue working on everything and doesn't seem involved or to be part of any of this (even if PhD student tries to incorrectly claim professor said things that Professor hasn't). Final paper submission deadline is in few days.

PhD student "doesn't have time to go back and forth with me", "doesn't have time to explain everything to me" about why he wants the paper removed or what he wants me to do. Thinks the quality of the paper is subpar and doesn't want to be associated with it. But he wants me to remove the submission and continue working on the paper and sending him my revisions and "push" for the deadline????.

All of these point to something nefarious but I still want to give the PhD student the benefit of the doubt.

Question

What are my options? I am not sure if this will hurt my reputation or his but probably both of ours. I really wanted to apply for PhD but not sure if this is what I thought academia was and reconsidering :/
How can I resolve this without losing my dignity? I am not willing to let someone else take credit for my work. I would rather not publish
How can I remove PhD student's contribution? Is the paper a dead-end? I obviously can't submit a full paper without his approval.
What can I do and have to do to address the request of the PhD student? What do I do in case of conflicts between PhD student and Professor?

You ought not to have submitted anything naming the PhD student as a co-author without his clear consent.  So you do need to withdraw the submission, immediately, and you owe him an apology.

After that, you can all work out what to do next.  Maybe you can all come to some agreement, and maybe the professor can help to mediate.  There's a good chance that you may miss the deadline and have to submit to some other venue at a later date; you'll just have to live with that.

No one author can unilaterally decide author ordering, even if it's "obvious"; you all have to agree.

Keep in mind it's a two-way street; he also can't publish without your consent.


Correct way to cite a book in a thesis I ask you this question that will seem trivial but having no experience in this regard and not having found specific information I do not know what to do.
I am writing my master's thesis in Computer Engineering, and sometimes I use short concepts (for example a 10-word sentence) reworking it and adding concepts different from those of a book mentioned in the biography.
My doubt is the following, in the biography can I also insert the books that I have read to deepen the subject without having used the concept of the book within the thesis but which have been useful to me anyway?

You can only put a book or paper in the bibliography if you have cited it in the text, either via a quote or by citing its argument[s], theory/ies, etc.
If it's just generally deepened your understanding and you do not quote it or cite its argument[s] it cannot be included in the bibliography. That said, in such a case it can be very easy to work in a citation from it anyway, even if it's just a few words.


How to reference multiple authors of a chapter from a book [APA]? I need help deciding how to cite a specific chapter of a group for my thesis.
My problem is basically with the different types of authors the chapters of this book has.
The authors titles are: Coordinating Lead author, Lead Authors, Contributing Authors and Review editors.
So, which ones do I include?

From the APA blog this is what you need to site in APA

  Author, A. A. (Year). Title of chapter. In B. B. Editor (Ed.), Title
  of book [E-reader version, if applicable] (pp. xxx–xxx). Retrieved
  from http://xxxxx

You will see in the purdue OWL that you should only list seven authors. So your chapter citation should look like this. I'm assuming this is the chapter you are referring to at this link.

  De Groot, R, Ramakrishnan, P.S, Van De Berg, A,  Kulenthran,, T, Muller, S, Pitt, D, ... Rossler, M. (2005).
  Chapter 17 Cultural and Amenity Services (Xu Jianchu and Hebe
  Vessuri Ed.). In  Rashid Hassan, Robert Scholes, and Neville Ash (Ed.), Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends (Vol. 1, The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, pp. 455-476). Washington: Island Press.

For in text citations use the following link

  Six or More Authors: Use the first author's name followed by et al. in the signal phrase or in parentheses.

  Harris et al. (2001) argued...

  (Harris et al., 2001)


Do reviewers review the code submitted with papers? In computer science, when submitting a paper, it is common to submit some code to reproduce the experiments performed in the paper.

Is it common for the reviewers to review that code?

Personally, I always check the code (and I always make the code available as well).

Usually it is just a glance over, unless I want to double check how something was done (and it wasn't clear on the paper). People usually don't do that because "scientific" code isn't always readable. Often is written hastily, as a one-off that can't really be reused only the author can make it work. Even that may fail a couple of years later.

And considering the amount of views I get in my repositories, even a glance over is not common. For my last paper, I had code, live examples, and supplementary material online, and only one of the 3 reviewers checked it (I got only one visit on the url).

TLDR: People usually don't check it, but it is still very important that you make them available.


Letter of recommendation for grad. school application source I am applying for admission to the Master's program next fall. However I am in doubt about the source of reference. I have two options:

My mentor at a research institute who was pursuing his PhD. when I was a research intern. However, he did not complete his PhD.
Research Scientist(PhD) at my current organization where my role is that of a software developer. Therefore the recommendation is based on my work as a developer rather than on my research contributions.

Both are willing to write strong recommendations for me.

Who would be a better source of recommendation?

I would ask mentor #1 (with a master's degree) to write a letter to the PhD research scientist #2, and have the latter (#2) submit a letter for your application. Thus, the recommendation letter is received from a prestigious source, is based on current experience of your work habits and character, but can also incorporate quotes/details from the more junior person. This is not an unusual pattern in my experience.


International Code of Ethics for order of co-authors in research papers In many cases it so happens that multiple workers are involved in a research problem under the supervision of group leader. We will assume that group leader is the corresponding author of a manuscript. Now, I have the following queries:

Who will decide who the first author will be? I am talking about a scenario when all the co-authors are PhD holders. If there is a dispute, who has to resolve and how?
Who decides the sequence of co-authors in the manuscript, first author or corresponding author? Is there any international code of ethics in this regard?
Again, we have to assume that it is practically impossible to quantify the contributions of respective co-authors in a well-funded, well-qualified research group. And qualification sometimes comes along with ego. How can the corresponding author decide that the second co-author has contributed more than the third co-author, and the ordering will not change (whosoever had decided based on point 2)?

The meaning of author order varies across fields. In some fields, authors are listed alphabetically. In others, the order reflects some sort of perceived contribution. Some people prefer to be the last author.

The only unified code, and it is unwritten at that, regarding author order, is to talk to your authors and be considerate to their feelings. It is academic misconduct to leave someone out as an author. Similarly, it is wrong to list someone who should not be an author. This means that it is up to everyone to decide. If your research group is so disfunctional that this is hard, have those conversations at the start. In fact, I advise everyone to have those conversations at the start and during the process just to keep hard feelings from developing.


Math: Perception of only or mostly doing research in Master's for Ph.D. admission folks Background: I'll be starting a 1.5 - 2 year master's program in mathematics this coming Fall in the US. Because of my non-degree graduate courses relevant to the program and my research interest, I can easily fulfill the requirements of this program within a year. However, my main goal is to gain and tangible research experience in preparation for a Ph.D program so I plan to remain in this program for 2 years.

Question: Will my application to Ph.D programs and fellowships be diluted if admissions folks see that my second year in this Master's program consisted mostly of research with at most one class per semester?

I want to reduce the course load as much as possible in order to give me time and flexibility to do research with the benefit of less tuition fees (if any). However, this all would be moot if such decision would raise red flags among admission committees.

Besides focusing more on research than classes, any other things I should look into while in this program?

Background: I am the director of graduate admissions in the pure math department of my university.

In my experience, we basically ignore "research" conducted by undergraduate and masters students (unless is it truly remarkable, in which case you will almost certainly not need advice on the internet to get into a strong PhD program).  It just isn't a good predictor of whether or not you will be successful in a PhD program.  You will get very different advice from people who are not mathematicians, but you should ignore it -- graduate programs in math are very different from graduate programs in the other sciences.  This advice also might not apply if you are applying to departments of applied mathematics.

What we care about are

The courses you have taken, and
Your grades, and
Your letters of recommendation, and
Your GRE scores.

The above list is un-ordered; different members of the committee weight the above factors differently.


Major revision and re-submit as a Technical Note I submitted a manuscript as a Research Paper last May 12 to Journal A. Now, 6 months later, I have received a decision letter recommending "... undertake a major revision, and re-submit a revised version of your paper as a Technical Note". Talking with co-authors we disagree and would like to submit the paper to a different journal (Journal B). What should I do? Should we submit the paper to Journal B if it is still "under revision" in Journal A? I have sent a letter to the Editor of Journal A, explaining that we'll not re-submit the paper as a technical note, but I have not yet received any reply.
Thanks for the advice!

To make it clear to the editor, formally withdraw it from consideration. Then it is yours to do with as you please. They have no hold over you or the paper until you formally sign copyright away. What you have sent is likely enough, actually, but a formal notice of withdrawal leaves no ambiguity.

In most places I think that giving notice is enough and their reply isn't needed. But you need to keep records. Formal mail (sneaker net) with a receipt for delivery is sometimes used for such things. And keep the receipt.


How do I deal with the vast number of research papers on a topic? (for non-academics) As someone not in academia but beginning professional work in science outreach and communication, I'd like to stay well-versed and abreast of the research. However, upon performing rudimentary searches on these topics, I'm blown away by the number of results.

For instance, a Google Scholar search on "science communication" (in quotes) yields about 298,000 results, and a Mendeley search yields thousands also.

So, any words of wisdom on how to go about this? I'd like to dig in and do my homework over time, but I'm not sure how to work with the obvious limitations. I don't feel I have the benefit of specificity of a topic or previous familiarity with the research due to not being in academia also (to narrow down my concerns). I'm also not satisfied with simply reading popular accounts, as I would like to be able to back up my perspective with research when needed (and ideally in a less ad-hoc fashion).

The situation for academics is actually quite similar to that of non-academics, when faced with any discipline where they are not already an expert.  In cross-disciplinary interactions, we are all the laypersons for the other disciplines.

I find that when I am trying to learn about a new area, often the first problem is even just to figure out what the right words are to search for.  Every discipline has its own specialized vocabulary, and often the words have unexpected meanings.

As such, my approach tends to be as follows:

Start with Wikipedia or textbooks or some other similar popular (but well referenced!) source.
Identify key terms and key sources, and use those to find some good scientific review papers to read.
That will often be enough, since I'm often less interested in bleeding-edge theories or origins than in the current community consensus.  If not, however, then the review papers generally give enough context that I can follow references forward and back from the review papers, search key words I learn from those articles, or look for other papers authored by key players.


What do I put on my publication list if I have no publications? I am applying for a lecturer position at a university, and one of the application materials is a publication list.

I am a graduate student in my last year of PhD, and I plan on focusing my job search on teaching positions. I currently have no publications, nor will I have any anytime soon.

It looks like on the application, I have to upload something in order to submit it. What do I upload if I have no publications?

I was considering just a page that says "no publications" but I thought I would check here before I make a move.

For context, I am a student in mathematics. I have been told that it is not unusual to have no publications as a math PhD student.

If you do not have publications (including papers "in press") then the publications list can be left empty. If you have papers. You can, however add headings for publications "under review", if you have any or "manuscripts in preparation", again, if you have any. You may also have unpublished reports of different types. Such contributions can also be listed under a separate heading. What can be included is difficult to say but in my case, I used to include annual reports I had to write to a super-computer center and a research station, both which were collated with others and printed by the organising body. So any report sitting in a drawer is not valid.

Obviously the a "manuscript in preparation" will not be very strong but it will at least indicate that something is ongoing. But, note that a manuscript in preparation should be something worth reading to make it to such a list. In a situation like yours any written material prepared for some official body and with some distribution, can  be used to indicate your activities. There is a grey zone which is undefinable (which is why one generally avoids such listings later in the career), so do not put in anything. In short, you need to be able to show these "claims".


Why do some admissions processes request an exhaustive list of jobs held? This question is motivated by Should you list irrelevant work experience on graduate school applications?

In that question, the OP cited text from one graduate school's question about employment history:

"[List] employment experience (including part-time) since secondary school"

Why on earth would a graduate school admissions committee care whether a candidate worked part-time in a dry cleaning store from May to August of 2003?

Are they just trying to narrow the field by making the application process more tedious and daunting?

My suspicion would be that the school with such a requirement has a very narrow age window it desires in its graduate students, or at minimum desires that the ink still be wet on their baccalaureate diplomas -- the "train them up young" approach. Listing all post-high-school jobs is not usually terribly onerous for the typical 23-year-old.

I can't speak to how appropriate this is across disciplines. I can only say that where I am we only ask for a résumé and do not specify how far into the past it need go, because we value learners of all ages.


I have sit the TOEFL iBT for several times, Which one can I post: my most recent score or my best score? I know that it's possible to pass the TOEFL iBT several times. However, it has been one hour since I looked for the answer on the web, but I don't manage to know if all the scores are sent to the university I apply.

In other words, if I pass the test two times, can I send only my best score?

In general, the only way for schools not to receive the complete record of test scores is for you to cancel the test score. Since nowadays the test scores are usually finalized once you agree to get the score, I think the answer is probably no.


Submitting very quickly a revised version of a paper After a first round of revision, I have a paper whose status on Elsevier is "Accept, after minor Revision". Indeed, referees pointed out some revisions (very minor ones) which are relatively easy to be fulfilled. I made the necessary modifications in one day.
My question, is really a bad signal to resubmit very quickly a paper? What can be pros and cons of that?

As long as you don't exceed the deadline, I don't think it really matters - it won't get "more accepted" for being resubmitted quickly. Of course, sometimes it can help getting it into production faster.

However, if you have spare time I'd suggest not rushing the resubmission. While you could get away with taking a day, consider taking closer to a week. Forget about the paper for a couple of days, and carefully proofread it again - both the revisions, and the unchanged parts.


Discussing one's working ideas and possible research projects in PHD application I am a senior year undergraduate student in Computer Science, graduating in a year and looking forward to pursuing a PhD. I have a good experience with the research topic I want to work on, with a couple of papers published and a couple of more getting lined up for publication. As I will be applying for PhD programs to the research groups of my interests, will it be a safer bet to reveal my research ideas for the next couple of years with them, which I believe are capable of publishing in academic conferences or journals? It would obviously be a point of strength in my Statement of Purpose to demonstrate a clear research path and vision, but then how worthy are those possible research gaps I might possibly hint towards in my application. I would love to do them under the Principal Investigator who might be interested in it, and who might eventually accept me as his student, but I would be applying to a few of them and leaving off research ideas to someone who you won't be working with eventually sounds a bit scary to me. Obviously there would be some layer of abstraction with which I will be pitching my research vision in my Statement of Purpose, but should I be too much careful regarding it?

Any idea regarding how this works would be really helpful.

will it be a safer bet to reveal my research ideas for the next couple of years with them, which I believe are capable of publishing in academic conferences or journals?

This is the entire point of doing a PhD - you are supposed to share your ideas with your collaborators! If you deeply distrust your potential research group to the extent that you worry that they'll steal your ideas without crediting you, you should probably not join them.

  Obviously there would be some layer of abstraction with which I will be pitching my research vision in my Statement of Purpose, but should I be too much careful regarding it?

The scenario you are concerned with is highly unlikely. Professors would probably not steal your ideas from your applications, but rather actively fight to get you into the program so that they can start working with you (if indeed you have a very good idea).

If you truly have good, novel, ideas that you feel are worth publishing, and are worried about them being stolen, how about working them out into a two-page note which you can then put up online/on ArXiv, and then reference? This leaves no doubt as to the ownership of the idea, and gives professors a chance to assess your work and your capacity to convey it in writing. However, if that is really the case, you should probably contact professors individually (via email) with your manuscript and have them evaluate it. That way your emails act as evidence that the idea is yours.


Is there an easy way to check for the "expert appeal" of some reference? Is there an easy way to check for the "popularity" (or more particularly, "appealing to experts") or citations of some reference?
That is, when I find some reference and want to check how "good" it is w/o having to read the thing.
Some confusions:

There can be quality papers with low citation counts. E.g. if the
paper considers an unpopular subfield/subtopic. Or if the topic is not an active research topic at the moment.

A highly citated paper can be false if it's popular due to biases, rather than accurate paper. E.g. some psychological paper that studies something which feeds people's "subjective validation". That is, people believe a paper is good, because if fits their intentions.

The easiest way is to type the title of the reference into Google Scholar and to look at its citation counts.
There are other databases which calculate the number of citations a document receives, such as Web of Science, Scopus, or Dimensions.


How to ask for advice regarding a position? A colleague of mine has notified me of an upcoming opening for a TT position in my field in the US. She told me to contact a colleague of hers in the department hiring to "ask for advice" regarding the position.
Being from Europe, this a bit unusual and I am at loss about what I should ask for since the position already comes with a job description? Is this just a way to informally establish contact? What types of question are appropriate/inappropriate to ask the person in this situation?

I would keep it simple. Typically at this stage I have asked questions like “Are there sub fields that the department is particularly interested in hiring for?” “What courses are you hoping this position would cover?” Or the fallback/generic options “Is there anything beyond what is in the job description that I need to keep in mind when applying?” And “What aspects of my CV do you recommend I stress in my application?”

The goal is to use the conversation to introduce yourself and to tailor your application.


Name and cite specific figures/results of related work Currently I am writing a paper and would like to cite specific things in the related work section of other papers.

For example:

  In figure 4 in name of the related work [\cite] you can see distortions after applying equation 8 of [\cite]. XYZ et. al. have stated this appears due to ...

Would this be legit?

Basically I do not need the most stuff out of this paper which I want to cite, just this one figure, equation and their explanation why this happened. The main research in that paper is irrelevant for me.

It's quite normal to site specific parts of a reference. Pointing at a figure is very much like citing a large block of text. It is legitimate.


Is there any evidence of a benefit to students answering questions in front of the whole class? In my programming tutorial, I often ask a question to the class along the lines of "what is my next step?" or "should I do X or Y?".  In previous years I've had lots of student participation, but this year I get nothing.  I've adjusted my tactics accordingly - I no longer ask the class for a response.  Instead, I propose a practice problem, give them a short time to answer it on their own or with peers, and then show my answer to the problem.  Usually, students will ask questions about my approach at this stage, but very rarely will they offer insight into how they thought they should be solving the problem.

I had the feeling that the students didn't like my tutorial (or me), so I asked for and received anonymous feedback from them and it turns out they think it's great, with only a few helpful suggestions for how I can be more effective.  So I wonder, is there any actual benefit to asking questions for students to answer openly in class, or is that just a recipe for awkward silence?

There is an actual benefit of asking questions for students to answer openly in class, even so most of the times it definitely is a recipe for awkward silence.
There is a list of ten benefits from "Uses for Participation." (The Teaching Professor, 23.9, 2009, 4)
Personally, I think the benefits 9 and 10 are most important:

Participation can be used to develop important speaking skills [...]

Participation gives students the opportunity to practice using the language of the discipline [...]


How to more effectively read papers? I just started my Ph.D. and am trying to participate in a couple reading groups. Often, these groups will cover 2–4 papers a week. Upperclassmen seem to have no issue staying up-to-date and informed, but it typically takes me 2 hours minimum to digest a paper and probably something like 3–4 hours to really start grokking the equations. How can I read papers more efficiently?

I assume part of the answer is just practice. After a while, I will get faster. But are there any habits I can form now that will help?

Simply continue reading papers and going to your reading groups.  When you first start graduate works (which includes reading papers), it feels overwhelming.  When you first start, 2 hours isn't uncommon.

A couple of things I learned about reading papers

1) Quickly read through each paper first (to get an idea of what is presented), then read it more carefully.

2) Print it and write questions in the margins.

3) Give yourself a set amount of time to study each paper.  Once that time is up finish noting down things you do not understand and move on.  Bring your questions to the reading group.

4) By "upperclassman" I assume you mean students that have been studying for their PhD for a while.  If possible, arrange to read the paper with one of these more knowledgeable students.  They will be able to guide the inevitable self study you'll need.


How to cite authors with same surnames? How should I use in-text citation in case of one book from two authors with same surnames?
For instance; a source from Paul Ehrlich and Anna H. Ehrlich.
Which one is correct?

" ... " (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2015)
" ... " (P. Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2015)

" ... " (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2015)
  " ... " (P. Ehrlich & A. H. Ehrlich, 2015)
  " ... " (Paul Ehrlich & Anna H. Ehrlich, 2015)

Are all correct. The adopted reference style will dictate which should be used.


How can I tell if software solutions to my labs are posted online? I just had a student inform me that software solutions to my labs (I teach a course in microcontrollers using the ATmega328P) is available on Chegg. She was uncomfortable giving me any further details. She's a very trustworthy student and I don't have any reason to doubt the veracity of the information that she gave me.

I did a lot of searching and was unable to find anything relating to my labs. I searched for my class number, my last name, the name of the course, the name of the college, and didn't find anything. I even tried searching for strings of text that contain the problem statement for a couple (but not all) of the lab questions.

How can I confirm this?

You can't tell if solutions to your problem sets are posted online. The internet is HUGE and some things are hidden behind paywalls or other login forms.

But what you can do is:

design your own exercises and modify them enough each year to make it harder to re-use solutions.
quiz students about their solutions to (easily) find out if they did it themselves or at least understand the code.
wish your students good luck with their exams, where they will not have internet access.


Visa application for PhD studies Australia I want to commence my PhD studies in Melbourne as an international student. I have come to know that I need to enroll my child in australian school for submitting visa application via homeaffairs website.
Can anyone tell me any government or affordable school in melbourne?
Also tell how to submit my application for admission online for my 6-7 year child?
Please advice soon.

All state schools in Australia are free. Just enrol your kid in one that’s close to your house so that it’s convenient to drop them off.
Australian schools fall into one of three categories: state schools run by the state government, which are free (though they might charge a small enrolment fee), independent schools which might or might not charge their students for tuition, and Catholic schools which also may or may not charge tuition fees.