If someone doesn't have stellar grades in high-school, and in the bachelor's, does earning a PhD help much? If someone doesn't have stellar grades in high-school, and in the bachelors:

Is there really any possibility for him to work in the field of academia?
Does earning a Ph.D. help much, or is it just a waste of time in this case?

Check this out:

  Nobody in theoretical computer science cares where you got your degree. Really. We. Do. Not. Care. We only care about the quality and visibility of your results. Publish strong papers and give brilliant talks at top conferences. Convince well-known active researchers to write letters raving about your work. Make a good product and get superstars to sell it for you. Do all that, and we'll definitely want to hire you, no matter where you got your degree. On the other hand, without a strong and visible research record, independent from your advisor, you are much less likely to get a good academic job, no matter where you got your degree.

If people don't care where the applicant got his/her PhD, they are not going to care about high school or Bachelor's grades. Even outside of academia, it's a general rule that one's latest degree supersedes all the previous ones. Once a person earns a PhD, nobody cares about his or her Masters, Bachelor's, or high school results.

The real concern here is whether the person who didn't do well in high school and in the Bachelor's can still earn a PhD, but that is for a separate question.


Is grad school out of the question? I am a current chemical engineering student with a 2.8 GPA and two years research experience and one paper in the works of being published. Is being admitted into a chemical engineering or bio-engineering masters program an unattainable goal?

No, but you'll want to choose the institution(s) you apply to rather carefully, take great care with your application, and have some bang-up recommendation letters.

Before sending your applications, perhaps you'd like to take a little time to enroll in some upper level courses in your target field(s) as a non-matriculated student, hopefully with some excellent grades coming out of those.

The fall semester would be a great time to do that.


Defer TT start date before offer I'm currently halfway though my interviews for tenure-track computer science faculty positions in the US. I've been offered a really great postdoc opportunity. I want to take up the postdoc and defer the start date of my faculty position by a year.

The trouble is that the postdoc wants a definite answer from me soon and they have said that I should get approval from the places where I have interviews. I feel like it is premature to discuss deferring an offer before I even have one. Potentially it will look bad.

How do I delicately raise this issue with the places I am interviewing at? Or should I simply accept the postdoc and deal with the deferral problem later if and when it arises? I assume this situation is pretty common and someone can tell me how this is usually dealt with.

It's normal and good to tell places you're interviewing about any deadlines you face, that way they have the opportunity to move up their decision process in response.  If I were you I would tell the places you're interviewing something like

  I have a deadline to decide on a postdoc offer at location X by date Y.  If I accept their offer I would still be very interested in taking a job at your school with startdate of year+1.


Is it ethical to do paid literature searches of research journals for other students? Is it unethical to research journals for other students?

For example, a student is researching gifted students and their subsequent ACT/SAT scores.  Then:

Would it be unethical for me to research educational journals and give the student the title of articles that pertain to their research?
Would it be unethical for me to charge for this?

What would be unethical is for the other person to misrepresent work that you did as having been done by them, or for you to knowingly aid someone in such a misrepresentation. It’s important to credit people for the work that they’ve done.

There's nothing intrinsically unethical about the work you describe, or about charging people for it.


Naming of subchapters which deal with same topic in different case Is there any naming convention or strategy for subchapters, if they are about the same phenomenon but observed within a different case?

Let's say my structure looks as follows:

4.1 Usage of Software-as-a-Service
4.1.1 Usage of Software-as-a-Service at Company A
4.1.2 Usage of Software-as-a-Service at Company B

How should one select the titles for a thesis?

How should one select the titles for a thesis?

It is rather repetitive to use structures such as

 4.1 Usage of Software-as-a-Service
 4.1.1 Usage of Software-as-a-Service at Company A
 4.1.2 Usage of Software-as-a-Service at Company B

I suggest something less repetitive, e.g.,

 4.1 Software-as-a-Service
 4.1.1 Case study: Company A
 4.1.2 Case study: Company B


Importance of Variety for PhD Recommendation Letters I am a senior getting ready to apply to PhD programs in Applied Physics (I currently am located in and plan to attend grad school in the US). I am currently working a co-op at a large company in a small, very research-oriented and very academic group doing research that is directly applicable to what I want to study in grad school. The group lead and another researcher (both hold PhDs) have agreed to write letters of recommendation for me, and the third will be from a professor at my university.

Today I was told that it could be more beneficial to have only one letter be from the place I work now (Company A), as having two letters from the same place (but different people) could be seen as redundant. I do have a former employer from "Company B" I could ask (who does have a PhD), and the main work at Company B is tangentially related to what I want to focus on in grad school, but I feel that while the letter will be strong and positive regardless of who it comes from out of these, it could be more beneficial to have a second letter come from Company A. I say this because I have been here longer (15 months vs. 6 months at the previous company) and have therefore taken a larger role, everyone I work with now publishes regularly unlike at Company B where the work was more focused on R&D for product development, and both letter writers at Company A are well-connected in the field and more specifically this particular research topic. Additionally, I feel that the writers at Company A could comment more specifically on my research inclination, while at Company B it would be more focused on technical ability and hard work. Finally, I haven't been in touch with my employer from Company B, and while it would be straightforward to reestablish contact (and I'm sure they would respond positively), this could be considered a disadvantage.

My question is: Despite the fact that a second letter from the company I work for now could be slightly stronger compared to a letter from a previous employer, could having variety in my letters outweigh this?

Generally speaking, strength outweighs variety, with a caveat. If your two letters from Company A are both vary strong and they say different things about you, that's the way forward, especially if you think that the letter from Company B would be quite weak. However if both letters from Company A comment on your same attributes, discuss the same responsibilities and outcomes, and essentially tell the admissions committee the same thing twice, you are better off with the weaker but different company B letter.


What is the probability of rejection for a long-time-review in the revised version of a manuscript? At the January of the current year, I have submitted a paper to a high-rank math journal. After around 10 weeks review time and 4 weeks editorial time, a decision of reject-and-resubmit was made (1 minor revise, 2 major revise and one reject-and-resubmit were the decision of reviewers).

I answered the comments, which, in my opinion, significantly improved the paper in a than response letter with more than fifty pages. For example, I proved a set of new interesting theorems and lemmas in the revised version of the paper in answer to some of the comments.

From the submission of the revised paper, nearly 18 weeks have been passed, during which the paper is under the review. I wonder why such a long time is necessary for a journal which gives its reviewers just an 8-week reviewing time.

Does this mean that the probability of acceptance of my paper, is high or low? What is happening in the journal for my paper? I am very much dependent on this paper to finish my Ph.D., and for my job. I worked very very hard but unfortunately at a low-ranking university. Will they judge my paper by the rank of my university or my advisor (co-author)?

My supervisor urges me not to contact the journal editor for the decision about the paper since they may get angry and reject the paper.

My main goal is to sooner defend the thesis as I am under immense pressure. My university needs at least one JCR Q1 or Q2 paper to be able to defend the thesis and graduate.

As this may take more time, my main question is: what is your advice for me, assume rejection of this paper and work on a new paper? Or assume acceptance, or revise and work on writing my Ph.D. thesis? Since the draft of my thesis is dependent on this choice very much, this decision is very crucial for me.

What would you do if you were me? In other words, what is the probability of rejection for a long-time-review in the revised version of a manuscript?

In short: We can not tell. There are many influence factors to be considered.

Maybe the following thoughts help a bit:

Usually the same reviewer are evaluating a revised version of a paper. If one of those reviewers is late (due to whatever circumstances), one usually waits for them since they are much more competent in reviewing the revised version then a new reviewer would be.
If they still do not deliver, the paper might be moved to a new reviewer. They again have 8 weeks of time (even though one usually asks for a rapid response).

This sums up to 8 + ~4 + 8 weeks, which is 5 month. Add one month for the editor and you are at 6 month just for the review. With your 18 weeks I would say the paper is within a  time scale in which you don't have to become nervous.

I would recommend writing on your thesis since you did the work and it can be part of the thesis regardless of the acceptance of this specific journal.

If you don't have a response at the end of January (Christmas break for finishing reviews, Jan. for the editor), I would recommend to politely ask the editor about the status.


Contacted the head of a group I want to join, but she didn't reply. What to do now? An institution in New Mexico is offering a scholarship to people that want to join the institution, and I think I may be a good candidate. I contacted the head of the group I would like to join, with a long mail introducing myself, my work, and my passions, and what I could bring to the group. On her page in the Institution webpage is clearly stated that she is the person to contact for who wants to join the group.

Now 6 days have passed and she hasn't come back to me yet. What do you suggest me to do? I can find on the internet other people that work in the same group under her supervision. Should I contact them? Should I wait more? Should I write again?

I doubt she just found my professional figure uninteresting, as it really matches what they are looking for. Maybe my mail was too long, she put it aside, and forgot to reply? Should I write her again?

Is it maybe uncommon to contact directly the head of the group you want to join through a scholarship?

Thank you.

6 days is not a lot of time to wait. After 2-3 weeks I would send a short followup.

In general, long emails are bad. The advice I try to follow is keep them 3-4 sentences if I don't know the person and they aren't expecting an email from me. Give them the opportunity to either ask for more details or to setup a call.


What is the promotion rate of professors in United States? I'm writing an essay, and want to know the promotion rate and average duration from assistant professor to associate professor and associate professor to professor in recent years. Sadly I don't know the data for the US. Could anyone tell me?

The US National Science Foundation collects a lot of data from surveys of recent doctoral recipients that it publishes on this web page. The precise thing you are looking for (tenure success rate) does not seem to appear, but there is a lot of relevant information. Specific professional societies collect similar information. For instance, the American Mathematical Society publishes an annual survey of information on recent doctoral recipients; it includes data about the salaries and employment situation of recent doctoral recipients in the mathematical sciences.


Is it Worth the Risk of Going into Debt for a Masters Degree Versus a PhD? I realize that this sort of question has been asked before and I have read through some of the other threads but I figured I'd see if there are any more perspectives out there. I am currently a research embryologist for a small fertility clinic with a Bsc in molecular biology. I have about 2 1/2 years of experience and have been accepted into an Masters in Bioinformatics program. I am very excited to begin taking classes but l have recently begun second guessing whether I should have tried to get into a PhD program. I will not be able to continue working at my current job while I am in school so I will likely be paying for school with loans unless I'm able to find a job after I relocate.

Those of you who have Masters degrees, would you do it again or go for a PhD? From what I have found searching around the site many people say PhDs are more academically focused while Masters degree holders tend to find more positions in industry. Is concern over the cost of a Masters degree a good reason to consider a PhD instead or do most of you find you were able to offset your education costs with the job you eventually found? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance!

When I was studying for my MBA I also thought about this choice. However, a PhD is long and I was looking forward to working with my new-found knowledge sooner than a PhD would allow. For me, I prefer to balance practice with theory. That is, I did not want to wait for longer than I had to before being able to use my knowledge in the 'real world.'

That said, I'm now looking seriously at a PhD and I certainly do not regret my decision. I could work while I was studying during my MBA. Now, I do understand that one can take some time off during a PhD but I wasn't really looking forward to starting something which would likely require a break. I prefer the clean completion which the master gave me.

Since I could work while studying my MBA, finances were not much of an issue. The cost of my education was easily offset by the higher salary which came with the degree. The payback period (considering the increase in my income directly related to my additional qualification) in my case was less than 18 months.

It is a little different from your situation in that many people who study business for work in the real world do not go beyond an MBA. I will, but I also teach.

In short, I'm glad I got my MBA before pursuing a PhD.


Can I use map, fold, filter in publications? I have to write down algorithms in my thesis, and these are getting way shorter if I use "map," "fold," and "filter" heavily.

This generally results in a "map, fold, filter"-chain with a depth of 3.

Structure:

fold( map( ..., filter(...))...)

Is it okay to assume that these functions are known, and what is the parameter convention?

If you are writing to a computer science audience who would be expected to have a some knowledge of functional programming, then yes, these sorts of basic elements are quite reasonable to assume knowledge of.

If you are writing to an audience without such background knowledge, then you will need to explain what they are (and give a reference for more information) before you use them.


Why can't you get an E on a test in the United States? So, in testing in the USA, an A is the best score you can get. Then comes B, which most students desire, and then comes a C, where you're on the verge of shattering your gradebook by getting a bad grade. Then there's D (even worse), and an F, where you will surely be very ashamed of yourself. Then, there's this alphabetical pattern, A, B, C, D, and then F. But where's E? Why isn't there an E in it?
In an answer given, I want a historical explanation of this question that tells how these letter grades popped up, and why E dropped out (or was never included) in the USA.
Thanks in advance!

I haven't located a super reliable source, but from Slate:

The earliest record of a letter-grade system comes from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts in 1897. [...] The lowest grade at Mount Holyoke was an E, which represented failure. [...] One year later, administrators changed the failing grade to F and tweaked the other letters. The new scale offered better symmetry, since each grade represented five points, with scores below 75 resulting in failure. [...] Over the next two decades, variations on the letter-grade system spread across the country and into primary and secondary schools. It’s hard to put a date on the end of the E, but it was gone from most colleges by 1930. Apparently, some professors worried that students would think the grade stood for “excellent,” since F stood for “failure.”

Basically, four grades (and plus/minuses) and a fail option seemed to work out well from the instructors' perspective, and F was picked up for "fail."
Possibly the concern over "E" was affected by the ESNU system (according to an uncited paragraph on Wikipedia):

At one time (until roughly the mid-20th century), the most popular grading system in the United States used four letters, which ranked in descending order:

E (Excellent)

S (Satisfactory)

N (needs improvement; "NI" was also used interchangeably)

U (unsatisfactory)


Research statement for a fellowship application: should I introduce my area? I'm applying for a research postdoc fellowship in mathematics (I just finished my PhD) at a prestigious UK university. I've been told to write a research plan for what I intend to do with the fellowship. Unfortunately I have no idea who is going to be reading my plan.

Should I start off by introducing them to my area? My area is in evolutionary PDEs and professors in eg. number theory may not know anything about it. I was going to define a PDE and then quickly talk about my previous work and then my intended research work. Overall it's 3 pages at the moment.

You have to convince readers of two things:

The problem is important
You are qualified to tackle it

To that end, you should make the problem and likely outcome accessible to anyone, but your proposed approach can assume more skill.


How much experience should a teaching letter writer have with my teaching? When applying for academic jobs in the US, one is often asked for a recommendation letter from someone who can attest to your teaching abilities.

How much experience should the letter-writer have with your teaching? Should they have observed you teach multiple times? (In my present postdoc I will teach 3 courses per academic year, should I be inviting potential teaching-letter-writers to visit each course? Or perhaps a selection of undergraduate/graduate courses/seminar talks?)

Are the answers to the above different for postdocs/tenure-track jobs? Within tenure-track jobs, are they different for research-focused versus teaching-focused jobs?

I am personally in mathematics. I am assuming the answers will not be too field-dependent (please correct me if I am mistaken), so I left it out of the main body of the question.

In a situation where "teaching matters", there are two significantly different tangible assessment types: student evaluations, and peer (or supervisor) evaluations, not to mention the more extreme sort of commercial sites which have the systemic problem that the commenters self-select, typically with skewing to negative, even ranting reviews.

The aggregate response in university-organized end-of-term student reviews is useful, not necessarily as a gauge of whether you're a good/effective teacher, but whether the students are "happy". For that matter, successfully generating no "complaints" during a term is some kind of success. This does matter.

Peer-evaluation (occurring not at pre-arranged times, but unplanned, yes), or evaluation by your director of undergrad studies in your department, is the closest to what hiring committees might care about. In particular, if you are doing what your peers or "boss" think you should, it doesn't matter whether the students love you or not... as long as they're not actually unhappy.

(Indeed, our goal surely isn't so much to make students "happy" in a superficial way, as to achieve certain pedagogical goals.)

The attributes relevant to undergrad teaching, especially lower-division, are essentially unrelated to seminar talks and even to graduate-level teaching, since the objectives (and the frame of mind of the audience) are invariably very different.

Edit: a "teaching letter" that merely reports that the student evaluations were positive, or that there were no complaints, is positive, but cannot count as a "strong" teaching letter, I think. This is a special case of the weakness of recommendation letters of any sort that merely repeat facts not known first-hand to the writer. First-hand information is better, and, further, lack of a first-hand-information letter-writer is not a good thing...


Do "Online" CS/CSE masters programs add any value when applying for doctoral/PhD study? How much value do I acquire if I complete an online master's degree in CS and I plan to apply for doctoral study?

For example, Georgia Tech seems to offer an online master's program. Does this type program puts up anything to apply for a Doctoral program?

In short, if somebody wants to get a PhD degree in Computer Science, do Online Master's degrees aid in their ambition?

No.

Online MS degrees are necessarily course-based "professional" master's degrees, otherwise known as terminal master's degrees.

If you want to apply to a PhD program, you need to provide strong evidence of research potential.  If you are applying with an MS, you will be competing with applicants in research MS programs, who almost certainly have more research experience than anyone with a professional MS.

It is nearly impossible to get that research experience without direct face-to-face contact with more experienced researchers.  Even if you somehow learn to do research on your own, you still need recommendation letters that describe your research potential in specific and personal detail, and such letters are impossible to get without direct face-to-face contact with their authors.  If you want to become a researcher, you have to do it in person.


Co-author keeps delaying crucial part of paper I'm working on a paper with someone from a different institution. I'm first author.

The data analysis has been done, but there are several ways to interpret the result. I proposed a survey of the population under study as a way to distinguish between mechanisms and his first reaction was that he liked the idea.

I then came up with the survey and have done all the programming. My co-author knows the population involved (as he comes from there), so I'm reliant on his connections.

The problem is, he keeps putting it off, saying "next week, I have commitment X" (where commitment X changes according to week).

I've talked to various peers at my current institution (not involved with my study), and all agree a survey would be a good idea. So it's unlikely that a survey is bad in the first place.

There seems to be a hidden reason for why he keeps delaying the survey release (all he has to do is to ask his contacts to distribute the survey).

How should I approach him? I intend to tell him, basically, that I'm uncomfortable about this situation, that I have difficulty understanding the reasons behind the delay, and that if there are hidden reasons why he appears to be reluctant to roll out the survey, he should let me know. Is this is good idea, and is there anything else I can add?

I have been on both sides of that situation, so I know how frustrated you must feel.

However, the reality is that the number of "collaborative" research that fizzle out and never get finished due to lack of interest, willingness to actually do something, or time is a lot more than it should be. I could give you multiple stories from my experiences but I won't bore you with the details. Let's just say that there are over a hundred hours of my time sleeping in various people's desks and email accounts that will never come to fruition.

Your collaborator may simply be busy, or the worst case scenario is that he isn't able to actually deliver on what he promised and is stalling because they are embarrassed and/or don't want to admit to it (I've had this happen). Regardless of the reason, this is not a good situation, for both you and your collaborator.

Face-to-face and/or heart-to-heart conversations have resolved such situations (in one way or another) for me, but I can't say that it works for everyone. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try. Just let them understand you simply want to know whether the project is still alive or it's time for you to either find other ways to get the project finished or simply move on.


When do you consider the writing of a theoretical framework to be complete? As I am writing the proposal for my thesis, I am finding a lot of works to include in my theoretical framework with some items that take the spotlight because they are tied into my methodology. I'm doing an exploratory case study so many options are open and my topic potentially intersects a few fields. I am wondering, when does it become too much? When is it sufficient?

How should I decide what to include and what to skip when writing my theoretical framework? (in an exploratory study)

Short version: Ask your advisor.

Long answer:

It's hard to answer that, as we neither know your field nor your university. Furthermore, a proposal is not a complete thesis, so there might be also differences because of that, there might even be regulations at your university that a proposal can only have some fixed number of pages.

As you are looking for advice, here is one:
Make a list of all the topics you deem relevant. Write down which paper you want to quote, write down who you want to mention, etc. Don't turn it into a full text yet, only put short headwords. Then, take your list and ask around at your university. A good starting point would be your (potential) advisor, as he should know both the regulations at the university and the field you are working on. If you don't have one yet, everyone with experience in this two points (other professors, PhD students, etc.) will do - you might even use this to look around for an advisor in this case.

As professors are often busy, your best chance should be to write a short mail describing your problem and asking for an appointment to discuss the list in person. Thus, your email won't land in a "to long, handle later" folder, you will already establish a personal contact, etc.


Research statement ideas got used by interviewing committee Last year, I applied to a university which is in Europe so a research statement is a crucial part of the application. I was interviewed by two faculty members and then finally got a rejection letter.

In my research statement, I had a particular idea and described a roadmap for it, though I did not get into technical details. But the idea was there and clearly stated. Recently, I came across a publication where the title is the same as my idea (wording is a little bit different) and is co-authored by one of the members of the interview panel.

The publication has technical details which were not part of my research statement.
I believe there is no clear proof here whether my ideas got used or not.

My questions are:

Is this suspicious?
Is this valid and acceptable?

There is of course the possibility that the person you've accused actually had the same idea independently.   It's certainly suspicious, the moreso if when you were interviewed that person did not say "I like your idea and have actually been working on something similar".  I agree with the suggestion that you contact the chair and raise the issue, but be polite and nonconfrontational about it.  If you say "I think this guy stole my idea" it could be less effective than "I came across something similar to what I had proposed ... since Prof X didn't indicate he was working on this, I found it interesting that he published something so similar to what I proposed."

The thing to keep in mind is that it is a very gray area... this person might have come across your idea, forgotten about it, and later decided to pursue this idea without actually being consciously aware the idea came from your proposal.  And, you say much of the work goes beyond what you actually proposed.  So I think the chair should be informed, but I wouldn't expect much to come of it unless he's known as a repeat offender.


What could count toward financial requirements for UK student visa applications? Most people who apply for grad studies outside their country of residence are relying on scholarships for their tuition and funding for their cost of living through being research or teaching assistants at the universities to which they are applying.

Do scholarships count toward the financial requirements of UK student visa applications?
Do expected salaries from research or teaching assistantships count?

If expected salaries from assistantships don't count in the UK, how else might potential students be funded?

The only things that come to mind are:

Staying with relatives in the country
Being that rich (through parents' money?)
Loans for the first year

Which of those could count toward the financial requirements?

This can be found on the current guidance document issued by UKVI for student visas. The guidance explains the money can be yours or your parents and should be:

cash funds in the bank (this includes savings accounts and current accounts even when notice must be given); or
a loan letter (the loan must be provided by your national government, state or regional government, or by a government sponsored student loan company or be part of an academic or educational loans scheme); or
official financial or government sponsorship available to you.

It continues stating:

  Other accounts or financial instruments such as shares, bonds, overdrafts, credit cards and pension funds are not acceptable, regardless of notice period.

Of course, you should really make sure to look at the latest guidance document in full.


How common is it for submitted papers to have minor errors? I am going to submit a paper in these days. I dedicated to it a lot of time, and a lot of effort to check that all the theoretical results in it are correct. Anyway, I am still afraid of having written something wrong without even realizing it, as the deadline is very sharp.

So my question is: how common is in the academia to find submitted papers with minor errors? If there is a minor error that is not invalidating the results, will the paper be rejected, even if the content is considered interesting?

That's what peer review is there for: to tell the author about the minor, but correctable mistakes in the paper.

The way I see it is that, of course, I spend a lot of time writing my papers and making sure that everything is correct. But pragmatically, you will have to come to terms with the fact that no paper will ever be perfect. There comes a point where you just have to take the plunge, submit it, and hope for the best.


Should I list a submitted but not yet accepted conference paper in my resume for grad school applications? I'm an undergrad and will be submitting a paper to a conference soon, but it will not be reviewed until after grad school admissions are due. Should I and how would I note this on my resume?

There are similar questions to this but none are in context of grad school admissions as well as not yet accepted papers.

Yes, you should list it. It's standard practice in academia to list submitted papers on a resume or CV, and graduate applications are no exception.

Your CV should have a section for Publications.  For a paper which is submitted but not accepted, you just provide the authors, title, and the word "Submitted."

  M. Howard, L. Fine, J. Howard.  On a novel experiment in plumbing.  Submitted.

In particular, you normally do not list the name of the conference where you submitted.  (If it gets accepted, then you do list the name of the conference, and replace "Submitted" by "Accepted".  After it is published, you include the name of the conference and the volume and page number in the proceedings.)

If the conference allows you to post a public preprint, you should do so.  And if the grad school lets you submit a writing sample or something similar, the paper would be a good choice.

However, more importantly, if this grad school requires letters of recommendation, make sure one of your recommenders discusses the paper.  The mere fact that the paper was submitted doesn't give any evidence that the paper is any good.  So that is where your recommender comes in.  If you had a faculty mentor or collaborator on the paper, they would be a great person to ask for a letter.  If it was a solo effort, then try to find someone who knows you and who is an expert in the field who can evaluate the paper's quality.


Forum for discussing research paper I am trying to implement an algorithm given in a paper. I have some questions which I would like to clear out since implementation requires complete clarity on all the concepts/algorithms/arguments introduced the paper. I have contacted the authors of the paper multiple times(5-6 times) through mail but I do not receive any response and it's been close to a month now.

I would like to know if there is any forum/website in which a reader of a research paper can submit questions that he/she faces while reading it, which is also subscribed by the authors of the paper and authors of papers citing that in their reference section.

P.S.: This question may seem to be duplicate of:
Whom to discuss research papers with?

But in my case, I am not from academia and do not have any advisor/mentor sort of person to discuss paper with.

No, such a forum does not exist (even though it actually sounds like a reasonable idea in theory). The closest I can think of is the Questions & Answers section at ResearchGate, though to be honest I have stopped checking in there because most questions in my fields are simply not very interesting. Depending on your topic, you may also be well served posting in a topically appropriate Stack Exchange site.


Are the Newton fellowships (UK) prestigious enough to warrant low post-doc pay? I'm nearing the end of my graduate studies (1-1.5yrs remain) and have been looking out for post-doc opportunities. I came across the Newton Fellowships, which provide funding for up to 2 years of research work at any participating university in the UK.

The fellowship requirements seem very competitive — a full fledged project proposal and multiple independent evaluations of the said proposal, in addition to the usual requirements. However, in the end, the pay is about 24k £. They do have an 8k £ allowance for research related expenses, but that probably is reserved for publication costs, travel, computer equipment and not a personal allowance.

From my research into pay scales in the UK, the lower end of the post-doc pay scale begins at about 28-29k £. More over, there is no cost of living adjustments, so if you're in an expensive place like Oxford or London, it's definitely not sufficient.

This brings me to the question — is the fellowship prestigious enough to warrant the low pay? Does anyone have experience with this fellowship (past fellows)? Are there opportunities to supplement the income? Don't get me wrong here... I'm not in it just for the money. Like every academic, the research topic is more important for me. But at the same time, I do not want to be working for well below what's normal and have to severely pinch pockets to support a family.

Where did you get your idea that the lower end of the post-doc pay scale starts at 28 - 29k? Most sources I've seen gives 28-29 the average pay in 2010 and 2011, and the low end near 23 - 24. (High end 35). The numbers are a bit field specific (biology tend to be around 25 - 29 for first postdocs) so I don't know whether the national average applies.
According to the UCL webpage the Newton is tax free. Your stipend would fall into the 20% band were it taxable, so you should compare it to a roughly 30K starting salary for normal PostDocs.
At effectively 30K, the pay is extremely competitive for early career (read first time postdoctoral position) holders, provided you don't live in London. (Oxford is not that bad.) London allowance is usually worth around 3 - 4k, so if you live in London your pay would be comparable to the lower-end of a reasonable post-doc salary (with London allowance included).


Postdoc: internal v. external candidates. Can I expect a fair process? I have recently interviewed for a Postdoc position in a Scandinavian country, where the short-listed candidates have access to ranking and comments on how they were selected. I saw that the other person selected for the interview, already works there as a Researcher, probably on a temporary contract. Given the transparency of the process, I assume this would not matter much. However, it is human to be unconsciously biased and I have a fear that the professional intimacy shared by the candidate and members of the committee might not be in my favor.

The interview was really nice, a positive experience where I felt I connected with the committee, smiles were exchanged and my overall gut-feeling was that I could get the job. I can't help thinking, however, that I might lose over this detail.

Any thoughts and experiences?

EDIT: I do have another question, related to the selection process in Scandinavia: has anyone experienced a situation where 2 candidates are promising, and the PI or university opens another job or simply, they hire both? In my context, I know the PI has funding and could do this if they wanted. I wonder how common this is?

Nothing in life is certain, of course. Different places have different rules and different levels of actual adherence to the rules. Your concern that they may prefer a known quantity may well be balanced by their desire to bring in a fresh face. Different members of the search committee might have different preferences if they have any at all.

But it sounds from what you write that you are likely in a fair process even if that isn't a universal phenomenon.

But, in the end, they will choose the person who they feel is best for the position, based on whatever formal and informal criteria they have. You have no actual influence over that.

I'd suggest that you take a deep breath and also have a backup.


When should I register for an ORCID identifier? I plan on starting my PhD in a few years. Is there any particular time that I should register for an ORCID identifier? Can I do it now (still an undergraduate student), or should I wait for acceptance to a PhD program? Or, am I overcomplicating this and the time of registration doesn't matter?

This may seem like a basic question, but I couldn't find any information on the website.

PhD is not the requirement to get ORCID identifier. You will need it mostly when you are ready to submit your research work in journals. In my area of research (Computer Engineering) most of the journal has made mandatory to have ORCID identifier.


Does partnering with institutions that don’t offer graduate degrees meet NSF's broader impact criteria to work with “underrepresented groups”? A way to fulfill the broader impacts requirement of the NSF merit criteria is to integrate groups that are historically underrepresented in STEM fields into your research and outreach.  (I’ve listed the most frequently referenced groups below).  NSF indicates that one way to practically achieve this goal is to partner with academic and other organizations that serve these groups, i.e., by  “reaching out to Institutions with diverse research and instructional goals and practices, including community colleges, minority serving institutions, women’s colleges, and institutions for people with disabilities. “

In older literature circa 2008 there are also references to a role for partnering with “non-Ph.D.-granting institutions”, likely b/c schools that don’t offer advanced degrees give their students less exposure to advanced STEM research, and also can't expose students to the dynamics of graduate study.

I’m wondering if NSF has phased out this emphasis on collaboration with teaching-focused college or if it still exists.

Specific Underrepresented groups mentioned in NSF literature

Alaska Natives, Native Americans
Blacks or African Americans
Hispanics
Native Hawaiians, Other Pacific Islanders
Persons with Disabilities

Misc Notes:

There is evidence that Broader impacts related to underrepresented groups are one of the least common types of activities proposed: [How broad are our broader impacts? An analysis of the National Science Foundation's Ecosystem Studies Program and the Broader Impacts requirement].  (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/110106/abstract).
Blog commentary on the above paper:Broader impacts ≠ reaching underrepresented groups
An interesting blog post on how students from smaller college might be disadvantaged when competing for NSF pre-doctoral fellowships: "NSF Graduate Fellowships are a part of the problem"

I think the reason we want to increase representation of underrepresented groups is that they have the inherent potential for higher representation and achievement and just need some help getting going.

You can't say

  I decided to do recruit theatre majors to our math PhD program, because theatre majors are underrepresented in our program compared to math and science majors.

Theatre majors don't, as such, have inherent potential to do well in math. (Or if they do, some other example will serve to illustrate the point.)

So you'd want to make the case (or have the case already be clear*) that the institution not offering a graduate degree was serving students with inherent potential to do better.

*Regarding that, see @ElizabethHenning's comment below.


Is there any way to escape a terrible cumulative grade average? I am an undergrad student studying engineering at one of the top institutions in my country. Doing this degree was not my original plan and I came to it after I was unable to gain full financial funding to study at a prestigious music college overseas in the United States which I got into on a partial scholarship. Regrettably I entered this degree with the mentality that because this was not what I had originally wanted to do it didn't matter if I achieved highly or whether I just passed. I was there to get the certificate. I have what I consider to be a very poor academic record due to bad study habits which have led to me having to do several rewrites of exams despite walking in with decent predicates. At my university when a student does a rewrite the final mark is capped at 50% (We work in percentages and not GPA like in America) and so my academic record is littered with these 50% results for modules.

I am nearing the end of my undergraduate career and sadly only now after having failed a module for the first time last year have realised that a little bit of hard work before exams can actually produce really great results, and that I am capable of doing so when I set my mind to it. In the past year I've become more interested in my field of study and in my own free time have made considerable progress learning a particular foreign language. I recently found a postgraduate scholarship to study overseas in the country where this language is spoken. I think I would stand a good chance of getting it however the minimum requirement for application is 65% in previous studies. Masters programmes in my own country also require this 65% average in past studies. My average currently sits at 59% (equivalent an E in the US) and I have worked out based on my remaining modules that for all practical purposes it will be impossible for me to raise my cumulative average to 65%. In fact even if I get distinctions for all remaining modules I can at most raise my average to 61% (equivalent C in the US).

I know my abilities and that I have many fantastic qualities that would be desirable in a postgraduate environment however I feel that I've now somewhat shot myself in the foot for future studies due to very poor choices in my past. I feel like if anyone looks at my academic record they will only see my potential based on that cumulative average. Is there any way to escape a terrible cumulative average and to continue down a more academic path?

Perhaps something to look into are post-baccalaureate programs. I'm not sure about in your country, but in the US there are a handful of post-baccalaureate programs for students in your situation -- students who want to go to graduate school, but haven't performed well enough academically in undergrad to have a good application. The programs vary, but usually consist of a year or two of courses on a particular subject and a certificate is awarded at the end.

A friend of mine wanted to go to medical school, but she went to a very difficult engineering school for her undergrad, and thus had a low GPA and didn't get into any medical schools the first time she applied. So she did a one-year post-baccalaureate medical program, where she excelled academically, and then applied to medical schools again and got accepted.


Research Proposal topic for Master's I'm a Computer Science graduate and gonna apply for Masters this year. I was thinking about my research proposal (or rather a problem statement) to submit during the application process and I had a rather different problem in mind than the ones I see on internet. My topic is not based on a real life problem but rather about my musings of a fictional world (lets just say its an anime). So my question is, is it okay to submit a research proposal that doesn't address a real problem but rather entertains the musings of a nerdy fan, and how we can use machine learning / AI for that?

If it’s of theoretical interest, go for it. Maybe don’t tell everyone you meet that you want to do this because of the anime, but I also wouldn’t shy away from saying that it was inspired by something you saw on TV. Focus on the research problem first and the inspiration second and you’ll be fine.


does pursuing a research career in artificial intelligence requires deep understanding of higher mathematics? I'm currently enrolled in an undergrad computer science program. so far a Ph.D. in computer science is what I'm interested in doing in the future.
my question is.
 since there is applied math that includes calculus, linear algebra(without proofs), differential equations, intro probability...
and higher-level math such as abstract algebra, topology, differential geometry, linear algebra(with proofs), real analysis.
does being a successful AI researcher requires fluency with applied mathematics or a deep understanding of the more rigorous proof oriented abstract mathematics.

I believe it depends on the sort of research you want to do.

If your goal is to better understand machine learning models, then you'd benefit from a solid mathematics background. Mathematics is necessary to understand how models work, intuit potential improvements, and prove various properties about the models. Researchers that rely on a foundational understanding of machine learning models are typically trying to push the state of the art regarding existing problems; they want to solve problems more efficiently, with more accuracy, with less data, with more explainability, etc., than the current best solutions.

If your goal is to apply existing models to solve novel problems, then it won't be as necessary for you to have a strong math background. It will be more important for you to have a general understanding of how different models work and when you'd pick one over another. Researchers that don't rely on mathematics as heavily will often attempt to push our understanding of what machines are capable of, rather than trying to make the machine better at a known problem.

This is my understanding from my experiences in the field. Hopefully it helps.


Handling wasted time I'm 27 years old, currently doing a Master's course in eletrical engineering in Germany.
I have a problem with my mindset having to do with my past. When I was 16 I was strongly addicted and smoked weed every day. After finishing school I got involved with new friends and more drugs while doing an apprenticeship (training for a practical job in Germany). I struggled but ended somehow managed to complete it.
After that (at age 19) I started undergrad studies and things went downhill. Obviously partying and using drugs while studying is not the best combination. After 2 years I realized that something has to change. I changed my field of study and left all of my friends.
It took me about 2 years to regain focus and start learning.
I somehow started being highly motivated and performed very well. I also started an industry job while studying and did well there, too.
But now it hurts to see how much time I wasted. My colleagues are almost 5 years younger than me. I know that I can be proud of myself for achieving what I did, but I can't let go of these regrets.
My questions are:

How can I deal with these feelings?

Also, how should I discuss the wasted time in a job interview?

How can I deal with these feelings?

It certainly helps to put things into perspective. In the large scheme of things, 5 years are not much. In these times, it's not uncommon that people make radical career shifts in their 30s or 40s, starting from zero at a much later point in time than you do now.

Also, how should I discuss the wasted time in a job interview?

It's unlikely that this will be addressed, since employees generally care more about "what you bring to the company" than about your personal biography. If they do address it, you're in a comfortable position because you changed your study field. You can explain that you reoriented yourself towards the new study field because it better matched your interests, preferences, and strengths (and recognizing that took some time for significant consideration).
Don't mention the partying and avoid a "wasted time" mindset. A better mindset is that this earlier study period was valuable because it allowed you to recognize what you're good at.


Submitting to conference without intention to present I did a master's degree in computer science and wrote a thesis. I'm interested in submitting the work in my thesis to a second-tier conference in my research area -- if it is accepted, it will be a stamp of quality for my work.

Nevertheless, I'm not really interested in presenting the work in case it is accepted, because (i) I've moved on to a PhD somewhere else, and it would be troublesome to ask my former advisor for travel funding or presentation advice, and (ii) I've moved on to a different research area (still within the same broad area.)

Can I submit to a conference and choose not to present? If not, what can I do?

In many conferences, the work has to be presented in order to be included in the conference proceedings and considered published otherwise a submission, even if accepted, will be removed.

If you really want to have the paper in a conference you can submit it to one that a friend or colleague is attending and he can present your work for you. It is not an optimal situation and might be frowned upon by those attending the presentation, as realistically you cannot expect a decent Q&A session afterwards, but many of the conference organisers tolerate it and it quite a common practice in an environment with budget cuts or less travel money available.


Supervisor who accepted me for a research internship now says he doesn't know who I am I've been accepted in a research internship. However, after I sent an email to my supervisor asking about some details, he told me that he has no idea about who I am, and that maybe I've been exchanging with someone else. But the confirmation letter was signed by him.
I'm so confused, I'm afraid if I send more emails it would look like I'm forcing things. I'm really confused because I refused many offers to work in this lab. Any suggestions please?

I would send him the signed documents in e-mail, asking him if it was signed by him. His answer would shed light on things (he forgot he signed, he didn't read before signing, etc.)
But don't think that you're pushing things. An internship is important, and you already got a signed document and you need to know things to plan forward...


Is it worth registering for an innovations in medicine conference, being a CE student? I'm attending an "Innovations in medicine" conference but the registration fee is a bit high, I am a computer engineering student and the conference will have various technological topics.

Do you think that having the attendance certificate from the conference will be of any value in my CV, considering the fact that there are some chances I might work in medical technology in the future?

Full disclosure: I originally planned to go to medical school, but things happened and I received an MS in CS instead.

The question on whether you should attend weighs heavily on something you haven't clearly specified: how serious is medicine for you?

If you're just "Oh, I might do something medically related and want to attend" feel free to attend. However, unless you're actually studying biology or other related medical topics, this conference will not provide you very much besides being a CV stuffer.

Both medicine and CS alone are full-time education paths. If you're learning 10 CS courses for 1 intro to biology course, then I would say medicine is not really an associated topic of study. I would say, at the very least, you should have enough credits to have a minor in Biology or some other medically related field to indicate an actual understanding of the medical field.

If you are super-interested in the topic of medicine and feel that "Yes, this is what I want to do," then this is a program you should attend. You will meet people, make connections, and possibly end up doing research with them. The conference is a source of opportunities. You have to back up that dedication with actually learning biology, chemistry, and physiology. Like any set of study, learning medicine is a commitment.

That being said, medicine and computer science together tends to be more towards the Bio-Medical Engineering field. Or Bioinformatics, both of which are graduate-level programs as well. Plenty of things in these fields, like robo-surgery or automated diagnosis, and all great research-friendly topics. Electronic medical records software and clinical trials software, however, medical knowledge is usually not required and can be provided by people trained in the medical field.


What to write in "outline of research program" I am applying for a scholarship to support my final stages of PhD. One document required by the scholarship grant committee requires me to provide "Outline of the research program".

What should I write in this document? Note that I am almost done with my research and now I am almost finishing my thesis as well.

This depends on the purpose for which the scholarship is designed and also on who typically applies for it.

In either case you should describe both where your research has gone up to now and where it will go as you complete it, but the emphasis might be different depending on the intent of the scholarship. You should also say something about what you expect to explore after you finish the degree - problems yet to solve.

If the scholarship is intended for final stage support then the emphasis should be on the final stages and less (but something) on what got you to this point.

But if it is a general scholarship and is open to beginners as well as people like yourself, then describe the whole program from start to end, saying where you currently are in that process. In other words, more emphasis on the earlier stages than in the other scenario, but indicating that much of it is done.

Don't give the impression, however, that you are so close to the end that support isn't needed. Your entire degree is just a part of a "research program" that you can continue after finishing the degree.


Avoiding "First et al." If a paper has four or more authors, it is common to use the style "Firstauthor et al. discovered that the sky is blue.".

I do not like this style, as it is unfair to the other authors. In my field, authors are always listed alphabetically. So being first author is an accident of birth, rather than an indication of being the main contributor.

One option is to list out all the names, but this can be impractical. (A compromise is to list out all the names at the first mention, and then revert to "Firstauthor et al." when mentioning the same paper again.)

I often see no names used e.g. "[1] discovered that the sky is blue." However, this is bad grammar -- parenthetical citations should not be treated like proper nouns. (The passive voice is one way to avoid this issue. i.e. "It is known that the sky is blue [1].")

Is there a style that avoids these problems? Is it acceptable to refer to a paper by an acronym, as in "ABCD discovered that the sky is blue." or "ABCD [1] discovered that the sky is blue"?

I'm going to advocate for using the style "[1] discovered that the sky is blue," even though you dislike it for grammatical reasons. I don't think that citations written like this need to be considered as parenthetical comments - they are just references, and can be used in place of the authors' names. Sometimes I will also see "Ref. 1 discovered that the sky is blue," which at least avoids putting the citation at the beginning of the sentence.

I agree that using "X et al." for an alphabetical paper is often misleading, and even though people are aware of this, it is difficult to avoid that bias. I have seen, in related cases, people refer to, e.g. "work from the group of Y" to avoid this. However, I do not recommend this, as it attributes more importance to the supervisor's contribution, and it is very easy to misunderstand the roles of people on a given project. (This also intersects with seniority, gender, etc. - big shot authors are more likely to be credited in this way.)

Author names as an acronym also seems quite useful, but I've mostly seen them used in cases where either A) there is a paper or idea that is classic in the field, or B) a single paper is a subject of focused discussion, and is discussed in depth by many other papers. For an example of B, there is the AMPS "firewall" paper in physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_(physics) - they are also not compatible with giant author lists more common in some fields!


Leaving a postdoc after 3 months (for another) I accepted a postdoc position after a short interview by Skype and I haven't had the chance to get to know the people and the city. Anyway, my PI helped me to get my visa (EU - researcher) issued and, currently, I'm already working on the project with some good preliminary results.
BUT
I hate the city, I'm sure it can never be a home. Also, and I'm having some serious problems with another postdoc, which I need to work with because our projects are connected (he's sexist; gave me a wrong protocol to follow and I have lost time and samples; he doesn't leave me alone to work, slows my progress and is always criticizing my project and my experimental approach in not a good way).
I know it will cost me my health if I stay the agreed time (1 year, at least) and I have already landed some other postdoc interviews to work on better places (better places, with nicer people) and I believe I have good chances to get the job.
But, with the visa issued and being my current PI a really good researcher and person, I'm afraid it will look pretty bad on my CV and I don't know how to explain it if someone on the interview asks about it.

I don't have a contract, I never signed anything for the fellowship, it's a normal procedure to have just a spoken agreement; Also I haven't received the payment yet because I still don't have a bank account because of the bureaucracy.

Since I really wish to stay in academia for quite some time what I should do? Tell that I cannot stay till the end of the agreement? Tell about the other possibilities? I'm lost here, the truth is that I never taught it could happend.

If you believe you can handle the bureaucracy quickly, so as to get paid, do that. Depending on the local culture (Europe is not very homogenous), this might involve calling people and going past the official channels, or just doing everything you are required to do and waiting.
After having secured the payment, or immediately if you think it would take too much time to get the payment, talk to your supervisor about the situation. Your goal is to exit the situation so that your current PI understands and accepts it, so that they will be available for recommending you later. If this turns out to be too difficult, then your goal is to exit with as little damage to your reputation as possible.

If you judge your PI to be a reasonable person, just tell them that you are having difficulties with another postdoc, and try to give a fair and reasonable explanation. Also tell that you do not feel at home in the city. If they are a good person, they will understand, you can try to find the best possible solution in an unfortunate situation. The group dynamics in their research group are their problem and they can do something about it. The nature of the city cannot be helped.

If you have not tried talking to the other postdoc, you might also try that, if you have the courage. Something like "Thank you for helping, but I can do this by myself; could you, for example, do [other part of the project] so we would get results faster?". Or simply telling them that their behaviour is bothering you; check, for example, "nonviolent communication" with your favourite search engine, or maybe parenting books, for relevant advice. Tell factually what happens and how it makes you feel, and ask for concrete actions or how the other person thinks the interaction could be improved. Do not blame. Stick to facts, as much as possible. Do not attribute intention, attitude or sexism to the other party, as this will not help your cause, even if it is true.


Paid for article in OMICS journal I submitted an article to one of the OMICS journals and also paid for it only to find out they are a predatory journal. article not yet publish. Any advice what I should do?

It can't hurt to try to withdraw the article and get your money back.  You can send an e-mail and request this, but they may not agree.  Once you have signed the publication agreement and paid, they are legally allowed to publish the article even if you have changed your mind.  I can't predict the likelihood of success, but you can't make the situation worse by asking.

You might want to withdraw the submission even if you don't get your money back, to avoid having it appear in a place that could damage your reputation.  If you ask them before publication, then they ought to agree to this.  (They aren't legally required to, but I don't see why they wouldn't if they can keep the money.)  Of course I wouldn't request this until you've found out whether they will refund some or all of the money.  Leaving them with the money would  be frustrating, but you may not be able to get it back, and a publication in a predatory journal won't help you.  It's better to be able to submit it somewhere else.

After publication, they shouldn't just remove the paper from the academic record.  You could ask them to retract it (which would leave a retraction record), but they might not agree to this if there's no problem with the paper, and it would be embarrassing in any case.  Once the paper has been published, you best bet may be to accept it and move on.


Is writing a grant proposal at the end of Ph.D. a good idea? I will be getting my Ph.D. in computer science in several months, from a US university.

Over the course of my research I have stumbled on a number of interesting directions that I didn't have time to pursue.

Now that my Ph.D. is coming to an end, and I will be leaving (hopefully for a postdoc), I was wondering if it's a good idea to put some of these research directions into a grant proposal with my advisors?

My questions are:

Is this a good idea, especially given the fact that I will not be affiliated with my current institution anymore?
Is this a good career move, at this point, or should I postpone this to another time?

Writing grant proposals with your supervisors is great experience and good for your career.  Writing in partnership with more experienced researchers is a great to to get "apprenticeship" experience and to become introduced to key funding agencies, program managers, and the expectations and practices in interacting with them.  Moreover, even if you move on before the grant is funded, you may find yourself able to work on the project via a subcontract to your new institution or else to help supervise students on the project from afar (I certainly had this experience).

Thus, if there is a good opportunity for doing collaborating with your supervisors on grant-writing, I highly advise doing so.


Returning to academia after a year in industry I need an advice about returning to academia as a visitor/post-doc after working for a year in finance.

I finished my PhD in summer 2013 with a good record of publications (3 papers in high impact journals). Both my bachelor and PhD were in applied mathematics and theoretical physics. Towards the end of my PhD I felt burned out and was unsure if I want to continue the same line of research.

Furthermore, almost all my colleagues who finished their PhDs around the same time struggled to find positions and all moved overseas, which was not an option for me at that time.

During this time a have kept in touch with my supervisor and colleagues. I also kept reading and searching for new interesting ideas. Recently I started to feel enthusiastic again and full of fresh ideas.

My question is do you think it is acceptable to approach my supervisor/colleagues and ask for a position and what is the best way to go about this?

Sure, why not? What you write makes me think that you could tell them exactly the way you tell it here: Being recovered from the PhD and full of fresh ideas.

It is not unheard of that PhD students need to recover from the PhD by doing some different kind of work for a while (such as a couple of years in industry, I've even heard of running a store in a completely different retail sector).
Personally, I think that it should be taken as a warning sign if this happens regularly. However, that consideration doesn't have anything to do with your position, but I think it is worth while remembering when you enter the side of PhD supervisors.

Regardless of how much enthusiasm you've gained back I think it would be a good idea to sit down and recall what exactly drove you away and what caused you feel (close to) burned out - in order to avoid getting there again. I somehow think it unlikely that a postdoc position would be more calm than a PhD.


Should I emphasize certain traits in my CV for master's application? Should I modify my CV to emphasize certain traits before including it in my application for a master's degree or just include my usual professional CV?

An academic CV typically contains items you wouldn't want to list in a professional resume, such as a complete publishing history. Your resume may list as a bullet point that you are published, but they don't want 20 pages listing each publication, for instance. So, yes, your academic CV should be different.


How should I ask a potential advisor why they haven't published in the last 3 years? I'm using a throwaway account for privacy. I know professors are human beings and "I can just ask", but, as this is the start of the relationship, I don't want to seem rude - or to seem that I am interviewing them. This potential advisor has published papers in top journals before, but nothing for the last 3 years.

I know this question is related: PhD with a supervisor who has not published anymore since 2014, but this professor is quite young, so the situation is different.

I think that if I ask them about "their current research interests" they will just talk about the current project that is about to begin - without addressing the issue I'm interested in.

Instead of a question that might be insulting, you should probably ask them what they've been working on for the past few years. You need to know that in any case and their answer might give you the reason that they haven't got anything out recently. There may be a lot of work in progress but not yet ready. That sort of thing can actually be an advantage to you and knowing what it is, certainly is.

But if their answer indicates not much research, then you might want to keep looking.

By the way, this is a topic for a sit down conversation, not just an email. The latter might work, but would require more work from the prof and so you might not get as complete an answer.


How should I present awards I won as a co-author in my resume? I'm a co-author on a project. The project has been presented at 2 conferences and won 2 awards. How should I present this information on my resume?

You are pretty free to format your resume as you like. If you list the publications in the publications section you can also refer to them from the awards section noting that it was joint work. Depending on your field, conference presentation could be worth a lot, or not. In Computer Science, they normally have high value.

But in the awards section you could say something like "Optimal Widget Factorization listed above was awarded the Best Paper award at CCCSC, 2017"

There are a number of other ways. One would be to footnote the paper in the publications listing with a footnote naming the award or even listing the award in parentheses in the listing itself.

Don't worry too much about how you do it, just so you don't give the impression there are two things when there is only one.

I'm assuming that it was the paper that won the award, as opposed to the individuals who wrote it. That would be the standard thing.


Is it ethical/lawful to recolor/scale the logos? Is it ethical/lawful to recolor/scale the logos when importing them to presentation slides to make the logos meet the template standards and fit the theme colors?

Logos are often trademarked, and therefore you are not free to recolor them according to whatever color scheme your template happens to use.

However, many companies and universities do have multiple versions of their logo available, for precisely this reason. You should contact your university's (or organization's) press office (or similar office) to see what is available, before toying with it yourself.


Tracking reading progress of documentations or ebooks Challenge: I need to read a lot of documentations and websites, but often in random order. I need to track which articles of a website, or which pages of a documentation I already read. I want to mark pages as complete after reading, and read nothing twice.
So far I found no efficient tracking method. Copy-pasting urls to a text editor works for small sites, but with deep hierarchies it gets messy. For example, reading all github docs would be hard to track because of it's deep hierarchy.
I highly appreciate any hints for Apps, Browser extensions or creative solutions.

If you read some page again, it presumably is because there are points you forgot/didn't get the first time around.
Who says you have to read all of it? Presumably you have some specific interest(s) in the subject matter, it is OK to just concentrate on the few documents that go to your points, work through them thoroughly, and at most skim over the rest.


Abbreviation of "number (of)" in a table heading In a table, I would like to use abbreviate the word number. The column heading is namely:

  Number of items

In what is the correct abbreviation for the word “numbers”? both "No" and "#" are suggested as abbreviations.
The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.) in §10.43 also suggests "No".
However, I am not sure these abbreviations are meant to be used with cardinal numbers.

Question: What is the correct abbreviation of number in this context?

My suggestion would be to use #. The hash symbol is commonly used this way; in mathematics it's even used to denote the cardinality of a set, i.e. the number of items in a set.

Having said that, I think abbreviating it as No. is perfectly clear if your usage is along the lines of No. of x. If you think your audience will be more familiar with one of the two, go for that.


Can I submit a paper years after finishing my graduate studies? I completed my Masters of Science in September 2014 after over 2 years of work. My supervisor wasn't particularly helpful or supportive of the project since he seemed close to retiring and also most his money was dedicated to other fields of research. However, the field I studied in was my passion and I did it anyways.

Right after my graduate studies, I found a job in the private sector and at the same time I started working on a paper because I felt it needed to be done and I thought it would be important for my career. When I sent my draft to my supervisor, he would submit his feedback weeks to months later, and it was usually something like "It's too long". So I did the edits, sent it back, waited 2 months again for his comments, and so on. In Spring 2015, I abandonned because I could never finish it at this pace, even though most of it was done. His last comment was "Some more analysis could be necessary" even though it didn't seem necessary for the thesis.

Now, it's been 2 years, I haven't touched it since then, but I still feel I should submit the paper anyways. Here are my questions:

His is too late for me?
If I send the paper for review, do I need to put my supervisor as secondary author?
If my supervisor is secondary author, do I need to notify him? Could he refuse?
If reviewers demand that further analysis is required, is it game over for me? I did most of my work on a supercomputer and my account has expired.

Two years is a totally plausible length of time before submitting a paper.  You'll need to update your related work section, but if the work is still novel and interesting and hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed venue, it's entirely reasonable to do so.

You will need to deal with your supervisor, however, as they most likely should be a co-author on the strength of their contributions to shaping the research project.  In general, submitting a paper requires the consent of all of the co-authors, and your supervisor will need to either consent or take their name off of the paper.  Most likely, however, they are correct that it needs more work, and you'll need to figure out either how to get the feedback that you need, from them or from somebody else.

Finally, involvement of your supervisor could be a very good thing in case more work is needed, as they may be able to restore access to resources or bring in an extra author who can help, if your work simply cannot be done on commercial cloud resources.  If it can be done with cloud resources, of course, you may be able to do it yourself.


Should student or supervisor be corresponding author for publications based on student research? Papers published from an academic project (MSc or PhD) usually have two authors; the first author is the student who mainly conducted the research, and the second author is the professor who supervised the projects.

The corresponding author is the one who take the responsibility of a paper, and thus, some believe that students are not yet prepared to take this responsibility.

Ideally, who should be corresponding author for papers published by MSc or PhD projects?

I understand that it mainly depends on personal agreements and preferences, but I want to know which case is more reasonable from academic logic?

"The corresponding author is the one who take the responsibility of a paper". I've never heard this before. For example: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2010_04_16/caredit.a1000039 says "The corresponding author is the point of contact for editors, readers, and outside researchers who have questions about the contents of the paper. Often, the corresponding author is also the last author, but she or he may be listed first or even in the middle of the author list."

All authors take responsibility for the paper (or should). The point of the corresponding author is who to contact if you want to correspond about the paper. If this were someone who was likely to move institution (because they are finishing, or have finished their study), they are going to be hard to contact, so make it someone who's likely to hang around for a while. I've never seen anyone take any notice of who the corresponding author is.


How should I cite two different translations? I want to cite in MLA style two different translations of Alcestis by Euripides. However, I’m mostly citing one the content of one translation, not “the translator’s comments or the choice of wording”, although I do that, too.

Here are the works in question:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10523
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0088

Cite each translation where you use it, just as you would if they were different works.

To ease any confusion on the part of the reader, however, it would likely be a good idea to also:

In your introductory material, note that you are using two different translations and why your are doing so, and
Call attention in the prose when you use the unusual translation, and why you have chosen to use that one instead in this circumstance.


What qualities are organizing committees looking for in a reference letter for a summer school? How would you write a reference letter for someone who is applying to a summer school intended for Ph.D. students/postdocs? The summer school only lasts for 3 days up to a week and I am curious as to what qualities and traits the organizing committee is looking for in participants. Do the participants have to be able to think very fast, for example?

What skills are sufficient to be able to participate in a summer school successfully? I am writing a reference letter for someone who is relatively new to a field and is interested in doing research on topics relevant to the summer school. The student has more or less the prerequisite knowledge needed for this summer school if that's worth mentioning. Also, the student is seeking for funding so I want to be serious about this letter.

From where I'm from, there weren't many opportunities for summer schools so I would appreciate your suggestions.

Thanks!

I once served as secretary for a summer school like this.  I wasn't directly involved with reviewing applications (this was the scientific organizer's job), but from conversations with him, my understanding was that the recommendation letter was intended mainly to verify that the student is a real person, is genuinely working in the field, and is at an appropriate level to gain something from the summer school.  Other than that, admission was not competitive (something like 90% of applications were accepted) since we didn't have any particular space constraints.

I believe there were a few "junk" applications from people who were not grad students, or were in unrelated fields, or otherwise didn't seem likely to benefit from the summer school.  Some may have been confused about the summer school's target audience, or were cranks, or were not in the field but were trying to use the summer school as a way to get a visa to our country.  The recommendation letter served to filter out these applications.

(We also had some travel funding available, but it wasn't competitive either.   The funding came from our government and would only let us fund our country's citizens and residents, so we essentially just divided the available money equally among all eligible participants.)

So I would say the letter should include:

Obvious stuff: student's name, your name, institution, fact that you are the student's advisor (helps if the institution is well known, and/or if you are known to be working in this field).
Brief description of what the student is working on (e.g. thesis topic).
Explanation of why the student is interested in the summer school.  If it is not obvious, explain how the topic of the summer school will be relevant to their research.  If there are specific connections, mention them.  ("One approach to Student's problem involves reticulated splines, so he/she is particularly interested in Professor Foobar's lecture at the summer school."  "Student has been recently studying Professor Barqux's papers on cromulent blobs.")
How far along is the student (just started in the program, several years in, about to graduate?).
Do you believe the student is adequately prepared for the summer school, in terms of background knowledge?  If your program offers basic courses in the relevant field or subfield, has the student successfully completed them?  Give some assurance that the lectures won't be way over his/her head.
If you think the student is especially strong and their work is particularly promising, you could say so.  But I don't think the organizers are looking for a detailed account of the student's academic strengths and weaknesses, or comparisons with other students.


What is the best way to publicize the existence of a fraudulent journal? Earlier this year, I was anonymously informed of the existence of a fraudulent journal, Reactive Oxygen Species.  When I investigated, I found that the "Editorial Team" of "international experts" consisted of three rather unlikely names -- middle initial Z -- and on further investigation, I found that none had any internet presence whatsoever that was not connected to the journal: they were fictitious.  The Editorial Board had 280 members, though the journal had only published about 150 papers in its history. A large fraction were from minor institutions in underdeveloped countries.  In fact, I joined the Editorial Board myself simply by registering on the site.

It turned out that the journal had an "Honorary Editor".  Coincidentally, his name was on 20+ of the 150 published papers, and his wife's name was on another 20+.  He even co-authored papers with the fictitious editorial board members.

The journal is owned by a for-profit corporation registered with the North Carolina Secretary of State.  The address of record is the Honorary Editor's home address, and he files the annual reports.

I am aware that this scholar is the subject of an ethics investigation at his home institution.  However,   even if he is dismissed as I hope, he will be under no pressure to dismantle the journal.  The journal very clearly claims to be peer-reviewed, and there is the obvious danger that honest scholars may rely on the research.  There is also a danger that legitimate authors will continue to submit and publish papers to their own future embarrassment.

In addition, he (or someone) has recently removed the fictitious names and his own from the masthead, probably owing to the investigation (not COVID-19.)  He is now advertising for applications for Editorial Team positions.  It turns out that even the position of Honorary Editor still exists and is open to applicants.  There is some danger that a naive assistant professor somewhere will see an opportunity for advancement, when it is just the opposite.
It might seem fanciful to think that anyone would fall for this, but he and his wife have held NIH grants, and he holds adjunct appointments at four or five institutions.

So my question is: what should I do to let as many people as possible know not to rely on papers in this journal, not to submit papers, and not to involve themselves with the journal in any way?

Send it to one of the successors to Beall's list of predatory journals. Their websites:

Cabell’s whitelist/blacklist: commercial, subscription required for access, but accepts listings
Stop Predatory Journals: open-access, crowdsourced via Github, successor to the now-defunct ScholarlyOA site
Beall's original list: now being maintained by an anonymous European postdoc


How can you get paid to do research when you are retired in the UK? I am retired but still actively publishing.  I would, hopefully understandably, like to be paid to do this research.  Is there some way to get a grant to pay you a salary in this situation?  I don't believe a UK university will hire someone my age as a full-time employee.

One option is to become someone's postdoc but this doesn't seem ideal given the way the postdocs are managed by universities these days.

  Is there another option?

Establish yourself as a freelance expert consultant (plenty of online advice to do this), and find the right clients interested in funding your research.


Is it ethical for the postdoc to be listed as a co-author and the corresponding author on all group publications? Is it the usual practice in your discipline for the postdoc in the group to be placed as co-author as well as a corresponding author on all publications that are written by the PhD students in the group?

For some publications, the postdoc provides input and advice, and for others none whatsoever. The reasoning behind this practice is that the postdoc needs publications for his academic career. However, the PhD students that do 95% of the work in some cases, are the only ones able to answer scientific questions. As a consequence, emails are prepared for the postdoc by the PhD students, and sent out under the name of the postdoc.

Is this a standard practice in your field of research?

I come from a field that is rather (let's call it) pragmatic about co-authorship, and I have never heard of a postdoc automatically being a co-author of papers. Sure, sometimes the input of the postdoc is not extremely large, but having a postdoc as a default co-author of each paper irrespective of contribution seems very uncommon to me.

  The reasoning behind this practice is that the postdoc needs publications for his academic career.

Who cares? The same is true for you. If he cannot write papers himself or actually advise students that write good papers (not the same as just being on a paper without contribution), he should not be able to progress his career.

  As a consequence, emails are prepared for the postdoc by the PhD students, and sent out under the name of the postdoc.

That's ridiculous. Don't do that (either for a postdoc or a professor). If they are not able to answer questions about a paper, they need to at least be honest enough to defer to the person that can. Pretending like the postdoc is the real brain behind a paper is certainly not ethical.

  Is this a standard practice in your field of research?

Nope. Never heard of that, and Applied CS is certainly not a field that is well-known for its die-hard adherence to ethical guidelines re: co-authorship.


Paper citation and search on google I submitted a paper (Privacy-Preserving Smart Parking System Using Blockchain and Private Information Retrieval) on arXiv two weeks ago, and whenever I search on the paper using
google scholar, it shows me another paper (mobile information retrieval) which
published in 2017.

Could you please help to fix this problem?

It shows up correctly in a general Google Search. I think you just didn't wait long enough for the indexing behind the scenes.


Extremely stressed person I have a classmate who is extremely stressed up. He has a 4.0 GPA and is an exception student. But seems like he is pushing himself way too hard and this is very obvious if you talk to him. He is very frequently showing up awake the entire night.

He doesn't have any heath issue (at least he says so) aside from overworking himself and missing sleep constantly without taking any breaks the entire year.

Will professors give a great recommendation letter to such a student? Won't they be concerned about his ability to handle stress in the long term? Talking to him makes you wonder how long it will take him to collapse.

I do not think professors will take his personal life into consideration as long as he has great academic performance or social skills if needed for whatever he is trying to get reference letters for.


PhD with no prior research experience, how? I am an IT post graduate (with no thesis but project) from IT industry and I have practical experience of about 10 years in the industry. I want to carry a PhD research in a subject related to IT field. Practically and theoretically, I know the subject very well, but I don’t have any prior real research experience or any publications. But I have studied some theoretical subjects on research methodologies, statistics etc. during my university learning. But I found that most the universities have “research experience” as prerequisite or requirements to start or to be eligible for PhD research.

So, what can I do to fulfill that? (Off-course other than doing another research just to be eligible). Any ideas or suggestions?

Is there any chance of getting accepted without prior research experience? Should I keep on trying(esp in US and Australia)?

I have seen some doing PhD after their undergrad. I have master degree and I am confident that I will be able to manage things with in those 3-4 years as it’s not that I don’t research at all. It’s just that I don’t have something to show now.

Any suggestions?

Yes, In the UK, you can get accepted to a Ph.D. based on Bs.c. or Msc diploma, with no publication records.

I can answer this, because computer science is my field, and saw many people like you doing research here in the UK.

Background Work

Ok so you want to do a Ph.D. with a postgraduate degree which is on the practical side of things. That is totally fine; however you need to do some work before finding a supervisor. In essence there are three types of supervisors in the field of computer science:

Know it All: There are number of impressive supervisors, that know both the theoretical and practical side of computer science. These supervisors publications on both theory and practice (e.g., code generation, language design). This is the best kind of supervisors to have because they can bridge between theory and practice; and can navigate you through both theory and practice.

Theory-Oriented: They use Latex to create their papers/journals/books. They have no idea what so ever about the practical stuff. God forbid you ask them about JVM internals. They can still be useful, because you are covered the practical stuff; and they can help you through theory. However, they have no appreciation about how hard it is to make something work in practice. Also, they might not the best people to link between theory and practice.

Practical-Oriented: There are much fewer number of supervisors, that for example transferred from electronic engineering into computer science. They know very practical stuff (e.g., embedded system programming, active on developing Erlang application for telecommunication purposes); however for you these are the worst choice. Because, you have the practical background (so don't supervision on practical stuff), but because you need to introduce theory into your research they can't do much in helping you. So you end up wasting number of years just because for example your supervisor don't know game theory.

So overall look for their publications and the track record. How much open-source software they produce. How much theory-oriented paper they publish. These are the things that you will curse yourself later on during Ph.D. if you didn't think it through.


Publishing with APS open access with a CC-BY license on a preprint server This is a follow-up on these two questions:
When can I safely use CC-BY license on arXiv? and
What arXiv CC licenses are compatible with American Physical Society publishing?

From the answers to these questions, it seems that it is not possible to publis an article that is already on a preprint server (in particular arXiv.org) with a CC license in the American Physical Society (APS).

However, in Physical Review Letters (PRL), it is possible to publish open access (by paying a higher fee), and in that case APS use the CC-BY license. This license is also available for posting on arXiv.org.

My question therefore is: If an article has been posted on a preprint server using the CC-BY license, will APS accept it for publication in PRL, either using their normal "Transfer of Copyright" (I guess not), or open-access? It looks to me as if it should work for open access, because the license under which APS would publish the article is exactly the same under which the article was posted on the arxiv.

I got a reply from APS on this issue. My question was:

  We accidentally chose the CC-BY 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ for our arXiv preprint of a manuscript submitted for publication in Physical Review Letters instead of the standard arXiv license.

  Does this license conflict with the standard Transfer of Copyright
  agreement? If so, is it possible to instead choose the option "Retain
  copyright and complete the Creative Commons publication agreement"?

  As far as I understand, the second option should work, since APS would
  publish under the same CC-BY 4.0 license as we used for the arXiv
  submission. Is this correct?

APS answered:

  Choosing a CC-BY-4.0 license for your arXiv submission does
  not conflict with choosing the standard Transfer of Copyright
  Agreement for submission to an APS Journal.

So in short, you can use a CC-BY-4.0 license for your arXiv preprint and still publish the manuscript in PRL under the usual conditions (i.e., not open-access).


What should I recommend for a foreign student with problems on the country language? Later this week one of my undergrad classes have their first written test and one of the students is not from my country, and he said he's been having some problems both understanding my lectures and the recommended book

And now he desperatedly sent me an email asking for advice on what to do.

The thing is: I don't know what to recommend either... I never have this case before...
What could I indicate/advice him that would help?

He needs to improve his language skills fast...

When I studied in France (and this was engineering, which means a different vocabulary), we watched tv, worked with our French colleagues (ie other students), we helped them with English and they helped us with French... Total Immersion was what we practiced - limiting our use of our mother tongue to increase the French as fast as possible.

We also did evenings where we provided food & beer / wine to increase opportunities for conversation as well as getting our work checked.

Also, watching France V England at rugby was good for a laugh... :)

Are there any courses in the institution he could enrol in? but these courses need to be accelerated...