Combining bibliography styles For a few documents I have to write during my internship I have been told to use APA notation for citing my sources and building the bibliography.

Now, my problem is that some of the quotes or information comes from multiple sources, so I'd like to use IEEE notation in-line with the text, for example:

  A quote about principles concerning the hierarchy of an organisation. [1, 2]

instead of the APA style, which would look like this:

  A quote about principles concerning the hierarchy of an organisation. (somesource, 2001, p. 22) (anothersource, 2005, p. 5)

Is this acceptable for a research paper (Bachelor level at a university of applied sciences) or should I just stick to APA notation for the entirety of the paper?

Thanks in advance!

Stick to one citation-style throughout your paper.

Do not combine different citation styles!

The pros of being consistent:

Paper looks nicer and more professional, i. e. like a real scientific paper
It's easier to read, because the text is not interspersed with different kinds of foot- or endnotes (reduced cognitive load)
Makes checking your sources easier

Cons of being inconsistent:

Some professors are quite allergic to inconsistent notation (I know of fellow students who learned it the hard way).
It gives a very bad impression

It wasn't understood how citations work and what their purpose is.
Perhaps, at least some material was just lazily copied from different sources (each using different citation styles) and you didn't do it yourself. Not the case, for sure, but you don't want to create that impression and have to prove your innocence. And it really looks like a good explanation for the strange mixing of different citation styles.

In general, stick to one style. If you have been told which one to use, then use that one. Else, choose one you like (sometimes you are free to choose a style) or ask. But mixing them has no benefits, just downsides. In your case, use APA notation throughout your paper, just as you have been told.


Ph.D.-ed philosophers vs Doctors of philosophy vs philosophy Ph.D.'s? Basically, I'm asking how to refer to a group of individuals who all have the same degree.

I'm referring to them in the third person, as in, "I work with a group of (x)".

let's just assume for purposes of the title, that all the individuals in said group actually have the literal job title "philosopher", and it is important to call attention to the fact that they have doctorates in (stand up) philosophy.

My inclination would be the first one, but in searching, that doesn't seem very common.

To expand, I'm writing my application essays for graduate school.  I work in a non-academic setting that still has a research focus, and I'm trying to briefly describe the organization in a way that would support the narrative I'm building, that working here has fostered my interest in research.

The organization is made up almost entirely of Ph.D. holders in largely the same field.  But naming one as a practitioner of that field does not by itself imply that they hold a Ph.D.  That's why saying "I work with a group of philosophers" doesn't convey the right message.

To expand upon @MattSamuel's comment, any/all of the following probably work:

I work with...

...a group of philosophy Ph.D.s
...a group of philosophers with Ph.D.s
...a group of doctors. Doctors of what you ask? Philosophy.
...a group of philosophy researchers (ed. note: tends to imply Ph.D.s, but not explicit)

The simplest option in my opinion? "This is Dr. X, Dr. Y, and Dr. Z. They all study philosophy."


Paper accepted with no report? I submitted a 60-page paper to a reasonable math journal (Journal of Algebra) about 6 months ago. A few days ago I received an email stating that my paper was accepted. I did not get a referee report. I did not get any comments on my paper.
 Just an acceptance notice.

Is this usual? it seems very strange to me that the referee has absolutely no comment on a 60-page paper!

Should I ask the editor what happened?

Yes, asking the editor about this seems very reasonable, as not getting any sort of report from the reviewers sounds like an error.
(I have published one paper in J. Algebra, and we did get a reviewer report, just as one would expect).


How not to get drowned in details and questions? Hi I am a perfectionist electrical and electronics student who struggles with studying because I cannot focus on the subject or context as I cannot let go of the questions or details that trouble me. I always feel like I must be an expert regarding the subject and be able to answer all the questions that one might raise no matter how stupid or unrelated those questions are. That is why I am not academically successful and satisfied. What mindset should I adopt to overcome this situation? I feel totally frustrated and hopeless. I tried out psychological help but it keeps coming over and over.

I tried out psychological help but it keeps coming over and over.

First this is important. If you have received any behavioral or medical interventions you'll need to discuss with your health care providers and let them know you're not progressing.

My overarching question back to you is: Have you considered aspiring to be a perfectionist in time use and efficiency?

Collect necessary information before studying: Make sure the materials you need to study are handy before engaging the study: syllabus, texts, notes, assignments, etc. Minimize wandering off for extra materials along the way.

Set goals and time: Before studying, state clearly what the goal is and how much time you'll allocate to it. E.g. "I'll spend 2.5 hours in this lab report, and I will spend no more than 2 lines of text for each point I wish to score."

And it's fine to set up a time for deep diving as well: "Tonight, I'll spend 1.5 hour and binge reading/searching this theory. I don't know what would come out of it, but I will enjoy this adventure and bonus for me if I can find a few new insights."

Go through a set of checklists before doing anything: Have a set of "mantra" before committing to anything. It's up to you what they should be, but generally focus on return of investment. Here are some I always ask myself:

Is the objective of this work "SMART" enough? (SMART: Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time/duration is clear.)
Is this work in alignment with my value?
Is this work going to propel me forward in [whatever endeavor: studying, career, etc.]?
What will I likely gain if I do this work?
Is there any other work I can/should do which will bring a better gain?

Ask this before, and ask this whenever you change your focus or attention onto something else. Keep a diary on your daily time use efficiency and review them often.

Have a "mind dump": When strayed thoughts invite, instead of immediately engaging them, jot them down somewhere. It can be a paper pad on your desk, Evernote/OneNote, post-it, voice messages, etc. Put them in one collection point, and revisit them during your "wild hunt" time.

It may be more useful to see these strayed thoughts as a group periodically. You may found that something you wondered last month was resolved in the class this week. By putting these questions together instead of deep diving into each of them immediately, you can better see the landscape.


Taking math or stat course to prepare for my PhD? So I am doing a master in Statistics at a medium-ranked US university. After my master I plan to apply for PhD in Statistics at another (hopefully higher rank) university. I am considering between 3 courses for the next semester because I can only choose one. I want to choose a course which has balances between great professor (for recommendation letter) and content

1/ Analysis II: extremely rigorous proof course in my school's math department. I took Real Analysis before and did well but this course will be more in-depth. The teacher is Full Professor with great reputation in math field but not sure in stat field. I am not sure when I applied for PhD professors at other universities will recognize him.

2/ Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis: not really my favorite subject. The professor is an Associate Professor and not really well-known in stat field. The good side is this course is in our stat department

3/ Introduction to Experimental Design: very basic course for undergraduate students. The only good side is the Professor has incredible reputation in the field.

Recommendation letters for PhD programs are weighted by the reputation of the writer only up to a point.  When an admissions committee reads a letter saying that the student will thrive in a top XX PhD program, we want to believe that the writer is qualified to make that statement.  In mathematics (my field), this means that we generally want the letters to come from faculty members with PhDs in mathematics (or a closely related field).  It helps if the faculty member has some experience and perspective with evaluating undergraduate students, and it helps if they have met or interacted with graduate students from top XX programs.

That's about it.  Notice that I did not say that the faculty member has to be especially eminent in the field.  Just because one faculty member has a more distinguished research program than another does not imply that she has more insight into which undergraduates should go to which graduate institutions.  I might go so far to say that many superstar faculty members I know did not get to be superstars by paying extraordinarily close attention to the undergraduates in their institution: a more teaching oriented faculty member could actually be more insightful.

Another thing to realize is that taking a single course from a faculty member is not a recipe for a really incisive recommendation letter.  A lot of times these letters basically convey the information that the student got one of the highest grades in the course, just like other students from years past who went on to graduate success. In this situation it is probably the quality of the program that matters more than the reputation of the faculty member.

So I do not recommend that you choose individual courses based on faculty reputation for future letters.  Remember that admissions committees are also looking at your coursework, and that you took the strongest courses available to you and did well in them is both one of the most important aspects of your application and the aspect that is under your most direct control.  So taking an undergraduate course as a master's student just because you think that a superstar will be writing for you is a bad idea, I think.  What is the superstar going to say about you: that you really nailed a "very basic course for undergraduate students"?  (Note though that you might still want a letter from this person, but if so you should have a more meaningful interaction with them.)  I don't know enough about statistics programs to help you decide between options 1) and 2).  The only thing I can think of is that you have already taken Real Analysis II, and the fact that this version is more in-depth might be lost on the committee.

Finally, all in all most master's students do not switch to PhD programs at significantly higher ranked institutions.  It's certainly possible, but it would be safer for you to plan in a way which is good for you whether you go elsewhere or not.  So I suggest you talk to your advisor and explore which of 1) and 2) is actually a better course for you to take...I mean, better for a student in your current situation.  Then take that one.


What do you do when you can not solve basic things? I am a phd student in math. I am studying abroad. I need some advice.

When i started my Phd, my supervisor gave me a book and she(my superviosr) asked me to study it. In the first year, i passed 5 courses. Then, i thought, maybe that is good time to ask her(my superviosr) to give me a question.

She gave a question at once. Even, she did not think about it. I worked on it in several weeks, then i found out it follows from some paper.

She gave me another question. She did not think about it again. I workd on it several monthes but i could not move it. She gave another question from another area. I spent some monthes to read about it. Whenever i asked a question from her, she asked some basic question from me, sometimes i could not give answer to them. Then, when i came back home, i regreted a lot why i can not give answer.

I felt, i lost my self confidence. During of this time, i was studying a area that i liked and i was getting pretty good on it. In fact, i watched some lectures about it on youtube that helps me a lot. She gave me another question from another area. I spent some monthes to read about it, then she told me , she could not work with me and she wasted her time. That was big shock for me. I am working with my master superviosr.

I still have some problems. I lost my self confidence and there is a fear in body. When i am studying, i am scared a lot. I checked every thing many times . For instance, i check what is countable set.

She never helps me. All of my colleagues have been either taught ot given idea by their superviosors. She told me, i did not know any things, she told me, how i passed bachelor and master. On the other hand, she told me, i am good the area that i worked alone. I have passed all of my courses.  But, i am not good like before. I am really scared. That is so difficult to explain it.

I need to mentioned i have passed all of my courses during of PhD. This semster, i have a course but i was not good in the course at all, as i lost my self confidence.

I would like to be good mathemacian, but now i can not even calculate geometric series. I do not know how it happens that i can work in PhD but i can not solve basic things. I am scared to ask my colleages, even though, i ask here. Do you know all of basic things? Is it big problem sometimes we forgot basic things?  Baisc things means that things, we learnt in Bachelor.

What would you do in this situation?

Thanks in advance.

I'll give two bits of advice. Both may be hard to do. The first is to relax. Some things in mathematics are just very difficult. The experiences you have had with the material itself seem completely normal to me.

But the second is to try to find a more compatible and helpful advisor. Your advisor may not be bad, but seems ill suited to help you with what you need.

I can't judge your math background, of course, but if you can pass graduate courses it must be ok at least. Maybe excellent.

Your inability to solve basic problems may be overstated. It may just be "brain freeze" based on your emotional state. It may be that you are better suited for longer reflection rather than quick answers. But, until you learn to relax you may continue to have problems. Many people use periodic physical exercise to help them relax and give their mind a rest from work. But perhaps you need something. You might even need to talk to a counsellor.

I think my own advisor was helpful, but day-to-day I worked on my own. He gave me problems to work on. The first was too easy, so no real challenge. The second was too hard, so no progress. The third was just right, though it still took a year to but the thesis together. I was lucky in a sense that I went through my low period before I met him and so had bounced back and was able to be more productive. But a low period is pretty normal for math doctoral students.


How to cite online articles that don't have a publication date? I am very new to the ordeal of incorporating citations into my work, but I'm working on a project for school, and in it, I'm using the APA 6th citation format.
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/core/
This is a source I used. I believe it falls under the category of "Website" (translated from Norwegian, I'm using a website that shows the different formats of citation for different text types). Now, the link provided is described by NatGeo as an encyclopedic entry, and no authors nor publication date is to be seen anywhere. I couldn't spot it at least. Now, the website I used said that the format of citation for "Websites" is like this:

Blah-blah-blah (National Geographic, 2009)

However, I can't find that date that I need to include at the end. Is there then an altenative format to use? Or am I just not looking properly for said date?

The APA blog answers this:

Determining Website Dates
If no date of publication is provided, use the letters n.d. (which stand for “no date”). The copyright date on the website itself should not be used as the publication date for particular content on that site.

(Note that you should use the updated date if there is one.)
When you have multiple citations for the same website and both have no date, you should append a letter to the end, similar to an actual year: “n.d.-a”, “n.d.-b”, etc.


How important are graduate courses to a successful PhD and beyond? I am enrolled at a small graduate program in the US. I came here because the PhD advisor I will be working with has a great reputation and because I wanted to work with her. However, the courses I am taking here are simply not up to the mark from what I expected good graduate courses to be. I am worried that if I start my PhD without having good courses I will be under-prepared to handle challenging problems later, and my exposure to interesting physics would be limited the ones I encounter during my research. People who are past their PhD programs, how important do you think coursework is? Do you think it is worthwhile transferring to another PhD program now?

I am worried that if I start my PhD without having good courses I will be under-prepared to handle challenging problems later, and [various bad things]

There are a few things to note here that might put you at ease.  Firstly, while it is true that the quality of the material and instruction in a course certainly matters, even more important is the drive and work ethic of the student.  Depending on your willingness to engage deeply with the material, and search out other material, you can pretty much make your course as rigorous as you want it to be.  If you find that there is a gap in the material in some respect (e.g., some mathematical assertion that is not proved and that you don't know), look up other material to supplement what is in the scope of the course.  Since you are a PhD student now, one of the things you should be getting good at (or at least practicing with a view to getting good at it later) is looking up other sources of material to supplement gaps in knowledge.
Beyond taking courses as a student, a very effective way of learning a topic is to teach it.  Since you are a PhD student, you should have some opportunities to tutor some of the early undergraduate courses in your field, and maybe even some of the later undergraduate courses.  If you become an academic, you will probably end up teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.  Teaching a course requires you to fill out a deep and systematic knowledge of the subject that goes well beyond what was required of you as a student (even as a high-performing student), so it is a very effective way to solidify your knowledge.  Obviously right now you will not be teaching your graduate courses --- you are the student here.  But you can look for opportunities to teach into some early undergraduate courses, which will get you on the path to solidifying your knowledge of foundational material at a deeper level.
Finally, don't make the error of thinking that your learning ends when your coursework ends.  Even after you have finished all your courses and you are doing pure research, you will find yourself exposed to thorny problems that necessitate learning new material, or going back and relearning material you have previously studied and forgotten.   Often a formal course undertaken in graduate school is just the first iteration of learning a topic --- you do the course and learn a bunch of things, and then if you don't apply them for a long time (e.g., years or decades) you forget a whole bunch of it, and then when you need that material you relearn it, and so on.  The main advantage of doing the formal coursework in your training is that when you find you need to relearn it later on, it is a lot faster.


Is arXiv a good path for very young researchers? I am 15 years of age and I have studied Computer Science and developed strong programming skills (specializing in security and simulations). I have also done a few programming projects and made money off of it.

This said, I normally read computer science papers on arXiv (cryptography and security, mainly), and I have noticed that some of the papers published are tutorials, basics of fundamental theories and analysis of the most basics topics or techniques. I still read it in hope of discovering something new.

However, I sometimes end up learning nothing new and so I am starting to think that these authors are just publishing these material for sake of it or to reach some sort of goal.

On the other hand I feel like I could probably do a better job (not to sound full of myself) and probably even construct a interesting paper on an subject and write up a whole load of analysis and ideas and show proofs and such.

I would love to publish in peer-reviewed journals but I feel like my age may hold me back from my work getting accepted and my lack of connections with the academia again due to my age.

I have done a lot of research pertaining to the pros and cons of publishing in arXiv, I have noticed far too much negativity about it but since I am far younger than most researchers, would it actually raise my stature by showing my knowledge and interest at a young age and build my future opportunities in Academic grounds or is it more likely to tarnish it?

If it may tarnish opportunities, could you specify on how I could avoid this?

Reading just arXiv or even some top journal is not likely to be very helpful.

It used to be that subscribing to a journal (or ten) was the best way to keep up.

But the subscription model is dead, few academics subscribe to journals, few publisher retain print as their primary mode of distribution, and open access publications tend to get 5 or 6 times as many citations as papers that require purchase or subscription.  I presume you read arXiv primarily because it is free.

I presume you are still at high school but finding that not sufficiently challenging.
I presume you have read what you school library has to offer, and need to go beyond.
I presume you have looked at what's available from your local community/university.

Been there done that... I spent my high school years doing my own physics and chemistry experiments, extracting my own reagents and building my own equipment, building electronic devices and computers, programming unbeatable AI games/programs, programs to solve problems in mathematics, joining maths clubs and winning prizes in competitions, making use of university programs designed to encourage budding scientists and mathematicians... exploring my interests in the broadest possible way!

Contact the local university and talk to people there. E.g. I'm happy to take on high school students, and indeed at Flinders University we have the Australian Science and Mathematics School (years 10-12 only) on campus to facilitate just this encouragement of gifted students - but students need to be reasonably local.  Even without a formal program or relationship, academics are happy to talk to high school students, and I've run courses and competitions for high school students, given work experience opportunities and summer scholarships (not exactly restricted to local, but focussed in the state and the surrounding regions that the university draws from).  Sometimes I've just responded to high school kids contacting me out the blue, by working out a program for them. My university actually has a bit of a history of this, with Terry Tao being the most famous example.

What kind of program would I recommend for someone like you... I'd start out by recommending some of the classic papers, introducing you to the originators of the seminal ideas of the field, making sure you had the basics first hand - not via the Chinese whispers of arXiv, review papers or textbooks.  Review papers are often written by PhD students as part of the process of organizing their ideas - it gives them a free publication before they done any significant work on their own.  It also gets them lots of citations, and some people have an h-index that is mainly about their ability to write review papers or text books.  But yes, if there was a particularly good review paper or text book, I'd recommend it - unfortunately for my research area there are no good text books I can use, although I do encourage students to dip into some of those that are around - but my research oriented courses would have at least a dozen original sources of information, and perhaps half a dozen texts or reviews. This leads to an idea from Information Retrieval... Hubs and Authorities.

You've probably heard of Brin & Page's PageRank, which became the basis of Google's ranking based on how much pages linked to each other - it is closely related to singular values/vectors, looking at relatedness of pages in a symmetric way.  But an earlier approach (Kleinberger's HITS/CLEVER) developed around the same time distinguished between the source and target of links, distinguishing hubs (sources of lots of links) and authorities (targets of lots of links) - these relate to the left and right eigenvectors.

What you need to find for your field is the hubs and authorities.  A hub might be a review paper, or a website or society that coordinates the research area.  The authorities are the people/papers that developed the seminal ideas and everyone cites.  Always go to the source, cite the earliest and latest works in their developmental path.  Look for the citations of that work (on Google and Google scholar, concentrating on relevant papers with hints like filetype:pdf and/or site:edu.* | site:edu | site:ac.* to get the papers by academics and find where the open access versions are lurking).  A relationship with a university with relevant subscriptions would also allow you free access to IEEE, Springer etc. But all major publishers now allow people to archive preprints or postprints of their papers for free access - and this is what arXiv should be used for where allowed, but sometimes this permission is restricted to authors' own websites, or their employers'.

There are two ways to explore the field - and you can start from a single of interest.  You can try to go deep and specific (citations of and by that paper).  You can also go broad and applied (citations of the citations). Modern citation analysis is closely related to PageRank/HITS/CLEVER, and your library may have tools to help.


What GPA is considered as Competitive for top five schools in Engineering in US Some prestigious universities like Caltech, Stanford, MIT and Berkeley never disclose their information regarding their cut off major and cumulative GPA for M.Sc and PhD programs in engineering. I also aware of the fact that graduate schools will look at the whole package and make their decision based on sets of factors like letter of recommendation, statement of purpose as well as GPA.

However, since application fee is pretty high it is not worth it to apply to schools that you know you have a slight chance of getting into it so, I would like to know what would be the acceptable GPA (Both major and Cumulative) for applicants to be competitive for top five schools in the world?

As noted in the comments, there is no single answer, because when you are applying for a highly competitive graduate program you need to be both an "excellent student" and have additional strong qualifications that set you apart from all of the other excellent students.

That said, GPA is definitely a negative filter, and one can still extract some guesses. Here are MIT's requirements for entry of its own students into the internal EECS 5th year M.Eng. program: 4.25 on its 5-point scale (equivalent to 3.25 on the usual 4-point scale), plus at least 4.0 (3.0) in the most recent term.  Since these are internal requirements, you can assume it is likely that external applicants for graduate programs will be measured a bit more harshly since they will be less well known.

Assuming a 4-point scale, I think that a safe rule of thumb for Ph.D. admissions is that if you've got at least a 3.75 both overall and in your field, you can stop thinking about GPA and start worrying about the rest of the package.  If you're below 3.0, it will be extremely hard (though not necessarily impossible) to convince people that you are a strong enough student, even if you are very good in non-GPA aspects of admission.  In between, the lower your GPA, the more you have to shine in other aspects in order to overcome GPA-based concerns: e.g., 3.6, not so hard, 3.25 very hard.  This are rough heuristics, of course, and every case may differ...


What to list as affiliation when work spans multiple institutions? I began working on a paper during my undergraduate degree in the summer of 2014. I continued to work on the same paper into summer 2015, at which time I graduated and moved to a different university to pursue a graduate degree. However, all experiments failed and my collaborators and I were unable to produce any meaningful results. In fall 2015, while enrolled in graduate studies at the second university, I realized that the question at the centre of this paper could be answered using a completely different method. I contacted my collaborators and we have been able to produce some great results.

Now I am writing the paper and wondering what I should list as my affiliation, since the project was begun at one university but overhauled and completed at another. I see four options:

The old university
The new university
Both the old and new universities
The old university, with a “present address” note

What is standard practice in a situation like this, where work is begun in one lab but completed in another? Does the re-design of the project from the second university complicate the issue?

Most journals understand that such complexities exist, and will allow you to list multiple institutions, so all four of your options are certainly viable.

That said, given that you have done much of your work on the paper while at your new institution, your new institution should certainly be listed as an affiliation, which means that you should be using either your option #2 (new only) or #3 (both institutions).

That leaves the question of whether the old institution should be listed or not.  From what I have seen, the customs on this tend to vary by field and also by institution: you can probably make a reasonable argument for either listing or not listing the old institution.  I would thus recommend talking with your co-authors to see what their feelings on the matter are, particularly if you have some co-authors from the old institution on the paper, who are the ones most likely to be upset if your judgement disagrees with theirs (in either direction).


Missing Software Citations I've written a statistical software package and published a paper on it. Recently, it appears to have received moderate use, but with at least less than a 50% citation rate. I know this because Google Scholar will tell me that a paper mentions the name of my software package (it's a nonsense word, so this shouldn't be by chance), but the paper will not cite the package itself; in some cases there will be something like "We used package X for statistical programming language R", with a citation for R but not X.

One the one hand, I'm glad people are using my tools and that makes me happy. On the other hand, I would like citations due, if just from a career standpoint. My guess is that many researchers may not be aware that a citation should be included; I estimate that the majority of users of the package probably work outside the field of statistics. R makes it very easy to cite software (R> citation("X") gives you the bibTex)...but I didn't even know that until I started writing software.

It's my view that at least some of the responsibility should lie with the reviewers/editors. Would it be impolite to point this out to the editors of the journal? I really don't want to be in the business of harassing the users of my software, nor trying to point the finger at them either. Or is it just accepted that you should expect a little under a 50% citation rate?

EDIT:

A good question was asked in the comments: what do I hope to achieve? I'm not 100% sure! I suppose I'm wondering if there's a polite way to raise awareness of proper citations for software? Both writing software and continuing to support users of the software is fairly time consuming (I would estimate I've spent over 300 unfunded hours on those two tasks?), but I'm convinced it's one of the ways statistics researchers can be most helpful to outside researchers. As such, I suppose I would like to gently push the system to be more supportive of that effort...without being a grumpy ol' stats guy complaining about anyone who uses their contributions.

Reaching out to journal editors might backfire, I'd be careful with that approach.

Ultimately it's going to be up to your users to a) know how to cite your work and b) decide to do so. You have some control over a): you can display a short note with the preferred citation when the program starts. In the case of an R package, you can use the function .onAttach to display a message when your package is loaded. If it's a stand-alone program, put the message in your splash screen, or on the console, wherever a user might see it.

In the short term, you don't have any control over b), so I suggest you focus on maintaining the program and responding to users as best you can. As we use an increasing number of programs, deciding which ones get cited in any given paper is going to be a bit subjective. If my analysis depends on a bug fix or new feature that a developer implemented for me, they will definitely be cited!

Beyond that, your influence is limited to longer-term approaches to changing practices:

lead by example, so people become accustomed to seeing software getting cited
as an editor or reviewer, request citations be added where you think they should be
promote the idea to your students and colleagues


Are unpaid postdoc positions common? I contacted a group leader, and he strongly liked my CV. He encouraged me to join his group as a postdoc fellow, but he mentioned that the position he may offer is unpaid (so, I must cover my living expenses).

He mentioned that I can publish good papers in his group following my previous works. Then, I can get a good paid job. So, it is worth of accepting an unpaid job.

I'm wondering if it is common for postdoc fellows to accept unpaid positions?

What the group leader should have said is that s/he has no money, but you can join the lab if you have your own funding (i.e., a fellowship). For them to dangle papers in exchange for free work is unethical and potentially illegal, depending on where they are.

Edit: What follows is entirely my personal opinion. I am no lawyer so no idea about legality; feel free to let me know if you think my opinion is too harsh/wrong.

Any kind of free labour in a lab is unfair and discriminatory. It locks out those in society who aren't lucky enough to be able to give their time away for free. This includes undergraduate internships. If you're working for someone, then you should be paid for your time. Even if you are receiving training.


Would it be unethical to not cite a figure obtained from a Q&A forum? We are writing an article in which we should give a figure (a satellite image; not a real map) to make the 'preliminary' section complete and understandable.

However, drawing the image ourselves is not possible. However, as the image is related to a well-known problem, it is available in various Q & A forums. The same image can be found in multiple such forums and we do not know the original source of the image.

In such a scenario,

Would it be unethical to not cite the forum in our research paper?
If we must cite any of the available forum links, how are we supposed to cite the image?

Would it be unethical to not cite the forum in our research paper?

Yes, of course it would!  Similarly, it would be unethical to use a figure without citation from a student's written exam, a newspaper article, a billboard on the side of the highway, a 3000-year-old clay tablet, or a bathroom wall.  If you do not cite the source of the figure, you are falsely claiming that the figure is your own work.  You must give other people credit for their work, no matter how you find it.

  If we must cite any of the available forum links, how are we supposed to cite the image?

You are supposed to find the original source of the figure, and cite that.  Of course, finding the original source may not be possible, but you do need to make a serious good-faith effort.  (I suggest asking "What's the source of this image?" on the same forums where you find the image.)  If that good-faith effort fails, cite whatever secondary source you believe is most authoritative and/or most likely to be accessible to the average reader in five years.  For example:

[1] Unknown author.  http://three-d-pancakes.ytmnd.com/.  Accessed June 24, 2017.


How to cope with the change from easy undergrad. to difficult masters? I'm doing a masters course at a different university than I did my undergrad (both in maths). I did well in my undergrad but now I'm finding it very difficult. The shock of the change is hard to cope with.

I'm not just finding it very difficult, but I get zero feedback: we don't have any tests and I was not able to make friends so I don't know how others are finding it. I'm starting to think that I might be an idiot.

How can I build some confidence in my abilities at the same time as I rush and struggle to keep up with the massive rate of new material I need to learn?
How might I get myself some reassurance that I can actually pass, or stop worrying about this so much? (I feel terribly guilty using so much money from my family to be here) It's possible that I don't really have a chance at all but knowing that would be fine.

Feelings of inadequacy are quite common when starting a new graduate program—you are surrounded by talented people (if they weren't, presumably they wouldn't be graduate students!), and there is often a big leap in expectations between the requirements of a bachelor's program and the corresponding graduate program, particularly if you're at a top program in your field.

As one of the commenters mentioned, talking to your professors or teaching assistants may be one good way to get help, or to get at least some reassurance about how you're doing. Depending on what your university or department provides, they may be able to provide you with resources to help you study or prepare for your exams. This might be as much as arranging a tutor for you, or as simple as providing you with sample exams from previous course offerings. If your department has a "graduate student council" or "society" or something like that designed to help out the students, then a lot of these may have already been collected by students from previous years for use by students in later years.

In general, though, don't get too discouraged. It is recognized by most instructors that graduate school is harder than an undergraduate, and the grading tends to match that view. There are very few graduate school courses that are not graded "on a curve"; otherwise everybody would have bad grades! (When the top score on an exam is 60/100, most schools won't let you fail everybody!)


Should I mention that I'm currently studying in CV? I'm currently taking course in Business Intelligence and writing a CV to apply for jobs. Should I mention the fact that I'm currently taking this course in my CV? Since I have no previous work experience I'm  having trouble with filling my CV with information.

That's what I came up with so far:

Summary:
A highly motivated, results-focused SQL Server/T-SQL/SSIS developer. Currently in finishing stage of BI Developer course.

Technical skills:
Database: MS SQL Server 2014
Programming: SQL, T-SQL, basic level C#
Database tools: SQL Server Management Studio, SSIS

Languages: English(Fluent), Hebrew(Fluent), Russian(Native)
Formal education: BA in Business Management(Tel Aviv University)

Since you said you have no previous work experience, it is essential that you include as many information -true facts- as you can that imply that you are a serious candidate for the job. That course might show the motivation you have, so I think it will be taken under consideration.


How to put the upcoming experience in Grad School Application? I am applying for Masters program in Computer Science and hoping to specialize in AI/ML. I will be the Teaching Assistant (T.A) for Machine Learning  class in the spring and most of the admissions deadlines are in the end of December. I think having this experience can make my application strong but how can I add this experience to the application as it will be in the coming future?

The best way is probably to get one of you letter writers to mention it "K.S. will TA for my course in ML this coming term." Something simple. This shows you are both trusted and respected.

You can mention it in a simple way in a SoP or a CV.

Don't overdo it. If you make it sound like your biggest accomplishment you will probably not benefit.

The normal decision process is based on other things. Make sure you focus on those.


Long hyphenated surname – what to do when I begin publishing? I have a hyphenated surname, namely Kinara-Williams. I intend to be published in the future when I graduate and during/after my PhD.

But Kinara-Williams seems like a mouthful to cite. After reading other threads, it appears pseudonyms are frowned upon in the scientific/academic community; so what do people usually do?
Just go with the preferred one?

As other have commented, the length of your hyphenated surname is not problematic at all: keep it and don't worry.

Fun fact. Uh, well, it took me years to discover that Lennard-Jones was actually just one person and not two, and that the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss experiment was devised by two people and not three, Hanbury Brown (no hyphen) and Twiss. For  Jaynes-Cummings, instead, I tought they were two and they were actually two - amazing! But I would count this as a minor inconvenience, which actually taught me not to make assumptions on surnames (and, as suggested by E.P., this popular page discusses other false assumptions).


How do I stay motivated in my PhD research when my advisor doesn't seem to like me very much? My PhD advisor and I simply do not get along. I think it has a lot to do with the language and cultural barriers (we are in Germany). We had an argument this week that almost led to me quitting, but on Friday we discussed how things could be improved. However I still can't shake the notion away that he doesn't seem to like me very much and that things won't get any better.

Here is my situation: I got a fully funded, 100% research position throug the Deutscheforschung Gemeinschaft in what is loosely translated in English as a "graduate school" (Graduiertenkolleg). We were told that we could concentrate on our own research (no teaching requirements), but our funding only lasts 3 years, so we have to finish by then. When I took the job, I thought I would be working more closely with the other fellows hired by the graduate school, even though we are based in the research teams of our PIs. In my case, my PI has 3 other PhDs with teaching obligations, i.e., not under my funding scheme.

I had thought I won't have any other obligations other than my own work. But little did I know that my PI has been harbouring a grudge against me this whole time. Here's a list of things he mentioned:

He told me that I always seem so depressed, so I should think about whether I really want to pursue this path. I have been diagnosed with depression, so this is unlikely to go away overnight. He never once asked me what was wrong.
He says I "don't seem interested" in the research going on in his team because "I don't ask any questions".
He also told me that I hadn't followed through on my promises to help out with the team. I had once offered to set up a social media strategy, and he just said "sounds good" and moved on to the next point, so I didn't think he was interested.
He says I never engage in team discussions or offer helpful suggestions to my other PhDs. This is categorically not true, since I always tell my colleagues whether I see something (journal articles, workshops) that could be interesting for them.
He says I didn't offer to supervise any bachelor's or master's theses.
He is always critical about the way I present information. For example, I have sent him presentation slides and he says it has too much unnecessary information. Then I send him presentations that he says lacks crucial information. I never know which information he needs, and I get shut down either way.
He says I favor the events of the graduate school over his team, since I have had to miss some meetings to attend required coursework.
I explained to him that I had thought my obligations are to the graduate school, that I have to finish on time.
When I explained to him what I had thought I was hired for (no teaching obligations etc) he told me that he doesn't believe me, that I should have known that I was part of his team primarily and that the graduate school was just a funding scheme.

I felt like he couldn't see my contributions simply because I wasn't behaving in the way he was expecting and doesn't seem to understand that I don't have it all figured out. Later on, when things calmed down a little, he explained to me that in Germany, most positions in my field are only supported up to 65% (if you're lucky), so I should think of my work as a fully paid position for work that can be done in a 65% position. But how was I supposed to know that?

It's worth noting that he is very accommodating to the circumstances of other PhDs in his team (e.g., one home office day a week for those with children). But for some reason he doesn't seem to care all that much that I have depression or that there are some things about German academia that I don't know about. I still want to continue with my PhD, but how do I motivate myself from here on?

What a shame that your professor hasn't been giving you constructive feedback as you've been going.  I think I would end up depressed, working with someone who waits, and then dumps a lot of negativity in a complaining and blaming way.

So... I see two choices.

1) Find a different advisor.  OR:

2) Try to make the best of a less than ideal situation:

a) Take all of his feedback and rewrite it, with positive phrasing.  Read the constructive version a couple of times a week, telling yourself, "This is what he meant, only he was held back from expressing himself this way by his own cultural upbringing, personal shortcomings, etc.  This is like the Fats Waller song, "I'm gonna sit right down, and write myself a letter." (lyrics).

b) Pick a couple of his feedback items at a time to tackle, to see if you can make some progress with.

c) Guide him to give you guidance in a more positive, constructive way.  Here are some ways to do that:

(i) Next time you share a powerpoint draft with him, include the extra material, and in the body of the email, when you send it to him, say, for example, "I know that this draft needs to be pruned down.  Can you help me cut it down, by suggesting which slides should be removed, and which ones should be edited?"

(ii) Ask for an appointment specifically to speak about coping mechanisms for your condition.  Take an outline on an index card with you.  Use I-messages.  (You and I know that he has contributed plenty to the difficulties in your relationship, but it won't help matters to let him know that.)  For example, "I need constructive criticism, as part of my training.  But I get easily discouraged and overwhelmed by negative criticism.  So, when I share a draft with you, could you please find something positive to say for every three negative things you say?  That will help me keep my perspective."

(iii) Make sure to give him positive feedback whenever he makes a step in the right direction, for example, "Thank you so much for helping me edit my powerpoint.  Your comments were extremely helpful."

d) As others have suggested, work on breaking your isolation.  (I understand completely your explanation of how it came to be.)

Last comment.  You might be right, he might not like you very much.  But what struck me more clearly was that you don't like him very much.  Sometimes when a person struggles with depression, it is hard to give oneself permission to have strong opinions of this type.

Here's hoping that if you decide to stay in this group, the two of you find  more to like about each other!


How to interpret the French terms cahier and tome in citation I want to reference a 19th century French journal paper, which appears in vingt-quatrieme cahier, tome XV, of the Journal de l’École polytechnique. The journal front page lists them in that order: cahier first, then tome.
I am using Word and tried to enter the citation data in the bibliography fields Word provides. In those fields there is Volume and Issue. Now, cahier translates to notebook and tome to volume, as far as I can understand. Furthermore, Word suggests a format of Latin numerals for Volume and a decimal number for Issue. So I put the tome data into Volume and the cahier data into Issue. The resulting citation was like "....., XV(24), .....", i.e. the tome first and inside brackets was the cahier number.
So then I started thinking whether this is correct, given that the journal lists them in the reverse order.
The question, then, is: does cahier correspond to Volume and tome to Issue, or is it the other way round? (Or is there another interpretation?)
(Just a thought: maybe their mindset was to treat this as a postal address, where the most inclusive part of the address (e.g. the country) goes last. So with them the tome goes last.)

According to the  webpage of the Journal de l’École Polytechnique, each cahier corresponds to a one year volume, and  tome corresponds to an issue.


How can a PhD student find a collaborator who might assist with programming in exchange for co-authorship? I am a PhD student and since I am busy with my current projects, I have no time to implement a C# project for my paper.Also, I was looking for an intermediate C# programmer as a student job in my university ( Potsdam ). But, I could not find any one! So, I was wondering if you can tell me how could I find somebody to implement a C# program for me and be interested in participating and publishing a paper? is there any forum website or any solution in this situation?

Best,

The best solution would be finding someone locally. Contact the professors who teach advanced programming-oriented courses in your university (and also in Berlin, for instance, since the two cities are close) to see if they have someone to suggest among their past or present students.

Finding someone to do the work remotely seems more risky. It is difficult to train and mentor someone without meeting in person at least a few times.

And, in any case, when hiring a student for such a job, keep in mind that  there is always the risk that in the end this move will save you a negative amount of time, if you find the wrong person.


Grading criteria changed mid-semester. Not fully communicated. What can I do? I'm in my final year of my bachelor degree (Netherlands). In fact, I am resitting this particular class since I did not submit the portfolio last time. I have agreed to start writing my thesis today in collaberation with a business on the condition that I would receive a pass grade on the portfolio for this class that was due two weeks ago. I submitted it, fully following grading criteria that I found in the syllabus. Last Friday I would receive my grade.

I received 43/100. I needed 55/100 to pass. The grading criteria were very different from the criteria mentioned in the syllabus. In particular not a single word was mentioned in the syllabus about a certain chapter required in the portfolio worth 20. I and various other students missed that part.

It turns out the syllabus change was communicated in an extra class that I was not aware of. This class was not visible in my agenda. It was not uploaded to the Blackboard environment nor communicated by e-mail. The extra class was recorded and a link to the video was posted in a Slack environment that is not official.

I would be allowed to resubmit the portfolio 8 weeks from now, be graded 2 weeks later and then start writing my thesis. The professor (who realized the communication on this was poor) allows me to resubmit the portfolio as soon as possible instead

Meanwhile, I had to communicate this change to the company I would be collaberating with. They are, understandably, not happy. Moreover, this change requires me to enroll an extra semester and as such is quite a big financial burden on me.

What can I do? Can I appeal? If so, to whom? Will appealing be able to change anything? Depending on when I can possibly start my thesis, I may not be able to finish before the two-yearly thesis defence.

You can try, of course, the question of who to depends on your university. I would start with a student advisor for your subject and take it from there. If you combine your efforts with the other students who also have trouble because of that change right now, that might help.
Furthermore, you should not start with officially appealing right away, as this might force people to take a defensive position against you. I would rather explain the situation, the problems that it causes you, etc. and ask the advisor for a solution.
If you formally appeal and try to get a passing grade through that, that might or might not work. But it will surely burn some bridges and, even worse for you, the whole process will take even more time than writing the missing chapter would.


Is it good to only read the high-rated journals as a starting PhD student? I just started my PhD in computer science (first year) and I enjoy reading the high-rated journals related to my field. It is true that I find them, sometimes, complicated (in some sense) and I cannot continue the reading. The reason why I like reading such journals is that (1) there are many beautiful ideas, (2) solid works and (3) I would like to submit to these journals in the future.

I think, however, that this strategy is not quite good as a junior (student). May be I should read other conference papers and journals.

Can you please suggest some useful advice.

I've never been one to sit down and read a journal edition cover to cover. I think you're better off skimming titles and abstracts for articles that pique your interest. You should do this for conference proceedings too. You can't attend every talk at a conference, nor should you really expect yourself to read every article.

At some point you will need to narrow your interest to something pretty specific in order to develop a dissertation. You will also need to develop depth and historical perspective on your chosen topic. You should probably spend as much, if not more, time reading interesting individual articles and all their important references (and so on!) as you should trying to read whole journal editions or entire conference proceedings. There's value in a depth-oriented approach to reading articles.

I find that there's a pruning strategy of sorts that keeps you out of stuff that's not interesting. Sometimes randomly selected articles can be worthwhile, but there's lots of stuff out there that will be boring to you. Using a good article as a guide and reading some of its references can be much more productive.


study permit for canadian university has taken more than 11 weeks I admitted to a master degree program in Canada. I have applied for the visa. I have been waiting for 2.5 months now.
I lost the winter semester. what should I write to visa section? how can I ask them to speed up the process? spring semester is my last chance to get there if I get the visa late, I will lose my acceptance completely. :(
My question is about writing a letter and letter samples.

should I apply to other universities now? to prevent wasting time?

I think the best solution would be if you could get your university to contact the high commission. In general, they don't provide customer service like a private company. So sometimes it's hard to get hold of them to speed up visa application process.


Is it acceptable to ask a professor for advice regarding a subject not taught in, but related to their class? I'm having a hard time understanding some concepts not explicitly taught in a course I took recently, but quite related nonetheless. I'm wondering if it's okay to e-mail the professor who taught this course and ask them for advice regarding this matter, considering:

I am no longer a student enrolled in one of their courses,
The subject matter I want to ask about was not part of that course's curriculum, even if it does come (very?) close.

Knowing this I've been wondering whether or not it's reasonable for me to approach this teacher and ask for help.

I've tried my best to research this site for simliar questions, but I've come up with little. The best I could find is only tangentially related at best, since it's not a homework matter.

Is it acceptable to ask a professor for [...]?

Yes, the worst it can happen is that it doesn't answer.

But: be polite, short and to the point (if you have a long question, ask for an appointment), and don't expect an answer in two hours.


Why do computer science conferences (usually) not reveal the number of submissions? In the conferences I've experienced, each paper gets a serial number that can tell its authors how many submissions were made prior to theirs.

Many conferences have a fixed number of tracks (and days), and thus the number of accepted papers cannot vary too much. (The organizers do have some flexibility, but it is rather limited.)

Thus, knowing the number of submissions can help one assess his chance of being accepted to the conference, which might tempt him to submit at the very last moment just to figure out the submission count.

Obviously, not everyone can do this. Why don't the organizers simply post it on the website after the submission date is due?

Usually (most of the time) this information is shared on the opening day as part of the welcoming session.

Why do conferences use sequential numbers that could give this sort of information away? I don't know, probably because it is easy, and the information has little value in general. Since most of the review process is a pretty manual labour intensive task, this probably makes it easier to find missing papers by hand, to search for and track papers, reduce potential administrative errors, etc.

What would change if there are 300 spots and your paper was number 600 vs 350 (assuming you submitted last)? You are usually not allowed to submit the same paper to more than one conference at the same time, so you cannot act in either case until you received your acceptance/rejection letter. Good conferences cull poor quality papers, even if that means not all the spots are filled. You only know the paper is accepted when it is accepted. Estimating a probability of acceptance is merely for your own enjoyment and has no benefit to the conference organisers.

In academia, if you ask the question why is x, y or z not done, the answer is usually time and effort required without any benefit to that person.


Retaking a course but the exams are exactly the same as last year's I recently faced a problem that is, I took a course at my university last year and got some grade for it, so for further improving it I gave the course this year again.

The course is purely evaluated based on oral exams on the take-home assignments that are handed out.

Coming back to the problem, I registered for the same course this year at my university, and apparently, the set of take-home exams are the same as the last year. Since, I know most of the correct answers, I just corrected the ones I made mistake on last year and submitted the improved set of the report this year.

However, it seems that the course instructor is not so happy about it  (and does not want to evaluate me) as I just re-did the same assignments by improving the previous one.

Having said these, what I see as the problem is that in the course information they have not said anything that whoever is repeating the course should inform the teacher to get new sets. Also, I registered for the course with a new registration and not a mere re-sit. Since they have given the assignments the same, I don't agree with them saying that they are not happy with the report that I handed in.

So for avoiding the conflict of interest, however, I withdrew from the exams, also, I know that in an ethical background that is the right thing to do (technically I did not do anything wrong).

Could you advise me who is right and wrong here and also please do advise me on the technical base, who is on the wrong side and what could I have done (I know that ethically this is wrong).

If a student is allowed to register for a class as a "new registration" as opposed to a resit and the student attends the class and does the work, the student deserves to be given a fair evaluation. While reusing assignments and examination materials is not optimal, it happens. Not wanting to (re-)evaluate a student on reused assignments seems reasonable. I would expect the instructor and department chair (or teaching chair) to work with you to resolve the issue. making you withdraw from the class seems to be an unreasonable solution.


Why do professors use course-buyouts? I am confused about how course buyouts work in the United States and about how the incentives play out for professors and the university. I will use a constructed example to frame my confusion. Please let me know if my example is unrealistic.

  Say that a university pays an assistant professor $100,000 for his teaching during the academic year. He has received an external grant of $500,000 of which $150,000 goes to the university as overhead. The professor wants to lessen his teaching load, and he can do so by paying the university a part of his salary, also known as "buying-out". His university charges 20% of his full-year salary for each course he buys out. So he has to pay the university $20,000 to avoid teaching that one course. The university then hires a non-tenure track faculty or a graduate student to teach this course for $10,000.

Just to review: The university has received $150,000 from overhead, paid $100,000 as a salary, received $20,000 for a course buyout, and then paid $10,000 for someone else to teach the course. So the university has received $60,000 from this transaction. Doesn't this transaction greatly benefit the university. Ostensibly it also benefits the professor who gets to do research in the time saved from teaching, but if this research has the potential to bring in more grant dollars and hence more overhead to the university, isn't the ultimate benefit still to the university?

Is this how the process sometimes works? If so, do universities encourage professors to use course-buyouts as a way to do more research, in a way similar to how researchers are encouraged to apply to grants?

tl;dr: Course-buyouts can give junior professors more time to do research which is necessary for their professional advancement, but it seems that at the end of the course-buyout process, it is mostly administrators and the university that is advantaged, almost as if the researcher is giving the university money so that he or she can do the research which will bring yet again more money into the university.

Actually, it is both better and worse than you describe. The substitute faculty member is unlikely to get $10K to teach the course. Probably closer to $2k.

Even if the professor doesn't teach as much and spends more time on research, he/she is also expected to advise and guide graduate students in their own research. This also benefits the university, of course.

But the overhead reimbursement is to reimburse real costs. When the professor/university get the grant it is up to the university to verify that the funds are properly used. This means that people are paid a salary to manage the grant and report to the funding agency periodically. It isn't just a "gift" as it entails real responsibilities (and potential liability).

But if you are thinking of the university as a profit center you are mistaken. The university benefits both from good teaching and from good research (and advising). But most universities are not-for-profit and whatever revenue comes in from whatever source goes back into the system, not to owners/shareholders. Some money is put aside for future needs and uncertainties.

If there is abuse in the system it is that there are probably too many administrators, but that is a different issue.


Does lecturing for your PI count as a "guest lecture" for a CV? Sometimes it happens that a professor traveling has his TA or RA fill in for him/her delivering a class lecture. Is this experience appropriate for a typical engineering CV, and if so how would it be designated?

This question deals with what sounds to me a somewhat greater honor, being invited to give a lecture in another department at your school. The answers there suggest that this should be listed as a "guest lecture". A related question is whether my first scenario can be described as a "guest lecture". I have seen it described as such on CVs. But my recollection as an undergrad is when a prof mentioned a "guest lecturer" coming, it was usually a bigshot, or some specialist, not some Phd student.

I have a feeling that the professor in the first scenario would use whoever is TAing as substitute, if the TA was at all competent. I have also heard those on search committees say it looks like resume-stuffing and can do more harm than good. On the other hand, a well-received comment by @DavidRicherby in this post suggests that it is a good idea to include substitute lecturing for your PI on a CV. Do folks on search committees (whether at more teaching-oriented or research-oriented institutions) have an opinion?

I would limit the term "guest lecture" to cases where you were specifically invited to give a lecture to the course, because of your ability to contribute something special that the regular instructor could not do.  (E.g. you have special expertise on a particular topic, or experiences to relate, or notable achievements, etc.)  I wouldn't apply it to simply covering a class (teaching routine material) because the professor is away.

However, you would normally have a separate section on your CV describing your teaching experience, which would include an entry showing that you were a TA for this course.  Under this entry, you could describe your duties, which could include something like "occasional lecturing".


How to study without having money What would be the best option for an EU citizen to study for a bachelor's degree (in any developed country: UK, EU, USA, AU, NZ, Japan, China etc.), without having the money to pay for fees, bills, accomodation etc.? Is there a study program, university or institution that provides funding through scholarships, financial aid or other means, and/or some kind of job position so that I can earn the money needed while studying?

After contacting many institutions I still haven't got a positive answer regarding such possibility. I have also read about need blind admissions, but these are very few USA colleges, with extremely low admission rates and other requirements.

Is it the only option available to just try enroll in one of these universities that have low fees, and then do your best to get a job in the city where the university is, and if you can't find any drop out and go back?

Update

@xLeitix said that:

  "[...] funded study places basically only exist for the PhD level."

While learning about the early life of Jane Goodall, I have read from this paragraph that:

  [Louis] Leakey arranged funding, and in 1962 he sent Goodall, who had no
  degree, to the University of Cambridge. She went to Newnham College,
  Cambridge, and obtained a PhD in ethology. She became the eighth
  person to be allowed to study for a PhD there without first having
  obtained a BA or BSc. Her thesis was completed in 1965 [...]

Therefore she was able to get a PhD in 3 years, at Cambridge, without prior degree and on top of that without having to worry about money. Is this possible only if you manage to get in contact with someone at the level of Louis Leakey? How can I skip all other degrees and just go for a PhD like Dr. Goodall, so that I can get funding like @xLeitix said?

In your circumstances, your best bet is likely to study in your home country. Many EU countries have stipends or student loan schemes targeted at qualifying local students that could otherwise not afford higher education. If you are willing to work next to studying, the world is basically your oyster anyway - many/most institutions in Europe allow students to work next to their studies even if the program is nominally full-time (of course the university does not look for a job for you, that would have to be your responsibility).

In your circumstances, moving to a different country to study will be a lot more challenging. Student loan schemes and stipends are often not available to foreign students, and funded study places basically only exist for the PhD level.


Style in citing two authors in the same sentence I have a sentence with two concepts and two quotations from two different authors. It goes like this

  Some is true because of concept one, that is "quotation one",
  and concept two, that is "quotation two".

Concept one and two are both from Author A while quotation one and two are from Author B.

What would be an elegant way to cite both authors at the end of the sentence making sure:

The reader will be able to attribute each concept/citation to the write author,
The reader will be able to understand which work (and from which page) the quotation is from

First off, citing papers is not about giving credit to first authors, it is about making literature traceable to readers. This is a key part of scientific writing, providing sources. The format for citations is of course focussing on first authors who may, or may not, be the main contributor (remember that author order varies between disciplines). A secondary aspect is the fact that many evaluations of academic status is based on authorship and as such authors may not be credited as much as they should. This is, however, not the reason for why we reference the way we do. So, from this perspective, I do not see why you necessarily need to emphasize the name of someone other than the first or second author (I am now thinking Harvard-style references where two-author papers have both names listed in the in-text reference).

If there is a scientifically based reason for highlighting the originator, one could write

  Concepts One and Two (reference to B) were first developed by A [then I would argue some form of explanation of why this distinction is scientifically important should follow or be included]

or

  A originated the concept one and two (Reference to B) [then I would argue some form of explanation of why this distinction is scientifically important should follow or be included]

Note that this would seemingly take away the importance of B, which in many reference systems would look strange and implicate something may not be right with the articles. I therefore think it is wise to clarify why you feel the work of A is such that it requires highlighting. Clearly, I cannot judge the case since all details are unavailable. As a side point, reviewers will likely pick up on any inconsistencies and ask for clarification in a case such as this, unless the reasons for the formatting is either clear from your writing or well known in the community.


zotero: can I manually change a citation style I'm in the humanities, and I'm currently using zotero to cite primary and secondary materials in my dissertation. I apply the Chicago Manual Style, and don't have any issues with secondary sources.

I do have problems with primary documents. I use archival materials, so the standard practice in my field goes something like this:

"name document", archive, x, y, z, page.

However, zotero puts the archive at the end:

"name", x, y, z, page, archive.

Is there a way to change the citation code in zotero to correct it(while keeping the CM style)?

Or do I change everything manually (and risk messing up the footnotes)?

Thanks!

Yes, you can. Zotero stores citation style information in a file format that is called Citation Style Language (CSL). You can download and adapt style files in this format from several repositories, such as this one, or create your own style files form scratch.

In order to add a CSL file to Zotero, follow these instructions from the Zotero wiki:

  CSL styles (with a “.csl” extension) can also be added through the Style Manager, found under the “Styles” tab of the “Cite” pane in the Zotero preferences panel. It shows you which styles are already installed, and also allows you to add (by clicking the + button) and delete (by pressing the - button) styles. Another installation option is to drag-and-drop a CSL style file onto an open Firefox browser window.

On changing available citation styles within Zotero, the manual says:

  When you click the “Insert Citation” button for the first time in a document, Zotero opens the Document Preferences, where you can select the citation style you want to use in your document. You can change the citation style at any point later by clicking the “Set Document Preferences” button.

I'm not familiar enough with the CSL syntax to explain which changes you would have to make in order for primary documents to appear the way you want. However, you may be able to find an adapted version of the Chicago style that suits your needs on a repository; or you can use the online CSL editor to tweak an existing Chicago style CSL file without having to deal with the syntax.


Should I choose a research field that I'm not really good at, but have strong interest? I'm a first year masters student. Currently I'm doing coursework but I'll have research in second year. I find all subjects interesting. I feel better when I'm doing subjects including a bit of mathematics and rigorous thinking. Algorithms in particular.
But I'm not really good at it. I try hard but it's just not happening. Still if I'm given opportunity I want to do research in Algorithms.
This will obviously require mathematical thinking.

Is it good to pursue research career in a subject which I'm interested in ignoring the fact that I do not have strong base and understanding of it? Or should I choose something easier based on my abilities?

Doing research on a subject is the best way to get a good understanding of something.  Presumably, if you do reasonably well in the parts of your coursework covering algorithms (in the eyes of the professors), you're doing well enough.  Mathematics and rigour are hard, even for most people who are capable of doing good work in the area.  Also bear in mind, humans are subject to the impostor syndrome.  If you find a professor who knows you and is willing to guide you in research in this area, then I don't see a problem.


"Do you need travel support?" Questions on Conference Applications I am applying for conferences now for the first time while I have my own grant. My grant is mainly for my living stipend but has some money set aside for travel over 4 years. I am starting to apply for conferences and they are asking if I need support. The technical answer is "no," but the more complicated answer is that to go to all the conferences I want to go to, then I will need support from some of these conferences in order to pay for it for the course of 4 years.

Do I just say "yes" despite the short answer? It's very clear I have this grant that has some travel money, but in the end it's not unlimited, but I don't want to come off as greedy.

How detailed should a response to a travel support requirement inquiry be?

What you should answer will depend on the conference you're attending and the country it is hosted in. Different conferences will have different amounts of money available for travel support and there is no single set of criteria that is used to determine who is eligible. Often travel support is aimed at students and researchers with a very low budget, for example those from poor countries. It is typically not intended for people who have the budget to attend several conferences, but want to attend more.

So figure out what the eligibility criteria are. If they're not listed on the conference website you can either just fill in "yes" and hope that you are provided with documents that provide further information.

But as is often the case, the simplest way might be to just ask. Send an email to the conference organizers asking what their criteria and intended target audience are for travel support.


Why does achieving some success in research not feel satisfying? Are our academia research minds just so trained to constantly climb our mental mountains that when achieving some success, one feels, "that was it?", even when the past leading up to the success was absolutely brutal in terms of work load and stress and creative thinking, so that one would think the feeling would be more joyous.

Does it always just kind of feel that way?  Does the rewarding feeling dissipate very quickly?

The reward is pretty temporary.

There are definitely dramatic high points in academics- publishing a paper, making tenure, graduating a student, etc. Those are cool, but those are relatively rare occurrences. You can't judge the experience of climbing a mountain just based on how it felt when you got to the top. If you hate the entire experience of climbing up and down then you're spending 99% of your time hating the experience and only enjoying the dramatic moment.

Academics as a profession has no ending point, there's simply a process of continual improvement. No one is ever going to publish the last paper that explains everything and your teaching material is never going to get to a place where it's finally perfect. You're never going to get to the top of academics and declare that you're finished, so the day to day work you do is what you need to enjoy in order to feel fulfilled. This is true in most careers.

You need to define success clearly for yourself. What does it mean for you to be successful? Is it publishing so many papers in a year? Is it solving some problem close to your heart? Is it getting tenure? Is it becoming an editor of a journal in your field? Is it making a lot of money? Is it having time with your family?

Success is something that feels good when you're doing it. Everyone has hiccups, doldrums, or other low points in their career. That's normal, and not every day will be a good day (or year, or project, or paper, etc.). But, your routine work should be something you feel is enjoyable and fulfilling. If not, you're going to burn out sooner or later. This is true for any career, not just academics.


How to review a manuscript where the software is difficult to install? I'm reviewing a manuscript that is protocol focussed. This protocol is a bioinformatics workflow that uses the author's own software that has already been published.

Part of the peer review requirements are to test the protocol to see if the instructions are accurate. I have no problems with this request. However, although their website suggests that the software should be installable on any OS, the installation package only includes an .exe file for a Windows system. I do not have a Windows system.

It is possible for me to figure out how to install their software, but these instructions are not included in the paper nor on the software website. This would also take me some time and this would be more than a normal amount of time that I should be spending reviewing this paper.

My question is: should I only review what I am able to easily complete from their protocol? In other words, should I only review what I can do from their given instructions and include the difficulties I had installing the software? Or should I contact the authors (without mentioning I am reviewing their new manuscript) and let them know that their installation package for their already published software is missing important files for unix-based systems?

I am still relatively new to the peer review process and think this paper is very interesting and don't want it to be rejected simply because I do not use Windows.

You should ask your editor for advice on this. I doubt, however, that you should reach out to the authors in any way. But the editor can, on your behalf, ask the authors for specific instructions for installing the software on your OS. The editor can make this a condition of getting a review.

Moreover, the editor can communicate your concerns about missing files or whatever else is important to complete a review.


Is it ethical to purchase someone else's work and submit an edited version for assignments? I have a friend who purchased work (a computer program assignment) from somebody else. He hired them to do it. However, he made a significant effort to make the purchased work into his own (he rewrote everything, he made the whole program into something different while preserving the output after receiving the purchased work), then submitted it. Was what he did ethical?

If he would cite it and then get the marks only for the added value of his own work, then it would be ethical.
If he submits it to get credit for it all, this is highly unethical, in fact in my personal opinion even worse than plagiarism, as it is far harder to prove the misconduct and demonstrates an elevated level of (academia-level) criminal energy beyond the usual misdeeds.


Does a minor obtained in a graduate school matter? Some universities require that each graduate student have a minor. I wonder whether it is helpful in the long run? For example, if one has PhD in mathematics with a minor in philosophy, would it be helpful to obtain a position in logic in a department of philosophy? [Probably related to this question.]

As you kind of alluded to in your example, the answer to this question depends a lot on what kind of "long run" you are planning to pursue.

First, in a career where your minor subject is irrelevant, then no, your minor likely will not matter. Sounds obvious, but this is likely the case for many people.

Further, in a career where your minor subject becomes your main focus, such as a mathematician transitioning to a position in philosophy, then you will likely need to demonstrate your qualifications with more than just your PhD minor. Your minor may be noticed when looking for your first academic appointment, but in the long run, it will be much less helpful than publications in philosophy, recommendations from fellow academics in philosophy, coursework in philosophy subjects etc.

There are a few situations where the minor could be helpful, such as if you are applying for an entry-level job in some interdisciplinary field. However, there are many more situations where the minor is either irrelevant or insufficient to prove your qualifications.


Removing one whole chapter of my thesis is suggested (required) This is a bit of a long story. I am a graduate student working on mathematics and the topic I have been working on is not directly within my advisor's expertise (pretty closely related to though). My thesis basically consists of two parts which deal with two related but independent problems. At the beginning when I chose these two problems to work on, I was kind of discouraged by my advisor as he thought these problems despite interesting did not seem reachable. But actually, when I decided to work on these problems, I already had some rough ideas on tackling the problems.
Anyway, the first part was basically done in last summer/fall which I also presented my proof orally to him. For the second part, he was once kind of skeptical of my proofs, however, his confusions and doubts seemed to be resolved through our conversations, email exchanges and my improvement of the exposition. I sent him my first draft in April (I was supposed to submit my thesis in June). In late June, when I had to submit my thesis, he said he had not really finished reading my thesis.
After my thesis was submitted, he told me that my thesis was very badly written which made him not even able to follow my work. But wait, he had two months to take a look at my thesis but he had not said a word about that every time we met. Anyway, my thesis defense was thus delayed for two months and in these two months I was constantly asked to make changes big or small on the thesis. At certain point, my advisor seemed to  feel my thesis was in good shape and I should arrange for the defense.
Alright, I did the defense in August and it went well. But recently I received my thesis feedback report in which my advisor suggested that I should remove the whole second part from my thesis because he thinks that my proofs/arguments presented there are not solid enough. I always appreciated when he could point out specific mistakes/confusions I made in my thesis. But it seems that after all of these have been resolved, he is still not convinced that there is no gap in my proofs. I really do not know what to do now.
Should I argue with my advisor or should I simply follow his request to remove that chapter and get my degree safely?

It is very likely in your interest to follow your advisor's advice.  The timeline you describe suggests your advisor has been highly irresponsible (or impacted by the current pandemic) about providing timely feedback, but this is not a reason not to do what they recommend.
In academia, you will be judged on your publications, not the content of your thesis.  Removing content from your thesis to please your supervisor will not necessarily prevent you from publishing that work, so the downsides of a shortened thesis are limited.


When not to contact a professor for a PhD based on what is written on his web page? I am trying to reach out professors in my research area of interest. Some professors say on their (lab) web page that prospective grad students should submit an application for admission...

In this case, would it be beneficial to contact that professor so he/she can support my application? Does that mean that the school rules don't let the professor get involved in the process of admission? What does that mean exactly? I am asking about US schools

I assume the note on the web page is to avoid misunderstandings about the application process. In some places (not the US generally) it is the professor in charge of admissions and he/she actually hires students for the lab. If students from around the world expect that to be the case, the professor may have to deal with too many individual situations, so just makes a general statement.

It isn't, I suspect, a statement that you should not contact him/her, but a warning that you need to go through the administrative admission procedures first before you can be considered.

You can contact the prof for information or to express interest, of course, but be clear that you are also making a formal application through proper channels.

The contact isn't necessary, however. There will be time for that after you are accepted to the program.


Mentor trying to be first author? I was on an internship with professor A at University B in China. We were working on a computer science project. During the internship I implemented professor A's idea and got some results. Three weeks ago I finished a paper draft and left University B for a new internship. Me and professor A were planning to submit the paper draft to a conference (deadline: May 20).

Until yesterday (May 17), the order of authors was: me, professor A, other students & collaborators in the lab... And professor A had no objection with that. However, last night I received an email from him. He said he wants to be the first author... His reason was for intellectual properties and patent issues. My understanding is that because I was merely an intern at University B, if the first author was me, it would cause IP troubles for him?

I feel deceived. But, should I feel like this? I was counting on a first-author paper because I'm planning to apply for a PhD program in the US. One paper may not mean a lot to someone who's published a lot. But for someone who hasn't published yet, it means something.

Looking on the Internet, I found something that might explain professor A's motivations:
In China specifically, corresponding authors are often underappreciated by universities and research institues. This might be the case for University B. Given professor A is relatively young, he may want first authorship for promotion.

Summary of my questions:

Should I go discuss with professor A and try to persuade him to let me be the first author?
If I want to apply for a PhD program in the US, would being the first author be more helpful or being the second author is as well helpful?

Edit:

My affiliation for the paper has always been University B. I didn't mention my current university or internship in any sense.
I emailed back to professor A yesterday, saying I think I should be the first author, because I did most of the work; because the idea was originated from him he should be the corresponding author. He replied this morning, saying he agree with what I said. He explained that because I was doing an internship in his lab and not a student of University B, putting me as the first author could cause IP and patent troubles for University B... So this problem is fixed now.

I don't really understand what the motivation here for the professor is. Since you did all of the work for this paper at University B, you should not list your new affiliation (whether it's an internship or another school) as an "active" affiliation for this paper. It can be listed as a "current address," but not as an active address for this paper. In that way, the professor still gets credit for your work, with your affiliation showing as being part of his group. (I suspect that the professor's concern is that, if you are at another institution and list that as your address, he won't get credit for his work.)

Another issue is that if you are not going to present the paper at the conference, he may have felt it was in his interests to list himself as a first author. How appropriate this is I have to leave to the CS community to judge.

In general, however, the first author should be the person who has made the largest contributions to both the research and the writing of the paper. Deviations from this need to have a very good foundation.


What are committees looking for in a cover letter for a faculty application? Several small related questions about how to present oneself in a faculty application, and in particular the cover letter:

Should it end by saying something, like "I am waiting for your call" or "I will follow up by phone or email"?  I have seen the latter recommended, but for me it seems somehow annoying.

Should the cover letter contain qualifications and skills like highly-motivated, fast learner, etc?

Some recommend mentioning potential members of the department that the applicant can work with in a faculty application. Is this a good idea? If Dr. A  is working on topic T, and I want to work on topic T, then should I say that I would like to collaborate with Dr. A, and if so, how?

(1) For the cover letter, should it end by saying something,

In my experience (~10 years on hiring committees, starting my second year as hiring committee chair), almost nobody will read your cover letter.  If you have something to say about your research, say it in your research statement.  If you have something to say about your teaching, say it in your teaching statement.  If you have something to say about your personal life, don't.

If the department doesn't acknowledge receipt (typically by email), it's reasonable to call or email the department to double-check.  But "waiting for your call" is unreasonably optimistic.  Each department you're applying to probably gets hundreds of applications for each faculty position.

  (2) Should the cover letter contain qualifications and skills like highly-motivated, fast learner etc?

Absolutely not!  "Motivated" and "fast learner" are neither skills nor qualifications; they're useless boilerplate.  Of course you're motivated and a fast learner; otherwise, you wouldn't have a PhD and a publication record consistent with a tenure-track faculty position.  Your actual skills and qualifications should be apparent from your CV, your research and teaching statements, and your recommendation letters.

  (3) Some recommends to mention potential drs from the department that the applicant can work with. Is this a good idea? If Dr. A is working on topic T, and I want to work on topic T, then should I say that I would like to collaborate with Dr. A? If yes, what is a good way to say it?!

Don't just say it; make a convincing case.  Just dropping a few names into your research statement will be written off immediately as meaningless boilerplate.  If your research goals really do converge with Dr. A's research interests, that should be obvious from your larger research narrative, and it should be easy for you to draw specific, technical, and credible connections between your interests and Dr. A's.  Do not fake it.  We can tell.

  (4) For the research statement, should I use "I" or "we" for joint papers, assuming that I was the first author?

"We" or "my coauthors and I"; using "I" for joint work is dishonest.  But this is a relatively minor issue.


Should Figures and Tables follow a certain order or be at a specific location in a document? This is a topic I constantly think about when writing a document.

Often after I complete a document in LaTex I would go through the document to make sure that the figures are where I want them to be (I want you here, not there!) and this is a very frustrating procedure.

My question is: How important are figure locations in a document, e.g. if the figure you refer to is not on the page where you are referring to it, perhaps even two pages after.

I have noticed that textbook publishers rarely give any thought to it and I cannot decide whether it bothers me or not. It would certainly make my life easier if I don't have to worry about floats jumping around in a LaTex document.

Any thoughts?

There are many policies that publishers imply considering figures. The most common ones are:

All figures or tables (so-called floats) have to be numbered and get a caption.
All floats have to be placed at the top of the page, or at a page solely made of figures and tables.
All floats have to be referred in the text by their number.
Every float has to appear no sooner than on the page where it is first mentioned (i.e. if it's first mentioned on page 5, it shouldn't be placed on page 4, but it can be placed on page 6).
Numbering should be consecutive (i.e., no 1 then 3 then 2).
The first reference to the floats should be consecutive (with the exception where you basically only "confer it" (with "cf." or alike).

Some journals want you to provide figures and tables separately, some don't care, some have typesetters that do it themselves, some don't force captions, some allow in-text placement, etc. Just check what you have to do. If nothing is said, I recommend complying with the rules above.


What are the common guidelines for writing a thesis in European and English-speaking countries? Currently I'm a student at one of the russian universities which obviously requires me to write theses and similar academic papers in Russian. Most russian universities (and CIS unis, in my observation) follow locally modefied versions of Soviet thesis structure guidelines. In my writing I regularly rely on English-language papers from JSTORE and the like, but one particular thing I've noticed is that the structure of those papers was, though logical, nontheless depended on a given author, even in cases when authors work and publish their papers in the same uni. In other words, I couldn't track a hint of more or less universal structure across multiple papers. Such practice is very uncommon in post-Soviet countries, as structure here is explicit and tengible (for example, paragraphs within introductory chapter are clearly defined and have comparable composition across the majority of papers in CIS countries).

Back to my main question. Are there any official guidelines which students/researchers are compelled to follow within a solitary uni or a cluster? Can you point out to a resource that can shed light upon academic writing tradition in English-speaking and/or European countries?

There are some common structures that show up frequently (e.g. Introduction-Background-Methods-Results-Discussion is common for experiment-based papers), but they are different for different fields, and it is not mandatory to follow them. Some universities (mine among them, but I'm not in Europe) give "Thesis Writing" classes, where you get an overview of the various strategies. You could look up materials from these classes, maybe they will help.