Is it a good idea to add a link/reference to experience or relieving letters in CV? The purpose of a company experience letter is to validate claims a job candidate makes about their skills and experience in their resume, cover letter, or Curriculum Vitae (CV).
Is it a good idea to add a link/reference to experience or relieving letters in our curriculum vitae?

I personally have several links in my CV:

Links to my publications. This allows for a reader to quickly find my publications without having to search.
A link to GitHub. This allows for a reader to see the code that I have produced.
A link to LinkedIn. This allows for a reader to interact with me on LinkedIn if they so choose.
A link to my Math Genealogy. Just for interest's sake.
A link to my university page. My university is sometimes confused with another university in the area (similar names...it's a long story). This is to clarify which university I am speaking of. And it lets readers see what my department is up to.

When I am looking at a CV, if it has a number of tasteful links, I am rather likely to click on them and see what they are about. (Excessive linking can be overkill and a distraction of course). I am never in a situation where I am having to go through hundreds of CVs at a time, so I usually have time to explore links. And even if your CV is in an environment where the reader does not have time to click on links, why would it matter if you had links? So they do not look at them. It's not the end of the world.
I personally would include links to resources that help support your CV. (Like I said, do not over do it). Even a relieving letter would be okay in some cases. If the reader is not interested, they don't have to click the link. It's that simple.  But for me, I honestly might click on a relieving letter and read it. If it reflected positively on the candidate, that would never be a bad thing in my mind.


Publishing an algorithm that may not have many applications? Suppose I came across a problem, say in graph theory, that I need to solve for my application, or a problem that I just created out of the blue. I find that it is not a standard problem by any means. Also, it may not have many applications. I then solve this problem with some algorithm. The algorithm is non-trivial. My questions are:

Is it possible to publish such algorithms?
Does it even make sense to publish it? Since it may not even have any applications. And if it did, it is likely that other people have solved the same problem for their respective applications without ever publishing it.

I am sorry if such speculative questions should not be asked here, but I was curious. Thanks!

Is it possible to publish such algorithms?

It's not only possible, it's far more common than the alternative.  Most algorithms papers do not have real applications.  The vast majority are motivated by applications, but there are usually several layers of abstraction and/or simplification between the problem actually solved and the motivating application.  But even this "motivation" is often post-hoc rationalization, added by the authors to help draw the reader into their paper.  Most people who study algorithms do it primarily because algorithms are cool, not primarily because they're useful.

Or maybe that's just me.

  Does it even make sense to publish it?

In principle, sure!  Of course, to be publishable, your algorithm needs to be both novel and interesting, not just to you, but to the algorithms community as a whole.  You need to be sure that your problem hasn't been solved before, and in particular that your algorithm wasn't already discovered and published by someone else.  You also need to sell the problem, the algorithm, or both; it's not enough for your algorithm to be "non-trivial".

I strongly recommend running your algorithm past a local algorithms expert, if possible.  They may recognize your problem or your technique under a different guise.  At a minimum, they should be able to help you start the necessary literature search.

Good luck!


Is it okay to file administrative complaints about problems with the facilities and services in an academic settings? Background Information:

I am a doctoral student at a premier institute which is also a hospital. Most of the administrative positions are handled by professors who are also clinicians and researchers. Sad as it might be, there are a lot of things for which the bar is quite low. Three specific examples:

the cafeteria on campus has absolutely rock-bottom level of quality/hygiene standard
similar low standard when it comes to maintenance of washrooms etc.
impossibly poor standards of on-campus residences

These are usually taken care of by administrative staff but at the end of the day are under administrative control of one or the other faculty (honorary "in-charges"). Not only these set a very poor impression when we have visitors but it also lowers the morale of the research staff. Sustained exposure to such a pathetic environment impairs productivity and there is always a prevalent air of gloom among students on the campus. Somehow it seems that the administrators are not interested in remedying any such situation and things seem to have become worse in the recent years.

Question:

Is it potentially harmful* for students to send formal complaints to the administrators requesting action to be taken? In case the administrator does nothing, should it be sent higher up in the hierarchy? How should attention be brought to such things so that they are resolved?

*harmful in terms of being bullied by senior faculties in the future; having carrier plans blocked because the same faculties might be on your review committees, et al

What I have tried to do:

I have sent anonymous emails to which I have either not received any reply or else have received a reply explicitly asking me to disclose my identity. In either case, complaints have never been worked on. I have tried to speak to my advisor about this but he has never been encouraging about the idea of formally writing complaints because of similar concerns mentioned above.

Your best bet is to use safety in numbers: a single complaint won't lead to much of a response and may cause some friction for you in the future.

If you can organize a large number of students to complain, though, it may be possible to achieve much stronger results. Moreover, it is unlikely that the administration will be able to retaliate against a large group at the individual level. (You might not want to be perceived as the "ringleader" if you are worried about possible repercussions.)


I am not getting response from any professors or industry. Is it end of the road for me? I did in a PhD in mechanical engineering from a Canadian university on simulation of shot peening process. I collaborated with experimental groups from my department.
After graduating in January 2020, I joined my PhD lab as a postdoc for few months while I applied for positions. I published 4 papers (first authored), 2 co-authored.
It has been 12+ months and I am still working with my PhD advisor and on a related topic. I have submitted 2 papers (2 first authored).
Now, after renewing my contract for another year, I am about to work on a different topic and in collaboration with experimental groups from other university and industry but same advisor.
As I am open for a life in both academia and industry, I have been applying for other postdoc positions and industrial positions. I apply to positions like 3D printing and simulations of selective laser melting process which is different than my research experience so far but I work with same numerical method (Finite element method).
Also, I apply for industry jobs as finite element researcher, engineer.
Till now, I have contacted 30 professors and  20 industrial positions. I received just 1 response from professor saying he will contact me if gets a grant approved. And I got 2 response from industry, one rejected after first interview and second position with an invitation for C++ coding assessment test. I am not proficient with C++ as I work with Matlab and a bit with python. I would fail the test.
Apart from these, I don't have any other leads. I have to continuie with my current postdoc, but am afraid that I won't get any other positions in the future due to lack of openings.
Where do I go from here? I like my research field, but I don't think I am cut out for it as proved by the lack of job offers. Is this the end of the road?
Please advise.

In short: not knowing you or your life's goals, it is hard to make an assessment, and it is surely impossible to give an objective assessment. So the answers will be opinion-based, even from people claiming to be absoulutely objective.
It looks you are still comfortable with your time in the academia, you are open to both worlds ("life in both academia and industry"), which is not a good thing, in terms of employment in the private world, it is often perceived from the other side as "the candidate does not know what he/she wants, he is just waiting for an opening in the academia" and therefore your application ends quickly in the "let's get back to this later, i.e. never" folder.
This even if you do not express it explicitly, the fact that you are still employed by the uni usually raises red flag for many recruiting.
Formally, it looks like you have a strong academic CV, but it is time to be independent, which means to gather your own funds (for example this Canadian fellowship https://banting.fellowships-bourses.gc.ca/ ) and to perform some research without the influence/guidance/support/involvement of your advisor.
Please note that the +-4 years contract (and associated safety of your position) you had during your PhD is the most stable position you could have had in Academia, apart from being a full professor, which may happen at the earliest some 15 years from now.
So the insecure feeling you have about academic positions, fundings etcetc in the Academia is quite common (not that I approve, but it is beyond the individual possibilities to change this). Either you:

embrace it, looking for academic/research opportunities all over the world, both in terms of open positions and grants applications;
you escape it by working independently as a consultant, or finding an industry position you like.

Final note regarding academic applications: professors are not answering to you. Why? you are very expensive, with the funding of a postdoc they can have 2 PhDs, so PostDocs positions are rare, and if they are available there is not much time to be spent thinking on it, there will be an (official) opening and it will be filled as fast as possible and with as less efforts as possible. But professor will welcome the opportunity to have more fundings, so if you ask support in writing applications for grants and external fundings you will see a better response ratio.


How can I get a Copyright Transfer Form without notifying my advisor? My case is that we already have an adviser. She's not allowing us to register for conference (rank B). We have prepared everything after getting acceptance letter. Now she's telling us to submit the work to another conference (ranks A*)! We are pretty much sure our paper will surely be rejected if we submit it there and since our undergraduate study will be completed within 2 months we may not ever get this chance to publish a paper!

What should i do? She's simply not ready to listen. As she was the one submitting everything program committee will send eCF to her only. Should I write to the program committee so that he sends me an eCF? I don't want to change author names... just want to publish the paper!

This makes me sick (sorry). While I may understand your motivation and enthusiasm. But   betraying your co-author is not an acceptable solution. All co-authors need to agree on when and where to submit. Most likely, she knows better than you where the work should go. Moreover, If you planning to continue research after graduation it is better to keep good relation with her (at least you will need a recommendation letter written by her). You can continue your hidden game but no one would guarantee the outcome. She may even ruin your graduation. You need to have an honest discussion with her and make a decision. Tell her why you want to publish. No games. People tend to publish years after doing research/graduation.


Is it possible to have a healthy work-life balance as a professor? I am an MSc student and one future direction I have been thinking about is the potential of pursuing a professorship after I do a PhD. Why do I want to be a professor? I enjoy the back and forth of doing research - while at times it's frustrating to figure things out, I think it's a good proxy for workplace freedom (by my standards) and I know that I would enjoy teaching.

Where I don't think that I would entirely fit the mold of a professorship is that I am not so concerned with having the top publications or cranking out as many papers as I can, but that's not to say I anticipate producing one paper a year and then putting my feet up on my desk. Relative to others who are more concerned about having top publications or many papers, I would probably be the 'less preferred' candidate for the job - which is okay. I am in no hunt for accolades, awards, or praise.

But I think that approaching a professorship from a balanced and holistic approach where I can work on research, teach, and maintain a healthy work-life balance would be something that I could grow to love. However, my perspective and approach to a professorship might be naive, which would also be horrifying to find out when it's too late.

So do you think that it is possible to have a healthy work-life balance as a professor or is that approach to a professorship, at least early on, not realistic for the modern market place of academia?

To add to the existing answers:

  Can you be a (relatively) “lazy” professor and still hold a position?

Yes. Once you have a (tenured) position, you can probably be rather lazy and still hold onto it.

  So do you think that it is possible to have a healthy work-life balance as a professor or is that approach to a professorship, at least early on, not realistic for the modern market place of academia?

The part about "at least early on" is crucial here. While you can (and some do) gear back a bit once you have tenure, you don't generally get into this position by being lazy. Academia is very competitive (as other answers have indicated), and to end up on top of a hiring pile you will need to be considerably more accomplished than your peers. For most people, being more accomplished means that you will have to put in the hours (and even then there are no guarantees, of course).

Generally speaking, the description of how you envision the job indicates more interest in a teaching-focused, low-research position. This is perfectly appropriate. Competition for such jobs may be a bit lower than at the top research schools, but is (at least in most areas of the world) still high enough that a truly lazy person will not see any offers.

However, and this is important, it is my observation that professors at teaching-oriented schools do not actually work less than their counterparts at research schools. In teaching-oriented schools, the teaching load will evidently be (much) higher, and individual students may be weaker (meaning that they often need more time-consuming direct support). TAs are common in research schools, but often rare or completely unknown in teaching-oriented schools. All in all, from talking to colleagues at teaching-oriented schools, I got the impression that they are putting in at the very least comparable hours to me (often for lower status and salary). You should not fall into the trap of envisioning a teaching position as the same as a research-focused professorship, with the only difference being that nobody cares if you do research.

It is still possible to have a work-life balance (in both, research and teaching focused positions), but it will require some planning and working smart and dedicatedly. It is unlikely that you will manage to get tenure by actively being lazy.


Pros and cons of booking a hotel through the conference website versus finding your own hotel I am going to an overseas conference this year. The conference organizer provided two hotels that we can book from. But after a round of Internet search, I found generally better prices at other hotels that are closer to the conference venue.

Obviously, I do not want to book so far away from everyone else that I cannot join any activities.

What are other pros and cons of booking a hotel through the conference or on your own that I may have missed?

When I attend conferences, I rarely use the "official" hotels.  Frequently there are better, closer, and less expensive alternatives nearby that are perfectly fine.

The only reason to book at the conference-approved hotels is if your travel funding requires it as a condition for reimbursement.  Otherwise, save some money and book elsewhere so long as it's within walking distance.


Experimental research work on a similar experimental setup patented by someone else For my PhD thesis, I have conceptualised an experimental setup which is similar to an already existing patented design. Can I do research work on that setup (conceptualised by me) by simply citing that patent ? Are there other things to keep in mind ?

You should probably consult an IP lawyer. Your institution probably has someone who can help with this. Depending on what you are doing you may be using the patent idea or not (ie violating). You might be able to get a license from the patent holder. Lots of possibilities here.

In one scenario, the patent owner may be interested in your work.

But there is too little stated in your question and too much implied to be able to give nay definite answer.


What to do when research leads to poor results? I am an MSc graduate and work as an independent researcher. I spent 10 months on a paper. I wrote many scripts in Matlab to implement four other comparative methods as well as a new method that my MSc professor had proposed. Each of these methods was so difficult to implement.

Unfortunately, the method that I was going to propose does not work well compared to the comparative methods, which were introduced already 3-4 years ago.

What should I do now?

I recommend that you record your failures and not just your successes.  In your case, I suggest you write a technical report giving all the details (the implementation, the comparison, the conclusion).  It may not be considered as a publication worthy of your resumé, but at least it serves to document your efforts and may prove to be useful in the future (in case other people are thinking of using your proposed method).

Also note that your method may appear worse when compared to others using a certain metric (say, time complexity) but may appear better when compared to others using a different metric (say, space complexity).  You might want to look at your method again.


Citing many map shapefiles from the same website If all the files I've downloaded come from the same website, do I have to cite every file separately, or can I cite the website that contains the files and get it over with?

The files are shapefiles.

How to proceed probably depends on the number of files.

If it's just a handful, you could create individual listings for each file.
If there are a bunch of files with a similar naming structure, you could create a single bibliography entry for the main page, and then in a note in the citation identify the files used.
If there are hundreds of files or files with various naming conventions, it would probably be easiest to put this information in an appendix or supporting information document, and then provide a single citation to the web site.


Can UK university require you email from @ac.uk, not OutLOOK? I have children who attend UK universities. Because GDPR, the university forbids email forwarding or accessing @ac.uk on Outlook. However, the university's @ac.uk system is more user unfriendly than Outlook, and they prefer to use Outlook!

Some instructors and department admin agree, and are willing to email both her Outlook and and her @ac.uk account. However, others order her to email them from just her @ac.uk, and refuse email to her Outlook account.

Should she be required to send email from just @ac.uk account?
Because of freedom of speech, we can't force people to email her Outlook. With that said, how can we sway instructors to include her Outlook account as well?

I am afraid that your question is based on a wrong premise, which I will try to correct.

Most (if not all) universities in the UK give their students and staff an email address in zone .ac.uk.
Most universities in the UK provide their email via outlook services. Outlook is a product/service offered by an international company which has physical servers in many countries, including UK, which make them GDPR-compliant. They can even install a server on University premises if required.
University staff are discouraged to reply to student emails coming from external addresses. The reason is GDPR or pre-GDPR data protection measures: there is no simple way to check whether an email from john.doe@obscure.server.com really comes from John Doe. That's why staff will usually only respond to university email addresses, which can be verified by University IT.
You can configure an email client (e.g. Outlook) on your computer to work with a university email address and it will be as friendly as your personal email.


Are Doctor of Arts (D.A.) degrees in math taken seriously? Morris Kline's Why The Professor Can't Teach mentions many problems in current mathematical education in university.  The author said the Doctor of Arts (D.A.) in Mathematics was created to solve these problems.  But I noticed that there are only three universities that have this degree in the U.S. (even in the world).  They are

Carnegie Mellon University,
University of Illinois at Chicago and
Idaho State University.

I even heard an associate professor in CMU said they want to halt this degree. So my question is, has the D.A. degree in math been taken seriously?

If the NSF (National Science Foundation) doesn't recognize a degree as a Research Doctorate, for whatever reason, the holder's opportunities will be limited. For example, most colleges and universities in the US expect faculty to do at least some research at some level. The required quality varies widely.

Tenure in the US is determined by faculty committees. If one or more members of your committee doesn't accept the quality of your degree for whatever reason you will fare poorly in attaining tenure.

Finally, when you apply for grants you are expected to list your "highest" degree. If a "doctorate" isn't recognized as a Research Degree by NSF, you might need to list an MS as your highest degree. This can be devastating if you don't expect it.

For the D.A. degree, NSF recognition as a Research Doctorate ended in 2003.

Note that the above is directed to anyone who would want to pursue this degree now or in the future. Consider the above issues. However, it says nothing about the quality of the people holding the degree. Many were unfairly left stranded, unfortunately, by NSFs change of designation.


Should I comment on a cited paper in the paper-review part of my master's thesis? I'm writing my master's thesis and began to wonder if it is acceptable to comment on some of the publications I cite in my 'State of the art' part.

I have several papers where the results and/or methods are obfuscated. This is sadly not uncommon given the source of the author(s) are industry vendors who want to show their capabilities and domain expertise without actually revealing anything competitively substantial. The papers are all written by the engineering / research departments of various manufacturers and are published in scientific or engineering journals.

Some of the 'errors' in their publications are surely due to out-dated methods and/or models. However some others are just plain misleading, most certainly as a way to obscure competitive information. I don't have hard facts that they are entirely erroneous due to the omission of their data, but deriving from my research I am pretty confident that some of their results don't add up.

So I don't want to just write down what they found out and how, but also comment on how correct/incorrect their results seem based on my research.

How should I best comment on these opaque industry publications?

I'm not entirely sure about what kind of publications you are talking about when you say 'published by vendors' (white papers, brochures, user manuals?). But if you are referring to scientific literature, my answer is: by all means.

I don't se why you would refrain yourself from commenting the possible limitations or drawbacks of published methods. Just stay modest and consider the possibility that these publications came out a while ago and that the general knowledge in the field improved since then.

Being critical, if done properly (give objective reasons), is certainly something to be encouraged at the Master's level, and yes the appropriate section for this is the "State of the art" section.


Are the criteria of faculty positions different in the US and UK? I am from Eastern Europe with a strong research record. This year, I applied for similar professor positions in the US and UK. From 5 applications in the US universities, I was invited for interviews for 3 positions. I got one offer and one is still pending.

However, all 4 applications I submitted to the UK universities were unsuccessful. The last position was relisted after my rejection, which means they had not received strong applications.

I prefer to move to the UK since I still do not need a work permit. I am now confused if the standards and criteria for recruiting a faculty member is this much different in the US and UK. The 9 positions I applied for were all similar, full professor in the same field in mid-level universities.

There are several levels to answer your question.

There is a large variation in quality in both US and UK institution, from world best to the end of the spectrum. We do not know - and you can only rely on available university ranking - if both US and UK institutions you applied to  lie in the same range.

Now, statistics. You said you applied to 5 jobs in US and got invited to 3 interviews. Applied to 4 UK jobs and got 0 interviews. If we use the hypothesis that US and UK institution quality is the same, then your average success rate is 3/9=33%, and the chance to get 0 interviews instead of the (less than) 2 you would expect could be entirely due to randomness. I see no reason to think of biases to start with.

You do mention that one UK position has been reopened, which means that they thought you did not meet their requirements. Which leads to the requirements issue: I would find it unlikely that all 9 institutions are looking for somebody with the same profile. Perhaps some institution care more about teaching, others about the ability to get grants, other about seniority in the field, etc.etc.

Last, you say "I prefer to move to the UK since I still do not need a work permit". US institutions are eager to sponsonr visas for people they wish to hire - and the government makes it easy to issue visa to academics at any level; you certainly need not worry for a full professor position. And with academic visa you can get a green card in a short as a year. They'll probably pay for relocation as well.

Moral: I am not aware nor is reasonable without data to say that there are fundamental differences in general criteria for hiring faculty between US and USA. There are certainly large variations at both university and department-level strategies. Visa is not a problem at all.


Apply to PhD after expulsion from another I was in a math PhD program for one year during the 2009-2010 year in US (with funding by school). I was expelled due to low grades (nothing related to violence/cheating). During the Fall of 2010, I took some classes at a local university and applied to Master's programs during that time. I went to a Master's program in math in Canada from 2011-2013 (currently there).

My plan is to apply to top PhD programs in the US in math this Fall and enter at the Fall of 2013. I have a 4.0 Masters GPA, >95% GRE math scores, publications, and excellent relations with Master's advisors. I have developed great focus and motivation and have rid myself of procrastination which plagued me the past. I am also sure I want to continue doing mathematical research.

I am sure that when applying to PhDs, mentioning the expulsion from years ago will only hurt me so I intend to not mention it (I have not told anyone about this either). My question is if PhD programs will discover this hidden information when I apply? What if when I apply for fellowships?

I would strongly recommend mentioning it briefly somewhere in your application, with a very short explanation of why it is irrelevant (for example: you were less mature and motivated, so you procrastinated and your grades suffered, but your performance over the last few years proves that these issues are no longer a problem).  Don't emphasize it too much, but your best strategy is not to hide anything.

You are right that it might hurt your chances, but I do not think it will hurt them much.  If it came up in a committee I was on, I would argue against worrying about it, if the rest of your application was compelling.  If you do not mention it, then you'll have an unexplained gap of a year in your CV, and that will also raise suspicions, since such a gap is usually a sign of something that did not work well.  If you don't want to mention it or have a gap, then the alternative is lying.

You should definitely not lie, by giving an incomplete list of previous schools attended if asked for a complete list, or by giving a different explanation of what you were doing during that year.  You might get away with the lie, since it can be difficult to detect missing information or disprove vague excuses, but if the lie is detected then it will ruin your chances of admission.  (And committee members might even mention it to friends at other schools, if they are irritated enough about the lie.)  Even if you get admitted, the lie may also come up again to haunt you in the future.  For example, a faculty member from your old school may someday visit to give a talk, recognize you, and mention the connection to your advisor.  Or you and your advisor may someday end up attending a conference at that university.  You probably won't get kicked out of grad school if the lie is discovered later, but it's technically possible (at least at some universities), and in any case you do not want to be known among the faculty as someone who lied about his/her past.

You've already done the hard part of moving beyond this issue and demonstrating that it is no longer a problem, and that will minimize the risks of honesty.  By contrast, the risks of dishonesty may follow you for years.


Awesome papers that were initially rejected? Recently I heard from a senior student that the celebrated adaBoost paper was originally rejected by a conference.

Are there any other instances of seminal papers (in any field) which initially could not warrant a publication?

I'm not sure if this counts, but Edward Jenner's original paper on smallpox vaccination was rejected by the Royal Society.

  In 1797, Jenner sent a short communication to the Royal Society describing his experiment and observations. However, the paper was rejected. Then in 1798, having added a few more cases to his initial experiment, Jenner privately published a small booklet entitled An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a disease discovered in some of the western counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire and Known by the Name of Cow Pox (18, 10). The Latin word for cow is vacca, and cowpox is vaccinia; Jenner decided to call this new procedure vaccination. The 1798 publication had three parts. In the first part Jenner presented his view regarding the origin of cowpox as a disease of horses transmitted to cows. The theory was discredited during Jenner's lifetime.

Reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/


How can I get a reference letter if I was never "close" to any professors? I am currently thinking about getting a masters degree and many of the schools I look for require 3 reference letters from professors that has taught me.

Unfortunately, I've never really invested in building personal relationships with my professors and though I am quite confident with my ability, my abilities weren't "amazing" to the point where the professor would notice me personally.

Furthermore, I've already graduated and worked for more than a year, hence I don't believe any of my previous professors retain much memory of me.

In such a situation, how would I go about getting 1 (let alone multiple) reference letters from previous professors?

Related: here, here, here

Unfortunately you've left yourself in a tight spot.  This is actually one of the biggest pieces of advice I give to undergrads: if you're thinking of grad school, build relationships with professors.  Even to the point of skipping a class you would prefer more in order to take another (still-relevant) class with a professor you're trying to build a relationship with.

Now that you're here however, I don't think you're in an impossible-to-salvage situation:

First off, see if any of your letters of recommendation can come from non-academic sources.  In my experience it's not uncommon for schools to want, say, two of three to be professors and would take a third one from your current boss (assuming your job is in any way relevant to what you want to study).  That would get you a third of the way there.
Secondly, begin with any professors you took more than one class with - that sort of thing tends to stand out unless they're huge sections with too many students to notice them all.  Seeing your name on papers and grades twice may have cemented you in their mind enough that a gentle reminder will get you there.
Third, turn to any professors you did particularly well with, or had very small classes with.  Did you have a project and presentation that might have made you stand out?
Fourth, look for professors whose classes are particularly relevant to your desired area of study.  It may not help you much with being recognized, but the fact that your program fits their interests so well might inspire them to dig a little deeper.
And finally, if at all possible, go visit your professors in person to ask.  They may be more likely to remember you if they have both your face and name to go with your request.  If you have to do it over email, include some details to help them out; tell them exactly what class you took with them and when, maybe include a link to your Linkedin page or webpage so they can go see your picture if they want, etc.

However you end up doing it, simply explain that you weren't originally planning on grad school and have been in industry for a year, but now you really want to further your studies.  Most professors will be inclined to help you out as much as they can, or at worst they should be willing to tell you if they don't think they can write you a good letter, giving you a chance to ask someone else.


Is there a standard dictionary for referencing English words? I am working on a paper in which we need to reference the meaning of english words as foundation for the analysis in the paper (we are categorizing situations using these words, and there is no method of categorizing these items, so no precedent).

Before internet, using the encyclopedia Britannica or merriam-webster dictionary was easy for referencing the book itself.  These days, words and meanings change and are sometimes updated.  Even more, looking online for a dictionary for finding a word returns many results.

When searching for oxford dictionary there are three results
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/
http://www.oed.com/
http://oaadonline.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/

Merriam webster:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/

Cambridge:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

The online dictionary:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/

And of course wikipedia usually has some definition.

For example, if we categorize something as 'multi-' , In this dictionary: http://oaadonline.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/multi multi is "More than one".  However, in this http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/multi , multi is "More than two".  That is a huge difference in terminology.

Is there an academic standard for the age of online dictionaries?  Have words just begun to mean different things and its futile to use dictionaries in this way?

www.oed.com is the online version of the full, official Oxford English Dictionary. Requires a subscription (institutional or personal) to access. This is the site you should use whenever possible.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com is an ad-supported version with some features cut. Avoid if you have subscription access to the full site (as any university should).
http://oaadonline.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/ is, clearly, for learners of the English language. Use it as a guide for learning, sure - but not as a guide for writing papers.

The OED is the English dictionary to use. Other dictionaries are probably fine in all but the weirdest corner cases, but it helps to have some standardization.

Your journal probably specifies its own preferences in this regard. Every publisher's "guide for authors" that I have seen tells you to defer to the OED. Sometimes you'll see specific instructions to use either British or American spellings, and you may specifically be told how to spell words that don't have a British or American "standard" spelling, such as parametrize.


Cost of living in China as an international student I've just been offered PhD admission in SUStech located in Shenzhen, China. The tuition fee is 10,000rmb per year and the accommodation is 1,300rmb per year.

As an international student, is 80,000-100,000rmb per annum as a stipend be enough to cover all my expenses considering the location and have savings?

I am from Shenzhen. If your numbers are accurate, then that's a very, very good stipend.

You have about 70-90k RMB excluding accommodation and tuition each year. The university cafeteria is probably about 20 RMB or less per meal. If you want to eat out frequently for better food, then maybe closer to 30-50 RMB per meal (if you include the occasional 150 RMB Cantonese restaurant, the average might be closer to 40-50 RMB). Utilities, etc., shouldn't exceed 1000 RMB per month.

Assuming you don't have many expensive habits (e.g. spending a lot of your salary in Macao), that leaves you about 30-50k in savings per year, which is pretty decent even for (working) young people in Shenzhen.


I could see what part of the exam paper another student seemed to be focusing on, now I'm worried I was cheating I suffer from OCD and intrusive thoughts.

I was once in a test and we were given this extract on a page. I had been analysing the top part of the extract, only. Then, I may have seen the other candidate analysing the bottom part of the extract - I saw nothing of their answer, just their pen moving around that area. The area was quite cramped, in terms of the paragraph space, so I'm not sure what exactly happened, but there definitely wasn't any words or answer/notes she was making on that area. The question was on nostalgia and the quotes that were at the bottom actually referred to remembering and ditching memories. This may have prompted me in referring to the quotes in that certain area. Is this cheating and I feel that this helped me, but I didn't see her notes on it.

My biggest anxiety is cheating. There was a weird compulsion to look around to assure myself that I'm not cheating, if you see what I mean? Yes, I saw the other person analysing that part of the extract, but not her notes or answers on that part/quotes. The question was on nostalgia, and the part that the other candidiate was analysing was right at the end. So, I thought, how about I read the ending, since I was only using quotes from the top. When I read the quotes at the end, they were perfect but I thought that I didn't deserve to use them. Then, I thought, it's on one page, why can't I use it? What if I read this part and summarise it so I can use it. It is really frustrating, because I'm not sure I looked with intent towards her direction; it was a hard extract. I feel like killing myself. This is not the true me!

OCD or similar, if formally diagnosed, could be legally considered a disability. Your school would then be obligated to accommodate your needs in an instructional setting.

Taking examinations in a separate room is a very common form of accommodation for students with mental disabilities. Whoever it is in your institution that deals with students with disabilities will be very familiar with this measure. Schools like it because it's easy and cheap to accomplish.

Given how upsetting this experience seems to be for you, and that it sounds like it wasn't a one-off thing, I'd really advise you to get together with your Office of Disability Services or whatever it's called and figure out a way that you can take exams without having to struggle with these challenges.


Asking for more time to respond to admission offer I have an admission offer from a European Ph.D. program, and they have given me just 1 week to respond. Considering it is really early to hear anything back from the US universities (and I am keen to attend some of them over this school), how can I politely frame an email to ask for additional time, so that they don't get offended?

Just ask straight out. They won't be offended, but may not be able to hold a position open for very long. I'm pretty sure that they know already that you have several irons in the fire. If you find their offer attractive then tell them that but say that you also need to weigh other options. Perfectly normal.


Is it a good idea to submit paper which is shorter than conference's page limit I'm writing up a paper for an upcoming CS conference. The problem is my paper is 1 page shorter than the conference's page limit. This conference doesn't have any workshop to accept a short paper.

Someone told me that submitting the paper shorter than the page limit was a very bad idea as it guaranteed rejection. Is it true?

I have seen papers rejected because it was shorter than the maximum allowed pages. But this was not the only reason for rejection; rather it was supporting that the paper didn't have enough contribution/content. If you don't want to give the reviewers any excuses to reject, then you might want to fill up the pages, but I think that's silly.

The answer would depend on the field and the page limit. If the page limit is 4, you probably want to fill all 4 pages, because 4 pages is usually not enough. But if the page limit is 12 pages, I see no problem for accepting a high-quality 11-page paper.


How does one find and select a PhD program in Computer Science (and/or Mathematics)? How would I find and select a PhD program in Computer Science, or Computer Science combined with Mathematics? Since I am not a traditional candidate, I am unable to seek relevant advice from professors and fellow student. I am not too concerned about school ranking.

Some background about me and my circumstances may help frame the question and better focus the answer.

I have substantial experience in software engineering (over 20 years), including analysis, requirements, architecture, design, (extensive) hands-on development, testing, systems, team leadership, mentoring, management, and process. Many colleagues have said that I am really good at explaining concepts. I could continue working in software development.

I have a BS Mathematics and Computer Science minor, earned prior to my software career. And I am halfway through a MS Computer Science (part-time). Grades are solid (3.8 undergrad, 4.0 grad), the schools are good, and GRE scores are good enough (>160).

I would either return to my career or I would seek a position teaching at the college level. I am not concerned about about tenure or reputation, nor do I expect to become wealthy. I am willing to TA, and would probably enjoy it.

Since I am not a traditional candidate, I am unable to seek relevant advice from professors and fellow student. — Nonsense.  Of course you can seek relevant advice from professors and fellow students.  Yes, you're a non-traditional student, but you're not so non-traditional that "traditional" advice doesn't apply to you.

You need answers to the following questions, not necessarily in the following order:

What kind of research do you want to do? — Are you interested in doing research in algebra, algorithms, analysis (real or complex), animation, architecture, artificial intelligence,...?  Which subfield(s) of mathematics and/or computer science do you enjoy working in, and which subfields are you actually good at?  This is not the same question as "Why kind of classes you you want to take?"  A PhD is a research degree; admissions committees will be looking for your interests and potential as a researcher.  It's perfectly fine not to know precisely which subfield you want to work in, but you should at least have some explicit priorities.
Who does the kind of research you want to do? — Who are your potential advisors?  Your advisor and your other faculty mentors/collaborators have at least as big an effect on your success (and enjoyment) as a PhD student as the department you apply to.  Look for departments that have at least two or three people who are active and successful in your target subfield(s).  You don't want to find yourself in a department where nobody does what you care about, or more subtly, where only one professor does anything you care about, but the two of you don't get along for some reason.
What are other strengths and weaknesses of the departments? — Now that you know who you'd like to work with, and where those people work, other factors come into play.  How strong is the overall department?  What are the course requirements?  Given your past record (and likely recommendation letters), how likely are you to be admitted?  How likely are you to get funding?  What is the expected workload for teaching assistants?  Are there many other nontraditional students?  Again, you don't need firm answers to every question about every department, and some questions can only be answered by a physical visit after being admitted.
Can you see yourself living there for five years?  Is the department in a big city/small town?  What's the weather like?  What's the traffic like?  What are the local politics?  How good is the local food/coffee/beer?  Any good nearby farmer's markets / museums / hiking / judo / frisbee golf / hip-hop / swing dancing / fishing / rock-climbing / maker spaces / improv / underwater hockey / SCUBA / musical theater / Zen centers?  How close are your family and friends?  If you're married: Are there opportunities for your spouse?  If you have kids: How good are the schools?


How can I convince my instructor to allow me to self-study? Last month, I took an extra Chemistry class and since then I had to attend the extra classes after my college ends. But However, I have already self-studied advanced chemistry by myself and For me, The Chemistry Class I am taking is a waste of time because it teaches the same things that I have already leant before. However, The Instructor of that Extra Chemistry class is the same person who is my Lecturer and grader of my College class. That means, if I leave the Extra Chemistry Class then It will affect my college grades. So, Is there any way, to convince my instructor that I want to leave that extra chemistry class and self study by myself without affecting my college grades ?

It may be that you just have to comply with the instructor's wishes and do what is asked. Words are probably not going to convince them.
But, if you really want to convince them that you know the material, ask them to give you an exam, perhaps an oral exam, on the required material. If you do well, then they may be convinced. But if not, then you have the information you need that you really aren't ready.
An oral exam need only take 10 or 15 minutes, actually. Either you struggle or you excel. It can become obvious quickly which "bin" you fall in to.


How does the proof process in Elsevier work? I have an article 'in press' with a journal in Elsevier. Having done some searching, it seems there are a few very similar instances/complaints that ran into the issues I am having with them.  What I can't find out is: why is it so problematic (I have asked the journal manager and copyeditor, but they ignore that question).
What is the actual process used by Elsevier to take a .zip of a LaTeX project and convert it to a proof? I would think they use LaTeX, but somehow my figures get mixed up, algorithms end up with figure captions, references get removed, equations are changed, etc.
Is it someone copy-pasting and ctrl-r? There are these 'Q's that say "you didn't reference this figure", but it was referenced, with a hyperlink, the same as the other figures. So I started wondering if there really is no system, and its someone manually typing things again (which seems so unrealistic for a huge publisher).
Some of the similar questions are many years old, and it seems there is a new SkyLatex platform Elsevier mentions. I thought I would be able to make edits there, but I guess the specific journal doesn't have this option. This is also motivating my question, how or why do these multiple journals end up with different LaTeX templates than the final version and then use different backend systems?

Yeah the same things have happened to me a couple of times.
Most of the copy editing is outsourced and I think some employee just copy pastes your latex code into their template and does this in a very rushed and substandard manner. Occasionally they may correct a thing or two but I'm sure they do it because the typeset document looked obviously incorrect or the document did not compile with their version of tex.
The best experiences I've had with copy editing is with journals that do not use LaTeX. You are simply supposed to send your draft as a PDF and tables in MS Word. All the figures are dumped towards the end of the document and captions are placed somewhere else. Here is an example of an "Accepted Manuscript": https://joe.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/joe/aop/joe-20-0437/joe-20-0437.xml I don't even know how reviewers read this and not lose their mind when they're trying to understand Figure 3 for example. The caption is on a separate page, what the actual figure 3 is remains unknown and the location where Fig 3 is referenced in the text is 10+ pages away. So in such a scenario, the proof is actually miles better that what you had when you prepared your paper and everyone is happy :)
So yeah, going back to LaTeX typesetting, I think its just an incredibly manual process, there is no elegant "system" or automated typesetting pipeline. There are some web based typesetting clients I've seen (https://smartproof.cenveo.com/smartproof/login/sg). You see a markdown-like version of your paper but it is easier to spot mistakes, change links etc. Not sure how many people use this though.
In my view, LaTeX journal templates are just so that reviewers can read your article properly and digest it. I don't think it makes a difference when it goes to the typesetter.


Does stating terminal degree as Master's (and not PhD) hamper my chances of getting selected in a grad school? I'm applying to a grad school in the US for fall 2016. While filling the application, I stated my initial and terminal degree preferences as Master's only (and not PhD) as I want to work in the industry post MS. Will it hurt my chances of getting selected?

It probably won't hurt your chances of getting accepted, but it will definitely hurt your chances of getting funding from the department.


Is it ethical to require students to participate in an ongoing research study in order to graduate? My university requires Computer Information Systems majors to complete the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) through SkillsOne (CPP online assessment system) as a part of an ongoing research study, in the university's terms "to help advise incoming freshman". Completing this assessment is mandatory for all graduating seniors - i.e. you cannot graduate unless your name appears in the list the department receives from the testing site at the end of the semester.

The paradoxical thing is that the institution requires informed consent from participants, as required by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), yet participation is a requirement, which goes against the idea of voluntary participation. IRB quote from the informed consent page (emphasis mine):

  Potential participants must be provided with information about the research project that is understandable and that permits them to make an informed and voluntary decision about whether or not to participate.

So, forced participation in this research study violates IRB requirements, yet it is required in order to graduate. Is this ethical on the part of my institution?

Aside: Personally I have no problem with such an assessment, but I have no choice but to agree to participate which bothers me slightly, given that my identity (first name, last name, institutional email) is tied to my responses. I am inclined to think that others feel the same way. However, this question is not about my personal opinion, but on the ethicality of such a graduation requirement.

If this is a school located in the United States, then no it would not be ethical or legal for this to be a requirement in your program. You quoted from the federal rules quite accurately. Your school is breaking two rules regarding compulsion and anonymity.

Informed Consent

  The HHS regulations state that “An investigator shall seek such consent only under circumstances that provide the prospective subject or the representative sufficient opportunity to consider whether or not to participate and that minimize the possibility of coercion or undue influence” (45 CFR 46.116).

Subjects cannot be compelled or feel undue influence to take a psychological test as part of their educational program:

Unless it served a clear educational reason such as a placement exam (such a placement exam would not be considered to fall within the purview of human subjects testing).
Or, an alternative given. For example, at most universities, first year psychology students are often required to be in the "testing pool" -- however, they need to be given opt out options such as doing library research or other tasks in lieu of the examination. Furthermore, as with all test participants, they can show up for a test and leave at any time without penalty - including before the test begins.

Further reading: https://www.msudenver.edu/irb/guidance/informedconsent/coercionandinfluence/

Privacy and Confidentiality

  "(7) When appropriate, there are adequate provisions to protect the privacy of subjects and to maintain the confidentiality of data." (45 CFR 46.111)

Furthermore,   human subjects must be assured of the privacy and confidentiality of their data. Everyone has the right to have their psych eval score remain private and confidential. This may be a violation of not just the federal rules for IRB but HIPAA as well, since whether you took a medical test or not is in itself protected medical information.

What to do

If I were at your school, I would make a complaint (either individually or banding together with other students) to the IRB, to the ombudsperson, or to risk management / compliance.   You could also complain to your state or federal Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education,  or Health and Human Services.

And finally, because you are being to compelled against your will to take the exam and the results are not anonymous, I do not think you have any duty to answer the questions truthfully if you feel that doing so will negatively impact your career.

The issue of compulsion and corresponding bad data is one reason why psychology is currently having problems with study replication as well as being able to broaden its findings beyond their limited sample populations.


Referencing equations in/from appendix I am currently writing a thesis in which a lot of derivations are moved to the appendix. To make these derivations readable, I sometimes write sentences like "As we saw in equation X...", where equation X is present both in the main text as well as in the appendix.

My question: should I, while writing the appendix, reference the instance of the equation in the main text, or the one in the appendix?

In general, it is always easier if your cross-reference is relatively nearby—flipping between multiple parts of a text makes the whole thing harder to understand.

So I'd lean towards referencing the version in the appendix, all other things being equal. However, if you are referencing a whole series of equations in the main text, including one duplicated in the Appendix, then it would be OK to preserve the main-text reference.


Quitting PhD program after 1 year I am currently enrolled in a PhD program in electrical engineering in Europe (not in my home country). When I enrolled to this program, I was a little concerned about the research group, since it has very few publications about the topic for which I applied (they are not expert in my field). Nevertheless, I applied since I believe the value of a phd is up to yourself, not the popularity of the supervisor.

However, after 1 year I am thinking about quitting. My supervisor is not so much involved in my project and I am followed most of the time by an assistant professor that wants me to follow a certain path according with the interest of the institute. I am trying to convince them that I want to follow an other path, since the topic studied at the institute does not fit well with my topic, but they are stack with this topic, which is also studied by few niche researchers.

I asked them also to send me abroad to a research group more specialized in my field, but they are not so much interested in international cooperations (except the ones related to their topic).

Besides this, I don´t like the environment inside the institute. I perceive lack of communication and everybody is studying the same topic, with not so much differentation. There are no international students except me and other 2 people and everybody is speaking the local language. Also the other students are not interested in mobility and the research group itself does not produce many publications.

Thus, for all these reasons, I was thinking about quitting. I would like to have some advice. I don´t know if this can be a valid move for my career. In the same time, I don´t want to spend 4 years without believing in the quality of my research, in which I am also losing motivation.

I would like to apply to an other PhD program in an other university/country, but I am worried about the references/recommendation letters, since if I quit I don´t think I can ask for recommendation letters from my current situation. Moreover, I am worried that other research groups would not accept me, because they may think that I am low on perseverance (I am not really, I am not of the type to quit something easily).

Thanks for any help!!

I want to specify that this institute advertised a position related to my field, so in principle my research interest and the one of the institute matched. I would have like if they have been more honest with me regarding the direction of the research.

The problems seems to me to have started here:

  Nevertheless, I applied since I believe the value of a phd is up to yourself, not the popularity of the supervisor.

I think we can both agree that a research group in anthropology would also have very few publications related to your topic. But you can also see that doing an electrical engineering PhD in an anthropology group would be a horrible choice. They simply wouldn't have the expertise to help you and could offer no possibility to cooperate with your research.

To a lesser extent the same is true for different sub-fields of a large discipline like electrical engineering. If your topic of interest is far removed from the rest of the group, the rest of the group won't have the expertise to help you or the possibility to cooperate with you. This is a very bad thing.

One way to (partially) solve this problem is to modify your topic or switch topics to be more in line with the rest of the group. This seems to be what is proposed here to you.

Your proposed solution is to ask them to send you abroad and to continue with a topic that is not really related to their research. The question now is: why should they agree to this? They invested resources in you by either paying you or at least supporting you and spending time on you. In return you offer to do research at a different institution on a subject that doesn't really touch any of the research done at the group. That would mean that at the end of your PhD, the group would have spend (considerable) money into research they aren't interested in. That sounds like a very bad deal for the group.

If I were to summarize this: you applied and got a PhD at a group without looking at what that group does. After a year of doing a PhD there, you now realize what the group does and conclude that the group is a bad fit.

You have 2 options now as I see it: continuing with this group and focus your topic to be more in line with the research of the group. The other option is to quit now. In that last case the group would see (considerable) resources go to wast because you neglected to properly look into what the group does beforehand. This as you worried looks very bad, because why wouldn't something similar happen at a new group? If you quit, then I hope you can find a good answer to this question when applying to any future PhD.

As for the communication and language issues: I would find this a separate and smaller issue. Here an open and honest conversation about how you perceive the communication in the group and what problems you encounter could work wonders. The problems regarding research topics however is much more fundamental and more serious.


How to find the best journal to submit a paper to (when having written the title, abstact and full text)? Consider a case of a new researcher that does not know well all possible journals and has no access to human advice (from colleagues). (please do not comment that this is the best - out of scope of the question!)

Or one journal rejected the paper and the author is looking for outside the box candidates.

Possible examples:

1.
E.g., in medicine, one can use this tool (ETBLAST) by submitting full text of the article
http://etest.vbi.vt.edu/etblast3/

Some journals even require top 3 similar papers (found by ETBLAST) to be pasted into a form during submission (making sure authors well addressed related literature).

2.
Or Elsevier JournalFinder service.http://journalfinder.elsevier.com/

You need to know your field.  Part of knowing your field is reading lots of papers.  This should give you an idea of what kinds of papers each of the major journals publishes, and what journal may be best suited to you.  If you're a good researchers, you ought to already know what are the main journals that publish research in your area.  If you don't already know that, then maybe you need to spend more time reading published work first.

In particular, the best way to figure out if a particular journal is a good fit for your paper is to read a bunch of papers published at that journal.  That will give you a pretty good sense.  You can use the "call for papers" as a further sanity check, but nothing substitutes for reading what else they have published.

There is no shortcut.  If you are a knowledgeable about your field, a random webpage is not going to know your field better than you do.  If you are not knowledgeable about your field, then the first thing you need to do is to fix that.


Applying to an Econ PhD program as a software engineer? I'm in a similar situation as this poster: https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/16428/career-change-to-economics-from-software-engineering , but it doesn't look like anyone answered about grad school admissions there. I have math and CS degrees from a top school, and if I could go back I would have taken classes and research in economics, but since I've already graduated and been working for 2 years, I feel like I've missed that opportunity. I'm self-studying economics right now, but what are some ways I could get experience that would be good for a grad school application?

I'm very interested in development economics, public policy, health economics, and behavioral economics and I know what my dream research groups and research directions are, if I can get the right skills/credentials.

Disclaimer: I'm not in economics

You might consider applying for a MS degree first. I don't know about economics, but I know that in my field at my university, we are a little more selective about Ph.D. admissions versus MS admissions, having something like twice as many MS candidates as Ph.D. candidates. If you otherwise had good GPA and good test scores, you can probably get into an MS degree at a decent school, although maybe not your dream school.  If you can exceed at the MS degree, get a publication or two and network at a few conferences, then you've got a much better shot at a top ranked Ph. D. program.


Where can I find someone to proofread my article? I am a amateur biotech enthusiast not affiliated with any university or institution. I recently wrote a Review article about animals that are (more) resistant to cancer (blind mole rats, naked mole rats, elephants, bowhead whales, etc). I want to publish it in a peer-reviewed oncology journal, but before this, where can I find someone to proofread this article for free?

If you're interested in submitting the article to the scientific community then it does not only need proof reading but also specialist editing. The scientific community relies on the process of peer review to ensure that the information published is factually accurate and contributes to the spectrum of accumulated knowledge.

If you feel that your review article does fit these criteria then it may be worth getting in touch with someone at your local university and run it by them. They'll be able to give you some hands-on guidance with your article.


Is there a difference in academic writing styles between engineering and women's studies? Coming from engineering, when you write a paper, the goal is to be objective and analytical.  We use references and try to define terms for a clear understanding.  The goal at least is to provide facts that support a hypothesis in as unbiased a way as possible.  I think there may be some difficulty in always remaining unbiased, but recently I came across an article that seems to be written like an opinion piece more than a piece of academic work.  After going through it I looked up the author, who is a professor of women's studies.  She writes about robotics being sexist.  Does women's studies have different goals in academic writing than engineering?

To be specific, it is these types of sentences that confuse me on the intent of the academic writing in women's studies:

  Enter HRP-4C, a new-generation gynoid that was unveiled in the spring of 2009 as a body double of and for (or to replace?) the average human female.

Why would a journal allow the publication of the unsupported rhetorical question "or to replace"?

  The android wears his maker's unfashionable beige shirt, dark trousers and black windbreaker jacket."

Is it professional to call a world-famous robotics researcher "unfashionable", and why is it necessary?

  . . . exact body consists of silver and black plastic molded to resemble a Barbarella-like custome, which accentuates her ample breasts and shapely, naturalistic buttocks."

There is no supporting information of how the square, minutely curved metal is purposefully making the visual the author interprets.  But what I don't understand with this is instead of referring to the robot by its name or the paper, the author continues to refer to it as "robo-Barbarella."

Did I just happen to come across a unique piece of writing, or are there very different styles of writing in academic disciplines?

CS and WS are each concerned with a different kinds of questions, and the language their respective practitioners use simply reflects this difference.

This is familiar to me, given that I've been on both sides of the divide (English Lit as an undergrad minor, cognitive science for my PhD). I got a glimpse of why it exists many years ago when I was in a course with a bunch of Lit Crit majors and we were discussing a certain poem by a certain contemporary poet. The Lit Crit people where pointing at a specific part of the poem and going "Is this an allegory for his lost love? Is this a metaphor for the senselessness of  war?", and so on. Then, in a youthful display of naivety, I said "hey, the guy who wrote this poem is still alive, why don't we try to get in contact with him and ask him what he means?". The lecturer leading the discussion looked at me very sternly and said "that is not the point".

That was very illuminating, I think. I'm sure that the poet in question had something specific in mind when he wrote the poem (and we'll never know what it was because he's dead by now), but the Lit Crit guys don't care about that. The intended meaning of the poem is irrelevant to them, what they care about is the meaning(s) that others might extract from the poem. In the same way, in the passages you quoted, the author doesn't care about the android in and of itself, but rather about how others feel about the existence and characteristics of the android, and how these feelings affect other feelings and beliefs we might have about related issues. That is what allows him/her to make judgments about fashion and other things.

In comparison, people in the sciences care about "objective truth" (for lack of a better term), not about how other people feel about stuff. If I write in a paper "stimulus A caused neurological response B (p < 0.01)", asking about the Marxist/feminist/whatever interpretation of this finding is about as pointless as trying to get to the "objective truth" underlying a piece of poetry.


In what ways can a PHD student who asks me to do some of her work give me due credit for my work? A PHD (in Computational Biology) student asked me to do some programming for a software application she is developing as a part of her work for her PHD. To be more clear, she is not asking for any help in the design part, but rather in the implementation.

The PHD student I am talking about was my teacher in my undergrad. She taught me a software related course in my undergrad, and was generally a very nice teacher. She taught well, and she was polite, cooperative and kind.

She called me yesterday and told me that she is doing her PHD. The mobile application she wants to develop is only a small part of her work. She asked me to help her with it. There are two kinds of help that she mentioned:

She wants me to guide her on how to go about learning mobile application development. I am fine with that.
She said that she is very busy and if her schedule gets tighter, she will like me to complete the application. The application has not been started yet, and she told me about already being very busy, which tells me that she wants me to write a considerable amount of code for the application.

From my web search, I found out that doing this is permissible, if the work of the external person is acknowledged.

So, if she does want to acknowledge and give me due credit if I do some work (that is if I actually write some code for her application), in what ways can she do that?

She should mention your contribution in the acknowledgments section of her thesis and the related article(s) she might publish.

Additionally, she could provide monetary compensation for your time. Or, as per Dan Neely's suggestion, she could arrange that you receive academic credits or that your work counts as one of the requirements for getting a degree. This is only applicable in a subset of situations where you are pursuing a degree and where the involved institutions are willing to do so.

In response to comments arguing that you should get co-authorship, or that you could bargain authorship instead of a salary, I'm copying the authorship guidelines of the ICMJE:

  The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

  Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the
  work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or
  integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

  In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. In addition, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

  All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged.


What does it mean if the "upload updated article" feature is still active four months after submission? I submitted an article to the International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing four months ago. Its status now is “Reviewing”. However, in the submission details, the upload updated article feature is still active:

My question is: What does this mean? Is it now under review or haven’t the editors found a reviewer yet?

It probably means nothing. Many journals and editorial management systems allow you to update your article at almost any time, usually issuing a warning that you probably do not want to do this, as it will delay the process.

An easy way to test this would be to click on the button¹: If a warning as described above is issued, this should tell you, that everything is in order. If not, you can only know for sure if you ask the journal.

¹ Unless the editorial management system is very bad, you should not be able to destroy anything this way.


How can I motivate the teaching assistants to grade more strictly? I am a lecturer in charge of a course with over 250 students and several TAs. The TAs are partly responsible for grading the homework assignments.  Since these are assignments in programming, no two submissions are identical, so it is impossible to cover all possible cases in the grading guidelines, and the grading has some subjective element.
I noticed that one TA is consistently stricter than the others. For example, if the guidelines say that "code efficiency" is worth 20 points, then this TA would deduct 15 points when the code is inefficient, while the other TAs would deduct only 5 points for a similar issue.
A potential problem here is that it might be unfair to the students in the strict TA's class, but this can be solved by allocating the assignment task "horizontally" (each TA grades all 250 submissions in some of the assignments) rather than "vertically".
But I have a different question: I noticed that students who are graded more harshly, take the feedback comments more seriously, and tend to become better programmers. So, rather than just being "fair", I would like all TAs to grade in a stricter way - for the sake of the students. The problem is, most TAs are not motivated to grade strictly - they gain nothing from it; all they get is having to  handle students' complaints and appeals, and risking lower marks in the students' feedback (since the students do not understand that it is in their favor until after they graduate).
The TAs are not lazy - they do put a lot of effort in teaching and helping students; they just don't like to be the "bad guys" who give low grades. How can I motivate them to give stricter grades?

You have a bigger problem than encouraging stricter grading. You need to provide consistent grading. Otherwise your scheme is fundamentally unfair.
For starters you don't have an option to fail to provide a proper rubric. If you aren't doing that, then you are failing the students. If it is a lot of work to do it, then you have a large task, but a required one.
You can make the rubric as strict as you like (though I don't really like the concept of narrow interpretations), but it has to be clear to your TAs and it has to be reasonable to your students.
One way to assure some consistency is to have more than one TA involved with each student's work. They need to agree with each other or appeal to you for a judgement. If they enter student grades into a spreadsheet you can easily see the differences and can also use it for further TA training as needed, such as, for example when one TA is consistently "too" lenient.
For an exercise with lots of parts, it might be possible to have each TA responsible for only one part. This tends to work for final exams where students answer questions, but less well for programming assignments.
Another way to achieve a good rubric is to have yourself or a small team of advanced TAs scan the student work without grading it and use what they learn to refine the rubric to assure consistency. It is probably a mistake to use this trick to create the rubric in the first place, but it gives you an idea of where the students are going wrong and need correction. An overall view. Once that is in place, the actual grading can occur.
Another trick, though not very easily done in pandemic times or with a large pool of graders, is to bring everyone together in real time to grade all the papers. This could possibly be done online (zoom) and you could be present to answer questions and make decisions.
But, again, consistency is a requirement. The rubric needs to be complete to assure that. The "strictness" is a secondary concern, but could be improved (your idea, not mine) with a proper rubric that everyone finds clear.

Moreover, if you try to grade things on a fixed scale that are fundamentally "fuzzy" then you have an impossible task. If you can define "efficiency" in your example, then fine. But if it is a fuzzy concept then almost every rubric is likely to leave the grading to intuition. Give precise grades on the things that are precise. But for other things, judgement and a bit of compassion are probably needed.
In CS, some things are clear, of course. If a student uses bubble sort on a large array it is clearly inefficient. But selection sort is more efficient than quick sort at a certain scale, which is why library versions of quick sort normally drop back to selection sort for small sections of the initial set.
But judgments about "proper factoring" of code are judgmental. If your feeling is "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." then it is nearly impossible to provide a rubric that will be used consistently by a group of TAs.


What is the official way of addressing a lecturer/tutor in an English speaking university? What is the official way of addressing a lecturer/tutor in an English speaking university?

If it helps, I will be studying in an Australian university. In my country, we would address a lecturer/tutor as "Master" (English translation of the word in my language) so I was wondering if I could address lecturer/tutors at my Australian university as "Master"?

I'm from New Zealand, where "Master" is used to address young boys, often by a doctor/dentist etc. I guess that it's the same in Australia and the UK. Do not address an adult (in any situation) as Master Smith. Conversely (as suggested in the comments), addressing someone as "Master" without being followed by a name, such as "yes, Master!", sounds like you're addressing a slavemaster.

The formal and safe way is to address them according to their rank - Mister Smith for teaching assistants who are Master or PhD students, Doctor Smith for postdocs and staff who hold a lecturer position, and Professor Smith for associate or full professors. The abbreviation Mr. is fine for emails, as this is commonly understood as the abbreviation of Mister, not Master.

However, Australians are generally quite informal, so the younger staff in particular may prefer to be addressed on a first-name basis. Calling your TA Mr Smith might come across as a bit fusty, so they might tell you to "just call me John". If in doubt, just ask how the lecturer wishes to be addressed.


Outsourcing trivial authorless work I have worked on a problem for close to two years. I feel I have an adequate theoretical solution. However I feel to get some backing on the theory I need some quantitative hard computer data. It is only a few days work of programming. Would it be ethically wrong to recruit an undergrad for a few days volunteer work without pay to get the computer crunching part done and not mention him as a coauthor and only mention as acknowledgement?  This is only for time reasons as I am not familiar with tools required. Everything will be given as cook book to the interested programmer.

The fact that to a seasoned programmer the work is easy doesn't have anything to do with it. As you describe it, this is work that's required for the publication. Without it, you don't have a paper. With it, you do. Therefore the programmer contributed significantly (critically) to the paper, and therefore the programmer should be an author.

The fact that it's quick and easy for a programmer simply means that programmers have spent significant time and effort learning skills that you don't have. If you consider the work trivial, then go out and learn the skills yourself, and do the work yourself. If that's too much work, then put an appropriate value on that work and offer authorship.

An example in my field is histopathology. I can take tissue slides to an expert who will look at them for five minutes and provide an interpretation. That expert becomes a co-author, not because of their five minutes of work but because of the decades of experience behind it.

Collaborators shouldn't need to run a bloody gauntlet and engage in hand-to-hand combat to become co-authors. If they provide a skill that contributes significantly to the paper, that should be enough.


Graduating Early and its effect on Graduate Admissions At my current rate of taking classes I will be able to graduate from college with a B.S. in math from a top 50 US school in mathematics (according to U.S. news) in a total of 2 years with around 3.7-3.8 GPA. However, I am interested in pursuing a PhD within mathematics. If I do graduate within 2 years it will be somewhat of a "bare" degree, i.e. minimum requirements (3 quarters of Analysis, 1 quarter of Algebra, 1 quarters of Complex Analysis (at the time of application) and 2 more quarters of Algebra and 1 more quarter of Complex Analysis by the time I actually get my degree).

Reading this post it seems that the extra rigor is extremely valuable, and sticking around for another year or two would greatly help my application.

However, is applying still worth a shot? If I was to apply and get rejected would that negatively impact my application if I was to apply the next year or next two years? Would applying for a masters degree be worth it in this case, and then switching over to PhD later?

I do want to attend a top graduate program, and I will be talking with an adviser soon (I came here first to get an idea regarding this situation beforehand and not go in blind). So thank you for whatever feedback you give.

Having been on the graduate committee of the departments I am/was in for the past six years, and having looked at around 500 applications over that time, I've got something to say about this:

The time it took you to graduate doesn't matter. 2 years is fast, and if you've got good grades, then you're clearly quite good and that speaks to your case.
If you're only doing the bare minimum of classes, then that raises questions about your preparedness. That's no different than the many applications we see from small liberal arts colleges whose math departments are so small that they can't run anything other than the standard set of courses. The question then always is how such candidates will do in advanced classes, given that they don't have as much background in the different branches of mathematics as applicants from larger schools. There is also the question of the level of courses you've taken: Many applicants take graduate classes in their last year as undergraduates, and if they do well there, that is definitely a plus on their applications.
You can always apply. If you get rejected, that's ok, and it won't be a stain on your file if you come back better prepared next year. But you'll have to have an answer to the question of what happens if you get accepted into a program of lesser quality: Are you going to take it, or hold out for something better next year. Declining an offer definitely will look bad if you try again next year, but of course there is also no guarantee that you'll actually get accepted at a better program next time around. So there is a risk involved in all of this.

At the end of the day, your best approach is probably to consider what happens if you graduate now, get accepted into a good program, and then find that you're not adequately prepared. Grad school is fast-paced, and you're thrown into the same pot as all of the other students, many of whom will likely have taken more (and more difficult) classes than you had -- in many cases, first year graduate program classes. You'll struggle -- I'm pretty confident saying that because essentially every graduate student struggles, and the question is only to the degree with which they do.

You can get ahead this curve a bit by staying for another year at your current institution, taking advanced courses, maybe a graduate course or two, and doing well. Your file is going to look better for it, and you'll have better chances of getting into the good graduate programs. On the other hand, your file is not going to look noticeably worse just because it took you three instead of two years to graduate -- your competition will have taken four years. The only real downside I can think to staying for a third year is the money you will have to pay for tuition and cost of living.


Is it plagiarism for my thesis advisor to publish a paper using content from my thesis without citation? I did my master thesis last year and recently I found out that a group of four faculty members in my department, including my thesis advisor, have published an ACM paper based on that. (A publish subscribe system based on SDN)

I will be honest. The problem statement was put forward by the faculty. The implementation (design of algorithms and coding) was completely done by me in my thesis. Then they further extended it to a distributed SDN controller environment.

In the paper, an entire section is devoted to the algorithms and implementation. Where they have almost ripped off from my thesis. The sentence structures have been changed and some beautification done to the algorithms to make it look concise.

However, I have not been given any acknowledgement or citation. Anyone who'll read that paper will have an impression that the authors were the only brains behind the project.

The university holds the copyright of my thesis. So I am not sure if this qualifies for plagiarism. But certainly, I feel it is not fair to brush someone's contribution under the carpet.

What can I do about it ? Or am I mistaken and they have every right to do how they feel as I am no longer a student there and the copyright is with them ?

Whether or not the department holds the copyright to your thesis is irrelevant. Using someone else's ideas without appropriate attribution is plagiarism, period.

So, if your advisor used your original, non-trivial scientific ideas (or your non-trivial description of those ideas) in his paper without attributing them to you, then he has committed misconduct.

The only thing that may be questionable is whether or not your original intellectual ideas were actually used in the paper. What you describe definitely sounds pretty damning, and the more information you add, the worse it sounds; but as strangers on the Internet, we don't have the whole story.

For example: Given that the idea for the thesis was the advisor's, and the paper describes a non-trivial extension, it's possible (though perhaps not likely, depending on the scope of the work) that your advisor was working on the extended version himself independently of your thesis.

It's also possible that he considers your work to be a straightforward implementation of his idea, and not an intellectual contribution - that is, he believes you were doing the work of a staff programmer, not a scientist or engineer. In which case, an acknowledgement would probably have been appropriate, but it's not necessarily plagiarism to omit it.

The degree to which your work constitutes an intellectual contribution to your advisor's paper is impossible for strangers on the Internet to judge.

I suggest you email your former thesis advisor, tell him you've seen the paper, and ask (in a non-confrontational way) how it relates to your thesis work. Then decide how to proceed from there.

Note that pursuing the matter beyond that (i.e. formally accusing him of plagiarism) may involve some serious negative consequences for you, so consider this carefully before proceeding. The morally just course of action may or may not actually be in your best interests.


How to evaluate a book, rather than a paper, on a scientific subject? In academia we collectively evaluate the validity, quality and significance of shorter publications - papers - with a complex system of conferences and journals. With all its flaws, you can get a typically-not-so-bad idea about those aspects of a published paper by looking at things like venue and citations.

But that's not the case with books. I don't have any experience publishing books, but obviously it's not the same process as for papers.

Now, suppose I've entered a field which I've studied through papers; and I now want to either teach from a book, offer it to someone for some concentrated self-study, or cite from it. Also suppose I have some specific books I'm considering. How would I obtain some sort of evaluation or review of them, overall or by specific criteria such as correctness of proofs, rigor, clarity, narrative flow, being up-to-date etc.?

Note: Of course you can evaluate a book pretty well by reading it, but the idea is to choose what to get and read.

Obviously, this question asks about reliable predictors for the quality of a book. Otherwise the answer can only be: You evaluate a book by reading it. With this out of the way:

Ask around. In particular when you are interested in using a textbook for a course, ask people who have directed similar courses.
Publishers. There is an informal hierarchy of publishers that can be used to predict a book's quality, just like conference venues and journal ranks for papers. This differs between disciplines, but the edge-cases are vanity presses (low-end) and Famous University Presses™ (high-end).
Citations. Just like for journal articles you can count the citations of a book to estimate its impact (with all the known caveats).
Reviews in journals. Many journals publish a review section. You can search these for discussions of the book that you are interested in.
Peer review. Some publishers also send full book manuscripts or at least the book proposal with sample chapters out for peer-review.
Professionals. Ask your trusted librarian for advice.


After with editor the current status is submitted to journal I have communicated my article to one elsevier journal. After being with editor for more than one month, the current status is "submitted to journal". I am confused regarding this status? What does it signify, kindly answer me?

Based on my experience, the review process in most of Elsevier journals are as,

Submitted to journal(Editor tries to find an associate editor or referees for your article)
With editor (Editor evaluation step)
Under review (Your paper is sent for referees (reviewers))
Required reviews completed (Minimum number of reviews for your article received)
Editor evaluation or with editor (Editor decision for your paper based on reviewers comments)
revised or rejected or recommended for resubmission based on reviews comments

This is the most common process for Elsevier journals. Also, the length of time in each step is totally dependent on the journal and especially on the editor in chief. You can find some info about the review process in the newly added feature in some Elsevier's journals named as journal insight e.g. see this one, Journal insight


Remote postdoc in the US legal questions I have a postdoc fellowship in Europe that will end in several months and I am considering applying for a remote postdoc (my field is theoretical/computational and does not require any in-person work by default). I don't really know what are the formalities related to this kind of contracts.
I was thinking about such postdoc in the US. I only have a Russian passport but I had worked in the US before and I have an SSN and an active US bank account. Currently I don't have a valid US visa (and it would be probably difficult to get a new one for me). Is there a chance I might get a contract like that, at least theoretically? Or it does not even make sense to think about it?
UPD: the answer by @user2768 below suggests it is possible but depends on the willingness of the US institution to work with a company-proxy in my country of residence. Does anyone know how strong is this willingness in the actual COVID times? I.e. are there at least some examples of institutions that do something like that?

You are a Russian, with a US social security number and a US bank account, but no current right to work in the US. (These details don't seem to help.) You are considering applying for a position in the US, with work being conducted remotely. You cannot be employed as a US employee, given that you have no right to work in the US.
You can be employed as a remote employee or contracted as a remote company. For the former, the employer would likely need to engage an intermediary to handle payments (unless they have operations in your country of residence). For the latter, you'd need to incorporate a company in your country of residence.
TL;DR: Yes, it is theoretically and practically possible, if the employer is willing to employ/contract you remotely. (I can't comment on the likelihood of an employer's willingness.)


Is it common practice to remove an author's name from a paper? I work as an instructor at a university. I am not a graduate student there and my responsibilities end at teaching. Recently, a supervisor from another department asked me to prepare an article for their department to use, for some extra pay. The subject aligned well with my background and recent research.

When I finished the article, which involved additional research and several weeks of work, I put my name as author, as I would any other paper. After I finished, the supervisor requested that I completely remove my name, as he wished to submit it to the leader of his department, assembled together with some students' work.

Is that at all unusual that someone would request that I remove my name from a paper?

This seems to be a blatant attempt to take credit for your work - as far as I know, this is both not common, nor acceptable. To quote @JeffE "hell, no", or a polite variant, is the only response.

I would, politely but firmly, state that as you have done the research and the write-up, then you are the first author, perhaps offer to have them as a co-author, only if they have contributed something.

I would also consider having a quiet word with the head of the department about this.


Tenure Track application: Time for committee to respond after interviewing references I have a case where I applied for a tenure-track position in a R1 research institution. A month after the application, all my references were contacted and were asked for a telephone interview, which I got to know from all my references. This was a good sign and I expected the committee to contact me soon (in about a month after the interviews). Now it's been two and a half months since they interviewed my references but no contact yet. I am not sure what is going on and how should I deal with this. Should I email them asking about the status of the application?

Update

It's more than 8 months after my first application for this position. Significant changes happened to my CV to bolster my application. I had no hopes, but I dropped an email saying that this is my updated CV, please update in your records in case they are still reviewing.

The programme manager updated my CV in the application replied that the review is still undergoing and they have yet to finalize applicants.

Any idea what might be going on?

Yes, it's certainly fine to email them and ask.

However, I'm afraid you probably won't get good news.  A common workflow for tenure-track searches is that after one round of review, they only contact the candidates who were selected to move on to the next round.  It's likely that this has happened by now, so if you haven't heard from them, it probably means you're not one of the candidates they're actively considering.

You technically haven't been rejected yet, because in principle, if the selected candidates don't work out, they could go back and reconsider the rest.  Indeed, official rejection letters often are not sent until after the search is complete and someone has been hired (or they've given up).  But this isn't a good sign.