How to become a whistleblower? I used to work in a company that has close ties with the academia.  One of the professors ("Dr A") wasn't/isn't using his funding properly by hiring his long-time girlfriend as his research assistant.  He and his girlfriend showed up at company events as a couple so there's no doubt about their relationship.

After I left my previous company, one of the profs ("Dr B") in the same area of research who works in a different university pointed out to me that the government's funding agency prohibited the researchers from hiring relatives and partners using the money.  At Dr B's department, a prof had been fired by the university for violating this rule.

No one from my previous workplace and the circle of researchers bothered to report to the funding agency about Dr A's violation.  I was temped to be the whistleblower after leaving that workplace, but was taken back because it's obvious who was the reporter: There were not that many of us in the circle.  Even if the funding agency had a whistleblower policy in place, I doubted if it could protected me as someone who worked in the industry.

I'm not seeking any heroic stories about penalizing the profs.  Instead, I'm wondering if anyone has encountered a similar problem.  In addition, I'm also interested to know how the universities and the departments deal with this kind of issue as peacefully as possible.

Good things rarely come to whistleblowers. Most of the time, absolutely nothing happens [to the accused] and occasionally really bad things happen to the whistleblower in the forms of retribution, blacklisting, defamation/slander lawsuits, etc.  Laws protecting whistleblowers tend to be ineffectual at best.

You need to evaluate the benefit/risk ratio yourself.

That being said, if you were to whisteblow, there are several levels you can do it at:

University office of research integrity/ethics. For example:  http://research.ubc.ca/ethics/british-columbia

** While this involves a private company, the PI may  also have an affiliation with a university
National office of research integrity. For example in the USA: http://ori.hhs.gov/

**  In Canada: http://www.acaho.org/?document&id=164
Funding agency whistleblower hotline

** Canada: http://www.rcr.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/framework-cadre/

Good luck.

[That all being said: the situation you describe is likely to yield at most a   reprimand from the funding agency if the girlfriend  was actually  working while receiving a salary (and thus it wasn't embezzlement only nepotism). I'm assuming the company already knows -- private companies tend to be more lax about these things compared to public (and even private) universities which receive a majority of the funding from the state.]


How to deal with the (hidden) feedback from research supervisor? I am a PhD student who works in a theoretical field. Often times, I have discussions with my research supervisor, and I try to do as much work as possible.

It seems that many times these days my research supervisor does not seem happy with my performance. He often doesn't seem satisfied, judging from his facial expression and body language, but when I ask him, he just says ok. Most times, I leave the meetings in illusion (meeting was good or bad). I feel pressure due to these things. I don't know if it is a common thing in academia or not.

Question:    How to deal with the (hidden) feedback from a research supervisor? This is constantly creating pressure on me.

There is a difference between feedback and hidden feedback. For explicit feedback, we can ask the supervisor once in a month or something like this.

Actively ask for actual feedback.
Of course, you need to be prepared for any feedback that is to come.

I am reading things into this... but I suspect you are reading feedback into their facial expressions and body language because you in fact need more feedback.


How many people read an individual journal article? General background

Some time ago, I was reading a blog post, where there was some discussion about how many people read journal articles.
I think that such an estimate is important when trying to assess the impact of research on society.
However, whereas internet sites readily track usage. Such information seems a little more difficult to come by when it comes to readership for a particular journal article.

Initial Ideas

Articles vary: Obviously journal articles vary in many ways and just as with citation counts, readership is likely to be highly skewed, perhaps something like a power function. In addition to academic impact, presumably articles that are available for free on the internet are read more.
Time since publication: The number of reads increases over time, but the rate of readership presumably varies over time (perhaps a spike on initial release, and then gradual decline as relevance dissipates).
Definitions of reading vary: Read counts would also increase or decrease based on how reading is defined. At the low end is a glance at an abstract. At the high end is carefully reading the entire article. I'd be happy with a working definition that involved reading at least two pages.

Initial Data

PlosOne article statistics: As a very rough guide, it suggests that mean views per article is around 800 per year.
Journal of Vision: this article reports some download statistics: "In the most recent accounting in July, 2008, the top five articles were each downloaded between 1,993 and 3,478 times."
Some journals list subscription counts

Initial Guess

I find it useful to have a ball park estimate of these things.
My own initial guess, based on minimal data, is that readership is between 50 and 1000 times the citation count for the article. Linking the estimate to citation count makes it easier to estimate for a given article and should incorporate effects like time and journal prestige.

Question

What is a good estimate of how many people read a given journal article?
What data and sources of information justify this estimate?
Is there any established literature that can inform such an estimate?

Sounds like a Fermi Problem :)

A question I asked myself recently, based on the many cases of plagiarism by top-politicians in Germany in humanities, was, are in humanities more articles/texts published than scholars can actually read completly. The amount of copied text in single phd thesis showed by plagiarism-detection communities in Germany like Vroniplag or Guttenplag is shocking to me. Often 50% of text is not marked correctly as citation. Even the supervisors at the local universities look like they never read some of these thesis completly. I really hope this is not representative, but fear it might be the tip of the iceberg in humanities (in Germany).

Personally, coming and working in a STEM field, I did a very specialized thesis, there are often less than a dozen groups worldwide working on such a narrow-specialized topic (matter of scientific competition/finding a niche, time, expertise and lab hardware in such fields). So there will be articles in peer-reviewed journals that are not really interesting to more than 20-50 researcher and probably a similar number of industry-researchers worldwide in STEM (competition between companies and research groups being not that different due to economic contraints). Without modern search engines, most non-scholars/private men would have a hard time to find such articles. This is another point in your estimation. The reader count for nature/sciene vs. very specialized journals varies a lot, I don't think any average number really helps you a lot or is that interesting. If you know your specialized field, you should notice pretty fast studying some journals, how many scholars have really a interest in that field.

Your PlosOne link is interesting. I can back this up a bit to give you at least a rough magnitude of order, what the reader count of top, specialized, ... journals is. I think it's quite normal, to read articles not completely (even if you cite them), but I take a close look on articles I downloaded, often due to the fact that I use many keywords and google operators to really filter out the stuff I'm looking for. This is something that varies also a lot between different scholars/students. I'm often shocked how students make use of search engines, if it is laziness or ignorance of search operators. This can save you so much reading time. Therefore, I think the extrapolated reader count based on citation factor might be more representative and reliable than using site views/downloads due to scholars, private people, laymen often downloading articles with information they didn't look for because of bad search engine use. Growing redundancy/plagiarism is a further factor here.

Some possible heuristics:

comparison of published aricles per month and web site/interface visitors per month on download platforms like PlosOne, arxiv, nature.

arxiv has around 6000 published articels per month, unique visits 100000, 12,4 million downloads by academic institutions, 50 million overall vs. 12x6000 articles 2011 means downloads/view of abstract of around 170 (I used 12,4 million here), of course, that doesnt count articles not published in that year, so the average read count of a single arxiv article is probably lower than 170 and more touching the 20-50 mark I explained above. But here you have IMO a reasonable and quite objective minimum and maximum limit for a scientific article other scholars are really interested in, 50-170

nature has 900000 unique visits per month, around 200 articles per month, so you see why having an article published in nature is probably more worth than 10 articles on arxiv, PlosOne or many other specialized journals in a distinct branch, even if they are peer reviewed ;)

looking up bibliographies of a some phd thesis in your field at your local university, the number of cited articles is in STEM often in the range of 50-200 (You see even here it varies a lot what a single phd student will/has to read). Of course you do not cite all articles you read, but the factor shouldn't be higher than 2 between (or your search engine use is imho suboptimal) cited and read articles. Considering the phd student will publish 3-5 (in STEM reasonable number or 1 nature article :) ) articles during his phd work and multiplying 3-5*20-50 (average read count by institutional scholars) you also get the number of articles in a phd thesis bibliography of 50-200. Pure Chance?! Looks like a strange calculation, but there is a link between how much article input a average scholar needs and how much output he creates (thats why I multiply both values) and it strengthens my experience/analysis above that 10-100 readers is a reasonable magnitude of order for people being really interested in an single average article. To me it doesn't look like pure chance, but that's the main problem with Fermi questions and answers :)

PS: notice this analysis is focused on STEM, I believe the average read count is much lower in humanities and side-effects like different languages and plagiarism seem to play a bigger role to make a really objective guesstimate


Is it good to mention in a recommendation letter that a student always attends office hours? What kind of impression does this make? I'm writing a letter of recommendation for a student in my class who always came to my office hours.  Is it good to say he attended a lot of office hours?  Will this make the admissions committee think he is a diligent student, or too dependent on the instructors?  He is applying for a master's program in computer science.

Well, you could really put that like you want to. Attending all office hours could mean a lot of things like the student is extremly insecure and needs confirmation on everything (even though he might be able to do it on his own) or he's not afraid to admit he doesn't know something and asks before doing something wrong.

It really depends on what you think of the student and if you think he is good enough. From your post we really don't know if attending the office hours was a positive or negative thing. But I wouldn't really write about the office hours themself but more general about the action of the student.


Is it wise to resubmit a substantially revised version of my writing sample that has already been submitted for phd applications review? My applications for doctoral programs have been submitted. But during this period, I have made a major revision of my submitted writing sample.

My question is: Is it fine to resubmit this revised writing sample to the schools I am applying to?

One of three things will happen, depending on how far past the deadline you are and on the application management system used:

The graduate school will reject it without forwarding it to the departmental admissions committee. See Plan B below.
It'll be forwarded as supplementary information rather than replacing the original writing sample. Some faculty will see it, some won't get that far in your file since these are usually last in the packet.
It'll replace your original sample.

You don't have much to lose, so why not send it in and see?

-=-=-=

PLAN B

If the graduate school rejects your submission AND you've already been corresponding with a faculty member who would likely be your advisor AND those interactions have been positive, then you could suggest to that person that you could provide them a revised sample to share with other faculty.

If I were that faculty member AND if I thought your candidacy were strong AND my departmental and university regulations did not forbid out of channel submissions, then I might accept it that way.

A lot of ifs with Plan B.


Is a citation typically considered plural or singular in academia? My question parallels that of https://english.stackexchange.com/q/99886/117318, which asks whether "Gamma et al." should be considered singular or plural for verb conjugation. The top and accepted answer says that it depends whether the verb refers to the researchers (since the translation of the Latin is "Gamma and others", which is plural), or if it refers to the publication/work.

Which usage is conventional in academia?
Is there significant variation across fields that anyone is aware of? Are there best practices to avoid confusion?

If you say "Gemma et al." to mean the paper, then it is singular.  This is the usual case.  If you say "Gemma et al." to mean all the authors of the paper, then it is plural.

  Gemma et al. describes the ants of Southeast Asia.

  But note: Gemma et al. have never actually been to Southeast Asia.

added
Comments show this varies by field.  So look at some of the best recent papers in your own area, and see how they do it.  In fact, some areas do not write "Gemma et al." but something like "[7]" or "[Gem 1995]" or whatever code is in the bibliography.  Then of course we may write

  [Gem 1995] describes the exceptional Lie algebras

even if there are three authors.  Or, if you claim papers cannot take any actions,

  [Gem 1995] contains a description of the exceptional Lie algebras


Is an academic degree an honor, a title, or both? For example: Do graduates receive a Bachelor of Arts degree or become a Bachelor of Arts?

Are Bachelor degrees grammatically and/or etymologically distinct from advanced degrees?

I note that the titles Master and Doctor are still in common usage, even though in practice frequently divorced from the associated academic degrees.  (E.g, a Master as a formal designation is now most frequently associated with a skilled trade – like master electrician.  And many holders of doctorate degrees eschew the use of the title outside of medicine and the academy.)

Etymologically it appears that Baccalaureate would be the correct term for a person who has received a Bachelor's degree.  But I can't find that in modern usage, and its etymology (laureate) emphasizes the award of the degree, rather than the achievement of mastery or doctoral skill.

Or do I have it backward, and it is modern academia that has appropriated these different titles without establishing such terminological consistency?

Depends on the country and education system.

For example, in English, 'bachelor' doesn't mean anything but that you finished that level of education.  In Spanish, finishing university doesn't mean a person gets recognized as having the degree: there are further methods to achieve that (titulaciòn), after which the government officially recognizes the degree and the title that comes white it like 'ingeniero' (engineer) or 'abogado' (lawyer). That is why in some countries the degree is added as a title at the start of a person's name.


Is it likely that American Mathematical Monthly would eventually accept a Filler article if it asks for substantial re-writing? The email with the initial review says the Filler has "some promise" , but says the writing is poor , and asks for detailed revisions for "further consideration". I'm not particularly keen on spending a lot of time re-writing and correcting the pedantic details, if there is a substantial chance of rejection after that revision.

As mathematical journals go, the Monthly is actually quite selective: I believe their acceptance rate is something like 10%.  For the majority of the papers submitted, the answer is a hard "no."  For instance, I have submitted five papers to the Monthly and three of them were accepted.  For the other two, the rejection was very clear -- they sure did not say "some promise" or "further consideration," so when they say that I think they mean it.

The other thing to know about the Monthly is that they are extremely picky about exposition.  They care so much more about that than any other math journal I know.  Just a few hours ago I received a rejection from a prestigious journal, which described my paper as "very nicely written." The point being that they noticed but didn't really care: they want to publish papers with amazing breakthroughs.  The Monthly is not like that: they take the style about as seriously as the content.  And though indeed I think of myself as as strong, experienced writer, all three of my accepted Monthly articles required massive, repeated expository revisions.  They are really tireless: if after five times you haven't gotten it right, they will ask for a sixth revision.  (This is not an exaggeration.)

A "Filler" is of course much shorter than an article: obviously it can be no longer than a page.  The amount of expository work per line is probably going to be higher than just about any other math piece you could write.  You say

  I'm not particularly keen on spending a lot of time re-writing and correcting the pedantic details, if there is a substantial chance of rejection after that revision.

As I said above, I don't think they're stringing you along.  Based on the response you've gotten, I think you should expect that if you pay enough attention to the exposition, they'll probably take it in the end.  Do be aware though that we're talking about lots of work, for something that is not even going to be counted as an academic publication by most.  So if you really do not enjoy the writing process, you may end up feeling that the outlay of time and effort was not worth the reward.


German doctorate (Phd) in industry; Working in a company or University? I have just read about "German Phd in industry" in the site, "Research-in-Germany". It says that even if I get a phd position in industry, I need a university professor to supervise my research and award the doctor degree.

*So, I wonder if a company accept me, I should work in the company or University (Physically, I often need to go to the company (or not), and no need to go to University).

I'm from Austria but the system is the same.

Only universities can award PhDs, so no matter where or how you do your PhD you need a supervisor at a university and you need to hand the thesis in at your university, get reviews like every other student has to and defend your thesis at that university. This is always the same.

In principle you can do your thesis wherever you want or got a position, as long as it's research based and your supervisor (and the dean of studies) approves the topic. The actual details on how everything works depend on the industry partner and the university, but there are two main cases.

1) You are doing your research directly at the company, in that case you don't need to be at the university except maybe for some courses you have to take and of course meetings with your supervisor. Usually you enter some kind of "PhD contract" that says you should meet your supervisor every X months or something like that. In this case you are usually paid by the company to do research and the university might not be involved.

2) The university is working together with a company on a research project, in that case you will work wherever you are needed. This is often the case if (smaller) companies need help in projects they cannot or don't want to do in house. In that case you might be paid by either the university or the company.

Be aware that in both cases you have to write a thesis which will be publicly available, which can be a problem when working with companies. There's usually the possibility to "lock" the thesis for a certain amount of time (some years) to get patents for example, but all of this is something you need to clarify beforehand! This is extremly important!


Should I embed a related work section in the introduction, and how would I do this? I am in the final stage of completing a thesis.

Context: I propose a new knowledge representation to tackle information overload in science (E-Science, scientific communication, linked data). Specifically, I created a knowledge representation of scientific problems.

In the introduction, I motivate the need of the new artefact based on two things:
1. A general need for digital knowledge representations for automatic reasoning, being able to filter out relevant aspects of scientific work to make them findable,
2. The unavailability of a knowledge representation for a specific aspect of scientific work; namely, scientific problems ("challenges", "gaps").

Other approaches that present a digital knowledge representation of aspects of scientific work were included as related work, but they also exemplify that the aspect I focus on is missing.

Do I incorporate this related work in the introduction, or present them in a separate related work section?
Would it be better to state "To this day, no representations of scientific problems exist" in the introduction and show the other approaches in a separate related work section, or is it nicer to show these other approaches in the introduction first (by including a subsection with all related work - separate subsections per approach - what would the title of this subsection be?), to then base the motivation of creating this new representation in an "approach" subsection which contains the research questions?

The structure of your paper should make it attractive to read and easier to understand. So keeping to the common structure in your field is usually helpful, but not a dogma that should be obeyed when it's not useful.

Introduction -> Related Work -> Main Contributions is a pretty common start for CS writing, so making it a separate section would be the default option.

However, if you have to lean heavily on a literature discussion to motivate the need for your work, it can make more sense to pull them together into a single chapter, perhaps with subsections.


Which undergraduate major leads to a research career in development of new medical drugs? Let's say someone wants to study biochemistry and his main goal is to do research in drug design  (development of new drugs). So, his main interests concerns with Pharmacology, right?

However, there are few undergraduate programs available in Pharmacology (there are some in England and other European countries) because most of Pharmacology programs are graduate programs.

So, the question is, what should this person do?

Go directly to a undergraduate pharmacology program.
Take another undergraduate program. In this case, what would that be? Chemistry? Medicine? Biochemistry?

There isn't a single "correct" undergraduate major for people interested in research careers in this field. Any of biology, biochemistry, biomedical science, chemistry, pharmacology, and several others would be fine.

Much more important than finding an undergraduate degree with the right "name" would be finding a program where students have the opportunity to carry out undergraduate research with faculty doing the kind of research you want to do.

For example, the profile of the Einstein 2016 incoming PhD class in biomedical science includes the following range of undergraduate majors:

  Undergraduate majors: Biology, Biochemistry, Biological Sciences, Microbiology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Molecular Biology, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Genetics, and Learning Sciences

But all had a lot of prior research experience:

  100% have had a sustained research experience in a scientific laboratory

  57% have published a scientific paper in a peer reviewed journal

  65% have presented their work at a scientific meeting

  31% have also spent a summer in a research program

  Mean Months of Prior, Full‐Time Research Experience: 32


Software for snowballing (data mining) academic papers Snowballing is a methods of data mining. In this method, a literature contains references. By using some keyword/keywords I would like extract those papers alone. I would again go to the references of the extracted papers and then using keyword/keywords, I would extract few more papers. This goes on and on till I converge.

I would like know is there any stand-alone software for this?

I don't think there's any such software available, and I doubt it would produce anything useful for the following reason:

  This goes on and on till I converge.

Without any restriction such an approach would probably not converge, at least not before reaching a few millions papers since it would follow citations across fields. Even with restrictions, you're likely to end up with a vast amount of data which would be very hard to exploit manually.


My co-supervisor wants authorship in a paper he didn't contribute I have two supervisors, in different countries, one in home institute who sent me as an exchange student to the host institute, where I closely worked with another co-supervisor who significantly contributed to my work, taking place of the last author in the conference paper I have submitted (not published). He reviewed my work, my paper and also was a really good advisor. My other supervisor, one from the home country had nothing to do with my project except on record. His domain is completely different from what I have worked on.

Now, in my master's thesis that I presented in the home institute in front of my co-supervisor and other faculty in the institute, I mentioned that I've submitted a paper based on the work I had done. I was questioned about the authorship of this co-supervisor, and was told it is unethical to leave him out of authorship, because by default, the supervisor must get the last authorship.

Now I fear that due to ego issues, they will reduce my grades because I didn't mention this co-supervisor's name in the paper.

How do you suggest I tackle this situation and am I wrong to leave him out? His only contribution was to provide me recommendation for sending me to the exchange program, and review my final thesis and presentation which I suppose every supervisor must do, whether or not a paper is published.

P.S. In my institute, having a paper published gets us better grades and hence I decided to mention about the submission. But now it looks like everything is going to take a U-turn on me.

Most journals have authorship policies. These are recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html), among others.

The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has guidance on how to avoid authorship disputes. https://publicationethics.org/files/2003pdf12_0.pdf

Be factual with your supervisor. Provide the authorship guidelines and ask him to list his contribution to the research article. You can explain that the culture on authorship has changed and that automatic authorship for higher level supervisors is no longer considered appropriate by publishers (as evidenced by the guidelines of the publication). Truthfully, it would be best if your host supervisor perform this deed because they are on an equal footing and apparently had some prior connection. Clearly, it puts you in a difficult situation.


When writing a review article, do I need to compare to or discuss limitations of previous review or primary articles on the topic? I have been told that having a published review article is viewed as an advantage for higher education. The topic of my review article is the impact of information technology on the practice of human resource management.

What are the sequential steps that I have to follow to make my review article acceptable to renowned publishers and university graduate professors?

I have heard that to make a review article acceptable, the first task is to read vastly about the subject related topic of review article. After reading extensively, how can I proceed - I mean how can make linkage of writing in every parts of review article?

Is it necessary to make a comparison, to find a gap or limitations,similarity of the previous primary and review articles on the same topic in writing my review article?

Do I have to present the information about what others authors have done or shown? or do I have to include my own thought, ideas, decisions along with the other scholars?and if I intend take some information,graph from copyrighted books,will I need to take permission from real authors or just paraphrase the information on own my words?

Certainly, a good literature review paper (also frequently referred to as a survey paper) would be an attractive asset in anyone's academic portfolio. However, it is easier said then done. Some people on this site even replied to one of my related questions that such papers is more of a prerogative of senior, very experienced scholars. Perhaps, there is some truth to it; likely, a lot of truth. However, I do think that those opinions should not prevent people from attempting to write a good survey paper (or do anything, for that matter). The reason for that, in my opinion, is twofold:

1) Self-assessment. Some people are better at carrying out specific research, while others are better at synthesizing information, in general, and results of research studies, in particular. We often do not know our strengths (and weaknesses), unless we try both types of research.

2) Self-improvement. In my opinion, it is very important to set the bar high, so that, even if we do not achieve a desired level of success for particular goal today, we will learn much more, thus, increasing our chances for succeeding in that goal and in general tomorrow. Plus, even, if we will not be have our survey papers published in a respectable outlet any time soon (while that IMHO should be one of the goals), we will obtain a much better understanding of the whole field of study (or subject domain) as well as gain an excellent practice in academic writing, which is very valuable on its own ("practice makes perfect").

Now, I will cover briefly some specific aspects that are related to your question. Firstly, we need to understand that there are no ready-to-use, step-by-step recipes for success, in general, and for writing good survey papers, in particular. Sure, there are some guidelines and templates (which are indeed helpful), however, the quality of a survey paper is IMHO dependent on a variety of factors beyond those aids, such as a potential author's knowledge and understanding of a field of study, research stream of subject domain, their abilities for writing clearly and concisely as well as constructing a mental picture of a large body of research and synthesizing from it, often creating rather complex conceptual frameworks. There exist papers that demonstrate how to do that; in particular, for example, for the information systems discipline, see papers by Webster & Watson (2002) as well as by Levy & Ellis (2006). However, again, it is one thing to see how something should be done and another to do that yourself. Another issue that we need to be aware of is that approaches for writing survey papers are quite different across disciplines and/or fields of study.

Secondly, we need to understand that writing a survey paper is not the same as performing a systematic review or a meta-analysis (by the way, they are often confused as similar things, which they are not, despite some overlap). We need to understand that meta-analysis is a statistical toolset, whereas systematic review is a type of study, which might or might not use the former.

Thirdly, depending on the discipline or field of study (as well as on the author and journal/editor), a survey paper might be closer in its form to a narrative review, rather than a systematic one. While systematic reviews are often regarded as more rigorous approach to covering a topic, they are not without their shortcomings. In fact, good narrative reviews might be as valuable, if not more, to science and research community, as their systematic counterparts. See this paper for some details.

References

Levy, Y., & Ellis, T. J. (2006). A systems approach to conduct an effective literature review in support of information systems research. Informing Science, 9, 181-212. Retrieved from http://www.inform.nu/Articles/Vol9/V9p181-212Levy99.pdf

Webster, J., & Watson, R. T. (2002). Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review. MIS Quarterly, 26(2), 13-23. Retrieved from https://web.njit.edu/~egan/Writing_A_Literature_Review.pdf


Advice needed on publishing a textbook! I have authored a large textbook on Male Pattern Baldness already in 2015 in my native language, Greek,
I have finished the translation in English and looking for a publisher.
It is a unique medical textbook, addressing multiple disciplines in a very detailed manner.
Springer has been interested in publishing my work but does not offer remuneration per chapter download, which is the most distinctive aspect of my book since there are 129 dedicated chapters for each separate issue!
I am interested more in "fame" than "fortune" but knowing that most of the revenue from my work will be generated in a way that I get no remuneration at all will be at least annoying.

Can anyone suggest any other reputable publishing house that is offering a fee -per-chapter download as well?
Can anyone suggest a house that can guarantee visibility and spread of my work as good as Springer?
If making ay considerable money out of this huge work is not possible, would you suggest Open Access for increased visibility?

Thank you for your time!

Industry standard here is to offer royalties based off the revenue made. If Springer is selling your book, then each chapter download should not be free, and some percentage of that revenue goes to you.

I'd be surprised if anyone is willing to offer you remuneration based on downloads, since the same buyer might download the book several times.


Difference between official and unofficial transcripts What is the difference between the official and the unofficial transcripts that are required for graduate studies?

I assume that both documents should be in English (if you study in a foreign university). Thus, unofficial means that you can make the translation yourself whereas official means that the translation is being made by an authorized person?

If I want a copy of my records, I have two options: one, is to log in to the university website and generate a up to date PDF; or I can pay the university for a signed copy, that consists on a copy printed by them, signed by two or three officials, and rubber stamped. The reason admissions usually want the second, as it is more difficult to forge, but it usually takes time (from a week to more than a month).

I want to bring attention to the Stockholm University system. Whenever you generate a transcript, it includes a code and a website. Anyone receiving that transcript can verify its authenticity easily. Reliable, fast, and free.

Depending on the university, they may want a translation, a certified translation (made and stamped by some official translator, usually expensive), or nothing at all. In my experience in Europe, in most cases, they only need a certified version for making things official when they have decided to hire you -if any. I know for a fact that my supervisor has not ever looked at my transcript, and they never requested a translated version.


How to hold back from interfering with students' inefficient-but-not-wrong work? I'm a new and junior group leader. I therefore work quite closely with my (also new) MSc students.

I try to let them work and figure out things as independently as they can, but have my door open so they can ask me for help. When they do, it will often be about scripting.

In these cases I sit with them and we work together for a little bit. That's when I see that students often work in ways that are clearly inefficient, but not objectively wrong.

I don't want to interfere too much. This is a learning process and it takes time to learn from one's own mistakes. But I have to really force myself to not suggest they use keyboard shortcuts, a bigger editor window to see more code, more sensible file and variable names, use Dropbox instead of emailing, etc etc.

I think it's important that I hold back: it would be annoying of me to point out every little thing, especially if, as I said, it's not actually wrong. Is there a good way to suggest solutions but not be unnerved if students don't use them?

What if you were to write up a list of "general development tips"?  Then you can share it with everybody once instead of constantly giving unsolicited advice.

You can also then give it to future students and hopefully get them started off well from Day 1.


How do I answer a question on the ethical implications of my work at PhD viva? I am defending my PhD thesis soon and have been told to practice some questions that I should expect, one of which is:

What are the ethical implications of your work?

How should I go about answering this?

My field is ocean physics, and my thesis has focused on investigating the causes of high temporal resolution variability in ocean temperature. How could I tackle this question in the defense?

I'm not an ocean physicist, or anywhere qualified in oceanography, nor do I have a slight idea of what your topic is on.

That being said, research involving water, and any political ramifications that may impact it, typically will impact commerce related to the oceans.

In this case, theoretical commercial impacts:

Fishing. Your research may potentially result in a ban on fishing, or make it harder to obtain fishing licenses.
Trade commerce. Ships are still used to transport goods around the world, including oil. As above, any sort of research that indicates that the oceans may be unsafe or bars certain trade routes will result in economical impacts down the line.
National borders. Traditionally, countries own a specific amount of shoreline before international waters. A shifting shoreline may result in a changing border and or possible border disputes.
Tourism. Obviously, effects of the water, even perceived, may impact tourism.
Insurance. Rising tides = rising premiums.

Whether or not these apply to your topic, I can't really tell, but it's better to start with a list of things and then check them off as irrelevant gives the no ethical impact argument more weight.


PhD Length: are shorter PhD degrees (from different countries) valued differently in other counter countries where PhD Is a longer process? This question is partially inspired by the question about degree nostrification.
In some countries a PhD is a 3-3.5 year degree (Denmark and the UK for ex) whereas in others like Sweden a PhD is usually 4.5-5 years. Quick disclaimer, I don't mean the time by which a person takes the degree, but rather what is considered "normal pace".
Additionally in the US many PhD programs include some overlap of masters-level courses, I have heard.
Does this get taken into consideration later down the road, when applying for positions, in academia or in industry? If so, how? I am thinking specifically in terms of: a) work experience, and b) age/seniority limits for applying for grants etc.
Edit: Reading some of the answers, I perhaps need to clarify a couple of things:

It's not a matter of whether shorter/longer is better? Just a simple question is whether a PhD is the same wherever, regardless of the length of the program

I did not mean the time it takes an individual to finish the program, but rather what the program is intended to include.
In Sweden, when I was doing my PhD the departments define what a PhD program from that department includes. For me it was 1 years worth of coursework, 3-6 months of department work (teaching, outreach, IT support etc) and the remaining 3 years corresponding to research (not necessarily in that order), totaling a 4.5-years long program. In other departments the teaching was 1 year long, and their PhD program 5 years in total. It's this "planned time" what I a referring to.

As far as I have ever seen, the length of your PhD program is irrelevant as far as considerations of future employers, etc. People (in academia) will mostly look at your publications, and possibly reference letters and reputation of your supervisor(s)/university. In particular, in all cases I know of seniority/age limits for grants count from date that your PhD was issued. (The only exception I have seen to this is the seniority limit for junior (W1) professors in Germany, which is some cases include your experience during your PhD, but this is state (Bundesland) dependent I believe.)

In some cases, your time as a PhD may (or may not) count as relevant work experience. In Germany, for example, this can factor into the determination of your salary scale, and the length of time that you can be employed under fixed term contracts.

Since one of the primary criteria by which freshly minted PhDs are judged for post-doc positions, is their publication output, as short PhD program can put you at a competitive disadvantage compared to PhDs coming from longer programs due to have less high quality publications out by the time you are applying (which also will have had less time to make an impact). A knowledgeable selection committee may account for this, but that is not guaranteed.


Latex submission template: keep figures to margin size? For submitting papers to Elsevier journals, they instruct you to prepare Latex files using the Elsarticle class. This class has huge margins (as other questions have also touched upon), to give space for reviewer comments, etc.

I have large, landscape figures which fill whole pages. Do I need to reduce the size of these figures, so that they fit within the margins, or am I ok to keep them a sensible size and assume that this will be sorted by the publisher if it is accepted at a later date?

I strongly advise complying with the formatting guidelines that you are provided.

Organizations like Elsevier give you a template an submission instructions for a reason, and in many cases the final formatted version will look nearly identical to a submission that follows their template. You can push your luck by violating the formatting guidelines, but this will make you look unprofessional and may annoy the editor and reviewers.  Do you really want to take that risk?

More to the point: most visual material can be readily organized into a number of formats.  Are you certain that you must have massive landscape images?


Upper or lower case in figures? Is there any rule concerning the use of lower/upper case letters in figures, charts, diagrams etc. to be used in scientific papers?

I tend to use lower case only (e.g., axis labels and legends), but a reviewer recently suggested that I should start each word with a capital letter.

I would be very thankful for any advice!

There are no absolute rules, but I think the most natural policy is to use title capitalization for major labels (plot title, axis identification, elements in the legend).  You may then reserve lower case names for additional minor labeling (like specific, localized features in a figure), although it would not hurt to use title capitalization for everything.  Don't use all caps; it looks like you are shouting.


How do I clear my name when wrongfully accused of cheating? I'm pursing an online engineering degree at ASU. In a introduction circuit class, I have a flimsy idea of what I'm doing and little time (each class is only 7 weeks long) to try to figure it out, so for some assignments I take my best guess and my mentality is if I miss some points, so be it, as long as I understand the gist that's being asked.

This class had a relatively huge project where we submitted photos and the program files for 2 related circuit designs and it was broken down into 3 parts, 1 part for all of the lab information, 1 part for the first program file for the first design and 1 part for the second program file. When it came to the lab part, I had a good idea of what was asked and by the end I thought I knew what I was doing.

For the 2 program files of the circuit designs I tried making similar circuits to those that were in examples in lecture videos for my class, but they didn't work correctly. So instead, I researched using a YouTube video by the TA in my class, a tutorial about the type of circuits being made and a powerpoint from a different university. I did NOT copy a single design presented in the video, tutorial or powerpoint. I re-checked and I can guarantee that my design does not look exactly like any of the ones viewed in the learning materials I used. Instead, I took components from each of the designs until I had something that produced the logic I theoretically proved it could be in the lab report.

I received an email from the TA asking why I submitted an entirely different project than what was being asked, and my only simple answer is that I had no idea what I was doing. Obviously, that isn't a good enough answer when someone is implying you cheated. So in a long response email I explained that I didn't feel confident in what I was doing and I tried to make something that worked and I explained how I did each part of the project and linked him the learning materials I used.

He hasn't responded, but I would like to know if anyone knows, is there anything I can in a situation like this where it's implied that I cheated and even though I most definitely have not, I can't prove that I didn't given the learning environment? What can I do?

How do I clear my name when wrongfully accused of cheating?

Putting myself in the shoes of the TA, I would say that you haven't even been accused of cheating.

You say:

  I received an email from the TA asking why I submitted an entirely different project than what was being asked, and my only simple answer is that I had no idea what I was doing. Obviously, that isn't a good enough answer when someone is implying you cheated.

The answer is right there: Your TA asked you why you submitted an entirely different project than the one you were supposed to complete and you said you didn't know what you were doing, which, by the way, completely confirms your TA's suspicions (i.e., that a clueless student completed a project in one of the most completely incorrect ways).

TL;DR: I wouldn't worry about the cheating "accusation."

(but do worry about whether you are putting your best foot forward with respect to completing course assignments and projects the way they're intended to be completed, etc.)


Is it legal for me to write my thesis in my native English and have it translated to German at the end? I am currently doing my master’s in German and need to start writing my thesis. Although I am already comfortable speaking the language, writing (especially academic papers) is not something I feel great about. Also, my thesis is a big deal. Legally speaking, could I write it in English and have it translated? It would still be my work.

This is not a legal issue—at least not at first. If you have copyright of your work, you can at any point in time—even years from now—sign a contract with a professional who will translate the thesis into another language and provide certification of having done so. That would be perfectly legal.

The real question is if your faculty will allow you to have someone else translate your thesis so that you can submit it in German, which is largely an administrative decision that may depend on the university. If it were professionally translated, you would have to disclose that fact as part of the submission since it would technically not be entirely your work. Most theses require such an explicit statement as part of the submission.

There may be an alternative: you should consult the relevant Prüfungsordnungen (examination regulations) that cover your program. Many programs now permit theses to be submitted almost entirely in English along with a short amount of material in German (usually something like an abstract or summary plus any “pro forma” statements. It may not be necessary to hire a translator if you can do the basic translation and submit in English.


Am I allowed to make changes in the accepted paper before sending it to publication I have a paper accepted in an Applied Mathematics journal. My question is that should I submit the accepted version to editors for publication or I can make some minor corrections (for example, some remarks to a Theorem in the paper. )

What do you mean by "bugs"?

Do you mean spelling or grammar mistakes, an error in the reference list, etc.?
Or do you mean actual bugs in the algorithm or code?

If you mean the first one, it is OK to handle this in the proofing stage. Check how the journal does proofing; typically, the journal generates a PDF in their own typesetting system, and you make comments on this PDF with corrections. Here you can fix language mistakes, update references etc. but you should not add substantial new content.

If you mean you have found actual bugs in algorithm, code or results, the ethical thing would be to tell the editor exactly what you have found and let him/her decide.


Problem with undergraduate research supervisor, how to proceed? Setting

I am currently an undergraduate student in chemistry and I have recently started working on an undergraduate research project in a known laboratory in the US. I am very passionate about the topic, however I have problems with my supervisor, who is a PhD student.

Problem description

When I came to the lab asking for a topic to work on, the Professor assigned me to one of their students, which appears to be common practice, so I did not question this. However, I found out later that my supervisor (the student) was the only person in the lab working on the topic, and that she herself had only started working on it not long ago. After several days in the lab, my supervisor has not revealed what the eventual goal of my project will be, and from the way she behaves (stressed out, impatient towards me asking questions, which is an additional problem), I suspect that she might not know herself (quote: "we'll figure out along the way"). This is severely frustrating. I am aware that research is an open-ended endeavour that might be changed as new situations arise, but I thought that undergraduate research should be something self-contained, with a clear goal and time-frame, and usually well-thought out by an experienced researcher? I am aware that one possibility to resolve these issues could be to simply talk to my supervisor. However, there appear to be some barriers, which leads me to my question.

Question

How can I approach the situation without ruining my standing in the laboratory and appearing like a complicated student, even though I am not? I would love to continue on this or a similar topic in this lab, but the current situation is very unpleasant for me.

I feel like I cannot talk to my supervisor directly as she seems impatient and stressed out, and at the same time inexperienced with supervising undergraduate students. I fear that this could make the experience even worse, with my supervisor getting angry at my criticism.

The other option I can conceive of would be to talk to my supervisor's supervisor, and ask for some kind of intervention from above. But this could also backfire in many ways, possibly making me look complicated and unwanted in the lab altogether.

I'll be honest with you, remarking that this is only my opinion, by no means I'm right.

  Undergrads are a pain to supervise.

Mostly because, in general, undergrads require a lot of "hand-holding" and training (proper research procedure and writing are not usually covered before that), which takes time (even worse if it is a good student that challenges you.... rewarding, but takes even more time).

You are right in thinking that undergrad research should be simple, self-contained, and well planned out. Properly planning stuff takes time, professors never have it. And simple means that the research is unlikely to have high impact.

I know several professors that don't accept undergrads simply because they think it is not worth the effort. The ones that do accept, pin them to a Ph.D. student (or a postdoc) and that's it. The Ph.D. students usually are busy, worried about their own things, and do not have the experience to deal with "underlings".

Yes, your project should be well defined, with clear goals and schedule. That never happens. Not as an undergrad, MS, Ph.D., postdoc, or professor. There might be a few unicorns around, but, usually, you have no idea where you are going. Ideally, you could use this opportunity to train the most important trait in a researcher: independence.

Instead of expecting to be handed goals and schedule, create them. It will be challenging for you, but you would learn how to do it, and get familiar with the field. Then you could go to the Ph.D. student and ask "Do you think this is a reasonable plan?" instead of "what should I do?". Worst case scenario, that plan can be a starting point for a better one. Bonus points if you include solutions to tangential problems of her research (stuff that would be cool/easy to do, but isn't a priority, so she would never do it herself).

Quoting a far better man, and professor, than myself:

  "Be honest, be kind, be useful, be responsible, work hard, treat everybody with respect."

I'd advise you to go around the Ph.D. student only as last resort.


Is it possible (practically, in real life) to pursue two very distinct research interests (e.g. in AI and theoretical physics)? TL;DR: Is it possible to pursue applied research in AI and theoretical physics after a PhD degree in CS focusing on applied AI (as a professor at some universities)?
Long version:
Hello, I'm a 3rd year undergrad at a university in Vietnam.
I've been wondering about the practicality of the above questions for quite some time but I have not yet been able to decide.
For a little bit of background:
I have a fairly good foundation on CS because I have been doing competitive programming since I was 13. Until recently, I feel that research in AI was too applied (I did some research with an advisor on computer vision recently), and then, I discovered theoretical physics and got the feeling that "This is for me,  my true self".
However, the problem is, in my country, pursuing theoretical research does not really guarantee a stable future career (with good money). So, I'm thinking about doing a PhD in CS focusing on applied AI and self-study physics. After that, I will probably get a position at a university and conduct research in both direction (more focus is put on only one direction, of course).
Can you kindly provide me some pieces of advice for my future career path, or, is my plan possible?
Thank you for spending time reading and answering my question.

It is possible (even “practically, in real life”) to do all sorts of things that are very difficult to do, like: publish five bestselling novels; climb the highest mountain in every continent; win a gold medal in the Olympics; become a successful movie actor; etc etc.
The point is that questions like yours (which seem to get asked here regularly) are very difficult to give a meaningful answer to. We don’t know you and what you’re capable of. Some people can do the thing you’re asking about, others can’t. So just asking “can it be done” is a question that, if interpreted literally, has an easy answer that’s not very interesting or helpful (“yes, it can be done”), and if re-interpreted to mean what I think you really want to know (“can I , the specific person asking this question, do this thing?”), isn’t a question that I or anyone else here have the information to answer.
Perhaps the most helpful way of addressing the question is to look at the number of people who can do the thing you’re asking about. Well, I’ll be honest, that number is extremely small. Most people who want a career in academia already find it challenging enough to do one PhD in one discipline and then pursue a position as researchers in that one discipline. And even from among those super talented people who find it a bit easier than the rest and are smart and hardworking enough that they can realistically contemplate specializing in two very distant disciplines, one of which being as notoriously difficult as theoretical physics and being acquired purely through self-study, only a vanishingly small fraction of that already small group will care to invest the time and energy that it would take to broaden their reach in such a way. For those people it’s not really about a lack of ability - more about the fact that it’s an inefficient strategy for becoming successful and maximally realizing one’s potential; but it kind of amounts to the same thing in the end.
Summary: can it be done? Yes. Is it something that I’d recommend to anyone to have as their career plan? No.


Age and nationality on CV I think the question of whether to put, explicitly, one's age and nationality on an academic cv is non trivial and would like the view of the community...

Up to now I have believed that (an estimation of) age can be inferred from the dates given in a candidate's Past Education (date of masters, phd, number of posdocs etc). Moreover, I have colleagues who got stuck doing multiple postdocs who were then discriminated against for their so called advanced years when applying for faculty posts ("(S)he's approaching 40 and hasn't had a faculty position yet; if they were good they would already have found a post, right?"). On the other hand, for someone who has advanced quickly, it might be an advantage to highlight that they have reached a faculty post early (or it might inadvertently highlight the young age and lesser experience of the candidate).

As for nationality, when applying abroad it can be a definite disadvantage to show the search committee that you would need migratory support to get a visa, green card etc. Or perhaps it can be advantageous to show a different background that could be brought to the post to enrich the diversity of the faculty....

As you can see, I am stuck seeing positive and negatives for both pieces of information. Is there a definitive answer or convention that one should follow?

There is a reason why many countries ban explicit characteristics in job ads, and that is exactly to avoid discrimination. But you should check some examples of CV's for the country you wish to apply to.

Also, applying as a foreigner is different than as a local. Check the universities site on that and you'll see the requirements, which might include proof of nationality besides the CV, which is where you give the details of age and nationality.


What are the acceptance rates at various CS masters degree programs? I'm an undergraduate student at a top CS school who is looking to apply for my Master's soon (in about a year or so). I am applying to my school's 5 year masters program as a backup, but I would prefer to switch schools just to get a different experience.

My first question has to do with the acceptance rates of various CS Masters degree programs. I found that it was very difficult to search for the acceptance rates for various schools that I am interested in. Some of those schools include Yale, Berkeley, Stanford, and CalTech. However, I was unable to find acceptance rates for any of these schools. Could someone point me to a resource that I could use, or just give me the acceptance rates? Also, are there any "underrated" schools that I should be aware of (and by underrated, I mean high acceptance rates and good departments)?

I suspect that most programs do not post their acceptance rates at the master's level. That's in part because they could be subject to wild fluctuations from year to year, as the number of applications change.

In particular, one other thing to consider: most graduate programs have a target of incoming students they want to enroll. They will generally admit only as many students as they feel they need to reach the goal. If students are accepting offers at higher-than-expected rates, they may lower the admit rate in subsequent years to compensate. Similarly, if they are under their target, they may admit a larger than expected pool.

Considering top-tier schools, my suspicion (although I don't have the numerical evidence) is that they get enough qualified applications that admissions now are partly a "lottery": if you meet the qualifications of a typical student, you may or may not get in, depending on the needs of the department in that particular year. So just do your best.


To break mental health condition to potential new advisor? I will be meeting with a professor tomorrow who I previously asked to supervise me. I believe he has the right knowledge to assess the standing of my work in the interdisciplinary field I work in and help me moving forward.
He said yes and gave me some suggestions which I partly followed, but the last time we spoke was in May.
I am currently struggling with issues related to mental health (see this question here) and have been in the past months, although it took a while to realize the depth and take action. They are not diagnosed but they probably include a mixture of: low self-esteem, impostor syndrome, anxiety, and acts of self-sabotage. These are linked and the names I feel are not strictly important. I am currently seeing a psychoanalyst (to address the root causes) and the well being/mentoring program of the university (to get practical suggestions and coping strategies). Fighting on.
I seek two things from the professor:

Relevant advice and (within reason) some mentoring whenever my
cross-field preparation is weak.

An external commitment device that provides motivation for work and
help me overcome some of my issues.

I think I have 1. covered, but I am looking for suggestions on how to discuss 2, especially whether I should break the information about my mental health issues with him.
I see two possible ways to go:

I can simply set the pace by saying "I would like to meet every week to discuss my progress" and not mention my (alleged) conditions. This will be enough to set a weekly deadline for myself and would surely be helpful.

I could mention my issues to some extent. One of the reasons I didn't
ask him to meet before is an ongoing self-sabotage/perfectionism
which makes me unwilling to show my work until it has reached a
satisfactory level. I now realize that, essentially, this
satisfactory level is short of publication-grade material and
clearly impossible without expert feedback. I am afraid of course
that this could: sound like an excuse for my absence and lack of
advancement; mark me as a "bad apple"; monopolize the conversation
away from content; be plain awkward; as I write this answer I am also concerned about him having to disclose this information later on.

This is ill-timed, as the meeting is tomorrow (but I wanted to break the cycle of postponing this and I could always go with 1. right above and postpone breaking the mental health "coming out" to a more appropriate time), but any suggestions from you would be a great help.
EDIT
I ended up doing something midway between telling and not. I have hinted at the fact that I was somewhat stressed out and partially disclosed a concrete example (checking a computation for over three days out of a fear it might be wrong). He said he understands this kind of difficulties as well as my need to have someone to talk the fine details over. I believe he caught the implications and was overall very kind and sympathetic. Unfortunately, he will be entering a half-year sabbatical soon and might not guarantee his presence until the start of the next academic years, but said he would like to read what I am working on and pointed me to others who might be of help.

First, congratulations on taking that first step towards recognizing yourself for who you are and seeking assistance to change yourself and get closer to becoming the person you would prefer to be. That is a huge step that many people are not willing to take, and I must applaud you for your courage.

Now, the issue at hand is whether you should reveal your current state of mind to your advisor. That's a delicate and deeply personal issue which can really only be left to your choice. That being said, if I were in your shoes, I would do so. In fact, I did exactly just that, both to my advisor during school and all my supervisors at work, and I benefited greatly from it. (Note that this is personal experience. If your advisor's personality is… less than accommodating, you may have a different experience.)

One of the most important roles of an advisor is to make sure that their students stay on track, both in terms of the scope of their research and their timelines. The last thing a professor wants is to be an inadequate advisor and as a result have a student take longer to graduate or turn out mediocre papers. Of course, this does depend on how busy the professor is, and they may ask other faculty for help or ask you to be mostly responsible for your own work (the last of which is relatively rare but not unheard of).

Psychological issues can cause many problems, including motivation. You can only benefit from having external motivation to keep you from deviating from your intended timeline, especially from someone you respect. At the same time, having that someone understand that you have difficulties will release you from the pressure of wanting to not disappoint that person, which ironically would have possibly caused you to stress out and as a result end up disappointing that person, then get stressed out from that outcome in a vicious cycle. Inform your advisor of your issues, and then together you can work out how to best manage your workflow. Perhaps you might need more frequent reminders, or require a little more detail with advice/instructions. Most advisors that I know love being helpful to their students, and hopefully your advisor will be the same.

Please note that you wouldn't be using your current state of mind as an excuse. You are already self-aware of your issues, which means that you will recognize when you attempt to avoid doing something and are capable of changing the course of that behavior when it occurs. Having that external motivator could be the extra push you need to help you turn away from avoidance and back to getting things done.

As for the issue of disclosing your psychological condition, it is not required unless it is directly relevant to the matter at hand. In fact, as mentioned in the answer to the question you linked, it can be considered unethical to unnecessarily disclose such information. If your adviser does find it necessary, let them know about your concern and work together to word it so that it minimizes any undue negative connotations.


Fixing typo in paper after acceptance Last week I received the pleasant message that my very first journal paper got accepted. More precisely, the journal "accepts the manuscript in its current form". The reviewers did have some remarks, however. I know that I do not have to correct some bigger discussion points that they have, but there were also a couple of typos that they pointed out

Do I need to correct those typos myself or will the reviewer/editor fix those, given that the mistakes are recognized?

Note. The manuscript submission website does not allow me to make any more changes, since its acceptance. I would probably have to e-mail the editor to correct the minor mistakes.

Had your paper not been accepted as is, you would definitely have made these changes. Although typos are usually taken care of in the copyediting and page proofing stage, I think it would be a good idea to write to the editor asking whether you are required to make the changes.


Can I cite a comment by a reviewer of a conference paper? While researching for my thesis, I found a source containing comments by the reviewers for a particular conference on the acceptance of papers.
see https://openreview.net/forum?id=HkAClQgA-

If I am to cite one of the comments by a reviewer, how can I do that?
Or rather can I do that?

Thanks in advance!

Can you cite this? Yes. Should you cite this? Probably No.

This source is a normal website which can be cited. How exactly you can do this depends on your citation style and type of document you are writing. Most likely, you must give the URL and also have to include the day when you accessed this website. You also may have to save/download the cited page since it may become unavailable. If in doubt, talk to your thesis advisor.

Nevertheless, citing a review might be a bad idea, depending on the intention of the citation. Compared with a usual scientific paper, a single review was not peer-reviewed and may contain incorrect information. Usually, you should be able to find the same information somewhere else in a better source.
If you give more information on what and why you want to cite this, better recommendations can be given!


How to expedite? Compensation? University still hasn't provided alternative formats after 9 months Facts
My visually impaired brother attends university ("UNI") in England. In Jul 2017, he requested Alternative Formats. As of Apr 11 2018, UNI's Library still hasn't contacted the publishers, but avowed that they probably can by May 1. They haven't explained this 8-month stonewall. Still without PDFs, he deferred exams to Aug 2018.
The Chief Librarian emailed that he must wait patiently for the publishers to email the Library the PDFs, which can take weeks and will delay him further.
We filed a formal complaint, but UNI denied wrongdoing and any financial compensation. The Student Union uselessly couldn't help.
Questions

How can he convince the university to expedite?

How ought he seek compensation? We worry that litigation may offend them and make them victimize my brother. But haven't they infringed Consumer Rights Act 2015 s 52?

(2) In that case the contract is to be treated as including a term that the trader must perform the service within a reasonable time.
(3) What is a reasonable time is a question of fact.

Although it might appear that you are purchasing services from the university, I don't think this is true, legally (although I'm not a lawyer).

If you have complained to the university through the official channels you can lodge a complaint with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (http://www.oiahe.org.uk/).


How was this weird paper accepted? The following paper was published in Annals of Medicine and Surgery.

How to approach supervisors for research opportunities

It has nothing to do with medicine or surgery.

How can one think of submitting a paper like that (to such a journal)? And how can one accept a paper like that?

It has nothing to do with Medicine or Surgery.

This will come as a surprise to the large number of medical students, medical and surgical interns, etc. who are interested in getting some experience in research, either to broaden their base of knowledge or with the mind to transition toward academic medicine.

  How can one think of submitting a paper like that (to such a journal)?

You think "Here is a pressing question some people in my field have encountered..." and, for something like this, you likely contact the editorial office to make sure it's of interest. Or you submit to a journal that has a consistent track record of publishing papers on the practice of their subject.

  How can one accept a paper like that?

Having been a reviewer on similar types of papers - once the editor has decided it may be of interest you read it over, make sure you think the content is accurate and it will be of interest, make any comments you might have, and submit your review. Other times, the review is internal.


What does "Experience as a superior" mean? In the process of applying for a particular faculty position in computer science in Finnland, I got stuck when answering the question

  Experience as a superior

The choices from the dropdown menu are

No experience
Less than 1 year
1-2 years
2-5 years
5-10 years
over 10 years

What could they mean exactly by "a superior"? (Before you cane me: yes, I  asked my contact but have not recieved an answer yet.)

As a Finn, and without further context, I read that as leadership experience. I would translate "superior" as "esimies". Esimies is Finnish for superior (of someone at work, in the sense that they are responsible and have power over other people; not in the sense that they are superior as human beings or scientists or anything like that). Have you lead a research group or supervised PhD students? Have you been the principal investigator of some project?

I don't think there is any precise definition available.

If the recruitment system is also available in Finnish or Swedish, you might also look at the equivalent term there and check what it means.


Is there a difference between Top Tier and Second Tier graduate programs in Mathematics regarding tenure track? I am unaware if this question has been asked anywhere on StackExchange before. However, I would like to know what is the major difference between a top 6 and a top 10 graduate school in Mathematics. Forex: Top 6 would include Princeton, Harvard etc. Top 10 would have a few more like Michigan or Columbia etc.
I know that it depends a lot upon quality of theses and advisor. But can a graduate from Michigan be better than someone from Princeton? Looking at the faculty of top schools this rarely happens. Usually, everyone at Princeton received their doctorates from Princeton itself or maybe Harvard. Harvard/MIT also have the same situation. So is it really difficult for a Michigan(or any top 10 school) graduate to get a tenure-track job at a very prestigious school like Princeton ?.

I don't think you have gone very deep into rankings. Certainly not deep enough to suggest any relationship meaningful for individuals. I've never heard anyone scoff at a PhD from University of Michigan. You are suggesting that the top graduate from some place is invariably less skilled than the worst graduate from some other essentially similar place. That doesn't happen in the real world.

But if your life goal is to be a tenured professor at one of the top six schools in the US, prepare for disappointment, no matter where you study or how good you are. The problem is that the total number of open positions at such schools in any given year is minuscule and the competition for those few positions is huge.

But you should also think about the following in choosing a graduate school, if that is why you ask. Many top (and other) schools don't like to hire their own graduates. It certainly isn't that they doubt the quality, of course. But they like to bring in people who may have fresh ideas, not having studied with the current faculty and been exposed for many years with their ideas primarily. This has less effect now than it once did as it is easier to collaborate across distance and even internationally because of the internet and cheaper travel.

But some schools do permit hiring their own, and many students prefer to stay around a place where they are comfortable, so such places can collect a faculty made up of their own graduates. But, even in these, I'll guess that a lot of those "from here" people went out into the bigger world and made their reputation there before returning "home."

On the other hand, there are some incredibly fine mathematicians at quite small and out of the rankings places who simply want to live and work in a "home" environment of a different kind. Princeton isn't, actually, the finest place in the US to actually live. Too many cars, too many deer ticks.

But there is more to life than the quality of the institution you attend or the institution you work for. Lots more.


How to proceed if a professor does not answer the request for letter of recommendation? I have written an email to a professor asking him for a letter of recommendation. It's been almost a week and he didn't answer back.

I have already seen questions on this topic here, saying that when a professor doesn't answer is probably because he forgot or he overlooked it. However my question is: what is the best thing to do next? Send him another email? Or try and see him in person?

What it means depends a lot on the proximity of your application deadline.  If the deadline is looming, say, within ten days to two weeks, it means you should probably ask someone else.  If the deadline is a month or more away, it means the professor is busy.  (And, if you didn't tell the professor when the deadline is, it means you didn't provide enough information.)

Send a polite email that tells when the deadline is and asks whether the professor could write a recommendation by that time.  That should get some kind of response, even if it's, "Sorry... I'm really busy right now and cannot do it."

Here is my general advice to students about recommendations: http://ksuweb.kennesaw.edu/faculty/rbrow211/recommendations/ It will likely help you to read it all, although the bit about communicating deadlines is the first item on the list, in bold type.


Why do tenured professors at high-ranked universities move to lower-ranked universities? I have seen some tenured professors at top ranked universities move to lower ranked universities. Why do professors do this? At lower ranked universities there are less resources and the graduate students are weaker.

There are many reasons that people change institutions. I was tenured at an R1 institution and moved to a "high research" institution because I wanted to live in the area where the second institution is located. Although my current institution has a lower research ranking, it is the state's flagship school, where my former institution is not. So, I actually get more resources, better pay, and our students are more prepared when they start college, compared to my prior institution. So, your assumption that a higher ranked institution is better is not always true.


What to add to paper where another team just beat you to the novelty I want to know what the best option is for adjusting an article in prep under the following circumstances:

I've been working on this new model of a natural system for a while. I established the theoretical basis for it, and showed that it is in agreement with empirical evidence. I have a second draft at this point.

Then I find one of the folks I was already citing was also clearly thinking about the same exact things for awhile. Their paper is published, and they did an awesome job. Darn! But no hard feelings.

However I still plan to publish my paper because
1) They did not provide the theoretical basis, so we have different justifications for the model
2) My model comparisons to the data point out different things (but together my paper and their paper both confirm the model)

What are the standard adjustments that can be made when this happens? Is it best to:
1) Devote a couple sentences to this
2) Devote an entire paragraph (or more?) comparing and contrasting our models and conclusions
3) Simply emphasize that my work is now an extension of their work?

It seems you have answered yourself: you found different contributions between your paper and the other one. It's up to you to decide if those differences constitute publishable material and are worth submitting or not really.

The best recipe on how to handle it is, as usual, honesty. You can simply say something like "our findings are in good agreement with recent research...", "recent research came to the same conclusion using a different model...", cite the other paper, compare both and justify why your contributions are important.

This approach is perfectly common in research. Not everything is about novelty.

The reviewers will give you feedback that will provide some clarity and help you how to proceed from there.


Published manuscript to handbook or manual I am presently developing a handbook/manual based on our published methods in a not-open access journal. The content of the manual is different (i.e., format and structure) from the published version and we made a modification, for example, we structured our manual to a "recipe style" so it's easy to use and follow by users. We cited the original paper and we borrowed and cited some of the figures (and some new ones). I am wondering would it be against the journal policy if I do this? Or any advice about how I will handle this. We also plan to publish the manual through an organisation.

would it be against the journal policy if I do this?

It is not against journal policy for

  a handbook/manual [to be] based on...published methods in a...journal.

Indeed, anyone is free to write a handbook/manual based upon published materials. (Such a handbook/manual should not plagiarise, of course, and the OP has noted that the handbook/manual differs in content, format, structure, and style. Furthermore, the OP notes that the original sources have been cited.) Regarding,

  we borrowed and cited some of the figures

You need to check this is permissible, it has been answered elsewhere on this site.

There may be other concerns, but the question doesn't raise them.

TL;DR: Write your handbook/manual as-if you didn't write the original sources.


What to do (years later) with otherwise good student who has accidentally plagiarised part of PhD thesis? Here's a not so hypothetical situation. International student x is very talented but comes from a background where technical writing is not taught or understood very well. She writes a great thesis with a good literature review and nice results. However, the results are based on two key papers from previous students in the group. She decides to give credit to the papers in a special chapter, which she starts by saying "I need to give credit to this and that paper" and proceeds with copying paragraphs wholesale to describe what those other students did.

This was a few years back; X is now faculty at a good school and she contacts me (past advisor) in teary-terrified voice to let me know that she plagiarized in her thesis. I am now in a panic as well. How could I miss those? And how could she do that?? We both risk losing our jobs, and she is at risk of losing her degree as well (which, by the way, was a very strong thesis with a good number of top journal publications).

As far as I know there's no process for revising a thesis after it's been submitted and I don't know what else to do short of turning ourselves in - which I feel morally obligated to do.

Please advise.

Edit
Thanks all for weighing in on this. I spent the night going through the thesis and there appear to be three more sources that are suspect of being plagiarized, all in the same wretched chapter; one is a thesis of a colleague, the other is a textbook and the third is a book I wrote a while back. So this is more serious than I thought.

She has unfortunately not used quotes for the material, i.e., instead of saying "[paper i] says ," she just went on with "[paper i] says this and that."

She has not been accused of plagiarism by anybody. I am guessing that she has finally come to grips with good writing standards and upon looking through her thesis she realized that her "summary" was actually plagiarism. I have every reason to believe that she did what she did in good faith (she has proven her honesty on many occasions).

Did any of the plagiarized material make it into journal papers, or was it all literature review that was never published outside of the thesis?

If some of it made it into papers, then it's important to contact the journals and publish corrections.  This is more straightforward and predictable than dealing with the thesis itself.  If the plagiarism is confined to background material, then I don't think retracting the papers would be necessary.  Instead, I expect it would be possible to publish a correction that indicates the plagiarized portions and provides citations.  This would be embarrassing and would hurt her reputation a little, but it would solve the problem as far as the papers were concerned.  It would also strengthen the student's case for dealing with the thesis if she can say she voluntarily corrected the publications and did not need to retract any of them.

If none of the plagiarized material was published elsewhere, then it's trickier.  Once all the original results are published in research papers, I doubt anyone will read the thesis and discover the plagiarism.  Even if they do, they might take pity on the student and ignore the plagiarism.  (I once ignored some mild plagiarism of my writing in the background sections of a thesis at another university.  The student had already graduated, and I found no evidence of plagiarism in any of his research papers.  If I knew for sure he could just file a correction to the thesis, then that would make sense, but I wouldn't want to potentially destroy his career over this mistake.)  So she might well get away with it if she doesn't say anything.  Still, I'd advise her to officially confess to the university.  Turning herself in is likely to lead to a much better outcome than being caught by someone else.  Plus it's the right thing to do, and it will save her from years of worrying about getting caught.

  We both risk losing our jobs, and she is at risk of losing her degree as well (which, by the way, was a very strong thesis with a good number of top journal publications).

Unless your university is extraordinarily strict, I don't think your job is in jeopardy.  On the other hand, the student's degree or job might be, depending on how the university handles the situation.  Based on your description, I think it would be unfair for her career to be ruined, but I can't predict what will actually happen.  I hope your administration's sense of fairness is the same as mine, in which case a correction will suffice.

The hardest situation will be if she decides to remain silent.  In that case you probably have an obligation to turn her in, and it would look terrible if anyone found out that you knew but didn't say anything.  On the other hand, turning her in would be a tough decision.  Much better for her to turn herself in voluntarily.


What are the chances of degree revoke if an unrelated plagiarized paper was published during the course of Phd studies The Phd Thesis and course work all are un-plagiarized; degree completed through all the normal procedures of the university.
However, a plagiarized research paper which is un-related to the doctoral thesis and coursework was published during the PhD tenure.

What are the chances of degree revoke (the degree has long been granted).

Regards.

It can happen.  But it would depend a lot on the policies at that institution.  As reported in the New York Times, consider the case of Senator John Walsh (D-MT), whose master's degree from the US Army War College was revoked when it was discovered that he had plagiarized a paper he'd submitted in partial satisfaction of his degree requirements seven years earlier.  They even ground his name off the bronze plaque listing the school's graduates.


My professor gave me a bad grade and wouldn't discuss it further, I think some prejudice may be involved. How should a student proceed? Background:  I was a senior at a very prestigious, high-ranking university in the US.  At the time my GPA was around a 3.9 and had never had any issues with professors (and actually socialized with a few outside of class).

Fall semester I ended up getting pinned taking two classes from a female professor that had a reputation for being an extreme feminist.  I only mention the "feminist" part because this reputation preceded her around campus.  My adviser who was female, basically said "sorry about this" but I have to put you in her classes.  I also mention it because the department head (later in story) is very quick to pull me from her class with little discussion.  I am not anti-feminist nor did I care.  If anything it made me act more cautious around her.

Both of the classes were very basic so I figured, whatever.  Well I get my first few papers back and there is little feedback other than very minor sentence rewording.  "C"s.  No notes.

I ask her about her office hours (after class) so I can talk about the issues on the papers.  She simply told me she finds me intimidating and that she would rather talk to me in class with other people around.  This was my first direct interaction with her, and I was standing beside a few friends.

So I ask her what I need to do to not get a "C".  She says that she doesn't feel comfortable talking to me because she feels threatened—again I have two or three female friends standing a few feet from me.  That's it.  She wouldn't talk to me because I was a big male.  (At the time I was boxing professionally but I really doubt she knew this. As a 6'3" 200-pound white male, she just would not talk to me based on how I looked.)

Next step was going to the department chair.  Basically he looked at a few of my papers and we went around in circles over the grades.  But that didn't matter.  The professor basically told him exactly what she told me.  And she told him that it was the first time I had ever talked to her.

He offered to grade the rest of my papers and give me grades for the classes.  I opted out of that because basically I would have started off with a 70% in each class (he could not change my grades, I was told).  So he offered pass/fail. I took that option.  Didn't go to class.  Turned in a bunch of papers and passed both classes.

My question is did I handle this correctly?  Should I have paid for those two classes?  What would be the norm in this situation from a student's perspective?

Generally speaking, humans - even professors with a bad reputation - behave the way they do in a way that is sensible in at least some context, even if that context is only in their own mind. Without knowing the situation, this behavior could be anywhere from an indefensible prejudice to a "reasonable person" response that one simply fails to understand or have sufficient information to interpret.

So, let's walk through a couple of reasonable interpretations.

Honest Interpretation

In the first interpretation, the professor responded honestly - she felt fear or discomfort in meeting with you privately. "Why" she felt that way cannot be determined from a simple reading of the narrative presented. She could have a disability (panic/anxiety disorder, post traumatic stress), she could have been threatened in the past, she could have believed you were affiliated with people who had threatened her or wished her ill, or she could have interpreted your tone or body language as being angry or...well, intimidating, and surely other reasons I cannot so easily imagine.

People have a right to feel safe, and to insist they not be put in a position where they are made to be in perceived or real danger. When one can un-self-consciously walk down a dark street alone without fear because of one's skin color, size, gender, or physical training, it is easy to be unaware of the fear that others who are not so fortunate must live in continually - often for all too real reasons. As I have two daughters, I can attest that this is a rather disgusting realization to have to come to - but it is an important one in understanding our place in the world and our relationships to others.

Legally and ethically, the University is almost universally required to provide reasonable accommodations to this end for both students and faculty - both you and your professor.

In all this, this does not require that you did anything wrong, nor that you should receive adverse treatment. If the professor was hard of hearing she could require all advisement to be by email, and this would be a reasonable accommodation. To request an appointment with a chaperon might feel silly when you don't see the need, but it can be a reasonable accommodation none the less.

Unfair Treatment Interpretation

Interpretation Two: you were singled out for unfair treatment. In this interpretation, you were treated explicitly unfairly and the professors attitude and actions culminated in adverse, unwarranted treatment.

As a student and "paying customer", you have the right to receive services you paid for, comparably valued substitute services, or a refund. The University makes certain guarantees of service, and they are obligated to make good on their contract.

The University, along with applicable law, usually provides for how complaints should be handled. Generally, the head/chair of the department is involved, and at times special departments (like an Ombudsman or Student Services) can also seek to find a reasonable resolution.

There is not, however, always a guarantee that a class will be offered by a professor who likes you, or whom you like, or who is even in any way helpful or beyond vaguely useful. It's hard to bar passive-aggressive behavior that's shielded by unethical but hard to disprove veils of personal boundaries or safety.

From your writing, it seems a member of administration offered a number of remedies. You likely had the right to complain to administration, be given an administrative (no cost/fault) withdrawal from the class with potential return of related fees, receive 3rd party grading to remove questions of improper marks, a pass/fail opportunity for credit, etc. While none of these are ideal resolutions, there are often no perfect fixes for problems like this.

Part of this is often what is really sought in remedy is not possible or not stated. If you felt insulted and discriminated against, you might have wanted the professor penalized or to apologize to you - which might have been objectively inappropriate or just impossible. You might have wanted your paper regraded as stated, but there may have been insufficient grounds for this is as it is simply an extraordinary request. If a 3rd party can look at your paper and say "it is not beyond reason that a professor, even if they would be very harsh, would have given this paper a C" then it's just a no go there, too.

So, administration has a duty to find a way to make the best of a bad situation. From the sounds of it, they offered pretty much all the recourse they had to offer to you. You could take it or leave it, but by staying in the class and taking the pass/fail offer and receiving credit (and choosing not to attend lecture - which was certainly understandable but not strictly demanded by the situation) the University upheld their end of the bargain - albeit in a not very satisfying way.

A Word on Feminism

One note of issue: the problem with how this is stated in the post is that feminism isn't actually related. If someone is known to have a militant or unkind attitude, behave in a way that discriminates against certain genders or types of people, or just has a reputation for being a terrible teacher or nasty person, say so.

The problem is when words are used as code words for something else entirely. If the administration was unwilling to give a refund it would be appropriate to say they were playing hard ball or being stingy or greedy - not to say they were known to be of a certain ethnicity renowned for thrift (to be time-insensitive, I am presently aware of three entirely different sets of people who have this notion assigned to them).

So, if a professor has a reputation of being nasty or terrible or discriminatory, please just say so outright. To say "feminist" or "extreme feminist" to imply being a man-hating shrew does a dis-service to yourself, your question, to feminists, to man-hating shrews, and to society as a whole.