Obtaining abstracts for symposium talks before vs after submitting proposal As an early-career researcher, I would like to get some organisational experience with chairing symposia, and am considering proposing a symposium for my (sub)field, at a major conference of the (general) field, which is psychology. I have the following doubts:

1) How is it best to time the symposium proposal's submission relative to obtaining the full talk details (titles & abstracts) from speakers? Some suggest that the latter can be obtained later once you have the symposium accepted; but to me it seems to make more sense to first enquire among colleagues what a possible symposium theme might be (seeking a convergent theme among everyone's current research keywords), before proposing it. Perhaps, as a mid-point, it's reasonable to just get acceptances from presenters, with only a rough idea for the symposium's thematic "centroid"? Trouble is, the conference I was considering actually requests (as do others) that the full talk details be included with the symposium proposal itself!

2) Organising a symposium is of course peanuts in comparison to organising a whole conference, but I anticipate even that will take a bit of time (negotiating talk topics, handling withdrawals/replacements, etc), so I wonder: alongside my actually enjoying it, and academia being arguably a 'gift economy', is there a real career benefit in having 'symposium organiser at conference X' in one's CV, i.e. are there real points 'scored' with this activity when applying for grants & jobs?

Regarding your question:

  How is it best to time the symposium proposal's submission relative to obtaining the full talk details (titles & abstracts) from speakers?

This is specific to each conference. Check submission requirements. It is likely that they will submit abstracts to the conference and your session after your session is listed on the website/conference registration. Additionally, it is likely that what someone proposes to present now (early) may be different from what they might propose in three months when they register or when you, as a group, chat about the content of the session.

I, too, am an ECR, so consider that when reading my answer.

A few years ago I wanted to propose a symposium on a topic at a 'major' conference. I reached out to this professor, whom I had only brief email communication with, to gauge their interest in the topic. I provided a list of potential speakers and an abstract to this person. After some discussion, we concluded that a different, but related topic might be better for the conference. We submitted and it was accepted -- it was great! We recently published a paper which resulted from that meeting/symposium.

This leads me to your question:

  Is there a real career benefit in having 'symposium organiser at
  conference X' in one's CV, i.e. are there real points 'scored' with
  this activity when applying for grants & jobs?

Yes! You will grow your network. You will learn through the activity how to strategically propose sessions, and invite and collaborate with others. You should come out of the session with a new, smaller network of researchers with whom collaboration should be a little easier (now that you 'know' each other). If the society accepts your symposium, it is likely they would be interested in receiving a research article on the topic(s). Organizing a session is also great for working with people with whom you likely wouldn't physically meet otherwise, and for getting out of your daily working area (i.e., invite people from regions/groups different than yours!).

Unless you are making travel arrangements and securing funding for the invited speakers, I don't think there will be much leg work beyond the initial submission, invitation emails, and reminder emails.

Find a mentor and collaborator to guide you through this process, and to help build your network.


Letter to a potential PhD supervisor (mathematics) I am finishing my Master's in mathematics in Germany and I'd like to apply for a PhD in Europe, preferably in the UK. Most departments recommend that students get in touch with potential supervisors prior to submitting a formal application. I am a little nervous about it and I would appreciate advice regarding the following:

(1) Some people say it's advantageous to mention interest in specific papers published by a given professor. But I'm not sure how applicable this is to mathematics. To be honest, I haven't read a single paper by most of the people I'd like to apply to. (Reading and understanding a math paper takes a long time, so I think it's rather normal.) Is it OK just to say, for example, "I've seen you have published a lot of papers on non-linear PDEs, which is an area I'd like to do research in", or does this sound too generic?

(2) Is it OK to mention that my Master thesis supervisor or lecturer at my university recommended a given professor to me as a potential PhD advisor (they know each other), or does this sound somewhat awkward/patronising?

(3) How long should my email be? Is about 300 words too long?

(4) What should a first email accomplish? Should I just introduce myself and express interest? Or should I ask some specific questions about a potential research project straightaway?

I will really appreciate your advice, especially from academic mathematicians. I think one of the problems is that I find it a bit hard to see how the situation looks from the perspective of the potential supervisor. Do they get hundreds of such emails every year and just get annoyed when they get another one? Do they want the applicants to be very specific from the start, or is it better to first introduce oneself and see if they are at all interested before asking more specific questions about a research project, etc.?

I am a mathematician in the UK.  If someone doing a Master's degree in Germany wants to do a PhD with me, I would like them to send me an email of five or six lines, giving a brief indication of what is in their Master's thesis, and a very broad indication of what they would like to do in their PhD (perhaps "chromatic homotopy theory" or "something to do with operads").

I do not expect that applicants will have read any of my papers, although that sometimes happens.  If your supervisor suggested that you should apply to me, then I might find that interesting, but it would not be significant; I would wait for more detailed comments in the supervisor's reference letter.


I have done my PhD research without learning the numerical method details. How can I defend successfully? I used a commercial software LS Dyna in my PhD research. My mechanical engineering PhD research was completely modeling based, no experimental. I have three journal papers, which are in surface engineering journals and not computational modeling journals.

I don't know all details about the software/numerical method I am using. I am not comfortable in teaching or explaining someone how the software actually does the calculations. I always used the software as a tool and thought that a superficial knowledge about the software would be adequate. That's the reason I focused more on research rather than taking courses to fill the knowledge gaps.

Now, I am about to defend and I am feeling that I will fail as the committee might ask me mathematical questions and I will not know how to answer. I am screwed.

I am doing my PhD in top 30 universities in the world. I did not have to take coursework during my PhD. I don't know what will I do if that's the reason I fail my PhD defense. I am freaking out. Sorry for the rant. How should I tackle this problem?

Your advisor is giving you good advice. She presumably knows what is required here and will come to your aid if any issue arises. An advisor supporting a candidate in a defense happens in some situations. And the advisor probably knows more about all of your work than any other committee member.

But if you are using a standard tool in a standard way then it is unlikely that the tool has affected your results. Hopefully you can refer to other, published, studies that use the tool or even marketing material that point to its verification.

Your field isn't the development of such tools, but their use. Had it been tool development for ME then you'd have a problem. Your undergraduate education probably gives you a general basis for the underlying math/physics/dynamics/whatever.

Relax.

Note that my experience is in situations in which the advisor is either a committee member or sits as an advocate. I recognize that there are other traditions in which the committee is independent. But even then, you are unlikely to be strongly challenged for not having details of the tool at hand, beyond general ME principles of analysis.


Should I use affiliation? I am going to send a manuscript for publication. I made the work in my vacations (while having a fellowship) with my own resources and, although related, it was not part of my research plan.

My fellowship is over. I still teach at some university but I am not paid for doing research. However, the institution prefers being the affiliation.

I am trying to figure out what is more convenient, publishing with or without affiliation considering the following:

I am in need to find work as researcher in any country due to the almost null probabilities of make research in my own country. I tend to think that a paper published with no affiliation should be good received by the employer, due to it shows real interest in the subject (because of doing the work for free in free time). But I am not sure about how this is considered around the world.
Maybe, in real life, it could be more difficult to publish with no affiliation.

This is more in the realm of opinion than fact, but I would always use the affiliation. This gives the reader a bit of context that will most likely increase your credibility. If the reader is open to believing what you say even before beginning reading the paper the mindset will be different than if it is just a bit of work by a random, completely unknown person.

Of course, once you become Stephen Hawking the affiliation is no longer needed.

But for the rest of us, knowing that we did the work as a faculty or staff member at the University of the Universe (or whatever) will give us that opening that allows a fairer reading of the work.


Should non-talk slides be included in the handout? I'm putting together a slideshow for an upcoming talk (I'm in a field where slideshows are slowly becoming common, and these colloquia are always good opportunities to get used to things like this). The talk itself only runs to slide 20 or so, but after that I'm going to have another 20-25 slides to help me deal with a number of questions that I anticipate might arise during Q&A. I'm going to make a printout of the slideshow and distribute it as a handout.

The question is, should I include the non-talk slides in the handout? The way I see it:

Pro:

helps audience members understand my answers to their questions.
provides a more detailed overview of certain areas where an efficient presentation requires simplification of the content.

Con

paper cost (ecologically, not financially): we are talking about 3-4 extra sheets of paper per handout.
people who are interested in the content of these slides will probably go and ask me for the paper instead; people who aren't interested in that level of detail will probably not even look at them.

I think that if you are going to prepare a handout, you might as well add all of the material in the handout, including your backup slides.  After all, you've put them in there for a reason, and since you might share them during the talk, you might as well share them in the handout as well.


PhD: Find the problem to solve or use tool to solve a problem? So let's say I have a problem (X) that needs to be solved. Most people in research use several approaches around a sub-topic Y. Most of these algorithms have performance of 80-95% accuracy so there is a space for improvement. I understand that a proper PhD topic would be to find a better solution here.

But what if I just use a new technique (K) to solve this problem? It hasn't been addressed yet in literature. I expect the performance of it to be lower or near the conventional methods. I justify using it because it's outperforming in imagery tasks and it would open up the literature to a new method.

If I use K to solve this problem and get lower performance than conventional solutions Y, does that count as a proper PhD thesis?

In other words, to define a PhD topic, should I find the problem to solve or use a tool and see how it solves a problem?

The following answer/story is more to address the titular question, and the last line of the OP (free of the context of the rest of the post)...
I once attended a talk by Peter Sarnak.  He had the following to say (which I recall from memory; these are not guaranteed to be his exact words) on the matter:

My student had just recently finished solving a problem for his thesis.  He was very excited to have found a new way to approach the problem that worked.  He said to me,
"Okay, now that I have these new tools, what can I solve with them?"
To which I responded:
"No, no, no!  That's not how you do research.  You don't pick up tools and then take them to a problem to solve with them.  I mean, sometimes you can get lucky that way, so you can try it if you want.  But that's not the smart way.  What you do is, you pick up a problem and then you invent the tools you need to solve it.

As far as the more specific question of the OP...
Ultimately, this is something to discuss with your advisor.  Expecting worse results is not likely to sound very appealing as a project idea, unless you can make a convincing argument that it will make some sort of improvement—be it computation time, memory consumption, cost to implement (maybe it can be run on data obtained by cheaper technology that other methods basically can't), or a basic proof of concept that could lead to more meaningful breakthroughs after suitable adjustments and investigation, etc.  If you can do those now, your advisor may decide this could be a fruitful area of investigation.
Either way, talk it out and see what his opinion is, and if he knows if this actually has appeared in the literature before or not.


producing quality research in non ideal laboratories I will soon finish my masters course and have the opportunity to continue on in the same laboratory to do my doctors. This will be on a scholarship which would allow me to concentrate on research and not have to work unless I wanted to, all things that are appealing for obvious reasons.

The main issue is that during my time there as a masters student I have been able to see that the laboratory isn't a good environment for producing good research. Although everyone in the laboratory is nice enough on a social level, there is little collaboration being done on research, no common direction or theme between students research and generally little direction and guidance being given on individual students research. Students also choose research topics which arent in the speciality of the lab and therefore are not scrutinised to a level which doctoral work should be.

This has put me in the position of questioning whether to continue on to the PHD course or not. If I go through with it I am confident I will be able to graduate but I think the quality of my research and generally the amount that I learn will be much less than if I were able to do the same research in a more dedicated setting, this greatly diminishes the meaning of doing the course for me and also produces questions about future employment. On the other hand if I choose to not take the opportunity there's a good chance I will not do it at a later stage due to time and money reasons.

Is there anyone else that has had to do a PHD with little guidance, direction and/or collaboration ? Was graduating worth it in the end ? Did you feel you were far behind other researchers coming from other laboratories ? would you have rather gone to a different laboratory or even started working instead ?

I have thought about proactively finding solutions for this problem, one of them was to find a co-supervisor outside of my University that is more knowledgeable in the area I am researching. I have not seen this before, so is this something that is done ? If so, how do you go about finding a co-supervisor? It seems like I would have less to offer the co-supervisor making it not worth them taking me on.

You target enough problems in your lab that it is probably worth your effort now to look for other opportunities rather than just accept the one that has fallen to you. It may be that you are well-enough placed to move to another university/lab and also obtain funding.

In some fields, students work more or less alone, independent of their advisors, but it doesn't sound like you are in such a situation.

But you can probably contact a few people in your field, not to seek a co-advisor but a new position entirely. You can do this discretely at first until you get a sense of what is possible.

I'm guessing that staying in your current situation won't be terrible. But you might be able to do at least a bit better. But you won't know until you look.

I'll also suggest that a co-advisor from another university might not be able to give you the attention you need. The nature of the relationship and the distance will work against that, as well as raising possible conflicts with your advisor. So tread carefully in that direction if you decide to go there.

I should add that before you condemn your current lab too severely, you should also look to see what has happened to other students who have graduated out of it. Are they developing the careers they hope for? Do they have good positions? If that is so, then the lab is a success, not a failure.


What tools can compare all text of submitted assignments semantically after paraphrasing and detect plagiarism? With advances in AI, it is becoming clear that students are using paraphrasing software/sites (spinbot,  quillbot, rephraser, etc.). I wonder if there are any free tools that can detect semantic similarity for all submitted assignments? I tried several of the available websites and they failed to detect the paraphrased text.

You can try using Sentence-Bert, original paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.10084
Github link here: https://github.com/UKPLab/sentence-transformers
It is very easy to use since I had used that before and it took me just several minutes learning how to use it.
The usage is fairly simple, you generate embedding for each assignment, and compare the cosine similarity between each pair of assignments embeddings.
Then you can manually look at the ones that have very high cosine similarity.
The Github repository descriptions said: This framework provides an easy method to compute dense vector representations for sentences, paragraphs, and images. The models are based on transformer networks like BERT / RoBERTa / XLM-RoBERTa etc. and achieve state-of-the-art performance in various task. Text is embedding in vector space such that similar text is close and can efficiently be found using cosine similarity.


What to do when you do not get an answer after 1 year I am in the situation where I submitted an article 1 year and 4 months ago. I already asked to editors about the status nearly five months ago and they replied they are still waiting for the referee answer and that they were going to ask to expedite the process.

I didn’t receive other news since them, and I don’t know if it will be time to contact them again. Would it be considered impolite? What is your suggestion?

I suspect that if you've not heard anything after a year then either they have a HUGE backlog of papers or they have rejected your paper and did not have the decency to tell you. Sorry. I think we've all been there at least once. :-(


Accused of cheating because math proof is similar to online solution I am taking a math course this semester and the problems that are given to us on a weekly basis require less than half a page to solve. The path to the proof is relatively straightforward, using the things we learned in class. However, my professor is accusing me of cheating because my proofs look very similar to online solutions. I don't know what to do because the proofs do look similar, even if they aren't word for word, but I wouldn't know any other way of solving them using the information we learned in the course.
Because the problems were relatively simple, there doesn't seem to be many places where I could "branch" off and do something completely different from what can be found online. What do you think is the best course of action in the face of this allegation?

I'll assume here that you didn't cheat, nor go outside the bounds of what is acceptable in your course.
The path, hopefully successful, is just to insist that you didn't cheat and keep on insisting on it. Don't try to "prove" that you didn't cheat. That isn't your job and will probably lead nowhere, or even to some "gotcha moment". If you didn't cheat, say that and keep saying it.
If your work process was that you solved the problem on your own using course materials and your notes, then say that.
No one can, of course, guarantee that this or anything will be successful. If offered a follow up, possibly an oral question, consider taking it.
But accusations need to be proved, not assumed.
Good luck. The world isn't necessarily fair.


How can one know if a paper award decision was made with the award committee not having access to the author names? How can one know if a paper award decision was made with the award committee not having access to the author names?

I am mostly interested in machine learning / natural language processing paper awards.

In some cases the award committee or sponsoring organization may describe its procedures on its official website.  Otherwise, you can write to the award committee chair and ask.

I don't think there's any more general way to know.  In particular, I doubt that there is any central place where you can find this information for many different awards.  (It would be a pain for someone to collect it and keep it up to date.)


Reputed journal publications, yet I have small number of citations People say that the impact factor and number citations somehow correlated. However; since 2012, I published 7 articles in well reputed top-10% journal, 5 papers in flagship conferences. Yet my total citations are just 51. On the other hand, one of my friends published his work during same time period (2011–2018) in predatory journals and he has 150 citations. We both work in almost same research area.

Is it a myth that number citations are correlated with impact factor. What if a journal has high impact factor due to some few cited articles published in that journal?

First, let's forget the number of citations in the predatory journals, since they are fraudulent trash and no conclusions can be drawn from them.

Let us instead focus on why some work gets well cited and others does not. In order to be cited, a paper needs to be:

noticed by other researchers, and
considered credible by other researchers, and
significant in its contributions, and
relevant enough to the citer’s own work that they have cause to cite it.

Publishing in a top venue helps with #1 and #2, but only sort of helps with #3 and doesn't do a thing for #4. Complementarily, if your work is useful to other researchers and they become aware of it somehow, then they'll happily cite it many times even if it's in an obscure workshop or even a non-peer-reviewed venue (e.g., arXiv), as long as they have reason to find it credible.

So let's get to the heart of the matter: are your low citations actually indicating a problem in your work?  I would advise reflecting on whether your contributions matter to your field and the feedback that you get at conferences.  If your contributions matter and you are gaining respect, but you happen to be working on something extremely specialized, it may be fine to not be getting many citations---as long as you're getting cited by the few people who matter in your niche.  If you aren't getting citations because your work is correct but not very interesting or relevant to others, however, then you may wish to consider why that is and whether a shift of focus would be useful.


How much emphasis should be put on GitHub reputation in a computer science MSc application? My undergraduate major was not computer science, but civil engineering, and I took five computer science courses in college. I worked as a software engineer for five years after I graduated, but not for famous companies. I love open source and I spend much time on it. Now I have a 2000+ stars GitHub open source repository and several 50-100 stars repositories.

My target is a top 30 computer science MSc program in the US.

How helpful are popular GitHub repositories like mine for applications, in particular when changing fields?

2000+ stars for a GitHub repository is an amazing achievement. This will definitely make you stand out if you know how to use it right.

You should tell a story in the cover letter/statement of purpose/or whatever it is called: what is your passion with coding and open source, how did you come up with the idea for that project, how well it was received by the community (explain a bit as people may not know GitHub), and how it helped other projects (search if any other repositories that use your tool).

This part is not an answer: ask yourself why do you want a Master? This is impressive for a PhD program too. If you just want a Master, then it's better to find a job with a top tech company instead of wasting two years, and a lot of money. Stack Overflow has a function that if you give them your GitHub account URL, it can refer you to employers.


Should I continue with this research? I was appointed to make some programming outside of a research group to see if I can be accepted for doctoral studies. The task is to mimic the results of one paper and from that point to carry more research about it.

Because of some personal problems, that project got delayed. The thing is that when I got the results of my program, and I compared with the ones that I was supposed to get, there were some differences (it was a medical related project). When I started comparing those differences I saw that some of my results were backed up by some medical papers.

Now the initial project has ended, because there has been published one software tool that do almost the same thing. And that research group is focusing on other projects.

My question is, is there any way I can publish the results I obtained with the program I made? I have spent more than six months doing that, without payment. How can I name it? Is it a model? Should it be published like a technical report? Any help will be great.

As JeffE said in his comment, you will need to seek permission from the director of the research group - if permission is given, I would suggest to get their input as to how to develop the research into a paper, and even suggest having the director as a co-author.


Should I publish a linear programming method despite my advisor's advice? TL;DR: I developed a way of solving systems of equations which is up to 25,000x faster than base methods. I want to publish but my advisor doesn't think it's worth it.

I work as a data scientist with hyperspectral data. In this area, we treat every single pixel as its own system of equations. Because of this, we need to solve potentially thousands of systems of equations. Obviously, if we use traditional tools this is exceptionally slow and potentially not worth our time. However, each problem is relatively small, think 1 variable with ~100 non-linear equations.

I came up with 2 separate systems to solve these equations much faster. The first one adapts MATLAB's fminbnd so that every single one of these problems can be solved at once. This allows the function evaluation to take advantage of vectorized processing which in many languages, particularly research based languages gives a drastic speedup. See the MATLAB codebase. In addition, this allowed us to use GPUs to solve the problem resulting in a much larger performance increase. All told, this allows us to have a ~300-1000x performance speedup.

The second system is meant for solving much larger systems of equations. This uses the same idea but with a Levenburg-Marquardt implementation. This utilizes MATLAB's pagefun and with an aggressive implementation, this beats out the best global solver I could find by a factor of 25,000 for the same results (this method also allowed me to obtain an order of magnitude improvement for my results with a 4000x speedup).

While these results are impressive, my advisor wants me to focus on my primary research and wants me to present those results. I'd like to present both results as I believe they are both valuable to the body of knowledge but my advisor has always been honest with me and I feel like I should follow his lead.

Should I publish this linear programming method despite my advisor's advice?

It is good to have publications. It is also good to follow the advice of your advisor for many reasons. Advisors have some say over your future, of course, so caution is indicated, at least, in every case.

Note first that it has been many years since I was current with the algorithms of integer and linear programming. I suspect you are more current and your advisor more so, so be a bit careful in analyzing what I say below.

The field in general is quite mature and the existing algorithms are very sophisticated. This was true 30 year ago, in fact. If the field has settled down since then there is little urgency in publishing now, as it is unlikely that you would be beaten to publication if you wait. You can make your advisor happy and, indeed, make progress on your main work without abandoning what you have.

However, I think that a real advance should be questioned and you should be the one to question it. In particular, it may be that the reason for such good results is that your specific problem has characteristics that make this possible and your algorithm is nicely tailored to a special case. The possibility of that actually opens a door for your future work. If it is true, then knowing and describing that special case would be very useful, along with the algorithm.

Also, if it is, indeed, a special case and you have tested only with the confines of this case then your results may not apply generally. It would be good to know, before you publish, whether this is true or not. And it would be especially good for you if you are the one to discover this. Fortunately, you can test your algorithm on a wider class of problems found in the literature. Thus, you can, perhaps, rule out the situation in which you have an anomaly. But your primary work should likely come first.


How to get access to university resources after graduation? I'll get a B.S. in math this December and (hopefully) go to graduate school next fall. In the coming spring semester, I will stay around my undergraduate institution (in the U.S.), auditing classes, attending seminars, talking with faculty and so on. But since I will not be enrolled during the spring, I will lose my access to a lot of University resources. Specifically (not limited to),

I will lose access to the secure University Wifi network on campus.

I will not be able to borrow books for free from the University library unless I pay some money to become a member of the alumni association. But more importantly, even if I become a member of the alumni association, I will not have access to any math database (e.g. MathSciNet).

I will not have access to computer labs in my college where I can print 600 pages of papers for free every semester when enrolled.

I can understand University is also a business and I hope I could get used to my situation soon after graduation. But I wonder if there are some ways to improve such an embarrassing situation. What is the best way for me to get access to math databases for instance?

One potential solution: I may register for a one-credit course at the University. It (hopefully) may not cost much and help me get access to standard University resources.

Update: the University library just told me I could get access to math databases through computers on campus libraries by applying for a guest account for free, though I can't get remote access.


What would happen if I took my professor's accusation of cheating to court? I was caught cheating during an university exam. The professor promptly failed me for the class. If I decided to take this issue to court, claiming that the professor has no evidence of my cheating, could I get away with it? At the time, there were no cameras in the room, and the professor did not take a video or photo of my cheating. In this scenario, who has the greater power, the student or the university?

While the details of the answer depend on the particulars of the university and the country, in general I expect that a student would not be able to get very far with such a case.

The basic problem is that an accusation of cheating and an administrative sanction within the policies of the university is not generally a matter of law, and thus there is no reason that a court should be interested in involving itself. The student would thus have to find some sort of basis for claiming that some law is actually being broken (e.g., discrimination, defamation) or that a contract is being violated (not likely). One can imagine cases in which this is actually upheld (e.g., a professor who systematically blatantly overlooks cheating by white students while carefully monitoring black students), but in the case of a basically reasonable professor who caught a student cheating, it seems unlikely that the student would get very far in any reasonable courtroom.

In short: a guilty but litigious student might be able to cause a lot of annoyance and expense for a professor and a university, but would be unlikely to receive satisfaction in court.


What is the appropriate response to students who peek at the exam questions before the exam starts? I have been an invigilator for several exams for large classes. I am not formally affiliated with the classes.

One thing I routinely notice is that, despite warnings, there will always be some students who will very quickly and brazenly flip through the entire exam (booklet) and look at the questions before the exam starts. Some will do this very quickly to get a sense of the type of questions (no more than 10 seconds).

What should be the appropriate response to this type of behaviour? The dilemma for me is, I don't want to expel a student for a less than 10 second glance at an exam, but I have been very annoyed by this type of brazen behaviour (even when I was an undergrad), which clearly constitutes cheating.

Can someone please provide advice as to what to do for this minor type of cheating behaviour?

I don't know what an "invigilator" is exactly, but I presume that you merely watch the students to make sure they don't cheat, distribute exams and paper, and take the filled exams at the end, more or less.

As such it isn't your role to decide on any kind of punishment for cheating. There are probably procedures in place to report cheating. Do it. What happens next isn't up to you. If there are no formal procedures, take the name of the student and inform whoever is in charge (the professor in charge of the course for example).

Unless you have explicitly been told that it is okay, I would recommend being extra careful about expelling students. Students are afforded due process. If it is ever found out that peeking at the exam isn't something worth getting a zero on the exam or if the student is not found guilty, then having expelled them is something that will be terribly hard to correct. In my university the rule is to expel students only if their behavior causes trouble for the other students or in cases of person substitution (someone is taking the exam in the student's place). And even then, it's not the role of the proctor to decide this -- you have to get approval from the university president's office.


What are "fake", "shady", and/or "predatory" journals? This question is in response to this very interesting question. The original post mentioned that they wish to retract their paper from a "fake" journal. I don't know what a fake journal is but better safe than sorry so I want to make sure what defines a fake journal. In the comments, other people also mentioned "shady" journals and "predatory" journals. This is the first time I encounter these descriptions so I would like to know more about what they entail. I would be interested in hearing about your experience with such journals as well, if any.

A "fake" or "shady" journal is a low-quality journal that does little or no quality control.

They are often called "predatory" because they prey on people who are under a lot of pressure to publish, charging high author fees for promises of quick publication. (Since they do little, if any, peer review, the time from submission of a paper to publication is often very quick in these journals).

They often engage in deceptive practices to make themselves appear legitimate, such as:

Pretending to be affiliated with a reputable professional society
Claiming an "impact factor" when they do not have one, or when they have an "impact factor" from some entity other than Thomson Reuters ISI
Listing important academics on their editorial board, when these people never agreed to serve in this capacity.

Publishing in one of these journals can be very damaging to your academic career. At best, it shows that you don't know what journals are considered reputable in your field; at worst, it makes you look like you are trying to "get" publications without doing the work required to publish in a reputable, high-quality journal.

An academic librarian named Jeffrey Beall kept a list of open-access journals and publishers that he considered to be "predatory." (The links are to archived versions of the pages).  His lists were quite well-known - you may hear people refer to "Beall's List" when talking about predatory journals.

Between the growth of open-access and the Internet making it possible for literally anyone to start a "journal," these "journals" have been popping up at an alarming rate. The NY Times even ran a story about it recently.


How to describe the relationship with writer of recommendation letter? I am applying for tenure track /postdoc and I asked two professor to write me a research letter. In some job applications I am asked to describe the relationship with them, and I am not so sure what are the correct words.

The first one is a professor in the university where I obtain the PhD. They are also an expert in the field.

The second one is a world-class expert in my field. I know them personally as we meet in conference over the years and I visited them occasionally.

I did not collaborate with both of them.

Any suggestions?

Both don't seem like unusual "relationships" at all, so I don't think there should be any issue describing them just like you did here.

If there is a drop-down list, you can select whatever is the most appropriate (presumably there are options amounting to "colleague at my current department" and "collaborator" - I think it counts as "collaborating" if you have visited them occasionally, even if you happened to not have published a paper yet). If there is a freetext field, you can just write what you wrote here.


Students plagiarising assignments: What level is worth the effort of pursuing? As a tutor marking assignments, I regularly come across cases of plagiarism. As someone who put a lot of effort into my coursework studies it really offends me to see what students think they can (and ultimately do) get away with - it's making me incredibly jaded about the way universities are run and the value of (my) degrees.

I spot things from the mild "sharing answers" to the "change a few things so it's not obvious" copying, to the virtually identical outright blatant copying (not even changing the student number) to the absurd "submitting a screenshot of last years solutions". Talking to other tutors I seem to spot and pursue a lot more than anyone else.

When I come across these I always examine them, make a determination if it breaches my threshold (usually a bit past the "just change it a bit" level), then pass it on to the lecturer for them to decide what to do. It takes be significant effort to do this - I might recognise an unusual way of writing something, then go back through the assignments I've already marked to check how similar it is, then I'll decide if it looks too similar, then send an email about it.

I can't remember a single case that has gone further than a warning (yes even the one who submitted last year's solutions). I care about this a lot and I don't want students to think they can keep doing this with impunity, but there seems to be a general reluctance in academia to do anything, even in extreme cases. It makes me wonder whether it's worth the checking, the discussing, the extra time that I don't get paid for and ultimately the emotional toll it takes on me. It would be so much easier to let it slide.

From a pragmatic perspective of (for want of a better phrase) cost/benefit, what level of plagiarism should I be bothering myself with? Should I just ignore anything but the most absurd cases?

I'd like to base my answer on the following piece of the question:

  […] but there seems to be a general reluctance in academia to do anything [about plagiarism], even in extreme cases.

This does not seem to be true. In cases of plagiarism in journal publications, theses or otherwise published material  academia is quite strict and careers have ended because of plagiarism (not only academic careers - at least two ministers in Germany had to resign from office due to plagiarism in the PhD theses which have been written years, even decades, in the past).

Things are indeed different when it comes to homework assignments and there are various reasons. Homework assignments do often repeat and the same assignments may have been assigned in the same form a lot of times in different places. So it is actually likely that different people come up the similar or almost similar solutions. Also, it is hard to prove that people deliberately copied something. Moreover, students may (or should?) be encouraged to work on the assignments in teams and hence, they may produce similar output.

But the dealbreaker for me is: At the place where I am students may cheat on homework assignments, but they will never be able to graduate with plagiarism and copying only. There are more safeguards: oral and written exams, one-on-one meetings with a thesis advisor to discuss the progress of the thesis, theses presentations… As a consequence: I am pretty sure that my students do copy homework regularly. I tell them that they miss a chance to learn something if they write down other people's work and that this will backfire in the written and oral exams later (and it does…). But I never investigate any case of plagiarism in homework (however, I do investigate cases of plagiarism in theses).


Tool to manage and/or make available a list of my publications on the web? This some kind of follow up question to How to prevent plagiarism of my papers?, since I've been clearly convinced that it was in my best interest to put my own papers on my webpage.

Now, since I need to make the effort to put them, I might as well try to do it in a nice way. Right now, I'm using bibtex2html, which is a tool I can run locally, taking a bibtex file with my publications (that I create manually), and that outputs the resulting HTML, that I can copy/paste to my webpage.

I like it, but it can sometimes be complicated to use, so I was wondering if there exist some other tools? My ideal tool would be some tool where I could put the bibtex (one for each publication) and the pdf, and that would create a kind of database, such that I could sort my publications easily.

(Note: Right now, my webpage is hosted directly on Wordpress, so I can't host directly a PhP script, but if there were a really good tool, I could try to host my webpage myself.)

You could consider hosting it via one of the reference / citation managers, such as CiteULike or Mendeley, which can take imports of Bibtex files. Your own university may (should!) have such a web-front plus publication database available, for you to embed into your university home page.

Wordpress

If your webpage is hosted directly on wordpress.com, then no, you can't host your own PHP script. If it's Wordpress hosted elsewhere, then you should be able to add your own PHP script, by incorporating into your plugin. There are skeleton plugins available to get you started. It may be that asking on Wordpress.SE will give you some useful pointers.

Mendeley

On Mendeley: there is an embedding plugin for Wordpress. I haven't used it, but it might be worth looking into. Or, on your Mendeley profile web page, select edit, then embed. Or Share > Embed elsewhere on Mendeley pages (groups or whatever).

There's an article on Beta Science on embedding Mendeley that may be useful. It uses the same Share > Embed as above, but recommends creating a "Publications" group in the desktop client first, putting your own papers into that, (in order, from oldest to newest).
Then right-click -> Edit Settings, then under "Collection Access" choose "Public - visible to everyone". Then click "Apply and Sync". Then, from the collection web page, select "embed" to get the appropriate html.

CiteULike

If you prefer CiteULike, they have an excellent API, allowing you to customise your own tools. And the staff on the discussion forum are very responsive (a marked contrast with Mendeley).

Academia.edu

If you prefer Academia.edu, you could always embed your publications page (and maybe your talks page too) in an iframe


Can my institute use my figure and put their name on it for press releases, etc.? I was wondering if my institute can use a figure which I made for a paper that has been published and crop it slightly and use it for press releases, etc., and instead of putting my name underneath the figure, they just put the institute's name.

Is it generally OK for them to do so, or should they give me credit?

It depends. If (1) you once signed a contract that allows the university to do so, and (2) they contacted your publisher to obtain authorization for duplicating the figure, this may be legally allowed. That depends a bit on the laws in your country, which often differ in such matters.

It is certainly bad style, though. Also, PR offices that are careful enough the think of condition (2) will typically also contact you prior to publication of the press release - especially since cropping of the figure occurred. Also: Don't attribute malice to a deed when other possibilities exist. For example, they could have asked you advisor, who said that this would be fine (whether this is OK by the advisor to do so is a different question). Also, replacing your name by the university name could have been the work of an unexperienced intern in the office, etc.

Perhaps you can contact them and ask if this is a mistake. If you want to go the easy route, you could just mention that you are concerned that the figure violates the publisher's copyright and that cropping the image may not be covered by the agreement they gave. In the same mail/call, you could offer help with this potential problem by provide them with the needed source information for a proper "image citation" and helping with obtaining authorization by the publisher (if needed). You could also express genuine concerns that potential future collaborators on research questions related to the figure could use the information of you being the source to establish contact, which would potentially be beneficial for both your career and the future reputation of the university (by strengthening the research done at your institution).


Can an advisor use student's data for journal publishing without prior consent? A master's student did research under an advisor.  As part of the research, the student had collected and processed a lot of data and finally published the thesis as well. After a few years,  the advisor took a small portion of said data from the master's thesis and published a paper. The student is not a co-author nor was prior consent sought to use that data. However, the advisor added the student's name in the acknowledgment section. Is there anything wrong on the advisor's side? After all, the advisor had also actively guided the research and collection of data and may feel they have a right to use that data without the consent of the student.
The student played no role in publishing the paper except for the fact that a part of the student's published master's thesis data was used for this journal publication. The student was hence not added as a co-author but was acknowledged.

A paper should not be published without the consent of all the authors.
Collecting and processing data may or may not make someone an author; it depends on the details and the discipline.  We cannot evaluate this for you.
If you live in a jurisdiction where data is not protected by copyright law, then technically anybody who gets a copy of your data can publish that data wherever they please.
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/11359/can-you-copyright-data


How do academics (faculty members, PhD students, etc.) balance their work and life? How do academics (faculty members, PhD students, etc.) balance their work and life?
I am a PhD student and I find myself spending at least 10-11 hours working everyday.
Sometimes even 10 hours is not enough for the day, I need to burn midnight oil.
However, everyone (mostly my parents and friends, who are non-academics and do not have PhD degree) is telling me that I am working too much and that I shouldn't burn out myself by doing so much work. When I hear these comments, I can't help myself but thinking 'Yeah, but that's only because you are not working in academia...you don't really understand my situation'.
For those who are working in academia, do you think I am working too much as a PhD student? How much time do you typically spend a day working? If you think that I am working too much, how can I possibly strike the balance between my academic work and my personal life?
I am genuinely asking because I really do not know "how to take care of myself properly" while I am constantly facing a huge workload. I do think that this will hurt me in a long run, especially if I am to pursue a career in academia.
Thank you,

Firstly I'd say around 50 hours a week is not unusual for academia (whether that's 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, or 8 hours a day 6 days a week). Its about what I work in an average week i'd say. That doesn't quite answer your question, because rates of burn out are also high in academia. I will however add that all my friends that work in any of "the professions" - doctors, nurses, teachers, lawyers, management consultants, financiers, all work more than the standard 40 hours a week.
You should also qualify if you mean "working" 10-11 hours a day, or working 10-11 hours a day. A 9-7 work day might not be unusual for me, but that would include 30 minutes for lunch, and perhaps grabbing coffee with a colleague at some point.
Its almost impossible to say how many hours you "should" be working. You should ask yourself whether it is working for you or not. I know some super organized people who can mostly work 9-5 and still become very successful. I am not one of those people. But I do also maintain some hobbies, and try very hard not to let work interfere with those. If I am teaching a dance class, I leave work whatever I'm doing at the time. I rarely decline social engagements because of work. But I don't watch a lot of TV, read a lot of books, or play many computer games these days (or I didn't till lockdown killed my other engagements). These are my choices and they work for me (most of the time). People with children of course have no choice. Once you've decided what is important, then you can fit work in with that, and if its enough its enough. And if its not, its not.
A wise man once described to me something like a Laffer curve for work. If you work 0 hours a day you'll achieve nothing. If you work 24 hours a day you'll also achieve nothing (because you'll be dead). Somewhere in between there is a peak of maximum sustainable productivity. You'll never find the peak, but you want to make sure you are to the left of it, not the right.


What should I do if someone submit a review of a manuscript in journal system sooner than I know and I already prepared a detailed review? I am a Ph.D. student. My supervisor frequently tells me if you want to do a review for journals, login into my account and perform the review. He never reviews any paper. He is very lazy and I have to do all of the submission of my articles into journal system myself using his account.

A while ago, I wanted to check a journal and I saw a pending invitation for review from a famous researcher, which I love his works very much, as associate editor of that journal. I accepted review and downloaded manuscript. I read the manuscript and wrote a detailed review of it, six pages long!. I recommended a major revision. It takes a lot of my time to read the references and perform the review. In my review, I suggested a set of improvements to the authors which I think will help them improve their work.

Today, I wanted to submit the review using my supervisor account. I suddenly noticed that my supervisor submitted a review. I am very upset as it took much of my time to perform this task. I read his review, a very short note to reject the manuscript, less than half a page long. Other anonymous reviewers recommended a minor revision.

What should I do? Is there any way to make the best use of my review? not to waste my time.

Disclaimer:
Please don't be so judgmental. Assume someone in such a situation.
He didn't know it is unethical not even a bit until asked this question. He even guesses his supervisor himself not knows this. Since there was never any evil intention by any of them.

Here we want to ask questions and consult/educate ourselves from members; not judging people. He just worked hard to help some other researchers and nothing else. Not a first-year Ph.D. student.

I understand that this proxy review may be a cultural norm where you are. Nevertheless, it is considered malpractice in many places, and admitting to doing this can land you in trouble. Keep that in mind, because a publisher like Elsevier is massively cross-cultural, so they may take umbrage to something like this if it is reported.

Now, coming to what you get out of it. Your learning has happened anyway; I'm sure you expanded your understanding by reading all the references etc. At no point were you getting any credit for it - certainly not from journal,  probably not from supervisor (I understand this particular review was not done with his knowledge). So there's no reason to be upset. I would suggest conserving your energies. If anything, you could show your supervisor your review, just so he knows how hard you worked. But if he is as lazy and uninterested as the question makes him sound,  he may dismiss it.

Bottom line is, don't be upset. You volunteered to do the review by proxy and didn't inform supervisor what you were doing - so it's hard to find fault with anyone else. Learn from this incident and move on.


Is the new ACM 2012 taxonomy usable/in use? I've wasted about an hour trying to figure out how I'm supposed to categorise an ACM article using the new 2012 taxonomy here, and how I'm supposed to represent those categories in my article.

On the plus side, the 2012 taxonomy has some perfectly apt categories for my paper (unlike the previous 1998 version).

On the minus side, the instructions are abysmal with respect to how it should be used, it seems to be completely incompatible with the standard TeX macros provided with standard sig-* templates, and not only do the TeX macros provided by this interactive system not work (\begin{CCSXML} and \ccsdesc), they don't even seem to even exist (at least Google turns up little if anything).

Is anyone actually using this new 2012 taxonomy and if so, is there any good guide on how to use it with a standard LaTeX sig-* template?

(Otherwise I think I'll just go back to the 1998 version ... as weird and archaic and seemingly useless as it is, at least it's a straightforward way to fill in those pointlessly mandatory category fields. Grrr.)

If you're using sig-alternate.cls, this sample TeX file seems to have been silently updated in May 2015 to give an example of how to do this. Here's a precis:

Download sig-alternate-05-2015.cls into your local TeX tree (or temporarily into the same directory as your project)
Edit the first line of your LaTeX source to use it:

\documentclass{sig-alternate-05-2015}

Further down your LaTeX source, within the document enviroment (usually after your abstract), paste in the code that the 2012 ACM Computing Classification System gives you once you have chosen your categories, for example:

\begin{CCSXML}
<ccs2012>
...
</ccs2012>
\end{CCSXML}

\ccsdesc{Computer systems organization~Robotics}
\ccsdesc[100]{Networks~Network reliability}

Follow this with the line to print out your classification section:

\printccsdesc

And finally, add your own keywords:

\keywords{ACM proceedings; \LaTeX; text tagging}

I say this was added 'silently', because internally, the sample.tex file still says it was last updated April 2013, and it says This file should be compiled with V2.5 of "sig-alternate.cls" May 2012, whereas it actually compiles with "sig-alternate-05-2015.cls", which claims internally to have last been updated in Aug 2013, despite the date in its filename! No wonder everyone is confused.

Thanks to ayman's answer above, which has become broken, but pointed me in the right direction. (Could someone edit the broken link in ayman's answer to the sig-alternative.cls file from December 2014? --- I'm a newbie caught in the reputation catch-22 where I can't comment answers).


Applying PhD during the last year of master studies I am a final year master student and currently I am working in my thesis (I have done about 70% of my work).  My graduation will be expected to be latest in this August.
I have published several publications during my bachelor degree.  However, I have not published any single publication during my master studies (my supervisor has a plan to publish a paper based on my thesis works).
Is it possible for me to apply for a PhD studies with stated condition above (I haven't get master degree and lack of publication in my master degree.
In addition  I do my bachelor and master thesis in different subfield. I will plan to take a PhD in the same subfield as my master studies. So I can say I dont have any publications directly related to my planned PhD studies.

You can definitely apply. If not now, then when?
The number of publications doesn't matter that much because the number is just a number; it doesn't reflect the complexity or difficulty of the research you did. I would fully expect that the publication resulting from your Masters studies will be more substantial - i.e., involve more work, with more robust results - than those you did during your Bachelor's.
If it still troubles you, remember there are people who do PhD studies without having published any papers in the past,


How to deal with email unresponsiveness? I sent a research mentor an email (admittedly quite lengthy and dense) which he hasn't responded to in several days, nor my request within the email to discuss via phone / video call.

What should I do in this situation? Should I just resend the email?

Adapt the communications structure to the situation at hand.

A request for a video/call conference should be sent alone, especially if your researcher seems to disdain long e-mails. In the 1st such live communication, clarify with him whether it will be pointless to send him long e-mails, and whether instead you will communicate live, mainly through video/call conferences.


Do famous works of literature need citations? Specifically, in a scholarly paper on philosophy of math I want to mention Mo Yan’s novel Red Sorghum Clan.  It is just as an example of literature, not quoted and not used for any specific purpose.

Suppose I were to say:

  Think of any famous play, say Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

would I need a citation to some edition of that play?

Of course if I wanted to refer to a particular edition of any novel or play I would have to cite it. And if I were offering a statistical analysis of language in the novel I would have to cite a particular edition.  But I am not doing those things.

When I look at the text, saying “Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum Clan (1986)” looks ridiculously stuffy to me.  This is no journal article or even an academic book.  And as far as the practical issue of readers who want to find it, the title by itself will be far more helpful than any reference to a particular edition which the reader might or might not have any way of finding.

Or am I being ridiculous?  Should I just make the citation?

When I published a paper on statistical analysis of various texts, which included really famous works, I gave full references. Why I think they are deserved:

what you consider a famous work may be in fact unknown to a reader and she may become genuinely interested in the work - in that case the more bibliographical data, the better (e.g. call me simple-minded, but I have never heard of Red Sorghum Clan);
you may be implicitly referring to a passage that was present in particular edition, but was not present in others;
where do you draw a line between a scientific work and a work of art that does not require a citation?
in your example you are not citing an original work (which, according to wikipedia is titled 红高粱家族), but a certain derivative work, a translation, done by a certain translator, who - inter alia - came with the English version of the title. I think one should then give precise pointers to this translation.

Also, check whether your manual of style says anything on the matter.


What does it mean that after withdrawal of arxiv paper 'previous versions can still be retrieved'? I'm considering withdrawing an arxiv paper (it has some errors, I think a fresh start is the way to go) but I'm confused about the warning that 'previous versions can still be retrieved' - will these be at least as difficult to retrieve as the (soon to be withdrawn) most recent version? (I looked at a few related questions but they didn't seem to address this specific question - e.g. Substantial update of an arXiv paper, Made an arXiv submission too early; How to minimize the damage?)

If the most recent withdrawn paper became harder to find that the older versions, that would not look like a good outcome to me.  I doubt that the latter is the case (it would be silly) but I want to confirm this before going ahead.  Thanks very much.

Here is an example of an arXiv paper that has been withdrawn.

You can see that if someone visits the non-version-specific URL, http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.0848, they will see a notice that the article is withdrawn. There is still a link to the previous version(s), which they can click on to see the original paper:

If someone clicks on the link to the first version, or visits the version-specific URL, http://arxiv.org/abs/0812.0848v1, they will see the original paper without any withdrawal notice.

(You can see other examples of withdrawn arXiv papers with this Google query).


How will the COVID-19 pandemic affect graduate admissions? I have recently learned that all my internship offers were cancelled due to COVID-19, and I never felt this anxious before. People tell me I should not be worring since everyone is affected, but in my country research opportunites are very rare and nearly all of my previous experience is only vaguely related to my area of interest, in contrast to the offers I've  just been denied. This summer is also the most critical in my studies, since I'm more knowledgable than any time earlier and more likely to make an actual contribution.

I wouldn't be this worried if I could stay in the UK for my PhD (which is unlikely now due to Brexit), but I've almost finished my Fulbright application for graduate study in the USA. I would feel obliged to apply to US programmes if I were to be granted the award, but I'm not sure how I would compare with other students due to this gaping hole in my resume.

I guess what I want to know is if most students are in a similar position. Are other REUs and SURFs also getting cancelled or am I just unlucky? And most importantly, is there anything I can do to mitigate this and improve my chances for admission to graduate school?

I am not sure anyone here is going to be much help for your specific situation. There should be someone at your university you can talk with, a study counselor or someone similar. They can better gauge the current situation, especially at your own institute. And a bit more general advice: these types of situations can be very stressful, and I would advice to talk to someone about it. Just getting it out of your system can be very beneficial.


Can images from wikipedia article be used for non-commercial use? Foe example the following image in Wikipedia article.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014.06.23._Charles_Aznavour_Fot_Mariusz_Kubik_01.jpg

To best of my understanding it has creative common license. Can I use it in my scientific paper without obtaining copyright permission?

Many thanks

On the same page, under the picture you link to, it literally states

  The copyright holder of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed.

In other words, yes, you can use it without obtaining further permission. Note that other pictures on Wikipedia might have other licenses, but the terms are generally stated quite clearly.

However, you should also do your due diligence and try to see if the picture might have been published elsewhere before. After all, it might have been uploaded against the real copyright-holder's wishes, in which case the statement of license terms wouldn't hold water.


Author wants to withdraw or insist on re-reviewing at proof stage of publication I am editing a small scholarly journal published by a learned society. One of our authors, after his manuscript was finally accepted for publication and he had signed and returned the publishing agreement (with copyright assignment), is trying to negotiate after receiving the first proof version.

He insists on adding new content and a new reference to the main text of the article, which I, as editor, will not allow. He is offering to resubmit the manuscript with the new content included, and to wait for the results of a completely new peer review. He is very persistent about including the new content which, I think, has no impact at all on the overall quality or on the conclusions of the paper.  The reference is a fresh (2015) self-reference, so I assume that he simply wants to increase the visibility of that other paper.

One of my main problem with the new reference (and the related content) is being to one of the author's own paper published in a predatory open access journal. The publisher is listed on Beall's list. When I pointed at it, he said that his paper was subjected to valid and rigorous peer review and other people's bad experience have nothing to do with the academic validity of that specific paper. I disagree, and as I am responsible for our published content I feel adding the new reference is a risk to our journal's reputation.

It would be a waste of our journal’s resources to disregard that we have the copyright of a manuscript, which we accepted for publication after rigorous peer review. We do not feel that we should comply with what the author wants, and we feel that we should publish the paper even if the author will not approve the final proof.

What do you think about this situation? I have a few other options, namely to reject the paper altogether and to go on with the new round of reviews. Both choices would make me feel being strongarmed. Any advice would be appreciated.

While you might be in the legal right, I think trying to publish when the author wants to withdraw is likely to be more trouble than it is worth for a small society journal.  You probably don't have the resources to get into a protracted battle if the author decides to be really problematic (e.g., a lawsuit).

As I see it, there are three reasonable approaches at this point, in increasing levels of assertiveness on your part:

If the new content isn't very big (e.g., a paragraph or two and the reference), just let it be; just make the change at the proof stage and let it stop being your problem.  If it really does make little difference to the paper, as you say, then this is a reasonable triage to do to get this author out of your hair.
Reject the paper and send it through a new round of peer review.  It's not too bad a waste of resources, particularly if you use the same reviewers, who will be able to just look at the new version in terms of its differences from the old.
Offer the author the choice between a final rejection (no resubmission will be reconsidered) and publishing as-is.

Which you choose probably should be guided by just how willing you are to invest your time and reputation into a battle with this author.  Some people are known and repeat-offending bullies, and it's definitely worth standing up to them.  Other times, you've got a person who is normally reasonable and who has just gotten a particular fixation on this particular issue and it's worth accommodating them one this one occasion.  If you do decide to accommodate the author, however, you need to make it very clear that this is an unusual exception and you will be holding them to much stricter guidelines in the future.


How conditional are conditional offers I've already accepted an offer from my dream school for a phD program and already set up rotations with professors. I was accepted on a conditional offer though and am now 0.4% below the average they stated I must maintain in my final year (or offer may be rescinded). Is there a high chance that they'll take back the offer? I know they can, but has anyone ever heard of this happening? I'm reluctant to contact the program directly (although I know I must) because the person in charge of making admissions decisions just so happens to be the person I want to be my future advisor...and I would hate to start the relationship in such a negative way.

An awfully far worse way to start the relationship would be to not be able to start that relationship. Please do yourself a favor and bite the bullet, contact the relevant person right away and calmly explain your current lapse/fear -  then listen carefully to what they tell you. There is no standard or law on how to handle such a situation, the program is likely able to do pretty much whatever it wants. The sooner you find something out the more time you have to work with to try to work something out - or to at least be able to relax!

I'd go so far as to say that if someone outside your program tells you with any certainty whether or not such an offer will be rescinded or not, you really should ignore them utterly - talk with your program! Every University, department, and program is pretty unique unto itself in questions of graduate school admission.

This is just one of those things best handled directly with the responsible persons, as advice in this form is worth it's mass in gold. Good luck - deep breaths!


How to find PhD students interested in 6-months paid exchange visits to work on a supervised project? I am a junior research fellow with a bit of a luxury problem. I am in a field with many good, open problems. I have a grant which could easily support salary for a couple of exchange PhD students for say, six months, to solve some of those under my supervision - but how do I find those?

I have tried some of the obvious channels, asking network, including old supervisor. Asking around at conferences. Most senior people I talk to agree it would be a good idea - but I can't seem to get any good people to bite.

I am asking advise from people who have been in a similar situation - also students who have accepted such offers, what made you do it? What made you hesitate? Is the prospects of 6 months of relocation off-putting? Are you afraid what your supervisor might think? And for more senior people, whose students I would potentially snatch up: Would you recommend a good student to do something like this? Would you be annoyed that I "borrowed" your good student, just after you taught them all the difficult parts?

Your post has hit on the problem: you want some PhD students to come work with you for six months. This is a bit too long for a summer internship-like posting, but not really long enough to justify the work required for what would amount to a relocation. It's like a long temp assignment.

Perhaps you should be looking at trying to support some students who are just finished with their PhD's—or have just handed in their theses and are figuring out what to do next—at nearby universities. Or trying to arrange the funding to support a postdoc for a year.


When can a thesis get rejected or asked for a major revision? I am planning to submit my thesis next month. I have 4 published SCI-indexed journals (Elsevier, Springer, IEEE transaction, World Scientific) and 2 more journals communicated (all first authors). My thesis is on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. The thesis will be sent to two external examiners about whom I will not know (Institute policy). I am fearing what will happen if my thesis somehow gets rejected (I do not know why I am so scared right now).

Should I be worried that my thesis may get rejected?

Also, what happens when the thesis gets major revision?

Do I have to do the corrections and send the thesis again?

When a reviewer is checking a thesis, usually what does he want in
it?

Does he read the entire thesis line by line?

Kindly share any incident of thesis rejections if you know of any, why it was rejected and how the person finally got his degree.

This very much depends on which system you are in. I can answer from the point of view of the UK system.

It is very unlikely your thesis will be outright rejected.

It is very likely you will be asked to make some corrections.

Yes, you will have to make the corrections and send the thesis again.

Requirements for a thesis are generally set out by the university. They normally specify you must have made a "novel contribution to the field" and the work is, in principle, of publication quality.  Or something similar.

Yes, a good examiner will read the thesis line by line.

There are five possible outcomes from the examination of a thesis.

Accepted without corrections
Minor corrections - generally textual changes only - 3 month time limit
Major corrections - might involve some reanalysis, but no new experiments - 6 month time limit.
Resubmit - this thesis does not pass, but contains sufficient material to convince the examiners you are capable of passing. You are giving leave to rewrite and resubmit the thesis. May involve new experiments - often 1 year time limit.
Fail (either with or without a Master of Philosophy degree).

Almost all students are given minor or major corrections - I'd say 90% fall into these categories. Slightly more in minor corrections probably. Maybe 8% get no corrections, and perhaps 1.5% are asked to resubmit. Very, very few fail outright.


No reply to the referee report from the author of a manuscript Let assume that a manuscript needs to be revised after referee's report. If there is no reply from the author of manuscript, what happens? What are the rules and next steps in such cases?

It depends on the journal. The journals I've been associated with have an online system that gives authors a certain deadline by which they have to submit a revised manuscript -- I suspect that the deadline is often set at 6 months. Authors are reminded of this deadline by an automated email a certain time before the deadline expires. Authors can ask for an extension, and it is routinely granted.

If an author does neither, then the manuscript is moved into an "archived" state where the database still has it, but it is not considered a "live" or "active" manuscript. Unless someone takes action, that is the final resting place of these manuscripts.


What are some of the serious consequences that someone can suffer if they omit part of their academic record on their application for admission? What are some of the serious consequence that my friend could suffer if he tries to pretend that he has never gone to a Community college before?

(He thinks that it will make the 4 year college admission officer look down upon him.)

In addition to being denied admission or dismissed from the university, as noted in Bob Brown's answer, lying on an application can be grounds for revoking a degree after it was awarded. You may also be required to pay back any scholarships that were awarded to you under false pretenses.

For example, here's the policy of University of Arkansas at Little Rock:

  If the false, misrepresented, or misleading information on the application portfolio is discovered:

  Before the application process is completed, the application will not be processed and no admission offer will be forthcoming.
  After admission and prior to enrollment, the admission offer will be rescinded.
  After admission and enrollment, the student will be administratively withdrawn from all classes and dismissed from the Graduate School; institutional financial assistance will be terminated retroactively and all tuition and other awards made to the student must be repaid.
  After a degree or certificate has been earned, the degree or certificate will be revoked.

  Under no circumstances will the applicant receive a refund of his/her application fee or tuition and fees.

Finally, from the rest of the Internet, some anecdotes (I cannot vouch for their accuracy).

Via Powers v. St. John's Univ. Sch. of Law:

  After David Powers had completed three semesters as a part-time law school student at St. John’s University School of Law, the law school discovered that Powers had made material misrepresentations and omissions in his law school application regarding his criminal history. St. John’s subsequently rescinded Powers’s admission based on the application’s material omissions and misrepresentations.

Via Poets and Quants: "Stanford Takes Away An MBA Degree":

  For the first time ever, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business today (March 5) confirmed that a 2003 graduate of the most selective MBA program in the U.S. no longer has a degree because he was admitted under “false pretenses.”

Via Yale Daily News:

  He is Akash Maharaj, once a junior in Morse College, now a convicted felon. Kicked out of Yale College in the summer of 2007 for forging his application, he now faces five years of probation during which he must pay Yale over $31,000, for scholarships he stole — or else serve three years in jail.

Via The Right of Educational Institutions to Withhold or Revoke Academic Degrees:

  The Supreme Court of New Jersey revoked the license of John Benstock to practice law in the State of New Jersey after New York Law School revoked his Juris Doctor degree for failing to reveal material information on his application to law school and admission to the bar.

Via hermitosis on MetaFilter:

  I tried this once. I got accepted to the university and had forgotten to include a transcript from a summer community college course that I'd taken as a freshman in high school. I genuinely forgot to include it.

  Anyhow I got a call saying that my acceptance was revoked, and when I visited the administrative office to try and explain, they accused me outright of deliberately covering it up in order to improve my chances of getting into their university (the grade had been a C, which lowered my overall GPA by just a smidge).

  I was allowed to appeal their decision, but my appeal was rejected. And that's the story of how I was kicked out of university before I ever got to attend a single class (but not, I'm happy to say, before I'd already gotten my school ID, so I did wind up being able to draw upon some benefits).

Via happymomof1 on College Confidential:

  I was almost thrown out of a graduate program that I was halfway through when the university realized that one (yes 1) transcript was missing from my file. In fact, even after it was delivered to them, and recorded as arriving, they managed to lose it again and I had to have it sent again. We are talking about a 30 year old transcript for 8 undergraduate credits taken in summer school! When I asked why they cared, the registrar (not a filing clerk) himself told me that missing transcripts can mean lost accreditation. No college or university wants to lose accreditation, they'd rather lose a student (or potential student).

Via airborne911 on College Confidential:

  I attended two schools in spring 2006, but I forgot all about the second school (I only took one class there, and the rest of my classes were taken at the first school). I did not list the school on my application. USC sent me a request for transcripts from the second school in April. I called the admissions office to inform them that I simply forgot about the second school I attended. The lady on the other end of the phone said, "That's okay. That's what the National Student Clearinghouse is for." She then told me to send a detailed letter explaining why I didn't list the second school on my application, because omitting information is grounds for automatic rejection.


Asking for official e-mail address from ex-employer University for publication? I am no longer affiliated with a University. In the instance that I publish a paper (co-author or otherwise), is it appropriate for me to e-mail my old University and ask them for a staff e-mail? This journal is highly ranked. I don't know how the University rankings work so maybe they will look favorably upon this if more publications under that University's name means a higher ranking expectation.

I used to have a staff e-mail but they destroyed it when my contract terminated.

I'd say whether asking is appropriate depends on whether the paper is still related to what you did at that university.

Whether the university gives you such an email address is quite a different question. My experience is: probably not.

That is, when I moved to my new institute I asked whether I could have a .forward to my new institute for some time. This was not possible, not even with the prof's statement that he would like this, too (the address got prolonged another 6 months, then it was deleted).
The reason for asking was that I wrote a software at my old university and published it with that email address. So it would have been quite in the interest of the old university to stay associated with the software.

I'd think re-activation of an already deleted account is even less probable.


Is there an upper limit on the number of students interested in a particular specialisation that a university will admit? I am applying to an MS in CS program. I know most people apply for AI and Machine Learning. Does a university have a fixed number of slots for AI students? Or is this true for the Ph D program and not the MS program?

Admissions are always limited, because students consume finite resources: classroom space, lab and computing equipment, advising and grading time, funding,  and more generally faculty attention.  Even in online professional masters programs, admissions are restricted to students with a certain expectation of success, because failing students make the program look bad.  For research oriented MS and PhD programs, money and advising time are probably the most limited resources.

Different departments approach the limits differently.  Some define strict quotas in advance, depending on number of faculty and available funding levels.  Others (like my department) have softer quotas, which are influenced by prior belief that specific students will accept admission offers.  Others accept every student with a high enough GPA and GRE scores, and let the students fight each other for advisor attention.  But there are always limits.


Time employed for writing I am looking for any indication of how long should it take to write, let's say, a paragraph, for a non-native English speaker (with a good knowledge of English). I know that for the writing process of a paper or essay one should take in account also the time required for research and mind-mapping, which is not easily quantifiable. I am interested in some reference for the time needed to translate the mind map to a paragraph. The only time indication I found was in  http://www.scripps.edu/milligan/em-journal/pdf/Scientific_Writing.pdf (e.g Introduction: 3 days) , but the author clarifies that it is a personal opinion, and anyway it includes the mindmapping procedure. I can spend half an hour writing and editing a couple of sentences (already knowing which concept I need to express), how can I know if this time it's abnormous?

(meta: Feel free to move to personalproductivity if it's the case, I was unsure but then I thought of posting in academia because I am specifically talking about scientific writing)

As a teacher who has taught many non-native speakers subjects in English, I am quite confident when I say that the time will vary by the person. Some people are quite strong and write faster (and better) than some native speakers but others write very, very slowly.

To have anything meaningful, there must be some quantifiable tie back to English level (what does 'good knowledge of English' mean to you? IELTS 8?)

It seems you are interesting to know if you are performing well enough compared to some standard, but we would first need the standard (and it does look like you're trying to find the standard) and that standard must take into account more than just the information you've provided (how much experience do you have writing in general? how good is your English? what kind of writing are you doing?).


Is Cover Sheet Necessary for Writing Letter Submission? I am applying to Music Technology at NYU, and writing samples are requested. However there is no clear guidance on the webpage about my question. I've also sent email for the query, but still no response probably due to thanksgiving. Since the deadline is approaching, I am asking here for your help.

I am wondering if it is necessary (or better) to include a cover sheet on top of every submitted writing sample. If so, could you please give some suggestion on content as well as format/layout of the cover sheet? Because most of the resources or examples on the internet are for law schools, and I don't know if they apply to EE, CS or related fields. I am asking because I'm not sure about whether there is any "formal" way of doing this, including the proper content and layout.

Thanks very much for your help!

EDIT:
Below is the description for the writing sample:

  Program A: Please submit samples of previous scholarly work on music technology or related fields. You must submit at least three papers that best represent your ability to conduct research and write effectively about your area of specialization. We encourage you to submit published work.

There is nothing about cover sheet, so it might be unnecessary. Just that I am wondering if it is better to have one.

  Program B: There is the other school asking for writing sample and it says Include your full name and department to which you are applying at the top of the document.

In this case, it seems better to include a cover having the requested information. If so, what do you suggest to write and in what format/layout?

I did my application for grad school pre-internet, and no writing samples were requested.  So this is not intended as an authoritative answer.

The instructions you posted weren't super clear, so I compared them against another randomly chosen program.  It happens to be for an MFA program: http://english.olemiss.edu/how-to-apply-to-m-f-a/

  Please provide a cover sheet with your name, address, phone number, and email, and the titles of the pieces in your work sample.

Okay, now I'll extrapolate from that and make my best guess.  (If you don't mind waiting until Monday to do your submitting, you could ask the departments for clarification.)

Program A: If your pieces of writing already have your name clearly indicated somewhere near the top of the first page, then perhaps you don't need to add anything; however, a cover sheet as requested by the MFA program I quoted might not be a bad thing.  If they find it extraneous, I suppose they could just toss it.

Program B: If the piece of writing is not published, I would guess this means that you should add the name of the program you're applying to below title and author, at the top of the page.  If the piece of writing is a reprint of a published article, then my personal guess about this would be to use a pdf editing tool (e.g. Foxit's "typewriter tool" or "textbox").  If you are not the sole author, then in addition to the name of the program you're applying to, it might be helpful to put your name in that textbox too.

I guess if the reprint doesn't have enough space at the top for such a textbox, you could make a separate cover sheet, and then splice the two pdf's together with for example PDF Splice & Merge.

A nice extra feature for non-published pieces of writing would be a header or footer with your name and the name of the program you're applying to (and page#/#pages).  In case the committee is sitting around a table with hard copies of applications, and things start to get messy.  (I have no idea if that's how some committees work.)


How are British PhDs looked upon in the United States? Assuming I got a PhD in Computer Science from Oxford or Cambridge University, how would that affect my chances at becoming a professor at a top US university versus getting a PhD from a top US institution? Assuming also that I had US citizenship?

I am an American who earned a Ph.D. at Cambridge University. A degree from Cambridge or Oxford is well-respected in the US - I was warned to avoid other UK universities as they are not as well known in the States.  The one caveat is that all of your network for post-docs and jobs will be in the UK, not in the US. It was an amazing experience though so I would not want to discourage you!


Submit manuscript to tier A conference or wait and submit to A* conference? Suppose you have a manuscript and you have just missed the deadline for an A* conference. Should I submit to the next tier A conference or wait until for the A* conference to come around again?

I am in the computer science field, hence the emphasis on conferences, rather than journals.

Suppose you have a manuscript and you have just missed the deadline for an A* conference. Should I submit to the next tier A conference or wait until for the A* conference to come around again?

This depends on a number of factors:

How likely do you think your paper is to be accepted in the A* conference? If this is your absolute best, cream-of-the-crop paper and you are confident it will go through, then submitting to a weaker conference just because you did not want to wait will feel like waste down the road. If the A* conference felt like a long shot anyway, go ahead and submit now.
How likely are you to get scooped? If you are doing cutting-edge research in a trending topic, you may want to go for the A conference simply because you are afraid that somebody else may publish before you if you don't.
How important is timely publishing for your content? Many great research papers are in essence timeless, but occasionally one has produced a paper that is of value to the community right now, but which may be much less interesting in a year (e.g., some empirical studies in fast-moving fields are like that). In that case you should submit to the A conference now, because there is a very real danger that the paper will not be good enough for the A* paper in a year anyway.
How important is having the paper out soon for your career progression? E.g., if you are handing in your PhD in a year, or plan to be on the job market in a year, or plan to hand in this selective personal grant in the next year, then having another published A paper may be better than a potential A* paper that comes "too late".
How much value is (in your field and your circles) placed on the "esteem" of the venue? That is, what do you estimate how much more valuable the same paper will be for your career if published in an A* venue rather than an A venue? In a perfect world, it would not matter. In the real world, as for instance in my field, the venue a publication appeared in is ultimately more important in career decisions on all levels than the actual content.


Stuck with an advisor who is unprofessional I'm a Masters student in computer science. My current advisor is completely un-professional. He doesn't only write bad letters of recommendations for his students in order to keep them working for him, he even wrote bad letters of recommendations for students who did not ask him for these letters. I think this is egregious. I don't really know why. It might be psychiatric issues. Now, he is the only one in my school doing research. I don't know how to deal with it. Any suggestions would be really appreciated.

Run away! The most important thing to success in your graduate education is your desire to succeed and your advisors desire for you to succeed. I've had friends and family with advisors who were immoral or emotionally unstable, and they are much happier now that they switched institutions/advisers or left the field entirely.


Is it legal to share an electronic copy of a few book chapters? I have scanned a few chapters of a textbook (about 10%) and I want to make the electronic files available to my classmates. The reason why I scanned the chapters initially was so that I could print them out and give it to a friend, and that is what I did.

The class of 93 people has an intranet with a chat room. I could ask them to email me of they are interested in getting the files. The folder size is large, so I would need to provide a link for them to download the files off, say, Google Drive, and Google gives the option of restricting the download to a specific person if they have a Gmail account. The other option is to post a download link on the chat room that could be used by anybody. Would that be legal and/or ethical? If I do share the files individually, would it be fine to send a link to an individual email that could be used by anybody? The students have access to the book in any case, at the library.

I understand that when my classmates share an entire textbook on the chat room in this way, it is illegal and unethical. But there is a finer line being drawn here because what I want to do is not dissimilar to sharing the files with one or two people.

In the U.S. the key to this question is whether or not your use is considered fair use. Here is a link that explains more. In determining whether a use is considered fair use in U.S. copyright law, there are four factors:

Character of the use - If the use is personal or educational, it's more likely to be considered fair use than if it is commercial.
Nature of the work - If the material is factual and published, it's more likely to be considered fair use than if the material is artistic and/or unpublished.
Amount of the work - If you use a small amount of the work, or in the case where your use is transformative (you're not just making a copy) if you are careful not use an amount larger than what you need to achieve your purpose, it's more likely to be considered fair use.
Effect on the market for the original - If your use would be unlikely to affect the market for sale of the original work (even if it were widespread), it's more likely to be considered fair use. Factors that help: taking steps to prevent widespread distribution of the work, if the work is out of print or otherwise difficult to purchase, if the work is not available in the format you need (e.g. digital), if you are sharing a small part of the work, if your use is transformative, etc. (Here, the fact that the students already have access via the university's library, which owns a legal copy of the work, helps your case.)

There are no hard-and-fast rules; you have to use your judgement and weigh all four factors to make a determination. This link has several examples of common copyright-related scenarios in universities.

  What I want to do is not dissimilar to sharing the files with one or two people.

The scenario in which you copy a small part of a factual published work for distribution to a very limited group of people for personal educational use, who can already access a legal copy owned by the university, and you take steps to prevent more widespread distribution, seems completely fine under U.S. copyright law, although IANAL.

However, distribution to a much larger group (almost 100 people in your class) changes things, because it shifts the balance of the fourth factor away from fair use.

(Again, all four factors are relevant. If you were copying a single page to share with the entire class, or if you were copying 10% to share with one study partner, it would be more defensible - but sharing 10% of a book with the entire class is less defensible.)

As a reference: this sample campus copyright statement says that "making multiple copies of articles or book chapters for distribution to classmates... would most likely not be considered fair use."