Plagiarizing problem sets and homework I am a young student checking pupils homeworks.
I've got a case - 2 pupils definetely cooperated when doing homework.
Do you have tips to determine who actually solved it and who copied? Got some ideas myself (like maybe one who copied had a better handwriting) but it is better to ask.

Although I do not teach physics I do have a solution that generally works quite well.

The main answer is: It does not matter who copied from whom - fail both.

If one student allows another to copy, then both fail. I enforce this quite strictly and there are some students (who do not pay attention to the warnings I give at the start of the semester) who do it, but they never make the same mistake twice.

As Moriarty said, it is possible that Student B copied from Student A without Student A knowing about it. I solve this problem but calling them both in front of me (private from everyone else) and tell them they have a choice:

Choice A: Both admit that the copying took place with consent of both, and both fail that homework/assignment/test/whatever is being assessed.

Choice B: Student A says that Student B stole Student A's work, and Student A gets off with a warning to be more careful (but no punishment) and Student B fails the module immediately without the opportunity to recover (Student B must re-take the module from the beginning).

I have dealt with many cases this way and only three cases where the students ended up in Choice B. In this case, the offending students admitted that they stole work.

You should never support the student who allows another student to copy from them. That behavior is simply unacceptable and that needs to be made quite clear to everyone.


Unable to decide whether to submit the work to conference or journal. Possible mood switches before deadline and how to deal with it? One of my manuscripts was prepared for submission to a CORE-A conference in Computer Science. There are only 2 days due for submission of the paper. As usual, I usually get my paper reviewed by one of my colleagues. However, I was surprised by his remark that the manuscript looks like a complete paper and should be submitted to a journal instead.

This is creating a mood switch in me as I am highly confused whether should I submit to the conference or a journal suggested by him. I already have one paper submitted to the conference along with my students which should not influence this submission (as per answer here). Moreover, I am not interested in working on the extension of the presently prepared work (so this question does not come into the situation). So, I just want to get my work published somewhere in a good venue.

Is it common in research dissemination? How should I decide on the possible venue given such a short deadline of 2 days?

If your paper is ready to go and in good shape for a high-impact conference, I would recommend sticking with the conference.

The reasons that I would suggest doing so are:

In many subfields of Computer Science, a highly competitive conference publication is often effectively worth more than a journal publication.
The conference deadline is now. If it doesn't get into the conference, you can always choose to send it to a journal later.
If it's well received and/or you get interesting feedback from the reviewers or audience, you might end up changing your mind about whether to submit an extended version to a journal. You can't change your mind in the other direction.


How to approach American English vs. British English spelling in a paper? I am currently writing a paper, for which my title and core problem is spelled differently in American and British English.

I don't worry about my professor preferring one way of writing over the other, as I'm not residing in an English-speaking country, but:

After all, my paper is being written in English, even it won't be published. Thus I wonder:

Is there a "standard procedure" for such cases, at least in US Ivy League universities or in certain citation styles? (I am currently using APA, 6th (our prof. didn't prescribe any specific citation style) as it suits my personal preference of how a reference should be cited and displayed.)

I will definitely mention both words in the "keywords" area, but other than that I will go with one spelling, namely the American English one. The word is "harmonization", if that should be important.

Sorry for my lack of initial research, I found this SE question though.

I typically don't worry about this question as a writer.  For what it's worth, I'm based in the United States, so I default to American English.  I always spell check my papers, but in the more than 25 papers that I've submitted, I've never gotten any feedback about using American spelling rather than British spelling; this question is very relevant for me since many of my papers are on graph colo(u)ring.  It may be useful to note that in the journals that I submit to and read, I've seen both American and British spelling.  (I think many editors typically let the authors choose which they prefer.)

So my suggestion is this: choose either American or British spelling and stay consistent throughout your paper.  Don't lose any sleep over this.  It will not be the deciding factor in whether your paper is accepted.

However, for doing a literature review, I feel your pain...


Do's and don'ts when writing an academic book I am currently writing a book in mathematics. I have written a few pages and often stumble upon the question "is this good pedagogy" or is this "good typography". The chances of my work getting published is slim, but I am using it for a personal collection of notes and ideas in addition to learning writing a longer text. Below is an excerpt from my notes

An older version of my notes can be found here.As now the notes are dividied into a somewhat strict pattern with lemmas, propositions, corollary with theorems reserved for the main purpose of each section.  I have a ton of questions about layout, design how formal to be in my writing, and how spiced up I should make the text. I see modern calculus books like to divide the text into blocks (a different color for theorems, proofs etc) while published articles tend to keep a much more minimalistic presence. I just do not know if I am on a good path, or if I need to do some fundamental changes.

To summarize

What are the do's and dont when writing longer notes (mainly aimed at undergrads).
Are there any books or literature on writing longer academic texts?

There are many books and online resources on mathematical writing.  These range from style guides that deal with issues from type setting to copy editing to books that talk about mathematical writing at a somewhat higher level.   Here are a few of my favorite sources:

Nicholas J. Higham.  Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences.  SIAM 1998.  http://www.worldcat.org/title/handbook-of-writing-for-the-mathematical-sciences/oclc/697886419

Steven G. Krantz.  A primer of mathematical writing : being a disquisition on having your ideas recorded, typeset, published, read, and appreciated.  American Mathematical Society, 1997.   http://www.worldcat.org/title/primer-of-mathematical-writing-being-a-disquisition-on-having-your-ideas-recorded-typeset-published-read-and-appreciated/oclc/797735421

SIAM Style Manual for Journals and Books.  http://www.siam.org/journals/pdf/stylemanual.pdf


How to list a paper in a CV that has been presented at a conference and submitted to a journal? Is there an elegant way to state that a paper in a CV that has been presented at a conference and also submitted to a journal?

I.e. Name. Title. (Presented at XX Conference, Submitted to YY Journal)

A common approach is to have separate sections in your CV listing academics works by type. I.e., thesis, peer reviewed journal articles, peer reviewed full text conference proceedings, book chapters, books, conference presentations, etc.

Particularly for early career researchers, it is common to also include journal articles that are under review. These should be presented in a section distinct from published journal articles and should generally indicate what stage of review they are in (e.g., submitted, revise and resubmit, etc.). It is also often useful to make each section a numbered list, so readers can quickly ascertain how many works you have of each type.

Using this approach you would list the journal article under the journal article section of your CV (or in the "submitted journal articles" section as the case may be) and  list the conference presentation under the conference presentation section of your CV.

Typical readers of an academic CV will know how to interpret this.
In general (and this may vary by discipline), journal articles (and other full-text works) speak to your lasting academic contribution. In contrast, conference presentations show that you are actively presenting your work. Typically, people evaluating your CV (e.g., for a job, promotion, grant, etc.) would give different weight to different sections. Thus, organising your academic output by sections makes their job easier.


What can I do if my advisor threatens to take away authorship of my undergraduate research work? My mentor professor has threatened to take authorship of my work away from me because of a disagreement. Can she do this? Is this plagiarism on her part for not including me as an author? I wrote the original paper, before editing. She never provided a syllabus and kept tacking on more and more things for me to do. I told her she was taking advantage of me and was told to go to the head of the department. She now says that I can no longer get a grade above a D, even though I am an A student and won an award for my work at a symposium. I have no idea what to do about this situation.

If you are the original author, you have authorship rights and your advisor cannot take that away from you. The worst that she can do is refuse to coauthor with you and take her own name off the paper, not yours, although if she did that, you should remove her contributions from the paper.

At your school, there should be a number of people who will advocate on your behalf, and I would start there. The dean of students and the department secretary are usually good first stops. If that fails, you could consider going to the school dean, the provost, or conceivably even the university president (although if it got that far, you are likely in the wrong or have a terrible program). If your advisor publishes without you as a co-author, you can seek redress with the editor of the journal where she publishes.

If you already know that this is an issue, you need to start getting your "ducks in a row." A first step would be to 'publish' your paper as a working paper somewhere. Where you do that is going to be discipline specific, but SSRN is a good choice if you are in the social sciences, and Academia.com has this ability as well. If you do that, make sure you give appropriate credit, too. Two wrongs don't make a right, as they say.

Try to ensure that as many people as possible can attest that the idea is yours, and if you still have the original graded by the professor make digital copies, preserve the original at all costs. In the end, you don't want it to be your word against hers, and the more evidence and witnesses you have, the better. Rightly or wrongly, other faculty are more valuable than students, so show it to as many faculty as possible.

A few words of warning.

What you are talking about is plagiarism, and could even be intellectual property theft. Universities take this very seriously, and it can end careers—both yours and your advisor's. Consequently, things can get very dicey very quickly. Be absolutely certain before you start making claims publicly that you are in the right: talk to someone you trust outside the department and outside the discipline and show them your work with the work you are doing jointly with your advisor; verify your sources; know your allies. Once this goes beyond you and your advisor, and perhaps a small cadre in the department, it is the intellectual equivalent of going to war.
Be prepared to come to the table. If this isn't published yet, then there is still hope for a negotiated solution. Know what your objectives are, and use your position to get those objectives, and don't get hung up on abstracts. For example, if you are really hoping to get into law school, then being author may not be as helpful as something else, and be prepared to accept that something else. Make no mistake, what I am talking about is corruption, but as an undergraduate, it is highly unlikely to be worth hanging yourself out to dry over something like this, if there is a negotiated compromise. On the other hand, if you are hoping for a PhD and a career in the field, then authorship can be crucial, and you may need to go to the mat over this so as not to be seen as a pushover or a flake in the future.
Don't get caught up in office politics. If your advisor has enemies, and she likely does—especially if this is typical of her treatment of others—departmental enemies will likely try to use you as a weapon to get to her. While it may be gratifying to do so at first, if you let that happen your interests will fall by the wayside as the whole issue becomes about whatever stupid issue is driving the office politics, and not about your intellectual and students rights.
Don't get steamrolled, but don't overstate your contribution. This is hard as an undergraduate, because you definitely don't have as much information about the discipline as your advisor, and it can be tempting to think "My idea changed the world!" whereas it is only a minor contribution. Know what you have done, and don't get pushed off that, but being seen as someone who is self aggrandizing or consistently over-estimates their own importance will hurt your cause. There are already people who devalue contributions because of who the contributor is, and you don't need to give them any ammunition, or give your potential allies pause because they are unsure of the reliability of your perceptions.


My research area has very few research positions, would it still be possible for me to stay in academia? I am a PhD student in mathematics.  I felt quite lucky that I got into this program.  My research is also going ok, and I got some confirmation from my advisor that I should be able to graduate in a year or two if I keep up with my work.  So things were mostly good.  But a recent conversation with my advisor completely changed my view about my situation.

We just finished one of our projects and naturally got to the question of when I should graduate.  Then We start to discuss my plans after graduation.  He asked me whether I want to find a job in industry or stay in academia.  I said I want to remain in academia, find a postdoc, then a tenure-track position, etc.  He then told me that there are very few places that have postdocs in my area, and indicated maybe I should look for schools that majorly focus on teaching.

I was very shocked.  I always wanted to stay in academia and thought about going to good research schools.  In fact we talked about this when I first asked to be his student.  But for some reason, he kept asking me the same question every once in a while.

I went home and start search on mathjobs.org for positions in my area, which I probably should have done three years ago.  There were almost nothing.  There are two postdoc positions, both are from not very well-known schools, I don't quite have interests in applying to either one of them.

I am quite lost.  On one hand, I wish I knew this much earlier on.  I wish my advisor would have told me before he helped me pick this area.  I also should've done some research on that myself.  Now I just have so much regrets in my heart.

On the other hand, I think it's time to be realistic and rethink my plans.  I wonder if it is still be possible for me to get a postdoc (possibly in one of the two places) and later go to a top-ranking school for tenure-track positions?  If a school don't have anyone in your area, would they hire you as a tenure-track AP?  I am not quite fond of teaching, I can bear it if it's part of my job being a researcher, but I would not want to do this as my sole job.

If that is not possible, what kind of job can a math PhD get?  I had some experience in industry before as well, but I don't quite like that job.  Are there research-type positions in companies that would appreciate a math major?  If so, what kind of knowledge/skills should I pick up now?

I wonder if it is still be possible for me to get a postdoc (possibly in one of the two places) and later go to a top-ranking school for tenure-track positions?

Yes, this is possible. But, unless you are making definitive progress on famous open problems which are well-known to everyone in your field.... then it is very unlikely and you should not count on it. (And perhaps even if you are.)

Most academic jobs involve both research and teaching. For example, I work at a research university with a Ph.D. program and a 2-2 teaching load. I definitely have time for research, but teaching is a big component of the job, and if I didn't enjoy teaching I would not want to do this job. (Moreover, if I wasn't good at teaching, then the hiring committee probably would have picked up on this and not offered me the job in the first place. Most people who are good at teaching, enjoy it.)

I think you are wise to investigate your other options. I've known people who decided not to pursue (or continue with) academic careers, and for the most part they were able to find good jobs. Software companies like to hire mathematicians, and you might learn programming if you don't know it already. Some mathematicians successfully go into finance (and make boatloads of money doing it.) Actuarial work is another possibility. In any case, these sorts of jobs don't generally just "happen"; you have to proactively think about what you do like and look for opportunities.

Good luck to you!


How to ask professor to let me audit lectures at university I am not enrolled in? There is a professor in the city I am currently living in who does some interesting work. I would like to sit in on his lectures, but I do not know how to ask him.
What is the best way for me to ask him to attend or audit his lectures or seminar? I don't want to come across as rude or imposing myself on him, esp. when its about seminars which are maybe not so big.

Also, relatedly: I am not sure if I would be able to attend every single lecture because I will have a lot of work to do the upcoming weeks. So I am not sure how to best ask with this in mind. If he says yes and I am not coming to one of the lectures -although I would love to- will it maybe look very bad?

First I would check if the school has a formal procedure for auditing. For example, my school wants auditors to pay as if they were attending the class, and they also have insurance concerns if, e.g., a student is hurt in a chem lab and it turns out that they weren't enrolled. You can get this info from the school's web site or catalog.

If that's not an issue, then I would just send a brief email and ask permission. There are unlikely to be any objections, but it would be polite to ask. Some conceivable problems:

There might be a shortage of seating.
In certain subjects (e.g., languages) or in classes using certain teaching methods, it might be expected that students will participate actively. The quality of the discussion or activities might be worse if there is an auditor who isn't taking the course seriously.
The professor might want to talk to you for your benefit to see if you have enough of a background to get anything out of the class.

Personally it doesn't bother me if an auditor's attendance is irregular.


Withdrawing from present studies in order to be allowed to apply for another one? Asking for clarification of a clause in my admission letter I'm a second-year PhD student studying in a foreign country on a student visa, and I've been admitted to another PhD program in another foreign country (so I'm planning to leave the current program unfinished and started the new one). My official offer has this clause and I have to accept it in order to get the confirmation letter that allows me to apply for a student visa for the new country: "I confirm that I am not bound to enrolment at another education institution that would require a release." Does this mean that I will have to withdraw from my studies at where I am now, in order to start the visa application? This would be very impractical, though: taking a student visa in the new country takes at least 5 months or so, but upon withdrawing from my studies at the present institution, my current student visa will be canceled (not to mention that I'll lose the funds that I'd need to live on in the next few months that I'll be waiting for the visa) and I will have to leave the present county (presumably to home) long before my new student visa is ready. (Also, my passport isn't strong enough to keep me around on its own.)
Please tell me that I've misunderstood the clause! If not, do you know any way out of this?
PS 1: My initial thought is that this clause can't mean what I've taken it to mean, as it's very customary to apply for grad schools, get admitted, and start applying for visas while you're in your last year/semester. It's just that for me the starting date is before fall, and my present studies won't end before my new studies start.
PS 2: I can provide you with country specifics, etc., if needed.
PS 3: I've asked this question here as well, but I thought this forum is more relevant.

"I confirm that I am not bound to enrolment at another education institution that would require a release."

To me the phrases here "bound to enrollment" and "require a release" seem important; the first phrase suggests some sort of contract, the second suggests that you require permission from those who have you bound to leave this contract. Joining these phrases with "that" suggests that both situations must be true: contract that requires permission from someone else for you to withdraw from it.
My non-lawyer reading is that if, like most educational programs, you can simply choose to leave at the end of a semester without particular penalty, then you are not bound to enrollment and do not require a release. You might be bound if you have an agreement to do some work for funding, and especially if you have tuition remission that becomes void if you leave in the middle of a semester.
However, since the potential fallout from violating this policy could include losing your offer, I think it's worth verifying that you are in the clear. Assuming you can leave your program in Canada at any time, I would still confirm with the program in Australia that your current attendance is not an issue. It shouldn't be too much of a surprise to them because I'm sure you explained your situation in your application. Explain to them any terms of your current enrollment, and your plans for how and when you will leave the current program, and any restrictions or lack of restrictions on doing so.
You also definitely do not want to lie or mislead on any visa application. My understanding that doing so can permanently (or at least for many years) disqualify you for a visa, even if you did not intend to mislead.
You could also have a lawyer interpret the phrasing and give you legal advice, but you can't get personal legal advice from Stack Exchange.


Is it legal to provide a copy of published IEEE paper on my personal website? As the second author of a paper published by IEEE am I allowed to provide a download link to a copy of that paper on my own website? The official paper can only be found at the IEEE CS Digital Library behind a paywall. I'd like to provide free access to it.

Does it make a difference if free download links of the paper can already be found with Google Scholar? Should I prefer to link to the download on the university's publication directory instead of providing my own?

Yes, you can.

From https://www.ieee.org/documents/top10faq.pdf:

  Can an author post his IEEE copyrighted paper on his personal or
  institutions’ servers?  Yes. An author is permitted to post his IEEE
  copyrighted paper on his personal site and his  institution’s server,
  but only the accepted version of his paper, not the published version
  as  might be downloaded from IEEE Xplore.

Directly from their more recently updated paper policy (http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/paperversionpolicy.html):

  The policy reaffirms the principle that authors are free to post the
  accepted version of their article on their personal Web sites or those
  of their employers. Posting of the final, published PDF continues to
  be prohibited, except for open access articles, whose authors may
  freely post the final version.


Any pointers for reading articles digitally (on screen)? First of all let me apologize for the title, as it is perhaps very vague. The issue is as follows; I have stopped printing my articles and instead starting reading them on screen via my library manager software (Papers2).

The problem is that I find it's MUCH harder to focus when I am reading on screen and thus takes much longer for me to read articles on a screen. It's almost like I get some sort of digital dyslexia... As possible reasons, I figure small things like new mail notifications, screen brightness, sitting/standing posture etc all weigh in somehow. But I suspect that the subliminal association of "how I normally read stuff on a screen" might have a larger effect. In other words since I am normally skimming through stuff when I am in front of the screen, my brain might try to take in information the same way when I am trying to read an article, which of course is a recipe for failure...

I wonder if it's just me or if this is a common phenomenon? Additionally I would appreciate if I could get some tips on how to tackle this problem. Obviously printing all papers is an option but it's neither elegant (creates a mess on/around my desk) nor is it environment-friendly.

I have terrible eyes and this is a very real problem for me. Although I'm not an eye care specialist I can say anecdotally that there are a few things that have really made all the difference for me.

First: if you wear glasses, get the computer lenses. Usually they are some kind of an off yellow to cut glare. These really help to reduce eye strain.

Second: look away from the screen every few minutes. Try to focus on objects away from the screen that let you change your focal distance. I find that doing this for just a few moments at the end of every paragraph really helps.

EDIT: Use natural light if you can. I've found that turning my desk so that the ambient light from the window illuminates my screen has also helped me a lot. You have to be careful of glare but when I finally got everything situated it made a notable difference.

Third: media counts a lot. If you're going to use a tablet or eReader look for something that has front/side lighting. Many people like the new Kindle paperwhite but I prefer the Kobo glo. If you're looking for a more stationary solution then I highly recommend a good projector. Prices have come down quite a bit and you can now get an 'OK' projector for just a couple of hundred dollars. It will take a little bit to acclimate yourself to the new reading format but once you do I think you'll find that you like it.  I know that I do.


Can my advisor's advisor be a reviewer for a paper written by me along with my advisor Can my advisor's advisor (he is a very well known person in the field) be a reviewer for a paper written by me along with my advisor (I mean the authors are me and my advisor). The work is extending/generalizing a work of my advisor's advisor. I mean whether conflict of interest will allow this. Thanks in advance. Any help/suggestions will be useful.

Conflicts of interest have to be determined individually for each author of each work product (paper, proposal, book, etc.). If a person has a conflict for any author, she should not act as a reviewer.

In the case you cite, your advisor’s advisor cannot act as a reviewer for your advisor, and thus cannot serve as a reviewer. If your advisor is not a coauthor, then your advisor’s advisor could act as a reviewer, but I would likely err on the side of caution and not nominate him as a reviewer.


Is it acceptable to write several small papers that contribute to a larger paper? To keep this brief, I have two new math ideas that are supporting a larger work. I want to write two small papers detailing these math ideas (plus some other details I figured out about them), publish them to arXiv, and then cite them in the larger work. The smaller papers do not have enough substance for a journal or conference.

I want to do this because I want to provide details for the interested reader which are irrelevant to the larger work.

I am still new to this, so I ask: Is this acceptable? This feels like it might be unethical self promotion / self citation.

As you state it, you are probably going to be fine, however, you have a bit of risk. The first is that if the ArXiv papers aren't really "publications", then citing them doesn't really add much to your CV other than a bit of noise.

The second risk is that a publisher has to agree that your "combined" work is still sufficiently novel to want to actually publish it and that is up to them and not a question that can be answered here. If all the novelty is already "out there" you might have a problem. This is less of an issue in math, of course, which has a preprint culture currently.

An alternative strategy, that you can use or not, would be to write a good paper with the important results and then put the supplementary material somewhere that it could be found.

So, ask yourself whether the combined paper is more than the sum of its parts for your reputation. It might be, or not, depending on the results.


Processing Submissions on arXiv My submission has been processing for two days now, is this normal? I know that submissions might get the tag [on hold] and take a long time, but arXiv says that if this does not happen, submissions tend to stay in the "processing" phase for a relatively short time. My question is whether two days classifies as a "relatively short time" and, if so, how long does a submission usually take to process? If it does not classify as a relatively short time, who should I go to to ask for help?

My guess is that the time in processing status follows a roughly bimodal distribution. The first peak is when everything goes well, and certainly occurs before even a day has passed. The second, presumably broader, peak depends on how long it takes the automatic processing system to fail, and someone to have a look at it. I don't know where this second peak is located, but the point is that I expect there to be two "normals", depending on whether your submission had technical issues or not. Personally, I'd feel justified in contacting arXiv after three days or so.


What topics should go in the thesis Appendix? I am not sure about some side-topics related to my thesis. During the development of the results I have to rely on some other mehods which are not the main topic of the thesis but since I used them to derive some approximation I then implement in the analysis I think it is useful to explain how this methods works so any reader can understand what I did and also because I spent time learning them.

I was thinking to put these extra-info in an Appendix not to cause confusion in the main topic, but I am afraid they will be considered as off-topics.

If the methods that you are considering including in the appendix were necessary to arrive at your final results, then they certainly aren't "off topic". Without knowing your field of study or your topic of research, it's hard to give a more direct answer than that.

I'm in the social sciences, and we often include mathematical proofs in our appendices in order to save space in the main text (as well as not distract from the substance). Nonetheless, given the importance of transparency, we include our proofs for review by others.


As an Australian student with a UK citizenship, can I study in the UK? Disclaimer: I wasn't sure where to post this but I thought this was as good a place as any so sorry if this is the wrong place.

I am a high school student in Queensland, Australia studying for a Queensland Certificate of Education. I've lived in Australia a large part of my life. However, I was born in the UK and have dual citizenship (AUS and UK).

Am I able to apply to study at a university in the UK and (if I can) am I an international student?

I did some looking around here, but it's difficult to find a specific solid answer because this is going to vary between the universities, to an extent. But what I've found points to this:

Even though you are a British citizen, you have not been 'ordinarily resident' in the UK, which means you would be considered an international student. It would appear that international status is determined by citizenship AND residence, a bit like US universities. However, universities may be hesitant to respond to your queries about this either way until you were offered a place to study.

Obviously you would not need a visa, but I'd imagine what you're worried about is whether you would have to pay international fees, which are very high.

I'm going to openly admit that one of my sources is Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt. You could potentially qualify as a 'home' student in spite of living in another country if you were from:

  Anguilla
  Aruba
  Bermuda
  British Antarctic Territory
  British Indian Ocean Territory
  British Virgin Islands
  Cayman Islands
  Falkland Islands
  Faroe Islands
  French Polynesia
  French Southern and Antarctic Lands
  Greenland
  Montserrat
  New Caledonia
  Saint Pierre and Miquelon
  Turks and Caicos Islands
  Wallis and Futuna

However this is not the case for you, as you are in Australia.

Here is the list of requirements for British citizens to be considered a 'home student':

  Be free from any immigration restrictions (e.g. British citizenship,
  exercising EU Freedom of Movement Rights, indefinite leave to
  enter/remain, right of abode, free from immigration control (as a
  diplomat or member of air crew))

  Be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom

  Have been ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands
  and/or Isle of Man for the whole period of the three years directly
  preceding the first day of the academic course

  The main purpose for the three years' residence in the UK and Islands
  must not have been to receive full-time education during any part of
  it, unless the student is a European Union citizen (but not a British
  citizen) and immediately prior to the three-year period was ordinarily
  resident in the European Economic Area, Switzerland or qualifying
  overseas territories (see below).

You have not been ordinarily resident in the UK, ergo you would be an international student.

If you want to confirm this, you should get into contact with the international offices at your universities of interest. Only they can answer definitively.

Sources:

Wikipedia, use caution

UKCISA

UKCISA Fee Status Assessment

Complete University Guide


Is it acceptable to keep extending medical leave to prolong insurance coverage, when one has no intent of returning? Two years ago I enrolled in a very high-ranked program in field X. Partway through the program, I developed severe health problems which affected my memory and cognitive function, and which made it difficult to learn the required material. In addition, I also found I was not that interested in the research itself (although the aforementioned memory/cognitive problems were far more damaging to my learning than the lack of interest).
Due to the combination of these two factors, I sought medical leave to deal with the health problems, which was granted in March. Around July/August, the problem was partially alleviated, and I have mostly been feeling better, and have decided to switch to another field of study Y. I talked with my adviser about my situation and explained the health problems, and he asked me if I was still planning on re-entering the program, and I told him that I felt that I might perform better working in field Y; we mutually agreed to terminate the leave, and I am currently applying to a second round of graduate schools.
This is where things get slightly more complicated. The health insurance I had under the medical leave was far better than my ordinary health insurance, and my mother has (since August) been trying to persuade me to extend my leave as long as legally possible, potentially up until Fall 2015 enrollment. According to doctors I talked to at the previous institution, it is not uncommon for students to take up to three years on medical leave, so this is AFAIK legally possible. In the interim time, she wants me to tell my adviser that I am still dealing with medical issues, and am not yet able to decide on re-entering the institute's program in field X, during which I can apply to other schools in field Y and enroll in one of them for Fall 2015. I have not yet told her that I have previously spoken with my adviser and agreed to end the leave.
My question is:

Under this set of circumstances, was I right in contacting my adviser and terminating leave, instead of extending it up until Fall 2015 enrollment at another institution?

Personally, my gut instinct towards my mother's proposal is that it is effectively financial blackmail, arguably dishonest, and would sour post-leave relations with my adviser. However, I am generally bad at gauging these sort of questions, and seek advice here as to what the correct course of action would have been. My mother has told me that the institute legally has to extend my medical leave as long as I am otherwise in good standing and still expressing desire to eventually re-enroll, and that by doing otherwise, I am potentially burning academic bridges behind me and making it more difficult for me to find a new graduate position. In any case, I hope that this question is sufficiently generalizable that it can help people who find themselves in similar circumstances regarding the handling of academic medical leave.
Edit
To clarify, I was not paid a stipend during leave, and the insurance premium was paid for by the institution.

Assuming that you are in the United States, the ethics of the situation are not clear-cut, because the health care system is such a mess.  It may not be clear to either you or your former advisor who is actually paying for the health care. For example, the school may have outsourced responsibility to a third-party insurance solution, or it might be covered by some unusual provision of the new health law, or the FMLA, or who knows what.  Honestly, I have no idea, and probably you can't find out without detailed interactions with HR, and even they might not be in compliance with laws and regulations and might not even know it.

It's also the case that, while there is a clear conservative ethical solution of "better safe than sorry," it's not actually clear that it is the right thing to do, given the amount of financial and/or medical problems that can be caused by a short period uncovered in the US.  A colleague of mine, for example, who was actually continually covered with a good plan, had problems getting critical medical care for a child because her plan was late in handling paperwork on a year-to-year transition.  On the flip side, I kept using some of my university's medical services for years after I had left, because I asked about it and was told that my alumni status meant it was still OK: it turned out that I wasn't supposed to, but nobody including me knew that.

So it's a pretty mess to sort through.  How should you deal with it?
Let's lay out some principles:

You really don't want to burn bridges.  This means that if you decide that it is important to try to stay on the same plan, then you should make sure that your advisor is OK with it.  Some professors I know would tell you to do it, and some would be uncomfortable.  What you don't want to do is have the professor be uncomfortable and only find out later.
Second, how critical is the difference between the plans?  Are you potentially facing many thousands of dollars in extra cost or being forced to go untreated for your medical conditions?  If the difference is relatively small, then let it go.  If the difference could destroy your health or life, then it's appropriate to try to use the options that are available.

None of this is ethically squeaky clean, unfortunately, and I wish that it were so.  Unfortunately, because health care coverage is so tightly linked to employment in the United States, we have a system that sometimes forces people to choose between problematic options.

In sum: if you can afford to drop down a grade in health care, that's the ethically best choice.  If you can't, make sure your professor is OK with you taking advantage of something that is permissible under the system but ethically questionable.


Adding a short example after explaining the part of the method I am writing my paper's (social science) methodology part and it consists of several steps that I express mathematically. However, I have a feeling that one of the steps might be better explained if I also add some kind of an example to it right after formulas.
How acceptable is it in academia? Generally, does it mean that I have to explain my methods in a way they do not need an extra explanation?

I intend to publish this paper (maybe this is irrelevant, adding as extra info)

Illustrating your method with a brief example is perfectly acceptable, especially if you do it in a reader-friendly way. Indeed, paragraphs often start with a "topic sentence" (which introduce the main idea, e.g. a concise description of your method), followed by some "supporting sentences" (which substantiate your main idea, e.g. by providing examples), before ending with a "concluding sentence". Such a paragraph structure enhances readability - so go for it!


Journal rejected my paper because contents of paper are in PhD thesis I have submitted a journal paper to a journal four days ago and today I received an email informing me that it has been rejected. The only reason for this is: "About 70 % of the article is similar to other documents".
I know my paper and I know that I haven't copied it from anywhere else. There is a conference version of the paper, but it is different, plus it is 6 pages long, while the journal is 15 pages long, so since 6/15 = 40%, it doesn't add up to 70%, and this is not the reason for rejection.
The real reason is that my PhD thesis is available online (it is mandatory at my university to add it to an open repository if I want to graduate). I graduated 3 months ago, and in fact the last chapter of my thesis consists in the paper that was rejected now. However, I was always told both by my supervisor who is a full professor with 25 years of experience (and Associate Editor of top-notch journals) and by many other people that it is not a problem to submit a paper based on an already published PhD thesis, as journals should not consider the thesis as a paper. Therefore, I am very surprised by the decision made by the editor. What should one do? Wait to graduate until the paper is accepted? That is simply ridiculous.
Has this occurred to any of you? Do you know how journals behave in this case? I once reviewed a journal paper which was literally copy-pasted from a chapter of a PhD thesis of a student. I contacted the editor who had sent me that paper asking what to do and he mentioned that it is a standard and common practice and it shouldn't be considered self plagiarism. So, once again, I am very surprised by the decision made.
EDIT: as asked in the comments, here is the email I sent to the editor:
Dear Professor XYZ,
I am contacting you regarding the submission of my paper to the journal ABC123. As in the subject, the reference number of the manuscript is XXXYYYZZZ. Today I have received an email notifying me that my paper (submitted only 4 days ago) has been rejected. You may find the email attached to this email. The reason for this is: “About 70 % of the article is similar to other documents”.
The possible reason for this very high similarity is threefold:

I have published a related conference paper before, containing preliminary results and much less content in general. However, that conference paper is 6 pages long, while the paper submitted to ABC123 is 15 pages long. Therefore, it is mathematically impossible for the conference paper to be the reason of the > 70% similarity, since 6/15 = 40%;
The paper has been uploaded on arXiv. This was done the same day in which I sent the paper to your journal. However, this is allowed by Elsevier, as explained here;
The contents of the paper are part of my PhD thesis, in particular, of Chapter 5. This is what probably results in the highest similarity, as the article submitted to your journal is based on this chapter. However, Elsevier’s policy with respect to PhD thesis is the following: “Elsevier does not count publication of an academic thesis as prior publication”.

I have run a plagiarism check myself, you can find it attached to this email. This confirms what I have said so far: the similarity of my article is related to my PhD thesis, not to any other previously published works.
Given the above explanations, I would kindly ask you if you could reconsider your decision. The plagiarism check returned indeed a similarity higher than 70%, but, as explained above, this is most likely related to my PhD thesis. However, Elsevier does not count PhD thesis as prior publication. Therefore, my paper submitted to ABC123 respects Elsevier’s policies and should therefore be considered a new publication.
Thank you for your consideration.
Best regards,
cholo14

Email the editor, explain that their automated plagiarism detection system has seemingly gone awry, inadvertently flagging your PhD thesis.


Is it ethical (or legal, if applicable) to say you have a degree in X if your degree was in "X and Y" (single major)? There are departments in many schools that offer "hybrid" majors, such as:

Computer Science and Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Materials Science and Engineering
Molecular and Cellular Biology
Nutritional Science and Toxicology

etc.

Let us say you earn a degree in the respective area of one of these majors.
For example, let's say you earned an M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering.
Continuing with this example, let's say that down the road, you are asked to certify that you have the degree in one of the majors (say, an M.S. in Computer Engineering).

Are you ethically/legally/etc. (as the case may be) allowed to claim that you have such a degree? Or are you only entitled to claim that you have exactly the degree written on your diploma/transcript and nothing else, even if it seems like a subset of what is written?

Notes:

If the answer differs between the Bachelor's, Master's, or Doctorate degrees, please explain each one.
If the answer is different for different majors, please explain how/why. And if the answer is different in different situations -- e.g. if it is different in different countries -- please explain how and give typical examples for each case, keeping in mind #3 below.
Obviously, in some cases, you may even be technically allowed to falsely claim you have a degree. I am ignoring such cases here; for the purposes of this question, assume I am only talking about cases where it is indeed not okay (either legally or ethically) to falsely claim you have a degree.

My degrees are mostly in the joint subject of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Past undergraduate, however, I pretty much exclusively studied in the computer science side of the department. Thus, I find it appropriate and accurate to describe myself either as having EECS degrees or CS degrees, but would not claim to have EE education past undergraduate. Likewise, my CS education included enough hardware and systems education that I am comfortable saying I received CE education.

I think a similar analysis can be applied to any composite major. Most people and institutions understand that department names vary across institutions, so as long as you do not attempt to deceive about the skills you gave, it should be OK.


If you really don't have much project experience, how to list your project descriptions when applying for a Ph.D. position? I am applying for one Ph.D. program of computer science(CS). I was required to handle the list of my project description which is up to three pages. However, I am only a fresh graduate student who has moved to the field for only less than two years. I was in the field of electronic engineering(EE). I can only recall three relatively large projects and several small course projects relevant to CS.
Should list those course projects? I just made some toy examples in those projects.
Should I explain my large projects as detailed as possible so I can stretch out my description to three pages? I saw, on the resume, people usually only use one or two sentences to describe what they did in a project.
Should I list my projects of EE? They are basically non-relevant to my current field but can prove my coding ability.

I am in STEM but not CS, so this is general advice from my experience with graduate admissions in physics + chemistry. Disclaimer that this can vary for different institutions and different application reviews. An application review committee will often want to see:

Have you demonstrated success at the skills required for successful conduct of research in the graduate program?
Have you demonstrated mastery of the necessary undergraduate content?

Based on my STEM background, I would offer the following advice:

Thoroughly explain your background, but don't make it longer than necessary. They read many applications, don't make it longer just for the sake of being longer. It's obvious when this happens, and it reflects poorly on the application.

Emphasize the skills you've acquired and applied. You might consider briefly explaining the purpose/goals of the project, and then even have a separate section about the skills acquired/implemented in the project that would be most transferrable to your graduate student career.

List everything you've done. I shot myself in the foot assuming that every undergrad did the things I did, and not stating them explicitly. Perhaps your course project descriptions will be briefer, and perhaps the committee won't care, but it's unlikely it would negatively affect your application in comparison to not including them at all. Think of how you frame them: were there unique skills gained in those projects? Do they lend themselves to showing your capacity for growth, throughout your projects?

--
That all said, if you know and can get advice from someone in the specific department you're applying to, they will be able to give you advice tailored specifically for that program.


Recommendation Letter: the final position of a student in the class Suppose there are 25 students in a class, where two students scored 100/100, and four students scored 96/100, while the rest of the students scored below that. The question is: Should I mention the position of a student who scored 96/100 as "3rd out of 25 students", or is there a more appropriate way?

The student was "tied for third" place out of 25. That would be the common way to express it in the US (and in most sports). The same would be true if everyone else in the class (but the two top) had 96 also.


How much would it cost to remove pay-walls? Is there any research/study/survey/... that tried to estimate how much it would cost to remove paper pay-walls so that all existing research papers are made publicly available free of charge?

E.g. France paid Elsevier 172 million EUR (mirror) so that 476 universities and medical center can have legal access to 2000 journals for five years. I wonder how much it would cost to buy the access to all papers so that anyone can access then.

Zero. The government of the nation you live in can pass a bill that mandates that all (existing and future) published research papers are made publicly available and redistributable.


Timeline for letters of recommendation How long before you need them should you ask for letters of recommendation for academic jobs? I've heard the etiquette is to ask 3-4 months in advance, but haven't found much corroboration for that. Honestly, that seems like quite a long time. Would asking as late as 6 weeks in advance come across as rude?

I can't speak for everyone, but 6 weeks would be fine for me personally.  Less than 2 weeks I'd be grumpy about, if there weren't a good reason.


Should I quit the PhD program? I am currently enrolled in a Computer Science PhD program in USA, and this is my third year(I changed my PhD advisor after my first year).
I have written two papers with my new PhD advisor. The first one was submitted to two top-tier conference, but get rejected twice. The second one was submitted to a mid-tier conference(A-tier in Core Ranking still), but get rejected.
I feel really desperate about this.
I might be an idiot, and I feel that I might not be suitable for pursuing a PhD degree anymore.
Should I quit the PhD program to find a job or keep pursuing the degree? The thing I consider is that with Computer Science master degree, I can still find a good job.

Don't do anything without more information. In particular:

Why were your papers rejected? Was it because of some analysis you did not do? Was the entire approach bad? Was it correct but not interesting enough for the journal? These rejection reasons all reflect differently on your ability as a researcher. Remember as well that your supervisor was almost surely heavily involved in the paper, so at some level it's not just you being rejected. If for example the entire approach was bad, then your supervisor is just as responsible (arguably even more responsible, since they're supposed to be guiding you).
If you quit, what can you do? Don't just say "I can still find a good job". Make sure you know what kind of job you can find. Look at your local job portals and see what's out there for people with your qualifications. You may have a CS Master's degree, but can you program in the languages that people want, or perform the types of analyses that is asked for?

From the answers to these two questions you can make a much better-informed decision. If your conclusion is you are an idiot and not suitable for pursuing a PhD degree (are you sure? I would at least talk to your advisor to confirm that you are underperforming), then quitting makes more sense. On the other hand, if you quit now when you're actually overperforming your advisor's expectations, then you'd have metaphorically shot yourself in the foot.
Get the information first, sleep on it (so you don't make emotionally charged decisions), talk to your advisor, and then make a decision. Either way it'll be a life-changing moment.


Should one list the journals of submitted papers on a CV? I am a mathematician and am updating my CV for this hiring season. I am wondering if there is any upside, or downside, to listing the journals of submitted papers on a CV. I have heard advice given in both directions on this issue.

Opinions differ on this issue.  The advantage of listing where you have submitted the paper is that it gives a clue as to how good you think the paper is.  If you submit to the Annals of Mathematics, then you are suggesting it's a wonderful paper.  If you submit to Advances in Pure Mathematics (not to be confused with the reputable journal Advances in Mathematics), then you might as well have generated your paper using random text.  Listing this information gives you a tactful way to indicate what you consider to be your best work even before it is published, and this may be helpful to someone who wants to take a look at your papers but has only a little time.

On the other hand, submission is not nearly as meaningful as acceptance, because you are a biased judge of your own work.  Furthermore, you could deliberately submit to an unrealistically prestigious journal just for the purpose of writing "submitted to the Annals".

Listing the journals can also come across as presumptuous, like you believe the papers will obviously be accepted and you are already bragging about the presumed outcome.

I'd recommend against it.  I think the benefits are small, and it's not worth the risk of looking arrogant or manipulative.  On the other hand, it's something people sometimes do, and it doesn't seem to do them much (if any) harm, so if you like the idea I don't think it would be a big mistake.


How do I handle academic references for US PhD program, when I have been out of academia for a (very) long time? I live in the US and have been working as an engineer in industry for over 10 years. I graduated from a top UK University, with outstanding grades in a Masters degree and several university-level prizes.

I have decided that I want to pursue a PhD, as I have a strong desire to be doing more advanced and challenging work. So, I am planning to apply to the PhD program of the best university that is in my area (which happens to be a top-tier US institution). My family and I are fairly settled in the area and we have no desire to relocate.

The institution has an admissions requirement that I have to provide three recommendation letters, two of which should be academic. Therefore, it seems that I have little option but to reach out to some of the professors that I worked and studied under during my undergrad course 10+ years ago. I am planning to provide one industrial reference and two academic; however, I am concerned that my undergraduate course was so long ago that the professors will struggle to remember me, given the hundreds of undergrad students they interact with each year. So, at best, even if they do generously agree to write a letter, it will probably be fairly generic and unspecific. And of course, it won't be in any way a good reflection of the more experienced and mature person I am now.

At worst, they might simply refuse, given the amount of time that has passed. I wouldn't blame them, and in a way I feel bad asking, after all this time.

So, what should I do in this situation, given the amount of time that has passed? Is there another way I can approach this?

The irony is that, given my industrial experience and personal development over the past 10 years, I think I am almost certainly a stronger candidate for a PhD program now than I would have been straight after I finished my undergraduate degree; however, given the amount of time I have been out of academia, obtaining strong recommendation letters is going to be much more challenging.

In contacting your old professors you might start by reminding them of what courses you took with them and what grades you earned in those courses. It would also be appropriate to supply a copy of your full academic transcript.

I frequently get requests like this from students that I haven't seen in 10 years or more.  I comment on the students transcript and grades in my courses and whatever I can remember about the student.  This isn't ideal, but it's better than nothing.

Another common strategy for students who've been working in industry for a long time is to begin graduate study by taking a few courses on a part-time basis at a local university.  It's much less of a commitment by the department to allow you to take a course or two than it would be to admit you as a full-time student and provide you with financial support.  If you do well in those courses then you can ask the instructors for academic references.


Where can I do a research paper or thesis without enrolling in a college or university? I am not seeking a masters or PhD degree, but I would like to do a  research paper and have it peer reviewed academically?  Is this possible?  If so, where and how to do it?

Addendum:
Thank you for all your comments and answers.  These have clarified many aspects to this project.  I have several research projects to pursue.  The one where I would need the most specific direction would be the following.

Feasibility of using mosquitoes for large scale inoculation and/or medication of mammal (hopefully human) populations.  We all know how effective these insects are as vectors for spreading disease.  There is no reason I can think of why this ability cannot be exploited for said positive benefit.

I approached a local pharmaceutical firm about the research project but have not received any response.  I don't think most pharmaceutical firms would be interested in this research unless they can figure out a way to eventually get compensated for the gratis mass distribution of their pharmaceuticals if the project goes beyond research and successfully applied.  Although these and other challenges are significant, none are practically insurmountable and can be resolved.  The potential benefit from eventual application of the project should make the research worthwhile.  Indeed, part of the research would be the cost/benefit analysis from several perspectives.

I have searched on the Internet and have not found such a project.  I have found some information on genetically engineering mosquitoes for faux mating to eliminate mosquito populations such as this one .

Genetic engineering should not be necessary for said project since we are utilizing the already natural modus operendi of this insect, but another aspect of the research would be the potential benefit of GE for said goal.
one would be marking the mosquitos genetically to distinguish from the rest; making them glow maybe.

I hope spelling out the specifics of the research didn't compromise the scope of topic for this forum.  If so, I welcome comments from moderators as to which SE site may be more appropriate.  Thank you for your comments and answers.  I look forward to reading more.

It's not impossible, but in this day and age it is extremely rare for individuals unaffiliated with research institutions (academic or commercial) to successfully publish scientific research papers on their own (without research-institute affiliated co-authors) in good journals (bogus journals publish almost anything for a fee).

The main reasons are that in order to pursue cutting edge research, one usually needs

access to all relevant publications;
regular exchange of ideas with other researchers;
access to hardware (for performing the research tasks).
a living and financial support for the research (including possible publication charges)

Points 1&2 are more fundamental, since if you don't know where the cutting edge of research in a particular field is (or don't know the relevant terminology), then you cannot contribute.

I should also note that there are quite a few unsuccessful manuscript submission from unaffiliated persons, but many are often not even considered for peer review by the journal editors for two possible reasons: (1) because the manuscript does not appear to meet the standards and (2) because the editor strongly suspect it doesn't, because of the author's affiliation. So there is another potential hurdle: editorial bias.


Is it advisable to use formal citations in a statement of purpose? In my statement of purpose, I am using certain arguments by scholars of my field (IR). Will it be advisable to use referencing, or might it be to my disadvantage as an unnecessary attempt to boast on my knowledge in that field.

If you're going to use others' ideas or arguments, use citations.

If you use someone else's ideas in any piece of academic writing, always include citations with sufficient detail for your readers to locate the source of the ideas. To do otherwise would be plagiarism.

Correct attribution of ideas is not boastful; it's a basic requirement of writing.


Can a promising graduate turn into a crank? How should their advisor react? I have noticed from time to time that some PhD students at good, sometimes top, universities (who must have shown promise at some point) start to act as if they're gone a bit crankish.  Say, they speak cryptically about how they are working on [insert famous research problem here, like quantum gravity or the Riemann Hypothesis].

As an advisor, how would you deal with such a student? Clearly there is a risk for the advisor's reputation if this gets out of hand (e.g. the student suddenly posts a patently wrong preprint purporting to solve that famous problem). But how long to wait, and how much efforts to do, before thinking seriously about terminating their contract?

In my opinion, every smart theoretician should take a crack at the major open problems in their field, at least for fun. Often the key to "solving" such problems is to not actually bang your head through the same wall everyone else has been stuck by, but to change the perspective or cheat the problem somehow. Even if you aren't smarter than everyone else, perhaps you can think of an outside-the-box idea others haven't. And as John Conway put it, we aren't as smart as we think we are. If I remember correctly, he said this when interviewed about Fermat's last theorem, which was unsolved at the time.

Of course if someone actually is "smart" enough to continue in research, they will be able to tell if they have failed. And they will be able to make a rational assessment of risk versus reward in pursuing such a path where the likelihood of funding and career success would be low. Hence pursuing such problems isn't all that different from pursuing other very-high-risk ideas. Just a little farther out on the spectrum.

One situation where this risk-reward assessment breaks down, of course, is mental illness. A manic person might think they are superhuman, for example. And there are some professors that I really wonder about. But mental illness is beyond the scope of sites like this, and I'd note that people with diagnosed illnesses can still function normally (or better) and be very successful in research.

The short answer is if you can't prove (rigorousy) they will fail, you can't prove they are fools for trying.


Identifying pleasant PhD supervisors I want to pursue a PhD at an institution in Japan that I don't know first hand. As lab websites or personal webpages don't really reveal the personalities of professors, it isn't easy to know in advance which professor's working style and personality could match my own.

Are there ways to determine whether a professor will be a good match for me?

I would note that when you ask the students, you need to read between the lines to a certain extent. Just as letters of recommendation are always positive, but supervisors will look out for what is not said in them, you should apply the same principles when you are assessing a supervisor.

Let me give an example: I was interviewing for a postdoc in the US, and the supervisor had the students and postdocs take me out for lunch. Over lunch I asked how hard people worked, and were they well looked after. The answers were the expected - they were well looked after, the boss had high expectations, but supported them well to meet these expectations, they worked long hours, but they wanted to. Then I asked them what they liked to do outside the lab. Silence. Apparently noone had any hobbies. Eventaully one of them ventured that they drummed in a band, but later came up to me and asked me not to share this with the supervisor. Perhaps it was a joke that went over my head. Perhaps it there were other things going on. But I wasn't going to take the risk of ending up somewhere where people didn't want their supervisor knowing they had a life outside work.


I believe my department is failing to enforce standards in doctoral examinations. How to proceed? I have witnessed multiple doctoral examinations at my (top-10 rated) university in which the student did not, in my opinion, demonstrate the required level of knowledge and understanding under questioning but was awarded the degree anyway. The committee consists of the advising professor, usually one or two additional professors (one of whom may have been a co-advisor), and the professor that chairs the doctoral examination committee in the department.

I suspect that the degrees are awarded at least partially out of expediency because failing the student after admitting him/her to the examination would be unfair to the student and indicate a failure by the advisor and be embarrassing to both, especially because the examination is open to the public (so other students as well as friends and family are present).

In addition, I believe that choosing one examiner to be a co-advising professor is a blatant conflict of interest, since failing the student would also amount to a failure of the co-advisor and is therefore not in his/her interest. The third examiner is sometimes selected by the advisor strategically from a pool of  current or former collaborators.

Finally, I get the impression that the chair of the doctoral examination committee defers to the recommendation of the advisor and does not serve as an additional arbiter of standards for the department (as I assume would be his/her duty), again out of expediency, because if he/she did refuse to sign the departmental forms, it would create a conflict and presumably a lot of additional work.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way about the situation, but so far nobody, to my knowledge, has spoken out. I'm inclined to speak out anonymously because I find the lack of enforcing  standards to be embarrassing and sickening, especially given the rating of my university. Speaking out, even anonymously, could create problems for me, which is why the best way forward is unclear to me.

Does anybody have any recommendations about how best to proceed? Are my expectations unrealistic?

Edit: One commenter asked me to be more specific about what I thought they lack. Briefly put, they all struggled to answer questions about the problems they investigated. These questions required nothing more than a fundamental understanding of the relevant physical processes. Some of the required understanding is part of MSc courses and would not have been acquired as part of the PhD research itself. What troubles me is that rather than continuing to question the student, the committee members seemed to be going out of their way to give clues and avoiding pushing the student too far in the sense of making the deficiencies too obvious.

Yes, I have seen some similar things in my life and this is indeed a very tricky question. There is a strong tension between our ideals regarding the quality of PhD's (and other degrees) we feel our institutions should be awarding and the practical realities on the ground, which involve messy and awkward decisions that have a direct influence on people's lives. This reality is such that sometimes we feel we have no choice but to compromise our lofty ideals to some extent. As long as the compromises are small, this is probably as it should be, but when the compromising reaches alarming levels, it is reasonable to start becoming seriously concerned.

What I would suggest is this. First of all, it may be worth remembering that the behavior you are describing is not your doing nor your responsibility. The chair and the members of the doctoral examination committee are the ones who are making those decisions and putting their own reputation and credibility behind them. So, although you find the behavior concerning and perhaps for a good reason, you cannot reasonably be expected to fight all instances of poor decision-making at your university. Thus, one option is to simply do nothing except to resolve privately that if you ever preside over a doctoral examination yourself, you will follow your conscience and let the chips fall where they may, and thus play at least a small role in making your department and university better.

If you want to be more proactive, an honorable course of action would be to actively pursue the role of chair or member of the doctoral examination committee so you can put the goal of raising standards directly on the agenda. Or you could strive to be appointed to the departmental committee that decides the makeup of the doctoral examination committee, and thereby help get people with high standards be placed on that committee and help prevent the kind of conflicts of interest you are describing. Through such behavior you will be setting a personal example and showing that you are not just criticizing others but willing to take action yourself for the goal you believe in. Since you mention that you believe others in your department feel the same as you, you may find that you have a good number of allies who will support you in your mission, and even your opponents will respect that you are acting on your convictions. Of course, it will take time and effort to bring about change, so be prepared for a long struggle ahead.

Finally, if your position within the department does not make it realistic for you to seek the kind of active, visible role I suggested above, or you are unwilling to make such a large effort to see change happening, I don't have much to suggest. I don't think there are easy fixes; someone will have to do the work to change the culture of your department. If it's not you, maybe you can work behind the scenes to identify more senior allies willing to take on that role. You might get lucky and find someone passionate enough about the subject, but probably you won't.


Ask for a recommendation letter from a teacher in the university I'm applying to My situation is a bit unusual: I plan to apply for a second Master's degree in a foreign university I did an exchange semester in. It is pretty well-ranked compared to my current one. The Master's is related to my current one, but contains more theory (from a computer science degree with data science courses to a machine learning degree).

I need two letters of recommendation, and I am thinking about asking professors whose courses I followed during my exchange semester. Since my application is borderline (good grades lately, less so in my first two years of bachelor's) and the program is competitive, I assume that a letter of recommendation from professors at the same university would give my application a much-needed boost, especially since they teach courses in the program I am applying to.

I don't know how to ask for letters. I have never done it, and while I passed these courses, I didn't have the kind of stellar results that would make them call me a genius in the letter, though I think that they would be willing to help if I asked.

Is a good letter from my current university a better bet than an okay one from the university I apply to? Should I send one letter from my current uni, and one from the one I want? Is it even a good idea to ask these teachers for letters if I didn't have a close working relationship with them? If so, how would I go about asking them for a letter?

I doubt that the letter from a professor at the other university, especially if just "okay" is going to help you much, if at all. If s/he writes you a letter, ethics might require that they can't participate in your admission in any other way. I'd suggest it is better to get good letters from those who know you well, and if the other's remember you positively it will just be an added bonus.

Of course, if someone knows you, they might also be limited in how they can participate, depending on the nature of the rules in place.


Is "because it's fun" an acceptable justification for choosing a certain research path (when communicating to peers/colleagues)? When asking a peer or colleague why they are pursuing a certain research direction, I have often heard the answer "because it's fun". This bothers me: Shouldn't we all be capable of providing an honest narrative explaining why our chosen research direction is of value (other than personal pleasure)?

To clarify my question: I think it's fine if "fun" is an intrinsic motivation for choosing academia as a career, I also think this is necessary to success. I also don't think we should be forced into a certain definition of “useful research”. The concept of usefulness or value can differ per individuals. But shouldn't one have a strong explanation for the value of one's research other than one’s own enjoyment?

Note: I am working on fundamental research in quantum physics.

There is a difference between the personal motivation of a person to work on a subject, and motivating why a subject is worth working on. We should always be able justify the later, both from an ethical and practical point of view ("because it is fun" will not convince anybody to pay you to do it).

In practice most researchers (certainly the successful ones), can provide a detailed motivation of why their work is relevant to the furtherment of their field and humanity as a whole.

However, this motivation might differ quite significantly from their personal reason(s) for wanting to work on the subject. In particular, they typically will have reasons for working on this specific thing, rather the long list of other things that are also worth doing. (In this category "because it's fun" is probably preferable over  the much more cynical "because we can".)


My student in one course asks for paid tutoring in another course. Appropriate? I'm a teaching assistant for an introductory programming course. A student in the course approached me and asked if I would tutor them for a different discrete mathematics course in return for payment.

I grade all of the material for the programming course, and so I feel like there's a conflict of interest in receiving any payment from the student, even if its unrelated to the programming course.

Am I overthinking it or is it right to think there's an issue here?

You're correct in feeling uneasy.

Even if you are not yourself improperly influenced, there would definitely be the appearance of possibility of improper influence, which is as important, in terms of the impact on other peoples' actions, as actual impropriety.

Even tutoring _for_free_, since you are in the same dept as the people giving the other course, could be perceived as improper, for various reasons.

Best to keep "squeaky clean", I think.


Do I need to explain or justify sources that I use to build an argument? (Academic Philosophy) I am writing an essay to outline one of my philosophical theories. My current argument builds upon the work of others that are in the fields of neuroscience, statistics, epistemology, and ethics. If I want to explain my argument am I expected to provide a summary of the two works I am building off of? They are by no means popular so I intend to provide a basic summary but how long would one typically make it? Does this differ in the case of a book v. an essay?

Additionally, am I expected in any way to justify my belief in these works as a basis for my theories? My argument is based on the assumption that aspects of these theories are correct (and they may or may not be). Is it common in modern academic philosophy to explain to the reader that the assumptions in my argument rely upon the theories expounded in these works and then move forward from there? Or do I need to provide justifications of my own?

Other Information: I do not have any sort of degree in philosophy but I have been writing some essays and have been trying to follow the general academic guidelines used in the field. I don't know if any publisher will take it seriously but it's a personal project so I may just self-publish.

Your citing standards are not just defined by the standard procedures of your journal or the literacy level of your audience, but also by whether the source you cite argues the point, assumes the point, entertains the point as one of many possibilities, or even whether the source exists solely to address the point you are making.

If you wish to quote Douglas Adams to argue that life is meaningless, very little summary is required. As we see in Douglas Adams's parable of the supercomputer and the meaning of life, "meaning" is not a property of life, and requesting a calculation of "meaning" results in meaningless answers, such as "42".

This is a summary not of a book or a story, but of a paragraph of a book. It is a tiny story within a larger story. Those who have read it will appreciate a chance to chuckle, but everyone will see the connection whether they've read it or not, and there will be no need to summarize further.

But if you need to challenge the straightforward interpretation, for example if you're disagreeing with another author who cited the source, more detail is required.

"The anti-meaning school of thought emphasizes the results of Douglas Adams's supercomputer", - summarize opposition,
"which was asked to calculate the meaning of life, and which concluded that life is meaningless." - summarize opposition's summary,
"But in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" it was understood that meaning can exist even when it cannot be calculated, which is why the story called for an organic invention (earth) to discover the meaning of life" - re-interpret the source,
"indeed, what is "meaning" if not "value which defies quantification"?" - summarize your interpretation of the source.

Your style and level of detail should walk a delicate balance between risk and rigor.

If you publish a correlation between lung cancer and smoking, hardly anyone will care what the more rigorous points of your argument are; the established topic lacks the risk to be interesting. You won't get published unless your writing breathes new fascination into the old question.

Don't worry about being fascinating or risky if you're presenting a correlation between chocolate consumption and IQ though; a fifth of your audience will label you a clown or classist before they read your work, so everyone will have plenty of energy to read every sentence and citation you write as they scan for technical mistakes. Just focus on accuracy and rigor, that'll be your bottleneck to even being published.

So my final answer is, if you justify too much, you'll be boring. If you justify too little, you'll be stupid.


Does the Editor-in-Chief of a journal usually follow the advice and recommendations of the associate editor/senior editor? After one round of minor revision, my submission has now reached the "Awaiting EIC decision" stage. In the meantime I just wanted to get some insight on what this entails. Do editor-in-chiefs usually follow the recommendations of the associate editor below them who managed the review process?

For a journal large enough to have multiple layers of editors, the EIC is unlikely to be directly involved in the processing of most articles.  Depending on the journal policy, the EIC may be formally required to approve all publications, but this would be a pro forma step in ordinary circumstances.  For some large journals, the an article may never cross the EIC's desk at all if there are no problems during the review process.

When the EIC would become involved is if there is a problem.  I think this would normally occur when an author protests against a rejection.  However, it is conceivable that an associate editor might escalate a problem that occurred internally, if there was some peculiar problem with the submission or the reviews.

In your case, if you are not aware of any unusual circumstances surrounding your submission, I would assume that the EIC will follow the judgement of the associate editor.


Repetitively emailing old lab group about a paper constantly on the backburner Context

About a year ago, I left a research team that I was involved with as a student for approximately 2 years. During this time, I did a variety of unpaid internships and paid scholarships as well as doing a year long research project for my degree with them. Throughout the 2 years, I was working with them towards writing and submitting a paper about the work I was doing.

After I had finished my degree, I asked to stay on as a member of staff. Whilst they were interested, they unfortunately could not offer me a job so I had to look elsewhere as I couldn't simply work for free forever. I soon after received a job at another institute and made plans to leave. Before I left, the paper we were looking to submit was in its final stages of completion. I had written a fully referenced draft, completed all of the figures and done all of the stats on the data. We were planning to submit within weeks of me leaving.

Note: I had left on excellent terms with them and they were very happy for me that I had managed to find work.

Issue

However, it's now been close to a year and things still have not moved. I've emailed them 4 times in past year (at least 3 months inbetween each email), telling them how things are going in my new lab and to ask if we can have an update about the paper and also asked if there's anything I can do for it such as re-analysing data or re-working any figures. They reply with either "currently a bit bogged down with grants/other papers/etc" or "we're aware of it and we'll get something to you soon".

I've tried not to pester them about it and I'm concerned about crossing a line by contacting them incessantly. I'd like to remain on good terms with them.

How should I approach this situation? Should I let it go and be pleasantly surprised if they contact me? Do I risk annoyance by contacting them further about it? I'm aware that yes I did leave and no it may not be in their highest priority, but it's still a publication for their lab. There is a mutual benefit for us.

I have also considered the fact that perhaps it is not as complete as I had thought and that they need more data. But insofar they haven't communicated anything of the sort to me.

I'd really like to have my work published. Not just for ego reasons, but I will be most likely applying for some pretty competitive PhD scholarships this year so would also like to have at least a first author publication under my belt.

It's naturally to everyone's benefit to get the paper published. However, it may also be the case that your former PI and co-workers may not have the time and focus to work on it themselves.

Perhaps the best way to get things moving again is to change your question. Instead of asking a variant of

  Will the paper be submitted soon?

try asking them what will help them:

  I know you're very busy. What can I do to help get the paper submitted?


Can I submit the anonymous referee report from a previous submission to another journal together with my manuscript? I sent an article to Annals of Mathematics and after 4 months of review process it was rejected. I received a report from an anonymous expert. Could I send this report, together with the manuscript, to another journal?

Could I send this report, together with the manuscript, to another journal?

This is a confusing wording: the first two times I read it, I thought you meant you were submitting the referee report for consideration of publication!  But I think I understand what you mean now: I'm guessing (though please confirm) that the referee said some good things and in particular regarded, either implicitly or explicitly, the result as being correct, but just not good enough for publication in Annals (as are at least 99.9% of mathematical results), and you would like the positive aspects of the referee report to follow you to your next submission.

If all of the above is right, the answer is that you cannot do this directly: it is simply not the part of the established protocol for paper submission.  And there are good reasons for this.  On the one hand, how does the next editor know that you did not fabricate the report or modify it in some way?  On the other hand, referee reports are never anonymous to the editors, so "submitting an anonymous referee report" undercuts most of its value.  However the next journal could contact the Annals and get the report officially and the identity of the referee.  Which brings me to what you should do: if you want a referee report from Journal A to be carried over to Journal B, you should write to the editors at both journals and request this to happen.  This definitely happens sometimes, although in my experience it is most commonly initiated by someone other than the author.


Tense for the notational conventions When writing the notational conventions of a paper, do you explain them in present or future tense?
For example, which of the following is preferrable:

In order to not confuse the meta-level equality with the object-level operator, we write a ≙ b for the former.
In order to not confuse the meta-level equality with the object-level operator, we will write a ≙ b for the former.

The first one is more common. Present tense can also be used to describe a fact or habit. As this notation will sustain inside the article, it's more natural to use present tense.

But I'd rather write this as:

  The meta-level equality is denoted as a ≙ b to avoid confusion with
  the object-level operator.

The original form creates a small visual loop looping back to the "former," removing such loop makes the reading smoother. Also, notation is implied to be done by the writers so mentioning "we write" can appear redundant.


Is it a self plagiarism to reuse a section of my previous paper in a new paper? I am writing an article in which I need to reproduce a section of my previous paper. This section includes standard math formulations and very little text. Although I am including this section with some minor changes but overall structure of section would be same. I will include proper citation but still I am worried if this could be a case of self plagiarism ?

The Journal in which I want to submit my work have following clause on copyrights/permission:

  Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

The journal in which my article has been published says like this on copyrights/permission :

  Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal
  circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution
  outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations. If
  excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission
  from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for
  use by authors in these cases.

  As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. More information.. One more thing that this journal says on permission:

  As a general rule, written permission must be obtained from the rightsholder in order to re-use any copyrighted material. Typically the rightsholder of published material is the publisher unless it is explicitly indicated otherwise. Copyrighted material can include figures, illustrations, charts, tables, photographs, and text excerpts. Re-use of any borrowed material must be properly acknowledged, even if it is determined that written permission is not necessary.

PS. My research field is Mathematics.

Technically, it is not self-plagiarism if you were to cite the relevant material, even if it's your own. It would be advisable if to rephrase the section. If considerable amount of detail is repeated from thee pervious paper, it would be better to have consent from your publisher before hand.

I notice this many times among authors. Those who make a minor improvement over their own research tend to have major portions of their old papers rephrased (some even repeated, but again, that's not encouraged). As long the overall concept is novel this won't be a problem.


My professor told us a previous version of our textbook would be okay, but has now decided that it isn't? I currently have a class in which at the beginning of the semester, our entire class was told it would be okay to obtain a previous version of the textbook which I did because it was significantly cheaper. However, now that we are further on in the semester, the previous version is leaving out information that the new version contains. Each week, we complete a guided inquiry for this class in which we answer questions about the chapters. The guided inquiry now frequently has questions that answers cannot be found for in the previous edition. Our professor, however, only has the new edition of the text and doesn’t know which questions cannot be found in the previous edition. She decided that a good means of dealing with this would be to give us two attempts on the guided inquiry so that after we complete it the first time, we can reach out to our peers and get the information not found in the textbook.
I personally don’t think that this is fair to either the people with the new edition or the people with the old edition. The people with the old edition will have to rely on others for them to get a good grade, and the people with the new edition will have to devote time to finding the information that their peer needs and sending it to them. Because college students tend to be very busy, I don’t think that either of these is an ideal situation to be in.
However, I am not sure if this is just me being upset over the fact that I now have to spend extra time emailing someone else and waiting and hoping I get the information, or if it is a justifiable argument and I should send her an email to discuss the matter. I also don’t want to seem disrespectful, because I am sure she is just trying to do what she thinks is best as an educator so that we have all the information we need to become successful teachers. I am just not sure how an email from me would be received.
Edit to add: This is an online class so in order to get the pages from someone else, I would have to email and ask them to send me either pictures of their text or pictures of their answer. We only have three chapters left, so I was going to ask if maybe she could just scan those chapters for those of us with the old edition and post them on our class site with the other information because she did this for us at the beginning of the school year when everyone was still waiting to receive their textbook. Also, our university library is closed due to COVID and only providing online resources right now. Another reason that I didn't mention prior to this is that the class had issues finding the current edition of the text, and that was the reason a lot of people got the older version. The newer version at the time wasn't available through Amazon or Chegg and our school bookstore sold out pretty quickly. Also, yes this is an educator preparation class.

I've been both in situations where I told my students "I've looked at the 1st edition of the text and it's OK to use it" and "I've looked at the 1st edition of the text and it's not OK to use it". It sounds (unless I misunderstand your story) that your professor never looked at the prior edition and just assumed that it would be OK. I hope that "never assume" will be one of the lessons learned in this class by everyone, including your professor.
The professor tried to mitigate their mistake. (Other possible solutions might be to limit the topics of the guided inquiry to the material in the old edition, but that would not be fair to the students who do have the new edition.) Clearly, this creates a huge inconvenience for you (and the other people with the old edition), but also, more importantly, you're missing out on the material that's in the latest edition and is missing in the one you have.
My advice to you is twofold:

You're missing out on gaining the knowledge which is the goal of your being in this class and in school. You're not learning as much as the other students who have access to the current edition. Get hold of the current edition of the text book (buy it new, buy it used, rent it, download it for free from pirate sites, borrow from somebody). It may cost you, but the alternative is that you won't learn in this class whatever you've set out to learn.

Do not say anything to the professor. Nothing good is likely come out of it. The professor already knows that students who have the old text are inconvenienced. You have nothing new to say. The professor sounds very unlikely to change anything again, but also sounds like the type who might retaliate and dng your grade for complaining. If your school conducts course evaluations at the end of the semester, explain there clearly what went wrong.


Is it appropriate to cite editorial articles in a thesis? An established academic wrote an editorial opening for a journal and it hit some very profound concepts in the field that I want to raise in my thesis.

Obviously I want to extend credit to them. However, no new studies or precedents were revealed in the article. It was a roundup and discussion of the field as it stands, much like a mini-review.

Is it appropriate to use and cite these type of articles in a thesis, or would I be expected to make the same general conclusions by citing the original studies.

Absolutely cite any source you get information from, but don't rely on popular sources too heavily. To use the arguments and not cite them would be plagiarism. To ignore important arguments would be irresponsible. Sometimes the best source for arguments are found in popular literature, because scholars bring together all of their main work in one place, after the heavy academic lifting (which you should also cite).

However, if the only cites you find are non-academic, you need to ask whether or not the question is sufficiently important to merit study. It may be difficult to get such an article published. In the early stages of some ideas or issues the only writing is in popular outlets, but beware that it is very hard to build a good academic paper at that point.