Is it conventional to provide topic related word definitions in a glossary? I'm currently writing my dissertation/thesis and am quite new to using glossaries. I'm unsure if I'm going a bit overboard regarding the number of terms I'm including in my glossary. E.g. I talk about the terms Breadth-First Search, Depth First Search, and Iterative Deepening A* Search (All search algorithms) for which I have included glossary definitions so I am able to use their corresponding abbreviations.
Would it be convenient to include definitions in a glossary for terms such as "Rubik's Cube" and "Cubie" and "Facelet" - Rubik's Cube Jargon. My dissertation revolves around a Rubik's Cube Solver. Terms like these are plastered throughout the report and I'm unsure if I should just write a simple description in some form of bullet-pointed format, separate from the glossary, or would I just include terms like these in the glossary. The first mention of these terms is visibly internally hyperlinked.
Any advice, recommendations, and ideas are most welcome
Thanks!

Since your thesis is about  Rubik's cube a section where you establish cube vocabulary, complete with definitions and examples, is entirely appropriate.  You can duplicate some of that material in the glossary, but I suspect your readers won't need to refer to it often. I would not introduce abbreviations or acronyms for "cubie" and "facelet".
The first time you introduce a standard algorithm like depth first search you explain how it works and note that you will abbreviate it as DFS. You put that in the glossary.


Who decides whether to accept a paper: reviewers or the editor? Is accepting or rejecting a paper the reviewers’ responsibility?  Or is it left to the editor to decide based on all the reviewers’ comments?

Accepting or rejecting a paper is always left to the editor.  The reviewers, however, are typically expected to summarize their review by providing a recommendation to the editor for the paper's fate.  This is generally not just accept or reject, but may also have higher granularity such as "major revision," "weak accept," "reject but encourage resubmission," or "borderline."

As an editor or program chair, I appreciate this feedback (even if I may sometimes ignore it) because sometimes it is sometimes difficult to judge a referee's judgement from the tone of their review.  For example, a very long and harsh-sounding review may actually say something like: "I am being very strict in my review of this paper because I think it is good work that can be a great paper on revision." I might overlook it amidst the harshness... or the reviewer might not be so clear.


What is the type of research study by which one analyses secondary sources to make reasonable predictions? So first of all apologies if this is not the right site to be asking these questions. I'm as new as new can be in the world of research, so I'm probably not even using the correct terminology at times.
With that out of the way, my research is centered around evolving technologies and the ways in which those technologies will intertwine. For e.g, Moores Law is breaking down, but with the Quantum Supremecy being broken (which basically means faster computers) this will enable the continued growth of other technologies like AI, more immerse VR, etc. I won't go into too much detail here but safe to say my research won't be based on primary sources, since of course I can't exactly gather first-hand data on say, quantum computers. At least for now anyway.
So all my research will include secondary sources, and with this body of research, I then want to make predictions on how technology will grow and how, though starting out in isolation, how these technologies will have an impact on eachother and by extension how this will have an impact on us.
I've looked online for an appropriate methodology, but a lot of times there's talk of an experiment, which I am not doing. Also mentioned a lot is the use of participants, which I am also not relying upon. It's just the pure analysis of secondary sources.
To help clarify things further I'll mention some of the features of the type of research I'm doing: Again all my research will be based on secondary sources. The type of data that I'll be collecting will likely be qualitative, though I imagine that there will be a small amount of quantitative data there too. With the type of research I want to conduct, I imagine a lot of my predictions will support eachother, and if so, I plan to rely upon the chain argument. This is where for e.g if we know that A > B, and B > C, we can deduce that A > C. (However, I know that research must predict the type of reasoning, not vice versa, it's just that I suspect, given the nature of what I'm researching that this type of argument will be more appropriate than not).
I feel comfortable with the research itself by the way, but I'm having a hard time tieing it to a methodology in order to give the research itself a sense of structure.
Any help would be very much appreciated ^_^

This sounds like the pre-research step of theory development or theoretical analysis. You are developing a theoretical argument of why A should lead to C. Ideally there would be some measurable implications of this relationship which you could collect primary data on to test your theory.


What form should evidence of a directed study take on a graduate application? I'm planning to send out some applications to a few moderately prestigious Masters programs this fall. I have a lot of research experience, a good GPA, and strong recommendations, but the field I am interested in is somewhat niche. None of my coursework or research relates to it directly, and nobody at my university has this subject as their primary focus. After talking to some professors, I got myself enrolled in a directed study course and have been steadily working through a large chunk of material under the supervision of a prof from a tangentially related field; he's happy to help as much as he can and I'm making good progress.

I've started thinking about what the end result of this effort will be. It seems unrealistic to try to write anything publish-able without having an advisor that is directly familiar with the subject, but the applications I'm going to be filling out tend to ask for some "hard" evidence of research or previous work in the field. I feel that this work could improve my chances of entry, but I am not sure how to best present it in an application. Could I point to a substantial final project of this directed study class as research, or is this too informal of an arrangement for that (since I'm essentially creating my own class on the fly)? Would it be more prudent just to let the name of the class show on my transcript and have mentions of the work in my SOP and recommendation letters?

Thanks.

(If it's important: My undergraduate work and research is in the realm of  math and comp sci and I'm wanting to enter the field of acoustic modelling.)

I think you should ask your mentors to discuss your research in detail in recommendation letters. Provide them with the language to discuss your research. I would also include it in personal statements and course work.


Using "my" in a publication In publications the wording often resembles the following: "We found that our results followed what we found in our previous research."  I am now writing a publication alone, with no co-authors.  Is it bad form to use "my" in place of "our" in such cases?

In my field, it is not common to use first singular personal pronoun even when the paper has only one author. Using 'we' and 'our' in this case means that the author refers to the reader and him/herself.


ORCID and its QR-code on business card back cover as a researcher? I am thinking to include my ORCID on my business card back cover as a researcher.

I wanna know if this is necessary or too much.

It is not necessary.

It is not too much.

Note that the back of your business card might be occupied, though:

Multilingual business cards sometimes feature another language on either side. (Although this approach is obviously limited as soon as you want to include more than two languages.)
Business cards sometimes feature a QR code with all the business card information in vCard format on their back side. (IMHO, all business cards should have this. There is no real excuse not to.) If that is the case, it depends on your stylistic preferences whether or not to add one or more smaller QR codes next to the vCard one.


Will my submission be rejected if I accidentally submit the non-blind version to a conference with double blind review? I recently submitted a paper for a conference, I'm pretty confident about the topic and contents of the paper, but I just realized I sent the copy where the authors' names are in it, i.e. not the "blind" version that the conference requires. And I realized this a few days from the notification due date, which is today. I cannot change my submission from EasyChair.

Do you think this will get me rejected? And what should I do now? Should I e-mail the organizer and send them the blind copy?

You might get rejected without review. I would write the Program Chair now, explain your accidental submission of the wrong version of the manuscript, and ask for permission to resubmit the correct version.


Under which title in CV should I list a paper accepted in a conference? I had sent a paper for a conference and it was accepted recently. I am wondering under which title I should mention it in my CV? Since it will be published in April so I can't use the title "publication", so which title should I use?

For papers that have been accepted, but not yet published, it is common to mention them as "accepted for publication". This is similar for journals and conferences.

So in your case, you could mention the paper under a section titled "accepted for publication", or you could add this information at the end of the paper entry:

  author name, paper title, conference name, year (accepted for publication).

Another option is, as mentioned by @David Ketcheson, to list such papers as "in press".


Asking for a reference years in advance? I am currently an undergrad and while I am attracted by research and a career in academia, I am on scholarship with a government body in my country and am contractually obligated to complete a 6 year bond in the civil service. I am allowed to complete a Masters degree before then, but not a PhD.

While I have accepted the fact that I won't be able to take the time-tested Bachelors-Masters-PhD route, I still think that there might be a chance that I might want to apply for a PhD program 6 years later, long after I graduate from university.

However, I'm worried about my ability to produce strong academic references by then, especially since my professors would probably have forgotten about me. Would it be appropriate for me to ask my professors to write a reference for me now, while my abilities are still fresh in their minds, so that when I do decide to apply they would only need to make minor adjustments? (And if I do this, should I request to keep the letters myself, or should they be the ones safekeeping them for me?)

It seems a little weird to ask for a reference so far in advance, especially since I don't know for sure if I would be returning to academia. Would I be better off asking them for a references only when I do decide to apply, possibly years down the road? I might perhaps try to keep in contact with them over the years so they don't forget me, though I'm not too sure how this might be done.

There is really no reason not to do this. I would suggest that you either get a reference sealed in a signed envelope, or, possibly even better, have the professor(s), leave a reference letter with the department office (secretaries) with instructions to send it out on request. The recipient will want some assurance against forgery, of course.

It is usually important that the date that the letter was written be included on it, so that it can be balanced against other, more recent things.

Unless you have several sealed copies, you will also need a protocol for resealing it and returning it to you.

When you ask the professors, explain the need as you have done here. I doubt many would refuse.

Another option is to maintain contact over the years. Some professors welcome this (others may not). Many like to hear from previous students with a quick update on successes and plans.


Not getting the prestigious papers I work in a quite competitive sub-field of computer science. In computer science, we have the publication culture where people publish mostly in the proceedings of different conferences. As in other sub-fields, we have several conferences that are super selective and thus highly prestigious, and a few others that are OK but not so valuable. I am a mid-late PhD student, and I have an extremely poor record of getting into those top-tier venues. I've had at least five rejections in the last years. All my papers are published elsewhere and I am personally OK with that, I still believe that my work has value: it was cited, I got personal praises for the content and quality of my work. The problem is that the attitude of my adviser and some other people in the field is that only the papers from the prestigious venues count, and everything else is "meh" no matter what the actual content of the paper is. Moreover, it seems that one has no future in academia without those publications. This situation makes me quite depressed at times: it devalues all the hard work I have done in last six years of my life and makes me feel like I am wasting my time and should drop out. So questions:

1) Does my lack of ability to deliver those high profile publications at this stage really mean that my academic future is bleak?

2) If I decide to stay in (at least to finish the PhD), how can I deal with being my work massively devalued just to keep myself sane?

P.S. We even have a ranking based on those publications: http://csrankings.org/

First, congratulations! You've published papers, been cited, and gotten praise from colleagues! You've shown that you can publish, and I don't think your adviser and others would be pushing you if they thought you didn't have a shot at the top conferences and journals.

Are any of the people who have cited or praised you in a position that you could collaborate with them and/or pursue a postdoc? They have indicated that they know and value the quality of your work, and they might be able to help you raise your profile. That would be a promising path forward.

Academia is full of criticism and critics. It is easiest to give broad criticism, and it takes a lot of interpretation to make that constructive and to separate critical feedback on your work from your self worth.

One way to deal with the devaluation might be to try it your adviser's way. That is, since you know you can get your ideas published somewhere, see what it takes to aim at a higher publication. With your next research idea, plan to spend much more time on revision. Ask your adviser and anyone else who will comment what it would take to hone that into a top publication. Does it need a broader scope? Do you need to deal with more subcases? Is the idea itself too peripheral or incremental? Do you need to explicitly link it to more pressing issues in the field?
CS tends to have multiple-author papers. Can you collaborate on a paper that your adviser thinks has promise for getting into a top journal? (Either one that your adviser spearheads or one with a postdoc or fellow student?) You might learn more about the editing process they use, and the successful publication might help raise your profile.
Study how people present ideas in top proceedings and journals. You might not love their style--they may be more limited in length than in less selective venues, perhaps requiring them to be more opaque and more formulaic in order to pack in more results. But you, too, can write in that style if that's what it takes. What else do you see about the abstracts and papers that you can emulate?
Another way to survive is to think carefully about what you are proud of in your own work and what you value in others' work. This might give you a sense of who you want your closest colleagues and mentors to be.


What are good platforms for collaborative writing with multiple senior authors with limited technical background? I am taking part in a project that involves several authors with so many back and forth in writing. I am curious to know what usually are digital platforms or role of thumbs in term of managing writing, edits, and comments by several authors who do not have a vast technical background and do not have time to learn new things such as GIT or LateX?

Do you prefer google documents for example or what?

If you are in a hurry, you might want to try an online TeX editor such as Overleaf.

Another solution if you are using TeX would be to work alongside a version control system, e.g. git. Keep in mind that it takes some time to get used to it, though.

I do not know about non-TeX-solutions but i feel that a plain-text format has a couple of advantages for this kind of application.

I am looking forward to read other responses to learn about other options.


Post physics PhD, how could I go about working in ecology, environmental science or earth sciences? I am approaching the end of a PhD in experimental physics. My work involves building and operating experimental equipment, primarily optics, with some electronics. I also have a significant data analysis and theoretical component. I majored in physics at the same school (a pretty well known one) and graduated near the top of my class.

However, despite what might look like a solid set of credentials proving that I really want to build a quantum computer and the obvious next step being a post doc or industry position researching the same field, I have realized that my reasons for pursuing this line of research for so long were primarily to earn prestige and respect and not because I personally care about what I am doing (although it is wonderful that others do!). In doing this I have always enjoyed the process of science and the combination of thought and creativity with the practicality of lab work, however due to my lack of enthusiasm or motivation for the actual topic of research I have often been unhappy.

I am trying to remember what exactly it was that motivated me to be a scientist and what I used to enjoy. My undergraduate degree combined a broad span of sciences and I worked on lab biology projects during vacation. However, I am quite sure that my real lifelong passion lies somewhere in the direction of ecology, earth science or environmental science, with maybe a preference towards plant sciences or broader scale ecology.

I am really aware of how vague and naive that might sound. I grew up outdoors but I never took seriously the things I care about as a possible option I would be allowed to consider in my adult life. Following a few personal revelations I now know that this is the way to madness, and you are never going to be a successful researcher in a field you don't care about anyway!

There are many things I don't know right now, but I do know that I remain a scientist and I am very much not afraid of a great deal of hard work.

Given all this my questions are:

How likely is it that I could make such a large career shift?
How do I go about finding out more about what research is out there and what I might like specifically, given the very large quantity of research that exists??
Does anyone know of any examples of people who have made similar shifts? (Partly just because right now I need the inspiration and belief I am not trapped!)
What sort of things might I do directly after my PhD to build experience/learn more? Is trying to get field experience a good idea? Should I start to consider Master's programs?
Am I completely as doomed as I think I could be?? :)

How likely is it that I could make such a large career shift?

It is very common for people who studied physics to end up doing something rather different.  Studying physics is great preparation for many different endeavors.

  How do I go about finding out more about what research is out there and what I might like specifically, given the very large quantity of research that exists??

Fun ways to do this are to attend seminars and take a look at journals in the target fields.  At this point you're mainly getting your feet wet and getting a few ideas about what's out there, and what the culture of those other disciplines is like.

  Does anyone know of any examples of people who have made similar shifts? (Partly just because right now I need the inspiration and belief I am not trapped!)

My advisor, Akira Okubo, is a good example.  You might enjoy reading this tribute and overview of his life and work: http://www.yen.biology.gatech.edu/papers/Okubo%20tribute.pdf

  What sort of things might I do directly after my PhD to build experience/learn more? Is trying to get field experience a good idea? Should I start to consider Master's programs?

Perhaps the shift would be less drastic if you started out by making a slight sideways move into environmental science.  But that might not even be necessary.

I think you can go straight into a two-year postdoc after you graduate.  As long as you choose the right sort of person or group to do it with, I don't think you'll need to do another degree or more coursework first, because of your undergrad broad span of sciences and the lab biology projects.  If you find you have some gaps, you can fill them on your own or by auditing some classes while you're in the postdoc.

  Am I completely as doomed as I think I could be?

There are some interdisciplinary fields, such as mathematical ecology, that are new enough that many of the people in those fields originally trained in something else.

Final comment: the tail end of a PhD can be a desolate time, and a stressful time.  So please take this growing ennui with a grain of salt.


In which section of the thesis should I give information about formatting? How? I am writing my Ph.D. thesis in mechatronics field. I used some notions from mechanical engineering and control engineering, but my work is mostly about a software solution. As the content is really multidisciplinary, it is possible that some of the readers do not know the even the basics of software-related practices. I want to inform them about the formatting of the text, for example an XML-element looks like <element>, or I have written a class name like Class. Where is the right place to do that? Introduction? And any examples how?

It is frequently the case that a scientific work will explicitly introduce its notational conventions to the reader.  Sometimes this is done inline, but if there is a significant amount to explain, it's nice to set it aside in an easily identifiable portion of the document with a name like "Notation."

If the conventions will be used throughout the thesis (as it sounds will be the case for you), then a good place to do this is following the introduction, either as a subsection or as its own chapter, depending on the size and complexity of what you write.


Is membership in learned societies important in academic career? Countries have different strategies and procedure, but academic career is somehow similar: research publications, teaching, funds, awards. I mean academics do the same thing in all countries to be promoted in their academic career.

However, I see a big difference in membership of learned societies in the US and UK.

UK: Academics care about their status in several societies, Member, Fellow (particularly the latter), and always use the designatory letters after their name: MXX or FXX.

US: Academics only join one or two societies in which they want to be active. Fellow is rare, and no one can directly apply for that, still people do not mention it boldly.

Is really the status of membership in leaned societies important? For example, in academic promotion, research proposals, awards, etc?

Is it useful to join several societies (connected to your field, but you do not have time to be active in all of them) to reach high grade membership? Is it somewhat like an award to be listed in CV?

Even in the U.S., it will depend very much on the field you're talking about - it differs widely even for fields that might be considered adjacent to each other.

For example, I'm an Epidemiologist. While professional memberships might rate a line or two on a CV (I use them as another way for people keyword searching for people 'like them' since I straddle a couple fields), and there definitely benefits to being a member and certain recognitions from societies might help in the "building a reputation" component of many tenure/promotion cases, there's not necessarily much listing of those unless it's a very big deal (AAAS Fellow, National Academy, etc.). My major professional society doesn't even have fellows, just the occasional award or committee position.

However, in academic medicine, where many of my collaborators are, this is very different. For example, it's very common for them to list "FXXX" or "FYYYY" as part of their "full" title, fellowship is a much bigger deal, and there is a clear application process.


Endowed Assistant Professor vs Assistant Professor In US education system, the university academic positions start with Assistant Professor. But there are some occasions that positions for Endowed Assistant Professor are advertised. I could not find what exactly is "endowed Associated Prof". Is there any difference with assistant professor? Is it a type of position different from tenure track or the title endowed comes from the particular funding source? There is a similar discussion about endowed chair in US system here, but I think that is slightly different.

Please let me know, whas recruitment committee members are concerned about when hiring endowed assistant professor.

There really is very little difference between the answer Chris Gregg posted and the answer for this question. An "endowed" assistant professorship is a position which provides funds for the group of the faculty member appointed to the professorship. It can be either salary, or perhaps additional funds that can be used to support members of the group.

Usually, applicants are not hired directly into such positions; instead, they are hired to the department first, and then appointed into such positions after a few years. They often have names like "career development assistant professorship" which indicate that this is a transient award, not a permanent one. If the hiring advertisement actually specifies the position as an "endowed" assistant professorship, I don't think it really changes the hiring process, except that they're looking for the best candidate who satisfies the conditions of the endowment.


Can letters of recommendation be sent after application deadline in Politecnico di Milano? I have just finished my initial proposal and I currently work on the motivation letter. The Politecnico di Milano deadline for Ph.D. is next Friday, May 29,2020. My referee and former supervisor is so quick, when I ask him to respond the email sent by universities, he responds within a few hours but I want to make sure that if it is possible if a referee send the recommendation letter 4 or 5 days after the deadline.

You should double-check the application instructions and if nothing is there, then call the admissions officer in the school. My guess is that there is not a problem, but it is better to be safe.

Often, this is not an issue. Referees are contacted via email by the university and they submit their applications themselves electronically, either by following a link or by email. The requirement for the application is usually limited to name the referees, not submit the references themselves. These days, it is uncommon for "sealed, stamped and signed" references in paper to be submitted, and including open references in applications is also not usual (although I have done so personally). I know it happens, though, but all in all reference submissions are often not bound by the same deadlines as the applications.


Is it possible to remotely engage in a side project with a postdoc in order to gain experience? I'm a PhD student in theoretical Physics. Recently I was watching a lecture and the professor told a story that as a PhD student he used to engage in side projects with postdocs in order to get more experience, learn something and try to publish as well, all of which worked very nicely for him. This would work for both sides because he would help and at the same time learn and gain experience.
Now, there is one particular topic I'm very interested for a long time. This topic is being activelly investigated by some of the most renowed researchers around the world and they say that there is a lot to be done, what makes me consider it very worthwhile to be able to work in this field. To be honest, that is the topic I want to work with after I finish my PhD! I have studied some of the main papers on the subject but still didn't have any idea of something to do that could end up in a publication. My guess is that this happens because I lack experience.
In that case the story my professor told inspired me in doing the same. The issue is that in my department (and as far as I know in my country, unfortunatelly) I can't find people working on the subject. In particular there is no postdoc working on it in my department.
That said, I know about one postdoc from another country which actively works on the field and already published very relevant papers on the subject. I've watched some of his recorded seminars on YouTube and he seems quite engaged in really getting people to understand the subject.
In that case would it be possible to do what my professor did remotely? Could I send a message to this guy and ask if I could participate and help with something in his work in order for me to get started in the field? Or would this be frowned upon and considered unacceptable? If the answer is yes, how should I approach this?

You end your post with multiple questions. It is usually better to try to write one focussed post per question on these sites. However, I will focus on two questions that I feel are key here:

Would it be possible to do this project remotely?
How should you contact the postdoc?

Would it be possible to do this project remotely?

You can always ask to do a side project, research is about collaboration. Remote collaboration should be fine, given that that is how a lot of companies and universities are functioning now due to the pandemic. Zoom/Teams/Slack or something similar should work fine, use whatever the postdoc is using. Do go to your advisor first and see if they agree that this fits in your PhD or if you should do this on your own time.

How should you contact the postdoc?

An unprompted message might go unnoticed. Ask your professor if they by any chance know the postdoc you want to collaborate with. If they do, ask if they can introduce you and already vouch for your work. If they don't, look for another possible connection to do this. This will give you the highest probability of success. If you end up not being able to find somebody to help you, send them a message directly. Keep your message brief, direct and describe your background and how you'd like to help (depending on the topic you could help with for example data cleaning, analysis or visualization, literature reviews, etc.) and ask them if they have something for you, now or in the future.


Student-Professor Etiquette: I think I'm a bad listener Long story sort, I am a young undergraduate student (exact sciences) working on a project with one of my professors. I proposed the idea I had together with my references on him and fortunately he agreed to supervise my project, although it doesn't quite fall under his research interests and expertise(half of the project).

It looks like the project-thesis is going to lead in one or more publications. At one of our meetings he offered me a PhD position after I graduate,  after seeing I got some potential, I assume.

Unfortunately I acknowledge myself as a bad student, in the sense of the relationship between the professor and the student. The student is supposed to listen to the professor's points and suggestions and ask for his recommendations-corrections etc.

I'm a bad listener, and quite impulsive, I have to admit. After he goes through my writings during the meeting and asks questions trying to understand I am constantly interrupting in order to explain myself.

Most of the time I know the material pretty well(I always provide a list of references at each meeting related to the work I've done the days before). I understand this may be perceived as me being arrogant and selfish. However this happens completely spontaneously as an attempt of defence;
(I've had a professor in the past constantly asking questions at me until I don't have a complete reply or until it's wrong. Then he would just brag I have no idea what I'm taking about.)

By no means I want to harm my relationship with my supervisor. I am certain a change of my behavior is needed, but have no idea how to proceed.

If the professor had concerns about your defensive behaviour, he would not have offered to sponsor your doctorate. He may feel that the behaviour will disappear once you've gained more confidence, or simply doesn't care. Changing your behaviour is only something you can do, if it truly bothers you.


Personal chapter comments to supervisor Is it a good idea to keep my comments in the chapter draft to be sent to my supervisor?
Sometimes when writing, I comment on the text, like personal notes.
I am feeling that it may sound like incomplete work. But there mostly notes for possible future investigations.

I suggest that you keep a notebook of anything that occurs to you as a possible research question as you go along. Make it a formal notebook with different ideas on different pages. Leave space so that you can add to ideas when they occur to you.
Also, review your notebook(s) periodically and perhaps summarize ideas.
You never know when you will hit a block in your current line of research and need a mental break. Paging through the notebooks can be fun and get you going again.
And mine those notebooks in the future for research ideas.
It is also useful to carry index cards with you at all times so that you can jot down ideas for later entry in the notebook. I find paper is best for all of this, but younger people probably prefer electronic means. But paper lasts. Will you still have that iPhone in 50 years?
So, this would include more than just your communications with your supervisor, but, yes, those too.


Imaginative Student Has Trouble Adjusting to Workbook-based Curriculum I am a freshman at Alfred University. I've been out of school for 6 years and am returning as a non-traditional student.

I'm having some trouble that I hope someone may have insight for me. I love and adore mathematics and am endlessly intrigued and interested. Usually, back at home, I would work on little projects, like building toys or games or web apps and would explore the mathematics of the problems I was solving and generally have a wonderful time. Now that I'm in college I'm in a structured environment where we work in groups to solve problems in a workbook, and I'm assigned specific problem sets to work on in a specific topic every night.

I am having difficulty adjusting to this format of exploration and study.

I have a very free-wheeling approach to learning and it follows a spiritual bent; as I develop as an individual I also develop my skills and soak up more knowledge. The spirit isn't exactly something that you direct to sit down and do work and I'm not sure how to bridge the two worlds. No level of understanding that I've achieved will galvanize me to the discipline necessary to complete homework every day of the week, or even to set a goal of completing homework three times a week. Although now that I'm writing that, making a small goal like that seems much more reasonable.

I know I have to shed the habit of project-based learning however it's dying a hard death. I don't really know what to do about this.

Is this enough information for someone to possibly give me advice?

Thank you,

Khari

You are trying to achieve something, presumably a mathematics degree. Often, it is necessary to do dull, uninteresting things to get what you want. You have to decide first whether you want the degree, and the opportunities it will bring, enough to be willing to do things you do not enjoy to get it.

If the answer is "No" drop out now without wasting any more of your time and money.

If the answer is "Yes" you need to think in terms of doing something today, doing it now, to get what you want in several years time. Each homework assignment turned in on time is a small step to your objective. Its entertainment value, or lack thereof, is irrelevant.


Automatically building a database of forward and backward citations My goal is to produce a graph showing the linkages (and lack there of) between several fields that share a common subproblem by showing who cites whom.  There are many databases that show citations between papers: ISI Web of Knowledge, Microsoft Academic Research, and Google Scholar.  However none allows me to download even part of their database.  Is there some database I have overlooked?  Has someone written a scrapper for one of these websites?

For reference, the fields I'm considering are Mechanics, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Signal Processing, Geophysics, and several others.

Our WikiCite project uses Wikidata to store bibliographic information including citation information. The data from Wikidata is free under CC0 license and you are able to access the data via XML dumps, RDF dumps, the web API and the Wikidata Query Service with a SPARQL endpoint.

While the bibliographic data in Wikidata is certainly not complete as of October 2017, Wikidata editors have done considerable work so Wikidata now contains over 8 million scientific articles and over 36 million citations. The coverage may be somewhat ok'ish for a start in Magnetic Resonance Imaging while quite bad in fields such as Mechanics, Signal Processing and Geophysics.

The Wikidata Query Service is used in our Scholia webservice to aggregate and display scholarly information in tables, plots and graphs, including citation graphs. Scholia, via the Wikidata Query Service, allows you to zoom in on a topic and create co-author graphs and co-occuring topics graph with respect to a topic. For instance, for the machine learning concept of "embedding" you can see the graphs here: https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/topic/Q29043227. Small partial citation graphs are displayed on the 'work' pages, see, e.g., https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/work/Q21090025.

It is possible to extract the bibliographic data with the Wikidata Query Service. For a co-author graph of the big connected component I used a SPARQL query against the Wikidata Query Service and Gephi on the downloaded results. The resulting image - and the SPARQL queries - are available here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scholarly_co-author_graph_via_Wikidata,_2017-05-26.png

You can read more about the approach of using Wikidata for scientometrics work in this paper: "Scholia and scientometrics with Wikidata", https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.04222


Etiquette of Publishing a Paper I have an idea inspired by class project readings but is significantly different from the class materials and published work. I already have some promising results. I am tempted to do the research and try to write a paper on it and send to the journals. (This is in the field of CS and not much resources are needed to do the research.)

I am a Master's student pursuing an online terminal Master's degree. I have no prior experience with publishing a paper. Being an online program, I have no face-to-face interactions with the faculty, but I do have a lot of online interactions with the helpful TAs.

I am wondering what is the best way to go about this.

Should I indicate I am associated with the school?
Should I indicate that I am working with my professors/TAs, although I have never discussed the idea with them?
I have done a reasonable search on the existing papers on this idea and haven't found any. But there are thousands of papers and I am worried that I won't be able to do an exhaustive enough search to see if there is anything similar to it. How is this usually handled?
Similarly, what about related ideas? I do see that some ideas are related to mine. Should I try to reference all of them?
Is there anything else I should be considering?

I know the chance of actually getting it published is slim. But it is worth trying and I want to do it right such that the only thing I need to worry about is to produce something with quality.

Note:

I noticed that the original version of my question was not communicating what I meant. I apologize that it caused some confusion and responses based on that.
I am in fact not sure if I want to get a Ph.D. and do research for the school as a way of making a living. I have not decided. Right now I just want to finish the research, write a paper, and possibly publish it.
The motivation is not career. I just find the idea and results interesting.

You need more than an idea to get published in a journal.
A research journal contains articles written about research which has produced new knowledge. If you haven’t done the research yet, you probably shouldn’t try writing a research paper.
Instead, you’d be looking at writing a research proposal, detailing the research problem and the gap in existing knowledge and why it’s important, the specific research question you’re intending to research and how it will help address the research problem by filling in a part of the gap in existing knowledge, and the specific methodology you’re planning to use for your research, along with the resources you expect you’ll need.
At this stage of your career, you would then likely send this proposal to various faculties at universities that have academics working on related fields as a part of applying for a PhD program.


Professor asked for details of letters I need I am applying for summer REUs in physics. A professor I asked agreed to write me a recommendation, but also asked for details of the letters I need. What details should I send?

The professor wants you to help him/her write the letter. You know what the institution needs and the prof doesn't want to have to explore it separately. You have an opportunity to let him/her know just what you would like emphasized in the letter.

Some professors even ask for a first draft of their letter and may send it out pretty much unchanged. Make sure you include enough to cover the needs of the granting institution and enough to highlight your own work, especially as it is known to this professor.


Are "how", "why" or "is it possible" good for a research question? I am working on Informatics and I am trying to formulate a research question. The thing is I read a lot of examples where the research question has a lot in common with hypotheses, where 2 alternatives are compared. But in my topic, there is no alternative to compare. The way of achieving "task X" have no alternative for the involved actor, therefore I can not ask thinks like "is technique A better than technique B".

The only solution I had in mind was trying to prove if the problem is really feasible. In this sense I asked myself: "is it possible for the actor to do task X?". I run an small experiment with 8 users and they did it, in different times and achieving requirements at different levels. it was feasible. Now, I wonder if I just have to throw all this effort because I have no hypothesis, but then someone told me that "research questions may be good for new areas of inquiry" and I want to be sure that it is ok to use this question. I can not find a good reference supporting research questions like mine, nor "how", "why" questions.

Can you help me? Thanks in advance

If you already have a lot of research in your area, and you can use that to build up a case of inference, then you end your literature study and inferences with a hypothesis stating that "if all we know so far is true, then the following should also be true". That's your hypothesis.

If you don't have any knowledge to build upon, there is not previous experiences in your field (highly unlikely, but still possible), then you would instead use a research question. Of course, you could also use a research question if you are too lazy to study and do your literature study properly, or if you don't have the ability to puzzle together information into a case of inference.

So if you're sitting in a closed off room and you have no idea what is outside the room and you don't have anyone to ask about the conditions outside of your room, then you can ask research questions. For example, is it raining outside of the room? To answer the question, maybe it would be possible to put a stick through a hole in the wall (assuming you are not able to look out) and if it is wet when it comes back inside then maybe it is raining.

But how do you know that rain causes sticks to get wet? In this case, maybe you should instead collect information about sticks, and how their properties can change, where you find a research article stating that if you put sticks out when it's raining then they become wet. So you would instead build a case of inference and say that "sticks become wet if they are put in the rain", "it is not raining in this room", "if I put a stick outside of the room and if it is wet when I take it back inside, then it is raining outside". Then you do your experiment to test your hypothesis in this case (not research question), and it turns out that when you open a small hole in the wall, water is just gushing in. So you have to put up a new hypothesis and say "water is gushing in when it has a high pressure" and you end up explaining that your room is 1000 m below the surface of the sea, after many new articles with many new hypotheses, etc.

So in your case, you are asking "what is a good research question", and the answer is "any question that examines an area without previous knowledge is a good research question". If there is already knowledge that you can use to build upon, you would use that knowledge to state a hypothesis, and that is a much more efficient and reliable way to go about research. So you really shouldn't aim to get a research question, you should aim to avoid research questions.


Is it okay to share with a colleague my peer-review assessment of a paper; but not the original paper? As an academician, we do peer-review (sometimes double-blind, sometimes single-blind; it doesn't matter).

Usually, I create a file where I list my peer-review assessment of a paper. The file includes Summary, Positives, Negatives, and Recommendation.

Is it okay to get a feedback on my assessment from a colleague without sharing the original manuscript [1] itself?

The idea behind getting a feedback has following benefits:

It might set the peer-review tone right.
Sometimes, it could add more clarity to the review.
Any language issues.

[1] It is not right to share the original manuscript with others. I treat it as confidential.

It sounds like what you are looking for is some degree of mentorship on reviewing.

Many journals and conferences already explicitly support a somewhat different form of reviewing mentorship through "sub-reviewers" or "delegate reviewers." In this system, the person assigned the review can share the paper with somebody else (e.g., a professor to their graduate student) who produces the draft review. The assigned reviewer then goes over the draft review with them, adjusting as necessary, and uploads it with both names on it as reviewer and sub-reviewer (many professors also abuse this as a way to farm out their service work with inadequate supervision, but that's a discussion for another time).

The key point I am making is that, from an ethical perspective, a large number scientific of publications have already set a precedent in declaring that it can be appropriate to privately share a manuscript and its review for the purposes of mentorship in reviewing. Your situation has a different workflow, since you are the one being assigned the review, but the information sharing relationship is the same. Thus, I believe that sharing the review and even the original manuscript would be entirely reasonable and ethical as long as you take the same precautions as one would in deciding on sub-reviewer (e.g., avoiding people with conflicts of interest, making sure the other person understands the confidentiality requirements).

I commend you for the concern you are showing for the quality of your professional service, and recommend you follow through.


Why am I taught theory that I have no idea how to apply in practice? I am a third year Computer Science student. The question that I reach out to you with is featured in the title.
There are some lectures that make me ask such questions. For the sake of this discussion it is worth noting that I am also working as a developer.
It may be true that the first (at most) two lectures try to introduce a new field of study in a way that somehow speaks to me (I affiliate that with a feeling that a new segment is being build onto my mind and the way it holds on are at first only a few nerve connections between the segment and my brain). However, the concepts introduced next stop falling into place. In order to deal with that I've tried reading books that take up a given field of study in a scholarly way and the effect seemed to be similar.
Another approach that I've taken is studying tests from previous years in order to see what are the key problems the lecturer is trying to convey. Now, that can only work provided that the teacher himself intends to create the test focusing on those points, which is not always true. Regardless, in most cases the tasks focus on small differences between two (or more) very similar notions which during these 3 years I have observed in practice only a couple of times.

The problem with the last point is that if those small differences are to be noticed at all it has to happen now, and not when I have working experience of 5 years, because I won't remember them then.

In other words: How is it, that despite being active professionally in the field I am studying and working on projects for university lectures it is so hard to find connection between practice and the theory taught during lectures?

Or pessimistically: What is the point of studying this way if there is one? How to make it beneficial for me?

I cannot vouch for CS, but in my field (physics) learning the theory is useful in order to construct yourself a starting basis for your future studies and research.

You can still do valuable work without knowing much theory in my field. For example, the lab technicians, in general, don't know much theory, but can still perform a measurement. To obtain an X-ray spectrum for a sample, you put in on the holder, and you tell the computer to shine the X-rays. Then you get the spectrum. You take the spectrum, you load it into the program that compares it with the computer spectrum and see if the crystal that the chemists synthesized indeed has that structure.

But, doing research is more complex that just performing a measurement. You have to be able to invent new things and to not miss something new that someone in your lab just discovered. Supposed one of your graduate students or the lab technician comes to you with some new data they say it "looks weird". Based on what you know from your research experience and from your theory background, you should be able to decide if they should do the measurement again, because the result violates some conservation laws you learned as an undergraduate, or because it really looks like they are onto something new.

As a computer scientist, you may not need all the theory you learn. It wasn't my case as a physicist. I needed more theory than I learned and I'm still learning some. Depending on what level you work, you would need more, or less theory. If you just want to develop code in a company, you won't need that much. Where I live, people become programmers by just attending boot camps. But, if you want to develop cutting edge stuff, you knowledge base has to be broad. You have to come up fast with ideas like the fast inverse square root. Without a serious theoretical background, it's doubtful you would come up with such things.


Breach a Hiwi (TA) contract I'm a Master's student at one of the TUs (Technical Universities) in Germany. I have been working as a hiwi ("Wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft", or Teaching Assistant) under a PhD for the past one year.

I have signed a new contract starting from December for another six months. Can I breach the contract now? What's the procedure if I have to breach it after the contract begins?

Would it affect my job profile? Would I still be able to work in other institutes?

Short answer: Don't do it

Long answer: Breaching your contract would have legal consequences. It also will definitely not help you getting work anywhere else. Formally the fabled 'black lists' don't exist, but in general people talk to each other and someone simply breaking their contract is exceptional enough that news will spread fast. Furthermore at least in the place I was, the paperwork is often done by the universities HR-department and payment is handled through the same state agency, independent of which other institute you work at, so this will turn up as a red flag.

You can ask your boss to cancel a contract. What you want is called an "Auflösungsvertrag". However this needs to be agreed on by both sides, so you better have a good enough reason. For example as a boss, if you told me that you want to interrupt your studies to take care of a dying relative, I would gladly sign it, but if you told me you got a better offer somewhere else, I would still insist on you fulfilling the contract until I at least can find a replacement. And don't lie, as mentioned before, bad news travels fast.

Apart from this, if there is no other clause in your contract allowing you to give notice, it's best to just bear it for another six months. Document your hours, do your job diligently and wait for the time to be up. If you worked for the same boss for a year already, you knew what you were signing up for.


Revoked access to data within same institute after moving section Recently I moved sections within the same institute. All access to data owned by the university has been revoked from me, with an explanation that it contains personal information. Yet, none of this data is tagged personally, due to new data regulations. The closest thing there is to something of the sort is occupancy counts for rooms.

I understand this is a legal issue, but I don't even know where to start with it. Shouldn't the data be usable by another section at the same institute?

Any advice is useful, thanks.

Shouldn't the data be usable by another section at the same institute?

Not automatically, without review.

There are at least two issues. One is that all databases that might have privacy implications should be on a need-to-know basis. Moving around an organization can change what you need to know.

Second, combinations of databases can reveal information that is not stored directly in any of them. An apparently harmless database can help link other data. Letting people keep their old access as they move from section to section increases the risk of someone having a combination of access that has not been properly reviewed.

There is presumably some procedure in your organization for requesting data access. If you still need to access some or all of the data from your old section, use that procedure. If there is no suitable procedure, write up what you need to access and why you need it, and discuss the matter with your supervisor.


Can I cite email communication in my thesis/paper? In e-mail correspondence, the author of an competing paper has admitted a shortcoming of their method, roughly: "Yes, our method X does not work when used with Y." This is not obvious from their paper and is quite a big point from my perspective.

Can I cite this e-mail correspondence in my master thesis/paper (is there a difference?) and use as motivation for my work? Is this impolite?
If I just say, X does not work with Y without citation, I feel reviewers will not believe me/say I did not apply the method accordingly.

The exact manner of how you should cite the communication may vary from style to style (often the date is included), but it's entirely reasonable to cite such a communication in a paper or thesis. Typically this is referred to as a Personal Communication. Obviously, wherever possible, you should look for information in published sources, but where this is not possible citing such a personal communication will suffice.

From memory, I think there might be one in my own thesis. A specific detail of an experimental method used in a published article was not discussed, but I thought it relevant to my argument so I contacted the author to get the information I needed.

Edit: Typically personal communications should not be included in the reference list as they are not evidence that can be readily recovered by anybody reading your work. This is made explicit in several prominent styles (e.g., Harvard, Chicago, APA).


Pros and Cons of assigning homework for large classes In small classes (with <50 students) I have mostly had positive experience for assigning homework. The homework allows the students to better learn the concepts and to better prepare for the exams. Usually, the score of my homework has been 10% of the total grade. Usually the homework are graded by a teaching assistant.

What are the pros and cons of assigning the homework for large classes?

What are the effective methods for assigning homework for such classes?

(If the subject matters, I means a calculus class of about 200 students).

Given that your job is teaching, not just lecturing and grading, I don't see any cons. If the students don't practice, they won't learn. People learn through practice and repetition, not from hearing lectures and taking exams, cramming from notes and a book.

Learning something involves physically rewiring the brain. The neurons get new connections (synapses) that need to be reinforced. See The Art of Changing the Brain by James E Zull for the science behind this.

Sadly enough, students don't really know how to learn in too many cases, nor do they have the time or discipline to do what is not required of them. So you need to give them meaningful practice as well as a goad to get them to do it. I think, actually, you would be more effective if the percentage of the grade for homework was much higher than 10%.

If you have adequate support (TAs) then there should be little reason not to have such graded homework with comments not just numbers on them.

If students get a lot of practice they will actually remember things and be able to put it to work later. Otherwise it is as fleeting as the end of the course.

Even if it is impossible to grade all the work you give them, give them the assignments anyway. While it doesn't solve the goad problem, it at least gives guidance those with a bit of discipline. Even if you permit them to work together on homework or to grade each other's work, it is better than expecting them to learn without practice, practice, practice.


Can I ask for payment if my employer wants to use my dissertation? I completed my PhD research as an industry based researcher. My employer was fully aware of my research. There was no support given by the employer other than encouragement. However, I used the company information which I had access to as part of my role. My employer had no objection and I was extremely careful of the disclosure I made.

I have now completed my PhD and graduated. My  dissertation is publicly available on my university website. A google search can bring it up too.

QUESTION: If my employer wants to use my dissertation, would it be ethical for me to ask for a payment?

EDIT: To clarify some comments below, my company wants to use my dissertation as part of an advocacy campaign.

I think your question is best rephrased as follows:

  If someone wants to use my dissertation, would it be ethical for me to ask for a payment?

Assuming you are asking about using the intellectual content of your dissertation, the answer is NO.  Whether or not that someone is your employer is irrelevant.

However, your actual presentation is protected by copyright, which for dissertations is normally completely held by the author.  So if someone wanted to use your specific words and/or figures beyond the limits of fair use, then you have the right to seek compensation.


Scientific research paper – how broad should the introduction be? My research answered a very specific question. But the hypothesis I was testing will also likely have very broad application. I want to make sure to convey that importance in my paper. Is the first line of the introduction an acceptable place to do that?

I am thinking the first line of the introduction might be something like:

  For decades our knowledge of myTopic has been insufficient to answer questions like A, B, and C. I considered scenario C₁ to test my hypothesis, which now shown to be correct in this case, will likely play a key role in answering these other questions going forward. Some background on scenario C₁ is...

Or should the introduction only mention background info which is directly relevant to the scenario I actually investigated? And then I can suggest the larger importance of this discovery elsewhere in the paper?

The answer to your question entirely depends on your field and the venue to which you will submit your paper. Software Engineering papers, for example, tend to have much longer and broader introductions than Math papers. Papers at smaller and more focused conferences and journals have shorter and more focused introductions that those at broad venues, since they address a more specific readership.


Potential supervisor replied but did not explicitly say if he is ready to supervise I sent an email to a potential supervisor for PhD in Computer Science with a concise introduction, research I am exploring and a brief about how one of his publication is relevant to my research. Put in some good question around it as well. Then I asked if he is willing to take PhD candidates in his lab.

I received a response within half an hour of sending the mail. Though the content is a bit ambiguous. It says, "Thanks. There is just one position available in a particular stream. So please go ahead and apply."

How do I interpret it? Does this mean he is ready to supervise? He didn't put in any response to my question though. How do I reply to him further as I'll have to mention in the application if the supervisor is ready to take me in.

I think the suggestion in the comments is reasonable, but for the sake of providing an answer in the answer section, I will present an alternative.

Yes, list him on the application. What's the worst that can happen?

If he will supervise you, then there is no issue.
If he does not want to supervise you, he cannot raise a stink without looking like an idiot, since he wrote "please go ahead and apply."

I think the most pertinent take-away from his message is that there is only one opening in the stream. My guess is that he is planning to supervise whoever gets that spot (it sounds like that spot will be pretty competitive, so whoever gets it is likely to be pretty good).


Semi-solicited motivation letter for professorship I would like to be promoted to a full professor (who wouldn't?!). I have a competitive track record, publication index, and, above all, demonstrated capacity to bring in Big Money. I know my little department will soon recruit for a professorship. Plus, the Dean himself, over drinks at a faculty meeting, invited me to motivate my candidature, when I semi-jokingly suggested that I should be promoted. Keep in mind I'm now only Asst. Prof.

So, let's say I want to motivate my professorship. I figure the best way to do is to write a report in which I succinctly outline my most important accomplishments.

My question for you is: Is there any precedent for such a document like the one I describe in the previous paragraph? Even in other university systems. I'd like to emulate an official format to make this look serious.

(My answer assumes that you are in the US, or another country with a similar tenure system.)

Summary: Ask your local experts.

Every reputable university should have written documentation of the policies, procedures, and standards for tenure-track faculty promotions. Here are the procedures for my university. Read yours. Today. Now.  Really, you should have read it before you accepted your current position.  These are the policies that explain what "tenure" and "full professor" means at your institution.

A standard component of most tenure/promotion processes is that the candidate submits statements summarizing their most important accomplishments, ongoing efforts, and future plans in research, teaching, and service.  The purpose of these statements is to answer the question "Why do you deserve this promotion?"  These statements are almost certainly what your dean meant by "motivating your candidature". The specific format and contents of these statements depend on your university's promotion expectations/standards/practices/priorities, which is why you must read those policies before you even think about applying for (or even working toward) a promotion.  In particular, research-intensive schools have different (not "higher" or "lower") expectations from more teaching-focused schools.

Another standard component is an evaluation of your tenure/promotion case by members of your promotions and tenure ("P&T") committee, which is almost certainly composed of senior faculty in your department, or larger unit if your department is small.  The purpose of their evaluation is to answer the question "Why does your colleague deserve this promotion?"  You should already know what they're going to write, because you've already discussed your case in detail with at least one senior faculty member who serves (or has served) on the P&T committee.  (If you don't already have a senior faculty mentor, march into your department chair's office today and demand one.)  Your faculty mentor knows the unwritten priorities/standards/politics that the committee will apply, and so they can effectively help you craft your pitch.

Another standard component is a letter from your department chair to the dean (or whatever titles your boss and their boss have), summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of your case and the deliberations of the P&T committee.  The purpose of this summary is to answer the question "Why does your faculty member deserve this promotion?" Aside from snippets from your recommendation letters (which haven't been written yet), you should already know what this letter will say, because you've already discussed your case in detail with your department chair. In fact, you've already had at least one discussion every year with your department chair about your evolving career and your progress toward a strong tenure/promotion case (if you have not had such a discussion with your chair, walk into their office today and demand one).  Your department chair knows the unwritten priorities/standards/politics that your upper administration will apply, and so they can effectively help you craft your pitch.

In particular, your university's promotion policies, your faculty mentor(s), and your department chair can tell you the expectations for a direct promotion from assistant professor to full professor. Such a promotion would be completely unheard of at my university---not impossible in principle, but never actually done in practice---but may be more acceptable at yours.

If your department chair and other senior faculty are not willing to have regular frank discussions about your potential for promotion, polish your CV and look for another job. At a rank commensurate with your accomplishments, of course.


Is it appropriate to apply for the same job twice if it's re-advertised? Last month, I saw a job offer and applied for it. I did not hear back from them, but it is not uncommon to wait for 1-2 months before hearing back (especially with the COVID-19 situation).  The deadline for applications closed on 17 Sept (offer was only open 1 week).  Today, I just saw the exact same job (same reference number, job description, location, etc.) advertised again.
I assume that they did not consider any of the initial applicants suitable. My question is, should I apply again? I have read advice elsewhere (e.g. here) to apply again, maybe after modifying your CV and cover letter.
Please note that I am well qualified for the position (qualifications and academia experience) and did not receive any rejection letter from the first offer (otherwise I wouldn't bother re-applying). The fact they are re-advertising suggests they are (more) desperate to find someone to fulfil that role, and might be more receptive.
Note there are some similar questions on this site (e.g. here) but not quite the same situation.  This question is specifically about seeing a job offer that has closed, and the same job being re-advertised.

Give them a call. Only they know if/why they rejected you the first time or simply didn't get to your application.
It might be good to consider the channels through which you've seen the application both times. If the first time was through the institute's official website, and the second time through a third party source, it may be that the third party didn't know the job ad was filled.


Can a professor take a full-time 12 months industry job (get fully paid) while on one-year sabbatical? Assuming the home university only pays 1/2 of 9-months salary in the period of one-year sabbatical.

Can it be legally allowed? or does it violate any rules in general? What would be the worst consequence if doing so?

Thanks.

The only legal rules that are likely to apply here are the contractual rules for the terms of the professor's employment with the university, combined with the university's policy/contract relating to sabbaticals.  Whether or not this is allowed would depend on the terms of the sabbatical, as set out in the appropriate university policies and employment contract.


Reviewer asked to move every mathematical proof to appendices for an engineering journal I do research in an engineering subject and my journal reviewer has asked me to push every mathematical proof to the appendix to improve the readability. While I feel this is true, I also think that some of the proofs can be retained, as they are short and not so much mathematical. What is your opinion regarding this?

Right now, I have written this

  We thank you for your helpful comment. We have moved all the proofs
  and the lemmas, which even if removed do not directly affect the
  continuity of reading  and is long, to the appendices. Proofs which
  are not much mathematical in nature and are short are still kept.

Somehow I feel my language is a bit rude. Do you have a better way of putting it? Or should I just move every proof to the appendix? (The journal is almost accepted with only few minor revisions like this)

In all cases I have been involved, together with the revised manuscript a response letter to the editor is submitted, re-iterating the specific comments/issues of the reviewers and explaining the changes made in the manuscript to address these issues.

What you are describing is typically one of those things that can be explained in the response letter. You can formulate a nice response where you can explain to the editor (who essentially has the last word on whether or not the manuscript will be accepted) that ...

"while we believe that moving some of the mathematical formulas and derivations to the supplementary will improve the readability and flow article, some are indeed essential in order to give the reader a fair chance to understand the assumptions/model/results/..."

There are two major benefits of addressing the situation in this way:

You show that you do not disagree with the reviewer(s). People tend not to complain much when you agree with them.
You show the editor that you take the matter seriously, have put effort into amending the manuscript in order to improve the situation and also put thought into making the paper easier for the reader, while not losing the important bits.

I would discourage you to use formulations where you decide what does and does not count as long, or what does and does not impair readability. I say this mainly because you are not in an objective position to judge these things. You have written the manuscript and to you, at the time of submission, the manuscript (hopefully) is informative and has a good flow. You have been working on the project for months, maybe even years. At the time you pick it up, you have all the necessary background to understand the paper. The reader is far away from that position.

Instead consider picking out things that you feel are absolutely critical, in order to understand the essential bits of the work; that is the motivation, the goals, and the conclusions. Everything else could go into the supplementary...

Lastly, does the journal not have any information on how to handle mathematical calculations/proofs etc, on their guidelines for authors?

Likewise, if you have co-authors what do they think? Your supervisor has some opinions on the matter surely?


How do I find call for papers for special issues? I found that announcements of special issues for many journals are quite hidden. Often the calls are not even visible on the journal's homepage.
What is the best way to find call for papers for special issues?

I hope the rejection rates are lower there, but I've also heard that special issues are sometimes for friends of the editor to get their stuff published.

Subscribe to different publishers' mailing list specifying you'd like to receive call for papers in your field, and chances are the publishers will be more than happy to send them to you when they come. That's likely to be more efficient than trawling the target journals' website every day looking for call for papers.


In a research group, is it better to have few post-docs and many PhD students, or viceversa? I work in computer science, and am wondering what is the right balance between PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in a lab.

In the previous research group I was, there were one principal investigator professor, one researcher (~ assistant professor), zero post-doctoral fellows, and nine PhD students.
In my current research group, there is one principal investigator professor, one post-doctoral fellow, twelve PhD students, and no researchers.

I recently visited a research group in a university where, surprisingly, there are one principal investigator professor, ten post-doctoral fellows and two PhD students.

What do you think is the best ratio between the number of PhD students and the number of post-docs in a research group? Why?

Would you prefer to spend your funding for having more PhD students or more post-docs? Why?

That's an interesting question. In all of the following, I am assuming computer science here, other fields may have completely different dynamics:

  What do you think is the best ratio between the number of PhD students and the number of post-docs in a research group? Why?

PhD students and postdocs fill fundamentally different roles in an university. PhD students are the heart and most important part of a research group. They are where the actual science happens (everybody else is just too busy most of the time). The role of postdocs can vary between "more senior PhD student" to "assistant professor with bad job title", though in most larger research groups it tends to be more the latter than the former. As such, the most common task of postdocs seems to be to take over the day-to-day advising of PhD students from a busy professor. I would say the optimal "formula" for such postdocs is roughly (number of PhD students / 3) - number of professors. The idea being that, as long as the research group is still small, no postdocs are actually needed. In a larger group, you need roughly one postdoc to help about 3 PhD students, minus the few people that the faculty can / wants to actually supervise themselves. In reality, though, the real ratio fluctuates widely based on available funding, people finishing, postdocs moving on, etc.

Let's go over your examples:

  one principal investigator professor, one researcher (~ assistant professor), zero post-doctoral fellows, and nine PhD students.

That seems a bit borderline in terms of PhD students per advisor / senior person, but probably still ok.

  one principal investigator professor, one post-doctoral fellow, twelve PhD students, and no researchers.

6 PhD students per senior person seems already tough to provide good guidance, especially as the professor certainly will have lots of other things to do as well.

  I recently visited a research group in a university where, surprisingly, there are one principal investigator professor, ten post-doctoral fellows and two PhD students.

I guess this is a group where the postdocs are more in the "glorified PhD student" mode. I am not a fan of this model. If the responsible person thinks that 10 postdocs are more productive than 10 PhD students, I think they are sadly mistaken. Or paraphrased from Jorge Cham "as a postdoc you can finally spend all your time on what your PhD training has prepared you to do - applying for faculty positions" (source).


Are there any citation managers that track author-specific affiliations? I'm looking to clean up our citation database and would like to be able to record the institutions that authors are affiliated, especially in cases where a publication is reporting on a collaboration beyond a single lab or institution. However as far as I can tell, Zotero, Mendeley and Papers (Mac) don't support the ability to associate each author with a particular university or institution. Does anyone know of any citation or bibliography management software that enables this level of detail in capturing citations?

Depending on how you define citation or bibliography management software, you can get part of the way there in the LaTeX world. The biblatex package in conjunction with the biber program supports data annotations. With biblatex/biber the database files can be in a variety of formats, but the most common is probably a bibtex .bib file (yeah the LaTeX world is confusing). Assuming a .bib file, for each entry you would add a field author+an with a value similar to 1=University A; 2=University B; ...; N=University N to denote the affiliation of each author (I think it can even support a list of affiliations for each author). With biblatex and biber you can store the author specific affiliations in the data base and get access to them when citing, but this is only part of the way there.

I am not aware of a nice graphical front end for managing bib files that directly supports data field annotations. The database is a plain text file, so maybe a text editor counts ...

I am also not aware of any biblatex styles that utilize data annotations, so you would have to roll your own. While updating a style to print the annotations is relatively easy, at the user level you are pretty limited. J Doe at University A and J Doe at University B are going to be treated as the same person. There is no user level support for sorting based on author name and then affiliation (or even affiliation of the first author).


Is it appropriate to give a gift to a teaching assistant for helping outside of work time? I am thinking of buying a small gift, like coffee, for a teaching assistant, who helped me solve problems in a particular subject, even outside of work time, to thank for the effort.
Is this appropriate or even allowed?

I would consider that, in many cases, helping students "outside of work time" is often still under the normal job description of a teaching assistant. However, since you are asking the question, I am going to assume that your TA went above and beyond their normal calling. Even in that case, a gift might make someone uncomfortable, and should certainly never be given before grades are final.

Other options that might achieve what you want without making anyone uncomfortable and that might have greater impact with no more effort from you than a gift could include:

Nomination for a teaching award. Many institutions have some formal mechanism for recognizing great teaching assistants; even a nomination could be something that TA could use in the future on a job application.
Letting the professor know how helpful your TA was. Professors don't see all aspects of their TA's work. Knowing that a particular TA was helpful to the students might help that TA get a future position, or is material that can be included a letter of recommendation. You could also ask the professor if there is anyone else in the department where you can send compliments for a particular TA.

There is also nothing wrong with thanking your TA directly and making it clear their time was appreciated - no need to go overboard, just a simple email is sufficient.


What's the point in specifying the grant number in a paper's acknowledgments? I understand why people mention the grant agency, but what's the point in specifying the grant number in a paper's acknowledgments?

Examples:

  The authors acknowledge
  the support of the U.S. Army Research Office under
  grant number W911NF-10-1-0533

  This work was supported
  by the National Key Basic Research Program of
  China via grant 2014CB340503

I am mostly interested in the field of computer science > machine learning, and English-speaking venues.

The agencies that provide this funding often require such acknowledgement. NSF does. The format, more or less, is up to the agency. I don't know why they do it, but I believe they want readers to be able to find the programs that fund the work so that other potential applicant can find future versions of the program and possibly apply.

Edit: Look at Part J of NSF's grants guide for their format


What happens if your research doesn't get published? In research work, I'm guessing that the primary product you want to create is some sort of publication. But what happens if you don't get you published? Does that mean the research you did is invalid / you can't reference what you learned in any future work?

For example:
Let's say someone gets a grant to research a question. The research is good/accurate, but for whatever reason, they can't get it published or they run out of funding. On the other hand, they get a different grant to do similar research where research from the first project would be useful. Only thing is, it isn't published. Can they still reference it in their new work? I guess another way to ask it is: Is publication the only way researchers can validate their work?

I currently work in development, but I'm interested in how research-heavy projects work. So sorry if this is a simple question.

In academia it's true that by "publication" people often mean "peer-reviewed publication", that is a publication which has been checked and validated by other researchers and consequently accepted in a more or less reputable journal or conference (see below for the "more or less"). Peer-reviewed publications are the only ones which matter in terms of academic career and in any kind of academic evaluation.

However there are plenty of other options to publish: pre-prints, technical reports, books or even simply putting a document on a webpage, all of these are valid publications which can be cited, even if they are not peer-reviewed. Of course they wouldn't be considered as valuable publications in the academic world (unless they get cited a lot, but that's not common), and for good reasons: non-peer reviewed publications can be full of mistakes or claim that the Earth is flat, since by definition they haven't been evaluated by the expert community. Anyway, this implies that it's virtually impossible to be unable to publish a research work because it gets rejected.

Even if we assume that the author wants to publish only in peer-reviewed journals/conferences, they would still have a lot of options to choose from and it's unlikely that they can't get accepted anywhere: in every field there are venues which are known to be very reputable and consequently very selective, but there is also a spectrum of journals/conferences which range from "very competitive" to "desperate to receive submissions". Of course publishing in a bottom tier venue is not going to boost an author's track record, but at least it's reasonably easy.

Finally, even in decently reputable journals/conferences, any serious research work can always be accepted... eventually. It might take a very long time, but if the methodology is correct, the state of art is properly covered, the motivation for the work is demonstrated, etc., in short if there is a real scientific contribution then it's very unlikely that the work would be rejected everywhere. Even in the case of negative results, e.g. the author attempted a new method and it failed, there is a legitimate contribution: provided it wasn't already done and the method makes sense (that's part of the scientific ground work), it's useful for the community to know that this method doesn't work. Additionally every rejection comes with reviews which explain why the paper is rejected, and normally addressing the shortcomings identified by the reviewers makes the paper more likely to be accepted next time.

  "Is publication the only way researchers can validate their work?"

Not necessarily but the other ways I can think of are more specific to the field. For instance in computer science developing a software system which turns out to be successful in the scientific community or even beyond would actually prove the value of the work and certainly contribute to the author's reputation.


How to reference sources when I only took the ideas? I am writing my essay where I analyze how different text search algorithms work and compare their efficiency in specific situations.

I did not actually take even a sentence from where I have read about the algorithms, everything is written by myself, how I understood it, but of course I did not invent those algorithms, and I want (and I think this is a compulsory) to actually refer to those sources, but how do I do it? Should I simply create a footnote even though my essay does not contain any sentence from that source? My essay is going to be passed to some plagiarism checker, therefore, I do not want any problems with "fake footnotes just to make my essay look stronger" or something like that. We use ISO 690 citing style.

You should make it clear in the text who invented the algorithms, and cite next to the names, usually. Write something like:

  The XYZ search algorithm [1], works by...

  Foo et al. [2] propose an algorithm which...


What to do when finding difficulty in resuming study? Suppose, I completed two semesters and left a university two years ago. I want to resume my study again.

I e-mailed a specific guy in the faculty/department/institute. I need a readmission paper from that guy to resume my and he never responds to my e-mail let alone other guys who are in the upper part of the pyramid. My time is running out very fast.

What is the best thing I can do in this situation to get things done amicably?

Invoking Occam's razor here, the likelihood that someone is out to get you personally is probably lower than the likelihood that someone is just being lazy and/or slow to respond to email. Before lawyering up—a serious escalation—consider calling on the phone or even visiting the administrative office to see what's up. (I didn't get from your post as to whether you're in country or not.)

Regarding your comment about you having left the country—"absent but failed to let the office know"—that may be a serious offense on your part. If you studentship was terminated there's a good chance that you violated one of the policies of the university with your unreported leave and they terminated you for that. Email is easy to ignore; use other methods of communication to get in touch and verify what happened.

Lastly, make sure that someone is checking your mail at your registered place of residence in the country in question. If you're out of the country, they may have been trying to get in touch with you but you aren't aware of it.


Passive discouragement and less supportive senior colleagues: What should I do? I am a budding scientist (27 years old, Doctoral candidate) and a lecturer at a university. In the early stage of my career, I have achieved some significant milestones in my field. However, sometimes I experience that my senior colleagues at the university where I work as a lecturer aren't supportive of my ideas: regardless how 'brilliant' they are, they tend to not listen and discredit when I share ideas. Instead, they tend to be more interested in other older colleagues that share the same ideas as mine.
There are times that when I publish my work and share it with them; instead of discussing it, they will ignore it and as if it didn't exist. It's quite difficult to deal with and sometimes I feel discouraged, even though I know I shouldn't, but there are times when it really consumes you.

You may be reading too much into their behavior. It is normal for academics to be interested in their own stuff and whatever supports it directly and uninterested in everything else. There may also be the effect that some of them have a long history of trust with others, but not yet with you. Hopefully this will change over time, and, in any case, if you stick around long enough then they will disappear and you will be the "older colleague".

But, under the circumstances, you seem to be doing the right thing: publishing your work. You can also seek the positive feedback you'd like to have outside your own institution, by attending conferences and expanding your circle of contacts.

But maybe they are just jerks. Don't let them wear you down. Finish your degree and look for employment at a more collegial place.


Is it plagiarism to copy the form and structure of an article? As an undergraduate student, I wrote a science paper. Because I was learning to write, I used the form and structure of a paper on a completely different topic; in fact, it was a slightly different discipline all together. So my paper has a similar layout, transitions, and structure as said paper, though the information, content, subject matter, and topic are different.

Is this plagiarism? I later contacted the original author, upon discovering the similarities, and he said that it was okay, that he learned the form from others, and that I should go on with life.

You've done nothing wrong; most manuscripts follow the same structure.

Consider the following recommendations for structure: (1) Introduction, (2) Materials and Methods, (3) Results, and (4) Discussion. Would it be wrong to adopt that structure? No. It's a very common style and is widely adopted.

The OP added:

  It's not just the [structure] that I followed, but the language - i.e. transition words.

Transition words, e.g., https://msu.edu/~jdowell/135/transw.html, are standard, so they shouldn't create an issue.

  The order of the introduction is the same, for example.

That's just a different form of structural issue, hence, this isn't a problem.

  I said why the world needs the paper in a similar language even though there was two totally different topics and subject matters.

Such a style is advocated by many, e.g., Simon Peyton Jones, so that shouldn't create an issue.

Note: Without seeing the texts, we cannot comment on specific issues.


Mental health problems affecting performance in coursework. Who (advisor, professors) should I talk to, and how? I'm a U.S. student studying abroad in Canada and also an undergraduate student. I believe my question could apply to graduate students in the same situation, i.e. someone who has not had prior mental health issues and who is unaware how to move forward.

Recently, starting a little before this Fall semester, I've been struggling with most tell-tale signs of depression (no motivation, constantly sleeping, gaining weight, etc). I live with my girlfriend off-campus, and she also struggles with mental health issues. I have been struggling to find motivation to work as hard as I was in the beginning of the semester. I was originally taking a 5 course load, but had to drop one course due to not meeting the prerequisite (I was wrongly advised, but take responsibility for not confirming and sitting down with someone before registering in the course).

Of my remaining 4 courses, only one have I truly excelled in all semester (due to the fact that I have worked with with the content of the course before extensively, and it came naturally to me).

I started out well in my other 3 courses (and have also completed all labs and assignments) but have gone downhill, to the point where I am worried I could possibly fail the courses if I don't do well enough on the exams (very bad second midterm results).

I haven't spoke to anyone professionally, nor any advisor at the University about this issue. I feel like if I do not email or meet with my professors soon and explain, they won't take me seriously after the fact my grade has been posted. I wrote one exam the other day and will write the others soon.

What is the best course of action for me to take? Should I email my professors, or meet with them? Should I try to talk to an advisor first? I have read this question but I feel like I'm on a much more limited time table, and of course this is entirely my fault for not taking action sooner.  Does anyone have any suggestions on what the correct steps to take are?

Get professional treatment.

That's step one. The rest is details to worry about later.

I actually don't know the answer to the rest of your questions although I am positive seeing a professional sooner than later is going to make everything go better.


Etiquette of wearing the wrong academic robes at graduation as a lecturer in the UK I have graduated three times from UK universities. First was a bachelors' degree, then a Masters' degree, then a PhD. The graduation robes associated with my PhD graduation are absolutely horrible. I am now a lecturer in a UK university and if I attend graduation ceremonies at this University (or others, I suppose), I am supposed to wear the academic robes from my highest degree, i.e. the horrible PhD ones.

So my question is this, is it considered acceptable to wear the robes from my 'lower' degrees at such occasions, or even the equivalent PhD robes from the university I now work at (much nicer!)?

Basically, can I get away with wearing the wrong robes to graduation ceremonies?

In the United States, there are typically two acceptable pieces of regalia to wear: either your university-specific regalia or a "generic Ph.D." regalia that is just simple black robes plus your doctoral hood.  It would seem rather gauche to me to wear non-Ph.D. regalia or to wear the regalia of a school that is not your alma mater, even if that is where your post is.  I don't know if "generic Ph.D." regalia is also accepted in the UK, where many universities have a much longer and more formal set of traditions than in the US, but I would recommend that you look into that as a possibility.


How to cite a newspaper article with no author in APA style using MS Word? I have cited a news story appeared in a newspaper with no author in APA style using MS Word 2013, but I don't know if I have done it in the right way. I classified it as "Article in a Periodical", but the outcome is different from the one I get from this web service (https://www.citethisforme.com/). Can I help me in this case?

MS Word version:

In-text: (Zarif: We’ve never claimed nuclear deal only favors Iran, 2015, p. 1)

In Bibliography: Zarif: We’ve never claimed nuclear deal only favors Iran. (2015, July 22). Tehran TImes(12321), p. 1.

Cite This For Me" version:

In-text: (Tehran Times, 2015)

In Bibliography: Tehran Times,. (2015). Zarif: We’ve never claimed nuclear deal only favors Iran, p. 1.

I feel that MS Word's version is correct, but its in-text citation seems awkward to me.

First, I must always advise that you speak to your professor and/or your university librarian as to what the accepted form would be at your University. Both as professors and Universities can vary slightly on the specifics of APA rules and due to the fact that what they say will be accepted. As far as APA 6th is concerned

  Title of article. (Year, month day). Title of publication, p. [or pp.]

So:

  Zarif: We’ve never claimed nuclear deal only favors Iran. (2015, July 22). Tehran Times, p. 1.

would be the correct Biblio (provided one correctly indents it).

While In-text

  "First few words of the title", year, p. [or pp.]

So: ("Zarif: We've never claimed", 2015, p.1)

As confirmed at the University of Melborune, EasyBib, and APAstyle.org

One of those variance, by college and professor, is in-text citations and the use of page numbers. As some schools only require one to cite page numbers on direct quotes while others requires one to add page numbers in all instances

Another variance is with online articles, as online articles may not reference a page number (depends on format) but use the paragraph number or section title in the citation. Further, you would include a "Retrieved from full url here" at the end. (pp.171-172, APA Manual, 6th ed.)


Is it possible to use my partially published previous work as a bachelor thesis? Some time ago I put up a question on the SE network. I ended up writing an extensive answer myself and published it in the same question and on my blog. Later, I put a lot more thought into the topic and found additional results, which I did not publish yet.

I have since considered if that question might be usable as a topic for a bachelor thesis.

Disregarding the fact that I would need to convince a professor to accept an existing topic, does the publication of the question and some results in the past prevent this?

Posting on SE or on your blog does not count as publishing in the traditional sense (the work has not yet appeared in a scientific journal or conference proceedings). This means that it is unlikely to be a problem. Just make sure you discuss it with your potential supervisor.