Received an email from potential advisor and my name was wrong. should I correct him? A few months back I contacted a potential advisor I am interested in doing my PhD with and he replied that he is considering my application and will be back in contact with me.

Today, I received another email from him basically saying:

  Dear [My Correct Name],

  Are you still interested in doing PhD with me? If so, I will interview
  you.

I wrote back that I am still interested and gave him my contact information.

He replied:

  Dear [Completely wrong name/ probably another applicant],

  Thanks. I will come back to you later.

Should I send an email correcting him or just forget it?

In case the email was actually intended for the other person, it would be courteous to reply, saying that you got an email from him that you think may have been meant for someone else.


Community College or extension programs as a way of preparing for a Masters in Mathematics I wanted to get some directions on how to prepare for a MS Degree in Mathematics.

Background:

I'm interested in getting a Ph.D in Statistical Learning or related area in 5-6 years.
I took some courses in Mathematical Statistics and I struggled because I do not have recent coursework in Analysis, Measure theory, etc.
I studied electrical engineering with a very heavy mathematical component from a very decent University 20 years ago however, it is amazing how much I've forgotten.
I've always been fascinated by mathematics and I'm very tempted to build a solid foundation before partaking in doctoral study.
I am working at the moment - my job is flexible and I'm saving to take off a year or two for the final years of my doctoral work.
I have a couple of graduate degrees in the area of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence

Plan:

I'd like to build up to where I was 20 years ago: calculus, linear algebra, diff equations, calculus of complex variables, frequency domain analysis.
I'd also like to take courses that are typically reserved for math majors like proofs, analysis, group theory, algebra, etc.

I think the best way to accomplish the plan would be a decent community college or extension program like (UC Berkeley extension) that offers online classes -- any recommendation?

I fear that not so many community colleges would offer the upper-division courses a math-major sort of person would want, especially to aim toward graduate school in mathematics. Further, you'd be needing letters of recommendation for grad school, and community colleges would not generate letters that would help you, since the letter writers (by far most often) would not be familiar with grad school from the side of mentoring and supervising grad students (even if they themselves did have a Ph.D.).

It is true that community colleges are usually much cheaper than "universities", but the coursework, context for coursework, and outlook of faculty teaching the upper-division courses you need, and their letters on your behalf, are things that you can't avoid but need.


Email affiliation for an undergraduate student with a complex university address Imagine I'm doing research on my own, and studying at a university. I publish this research, get accepted, and now I have to provide my affiliation. I have no problems of course using my university and the department I'm studying for, and in fact, I want to. However, I've read (on this site) that using my personal @gmail.com email looks unprofessional even if you provide the university as affiliation. I have a student email but looks quite awful like: lmatteis.123112311@studenti.uniroma1.it - where the number is my student code number.

Is that ugly email better than a personal @gmail.com email?

Another option would be that I go talk to a professor, show that the paper got accepted and ask them whether they can give me a quick affiliation; provide me with the email... but then I'd probably need to add the professor as a co-author as well, which I guess is also fine? This option would however take much longer. But maybe a good way to build connections with professors in the department.

Thoughts?

EDIT

The question that appears linked is a different question. It talks about "rotting emails" and the possibility of using your personal email to avoid that. My question is regarding what email I should provide for a research that I want my university to be affiliated with, although I haven't been officially given any email by the university (apart from my student email).

Use your university address, even if it is weird and complicated.  Nobody will hold an official bureaucratic policy of your university against you.

You may, however, wish to see if your university supports email aliases.  Many universities have an official "full" email address, but also a shorter and easier version.  Others allow you to activate your alumni account even while still a student, and you might then use that alternate (and persistent!) address.

Separately: do not hide your paper from your professor.  Assuming your professor is basically ethical, then either a) your professor should be an author and will explain why you should add them, or b) your professor should not be an author, in which case they'll celebrate you without asking to be added.


Preparing two PhD simultaneously? I was enrolled in a PhD at the Faculty of Science, and broke up "temporarily" after 4 years due to a horrible Professor, and restarted a new PhD at the Faculty of Engineering.

For the 1st university, I am still enrolled, but I do not have a formal PhD supervisor.

For the 2nd University, I have collected a huge amount of data which allows me to split the topic in two separated ones (Processing and Characterization).

Now the horrible professor has gone from the 1st university, and there is chance to get re-enrolled with a new Professor.

Would that be possible to re-enroll simultaneously in two PhD programs (Science and Engineering) and write two separate dissertations of my topic at the same time? or at least one main PhD and the 2nd one as "appended thesis" with an introduction chapter, methodology chapter + publications for the experimental part?.

The goal is to recover the 4 years of gap in my CV which has nearly destroyed my Academic career, rather than "collecting" a new title.

I doubt that it is possible. Getting a PhD is a full time job, and your CV will raise a lot more eyebrows if people see that you were doing two PhD at the same time rather than a 4-year gap.

A 4-year gap on your CV has not "destroyed your academic career". If you manage to complete your PhD, everything will probably be fine. Most "clocks" (e.g. "you can apply for this grant only if your PhD is less than X years old", "you can be a postdoc only if…" are based on when you completed your PhD, not your own age. I've known people who defended very old compared to the norm and they became established professors. Be prepared to explain the gap in interviews, but don't try to hide it with tricks.


"and" in section title: "Apple and Pear" or "Apple & Pear"? In the main text of scientific papers, one should use and and avoid using &.

I wonder if it still holds true in section titles.

Is

  Apple and Pear

or

  Apple & Pear

more appropriate as a title?

Many journals specifically state what they expect, or often it can be ascertained by looking at their previous issues.


How do you manage to work on multiple research projects? Things that make multiple research projects different and single project:

Inertia that sets in once I have spent a few weeks on single one of them. The 'switching cost' seems too high to me, and it leads to not much being done first few days of switching to the other project.
Pressure of producing 'visible' results every few months to keep manager/sponsors happy.
Pressure of keeping up with literature related to multiple topics.

What can I do optimize my work productivity?

There is no easy solution to the "task switching" problem; it really is a strong function of how you work.

In my previous job, I had a rather distressingly large number of projects to work on—as many as eight or nine, depending on how you define a project—at any one time (oddly enough, my academic position requires me to work on just as many projects, but in a supervisory capacity). For me, what helped to have to "task switch" was the fact that I had to provide regular progress updates at team meetings, and meet deadlines for the project. I couldn't spend weeks on a single project, because then I'd have to scramble to meet the approaching deadlines for everything else I was working on. So deadlines and meetings where you have to talk about your progress are good ways to make sure you keep on top of things.

With respect to literature, I'd suggest setting aside some time each week for literature searches and literature reviews. I'd also use this as a chance to "switch gears" for a bit—use this time to keep up to date on the project that isn't taking up the majority of your time.

Finally, if you're going to put away a project for several weeks or more, then you should definitely keep good records before switching your focus. Make sure you leave yourself a note of what you just finished working on, where you left things off, and what you think the next steps for the project should be after you return to it. That way, you're not figuring out where you left off—you've told yourself how to get yourself back on track.


Does anybody have some research papers writing advices? I am writing a biology research paper. My topic is related to organs transplantation (current issues, ethical problems etc). I have written a draft and showed it to my professor. She was satisfied with the content and research, but she told that I need to work on my writing. According to her, I didn't follow the structure, but I have no idea how am I supposed to build my research paper. Can somebody give me suggestions or recommend me articles about research paper writing?

Each writer has their own style and many of the things that pass for good writing for some, are bad writing for some others. But, if you are in a certain research field, the scientific papers always follow some kind of template.

For example, I'm a physicist. The typical paper structure (e.g. Phys. Rev. B) is:

Introduction
Formulate hypothesis in the context of current research.
Method/Formalism
Describe your methods.
Results and Discussion
Show your results and explain them.
Conclusions
State your most important results and discuss their value in the context of current research in the field.

The way I see my ideal paper is like a mathematical proof. In the introduction I discuss what others have done and what method they used to get the results directly relevant to mine, and explain why obtaining my new result is useful for the development of my subfield of physics. In other words, this is where I formulate the problem and refer to the tools (models, methods) I'm going to use to solve it.

In the second section I briefly introduce my model and method, but I only explain in detail stuff I have done beyond the current state of the art to solve my problem. Very technical things go into the appendices or supplementary information. Stuff that is known and explained well elsewhere is cited.

The third section is where the results are reported and explained. I would probably write "I measured this and got that", but not without explaining how is that agrees or contradicts previous results. I would also highlight the novelty of the result if it's new. This section is hard to write because one often has many interesting graphs and formulas, but needs to keep only the most relevant to the conclusions that are drawn. Again, interesting stuff that further supports your hypothesis, but it's technical, or you don't have space for it here, can go in the supplementary material or appendix.

The conclusion section is the most important because you explain there how is your result new, relevant and important, how it advances the field, and what future work you suggest (without giving away more than you need to).

Most papers follow this kind of model, but each publishing venue has its own, most of the time annoying, templates and standards. If you write a paper in PhyS. Rev., you have to have in mind their template, if your paper is written for Science, you better prepare a draft using their template.

This is my answer, and I hope you get better ones. But, if you don't, check some links you can find with google:
Elsevier article, Nature article, this paper.


How to move your field away from a widely accepted practice that has a catastrophic error? My sub-field has been haunted by the fact that for slightly over fifty years the key foundation of everything we do has been in empirical dispute.  The empirical anomalies have generated tens of thousands of articles.  There are over 3800 for just one anomaly alone.

The problem came about because the key work was done before the mathematics had been settled and so assumptions replaced theorems.  I know this because the original core set of papers have a math mistake in it.  Mathematicians ultimately did learn how to solve this class of problems, but the two fields never realized that the other didn't know what the other didn't know.  I found the mistake.  It is subtle, but catastrophic.

I had assumed that writing a paper and doing a population test on the data we have would bring about change.  Turns out that was very naive.  Other than continuously presenting at conferences, what else can I do to move my field away from a technique that can be proven to be completely uncorrelated with nature?  How do you get people to stop using the accepted practice?  It isn't a secret that it doesn't work, but it has always been assumed to be close in some very loose sense of "close."  Or rather, for a long time it has been assumed to be a poor approximation and that if the one thing causing the phenomenon were found, it would be added to the existing model and all would be great.  How do you move academics when it is in the undergraduate textbooks, it is being accepted for publication, and there are seminars every year on either a new anomaly or some other factor in how it does not work?

Any strategy would be welcomed.

Two quotes immediately came to mind:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. - Max Planck
I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it. - Morpheus from The Matrix

To elicit a change of the magnitude you indicate, four aspects must be communicated clearly and unequivocally:

The existence of the error (i.e., demonstrate that the prior approach is incorrect). Other academics in the field may not recognize that there is an issue.
The history of the error (i.e., why the prior approach was used and how it has persisted for 50 years). Given its age and prevalence, other academics may understandably presume that the prior approach has been validated before and may dismiss your claims on that basis.
The implications of the error (i.e., what negative impact the prior approach has). The effect of the prior approach may not be clear or other academics may perceive it as negligible relative to the effort necessary to adopt a new approach.
The change itself (i.e., the course of action to rectify the error - the new approach). Other academics may not know what should replace the prior approach.

You should first make sure that these have been satisfied in your previous publications. Assuming this has been achieved, there is really only so much you can do (see the quotes). You obviously can't force people to change their ways. In addition to being patient, you can (where appropriate):

Continue referencing it in future papers and conference presentations.
Highlight it in peer review.
If you teach, incorporate into your courses.
Write a review article of the error in your field (one way to address #2 above).
Communicate (1-4) in relatively plain language on your academic blog (assuming you have one).
Send your paper(s) to the authors of the undergraduate textbooks with a letter explaining (1-4) and why the change should be included in the next edition.
Write your own textbook.


Why is Howard University still predominantly black? Today, I read the name “Howard University” on a list, and since I had no idea where it was, I looked it up. I was amazed from their website because, well, most people on the photos there are black!

Since I assume it does not reflect the ethnicity of the local environment (Washington DC), I went to search for an explanation. Wikipedia says it's a “historically black university”:

  established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community

So, I understand that segregation-era black universities might have a predominantly African American faculty and student body after the end of segregation, but it's now almost 50 years ago. So, what factors explain how an institution such as Howard University didn't get more ethnically/racially diverse, while multiculturalism seems an important part of academic way of life?

I just don't think HBCUs are all that unusual in terms of having a student body that's not a random demographic sample of the United States.  Brandeis has a higher than average percentage of Jewish students, Cardiff has a higher than average percentage of Welsh students, and Duke has a higher percentage of southern students.  Students pick schools in part by cultural and social match, and ethnicity plays a role there.  Furthermore, people go to schools that their family members and friends went to, and a black kid is more likely to have grown up hearing "keep up the good work and you'll get into Howard/Morehouse/Spelman" from their alumni parents and teachers while a white kid's role models are less likely to be Howard alums.  Finally, demographic shifts happen slowly: Sarah Lawrence has been coed since 1968 and it's still 3/4s female.


Can non-teaching staff write teaching recommendation letters for academic jobs? When applying for academic jobs in the US, one is often asked for a recommendation letter from someone who can attest to your teaching abilities. Suppose someone has been involved in various workshops, programs, discussion groups, etc. about pedagogy through a Center for Teaching Excellence (or a comparable office) as a graduate student or postdoc; is it acceptable for a non-teaching staff member from this center, who has facilitated such activities, to write a teaching recommendation letter for academic jobs? In particular, how are such letters perceived by hiring committees?

Edited to clarify: I was envisioning that such a letter would be in addition to a teaching letter written by a faculty member in one's department.

I would view the letter favorably if the letter writer made it clear that they had observed the candidate's teaching.

I've seen some TA training programs where the TA's are observed in the classroom and get formal evaluations by someone involved in the training program.  A letter of recommendation from such a person would be quite valuable from my point of view (and assuming that the letter was positive this would be helpful to the candidate.)

On the other hand, if the person that you're considering is just a faculty development specialist who runs workshops that you've attended and hasn't directly observed your teaching, then such a letter would be much less useful (read useless) to me.


Does Impact Factor reflect the quality of a journal? Is the impact factor really useful for judging the quality of a journal article?

No.

To answer Paul's comment:

The title of the post asks about journals.  For a well-worn list of criticisms of Impact Factor as an indicator of journal quality, see the Wikipedia article and the sources it cites.  In many disciplines, important papers receive most of their citations well outside the IF's two-year window.  Raw citation data can be manipulated by editorial policies, some more nefarious than others, or even by individual papers.  Thomson-Reuters' calculations of Impact Factor are not reproducible, even using their own citation data.  Et cetera ad nauseam.  But most importantly: Having lots of citations is not the same thing as quality.

The body of the post asks about journal articles.  Impact Factor is (roughly) the average number of citations to all papers published by a journal in a given time window.  Even if it were a reliable measure of average quality (which it isn't), it would say nothing at all about the quality of any individual paper.


What qualifies as a research publication? A simple question:

  What qualifies as a research publication?

Two criteria spring to mind:

Peer-reviewed: The article has gone through some form of formal peer-review process.
Dead-tree proceedings: The article has been published in a bound collection of thin sheets of dead tree.

In terms of exceptions to 1., many book chapters do not rely on a formal peer-review process but are generally considered as research publications and listed in author bibliographies. Similarly, some may consider arXiv, etc., as publications and counting towards h-index counts.

In terms of exceptions to 2., various workshops (esp. in CS) publish on-line through systems like CEUR or informal web-site proceedings, are peer-reviewed and contain in-depth technical material. As online publishing becomes more commonplace, criterion 2 will grow weaker and weaker.

Is there something else I'm missing?

Your criteria are close, but (at least for computer science) not quite right.

Research: the paper must describe a novel contribution to some field of inquiry.  Whether a paper makes a novel (and correct and interesting) contribution is often determined through formal peer review, but not always.  Peer review is almost always a formal requirement for a paper to "count" for purposes of formal evaluation for promotion and tenure, but not necessarily for building one's reputation as a researcher. (It's quite common for breakthrough results in theoretical compute science to be announced and discussed in blogs months before they undergo formal peer review.)
Publication: The paper must be, at least in principle, accessible to the public.  Two reasonable prerequisites are that the paper has a DOI, and that it is published either in a serial with an ISSN or in a book with an ISBN, but one could make a reasonable case that PDfs on researchers' personal web pages, blog and newsgroup posts,  and even StackExchange answers are "publications".  (Certainly there are fields, like chemistry, in which journals will not publish anything that has previously appeared on the web, on the grounds that it is "already published".)  There is absolutely no requirement that the paper be printed on dead trees to be considered "real".

In particular, I would classify most ArXiv preprints as "research publications", despite the lack of peer review and the absence of dead trees.


Ph.D. in UK/Ireland as "Dipl.-Ing." from Germany Is it feasible for an engineering student from Germany to get into a Ph.D. program in the UK/Ireland? Specifically, what should one keep in mind/try to accomplish in the last two years before finishing the "Diplom"? How would one apply?

Maybe this question can be extended to other combinations of countries, but I didn’t want it to be too broad.

In short, yes. If you're talking about the "traditional" 5 year Diplom, it's essentially equivalent to an MSc, which is what most universities require to start a PhD (although some only require a Bachelor's degree). I don't think you need to keep anything in particular in mind when finishing, apart from making sure that you get good grades for your transcript :)

The application procedure wouldn't be any different from other students, although you may have to explain in some detail what your degree is.


Theoretical paper without implementation and results I got an idea for a research paper in the field of Computer Science, the topic related was about computer networks. At the beginning, I was working with a colleague who had a lot of background in programming networks protocols, but the problem was that due to some other tasks of him he had to left the project.

Now the problem is that I do not have anybody with the programming networks skills enough to continue with this research, so I decided to turn it into a theoretical paper; like the ones that are presented in other fields like math.

I would like to know, in a bird's eye, what should I include so that my research would be considered and not rejected because it is missing the experimental part. I have based my article in theoretical parts of CS such as graph theory and so on.

Any advice?

There is an academic field called theoretical computer science (TCS), which lies at the border of math and CS.  There are lots of venues for work in this area.  However the motto for TCS is certainly not "We couldn't do the implementation, so we decided to make it theoretical"!  I am by no means an expert in TCS (I know just a little more than absolute zero), but I don't think that computer networks is a key TCS topic: it sounds more applied than that.  (I just checked this wikipedia article, which seems to largely support my position.  Obviously an expert opinion would be better here.)

My advice to you is to find someone else to help you with the implementation / experimental part so that you can carry out your research along the lines you originally envisaged and not theoretically-as-a-consolation-prize.  How can you do this?  You could (try the things at the top of the list first):

Ask people in your department.  Even if they do not have the skills themselves, there are more of them than you so the chances they know someone who does will increase.
Ask about it on the internet, including various SE sites.
Attend relevant conferences and seek out people with this expertise.
Visit another department and/or a specific person whom you think can help.
Write up a preliminary version of your work which only does the theoretical part and makes clear that you are looking for someone to help with the implementation.  Post this work on your webpage / the arxiv / some (presumably not top tier) conference.


What happens if a reviewer withdraws himself from peer review process? I submitted my manuscript to one of the journal of frontiers groups, It has been 3 months now since the submission, in the first round of the peer review process,  One reviewer gave me minor revision and the second reviewer asked me to do some extensive revision in my manuscript, I complied with the both reviewers and gave them the best answers i could,  to the questions raised by them and resubmitted revised version of my manuscript but after the first round, one reviewer endorsed my manuscript for the publication but the second reviewer withdrew himself from the peer review process and his status shows as an inactive in the interactive review forum.

I mailed the editor and ask him how the editorial staff will handle my manuscript but didn’t get any response him.

Has anyone here suffered with a similar dilemma, what usually happens in situations like these, frontiers guidelines mention that they need endorsement from 2 reviewers in order for editor to make a final decision.

What do editors do in such a situation, do they invite another reviewer?

The two main possibilities are:

Find another reviewer.
Make a decision.

If the editor is sufficiently familiar with the field to check your revision himself, then he might go for #2. Otherwise (or if the journal's policies are inflexible) you might be stuck with #1 and have to wait for another round of reviews.


How to invite potential collaborators for personal visit? No starting point for scientific collaboration is better than face-to-face conversation. Conferences are good places to meet potential collaborator, but another way is to invite them to visit your institute/group and negotiate for possible collaborations.

However, when inviting a colleague from long distance (e.g. crossing the Atlantic), it is difficult to cover the cost of the flight (particularly as it significantly varies and hard to justify its necessity). Sometimes, the visitors has better access to available fund to cover his/her trip. Of course, it is easier to cover the cost of accommodation.

How do you invite a potential collaborator to visit your institute when you cannot cover his/her flight cost? Isn't it rude to invite someone and quote you must come on your own expenses as we cannot cover it? Note that the relationship is quite formal with least personal acquaintance (no joint work yet).

With apologies, and a firm understanding that lack of funding may be a dealbreaker.

It would certainly help if you can cover part of the expenses: "If you are ever in [Country X], I hope you will also visit [my institution] and we would be happy to pay for your hotel [or else do you have a couch?] and pay for around [small number] towards your travel expenses. You are of course very welcome to make a special trip but I regret that funding is tight and we would be unable to pay your international travel expenses."

... or something like that.


PhD in Machine Learning from CS Department or from EE Department? I am from electrical engineering background and I want to do PhD in machine learning. But machine learning is a multi-disciplinary field and available in many departments. So I am bit confused that from which department I should pursue PhD and what is the difference in PhD programs in different departments. Should I pursue PhD in machine learning in computer science department or from electrical departments. Thanks.

It's not about the department.  Choose an adviser that is good in machine learning (ML).  He/she might be in CS or EE.  In my university, there are staff members in both departments who can supervise ML projects.   Choose someone who fits your interest and work style; see recent question regarding selecting an adviser.


How to go about finding a Thesis advisor for Master degree I'm currently enrolled as a graduate student pursuing my masters. I'm wanting to eventually pursue a PhD, but in order to do that, I believe I need to do a thesis for my graduate degree, and for that I need a thesis adviser. What would be the best way of going about this?

There is a long list of professors, and it would take a long time to go through all of them to see what they are currently researching. I thought someone might have some experience with this and be able to offer some thoughts.

The list of professors can't be that long to just see their general research interests. This is just something you'll have to do. I've looked through all the profs at various schools with large departments and it probably took a max of 30 minutes.

But just reading about them isn't enough. If you can get your list down to 2-4 potential advisors then you can (A) ask for a meeting with each or (B) try to take a course with some of them.

If you have a general idea of what you want to study, it should be relatively easy to find a few that you are interested in. The harder part is convincing them to take you on :)


Is it better to add a transcript of a non-completed degree for a master's degree admission? Im getting my degree this year (in june presumably) in physics. And while I was getting it I was at the same time getting a degree in mathematics. (By degree I mean completing undergraduate studies in both of those things, I'm from Spain and I'm not sure about the equivalence...).

Now, I dedicated to physics full-time and by the time I will have finished physics (june as I said) I will have approximately 50% of my degree in maths. Independently of the maths degree, next year I will apply to some post-graduate studies outside of my country and I would like to know if I should apply with my physics degree or if it would make any significant (and positive) change in my application to say that I've also been studying half a degree on maths and include a transcript of what I've studied in that degree.

The problems is what I commented on BPND answer, plus the fact that transcripts are 30€ plus 80€ the sworn translation, and if I can keep expenses down, that's a plus. My question is if the difference by including it will be positive. The average grades are 9.24 (GPA 3.9) and 9.2 (GPA 3.82) in physics and maths respectively, out of 10.

The GPAs were calculated with some online converter I found, using all the subjects and the credits for each one.

Many universities will demand a full transcript of your academic history, so, in that case, you will need to attach both (or a combined) transcript(s) to your application.

Even if they only ask for the transcript of your main studies, you might want to attach the transcript for the math lectures and exercises. Especially in this case, where math acts perfectly as a supporting discipline for a phyiscs major.


Advices for writing the research statement I am writing my first research statement to apply for a faculty position. what are the most important parts to focus. I am thinking of dividing it into 3 sections. One for current Research, the second for future research and the third one is for previous research works. Is this a good organization?

What are common mistakes to avoid?

When writing your research statement (and cover letter), it is important to recognize that hiring committees will be swamped with applications. My main advice is to keep it short (2 pages should should be enough to explain your research). You can assume that the readers will be scanning the document and not reading every word, so make the important information stand out, such as key techniques or accomplishments. Cover letter should be 1 page max.

In addition, some applicants write their research statement as a short grant application, with clear motivation and specific aims. Depending on your field, that can be a great strategy. Your research statement will also be the outline for your chalk talk.


Fixed an error in my published paper, and cite the paper in my not-yet-defended thesis. What should I do? I found an error in two figures of my published paper. They are part of the main results of my PhD dissertation.

I am in the writing step of my PhD dissertation, and I put the new version of those figures. However I have to cite the paper (with the error) in the volume. I am concerning if the committee would ask about that.

What should I do?

Best

I've come across one Ph.D. that I read, where the main body was just a collection of past published papers by that author. The subject was interesting to me, but I got a bit bored reading the same introduction many times over, as naturally many of the papers published had the similar introduction. Is your Ph.D likely to be like that, where the published paper is included in an unedited form?

If it not, then I don't see what your problem is. Just present your graph, and you can add a footnote that a similar graph, but containing an error was published in journal XX.

Unless your Ph.D. is similar to the one in the first paper I described, then you will be judged by the content in your thesis - not on what you may have published before.

Whilst publishing material before you complete a Ph.D. is nice, certainly where I did my Ph.D (University College London), there was no requirement to have published anything before getting a Ph.D. I myself had published some papers, but it was not a requirement.

I think you are worrying about nothing to be honest. But it is worth letting the editor of the journal know about the error, but as for it being a problem in the Ph.D, I really don't see it as an issue.


Importance of "independent" under-graduate research in graduate admissions By independent research I mean, the research was not done with some organization or under a professor. I and my roommate tried out some new things that we thought to get published. My ultimate aim would be getting into research.

Though, I also have a paper published where the I did my work under the supervision of a professor.

But I was wondering if sharing the experience of independent research in a Statement of Purpose really matters while applying for masters ?

In an application, list all material that shows you in a positive light. Being able to perform successful research, both on your own and under supervision, is good. The fact that you engaged, on your own (or with friends) on research and were able to publish it (I assume in a peer-reviewed journal) is a plus for your application… unless the quality of the paper is really (visibly) bad.


Giving a career talk in my old university, how prominently should I tell students my salary? I have offered to do a talk at my old university’s 'employabilty fair' ten years after graduation, where am I now. With some advice on traps to avoid, how to make the transition from university to work life etc., with some anecdotes along the way type thing. Within the realms of software engineering.

The person who asked me to do the talk thinks I should put my current salary on the first slide to grab their attention in a 'this is what you could aim for' type way. But I feel it's a bit crass. I don't mind sharing my salary with the students if they ask, but I think it's a bit odd to stick it on the first slide.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this that could help me make this decision?

Update

the talk went down very well, no one asked about my salary and I didn't see anyone suddenly become more engaged after I pointed to the salaries in the Glass door table.

There were a few very engaged students who I think will do just fine, they definitely seemed more interested in my day to day and whether I actually enjoyed it :p it was good to see.

There were a couple that might have listened more intently if I had framed it as "I earn X and this is how you can do to" but I'm glad I didn't. In the end of the day that might have got a couple more students to care a little bit more but the focus of the rest of my talk was for the students that love software engineering. Career traps to avoid (manipulative managers, stagnation etc), the differences between uni and job mentality (individual vs team etc) and the fact that I enjoy my job (and that its not just coding all day :) )

I agree with you. I feel the request to put your salary on a slide (on the first slide, no less!) is rather unexpected, and quite frankly does not speak highly about the professionalism of your contact. I would decline this, for multiple reasons:

Your salary is nobody's business. Not sure what more there is to say about this.
Students are, for the largest part, intelligent adults. Many would take this exactly for what it's meant to be - rather crude marketing and hype generation. This would detract from the message you actually want to transport, and would undermine your following talk.
Focusing so much on how much you make is arguably not the best way to motivate young people for a specific career path anyway. If you talk about why you love your job (if you do) will encourage more people than a six-digits salary number. More importantly, it will probably encourage the people who will actually be happy doing your job, not the ones who would end up wealthy and miserable.

You can of course provide a salary range as proposed by other answers, but I would not emphasize this point much (and base it on third-party data, such as Glassdoor, not just your own experience).


Professor not giving solutions to exams and assignments that I need to grade I am a grader for a CS course at the college institution I attend. The professor I am TAing for is a full-time employee at a company. He is teaching this CS course on top of doing that. The first exam and homework assignment have been collected. He has effectively told me that he "trusts my judgment" in the grading and is not giving me solutions to grade the exam and assignment against.

Is this a fair practice? Whether the solutions are supposed to be given me was not established before I started as grader.

I'm just unsure since I have not heard of this type of situation happening. In my experience the professor has always given solutions to the grader. I am unsure of what to do at this point.

Edited Update: Prof still wants me to use my own solutions and the CS dept has decided as long as he is "supervising the grading," he is permitted to allow this. I will be grading them with my solutions. I suggest for anyone to possibly contact the department for the official policy. In terms of whether it's a fair practice, I see that the discussion still stands.

I can't tell quite what your concern is, so I'll address both.

Is it OK for a non-professor to write solutions and design a rubric?

In my experience (large US universities, STEM), this is extremely common. I disagree a bit with others saying that only professors can make such determinations (though of course the instructor of record can make such determinations if they are inclined to do so).

Is this abusive toward the TA?

How are you being paid?

If it is hourly, then there is no issue; you should solve the problems and make a rubric however you see fit, and then bill for that time as normal.
If it is a set stipend, then there is usually a nominal time requirement (in my university it was 20 hrs/week for grad students). If making solutions will put you way over this, it's fine to raise the issue with the professor and/or with the administration (in fact, you may technically be required to do so)

One other tip -- you might consider taking the top-performing students' solutions and using them as a starting place for your own solutions. Of course, you'll have to be sure you're grading those students fairly and catching any errors. But I've found that the I can often create a solution set just by mixing and matching solutions from the top ~3 students and adding a few expository details.


Is a MOOC "degree" worth putting on your resume? I've read an article about a Chemist who completed another bachelor's degree in Philosophy by finishing free MOOC courses. His new "degree' may not be academically accredited in any Graduate School of Philosophy. But is it still worth mentioning in your curriculum vitae/resume as a new "degree"?

I (a professional in the field of computer programming) would treat a MOOC "degree" as equivalent to "Continuing Education", but not equivalent to a degree or other accredited education.  If it is:

Relevant to the position/grant applied for or the paper being submitted
Substantial; not an introductory course, but sufficient work to suggest meaningful learning
Recent; in the last few years at least
The only education/experience you have in that area

Then I would consider putting it on a resume, but not directly along with education.  I would put it in a separate section, after the education, something like:

Additional Relevant Endeavors

Completed certificate in Machine Learning, [MOOC], [Date]; explored different methods related to Machine Learning, such as k-means clustering, Neural Networks, and applied logistic regression, using Matlab and R.

That provides enough information to give the reader an idea of what you did (so they don't have to look up the class) and an idea of why you put it on there (let's say, you're applying for a grant using Neural Network Algorithms to find a cure for cancer).  You include it to show you have some concept of Neural Networks, which is not otherwise shown by your experience or education.

I would generally not include MOOC certificates, though, unless it was truly important to the application (ie, filled a significant and relevant hole in your education and experience).  Certainly in professional circles this isn't going to buy you much, and I suspect in academic circles it will buy you less.


Received an incorrect review from a conference (a review for a different paper). What should I do? I've submitted a paper to a computer vision conference (a top one), and recently recieved reviews from the reviewers. An issue was that one of the reviewers provided an incorrect review (i.e., a review meant for another paper than ours).

At the moment, I do not know which Area Chair (AC) manages my submission. All I can do is to contact the Program Chair (PC). Should I contact PC about this before submitting my rebuttal (i.e., responses to the reviews)?

The context is that my advisor told me that if I contact PC for this reason, it might be interference. So I was kind of scard and this is why I ask a question here. Also, it might not be completely obvious to others that the review is an incorrect one (althoguh it is completely clear to me).

I do not know which AC manages my submission. All I can do is to contact PC.

Therefore...

  Should I contact PC about this before submitting my rebuttal

Yes, or more broadly: use whatever contact information you have for the organizers. There is no point in rebutting an editorial mistake.


Does a high score in Math subject GRE helps in applying to a Finance PhD program? Does a high score in Math subject GRE helps in applying to a Econ PhD program?

Say you got to the 90th percentile, so in a sense that shows your math is better than 90% of the math majors. In an Econ PhD program where math is heavily involved, I suppose this would make a difference?

(a side question to this, how can you highlight a good score in math subject GRE when normal applicants only takes the General GRE?)

While a strong GRE score certainly won't hurt your chances of admission, I think that in general students place too much emphasis on test scores relative to their actual importance in the admissions process.

The only case where this will make a substantial difference is in an "edge" case—where you're on the borderline of being admitted or not and the small "bump" could cause a significant change in the outcome. (If you were a clear admit, the GRE score won't make a difference, and if your candidacy is otherwise weak, a strong GRE score won't rescue it.)

As for how to highlight it, I would just put that information in a "miscellaneous comments" section of the form, if it's available.


How to anonymize a business in a paper? I am assisting with a research paper about a single business. The business owners agreed to participate in the study on condition that their name remain anonymous. What is the proper or common way to anonymity the business? Should a fake name be used? Should readers be told that a fake name was used?

In your introduction you can explain the context of your study, and the research questions you want to treat. Then, in the last sentence of the introduction you can write something like:

To answer the research question, we treat a case study dealing with a
particular company. For privacy reasons we cannot give the exact name
of the company, so we will simply refer to it as "the company" throughout this paper.

Then in the paper you can use sentences like:

Productivity in the company was boosted by increasing the light
intensity at the workstations
The company that is the focus of our study is a tech company of 500 employees which has grown very much in the last 5 years.

In this way everyone is aware of the fact that a fake name was used.
ps I haven't written any papers that involved this kind of dilemma, but this is what I would do.


Should I send an email to authors of a paper I enjoyed reading? For me as a graduate student, there are some papers out there that really stand out among the others. Some of them are really meaningful and inspiring.

Is it polite or even acceptable emailing the authors of a paper you enjoyed reading?

Sometimes I think some people would be happy for knowing that a student got inspired about the work they did. But at the same time, I think this could be taken as a weird/spam/useless e-mail.

Is it polite or even acceptable emailing the authors of a paper you
  enjoyed reading?

Yes! Who doesn't like getting a compliment about work they did? Nobody, that's who. On the somewhat rare occasions it happened to me, I was delighted. And I don't think it matters how famous the author is -- trust me, no one in academia is so busy that they will not enjoy receiving fan mail.

The only caveat I would make to the above advice is that the email should be 100% genuine in its intent to express your admiration of the authors' paper and achieve no other purpose. Do not appear to have a hidden agenda or ulterior motive of any kind. Do not start telling the email recipient elaborate stories about yourself, ask leading questions about jobs or collaborations, etc., and for heaven's sake don't attach a CV. Keep it short. And please don't make up a technical question to have an "excuse" for sending the email -- in my opinion, aside from being dishonest, this runs the risk of coming up with a question that is clearly lame and inauthentic-sounding, which may spoil the whole effect. On the other hand, if you do have a genuine question, even a vague one like "that formula in section 3 is amazing, how did you think of it?", go ahead and ask it, but be considerate of the recipient's time, and make it clear that you would be extremely grateful for a reply but that you are not expecting one and that the recipient should feel free to ignore your email if they are too busy.

Here is an example of how I would go about phrasing such an email:

  Subject: your awesome paper (no reply necessary)

  Dear Prof. Goodpaper,

  I hope you'll excuse this unsolicited email from a grad student.
  I recently read your paper "Traveling salesman optimizers in pseudo-logarithmic time". I'm writing to let you know that I was simply blown away by how good of a paper it is. Not only was it an incredibly clear and fun paper to read, but I was also really inspired by the clever ideas. In section 3, your definition of the class of problems solvable in pseudo-logarithmic time really captures the essence of the kind of algorithmic complexity that was previously studied only in a few special cases in the Jones-Truckey paper you cited. And your idea of taking the Mellin transform of the recurrence relation to get the asymptotic behavior of your TSP optimizer was also very inspiring -- I've never seen that trick anywhere, and was wondering how you came up with that idea. I'm currently working on a problem involving an asymptotic analysis in a graph connectedness problem that has a somewhat similar structure, so I'll definitely try to see if the same technique could apply.

  Anyway, thank you again for the inspiration, and thank you for reading this. If you have any references to other papers you wrote or other books or papers by others on pseudo-logarithmic time problems that you think I should look at, I'd be very happy to hear about it. However, I realize you're very busy, so please do not feel obliged to send me anything or to reply to this email at all.

  Sincerely,
  [your name]


What is limit for the number of students for one supervisor in India? How many number of students can be supervised by a supervisor in India? Is there a limit imposed by the government of India?

I did a quick search on this and I could find a document that suggests this:

  At any given point of time, the maximum number of Ph.D. students allowed should not exceed 8 students for a recognized Professor, 6 students for a recognized Associated Professor and 4 students for a recognized Assistant Professor.

Read point number 4 on page 2 of the guidelines for the Recognition of Fellow Programme of Self-Financing Autonomous
Management Institutions recognized by AICTE towards Equivalence to Ph.D Programme of Indian Universities.


How can I thank/acknowledge people during a short presentation? In a paper, there is an Acknowledgements section, in which I can thank everyone that helped me along the way. But what do I do in a 15-minute presentation (e.g. in a non-archival conference)? I do want to thank the people that helped me, both for my and for their benefit (in case they may be sitting in the audience, or viewing the talk later in video).

How can I thank/acknowledge people during a short presentation?

You can put such acknowledgements on the very last slide, which will stay up while you field questions after your presentation (unless you need to flip back to a specific slide to answer a question).

Don't recite every single name in a presentation. Just end your talk like this:

  Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who has helped me in this project.

Then look expectantly at the session chair, who should lead the applause and ask for questions, while everyone who is interested can read your acknowledgements on the slide.


How to respond to a perceived unfair editorial decision? We have an editorial decision after major revision: decline and resubmit.

Decisive is a reviewer who feels that the novelty of our work is too much limited into a specific area.

This reviewer gave concrete directions in the first round of review. We had to remove a full explanatory section because it should be well known to the audience. We had to add an additional analysis to support the relevance of our method development. We had to restructure the paper and change our line of reasoning and writing style. Otherwise, the submission would not qualify to be publishable. The reviewer even explicitly expressed his future support as the reviewer saw ‘promise in our intentions’.

We carefully followed all the reviewer’s critiques and basically rewrote our paper. For language we send the paper to a publishing service. The reviewer acknowledges and applauds our improved work, but still rejects the work.

The editor encourages us to decline and resubmit (with the assurance that we will get new reviewers), which I interpret as the paper is considered to be publishable for this journal and its audience. But I also feel, addressing this reviewer’s critiques, has not improved its chances for acceptance (here or elsewhere) because the paper has become more specialized.

If we had refuted the reviewer’s critiques in the first place, the paper would have been rejected. Now we followed the reviewer’s critiques carefully and the paper is still rejected.

Why do certain reviewers recommend major revision if they never intend to accept a paper in the first place? Is it not much more fair to reject a paper immediately if you feel the topic is too specialized for the audience, although this journal publishes many other papers which are highly specialized in their domains?

Or should I ask why the editor chooses the easy route: decline and resubmit? The final reviewer’s comment is not repairable and the editor is in charge.

Or should I ask what I did wrong? I just do not know. How can I improve my work further if I just don’t know what to improve?

What should we do? Appeal, resubmit the revised version with this journal, resubmit the original version somewhere else?

That is a frustrating experience that many (all?) of us were forced to endure at some point in our careers.

Fact is, a "major revision" is not guaranteed acceptance upon receive. Papers that are not rejected in the first round of review usually are close enough that they can be accepted after revision(s), but that is in no way guaranteed.

Now, in your case, the reviewer made promising remarks for the future, yet failed to act on them. It can be that they misjudged the first time, that they are inexperienced (perhaps the review was delegated to a student), that they had malicious intents, etc. This line of reasoning, however, is a dark rabbit hole best avoided. You have no way of knowing for certain what was up with the reviewer at the time and little benefit even if you did, so it's best to let that go.

The next point is the editor's decision, "decline and resubmit". Again, there is zero guarantee that the paper will be accepted by a potentially different set of reviewers. Usually, journals prohibit submitting the same paper again once it has been rejected. So, if it is a particularly important venue, I'd consider this a better thing than straight out decline. Another important point is that (at least in my field) for a resubmit after decline, a predefined amount of time is required to pass, e.g. 6 months, and a significant rewrite is expected. Practically, close enough to a new paper. If similar practices apply, it is probably easier to resubmit somewhere else.

Appealing rarely works without substantial proof of malpractice during review. In fact, you may have already gotten the best result an appeal can get you: the right to resubmit for a new set of reviewers.

Bottom line, the lost time and the additional time it will take to resubmit is unrecoverable. You have the review feedback as it is, and you have your current and previous draft. If you feel that the reviewer's directions were misplaced, you can polish up the older draft and resubmit. My advice would be to try to get the best out of both versions, take into account any remarks the reviewers had, do a thorough proofread of the paper, and resubmit at some other venue.


Can I translate scientific papers ? So I'm a really bored french student and there's a thought that occurred to me of something that could kill three birds with one Stone : improving my English, allowing me to learn New things and making research more broadly available to the ones who are interested in them but are blocked by the language barrier.
And this is translating articles or papers of researchs or studies in french. I would guess that there's not really anything preventing me to do that for personnal use, but what if I wanted to, as I stated, make the translated versions available on a website or a database ? What should I know about that or what should I do in order to meet both the legal and ethical requirements of such a thing ?

Thanks in avance for your answers.

Ethically, I do not see a problem with this. If you reference the original work and make it clear that it is translated then I think it should be fine.

The problem here is from a copyright point of view. Many journals are subject to copyright and if you post the findings online then someone could not pay to read the documentation and just go to your website and then translate it into whatever language they wish.

I must mention that even though you think you're doing something that benefits others, without even making profits, you can still be in trouble.

If you're really interested in translating a particular piece of work you would need permission from both the author and the publisher (if you're going to publish it online).

My advice would be to ask permission from authors who have unpublished work. An example in finance is John Cochranes guide to PhD writing, this was translated from English to Chinese and placed on his personal website with credit given to the translator.

This way, you don't get in any trouble and you are still gaining the benefits of translating that you mentioned in the question.


Should I reply to emails for grad school that appear to be non specific? I am getting emails from schools about their grad school programs, most likely due to attending a grad school fair and clicking certain check-boxes after taking my Biology GRE.

I have not taken my regular GRE exams and will not get to take them until the spring of 2016, when there deadlines for the programs they are "advertising" are December.

Should I respond to these replies in anyway?

You had taken an ETS-driven exam,already, and let ETS give your email address to the universities... These kind of emails would often be received by many graduate applicants, all over the world...

Hence, you should not assume that these emails are just for you, specifically based on your situation. There are just a bunch of advertisements to catch your attention for potential apply into them.

Furthermore, with due attention to the intrinsic information-based characteristics of these emails, one could assert that there is no need to take any reply into account.


How to preserve a rare version of a book respecting the copyright as well? Electromagnetism by EM Purcell is a classic book on electromagnetism. Luckily in my college library I found all the three editions of this book. After many months of observation, I found that the first edition published in 1965 had many concepts, practice problems and explanations which were omitted in second and third editions. The author explains in preface to second edition that it was necessary as these subtle points were either not suitable or were presented in a tough way for first reading hence were modified or omitted.

However I realize that they are invaluable for someone who has done a course already to learn and ponder on new tricky arguments but I was not able to find any PDF for first edition on internet and the books in my library are already in torn condition and may get lost within years. In this case what can I do to get this edition preserved and people from my college may continue to benefit from it?

The first edition of this book was funded by National Science foundation and I read on Wikipedia that these books had some copyright relaxation, however I couldn't comprehend it. In this case, is it allowed to scan it and circulate its soft copy? - I thought of it or should I request the library?

PS: This is the copyright page from the first edition:

Discuss with the librarian - they may know what is available - ie it could be scanned while the book is refurbished and recovered.

And, take the opportunity to explain to the librarian why it is worth saving - you know why as a specialist in the subject...


How to find OA free to publish journals with a JCR ranking? I would like to find journals that:

are ranked with JCR (no matter how low) and
have open access (anyone can access the papers for free) and
are free to publish (authors are not required to pay)

Maybe I am asking for a unicorn, but I think this should be feasible.
If I'm not mistaken, arxiv.org only fails in the first point. If someone could provide (a link to) a list of such a kind of journals that would be awesome. If such a list does not exist, how would I go about creating a list.

Please feel free to edit anything.

Computer Science

Artificial Intelligence

Machine Learning

Journal of Machine Learning Research

General

Journal of Universal Computer Science

Mathematics

Combinatorics

The Electronic Journal of Combinatorics

Statistics

Journal of Statistical Software


What to do if one comes to a realization that research and post graduate studies is not for him/her? Life doesn't allow for a redo. I have been a decent student in my undergrad and got placed in a reputed company right after graduation. However, research and academia always inspired me. I got into a prestigious school in India for my master's and decided to work on a particular field as part of my thesis. I did not go for hot topics because they didn't interest me.

Subsequently, I went ahead and joined for PhD in the US, on a similar field as my masters. However, after 2nd year, I realized the importance of working on hot topics and how conventional topics struggled to secure funding and permanent positions after graduation.

But, the ship has sailed and I have completed my PhD and soon to start a postdoc. But, I have come to a realization that I have made a career suicide by pursuing post-graduate studies. There's nothing permanent and decent-paying out there for me.

I shouldn't have pursued post-graduate studies. And I feel lost. I don't know what to do next.

Life may not allow for a redo, but it definitely allows for changes of direction when you find your previous plan is not working. You have not committed career suicide. At the very worst, you have spent a few years on something that interested you, without also advancing your career other than by learning how to do research, write papers etc. Let yourself mourn for the career you wanted, but then start looking forward to the rest of your life. The postdoc gives you some time to work out what to do next, and shift in the direction you choose.

There are three sets of issues you need to consider:

Your own likes and dislikes. Even if your first choice field is a dead end, you are likely to do better at something you somewhat enjoy, and avoid anything you hate unless the alternative is homelessness and starvation.
Your skills, assets, and resources. For example, even a bachelor's degree is a significant asset, and you have a PhD. You have the ability to learn, which will be invaluable if you decide to change fields. To get a PhD, you have completed a non-trivial project and written a dissertation. You have well above average writing skill and focus, and can prove it to a potential employer. I can only mention generalities. You should be able to list specific skills.
Available work. There seems to be a shortage of academic work in your current field. In that case, you need to either change fields, or switch to industry, or both. Deciding which is best depends on your field, skills, and what work is available where.

Your school may have career councilors. They will be primarily concerned with helping students, but may be available to postdocs. Talking all this over with someone could help.


How does hiking in Himalayas show academic promise, as an admission criterion? I am a student from India and I have been reading a lot about graduate admissions in US lately. I have read in some article that an average(below average) applicant from the "maybe" pile is moved to an "accepted" pile when their resumes contain something like "hiked in Himalayas".

Now I realize that it is a great achievement but it does not correlate with the capacity to publish quality research papers at all. So how do universities measure the applicants future in academic prospects?

P.S. Sorry, I do not have the link of the article.

I've never seen a graduate admissions committee take anything like this at all seriously, and I would certainly not recommend it as a strategy for getting into grad school.  If anything, emphasizing irrelevant experience makes applicants look clueless and may hurt their chances of admission.

But I agree that you can read all sorts of strange things in discussions of graduate admissions on the internet.  Some commentary is by people who simply don't know what they're talking about, but some is by faculty who have actually served on admissions committees.  The best explanation I can give is that certain faculty are just eccentric.  If you gather opinions from enough professors, you'll presumably find people who honestly believe that some non-academic experiences (such as hiking in the Himalayas) are so formative or telling that they are enough by themselves to salvage an otherwise mediocre application.  I haven't run across this particular opinion myself, but I've certainly worked with admissions committee members whose judgments differed from the rest of the committee's in other ways.


Is it okay to switch languages in an email? I am emailing a professor I have not met about a foreign exchange program. They teach Japanese, and I started out by writing my email in Japanese only to get halfway through and realize I would have to look several things up if I intended to continue writing it this way. I regularly email my own Japanese professors in mixed languages and I know a few classmates do as well, but we also personally know our professors due to the small classroom setting of the course.

Would it be bad/particularly unprofessional to switch to English as necessary throughout my email?
If any of you are professors, how would you feel if a student you do not know did this? I wonder if it is annoying to them..

It would be weird to see an email in multiple languages, but it's not completely unusual or unheard of. It would certainly make me wonder what's going on if I received such an email, but it's not a breach of etiquette.

In my own personal experience, I had a lot of communications in German. In some cases, if someone was quoting something, or using terms that are hard to translate, they'd throw in the English and then keep on using German.


Is my mathematics "folklore" paper worth publishing? I wrote a math paper a while ago which was initially mainly for my own attempt to understand a topic/theorem in algebraic geometry. The methods and results are kind of folklore (not well-documented in literature). Although the ideas presented in my write-up was sketched in a recent and well-known conference report, the details and the proof of the main theorem were not given. My write-up did the job to give a detailed treatment of the theory and gave a proof of the main theorem. So this is kind of something between expository and research (I think?).
Now I'm wondering if this paper is worth to be published?
P.S. The main result was also proved by someone using a different approach and got published in a good journal this year.

I would definitely put it on the arxiv because it could help other people.
Whether it is publishable in a journal is a question which you should probably discuss with other experts in the field.


How to name an algorithm in a paper In a paper, I should refer to an existing algorithm in different parts of the paper. There is no name for this algorithm. For the firs time I wrote "the Algorithm proposed by (Xia, et al. 2008) .....", but I don't think it is a good way to use this method any time I want to refer to it. I may name it Algirhtm A, or Algorithm 1 or Algorithm Xia, Algorithm base ...

What do you suggest for referring to this algorithm for several times?

When you first refer to it say something like "the Algorithm proposed by (Xia, et al. 2008) which we refer to as XAB" where you replace XAB with the first letters of the authors' last names in the order that they appear in the bibliography. So if the authors are Xia, Alpha, Beta, you would use XAB. If the authors are Xia, Yen, Ping, you would use XYP. I wouldn't use more than about the first 3 or 4 author's last names, however.

This way if you are referring to multiple algorithms, you can give a clear reference to each. If it turns out that multiple algorithms you are referencing would have the same name given this scheme, you can also throw in the last two digits of the year. So you would have XAB08 and XAB09.


Can grad school admission recommendation letters be generic for all applications? Can grad school admission recommendation letters be generic for all applications? (2 or 3, not more than that).

Does it has to be specific to each school ?

Recommendation letters generally do not need to be tailored for each school. Admissions committee members are faculty too, and in an age where people regularly apply to 10+ programs they understand the undue burden this would place on already busy faculty.

Occasionally a more tailored letter may have some advantages, for example if the recommender has close connections at one of the programs, but it is definitely not expected or required.


Teaching-oriented lectureship in a research-oriented university I have been offered a teaching-oriented position in power electronics in a research-intensive university. It is not a tenure-track position. It seems fine considering my career and age at this moment but in the long run, I would like to get involved in research and eventually get tenure-track positions. Therefore, I am wondering whether it is possible to do research from this kind of position. I will be grateful to you if you give some guidance with regards to this situation.

It's conceivable that such a position would leave you enough time and energy to pursue research at some level of intensity, but it's impossible to say in general; the answer will vary by country, research field, university, and specific position.

Find someone who holds (or has held) this type of position at this university and ask them. Advice from this source is likely to be more disinterested and well-informed than you will get from someone associated with the group offering the position.
If this is impossible, ask someone associated with the group offering the position.


Is it ethical for a Professor to disseminate wrong answers online? I recently took a class where the Professor created multiple online study guides, on popular student sites, which intentionally contained the wrong answers. He did this because his exams were based heavily on the end of chapter questions in the book. Also, the Professor told us at the start of class using Google to help answer the questions would be useless because all the top results regarding these chapter questions were his wrongly answered guides.

Was this ethical of the Professor to do? The book used in the class contained no answer (or partial answer) keys and no additional student material was provided for the book. I understand he did this in order to force students to read the book and keep them from simply Googling all the answers at the end of the chapter. However, this removed a way for students to verify their answers were correct.

Edit: In response to some of the comments, he was not bluffing. During the course I was unable to answer one of the questions (it turned out to be a misprint in the book) and tried using online resources. The wrong guides were easy to spot, because half the chapter questions involved determining which SQL statements were valid. Some of the guides were simply answered as A, B, C, D, A, B in order down the list. Other were just flat out wrong. Also, as far as the exams went, I shouldn't say they were heavily based on the book. The Professor literally copy and pasted the questions from his instructors manual and didn't bother changing any wording or the answer order.

I have a strong negative opinion on this.

In 2002, I joined a PhD program and was at the same level of computer science education as peers who had recently completed CS degrees at good schools. My last prior formal CS education was a master's degree that I completed in 1975.

I achieved that, as well as staying employable in the computer industry for over 30 years, by continuous independent study. As computer science kept changing around me I felt at times like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland: "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

Not having answers to the questions in a textbook was something I could handle, though undesirable. If I had found answers on-line that conflicted with my answers I could have wasted a lot of time trying to resolve the discrepancy, including trying to contact the answer author to point out an error.

Wrong answers to questions in a good textbook are particularly destructive. I put a lot of effort into selecting the books I use. In order to progress, it is necessary to attempt exercises that are a stretch. In some cases, it is difficult to check whether an answer is correct. Searching on-line for answers may be the best available resource.

The professor was, intentionally or not, sabotaging independent study.


What are the best criteria to take into account when creating groups of students, to maximize their efficiency? This is my first post to the community. I am currently researching on the criteria that make grouping of students as efficient as possible. There are many methods that a professor in an international university program could use to sort the groups of students in class. Nationality, age, educational background, GPA so far, age, level of interest on the course, genre, combinations of them etc. I am creating this post, to try and gather all the opinions on what criteria you use in your classrooms to make your groups as efficient as possible and if you have tried any different scenarios of grouping, what are the results you came across?

Having seen this be done in various ways, I'll suggest 2 successful approaches I have seen used.

The first is to split students into groups based on a combination of class performance to date (from mini tests or assignments), and attendance at class. Obviously this requires we have attendance records, but these are available on account of the main class activity being a programming lab, where attendance on lab computers is recorded during a scheduled class.

We found the by considering class performance alone, students could end up in groups where they were of similar ability, yet one (or more) had significantly better work ethic and attendance than the others. I won't go into correlation between attendance and work ethic here as I feel it's off topic for this question. I will add that we see a clear and undeniable correlation between attendance and class performance, but work ethic is obviously difficult to quantify or measure.

I suggest you also group students by course for logistical reasons, as it makes it easier for students with similar timetables to meet outwith the class. This may be less appropriate or indeed unnecessary if your students have free choice in classes, or if you use the American style "major" system, rather than the UK-style where a "course" is the major, following a somewhat prescribed curriculum.

An alternative approach (to which I do not claim any credit over whatsoever, but alas am unsure of the originator of), which I shall not express an opinion on, is to offer the class a choice - either I (instructor) assign your groups, or you can. If you pick your own groups, that's it - final. No mark reallocation and negotiation and peer assessment. Alternatively, I (instructor) pick groups, but we have a peer assessment phase and divide marks according to contribution.

The rationale of the latter approach (which I again highlight I unfortunately don't know the originator of) is that it forces students to think more carefully as to who they work with, rather than just a friend. Obviously your own policies may prelude this, or require peer assessment of contribution etc.

My experience is that in the latter case, students prefer to have the instructor assign groups, when faced with the prospect of having to select groups based on ability, rather than blind loyalty and friendship. By giving the students the choice over how the groups are decided, they have had input into the process, and we receive significantly less complaints regarding group allocations when doing this, compared to setting groups without offering the "choice". In the event the students chose to pick their own groups (which is incredibly rare), you simply need to ensure everyone has a group, and that you stick to your policy on the group mark being final (note there are many considerations as to if this is valid or if it perhaps allows weak students to be carried, but I shall avoid discussing them for now as I feel they are relatively obvious to any instructor)

In terms of student efficiency, I find the ability/attendance composite works nicely. I don't have experience of the other criteria for grouping on, other than anecdotally where (by coincidence) a group of international exchange students asked if they could be split up, as they wanted the chance to try working with other people than their own cohort (from the same university and course). In that case it was simply a coincidence due to a group of exchange students performing best in the class.


where to find the year and conference of a scientific article? When writing the references at the end of my internship report, I needed to cite all the information that needs to be said about the scientific articles that I used while writing the report. But these articles, most of the time, do not mention the conference or journals in which they were presented nor their publication date. Is there a website in which one can have access to this kind of information about any scientific aticle? BTW, I am talking about the field of computer science.

Background: Many researchers put their articles for download on their personal web pages. As most publishers insist on not allowing the researcher to put the "official" version there, but rather only the self-made PDF, this leads to articles often not having the journal/conference information on the first page (as this would require changing the article a bit, which is a bit of work to be done). Also, self-archived versions often appear before the conference, so that page numbers can only be missing, and might not be updated later.

Actual Answer: For CS, a good strategy is to just type "DBLP " into your favorite search engine. Many papers nowadays are listed on the DBLP page, which also allows you to just download the bibliographic information.

If a paper is not listed on DBLP, just searching for the paper title often yields the publisher's page of the article, which should have the information available.

If searching for the title does not yield any results, then the paper could be a limited circulation pre-print, which is stricly speaking not citeble. However, in such (hopefully few) cases, it makes sense to ask the person who gave you the article for bibliographic information.


how to select a journal I have written a journal paper and my supervisor has asked me to submit it in a journal whose impact factor should be close to one.
I have searched for journals of Springer, Elsevier and IEEE and made a list . As I don't have any experience with journal submission. I am confused in many points.

1- What is an "ISSUE" in journal?

2- Importance of impact factor journals

3- I have found some related journals but they are not open access and neither call for paper is mentioned.

4- One Springer journal is relevant but its current issue is not relevant http://www.springer.com/engineering/signals/journal/13638

5- What will happen if i submit in a journal that is not open access and call for paper is not mentioned?

What should i do now? Please suggest me? As my supervisor said he does not know more about them :(

One by one:

In the past, when journals were published in paper, the journal would collect a certain number of papers / pages and print them all together to make an issue. It's no different from e.g. reading a magazine or newspaper, "issue X". Each year the issues are collected into a volume. The practice has persisted. When you check a reference you might see, journal X volume Y issue Z, which tells the reader where to search for the paper referenced.
Impact factor is a metric for how many citations the journal's papers get. It's calculated by number of citations received in two years divided by the number of articles published (with some subtle details). In general the higher the impact factor is the more prestigious the journal.
You don't have to submit to an open access journal. Many subscription-based journals can still accept open access papers for a fee (the so-called "hybrid model"). You also don't have to wait for a call for papers - journals are usually always looking for papers; the call for papers is when they have a specific topic they want to focus on.
If your paper is within the scope of the journal, the journal should consider it. Whether or not the latest issue is relevant is not important.
Nothing in particular - your paper gets considered as normal.

It sounds like you are unsure what open access is as well. Open access is when the author pays the publisher to publish the paper, and the publisher makes the paper free to read and access. Subscription is when the author does not pay the publisher, but the paper is behind a paywall and any reader must pay the publisher to access them.

What to do: submit your paper to a relevant journal. You don't have to wait for an invitation or call for papers. If you are submitting to an open access journal, check with your supervisor or librarian if there are funds to pay for the article processing fee. This varies from journal to journal and publisher to publisher. I checked the EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking's charges for you: £905/$1420/€1155 for each article accepted for publication.

Good luck!


Why is colour use in academic writing disapproved? This question involves only wary use of ≤ 3 readable colours (e.g. an author used 3 colours: black for text, green for quotations, and blue for headings). One benefit is immediate distinction of an author's, from others', writing.
Drawbacks
The use of multiple colours by many textbooks substantiates both drawbacks as conquerable.

Colour printing costs feel paltry and immaterial, as readability ought be prioritized. A reader of a PDF can always choose to print in black and white.

The visually impaired who are harmed by colour, can again print in or convert to BW.

People who are good at doing research aren't necessarily the best graphic designers. In fact most are pretty awful graphic designers. For good reason: learning to be a good graphic designer takes a lot of time and practice. So most good researchers do not have time to also become a good designers.

So if I see a researcher trying to be fancy in his design (e.g. use colors) I will automatically assume the design is going to be awful and most of the time that assumption will be correct. So I don't have a aversion to colors in academic writing per se, but it is an extremely reliable warning sign for me that some bad design is coming.

So my general advise to students is to focus on the content and keep the design as minimal as possible.


How much is expected to know before starting a PhD I recently graduated with a BSc in applied mathematics and considering on applying for a PhD. In fact, I contacted a supervisor and he seems some what interested in my undergraduate academic performance. He also sent some articles to read so that I get an idea of what sort of problem is there to be analysed in the PhD, and of possible methods to follow. I read them, however I do not understand everything in those papers as I am not familiar with some of the methods used. However, as I have a basic background knowledge from undergraduate coursework, I believe, I can study those methods in depth and gain knowledge. But it would obviously take couple of months for me to learn the material. Although my PhD wouldn't start (if I get selected) for another 6 months, I have to tell the potential supervisor about what I read in the articles he sent and how much I understand.

So, if I say like I didn't understand all the details, but I intend to learn them before the start of the PhD, does it look negative? Does supervisors expect us to know everything before the commencement of the research?

The best way to respond to this specific question is to engage the potential supervisor about specific content in the articles.  You are not expected to know everything at this stage.  But it is important to show you are interested, can engage with the material, and (not least) actually took the time to read what they sent.

A response like "I read them but I didn't understand everything" doesn't give them any information about you.

Be specific, e.g.

I found the way authors applied X method in this paper to be really interesting.  I was familiar with this but didn't realize it could be used this way.
The authors did X but why didn't they use alternative approach Y?
I don't understand what this statement means...could you explain it?

Asking questions about things you don't understand can be one of the best ways to engage.


As a student, is it appropriate to use my university's letterhead for a letter I write, to give it extra weight? A program I participated in for six years, while I was in junior high and high school has just had a huge chunk of their funding removed by the school. I credit this program with the majority of my success in college and my general interest and capabilities in science, and a lot of my maturity (which was sorely needed in junior high...).

The program has a new coach (who I worked with, but has just now taken over) who is not a confrontational person. I would like to write a letter to the school expressing my support for the program, and would encourage other alumni of the program to as well, many of whom also have a lot of respect for it.

This is just a thought I had while drafting my letter. Is it appropriate to find some sort of letterhead or something like that from the university (perhaps my major department?) to give more weight to my letter?

I am personally an undergraduate student, but would it be appropriate for a graduate student or postdoc to use letterhead? Or should use of the letterhead be reserved solely for faculty and staff?

Do not use any professional letterhead when you are not speaking "on behalf" of the entity it comes from.

Using your status, like explaining who you are or whatever, is fine. However, the sole fact of using entity's letter head, implicitly involves your employer and can only ends in a bad situation.

If you are writing to another department of the same university, like in case of an internal matter, this can be deemed acceptable, but otherwise I would refrain from doing it.


If I get an encouraging but noncommittal response from potential advisor, should I continue to pursue other potential advisors at this school? Hoping someone can shed some light, or at least quell my worrying. Probably the latter. Anyways I emailed a professor with just an introductory email, I had read some of his work and would like to speak about my opportunities at the university if he had the time. He replied the next morning simply asking me to send my undergraduate transcript. I send it off and a week later I get this:

  I think your background and qualifications are interesting, and I would strongly encourage you to consider applying to our graduate program. If you have the opportunity, I would also suggest that you physically visit us at XXXX before applying to see whether we have what you are hoping for.

  Do let me know if you have questions.

I guess it sounds encouraging, but my fear is it may just be him being kind. My question is if I should continue to pursue other potential advisors at this school? Thanks for any light you can shed on the subject.

It doesn't sound like he is just being kind. Using the wording "strongly encourage" is a good sign. Many US universities do not let individual professors have much of a say in a admissions and his response may be a reflection of that.

Furthermore, many professors are not willing to commit to advising any students before they have been accepted. It sounds like this professor wants you to apply and would be open to talking more if you are accepted (or are visiting).

You can continue to look for advisers, but I'd imagine most of them will say the same thing. It's never a bad idea to see what else is out there, but it's hard for many professors to say much this early in the process.


Strategies for facing an "impossible" required course for PhD I'm enrolled in the last doctoral-level course required for my PhD, and the course material is very difficult, requires a tremendous amount of time, and yet has no relevance to my research. I'm a hard worker who regularly puts in 90+ hour weeks balancing a full time job, research and course work. I'm no slacker, and I love a challenge; I'm no genius, but have a near-perfect GPA.

The course is infamous among students, and I discovered that, due to its difficulty, most students simply resort to cheating on the problem sets, copying answers from prior years. Meanwhile, I've regularly sought assistance from the instructor and TA, and reached out to fellow students in the course (no other student seems interested in working/studying together). You know, the typical things any intelligent adult would do. The problem sets alone occupy about 40 hours a week of my time - yes, really, and I am typically an efficient person.

Sure, I get the fact that the course is helping to identify a weakness in my knowledge of this domain, but it also has little bearing on my research. What are some strategies in dealing with this situation? The course is my "last requirement barrier" to being free to focus solely on research.

Informing the instructor about the cheating would be unwise, because I know that this has happened in the past, and that the instructor simply makes the remaining work impossibly difficult and rescinds assistance. It would just make the situation worse.

"Talk to your advisor" is an obvious thing to do, but my machismo and refusal to fail makes we want to seek other options besides begging to be able to not have to take the course. Any ideas?

I'm really touched and appreciative of the responses. I've chosen to "stick it out" and significantly de-prioritize other obligations besides my job and this one course. I'll update this drama at the end of the semester so others can see what happened.

With one month left in the semester, I've dropped the course. "Toughing it out" has been a rather futile waste of effort. Details below.

The midterm exam had problems that were barely related to any of the lecture topics or problem sets; no assimilation or synthesis, no re-application, and no exam problem was even in the ballpark of our coursework. Despite my preparations, it was not an exam one could prepare for. I welcome and believe in tough exams, but this was absurd; it was as if the exam was from an entirely different course.

Details of a term project have been released with only one month left in the semester, leaving little time to accomplish a very significant project. It's too bad, because I welcome the challenge and it seems fun. But the scope of the project, in addition to upcoming problem sets that alone take 40 hours a week, is a bit unreasonable at this point.

I do encourage others to stick out a tough course by removing other commitments and focusing on succeeding in the course (e.g. doing nothing but the coursework). It's just not possible in my case.

Your description of your PhD program makes it sound quite unhealthy.  There is a required course that students can only pass by cheating, the faculty have been apprised of this and that "only makes it worse"?  Yikes. If the students don't care about academic integrity and the faculty don't care about the students, then things are dysfunctional to say the least.

It is not reasonable for one required course in a PhD program to take 40 hours a week of a student's time: that's a full work week.  Spending that much time in the course in order to pass it doesn't make sense to me: something else will suffer in your program.  (By the way, you say you also have a full time job, so that's another 40 hours a week.  So you are spending 16 hours a day, Monday through Friday, on your job and this one class, and then whatever else you have to do for your PhD program gets done on the weekend? That's not being a hard worker.  That is dangerously little down time.  Putting yourself in that situation is a very poor investment for your own health, sanity and success.)  To say that you can only pass the course by doing this much work sounds to me like saying you can't pass the course and that you must seek out another option.  If you're not doing that because of "machismo": please be aware that that doesn't actually make any sense.  Neither does a "refusal to fail": what you currently have is a plan that is very likely to lead to failure.  Get a better plan.

I am very concerned that -- apparently, anyway -- everyone else is succeeding in the course by cheating.  That's not acceptable.  You say that it wouldn't help to point this out to the professor.  Unless you have already personally contacted this professor about this issue, I don't see how you could know that.  In my experience, the way that skullduggery like this gets perpetrated is because the people involved think they have "no choice".  Of course you have a choice.  I strongly recommend that you tell everything you've told us to the course instructor.  Yes, there is the possibility that this could "make things worse".  It could even jeopardize your future in the program.  However, your future in your program is by no means secure at the moment, and if all your negative fears come to pass it does not sound like the program is worth your time.

If you approach the faculty with the attitude that the program has to be functional and ethical for you to stay in it, I find it very likely that they will work with you and help you through it.  If they don't, then I think you're better off out of it.  I realize that's a hard answer, but it's what I feel is the correct one.