How to acknowledge a translator on a letter of recommendation? I have written a letter of recommendation for a student who is applying to study abroad (we are in the USA, she is applying to study in Spain). The institution she is applying to requested that letters be submitted in Spanish; since I do not speak or write Spanish fluently, I asked a close friend (a native speaker of Spanish) to translate the letter for me.

My question is how to indicate this properly on the letter. My current plan is to add, just below my signature, the phrase "Traducido por ___________" and then the translator's name.  Is that the right way to handle this, or is there something else I should be doing?

Since this is merely a letter and not a full-fledged thesis, it is fine to write it the way you have indicated in your question.

If the translator has notable credentials pertaining to Spanish (e.g., a degree in the language or some sort), perhaps you may consider adding that too, after the person's name.


Is it standard practice to make sure that multiple, numbered citations occuring together are ordered? If including multiple, numbered citations together, is it standard practice^ to order them according to number? For example, one might see

Several studies [1,3,5] show that quantity X is relevant to Y.

Or

Several studies [1][3][5] show that quantity X is relevant to Y.

It is also common to see

Several studies [5,1,3] show that quantity X is relevant to Y.

The last is easy to achieve if using a tool such as bibtex, with a bibliography ordered in some way other than order of mention in the text.

Is there any authoritative reference that such ordering is preferable in general? To clarify, since this question was marked off-topic, the issue is whether, in the absence of guidelines from a journal, etc. there is any sufficiently-authorative concept of general style here. If the answer is "no" (which I believe it is), that is acceptable. If the answer is "yes," it can be defended with references to general academic style guides.

^as far as this can be determined across fields. I'm personally interested in mathematics, computer science, computational science, physics, and related fields.

In my experience, there is no particular necessity or requirement to ensure that numbered citations go in order.  Certainly, I have never personally encountered an instance with an IEEE or ACM publication (which use numerical order) where the publisher actually cared if this was the case.

That said, it certainly is much tidier to order the citations in a set, and doing so is very simple to do, so I often will do so if I notice they are out of order.

That said, there is one case in which I will not order the citations, and that is if a citation cluster has some citations that are more important than others.  In that case, I will always keep the citations ordered in decreasing importance instead, just to make it a little more likely for the reader to figure out which is the most important one.


Can I write my whole SOP about machine learning for graduate school admissions? I am a computer science engineer and I am starting to write my SOP's for grad school admissions.

I am very interested in machine learning but most of the schools I apply to offer ML as a track like something to major in. Can I write my whole SOP about ML ? I have few achievements in CSE and few in ML.

Writing statements of purpose (SOP's) can be challenging. If you make the statement too general, it may come across like you don't have a solid reason for attending a graduate program. On the other hand, if your SOP is too specific, you may unnecessarily restrict your chances of admission—for instance, if you only talk about working with one or two professors, and they're not taking new students, you may not be admitted.

That said, you are free to write your statement of purpose however you choose. Just keep in mind that in formal application processes, you are generally writing to an entire department, not just one or two professors.


Public accountability for academic work I have realised that my performance improves when I make my progress publicly accountable. For example, my jogging times improve and I lose more weight when I enter myself onto a public rankings list. I would imagine that my academic progress would also improve if I make my progress publicly visible.

I'm wondering what online rankings or any other publicly visible progress reports might be available in academia? I've heard of impact factors, but is there anything else? I'm sure there are people against turning academia into a competition, but I find some sort of competitive element really improves my performance.

You can always compare the length of publication lists, e.g., using Google Scholar, ResearchGate or even your colleagues' homepages.

Summaries of publications and their impact are (attempted to be) provided by the h-index and similar measures. (Impact factors really pertain to journals, not researchers... but indices for researchers may take into account whether the researcher publishes in a low- or high-impact journal.)

There can be, uh, lively discussions about the merits or not of such measures, especially in the context of hiring and remuneration decisions.

One problem with using such measures for short- and medium-term motivation as you propose is the lag between the work and the publication - feedback is far too slow. If you are looking for motivation, you may want to check Productivity.SE.com.


Is a PhD useful if you are interested in a career as a staff researcher, not leader of your own research lab? How useful is a PhD if my final career goals don't involve leading my own research lab?  In a perfect world I would like to end up as a bioinformatics programmer/analyst in a lab or a core facility to help other people with their projects rather than work on my own. (This is what I'm already doing, actually, but I fell into it somewhat by accident, and I'm not sure if I will be able to find similar jobs in the future without a PhD, if I need to leave my current lab. Thus this question.)

Is a PhD going to be a significant advantage for this kind of position, compared to a BS plus equivalent time working in a staff bioinformatics job in academia?  Or are PhDs mostly only useful for people who want to end up as professors or managing research projects in industry?

Looking at your situation, I would say that if you have no intention of teaching and no interest in conducting your own research, a doctorate may not be the best use of your time. It might be better to earn your BS and get some experience under your belt.

That said, a PhD might help open doors in some really cool labs / companies / universities. There may be some jobs that require the terminal degree.


PhD students reviewing papers I am a PhD student at the final year and I received a request from a well known journal (impact factor 1.6). I have published only conference papers. Is it normal to receive such a request? Or am I lucky?

There are several possibilities. One is that you are lucky. One is that they are desperate (no, not really). But, I think that the most likely answer is that you have been "seen" by an editor via your conference papers and seem to be a good candidate to review a particular work. I would guess that the editor sees a match of interest and topic that points to you.

If you have the time for it, it would probably be a good idea to accept, just for the experience.

But, no, I don't think it is especially "normal" in most fields. When your advisor is an editor or a close associate of an editor, it might be more common, of course. Perhaps someone like that suggested you.


Positioning of elements in research paper I'm currently writing a research paper in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and me and my professor have slightly different views on how to present and order the different elements that are necessary in a paper.

I have two parties that are interested in my research, my professor (and school) and the company I do the research for. The company has no experience with scientific reports.

My professor comes from an psychology background and wants me to write in an hour glass structure. I however believe that I should be writing it for the public that is going to profit from the research, which is in this case the company.

After a search I came across this: Is it a good academic practice to tell the reader in the introduction what the essay is about directly? In which I found the answer by Jeromy Anglim that I completely agree with.

This however only goes in to the introduction and says nothing about the discussion/conclusion section of the paper.

At the moment I have a conclusion section right after my results where I answer my research questions. After this I have a discussion section on what these results mean with the theory and all that belongs there. This was very appreciated by the company.

However, not so much by my professor. He says the conclusion always comes after the discussion, or is part of the discussion.

Long story short:

What is a good way to present the introduction and discussion/conclusion in a paper which has to be easily read and understood by non-academics.
If I do not use the hour-glass structure, what section of my paper would be the best place to justify this decision?

Your problem is that a term paper for university is not the same as a company white paper. You cannot expect to write a nice white paper ("What is a good way to present the introduction and discussion/conclusion in a paper which has to be easily read and understood by non-academics.") and expect your professor to grade it as such. The conventions for white papers and academic reports are significantly different (and I would honestly be surprised of the positioning of the conclusions are really the only required change).

I like Suresh's suggestion - produce two versions of the report, one for the company, which focuses on the results and implications for the company, and one for the university, which is written for an academic reader outside the company. The style may well differ, even if the vast majority of the content will be the same.


Where to get Review articles? I am wondering about review articles. Where to get them? Google scholar or Researchgate or other such sites does not provide any option to separate out the review articles. It is very hard to look into all the articles and separate out.

Is there any way to separate out the review articles only?

If you're looking for biomedical reviews, Pubmed allows you to filter reviews after searching for keywords. This option is available in the sidebar, under "Article Types". Depending on your field, there might be other search engines that allow this type of filtering.

On Google Scholar, you can refine your searches by using Google search operators. For example, if you search for insubject:"obstructive lung disease" intext:"review", Google Scholar will return results that have "Obstructive Lung Disease" in the title and the word "review" somewhere in the text.


Optimal journal publications strategy (academic career) Suppose that I've written 10 academic papers. Which CV is the best for academic appointments?

5 publications in mid-high ranked journals, 5 in low ranked (but nevertheless peer-reviewed) journals.
5 publications in mid-high ranked journals, 5 working papers that you disclose on your CV and publish on your website/University profile (assume that these could have been published in low-ranked journals but you chose not to).
5 publications in mid-high ranked journals, 5 papers that you've written that you file draw away when you figure out they you're not going to be able to publish them in a top quality journal (assume that these could have been published in low-ranked journals but you chose not to).

The third dot-point may be unethical, I'm not sure.

Feel free to play with the definition of "mid-high ranked" and "low ranked" in your response.

Feel free to do a scenario analysis where you consider PhD -> postdoc/assistant prof, postdoc/assistant prof -> tenure as separate cases requiring different analysis.

FYI this is for economics/finance/statistics, but also feel free to talk about your own areas where you've had the experience.

I started wondering about this when I came across some extremely high quality working papers that aren't published and that have hundreds of citations. This makes me suspect that the 1st option is not optimal.

the 'working paper' notion in economics appears unique to that area, so I can't comment on that. The problem with your phrasing though is that it ignores quality issues. Assuming therefore, that the 10 papers are fixed, and the only question is which of the three options to use, then the answer is probably (1).

For people who want to know about the work, either of (1) and (2) are fine, and (3) makes little sense (I also don't understand why that would be viewed as unethical). but even then, there's some low-quality non-zero positive information associated with publication in a journal the reader hasn't heard of.

For people who prefer to look at CVs to infer quality, then (1) is superior to (2) (again (3) doesn't make sense).

One way in which (2) is superior to (1) is if you're hoping that you get the benefit of the doubt for unpublished work that has no "quality signal" like the name of the venue it appears in. This is unlikely to happen unless you're in an area where it's common to have unpublished manuscripts circulating and valued.


After the passing of my supervisor, the department forces me to start again from zero. How to respond? I have had a very rocky PhD candidacy. My first supervisor left academia half way through my candidacy; the replacing supervisor passed away a year after that. So two and a half years through a three-years PhD candidacy, the head of the department gives me two choices: Either I have to change my topic of research and start over from zero again and somehow finish "in time" (how this will be done is unclear, and I am supposed to hash it out myself with one of the available supervisors), or I have to withdraw from the program.

Their justification is that no one in the department understands the content of my works. Is this a proper/normal justification? I cannot believe that an academic department belonging to a top university can seriously use “we fail to understand the candidate’s work“ as a justification to force me to do something that I deem to be completely infeasible.

So, assuming I cannot dispute this decision, given the fact that I have to start over from zero again anyway, with a department that readily admits that its people do not have the competence to understand and therefore will throw away wantonly what I have produced after two and a half years of working nine hours every single day without a single day off, should I just leave and apply for another PhD program? Whatever that will be coming out from this attempt to salvage my PhD will probably lead me nowhere except a piece of paper anyway. If I withdraw for this reason, how will this be seen by other universities? How will this be seen by people in the industry?

My goal is a career in academia. I am someone who has severe social anxiety and so I find it impossible to survive in the industry. I have always thought I might have a chance to be accepted in the academic world instead, but I have now realized that someone like me probably belongs nowhere.

Maybe someone else in the department can supervise your work and maybe they can't--the fact is that they won't, and that's what you have to work with. My (pessimistic) gut feeling is that the department head has essentially written you off as collateral damage. He's willing to push you through for a completion because that's good for the department, but he doesn't care that you want an academic career.

On the off chance that this isn't the case, you might try approaching the possible available supervisors and get a clear timeline from them about how you can finish with work that can launch an academic career. If they tell you it will take longer than the one year that the department head seems willing to allow, you can try going over his head to pressure him to agree to your new supervisor's timeline. But this is a rather delicate situation and you are probably better off shopping your work around at another school and explaining that you lost two supervisors through no fault of your own.


Editor invites many reviewers simultaneously I have been reviewing for a particular prestigious journal in my field for some time. I noticed that the editor invites a significant number of reviewers (4-7) simultaneously. In most cases, not all reviewers submit their reviews in time, but in one particular case, 5 reviewers submitted a review, and the paper was rejected.

While I understand that it is common to invite a number reviewers because many end up declining or not submitting a review, I feel like it is unethical to do so simultaneously, and is a situation similar to an author submitting to multiple journals, as it "wastes" reviewer-hours. In the particular 5-reviewer case, the paper did not need 5 reviewers to be rejected.

Is this kind of practice common and/or is it considered ethical in general?

It's quite common to invite multiple reviewers simultaneously, though 4-7 is on the high side in my experience (yet sometimes, even 4-7 is not enough!). The numbers quoted in the details below are for physics, and might differ for other fields.

Regarding whether or not it's ethical, it really depends on tradeoffs. The tradeoff for not inviting multiple reviewers at the same time is that your paper will take longer to handle. It's not just submitting reviews on time. Not every reviewer invited will agree to review it! My personal guideline when I was an editor was that, each time I invited reviewers (3-5 at a time), I would budget one month till I receive reviews. That itself is an optimistic budget - 6 weeks is closer to the average, since there's a long tail in the distribution.

The alternative to inviting multiple reviewers at the same time is to invite one at a time, and wait till you hear back from the reviewer if (s)he is willing to review. This leads to the following problems:

How long are you willing to wait to hear back from the reviewer? Let's say a week (which was also my personal guideline). Since you might have to invite 6+ reviewers before someone actually agrees to do it, you could easily be waiting 6 weeks before the paper starts being reviewed. If the reviewer takes one month to complete, that's at least 2.5 months before you can make a decision, not including any administrative time (i.e. you and the editor-in-chief both make decisions immediately).
What if your journal requires two reviewers? You can invite two at a time, but there's no guarantee that both of them will agree to review. Maybe one will, the other won't. You could end up with one review submitted with the next one due in another month.
What if the reviewer you invited writes a poor review (happens more often than one might think)? Sure you can blacklist the reviewer, but you still need to make a decision for the paper. If you invite more reviewers, again, that's another 1+ month till you receive the reviews.
Nightmare scenario: what if your reviewer agrees to review but then does not actually submit a review, in spite of multiple chasers? If we take the worst case, you've already waited 2.5 months and then discover that you have to start from scratch, which can lead to another 2.5 months before you can make a decision. Ouch!

In the end it comes down to how long authors are willing to wait for their papers to be reviewed. If authors are willing to wait 6 months, then yes, editors can invite one reviewer at a time and waste fewer reviewer-hours. On the other hand it's common for authors to start worrying if they don't hear back in two months, in which case the editor really cannot invite one reviewer at a time.


Compressing figures for paper submission I recently submitted my first paper to a journal and had some trouble with the figures I uploaded. Specifically, the journal required vector graphics figures to be exported at 1200dpi, grayscale at 600dpi and coloured at 300dpi and I could choose between tiff and eps formats. The problem I faced was that there was an upload limit of 30MBs and I had to submit each figure separately. Keeping the dpi guidelines produced images that had a total size more than 200MBs and the only way I could upload them was by exporting them to 200dpi. Has anyone faced a similar issue and if so, how did you solve it?

The upload limit is clearly a stricter requirement than the image resolution threshold since you can't submit a paper over that size. As you have done, I suspect most people would compress the images to meet the file limit.


How to increase participation in tutorials, as a teaching assistant? I will be a teaching assistant for a couple of "tutorials" this semester. Basically, I just have a list of problems that we have to go over in the tutorial. Last semester, the Calculus for Engineering students were happy to participate, but the Calculus for Finance students were not. The only factor I can think of is that the Engineering students were more prepared. How can I get the students to participate? Should I just stall and not continue until someone raises their hand, and then they'll eventually get the message? Somehow I'm not sure that really works...

I often walk over to a randomly picked student and ask him/her a question. I do that randomly and unpredictably, including corners of the room or sides where students expect to be out of the action, and no student will stay inattentive. Under no circumstances belittle or ridicule, though, no matter how wrong they are, and if the student makes even a partial step in the right direction, give them credit for this. If they are stuck, you can then solicit help from others to further complete the answer.

For students avoiding your eyes, try to pick a question with unclear/ambiguous response. When you then ask the student, they are likely to respond with "I don't know" or similar, and you can then say that they are indeed right, that the answer is indeed unclear (and, of course, you discuss why). This gives them a confidence boost, and the next time you ask them they will be less worried to answer.


Paper based on Master Thesis - Disclaimer necessary? Making my Master Thesis into a paper.

I've recently come across a paper that put a disclaimer into the introduction:

This study is a continuation of work presented in the PhD Thesis ....

I wanted to know if such a disclaimer is necessary if my paper is based on my Master Thesis.

Thanks.

Yes, this is necessary.

Self Plagiarism may seem like a strange thing to be worried about, but there are many reasons to avoid it the way you would any other plagiarism:

Some journals use double blind reviewing, so reviewers can't distinguish between self-plagiarism and plagiarism.
You may have received funding for your thesis, which is probably acknowledged in your thesis, but not necessarily in the paper version.
People reading your paper may want to read the full Master's thesis, since theses generally contain more detail and are less space-constrained than papers.


Can I use only one of my two last names for publishing? I have 2 last names due to my hispanic background. Soon, I will have to think about my very first publication (field: Medicine/Psychology). Could I use only the first last name for my publishing or will I get into legal trouble with that?
My goal is to avoid hassles after marriage, since we are planning to fuse our last names. So, assumed that my maiden name is A. Smith Miller, after marriage I'd be called A. Smith-Johnson, and my publishing name would be A. Smith.
Is that possible, or is it mandatory to use the entire last name for publishing?

You can use any name you like for publishing - even a pseudonym. You are wise to consider the future so that publishing will always be under the same name, simplifying searches and keeping the maintenance of your reputation simple.
In some ways, keeping a birth name as your official "professional name" is the simplest for most people.
And people who are active in more than one field, might want to use different names in those fields, just as novelists often do.


Does the course number matter? I have a doctorate already and have circled back to complete an MBA. My doctorate is in another discipline.

My MBA program just told me that, rather than using the proposed course numbers for an analytics track, they will be using the repeatable "Special Topics" 5000 number.

For example:

MBA 5510 Data Warehouses will now be MBA 5000 Data Warehouses
MBA 5520 Advanced Queries will now be MBA 5000 Advanced Queries
MBA 5530 Advanced Data Mining will now be MBA 5000 Adv Data Mining

Our course catalog lists MBA 5000 as "Special Topics" and it is shown as repeatable. I am not sure whether my transcript would reflect special topics or the original course title, but I will end up with four instances of the MBA 5000 course number on my transcript.

As someone involved in an academic career, should I be wary of this change? Will other institutions scrutinize the use of this repeatable "Special Topics" course number and/or name?

Anyone who cares what these courses are will know what a Special Topics course is, i.e. that it's a course placeholder in the scheduling and reservation system for courses that may be taught infrequently or even once, and ask you about the topic(s). This is a very common construct at universities in the US that I am familiar with, and shouldn't be a problem for you since you will have an opportunity to tell them what the topics were.


Including "Thanks Card" in my graduate application I am applying for graduate schools in the US. In the applications, I can upload supplement materials (like CV, publications), and I am considering including a "Thanks Card" I have received from my last internship, which composed of many of my coworkers' recognitions and wishes for me. I want to include this card since I think it can further prove my motivation, good understanding of my field, and many other good characters. But I am not sure if this is too personal or inappropriate (my coworkers' first names appearing in the cards) for a graduate application. Could I have any suggestions or opinions? Thank you very much!

Honestly - unless this card is speaking to something very particular and relevant to your statement of purpose I would not include it. Think about this from the perspective of someone reviewing your application. In most US grad school applications, you need to have people provide letters of reference. What would this thank you note contribute in addition to those letters?
You don't say whether you have a letter of reference from this internship, but it would be odd either way.
If you don't have a reference letter from the internship, someone looking at your application might be confused by it, and not know how to judge it. It might raise questions such as "why is this person including this letter from their co-workers when they don't have a letter of reference from it?"
I will also say - generally the more specific a recommendation letter can be, the better it is. Maybe it depends on thank you letter, but in my experience, those tend to be "thanks for a great summer, great to get to know you" which is probably of less interest to an application reader than "During the 3 months Danny worked here, he worked on projects X, Y, and Z, and made contributions U, V, and W"
Anonymous Physicist is right. Show the letter to the person writing your recommendation letter, don't include it in your application.


Are there many journals that do not accept TeX/LaTeX? I have been told by our head of department, a veteran academic with a lot of publications behind his name, that I am not allowed to write my masters dissertation with TeX/LaTeX, as many journals do not accept TeX/LaTeX documents, and now I have to use Word. I work in thermoflow research.
I can almost not believe that journals would prefer Word over TeX/LaTeX, or is this in actual fact true?
I would appreciate answers from people actually working in academic publishing.

The answer is that in some fields (La)TeX dominate whereas in other fields (La)TeX is largely unknown. Obviously any field where equations are required is more likely to be using (La)TeX for writing and publishing. However, it is not uncommon that journals, or rather, type-setters of journals, use LaTeX for final production regardless of submitted format. The same applies to book publishers. But, the fact is that the use varies and one needs to check with the journal to which you wish to submit.

The fact that you are not "allowed" to write your thesis with (la)TeX is perhaps because your advisor does not use it. I am an avid LaTeX user and am struggling to convince both colleagues and students in my department to at least try using it so I know how difficult it can be. In the end, I need to use both to be able to communicate with my colleagues and peers. So although I do not see why you should not set the thesis in (La)TeX in the end, you probably need to use word for the manuscript so that your advisor can provide input on files you supply. But, check how many journals actually use LaTeX in your field and strike up a discussion with your fellow students and your advisor. I think it is worthwhile to be fairly fluent in using many tools.

Edit: I will just add that I was convinced by a friend to use TeX (not LaTeX, it was a long time ago) when I wrote my thesis (a monograph at a US university) while almost no-one in the department used TeX; but then my advisor always provided feedback from double-spaced printouts which were platform independent. Those were the days.


How do you find out what conferences are in your field? I’m new to the culture of research and my professor suggested that I try to submit an abstract to a conference. The only problem is, I have no idea how you figure out what type of conferences there are. I’m wondering if there’s some type of conference portal that lists them all in different fields...?

There’s so many conferences out there and I’m just curious how one could go about finding conferences to submit to. I should say, I’m not asking what conferences I should submit to, but how you figure out which conferences even exist in the first place.

Another thing that you should do, and it will help with this issue is to join a professional organization in your field. I'll guess that most fields have one or more such organizations, and I'll also guess that most of those have a special rate structure for students. This is true in Mathematics and Computer Science, for example (each of which as two or more such). The ACM (in CS) also has Special Interest Groups (SIGS) for subfields that you can join.

And then, the problem will go away as your email inbox will be full of announcements. Likewise, the "journal" that is distributed to all members will also be full of announcements of conferences, even those not formally sponsored by the organization. The SIGS will also send you lots of enticing ads.

But, you should probably join for a lot of reasons, not just the email "enhancements".

And, of course, those same societies normally have web sites, and their conferences are usually promoted there. They are likely to be some of the top conferences in that field.


Publishing an almost trivial paper to arxiv My question is simple:

Should I publish a paper on arxiv if the result is almost trivial or just an analysis of the known results with a new question in mind? Other than the main question I am answering (which could lead to some extensions) there does not seem to be an interesting idea.

Since you think of the work as trivial there is only one reason I can think of for publishing it. If, for some reason you need to make a reference to the material it contains, then it might be useful to have it in a public repository. Of course, you could, in most cases, make reference to the source material instead, or simply incorporate the work into something more significant. But if, for example, you want to void the problem of cross referencing between other papers this might be a good idea.

Otherwise, it might be better to sit on the result until you have something of substance.


Some postdoc positions do not have deadlines, but will open until filled. What is happening? I am currently searching for postdoc positions for my first time. Many postdoc positions have definite deadlines, but others don't. Surprisingly, some prestigious institutes list postdoc positions for a long time but they are still waiting for applicants. My belief is that prestigious institutes would quickly receive a lot of applications, so that the positions ought to be taken very soon, but this appears to not be the case. What is happening?

Long story short, they don't need to "settle for less". Though this may sound somewhat crass, the truth of the matter is that many elite institutions probably do receive a large number of applications but reject most of them. Because there is no risk of the supply of interested applicants disappearing, a lab can wait to pick out a candidate that they feel meets their (possibly very high) requirements.


More than 2 months with status 'Editor assigned ' ; is it normal? I'm a bit worried because my paper have been more than 2 months "with editor" status. It's a computer science journal , from a famous editorial.
Normally we have the option to send an e-mail to the assigned editor, but in this case there is only "view your submission".

In this case, what should I do within the following choices?
1. Withdraw
2. Make direct contact to the editor
3. Just wait
4. Other

Also, if I should contact the editor directly, How can I know which editor to contact and how can I found his contact address ?
Thanks in advance

Contact editor and ask for status update.

Editor assigned generally means someone (whoever first received the submission) has chosen a member of the editorial board to handle the manuscript. It's because they haven't agreed to handle the manuscript that you don't have an assigned editor to email. It shouldn't take two months for the editorial board member to decide whether or not they can handle the manuscript, as well.

I would email the journal office or whoever you can contact and ask them what's going on. They might send a chaser to the invited editor, or they might invite a new editor; either way the ball's in their court.


The use of second authorship paper for graduate admission During my undergraduate, I have a publication, however I am listed as the second author. I know it is not as ideal as being listed as first author, but for graduate admission, will it still play a role?

No-one would expect an undergraduate to publish papers so the fact that you have been involved in publishable research is a merit. One of the goals of a Phd education is to learn to write good research papers so, again, no-one would expect that from your from the start. I would suggest that you try to describe your contribution to the paper so that your authorship can be valued from the perspective of that contribution. Being able to understand the skills and experience of a student, provided it is good, is of value in a selection process.


How do I include a non-technical critique or line of thought in a technical doctoral thesis without being off topic? Here is more context:

I understand that I have to stick to the point and so on, but I'm not asking if you think it's a good idea or not, so I beg you to spare me the lecture. I would like your advice to do it in the best way possible.
My research domain is software engineering.
The reason for wanting to include a non-technical passage is that  I want to point to other fields in which nature-based design (i.e. biomimicry) has led researchers astray such as architecture for example. Another subject I want to approach is patent law, so I would ask the same question for that.

Of course, the main thrust of my thesis is technical, but I firmly believe that some information about the surroundings of the subject is important, because the subject of my thesis is about the use of improper methodology in a subfield of computational sciences, so it does fall under the category of meta-methodology.
Thank you all for your input. It is much appreciated.

An excellent doctoral thesis in software engineering must have passages of non-technical thought, the more the better. Such passages make the work accessible. Of course, technical aspects must appear to. The non-technical passages complement the technical aspects, the former provides the story of how the latter came to be.

To explicitly answer your question: Non-technical parts aren't off-topic, include them wherever necessary, just like technical parts, I don't see a need to explicitly distinguish between the two, the author will know.


Independent publishing of paper resulting from a project [To clarify I am in an European university, have never published anything]

As part of my Masters curriculum in Electrical Engineering I had to do a research project during the semester along with the lectures. This is intended as a hands on methodology in investigation and research in general.
The project turned out to be pretty great (got the highest grade possible), and my supervisor (a PostDoc student at my university) and I were very happy with the results.

I did not consider it at the moment (or get it proposed by my supervisor), but with some formatting I think it should be at least good enough to be sent to some journals/publications.

Here are were my questions, considering I am not considering to get for a PhD after my Masters is done:

1) Since the project finished my supervisor ended his PostDoc and left the university. I don't have any contact info from him, and haven't found any from a quick Google search.

Question: should I contact my supervisor to publish along with him?

The ideas and theoretical proposal came from him. He did assist and help me during the project, but I did all the implementation and writing of the projects paper.

2) Not knowing what I am doing after graduation, I think there is little chance I pursue a PhD.

Question: should I be trying to get it published altogether or ditch the idea?

I think that even if I do not continue in academia, it is helpful for later on applying to certain industry jobs. I also would like to share the ideas and findings, since I think the work was well-structured and investigated interesting ideas.

3) As mentioned, I never published before, so I don't know the procedure, the jounals where I should aim, etc.
The field was Systems Biology, which is not technically my area, but the project dealt mostly with modelling, simulation (MATLAB), etc. (I followed a Control / Robotics heavy program)

Question: if 2) applies, where should I try to send my work?

Any help, ideas or similar experiencies would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

You should definitely contact your former supervisor. If you do not have his contact information yourself, then you could try asking colleagues at your institution - such as a professor in the same research group.

While authorship norms do vary by field, the supervisor's contribution (having the original idea, defining the project, helping you in general) is surely enough that he should at least be asked. My impression is that even in those fields where supervisors might not be authors, it would still be very bad to try to publish a paper without talking to the supervisor about it. For all you know, he is planning to publish, and would be justifiably angry if you pre-emptively submitted your own version - and even had it accepted. Even if did not expect to be a co-author, he may still be upset if he does not have the chance to help make the paper the best it could be.1

If the supervisor would like to be a co-author, then he should certainly be able to help with venue selection, and adapting the document from a thesis to a paper. Generally, it's not just a matter of changing the formatting - each kind of document has its own requirements, which aren't exactly the same. For example, in a dissertation you will probably spend more time on general background material than in a paper. The work you have done might not be substantive or original enough for all journals. Receiving advice at an early stage may well make a huge difference in the quality of the submitted paper. (You can still seek advice from others, if the original supervisor can't help.)

As far as whether you should submit a paper at all: I think you are thinking along the correct lines. It may help your career - it certainly shouldn't harm it - and you will be contributing to the general advancement of human knowledge. On the other hand, it will take some amount of work. Again, someone who is more familiar with your research area can take a look at your thesis and give advice about just how much work that might be.

1. Example: A colleague of mine is a mathematician. His student submitted a paper, based on the student's own work. The professor did not expect to be an author, especially since he didn't contribute to the mathematical content. But he was upset that the student hadn't asked him for advice about preparing and submitting the paper. He was also embarrassed that he found out about the paper's existence from a third party.


What are some red flags that even the professors cannot help in the admission? According to Wolfgang Bangerth's answer to Can a professor influence the graduate admissions committee if he or she is interested in a particular student?:

  If a professor sends us a note that they'd like to have a student admitted and state that they will take on their adviser role, we [the adcom] will only not admit that student if there are any red flags in the file.

I want to elaborate this more. What are the red flags that he mentions?

I know that they will look at these things: the transcript, the LORs, the SOP, the GRE and TOEFL scores. What is the threshold of them? At the 50% bottom of the applications or what? Is the threshold different from top schools and low tier ones?

I have applied to a top school, to a leading professor, who says that I "would be a terrific addition" to the group. If I can avoid the red flags, how much chance that I will get an admission?

What are the red flags that he mentions?

In general, a red flag is anything that makes the application look inappropriate or weak in comparison with other applications.  This is a vague term, as you've recognized.  It can mean something a little different to each committee member.  (I've been in discussions in which one committee member thought something was clearly a worrisome sign while another was completely unbothered by it.)

In practice, when you first look at a group of applications they come across like this.  There's a small group that should obviously be admitted, and a large group that don't look like good choices.  The latter are the ones with red flags.  Then there's a group that look like they could plausibly be admitted, but there are too many of them so further distinctions have to be made.  That's the group where support from a potential advisor would be most helpful.

  I have applied to a top school, to a leading professor, and they says that I "would be a terrific addition" to the group. Would this mean that if I'm trying to avoid the red flags, 100% that I will get an admission?

It's completely unclear.  First of all, it depends on how the admissions committee works.  For example, it sounds like support from an advisor helps much more in Wolfgang Bangerth's department than in mine.  Without knowing where you are applying, it's impossible to say what will happen in your case.

Furthermore, who knows what this professor's statement means?  Maybe they tell lots of people that they would be terrific additions.  Maybe you're special but someone even more impressive has also applied.  It's not worth spending a lot of time trying to interpret statements like this, since you just don't have enough information to say with any confidence what they mean.


Sense of humor allowed in academic writing? I'm reading a paper at the moment and very bored and then I thought if I write a paper, I would like the writing style to be not so boring or having some kind of humor. Is that allowed in academic writing?

"Why so serious?" - Joker.

There is nothing wrong with humour in scientific writing but it is still advised against. The reason for this is a question of communication.

Consider that the purpose is to convey an idea as succinctly and precisely as you can and you want the recipient to understand everything that you write (my experience says this will never happen, anyway). If you introduce jokes, you run several risks: (1) the reader does not understand the joke, (2) the reader misunderstands the joke and (3) the reader is offended by the joke. These are not outcomes you wish to see and realizing that not everyone's taste is like your own it is easy top realize that the outcome is sure to be one of the three above in some cases. Jokes are different in different cultures and countries so what works in one place may not work in another.

So, as I see it the choice is how much you are willing to gamble. Reviewers and editors may of course weed out things that go too far so what you write is not necessarily what comes into print in the end but it still is mostly up to you.


Are politicians attempting to destroy tenure? Apparently, Iowa's politicians intend to enrich the tenure experience by annual gladiatorial games at state schools, regardless of tenure:

those being evaluated below some threshold shall be terminated, and
after (1), the 5 remaining lowest scoring professors will be put to a public student vote, and the one with the least student support shall be terminated.

The source looks legit - blog of the AAUP. I'm not sure if this is enacted, or proposed (I think proposed). I'm also not entirely sure how to link this to an answerable question fit for Academia.SE, but maybe:

Is this a joke I didn't get, or is it true?
Is it part of a broader wave?
Does this contradict any case law, or is being fought already somehow; or will professors just have to live with it?

If this is true, and stands in Iowa, to be worried for the US at large one just has to look at how quality of life legislation spread like a wild fire once enacted in one place.

Proposals to "reform" or end tenure are not new—they have been going around for several decades at least (as I remember such stories when I was an undergraduate in the 1990's).

This is not yet enacted legislation—it is merely a proposal that, as far as I can tell, probably has not even had any hearings yet. As such, I would suspect that such a bill would be shot down in committee, as the proposed methods would probably violate at least some sort of labor laws, as the faculty would in effect be judged by students with whom they have never interacted. Such "popularity contests" would pretty much dry up any opportunities for faculty recruitment. (Who would want to work at such a school?)


Is it desirable to compliment a seminar speaker before asking a question? Some people, when asking a question at the end of a seminar, make comments on the talk first along the lines of "great talk," "really enjoyed this talk," or similar phrases. Is this a desirable thing to do? I've noticed that most people don't do this, but some of my favorite scientists do.

My personal preference is not to offer a compliment in this setting.  It often strikes me as less sincere (off-handed or perfunctory).  If I really want to compliment someone, I tend to catch up with them later and start with something like "I really enjoyed your talk.  If you have a minute to talk, I have a question for you about..."  On the other hand, I know that some people feel like asking questions (especially if they are critical of some aspect of the work) can feel hostile, and so they find the compliment as a good way to off-set that.


What are some fields of computer science where your stuff has to actually work? I am currently a PhD student in computational social science, and I feel like my work doesn't really contribute positively to humanity.  Basically I feel like I am running analyses and producing plots to "prove a point" or (optimistically) discover new insights about the world.  But I'm not actually sure that the point is true, because if I run the analysis in a slightly different way, it proves another point entirely.  It seems to very much depend on the specific dataset you use and the specific way you conduct your analyses.

I want to switch to a field where this doesn't happen.  Ideally in order to have a publication you would have to produce a piece of software that does something useful for the world, and it would be impossible to fake its usefulness.  I am affiliated with the computer science department at my university, so I was wondering what fields of computer science are the most "legitimate" in this way, and also friendly to people with very little background in them.

I work in the field of computational social science and during my PhD, there were many instances in which I had similar thoughts.

You provide me a hint in your second paragraph - you are affiliated with the CS department in your university. Unfortunately, a common fallacy of most CS departments which have programs in computational social science is to focus on the "computational" part and not really on the "social science" part. It is not an uncommon workflow to use machine learning techniques on a dataset collected using other computational techniques and then report results. This is because of many reasons, the least of which is that folks need to know computation in great detail - this is at many times possible in computer science departments and not in social sciences (although that is changing in many departments that I know of)

This is what is probably causing the disconnect in your mind. I strongly suggest either expanding your reading to the parts of social science that you work on or are interested in and talking to more social scientists. You need to think at the intersection of both computational and social sciences and not as a computer scientist. Social science contributes many understandings of individual and collective behavior (often in networks) For instance, there is a big difference in paper writing and reporting of results in WWW, KDD versus CSCW and CHI although all these venues promote and support computational social science.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, if you feel like you need to change your field you probably should! You should do what excites you the most but I just wanted to point out possible avenues of thinking about computational social science since it is quite novel.


Grad School Interviews with Multiple Programs at same School I applied to 3 programs within the same school (2 of which are joint with another institution). All of the programs are related to my research interests, and the main professors I would want to work with are affiliated with all 3 programs.
I ended up getting interviews at all 3 programs which brings me to my question - for the interviews I have to provide a ranked list of the faculty I want to interview with. Would it be strange to interview with the same faculty multiple times? For example, a specific PI (that is the PI I most want to work with), actually encouraged me to also apply to one of the programs after I talked to him and mentioned I was applying to the other two programs - I'm unsure whether I should interview with him at the interview sessions for each of the 3 programs (since I wrote about his work in my statement of purpose so it may be weird to the admissions committee if I didn't). It also seems weird, however, interviewing with the same person 3 times.
Thank you!!!

I doubt that you would have repeat interviews with the same person unless it is a group interview (group of professors). If they know of your interest in the various positions they will ask whatever questions need to be asked when they meet you.
List the professors you want to work with and ignore the overlap. Let them work out the details.
Of course, someone may want to sit in on more than one interview if the positions are different enough. But they are likely pretty busy. I they come back for more, I'd take it as a sign of high interest.


How to get work done on the weekends As an undergraduate, I had a problem: I could work very efficiently during the week, but over the weekend I could get absolutely nothing done. Usually my plans for the weekend would include errands, studying, working on papers and projects, getting ahead with reading, and taking care of numerous chores (laundry, bills, writing applications, etc.)

But I would end up doing none of this. Instead, I would find myself scrambling to do the bare minimum for Monday in the wee hours of Sunday night or in the last few minutes before class.

Does anyone have tips for navigating short periods of unstructured time, such as two free days, in an academic setting?

One solution that has often worked for me is to try to not work on the weekends.  If your weekdays are solid work times, then you can do more intense work on the weekdays and aim to have your weekend entirely free.  Even if you don't entirely succeed, you'll still be in a much better situation with respect to the things you need to do by Monday.  Then you can take real time off and have fun without guilt and actually recharge yourself for another solid week.


Can we earn money through a research publication? Is there a way we can get money for our research paper? Do research journals pay us for a research paper? Or can we sell the research paper?

can we earn money through a research publication?

Certainly Yes.

Good publications make you a stronger candidate when apply to grants. It also help you in securing a job; if you do not have one. Also, collaborating with industry could be another way for earning money. Selling publication is something I never heard in my field (computer science). I do not even think it is possible in other fields.

If you are looking only for money then doing research is one of the bad choices you have.


Does it make sense to accept an early career identity in academic publishing? There are multiple academic competitions developed for young researchers. Some of them make perfect sense to me, e.g. a prize for the best poster at a conference. But there are cases when special competitions for young researchers are organized by academic journals. Here is an example from my field. Since such a competition is primarily aimed at PhD candidates and even recently promoted PhDs, and this is the level when publications are routinely required from the researchers, isn't it a strange idea to compete as a "young researcher" rather than just submit your paper in a usual way? Could it have negative consequences to label you paper as something "amateur"?

In the mentioned above case 31 papers competed for 1 award that assumed publication in the journal later on. Isn't ~3% success rate insane for a second tier journal?

Some journals even develop a special paper guidance for young researchers and introduce a position of Early Career Editor.

Are there good reasons for special publication tracks for young researchers? Do I miss something in my skeptical position?

In addition to awarding the Young Author Prize, the jury decided to request the Population editorial board to review the other finalists’ articles for possible publication. The other candidates in the first selection will be sent referee evaluations and juror comments to assist them in future submissions.

This makes it seem like the “finalists” were papers good enough for publication. It would be interesting to know how many of the finalists actually ended up getting published. Although 1/31 is low, 6/31 is much less stringent and I think that might be the number you should be looking at.

Acceptance rates wildly vary by field, but it’s not implausible to me that only 6 of the 31 submissions warranted publication. Submissions by recent grads tend to not be as good, so the acceptance rate amongst recent PhDs should be lower than the average acceptance rate overall.

There’s also nothing that I see that says you can’t submit it both ways. All in all, I don’t find this particularly unreasonable. I’m not sure what added benefit there is, unless you win/are a finalist and can put it on your CV, but it doesn’t seem particularly amiss to me.

Tracks for young researchers often have more support than other tracks. For example, your link mentions that every submitted paper gets peer-review feedback, which isn’t going to be the case for a general submission. I’ve been to conferences with similar set-ups, where all submissions in the “young professional” bin get more attention and more feedback than general submissions. The value of feedback like that is hard to overstate. I don’t feel like it degrades your work to call it done by a young professional. My first paper was presented at a conference for undergraduates, and my resume still has that line on it. It is a matter of fact that that work was done by an undergraduate. The purpose of these kinds of events is to provide better feedback and better access than you would get from the usual venue, and I haven’t seen any analyses that say that they’re ineffective. My personal experience with them has been entirely positive.


Are there cases where an accepted paper is retracted for lack of originality? Following the answers to this question that it is quite common to inadvertently reinvent the wheel in theoretical/computational research, have there been cases where the decision to accept a paper to a journal/conference has been revoked on this ground, because someone found out later that the results were not actually original? In such cases, how would one distinguish between oversight and plagiarism?

By "revoked," I assume that you mean retracted. I have often heard of papers being retracted for plagiarism, but never for reinventing the wheel.

I believe that the reason is, there are so many different ways to invent wheels, that it is almost always possible to tell if an idea is actually an independent invention.  A reinvention will likely use somewhat different terminology, have a different formulation of the problem, use different types of evidence, or whatnot.  There will be so many small differences, that it would be clear that the work is original, in the copyright sense, and not an academic fraud.

The fact that is it a reinvention of an idea that was already discovered elsewhere, however, means that it is likely to sink into obscurity once this fact is discovered... except... sometimes, a reinvention is not just a reinvention.  Sometimes, the reason for a reinvention is that an idea has not reached a community.  In that case, the contribution may not be the reinvention, but the importation of a mature body of work from elsewhere, in which case even a reinvention of a wheel may constitute a legitimate scientific contribution, in the form of bringing together two strands of research that complement one another and allow vital new progress to occur.


Dealing with an advisor who is not interested in publishing My advisor is a full professor nearing retirement age. Although he does not seem to be planning to retire anytime soon; he has this "been there/done that" attitude toward publications. He says that he has published enough significant work to be happy and that he only wants to publish breakthrough papers from now on. My issue is that I need publications to build a good resume. As of now, I have no publications from my PhD research.

My research project is structured in a way that any other professor would see it as an opportunity to get multiple publications out of it because each stage of the project has enough significance to be published separately. My adviser however wants only one comprehensive paper. I have several issues with this:

This reduces the number of publications appearing on my resume. I know that this really shouldn't be important, because I would still be publishing the same content. However, this is important when applying for competitive R&D positions in tech (the types of jobs I'm interested in) where during the first stages of screening applicants the number of publications would matter (since no one will actually read them at that point).
This also means that I will not be able to submit anything until close to my graduation which would mean that unless I delay my graduation until after the review process is over, I would have no publications when I graduate. Several people in industry who would be hiring for the types of jobs I'm interested in have told me that they do not consider PhD applicants who have no publications.

How would you propose I handle this situation? Today I told him that I'd like to submit an abstract to a conference but he would not permit it, saying that he is afraid that someone at the conference will steal our idea and publish it in a journal before we are able to. I really think he was just using that as an excuse though.

In comments, you say that you have less than a year left until graduation.  Given this fact, it would likely not be easy to get more than a couple of quality publications out during this time in any case, particularly with a perfectionist advisor and little experience in publishing yourself.

As such, I think your big goal (besides graduating) should be to get a good postdoc lined up, where you can solidly advance your career and do a lot of publication.  Having few publications but a respected advisor can be a totally reasonable combination for moving to a good postdoc.  If necessary, you may even do more than one round of postdoc.  Once you establish a solid "upward trajectory" and track record of publications, the fact that you published little in grad school will not be a problem, particularly if your one grad school publication is indeed a very good one.


Strategies to avoid burn out due to systemic lack of time When I was an undergrad student I used to procrastinate a lot. I managed to get things done in the nick of time by staying up all night before exams, and so on. Not very different from what Tim Urban talks about here. That's why I know this is not my problem any more. During my PhD I managed to stop procrastinating by virtue of having no other option: it was impossible to finish up everything I had do to on time unless I worked on it steadily (including until late at night and sometimes on the weekends).

During my short career in academia (I'm now into my 4th year of postdoc) I have always expected my work load to start decreasing at some point. Reality speaks a different truth: my work load has steadily increased from day 1 of my PhD until today.

Now I have to work on my own research, supervise students' research, write grants, do peer review, prepare conferences and seminars, and some teaching. With the added weight of lack of job security (even in the short term).

Even though I work long hours, I just literally don't have enough time to do everything I need to do. I always find myself working on a priority basis: try to get whatever has its deadline approaching nearest done first. Just by looking around I can see this is a systemic problem, some of my colleagues have it even worse than me.

I find myself on the brink of burnout. What are effective strategies to both avoid burnout and optimize time management in academia, having as a premise that it is literally impossible to wholly fulfill all of one's commitments?

I find myself on the brink of burnout. What are effective strategies to avoid burnout and optimize time management in academia, having as a premise that it is literally impossible to wholly fulfill all of one's commitments?

Find a therapist. Really. There is no shame in getting help when dealing with a difficult life situation. This won't reduce your workload, but a therapist should be able to give you custom tips for better managing it.
Learn to say no. Fundamentally, if your workload has been ever increasing, this is a good sign that you are bad at saying "no" to tasks. This is an extremely important skill to learn, and a therapist may be able to help you learn it if you can't do it on your own.
Start delegating. In addition to saying "no" to tasks, start delegating (parts of) the tasks that you still agree to carry out. Remember how you as a PhD student sometimes needed to help the senior people in your team with organisational varia, reviews, literature searches, etc.? You are now one of those senior people. Don't be shy to ask the students you help supervise to lend a hand with your tasks.
Accept that sometimes there is too little time to get everything done (or: accept that sometimes some things can't be done well in the time that is available). Many of us have this little perfectionist in us that requires us to (a) come through on everything we promised at some point, and (b) do everything in the best possible quality. In real life, there is usually just enough time to do some things well, and the rest either not at all or in mediocre quality. This is not your fault, and it is best to accept that sometimes you will give a presentation that's not very well prepared, or be unable to submit to this workshop even though you promised the chair a month ago.
Be aware of your priorities. Relatedly, be aware of what you personally really value and want to do right. For me, being badly prepared for teaching is a no-no. For you, it may be skipping a major paper or grant deadline. Note that I specifically said your priorities, not necessarily the priorities of your postdoc advisor or students. While in an ideal world you want to take their preferences and needs into account as well, if push comes to shove you can't consistently ignore your own priorities over the needs of others. Four years into your postdoc you should easily be senior and independent enough that you can push back if your mentor wants to force her/his own agenda onto you (if this is not the case, I suggest getting the heck out of there).


Importance of teaching as a PhD student to go into academia How important is teaching as a graduate student if I want to then pursue a career in academia. A top program I have been admitted to does not require teaching and I will be fully funded by being a graduate research assistant. Will it hurt my prospects of getting a tenure-track position if I have little to no teaching experience?

I am aware that to get a tenure-track position at a top program, a postdoc is almost always necessary.

--edit-- To address some of the points below, this is for graduate school in the US, with the desire to stay in the US if I were to pursue a tenure-track position.

If this is the US or in a place with similar traditions, then nearly all academics teach. Some more than others and some only at advanced levels, but generally, we teach.

If you are good enough to be hired primarily as a researcher at an R1 university in the US then the hiring decision won't hinge much on your background as a teacher, but for most other academic jobs it will be a consideration, perhaps an important one.

So, it is a good thing to get some experience with it, though it is time consuming the first few times. Post doc positions don't necessarily provide any teaching experience, though some do.

Observing your own teachers gives you only a bit of the knowledge you need to put a course together, deliver it, and keep a bunch of students happy.

But all universities have a complex mission, and teaching the next generation of scholars is a big part of it.


Plagiarism in journals I'm looking for some advice. In the course of my research on a particular area, I came across 2 papers on the same subject. One was written in 2010;  the other in 2015. Both are published in equally reputable journals, but on different continents. The three authors are all from the same continent, but not same country.

The 2015 paper is larger, and more expansive on the subject, when compared against the 2010 paper. However it has major failings in terms of bibliography (basically non-existant). After reading through both papers a number of times, to get a feel for them, I started to notice something. The 2015 paper has lifted entire tracts from The earlier paper, including citations that are not in their bibliography. The lifted pieces are not mentioned as direct quotes, and the original author is not mentioned in the bibliography.

This seems like a prima fascia and case of academic plagiarism? Any advice on what, if anything, I should do?

An interesting one, although I wouldn't jump straight to plagiarism.

Sometimes, if the authors are all in the same research group/university/project (this could easily be across countries) they'll use bits of colleagues work with less rigorous citing than they would normally. This is especially the case if the first paper was mostly just a positioning or introductory piece.

It's not a great thing to do, but I've seen it happen on a number of occasions. However, I'd definitely get in contact with the journal of the second paper, and then if you don't hear anything constructive back then get in contact with the journal of the first paper. Definitely don't contact the authors directly unless you don't hear anything from either journal - if that's the case, get in contact with the authors of the first paper.


Referencing Springer products: what name to use for the publisher? For references to Springer products, I have come across a lot of names for the publisher, (and all of those are present in my own Mendeley library):

Springer Science+Business Media
Springer-Verlag
Springer

Is there a difference, or can I just go and standardize my library to one of them (preferably Springer. In my area, mathematics, there is no chance of confusion with Springer Publishing, and even less with Axel Springer SE)?

Also, is there a difference between the locations [New York|Heidelberg|Berlin|a combination of the previous] usually found along with Springer, or can I just standardize my library to always use Berlin, since that's where the headquarters are? I understand Springer has major offices in the other cities, but do different books really pertain to those different offices, and does this need to be made clear in the References?

If the answers to one of the questions is no, do you have a hint where to find the correct information? The first pages of the books that I have sometimes list all of the above options in different places. Furthermore, for example my copy of V.I. Arnold's "Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics, Second Edition" says "© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc." without any mentioning of "Springer-Verlag", whereas the website says "Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York".

The suffix "-Verlag" basically just means "publisher" or "publishing company in German. Therefore, I would include it only if other companies in English—such as Dover Publications, for instance—also appear with the "publishing" term in their listings. If they don't, I'd eliminate the "-Verlag" for consistency.

As for the others, those tend to be "imprints" within the publishing house. In general, I believe these can also be omitted, particularly in "abbreviated" citation styles. In longer styles where full details are provided, you may provide this information; if the publisher doesn't want to include it, they can remove it when editing the proofs.


Rapid publishing experiment In 2015 or 2016, there was an experiment by a group of post-docs and graduate students to ideate, research, and publish a scientific article (on a pre-print site like arxiv.org) in 24 hours. The topic was something to do with social networks, but the speed of writing the paper was the main point. Can anyone point me to that paper? A group I'm in is going to attempt a similar experiment. Thanks!

I believe you might be thinking of the "72 Hours of Science" experiment, which resulted in this preprint. This was done at the Santa Fe Institute, and you can find the news release describing the project here. As they say, finalizing the topic and organizing tasks took up pretty much the first 24 hours, so also fitting the research and write-up into a mere 24 hours sounds rather difficult.

There was a second 72 Hours of Science in 2017, resulting in this preprint. The project has also inspired the Complexity72h workshop, and possibly other follow-ups.


Is it worth it to purchase a coursera certificate in Machine Learning for grad school apps? Specifically I'm applying to some data science programs. As Machine Learning is a relatively advanced topic at the undergrad level and one that is so relevant in the field, I was wondering if it would be enough of a plus on my application to be worth the money?

By and large, no. Buying the certificate is meaningless with regards to graduate admissions. You can list MOOCs that you have taken on your CV but do not expect them to carry any weight whatsoever. Admissions will only pay attention to accredited courses.

Note: I say this both as someone who evaluates applicants and as someone who is a lead educator on a MOOC.


Desk rejection from marketing journals I am curious as to how much time it takes to hear about desktop rejection from editors of Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing research, Journal of Consumer Research, Management Science etc. What does it mean if it says "awaiting COE decision"?

"COE" most likely means Coeditor. I would expect that a decision about desk rejection is performed within 2 weeks or less from submission.


Conditions valid for plagiarism and dishonesty i had submitted an assignment requiring distributed code to achieve a fairly complex application. Since this was my first attempt I took help in the form of tutoring , demos of particular libraries and discussed solutions but did not directly copied any work or passed someone's work as mine . I took the the help of my childhood friend and he helped me in the limits of tutoring and discussions but he casually asked for the coursework and he emailed me all the solutions . I did not even cared to open that email but he did that on my uni account. Some solutions were different from mine , as i had taken a different approach. Although i have graduated in 2015 -- can this come back to bite me , just because of this email?I am scared because i am about to apply for a Phd

Once you have your degree, your university probably can't do anything, and would not bother with something like this anyway. If it were a thesis, it might be different, but not just one assignment. I give this information as the person who handles plagiarism, etc., in my department.

Anyway, the important thing is that you did not submit someone else's work. Getting help is fine as long as you submit your own work, and it sounds as if this is what happened.


Is it true that 'nice' professors fail to produce good students? This is a very tough question to ask because there are so many advisors on this forum so I am expecting most inputs from the current grads. This question largely stemmed from a post I read online about picking advisors.

The top recommendation offered on a list of things about picking supervisor is to never pick someone who is nice, friendly and available. Specific examples being "nice associate professor ladies" and "prof emeritus".

This quote caught my attention the most

  If you’ve never cried before, during, or after a meeting with your advisor, something is amiss.

But this is just one person's opinion. So my question is to what extent does this idea actually hold in academia? Is there any truth to nice profs are less capable than mean profs in producing good students?

That advice from the blog says to avoid an advisor who

  1.  Is nice, and friendly, and available.

  And never gives you the fierce criticism and the tough pushback that forces you to confront your weaknesses, take risks, stop whining, cut the excuses, get over your fears, and make hard decisions about reputation, money, and jobs.

It's the part beginning with "and never" that describes a problematic advisor, not the "nice, friendly, and available" part.

An advisor who is unwilling to criticize a student and share harsh truths when necessary is certainly problematic for many students. But I wouldn't necessarily conflate that with being "nice." For most students, an advisor who is genuinely nice is a good thing.

As for

  If you’ve never cried before, during, or after a meeting with your advisor, something is amiss.

Doing a PhD is difficult and sometimes discouraging  for most people. My advisor is one of the nicest people I know, and I've walked out of his office on one or two occasions and gone off somewhere to cry. Not because he isn't nice, but because what I'm doing is difficult, and sometimes we have to have some very difficult and/or discouraging conversations.


Identifying assumptions in a research article Sorry if this is a very basic question but I have to clear my head.

When reading a research article, how can I identify the assumptions it makes? Can I "assume" any non referred part/sentence to be an assumption by the author? For example, if an article in the field of computer science states in the normal flow of the discussion that "micro-controllers have become the bedrock of automation systems" OR "open source operating systems are more secure than propriety operating systems", but the author does not refer to any source for his/her claims, Can I consider these sentences to be "assumptions" by the writer?

Am I right? If not, can anyone explain it to me?

The other question is that whether stating a universal truth should be considered as an assumption by the writer? e.g. "mobile phones have communications easier and more reliable".

Cheers

There is no clear way to distinguish hidden assumptions, but let's discuss your example (I'm unfamiliar with the field):

  open source operating systems are more secure than propriety operating systems

Some possibilities:

The author makes an assumption here. It can be, e.g., based on their personal experience, or justified by some common sense.
The community makes an assumption. This may be a generally accepted assumption, but nobody has actually done research on it.
This is a generalization / rule of thumb which usually holds true.
This is a well known fact, so old or trivial that nobody bothers to cite it anymore.

I usually consider all nontrivial statements as assumptions/hypotheses/conjectures unless I find evidence to the contrary.


Are the words "I, we, us, his, her, he, she" all prohibited in thesis writing? I am writing my masters thesis.  My instructor told me not to use "I, we, us, his, her, he, she" in the thesis anywhere.  Are all these words prohibited in thesis writing?

I am writing my thesis in cloud security (computer science), specifically homomorphic encryption in the cloud.

These words are not necessarily prohibited, but there is an old norm in academic writing to avoid personal pronouns (the pronouns you listed). The reasoning behind the norm is that it makes for more objective writing, but it can also lead to the use of quite awkward passive voice phrasing. Because avoiding these pronouns does not necessarily make writing better, there is a counter-trend today which emphasizes writing clearly, even if that means you occasionally use "I" or "we".

Your supervisor will ultimately be one of the people evaluating your thesis, so it is important to take their preferences into account, but if you feel that writing without pronouns leads to too many awkward phrasings or otherwise makes your writing less clear, then I think it is worth pointing that out to your professor.

Note that this also tends to vary by discipline. In some fields, for example, the use of "we" to refer to the author (and collaborators or the readers) is entirely normal. In other fields, though, I have heard that it sounds pretentious. Try asking your colleagues and other mentors what they think the norms are in your field as well.


What field of study allows a hobbyist to make a potential contribution What are some fields in which a professional  programmer (specializing in Data Science technologies) can pick up hobby projects that can actually contribute something to that particular field.

I have heard rumors that astronomy is a field where hobbyists make serious contributions, is it true? What is the reason for this, i.e why astronomy of all fields has this special feature?

With programming you can make a contribution to virtually any industry.

There's always a need for better, faster, smarter software that allows industry workers to get ahead of competitors and make the work day more efficient.

There's also always a need for open domain software which, if created well, almost always gets a huge community such as GIMP.

As a developer myself I can say that most worth while contributions will take more than just yourself and you may want to connect with other developers that want to help.

Astronomy software can show constellations, star formations, and even have algorithms that predict where a planet or solar system may be and the probability that human or extraterrestrial life could be sustained on said planet.


When emailing a potential supervisor, should I offer to send them my researched material? I am currently finding a supervisor for an MSc program. It is incredibly difficult to get research experience as an undergraduate student (especially since I attend a large school with an incredible amount of competition). However, I make the best use of resources available to me. I have joined several organizations at school which are directly related to my masters program. As a member, I have researched and published several student papers (not in scientific journals). These papers are well written and researched (as they go through an extensive editing process) and demonstrate my passion. I will mention these projects in my emails / CV. However, in my emails, should I mention that these are "available upon request"?

As stated in comments, you should make the papers available to the potential supervisor online:

Create yourself a basic webpage with a sensible address.
List the papers, with full details and references.
Link to the pages of the places they are published.
If the copyright agreement allows, link also to a copy of the paper.
Given the option, make this copy on the arXiv (get the supervisor from the paper to endorse you, assuming it's in their field).
If you cannot use the arXiv, store the copies on the same website.
Alternatively, your current institution may have an eprint system you can use.
Make sure your co-authors are happy with this.
Include the web address when you contact potential supervisors (if it is long, perhaps use a tinyurl with preview).


Archiving papers, simulation and experimental data, etc? Archiving of papers and projects is very important for most of the people, and everyone has a method of it.

I, personally, try to have different folders for different papers. In the folder of each paper, in addition to my manuscript, I keep my simulation files, experimental data, program codes, etc, in different subfolders. Also, I try to keep track of my revisions on the paper, reviewer comments, my response to reviewers in different subfolders. My method has the advantage of all the related material for a paper are together, and I can quickly track the whole process from initial submission to the final proofreading. However, this usually leads to duplicated files.

I work with both my office desktop and my personal Laptop. I transfer my files between these systems by a flash memory. I agree maybe cloud technology is a better choice in this age, but I postponed it because of my poor internet connection at home.

I am curious to know how others approach to archive their works. I also hope to find some methods more efficient than mine, or get some tips to improve my method.

Edit at 2 Apr 13:
Thanks to these great answers, it is almost a month that I use Git for my version control. Also, I manage my repositories in the Bitbucket, which gives me unlimited storage for unlimited number of projects.

I have a similar approach with folders, with two additions:

Everything goes into a revision control system.  In my case, I've got some things in Subversion repositories, and others in Mecurial repositories (I've also dabbled with Git, but haven't made the final transition).  The benefits of revision control are that you can always go back to a previous version, you won't have old versions littering your folders, and sharing with collaborators is relatively easy.  This should take care of your duplicated-file problem.

I also use Dropbox extensively, in order to have my files available on any computer at any time.  Dropbox provides a modicum of version control (30 days worth), but it should not replace a proper revision control system.  It does provide a cloud-based backup of your work.
Finally, regardless of how you're keeping your work arranged, make sure you keep an off-site backup (e.g., via Dropbox or personally-controlled media).


Are Masters degrees from German universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen) eligible for PhD? Are Masters degrees from German universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen) eligible for PhD?

If I do a Masters in any of the German universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen), would I be able to apply for a PhD in any other Universities/research institutes in Germany?

The basic answer is "Yes, but. . . ."

A master's degree is usually the minimum prerequisite for admission to PhD programs in Germany. However, many faculties within various German universities have established "qualification" procedures for degrees they do not believe to be "equivalent" to their own. This usually includes some combination of coursework (with the associated exams), plus evaluation of the master's thesis to show equivalency to the expected degree.

These criteria are often applied not only to international students, but to students from German Fachhochschule as well. However, these policies vary widely between universities, and between different departments at the same universities, so you should contact the specific programs you're interested for more details.


What title to put on a professional business card, for a person with a PhD Is there a correct or preferred format for indicating 'Dr' or 'PhD' (or both) on a professional business card.

Background: I am employed in the industry and I have just earned my PhD (in social science). My company wants to update my business card.

The following are two options:

Dr Name, PhD, University Name
Name, PhD, University Name

I am told that it may be a sign of arrogance but I am also told that if you have earned it, you deserve it.

"Dr Name, PhD" is redundant, so this usage is often discouraged.  If you are going to indicate the degree, I'd recommend "Name, PhD" rather than "Dr Name" since it's more informative (at the very least it will keep anyone from thinking you are a medical doctor).  In the U.S. it's not common to indicate the university, but I think I've seen it more often in other countries.

I'd suggest thinking carefully before indicating your degree on a business card.  Some people without PhDs may respond bitterly, like you are bragging about your accomplishments or implying that your expertise is more valuable than theirs.  At the same time, some people with PhDs will look down on it as well, in a status hierarchy:

Some insecure people without PhDs feel resentful and don't want to be distinguished from PhD holders.
Some insecure people with PhDs try hard not to be confused with group 1, thereby irritating those people all the more.
Some better-established PhD holders aren't worried about being confused with group 1, but now they don't want to be confused with group 2, so they pointedly denounce emphasizing your degree as being tacky and in poor taste.

As a rule of thumb, I would omit the degree from your business card unless it's important for your credibility (i.e., the skills from your PhD are professionally important and people would otherwise assume you don't have them).

The one situation in which you should absolutely not indicate a degree is if it's irrelevant.  For example, if you're an accountant with a PhD in literature, then your business card should not read "Name, PhD."


How to respond to a company that wants specific details on implementation of my PhD research? A company approached me for an interview to explain my work, which has been published as part of my PhD. As I understand from their email, they want to understand my work so that they can use it. However, nowhere in the email they mentioned that I am going to be paid or involved in this project. How would you approach this?

I find this email strange because they are asking me to explain my work and give them information on how to implement it so that they can make money out of it without me having any role in their project. Is this normal? Should I ask to be paid?

It's not normal to work for a company for free, and I'd simply answer something like this:

  Dear X,

  I am glad to know that my PhD work caught your interest. I can
  provide more information under a suitable consultancy contract.

  Kind regards,

  L222

Note: We don't know the content of the company's email and, as some have remarked, the above response might be a bit too sharp, especially if their attitude is not so exploitative as I assumed. A milder approach, which I like, is that outlined in Dan Romik's answer. Since only you can read the email, I strongly encourage you to consider carefully both approaches, regardless of the accumulated votes.


Is it usual to write referee reports in the first person? It is common to write papers in the third person, using sentences such as "The author(s) did this", "the author(s) thank XYZ" etc. Is the same convention true for referee reports? I have noticed that my reports tend to be a mishmash of first and third person, with sentences like "to the best of the reviewer's knowledge" next to "I think equation 123 has a typo". What is the most common convention? My field is math, in case it makes a difference.

Resoundingly, yes.  At least in my field (number theory).  I just looked at the 15 most recent referee reports I received, and only 1 out of 15 of these reports avoided writing in the first person.
Note: I restricted to reports on initial submissions to avoid obvious duplication of referee styles.  Of the 15 I looked at, the reports were written in sufficiently different styles that I'm confident in saying there wasn't too much duplication of referees in this sample.
Added: To address the "mishmash" aspect, in none of these reports did the reviewer refer to themself in both the 1st and 3rd person, but I have seen it before and have possibly done it myself.  The bottom line is that it doesn't really matter.  Referee reports are not formal pieces of writing meant for public display (like parts of grant applications or MathSciNet reviews), and while some reviewers may prefer to refer to themself in the 3rd person (presumably to make the review sound more formal/professional or less personal), I think most prefer to write more directly.


Publishing graph of unpublished work in paper I am writing a paper which is building up on the work I have published earlier. It includes experimental results which were used to further develop the model.

To show that the model has improved I would like to include a graph of one of my experimental work showing the model predictions before and after the implementation of the improvements. The graph of the data has not been published and will be included in my PhD thesis. I would like to publish that data together with a similar series which I will use to evaluate my model (can can be used to evaluate similar models) in a separate paper.

Can I use the graph and reference it as my unpublished thesis. I have a thesis title already.

Many Thanks

You can state that " according to the (or based on yet) unpublished data collected in our lab or by xxx .....". It is widely used with no problem. (I am assuming you got permission from your advisor)


Prof's neurological health is declining rapidly. What can I (TA) do? I'm a law student acting as a teaching assistant/fellow for a tenured and notable law professor. Between last year when I took the course myself and now when I am a TA/TF, his mental acuity and health has declined significantly. He has essentially no short-term memory, tremors, and can't follow conversations. He rambles, mixes up classes and assignments, and even physically wanders off to look for things (not returning with anything...) in the middle of class.
The students know that something is wrong and often exchange looks when he loses the conversation or rambles.  The faculty certainly does know. His assistant attempted to see someone in the administration for help but they brushed her off, and once the professor found out, he never forgave his assistant and there is a rift between them.
My heart breaks for him. He's had an excellent career and I don't want him to face this kind of humiliation. But at the same time, his condition is so poor that I had to teach the two-hour class today. He must know that something is wrong, too, because he will often make awkward jokes to cover memory lapses.
What can I do? He won't see a doctor. I am afraid of burning bridges with him by confronting him, since that's what happened to his assistant. I don't want to go behind his back to the administration for the same reason. I need his recommendation/reference for my career aspirations. His family is absent. I also worry that any intervention at this stage, in the middle of the semester, will only hurt his students.
Who, if anyone, in a school administration could I speak to about this? Is there someone who handles this sort of thing? Should I? Is it inappropriate for me to insert myself in someone's personal affairs like that?
Update one year later: posted as an answer here.

Let the department head know what you've observed. You can write an anonymous letter if you feel uncomfortable or are worried about burning bridges.

(I've been in this situation, as a student. We - the students in the class - wrote a collective letter to the department head. He was able to arrange extra TA support for the professor for the rest of that semester. He also arranged things so that this professor had other duties in the department going forward, but no more teaching.)